The Country Set

by Fiona Walker

  ‘Don’t mind him. Lost his dog. Have you seen an English pointer out here? He’s a terrible wander-offer like his master.’

  ‘Sorry, no.’

  ‘GEORGE! Super to have around on a rough shoot, but I wouldn’t trust him at one of the Austens’ seven-pillars-of-tweed jobs.’

  ‘We got an invitation to one today.’

  ‘Your chap must be overjoyed. I should have guessed. Such good manners to tell the host you can’t have sex with him.’

  Petra looked at her, wide-eyed.

  ‘We couldn’t help hearing you on the phone just now.’ Ronnie grinned. ‘You were rather shouting. I’m glad you’ve taken my advice about Bay Austen. Madness to mess around with a man like him and twelve-bores in the house.’

  ‘There’s just one bore at home when he’s not in London.’ She felt her face prickle. ‘He’s not a very good shot.’

  ‘I’m a bloody good one, so you can always call on me if Bay’s misbehaving.’ She gave a naughty chuckle. ‘Or your husband, come to that.’

  Petra laughed nervously, wondering just how much she’d overheard.

  ‘Never shoot a hare,’ Ronnie said, in a stage whisper over the brambles, blue eyes confessional. ‘They haunt you. The Austen boys used to take me out coursing – Sandy and Robert were my generation. Their younger sister Hermia and I hated it. Hares are such beautiful creatures, the wildest of the wild. Bay Austen is altogether more cunicular.’ The eyes twinkled.

  ‘I wasn’t speaking to—That is, there’s really nothing going on. I came out to walk off a bad mood. I talk to myself a lot.’

  ‘We all do that.’ She strode off, still talking, walking so fast as usual that Petra had to jog to catch up.

  Keeping pace, heeled by all three dogs now, Petra listened to her as she stalked along the opposite side of the hedge line for a field’s length, chattering good-naturedly in her hypnotically husky voice about shooting. She stole glances at her, enthralled. Charlie would love her. The legendary village prodigal daughter, scarlet harlot, bolter, child-deserter, and her unexpected ally was shooting mad. Ronnie’s face was hidden from this angle. All there was to see was that bizarrely animated, dishevelled blonde hair that swung like a silk bell as she moved, and a body so lean that she could still get away with the sort of leggings and skinny polo combo Petra had ditched in the late nineties when her thigh gap closed. Ronnie was a head below Petra and a hand-span narrower. She could have been of any generation, although Petra knew she had to be an optimistic baby boomer to her own pessimistic Generation X. She felt a brief downward jolt that the growling, flirty little deserter had so much self-confidence. Ronnie was of the generation for whom fifty was the new thirty in a life lived to the full; Petra belonged to one perpetually trapped in teenage angst, still mentally in their bedrooms writing their diaries.

  ‘Do your children shoot?’ Ronnie asked.

  ‘The boys do.’

  ‘How many do you have in total?’ It sounded like she was asking about a farm herd.

  ‘Four, two of each.’

  ‘My God, you’re a superstar.’

  At the field corner, the hedge thinned between double rails over a trough and Ronnie climbed onto them, scanning the horizon. ‘I bet he’s back on the bloody yard.’ She looked down at Petra, the big smile doing its magical thing of lifting Petra’s spirits. ‘What ages are your children?’

  ‘Sixteen, thirteen, ten and eight.’

  She clambered down, blue gaze neon bright. ‘Then you definitely don’t want to mess around with Bay. Take it from one who’s been where you are – not in the same boat, but in the same white water. They are never interested in your children. GEORGE!’ Jumping back down, she marched off, disappearing with a cheery wave as the ground dropped away.

  *

  At first Pip thought that nobody had been in the Old Almshouses since her last visit, the key in its usual place, a thick wad of post on the mat. Tying the dog to the gate, she started by cleaning out the back of her car, flicking the regurgitated cake onto the drive with a dustpan, then vacuuming the seat with Kit Donne’s flashy Dyson, spraying the interior liberally with a dusty Molton Brown room scent she’d found in his downstairs loo and leaving the doors open to air it.

  The dog watched her with interest, whippy tail waving cautiously. It had eyes like Kevin from Corrie, all love-me deviance.

  ‘You’re not getting back in my car wearing that aftershave,’ she told it.

  The downstairs wet room in Kit Donne’s holiday house was much better suited to washing a large dog than her parents’ disability-adapted walk-in bath. Her cats would have none of it either, not to mention the pale cream Axminster carpets on which her parents had laid grippy plastic runners. She was sure Kit wouldn’t mind: he seemed a very laid-back sort, sending her occasional absent-minded texts to check all was well and ask if he needed to pay her.

  Showering the dog was a messy business – it kept wriggling around and drinking the water out of the nozzle attachment. Pip’s trousers and socks got so soaked that she was forced to peel them off and put them into the tumble-dryer.

  Dressed in just her pants and pink fleece, she gave the dog a wide berth, taking a photograph with her smartphone. ‘Who do you belong to, then?’

  Its collar, which she’d taken off for its wash, had a brass ID tag so worn all she could make out was GEO and 711.

  Pip made herself instant hot chocolate while the pointer hared around the house, shaking vigorously and running its back along all the sofas before settling into an armchair, gazing at her with big, mournful eyes.

  On her previous visits, Pip had discovered that if she sat in the oriel window overlooking the lane and angled herself left, she could pick up Mrs Hedges’ unsecured broadband, which she did now to post a Stray Dog Found notice on her Facebook wall, tagging in all the villagers she was friends with. She then updated her Tinder profile with its new tagline and a super-flattering selfie achieved by holding the phone directly overhead and looking up into it, as if she was in a dentist’s chair, cheeks sucked in and eyes wide, then fading the contrast and applying a sepia effect. It was almost pretty. She swiped right on a few new local profiles – the heavily tattooed ‘JD’, profile just ‘hardcore countryman’ looked exciting: all his pics were of his torso, a full bodysuit of colourful Gothic-work.

  She watched out of the window as a troop of ramblers yomped past. She always enjoyed sitting there, the village tramping by unaware of her spyglass outlook behind the overgrown front garden. The house still made her slightly uneasy – it was dark, cottagey and far too cluttered – but now she’d mastered the double oven, and found an internet sweet spot, she was an increasingly regular visitor. She thought of it as ‘planning sessions’ for her declutter.

  She’d had a basic tidy-up straight after getting the job – recycling the leftie newspapers, laying mouse traps, retuning and dusting the little television she’d found in a cupboard, wiping down the kitchen and trying out its gadgets – but there was no rush to deep-clean Kit Donne’s as far as she could tell. A brief text from his buff, bearded son had told her he and his sister had no immediate plans to visit. Pip justified holding off her big guns until she had an arrival date. She liked to think she was getting a feel for the place, earning her fee by keeping it lived and baked in.

  Now she spotted an Evening Standard dated three days ago in the basket by the wood-burner and felt a flash of embarrassed irritation: one of Kit’s children must have been here. Probably the daughter, she deduced, finding the crossword half completed in purple ink and swirly flower doodles in the margins, although it never did to jump to assumptions with theatrical types. Further investigation revealed two beds had been slept in, one by a disposable-contact-lens wearer, who’d tossed the packaging into the bin, the other by a fan of dental floss and face wipes. No evidence pointed to sex having taken place, or anything remotely rock and roll. There were a lot of squeezed herb teabags in the bin under the sink, with an empty Hobnobs packet, and two mineral-water
bottles in the recycling.

  Pip, who had researched Kit’s family extensively, knew that the daughter, working as a junior stage manager, was doing a season at Pitlochry, which had seemed a safe distance, the son rehearsing in Manchester, and their father in New York. Having thought of the Old Almshouses as her own personal bolthole, she felt spied upon as she settled uneasily back into the window-seat, peeved that the client’s family might swan in at whim when she had a professional mandate to bake in advance, call in Feather Dusters and now also get rid of any strong smell of wet dog. A quick check of the daughter’s Instagram feed confirmed that she had been to a music festival in Cornwall, so she must have called in on her way through. She eased open the window a fraction.

  The pointer was still watching her from the armchair, curled into a tight ball, eyes mournful. Nobody had replied to the Dog Found post on her wall. Pip checked out Roo Verney’s Facebook profile again while she waited. Verity’s niece had already posted several pictures of today’s hunt, but made no mention of Pip’s heroic rescue, which was disappointing.

  A red dot started flashing. A moment later, the South Midlands Hunt Monitors was broadcasting live.

  ‘So here I am in the heart of bloody Cotswolds hunt country, although I might have got my cs and fs muddled there,’ Roo reported, in a breathless undertone with a close-up of her large chin and pearls, like a mutant Clare Balding. ‘Let’s see if they’re legal or not, shall we?’ One blue eye appeared in shot followed by the sky and the sound of pounding Welligogs soles.

  Amid lots of camera shake, swearing, panting and foot-shots featuring muddy paths, the khaki chests and gloves of countrymen, Roo did an impressive bit of reportage from the footpath. ‘Hear that? That’s the huntsman’s horn calling away. They’re on the sod-twatting scent and you can bet it’s a virgin one: never been laid. And here’s a pissing foot-follower. Bloody bugger me!’

  Pip’s eyes widened as she saw Blair Robertson’s handsome, craggy face home into lop-sided focus on her phone screen, then heard Roo’s breathy posh-Adele voice laughing: ‘No fucking way! You’re here! I know you’re a shit, but this takes the soggy bloody biscuit, this does.’

  ‘Roo. Hi.’ His deep voice was urgent. ‘I’m looking for George.’

  A deep bark at close quarters made Pip drop the phone in alarm.

  The pointer had bounced across the room and was now sniffing the phone, tail wagging, jumping and head cocked as Blair’s voice shouted, ‘GEORGE!’

  Then Roo’s yelled, ‘They’re coming this way!’

  Pip made a nervous grab for her phone but the dog growled, making her recoil and knock it under a side table holding a bust of Shakespeare dressed in a dusty flat cap. The phone had started reverberating with the sound of hounds and Roo in full cry.

  ‘Get out of my way, Blair. I need to film this.’

  The horn trilled. Blair was elbowed aside. ‘Christ, that bloody hurt!’

  George bounced and barked.

  A moment later he was wearing the flat cap and Shakespeare was in bits.

  Roo’s breathless voice was still talking from somewhere beneath the debris. ‘You shouldn’t have got in the way. That’s a lot of blood. Oh, shit, I think my battery’s about to—’ The live feed stopped abruptly.

  George crept behind the coffee-table and looked at Pip guiltily while she surveyed the damage. Retrieving her phone, she took a photograph of cowering dog and bust as evidence, then strode to the front door and, holding it open, whistled as heartily as she could. ‘Here, boy! Your master’s hurt. They’re three fields that way.’ She pointed, shoved him outside and slammed the door.

  Satisfied that she had done as much as she could, Pip cleared the bust into a bin liner, then put on a big striped apron to hide her bare legs from passers-by as she took it outside.

  The dog was leaning against the front door. He fell gratefully against her when she opened it and heeled her to the bins. When Pip changed her mind and took the binbag to the car – her parents’ voices in her head telling her to superglue the bust at home – he jumped into the back seat.

  ‘Out! Three fields that way!’ she ordered, tugging her fleece hem over her bottom as she saw him off the premises. Then, remembering the ingredients she’d packed into the boot to make scones, she perked up: she could make them here while she waited for her trousers to dry. The Almshouses oven was far better than the stud one.

  George was waiting in the porch, flopping down on the step and wriggling beseechingly.

  ‘Shoo! Just go away!’ She aimed a kick at his backside, missed and fell among the wellies, dropping a box of eggs. Thoroughly wound up now, Pip slammed the door so hard that a picture fell off the wall beside it.

  *

  Lester watched the fox cub settle in the old ferret hutch, circling like a puppy on the old towel he’d put inside after the animal’s hour of pacing and scrabbling. He was an exquisite little thing, sharp-nosed and timorous, infancy still gifting him the charm of vulnerability. He fell asleep almost immediately, the rise and fall of his little chestnut ribcage just visible through the dry, leafy bedding Lester had lined it with from his bonfire pile.

  The chestnut cob was also resigned to his strange surroundings, tack off, belly full of close-cropped sweet lawn grass, legs full of hunting. Having rolled extensively on Lester’s freshly dug brassica bed, he was nodding off in the suntrap by the high wall of the stable-yard, the skin on his shoulder twitching as a fly landed there. His lower lip drooped. Stubbs dozed on the back doorstep having squeaky dreams of rabbit hunting.

  Only Lester was wide awake, fingers drumming, furious at his own pusillanimity. In old age being timorous had no charm. While by nature solitary, he resented lying low when there were horses to care for.

  He started pulling up the old bean canes to keep busy, stacking them against his little greenhouse and throwing the withered plants onto the compost pile. He’d often thought of his garden as an oasis, a place he could survive through a war if he kept the gate locked and the beds tended. At its best it produced ample to keep a man in vegetables year-round, plus eggs from a chicken run and soft fruit from the cages. But there had been too much to do lately to maintain it, and Lester was happy to eat his meat pies and be done. He’d never been much of a one for this five-a-day nonsense. He had only ever cultivated the garden to produce gifts for Ann Percy.

  He stopped to listen beyond the wall, hearing a distant shout. These days Ronnie sounded very like her mother, whose smoker’s voice had been Ovaltine comforting, despite her no-nonsense briskness. When first at the stud, Lester had developed an adoration for Ann Percy that had threatened to break him, but he’d been little more than a lad in those days, with no sense of who he was or where his feelings would lead him. It was easier with animals. You knew you hadn’t long to wait to win their trust. As Johnny used to say: ‘With horse and hound you have straightforward loyalty and instinct. Love is a human invention.’

  The mother of all invention, as Lester had discovered just once in his life.

  ‘George!... Blair!’ Her shouts drew closer, impatience snapping through the smoky voice. ‘Christ, I’m going to miss this bloody appointment. Lester, are you still in there?’

  If he was going to put it right, he knew he couldn’t sail away in his garden ark. Instinct and loyalty might tell him not to respond, but he was already walking towards the door in the wall. As he did so, he heard the opening notes of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, a phrase of music so familiar it almost took him down. He stopped in his tracks, asthma already rattling in his chest, its fingers on his throat. It was an anthem to his sorrows, played so often all those years ago that the vinyl had worn down to crackles. Where was it coming from?

  It took him a moment to realise it was her phone ringing, the music snatched away from him as she answered it just beyond the door.

  ‘Where are you? Have you found him?... We have to go... Yes, I can check there again.’ Her voice moved away.

  Breath shortening by the second, Lester h
urried inside for his inhaler.

  28

  Baking always calmed Pip. Ignoring the whining outside the door, she sifted and crumbled, shaped and cut out. Eventually the whining stopped. Good. The dog was a waste of cakes.

  So was Petra Gunn. Pip was beginning to feel just a little bit used. She’d still had no response from her messages and posts about Black Tom. Petra was too scatty to benefit from such loyalty, too wilful and ungrateful. At least with Lester she knew what to expect – her curmudgeonly and cake-loving colleague, so hunting mad he’d ride off and abandon even the best of friends, baking and lost gundogs to follow his beloved hounds. That was true countryman pith. The Captain would be proud.

  When she’d put the scones into the oven, Pip checked her Facebook messages by the window. Several people claimed to have spotted pointer George in the village in the last few minutes. To her frustration, he was heading completely the wrong way – chasing a cat through the churchyard, then lifting a leg on the vicarage gatepost.

  He gave me the slip! She posted hastily to cover her back, adding, Knocked me over to sound a bit more heroic, along with a sad face.

  Nobody replied.

  Feeling hurt, Pip vacuumed around the table from which the bust had fallen, then searched for something to put on top of it instead. There was a pretty mother-of-pearl-inlaid writing box buried among the books and old papers on the big desk that she dusted down and placed there, peeking inside. It was crammed with hand-written letters, the old-fashioned sort that she’d been told Verity Verney liked. These were all in the same round, bold hand, a mixture of thick cream envelopes and whispery blue airmail, all addressed to Hermia Donne. Love letters from Kit, maybe.

  She plucked one out. It was dated 1992.

  My darling H, it started. She cast her eye to the end where it was signed off with just R xxx.

  The contents spoke of horses and theatre, lovers and dogs in a chatty gush. Definitely not a man unless he was professing that Lion has a terribly bad back again, which means making love with me astride on top is our only option. Is it terribly wicked to admit I rode the intermediate dressage test for Floors Castle in my head last night? He loved counter canter.