winter. I’d like to create a rose and name it after him: dark red shot with black, with a heavenly smell.’
‘Steady on,’ reproved Miss Painswick.
Speculation was endless about how Mrs Wilkinson had come to be so horrifically treated and what had actually happened to her.
One afternoon, when Dora was gossiping to Etta, Pocock rolled up to collect some manure for Mrs Travis-Lock’s garden, brandishing a shovel. Mrs Wilkinson, who’d been peering out nosily, screamed in panic, stood back on her hocks, cleared the half-door and shot across the grass over a six-foot hedge, just missing a pile of rubble on the other side. Only after careering round Badger’s Court, narrowly avoiding skips, JCBs and Portakabins, did she allow herself to be caught.
‘Blimey,’ Pocock whistled through his remaining teeth, ‘that is some horse.’
‘Isn’t she?’ beamed Dora. ‘And we must remember she doesn’t like shovels. We better start a syndicate: you, Mr Pocock, Jase, Joey, Woody, Etta and Painswick. She’ll need this year to get her strength back,’ she went on in excitement. ‘Then next spring she can go point-to-pointing. I’ll start taking her hunting in the autumn. I know you think hunting’s cruel,’ she added to Etta, who was comforting a shuddering Mrs Wilkinson, ‘but it’s very kind to horses. They love it and it’s the best way to get Mrs Wilkinson going. My pony, Loofah, used to blow out after a mile, but a season’s hunting got her fit. They don’t account for many foxes these days. The stupid bird of prey who’s supposed to finish off the fox was gobbled up by hounds the other day.
‘I’m going to be Mrs Wilkinson’s press officer,’ she added.
As spring turned into summer, Charlie Radcliffe recommended Mrs Wilkinson be turned out for a few hours each day. ‘As long as she’s well rugged up, I’m a great believer in Dr Greengrass.’
It wasn’t a success.
‘Dear little soul needs some company,’ Painswick confided to Dora as they watched Mrs Wilkinson shivering, despite the warmth of the day, magenta rug up to her ears, which twitched constantly, checking for danger, one eye rolling and searching for Etta. Eternally pacing, she walked off any weight gain as she wore down the perimeter of Valent’s orchard.
‘Etta doesn’t want to abuse Valent Edwards’s kindness.’
‘Hum,’ mused Dora, ‘we’ll see about that.’
‘How’s young Paris?’ asked Painswick fondly.
‘Awesome,’ sighed Dora. ‘He’s got a part in The Seagull in the summer holidays, and he’s bang in the middle of his ‘A’ levels. So am I, GCSEs actually, not that you’d know it. On top of this Paris is so cool, he passed his driving test first time before a history paper yesterday. As soon as exams are over, I’ll bring him to see you, Miss Painswick. D’you know we’ve been seeing each other for eighteen months?’ Dora added proudly.
29
Paris Alvaston thought it a measure of his great and abiding love for Dora Belvedon that he was driving his father’s illicitly borrowed Rover and towing his mother’s equally illicitly borrowed trailer down to Hampshire on the eve of a crucial Greek ‘A’ level in order to rescue a goat from a research laboratory.
The moon was setting. The constellation Hercules, symbolizing resource and bravery, was straddling the heavens with his customary swagger. A heady scent of newly mown hay and honeysuckle wafted in through the open window. White flocks of daisies cowered on the verge as the trailer crashed from side to side in the narrow lanes as Paris, used to an automatic, ground the gears and tried to control the added weight behind him.
Matters were not helped by guests driving home from dinner parties or the pub. A Mercedes which seemed to fill the road was on his tail now, shining powerful lights straight into his rear mirror.
‘The goats are being tortured in decompression experiments,’ Dora was telling him in her shrill and indignant voice. ‘They’re coaxed with food into a big steel chamber, then imprisoned for twenty-four hours to recreate the conditions on board a submarine.
‘Have you ever heard of anything crueller? Goats have the same sized lungs as humans. For really fat people, they test on poor pigs. The air pressure is decreased and quickly brought back to normal to simulate a quick escape from a submarine. This makes bubbles of air form throughout the body, causing brain damage and agonizing pain around the joints. Poor, poor goats, can you imagine anything worse than being trapped in an iron lung for twenty-four hours?’
‘Very easily,’ muttered Paris as the trailer lurched back and