The Something Girl Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The Something Girl

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgments

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  I should say, right here, that anyone who feels that enormous, invisible golden horses are not for them should stop reading now, because Thomas is the most enormous, the most beautiful, the most invisible golden horse you will never, ever see. And he’s very definitely real.

  Prologue

  Three years ago, I was nobody. I was nothing. That’s what they called me – The Nothing Girl. Because that’s what I was. I had no life, no parents, and no friends and, when my stutter was very bad, I had no speech either.

  Everyone around me seemed to have it all. My cousin Francesca was a successful actress/model and her brother Christopher owned and ran the local bookshop. Then there was Russell Checkland, the up-and-coming artist, setting London on fire with his work. My uncle, Richard Kingdom, one of Rushford’s most successful solicitors, lived with his wife, Julia, in the best part of Rushford. They gave me a home after my parents died, but very little else. I lived in the attic. Solitary, friendless, and afraid of nearly everything.

  Looking back, I don’t know how I survived and there were two occasions when I very nearly didn’t. When my story nearly came to a premature end.

  The first was at what I thought at the time was the very lowest point of my life. I was thirteen. My road hadn’t been very long but it hadn’t been very smooth either. I was entirely alone and contemplating something awful and then I looked up to see an enormous golden horse standing in the corner of my bedroom.

  No one else could see him. No one else could hear him. Only me. Sadly I wasn’t transformed instantly into a fashion princess with a mobile phone that never stopped ringing or a queue of wannabe boyfriends but, with his help, I faced down the bullies at school. With Thomas standing behind me, enveloping me in his smell, like warm ginger biscuits, I could string words together if I took things slowly. I could make my voice heard.

  I grew up with Thomas always at my side. Advising, guiding, giving me the courage to face each long, dreary day as my life stretched out in front of me, going nowhere very slowly.

  They said there was something the matter with me. That there was something wrong with Jenny Dove, as I was then, and I, believing this was true and grateful not to be sent off to one of those ‘special homes’, hid from the world, kept quiet, and did as I was told.

  It was Thomas who pushed me to go the party where I met Russell Checkland again. We’d known each other since we were both children. I still don’t know how Thomas managed to persuade me to accept Russell’s ridiculous proposal of marriage, but he did. I married Russell, escaped the stupefying boredom of life with my aunt, and jumped straight from the frying pan into the fire.

  Life became difficult again. I was completely out of my depth and there were people who wished me ill. My world grew darker and, just when I needed him most, Thomas left me. That was the second worst time of my life. I can see now that it was his version of tough love, because now that I was married I needed to stand on my own feet and move out of his shadow. I needed to realise that far from being isolated little Jenny Dove, I was now Jenny Checkland, and people were relying on me. People needed me. He had to do it, but at the time it nearly finished me. I couldn’t comprehend a life without big, golden Thomas at my side. But of course, being Thomas, he didn’t leave me quite alone. He couldn’t stay – so he sent.

  He sent another Thomas. A real horse. The first thing that was truly mine. Russell’s birthday gift to me. A turning point in our rocky relationship. This Thomas brought me a different type of freedom. I can’t describe the sense of achievement I gained from learning to ride. From finding that there was something in this world that I could do. And do well.

  Sadly, my life wasn’t peaceful for long. The people who wished me harm gathered for one last try and there was a dreadful night when our feed store was on fire and I thought I’d lost everything, including Russell. Matters were resolved, however, and we were left in peace.

  For a while.

  Chapter One

  ‘Buff Orpingtons,’ said Russell, bounding through the back door, shedding his jacket in one direction and a wellington in the other.

  His household, familiar with his habits, regarded him without dismay.

  ‘Braised Onions,’ said Mrs Crisp, his housekeeper.

  ‘Blunt Object,’ said Andrew, his cousin.

  ‘Blood Oranges,’ said Kevin, his handyman.

  ‘Black Olives,’ said Sharon, his handyman’s girlfriend.

  ‘Blind Optimism,’ said I, his wife.

  ‘What?’ he said, staring at us in puzzlement. ‘What are you talking about? Jenny, what are they talking about?’

  ‘Isn’t it a game?’ asked Andrew. ‘I thought it was a game. Your turn.’

  ‘Why are you here again?’ said Russell, crossly, hopping across the kitchen floor with one welly on and one welly off. ‘You’re always here. Every time I look up you’re sitting at my kitchen table, making eyes at my wife.’

  Andrew winked at me and I grinned back.

  ‘Stop that,’ said Russell, finally divesting himself of his recalcitrant wellington. He tossed it out through the door into the mudroom and stared disapprovingly around, his gaze finally alighting on the cat, who sprawled on his back in front of the range, presenting something that Russell could legitimately complain about. Strictly speaking, the cat had been forbidden the house on several occasions, Russell stoutly maintaining he could stay only if he earned his keep by battling the rodent population outside. Typically, the cat ignored him for most of the time but, every now and then, he would underline his dominance by presenting Russell with a spectacularly gruesome dead rat, lovingly laid across his trainers in the mudroom. Job done, he would return to his spot on the old rug in front of the range, leaving Russell to deal with the disintegrating corpse.

  Russell put his hands on his hips and frowned heavily. ‘I’ve told you before Mrs Crisp, that cat is not an attractive sight in a food preparation area.’

  Mrs Crisp looked at me. ‘Do you think it would help if I covered him with a tea towel?’

  Russell nodded. ‘Excellent idea. Cover away.’

  She draped a tea towel over Russell’s head.

  Sharon, mashing potatoes as if her life depended on it, giggled, and the rest of us fell about.

  ‘Very funny,’ said Russell, the tea towel puffing slightly with every word. ‘Your sense of humour will be reflected in this month’s wages. And may I remind you all – again – that I’m the head of the household and as such...’

  The cat sneezed and woke up.

  Russell, who had learned to keep his distance, pulled off the tea towel and stepped back.

  His dark red hair flopped over his forehead as always. He pushed it out of the way and returned to his original grievance. ‘So Andrew, why are you here? Again.’

  ‘You invited me for Sunday lunch.’

  ‘No, I invited the very beautiful Miss Bauer. You’re just a by-product. Where is she by the way?’

  ‘Shopping.’

/>   ‘Well, she can still come to lunch, can’t she?’

  ‘In Berlin. With her mother.’

  ‘Oh.’ He scowled at his cousin. ‘Well, we’ll just have to put up with you, I suppose, but we’re only doing it out of the goodness of our hearts. You’re hardly an acceptable substitute for the lovely Tanya.’

  Andrew ignored this comment. ‘I have to ask, Russ, why are you crashing through the door shouting, “Buff Orpingtons”? Is that like a rural “Open Sesame”?’

  Russell came to sit next to me, putting his hand over mine for a moment. His hands were warm and steady as usual. He smiled at me. Most people would say that Andrew, with his conventional dark good looks, was the more handsome of the two cousins. Russell’s face was longer and thinner but I always thought him the better looking. ‘All right, Jenny? Where’s the young madam?’

  ‘Upstairs, asleep after ... her lunch.’

  ‘Speaking of which...’

  ‘Possibly ten minutes,’ said Mrs Crisp, crashing things onto the draining board, ‘but since it would appear I’m not being paid this month, who knows?’

  ‘I pay you every month,’ he said indignantly. ‘I can’t believe this ingratitude.’

  ‘Mrs Checkland pays me,’ she said calmly, emptying vegetables into a serving dish.

  ‘Buff ... Orpingtons?’ I said, trying to get him back on track.

  My stutter is much better these days. Sometimes it’s barely noticeable. Especially when I’m with friends. There’s the odd hesitation occasionally and I’m never going to be a chatterbox but – and I can’t tell you what this means to me – when I speak, people listen. Only someone whose voice was not heard for years can possibly know the importance of that. I would struggle, hot with embarrassment, and embarrassing those around me as well, and after a while, people just stopped listening. Because, of course, if you can’t speak properly then it follows that what you say can’t be important. Conversations would wash around me. Any contribution I might make was always four or five sentences behind everyone else. After I while, I stopped contributing. A while after that, I stopped even socialising. The horizons of my life closed in around me. My world grew smaller and smaller and, in the end, it was just Thomas and me.

  And then one day, Russell Checkland erupted into my life and listened to me. Actually listened to what I had to say. As if I was a real person. And he made the world listen, too. I married him. Of course I did. He was handsome, talented, charming and a complete idiot. Who wouldn’t marry him?

  Well, my cousin Francesca, for a start. She’d ditched Russell for someone more useful to her career and it had nearly finished him. I think he sees now that the two of them would never have worked but when I first met him he was enthusiastically drinking himself into a state nearly as dilapidated as his old farmhouse. As if that wasn’t bad enough, no sooner had Russell married me than Francesca decided that she did want him after all. After a series of shattering scenes, the dust settled and they both realised that they’d made the right choice. Their relationship these days is usually Francesca wanting Russell to do something for her, and Russell making her work for it. It had been a rocky road for all of us, but Russell and I were now the proud owners of a rundown farmhouse, Frogmorton; a daughter, Joy; a donkey, Marilyn; two horses, Russell’s Boxer and my Thomas, currently on loan to the Braithwaites up the lane. And the cat with no name.

  Quite a large menagerie, and if Buff Orpingtons were what I thought they were – it was about to become even larger.

  Russell turned to me, restlessly fiddling with his cutlery because he can’t sit still. ‘Chickens, Jenny. We should have some chickens.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not? The benefits are endless. Fresh eggs every day. And Joy can help feed them and look after them. It’ll be good for her.’ He gestured expansively but inaccurately at the downstairs toilet. ‘All this will be hers one day. She should start to learn responsibility.’

  ‘She’s eight ... months old,’ I said.

  ‘Given her father,’ said Andrew darkly, ‘the sooner she starts taking a run up at responsibility, the better.’

  Russell ignored him. ‘Picture the scene, Jenny. Half a dozen pretty little chicks scratching around the yard making those comfortable clucky noises. You and Joy standing together scattering...’ he paused, a victim of his own ignorance. ‘...some sort of chicken food for them, doing your bit for the rural economy. Mrs Crisp will collect the eggs every morning and we’ll all sit down to a golden-yolked miracle for our breakfast.’ He glowered at Andrew. ‘Well, those of us who actually live here will.’

  ‘Where will ... we keep them?’

  He sat back. ‘I shall build them a hen house.’

  ‘You?’ said Andrew, incredulously.

  ‘Well, not actually me, obviously.’ He held up his hands. ‘These are not hen-house building hands. I’m an artist.’

  We all looked at Kevin, who helped out with odd jobs around the place and who almost certainly was going to discover he had hen-house building hands.

  He grinned amiably. ‘Never made one of those before. What colour do you want?’

  ‘Green,’ said Mrs Crisp, banging down the roast potatoes.

  ‘Purple,’ said Sharon, following through with the vegetables.

  ‘Blue,’ said Andrew, spearing the biggest Yorkshire pud.

  ‘Gold,’ I said.

  Kevin nodded, ‘OK.’ And before Russell could interject and issue instructions that his hen house was not to be any girlie pastel shade, but a manly, rufty-tufty, rural brown, Mrs Crisp brought the beef, which took his mind off things nicely.

  All Sunday lunches at Frogmorton Farm are lovely and this one was no exception. We sat in the big kitchen, discussing football, the new people who had moved into the cottage further up the lane, the impending opening of Sharon’s cupcake shop, and the pedestrianisation of the new shopping precinct: something to which Russell and I were greatly looking forward, because we were waiting for an offer on Christopher’s old bookshop. He’d signed it over to us on instructions from his father, my Uncle Richard. Uncle Richard had done it to keep us quiet. It’s a long story and we don’t talk about it.

  The sun shone through the windows, highlighting the plates on the big dresser along the back wall and sending shafts of light across the warm terracotta tiles. We were gathered around the old kitchen table and sitting on mismatched chairs, but the cloth was spotless, the cutlery gleamed and the atmosphere was happy and friendly.

  I remembered the first time I had seen this room, and reflected on the change. Yes, that day had been dark and rainy and today the sun was shining, but it was more than that. There had been an air of hopelessness about the house then. Of unhappiness. The rooms were dreary and empty. Like my life. Like Russell’s too, at the time. Neither of us had a future to look forward to. Nor had Mrs Crisp, lost in a maze of guilt and cooking sherry. Our plans to do up the house had so far come to nothing and most of the rooms remained almost as I’d first seen them, but these days the house smelled of sunshine, furniture polish, home-made pot-pourri, oil paints and baby powder, not dust and despair. It was a proper family home now, filled with light and love and laughter.

  It was only after Andrew had spooned up the last of his Eton Mess that contentious poultry issues raised their heads again.

  ‘That was fantastic, Mrs Crisp,’ he said, dropping his spoon into his dish. ‘Why don’t you give Russell the old heave-ho and come and live with me and Tanya.’

  Mrs Crisp has been with Russell for ever. She brought him up after his mother died in a car crash. She’s his Aunty Lizzie. She would never leave him and we all knew it.

  ‘If only I could,’ she said, ‘but I couldn’t possibly leave poor Mrs Checkland to struggle on alone.’

  Poor Mrs Checkland grinned at her and got up to make the coffee.

  ‘There’s no poor Mrs Checkland,’ said Russell indignantly. ‘Jenny’s lucky to have me and she knows it.’

  Joking aside, I did know it. My lif
e was lovely. Yes, we were still broke. Yes, the roof still leaked. Yes, Russell was still struggling to re-establish himself as an artist, but my life was wonderful and I never made the mistake of taking it for granted. I looked around the table, full of empty dishes and contented people and felt a small chill. Can life be too good? The gods dislike hubris and sometimes it pleases them to tear down what they have built up. I shivered, suddenly nervous. If anything were ever to happen to Russell. Or Joy. Or any of us. I don’t know what brought on this sudden fit of heebie-jeebies. Was it that now, because I had a baby, I was vulnerable?

  I carried the tray of coffee to the table where the conversation had reverted to chickens again.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Crisp, ‘we’ve heard all about your plans for when they start laying, but what happens when they stop?’

  ‘Stop what?’ said Russell, spooning sugar.

  ‘Stop laying. They don’t go on for ever, you know.’

  He paused in astonishment. ‘Don’t they?’

  ‘No, they don’t, and then...’ she made a graphic gesture.

  As one, his household stared at Russell.

  ‘I’m the man of the house,’ he announced. ‘I’ll take care of that.’

  I personally was convinced that the man of the house would bottle out when receiving a non-laying chicken in one hand and a hatchet in the other. It seemed safe to assume that the man of the house would hide in the pub, along with his part-time handyman and his cousin. The women of the house, meanwhile, would be forced to hide the underachieving hen behind the barn and gallop into the village to buy the shrink-wrapped equivalent from Tom Kasap, Quality Purveyor of Meats etc., all ready for triumphant presentation to the probably quite unsteady man of the house on his return home.

  I sat quietly while others voiced similar opinions and at the height of the debate, with a tap on the back door, Bill the Insurance Man walked in.

  Bill the Insurance Man is Mrs Crisp’s boyfriend. After our feed store caught fire, he turned up to assess the damage, and came back on so many occasions and with so many trivial questions, that Russell began to suspect the insurance company was trying to weasel out of the claim. Since it remains unpaid, this seems very likely. Russell’s hostility was scarcely lessened by the discovery that it was Mrs Crisp and not the charred remains of our feed store that was the attraction for Bill and, for a long time, was barely even civil to the poor man.