The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [92]
I could just imagine his refined nose wrinkling in disgust; saw him whipping a mobile from the pocket of his purple bed jacket: ‘Camilla darling, this place is a disgrace. I simply can't stay.’
I threw down my fork and hurried up to the house, skirting round the back to the kitchen window, where… I couldn't quite believe what met my eyes. It was like something out of a TV commercial. Three children in school uniform, hair neatly plaited or parted, sat at a scrubbed farmhouse table, Terry Wogan warbling merrily, whilst Caro, strapped into a Cath Kidston pinny, fried bacon and eggs at the Aga. How unlike my own chaotic, much smaller, household, where Ant and Anna foraged for themselves in a cupboard, found cereal if they were lucky, tested it tentatively with their teeth to see if it was stale, whilst I, when they'd gone, nipped back to bed to read secret copies of Hello! and eat chocolate. I was a terrible mother. Terrible.
I banged on the window. Caro turned.
‘Oh, well done, Evie!’ she shouted. ‘Phoebe said you were here. I couldn't quite believe it!’
God. They really thought I wouldn't. Jack leaned across the table to swing the window wide.
‘Well, I'm not making much headway, I'm afraid. Lots of really annoying little ponky poos keep slipping through my fork.’
‘What?’ She cupped her ear and lunged to turn the radio down.
‘Tiny bits of shit!’ I yelled, as a rather glamorous blonde turned from where she'd had her back to me in the shadows by the Aga. She gazed in wonder.
‘Oh, this is… Alice,’ breathed Caro, going pink. ‘One of my brides. Getting married in the autumn. Phoebe, go and speak to your aunt.’
I must make a tremendous spectacle: sawdust in hair, red of face, shouting obscenities through the window. Perhaps they'd pass me off as the mad aunt. Pass me off? I was the mad aunt. On a rogue impulse, as the young woman gave me a dazed nod, I rolled my eyes up into my head in an insane manner and gave a half-baked smile. She looked startled and turned away. Happily Caro missed it, but Phoebe giggled as I bent to whisper urgently in her ear. She listened, then whispered urgently back; saw my eyes widen as she divulged her advice.
‘But you don't have to,’ she said quickly. ‘Lots of people don't. I'm just fussy.’
I gazed at her in wonder. ‘Me too,’ I whispered. I hastened off.
Back at the stables I located said bucket in said tack room and found said Marigolds at the bottom covered in… ugh. Face averted I slipped them on, and then arms outstretched, ran to the stable. I could do this. I could. Crouched in my Armani jeans, hands still miles away, eyes half shut, I picked one up… dropped it in the wheelbarrow… picked one up… dropped it in. Just grass, I told myself, nostrils clenched, breathing through my mouth. Herbivores. They just eat hay and grass.
Twenty minutes later, barrow now brimming, I stood and gazed around. Immaculate. In fact it was so flipping immaculate and I was so exhausted I was tempted to lie down on it myself. But it wasn't over yet. Phoebe had kindly filled a hay net for me, which I strung up for Hector's tea – I very much felt he was a Hector, not a Heccy – then I filled a bucket of water and lumbered back across the yard with it. As I set it down with a triumphant thump in the corner of his stable, half of it sloshed down one of my pink boots.
You'll get there, I told myself later as I sped back down the lanes, one leg completely sodden. It's all a matter of practice. You're just not used to it. And you a farmer's daughter, a little voice in my head said. What had I been doing with my life whilst my sister-in-law held breakfast meetings – which I now realized that little tête-à-tête had been, both women finding a window of opportunity before they started work, proper work. What had I been doing? Reading trashy mags and eating lime creams, that's what.
But I was focused now, very focused.