Animal Instincts

by Alan Titchmarsh

  “I haven’t been anywhere.”

  “Not physically, no. Can you remember anything?”

  “Not really. I remember riding out, that’s all. Can’t remember how I got here. They tell me I fell down a cliff. Exciting. Wish I could remember . . .”

  “Perhaps it’s as well that you can’t. Anyway, I’ve had enough of people falling down cliffs.”

  She looked at him quizzically.

  A gentle tapping interrupted them. Charlotte and Roly poked their heads round the door. Jinty gave them a warm smile, and the custodians of Kit’s lover approached their honorary niece and fussed over her as though she had come back from the dead.

  Which, as the nurse confessed to Kit later that afternoon, she almost had.

  Chapter 16: Pig’s Ears

  (Sedum acre)

  Kit wasn’t absolutely sure but he suspected Elizabeth was rattled. When he came home from the hospital, having been absent for most of the last four days, his reception had been polite but frosty. He thought it best to keep a low profile, but at the same time offer to help with whatever task needed doing.

  The following morning she sent him off to clean out Wilson’s sty. He got the message, but the company of the pig would not be a hardship, since Jess, too, had been tight-lipped and uncommunicative.

  “Like the bloody Montagues and Capulets,” he informed the Gloucester Old Spot, while shepherding her out to the fenced-off land by the orchard where she was already making her mark. The journey was slow as the pig truffled her way among the undergrowth at either side of the path through the long grass. Kit prodded her on gently with a stick, diverting her snout in the direction he wanted her to travel.

  “What’s happening to me, do you think?” he asked her. “I’ve hardly been here five minutes and I’m up to my ears in the place. And the people. What do you reckon I should do, old girl? Run away? Fancy coming with me?”

  The pig was not the most stimulating conversationalist, but then she seldom argued, except with the suggested direction of travel. He eyed the freshly churned soil that would soon be Jess’s vegetable garden, and ushered Wilson into the electric-fenced enclosure before fastening the netting together and turning on the current. She began to nose her way through the damp, uncultivated loam.

  “If you think you’re in a mess,” he muttered, “just look at me. I’ve a girlfriend across the other side of the world who wonders what the hell I’m up to, and another over here I’m crazy about. Neither knows about the other, and I don’t know who to tell first. Any suggestions?”

  The pig had none.

  “Ever been in love, Wilson?” The pig grunted. “Very wise. You lay yourself open to all sorts of feelings when you are. Can’t stop yourself, though. Just happens. Suddenly find yourself doing things you’ve never done before.” He spoke softly now, almost under his breath. “Feeling things you didn’t know you could feel.” He poked at the ground with the stick, thinking thoughts that he would not even share with the pig. Inarticulate thoughts; incoherent emotions and sensitivities. He sighed deeply and kicked at a clump of grass.

  Was he really in love with Jinty? Did Heather really want him back or was she happy to see what developed between her and Marcus Johnson? Marcus Johnson – how ridiculous. Or was it?

  “Then there’s this place.” He looked about him at the old trees of the orchard, whose downy buds were fattening, and among whose branches a pair of bullfinches were prospecting for lunch. “It’ll be blossom time before we know where we are and I still haven’t sorted out what I’m doing. Why not? I’m a decisive guy who knows what he wants.”

  Wilson looked up at him with a blank stare.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m trying to sort it, but until this probate lark comes through I can’t.”

  She grunted.

  “Yes. I know it’s a convenient excuse.” He watched as Wilson grubbed up a fat root. “OK. What do I do? I sell up West Yarmouth to this guy who wants to buy the place for one and a half million and who’ll keep on our two lady-friends. Heather tells me she’s found another guy and I’m history. Result? She doesn’t get hurt and I get out of the hole I’ve dug for myself. I pocket the cash and go out to Balnunga Valley with Jinty and buy a stud farm. I breed horses, she rides ’em. We live happily ever after. OK? Simple.”

  The pig regarded him with a laconic stare as she chewed the root like an indolent teenager with a mouthful of gum.

  “It’s not going to work, is it? The buyer will pull out. Heather won’t find another man. Jinty won’t come to Balnunga Valley and yours truly will end up stuck here for the rest of his life with two harridans and a few red squirrels. There you are. Simple, really. The thing is, the prospect of staying here isn’t nearly as terrifying as it was a couple of weeks ago, and that’s a fact. Must be spring.”

  He tossed the stick into a pile of brambles and headed for the pig-sty. Shovelling muck might lack glamour, but it was also intellectually undemanding and this morning that was something he would happily settle for.

  He had no inkling, at this stage, that one of his idle dreams would come true, and that a second dream, which had yet not manifested itself, would shortly begin to evolve.

  Jess leaned on the handle of the spade and looked out across Tallacombe Bay at the small boat butting its way through the waves. For a moment or two she allowed her imagination to drift with it, but her reverie did not last long. She laid down the spade, took up a hammer and began fastening together the planks that would make a stile to cross the fence between the Wilderness and the Spinney.

  With every hammer blow she thought of him, and the feelings of betrayal built inside her. He had seemed sympathetic to her, and to what she was trying to achieve on his father’s land. It even seemed as though he was about to play his part in saving the place, but now, out of nowhere, he had sprung on her the one thing that she least wanted to believe. Why did it have to be Jinty O’Hare?

  She drove the four-inch nail home viciously and the plank split. “Bugger!” She flung the hammer into the soft turf and felt the anger rising within her.

  She sat down on the partially completed stile and cradled her head in her hands, rubbing her face in her grubby palms. She felt the metal of the rings in her eyebrow, and the stud in her nose. Systematically, she removed them, then drew back her hand to throw them over the cliff, but stopped short. She looked down at the collection of semi-precious ornamentation in her hand, slipped it into a wad of tissue and pushed it into the pocket of her jeans. Then she got up and walked through the Spinney, down towards the Yar.

  There, she crouched on a broad rock on the bank and leaned forward, cupped her hands and dipped them into the water. She splashed it again and again over her cheeks and her tightly closed eyes until they were numb. Mascara ran down her face and she wiped it away until the last traces had been removed and her face felt purified, alive. She wiped her hands on her jeans, stood up and climbed the path that led back to the stile.

  She picked up the hammer, knocked out the split plank and replaced it with another, working more carefully this time. When the job was done, she picked up the saw, the spade, the hammer and the nails, climbed over her newly built bridge as if to christen it, and walked back towards West Yarmouth Farmhouse with a faraway look in her eye and a complexion of burnished rose.

  The smell of pig muck remained in his nostrils, however hard he scrubbed, and he held up his face to the shower jet in an effort to banish it. Then he got out, towelled himself down and went into the bedroom. He stopped at the desk and looked, as he had so many times over the past few days, at the contents of the pigeon-holes – a life neatly displayed as if in a museum. Then he scanned the bookshelves. He would have to start sorting their contents soon. Clear the place to make a fresh start. Put his father to bed.

  There was a brief knock at the door and he spun round, clutching at the towel. The door opened and Jess stood there, staring at him, embarrassed by her own intrusion and unsure of what to say. She wanted to close th
e door and retreat, yet she could not. She stood rooted to the spot, gazing at him, looking him up and down.

  “I – I’m sorry,” she managed to blurt out, but still made no move to leave.

  Kit, at first startled but then amused, stood still, the towel held in front of him to preserve what little dignity he could salvage. Then he said, almost brightly, “That’s OK. I should have locked the door.” The two remained quite still for what seemed like an age, Jess gazing at him, Kit looking apologetically at her, until Jess’s mouth curled into a smile, the colour rose to her cheeks and she said, without taking her eyes off him, “Dinner in ten minutes.” Then she closed the door and padded down the stairs.

  Kit remained immobile, the towel clasped to his body with one hand. There was something strange about her. She looked . . . different. Her face was more open, her eyes clearer, less wary. In fact, she seemed like a different person altogether. He wondered why.

  Half-way through supper he realised why she looked different. Her face was devoid of studs and the heavy eyeliner had gone, revealing a clear complexion and eyes of purest forget-me-not blue. The red hair, which had become less lurid with the passing days, was no longer drawn up into gelled spikes. Without all the warpaint, she was refreshingly pretty. But he said nothing.

  As Elizabeth chomped her way methodically through the vegetable pie, he explained that he would be going to the hospital after supper but would return later.

  “How is she?” Elizabeth asked. It was the first time she had mentioned Jinty, even though she had chosen to use the pronoun.

  “Better, I think.”

  “She’s been very lucky.”

  There was an uneasy silence. Kit was unwilling to offer more information, and Elizabeth was unwilling to ask for it.

  Jess was not sure what she wanted, except for one thing.

  Chapter 17: Touch-and-Heal

  (Melittis melissophyllum)

  “You and she courtin’, then?” As ever, Titus’s X questioning was nothing if not direct.

  “Never you mind.”

  “Go on. Y’are, aren’t yer?” He was filling the hounds’ water trough to the accompaniment of an unruly cacophony of yelps and barks.

  “I’m not sure I know what ‘courtin’ means.”

  Titus stood up straight. His one good eye looked directly at Kit, while the other seemed to dart between the kennel gate and a distant tree. “Goin’ out. Knockin’ off. Gettin’ yer leg over.”

  “What are you like?” Kit asked, in disbelief.

  “Just curious. Just askin’.” Titus grinned a wicked grin, and bent down to stroke a contrite-looking Nell, who followed him like a shadow.

  “I don’t know what we are,” Kit admitted.

  “And what about yon girl in Australia?”

  Kit looked pained.

  “Nice girl, Jinty. Nice girl.” Titus nodded to himself as he closed the metal-barred kennel gate. “We miss her at the hunt. Always gev it a bit o’ sparkle.”

  “Mmm.” Kit was somewhere else.

  “You want ter come and watch.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve a meet on Wednesday. Why don’t you come and follow?”

  “Me? I’d be struck off.” He jerked his head in the direction of West Yarmouth.

  “Oh, you don’t want to worry about them. They’ll never know. Too busy puttin’ up their nest-boxes to bother about us.”

  “Don’t be unkind.”

  Titus put down his bucket. “Nah. I’m not bein’ unkind. I just wish that sometimes they could see t’other point of view.”

  “Not much chance of that, I’m afraid.”

  “Funny, in’t it? I can see theirs, but they can’t see mine.”

  “You reckon?”

  “I know so. I mean it’s obvious that a nature reserve is a good thing, in’t it? Stands to reason – conserves wildlife.”

  “And hunting doesn’t.”

  “Ah, well, it does, you see.”

  “Rubbish. You just kill foxes – the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.”

  Titus regarded Kit with his head on one side. “You don’t really believe that?”

  “I know some people who do.”

  “That’s because they can’t see further than their noses.”

  Kit raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, I know we kill foxes, and in some folk’s eyes that’s unforgivable. I can understand that. But what I can’t understand is why they think that bannin’ it will be good for the countryside.”

  “Sermon coming,” Kit teased.

  “No. Not a sermon. Just common sense. Your dad realised what could happen if it were banned. He knew that man had to work hand in hand with the countryside in all sorts of ways – not just the ways he chose himself.”

  “But if foxhunting is banned, the countryside is hardly going to go to rack and ruin.”

  “No. But once it’s gone the antis will turn their attention to shootin’. People who pay to shoot grouse and pheasant pay for woodland to be managed – trees to be planted, coverts to be maintained to shelter birdlife. No shooting equals no woodland management. No one’s going to look after a wood for the fun of it.”

  “Dad did.”

  “Your dad were an exception. When shootin’s sorted, they’ll start on fishin’. And when fishin’s banned the rivers will silt up because no one cuts weed any more, and then one day a silted-up river will flood a village and everyone will be up in arms because global warming is finally bringin’ about Armageddon.”

  “When really it was the banning of the hunt that caused it all?”

  “Somethin’ like that.”

  “And what about cruelty? Doesn’t that count for anything? And pleasure? Why is it that people who hunt and shoot and fish can rant on for ages about how they are helping to conserve the countryside but forget that the main reason they kill things is for fun?”

  “You’re beginnin’ to sound like your dad.” Titus bent down to caress Nell again, and asked Kit if he’d like a coffee.

  “Can’t I’m afraid. Nipping over to Baddesley Court. Jinty came out of hospital this morning and I want to see how she is.”

  “That’ll perk her up,” said Titus. “Or give her a relapse.” He chuckled to himself.

  “On yer bike, Ormonroyd,” Kit tossed over his shoulder as he left. “On yer bloody bike.”

  She was looking out of the bedroom window at the front of Baddesley Court when he drove up, still at the wheel of the yellow Punto. With her good arm she raised the sash and leaned out to greet him as he stepped on to the gravel drive.

  “What happened to the BMW?”

  “Too tied up with other things to worry about cars.”

  “Even little yellow ones?”

  “Even little yellow ones.” He looked up at where she sat in a window seat, her left arm in a sling, and the sun catching her hair and making it sparkle.

  He held up his arms, and made a rectangular frame with the index finger and thumb of each hand. “Don’t move. I want always to remember you like this.”

  She grinned back at him. “Bastard!”

  “Deny thy father and refuse thy name.”

  “That’s my line.”

  “So what’s mine?”

  “But soft . . .”

  “ . . . what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief.”

  “I thought I was looking a bit better.”

  He smiled up at her. “You look great. Can I come in, or shall I carry on down here?”

  “Come in, silly boy.”

  She welcomed him into her room with one open arm, the other resting against her side under the covering of the white bath-robe. He embraced her carefully and closed his eyes, rocking her gently from side to side. Then he drew away a little and looked at her, pushing a stray curl out of her eyes. Her hair, tousled but gleaming, framed a pale face that sported a russet graze from left temp
le to chin. The eyes sparkled with a deep lustre.

  “Are you still in there?”

  “Just.”

  “You’re not fit to be let out.”

  “I know.”

  “What a week.”

  “Tell me what’s been happening.”

  “Not a lot. I’ve been a bit tied up with this friend of mine who’s been in hospital.”

  She looked at him and he noticed a doubtful look in her eye. “Just a friend?”

  “I don’t know.” He hesitated. “I hope not.”

  She stepped forward and kissed him tenderly but briefly on the lips. “Me too.”

  They sat down side by side on the edge of the bed and she stroked his arm. Neither spoke until Kit murmured, “I don’t really know what’s happened.”

  “No. Nor me.”

  “Funny, isn’t it?”

  “No. Not really. Just nice.”

  He could hear her breathing, a blackbird singing through the open window, the gentle swish of a muslin curtain caught by the breeze. For several minutes they sat quite still, glad of each other’s company in the calm of her room after the anxieties and tensions of the past few days, the clamour of the hospital and the all-pervading tang of disinfectant and laundered linen.

  Finally she raised her head. “I need a bath. I’m filthy.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll go.”

  “No, stay. Please?” She reached for his hand. “Help me?”

  He looked at her.

  “Charlotte’s out. Uncle Roly’s down at the stables. I can’t get out of this on my own.”

  Kit nodded. “I’ll run the bath.” He walked to a door that led off the bedroom, opened it and regarded the ancient tub on ball-and-claw feet, the network of brass pipes and taps to one side. He pushed a lever or two and turned on the taps. A large bottle of Badedas stood on a shelf at one end; he removed the cap, tipped out a cupful and the gushing water turned to foam.

  “Steady! It costs a fortune!” she admonished him from the doorway.

  He turned. “Just wanted you to smell nice.”