Free An Affair to Remember by Virginia Budd Page B

Selwyn Woodhead, are you?”
    “You know him?”
    “Not from the TV, although my wife’s a fan,” (he has a wife then) “but I’ve had dealings with him; I happen to be the village grocer.”
    “Oh.” She knew you shouldn’t stereotype people, but he didn’t look like a village grocer; more like… She didn’t know really what, but then nothing at the moment was as it should be.
    “Actually I haven’t been in the grocery business long, for my sins, I’m ex-army. Look, I’m sorry I can’t offer you a lift, the best I can do is ring the local garage – Battersby’s out on the main road are pretty good, I use them myself – as soon as I get home, and if you like, ring the Woodheads at the same time and let them know what’s happened. They might even send a car to collect you – unless, that is, you’d like to walk back with me?”
    Oh dear, she was beginning to feel odd again, had the feeling he was, too. Why were they talking of such mundane matters when there were other, much more important things to discuss? She looked nervously over her shoulder to see if the rook was still there; he was. A cloud passed over the sun, Major Mallory seemed to be getting blurred, was she? What was he saying? Why were they there, what was happening? She couldn’t cope with all this, it was too much, too… Then, thank God, the spell was broken by the welcome everyday sound of a tractor breasting the hill behind them.
    “We’re in luck,” the major looked as relieved as she felt, “it must be Josh Bogg on his way back to the farm for his dinner, he goes right past Brown End – if you don’t mind arriving at your new job in a tractor, that is?
    “Morning Major, got a spot of bother have we?”
    “Well yes, this lady’s car’s given up the ghost and she’s trying to get to Brown End…” So it was settled. She was handed up into the cab of the tractor together with her luggage, Radio Belchester blaring away in the background, Josh and the major pushed the Mini on to the grass verge at the side of the road, and they were off. Peering out of the cab’s rather murky rear window, she smiled and mouthed her thanks at the major, who smiled back, raising his arm in a sort of farewell salute, she thought he said something, but of course she couldn’t hear what, then they were away round a bend in the road and he’d disappeared from sight.
    Their descent into the valley had been fun, exhilarating even, and she had laughed as they bounced over the little bridge at the bottom of the hill. Josh was plainly agog with curiosity, but what with Radio Belchester and the noise of the tractor, any conversation was difficult, not to say impossible. She managed to make out a few words as the tractor slowed down to turn into the gates of Brown End: something to do with Mr Woodhead being on the telly, and was she going to help him with that, to which, not wanting to get involved with explaining about Sel’s book, let alone its subject, deeming (rightly) that he might get the wrong idea, she simply smiled and, nodding vigorously, left it at that.
    Her first reaction to the sight of Brown End had been that there was something wrong with it. It was like looking at a familiar picture that had been touched up. It was right and it was wrong at the same time. Perhaps she’d seen the house, or somewhere like it, in a dream and that was why it was so familiar. As they emerged from the trees, the Bogg tractor bumping over potholes and scattering mud, you could see the house basking in the sun, a few hundred yards up the other side of the valley. A belt of trees behind it, surrounded by undulating fields. The perfect location.
    Sel had told her earlier over their modest dinner of nut cutlets, cheese and fruit – the wine accompanying it, however, had been of top quality and extremely plentiful – that the house in its present incarnation was mostly Victorian, built over a much older foundation by the last of his line, Harold Durlston. The