by Fiona Walker
Lester stared at the leather album cover. The mantelpiece clock ticked, Stubbs barked again in the kitchen, and he could hear the saliva in his mouth draw across his dry tongue as he swallowed. He waited, braced.
‘I know how much you loved him, Lester.’
He looked down at his gnarled fingers, saw they were shaking.
He waited, braced for more, for the euphemisms to drop away and all the modern nonsense to come out of her mouth. Like a terrier, Ronnie never held back when she was digging out a truth. That she had known about him and Johnny was never in doubt – she’d challenged them both before she bolted – but she had never betrayed them.
She said nothing, the blue eyes on him.
Unlike the other guests at the Ledwells’ big white wedding, Lester had born as black a heart as a funeral guest. Ronnie had been led up to her marriage like an excited young mare straight off the track brought into a covering barn. The stallion did his duty. Johnny was a dutiful man, a proud father, a brilliant horseman and, at first, an exemplary buttoned-up drunk. He was a gay man following a long tradition of rural repression as he collaborated in a well-matched marriage. But he’d married Ronnie Percy, and she saw truth in people as sharply as she saw honesty and good conformation in horses. She saw the love affair before they ever did.
‘He loved you too,’ she said now.
One ill-fated marriage, two men who had never found each other’s like, three children born in quick succession, back to four-star eventing, five months as Angus Bowman’s lover and she was gone. Knocked for six, Johnny and Lester had retreated into opposite corners. One closed his door while the other drank himself into an early grave.
For years, Lester had blamed Ronnie. But now she was the only one who had ever been brave enough to say it as it was. He had known what it was to love and be loved.
‘Will you excuse me?’
In the kitchen, he put Stubbs’s food down, spilling most of it. He took the second bowl outside, the cold air like a sheet of glass, numbing his face, his hands shaking even more.
The fox was curling to and fro against the wire, bold now, eyes gleaming, teeth smiling.
He couldn’t get the latch open. These stupid, shaking old fingers.
Her warm hand closed over his, taking the bowl, then opening the cage to slip it inside. ‘A fox indeed.’ Her voice had its familiar husky base note. ‘You’re full of secrets, Lester.’
She took his hands in hers, curling her dextrous, rein-callused fingers through his stiff, gnarled ones and raised them to her lips. And he knew the seven magpies were safe.
*
Pip was having the night of her life as they marched from house to house around Compton Magna’s village green, Ding-Donging and O-Coming, with Brian’s running commentary in between. She didn’t usually drink spirits – she’d never liked the taste – but the sloe gin was no worse than cough medicine, and she didn’t want Petra and Bay to think she was too juvenile. Tonight she was finally part of the village in-crowd, companion to two of its inner circle. Petra and Bay were like the wise older siblings she’d never had in a Narnia adventure. Or kissing cousins maybe.
Outside number two, the Green, she watched them share a song-sheet through ‘Silent Night’, all bass and alto, laughter and sarcasm. Pip had always thought it a very romantic carol. Elvis had sung it on her mother’s favourite Christmas album, played every year at home. A teenage Pauline Edwards had closed her eyes and imagined dancing to it with Shane Lynch from Boyzone. She’d written Shane over three hundred fan letters until her parents put a stop to it because the stamps were costing too much. Grown-up Pip still held a candle for her favourite tattooed boy. Bay and Petra were Christmas-special pop-video stars, a soap- opera tryst in the frosty Comptons.
‘You two look so good together,’ she said eagerly, when the carol ended.
They cleared their throats and stepped apart, but Pip thought they looked secretly pleased.
Pip generally disliked physical contact, but she didn’t mind Bay’s arm hooked around hers, especially the laughter that rippled through him when Petra made a whispered aside, which she did a lot as they moved on and Brian delivered his village tour.
‘As many of you know, Compton Magna is a Victorian model village that was built on the site of what was once Earl’s Compton, a medieval settlement destroyed by plague long before the county boundary sliced through the Comptons, putting one in Gloucestershire and the other in Warwickshire...’
‘He really should have his own YouTube channel,’ Bay murmured.
‘Welcome to veeeeCompton,’ Petra mimicked a geeky blogger.
Both parents of tweeny girls, they snorted like their offspring.
Pip thought again how perfectly suited they were.
Despite her companions’ derision, she was enjoying Brian’s local history lecture, none of which she’d heard before.
‘Magna means “great”,’ Brian explained, as they headed through open wrought-iron gates and along the Old Vicarage’s grand drive. ‘It’s usually accompanied by a “Parva” meaning “small”, and it may be that another village was planned but never built. The Bingham-Percy family were great philanthropists and they asked the celebrated architect Richard Norman Shaw to design their model village full of his trademark quirks to make it look more historic.
‘The cottages were for the estate’s workers, plus the retired and the poor. Grander houses, like this vicarage and the stud, were built for Percy family members, who had fallen on hard times.’ Brian threw his arms wide in front of the Old Vicarage, its Cotswold-stone walls floodlit so it looked like Caribbean sand, windows glowing like bullion bars, every inch the gold-plated des-res. ‘Thus a poor country curate was furnished with a house worthy of a canon.’ He pulled the grand bell with a flourish and the carol singers launched into ‘Deck the Halls’.
Inside, several lights were quietly extinguished. Nobody came to the door.
‘It’s owned by a Middle Eastern art dealer,’ Petra whispered to Pip. ‘I don’t think he does Christmas. The first Sunday he moved in, he lodged an official complaint about the volume of the church bells.’
‘He donated a mint to help stop the Travellers’ village,’ said Bay.
‘My guess is he’d give even more to move the rest of us further away right now,’ giggled Petra, singing louder.
The art dealer remained in lock-down, quite possibly wearing ear defenders. Eventually the carollers gave up. They all trooped off, the wrought-iron gates closing ominously behind them, the huge stone eagles on the top of each gatepost watching them go, like nightclub doormen eyeing a group rejected for wearing jeans and trainers.
So far they’d collected less than ten pounds – the holiday cottagers had been a mean lot – but they were indefatigably full of Christmas cheer and spiked punch.
*
Still in the little garden of Stables Cottage, Ronnie stood beside Lester as they listened to the carol singers in the distance, raucous bursts of laughter breaking through the familiar tunes.
‘I love this village when it puts on a good show.’ She smiled. ‘I told them not to come up here. I feel rather mean now. Daddy used to shout at them – do you remember? Told them he couldn’t hear his radio.’
‘You’ve got to stay,’ he pleaded. ‘You belong here.’
She shook her head. ‘If things had worked out with the children, then maybe it would be different, but it’s best this way. They’ll start to feel they belong here again when I’m out of the way. I’ll keep a close eye from Germany, and I’ll come back to visit. I want to see that dun foal growing. He’s our sire, Lester, wait and see. I’ll find you others.’
‘The grey stallion’s a fine horse. Give me time with him.’
‘You’re far too precious.’
‘Too old, you mean.’
‘We both are. He’s a young soul. He needs the same in a handler.’
‘If you say so.’
‘There are lots of brilliant young whipper-snappers in Holl
and and Germany. I’m a relic, but they’re very good at looking after well-bred old mares too.’
He eyed her wisely, ‘You’d stay at the drop of a hat if the children asked you to.’
‘That’s not going to happen.’
He took a deep, unsteady breath. ‘What if I tell them the truth?’
‘No, Lester. Absolutely not. I won’t do it to you, and it won’t help. It’s not about that any more – or about Angus or my parents, come to that. It’s about me, their trust in me. Daddy knew that. It’s why he left things the way he did. One earns trust.’
‘You have my trust, Ronnie.’ It was the first time since childhood he’d said her name as naturally as family.
‘Good. Now let’s have another cup of tea and watch some television soaps together, like we used to. I could really use the company, if that’s okay. I find the house rather bleak. You do still like soaps, don’t you?’
‘I should say so.’
50
Having forgotten her vow to monitor her drinking, Petra was feeling more spirited with every swig of a hip flask. They’d emptied hers and started on Bay’s: a faintly fruity ethanol to her mildly alcoholic cordial, it was something he took with him hunting three times a week nicknamed Sloe de Vie and practically a hallucinogen.
‘I just want to warn you,’ she told him firmly between ‘See Amid the Winter’s Snow’ and ‘Joy to the World’, quoting Prudie’s favourite CBBC teen soap, ‘that our “ship” is called Friend and nobody sails to Love Island on it, okay? Or Knob Bay, come to that.’
Bay seemed impressed. And Pip squeezed her arm afterwards, whispering, ‘That was beautiful.’
‘You heard?’
‘I think most of us did. You said it really quite loudly.’
Refusing any more Sloe de Vie, Petra sang lustily as they went from house to house, including the Walcotes’ capacious and scruffy half-timbered cottage where they crowded in front of the porch and sang ‘We Three Kings’, three of her children forming part of a polite, yawning line-up, the youngest in pyjamas, the oldest wearing earphones, all dying to get back to their game-playing.
‘Mum’s turnt AF,’ Ed observed.
‘Mummy’s rather wasted,’ Bella translated.
Around the corner opposite the church, one of Pip’s ‘oldies’ distributed a tray of mince pies from the same batch Brian had stashed in his kitchen, kept warm on her Rayburn, as sweet and melting as Christmas kisses.
Petra ate two, keen to sober up.
Moving closer, Bay brushed pastry flakes off her scarf. ‘Did I spot your children having a sleepover?’
‘“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”!’ Brian rallied his singers. ‘Turn your sheets over.’
Petra’s fluttered to the ground. Bending down to retrieve it as the others started singing, her head felt like a dropped bowling ball.
‘...from angels bending near the earth...’ Bay sang as he stooped, too, picking it up and handing it to her. ‘Rare to have the place to yourself, I imagine.’ He helped her up, gloved fingers threading through hers. ‘...from Heaven’s all gracious King!’
Singing the next two lines, Petra wondered if that had been a forbidden invitation to join her, the Obelisk of Luxor suddenly looming in her mind’s eye.
‘Fitz is home,’ she told him cheerily, as the verse ended, sidling into a subgroup of Compton Women’s Institute grandees for protection as they sang about angels flying through the cloven skies. Above their heads, those over Compton Magna held a capacity crowd of stars to watch over them this evening, the predicted snow clouds yet to draw their curtains across it.
Petra loved the village at night. It was a gingerbread-cottage metropolis, illuminating its sugary perfection through little mullioned windows, frost sparkling on stone-tiled roofs, no light pollution on the horizon to dull the sparkling canopy overhead. They could have been extras in a Dickensian drama.
She found herself wishing again that Charlie was there.
At which moment, quietly and internally, Petra had the closest thing to an epiphany she could remember, her husband’s beautiful balding head above her amid the stars, haloed in light, arms wide. The Obelisk crumbled, the SMC shrivelled, her head cleared and she felt overwhelmingly, ball-breakingly in control.
Bay had pursued her through the delighted lady grandees, Pip at his heels, as they all filtered through the narrow gate to the beautiful Old Almshouses, now converted into one home, no welcoming lights on show, its walls glowing silver by moonlight.
‘I bet he’s gone back to London,’ grumbled the WI chairperson. ‘He’s never here. Oh, he’s left mince pies in the porch, look!’
‘Kit was married to my late aunt.’ Bay helped steady Pip, who was already swaying, unaccustomed to drinking anything stronger than a Bailey’s at Christmas, let alone Sloe de Vie. ‘Aunt Hermia was an actress.’
‘Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee,’ Pip quoted brightly, hanging off his arm.
‘That’s the inscription on her headstone,’ Bay said in surprise, as the carol singers gathered at the base of a concrete ramp.
‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Petra identified.
‘I always like to stop and read that poem when I’m popping in on Mum and Dad.’
‘Kit comes here occasionally to put flowers on her grave, but he never stays long. My cousins use the cottage sometimes.’
‘Oh, he’s still here,’ Pip told them, nodding at the house. ‘He puts dream-catchers on her grave now, but he never sleeps much. He’s like the Captain. Pays me not to clean.’
Brian had finished his informative talk on the Old Almshouses and they began ‘While Shepherds Watched’.
The Angel of the Lord barely had time to come down when the door was thrown open and a shadowy figure dressed in what appeared to be a red sleeping bag and boxers thrust a tenner at them before slamming it shut.
‘I’m sure he just said, “Bugger off,”’ gasped one of the elderly do-gooders.
‘Bloody rude,’ Brian muttered, under his breath.
‘Keeps himself in good shape,’ said the chairman of the tennis club. ‘I wonder if he wants to make up a mixed doubles next season.’
Bay leaned against Petra as he was briefly gripped by silent giggles, Sloe de Vie working like laughing gas. She had this covered now, stepping neatly away so that he almost fell over, and brushing down her coat. She was a mother of four, a parish councillor, and a lapsed Brown Owl. From now on, she would be filled with seasonal kindness, and no longer acting like a teenager trying to get off with the best-looking boy at a Christmas disco. Christ, were Bay’s fingers threading through her hair now?
Reaching up to bat them away and finding it was just an overhanging branch, she looked around for her chaperone. ‘How are you doing, Pip?’
‘Brilliant!’ Pip was dangling off Bay’s arm, hooking the other through Petra’s and pulling the three of them together. ‘This is one of the best nights of my life.’
‘We need to get you out more,’ Bay said, as Petra was drawn clumsily against him again, noses glancing off, eyes far too close. His held her gaze in the half-dark. Somewhere in a time capsule ‘Last Christmas’ was being played in a Yorkshire Dales village hall and he was asking her to dance. And while as a giggly fourteen-year-old she might have melted happily when faced with a teenage Lothario, her forty-four-year-old self had far too much to lose. She looked sharply away.
Mighty dread had seized Brian’s troubled mind as he spirited his singers towards Upper Bagot Farmhouse and its gated complex of converted barns, aware that they were well down on last year’s carol-singing total at this stage, and that had been conducted in a monsoon. He needed to inspire his troops. ‘The Plum Run is so-called because there have been fruit orchards planted here for five hundred years or more, taking advantage of loam said to be so fertile you could grow Syrah vines here...’
‘I think Bay Austen likes you,’ Pip said, in a loud stage-whisper, as she clung to Petra. She was veering onto the verges more often than a
speeding tractor now.
‘He likes us both,’ Petra said firmly.
‘I’m really sorry to disappoint you, Petra,’ Pip whispered, ‘but I don’t do threesomes.’
*
In the Orchard Estate, Carly was trying to get Sienna to settle, but the toddler was standing in her cot, dummy in mouth, chubby fingers gripping the sides, lungs bursting with sobs. The sound was both heartbreaking and head-splitting. Carly had Jackson in her arms, crying too. He was due his bedtime feed – she’d been getting the milk ready when Sienna had kicked off.
A shadow fell in the door and she looked round gratefully, ready to hand the baby to Ash, but it was Ellis, cast into a giant by the low stairs light. ‘Mum, I had another accident.’
Closing her eyes, temples tightening, she kept her voice low and calm. ‘Have you wet the bed again, baby?’
‘No! Promise!’ His little voice was high and anxious. ‘I climbed up to look at the people singing and the curtains fell down.’ He burst into noisy tears.
Hugging him to her, Carly felt a flash of white-noise frustration. The curtain rail had been dangling by its Rawlplugs for ages and she’d asked Ash to fix it more than once. It had taken its final plunge while his neighbours were spreading tidings of great joy and Ash was on a crime bender. At least this time it was a virtual one.
