Catherine Alliott: A Rural Affair

‘That Whistles skirt with the kick pleat and my good wool jacket from Hobbs.’

‘Over your grey silk shirt?’

‘I thought a cami.’

She made a face. ‘Bit louche.’

‘With the jacket done up?’

‘Oh, OK.’ She nodded; looked thoughtful. ‘I’m going to wear my Country Casuals dog-tooth number to Toad’s. Elegant, yet restrained. Did you flirt?’

‘What, at Phil’s fantasy funeral? No! Did you?’

‘A bit. Only on the way out. Just a few vulnerable glances through tear-stained lashes, and only with Passion-fuelled Pete.’ This, the local farrier, who shod Angie’s horses and was tall, blond and gorgeous. He caused quite a stir whenever his mobile forge rumbled through the village.

‘Why would Passion-fuelled Pete come to Toad’s funeral?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t worked out the logistics, Poppy.’ She passed a weary hand through her hair, looking tired. ‘Perhaps he had a horse-drawn hearse?’

‘What, like they do in the East End? Like the Kray brothers?’

‘It’s only a fantasy, for heaven’s sake.’

We sat companionably in silent contemplation for a moment, the only light shining through from the hall, where she’d belted up the stairs.

‘You’ll have it in the village church, I presume,’ she said at length. ‘I mean, the real one?’

‘I suppose so. Yes. Definitely.’

‘Everyone will come,’ she warned. ‘You know what they’re like round here. Any excuse.’

‘I know.’

‘Sunglasses?’

‘I think so.’

To hide the dry eyes, we both thought.

‘And actually,’ she said slowly, ‘it will be quite ghastly. You will need those glasses. Trust me, you’ll sob.’

‘Really?’ I looked at her anxiously, hoping for grief.

‘Really.’ She regarded me steadily. ‘A human life has been taken here, Poppy. A young man cut down in his prime. And that’s very sad. You’ll cry. But don’t you go feeling guilty about not feeling or weeping enough. You never wanted to marry that man, you just slid into it. You made a decent fist of your marriage because he was the father of your children, but let’s not get carried away here. A few years down the line, you wouldn’t have been with him.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I know so. You’d have flown, Poppy. This way, you’ll just fly a little sooner.’

As she said it, I felt some faint metaphorical itch between my shoulder blades where, one day, I might sprout wings. It was instantly followed by a lorry load of guilt tumbling on them like rubble, which had me cringing on the bed. We sat there side by side, Jennie hunched in her old camel coat and hugging her knees, me in my baggy Gap T-shirt, crouched under the duvet. Through the wall, we could hear Toad, or Dan as I preferred to call him, gently snoring. Not so gently, in fact; he was gaining momentum. She turned to me, appalled.

‘I didn’t know you could hear him!’

‘Only occasionally.’

‘I’ll put a pillow over his head!’

‘Do not. I don’t mind. Quite like it, actually. Sounds … masculine.’ And automatically I thought how Phil had been quite feminine. Fastidious. Clean. Two showers a day. Nail brushes. And slept like a mouse.

‘Well, at least there’s no danger of you hearing anything else,’ she remarked darkly.

I didn’t reply. Jennie’s increasing lack of interest in the physical side of her marriage could wait for another night. And anyway, this wasn’t entirely true. On the odd occasion I had employed ear plugs.

‘Go, Jennie,’ I said quietly, at length.

‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’

I nodded; gave her a weak smile. Then she hugged me and slipped away. I listened to her footsteps going down the stairs, the door closing behind her. I knew she would be back, first thing. Knew I was blessed with friends like this; knew that moving to this village was the best thing I’d ever done. That it had been a huge compensation for my marriage, and would now stand me in very good stead. And although my heart was heavy as I went to the loo and then crawled back to bed – I dreaded my next hurdle, which was telling Clemmie in the morning – as I lay down and shut my eyes, a part of me was already thinking about how I’d clear the medals from the mantle above the fire, take down the Tour de France pictures in the loo, sell the rowing machine on e-Bay. Not have to wake up to him doing press-ups by the bed in the morning. Not have to go downstairs and find a note in the kitchen headed ‘Poppy – Things to Do’. And part of me was also thinking: no longer, Poppy Shilling. No longer can you say nothing ever happens to you. Finally, something has gone on in your life.

2

He hadn’t always been like that, of course. Phil. Boring, meticulous, health-conscious, dedicated to his own physical well-being – the supreme vanity, in my book. Hadn’t always wanted a blood-pressure kit for Christmas or a treadmill for his birthday, hadn’t always been so inward-looking. Once upon a time he’d been quite – I was going to say fun, but I’ll qualify that with normal. He’d always been around, part of the crowd I’d hung out with in London when I lived in Clapham, but on the edges, the periphery. Somebody’s brother had known him at university, not Jennie’s because her brother went around with quite a fast lot, but it could have been Tess’s brother at Durham. Anyway, there he was, at parties, in pubs with us, probably not on the raucous beery table I was on, but next door with others I vaguely knew but not well. A nice guy. Nice Phil, if you asked. Oh, yeah, Ben would say, Phil’s a nice guy. Don’t know him that well.

Ben was my boyfriend. Had been for years. Ridiculously, on and off since we were fifteen. In fact it was a bit of a joke. We’d met at school, gone out for a year, split up for a year, got together in the sixth form, got a bit more serious, split up for our gap years, and ended up going to the same university together. We hadn’t intended to, but I had to go through clearing because I hadn’t got my grades and the only place I could read history was at York, where Ben was. I’d worried slightly that he might think I was following him up there, but he was very cool, totally relaxed, and after the first year we were back together again, and then for the next three. There were the inevitable jokes about us being a little married couple and joined at the hip, and girlfriends asked me if I’d ever been out with anyone else, but we shrugged it off. Then in London we were still together; at parties, concerts, suppers, always Ben and Poppy, Poppy and Ben.

It wasn’t that unusual. It was cosy too. But when Jennie came back to the flat we shared in Lavender Hill one evening, pounding up three flights of stairs, coat flying, cheeks flaming, like the cat who’d got the cream, crying, ‘I’ve met him! I’ve met the man I’m going to marry! He’s called Dan and he’s a wine trader and he’s a bit older than me and I love him, I love him – and oh, my God, I’ve never felt like this before. Never!’ – when I looked down into her shiny eyes as she flopped on the sofa, I wondered if I ever had. Felt that sheer, unadulterated, in-loveness. That euphoria. And when she’d gone to meet Dan for dinner in Chelsea – Ben and I could only afford the pub – still wrapped up in her happiness, I’d felt a bit flat. A bit jealous. Jennie hadn’t had a boyfriend for a couple of years, was always bemoaning the fact, but now it seemed she’d not only landed on her feet, but leaped ahead of me; sprung up the ladder, trumping me with not just a boy next door of our own age, but a proper romantic hero, who sent flowers to her office, took her on proper dates to restaurants, was older, sophisticated, and what’s more, adored her.