Suze looks more agonized than ever.
“I couldn’t admit I didn’t know,” she says in a small voice. “Tarkie always says I should take more interest in the trees on the estate. So last year I told him I’d been round with the head groundsman and it was all really interesting.”
“Had you?”
“No,” she whispers, and buries her head in her hands. “I went riding instead.”
“Let me get this straight.” I put my tambourine down on the bar, because you can’t think properly with a tambourine in your hand. “Tarkie thought he was giving you a coded message that you would understand due to your shared love of the family trees.”
“Yes.”
“But you haven’t the foggiest what he meant.”
“No.”
Honestly. This is the trouble with living in a stately home with great poetic symbols everywhere. If they lived in a normal house with one apple tree and a privet hedge, there’d be none of this hoo-ha.
“OK,” I say firmly. “Suze, you need to find out which tree Owl’s Tower is. Phone your parents, phone his parents, phone your head groundsman—anyone!”
“I already have,” admits Suze. “I’ve left them all messages.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I don’t know. Wait.”
I can’t quite believe this. Basically Suze’s marriage is either over or not, depending on a tree. This is so bloody Tarquin.
Although I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been the plot of a Wagner opera.
Suze gets down from her barstool and starts pacing round on the spot, nibbling her fingers and checking her phone about every two seconds. Her eyes are wild and she’s muttering to herself, “Is it the chestnut? Maybe it’s that big ash.” She’s going to drive herself insane like this.
“Look, Suze.” I try to grab her arm, but miss. “Calm down. There’s nothing you can do now. You need to think of something else. Let’s go and look at the fair. Suze, please,” I beg, making another swipe at her arm. “You’ve had a really stressful time. It’s not good for you. It’s all cortisol and stuff in your veins. It’s poison!”
I learned this at Golden Peace. In fact, I went to a whole series of classes called Limit Your Stress Levels, which would have been really useful if I hadn’t always arrived late after yoga and spent the whole class feeling totally hassled. (I actually think I’d have felt less stressed if I hadn’t gone to the class.)
“OK,” says Suze at last, still pacing. “OK. Maybe I should try to get my mind off things.”
“Exactly! Look, we’ve got ages till we’re on duty in the ceramics tent. Let’s go and find a distraction.”
“Right.” Suze stops pacing, but her eyes are still wild. “You’re right. What shall we do? I wonder if I can borrow a horse. I could enter some events. I’ve never done a rodeo before.”
A rodeo? Is she nuts?
“Er…maybe!” I say warily. “I was actually thinking more like wander round? Look at the displays? They’ve got chickens, you know.”
Suze has always had a soft spot for chickens (which I understand even less than the pig thing). I unfold my guide and I’m about to tell her some of the breeds, when her eyes light up.
“I know.” She clasps hold of my arm and marches me off. “I’ve got it.”
“Where are we going?” I protest.
“You’ll see.”
—
Suze seems so determined, there’s no point arguing. And at least she’s stopped nibbling her fingers like a madwoman. We skirt round all the food tents, wind our way through the livestock arenas, and pass the Creative Village. (We pass it twice, in fact. I think Suze gets a bit lost, not that she’ll admit it.)
“Here we are.” Suze draws up at last in front of a tent with a sign reading HEEL TO TOE. I can hear “Sweet Home Alabama” being played on the sound system inside.
“What’s this?” I say blankly.
“We’re buying boots,” says Suze. “We’re at a proper county fair, so we need proper cowboy boots.” She sweeps me inside the tent and I inhale a solid smell of leather. In fact, I’m so overcome by the smell, it takes me a moment to register the spectacular sight before me.
“Oh my God,” I stutter at last.
“Isn’t it just…” Suze seems as overwhelmed as I am.
We’re standing arm in arm, staring upward in total awe like a pair of pilgrims at the holy shrine.
I mean, I’ve seen cowboy boots for sale, plenty of times. You know. A shelf here and there. But I’ve never seen anything like this. The racks reach the top of the tent. Each rack has about fifteen shelves, and each one is covered in boots. There are brown boots and black boots, pink ones and aquamarine ones. Some have rhinestones. Some have embroidery. Some have rhinestones and embroidery. Under a sign reading LUXURY BOOTS, there’s a white pair with inlaid python print, which cost five hundred dollars, and a pair made from pale-blue ostrich leather, which cost seven hundred. There’s even a black pair which are thigh high and marked Latest Fashion but they look a bit weird, to be honest.
It’s all so dazzling, neither of us can quite speak. Suze takes off her old brown cowboy boots, which she got in Covent Garden, and slips on a pair of pink and white boots from the rack. With her blue jeans and blond hair they look amazing.
“Or look at these.” I grab her a pale-tan pair with delicate rhinestones tracing a pattern up the sides.
“They’re beautiful.” Suze practically swoons in lust.
“Or these!” I’ve found a dramatic pair of black-and-dark-brown leather boots, which smell all rich and dark and saddley. “For winter?”
It’s like gorging on chocolates. Every pair is more alluring and delicious. For about twenty minutes I do nothing but chuck boots at Suze and watch as she models them. Her legs look endless and she keeps swishing her hair around and saying, “I wish I had Caramel here.”
(Caramel is her latest horse. And I have to say, I’m very glad she doesn’t have him here, if she’s thinking of riding in a rodeo.)
At last she’s narrowed it down to the tan boots with rhinestones and a black pair with amazing white embroidery. I bet she buys both.
“Hang on.” Her chin suddenly jerks up. “Bex, what about you? Why aren’t you trying any on?”
“Oh,” I say, caught out. “Actually, I don’t really feel like it.”
“Don’t feel like it?” Suze stares at me, puzzled. “What, trying on boots?”
“Yes. I suppose.”
“Not at all?”
“Well…no.” I gesture at the boots. “But you carry on.”
“I don’t want to carry on.” Suze seems a bit crestfallen. “I wanted to buy us both a pair of boots. You know, to make up. To be friends again. But if you don’t want to—”
“No, I do! That would be lovely,” I say hastily.
I can’t hurt Suze. But I’m feeling that same weird, twisting-in-my-stomach feeling as before. Trying to ignore it, I take a pair of boots off the nearest rack and Suze hands me some socks.
“These are nice.” I slip them on. They’re brown with a black laser-cut design and fit me perfectly. “Good size too. There we are. Done.” I try to smile.
Suze stands in her socks, holding two pairs of boots in her hands, her eyes narrowed.
“That’s it?”
“Er…yes.”
“Aren’t you going to try any more on?”
“Well…” I run my eyes over the boots, trying to feel like I used to. Boots! I tell myself. Suze wants to buy me some cool boots! Yay!
But it all feels false to my own ears. When it’s Suze trying them on, I get all excited for her—but when it’s me, somehow it’s different. To show willing, I quickly pull down a turquoise pair and slide my feet inside. “These are nice too.”