more
than a balding carpet, an enormous Aga which made curious
bubbling sounds, and a bench table and chairs which seemed
to have been appropriated from a local picnic spot.
"Would you like some tea?"
"No thanks. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Logan, I could have
handed you the book and gone, you really didn't have to give
me dinner." To tell even more of the truth, I would rather
have stayed in Charlton Hawsell and tried to catch another
glimpse of the Stallion Man.
"No, I wouldn't hear of it! You've come all this way, the
least I can do is feed you. I'll run you back to your hotel later.
Have you booked in anywhere yet?"
"No. Didn't have time."
"Well. The Star should have a room. I'll give them a ring in
a bit, if you like."
The door opened and two men came in, identical except
for years. Both square, sandy and freckled, both similarly
booted and both smelling like pickled manure. They stumped
across the kitchen without acknowledging either Isabelle or
me and vanished through the opposite door, muttering darkly
53
Slightly Foxed
by Jane Lovering
about "the AI man". It was like living through an episode of
League of Gentlemen .
"My husband and son," Isabelle explained.
I refrained from saying, "Who's the other man?" because I
was afraid she wouldn't see the joke. "Here. Before I forget."
I held Theo out. "It must be awful to find you've inherited
something and then found it's been sold by mistake."
"Inherited?" she said. Simultaneously the door opened
again, and the man I'd seen that afternoon walked into the
kitchen. He muttered, "Little buggers jumped out," and
walked through, taking the same path as the other two men.
I stared after him, mouth open.
"Ah," said Isabelle Logan, the woman with the corridor
house. "Um."
"That's—" I started, still staring at the far door. "It is, isn't
it? He's considerably less dead than he should be."
"Oh dear." She dropped her head into her hands. "Oh God.
Come into the study." Isabelle opened another door and led
me into a tiny book-lined room. "I don't want him to overhear
us. He gets very sensitive about things." Sensitive? Looking
like that and sensitive? Bloody hell. She poured two glasses of
whisky and handed me one. "That man—Theo Wood. His
name is really Leo. He's my brother. Are you sure you want to
hear this?"
It was a little like being told that Johnny Depp was moving
in next door and was notorious for running out of sugar. My
dream man was no longer a dream but a real, striding-about-
in-my-vicinity human being. "Yes please." I took a mouthful
of alcohol against it being a story I wasn't going to like.
54
Slightly Foxed
by Jane Lovering
"It was Leo's thirty-fifth. He'd had a rough year, what with
his wife..." She tailed off.
Of course there'd have to be a bloody wife in there
somewhere.
"...and he's just so frustrating . Always scribble scribble at
those damn poems, never letting anyone see or read them.
Always like it, even as a child. He's got books full of them at
home you know. So, I sort of crept into his attic and chose a
selection, and got them privately published at a little place in
Exeter. Of course, knowing how shy Leo is, I thought if I
made up this dead poet and pretended that he'd written the
poems only his family would know who he really was, you
see."
Leo Forrester. Theo Wood. Dear God, did this woman have
no imagination?
"I gave one copy to our parents, and one to our uncle who
lived over in Topsham, then one copy to Leo for his birthday.
Well, he—"
I had a brief, scary flash into the mind of a shy, poetic
type forced to face the realities of his words becoming public
property. "He wasn't very happy?"
"Er. No. He didn't mind too much about the copies I'd
given away, but he made me give him the other hundred. I
was going to give them to the bookshop in Charlton, but Leo
didn't want—anyway. Our uncle died six months ago. I just
didn't think, got a house-clearance firm in to get