Page 41 of The Way We Are Now

‘Yes, posh lot,’ Linda went on now like an unstoppable train. ‘Huntin’, shootin’, fishin’, don’t you know?’ She laughed as she enunciated the three words and was obviously going to carry on about the Harrowton Mandevilles and their apparently great big estate at length, until I gave her a warning glare. I’d no idea where she’d got all this information from about Theo and his family – certainly not from me. I had an awful suspicion it was from John Dyson. When Linda had let it slip about the ball, Dyson had walked into my office and been pretty sneery about my volte-face of working for the benefit of the NUM and the striking miners, while gallivanting off to enjoy myself with the Tory-voting establishment.

The last thing I wanted was rent-a-crowd standing on the doorstep to see me off once Theo arrived, so I lied that I wasn’t being picked up until an hour later than I actually was. Aunty Sandra said she was so sorry not to be able to wave me off, but she had to dash, she had the perming lady round, and Linda was off to Kath’s to get her nails done. ‘Going out with John Dyson tonight,’ she volunteered as she left. ‘Tell me again you don’t mind, Anna?’

‘I don’t mind, Linda.’

So that just left Mum, insisting on pulling up weeds in our tiny front garden at the allotted time of Theo’s arrival. I’d dashed to the loo again, adjusted my lipstick and stared at the face I didn’t recognise as my own. Every time I’d gone upstairs, I’d rubbed a bit more at the panstick, blusher and lipstick that Kath had so painstakingly trowelled on earlier that afternoon until what remained was much more the natural me. When I’d hurried back downstairs, Mum was already at the gate chatting to Theo. I was more than relieved to see that, like me, he was in jeans and T-shirt and that he wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet of our street seeing him in his penguin suit in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.

‘Here she is,’ Mum said proudly as though exhibiting a prize pumpkin at the Rothersley Amateur Garden Federation. ‘Wait until you see the dress,’ she added, nodding towards my black plastic protector. ‘Now, drive carefully,’ she admonished as Theo took my overnight case, ‘and can I say, just once again, how sorry I was to hear about Fliss? Anna tells me she was a special…’

‘Mum, I’m going,’ I said quickly, cutting her off at the pass, ‘I’ll see you sometime.’

‘Anna, you look fabulous. Your hair up suits you.’ Theo smiled across at me, and I began to relax for the first time in days. He was here. I was here. I wasn’t done up to the nines in my posh frock and heels – big mistake that would have been. ‘Your mum’s great: so friendly. But why does she think I was a special friend of Fliss’s?’ He turned to look at me as he started the engine and I felt myself go pink under the tan panstick and Theo’s questioning, appraising look.

‘Oh, she gets things wrong,’ I said. ‘Hears one thing and makes up the rest. So,’ I went on hastily, ‘what time does this thing actually start? Are you sure your parents are OK with me staying the night?’

‘Of course. There’ll be a houseful; one more won’t faze them.’ Theo turned the engine and indicated, giving me time to have a good look at his profile, just to reassure myself he was still as gorgeous as I’d built him up to be. He was, for heaven’s sake, even more so. His dark blond hair was newly washed – I could smell some unknown shampoo – and as he executed a three-point turn and we headed back the way he’d come, I was already replying to my and Theo’s grandchildren when they asked: ‘How did you meet Grandpa, Granny?’ I’d clearly metamorphosed into North Yorkshire mode for some reason too, I scolded myself. Where did the more usual South Yorkshire Grandad and Nanna go? And how, in the space of thirty seconds in the car, had I gone not only to having Theo’s children, but seemingly his grandchildren too?

When we’d done with the usual chatting about what we’d been up to, what sort of week we’d had, how work/studies/exams were going, we lapsed into a bit of an awkward silence. Was Theo regretting asking me to this ball? The Mini ate up the miles, soon leaving South Yorkshire, passing through Leeds in West Yorkshire and carrying on to our destination in North Yorkshire.

Theo indicated, turning off the motorway at the next junction and, almost immediately, we were driving along country lanes. ‘Are your parents OK with me just turning up like this?’ I asked, rooting around for something to say before realising I was repeating myself.

‘Turning up like this?’ Theo laughed but didn’t actually answer the question as he turned to me. I was conscious only of his height, his broad shoulders and quiet confidence. How could any man of only twenty-two be so self-assured?

‘I hadn’t realised, until you told me the other week, you were actually older than me,’ I said. ‘You must have had a gap year before uni?’

Theo nodded. ‘Three actually.’

‘Three?’

‘Spent the first travelling round Europe, through Thailand and Bali and then on to Australia and New Zealand. I loved it so much in the South Island, I stayed on, working on a sheep farm.’

For a split second Theo looked so sad, almost bereft, I’d have bet any money it was some girl who’d kept him there.

‘Dad wasn’t too pleased when I decided not to take up my place at Leeds, although to be honest he wasn’t all that impressed at my not getting into Oxford or Cambridge or St Andrew’s – where he’d been an undergrad – in the first place. But then, he realised that my knowledge of sheep and all things ovine might be useful on the estate once I could be finally persuaded to return.’

The estate? The only estates I knew were a couple of notorious council ones not far from our street. And ovine? Was that to do with sheep? ‘So how many sheep were you looking after?’ I asked, trying to appear interested in what I’d always thought of as devil-eyed stupid creatures with dirty bottoms.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ Theo said. ‘I always fell asleep counting them.’

‘Too many late nights over there…?’ I started and then realised he was laughing at me. ‘Oh… right… I get you.’ I tutted, laughing myself.

‘Right, we’re just about here.’ Theo smiled across at me and my pulse raced. He was beautiful. I don’t think I’d ever thought of a man being beautiful before – handsome I suppose was the usual adjective – but I can say Theo Mandeville was alluring in a way I’d never before experienced in a man. The country lanes had immediately morphed into even narrower ones, and I gazed at my surroundings in some awe. ‘Wow, this is so heavenly!’ I was genuinely taken aback by the North Yorkshire scenery and, while the surrounding countryside where I lived was equally lovely, the whole rolling, sweeping landscape up here felt to have taken a deep breath, awakening fully, eager to show off its full credentials to visitors.

The vivid, meandering fields to our right were almost luminous with green, broken up by neat lines of dry-stone walls as well as dots of white sheep, while the bleating of new lambs hung in, and carried through, the warm air. Buttercups, frothy cow parsley, and the first flush of something pink which I couldn’t name decorated every hedge and verge, while cottage gardens were flush with magnificent arrays of coloured tulips – a child’s paintbox opened, its contents haphazardly spilled.

We drove on through several villages, past ancient, grey-stoned churches and even a maypole on the green. Theo turned left, over an old packhorse bridge and past low chocolate-box stone cottages whose climbing roses and wisteria were just beginning to bloom. So intent was I at taking in the passing countryside, I didn’t realise we’d veered off the lane and were now driving along a tree-lined gravelled road leading to a white-stoned house. No, not a house, this could only be described as a bloody great hall. Well, of course, it was, wasn’t it? But when I’d proudly shown off Cannon Hall to Theo, I’d never imagined for one minute he’d go one bigger and better to trump my boast.

‘Goodness, it’s a bit big.’

‘Well, half of it’s been given over to the National Trust,’ Theo said. ‘Been in the family for years and years. Bit of a white elephant to be honest.’

‘And are you the eldest son? You never did tell me much about your family the other day. I mean, are you expected to inherit…?’ I trailed off. Was that a rude question, like asking someone how much they earned?

‘Hmm.’ Theo nodded. ‘I’m the eldest son – the only son. I’ve three older sisters, Vivienne, Araminta and Georgina, and, just as my dad was despairing of ever getting a son to pass on the baton as it were, I came along. And then there’s Mary.’

‘Mary?’

‘She’s my eight-year-old sister.’