A Rural Affair (47 page)

‘How about this with these?’ she’d say as she ran through my back door wearing yet another heinous combination, this time
bursting out of a black dress of such sequined monstrosity, together with high red shoes, it fairly took my breath away.

‘No to both,’ I said firmly. ‘And certainly not together. The only thing black goes with is black, Jennie. Take the shoes
back to Angie and the dress to Peggy. She’d get away with that because she’s eccentric and it would hang off her.’

‘Whereas I’d just look like a tart?’

I shrugged, slightly pleased to have the upper hand occasionally with my bossy friend. But then I took pity and, piling the
children in the car, took her shopping.

She ended up looking terrific in a grey slinky number I’d found in Coast: to the floor, high at the front, but low at the
back. As did Angie in her black velvet, which she shook from a Selfridges bag and slipped into in the middle of my kitchen;
and Peggy in the sequins which she’d generously offered Jennie, but which, with black pumps and on her rangy frame, looked
stunning.

‘If only you were coming,’ they all said and Jennie looked a bit guilty, feeling perhaps she should have refused the tickets
and insisted I go.

‘Oh, I really don’t want to,’ I said, meaning it. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you go to alone, is it?’

‘No, no,’ they chorused, as it occurred to us that Angie, and ostensibly Peggy, were doing just that.

‘It’s not really your sort of thing, is it?’ consoled Angie.

‘Absolutely not,’ I agreed, stung. Why wasn’t it? Why? ‘Anyway, I’m going to Dad’s,’ I said quickly, to save them. ‘Haven’t
seen him for ages. I’m going to cook him supper.’

‘Oh,
good
.’ They all said, relieved, feeling much better. They bustled away content.

Dad, however, wasn’t much help when I decided to follow through. ‘Steak and chips,’ I told him cheerfully, ‘in front of
Viva Las Vegas
. I’ll bring the steak.’

‘Oh, sorry, Poppy, I’m going to the hunt ball.’

‘Are you?’ I was astonished.

‘Yes, Mark sent me a ticket, wasn’t that kind? Just a single, but they’re a hundred quid a pop, so terribly generous. Especially
after all that business with the hound. Aren’t you going, love? Half the county’s going to be there.’

‘Well, I was going to – he sent me some too – but I gave mine to Jennie.’

‘Ah, right. Not really your sort of thing, is it? Anyway,
must go love, I’ve got to feed the horses before I shimmy into my glad rags.’

And he was gone. Leaving me irritated. And then I found myself growing more irritated as I put the children to bed. Not my
sort of thing? Why not? Christ, I could party with the best of them! Just because Phil and I didn’t much – he was teetotal
and liked an early night – didn’t mean
I
couldn’t. Bloody hell, you should have seen me in the old Clapham days, creeping back up the stairs at three in the morning,
barefoot, high heels in hand. When I was young. But I was still young, surely? I swept Archie’s curtain shut with a vengeance.
Through the crack I could see the bedroom lights across the road at the Old Rectory, where Sylvia and Angus would be getting
ready: Angus stooping to adjust his bow tie in the mirror, Sylvia popping diamonds in her ears at her dressing table. Marvellous.
How lovely for them. I seized the groaning nappy bucket and marched downstairs. Cinders by the fire, then. I shook the nappies
viciously in the bin. With her solitary boiled egg, in her dressing gown and her ancient Ugg boots. Splendid.

I told myself I’d be the smug one in the morning, though, when everyone else was nursing hangovers. Oh yes. In the pub. Laughing
and reminiscing over bloody Marys. Hm. They’d all be there tonight, of course. Sam – no, don’t think about Sam. I’d successfully
blocked him for days; resisted imagining him in his black tie, even whilst helping Jennie buy a new white shirt for Dan. I
wasn’t going to give in now. Instead I helped myself to a large gin and tonic and told myself there was a good film on at
nine and that I might even stay up till it finished. Live a little.

It was a surprise, therefore, when my doorbell rang much earlier, at eight, and I opened it to find my father on my front
step, an overcoat over his dinner jacket. He seemed mildly
taken aback to see me in my dressing gown. Looked me up and down, eyebrows raised.

‘Didn’t you get my message?’

‘What message?’

‘I left one on your mobile. About tonight. Mark rang to say Mary Granger was throwing up and would I like to bring anyone.
Didn’t you get it?’

‘No!’ I could have kissed him. And hit him. So like Dad not to try again. Not to persevere. Just turn up and assume.

‘Well, I can’t come now,’ I said testily. ‘I’ve got the children.’

‘Can’t you get a babysitter?’

‘Of course not, it’s far too late.’

‘What about Jennie’s daughter, next door?’

‘She’s out with her boyfriend. And the little ones are at a sleepover.’

‘Oh.’ He looked vaguely stumped. Then: ‘Bring them with us?’

Ordinarily a suggestion like this from my father would be greeted with scathing derision from me. But genes will out, and
in many respects I am my father’s daughter. Can, at the drop of a hat, revert to type. I stared at him.

‘OK.’

In my heart, I was far from sure I was going to run with this; but in the spirit of living dangerously was nonetheless interested
to see how he’d execute it: keen to give him his head.

‘Right. You get changed, brush your hair and whatnot, and I’ll carry them into the lorry.’

‘The lorry?’

‘Well, the car hasn’t worked for weeks, Poppy.’

So my father drove his horse lorry. Blithely parked it in Tesco’s car park, no doubt, as if it were a Vauxhall Cresta.

‘So … we’re piling the children into a dark lorry, and what, leaving it in a muddy field? Where they’ll wake up cold and frightened?’

‘No, no, we’ll take them in the house, find a bed for them.’

‘Arrive at a black-tie ball with two sleepy children? Forget it, Dad. Have fun.’ I went to shut the door, but he was already
in.

‘Don’t be wet, Poppy, how d’you think your mum and I ever went to parties? We were never organized enough for a sitter. You
were always under one arm. Now go and put your frock on and I’ll sort the kids out. It’s only one night, for God’s sake, it
won’t kill them, and they’ll love it. Everyone’s going, d’you want to be the only one who isn’t?’

He knew which buttons to press. He was also halfway up the stairs.

Twenty minutes later, we were in the lorry – the one with no seat belts, remember – rattling over a cattle grid at the entrance
to Mulverton Hall, only this time we took the fork in the drive that led, not to the home farm and a muddy field of cows,
but to the main house. A sweep of dark green lawn swam like a lake in front of us. Dad, at the wheel, skirted it carefully,
then followed signs to parking in the paddock alongside, behind the park railings. I had on my old black dress, and my hastily
washed hair was still wet down my back; between us on the front seat, sitting bolt upright and wide awake, were two overexcited
and highly delighted children.

I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this-I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this, was my overriding thought as a surprised car park attendant
in a long white coat – surprised at the lorry initially, then the children – beckoned us into the field. Dad gave him a cheery
wave and wound down the window.

‘Hi, Roy.’

‘Oh, hello, Peter!’ He peered in. ‘Brought the whole family, I see!’

‘Well, it’s a night out, isn’t it?’ said Dad smoothly.

He trundled away from Roy and through the gate. At the end of a line of parked cars, he expertly swung two tons of juggernaut
into position. A Mercedes drew up beside us, and a woman in a fox-fur coat and a smattering of diamonds stared up in wonder
from the passenger seat. I found my nerve rapidly disappearing down the drain.

‘Dad … ’ I swallowed.

‘Come on, Clemmie, look lively, love.’ He’d hopped out of the cab already, and as Clemmie scrambled across the seat to his
open arms, he crouched and hoisted her up onto his shoulders. ‘Up you go!’

She wrapped her arms excitedly around her grandpa’s neck, squealing with delight. Then he slammed the cab door, and was off.
Naturally I had no choice but to follow. With Archie in my arms, I picked my way through the field, following the phalanx
of flaming torches which lined the drive ahead and floodlit the expansive grounds. My heart was fluttering with panic but
as we crunched across the gravel sweep, I knew I was in too deep. The honey-coloured walls rose up before us; ranks of windows
blazed down. Dad pranced ahead, hopping about jauntily now from foot to foot, playing the fool, Clemmie, in her pink dressing
gown bouncing and laughing on his shoulders. How many parties had I been to like that, I wondered? Had it done me any harm?
Doing A Mortimer, Mum used to call it, when Dad veered off the beaten track, took his own route, which was more than occasionally.
But this was a very grand party. People were silhouetted at the windows in their finery: bare shoulders, sparkling jewels,
one or two turning to stare. And please
don’t tell me he was going to leap up those grand portal steps guarded by stone griffins? Breeze through the open front door
where waiters stood poised with trays of champagne? Babes in arms?

My father, however, was far from stupid, and within a twinkling was nipping round the back. I scuttled sheepishly after him
feeling like a burglar, but Dad, knowing his way round old country houses – or at least his way to the stables and a cup of
tea – didn’t falter. In a jiffy he’d found a back door which opened to his touch, and was striding right on through. He was
deliberately going too fast for me to catch him, to dither, discuss, deliberate – chicken out – and as I followed breathlessly
with Archie in my arms, he was already halfway down the passageway. Framed Spy cartoons from old copies of
Punch
lined the walls, and just before a green baize door Dad made a left turn into a well-lit room. Whistling, no less.

I followed in trepidation and found myself in a large, rather tired-looking kitchen with a very high ceiling. Cream Formica
cupboards with glazed doors lined one wall, the floor was lino, rather like Dad’s, the only nod to the status of this house
being a huge oak table which sailed down the middle. A well-upholstered blonde woman in a white apron had her back to us at
the kitchen sink under the window. She turned in surprise. I recognized her immediately. It was Janice, the receptionist,
but perhaps she didn’t instantly place me out of context, and anyway she wasn’t given a chance. Dad was already commanding
her full attention: charming her, flirting, even, explaining about the babysitter letting us down, jiggling Clemmie, so that
by the end of it, as she listened wide-eyed to the tale, wiping wet hands on a tea towel, she was wreathed in smiles, assuring
him it was no trouble at
all, and that she loved looking after little-uns. She’d pop them in the old nursery, she said, and yes, plug the alarm in,
when I proffered it anxiously.

‘Oh,
hello
, love, thought I recognized you.’ She beamed.

No, we weren’t to worry a jot, she carried on. We were to run along and have a jolly good time. It seemed she remembered Dad
from the races – who didn’t? Warwick, was it? Or Windsor? No, no, Mr Hetherington wouldn’t mind a bit, she assured me as I
interrupted their racing chat. I would turn the conversation back to more mundane matters. On they gossiped, and then, just
as they were reminiscing about that epic race, the five-thirty from Haydock one summer’s evening last year, when Ransom Boy,
a rank outsider at 100 to one, had won by a head, just at that moment Mr Hetherington himself swept into the kitchen.

Far from looking as if he couldn’t be more thrilled, as Janice had intimated, he couldn’t have looked more thunderous. But
it wasn’t just that: it wasn’t the heavily knitted brow as he stood there glowering, dressed in what I can only assume was
some sort of hunting livery – frightfully dashing and involving a bottle-green tailcoat with his bow tie – no, it wasn’t that.
It was the churning of my own stomach that disquieted me. The pulverizing of my ribcage by what felt like needles. It was
the terrible dawning sensation, as he stood before us in all his glory, that this wasn’t just an unsuitable crush. This was
something a lot more serious.

There was a brief and startled silence.

‘Hello, Sam,’ I managed, cranking up a smile, as he stared. Took in this eccentric little party: this gatecrasher with her
older man, her wet hair, children in pyjamas. I faltered on. ‘Um, my f-father invited me, and –’

‘And the babysitter let her down,’ schmoozed Dad, stepping forward, hand extended, beaming. ‘Can you believe it? Right at
the last moment. Cystitis, apparently. A thousand apologies for bursting in like this with the entire family, but we were
so looking forward to it. Peter Mortimer, Poppy’s dad.’

‘Sam Hetherington,’ said Sam, still looking dazed, and still, for some reason, even as he shook Dad’s hand, looking at me.

‘Janice here assures us the children will be no trouble. They’re terribly good, you know, never cry,’ went on Dad. ‘But I
do apologize nonetheless, quite an invasion.’

Sam’s eyes came back to my father. ‘Sorry, you mean –?’

‘Pop them upstairs? If that’s all right? Quite an imposition, I know, but we couldn’t think of any way round it.’

Sam collected himself. ‘Oh, I see. Absolutely. No, not at all. Couldn’t matter less. Right, well, Janice, what d’you suggest?’
He turned swiftly on his heel to face her, raking a hand through his hair. ‘Could the children go in the blue spare room,
d’you think?’

‘I thought the old nursery. It’s closer to the back stairs and
I’ll hear them better. All right, love?’ Dad had set Clemmie down from his shoulders and Janice went to take her hand.

‘My grandchildren,’ said my father proudly, a hand on each of their shoulders as if they were the guests of honour. I cringed.
Don’t overdo it, Dad. But Sam rose to the occasion.