Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
It wasn’t just the committee who’d signed it.
Underneath were blank rows for other people to add their names.
Jason’s was there, and Elizabeth’s, and page after page of others she didn’t recognise.
Most of them couldn’t possibly know what this was about, she thought in disbelief.
They could even just be visitors, popping in for a drink – signing, perhaps, in the time it took a pint of Guinness to settle.
But there could be absolutely no doubt: this entire petition was aimed squarely at her and Matt.
She flicked through the pages, feeling sick.
On the next-to-last page, she spotted Liv’s signature.
Jason came over to pull a pint. She gestured at the petition. ‘What’s this?’
‘You’re entitled to make your application,’ he said neutrally. ‘And we’re entitled to object.’
‘You didn’t think to ask us about it first?’ she said incredulously.
‘We would have done, if that was how you’d wanted to play it. But the first we heard about it was when someone warned us.’
‘Paul,’ she said with resignation.
Jason nodded. ‘It’s good of him to give his time on the committee. Shows how much he cares about this village.’ He carried the pint away without another word.
She gestured at Matt, who came over and took in the petition with one swift glance.
He looked at Jason, who was twisting a corkscrew into a bottle of wine at the other end of the bar, and opened his mouth to say something.
She put her hand on his arm to stop him.
The pub was full of locals, and, if she wasn’t mistaken, the man in the gilet was watching them with a slightly amused expression.
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s watching.’
By unspoken agreement, they didn’t tell the children.
Back at home, Kate had to feign raptures over the pheasant – she’d completely lost her appetite, which was a shame, because it was in fact delicious.
As well as the mushrooms and red wine, Will and Matt had added shallots, smoked lardons and lots of thyme.
It was extraordinary how the slow cooking left the wine not tasting of alcohol at all, just oniony, herby meatiness.
But there was no way she could enjoy it now, not when she felt this besieged.
That sense of everyone turning against her – it was like being back at school, people talking behind her back, ganging up.
Matt was more sanguine. ‘It’s only some names on a petition,’ he said reassuringly as they stacked the dishwasher. ‘It doesn’t mean we won’t get it.’
‘It means people will hate us if we do.’
‘Does it, though?’ he said gently. ‘Most of the people who signed will have given it about ten seconds’ thought.’
She knew he was right, but she still felt miserable. ‘I can’t believe Rosemary and Paul could be so two-faced as to try to turn the village against us.’
‘Well, we know what their motivation is.’ He caught her puzzled look. ‘They must be hoping that, if we don’t get it, we’ll agree to sell up.’
‘Oh. Of course.’ She hadn’t thought of it that way. ‘It won’t work though, will it? Could we survive without the Airbnbs, if we had to?’
‘Maybe,’ he said uneasily. ‘But it’s already pretty tight.’ He nodded towards the garden. ‘That drainage field’s going to cost a fortune. This kitchen wasn’t cheap. And I guess we’re going to need a planning consultant now, too.’
In some ways, it was easier for Matt – on Monday, he got up early to commute to the office. He’d spend the day in a different world: chairing meetings, untangling issues, solving problems. Trade Cottage was all Kate had, and now it felt under attack.
To take her mind off it, she went for a walk. She’d never been the whole way through the woods before, only as far as Will’s forts and the little stream Matt had been clearing of fallen trees. There was a narrow bridge, effectively just a six-foot plank, which she crossed, pressing onwards.
The further she went, the more tangled the woods became.
Trees that had fallen lay rotting on the ground, shaggy with moss, or leaned precariously against other trees.
The path she was following had been made by animals less tall than her – deer, presumably – and she often had to duck under trailing briars or low branches.
Occasionally, pheasants rocketed away from her, making her jump.
Eventually, she reached a muddy track. Turning left, she knew, would take her to Gordon’s farm. Turning right would take her through Pelham Park into the village, so she went that way.
As she walked, she wondered if she should write another letter to Rosemary.
If the other woman only understood how hurtful this campaign against the two of them was, might she get Paul to back off?
She tried to compose something in her head, but everything she came up with seemed either self-pitying or aggressively formal.
And, of course, Jason was right: people were entitled to object if they wanted to. It just seemed so utterly unfair.
At the edge of the village, she reached the church – a pretty building also made of speckled flint.
The path led through the churchyard, and as she passed the graves, she glanced down at the names: Theophilius Scott .
. . Cassandra Mount . . . Beloved Anne Stevens .
. . There was a section of newer headstones, too.
Her eye was caught by one much smaller than the others.
It was quite weathered, the inscription already fading, but, when she leaned down, she could just make out the name.
Andrew Christopher Finch.
She felt the skin at the nape of her neck prickle.
Finch. It was the same family – it must be, there was no one else in the village with that name.
She tried to work out the dates. Andrew Finch had been just eleven months old when he died.
And – she did a rough calculation in her head – he must have been Rosemary’s third child, a younger sibling to Jamie and Tessa.
She felt stunned. She thought back to the times she’d talked to Rosemary about her own miscarriages.
How was it even possible the other woman hadn’t said something about this?
Of course, she had a perfect right not to, but those conversations had seemed so intimate, so self-exposing, that to discover Rosemary hadn’t been reciprocating felt doubly wounding.
Had she been quietly judging Kate all along, dismissing her experiences as being so trivial by comparison that she wouldn’t even mention her own bereavement?
Or did she think it bad taste, perhaps, even to talk about grief?
Either way, Kate thought, it was a reminder that you didn’t always know people as well as you thought.
She walked back towards Trade Cottage miserably and a little fearfully, eyeing the houses on either side with trepidation.
Like an armada of ships bearing down on them, she thought, a frozen flotilla bent on their destruction.