‘I hear you had a good time down in London,’ her dad had said with a knowing look. ‘I hope you’ve learnt your lesson. We’ve all done it. But you want to be careful with booze, Gemma. It’s lethal stuff if you over-imbibe.’
To make matters worse, she had such complicated feelings about Archie. Of course, she hated him. He’d taken advantage of her—she actually shook, thinking about it—and then just chucked her out when his dad showed up—further shaking at the memory of that—it had all been so deeply, horribly, hideously humiliating. She had a brief flashback of Mr Straker peering down at her, her skirt pulled up, and felt breathless with shame. Nobody must ever, ever find out, she would die if they did. She would never go to London again in her life. And if they really did have to move to Hampshire, which she now prayed they didn’t, she would never leave the house, so she wouldn’t run any risk of seeing Archie.
There again, the idea of seeing him was not entirely repellent, she had to admit that. Although it filled her with panic and a kind of wounded fury, she was also excited. She knew he was good-looking, extremely good-looking, in fact; fit, with a really cute smile. She remembered how he’d looked at her when they were dancing, with his fringe hanging over his face and a fag in his mouth. He was a great dancer. And, later, when all that happened at his parents’ place—she shuddered—he must have been her boyfriend, wasn’t he? Otherwise they wouldn’t have been there. He’d chosen her, chosen her from those hundreds of other girls, she was the one he’d taken home to that big posh mansion.
For a fortnight she harboured hopes he might contact her. Each time the phone rang, she started, wondering if it was him. She wasn’t sure if he knew her number—she was pretty sure he didn’t—so that explained it. On the one occasion she couldn’t avoid going down to Chawbury with her mum, she half hoped to find a letter from him on the mat. But there was no letter, though she searched every part of the half-built house. She considered posting a note to the Strakers’ house, to Chawbury Manor, which she could actually see across the fields, but lost her nerve. When they drove past the entrance to the drive, she ducked her head. Once, her mum had said, ‘I’ve just got to pop over to Davina’s for a quick catch-up about the charity function. Want to come with me?’
‘I’d rather stay here,’ Gemma had said, quickly.
‘Come on, you don’t want to hang about here on your own, you’ll be in the builders’ way. Davina’s got a lovely kitchen and some of her kids might be around, you never know.’
But Gemma, colouring, was immovable. ‘Mum, I just want to stay here, ok?’
‘You are a strange bunny,’ Dawn said. ‘One minute you’re saying you don’t know anyone round here and then you don’t want to meet them when you get your chance. Well, please yourself, but don’t come complaining about being bored.’
And always, hanging over her, was the business of her period. It wasn’t that Gemma exactly considered herself an expert on the subject, but it did worry her it hadn’t come for so long. She knew from Sugar and Bliss, which she used to read all the time, that people did sometimes skip their periods and nothing was amiss, but she didn’t remember hearing about it happening three or four times in a row. She didn’t feel she could mention it at school because the news would spread like wildfire, like it did when Anais confided in Sarah and Rachel last term about kissing that boy outside the Vue cinema. And she couldn’t tell Debbie, of course, because her sister would definitely tell mum, and anyway she just couldn’t.
So she told no one, and each morning hoped it would all be alright. And when her mum said, ‘Those trousers are looking a bit tight on you, Gemma. And they’re only new too,’ she blushed crimson.
It was a Monday afternoon at Chawbury and Davina was in her favourite spot in the garden, concealed inside dark green walls of the yew bower, with her paints and easel, deckchair, newspaper and a novel.
If truth be told, Monday was her favourite day of the week, being the day she spent almost entirely alone with no Miles to hector her or boss her about, and very often no children either. Officially, Monday was the day she spent doing the garden and taking care of the housekeeping details that such a large set-up demanded. In truth, she would spend two happy hours on her knees in the flowerbeds, staking and weeding the herbaceous borders, then call it a day. By eleven o’clock she was playing with her watercolours or reading a diverting novel by Joanna Trollope or the Daily Mail. If friends rang and tried to make plans to meet up on a Monday, she did her best to resist them, often pretending she’d be up in London which was a white lie. She loved the luxury of spending a lazy day in her garden with a chance to sit still for once, rather than constantly charging about. With Miles around, there was never a single moment of downtime. Even when he was messing about on one of his JCBs, thinning trees or grinding tree stumps, she couldn’t relax. At any moment he would be overcome by a sudden social blood sugar low, and crave people to amuse him, restless to start some new project, or critical of some arrangement in the house.
She chose to spend her days in the garden because there, at least, noone could get hold of her. To Miles’s irritation she seldom kept her mobile with her, or would leave it turned off for hours at a time. Nor did she look at the computer very often. When she did, the screen was filled with messages from Miles’s office, reminding her of one diary date or another.
‘For heavens sake, Davina,’ Miles would say, ‘please respond to your damn messages. We can’t run our life if you won’t check your emails.’
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she’d reply, only half truthfully, ‘but I was working in the garden all day. I didn’t get into the house once.’
Miles was settled in his favourite window seat, A2, in a First Class cabin on the 8 p.m. flight from JFK to Heathrow Terminal 4.
As usual on a British Airways flight, he was feeling supremely irritable. Cocooned by simpering stewards and stewardesses, and already issued with a glass of Dom Perignon and a menu from which to choose a delicious dinner, Miles felt all his familiar petulance welling up.
For a start, there was the ghastly ‘Wellbeing in the Sky’ video they made you watch before take-off, surely the most patronising feature ever invented. Miles flinched as a sugary, mellifluent voice encouraged him to relax and take part in a succession of ankle-rotating exercises. Snorting, he turned the screen to the wall, so he could no longer see it, but the naff, soapy soundtrack persisted.
Then the Captain (if there really was such a person these days, weren’t these planes all steered by remote control?) began introducing the passengers to the cabin crew over the tannoy. Once again, Miles bridled. He had no earthly interest in knowing the airhostesses’ names. It wasn’t as if he was going to see them ever again. ‘In our World Traveller cabin, we have Janet, Lauraine, Melanie and Stewart …’ Miles rolled his eyes: Stewart! Another gay Scottish steward, it was unbelievable, the airline was infested with them. ‘While in our Club World cabin we have Senior Purser Alan Twigg, assisted by Vicky, Leanne and Duncan …’ What Miles found so futile was that none of these trolley dollies had even met each other before, they were just random people picked for shifts by computer, so why pretend they were some kind of bonhominous team?
On and on flowed the rubbish. Miles flew so frequently he knew every announcement by heart, despite his best efforts not to. Next would come the little speech from the chief airhostess about their primary role being the health and safety of passengers. No it wasn’t! Their role was to serve dinner and drinks as quickly as possible. Then there would be the unutterably maddening ‘Change for Good’ announcement, when customers were urged to donate spare centimes, liras, euros or whatever to Unicef, made in the same syrupy, insincere voice. Each time Miles heard it, it made his spine rigid with annoyance. As if he filled his suit pockets with small change! He couldn’t understand why First Class passengers were obliged to listen to it. Yet there was no way of switching it off; it was practically Cambodian.
Once he’d got into a mood, there was no rescuing him. Toni
ght, everything about the flight annoyed him. The one and only choice of main course he wanted for dinner was already taken. God, it was infuriating. Was it so much to ask from a £6,800 return ticket: one tiny morsel of grilled salmon? He barked at the stewardess who apologised the salmon option had been taken already. He waved away supper, just to make her feel bad, and asked for a bag of peanuts, only to be told they’d been banned because of passengers with nut allergies. Nut allergies! Did she honestly believe First Class passengers had nut allergies or, if they did, that they were too unintelligent to recognise a peanut when they saw one? No, nut allergies were the province of economy passengers. He switched on the movie, only to have it interrupted by the Captain offering to sell duty free and warning about turbulence. (Miles noticed that, however turbulent, the trolley dollies still managed to disturb everyone with their intrusive fragrance offers.)
It was a point of honour for Miles that, whenever the seatbelt sign was switched on, he should stand up and go to the loo. He enjoyed the slight lawlessness of it, and the disapproving look on the cabin crews’ faces. He was striding up the aisle looking out for other First Class passengers he might know, such as his numerous CEO clients who used this route, when he did a double take. He had arrived at the washroom at the back of his section when, through the gaping blue curtain into Club World, he spotted a familiar face. Surely that was Ross Clegg sitting there?
Instinctively he turned away, but a voice said, ‘Miles? Hiya, it’s Ross.’
‘Oh, yes, Ross.’ Miles hovered at the Club World threshold, peering at all the not-quite-made-it businessmen who couldn’t justify flying First. Most of the passengers were asleep on their flatbeds, masks in place, mouths gaping, but Ross was bolt upright, briefcase of papers open on his lap, next to a tray of hardly touched dinner. To his annoyance, Miles saw Ross had grilled salmon.
‘Been over in the Big Apple, Miles?’ Ross was asking.
Miles flinched at the cliché, and replied, ‘A couple of meetings, that’s all.’
‘Well, don’t let me keep you from the toilet,’ Ross said. ‘I expect we’ll be seeing each other on Saturday. The girls have done a grand job co-chairing the party, haven’t they? Dawn says Davina’s been a star, pulling in the prizes.’
Miles, who hadn’t appreciated how involved Dawn was in the garden opening, since Davina had omitted to tell him, looked blank.
‘This great shindig on Saturday in aid of the hospice,’ Ross said. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten! Dawn’s twisted the arms of half our suppliers to contribute gifts. She’s practically been living up at the manor, helping Davina get it all together.’
Miles glared in the darkness. Davina hadn’t said anything, she’d intentionally deceived him. Hadn’t he specifically told her not to get involved with the Cleggs?
An airhostess appeared at his shoulder in maroon and blue blouse. ‘Mr Straker? The captain has switched on the seat belt sign. If you wouldn’t mind returning to your seat.’
Normally, Miles would have minded very much. He hated being bossed about. But he was only too glad to escape from Ross. ‘I’m impressed you can work out here in the cheap seats,’ he said, as he withdrew to his own section.
‘Got to be careful with my shareholders’ money,’ Ross replied. ‘See you Saturday at your place then, Miles.’
13.
Still furious with Davina for teaming up with Mrs Clegg, Miles decreed that visitors to the garden party should not enter through the house, but instead walk round the side of the manor, via the garage courtyard where his half dozen tractors and JCBs lived, to reach the lawn where the stalls had been erected.
‘It’s not like the people coming will be personal friends,’ he complained to Davina. ‘It’s just anyone with fifty pence entry money who fancies a snoop round our property. If the Cleggs have invited half of them, God knows what’ll turn up. Criminals casing the joint, I shouldn’t be surprised. Or coaches full of check-out-girls from his cash-n-carries. I don’t know why you’ve gone and got yourself involved with these ghastly people when I told you not to.’
Davina began explaining it was Philippa Mountleigh who had suggested the collaboration with Dawn, and invitations had been sent out to the regular hospice mailing list, but Miles wasn’t listening. He was already in a furious bate, having experienced the Cleggs’ new exterior lighting for the first time the previous night. The horizon had been lit up by a fuzzy orange glow like the perimeter of an airfield or the aftermath of nuclear disaster from dozens of mushroom-shaped bulbs buried in the Cleggs’ lawn, or angled at their spindly new trees. For fifteen minutes he’d stood at the bedroom window, fuming, while Davina tried to coax him to bed. Even when they’d redrawn the heavy Colefax curtains, he felt he could see the orange light leaking round the edges, bringing a Halloween chimera to the room.
‘How many people are coming to this damn thing anyway? Not more than eighty, I hope.’
‘Well, they sent out six hundred letters, but they’re not expecting anything like that number,’ Davina said hurriedly. ‘Last year it was a couple of hundred, I believe.’
‘Grief,’ said Miles. ‘The lawn’s going to be bald with all those hoards tramping across it. And we need to keep a sharp eye on the borders, because nobody thinks twice about stealing cuttings from plants. A lot of them bring secateurs specially. Snip, snip, open their handbags, in it goes. I’m telling you, it happens. Ask anyone who opens their house to the public.’
Miles strolled down to the lower lawn, beyond the yew hedge, where two parallel lines of trestles were in the process of being arranged by their respective stallholders. At once his mood lifted, since he spotted several women he considered worth talking to, including Serena Harden with whom he had been conducting an on-off affair for two years. Serena’s husband, poor Robin Harden, who never kept a job for longer than a year, was unpacking a selection of scented candles, oven gloves, kneeling cushions for gardeners and traditional Hampshire trugs from a cardboard box, for his wife’s country gift stall. In all, there must have been fourteen or sixteen stalls, still in a state of half-dress, but already displaying an array of pretty, charming, faintly manky and unneeded goods, of the kind that could only be given away as duty presents at Christmas time, to cleaning ladies or unloved aunts. Miles had a particular hatred of twee knick-knacks, though Davina loved them and bought them whenever she could, squirreling them away in a special cupboard: nettle and camomile soaps in hemp sleeves, overstuffed lavender bags with seeds already leaking from their seams, slabs of honeycomb and tiny test-tube shaped vases large enough to hold a single rose. Elsewhere, he could see stalls selling embroidered pashminas and nightdresses, and sets of linen tablecloths and napkins machine-stitched with primroses and farmyard chicks. This particular stall was already manned by Philippa Mountleigh and Bean Winstanton, from whom Miles was persuaded to buy a set of six eggcup cosies, each in the shape of a guardsman’s bearskin.
Next door, Archie was assisting the Lord Lieutenant at the bottle tombola, on which a bizarre array of random bottles had been set up: Jeroboams of vintage claret next to bottles of Johnnie Walker and Orangina, flagons of Sussex cider, Bulgarian and Chilean chardonnay, bottles of Tabasco and HP sauce, litres of Diet Coke and half-bottles of Sauternes, each festooned with a bow of ribbon around the neck, and a pink or blue cloakroom ticket sellotaped to the label. Miles was irritated to see half a dozen bottles of his best Chateau Canon St Emilion, which Archie cheerfully admitted he’d lifted from the cellar.
‘I think you might have asked first,’ Miles said, glaring at his son, but not quite wishing to erupt in front of the Lord Lieutenant.
‘Buy some tickets, dad. You might win them back. Go on, six for twenty quid.’
Reluctantly, Miles handed over a twenty-pound note, and won the bottle of HP sauce.
The garden was now filling with visitors, all anxious for a glimpse of the Strakers’ house. From time to time, Miles allowed Chawbury Manor to be photographed for magazines, as a backdrop for his tightly
-controlled self-publicity ventures, and this only fanned local curiosity to see the place in real life. Several years earlier, the interior of the manor had been shown in House & Garden, over eight pages, and more recently the garden, in autumn hues, had appeared in Gardens Illustrated. Although he was unaware of this, the editors of both magazines had vowed never to get involved with Miles Straker ever again, since he’d made such a nuisance of himself, insisting on approving every layout and caption, and demanding constant small amendments to the text.
Looking at the hoards of strangers pouring through his Linley garden gate and up the herbaceous walk, Miles wasn’t sure how comfortable he felt about all this. At his own parties, the guest list was obsessively micro-managed, with every invitation issued with a specific end in mind, the redemption of a social debt or priming of a new business relationship. Today was a free-for-all of riff-raff: nondescript elderly couples with walking sticks and surgical stockings, or even in wheelchairs, leaving track marks on the carefully-mown yew walk; slapheads from the village clutching open cans of Carling from the bottle tombola, nosy old women he thought he recognised from the village shop, all interspersed with the Hampshire smart set in panamas and summer dresses, exclaiming how very lucky we’ve been with the weather.
He looked round for his children but, apart from Archie, none were anywhere to be seen. Well, they’d better be there somewhere, pulling their weight. Although today wasn’t a Miles Straker production, it was still taking place in his garden, and he expected the family to be on duty, conveying the right impression.
Samantha, it so happened, had only recently emerged from her bed and was sitting in the kitchen in her nightdress with a cup of coffee waiting to summon the energy to run a bath. Four weeks after her return from Thailand, she was annoyed her tan was starting to fade and was smothering herself in products to revive it. The prospect of ‘this fete or whatever’ in the garden didn’t exactly fill her with joy, though she supposed she may as well wander down later on, just in case anyone interesting had showed up. Not that she was holding her breath. Since returning to England she’d been unable to shake off the listlessness that had overcome her in Koh Samui. After months of doing nothing, she was finding it difficult to move up a gear. To make matters worse, her dad was pressurising her with questions about what she intended to do next in life, and wanting her to go to university. Sam couldn’t think of anything worse. She’d had it up to here with education. All she wanted was to live at the house in London and be in London. If she had to get a job, she could surely find something helping out at Asprey or Cartier or somewhere.
Pride and Avarice Page 9
