Catherine Alliott: A Rural Affair

Phil read books, went on the Internet, and declared that the first thing to do was to identify the culprit.

‘The culprit?’

‘Yes. See whose fault it is.’

‘Bit soon, isn’t it?’ I said doubtfully. ‘Shouldn’t we – you know – try for a bit longer first?’

‘What, and waste more time?’

‘Might be fun. I read somewhere that if you do it every night for a month you stand more chance of hitting the egg. Blanket bombing.’

I smiled flirtatiously, but he’d already turned back to the computer. And within a twinkling, had made appointments for us both in Harley Street. Me to have my tubes blown, him to fill a test tube, assisted by a girly magazine. This fascinated me. Not that a smart Harley Street joint provided such a thing, but the idea of Phil looking at one. The results came back and we were both declared innocent, which I could tell surprised Phil.

‘Why, did you think you were firing blanks?’

‘Oh, no, I knew I’d be OK.’

After that our marriage roared into action, with Phil at the helm, morphing swiftly from house restorer to infertility doctor. He knew the temperature of my body to within a whisker, knew when my ovaries were ripe and rumbling portentously, could pinpoint to the hour when conditions were ideal for copulation. He knew when I was hot, in the strictest, David Attenborough sense of the word. There was to be no blanket bombing, but once a month he’d ring me at work to tell me to hustle home sharpish and get my kit off, and if that sounds sexy, it wasn’t. Not when your husband is grimly plunging his testicles into freezing-cold water beforehand without cracking a joke – I tried one, about cold fish, and it didn’t go down very well – and not when I was instructed to lie doggo for at least an hour afterwards, the only laugh coming when I suggested he lie with me. Personally I wondered if the tight Lycra cycling suit he squeezed back into afterwards and wore ninety per cent of the time was helping matters, but since I was rapidly losing interest in the whole project, I decided not to mention it.

Why was I losing interest? Why was I finally succumbing to what can only be described as torpor as I rumbled home every night on the train from the West End to what should have been my enviable country love nest? Because everyone has their saturation point. And happy as I wanted us to be, little by little, drip by drip, as the months, then the years ticked by, I was coming to the mind-numbing conclusion that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.

My epiphany came as I was standing at the kitchen window one Thursday morning, on one of my precious days off from work, looking at the list of ‘Things to Do’ he’d left me, the last of which read: Have your hair cut.

I reached for the phone to tell Jennie I needed a coffee, pronto, and also to tell her I was leaving him. Her answering machine was on. I knew she was in, though, because I’d seen her in the garden a few moments earlier. I was about to go round and tell her, when I stopped off in the downstairs loo, and saw the pregnancy test he’d left me. It was open, with a note propped on one of the sticks.

Poppy – pee on this today. You’re day 14.

I sighed but peed on it nevertheless, thinking it was the last thing I would ever do for him. Then I watched the blue line darken, and realized I was pregnant.

As I slowly went back into the kitchen, the telephone rang.

‘Poppy? Did you ring?’

‘Hm? Oh. Yes, hi, Jennie.’

‘You OK? You sound a bit down.’

‘No, no, I’m fine.’

‘D’you want to come round for a quick coffee? I’ve got literally twenty minutes before I pick Jamie up from school.’

‘Er, no. Better not. I’ve got the ironing to finish.’

‘This afternoon? Cup of tea?’

‘Actually, Jennie, I think I’m going to have my hair cut.’

3

The funeral took place a week later and was indeed dreadful. Much worse than I’d imagined or even Jennie had prophesied, but perhaps for different reasons. The brightness of the day and the pure blue sky didn’t help, adding poignancy somehow, throwing the occasion into relief. Ancient yews cast long dramatic shadows across the churchyard and villagers were silhouetted starkly as they left their cottages, one by one or in hushed groups, following the haunting relentless toll of the bell, wreaths in hand ready to lay at the church door. Inside a sorrowful aroma of dank stone, polish and candle wax prevailed. Our tiny church was full, as Jennie had also grimly predicted, the respectful silence broken only by the odd hushed whisper or rustle of skirts as people took their seats, casting me sympathetic glances the while as I swallowed hard in the front pew, biting my lip. One week on and I felt utterly drained and exhausted. A small part of me was relieved at that. How awful would it have been to stand here at my husband’s funeral singing ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’ and not to have a lump in my throat? Not to have to count to ten and dig my nails hard in my hand as the organ struck a mournful chord, everyone got to their feet, and the coffin processed up the aisle?

Three of Phil’s cycling cronies were pall-bearers: tall, skinny and anaemic-looking to a man. Each what my dad would call a long streak of piss. The fourth was my father himself, who’s tiny, so that the coffin, I realized in horror, leaned precariously his way. And his shoulders sloped at the best of times. The congregation collectively held its breath as the coffin made its way, at quite an alarming angle, to the front, Dad’s knees seeming to buckle under the strain with every step. The cyclists had to stop more than once to let him get more of a grip, but finally the altar was achieved. I shut my eyes as the coffin was lowered. There was, admittedly, a bit of a clatter and a muffled ‘Fuck’ from Dad, but I think only I heard. My father glanced round as he straightened up, unable to resist making eye contact, to suggest he’d done really rather well, under the circumstances.

I gave a small smile back as he puffed out his chest and stood respectfully a moment, head bowed over the coffin. The other pall-bearers had dispersed. That’ll do, Dad, I thought nervously, as the seconds ticked by. My father may be small, five foot seven in his socks, but he’s frightfully important-looking, as small men often are. In his youth, when he hadn’t been riding point-to-pointers or driving all over the country to do so, he’d done a lot of am-dram, and something in his manner suggested there was still a chance he’d sweep a cloak over his shoulder, hold Yorick’s skull aloft and proclaim to the gallery. When he’d milked his moment for all it was worth he turned on his heel and came, head bowed, to sit beside me, clearly relishing this particular performance.

The vicar meanwhile, after we’d sung the first hymn, manfully launched into the eulogy. Manfully because he’d never met Phil, so he was really quite at sea. I’d decided to leave it to him, though, despite his anxious ‘Really, Mrs Shilling? Sure there’s no one else?’ ‘Quite sure.’ And now he was telling us what a helluva guy Phil was, what a pillar of the community, what a loss to the village. All nonsense, of course, because Phil had never been involved in village life; had indeed never been inside this church before now, except to get married. But then the vicar said what a marvellous father he’d been and what a loss to the children, and that’s when I welled up. He hadn’t been marvellous, but any father is a loss. You only get one, and my children would never have another Christmas with him, another holiday with him, not that they’d necessarily want to cycle through the Pyrenees being yelled at constantly to keep up, or … OK, he’d never make speeches at their eighteenths, twenty-firsts, that sort of thing. Actually Phil had only ever made one speech to my knowledge, a best-man’s speech for a cycling crony, which had gone on for forty-six minutes, and been so turgidly dull that eventually, when everyone began coughing and nipping to the loo or the bar, the bride’s father, a bluff Yorkshireman, had got to his feet and said firmly: ‘That’ll do, laddie.’ I couldn’t have put it better myself.