Good Husband Material (26 page)

‘Your mother is well?’ he enquired politely, though I’m sure he didn’t give a damn.

‘Much the same. My grandmother lives with her now.’

His smile was genuine this time. ‘Wonderful old lady! You used to be a bit like her – until you let your mother stamp you out in the same prissy mould as herself.’

‘Prissy! I am
not
—’

With resolution I pulled myself up. ‘Well, it’s been nice catching up with you, Fergal, but I think I hear my husband calling me. Good night!’

He detained me by laying his long, strong fingers over mine on the fence.

‘Are you well? You didn’t look so thin in London … or so tired.’

‘Quite well,’ I snapped, wishing I didn’t have dishevelled hair and eyes ringed like a marmoset’s from sleeplessness, and he let go my hand and stepped back, his face becoming a remote mask.

‘Good night!’ And off I marched. Even with my back to him I knew the very moment when he turned and walked away.

‘I suppose you weren’t expecting me this early?’ James greeted me. ‘Do you often have these little tête-à-têtes with your ex-boyfriends when I’m not about?’

‘I was feeding leftover vegetables to the cows, and Fergal just happened to walk that way.’

‘You seemed to have a lot to say to each other.’

‘He was asking after Mother,’ I said lamely.

‘How kind!’ he sneered. ‘I suppose you’ve both got a lot of catching up to do? Or did you do that in London?’

‘I’ve already
told
you I didn’t speak to him in London. Why didn’t you come out and be introduced, instead of lurking in here in that silly way?’

‘I might have felt a bit superfluous. Of course,’ he added, rocking backwards on the kitchen chair in a way that would weaken its legs, ‘you wouldn’t have known he’d bought the Hall, when you insisted on living here?’

‘Of course not. You’re being totally ridiculous. I didn’t even know Greatness Hall existed until we’d moved here, let alone that it was for sale. And I’m sure Fergal hasn’t given me a thought for years.’

‘He’s a few years older than you – it can’t have been the boy-and-girl affair you try to make it seem.’

‘Not much older,’ I said wearily. (And he’s worn pretty well … as slim-hipped and lithe as ever.)

Hasn’t it ever occurred to James that he could drive me into feeling that I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb? (Baa!) I think I’m feeling less guilty by the minute, though still angry with myself for becoming one more easy conquest for Fergal Rocco.

‘What does it matter anyway?’ I said drearily, turning away. ‘It’s all long finished. Now, I’ve made a tasty lentil casserole for supper, and there’s a fresh fruit salad and cream to follow—’

‘Lentil casserole!’ howled James as though it were the final straw, and staggered up, sending his chair skidding over on the quarry tiles. ‘Damn your lentil casserole! A man wants more than a few lentils when he gets home.’

He swayed and focused blearily. ‘I’m off to the Dog and Duck for something a bit more substantial!’ And off he went.

When I picked up the chair, Bess oozed out from the narrow gap beside the Aga like ectoplasm and reformed into a Borzoi.

I poured myself a stiff glass of cooking sherry and opened a box of chocolates, a habit I probably inherited from Granny.

Who needs men when they can have chocolate?

Who needs sex when they can have chocolate, come to that …

Fergal: August 1999

    
‘LOCAL HEIRESS IN PUB BRAWL’

Nutthill District Advertiser

I walked on after seeing Tish, feeling angry, but with myself rather than her. Why does she have to be the one to turn my knees to water? She can’t be unique – can she? And I may still fancy her, but she was the most irritating girl I ever went out with and she doesn’t seem to have changed a bit.

Except that she doesn’t look too well – verging on the thin, instead of the slender. I hope that boor of a husband is behaving himself.

Finding myself outside the pub, I went in, which was a mistake, as it turned out, because Nerissa was in there with some bunch of Hooray Henrys, all pretty well oiled.

‘Honey!’ she shrieked. ‘Where have you been? We all drove over to visit you and you weren’t there.’

She turned to her crowd and added, with an unpleasant laugh, ‘He’s got an old girlfriend tucked away in Nutthill, you know.’

‘How old?’ said the beardless youth on her right, and sniggered. Since I couldn’t hit Nerissa, I socked him one instead, then walked out.

From the rumpus behind me you’d think a small massacre had taken place.

I carried on down to Mrs Deakin, who insisted on putting a Mickey Mouse sticking plaster on my bleeding knuckles at no extra charge, then told me lots of interesting things about Tish and her husband without any prompting at all, before pumping me mercilessly about Nerissa the Nubile.

The Museum says my ring is late eighteenth century!

It certainly looks better now it’s been straightened a little and the worst of the encrusted filth cleaned off. The stone is a heart-shaped, faceted sapphire, and there’s an inscription enamelled inside saying ‘
Fidelité Mérite Amour
’, which I dare say it may, but it doesn’t often get it.

Who does it legally belong to? Since it was in the cellar of what was once the Dower House, it was likely to have been lost by one of the family from the Hall, so does that make Fergal, as the new owner of Greatness, the owner of my ring too?

By the time I got off the bus and went into Mrs Deakin’s I was totally confused and asked her opinion. She said she thought Finders was Keepers, but I don’t want to be underhand, especially with Fergal, so I thought the best thing would be to send the ring to him and let him sort it out … only then Nerissa will probably pounce on it, and it’s the dearest little ring, really.

Perhaps I muttered something, for Mrs Deakin suddenly remarked: ‘That Nerissa Bright don’t live up at the Hall.’

‘Doesn’t she?’ I asked innocently.

‘No, though I think she’d like to. Her car keeps going up to the Hall, but most of the time it comes right on back!’ She laughed wheezily.

‘Perhaps it’s when he’s away.’

‘No, it’s not then.’

‘How on earth do you know that, Mrs Deakin?’

‘He’s had the lodge done up for the gardener: my cousin Rose’s husband’s stepbrother.’

All was explained.

I was not, of course, in the least interested in Fergal’s affairs, so it was with some surprise that I heard my voice saying, ‘I did wonder if perhaps she might be going to be Mrs Rocco …?’

Mrs Deakin gave this her serious consideration. ‘Well, it’s obvious she’s got her designs on him, like, and I seen pictures of them together in magazines, but it seems to me she’s doing all the running. But he would have told you if they were engaged, surely – you being such old friends?’

‘I really know nothing about Mr Rocco these days. I’m hardly likely to move in the same circles.’

‘No,’ she agreed regretfully. ‘I expect there’ll be some rare goings-on at the Hall soon as he starts entertaining!’ And then she added that nothing this exciting had happened since the previous vicar had fallen down a disused well in the rectory garden and had to be pulled out by his feet, half asphyxiated.

‘I suppose one of them rich pop stars can have his pick of girls, can’t he? Though he seems nice enough, and comes in regular. He’s been in the Dog and Duck a few times too, though he don’t stay long. He took that Nerissa in there once, though they left separate, like in their own cars.’

‘He has?’ Strange James hadn’t mentioned that. ‘Doesn’t everyone stare at him? He’s quite well known, you know.’

Notorious might be a better word!

‘Funny – I asked him the very same thing. He said everyone would soon get used to seeing him about, being boring and ordinary.’

Boring? Ordinary? Fergal used to turn heads in the street long before he was famous. (Or infamous!)

‘Hitting someone can’t be that ordinary,’ I said drily, having seen the local paper.

She shrugged. ‘Oh, these young men – flare up in a minute, they do, when the sap’s rising. No one took much notice.’

I bought some tomatoes and then suddenly succumbed to the lure of a jar of sherbet dips. I can’t think what got into me, for I was never keen on them as a child, but today I was dying for one. I could practically taste it.

‘I didn’t know you fancied that sort of thing?’ said Mrs Deakin curiously. ‘You’ve never bought sweets before.’

‘Oh – just a sudden whim, you know,’ I said, feeling stupid.

‘Oh, yes? I like a bit of sherbet myself, but I prefer the Rainbow Crystals.’ She gestured to a large jar filled with poisonously colourful layers of extremely large granules, like washing soda. ‘Lovely stuff. Like to try a bit?’

‘Oh – no, thanks, I think I’ll stick to the sherbet dips.’

‘Stick to the sherbet dips!’ she cackled. ‘You are a one for a joke, aren’t you?’

I smiled half-heartedly. I don’t know why she thinks I’m witty, but she usually finds something funny in what I say to her. ‘I think that’ll be everything.’

‘Right you are. Mrs Wrekin come in this morning – well, calls herself Mrs, though she’s no more a Mrs than my cat is!’

‘What!’ I was so startled I dropped ten pence and it rolled under a sack of potatoes.

‘Over there – I can see it,’ she gestured helpfully.

I stooped, and she continued where she’d left off in a comfortable, chatty voice: ‘Yes, her calls herself Mrs Wrekin, but she’s not married to him.’

‘But she must be! I mean, she doesn’t look the type – and they’ve got two children!’ (And an epergne.)

‘Not his. They’re from her first marriage, and her divorce hasn’t come through yet. Suppose they might get married when it does, but till then – well, it’s like I said – she’s no better than my cat.’

This was all very surprising, but Mrs Deakin is usually right.

‘She’s got the money, you know,’ she approved. ‘Not that he hasn’t got a good job himself, but it’s her as pays for the icing on the cake – and the cherry too!’

‘Really?’

But she’d exhausted that topic. ‘I’ve got some of your books in,’ she informed me, pointing to a heap of paperbacks on the corner of the counter.

I went pink. ‘But surely they won’t sell? I mean, you can’t have much demand for books, can you?’

‘They sell all right when I tells them they was written by you. Full of curiosity, they are then. I read one myself.’

‘Did you? Did you – like it?’

‘Yes, I like a good romance, so long as the ending’s happy. I read it, and then I sold it, but I had to let it go reduced because I got cocoa on it.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ I apologised, although I don’t know why. It wasn’t me who spilled the cocoa.

‘Vicar bought it. He said it were for his wife, but I know better. He can’t keep his hands off a good love story, can’t Vicar.’

‘The vicar? Our vicar? I really wouldn’t have thought it to look at him! How do you know?’

‘Mobile library van,’ she said succinctly. ‘Mr Rocco bought a copy of all of your books that I had, too.’

‘What! Which ones?’

She enumerated on her fingers: ‘
Love Is on the Outside, Love Goes West
…’

‘Not
Love Goes West
!’ I wailed. That was one of my earliest ones, and the hero is tall, black-haired and green-eyed. My only hope is that whatever curiosity drove him to buy them peters out before the end of the first page.

I felt out of sorts this morning again, but that was explained when my period started. Then it stopped again almost immediately. Really, I seem to be getting all sorts of funny little symptoms lately – I hope they don’t all add up to some horrible disease.

And James went off to work without even mentioning our anniversary, so he must have forgotten. Mother, of course, sent a big soppy card listing them all, like Ruby, Silver, etc., but the seventh was something boring like tin or cork – or maybe it was lino. Mundane and non-precious, anyway.

Margaret popped in after lunch and we had coffee in the kitchen because I wanted to keep an eye on the man laying the patio. (Cash on completion – some kind of tax dodge, I think.)

Bob was also keeping a fascinated eye on him, but I’ve come to the conclusion that he’ll watch any event with the same avid interest, including paint drying.

Margaret and I chatted about all kinds of things and the time just flew by. Although she seems to have a lot of local acquaintances, she is, I think, probably as in need of a good friend as I am.

I offered her a home-made fig bar (the same recipe as before, but with sunflower seeds instead of sesame, which made them much less gritty), and she asked me to write down the recipe.

Just after she left James phoned to say he would definitely be home for six tonight – so he
has
remembered our anniversary! I decided to make a special effort and took steak out of the freezer to defrost, which I will grill with garlic butter. The only snag is that he likes his steak bloody on the inside, and it’s awfully hard to gauge when it’s like that. And he has to have chips with it.

I’m going to set it all out on the dining table, with candles and low music, and we can have a nice, relaxed evening and talk over everything when we’re feeling a bit more mellow.

I’ll even put a (sober!) dress on.

Surely our differences can be resolved, with a bit of effort and mutual co-operation?

I am in an absolute rage!

The candles have long since guttered and gone out, I’ve played the same CD six times, and the steaks are lying in a bloody pool in the kitchen. The red wine has had so long to breathe, it’s probably hyperventilated.

I’m so angry and miserable, so frustrated with rage, I really feel like smashing something. I must have been mad to think I could cram all our problems back into the Pandora’s box they escaped from! Why hasn’t he at least phoned, to say he’ll be late? Where the hell is he?

I’m going to bed. I’ll leave the table and the food and everything, the wilting salad, dead candles and the CD player switched on, so he’ll know what he’s done when he comes in.