Civvy Street (48 page)

‘Just over a hundred k a year.’

Susie and Maddy looked at each other.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Maddy.

‘Shit a brick,’ said Susie.

‘It almost looks as if that dreadful flood might have done us a bit of a favour.’

As Seb drove the family car into Ashton-cum-Bavant village, Maddy was assailed with flashbacks of events six months previously when she’d last been in the village. Then, the weather had been appalling; rain, gales, lowering cloud but now it was bright and clear. The trees were sporting the vibrant lush green of spring growth, the birds were singing, flowers bloomed... the perfect English idyll. And the floods were pretty much forgotten now, apart from the poor folks still battling with repairs, renovations and their insurance companies.

Maddy glanced across at Rollo’s grand mansion. And to think that she’d tried to protect Susie from hearing about his new place when she was facing having to live in Springhill Road and that awful house. Back then no one would have dreamed for a minute that she and Mike would end up as his neighbours and, despite the fact she was so thrilled that things had worked out for the Collinses, she couldn’t help feeling horribly envious. Would she and Seb ever be able to afford a place of their own in such a lovely location? All she could see for herself was a succession of endless quarters – some nicer than others, but never accommodation that anyone in their right mind would class as ‘wonderful’ or ‘desirable’ – and precious little opportunity to save for a deposit for a house because the kids’ boarding school fees would gobble up every last penny. She sighed. Maybe, despite everything, Susie and Mike were the lucky ones.

‘Which way now?’ asked Seb, breaking into her thoughts.

‘Next left,’ said Maddy.

Seb took the turn and the two of them peered at the names on the gates. This was, noted Maddy, the sort of village where houses had names, not numbers. And what houses... lovely half-timbered cottages with thatched roofs and proper country gardens – the sort which later would be filled with delphiniums and hollyhocks, lavender and stocks, the sort which foreign tourists oohed and aahed over as they passed through, brought here by their tour operators to see ‘the prettiest village in England’. These were houses which appeared on the property porn shows and which Maddy knew she could never aspire to live in.

‘Here,’ she said spotting
Lower End
in clear black lettering on a five-bar gate.

Seb swung their four-by-four into the wide gravel drive that swept up to a double garage. To the side was a two-storey house with dormers in the thatch and mullioned windows. The porch – also thatched – was adorned with bunting and pretty hanging baskets flanked each side. Maddy was green.

Nathan scrambled out of the car while Maddy unbuckled Rose and lifted her down to toddle after her brother. A sign stuck in a flower bed exhorted them to ‘Use the side gate’.

‘This way,’ said Maddy, grasping Rose by the hand and leading her along a path, through an ancient brick arch. She pushed open the wrought iron gate and stepped into the back garden.

Susie almost skipped across the lawn to meet them.

‘Sorry we’re a bit late,’ apologised Maddy.

‘Not at all, not at all,’ said Susie. ‘I’m so pleased you could make it. And that you agreed to come early so we could have a proper catch-up first.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed your house-warming for the world – or the catch-up. We’ve hardly seen each other for months.’ Maddy gazed at the immaculate lawn, the herbaceous border, the beautiful Victorian conservatory tacked onto the back of the house, the huge pond, the weeping willow... ‘Bit of a change from Springhill Road.’

Susie nodded. ‘God that place was grim. I tried to make the best of it but, frankly, it would have been no great loss to the world if the whole place had been swept away.’ She turned to Seb. ‘I think you’ll find Mike in the conservatory, making sure the bar is sorted for the barbecue. He could probably do with a hand.’

Seb didn’t need telling twice and strode across the lawn to find his old boss.

‘I bet the girls love it here,’ said Maddy, still admiring the gardens.

‘They do. And they’re in the den with a stack of
Peppa Pig
DVDs for the little ones.’

‘
Peppa Pig
,’ yelled Nathan.

‘’Eppa,’ crowed Rose.

Maddy followed Susie into the house. The interior was as wonderful as the outside, filled with bright rugs, vases of lilies and elegant soft-furnishings.

‘Oh, Susie. I am trying hard to keep the green-eyed monster under control but I am failing miserably.’

Susie grinned. ‘We have been incredibly lucky.’

‘And that’s not a phrase you’d have said a year ago.’

‘No.’

They reached the den where Katie and Ella were marshalling Maddy’s two onto giant floor cushions in front of the big TV. Katie picked up the remote and instantly Nathan and Rose were in the thrall of Peppa.

‘You be good,’ said Maddy to her children, who didn’t even acknowledge their mother had spoken. ‘Come and find me if you need me,’ she told the girls. They nodded.

‘Guided tour?’ offered Susie.

‘Thought you’d never ask.’

Susie led Maddy towards the ancient, uneven, polished oak stairs.

‘How are they settling in at their new school?’

‘It’s a sea-change from Winterspring Comp. They’re a bit behind – mainly because they completely marked time when they were at the comp – but they’re trying really hard to catch up. I tell you something, those months made them realise how lucky they are to be getting such a good education. And they fit in to this new school. Before, they had the wrong accents, wrong ethos, wrong background. And they tried to make it better by hanging around with the wrong crowd – the kids who think smoking, underage drinking and the like is cool.’

‘Susie!’

Susie looked Maddy in the eye as they stood on the landing. ‘And the rest. Not,’ she added, ‘that Mike knows – or he doesn’t know yet. I suppose I can hardly blame them, given the way things were in the past with Mike and me. Hardly grade-A role models. As always, it’s more than likely a case of “I blame the parents”.’

‘You can’t take the blame for everything, Susie.’

‘No?’

‘No. Drinking, smoking, it’s what kids do these days.’

‘Really? I’m sure there’s an awful lot who don’t. Anyway, I’ve got to hope that now they’re at their lovely day school it won’t happen again. Actually, it better
hadn’t
happen again; I have warned them of the consequences if they do because, if there are any more reports about them being disruptive or badly behaved, I’ve threatened to tell their father everything. That’s enough to keep them working like little Trojans.’

‘So you’re certain they did those things – smoking, drinking...’

‘Certain? God, yes. They coughed to everything when we were stuck in the floods. So we’ve drawn a line in the sand and agreed to forget about it and I’ve promised it’ll stay that way unless they put so much as a toenail across that line. If they do...’ Susie rolled her eyes and drew her hand across her throat. ‘Please don’t tell Seb. I’m sure he’d be the soul of discretion but... well, male loyalty and that stuff. So, unless it all goes horribly wrong, I’d rather it was only you and me in the know.’

‘Crikey,’ said Maddy. ‘I’m a bit surprised you even told me.’

Susie shrugged. ‘I think we know too much about each other’s buried bodies for me to keep anything from you.’

Maddy grinned. ‘You can say that again.’

Susie changed the subject and started to show Maddy the first of the five bedrooms upstairs and the twins’ transgressions were forgotten as Maddy was blown away by the lovely ancient beams that ran across the ceilings, the thickness of the walls, the mullioned windows and the neat little en suites that the previous owners had shoehorned into the rooms.

They clattered downstairs again and, having made sure the girls and Maddy’s kids were still OK, Susie took Maddy into the kitchen which was a modern extension and which would have made Jamie Oliver jealous, let alone someone who was stuck with an army kitchen in a less than modern quarter.

‘Drink?’ offered Susie.

Maddy nodded. ‘White wine, if you’ve got it.’

Susie got out two glasses.

Maddy’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Susie?’

‘No – still on the wagon. But I prefer to drink soda water out of a wine glass. Maybe it’s because I can kid myself it’s a proper drink.’

‘And Mike?’

‘He had a couple of monstrous tumbles off the wagon but...’ Susie rapped her knuckles on the big scrubbed pine table in the middle of the floor, before she took two bottles out of the fridge and poured Maddy’s drink and then her own. ‘Cheers.’

The two women clinked glasses.

‘Now then, what happened to Rayner?’ asked Susie.

‘Well.’ Maddy put her glass down on the table. ‘His resignation was accepted but it was decided that he couldn’t stay on because, well... I think the powers that be decided he’d gone a bit bonkers.’

‘A
bit
?’

‘Indeed. So he got sent on gardening leave quick sharp and Camilla was livid. All her aspirations to being Lady Rayner when Jack made it onto the army board.’

‘As if,’ interrupted Susie.

‘They were each as delusional as the other, I reckon. Anyway, the rumour is that he’s running some company that sells carpets.’

‘Carpets?’

‘So I’ve heard. I can’t imagine Camilla is very happy – no one to boss around, no one to lord it over.’

‘How have the mighty fallen.’

‘I am a great believer in karma,’ said Maddy. ‘He was such a shit to everyone and made so many lives difficult it was bound to catch up with him in the end.’

‘I don’t think people always get what they deserve,’ said Susie.

Maddy knew Susie was thinking about Mike’s redundancy and the disasters that had followed on from it. ‘But you did in the end, Susie. This wonderful house is payback for what you did for me, when Seb was in Kenya and I was dealing with the bunny-boiler.’

Susie shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe things came right like they did. I tell you something, Maddy, talk about a roller-coaster ride. If you want epic highs and abysmal lows, just spend a year with the Collins family.’

Maddy laughed. ‘Which is why you get the “for better, for worse” bit in the marriage vows. I think we’d all prefer to take the “better”, “riches” and “health” bits and sod the negatives.’

‘On the other hand, Mike and I are such a team now. We’ve had our disagreements but when you’ve come through what we have...’ Susie sighed. ‘Not that I’d recommend it but we’ve got a superglued bond now.’

Maddy leaned across the table and gave her friend’s hand a squeeze. ‘I am so pleased. Really. Envious, of course,’ she added with a laugh, ‘but really pleased. I do miss you being my neighbour though. And you working in the mess. It’s not the same without you around.’

‘But that was always the way with the army – people come and go, in and out of your life. Much as I hated it when we left and I thought I’d never get used to being a civvy, it’s not so bad when you get used to it. I don’t mean it’s “not so bad” because we’ve got this.’ Susie waved her glass to indicate the house. ‘But I can plant perennials in my garden, I don’t automatically know what my neighbours do for a living – or what their pay grade is – but I know they’ll be staying put and not moving out in a year or less. I’ve even joined the local WI.’

Maddy squealed with laughter. ‘You? The WI?!’

‘It’s grand. I love it.’

‘So you can recommend civvy street then, can you?’

‘Abso-bloody-lutely.’

We hope you enjoyed this book!

Fiona Field’s next book, the first in a brand new series, is coming in 2018

For more information, click the following links

I need to thank, in particular, John Backley who is the emergency planning officer and facilities manager for the South Oxfordshire District Council. He was amazingly generous both with his time and information and I am really grateful for what he told me about flood management and related issues. However, I need to stress at this point that Winterspring District Council bears
no
relation to
any
local government organisation I have
ever
had dealings with – the fictional council in my book is a total figment of my imagination and was created in that vein entirely for dramatic reasons. I have never met a ‘Rob’ or anyone quite like him, and sincerely hope that no one of his ilk is involved in that sort of work at whatever level!

I also need to thank my lovely agent, Laura Longrigg, for her continued support, and the team at Head of Zeus who look after me so well. In particular, I need to thank Rosie de Courcy who is a stunningly fabulous editor and makes me write the best book I can.