A Rural Affair

‘I swear to God,’ I sped on furiously. ‘She sat on my sofa in my sitting room piously explaining how she wouldn’t take a penny from me, before deciding better of it. I’d know her sanctimonious little face anywhere!’

Jennie digested this in horrified silence as Emma and her father proceeded in stately fashion towards us, up to the steps where Simon and the vicar waited by the altar.

‘And all the time she was busy re-bagging Simon!’ Jennie said. ‘Little tart,’ she spat venomously. Sylvia, in front, turned to give her a disapproving look.

‘Scheming little tart,’ I agreed, ignoring Sylvia’s furious frown.

Fortunately for Emma, Luke was still giving it whampo, and our remarks didn’t drift further than our immediate neighbours. We watched, tight-lipped and incredulous. Without much fear of recognition either, disguised as we were in unfamiliar cassock and ruff. Emma’s eyes, anyway, were only for her groom, waiting straight-backed and proudly for her; she wasn’t busy scanning the choir stalls for detractors. As she hove into view under our noses I realized she was much more of a highlighted blonde than a natural one these days, and she was sporting a deep San Tropez tan, her shimmying shoulders, smooth and gleaming, rising from her strapless gown. She glided into position, and as Luke’s final chord drifted away into the rafters she smiled up into her groom’s eyes. Simon’s face was suffused with unadulterated delight as he gazed down.

‘Hussy!’ hissed Jennie, and even Angie leaned around to give her a startled look.

Mike, our vicar, rocking back and forth on the soles of his shoes, said a few words of welcome – as usual mentioning the church roof – and then directed us to our first hymn. I managed to mutter a few words of it but Jennie, beside me, stood mute and pale throughout. Finally, under cover of the last verse, which was delivered at full volume by the congregation and to which we were supposed to provide the descant, she muttered in my ear, ‘I’ve a jolly good mind to say something.’

My eyes widened in horror. She had a determined look on her face that I knew of old. ‘What – you mean at the just-cause-and-impediment stage?’

‘Well, that’s what it’s there for, Poppy.’

‘Like what?’ I yelped. ‘What would you say?’

‘Something like: do you have any idea what cunning little fortune-hunter you’re about to get hitched to? That’s what. Oh, and incidentally, the married man she was bonking was married to my best friend and was the father of her children. That’s sort of what I had in mind.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ I whispered nervously. ‘He clearly loves her cunning little heart for better or worse, and don’t forget that he knew about the married man, probably the children too. The fact that it was my married man, had he known Phil, would probably have been a great comfort to him.’

Yes, I thought, as the hymn ended on a high note, Simon must have thought he was up against some handsome, virile lurve machine. Some piece of work in the sack and some insatiably smooth operator out of it. And, all the time, it had been Phil. Phil Shilling, with his thinning sandy hair, his long nose, the pointy bit of which reddened and dripped when it was cold, his thin lips, his very short temper, not to mention his very short … Well. Not that size matters. But what had she seen in him? This baffled me most, as we sat to watch them make their vows. It actually made me question my own recollection of Phil. Had I not spotted his startling resemblance to George Clooney? Was I perhaps jaundiced, due to a stunning lack of attention? Did he, in fact, have a scintillating wit and a charming manner, but only when I wasn’t in the room? Had I sapped it out of him, squashed him? With my domineering ways, my fish-wife manner? Was it my fault? You don’t have to know me too well to realize this line of thought was well within my psyche; for the finger of blame, even at my most innocent, to pivot suddenly and point inexorably at me. After all, I’d picked him too, hadn’t I? As Emma had. He must have had some endearing qualities.

Heroically, Jennie sat on her hands at the moment critique as the vicar asked the audience. I watched as Simon slipped a ring on her finger and gazed tenderly into her eyes. She could have had that look, that ring, four years ago if it hadn’t been for Phil. Unbelievable. The mind didn’t so much boggle as bulge pneumatically. I cast around desperately for clues.

They’d worked together, of course, which traditionally makes for a heady environment, sexual tension and all that – although Lord knows why, with bright lights, first-thing-in-the-morning faces and unattractive gobbling of sandwiches at desks. I can’t imagine it did much for Phil. But then he was her boss, which was well documented. Yes, that must have been it: the masterful way he called her into his office to discuss new business, poking his nasal hair back with his little finger; that would have got the juices flowing. Or the attractive way he cleared his throat at least twice before he spoke, and then the slow, soft, ultra-patronizing tones he employed, implying he had to go at this speed and volume because the person on the receiving end was not only a moron, but capable of reacting violently if he used anything like a normal tone. It all came back in a horrific rush. The way he’d patiently take a pan off the hob and throw the water away, quietly explaining that