a fox rolled up. The ganders waddled away but poor Spotty was heavy with eggs and couldn’t run. The vile fox stripped off her feathers and was sucking her blood when Mrs M got back. She rushed her to Charlie Radcliffe but it was too late.
‘The two young ganders now sit on Spotty’s feathers, which the fox scattered everywhere, and call for her. But what’s really sad,’ Etta’s voice trembled, ‘is poor, blind old Honky is utterly heart-broken. Spotty used to lead him everywhere, but because he can see slightly out of one eye, to comfort him, Mrs Malmesbury leaves him on the terrace, so he catches a glimpse of his own reflection in the kitchen window and thinks it’s Spotty.
‘Niall was so sweet to her just now, he’s so much more outgoing these days. Did you know that foxes were illegal immigrants? Henry V was so enamoured of hunting at Agincourt, he brought them back here after the battle.’
Etta suddenly realized neither she nor Valent had a drink and she was chattering into a vacuum. Turning, she gasped in dismay. Like rain trickling down the side of a grey castle wall, the tears were pouring down Valent’s cheeks. It was the poignancy of the old gander kept happy by his own reflection, an illusion that his wife was still alive. Next moment he collapsed on the sofa, narrowly missing Priceless.
‘Oh Etta, if only I could see Pauline again – even if it was only the shadow of my own reflection in a window. I was such a workaholic, whizzing round the world, I never told her how much I luved her.’
Perching on the edge of the sofa, Etta put her arms round him.
‘There, there, darling. Please don’t cry. Of course you miss her, but I’m sure she knew. Please don’t be sad.’
It was like holding a huge bison brought down by the huntsman’s spear. Etta just hugged, patted and handed him one sheet of kitchen roll after another. Gradually the sobs subsided, so she poured him a mahogany whisky.
‘I’m sorry, I’m such a bluddy wuss.’
‘You’re not, you’re the bravest, kindest person I know. What happened, what is it?’
Stumblingly he told her about Pauline’s things and Bonny wanting him to chuck them out.
‘It was her perfume that did it.’
‘You could leave her things here, if that would help.’
‘You’d have to put them on the roof,’ Valent laughed shakily.
Priceless, who didn’t like dramas, nudged Valent with his long nose. Next moment, Gwenny had jumped through the window on to his knee and started purring.
For a second Valent pressed a great muscular forearm to his eyes, his shoulders shaking again. Then he picked up Gwenny and plonked her on Etta’s knee.
‘Forgive me, Etta, I’ve been a wimp. I’m so sorry. Priceless needs his sofa back.’
Stumbling to his feet, he squeezed her hands, then patted Gwenny and Priceless and lumbered off into the night.
Next day he ordered Joey to install an electric fence down to the ground round Mrs Malmesbury’s geese run, sent Etta lilies and altroemerias and flew off to the Far East, bitterly ashamed of himself. He had never broken down since Pauline died.
103
Towards the end of June, Alan, who was longing for the school holidays so he could see more of Tilda, took his laptop and a bottle of red into the garden and seated himself under a big lime tree which was in flower.
He could hear, like a great orchestra, the growling hum of bees glutting themselves on the sweetly scented flowers. How industrious they were, unlike him. Disinclined to work, he decided to send Dora an email, which he could use later as material for his book on Mrs Wilkinson:
Darling Dora, Please come home, we need you to cheer us up. You were so right to suggest Rafiq rode Wilkie, they were really flying – but everything seems to have gone belly up. Talk about a summer of discontent.
For a start the terrorist bomb scares have made everyone even more suspicious of poor Rafiq, who thought every policeman at the races was going to arrest him, particularly now his infamous cousin Ibrahim has been peddling propaganda on the internet.
Secondly, the stock exchange crash has screwed the hedge fund market, disastrous for my dear wife Carrie, who is putting a lot of pressure on yours truly to make some money out of writing. This makes me so depressed, I ought to interview myself for my depression book, but I’ve been forced to send it off to my publishers as