My Husband Next Door

by Catherine Alliott

  At that moment I heard tyres on the gravel outside. Ginnie’s green Range Rover shot by the window then disappeared down the side of the house to park. A car door slammed, then moments later, the back door too. Out of habit, I instantly looked busy, washing up the plate I’d had toast on earlier, refolding a tea towel on the Aga rail. The two dogs, classy, well-trained Labradors, got to their feet politely, not rushing and crashing into her legs yelping loudly, as mine would have done, but wagging courteously, waiting for her to shed her coat in the boot room, then come in and dump her handbag on the island, looking – even for Ginnie – harassed.

  ‘Nightmare,’ she hissed, eyes flashing manically at me as she kicked off her shoes. ‘Complete and utter nightmare.’ She strode across the room to sink down in the sofa by the French windows, arms and legs splayed out like a starfish for emphasis. Ginnie never underplayed anything. She was also a countrywoman through and through and didn’t pander to make-up during the day or anything poncy like that. She wore county-fair fashion, the well-bred sort you found at Badminton Horse Trials or the CLA Game Fair: jeans, Joules polo shirts in pink or blue – collar up – that was her uniform, and, at night, a sparkly Indian coat thrown over velvet trousers. Her short, mousy-brown hair stood vertically on end having probably not seen a hairbrush this morning, her unpainted mouth hung open.

  ‘What?’ I said impatiently, knowing her hyperbole of old. Most things were a complete and utter hair-tearing nightmare, from the sheep having too many lambs to suckle, or the cows – which she’d been known to milk herself in extremis – having mastitis, or the piano tuner not turning up. All were disappointing but not the stuff of Hades.

  ‘Daddy, OK, has totally and utterly lost it,’ she informed me, her eyes huge and fixed.

  ‘In what way?’ I said defensively, instinctively on his side.

  ‘He’s taken up with another woman. A floozy.’

  I stared at her. She looked back at me hard, unblinking.

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous!’ I said at length, when I’d finally found my voice. ‘He can’t have done!’

  Nevertheless I gripped the tea towel I was holding, realizing suddenly that Ginnie couldn’t talk she was so distressed: she was swallowing hard. My heart clenched with fear.

  ‘It’s true,’ she told me eventually, in a much smaller voice. ‘Or at least, he hasn’t gone off with her yet, but he’s parading around with her, for God’s sake, for all the world to see. Lunch at the Rose and Crown, dinner at the King’s Head, dog walks in the woods, and then he goes back to Mummy as if nothing has happened! And when she complains, he says mildly: I’m just having a nice time, Sylvia. Enjoying myself. Enjoying my retirement.’

  ‘Oh!’ My hand shot to my mouth in shock. Ginnie nodded, mute.

  I groped my way round the kitchen to perch beside her. ‘But … but that’s so unlike Dad. So … strange. He’s so straight.’

  She nodded silently again, this time down at the floor. Unable to utter. I stared at the same terracotta tile she was gazing at, trying to take it in.

  ‘Who is this woman?’

  ‘A dog therapist, by all accounts,’ she snorted, briefly regaining some of her equilibrium, injecting the words with venom. ‘Can you believe it? Some ghastly phoney who runs counselling sessions for recalcitrant dogs. Well, you know what Buster’s like. Daddy spoils him rotten. So he took him along to see her. The mother of that ghastly little thing Hugo’s seeing recommended her, apparently.’ Her eye twitched compulsively at this, the only chink in her armour.

  Hugo, otherwise known to my children as Perfect Cousin, had recently rather daringly broken out of his mould to conduct his first serious relationship with a girl he’d met whilst working at the pub near my parents. A girl whom Ginnie – smile tight – had hitherto described as not necessarily being out of the same drawer, having not gone to the right schools, but a sweet little thing nonetheless, even if the picture Araminta had shown her on Facebook did look a little over-pierced, the hair a strange bottled colour. Now, it seems, she was a ghastly little thing. The gloves were surely off. I tried to get my head round this.

  ‘So … this girl’s mother …’

  ‘A mad woman called Jennie, with six dogs, for heaven’s sake. Who has six dogs!’ she spat.

  ‘Well –’

  ‘She suggested Daddy take Buster along, because it had done wonders for one of hers, the mother of this pack of wolfhounds. And Daddy did, and they got on famously, and now look!’

  ‘What’s her name?’ I asked, wondering what on earth she could be like. A dog therapist.

  ‘No idea. Mummy just calls her the Dog Woman.’ She shuddered. ‘So naff,’ she said heatedly. ‘So very suburban. Wouldn’t happen in Gloucestershire.’

  I thought of Ludo holding my hand over my chipped Asiatic Pheasant teapot, my eyes, too. She’d be shocked to hear it went on whether the heir to the throne lived around the corner or not.

  ‘But this woman and Dad, they’re not … you know … lovers?’ I could barely say it.

  ‘No, no,’ she said instantly. ‘At least, Mummy says not.’ She flinched. ‘Can you imagine such a thing?’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly.

  ‘They haven’t had the chance. Well, what Mummy means is, he hasn’t spent the night away. Just wining and dining brazenly around the village. Poor Mummy.’

  Yes, poor Mum. For all that my mother and I didn’t quite see eye to eye, I could see this was a horrendous humiliation. To be queen bee of the community, matriarch of all she surveyed. To run the church rota, be head of the parish council, ex-JP, wife of an ex-high sheriff. To be Sylvia Jardine, married to Angus, erstwhile director of a big City firm, who assessed people and intoned quietly of those who didn’t match up: ‘Not boardroom material, darling.’ To be so publicly shamed. It would be a crushing blow and I feared for her.

  Ginnie and I sat shocked and silent on her mossy-green sofa. A dog hopped up beside us, sensing distress. Ginnie absently stroked the Lab’s dark head.

  ‘Anyway, she’s on her way now,’ she said eventually, and with a massive sniff. She fished up her sleeve for a tissue, blinking hard.

  ‘She’s coming here? To stay? Oh, good. That’s good.’

  ‘No, no, not to stay. She’s leaving him. She’s taken the dog, too. Says she’s not staying there to be humiliated, and she’s certainly not leaving Buster behind to be Daddy’s Big Excuse. Says he’ll have to find something else to hide behind if he wants to see the Dog Woman again.’

  ‘Oh! Quite punchy. So she’s coming here?’

  ‘Good God, no. Richard would never sanction that. You know what he’s like. Anyway, Linda and Mike are in the cottage, and we haven’t got any other suitable accommodation.’

  I stared. The dog slid off the sofa and went to whine at the back door, ears flattened, sensing trouble now.

  ‘No, we thought she could come to you, Ella. After all, you’ve got your holiday lets.’

  ‘Two!’ I yelped. ‘I’ve got two holiday lets!’

  ‘Exactly, because the other ones are occupied by half of your ex-husband’s family. They’re the ones taking up all the room, Sebastian and that barking aunt of his, Ottoline. It’s only right you have some of your own family too, don’t you think? On your patch? Oh, do stop whining!’ This to the dogs, who were both whimpering at the door now, looking stricken. She got up to let them out and they disappeared, sharpish. She turned back to me. ‘She’s got to go somewhere, Ella.’ She crossed the room to straighten a tea towel on the Aga. ‘And, anyway, I don’t suppose it will be for ever.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  I realized I was spluttering. Dribbling, even. At length I found my voice. ‘But, Ginnie – Ginnie – no. Just, NO! I mean, how on earth –’ splutter splutter.

  ‘It’s simple.’ Calmly. ‘That outhouse next to Sebastian’s, the one before you get to Ottoline’s. She can have that one.’

  ‘But I’ve got a family coming into that next week, the Watsons. They’re taking it for three we
eks. It’s my busiest time!’

  ‘Well, she’ll pay, Ella. She doesn’t want charity. We’ve already talked about it. She knows you depend on your rent, and Lord knows you don’t get any from Sebastian, so she’ll pay the going rate. Whatever the Watsons were paying.’

  They’d already talked about it. Already discussed the logistics, about how my mother would live with me, without even consulting me.

  ‘You might have bloody asked!’ I snorted.

  ‘I am,’ she said evenly. ‘I’m asking you now.’

  ‘Telling me, more like!’

  ‘Well, if you’re not happy, Ella, I’ll ring Mummy and tell her it’s no go. It’s not a problem.’

  ‘Why can’t you have her?’ I squeaked, knowing that of course it was a problem. That we couldn’t possibly do that.

  ‘I told you,’ she said patiently. ‘She needs to be independent, as if she’s actually left him. Shock him into realizing how stupid he’s being. It’s no good if she’s just in my spare room, is it? She’s in there enough as it is.’ I could see the logic in that. ‘Just imagine,’ she added. ‘Richard would go mad.’

  ‘I’ll go mad!’ I yelped.

  ‘Yes, but at least we’re family. Richard finds her – well, you know.’

  Yes, I did. Snobbish, picky, demanding, nosy, critical – oh, so critical. I felt faint at the thought. Clutched the sofa arm. Yet, at the same time, she could be kind. And, occasionally, funny. When that mask softened. And it would be so crushed right now. So … buckled.

  ‘What will I tell the Watsons?’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ Ginnie said magnanimously, sensing defeat. ‘I’ll call them. Tell them you’re ill, and that the whole place is riddled with some ghastly infectious disease and I haven’t even set foot in the place. And, anyway, Millie Saunders has holiday lets. I’ve already rung her and she’s got a slot free next week.’

  God, she really had thought it all out, hadn’t she? Got very busy with her hands-free in the car. As usual, she and Mum, behind my back, had schemed. Outmanoeuvred me. Except … that wasn’t really fair. They’d had to think of something. Side by side in the kitchen at the Old Rectory, perched on stools at the counter with the faded blue tiles. Mum, white-faced, a bit thinner than usual; Ginnie, forced to come up with something, some modus operandi. Whilst Dad – who’d normally be polishing the silver, perhaps, or doing some job Mum had found him, whistling through his teeth as he worked – was where? In the Rose and Crown with his bird? Yes, they’d had to hatch a plan. And I was the obvious choice. The one with the holiday accommodation. One of which was occupied by my husband, who had no money and therefore couldn’t pay, one by Ottoline, who certainly did pay, too handsomely, and who’d have paid Sebastian’s rent as well if I’d let her, and now one by my mother, who, much as I disliked the idea, would have to pay if I didn’t want to go under. And it was nothing to her. My parents were well off. In fact, when the money had run out six years ago and I’d started the lets as a way of keeping our heads above water, Dad had wanted to buy them outright, to give me some capital, keep them in trust for Josh and Tabitha. But I hadn’t let him. I’d felt so much like a failure anyway – failed marriage, failed career, with my shining sibling, so successful by comparison, on the other side of the hill – that I hadn’t wanted him to bail me out. Rescue me. Had wanted to do it myself.

  Somehow I’d borrowed the money from the bank – under the guise of a business plan which Richard had helped me to write – and Dad had applauded that. Richard had also got round the planners, who’d been a nightmare about the listed buildings, which were little more than shacks. And Dad had come over to help me paint them once they’d been converted. Had beamed and said, ‘Well done, darling,’ when we’d put the final touches to the skirting boards in the ones we called the Stables. One of which Mum would be in. What was he thinking of? What had possessed him?

  ‘He’s flattered, I suppose,’ said Ginnie, breaking into my thoughts, reading them too. She turned and opened the Aga lid, then reached for the kettle and banged it on the hob. ‘She’s about fifteen years younger than him, apparently, and you know what they say: there’s no fool like an old fool. Makes him feel special or something, I imagine.’ She sighed wearily, raking both hands through already vertical hair.

  ‘But he was never like that, Ginnie. Never unfaithful. I mean, he certainly flirted, loved a party …’ I remembered him of old, working a room, roaming convivially, chatting up the prettiest of Mum’s friends, rocking back and forth in his brogues and tweed jacket, a spotty hanky billowing from his top pocket, Trumper’s aftershave. ‘But it was all so light-hearted. Just a bit of fun.’ I wanted to go on to say: ‘He always loved Mum’, but a bit of me felt that was a bridge too far. It was more that he was an honourable man.

  ‘Well, quite. And, actually, Mummy rather liked him playing the rogue with her mates, they all loved it. Just a bit of harmless flirting, she called it, but this is something entirely different. She says it’s as if he’s got blinkers on. He’s very calm, very polite to her, but very definitely off for lunch at Carluccio’s in Bicester Village, for God’s sake – wild horses wouldn’t have dragged him there before – wearing a new cashmere blazer he bought in Hackett, a pink shirt, a peacock-blue tie and a jaunty felt hat. He looks … rather dapper, Mummy says.’

  Yes, he would. My father was a good-looking man. And Mum … well, had been beautiful in her day and was certainly still attractive, but women didn’t age so well, did they? It wasn’t entirely fair.

  ‘Right, I’ll have her,’ I said decisively, getting to my feet and making for my handbag on the dresser. ‘And I’ll ring the Watsons, too. I’d rather see to that myself, Ginnie. Just give me Millie Saunders’s number. I’ll clinch it with her first.’

  Ginnie moved very quickly, rushing gratefully to the dresser for a pen and a pad of paper.

  ‘Thanks, Ella. She’ll be so grateful.’ I declined to answer, knowing, as we both did, that this was unlikely. ‘And I won’t leave you stranded, I promise. She’s spending tonight with us and then I’ll come across with her tomorrow. Be constantly back and forth. Take her off to plays, National Trust gardens – that type of thing. I’d have the wretched dog for you, but you know what Richard’s like about me having two dogs in the first place. He certainly won’t sanction –’

  ‘Yes,’ I interrupted suddenly, swinging to face her. ‘Have the wretched dog for me, Ginnie. Get round Richard. I’ve got three dogs myself and Maud’s in season. And he’s a randy little bugger.’

  ‘Right,’ she said after the briefest of pauses, knowing she was cornered. And that, very occasionally, I wasn’t a complete pushover.

  ‘He can sleep in the stables,’ she said stoically. She raised her chin bravely. ‘We’ll muddle through somehow.’

  She’ll muddle through, I thought incredulously as I said goodbye and left. She had a small, elderly dog, already banished to the stables, whilst I had Dragon Lady living with me. As I drove down the drive I put my foot down peevishly, nearly colliding with horse-lunging man, who was coming up it.

  I drove down the lanes which wove through a seeming maze of identical dry-stone walls enclosing small green fields, but which I could navigate with my eyes shut. Over the hill I went and then down into the valley the other side. Around the next bend, on a thin, straight ribbon of road, a rash of sleepy grey villages erupted one after another, with barely a church, let alone a pub for distinction. Finally, after a particularly fast stretch, the road narrowed and plunged again, taking me around slightly less picturesque fields which featured the odd abandoned caravan, burned-out car, or corrugated-iron shed. We were entering my own muddy valley: my own, less-manicured patch. As I turned at the end of a dead-end lane into my farmyard, the scale of the place struck me too, as it often did when I’d been to Ginnie’s – or Torrington Towers as my children called it, that being her name by marriage. Tiny. And much more prosaic. Only at a stretch, on a sunny October day at about four o’clock in the afternoon, could it b
e called charming. I say four o’clock because by then the sun would be low enough to be blinding and one might not notice the crumbling walls or the patchy roof tiles, just a compact, low farmhouse with small, dark, mullioned windows, believed to date from the thirteenth century – oh, yes, ancient – surrounded by the ubiquitous dry-stone walls that gave onto open countryside beyond.

  To one side of the not-quite-cobbled yard, at right angles to the house and behind a tangle of mulberry bushes, was the first and most curious of the stone outbuildings. Curious because circular, with a conical slate roof. This was known as the Dairy, which Sebastian and I, when we were still madly in love and had lots of money, had converted, rather well and under the eagle eye of English Heritage, to a one-up, two-down. It was here that Ottoline had created a beautiful and quirky home for herself. Beyond that were the Stables, which looked as they sounded: two converted loose boxes with hay barns, now bedrooms, one imaginatively called Number One, the other Number Two. To the east of them, and therefore opposite the farmhouse, was the Granary, a square, stone building with a pitched roof, raised on a series of triangular stones, which in the old days kept the foxes from the grain. Inside was an open space, which, since he only lived to paint, functioned purely as Sebastian’s studio, although there was a sofa in the corner that he sometimes slept on if he didn’t make it to the gallery upstairs, which – as much as there was a bed in it – served as his bedroom. These eclectic buildings, clinging together with bits of old mortar and flung randomly about what had once been a functioning farmyard, comprised a sort of commune, with the children and me living in the farmhouse, the largest, but only by comparison.

  In the days of Veronica, my mother-in-law, the whole place had been cutesy and bohemian, and whilst not a working farm, very definitely a hobby one. She’d work tirelessly in the vegetable garden, elegant in long skirts and a floppy straw hat, and was a tower of strength to ‘Dear Bob’, her rich but hopeless husband. She was a tough act to follow. She’d be horrified at her vegetable garden now, I thought, as I came to a halt in the yard and spied it through a gap where the wall had tumbled down. I made a mental note to throw the overgrown courgettes onto the muck heap, which was probably not what Veronica had meant when she’d written in a recipe book: Twenty Things To Do With Courgettes.