Within minutes, the pail was full. ‘I’ll put it in the pantry,’ Lynn said getting to her feet.
‘There’s no need,’ Simon insisted but she came anyway.
As soon they were inside the house, they could smell smoke and a dog muffled growls. Hurrying into the sitting room they found Gerald asleep, oblivious to the smouldering sofa he sat upon and the nudges of Jackson who was obviously trying to wake his master.
‘For goodness sake!’ With a disdainful and effective shove, Lynn sent Gerald sprawling to the floor while at the same time emptying the milk over the smoking sofa cushions.
By the time Julian thumped downstairs in his dressing gown, cursing and swearing, the drama was over.
‘F-f-fucking Gerald must have fallen asleep,’ Simon is ashen-faced. ‘Dropped his j-j-joint or cigarette, I don’t…. If it hadn’t been for L-L-Lynn, I don’t know what I’ve have d-d-done.’
Gerald looks up from the floor bleary-eyed and gives a weak smile. ‘Hey what are you all doing? Jules, what’s up, man? You look tense.’
Shaking his head, he seems not to know where he is. Meanwhile Simon has rushed back from the kitchen with a bucket of water which he flings over the sofa. Some of it sprinkles Gerald.
‘Shit man!’ he shouts.
‘Seymour. Where is he?’ asks Julian blenching. ‘He’ll go nuts when he sees this.’ He hovers his hand over the scorched area on the sofa seat. ‘Is the fire definitely out?’
‘Don’t get hassled, man,’ Gerald says hopefully.
‘It’s out alright,’ Lynn says calmly. ‘The whole sofa’s soaked, mind and burn marks on the arm rest.’
‘Fuck. I can’t handle this, my head’s banging. Shut up will you, Gerald? I need to think and I need tea and it is bloody freezing in here. Thanks Lynn, you’re a star. You too Simon mate. It could have been a lot worse. Let’s get warm in the kitchen and work out how we keep this from Seymour.’
Stella is in the doorway. She has found time to sweep her hair up with a clip. ‘What’s all the fucking noise?’ she complains.
Julian says: ‘Don’t worry now babe, a small fire, nothing serious. Just got to keep it from Seymour.’
‘Seymour’s gone,’ she says, disappearing back down the hall. Over her shoulder she calls: ‘…back to London.’
Five days later, Stella follows him by train. Not because Seymour encourages her. He does not return the messages she leaves at his studio or the notes she sends in the post.
The row that had been festering since Boxing Day finally erupts. The shouts and screams of Julian and Stella ricochet through the house. They bounce off the barn. Stella is short in stature but she can produce an impressive volume of sound.
Lynn, hearing yells from the Morle cottage, sniggers. She wonders idly if the noise will put Daisy off her milk.
The trigger for the fight was after Stella and Julian did not have sex. He called her ‘cold and unresponsive’ as she wriggled to the other side of the bed avoiding his advances. She retorted that she’d preferred foreplay with his father. Incredulous, he asked her to repeat the remark. When she said that Seymour was the only man who understood her body and gave her intense orgasms, the row exploded.
Julian was in turn flabbergasted, disgusted, incensed and finally humiliated. Stella finally left the farm dragging her beautiful and large carpetbag behind her. Ten minutes later she was back. The occasional buses which went through the village were not in service on New Year’s Eve.
‘I need a lift!’ she demanded.
‘Oh do you?’ Julian replied.
‘Do I have to ask again?’ she sniped.
‘You do. And you’ll have to beg and you’ll have to do it nicely,’ he retorted.
‘There is no one else to ask,’ she spat back, ‘and you aren’t nice.’
Simon drove her to the train station. The men agreed to meet in the village pub on his return. The place was packed with local people drinking as quickly as possible before the pub closed at 11pm.
It was rumoured the landlord had ‘lock-ins’ but the Strattons had never been on that invitee list. The boys downed several pints before the bar man called time. The New Year’s Eve party planned to take place at the farmhouse with Seymour’s friends bringing booze, food and possibly drugs, had been cancelled. It would now take place in Seymour’s London studio. Julian and Simon were not invited. They would see in the New Year together.
‘Christ, can’t tell you how relieved I am,’ Julian insisted over his fifth pint. ‘Stella is a complete and utter pain. Seymour’s welcome to her. She’s neurotic, tricky as hell, a nightmare on legs. She may think she’s clever but she hides it well under all that drifting about like an overgrown fairy. Now Lynn, there’s a girl with sense, don’t you think, S-S-Simon?’
‘The way she d-d-dealt with that fire and Gerald, it was impressive. She’s p-p-pretty, too, all that c-c-capable, rustic charm. I l-l-like that in a girl. We c-c-could invite her over?’ said Simon.
‘Fancy her do you, S-S-Simon mate? I could myself. Any port in a storm.’
‘Perhaps you could stop calling me that.’
‘Calling you what?’
‘S-S-Simon.’
‘But I’ve always called you that, mate.’
‘And I’ve always loathed it.’
They stared at the dregs of their pints. ‘Last orders!’ cried the barman.
Julian stood up. ‘Another pint?’ Simon looked at him quizzically.
‘Another pint to see out this shitty old year? Simon?’
‘Thanks I will. Jules.’
14
‘Why don’t you drive?’ John holds out the keys to his daughter.
Like a grumpy child bribed with an ice cream, he can see she’s tempted. Wrapping her fingers around the chilly bunch of metal, she walks to the driver’s side of the car.
‘You’ll have to tell me how to get there,’ she grumbles, ‘I don’t know where she lives.’
John gets into the
