In passing, I fear Carrie’s soon going to sack Toby, who’s on paternity leave because Bump has arrived. He’s a dear little baby, but Phoebe is already expecting the whole of Willowwood to babysit for nothing.
But to return to our summer of discontent, foot and mouth has caused hideous problems for Marius, preventing him moving his horses around. Even worse, poor little Chisolm has become such a celebrity, she’s being stalked by DEFRA because she’s got cloven hooves. They first suffocated some other poor goat at a nearby farm, by way of an example, then buzzed all over Marius’s yard in helicopters trying to track down and kill off Chisolm. Mrs Malmesbury was convinced World War III had broken out.
In fact the bird had flown. Ione had already very sportingly allowed Chisolm to be hidden in the priest’s hole at Willowwood Hall. Chisolm isn’t at all grateful and keeps escaping. She’s already demolished Direct Debbie’s roses and eaten the piece Ione was writing for Compost Weekly and the minutes of Alban’s quango on doctors.
Far more seriously, without her bleating friend, Mrs Wilkinson is flatly refusing to go to the races. Marius dragged her all the way to Fontwell and she wouldn’t even unload. She’s become a complete prima donna and a prima donna who ain’t mobile, which means my story of her life is at a standstill.
Meanwhile everything else is horrible. All livestock movements are stopped, auctions and market places empty of animals.
What’s really unnerving Willowwood is that Lester Bolton has bunged the District and Parish Councils so much, he’s been allowed to install a vast moat round Primrose Mansions, not only diverting two streams into it but also topping it up with endless tankers of water. If the predicted floods occur, we’re all going to be submerged. We’d better get Joey to build an ark.
As a result, all the locals blacked Lester and Cindy’s arse-warming party, except H-H and Jude, Martin and Romy, and our own wank manager, the Major, who all live on high ground anyway. I went along too, reluctantly – writers have to experience everything – but it was terribly funny. The party was roaring away in Lester’s underground leopardskin bar when Jude rolled up so hot and sweaty from jogging with Martin that Cindy persuaded her to strip off and go fatty-dipping in Lester’s glass-bottomed swimming pool.
Suddenly the room went dark and the guests, who included lots of Lester’s porn clients, choked on their cheap champagne as this vast whale, far bigger than the one in the Natural History Museum, started splashing around above us. She is enormous. Martin claims she’s lost eight kilos, but I can’t see where. Harvey-Holden was laughing his head off, he’s such a shit. Evidently Lester is in line for a gong. Pity Orwell isn’t alive today to write The Road to Becoming a Peer.
Anyway, darling, I’ve rabbited along for long enough, I hope you and Paris are having fun, everyone sends love. I know Trixie would adore to see you, she hasn’t got a boyfriend at the moment and seems awfully low.
The syndicate’s getting very fed up with no Wilkie to watch. In fact we’re so starved of jaunts, we’re off in July to see Family Dog run at Worcester. He’s 200–1. Loads of love, Alan.
PS. Amber’s wrist is recovered and she’s back fighting with Rafiq over who’s going to ride Mrs Wilkinson – so perhaps it’s best the dear pony refuses to race.
104
July brought a heatwave – infuriating because it was the going Mrs Wilkinson loved. Etta’s stream dried to a trickle, paths cracked, and Ione policed the village for illicit sprinklers, chiding those who had not created compost that would have provided moisture for their flower beds.
Valent, who’d been far too embarrassed to contact Etta after breaking down in front of her, felt compelled to ring her when a second ship decanter, duly engraved, arrived from his friends at Goldstein Phillipson.
‘You shouldn’t have paid for it, Etta.’
‘I didn’t, I didn’t, they were such fans of yours they had another one made for free. They wrote me such a lovely letter.’ Etta didn’t add that they’d begged her to look after Valent.
‘Well, that’s a relief then. Come and have a drink,’ said Valent.
It was another ravishing evening. Jupiter, the archetypal alpha male, blazed above Marius’s yard, billowing blue-black clouds were echoed in shape by deepening green trees, the air was heavy with the scent of a thousand roses, honeysuckle, philadelphus, rank