A Very Big House in the Country

by Claire Sandy

  ‘It’s happening,’ said Shen, ‘We’ll all dress up – even if I have to sedate Paula – and hit the nearest flash bar. Shush!’ She held up her hand as Evie spluttered. ‘Talk to the hand, because the face knows exactly what you’re going to say, and the face is bored already.’

  ‘Is this yours?’ Paula held out the sleek silver rectangle.

  ‘Thank you!’ Evie almost grabbed the laptop, delirious to see it again. ‘Where was it?’

  ‘Just there.’ Paula motioned to the hallway table.

  ‘But I know I didn’t . . .’

  ‘At last,’ said Paula, picking fluff from her shoulders in the enormous mirror, ‘I’m not the only one whose stuff mysteriously disappears and reappears. Don’t tell anybody, or they’ll think you’re a nutter!’

  ‘Nobody thinks you’re a nutter.’ Evie regretted brushing the back of Paula’s sundress as the woman leapt.

  ‘Oh, you do,’ said Paula. ‘And I’m starting to agree.’ She slumped, staring at Evie in the mirror, holding her gaze in a way that was usually beyond her. ‘I just saw somebody, honestly, in the shade of the willow.’

  ‘Come! Now.’ Evie held out her hand. ‘We’ll look together.’

  ‘What if I’m right?’

  ‘If you’re right? I thought you were certain?’

  ‘I am, but . . .’

  When Evie took her hand, Paula docilely allowed herself to be led through the kitchen, past The Eights, who were frozen mid-pilfer at the fridge.

  ‘That’s it. Nearly there.’ Their shadows were stunted in the midday sun.

  Paula stopped, dug in her heels. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Then wait here.’ Evie approached the trailing branches of the willow, greenly translucent like seaweed. The space beyond the leaves seemed other-worldly, as if it was too quiet in there, too dark. She saw something. A startled movement.

  Slowing, Evie couldn’t back out with Paula watching her. Putting out her hand to part the fronds, she saw a darting motion at the corner of her vision, like a deer or a rabbit. But a human-sized one.

  The branches closed behind her, and she saw a woman backed against the tree trunk. The woman looked easily as terrified as Evie was shocked.

  ‘Hello.’ Well, what else does one say to a petite woman lurking in the grounds of one’s holiday home?

  ‘No,’ said the intruder nonsensically, on the verge of tears.

  ‘Listen.’ Evie took a step towards her.

  That galvanized the woman and she slipped behind the tree, and the great bushy clumps beyond it swallowed her up. Evie pushed her way through, emerging into a glade of slender trees that marked the garden’s eastern border. She was alone, and a wooden door in the wall stood open.

  ‘Well?’ Paula’s shout was querulous.

  ‘You were damned right.’ Evie retraced her steps. ‘You’re not a nutter, Paula, and I’m going to make sure everybody knows that.’

  ‘Did you see him?’ Paula was incredulous, as if she’d wanted to be wrong.

  ‘Her.’

  ‘Her? What do you mean? Who was she?’

  ‘She was nobody,’ said Evie. ‘Some girl from the village, trespassing for the hell of it. So you were right about somebody being there, but wrong about them being dangerous.’

  ‘Her,’ repeated Paula.

  ‘Haven’t you started getting ready yet?’ Shen looked at Evie with mingled annoyance and pity. ‘You know how long it takes to domesticate your hair.’

  ‘Shen, we don’t all have your perception of time,’ Evie replied, looking around the master suite. A print jumpsuit was hanging up, with shoes standing primly by. Hair-straighteners were plugged in and ready. An arsenal of potions was massed on surfaces. ‘I refuse to spend all afternoon prepping myself to sit on a bar stool.’

  Shen swept her with a look that said Hmm. ‘This place I’ve found is pretty luxe. Don’t wear your black thing.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to wear my black thing,’ said Evie, who had been going to wear her black thing, because it covered her arms and understood about her bottom. She went on impatiently, wondering how Shen always lured her down conversational rabbit holes, ‘Have you see Jon?’

  ‘Why?’ Shen was vexed, as if people could only ask questions she approved of.

  ‘Because – oh, never mind.’ Evie’s phone jumped in her pocket.

  ‘Is that Alex?’

  ‘Yup.’

  Soz to spring this on u. Can u make meeting with head honcho 9.30 a.m. 25th? x

  The real answer was: Are you mad? That’s the morning after I goad my family plus dog cross-country to London. I’ll be up to my hips in laundry, wading through red bills, hating my house for not being Wellcome Manor, and dealing with Scarlett’s Zane-withdrawal symptoms. And I have nothing to wear to meet a head honcho!

  Even an entry-level honcho would be unimpressed by Evie’s wardrobe. However, she texted a cheery acceptance, suppressing the knowledge that she might well spend the twenty-fifth in a doctor’s office.

  ‘There’s Jon!’ Shen, slathering her arms with moisturizer, nodded at the window. ‘Run and you’ll catch him.’

  She ran. And she caught him. Evie didn’t know where to start.

  ‘Um, yes?’ Jon was half-turned away, taken unawares by Evie’s hollered ‘Stop!’ ‘In a bit of a hurry, so . . .’

  ‘Your girlfriend was here earlier.’

  He became still, his eyes locked on hers. They were lovely close up, a changeable green. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘Let me spell it out for you.’ Evie held his gaze. ‘Miss Pritchett is Paula’s monster in the bushes.’ When Jon didn’t speak, she continued, ‘I saw you and Miss Pritchett in the village a few days ago.’ A tremor crossed his face. ‘Just now I humoured Paula by checking out the garden. She’s been right all along. There was somebody there.’

  ‘Jane,’ he said, very quietly.

  ‘If that’s your mistress’s name.’ Evie couldn’t resist the slight sadism. ‘Yes, Jane.’

  Jon shrank, as if all vitality had been sucked from him. ‘This sounds trite, but . . . it’s not what you think.’

  ‘What do I think?’

  ‘You think it’s a grubby affair. That I’m a bastard! But I’m just trying to save my own life.’

  Evie hadn’t suspected Jon of such melodrama. ‘What I think isn’t important. But your mistress shouldn’t—’

  ‘She’s not my mistress.’ Nostrils flaring, this was a different Jon from the fogey she knew.

  ‘I won’t debate technicalities.’ Perhaps Jon hadn’t slept with Miss Pritchett (in her head Shen trilled, ‘Yeah, right!’), but she was still the ‘other woman’. ‘Paula’s fragile.’

  Jon’s eyes flickered, as if he was tired of hearing that.

  ‘She sees peril everywhere and your . . .’ Bit of fluff would be too incendiary. ‘Your friend will tip her over the edge, lurking like that. Me too, actually. None of us want a voyeur standing in the shadows.’

  ‘Point taken.’ Jon lifted his head, until he literally looked down his nose at her. ‘I didn’t know she was here, I swear. It won’t happen again. And as for Paula,’ Jon moved away, ‘you’re not paranoid, if they really are out to get you.’

  They were walking, talking clichés.

  The women were dolled up, high heels and clutch bags.

  The men sat, legs splayed, beers lined up in a row.

  ‘No hookers, OK?’ warned Evie.

  Mike snorted. ‘And no dancing around your handbags.’ As Evie leaned to kiss his cheek, he hissed, ‘Don’t leave me with Clive!’ just like Dan, on a play-date with the class brat.

  ‘Be good,’ said Shen, without irony. ‘Talk to each other. Bond!’ Hands on hips, she said, ‘Get cracking! Bond, you idiots.’

  In the taxi – once Paula had hobbled over the gravel in borrowed heels, like a pantomime horse – Evie said, ‘It didn’t look promising. They’re just sitting there, monosyllabic. How can the poor gits bond, when they have nothing in common?’<
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  ‘Us.’ Shen broke off from haranguing the cabbie about the route. ‘They have us in common.’

  ‘Jon doesn’t talk about me,’ said Paula.

  ‘I don’t think Mike talks about me, either.’ Evie knew that Mike, always cautious about revealing himself, would never confide in Clive.

  ‘They can listen then, while Clive goes on about me,’ said Shen.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll say lovely things.’ Paula winced as the borrowed Spanx dug into her personal bits.

  Shen smoothed her already super-smooth black hair and sprayed enough Chanel No. 5 to make the driver gag. ‘He’ll whine, Paula. For hours.’

  ‘So.’ Mike raised his beer.

  ‘So,’ said Clive.

  ‘I don’t really like beer,’ said Jon.

  ‘This can’t be right.’ Shen surveyed the cool night-spot.

  ‘It’s right,’ said the driver, tearing off, his tyres screeching like a getaway driver.

  On home turf Shen’s antennae sought out the chicest bars, full of naughty potential and populated with A-list faces. The West Country pollen count had bunged up her feelers: this was a boozer.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ The bar staff were cheerful, considering their lack of teeth.

  ‘Euthanasia, please.’ Shen turned. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I like it.’ There was a dare in Evie’s smile. ‘Very . . . um . . . louche.’ She approached the bar, grateful for a venue where her trousers were too classy. ‘A bottle of your finest white wine, please.’

  ‘It in’t cold. That awright?’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’

  Paula said, ‘This place isn’t so bad,’ adding, ‘the people seem friendly’ as a 1,000-year-old man fell off his stool trying to look down Evie’s top.

  Evie confiscated Shen’s phone. ‘We’re staying,’ she said. ‘It’ll do you good to see how the other half live.’

  ‘What about that match, eh?’ Mike leaned back.

  ‘Which match?’ Jon frowned.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Mike.

  ‘We won’t stay out late, will we?’

  ‘That’s not the attitude, Paula!’ Evie offered her a stale crisp. ‘This is a girls’ night out.’ She nudged Shen, who was rod-backed on a cracked leatherette stool. ‘I like the ice bucket.’ They stared at their bottle, wedged in a wellie filled with ice.

  ‘I imagined a shabby-chic vibe,’ said Shen. ‘Not actual shabbiness.’ She shuddered as a dart thudded into a board. ‘Darts!’ she squealed. She caught Evie’s eye and said it again. ‘Darts!’

  That set them off. Shen went first, her eyes creasing to nothing. Evie threw her head back, mouth full of crisps as she hooted. Even Paula wasn’t immune. Like three schoolgirls, they laughed and laughed until the laughs slowed to sighs and ended on a long Aaaah.

  ‘Who’s for pork scratchings?’ asked Evie.

  ‘So we’ve decided,’ Jon ticked off the list on his fingers. ‘No politics, religion, money.’ He bit his lip. ‘Doesn’t leave much.’

  ‘The women,’ said Mike, ‘won’t have paused for breath. Evie and Shen could talk around the clock without sleep.’

  ‘But that’s girl-talk.’ Clive lit his fattest cigar yet. ‘Hair. Nails. Does my bum look big in this?’

  ‘That’s not all they talk about.’ Mike felt the slander, on his wife’s behalf. ‘They talk about feelings. What they want from life. They laugh too. A lot. And they talk about us.’

  ‘Relationships,’ said Jon, ‘are strictly off-limits.’

  The silence that fell was like an old friend by now. An old friend you were rather sick of.

  ‘Stuff this sewage-water.’ Clive said and tossed his beer bottle into a flower bed. ‘I’m opening the good stuff.’

  ‘Sssh, Paula!’ Shen was sharp, but warm, in a way Evie couldn’t achieve. ‘You’re harshing our mellow. Tillie and Amber will be fine. Enjoy yourself. For one night. That’s an order.’ She stood up, unsteady on her red-soled Louboutins. ‘What’s your favourite song?’

  ‘I’m partial to Michael Bublé.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ Shen nodded her approval. ‘I’d be very grateful if he gave me an hour of his free time and decided it was too hot for clothes.’ She squawked in a way that Evie recognized as she headed for the jukebox; Shen was tipsy.

  A drunk Shen was more than the sum of her sober parts. A drunk Shen was a teeny powerhouse of terrible ideas.

  ‘It’s delicious,’ said Clive.

  It was like drinking nectar from Scarlett Johansson’s slipper. Not a furry slipper, like Evie’s, but a satin one. This was the moment Mike realized he was pissed; when he began comparing slippers. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Worth the money?’ Clive was redder than usual. Cardiac-arrest red. ‘Admit it.’

  ‘I can’t!’ Mike banged the table. ‘The price of that claret could keep a family for a month. It’s obscene.’

  ‘It’s obscene with a vanilla bouquet and a spicy finish, though.’ Clive poured out three more goblets. ‘Come on, laugh, you bastard.’

  And Mike did. He laughed. With Clive. Not at him.

  ‘I rather think,’ said Jon, upending his glass, ‘we might be bonding.’

  ‘I do!’ said Shen. ‘Honest!’ There was a hair – just the one – astray on her gleaming head. And her bra strap was showing. By her own standards, she was a slutty mess. ‘I envy your marriage, Evie.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ said Evie loudly. So loudly that the barman gave her a warning look. ‘You never envy anybody, and if you were to take up envying as a hobby, you wouldn’t bloody start with my bloody marriage to bloody Mike.’

  ‘Mike’s lovely,’ protested Paula. She’d located her inner drunk, talking earnestly to a point over Evie’s left shoulder. ‘He’s a lovely man and you’re a lovely woman and I’m a lovely . . . Where’s the bog?’

  As Paula toddled off – Evie had no confidence she’d ever see her again – Shen leaned in and spoke in a loud whisper that the man asleep on the carpet could probably hear. ‘I do envy you. You’re normal.’

  ‘That’s what Mike says.’ Evie pouted. ‘Why can’t people say I’m amazing or I’ve got incredible boobs?’

  ‘You don’t care what people think.’

  Even through the haze of vin du welly, that sounded like one of Shen’s double-edged compliments. ‘Eh?’

  ‘You’re yourself around Mike. I’m . . .’ Shen gestured up and down her body. ‘Perfect. Young. I have to smell great. My abs have to be, like, really abby. I mustn’t have a stomach. My thighs must have a gap. If Clive really loved me . . .’ she tried to focus, ‘then he’d adore me even if I had no abs. Like you. And a big old stomach. Like you. And thighs that—’

  ‘I get it,’ said Evie hurriedly. ‘This deal of yours – was it Clive’s idea?’

  ‘Not really.’ Shen shook her head and an earring flew off. ‘But believe me, he expects high standards. It’s tiring.’ She slumped a little, and her couture playsuit looked like glitzy wrapping on a modest present.

  ‘Shen, you’re more than good enough, without the flat tum and the gel nails.’ Evie fell prey to an attack of drunken sentimentality. ‘Remember . . . then?’ She nodded encouragingly, when Shen looked blank. ‘The bad time? My bad time?’

  ‘Oh, when you had,’ Shen lowered her voice dramatically, ‘cancer?’

  The word slapped Evie’s face. ‘You were the best, Shen. The bestest. You let me talk, and you let me cry. Mike was so fragile and he thought I was this Amazon, holding myself together, but it was all you. You held me up.’

  Shen held up a finger. ‘We don’t talk about those days.’

  ‘I’m drunk. I can break the rules.’ Evie heard herself say rule-sh, but ploughed on regardless. ‘You’ve never let me properly thank you and I have to say it now: thank you Shen my lovely lovely friend.’ She was bawling.

  Shen was bawling.

  They bawled in each other’s arms, eyeliner only a memory until the barman tapped Evie on the shoulder.


  ‘I hate to disturb you,’ he said. ‘But I think your mate’s locked herself in.’

  ‘You’re a gentleman and a . . .’ Mike searched for the word. Where had all his words gone? He seemed to have only about eight at his disposal. ‘And a gennulman!’ He toasted Clive royally, glass aloft. He left it aloft for a while before remembering what to do with it, and bringing it to his lips. He’d never realized how moreish shamefully expensive booze can be.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir.’ Clive dipped his head and his cigar fell onto his lap. ‘Ouch,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Christ, it’s dark out there,’ said Jon. His hair stood on end. He looked as if somebody had reached out and tousled his whole body.

  ‘Don’t you start,’ said Clive. ‘It’s bad enough with your bloody . . . I mean, your good lady wife banging on about prowlers, without you doing it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean . . .’ said Jon. ‘Are we ruining this holiday?’

  ‘Noooo!’ Mike was effusive. He sounded fake to his own ears, but he couldn’t stop. ‘Not at all! No! God, no! Not in the least!’

  ‘This is a strange time for us,’ said Jon. His watery green eyes might have been tearful, but the other men couldn’t focus enough to be sure. ‘Paula has her demons.’

  ‘We noticed,’ said Clive. ‘Those are not quiet demons, Jon.’

  Not listening, Mike suddenly wanted Patch. He needed to tell Patch how much he loved him. ‘Oh, Patch,’ he whimpered, as Clive said, ‘Ladies, eh? Can’t live with ’em, can’t . . . what’s the rest of that damn saying?’

  ‘Shoot ’em in the head?’ offered Jon.

  ‘Give me your take on this, team.’ Clive stubbed out his cigar. ‘Man-to-man.’

  ‘I love Patch,’ said Mike.

  ‘I’m sure you do,’ said Clive. ‘But this is about a woman. Now, I’m not proud of this, but there have been women. Other women.’

  ‘That’s bad.’ Mike forgot all about Patch. He wasn’t sure if he had a dog at all. ‘Bad Clive.’

  ‘I’ve never been able to resist temptation.’