‘A few weeks!’ She turned to look at me, horrified.

‘Days. I mean, days. But I’ll manage, Jennie, now I know where the office is. I’ll be fine on my own.’ I felt exhausted suddenly. Really lie-down-on-the-pavement exhausted.

‘Well, I’m surprised you have to go back at all, to be honest,’ she said hotly, raking a hand through her hair. ‘Wasn’t it all there at his fingertips? Didn’t he just read it out to you? The will? He’s not disorganized, is he?’ She shot me a quick look.

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘Only someone – I think Laura Davy – said he’s a bit chaotic. She went when they took her mother’s appendix out instead of her hernia and said he was all over the place. You do realize he’s not Phil’s solicitor, don’t you?’ she said sharply.

‘Er …’ So many questions.

‘No, he died. This is the nephew, who’s inherited the practice.’

‘Ah.’

‘I checked it all out when I made the appointment, because I didn’t think the name corresponded to the letterhead. The uncle was well known locally apparently, whereas this one is a bit of an unknown quantity. He was in a big City firm in London but his wife left him and he came out here for a quieter life, wanted a change of pace, which is all very well, but just because we’re parochial doesn’t mean we’re stupid, does it? And if he can’t get his head round a simple will …’ She set her mouth in a grim line and shook her head. ‘He’s got to shape up, I’m afraid, or he’s toast.’

I thought of the pink shirt, slightly strained at the shoulder seams.

‘He’s in quite good shape, actually,’ I said vaguely. ‘And he’s extremely organized. I think he’ll do very well. What’s his name?’

She turned, aghast. ‘You don’t even know his name?’

‘Of course I do, I just forgot.’

‘Sam Hetherington.’

‘That’s it. Don’t bully me, Jennie, I’m feeling a bit all-in as a matter of fact.’

I was. Truly tired. Relieved to have got that over with but exhausted with the effort. And I certainly wasn’t up to my son wailing again from the back seat. Since when had he started to cry so much? He used to be such a good baby. I leaned back on the headrest and shut my eyes.

‘There’s a carton of juice in my handbag,’ Jennie told me.

I opened my eyes. Turned my head slowly to her. ‘D’you want it now?’

‘No, but Archie might,’ she said patiently.

‘Oh.’

I leaned down and fumbled obediently in her handbag at my feet, found the Ribena and handed it to Archie, sticking the straw in first. He put it to his lips, squeezed the carton with his fist and the juice went shooting out of the straw, all over his face and down his front. For some reason Clemmie, beside him on her booster seat, burst into tears.

‘You forgot to say don’t squeeze!’ she wailed. ‘You always say don’t squeeze!’

Archie gazed at his soaking-wet jumper in dismay, opened his mouth as wide as he could and roared, dropping the juice on the floor. Jennie swore under her breath then reached behind for Clemmie’s ankle, stroking it and making soothing noises, reaching for Archie’s too. As we drove home, amid the inexplicable cacophony of my fractious children, Jennie shot me an exasperated look which I caught in surprise. Was there a law, I wondered, as I gazed out of the window at the increasingly bare branches of the trees as they flashed past, the sun appearing between them like a searchlight, against just sitting quietly the while? About having a little hush?




7

That evening, at eight, the inaugural meeting of the Massingham book club took place at Angie’s house. Peggy, Angie, Jennie and I assembled in the vast, beautifully converted barn kitchen where Angie and Tom had entertained so splendidly and raucously over the years: sixteen for dinner sometimes and a lot of laughs. This evening, however, it was just the four of us who sat at the huge oak table under the high, vaulted ceiling, criss-crossed with original beams, the twinkle of many tiny down-lights upon us. Outside the huge picture windows, darkness had fallen, but in the soft glow of a coach light, Angie’s horses could be seen behind the post and rails, already rugged up for winter, standing nose to tail. Inside, candles had been lit above the fireplace and in great urns beside it, whilst the fire crackled comfortingly in the grate. Michael Bublé crooned softly in the background.

‘So. Everyone got a pen and paper?’ Angie, sitting at the head of the table, had clearly decided to take the chair – her house, after all. She was looking particularly stunning tonight in her delicate, Jane Asher way: red-gold hair shining, elegant despite jeans and Ugg boots. We all nodded. ‘OK. Well, we’re here tonight primarily to discuss who we want to join our club,’ she said importantly, crossing her skinny knees.

‘And which books,’ Jennie reminded her, unused to playing second fiddle.

‘Oh. Yes, of course.’ Angie was deflated in an instant. ‘Which books to read. Anyone got any ideas?’

‘Who’s Who?’ drawled Peggy. We all looked at her. ‘Then we could determine if there’s anyone within a radius of twenty miles worth hitting on.’

‘Anyone got any sensible ideas?’ went on Jennie smoothly, ignoring her. ‘Angie?’ she asked diplomatically, having usurped her so very recently.

‘Well, I have given it a bit of thought, actually,’ said Angie, going a bit pink. She’d clearly rehearsed this. ‘How about Silas Marner? It’s by George Eliot, so heavy, but look how short it is.’

She just happened to have a copy handy and whipped it out of a drawer from the side, the better for us to marvel. It certainly was delightfully slim. Not more than a hundred pages.

‘And then we could say we were reading Eliot,’ mused Jennie, flicking through.

‘Exactly,’ said Angie triumphantly. ‘And look, half of it’s Introduction, which we don’t have to read, and quite a lot of Index. Or there’s Pride and Prej?’ she said, rather warming to her role of literary doyenne in her salon. She leaned back expansively in her chair and waved her pencil about. ‘I mean, I know we’ve all read it, but just to kick off with, you know? To get us in the mood and –’

‘Who’s read it?’ interrupted Peggy.

Angie and Jennie looked smug. They stuck up their fingers. Looked rather pityingly at Peggy.

‘Poppy, you have too.’ Jennie nudged me.

‘Oh.’ I stuck up mine. I’d been looking at a spider crawling up a rafter into the roof.

‘Really?’ Peggy asked. ‘You’ve all read it, have you?’

‘Of course,’ said Jennie.

‘Or have you just seen the film?’

Three fingers wavered slightly. Then lowered.

‘I’ve seen both versions,’ said Angie defensively. ‘The Keira Knightley one and the old one.’

‘Come on, let’s not kid ourselves that we’re going to wade through the classics,’ Peggy said drily. ‘I vote we kick off with Wilbur Smith.’

Jennie looked pained. ‘Yes, we could, but the idea is to stretch ourselves a bit, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’ Peggy lit a cigarette. ‘I thought we were here to enjoy ourselves. Thought we were doing this for pleasure.’ She blew out a thin line of smoke. ‘OK, how about Lawrence, then? He’s a bit more stretching, although admittedly mostly in haystacks.’ She gave a throaty chuckle.

‘Poppy?’ Jennie turned to me. ‘Any ideas?’

I came back from the spider. It had gone right up into the rafters, into the apex of the roof.

I stared blankly. ‘Anne of Green Gables?’

How odd. Dad had attempted to read that to me when Mum died. We’d started with Black Beauty, but had to stop when Ginger died. I remember the tears rolling down Dad’s wind-blown cheeks as he sat on my bed. I even remember my pink floral bed cover. We hadn’t liked Anne, though, had never got to the end. Found her wet.

My friends exchanged startled looks. Angie attempted to give this due consideration.

‘Yes … we could read Anne of Green Gables,’ she agreed, ‘but –’

‘Oh, let’s forget the bloody books and talk about who we’re going to ask,’ said Peggy, wriggling on her bony bottom in her chair. ‘Far more exciting.’

Jennie raised her eyebrows and shuffled her notepad. ‘OK,’ she said wearily. ‘Peggy? You’re clearly itching to fire away.’

‘How about Angus Jardine, Pete the farrier, that smoothie antiques guy Jennie fancies, and Luke the organ-grinder in church.’

We looked at her aghast.

‘Peggy, this is a book club, not a frustrated-women’s dating agency!’ Jennie spluttered. ‘I meant local women!’

‘Why do they have to be women?’

‘Well, they don’t, exclusively. But usually, you know …’

‘Usually it’s the little women who get together? When their hunter-gatherers come home? Bustle out importantly to show they have lives too?’

Jennie and Angie looked at one another.

‘Peggy’s got a point,’ muttered Angie.

‘But we can’t have the four of us, and four men. How would that look? We need a couple of women, for heaven’s sake,’ Jennie insisted.

‘Saintly Sue?’ suggested Angie. ‘If we can put up with her halo. And my sister might come?’

Jennie crossed her legs and sucked in her cheeks. Angie’s sister was a scary ex-Londoner called Virginia who worked in advertising. She’d recently moved locally on account of leaving her husband, a wealthy hedge-fund manager. Jennie had cooked Angie a dinner party one night when Virginia and various other high-achievers were guests, but she’d had problems with the turbot and, out of nerves, proceeded to get disastrously drunk. At two a.m. Jennie had crawled into the double bed in Angie’s spare room to sleep it off, unaware that Virginia, equally plastered, was already installed. The next morning, Virginia had leaped out of bed bellowing: ‘Bloody hell – I’ve just left my husband, and the first person I sleep with is a woman!’

Jennie wasn’t necessarily in a violent hurry to meet her again.

‘Yes, your sister,’ she mused, as if giving it ample thought. ‘Who’s delightful, of course. Only I wonder if she isn’t a bit high-brow for us?’

‘Oh God, yes, she’s frightfully clever,’ Angie agreed. ‘Got a first from Oxford.’

‘Fuck me, that’s no good,’ muttered Peggy, stubbing out her cigarette.

‘So,’ Jennie went on, ‘we could have Saintly Sue, but then again, d’you think that’s a good idea, bearing in mind …’ She jerked her head eloquently in my direction. It was as if I wasn’t alive any more. Didn’t exist. ‘I mean, if we do ask Luke, which I actually think is quite a good idea of Peggy’s, although not necessarily the others –’

‘Why not necessarily the others?’ demanded Peggy.

Jennie sighed. Turned to me. ‘What do you think, Poppy?’

‘About what?’

‘About inviting Luke Chambers?’

‘Who’s Luke Chambers?’

Three pairs of eyes turned incredulously on me. There was a long and meaningful pause. At length, Jennie put down her pencil. She clenched her teeth and blew out hard through her nose, making a faint whistling sound.

‘OK,’ she said quietly and in very measured tones. ‘OK. We are here tonight ostensibly to talk about the book club. To talk about who we want to join and which books we want to read. But one of our members, one of our very dear friends, is in trouble, and I, for one, cannot go another day, cannot go another minute, without finding out why. What’s happened, Poppy? What the flipping heck is going on?’

‘What d’you mean?’ I felt myself go cold.

‘Two weeks ago you were coping. Sad, but coping. Resigned to Phil’s death, to being a widow. Then suddenly – and knowing you as I do, knowing your movements as well as I do, I would be so bold as to pin it down to two weeks ago last Friday – something happened.’

I felt my mouth go a bit dry. All eyes in the room were upon me. Possibly even those of Angie’s children in their silver photo frames on the side: those beautiful poised teenagers, back at school now, whom Frankie derided as toffs but of whom I think was secretly in awe. Not so poised these days perhaps, with their father gone. Felicity, off the rails a bit according to her mother, nothing too terrible, smoking, drinking, but only fifteen. Clarissa, not working for her exams. Their eyes too, it seemed, in frames all over the room, on ponies, on ski slopes, gazed and waited.