Lots of Love (37 page)

‘What exactly is the Devil’s Marsh race?’ Ellen asked, distractedly Sellotaping Fins’ poster upside down on a silver birch.

‘Oh, don’t mention that Godawful cavalry charge.’ Pheely shuddered, forgetting that she was the one who’d brought it up. ‘Dilly’s got it into her head that she should take part this year – probably as one in the eye to Godspell. I know there are always plenty of kids on fat ponies and housewives on cobs bringing up the rear, but she can be
so
reckless.’

‘Is it like a gymkhana race?’ Ellen persisted.

Pheely laughed. ‘Not quite. Come and look.’ She beckoned Ellen from the lane into Manor End, which led past Ely’s beautiful farm to his less aesthetic money-spinners. Casting furtive looks up at the glossy, Bible-black sash-windows, they passed the tall, wisteria-covered Queen Anne house and went on towards the trout farm, hooking a stealthy left through a gate marked ‘Private’, which was opposite the back entrance to the little industrial estate. Some way along the overgrown farm track that wrapped their calves with wet nettles and grasses, they reached a rickety wooden footbridge across the river Odd. On its far side was a huge flat water-meadow, which stretched from the railway line on the right across acres of wildly tufted terrain to a wooded coppice far to the left, which hid it from the Goose End bridleway and prying ramblers’ eyes. Pimpled with clumps of sedge and rush, and dusted with marsh marigold, ragged robin, yellow iris and cuckoo-flowers, it stretched like a ravishing beaded velvet hem beneath the uniform rape and corn in the hills above.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Pheely breathed. ‘Unchanged for centuries because it can’t be farmed – it’s only dry for three months a year. The rest of the time you could drown crossing it. Ely’s father spent years trying to drain it, but it just sucked up the ditches and spread itself back out like crème caramel when you draw lines through it with your spoon.

‘There’s been a horse race across Devil’s Marsh for as long as anyone can remember,’ she went on. ‘The Romanies held it every year before the big summer horse fair in Morrell – they’d tether their horses on the land here, get tanked up on Manor Farm cider and gallop all over the place causing havoc. Somebody once told me they called it the dragonfly race because there are hundreds here and it takes a fast horse to catch one – the gypsy who caught the most got the highest price for his horse. I hope it’s true. It was a wonderful sight, by all accounts, and the local daredevils would join in – from dashing Constantine sons on hunters to farmhands on shires. But Ely’s father put a stop to it when he bought the farm from the Constantines and banned the gypsies from his land.

‘When Ely inherited the farm, he started holding his ridiculously show-off garden party during Ascot week.’ She scooped up a handful of blossom and scattered it into the river, playing her own dreamy game of Pooh Sticks on the bridge. ‘And he decided to resurrect the race to rival the action on the royal turf, at first inviting a very select group of riders, who all wore proper silks and tried to horsewhip each other into the river when they learned the prize was a thousand pounds.’

‘A grand?’ Ellen whistled, half tempted to enter herself. That would pay her way into a few nice hotels on her world tour.

‘Oh, yes.’ Pheely gave Ellen a wise look. ‘Ely doesn’t think a competition is worth running without a decent pot – and his parties are always
very
lavish. He even had a gold-plated cup made,
so
ostentatious, like a Formula One trophy. That was about fifteen years ago, and it’s been going ever since, attracting more and more riders every year. It’s more chaotic now than it was when the gypsies held it, I imagine. Someone always gets hurt.’

Ellen remembered Dilly saying that somebody had been killed one year, but before she could mention it her mobile rang in her pocket. She grabbed it hurriedly, hoping the feckless Lloyd was getting back to her at last. But it was her father, with an even more satisfying result. ‘Your mother agrees that you can appoint another agent, duckling,’ he told her. ‘Just get them to fax us through the details. They’ll have to work fast, mind you.’

Ellen couldn’t wait to get on the case.

Seaton’s great rival, Fox-Day’s, were only too happy to give a valuation that afternoon. To Ellen’s amazement, they suggested increasing the asking price. ‘The property market has boomed in the last six months,’ explained Poppy, the eager agent. ‘I really think we can sell this in no time – I have clients I can bring round straight away. It’s a smashing little cottage.’

Telephone calls and faxes flew back and forth between the Costa Verde and Morrell on the Moor that afternoon, until everyone was satisfied that Goose Cottage was now the new gem on Fox-Day’s books and Seaton’s were history. Theo Jamieson made the call personally to Lloyd to break the news.

Within an hour Lloyd was on Ellen’s doorstep, abandoning his Merc at an angle across the lane, the engine still running and Kylie chirruping from the stereo.

‘You can’t do this!’ he blurted, when she opened the door.

No longer lifestyle-advert slick, he looked as though he’d leaned down to adjust the volume on his Blaupunkt car stereo and found his hair sucked into an air vent. The treacle-coloured floppy fringe was on end, his tie was skew-whiff and he’d spilled coffee down his shirt. ‘I thought we had an understanding,’ he wailed.

‘That you would pull your finger out to try to sell this cottage, yes,’ Ellen agreed, ‘and you haven’t even started.’

‘You’ve hardly given me five minutes!’

‘You had seven days to get things moving. You blew it.’

‘This is completely unreasonable. Let me come in and talk about it, at least.’

He tried to shoulder his way past her, but Ellen stood her ground. ‘Why haven’t you returned my calls?’

Suddenly that big white smile sprang up, calming the chaos running across his handsome face. ‘Is that what this is all about?’

She stared at him, wondering what she had ever found attractive about him. His eyes were too close together, his thick hair showed a decidedly threadbare patch at the crown, and the square chin, now that she looked at it again, was distinctly Jimmy Hill. ‘I’m sorry, Lloyd, but my parents aren’t going to change their minds. You’ve had your chance.’

‘You don’t understand.’ His eyes darted over both his shoulders, as though they were being watched, and he dropped his voice to a whisper, the pseudo-accent long gone. ‘You can’t do this to me. I’ll lose my job.’

‘You should have thought of that before. I’m not surprised your job’s on the line if the dotted ones on all the sales contracts you handle are as blank as this one.’

‘Ely Gates’s offer is still on the table,’ he rallied, thrusting out the huge square chin.

Ellen took a step back into the porch and blinked as it suddenly hit home. ‘He bribed you, didn’t he?’

Lloyd looked shifty, his chin swinging backwards and forwards like a great bulldozer bucket.

Ellen realised what Pheely had been hinting at, and could have hit herself for not seeing it earlier. ‘He bribed you to make sure nobody else wanted Goose Cottage so that he could get it cheap, didn’t he? It was his mother’s favourite cottage – a sentimental addition to his property empire, just so long as he gets it at a bargain price. He probably bribed the Wyckses too.’

‘He’s my uncle,’ Lloyd confessed, his big chin hanging loose as he gave up the show. ‘I had no choice. He’s bailed Mum and Dad out loads of times. We owe him. If he doesn’t get this place, you have no idea how bad things could get for us.’

‘He can have it,’ Ellen said simply. ‘He just has to pay the asking price.’

‘He won’t do that.’

‘He can afford it.’

‘His pride can’t.’ Lloyd sounded defensive. ‘He doesn’t like outsiders to profit from the village.’

‘My parents lived here for over a decade.’

‘My mother’s family has lived here for twenty generations.’

‘Then we have nothing more to say.’

‘Please!’ he begged. ‘For my sake – I thought you liked me. We kissed.’

‘That was a mistake.’ Ellen looked away guiltily. Then she took a deep breath. ‘You
are
a nice guy, Lloyd – or you could be. You just have to start thinking for yourself. You’re bright enough and good enough at your job to rise above Ely and twenty generations of bigotry. You have to break free from your family some time.’

‘You don’t understand life around here!’ he exploded. ‘If you’d got to know me a bit better, you would. We have so much in common, Ellen. I think we’re made for one another. I think—’

They both turned to the lane as a clatter of hooves heralded a bitter laugh. ‘Before you set about making the earth move, would you mind moving your bloody car?’

Spurs was riding Otto, his long legs wrapped around the speckled pink back with no saddle for support or balance as Otto spun round, boggling at the badly parked Merc and its blaring stereo. Yet Spurs barely moved a muscle as he sat out the hysteria and settled the horse, no longer laughing, his huge eyes pouring molten-silver scorn on to Ellen and Lloyd.

‘Bloody gypsies!’ Lloyd fumed, marching up to face Spurs over the hedge. ‘We’re not buying anything,
okay
?’ he snapped, then turned back to Ellen. ‘Shall we go inside?’

Ellen was staring at Spurs, her heart crashing. He hadn’t shaved in days, and the dark stubble made him look more wild and beautiful than ever. His faded red T-shirt was ripped at the shoulder so that one brown bicep showed through, and his jeans were coated in dust, as though he’d been sleeping in a barn.

‘Shall we go inside, Ellen?’ Lloyd repeated anxiously, not liking the way Spurs was reining back the big horse.

‘Piss off,’ she snapped.

‘Lovers’ tiff?’ Spurs asked nastily, glaring at her. He looked murderous.

Before she could answer, he and Otto had clattered away towards the bridlepath.

Kylie called after him, entreating him to confide in her.

Ignoring Lloyd, Ellen watched the distant path until she saw a pink streak thundering along it, heading for Broken Back Wood.

‘Go home, Lloyd,’ she said eventually, and turned to go into the house. ‘You’re fired.’

‘You bitch!’ he howled after her. ‘I hope your pain-in-the-arse parents get a pittance for this naff, dingy little rat hole. And I hope their cock-tease daughter gets—’ suddenly his tirade was interrupted by an even louder rant.

‘Move this bleedin’ contraption afore we drive right into the bugger!’ screamed a hoarse voice.

Ellen turned at the door to see Dot Wyck leaning out of the cab of a familiar red pick-up that had pulled up beyond Lloyd’s Merc, engine revving. At its wheel, Saul glowered at Ellen and Lloyd through a dusty, fly-flecked windscreen.

‘You think you own this village, doncha?’ Dot yelled at Ellen, her face turning as red as her grandson’s Arsenal shirt. ‘You and your flash boyfriend!’

Gulping nervously, his big caramel eyes blinking as they took in Fluffy, the sabre-toothed dog mutant, slavering ferociously from the back of the pick-up, Lloyd bolted towards his car.

Ellen watched him go, momentarily grateful to the Wycks for bringing an end to an unpleasant encounter. But then her heart sank as Dot Wyck took advantage of Lloyd’s clumsy manoeuvring to hurl a few more insults for good measure.

‘People like you don’t deserve to live round here, you stuck-up cow!’ she pointed a finger. ‘You go round acting all high and mighty, taking away our livelihoods. You don’t care if the likes of me and Reg starve just so long as you get what you want.’

Ellen marched out onto the lane, temples throbbing. ‘Please don’t shout.’ She stopped a safe distance from Fluffy’s high-rise hackles. ‘I thought we’d been through all this.’ At that moment, Saul leaned on the horn to hurry Lloyd along.

‘You ain’t no better than us!’ Dot carried on shouting above the horn. ‘Everybody knows you’ve been putting it about like a tart already. Your boyfriend know you been knocking round with Spurs Belling?’ she jerked her head towards the Merc, which was now executing a twenty-five point turn as Lloyd crunched the gears in fright.

‘That is none of your business,’ Ellen fumed, refusing to fuel the argument by defending herself.

But Dot seemed to be enjoying herself now, slanging matches clearly a recreational pastime. ‘I ain’t having a cheap tart bad-mouthing my family!’

‘I haven’t bad-mouthed your family,’ Ellen sighed as Saul’s horn-leaning stopped and Lloyd finally drove away in a series of panic-stricken kangaroo-hops.

‘Not what we heard.’ Dot didn’t bother dropping the volume. ‘You bin calling us lazy Pikies and goodfornothing inbreds and all sorts, ain’t she, Saul?’

The blue eyes flashed beside her and Saul nodded, casting Ellen a look that could have frozen hell and carved it into an ice sculpture of Medusa. Dot’s vitriol held no fear, but one look from her broken-toothed grandson made Ellen step back in alarm. Something about Saul was deadly. Then she spotted a gun case in the back with Fluffy and backed away further.

‘Whoever told you that was lying,’ she spluttered. ‘I’ve said nothing about you.’

Dot dropped her voice to a threatening growl, only just audible above Fluffy’s snarling. ‘I think we know who the liar is round here. Sounds like you been lying all the time lately. Most of all, lying with Belling, you little fool.’ She cackled, tugging at the sleeve of Saul’s red football shirt and telling him to drive on.

As the pick-up rattled away, Ellen closed her eyes and thought of Spurs galloping up into the hills on Otto, still seething with misunderstanding about Lloyd. What had he been saying about her?