Country Pursuits (2 page)

Actually, having spent every minute of the last six months with their first child, Caro was
screaming for a break. Her brain had turned to mush, and she could hardly remember life before she was two stone overweight and regularly covered in baby sick. But Sebastian was probably right: she was pretty useless at decorating. So she had let the interior designer, a flamboyant red-headed stick insect from Hampstead, come in and decorate their six-bedroom, three-storey half of the converted Mill House on the village green.

Aside from the kitchen, the place was white throughout, with exposed floors, overstuffed chaise longues, and dramatic pieces of graffiti art Sebastian had bought for a huge sum from a dread-locked Hoxton artist who had been touted as the next Banksy. In their bedroom was a huge four-poster bed with a frame carved from burnt timber, lights that came on as you walked into the room, and two floor-to-ceiling ladder radiators that the designer had assured them would ‘make a statement'. Sebastian loved the masculine, stark feel of the house. Caro, on the other hand, hated it. The place felt like a museum, and she was terrified that once Milo started crawling he would hurt himself on the sharp edges of the granite stairs or Perspex furniture. She envied her sister Camilla's pretty little cottage on the other side of the green, with its soft furniture, low ceilings, little nooks, and pink roses curling round the front door.

It had been eighteen months since Sebastian had suggested moving from their Georgian townhouse in posh Holland Park to Churchminster, the village where Caro had grown up, and she hadn't been sure about it back then. After all, her parents had emigrated to Barbados, and she could pop back and
see her sisters and grandmother whenever she wanted. She loved her life in London, her work friends and yoga buddies, their lively social life of dinner parties and long weekends skiing in Verbier. The idea of returning to her childhood home, with its one pub and endless memories of an awkward, chubby girlhood, had held absolutely no appeal.

But then Caro had fallen pregnant and, almost overnight, Sebastian had decided they should leave the rat race and retire to the country. She had protested weakly at first, but Sebastian had known how to manipulate his wife's soft nature, and before Caro knew it the Holland Park house had been sold and Sebastian had bought one half of the mill conversion in Churchminster. He had also bought a loft apartment in Clerkenwell, close to his trading job in the City, to live in during the week – although he had neglected to tell her about it until later. ‘To avoid that hellish commute, darling. You understand, don't you?'

Of course Caro had murmured her assent, as Sebastian had expected her to, but inside she hadn't really understood. She was being shipped out to the country, going from living a sociable, full life with her husband to seeing him only at weekends. She'd feared the whole dynamic of their marriage would change, but Sebastian had carried on as though nothing was happening. And he had been so persuasive: ‘Think of all that fresh air, it will do you tons of good. Your complexion has been looking quite pasty lately. And I know your grandmother will be
thrilled
to have her first grandchild living so close. You wouldn't let her down, would you, darling?'

Of course Caro wouldn't. So she had dutifully left her London life behind, with friends' hollow promises of coming to visit ringing in her ears. That had been nine months ago, and she had been suffocating ever since.

Caro wandered into the hall and stared at herself in the full-length mirror on the wall. A pretty, natural blonde with soft brown eyes and an attractively curvaceous figure looked back. What Caro saw was a tired, spotty old wreck facing an uphill battle with her baby fat. Sebastian hadn't said outright she needed to lose weight, but they hadn't made love in months, and she had caught him looking at her critically several times as she had got changed for bed. Already not someone with the highest self-esteem, Caro's confidence had plummeted.

Milo started crying upstairs, snapping her out of her moment of self-loathing. He was going through a grizzly stage at the moment. In a rare bout of forcefulness, Caro had declined Sebastian's suggestion to get a nanny, and declared she would bring their son up by herself, but Milo was a difficult baby and Caro hadn't had a good night's sleep since he was born. She was exhausted, but she didn't want to admit to anyone that she couldn't even bring up her child.

Milo's cries intensified. ‘All right, darling, I'm coming!' Caro called. Running up the stairs, she stubbed her bare toe on one of the sharp steps, and tears of pain sprang into her eyes.

‘How did my life get like this?' she sobbed, as she flopped down on the stair, rubbing her injured foot.

ACROSS THE GREEN,
Caro's sister Camilla was going through her own drama. Camilla was the middle daughter of Johnnie and ‘Tink' Standington-Fulthrope. Until four years ago, Camilla and her younger sister Calypso had lived with their parents in the family home – a beautiful, Jacobean country house called Twisty Gables, close by on the Bedlington Road.

Everyone had loved having Johnnie and Tink as neighbours. He was such a darling, so tall and dashing, and often taking time to help the old ladies of Churchminster across the road. His wife (whose real name was Tessa, but who had been called Tink since girlhood on account of her girlish, tinkling laugh) was the life and soul of the village, with her warm character and sunny disposition. But gradually, over the years, Tink's ubiquitous laugh had started to dwindle, until one day she couldn't get out of bed. The doctor had diagnosed clinical depression and seasonal affective disorder, and put Tink on anti-depressants.

The pills had helped, but not as much as the family's biannual trip to their holiday home in
Barbados, where the sun, bright colours and warm climate had lifted Tink out of her black cloud. Shortly after returning home to England, she had become severely depressed again, and, after a family summit and much soul-searching, Johnnie and Tink had decided the only thing to do was to move to Barbados permanently. After all, Caro had left home years ago and at twenty-seven and nineteen respectively, Camilla and Calypso had been more than old enough to live by themselves.

Their parents had bought them No. 5 The Green, a gorgeous, three-bedroomed chocolate-box cottage on Churchminster's beautiful village green. It had been ideal for Camilla, who was working two mornings a week as a secretary for an upmarket surveyor's in Cheltenham, and a perfect base for Calypso, who had been about to study History of Art at Bristol University. The girls had been devastated to see their parents go, but they had hated seeing their bright, breezy mother reduced to such a sad, listless shadow. Besides, they were still only a short walk from their granny, Clementine Standington-Fulthrope, who was Johnnie's mother.

All three daughters were very different in character, even though they looked alike with their blonde hair, soulful hazel or brown eyes and – until Caro had fallen pregnant – identical slim, full-bosomed figures. Caro was kind and sweet, Camilla was the more practical, sensible of the three, and Calypso . . . well, she was the wild one, with a spiky attitude, impetuous nature and anti-establishment views. Being the youngest, she was often indulged by her family, and had grown up to be a very controversial young woman.

As Camilla was finding out right now. Again.

‘You can't give up your job!' she wailed down the phone to Calypso. ‘You've only been there three months!' After graduating with a Third, Calypso had taken a year off and spent most of it sunbathing with her friends on various beaches around the world. On her return a few months ago, her parents had delicately suggested she might find a job, and Calypso had ended up working at an art gallery in Brighton. But, apparently, she'd had a huge row with the owner of the gallery over her bad timekeeping and had told him where to go. Camilla suspected she'd actually been sacked, but Calypso was much too proud to admit to that. And now, she informed Camilla, she was coming to live with her again.

‘But have you thought it through?' asked Camilla, looking longingly round her little cottage. She had done it up so perfectly since Calypso had moved out, and now the thought of her sister coming home and unleashing her messy ways all over the Laura Ashley furniture was making her faintly queasy.

‘Have you told Mummy and Daddy?' An angry babble erupted from the phone. ‘OK, I was only asking. I'd better get your room ready, then.'

She replaced the receiver with a sense of foreboding. Her sister was temperamental at the best of times, but now she sounded positively unhinged. Camilla had a feeling that, in two days' time, hell would be unleashed on quiet Churchminster.

On the other side of the green, at Fairoaks House, Clementine Standington-Fulthrope was
deadheading the narcissi in one of her many flowerbeds. Clementine, seventy-six, known as Granny Clem to her three granddaughters, was a formidable, energetic woman, often spotted taking her black Labrador Errol Flynn (on account of his whiskers) on his daily five-mile walk.

The Standington-Fulthrope clan had lived in the village for generations, and the family was seen as the unofficial royalty of Churchminster. Clementine was the head of the Standington-Fulthrope Committee (SFC), which had been founded by her husband's great-grandmother Augusta over a hundred years ago. Money raised by the SFC was spent, amongst other things, on keeping the village church maintained, and providing funds for the nearby children's home. In her time, Clementine had organized many a sponsored walk and charity function, calling on all and sundry to get involved. Often brusque and imperious, she did not suffer fools gladly. But under the prickly facade there was a good heart, and she adored her granddaughters, keeping a watchful eye on them in her son's absence.

Clementine was a tall, handsome woman with steely grey hair neatly pulled back in a bun – a hairstyle she hadn't changed since 1957. Today she was clad in her usual uniform of navy-blue waxed jacket, green Hunter wellies and Jaeger cashmere jumper, set off by an impressive pearl necklace her parents had given her as a coming-out present for her debutante ball.

Behind her loomed Fairoaks, a tall, imposing Victorian building, softened by beautiful, sweeping gardens. Clementine had lived alone there since her
darling husband Bertie had died from an unexpected heart attack two decades ago. The gardens had become her pride and joy. Apart from a local boy who came in to cut the grass, she looked after the entire plot herself, which included six apple trees, climbing plants, and a deep, glossy pond with ornate stone fountain. A well-known presence at the Chelsea Flower Show, Clementine opened her gardens to the public for a small charge every summer, with all donations going to the SFC Fund.

‘Anyone home?' A familiar voice cut across the still morning air. Clementine looked up to see Caro carefully manoeuvring Milo's pushchair through the wrought-iron gate. It was a rather chilly February day, and the little boy was wrapped up in swathes of blankets.

‘Darling, how nice to see you!' Clementine stood up from the gardening mat, pulling off her gloves.

‘Hello, Granny Clem.'

Caro walked over and gave her a kiss. She looks terrible, Clementine thought, taking in the wan complexion and dark circles under Caro's eyes. Although she had been delighted to have her back in the village again, Clementine privately worried that her granddaughter was too isolated. And Caro had become very defensive recently whenever Clementine offered to help with Milo. It would be a lot easier if Sebastian actually spent some proper
time
with his wife and son instead of staying in London and gallivanting off on all those blasted work trips, thought Clementine archly. But she often had to remind herself that Caro was a grown
woman; she didn't want her silly old grandmother poking her nose in her business.

Milo let out a happy gurgle, and Clementine's face softened.

‘Where's my favourite great-grandchild?' she said, walking happily towards the pushchair.

‘He's your
only
great-grandchild,' Caro pointed out with a smile, as they made their way inside the house for a much-needed cup of tea.

FRIDAY DAWNED, AND
Sebastian yawned as he walked in through the doors of Harwells Bank at 7.04 a.m. It was one of the biggest, most prestigious corporations in the financial world, but Sebastian was feeling anything like work at that precise moment. Sabrina had kept him up till four in the morning, wanting to be shagged every which way senseless. Sebastian enjoyed sex as much as the next red-blooded adulterer, but he had to admit he was worn out. He was almost looking forward to going home for a change, and falling asleep on Caro's soft bosom.

To Sebastian, there was absolutely nothing wrong with having a wife and mistress. Most of his friends were doing the same, and as he had never been faithful to a woman in his life, he had no intention of starting now. Spurned by his father, Sebastian had spent his formative years shuttling round various countries as his glamorous mother Evie had fallen in and out of love with different suitors. He had grown up in an environment completely free of morals, respect and mutual affection. Eventually he'd been sent away to boarding school, staying
with his flighty mother in the school holidays, wherever she happened to be in the world. He had never respected her, and it was fair to say he hadn't respected a woman since. A psychologist treating him on the couch might have put his caddish behaviour down to his peripatetic, insecure childhood. But it was simpler than that. Sebastian was just a complete shit.

Sebastian had married sweet, trusting Caro because she could give him an heir and provide a comfortable home, but that was where their union had stopped. And so, when, two years earlier, he had met Sabrina at a drinks function, he had instantly known they'd end up having an affair. A model by occupation, Sabrina often graced the pages of
Hello!
magazine in sumptuous ‘at home' shoots. She was a well-known face on the Belgravia circuit, and was used to Arab businessmen spending thousands of pounds on taking her out for the evening. Like Sebastian, she loved money, power, glamour and sex. They really were a perfect match.