Painswick with surprising ferocity. ‘She didn’t think carefully about cutting Harold’s hours.’
They were joined by Alan, who’d been for an unlikely walk, with his shirt buttons done up wrong. He urged Miss Painswick to get the ivy off, ‘Pocock’s such an old pro,’ and insisted on carrying Etta’s shopping home.
‘But what about the birds and the bees?’ Etta asked him anxiously.
‘I don’t think Painswick knows much about them,’ said Alan.
So Painswick gave Pocock the go-ahead.
After a restless night, Painswick set out for Throstledown. Marius’s remaining horses were out in the fields, shaking manes and tails, kicking irritably to drive away the flies from their bellies. Heavy rain in the night had bowed down the willows, so, like George Eliot’s hair, their crinkly pale green tresses divided at the top to reveal yellow partings.
Half an hour later, Pocock rolled up at Ivy Cottage, shinned up his ladder and began cutting back, tugging, pulling, clipping, sweating, swearing. By working frenziedly, he managed to get half the ivy off the first day and returned on Saturday. Collecting a cup of tea and leaving Miss Painswick to scrub the kitchen floor, he was soon up his ladder, cutting and pulling, trying to swear less.
Tugging off the ivy which was threatening to invade a rather pretty bedroom window, he nearly fell off his ladder, for there, changing to go out after a vigorous morning’s housework, was a naked Miss Painswick. Pocock had to grab hold of a clump of ivy, for she had the most charming body, with full high breasts, and as she turned, a plump but firm bottom curving in at the waist. Leaning inwards, he discovered there was not a varicose vein in sight and her pubic hair was the softest mouse brown.
Scrambling down the ladder, a huge erection steepling his dungarees, Pocock frantically pretended to be draining a cold cup of tea as Etta and Priceless arrived to take Joyce shopping.
Five minutes later, hearing excited squeaks of ‘Joyce, Joyce,’ Painswick ran out to find Etta admiring the cottage and Pocock’s work.
‘Oh Joyce, the cottage looks so pretty and Harold’s just unearthed the most charming little window upstairs.’
Painswick, primly dressed in her grey boxy jacket and straight skirt, stood back to look, her lips pressed ready to disapprove.
‘It does look nice, very nice indeed. Thank you, Harold. You were quite right.’
‘Not finished yet,’ Pocock smiled, showing several missing teeth.
As he finished stripping her house, he now dreamed of undressing her as well.
Pocock wouldn’t take any payment, so Painswick presented him with a lovely dark blue scarf she’d been knitting him to say thank you and invited him round for a drink the following afternoon.
Having invested in a couple of bottles of really good red, she spent a happy afternoon making canapés: asparagus rolls, smoked salmon sandwiches, cheese straws, mushroom vol-auvents, sweet potato wedges and little chicken kebabs, all laid out on a table spread with a pretty pale blue cloth.
On impulse, Miss Painswick removed all the photographs of Hengist Brett-Taylor and replaced them with vases of flowers from the garden. Then she settled down to read the Lady and Country Life. She loved working at Throstledown but it was nice to get away.
Harold arrived in a lightweight dog-tooth check jacket, a bright blue tie and off-white trousers. Miss Painswick thought how dashing he looked, with his ruddy face and shock of white hair, and going into the kitchen for a bottle of red, gave herself another squirt of Anaïs Anaïs.
Pocock was very touched by the banquet on the drawing-room table, and although he would have much preferred beer, he was even more touched by the seriousness of the red.
‘The cottage looks wonderful, so much bigger and lighter inside,’ said Miss Painswick. ‘You were quite right, I should have done it years ago, thank you so much. I hope you’ll help me choose some roses for growing up the sides.’
Pocock, almost too nervous to eat, nibbled at a mushroom vol-au-vent.
‘Have a stuffed date,’ said Miss Painswick.
Though they had never had any trouble chattering before, they found themselves embarrassingly robbed of speech and were relieved when Chisolm leapt over the back garden fence. Pausing to dead-head a few roses, she trotted bleating up the lawn, in through the French windows and greeted them both fondly, nicking a cheese straw before settling in a flowered chintz armchair.
‘Do you think she’s had a domestic with Wilkie?’ asked Painswick. But as she rose to fill Pocock’s glass, Chisolm bossily nudged her hand, spilling dark red wine all