A Village Affair

by Julie Houston

  ‘Yes,’ Xavier said excitedly. ‘The magnificent frigatebird. It’s a male. Look at that magnificent red pouch. It inflates during the mating season to attract a female. They’re a bit of a dying breed now. We’re very lucky to see one.’

  As the boat pulled away from the coastline and out into deeper water, clouds were starting to roll in and I felt drops of rain. The boat began to lurch and I sat down hurriedly. Five minutes later I knew I was going to throw up.

  ‘Are you all right, Cassie?’ Richie looked across at me as I sat up and then attempted to stand. ‘You’ve gone very pale.’

  ‘White, actually,’ Julian frowned. ‘Oops. Somebody get the sick bucket.’

  To anyone who has never been carsick or seasick, the feeling is almost impossible to explain. It’s one of the worst feelings in the world: a cross between homesickness, dizziness, nausea and being totally out of control. I lurched to the side of the boat, my legs jelly, and clung onto the rails with cold, clammy hands. Salty water sprayed up into my face and I knew I just had to get off the boat. Stop the world, somebody, I need to get off.

  ‘Would you like to lie down in the cabin?’ the captain asked solicitously as he came up beside me.

  ‘No, I want to die.’ I muttered. ‘Just let me die.’

  Xavier came up on my other side. ‘It affects my mother like this. Did you not know you get seasick?’

  ‘I’ve never been on a boat before,’ I managed to say, before I pushed Xavier out of the way and heaved over the side.

  ‘It’s not going to go away,’ he said. ‘The weather looks set to deteriorate. We need to get you off.’

  ‘Oh, please. Just get me off. Find me a helicopter. Winch me off…’

  *

  Thirty minutes later and we were back where we started. I’d hugged the rail all the way back, throwing up so many times until I was just throwing up the water that Xavier made me drink between each bout of retching.

  ‘Just leave me here,’ I said to the others, totally embarrassed. ‘I’ll get a taxi back to the hotel once I feel better. Please, go. I really don’t want to spoil your day.’

  ‘You shouldn’t stay by yourself,’ Xavier said. ‘Look, I’ve sailed loads of times; I’m not really bothered about setting off again. I’ve seen my frigatebird now; that’s all that matters. Come on, let’s get you onto terra firma and see if a flat Coke will help.’

  Shivering, even through the humidity, I pulled on my shorts and T-shirt, and on legs of jelly walked off the boat and onto the solid ground of the dock side.

  ‘I still feel as if I’m on board,’ I said. ‘Everything’s going up and down.’

  Xavier laughed. ‘It will for a while. I need coffee. Come on.’

  *

  Within ten minutes, in a rather upmarket little café on the port, I began to feel better although I was left with an intense need to lie down and sleep. ‘I used to feel like this in the back seat of Granddad Norman’s old Austin,’ I said. ‘On one trip to Devon we had to stop so many times, Granddad said we might as well turn round and go back home.’

  ‘Ah, Granddad Norman.’

  ‘You know my granddad?’ I looked in surprise at Xavier.

  ‘I know his meadow.’

  ‘Oh, of course you do. Tell me something, how is it that a man who obviously enjoys nature – I mean you were really into that frigatebird – how can you be happy to concrete fields over and kill all that wildlife and plant life?’

  ‘Cassie, I’ve never said I was happy to do it.’ Xavier had the grace to look embarrassed.

  I looked at him. ‘I’m sure you did. Why would you be wanting all this development if you’re not happy to do it?’

  ‘Something’s got to be done with all these acres of land. They’re just not sustainable as they are. Farmers don’t want to farm.’

  ‘I think you’ll find they do.’ I was thinking of Matthew and Fiona. While Fi might moan and groan about being a farmer’s wife, the last thing she’d want is for Matthew to lose the tenancy. ‘My friend Fi’s husband would be happy to extend his acreage. And he’s got two strapping great sons who’re ready to have farms of their own. There are loads of people around Westenbury who’d be more than happy to work on the farms if they could only expand.’

  Xavier didn’t say anything, but signalled, instead, for the waiter to bring more coffee. ‘People need houses…’

  I stared at him. ‘Is your aim to get as much money as you can so that you can have a huge house and not ever have to work again? And so that your children have an inheritance?’

  ‘I don’t have any children.’

  ‘Well, there’s still time. And when you do, what better inheritance for them than beautiful greenbelt fields instead of lots of money that they will only spend on… on fast cars, Hermès handbags and… oh, I don’t know, big houses and… and PlayStations.’

  ‘PlayStations?’ Xavier began to laugh.

  ‘That’s all my kids ever wanted. A PlayStation each.’

  ‘And did they get one?’

  ‘One to share, eventually. Damned things rot the brain.’

  Xavier smiled but there was such sadness in his eyes. I was taken aback.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Ophelia, my wife, has gone.’

  ‘Gone? Gone where? She was with you when I bumped into you in Leeds, wasn’t she? The little brunette? And at the meeting?’

  ‘Ophelia’s been coming and going for years. One minute she wants to go and live back in London where we used to live before I came back to work with Dad at Bamforths. Then she wants to live in South Africa or Dubai. Next, she’s come up with an idea for a new business that she wants me to fund: she soon tires of that. We still have a tiny flat in London where she spends much of her time hanging out with her friends, but she wants a huge house, preferably in Hampstead. And a place in Spain. She hates the north, hates living in the sticks. So you see, Ophelia is desperate for us to build on the land because it means I get lots of money and she can have all the stuff she craves.’

  ‘Oh.’ I didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘Oh, indeed.’

  ‘She sounds a bit, you know, a bit spoilt…?’

  ‘Incredibly. But, not my problem anymore.’ He gave a wintry smile. ‘There comes a time when enough is enough. When you have to get out of the whole toxic situation.’

  ‘You must be feeling pretty bad.’ I studied Xavier’s face, inscrutable behind the designer sunglasses, as he ran a tanned hand through his thick dark hair.

  ‘Yes, you could say that.’ He hesitated. ‘But what on earth is the point of a relationship where your wife is staying with you for what she can gain materially? I should have finished it properly a long time ago.’

  ‘But you love her.’ It was a statement rather than a question and Xavier didn’t answer.

  ‘When my mother knew I’d finally finished with Ophelia she bundled me off on holiday out here. She’s a bit like a tiger with a cub, is my mother. There was no arguing with her. I did consider holing up in Manchester for a week rather than getting on the plane.’ He laughed. ‘But I did want to see the frigatebird.’

  ‘So, now that you don’t need huge amounts of money in order to keep your wife from straying, where does that leave the fields and the planned building?’

  Xavier smiled. ‘Cassandra, at the moment I really don’t give a fuck one way or the other. I’m tired of the whole thing.’ He leaned forward. ‘Good, you’ve got a lot more colour now. Are you feeling a bit better?’

  ‘I feel fine now. Just totally mortified. Thank you for looking after me. It’s very kind.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He hesitated and then said, almost shyly, ‘Would you have dinner with me tonight?’

  23

  And Then I Slid Down the Wall and onto the Floor…

  Why on earth are you shaving your legs, scrubbing between your toes and generally slathering yourself in every body lotion and perfume known to woman? This was the question I kept asking m
yself as I went through the fairly limited wardrobe I’d brought to Mexico with me, feverishly dismissing most with a flick of my hand.

  It’s not as if this is a date, I told myself crossly. You’ve got to eat tonight in the hotel; he’s got to eat tonight in the hotel. So why not together? But why then, when Richie texted me to ask if I was joining him and Julian for dinner, did I not invite them along as well?

  I couldn’t wear the lovely white dress I’d worn the previous evening. It would forever remind anyone present of ‘Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Gloria Gaynor…’

  I grabbed my credit card and, tutting at my ridiculousness, ran down to the lobby where a number of expensive boutiques were based. The interiors were air-conditioned but basically empty, their clothes and jewellery being far too expensive for mere mortals like myself to consider.

  I saw it straight away. A simple, but extravagantly expensive, shocking-pink little number. Not my size. Bugger. I picked it up and held it against me, caressing the cotton fabric.

  ‘Try it on,’ the assistant smiled. ‘It’s your colour: goes beautifully with your blond hair and tan.’

  ‘But, unfortunately, not my size. It’ll be far too small.’

  ‘No, really, your size. Here…’ She pulled back the curtain and urged me in to the changing room giving encouraging little smiles as she did so.

  It was heaven in a dress: totally plain, strappy and fitted like a glove.

  I winced when I saw the price and took the dress off, pulled my shorts back on and returned it to the assistant.

  ‘You have to have it,’ she said, aghast. ‘It was born for you.’

  ‘Made for me,’ I laughed. ‘Unfortunately, far too expensive.’

  ‘But you have to have it. Look, I take twenty per cent off. It shouldn’t be in the sale but you are so tiny I don’t think anyone else will get into it.’

  ‘I’ll have it.’ Feeling horribly guilty, but horribly excited, the precious thing was wrapped and it was mine, all mine.

  *

  ‘So, Mrs Beresford, how come you’re here in Mexico all by yourself?’ Xavier handed me a mint-laden Mojito and smiled.

  ‘Same reason as you, I guess.’

  ‘What, my mother bullied you into coming as well?’

  I laughed. ‘My friend Fi was the instigator. She saw the same travel page in the local paper and within two days I’d booked, packed and was on the train to the airport.’

  ‘And Mr Beresford?’

  ‘I’m amazed you haven’t had the lowdown on the sudden ending of my marriage.’

  Xavier looked surprised. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘It ended very publicly, and, as a new head teacher, I very quickly became the subject of the gossip in Westenbury and, quite probably, Midhope as well.’

  ‘Oh? Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Do you know, I don’t think I do.’ And I didn’t. Two months on and I’d had enough of telling the story.

  I looked at Xavier, taking in the very dark hair and olive skin which, after a week in the sun, had turned a deep mahogany, now emphasised by the beautiful crisp white shirt he’d chosen to wear. ‘What about you? You must be feeling pretty raw still?’

  ‘I think when a relationship has limped along as mine has with Ophelia; when it involves periods of intense remission where you feel it’s all going to be OK after all…’

  ‘And then it isn’t OK and it falls apart again?’

  He smiled. ‘No, it never is OK. A toxic relationship never succeeds in the end. You both tell each other it will work this time, but it doesn’t. The same problems just raise their ugly heads once more; they never go away. I’m probably as much to blame as Ophelia…’

  ‘Oh, don’t blame yourself,’ I said, almost cheerfully. ‘I told myself it must have been my fault that Mark ran off with my best friend, that it must be something that I’d been unable to give him that made him try to find it with her. But, that’s all bollocks. I think now, in hindsight, he probably totally got off on the drama and danger of it all.’

  ‘A bit like James Bond?’

  We both laughed. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that, but yes, I think you’re probably right. Anything to titivate his mundane existence of a job, a wife and two kids.’

  ‘He’d have been better taking up skydiving or robbing banks,’ Xavier laughed again.

  The picture of sensible Mark, in striped sweater and balaclava, toting a SWAG bag while holding up the balding manager of the one remaining branch of a certain bank in Westenbury village, made me giggle. Or maybe it was the Mojito, but once I’d started I couldn’t stop.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Xavier grinned, as I wiped my eyes.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You, laughing like that. On the occasions I’ve seen you, you’ve looked so uptight and totally unapproachable. A real crosspatch, even with a giant penis over one shoulder.’

  I started to giggle again. ‘Gosh, strong stuff this Mojito; I think I’d better have another…’

  *

  Xavier and I spent the next two hours ensconced at a corner table on the terrace of the Italian restaurant facing the Caribbean coastline. The food, several courses of quite tiny portions, was just perfect: I could enjoy the incredible flavours without the fear that my new pink dress might split at the seams.

  ‘I’m assuming you’ve lived in Midhope all your life?’ I asked, in between mouthfuls of a delicious Italian Tiramisu. ‘I mean, most people in Midhope know of the Bamforths, probably because they, or someone in their family, have worked in one of your factories.’ I thought for a moment. ‘I’m not sure that Granddad Norman didn’t work at Bamforths at one point, before he set up his own stall selling fish down in the market hall.’

  ‘Possibly. I wouldn’t know. Really, apart from some of the school holidays, I haven’t spent much time in the North. Dad’s lived there all his life, of course, but Mum is French so after the age of eight, when I wasn’t away at school in the south, I was often avec mon grandpère et ma grandmère à Paris.’

  ‘Ah, hence the name Xavier? It did seem a bit exotic for Midhope.’

  He laughed. ‘If Dad had had his way I’d have been George or William, but Mum insisted.’

  ‘You were eight when you were sent away to school? That’s child cruelty. Weren’t you horribly homesick?’

  ‘To begin with, yes, but that’s the way it was. The pair of us – myself and my sister, Amelie – were sent away at an early age in the same way that my dad had been. And to the same school as my dad. Family tradition and all that.’

  ‘Didn’t your mum object? I would never have allowed my kids to be sent away from me – at eight.’

  ‘She did at the time. I remember her crying for weeks before I went, arguing with my dad that I was too young; throwing a few things at him, if I remember rightly. As I said, she’s always been a bit of a tiger, but the Bamforths are a forceful lot and my grandmother, particularly, was a matriarch you didn’t cross. And then, after school, I was at university in Bath and then I worked in the city for quite a few years. After that, Dad wanted me back up North to start taking over the reins. I’d actually had enough of the stress of London, so the idea of coming back to my roots was one I welcomed.’

  ‘And Ophelia?’

  ‘She was very reluctant to move north. She eventually agreed to the move because the idea of being able to afford a much larger house, rather than the flat we were living in, was quite inviting to begin with. I think she had the idea she was going to be lady of the manor, workers doffing their hats to her while she kicked a few northern peasants into submission.’ Xavier laughed. ‘She’d obviously been reading too much D. H. Lawrence. The workers at Bamforths are the last people to try to keep down. We’ve had to deal with a lot of union stuff over the past two years, the union leaders constantly insisting on negotiating with us on whatever is being suggested to keep the company abreast of competition in a global market.’

  ‘As is only right,’ I smiled, echoes of my mother
suddenly appearing out of the blue.

  ‘Absolutely. I have no problem with workers’ rights. Unfortunately, the constant battle we seem to have does get in the way of progress at times. Dad’s fear is we may not be able to compete for ever.’

  ‘Ah, hence the selling off of some of the Bamforth Estate? And the planned building on the rest?’ I was beginning to understand Edward Bamforth’s motives.

  Xavier nodded. ‘Yes. Dad won’t actually admit to it, but if he can make a great deal of money by putting houses on the estate, that will be the time to sell up at the factory, too. He can retire on the proceeds and play golf for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he just sell the factory and retire on what he makes there? Then he can leave the fields as they were and we’d all be happy?’ This seemed perfectly logical to me as I scraped my plate of chocolate and sat back, replete.

  Xavier sighed. ‘Does anyone want engineering companies these days? I’m not sure anyone would want to part with the kind of money Dad would want for the factory. He’s a stubborn bugger – always has been – and he’d rather sell off the estate where he knows there’s good deal more money to be had.’

  ‘And that’s what Ophelia’s hoping for, too?’ I remembered the very gorgeous brunette who’d clapped so encouragingly after Xavier had put forward the Bamforth Estate’s plans at the meeting. As his wife, she stood to share a good deal of the profits of any sale of the estate.

  ‘Yes, we all know exactly what Ophelia is after.’ Xavier smiled. ‘And with me, or not, she’ll make sure she gets what she feels she is owed.’

  I looked at Xavier, at his tanned fingers with their very clean nails wrapped around the stem of his wine glass; at his very dark hair and beautiful brown eyes, no longer sad, but smiling at me across the table. I felt myself flush slightly as he poured more wine, his fingers somehow making contact with my hand as he did so. Was that a deliberate move on his part or wishful thinking on mine?

  ‘Just off to the loo,’ I squeaked.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said.

  I examined my face in the marble-edged mirror as I dried my hands with one of the white fluffy hand towels before discarding it in the basket to my side. My beautiful pink dress, despite sitting for the past few hours, still clung in all the right places. I added a slick of lipstick, a squirt of Jean-Louis Scherrer, took a deep breath and headed back to the table.