A Rural Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

baths, working every weekend, evenings too, radio blaring so not much chat, whilst
     Dan and Jennie, who’d got a team of decorators in to do theirs, popped round to marvel. Jamie was in Jennie’s arms now and
     Frankie was still sucking her hair and scowling. Well, of course she was, Jennie said staunchly; her mother might have drunk
     too much and run off with an Argentinian polo player, but she was still her mother, for crying out loud. She missed her.
    So Phil and I scrubbed and varnished and stippled and dragged, and even found a window of opportunity one Saturday to get
     married, arranged with military precision by Phil, both of us agreeing on the music, the number of people, the flowers; as
     I say, the only fly in the ointment was the tandem to go away on, the surprise googly, as it were. Another year of tireless
     house restoration followed before we sat back on our weary heels and looked at each other, delighted. With the house, at least.
     But I do remember, as I regarded Phil that day, spry and fair, putty scraper in hand, slightly narrow lips which didn’t smile
     that often, remember looking at him as if I hadn’t seen him for some time, had seen only Designers Guild samples, Farrow and
     Ball paint charts, and it being … quite a shock. As if I’d taken a year-long nap. Was this my husband? This man, so free of
     jokes and wit and laughter, but full of plans for the garden? This man who had ideas for opening up the inglenook fireplace,
     growing roses round an arbour – both romantic notions, I felt – but who made love so quickly and quietly, almost … stealthily?
     Who was disinclined to linger in bed afterwards but wanted to get those tulip bulbs in, wanted to get on?
    Joyless was a word horrifyingly close to my lips. And as I sat on my heels and looked at him and he asked if I’d ordered the
     bedroom carpet, and I replied I hadn’t yet, he held my eye. ‘That’s the second time I’ve had to ask you, Poppy,’ he said slowly.
     I went a bit cold.
    ‘There’s a sample in the kitchen drawer,’ he went on. ‘In the file marked Floor Coverings.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘On the back you’ll find the John Lewis number,’ he added patiently, when I didn’t move. ‘Do it now, please.’
    I got slowly to my feet. Moved kitchen-wards.
    In retrospect that should have been my moment. Before children. My moment to take a deep breath and think: what have I done?
     Marrying this man who knew his way around B&Q blindfold but not the human heart? Who could spot a speck of damp at twenty
     paces but not a faint tremble of misgiving from his new wife? A small cry for help? But that way horror lay. And anyway, I
     told myself, getting the carpet sample from the file, one of seven files, all neatly labelled in Phil’s precise hand, we were
     so good together. Everybody said so. Such a good team. I ordered the carpet and then went quickly to boil the kettle with
     the curly spout, the one we both liked and had bought in a junk shop. I made us some tea.
    If this all seems a trifle submissive for a hitherto sparky girl, a typical product of the twenty-first century and not the
     nineteenth, let me say something about confidence. Mine had taken a battering: first on losing Ben, and then, it seemed to
     me, losing everyone else. So many happily married. And I’d experienced quite a bit of loss in my life; didn’t want to experience
     any more. Which brings me to family. I didn’t have the backing of a big happy one to wade in and give advice, sit around kitchen
     tables cradling mugs of tea before brandishing motherly or sisterly handbags if needs be. I had Dad. Who was lovely, but –
     well, a dad. And I’d never missed Mum so much. Never wished so much that I could talk to her, that she hadn’t died. Which
     perhaps explains why I’d flown to my best friend’s side. I’m not making excuses here – of course I should have been more punchy,
     answered back, told him to order the bloody carpet himself.