Therefore, she continued as usual. It was a hot dry summer and she spent long hours working in her garden. Her forehead turned as brown as leather and her arms and neck spotted with freckles, so once she said to Godfrey, “I look at least sixty. How can you possibly fancy me?” She expected a quip about his liking older women; instead he said, “I don’t fancy you. It’s much, much more than that.” And she believed him. By the beginning of autumn she had picked the early apples, wrapped them in newspaper and stacked them in boxes at the back of the garage. And she still looked forward to the clandestine meetings.
By the autumn too, opposition to the super quarry had gathered in momentum. She continued to be involved. She liked attending meetings to which Godfrey had been invited. There was an anticipatory thrill in standing outside the door of a shabby church hall, knowing that he was inside. Sometimes she could hear his voice, low and monotonous, making a point. His points were often technical. He might not have passed exams but he carried statistics in his head and could recite them flawlessly, like a child performing a favourite nursery rhyme. She loved arguing with him in public.
The people in the action group thought she disliked Godfrey Waugh intensely.
“Come on, lass,” the man with the sheep’s face said to her. “No need to let it get personal.”
In these confrontations Godfrey was always polite. In private they never discussed the quarry. She thought he was relieved by the pretence that there was antipathy between them. His wife would never believe he could fall for such an aggressive, loud-mouthed harridan.
On one occasion she saw them together, him and Barbara. Even the child was there. Godfrey had given one of his worked-out quarries to the Wildlife Trust to form the heart of the new reserve. The pits had been flooded and turned into ponds. The director of the Wildlife Trust talked hopefully about reed beds and a wader scrape. Godfrey had donated a lot of money for planning and hides, but he had just made his official planning application for the super quarry at Black Law so there was some nervousness within the Wildlife Trust. What was Godfrey Waugh after? Did he make his donation as a pre-emptive strike in the hope of getting a soft ride over the quarry? Anne didn’t know the answers to those questions, but found it hard to believe that Godfrey was that devious.
Because of suspicion about Godfrey Waugh’s motives, the party to celebrate the opening of the new reserve had become a low-key event.
Anne overheard one trustee, a conservative country lady in a cashmere suit, say to another: “We had planned a marquee, but in the circumstances, well, it hardly seemed appropriate.”
It was lunchtime, early October and warmer than days in most summers.
The reserve was on a lowland site. Flat fields stretched to the coast.
Although a bund, built with waste from the quarry, made the sea invisible to the guests, it made its presence felt through a shimmer on the horizon, the enormous sky.
Cattle were grazing on the bank, looking down at the celebration. One pit had already been flooded, had attracted mallard, coot and moorhen.
Anne arrived late, on purpose, to avoid the speeches and joined the people who were spilling out of the visitor centre which had been converted from one of the quarry buildings. It was time apparently for the opening ceremony. A ribbon had been strung between two sickly, newly planted trees. Eventually this would be the entrance to the car park. She recognized the back of Peter Kemp’s head and slipped in behind him.
“Who have they got to do the honours then?”
He turned round, startled. “Good God, woman. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“So which celeb’s going to cut the cord?”
“Godfrey Waugh’s brat.” Peter pulled a face. “Sickening, isn’t it?”
“I’d heard you’d joined the fat cats yourself. Haven’t you set up on your own? A consultancy, I understand.”
“Ah well, that’s different.” “Of course,” she said. “Isn’t it always?”
“You should be nice to me, Annie. I might be able to find some work for you. Proper paid work. I’ve got the contract for the Black Law
EIA.” “Christ!” she said. “How did you manage that?” She was seriously impressed. “Didn’t they want to go for someone more established?”
“I’m the best, Annie. That’s all they needed to know.” He paused.
“You don’t want the job then?”
“I haven’t got any qualifications.”
“You’ve got the skills though. I’ve been taken on to complete the report and I can employ who I like.”
She was still thinking about this, wondering in fact what Godfrey would make of it, when they were called to order. Felicity Waugh was led by her father in front of the crowd. She was a plump old-fashioned girl with hamster cheeks and long crimped hair. He handed her a pair of garden shears and she struggled to cut the ribbon. It was an awkward task because the shears were very blunt. Eventually Godfrey helped her, putting his hands over hers. There was a burst of applause.
Godfrey returned to a woman standing at the front of the crowd. This must be his wife. Anne drank a toast to the reserve in tepid white wine and looked at her.
Anne had created a fiction about Barbara Waugh. She had imagined a plump, boring woman. Godfrey would have met her at secondary school.
Their domestic life would be dreary, their conversation limited. They probably hadn’t had sex since the conception of the wonder child and according to this fiction all the couple had in common now was the daughter.
Anne saw immediately that she had misjudged the situation completely.
For one thing Barbara was serious competition. She was expensively dressed, beautifully groomed. She had cheekbones some women would die for and softly per med hair. In comparison Anne felt scrawny, ill kempt.
While she was still watching, Barbara and Godfrey exchanged a few words then Barbara broke away from him and walked over the grass to Anne. For a moment Anne wondered angrily if Godfrey had, after all, told his wife about the affair. Seeing the woman had made her reassess the relationship. Perhaps he had only been bothered about secrecy so he could preserve his respectable media image. Perhaps they were one of those sick-making couples who had no secrets. She prepared herself for a scene.
But it seemed that Barbara wanted to be friendly. She smiled anxiously. Anne could sense a strain, a definite tension. The words came out too quickly. The smile was replaced by a frown, a nervous gesture which seemed habitual.
She’s a neurotic cow, Anne thought triumphantly, glad to be able to pigeon-hole her, feeling superior. She thought Barbara wouldn’t be much competition at all. Now that they were standing close to each other it was obvious that they were much the same age. Barbara must have been approaching forty when she had the chud.
Ill “Mrs. Preece. I wondered if I could have a word… “
“Of course.”
“I just want to tell you how much I admire the work you do. The environment’s so important, don’t you think?”
It took all Anne’s composure not to appear shocked. It was the last thing she was expecting. “Oh, I do,” she said, with just a hint of pastiche. Looking over the woman’s shoulder she saw Godfrey, staring at the cows in a distracted way. She could tell he was panicking.
Barbara continued earnestly, “I just wanted to tell you that neither my husband nor I resent your opposition to the quarry at Black Law. We are fully committed to nature conservation and if the Environmental Impact Assessment comes up with any information which indicates a problem, I can assure you that the scheme won’t go ahead. We wouldn’t wait for a public inquiry.”