I was completely and utterly shocked. Not at Dominic being gay; I couldn't care less if he is or not. I was shocked that he hadn't told me. I like to think I'm his best friend and yet he hadn't said a thing. And then things started slotting into place. The lack of a girlfriend, his penchant for Kylie, his old-fashioned plimsolls, the way he loves to verbally dissect everything and most of all his NICENESS. Yes, all the signs had been blazing and I had failed to see them. That was almost exactly four weeks ago. I remember so precisely because a day later Rob finished with me and things took on a different perspective. There were obviously more immediate issues to think about than Dom being gay. Now everything has settled down again there just never seems to be a good time to talk to him about it – I can hardly say would you mind passing the salt and, by the way, when were you thinking about coming out? over supper. Besides, these things are private and I sort of think that when he is ready to tell me he will.
As Dom wanders back over to us, fishing in his pockets for his cigarettes, his mobile begins to belt out the Batman theme and he retrieves it from his back pocket. He has one of those flash phones where you can pre-programme the ringtone to indicate who's calling. I, for instance, am Hong Kong Phooey. Which is why I forever regret telling Dom the story about how my necklace got caught in a filing cabinet at work and it took them more than ten minutes to free me.
'Hello you!' he answers with an air of familiarity. Now I may be downright insensitive to some things but one thing I can spot is atmosphere. And there seems to be a jolly intimate one between Dom and whoever is on the other end of the phone. Besides which, Dominic obviously knows the person well enough to give them their own ring-tone. Jameson and I both prick up our ears; I would like to think it is because he is as interested in Dominic's love life as me but in actual fact it's because Scooby, the pub cat, has just entered the room. I listen intently while ostensibly playing with a beer mat but to no avail. I would challenge Morse, Frost or indeed Poirot to gather anything from the stream of 'Hmm … yes, I think so … hmmm … yeah …' Eventually Dom tells the caller to hang on and then walks outside to continue the conversation in private.
'Did you hear that, Aunt Winnie?' I ask in a dramatic whisper.
'Er, what?'
'That.' I spit the word out emphatically.
'What?'
'Dom's conversation with Batman.'
'There wasn't that much to hear, was there?'
'I think he's seeing someone.'
'How on earth can you come to that conclusion from that conversation?' asks Aunt Winnie in genuine puzzlement.
'Now that I think about it, he's been a bit secretive of late. Keeps ending phone calls when I come into the room and then telling me it was a wrong number.'
'Why wouldn't he tell you if he was seeing someone? I thought you told each other everything.'
SMACK! I dramatically punch my fist into my other hand. 'Now THAT, Aunt Win, is the question. Why wouldn't he tell me?'
'Er, I don't know. I've just asked you that.'
I open my mouth to confess all my suspicions but close it again when I realise that Dominic probably wouldn't thank me for telling Aunt Winnie before he has even said anything to me. Luckily we're interrupted.
'Who was that?' I ask innocently as Dom sits down at the table.
'Oh, it was, er, Pete.'
I bob my head around in an oh-so-it-was-Pete kind of way.
'What's for lunch, Aunt Win?' asks Dom.
We wend our way home after we've finished our drinks and Aunt Winnie busies herself putting sausages under the grill while Dom and I choose a bottle of homemade wine from Aunt Win's diverse collection. Ginger, raspberry, apple; the list goes on and on. We eventually settle for rhubarb. 'Two sausages or three, Dom?' asks Aunt Winnie. 'Just the two for me, thanks. On account of me being—' 'A vegetarian,' we both finish. We're used to Dom's idea of being vegetarian, which is selective to say the least and extremely part-time. He seems to think that having smaller portions of meat makes him a vegetarian. It is simply an attention-seeking device that allows him to get his meals before everyone else on aeroplanes. For a long time, whenever he was asked a question such as, 'Excuse me, can you tell me the time?' he would reply, 'No, I'm sorry, I'm a vegetarian.'
With contented sighs Dom and I move ourselves and our beakers of wine towards the window seat. I check carefully between the cushions for the odd bits of chewed bone that Jameson likes to hide there; it took three trips to the dry cleaner's to get a bone stain out of my lovely lilac trousers. Having cleared any debris, I lean with my back against the wall, rest my legs on Dom's lap while he lights up, using his now empty cigarette packet as an ashtray, and take a tentative sip of my rhubarb wine.
'Blo-ody hell, Aunt Winnie,' I say when I've managed to draw a gasp of air. This, I remember, is why I didn't mind too much about the bone stain at the time.
'God,' says Dominic, blinking in surprise. 'You've brewed pure fire and brimstone. It kind of hits you just behind the eyes.'
'Yes, I'm rather pleased with that one,' says Aunt Win, looking proud. We all agree that if ever Aunt Winnie wants to come out of retirement, wine-making should be her new career. 'How's work going, Dom?' Winnie asks.
He wrinkles his nose and pulls a face. 'I'm thinking of jacking it in.'
This is news to me. I sit up. 'Since when?'
'Oh, I've been thinking about it for a while now.' He doesn't quite meet my eyes and I know immediately that some sort of outside influence has been at work. And I could probably guess at 'Batman'. 'I really think it's about time I took my novel a bit more seriously. If I gave up my desk job then I could write full-time.'
'What about money?' I ask.
'Well, actually, I thought I could start working at a few more of your events, Izzy. I could work in the evenings and write during the day. You'd get me a bit of extra silver service here and there, wouldn't you?' Dom often comes and helps out at my events for some extra cash. He's very charming and everyone loves him. 'In fact, will you see if you can wangle me some work at the Monkwell event? I would love to see Pantiles!'
'Of course,' I say, but my mind is elsewhere. I'm thinking that my last link with Rob will be lost.
I spend most of Monday morning supposedly working on my laptop but in reality changing outfits every half hour or so.
'What about this one, Aunt Winnie?' I ask from the top of the stairs.
She looks up from practising her golf swing in the hallway. Jameson is wisely nowhere to be seen. 'Izz, darling, they are all starting to look the bally same.'
'That's because you've already seen this one; it's the first outfit I put on this morning.'
She looks a little fatigued at this piece of information. Just don't wear any flowery stuff and then you'll look fine. Tell me what you're trying to achieve and then we'll see.' She abandons her swing and leans on the golf club for support.
'I want to look efficient.'
'The second one then.' She looks relieved at this apparently immediate decision. In days of yore it used to take a good few hours before Sophie would leave the house to go anywhere important. She takes up the golf club again.
'And yet at the same time feminine? I don't want to look as though I'm too aggressive.'
Aunt Winnie pretends to consider this but I know she's bluffing because she obviously lost interest in the subject about half an hour ago. I'm starting to bore myself as well.
'The third one then.'
I nod and disappear to get changed. I am inexplicably nervous at seeing the Monkwells again and I desperately want to make a good impression.
Aunt Winnie shifts down into second gear and urges the Mini on to new heights of speed. I close my eyes and try to think of positive things to say during my meeting with Monty Monkwell. I have an awful tendency to say the first thing that comes into my head when I'm nervous. At my first-ever job interview, when asked what I liked to do in my spare time, I completely lost my usual self-composure and said, 'I like to eat toast'. Not very professional.
'Aunt Winnie? Have you seen anything of the Monkwell family recently?'
'I've only seen the pictures of Simon in the papers. Haven't seen the rest of the family since you left Pantiles. You know that Elizabeth, their mother, died?'
'Yeah, Mum told me. Quite a few years ago though, wasn't it?'
She nods and I stare out of the window, lost in thought. Neither of us has been back to Pantiles for more than fifteen years. Although it is only about thirty minutes' drive from Aunt Winnie's house it might as well be on the other side of the world.
Finally we start the descent into the Monkwells' valley, and I mean that in the proprietorial sense as they own everything as far as the eye can see. Little copses of trees and huddles of cottages dot the plush landscape to the left, separated occasionally by low-slung and sometimes collapsing dry-stone walls. I look over to the right and give a little gasp. Like something out of
Jurassic Park
, animals speckle the pastures.
'Deer, Aunt Winnie!' I cry.
Aunt Winnie glances at me in the mirror. It's the only thing she ever uses it for. 'Yes, darling?'
'No!' I lean between the front seats and point off to the right. 'I mean, they're keeping deer now!' It is always a mistake to distract Aunt Winnie when she is driving. We mount the verge, drive along at a thirty-degree angle for a while and then plop back down on the tarmac.
'They must be trying to make some money out of the estate,' I say, ignoring our little diversion.
'Well, Simon is the eternal businessman! Stags can be very dangerous in season though. Wouldn't want to get caught out in the open with one of those.'
I give Aunt Winnie a look. She says the same thing about all animals. Horses, pigs, cows. I think it's because she and Dominic love to see me running like hell on our walks whenever we come across any wildlife. I can never tell whether she is serious or not.
We arrive at the picturesque village of Pantiles. The Monkwells also own all the houses here. I look around me with interest; after all, this was my stomping ground for a few years. Amazingly, the village of Pantiles has managed to remain completely unaltered. My head swivels from side to side as I recognise and remember. The little village shop that doubled up as the post office, where Sophie and I used to haggle with the proprietor over the maximum number of penny sweets we could buy with our pocket money. The village green with its ancient cherry tree. More than fifty years ago the then vicar grafted a pink blossoming cherry on to an existing white one, and every year the core of the tree blossoms pink while surrounded by a halo of white. There's a gnarled old seat under the tree which is known as the wedding seat, supposedly because the tree looks like a bride from a certain angle, and all couples who sit on it are supposed to get married. The fact that you would need to have taken a kilo of the magic mushrooms that purportedly grow in the local woods in order to see the similarity seems to have completely passed the locals by.
Next to the post office is the little Saxon church, and opposite the church are the giant wrought iron gates which I remember used to be closed every evening by one of the gamekeepers. These gates are the only opening in the wall that encompasses the estate, house and grounds. I lean forward as we pass through them and then get thrown around as we bounce and grunt our way up the slight hill, weaving between the various pot holes, the road flanked by tall poplar trees. In the spring, daffodils wave from the banks either side of us for as far as the eye can see, but these are long dead and gone. We finally pop up over the hill and the house comes into view. If you branch off right at this point, the driveway leads to our old house hidden in the woods, but we mostly went unnoticed as it is hard to draw your eyes away from the Monkwell domicile. We pause for a minute while Aunt Winnie fights to find the appropriate gear. I stare at the grand old house with fondness while Aunt Winnie grunts and thrusts the gearstick in all directions. My reliving of
Brideshead Revisited
is shattered by Aunt Winnie shouting, 'Come on, you bastard car!' into my right ear and we charge forward at quite a lick down the hill.
The house was designed by a former pupil of Lutyens and I can now clearly see hints of the master's trademark style. It sits in a perfect location in the cleft of a gentle valley, protected from the harsher elements and yet accessible to the sunlight. The gardens slope gently away while dozens of mullioned windows dot the house's façade and reflect the perfectly manicured lawns.
Aunt Winnie shoots up the drive, through an archway and into the cobbled courtyard at the back of the house. The front door was only ever used on formal occasions and I'm guessing this isn't one of them. On the other side of the courtyard sits the seemingly deserted stable yard.
'Looks like they don't own horses anymore, Aunt Winnie,' I say and point towards the yard.
'Simon sold them all after Elizabeth died.' She snorts to herself. 'I'll wait here for you. Good luck.' Aunt Winnie leans over and opens the passenger door, undoes Jameson's seatbelt and shoves him out. I push the passenger seat forward and clamber out reluctantly after him.
C h a p t e r 6