Free A Week in Winter: A Novel by Marcia Willett Page B

somewhere and the water’s pumped up from a well …’
    Their voices grew fainter and Rob listened to them walking about overhead. Presently they returned downstairs and Martin Baxter put his head round the door.
    ‘We’re off,’ he said. ‘Thanks. We’ve decided to look at a place down in Just-in-Roseland before we make up our minds.’
    ‘Very wise.’ Rob beamed at him. ‘Beautiful countryside, the Roseland Peninsula. Very mild down there. And temperate, too.’
    He followed them through the hall and watched them climb into the clean, new vehicle, reverse it in the yard and drive back down the lane, Mrs Baxter staring straight ahead. Rob grinned to himself, waved cheerfully and returned to his painting.
    ‘The point is,’ Maudie said to Polonius, as they sat together before the fire just before bedtime, ‘that you are a very large person and very large persons do not climb on to sofas, nor do they sleep on other persons’ beds. It is possible, of course, that you imagine yourself to be quite a small person but facts are facts.’
    Polonius groaned deeply, settling himself comfortably, head on paws.
    ‘It’s no good protesting,’ she said firmly. ‘I suspect that your partiality for luxurious living was what made you homeless in the first place. I hope you are older and wiser now. Posy’s a soft touch, of course. Selina must have had conniptions when she appeared with you on the end of a lead. In fact, I am amazed that she let you stay at all. However, your bed is in the kitchen and that’s where it is staying. I want no whining tonight.’
    Polonius sighed heavily but he regarded her with a cynical and disillusioned eye. He’d learned that the delight and amazement aroused by his size and melancholy expression was generally short-lived and that cries of affection rapidly turned to shouts of rage. Posy was his third owner, and he’d been very happy with her, but he disliked Selina and had been relieved to be brought here to this place of woods and streams and hills. He did not feel that he’d been abandoned to yet another new owner but hoped that Posy would reappear just as she had in the past. Meanwhile, he was enjoying himself. He’d frightened the milkman by barking unexpectedly and very loudly in his ear through the open window of his pick-up truck, whilst the fellow was rooting about for Maudie’s newspaper. Later, he’d lain in wait for the postman; hiding under the hedge by the door, chasing him along the drive, back to his van.
    Now, at the end of a busy day, his tail thumped once or twice contentedly and Maudie chuckled too, remembering the incident. The milkman, bred on a farm, once he’d recovered from his shock had simply pushed Polonius aside and delivered the milk and paper, reporting the incident good-humouredly, pulling Polonius’s ears and marvelling at his size. The postman, however, was new to the area and he’d already made himself unpopular by complaining about the difficulties of a country round and the distance he was obliged to walk. He’d suggested that Maudie should put a box at the end of the drive and Maudie had replied, somewhat tartly, that he’d probably be a happier, not to mention fitter, person if he occasionally took some exercise. To see him sprinting down the drive had reduced her to tears of mirth and she’d had difficulty in remonstrating with Polonius when he’d returned, tail wagging and clearly delighted with himself.
    ‘You’re a wretch,’ she said, pushing him with her foot. ‘And now I shall
have
to put a box at the end of the drive. I’m certain he’ll refuse to come to the door again. No more chasing or we’ll all be in trouble.’
    Polonius yawned contemptuously. He’d taken a dislike to the postman and was looking forward to another encounter. Once outside the bungalow there was nothing to restrain a dog with brains and initiative and, after the restrictions of a courtyard garden and small municipal park, he had every intention of making