Jan couldn’t imagine black-clad, iron-jawed Leonora Mortmain as a young girl, let alone one who did anything as fanciful as playing in fields. ‘Look,’ she said, whipping Jeremy’s breakfast plate smartly away from under him, much to his surprise. ‘She ought to know better. I didn’t move to Langford to spend my final days in a suburb of an out-of-town shopping centre. I moved here—we moved here,’ she amended hastily, ‘so we could live in a beautiful, historic town and enjoy all the amenities.’
‘Greg wants it to happen,’ said Jeremy, grabbing another piece of toast and defiantly buttering it on the tablecloth. Greg was Jeremy’s junior surveyor, who was rare in Langford, in that he’d lived there all his life. ‘Says it’s just what we need. Bit of reality. Plus he’s right, we don’t have a decent DIY shop round here for miles.’
‘Greg’s talking rubbish,’ said Jan firmly. ‘So are you, Jeremy. I know we need more jobs in the town, and it’s too expensive, and everything, but we don’t need that. Don’t take a sledgehammer to crack a nut.’ She thumped her hand dramatically down on the walnut kitchen surface, and looked out of the window of the bungalow towards the spire of St Mary’s church.
The Allinghams had moved to Langford from Southampton, seven years previously. Their youngest daughter Jenny had finally left home, and Jeremy had been offered a job in the local chartered surveyor’s office, four days a week, by an old friend who was retiring. It was to be his last job before he himself retired, and the plan, as far as he was concerned, was to spend more time playing golf and reading Robert Ludlum thrillers. In a decent place, where there was a decent pub within walking distance.
Jan had different ideas, however. She had, along with many children around the country, come on a school trip to the town and the Roman villa when she was a girl, and had fallen in love with the place. It had seemed to her, mired in suburbia, the height of Englishness, for her outwardly practical demeanour concealed—as is so often the case—an intensely sentimental, romantic soul. That, plus an unshakeable faith that what was right would always prevail, made her an optimist of the most terrifying order. Here, untrammelled by ugly modernity, was a place so unchanged that Charles I might well recognize the town that had hidden him, at great danger to itself, from the Roundheads. Here, too, was a high street down which Jane Austen had walked, where she would still feel at home. Living here was like a dream come true for Jan. Yes, of course, one had to live in modern times, but she had her hessian ‘Langford’s Own Plastic Bag’ bag for shopping at the farmers’ market, didn’t she? And didn’t she get the bus everywhere she could, instead of using the car, and didn’t she recycle everything, even though it meant driving the green box down the road as the recycling truck never seemed to make it into the cul-de-sac?
‘It’s the realities of the modern global economy,’ said Jeremy, taking his plate back firmly, and putting the paper down on the table. ‘If you want to be able to fly to Rome to waft around looking at old dead statues, you have to accept there are downsides.’
‘Look, I’ve got no problem with the modern global economy,’ said Jan, who had spent many years working for a luxury cruise company and was well aware of ‘market realities’, as the firm had been wont to call them just before they hiked up the prices. ‘And that’s rubbish, Jeremy, I’d go to Rome by coach if I had to, that’s how we went to Italy for our honeymoon, remember? It’s more that I don’t believe for a second this is going to help the town.’
Jeremy turned over a page of The Times. ‘Ah,’ he said, in placatory tones. ‘Twenty-three degrees in Rome. When are you off?’
It infuriated Jan when Jeremy patronized her like this. She had worked as long as him. Just because she was a woman, and a woman in her fifties who liked a tea shop and who fussed a bit—she knew she did, she tried not to—why should that mean that her opinion was risible? Her opinion and so many other women like her. It was sexism, that was what it was. She bit her tongue, as she had done so often in their marriage. ‘For every one job it creates, there’ll be four tourists who don’t come to Langford because they’re put off it by this horrible development, and that’s potentially far more jobs lost, not to mention what a violation of planning laws and everything else it is.’ She was getting worked up. ‘And I hate that attitude, Jeremy, that one that says it’s either or, that either you’re a fuddy duddy who’s clinging to some old tradition and can’t see the modern world around them or else you’re a dynamic thrusting young individual. It’s rubbish. This is about community!’ She banged her hand on the surface again. ‘It’s about the heart of the town! It’s about…’ She ran out of steam and looked at her watch. Damn it.
Jeremy said, after a pause, ‘I thought we drove to Italy for our honeymoon. We didn’t get the coach, did we? I had the new Austin. Green. Nice car, that was.’
‘That,’ said Jan awfully, picking up her bag, ‘is not the point, Jeremy. I have to go to my meeting now. Goodbye.’
The conversation with Jeremy—who was a fool, she had to remind herself—had made her late, and now she would be late for Ron and Francesca, the dear girl, who was so sweetly offering to help with the campaign. Jan hurried out of Water-meadows, the sweetly inaccurate and inappropriately named cul-de-sac where she lived, walking briskly towards the pub. She cut behind the warren of backstreets that formed the old heart of the town, where the lanes twisted and curled and where many a visitor to the town had found himself ending up by the old town walls that led down to the meadows, rather than the high street. Jan was a local though, of course, and it was with no little pride that she knew how to navigate her way through the maze, coming out at the back of the garden to Leda House, Leonora Mortmain’s home. The garden was huge for a townhouse; though she was trying something between a walk and a trot, Jan glanced up as she always did, at the rose that climbed up the back of the house, and took in the sweet smell of the garden stocks in the air.
Jeremy’s words rang in her ears. What was he doing, chatting away to Leonora Mortmain, and not mentioning it to her? For starters, she’d do anything to see inside Leda House (apparently, there was a Fabergé egg in the drawing room!). The idea of a teenage Leonora Mortmain, gambolling in fields with the butcher’s son or whoever, was ridiculous. It struck her then, and she slowed down, that it was probably something to do with the fact that she just didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d ever been a child. Much less been happy, been in love, got drunk, kissed someone she shouldn’t. Unimaginable, really! Jan thought of Jeremy suddenly with a smile, she didn’t know why. She turned the corner, onto the high street.
It was only five minutes past ten when she arrived at the Feathers, but they were five minutes too many. Mick was outside, wiping down the blackboard.
‘Hello, Jan,’ he said, standing up. ‘You here for the meeting? Francesca’s just arrived.’
‘Yes,’ panted Jan, practically running towards the door. ‘See you later, Mick.’
Inside, she found Ron, Andrea Marsh and Francesca, sitting around a table at the back of the pub. She bustled towards them.
‘Gosh. I am sorry, honestly. It’s been a bit of a hectic—’
Ron looked up, and Jan stopped as she saw the look on his face.
‘Council just called, Jan. It’s all over.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Jan, her breathing short. She put her hand on the table.
Ron’s face seemed to have aged twenty years in one day. ‘That old—that woman signed the agreement yesterday. Council’s approved it. The Mitchells have offered to finance some community park or something, so they’ve given planning permission for the shopping centre to go ahead. They start draining the land next month.’
Andrea gave a huge sniff; Francesca patted her hand. ‘I’m calling them this afternoon,’ Francesca said, drumming her pen on the table. ‘This isn’t over, Jan. I’m telling you.’
Jan