Freya North - Rumours

‘And I like brown ale and coal, me,’ Caroline laughed. ‘I’ll see you ladies later. Ta-ta,’ and, smiling to herself, she walked away.

‘But if Longbridge is sold – what’ll it mean for the village?’ she heard Nora say.

As she pushed the buggy, maintained a conversation with Sonny and navigated the dog who had a tendency to wander into the path of anything, stationary or mobile, Caroline texted Xander.

Rumour has it Longbridge is on the market … Cx

The reply came almost immediately.

Bollox! Xx

What a lot of X’s he uses, thought Caroline.

Xander texted again, before she’d replied.

Where did you hear that?!

Village Shop

I rest my case … Xx

‘Mum?’ The front door was unlocked and Xander stood in his mother’s hallway thinking, if I was a burglar, I could swipe her handbag, her car keys, various pairs of shoes, library books, two terracotta plant pots and a selection of Paul Newman DVDs by barely crossing the threshold. Last week, her car keys had been in the car, actually in the ignition; the passenger seat piled high with interestingly bulky Jiffy bags ready for posting and a clutch of Steve McQueen films loaned from Mrs Patek’s esoteric DVD-rental service.

‘Mum?’ Where was she?

‘Hullo, darling!’

She was behind him, making her way up the garden path.

‘Mother – what are you doing ?’

‘Your dad forgot his jacket – it’ll be chilly later on. I don’t want that bronchitis coming back.’

Monday night – card night at the pub.

‘But you left your keys.’

‘I didn’t lock the door.’

‘Exactly – you left everything in here.’

‘Xander!’ she chided and laughed. ‘Stop worrying! I only popped out – I’ve only been gone five or ten minutes. Don’t start putting the willies up me about thieves and the like. This is Little Dunwick, remember.’

‘It’s cloud cuckoo land.’

‘Don’t be cheeky.’

Xander shrugged.

‘You think Long Dansbury is small and friendly – well, here in Little Dee, we’re a tiny happy family in comparison.’

Xander smiled as if he acquiesced. His mother still needed to justify her move away to this neighbouring village over a decade ago.

‘Come on in and give your old mum a kiss.’

Audrey Fletcher made herself sound ancient though she had only recently celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday and looked much younger albeit in a windswept way. She had thick, iron-grey hair worn at one length to her shoulders and a fringe she kept too long so that she blinked a lot, which gave the impression that she was always concentrating hard when actually she chose to listen only selectively. It drove Xander mad, but his father greatly appreciated it, not being one for involved conversation. If Audrey lost track of what people were saying, she never asked them to repeat themselves, she never interrupted and she never murmured, ‘Hmm?’; she simply smiled and blinked in a calmingly beatific way, which gave everyone the impression that she liked them very much and was pleased for them to talk at length. This, combined with the way she dressed – loose trousers or long skirts overlaid with smocks in heavy fabric and a penchant for Native American patterns and colours – invested her with the semblance of someone worldly, wise and contemplative; a modern oracle, a latter-day soothsayer.

In her day, she’d been the only member of staff at Longbridge to resolutely refuse to wear uniform without having to say a word. Certainly, she didn’t dress like the Norland Nanny who predated her there and if the Fortescues had requested a uniform, she probably didn’t hear them. (Lydia was privately quite sure that the clothes Audrey wore now were the same as then – and secretly, she marvelled at the longevity of such fabric.)

Xander kissed his mother. She cupped his face in her hands and smiled at him.

‘Let me look at you.’ She’d seen him the week before. ‘How’s my boy?’

‘He’s fine.’

‘Soup?’

He followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the table. It came naturally to Xander to say a sentence at a time and wait for her to respond; that way nothing was wasted and everything was heard.

‘If you must leave the door unlocked, please don’t leave your valuables in the hallway.’

‘It’s leek and potato.’

He didn’t respond.

‘I’ll try to do that, Xander – for you, rather than to fox any neighbourhood villain.’

Good. ‘Leek and potato sounds good.’

‘How’s work?’

‘Not bad. How’s Dad?’

‘Very good.’

‘This is delicious.’

‘You can come again!’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘You saw Lydia recently?’

‘Yes – and Caroline overheard some village gossip about Longbridge going up for sale.’

‘Longbridge?’ Audrey laughed. ‘How absurd.’

‘I thought it would tickle you.’ Xander laughed with her. ‘But you know what Nora’s like – if there’s no real gossip, she’ll invent some.’

‘I’m visiting Lydia later this week – I’ll ask her. Mind you, a rumour without a leg to stand on still gets around somehow.’

‘I can imagine her response,’ said Xander. It was not unknown for Lydia to hiss the word ‘ peasants ’.

‘I thought I’d take a stew. I don’t like the thought of Mrs Biggins lifting heavy pots – despite the size of her we have to remember she’s nearly as ancient as Lydia and not nearly as strong as her mass would suggest.’

‘You’ll say it’s leftovers.’

‘Yes – and Lydia will laugh and be very rude to me but she’ll eat it all up and never let me know if she liked it.’ She looked at her son thoughtfully. ‘Will you take some soup home with you?’

‘It’s delicious – but I’m out most evenings this week.’

She looked at him again. ‘Oh, yes?’

‘Clients.’

‘Clients – oh, yes?’

‘No one you know,’ he said and they laughed at his pat answer.

‘One day you’ll surprise me,’ Audrey said. ‘One day you’ll come over and say, Mum! Meet Amanda!’

‘Who the hell is Amanda?’

‘Amanda is simply generic, Xander. You know what I mean.’

‘Mother – will you please just leave it?’ He was serious. Why was everyone so concerned with marrying him off? ‘I should have married Verity Fortescue when she proposed to me when I was seven years old.’

‘I had a letter from her last week. Which reminds me – did I post my reply?’ Audrey tailed off to rummage through a pile of paper on the dresser and found the postcard she’d written Verity. ‘Blast.’

‘I’ll post it – and yes, I’ll put a stamp on it for you!’ Xander said wearily, but in jest. He noted the postcard depicted an illustration from an old Enid Blyton book. He skimmed over his mother’s blowsy handwriting, not dissimilar from Verity’s.

‘When did I last see Verity?’ Xander said quietly.

‘She didn’t come at Christmas.’

‘She doesn’t “do” Christmas any more,’ Xander said.

He and Audrey shared a wistful moment, quietly recalling those long halcyon days of his childhood when he and Verity were together from sun up to sun down. Playing and laughing and climbing and swimming and imagining a time when they’d be grown-ups and Longbridge would be theirs and they’d paint everywhere purple and green and pink and blue and there’d be lollipop trees in the garden and the hens would lay chocolate eggs and there’d be cows in the meadows who’d give them strawberry milkshakes.

Xander dreamt of Verity that night. They were in the clock tower above the stable courtyard at Longbridge only it wasn’t Longbridge, not that it mattered. In the dream, he was young again – he could see himself with his ridiculous pudding-bowl haircut and his knock knees and some dreadful knitted sleeveless pullover his gran had made for him. He could taste the musty air that squeezed through the gaps in the tower as skeins dancing with dust. The silken waft of Verity’s strawberry-blonde hair as refined as his tank top was coarse. Their laughter peeling out like the long-gone bell in the tower. The day speeding away and yet time, up there, standing still. But it was grown-up Xander inside young Xander’s head, watching Verity. Smiling and laughing along with her but watching her closely, careful to make her feel equal and relaxed and normal, while all the time guarding her as if, at any moment, she might fall, or she might fly away or, worse, just fade from view and simply disappear. Verity – ethereal and beautiful and so very vivid – saying, Xander! Xander! Come this way! She was going for a door he’d never seen before. Come with me, Xander! But she disappeared beyond it before he could say, Verity – no, don’t! Please stay.