Marriage and Other Games (13 page)
Or a garage. She eyed the petrol gauge warily. It was hovering just below a quarter. She prayed it didn’t suddenly plummet and show empty. She hadn’t brought a petrol can. You didn’t bother with petrol cans when you lived in London, not when there was a garage on every other street corner. But now she wished she’d put her Girl Guide head on, and packed a blanket and a Thermos and a packet of chocolate biscuits into the bargain. If she ran out of fuel and was stranded here, it could be weeks before she was found. She imagined herself being discovered by a passing sheep farmer, stiff at the wheel.
Finally she saw a sign that told her Withybrook was only half a mile, and she felt suffused with relief. She was desperate for a wee, a cup of tea, and to stretch her legs. The truck rumbled over a cattle grid that signalled they were leaving the national park, and Charlotte felt comforted by the sight of ranks of trees assembling at the side of the road. Civilisation, she felt sure, was nigh.
As if to welcome her, a watery sun began to push its way through the cloud cover, which wearily stepped to one side as if it had become too weak to resist. She passed an isolated farmhouse, and imagined a weather-beaten shepherd and his red-cheeked wife taking tea by an inglenook fireplace. As she rounded a corner, the misty horizon boasted a line of ancient pollarded oaks crowning the heathland. The sun finally burst through the remaining clouds, lighting up the landscape. The colours were extraordinary: donkey brown, khaki and burned orange - a palette that no interior designer worth his or her salt would propose, but that worked to dramatic effect when set against the bruised pinks and purples of the late-afternoon sky. As the road dipped down she was overjoyed to see a sign proclaiming Withybrook. She went over a medieval stone bridge, holding her breath as she negotiated its narrowness, not yet used to the pick-up’s width. A shallow river burbled away underneath, the water rushing over the fat stones in a hurry to get somewhere.
Just past the bridge was the village cricket pitch, then the line of houses that made up Withybrook began, grey stone edifices squaring up to their opposite neighbours, some standing upright, square and tall, some slumped as if the effort was too much, their rooflines sagging dispiritedly. Her expert eye could tell the houses that had been purchased by out-of-towners, their front doors sporting National Trust estate paint in muted tones of grey, green and cream. Others had committed the cardinal sin of succumbing to double-glazing salesmen, their windows ripped out and replaced with UPVC. No doubt the owners gave thanks repeatedly for the warmth and protection they gave from the bitter moorland winds, not caring that they had ripped the heart and soul out of their homes.
As she carefully negotiated a sharp bend, a car came flying round the corner. Charlotte had to slam on the brakes and swerve to the left to avoid a collision. The other driver wound her window down. A girl with a pale face and a mane of dark, straightened hair glared out. Two small children peered over her shoulder from the back seat.
‘Look where you’re fucking going!’
Charlotte opened her mouth to defend herself, but the girl threw her car into first gear and raced off. Shaking, she put her hand on the ignition key to restart the car, which had stalled. She was only two inches away from the wall of the house she had been passing. Did people always drive like that round here? she wondered She’d have to be more careful in future.
The engine didn’t respond to her coaxing. The truck seemed to have died completely. She tried again and again, feeling more and more desperate. She jumped as someone tapped sharply on the window.
‘You’re flooding it.’ A pair of rheumy, bloodshot eyes gazed at her from an unshaven face. It was an old man dressed entirely in sludge green from head to toe; a jaunty piece of baler twine around his waist. ‘You sit and wait there while I let the cows go past. It’ll be all right in a minute.’
Charlotte smiled her thanks and sat in the car nervously. A moment later she was surrounded by a sea of black and white as a herd of dairy cows swarmed round her and made their way majestically up the little high street, hips swaying, udders swinging like chandeliers. They walked obediently to the top and disappeared through a gate, followed by their master. Moments later it was as if they’d never been there.
Tentatively, Charlotte switched on the engine, and it sprang into life. Relieved, she made her way slowly along the street, her eyes peering in the half-light as she tried to find Myrtle Cottage.
There it was. Halfway along, tucked a little way back off the main drag like a shy wallflower. It looked tired and weary, but its proportions were pleasing, it was in keeping with its neighbours, and best of all it had the benefit of a cobbled area in front where Charlotte could park her truck. She got out just as the sun retreated bashfully back behind the clouds, its duty as official greeter now over, and the rain began to fall.
The air smelled of wood-smoke, and the sweet scent of dairy cattle, and wet tarmac. The wind buffeted her and teased her hair. The rain lashed sideways. Charlotte felt in her pocket for the big key that Gussie had given her. Her fingers closed around the cold iron as she looked up and down the high street. It was still and silent, no sign of life, and she wondered if she had imagined the cows. Only the evidence of several gently steaming khaki pats convinced her she hadn’t been hallucinating.
She pushed back the hair from her eyes, shivering. It had been sweatshirt weather when she left this morning; now she needed her thermal underwear and duck-down anorak, which were packed away in the back of the truck somewhere. Gussie had warned her Withybrook would probably be a few degrees colder, but she hadn’t mentioned icy blasts from the tundra.
It wasn’t too late to turn round and drive back to London. If it wasn’t for the fact that she wasn’t sure she had enough petrol to get to the nearest garage, she would have leaped into the driver’s seat and driven hell for leather out of Withybrook, across the moor and back to the bright lights.
Catkin pulled back the curtain and peered out of the drawing-room window. She was relieved to see headlights making their way up the drive. Tommy Yeo was bang on time, and so he should be. It wasn’t often that a taxi driver had a new car bought for him. Sebastian and Catkin were his best clients, but she couldn’t bear the stifling squalor of his ancient Renault Scenic any longer, so she’d subsidised his purchase of a smart Chrysler Grand Voyager with leather seats and blacked-out windows. In return, he ferried Catkin back and forth from the station in Tiverton, as well as the Turners’ many guests when they came to stay for the weekend. There were things Tommy had seen in the back of the car that you wouldn’t believe, but he kept his mouth shut. Until he’d worked for the Turners, the mainstay of his work had been taking old ladies to the supermarket and the odd airport run. He knew which side his bread was buttered all right.
Tommy jumped out of the car to open the door for Catkin, taking her cases off the step and loading them into the back. She smiled gratefully and slid into the back seat.
‘Thanks, Tommy,’ she breathed as she sank into the soft leather, then leaned forward to wave at Sebastian who’d appeared at the front door.
Catkin hated Sunday nights. Leaving Sebastian made her nervous, but she had little option since the show she worked for had upped her appearance from twice a week to every day. She couldn’t afford not to do it. Correction, they couldn’t afford for her not to do it. The truth, which Catkin knew only too well and Sebastian chose to ignore, was that they were struggling financially. Despite her career and Sebastian’s success, it didn’t take long to blast through the money they had. Keeping a flat in London was bleeding them dry. The travelling up and down was exorbitant, and was at her own expense, because it was her choice to go back to Devon every weekend and she had to travel first class. Then there was her wardrobe, the hair, the beauty treatments. Sebastian’s studio had cost an arm and a leg, because Catkin had spared no expense in the hope of creating an environment where he could be productive, and everything had to be just so. He had protested that he would be just as happy in the old barn as it had been, but Catkin had got the bit between her teeth. Quarter of a million pounds later he had forty by thirty foot of bright light, with a state-of-the-art sound system on which he could play Iggy Pop or Rachmaninov, a kitchen and a wet room. There were racks and racks of gleaming tubes of paint flown in from New York, sable brushes as fine as an eyelash and as thick as a fox’s tail; banks of blank canvasses. She was furious that he absolutely refused to allow any magazines or newspapers to come and do a feature on it, but if Sebastian prized anything it was his privacy. Then there had been last year’s tax bill, which neither of them had anticipated being so large.
So there had been no question of her turning down her contract with Hello, England. And now her shooting schedule had become so hectic that they had no hope of seeing each other during the week. She hated leaving Sebastian to his own devices, but there was little harm he could come to in Withybrook. In London, he would find a million and one distractions - a poker school, a billiard hall, a bar, a club, a party. And besides, Catkin paid Stacey, their housekeeper, good money to look after him and keep an eye out. Stacey was under strict instructions to phone Catkin if she felt there was anything amiss.
She didn’t like controlling Sebastian like this, but he didn’t seem to have any self-discipline. She suspected it was the way he had been brought up. His parents had been loving, but over-indulgent. Not like Catkin’s mother and father, who had been dry, dusty academics. Her mother had left the marital home when Catkin was just thirteen. Not for another man, but for a prestigious job in an American university. Catkin had fended for herself and her distant father; had left school as soon as she could and had steadfastly refused to have anything to do with further education as a rebellion against her parents’ obsession with academia. And she thought she’d done pretty well for herself, all things considered. She wasn’t quite a household name, but she had begun to be recognised wherever she went.
She flipped open the lid of her laptop and started reading through the script the producer had sent her for the next day. It was dreadful - verbose and patronising. She started going through her lines, rewriting them in her own style, adding in a few humorous observations so that she didn’t seem too intense and worthy. After all, she was supposed to come across as a big sister, not a social worker.
By the time they reached the motorway, Catkin was totally absorbed in her work and had forgotten Sebastian altogether.
Charlotte stood on the doorstep of Myrtle Cottage and gave herself a severe talking to. She’d been given a way out of her sticky situation and she wasn’t to wimp out at the first opportunity. She slid the key into the lock and turned it, praying that the wood of the door wouldn’t have warped. But it opened easily, and she stepped inside.
The smell hit her immediately: a combination of damp, cat pee and the stale, lingering scent of . . . death? Something sickly sweet and cloying. Charlotte hastily put out her hand to flick on the light switch.
Nothing.
Shit. Gussie had assured her that the electricity was still connected, but she had warned her that Withybrook was prone to impromptu power cuts, particularly in inclement weather. So no doubt the house was fused. Charlotte tried to remember from the floor plans she’d been given where the fuse box was. In the kitchen, which was at the back of the house. She peered down the gloomy hall, disconcerted to find she was too scared to go any further. She wasn’t usually highly strung, but the house had been empty for some time, she was on her own and as far as she could make out there was no one around she could call on for help except the ancient farmer. What if there was a squatter, or a corpse?
There was nothing for it but to go back out to the car and find her torch. Luckily she’d packed it near the top. Feeling slightly more secure with its powerful beam, she swallowed her fear and inched down the corridor until she found the kitchen. A quick inspection revealed the fuse box, and she heaved the heavy black switch back up. There was an encouraging clunk and the light came on, a weedy twenty-watt glow that made the house even more tenebrous. The first thing she would do, she decided, was change all the light bulbs.
She thought she would give Gussie a ring and tell her she had arrived safely. She was the only person who would care, and Charlotte wanted to hear a friendly voice. She looked at her mobile. No signal. Not even one tiny bar. With a heavy heart, she turned to head back out to the car and get her luggage, then stopped in her tracks. Right in the middle of the kitchen, scrutinising her with its beady eyes, was an enormous black rat.
She didn’t even stop to shut the front door. She ran down the high street as fast as her feet would carry her, imagining the rat following, teeth bared, eyes gleaming. She flung herself against the double doors of the pub, pushing at the handle desperately, but it was locked. She stood back, choking a stifled sob, and realised there was someone standing behind her.
Other books
Beautiful Distraction by J.C. Reed
San Francisco Noir by Peter Maravelis
Fifty Shades of Alice Through the Looking Glass by Melinda Duchamp
The Date Auction by Mingua, Wren
Banana Man (a Novella) by Blake, Christian
You belong to me by Mary Higgins Clark
Samurai by Jason Hightman
The Colorman by Erika Wood
Paint the Town Dead by Nancy Haddock
Come to Me by Sofia Grey
