‘We can try. Let’s see if the coffee and food helps.’
Gin, it transpired, didn’t make them nasty, it made them garrulous, very, very garrulous.
Fran, who’d found herself drinking a glass of wine although she’d tried not to, nodded off several times during the meal.
Still they went on, discussing the finer points of some rugby match neither of them had been to in real life but obviously obsessed them. They took ages to eat their food, but every time either FranorIssi suggested they’d had enough and offered to take their plates, they clung on to them, took another tiny forkful and then went back to the rugby match.
Eventually, Fran could stand it no more. She’d wasted enough of her precious sleeping time with these idiots; she would waste no more.
‘So, Barry?’ she addressed him firmly. ‘Where are you going to sleep? Shall we make you comfy on the sofa? I’m afraid all the rooms are occupied.’
‘Couldn’t I share with you, Fran?’ Barry asked.
‘No,’ she said brutally. ‘Roy? Time for bed. Off you go—’
‘Now, hang on! Who are you to tell me when I should go to bed?’
‘Someone who has to be up very early in the morning,’ she said.
‘We don’t need your permission. We can go to bed when we like!’ Roy went on.
Fran was not letting up. ‘Not tonight you can’t. I’ve had no proper sleep for days and I have to be up at seven tomorrow to work on my cheese. You’re both going to have horrific hangovers in the morning. The longer you have to sleep them off, the better. Now off to the bathroom’ – she pointed in the direction of the door – ‘and when you come back I’m going to make you both drink a pint of water and take some painkillers. That may stave off the worst.’ They didn’t move. ‘Go on! Now!’
Barrycaved in first. He shambled off in the direction of the loo. Roy got up too, muttering darkly about uppity Sheilas and feminism having spiralled out of control.
‘God, you’re good,’ said Issi when they’d both gone. ‘Who knew you could be so bossy? They went off like lambs.’
‘I think the threat of the hangover helped. I’ll just get them their water and paracetamol.’
‘We should really give them milk thistle,’ said Issi, who’d become a bit of a hippy since she’d moved to the country.
‘I’d give them ketamine if I thought it would get them out of my hair.’ Fran was not going to pussyfoot around with flower remedies or anything remotely natural and benign.
‘The horse drug?’ Issi laughed. ‘You are one tough woman!’
Fran tried to stay awake until she could be sure that Roy and Barry were safely comatose but she couldn’t. Her eyes closed and that was all she knew until her phone alarm went at 7 a.m.
She dragged herself into consciousness. Did she have to feed the puppies? Then she remembered. The puppies were back with their owners. What she had to do now was drain her cheese.
She’d remembered about Roy and Barry when she got her first foot to the floor but as the housewassilent, she didn’t worry too much. She had to keep focused. She couldn’t be distracted by men with gin-overs.
She had the quickest shower on record, dragged on some clothes and then hurried into the cheese room. If she made herself a cup of tea she might find all kinds of destruction and have to get involved in tidying up, or making big greasy fry-ups for Roy and Barry. She could do that after she’d dealt with her cheese and was waiting for the courier.
The cheese room had its customary soothing effect. In here she was in control; she knew what to do. Drunken relatives and their friends were irrelevant. It was all about the milk, the cream and the magic they could create together.
The cheese was heavenly, she decided. There was no other word for it. It tasted like the very best clotted cream and although it was rich, its buttery flavour wasn’t cloying because of the hint of tartness right at the end. Although she’d eaten a fair amount of it in her time – she’d worked in an Italian restaurant for a bit – she had never tasted cheese as good as this. Issi was right: the cows and the unique pasture they grazed had produced something really special.
She wrapped it in several squares of muslin, portioning it out, and then into the large, wide-topped thermoses that Erica had somehow left behind after they did the cheese stall together.
Shewas confident, happy even. She would ring the courier.
Then she remembered that, annoyingly, there was no phone signal. She would have to go back into the house to use the landline. When she got there she found the landline in use.
‘Listen, mate!’ Roy was saying forcefully. ‘We need a taxi! And we need it now!’
Fran practised her breathing, in for five and out for eight – or was it the other way round? Rather than watch Roy insult people over the phone, she went into the kitchen. Issi was there. And she had a cup of tea.
‘Can I just have a sip?’ Fran asked, and purloined the mug.
