A Vintage Wedding (12 page)

She felt embarrassed. ‘It doesn’t seem worth it for just me.’

‘Why don’t you go and dry your hair properly and I’ll light it? Then you’ll come back to a warm house.’

Rachel shook her head. It was her wood-burner, chosen and paid for by her: she should be the one to light it first. ‘No, I’ll do it.’

‘Come on then.’

‘No. Not with you looking at me.’

‘Why not with me looking at you?’

She exhaled sharply. ‘Because I’ve never lit a fire before!’ She felt as though she was declaring she never gave money to charity or smiled or had had a good friend: a terrible confession.

Raff didn’t seem shocked or surprised or even particularly bothered. ‘Would you like me to help you?’

Rachel suddenly felt less pressured. He didn’t seem to think it was awful and, more importantly, didn’t want to know why, even though it was winter. But she did inwardly take a deep breath and put her shoulders back in preparation for doing something difficult. Not difficult because firelighting was beyond her – it probably wasn’t; Boy Scouts did it all the time and they weren’t all Ray Mears. No, it was hard because lighting the wood-burner would spoil its pristineness. She’d made excuses to herself and others – having to get wood, finding out about kindling – but really she was afraid that lighting a fire in it would spoil it. But if anyone was going to do it, it would be her.

‘I think I know the basics,’ she said. ‘But you can mention it, politely, if I look like going completely off track.’

He laughed and Rachel realised she liked having made him laugh. He wasn’t laughing at her, he was laughing because she’d been mildly funny. It was a satisfying feeling.

She knelt on the rug in front of the stove and opened the doors. She tried to remember what Beth and Lindy had said about firelighting. There was something about candle ends, which she had, but could you just put them straight on to the bars? The kindling was in the shed. She got up to fetch it. ‘I’m getting the kindling,’ she said, hoping she didn’t sound defiant or, worse, apologetic.

‘Newspaper first,’ said Raff when she was at the door.

‘What? I don’t have any. I read them online.’ She felt bewildered. She didn’t have paper she could just burn. She didn’t have things in her house she didn’t need. Magazines were different. But she didn’t think they would burn well and besides, they were for filing, for research and making mood-boards, not for burning.

Raff shrugged, not sensing the panic his casual instruction had caused. ‘What? Even the local rag? I’ve got one in the van. Wait.’

While he was away she rushed upstairs and started to straighten her hair, but then realised she wouldn’t be able to do it to her usual standards. She ran her fingers through it a few times in lieu of brushing. She’d never get a brush or comb through it now.

‘You’ve done something to your hair,’ he said as he strolled back into her house and on to her rug with a newspaper under his arm. He considered her. ‘As we do have a bit of a schedule, shall I light the fire? I’ll teach you how another time.’

She shrugged. She could make sure there either wasn’t another time or, preferably, learn how to do it beforehand. If she had to have newspaper she could keep it in the shed.

‘Fine. Whatever. Or we could just leave it?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s time this wood-burner lost its virginity.’

Shivering with her still slightly damp hair, in spite of layers of cashmere and wool, and tired after her hard day’s cleaning the hall, Rachel watched Raff lay the fire.

He was careful, selecting twigs from the pile, assessing their thickness and creating a construction of sticks and then laying bigger ones on top. She was fascinated.

‘Have you got a match?’ he asked.

Rachel had a box of especially long, French matches and a gas lighter. She handed him the gas lighter. The matches weren’t for using; they were for aesthetic purposes.

She watched as the fire began to crackle with life and felt as if it was the first fire ever. Although it had created an awful mess – Raff had been careful in his selecting but not about the bits that dropped off all over her rug. But somehow she didn’t mind.

Raff put on some more logs, fiddled with the knob under the stove that Rachel realised she’d have to learn about and then shut the doors. The fire blazed cheerily.

‘With luck, when you get home, you’ll be able to open up the draught and it’ll come back to life.’ He paused. ‘I’ll come in and do it for you.’

She felt instantly wary. ‘It might be better if I do it myself. I’ve watched you do it, I should be able to remember.’

He gave his crooked smile. ‘We’ll see. Now come along and meet my mum.’

Rachel sat in the front seat of Raff’s pickup truck wondering what on earth she was doing there. Why was she in a pickup truck? It was not a vehicle she had ever imagined she would travel in. And why was she going to visit the mother of a mere acquaintance? Supposing his mother took it to mean there was something going on between Rachel and her son? It would be so embarrassing. And shaming! Her and Raff? Honestly, unsuitable pairings weren’t in it. She cringed at the thought she was fundamentally snobbish and yet she couldn’t shake off the notion that Raff was ‘rough trade’. Why had she let herself be talked into getting into his truck? She must have been sleepwalking or something.

‘Erm – I don’t think this is a good idea,’ she said, trying to ignore the empty can that was rolling around in the footwell, to rise above her fastidiousness. ‘Your mother doesn’t know me. She won’t want me visiting her.’

‘She won’t know you if she doesn’t meet you and she likes people. She’s got a cottage pie in the oven. I don’t know about you but I’m bloody hungry.’

‘Fair enough. But you don’t have to drag me along. She will have done cottage pie for two, not three.’

He laughed. ‘Sorry, but my mother has no notion of cooking for two. She reckons it’s not worth the bother if you’re not feeding at least half a dozen people.’

‘It’s not a dinner party, is it? I’m not dressed—’

Raff found this idea so hilarious he could hardly drive. ‘I’m not saying we’ll be the only ones there. I don’t know. We might be, we might not. But it won’t be a dinner party.’

Rachel hunched down in her seat, embarrassed. His mother was probably a simple country soul cooking wholesome country food for her boy, of whom she was probably terribly protective (not knowing any better) and here was she, an overly particular London woman, about to invade her humble (but scrupulously clean) home.

‘I expect you love your mum, don’t you?’ Rachel was trying another angle.

‘Of course. She’s the best.’

‘Then why are you inflicting me on her?’

He didn’t answer for a worryingly long time. ‘Because I think you’ll like each other.’

Twenty minutes later, Raff turned the truck into a drive, rutted and muddy but long and obviously leading to a substantial property. When he turned round a bend, Rachel could see just how substantial.

‘Does your mother live in all of it?’ she asked. ‘Or just an apartment?’ She instantly had a vision of his mother being a family retainer, allowed a couple of rooms as a reward for years of faithful service.

‘All of it that’s watertight. Fortunately with a house this size it’s easy to just abandon one room and move into another.’

Rachel couldn’t conceal her horror. ‘I couldn’t live in a house that I couldn’t live in all of,’ she said and then realised she probably sounded mad. And why did his mother live in such a huge house? Maybe she’d married into ‘the Mob’ and inherited a house acquired by ill-gotten gains?

‘I still think you and my mother will get on. Come and find out.’

Raff led them round the side of the house to the back door. He opened it and went in. ‘Mum!’ he called. ‘We’re here!’

An old black spaniel appeared and ambled over to them. He seemed moderately pleased to see Raff. Rachel he ignored.

‘In the kitchen, darling!’ called a voice – a very aristocratic voice, Rachel had time to note before she was following Raff down the passage and into the room.

It was a kitchen but for a moment Rachel thought it could have been a film set. It was dimly lit and cave-like and very, very full of stuff. Furniture, ornaments, china, glass, and she couldn’t see what colour the walls were because when a bit of wall wasn’t covered by a cupboard or shelves, there were pictures. Before she could suffer an attack of sensory overload, Raff’s mother appeared from behind a loaded countertop.

‘Hello!’ she said warmly.

She had a lot of white hair curled into a bun on the top of her head. She was dressed in varying shades of purple and blue but it was hard to define what the actual garments were. Layers of skirt, cardigan and shawl blended into a pleasing melange of colour. She was holding a wooden spoon but just for an instant Rachel imagined it was a wand. Seeing her son she flung her wooden spoon over the counter where it landed in the sink. She took her son in her arms and squeezed him tight. He returned her hug and then drew Rachel forward.

‘This is Rachel,’ said Raff. ‘She’s not sure she’s welcome.’

‘Darling!’ Rachel was embraced too. ‘Why wouldn’t you be welcome? There’s always plenty. One thing I can’t abide is an under-caterer.’ Forget-me-not-blue eyes peered into hers. Rachel examined her conscience and was grateful to discover she had never been guilty of under-catering: she was far too anxious to allow it. But there was something about those eyes that belied the Mrs Pepperpot cosiness of Raff’s mother.

‘Raff!’ went on his mother. ‘Drinks! And my name is Belinda.’

‘How do you do?’ said Rachel, wishing she didn’t sound so formal.

‘Wonderful, darling. Now please sit down and let’s have a drink and a chat while we wait for the pie to brown.’ She caught Rachel looking at a steaming pot. ‘That’s soup for tomorrow. I’m visiting an old man. I’ll take it with me.’

Rachel pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Looking around her she realised she’d never been in a place so cluttered and untidy in her life, apart from Lindy’s, and that was tiny so she had an excuse. In fact, if all her possessions were gathered together and put on the table they would just disappear, camouflaged by the vast amount of stuff already there.

‘Raff! Take her coat, give her a glass of wine and tell me what you’ve been up to.’

Rachel felt it would be rude to stare but the room and the crowded table made it almost impossible not to look around her.

Belinda, possibly catching her bewilderment, said, ‘I’m doing some life laundry, darling, so I’ve emptied a few cupboards.’

Raff found a space for a glass of wine near Rachel. She noted the glass and realised it was probably an antique. ‘Really, Mum?’

Rachel noticed his accent had become less estuary and more like his mother’s cut-glass tones. She wasn’t sure she approved of this ability to change. Maybe it meant he was even more shifty than she already thought him? The fact that he was less ‘a bit of rough’ than she’d thought he was didn’t make him any less unsettling.

‘Sweetheart, I know you think I’m wedded to my possessions but I’m really not! I’ve just never been able to face doing anything about them before.’

‘So why now?’

‘I’ve been thinking it might be time to “downsize”.’

‘Good God, Mother! Why now? And I didn’t think you even understood the concept.’

Rachel had noticed she said the word as if for the first time.

‘Of course I understand it!’ Belinda said indignantly. ‘I’ve just always had more interesting things to do before. As for the downsizing, well … I do rattle around here a bit. Or I would if the walls weren’t well padded with furniture and pictures.’ She winked at Rachel, as if sensing she felt as if she was in a very unfamiliar world. ‘Raff’s father died when he was very young and it’s possible I’ve become a bit eccentric, being a single parent for so long.’

‘You’d have been eccentric whatever had happened,’ said Raff, who seemed to have taken being fatherless in a very relaxed way.

‘Well, maybe,’ said Belinda before retreating behind the counter and opening a door of the Aga and peering in. ‘Hmm. Needs a few minutes yet.’

She came and joined Rachel and Raff at the table. ‘So tell me, Rachel, have you lived in the area long?’

‘Well, I’ve actually had my house for a while but I haven’t lived in it full-time until recently.’

‘And do you like it down here? Did you come from London?’

‘Yes, to both,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s still a bit new and strange but I’ve wanted to live here permanently for ages.’

‘What sort of house?’

Rachel paused, trying not to feel interrogated. She was sure Belinda meant well.

‘Rachel’s house is very …’ Raff paused and Rachel tensed, waiting for him to expose her as OCD and neurotic. ‘Very wevet,’ he said.

Rachel sighed. ‘He means white.’

‘So why did he say wevet?’ Belinda seemed confused.

‘It’s white,’ said Rachel. ‘Wevet is a shade of white, on the Farrow and Ball paint chart. It comes from an old Dorset word for cobweb.’ She would undergo torture before she’d admit how long it had taken her to choose that particular shade. Nor would she tell anyone that paint charts were her comfort reading and she knew many of the names by heart.