As I speak, I feel resentment simmering. Look at her, in her denim shorts, catching some sun, revving up for a night of torrid sex.
“I know; it’s a shame. Just one of those things,” says Demeter with a shrug. She’s peering at the trees around us. “So, which is the sycamore?”
“I mean, you came here as a family.” I smile so hard, my cheeks start to tremble. “With your lovely husband who you made those special vows to. How long have you been married?”
“What?” Demeter looks puzzled. “Um…eighteen years. No, nineteen.”
“Nineteen years! Congratulations! You must really, really love him!”
“Er…yes,” says Demeter, looking bemused. “I mean, we have our ups and downs….”
“Of course you do. Don’t we all?” I give a shrill laugh. All this time, I’ve managed to keep outwardly calm around Demeter. But today I’m losing it a bit.
“So are there many interesting bird species in the woods?” asks Demeter, with her “alert and intelligent” expression that really rubs me the wrong way.
“Oh yes,” I say, breathing hard. “Definitely.” As a crow flutters out of a tree, I point upward. “Look! Did you see that?”
“No!” says Demeter, and immediately cranes upward too. “What was it?”
“A very rare bird,” I say. “Very rare indeed. The great crested…boaster.”
I nearly said, The great crested Demeter.
“It’s related to the warbler but much more rare,” I say. “Very predatory. Very toxic, nasty bird.”
“Really?” Demeter sounds fascinated.
“Oh yes.” I’m on a roll now. “It pushes the younger females out of the way and it won’t let them thrive. You wouldn’t want to come across it in the wild. It’s vicious. Selfish. I mean, it looks good. It has very sleek plumage. But it’s very crafty. Very pretentious.”
“How can a bird be pretentious?” Demeter sounds puzzled.
“It preens itself all the time,” I say after a pause. “And then it gouges out the other birds’ eyes.”
“Oh my God.” Demeter looks like she might be sick.
“Because it’s got to be top bird. It’s got to have everything. It doesn’t care if the other birds in the wood are struggling.” I pause. “But then, when it’s off guard and vulnerable, the other birds take revenge on it.”
“How?” Demeter looks utterly gripped.
“They have their means,” I say with a bland smile. I wait for Demeter to ask another question, but she doesn’t. Instead, she gives me a weird, appraising look.
“I was reading a book about local birds last night,” she says slowly. “It didn’t mention the great crested boaster.”
“Well, like I say, it’s very rare. One of our rarest. Shall we?”
I motion for us to carry on, but Demeter doesn’t follow. Her eyes are running over me as though for the first time. Oh God, she doesn’t suspect something, does she? Was the great crested boaster a step too far?
“Have you always lived in the country?” she asks.
“Oh yes!” I laugh, relieved to be on firmer ground. “I was born in the farmhouse,” I add, broadening my burr. “My dad’ll show you the marks on the kitchen wall, measuring my height over the years. This is home for me.”
“I see.” Demeter looks only partially reassured, but she starts following me again.
“You’ll want to see the ponds,” I tell her over my shoulder. “Beautiful wildlife at the ponds. We’ll go there now.”
They’re always called “the ponds,” but it’s one pond, really. One quite large, fairly deep pond and one shallower dip, right next to it, which is sometimes a pond and sometimes a swamp. At this time of year, it’s swamp. About three foot deep of swampy, froggy mud, all topped off with bright-green weed.
And that’s where Demeter’s heading, whether she knows it or not. I want her plastered in mud, dripping with weed, screaming with fury, and then—final touch—immortalized in a viral photo, which I’m sure Flora will have great pleasure in disseminating to the world. My phone’s in my pocket, covered in protective plastic. I’m all set. The only issue is going to be getting her into the swamp. But even if I have to dive in first myself, I’m doing it.
My breaths are coming fast as we walk along. My ears are buzzing; I’m twitching at every sound from the trees. Every so often, I have a spasm of nerves and think: Do I really want to do this?
Shall we just go back to the farmhouse instead?
But then I picture Demeter tapping at her phone with that smug smile, summoning Alex like a take-out order the minute her husband disappeared. Demeter making me do her roots…thrusting her Net-A-Porter boxes at me…complaining about her tiny journey to work…Demeter staring at me in the lift at Cooper Clemmow. She couldn’t even remember if she’d let me go, because, hey, what does the life of some junior girl sitting in the corner matter?
There I was feeling sorry for her—well, what a joke. She doesn’t need my pity. I mean, look at her. I glance at her long legs, clad in designer wellies. Her confident, I’m-the-boss stride. If she had a brief moment of vulnerability, it’s long passed now, and I was a mug to fall for it. Because Demeter’s always been an expert at using other people to sort her life out. Husband disappeared? Order in your lover instead. Deleted a crucial email? Get your assistant to sort it out. Somehow she always manages to come out on top.
Except today.
“Somerset has amazing birds,” I say, leading her toward the ponds. “There are loads of rare species around here, so as we walk, you should look up, all the time. Look up.”
Not down at your feet. Not down at the mud and slippery oil that I may possibly have planted earlier.
As we round a clump of bushes, the ponds come into sight ahead of us. The swamp is a patch of lime-green weed. It couldn’t look more glistening and noxious. No one’s about. All the other glampers are miles away, doing their foraging in Warreton Forest, and no one else has access to these woods. The silence around us is eerie and expectant. All I can hear is my own breath and our footsteps on the increasingly muddy ground, sloping downward toward the swamp.
“Look up,” I keep exhorting her. “Look up.”
Everything becomes boggy around here. And very slippery, even before it’s been laced with hemp oil. It’s OK, as long as you’re careful, don’t walk too fast, and don’t even think about running.
Which is why I’m about to make Demeter run.
“Oh wow!” I whisper as though in sudden excitement. “Can you see the kingfishers? Millions of them! Hurry!” I up my pace to what looks like a run, although I’m careful to plant my feet carefully and stay balanced. “You go first.” I turn and make a generous gesture to Demeter. “Go ahead of me. But hurry! Hurry!”
Like a shopper at the Harrods sale, Demeter starts pegging it in a tiptoe run, her eyes fixed upward, gathering momentum. She doesn’t see the point at which soggy mud turns to oil slick. She doesn’t even notice when she starts to skid—until her feet finally hit the slipperiest bit of the oil slick, and she hasn’t got a chance. She slides down toward the swamp, flailing her arms, looking like a really terrible snowboarder.
“Oh my God!” she gasps. “Oh my—oh God!”
“Careful!” I call out cheerfully. “It gets slippery….Oh no!”
I’m watching with all my attention, not even letting myself blink. I want to enjoy this fully. I want to see every single moment: Demeter thrashing her arms in panic…Demeter sliding off the bank…Demeter poised in midair…Demeter’s horror as she realizes what’s about to happen…