'Self-isolation' had become the key phrase over recent weeks; uttered by those in authority on both a national and local level. The boundaries to normal, daily, life were being drawn in ever tighter.
Luke wondered about it.
The phrase had been used on him by his new employers. They were taking no chances on having COVID-19 take out many of their key staff thus affecting productivity. Others in the company had been sent on their way too. Like him, they were to work from home. Connectivity, remote working, and hot-desking were all to be applied to the world that he had only just stepped into after completing a Master's degree.
He sure wasn't affected by it; but the spread of the virus across the world, even to towns not so far from where he had returned, had seen to it that he was not to attend the company's Winchester office until the 'all clear' sounded. Perhaps, over the rooftops, a long redundant wailing siren, or klaxon, would be heard; the ancient equipment re-employed to tell the local population that normal life could be resumed.
But what was normal life after you had been living in what felt like solitary confinement? He had endured these ways of it for over two weeks and there seemed to be no end in sight. His folks weren't exactly thrilled to have him here in the family home again; his two siblings were long gone. Their holiday plans had been brought to a shuddering halt, and he was with them; holed up in their home and preferring that over the alternative; to be in 'self-isolation' in a bedsit, with people he had yet to fully bond with and where the virus had persuaded them to keep away from any company; or to exchange curt greetings before moving away.
He sure as hell wasn't about to enjoy this cloistered existence for much longer but, thankfully, the office rang; or he called them about the work that he produced and that was demanded of him. So, no one could say that he was skiving off or taking it easy. The work filled much of his day, but his only too familiar environment kept him from any chance of pursuing any meaningful contact with others.
He thought that he had bidden farewell to the monkish existence that had been university life; hours of researching, writing up his thesis, and concentrating on getting to the end as quickly and successfully as possible.
'How much more of this?' he sighed as a soft knock on his door was now to be heard. He met his mother's concerned smile. She clutched a small tray. On it was a mug of coffee and biscuits. The supermarket's shelves hadn't been stripped bare of those; not just yet. The world had become somewhat surreal. She now passed the tray to him. 'Great, and thanks.'
'Not too close, dear,' she said on taking a step back onto the sunlit landing. Maggie looked past him. 'Good, I see that you have the window open.'
'Yes,' he sighed. 'I've done as you asked or nagged me to do.'
'For all of our sakes, dear.'
'Yes, I hear you, mother. I'm going out for a breath of air and go out for a cycle ride. If everyone's so closed-up, holed up in their homes, then the roads will be quiet and safer just for a change.'
'Do that,' she said seeing the papers he had been working on stacked up, neatly, on his desk. 'You are diligent, aren't you?'
'I wonder where I got that from?' he smiled. The tray shook in his hand as Luke drank from the mug. 'I'll bring this all down in a moment or two. I've got to get those papers bundled up and sent back to the office. 'I'll ring and let them know that they're in the post.'
'Do that. They'll hear that you're working.' Maggie saw the pout of his lips. 'I know this isn't ideal, for any of us.'
'You could say that.'
'Well,' Maggie went on, her voice lifting as if the opportunity to talk of something more important had arrived. 'To relieve the boredom or your frustration, with the world outside, a friend of mine needs some help at her stables. I wonder if you would be interested?'
'Jeez! Not Becky Williams again?'
'Yes, Becky. I told her that you were here, 'confined to barracks', so to speak, 'or shore leave cancelled', and I thought that you might welcome the distraction from desk work and being cooped up in here. You know what to expect with her. She's someone who doesn't always live by the rules.'
'Tell me about it,' he refrained from saying. He certainly did know that and what to expect where it concerned Rebecca Williams.
The woman that he remembered was only too haughty and given to dressing in practical clothes that still gave her an air of elegance and allowed her to behave in her superior ways. She sought control of everything that she touched, or of those she associated with. He really couldn't remember times when Becky was not to be seen seated on a horse and looking down on others.
'Toby's away I suppose?'
'Captain Williams is, yes,' his mother observed. 'Don't get overfamiliar about them.'
'As if I'd do that,' he replied with a laugh and choosing not to say more. 'I am a little older and wiser, remember, since those days.' He gathered up all that was to be posted and soon piled it up on the tray. He followed his mother down to the entrance hall. 'Do I need to call Becky, or do I just show up?'
'I'll let her know you're on your way. Go carefully and give her my regards. She'll be glad of your help, I'm sure of it. We haven't seen each other for some time, but we still speak on the phone.'
Luke didn't doubt it for a minute. He sure as heck was older and wiser in the ways of it, now. He'd been an innocent, then, compared to the young guy she would meet again today. He'd played the field when up at university, and then on a gap year out in Valencia. He had done that over the years since he had last seen her and yet, no one had succeeded in truly claiming him.
The fleshy blonde, so superior and in control, had been a revelation even through his innocent's eyes, then.
♠
The wind tugged at his hair and it made his soft lemon-yellow T-shirt hug his body and press his chinos to his legs as he cycled. The undulating countryside would have been a test were it not for the multitude of gears on his mountain bike. He was young and fit, so he hardly broke sweat as he made his way over the quiet road.
The house and landholding that Captain Toby Williams, RN, and his wife, Rebecca, owned and lived in, with its livery stables, was in the lee of Butser Hill. Views from the Downland vantage point, and out over the Solent and Portsmouth Harbour below, the Isle of Wight beyond, were to be treasured.
Even now, he recalled how little things seemed to have changed since he had last seen her. Becky was the wife of a successful, high-ranking naval officer. Even in these straightened times, he was often away at sea managing the commissioning of new ships and their crews. His absences invariably left Becky to manage the small farm and its livery stables on her own.
It was the thing to do; the only acceptable way for someone of her standing to be known doing, along with running boarding stables and teaching horsemanship to some choice students. Her kids were away at boarding school, so she fended for herself most of the time.
It was the way her life had been arranged that had first brought him into her orbit; pushed on or 'volunteered' by his mother, who knew Rebecca from some social grouping or other. Most of that was charitable work, of doing good deeds, and in the summer months helping to organise Gymkhanas and other 'horsey' and to be seen at events. They were gatherings that filled out the social calendar and her life alone.
Luke stopped by the side of the road on hearing his iPhone chirrup. 'Hi, mother, am I wasting my time?'
'No, dear. Becky's thrilled that you're on your way!'
'I'm almost there, as it happens.'
'Good. You'll let me know when you're on your way back, won't you?'
'Yes, don't I always?'
'Yes, true, Luke. I can't break old habits as you know.'
He wondered if Becky was of that mind too.
♠
Secluded, and with the meadows, yard, close-boarded stable blocks, and tack rooms all tended and kept in pristine condition, Luke soon realised that he was entering a domain where 'in ship-shape' was more than a descriptive phrase. The influence of the military mind was everywhere to be seen. He may have been a naïve eighteen-year-old when he had been suggested to Becky as a strong and willing yard boy, naïve, perhaps in the ways of the world but only too willing to learn over a long summer vacation and to earn some money.
When the yard, and land that went with it, came up for sale the Williams' had bought the holding and added it to the land that came with their modern, boxy, red-pantile roofed house.
He'd been turning eighteen when he had begun work for Becky Williams, and the first couple of weeks had been exhausting but uneventful. The hours of his days were long, given that he had taken to showing up before the end of his last term at school and did that for two days a week until school finished and he turned to every morning at the same time as Becky, with her man putting in some time but rarely on a regular basis. It was soon left to him to learn on the job, tasks that included maintaining the equipment and the property's boundary fences, along with helping some of the temporary yard staff keep the place up to the mark.
'You're a gift...a natural,' Becky had told him as he saw to it that the hay and grain were in the feed barn and some of it ready to be put in the stable blocks' troughs or, as Becky preferred, into the hay nets. 'I'll be sorry to see you go when you go to uni...'
'That's a long way off, Misses Williams,' he had smiled. Underneath that aloof exterior, Luke had begun to see a different woman, someone even he, inexperienced as he was, wanted to engage with.
'Call me Becky...I'm your mother's friend after all, so why not you too?'
He had taken to wondering where that familiarity had sprung from. Becky was very much the boss of the place, but people liked working for her. Everyone seemed to feel that way, including Fred the gardener; Vida, the Spanish housemaid; and then there were the two stable girls who prepped the horses for those who paid the livery costs.
'She's okay, long as you don't cross 'er...' was Fred's simple observation. 'Her man...the captain, now he's something else...' he had gone on to opine. 'I dunno how he can stay away from 'er, his woman, for so long. She's a bit of a looker, so something's wrong there.'
He'd not made his own observation on that because of having his youthful infatuation with Becky by that time; with the woman to be seen in those tight riding breeches; ankle boots, and those blouses and tops that shaped her. Why, indeed, would Captain Williams be away so much? The Royal Navy wasn't so big, these days, that there would be a shortage of men like him.
