‘All right?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Whatever it is she’s after,’ he said apologetically, ‘I couldn’t provide it.’
Annet didn’t react to this, but pinched her waistline. ‘ I’m fat.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘Fat and disgusting and middle-aged.’
‘That’s not true,’ he said quietly. ‘And you know it.’
‘It depresses me.’
He stepped into his pyjama bottoms, not looking at her. ‘Everyone carries more weight when they’ve just had a baby.’
She gave an acid, sniffing laugh. ‘How would you know? And what’s this “ everyone”?’
He got into bed, picked up his book and laid it still closed on his knees. ‘Anyway, it’s sexy.’
As soon as he’d said this he realised he’d got it wrong.
‘Who for?’ She pulled off her underwear with careless, dragging movements, took a clean nightshirt from the drawer (less from necessity than from the desire to avoid him, he knew) and began brushing her hair as if administering a beating. Freya’s cries had taken on a tremble of hysteria.
‘I mean,’ said David gently, ‘that I quite like it.’
‘Well dream on, because it’s going.’
She left the room and after a few seconds the tone of the crying altered slightly as she picked the baby up. She did not, however, return, so he opened his book and stared miserably at the rows of print.
He didn’t hear the crying stop but it must have done because the next thing he knew Annet was getting into bed and switching her lamp off. He turned to do the same and the book fell to the floor. In the sudden dark and silence he lay very still, trying to gauge her mood. He knew she was nowhere near sleep. After what seemed an age of harrowing tension he moved on to his side, his face inches from her back, wanting more than anything to put his arm round here and draw her against him, not to invade her angry privacy but to show his respect for it, and his love for her.
Suddenly and distinctly she said: ‘Sorry.’
But then, as his hand touched her shoulder: ‘No.’
There remained three weeks before Annet returned to work. Three weeks which David began to see as a countdown. It was not so much his period at home he dreaded as Annet’s departure. If he himself had experienced return to work as a sort of release, how much the more would she? She had already begun to wean Freya on to a bottle, and to phone Piers twice a day: revving up, as he saw it, for the great escape. The soft curves which had so moved him were being determinedly eroded by lengths undertaken three evenings a week at a local pool. The advent of the bottle meant that if Freya woke during these times he was able to feed her. For the first time he found himself fearing his wife’s compulsive drive to independence. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, he told himself, but that he didn’t trust his own ability to let her go. For a short while, since Freya’s birth, the dynamic of their relationship had altered – he had felt himself to be indispensable to Annet in a real, practical sense as well as an emotional one. Soon she would again be fighting fit (a peculiarly apt phrase), and once the nanny was in place and they became full-time working parents that tender balance would be thrown out in favour of the steady pull of opposites. It was no comfort to know that Annet probably welcomed this as much as he dreaded it.
At work, the dead zone at the end of summer meant there wasn’t much doing. He looked up Samms, J. J., in Rustat Road and sent a modest bouquet Interflora. After a token round of interviews the temp Jackie got the secretary’s job and initiated a major rationalisation of the filing system, both hard and computerised. She also reordered her own office according to what he was surprised to discover were feng shui principles – he wouldn’t have taken her for a new-age type.
‘Do you think it will make a difference?’ he asked politely. ‘It certainly looks nice.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘ Looks are important. And if a setting is balanced and harmonious that can only be good.’
‘True.’ He couldn’t resist asking: ‘So what do you think of my office?’
But Jackie, for whom correctness was like breath itself, was not to be drawn. ‘ It’s fine,’ was all she would say. ‘Very businesslike.’
He was due to go and look at a farm property that afternoon. Before leaving he wrote a short, handwritten note to Gina King, using the address at the top of her letter, which he’d painstakingly Sellotaped together.
Dear Gina
Thank you for yours of the 24th, I’m sorry that for a variety
of reasons I was unable to provide you with a reference, but
I hope you got the job, and please accept my best wishes for
the future.
Yours sincerely
David Keating
First time round he had signed it simply ‘Yours’, but then thought better of it. He was pleased to have written the letter and to have struck what he believed was the right note. All the same he didn’t leave it with the other mail for the franking machine, but took it with him to post when he left the office.
The property was an estate to the north of the town. He drove out through the least preposessing of the suburbs – retail park, football ground, sewage works, a low-rise huddle of light industry, haulage firms and lock-ups. Roundabout followed roundabout, interspersed with frustratingly short bursts of dual carriageway. The farm itself was only a mile off the road, and visible from it, the undistinguished yellow-brick Victorian house flanked by a cluster of giant metal barns and siloes. This was no rich townie’s fantasy of rural life, ripe for a national debtsworth of New Labour renovation, but a hard-nosed business venture, one of several owned by P. J. Hibbard and Sons. Hibbard, in no need of further income, was offloading Aston Lane Farm. The trick as far as Border and Cheffins was concerned was going to be the dividing of the property into parcels, to maximise profit on the house and garden, the outbuildings, and the several thousand acres of prime arable land.
David rather dreaded dealing with the abrasive, cash-driven owner, who didn’t sound the sort to take any prisoners. On the other hand, the exchange was at least likely to be crystal clear.
A large, unsympathetic sign proclaimed the farm entrance, and indicated the direction to be taken by farm vehicles, business reps and visitors to the house respectively. Not without a tremor of uncertainty, David took the route to the house, and was rewarded by the sight of Hibbard alighting from a parked Land-Rover in which he’d clearly been awaiting his arrival.
‘Land agents? Paul Hibbard. Shall we get on with it?’
Everything about this opening sally put David’s hackles up: the assumption that even following a reasonably lengthy telephone conversation his own name had not been worth remembering, and the note of impatience in spite of the fact that he was scrupulously punctual.
‘We’ll do the house last if you don’t mind,’ went on Hibbard. ‘It’s the least of my worries.’
They crossed the yard to the first of the barns. The pale new concrete was traversed by runnels, currently awash with a watery slurry. Hibbard, in tractor-soled boots, splashed carelessly through these, leaving David to hop about to avoid getting soaked.
‘These are working buildings,’ said Hibbard ominously. ‘Functional, built for the job. No chance of turning this place into a leisure facility in my view, but if some clown with more money than sense turns up with the necessary I shan’t argue.’
This remark set a tone from which Hibbard did not deviate during the rest of the tour, which took in all the barns, the glittering siloes, endless uninteresting acres of arable enlivened by occasional patches of carefully-husbanded set-aside, and, of course the house.
In spite of Hibbard’s dismissive remarks it was the house, as always, which David found most interesting. In this case it didn’t represent the must-buy factor in the deal, but at least it had some atmosphere and individuality. Alarmingly, since David knew he didn’t live there, Hibbard let himself in at the back door, and led t
he way through a well-equipped utility room in which two washing machines burbled and churned, into a large kitchen of which the predominant motifs were white Formica and stainless steel. Cups, sugar bowl, milk jug and a slab of cherry-studded cake stood on a broad breakfast jetty (the word ‘bar’ wouldn’t have done it justice) which jutted into the centre of room. A good-looking ruddy-faced woman in jeans and a Guernsey sweater was pouring boiling water on to grounds in a cafetiere as they entered. Having positioned the plunger she advanced and held out a hand to David.
‘Perfect timing, give it a couple of minutes. I’m Hilary Bryce. Mr Border?’
‘No, actually, David Keating – his partner. How do you do?’
‘Mrs Bryce is the power behind the throne around here,’ said Hibbard, heaving himself on to one of the long-legged chairs that surrounded the jetty. ‘Dear God – speaking of which – but these are uncomfortable.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Hilary Bryce. Adding, with a surprisingly pretty smile in David’s direction. ‘And anyway, they’re not for sale.’
‘This is a magnificent kitchen,’ he remarked, vouchsafed a sudden insight into the relationship between his hosts.
‘Yes, it does the job,’ she agreed. ‘And since I knew he’d bring you in at the back door I thought we might as well start in here with some coffee.’ She poured. ‘With or without the doings?’
‘Neither thank you.’
She handed him his, and poured a second – both ‘doings’ added without consultation – for Hibbard. The coffee was fiercely strong and aromatic, which caused David to entertain the fleeting, unbidden thought that Hilary Bryce was a tiger in the sack. This was the exact phrase that came into his head, though he could not remember a single occasion in life when he had actually used it. He experienced something close to his imagined idea of a hot flush.
‘My husband’s not about,’ she said. ‘So you’ll have to make do with me.’
She took David round the house like a true professional while Hibbard retreated to his car phone. Like the kitchen, the rest of the house was immaculate, functional, giving nothing away. It appeared the Bryces had two grown-up children, one travelling in Indonesia, the other a GP in Wolverhampton, neither the least interested in farming.
‘Which is fine, actually,’ Hilary Bryce pointed out, ‘because we only lease this place from Hibbard.’
The abrasive use of the owner’s surname confirmed David’s view that she and her landlord were on intimate terms.
‘So what,’ he asked cautiously, ‘are your plans for the future?’
‘None really,’ she said. ‘ Geoffrey’s retiring, but we certainly shan’t be doing nothing. We’re going to Darby-and-Joan it in our little place in North Yorks for a bit while making a plan. I have a yen for Australia, but we’ll have to see.’
‘It’ll be a pretty big change for you both.’
‘And a well-earned one,’ was her spirited response. David considered that the biggest change was going to be separation from Hibbard, and wondered at the emotional and physical toughness of the landed types of which she was a paradigm.
As they went back down the stairs they could hear voices in the kitchen, and David was introduced to Geoffrey Bryce, a pale, distinguished-looking man more like a don than a working farmer. Hibbard had obviously accompanied him in, still carrying his mobile.
‘Sorry I’ve not been here,’ he said. ‘Have you managed to see everything?’
‘I believe so. It’s a very impressive property.’
He turned to his wife. ‘Did you show him the shop?’
‘I thought I might do that on the way out.’
‘Lot of nonsense,’ put in Hibbard, but perfectly affably. ‘That’ll go when you do.’
Hilary didn’t seem to take this amiss. Geoffrey Bryce pleaded paperwork, and she and Hibbard came out to the yard.
Hibbard stuck out a hand like a shovel. ‘ Well I’ll let her show you the dried flower section. Perhaps you’d contact me as soon as possible about price, I want to be shot of this lot in short order.’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘That’ll do.’
The other two said goodbye to each other like the intimate strangers they were, and David followed her to a Nissen-hut structure to the side of the house which he’d taken to be some sort of domestic annexe.
‘Hibbard’s right really,’ she said. ‘ The shop’s an amusing sideline for me, but it doesn’t make any money … I say that, but lookee here, we’ve got a customer.’
A red Micra was parked at the far end of the hut. The double doors stood open on a fairly predictable array of jams, cakes, vegetables, pottery, stuffed toys and the aforementioned dried flowers. Behind the counter a grey-haired woman sat doing a magazine crossword.
In the middle of the room, studying a display of corndollies was Gina King.
‘Good heavens—’
He hesitated for a second, and what happened next can only have taken another two, though it seemed longer. The woman at the till looked up and smiled at Hilary, who half-turned to introduce him. Gina left the corn dollies and walked straight towards the door, towards him. He began to say something, and may have done so, but although she passed within inches of him she didn’t respond nor show any sign of recognition. A whiff of her familiar cheap, demure scent marked her passing … And then she was gone.
‘This is Mr Keating,’ said Hilary, ‘ from Border and Cheffins.’
When a couple of minutes later they went back outside, the Micra had gone too.
‘Your customer didn’t buy anything,’ he ventured.
Hilary Bryce pulled a wry face. ‘They mostly don’t, except for Christmas and Easter. It’s just idle curiosity, really.’
Geoffrey Bryce came out to see him off. ‘Sell anything?’
‘Of course not,’ replied his wife.
‘I only wondered, because that Micra was here when I arrived. Thought it might be worth a hand-thrown coffee mug at least.’
It began to rain on the drive back to town, so heavily at one point that the windscreen wipers couldn’t cope, and David pulled into a layby with the water hammering down round him. During the few minutes that he was there a red car pulled in behind him. His scalp prickled with apprehension, but as the rain abated it drove off and he saw that it was a Mondeo. He did not realise he’d been holding his breath until, with a rush, he exhaled – but whether from delight or despair he couldn’t say.
After that he didn’t return to the office, but went straight home.
Chapter Seven
David didn’t tell Annet that he had seen Gina King. The fact was that within an hour of leaving the farm, and certainly by the time he got home, he was by no means sure he had seen her. If it was her, she had not displayed the faintest sign of recognition. In fact, the curious thing was that she – whoever she was – had looked directly into his face as she walked towards him, but in such a way that he might not have been there at all. He had not been cut, but simply looked through. It was an odd sensation and a chastening one. He remembered with a frisson the figure in the lamplight opposite Bay Court … the frightened, pale face of the person he’d almost run over the night he took Freya out … The biblical expression ‘through a glass darkly’ chimed persistently in his mind. When he held his daughter in his arms he felt, among the now familiar welter of mixed emotions, a new fear – that of growing old, and mad.
Annet, on the other hand, was forging ahead, and away. When he mentioned his fears in what he hoped was a suitably light-hearted way she gave them short shrift.
‘When she’s sixteen, I’ll be a pensioner,’ were his exact words. ‘It’s a chastening thought.’
‘So what point are you making?’
‘That it may be a doubly difficult time.’
‘Or easier. All that wisdom and experience, darl …! Anyway, I refuse to start worrying about it now.’
Nor did she. She seemed stronger, both mentally and physically, with each day that passed. She was keeping up w
ith the exercises and the swimming, and was much less easily brought low by the demands of Freya, who was now fed from a bottle except at night. Annet had a further consultation with Lara McKay, the nanny, who was due to move into a shared house in King’s Newton any day, and pronounced herself well satisfied with her own earlier judgement.
‘I think we lucked out there. She’s a nice girl.’
David, who had got home just as Lara was leaving, was slightly less sure. ‘She’s fairly overpowering.’
‘That’s just nerves. Meeting you for the first time.’
‘I scarcely opened my mouth!’
‘I’d much rather have chatty and open,’ said Annet, ‘ than silent and secretive.’
‘That isn’t necessarily the only alternative,’ he pointed out.
‘Are you saying I made a bad choice?’
‘Good heavens, no. I’m just wondering how she and I are going to shake down together when she starts. Without you here.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Annet assured him. ‘ But remember to let her get on with it. She’ll be conscious of you hanging about the house, and she’ll need some space to find her feet.’
I’ll be no trouble,’ he promised drily. ‘Lara can rule the roost.’
‘No need to overdo it,’ said Annet.
It also appeared that a long overdue boost was to be given to their social life.
‘We should have a do,’ Annet announced the following Sunday afternoon as they pushed the buggy round the lanes. ‘I’m fed up with wandering the streets of this darn town like a stranger.’
He reminded her gently of the corollary of this. ‘How many people do we know to ask?’
‘Maurice and Marsha, those people from down the road, the Borders, Harry Bailey—’
‘I thought he was a prat …?’
‘I’ve seen him once or twice since then at the leisure centre, and he’s perfectly supportable, at least he’d leaven the mix. And maybe if we ask him we could invite the pop singer and his bit of stuff.’
Heaven's On Hold Page 13
