Animal Instincts

by Alan Titchmarsh

  To everyone’s surprise, except Peter’s, the venture took off. But then Peter knew his gnocchi from his goulash and Tom, with his easy-going nature, turned out to be a natural host.

  So that’s how it started. And it didn’t end there. Success encouraged the pair to open another bistro, the Albatross, in a nearby village. But with a twist of irony as bitter as an underripe kumquat, it proved to be more appropriately named than either of them could have foreseen. Although they struggled for the best part of five years to make it pay, in the end the seasonality of the business forced them to cut their losses and sell up.

  Not that the Albatross was a total failure on other counts: Peter could bestow his culinary expertise on only one establishment so he had taken on a young cook, a dark-haired girl with a lively wit, a quick mind and a smile that could melt a disgruntled diner three tables away.

  It melted Tom, too. They had married within the year and Pippa told him, with a warning flash of her nut-brown eyes, that if he thought he was marrying her just for her cooking he had another thing coming. Tom had not taken the plunge on account of his gastronomic predilections; he had married her because he had never been so totally, irrationally and ridiculously in love in his entire life.

  Another thing you ought to know is that Tom Drummond had not given much thought to becoming a father, so it came as a bit of a surprise when a few months after they were married Pippa broke it to him that the patter of tiny feet was a short time away. Over the following months, he accustomed himself to the imminent arrival of their offspring.

  Tom was not lacking in the intelligence department, being as quick on the uptake as any other average male. Neither was he ignorant of the probable genetic permutations that might befall, so when Natalie Daisy Drummond – Tally for short – came into his life on 5 May 1985, it took him just seconds to realize that he had become the father of a daughter, and that from now on his life would not be his own.

  Partly funded by the sale of the Albatross and partly by Pippa’s late parents’ legacy, the Drummond family moved from Tom’s mother’s tiny terraced house in the centre of town to a converted barn that had been one of Bill Wilding’s outbuildings. With an acre of land, it suited them down to the ground. Tally grew up among the buttercups and daisies while her mother raised herbs to supply the bistro and a couple of other local businesses.

  If you eavesdropped on conversations at the local shops you would discover the general opinion was that the Drummonds had the perfect lifestyle – a view tainted with the merest tincture of envy but not an ounce of ill-will.

  The Drummonds have lived at Wilding’s Barn for sixteen years now, with never a cross word. Well, that’s if you don’t count the daily spats about the school run, Tom’s exasperated complaints about Tally’s loud music when he’s making yet another attempt at the now legendary first novel, Pippa’s regular complaints about the low prices she’s paid for fresh herbs, and Tom’s occasional questioning of Tally about the men – or, rather, boys – in her life.

  He tries to keep out of her hair as much as he can, but he does find it difficult.

  Acknowledgements

  As ever, I’ve been helped enormously by unsuspecting friends and acquaintances when it comes to verifying facts about things of which I am relatively ignorant. Any mistakes remain my own, but I am infinitely grateful to Steven Alais for legal advice, Dr Phil Cunliffe for answering questions of a medical nature and David Aston of Harris Walters for helping me with accounting matters.

  David Goldthorpe of Sotheby’s provided historical literary information, Mark Andreae kindly allowed me to follow the Hampshire Hunt, and Carol Collins answered all manner of strange questions relating to dogs, foxes and men. Luigi Bonomi offered his welcome lashings of encouragement, along with Clare Ledingham, my patient editor.

  Geoffrey Grigson’s The Englishman’s Flora has provided the inspiration for the chapter titles (all but one), and the staff of English Nature have been helpful in other ways.

  This is not a book about the rights and wrongs of the countryside, just a bit of a romp through the beautiful conundrum that is country life.

  Also by Alan Titchmarsh

  Love and Dr Devon

  Rosie

  Only Dad

  The Last Lighthouse Keeper

  Mr MacGregor

  First published in Great Britian by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2000

  First published by Pocket Books, 2001

  This edition published by Pocket Books, 2004

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Alan Titchmarsh, 2000

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  Pocket Books & Design is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  The right of Alan Titchmarsh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-7848-9

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-4711-5295-5

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset in Goudy by SX Composing DTP, Rayleigh, Essex

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire