Kate's Progress (8 page)

She was surprised when the front door bell rang, and glancing up, saw the time was ten past nine. She got up automatically, but had a moment of shivery worry as she went to answer it, thinking of the dark outside – she still found the countryside night-time vaguely threatening. But it was silly to be nervous, she told herself firmly, and opened the door to find Ollie standing there, with Gyp at his heels. Gyp surged forward in welcome, tail wagging and tongue at the ready, but Ollie looked startled.

‘Oh – it’s you.’ He stared. ‘Um – is Darren in, then?’

‘They’ve gone to the darts final. I’m babysitting,’ Kate explained.

‘Oh, yeah. I forgot the darts.’

‘Anything I can do?’

‘No, you’re all right. I just wanted a word.’ He didn’t seem inclined to go, or to come in. He leaned against the door jamb, looking at her with interest. He was in his mid-twenties, she guessed, lean but strong around the shoulders as a farm worker should be, clad now in his leisure wear of clean jeans, plain white T-shirt and leather jacket. His hair had been dressed into spikes with gel, and the smell of aftershave was competing with the smell of beer as he breathed through his mouth.

‘Been to the Royal Oak?’ she asked conversationally, to fill the silence.

‘Yeah. Haven’t seen much of you there lately.’

‘I’m working hard – too tired at the end of the day to do anything but fall into bed.’

‘Oh, yeah – you said that to Phil Kingdon when he asked you out.’ A sudden grin. ‘Didn’t like you saying no, did he?’ She assumed this was a rhetorical question. ‘So how’s it coming along, then?’

‘The house? Oh, slowly. But I’m getting there.’

‘Doing it all yourself,’ he said. ‘Funny thing that. Don’t expect women to be any good at that sort of thing.’

‘My father was a builder,’ she said, wondering how she could get rid of him politely.

But her last comment had sparked something. His face was lighting up with a dawning realization. ‘Not Jennings of Exford?’ he asked excitedly. ‘Dave down the Oak said your name was Jennings.’

‘That was my grandfather’s business. My dad set up on his own, but he worked for his dad for a bit when he was younger.’

‘My Uncle Tim worked for Jennings,’ Ollie said delightedly. Gyp, sensing the excitement, got to his feet again with an eager look, wagging and staring from face to face. ‘He was a roofer. Tim Bentley, his name was. Did you know him?’

‘My grandparents died when I was a kid,’ she said, and then, hating to disappoint him, ‘but I bet my father knew him. I’ll ask him when I write to him next time.’

‘I bet he did,’ Ollie said happily. ‘Everyone knew Uncle Tim. Well, fancy that! Makes you nearly family.’

Kate didn’t know what to do with this sudden kinship, but she smiled, and wondered if she ought to invite him in – though it was not her house, which made it a bit awkward. ‘Look …’ she began.

But at the same moment a thought seemed to cross Ollie’s mind and he also said, ‘Look …’

They both smiled, and she said, ‘You first.’

‘Well, I was going to say – about Phil Kingdon asking you out.’ He chewed his lip awkwardly. ‘None o’ my business, but you did right to turn him down.’

‘Did I? I must say, I wasn’t really tempted. Not my type.’

‘Well,’ Ollie said hesitantly, ‘he’s kind of my boss, in a way, so I shouldn’t say anything. Wouldn’t want it to get back to him …’

‘I won’t say a thing. Promise. But why shouldn’t I go out with him? Is he married?’

‘Not that I know of.’ Ollie seemed startled by the idea. ‘Could’ve been before, I s’pose – before he come here. I wouldn’t know. But he’s not – well, not a very nice man, not for a girl to get mixed up with.’ He seemed embarrassed by having to say this, and she put on an interested face and made helpful noises. ‘See him in Taunton and Minehead, different girl all the time, and not nice girls like you, if you get my drift. And he’s a hard case. Mixes with some dodgy characters. I shouldn’t be saying this, but you’d do best to steer clear of him. I mean he’s all right as a boss, if you don’t get on the wrong side of him, but …’

‘He’s not the type of man a girl would take home to meet her mother?’ she said lightly, to get him out of the pickle he seemed to be in.

His frown lightened. ‘That’s it. Just thought I’d mention.’

‘I appreciate it. But like I said, he’s not my type anyway.’

‘Right. Nuff said, then. Well, I’d better be gettin’ on.’ He seemed eager to escape the embarrassing intimacy now.

‘OK. See you around, I expect.’

‘Yeah. C’mon, Gyp.’ He turned away, dog at his heels, but turned again at the end of the path to said, ‘You won’t – like – say anything?’

‘Not a word. Promise.’

‘Only …’

‘I understand. Thanks for the heads up.’

He didn’t seem to understand the expression, looked quizzical for a moment, then worked it out, smiled, lifted his hand in an uncompleted gesture, and took himself off into the night.

Kate went back indoors, thinking,
well, what was all that about?
But just before she shut the door she stopped, opened it again, and looked cautiously out. She thought she had seen something, a dark shape – someone moving just beyond her garden wall, at the end where the road joined the track, where there was no street light. A darker shape among the shadows. But now she looked again she saw no shape and no movement. Must have been mistaken. A trick of the light – or rather a trick of the dark. She went in, shutting the door, and telling herself that she wasn’t yet used to living in the country. She’d have to stop getting jitters like that if she was to stay sane and balanced.

Kay and Darren came home in festival mood, the Bursford team having won the trophy. Company, supper and several drinks had added to Kay’s simple delight in getting out of the house, and she was as flushed with pleasure as Darren was with triumph.

‘Did you have any trouble with my two monkeys?’ she asked.

‘Not a bit,’ Kate said. ‘I think they were a bit overawed at having a stranger look after them. Dommie gave me one of his drawings.’

‘Well, we’re ever so grateful to you,’ Kay began.

To cut short renewed effusions, Kate said, ‘Oh, by the way, Ollie called, looking for Darren.’

‘What, Ollie Fewings?’ Darren asked, looking puzzled. ‘What’d he want?’

‘He just said he wanted a word.’

Darren continued to seem perplexed, but Kay, easing off her shoes, looked up sharply. ‘What, come to the door, did he? The cheeky so-and-so. He didn’t want no Darren. He wanted to have a crack at you. I bet that’s what it was. He knew you was here alone, wanted to get chatting to you.’

Kate said, ‘He seems a nice lad, but he’s not my sort.’

‘Course he’s not. I’ll give him what-for when I see him,’ Kay threatened.

‘But how would he know I was here?’ Kate wanted to know.

‘He’s thick as thieves with that Denny Foss, that works at Wansbrough’s, same as Darren. Darren gives him a lift to and from work – pick him up and drop him off at the Royal Oak, don’t you, love?’

Darren looked sheepish. ‘Told him Friday you were babysitting for Kay. He must’ve gone straight in the Oak.’

‘Course he did,’ Kay confirmed. ‘Well, I like that Ollie’s cheek!’

‘It’s rather flattering, really,’ Kate said with a laugh. ‘Anyway, that solves the mystery.’

They saw her off with renewed thanks; but between the closing of their front door and the opening of her own was a piece of darkness in which only the strange, vague shapes of things could be seen, and the silence was invested with strange small rustlings and murmurs. She thought about the man she had thought she’d seen lurking, and quickly unthought it again. As she fumbled with her key and struggled with the door, which still stuck a bit, she suppressed the urgent desire to look over her shoulder to see that no-one was creeping up on her. Only when she got the door open and was ready to dart inside did she look round. Her heart gave a painful thump as she saw something on the track that ran past her house – a dark shape just visible against the slightly less dark sky. A man’s shape, she thought. She strained her eyes, trying to work out if it was still or moving; and the next minute she had lost it. Someone walking home along the track, perhaps, passing out of sight behind the trees. Nothing to get antsy about.

She hurried inside, closed the door behind her, told herself not to be foolish – and made a mental note to leave a light on inside next time she went out in the evening.

On Sunday she decided to take a break from work, and went for a long walk over the moors. It was a fine, breezy day of sunshine and shadows, and she thought it would be absurd to move all the way to Exmoor and not sample its outdoor pleasures.

First she tried to discover exactly where her five acres were. She had seen it marked on a map, but it was not so easy to identify in reality. The fences had gone – or perhaps in some places had never existed – and the wild had crept – or rather rushed – back in. She could see a difference in vegetation in the part immediately across the track from her house, which presumably had been cultivated for longer than the rest, and she discovered a rusty iron water-trough hidden in the bracken which seemed to mark one corner of that field. But that was all. Standing back to get an overall impression of it, she saw that her five acres – if she was guessing right about how much an acre was – occupied the flat top of Lar Common, just about the only flat land in the immediate vicinity. But without any hope of planning permission, it was valueless – except to a member of the Irish diaspora suffering from land-hunger, of course. A vague thought wandered through her mind that, in deference to her people, she really ought not to waste it, she ought to clear the land and cultivate it …

At that point reality kicked in and she snorted.
Yeah, five acres of potatoes ought to do it! What are you, Scarlett O’Hara? ‘As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!’

Anyway, stupid girl, you’re not staying here. This is a Cinderella project, that’s all. You’re doing up the cottage and selling it, and moving back to real life, in London
.

But as she tramped away down the track, gazing across the wide moors, dappled with shadows of the fast-moving clouds, she felt a pang at the idea of leaving this place. It was so beautiful … Yes, she told herself, but that’s now, in May, with summer ahead. Think of winter here, cold and wet, shut indoors week after week with nothing to do. You’ll do up the cottage and get out just in time. Enjoy it for what it is – a working holiday.

She had been walking for some time, enjoying the fresh air and the wonderful smells; she had spotted two groups of ponies at a distance, seen buzzards circling overhead, heard the trilling of skylarks, and underneath it the singing silence of the high lands. She had been following a sheep-trod, and the land under her feet began gradually to fall away from the flat top of the common, the drop growing steeper until she found herself at the edge of a coombe, on the other side of which there was a craggy rise to a green hillside, where a flock of sheep was peacefully grazing.

It was at that point that Kate heard the whimper. It came from somewhere below her, on the side of the coombe, which was thick with heather, bracken, whin and gorse. She turned her head out of the wind and listened. After a moment it came again, a whimper that turned into a long-drawn-out whine of distress. It sounded like a dog. She craned her neck, moved a little way along the valley edge in each direction, but she could see nothing. But she was a dog-lover, and if there was one in trouble, she had to go and see if she could help. Perhaps it had slipped and fallen, or got itself stuck in a rabbit hole, or – well, something. She had to find out.

She looked for a suitable way down, and found the faint mark of a trod through the vegetation which she began to follow. It was all very well for a sheep, but it was tricky going for a human, trying to find sound footing through the wiry heather-roots, loose stones and concealed hollows. And where was the dog? She tried calling, and heard a whimper of reply. She headed for where she thought the sound came from, but having to look down for her footing all the time meant she could not keep an eye on the direction her steps were taking her; and one bit of heather looked much like another. She called again, and thought she heard a sound from the vicinity of a large gorse bush – at least that gave her a landmark to aim for.

She laboured on. Calling elicited no more sounds. Her foot slipped and for a shocking, heart-in-mouth moment she was skidding down the coombe-side on her back, clutching at passing roots to try to stop herself. She took the skin from one set of fingers before something held and she arrested the skid. She lay for a moment, staring at the sky, while her heart-rate slowed. A cloud of tiny flies descended, interested in the sweat that had broken out on her brow.

She wondered what on earth she was doing. She’d heard no more cries of distress. If there had ever been a dog, it was probably long gone. Dogs didn’t fall – they were as sure-footed as sheep. She was risking breaking a leg for nothing – and if she did break something, who would ever find her? She was far enough down the coombe now to be invisible from the top. She would lie here and die of hunger and thirst, and one day, years hence, some intrepid walker would find her bare bones sunk in the heather. It came home to her that Exmoor was a wild place, and very different from London. It was a place you could actually
get lost
in – lost as in
never being found again
.

Her heart was steady again, her breathing normal. She sat up and snorted at her own panicky fears and foolish fancies. She got over on to all fours and then carefully stood up, looked back up the way she had come, and saw that the gorse bush was only a few feet to her right, and above her. She had been going to give up on the phantom dog, but as she was so close, she might as well go and have a look. At least going up was easier – you faced the hillside and hung on with your hands, making yourself effectively four-footed instead of two. She called again, ‘Where are you, boy? Hey, boy!’ got no answer, but crabbed along and up anyway.

And here was the gorse bush, and here was the problem. Underneath it, on the downhill side, there was a big, earthy hollow, probably where some animal – a fox, perhaps – had dug out a scrape for shelter. There was also a wandering line of old, rusty barbed wire, presumably the remains of an old fence, and a big, black, hairy animal was caught in it. As she reached the place, it turned its head, and she saw it was a mongrel dog with a thick, bushy coat. She saw what must have happened. The dog had gone in to the hollow under the bush, perhaps to check out the scent or look for rabbits, creeping under the wire, which had got snagged in its coat. Then in turning round to get out, it had wound the wire deeper until it couldn’t free itself. Subsequent struggles had only made things worse, and now it was hopelessly trapped, bound to the tough branches and roots of the gorse by iron teeth.