Wild About You

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Obviously, I got lost. I remembered approximately six of the eighteen turns I was supposed to make to return to the office. I found myself staring at a door in a green corridor, gazing at the brass doorknob so hard I was surprised it didn’t glow red-hot.

I was absolutely sure this was the door. It had to be. I turned the knob and opened it.

It wasn’t the door.

I had opened a secret door built into the panelling, and it let me into one of the main rooms. My sudden appearance behind the ropes scattered a startled group of tourists, and I heard someone shriek.

A helper wearing a monogrammed polo shirt appeared. ‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack, let alone them. And I don’t have the defib here. Vicki’s got it in the orangery.’

I apologised and explained where I wanted to go in a whisper. ‘I’d need a pen and paper to explain,’ she said, alternating her furious face with a brittle smile for the tourists. ‘Just climb over the rope and go out of the front door. Walking around the outside might be simpler.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

‘Not that way! You’ll set off the alarm on the Caravaggio!’

Nerves shredded, I finally found my way out of the room, watched with curiosity by the visitors. But somehow I managed to set off on a route that did not take me through the front door, and after wandering around for another five minutes I finally emerged out of what was definitely a back door. I was relieved to be out of the building, although there were drops of sleet in the air. And, tragically, my waxed jacket was still in the post.

As I was walking along the back of the building, past the kitchen garden and formal garden, I heard it. The baying. The combined voices of beagles.

Instead of carrying on around the side of Stonemore to the front – the staff office was in the front corner of the house – I followed the noise and drifted away from the manor. The noise was coming from an enclosure a good distance from the house, set away from the main drive – another area with high brick walls and a wooden door, like a secret garden. I went over and peered through a crack in the door. There were at least a dozen beagles, racing around a mowed field excitedly, sniffing, baying, and generally being houndy.

I turned away and leaned against the wall, remembering Jamie’s words about Hugo not fitting in with the pack. The man actually had his own pack of hounds . I shook my head in silent disapproval. Damn these posh boys. They practically came from a different planet to the one I inhabited. And hunting? I felt slightly sick. I knew about the countryside. But I’d hoped to ignore the reality of it for as long as possible. Perhaps I really wasn’t suited to living here at all. Metropolitan Minnie had better get back on the long-distance train.

‘Finally!’ cried Tally, as I stomped back into the office, wondering if I could cancel my waxed jacket order. ‘She’s here, Callum!’

Callum appeared, so calm and unhurried that I wanted to hug him. ‘Anna. Jamie messaged me. He said you wanted to drive up to the upper reaches? I’ve got the newest Land Rover out, and it’s got a full tank. I’d head off as soon as possible if you wanted a quick look. The weather’s not looking great.’

‘Great,’ I said flatly. In truth, those few drops of sleet had made me wonder if I should go another day. But there was no way I was backing out now, so Jamie could laugh behind his hand at his snowflake new employee melting under pressure. I could sense Fi watching me, but I didn’t even have enough cheeriness in me to direct a reassuring smile her way.

‘When he says “newest Land Rover”,’ said Tally cheerfully, ‘he means it’s twenty years old rather than thirty.’

I nodded and swallowed hard.

‘You don’t have to go now if you’re not up for it,’ said Callum gently.

‘I’m 100 per cent up for it,’ I said, and forced a smile.

It was then I noticed a text had arrived on my mobile, alongside the usual cheery messages from my sister and London friends asking about how the ‘wilds’ were. I’d put the phone on silent during my meeting with Jamie. The name froze me on the spot.

Sean.

‘I’ll just be a minute, Callum,’ I said, and dashed out and down the corridor to the loo, a freezing cold room where the window was constantly open. I locked myself into the single cubicle and prodded my phone screen, my hands shaking.

Hey. Was just wondering how you are. Sean .

I stared at it. I bit back my first, instinctive answer:

Fine thanks. Just working through my newly acquired self-help library on how to deal with childlessness combined with heartbreak. PS there’s no need to sign off with your name. I know who you are. And I’ve seen your sex face, remember?

Bitterness aside, the core of my imagined message was true. I had a full crate of books on childlessness and grief. I was chipping away at them with my coloured pens and Post-it notes, alongside my journal. Open your heart to grief , I’d written the night before, don’t stay rigid, don’t fight it . Some days it felt as though I was making progress, that my brain was processing things in the background. Acceptance might be in the far distance, waving a little flag, but at least it was within sight. On other days I felt like I was in a black hole, numbly searching for a foothold that wasn’t there.

I typed.

Fine thanks. You? A .

His reply appeared almost immediately.

Good thanks. Could you let me know a landline number I can call you on? It would be good to have a chat. I tried this one the other night but it kept going to voicemail. S

I glared at the message. It was so typical of him to have lost the number. He cared so little about me, was so lazy—

The door creaked open.

‘Anna?’ It was Fi. ‘Are you alright?’

I opened the cubicle and peered out. ‘Sean texted me.’ I made an emoticon-style sad face. It was better than speaking properly. Admitting how sad I actually was.

‘Oh, love.’ She looked stricken. ‘Saying what?’

‘Nothing really. I’m fine.’ I came out, and looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were glistening with all the tears I couldn’t bring myself to cry. Despite my journalling, it looked like I was still sticking with the rigid approach. ‘Stiff upper lip and all that.’ I splashed cold water on my face. This place was a waste of make-up, anyway.

I went back to my desk to find a large package sitting in the middle of it, my belongings fanned out around it as though it had been dropped from a great height.

‘There’s been a delivery for you,’ said Tally, swishing past.

‘You don’t say,’ I said, fishing my scissors out of the desk drawer and beginning my battle with layers of packaging. Five minutes of hacking later, my waxed jacket was revealed in all of its olive-green glory.

‘Go on, put it on!’ squeaked Fi, clapping her hands. I raced down the hall to the loo. No way was Tally getting a look at ‘country’ me until I’d prepared myself.

I cautiously put the jacket on, wondering if it might transform me in some way – make me more at home in this manor house. I’d sized up because of my outsized hips, but the most important thing was I had to be able to do the coat up, so I was ready for all weathers . This had worked, but the sleeves were a bit too long and it looked baggy rather than sleek, as though I was hiding something. It seemed I had bought a coat which would encompass both my massive bitterness as well as my arse.

‘Crikey.’ Fi had arrived on the scene. ‘You could fit two of you in there.’

‘It’s okay though, right?’ I said. ‘I can work the outsized look? I can’t be bothered to send it back.’

‘Plus you tore the packaging apart like a crazed orangutan,’ she murmured. ‘It would take an entire roll of tape to put it back together.’ She tilted her head. ‘You look cute, actually.’

I marched back into the office and did a twirl for Tally, who frowned and said ‘Did you mean to buy a marquee?’ Cue return to silence.

Callum gave me the keys to the Land Rover and quietly took me through the route I should take to the upper reaches, advising me to pick up one of the estate long-range walkie talkies on the way out. He’d already told me the route the day before, but I could tell he sensed my nerves. When he finished, I looked at him in a way that I hoped conveyed utter confidence but the slight frown on his face told me otherwise.

‘It’s all fine,’ I said, in a voice I’d aimed to come across as cheerful, but which sounded brittle.

‘You won’t need it, but there’s an emergency kit in the back of the Rover,’ he said. ‘And the car’s got a tracker on it.’

‘A tracker?’ I said. ‘Do you, er, lose people very often?’

‘You’ll be fine. Look, I can come with you if you’re at all uncertain. I’ve got stuff to do, but—’

‘It’s fine. Thanks.’

He smiled, that slow, easy smile which had persuaded me at my interview that we would be friends. ‘Great. And Anna?’

I turned back. ‘Yes?’

‘I like the coat.’

Finally, a man who had something complimentary to say.

The temperature had dropped outside and the last of the tourists were meandering towards their cars and coaches. The house closed at 3pm in winter, so there was more than an hour to go, but the weather was putting people off. Icy blobs dissolved on impact with my face.

I had to tough it out. I tried one of the breathing exercises I’d memorised when I was trying to meditate Sean’s face out of my mind. In for three, hold for three, out for three.

I got into the Land Rover. It smelt reassuringly of leather and fresh air, greenery and soil – the smell I’d already come to associate with Stonemore. As I put the key in the ignition, I could feel my own heartbeat, pounding with anticipation and fear. In for three, hold for three.

Then I glanced up at the house. Jamie was standing at the window of his flat, looking down on me. Even from a distance I could see the smirk on his face.

That did it. I released my held breath with a puff of indignation. With a flourish of annoyance, I turned the key, balanced the clutch, and roared out of the drive like a teenager heading out to do handbrake turns on a Friday night.

I’m not going to deny it, I was pretty damn terrified, but also exhilarated, as I drove up the pale gravel track in the direction of the upper reaches. Away from the controlled splendour of the house and deer park, the wintry landscape felt more unforgiving, the hills dark browny-green against dense white and grey clouds, the wind buffeting the car in gusts as I drove. One of the tracks through the edge of a wooded area took me past uprooted and broken trees from a recent storm, the clouds lying dense against the higher peaks of hills in the distance, splodges of icy water against my windscreen.

As I got higher and higher, the weather started to worsen.

Snow. Yes, this was definitely snow. I slowed the Land Rover, then finally stopped. I snatched the map up from the passenger seat and inspected it. I’d memorised the route but was beginning to think I’d made a mistake at some point. Callum had mentioned a fence line with red markers on the posts that I definitely should have reached by now. I looked at the fence ahead of me.

No red markers.

‘Right,’ I muttered, under my breath.

When I looked back at the map and directions, I struggled to focus. I tried to think logically about the route I’d taken so far, to work out where I’d gone wrong. But somehow I couldn’t slow my mind down. Had I taken a left or a right? Had I seen that five-barred gate he’d mentioned, or hadn’t I? My Land Rover felt tiny, insignificant against the vastness of the dark slopes around me, as visibility dissolved. When I tried to focus on the map properly, its symbols started to blur.

Oh God, this was actually happening. What an excellent time to develop a talent for panicking.

I tried the breathing exercise, but it wasn’t cutting it. I got out of the car and looked at the landscape. It had stopped snowing (good news!), but there was no sign of the house and castle (bad news!). Although the weather wasn’t worsening, visibility was limited by the swirling grey vapour in the air, the landscape reduced to bare outlines. No waymarkers. And I’d forgotten the walkie talkie. In the midst of winding myself up about Jamie, and feeling a little flutter about Callum’s compliment, I had forgotten the bloody walkie talkie. I dug my phone out of my pocket. No reception. No data.

Swearing under my breath, I climbed back in and started the Land Rover again, to begin the laborious process of turning the vehicle round. I mean, I had to get used to this off-road driving, didn’t I? Slowly and carefully, I edged it round in a ten-point turn. I had just completed the manoeuvre and was starting to accelerate gently away alongside a line of trees when, out of nowhere, a pheasant flew across the windscreen in an explosion of wings and copper-coloured feathers.

It was sheer instinct: I jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid it. As I did so, one side of the vehicle dropped dramatically, and its wheels started spinning. Heart racing, I turned the engine off and climbed out of the car. I had steered it half into a shallow ditch. It wasn’t sinking, but it was at a crazy tilt and there was no way I was getting out of there without help. The pheasant, meanwhile, was totally fine, and abandoned me to my fate. ‘No,’ I moaned, and leaned against the car, shivering in the cold.

Taking deep breaths, I opened the back of the Land Rover and dragged the emergency kit out, then got back in the front to inspect the contents. Blanket, bottle of water, chocolate, rope, torch. I didn’t look much harder. Chocolate and water was the go-to for me. I just needed to stay calm.

You are not going to panic, Anna.

A moment later there was a rushing sound in my ears.

No, no, no , I said in my head, and put my head to my knees.

Thankfully, after a moment or two, I started to feel more normal. Eventually I edged my way up until I was sitting in a normal position in the driver’s seat. I looked at my watch. Beyond the Land Rover’s window, the light was fading. I closed my eyes against the vastness of the landscape, the fierceness of the wind.

Things were getting better though – I wasn’t shaking, and my breathing was slowing down. I just had to inure myself to the idea of staying the night in the car and finding my way back in daylight. It was perfectly fine, and I’d laugh about it one day, tell the story at dinner parties, that kind of thing. I wrapped the blanket around me and settled back in the seat. Took a square of chocolate. Then another one. Had a swig from the bottle of water. Let time pass as I watched the snow continue to fall.

It was almost six o’clock when I saw the headlights, coming from the vague direction of Stonemore. When I realised it was a Land Rover, I turned my own lights on and flashed them repeatedly. The vehicle approached at crawling pace, parked alongside me, and Callum jumped out, smiling as though he was on a Sunday afternoon drive.

‘Hey!’ I said, getting out to meet him, and trying to keep my voice light. I still had the tartan blanket wrapped around me, but I pushed my hair behind my ears and tried to look nonchalant. Callum sought my gaze and put his hands on my arms, then gave a me quick squeeze. ‘Good to see you,’ he said.

‘Hey,’ said another voice. ‘I see you managed to get yourself lost after all.’

It was Jamie. He was climbing out of the other side of Callum’s Land Rover.

Humiliation complete. I looked at the ground but, sadly, it did not open up and swallow me. ‘Thanks,’ I muttered. ‘How did you find me?’

‘We just looked for the enormous vehicle at walking distance from the house,’ said Jamie, and I wanted to slap him so badly I gritted my teeth.

‘I’m joking,’ he said stiffly. ‘You’d been gone a while. We checked the tracker and saw the car wasn’t moving, so we came to see if you needed some help.’

‘Right,’ I mumbled. ‘Thanks.’

‘You doing okay, Anna?’ said Callum softly. He was inspecting the front of the Land Rover.

‘Yep, all good,’ I said. ‘I hope I haven’t damaged it. There was a pheasant. I guess I’m used to London roads. Less wildlife. I’m glad to see you both. I was getting ready to bed down for the night.’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve already broken into the chocolate?’ Jamie said, raising an eyebrow. I noticed he had another blanket in his hand which he now offered me from a distance, with an air of distaste. I snatched it from him grumpily and doubled it round me.

‘Sure, it’s fine,’ Callum said. ‘Why don’t you get in the back of ours. Warm yourself up – I’ve had the heater on full blast.’

Feeling a bit feeble, but also grateful, I climbed in and watched Callum and Jamie inspect the Land Rover I’d deserted in a ditch. Eventually they came back and climbed back in. ‘We’ll get it in the morning,’ said Callum.

‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ I said lamely.

‘Ach, don’t even think about it, I did the same thing last winter,’ he said.

I glared at the back of Jamie’s head, he who was staying stonily silent with blame emanating from him. But I couldn’t stay annoyed for long. I felt a rush of relief, followed swiftly by exhaustion. Lulled by the rocking of the Land Rover as we descended towards Stonemore, I fell asleep.

I came to when I felt a hand on my wrist, and opened my eyes to see Jamie. He was leaning round the seat, gently shaking my wrist. As I opened my eyes and stared at him in surprise, he pulled his hand away as though he’d been burned. ‘Your phone,’ he said.

It was buzzing on the seat beside me.

Sean’s name, in white font on black. I stared at it.

‘Shouldn’t you get it?’ Jamie glanced back at me, frowning.

I hit answer.

‘Anna? It’s Sean.’

I swallowed hard. ‘Hi.’

‘Are you okay? I thought we were going to speak.’

‘I’m fine. There’s been a situation at work. I’ll call soon.’

He tried to interrupt me but I was having none of it. ‘Okay, well—’

‘No Sean, not now.’ I saw Jamie and Callum glance at each other. I heard, and felt, the beat of silence. Had I ever said no to Sean before? I spoke into the silence. ‘I’ll call you later. Bye.’ I hung up.

I tried hard to look calm, and tucked the phone away in my pocket. We took the rest of the journey in silence. I was pleased to see the house. ‘Civilisation,’ I announced, and saw Callum’s mouth twitch in amusement.

As we clambered out of the Land Rover, I wondered what Tally would say the next morning. ‘I guess I’ll get some teasing tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Work from home,’ Jamie said. ‘And don’t push yourself. Make any phone calls you need to make.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Don’t make me use my Hugo voice.’

Was he actually being… nice? I ventured a glance at his face. Nope, he was gazing over the top of my head at the middle distance, as if our conversation was boring him to death. ‘Thank you,’ I said quietly. ‘I’ll get my laptop.’

‘And,’ he lowered his voice as Callum jumped out and checked the wheels. ‘You sounded pretty angry with him, whoever he is.’

I gaped at him. What a cheek! To openly listen in to my conversation.

‘Maybe write him a letter,’ he said, his gaze cool and even. ‘The kind you don’t send.’

I gave him a tight smile but was luckily spared from replying by Callum arriving at my side.

‘I’ll give you a lift home, Anna,’ he said. ‘Grab your stuff and jump back in.’