A Rural Affair - By Catherine Alliott Page 0,54

to me and said he’d read a lot of John Grisham and did that count?’

‘Oh dear God. What have we started?’

‘A book club,’ she said firmly. ‘With an exclusive, restricted membership. No new members unless they’ve been thoroughly vetted and agreed on by all existing members; and, as of next week, we get down to the serious business of talking books. Angus should drop them off today and then we can get reading.’

‘Exactly.’ I agreed. My eyes roved down. ‘What’s wrong with Leila?’ The usually irrepressible Irish terrier was lying at Jennie’s feet looking morose, a huge plastic collar, about a foot wide, like a halo around her neck. ‘Why has she got that on?’

Jennie regarded her hound speciously. ‘She self-harms,’ she told me gloomily.

‘No!’

‘Well, no, OK, she scratches herself. So she has to wear that stupid collar. D’you think I should blame myself? For her mental-health issues?’

‘Oh, shut up, Jennie. How long has she got to wear it for?’

‘Till she stops scratching, I suppose.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, she’s in therapy now.’

‘Leila?’

‘Well, not me – yet. There’s a girl in the next village offering free dog-therapy sessions because she’s just starting.’ She made a face. ‘After Leila, she might be just stopping.’

I giggled.

‘Anyway,’ she grinned, ‘on, on.’ She stuck her fork in the ground and started digging. Humming too, quite merrily for her. And she hated gardening. As I went up my path, the window above her porch flew open. Dan appeared half dressed, hair askew.

‘Can’t find any ruddy socks!’ he roared.

Jennie put down her fork. ‘Coming, darling,’ she said, in an unusually mild voice. I watched her walk inside, in astonishment. Such a statement would normally be met with a sharp rebuke to bloody well find them himself and even Dan blinked down at me in surprise, ocean wave flopping. He grinned.

‘Hi, Poppy. Enjoy your evening last night?’

‘Yes, thanks, Dan, it was fun.’

‘Good. Well, I must say I’m all for it. It’s done wonders for Jennie’s humour; can’t think what’s come over her. She really ought to get out more. Well done you for organizing it.’

‘Oh, er, it wasn’t really me. It was Peggy,’ I said uneasily, shifting the blame.

‘Well, good for Peggy. You girls need some stimulation in your lives. Can’t be running round after your bloody husbands and children all the time, can you? And think of all the books you’ll read. Great stuff!’

And with that he popped his head back in to greet his brand-new wife, who, perhaps not enjoying entirely the stimulation Dan had in mind, and with a different sort of fantasy fiction evolving in her head, was at least less susceptible to the irritations he provided.

Was that such a bad thing, I wondered as I went inside, lifting Archie from his buggy and refusing Clemmie’s demand for a biscuit before lunch. I took their cottage pie from the oven and let it cool a moment on the side. If living in one’s own head made one more amenable to others, more accepting of the real world and the people one lived with, so what? Surely that was OK? Up to a point, I decided, as I scooped out a bit of pie for Archie and broke it up with a fork to let the steam pour out. The problem came when one lived more in one’s head than in the real world. It had always been a safe place for me to go, both as a child when Mum had died and later on as my marriage failed. But if we all moved around in our private worlds, we ended up living with strangers.

I sat a moment, gazing out of the window, remembering Dad and me in the early days after Mum’s death; being so careful, so polite to each other.

‘I thought we’d give her clothes away to one of those charity shops,’ he’d said one day, coming in from the fields. ‘You know, Save the Children or something. Too many memories.’

‘Sure. Whatever you think, Daddy.’ And he’d gone off back to the yard. Meanwhile my head had screamed: ‘You mean, someone else gets to smell my mother on the collar of her suede jacket? The one I sneak out of her wardrobe and inhale daily?’

And then later with Phil:

‘Cycling in Majorca in August,’ he’d say, closing the guide book decisively. ‘We’ll leave the children with your father.’

‘No. No. Cornwall. Rock pools, with the children,’ my head had raged, too tired to fight. All fought out. I’d heard Phil’s arguments before, every year.

‘When

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