A Rural Affair

‘Jennie, right, has completely lost it,’ she told me breathlessly as we listened. ‘She’s convinced it’s not my test, which it bloody isn’t, and she knows it’s not yours or Peggy’s or Angie’s, or even by immaculate conception Mrs B’s, so she’s decided the only logical conclusion is it’s Dad’s. That he’s having an affair, brought someone back here, and she dropped it in the basket.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ I gasped, incredulous.

‘I know, bonkers; but I told you, she’s lost the plot.’

We listened, clutching each other, as Jennie, at full volume, which we knew to be loud enough to penetrate ancient walls, told Dan exactly what she thought of him, followed by what sounded like the toaster being flung across the room. Dan yelped in pain.

‘Shit – you bitch – my ankle!’

‘Shall I go in?’ I breathed.

‘Oh yes, please,’ begged Frankie tearfully. ‘She’s going to kill him, I know she is. I honestly think she might – Oh!’

No doubt also believing this to be true, Dan was even now leaping the garden wall. The next thing we knew, he was in my kitchen, cowering shamelessly behind his neighbour and his daughter, even going so far as to clutch my dressing-gown cord. His wife, however, was only moments behind him: in very hot pursuit, leaping the wall and brandishing a golf club.

‘Jennie, no!’ I screamed, springing forward to seize her wrist as she charged in brandishing the club. As the five iron flailed in the air Mrs Tiger Woods sprang to mind.

‘Let go of me! LET GO OF ME!’ she roared.

‘No, Jennie!’ I flung her arm to the left with a monumental effort, so much so that the club flew from her hand. She cast mad, wistful eyes after it as it hit a framed poster from the Royal Academy on the wall, smashing it. The sound of breaking glass did nothing to deter her, though; in fact it seemed to galvanize her. Her eyes came back to her prey, who was shrinking back down the kitchen, white-faced.

‘BASTARD!’ she screamed. As Dan turned and fled she pushed me out of the way, but as she ran past I managed to swing and grab her jumper. I held on tight as Frankie, with great resourcefulness, rugby-tackled her ankles and brought her down. A terrific struggle ensued, with Dan, I noticed, not helping in the least; he watched, petrified, peeping out from behind the doorway into the hall, as Frankie and I pinned his wife to the floor.

‘Let me up! LET ME UP!’ she insisted hotly.

Relenting only a fraction, we tentatively allowed her to at least struggle to a sitting position against the wall, where we crouched beside her like jailers, Frankie holding tight to one arm, me to the other.

‘In my bed,’ she was spluttering, ‘some tart, while my children slept!’

‘Jennie, don’t be ridiculous!’ I yelled. ‘You’re out of your mind!’

‘You’ve gone properly weird,’ gasped Frankie.

‘He wouldn’t, Jennie, he just wouldn’t!’ I urged. Dan shook his head vehemently, in helpless agreement, but knowing better, perhaps, than to utter. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my other neighbour, Mrs Harper, at the far end of her back garden, peering around the pyracantha on the party wall, possibly even standing on a flower pot.

‘Oh yes, he would!’ Jennie seethed, mad eyes leaping out of their sockets, her face crimson with rage. ‘That’s just it, he bloody would! He is not the man you think he is, Poppy, not harmless lovable Dan, can’t help getting into scrapes, poor lamb. He would do that and I know he did it because I found a black lacy bra UNDER MY BED!’

‘It’s mine!’ wailed Frankie, distressed. ‘I told you it’s new. I tried it on in your room because you’ve got the best mirror – I must have left it there!’

‘You lie!’ she spat, her head spinning round to her daughter like something out of The Exorcist. ‘I wash your underwear constantly, young lady, and you possess nothing of that nature. You lie to protect him! You both lie!’

‘No!’ Frankie cried, tears springing to her eyes as, at that moment, her younger brother and sister materialized in their back garden. Jamie and Hannah were even now climbing over the garden wall in their pyjamas. Jamie helped Hannah down. They crept, terrified, into my kitchen. If anything would stop my hugely maternal friend in her tracks, it was this: the sight of her two frightened, vulnerable children, little faces bewildered, Hannah still clutching her teddy, dragged from their beds by the screaming. But Jennie was too far gone. Her tether, which, as we know, some would dispute her ever having been in possession of, had well and truly snapped. Despite her jailers she struggled to her feet and balled her fists.

‘WELL, WHOSE IS IT, THEN?’ she bellowed as we held her arms tight, her face a strange purple colour. ‘The