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.