‘You didn’t actually say that, did you?’
Ellie laughed and said, ‘No. I’m getting soft. In fact, I came home and dug out Nina and the Nix from where I’d hidden it, then I had a drink and a think, and then I went and hid it again. In other words, I’ve no idea how to cope. So I decided to go with the flow and when Rosie wanted to go back to school, I said, OK, why not?’
‘That sounds sensible.’
‘Yeah, except I did start wondering if it was just a way of getting out from under this madwoman who’d turned from a straightforward modern laissez-faire mum to an overbearing, over-anxious, ever-present earth mother. OK. No need to say it. That’s me all over. Self-centred. Everything comes back to me.’
‘You said it. But everything includes all the pain and worry too, so don’t whip yourself too hard with them scorpions.’
‘My, we are full of literature this morning. Othello again?’
‘The Bible. My father was an archdeacon, remember, so you can hardly feel threatened by that.’
Daphne gave as good as she got, thought Ellie, which was one of the reasons she liked her.
She said, ‘Listen, can you stay for lunch? I’d really like to talk. Or we could go out and get a sandwich at the pub.’
‘Sorry, I’m on my way to the Mossy Bank Garden Centre, would you believe? It’s the other side of the bypass and as I was going to be so close, I couldn’t resist dropping in to see how you were. Patrick and I are lunching in their caff, God help us. He’s been advising them on roses and I think he feels the sight of his expensive wife will help prepare them for the sight of his expensive bill. I’d suggest you came but I think your Save the Peatbogs T-shirt might be counterproductive. I could manage a drink this evening though.’
‘Shit. I’ve got my Liberata group coming round.’
‘What’s that? Plastic kitchenware or one of those sexy undies groups?’
‘No, the Liberata Trust’s a human rights organization, sort of Amnesty with feminist attitude… oh, ha ha.’
She saw from her friend’s face that she was being sent up.
Daphne said, ‘Oh well, if you’d rather save the world than have a drink with your friend…’
‘Yeah, yeah. Truth is, the world’s had to look after itself over the past couple of months. I’ve been feeling guilty – yes, I know; there I go again – so when Feenie rang about the next meeting, I said why not have it round here?’
‘Feenie? You don’t mean Serafina Macallum, the mad bag lady?’
‘That’s right. Our founder, chair and driving force. How on earth do you know her?’
‘She sold us the bothy. Or at least her lawyer did. We never met her during the negotiations, but I’ve come close to being run down by her several times, both in that clapped-out Land Rover she drives, and on that ancient bike. You’d think she had something against me.’
Ellie concealed the thought that this was probably truer than Daphne guessed. She knew that what Feenie Macallum resented about the break up of her family estate wasn’t losing bits of property but the kind of people she had to lose them to.
Her own ignorance of the details of the Aldermanns’ purchase of a country cottage lay in her knee-jerk disapproval when Daphne had mentioned it a couple of years earlier.
‘Patrick loves to see the kids and their friends enjoying themselves but he does go white when he sees them turning the garden into a football pitch or a badminton court, so I said, Why don’t we buy a chunk of unspoilt countryside which they can then spoil to their hearts’ content,’ she’d said.
And Ellie hadn’t been able to bite back the caustic comment that helping put the price of rural housing out of the reach of other people’s children hardly seemed a proportionate solution to Patrick’s concern for his precious roses.
The cottage hadn’t been much mentioned between them thereafter, and when it was, Ellie hadn’t been able to decide if Daphne’s insistence on calling it the bothy was diplomatic understatement or provocative meiosis. Nor was she really sure whether her own attitude was pure social indignation or part dog-in-the-manger envy.
Now she wished she hadn’t been so quick to make it a no-go area, both conversationally and geographically, as her certainty that Feenie Macallum would have soaked the purchasers for as much as she could get, then put the money to some very good use, would have allowed her to have her cake and eat it.
‘Anyway,’ continued Daphne, ‘she doesn’t look as if she knows what day of the week it is. Ring her up, tell her she’s got it wrong.’
‘Feenie is as sharp as a butcher’s knife,’ retorted Ellie. ‘And there are others concerned and I’ve mucked them about once already. The meeting should have been yesterday, but when I thought I was going to be riding herd on the school outing, I had to ring round everybody and rearrange. Oh God. I forgot to remind Peter they were coming.’
‘Never mind,’ said Daphne. ‘What pleasanter surprise can there be for a hard-working bobby than to come home and find his house full of anarchist do-gooders? So let’s see if we can find a window in your crowded calendar. Lunch sometime later this week? Patrick’s going to some horticultural conference in Holland in the morning, Diana’s down at her cousin’s in Dorset and David’s at the bothy with some sixth-form chums. God, you are lucky to be in the State system. Costs you nothing and they spend most of their time at school, while we pay a fortune and ours are hardly ever there!’
Ellie smiled, but didn’t rise. A wise avenger picks her own payback time. Lunch at Rosemont, which invariably consisted of Marks and Sparks goodies tarted up to look home-made, should provide a good launch pad.
‘That sounds great,’ she said. ‘Any day but tomorrow. We’re going out to Enscombe. They’ve got some kind of menagerie at the Hall. Ed Wield, who lives in the village, was foolish enough to mention it to Rosie and she didn’t leave him alone till he promised to show her round.’
‘Wield? That’s the ugly sergeant, isn’t it? Didn’t you say he was a bit…?’
Daphne made a rocking gesture with her hand.
‘Gay?’ said Ellie. ‘That’s right. Except not a bit. All of him. And despite anything you learned at Sunday School, it doesn’t mean he lies in wait for small children.’
‘Never thought it did,’ said Daphne. ‘He struck me as a very nice man. And I recall Daddy saying that he preferred his curates gay, as it was easier to look after the choir when the curate was around than it was to look after the curate with the Mothers’ Union in full cry. Now I must whizz off and earn my keep. A garden centre caff! The mind boggles.’
‘Regards to Patrick,’ said Ellie. ‘And watch out for greenfly.’
She waved her friend goodbye, noting with self-mocking envy that since last they met she’d changed her car again for a sporty Audi, gave another wave to DC Dennis Seymour, and went back inside.
Mention of her Liberata meeting reminded her that she’d promised herself to do a bit of preparation. She’d completely neglected this and most other commitments during the past few weeks, but when Feenie Macallum asked questions, a wise acolyte had answers. She went back upstairs and switched on the laptop. There were