her neck, she couldn’t resist putting her head back to trap it. She noticed, in the setting sun, meadow browns and peacock butterflies going berserk in the nettles. Like me, she thought, giddy with relief, now he’s beside me again.
‘Where’s Bonny?’ she asked even more sulkily.
‘Rushed back to minister to gallant Valent. She does love him in her way.’
‘Poor sod, how can you put up with her?’
‘I have to act I’m in love with her on stage. Like that silly old joke. “Did Ophelia sleep with Hamlet?” “Always on tour, but never in the West End.”’
Trixie laughed. She could hear Marius’s horses calling to each other. Above Throstledown, Jupiter had risen dazzling gold. The breeze ruffling the drenched trees sounded like rushing water.
The raging stream pouring across the footpath was filling up her gumboots, so Seth picked her up. Reaching the other side, wondering complacently if he was the reason she’d lost so much weight, he found her trembling mouth on a level with his, and kissed it very gently.
‘Please forgive me. Can’t we start seeing each other again?’
‘Not if you’re going to cool off. I’m not Priceless, to be dumped when you’ve got better things or women to do.’
‘I promise.’
As Seth put her down, Priceless took off again, dispersing a party of rabbits taking refuge from flooded holes on a grassy hillock. As Trixie waded on, trying to stay in control, she caught sight of a blue plastic bag full of yellow daisies lying in the long grass.
‘What’s that?’ asked Seth.
‘Ragwort. Poisonous for horses if it’s not pulled up. Gives them ulcers, kills them eventually. Just as loving you destroys me,’ she said bitterly before she could stop herself.
‘Darling, you mustn’t say that.’
‘I ought to get back.’ Turning round she could see windows dimly lit by candles because most of Willowwood’s houses still had no power.
‘Don’t go. Your dad was in the pub, but he was going straight home to look after Etta,’ lied Seth. ‘“I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?”’ he murmured. The words always worked.
Next moment, he had taken her in his arms, warming her with the heat of his body, drawing her behind a hedge where they collapsed on a sodden bed of willow herb.
‘Oh Trixie, Trixie, Trixie, my lovely water baby.’ His practised hand unhooked her bra and unzipped her jeans and she was lost and a second later naked against the shocking-pink flowers. ‘You are so beautiful,’ Seth said truthfully.
There was no time or need for foreplay, such was their longing. But at the moment of bliss, as he drove deeply into her, she was distracted by a terrible screaming.
‘What’s that?’
‘Hush, it’s only Priceless, got some baby rabbit.’
‘We must save it.’ Trixie tried to leap up but Seth pushed her back.
‘Not a hope, he’ll rip it to shreds in an instant.’ But as his lips stopped any further protest, Trixie realized that in his arms she was as helpless as that poor baby rabbit.
110
Etta was in despair. She had visited her bungalow. Everything was wrecked: the red buttonback chair, Sampson’s king-sized bed, the sea-blue sofa off which Priceless had kicked everyone, the television, the ancient gramophone, all her books impossibly crinkled as though she’d dropped them in the bath, the Munnings of the mare and foal, which she’d known she could sell off if all else failed.
Suddenly ‘Blot’ and the tiny shady garden where she, Gwenny and Priceless had been happy and so many people, especially Valent, had dropped in, seemed immeasurably dear. So did her Polo, which she’d been forced to abandon in the road. Even if dried off it was most unlikely to pass its MOT.
Etta wished someone would butter her paws. Her mobile had vanished in the flood and no one knew she was now at Alan and Carrie’s. Carrie, who’d whizzed down to assess the damage, was predictably unsympathetic.
‘Don’t know why you’re upset, Mother, Martin and I made sure you were well insured. So you can replace everything with some nice stuff from IKEA and have a few bob left to spoil yourself.’
Etta was frantic to ring Valent, to hear his voice, to thank him, but when she finally screwed up enough courage, Bonny answered.
‘He’s busy,’ she said icily. ‘Hasn’t he helped you enough, Etta? He doesn’t need lascivious old “ladies”,’ deliberately Bonny put quotes round the word, ‘invading his personal space.’
As the rain stopped and the River Fleet slowly retreated, Willowwood started the massive task of clearing up. After Bonny’s