[Churchminster #3] Wild Things Read Free Page B

‘I saw Clementine when I was out riding yesterday. She’s holding a meeting on Sunday, to form a committee to get the village in tip-top shape. In fact, I was thinking of attending.’ She held her breath.
    Her husband gave a derisive snort. ‘That Standington-Fulthrope woman! She’ll have you litter-picking on the green before you know it Frances. How old Bertie S-F put up with her, bossing everyone around … Must have been like sharing a bed with Mussolini.’
    As they rounded a sharp bend his inflammatory comments were quickly forgotten. A large silver estate car was heading straight for them. Ambrose slammed on the brakes and the Range Rover came screeching to a halt just feet from the other vehicle.
    Frances lurched forward, only just stopping herself from going into the dashboard. She could see a middle-aged man and woman and two young children in the car, with a boot full of suitcases. The man was shaking his fist out the window at them.
    ‘You bloody lunatic!’ he shouted. In the back, the little girl started crying.
    ‘He’s right, Ambrose! Why do you have to drive like a maniac?’ Frances felt as though her heart was about to jump out of her chest.
    Her husband muttered something about tourists clogging the place up, and Frances tried to regain her composure. The lane was so narrow, neither vehicle could get past. One of them was going to have to move.
    ‘Ambrose, there’s a lay-by back there. Just reverse and let them past.’
    Her husband sat back and folded his arms. ‘Why should I? I live here, not him. It’s my right of way.’
    ‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ Frances cried. In the other car, the man had also crossed his arms and was trying to out-stare Ambrose. Frances and the woman exchanged fleeting sympathetic glances: why were men so childish? But before Frances could tell him to reverse again, Ambrose had unbuckled his seat belt and was climbing out from the car.
    ‘Ambrose!’ Surely he wasn’t going to confront the other driver! But instead he disappeared round the back of their vehicle, and Frances heard the boot being opened. A few seconds later, Ambrose marched past her car window carrying a shooting stick and a copy of the
Daily Telegraph
. Frances’s mouth dropped open: what on earth was he doing?
    She didn’t have to wait long to find out. To the astonishment of the onlookers Ambrose sat down on his shooting stick in the middle of the road, opened his paper and started to read. In the other car the man looked at his wife and made a ‘he’s crazy’ hand gesture to his head.
    ‘Ha!’ Ambrose called triumphantly. ‘I’m retired and I’ve got all the time in the world to sit here all day. I very much doubt
you
have, sir!’
    Frances slid down her window. ‘Ambrose, get back in the car this instant!’ she hissed.
    Her husband turned a page, making a point of sighing contentedly. The other couple were looking extremely cheesed off.
    ‘I’m frightfully sorry!’ Frances mouthed through the windscreen at them. The man shook his head in disgust and begrudgingly started to reverse back down the lane. It was a full minute later that Ambrose looked up from his newspaper, folded up his shooting stick and finally returned to the Range Rover.
    Frances’s throat was tight with mortification. Her husband’s behaviour was becoming increasingly questionable, but this was taking it to a new level. She watched him turn on the ignition. ‘Are you happy now?’ she asked crossly.
    Ambrose just shot her a smug look and pulled away with the air of a man who had won an important battle. As the green fields started to fly past again, Frances gazed out of the window in silent despair.
    Dear Lord
, she thought.
Is this what my life has come to?

Chapter 4
    THE DAY BEFORE the meeting in the village hall Clementine received a letter from the Britain’s Best Village judging panel. As well as the different categories, the letter also included the names of the other three villages that had made