Francis. There was something about Gordon’s reaction that unnerved her, playing to her fear. As soon as she sent the reply ‘pluck off’, she regretted it, knowing it was far too irreverent and coarse. If she could have leapt into cyberspace to halt the message as it crackled through the ether to his desk, she would. But it was too late.
Gordon immediately began communicating via his PA again:
G will be unavailable until further notice. He requests that you update me regularly. Regards, Kelly. (P.s. You are one plucky bird.)
Chapter 4
It had become known as the Summer of Storms, to the ongoing excitement of the Met Office and the great British public, who were now never short of small-talk about the weather. Legs’ morning drive to Somerset was like journeying from day to night and beyond as she encountered a black-skied, thundery landscape beyond the Avonmouth Bridge and drove through a hammering downpour before emerging into bright sunshine again as they climbed into the Blackdown Hills, its wet lanes hissing like snakes against the tyres of her battered old Honda.
When the red car puttered and bounced along the pot-holed driveway to Inkpot Farm, Daisy appeared briefly at the front door, rotund and hassled with a milk jug in hand, making frantic signals for Legs to park around the back and stay hidden.
Puzzled, she executed some very dodgy rally driving manoeuvres as she performed tail-snakes and wheel-spins through the rain-slicked mud to the rear yard, where she parked behind a pole barn housing a huge stack of last year’s mouldering hay.
With his head lowered over a Shell garage shop bag Nico had been complaining of travel sickness since they left the A303, and now he groaned afresh. Normally, he would’ve jumped out and dashed off in search of his father, but this time nausea kept him in situ.
‘They’ve got a house viewing,’ Legs said, checking the messages from Daisy on her phone. ‘Daddy’s taken the girls out to a farm park, apparently. We were supposed to meet him there an hour ago. Oops.’
‘Shall we go now?’ Nico asked with only faint enthusiasm, the prospect of more motion making him look even greener.
Legs checked her watch, realising they’d missed their slot. ‘Let’s lie low here and the coast will be clear soon enough.’
Letting Nico sag back in his seat with his eyes closed, shewatched a bantam hen as it strutted up to check out the Honda, head tilting this way and that contemplating the front bumper with a few trial pecks. Soon it was joined by several friends who began circling around the car like prospective buyers clucking and wheel-kicking critically.
Buzzing down her window to shoo them away, Legs breathed in the sweet scent of hay, manure and silage making. It wasn’t quite the brackish sea air for Farcombe that she craved so badly right now, but it was still a heady mix, and reminded her how far she had just come from Ealing to this forgotten corner of Somerset.
Ahead of her, over a low hedge, the Blackdown Hills stretched out in the heat haze like glittering green mosaic. Not as famous as their Somerset companions the Quantocks and Mendips, the Blackdowns were no less stunning, occupying an unspoilt stretch between historic Taunton and the Jurassic coast filled with deep secret valleys and breathtaking hilltops, its undulations scattered with villages of thatched ham stone cottages and smallholdings, its dense green meadows criss-crossed with rabbit run mazes of tiny, high-banked lanes with grass growing down the middle and precious few passing places.
Several miles along one such lane, so narrow and overgrown that it resembled a green bobsleigh tunnel in parts, lay Inkpot Farm, a higgledy-piggledy tawny stone farmhouse spanned by a sagging, mossy roof. It so perfectly resembled a set from a children’s film that one expected to walk around the back only to find it made of cardboard and propped up with wooden supports.
Will and Daisy had fallen for its
Gordon immediately began communicating via his PA again:
G will be unavailable until further notice. He requests that you update me regularly. Regards, Kelly. (P.s. You are one plucky bird.)
Chapter 4
It had become known as the Summer of Storms, to the ongoing excitement of the Met Office and the great British public, who were now never short of small-talk about the weather. Legs’ morning drive to Somerset was like journeying from day to night and beyond as she encountered a black-skied, thundery landscape beyond the Avonmouth Bridge and drove through a hammering downpour before emerging into bright sunshine again as they climbed into the Blackdown Hills, its wet lanes hissing like snakes against the tyres of her battered old Honda.
When the red car puttered and bounced along the pot-holed driveway to Inkpot Farm, Daisy appeared briefly at the front door, rotund and hassled with a milk jug in hand, making frantic signals for Legs to park around the back and stay hidden.
Puzzled, she executed some very dodgy rally driving manoeuvres as she performed tail-snakes and wheel-spins through the rain-slicked mud to the rear yard, where she parked behind a pole barn housing a huge stack of last year’s mouldering hay.
With his head lowered over a Shell garage shop bag Nico had been complaining of travel sickness since they left the A303, and now he groaned afresh. Normally, he would’ve jumped out and dashed off in search of his father, but this time nausea kept him in situ.
‘They’ve got a house viewing,’ Legs said, checking the messages from Daisy on her phone. ‘Daddy’s taken the girls out to a farm park, apparently. We were supposed to meet him there an hour ago. Oops.’
‘Shall we go now?’ Nico asked with only faint enthusiasm, the prospect of more motion making him look even greener.
Legs checked her watch, realising they’d missed their slot. ‘Let’s lie low here and the coast will be clear soon enough.’
Letting Nico sag back in his seat with his eyes closed, shewatched a bantam hen as it strutted up to check out the Honda, head tilting this way and that contemplating the front bumper with a few trial pecks. Soon it was joined by several friends who began circling around the car like prospective buyers clucking and wheel-kicking critically.
Buzzing down her window to shoo them away, Legs breathed in the sweet scent of hay, manure and silage making. It wasn’t quite the brackish sea air for Farcombe that she craved so badly right now, but it was still a heady mix, and reminded her how far she had just come from Ealing to this forgotten corner of Somerset.
Ahead of her, over a low hedge, the Blackdown Hills stretched out in the heat haze like glittering green mosaic. Not as famous as their Somerset companions the Quantocks and Mendips, the Blackdowns were no less stunning, occupying an unspoilt stretch between historic Taunton and the Jurassic coast filled with deep secret valleys and breathtaking hilltops, its undulations scattered with villages of thatched ham stone cottages and smallholdings, its dense green meadows criss-crossed with rabbit run mazes of tiny, high-banked lanes with grass growing down the middle and precious few passing places.
Several miles along one such lane, so narrow and overgrown that it resembled a green bobsleigh tunnel in parts, lay Inkpot Farm, a higgledy-piggledy tawny stone farmhouse spanned by a sagging, mossy roof. It so perfectly resembled a set from a children’s film that one expected to walk around the back only to find it made of cardboard and propped up with wooden supports.
Will and Daisy had fallen for its
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