Autumn has come to the Gate House. Walking up the damp path to the door, Laura steps over windfall apples amid a tapestry of gold and green leaves. The roses by the porch are still flowering sparsely, and delicate pink petals drift against the wet red-brick of the wall above a few straggling lavender heads. The grass, grown long once again, Laura notices in despair, is covered by curling oak leaves and half-open chestnut shells, and an impromptu pond, a silver disc with tufts of green bristling at the edges, has formed in the middle of the lawn, nowhere near the official pond.
Inside the house, the chill in the air tells her as she opens the door that the Rayburn is out, but even so, Laura moves instinctively towards it, her hands outstretched, anticipating warmth she knows is not here. Collecting kindling and newspaper to light it, she wonders why it is that fires which are out leave a room so much colder than fires which are never lit. It must be to do with expectation, or more mundanely, flues, she decides, putting her coat back on now she has lit the stove, and stamping her feet to try and warm them up. It’s no good, it’s freezing. The only way to get warm is to go to bed. Laura does so, and inevitably falls asleep, waking with a heavy drugged feeling, and no idea where she is.
Her phone rings. It is Fred. ‘Hi Mum, I’ve borrowed Shane’s mobile to call you. I’m on the way home from school. We had curry for lunch today.’ He pauses expectantly.
‘Good,’ says Laura encouragingly. ‘It’s lovely to speak to you. I’ve seen Hedley and—’
‘The thing is, Mum, the curry’s reminded me that Vice needs some more roadkill really badly and—’ background sounds of: ‘Wicked, Fred. Whaddyamean roadkill? Is it like, dead bodies?’ interrupt him, but Laura knows what is coming next,
‘So seeing as there isn’t much in South End Green, do you think you could possibly go and find some today?’
‘I suppose so.’ Laura realises how ungracious she sounds. ‘I mean, yes of course I will, if I really have to.’
‘Thanks, Mum. Get a rabbit if you can. I hate plucking pheasants.’
Laura tries to divert him. ‘Don’t you think Vice might like some bacon or something to keep her meat-eating instincts alive until you next come here?’
Fred shouts back, ‘NO, and make sure it isn’t too splatted. GOT TO GO. BYE, MUM.’ More background appreciation from Fred’s ghoulish friends and the line goes dead.
Ah good, Laura thinks wryly, now the rest of the day is taken care of. No time to start feeling sad again; this is not the moment to sit down and make plans for life or the garden, nor to sweep dead leaves. It’s time to get up, get dressed and hit the road with a spatula. Laura wishes, not for the first time, that she had known more about the private lives of ferrets before agreeing so blithely to Fred having one. The thing to remember now is that he is bound to want another one, and it is important to be vigilant in preventing this. Any slacking and Fred will have a whole ferret farm. What a hideous prospect. Laura makes a big attempt to do positive thinking and after a struggle, finds it in herself to be pleased that Fred is being responsible about his pet’s diet. Even though the hunter-gathering is palmed off on his mother, Fred has been thinking of someone or rather something other than himself, and that is a good thing. Armed with this uplifting thought, she removes the spatula and, not wishing to be under-equipped, the fish slice from the drawer, and heads out to the car.
What had been a fine day when she went into the house at midday has now become spiteful and nasty. A lowering pewter sky, with blacker patches of rain on the horizon, greets Laura, and a vigorous gust of wind whips her hair across her mouth and bites through her clothes so she shivers as she runs to the car.
A future of scraping flattened rabbits off the tarmac to a constant background noise of Radio One is a bleak one, and scanning the lane ahead, Laura tries to imagine anyone sane turning down a comfortable life in New York with pavements and underfloor heating to have this privilege. For her though, there is no choice; the impulse to move forwards and to make her own decisions has taken over.
There is a clap of thunder, the wind rises and rain begins to pour, loud and metallic, on the roof of the car. The wipers flick back and forth across the windscreen, but do not increase Laura’s visibility. Beyond the car a veil of rain sweeps in every direction, fogging the fields and the road ahead. Laura stops the car, unable to see to drive on. Cocooned in muffled safety, she winds down her window to hear the rain. The steady thud begins to slow a little, and other sounds filter into the car; a distant engine explodes into life, there is the startled crack and strangled shriek of a pheasant soaring to roost, and more persistently, a mournful bleating. Laura listens vaguely for a few moments, gradually becoming aware that the bleating is sounding increasingly desperate. Something, a sheep probably, needs help.
I am a countrywoman now and a sheep needs help, thinks Laura, and looks around in search of more convincing, perhaps more professional help. But there is not a soul, nor a building in sight, not a tractor in a field, not a car on the road. Laura will have to perform a Pet Rescue operation alone. Dolly’s boots – silver with big pink daisies on them, are in the car. She puts them on and scrabbles under the seats and among the layers of sweet papers and old magazines for a hat. All she can find is a pink sequinned straw stetson left over from the summer, mangled and damaged, but better than nothing. She puts it on, but can find no form of coat, not even a plastic bag to convert. Resigned to saturation, Laura climbs over the gate and into the field beyond.
The scene within is not what Laura had expected at all. Where there should have been a charming flock of sheep grazing on an idyllic green sward beneath an ancient oak, there is a vast mud-brown lake stretching to woodland. Along the middle, and parting around the ancient oak, a current flows vigorously, suggesting that a stream or ditch lies beneath. On the other side of this fast-flowing rip, half a dozen sheep stand looking foolish and frightened, next to a small black pony. They are already submerged up to their knees, and as the rain continues unabated, Laura imagines they will soon be swimming. She must go and find someone. A tractor and then perhaps a small boat will be needed. It is just like Noah’s Ark. Farmers with lifeboat skills, that’s who she needs. There must be some; after all, the sea is only a few miles away. Laura turns to climb back over the gate to the car and her telephone. She should ring Hedley. He will know what to do, and who to inform. Laura has a feeling she has seen the pony before, but where?
Peering towards the animals again, Laura gasps. One of the sheep has slid from its vantage point with the others and plopped heavily into the racing current. Its legs flail pitifully, its mouth is open as it twirls and bobs along, vanishing beneath brown water. Laura sees the fleece, heavier as it absorbs water, dragging the sheep down. A moment later another sheep, bleating and struggling, slides in too. The pony heaves itself backwards, snorting. The bank the animals are standing on is giving way and none of them can see where to move to in order to save themselves. Horrified, Laura realises that the first sheep is no longer struggling; its legs stick straight out from the scribbled blob of its fleece as it is borne onward along the stream towards the fence.
Laura swings off the gate and runs towards the stricken animals. After a few strides the water is too deep to run in, and she slows down, wading as fast as she can, plunging deep to her thighs where there is a hollow in the field, then shallower, to her knees again. Her boots fill with swirling water; she kicks them off and wades on.
The pony has plunged into the deep water now, and is swimming, trying to gain purchase with his feet on the bank. Another sheep struggles on the edge. Laura’s breath comes in rough gasps; she loses balance and falls shuddering with shock and cold under the water. She has stumbled into a deeper part now, and the current pulls her so she is half-swimming towards the pony and his remaining companions. She manages to put her hands out and stop herself being swept past, and she stands up, crouched to protect herself from the hooves and weight of the scrambling pony.
‘Don’t worry, whoa, boy,’ she says, stretching up to grasp the pony’s head collar.
‘WAIT, I’M COMING. DON’T MOVE, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE DON’T MOVE!’
Above the rush of the stream, the hiss of rain, the snorting of the terrified pony and the constant tragic wail of the sheep, Laura can hardly believe she had heard a voice. Over at the gate, yellow lights flash on the roof of a vehicle, and through the dusk a dripping figure approaches, beaming a torch at her face, splashing and wading towards her.
‘Are you all right? What are you doing in here? Can you get out?’ It is Guy, reaching down to pull her up from the deep water where she’s standing. These must be his sheep, and the pony is the one Hedley was looking after. Knowing the animals personally makes the situation worse. Laura’s teeth chatter, and she grips the pony’s headcollar more tightly, her hands slipping in the fabric as more rain slides down the pony’s face and through her frozen fingers.
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. But look, over there – one of the sheep is being swept away towards that fence and I think another has drowned.’
Guy tries to see where she is pointing; his expression is grim. ‘Can you try to draw the others away from this dyke? Take the pony first. If you go up to the corner, there is a way across and you can lead it up to the gate.’ It is almost dark now, and the rain falls unabated. Guy gestures in the twilight towards the hedge and hurries downstream to the sheep, which has pulled itself out of the flowing current and has collapsed in shallow water, still bleating. Laura scrambles up until she is standing level with the pony and slowly begins to lead it along the edge of the ditch, stumbling in the floodwater. A gunshot echoes across the water. Laura bites her tongue in shock, almost grateful for the throb of pain because it’s warm in her mouth and the rest of her is wrapped in ice by her drenched clothes. The pony, and the sheep following, shy away in fright. The pony flings back its head, its eyes rolling white and terrified. Laura clings to it with both hands, afraid that it might turn and bolt back towards the treacherous dyke.
‘Sorry about the shot’ Guy’s voice floats to her out of darkness, somewhere above the bobbing torch. ‘The ewe’s leg was broken, she was in agony. I’m going after the others, just keep going with that pony.’
Absurdly, tears trickle down Laura’s face as she leads the hesitant pony slowly along the ditch towards the looming blackness of the hedge, small rivulets of warmth running down her chin and her nose. Having reached the hedge, Laura knows she is meant to turn and cross the ditch and from there it is just a few steps to the gate. The car headlamps pour light into the field, the bars of the gate burning a black grid into the white beam. The illumination almost reaches Laura, and adjusting her eyes to the eddying flood, she notices the stillness of a width of water ahead of her, beyond which the current pours fast again. It must be the bridge. Treading slowly, sliding her feet one in front of the other, she begins to wade into the still stretch of water, the pony stepping slowly after her, huffing and snorting in alarm. Sure enough, the ground remains solid beneath her, and holding her breath, she reaches the other side. Immediately the height of the floodwater drops and Laura and the pony are on dry land in front of the gate. From Guy’s truck, above the roar of the weather, Laura can hear a throbbing beat and she grins shakily. He is listening to the music Fred lent him.
‘Laura, how are you feeling?’ Guy, looking remarkably cheerful for someone who has just had to shoot a sheep, appears out of the darkness, trailed by indeterminate woolly lumps which Laura assumes must be the rest of the sheep. His dog skims the group, trotting back and forth just beyond the beam of torchlight.
‘Fine, thanks.’ She nods, and this vigorous movement is too much for the sodden brim of her straw hat. It drops flat over her eyes like a pair of blinkers. Laura removes the hat. ‘What shall we do with them all?’
Guy unlocks the gate and marches out towards the back end of his truck. ‘We need to get this lot dry. If you wait while I get the sheep in the back, could you drive them back to my place and I’ll lead the pony? I won’t be far behind you. It’s only a mile or so.’ Laura nods, hoping he can’t see the degree to which her heart has sunk. She is frozen, soaked and shocked. All she wants is a hot bath and an anaesthetising drink, and instead she’s going to spend the next part of the evening driving sheep around.
‘You can leave your car here and I’ll bring you back to fetch it later,’ says Guy, throwing her the keys of his. Laura catches them and climbs stiffly into the driver’s seat. She is secretly impressed by Guy’s handling of the situation. He seems able to keep his head in a crisis, which Laura, who invariably weeps or laughs, while Inigo shouts, finds enviable and attractive.
Guy appears by her door. ‘I’ll soak your seat.’ She searches on the floor for something to sit on, but there is nothing. Guy reaches in and stretches his hand over hers on the steering wheel. Laura looks at their touching hands and says nothing.
‘Christ, you’re frozen.’ Guy takes off his coat and tucks it over her legs. ‘Get going and when you get there, drive into the big barn and open the back of the truck. There’s loads of hay in there and the sheep will be fine until I get back. Then go into the house and have a bath.’ Laura raises her eyebrows as she starts the engine.
Guy grins. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be shouting orders at you,’ and he leans across the steering wheel and kisses her. On the mouth. Without thinking, Laura kisses him back and warmth floods through her veins again. The music pounds in her head. Her skin is so numb she wouldn’t have thought she could feel anything, but Guy’s arm is around her waist and she shudders, leaning towards him, her hands holding his face. Guy is half in the car now. Laura is breathless and electric. His hand is under her shirt, Laura gasps and lets her head roll back. As she does so, the music stops with a click as the tape ends. Laura wrenches herself to reality. Cold, wet reality.
‘I must go.’ She pushes Guy away and slams the door, her cheeks flaming as she grates the gears and manoeuvres the truck away from the flooded field. Her instinct is to put her foot down, get the sheep back and get out, but she hasn’t got her car, or indeed her keys as they are in her car, back at the field, and anyway, the sheep would probably break if she went more than twenty miles an hour. Determinedly not thinking about anything except sheep, Laura crawls back to Guy’s house and drives in the barn. Now what? She could sit in the truck in the dark until Guy and the pony arrive, or she could go into the house and have a bath.
In the bath, Laura lies back in scented water, relieved that it is orange blossom, and not sugar beet extract. She shuts her eyes and slides down until all of her except her face is underwater. It is calming, but her thoughts are still tumbling out:
‘Unbelievable. What do I think I’m doing? How can this have happened now, when I thought it couldn’t. It wouldn’t. I thought this would never happen. I mean, I never thought this would happen. Actually, I’m overreacting. Nothing has happened, just a kiss, that’s all. No one will ever know about that’ She sits up and reaches for a sponge, trickling water down the centre of her face with it. ‘I shouldn’t be in the bath in this house. Mind you, it smells amazing, Guy ought to be producing this stuff.’
She picks up the bottle and reads the label. ‘Celia’s making it. Clever her, it’s blissful. I wonder if she’s been back here? Oh God, I heard something. He’s back now and I’m still in the bath. I look as if I’m leading him on. I feel as if I am too. I should go back outside and be in the barn, but it’s too late, I can hear him on the stairs now. The door isn’t locked. That’s provocative. Mind you, I couldn’t lock the door because there isn’t a lock. Anyway, he hasn’t come in. Why hasn’t he come in? He started it. Now what’s going to happen?’
Laura gets out of the bath and looks with disfavour at the pile of sodden clothes she was wearing. She’ll have to borrow something. Once she has the dry clothes she can go home and life will return to its normal equilibrium. Except it hasn’t got one. Normal has gone. Not that life with Inigo is normal by many people’s standards, but to Laura and the children it is. Perched on the edge of the bath, her ability to move diminishes. She has pulled the plug out, and the last drops gurgle away as she sits, now dry, and still warm in her towel, staring at the dirty clothes in the corner, not wanting to put them on.
Guy knocks at the door. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello.’
‘I thought you might need some dry clothes.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought.’
‘Well, they’re here, outside the door. Shall I pass them to you?’
Feeling that the conversation is labouring, and anxious to dispel this self-consciousness, Laura flings open the door, holding her towel up.
‘Thanks,’ she smiles, reaching for the clothes. Guy takes a step towards her, and in reflex she raises the towel higher. Startled, Guy backs away again; he swallows nervously.
‘I’m not coming in,’ he says.
‘Certainly not,’ agrees Laura with dignity. She turns on her heel and goes back into the bathroom. Shutting the door, she glimpses her back view in the mirror. The towel in no way covers her bottom. This is a pity. Laura looks again: actually, it is a big pity.
She dresses quickly, much enjoying the sense of exciting thinness brought about by being lent jeans and a shirt that are far too big. Even the socks flop off her feet, reminding her of the high-heeled moment when she had thought her feet had put on weight. Just thinking about high heels and urban clothes makes her stomach flip. Everything is so complicated. It would be so nice to sit by the fire here and to have someone to talk to. Gloomily she remembers that the Rayburn hadn’t got going properly before she left – it will have gone out again now. And she didn’t get any roadkill for Vice. Damn.
Laura bundles her wet clothes into a bag and goes downstairs. Guy is crouched in the fireplace, blowing a smoking wigwam of kindling. He stands up to pour Laura a drink, touching her fingers as he passes her the glass.
‘It’s a Whisky Mac. It’s the most warming drink I could think of.’
Laura takes a gulp and coughs, as the strong sweetness catches in her throat. ‘It’s delicious,’ she says hoarsely.
‘I’m glad I bumped into you,’ says Guy conversationally, as if they have just met at the shop in the village. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Greece. I’m thinking of buying a farm there.’
Laura perches on the arm of the chair by the fire and looks at Guy, a suspicion beating in her head. He stands, one foot on the fender, leaning his shoulders against the mantlepiece, looking down into the fire. He is still wearing jeans with mud caked around the hem, and his hair is standing on end. He looks up, half-smiling, feeling Laura’s gaze,
‘What?’ he says.
‘Nothing,’ she replies, and suddenly it has gone. All the confusion and yearning, wanting and wishing is past. Inside, Laura is just empty, rattling sadness. ‘I’m sorry, Guy. I’ll always be sorry.’
Bewildered, he moves towards her. ‘Sorry about what? You have nothing to be sorry for. Do you?’ There is panic in his voice. ‘Please can you stop looking like that, Laura.’ He is crouching by her chair now. She puts her glass down and holds his hands.
‘I wasn’t the right person for you a long time ago, and I’m still not. I can’t lead the life you want. I never could. But I thought I might be able to. Recently.’ She stands up and moves to the door, feeling on the hooks for her coat, her vision blurred with tears. ‘I need to go now please, Guy.’
He is beside her, holding her coat for her, raking his hands through his hair in anxiety. ‘But I wasn’t even talking about that – wasn’t thinking of now. Why are you rushing on, Laura?’
She picks up her bag of clothes. ‘I know you weren’t, you probably haven’t been thinking about it at all, but I have been, and it’s wrong,’ she says baldly.
The music in the truck is still Fred’s tape. A haunting ballad, not typical of his taste, but one of Inigo’s favourites, begins to play. Laura turns up the volume and gazes out at the starlit sky, so miserable, self-absorbed and lonely she can almost relate to teenagers again. Neither she nor Guy speaks until they reach her car in the mud-churned gateway of the flooded field.
‘Thanks,’ she says and slams the truck door on the lamenting voice of lost love. In her own car she switches on her phone, but the battery is flat, so she can’t call the children. She’ll go to the pub and do it when she’s been home and lit the fire.
Alone in the car, she tries to pull herself together and be rational. It’s so easy to wish someone is here when they aren’t. Look how she built up a whole fairy-tale around Guy. And all of it evaporated with a kiss. Now she can admit to herself how keen she had been. How she built her snatched weekend life at the Gate House on Guy’s foundations. How the grass seemed greener in the country. But it isn’t. None of it was ever real, never could be, but it’s sad and empty to wake up to that just now. And Laura is alone.
It’s so easy to wish someone is here when they aren’t. Particularly when they are departing for another continent; of course, there is the intransigence, the overbearing bossiness, the control freakery. It’s nice not having that around. But Laura’s not thinking about that. She’s got the apron he wears for cooking on her mind. It’s hanging on the back of the kitchen door. And the flowers he buys all the time, lilies usually, which fill the house with luxurious scent. It’s silly to be remembering these small things and to forget the big picture. The big picture where she can’t see herself because she’s invisible in it. There, but invisible. It’s silly, but in Laura’s mind, Inigo is looking at her, intent and utterly focused and they’re kissing. She’s not just visible, she’s reflected in his eyes. It’s only in her own that she’s invisible.
Cold creeps through Laura from her feet; running into her heart. ‘I’ve blown it. I’ve blown it,’ she whispers. She stops the car on the road outside the Gate House. The lights are on in every room. Before she can think that she’s sure she didn’t leave them on earlier, the door opens and Zeus zooms down the path, puffing delight at seeing her. Laura’s heart leaps in her throat as she reaches the door. The children are here – Gina said she might bring them. Everything suddenly becomes less bleak.
‘Hello!’ she shouts, grinning as she walks in. There is no one in the kitchen; a bucket stands on the table, crammed with lilies, their scent riding on the warm air, making the Lodge sybaritic and delicious instead of spartan.
‘Oh, how lovely,’ she says, leaning into them, calling through to the sitting room. ‘They always remind me of Dad. How clever of you to bring them now he’s gone. Let’s leave him a message, shall we?’
‘What will you say?’
Laura twists round and Inigo, who should be on a plane, is behind her balancing a ring on the tip of his finger.
‘Inigo,’ Laura gasps. ‘What are you doing here?’
He takes her hand and puts the ring in her palm, then presses his hand on top.
‘I couldn’t leave you behind. I’m staying, I want to be with you, wherever you want to be, and I’m going down on one knee right now, with no cameras or agents or art galleries anywhere near, to ask you to marry me. I thought we could keep it a secret, just our secret. But only if you say yes.’
He strokes Laura’s hair. She nods, and he pulls her towards him to kiss her.
‘But I don’t want it to be a secret,’ she says.
Inigo is on his knee now, pushing the ring onto her finger. He looks up, relieved, as she says this, then grins wickedly.
‘That’s lucky, because I’ve already given an interview to the radio and I’ve begun work on a piece called My Wife, My Life.’
He stands up and wraps his arms around her. She clasps her hands behind his neck and whispers, ‘So what’s it like?’
He bends to kiss her. ‘It’s incredibly high maintenance, and it starts like this …’