Free An Affair to Remember by Virginia Budd Page A

garish but equally, in its time, expensive, Roman mosaic pavement Marcus Gaetulicus’s minions – in his case, slaves – laid down when enlarging his state-of-the art villa in the year AD 346.)
    Sel goes over to the mini bar in the corner (quite ghastly, what could Giles have been thinking about – it’ll have to go of course), and pours them both a gin and tonic. “Where has the bloody woman got to?”
    “Perhaps she’s lost the way.”
    “Nonsense, she couldn’t have. I gave her the most concise directions.”
    “Well you know how you always pick your women for their beauty rather than their brains –”
    “Balls! Are you implying you have no brains?” Drink in hand, he walks over to the window. “Oh God, what now? There’s a tractor turning in at the gate; looks like Josh Bogg. Does he have to choose lunchtime to unload his manure – honestly these people. Get rid of him quickly darling, I’m not in the mood for dealing with groundlings.”
    “It’s not manure, he’s got a passenger,” Clarrie’s looking too, “and what’s more I think it’s your new secretary.” Together they watch as Josh and his tractor, instead of keeping on towards the yard at the back of the house, turn left into the newly laid gravel sweep in front of the house, scattering wisps of straw and mud in the process.
    Sel watches, interested in spite of himself, as Beatrice, looking somewhat dishevelled, is handed down from the tractor cab by a grinning Josh. “Action stations!” He puts down his drink, straightens his cardigan and after a quick look in the Georgian mirror over the fireplace, all smiles, hurries to the front door, arms outstretched. “My dear, welcome to Brown End, what a delightfully original mode of transport. Clarrie, darling – our new helper.”
    Early evening: Beatrice sits in a chair by the window of her bedsitter looking out at the view: a wild and straggly farmhouse garden (naturally scheduled for rejuvenation but still well down on Clarrie’s priorities list) slopes gently downwards to the flat, tussocky field that borders the little river. The river, not much more than a wide stream whose name, if it ever had one, no one seems to know, is a tributary of the Levit, the river that runs through Kimbleford, and joins it a couple of miles up the valley. Though narrow it’s quite deep in places and there are plenty of fish. You often see a heron there, sometimes even a kingfisher. To the left of her view a high stone wall divides the garden from the lane; she can just see the humped-backed bridge over which it passes before climbing the hill on its way to the village. If she screws up her eyes against the setting sun she can make out the clump of trees at the top of the hill where she’d met Major Mallory, and despite the warmth of the evening she shivers. What made her call him Brian? She didn’t know his first name, how could she? He hadn’t looked surprised either, which too was odd. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her? Somehow, though, she knows he had.
    Admittedly after that things returned to some sort of normality. She’d explained as best she could what had happened. He’d said he didn’t know too much about cars, but would she like him to have a look, and she’d said yes. Together they’d lifted the bonnet and after peering doubtfully into the Mini’s seething interior, gave up and shut it again; apart from baffling them both, the heat and fumes were overpowering. “I’m afraid,” she’d said, “it needs a garage. It passed its MOT only a few weeks ago, but I have had a bit of trouble with it lately, and it doesn’t seem to like these hills. The problem is this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I’m on my way to start a new job with the Woodheads at Brown End, and we arranged I’d be there for lunch.”
    “Oh dear,” he’d said, screwing up his eyes against the sun and smiling at her – and she had to admit he did have a lovely smile – “so you’re going to work for