Summer with the Country Village Vet

‘What, for the kids to look for money?’ The parents would be battling to borrow it every weekend.

‘No, you idiot, a scanner type thing to check them on the way into school.’

‘You cannot be serious? Okay Starbaston is a bit rough, but the kids are still more into flicking paper planes than knives.’ She paused. ‘They’re kids, innocent.’ Well maybe not all that innocent. But…

‘But he doesn’t know that, does he? He’s a wanker. The man buys a frigging metal detector. In a primary school when he won’t even give us any more money for tissue paper and glue.’

‘Or teachers.’ Lucy couldn’t help adding that, and sounding bitter.

‘Aww babe, I know, he’s an arse. But that’s what I mean, there just has to be somewhere better than this.’

‘I know.’ Lucy sighed. ‘But am I ready to be buried in the countryside? I’m not brain dead, just redundant.’

Sarah giggled. ‘So it’s a proper village, in the countryside and everything?’

‘In the countryside and everything, I think.’ It looked very countryside from the picture on the website. ‘If I ever find it.’

‘You can join the WI and bake cakes.’

‘How old do you think I am you cheeky cow? Anyhow I can’t bake to save my life, watching Great British Bake Off is the nearest I get to making a cake, I kill every plant I touch—’

‘Apart from cress heads.’

‘Apart from cress heads,’ she was good at that, she could grow cress in an eggshell or on scratchy green paper towels as well as any five year old, ‘and the only time I tried to knit I ended up cross-eyed with my needles knotted together.’ She’d thrown the whole lot in the bin and wondered how on earth she’d ever thought yarn-bombing was a sensible thing.

‘So you’re not doing an escape to the country, then Loo?’

‘I’ll be planning my escape out. I’m glad you’re finding this so hilarious.’ It was cheering her up though. ‘Anyhow I haven’t got the job yet, I’m just going for an interview.’

‘You’ll get it, they’ll snap you up. You go girl.’

‘And it is just a cover job for next half-term, so you can stop imagining me in a headscarf and wellies.’

‘Spoilsport. You never know, you might meet some phwoar farmer and want to make babies with him and breed cows and stuff.’

‘Sod off Sarah.’ She was grinning, she knew she was. ‘Thanks though. I love you.’

‘Love you too, babe. Let me know how it goes.’

‘Sarah?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Don’t tell Lawson about this.’ Not that he’d even remember who she was.

Welcome to Langtry Meadows. Lucy breathed a sigh of relief as she passed the sign, and checked her watch again. She’d made it, with ten minutes to spare.

Not that it looked exactly promising. So this was it. Fields to the left, fields to the right, oh and hedges. And more fields. Shades of green she’d forgotten existed. Oh yeah, and cows.

No. Be positive. She was having a new adventure. A nice, restful temporary job while she recharged her batteries, jiggled her life plan a bit, before taking the next step.

She’d served her apprenticeship, sailed through her Newly Qualified Teacher year, been promoted and was soaring up the ranks heading for Senior Leadership Team and eventually Head and this was all just a blip.

David Lawson would have never had her on his leadership team, he hated her. So she’d had a lucky break.

A holiday in the sticks. Yep, that was how she’d have to look at it. A holiday. A six week break filled with spring flowers and chubby-faced village children.

As the road narrowed she slowed down and felt some of the tension ease away. She had to admit that the second she’d entered the village even the hedgerows seemed prettier. The green was broken up with frothy white hawthorn blossom, and the grassy verges were sprinkled with yellow, pink and violet flowers. Something inside her lifted, and all of a sudden she felt more positive.

The road narrowed slightly more, if that was possible, and then curled round to the left. She held her breath as she rounded it, gripping the steering wheel, half expecting to collide with a tractor coming the other way. But what hit her was something quite different.

Lucy leant forward until her chin was practically balanced on the steering wheel, and stared at the scene ahead.

She’d been following the winding country lane, concentrating on the road, for what seemed like miles, and now all of a sudden this had opened out in front of her, bringing an unexpected lump to her throat.

The perfect picture-postcard village green.

Ahead the road forked to the right and left, cupping the pond, green and cascading willow tree in a gentle embrace. Drawing up at the side of the road, she pulled the handbrake on and got out of her Mini, stretching out the kinks that had settled into her back and shoulders.

Right now it didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t actually want to work in the countryside. She felt like she’d slipped Alice-in-Wonderland style from her own busy life, into a different world. Except in her case it was like being thrown back to her childhood. The good bit, before it had all gone so disastrously wrong.

The happy times were just a cloudy, indistinct memory though, buried under the weight of unhappiness. And now she’d been forced back, into the type of world she’d happily avoided until now.

The narrow lanes, with high hedges and dappled shade had demanded a level of concentration which didn’t mix well with the jitters that had been building in the pit of her stomach, and if she hadn’t been so doggedly determined to make this work she would have ignored her satnav and done an abrupt U-turn back to the safety of the city. But she hadn’t, and now she wasn’t quite sure if she was happy, or wanted to curl up and cry.

She’d done a very efficient job of blanking out her early childhood and the village she’d grown up in. And now this blast from the past had knocked the wind out of her sails even more effectively than redundancy had.

When they’d moved she’d missed her home, not the village. All her friends had gradually drifted away, apart from Amy, leaving her marooned on an island made for one. They’d stopped inviting her to their parties. Dad had said she was like her mum – a city girl – and would never fit in properly, but he’d make sure she was okay. Then he’d abandoned her too.

She bit down on her lip. The week they’d left the village of Stoneyvale had been the worst of her life. She’d thought that being the only girl in the class not invited to Heather’s party had been bad. She’d run all the way home from school, then rushed up to her bedroom with Sandy, shut the door and cried into his fur until her face was all blotchy. But then it got worse. Two days later Sandy had gone, and her mother had taken her to a new, horrible place.

She could still remember that feeling in the playground. The pain in her stomach, the ache in her throat. Knowing that Dad was right. Everybody hated her.

There was a giggle and Lucy blinked, dragging her thoughts back to the present. A little girl, her arms wide like a windmill was chasing a duck across the green. A woman was watching her, and even at this distance Lucy could sense the proud smile on her face. It could have been her, once, with her own mum. Before things had changed.

Now, this gentle reminder of how it had once been was hurting far more than the gruesome thoughts that often interrupted her sleep.

She didn’t want to go back to not belonging. To being the odd one out. She wanted to be that little girl again, happy, secure.

The view misted over before her eyes and Lucy wiped her arm angrily across her face to get rid of the threatening tears, gulping down the upset that was bubbling up in her throat.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t as simple as the picture she’d painted for Sarah, the story she’d sold herself. Working in a village wasn’t on her life plan for a purpose, and it wasn’t just down to promotion opportunities. It was down to control. Being able to live the life she wanted. Going forward not back. Not feeling shunned by a close community that didn’t like outsiders.

The old familiar feeling of panic started to snake up from her stomach, wrap itself around her heart and throat, making it hard to breath. This was not the village she had been brought up in. She clenched her fists and tried to stop the trembling that was attacking her whole body. She’d gone from calm and admiring the view, to feeling agitated and out of control in seconds, which was why she never looked to the past. She had to get a grip.

All villages weren’t full of small-minded petty people. They didn’t all hate people they’d decided weren’t good enough, didn’t belong. Places like this could be restful, pleasant, not bathed in an undercurrent of foreboding. She closed her eyes, counted slowly, willing herself down. Her mother had always been on edge back then, just before they left, expecting the worst, and that fear had grabbed hold of her as well. Leaked into the corners of her life.

She’d never found out what that worst was, but whenever she thought of country life she thought of that. Unease.