Country Plot Read online

  ‘I can tell. Your generosity touches me greatly. And I wouldn’t dream of parting with it. It’s the nicest thing you’ve ever given me. It will always remind me of you.’

  ‘You can’t keep it! Charlotte’s furious!’

  ‘You’ll have to buy her another one, then, won’t you?’ Jenna said with deep satisfaction, and put the phone down. She looked at her watch fondly. Serve him right, the cheapskate! Anyway, it was a small enough price to pay for four years of Jenna’s precious life.

  The family rallied round, each in their own way. Harriet phoned first.

  ‘Oh Jenna, I’m so sorry! And after four years! We all thought you were settled down for good. But you’ll find someone else, I know you will. You’re so smart and modern and everything, I bet they’ll be queuing up for you as soon as they know you’re free. But you and Patrick seemed so good together. Richard and I have only been waiting for you to announce you were getting married. And you’d have had such lovely babies! I know you’ve always wanted a family.’

  ‘But what about your good news?’ Jenna said. ‘Congratulations. Olly says you’re in pig again.’

  That was all it took. ‘Yes, and we’re so excited. A little brother or sister for Martha! We’ve talked about whether we want to know the sex beforehand, and we’ve decided it’s more exciting if we don’t, especially for Martha – though whether we’ll be able to stick by it I don’t know. They do rather pressure you when they do the scan, and it’s hard to resist. And everyone offers you their second-hand things for the baby and of course it’s awkward if you don’t know – not that it matters for things like buggies, and I suppose it doesn’t really matter if you dress a girl in blue things and vice versa, but when people offer you a choice of pink or blue it seems silly not to know. It’s due in October, did Olly tell you? Which is nice because we ought to have got settled down in time for Christmas. It’s going to be such a wonderful Christmas, with a new baby, and Martha will be old enough to really get the most out of it. She was too young last Christmas, though I’ll never forget the expression on her face when we first turned on the Christmas tree lights. It made me want to cry. And the new baby will make it seem all the more special – it will help her understand the baby Jesus stories so much better. I’m sure she’s going to be perfect with it, whichever it is, boy or girl, because she’s got such a lovely little personality, and she’s very gentle with her dolls. She was asking if she could have a little brother or sister just a couple of months ago, but we didn’t tell her then because we wanted to be absolutely sure before we did. It would be terrible to disappoint her. We’ll be telling her next weekend and making a little occasion out of it. I want her always to remember the day she first found out. It’s so wonderful that it happened so easily, because we’d always planned to have them two or three years apart, only when you’ve been on the pill you don’t know how long it will take your system to get straight again, but I must have fallen practically the moment we started trying. Richard’s been so sweet. He’s so supportive. I must tell you what he did when I told him . . .’

  Jenna was genuinely pleased for Harriet, and didn’t really want to talk about her horrible situation, so she listened happily and made the right remarks and thought about being an aunt again, and tried not to wonder if that’s all she would ever be.

  Michael was gravely sympathetic and then briskly professional. ‘Have you thought about making a claim against him?’

  ‘What do you mean, a claim?’

  ‘Well, four years is a long time, and from what Oliver says you’re coming out of it with nothing at all to show for it. I know the flat belongs to him, but don’t forget, all that time you were making a contribution. These days, the fact that you weren’t married doesn’t make as much difference as it used to. There’s a definite presumption of shared assets, and your contribution to the household budget gives you an equity in the total estate.’

  ‘You mean palimony?’ Jenna said.

  She could almost hear him wince over the wires. ‘We don’t use that expression. But you need to think very carefully about your situation, Jenna. You’ve lost your job, and now through no fault of your own you’ve lost your home, too. Patrick is well able to afford to buy you out, and that’s what he ought to do, morally as well as legally. It wasn’t all one-way traffic, you know. He benefited from your contribution just as much as vice versa, and you ought to be getting the facts together and the papers served before you’ve been apart for too long. Now, I can’t act for you myself because it’s not really my province, but I can put you in touch with a really good man who understands this kind of case and will get you the best possible settlement. And before you ask, you needn’t worry about legal costs, because Patrick is clearly the one at fault and he’ll have to pay your expenses as well as his own. But I’ll put up anything that needs to be found ahead of the judgement, don’t worry, because I know how you’re fixed. Now, let me tell you how we should approach it . . .’

  To Jenna’s surprise, Rock emailed her, via Oliver:

  Jen, always thought Patrick too glam to be true. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was closet gay. Better off without him. But bad luck about the job! Rotten for you, esp in recession. You should come out here – recession beginning to bite but still opportunities, and LA hooked on English accents etc which would give you the edge. Your CV good for mag work here – double the salary! Or you could think about getting into my line. Your looks and personality wd be a big hit and I’ve got contacts ;-) Think about it. Get the career right and the men will follow – and if they don’t, you’ve got the career!

  Even her mother telephoned, from a cellphone somewhere off Corfu.

  ‘Darling, I’m so sorry! What a blow. We quite thought you were settled. And that nice boy – such a looker, so charming, and a partner in the firm and everything! Frankly, I always wondered how you’d managed it! Not that you’re not a lovely girl, of course, darling, but you are a bit scatty and careless. I’ll never forget that time you were dancing about with your skirt whirling up and you had a hole in your knickers.’

  ‘Mummy, I was ten at the time.’

  ‘Were you? It seems like yesterday. But anyway, darling, I really am sorry, I promise you. You must be so miserable. My heart bleeds for you. And Clifford sends his condolences.’

  It always caught Jenna out when her mother called the Major Clifford. She always wondered for a split second who the hell Clifford was. ‘That’s nice of him.’

  ‘He is nice. We both think you ought to have a holiday before you try to get another job – do you good to get away for a bit. Clifford suggested you came out to us for a week or so, but the weather isn’t very nice out here at the moment, and frankly, darling, this boat is such a wretched little teacup, there’s hardly room to swing a cat. Just about tolerable for two, as long as they’re two small ones and they don’t mind standing close together, but with three you’d have to take numbers just to turn round.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mummy, I wouldn’t dream of intruding on you.’

  Her mother’s voice warmed with relief. ‘Darling! It wouldn’t be an intrusion! We’d love to have you! But you just wouldn’t be comfortable in this horrid old tub, and at a time like this you need to be comfortable most of all. It wouldn’t be a holiday otherwise, would it? And we both think you really ought to take a holiday. Get you out of yourself.’

  ‘I haven’t got any money for a holiday,’ Jenna said.

  ‘You ought to go and stay with Michael and Camilla. The Cotswolds are lovely at this time of year. And they have central heating that works, unlike that wretched Muswell Hill barn. There’s that charming room that Clifford and I stayed in at Michael’s last year, with the en-suite bathroom and dressing room. You’d be comfortable there.’

  ‘That was their room, Mummy – Michael and Camilla’s. I don’t think they’d give it up for me.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they? Well, perhaps not. In that case, you’d better not go to them. You might have to share with one of the
ir ghastly children. I know they’re my own grandchildren, but I can’t help thinking they take too much after Camilla’s side. I knew her father, you know, and he was an absolute pudding. Darling, I must ring off – this is costing a fortune. I’ll give some more thought to where you might go for a holiday, and ring again if I think of something. Clifford sends his love. Bye, darling. Be good.’

  Family! Jenna thought fondly as she replaced the receiver. You can’t beat it when there’s a spot of rallying round to be done.

  Four

  ‘I still think you ought to have a holiday,’ Sybil said, presiding over Sunday night supper. ‘You look really peaky.’

  ‘Peaky!’ Oliver snorted. ‘That’s the sort of word only mothers can use with credibility.’

  ‘I am a mother,’ Sybil pointed out. ‘You saw to that.’

  ‘What I need,’ Jenna said, ‘is to get a new job.’

  ‘Not until you’ve had a break. You’ve suffered a shock, and you need to get away,’ Sybil said. ‘Also I’d like to be able to say, when Patrick phones again, that you’re not living here.’

  ‘You can say it,’ Oliver mentioned.

  ‘I’m no good at lying. If she weren’t here I could sound convincing.’

  ‘I don’t have any money,’ Jenna said.

  ‘She needs a job,’ Oliver said, ‘and it may not be easy in the current climate.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Sybil, ever practical, ‘we must find her a job that feels like a holiday.’

  Jenna liked the sound of that. ‘What sort of thing would that be?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Tour rep, or tourist guide maybe.’

  ‘But those would be long-term jobs.’

  ‘OK, tour rep would be, but I’m sure a lot of the smaller tourist attractions must take on temporary staff for the summer.’

  ‘A lot of those places we went to down in Cornwall last year certainly would,’ Oliver agreed. ‘The lesser-known gardens and miniature trains and petting zoos and so on.’

  ‘Or equestrian centres,’ Sybil said. ‘You ride and you’re good with horses.’

  ‘I doubt they’d take on short-term staff,’ Oliver said.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to commit myself to a long term,’ Jenna said. ‘I need to get back into my career.’

  ‘What about house-sitting, then?’ Oliver said. ‘That can be as short-term as you like.’

  ‘Doesn’t pay very much,’ Sybil said.

  ‘It’s not supposed to,’ Oliver argued. ‘It’s supposed to be a holiday.’ He saw Jenna was looking tired, and knew she could not bear long arguments yet. ‘You just relax and leave it to us,’ he said. ‘We’ll think of something between us.’

  ‘Between us?’ she queried.

  ‘The family. I’ll talk to everyone and we’ll brainstorm. We’ll come up with the perfect thing for you. You just rest and read and don’t even think about it until I bring you the solution on a plate.’

  Jenna remembered her recent conversations with the family and thought Oliver’s confidence might be misplaced. But he was the master manipulator. Perhaps he would get better results. And she liked the idea of ‘the job that felt like a holiday’. She really did want to get away, she discovered. She didn’t want accidentally to catch another of Patrick’s phone calls. She didn’t want to open the front door and find him outside. She was afraid of what he might say and what her reaction might be. Leaving had been done on the strength of the moment, but she didn’t feel strong any more.

  Over the next few days, as she got over the weak and weepy stage, she found her feelings about him veering about alarmingly. She still hated him for what he had done, and she was heartsore and grieving, but she missed him so much that her longing for him was sometimes almost stronger than the hate. The thought that he was just down the road and accessible was scary.

  He had asked her to come back. Part of her wanted so much to go back. She wanted to sleep beside him, instead of in Oliver’s spare room. She wanted to breakfast with him and go home to him after work, share all the familiar small conversations and actions of accustomed lovers, the bread-and-butter of relationships. And he had said he knew of an opening for her, a really good job that she would enjoy. She might have her life back, her good, lucky life that everyone had envied! All she had to do was to dismiss what he had done from her mind.

  And was it so bad, after all? He said it was a mistake. People made mistakes. Wasn’t the grown-up, the civilized thing to do to forget it, to put the past behind her? Nobody was perfect, after all. We all needed understanding. Turn the other cheek. To forgive was divine. Let bygones be bygones. There were plenty of clichés to choose from. He had asked her to come back, that was the important thing.

  And if she delayed too long, he might change his mind. That insidious thought made her shiver. What if she missed her chance? He might meet someone else at any moment and her window of opportunity would slam shut. She’d never get another man as good as him. Let’s face it, she was heading for thirty, and good men were thin on the ground. She ought to grab what she could, and think herself lucky.

  She had almost got to the telephone on the stream of this thinking when she managed to stop herself. Craven, craven! He had betrayed her, deceived her, and had not even really felt he had done wrong. He had barely apologized. He had suggested she was being unreasonable in objecting. Had she really forgotten all that, just because she was scared no one else would ever fancy her?

  Whoever else she might live with in her life, she would have to live with herself. ‘And I don’t want to live with a pathetic, cringing coward like you,’ she addressed herself sternly in the mirror above the telephone table in the hall. She stuck her tongue out at herself, removed her hand from the receiver, grabbed a book, and went to sit out in the garden in the sunshine, because Sybil said she was office-pale and needed vitamin D.

  If Olly didn’t come up with anything, she decided, she would start looking for another job next week; and if she never had another man for the whole of the rest of her life, at least she would have her self-respect. A tiny voice in her mind told her that was a bleak prospect, not to say cold comfort, but she ignored it. The one thing she wouldn’t do was go back to Patrick. That was definite.

  Unless he begged her, the tiny voice added as a caveat, but she ignored it resolutely.

  ‘I’ve done it,’ Oliver said proudly, emerging from the house on a warm evening a few days later. ‘I am brilliant, a genius, an unparalleled fixer. Feel free to worship me, oh mere mortals.’

  Sybil and Jenna looked up from deckchairs where they were chatting and enjoying the last rays. The children (who should have been in bed) were playing at the other end of the garden, making the most of the oversight and effacing themselves in the shrubbery in the hope of extending it.

  ‘Fixed what?’ Sybil asked. ‘I hope you mean that dripping tap in Jenna’s bathroom?’

  ‘Do I look like a plumber?’ Oliver demanded scornfully. ‘Did Churchill go to Yalta to unclog the sink? Did they discuss drain-busting techniques at Bretton Woods? Anyway, why don’t you get Mr Thing in?’ he descended abruptly from the heights of rhetoric.

  ‘Because he has a call-out charge now,’ Sybil said reasonably, ‘so I was waiting for more than one thing to need attention. Thirty quid’s too much when it’s only a fifty-pee washer that needs changing. I’m sure you could do it, if you put your mind to it.’

  ‘We’re losing sight of the big picture here,’ Oliver said, frustrated. ‘We’re not supposed to be talking domestica. I have news of great joy, news of great mirth. I’ve solved Jenna’s problem.’

  ‘You’ve found me a job?’ she said, feeling a little curl of excitement in her stomach.

  ‘A job that will feel just like a holiday,’ Oliver said, taking the empty chair opposite the women. ‘I spoke to Michael and Rock and then I rang Ma, and she’s just rung back to say it’s fixed.’

  ‘Oh my God, I’m not going to have to be a chambermaid in someone’s villa?’ Jenna said. ‘She�
�s offered me up at slave wages to someone she owes a favour to!’

  ‘No!’ said Oliver. ‘Really, Jen, have a little faith.’

  ‘In Ma? I can’t think of any other reason she’d try to help me.’

  ‘Have faith in me, I mean,’ Oliver said. ‘It’s true she wasn’t keen to stir herself, but when I hinted that unless we thought of something she’d be forced to invite you out for a long rest, she sprang into action.’

  ‘Positively Machiavellian,’ Sybil drawled. ‘If this is going to be a long story, I need a drink. Oh goodness, those children! They ought to be in bed.’

  ‘Give them five more minutes, while Olly tells us the plan,’ said Jenna, ‘and then I’ll help you with them. I want to know my fate.’

  ‘You’ll love this,’ Oliver promised. ‘There’s this old relative, a sort of cousin of Ma’s, called Kitty Everest.’ He pronounced the name Eave-wrist. ‘It’s spelled like Mount Everest, apparently, but it’s pronounced like that. Anyway, she lives in this gorgeous old house in the country – like a stately home but in miniature – and she needs a live-in assistant, someone to do inventory and cataloguing work for her, and some secretarial. No special training necessary. Nothing a normal, literate, intelligent person can’t handle. But she’s a bit particular and doesn’t want a complete stranger, so you’d fit the bill perfectly.’

  Jenna looked doubtful. ‘Live-in assistant to an old lady? I’m not going to end up helping her into the bath and seeing she takes her pills, am I?’

  Oliver laughed. ‘No, she’s not old like that. She’s only about Ma’s age, perfectly fit and compos mentis. I probably shouldn’t have called her old. I mean, sixty isn’t old these days – look at the Major. Rock says Ma told her she was quite a tearaway in her youth. And Michael’s met her, and he says she’s nice – bright and funny.’

  ‘Met her recently? I don’t remember Ma talking about her.’

  ‘He met her a couple of years ago. Something legal she went to him for, because of the family connection. I think that might have been when her husband died – did I mention she was a widow? He and Rock remembered her being around when they were little – they called her Aunty Kitty – but Ma sort of lost touch with her over the years. You know the way it goes. I mean, we never see any of our cousins, do we?’