A Rural Affair

face, was hastening towards me from the foot of the stairs. As she muscled through the scrum, her eyes were wide in consternation.

‘I thought you weren’t coming!’

‘No, I wasn’t, but then Dad had a spare ticket and I thought: oh, what the heck. You’ll never believe it, Jennie, the children are upstairs with the housekeeper. Dad swung it, naturally. How Mortimer is that!’

Ordinarily this would amuse her hugely, but it didn’t for some reason. Her eyes flitted nervously about. ‘There’s Angie. Come on, let’s go and say hi.’

Rather purposefully and with quite a grip on my arm, she turned me about and made to lead me across the crowded room. Indeed, so forcefully and with so much steel, something made me turn and glance over my shoulder: my left one.

Luke was in the stairwell, with his back to me. One hand above his head was hanging on to the banisters, the other was on his hip. He was leaning in, talking confidentially to someone. I craned my neck. To Saintly Sue. I shook Jennie off. Watched. Body language is fascinating and this was compelling. The way he was arched over her, whispering in her ear: the way she threw back her head and laughed, cheeks flushed. She was in a midnight-blue off-the-shoulder dress, showing a great deal of bosom and looking far from saintly. Suddenly, over his shoulder, she saw me. She looked surprised, but then a triumphant look flitted across her face. A moment later Luke turned to follow her eyes. He startled visibly. I walked across.

‘Hi, Luke. Hello, Sue.’

‘Oh, um, hi, Poppy.’ Luke nervously smoothed back his mop of blond hair and straightened up. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here.’

‘Oh, really? Why not?’

‘Well, I – didn’t think it was …’

‘Oh, it’s very much my thing. Thank you for the flowers, by the way. Sorry I couldn’t make supper at your place the other night. I hope you found someone to take my place? Eat all those delicious prawns?’

Sue looked taken aback. Ah, spot on. How interesting. And I’m not normally a bitch, but it felt surprisingly good. Then she looked thunderous. Just so you know, Sue, I thought, bestowing a sweet smile on her. Then you can make your own mind up, can’t you? But best to be informed, hm? I turned to Luke, who looked like a small boy caught with his hand in the sweetie tin – either that or with his trousers down. Oddly, though, as I regarded him gazing sheepishly at the floor, I realized I wasn’t about to follow through with another waspish remark. Wasn’t going to tear him off a strip. Principally because – and this was quite comforting – I wasn’t inordinately distressed. In fact, I decided, there was something about his chutzpah I rather admired. Perhaps because I wasn’t going to have to be too closely acquainted with it? Could view it from a distance? It wasn’t going to be my problem.

I let him sweat a moment, then gave a wry smile. ‘Bon chance, Luke,’ I said quietly, realizing I meant it. His eyes came up immediately to meet mine: we communed silently a moment.

He grinned. ‘Yeah, you too, Poppy.’

I turned and walked away. My heart was pounding a bit, but I wasn’t too out of sorts. Although I wouldn’t mind finding someone to talk to pretty quickly. Jennie seemed to have disappeared, but – oh good, Peggy was standing by the fireplace in her black sequins. She was ostensibly talking to Sylvia, but actually watching this little scene unfold.

‘Sylvia was just telling me,’ she told me softly as I approached, ‘that the piano teacher is perhaps not all he appears.’

‘He said he’d teach my granddaughter, Araminta,’ Sylvia said heatedly. ‘It was my birthday present to her, and of course I didn’t think to pin him down on a price. Well, my dear, I’ve just received a bill for a hundred and fifty pounds for three lessons! Can you believe it!’

‘Yes, I can, actually,’ I murmured.

‘But fifty pounds a lesson! Who does he think he is, Elton John?’

‘Different sexual inclination,’ observed Peggy as Jennie approached, flustered. ‘And nowhere near as talented.’

‘Sorry, Poppy. Got that wrong,’ Jennie muttered.

‘Not to worry,’ I soothed. ‘Just a bit too much grey for my liking.’

‘Grey?’ Sylvia peered over her spectacles. ‘No, he doesn’t look grey. But he’s clearly a bit of a spiv. You stay away from that one, Poppy. We don’t want you getting it disastrously wrong again, do we?’

I was left rather speechless at this. Was I so much public property? My affairs, my life, discussed so minutely, even at the Old Rectory? Over breakfast and the Frank Cooper’s? Suddenly London and all its anonymity appealed. Clapham, perhaps, where I’d spent many happy years. And surely the schools weren’t all a hotbed of underage sex with crack cocaine