The Country Life

Chapter Twenty

Martin and I sat side by side out in the car park. Having had neither the foresight nor the skill to leave the car in the shade, the atmosphere inside it even after we had opened all the windows was oppressive. A strong, unpleasant smell of hot rubber radiated from every surface. The steering wheel was scorching to the touch. To our left, at the entrance to the car park, a long pair of tyre marks described twin arcs across the concrete in the heat, two incriminating fingers pointing at us.

‘We can’t go on like this,’ I said. ‘We’re going to have to tell your parents everything.’

As soon as I had sat down in the driving seat, my body had gushed all over with sweat. A trickle spouted from my cheek and ran down my neck.

‘You’re doing fine, Stel-la.’

‘I could get us both killed.’

‘So could anybody. Cars are dangerous.’

‘That’s no argument. Your parents wouldn’t agree. We’ve just been lucky so far, that’s all. What if I injured you? You could be crippled for life.’ There was a pause. I broke out into a fresh volley of sweat. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’

‘You might be doing them a favour,’ observed Martin.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Surely it’s up to me? I’m the one taking the risk.’

‘That’s a very selfish way to look at things.’

‘So is your way.’

‘No it isn’t. I’m sacrificing my job and my reputation for your safety.’

‘You’re sacrificing my happiness for your guilt, you mean. I’ll be depressed if you go. The others have all been awful. Mater doesn’t have a clue. Look, it’ll be fine. You’ll improve in no time. You’ve just got to practise.’

After a heart-stopping slew out of the car park, we were back on the road. Everything that had happened in the interval took on the texture of a dream. My only reality was this maelstrom of noise and motion, this perilous enclosure in which every second dripped with risk and the world beyond the windscreen was transformed into a hostile adversary, on the elusion of which my life depended. The thing I disliked most about driving was its contingency. To drive was to be in a perpetual state of stress. One could not, while driving, merely stop doing so.

‘What did you think of the centre?’ said Martin conversationally, once we had left Buckley in a reproachful fanfare of car horns.

‘I can’t talk.’

‘Keep to the left, Stel-la. We’re going to change gear. Clutch!’

‘Did it work?’

‘Yes. So what did you think? Stel-la?’

I was dimly aware that Martin had asked me a question, but the mechanisms required to answer it could not be activated whilst I was in this state of siege.

‘Leemealone!’ I said, unable even to divert the resources necessary to the proper formation of words.

‘OK. Slow down a bit. We’re almost there. Keep to the left. That’s it.’

Miraculously — particularly seeing as my instinct was to steer towards any object which came within my sights — we did not meet a single car during the entire journey from Buckley to Franchise. By the time we had reached the gates at the bottom of the drive, my exhaustion and terror were such that our safe arrival was an inadequate comfort. Of all the feelings I might in the innocence of my pre-driving projections have imagined for myself in the wake of a successful return voyage from Buckley, the terrible, infantile self-pity which welled up in me as we chugged to a halt in front of the house was the furthest from my expectation. It was as if I had experienced some primal violation. I felt the novelty of a desire for my mother; proof, if confirmation were needed, that the whole business of driving was unnatural and that to be inured to it would be to acquire an inhuman range of attributes.

‘I was beginning to wonder where you two had got to!’ said Pamela, when we presented ourselves, wan and subdued, in the kitchen. ‘I suddenly realized after you’d gone, Stella, that Piers forgot to insure you to drive the car. And then when you didn’t come back I got dreadfully worried that something had happened to you.’

‘Oh!’ I put my hand over my mouth, as something was peeled up off the trampled floor of my memory. ‘I meant to ring you and say that I was staying at the centre for the afternoon! I completely forgot.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Pamela genially. ‘I phoned and they told me you were there. It was fine. No, we’re the batty ones, forgetting that insurance. Thank God you didn’t have a crash.’

With Pamela being so kind, I was tempted to fall upon her with a weeping confession; but her mention of the insurance had set my mind once more to cunning. I wondered if she and Piers could be encouraged to keep forgetting it, only to be reminded too late each time Martin required ferrying to Buckley.

‘So what did you make of it down there?’ she enquired, putting on the kettle. ‘Was Mrs Miller at the helm?’

‘Mrs Miller?’

‘Karen. Red hair. Rather tarty, in a hippyish way.’

‘Oh. Yes.’ With a rush of shame I remembered the afternoon’s speculations concerning Karen Miller. ‘I didn’t realize she was married.’

‘Oh, goodness yes. Her husband’s a local cheese. Councillor. Frightful bore called Roger. She’s pretty frightful too, actually. Martin’s got some noise he makes for her.’ Martin, his face bright with approval, made a series of loud, lowing noises. Pamela laughed. ‘That’s it. I suppose we’re being horribly unkind. She means well. And she really does such good work.’

The centre, I could see, was the object of one of Pamela’s unshakeable loyalties. It required little more for me to keep my opinions of the place to myself.

‘I’ll tell you something about her, though,’ said Pamela, then, drawing to the table with the empty teapot held distractedly in her hands. ‘Martin, you’re not listening, are you?’

‘No,’ said Martin.

‘Apparently,’ said Pamela in a confidential tone, ‘she and Roger are involved in some extraordinary club in Buckley. You’d never think it to look at them in a million years, but somebody told me it’s true.’

‘What sort of club?’

‘Oh, you know, the ones where a group of friends get together once a week and swap.’

‘Swap what?’

‘Wives’ whispered Pamela. ‘It’s got a funny name.’

‘Swinging,’ said Martin.

‘That’s right. Swinging. What they do is all get together at one of their houses, and the men put their car keys down on the table and the women pick them up. And off they go.’

‘Where to?’

‘What? Oh, they don’t go anywhere in the car!’ Pamela gave a peal of laughter. ‘They go to one of the bedrooms and have it off.’

It could just have been the albeit minor car element, but I found the notion of what Pamela had described absolutely nauseating.

‘That’s disgusting,’ I said.

‘Isn’t it?’ said Pamela delightedly. ‘Some horrible little semi in Buckley just shaking. Apparently it’s frightfully common.’

It took me some time to realize that she meant widespread rather than vulgar.

‘In a way, you can see why they do it, though,’ continued Pamela. ‘In many ways it’s safer than having affairs. Everybody’s equal and it’s all out in the open. As long as there wasn’t somebody you dreaded getting. I suppose they couldn’t be that fussy. Or perhaps they learn to recognize the car keys. They all have to agree to keep frightfully mum about it, though.’

‘In case the police find out?’

‘It’s not against the law, darling,’ said Pamela, giving me a look of amazement. ‘No, it’s just so that they don’t get jealous. The men start having punch-ups, apparently. It all sounds absolutely exhausting to me.’

I remembered then what Karen Miller had said about Pamela having ‘had her fair share’. A whole new dimension, a subterranean realm of operations of which I had been unaware, was revealing itself to me.

‘Where are the others?’ said Martin.

‘Over at the field. They’ll be back before long and then we’ll have supper. Do you two want to go and amuse yourselves until then?’

‘I won’t be staying to supper,’ I falteringly interjected.

‘Why ever not?’ said Pamela.

‘I’m — busy.’

Martin made several kissing noises. Pamela looked at me slightly oddly. Suddenly a smile dawned across her face.

‘Oh, it’s your date!’ she said. ‘How wonderful. Although I shouldn’t go on an empty stomach if I were you. Jack will have had his tea on the dot of half-past six. He won’t be wining and dining you. In fact, you’ll probably be lucky if you get a packet of beer nuts out of him. He’s notoriously tight.’

At Pamela’s words something started to plague me. I reached for it, trying to remember what it was, but it hovered tantalizingly just beyond my compass.

‘Well, I’d better go,’ I said.

‘Good luck!’ cried Pamela.

‘See you,’ mumbled Martin, an injured expression on his face; for all the world as if my assignation were a betrayal of him, rather than the reverse.

Back at the cottage I entrenched myself in the bedroom, sensing that a long and bitter sartorial struggle lay ahead. Ploughing through my suitcases, I realized that most of my clothes were dirty, although I had barely worn them. The extreme heat had rendered my things limp and odiferous, mostly after only a single outing. I wondered how I was expected to do my washing, and whether Pamela would bring the subject up or wait until I was driven by desperation to do so myself. I was keen to give a more decorous impression to Mr Trimmer, after the shameful episode of the cut-off trousers; not because I cared particularly what he thought of me, but because I wanted firmly to retrieve any undesirable notions they might have introduced into his head. In the event, I had no choice in the matter: my smart dress was the only thing clean enough to withstand public scrutiny, although as I put it on I felt that it gave unwanted and wholly inaccurate prominence to an entirely different range of motives; namely that in it I gave the impression of having made an effort. I was bewildered, after I had done up the buttons, by the fact that the material hung about me in great folds. Finding no other explanation, I realized that I appeared to have shrunk quite drastically. That this should have happened in the few days since I had last worn the dress, without cause and without my really noticing, was profoundly disturbing. It was as if I were disappearing; or rather, as if the space I was entitled to occupy were being gradually withdrawn. The change made me nervous, as if without weight I might be overlooked or swept away.

At ten minutes to eight I heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel path and I hurried downstairs, eschewing lipstick in the hope of offsetting the excessive glamour of my attire. A thunderous knock shook the cottage door, and I opened it to find Mr Trimmer standing legs astride and arms held rigidly by his sides in the falling dusk. I was surprised to see that despite the warmth of the evening he was wearing a sweater. It was blue with a red stripe around the V of its neck; the sort of thing that might be worn as a school uniform.

‘Good evening,’ I said stiffly.

‘Land Rover’s over in the drive,’ he replied. He seemed embarrassed. ‘We’ll have to walk there first.’

He turned abruptly and set off. I followed, my chest hollow with dread and disappointment. The evening, I felt sure, was going to be far worse than I had anticipated. From behind, Mr Trimmer had an unusual appearance. His hips were low-slung and his backside so broad that his legs splayed slightly beneath it. He waddled as he walked, like an overfed bird. I ran to catch up with him, so that I would not be left to the contemplation of this view; but the path was narrow, and it was impossible to walk beside him without drawing too close. I fell behind again. He trod heavily and silently ahead of me, as if I were a prisoner being led to a cell. The noise of our footsteps and the tall, oppressive hedges on either side put me in a strange trance. For a moment I forgot entirely where I was, and what phase of my life I was occupying. Presently we emerged on the front drive and I saw a battered pale-green Land Rover parked beside the Maddens’ car. Silently, Mr Trimmer opened the door and got in. As I progressed around the front of the vehicle to the other side, I saw him through the window sitting and staring straight ahead. As soon as I had passed him, he started the engine.

‘We’re off!’ I said with false cheer, once I had climbed up to my seat. The inside of the Land Rover smelt of straw and animals. On the floor at my feet was a single, mud-encrusted shoe. Mr Trimmer did not reply to my observation. He seemed to be having some trouble getting the vehicle into gear. The controls were very widely spaced, and as he stamped on the pedals with his outstretched feet and thrashed the far-flung gearstick, his strange body stiffened on a diagonal plane above his seat.

‘Come on, you cow!’ he broadly exclaimed, his face grim with exertion.

With a great grinding sound, we shot forwards and began clattering at high speed down the drive. Jostling up and down on my seat, I surreptitiously groped for the seat belt but couldn’t find one.

‘You won’t find it,’ bellowed Mr Timmer over the noise of the engine. ‘Long gone.’

I worried that he might have interpreted my action as a criticism of his driving, but couldn’t think of anything to say which might erase this impression. Lost for words on one count, I then found myself locked into a larger silence. Search as I might, I could find no subject on which even a brief conversation might be built. We reached the bottom of the drive and turned left along the road to Hilltop. Mr Trimmer began to drive at an alarming speed. The engine’s roar rose to a scream and the Land Rover rocked this way and that. The darkening road rushed up at us and I gripped the dashboard in front of me and closed my eyes, my heart pounding. For longer than seemed possible, we raced along the knife-blade of certain death; until finally the shriek of the engine descended one key and then another, and I dared to open my eyes. We had arrived, I saw, at Hilltop; and after hurtling some way along the High Street, Mr Trimmer gave a brutal wrench of the wheel and brought us up short, almost flinging me from my seat, in front of the pub. My immediate reaction to this entirely unnecessary display of bravado was intense anger. So forceful and righteous was my fury, and so overwhelming the dislike for Mr Trimmer it caused to surge up in my mouth, that I felt I would be justified in turning around there and then and marching back to Franchise; a course which had the added advantage of sparing me the gruelling evening to come. It is far easier, however, to entertain these thoughts than to act on them; and seconds later I found myself following him, brimming with the consciousness of how unbearable my situation was, towards the pub.

The chairs and tables outside were all crowded, but I hoped that we would still be able to find a space among them; not because I wanted particularly to enjoy the warm evening, but because the thought of being enclosed with Mr Trimmer threatened to turn my agony to torment. Trailing after him, I was buffeted by strong waves of feeling, from which my relative happiness with the Maddens so far had protected me: homesickness, longing for Edward, self-pity, all the predators of the heart which even a momentary weakening of the spirits can unleash. So miserable, in fact, did I begin to feel that I became careless of my own behaviour. Mr Trimmer’s boorishness had given me the impression that he was insensible. As I stood beside him at the bar, I made no effort to disguise my unhappiness, and even attempted, by means of sullen looks and meaningful sighs, to communicate it to him. By doing so, I knew, I was presenting a challenge to his imperviousness; a sort of childish game which, in my state of self-absorption, I had elected to play with myself. I did not, in any case, expect him to respond to my taunts; I imagined, in this infantile mood, that he would not even notice them. He stood at the bar, looking straight ahead, while the chatter of the pub grew louder and louder around us.

‘Do you want to go home?’ he said suddenly, to my horror. His face was expressionless in profile, and his tone of voice suggested that I might want to go home because I had left something there, or was expected back.

‘Of course not!’ I exclaimed; although, still in a malevolent humour, I could not prevent my protest from sounding slightly insincere.

‘You were doing that,’ he observed flatly, in response to what I had no idea. He put out his arm in a clutching motion.

I realized that he was referring to my behaviour in the Land Rover.

‘I’m a nervous passenger,’ I said.

‘Do you want something?’

He gave no indication as to what this something might be. Eventually, I realized that he was asking me whether I wanted a drink; and at that moment I remembered the forgetful itch I had experienced in Pamela’s kitchen. I had no money; and had been trying, I now knew, to remind myself to ask her for some. I wondered what I should do. Were I to permit Mr Trimmer to buy me a drink, he would surely expect one in return during the course of the evening. Meanwhile, my failure to respond to his offer had caused him to turn and look enquiringly at me. His face really was quite extraordinary. It looked as if a door had been repeatedly slammed on it. Not wishing to offend him further, I decided on a plan.

‘I’ll get them,’ I said, gushingly.

His head gave a perky twitch.

‘Very kind,’ he said, nodding.

With the exaggerated gestures of a pantomime artist, I began clutching at my hip, as if feeling for a handbag. Not finding one, I looked this way and that, my face displaying carefully calibrated degrees of surprise, disbelief, and then outright panic.

‘Oh no!’ I cried. ‘I’ve forgotten my handbag!’

It was not the cleverest of ploys, and I am not the best of actresses. Mr Trimmer did not respond enthusiastically to the news. In fact, he looked as if he wished that I had taken him up on his offer of a drive home. At first I feared that he didn’t believe me; but then I remembered what Pamela had said about him being ‘tight’.

‘They’re on me, then,’ he said.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I added, although it would probably have been sensible to have said nothing more. ‘I can’t think what came over me. It’s not like me at all to be so disorganized.’ Mr Trimmer regarded me dumbly. ‘Oh,’ I said, as I realized that he was waiting for me to tell him what I wanted. ‘I’ll have a G-and — a gin and tonic, please.’

Mr Trimmer bought a half-pint of beer for himself, and carried it, without consultation, to a small table at the back of the pub. We sat in silence, our drinks untouched between us. The pub itself was very pleasant, although slightly gloomy for a summer evening. With its low ceiling and phalanx of black beams, it was like sitting in the ribcage of some vast animal. Fruit machines pulsed steadily in the shadows.

‘Have you been abroad?’ said Mr Trimmer presently. He picked up his glass and sipped from it.

‘Yes,’ I said, unsure whether a fuller confession, listing locations and frequency, was required.

‘So you speak Spanish, then.’

‘No, I don’t, I’m afraid.’ I said, bemused. Taking my cue from Mr Trimmer, I picked up my own glass. ‘Have you ever been abroad?’

‘No,’ he said, nodding. ‘My friend has. He speaks Spanish.’

‘Oh.’

‘Would you agree,’ he enlarged, after a lengthy pause, ‘that tourists have a … detrimental effect on the local … communities?’

‘It depends,’ I said.

‘So you don’t agree.’

‘It depends on the extent of the tourism, and the type of tourist who goes to a place,’ I said. Even as the words were coming from my mouth I had a sense of their futility. I felt as if I were chewing dry bread.

‘My friend thinks it does. He says all the locals want to do is get their hands on your money.’

‘Because they have so little in comparison?’ I hazarded.

‘That’s right!’ Mr Trimmer seemed genuinely pleased by my reply. I had evidently confirmed his friend’s opinion, elevating it to the status of a theory.

‘But tourism itself can bring money,’ I added cautiously. ‘So it’s not entirely a bad thing.’

Mr Trimmer’s enthusiasm was abruptly snuffed out. His eyebrows drew together, creasing his forehead; an alarming expression, as if someone were pressing hard on either side of his face. I noticed that, while I had drunk half my glass, he had barely skimmed his.

‘How long have you worked for the Maddens?’ I said, feeling that a change of subject was required.

‘Five years, about,’ muttered Mr Trimmer. His expression had modulated to one of resistance, like a child at whose lips a medicine spoon is probing.

‘And do you like it there?’

He did not reply at all to this. I glanced at my watch, and saw to my dismay that barely half an hour had passed.

‘Madden,’ he said suddenly. ‘Mad-den. Mad ’un. Get it?’

‘Oh yes!’ I trilled.

‘Are you mad?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Women say they are. Axe you?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘That’s all right, then.’ Another long pause. ‘Her, his missus, she’s a bad one.’

‘Axe you talking about Mrs Madden?’

‘Mrs Mad ’un.’ He nodded. ‘I don’t like her.’

‘Why not?’

I was resolved at any moment to put a stop to this bizarre conversation; but I could not resist letting Mr Trimmer run on, just to see what he would say. It is hard to convey how alien his manner of speech was to me. I could barely understand what he was saying; not because of his accent, although it was strong, but because his words and the sequence of his ideas, punctuating in addition vast lagoons of silence, did not conform to any pattern I recognized. It struck me that perhaps he didn’t talk very much. He was embarked now on another great pause, his mouth and eyebrows labouring as if with the effort of giving birth to a fully formed sound.

‘She’s a shagger,’ he pronounced finally.

‘A what?’

‘I know. I’ve seen her. I see everything that happens. Not just that business.’

‘What business?’

‘That’s what gave him the heebie-jeebies.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘He doesn’t know it all, though. If he did …’ His fingers uncurled by his temples to form what I took to be a gun. He gave me an idiotic grin.

‘What business?’ I repeated.

‘Nothing to do with you,’ Mr Trimmer curtly replied. ‘You don’t need to worry yourself. It’s married business.’

I had by this time finished my drink. Mr Trimmer was halfway through his. I wondered if he would offer me another, or whether I would have to wait until he finished.

‘What do you mean, the heebie-jeebies?’ I persisted, hoping that he would be more forthcoming on the subject of Mr Madden.

Mr Trimmer shook his head.

‘He’s mental,’ he said presently. ‘He’s going to hurt his self one of those days.’

‘How?’

‘Walk into one of his own traps, won’t he? I nearly done it enough times. Came near enough yourself, and all.’

‘In the top field?’

He nodded.

‘I thought the step was broken?’

Mr Trimmer swelled silently.

‘You mean it was supposed to be?’

He folded his arms over his chest.

‘Why? To discourage people from using the footpath?’

‘Some people,’ he finally pronounced. ‘Some people.’

‘Who?’

‘You’re nosy.’ He tapped his nose and nodded at me. ‘You.’

‘Not nosy. Curious. So,’ I recapped, ‘Mr Madden sabotages his own footpaths to keep some people off them. It doesn’t make any sense. Surely if someone got hurt, they would go to the police and he’d get into trouble?’

‘Police come up.’ He gave me a crafty grin. ‘They don’t find anything, though.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I fixed it!’

He burst out laughing; a terrible, preternatural sound, which made heads turn towards us.

‘So,’ I patiently resumed, ‘Mr Madden breaks things and you fix them before anybody can get hurt.’

‘That’s so.’ He nodded and tapped his head again.

With the excitement of these discoveries I was becoming thirsty. Mr Trimmer had inched his way down his own glass, which now stood almost empty. I curled my fingers significantly around mine, in the hope that he would take the hint. He didn’t.

‘But why,’ I said, clearing my dry throat, ‘why don’t you talk to him about it? It seems a bit of a waste of your time, after all.’

Even as I said it, I knew that I had taken a wrong turning; and I was rewarded with what could not have been less than five minutes of impenetrable silence. I fidgeted impatiently with my glass while Mr Trimmer absorbed my mistake. I was becoming exhausted with the effort of extracting information from the dark and tortuous passages of his mind, but I was not about to give up. I felt myself to be apprehending something of great significance. Who was Mr Madden protecting himself from? And was there a genuine reason for his doing so, or merely the fact that he was, as Mr Trimmer had put it, ‘mental’? I wondered if the creature and his undercover band of lobbyists had anything to do with it. It seemed unlikely that it was they whom Mr Madden feared. What threat could they possibly present to him? I remembered the nooses nailed to the creature’s wall, and felt a dark qualm of fear. Presently I realized that Mr Trimmer was staring at me and I gave him an encouraging smile.

‘What you saw was nothing,’ he immediately announced.

Horribly, I saw that this was the way to coax from him what he knew.

‘You mean the broken step?’ I smiled again, this time more broadly.

‘That’s it.’ He nodded. ‘There’s guns.’

‘Guns?’ My smile slipped and I hoisted it back, shifting my knee out from under the table and putting it into full view for good measure. ‘Where?’

‘All over. Everywhere.’ He fixed his eyes on my knee as he spoke, as if he were reading from it. ‘Some have been there so long he forgot about ’em. I have to watch him. He’ll get his self shot up one of these days.’

‘But how?’

‘Walk in front of ’em.’

‘You mean they’re loaded?’

He looked at me cross-eyed and made a strange motion with his hands, as if he were threading a needle.

‘Trip wires,’ he said finally. ‘Learned it in the army, he did.’

I sat, dumbfounded, for some time. Mr Trimmer was staring reproachfully at our empty glasses. He shook his head and sighed. Then he looked at his watch, his eyebrows shooting up in an unconvincing expression of surprise when he saw what it said.

‘Better be going,’ he said finally.

He stood up abruptly and began walking towards the door. I had no choice but to follow him. The inside of the pub was now penumbral, as the evening outside had faded to the point at which electric light seems to deepen rather than illuminate the darkness. Mr Trimmer opened the door and went out into the dusky High Street; but before I could go after him, I heard a familiar voice emerge from the shadows.

‘Hello,’ it said. ‘Fancy meeting you here!’

I turned and saw the creature, slumped in a chair at a table in the corner by the door. It smiled at me delightedly.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Out with Mr Trimmer, are we? Wonders will never cease.’

‘I can’t stop. He’s taking me home.’

‘I’d watch yourself, dear. He can get a bit frisky when he’s had a drink.’

‘I think I’ve found out what happened to Geoff.’

‘Really?’ The creature raised a sarcastic eyebrow. ‘I wasn’t aware of any — how shall I put it? — ambiguity in the matter. Has Mr Trimmer been sweet-talking you? I didn’t think the oaf had it in him.’

‘It’s not what you think. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.’

‘As you like.’ The creature shrugged. ‘You know where to find me.’

‘Goodbye.’

It raised its skinny arm in a salute.

‘Toodle-pip!’

Outside, Mr Trimmer was sitting motionless in the Land Rover. He started the engine when he saw me. My thoughts in turmoil, I barely noticed the fact that he drove considerably more slowly on our return than he had on the voyage out. Indeed, so distracted was I by all that I had learned during the evening that when a few minutes later the Land Rover ground to a halt in the darkness, it took me some time to realize that we were not sitting outside the house but lodged in the shadows at the bottom of the drive. I turned to Mr Trimmer, my arms and mouth open to form a protest, and at this invitation he lunged at me across the seat, chest-first like a diver, and flung his body against my own in an artless collision.

‘Oh, baby!’ he cried, squirming against me. ‘Oh, baby!’

So utterly shocked was I by this turn of events that his wet, inert lips managed to make contact with my own before I succeeded in placing my hands on his straining chest and throwing him off. Disgustedly, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

‘Mr Trimmer!’ I said.

I put my hand on the door, intending to get out and run, but then Mr Trimmer turned the key and started the engine again. He did not look particularly abject. In fact, he looked angry. His lower lip jutted out. From the side, with his eyes flat against his head and his pouting lip, he resembled a fish. He put the Land Rover into gear and accelerated up the drive so quickly that the wheels spun noisily on the gravel. He shrieked to a halt outside the house and sat, his hands gripping the steering wheel, staring straight ahead. He began to mutter to himself, although I could not make out what he was saying.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said anxiously. ‘I had a lovely evening.’ Still he did not respond. ‘Well, goodbye.’

I got out of the Land Rover and carefully shut the door. I could not prevent myself, as I walked slowly across the drive, from glancing over my shoulder to see if he was looking at me. His dysfunctional glare burned at me through the windscreen in the gloom. As soon as I had made it around the corner and through the gate, I began to run. The night was moonlit, and I found my way up the path easily. At the cottage door, I could still hear the grumble of the engine idling. I stood there, waiting to hear him leave, my heart thudding in my chest. The minutes dragged on. I wondered what on earth he was doing. Finally, I heard the distant grinding of gears, and the noise of the engine grew momentarily louder and then faded into the silence. I went into the cottage and made straight for the cupboard in the kitchen where I had put the gin.