I shored up a smile on my doorstep, the most brilliant I could muster under the circumstances. Felt it wobble only slightly.

‘Thank you, Luke. I’d love to.’




19

The book club was to be held at my house that week, to save me securing yet another babysitter, but, one by one, its members called to express regrets. Jennie was first, and she came right out with it.

‘I’m not coming on Tuesday, Poppy, because I haven’t read the book. I can’t get beyond the first chapter. Wikipedia said it was one of the most difficult books in the English language and I can believe it. I’ve started it six times and each time I’m lost, confused and asleep in moments. Sorry. It’s obviously far too cerebral for me.’

‘But I haven’t read it either, Jennie,’ I said nervously. ‘Don’t leave me. What am I supposed to do? It’s at my house. Won’t I have to chair it, or something?’

‘No, no, don’t worry, someone else will do that. Ask Angie; she’ll love it. Or even Angus – he’ll love it even more. Make him feel important.’

But Angus rang not long afterwards, to confide the details of some sudden and mysterious malaise.

‘Sorry, Poppy, old girl, but not sure I’m going to make it to this one. Got a bit of a jippy tummy. Oh – and this infernal tickly cough too. Kept me up all night.’ He gave a shining example of it down the phone, hacking beautifully.

‘OK, Angus, not to worry.’

‘Shame, because the book is um … terrific. You’ll let me know when you get back to the thrillers, though, won’t you? What about that Danish fellow, Stig something?’ Why was I suddenly responsible for the reading list?

‘Will do, Angus.’

‘And nice to see you enjoying a spot of lunch with young Luke the other day. He’s a lovely lad, isn’t he?’

I ground my teeth and said goodbye. Responsible for the reading list, and also engaged.

Saintly Sue was next, in a bit of a huff.

‘It’s just not my sort of book, Poppy.’ As if it were mine! ‘So I’m afraid I won’t be coming. I know I suggested we read something a bit more thought-provoking, but I meant something contemporary, something Booker Prize-ish. This is like wading through quicksand. And it’s all very well flinging these heavy classics at us, but some people have got full-time jobs as well. We don’t want to come home to yet more work.’

I held the phone from my ear. Christ alive.

‘I also think if I did come, it would be rather … well, invidious.’

‘Would it?’

I was still recovering from the unemployed-housewife jibe. Did she mean because Luke would be there?

‘Luke will obviously be there.’ Ah. ‘And he appears to have made his feelings plain to the entire village. I can’t compete with you, Poppy, not in that department.’ She gave a little strangled sob and then the phone clicked off.

I stared at it, amazed. In what department? Instinctively I glanced at my chest. No, Sue was miles bigger than me. Did she think I’d read the book? Thought my brain was bigger? Had she got to page three and thought: blimey, if Poppy’s read this I can’t compete?

Luke, however, it transpired, wouldn’t be there either. He rang to enthuse about our lunch the other day, saying how much he’d enjoyed it; and actually, it had been very pleasant, in the Rose and Crown’s cosy snug, around the fire with the children, Luke teaching Clemmie to balance a beer mat on her nose, all of us laughing as Archie just plonked one on his head and gazed around, beaming. Sadly, though, Luke said, he had a meeting on Tuesday evening.

‘It’s a shame, because the book is absolutely riveting.’

‘It is, isn’t it, Luke?’

‘You’ve read it?’ Some surprise in his voice.

‘Oh, yes. Cover to cover.’

‘Me too,’ he said quickly.

‘What did you think about the protagonist having a sex change halfway through?’

A pause. ‘I thought it was … a good twist.’

I smiled. ‘I haven’t read it either, Luke.’

‘Ha ha! Nice one, Poppy.’ Although I could tell he wasn’t that amused at being caught out. ‘I intend to read it though.’

‘Oh, yes. Me too.’

‘And I wondered, if maybe we could do something the following night instead? See a film or something?’

‘Can I let you know, Luke? Obviously the eternal childcare question looms.’

‘Sure, or I could come to you?’

I caught my breath. Quite familiar. In my house, a cosy supper, bottle of wine, children asleep. Coffee on the sofa by the fire later. But why not? That was surely the next stage.

‘We’ll see,’ I assured him. ‘I’ll give you a ring.’

I put the phone down and scurried away from it, to the kitchen. Apparently needing some distance. But minutes later I was back, because Peggy was next, saying she had a prior engagement and that if I asked her the book was a complete nightmare. Then Angie, who said she was hunting the next day, so not to include her, even though she’d adored the book. Yes, she thought the sex change was entirely plausible, and actually served as a fitting motif to demonstrate how transitory life could be. It was very emblematic of the ephemeral nature of things, didn’t I think?

I agreed wearily. Although I wasn’t convinced going hunting the following day precluded attending the book club, and told her so.

‘Ah, but I like to clean my tack the night before. Plait my horse, that type of thing. It’s the opening meet, you see. Terribly smart.’

Everyone knew Angie took hunting seriously, to the point of undergoing a personality change when thus engaged, scarily barking out orders in the field and becoming a mounted hunt-etiquette manual, so no doubt her horse would be subjected to all manner of cleansing rituals. I was pretty sure she had an army of grooms to do it all for her, though, but I didn’t quibble.

‘And obviously I need to look the part because the new master is divine. I told you that, didn’t I, Poppy?’

‘You did.’

‘This one’s got my name on it,’ she told me firmly. ‘Plastered on his very cute, tight-jodhpured behind. Single, loaded, good-looking – hot.’

‘All yours, Angie.’ Was she warning me off?

‘And the Armitages will be out too apparently, and they’ll obviously be impeccable.’

‘Yes, so I heard.’

‘How did you hear?’

‘Oh … someone told me. Have a fun day, Angie.’

‘I will. Oh, and lovely that you and Luke had lunch the other day. That’s so sweet, Poppy!’

I was all packaged up, wasn’t I? All sorted. People so liked to dust their hands of one, I thought rather uncharitably.

‘He’s just a friend,’ I said wearily.

‘Oh, of course.’

We left it at that.

Later, I bumped into Hope in the village shop. I’d never seen her in there before, assuming she shopped in Fortnum’s before coming to the country. She looked like she was going to lunch at the Ivy, although she was, in fact, buying Rice Krispies. Her dark hair was swept back in a sleek chignon and she was wearing shiny flat black boots, a swirling grey skating skirt and a crisp white shirt. It was the sort of effortless ensemble that no one ever managed to pull off in our village.

‘Oh – Poppy.’ She looked embarrassed. ‘About the book club.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ve cancelled it. There didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm this week, Hope, which is odd when you consider we’re reading one of the greatest novels in literary history.’ I deliberately echoed her words.

‘If not the greatest,’ she said quickly. ‘I go all tingly just picking it up!’

‘Oh, me too. But I suppose you’re going hunting the next day?’

‘I am, as a matter of fact. Don’t you just love Stephen Dedalus?’ she purred, touching my arm.

‘Is he the new master?’

She frowned. ‘No, he’s a character in Ulysses.’

‘Oh.’ It occurred to me I might have run into the one person who had read it. ‘Dreamy,’ I agreed. ‘Until the sex change.’

She stared at me long and hard. ‘Ye-es … But then, one is never encouraged to think of him as a traditional romantic hero, is one? In the mould, say, of a Mr Rochester?’

‘No, one is not,’ I agreed. I wrinkled my brow. ‘And it’s emblematic, don’t you feel, of the transitory nature of life? Symptomatic of how ephemeral things can be?’

‘Yes!’ she said eagerly. ‘Isn’t it just?’

‘Although between you and me, it hasn’t quite got the page-turning appeal of a jolly good read, like Jilly Cooper.’

I was losing her now. My in-depth analysis into the mores of contemporary literature too much for her at half-past eleven in the village shop. She looked confused.

‘Jilly …?’

‘Never mind. Anyway, as I say, I’ve called the whole thing off.’

‘Such a shame. And a pity not to see everyone again. Chad and I so enjoyed ourselves last time. But I expect I’ll see you at the meet, won’t I? There are usually lots of foot followers,’ she added kindly.

I blinked. ‘Yes. Well, maybe.’

She bestowed a dazzling smile on me and swept out in a cloud of Diorissimo, jangling her charm bracelet.

‘You going, love?’ Yvonne asked me, weighing the bananas I’d handed her.

‘Where?’

‘To the meet.’

‘I don’t know. Where is it?’

‘Mulverton Hall at eleven. It’s old George Hetherington’s place; belongs to his son now. D’you know it?’

I stared at her as she handed me back my fruit in a brown paper bag. ‘Well, not intimately. But I know where it is.’

‘’E’s come back from London apparently, to take it on again. Been tenanted for years that place, all sorts of people who didn’t really look after it after the old boy died. Well, you don’t if it’s not your own, do you? Let the garden go to rack and ruin by all accounts. Shame. Be nice to have someone breathe a bit of life into it again, eh? Nice to have some new blood around too.’ She grinned, revealing her unusual dental arrangement.