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The Shameless Hussies: read the novel online

Rumination:  Kidlington, Actually

The Oxfordshire village of Kidlington does not immediately conjure images of romantic or even particularly interesting ways of life.  Bisected by the A4260, totally untouched by the medieval splendour of Oxford itself, one’s impression is of sad semis and rows of uninspiring shops.   People drive through it on the way to somewhere else; to the passing motorist, it has neither character nor charm.   

      A change of job forced us to move closer to Oxford, and the house prices in town forced us back out to look in the villages.   The Kidlington estate agent’s advert for an old, neglected cottage on a dead-end lane was immensely appealing after our tiny starter home in Carterton.  I had vividly detailed Country Living daydreams about finally living in a period cottage.

     When my husband and I first saw the cottage in The Rookery, last but one on a terraced row, the windows were opaque with dirt, but a massive inglenook fireplace could be glimpsed through the grime, and there was an ancient clematis growing around the door.  It was my fantasy come true, less so for my husband, who fulfilled the male stereotype by focusing mainly the crumbling mortar and rotten window frames.

     Inside, it was obvious that the present owners had a full social life.  Wine stains covered the carpets and there was fossilised food left in the kitchen.  Downstairs, the smell of incense and patchouli lingered like the Ghost of Parties Past.  The main bedroom had been half decorated, and it was a safe bet that something more fun had prevented its completion. 

     There was nothing fun about the bathroom.  It resembled an abattoir that had seen a lot of action:  the tiles and all the fittings were the colour of dried blood, what an optimistic builder’s merchant would call ‘terracotta’.  Dirty terracotta.  Outside the front of the house there was a small plot, completely overgrown with weeds and brambles, bordered by a tall Cotswold stone wall. 

     Refusing to think about cleaning the bathroom, repeating ‘Country Living’ like a mantra, we made an offer on the spot.

     As we chipped away at the layers of filth in the little house, and began to reclaim the garden, we began to realise that the other residents were not what you would find on your average British housing estate.  The layout of The Rookery discouraged car drivers, the nearest parking being 100 yards away.  All of the gardens were located at the fronts of the cottages, only divided by low wire fences, and the main path was shared.  There were no net curtains to be seen.

     It was the closest thing to a commune that I have experienced.  The secluded setting of the lane itself, and the lack of physical barriers, broke down people’s usual reserve.  Children and pets roamed amongst all of the cottages, and everyone left their doors open in good weather.   It was common to find either someone else’s small person or cat asleep in one’s house, and a reckoning was done at the end of the day to return everyone to their rightful places.  Whoever lit the barbecue first expected others to turn up and contribute food and wine, and we sat outside, being buzzed by small planes from the airport, talking and laughing all during the long summer evenings.

     In the big house on the end was Miranda, a lady of a certain age and dirigible proportions.  Even in summer, she waddled down the lane dressed in several layers and, not uncommonly, a bobble hat.  Conversation was not her strong point, but her stream of visitors alerted us to the truth of her hidden life.  Most weekends, a procession of fascinating characters walked past our door on their way to hers:  Russian Orthodox priests, other heavily dressed ladies in hats, stocky men in explorer gear, and pagan mystics.   

     One glorious, hot summer day, we removed the abattoir.  Having heaved all the blood-coloured fixtures into the garden in preparation for replacing them, we were resting in the sun with several beers.  One of Miranda’s pagans approached on his way to her house, and stopped, aghast.  ‘I don’t believe it!’ he said.  ‘Where did you get that?’ We rolled our eyes in acknowledgement of the horror.  He said, ‘I’ve been looking for that colour everywhere – I have a shower room to match!’

     Next door were Callum and Deborah, he a very Scottish trainee paediatrician and she a former nurse raising two small girls.  Nothing completes a family picture like a dog, so they acquired a black Labrador puppy call Cedric.   Cedric had the typically omnivorous habits of his breed, and quickly began his project of reducing pieces of furniture, cleaning equipment, clothing, and electronics to their constituent molecules. 

     I once came home to find Cedric lounging on the communal path in the sunshine, a pair of fancy remote control units and a camera tied to his collar.  He licked at them with interest.  A wild-eyed Deborah emerged from the door, and panted, ‘I heard that tying things to the collar stops them chewing!’  Tragically, it was too late to test this theory with the sofa.

     Next in the row was Penelope, a retired lady radiographer whose washing line was dominated by pants that were easily large enough to provide sail power for a small boat.   She had a beard and a casual approach to personal hygiene which kept the children out of her house.   Miranda and Penelope generally supported each other, except when they were in their cars.  As neither of them had much visual acuity or reflexes left, there were several bad-tempered, slow-motion collisions in the lane.

     Ernie and Elsie lived in the next house, a couple of transplanted Northerners who retained their strong accents.  They had a deep distrust of modern conveniences, eschewing both the telephone and washing machine in their house.  Proud of their scavenging skills, they trawled the fields for firewood, mushrooms, and berries.  Ernie could be seen running after cyclists who were taking their shopping home, scooping up the odd potato or sprout that escaped the paniers.

    Fiona and Paul lived with their three children in the house whose garden backed on to the high stone wall at their end of our plot.  Fiona was the first to offer us a welcome glass of wine when we moved in, thereby inducting us into the alcohol appreciation which characterised social life in The Rookery.

     After one particularly stormy winter night, we woke to find that the view from our bedroom window had changed drastically.  A large section of the stone wall which had stood for 200 years at the bottom of our garden was gone.  In its place was now an enormous hole, with tons of rubble at its base.  Time, wind, and grasping ivy had brought it down. 

     The cost of rebuilding was prohibitive, so The Gap, as it became known, simply provided a thoroughfare for the children and pets on their escape missions.  It also made it easier to hear a cork being pulled from a bottle on either side of the wall. 

     My marriage came to a sad but amicable end after 10 years.  The worries of sustaining the mortgage, being single for the first time in a decade, and coping on my own threatened to wreck my resolve to stay in the house.  But the odd residents of The Rookery were by now my friends, and I did not feel alone.  Everyone supported me, and I felt comforted by the familiar, eccentric rhythms of the lane.   The house itself seemed happy that I had stayed.  I made the transition, aware that the story would have been very different had I been living on an anonymous estate.

     Penelope eventually died, so did Eric.  The wall was finally rebuilt.  Fiona and Paul split up, Deborah and Callum moved away.    New people arrived to take their place but they were not of the same spirit, preferring to keep their doors closed.   Miranda and I were the last of the group left.  Just as I was beginning to worry that I might also become an over-dressed recluse, I met someone wonderful and left The Rookery to live with him. 

     One of my most enduring images from The Rookery was one New Year’s Eve, close to midnight.  We were all standing around in the cold with our drinks, and I was feeling so at peace with the world.  Suddenly the sound of bagpipes burst the air.  Through The Gap came Cedric, carrying a lighted lantern in his teeth, for once his jaws employed in something other than destruction.  Behind him was Callum with his pipes, picking through the rubble and playing ‘Auld Lang Sine’.  The lantern’s light was diffused by the freezing fog as the eerie notes of the pipes filled the night, transforming Callum into a character from ‘Brigadoon’. 

     It was a magical time, in an extraordinary place:  Kidlington, actually.

  Vanessa

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