The Country Set

by Fiona Walker

  Downstairs, the sound of handbrake turns and gunfire pounded out. Ash was playing Grand Theft Auto. It was so loud, Carly couldn’t hear the carol singers, but she was determined to spread that joy in her children’s teary bedtime world.

  ‘Right, you lot.’ She hooked Jackson under one arm, dropped the side of Sienna’s cot with a skilful knee and lifted her with the other arm. ‘Let’s listen to the singers. What’s your favourite Christmas song?’

  ‘“Jingle Bells”!’ Ellis cheered, reaching for his ’Splorer Stick.

  Sienna stopped crying, wet eyes blinking, excitement dawning. ‘“Dingle Bells”!’

  ‘Then we’ll Dingle all the way.’

  Ash didn’t even look up as she passed through the lounge into the little front hallway and threw open the door.

  Built on the site of an old fruit farm, the small estate formed a large square, with a cul-de-sac leading off one corner. Viewed on Google Earth, it looked like a child’s cartoon drawing of an old-fashioned television aerial. The carol singers had gathered on the scruffy patch of grass where Barry Dawkins parked his pick-up. Known unimaginatively as the Triangle, it was a good vantage-point. An old bloke in a bobble hat was going from door to door asking for requests while his team belted out ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’.

  Janine had already wheeled out Granddad Norm to park him in a prime spot and was summoning other relatives and neighbours, an exercise involving a lot of loud refrains of ‘Get your fucking arses out here!’ over the maids a-milking and geese a-laying. Carly could see Ash’s mum watching from her front window, unable to bring herself to join them, television glowing in the background.

  Bobble Hat Man was at Carly’s gate now. She herded the kids to the end of the path to get away from the sound of gunshots coming from her house.

  He introduced himself as Brian Hicks and claimed to have met her and Ash on the night of the hurricane, casting a nervous look at the front door. Ash had won something of a cult status in the village, as well as among the Turners, since that night, their local Gangsta Gypsy with his private army. As his moll, Carly had hoped she might demand new respect, but people like Brian still treated her as a slow learner.

  ‘Any special requests, as they say on the radio?’ Brian cocked his head.

  ‘I’d like you to sing “Jingle Bells”,’ she told him.

  ‘I think you’ll find that’s not a carol,’ he said kindly, holding up a song-sheet. ‘We can do anything on here. Our “In the Bleak Midwinter” is particularly fine.’

  ‘Do I look suicidal? “Jingle Bells” is my kids’ favourite.’ She bounced Sienna on her hip, the trails of snot dangling from the toddler’s nose after so much crying catching the light like icicles.

  ‘We don’t know the words.’

  ‘I’ll find it on my phone. Hold him a sec.’ She thrust the still-wailing Jackson at him and reached into her back pocket. A moment later she had a YouTube karaoke video cued.

  Jackson, who loved strangers, had fallen silent and was gaping up at the man’s grey-bearded face in delight, his gummy smile wide. Thrilled to be out of bed, Sienna was beaming over her dummy, snot icicles stretching lower. Ellis had already charged off to the Triangle to join his older cousins, trainer lights flashing, the coat over his onesie slipping off his shoulders.

  ‘Here you go.’ Carly offered her phone to Bobble Hat. ‘Use this.’

  ‘I really don’t think we can do this.’

  ‘I’ll get Ash.’ She turned back towards the house

  ‘There’s no need to threaten violence.’

  ‘To listen to it, you dope.’ She smiled over her shoulder.

  Being a Turner meant you had a certain degree of power, Carly was learning.

  *

  Pip had Cupid’s arrow drawn, a Christmas angel of curling forelock, silver wings and cherubic chubby wrist rolls. She was only vaguely aware that she was cannoning into people and kept pointing her torch into her own eyes.

  Bay and Petra were star-crossed, she was certain, and destined to come upon a midnight clear, possibly multiple times. Theirs was an attraction as romantic as Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele, but without the bruised bum, whippy abuse thing.

  Her new friends might keep sshing her like a child when she gave them the thumbs-up, but Pip wanted them to know she wouldn’t judge. She wasn’t so naïve that she hadn’t noticed the frisson mounting.

  Too merry on Sloe de Vie and eau d’amour to appreciate that Petra was now putting a lot of Women’s Institute regulars between her and Cupid, Pip stuck close to Bay. She was clinging tightly to his arm. Standing up was quite hard.

  They were on the Orchard Estate now. They’d belted out ‘I Saw Three Ships’ along Plum Road and ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ on Medlar Avenue. As they chorused ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ between Apple Rise and Pear Close, Pip at last noticed the Bond and Moneypenny jokey asides had stopped, and Petra had moved to the opposite side of the group where she was hanging around with the oldies.

  Brian was taking a vote on singing ‘Jingle Bells’ while Janine and her nieces handed round yet more trays of mince pies, these ones burned. Pip waved and whistled to get Petra’s attention, then gave her a thumbs-up with a questioning look.

  A polite thumbs-up came back, which made her pat Bay’s arm and whisper, ‘I think your luck’s still in there, Big Boy.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Petra. Just saying.’

  ‘Say no more, Pip. Please, say no more.’

  ‘I’ve told her no threesomes, but I might reconsider.’

  ‘That’s more.’

  She gave his arm a conspiratorial hug, pressing her cheek to it. He smelt lovely.

  They trooped along Quince Drive, still debating ‘Jingle Bells’, and lined up in front of number three where a couple were standing at the gate. Pip recognised the pretty young Feather Dusters cleaner, a tot clutched to her chest, her shoulders engulfed by the arm of a tattooed hunk in a hoodie, who looked excitingly like Shane Lynch in his Boyzone heyday, front zip undone in that sexy way hard men did, defying the sub-zero weather.

  ‘Hello there,’ Bay said, in his most gravelly voice. He was directing his big, flirty smile at the wife with the baby. Pip gave his arm a warning squeeze. Shaking it to detach her, Bay carried on chatting up the blonde: ‘Don’t tell me, I never forget a face...’

  Pip snorted disapprovingly, muttering, ‘That’s an old one.’

  ‘It’s Carly, isn’t it? Work in the farm shop?’

  ‘That’s right.’ The blonde bounced her snotty toddler. ‘This is Ash.’

  ‘One hell of a wife you’ve got there, Ash.’

  He’ll be propositioning her next, like Robert Redford in Indecent Proposal, thought Pip, jealously.

  ‘Had me run ragged saving that bloody dog from a ditch last summer. How’s it doing?’

  ‘She’s okay, I think.’ She gazed up at the Shane Lynch lookalike. ‘Hey, babe?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Ash came out of the army this year. He’s going to be a personal fitness trainer.’

  Lucky you, Pip thought wistfully, admiring the wide shoulders, intense silver eyes and Celtic tattoo on his neck. It looked very familiar. Maybe Shane had the same one. To think Carly the cleaner was married to this! How did Pip not know he was in the village?

  ‘I could do with getting fit!’ she told him.

  Tattooed Ash ignored her, his pale eyes fixed on Bay.

  ‘Of course! Ashley Turner.’ Bay shook his hand affably, then winced as his was crushed. ‘Our home-grown war hero.’

  A born-and-bred Turner! The village’s notorious rogues, Pip thought excitedly, all those wanderlust gypsy genes giving them a reputation for ferocity and fornication. Tamed by the armed forces, he was a caged tiger released back into the wild. Fitting that he had a big cat head tattooed on his chest, hiding colourfully among Maori inkwork and gladiator straps. That was familiar too, she realised, as she undid her duffel coat toggles and shook back her hair.r />
  He looked extremely pissed-off, which was understandable, really, what with Bay Austen hitting on his wife on his own doorstep. ‘You gonna sing for us or what?’

  The voice was broad Gloucestershire and disappointingly nothing like Shane Lynch’s.

  ‘Like angels!’ Pip promised, finding herself plucked away by her reindeer jumper nose and held firmly next to Petra in the gaggle of the singers now crowded round the mobile phone Brian was holding up. Thinking he was taking a group selfie, Pip struck a pose.

  ‘He’s showing us the lyrics to the song, Pip,’ Petra muttered.

  Reaching out to grab her arm for balance and missing, Pip lurched into Brian as he cued them into ‘Jingle Bells’, his thumb sliding across the screen. YouTube jumped to ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen.

  ‘Oh, I love this one!’ Pip started singing, turning out a performance that would be remembered for years to come. Putting her heart into it, she sang it for Petra and Bay, for the sexy Shane Lynch lookalike, and for JD, her beautifully built, inked and pierced heartbreaker.

  As Pip sang, she realised exactly where she’d seen that tiger tattoo on Ash Turner’s chest before. It was identical to JD’s. As was the one on his neck. And if she pulled his joggers down right now, she was pretty certain the piercing would be familiar too.

  *

  ‘She thinks she’s bloody Susan Boyle,’ muttered one of the WI grandees.

  Your friend’s going totally tonto, Petra read on her phone as the rest of the group gamely tackled the complicated first section of the Disney classic. Being the mother of two girls, Petra could sing ‘Let It Go’ in her sleep, sorting washing, doing online grocery shopping and even – as now – reading texts from flirtatious neighbours. Plz take her home. Bx

  YOU take her home, kimosabe, she texted back as she sang, glancing over her shoulder at Bay then at Pip, who launched into the chorus like Janis Joplin at her last gig. Petra no longer felt sorry for her. She felt frightened for the village.

  Her phone vibrated in her hand. Pat’s your friend.

  I hardly know her. BTW it’s Pip.

  Point proven! Bx

  Singing the chorus with feeling, she didn’t look at him again. That was such a Charlie-like comment. He was a total Charlie. He was from the same mould. All her Safe Married Crushes were men like her husband. That was what made them safest of all.

  Her phone vibrated again. Let’s take her home together... Bx

  Still Petra didn’t look round. Fat chance! If they took Pip all the way along the dark Broadbourne road, that meant walking back alone together all the way to Compton Magna, quite possibly cutting across the village cricket field, past the old pavilion, cast romantically into a small wooden Taj Mahal in the moonlight, its lock all too easy to pick (she mustn’t dwell on the detail, but Bay was bound to have learned skills like that in some misspent episode of youth or have a credit card he could use to spring the latch, or maybe it was just unlocked). Inside there would be blankets and hurricane lamps and stolen conversations and the briefest shameful kiss – nothing below the waist – and they’d wish each other a merry Christmas while the Obelisk of Luxor stirred and rose, for ever forbidden to her.

  You’re on your own there, she replied, singing the chorus again and adding, Let it go.

  Her fingers were like icicles. God, it was cold. Contrite and dizzy with Disney overload, she sent a text to Charlie, I miss you. Xxxxxxxx and another to her sons Everything ok? xxx

  The song had reached its final crescendo, Pip air-guitaring as she rasped out the final ‘anyway’. The Orchard Estate was all singing along, kids whooping, fairy lights glowing in windows and along eaves, at least one illuminated Santa climbing up a wall, and number ten glowing like a halogen heater under the weight of three lighting nets across its roof.

  ‘Merry Christmas, everyone!’ whooped voices young and old, a cloned mass of Noddy Holders, Comptons Bagot and Magna coming together in a communal mulled hug of socialising and good cheer.

  Money clattered into the buckets. The estate was always the most generous and appreciative audience, a tight-knit community of families and neighbours, who feuded and celebrated with equal heart.

  Petra’s festive spirit broke its banks inside her, an unstoppable tidal wave of good will and nostalgia. Social Norm was wheeled closer to pour out home-made poitín into teacups to offer to the singers. Carly came up to say hello, baby on one hip, toddler on the other. Kind Mo joined them, taking the baby to cuddle and insisting Petra must come riding with the Saddle Bags the next day. ‘We’ve missed you!’

  ‘What’s she doing to my Ash?’ Carly was staring back at her house.

  ‘I think somebody should take Pip home,’ Mo said worriedly. They all turned to see her laying about Ash Turner with her duffel coat.

  They hurried towards the little front garden of number three.

  ‘You led me on!’ she was screaming. ‘You hustled me with your KitKats and dick shots. You never wanted to have sex with me at all, did you?’

  ‘Get off me, woman. I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about!’

  ‘All that stuff you wanted to know about me was to plan a robbery. I know what happened the night of the hurricane! Did you plan it with your mates? You thought you’d got away with it, didn’t you?’

  Poor Pip, thought Petra, pushing her way through the carol singers towards her. Her drunken state is my fault.

  Then she stopped in her tracks as Bay strode heroically into the garden, arms outstretched, gathering Pip up. ‘Let’s get you home to bed, shall we, Pipsqueak?’

  ‘And you want to get in Petra’s bed, not mine!’ She’d reached the argumentative-drunk stage.

  Petra melted hurriedly out of sight behind a Transit van.

  ‘That man conned me!’ she was insisting tearfully, pointing at Ash. ‘He sent me pictures of his erect penis in exchange for information about security at the stud...’

  ‘That’s fucking slander!’ roared Ash.

  ‘I can prove it! He’s got a Prince Albert and he has a tattoo of a gecko walking out of his pubic hair.’

  ‘Ew,’ said a girl in the crowd near Petra.

  ‘That’s not my Ash,’ Carly said decisively. ‘He’s got no piercings down there.’

  ‘Fucksake!’ Ash stormed indignantly inside.

  Petra watched gratefully from behind the Transit van as Bay lugged a stunned-looking Pip quickly away.

  Her phone vibrated. Is Little Drummer Boy getting to you? Charlie wrote with a weepy-faced emoticon. He knew her soft spots. Case still dragging on. Hopefully sorted early tomz. Envy you not having to work this hard. x And her sore spots. PS Don’t forget Mum’s train gets in at 11. And her sensitive spots.

  The carol singers were finally on the move, heading out onto Back Lane to gather in front of the row of old cottages where the Mazurs and Flynn the farrier lived, and launching into an ambitious ‘Coventry Carol’.

  Polish Aleš Mazur, a bearded man-mountain in a Christmas sweater, who could be as hospitable when his front door was open as he could be red-mist angry when it was closed, distributed nalewka and sang ‘Lulaj˙ze, Jezuniu’, cuddling his infant son as a prop.

  ‘It means “Sleep baby Jesus”,’ a tired-looking Bridge told Petra, trendy grey-dyed hair now sporting blue tips and pulled up into a huge topknot. ‘Which that little guy had only started doing.’ On cue, the one-year-old opened his eyes and bawled. Hurriedly handing his son back to his wife, Aleš joined in a raucous rendition of ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ with long-haired, sleepy-eyed Flynn and a group of mates who had emerged from the farrier’s cottage with him, all reeking of dope.

  Brian, who was looking increasingly strained, ushered his choristers away and embarked upon a detailed explanation about the medieval motte to their right as he hurried them along towards Lower Bagot Farm, where the elderly Stokeses would be eagerly waiting.

  Following at the back, Petra read replies from her sons. First Ed: 28 donuts, 2L Sprite, Level 38 of Splat
oon. O% tired!!! Then Fitz: Dog bin sick. Otherwise gud.

  Was that illiteracy, laziness or pretension? Whichever, it didn’t bode well for his mocks.

  There was a text from Bay, a new bubble chasing her deleted thread, vanguard to a fresh flirtation.

  Where does Pip live? Bx

  One of the bungalows. Don’t know which. Is she okay?

  She’s fine. No sense of direction. Wants to build a snowman which she insists means waiting for snow.

  51

  Having put the children to bed once more, Carly made herself a mug of tea and settled down on the sofa beside Ash’s loud car-thieving game, her thumb scrolling her phone screen at speed, flicking through friends’ Facebook posts, barely breaking in rhythm as she hit the thumbs-up of ‘like’ or typed lol xx or I’m sorry for your loss or Congrats. She then uploaded a picture she’d taken of the carol singers, with the caption Luvin’ our first village Christmas! Duty done, she flicked across to her albums and started scrolling through them: pictures of the kids, the village, the horses, Pricey, army accommodation, girls’ nights out, holidays. Ash on the beach, in the pool, on a lounger, in bed.

  Getting up to fetch another beer, Ash paused as he crossed behind her chair. ‘You got loads there.’

  ‘Your inks have been shared more than a Domino’s pizza, lover.’

  ‘What bastard sent those to the crazy cat lady?’

  ‘Whoever it is tried to rob her work.’ Carly was pretty sure catfishing Pip Edwards came from someone in the Turner family. Like the firework, it was underhand and a deliberate attempt to undermine Ash, testing his bottle again.

  ‘They didn’t take nothing, though, did they?’ he muttered.

  Carly tipped her head back and eyed him suspiciously. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Heard it somewhere. They broke into the stud the night of the big storm, but there was nothing worth taking.’

  ‘Then they let Spirit out to cover their tracks,’ she said slowly. ‘How do you know about this, Ash?’