Page 13 of Wild About You

It wasn’t the door.

I had opened a secret door built into the panelling, and it let me into one of the main rooms. My sudden appearance behind the ropes scattered a startled group of tourists, and I heard someone shriek.

A helper wearing a monogrammed polo shirt appeared. ‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack, let alone them. And I don’t have the defib here. Vicki’s got it in the orangery.’

I apologised and explained where I wanted to go in a whisper. ‘I’d need a pen and paper to explain,’ she said, alternating her furious face with a brittle smile for the tourists. ‘Just climb over the rope and go out of the front door. Walking around the outside might be simpler.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

‘Not that way! You’ll set off the alarm on the Caravaggio!’

Nerves shredded, I finally found my way out of the room, watched with curiosity by the visitors. But somehow I managed to set off on a route that did not take me through the front door, and after wandering around for another five minutes I finally emerged out of what was definitely abackdoor. I was relieved to be out of the building, although there were drops of sleet in the air. And, tragically, my waxed jacket was still in the post.

As I was walking along the back of the building, past the kitchen garden and formal garden, I heard it. The baying. The combined voices of beagles.

Instead of carrying on around the side of Stonemore to the front – the staff office was in the front corner of the house – I followed the noise and drifted away from the manor. The noise was coming from an enclosure a good distance from the house, set away from the main drive – another area with high brick walls and a wooden door, like a secret garden. I went over and peered through a crack in the door. There were at least a dozen beagles, racing around a mowed field excitedly, sniffing, baying, and generally being houndy.

I turned away and leaned against the wall, rememberingJamie’s words about Hugo not fitting in with the pack.The man actually had his own pack of hounds. I shook my head in silent disapproval. Damn these posh boys. They practically came from a different planet to the one I inhabited. And hunting? I felt slightly sick. I knew about the countryside. But I’d hoped to ignore the reality of it for as long as possible. Perhaps I really wasn’t suited to living here at all. Metropolitan Minnie had better get back on the long-distance train.

‘Finally!’ cried Tally, as I stomped back into the office, wondering if I could cancel my waxed jacket order. ‘She’s here, Callum!’

Callum appeared, so calm and unhurried that I wanted to hug him. ‘Anna. Jamie messaged me. He said you wanted to drive up to the upper reaches? I’ve got the newest Land Rover out, and it’s got a full tank. I’d head off as soon as possible if you wanted a quick look. The weather’s not looking great.’

‘Great,’ I said flatly. In truth, those few drops of sleet had made me wonder if I should go another day. But there was no way I was backing out now, so Jamie could laugh behind his hand at his snowflake new employee melting under pressure. I could sense Fi watching me, but I didn’t even have enough cheeriness in me to direct a reassuring smile her way.

‘When he says “newest Land Rover”,’ said Tally cheerfully, ‘he means it’s twenty years old rather than thirty.’

I nodded and swallowed hard.

‘You don’t have to go now if you’re not up for it,’ said Callum gently.

‘I’m 100 per cent up for it,’ I said, and forced a smile.

It was then I noticed a text had arrived on my mobile, alongside the usual cheery messages from my sister and London friends asking about how the ‘wilds’ were. I’d put the phone on silent during my meeting with Jamie. The name froze me on the spot.

Sean.

‘I’ll just be a minute, Callum,’ I said, and dashed out and down the corridor to the loo, a freezing cold room where the window was constantly open. I locked myself into the single cubicle and prodded my phone screen, my hands shaking.

Hey. Was just wondering how you are. Sean.

I stared at it. I bit back my first, instinctive answer:

Fine thanks. Just working through my newly acquired self-help library on how to deal with childlessness combined with heartbreak. PS there’s no need to sign off with your name. I know who you are. And I’ve seen your sex face, remember?

Bitterness aside, the core of my imagined message was true. I had a full crate of books on childlessness and grief. Iwas chipping away at them with my coloured pens and Post-it notes, alongside my journal.Open your heart to grief, I’d written the night before,don’t stay rigid, don’t fight it. Some days it felt as though I was making progress, that my brain was processing things in the background. Acceptance might be in the far distance, waving a little flag, but at least it was within sight. On other days I felt like I was in a black hole, numbly searching for a foothold that wasn’t there.

I typed.

Fine thanks. You? A.

His reply appeared almost immediately.

Good thanks. Could you let me know a landline number I can call you on? It would be good to have a chat. I tried this one the other night but it kept going to voicemail. S

I glared at the message. It was so typical of him to have lost the number. He cared so little about me, was so lazy—

The door creaked open.

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