Free Pink Wellies and Flat Caps by Lynda Renham Page A

it’s at home? And what kind of place is this that you can’t get a phone signal? The last thing I want to do is phone Georgie where I can be overheard. As this woman will, no doubt, repeat the whole conversation back to Edward Fairfax. I just want to speak to Georgie, eat my fish and chips, and get a good night’s sleep before my journey back tomorrow. There is no way, absolutely no way, I am staying. I shall also phone Mark and tell him that the new hours will suit me fine. I’ll cope. I can move back in with my parents for a short time until I find a better job. Yes, that’s it. I must think positive. In fact, probably after a few months Charlie will come to his senses. Men have these sort of crisis things don’t they?
    ‘Actually, I could do with some fresh air,’ I say cheerily, ‘I’ll pop to End Field.’
    She looks at me curiously.
    ‘But it’s pouring with rain. Wouldn’t you rather use the house phone?’
    It takes some time to convince her that I would appreciate the walk. She directs me to End Field which, amazingly enough is exactly that, the field at the end of the estate. I mean, how original is that? I mean, who calls the end field End Field ?’ No doubt it was one of Edward Fairfax’s great ideas.
    ‘You’ll need your wellingtons,’ she calls from the bedroom window. ‘I’ll pop the vacuum over your room and then I’ll be off. Tell Ted I’ll give him a ring.’
    I suppose I could wait until she leaves and then phone Georgie. Of course though, knowing my luck Edward will return and then he will hear my conversation. No best to call her on my mobile. Honestly, what kind of place doesn’t have a phone signal these days? It’s not darkest Peru for heaven’s sake. I don’t like to say I’ve never owned a pair of wellingtons in my life and am not going to start now. I’m about to tell her it is not my room, and it never will be, but bite back the words. After all, she is only being nice, and God knows, being Edward Fairfax’s girlfriend can’t be easy. I can’t help wondering, as his girlfriend, why she doesn’t help around the house a bit, but then it’s not my business. I shrug and tell myself I will be gone tomorrow.
     
    She wasn’t joking when she said it was pouring with rain. It is bucketing down. I retrieve my trainers and rain mac from the car and begin the walk back down the driveway. I don’t even want to imagine what I look like in bare legs and trainers, and a chewed up skirt, all barely hidden by a next to useless rain mac. I wave my phone about trying to get a little bit of signal when Molly charges up behind me.
    ‘Come on, just one bar, that’s all I ask,’ I plead to my Blackberry. Don’t they have phone masts here?
    Molly is convinced that I am talking to her and wags her tail in gratitude, pawing my bare leg and leaving yet another mud paw print. Sod it. Christ, where did all this rain come from? It’s like a bloody monsoon. I’ve only come to Cornwall for God’s sake, not bloody Bangladesh. My trainers squelch as they sink into the mud and I am only half way there. This isn’t mud, it’s quicksand. I’ll be sucked under. They probably call it End Field because that’s what it is; it’s where you meet your end. I am about to open the gate into End Field when suddenly the cows that had been nibbling contentedly at the grass surge towards me. OH MY GOD, it’s a stampede. Molly dives in front of me, barking and dashing from side to side. I slip in an effort to dodge her and my trainer slides on some cow dung and the next thing I know my legs are in the air. I land with a splat in the mud and shit. I feel it splash onto my face and I grimace. I turn wide-eyed and my body freezes. I am going to be crushed to death by stampeding cows and I didn’t even make it into End Field. It seems a little unfair that my end should come when I am just a few feet from it. What am I thinking? I can’t die here, lying in shit. I can’t say my whole life flashed before