Etta admired the soaring spire and glinting gold weathercock.
‘Twelfth century.’ Dora was about to push through the big oak door when she glanced at the noticeboard in the porch.
‘Oh bugger, run for it. Flower de-rangers at eleven thirty.’ Then, at Etta’s startled look: ‘Mrs Travis-Lock and Debbie Cunliffe are about to do the flowers and have wildly opposing views on colour schemes and who decorates what bit. And I for one don’t fancy telling you the Willowwood legend about Mrs Travis-Lock’s rellies with her butting in all the time. I’ll give you the history tour next time I’m down here.
‘Look,’ she hissed, dragging Cadbury and Etta behind a large plague stone as stack-heeled shoes and thick flesh-coloured ankles topped by a vast clashing orange, scarlet, crimson, bright yellow, royal blue and purple herbaceous border came scuttling past, revealing from the back a seal-like body in a strawberry-pink coat and skirt and iron-grey curls more sculptured than those of Sir Francis Framlingham.
‘That’s Direct Debbie,’ said Dora, falling about with laughter, ‘frantic to get inside before Ione rolls up.’ Then, at the crunch of wheels on gravel and the crash as a bicycle came through a side door into the churchyard: ‘Too late, too late, here comes Ione with flowers of delicate hue in front and back basket. Birnam Wood’s going to be in collision with Birnam Wood Two any minute.
‘And here comes Painswick, who I’m staying with,’ whispered Dora, as a woman in her late fifties and a blue tent dress, who had the face of a disenchanted Pekinese and her arms full of bronze chrysanthemums, ran up the path.
‘Painswick’s quite religious but she can’t have a comforting crush on the vicar because, as I told you, he’s gay,’ said Dora, as they retreated down the steps and headed back to the high street.
‘Now that house, Sky Cottage, belongs to Pocock, a lonely widower, who keeps himself busy running the allotments and calls himself Tower Captain because he organizes the bell-ringers. He’s a very good gardener and works for Mrs Travis-Lock and formerly for your son Martin, who sacked him.’
‘Oh dear,’ sighed Etta.
‘Because they wanted a low-maintenance all-lawn-and-trampoline garden and Pocock likes borders and flowers.
‘One of Willowwood’s greatest tragedies,’ Dora rolled her eyes dramatically as she pointed to a sweet little house with a yellow door, ‘is that Lark Cottage over there used to be rented by Rogue Rogers when he was first retained by Marius Oakridge, before he became champion jockey. Rogue was seriously wild, and evidently pulled everything except curtains. After he left, blondes were found under the floorboards. I wish he still lived there.’
‘He’s a wonderful jockey,’ agreed Etta.
At that moment, a tall man shot across the road into the pub.
‘That’s Mrs Travis-Lock’s husband, Alban,’ hissed Dora. ‘No one’s offered him another job since he left the Foreign Office, not even some stupid quango to boast about at drinks parties, so he’s very sad with no one to boss or influence. Their black Lab, Araminta, is also having a nervous breakdown; she’s so used to policemen on guard duty petting her and cooks in the kitchen feeding her midnight snacks, poor dog. Mrs Travis-Lock’s not the sort of person to indulge husbands or Labradors. She’s refusing to cook Alban any lunch, so he goes to the pub,’ Dora lowered her voice, ‘putting away rather too many with your son-in-law and Seth Bainton when he’s around.’
As they drew level with the pub, assailed by a heavenly smell of garlic, red wine and roasting meat, Cadbury sniffed excitedly. Etta, who’d been living on cheese on toast, boiled eggs and latterly Drummond and Poppy’s leftovers, felt wonderfully hungry and very daring.
‘Shall we have lunch in the pub?’
‘That would be cool,’ said Dora. ‘Are you sure? One of the good things about the Fox is they allow in dogs.’
15
Outside the pub, an inn sign of a jaunty fox in a red coat riding a grinning hound attempted to pacify the anti-hunting brigade. Inside, the message was less ambiguous: horns, hunting whips, bridles, foxes’ brushes and pads on silver mounts, even a stuffed fox in a glass case fought for space on the whitewashed walls with gleaming horse brasses and photographs of hunt servants drinking outside large houses, hounds spilling through the village and in full cry across khaki fields.
‘That’s me on my pony Loofah,’ Dora pointed to a ferocious child, flaxen pigtails flying, hurtling along with the leaders, ‘and that’s Marius Oakridge, the trainer. His father was Master for yonks. Marius is