by Alice Castle
Although everything had plodded along as usual, a germ of an idea was developing at the back of Beth’s mind. By the time Ben had finally consented to take himself upstairs, the germ had become a full-blown virus that had worked its way around to Beth’s frontal lobe, and she picked up her phone to call Katie, her mind abuzz.
‘Beth! I was just about to ring. What did you make of that geography homework? I’ve never really understood what the savannah was all about…’
‘What? Erm…’ Even to her best friend, Beth didn’t want to admit that she had had no idea the boys had had an assignment, and even worse, she had not a clue about what it might have been about. Geography, indeed. Surely she wasn’t losing all grip on her son’s education on only day two of the new regime? She’d just have to hope that Ben might have got round to it by himself at some point during the evening, without her noticing. Yeah, right, a little voice said. ‘No, no, I’m not ringing about that, Katie. I’ve had a bit of a brainwave.’
‘About the gladiators’ project, for Latin?’
Oh my God, thought Beth. Please, not a project. She’d seriously hoped these were a primary school chore that she’d left far behind, along with other menaces like soft play centres and nits. Gladiators, of all things? The teachers were having a laugh. ‘No, no, not that,’ she said quickly, fending off the very notion as successfully as any retiarius with his net. ‘About bridge. And Alfie.’
‘Oh.’ Was it Beth’s imagination, or did Katie sound a bit, well, reluctant?
‘You do still want to help out, don’t you, Cagney? Or are you Lacey? You’re the carefree blonde, obviously. I’m the brunette with the bad flick hairdo and the fat arse.’
Katie giggled softly, then said with a sigh, ‘I don’t know, Beth. It’s just that, after these first two days, I’ve seen how much support Charlie is going to need from me…’
Beth was baffled. She’d seen the very opposite from Ben. He was getting on with things as if he was still going to the Village Primary every morning. Yes, he was tired out, and yes, maybe he was a bit pale… and he’d been a bit slow to get his stuff together this morning, seeming to linger a bit in the hall, playing with Colin… Hang on, was she just seeing what she wanted to see? Was he actually finding it tough going? Then she shook her head.
‘Do you really think so? I’m not sure it’s so good for them…’ she ventured.
‘What’s not good for them? What do you mean?’ Katie was defensive.
‘Well, they’re big boys now,’ said Beth. ‘Ok, Ben’s not big, but he’ll grow… one of these days. Don’t you think it’s important for them to, well, start fighting their own battles. Like the blinking gladiators. Sort themselves out, for a change, without us interfering?’
There was a beat of silence. ‘I’m not sure, Beth. Particularly at such a crucial phase. I need to be there for Charlie.’ Katie’s voice was quiet but insistent.
‘But you can’t be there for him. You can’t be in the classroom, or in the playground, or even waiting in the playground after school, any more. And even if we could, wouldn’t we actually be getting in their way? Stunting their development? Stopping them from learning how to manage for themselves?’
‘But they’re still so young, Beth. And it’s going to be GCSEs any minute…’
‘In five years!’ Beth snorted.
‘Four, now they’ve started. And that’s like four sleeps in Mummy-time,’ Katie said with the finality of someone who had every ounce of logic on her side.
‘Ok, well, I’m going to try and let Ben find his own level a bit, at any rate. After all, no-one was hovering over us the whole time, were they?’
‘I don’t know about your parents, Beth, but I wouldn’t use my own as a great example,’ said Katie.
Touché, thought Beth. Katie knew Wendy well enough to realise that she would have been so hands-off as a mother to qualify as an honorary amputee. And she also knew that Beth would do almost anything to be an entirely different kind of mum.
‘I take your point, Katie. But a couple of hours on the Alfie thing… that wouldn’t do any harm? And it might stop you worrying so much about Charlie. An atmosphere of anxiety in the home isn’t going to do him any good,’ said Beth, hoping she sounded as though she were quoting from a respected childcare manual – one of the many that Katie still had piled up by her bedside and was even now prone to study like a scholar parsing the Rosetta Stone.
‘You’re right, I am fretting. It was partly the coffee morning,’ Katie said.
‘Oh, I forgot about that. How was it?’
There was a short, eloquent silence which made Beth glad that, despite her initial pangs, she had not made it onto Bloody Belinda’s guest list.
‘It was… interesting. Honestly, Beth, you would have hated it,’ Katie finished in a rush.
‘Go on, tell me everything. I’m dying to know.’
‘Well, you know Belinda’s house. Or rather, you don’t any more. Did you realise she’s had the whole ground floor redone?’
‘No! How’s she managed that? I haven’t seen any vans near your place.’ Being just a few doors down from Belinda, Katie was in a privileged, or accursed, position. On the upside, her house would go for a fortune if she ever put it on the market, thanks to Belinda’s relentless campaign to persuade everyone that theirs was the best street in Dulwich. On the downside – she lived near Belinda.
‘She must have been sneaking in the builders in the evenings, or something. Honestly, it was like one of those big reveals in the decorating shows. A real ta-dah moment. Except that most of the people she’d invited had never been there before, so it was lost on them. But I was pretty gob-smacked, I can tell you.’
Beth registered the blunt phrase, which was not usually in the sunny Katie lexicon. She frowned. ‘What’s it like then, this new look?’
‘Well, it’s all marble, kind of fresh grey paint, copper accents—’
Beth sat up straight on the sofa. ‘Hang on a sec. That sounds like your house.’
‘Yes,’ said Katie. ‘Honestly, it must be some sort of a coincidence, but I was taken aback…’
‘I bet!’ A situation which had Katie expressing mild surprise and disappointment would normally have Beth reaching for the nearest blunt instrument. ‘Bloody, bloody Belinda! She’s just basically nicked all your ideas.’
Katie sighed. ‘Well, I suppose I don’t own grey paint. And everyone’s doing the copper thing now. I shouldn’t get upset about it. It’s a sort of compliment. Anyhow, that wasn’t really the worst bit. It was more the whole, well, tenor of the coffee morning. It was just… embarrassing.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. You know the way Belinda is…’
‘Insufferable? Bossy? Intolerant?’
Katie giggled again. ‘You are awful, Beth. I just felt really sorry for her. She was trying all the normal tactics, offering favours, suggesting she could open doors, you know, the usual…’
‘What doors can she really open, though?’
‘She has all the best tutors in her pocket. I mean, you know that yourself, Beth,’ Katie said gently. ‘Plus, the most tolerant and bullet-proof music teachers, the best caterers, hairdressers…’
‘Plastic surgeons? Therapists?’
Katie snorted this time. ‘You said it. Today, though, I really felt for her. It all fell on deaf ears.’
‘Wasn’t anyone interested in joining the court of the sun queen?’
‘Well, no. And it was sad. She’s just got a bit… well, passé. People seemed to find her so obvious. I even caught a couple of the mums actually sniggering. I can see why. All these people’s kids have already got into Wyatt’s, so they’re starting off on a level playing field. Why does Belinda think she’s got some sort of special advantage that she can offer? She hasn’t. But I can’t help it, Beth, I felt so uncomfortable. I hope these people are going to be nice.’
‘You can’t blame them for finding Belinda absurd. That just means they’re rational,’ Beth count
ered. But it was a bit worrying. Their sons were going to spend so many waking hours with these new boys. She hoped their parents were the right sort, and by that, she knew she meant people who were exactly like her and Katie. Kind, considerate, pushed a bit too far by Belinda but still not willing to be nasty to her face. The odd giggle behind her back was absolutely fine, though, and perfectly healthy. Beth took a deep breath and made up her mind.
‘You know what, Katie? I think you need the distraction of an investigation even more than I do at the moment. Stop worrying about Charlie and the new parents, and definitely stop worrying about Belinda, because she can look after herself. The one person in Dulwich who needs us to stick up for him at the moment is poor old Alfie Pole. Say my mother is right – it’s a stretch, I grant you – but say he really was murdered. Who else, apart from us, is going to do even one single thing about it?’
There was silence at Katie’s end for what seemed like ages. Then her voice came through, stronger than before, and more definite. ‘All right then, Beth. You’ve talked me into it. What do we do next?’
Chapter Nine
Beth was going to pop into her office at Wyatt’s, she really was. But maybe not today. She told herself that Ben needed space, to settle himself in. If he saw her lurking about in the playground (though why she would be lurking there instead of making straight for her office, she didn’t clarify, even to herself), then that would surely embarrass him horribly, stunt any early buds of friendship he might be nurturing… No, she had… well, she couldn’t call it a duty, but certainly she had very good reasons to steer clear for the immediate future. Luckily, no-one was clamouring for her presence.
That was possibly both the bane and the boon of her job in the Archives Office. It was as little, or as much, as she made it herself. She’d started off with a terrible boss, and then acquired a powerful enemy in the school’s admin department. One was permanently out of the picture; the other, the Bursar Tom Seasons, was on sabbatical. True, she still had a line manager, but this was her friend and tireless supporter, Janice, who was married to the headmaster. And as Janice had a new baby who took up all her time and attention, Beth was left to her own devices.
She felt a familiar pang of guilt as she dropped Ben at the school gates and turned her back on what must surely be an in-tray mouldering away like an over-ripe Stilton. But catching up with Katie deflected that easily enough.
‘So, tell me again what you’ve got in mind for today – and tell me why this isn’t a completely mad idea?’ Katie’s broad and sunny smile took the sting out of her words, and Beth was soon explaining everything as they walked along the streets.
Calton Avenue was a reasonably wide thoroughfare, but the habitual double-parking of SUVs and the frequent knots of nannies shoving the latest go-faster buggies up the gentle hill meant that it was hard for Katie and Beth to walk together, let alone talk, until they’d turned into the wider avenue of Dulwich Village proper.
Here, the shop fronts reflected the shining morning faces of the children plodding along to school, and the glinting cheekbones of the glamorous mummies loping along in their long suede boots. The weather was only just starting to dip into coolness, but at the school gates everyone was keen to show off their new autumn/winter collections. As Beth and Katie passed, they caught a snatch of conversation. ‘We’ve just booked our holidays. Florida for half term, because we promised the children, and then we’ve had to go for Bali at Christmas in the end. The dog-sitter won’t take them for less than two weeks, so we really didn’t have any choice. Had to be long-haul.’
Beth rolled her eyes at Katie so hard that she nearly dislocated them from their sockets. ‘Good to know that Belinda’s already got competition for her throne at the Village Primary,’ she said drily.
As usual, the dogs were as much a part of the parade as the owners. Once, Beth would have hardly noticed the pooches, but now, as the proud if still surprised owner of Colin, she ran a more experienced eye over the assortment, counting a Schnoodle, a Peekapoo, a Poochon, and a Goldendoodle, as well as the usual Porgis, Chugs, and a rather sad-looking little pug that no-one had bothered to cross with anything else. It was a shame she didn’t have the old Lab with her; he would have loved to say hello to the gang. But Beth was relieved that Katie had left Teddy behind. Though the worst of his #MeToo days were now behind him, he still had a tendency to attempt to have his way with anything unwary and under fifty centimetres in height.
Soon they were crossing over the mini-roundabout near Dulwich’s one remaining bank branch and making for Gallery Road.
On the left-hand side as they walked was one of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s most flagrant acts of hypocrisy – a beautiful alms house he had constructed for the poor of Dulwich. It had been financed by his oppression of the poor elsewhere – the slaves who had toiled on his plantations in the West Indies, piling up a fortune in the coffee which still kept Dulwich buzzing today. Next to the alms house was a church, also built by Wyatt, whose stained windows looked out onto Beth and Katie as they passed, the petulant motto For God’s Sake clearly visible. Next, was Wyatt’s magnificent Picture Gallery.
Beth shook her head mildly. It was extraordinary that three hundred-odd years after his death, one man still had such a stranglehold on Dulwich, in terms of culture, religion, education, and charity. And that the man should have been such a flawed character. In many ways, it was typical of the place. He’d appeared so successful, outwardly, that for generations people had been more than happy to overlook and then forget the source of his wealth. Even now, his rehabilitation seemed suspiciously fast. It had been, what, a couple of years since Beth’s discovery? She felt sure that the dust of amnesia was being heaped busily back onto Wyatt’s reputation as fast as possible, so that the area could continue to enjoy the benefits of the man’s bequests without worrying about their blood-soaked downside. Her conscience was pricked. If she didn’t get round to writing her biography of the man, revealing all sides of his nature, then she would only have herself to blame if everyone persisted in seeing him as the closest thing Dulwich had to a saint.
She and Katie strolled onwards, the sharp scent of carefully mown grass giving way gradually to the fumes of traffic as they approached the perpetual snarl-up of the South Circular. Just before they saw their first glimpse of SUV tail-lights, usually stacked up as far as Lordship Lane in one direction and West Norwood in the other, they reached the sign for Belair House on the right-hand side.
Beth always thought the place looked like a child’s drawing of a house – square front door slap bang in the middle, two windows on either side at the bottom, three across the top. She was pretty sure her attic was full of crayoned efforts just like this by Ben. The design had some embellishments that no four-year-old could have dreamed up, though. First there was a triangular pediment at the top of the building, with trompe l’oeil columns, inscribed with the date 1785. Then there was a circular carriage drive, which seemed to beg for every guest to sweep up in a coach-and-four. Beth and Katie were unable to oblige, and even their Shanks’s ponies were a little puffed by the time they’d waded through the gravel to the front door.
Inside, the grandeur of the entrance hall was somewhat marred by the number of elderly people milling around. ‘You weren’t kidding when you said you’d be gathering them all,’ Katie whispered admiringly to Beth.
‘I think we’ll have to give credit to Wendy for that,’ Beth said, as her mother stepped forward, scarves a-flutter.
‘Now, everyone,’ Wendy said, her tones a little quavery to start with but gathering strength as she went on. ‘We’ve kindly been given permission by the House to reconstruct our meeting of, ahem, well, of last week. You’ll all remember that’s when poor Alfie, um, passed away. Not in the house, obviously,’ Wendy said quickly, glancing at a business-like lady who’d just appeared from a door marked ‘Office’. ‘Let’s all go upstairs and get out of everyone’s way,’ said Wendy, leading the way towards the graceful winding staircase in the
centre of the black and white chequerboard-tiled floor.
Just then, there was a slight commotion as an elderly woman dressed in a heavy tweedy jacket forced her way breathlessly to the front. ‘Now, just a minute everyone. As you all know, I am the chair of the Bridge Club. I’d just like to thank Wendy for her, er, contribution. And I’d like to ask everyone to make their way upstairs as quickly as possible.’ She then clapped her hands briskly.
‘Who on earth is that?’ whispered Katie.
‘I’m not sure, but I think it’s probably Deidre MacBride. Do you remember, Mum mentioned her? Said Deirdre had asked her to deputise for her? It doesn’t actually look as though she loves Mum taking charge, though,’ Beth hissed back, wrinkling her brow.
Meanwhile, a steady stream of bridge players was making its way up the stairs, while Wendy was waiting impatiently at the bottom for Beth and Katie. ‘Hurry up, girls, do. We must get on.’
‘Is that Deidre, Mum?’ Beth asked.
Wendy pursed her lips and nodded briefly. ‘Come on, we don’t want to keep everyone waiting.’ She turned on her heel and marched upwards, her small frame and flowing scarves disappearing into the mêlée.
As usual, thought Beth, there was very little logic to Wendy’s statement. It was the rest of the bridge players, after all, who were stopping them getting up the stairs any more quickly; they meandered up, stopping to catch their breath whenever they felt like it, or just pausing to chat. It was clear that the Bridge Club, in various states of health, was going to take its own sweet time to reach the first floor, so there was not much point in Beth and Katie barging up until the way was clear.
Unlike Wendy, whose painstakingly sharpened elbows meant that she was finding a way through with apparent ease, Beth and Katie were much better off waiting patiently in the hall. They had ample time to look around and get their bearings.
