‘Dora briefed me about everyone,’ said Etta. ‘And she told me about Not for Crowe. And what will you have, Chris and Dora?’
As she handed everyone their glasses and pork scratchings for Cadbury, the sun came out, gilding the high street, the church and its weathercock.
‘Such a charming village,’ sighed Etta.
‘And such a charming addition to the village,’ brayed Alban, raising his dark brown glass of whisky to her.
‘Hear, hear!’ said the Major enthusiastically.
‘Cheers, Etta,’ echoed Chris, Joey and Woody.
‘What are we going to back in the next race?’ asked Dora.
*
Alas, the Major was so captivated, he went home and told his wife Debbie (who’d just done fifteen rounds with Ione Travis-Lock and was smarting over her despised splash of colour) about Etta.
‘She’d had a flutter on Preston – little devil finally came good. Marius actually smiled at the presentation. Etta – that’s Martin and Carrie’s mother – won two hundred pounds and was so excited she bought drinks for all of us.
‘Charming lady, knew what regiment I was in. Alban T-L was very smitten.’ The Major glanced at his emails: Parish Council, British Legion, Rugby Club, Rotary Club. ‘Think she’d be a willing hand at coffee mornings.’
Debbie, who was sourly ramming rejected pillarbox-red dahlias entitled Bishop of Llandaff, George Best and Alan Titchmarsh into a toby jug, said she wasn’t sure how pleased Romy and Martin would be.
‘Martin’s mother is supposed to be minding Poppy and Drummond, keeping Harvest Home shipshape and preparing meals, not betting and carousing in public houses.’
Debbie couldn’t wait to ring Romy, who couldn’t wait to yank Martin out of a sales pitch workshop. Etta’s euphoria, induced by her session in the Fox, had rubbed off on Drummond and Poppy. They were playing snakes and ladders, enjoying egg and tomato pub sandwiches and watching Scooby-Doo at the bungalow, when Martin rang in a rage.
‘Romy and I feel utterly let down, Mother. What will people think, a widow, still in mourning, encouraging lunchtime binge drinking.’
‘I didn’t,’ squeaked Etta.
‘Imposing yourself on the menfolk of Willowwood, calling Joey East and Alban Travis-Lock by their given names, encouraging Woody to undertake dangerous tasks with drink inside him. The Major was so appalled he couldn’t wait to tell Debbie. You were leading Dora Belvedon astray, and exacerbating Alban Travis-Lock’s drink problem with large Scotches – Ione will be incensed – not to mention picking up Drummond and Poppy in that condition. Rather early to blot your copy book so dramatically.’
‘We were having fun,’ protested Etta. ‘Dora and Woody drank Coke, and everyone gave me such a lovely welcome.’
‘You’re missing the point, Mother. Has the government thrust on binge drinking passed you by? You know how Dad loathed you drinking and gambling. Also, as we are struggling to support you, isn’t it rather selfish to squander your winnings so quickly?’
‘Your turn, Granny,’ said Poppy as Etta put down the receiver. ‘Why are you crying?’
16
At the end of October the weather turned windy and very cold. Leaves rained down. Houses were suddenly revealed behind newly bare trees. Willow spears choked Etta’s stream like shoals of goldfish. Desperate for a garden, she looked up shade-tolerant plants in a big book, hoping they’d grow in the shadow of her towering conifer hedge, and decided to dig a flower bed.
Returning from dropping off the children one freezing cold morning, she noticed Joey’s filthy white van parked in the road. On the back someone had written: ‘I wish my wife was as dirty as this.’ ‘Me too,’ someone had written underneath. And underneath that someone else had written: ‘Also available in white.’
Etta smiled, and looking over the wall saw Joey and Woody working on Valent’s land, blowing on their fingers, and later took them extremely welcome mugs of leek soup and bowls of black-berry crumble which she’d made for the children’s tea.
When in turn they put up bookshelves and hung the Munnings of the mare and foal and her flower paintings, she insisted on paying them twenty pounds. Soon they were popping in every day for a cup of tea and a gossip, Joey to talk about his wild children and his volatile marriage and Valent Edwards, Woody to confide how many tree surgeons were being forced out of business by Health and Safety.
‘I got so much work offered I could easily employ two or three assistants but I’d be clobbered by insurance. Four hundred pounds last year, four thousand this one. It’s a closed shop, the insurance companies employ