Diane nodded and settled back into the cushions once more.
‘OK, here we go.’ Anna cleared her throat. ‘It’s from March, the day Lord Spencerville died.’
‘Hit me with it.’
‘I’ve just got off the phone with Margaret.’ Anna looked up. ‘That must be Lady Spencerville.’ She read once more. ‘She told me that Frank—’
‘Lord Spencerville?’ Diane interrupted.
Anna shrugged and nodded. ‘I presume so.’ She scoured her aunt’s writing to find her place. ‘She told me that Frank died unexpectedly last night. I had to console her, the whole time thinking how much my own heart was breaking. I know it’s wrong to think it, but I think she enjoyed hearing me cry. I never knew you could feel your heart break, but felt mine. Frank was here, only yesterday, and we sat outside in the first of the spring weather. He told me a story, off the top of his head, of two people who desperately wanted to be together but were held back by what was expected of them. I must somehow go on without him in my life and, even though he didn’t live here with me, the cottage suddenly feels so lonely and empty. He taught me I have to open my eyes to be happy, but now I want to shut them tight so I don’t have to look at all the empty spaces where he once sat or stood or laughed or cried.’
Anna looked up at Diane, who blew her nose loudly into a tissue and blotted her eyes.
‘God, I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘No,’ Anna agreed, ‘that’s what I mean. I think she wanted me to read it because she had to keep it all a secret.’
‘Why did she say something about Margaret enjoying hearing her cry?’ Diane pointed out. ‘Why would she say that?’
Anna shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Makes you wonder about that family, doesn’t it?’ Diane swung her legs over the edge of the sofa.
Anna shook her head sadly. ‘Yes, it really does.’ She looked out of the window and saw her mother doing an impression of an elephant for Tony and another woman Anna didn’t recognise.
Diane was about to say something when Anna’s mother pushed the front door open wide. ‘Darling, Rosie and I were just discussing you and she reminded me that today is the day.’
‘Day?’
‘The giant pork pie-rolling competition,’ she announced. ‘Rosie is a hoot and says there’s danger of you breaking something on the way down, but she’ll happily lend you a bike helmet.’
‘I’m not so sure any more about throwing myself down a hill attached to a pork pie.’ She wondered how many things were wrong with that sentence. ‘Why don’t you do it? If you’re so keen.’
‘You can’t expect your elderly mother to endanger herself like that.’
‘Oh, but it’s OK for her thirty-two-year-old daughter to strap herself to a pastry for the sake of a bit of fun.’
‘Think how heroic you’ll be. The only woman who’s ever done it.’
‘There may be other women who have signed up.’ Anna stood.
‘No, Rosie says there aren’t because no one else is stupid enough to do it.’
‘Exactly.’ Anna walked to the kitchen. ‘Not doing it. I’ll ring Barry and tell him it’s off.’
Her mother sighed. ‘Oh, you are so ungrateful.’
‘What?’ Anna reappeared.
‘I bought you a dress.’
‘And now you think it’s only right that I roll down a mountain with pastry stuck to me, flashing my knickers.’
‘Darling,’ her mother pointed out, ‘you’ve done the latter plenty of times; it’s just the pastry that’s different.’
‘No,’ she refused.
‘Mum?’ said the children, who had appeared on the stairs in their PJs. They looked so sad and she drew them into a big hug.
‘What’s up, you two?’
‘I feel sad,’ Antonia said.
‘Me too,’ said Freddie, swiping a tear from his face. ‘I want to do something fun.’
‘Well,’ interrupted Grandma Linda, ‘Mummy was going to do that race today. Remember, the one I told you about?’
They smiled. ‘Yeah,’ they giggled.
Her heart ached for them. ‘Would you like to go to the competition?’
‘Yeah, maybe. Do we get an ice cream?’
Anna nodded. ‘Yeah, you get an ice cream.’
Antonia let out a giggle and Anna smiled. ‘Mummy roll down hill…’
Anna nodded at the others. ‘OK, I’m in.’
She would do anything to cheer her children up, and Barry had promised her that pay rise.
Anna saw the sign for White Horse Hill, Uffington and nearly fainted.
‘This is a joke, right?’ she said to her mother, who was driving erratically around the corners. ‘You said a hill.’
Her mother laughed it off. ‘It is a hill, hence White Horse Hill.’
‘It’s got a white chalk horse on it that can be seen for miles. That is not a hill, that may as well be a sodding mountain.’
‘Well, just think,’ Rosie chimed in, ‘the steeper the hill, the faster you get to the bottom.’
Her mother burst into uncontrollable laughter and Anna sank deeper into the seat. She wondered if it was too late in life to get some sort of divorce from her mother.
They slowed as an official came up to the car window. ‘Viewing or participating?’
‘My daughter,’ she pointed, ‘is taking part. We’re watching her in all her glory.’
‘Great.’ The girl smiled and then flashed Anna a look that read are you crazy or suicidal?
‘I feel sick,’ Anna said.
‘Use those nerves.’ Rosie nodded. ‘Every performer should feel nervous before something like this.’
Anna turned and looked at Diane driving the twins behind. ‘I mean, what if something happens to me and the children are left without any parents?’
‘I’ll look after them,’ her mother said.
‘Exactly why I shouldn’t be doing this.’ Anna spotted the growing crowd and, even more unnerving, camera crews.
Her mother parked and they all climbed out. Diane pulled in alongside them and the twins rushed over, worryingly excited at the prospect of their mother’s challenge.
Another official, a young guy who looked like a surfer, came over. He had a broad Aussie accent.
‘Any of you guys entering? This area is for participants only, so I guess you probably need to park over—’
‘Yes, my daughter, she’s entering.’ Her mother pushed Anna forward.
‘Really?’ He shot her a look of admiration. ‘That is brave for a Sheila. Good on ya.’
Anna smiled weakly and took the bib and badge from him. ‘Thanks. I guess.’
‘OK, so you guys go over there.’ The Aussie pointed at the cordoned-off area for the viewers and then, using his other hand, gestured for Anna to follow him.
She bent down and drew the twins into an enormous hug. ‘I love you guys.’
They squirmed from her grasp. ‘Bye, Mummy,’ Antonia said and Freddie had already run off to join her mother, Diane and Rosie.
Anna walked with the Aussie up the hill, her breathing laboured, her muscles burning.
‘Much easier going down,’ he said and laughed.
As they neared the halfway point, a hand touched her on the arm and she looked up. ‘Oh, Richard, hi.’
‘I heard you were doing this. Good luck.’
‘Oh, I don’t really…’ She was being beckoned by the Aussie and had to keep moving. ‘Talk later,’ she said and muttered, ‘hopefully.’
A little bit further up, someone else called her name and she saw Horatio. Just beyond she saw another familiar face and, heart pounding, stood rooted to the ground, unable to drag her eyes away.
‘Uh…’ The Aussie looked at his notes. ‘Miss Compton, we need to get this show on the road, so if you wouldn’t mind…’
‘But…’ Her feet wouldn’t move. ‘But…’
How could she explain to some surfer dude in his twenties that just feet from where she no
w stood was the father of her children, the man who had just upped and left at the positive pregnancy stick, the man who hadn’t made contact even once to ask for a photo, and he was looking at her, BBC camera in hand. She remembered the children and realised she had to be there for them. He couldn’t approach the twins himself. In fact, she wouldn’t allow him to see them after all this time. He didn’t deserve that and they didn’t deserve to have to endure a fleeting moment with the father who had abandoned them.
‘Miss Compton…’ The Aussie sounded distressed, the cool tones of his accent clipped with panic. ‘Now. Please.’
Anna glanced at the Aussie then back at Simon before realising she had no choice but to plod on. They reached the top and the Aussie introduced her to a woman handing out bibs.
‘Ah,’ she winked at Anna, ‘you’re our brave woman soldier.’
‘Something like that,’ Anna said quietly.
‘Well, here you go.’
‘So, how do you strap the pork pie on?’ Anna shrugged the bib over her head.
The woman shrieked with laughter. ‘We don’t attach the pork pie,’ she said, in broad Oxfordshire tones. Haven’t you ever seen the Cooper’s Hill cheese-rolling? No, we start the pork pie rolling and whoever has it when they reach the bottom wins.’ She nodded. ‘It can get pretty ugly.’
Anna looked along the line of contestants. There were about twenty others, all men, and most of them looked like they played for the local rugby side.
‘Oh crap,’ she said, under her breath.
The woman left her at the end of the row and Anna, shakily, took up her position.
‘She’s number three,’ she heard a woman point out off to her right. ‘The crazy woman I was telling you about.’
Anna liked to think the woman was referring to her insanity at taking part in the race, and nothing else.
‘Yoooohooooooooo,’ came another voice from the left. Anna scanned the crowd and saw her mother and Rosie holding up two large pieces of cardboard. Her mother’s read ‘Anna is a Porkie’ and Rosie’s ‘Pie Winner’.
‘Anna,’ her mother shouted, her voice carrying on the wind, ‘Whooo hooo! Look at all the men. We’re jealous down here, darling. Make sure you play dirty!’
Anna smiled weakly at the man next to her, whose eyes looked hungry for the prize, saliva already forming on his lips. She gulped, looking back over at her mother, hoping to see the twins, maybe for the last time, and was horrified to find that, while Rosie had dropped her cardboard sign by her feet, her mother’s remained flying high.
‘Hello, ladies and gentlemen,’ Bib-Lady started up on the microphone. ‘Welcome to the Annual Giant Pork Pie-Rolling Competition!’ She smiled broadly at her receptive audience, which, Anna noted, feeling increasingly nauseous, stretched back as far as her eye could see.
For the moment, she refused to look down the right-hand side at Richard, Horatio or Simon. Somehow, she needed to focus: it felt as if the other contestants had been preparing for this, maybe even been to sports psychology lessons. She was wearing jeans and a fleece, they were in rugby shirts and shorts; they stared straight ahead, she was trying to get her mother to put down the sign that read ‘Anna is a Porkie’. It was not the kind of message she imagined Andy Murray’s mother gave Andy before a big tournament. Her own mother thought Anna was waving and grinned, pointing proudly at the sign.
Bib-Lady was giving the audience a brief history of the event, through a loudspeaker, and then she started to pull back a red, silk throw covering a box. ‘And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the pork pie. If you’ve never been here before and you’re wondering how on earth a pork pie doesn’t fall apart as it makes its way down the hill… Well,’ she winked, ‘that would be telling.’ She looked back at the line of contestants. ‘Let’s just say it’s more likely to hurt them before they hurt it.’ The audience cheered and Anna was reminded of one of the fight scenes from the film Gladiator. ‘Finally, I would just like to announce for those of you further down who can’t see our fine-looking contestants yet,’ the woman went on, ‘that we have a woman taking part this year. For the first time ever we decided it was only fair to allow women to take part.’ The woman looked at the list the Aussie had handed her. ‘So, we’re proud to announce that Miss Anna Compton will be part of today’s scrum, so that should keep you all entertained, folks.’ She smiled and moved back up the hill. ‘When I sound my whistle, let the fun begin. Let’s bring out the beast.’ She indicated the box.
‘Yay, Anna!’ her mother hollered. ‘That’s my daughter.’ She waved her sign manically in the air. ‘She was awful at P.E…’ Anna heard her say and, a few seconds later, a ripple of laughter erupted from the surrounding group.
The Aussie guy assumed a squatting position in order to retrieve the pork pie safely from the box and, breathing heavily, placed it at the woman’s feet. It was approximately two feet wide in diameter, and to the far-off audience members would have looked delicious. But to those up close and personal, like Anna, it was obvious that it was, in fact, as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar.
‘Good luck,’ the Aussie whispered to her, backing off and taking up his position behind the rope cordoning off the audience.
‘All right, are you ready? May the best man, or woman, win. On your marks, get steady…’ Bib-Lady blew the whistle hard and kicked the pork pie with her steel, toe-capped boot, sending it rolling off to the left. The line of men ran after the pork pie, skidding along the mud, shoving each other out of the way.
‘Go, Anna. You’ve got to run,’ shouted Diane from the side. ‘Sodding move, Anna!’
She realised she hadn’t moved, instead watching in amazement at the brutality of the men bounding down the hill in front of her.
‘Go, Banana!’ her mother’s voice yelled.
Anna, tears in her eyes, started to back away, and then she caught sight of Simon, his camera pointing in her direction, capturing her humiliation for the region, maybe the country, to watch on the news that evening.
‘Come on, Mummy!’ she heard Freddie’s little voice.
‘Go, Mummy!’ Antonia chimed.
She saw them, looked back at Simon, who had left the camera on her but was now staring at the twins, at his children, and knew then and there that she had to get down to the bottom before he had a chance to talk to them without her being there.
She took a deep breath and ran. Anna felt her lungs burning and, as her left foot slipped on some mud, she tumbled forward.
‘Yeah, Anna!’ Diane whooped. ‘That’s my girl.’
Anna ran past the scrum of twenty men, diving headfirst at the pork pie, desperately kicking at it with their feet. One man looked up from the pie, blood smearing his face, his eyes panicked.
‘Darling, you’ve run past the pie!’ her mother shouted.
But she kept going, leaving the vicious mass of limbs and testosterone, sprinting towards the bottom. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Simon jogging down the side of the hill, his eyes on her. She picked up speed; she wouldn’t let him get there first. Anna looked over to the other side and saw the twins were matching her pace, running down the hill, Diane calling for them to stop.
‘Mummy,’ Freddie shouted, ‘we’re racing you!’
She spotted Simon nearing the bottom and the twins suddenly picked up pace and overtook her. Then, out of nowhere, she was hit from behind by something solid and tumbled, headfirst, somersaulting down the hillside, until she landed in a heap. She tried to get up, her whole body aching and caked in mud, her legs unsteady, and she had just managed to right herself when she looked behind and saw a group of snarling men, her fellow contestants, leaping forward onto her and she was buried under a mountain of men.
‘Can’t breathe,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Can’t breathe.’
‘Get off her!’ A woman was shouting. ‘Get off her!’
Eventually, Anna saw daylight and drew breath.
‘You did it!’ The woman who had blown the whistle shouted at her. ‘You’re our win
ner!’
‘I am?’
The woman pointed underneath her and she looked down to find she was sitting on the giant pork pie.
‘Darling,’ her mother rushed over and hugged her, ‘you lucky thing! You haven’t seen that much action for a while, have you?’
‘No,’ Anna answered honestly. ‘I haven’t done any exercise for over a decade.’
‘No,’ her mother said. ‘I meant the pile-up.’
The twins hugged her and cheered. ‘We beat you, Mummy!’
‘Well done.’ She smiled and, with the help of Diane, finally got up. ‘Oh my God, I hurt.’
Then she saw Simon making his way over and froze.
‘Darling, you’ve gone very pale,’ her mother said.
They followed her gaze and Diane whispered, ‘Oh God.’
He came over and smiled the same sexy smile he had used on their first date. ‘Hi.’
Anna’s mouth was dry and she gripped the children’s hands as tightly as she could.
‘Ow, Mummy,’ Antonia said.
‘Long time, no see.’ He smiled at the twins. ‘Are these—’
‘Rosie,’ Anna said, ‘can you take the kids somewhere? Buy them a hot chocolate or something.’
‘Sure thing,’ Rosie said and the twins followed obediently, giving the strange man one more look.
‘Anna, well done,’ Simon started.
Then another voice behind her said, ‘Anna, you were brilliant.’ She turned and saw Horatio. ‘You were really.’ He paused. ‘Are you OK?’
Anna didn’t know what to say. In her mind it went something like, ‘Oh, thanks. Yeah, I’m fine except that you see this guy here? Well, he’s the toss-pot who left me five years ago when he found out I was pregnant. Here’s the bastard who often conveniently forgets to send me any money to help me raise the children. Here’s the…’
Her mother stepped in. ‘Anna, my darling daughter, is in shock right now because this man here…’ She pointed at Simon. ‘Actually, no, not man – animal. No, not animal – the flea that sits on the animal. No, actually, he’s the bacteria on that flea that sits on the animal.’ Anna saw that her mother was trembling as much as she was. ‘In fact, I have no words.’
The Little Cottage in the Country Page 13
