A Rural Affair

by Catherine Alliott

  So that was her memory sorted out. But what about her life? What about replacing Phil with something better, so that, blink, and she and Archie wouldn’t know any different? They were so young, any stepfather would soon be like a real father. Like Becky. She called her new daddy Papa. He was a farmer, and Linda, her mum, had never been happier. I knew Linda. Knew the family Clemmie had been talking about. Linda wasn’t automatically my type at the school gates – bottle blonde, very short skirts, chewed gum constantly – but I liked her. Her husband had walked out on her one Easter Sunday and taken up with a younger model. He’d bought a motorbike too; leathers, the whole bit. Two months later he’d been killed on the A41 when his bike hit black ice. Linda now lived on a dairy farm with her little girl, Becky, and Becky’s papa. The manic gum-chewing had stopped, I noticed. Jeans instead of micro minis. Hair slightly darker. Because perhaps Becky’s papa didn’t need the peroxide? Happy endings. Don’t knock them. And don’t pass them up, either.

  The rest of the week was taken up with calming my best friend’s sartorial nerves. As Jennie frenziedly pointed out, she hadn’t been to a ball for years, had nothing to wear and anyway, what did one wear to balls these days? Was it long and slinky, or short and cocktaily? These, and other such burning issues, mostly to do with shoes and accessories, consumed us. For just as I couldn’t think for myself, Jennie couldn’t dress herself – something I found as easy as falling off a confidence log. Her lack of taste baffled me.

  ‘How about this with these?’ she’d say as she ran through my back door wearing yet another heinous combination, this time bursting out of a black dress of such sequined monstrosity, together with high red shoes, it fairly took my breath away.

  ‘No to both,’ I said firmly. ‘And certainly not together. The only thing black goes with is black, Jennie. Take the shoes back to Angie and the dress to Peggy. She’d get away with that because she’s eccentric and it would hang off her.’

  ‘Whereas I’d just look like a tart?’

  I shrugged, slightly pleased to have the upper hand occasionally with my bossy friend. But then I took pity and, piling the children in the car, took her shopping.

  She ended up looking terrific in a grey slinky number I’d found in Coast: to the floor, high at the front, but low at the back. As did Angie in her black velvet, which she shook from a Selfridges bag and slipped into in the middle of my kitchen; and Peggy in the sequins which she’d generously offered Jennie, but which, with black pumps and on her rangy frame, looked stunning.

  ‘If only you were coming,’ they all said and Jennie looked a bit guilty, feeling perhaps she should have refused the tickets and insisted I go.

  ‘Oh, I really don’t want to,’ I said, meaning it. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you go to alone, is it?’

  ‘No, no,’ they chorused, as it occurred to us that Angie, and ostensibly Peggy, were doing just that.

  ‘It’s not really your sort of thing, is it?’ consoled Angie.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I agreed, stung. Why wasn’t it? Why? ‘Anyway, I’m going to Dad’s,’ I said quickly, to save them. ‘Haven’t seen him for ages. I’m going to cook him supper.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ They all said, relieved, feeling much better. They bustled away content.

  Dad, however, wasn’t much help when I decided to follow through. ‘Steak and chips,’ I told him cheerfully, ‘in front of Viva Las Vegas. I’ll bring the steak.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, Poppy, I’m going to the hunt ball.’

  ‘Are you?’ I was astonished.

  ‘Yes, Mark sent me a ticket, wasn’t that kind? Just a single, but they’re a hundred quid a pop, so terribly generous. Especially after all that business with the hound. Aren’t you going, love? Half the county’s going to be there.’

  ‘Well, I was going to – he sent me some too – but I gave mine to Jennie.’

  ‘Ah, right. Not really your sort of thing, is it? Anyway, must go love, I’ve got to feed the horses before I shimmy into my glad rags.’

  And he was gone. Leaving me irritated. And then I found myself growing more irritated as I put the children to bed. Not my sort of thing? Why not? Christ, I could party with the best of them! Just because Phil and I didn’t much – he was teetotal and liked an early night – didn’t mean I couldn’t. Bloody hell, you should have seen me in the old Clapham days, creeping back up the stairs at three in the morning, barefoot, high heels in hand. When I was young. But I was still young, surely? I swept Archie’s curtain shut with a vengeance. Through the crack I could see the bedroom lights across the road at the Old Rectory, where Sylvia and Angus would be getting ready: Angus stooping to adjust his bow tie in the mirror, Sylvia popping diamonds in her ears at her dressing table. Marvellous. How lovely for them. I seized the groaning nappy bucket and marched downstairs. Cinders by the fire, then. I shook the nappies viciously in the bin. With her solitary boiled egg, in her dressing gown and her ancient Ugg boots. Splendid.

  I told myself I’d be the smug one in the morning, though, when everyone else was nursing hangovers. Oh yes. In the pub. Laughing and reminiscing over bloody Marys. Hm. They’d all be there tonight, of course. Sam – no, don’t think about Sam. I’d successfully blocked him for days; resisted imagining him in his black tie, even whilst helping Jennie buy a new white shirt for Dan. I wasn’t going to give in now. Instead I helped myself to a large gin and tonic and told myself there was a good film on at nine and that I might even stay up till it finished. Live a little.

  It was a surprise, therefore, when my doorbell rang much earlier, at eight, and I opened it to find my father on my front step, an overcoat over his dinner jacket. He seemed mildly taken aback to see me in my dressing gown. Looked me up and down, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Didn’t you get my message?’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘I left one on your mobile. About tonight. Mark rang to say Mary Granger was throwing up and would I like to bring anyone. Didn’t you get it?’

  ‘No!’ I could have kissed him. And hit him. So like Dad not to try again. Not to persevere. Just turn up and assume.

  ‘Well, I can’t come now,’ I said testily. ‘I’ve got the children.’

  ‘Can’t you get a babysitter?’

  ‘Of course not, it’s far too late.’

  ‘What about Jennie’s daughter, next door?’

  ‘She’s out with her boyfriend. And the little ones are at a sleepover.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked vaguely stumped. Then: ‘Bring them with us?’

  Ordinarily a suggestion like this from my father would be greeted with scathing derision from me. But genes will out, and in many respects I am my father’s daughter. Can, at the drop of a hat, revert to type. I stared at him.

  ‘OK.’

  In my heart, I was far from sure I was going to run with this; but in the spirit of living dangerously was nonetheless interested to see how he’d execute it: keen to give him his head.

  ‘Right. You get changed, brush your hair and whatnot, and I’ll carry them into the lorry.’

  ‘The lorry?’

  ‘Well, the car hasn’t worked for weeks, Poppy.’

  So my father drove his horse lorry. Blithely parked it in Tesco’s car park, no doubt, as if it were a Vauxhall Cresta.

  ‘So … we’re piling the children into a dark lorry, and what, leaving it in a muddy field? Where they’ll wake up cold and frightened?’

  ‘No, no, we’ll take them in the house, find a bed for them.’

  ‘Arrive at a black-tie ball with two sleepy children? Forget it, Dad. Have fun.’ I went to shut the door, but he was already in.

  ‘Don’t be wet, Poppy, how d’you think your mum and I ever went to parties? We were never organized enough for a sitter. You were always under one arm. Now go and put your frock on and I’ll sort the kids out. It’s only one night, for God’s sake, it won’t kill them, and they’ll love it. Everyone’s going, d’you want to be the only one who isn’t?’

  He knew which buttons t
o press. He was also halfway up the stairs.

  Twenty minutes later, we were in the lorry – the one with no seat belts, remember – rattling over a cattle grid at the entrance to Mulverton Hall, only this time we took the fork in the drive that led, not to the home farm and a muddy field of cows, but to the main house. A sweep of dark green lawn swam like a lake in front of us. Dad, at the wheel, skirted it carefully, then followed signs to parking in the paddock alongside, behind the park railings. I had on my old black dress, and my hastily washed hair was still wet down my back; between us on the front seat, sitting bolt upright and wide awake, were two overexcited and highly delighted children.

  I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this-I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this, was my overriding thought as a surprised car park attendant in a long white coat – surprised at the lorry initially, then the children – beckoned us into the field. Dad gave him a cheery wave and wound down the window.

  ‘Hi, Roy.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Peter!’ He peered in. ‘Brought the whole family, I see!’

  ‘Well, it’s a night out, isn’t it?’ said Dad smoothly.

  He trundled away from Roy and through the gate. At the end of a line of parked cars, he expertly swung two tons of juggernaut into position. A Mercedes drew up beside us, and a woman in a fox-fur coat and a smattering of diamonds stared up in wonder from the passenger seat. I found my nerve rapidly disappearing down the drain.

  ‘Dad … ’ I swallowed.

  ‘Come on, Clemmie, look lively, love.’ He’d hopped out of the cab already, and as Clemmie scrambled across the seat to his open arms, he crouched and hoisted her up onto his shoulders. ‘Up you go!’

  She wrapped her arms excitedly around her grandpa’s neck, squealing with delight. Then he slammed the cab door, and was off. Naturally I had no choice but to follow. With Archie in my arms, I picked my way through the field, following the phalanx of flaming torches which lined the drive ahead and floodlit the expansive grounds. My heart was fluttering with panic but as we crunched across the gravel sweep, I knew I was in too deep. The honey-coloured walls rose up before us; ranks of windows blazed down. Dad pranced ahead, hopping about jauntily now from foot to foot, playing the fool, Clemmie, in her pink dressing gown bouncing and laughing on his shoulders. How many parties had I been to like that, I wondered? Had it done me any harm? Doing A Mortimer, Mum used to call it, when Dad veered off the beaten track, took his own route, which was more than occasionally. But this was a very grand party. People were silhouetted at the windows in their finery: bare shoulders, sparkling jewels, one or two turning to stare. And please don’t tell me he was going to leap up those grand portal steps guarded by stone griffins? Breeze through the open front door where waiters stood poised with trays of champagne? Babes in arms?

  My father, however, was far from stupid, and within a twinkling was nipping round the back. I scuttled sheepishly after him feeling like a burglar, but Dad, knowing his way round old country houses – or at least his way to the stables and a cup of tea – didn’t falter. In a jiffy he’d found a back door which opened to his touch, and was striding right on through. He was deliberately going too fast for me to catch him, to dither, discuss, deliberate – chicken out – and as I followed breathlessly with Archie in my arms, he was already halfway down the passageway. Framed Spy cartoons from old copies of Punch lined the walls, and just before a green baize door Dad made a left turn into a well-lit room. Whistling, no less.

  I followed in trepidation and found myself in a large, rather tired-looking kitchen with a very high ceiling. Cream Formica cupboards with glazed doors lined one wall, the floor was lino, rather like Dad’s, the only nod to the status of this house being a huge oak table which sailed down the middle. A well-upholstered blonde woman in a white apron had her back to us at the kitchen sink under the window. She turned in surprise. I recognized her immediately. It was Janice, the receptionist, but perhaps she didn’t instantly place me out of context, and anyway she wasn’t given a chance. Dad was already commanding her full attention: charming her, flirting, even, explaining about the babysitter letting us down, jiggling Clemmie, so that by the end of it, as she listened wide-eyed to the tale, wiping wet hands on a tea towel, she was wreathed in smiles, assuring him it was no trouble at all, and that she loved looking after little-uns. She’d pop them in the old nursery, she said, and yes, plug the alarm in, when I proffered it anxiously.

  ‘Oh, hello, love, thought I recognized you.’ She beamed.

  No, we weren’t to worry a jot, she carried on. We were to run along and have a jolly good time. It seemed she remembered Dad from the races – who didn’t? Warwick, was it? Or Windsor? No, no, Mr Hetherington wouldn’t mind a bit, she assured me as I interrupted their racing chat. I would turn the conversation back to more mundane matters. On they gossiped, and then, just as they were reminiscing about that epic race, the five-thirty from Haydock one summer’s evening last year, when Ransom Boy, a rank outsider at 100 to one, had won by a head, just at that moment Mr Hetherington himself swept into the kitchen.

  Far from looking as if he couldn’t be more thrilled, as Janice had intimated, he couldn’t have looked more thunderous. But it wasn’t just that: it wasn’t the heavily knitted brow as he stood there glowering, dressed in what I can only assume was some sort of hunting livery – frightfully dashing and involving a bottle-green tailcoat with his bow tie – no, it wasn’t that. It was the churning of my own stomach that disquieted me. The pulverizing of my ribcage by what felt like needles. It was the terrible dawning sensation, as he stood before us in all his glory, that this wasn’t just an unsuitable crush. This was something a lot more serious.

  30

  There was a brief and startled silence.

  ‘Hello, Sam,’ I managed, cranking up a smile, as he stared. Took in this eccentric little party: this gatecrasher with her older man, her wet hair, children in pyjamas. I faltered on. ‘Um, my f-father invited me, and –’

  ‘And the babysitter let her down,’ schmoozed Dad, stepping forward, hand extended, beaming. ‘Can you believe it? Right at the last moment. Cystitis, apparently. A thousand apologies for bursting in like this with the entire family, but we were so looking forward to it. Peter Mortimer, Poppy’s dad.’

  ‘Sam Hetherington,’ said Sam, still looking dazed, and still, for some reason, even as he shook Dad’s hand, looking at me.

  ‘Janice here assures us the children will be no trouble. They’re terribly good, you know, never cry,’ went on Dad. ‘But I do apologize nonetheless, quite an invasion.’

  Sam’s eyes came back to my father. ‘Sorry, you mean –?’

  ‘Pop them upstairs? If that’s all right? Quite an imposition, I know, but we couldn’t think of any way round it.’

  Sam collected himself. ‘Oh, I see. Absolutely. No, not at all. Couldn’t matter less. Right, well, Janice, what d’you suggest?’ He turned swiftly on his heel to face her, raking a hand through his hair. ‘Could the children go in the blue spare room, d’you think?’

  ‘I thought the old nursery. It’s closer to the back stairs and I’ll hear them better. All right, love?’ Dad had set Clemmie down from his shoulders and Janice went to take her hand.

  ‘My grandchildren,’ said my father proudly, a hand on each of their shoulders as if they were the guests of honour. I cringed. Don’t overdo it, Dad. But Sam rose to the occasion.

  ‘A pleasure to have you both here,’ he told Clemmie with a smile.

  My daughter, a Mortimer through and through, extended her hand as she’d seen her grandfather do and said solemnly, ‘Clementine Shilling.’

  Sam took her hand, delighted, and we all laughed. I could have kissed her. ‘Good evening, Clementine. I hope you enjoy your stay.’

  ‘You can call me Clemmie.’

  After that it was easy, because, as Dad says, it always is if you oil the wheels with a sprinkle of humour and a dash of charm, or lashings of it in his case. He and Sam spoke of point-to-points and hunter trials, as S
am got some more ice – what he’d come in for, he explained, the caterers having stupidly not brought enough – which perhaps explained his thunderous face earlier, but perhaps not. It had certainly cleared, though. And as he discovered he’d once bought a horse from Dad – years ago, as most people had, a good one, thank the Lord – it cleared even more.

  ‘So, Poppy, how lovely,’ he turned to me, all smiles now. But I wondered whether an expensive education had cultivated the sort of manners that can be terribly useful on occasion. ‘And see you in due course, I hope. It’s heaving out there, incidentally, hope you don’t mind a crush, although I’m reliably informed it’s atmosphere.’ He gave me another brilliant beam. ‘Anyway, must dash, people are standing around with warm drinks.’ And dash he did, with his industrial-sized bag of ice. Looking divine, I thought, as I watched his broad dark-green back disappear.

  I followed Janice down the passage and up the uncarpeted back stairs with the children. Our feet clattered on the bare wood. Clemmie was wide awake and chatting animatedly, thoroughly enjoying her role as house guest. Her brother was also warming to the task, singing, literally, for his supper, bellowing ‘Baa-baa Black Sheep’ at the top of his voice, swaying to the rhythm in my arms. The party was on as far as they were concerned, and I realized, with a sinking heart, that I’d never get them to sleep now. I might just as well not have come. Janice, though, was a hit, even with Archie, who’s very fussy. When we got to the bedroom she sat on the bed and pointed to the faded frieze of farmyard animals around the walls, asking Archie what they said. It occurred to me that this really was a nursery, albeit an old one.