Wild Oats Read Online Free PDF Page B

capabilities. It was like being on a racehorse: you could feel the power, you knew that it could give you much, much more if you only dared to ask, but at the same time you were only in control for as long as it wanted you to be. No wonder its slogan had been ‘ le pur sang des automobiles ’: the thoroughbred amongst cars.
    In record time they were passing the sign she had noticed on her way in, the one that entreated visitors to drive carefully through the village, and to her relief Olivier obediently dropped his speed before finally dawdling to a halt by the village green.
    ‘Better than sex, eh?’ Olivier grinned at her.
    ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Jamie carefully. ‘But it was fun.’
    And when she got out of the car, she found that her heart was beating ten to the dozen, she could barely walk from pressing her foot on the floor, and she couldn’t wait to get in again. As comparisons went, it wasn’t a bad one, she mused, as she watched Olivier whizz off through the village. She couldn’t help notice the longing glances he got as he tanked past the pub: the men clearly lusting after the car, the women, no doubt, after him as his tousled locks blew in the breeze.
    Of Lower and Upper Faviell, the latter was the smart address, where rows of black-and-white terraced cottages formed two sides of a triangle roundthe village green, with a tiny pond and ducks and a thatched bus stop. The bus stopped there dutifully en route to Ludlow twice a week, but it was rare that anyone got on as everyone in Upper Faviell had their own transport. The church and adjoining idyllic vicarage – no longer lived in by the vicar, but where the village fête was still held – made up the third side. At the bottom right-hand corner stood the Royal Oak, from where a road led off to Lower Faviell half a mile away. Here clustered a semicircle of council houses, the village school and the ancient garage where Olivier was heading that, as well as petrol, sold string, dog biscuits and the Daily Mirror . With two working farms, the road through was generally caked with mud and the smell of silage and muck often hung heavy in the air.
    Jamie made her way up the top end of the green towards the post office. It was easy to miss, as it blended in perfectly with the houses on either side, only the red pillar box outside giving its presence away. Inside, Hilly the postmistress greeted her effusively. Hilly was broader than she was tall, with a severe iron-grey bob that detracted from the kindness in her round face. She’d taken over the post office five years ago when her husband had died, rescuing it from the brink of closure and turning it from a purveyor of dented tins of soup and faded cereal packets into a destination post office with a daily delivery of organic bread, free-range eggs, a trencherman’s cheese counter and a selection of decent wine, not nasty,dubiously labelled gutrot that wasn’t even fit to cook with. She’d also pioneered an organic vegetable box scheme, and spent much of her time dividing up leafy green brassicas and rhubarb and beetroot into boxes for collection by her flavour-conscious customers. People from far afield went there to top up on their weekly shop if they couldn’t be bothered to go into town. The villagers found it a double-edged sword – it was wonderful to have it on your doorstep, but it could make parking a nightmare.
    Jamie wandered round the shop, revelling in the produce on offer that was like manna from heaven after the scanty and somewhat repetitive fare of the last few months. She filled her basket with a squidgy white bloomer, farmhouse butter and a selection from the deli counter – Parma ham, anchovies, a craggy wedge of cheddar. And a big, round, toffee-encrusted lardy cake. She’d soon put back on all the weight she’d lost at this rate. She took her basket to the counter.
    ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on your father,’ Hilly informed her. ‘I knew he’d turned the corner