It was all a colossal mess, and now she was unemployed to boot. She should have been looking for another job, another firm to work for, before the gossip really spread, but she couldn’t bring herself to apply anywhere else. What was the point? Her reputation was tarnished—bungling a million pound account did that for your career. The years of hard work and sacrifice would mean nothing. She was the girl who cocked up the huge contract and, now, that’s all she would ever be.
She rubbed her gritty eyes, puffy, sore and still caked in last night’s mascara, and gingerly reached over. She rolled her fingers over the touch pad and the laptop sprang to life. Squinting at the screen, she refreshed her email inbox. Whilst she had been sleeping, her new life had been forming around her, and when she opened the reply from the estate agent, she smiled to herself. Time to disappear.
The little Eden she had sunk her life savings into was thankfully not a disappointment, despite the sale being unseen.
There was an exterior entrance on the street, and a staircase within the shop too, which made her feel very safe and self-contained, master of her own realm. She could pretty much spend her life at work and home, all within a few steps. After all the commuting and fast walks in teetering heels, barrelling down corridors and storming into court, it was an appealing thought to Amanda.
Opening the door, she flicked on the light and sighed. After long days of working to make the shop interior what she had envisioned, she had barely made a dent on her new home and it showed. Boxes surrounded the chintzy sofa she had bought from eBay, a buy she intended to upcycle with some new covers, and which at present looked like something from her gran’s house. Stepping over them, she passed a dilapidated end table and spied her smartphone. In the city, her phone had been permanently glued to her hand, never leaving her side for longer than a bath. The more time she did without it, the less she missed it, and the people who used it to contact her. Well, maybe her thoughts lingered on one, but she wouldn’t allow herself to dwell on that now. Opening the wooden drawer in the front of the table, she scooped up the phone and shoved it in, dusting down her hands as she walked away. Last night’s DVD title filled the television screen with colour as it sprang to life. She pressed ‘play’ and Pride and Prejudice began playing again, the embroidered garments flowing across the screen as the title music sounded. She walked to the open-plan kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out a microwave Thai meal and the remnants of the bottle of rosé from the night before. Spying the washed glass on the draining board, she filled it up and took a swift glug, smiling as the cold chill of the wine hit the back of her throat, warming her through. She sat down on the breakfast bar stool, running her fingers along the bandage on her foot. She pursed her lips as she thought of the disastrous encounter, and the feeling that she hadn’t been able to shake all afternoon. She had heard him next door, banging about most of the afternoon. He was obviously an arse. Obviously. She just felt sorry for the dogs he had been looking after. She could see him being a dog man though, all jeans, jumpers and ruddy cheeks, skipping over mountain and dale with man’s best friend. Her face drew into a frown as she sipped at her wine. Tracy was the polar opposite of him, all mean scowls, and out-there fashion sense. Not a couple you would put together immediately, if at all. She ran her free palm along the side of the cool glass. In fact, they were pretty much the last people she would put together in a relationship. Not that she cared, of course, and his unkind words had stung. What did he know about her business? Did he really think she hadn’t done a little bit of research before she started? Fair enough, she had sold her London life and skipped town in a heartbroken knee-jerk reaction, but he didn’t know that, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about doing it before.
She had the bookmark, the ideas, she had a plan. What she didn’t need was the sexy—Sexy? No!—annoying business owner next door causing problems and making her the village pariah. In her last job, she would have taken him on, told him exactly what she thought of him, dragged an apology out of him, but he had rattled her, and the feeling was not familiar or welcome. She resolved to ignore him and his girlfriend, let them get on with it. Plus, they had a regular supply of fresh dog poop at their disposal. Sometimes, a girl has to pick her battles.
She sipped at her drink and rose when the microwave pinged. After setting her food out on a plate, she took both to the couch and wrapped herself up with a blanket left on the arm from last night. As Lizzie Bennet navigated singledom on the screen, Amanda pondered her own fresh start. If her city friends could see her now, huddled under a blanket in a box fort, watching Austen and getting into a tizzy over the first man under seventy she had met this month. Pathetic. And anyway, not only was she over men forever, but Ben wasn’t single, he was an opinionated git and his girlfriend owned next door. And one thing was for sure, for the sake of her sanity and her bank balance, Amanda’s new life had to work. No, she would stick to Mr Darcy. She would get through this week, spend her nights under this blanket of denial, and then, come the weekend, she would sort her new home, and her new life, out for good. And she wouldn’t think about Ben again. She drank a toast to Darcy, smiling through a mouthful of pad thai.
‘Just me and thee, Darcy!’ she said, in a voice that held more conviction than she felt. Sighing, she took another glug and wondered yet again how life could change so quickly, and how she was ever going to adjust.
Ben Evans was arm deep in work. Mr Jenkins’ prize cow, Gwendolen, to be exact. The poor animal was having a breech delivery. Ben could see the calf’s feet pointing up, and Gwendolen was in distress. Not as much distress as Alf was in though. Alf Jenkins, one of the local steadfast farmers in Westfield, was leaning against the head gate, feet shuffling from one to the other. His ever-present roll-up was hanging from his tight lips, and his knuckles were as white as the white plastic apron encasing Ben’s body. Ben looked out from the cow’s behind, giving Alf a quick flash of his pearly whites.
‘Alf, she is in breech, but I can get her out. I need you to get me a bucket of water, and a shot of brandy.’
Alf’s impressively bushy eyebrows shot up into his hairline, which was half hidden in his tweed flat cap.
‘Brandy?’ he asked, incredulous.
‘Yes, Alf, a decent shot please, and some water. As fresh as you can, in a bucket. Go now, I have Gwen, don’t worry.’
Alf frowned and, looking confused, wandered off towards the farmhouse he shared with his wife of thirty years.
‘Annie! Annie, Gwen is nearly there. I need the brandy!’
Ben chuckled softly, his distraction technique working well. Alf loved his cows almost as much as he did his wife, in fact at times it was a close call which he adored the most.
‘Come on now, Gwendolen, let’s get your baby born.’
Gwen responded with a low, rumbling moo. Ben inserted his hand further into the cavity, pushing the calf back into the uterus as gently as he could. He wondered whether the woman he had met today would be appalled by his job, as Tanya always had been. Did Amanda even like animals? Probably not, she was obviously a ball-breaker, not the type to go all goo-goo-eyed over a puppy.
Tanya sure didn’t, unless they came in the form of designer coats and handbags. She had once toyed with the idea of getting a small dog, after seeing celebrities in her coveted fashion magazines being photographed with the latest living handbag accessory. She had even begged Ben to track down a breeder, until he had pointed out that the little pup might, in fact, have to be fed whilst out and about, and might even take a dump in her Louis Vuitton. He still remembered how his wife’s lip had curled up in disgust, and half an hour later she was back to her usual online shopping frenzy, the possibility of a pet all but forgotten.
Gwendolen bellowed as he turned the calf around to a birthing position. She banged against the metal gates with her hooves and let out a rumbling low noise. Ben checked the position and, satisfied, he wiped the sweat from his brow onto his shoulder. Just as he was waiting for the next contraction to start, to begin pulling out the calf, Alf appeared, his cheeks red, carrying a large black bucket of ice-cold water and a bottle of brandy, a plastic tumbler perched upside down on top.
‘Is