Good Husband Material

‘Perhaps it’s further along,’ said the first. ‘Funny – I thought it was sure to be this one.’

‘Never mind, Dan – it’ll be further along.’

And so on until, after another ten or fifteen minutes of this tediously Beckett-like dialogue, they dropped the manhole cover and went off into Mrs Peach’s garden to try their luck.

It took copious amounts of coffee to soothe my shattered nerves, and even then I still wanted to cringe. I kept remembering the workmen’s blank faces as they peered into the manhole.

Later, the most stupendous thunderstorm broke over the cottage and the Wrath of God in the form of a bolt of lightning flashed down the telephone cable and blasted the answerphone into little melted pieces.

I don’t know what I did to deserve that.

Nothing like this ever happened when we lived in the flat.

Chapter 8: Busted Flush

We’ve been here a whole month now, and I’ve settled into a more professional working schedule: mornings for the book, afternoons for the house. How nice it is not to feel guilty about writing instead of doing housework, and being able to do it without James’s constant interruptions. I don’t know how Jane Austen ever managed to write a word with her family coming and going like yo-yos.

My little room is very inviting, with walls of palest pink (not any kind of cream!) though it needs a touch or two of a strong colour – lime green, possibly. When I’d said as much to James, he’d replied, ‘Why spoil a good colour scheme?’

He hasn’t seen the leaves yet. Or the patchwork curtains.

My desk is set in the little window, with everything neat and tidy: pile of manuscript on one side of the typewriter, unused paper on the other. James says I should be fully computerised, seeing we’re hovering on the brink of a new century, but I’m quite happy as I am: I type my first draft, then rewrite it onto my Amstrad word processor and print it out. I suppose publishers will soon refuse to accept typewritten manuscripts, as they do now with handwritten ones, but I bet if your name is something bestselling like Archer, they’d accept them written in lipstick on slices of bread.

The present book is going well. The heroine is about to meet the radio ham who heard her distress call when her yacht was sinking and so saved her life, and he’s going to be terribly handsome and exciting, although scarred in some way and hiding himself away because of it, only communicating through his radio messages.

I thought Love on the Waves would be a good title, but I don’t know if Thripp, Thripp and Jameson, my publishers, will like it. Mr Thripp – Mr H. Thripp – has appalling taste in titles and book covers.

I need to go into town and find some books on radio-hamming in the library, since I don’t know enough details for even a sketchy outline. It’s very tedious not being able to drive, because the bus service isn’t all that good, besides being very expensive and taking ages.

Fergal tried to teach me to drive once, but he got so furious when I inadvertently reversed into a bush and got a tiny scratch on his beloved sports car, that I refused to try again. He had a thing about that car; he even got cross just because I rubbed Leather Food all over the seats so they made rude raspberry noises when he was being romantic.

As soon as the cottage is sorted out I’ll book lessons. Sometimes I feel quite marooned out here, especially since James has now stayed overnight with Howard three times when he’s had to work late. When I protested, he said, ‘Well, that’s the price you have to pay for living in the country!’ He always comes back next day with chocolates or flowers, but I’d rather he came home, however late.

Really, I don’t know what’s got into him since we moved here. He used to talk about growing vegetables and things like that, but he hasn’t even started planning the garden yet. I’m not sure he’s been in the garden! And as for helping me with the house – it takes constant badgering just to get him to put up a simple shelf or two.

He says his work is serious and very exhausting, and he needs to relax in his spare time; but he even neglects taking Bess for her daily walk, which would do him good.

I can only hope he’s adjusting and will show some interest in the garden once the weather bucks up a bit. And he still has to drive to the supermarket once a week for the shopping, that’s something.

If I need any extras, Mrs Deakin at the village shop is very good, and I don’t really mind paying a few pence more to save the trek into town, except that she’s very persuasive, so I often come out with stuff I never intended to get.

Some things, like natural soya sauce, bran and lentils, I have to buy at the health food shop in Bedford: I’m determined we’ll have a Natural Healthy Diet, whatever James says. I bought some recycled paper loo rolls there, too, which were not a complete success since it took three flushes before it was vanquished. And I didn’t like the horrible chewing gum colour, even if they did assure me it was all totally hygienic. But there’s no point in saving trees if I’m not saving water.

Mrs Peach now delivers our eggs, which she calls ‘free-range’. Certainly the hen-runs are free-range, since they’re on little wheels so she can move them up and down her garden.

The very day after complaining about Toby screaming she came toiling up the drive pulling a little cart behind her made up of a set of pram wheels with an ark-like wooden structure on top. She wore a black cloth coat, very shiny, and a strange pointed woollen hat in magenta with ear flaps that tied under the chin and ended in huge pom-poms dangling on her slumping frontage.

When I reluctantly opened the front door she was licking the end of a pencil attached to a little notebook by a piece of greasy black string.

‘You’ll be wanting eggs, then,’ she announced tersely, without looking up. ‘How many a week?’

Over her shoulder I could see that the Perambulating Ark was stacked with battered egg boxes. ‘I get my eggs in town. Free-range ones.’ (Nice, clean ones, in new boxes!)

‘That’s right – free-range brown is what I’ve got. Save you the journey. How many?’

I capitulated. ‘Half a dozen please.’

‘Mondays. Save the boxes.’ And off she stumped, her ark bouncing on the rutted pathway, and that was that.

Now every Monday she comes, receives her egg boxes and money, hands me the eggs in return and then, with a muttered, ‘Let’s see that cunning old bird, then!’ she stumps right past me into the living room to stare greedily at Toby. Charmed by her attention he invariably runs through his entire repertoire at top speed (and volume).

Then she silently departs, only betraying her enjoyment by the occasional quiver of her collapsed cheek.

I expect she regales the entire village with the awful things he says when she does the rest of the egg round, and everyone will think he learned them from us.

The library did have a couple of radio ham books, although they didn’t look very up to date. But I don’t suppose it changes that much, and I also managed to buy a magazine on the subject, which James seized when he got home. Then he lay on the bed immersed in it, though he’s never shown any interest in that sort of thing before.

I suppose he just wanted something to read – but why can’t he come downstairs and do it? I tried snuggling up next to him on the bed, but apart from pointing out one or two interesting passages he took no notice of me, so I went back downstairs and read one of the books instead.

Bess woke me with hysterical whining at the crack of dawn next morning – she must have eaten something that disagreed with her. James pulled the sheet over his head and pretended not to hear her, as usual.

After she’d got the worst of it over I thought we might as well carry on and have our usual little morning walk up the lane. There’s an old, overgrown driveway to the Hall further up, and a rough pathway through the tangle where I can let her off.

But as I was about to release her I saw a hare, and it’s true what they say about mad March hares, because this one was bouncing all over the place. Then another joined it, and they had just begun a sparring contest when Bess whined and spoiled it; in a flash they were racing off.

Hare today, and gone tomorrow …

For some reason they reminded me of the vicar.

Bess seemed fine later, which was just as well, because I had to go up to Town to meet a literary agent who specialises in romance. Having just reached the end of a three-book contract with Thripp, Thripp and Jameson, I thought it would be interesting to see what an agent could do with my next one.

I got him out of TheWriter’s and Artist’s Yearbook, although I must admit that I thought Vivyan Dubois was a woman until I got there. He’s quite young, eager, intelligent and gay. I liked him immediately.

He’s read some of my books and is sure he can get me a better contract with another publisher, and also that there would be a market for them in America!

He was very enthusiastic, and delighted that I’m such a fast writer. I’m to send various contracts for him to pore over, and Love on the Waves when it’s completed.

After this I was dying to impart the glad news to someone, so popped in to see Mother and Granny.

Granny was in a grumpy mood. ‘If you fell into the Leeds-Liverpool canal you’d come up with a trout in your mouth!’ she said dourly.

‘Aren’t you going to give me any credit for hard work, Granny?’

‘I’m sure we’re very pleased, dear,’ Mother said. ‘But when you said you had wonderful news I did hope for a moment … I mean, I know how much dear James longs for a son, and I’d love a grandchild.’

‘Let the girl alone!’ snapped Granny. ‘She hasn’t been in her new house five seconds.’

‘But it isn’t a new house, is it? There are all sorts of hazards in old houses for tiny tots – and they’re always damp and unhygienic. I did so much prefer your last home, darling, because at least you knew that no one else had ever lived in it – or died in it!’