A Rural Affair (39 page)

‘Good luck,’ I muttered in her ear.

‘Thanks. I’ll need it.’ I held her close a long moment. Suddenly her voice came in a frantic rush in my ear. ‘Poppy,’ she
gulped, ‘imagine if she’s four months gone, imagine if it’s too late, if –’

‘
Don’t
imagine,’ I said fiercely, pulling back and holding her shoulders, looking hard at her panic-stricken face ‘Don’t. We don’t
know anything yet. Don’t think the worst.’

She nodded, frightened.

‘Stay calm,’ I urged.

‘I will,’ she whispered.

‘And listen to her. Don’t’ – and this was brave – ‘preach.’ Jennie could surely preach.

For a moment she seemed about to erupt, then, recognizing another truth, she nodded wordlessly, turned my Chubb key in my
door, and left.

The following day, as I drove along the lanes to Wessington, I considered the whirlwind that had whipped through our village
these past few months. First Tom had left Angie and the mini tornado had settled on her house; then Phil had died and the
mistral had torn up the road to me; and now Frankie was pregnant and the twister had shot next door, spinning savagely over
my friend. Was that just life, I wondered? One family lurching into crisis, then climbing out of it, only to be swiftly followed
by another? Did we all take it in turns to fall into holes? It seemed to me, though, that some people never fell; led permanently
gilded lives and were immune to the slipstream of life’s grimy undercurrent; never so much as felt a ripple. For some reason
the Armitages sprang to mind. I sighed.

And naturally, in our close-knit little community, word spread like a bush fire. I hadn’t told anyone about Frankie, of course
I hadn’t, but when Dan came home from work yesterday, and Jennie told him what she’d found out, calmly, reasonably, with neither
blame nor censure, he’d had the reaction Jennie had had in my sitting room. Of course he had. He was shocked, distraught,
horrified. His little girl. A fucking
teacher
! Fucking
hell
! And then Frankie had come in late from school, not at the usual time, and before Jennie could stop him, he’d lost his rag.
I knew because I heard it in my kitchen. Even though I went into the sitting room and turned the television on. Put my fingers
in my ears. And then
Jennie had lost it with Dan and the whole thing, as she told me this morning when she came round, red-eyed, not having slept
a wink, hair standing on end, had degenerated into the worst and most terrible scene imaginable.

‘I preached, I didn’t listen, I wasn’t calm, I wasn’t strong,’ she gulped, horrified. ‘Everything you said I shouldn’t be,
I was.’

‘But not at Frankie,’ I said anxiously. ‘You didn’t lose it with her?’

‘No, I suppose not. Dan, mostly.’ She looked grey and defeated as she slumped at my kitchen table, still with her pyjamas
under her coat. ‘Trying to fend him off Frankie. But nothing about it was very attractive, Poppy. Neither adult’s behaviour
would stand up to too much scrutiny. You didn’t hear, did you?’ She passed a weary hand through her chaotic curls.

‘No, no,’ I lied.

‘Good. Only Avril Collins on the other side couldn’t have looked more delighted when I saw her collect her milk from her step
this morning, and I thought: oh shit.’

‘It hardly matters who knows,’ I told her gently. Again untruthfully, because of course it did. ‘D’you know how far … you
know … she is?’ I asked cautiously.

‘ “How far gone”, is the expression on sink estates, Poppy,’ she said with a flash of the old Jennie, brave eyes glittering
briefly in their sleep-deprived sockets. ‘Amongst the chain-smoking teenage mothers on the eighteenth floor. And you don’t
“get pregnant”, you “fall”, as in “When did you fall for Kylie?” ’ She shuddered. ‘The answer is I don’t know,’ she said in
a much smaller voice. ‘She won’t tell me. Won’t say a word, in fact. Which is why Dan got so angry.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Absolutely zilch. Stared at her father’s distorted face as he ranted and raved like a madman, then ran up to her room and
slammed the door. Locked it.’

‘Oh. So … what next?’

She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Let it all calm down, I suppose. Try to talk to her tonight, perhaps. One more day isn’t going
to make much difference, is it?’

I think we both knew what she was talking about.

‘I doubt it,’ I agreed.

She dredged up a gigantic sigh from the soles of her feet. ‘Anyway. Just came to check you hadn’t heard.’

‘Not a thing.’

I walked her to the door, and since she’d caught me as I was about to go out, picked up my bag and Archie too as we left.
When I’d locked the front door behind me, out of the corner of my eye I saw a little huddle of raincoats and brollies outside
the shop. Avril Collins, Yvonne and Mrs Fish. They glanced our way, wide-eyed, then re-huddled. I quickly positioned myself
between them and Jennie.

Jennie, though, was beyond either noticing or caring. Halfway down my path in the rain, she was gazing into some private world
of her own, the drizzle settling like a sparkling cobweb on her wild springy curls, slippers on her feet, coat open to the
elements, like Lear on the heath.

‘I thought I’d meet her from school this afternoon. Take her to Topshop, then for a burger. D’you think she’d like that?’
She turned to look at me anxiously.

Ordinarily, yes. But under the circumstances, Jennie waiting at the school gates …

‘Maybe text her first?’ I suggested. ‘So she can think about it?’

‘Good idea.’ She whipped her phone out of her coat
pocket. I gently put my hand on it. ‘And maybe go and have a think about what you’re going to say first?’

Jennie’s eyes widened and she gave me a messianic look, full of admiration and fervour. I wanted to say: no, Jennie, I’m no
guru, but I do know about this. About running around like a headless chicken, charging down the church path and forgetting
to bury my husband, rushing around on adrenalin following shock. Doing the first thing that came into one’s head, acting on
impulse. I knew about the next bit too, the terrible depression that followed: forgetting to feed my kids, to dress them,
love them. I shuddered as I pocketed my key. Almost couldn’t admit it to myself and knew I’d regret it for the rest of my
life. I knew about doing all the wrong things, and later on wishing so much I’d done otherwise; I knew how guilt – or rather
a sense of it, misplaced perhaps – can make us behave illogically, like people we don’t recognize, never thought we’d be.

I didn’t say all that to my friend, though. What I actually said was: ‘Go and have a cup of coffee, get your head together,
and then text her, OK?’

She nodded obediently. Ran down my path and up hers, and it occurred to me that we were like a couple of little weather people,
popping in and out of each other’s houses, broadcasting rain or shine, depending on our day, depending on the current crisis,
telling the village our business. Oh, sod it, I thought, shifting Archie onto my hip as I went down the path. Who cares?

‘Morning, Avril,’ I couldn’t help calling across Jennie’s garden as her other neighbour returned from the shop, eyes darting
like a magpie’s. ‘Yes, that’s right, trouble at Apple Tree Cottage.’ I glared at her and marched off to my car, thrusting
a surprised Archie into his seat. Regretted it, of
course. And if I could come to the boil like that, what hope for Jennie?

Now, however, as I drove along the edge of the common in Wessington, I considered it rationally; wondered if Frankie really
would be stupid enough to be seduced by a teacher. I’d thought about it overnight and decided, on balance, it was unlikely.
In which case, who was the boy? Some family was going to be equally shattered, surely? And for some reason hard to fathom,
stemming as it did from time immemorial, and belying what had happened in the Garden of Eden when God had firmly pointed the
finger at Eve as she tucked into the apple, the fault always lay with the boy. ‘He got her into trouble,’ the Avril Collinses
of this world would say; not, ‘She got him.’ I glanced at my toddler son in the rear-view mirror as we sped along in the weak,
milky sunshine which was struggling to make an appearance now the rain had ceased. ‘You be careful, my boy,’ I whispered.
‘You steer clear of those pretty girls.’

He grinned toothily back.

The kennels were at the far end of the common, down a bumpy little track which terminated in a farmyard. Two functional, breeze-block
enclosures for the hounds ran in parallel lines down either side of a pristine yard, and a white Victorian cottage crouched
at the far end. One or two dogs bayed a welcome as I arrived, but most were sleepy and silent. I drove through the yard and
parked right outside the house, where I would be able to see Archie, who was now asleep. But as I got out I realized it looked
a bit arrogant, parking so close to the windows. I was about to go and move the car, when I saw Mark himself was sitting on
the front doorstep watching me, so it was too late. One of the hounds was upside down between his legs, and he appeared to
be doing
something to its paw. I approached nervously as he regarded me, tweezers poised. The hound wriggled briefly, but was instantly
limp and submissive after a curt word from Mark. I stood before him.

‘I’ve come to apologize. My horse kicked Peddler and I panicked and didn’t tell anyone. I meant to, really I did, but everything
happened so quickly and I realized I’d committed the worst sin and I lost my bottle. I’m so ashamed and so sorry I killed
your hound.’

He continued his steady gaze, his dark eyes in his smooth brown face like two bright pieces of coal.

‘You’re Peter Mortimer’s daughter, aren’t you?’ he said eventually in his slow, country brogue.

‘That’s right. D’you know Dad?’

‘Everyone knows your dad. Where d’you think we get our horses from? That bay of yours could make a decent enough hunter, but
he should have told you it kicks.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t know.’

‘It’s his job to know. I’ll take it off the price of the next one I buy from him. I’ve told him as much. It’s all right, he’s
already rung.’

‘Dad has?’

He nodded. Resumed his inspection of the paw which I could see, close up, had a huge thorn in it. He removed it carefully
with the tweezers and glanced back at me.

‘I appreciate your coming, love. And your dad ringing. There’s many that wouldn’t.’

‘Oh.’ I felt a wave of a relief. A slight easing from the hook. ‘But you were very fond of him,’ I said anxiously. ‘Peddler.
I was told he was your favourite.’

‘Doesn’t do to have favourites. But he’d been with me the
longest. Was the oldest and boldest, certainly. The most disobedient too.’ He grinned, briefly revealing very yellow teeth.

‘Oh, really?’

‘Why d’you think he was on his own? Little bugger, sloping off like that, away from the pack. Couple of weeks ago, out cubbing,
we was drawing your woods near Massingham, and we lost him. Eventually found him with some scruffy mongrel with a huge plastic
collar, giving her a good seeing-to.’

Blimey. Leila.

‘He was an old rogue and make no mistake,’ he told me. ‘And no doubt he’d been somewhere else he shouldn’t when he slunk back
and your horse kicked him. Wouldn’t surprise me if he died with a smile on his face. Perhaps that’s why I liked him so much,
the scoundrel.’ He got to his feet, releasing the hound who twisted himself the right way up and leaped instantly to put his
paws on Mark’s shoulders and lick his face frantically.

‘Things die in the country, love,’ he said, pushing the hound down. ‘Badgers on the road, deer caught in wire. There’s carrion
and carnage wherever you look. Don’t fret about it.’

I sighed gratefully. Didn’t speak, but felt lighter, less hunched.

‘And as I say, I’ve told your dad I’ll be having a discount next time.’ He was clearly very pleased with this. ‘And he wasn’t
snitching on you, neither. As a matter of fact I already knew it was you, and he knew I knew, which was why he rang.’

I nodded, the Chinese whispers of the horsy world anathema to me; irrelevant too, so long as all was well.

‘Cup of tea?’ he asked as he turned to go inside. I glanced back at the car. ‘He’s asleep,’ he assured me, ‘and you’ll see
him from the window.’

‘Thanks.’ I followed him in, surprised and pleased. I only knew Mark Harrison by repute, but knew enough to know he didn’t
suffer fools, or even court much human company. And that he commanded huge respect. He was of indeterminate age, anywhere
from a raddled thirty to a sprightly fifty, and a countryman like my dad; the type of man who, despite loving animals passionately,
was no-nonsense and unsentimental about them – in my father’s case reserving his sentimentality for other things. But if I’d
been expecting a carbon copy of my father’s living arrangements inside, I was surprised. Mark’s house was as neat as a pin.
No saddles, bridles and whisky bottles littered proceedings here, just an immaculate three-piece suite with plumped-up cushions,
a well-vacuumed carpet, and a row of gleaming glasses on the sideboard. The only hint that this was a horsy household were
the banks of framed photographs on one wall: hounds, horses, puppy shows – some accompanied by rosettes, and very occasionally,
people.

As he disappeared to boil the kettle, I crossed the room to study them. Beautiful hunters with hounds at their feet, puppies
with raised tails and keen eyes; Mark as a young man, looking almost exactly the same as he did now, those sharp bright eyes
in the smooth face, the clothes and the quality of the print the only hint the snap was taken some time ago. Some of the smaller
ones were black and white, presumably from his father’s era: men in Harris tweeds and voluminous breeches. One photo, small
and in colour, albeit faded by the sun, caught my eye. It was of a group of young people in their late teens or early twenties:
a very pretty girl in dark glasses, two young men, one on either side of her, one of whom was Mark, and one …

‘Is that Sam Hetherington?’ I pointed in surprise at the
boy with long hair, in jeans and a T-shirt, as Mark came back with a couple of mugs. He handed one to me and followed my gaze.