Chapter 4

WHEN Gill woke up in the morning she was alone. She panicked for a moment, but then she could see a shadow on the tent and faintly hear Jake singing to himself. Clearly he was in a good mood and this energised Gill to rouse herself, her watch said it was only twenty-five minutes after six.

“Hi, honey,” she said with a bright smile, as she unzipped the tent, seeing Jake cooking their breakfast on the Primus stove, “Have you made any coffee, yet?”

“Hello, sweetheart,” Jake laughed, seeing her with her bed hair, “Yes, I’ve coffee ready, how do you take it?”

“Do you have any milk left?”

“UHT only.”

“I’ll take it black then, no sugar, Jake, but first, come here and give me a cuddle.” She opened up her arms.

“With pleasure.” Jake said, putting the bottle of water down next to the stove before approaching her, where he took her in his arms and shaped to kiss her.

“I haven’t washed or cleaned my teeth yet, Jake.”

“Don’t worry, I have and I don’t mind one little bit,” he proceeded to give her a toe-curling kiss that almost made her faint.

Sunday was a much nicer Spring day, cold and breezy but bright and sunny. They managed to walk up one of the smaller hills before setting out for the car park and then the long drive home, both tired but happy.

Gill felt that they had crossed a line between them and that they could now consider that they had a relationship. Where that was going, only time would tell, but Gill felt a level of enthusiasm about this development that she hoped would sustain them through any of her self-doubts.

Jenny first heard that Jake was hopefully arranging pony trekking in the New Forest for them all that coming weekend, during Sunday night, after her father dropped them off at Gill’s house. Gill told them that they had better get their homework and project work up to date by Thursday night or else.

Jenny was upset when she found that her mother had gone away for the whole weekend with Jake, and even spent Saturday night in a tent with him. She didn’t hear all the details, because Gill didn’t expand once she realised she had said too much, but Jenny’s mind filled in all that she imagined happened.

“What about you and Dad getting back together?” Jenny whined at her mother.

“We won’t be getting back together, Jenny, your Dad left me and now we’re not married anymore. The decree absolute which takes effect in a week’s time is all that is left of our marriage.”

“But they both argue all the time we’re there, it’s horrible; and the baby screams all night every night, Dad’s really unhappy there and has asked us what you would think if he wanted to come home.”

“If you remember, we had to sell ‘our home’ when your father left us. This is ‘my home’ now, young lady, your father has no place here other than at pre-arranged times to collect or drop you off. He will not be moving here now or at any time in the future.”

“But —”

“No buts, Jenny. Your father was the one person in this marriage who had the extra-marital affair. He was the one who fell out of love with me and fell in love with his lover to the extent that they produced that baby, their baby. He never once had the grace to discuss any problems he thought he had about our marriage, or ask me if he wanted us to increase the size of our family, before going out and making a new one of his own. He will have to learn to live with his new life, and I am learning to live my new life how I want to.”

Clay appeared happy either way but he did add, “Dad buys me stuff, fine, but he just hands me the box and abandons me to get on with it, using their crappy home PC, which I think Cheryl used to use for college a couple of years ago. He doesn’t want to play any of the games with me. Neither will he let me touch his much better office PC or his laptop, even though he can’t use ‘em both at the same time. I only met Jake again for five minutes before he’d given me his cool iPhone, properly showed me how to use a couple of great apps on it and trusted me with it all day. When we were kids and you left us in the copy shop, he used to be great. He always gave us loads of things to do and took an interest in us and what we were doing, set us puzzles or exercises and checked over what we produced. Dad doesn’t even want us around, he just dumps us with Cheryl and the baby most of the time.”

“Yeah, Jake’s a real cool guy,” Jenny agreed, “but he’s much too young for you, Mum. I mean, all the young mums on the ramble group only go along each month because he goes. He’s seriously yummy. Let’s face it Mum, getting back with Dad would be your best bet.”

“Get used to it, kids, especially you Jenny, your Dad’s completely out of the picture as far as I am concerned. The only point of contact I want with him is where it directly concerns you guys.”

“So, are you in love with Jake, then Mum?” Clay grinned, winking at Jenny, who rolled her eyes skyward.

“No, of course not!” she snapped, then relaxed, “All right you two, maybe I have or ... not yet really, but you can’t help who you fall in love with, so who knows? Jake’s a really nice guy and as Jen says, he could have his pick of young girls. Anyway, be prepared for all of us to go away this weekend pony trekking. It may be short notice, but Jake has a way of making things happen.”

Jake called her back late on Sunday night to confirm the booking and asked if she wanted to go out for dinner sometime in the week, “Not just you, Gill, all of you”, he added. So he took Gill out for dinner dates a couple of evenings that week, once as a ‘family group’ in company with Jenny and Clay, to a small family-run and family-friendly restaurant that Jake used from time to time.

On the second date, on Wednesday, when both kids were out doing other activities in the early evening, Gill drove over to Jake’s place for a home-cooked meal. They imposed an early curfew on their dinner date at nine o’clock, so that Gill would be home in time to collect the kids from their activities.

Jake cooked the meal at his small and spartan first-floor flat in a six-story block. The handsome building, built in the 1920s in Art Deco style, had a basement garage that Gill was given a clicker for while she was at work on Monday. The garage was half-filled with classic cars, including an old but immaculate Range Rover, parked next to Jake’s comfortable old saloon that they had used at the weekend. Jake had told her to park in Bay 10, which was a gap between his saloon and a beautiful dark blue Jaguar, another old classic that shone like it was forever kept lovingly polished.

Gill conceded that Jake was an accomplished cook, even though he shyly admitted that he rarely cooked for more than one, but enjoyed preparing honest fresh food.

On the pony trekking front, Jake had a little trouble booking somewhere at first, as all the stables in the New Forest were either booked up that weekend or were not yet open after the winter break. He was successful once he switched his attention to Dartmoor, however, finding a new stable that had only just started advertising for business, taking bookings for the summer. Jake proved to be persuasive in swaying them to take an early booking. They only had limited accommodation ready at such short notice but one room was made available for the girls to share, while Jake and Clay would have to use a tent on their campsite, but the owners were happy to welcome them as their first ever paying guests.

Jake drove them down on Friday night in an immaculate 27-year-old 4x4 Range Rover, that he told them had belonged to his father but confided to Gill that he had never driven it and when Jake was able to drive he found it only had five miles on the clock. Gill recalled seeing it parked next to his car. It had plenty of room inside and comfortable enough for the four of them, plus all their luggage and camping gear.

Gill and Jenny shared a small single-room cabin in a block of four that still smelt faintly of fresh paint. The other rooms were still unfinished, needing painting and the flat pack furniture being made up. There were separate facilities for washing and toilets and these were ready for use. Clay and Jake set up the tent that Jake had brought with him, in the adjacent camping ground. Jake set all the bits out initially and got Clay to erect it under instruction and explanation of the sequence. Clay had the biggest grin on his face as he guided his Mum and sister around the completed tent. His smiling Mum was full of praise for his efforts and his sister grudgingly conceded it was “alright, I s’pose”.

The two sisters who owned the newly-launched pony trekking set-up, prepared an evening meal for them on their arrival, and apologised for the paint smell. They had finished painting the day before and left the doors and windows open for as long as they could while they made up the flat pack furniture.

Following breakfast, the sisters showed them around the facilities and the stables before the whole party set out on their first gentle trek through the morning. They had a dozen ponies, but there were further outbuildings, which were to be improved, for further stabling, more guest rooms to refurbish and decorate and a planned canteen area to develop in a disused barn that had glorious exposed ancient timbers.

Rawlyn Burroughs and Izote Perry were sisters, age 28 and 32 respectively. They were born on this farm and had worked with animals, horses and ponies all their lives. Izote was investing the proceeds from her recent divorce to update the family farm for organised pony trekking. They admitted to Jake and Gill that they had extended themselves with the local high street bank right up to their credit limit. The farm had been in their family for four generations, and had been too small to run as an arable farm for quite some years. Jake told the sisters that they worked for one of the City of London’s oldest merchant banks and Gill offered to give her opinion of their plans.