Pink Wellies and Flat Caps (22 page)

‘Thanks Alice, you really helped,’ says Edward, stroking my hand
and helping me up. He covers Mable with a blanket. My legs have gone to jelly and I wobble slightly but he seems not to notice. I need a drink and that’s not something I thought I’d hear myself say first thing this morning.

‘Wine or something stronger?’

It was Edward’s idea to stop at a pub on the way to the auction. I’m having a very quiet mini breakdown. I’m sure there is a time and place for emotional breakdowns and I’m sure mine could have been put on hold until I got to The Priory. I may make it there just before Christmas. I hear The Priory is very nice that time of year. Charlie jilting me, combined with my impending period is enough of a mix as it is, but throw in a shot to the head of a horse and you have a lethal combination that would tip over even Hillary Clinton. Mind you, she turns on the tears at the drop of a hat doesn’t she? Let’s change that to Margaret Thatcher, The Iron Lady. It’s dimly lit for a pub but at least I can whimper on and off without anyone noticing. It’s warm too, which is good because for some reason I can’t stop shaking. One minute I was fine and normal, that’s if I’ve ever been normal. Georgie claims I am far too nice to be normal and the next I am shaking so much it’s like I’ve been injected with a short sharp burst of Parkinson’s disease.

‘Something stronger,’ I say, thinking a jab with his tranquilliser gun would be helpful. However, he returns with a brandy, which comes close.

I throw it back in one hit.

‘Was it that bad?’ he asks.

‘Worse,’ I say knocking back his too.

‘The first time I shot a horse I polished off five double whisk
ies,’ he says thoughtfully, before going to the bar for another round.

The first time? How many times ha
ve there been? How many poor horses are in horse heaven thanks to Edward Fairfax? He’s a serial horse killer.

The brandy warms my insides and my heart slows down and thankfully the shaking ceases. Edward returns with another brandy and a whisky for himself. He pulls his brown woollen jumper over his
head, giving me a glimpse of his hairy chest. I stare fascinated. He runs his hand through his ruffled hair and looks at me and I realise I am still staring.

‘Charlie waxed his chest,’ I hear myself saying and then realise that I have totally given away the fact that I have just seen his.

‘Ouch.’

‘He wanted me to watch once. You’d think he was being tortured. I hated it then but I think I could enjoy it now, watching Charlie being tortured.’

What am I saying?

‘Oh I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry I just feel a bit fragile after the Mabel thing.’

He avoids my eyes and downs his whisky.

‘I don’t usually wish bad things on people,’ I say reiterating, just in case he should think I’m Saddam Hussein’s evil sister. ‘I can’t even watch torture scenes in films.’

‘It doesn’t seem an unreasonable thing to wish considering he jilted you a few weeks before your wedding. What was it like to watch?’

Oh, a fellow sadist.

‘This is true. I did consider pulling off his finger nails for the sheer pleasure of it but changed my mind and came to Cornwall instead. He went very red in the face you know that kind of red when you’re fighting the scream.’             

‘Sounds delightful, I can think of a few people I would like to nominate for that.’

He checks his watch and I sip at my brandy.

‘You never mentioned you had a fiancée in New Zealand,’ I say courageously.

He makes a sucking sound between his teeth.

‘Ah well, if we’re seriously going to talk fiancés then I’ll need some crisps. I can cope without food when w
e’re talking torture but fiancés are a whole other ball game. Or would you prefer pork scratchings?’ he adds with a grin.

Pork scratchings? Charlie would have a thousand canary fits if he could see me now.

‘Why not,’ I smile, ‘something else to make Charlie go red in the face.’

‘In that case I’ll get two bags.’

Well, what a surprise. He has quite a sense of humour.

‘So how did you meet Charlie? He asks throwing the pork scratchings at me and avoiding my question.

‘In Wetherspoons,’ I say cringing at the memory. ‘We both went in there to keep warm, I hasten to add, and not for the food. It was New Year’s Eve and the queue outside Francine’s nightclub was enormous.’

He looks suitably unimpressed.

‘I met
Lucy short for Lucinda, but everyone calls me Luce
, that’s her little speech by the way, not mine, at a fund-raising dinner for the Arctic Wildlife Conservation campaign.’

Blimey, that rather puts Wetherspoons in the shade. Lucinda? Crikey, that sounds very upmarket. No wonder he has a Coutts cheque book.

‘Charlie doesn’t have a little speech. I actually think he prefers Charlie to Charles and …’

God I miss him.

‘Why did he break it off?’

If only I knew.

‘Why is yours in New Zealand?’

‘Ah
…’

‘Is not an answer actually,’ I say, wagging my finger
. ‘Charlie said he wasn’t ready to settle down with one woman. That was his excuse anyway.’

He tips the bag of pork scratchings upside down and catches the final few in his mouth. God, if Charlie saw this. Oh sod Charlie, what does he care? He’s too busy sunning himself on my honeymoon.

‘Charlie at this very moment is on our honeymoon with some big-breasted brunette,’ I say.

It’s out and I feel so much better. Edward coughs slightly and then begins to choke on the pork scratchings. I dive to the bar and return with two lemonades. I hit him forcefully on the back.
             

‘
Are you all right?’

‘I was until you walloped me.’

He smiles.

‘I seriously have to say what a Charlie is Charlie.’

I nod.

‘Lucy is in New Zealand because that’s what we planned to do. We were both going to work on an animal rescue project for six
months. It was our joint dream, and then my father died. I chose to take the farm on and get it back on its feet. Lucy doesn’t get it. I’m not sure I get it really. I’m not a farmer but I’m from a farming family. We had the biggest and most prosperous farm in the village. Dad was proud of it, but then he got sick and his mind went and everything went to the dogs. The dementia was so bad and sadly he chose the wrong people to help him at the end. He didn’t want me. Sometimes he didn’t even know who I was.’

I feel my hand reach out and lay it gently on his arm.

‘Edward, I’m so sorry.’

‘He was angry with me because I chose the veterinary route. He didn’t know what he was doing at the end and some people took advantage of that. Anyway, I didn’t want to sell the farm that my dad had worked on all his life for next to nothing, so I chose to stay here and get it back on its feet. Lucy hates it, hates farming, hates this farm and up until last week, wasn’t too fond of me either. I think she is coming round now though. Anyway
…’

He stands up.

‘To the cattle market. Let’s go and have some fun and a few hot dogs.’

Hot
dogs? It just gets worse and worse on the food front here doesn’t it?

‘So that’s what farmers do to have fun,’ I say smiling.

‘Yep. We buy bulls and eat hot dogs. Not necessarily in that order. It’s not just city folk who have fun you know.’

Before I can respond he has walked to the door and I find myself thinking
isn’t Lucy the lucky one, and isn’t it just my luck that when I meet someone nice,
that someone
barely notices me and already has a fiancée.

***

‘Twenty-five, thirty, fifty-five, one hundred, and over there one sixty and now two hundred, any more?

The man next to me tips his cap.

‘Two fifty, yes three hundred.’

It’s like a madhouse of people with animals running around just for good measure. Of course, I realise it’s always like this, but to me it seems like complete and utter chaos. There are lots of men in
oilskin jackets walking round with large plastic cups of beer. The smell of baked jacket potatoes makes my stomach rumble.

‘Oh look, piglets,’ I squeal and point excitedly at the pink baby piglets that are being led to the arena.

Edward lowers my hand gently with his and lays it in my lap with his hand covering it. A jolt of sexual energy charges straight through me. There is something about sheep, cows and farmers that seriously bring out the animal in me.

‘You almost made a bid for close on six hundred pounds for a cow that, not only do we not need, but don’t want. Stay here while I fetch the
hot dogs and whatever you do don’t raise your hand, not even to scratch your head.’

I’ve never seen such chaos or smelt so much shit in my life, although having said that I must admit to having a whale of time, more than I ever remember having with Charlie. But then I suppose in fairness to Charlie it never occurred to him to take me to a cattle auction, and I probably would have been appalled had he even suggested it. I watch mesmerised at the chaos around me and through the crowd I see Edward carrying the
hot dogs and drinks. He stops every so often to acknowledge someone. He looks so at home and I feel a surge of affection for him. I look at my hot dog like it is some foreign object to be avoided at all costs.

‘The last time I had one of these was when I was sixteen. I was at the funfair with Jimmy Willard. He also bought me a plastic cup of red wine.’

‘Why does the red wine not surprise me? But Jimmy Willard? You really went out with someone named Jimmy Willard,’ he grimaces. ‘No wonder you ended up with a Charlie.’

‘You can scoff. I’ll have you know Jimmy and I went steady for all of two weeks.’

He pours mustard onto our hot dogs.

‘There you go, the only way to eat a
cattle market hot dog. Doused in mustard to cover the taste of the rotten frankfurter.’

I stop, with the
hot dog halfway to my mouth. He laughs heartily, throwing his head back.

‘That’s a joke. They’re actually the best ever.’

A trickle of excitement runs through the crowd as the bull is brought out. There is a moment of quiet and then excited babbling from everyone.

‘There he is, what a beauty,’ says
Edward in an awe-stricken voice. I watch horrified as it charges towards one of the men who jumps behind a screen. Edward is surely not thinking of buying that thing is he? I look to him to see he is laughing along with everyone else. I hope I never manage to spook that beast if I find myself in the same field as him. As the bidding begins I feel nervous but as it gains momentum I am barely able to sit still.

‘Stop fidgeting,’ Edward whispers, ‘I can’t concentrate.’

By the time the final bid is made by Edward I am shaking so much with excitement that it really is all I can do to stay in my seat. And then finally Edward is successful and I jump up and shout.

‘Yay, well done. We bought him,’ only to wet my knickers. Honestly
, who would have thought a woman would need Tena pads at a cattle auction? Maybe I won’t tell Georgie about this. I excuse myself to the ladies in a place where ladies are few and far between. While there I check my Nokia and see I have had a missed call and, oh no, it is from Dominic Montfort. What on earth possessed me to give him my mobile number? Of course it probably had something to do with the copious amounts of wine I was drinking at the time. Guiltily I ignore it and head back to the auction picking up two plastic cups of Red Bull on the way. The excitement has totally sapped my energy. I see the piglets are now in the arena and they look so cute. I wave to Edward who shakes his head at me. I hope he isn’t going to get all moody because he paid a lot for the bull. I rush to my seat and watch as the piglets one by one parade around the arena. I feel so bad eating those pork scratchings, I vow never to eat pork scratchings for the rest of my life. The bidding for the piglets is very quick and finally the last one wanders around looking lost.

‘Thirty
-five, thirty-eight, forty, forty-five, seventy, any more?’

‘Oh look Edward, isn’t he just the cutest,’ I say forcing his attention from his cheque book.

‘Seventy, eighty.’

The man next to me tips his cap.

‘He’ll make good bacon.’

I snap my head round and stare at the barbarian. Oh no, he can’t do that.

‘Eighty-five.’

‘Ninety,’ I shout waving my hand.

Edward quickly grabs it.

‘What are you doing
?’ he hisses in my ear.

‘I can’t let him
be made into bacon.’

His eyes widen in alarm and the man next to me smirks before nodding again.

‘Ninety-five.’