Catherine Alliott - A Rural Affair

‘My fascinator!’ Marjorie had yelped, clutching her hat which was nailed to her head.

‘Why thank you,’ Dad had quipped back, eyebrows wagging.

Cecilia had finally rushed with nail scissors to part them and Marjorie had stood back panting and unamused, hands clenched at her sides like a boxer.

As her identity was now revealed, Dad looked desperately at Dan, but Dan had been struggling for a good ten minutes with these two and had watched helplessly as my father had flown into their web.

‘Lovely … party?’ said Dad, in despair.

‘Isn’t it?’ agreed Dan.

Marjorie and Cecilia looked aghast.

‘I mean … as these things go,’ added Dad, waving his hand lamely.

Dan gazed bleakly into his beer; my father at his feet.

The four of us lined up at the Aga viewed this little vignette with interest.

‘Those two are the only men in that room who belong to us,’ Jennie observed. ‘Take a long hard look, girls. That’s what we’ve ended up with. That’s what’s left for us in the man pool. Two men still in short pants. No offence, Poppy.’

‘None taken,’ I assured her.

‘But would you want any of the rest?’ Angie murmured.

We took a sip of wine and surveyed the throng thoughtfully. We liked this sort of question.

‘I wouldn’t mind a crack at Angus Jardine,’ Peggy said at length.

She was playing to the gallery but we all gasped dutifully. Angus Jardine was the silver-haired, silken-tongued husband of Sylvia, queen bee of the village, who’d praised Phil’s bell-ringing skills. Retired from the City, where he’d been a big fish at Warburg’s, he now just swished his tail contentedly in his river-fronted rectory. He was very much out of bounds.

‘You hussy, Peggy,’ Angie told her.

‘I said a crack. Once I’d got him I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t want him. The word is he’s stingy as hell, a finger of whisky is literally that. And anyway, don’t tell me you haven’t got a crush on Passion-fuelled Pete,’ Peggy retorted.

‘I might have,’ Angie agreed equably, ‘but he’s not here, is he? You said anyone in that room.’

‘Oh, we can digress,’ Peggy told her. ‘Jennie?’

‘You mean hypothetically?’

‘Of course hypothetically. This is a wake, dear heart. We’re not suggesting you jump anyone right now.’

Jennie hesitated. Just a moment too long, I thought. I turned, surprised. ‘Nah,’ she said, sinking into her wine. ‘You know me. I’m off men, full stop.’

‘Poppy?’ Peggy asked smoothly.

I blinked. ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ I spluttered. I seized a plate of fairy cakes and stalked, irritated, into the next room. ‘I’ve just buried my husband!’

‘Quite,’ I heard Peggy say softly as I left.

4

Death has a way of sorting the men from the boys. Some people kept their distance fearing they’d trigger emotion, be responsible for a nasty scene. There were those who’d walk right around the pond on the green just to avoid me, and if they did have to pass me, would scuttle on by, head down. Men, mostly. Others couldn’t resist bringing it up at every opportunity. Outside the village shop, for instance, at the school gates; would positively leap the pond to be by my side. Women, mostly. They’d lay caring hands on my arm: ‘How are you? Are you all right, Poppy, are you coping?’ Looking right into my eyes. Too much sometimes, but so hard to get right. Then there were those who cut the crap and made lasagne for you, picked up the kids, were keen to set you back on track, genuinely wanting to help. Friends, mostly. And Jennie in particular.

Some weeks after the funeral she burst in through my back door on a blast of cold air and let it slam behind her. ‘Right, money,’ she announced firmly, putting a blue casserole dish on the side.

‘Money?’ I turned to her abstractedly, sitting as I was at the kitchen table in my dressing gown, staring into space as Archie had his morning sleep. I did a lot of that, these days.

‘Have you thought about it?’

‘Not really,’ I said dully.

‘Well, did he have much?’ she asked impatiently, flicking the kettle on behind her and sitting opposite me, still in her coat. ‘Were you doing OK, or was it seat-of-the-pants stuff, like me and Dan? Smell of an oily rag?’

Dan was self-employed, and now that the recession had bitten hard, seemed to go less and less to London. Perhaps people were drinking less wine? I hadn’t mentioned it.

‘No, I think we were doing OK. I mean, there was always enough in my account and I did very well on my …’

‘Housekeeping,’ Jennie finished drily.

Jennie had always been rather scathing about Phil’s financial arrangement whereby he put a certain amount into a monthly account for me, out of which I paid all household expenses.

‘But what if you want a new coat or something?’ she’d say.

Jennie and Dan had a joint account from which they both helped themselves, not that there was anything in it, as Jennie would remark tartly.

‘Well, I either save a bit each week, or I ask him. He’d probably say yes,’ I’d say uncomfortably as her eyes would grow round.

‘Yes, but it’s the whole idea that you have to ask. It’s so nineteen-fifties.’

‘It’s his money,’ I’d say defensively. ‘At least you earn a bit, Jennie.’ Jennie was a cook and rustled up dinner parties for friends, food for freezers, that sort of thing. ‘He earns every penny of ours.’

‘Well, I won’t go into the fact that you’ve given up a career to raise his children,’ she’d say, ‘or that my children are at school so I can work, and you’ve still got a baby so can’t,’ and I was glad she didn’t. And in turn didn’t go into the fact that Phil called my monthly allowance my salary. I could hear her squeal of horror at twenty paces.

Now, though, it seemed I might not get away with keeping too much dark. Jennie had that determined look on her face which meant she intended to get to the bottom of something.

‘Did he have a life insurance policy?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Poppy, has all this completely knocked the stuffing out of you?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well, even the most grief-stricken widow might, in an anxious moment, have wondered whether her chickens were going to be provided for. Are you going to get dressed today, incidentally?’

I glanced down at my towelling robe. ‘D’you think I should?’

‘I do, as a matter of fact; you didn’t yesterday. Who took Clemmie to school this morning?’

‘Alice’s mum picked her up for me. Has done for a bit.’

‘Right. Good. But … well, brush your teeth at least, won’t you?’ she said awkwardly.

I shrugged. So demanding. And so many questions.

She swallowed. Licked her lips for patience. ‘OK, Pops, back to basics. Money. Where did Phil keep his papers?’

‘In there.’ I pointed vaguely behind me, through the open kitchen door to the sitting room, where a walnut bureau sat under the bay window.

‘Would you mind if I …?’

‘Be my guest.’

She was in like a rat up a drainpipe. Shimmying out of her coat and tossing it en route on the sofa, she hurried across the sitting room and spent the next half-hour getting very busy. I watched her flicking through his files, which, typical of Phil, were organized and methodical, but which somehow, even though I’d walked across to the desk a few times and stared at it, I hadn’t been able to face opening. I turned and resumed my contemplation of the tiny back garden, the sheep in the field beyond. All ewes now, grazing peacefully. Were they happy to see the back of Shameful, I wondered? Or was any man, demanding or otherwise, better than nothing? They looked pretty content to me, munching away out there.