A Cotswold Ordeal

by Rebecca Tope

  Thea was walking over the grass, down to one corner, along to another, and back towards her sister. She’d done it four times so far. Jocelyn had been forced to close her eyes to avoid being driven mad. As the fifth circuit began, she cracked. ‘Thea, please stop doing that. I know it helps you think, or something, but I can’t bear it any more. It’s neurotic.’

  ‘Aren’t I allowed to be neurotic in the circumstances? Every time I try to get going on something, I’m blocked. Thwarted.’

  ‘I don’t see that at all. What are you talking about?’

  ‘Oh, never mind.’ She flopped down on the grass, stretching her arms over her head, pointing her toes. ‘This was meant to be fun. And I wanted to think, read, explore. When you showed up, that was meant to be fun as well.’

  ‘Is that some sort of exercise you’re doing?’

  ‘Not really. It helps me feel free. Loosens the bonds.’ She rolled over onto her front. ‘And this weather! It’s glorious. Why can’t we just enjoy it?’

  ‘I’m enjoying it, more or less. I’m definitely managing not to think about skin cancer.’

  ‘Freedom’s an illusion, you know.’ Thea’s voice was muffled, most of it directed into the grass. ‘A meaningless concept.’

  ‘Gosh. Are we doing philosophy this morning?’

  ‘I’m thinking about you.’ Thea sat up in a graceful feline movement. ‘How can you hope to be free, with all those kids and everything? You’re anchored, hogtied, imprisoned.’

  Jocelyn grinned. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I think it’s all down to how you look at it. I chose to have the kids. They define who I am, and make me proud of myself. They’re not stopping me from doing whatever I want to do. I’m not a wanting sort of person.’

  ‘But you’re not happy.’

  ‘If freedom’s a meaningless concept, then surely happiness must be as well? Listen, Thee – I’m not like you. I never did concepts and that sort of stuff. I know what things feel like. Sudden moments of joy, especially. I’m good at them. Take last week. One morning, when they’d all gone off to school and Alex was at work, and I didn’t have to be anywhere. I’d cleaned the kitchen – everything shiny and smelling nice. I stood there, looking round at it all, and felt this great – well, uplift is the only word I can think of. As if I was standing on tiptoe, all buoyed up and pleased with myself. There was nothing more I needed at that moment, but a lovely clean tidy kitchen.’

  Thea stifled a groan.

  ‘I know. It sounds pathetic. And it wasn’t exactly about the house, anyway. It was just knowing I had a place and was alive and at least some things were under control.’

  ‘And then Alex whacked you with a cricket bat.’

  ‘Right. It was that same day, I think.’

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense. You still haven’t said why you think he does it.’

  ‘He does it because he can. And because he thinks, like you, that there’s no such thing as freedom, and he can’t take it. He’s trapped and it’s my fault. He’s scared of something – or everything. Just panicked and lost.’

  ‘Has he said all that?’ Thea was instantly absorbed, glimpsing a hint of an explanation for Alex’s behaviour, at last.

  Jocelyn shook her head. ‘Not exactly. He doesn’t like modern life, somehow. The supermarket shopping, the electronic games. He’s like you and Carl in some ways. All for healthy outdoor living, and keeping life simple. I think he’s terribly frustrated by the reality. He wanted a lot of kids, to show his own parents how it ought to be done, and then couldn’t manage to live up to his own principles.’

  ‘What? Was his childhood so miserable?’

  ‘He always felt his mother was doing it wrong. She didn’t listen to him, denied his feelings, told him lies. He wanted to be a much better parent than her.’

  ‘That must be why most people have kids – if they think about it at all. They want to create some idyllic childhood – to have another go,’ Thea mused. ‘I never thought of that before.’

  ‘And it’s doomed. For one thing, the kids themselves never cooperate. And everybody’s so tired, and society puts all that incredible pressure on you, and money runs out, or you lose the thread.’

  ‘And that’s why he hits out. Do you think?’

  ‘Something like that. Maybe. It might be something completely different. I meant it when I said I don’t care what his reasons are. Being here has shown me that I don’t want him any more. He’s faded in my mind, just in these few days. Quite honestly, I think he’s been fading for ages.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why he hits you. To try to convince you he’s not just a shadow or a phantom or something. He wants to make himself substantial. But none of that is any excuse. What keeps coming back to me is the feeling of betrayal. It shouldn’t be too much to ask, to be able to trust your own husband not to hit you.’

  Jocelyn closed her eyes again. ‘I’m not going to stay with him, anyway,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m getting a divorce.’

  ‘Oh,’ was all Thea could think to say to that. This was another of those moments in life when everything changed from minute to minute, and the safest reaction was to wait quietly for the eventual outcome. Announcements were likely to be out of date within seconds, decisions altered and circumstances turned around in a chaotic whirl. Already she had lost count of Jocelyn’s switches, staying and not staying, caring and not caring. It would be useful to know if and when her sister would depart from Juniper Court, but it wasn’t crucial. Thea’s place continued to be at the eye of the storm, despite the flurries of activity and alarming moments.

  ‘What do you mean – Oh?’ Jocelyn demanded. ‘Can’t you say anything more than that?’

  ‘Like what? As I understand it, divorce is a protracted and complicated exercise, particularly when there are children. It isn’t enough just to say you’re going to do it. It won’t simply happen by itself. And right at this moment I’ve got quite a lot else to think about.’

  Jocelyn went very still, turning away from her sister in a familiar huff. ‘I’d have thought my marriage was more significant than the problems of a bunch of strangers,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not a question of significance. It’s more a matter of immediacy. Here we are, surrounded by all sorts of conflict and bad feeling and mysterious comings and goings, with people insisting that this is the final day, when it’s all going to come to a head. To be honest, Joss, I’m getting really scared. Not just for myself but for Flora and Pallo and Hepzie. If you go off now, then that’s up to you. I’m not pretending to be pleased about it. I’ll cope. But don’t ask me to get into deep emotional agonisings about you and Alex, because I’m not up to it today.’

  ‘So why don’t you get out of here as well? The Phillipses are giving you the runaround, let’s face it. You don’t owe them a thing.’

  ‘I might just do that,’ said Thea.

  * * *

  But half an hour later, the mood had lightened again. The sisters had gone out into the paddock with the dog, throwing sticks which Hepzie seldom bothered to retrieve and reviewing their options.

  ‘I do feel a bit bad about leaving before the final act,’ said Jocelyn. ‘I can’t help being intrigued by all these local goings-on. It’s so very different from my own home life.’

  Thea giggled, but soon reverted to seriousness. ‘I find it hard to believe there’ll be a conclusion as quickly as Phil says. How can he possibly know, anyway?’

  ‘We’ve been kept dreadfully in the dark. Unfair, really. We don’t know how worried we ought to be, or which people we can trust.’

  ‘The sad fact is that we’re irrelevant to whatever’s going on. They would all obviously prefer us not to be here—’

  ‘Very obviously. Every time I go into the living room it hits me all over again.’

  Thea frowned worriedly. ‘I probably ought to be doing something about that.’

  ‘Not up to you, surely. Anyway, it’s evidence. They’ll want i
t left as it is.’

  ‘Well, when’s all this action due to start, do you suppose? I expected helicopters and men with megaphones by this time.’

  ‘I hear an engine, as we speak,’ said Jocelyn, nodding towards the road gate. ‘But only a car. Helicopters would be too much to ask.’

  Thea cocked an ear, assuming it would simply be a local resident driving off to work, or a delivery van with a parcel. But she was wrong. The familiar Mondeo swept into the yard. Thea started to trot towards it, behind the exuberant spaniel, who got there well ahead of her.

  Two men got out of the car, and Thea realised she knew them both. Hollis had brought the Franklyn man to the scene of his son’s death. She stared, collating the different remembered images of the face with the reality before her. The first time he had been wet and the light had been bad. Next he’d been in his car, staring ahead, his features wooden. Then in grief, with his weeping wife and tangled emotions. But always the same man, and one that Thea realised she had been suspicious of since the first glimpse.

  ‘Hello,’ she said warily.

  ‘Thea.’ Hollis was all briskness and control. ‘You remember Mr Franklyn.’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’ He looked ravaged, bemused, entirely dependent on Hollis for the next move.

  ‘We won’t be needing you,’ the detective went on. ‘We’re just going into the pony shed for a minute, and then for a bit of a walk over the fields. You carry on with whatever you’re doing.’

  ‘Well, that’s told us,’ said Jocelyn, standing with folded arms. ‘Best do as we’re told, then. Check the pony, collect the eggs and do a bit of dusting.’

  ‘He doesn’t really mean it,’ said Thea.

  ‘What doesn’t he really mean?’

  ‘To dismiss us. He was just being professional.’

  ‘Course he was,’ said Jocelyn. ‘And it might be nasty of me, but I can’t help feeling pleased that we didn’t clean up that smelly corpse.’

  Thea clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘God, I’d forgotten all about that. We should have warned them. He’ll be furious.’

  Jocelyn’s expression was a classic.

  The pony was standing passively in the barn, one front foot tilted so that only the tip of the hoof was in contact with the ground. His eyes were half-closed and his ears seemed droopy. Thea was reminded of a copy of Black Beauty she’d possessed as a child, which carried an illustration of a row of deeply depressed horses. They’d looked very much like this wretched Pallo currently looked.

  ‘Hey, cheer up!’ she urged him. ‘Only another week to go. Don’t go sick on me now, there’s a good boy.’ A wave of helplessness engulfed her as the animal refused to co-operate. He acted as if he had neither heard nor seen her, deep in his own gloomy thoughts. He paid no attention to the small quantity of corn and the two carrots she’d provided, either. Thea’s scanty veterinary knowledge frustrated her – was he just having a mood, or had his condition taken a turn for the worse? Presumably the fact that he was still standing up was a good sign. Perhaps she’d overdone the starvation rations, one way or the other.

  ‘Hepzie!’ Thea called, glimpsing the spaniel sniffing around the yard outside. ‘Come here, will you.’ The faint hope that the fragile friendship between pony and dog might go some way towards enlivening Pallo was all she could come up with for the moment.

  Hepzibah came obediently, looking up at her mistress for an explanation. ‘Good girl!’ praised Thea. ‘Come and talk to poor old Pallo.’

  But the pony ignored his new friend as comprehensively as he’d ignored Thea. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she burst out. ‘What on earth is the matter with you?’

  ‘Are you sure he’s got clean water?’ came a voice from the doorway. ‘He looks rather dehydrated to me.’

  It was Cecilia Clifton, dressed in a beige cotton jumper and dark brown trousers, standing with hands on hips, gazing critically at the pony.

  Thea, feeling like an incompetent stable girl, went to examine the water bucket tucked in a corner between the feed trough and the barn wall. ‘It’s all a bit makeshift in here,’ she defended. ‘But I topped his water up last night.’ The bucket seemed to be almost as full as she’d left it. ‘It looks all right to me.’

  ‘Ponies can be very fussy about their water. Where did you get it from?’

  ‘The tap,’ said Thea, resisting the following of course.

  ‘Too much chlorine, probably. Isn’t there a water butt somewhere?’

  Thea couldn’t remember a water butt. ‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted, before adding in a rush of self-pity, ‘Gosh, he’s a worry, this old chap. With everything else going on, I have to keep checking on him and keeping his spirits high. They’re really worried about him, being so old, and having that disease, whatever it’s called.’

  ‘Laminitis?’ asked Cecilia. ‘Is that what they told you?’

  Thea nodded. ‘That’s why he isn’t allowed outside. Grass is bad for him.’

  ‘He might have had a touch of it in the spring, but believe me, that pony hasn’t a trace of laminitis now. He’s as fit as a flea, apart from being old and crotchety and his feet needing a good trim.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ Thea argued, bewildered. ‘Why would they lie about it?’

  ‘To make you feel needed, I imagine.’

  ‘But – what do you mean?’

  Cecilia cast an exasperated glance at the sky, and said no more. Outside, Hollis and Franklyn were still in the doorway to the stable. Cecilia Clifton seemed not to be aware of them, which struck Thea as odd, as did her sudden coincidental arrival. ‘Where’s your car?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I left it at Frannie’s and walked up. I thought I should come and see how you were. Is that a police car?’ She indicated the Mondeo, but still didn’t glance towards the two men.

  ‘Superintendent Hollis,’ Thea confirmed. ‘He’s keeping a good eye on us, but at the moment he’s doing something mysterious that he hasn’t explained.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ was all Cecilia said, accompanied by a brief shrug, as if the behaviour of the police was of total unconcern to her.

  They found a metal trough, tucked against the far side of the barn, half full of greenish water. ‘Surely he’s not meant to drink this?’ Thea protested. ‘It’s revolting.’

  ‘It is a bit,’ Cecilia agreed. ‘But bring him out, and see what he thinks.’

  Thea hesitated, feeling deeply uncertain. What if this was a callous ploy to get at Julia Phillips through her daughter’s pony? If Frannie and Valerie were right, and just about everybody in the area disliked Julia, then it made sense to be cautious. ‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘I mean – it does look horrible.’

  ‘He won’t drink it if it’s bad for him. Anyway, we’ll get a better idea of how he is, if we take him for a little walk.’

  Thea remembered his ‘little walk’ of the previous evening, but made no reference to it. Clumsily, she put the halter on the pony’s unresisting head and tried to chivvy him out of the barn. ‘He doesn’t want to move,’ she reported to Cecilia, who was making no attempt to help.

  ‘Smack him.’

  With some trepidation, Thea did as instructed, slapping the pony’s neck, hoping to push him towards the barn door. The effect was dramatic. Pulling the halter out of her hand, he tossed his head, dancing several steps sideways, before lashing out blindly with a vigorous kick from one back leg. The kick connected with a strut holding up the barn roof, but appeared not to do any damage. ‘Oh, God!’ Thea cried. ‘Stop him, will you?’

  With a jerky noisy clatter of hooves, Pallo easily evaded Cecilia in the doorway, and set off across the yard.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘He can’t go far.’

  Thea was in the first stages of an uncharacteristic panic. ‘Of course he can!’ she shouted. ‘The road gate’s open. The field gate’s open. He can go miles, if he has a mind to.’

  Where was Jocelyn? And Hollis? ‘Help!’ Thea shouted, uninhibitedly. This damned pony was her ce
ntral responsibility. She was being paid to keep it safe, and she was going to do her absolute best to achieve just that.

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ tutted Cecilia tightly. ‘Don’t make such a fuss. At his age, he’s not likely to make for the hills. Just nip round the back of the barn, and head him off. I’ll close in quietly behind him. Grab the halter if you get a chance.’

  But the pony wasn’t interested in making a break out down the road. Nor did he seem to fancy the field. Instead, he headed purposefully across the yard to his old home. This struck Thea as seriously perverse, after his refusal to enter it only the previous evening. But it made the task of catching him easier – or so she assumed.

  When Thea gave her yell for help, Hollis and his companion had been in the stable, and Jocelyn was in the house. Hepzibah was sniffing in corners at the other end of the barn. Suddenly, they all emerged in response to her shout. Hollis and Franklyn were met full on by the pony, who although not very big, seemed suddenly very determined. ‘Grab his halter!’ Cecilia called to Hollis. ‘He’s resisting arrest.’

  Thea watched the resulting tug of war with some amusement. Managing to catch the halter only by its furthest extremity, the man was unable to prevent the animal from plunging and tossing his head. ‘Hold it closer!’ Cecilia ordered him, but without effect. Thea realised he was nervous of getting too near to the agitated pony. The Franklyn man had followed Hollis out of the stable and was standing listlessly on the other side of the pony’s head. As it stamped and lunged and then brought its haunches round in a sharp semi-circular swing, it caught him and knocked him against the doorpost.

  It hadn’t looked like a hard knock, and any sane person would have stepped quickly out of the way. But this man must have been consumed by the image of his son hanging from the rafters, or bemused by whatever Hollis had been saying to him, and in no condition for defensive self-protection. He let the pony’s hindquarters press him more tightly against the unyielding wood, and then, when the animal detected the presence of yet another annoying human being, it kicked hard for good measure.

  Cecilia Clifton had seen enough. ‘Here!’ she said, striding across the yard. ‘What a useless lot you are.’ She seized the halter, yanking it out of Hollis’s hand, and crowded herself up to the pony’s head. ‘Behave yourself!’ she snapped, with a vicious jerk on the leather.