The creases unfolded in delight. ‘We’ll make a guardsman of him like his great-grandfather. Have the little man fit to gallop into battle in no time.’
‘Just rising to the trot will be fine, Lester. Let’s spare him any more conflict.’
*
‘Can’t stay!’ Carly hurried into her mother-in-law’s maisonette, a grotto of tropical warmth day or night behind its drawn curtains, television and gas fire glowing. Having cut across the fields and abandoned her muddy boots at the door, her socks gave her static shocks on the cheap carpet as she scooped up Jackson and Sienna. ‘We’re going to see the ponies!’
Sienna shrieked with joy. Jackson bawled, cleaving back to his grandmother and Twirlywoos.
Nan had her ice pack and peppermint oil out, a sure sign that she had one of her migraines.
‘Thanks a million for minding them.’ Carly ignored the phone ringing in her back pocket. ‘You still okay for tomorrow, Nan? Janine wants me double shifts again.’
Ash’s mother was a meek little character who rarely looked anyone over the age of ten in the eye, but she gave Carly the full benefit of her rare, unexpectedly heart-melting brown gaze, lashes still long as a Jersey cow, pain riven through their dark centres. ‘You’re a good girl, you are, Carly.’
‘Thanks.’
‘My Ash is lucky to have you.’
‘Thanks.’
Nan Turner always made Carly feel awkward. The kids adored her, but there was a tragic air about her that Carly felt deep in her bones.
She’d been duskily pretty once, from a big fairground family, a tiny Edith Piaf of the candyfloss stall. Unlikely framed photographs of her in a pinny with big eighties hair scattered the house. Long held prisoner by her agoraphobia and passivity, she reminded Carly of a zoo animal who no longer has an ounce of fight left. She had a quiet fear that Ash would become like that one day if the nightmares and boozing kept him hostage long enough.
‘His dad is a bad lot, you know.’ It was one of Nan’s stock phrases, along with ‘Wipe your Feet’ and ‘Your face will stay like that if the wind changes’.
‘Ash is nothing like Nat.’ His dad remained an inveterate traveller rogue, sweet-talking his way along old gypsy routes in a traditional wagon, with a girlfriend half his age following in the rusty transit van crammed with carved mushrooms, fenced goods and lurchers.
‘You make sure he stays that way, yes?’ Nan urged, looking tearful. ‘I always knew when Ash was being bad as a nipper. I felt it here.’ She patted her temples and winced.
‘Don’t worry, I’m on it.’ Carly rubbed her fingertips against her own sweaty palms, stupidly hot again, even though she knew that the old bird was just being overdramatic. Nan watched a lot of soaps.
She sprinted back out with the kids strapped in the double buggy, wishing she had time to call on Bridge and check she was okay after the weird texts, but she was already running late. Powering back to Upper Bagot Farmhouse by lane along Plum Run to avoid the buggy getting stuck, wind slapping her face like an angry handbag, she took the call that had been buzzing against her bum for the last ten minutes. It was Ash, shouting over his rumbling truck engine.
‘Your friend looked a bit like the kid in The Exorcist after a crucifix face-slash session, but she’ll live! Might even get that job.’
‘You checked on her!’ she cried gratefully. ‘Was Aleš there?’
‘She fell off her horse!’
Carly felt an idiot. When Petra had said Bridge had come to blows with the love of her life, she hadn’t thought of Craic for a minute. ‘So why did she call Skully?’
Ash’s signal was breaking up.
‘Ash?’
‘I’ve been thinking on… farrier apprenticeship… more, yeah?’
‘You mean it?’ she shouted back over the wind.
‘Worth… conversation.’ He sounded very upbeat.
She air-punched. ‘What changed your mind?’
‘Full of nags, this village.’ His laugh broke up.
She could see across the paddock to their farrier friend’s big van parked on Petra’s stable yard. ‘I get him to call you.’
The signal came back, his voice overbearing in her ear. ‘Tell him we’ll talk.’
‘Love you, bae.’ She punched the code into Petra’s electric gates. ‘Catch you later.’
As she waited for the gates to open, she scrolled her other missed calls. The most recent was a mobile number. Dropping to her haunches to pick up one of Jackson’s boots, she pressed Return Call. It went straight to voicemail: It’s Ronnie, leave me a message!
Carly felt like an Alka Seltzer dropped in water. Ronnie Percy had called her.
Hesitating, uncertain what to say, she found the phone snatched out of her grip by Sienna in the buggy, eager to get back to her favourite game.
‘Pou!’ she screamed into the phone.
‘Give that back.’
The gates were closing. She hurriedly pushed on through, at the same time trying to grab back the phone which her daughter was gripping tightly, demanding to nurture a small, brown, unfortunately named blob.
‘Pou! Pou! Pooooooooou! Want POU!’
The call was still open when Carly wrestled it back. What was the number for rerecording? She jabbed at 3 on the keypad just as two hands grabbed her from behind and Flynn growled his customary greeting, ‘Run away with me this minute to have my babies, sweetlips,’ making her jump. Her screen now read Call Ended.
*
It had taken Ronnie almost an hour to take her leave from Lester while he listed every overall show champion triumph the stud had achieved during his long tenure, so engrossed he hadn’t even noticed her making several calls and taking a power nap. Now she was trying to navigate her way back through from the Hathaway wing the hospital to the car park exit, a labyrinthine maze that had taken her past the Macmillan volunteers twice and accidentally into Phlebology and X-ray, her feet squeak-squeaking along furlongs of polished floors.
An incoming text from Blair cheered her somewhat. The message simply read, You?
Good. You? she replied on the move, matching his brevity.
The reply came straight back. All good.
Not trusting Lester’s rumour-mongering or her heart ringing the changes like out-of-time church bells, Ronnie asked, Where’s my horsebox?
Up yours.
Up yours too!
It’s up at your place.
She laughed, hearing his dust-dry voice. Then she felt sad. Sorry. Misunderstood.
Missed you, Ron.
God but I miss you too, she replied before realising that he was probably just saying she hadn’t been there when he’d dropped by. A pragmatist like Blair didn’t engage in anything as metrosexual as emotional texts. He was much more direct. She’d just given herself away.
Want me to turn back?
She paused in the stairwell, breathing hard, her longing bone deep. She’d sworn to give him up for her children’s sakes, to respect his marriage even if his poor, sick wife had almost no memory of it any more. Yet she missed his company like oxygen. Blair was a crosspatch, sexist and a cultural wasteland, but he could make her laugh and make the world stand still just by looking at her, seeing straight through to her base metal.
Keep going. Rx she typed, removing the kiss and pressing Send before she could change her mind.
Feeling sadder than ever, she sat down on the stairs and hugged her knees.
Her phone beeped with a voicemail. Hoping it was Blair breaking the alarm glass, she leapt on it with indecent haste. Then she listened to it again. Twice. Then she started to laugh, her mood lifting.
Perhaps Lester was right after all. Carly Turner could prove extremely refreshing to have around.
*
Bridge was amazed how good she looked. Amazed. No way could scar-face become this fresh-faced unless witchcraft was involved. That, or highly illegal practices. Or just plain lust. Even the swollen lip looked pretty after she’d meticulously painted her face.
Her eyes danced knowingly back at her from the mirror.
You. Have. A. Big. Fat. Crush, they told her.
On. Your. Friend’s. Husband, shouted a shameful twinkle in one.
He fancies you back, her dark pupils sang in response.
Bad as it felt, it was making her glow. No man should make anyone feel this good.
Bridge sent a rare selfie to Aleš. It was midday – Polish lunchtime – which meant he was eating his sandwiches and surfing his familiar 4G round route like a kid on a bike: Twitter, Santander savings account, YouTube, porn, Instagram, Reddit.
The message was to the point. On way. Take your clothes off.
He was home from the new eco-build in five minutes, cock springing from his flies as fast as he could unbutton them, recent full-on maritals making him priapic with readiness. Match fit, they’d been practising a lot. ‘Beautiful wife, I want you around this now!’
‘I have a job interview in half an hour.’ Bridge backed away, jazz hands flapping because her nail varnish was still drying.
‘It’s okay, we just do oral sex.’ Aleš’s pupils darkened, loving the little lady act. ‘You look so hot.’
‘Absolutely not!’ Her lower lip throbbed. ‘No oral.’
‘Boob wank?’
Bridge’s bra was new and had cost fifty quid. And just saying ‘boob wank’ was a Real Wives giveaway. ‘You go down on me,’ she suggested, brightening at the prospect of closing her eyes and fantasising tattoos, dog tags and…
‘I just eat chilli wrap.’ He sucked his lips.
Lunchtime sex was a rare negotiation, especially when they were pushed for time. Aleš flying back from Poland on New Year’s Day to upend the furniture had been spontaneous, uncontrollable. This felt more like arguing in a Pret a Manger queue.
‘Vanilla?’ Aleš offered, making her feel ‘meh’ again because it wasn’t a word they usually used. Missionary if they were being technical, you go on top was her trying to sell the idea, most often when she was half-asleep and they fumbled their way towards it in the dead of night.
But this was daylight. Upstairs, their bed had eight alternative interview outfits spread out across it. Both cats were curled on top last time Bridge had looked. Aleš was very pernickety about banishing them during coitus. She didn’t want to evict them, let alone start hanging up clothes.
‘Why vanilla?’ She weaved towards him. ‘Why not pistachio?’
He looked briefly intrigued. ‘I like vanilla.’
‘Strawberry?’
‘Vanilla.’ His top came off with Baltic aplomb.
‘Rum and raisin.’
‘Vanilla.’ He stepped out of his trousers.
‘Mint choc chip.’
‘Actually, that is a sex act, kochanie.’
‘Is it up our street?’ She was briefly thrilled.
‘Something with toothpaste and anal.’ He looked hopeful.
‘Ew. How do you know these things?’
‘I have a mind that cannot forget. Let’s vanilla,’ he indicated at his watch. He was fully naked and at full mast while she was still in the first interview suit she’d tried on. ‘I have quantity surveyor coming in half an hour. You have job to get.’
And in that moment, Bridge felt the love that fired each cell in her body. Aleš remembered every birthday in the family, just as he remembered how many sugars every casual labourer who worked with them liked in their tea, the names of wives, and the sweet spots on her body however vanilla the sex.
She felt plugged into the mains. She reached for him: warm satin skin, her thumb circling faster as he hardened beneath her touch, anticipation bubbling between her legs. ‘Hands only. And if you want to touch any part of me, you’re washing yours first, Chilli-Wrap Man.’
‘Vanilla for dessert.’ He reversed her towards the sofa.
‘If I get this job,’ she told him, ‘there’s no ice-cream flavour beyond reach.’
*
‘Ash know you’re here?’ Flynn asked Carly as she hung onto a nippy pony who didn’t want his feet trimmed, her hood battering the side of her head in the wind.
‘Course.’
‘That chip on his shoulder turned blue, has it?’
‘Meaning?’
‘You fraternising with the village pelf, the wallets.’ His brows hiked, tossing the rock hair, rasp aloft. ‘Not like a Turner.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ Ash never objected to her doing extra little jobs for Petra, whose generosity meant the Turners were dressed in designer cast-offs, had a huge kids’ DVD collection and more books than they knew what to do with. It helped that Petra didn’t mind Carly bringing her children along. In the tack room behind her, Jackson was snoozing in the buggy. Sienna had curled up in a quilted horse rug with a spaniel watching Peppa Pig on Carly’s smartphone while Pou slept off an exhausting session jumping around on lily pads.
‘She’s been good to me and Ash, Petra has,’ she told Flynn.
Pink from the shower, she’d disappeared back into her Plotting Shed an hour earlier, telling Carly to help herself to coffee from the high-tech machine with the real espresso scoops while she was ‘throwing a quick proposal together. But don’t go before we have that chat!’ Her life, like her house, was impossibly glamorous.
‘Thought Ash didn’t like you playing with gee-gees?’ Flynn was clipping a hoof with his big pincers. The pony was relaxing now, leaning hard against Carly while her reassuring hand ran along his neck and withers, fingers raking in and out of his mane.
‘He’ll have to get used to it if he’s going to be farrier with you.’
‘No kidding?’ He looked up, eyes crinkled with amusement.
‘Straight up. Says he’ll talk to you.’ She wasn’t sure she believed it herself yet; she mustn’t overplay it.
‘What about his college course?’
‘Up for discussion.’ She scratched the pony’s forehead and rubbed behind his ears.
‘It’s not just about having arms like Popeye,’ he warned her.
‘I can see that.’
‘Hey, feel this.’ He lowered the pony’s leg back to the ground and offered her a bicep. ‘Nothing on Ash’s gym humps, granted, but there’s more skill in lifting a neddy’s leg than swinging at a punchbag. It’s not one night of fighting glory. Takes a lot of commitment, farriery.’
‘Ash isn’t afraid of that.’ New Year, new start Carly hoped. Fewer nights on the lash, fewer late-night poker sessions in Flynn’s cottage. She was banking on the two men both growing up if their livelihoods depended on each other. Flynn’s daughter was in the same class as Ellis. For all his swagger and flirtation, Carly knew him to be an old-fashioned soul and a hard grafter. Ash thought a lot of him and his family. She was determined to make this idea work. ‘You know Ash is a good man, Flynn. A good dad.’
‘With a good wife.’ He curled his rasp around the Shetland’s little hoof as perfectly as Janine shaped a nail.
As Carly watched him, fascinated by the process, her excitement built. She knew Ash could do this. She curled her fingers distractedly through the thick mane, then around the little furry flame ears, imagining hammer on anvil, regular income, horses.
‘How d’you bloody do that?’
She realised Flynn was looking up at her, equally fascinated as the Shetland leaned against her even more heavily, soporific, almost asleep. ‘That little bugger usually never lets up kicking out.’
‘Dunno. I just do.’
‘You’re definitely on the team.’
She waved the compliment away, secretly euphoric. She was going to stand up to Janine and the Turners and make this happen. Bridge’s New Year spell was going to come true for them all.
Her phone lit up with a message.
Regrettably, I can’t have babies or run away. I can, however, offer you weekend work and some midweek mornings if you’d like some? Call me. Ronnie.
She reread it.
‘Bloody hell, Ronnie Percy just offered me a job,’ she breathed, fireworks and fan
fares in her head.
‘Sick.’ Flynn didn’t even look up. ‘Ask her what she’s paying – Percys still think slavery’s legal.’
When do I start? she messaged Ronnie back.
As she pressed send, Petra burst out of her Plotting Shed and hurried towards them, waving a sheet of A4. ‘Carly, I’ve been thinking something over. I’d like to offer you a job. I’ve bullet pointed a two-page brief, but I can write it in more detail if you want.’ She thrust the pages at her.
Carly took them. ‘What job exactly?’
‘How much do you want per hour to be me?’
‘Now that’s an offer you’d be mad to refuse,’ Flynn said grinning, dodging a kick from the Shetland.
*
Alone on the yard, the wind now Wizard of Oz high, Luca was a solo yachtsman skippering a boat in need of a crew. Usually it wouldn’t bother him; he’d circumnavigated the world alone enough times to appreciate solitude, the ever-changing surf of horses his sea, the call of the siren his downfall. Yet today he couldn’t shake the sense that he’d sailed straight past a perfect storm.
He was stopped in his tracks every few minutes by his whipcrack conscience, like the snap of a sail that drew his eyes to the same place each time, the same small window, a porthole beyond which some unseen ballast shifted inside him, a loyalty he hadn’t yet fathomed. It frustrated him. He had no reason to concern himself with Pax’s whereabouts, and yet he did. It was his curse since arriving to have her always on his radar.
Be kind to Pax. Ronnie had asked it.
Watched by a concerned Beck and Cruisoe, Luca criss-crossed the biggest yard, small practical tasks rendered increasingly long-winded as the pressure grew in his head.
The whip cracked again. He looked across at the stable cottage.
He couldn’t shake the look on Pax’s face earlier, the first colour he’d seen in her cheeks. Not hard to spot the cause. Luca was disappointed in her, guessing Mr Blue Eyes the posh-boy neighbour was something to do with her marriage coming apart.
The Country Lovers Page 35
