A Very Big House in the Country

by Claire Sandy

  Impossible as it seemed, the last half-hour of the holiday had arrived. All their sunny days spent, they were legally obliged to clear off and vacate the property that had begun to feel like home.

  The house was tossed, as if mildly burgled. The cat-shaped cushion Mabel had ‘packed by mistake’ was replaced. A velvet stool was repositioned to cover the spot where Miles had drawn a smiley face on the wallpaper.

  Paula still wore Evie’s swimsuit under her dress, but Evie let it go, too busy running up, down, up the staircase, then down again, while cramming a rogue pair of Mr Men knickers into a holdall, holding together her broken toiletries bag and wondering just what Mabel did with the hundreds of elastic hairbands that passed through her ink-stained hands.

  The solid front door stood open, impassive to the endless comings and goings. Dan dawdled through, whining, ‘I’m hungry, Mum.’

  ‘We’ll stop on the way,’ called Evie, stuffing cases into the boot of their car.

  ‘We bloody won’t,’ muttered Mike, dragging a reluctant Patch towards the back seat.

  Scarlett, with Tillie at her shoulder, asked, ‘All right if I travel with Paula?’

  ‘No kissing!’ shouted Dan.

  As the next in line to take flight, his dearest ambition would soon be to kiss somebody. Evie grabbed him, with a tackle that only mothers and muggers employ. She kissed his filthy head where his filthy hair parted – it smelled like Gouda – and said, ‘Car, Mister! Now!’

  Paula, half-in, half-out of her own car, asked if she could follow them home. ‘Sure!’ called Evie, fast-forwarding to the dayroom of a care-home where a wrinkled Paula wheezed from the adjacent comfy chair, ‘What do I want for me dinner, Evie?’

  One by one, the very big house spat out the holiday-makers.

  ‘Bye-bye, Wellcome Manor!’ shouted Mabel. ‘I’ll miss you!’ Promptly tripping over her sandals, she had barely hit the gravel before Mike scooped her up and ‘WHEEEE!’-ed her into the air, giving her no time to cry.

  Checking in her bag for her front-door keys – they looked quaint, like somebody else’s property – Evie called to the Ling-Little section of the convoy before finally climbing into the front seat. ‘See you at home, Shen! Don’t know how I’ll cope in my crappy little kitchen!’

  ‘Fibber!’ Retouching her lipgloss, Shen was back in full London armour, hair puffed, bare shoulders gleaming, each finger bejewelled. ‘You can’t wait to get home.’

  She knows me well, thought Evie, banging the car door (it had to be banged or it refused to click shut). She tugged at the seatbelt, ignoring the onslaught of daft questions from the back seat. The comforts of home were calling to her: that sweet spot on the end of the sofa, which knew her bottom so well and accommodated it without comment; scalding tea in her chipped I ♥ BROADSTAIRS mug; the feeling of just-rightness that crept through the house when the small ones were in bed, and Evie and Mike settled down with an old Fawlty Towers.

  And yet. I’ll miss this place. Wellcome Manor was already lost to her, hazy through the steamy windows of the travelling asylum that was their car.

  As the roof of the Audi yawned open and folded itself away with orgasmic jerks and shudders, Shen said, ‘I’ll miss this place.’

  ‘I’ll miss the greenhouse,’ said Clive.

  ‘There’ll be other greenhouses.’ Shen adjusted the rear-view mirror to give her face a critical, approving once-over. ‘Zane!’ she barked at the boy, hanging about by the front door with his signature, attention-seeking nonchalance. She revved the engine. ‘Should we consider living in the country?’ she asked Clive, who was picking dried sweet potato off his watchstrap.

  ‘I could get my PA to whistle up some sales details.’

  ‘We’d need a pool. And some land. We could get the kids riding, Clive! So we’d need stables.’ She provoked the engine again. ‘Come on, Zane. Where’s he going now?’ she tutted, as the boy jogged over to Paula’s car.

  ‘What if I had nothing? What if I lost it all tomorrow?’ said Clive.

  ‘That’s not going to happen,’ said Shen impatiently. Then, suspiciously, ‘Is it?’

  ‘Don’t worry, my petal, I’m not trying to tell you something. I’m just saying, if it did – if I had nothing – would you live in a tent with me?’

  Shen gave him her full attention, ignoring Fang’s grizzling and Miles’s rhythmic kicking of the back of her seat. ‘What,’ she said, ‘do you think?’

  Clive held her gaze. ‘I think you would,’ he said, finally.

  ‘Damned right,’ said Shen.

  They leaned towards each other for a slightly more smoochy kiss than they would normally share in front of the children.

  ‘Although,’ she said as she pulled away, ‘it would have to be a Prada tent.’ She gunned the motor once more. ‘Zane!’

  ‘Yeah, coming!’ Zane was not coming, not in the least. He was loitering by Paula’s car, embracing Scarlett, then Tillie, then Scarlett again, with much laughter and pushing and what Evie’s mother would call ‘horseplay’.

  Evie wrestled her door open. ‘Back in a sec.’ She ignored Mike’s ‘You always do this’ and Dan’s ‘I need a great big wee’, to nip across the drive and take her leave, properly, of Zane.

  As the girls folded themselves into Paula’s back seat, Evie put her hands on his shoulders. ‘You’re being really sweet about the girls.’

  Zane shrugged. ‘They make a great couple.’

  ‘See?’ Evie was full of admiration. ‘You don’t have to hide your pain, Zane. Men are allowed to cry.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that.’ He inched away. ‘I don’t want to cry, thanks.’

  ‘I feel a bit responsible, actually. I encouraged you.’

  ‘Yeah, you did.’ Zane’s smile was angelic. ‘You gave me confidence. For an old person, you were ace.’

  ‘Why, thank you.’

  ‘Any minute now – just watch – I’ll make my move.’

  ‘Bit late, Zane, to be honest.’ Evie did a comedy waggle of the head, then hated herself for doing a comedy waggle of the head. ‘That horse has bolted, love.’

  ‘Not in my opinion. I’ve got it all planned. I’m gonna do it on the way home.’

  ‘How? What are you gonna do?’

  ‘While Dad’s off buying petrol or having a cigar or whatever, I’m going to gaze deep into her eyes and say, “Shen, I love you.”’

  Evie looked at him. Hard.

  ‘Cos you were right!’ Zane was warming to his subject. ‘She’s never loved Dad. She’s trying to make me jealous, like you said. And who cares what people think of a woman running off with her stepson. It’s nothing to do with them, man. I’ll quote you to the fools. People fall for people. That’s the way the world turns.’

  ‘Um . . . yes, I did say that, didn’t I, but . . .’

  ‘When Shen and I are living together, you’re the first person we’ll have round.’

  ‘No, hang on – wait a minute.’ Evie shook her head, the better to dislodge that strange and, frankly, awful vision. ‘You are keen on Scarlett,’ she insisted, as if telling him so would change Zane’s mind. ‘All the staring, the hanging about . . .’

  ‘I was staring at Shen. Who could look at anybody else, when she’s around? No offence,’ he said kindly, to the old woman currently having what looked like a series of strokes in front of him. ‘And I was hanging around Shen.’

  ‘But you took the rap for the boozing. That’s what a boy in love would do!’

  ‘Is it?’ Zane looked puzzled by such a boy. ‘I said it was my fault cos Dad blames me whatever, so . . .’ He shrugged. ‘No biggie.’

  ‘And at night you stared up at Scarlett’s window . . .’ Evie paused, then said in a dead voice. ‘You were staring at Shen’s window.’

  ‘Course!’ Zane hesitated, then planted a hasty kiss on Evie’s cheek before running towards Shen, who was swearing in machine-gun Chinese out of the car window.

  With a pounding heart, Evie waved them off. Tomorrow’s coffee at
Shen’s would be interesting.

  ‘Come on!’ Mike tooted the horn, its squawk more uncouth than ever in such stately surroundings.

  Evie took in the house for the last time. The front door stood ajar. Bounding up the steps, she called merrily over her shoulder, ‘Just a tick!’, well aware how much both the expression and her merriment would irritate her impatient husband.

  The brass door knob, round and solid and bang in the middle of the mighty black door, was worn smooth with use. Hundreds of years, hundreds of hands. And now Evie Herrera took it, and pulled it and heard the easy click of the latch.

  They were locked out of ‘paradise’, where relationships had begun, foundered, grown.

  The secret grotto, she realized, remained just that: secret.

  ‘Goodbye, Wellcome Manor.’ She backed down the steps, one hand on her tum. It was definitely rounder this morning, whether due to berserk holiday levels of ice-cream consumption or the baby, she wasn’t sure. ‘Thanks for everything.’

  ‘Get a move on, you dozy mare!’ yelled Mike.

  ‘The holiday’s definitely over.’ Evie smiled, jogging towards the car.

  ‘Paula drives so damned slowly.’ Mike’s eyes flickered to the rear-view mirror. ‘As if she’s part of a funeral procession.’

  ‘At this rate we might make it home in time to leave for our next summer holiday.’ Evie turned around to inform Dan and Mabel that forty-eight men going to mow really was her limit. ‘Sing something else,’ she suggested.

  ‘Something silent,’ added their father.

  Mike was a good driver. Methodical. Consistent. He’d insisted on keeping the wheel for the entire journey home, partly due to gallantry, partly to clear his head and try on his new reality for size.

  Hopefully, by the time they’d reached London, he’d be able to think of himself as a dad of four, without cramming his knuckles into his mouth.

  It’ll all be OK, Mike told himself, it really will.

  ‘Lorry!’ said Evie.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lorry. Up your bum. It’s gone past now.’

  ‘I can see lorries, woman. Lorries are big.’

  Mike wished, vehemently, that Evie wasn’t a backseat driver. Especially as she didn’t even have the decency to do it from the back seat. It’ll all be OK. Sometimes he didn’t like to reveal just how important certain things were to him, in case the universe noticed and took them away from him.

  ‘Caravan!’ said Evie.

  Along with driving, and worrying, Mike was good at making children with the woman bleating ‘That caravan’s changing lanes’ in the seat beside him. When they got home, he would make her have a nice sit-down with her feet up, whether she liked it or not.

  Clive’s shorts felt out of place on the services forecourt, as if London’s proximity made him break out in pin-stripes. ‘Don’t take ages!’ he called after Zane, who was sprinting across the tarmac.

  Tugging Prunella onto her lap, Shen let Clive expertly de-nappy Fang on the back seat. ‘Pru-Pru,’ she cooed to the dense, coarse-haired creature panting on her knees. ‘Yes, yes, I love you too,’ she said, as the little animal wriggled. The dog had gained weight in the last fortnight. ‘Straight to the vet with you, for a little diet plan.’ While I’m there, thought Shen, I’ll make an appointment to have you spayed.

  The initial operation had been cancelled, when the vet suggested that Shen let Pru have just one pedigree litter. ‘I don’t think motherhood is for you, Pru.’ Shen rubbed noses with her pet. ‘I don’t want to be a grandmother yet.’

  ‘This bloody thing . . .’ Clive tussled in mortal combat with the buckles of the baby-seat. ‘Why won’t it . . . ?’ The seat conceded defeat and he leaned on the car, spent. ‘I really have enjoyed looking after Fang, darling. I feel so close to her. But . . .’

  ‘I know,’ said Shen. ‘The minute we get home, we hire—’

  They said it in unison. ‘A new nanny.’

  An ugly one, said Shen under her breath. ‘Shall I find one with her own accommodation? Then we’d have Fang to ourselves in the evenings and at weekends.’

  ‘Excellent idea.’

  Leaning back against the headrest, Shen imagined the Ubers’ reaction when she started hanging out with Paula at the school gates. Maybe she’d bait them a little; wear a BHS blouse.

  Clive loomed over her, his finger to his lips. ‘Miles has dropped off. Let’s hope he stays that way.’ Miles was a grizzler on car journeys. ‘I’m just off to dispose of this.’ He jiggled a rank, full plastic bag. ‘But before I do, there’s something I need to say.’ He took a moment, then said, ‘There’s somebody – a woman, you don’t know her, but I got close to her, Shen. For a brief moment she meant more to me than she should.’ His eyes bored through Shen’s sun-glasses; they gave him nothing but a distorted reflection of an anxious middle-aged man.

  Shen took off the glasses. Clive noticed a tiny line by the outer edge of one eye. It softened her. He liked it.

  Shen said, ‘You felt neglected. You’re an important man with a big ego and you felt as if you deserved more. I should know; my ego’s the size of a house too, and I’m better at demanding attention than giving it.’ She pursed her lips before saying, ‘This mysterious woman . . . she’s good at making people feel loved and valued. But it went to your head. Like sunstroke. Nothing really happened.’ She searched his face. ‘Or did it?’

  ‘It didn’t,’ said Clive. ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Good. Sunstroke isn’t fatal. I’m glad you feel bad about it, and I’m glad you told me, because you’re mine and don’t you forget it.’ She blinked. ‘I need you, Clive.’

  ‘You do,’ agreed Clive. ‘And what I’d do without you, I have literally no idea. Bore myself to death, possibly. I don’t say it often, but I love you, Shen.’

  ‘I know.’ She let him sweat for a second. ‘I love you, too.’

  He kissed her – lightly, lovingly – on her cheek and withdrew, ambling towards the distant bin.

  Watching him swing the nappy bag as if it was a Gucci tote, Shen considered his confession. He could have kept quiet; Clive thought he’d got clean away with his crime. He was quite a man, that husband of hers. She replaced her glasses and leaned back again.

  A crackling in her ear made her jump. A cellophane-wrapped bouquet of supermarket flowers was thrust at her.

  ‘These are for you,’ said Zane. He seemed to be trembling. ‘I need to say something.’

  ‘Shoot,’ said Shen.

  Roofs. Chimneys. Concrete. Pavement. Gum on the pavements. Crap on the pavements. Noise. Pollution. Pigeons with fewer than the perfect number of legs. London.

  The air inside the Herrera car was as thick as jam. Evie, aware that her inner thermostat would soon go haywire and stay that way for months, barely noticed. She tuned out the sirens, and Mike’s gentle grumbles as he slowed for Paula, and quietly let go of something she’d been holding close.

  It was only a little dream, as dreams go. Some independence, some cash, some self-respect. Something to talk about that didn’t involve school or Mike or the house. The job would have been a fresh horizon, a daily adventure. Losing it was hard on Evie.

  Motherhood, fourth time around, at the apparently (over-) ripe old age of forty-one was not in the small print of her life. She hadn’t signed up for this. She was done with stretch marks and mood swings, and getting up in the middle of the night at the beck and call of a minuscule pink and very, very outraged person. She was done with going to the shops in a mac over her nightie, calling the Ocado man ‘darling’ because she’d only slept for four hours in the past week, realizing her bra was full of milk as she browsed the vegetable aisle. She was done with tiny fingers, tiny toes, doing up little buttons, holding her baby to her heart, being inside-out with love.

  Sitting in this jalopy with this stressed-out man and these moany children – and, yes, even this imbecilic dog – Evie couldn’t imagine anything more adventurous, more challenging, more her than adding to th
is family.

  When they lost sight of Paula and started receiving panicky texts – WHERE R U IM UP RAMP BY SAISNBURYS – when Dan superglued his fingers to Mabel’s hair, when Mike went the wrong way up a one-way street, Evie remembered that.

  She remembered that hard.

  Dear Luxury UK Getaways admin,

  Please reserve Wellcome Manor for us for the same dates next year. We’ll have one less adult in the party. Oh, and we’ll need a cot!

  Kind regards,

  E. Herrera

  If you enjoyed

  A Very Big House in the Country,

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  Marie Dunwoody doesn’t want for much in life. She has a lovely husband, three wonderful children, and a business of her own. But her cupcakes are crap. Her meringues are runny and her biscuits rock-hard. She cannot bake for toffee.

  Marie can’t ignore the disappointed looks any more, or continue to be shamed by neighbour and nemesis, Lucy Gray. Lucy whips up perfect profiteroles with one hand, while ironing her bed sheets with the other. Marie’s had enough. She vows to follow – to the letter – recipes from the Queen of Baking, and at all times ask, ‘What would Mary Berry do?’

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  Turn the page to read an extract . . .

  Prologue

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