The Desperate Diary of a Country Housewife Page 10

  After a few minutes, when we still hadn’t really spoken—except I think I’d apologised for not having been in touch—he sort of pulled me away from the path, and he kissed me. I felt suddenly very angry. Partly, I suppose, because I was terrified—of being caught, or of not being caught, and of everything slipping out of control. Partly because of my own treachery, I think. And partly, to be honest, because of this ridiculous, completely spurious bill he sent us for the bloody kitchen. So—he tried to kiss me; or maybe he did kiss me for a second or two. And instead of behaving with any tiny semblance of dignity, I threw myself backwards, half stumbled into whatever bush it was that was meant to be hiding us, and spat at him to Piss off.

  He looked pretty shocked by that; not terribly impressed, I think. He stepped away from me; raised his two hands in semi-humorous surrender. ‘Fair enough,’ he said.

  We talked about the bill he’d sent, which—obviously—I haven’t mentioned to Fin. And he said he knew nothing about it. Seeing the look of annoyance crossing his face when I told him, it would have been absurd not to believe him. He told me to ignore the wretched bill; to rip it up and forget all about it. He said he’d talk to Potato Head in the morning.

  And after that…I suppose I was relieved, maybe. I don’t know. But there we were in the woods, on that beautiful, beautiful evening, and we were friends again. Alone. And…Fin was back in the house, packing to go back to his ‘room’ at Hatt’s…and it was all just so…good. It was good. It was good it was good it was good.

  I told him not to come visiting again. That this must never, ever, ever happen again. Ever. Was he listening? I don’t know. Did I mean it? I think so…

  I feel sick. I feel permanently bloody sick these days. Guilt, perhaps. Or nerves. Or a mixture of both. What the hell do I think I am doing?

  Fin’s gone now, anyway. He left a couple of hours ago. Kissed the children goodnight and took a taxi to the train and then another taxi from the train on to Hatt’s place. He said he’d be back again at the weekend, and it’s only four days until then. But I feel so lonely suddenly. I just wish—everything. Nothing. I don’t know. I just wish he’d stop going away.

  Friday

  Help!!! Just got a call from the Sunday Times. I was meant to file yesterday and I forgot. I forgot! How pathetic, how completely bloody useless is that? I’ve been writing for fifteen years on and off—probably even more, actually, if I could be bothered to count—and I’ve never just ‘forgotten’ to deliver my copy before. Never. What’s the matter with me? What’s happening to me? Now I’ve only got until lunchtime to file something and I feel so bloody ill I think I’m going to have to write it from bed.

  At least I know exactly what I’m going to write about this time. For once. That’s what’s so ridiculous. I’ve been thinking about it a lot! How could I just forget? Anyway, here goes.

  Here goes.

  Here goes…

  I hope it doesn’t sound too crazy when I put it down on paper. Fin said I was barking when I told him. But then of course he would. Men always say women are barking when they’re too bloody lazy to try to understand the point.

  COUNTRY MOLE

  Sunday Times

  My mysteriously invisible neighbour, of poplar sapling fame, didn’t answer her front door in the traditional witch’s garb I had psyched myself into expecting. It was strangely disappointing.

  In fact, at first glance, standing there on her porch without her pointy hat on, she looked like any one of the hundreds of forty-something lady-mummies in the area: nice clean hair cut to sensible below-the-ear length; freshly laundered jeans; nice burgundy sweatshirt with rugby logo atop; and a husband nowhere to be seen (in London no doubt, like the rest of them, grubbing up the mortgage for Paradise. Among other things).

  She might even have fooled me completely, but last Saturday night she and her husband came to dinner. And I now feel confident to state, more or less categorically (since there’s no one to contradict me except my own husband, whose opinion is meaningless anyway because he spent the entire evening on his mobile discussing sale-and-leasebacks with a man in Los Angeles): this neighbour of ours is no ordinary lady-mummy. Pointy hat or no, I’m convinced she has evil powers.

  She didn’t want to come to dinner. That much was obvious. She didn’t want to talk to me at all; didn’t want to answer the door, didn’t really even want to give me back the football—which was wrecked, by the way: I’d only tossed it over her garden wall a few hours earlier. Now it was flat as pancake. It was covered in teeth marks, and ripped to shreds.

  Nevertheless I was willing to overlook that. The husband and I didn’t leave London to stare into a line of poplar trees. However frosty she wanted to be, I was determined to befriend her.

  And here’s the thing: laugh if you will, but I’ve been feeling mysteriously sickly ever since. Our new house has taken on a malignant smell, which my husband, when he’s not on the telephone, insists is a delightful mixture of new floor paint, new carpet, and the new plaster in the kitchen ceiling.

  Well, perhaps—except before that football-wrecking episode, this house smelled perfectly fine to me. Something has happened.

  She arrived early, reeking of scent, and with her husband, the poor dupe, trailing in softly behind her. He’s a stockbroker, as I had guessed; yet another Paradise clone—a figure so familiar now, I wondered if we’d even met each other before. The gentlemen in this expensive little corner seem to be peculiarly, extraordinarily interchangeable. Unless I’m missing something. I think I must be. In any case, I don’t think he uttered a word which wasn’t about train timetables all night. So while the holograph husbands burbled quietly, the one to LA about industry tax breaks, the other to himself about punctuality targets, I struggled hard to find common ground with the sorceress. We talked about the weather, which has been damp. We talked about some traffic lights off the ring road, which she thought would benefit from a cleaning. We talked about the local Waitrose moving the place where they store the trolleys. The trouble was, her parfum, on top of the other smells, was making me very ill indeed.

  ‘Once you both get settled here,’ she declared at some point, sloshing extra wine into her glass, ‘you’ll discover the social life tends to centre a lot around the rugby club.’

  And that was when the room went cold. I realised, once and for all, that I was dealing with a sociopath. A witch-cum-sociopath, who was desperately trying to imitate ‘normal’. It was also when I realised I was going to be sick.

  She smiled at me. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, leaning forward. ‘You look terrible. You look as though you’d much prefer to be in bed.’

  I left the room to throw up. Came back ten minutes later still feeling like death. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ she asked again, pouring herself another glass of wine. ‘Perhaps we should leave you in peace?’ But she and the Dupe didn’t do that until 2 a.m. And in all that time those poplar trees never got mentioned. Over and over, the words would form on my lips, only for another of her chillingly ‘normal’ conversations to distract me…And I’m still as sick as a parrot. Is it simply a coincidence?

  Draw your own conclusions.

  Thursday

  Children broke up for the Easter holidays yesterday. Lovely, having their cheerful voices around, after so much time on my own. Trouble is they’re not going to stay cheerful for long if I don’t come up with a few ways to entertain them. Their friends all seem to have flown away to far-flung corners. One’s gone to Kenya. Another one’s gone to Egypt. Another one’s gone to the Seychelles. Spoilt brats. Haven’t they heard of global warming? Also, why have their annoying parents all got so much money to spare? In the meantime, there’s a limit to the number of picnics the three of us can have in the bloody rain.

  Fin says he’s on the Isle of Man meeting up with film financiers. And maybe he is. Who knows? He says he’s going to be there all week. I can’t remember the name of his hotel, and his mobile, for some reason, doesn’t get a signal anywhere on the is
land. He’s rented a telephone from another network and I know he’ll say he gave me the number but I can’t find it anywhere. That I’ve bothered to look. He’s left several messages—mid-afternoon, just when he knows we’re most likely to be out—but we haven’t actually spoken to each other for days. The truth is I’m no longer so sure which of us is trying to avoid the other harder. I just don’t know anymore.

  Most of all I wish I could stop feeling so bloody ill. I’m sure it’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a day or two. I’m absolutely certain it isn’t what I think it might be. How can it be? How can it be—this month of all months? Of course it isn’t. I don’t even want to think about it actually. All the same, maybe it’s time I found a doctor.

  Took Ripley and Dora over to Clare Gower’s place so they and her children, Joshie and Tanya, could go riding together; also so I could finally get the dirt on my evil neighbours, the Robinson-Horribles. I thought, maybe, if Mr Mega-Bux wasn’t around to cramp his wife’s style she might have been willing to open up a bit.

  Except she wasn’t. The children were outside on the trampoline (having done their riding, which was a great success) and Clare was cooking up chocolate muffins for tea. I mentioned, very casually I thought, that the Horribles had come round for dinner the other evening.

  ‘It was quite a night,’ I said, when she didn’t immediately respond. Not sure what I meant by it exactly, but it didn’t matter. Luckily she didn’t ask.

  She said, ‘When I make choccie muffins I always add a weeny bit more cocoa than they recommend. Don’t you? It gives you that extra choccie zing, which is so important. Especially for kids.’

  ‘They’re quite an intriguing couple,’ I said. ‘Aren’t they, though? Very keen on rugby.’

  ‘…Yesss…’

  ‘I mean, they seem so normal. But then—I don’t know. Maybe they’re not?’

  Clare went purple and I immediately felt like the bitch that I am. Here I was in her lovely luxury kitchen, with my children outside bouncing blissfully on her Olympic-size trampoline, and all I could do was torment her with questions she very obviously did not want to answer. ‘Goodness,’ she said, plopping choccie muffin mix into choccie muffin cases, ‘I hardly know them really! Hardly, anyway. Roger doesn’t really like them, so—you know…’ She looked up. And there was definitely fear in her face. ‘You didn’t mention me?’

  I said no, and she relaxed. But I fully intend to now, when I see them again. If I ever see them again. Annoyingly, they’ve both gone back to being invisible.

  Monday

  Darrell hasn’t called. As he promised he wouldn’t, so that’s all right. But he sent me a lovely text yesterday. It just said ‘Missing you’. That was all. I’ve kept it. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I have. I’m missing him, too. I’m missing Fin. I’m missing London. I’m missing my life. God, I feel so bloody ill.

  The children are downstairs; a bit bored, I think. It’s raining outside, and all their friends are still away for the holidays. So I’m going to get off my fat, lazy arse, stop feeling so bloody sorry for myself and take them for a swim.

  Coming back from the Leisure Centre, steeling myself for the sickly reek of the wretched house, and who should be standing waiting for me on the front porch but Potato Head. Looking pretty damn mean, I might add. I felt a lurch of real fear. Because the fact is, in spite of Darrell promising to speak to him, he’s been texting me regularly about this wretched bill, and in fact yesterday, or possibly the day before, he even sent the bill to me again, only this time by registered post.

  Which just goes to show how below speed I must be feeling at the moment. Because I never, ever, ever sign for letters unless I’m specifically expecting something. Obviously. Why would I? Why would anyone? In any case, I signed for that letter without even thinking. And there it was, another bill from Potato Head, with another demand for £1,400.

  I threw it away, actually. And more or less managed to forget about it until the moment I saw him standing there on my front porch, looking menacing.

  I told Ripley and Dora to go round and play in the back garden, and continued up the hill to join him.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. Which I thought was pretty poised, under the circs. ‘What can I do for you, Mr…’ and I realised, too late, I’d completely forgotten his real name. ‘Mr Kitchen-Builder,’ I said coyly. Just like Clare Gower would have done. Except of course she would have been in a peach silk négligé at the time. I had chlorine hair from the Leisure Centre, and a pasty face, and the top button of my jeans undone. Anyway, I gave him a sickly smile and for some reason he seemed to like that. He smiled back. Possibly for the first time since I’ve met him. ‘If you’ve come about the bill I think you need to talk to Darrell,’ I said. ‘I’ve already discussed it with him and—’

  Potato Head leered, I think. He said, ‘I’ll bet you have.’

  After that I didn’t say another word. I called Darrell on the mobile, told him Potato was with me, hassling me about the bill, and tried to get Potato to take the telephone. He refused. He just—almost from the moment I had Darrell on the line, he just began to slink away. By the time I’d told Darrell that Potato was refusing to speak to him, he was already a quarter way down the hill. Darrell said he was coming over. I told him not to. And then I realised I was pretty much about to burst into tears, so I hung up.

  And now I’m fairly certain my life is falling apart. In fact I know it is. I don’t need a doctor to tell me what’s wrong with me. And what happened between Darrell and me didn’t happen. Ever. Definitely, definitely, it didn’t happen when it did.

  And I have got to be bold about that. And I have seriously, seriously got to talk to Fin.

  COUNTRY MOLE

  Sunday Times

  Our neighbourhood witch has reverted to her usual invisible self, so far as I can tell. But her wretched poplar saplings, destined to block out our beautiful view, grow taller and more excruciatingly visible every day. At least they do to me, who, between bouts of vomiting, can think of little else. My husband, so engagingly relaxed about all things domestic he accidentally referred to his London lodgings as ‘home’ last weekend, says he thinks I’m being pathetic. He says the trees won’t cause any real obstruction for at least a decade, maybe more, by which time who knows where we’ll be? Possibly dead, actually, the way I’m feeling at the moment—the way I’ve been feeling ever since the witch came to dinner. I do believe I’ve been hexed.

  In London, getting to see a GP is one of life’s greater irritants, usually involving at least half a day in a waiting room reading old issues of Family Circle, followed by a 90-second consultation with the back of the doctor’s computer, and a slick brushoff. I had presumed that the NHS experience would be similar everywhere, even down here in Paradise— which is why, since we moved eight months ago, the children and I have muddled through sundry afflictions without bothering to sign up to a surgery, or even to discover where one was. We might have continued that way if it hadn’t been for the witch’s spell. But this new sickness has become a little debilitating. My poor family thinks I’m going mad.

  I have taken some kind of allergic reaction to the smell in our lovely, newly decorated house, to the point that now there is only one room where I can breathe freely. It’s a small back bathroom, the only room not yet to have been renovated, and it looks as though I may have to set up camp in there, until either the sickness or the smell goes away.

  In the meantime, I finally made contact with the local surgery. I didn’t mention the witchcraft, obviously. I told them what I felt they needed to know, and they gave me an appointment at once. At once. Yes, they did.

  When I first walked into the surgery I had to check with the front desk that I had come to the right place. The waiting room was virtually empty, there was classical music playing, soft lighting, sofas, and on a dainty wicker side table two copies of this month’s Harper’s Bazaar. I’d brought my laptop so I could work while I was waiting—but there was no wait!
No sooner had I sat, I was called in. Astonishing. I’m trying not to be boring about this, and failing, I suspect. But these things need to be celebrated. I reckon that short shift in that beautiful, tidy waiting room ranks among the highest points of my entire life down here in Paradise.

  In any case the doctor couldn’t help. I told her the problem, and she took on that complacent, faintly sadistic look doctors always wear when you tell them you’re, em, pregnant—but fail to mention you’ve also been hexed.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that!’ I cried. ‘Something’s happened! I’m allergic to the new house!’

  She suggested I contact our builder, handsome and non-biscuit eating, and also, of course, among the most attractive men in the South West. She thought I could ask him about the materials he used; ask him if he knew of anything that might counteract the stink. A reasonable enough suggestion, I suppose, if a bit of a long shot. Except I imagine, given the current state of our once beautiful relationship, he’ll think he sniffs lawyers’ writs and run for the caves.

  In any case I can’t contact him. Not for a long time. Apart from the fact that he—or his partner—thinks we owe him £1,400, which we don’t, I look bloody terrible. Last time I saw him I was lean and fit and we were playing tennis. I think I’d prefer to spend the entire pregnancy in the back bathroom obsessing about witchcraft and poplar trees than to let him see me like this.