Chapter 2
The following afternoon, I cleared away my rather unsatisfactory sandwich lunch (cheese and pickle) and fed the cat for the second time as evidently the first offering wasn’t acceptable.
‘Is that better, my booosiful boy?’ I said in the squeaky voice I sometimes used when speaking to Ivan.
My cat returned a baleful stare and looked pointedly at the cupboard where I kept the Dreamies.
‘Does he want a treat?’ I said, trying to annoy him. ‘Does he? Does he?’
Ivan almost sighed with impatience and if he could, I think he would have tapped his claws on the floor.
He rewarded me with a couple of meows, and heaven help me, I meowed back.
I’d read somewhere that people meow more to their cats than their cats do to them, and it looked as though I was slowly sliding into cat owner senility. I would be buying him seasonal-themed collars next. And little hats. It really was time I got out more.
I slung a few random treats into Ivan’s bowl, the one decorated with a smiling cat, which was so far from Ivan’s nature as to be ridiculous, and having told him where I was going and assuring him that I wouldn’t be long, I walked down the lane to Anita’s house.
It really was the most beautiful part of the country, with broad fields, distant views of the Black Mountains and wildflowers just beginning to emerge from the hedgerows.
It was certainly a lot different from where I used to live, a house that Malcolm and I had bought together forty-something years ago, just after we had married and where we had raised our daughter Nicky.
Originally we had been on the edge of a small town, but over the years new housing developments had gradually eroded the fields and enclosed our garden, and Malcolm had become increasingly tetchy as a result.
Then six years ago, his branch of the bank had closed down and he had been offered early retirement.
And shortly afterwards it had all come out about the affair he had been having with his secretary, his dissatisfaction with life and with me.
How he needed to ‘find himself’. Possibly under some rock, I had suggested.
Once things had been put in motion, everything had changed, not just my marital status.
In fact, it had almost been a relief when he agreed we should sell up as part of our divorce, and I had left the noise and muddle of the new ring road and moved to the countryside where traffic disruption usually involved two tractors or some cattle being moved up the lane to a new pasture.
When I went through the front gate that afternoon, I saw Anita hanging out some washing while a small brown and white dog leapt and barked encouragement at her feet.
‘Ah, there you are,’ she said with a wide smile. ‘Come on in. Don’t take any notice of Bonzo, he’s just excited to see you. Although he gets excited at everything. I’ll give him some peanut butter, that will shut him up.’
I followed her through the back door into a large kitchen where wooden cabinets and cupboards surrounded a scrubbed pine table and chairs.
There were bits of shredded dog toy and a tumbleweed of dog hair under the table.
Bonzo pounced on the remains of a dismembered toy dinosaur and raced outside into the garden.
Anita closed the door behind him with a sigh of relief.
‘Excuse the mess,’ she said, picking up a pile of paperwork and unopened letters and dumping them at the other end of the table. ‘Now then, tea or coffee?’
‘Either,’ I said.
‘Express a preference,’ Anita said, holding up her hands, ‘otherwise I would have to decide and I’m no good at that.’
‘Tea,’ I said.
She flicked the kettle on and took some mugs out of a cupboard.
‘Yorkshire tea or compost? I’ve got some rooibos somewhere. Rick wanted to try it. We had one cup because he’d read it was health-giving. I told him it that might be true, but it would also cause me to lose 94 per cent of whatever joy I had left in life.’
‘Ordinary, and I’ve brought you some biscuits,’ I said, pulling them out of my bag.
‘Perfect, Rick’s just eaten the last of the Jammie Dodgers I promised you.
Either that or Bonzo has got at the tin.
Like master like dog. Both of them are so greedy.
Now then, what did you think of our little gathering yesterday?
I must warn you, take no notice of Dennis.
He behaves like Michelangelo in a tweed jacket half the time.
Beryl is far more of a leader and a much better artist too. ’
‘She certainly is, and she seems very interesting,’ I said.
‘We all think she used to be a spy, but we have no actual proof of it. Not that you would expect to see her with a secret camera going round Tesco. Or lurking in the library waiting for her Russian handler to walk in with a copy of Woman’s Own under his arm.’
‘Page ten,’ I said in a Russian accent. ‘The microchip is underneath the article about cholesterol.’
Anita spluttered with laughter and passed me a mug of tea.
‘So, you’ll keep coming to the art class? I do hope so. We could do with some fresh blood, and you seem very jolly. The tutor used to be Maud, who ran the village shop, but when that was sold she went to the Cotswolds to live with her daughter in Lower Slaughter.’
I agreed I would and we chattered pleasantly for a while, drinking tea and eating biscuits until Anita’s husband Rick appeared at the back door holding out his hands in front of him like a surgeon.
‘Boots!’ Anita shouted, and he kicked off his wellingtons.
‘You must be Meg,’ he said with a smile as he padded over to the sink. ‘I won’t shake hands, and don’t come too close. I’ve been up to my elbows in Blood Fish and Bone. Have you asked her?’
Anita fixed him with a glare. ‘Rick, mind your own business. I’m just softening her up with her own biscuits.’
‘Asked me what?’ I said.
Anita gave a dramatic sigh.
‘The painting holiday, hasn’t she mentioned it yet?
’ Rick said, drying his hands on a tea towel.
‘You’d better agree otherwise Dennis will monopolise her.
Did you know he’s got the hots for my wife?
And no one wants to watch that all week, do they?
Can you imagine him, telling everyone where to go and what to do all the time?
Trying to corral everyone onto the bus and insisting everyone stays together? ’
‘Well, I’m not having that, I’d rather not go at all,’ Anita said.
‘Look, if you’ll just let me get a word in, I’ll tell Meg the details.
There is a painting group trip to Greece in May.
So in three months’ time, Beryl, Gwen and I were planning to go with Beryl’s sister Effie, who wasn’t there yesterday because she’s walking the Pilgrim Way in Spain, probably with a cockle shell in her hat.
And then she is off to America to stay with some friends, so we probably won’t see much of her at all before we go.
Now Gwen has told me she doesn’t think she can come on the trip at all.
She’s having her garden wall repointed and she feels she needs to be around to supervise things.
And if he finds out, Dennis’s ears will prick up like Bonzo’s do when he hears the postman’s van coming down the lane, and I don’t think we could bear it if Dennis brought his brother Ronald in Gwen’s place.
So please say you’ll come? Everything is arranged.
Cassandra’s sister Jillian lives out there, and she’s going to be our tour leader. ’
I did what I always did and tried to think of a reason why I couldn’t go. I played for time.
‘Wow,’ I said, ‘that’s a bit of a shock. I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘It’s his fault,’ Anita said, giving Rick a hard look, ‘I was hoping to ease it into the conversation more gradually. He’s going to be away birdwatching in Scotland that week with an old friend, so it was his idea that I should have a break too.
You do seem good fun and it would be such a great opportunity.
And Gwen is already fretting about what might happen to her wall if she isn’t there to watch.
I don’t think she is planning to actually wield a trowel, but she was captain of the Girl Guides back in the day, and you never know what they’ve picked up.
She is already starting to witter on about losing her holiday deposit, so you’d be doing her a favour too.
It’s May seventh for eight days, flying out from Birmingham to Santorini, which is such a lovely Greek island.
Nice hotel near the seafront in an adorable town, and a minibus to drive us to various locations. ’
‘It does sound tempting,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘and I haven’t had a proper holiday for years.’
‘I’ll send you an email with all the details,’ Anita said. ‘Beryl went a few years ago with her sister Effie, and she says it’s lovely, and even if you don’t do any proper painting, it will be nice to get some sunshine, won’t it? In fact, I’ve got a printout somewhere. Maybe in this basket.’
She started rifling through the stack of paperwork, eventually pulling out some sheets of paper held together with a giant paperclip that looked like a fish.
‘Take a look. Don’t hang about. And then I’ll make you a copy and then some more tea.’
‘And me?’ Rick said, pulling up a chair. ‘By the way, I saw Steve this morning. He’s been riddling out his shed and he gave me some really great bits of wood he’s been keeping.’
‘And what are you planning to do with those?’ Anita asked, giving me a knowing look.
‘Oh, I don’t know, but they are too good to throw away. I’m sure they will come in handy.’
* * *