Free Close Relations by Deborah Moggach Page B

stock, everybody goes to Tesco. Soon there’ll be – oh, a packet of tea-bags and a box of bootlaces. Like Eastern Europe.’
    â€˜You been to Eastern Europe lately?’
    â€˜You don’t care. Oh why did I marry a Tory!’
    â€˜Your father’s more Tory than me. He reads the
Daily Telegraph
.’
    â€˜Well
I’m
going to keep going there.’
    â€˜You can afford to. Know why? Because you’re married to a venture capitalist.’
    â€˜God you’re cheap.’
    â€˜No. I’m expensive. That’s why –’
    â€˜Oh, shut up!’
    Robert grinned and left. He was off to play tennis.
    Louise was cleaning out the rabbit’s hutch. She dug viciously at the dried droppings in the corner. Boyd, the rabbit, sat hunched in his sodden sleeping compartment. He glared at her. Nobody liked Boyd. He was the last of their dynasty of rabbits, a moth-eaten old buck who had fathered hundreds of babies, fluffy darlings the children had crooned over and then forgotten. Jamie and Imogen had grown out of their pets. Though Imogen’s bedroom was plastered with Save the Whale posters she ignored Boyd; he could be dead for all she knew.
    But Boyd didn’t die. Like many belligerent octogenarians he clung stubbornly to life, refusing to go gently into that good night, sticking it out and making life a misery for anyone who ventured near. Nobody did, except Louise. She scattered sawdust into the hutch. She tried to shunt him into the clean side – she couldn’t pick him up, he was surprisingly powerful and would scratch her arms to ribbons. She pushed his rump. He turned round and bit her. She yelped. Ears flattened, he hunched himself further into his corner. He growled. Boyd was the only rabbit she had ever known who growled. Robert said he was a Pit Bull terrier in disguise.
    Louise, kneeling at the hutch, heard the sound of an engine approaching. That would be the blacksmith. It was Saturday; Imogen had spent most of the morning grooming Skylark and preparing her for this visit, as if preparing a bride for her groom. This past week had transformed Imogen. Where her horse was concerned, there was no problem with droppings. The moment they fell onto the stable floor Imogen darted forward with her spade, her face radiant. She was a young girl in love.
    â€˜Do you want sugar – er –’
    â€˜Karl.’ The blacksmith nodded.
    Imogen put the mugs on a ledge. The blacksmith flexed himself against Skylark’s back leg. He lifted it up, wedging it between his thighs. With a pair of pliers he wrenched off theold shoe and flung it aside.
    â€˜She likes you,’ said Imogen, ‘she usually fidgets in here.’ She gestured around the stable. ‘I ride her for miles. I feel so free! The birds don’t fly away when you’re on a horse. It’s, like, you’re part of an animal too.’
    â€˜We are animals,’ he said. ‘Just animals, with clothes on.’
    â€˜I suppose we are.’
    â€˜Trouble comes when we forget it.’
    She watched him working. He had curly black hair, damp with sweat. He wore a singlet; when he moved, she could see the muscles shift under his skin. She could see the bushy black hair in his armpits. Around his hips was slung a leather apron. He was pressed against the flanks of the horse, peeling off pieces of hoof as if he were peeling the rind off an apple.
    â€˜I saw a heron yesterday,’ she said. ‘And a fox.’
    â€˜Know Blackthorn Wood? There’s a badger’s sett there.’ Karl had a ripe, local accent. ‘Pal of mine showed me. He’s into wildlife photography.’
    â€˜Badgers! Wow!’
    He leaned against the horse, grinning. ‘Yeah. Wow.’ He turned away and hammered in a shoe. ‘Have to go at dusk. They come out and play. Thing about badgers, they don’t lumber around, like folk think. They’re really light and