‘What have you bought for supper?’
‘It’s a surprise,’ bleated Tab.
‘Shall I get red or white?’
‘Both, I should think. See you later.’
Whimpering with panic, Tab looked around her. How could she have made such a mess? An empty vodka bottle and fragments of the royal blue and gold vase Rannaldini had given her for Christmas littered the floor. She’d better go and buy the food for dinner; then she could tidy the place and herself while it was heating up.
Her car was out of petrol, so she borrowed Isa’s new Jaguar. God, it was bliss to drive. In no time she had reached Waitrose, and loaded up with a smoked-salmon mousse, three packets of Coronation Chicken, new potatoes, ready-made dressing and a pretty red and green bag of salad. Adding banana and yoghurt ice cream, a brown loaf and runny Brie, she was off to the checkout counter, piling on Pedigree Chum and Whiskas on the way. Catering was so easy if you knew how. She even ignored a great glacier of vodka bottles. Hurrah for Tabitha the coper.
Her undoing was a white tablecloth covered in glasses, and a beaming salesman with a special offer of Chilean Chardonnay.
‘Might as well have a slurp,’ muttered Tab, as her trolley developed a mind of its own and veered booze- wards.
A man in a flat cap and a green Husky had had the same idea, and was soon swilling away, waggling his nose back and forth in the glass like a windscreen wiper.
‘Remarkably good,’ he said to Tab.
‘It is,’ she agreed, smiling back at the salesman, ‘and a terrific bargain. Could I have another glass just to make sure?’
‘What a lovely little hidey-hole,’ said Mr Brown, as Isa drew up outside Magpie Cottage. ‘Look at those primroses. I’m dying for a leak.’
Isa’s first thought was that his Jaguar had been stolen, the second that his mobile was ringing. Ignoring it, he ran into the house. Chaos met his eyes. Charging into the downstairs loo, he found no bog paper and no towel. Fuck Tab!
The best he could do was a box of tissues from the kitchen, which was also a tip, with no sign of dinner and no flowers. A fire was laid in the grate but unlit. Littering the floor were fragments of the Sevres vase and Martie’s torn-up photograph. He had better answer his mobile.
‘Are you the owner of car P704 HHA?’
Isa had to think twice.
‘Yes. It’s been stolen?’
‘We’re not sure, sir. It’s been abandoned across the gangway in Waitrose’s car park, obstructing the flow of traffic, and the alarm is causing a disturbance. No-one can get inside the vehicle.’
Coming out of the lavatory, flapping his hands, Mr Brown was rather amused by the news.
‘My spouse is always locking herself out of her car, and my teenage daughters never lift a finger in the house.’
He was very happy to give Isa a lift to Waitrose. He’d seen photographs of Tab in
They found Tab and the man in the flat cap sitting in a little cafe half-way down a second bottle of Chilean Chardonnay. Not having driven Isa’s car before, she had no idea that it was his number being paged with increasing urgency.
‘This is Hugh Murray-Scott,’ she announced happily. ‘He’s a friend of Daddy’s.’
‘Where are my car keys?’ snarled Isa.
‘Car keys?’ As Tab rootled through the pockets of her jeans, Mr Brown and Mr Murray-Scott admired her slender hips. ‘Here they are. Now, where did I put my trolley?’
The final straw was when Isa found his lovely new Jaguar had been rammed by another car with a furious owner.
‘It’s only metal,’ said Mr Brown soothingly. ‘Don’t blame the little lady.’
He thought Tabitha was wildly exciting.
‘I’m sorry you won’t be able to enjoy any home cooking,’ mumbled Tab. ‘I’m not only off my trolley, I seem to have lost it as well.’
She ended up trying to write a cheque for the Chardonnay with her toothbrush, and Mr Brown swept them all off to the Old Bell for dinner. Despite Isa hissing at Tab to keep her fucking trap shut, she and Mr Brown got on famously. She was soon telling him about her Olympic hopes for The Engineer, and he was telling her all about Peppy Koala. ‘Prettiest little horse you ever saw.’
‘If you brought him over to Paradise, he and The Engineer could meet,’ said Tab, whose eyes were sparkling at the sight of the bottle of Moet arriving in an ice bucket.
‘Aren’t you rather isolated in that little cottage?’ asked Mr Brown.
‘I’m Isa-lated,’ giggled Tab, ‘because my husband is always late home.’
Mr Brown thought it a very funny joke.
Isa wanted to throttle his wife, but if he could stop her doing anything frightful, Mr Brown’s obvious infatuation might just work to his advantage. By the time they had all ordered lobster with moules marinieres to start with, Mr Brown was talking about
‘If you run him in the Derby this year,’ Isa was saying, ‘he’ll get a seven-pound allowance because, as a southern hemisphere horse, he’ll be so much younger than the others.’
Tab sloped off to the ladies. On the way, wondering whether to pack in a quick vodka at the bar, she caught sight of a tank of lobsters. She hadn’t realized they weren’t born red. Black, already in mourning, they waited helplessly, their claws tied together with elastic bands to stop them killing each other so that they could be boiled alive and intact.
Tab was so distraught, she up-ended a nearby ice bucket on the floor, scooped up as many lobsters as it would hold and fled into the street. Outside, in her thin jersey and jeans, the cold hit her like a left hook. If she could reach the sea she could set them free.
Isa and Mr Brown caught up with her on Rutminster bridge crying hysterically, trying to hitch a lift. When Isa tried to snatch back the bucket, she emptied the lobsters into the river.
Although the young lady was a handful, Mr Brown admired her spirit and was horrified by the way Isa tore into her.
‘Don’t you understand, you stupid bitch? They can’t survive in fresh water.’
‘Like me,’ sobbed Tab. ‘I can’t survive in the wrong marriage any more.’
After a week of cold war, Isa flew to Australia on the pretext of winding up the yard he had started with Martie. As March came in, bringing days of torrential rain and flooding, Tab died of every kind of jealousy. Looking out listlessly one morning she noticed the sun had broken through. The stream that flowed past the cottage had also broken away from its course into lots of smaller streams, glittering like a crystal lustre as they danced down the valley to join the river Fleet. We’re free to make our own way in the sunshine, they seemed to sing to Tab.
‘Your future godmother, Lucy, won’t like it, Little Rupert,’ Tab told the baby inside her, ‘but you and I are going hunting.’
Tab had always hunted, until Lucy had persuaded her it was cruel. But so many foxes escaped, and a ropy old pack like the Rutminster Ramblers never caught anything anyway, and the poor Engineer was so bored of dressage it would pep him up to have a day out.
Gold catkins lit up the valley like Tiffany lamps. As The Engineer floated over the fences, Tab had never been more conscious of owning an Olympic horse. She was so enjoying herself she didn’t notice a strand of wire. Next moment The Engineer turned over on top of her.
It didn’t hurt at first. She was conscious only of her white breeches turning red with blood, and screaming, ‘The baby! Please save the baby!’ before she passed out.
By the time Isa had flown home at vast expense, mother and horse were doing well, but little Rupert had died.
Tab was utterly devastated, sobbing and sinking into despair. Isa, who loved children, was determined not to
