The Country Escape (14 page)

Following, arms crossed, he tipped his head down so she could only see a circle of hounds-tooth tweed. His nasal Scots voice softened: ‘You have a lot to learn about animal
husbandry, Kat.’

‘I’m trying.’ She bristled, thinking he was referring to her limited smallholding skills.

‘That band goes back a long way.’

She checked herself. ‘Do you mean Animal Magnetism?’

‘Aye. It’s what I said.’ The flat cap was almost combusting from the awkward blush raging beneath now, which she could see streaking into his neck. ‘Although it was Dirty Mags
before that, and when I arrived they called themselves the Babysitters. Things round here take a long time to figure out. They’re never as simple as they first seem.’

Driving back through the woods, Kat mulled this over, but she wasn’t sure what Dair had been trying to tell her, other than that the pub band had been through several dodgy names.

‘Shit!’ She slammed on the
brakes as a figure in a hoodie stepped out straight in front of her. It was Russ, eyes white in the headlights.

‘I thought you’d gone to the pub,’ she said, her heart roaring from the near miss as he got in beside her.

He pulled off his hood, the white-tipped lion’s mane tumbling out. ‘We have a meditation date.’

As they drove on in silence, Kat found herself wondering whether,
in his roundabout way, Dair had been trying to tell her that Russ and Mags had once been more than just friends.

‘What did you think of the film?’ he was asking.

‘A bit violent. You?’

‘So-so. Hollywood movies are pretty much all Republican didactic propaganda.’ He glanced across at her, the bear eyes worried and protective. ‘We don’t have to meditate tonight if you’d rather
not.’

‘I want to.’

‘Is it hard for you? Watching such explicit stuff?’

‘It’s a lot tamer than the stuff Nick liked.’

‘Sorry – I know you prefer not to talk about it.’

She swallowed awkwardly. They lapsed into silence again.

There was something highly charged about the atmosphere when they got back to Lake Farm, despite the dogs sniffing around as usual,
the cat flap rattling, the range burbling back into life and the wet logs spitting on the grate.

For once the Ravi CD didn’t jump; Kat remembered her nine times table; their eyes didn’t leave one another’s.

They were not allowed physically to touch, but the sensations rolling through Kat’s body as she lay back after their face to face breathing and centring were like warm fingers
all over her, circling, dabbing, thrumming, stroking, delving. Russ’s hands moved just above her body now, from chakra to chakra, so close she could feel their warmth, the intimacy both exquisite and pure torture. His shadow was over her, huge-shouldered, dark-eyed and so masculine. She wanted to feel his weight on her. Her
kundalini
was a positive tidal wave of eagerness. She was the new bride
at the start of
High Noon
. She wanted his skin on hers right now. No more chakra wafting or holding back for the ultimate pleasure. She was
ready
for the ultimate pleasure.

Bursting upwards like a body from beneath water, she found his lips with hers and tasted them eagerly, drawing his tongue against hers, gratified by its leap of response. It was a long time since they’d kissed like this.
She’d forgotten how fantastically he did it, the thrum of desire whirring faster than ever.

‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ he said, as their mouths still explored one another’s lips, tongues, taste, with ever-quickening breaths. ‘It’s against the rules.’

‘Sod the rules. Let’s break them.’

He laughed and she tried to pull him down towards her, but he was an immovable rock, his
hands slipping behind her back. She wriggled upright until she was kneeling again, wrapping her arms around him, climbing into his lap and pushing him back instead. Caught off balance, he tipped on to the furled saris and rugs in the glow of the fire, gazing up at her, huge and wild-maned. Kat couldn’t remember ever desiring anything as much as this man, right this minute, right inside her. It
was primal.

She scrabbled at his flies.

‘Kat – no —’

‘I said let’s break the rules!’

‘Please don’t, Kat. Please stop.’

Nothing was stirring beneath her fingers. She froze, clenching her eyes shut, remembering her awful performance the first night they’d gone to bed together, after being crowned King and Queen at the wassail, when she had launched into her full
porn repertoire and terrified the life out of Russ. Nothing had stirred that night either, not for either of them. The embarrassment had been mortifying after such anticipation, such kissing, flirting, skin-tingling certainty that they were going to screw all night in a cider haze of Twelfth Night debauchery. Then the cold splash of sitting up in a bed, admitting defeat. She’d thought she’d put
him off. She didn’t know what normal was any more, she’d explained. Nick had wanted her to do these things, say these things, had become more and more reliant upon it as time went on. No, she hadn’t enjoyed it, not after the first few times, years ago when it had been a novelty, before it had become his addiction. She hated it now. She felt nothing. Her body froze her out.

He’d suggested
Tantric sex, and it was friendly, funny, weird and sometimes frustrating, but now it had worked for her. Perhaps it had worked too well.

She looked away, her face burning. ‘I’m sorry. I ruined everything.’

He cleared his throat. ‘It’s me, Kat. It’s me, not you.’

Shaking her head, she scrambled off his lap and curled up against a chair, arms tight around her knees.

‘I get too uptight,’ he muttered. ‘It’s not you. I’m so attracted to you, but I have this hang-up from my past, a girl I loved and lost, the usual crap. It damaged me. The ignition button gets stuck.’ He crossed his legs back into guru position and took a deep breath, peered across at her through his thick lashes. ‘I want to find a way through it.’

‘That makes two of us.’

He nodded,
dark eyes glowing in the firelight as he looked up, raking his hair from his brows, the hand staying pressed to the back of his head. He reminded her of a Rodin sculpture, so magnificently honed yet rough-edged.

‘I can’t talk about it,’ he said, his Bristol accent pronounced as it always was when he was upset. ‘It’s best buried.’

She understood. She couldn’t talk about Nick without
it hurting too much either. Like Russ, she’d only ever revealed an abbreviated minimum.

‘I want you to know you’re amazing, Kat. I fucking adore you.’

‘I fucking adore you too.’

For the first time since he’d been using Lake Farm as an overnight base, Russ and Kat slept together. They were still fully clothed, curled up in front of the fire’s embers, surrounded by snoring dogs.
She felt safer than she had in months.

Easter was early: the clocks had yet to go back and the last of the snowdrops were still drifting beneath the apple trees in the orchards, just starting to melt away under the sunburst yellow of daffodils and small licking flames
of crocus. Hunting had only just finished, the traditional balls, suppers and horse-trading keeping the Hedges family occupied and dominating conversation when Russ and Kat joined them to share a roast at the family’s little farmhouse on Easter Sunday, a nut cutlet presented to Russ with all the trimmings.

‘Terrible season – wettest I can remember,’ complained Russ’s uncle Bill, his round,
weathered cheeks already stained port red from a late-morning pint in the pub and two pre-lunch sherries at home. ‘Not many farmers wanted us on the land, and all that road pounding’s murder on an old arse like mine. Think I’ll follow on foot next year.’

His twin daughters also declared the season a disappointment, having spent most of it squabbling over the Brom and Lem’s good-looking
young huntsman, only to find out he’d been having a wild affair with a local solicitor’s wife and was now changing hunts to sow his wild oats elsewhere.

‘Let’s hope for better sport next year,’ Babs Hedges said encouragingly, all her chins curved upwards in harmony with her smiling mouth as she served them all vast helpings of home-made trifle. ‘Maybe a new face at Eardisford will bring
us luck. Seth.’ The name was now a village mantra.

‘He’ll ban the lot of you,’ growled Russ. ‘Wait and see.’

By the time the trifle was circulating a second time, Kat could see he was itching to escape, his eyes stormy as Bob complained about the number of Eastern Europeans employed by a local vegetable-packing plant, the plethora of ‘coffee-coloured’ babies he’d seen at Leominster
market and the hunt’s decision to bring in another female master the following season. ‘They called Diana mistress of the hunt, not master. A woman shouldn’t be a master in my opinion.’

‘Goddess,’ snapped Russ. ‘Diana was a goddess. And she’d be obliged to hunt under the law too.’ As soon as he’d wolfed his trifle, he took collie Ché and the two lurchers out for a walk.

Kat knew
Russ had enormous affection for Bill and his clan, who had taken him in many times and forgiven him his excesses, but at family gatherings it was always obvious how difficult he found it to bite his tongue and not rise to their prejudices. She debated going after him, but she knew Russ was impenetrable in this mood, and she didn’t want to offend the others or shirk her responsibilities with the mountain
of washing-up. Russ had been uptight all morning, what had happened last night making the ground shift silently and seismically beneath them. They needed to regroup.

Kat helped clear away and tackle the dishes. By the time the last cooking pot was draining, there was still no sign of Russ, who was notorious for making himself scarce during household chores – he refused to wash anything
used to cook or eat meat, which limited his usefulness after a Hedges Sunday roast. He was still missing when Babs brewed tea and fetched out the Simnel cake; the family had a very sweet tooth, which, having been denied any indulgences over Lent, was currently insatiable. Unable to face another sugary mouthful, Kat decided to go in search of the family black sheep, hugging them all farewell and thanking
Babs for lunch.

‘He’s a lucky bugger having you, Kat.’ Babs placed her worn, plump and sweet-smelling fingers on Kat’s cheeks. ‘There’s not many who understand him, but he’s got a good heart, especially with animals. He just acts before he thinks and suffers no fools. Typical Hedges man.’ She nodded at Bill, who was now asleep on the recliner chair, open-mouthed.

Thinking
it was a safe bet that Russ would be in the pub, Kat ambled through the orchards and across the footbridge by the ford to the Eardisford Arms, but in the public bar the earthmen were lined up on their stools like coconuts in a shy without their tall, argumentative mutineer taking shots at them. Realizing Dair Armitage was with them, Kat tried to duck out unseen, but he let out a bellow and came
stalking over, flat cap peak so low over his nose that he had to tilt his head back to see her. ‘Kat, would you care to join us for a drink?’

‘No – you’re fine, thanks. In a bit of a hurry. Just looking for Russ. Have you seen him?’

‘Better ask his wife,’ called one of the earthmen, with a chuckle.

‘He means Mags.’ Dair shot the men a warning look and hurried on, ‘Russ came
in here about an hour ago carrying a very mangy dog fox, spouting off about poachers. Apparently somebody’s been setting snares in the spinneys around the orchards again. I’ll get one of the keepers to look into it.’

The earthmen coughed and turned back to their pints.

‘We offered to put Charlie Fox out of its misery, but Russ insisted on using the phone to call the emergency vet,
then Mags drove him to the surgery.’

Kat envisaged another poor creature pegging out in his arms. Russ couldn’t bear to see suffering and, having seen snared animals first hand, she understood why he’d done it, but it never got any easier. ‘Mags is with him, you say?’

‘Is that a problem?’ Dair eyed her.

‘No! I’m grateful he has transport this time. I haven’t forgotten his
last three-mile cycle ride to the vet with a dying stoat zipped in his coat. Those scars still look like multiple nipple piercings!’

‘They are nipple piercings, duck,’ rasped one of the earthmen. ‘Afore your time, Russ was known as the Pin Cushion cos he has more perforations than a gypsy’s doily. When he wore all them body ornaments, he looked like something from Bongo Bon —’

‘That’s
enough, Dick!’ Dair snapped, turning to Kat and clearing his throat. He seemed tongue-tied with embarrassment. Then she saw his gaze was locked on her cleavage.

‘Take your eyes off my boobs, you leery git!’ she snapped, furious that she knew so little about Russ. They’d stared into one another’s eyes and massaged ninth chakras for weeks now, yet she had no idea he’d had multiple piercings.

Dair had puffed himself up, yellow cashmere sweater bulging from his tweed waistcoat, like a blue tit defending his fat-ball. ‘Please remind Russ not to feed the pheasants. We’re trying to round up the wild breeding stock and half of them are living it up on your farm. They’re estate property.’

‘I thought you just said they were wild, so surely they’re nobody’s property.’ She’d heard
Russ complaining about breeding methods many times. ‘Do you really de-beak them and make them wear gags and blinkers to stop them pecking each other?’

‘Of course not,’ Dair huffed. ‘We follow strict Defra guidelines. You mustn’t listen to Russ – he reads far too much nonsense. Come and see for yourself. I’ll happily give you a guided tour of the brooder huts when the poults arrive – and
your friend Dawn can come along too next time she visits.’ He lifted his chin again so that she could see his small eyes glittering eagerly beneath the cap peak.

‘She’s pretty busy right now,’ Kat said vaguely. She doubted that dangling the opportunity to take a threesome tour of the pheasant-rearing pens would bring Dawn rushing back to Herefordshire, although she seemed surprisingly keen
to take in the pub again and even reacquaint herself with Dair, about whom she said she’d had ‘disturbing flashbacks’. Kat guessed they had to be bad, so was anxious to limit Dair’s expectations. ‘Big boyfriend, abs, pecs, Rottweiler, Porsche, tattoos like Mags, remember?’

One bloodshot eye fixing her from beneath his hounds-tooth peak, Dair looked as if he’d brooded over little else. ‘Have
you thought about what I told you last night?’ he asked peevishly.

Recalling his insinuation that Animal Magnetism should be named and shamed, Kat was starting to get seriously annoyed. ‘If there’s something on your mind you think I should know, Dair, just spit it out. Something about Mags and Russ?’

‘I couldn’t possibly say.’

Kat was about to cram his wretched flat cap right
over his chin when one of the earthmen called, ‘You never forget your first love.’

‘Be quiet, Bernie,’ Dair hissed, glancing at his watch awkwardly. ‘Is that the time? I really must go, I have a meet —’

‘Little Kat deserves to know the truth,’ came a call from the bar. ‘They was the talk of this village for years, them two.’

Kat turned from the bar back to Dair disbelievingly.
‘Is this true?’

‘Russ and Mags were once an “item”, I think it’s called,’ he said awkwardly. ‘On and off for years. Mostly off,’ he added encouragingly. ‘I’m sure you know all this.’

Kat tried to hide her shock. Mags was so much older than him, it had never occurred to her that they might have been lovers. But now she was deluged with images of twenty-something Mags seducing the
child Russ over guitar lessons, Mrs Robinson-style. It all made horrible sense. Mags’s band had once been called the Babysitters. Young, floppy-haired Russ, barely able to stretch his fingers around a fretboard, had been seduced by its lead singer. His tuning fork responded only to her pitch. Kat had walked into a cougar’s lair.

In her mind’s eye, she was currently reacting with total poise.
Russ always said he was a free-range romantic, she reminded herself. He doesn’t do conventional relationships. Ours is more of a house-mates thing. Mags is an old friend. So what if she’s an old girlfriend and occasional lover too? Nevertheless, as she prepared herself to laugh all this off, she heard her own voice squawking, ‘They went
out
together?’

‘Never officially as I understand it.’
Dair was redder than ever.

‘There was a big falling out,’ Bernie the earthman called across, ‘when he went to university.’

‘She took up with Calum while Russ was away studying, did Mags,’ another piped up. ‘Broke young Russ’s heart.’

‘He stayed away for years.’

‘Now he’s back.’

‘I said no good would come of it.’

Kat closed her eyes. The earthmen were like
a toothless Greek chorus. Meanwhile, her Colossus of strength was crumbling. Russ had been her protector all year and now it seemed he and Mags were Orpheus and Eurydice.

‘It’s all very amicable now,’ Dair said, clearly concerned. ‘There’s no need to worry. Just be alert. I really must go. Are you going to be okay, Kat? Do you need a lift home?’

Kat could feel her heart misfiring,
the machine-gun hurt of being denied the truth and the mortification of being the last to know. She kept her eyes tight closed, determined not to give away how much this frightened her. It wasn’t as though she’d caught the two rolling around naked behind the bar: this was just a group of drunken pub regulars winding her up. She’d always known that Mags and Russ were childhood friends, this was no
biggie. But it reminded her yet again that she was the outsider, and that running away in nothing more than the clothes you stand up in doesn’t mean you won’t fall over other people’s baggage. Trust was long haul. Taking deep, calming breaths, she started muttering under her breath.

‘What?’ Dair leaned closer to listen.

‘I’m counting to ten.’

‘By reciting the nine times table?’

‘I’m fantasizing I’m kicking chakras,’ she muttered, eyes opening again as the smile blazed.

The chin smiled back, looking relieved. ‘Always liked a spot of polo.’

Kat whistled for Maddie and Daphne, who were flirting with the earthmen’s barstool-tethered terriers, like two old ladies on the razzle. ‘Thank you, Dair. You lived up to your name. It was brave to tell me that.’

‘Entirely selfish, I assure you.’ He was leering at her chest again, a nervous habit he appeared entirely unaware of.

‘This is your last warning. Stop. Looking. At. My. Tits.’

The flat cap flipped up like a bin lid and she nodded in brief acknowledgement. Turning swiftly for the door, she tried for a dignified exit, but it took her some time to extricate the flirty old bitches
from the bar, and when she finally succeeded, Dair was on her heels on the way out, breathing hotly down her neck.

She held up a hand. ‘I’m fine, Dair, really. I don’t need that lift.’

‘I’m late for a meeting,’ he muttered, in his dourest Scots drone, as he brushed past her, walkie-talkie to his ear and his own dogs at his heels, making Kat feel silly. Then he turned back as he hurried
to his car. ‘Your future is riding on this.’