The Country Escape. Jane Lovering
Christie, won’t you?’
These conversations with my mother were so underrun with currents of tension that they practically stood up on their own. Our relationship was cool, practical, distant; she sent presents for Poppy and saw her once or twice a year, always let me know of her own whereabouts. In return, I sent flowers for her birthday and Mothers’ Day, a personalised gift for Christmas, and the approved condolence cards when one of her circle died. All our interactions were very much based in the present; we had erased our past and it was never spoken of.
‘I will. Goodbye, Katherine.’
And that was it.
Other women, I knew, could have told their mothers about the isolation, the loneliness, the fear of failure. The cold dampness at night, when I lay awake listening to the distant sea or the rain against the windows, worrying about never working again at the grand old age of thirty-four. About my ultimately unsuccessful marriage, the lack of local jobs, the crumbliness of the cottage and the fourteen-plus hands of piebald squatter in the orchard. But not me. And the gap between the relationship I wanted with my mother and the one I had, and the currently strained relationship I had with my daughter, made me sit for longer than I should have done under that bare, swinging bulb.
I was eventually brought out of my dark thoughts by the fact that my phone was buzzing an incoming text against the palm of my hand. Maybe my mother had thought of something to add? I was about to lay it down without looking, when I saw the name on the screen.
G Hunter:
Sorry I’ve not been in touch. We’ve had a meeting and I’d like another chat about using your place as a location. Any chance we could meet up? There’s a really nice pub just outside Steepleton if you’re free this evening…
I didn’t even think twice. I texted back.
What time and what’s the name of the pub?
PS Patrick is fine, but needs to move.
G Hunter:
It’s The Grapes, up on the Bridport road. Eight o clock?
We can talk about Patrick too.
I’d been hoping for plans to move the pony, even the promise of an immediate single-horse trailer on the road. As it was, Patrick was running out of grazing in the orchard, and some recent rain had caused him to form a mud trail from the back of the field to the kitchen door, where he often stood disconcertingly staring in at me through the rattling glazing.
‘I’m going out for a while later,’ I called up the stairs, although Poppy probably had her earphones in and music blasting from her phone.
There was a moment of quiet and then her door opened a crack. ‘What?’
I repeated myself. It wasn’t an unusual experience. ‘I’m going to meet up with the man who might use the cottage for a location.’ Why I had to justify myself, I wasn’t sure.
‘Oh. Oh! Is this the bloke that knows Davin? Only, this boy on my bus, Rory, he’s in Year Twelve, he’s a bit of an idiot with a stupid haircut but he talks to me so there’s that, well, he says his mum runs this café, right, and he knows Davin, and his mum’s boyfriend, who I think is called Neil but that might be this other guy, he does sound on the new series! Probably a load of bollocks and he’s just trying to impress me.’
Well, at least she was still talking to me. I wasn’t sure if the stream of consciousness was better than the grunty silences; it took more processing but if you could winnow the sense out of it, there was often a giveaway or two to be gleaned. In this case, the name Rory. It sounded as though Poppy might have made a friend.
‘Yes, we’re going to have a chat about the cottage. And Patrick.’
‘You can’t send Patrick away, Mum. You can’t.’ The door closed again. It didn’t slam, but that was probably only due to the amount of stuff on the floor preventing it. The bulb swung as Poppy walked across the floor above, throwing weird shadows across the room.
I still hadn’t quite got used to the darkness out here; the way it came creeping in so early, like a lodger returning before the landlady had got the hoovering done and hoping not to be noticed. September had settled firmly over Dorset with cool nights giving way to warm days and the leaves beginning to brittle and brown on the trees. There was a smell in the air of ripe blackberries and burning and I had an almost atavistic urge to make jam, even though I’d never made jam in my life and hadn’t even read the ingredients on the side of the jars that we always bought in Waitrose.
It was nearly seven o’clock. If I was going to meet Gabriel, then I had to get a move on. I was still wearing the clothes I’d, quite frankly, been wearing for two weeks. Washing down walls was as far as I’d got with the whole ‘redecorating’ thing, but it wasn’t an activity that lent itself to designer clothing, so it was still jeans and an oversized shirt. The rubber gloves came and went, particularly when I was cleaning floors and picking up Patrick’s poo from the orchard. The bucket had gone on timeshare.
Showering was probably optimistic. The electric shower spat alternate gobbets of hot and cold water, so the temperature was more of an average than an actual, and it had a tendency to throw the trip switch out. I settled for washing my face, combing my hair and putting on a pair of clean jeans and a T-shirt and jacket. ‘The Grapes’ could be anything from a spit and sawdust pub frequented only by locals to a gourmet bistro with a universe of Michelin stars and a clientele recruited from the TV actors that lived nearby. I reasoned that this outfit would fit in with either eventuality, and, with instructions to Poppy to finish her homework and ring me if she needed anything, I headed off.
My tiny Kia was perfect for driving the local lanes. I’d resisted Luc’s urging to buy a 4 x 4 wagon for ‘safety’, and it was just as well because the narrow road to the top of the cliff, with its overhanging bracken and hawthorn, would have challenged anything much wider. I’d not really taken much notice when I’d first visited, still too shell-shocked by Luc’s declaration that he was selling the flat, although I had taken note of the removal company’s select and ripe language when they tried to get a full-sized lorry down as far as the cottage. Once out onto the lane that ran along the cliff, things got wider and easier and I wound my window down a little way to enjoy the chilly air, which brought in the smell of the sea. Up here, away from the constricting trees, there was a feeling of openness, the fields were grassy stretches of sheep behind gates, and the sky was huge overhead. Tucked into our little hillside, we didn’t get a lot of sky, so I wound the window down further and stared up at the pinpricked blackness as it unspooled above me.
I met a crossroads and turned towards Bridport, ignoring the signs to Christmas Steepleton. I’d only been down to the little seaside village once or twice and it had been full of lorries and cars then. Presumably filming for Spindrift was under way, or at least in the heavily planning stage, and the lack of parking and actual shops that didn’t sell tourist seaside stuff had kept me from returning. About a mile along the road, which was otherwise devoid of any buildings, was a blaze of lights and a full car park. I turned in, squeezed the Kia into a tiny corner space – another good reason not to have a big 4 x 4 – and somewhat hesitantly made my way around the building to the door.
A group of people were smoking outside, all laughing and jostling over a single lighter. I had one of those moments, when you know you are a twenty-first-century woman in possession of all her rights to enter a pub, yet internally there’s still a whisper from eighteen-ninety womanhood, when going into a pub solo was the mark of a woman touting for custom. I had to seize my courage and ball it up in both hands, take a deep breath and open the door.
Nobody noticed me. I’d been a little bit worried that there might be a Slaughtered Lamb moment of quiet and everyone turning to the door, but the crowded warmth and chatter inside didn’t miss a beat. I shouldered my way in and looked around.
‘Hi there!’ Gabriel was waving to me from a corner table just inside the door. ‘Sit down. This is Tansy Merriweather, who’s been in charge of location finding until now, and Keenan, our director. They’ve got a few