26
The cottage bulges with its new owners. Simon, Amy and seventeen-year-old daughter Chloe and, so she won’t be moody about being ‘stuck at the end of a mud track’, her best friend Tilly. There’s Maggie and her terrier, Merry, oddly named for the dog with a tendency to snap as he did at David’s six-year-old son, Marco, a lover of football but a hater of mud on his treasured boots. They decline Julian’s invitation to join Miriam and Peter for a drink at the farmhouse. Instead the group cram around the kitchen table for lasagne.
Simon stands. Forks hover. ‘Can I p-p-propose a t-t-toast?’ Amy remembers how shy he used to be about public speaking.
She sometimes wonders if he used his stammer as a way of making people listen.
‘To the gathering t-t-together of dear old friends in this b-b-beautiful c-c-cottage and also to absent f-f-friends.’
‘Absent friends.’ They raise their glasses.
A brief lull indicates a respectful nod to Seymour. The adults appreciate being remembered in his will but they can’t forget he treated them shabbily. Being back at Wyld Farm brings back memories.
Chloe finds the dinner difficult for other reasons. It is beyond her why the grownups are so pleased to be crammed into a cramped cottage ‘full of old grey things – and that’s just the furniture!’ she whispers to Tilly later.
All her parents and their funny friends do is reminisce. With laughter and veiled innuendo, their stories make her wither. To make things worse, they play terrible music. Rod Stewart was tolerable but Maggie’s favourite ‘prog rock’ band, Yes, made a literally horrifying sound.
‘Why weren’t the band named ‘No’?’ Chloe says, collapsing dramatically on to the mattress she and Tilly have been told is where they will sleep. ‘God! Are we really meant to use this?’
There’s a knock on the door. David sticks his head around the door. ‘Sleep well, girls,’ he says.
Even though he’s old, David is not completely uncool; her mother mentioned he played in a band. The quiff is unfortunate but it’s better than Maggie’s hair which looked as though it’s been chewed by a rat. Apparently Maggie is a teacher. Chloe wonders how someone so tetchy can work with students.
‘Thought I’d mention that Julian once slept in this room,’ David says. ‘He heard a ghost. But I wouldn’t worry, I’m sure it’s gone by now.’
Chloe who has successfully maintained her sangfroid expression all evening, bursts out laughing.
‘We’ll send the ghost up to your room,’ she retorts, ‘so prepare to be spooked.’
Her parents, washing up in the kitchen, are pleased their daughter is being friendly at least.
Announcing that she wants the single room ‘because it has the right vibes’; (Simon raises his eyebrows in derision but says nothing) Maggie stands by the bathroom door with her wash bag and towel.
‘David, you take the bedroom with the fireplace, the one Simon and I used to have. There’s enough wall space for you and Amber to hang your instruments.’
This is the first time David’s girlfriend had been mentioned. ‘Which leaves the other double room for Amy and Simon. It’s where you used to sleep, Amy. Though you were with David then, weren’t you? How things change, eh? Alright, I’ll be as quick as I can. But I do like a soak.’
She closes the bathroom door behind her.
Half an hour later Maggie finally vacates a steamy bathroom. David is already in bed after a pee in the garden and a wash in the kitchen sink. The Websters use the bathroom. Simon ignores the green mould behind the loo.
By 11 o’clock, the cottage is quiet save for the giggling of the teenagers. Renovations made a quarter of a century ago did not include sound proofing. Maggie bangs on the floorboards of her room above where the teenagers lay.
‘Shut up can you, Chloe and Tilly? I want to sleep!’ There is peace in Bramble Cottage.
Over the next few weekends, the new owners arrive as early as they can on Fridays. Re-establishing relationships and talking about old times is fun when combined with fine weather, tents for the teenagers, ear plugs and plenty of wine. Tolerating other people’s and their children’s (or animals’) habits is eminently possible when one can escape for a walk in the glorious countryside. Irritations are mollified when the scent of flowers blows in through open windows. Idiosyncratic behaviour is a delightful indulgence when viewed from a hammock.
But on the third Saturday afternoon when the weather turns overcast, Amy finds dog excrement in the carefully-prepared vegetable patch again, Marco scribbles over the mandala poster that Maggie had hung in the kitchen, Simon leaves a pan caked with scrambled egg unwashed in the sink and David rehearses one guitar solo again and again, the honeymoon period concludes.
‘Utopia d-d-does not happen without organisation,’ Simon says. ‘Let’s have a d-d-drink and blue-sky how we’re going to run the cottage.’
Maggie snorts with derision.
Amy says: ‘You’re not at work now, darling, people don’t use words like that, not in real life. Simon simply means to say let’s talk things through.’
‘I’ll put Marco in front of a Marx Brothers video,’ says David.
‘Now that sounds fun,’ says Maggie.
Simon brings out a bottle of Claret, noting it’s the third one he’s shared that weekend. They’ll need a budget for cottage wine as well as household stuff. Though Maggie professes not to drink alcohol, she’d pours a fair amount of it down her throat.
Amy fetches chairs from upstairs, suppressing irritation when Maggie does not help but lets her dog lick her mouth, a habit Amy finds revolting.
‘Having a rota would work for me. I’d like to come here with my girlfriend and band so we can rehearse,’ David says.
‘I’d like to bring Dad and Vi down for a weekend. I was thinking we could plant a garden, perhaps some fruit bushes. Would people like
