The Country Set
Page 71
Father Willy was threatening to get sexy again. She deleted the message, casting the phone aside and starting to type: ‘This shouldn’t be happening,’ he rasped into her ear, the serpent uncoiling in his cassock, ‘but I’m glad it is.’
The hand stung against his face, like a small oar slapping the water. ‘No, it isn’t.’
‘Ha!’ Petra clicked her fingers over the keyboard, looking forward to the battle ahead.
*
In the Old Almshouses, buried in notebooks filled with his thoughts on Siegfried Sassoon, Kit looked up as the first fireworks went off, so evocative of war that he returned to his page with a new percussion underlining every word. When he finally paused to pour himself a whisky, he glanced up at the dream-catcher over the window. Nothing would be trapped in its net again tonight, Kit predicted. It was all far too wide awake in his head.
*
On the Broadbourne road, the Bulrushes was set high enough above the lane for Pip to peek over its laurel hedge and across the cricket pitch to the orchards and beyond, the view from the Bulrushes’ dining-room window affording her an excellent view of the huge bonfire and colourful little explosions.
She’d been on Tinder for more than an hour, right swiping like a supermarket till worker, and still made no matches. In the light of her JD experience, Pip was wise to being ghosted, bread-crumbed, benched and zombied, but so far she’d only ever been conned. Getting anyone to like her in the first place was her biggest hallenge. Despite everything, she missed her tattooed suitor, his love of KitKats and intimate selfies.
She gave up and looked at Facebook. A few villagers had posted firework shots. Petra Gunn’s mother-in-law, who had recently accepted Pip’s friendship request, was live streaming, commentating in a Penelope-Keith-visits-the-provinces voice that this was a quaint example of a community putting together a modest celebration, pictures cutting from close-ups of the Gunns’ strange teenager with ketchup on his nose and chin, telling her she was embarrassing him, to long shots of a white-looking Ash Turner lighting fuses and sprinting away. Then, with a bang and screech, a streak of light would snake across the screen a few seconds after it had sparkled in the bungalow’s picture window, thanks to the streaming delay. Which was why, when the window lit up, like the chandelier department of Laura Ashley, and the bangs made her jump even at this distance, she knew the footage was about to get interesting. On and on it went, explosions incessant, the screen action joining the window one, overlapping and echoing as every colour of the rainbow discoed. The bangs and flashes took almost a minute to end. On screen, everything had disappeared into smog.
‘Shit, that was loud! I dropped my bap. Are you all right, Gunny?’
‘Fine. Weren’t they splendid? That’s much more like it.’
‘I said no Category Four fireworks!’ shouted a reedy voice. ‘Who supplied that one? That was not on my check-list! Stop the event!’
Losing interest, Pip clicked away and checked through other statuses.
Roo Verney, who had been busy hunt-monitoring that weekend, was relaxing at the gym, posting a selfie taken on a bench press in Joules joggers, revealing an impressive flowered shoulder tattoo. Pip pressed like, then scrolled on.
Seconds later a private message popped up: You still rally-driving round that pretty village? Fancy getting together before Christmas?
Pip wasn’t sure if she was ghosting, bread-crumbing or benching, but she ignored it.
*
Carly had never seen Ash so glazed-over. It was as though he’d retreated far beneath the muscular man who now walked his family home, leaving a shell. They’d got the fireworks going again, the cider tent doing roaring trade, the bonfire still a giant tower of flames, but Ash had stepped down at Brian Hicks’s request. The officious little organiser blamed him for sneaking in a professional-grade firework that should have been set off by an expert at four times the distance, accusing him of doing it as a practical joke. Ash hadn’t put up much of a defence. He was too shocked.
He was still pretending nothing was wrong, but his hands were jumping with shakes, his cheeks running with muscles, eyes hollow.
‘Was it Jed, d’you think?’
He shook his head.
‘It’s one of them. They did it deliberately to get at you.’
‘Leave it, Carl.’
‘They don’t like you being the hero, the family leader.’
‘It was orrrsome!’ Ellis shouted, his new word, learned at school. ‘You was orrrsome, Dad. You are the bestest dad in the world.’ He smashed the broken ’Splorer Stick into the verges. ‘When I grow up I’m gonna be just like you.’
‘Get the kid a new duster,’ Ash told Carly.
*
Lying in a deep bubble bath talking to the Horsemaker on hands-free, while he ate his lunch on a derby bank admiring two thousand acres of Ontario stud farm, Ronnie tried to make Lester sound like an appealing proposition: ‘He’s been here for ever, a total grafter. Typical horseman, so doesn’t say a lot, like you.’
‘Think he’ll mind me taking over?’
‘He’ll get used to it.’
‘You can play matchmaker. You’re great like that.’
‘Thing is,’ she sank a little lower in the bath, bubbles breaking on the nape of her neck, ‘I won’t be here.’
Part 6
CHRISTMAS CAROLS, MINCE PIES AND CRACKER PULLING
48
‘Get up. You have so bloody overslept! Look at that cold tea.’
Kit jerked awake and looked round. Nobody was there. How often had she been his alarm clock? The bedside tea, frustrated laughter, a newspaper dropped on his face.
‘Whisky, not tea.’ He squinted at the dregs of the Scotch bottle in a glass on the coffee-table. ‘Sorry.’
He’d fallen asleep on the sofa again. He’d spent four weeks here now and he had yet to sleep on a bed for more than two consecutive nights. He had to pull himself together.
As he sat up, photograph albums spilled from his lap. Kit had no recollection of looking at them. This was getting bad if he was having blackouts. Perhaps he should ditch the Bardswolds sabbatical plan early and return to London for the next two months.
The pictures were old Hermia ones, dating back before his time, which was probably why he’d passed out, with no emotional hubris to jolt him awake still feeling the memory hurting him. She’d been Hermione then, a name delivered with sharp upper-cut end, like eeny-meeny-miney.
Hermione on ponies. Lots of Hermione on ponies with her friend Ronnie.
‘You will love her.’ That increasingly painful paean, like the Bowie and Stones tracks she’d loved listening to, which had left him as baffled as his jazz left her.
She smiled up at him from dozens of different rectangles. Hermione as a bridesmaid, in her school uniform with the fierce nuns, laughing at tables crowded with Austens and parties crowded with other girls, hugging a goat, more ponies and pony tailed friend. ‘You will so love her!’
Hermione as puberty encroached, disturbingly desirable, the eyes more challenging, the body closer to the one he’d known, touched, loved and pleasured. Her first Box Brownie camera had promoted the photograph albums to something closer to secret diaries. Hermione smoking with you-will-love-her Ronnie, partying, sitting in a Mini with a gang of boys as cool as the Kinks – who were they? – a few more ponies, horses maybe, and the theatrical productions she’d regaled Kit with, rendering him in stitches. The Peter Brook-inspired Midsummer Night’s Dream was a particular favourite – there were the two girls swinging on tyres over the church meadows pond, then dancing in and out of the standing stones, one sporting donkey ears and flares, and the other – Hermia by now, the girl he’d eventually met and fallen in love with – ravishing in a diaphanous kaftan.
He flipped the page. A close-up of the donkey pulling her ears across her eyes and poking out her tongue, holding up yet another cigarette.
‘Kit, I promise, you will love her.’
He looked at the faci
ng page. Hermia, wise eyes straight to the camera, obviously a bit pissed, leaning back against a tree.
‘I bloody loved you.’ He reached for the whisky, not caring that the church clock was striking two. Then he remembered the bottle was empty.
*
‘A month in the country is about as long as a man can take,’ he told Ferdie, as he walked to the farm shop, a journey he made regularly enough to be nicknamed Don’t Look Now in the village because of the red coat that had been spotted dashing along Lord’s Brook, in the graveyard and on the Green, his antisocial excursions the object of much fascination.
‘So the Withnail & I experiment is coming to an end, dear boy?’
‘I haven’t decided.’
Kit had started off so well, reading the Sherston trilogy within forty-eight hours of arriving, his first week spent making notes and mapping out scenes, his second sketching out sections of dialogue, reconnecting with a voice so wise and resonant it spoke inside his head as he slept.
But it wasn’t Siegfried Sassoon’s voice that stayed with him night and day. It was Hermia’s, always so bright and perceptive, encouraging him, challenging him and constantly interrupting. He couldn’t bear to leave it but she was seriously impeding progress. Her grave was now covered with dream-catchers.
‘Well, at least while you’re there you’re not chasing skirt in dressing rooms. About time you gave the old cartso some time off. Or struck up an acquaintance with the village panto’s principal boy to tide you over.’
‘The entire cast of Mother Goose orgy with me nightly.’
‘Drinking much?’ He’d picked up on the soft edges to Kit’s consonants.
‘Not as much as I’d like, Big Daddy. A drinking man’s someone who wants to forget he isn’t still young an’ believing.’ He’d adopted a southern drawl as Brick from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Pip Edwards had been ordering Kit’s groceries online, a random selection of ping-meals that suited his needs perfectly, although there always seemed to be a lot left at the end of each week that he had to throw out because they went out of date, whereas the litre of whisky and half-dozen bottles of red he put on the list were finished days before the next delivery. He supplemented the shortfall at the farm shop, Cornwall’s finest perfume-bottle malt and a fruitily acidic pinot noir from a Warwickshire vineyard that cost more than a theatre company’s bar bill on wrap night.
‘What are you doing for Christmas?’ Ferdie was asking. ‘Donald’s found a recipe for a superb five-bird roast.’
‘Thank you,’ he said carefully. ‘I’ll give it some thought, if I may. I want to try to get to see the kids – they’re both doing rep in far-flung corners.’
‘In which case they’ll be Christmas-ing with the company, and you’ll be free. There, we’ve thought it through already. Your answer is a gracious “yes”.’
He laughed, deflecting. ‘I’ll try to get to Stratford to see you, now I’ve got a car.’
His three-month ban had just been lifted, the Saab delivered back by a pompous local in whose garage it had been stored, trying to extort tickets for Hamilton the Musical as payment. Kit had let Pip deal with him. While she was something of a thorn in his side, with her daily baking gifts and several attempts to send in cleaners when he was working or napping, her redoubtable eagerness came in extremely useful when he was trying to maintain hermit status. They had reached an understanding whereby he largely hid from her, leaving notes in the porch, and she didn’t knock unless the curtains were open.
For the past three weeks, the farm shop had been gathering a Birnam Wood of overpriced potted Norwegian firs at its entrance, along with blackboards offering hand-reared gold crown turkeys and Toulouse geese. Two small dogs in quilted green jackets tied to one of these boards watched him beadily as he passed. Inside, it was decked in tasteful hygge reindeer bunting and Gisela Graham decorations, selling at twenty pounds a pop, speakers blasting out acoustic carols.
Feeling decidedly Bar Humbug, Kit went in search of his favourite tipple, then stopped in his tracks.
Ronnie Percy was standing right in front of his Scotch – the last bottle in the shop – her farm-shop wicker basket clanking against it as she swung it from hand to hand talking to Hermia’s brother, Sandy.
*
‘You must come for a Christmas drink, Ron. Viv and I count ourselves frightful hosts to miss you at the supper last month. Been stalking in Scotland since then, but no excuse now. Marvellous to have you back. Been out with the Wolds yet?’
‘Awfully busy, unfortunately. Lester’s had a few good runs.’
‘Good man to have in the field. It’s super having Compton Thorns and Scorpion Covert back with the farm. Must have been a wrench letting it go, but Bay’s got a jolly good feel for land. He’ll see it looked after.’
‘Yes.’ Ronnie forced a smile.
She’d been collared by the Austen patriarch on her way to the tills with overpriced bread and cheese. These days, Sandy looked exactly like his late father, the original great hunting rival of the Captain, an old-school industrialist who had taken his family from shop floor to boardroom in a generation. White-haired, florid-faced, in ancient baggy green cords, checked shirt and a jumper that looked as though it had been lining a dog’s bed for a year, Sandy was effusively affable as always. Nine years her senior, Hermia’s eldest brother had always seemed very grown-up, their Famous Five’s Julian.
‘Do you really not have time for coffee? Viv would love to see you. Much more fun than writing more of these.’ He held up the box of Christmas cards he’d been sent for. ‘Every year we order two hundred overtyped ones from the Countryside Alliance and still need fifty more. Isn’t it a bind? Bay and Moni do all theirs on the Internet at the press of a button, sensible things. So, quick coffee, yes?’
‘Another time. I have to get horses ridden.’
‘Never could keep your feet on the ground long.’ He let out an affectionate sigh. ‘Can it really be nearly thirty years? You look marvellous, I must say.’
She was aware of a figure trying to sidle in behind her to get at the shelf, a huge red coat sweeping around, making her step away.
‘Kit Donne, you rogue!’ Sandy bellowed a greeting. ‘Another one eluding my hospitality!’
‘Hello, Sandy.’
As Kit straightened, Ronnie was startled by the bloodshot eyes and fortnight’s beard.
‘You know Ronnie, I take it?’
‘Yes.’
They nodded politely, animosity crackling between them like static.
‘Of course you do! Joined at the hip, Ronnie and my little sister. Hermione spent a long time trying to marry us off so we all had you for keeps, eh, Ron? How are you, Kit? Been beavering away on the next Mousetrap, I hear.’
‘Something like that. Better get back to it.’
‘Not before we all pin down a date for that drink. You must both come!’
Ronnie caught Kit’s eyes and he looked quickly away, but not before she’d read the utter horror in them. ‘I’m sure Kit’s like me, Sandy, and never carries a diary with him to buy a pint of milk – or whisky, even. Why don’t you call us both later? We’ll try to set something up.’
‘Good bally idea.’ He beamed, not budging. ‘It’ll almost feel like old Herms is back with us. Still miss her like stink, especially at Christmas. She loved this time of year, didn’t she?’
Ronnie could see Kit going rigid with the effort of not reacting to this, his gaze fixed on her basket. She could smell whisky on him again. Pip, who gossiped incessantly and kept them up to date on the director’s eccentric working hours whether they wanted to know or not, was always eager to impart just how much of his Tesco.com order was liquid.
‘Either of you going out with the village carol singers tonight?’ Still Sandy kept them pinned. Kit had managed to reverse three steps, Ronnie to edge as far as a display of wine-mulling ingredients.
‘I’m afraid not,’ they said together, as perfectly synchronised as choir members.
She glanced at Kit, still glaring fixedly at her basket as though she was carrying Hermia’s heart in it. She wondered just how drunk he was.
‘Must be such a comfort to have each other to turn to,’ Sandy went on, making it sound like they ate their meals side by side on lap trays. ‘Terrible business, what with poor Herms never getting back to the full packet, and your chap Angus having that tumble racing, Ronnie. Poochie Dacre-Hoare is a mutual friend,’ he explained, seeing Ronnie’s frozen face.
Kit snorted with amusement at the name.
Ronnie stiffened. Surely the awful thing they had in common wasn’t being pointed out by the village’s best host while they were all standing by twenty-six different varieties of craft ale? This was precisely the topic of conversation she’d wanted to avoid around Kit Donne. This, surely, was the reason Hermia had hidden the severity of her injuries from her friend. This was why the letters had stopped. The truth was glossed over. Because Hermia knew that, just a few days after Ronnie had run away to the Lakes with Angus, while they were busy making plans to come back here and ride out the storm, he’d taken a chance ride at a local point-to-point and fallen. And Hermia knew how one instinctive promise, one breathless pledge made in the back of an ambulance to stay and look after him, had impacted on the rest of Ronnie’s life. Hermia had known the scale of the sacrifice, and it was why she’d had no intention of her putting her friend though any of it again.
Now Sandy was discussing Angus’s accident and comparing it with his sister’s as dispassionately as weighing up cattle infections versus crop blight.
‘Not sure if I’d rather lose my mind or my legs, although there’s many would say one’s as empty as the others are hollow in my case! Only heard about old Angus years later, mind you, when Pooch mentioned he was in a wheelchair. Happened soon after you two got it together, didn’t it, Ron? She said he went down in the pack and knew his fate while divots were still being kicked in his face. Not like Herms, who never knew what hit her. Tough on you two either way, a thing like that happening to someone you love. Don’t envy either of you, holding it all together for all those years.’