Chapter 6:Jungle Telegraph
Shireen was sitting through an interminable briefing meeting. Notebook open and pen poised, she was actually far away in her own little world, decorating the nursery and choosing bootees in John Lewis. Did babies still wear bootees? It was a long time since she’d been close enough to one to notice. This high pressure aide malarkey didn’t give one much time to spend with one’s family and friends, and children were conspicuous by their absence in this world. The PM might have a brood of six, but they were kept well away from the workings of government, unless a spot of simpering for the press was called for. She was just doodling flowers around her favourite girl’s name (Maia) when the thunderclap of heavy doors banging open brought her back to the meeting room.
“Newchurch, you bastard! I know what you did!”
Shireen and the whole roomful of officials turned as one to see a petite, exquisitely well-dressed woman - who must have been in her sixties at least - reach down to her feet and pull off a tiny, black patent-leather shoe (Shireen had a keen eye for footwear) and hurl it with surprising speed and accuracy across their heads. Scott ducked, actually ducked, up there on the podium, but his reflexes were decidedly un-George Bush like, and he was struck in the middle of the forehead by a kitten heel and went down like a boxer taking a killer blow. The briefing erupted with screams, shouting and a lot of unnecessary fuss, if you asked Shireen. For God’s sake, you’d think Osama Bin Laden had just strolled in sporting an Uzi, not an elderly lady in a well-cut grey suit with some rather lovely accessories (was that necklace real jade?).
“She’s an old woman! Put her down!” she shouted, jumping to her feet as the shoe-thrower was hoisted into the air by two fat-necked security men who had appeared, genie-like, within seconds.
“Old? I’m sixty-two!” cried the woman, defiantly aiming her remaining patent-leather kitten heel at an officer’s gut, “I’m in my prime, and –“ she struggled for breath, twisting out from under a meaty restraining arm and pointing at Scott, now having his brow mopped by a curvaceous information officer, “- that cretinous fool has taken my life away from me!”
“Alright, get her out of here,” the policemen pushed open the doors and bundled her out, still screaming at the top of her voice. Shireen looked down and spotted the second shoe; picking it up, she dashed after them, waving it half-heartedly at their retreating backs and then, somewhat at a loss as to what to do with the thing, popped it into her handbag, shrugged and went to lunch. Scott was receiving plenty of attention, civil servants were surging around him and the clamour of phone calls being made to various offices meant she was able to slip away unnoticed for a little light browsing in Oxford Street. After all, as her boss had often smugly observed of his predecessor; when the sideshow becomes the main attraction, it really is time to leave the stage. As she walked out of the building, flashing her security pass at a distracted receptionist, and along a bustling Whitehall, she flipped open her mobile and made a call.
“Stells,” she said, “It’s me. You’ll never believe what’s just happened to my boss. Oh, and I’ve got other news as well. See you in the John Lewis café.” She stepped boldly off the kerb and flagged down a black cab. Sod the expenses watchdog.

Chapter 5: Country Casual
Guy had gone in to College, Viv had vanished, I knew not where, and Muriel was in full spate in the kitchen. There was nothing for it but to haul on my boots, pour the child into waterproofs (black clouds were now massing over the hills) and go for a walk.
“Stig!” I hollered and rattled a plastic bottle full of stones. At this signal, Stig came belting over the bank from whichever bush he had been investigating and leapt joyfully at my head.
“Down you cursed mutt,” I pushed him away and clipped him onto his lead as he wriggled and thrashed around my legs.
“Cursed mutt!” repeated Rory gleefully.
“Well, it’s cleaner than some of Daddy’s names for him.” I said, grateful that Rory had not as yet uttered the F-word in front of granny.
Muriel jerked her head around the back door as we prepared to exit the boot-room.
“Is this your mobile?” she presented me with a vibrating, jangling device, my new all-singing and literally, all-dancing, phone that Guy, the gadget-geek, had insisted on buying me for my birthday, no matter that I would have preferred book tokens, or lingerie, or anything else, really.
“Bloody thing,” I tutted.
“Can’t see the point of them myself,” sniffed Muriel, “Unless you’re a heart surgeon. Who’s that important they have to be on the end of a phone all the time?”
“Fair point,” I acknowledged, wrestling to answer the thing.
“Grandad!” cheered Rory, the miniature psychic.
“How did you know? Hello Dad,” I said, bemused by my son’s uncanny ability to guess who was calling, “Rory knew it was you.”
“He chose the tune, that’s why,” my dad replied, sounding like he’d gargled with razor blades, his familiar early-morning tone. By the evening, his voice had usually mellowed to that of one who swilled gravel, the legacy of a life-long love affair with the roll-up.
“Oh,” I said, feeling silly.
“We chose ‘Sex Bomb’. Your mother’s favourite - Tom Jones,” he explained.
“Sex bomb!” chirruped Rory at my side.
“Dad,” I hissed, “I’m not sure I want my two year old singing about S-E-X. Couldn’t you have chosen something more appropriate?”
“What could be more appropriate for me?” laughed Dad.
“Spare me the details of your private life. What do you want, anyway?”
“And a good morning to you, my only daughter. Well as it happens, I was thinking about coming up at the weekend. Haven’t seen you all for a while.”
“I thought you were going on one of your exotic holidays.”
“I was, but the political situation has imploded somewhat and the local guides can’t guarantee my safety.”
“I was a bit sceptical about hiking on the Afghan border, father. Why can’t you just go on a cruise like other retired people?”
“Now you’re just trying to provoke me. No, I thought I’d dice with social death instead this weekend. Haven’t you got some event or other going on?”
“The summer fete. You can help Guy with the marquee. Come up and make yourself useful. We’ve got plenty of room, as you know, and it’s not so cold in the east wing at this time of year. Estelle’s coming too, maybe you could give her a lift.”
“She hates my driving. When I gave her a lift after the wedding she made a tremendous bloody fuss. Lovely girl, but very high maintenance. No wonder she’s not married.”
“That’s not very gallant, let alone PC,” I pointed out, “Since when does a woman have to be married to validate her existence?”
“Well even you went for it in the end, it was a long old wait, though. Thank God for my only grandchild. Anyway, looking forward to seeing you on Friday,” and with that, he rang off, coughing. I was left a bit spluttery myself. ‘He only says it to wind me up, he only says it to wind me up’, I repeated the mantra of my father-handling technique.
“Waining,” Rory announced, tipping his chubby face up to the sky.
“Never mind, Stig loves the rain. Any excuse to get wet and filthy.”
“Yes mummy,” Rory assented, “We love muck.”
“That you do.” As we strode on down the road towards the village, I wondered what my dad was up to. He’d cancelled his holiday plans, but he’d also recently cancelled his latest relationship. It was frequently the case that his girlfriends didn’t see eye to eye with him on the subject of vacations, but quite a few were smitten enough to sacrifice a week in the Algarve for that extra bit of edge that my father, even at sixty, still offered. Many of his live-out love interests (he had never, since my mother’s death, lived with another woman) were pretty young; uncomfortably close to my own age, in some cases. It was only the relative certainty that he would never marry again which had allowed me to put up with these liaisons. I kept hoping he’d lose interest (like Kingsley Amis who, at seventy-three, said that the demands of his libido had` been like “spending fifty years chained to an idiot”) or maybe, settle down at last. I grew up with him as my sole parent for fifteen years: the fact that he kept other women well out of the picture during that time was, with hindsight, incredibly selfless. He’d thrown himself into work and his political activities, when he wasn’t keeping a very close eye on me, compensating for the loss of a guiding maternal hand. Now, he seemed to be making up for lost time and dating every female within the M25. I wondered vaguely if there was anyone Vivian might know who he might be interested in. Or would he turn on the mockney and start shedding rolling tobacco all over them if they appeared too posh? Despite referring to my mother as ‘My African Princess’ and humouring her attempts to drag him into the bourgeoisie (she came from a high-achieving Nigerian family and was eternally shocked at his side of the family’s lack of ambition), Dad liked nothing better than a bit of class warfare and I wasn’t sure I wanted it kicking off in my own backyard. He always made remarks about Vivian and her patrician manner and sometimes assumed a fake yokel accent when speaking to her, like one of the lower caste characters in the Archers. Viv, rather astonishingly, seemed to find this heavy-handed comedy turn amusing rather than irritating. Still, at least it meant the outlaws rubbed along reasonably well, so Guy and I didn’t have to suffer too much strain when we all got together.
In the pocket of my raincoat, the dratted phone began to buzz and wiggle again, emitting the unmistakeable chords of ‘Sex Bomb’.
“Grandad!” cheered Rory.
“Now what?”
“You didn’t tell me the most important thing,” accused Dad.
“What? I’m trying to go for a quiet walk in the country here.”
“Durdin’s death. He’s your MP isn’t he?”
“What do you want to know about that for?” I asked, surprised.
“Me and Durdin go way back,” he growled.
“And not in a good way, I’m guessing.”
“Too right. Anyway, off to surf the interweb to find out more. Keep your ear to the ground.” He rang off abruptly.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said aloud.
“What mummy?”
“Well, first grandma and now granddad. What is going on with this family. Who indeed was Pinky?”
No sooner had my old journalist’s curiosity been aroused than any routes of speculation were brusquely cut off by the heavens opening and the necessity of retrieving Stig and Rory from a ditch.
“Out you two! Let’s hope the weather gets this off its chest before the weekend. We need a sunny day for the fete.” Whoever opens it, of course, I added silently to myself.

Chapter 4: Green Fingers
Barbara was busy sorting foliage on the floor of the vestry when she was disturbed. Humming happily to herself, she ignored the green stains communicating themselves from stem to hem and found peace, as ever, in the contemplation of God’s work. The flowers were for a wedding on Saturday and would do nicely for the multiple baptisms on Sunday. “Hatch, match and dispatch,” she murmured; “In the midst of life and all that.”
The parish was in shock over Monty’s sudden demise. Such a popular man, so well-loved and respected in the town and the surrounding villages that made up his constituency. Barbara tutted to herself; too bad it had to end this way, his glorious career poised on the edge of a comeback to the centre of politics. Revered for his knowledge and sheer bloody-handed experience, he had been set to retake one of the great offices of state after the election. A mere sixty-eight to Barbara’s seventy-two. She shook her head at the waste of it all.
“I knew you’d be here!” came a sudden cry, startling her into upsetting a jug full of water.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, Babs darling! The Rev Bev said you were back here and I had to see you.”
“Christ on a bicycle, Viv, you could have rung!”
“You know I don’t do mobiles, and shhh, someone might hear,” Vivian looked theatrically about her.
“Who? Christ or Beverley? I doubt either would mind. What brings you here, anyway? Conspicuous as you are by your absence on Sundays,” her friend sniffed, mopping the puddle with a handful of paper towels.
“It’s about Monty,” hissed Vivian, “I had to come.”
“Why?” stiffened Barbara, “It didn’t happen here. Although I know the funeral’s been booked for a week on Wednesday, if you’re interested.”
“Of course I’m interested,” avowed her friend, “I’m here because I wanted to talk to you about it.” Her wide-eyed gaze swept around them, taking in the vestments half out of the cupboards, the heap of coloured paper and crayons left over from Sunday school and a large box of assorted biscuits.
“For the Mothers’ Union,” Barbara said swiftly and removed them from Viv’s reach.
“I think his death was suspicious. I think it was murder.” Vivian whispered, even though the vestry was empty apart from the two of them. The vicar, the Reverend Beverley Barrett, had been observed to be on her way out to visit a parishioner when she’d entered the church.
“What? Vivian, you have a heck of an imagination sometimes.”
“How so? The police are still investigating aren’t they? They haven’t confirmed it’s suicide yet. And I knew Monty,” she said firmly, “I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t, couldn’t do such a thing.”
“You don’t know him!” scoffed Barbara. “He comes to open the fete once a year. Snip of the scissors and a cup of tea and he’s off again! He’s a very busy man. How can you possibly know him that well?”
Vivian arranged her features in a portentous manner, smoothed the turquoise and orange silk bandeau across her silver-blonde fringe and mouthed, rather than spoke the words: “Oh I knew him alright. In the biblical sense too, you might say.”
She got the reaction she was seeking. Barbara dropped the vase she was holding; the second flower-arranging casualty of the day. Following the explosive sound of pottery meeting parquet, both women silently surveyed the mess at their feet.

Chapter Three: The Estate We’re In
Dead local MPs, mothers-in-law with surprising pasts and delicately calibrated cleaning-ladies notwithstanding, it was a beautiful, hot, if somewhat cloudy, July day. I had Rory, the washing, the dinner, the rest of the chores and the forthcoming fete to think about. I took The Boy for our morning constitutional about the gardens.
“Look,” I told him, sweeping my arm outwards to indicate the sward of greenery and pure loveliness that was the setting for the Old Rectory, “All this one day will be yours, bank manager permitting.”
“Pwah!” asserted my son.
“Best not get too attached,” I agreed, “Unless Daddy finds a haul of Saxon gold in the lower field it might not all come good. But hey, it’s fantastic weather and the Dixieland Dance Band has agreed to play on Saturday for much less than their usual fee. Plus unlimited Pimms, of course.”
Rory decided to roll down the bank into the lavender bush at this point, so all conversation was suspended while I hauled him out and we crumpled up ears of lavender to sniff.
“Who’s going to open the fete now?” I wondered aloud. The Old Rectory’s summer extravaganza was Vivian and the late Bernard’s gift to the village. The new rectory was tiny and the church held its annual fundraising summer bash in our grounds as it had done for thirty years. I was due to have a meeting with the redoubtable Barbara from the Parish Council at lunchtime, so she could fill me in on the last of the arrangements. Our main role was to vacate the kitchen for an army of church ladies and to supply the trestle tables. I would pour the teas, Guy would fight with the marquee, and the stalls for bric-a-brac and games would be erected around the lawns. Just then, I caught sight of our occasional gardener who was waltzing the ride-on mower through the trees at the far end of the lawn, giving it a haircut for its big day.
“Tractor!” called Rory with great excitement. ‘Tractor’ was the mainstay of his vocabulary, along with ‘car’, train’ and ‘digger’.
“It’s Jon on the tractor,” I agreed, “Maybe if he sees us he’ll come and give you a ride.” I waved to him and he came to a halt a few metres away.
“Fantastic weather, hope it holds for the fete,” he said, striding over to us, looking like an overgrown schoolboy in his shorts and long green socks. He followed my gaze, “They’re a practical solution. I get too hot in trousers. Get scratched, itchy legs on the mower otherwise.”
I dearly hoped I wasn’t blushing. Jon had a great pair of tanned, hairy legs with enormous knees – from gripping horses’ shanks, I supposed, since as well as accomplishing a little light groundsmanship for us, he ran the stables next door. On one of the rare occasions that Estelle, my closest friend from Dagenham days, had made it up to visit us, she had encountered Jon sitting at our kitchen table enjoying a beer with Guy and formed a very favourable impression indeed. These days, we found it hard to keep her away from the place, despite its obvious disadvantages, like being “In the middle of a lot of shit-covered fields”, which militated against the wearing of high heels and glamorous dresses. I tried not to think of her when I looked at his knees and brought myself to heel.
“Lovely. So sunny!” I beamed, thanking God I was at least partially an Englishwoman and that the weather, that saviour of polite intercourse, could be called upon at just such an awkward moment.
“Fancy a ride, young man?” Jon asked Rory, who nodded so hard I expected to see his head roll off into the azaleas.
“Health and safety,” I murmured to myself, as Jon bore off my firstborn for a zoom around the orchard. That’s the country for you, they do things differently here. Jon had already threatened to take Rory out on a pony, although he’d only just grasped the principles behind staying upright on terra firma. I am terrified of horses, having been led across a field by a horsey friend in Essex at the age of fourteen (a time when all I was interested in was Topshop and clubbing, while she’d spent every weekend riding) and falling ignominiously into a ditch. I really didn’t get the attraction. I guess you can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t wholly eradicate the city from the girl. I liked a nice view from my windows, it really was an improvement on the tyre factory which overlooked our tiny back garden in London, but I had yet to fully engage with ‘the land’: although our ten acres hardly amounted to as much as a smallholding and the wildest life it hosted was Stig, our perpetually muddy and crazed Springer Spaniel. Immediately upon our removal to the countryside, Guy had insisted on getting himself a dog, a pleasure denied to him in the concrete wastes of Hackney, naming it after his favourite childhood book, ‘Stig of the Dump’. I was gradually coming round to the idea of the dog, too. One way and another, the last eighteen months had meant making a lot of adjustments; from hedonistic, city-loving, journalist singleton, to domesticated, countrified, married mother. Estelle was probably more in denial than I was, but she’d made stoic attempts to support me, short of actually donning wellingtons, and was in fact due to put in an appearance at the fete this weekend, an engagement prompted no doubt by the opportunity to run into Jon again. I waved gaily as my son whizzed around an apple tree - at some speed - laughing wildly, and hoped fervently that he would keep his breakfast down. I glanced at my watch and decided to make a move indoors to check on Vivian and to see what Guy was up to.