LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FOUR

      The Feathers had been in Langford for four hundred years. In its day, it had been one of the great coaching inns, the resting place for the beau monde on their way down towards the great estates of the South-West. Charles I had hidden in a cellar there for a couple of weeks, and Beau Brummell had stayed the night before visiting the Roman Villa and signed the visitors’ book. ‘Passing comfortable,’ he had written. ‘A charming little town, Langford. I pay you my compliments. Brummell.’ Langford, which had always thought of itself as a deeply correct place, and regarded with suspicion the new claims of towns like Bath (vulgar nouveau Regency), Stratford-upon-Avon (American tourists everywhere) and Rye (smugglers’ money!) had col lectively swooned at this, back in the day. In fact, nearly two hundred years later, it still continued to swoon; the visitors’ book was in the great hallway that led through to the dining room; in a glass case, open at the page on which Mr Brummell had flirted with the town. The Feathers was, geographically and symbolically, at Langford’s very heart for this reason.

      The dining room had huge wooden settles, carving it up into different sections, so that coachman and nobleman could eat in the same room, but not be troubled by the other. A huge, leaded oriel window, giving out onto the high street, let in the light, and at the back there was another window, with a perfect view of the countryside as the town sloped down the hill, stopping before the valley, with the Vale of Langford opening up before them.

      Tess, coming into the dining room on that March evening, armed only with a copy of Persepolis, which she was re-reading, and the paper, was struck once again with the sensation that hit her: the clear, seductive light, the musty, clean smell, the quiet reassuring sounds of a working pub on a slow Wednesday spring night. The bar, a long L-shaped affair, was low and welcoming. Tess pulled up a stool, waiting for Mick to appear, her eyes scanning the blackboard for the day’s specials: she was suddenly very hungry.

      And then, from the corner of the bar behind her, someone spoke.

      ‘Scuse me,’ said a husky, female voice. ‘Can I take this stool?’

      Wheeling round, Tess looked up suspiciously to find a girl about her own age looking at her. Of course. It was That Girl. That Girl, as she had wittily christened her in her own mind, was staying at the Feathers, and was the sort of person, based solely on outward appearances, that Tess had always secretly yearned to be. Sophisticated, mysterious, effortlessly glamorous; Tess had seen a Mulberry handbag swinging from her arm as they’d passed in the street a couple of days ago. Tess had been pinning up her advert, wrestling with a rusty pin and a hard wooden board; That Girl had sashayed past, smiling pleasantly at her. That Girl’s long, glossy hair was—well, toffee-coloured, that was the only word for it. Her clothes just sort of hung off her, like they were meant to. She definitely wasn’t a local, That Girl.

      ‘Er,’ said Tess, pushing the stool next to her away from her, swiftly, feeling like a spotty teenage boy. ‘Here, of course…Yes.’

      That Girl pushed her hair away from her eyes, behind her shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m Francesca.’ She smiled, briefly, and held out her hand. ‘I saw you yesterday, didn’t I? Are you staying here as well?’

      ‘Um, no,’ said Tess, sitting upright. She wasn’t dwarfishly short, but she was self-conscious about her height, and girls like Francesca made her feel peasant-like, a pear-shaped lard-arse. She smiled and tried to flick her hair out behind her back too, but her thick dark locks were too short and unwieldy. They swung back in her face like bouncing wire wool, so instead Tess shook her head, nonchalantly, trying to pass this off as a normal cool hair-move, and said, ‘I live here, actually. Just moved back from London.’ She felt this was necessary, she didn’t know why. ‘How about you? Are you on holiday?’

      Francesca stroked a corner of the small blackboard with her long creamy fingers; the chalk smeared into swirls. ‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘I’m just staying here for a while. I’m from London too.’ She looked down, and was silent.

      ‘Oh,’ said Tess, not sure what to say next. ‘Well.’ She cast a glance around the almost empty pub. ‘It’s a great town, anyway.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Francesca, more eagerly. ‘I love it here. Everyone seems really nice. So you—you’re from here, then?’

      ‘Sort of,’ Tess told her. ‘I grew up here. But I’ve been in London for the last ten years. I’ve just moved back to Langford. I got a new job.’

      The words on her lips still sounded so strange, foreign. She would have to get used to them. She didn’t know what else to add to this but her companion said,

      ‘Wow. So you’ve been back a few weeks, right?’ Tess nodded. ‘That must be great.’ Tess nodded again, slowly. Francesca pushed the blackboard away, and cupped her chin in her hands. ‘But it must be weird too, I bet. Coming back here—are you on your own?’

      She said it in a friendly tone, in the spirit of polite enquiry; at least, Tess chose to take it that way.

      ‘I’m not on my own—I mean, er, I am on my own, yep,’ Tess said nonchalantly. She pushed the ball of her palm firmly over her forehead. ‘I had a bit of a crap time, last few months.’ She hesistated, debating as to how much detail was necessary. ‘And I was unemployed, too. So—I saw this job advertised and I applied and I got it—that’s how I decided to move back. Plus, you know, it was time to leave London,’ she said, getting into her stride. ‘I wanted to live in a proper community again. Escape from the town, shop in local shops, walk everywhere…just be with people who I—you know.’

      Francesca was nodding politely. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That’s so cool of you. Let’s hope they don’t build that out-of-town shopping centre, then!’

      ‘Oh. Well, exactly,’ said Tess. ‘I know. So—why are you here?’ she blurted, curiously.

      ‘Oh, I’m just meeting someone for a drink,’ Francesca said. ‘Just someone I met.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry, you didn’t mean that, did you.’

      Tess smiled. ‘I don’t want to be nosy.’

      ‘God, no,’ said Francesca. ‘The weird thing is, it’s the same reasons as you.’ She gave a little smile. ‘I’m here to escape from London too. Except I was never here in my life before, and I have no idea why I’m here.’ Her eyes met Tess’s; Tess saw something in them, something vulnerable, and she suddenly liked her, this stranger. ‘I’m a lawyer. Well, I trained as a lawyer, but most recently I’m a banker.’ She made a slicing motion across her throat. ‘An unemployed banker. Doesn’t get much more tragic than that.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘Don’t be. I was heading for a burnout anyway,’ said Francesca. ‘Seriously, if I hadn’t been given the heave-ho I’d have done something stupid. It’s the best thing to happen to me in years. That’s the weird bit.’

      ‘Why? What happened?’ Tess said.

      ‘Can’t remember, really,’ Francesca said frankly. ‘Last few months are a bit of a blur. I was working twenty-hour

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