A Rural Affair

29

When I’d settled Archie with juice and a biscuit, I arranged the flowers and sat looking at them. Clemmie wandered through from the sitting room where she’d been involved with her Sylvanian Family dolls all the time Jennie had been here. She could play quietly with her toys for hours, something which hitherto had been a great source of pride but, more latterly, bothered me slightly. Clutching the tiny parents in her hands, she gazed at the flowers in wonder.

‘Did they grow in the garden?’

‘No, darling,’ I laughed as she clambered onto my lap and reached out to touch. ‘Someone sent them.’

‘Why?’

I hesitated. ‘As a present.’

‘Who?’

I took a breath. ‘D’you remember that man who came to the pub with us? Luke? He sent them.’

‘The one who could make an eyebrow wiggle?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Is it your birthday?’

‘No, he just sent them.’

‘There’s a card.’ She seized it. Stared. ‘It … oh. What does it say?’

I swallowed, wishing I’d thought this through a bit. ‘It says, “Hope you’re feeling better, lots of love.” I … had a bit of a cold.’

‘When?’ She twisted on my lap. Brown eyes huge. I flushed.

‘Um, a few days ago.’

‘Oh.’

As she gazed at me the whole chasm between childhood, and her being grown up one day, seemed to yawn at me. A time when her own innocent little world of Sylvanian Families and truth would be over. When she’d be quicker at spotting lies like the one I’d just told her. Oh, I told her plenty: put your coat on, it’s cold out there – it wasn’t, but it might be later; teddy wants you to eat your carrots – who was I to know the workings of a stuffed bear’s mind? We definitely started them early, the small white ones. Introduced them gradually, like solid food. But this was a proper one. I wondered if she’d spot it. How grown-up was she? Was I training her well? But a few days ago was an eternity for a four-year-old.

‘Are you going to marry him?’

No flies on Clemmie. Forget the cold, spurious or not; cut to the chase. After a sharp intake of breath, I laughed nervously.

‘No, of course not!’

‘Oh.’ Her gaze went back to the flowers. ‘Becky’s mummy got married and she woz a bridesmaid.’

My heart gave a jolt. ‘Did Becky like that?’

‘Yes, she had a pink dress and a bogey.’

‘A bouquet.’

‘Yes.’

‘And does Becky like her new daddy?’

She shrugged, bored with the finer nuances of her story. ‘We saw pictures at Circle Time. It was long, like a princess dress.’

‘Ah. Lovely.’

‘Can I have one like that?’

‘Well, darling, I’m not sure I’m going to get married. That would mean you would have a new daddy, you see.’

‘We could ask him?’

‘Um, well, no.’ I scratched my neck. ‘I don’t think we’ll do that.’

‘If you do, can I have the dress?’ She slid off my knee, uninterested now that there seemed only a slim chance of sartorial splendour amongst her classmates.

‘Clemmie, do you ever think about Daddy?’

The health visitor had said I should ask things like this. I didn’t. Ever. It wasn’t my instinct. My instinct screamed: protect! Don’t mention it! So I hadn’t. Clemmie was on the floor with her tiny parents. The irony didn’t escape me.

‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. Carefully, almost. Too careful, for a four-year-old.

‘Do you remember what he looked like?’

‘He was a bit grumpy,’ she said eventually. To the floor.

And Phil was; had been. Had increasingly regarded the children as an irritant, particularly when he was trying to work. But I didn’t like the way she’d had to search her memory bank to come up with even this picture. Then again, I hadn’t provided her with one.

Clemmie sat back on her heels and looked triumphant. ‘And he had a pink shirt.’

I smiled. ‘He did, didn’t he, Clem.’

Later, when she was watching CBeebies with Archie after lunch, I went through the drawers in the bureau. Eventually I found what I was looking for, but it had been a search; I’d hidden them well. I found a couple of frames and popped one in each of their bedrooms. Photos of Phil, smiling. Yes, of course he smiled occasionally. Archie’s was taken on holiday in Majorca, and Clemmie’s on our wedding day. He may not have been perfect, but he was their father and you only get one. Clemmie could only remember him grumpy, but that would surely fade, and then she’d have this smiley photo to take its place. I didn’t put them in obvious positions, by their beds or on their walls, but on top of their chests of drawers, so that they’d come across them later, by accident maybe, when they were a bit older, then assume they’d always been there. I didn’t want Clemmie remembering a cross father. I wanted her life to be perfect, to the extent that I would erase those memories and replace them with nice ones, just as I took her dirty clothes and replaced them with clean ones. And I’d talk about him more, I determined, as I went downstairs. Remember happy times; make them up. Lovely picnics, bluebell walks. I could do that for them, my children. Lie. Let’s face it, I did it already. As I filled the dishwasher I wondered if he could become a bit of a hero, secretly in the SAS, trouble-shooting in Afghanistan, which would explain why he hadn’t been here much? But then one day, when she was a famous actress and on Who Do You Think You Are, she might discover he’d been a cycling nerd with a mistress in the next village. Perhaps not. Stick to the smiling photos and the bluebell woods.

So that was her memory sorted out. But what about her life? What about replacing Phil with something better, so that, blink, and she and Archie wouldn’t know any different? They were so young, any stepfather would soon be like a real father. Like Becky. She called her new daddy Papa. He was a farmer, and Linda, her mum, had never been happier. I knew Linda. Knew the family Clemmie had been talking about. Linda wasn’t automatically my type at the school gates – bottle blonde, very short skirts, chewed gum constantly – but I liked her. Her husband had walked out on her one Easter Sunday and taken up with a younger model. He’d bought a motorbike too; leathers, the whole bit. Two months later he’d been killed on the A41 when his bike hit black ice. Linda now lived on a dairy farm with her little girl, Becky, and Becky’s papa. The manic gum-chewing had stopped, I noticed. Jeans instead of micro minis. Hair slightly darker. Because perhaps Becky’s papa didn’t need the peroxide? Happy endings. Don’t knock them. And don’t pass them up, either.

The rest of the week was taken up with calming my best friend’s sartorial nerves. As Jennie frenziedly pointed out, she hadn’t been to a ball for years, had nothing to wear and anyway, what did one wear to balls these days? Was it long and slinky, or short and cocktaily? These, and other such burning issues, mostly to do with shoes and accessories, consumed us. For just as I couldn’t think for myself, Jennie couldn’t dress herself – something I found as easy as falling off a confidence log. Her lack of taste baffled me.

‘How about this with these?’ she’d say as she ran through my back door wearing yet another heinous combination, this time bursting out of a black dress of such sequined monstrosity, together with high red shoes, it fairly took my breath away.

‘No to both,’ I said firmly. ‘And certainly not together. The only thing black goes with is black, Jennie. Take the shoes back to Angie and the dress to Peggy. She’d get away with that because she’s eccentric and it would hang off her.’

‘Whereas I’d just look like a tart?’

I shrugged, slightly pleased to have the upper hand occasionally with my bossy friend. But then I took pity and, piling the children in the car, took her shopping.

She ended up looking terrific in a grey slinky number I’d found in Coast: to the floor, high at the front, but low at the back. As did Angie in her black velvet, which she shook from a Selfridges bag and slipped into in the middle of my kitchen; and Peggy in the sequins which she’d generously offered Jennie, but which, with black pumps and on her rangy frame, looked stunning.

‘If only you were coming,’ they all said and Jennie looked a bit guilty, feeling perhaps she should have refused the tickets and insisted I go.

‘Oh, I really don’t want to,’ I said, meaning it. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you go to alone, is it?’

‘No, no,’ they chorused, as it occurred to us that Angie, and ostensibly Peggy, were doing just that.

‘It’s not really your sort of thing, is it?’ consoled Angie.

‘Absolutely not,’ I agreed, stung. Why wasn’t it? Why? ‘Anyway, I’m going to Dad’s,’ I said quickly, to save them. ‘Haven’t seen him for ages. I’m going to cook him supper.’

‘Oh, good.’ They all said, relieved, feeling much better. They bustled away content.

Dad, however, wasn’t much help when I decided to follow through. ‘Steak and chips,’ I told him cheerfully, ‘in front of Viva Las Vegas. I’ll bring the steak.’

‘Oh, sorry, Poppy, I’m going to the hunt ball.’

‘Are you?’ I was astonished.

‘Yes, Mark sent me a ticket, wasn’t that kind? Just a single, but they’re a hundred quid a pop, so terribly generous. Especially after all that business with the hound. Aren’t you going, love? Half the county’s going to be there.’

‘Well, I was going to – he sent me some too – but I gave mine to Jennie.’

‘Ah, right. Not really your sort of thing, is it? Anyway, must go love, I’ve got to feed the horses before I shimmy into my glad rags.’

And he was gone. Leaving me irritated. And then I found myself growing more irritated as I put the children to bed. Not my sort of thing? Why not? Christ, I could party with the best of them! Just because Phil and I didn’t much – he was teetotal and liked an early night – didn’t mean I couldn’t. Bloody hell, you should have seen me in the old Clapham days, creeping back up the stairs at three in the morning, barefoot, high heels in hand. When I was young. But I was still young, surely? I swept Archie’s curtain shut with a vengeance. Through the crack I could see the bedroom lights across the road at the Old Rectory, where Sylvia and Angus would be getting ready: Angus stooping to adjust his bow tie in the mirror, Sylvia popping diamonds in her ears at her dressing table. Marvellous. How lovely for them. I seized the groaning nappy bucket and marched downstairs. Cinders by the fire, then. I shook the nappies viciously in the bin. With her solitary boiled egg, in her dressing gown and her ancient Ugg boots. Splendid.

I told myself I’d be the smug one in the morning, though, when everyone else was nursing hangovers. Oh yes. In the pub. Laughing and reminiscing over bloody Marys. Hm. They’d all be there tonight, of course. Sam – no, don’t think about Sam. I’d successfully blocked him for days; resisted imagining him in his black tie, even whilst helping Jennie buy a new white shirt for Dan. I wasn’t going to give in now. Instead I helped myself to a large gin and tonic and told myself there was a good film on at nine and that I might even stay up till it finished. Live a little.

It was a surprise, therefore, when my doorbell rang much earlier, at eight, and I opened it to find my father on my front step, an overcoat over his dinner jacket. He seemed mildly taken aback to see me in my dressing gown. Looked me up and down, eyebrows raised.

‘Didn’t you get my message?’

‘What message?’

‘I left one on your mobile. About tonight. Mark rang to say Mary Granger was throwing up and would I like to bring anyone. Didn’t you get it?’

‘No!’ I could have kissed him. And hit him. So like Dad not to try again. Not to persevere. Just turn up and assume.

‘Well, I can’t come now,’ I said testily. ‘I’ve got the children.’

‘Can’t you get a babysitter?’

‘Of course not, it’s far too late.’

‘What about Jennie’s daughter, next door?’

‘She’s out with her boyfriend. And the little ones are at a sleepover.’

‘Oh.’ He looked vaguely stumped. Then: ‘Bring them with us?’

Ordinarily a suggestion like this from my father would be greeted with scathing derision from me. But genes will out, and in many respects I am my father’s daughter. Can, at the drop of a hat, revert to type. I stared at him.

‘OK.’

In my heart, I was far from sure I was going to run with this; but in the spirit of living dangerously was nonetheless interested to see how he’d execute it: keen to give him his head.

‘Right. You get changed, brush your hair and whatnot, and I’ll carry them into the lorry.’

‘The lorry?’

‘Well, the car hasn’t worked for weeks, Poppy.’

So my father drove his horse lorry. Blithely parked it in Tesco’s car park, no doubt, as if it were a Vauxhall Cresta.

‘So … we’re piling the children into a dark lorry, and what, leaving it in a muddy field? Where they’ll wake up cold and frightened?’

‘No, no, we’ll take them in the house, find a bed for them.’

‘Arrive at a black-tie ball with two sleepy children? Forget it, Dad. Have fun.’ I went to shut the door, but he was already in.

‘Don’t be wet, Poppy, how d’you think your mum and I ever went to parties? We were never organized enough for a sitter. You were always under one arm. Now go and put your frock on and I’ll sort the kids out. It’s only one night, for God’s sake, it won’t kill them, and they’ll love it. Everyone’s going, d’you want to be the only one who isn’t?’

He knew which buttons to press. He was also halfway up the stairs.

Twenty minutes later, we were in the lorry – the one with no seat belts, remember – rattling over a cattle grid at the entrance to Mulverton Hall, only this time we took the fork in the drive that led, not to the home farm and a muddy field of cows, but to the main house. A sweep of dark green lawn swam like a lake in front of us. Dad, at the wheel, skirted it carefully, then followed signs to parking in the paddock alongside, behind the park railings. I had on my old black dress, and my hastily washed hair was still wet down my back; between us on the front seat, sitting bolt upright and wide awake, were two overexcited and highly delighted children.

I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this-I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this, was my overriding thought as a surprised car park attendant in a long white coat – surprised at the lorry initially, then the children – beckoned us into the field. Dad gave him a cheery wave and wound down the window.

‘Hi, Roy.’

‘Oh, hello, Peter!’ He peered in. ‘Brought the whole family, I see!’

‘Well, it’s a night out, isn’t it?’ said Dad smoothly.

He trundled away from Roy and through the gate. At the end of a line of parked cars, he expertly swung two tons of juggernaut into position. A Mercedes drew up beside us, and a woman in a fox-fur coat and a smattering of diamonds stared up in wonder from the passenger seat. I found my nerve rapidly disappearing down the drain.

‘Dad … ’ I swallowed.

‘Come on, Clemmie, look lively, love.’ He’d hopped out of the cab already, and as Clemmie scrambled across the seat to his open arms, he crouched and hoisted her up onto his shoulders. ‘Up you go!’

She wrapped her arms excitedly around her grandpa’s neck, squealing with delight. Then he slammed the cab door, and was off. Naturally I had no choice but to follow. With Archie in my arms, I picked my way through the field, following the phalanx of flaming torches which lined the drive ahead and floodlit the expansive grounds. My heart was fluttering with panic but as we crunched across the gravel sweep, I knew I was in too deep. The honey-coloured walls rose up before us; ranks of windows blazed down. Dad pranced ahead, hopping about jauntily now from foot to foot, playing the fool, Clemmie, in her pink dressing gown bouncing and laughing on his shoulders. How many parties had I been to like that, I wondered? Had it done me any harm? Doing A Mortimer, Mum used to call it, when Dad veered off the beaten track, took his own route, which was more than occasionally. But this was a very grand party. People were silhouetted at the windows in their finery: bare shoulders, sparkling jewels, one or two turning to stare. And please don’t tell me he was going to leap up those grand portal steps guarded by stone griffins? Breeze through the open front door where waiters stood poised with trays of champagne? Babes in arms?

My father, however, was far from stupid, and within a twinkling was nipping round the back. I scuttled sheepishly after him feeling like a burglar, but Dad, knowing his way round old country houses – or at least his way to the stables and a cup of tea – didn’t falter. In a jiffy he’d found a back door which opened to his touch, and was striding right on through. He was deliberately going too fast for me to catch him, to dither, discuss, deliberate – chicken out – and as I followed breathlessly with Archie in my arms, he was already halfway down the passageway. Framed Spy cartoons from old copies of Punch lined the walls, and just before a green baize door Dad made a left turn into a well-lit room. Whistling, no less.

I followed in trepidation and found myself in a large, rather tired-looking kitchen with a very high ceiling. Cream Formica cupboards with glazed doors lined one wall, the floor was lino, rather like Dad’s, the only nod to the status of this house being a huge oak table which sailed down the middle. A well-upholstered blonde woman in a white apron had her back to us at the kitchen sink under the window. She turned in surprise. I recognized her immediately. It was Janice, the receptionist, but perhaps she didn’t instantly place me out of context, and anyway she wasn’t given a chance. Dad was already commanding her full attention: charming her, flirting, even, explaining about the babysitter letting us down, jiggling Clemmie, so that by the end of it, as she listened wide-eyed to the tale, wiping wet hands on a tea towel, she was wreathed in smiles, assuring him it was no trouble at all, and that she loved looking after little-uns. She’d pop them in the old nursery, she said, and yes, plug the alarm in, when I proffered it anxiously.

‘Oh, hello, love, thought I recognized you.’ She beamed.

No, we weren’t to worry a jot, she carried on. We were to run along and have a jolly good time. It seemed she remembered Dad from the races – who didn’t? Warwick, was it? Or Windsor? No, no, Mr Hetherington wouldn’t mind a bit, she assured me as I interrupted their racing chat. I would turn the conversation back to more mundane matters. On they gossiped, and then, just as they were reminiscing about that epic race, the five-thirty from Haydock one summer’s evening last year, when Ransom Boy, a rank outsider at 100 to one, had won by a head, just at that moment Mr Hetherington himself swept into the kitchen.

Far from looking as if he couldn’t be more thrilled, as Janice had intimated, he couldn’t have looked more thunderous. But it wasn’t just that: it wasn’t the heavily knitted brow as he stood there glowering, dressed in what I can only assume was some sort of hunting livery – frightfully dashing and involving a bottle-green tailcoat with his bow tie – no, it wasn’t that. It was the churning of my own stomach that disquieted me. The pulverizing of my ribcage by what felt like needles. It was the terrible dawning sensation, as he stood before us in all his glory, that this wasn’t just an unsuitable crush. This was something a lot more serious.