Page 5 of Annabel and Her Sisters

I left with a heart heavier than when I’d arrived, not helped by bumping into Derek on the way out.

He was a huge, burly man with red hair, quite white in places now, and with a face that could match it when it felt like it.

All his animals were ginger: his cattle, his dogs, his horse– and all, it seemed to me, were equally fiery.

Clarissa adored him so there had to be something special about him, I told myself, but mostly she was in awe of his brain which, to be fair, was not small.

It was just a shame he didn’t wear his knowledge lightly.

‘That car of yours needs a new alternator,’ was his opening gambit as he met me at the gates, simultaneously squeezing a herd of cows past my car, all bellowing loudly. He shut the gate efficiently behind them. ‘And the rattle is the carburettor knocking against the radiator.’

‘Thanks.’ I smiled. ‘I’ll have it looked at. Nice to see you, Derek, how are you?’ Hello, Annabel might have been more normal. I hadn’t seen him for several weeks.

‘Do, otherwise you’ll wake up to a flat battery. Seen the new tractor?’

‘No, but Clarissa told me.’

‘Seen Clarkson’s Farm ?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mine’s bigger than his.’ Of course it was. Big, swinging Derek.

‘On appro, I imagine?’

‘Sorry?’

I smiled sweetly. ‘Well, the house isn’t sold yet, is it?’ Best to be straight with Derek too.

‘Your ma had two offers yesterday. Bit low, but we’ll get them to push each other up. Get a bidding war going. It’s a done deal.’

I caught my breath. He wasn’t even family. Not blood. I felt mine boil. ‘Clarissa didn’t say.’

‘Ah. Knows how sensitive you are, probably.’

Always the riposte. Sensitive Annabel. The writer. As if that was a bad thing. In my experience, people are never sensitive enough. Oh, to their own feelings, sure, they couldn’t brook any sort of criticism. But to others?

‘All that scribbling.’ He grinned. ‘How are the bodice rippers?’

‘A bodice is an article of clothing worn more frequently in the past. The expression refers, in a faintly derogatory fashion, to historical romance, which is not my line.’

‘Chick lit, then.’ He grinned some more, hands in his pockets, jiggling away, hopefully with small change.

‘I’ll take the chick, at my age, and the literature allusion is fine too.

Thanks, Derek, it’s all going well.’ I smiled.

Tosser. I was swearing much more these days.

Even if only to myself. I rather enjoyed it.

And Polly told me it was good to be sweary.

Released pressure. ‘Anyway, I’m off to see Mum now. I’ll see what she thinks.’

‘You’re seeing her now?’ That rattled him. ‘Don’t– you know– muddy the waters or anything, eh? She’s mustard keen. This will work for all of us, you’ll see.’

‘As long as it works for her, Derek. That’s the main thing, isn’t it? And I’m not sure she’s thought it through properly.’

Blood vessels began to fill in his face. One throbbed ominously on his temple. Pretty to watch.

‘Now look here, Annabel, she’s a grown woman. She doesn’t need people telling her what to do. She came up with this plan herself and–’

‘I’m not people, Derek, I’m her daughter. I’ll let Clarissa know what she says. Lovely to see you.’

I drove past, knowing if I stayed any longer my face could easily adopt the same hue as his.

In my rear-view mirror I saw him muttering obscenities and then, pretending to wave me off, his face adopted a rictus grin.

I waved pleasantly back through my window, remembering he’d once worked as a bouncer, when he was a medical student– his first degree, before deciding animals were more physically and mentally demanding.

‘Because he likes intimidating people,’ Ginnie had muttered. ‘Even if it’s only at a club door.’

The first time Ginnie and I met him, in a pub near Charing Cross Hospital, where he trained, he’d been wearing a white coat complete with stethoscope to show how important he was and had boasted about having just donated to the wank bank.

Not exactly Meet the Family chat, but to be fair, many medical students did it, apparently, to supplement their income.

Clarissa had laughed uproariously about it, until an article had recently appeared in the Telegraph , which Ginnie had rung me about excitedly.

Apparently all children born to such donors years ago were now entitled to trace their fathers.

Even Clarissa had been appalled, and not much shocked her.

Ginnie and I had giggled uncontrollably at the thought of hundreds of little– or large– ginger Dereks, marching up the pot-holed farm drive to meet their father.

‘It’s preposterous!’ Clarissa had stormed across Ginnie’s lunch table at Easter this year. ‘They were assured total anonymity at the time. Total!’

‘Ah, well, times change,’ Ginnie had told her soothingly. ‘Nowadays people are entitled to know where they come from, genetically speaking. I’m sure, as a medic, you’d endorse that, wouldn’t you Derek?’ She’d smiled sweetly and passed him a dish. ‘Pork stuffing?’

My son, Luke, disliked him too. Derek had once made him skin a rabbit as a teenager, which had caused him to vomit in the garden, and then called him a sissy.

So yes, he was a bully. But their marriage worked, for which Mum was relieved, and for whose sake we stayed silent.

Plus, as Ginnie put it, thank God someone had actually fancied and married Clarissa, which my mother and I would hush hurriedly.

My mother. Coming to meet me now; opening the front door of her North London home, which, an hour and a half later– a good run, courtesy of light traffic on the motorway, in addition to which I’d had plenty to occupy my mind so time had passed quickly– I pulled up outside.

I felt my face relax as I saw her, realizing it had been tense and worried.

Mum would doubtless have spotted my car from the kitchen window.

And she wouldn’t have been lurking in there waiting, like some old lady peeping out from behind a curtain, but busy, making biscuits or meringues.

She was always baking, or sewing, or walking, or reading; in fact, she was probably the most purposefully active person I knew.

I got out and my heart lifted as she strode down the path.

The tall brick town house was at the dodgy end, or, as she put it, the right end, of a very smart road, with embassies and mansions at one end, and pretty terraced houses near the church and opposite Primrose Hill at the other.

Affordable for professionals back in the day, much less so now.

She waved, opening the gate. No stick, thank goodness, unlike many of her friends.

We’d tried to get her to use one briefly when Covid had laid her pretty low, but she’d chucked it away in disgust. And she’d never taken to her bed– never a day, she’d tell us, ever– and never swallowed a pill in her life.

But was she a little frailer? Or was I imagining it?

I was being quite forensic, admittedly, but surely her legs were a bit thinner under her smart tweed skirt?

As she marched towards me though, the dogs surrounding her, I was reassured.

‘Helloo, darling!’ she called, in her resounding, fruity tones, beaming widely.

‘Hi, Mum– thanks for the bins!’

My mother had put two empty dustbins out to save me a parking place and was now effortlessly moving one back as I took the other.

The dogs clustered and capered but never left her side; think Barbara Woodhouse if you go back as far as I do.

If not, let me enlighten you: she was a very county lady, a dog trainer who had her own TV show in the seventies, and whose philosophy ‘No bad dogs, just bad owners’ my mother endorsed.

She also bore some resemblance to Barbara, calling ‘Walkies!’ and ‘Sit!’ and dressing in the same tweeds and cardigans with a huge handbag, which my children remember being full of Smarties for them, or treats for the dogs.

She was warm, wonderful, exuberant, energetic, kind, but also beautiful and well groomed, and adored by all: friends, neighbours, shopkeepers, and particularly my father, who sadly died far too young.

We all knew there was no question of her remarrying.

She hated the expression ‘soul mate’, but she’d once said to me she couldn’t imagine being poured a gin and tonic– let alone climbing into bed– with anyone other than my father.

In our younger days I think we’d all breathed a sigh of relief: whatever anyone says, it’s hard adapting to a parent loving someone other than your own beloved; it feels like a betrayal.

But latterly I’ve wished she’d found someone, for company, although she told me the dogs gave her that.

She kissed me warmly and we walked up the well-swept path arm in arm, Mum calling to Brown Dog who’d found something to snuffle as he brought up the rear.

He was the largest, a mongrel, who’d been abandoned, and although she didn’t believe in favourites, he was very precious, so much so that Mum couldn’t think of a good enough name for him, so Brown Dog he had remained.

But even Brown Dog didn’t come close to receiving the love she had for her girls, who were her life.

She spoke to the three of us every day, if only for five minutes, and no, it wasn’t a bore, or a trial, it was a delight.

It could only be to say– ‘Did Luke get his visa?’ or ‘Has Lara had her results?’ So up to date would she be with her grandchildren’s movements, because they too were her world.

Now, after she’d hugged me warmly in the hall, and asked after Polly and Luke, she led me smartly to the kitchen so that I had to scurry to keep up.

Then she turned from taking something from the oven and gave me that brilliant Fanshawe smile.

‘So. What d’you think? Isn’t it thrilling about the house? Tea, or something stronger?’