by M. J. Trow
Fiona, a Highena from a year or two ago, wiped her greasy fingers on her jodhpurs and opened a fridge door. ‘Water, Mr Maxwell? Ginger beer? Elderflower pressé? Rose lemonade?’
Nolan burped. ‘The ginger beer’s good, Dads,’ he said, holding up the bottle. ‘It’s ...’ he spelled the name out phonetically, ‘Fen tea man’s. You’d like it.’
Maxwell held out his hand to the girl, nodding. He could see that he and his son had managed to fall on their feet at Haledown House after all, bad start notwithstanding. He took a grateful glug of his drink and wiped his mouth with a sigh. ‘I needed that,’ he said and one of the girls budged up on her bale so he could sit down. ‘So, you don’t seem to have too many customers,’ he said, to Fiona, who seemed to be nominally in charge.
‘We’ve had to close down to the public, Mr Maxwell,’ she said. ‘It’s too hot for the ponies, really. Especially with novices on their backs. They tend to pull at their mouths and it makes them drool; gets them dehydrated.’
‘I don’t do that, Dads,’ Nolan announced around a mouthful of burger. ‘Jo showed me how to do it properly.’ He mimed with both hands, a piece of gherkin flying past his father’s nose as he pulled up the invisible horse. ‘So I’ve had a few ponies out, just to give them a bit of exercise.’
Maxwell kept his face straight, but Jo had sat in front of him in class too often not to know what he was thinking and hurriedly broke in. ‘Only with one of us leading him, Mr Maxwell. But he is a bit of a natural,’ she looked around the room for validation and got a lot of nods. ‘He’ll be very good by the end of the summer.’
‘How did you know ...?’
One of the girls gestured with her head to the phone on the wall behind her. Maxwell was unsurprised – Mrs Hale-ffinch was clearly not a woman who let the grass grow under her feet.
‘We’ve got some jodhpurs here he can borrow,’ Jo said, ‘as long as you don’t mind running them through the wash when they need it. But it would be good if you could get him his own hard hat and boots. He really needs his own, if that’s all right?’ Jo had no idea what teachers earned, but the fact that Maxwell travelled by bike and had worn the same jacket and hat for generations had not gone unnoticed.
Nolan had finished his burger now and was wiping his face on his arm. He knew he would get his hat and boots. He also knew it might take work, so he waited quietly, to see if he needed to wade in. But no. Miracle of miracles, his father was nodding.
‘I assume you have a shop here?’ he said.
The girls looked at each other. ‘Yes,’ Fiona said. ‘But it’s ... it’s a bit pricey. You could do better in town.’ They all looked around guiltily. They often suspected the walls had ears at Haledown House.
Maxwell thought of the cheque in his pocket. It seemed only right to put something back. ‘That’s all right, girls, thanks. It’s easier to get them here.’ He looked at his son’s face and knew that, even without the fat cheque, he would have done the same.
‘This way, then.’ Jo hopped down off her bale and led the way along the front of the building, to a small outlet in the brick-built buildings of the yard beyond. Maxwell noticed the women in the garden centre area cringe against the walls, as if he would run at them, bowling them left and right like skittles. He smiled, gave them a little bow and turned into the tack shop.
The choice of hats and boots seemed unnecessarily large, but apparently, there was a reason for every single thing. Finally, Nolan chose a hat for no other reason than it was blue and some boots because they were like Jo’s and Maxwell paid an eyewatering amount of money for them – but, safety first and the lad needed to fit in. Though with whom, Maxwell wasn’t sure. It seemed unlikely that he would be on his own in the paddock for the rest of the summer, but he got the impression that if he were, he wouldn’t mind that much.
In the car park, a large SUV was waiting to take them home, a driver wearing a Haledown House polo shirt holding a card with ‘Max and Nolan’ written on it.
‘Dads,’ Nolan breathed. ‘We’ve got a car.’
‘Well, Nole,’ Maxwell said, airily, climbing into the back and buckling him into the booster seat thoughtfully provided, ‘your dads is a conversationalist now, so get used to it.’
Nolan looked at him from under his lashes. ‘What’s a conv ... a conv ... one of those, Dads?’
‘A man – or lady, of course – who talks to people and gets paid for it.’
Nolan was impressed. ‘That sounds like a nice easy job, Dads,’ he said. ‘But ...’ his brow furrowed. ‘Don’t you do that all the time?’
‘I suppose I do,’ Maxwell said. ‘But this time, it comes with free riding lessons and dinner.’
Nolan shrugged and sat back in the seat, the day suddenly sweeping over him. Maxwell took the opportunity to pick the bits of straw out of his hair as the child slept the whole journey back to Columbine.
Chapter Five
‘S
o,’ Maxwell poured his wife another drink and clinked his glass on hers, ‘the woman is clearly as mad as a box of very mad frogs, but it seems like a proper going concern. And – if I can use a cliché – how hard can it be?’
‘Americans, though.’ Jacquie could remember quite a few awkward moments during their time Over There, as Maxwell tended to call it.
‘I did think that, of course.’ Maxwell sipped his Southern Comfort, ‘but on the whole, I think they might be at the brighter end. They will have shelled out a goodly sum, if I have my Ariana Hale-ffinch summed up right, for the privilege of living for a week with what they have no doubt been told are the upper crust and having wonderful conversations with the great moi.’ He fluttered his eyelashes. ‘Once I’m on the website, bookings will soar.’
Jacquie smiled into her glass. As summer jobs went, this one could have been made to measure. ‘On the website?’ She could hardly keep her face straight.
‘I know the word, heart. I even know what one is and indeed, how to find one. I don’t need to be able to make one. I have ...’ he waved an airy hand ... ‘people.’
‘When do you start?’
‘Well, she wanted tomorrow. But I held out for day after. I don’t want to seem too easy. Also,’ he clicked his fingers, ‘I need your schedule, if you can help me with that. I want our days off to coincide where they can.’
‘I’ll print it off later,’ she promised. ‘But you know how it goes ... it can change in a moment, if anything big kicks off.’
‘And we’re back to Mrs Getty again,’ Maxwell chuckled. ‘How did you sort that, in the end?’
Jacquie heaved a sigh. ‘It wasn’t easy. Obviously, Haledown House just wanted her off the premises; they didn’t want to press charges. The parents of the kids were very good as well – they could see she isn’t quite ...’
‘The ticket.’ As ever, Maxwell had a word for it.
‘Well, yes, some of them did use that phrase, and blunter ones. But it was on the journey things went really pear-shaped. We thought we should keep the two old dears separated, because Mrs Troubridge was really gunning for Mrs Getty, after what she said about Nolan. I brought Mrs Troubridge back here and put her to bed for a lie down.’
‘Is she all right?’ Mad and annoying old bat she may be, but she was their mad and annoying old bat.
‘I went round earlier while you were scraping the last of the horse-shit off your son and she seemed fine. She was having a boiled egg and a few reruns of Antiques Road Trip.’
Nothing different there, then. Maxwell was old enough to remember when that had been a vaguely interesting programme.
‘Mrs Getty went off with the other car; the plan at first was to take her home. But then, on the way back to town ...’
Maxwell raised an eyebrow. He hardly dare listen further.
‘She bit the driver.’
‘She pardon?’
‘She leaned forward and bit the driver. On the ear. If she had had her own teeth, she’d have taken a chunk out.’
‘So ...’
<
br /> ‘So, we had no choice. We had to hang on to her until a doctor had checked her out. Turns out, she is on all the appropriate medication and the Mrs Getty we have all had to deal with today is the actual, baseline Mrs Getty. So she’s been taken home, but obviously, we may need to take a bit more action. We’ve checked her file – quite a thick one, actually, going back years. So she is just ... well, just a not terribly nice person, from way back.’
Maxwell, fighting a losing battle against labelling every kid with a slight behavioural problem as being on a spectrum rather than just a nasty piece of work, nodded. Some people are just exactly as his wife said, just not terribly nice. ‘She’s not going to be coming anywhere near Mrs Troubridge from now on, I hope.’
‘We did have a word on that score. So hopefully not. Nor us. Nor Haledown House. Soon, she’ll be limited to her own house and that might be best for her and everyone. Although there was one call where she was apparently having an argument with herself ...’ Jacquie looked down and then up, her bright eyes making Maxwell’s stomach flip over, as they always did. He crossed his fingers briefly, for luck. How was it that an old git like him had this amazing woman and incredible child in his life? She smiled. ‘Because you’re worth it,’ she said. As ever, she could read his mind. ‘But seriously, Max. I am so sorry. I had no idea ... I just thought it was doing Mrs Troubridge a good turn.’
Maxwell smiled at her. ‘I know you did. And it wasn’t that bad.’ He thought a minute and amended the statement. ‘It wasn’t all that bad. And I did get a summer job out of it, after all. Now, what shall we spend the money on, bearing in mind a holiday isn’t really on the cards?’
‘Summerhouse?’
‘A shed? For me?’ He looked winsome. He’d already got the Light Brigade sorted, but there was the Heavy version or, in keeping with his American soon-to-be clientele, Custer’s Seventh.
‘Hmm. Perhaps not. You’ve already got the attic. Hmm ... new cooker? One of those with ... you know, all the trimmings. A wok burner and loads of ovens and things.’
‘Why would you want to burn a wok?’ Maxwell was puzzled.
‘All right, then. A new smart telly.’
Maxwell glanced across to the screen in the corner. It wasn’t amazing, but he couldn’t think of anything that could look smarter, all flat and everything.
‘Or we could think of it tomorrow?’ Jacquie put down her glass and made to get up. ‘Your last day of holiday, after all.’
Maxwell drained his drink and stood up. ‘That isn’t something I want to hear much more of,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we’d better hang on to the money until we find out whether I can stand it, first. Now, where’s that cat?’
‘On Nolan’s bed, of course. Apparently, he wanted to hear about his day.’
‘And get chatted up about a kitten, I suppose.’
‘Possibly.’ Jacquie could still see both sides of that argument. ‘The Count told him that he’d think it over.’
‘A diplomat to the tip of his tail, that cat. Aptly is he named Metternich, the Coachman of Europe. He has no intention of saying yes.’
Maxwell clicked off the light and followed his wife up the stairs. He was as good a mind-reader as she was; better if anything, since half the minds he had to read had only a single brain cell in them, whirling round in the empty space between the ears. He knew that she was thinking that the Count wasn’t getting any younger, that there would be a cat-shaped hole in their lives any time now if they weren’t careful. But such thoughts are not good ones to go to bed on, so with a shake of his head, Maxwell climbed the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.
‘Mmmftt?’
‘And by Mmmftt, I assume you mean, of course I will come with you to B&Q on your morning off, dearest heart, in order to choose and purchase the correct shade and consistency of shed and fence paint?’
Maxwell opened one eye and squinted in the sunlight. Jacquie stood between him and the window, looking not unlike a rather attractive archangel guarding the gate of Paradise with a flaming sword. Then he focussed and what he had taken to be smoke was actually the steam from a cup of coffee. ‘Probably?’ he said, dubiously. Then, the previous day came flooding back. ‘But don’t forget, I won’t be here as much now I have my summer job. And you can’t ask Nole, because he’ll be riding.’ It sounded like a slam dunk game winner to him.
‘True. But don’t forget also that your superlative negotiating skills got you two days a week off.’
‘And don’t you forget that I am by way of being a star attraction, so can’t go in to Haledown speckled with creosote.’
Jacquie ripped the duvet off with a practised movement. ‘Several things there,’ she said. ‘Firstly, star?’ She cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Really? Secondly, it isn’t creosote and thirdly, you can wear protective gear. This fence and shed have been waiting for your attention since last September and you are not going to let them down now.’
‘We could buy a new shed.’ Maxwell made money riffling gestures as he reached for the edge of the duvet.
‘We decided not. And anyway, there is nothing wrong with the current shed that a coat or two of Vicarage Vanilla won’t fix.’
‘Vicarage what?’
‘Vanilla.’ She looked at him as he wrestled with the concept. ‘It’s cream.’
‘Ah. Not the fence, though?’ Maxwell wasn’t really that much of a stylist, whether inside or out, but a cream fence sounded a bit weird, even to him. And Those Next Door, on the other side from Mrs Troubridge, were an odd pair who would probably complain, on principle.
‘No. Just ordinary Autumn Russet for the fence.’
This time, Maxwell’s face was just pained.
‘Brown. Now, get up. The day’s a-wasting. Nolan is downstairs hoovering up Coco Pops before Plocker’s mother fetches him for the day. He is rehearsing the story of yesterday to make sure he doesn’t miss anything. He’s doing gestures and everything.’
‘That’s my boy,’ Maxwell muttered, turning over and snuggling back down again. Had he really agreed to work for the rest of the summer? He must have been insane.
‘Mmmftt?’
‘None of that, Max. It’s time to get up. Summer jobs won’t wait and nor can I. Nolan is kitted out like a dressage competitor and waiting in the kitchen. Your clothes are on the foot of the bed. Your coffee is in the machine. I’m out of here.’
‘Is it really tomorrow already?’ Maxwell had had a nice dream where someone had come into the bedroom and said the summer job was all just another dream, but a bad one.
‘Yes. And don’t give me all that flannel. You know you’ll love it. But really, Max, you have to get your arse in gear. If the car arrives and you’re not ready, I couldn’t swear to it that Nolan won’t go on his own.’
‘Ha ha.’
‘Up. Get. Now.’
Maxwell opened an unwilling eye. The jug of cold water had hung over his face in less pressing times than these and he was pretty sure that his wife wouldn’t pour it over him. But why risk it? Rolling over to her side, he slid to the floor and picked up his clean clothes, examining them. ‘Is this what conversationalists wear?’ he asked. Actually, they looked pretty smooth, button down collar on a pale blue linen shirt. Chinos. ‘Are they mine?’
‘They are now. Get them on and get going. And ...’ she bent down and kissed the top of his head, ‘have fun and don’t insult any Americans.’
Maxwell scowled. ‘I can’t do both,’ he muttered, standing up and giving the smart clothes another good looking at, to see if they would morph into something that he had ever worn before.
‘Give it a whirl.’ Jacquie looked at the clock by the bed. ‘Look, Max, much as I would love to stay here all day, I have to go. Bye.’ And she was gone, flying down the stairs and past the kitchen with a hurried goodbye to the budding equestrian.
It seemed like only minutes before the discreet toot from the street below told him that the car was here. Although it would give the street something to talk about for a while, he deci
ded that it would be rude to linger, so scooping up an excited child on his way down, he set off to knock some socks off some Yanks as Dr Seuss would say – he preferred that to the option of ‘being a conversationalist for money’. That just made him feel so slutty.
All the way to Haledown House, Nolan talked horse. Not the actual language, Maxwell was happy to discover, but the subject. It was extraordinary how much detail the child had picked up in just one day. If he had expected to have a tearful leave-taking at the gate to the paddock, he was sorely disappointed; as soon as the car pulled up, he was off like a jack rabbit, hard hat dangling from one hand, jodhpured legs twinkling as he ran across the sand. He’d talk to Jo about the spurs later.
‘Great little nipper you’ve got there,’ the driver remarked.
‘Indeed he is,’ Maxwell said, watching him push open an enormous door and peep inside. ‘I ... I think I’ll get out here, if you don’t mind. Just make sure there’s somebody there ... umm ...’
The driver had nippers. Three of them. He understood and turned with a smile. ‘He’ll be fine with the girls. They love kids or they wouldn’t work here. Not for the money her up at the house pays.’
Maxwell raised an eyebrow. ‘Not a good payer, Mrs Hale-ffinch?’
‘Sometimes not a payer at all,’ the driver said, darkly. ‘Oh, you get your money in the end, just not always at the right time. I don’t think she does it on purpose, but that husband of hers and his uncle Roddy... They don’t have the brains God gave sheep and they’ve got the money sense of a sea cucumber. It was a good day for Haledown when Harry met Tom, that’s for sure.’
‘Where did they meet?’ Maxwell said. ‘She mentioned that they were cousins but met by chance.’
‘On holiday, by all accounts,’ the driver said. ‘No one really knows. Roddy wasn’t best pleased when Tom brought her home. They got married in London, all very private. Roddy had a step-daughter, something like that, that he had in the frame for mistress of Haledown. And no in-breeding either. Not that their kids seem to be showing any signs of only having one eye in the middle of their foreheads, so that’s probably all hogwash anyway.’
