Catherine Alliott - A Rural Affair

‘Hi, Arch.’ She took his soggy offering of a masticated biscuit and his eyes widened delightedly. ‘Crackers and lemonade, yum. We’re never allowed that for tea.’

The children beamed proudly.

‘Yesterday we had a Hula Hoop sandwich,’ Clemmie informed her grandly.

‘Good for you, Clem. Why bother with the old five a day, eh?’ She turned to me. ‘Jennie says you’re going to choir practice with her. That’s a bit sad, isn’t it? You’ll be doing the church flowers with her next.’

‘Your mum’s very busy, Frankie,’ I told her. ‘And someone’s got to do it.’

‘Why?’ she said belligerently. ‘No one would notice if there weren’t any flowers in church, would they?’

‘Some people would.’

‘People like Jennie. So she does it for herself, in fact.’

I could see she was pleased with that. Was probably storing it away to deploy on her stepmum later, when Jennie came home, tired. Normally I’d defend her, tell Frankie if everyone thought like that there wouldn’t be any community in the village, but somehow I couldn’t be bothered. Couldn’t raise the energy.

‘It’s like dusting,’ she was saying. ‘She’s got this thing, right, that you don’t do it any more, don’t hoover either, but what does it matter? So what if the dust builds up? Who was it said it gets to a certain level and doesn’t get any thicker?’

‘Quentin Crisp,’ I said distantly. Dust? Why were we talking about dust? Oh, as in ashes to ashes.

‘You see?’ she said admiringly. ‘You know things like that. Cos you read, which is more than Jennie does. Who was he, anyway?’

‘The last of the stately homos. At least that’s what he called himself. D’you want a cracker, Frankie?’

‘No, you’re all right. You’d better go, though. She’ll get stressy if you don’t turn up. D’you want to brush your hair?’

‘No, thanks. Do you?’

‘Not really. Shall I do Clemmie’s?’

‘Sure.’

My daughter slipped down shyly from the table and ran off to get her Barbie hairbrush. Such was her admiration of Frankie, she could hardly speak for the first five minutes of her visit. I got heavily to my feet and went to pluck my coat from the back of the door.

‘School breaks up soon,’ Frankie said abruptly, apropos of nothing. ‘Half-term. Can’t wait.’

‘So it does,’ I agreed. Ages away, actually; but for a sixteen-year-old it was like a drink in the desert. A reprieve from the daily grind winking away in the distance: lie-ins in the mornings, night life in the evenings. Never quite the reality, obviously: lashings of rain and endless boredom with the odd gnomic exchange with an equally bored mate in McDonald’s, but the idea was good. Like most ideas. Marriage. Children. In fact wasn’t most of the joy in life derived from the planning, the theory? I must remember that. Plan more, do less.

‘So what are you going to do with yourself this holiday?’ I forced myself to say conversationally. Never let it be said I couldn’t string two words together, something I’m sure I heard Yvonne in the shop say about me to Mrs Pritchard, as I left her premises earlier today with my pint of milk.

‘I thought I might get pregnant.’

I was shrugging my coat on at the door, facing away from her. I turned.

‘Why not? Mum did it.’

‘Jennie didn’t –’

‘No, my mum. She was sixteen.’

‘Oh.’

We stared at one another. She gave a hint of a smile. ‘You’re not that far gone, are you? Not completely mental.’

Ah. Shock tactics. ‘Nice one, Frankie.’

‘Still, I might, though,’ she said defensively.

‘Got anyone in mind?’

‘No,’ she said sulkily, deflated in an instant, alive to the poverty of her plan. I wished I hadn’t asked. ‘There’s Jason Crowley at school, but he’d never shack up with me. Just want a quick shag. That’s the whole point,’ she said, dark eyes flashing.

‘What, a quick shag?’

‘No, to shack up, get out of there.’ She jerked her head next door. ‘Or there’s Mr Hennessy, my biology teacher; he’s really fit, but he’s got a wife and kids which isn’t ideal, is it?’

‘Not … ideal.’ Where was I going? I stared at the door. Oh, yes, church.

‘Single mothers get priority with council flats, though,’ she told me. ‘You jump the queue.’

I sighed. ‘Frankie …’

‘Anyway, he doesn’t fancy me. Mr Denis does – physics – but he’s properly weird; he fancies everyone. Or I suppose I could nick your new intended? Come along to choir practice.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

She got to her feet as Clemmie came back with her brush and a mirror from my dressing table, struggling under the weight.

‘Oh, salon stuff!’ Frankie relieved her of the mirror and hoisted it onto the table. ‘A French pleat, madam, or shall we cut it all short?’

‘All short!’ sang Clemmie, jumping up and down, ecstatic with excitement.

Frankie grinned. ‘Nah, yer mum might notice that. Then again,’ she grimaced and shot me a look, ‘in her state she might not. Here, give me that.’ She took the brush from her. ‘We’re going to go for a pleat, right? And then we’ll give Archie a comb-over.’

My son had yet to collect much hair, but what he had was long, wispy and very much around the edges. Archie beamed and offered her some more cracker, clenched and soggy in his fist. She took it and put it on her tongue, which was pierced.

‘D’you dare me?’

Clemmie nodded. Frankie swallowed. The children roared with laughter, delighted.

‘Don’t underestimate those harpies, though,’ she went on as I turned to go out of the back door. ‘Once they put their heads together, you’re sunk. Trust me, I should know. Oh, and you might want to take your dressing gown off under your coat. They’ll need smelling salts if they see that.’ I glanced down to where two inches of pale blue towelling protruded from my navy reefer. ‘Then again, you might not. Personally I like the layered look. But our Jennie’s got ever so bourgeois recently. She’s not so into the Quentin Crisp philosophy.’

I took her advice, removed the dressing gown, replaced my coat, and putting one foot in front of the other, went off down the road to choir practice. In a small corner of my mind I was dimly aware that Frankie had given me a searching look as I’d left and, for one crazy moment, I’d almost turned and shared with her. Almost come back in, shut the door and blurted out my troubles, just as she’d blurted hers. I hadn’t, though. Of course not. Because there was no one I could tell. Not even Jennie. Not because I’d be mortified – I would – but because once it was out, I’d have no control over it. Dan would know. Then someone in the pub would know. And my children, so damaged already, must never know. Never hear from someone at school. I clenched my fists fiercely in my coat pockets in resolve. It must be a closely guarded secret. My secret. No one must ever know that their father, my husband, hadn’t found me enough, emotionally. That he’d had another life with another woman. That she’d been to see me ten days ago, paid me a visit. That she’d been there at his funeral and I’d never known. Been in our lives and I’d never known. Filled a void in Phil’s life I hadn’t been able to. They must never know that their father had been unhappy, desperate. It was my shame and I must bear it alone. Tears fled down my cheeks, soaking my face as I walked on.

5

Carefully wiping my face as I stood on the church step, I gave myself a moment; breathed in and out deeply. Then I pushed open the heavy door. The choir were already assembled in their stalls up by the altar, but then I was ten minutes late, having lingered to talk to Frankie. Most people I knew: friends and neighbours, who turned and smiled as I came in. But as I let the heavy oak door swing shut behind me, I wondered what on earth I was doing here. I hadn’t been in since Phil’s funeral and the familiar smell of cold stone, candle wax and damp, which I usually found rather comforting, seemed to ambush my senses as if a hood had been slipped stealthily over my head. I felt even more breathless than usual. I turned and with a shaky hand reached for the door handle again. I could pretend I’d forgotten something, then not come back. But the handle was stiff, and anyway, Jennie was beside me in a moment, having slipped out of her stall and down the aisle. My arm was in her vice-like grip.