and what about the private cinema Valent was going to build for her? Even worse, Mrs Wilkinson would be back in the office, which meant Etta Bancroft and that pestilential goat bleating round the place 24/7.
Immediately she rang Romy, who was appalled and rang Etta.
‘You must stop taking advantage of Valent’s kindness. Don’t you realize Bonny is an artist who needs her personal space? She has incredibly kindly put her name to a beautiful letter launching WOO – the War on Obesity. Do you really want to rock the boat?
‘Valent has a sentimental attachment to Mrs Wilkinson, but he’ll soon transfer his affections to another horse.’
Etta was mortified, but it was too late. Joey, utterly fed up with repainting and being bossed about, was joyfully transforming the office back into a stable and the cockpit into an office. It meant several months’ more work. He wanted to put his elder daughter on the tennis circuit, and he was worried Chrissie might be pregnant. Times was hard.
The change in Mrs Wilkinson was dramatic. Installed in Badger’s Court, peering over a newly painted dark blue half-door, she could see the orchard and the valley. Etta was close by and Chisolm, chewing the bark off apple trees and stealing the workmen’s lunches, was never far away. Gwenny curled up on her back again, and the syndicate popped in to see her as they’d never felt able to at Throstledown.
She’d perked up in a fortnight and was walking by the end of July. Etta, having been so upset by Romy and Bonny, had also cheered up. Listening to her singing as she skipped out Mrs Wilkinson and rebandaged her legs, Willowwood smiled.
‘So lovely for her, having her Village Horse home again.’
75
Etta’s apparent ecstasy was not just due to Mrs Wilkinson’s return to Badger’s Court. One lovely morning soon after she had moved back in, Etta was watering her garden, delighting in the way white and pink clematis and honeysuckle swarmed up the mature conifer hedge as if to catch a glimpse of Valent.
But she mustn’t think of Valent, who was on a yacht somewhere, supposedly ‘mending his relationship’ with Bonny.
Etta did, however, still harbour a long-distance crush on Seth and was saving up to see him at Stratford when he opened as Benedict in Much Ado.
The stream had dried to such a trickle, she was just sliding her watering can along the pebbly bottom to refill it when Stefan the Pole rolled up and admired Etta’s garden saying he wished Corinna and Seth were more interested in theirs, so many plants had died in the drought. Corinna Waters, reflected Etta, was something of a misnomer – but she had been away on tour.
Stefan confided that, pre-Stratford, Seth was running around like a ‘blue-iced fly’. He then handed Etta an envelope marked ‘Private’.
The letter was on Royal Shakespeare paper.
‘Darling Mrs B,’ she read incredulously, ‘I know I shouldn’t write this but I think you’re absolutely gorgeous and bedworthy. We must keep it a secret but I wonder if you’d have lunch with me on Wednesday, one-ish at Calcot Manor. I’m not expecting miracles, but if by any chance you’re free just turn up and I’ll be waiting. Yours adoringly, Seth (Bainton).’
And she’d covered it with earthy finger marks. Rushing inside, Etta had to sit down and read the letter twenty times, leaping up to check in the mirror that she was ‘gorgeous and bedworthy’ and real.
‘Oh my goodness,’ she cried, gathering up Gwenny and dancing round the room. ‘Could he mean me? “Yours adoringly”?’ And Wednesday was tomorrow.
Etta was waltzing on air, worries about syndicates and fractured cannon bones forgotten. Rushing off to Larkminster, she blued most of next month’s pension on a dress in lilac linen which brought out the dark violet of her eyes. Such a pretty dress needed new dark blue high heels and a lovely new scent called 24 Faubourg.
And if I’m going to be an Oldie, decided Etta, I’m going to be a golden one, and had blonde highlights put back in her hair.
Wednesday was ideal because Drummond and Poppy were going to some end-of-term party and didn’t have to be picked up until four o’clock. As she got out of the shower on Wednesday morning, however, euphoria gave way to despair. If only she could afford some Botox, or her body looked less old and unused, as the morning sun fell on the evening pleating on her breastbone and inside arms. Perhaps the letter was a wind-up.