The Banker's Niece 11: William 2

The quad bike turns out to be nothing more threatening than a motorbike with four wheels, which is obvious when you think about it. Jane is pleased to discover that William’s version has two seats side by side, as she had uncomfortable visions of climbing up behind him and putting her arms round his waist.

    Thankfully William is looking the other way when she hoicks up her skirt in order to step in. Jasper leaps in after her and she only just manages to appropriate the seat before he does. With the stoicism of all dogs however (not that Jane's an expert), he settles with a thump on the floor between her legs.
    There’s nothing at the front or side to hold on to so she grips Jasper with her knees and wraps her fingers round the seat cushion – and not a moment too soon as the bike takes off like a greyhound.

    It roars up the track, thudding into holes and flying off bumps, reminding her of rough weather on her father’s yacht. Brother Ollie, she remembers, would be in the cockpit eating chocolate biscuits and grinning with excitement, his hair plastered to his head from spray, while she would be down below on a bunk, vomiting.

    And she wishes she hasn’t remembered that, but luckily, before memory turns to reality, the bike reaches the farmyard.

    Well, it’s a yard attached to a farm, but only one building, a new redbrick one, appears to be in use. Jane wonders if that’s where William does the milking. The rest are in varying stages of disrepair, with caved-in roofs and a surrounding litter of brown rocks and whiteish plaster. The cobbled driveway is barely visible under moss, dried mud and a forest of nettles. Again, Jane regrets her sandals and skirt.

    How can you run a farm from such a slum? Is this what farming's really like? It doesn’t look much fun. Even though she was brought up on a farm, her experience is limited as her father let the fields and worked in London running the family company. And, while the outbuildings on her family's farm were far from perfect, they were kept in a reasonable state of repair and all used for something – cars, tools, mowers.

    As soon as William switches the engine off she is struck by the silence, except that is for the birds whose trills, twitters and squeaks form a dense background, like a carpet in an empty room. A cluster of mature trees rustles gently behind some of the ruined barns. Like the barns, they appear to have escaped human interference for decades. Torn branches hang down, others are dead, others have grown into the ruins. 
    Jasper leaps off the bike, landing heavily on all four feet, and bustles through the nettles along what Jane realises with relief is a well-trampled route. She follows him towards a long white house with sash windows and an overgrowth of roses and wisteria. It shines out of the debris like the Madonna lily she once saw blooming in a dark Greek pinewood.
    This place, she thinks, could be worth a fortune – but it might need a fortune spending on it.

‘Go through,’ says William, stripping off his overalls and leaving them in a heap on the floor of what Jane’s mother would probably call a scullery and anyone else a utility room, even though there isn’t much useful about it: cracked flagstones; an original Belfast sink, stained brown; one rusty tap; a corner piled with sacks of dogfood and crates of lager.

   He could do with a clothes makeover as well as a haircut, she thinks, seeing the shapeless jeans and creased white shirt he’s wearing under the overalls.

    She loves those makeover programmes on television. She loves seeing people’s lives transformed. It’s pathetic really and not something she would ever confess to her friends – like so much else these days.

    And he’s too thin. She can see his shoulder-blades through his shirt, and his jeans are bunched into a belt as if he’s shrunk since he bought them.

    But then she’s a fine one to talk as she has, since her menopause a few years ago, lost two stone and reverted to the weight of her anorexic teens. She doesn’t think she’s anorexic again however as she eats regularly. Mostly. Sometimes she finds it hard to swallow, especially if she hasn’t had a glass of wine first to relax her muscles. It’s almost as if she has a permanent lump in her throat.

Given the contradictions of the yard, the kitchen isn’t a surprise.

    There’s a battered cream Aga, with a mound of old grey blankets beside it on to which Jasper throws himself with happy grunts. In the centre of the room there’s a beautiful pale-oak table, piled with bills and bank statements with just one chair pulled up to it at the Aga end. There’s a magnificent window half-obscured by chintz curtains, heavy but torn as if rejects from some stately home. In the shaft of sunlight next to the window there's a shapely armchair covered in the same tattered chintz. Its undercarriage rests on the floor like the stomach of an overweight cat.
    There are two anomalies: a cheap-looking chest-of-drawers with a small television perched in the dust on top of it, and some pictures. These hang in several neat rows on a far wall in semi-darkness and as Jane gets closer to them she sees that they are exquisite watercolours of British birds, simply framed in pine.

    She longs to ask about them but now doesn’t seem the moment. They look private somehow, like a locked diary or the stash of porn that adolescent boys keep hidden under their bed. Not that dear Ollie ever did as far as she knows but male friends have confessed.

William scrambles the eggs and burns the toast while Jane – with great care - makes the coffee with a cafetière she finds in a cupboard and some ready-ground William has in the freezer.

    ‘Left over from when my children were supposed to be coming to stay,’ he says.

    ‘Ah,’ she says.

    She remembers the ex-wife from her mother's telephone call, and senses a long and maybe sad story there, but again she doesn’t like to pry. She hates it when people subject her to a barrage of questions.

    William finds a second chair and pushes the papers away and they sit together at the end of the table chatting about this and that – the beautiful weather, Jane’s new job, the area, the cottage even. Not that Jane wants to get William’s hopes up at this stage. She doesn’t even know what the place costs and she needs to go to the estate agent in South Molton to find out all the boring details about services (if there are any) and surveys.

    He gives her a few funny looks but she decides to put them down to shyness rather than lust.

    Jasper hauls himself off his blankets and hoovers up the crumbs under their feet.

    It’s quite companionable really.

    ‘So you were in the army?’ she says, as they mop their plates with bread - white, out of a packet, but Jane isn’t complaining; she’s so hungry everything tastes like ambrosia.

    She can’t imagine William in the army. It seems far too brutal for him. Do they even take people with stammers?

    But then farming isn’t much better from what she’s read –  the unnatural conditions in which animals are kept, slaughterhouses, the separation of young animals and their mothers. She keeps thinking she ought to turn vegan, but she never quite manages it. She likes butter too much.

    William’s face shuts down. ‘Family t-tradition,’ he grunts.

    ‘But you got out?’

    ‘Yeah. Wanted to spend more time with my family.’

    Jane nods. ‘Of course.’

    It’s the standard answer when you don’t want to reveal the truth.

    She’s itching to ask more but William is wiping his plate assiduously with his bread and concentrating on leaving it squeaky clean.

    ‘Didn’t work though,’ he mutters unexpectedly.

    For a moment Jane doesn’t know what to say. Is he confiding in her? Does he want to say more? Is she being too reticent?

    ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, feeling inadequate.

    There’s an awkward silence. Not for the first time she wishes she were one of those fluffy women who drip emotions. Maybe she and William are too alike, she thinks. It’s not a comfortable thought.

    ‘I’d better go,’ she says, standing up. ‘Thank you so much for breakfast. It was a lifesaver. I’ll let you know about the cottage.’

    William starts throwing their dirty plates into the sink, and while he’s occupied she seizes the opportunity to question him in a casual way.   

    She points to the pictures. ‘What are these?’

    ‘What?’ asks William, his back to her.

    ‘These paintings,’ says Jane. ‘They’re lovely, but there’s no signature. Where did you get them?’

    ‘Oh, those,’ says William turning round. He’s blushing again.

    Jane doesn’t think she’s ever seen a man blush before, or certainly not as often as William does.

    ‘Actually, they’re mine. I did them,’ he says.

    ‘You did them!’ she exclaims. ‘But why aren’t you an artist? You should be doing this full time. You could easily make a living.’

    ‘It was a long time ago,’ he says. ‘Before I went into the army.’

    ‘But you could have gone to art school, done anything.’

    She can’t bear the waste of such talent. He needs shaking.

    ‘F-family wouldn’t have it,’ he mumbles.

    Family, she thinks in disgust.

For the next instalment, click here

If you're wondering about The Novel

As you may have noticed, I’ve now stopped posting extracts from my novel. This is because I know how difficult it is to follow a novel online so thank you if you’ve persevered.
    It’s been amazingly helpful for my novel-writing knowing that real people are reading the results. I'm now having trouble not slipping back into writing for agents and publishers, which I now realise makes for a much less interesting book.
    (I therefore reserve the right to change my mind about the above and to return to revealing parts of my novel in this blog if I decide to do so!)

If I don’t post again before Christmas, have a good one. Here (below) is a festive picture from the National Trust park I mentioned in the post before this one.

Willow Rudolph

And here (below) is a wintry picture I took a few days ago when out with Dog on the hill behind our house. 

Adventures in rewilding

Although rewilding is controversial, not to say extremely unpopular in some quarters, I’m a big fan. It seems to me it’s the first ever positive suggestion in the whole six decades of the modern environmental movement, and not just positive but exciting and inspiring.

Feral and Wilding

A few years ago I mentioned how much I enjoyed reading FERAL: Searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding by George Monbiot. Recently I’ve been reading another exciting rewilding book called WILDING: The return of nature to a British Farm by Isabella Tree. In fact it was so exciting that one night I was still reading it at 5am. (Yes, I know. I am a bit weird.)

The Knepp estate

Isabella with her husband Charlie Burrell owns the Knepp estate in West Sussex. For decades because the soil was so poor the farmland had been running at a loss so in 2000 they sold all their equipment and animals, paid off their £1½ million overdraft and with the help of grants (for such things as removing fences and undoing water management) left the land to nature.

Wildlife streamed in almost immediately, including species the Burrells didn’t expect. They introduced free-roaming old breeds (as near as possible to their wild ancestors) of pigs, cattle and ponies which turned the land into a mixture of woodland, wetland, scrub and pasture, which ecologists now believe is its natural state. (Usually considered a nuisance, scrub is actually the richest wildlife area of all and a natural nursery for tree seedlings.) They also discovered new sources of income such as wild meat and safaris. They dream of reintroducing native animals such as wild boar, beaver, lynx and wolf.

I need no persuading about the benefits of wild land. Nature is what keeps me happy and sane(ish) and the wilder it is the more I like it, but for those who need persuasion there are tangible benefits. Wild land can reduce flooding, rejuvenate soil exhausted by farming, bring down carbon-dioxide emissions (through carbon 'sequestration'), decontaminate air and water, safeguard biological diversity and provide pollinating insects. The psychological benefits of being out in nature, especially in the sort of landscape described above, have been proven and, as Isabella Tree says, as humans we have been intimately connected with nature for 99 per cent of our evolution. 'Sever that connection and we are floating in a world where our deepest sense of ourselves is lost.'

Unlike conventional conservation where habitats are maintained artificially – for species which may not actually like those habitats best but have nowhere else to go - rewilding needs little input from humans. We (in the UK and Western Europe) are now so efficient at producing food that we have a surplus. Farmers could be given grants not for farming but for rewilding. We could have a linked series of rewilded areas and rotate them – something which is perfectly possible with modern machinery.

Phew. That’s a very brief summary, and probably full of mistakes. Do read either of the two books I’ve mentioned above if you want to find out more, or you can contact a new charity called Rewilding Britain.

Talking of scrub and wild land, I realised this morning as I walked through this neglected little area tucked into a corner of a manicured National Trust park where Dog and I sometimes go, that it’s one of my favourite parts. 

And I realised why. It's because nature's taking over and I never know what I'm going to find here. It takes me back to my childhood. It feels real. It's an adventure. And, if that’s not an argument for rewilding, I don’t know what is. (Ellie likes it too. As soon as we arrive, she vanishes at speed into the undergrowth - which is why you can't see her in the picture.)

And here’s Ellie, sitting wistfully under a tree in the official part of the park.

I was going to talk about The Novel as well in this post but I’ve gone on far too long already so perhaps I’ll save that for another day.

The Banker's Niece 10: William 1

‘Yes?’ says Jane, putting on her most forbidding face.

    She knows exactly how grim she can look as she’s scared herself many a time when catching sight of herself by accident in the mirror.

    ‘Jane?’ says a man of indeterminate age the other side of the garden gate – which Jane hasn’t yet opened for him.

    He has dead-straight chestnut hair, a swathe of which flops over his eyes.

    ‘That man could do with a good haircut,’ says Jane’s mother’s voice in her head and for once Jane agrees with it.

    A minute ago she was standing on the cottage’s flagstone terrace transfixed by the view: green and more green in all shades from deepest pine to lemon. There wasn’t a house or road in sight and she made another snap decision. (Sharon would be proud of her.) This was where she wanted to live. All this space. All this solitude. She didn’t realise how much she needed them.

    And then, with the shattering roar of some sort of engine, this man arrived.

    Her face is obviously doing its job as he starts to gabble.

    ‘I, er . . . a n-neighbour rang . . . a car parked at the bottom of the track . . . the estate agent said . . . my m-mother . . .’

    By which Jane understands that he has full details of her movements from various sources, as well as knowing who she is. So much for solitude. It’s ironic, seeing as in the city she can do what she likes outside work and no one need be any the wiser.

    She can of course guess his identity as well, even though she’s pretending she can’t. So, in spite of his being the son of a one-time fellow deb of her mother and because he might turn out to be her nearest neighbour, she relents.

    ‘Yes, I’m Jane.’

    She keeps her scary face on. Neighbours in her experience are best kept at a distance, if that isn't contradictory. You don’t want them ‘popping’ in and out of your house. You want to be able to close your door and know that you won’t be disturbed.

    The man wipes his hand on his overalls and holds it out. ‘William.’

    The overalls are faded blue, spattered with brown, and a strong smell of manure has arrived with them. She wonders if it’s safe – from a hygiene point of view - to touch William’s hand but she supposes she has to.

    As she delays, he starts to gabble again. ‘Hope I’m not intruding . . .  can come b-back another time . . . wondered if I could help in any way . . . anything you want to know . . . anything at all -’

    ‘No,’ interrupts Jane, taking his hand and resisting the urge to then wipe hers on her skirt.

    She doesn’t mean to be curt but they can’t both gabble or the conversation will career off the rails, and she honestly doesn’t have any questions. She doesn’t care about the details. All is perfect.

    The garden is sweet, a romantic froth of pink and purple enclosed by a wild hedge, tall enough to give privacy. The house has everything a lone spinster needs: one and a half bedrooms, shower as well as bath, spick-and-span kitchen, sitting-room with open fire, French windows. Far from being full of detritus, it’s empty and spotlessly clean and smells of fresh paint. And on top of all that, there's a small concrete area to one side, in darn sight better nick than the track, just right for Clio.

    The two of them could move in tomorrow.

    The man’s face falls. ‘You d-don’t like the house then?’

    ‘Oh, no, it’s not that,’ she says and then comes to a halt, not sure how to proceed.

    The personal connection has muddied things. Didn’t her father always say ‘Never mix business with friendship’? As the daughter of William’s mother’s one-time fellow deb she can praise the house with impunity but as a possible buyer she should be playing it cool.

    The man looks at her with longing. ‘You d-do like it?’

    He has boyish features, uninteresting in themselves but open in a way most men’s features aren’t. Every emotion is immediately visible. It's hard to be cool with him. It feels cruel, like being cool with a child or an animal - not that she ever has been or ever would be. So she plumps for friendship. Of a distant sort, of course.

    ‘I might,’ she smiles.

    William smiles too. ‘Oh, I’m so glad.’

    And when he smiles his face is transformed. It becomes almost beautiful.

    He’s tall too. Her mother was right. Well over six foot.

    He starts to blush. ‘I, er, n-normally have something to eat around now – when I finish the milking. I w-wondered if you wanted to join me. . . I could tell you about the area . . . But only if you’ve got time, of course . . . You probably need to rush off . . . ’

    She remembers the ballroom dancing classes her mother sent her to when she was eleven or twelve. The boys, of the same age and invariably from single-sex schools, had to ask the girls to dance. Her stomach would be clenched with their embarrassment, not to say terror, and she always said yes in order to spare them.

    But this time, she doesn’t.

    ‘What sort of something?’ she asks.

    She really really doesn’t want to lead William on. It would be so easy to do and such a disaster if she was living next door and it went wrong which it would according to her experience. As her mother used to put it - in order to shock her father, and blaming her brothers for the language - 'Don't shit on your own doorstep.' And, anyway, Jane doesn’t lead men on any more. And, anyway, he’s too nice.

    ‘A fry-up?’ says William.

    She keeps her features neutral. A fry-up is hardly the most romantic of meals, so perhaps she’s safe, but it’s not the most appealing either. She knows what men’s fry-ups consist of. Meat and more meat, and she hasn’t eaten meat since her thirties.

    He tries again. ‘Scrambled eggs? Coffee?’

    Now he’s talking.

    Where?’ she asks. 

    ‘At my house,’ he says, pointing up the track.

    She remembers that track, the stones and the cowpats.

    ‘Is it far?’ she asks.

    ‘I can give you a lift on the quad bike,’ he says.

    So that was the reason for all the noise. She has no idea what a quad bike is and wonders whether her tight denim skirt will be suitable. She supposes she can hitch it up if necessary.

    ‘OK. Thanks. Yes.’

    William almost jumps for joy. ‘Jasper will be so pleased. He likes a bit of company. Don’t you old boy.’

    Jane notices for the first time a fat black Labrador with a greying muzzle sitting at William’s feet. William has bent down and is ruffling the dog’s ears.

    She's glad about Jasper. He makes her feel safe. From what, she’s not sure as William seems harmless enough. She wouldn't be going to his house otherwise. Herself, probably.

Click here for the next instalment

The Banker's Niece 9: Black Dog 2

Spring 1978

‘Where’s Pa?’ said Rick.

    ‘Oh you know,’ said Peggy. ‘Watching television or something.’

    Rick had explained the system to Jane. Rick’s father lived in the sitting-room, doing God knows what, while his mother lived in the kitchen, reading, doing crosswords and sneaking outside for cigarettes as Philip wouldn’t let her smoke in the house. She was a great reader apparently, especially of any books connected with country life, and Lord of the Rings, which she ploughed through once a year. Jane’s mother was a great reader too but she tended to like the autobiographies of people brought up in stately homes.

    ‘Sit down,’ suggested Rick to Jane, as she hovered next to the sink.

    He pointed to a round table next to the window, covered with a flowered cloth and already laid for lunch. Grateful for the suggestion, she squeezed round the table to the far side, hoping she wasn’t taking anyone’s special place.

    ‘There’s wine in the fridge,’ said Peggy.

    ‘Wine!’ said Rick. ‘Since when did you and Pa drink wine?’

    ‘Since your father got promoted,’ said Peggy.

    ‘Huh,’ said Rick.

    Nevertheless he extracted the wine from the fridge and filled four glasses, before pulling out a chair next to Jane and sitting down.

    Peggy started delving into the oven and placing pans on the peninsula that separated the table from the rest of the kitchen.

    A face and then a body appeared in the kitchen doorway. It was yet another version of Rick, only one with a large stomach, glasses and no hair.

    ‘Where’ve you been?’ demanded Rick. ‘Jane’s here waiting to meet you and Ma’s dishing up.’

    ‘I, er, I was having trouble.’

    ‘Trouble!’ scoffed Rick. ‘What sort of trouble?’

    ‘I was, er, flatulating.’

    ‘Flatulating!’ said Rick. ‘What sort of a word is that? Why can’t you call a spade a spade?’

    ‘Or a fart a fart,’ said Peggy from behind the peninsula where she was doling roast beef, roast potatoes and cabbage on to four plates.

    ‘Ex-actly,’ said Rick. ‘Nothing wrong with “fart”. Good Anglo-Saxon word, “fart”.’

    ‘Well you know,’ said Philip, nodding in Jane’s direction.

    ‘Jane doesn’t care, do you?’ said Rick, turning to look at her.

    Jane shook her head. She was incapable of speech.

In the afternoon Rick drove her round the lanes pointing out landmarks.

    ‘That was where I came off my bicycle and landed in a clump of brambles,’ he said pointing to a muddy ditch.

    ‘That was where I lost the road on the Cub and drove up the bank,’ he said pointing to a sharp corner and a precipitous slope.

    He’d talked about the Cub before. It was a Triumph Tiger Cub motorbike which he’d sold when he left home and still mourned. Jane didn’t know anything about motorbikes except that they were dangerous. Thank goodness the Cub was gone.

    ‘This was where I had my first car crash,’ he said at a T-junction. ‘I pulled out and this pillock came round the corner and smashed into the side of the Mini-van. It was never the same again.’

    Jane didn’t like to ask whose fault it was or whether anyone was hurt.

    Even though he had to sit hunched over because the roofs were too low, he'd had Minis of one sort or another ever since he started work six years earlier. She knew that because he'd described each one in detail to her, down to the registration number. The Clubman was Mini number three.

At teatime Rick went into the sitting-room for what was apparently the traditional argument with his father. Jane and Peggy sat in the kitchen together.

    Peggy patted Jane’s hand. ‘Dear girl. I’m so pleased he’s got you to look after him. We’ve been worried about him.’

    Jane had been worried about him too when they first met. He’d changed a lot though in five months but she didn’t think she could take all the credit for that. How kind Peggy was.

    Nothing about her first visit to Rick’s parents had been what she expected. There’d been no catechism, no polite formality, no sizing her up as a potential daughter-in-law. Instead, it was as if she’d been absorbed into the family exactly as she was.

    Fresh air, albeit of an occasional foetid nature, blew through this house. People said what they thought, did what they wanted. She was happy here.

That evening back in Exeter, as she sat in the bath and as usual surveyed with despair her rolls of stomach fat, she had a revelation. The solution was nothing to do with your size, with eating or not eating. The solution was to love yourself as you were. That was the only starting point.

    Later, as she and Rick lay on their mattress together, his every touch brought a waterfall of colour. And this is just the beginning, she thought.

Click here for the next instalment

The Banker's Niece 8: Black Dog 1

Spring 1978

‘Black Dog,’ laughed Jane. ‘What sort of a name is that?’

    ‘A Devon one,’ said Rick.

    It was Sunday morning and they were in the Mini (Clubman), travelling at speed – as they always did when Rick was driving – through what Rick called ‘the back roads’ to the village where he’d been brought up and where his parents still lived, so that Jane could meet them for the first time.

    He always travelled by the back roads if he could. He called them the ‘proper Devon’. Jane called them lethal.

    They were always covered in slippery mud. They were one-vehicle wide (if that). Deep shade could turn to bright sun or vice versa in a second and blind you. They twisted like sidewinders and you never knew what you might find round the next twist – a horse, a dog, a deer, a tractor, a child, someone on a bicycle. Occasionally they were so steep Jane wondered if she would have to get out of the Mini and push.

    At first she used to hang on to the door handle and put her hands over her eyes whenever anything scared her, both of which actions annoyed Rick. He saw them as a form of back-seat driving.

    ‘I have rights, even as a passenger.’ she would retort. ‘Especially as a passenger because I feel so powerless.’

    ‘No you don’t,’ said Rick. ‘You just have to trust me.’

    So now she simply shut her eyes at intervals and hoped Rick didn’t notice.

    ‘Why’s the village called Black Dog?’ asked Jane.

    ‘There’s a legend,’ said Rick.

    ‘Ooh,’ said Jane. ‘Tell me.’

    Rick was good on legends. They’d been to Dartmoor a couple of weekends before and as they drove home in the dusk – with the moor black and deserted – Rick had told her about the ‘hairy hand’ that clawed at cars on exactly that stretch of road. They’d laughed together but when Rick wasn’t looking Jane made sure her window was properly closed.

     ‘A young girl was walking home alone in the dark through a wood. She was very frightened,’ began Rick.

    ‘Ooh,’ shivered Jane. She used to have to do the same after school. She knew exactly how the young girl felt.

    ‘But a black dog appeared and walked with her all the way. As soon as she arrived at her door it vanished. Ever since it’s reappeared to help any village girl who’s frightened and alone.’

    ‘Ohh, that’s lovely,’ said Jane.

    Rick laughed and swerved round a pheasant that was standing, bemused, in the middle of the road. He almost drove the Mini up the bank and Jane hoped he didn’t hear her sudden intake of breath.

    ‘Remind me about your family,’ she said to distract herself from Rick’s driving and because a minute ago they’d passed a sign that said ‘Black Dog 2 miles’ and her stomach was starting to flutter.

     ‘Only Ma and Pa will be there today,’ he said. ‘Brother’s in London climbing the greasy pole in the police and last heard of Sis was living in a tepee in Wales.’

    ‘A tepee!’ said Jane.

    ‘It’s a sort of tent.’

    ‘I know what a tepee is. I just thought it sounded, well, rather fun.’

    The nearest she’d got to the alternative lifestyle was being asked by a schoolfriend to go grapepicking in Spain the summer they finished their ‘A’ levels. She didn’t go. She was too keen to leave home and start earning her own money. In retrospect, that probably wasn’t the right decision, given what happened in London. Never mind. She was making up for it now.

    ‘Rather you than me,’ said Rick.

    And he was the one who’d been living in a hovel.

    ‘So, what do I call your parents?’ she asked.

    ‘Peggy and Philip, of course,’ said Rick. ‘What else?’

    Jane made a face. She wasn’t used to calling grown-ups by their first names.

    ‘And what are they like?’ she asked.

    ‘Ma’s born and bred in Black Dog,’ said Rick. ‘She was one of six children and the first of her family ever to go to grammar school. She works in the accounts office of a local building firm.’ He sounded so proud of her.

    Jane tried to absorb that information. Peggy couldn’t sound more different from her own mother, who’d travelled the world as a child with her diplomatic father then studied at Oxford University and the Sorbonne in Paris. Since marrying at twenty-four she’d not had a job.

    ‘And your father?’

    ‘He’s a bastard,’ said Rick.

    Rick had said that before but it still gave her a jolt. She’d never realised that you could criticise your parents. It was so ungrateful after all they’d done for you, wasn’t it? Even Shakespeare commented on it, on the awfulness of the ‘thankless child’, and he had to be right, didn’t he?
    She'd never been allowed even to disagree with her parents. They called it 'contradicting' and, along with 'fussing', was one of the worst things she could do.

    ‘Why d’you say that?’ she asked.

    ‘Ma did everything,’ said Rick. ‘Went out to work, looked after us children, paid the bills, cleaned the house. While Pa pretended to be a writer, disappeared whenever he felt like it and saw other women. Then, when she complained, he shouted at her.’

    ‘Ugh.’ Jane felt sick.

    She wondered what sort of a monster she was going to meet.

    ‘He is a bit better now, though,’ said Rick, as if regretting his venom. ‘Well, he’s got a job anyway.’

They reached the outskirts of the village and Rick turned into a street of large modern bungalows, every one different and every one immaculate, with velvety lawns, gleaming windows and fresh paint on all the walls.

    ‘Wow,’ said Jane.

    She knew what her mother would say about them. She’d call them ‘common’. Houses like clothes should be of the best quality, but battered. Being immaculate was vulgar. Nouveau riche.

    Jane thought of her parents’ Victorian mansion with its draughts, unpredictable plumbing and frightening creaks and groans, and knew which sort of house she’d prefer.

    Rick made a face. ‘I know. They’re a bit much, aren’t they.’

    Jane looked at him in surprise.

    ‘Pa’s choice. His family gave them some money. They moved here after we all left home.’

    ‘Were your father’s family rich then?’

    ‘They ran a chain of local shops. Thought they were the bee’s knees. Disapproved of Ma. Called her a “dance-hall pickup”.’ He snorted.

    But Rick’s parents still married, thought Jane, in spite of family disapproval, and by the sounds of it his mother although of lowly origin was the better person.

    ‘What sort of a place did you live in before?’ she asked.

    ‘A proper Devon cottage,’ said Rick. ‘In the village high street, next door to Grandma and Gramp, Ma’s parents.’

    She wondered what sort of a house she and Rick would live in, when they acquired somewhere of their own.

    Rick slammed the brakes on and stopped outside one of the smaller bungalows – matching blue-painted gutters, downpipes and garage door.

    Leaping out of the car, he led her round to a side-door and into a bright blue and white kitchen. There at the sink was a female version of Rick. The same green eyes, the same generous mouth and the same fluffy hair, only hers was blonde not brown.

    She came towards them, wiping her hands on her apron, and patted Rick on both cheeks. ‘Dear boy.’

    ‘This is Jane,’ said Rick putting his hands on Jane’s shoulders and pushing her forward. ‘We love each other and we want to get married.’

    ‘I can see that,’ said Peggy.

    She touched Jane on the cheek. ‘Dear girl.’

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The Mad Englishwoman is completely fine

If you’ve been following my novel as serialised in this blog, you might notice that I haven’t posted any extracts for over a fortnight. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that The Builders have left. There are one or two jobs still to do when items arrive which they’ll come back for and there are several plumbing jobs that Frog is busy doing. The bathroom is however usable and I’m no longer marooned in my study trying to keep out of the way. Consequently, I’m not tied to my computer and have found lots of things to do in the rest of the house and in the garden, and writing has been abandoned.

One end of our new bathroom. Note makeshift curtains.

The other end of our new bathroom. Note absence of basin mirror and shower screen (and door).

The second reason for lack of posting is that I’m approaching some dark areas of the novel and am busy telling myself that I’ve delved into them more than enough and don’t need to do it any more. Like the heroine of this delightful book which I’m reading at the moment, I’m telling myself I'm ‘completely fine’. Which no doubt means that I’m not.

The internet is probably not the best place to read a novel. You need to curl up in bed with it, take your time and shut out the rest of the world. So if you’ve stuck with The Banker’s Niece so far, many many thanks. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

    It’s been fantastically helpful writing for real people and not just to appeal to agents and publishers. It’s made the novel come alive for me and honed my writing (I hope).

    So I’d better get back to it.

The Banker's Niece 7: House-hunting

‘You have reached your destination,’ says the annoying voice of the annoying sat-nav lady.

    She’s definitely a lady, not a woman. That’s probably what makes her so annoying – that and her bossiness and her stupidity.

    Sat-navs are new to Jane, but she’s bought one specially for this trip. She hoped the woman would be a friend, someone to hold her hand in the ‘wilds’ of Devon, but the partnership is taking its time to gel.

    Jane slams her foot on the brake and surveys the turning. ‘Stockland Farm’ says a faded wooden sign on its back in the hedge. The entrance surface is a mixture of cowpat and stones, and the rest of the track doesn’t appear to be much better. Jane’s damned if she’s taking her beloved, new, bright-yellow, Renault Clio up that. On the other hand, does she want to leave Clio on her own by the side of the road in this god-forsaken corner of this god-forsaken part of the country?

    Let alone sat-navs, she’s not had a car for the last twenty years, what with the London traffic, the congestion charge, the impossibility of parking anywhere away from her flat and the Kafkaesque methods of the Residents’ Permit authorities. Buying Clio was a gesture, another step towards her 'new life in the country' as her friends call the move.  Much as she loves Clio, however, she’s finding her something of a responsibility – rather like a new dog, she supposes, not that she’s ever had one herself but she remembers the kerfuffle when her lovely brother Ollie and his lovely wife Lucy acquired their first puppy.

Last night she couldn’t decide whether to leave early, before the morning traffic, or late, after it. But then she woke with the light at 4am and decided she might as well make a move there and then. It was too early for coffee, even for her, so she stopped at a roadside café two hours into the journey and had one of the most disgusting beverages she’s ever tasted. How can you turn a fragrant bean into something that resembles week-old dishwater?

    The roads became smaller and smaller, more and more empty, steeper, twistier and narrower, and now here she is at ten in the morning, worn out, coffee-less and cross. She wishes she’d stayed in London.

She’s been in a mood ever since her mother’s phone call five days ago. She can’t bear being organised, especially by her mother and her mother’s ghastly friends. They have however provided her with an incentive to brave another trip to Devon, explore Moreton Courtney (without Henry), check out the neighbouring towns and villages and drop into a few estate agents for advice. It’s something she has to do and she’s been putting it off for far too long.

    So she’s booked herself into a B & B for three nights, Thursday to Sunday, and emailed the estate agent handling the cottage of William Davenport Junior.

    ‘We’ll leave the door unlocked and let you look around on your own,’ they said, obviously not keen to trek out themselves. ‘Just get in touch if there’s anything you want to know. The owner will probably be around anyway and I’m sure he’ll be only too pleased to help. You can put your questions directly to him if you prefer.’

    Not blooming likely, thinks Jane. Even though she has both the man’s mobile and his landline number – Jane’s mother was most insistent about that, making sure Jane wrote them down and then read them back to her – Jane is darn sure she will do everything in her power to steer clear of him. He’s probably some appalling tweedy brute who shoots everything that moves or – even worse – rampages through the countryside on horseback encouraging packs of rabid dogs to gang up on poor defenceless foxes while he laughs at the law. She’s met plenty of those in Kent, usually in her parents’ drawing-room.

   

She manoeuvres Clio on to a patch of flat grass next to the turning and climbs out.

    ‘Look after yourself,’ she says, patting her vehicle on the roof, ‘and don’t talk to any strange men.’

    With a sense that she’s leaving behind her last connection with civilisation, she starts to pick her way up the track, around the cowpats. They look dry on top but goodness knows what they’re like underneath. She shudders at the thought of green slime oozing over her toes and ruining her new silver sandals. The stones dig into her feet through her thin soles.

    She’s forgotten what the countryside is like. She was an idiot not to come with better footwear. Not that she has any. She has walking boots, which she uses occasionally when ‘hiking’ with friends, and a pair of pretty wellies (blue with pink spots) that she bought for wet days in the city or visiting her parents in Kent but as far as she can remember they leaked from day two. Neither would be appropriate.

    The track is lined with trees but they’re small and the sun is already high. There’s no shade and it’s getting hot. She has of course come without hat and suncream too. Weather forecasters always say that in June the sun is at its most powerful – and dangerous –  even if it doesn't feel like it and she can well believe it. Her head is already aching and the skin on her bare arms is turning red.

    She wonders not for the first time if she’s mad to consider exchanging her London life for something so different. Does she still have it in her to make such a radical transition? Has she thought it through properly? Has she considered the implications – for her career, her family, her friends?

    And why Devon? Except for one small connection nearly four decades ago there’s no logical reason for her to move to the other side of the country. What does she know about the place? Is she allowing Sharon to have too much of an influence on her? Should she step back for a few months and take stock?

    It’s all happening too fast.

  

This walk on the other hand is taking too long. After what feels to Jane like half an hour, but is probably only a few minutes judging by the directions and map that came with the property's details, a building appears on her left, a small white house with a tiled roof which she recognises from the pictures.

    As far as she understands from her mother – who’s heard it from Lavinia – who’s heard it from William Junior - it’s two farm cottages knocked into one and modernised about ten years ago. Until now it’s been let and the most recent tenant, a widow in her eighties, has left for a council flat in the village two miles away.

    Jane pushes open the front door, wondering what detritus of an old woman’s life she’s going to find inside the house. (By old woman she means a woman even older than herself.)
    She doesn't know if she could bear to buy a house found for her by her mother, and why would she want to live out here where she would have to drive both to the nearest village and to Courtney Press when she could find somewhere in Moreton Courtney and walk to work?
    She'll take a quick look round to satisfy her curiosity and to please her mother and her mother's friend (get them off her back), and then she'll head off for some proper exploration.

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The Banker's Niece 6: The telephone conversation

‘Jane,’ says Jane’s mother like a sergeant-major, demanding attention as she always does. She never says ‘Is this a good time?’ or ‘Have you got a moment?’ as other callers do.

    ‘Yes,’ says Jane warily.

    It’s 9am on Saturday morning, not her mother’s normal time. She usually rings on Sunday evening about six, if Jane hasn’t got there first – which she tries to do so as not to spend the entire weekend dreading their conversation. Whatever her mother wants, it must be urgent, and urgent isn’t good news as it tends to mean her mother’s coming up from Kent to London and wants to meet.

    'Jane,’ says her mother again, taking a slurp of something.

    At this time of day it’s probably coffee. She’s always slurping something when she rings. Jane wonders if it’s because she hates their conversations as much as Jane does and needs fortifying. If only Jane had something to hand as well, but she’s this minute tumbled out of bed and is standing in the kitchen in bare feet and her pink fleecy dressing-gown, vulnerable and unfortified.

    ‘I’ve got some wonderful news for you,’ continues Jane’s mother.

    Oh my god, thinks Jane. She’s getting married again.

    Since Jane’s father’s death her mother has blossomed. She’s always rushing off somewhere – holidays, parties, bridge, pilates, cultural coach trips. The last few years of Jane’s father’s life were pretty grim as he became more and more incapacitated and her mother had to look after him, and now she’s obviously making up for lost time. In some ways, Jane is pleased. Both for her mother and because it’s heartening to think that she herself could still be enjoying life like that when she reaches her eighties.

    ‘Ooh,’ says Jane, trying to sound excited but her voice comes out more like a hiccup.

    ‘You remember my friend Lavinia Balfour? We were debs together. Her mother was the Honourable Caroline Griffiths. Her father was a judge, became a Lord. She married William Davenport, now Sir William. They live in a lovely house in the Cotswolds – very near Jilly Cooper.’

    ‘Er, no,’ says Jane.

    Her mother has a vast network of friends and acquaintances, all of the same type. It’s like a mafia. She never describes them by their personal qualities but always by their family trees which Jane finds baffling for so many reasons.

    She herself has not the slightest interest in family trees. They’re mostly concerned with the male line which to Jane is retrograde and disgusting, and families in her experience are a handicap and not at all something to hang on to or be proud of. She goes to the minimum of family parties and then only out of duty and because she doesn’t want relatives complaining about her behind her back – which they probably do anyway, but at least her conscience is clear. Ish.

    So when her mother starts to talk about her friends and their pedigree, Jane switches off. In any case, most of her mother’s friends are dreadful. Unfortunately her mother doesn't notice Jane’s distaste and simply redoubles her efforts to explain.

    ‘Well anyway,’ says her mother, obviously in a hurry this time to get to the point, ‘we met again at a drinks party at the Ponsonby-Smythes. D’you remember them? Their daughter is about the same age as you. Went to Benenden. Married that Conservative MP. Whathisname? The youngest son of the Duke of Essex. Their son is that famous photographer.

    Jane has lost the thread. All she knows is that she’s failed. She didn’t board at a girls’ public school. She didn’t marry some scion of the aristocracy. She doesn’t have illustrious children.

    She hears her mother take another slurp. Perhaps she’s lost the thread too.

    ‘Lavinia Davenport,’ says Jane, thinking back to when her mother’s conversation last made sense, not because she cares about the wretched Lavinia but because she could be here all day if she doesn’t prompt occasionally.

    ‘Ah yes,’ says her mother, coming to life again. ‘Quite a coincidence. The Davenports were staying with the Pollocks. Very old family. Related to the Viscounts Hanworth. Lived near us at the old house.'

    Jane’s mother has recently moved from the seven-bedroomed Victorian farmhouse where Jane and her younger brother Ollie were brought up to a small modern place in a nearby village.

    ‘And?’ says Jane. She wants her coffee. What on earth did her mother ring for?

    ‘So I told Lavinia about you moving to Devon seeing as you’d be quite near –’

    Well not really, thinks Jane. Devon - Gloucestershire. Several hundred miles from each other. Several hours’ drive. Thank goodness.

    She’s accepted the job at Courtney Press, given in her notice at work and put her flat on the market. And told her mother. All she has to do now is find somewhere near Moreton Courtney to live. It’s June and she has until the beginning of September when the new job starts. She’s done some half-hearted property searches on the internet and bought a car to help with the move, but hasn’t yet been down to Devon to look at anything. It’s all a bit daunting. She doesn’t know what sort of place she wants or where she wants it to be – in a village, a town, a city or the middle of nowhere.

    ‘- and she said - actually it’s all rather exciting – that her son – William – a little bit younger than you but not that much – and probably tall if his father’s anything to go by – used to be in the army - was married to that glamorous barrister Arabella Sotheby, the one who represents all those celebrities – but divorced now, and a bit of a worry to the family I would say, reading between the lines.’ She pauses for breath. ‘Anyway William looks after a family farm and guess where it is.’

    ‘Um, Devon,’ says Jane.

    ‘Yes, but thassnot all,’ says her mother, tripping over her tongue in her excitement. ‘It’s near Muddicombe.’

    ‘Muddy-cm,’ says Jane, copying her mother’s pronunciation. Whether that's how the locals pronounce the word is anyone’s guess. The name means nothing to her.

    ‘Yes, Muddicombe,’ says her mother impatiently. ‘Only a few miles from Moreton Courtney.’

    Her mother’s obviously been doing her research. She even claims to have met Henry and his wife at a dinner party twenty years ago. Her memory for some things is phenomenal. For others, not quite so good.

    ‘Right,’ says Jane.

    Is her mother really lining up young William as a husband for Jane? Does she really think Jane’s that desperate? Is that all she’s called to say? She’s been thrusting suitable men at Jane for almost fifty years and it hasn’t worked yet. You’d think she might have got the message.

    ‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ says her mother as if it’s Jane’s fault she hasn’t grasped the whole picture. ‘William has a cottage for sale on the farm. Lavinia’s given him a ring and he’s expecting you.’ 

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