Animal Instincts

by Alan Titchmarsh

  He felt a sudden chill, and the if-onlys began to well up in his mind. If only they had talked more. If only he had known his father was about to die he could have told him . . . what? He hardly knew. Except that this was not how it should have happened.

  The knock on the door found him still sitting on the chair, lost in thought.

  “Yes?”

  The door opened slowly and a head peered round it – the one he had spotted half an hour ago at the upstairs window. It seemed at first as though it might belong to some rare form of wildlife that his father might have wanted to conserve. The hair was foxy-red and sparkles of light reflected from studs, several around the rim of each ear, one in the nose and another in the left eyebrow. The skin was pallid, the lips soft purple. The plumage of this particular species was more drab than would have been expected from its head: a long, khaki-coloured sweater of coarse knit, baggy black leggings and high-laced Dr Martens. A hand did not appear from the sleeve that slid around the door to hold it open, and he read fear in the pale blue eyes. “Dinner’s ready,” she said.

  He looked at her. He was pretty sure it was a ‘her’, but there were few real clues as to the sexuality of his interlocutor.

  “Yes. Fine. Sorry. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  She hesitated, looking at him from under her long black eyelashes. She risked an introduction. “I’m Jess Wetherby. I helped your dad with the reserve.” She pulled back the long sleeve and pushed out a hand and walked slowly towards him He was surprised at the firmness of the handshake from such a small woman. Each looked the other in the eye, warily, and Kit managed a smile. She quickly withdrew her hand, which receded, once more, into the long, khaki sleeve.

  “Elizabeth says they’ll get cold. The roasted vegetables.”

  “I’ll just wash my hands, then I’ll be down.”

  She nodded, then reversed out of the room, never taking her eyes off him until the door closed.

  The meal began uncomfortably, the two women avoiding his eyes. Elizabeth Punch served him a generous helping of potatoes and courgettes, red and green peppers, celeriac and turnips, glistening with olive oil and heaped into an earthenware bowl. It was the first time he had had a chance to look at her properly. The three candles that flickered on the scrubbed pine table seemed to highlight her features. Her silver-grey hair was cut into a no-nonsense bob. Her face was clean of makeup, the cheekbones high. Her skin had little colour, except where the heat of the stove had reddened her cheeks. She wore a sleeveless dark green gilet, a sensible russety Shetland sweater and brown corduroy trousers. Her hands were robust and workmanlike, and she wore one chunky ring, set with an amber stone. She was a slender woman, on the surface dour and humourless, but Kit thought he detected a hint of warmth beneath the grim exterior. The atmosphere was not chilly – just quiet and uneasy.

  Elizabeth sat at one side of the rectangular table, Jess at the other. The large wheelback chair at the head was his, then. He sat quietly until they had all been served, then picked up his knife and fork to tackle the vegetables. Jess Wetherby coughed gently, and he looked up to see her sitting with her hands on her lap and her eyes cast downwards. Elizabeth’s hands were similarly placed, but her eyes looked directly at him.

  Slowly he lowered his implements to the table and slid his clasped hands on to his lap as Elizabeth spoke quietly but clearly: “God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

  Kit’s eyes flickered upwards as the two women intoned “Amen”.

  “Amen,” he whispered in their wake.

  “Water or wine?”, Elizabeth asked matter-of-factly.

  “Wine, please.” He pushed his glass towards the proffered bottle and she poured him some Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon.

  “Thank you.” He lifted the glass to his lips and gulped a generous mouthful. He felt warmth suffuse his cheeks and glanced across to the old cream-coloured Aga that nestled under the high mantel of the kitchen chimney breast. At least he wouldn’t freeze to death in here, having crossed from an Antipodean summer to an English winter.

  His thoughts returned to Australia. He could see the lavender blue distant hills below a sky that seemed to go on for ever. He felt the sun on the back of his neck and saw the close-cropped, bristly pastures where the horses grazed. A kookaburra laughed – and a fork clattered on a plate, bringing him back to the Devon kitchen.

  Elizabeth picked up the fork, and Jess poured herself a tumbler of water from the stoneware jug, then some wine.

  “Please start,” said Elizabeth.

  Jess was sawing chunks of wholemeal bread from a cob loaf sitting on a board in the centre of the table. She offered him a piece, still fighting shy of eye-contact. He took it and thanked her. The meal continued in silence. Kit struggled for something to say, but talk of the weather seemed inappropriate, and the discussion of more weighty matters premature.

  Here he sat, with two women, in his father’s house. He knew neither their relationship with his father, nor their expectations now that he had died.

  Elizabeth, aware of his discomfort, said, “I think the best thing we can do is leave you to rediscover the place over the next few days. Does that sound all right?”

  Kit seized on the lifeline. “Yes. Thanks. It’s a long time since I was last here.”

  “It’s probably changed quite a lot. I came here just a few months after you left. Your father couldn’t run the place on his own so I’ve been a sort of manager since old Ted Burdock and his brother retired.”

  He detected the faintest note of criticism. Neither had the words of the prayer she had used before the meal gone over his head.

  “I dealt with the day-to-day running of the estate and Jess just got stuck in. You can’t just leave nature to take its course – even on a nature reserve. It needs guiding. The things you want to encourage must be given a chance to thrive, and you have to keep on top of other things – like vermin and ragwort – unless you want to be overrun by them.” She realised that she was lecturing him, and stopped to sip her water.

  He turned to Jess and asked, “How long have you been here?”

  At last she raised her eyes from her plate. “Coming up for two years.”

  “What made you want to work here? You don’t sound local.”

  “No. Streatham.” A pause, a sip of wine. “But I wanted to be in the countryside, not the town. I’ve always felt . . . well . . . right when I’m in the country. Some people think townies don’t know anything that goes on here. Sometimes it’s true, but sometimes living in the sticks is like . . . well . . .”

  “Instinctive?” he offered.

  “Yeh. I wanted to help from the inside, not the outside. Only I didn’t really know that until Mr Lavery offered me a job.”

  Kit tried to imagine how the paths of his father and this girl from the London suburbs might have crossed. He failed.

  “How did you meet him?” he asked.

  “At the hunt.”

  “But he didn’t hunt.”

  “No. Well, it wasn’t exactly at the hunt, it was afterwards.”

  “You mean you hunt?”

  “Nah. Sab, wasn’t I?” And then, seeing that he was having difficulty in following her, “I was a saboteur.”

  Elizabeth cut in. “Everybody finished?”

  Hastily Kit forked up what remained in the bottom of his bowl. “Yes. Fine. Thank you. It was lovely.”

  Jess was warming to her subject, the red wine having the same effect on her cheeks as the warmth of the Aga on Elizabeth’s. Again Kit noticed the soft blue of her eyes underneath the camouflage of kohl. There was a warmth in them that belied her outward appearance.

  “I used to carry placards and stuff. Never did the animals any damage, just got in the way. Went everywhere – Belvoir, Quorn, Eglinton. Then I came to Lynchampton and–”

  Elizabeth said, “I think Mr Lavery’s probably heard enough for one evening. He’s had a long jo
urney. Cup of coffee before bed?”

  Kit looked at his watch. A quarter past nine. Suddenly he was aware of a draining tiredness. “No. No thanks. I’m feeling a bit, well . . .”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s a long way from Australia. You go on up. We’ll clear up and see you in the morning. We generally rise at around six thirty, but we’ll keep out of your way when you surface.”

  He felt like saying, “Yes, Miss,” but restrained himself. He drained the rest of the wine from his glass, stood up from the table and made to leave.

  Elizabeth’s voice stopped him as he was about to turn into the hall. “We’re very sorry, Mr Lavery, about your father.”

  He looked at the two of them – Elizabeth standing at the side of the table with a pile of bowls in her hand, and Jess sitting quietly, but now looking nervously in his direction.

  “We were very . . . fond of him. He was a good man, a far-sighted man, and we want to carry on doing the work he started. There’s still lots to do here and, with your help, we can make this place even more valuable to wildlife than it is now.”

  He looked at them, like a rabbit mesmerised by a pair of ferrets. They looked back unblinking. He nodded. “See you in the morning,” he said, then climbed the stairs to bed.

  Chapter 4: Love Lies Bleeding

  (Adonis annua)

  At Baddesley Court, three miles from West Yarmouth, Jinty O’Hare screwed up her eyes as she tried to focus on the alarm clock on the bedside table. Seven a.m. “Damn!” She pulled the pillow over her head, smothering her unruly blonde curls, but failing to keep out the ringing. Finally, using one hand to stuff the goose-feather pillow even closer to her ears, she thrust out an arm – long, fair-skinned and slightly freckled – located the button that would bring the throbbing in her head to an end. She found it, pressed it, and then lay sprawled in an untidy heap, unwilling to leave the warmth of the plump white duvet on the four-poster bed.

  But rise she must. There were horses to muck out. Couldn’t she let them get on without her this morning? She would have liked to stay in bed for another hour, maybe even two. But no. She had sworn to herself when she came to live with her aunt and uncle that she would work her passage, not behave like some spoilt brat as most of her old schoolfriends seemed to.

  She lifted her head above the quilt to test the air temperature. It was cold. The central heating at Baddesley came on at seven thirty precisely, as per Sir Roland’s instructions. She shrank beneath the feathers again and drew her naked body into the foetal position for added warmth, allowing only the top half of her head – from the nose upwards – to remain above the duvet line.

  She wondered about the weather – was it sunny or cloudy? Cold or mild? Raining or foggy? She yawned and ran her fingers through her hair, but failed to banish the thick-headedness she put down to one glass too many of amaretto in the George Hotel at Lynchampton the night before. Then she remembered why she had drunk it.

  He was such a bastard. She should have seen it coming. For two years, off and on, she had been seeing Jamie Bickerstaffe. Or not seeing him, thanks to his foreign trips with his blessed property company. He was something to do with investments at Hope, Tonks and Gunn – or Grope, Bonk and Run as she thought of them. He’d be away for days on end, then turn up and whisk her out for the weekend, bonk her senseless, then resume normal service in the City or some far-flung corner of the globe. But last night Jamie had broken it to her that he was seeing someone else.

  The events of the previous evening replayed slowly though her tired mind. The candlelit meal in the George. The soft yellow of the walls, the chilled white wine, the fish in the delicate sauce, the orange soufflé and the brush-off. It had come with perfect timing over the coffee and liqueurs. She should have guessed something was up. She was an old hand at this sort of thing. She was thirty, for God’s sake, and experienced in the ways of men. Not that it ever got any easier.

  She had kept her cool when he had told her, patronisingly laying his hands over hers, gazing at her earnestly with his deep brown eyes from under the broad forehead and swept-back jet-black hair. He explained how much he loved her but was sure she knew that their relationship didn’t seem to be going anywhere . . .

  Why did he have to be so bloody good-looking and such good company? Why didn’t he want to see more of her rather than less? They laughed a lot together and their lovemaking was always good – wasn’t it? At least he hadn’t offered the excuse that his career had to come first – he had always liked women too much to let that happen, but his work provided the finance for his lifestyle: the BMW Z8, the Patek Philippe watch, the Ozwald Boateng suits. He had finally made his position clear and ordered her another amaretto. She thought of throwing it over him but her Irish blood refused to contemplate such waste so she downed it in one before telling him quietly but firmly exactly what she thought of him and walking out of the hotel.

  It was then that she realised she had no transport home. She had been lucky to spot the battered old white cab as it ambled through the village. She hailed it and persuaded the driver to take her the few miles down the road to Baddesley Court. He obliged, and looked happier when she’d thrust a ten-pound note into his hand and told him to keep the change. “Thank the Lord you’re not Australian,” he’d said, as he pulled away, leaving her under the tall portico of the front door. She hadn’t a clue what he meant, but the tears were flowing as she felt in her bag for the key.

  Now it was morning and she lay awake with the rest of her bleak life in front of her. Since her arrival here she had been determined that it would not be aimless, though that, now, was exactly what it seemed to be. She had left home in County Donegal six years ago to come and live with her ‘aunt and uncle’ Sir Roland Billings-Gore and his wife Charlotte. They were not really her aunt and uncle, but good friends of her late parents. When they had died within a year of each other, Uncle Roly had insisted she come to live at Baddesley Court for as long as she wanted.

  She had agreed, provided he would let her earn her living in the stables. As Master of the Lynchampton Hunt, Sir Roland’s stables boasted three foxhunters, which needed more care and exercise than he was able to give them, and he had been delighted to agree to the arrangement with his favourite ‘niece’, whose horsemanship he had encouraged since she had first climbed into the saddle at the tender age of three.

  But it was not a job she saw as her ultimate goal. What were the options for a girl in her position? A post in London with an upmarket estate agent? A round of parties with It girls? Helping an old schoolfriend run a dress shop in South Molton Street? No. Jinty wanted a real job that utilised all her talents, if only she knew what they were. Or a real man, if only she could meet one. It was time she sorted herself out. Perhaps she should move away and live on her own for a while.

  She flung back the duvet and the chilly morning air nipped at her naked body. She slid her feet to the cold oak floor, stood up, stretched, and caught sight of herself in the cheval mirror across from the dressing-table. Slowly she lowered her arms and looked at herself, almost as if sizing up bloodstock at a sale.

  “Oh, why can’t you get a decent man?” She scrutinised her thighs – was that cellulite or a trick of the light? – then her bottom, which was still not overly round from riding. She worried daily that she’d develop rider’s bum, and that her breasts would sag and that there would be no other option open to her than to become a harridan Master of Fox Hounds, who terrified all the men around her and never married.

  She ran her hands over her flat stomach, wrapped her arms around her breasts to keep herself warm, then shuddered suddenly and ran to the bathroom for a shower.

  As the white bubbles of shampoo ran down the plughole she smoothed back her wet blonde hair and raised her face to the powerful jet of water, vowing never again to let herself be subservient to any man, and never again to feel sorry for herself.

  It was nine o’clock before Kit surfaced, his head muzzy. He shaved, showered and changed into a clean if c
reased set of clothes before looking out of the window at the clear, bright February day. Frost rimed the grass beyond the rough sweep of gravel drive, and he caught his first tantalising glimpse of the valley below the farmhouse where the West Yarmouth Nature Reserve sloped down to the sea.

  He retreated from the window and sat down in his father’s chair, looking round him at the relics of a life he must now wrap up. He refused to feel guilty about it. His father had had his life and Kit had his own. It was unfair to expect him to take on the old man’s legacy. His life was now in Balnunga Valley with horses, not here fighting a losing battle with a patch of land in Devon. And, anyway, it was bloody cold.

  It seemed only hours since he had been walking the paddocks of the stud farm in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Now he pushed the wayward fair curls off his face and went in search of a thick sweater in the tall mahogany chest of drawers. He found one – dark brown and ribbed – and pulled it over his head. The smell of his father caught him unawares, a combination of pipe tobacco and grain. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Oh, Dad,” he muttered, under his breath, as though half expecting a reply. Suddenly he realised the size of the task ahead of him. He would have to clear up and dispose of all his father’s possessions, then sell off the land before he could head back to Australia. And he would have to explain what he was doing to the women. How long would it take? Weeks? Months? He got up and went downstairs in search of breakfast.

  There was no sign of either Elizabeth or Jess, but he found a fresh loaf in the bread bin and made some toast on the Aga. Coffee proved more difficult to locate, but he found a jar of something decaffeinated. After a few sips, he poured it down the sink, pulled on his father’s old duffel coat and walked out of the door.