A Rural Affair (22 page)

‘But she’s young, for heaven’s sake,’ pointed out Jennie, reading my thoughts. ‘She’s earning, she has no children. You don’t
work.’

‘Don’t do anything,’ I said, feeling slightly panicky. Except, I thought, take my late husband’s money: the money of a man
who didn’t love me.

‘None of us worked while the children were young,’ argued Angie. ‘God, I don’t work
now
!’

There was an uncomfortable pause. Then: ‘Exactly,’ Jennie said quickly.

If truth be told, we’d both quietly wondered why Angie hadn’t done something to contribute to the family coffers, now that
she could. Jennie had once witnessed Tom coming in tired from work in his suit, standing opening bills in the kitchen and
muttering about Angie’s spiralling Harvey Nichols account, to which Angie had airily said, ‘Have you thought about getting
a Saturday job?’ Tom couldn’t speak for a moment. When he’d found his tongue he’d acidly asked whether she’d prefer him to
have a paper round or be on the till at Tesco’s? Angie had angrily enjoined him to take a joke, for heaven’s sake, and Jennie
had downed her wine and crept away.

‘Having two small children is hugely labour-intensive,’ Angie told me hotly. ‘Don’t you go feeling guilty about not working,
Poppy. We’re the unsung flaming heroes.’

I sighed. I knew they were trying to make me feel better but, actually, I felt worse. Like a scrounger. Here I was, in the
middle of the morning, having coffee yet again with my girlfriends, before going back to the house that Phil had paid for,
and which, evidently, he’d have preferred to have lived in with Emma. Before I’d popped round here, a ridiculously simple
riffle through the phone book had revealed that Emma Harding lived locally, up the road in Wessington. Meadow Bank Cottage.
I can’t tell you how that had shaken me. How I’d almost got under the kitchen table in fright. Somehow I’d assumed that because
she worked in London she must live in London, but she didn’t; she was moments away. Must have driven past my house countless
times, thinking: that’s where I should be, with him, where we could be together. Perhaps she should have it now? Suddenly
Dad’s
life, held together with bits of binder twine, appealed. I wondered if he’d got a spare shed. And Clemmie and Archie could
go to the local school, not the expensive village Montessori.

‘Well, we’ll see,’ I said wearily. ‘Sam said let’s wait and see. See if they follow it up. He said they may just be full of
hot air.’

‘Sam’s the solicitor?’ asked Angie, and for some reason I bent my head to pull up my sock under my jeans.

‘Yup.’

‘Well, I hope he’s good. Who’s he with?’

‘A small firm in town. Private practice. But he was with a big outfit in London,’ I added, knowing Angie would be impressed
by that.

‘Oh, OK. Well, listen, Poppy, April McLean at Freshfields may be expensive but she goes for the jugular. Let me know if you
want to meet her. I came out of her office thinking I could rule the world.’

‘No, no, I’m very happy.’ I tried to imagine Sam going for the jugular. It was in the neck, wasn’t it? Baring his fangs across
the Old Bailey at Marjorie. I wondered where he went after work. Where he lived now he was divorced. A rented flat in town?
Or did he stay with friends, all guys together, meeting them for a pint after work? I couldn’t imagine that, somehow.

‘Anyway, thanks, you two. Good to share and all that. I’ve got to go and get Clemmie. She finishes at lunchtime today.’

When they’d murmured their goodbyes, with staunch messages of support, and kissed me, Angie nearly breaking my cheekbones,
I took my leave. Went slowly up the hill. Archie, who’d just learned the words to
Postman Pat
, was kicking his legs in his buggy, singing his little heart out, but
mine was heavy. How much was Angie asking for, I wondered. Half of Tom’s wealth? More? The house? Well, why not? She’d brought
the children up there; it was their home. It just didn’t feel quite right. And not because Angie had never worked – oh, she
pulled her weight in the community, sat on committees, chaired the council. It wasn’t that. It was just … I wasn’t sure I
wanted to join that band of women who took their husbands for all they could. Because they’d been betrayed.

I’d overheard her talking to Tom the other day on her mobile in the street. I’d come up behind her, been about to greet her,
when I realized she was on the phone: ‘Yes, Clarissa did meet some boy in London and she probably met him on an Internet site,
probably didn’t even know him, but what d’you expect with the example you set? I’m surprised she’s not pregnant!’ There’d
been a silence, then: ‘Oh, piss off, Tom!’

As she realized I was there, she’d turned, a look of pure hatred disfiguring her face. ‘Wretched man,’ she said, pocketing
her phone. ‘Getting all parental at this late stage. It was only Hugo, incidentally,’ she muttered, ‘who Clarissa met.’

Hugo was Angus and Sylvia’s grandson. He was a lovely boy, who’d just left school and worked occasionally in the pub. I wondered
why Angie hadn’t told Tom. I didn’t want to be like that. Vengeful. Spiteful. Taking my ex to the cleaners. You’re not, I
told myself, as Clemmie let loose her teacher’s hand at the gate and ran towards me. Because for one thing he’s not an ex,
he’s a deceased; and you’re not taking him to the cleaners, you’re preventing his mistress taking
you
. Do get a grip.

I hugged my daughter hard as she embraced my knees. But on the way home, Clemmie chattering beside me, an
egg-box alligator swinging from her hand, I decided that the moment Archie was in nursery, I’d get a job. Go back to work.
OK, my PR agency in London were unlikely to take me after such an absence, however sorry they’d been to see me go, and particularly
for only a few mornings a week, but might they give me some freelance work? They had rung once, offered, but Archie had been
only a few weeks old, and Phil so busy, I’d turned it down. So stupid, I thought angrily. Everyone knew you had to keep your
hand in. But maybe it wasn’t too late? And maybe I could bang on some doors locally as well? I wasn’t naive enough to think
it would be easy, but I’d inherited Dad’s breezy optimistic gene that said anything was possible. I just had to find it.

Angie had been right about one thing, though, I thought, as I paused to let Clemmie feed the ducks by the pond with some bread
I’d brought for her. Child care
was
hard work, and very much unsung. I remembered last Christmas, when Marjorie and Cecilia had come to stay for four days. And
how, with two tiny children, I’d produced one meal after another whilst they barely lifted a finger. They’d sat at the table,
straight-backed and prim, Cecilia wearing the blue cashmere cardigan I’d bought her, waiting for me to run in with the plates
as if they were in a restaurant. Phil, carefully decanting the one and only bottle of wine we were to have. And I thought
of every Christmas when they’d stayed in my spare room, in the sheets I’d changed for them, drinking the tea I’d made for
them, all the time knowing about Miss Harding. The Shillings had a terrible tradition whereby we all sat on Marjorie’s bed
on Christmas morning to open presents, whilst she sat like the queen in her quilted bed jacket, in my spare room, in my house.
And all the time, life was not as I imagined. Earth-shattering betrayal was being played out
around me. Part of me had been eager for family traditions, I’ll admit; eager for normality, a different sort of upbringing
than my own for my children. I was ready to accept a great deal, not having a lot to hang my own hat on. I’d gone along with
the present-opening scene with good grace. I’d even gone along with being led in a little prayer by Marjorie after the last
one had been opened, bending my head and giving thanks to God. Jesus.
Fuck.

The scale of their treachery suddenly threatened to overwhelm me. I felt so exposed. Had they all been laughing at me? I tightened
my grip on the pushchair; felt my head swim. Breathe, I told myself, breathe. Because … perhaps they hadn’t known for years?
Sam hadn’t said when. Perhaps they only became aware of Emma’s existence in the last year or so? Last few months? Yes, I preferred
to believe that, I decided, waiting for my heart rate to come down as Clemmie told me about Damien, Mummy, who’s got a verruca.
Preferred to believe no one could be quite so wicked.

The book club met at Angie’s that evening, Angie having the most beautiful house. And Jennie did the food. Oh, yes, food,
not nibbles. No bumper-sized bags of assorted crisps were to be hastily shaken into bowls this week. Instead, bite-sized blinis
were piled with cream cheese and caviar, asparagus and Parmesan cheese slivers rolled in Parma ham, and tiny baked potatoes
topped with sour cream and chives. And we assembled, not in the kitchen, but in the vast drawing room. A roaring fire had
been lit under the marble mantle and Angie’s clever decor – heavy linen curtains, creamy sofas, antique tables topped with
enormous stone lamps, fabulous oil paintings on the walls – was softly lit by scented candles everywhere. And I mean, everywhere.
Angie’s taste, generally
impeccable, had a habit of lurching off-piste when confronted by a shop full of scented candles. Nevertheless the effect was
beautiful.

‘If a little sacrificial,’ Jennie muttered, surreptitiously blowing out one or two as she hurried in with a plate of delicate
choux pastry puffs filled with salmon mousse.

Everyone was in their finery too; no jeans and sweaters this week. Indeed most people looked as if they were going to a cocktail
party. The men were in jackets, the women coiffed, baubled and made-up, and a general air of expectancy prevailed. Angus was
dapper in a tweed jacket, MCC tie and reeking of Trumpers aftershave. He exuded boyish excitement, rocking back on his heels
as he guffawed at something Luke said, thrilled to bits at having been allowed out – no doubt equipped with a notebook or
perhaps even a tape recorder in his lapel. Saintly Sue was in white trousers and an extraordinary floaty top, pale blue with
embroidery around the plunging neckline, which might just have been in fashion five years ago. Jennie was in very tight black
trousers and had a great deal of lipstick on her teeth. Only Peggy was resolutely in jeans, an old polo neck and her trademark
suede pixie boots. She was also the only one not standing up and buzzing animatedly. She glanced impatiently at her oversized
man’s watch.

‘Come on, what are we waiting for? Let’s get cracking,’ she said, perched as she was in the circle of chairs Angie had set
out at the far end of the room, by the fire.

‘Oh, I think we’ll give them a few more minutes, don’t you? It’s only just seven-thirty.’ Angie patted her hair, her gaze
roving out of the window which gave onto the gravel drive.

‘Why? They can just join in when they arrive, surely?’

‘Except that might look a bit rude, Peggy. Seeing as it’s their first night.’

Peggy snorted and muttered something about the people in this village not getting out enough if they were sent into a frenzy
by having a couple of Americans amongst them, when suddenly, headlights illuminated the room from without.

‘They’re here!’ squeaked Angie. Jennie leaped to rearrange her asparagus rolls. ‘And d’you know, I think Peggy’s right. Maybe
we would look a bit more serious and literary if we were all sitting with our books? What d’you think?’

There was a general consensual murmur at this and everyone dived for a seat as if the music had stopped in a game of musical
chairs. Peggy rolled her eyes. By the time Chad and Hope pushed through the front door, which Angie had left conveniently
ajar, we were all sitting in a circle, a bit pink and overexcited but, hopefully, with intelligent looks on our faces. Our
books were open, although unfortunately on different pages. Angie’s was upside down.

Chad was as handsome as I remembered: tall, slightly burly, square-jawed and wearing chinos and a shirt, no jacket. Hope,
beautiful, tiny and dark, was effortlessly casual in a grey cashmere jumper, sweat pants and pumps, instantly throwing into
suburban relief our ties and high heels.

‘Hope! Chad!’ Angie got to her feet with a bit of a swoon, manufacturing the impression she’d just come out of a literary
trance, so engrossed had she been in the narrative. ‘How lovely to see you. Now I know you’ve met Jennie and Poppy before,
but this is Angus, Peggy, Sue – I won’t do surnames,’ she fluttered with a tinkly laugh. Everyone stood up: some in a rush
so their books fell on the floor; some with a bit more
ease, like Luke; and some, like Passion-fuelled Pete, even giving a little bow as he shook Chad’s hand.

Chad, looking even more Adonis-like close up, displayed impeccable manners and some perfectly straight white teeth as he smiled.
He smiled a lot and intoned ‘Chad Armitage’ every time he was introduced, making his way around the circle and looking right
into everyone’s eyes. He was followed by Hope, whose tiny little hand as she extended it seemed as fragile as a bird’s wing.
She really was awfully pretty, I thought, as I drank in more perfect teeth and silky hair. We all beamed as she greeted everyone
warmly. Only Peggy’s smile was more amused, and she declined to stand, politely offering her hand and muttering to me that
at her age she only stood for royalty and the over-seventies. Certainly not for a man. What did Angie think she was doing?

Angie, who’d once met Camilla Parker-Bowles and never quite got over it, was indeed becoming more and more lady-in-waiting-like
as she proffered the two remaining chairs. Then she decided they were too ropey for the Armitages and made Luke and Jennie
swap, in order to give Chad and Hope more acceptable ones.

‘So!’ said Chad, rubbing his hands and looking huge on the chair Angie had finally deemed suitable, a tiny gilt rococo number
she’d bought at Sotheby’s. His voice was thrillingly transatlantic. ‘What are you guys reading, then? Hope and I are so excited
about this, incidentally. We did a lot of reading groups back home and got so much out of it.’

Angie cleared her throat. ‘Well, this week we’re all reading
The Ghost
by Robert Harris. It’s not a frightfully intellectual book,’ she hurried on, ‘and of course we will read something more challenging
later on, but it’s a rattling good read with a terrific plot. A good starter book, we thought.’