Nettlecombe Hatchet: Final Instalment!

  When Neville returned to the lab and found Fliss gone he was at a loss to know what to do next. He stood for a moment, mouth open, looking around, hissing her name into the shadows, but there was no sign of her.

  ‘Bugger!’ he said through gritted teeth, then knelt down and started trying keys in the lock. There were dozens that looked possible. He glanced over his shoulder more than once, reacting to a sound or movement that wasn’t there. He worked systematically through the keys, taking care not to muddle them and so end up having to try duds a second time.  He had just selected one that looked a particularly suitable shape when a small noise behind him caused his stomach to lurch. The sound grew subtly stronger.  Slowly, very, very slowly, Neville turned his head. Standing behind him, piggy eyes glinting in the moonlight, were two of the most viscous-looking dogs he had ever seen. Their growling grew louder and harsher. Both dogs pulled back their lips to expose, even in the darkness, fine and ruthless teeth.  Neville swallowed hard, and turned carefully back to his task, holding the key with trembling hands. He had almost succeeded in getting it in the lock when the note of the growling changed to something altogether wilder and even more menacing. In his fear Neville dropped the bunch of keys. The jangling of metal on tarmac spooked the dogs into action. Neville screamed and threw his arms over his head as they charged. The first one leapt at him. Neville screamed again, bracing himself for impact. It never came. From somewhere in the shadows a gigantic dark shape hurtled through the air, connecting with the leaping Doberman, knocking it yelping to the ground. The second dog’s growls turned to frantic barks. Neville peered up from his cowering position in time to see Hamlet, tail wagging madly, throw his full weight behind a charge at the barking dog. The leaner, lighter creature was no match for the size and sheer blundering bravado of the Great Dane. The old dog snarled and spluttered and wheezed as he tossed one dog into the air, then turned and barged at the other again, flattening it. The guard-dogs had met their match, and they knew it. Tails tucked down, ears flat, they ran, with Hamlet lumbering relentlessly after them baying and farting as he went – the granddaddy of all hellhounds. Neville watched them disappear up across the meadow and towards the woods. He remembered to breathe again, and gulped air, picking up the keys with hands shaking unmanageably. He found the hopeful key again and this time succeeded in getting it in the lock. It worked. He fell through the door and slammed it shut behind him, his heart still thumping out a syncopated beat. 

  Once inside he focused on the task in hand, switching on his torch and rustling through papers and files on the desk, in search of something, anything, incriminating and useful. There was nothing. He tried the desk and filing cabinet drawers. All locked, as was the metal cupboard.

  ‘Bugger,’ he said again. ‘Now, where did Fliss say the critters were kept?’ He walked to the far corner of the room and saw some small cages on a bench. As he leant nervously over the first one the door burst open behind him, seriously startling Neville.

  ‘Claude! What the hell are you doing in here?’ Neville demanded, shining his torch at the panting figure.

  The beleaguered chef looked even more wrecked and distressed than usual.

  ‘I saw you go in here,’ he said, turning wild and staring eyes on Neville. ‘You have to help me. I must hide. Those men are here for me once again. If they find me…. And there is a madman running around shouting about cars. It is not safe for me. I will stay in here.’

  ‘Oh alright. For pity’s sake, sit down before you fall down. And keep quiet. My nerves are in shreds already.’

  ‘But, you have the keys?’ Claude wanted to know, ‘I can go into the cupboard.’

  Neville frowned at him.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, man, you’ll never fit in there.’

  ‘No, the Blustaine, she is in this cupboard. Please, give me the key.’

  ‘Here,’ Neville threw him the bunch. ‘Good luck to you. And if you do open it, half of whatever you find is mine, OK?’

  Neville left Claude to his mission and stooped over cages once more. Small shapes scuttled away from the torchlight. He spotted a likely looking, multi-limbed, blue-tinged rat sitting in a corner.

  ‘OK, my little malformed friend, you are about to become a celebrity.’

  He lowered his hand towards the creature, at which point the door was flung opened again. Both Neville and the rat jumped and squeaked simultaneously, as four figures piled into the little room, slamming the door behind them. Claude screamed. Neville flattened himself against the wall and dazzled the newcomers with his torch.

  ‘Fliss?’ 

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Neville, point that thing somewhere else,’ she told him, squinting into the light.

  ‘What happened to you?’ he asked ‘And who the hell are this lot?’

  ‘Rhian and Sam and Daniel. There isn’t time to explain. What’s he doing here?’ she pointed to the crumpled chef by the cupboard.  

  Neville looked at him.

  ‘Nothing useful,’ he said. He stared at Fliss’s companions, two of whom were still wearing ski masks. The man looked red-eyed and weepy. He noticed the two girls were holding bulging pillowcases. ‘What’s in there?’ he asked suspiciously as the bulges wriggled a little.

  ‘We are liberating these chickens,’ Rhian explained.

  ‘Right,’ Neville nodded. ‘I bet they’re really enjoying their newfound freedom.’

  ‘These birds,’ said the smaller girl in a muffled voice, ‘are symbolic. They will go out and speak for the others.’

  ‘Oh good, talking birds now. Just what the world needs.’

  ‘So, Nev,’ Daniel stepped forwards, putting his arm around Fliss’s shoulders, ‘how’s your master plan going?’

   Neville straightened up a little in front of the younger man, irritated by his proprietorial manner with Fliss.

  ‘It would go better if half the world didn’t keep butting in,’ he said. ‘Now for pity’s sake everyone sit down and keep quiet. Believe it or not, there are still some people left out there who we do not want in here.’  

  There was a deal of shuffling about and bad-tempered muttering as everyone fought for a space. Neville made a third attempt at nabbing a rodent, and had actually got his hand on the thing when Claude let out another scream.

  ‘Sod it! What now?’ cried Neville, watching his prey scamper into a loo roll.

  ‘There! Mon dieu! A phantom!’ gasped Claude, pointing a trembling finger out of the window. 

  The others, Neville included, rushed to look. What they saw was undeniably terrifying. The old barn was on fire, flames feeding on the dry straw and leaping thirty feet into the air. Running from the building, negligee floating up to leave every detail of her body exposed to all who dared look, Cynthia tore across the field, arms held high. Backlit as she was so dramatically by the inferno, her diaphanous garment blurring her silhouette, she did indeed resemble some ghostly apparition.

  ‘Cynthia!’ Fliss was the first to find her voice. ‘What on earth is she doing here?’

  ‘Blimey,’ Daniel was laughing, ‘you have a pretty weird breed of arsonist down here in Hicksville.’

  ‘I think,’ said Neville, ‘you’ll find the real culprit is behind her.’ He nodded in the direction of a gloomy shape lumbering after the shrieking woman. ‘I can’t imagine candles, straw, and Hamlet would be a very safe mix.’

  Fliss picked up the phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Calling the fire brigade, what do you think?’

  ‘Whoa, hold on, Babe,’ he took the receiver from her. ‘Firemen mean cops, and I’m not about to get a criminal record here.’

  Neville took the phone from him and handed it back to Fliss.

  ‘Fliss is right,’ he said,  ‘that fire is already out of control. It could easily spread to the sheds.’

  ‘Look,’ said Daniel, snatching back the receiver,  ‘I get done for something like breaking and entering and I lose my job, it’s as simple as that. Company policy. I’m not gonna get sacked for the sake of a few scrawny hens.’

  ‘Oh?’ Fliss glared at him, ‘I thought you were doing this for my sake?’

  ‘I didn’t know something this heavy was going to go down.’

  ‘You should have thought about that,’ she snapped, ‘before you decided to encourage two teenagers to do something illegal!’

  ‘Your precious daughter doesn’t need any encouragement!’

  Neville took the phone again.

  ‘Do you think you two could have your domestic argument some other time? Preferably after we have called the emergency services and before we are all roasted alive in here.’

  ‘Alors!’ wailed Claude, sinking to the floor. ‘Then this is how the life of this miserable chef will end. How pertinent – to be baked comme une pomme du terre!’

  ‘If someone doesn’t shut him up soon,’ said Neville, ‘he won’t live long enough to be cooked. Now, Fliss, make that call. Daniel, you’re as big a waste of space as Claude is. If you no longer wish to be involved, I suggest you act as your instinct dictates and run away. You won’t be missed. I am going to catch that sodding rat before something else happens.’

  Daniel hesitated. Fliss looked at him hard, then shook her head and started dialling. Muttering curses, Daniel fled. 

  ‘Lightweight bastard!’ Rhian called after him.

  Neville tapped the side of the cage gently.

  ‘Come along, now, time to go, Ratty.’

  Fliss finished her call. As she hung up the sound of an approaching siren filled the room.

  ‘Blimey,’ she said, ‘that was quick.’

  Rhian and Sam moved to the front window.

  ‘It’s not a fire engine,’ said Rhian, ‘it’s an ambulance. And there are two big men running away from the house. Where did they come from?’

  ‘Don’t let them find me!’ begged Claude.

  Neville left the cage and peered out of the window.

  ‘Ah yes, looks like your friends, Claude. They seem to have taken fright at the siren. But who called an ambulance, I wonder?’

  Fliss pointed to the side of the house.

  ‘There’s Ryan again. Look, the paramedics are after him. They’ve got someone with them.’

  ‘Dr Richards,’ said Neville. ‘Is it me, or has the world gone stark staring mad on a Sunday evening?’

  As they watched, a number of small, feathery shapes made their way onto the scene.

  ‘The chickens!’ cried Rhian. ‘Someone didn’t shut the shed door properly. I bet it was Daniel, the creep.’

  ‘The fire must have woken them up,’ said Fliss. ‘Oh my God, they’re everywhere.’

  Just as it seemed impossible for things to become any more chaotic, there was a dazzling flash, which illuminated the night sky and for a fraction of a second floodlit the entire farm. This was instantly followed by an eardrum bursting bang, accompanied by yet more flames.

  Everyone in the room instinctively flattened themselves on the floor, hands over their heads. As the noise subsided, Neville climbed cautiously to his feet and peered out of the window again. What had once been a smart, sleek, shiny Subaru Impreza was now a tangle of metal and smouldering rubber, billowing black smoke. Fliss stood beside Neville.

  ‘Good grief,’ she said, ‘they’ve blown up Ryan’s car.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Rhian.

  ‘Presumably,’ said Neville, ‘because they thought it belonged to Claude.’

  Somewhere behind them the Frenchman began to weep.

  Neville ignored him, and watched as Ryan screamed and shook his fists at the heavens, standing over the remains of his car. The paramedics and the doctor took hold of him and frogmarched him to the ambulance. He swore an increasingly obscene stream of curses and abuse until the doors of the vehicle shut behind him and he was taken away. The ambulance had to pause in the gateway to let in two enormous fire tenders. 

  By now chickens were running and flying in every direction. A handful of unfortunate ones had been caught in the blast, and now their feathers rained silently down on the farmyard. 

  Neville gave up his vigil at the window, strode purposefully to the cage, picked up the by now familiar rat, and carried it back to Fliss. He opened her backpack and snuggled the rodent down inside before buckling it up securely.  

  Fliss smiled up at him, and put her hand on his.

  ‘You know, Neville, I am seriously impressed by the scale of this plan of yours,’ she said.

  Neville smiled back and gave her hand a brief squeeze. 

  ‘Team work,’ he told her. ‘Oh look, new arrivals.’ He pointed towards the road.

  A large, expensive car had arrived. It stopped in the gateway and two stunned figures climbed slowly out to stand and stare at the carnage and madness in front of them. Mr and Mrs Michael Christian had come home.

  Nearly two weeks after the events at Withy Hill, Fliss stood outside the front door of the Old Vicarage, bracing herself for a greeting from Hamlet. As she waited she looked at Cynthia’s free range garden. It had subtly altered since her last visit. What had been blossoming abundance seemed now to have spilled over into chaotic wilderness. The relentless heat and ferocious thunder storms had first frazzled then smashed the flowers. The weight of water had dragged down boughs and flattened shrubs, so that everything looked beyond the point of recovery. It was as if the glorious garden party of early summer had collapsed into an August hangover. 

  At last Fliss heard footsteps and Hamlet’s rasping bark. She prepared herself for his welcome. What she was not prepared for, however, was the sight of Eric and Vinnie standing shoulder to muscly shoulder in Cynthia’s hall. 

  ‘Come in, Fliss, do come in,’ Cynthia beckoned. ‘Don’t mind them. Move over, boys, make a little room for our visitor.’

  ‘But, what are they doing here?’ Fliss nervously edged past the dogs, not taking her eyes of them for a minute. Hamlet slurped at her hand, clearly delighted to see her again.

  ‘When the Christians moved back to London they didn’t need guard dogs any more, so I took them in, poor things.’ Cynthia fondled their ears as she spoke. ‘They’re pussy cats really. All they needed was a little love, wasn’t it my darlings, yes it was,’ she cooed.

  Fliss watched in amazement as the dogs wagged their tails wildly and gazed up at their new mistress with open adoration.

  ‘So good of you to come,’ Cynthia pushed the animals to one side and ushered Fliss towards the kitchen. ‘I hope you didn’t mind my writing, but I felt I must talk to you.  Here we are, please, make yourself comfortable. I’ve made a pot of Earl Grey.’

  Fliss sat on the only empty chair as Cynthia tossed a pile of newspapers onto the floor to make space for herself.

  ‘You’re looking very well, Cynthia,’ said Fliss, and meant it. She had been half expecting to find the woman a wreck, having been heartbroken, rejected, humiliated, and very nearly burned alive.  Instead Cynthia seemed positively chipper.

  ‘My dear, I feel wonderful. And it’s all thanks to you. You and poor darling Neville, of course. Shortbread?’

  Fliss shook her head.

  ‘Me? I don’t see…’

  ‘I have had an epiphany, Fliss. A moment of revelation and clarity that has changed my life forever. Sugar?’

  Fliss shook her head again, and took the cup Cynthia was handing her.

  Cynthia sat back in her chair, which made a worrying crack, and fixed Fliss with an intense stare.

  ‘I have looked death in the face,’ she told her. ‘I have glimpsed my own end. One cannot go through such an experience and come out unchanged.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ Fliss shifted her foot as Hamlet tried to sit on it. Eric and Vinnie lay one either side of Cynthia’s chair, still as sphinxes. 

  ‘Even as I fled the flames I knew my life would never be the same again.’ She cast her eyes down for a moment, stirring her tea. ‘Sometimes it takes something momentous to shake a person out of a…a certain state.’ She glanced up at Fliss, then back down to her tea, and took a noisy sip. ‘I realise now that I was in the grip of an obsession. Un amour faux. Heaven knows how long I would have gone on making a complete fool of myself had not the Grim Reaper himself brought me to my senses. And Neville,’ she closed her eyes briefly, ‘the innocent object of my fixation, what must he have thought of me?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he understood,’ said Fliss.

  ‘Yes, I believe he did. It is a measure of the man that he suffered my unwanted attentions for so long. And that now he has forgiven me.’ She leant forward, grasping Fliss’s hand. ‘I have written to him, explaining how I was not myself, how depression, borne of delayed grief for my late husband, had affected my judgement, and indeed my perception of the world. My doctor has helped me see that.’ She paused for a moment, turning her gaze on a photograph on the mantelpiece above the Aga. The handsome, ruddy face of Edmund Danby could just be made out through the dust. 

  Fliss drank her tea, shifting slightly in her seat as Hamlet sought to scratch his back on one of the arms of her chair.

  ‘Well, of course I’m glad you’re feeling better,’ Fliss said, ‘but I don’t see why you’re thanking me.’

  ‘You were an example to me. You showed me what can, indeed what must be done. It is not enough to think, or to talk, one must act.’

  Fliss shook her head.

  ‘No, sorry Cynthia, I still don’t understand.’

  Cynthia leant forwards once more.

  ‘When I had recovered from the shock of the fire, and when I regained my senses, I thought about what you were doing up at Withy Hill. Of why you were there. Of what you were prepared to risk in the name of what is right and honest and decent. You took action, my dear, without regard to your own safety. You have set the bench mark by which me must all be measured.’

  ‘I have?’

  ‘I saw then how small and selfish my life had become. Oh I busied myself with things for the village. Little, unimportant, unnecessary things.’

  ‘Oh, surely not.’

  ‘It’s true. I can see it now. Most of the causes in which I involved myself in the name of Nettlecombe Hatchet were nothing more than distractions to fill my empty life, and for my own self-aggrandisement. But you, you were doing something worthwhile, something that mattered.’

  ‘I wasn’t on my own, you know. It was really down to Neville.’

  ‘Please,’ Cynthia held up a hand, ‘there is no need for false modesty. Of course dear Neville was an enormous support to you. But I see a woman’s hand here. A strong, courageous woman.’

  ‘I really think you’re making too much of my part in all this,’ said Fliss.

  ‘Enough. Not another word. I will not hear you belittle your achievements. Look what you brought about. That appalling place, those dreadful experiments, exposed! And the whole enterprise closed down.’ Cynthia sat back in her chair with a sigh. ‘So, you see, it is your example which has spurred me on, which has helped me to see that I too can make a difference.’

  ‘Good for you, Cynthia. What are you going to do?’

  ‘It came to me in the woods on that terrible night. There I stood, shivering in my negligee, watching the inferno that had so nearly claimed my life. Then that fearful explosion, and those poor, poor chickens… I was in a state of shock, of course. Completely bewildered and unable to move. At that moment I felt a warmth against my tiny frozen hand,’ Cynthia’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘It was Hamlet,’ she said in a small voice. ‘My dear, faithful hound, standing by me in my darkest hour.’

  Fliss opened her mouth to point out that it was Hamlet who had started the fire, but decided against it. Hamlet wheezed and shook his head in a very un-heroic fashion, his loose jowls sending out a heavy shower of drool.

  ‘I wanted you to be the first to hear my plans,’ Cynthia went on. ‘I have decided to put all my energies into animal welfare. More specifically, into the welfare of farm animals, who are often so cruelly abused, and whose suffering goes unheard. Not any more! In me they have found their champion.’ She beamed at Fliss. ‘Tell me your thoughts.’

  ‘Well, I’m really impressed, Cynthia. You’ve been through so much, and you’ve come out of it all fighting. I’m sure you’ll make a fantastic campaigner.’

  Fliss was amazed to see a little pinkness glowing beneath Cynthia’s generous layer of powder. It had never occurred to her that such a woman was capable of blushing.

  ‘I’m so glad you think so. Your approval matters a great deal to me. If you agree, I shall run any plans for action past you in the initial stages.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Fliss, ‘I think there’s someone you ought to meet. Have you got a piece of paper?’ She wrote down Sam’s name and telephone number. ‘I think you’ll find this young lady a very good ally. And you won’t be able to stop my daughter being involved.’

  ‘Oh, really? Marvellous! And I’m going to take in farm dogs, too. The ones too old to work who need a loving home for their sunset years. Silly for just little me to live in this great big house. Why don’t you stay for supper, then we can talk some more?’

  Fliss drained her cup and shook her head.

  ‘That’s a kind offer, Cynthia, but I’m afraid I can’t. I’m busy tonight.’ She allowed herself a small smile. ‘I’ve got a date.’

  By seven-thirty that evening Neville was in a dither. He stared at the shirts hanging in his wardrobe, waiting for the right one to present itself. None did. There were shirts suitable for work, and shirts suitable for dinner in smart restaurants, and shirts suitable for being at home and doing nothing in particular. Apart from cycling (which was in another cupboard altogether), Neville didn’t do anything else. Now, however, the need had arisen for shirt suitable for seduction, and his collection had been found wanting. The sound of his front door buzzer forced him to make a choice. He shrugged on something pale blue and harmless and hurried downstairs, buttoning as he went. 

  ‘Hi,’ he said as he opened the door, doing his best to sound relaxed.

  ‘Hi, Neville, sorry to be so punctual. I’ve never managed to be fashionably late for anything,’ Fliss told him.

  ‘An affliction we share. Please, come in. Ah, what have we here?’ 

  ‘Well, I hope it’s a bottle of delicious, sophisticated, and very drinkable white wine. But as I chose it for the colourful label, it could be anything. I no longer have a visiting wine expert. It says dry, so I’m expecting something between vinegar and battery acid.’

  ‘Mmmm, can’t wait,’ he waved her up the stairs. ‘Mine’s the penthouse apartment,’ he told her. 

  ‘Very rare in Nettlecombe Hatchet, I should imagine. Oh, hello, I didn’t know you had a cat.’

  ‘That’s Cilla. If you’re very lucky she won’t sing. I’ll just put this in some ice.’  Neville busied himself with the wine, stealing surreptitious glances at Fliss when he could. She looked particularly lovely. She was wearing her hair loose, and it gleamed as the early evening sun fell on it. Her dress was cotton and flowing in subtle shades of peach and cream. It fell loosely about her fine, lithe body, touching a curve here and a hollow there. She smelled divine – a mixture of patchouli and bergamot – and on her slender bare arms were dozens of thin silver bracelets. 

  Fliss turned and smiled at Neville. He realised he was staring at her. Embarrassed he rattled the bottle in the ice bucket.

  ‘So,’ he asked, ‘liberated any more beleaguered creatures recently?’

  ‘Oh, not in the last few days. You?’ 

  Neville shook his head.

  ‘Far too busy studying Situations Vacant in the Barnchester Echo.’

  ‘I can’t believe you lost your job over what we did at Withy Hill. It really doesn’t seem fair.’

  ‘I managed to jump before I was pushed. “Decided on career change” looks so much better on one’s CV than “Kicked out for exposing his boss as bribable”. Actually, I was glad of the excuse to leave. I fear my soul was beginning to rot.’

  ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘Who knows? For the moment I’m enjoying being unemployed. Feels quite decadent, though I suppose it won’t once my savings run out.’

  ‘I must say,’ Fliss looked around the kitchen, ‘I expected this place to be all creative mess and activity. Your cooking has been hyped up so much, I was looking forward to a real performance, but there’s not a saucepan bubbling. Nothing sizzling. Not a sniff of supper. Have you sent out for takeaway?’

  ‘Ah, well, we’re not actually eating in here. All will be revealed.’ Neville made an elaborate bow and opened the door to the sitting room. ‘Would Madam like to walk this way?’

  Fliss stepped past him. 

  ‘Wow! Neville, this is beautiful!’

  Neville had been busy. The little room had been transformed into a flower filled English country garden. The furniture had been pushed back and was all but hidden behind armfuls of greenery. Bowls of roses, vases of honeysuckle and lilies, baskets of meandering nasturtiums, and pails of delphiniums crowded together in a random display. Trailing ivies dangled from pictures and lamp shades. Clematis festooned the open windows, through which soft sunshine fell, illuminating the picnic rug in the centre of the room. 

  ‘I don’t have a garden,’ Neville explained, his voice unusually halting, ‘but I thought you might like this.’ 

  He stood awkwardly in the doorway, waiting for her response.

  ‘I love it. It’s fantastic. Where did you get all these fabulous flowers?’ she asked wandering from one bloom to the next.

  ‘Oh, hospitals, graveyards…’

  She smiled at him.

  ‘You went to so much trouble. For me?’

  ‘Of course I was banking on you not being a Hay Fever sufferer. Could have been disastrous. Must be a lethal pollen count in here right now.’

  ‘It smells heavenly.’

  ‘I turned the heating on. I know it’s the middle of summer and our mothers would be sucking air through their teeth in horror, but I thought it would make it feel more like a summer’s day in here. And the flowers would smell better.’

  ‘Nothing to do with encouraging me to take some clothes off then?’

  ‘Thought never entered my head.’

  They stood in silence for a moment. When Neville could hold Fliss’s gaze no longer he hurried over to the CD player.

  ‘Now, sit yourself down on that rug before everything wilts. Sublime music you were promised, and sublime music you shall have.’

  ‘This was definitely one of my better deals,’ said Fliss, arranging herself comfortably on the floor, ‘even if we were nearly eaten by dogs, burned alive, blown up, and arrested.’

  ‘I thought you enjoyed all that.’

  ‘I’m enjoying this more. Ooh, asparagus. And champagne!’

  ‘We can still drink your wine if you like.’

  ‘No chance. This looks much more interesting.’

  There was a short pause and a buzz as Neville set the CD going. Fliss looked at Neville and raised her eyebrows. He grinned back. A few seconds more of anticipation, and then the unmistakeable opening notes of The Birdies Song.

  Fliss was visibly shocked. Neville closed his eyes in apparent rapture, then opened them again, laughing as he switched the dreadful noise off.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘couldn’t resist.’

  ‘As I’m hoping that didn’t come out of your own collection I suppose you must have had to hunt it down.’

  ‘I didn’t have to look far, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Sandra?’

  ‘Sandra.’

 Neville made a second selection and adjusted the volume. The mellow, melodious sound of Otis Reading’s ‘Sitting on the Dock of a Bay’ lilted around the room.

  ‘Well?’ asked Neville.

  Fliss nodded. ‘Completely sublime.’

  Neville lowered himself onto the picnic rug, knees cracking like rifle shots.

  ‘Good grief, Neville, you’ll have to let me try and do something about those legs of yours.’

  ‘What had you in mind?’ he asked, expertly uncorking the champagne.

  ‘A Crystal Healing session of course.’

  ‘Ah yes, that should be…interesting.’

  Fliss laughed. ‘Somehow I don’t see you as a devotee of alternative medicine.’

  ‘I’m ready to be convinced. Do your worst. After we’ve eaten.’ He handed her a linen napkin. ‘Dig in.’

  They dined on tender young asparagus, dripping with melted butter, mopped up by bread Neville had baked earlier in the day. Neville found himself unable to take his eyes of Fliss, even as butter dribbled down her chin. He admired her ability to seem so at ease, so natural, so herself. As time went by and champagne went down he began to lose some of his initial awkwardness. After they had washed their fingers in water with lemon slices, Neville uncovered an enormous bowl of strawberries.

  ‘Oh,’ said Fliss, ‘those look particularly good.’

  ‘Everything in this room is local and organic, I assure you. Now, the secret of the truly blissful strawberry lies in how you eat it,’ he said, and produced a large, wooden pepper mill.

  ‘Pepper?’ Fliss was dubious.

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  Neville ground half a dozen twists of pepper over the strawberries, then picked up a prime specimen. He dipped it in the dish of lightly whipped cream, then topped it off with a tiny mint leaf. 

  ‘Close your eyes,’ he told Fliss. He leant forward and popped the berry into her open mouth.

  She ate slowly, wearing a slight frown. Gradually a smile of delight lit up her face.

  ‘That,’ she said, opening her eyes to find Neville’s face very close to her own, ‘is the most exquisite thing I have ever tasted.’

  Neville smiled and gently dabbed away a speck of cream from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘And you,’ he said, ‘are the most exquisite woman I have ever met.’ 

 Then he leaned forwards and kissed her, and Otis sang, and the birds outside the window sang, and somewhere in it all Neville’s own, happy heart sang, too.

  * * * * *

  Rose sat on the wooden bench on the village green, the bright summer sun warming her bare shoulders, and watched Baby as he toddled about on strong little legs.  He had grown so quickly; it was hard to see the infant in him any more. He had learnt to walk on his first birthday, and was now quite steady on his busy feet.  Rose glanced down at the envelope in her hands. She still wrote to Ryan every month, just to keep him informed of his son’s progress. He never wrote back, of course, but then he never had liked writing letters. She ran a finger idly over the address – Woodleigh Nursing Home, Toller Porcorem, Dorset. The last time she had visited him had been nearly four months ago now. He had seemed settled, and the nurses didn’t think further visits a good idea. Better not to confuse him.

  ‘Duck! Duck, Mummy!’ shouted Baby, pointing at the birds waddling by.

  ‘Yes, sweetheart, duck. Clever boy.’

  A Range Rover drove past carefully and beeped its horn. Rose waved back at the friendly new family who had moved into Withy Hill Farm. Ryan would have been so annoyed about missing the chance to handle the sale. Just as well he didn’t know about it. 

  Rose looked over at the Post Office and saw Miss Siddons locking the door behind her last customer of the day. She had recovered well from the shingles, but didn’t go out much, especially after her Jack Russell had failed to wake up one morning.

  A large figure came to stand by the bench, casting a cool shadow over Rose. She looked up and smiled. 

  Marco handed her one of the three ice creams he had bought.

  ‘Strawberry for you, my lovely. And chocolate for the little one.’ He bent down and helped Baby take hold of the cone. ‘There you go, bach,’ he said, sitting down beside Rose.

  ‘Look,’ she pointed to the short row of houses on the far side of the green, ‘the new restaurant is opening tonight.’

  As they watched, a small van bearing the same words as the sign over the restaurant – ‘The Leggy Rat’  – drew up outside. Fliss climbed out and opened the back doors. Neville emerged from the restaurant, and together they went to and fro carrying in boxes of all shapes and sizes. 

  ‘Do they serve our sort of food, do you think?’ asked Marco, licking vanilla ice cream off the back of his hand.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so; it’s all vegetarian. Nice that it’s organic, though. And it does look very pretty inside. They’ve done so much to it since your last visit.  Me and Baby had a little peep through the window yesterday.’

  ‘Well then, cariad, I shall take you there for a meal. In the daytime, is it? So Baby can come too.’

  ‘Oh yes, he loves his vegetables.’

  They sat for some time in the lowering sun, enjoying their ice creams, and watching the gentle business of the village going on around them. At last Rose decided it was time for Baby’s bath, so they fed the last of their cornets to the ducks, and set off for Honeysuckle Cottage.

THE END