A reporter and photographer from the local paper were covering the event for the Olympia Guardian, and Mollie was embarrassed when they asked to take her picture. Having worked flat-out until curtain-up shifting chairs and benches into the hall, and helping backstage making coffee and snacks for the performers, she hadn’t had a moment to smarten herself up and knew she looked a fright.
She was posing in a line-up with her headmaster, plus the community outreach officer and the deputy director of development for the ENO, when an overweight man in tinted glasses barged his way into the picture. For a moment, Mollie couldn’t place him, though she was sure she’d seen him before somewhere. Having positioned himself in the centre of the group, he beamed at the photographer, waiting for him to take the picture. When the reporter approached them with her notebook to check their names, the man said, ‘Greg Clegg. Chair of the Labour Arts and Leisure Panel, Hammersmith and Fulham Council.’
‘Greg?’ said Mollie. ‘It’s me, Mollie. Mollie Straker. Remember? Your neighbour in Chawbury.’
Greg looked at her, surprised. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I teach here. At the school. And I got the opera to come here for the show.’
‘Ah yes,’ replied Greg, addressing himself to the reporter. ‘Initiatives like tonight are a key plank of our Bringing Culture to the Community outreach programme. A Labour-endorsed initiative to prioritise the performing arts in inner-city areas of special need.’
The reporter was writing it all down in her notebook, nodding encouragement.
‘For too long,’ Greg went on, ‘what might be termed “the higher arts” have been kept as the elitist preserve of the very rich, under successive Tory arts policies. Now, at grass roots community level, Labour is committed to the democratisation of so-called culture, making it accessible to everyone irrespective of creed or colour.’
The reporter was still nodding away.
‘Under a Labour authority,’ he proclaimed, ‘culture has no price barrier to entry.’
‘And Pendletons were really generous and sponsored it all,’ said Mollie, feeling she should acknowledge Laetitia’s help.
‘Yes,’ said Greg, ‘another of our New Labour initiatives: working in partnership with business in the community. Within the context of our overall framework, of course.’ He then retrieved from his wallet a business card with the red rose of Labour termo-printed on the top, and thrust it into the reporter’s hand. ‘Feel free to call if you need further information. I’m a close personal friend of your editor, by the way.’
After the reporter had left, Greg said, ‘I hadn’t realised you’re employed by the local authority, Mollie. I can’t believe your dad approves of you working in the state sector.’
Mollie laughed. ‘You’re right. He thought I was mad when I told him. He’d rather I was teaching at some private school in Kensington. But it wouldn’t be nearly so satisfying.’
‘So you like it down here with us plebs?’
‘The kids I teach are great. It’s very fulfilling. I really feel I’m making a difference.’ She started telling him about some of the children in her class and how concerned she was that, by the time they turned twelve or thirteen, there was so much peer-pressure to get into drugs and gangs and joy-riding in stolen cars. ‘Some of the estates, they’re incubators for crime.’
Halfway through her speech Mollie felt she was losing Greg’s attention, because his eyes were roaming the sports hall, so she said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m being boring. Dad’s always saying I bang on too much.’
‘Not at all,’ Greg replied, pulling himself back. ‘I’m impressed. I wouldn’t have expected social responsibility from a Straker somehow. I thought you lived in an ivory tower.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Mollie. ‘Well, I guess some of my family do. Anyway, it’s been nice seeing you again. I didn’t realise you’re on the council.’
Greg was affronted. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t seen my literature. There’s a flier that goes to everyone in the ward. Saying what I’ve achieved for the community.’
‘I’m sorry, I’ll look out for it.’
‘Listen, give me your address and I’ll get someone to post you the recent ones. I’d like to. And give me your phone number.’ It occurred to Greg there might be some advantage in cultivating Miles Straker’s daughter. He didn’t yet know what it might be, but sensed she was a socialist sympathiser and perhaps this could be used against the Conservatives at some point in the future.
Besides, he rather liked the idea of having an in to the perfect family at Chawbury Manor, and making an ally of Samantha’s kid sister.
There was something guileless and idealistic about Mollie which, in his cynical way, he found attractive.
40.
Ejected from the Gunn apartment in Eaton Square, and banished from Holland Park Square on the orders of her dad, Samantha was suddenly homeless. Lila, the Thai maid, packed her suitcases with care and tissue paper, and now Sam was standing on the steps of Dick’s white stucco building wondering where the hell to tell the taxi driver to take her.
In the end, she rang Gaz and he said, ‘Yeah, sure, come over to Draycott Gardens, that’s cool babe, no problem.’ So in less than fifteen minutes she had occupied the little back bedroom and dumped her stuff. It was the perfect place to crash and Gaz was great about it, asking only a hundred quid a week for rent and letting her run a tab for gear. ‘Pay me when you’ve got the cash,’ he said. ‘Now, what can I give you, babe?’
For six weeks, Sam barely left the flat. There was so much happening there, people coming and going, the phone ringing off the hook, time passed in a blur. Nobody got up before midday at the earliest, and most days her breakfast consisted of dry Ricicles or Frosties (there was seldom any milk) and a glass of open wine from last night. In the afternoons, she smoked dope or took cocaine against the backdrop of daytime TV. Sometimes Gaz handed her cash to buy bread and coffee at Cullen’s on the Fulham Road, but mostly she just hung indoors. Most nights there were a dozen or more people over, dossing on sofas or cushions on the floor. More than once, Sam wondered whether she should ring her mum and tell her where she was, but it would be too much hassle going into the split with Dick. Much of the time she was too out-of-it to talk coherently, in any case. So she existed in limbo in a semi-permanent daze and had no wish to change a thing as the days ran into one another.
After a couple of months, Gaz said, ‘Hey, Sam, you know you owe me over three grand, babe? £3,400 to be precise.’
‘Is it that much? I didn’t realise.’ She felt rising panic.
‘You’ve been going for it babe. Hoovering up the nice stuff.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back soon.’
‘How about today, babe? I need cash, I owe people myself.’
Sam was stricken. The last three times she’d tried to withdraw money from the ATM, she’d been rejected. Nothing seemed to be flowing into her account, she didn’t know why, and she didn’t like to call her dad. How she missed those wodges of cash Dick left out for her. Right now, she hadn’t even enough money to get her hair cut, or buy stuff from the chemist.
‘Gaz, I’ll get the money soon, promise. Soon as I can. It might have to be a week or two …’
‘Can’t your dad lend it? I thought you were meant to be a fucking heiress or something?’
Sam shrugged.
‘Listen, I do need that cash. I’m being pressed for it myself. You do have the money, don’t you?’
‘I’m fairly sure I can get it. I think so,’ she said uncertainly.
‘Because if it’s a problem, I know how you could make some. Easy money. Like, people make thousands a week. And you’ve got the looks for it, they’d snap you up.’
Sam looked blank, so Gaz said he’d make a call for her, and arrange for her to meet up with some people he was friendly with.
It was Miles’s Sunday night routine to leave Chawbury Manor after an early supper and drive up to London with whichever
children had been staying for the weekend. This Sunday only Peter was home, so shortly before 9 p.m. they loaded their bags, Miles’s two briefcases and Peter’s acoustic guitar and set off for the big smoke.
Turning left at the end of the drive in the direction of Micheldever, they were approaching the new electric gates to Chawbury Park when Ross’s black jeep pulled out ahead of them. Inside, they could see the back of Ross’s and Dawn’s heads.
Instantly competitive, Miles waited for a straight stretch before pulling out and overtaking. As he passed he hooted and gave a little wave. It felt good to be putting empty road between himself and the Cleggs.
Forty miles up the M3 he stopped for petrol at Fleet Service Station. As usual, he felt mildly exhilarated by the enormous volume of fuel his Jensen consumed, especially as it was paid for by his company. The dial was approaching ninety pounds when the Cleggs’ Cherokee drew up at the next pump.
‘Hiya, Miles,’ Ross said, reaching for the diesel nozzle and withdrawing it from its holster. ‘I’ve just had all the vehicles switched to diesel. Lower emissions.’
‘Have you really,’ Miles replied flatly, signalling lack of interest.
‘I’ll email you over the data,’ Ross replied. ‘There’s a website with an emissions calculator. Nothing complicated. Even I can understand it.’ Since his conversation with Serena, and Debbie telling him something about a file on Freeza Mart in Miles’s car, Ross was wary of him, but resolved not to show it. You know what they say: stick close to your friends and closer to your enemies.
‘Ah,’ said Miles, heading inside to pay. He joined what looked like the shortest queue and waited in line. Service stations were places he instinctively despised, with their plastic fittings, moronic cashiers and complete lack of insulation from ordinary people. He gazed in pained dismay at his fellow customer and the repellent snacks they were piling into their baskets: the phallic pepperoni sausages, bonus-sized Yorkies, pasties and pies. It annoyed him there was no Fast Track line, like at the airport, for people prepared to pay a bit more.
His irritation grew when he noticed Ross’s queue was moving faster than his own. Ross was, in fact, now slightly ahead of him, with just one person between him and the cashier, whereas there were two in Miles’s queue. Ahead, some gormless punter was asking advice from the cashier about motor oil, and now—intolerable—discussing Nectar points.
Ross had paid and was walking back past him down the line. ‘See you, Miles. I’ll email you over the address of that website.’
Back on the motorway, Miles did his best to make up ground; he was determined to overtake the Cleggs’ jeep and reach Holland Park Square before them. All the way into London, he was scanning the road ahead.
As they turned off Holland Villas Avenue, however, and up towards their square, they passed Ross unloading suitcases into the Clegg mansion. Dawn was crossing the pavement with a pile of clothes in dry cleaning bags across her arm. Spotting Miles, she gave a friendly little wave.
Miles snarled. What was it about these damn Cleggs? He couldn’t get away from them. Wherever he went, in Chawbury, in London, at the ruddy garage for Christ sake, there they always were, turning up like bad pennies, following him about … aping him … bugging his entire family.
If things continued like this, he’d go insane.
Without mentioning it to anyone—and certainly noone at home—Peter was working on a bunch of new songs. Although by nature self-deprecating and easily discouraged by his own efforts, he felt these were his best so far. For the first time, he’d escaped from the influence of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and was starting to find a voice of his own. His constant themes, more subtle and universal in the new work, were of escape: escape from the rat race, escape from the vanity and conceit of city life to something simpler and more authentic. He sang about quitting his job for a sandbar in the Caribbean, living off coconuts and fresh fish harvested from the sea. In another song, ‘The Cormorant’s Cry,’ he evangelised life in a crofter’s cottage on the island of Stroma, where strong winds blew away the poison of urban existence.
Sitting at his computer at Straker Communications, pretending to be writing a press release about Pendletons’s new extra virgin cranberry juice, Peter burnished his lyrics. Having saved enough money to rent studio time and pay a couple of session musicians, he laid down seven tracks to semi-professional standards, and was thrilled when the sound guy at the studio said he was genuinely impressed by the result. ‘You should send these off to record companies.’ And so, over the next few weeks, Peter burned the tracks onto CDs and couriered them from Straker Communications’s mailroom to all the big labels plus several independents. When he told Mollie, swearing her to secrecy, she filled him with optimism, saying she was sure they’d love them and everyone would be fighting to sign him up.
At work, Peter was still assigned as a client executive on the Pendletons and Zach Durban accounts, and could not insulate himself from the growing anxiety at Pendletons. The mood at review meetings shifted from vibrant triumphalism to pessimism and blame-apportioning. Pendletons’s market share slipped for the fourth quarter in succession, and every part of the business was suddenly under review, with new shop-fits, buying policies and accounting standards being adopted to boost results. Already, Pendletons’s longstanding advertising agency, Barnes, Fleischman, Dwork, Fleischman, had been subjected to an open account pitch, and Straker Communications could not expect to avoid scrutiny if things continued in this way. Always at his best under pressure, Miles conducted himself with senatorial confidence, lunching and dining the Pendleton family at every opportunity, and initiating numerous research programmes aimed at pinpointing the problems.
Twenty thousand Pendletons customers were cross-questioned in supermarket aisles by market researchers with clipboards, and the same number of competitor customers quizzed about their shopping habits. The results were unequivocal: more and more loyal Pendletons shoppers were defecting to Freeza Mart.
What made everything doubly awkward for Miles was that Freeza Mart continued to get excellent PR, despite doing almost nothing to court it. Where Pendletons employed the forty-person Straker Communications team, Ross took calls from the press himself. After a couple more sessions with Megan Miller on interview technique, he’d perfected the knack of giving user-friendly sound bites that connected with his customer base. Increasingly, eco issues had risen up the agenda, and Miles, despite instinctive scepticism about the whole business, encouraged Pendletons to sponsor a Rainforest in Peril exhibition at the Museum of Mankind. To his fury, the sponsorship brought virtually no positive coverage to the supermarket, and Straker Communications was obliged to falsify their post-mortem report to the client. Ross, meanwhile, announced he was so ashamed at spotting Freeza Mart plastic bags stuck on hedgerows in country lanes he was banning the lot, just like that, and would use only recycled brown paper ones from now on. This was reported everywhere and his approval rating soared. Radio Four listeners put him in at number eight in their annual Today programme Man of the Year poll.
Miles’s behaviour inside the firm became increasingly exacting and autocratic. Executives were removed from the Pendletons account for the slightest perceived failing, and several sacked. Peter reckoned only his family connection saved him from the same fate. It mortified him when his father savaged colleagues unjustly in front of a room full of people, and they felt too fearful of their jobs to answer back. And he contrasted the never-satisfied Miles of the office with the super-smooth Miles who took clients to the smartest restaurants.
Each evening he hastened home to Holland Park Square, hoping to find a letter from a record company. But six weeks after dispatching the CDs, he’d heard nothing whatever.
41.
Mollie read the article in the Olympia Guardian and tried not to feel disappointed. The important thing was the opera was written-up in the newspaper and the journalist was so positive about it all. Obviously it was a bit hurtful she hadn’t been mentioned herself, and they�
�d cut her out of the photograph too. On second thoughts, that was probably no bad thing: she’d never been photogenic.
She did feel a twinge of irritation though, seeing Greg Clegg’s picture so big. And most of the quotes came from Greg too. In fact, anybody reading it would think the opera had been his own idea. About half the story was devoted to Labour’s Bringing Culture to the Community programme, and it didn’t mention Pendletons’s sponsorship, which was mortifyingly embarrassing.
Mollie heard her flatmates returning from work (Tina was another teacher, Kerry a sports therapist) and they both read the newspaper and were outraged on Mollie’s behalf. ‘How dare they? I can’t believe this. They haven’t given you any credit.’
Mollie insisted she didn’t mind. ‘It’s not like I was doing it for the glory.’
‘But who is this guy?’ Kerry asked, affronted. ‘He’s muscled in on everything.’
‘Actually he’s OK, I think,’ Mollie said. ‘He lives near us in the country.’
‘He needs to get into shape. He’s carrying a lot of weight. Look at those chins.’
Later that same evening, Mollie’s mobile rang when she was marking coursework.
‘Is that Mollie Straker? Greg here. Greg Clegg from Hammersmith and Fulham Labour Party. We met the other night.’
‘Yes, of course. Hi, Greg. I’ve just been looking at your picture.’
‘In the local Guardian? I’m surprised you see that rag. I don’t know why they dragged me into that opera report. It should have been you.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You’re on the Council, you’re more newsworthy.’
‘Well, yes. I suppose I am a bit of a local celebrity. But I’m uncomfortable with personal publicity, I try to avoid it.’
Pride and Avarice Page 31
