guts. Or the neck. Or the stomach. Or whatever part of the body it took to let a hundred and fifty people down – but not yourself. I was full of admiration for Miss Anna Braithwaite, as we gathered she was called, not a spinster of this parish, but yet another Londoner who’d wangled her way into our idyllic village church by dint of having a distant relative who lived nearby, where she’d lodged her suitcase for a couple of weeks, and become a bona fide country dweller. So yes, neck had been her particular body part; the one which had enabled her, first to swing the bucolic setting, and then to break a man’s heart.
Would I have broken Phil’s heart? I picked up the Gloria song sheet as Angus slipped in beside Angie on the end, Sylvia electing the row in front. I couldn’t exactly imagine him prostrate with grief, punching walls into the night in a Heathcliff manner. More tight-lipped and furious. Livid. Nonsense, Poppy; you’re rewriting history. He was actually very much in love with you. He just hid it well.
‘So who’s getting married, then?’ I asked Angie, thinking: never again.
‘A local couple, apparently, which is much more satisfactory. They got engaged last week and wanted to get married immediately but were told they’d have to wait ages for a slot. They were about to get hitched in the registry office but then this came up, so they grabbed it.’
‘Good for them,’ I said admiringly.
‘No order of service sheets, of course, because it was too late to get it all organized, but when you think about it, how much nicer to get married just like that. Next week? Good friends will always just drop everything to come, and you don’t get any of the fuss. None of the usual pre-nup merry- go-round with lists at Peter Jones and bridesmaids getting the hump because they’re dressed as shepherdesses; just an incredibly spontaneous, romantic occasion. A really lovely joyous expression of … shit.’
‘What?’ I frowned. She’d ducked her head down and was furiously pulling her fringe over her eyes.
‘Bugger. It’s Pete. Passion-Fuelled. Back row of the church. Don’t look now. Don’t want him to see me.’
‘Why not?’ I said, nonetheless following her furtive glance to where Pete, blond and gorgeous in a dark suit, was indeed collecting a hymn book and joining the growing congregation.
‘Made a bit of a fool of myself,’ Angie muttered.
‘Really? When?’ I was intrigued. ‘You never said.’
I turned to stare at her in wonder. Pete was surely a harmless crush. A fantasy figure, like a member of a boy band, to pin on a bedroom wall and drool over. He was also a good ten years younger than Angie.
‘What did you do, wrestle him into the back of his mobile forge?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Angie reddened.
I blinked. ‘Please tell me you didn’t rip off his leather apron? Have him over his anvil? Hammer hammer hammer?’
‘Oh, shut up, Poppy.’ She swallowed. ‘No, he just … Well, he sussed that I was getting him out on false pretences, that’s all.’
‘Getting him out? What d’you mean?’
‘Horses only need shoeing every six weeks or so. Pete was doing mine slightly more regularly than that,’ she said tightly.
‘Oh.’
It occurred to me that I did see Pete’s van go past my house most weeks, and if I wandered past Angie’s house with Archie, Pete was quite often parked in the stable yard round the side.
‘Of course I always had some spurious excuse up my sleeve, about how their feet grew quickly and needed trimming, or I was worried a shoe was loose. I even wrenched a shoe off myself in the middle of the night, nearly put my bloody back out, just so I could get him round.’
An image of Angie in her stables, under cover of darkness, with a startled horse and a pair of pliers, sprang to mind. My mouth twitched, but I was surprised too. Didn’t know she had it so bad.
‘What happened?’ I said gently.
‘One day he said he thought my horse was in danger of being over-manicured, and was there any particular reason I’d got him round. He looked me right in the eye and asked if there was anything else that needed servicing?’
‘No!’ I breathed.
I tried to imagine the shy, taciturn Pete saying that, but was aware I’d only seen him out of his milieu, at the book club, not handling a nervous horse, a red-hot firing iron in his hand.
‘Oh, Poppy, he was all strong and masterful. You should see him when he’s in his own environment,’ she said,
