Chloe (6 page)

There'd better be. There'd bloody well better be.

Inches from the lane. Just a few yards up on the left.

The lane was not getting any shorter and the hedges seemed to be higher now and appeared to converge ever so slightly. Any more than a few yards and they might very well close in on her. Chloë looked at her watch. Two fifty-three. Thirty-eight minutes. Seven minutes to three miles.

‘Three miles is not a few “yahds”,' declared Chloë out loud. ‘Three miles is not funny. I'm starving hungry and have no idea where I am.'

Walking past a driveway to her right, Chloë read the sign, ‘Skirrid End Farm', and trudged wearily along.

Skirrid End Farm! On the right? Back there?

She came to a standstill and, still facing forwards, craned her neck around to reread the sign. Skirrid End Farm. Definitely.

‘A “few yards up”?' she shouted. ‘On the
left
!'

Who's counting!

‘On the
right
?' she declared to a robin. ‘
Must
be antipodean, that bloke. Everything topsy turvy!'

It was, however, with good humour and an easily found spring in her step, that Chloë retraced a few yards and turned left up the drive to meet whatever was to greet her. The drive was long enough to wonder. Church-type door? A smoking chimney? A rusty old Taff astride a tractor? Border collies? Straight into the kitchen to a scrubbed table with gingham cloth and the bread and the cheese and the hand-churned butter? And ‘Chloë Cadwallader, there's pri-tti now!' sung in welcome?

In the event, two large rumps met her view and, as she called ‘Hullo', the tail of one was raised and a steaming mound of admittedly sweet-smelling manure was dumped sonorously at her feet in welcome.

‘Hullo?' she called again, somewhat nasally.

‘Chloë? Is it you?' The voice was pukka and strong and came from somewhere quite close. ‘Chloë?' It belonged to a rotund woman who emerged from behind a wall with a saddle under each arm and a bridle over each shoulder. ‘Chloë? Cad
wall
ader?' Her hair was grey and plaited, Indian-squaw style, halfway down her back. ‘Jocelyn Jo's God-Daughter Girl?' Her cheeks bloomed cerise and a pair of button-black eyes glistened a delighted welcome at Chloë.

‘Yes, it's me. I'm Chloë Cadwallader.'

The other tail was lifted and a further greeting deposited with a rumble and a splat.

‘Am I
glad
to see you!' The woman was very close, dumping the saddles on a low wall, offering her hand. No she wasn't, she was offering to take Chloë's rucksack. She tugged while Chloë wriggled free.

‘Thank heavens it
was
you!' she was saying as she wrestled with straps and fought with buckles. ‘Thank heavens it was you whom Jocelyn sent. Though who else it could have been I do not know!' Her laugh was deep and jovial. A Santa Claus chuckle. ‘But thank heavens that it is you and that you are here now.' She slipped the bridles on to the two horses and rattled away without pause for breath. ‘
I'll
take your worldly possessions.
You
jump up on Percy here and take Rosie and Kerry around the paddock. At the far end is the wood: one gate, one track,
completely
circular. About – An – Hour. Can't possibly go anywhere else, nor get lost. Bugger! The bread! An hour. Ta-ra!'

Very, very slowly, Chloë closed her mouth as she watched the Gin Trap scurry back to the farmhouse carrying her rucksack like a babe in arms. Even more slowly, she shifted her gaze downwards until it rested upon two piercing blue eyes belonging to a small girl in jodhpurs; blond hair in pigtails bedecked with meticulous red bows. With great circumspection, Chloë searched for her voice. Not knowing whether or not it would appear, what it would sound like if it did; nor, indeed, what it was she was to say, Chloë did not bother to clear it. It eventually crackled out, two tones deeper than usual.

‘Are you Rosie, or are you Kerry?'

‘I'm Kerry, silly.
That's
Rosie.'

Rosie turned out to be the first tail-lifter. She turned her doleful eyes on Chloë on hearing her name mentioned and misplaced.

‘So
that
must be Percy?'

‘'Course!'

Rhymed with horse.

And Chloë had not ridden one for some five years.

As Kerry scurried off for hard hats, Chloë worked hard at keeping her mouth closed, her head on straight and her wits about her. Both Percy and Rosie were eyeing her quizzically. She picked her way carefully around their two pungent offerings and introduced herself self-consciously. They welcomed her unconditionally with a nuzzle and a huff apiece and then went back to chewing on their bits.

Instinctively, she checked the throat lash and noseband on each bridle and tightened the girths on the saddles with a ‘Whoa there!' to ward off any inclinations the horses had of nipping her. Chloë Cadwallader was back in the saddle.

Kerry turned out to be a very nice girl of eight years old. She put Chloë at her ease at once for she did not want to know anything about her. She saw no need for an explanation of how an apparent stranger had dumped her rucksack for Percy and was now taking her out on a hack. Such an explanation would only eat into time precious for more important topics such as snaffle bits, jute rugs and ponies with people's names.

‘You'll love Jemima, she's a Cleveland Bay cross, sixteen hands with a sock on her off hind. Desmond's a bit of a pain, tends to put in a
big one
if you use your stick. Which you have to,
all the time.
He's the roan over there with the wall-eye. Harry's that big bay hunter type under the apple tree, he's started going disunited in left canter. So I'm told. He's too big for me. Might suit you, though.'

What could Chloë do but say ‘I see'?

‘Boris, that grey Section B over there by the brook, his show name is Boris the Bold Mark Two. Which is daft really because he's the biggest wimp out. He won't even go over a cavaletti. But Basil, he'll jump anything. I've jumped two foot six with a two-foot spread on him. And that was when I was just seven and three-quarters!'

‘I see.'

While Kerry wittered on about running martingales and French gags, Chloë allowed Percy's sway to relax her. A gentle canter fixed a smile to her face and sharpened her senses to her new surroundings. The farm was set in a dimple amongst the hills and, from a viewpoint at the top of the wood, she could see that there was indeed a chimney smoking and a tractor crawling along the side of one field. The hills were soft and amiable, not nearly as bleak nor as black as she had anticipated.

‘Too much Bruce Chatwin,' she murmured distractedly.

‘Isn't he that showjumper?' Kerry asked.

The wood crept part way up a slope, rather like a beard. The floor of it was covered with pine needles and mulch – rather like bristles. It was soft underfoot and smelt heavenly. From the top, Chloë could see that the farm was relatively isolated. She could make out buildings way over the other side of the lane but these were so far away that it was impossible to tell whether they were merely barns and byres or a dwelling. No smoke from there. Rising in jagged steps beyond was the Skirrid mountain, most onomatopoeic.

I'll climb that one day. Maybe I'll ride up. Would you like that, Percy?

Gin Trap's directions brought Chloë and Kerry back into the yard on the dot of four – she could pick out the chimes of a grandfather clock. It wasn't coming from the house which was directly in front, but somewhere to her left. It was on entering the tack room that she discovered it, tocking patiently, brass pendulum swinging in a most leisurely fashion. Though she had been at Skirrid End for just over an hour, already the tack room seemed as good a place as any for a grandfather clock. Chloë bade goodbye to Kerry and said she could see no reason why she shouldn't take her out on another hack on Sunday.

‘Brilliant. Ask if you can ride Barnaby – he's smashing. Liver chestnut, fourteen three, three-quarter Arab. Needs a kimblewick though.'

‘I see.'

The small of Chloë's back nags ever so slightly. It tells her that five years has been an inordinate absence from the saddle. She rubs it tenderly and picks out the piece of chaff nestling in the corner of her mouth. She inhales deeply and closes her eyes. What is it?

I think that's bread.

And?

Something else. Everywhere. Fresh, clean air. Hang on, tractor diesel, just faintly, over there.

And?

Sheep? No, horse. Of course. And? Wet earth.

Wales.

Wales.

She opens her eyes and takes a broad look around her. A smile breaks over her face and brings light into the darkening yard. Wales. As Peregrine said, a splendid idea. An hour and a half was all it had taken to feel settled, content and at home. And yet she had never been to Wales before. With the relaxed swagger of one who spends all day in the saddle down on the farm, Chloë saunters off towards the farmhouse, in search of hot bread and gingham tablecloths and this curious woman called Gin Trap. As she nears the porch, she sees a figure propped leisurely against it. It's shadowy but it is most certainly a he. It must be the antipode.

‘Yo, Chlo! I'm Carl.'

Carl is possibly the best-looking man Chloë has ever set eyes on.

T
he list had been pinned up for almost a month. William read it cursorily each time he set foot in the studio. Today, he swiped it off the wall, the drawing-pin holding on fast to a snag of the page with ‘five' written on it.

‘Only forty bowls, eh?' he muttered under his breath before spying Barbara's forelegs clipping their way up the two steps to the threshold of the studio.

‘Well, I've done the bowls and dessert plates which gives me a month to complete the order. Nigh on impossible. What joy.' Barbara bleated and pursed her lips around the edge of the list. They tugged in a playful push-me-pull-you sort of way before Barbara fixed her yellow eyes on William accusingly, seeming to say ‘Your heart's not in it, Billy Boy'. William gave her the list to chew on while he took to a corner of his thumbnail on which to ruminate.

‘
Pale white glaze rimmed in blue.
They mean, of course, dolomite with cobalt oxide. Philistines!'

‘Philistines!' bleated Barbara who decided that grass was more tasty than paper and wandered off to nibble the new shoots sweet in the shadow of the holly bush. William retrieved the sodden mash that the list had become and smirked to see that it was still quite legible, no smudges, no runs. Clearly, Morwenna had sent him a photocopy, keeping the original for herself.

‘Very cute,' William conceded, ‘keeping proof of the original order should I have any ideas for improvement. Or change.'

She had also kept the deposit as her cut, which was unusual.

‘Shrewd,' said William, ‘just in case I don't complete the order. Or if things change.'

But because he was still paying off the washing-machine in monthly instalments, he wedged, kneaded and weighed out five equal balls of stoneware without grumbling and effortlessly threw five side plates. Debussy crackled forth from an aged transistor which was caked in clay, chipped and cracked with neglect. William wedged, kneaded and weighed another five balls. Another five plates soon stood in monotony on a wooden plank.

‘I'm bored, Babs,' said William, thumping the transistor to silence Cliff Richard (for many years, and due most probably to an inordinate amount of clay in the workings, Radio 2 was the only station transmitted). He began to knead and wedge once more.

‘I'm bored to the very core.'

Barbara, who was wholly intolerant of melancholia, sneered and sauntered away. William wiped the backs of his hands across his brow, and the fronts of them down his smock, before tiptoeing into the kitchen to retrieve the telephone. Refusing to break his self-imposed law of no-clay-in-the-house, he perched precariously on the freezing cold step and dialled a cottage three miles away. The phone rang and rang but, knowing a similar clay ban was in force, William hung on patiently and gouged clay from under his nails. Finally, the telephone was answered and William leapt to his feet with the receiver tucked under his chin so he could gesticulate wildly.

‘I have ninety pieces to go and am dangerously close to smashing forty-five bowls and throwing ten side plates into the reclaim,' he exclaimed, a certain glee peppering his rapidly delivered woe. There was a brief silence in which William held the phone aloft and whispered ‘Ninety' into it for dramatic impact.

‘You'd better come over at once, dear boy!'

It was precisely the advice William was expecting.

‘I was hoping you'd say that.'

‘At
once
!'

Barbara accompanied a whistling William to the end of the drive at Peregrine's Gully before turning back in the hope that Morwenna might turn up on the off chance and provide her with some sport for the afternoon. As was his way, William neither acknowledged the goat's presence nor bade her farewell – the latter would suppose the former, hence the resolute whistling.

The New Year had been one of the wettest on record and the ground ran beneath his feet like the slurry in the basin of his wheel after a day's work. As he strode the well-known route he rued the fact that it had been months – last autumn at least – since he had visited Mac. He knew his phone call was unnecessary, that he was always welcome; but he knew too that a phone call more than once in a while, a visit for a visit alone and not for advice, would not go amiss. Mac was well into his seventies after all. And after all, Mac was Mac.