‘I’m so sorry, naughty, naughty Chisolm, bad girl. Oh, your smart trousers, I’m so sorry.’
Salt was the answer, but she was so flustered she couldn’t find the salt cellar and instead seized a dishcloth. Filling a bowl with hot soapy water, she started sponging down Pocock’s trousers, furiously rubbing at his crotch.
‘So, so sorry.’ She paused, to wonder if salt would be better.
‘No, no,’ croaked Pocock, emboldened by wine, asphyxiated by Anaïs Anaïs and feeling pretty breasts pressed against his arm. ‘This is much better. Oh Joyce.’
As she rubbed, Miss Painswick realized something inside his trousers was moving upwards and her pursed mouth fell open in surprise.
‘You’re so pretty,’ muttered Pocock, putting out a rough garden-grooved hand, stroking her hair until it fell out of its prim bun. Then, cupping her head, he drew it close, glancing at her in wonder, ‘Oh Joyce,’ and he kissed her amazed mouth.
‘Oh Harold,’ sighed Painswick, ‘this is a surprise,’ particularly as his hand left her hair and began to unbutton her navy-blue dress so he could slide it inside her bra, where he found breasts just as thrilling as the ones he’d seen through the window.
‘You’re so lovely,’ he gasped, as Painswick’s scented softness and plumpness collapsed on top of him.
Unchecked, unnoticed, Chisolm worked her way through asparagus rolls, stuffed dates, mushroom vol-au-vents, cheese straws, sweet potato wedges and the brown bread and butter beneath the smoked salmon, and then managed Country Life, the Lady and a few pages of Thoroughbred Owner and Breeder for pudding.
112
Etta was delighted when a glowing Painswick confided that she and Harold were now an item. Did he propose on Gardeners’ Question Time? she wondered. She was, however, ashamed how low she felt to think that Pocock, not she, would in future be enjoying cosy suppers of macaroni cheese and Midsomer Murders. Joyce had been such a staunch, comforting friend.
Far worse, after Bonny’s horrible jibes about her being a ‘lascivious old lady’, Etta had been very off-hand with Valent and refused all his invitations. Then she grew increasingly and miserably aware of how much she had come to depend on his friendship and kindness, as snatches of music or poetry reminded her of the lovely evenings they’d spent together.
She was desperately broke. Martin was grudging about helping her repair her car and the damage caused by the floods. The blackberries she used to pick while walking Priceless were over. She’d eaten all the apples which hung over her fence from Valent’s orchard. Pavarobin was most put out that she no longer mixed cake and croissants with his birdseed. She imagined the fish in Valent’s pond mouthing reproachfully when she no longer passed by to tend his garden. Gwenny and Priceless had got so used to chicken and liver she felt as disconsolate as a restaurateur trashed by A. A. Gill when they flatly rejected tinned or dried food.
Conkers baked in the oven soaked in vinegar and threaded with string for Drummond’s birthday were equally spurned, Drummond displaying no interest in ‘boring old nuts’. Later Etta received an irate call from Romy: had she no idea how much damage conker fights caused, had she not heard of Health and Safety?
Etta longed to send the conkers to Valent, and thought wistfully what fun they could have had playing with them. Only the rose she had grafted for him, growing on her window ledge since the flood, seemed a link with the past.
Her great fear was that Mrs Wilkinson, now over the cough and match-fit, would have to be sold, because none of the syndicate could afford training fees any more.
One cold October evening, coming out of the village shop she bumped into Mop Idol and, hoping for news of Valent, asked her home for a cup of tea. Mop Idol looked so thin and pale compared with her usual lovely blonde buxom self that Etta wished she’d been able to afford to make sloe gin this year. There were only two teabags left, Etta hoped she wouldn’t want a second cup, but when she asked after Joey, Mop Idol burst into tears. He had failed to keep up the mortgage payments. He was so overdrawn that the bank was threatening to repossess the house. Last week he’d put the wages on a horse which had lost and he was betting maniacally to recoup his losses.
‘Isn’t there still work,’ Etta felt her voice go thick, ‘at Badger’s Court to be done?’