Wild Weekend

by Celia Brayfield

  ‘Okay, peeps!’ he called out, leaping like Errol Flynn to the centre of the tasting table. ‘Just a few words to say welcome and thank you all for …’

  ‘Killer!’ The word was shouted from the gallery.

  ‘Slave master!’

  ‘Oppressor!’

  ‘Free the bees!’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Betty Boop demanded.

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Florian peered up at the gallery with an expression of benign amazement. When your family has successfully dodged blame since the days of William the Conqueror, you have some useful racial memories.

  ‘It’s a demonstration,’ said a second man with a camera, who came from nowhere and jumped on a chair to get a view of what he hoped would be chaos and dismay.

  ‘We’re working for animal rights,’ declared an American voice. Heads turned, and identified its source: a tall man wearing what looked like a giant Babygro, spray-painted in black and yellow bands. On his head, a black bobble hat and spring-mounted glitter balls did not quite hide long brown hair. He clutched a sheaf of leaflets to his chest and was stuffing them into people’s hands. Betty Boop snatched one at once.

  ‘AASS Ass. Or is it arse? But isn’t it the same, if you’re American?’

  ‘We are citizens of the planet,’ he intoned.

  ‘Free the bees!’ shouted the voice from the gallery.

  ‘Free the bees!’ shouted the American, flinging the rest of his leaflets into the crowd.

  A net of yellow balloons appeared over the gallery rail. ‘Brilliant,’ muttered Betty Boop to her cameraman. ‘You are getting this, aren’t you?’

  ‘You bet!’ he assured her, jumping on the nearest window seat for a good angle.

  The slogan-shouting faltered as the net was positioned and untied, then suddenly the cascade of yellow balloons, fastened to cardboard wings and marked with black stripes and smiley faces, tumbled down on the crowd. The children were delighted, and ran about the hall trying to catch them and shrieking, ‘Free bees! Free bees!’

  ‘Damn!’ said the cameraman. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

  ‘What?’ his reporter demanded.

  ‘Running out of tape,’ he told her.

  ‘No worries!’ cried Video Guy ‘I’m getting it. We can talk later.’

  ‘Are you with them?’ Betty Boop asked, delighted that her schleppy little weekend story was turning into a real news item.

  ‘I’m the official film-maker,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I’m getting some great stuff here.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’

  The balloons were soon captured, and occasional pops around the room suggested that their visual appeal was going to be limited. Betty Boop took Video Guy by the elbow and pointed him in Florian’s direction. The winemaker had climbed down from the table, and was standing nonplussed against the wall, trying to decide whether he should ask his uncles to evict the intruders or welcome the whole thing in the spirit of the hare-eared goddess Ostara and new beginnings in general.

  ‘How do you feel about this!’ the reporter shouted at him.

  ‘I don’t know, really,’ he said.

  ‘Yes you do,’ she insisted.

  ‘It’s nice for the children,’ he said.

  ‘Bugger the children. What about you?’

  ‘I just like people to have a good time,’ he said.

  The reporter asked herself how Jeremy Paxman would have handled this. ‘You don’t really mean that!’ she yelled at him.

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘You must be thick!’

  ‘People have said that,’ Florian agreed.

  ‘Look,’ said the reporter, turning back to the leaflets on the table. ‘They’re calling you a slave master and an oppressor and saying you’re cruel to animals.’

  ‘I love animals,’ said Florian. ‘It’s not like I’ve got the bees chained to their honeycombs or anything. If my bees weren’t happy, they’d fly away, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Go and look at the beehives,’ intoned the American voice.

  ‘Yes,’ Florian said in an agreeable tone. ‘Why don’t we do that?’

  While the company in the hall began to break up and climb back into their cars in search of alcoholic drinks that could actually be ingested without toxic shock, Florian set off across the courtyard in the direction of the beehives, his dog at his heels, trailing the reporter, Video Guy and the official cameraman, who had gone to the van to get a spare magazine of tape. Dido ran after them, followed by the three youngest and most infatuated children, waving their bee balloons firmly in their little fists.

  The hives had been installed under the wall of the old vegetable garden, where Florian was now growing patches of everything he had found mentioned in his collection of old herbalist literature as a suitable flavour for wines, cordials or sweetmeats. Inside squares of willow hurdles, the red roses were setting their buds, the mounds of lavender were spiky with blue-grey shoots, the cowslips nodded like a patch of sunshine and the newly sown borage was still nothing but lines of green cotyledons, fluttering like butterflies in the evening breeze.

  The beehives, which normally stood facing this smorgasbord of historic pollen sources in a neat row, had been tipped over and broken open.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Florian said, his slender hands flying up to his temples. His dog quivered against his shins in sympathy. A few bees were hovering disconsolately over their broken homes, trying to settle on the shattered fragments of their honeycombs as if they could hardly believe the evidence of their multiple eyes. ‘What’s been going on here?’

  ‘We’ve freed the bees!’ declared the American, waving his arms.

  ‘No you haven’t,’ Florian said, ripping the band off his ponytail in exasperation. ‘You absolute idiots. Don’t you realise you’ve totally traumatised them? This is the very worst time of year you could possibly have chosen. You fools, don’t you know anything? This is their nesting time. The swarms will be totally disoriented now. Half of them will probably just fly off and die. I’m going to have to call up a specialist and get him to see if he can find any of the queens. Although – where are we going to start?’

  To the embarrassment of Video Guy, who had been getting the most satisfactory close shot of his anguished face, Florian suddenly lost control of his finely chiselled features and burst into tears.

  As if to avenge him, a black cloud of insects suddenly whirled over the red-brick wall, droning like a distant Spitfire, and flew angrily up over the garden. One of the children screamed.

  ‘They don’t look very happy,’ said Dido, distraught to see her loved one weeping.

  ‘How would you feel?’ he asked, wiping his cheeks with the backs of his hands. ‘They’ve been evicted, haven’t they?’

  ‘It’s fixable, Florian,’ his brother-in-law called from the scene of the carnage. ‘There’s not too much actual damage. The hives are quite repairable. Give me a few hours.’

  Florian sniffed. ‘They might choose somewhere else in a few hours.’

  ‘No they won’t. They look pretty set on staying right here.’ And his sister’s husband pointed to the end of the garden, where the black cloud of bees wheeled like a squadron of bombers and began to fly back.

  ‘They really don’t look happy now,’ said Dido.

  ‘They really aren’t happy,’ said Florian. ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘I’ve seen this,’ the American said. ‘This is quite normal. They’ll spread out and settle down in the wild. Just give them space …’

  Video Guy was the first to run, followed by the children, who started the shrieking. Florian took Dido passionately by the hand and swept her along after them. Seeing the beekeeper himself in flight, the dog, the cameraman, the other representatives of the Addleworth clan and all the rest of the onlookers legged it after him. Betty Boop, whose kitten heels kept sticking in the turf, came in last, just before the door of the Visitor Centre was slammed with relief.

  Which left Ashok, the American, in his freedo
m suit, standing triumphantly in front of the overturned hives.

  ‘There’s no need to panic!’ he shouted. ‘They won’t hurt you. It’s perfectly natural. They’re just swarming …’

  He disappeared under a blanket of black insects, a gesticulating figure which Florian watched anxiously from the window of the Centre.

  ‘Have they got him?’ asked Dido.

  ‘I think so,’ said Florian, trying to sound regretful.

  ‘Will they sting him?’ she asked, trying to sound concerned.

  ‘Well, a few of them probably will.’

  ‘And how do you feel about that?’ demanded Betty Boop, her reporter’s instincts reasserting themselves.

  ‘Not deeply moved,’ Florian admitted. ‘Possibly quite grateful. If you go around evicting thousands of creatures who’ve just settled into their nice new homes and just want to get on with their lives, you can’t really expect too much in the way of public sympathy, can you?’

  ‘So you’re saying he deserved it?’ said Betty Boop hopefully.

  ‘Oh, do shut up, you silly cow,’ said Dido, ‘Can’t you see he’s upset?’

  Dinner at what they presumed to be the Saxwold Manor Hotel was everything that Miranda and her mother hoped it would be. They kept their hopes to themselves, being alarmed by the feelings they were having as a result of fresh air and extended exercise. They were hungry, but hardly knew what that feeling was, being used only to feeling anxious in the presence of food.

  They were tired, another feeling they could hardly recognise. If they walked, or ran, or climbed, or bicycled in their London lives, it was in a gym, where a digital display would tell them how far, how fast and how many calories they had burned, then finish up with an electronic fanfare and a cheery motivational message, like ‘Top of Target – You’re a Winner!’ Walking around the countryside in a very big circle, then falling into a muddy stream and sitting around watching a couple of hares dancing was an experience of a seriously different quality.

  They were also relaxed, something else far outside their normal range of feeling. In fact, if Clare had been asked to remember, she wouldn’t have been able to identify ten seconds in the whole of the past thirty-five years when she had felt relaxed. Every moment of consciousness had been taken, first by her children and then by her ambition, and she had never dared to use the rare moments of calm for anything except worrying about the last thing or planning the next thing. And Miranda – well, most people, her mother included, thought that Miranda had just been born tense.

  Cream of Jerusalem Artichoke Soup. Parfait of Duck’s Liver, Red Onion Marmalade. Feuilletée of Three Terrines. Borcht à la Russe with Dumplings. Salade Saxwold. Quiche of Garden Vegetables, Tomato Sorbet. Magret of Suffolk Duckling, Wild Sorrel Sauce. They read the menu with a rising sense of daring. Cream! Dumplings! Quiche! Could they? Just this once? Duck, computed Miranda’s built-in nutritional meter: bad, but not a total disaster if you cut off the skin.

  The dining room was quiet and softly lit for the evening, with a low fire purring in the grate. Only two other tables were occupied. At one, the Vicar and his wife conscientiously sampled what they had been told was a set-up which Bel was staging for some potential buyers who thought her house was already a restaurant. At the other, Colin and Jimmy munched philosophically through what they knew well were the carcasses of the fox victims, using large doses of whisky to help them play their part in the charade.

  Every now and then they sneaked glances in Clare’s direction, which she returned with benevolent smiles, feeling immensely flattered that people who were probably actual farmers recognised her when she’d only been in the job a few months. There, she reassured herself, the farmers understand. It’s those dumb-ass conservationists who get it all wrong.

  Miranda read down the menu: Marmite of Corn-Fed Chicken, Baby Spring Vegetables. Roast Sausages with Stilton Mash. Bloody hell. Chicken: OK in small portions.

  ‘Have you any sea bass?’ she asked the waiter, trying to go down fighting.

  Actually, there was a definite thrill in talking to the waiter, when less than twenty-four hours ago he could have been so much more to her. And he was still pretty fine. But it would have got complicated. Lucky escape, or what?

  Snotty cow, thought Oliver, watching the way she read the menu as if she had a PhD in Merde de Taureau Français. I was well out of that.

  ‘We only have fish in season, madam,’ he murmured. It was difficult to talk at full volume when, for the sake of impersonating a waiter, you had only just managed to pour yourself into your dinner jacket. Amazing how much his waist had expanded since becoming a farmer.

  Pretentious bastard, thought Miranda. It’s ludicrous for some little country place like this to ponce around with a woofed-up menu written in Bullshit French when they’re probably going to drag it all out of the freezer and slap it in the microwave. And he looks positively porky in that suit. Goodness, I’m hungry.

  ‘Well,’ said Clare, making up her mind. ‘This is a special occasion. I’d like the borscht and the duck.’

  Miranda blinked in shock. Dumplings? Her mother was having the thing with dumplings? ‘I’ll have the … the …’ Heavens, was there no low-fat option at all? ‘The chicken, please. What is the salad?’

  Oliver, whose Bullshit French vocabulary had already been stretched to the limit, struggled for words. ‘Ah – a mixture of – ah – green – er – seasonal – um – leaves and – ah …’ Snotty cow was still looking expectant. Nobody ever asked what was in salad, what was the matter with her? ‘I’ll go and ask,’ he said, feeling lame.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Miranda grandly. ‘I’m sure it’s fine.’

  ‘You are sure?’ OK, that was a wind-up. But only a small one. He really couldn’t resist.

  ‘A salad is a salad,’ she said. ‘I’ll have that. How much trouble can I get into with a salad?’

  You have no idea, thought Oliver.

  Clare was studying his freshly printed wine list, compiled from the labels on what was left of the half-decent cellar he had started in his City days plus the greatest hits from the wine warehouse on the Ipswich bypass. ‘This one,’ she said, pointing to the most expensive item. ‘Lacrime dei Serafimi, Montalcino 1955. What’s that like?’

  Like lying on warm crimson satin at sunset in Tuscany, thought Oliver, though you will never know. That’s my top favourite, there’s only one bottle left and you can’t have it. He threw his upper body into that strangely deferential swagger which wine waiters master along with their vintage charts. ‘If I may suggest,’ he began, letting his Biro hover suggestively over a wine warehouse special, ‘the Lacrime might be a touch overpriced …’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ she decided. ‘We’ll have that. After all, this is a special occasion.’

  ‘Right you are,’ he muttered, trying not to grit his teeth, and making notes in his pretend order book, which was actually a pink notepad decorated with Hello Kitty faces which some distant relative had sent Toni for her birthday.

  Pretentious idiot, thought Miranda, trying to act like some big-time sommelier in a place like this. However, as Oliver strode away to the door, she couldn’t fail to notice that the trousers fitted rather well.

  Thirty seconds later, Oliver hurtled through the kitchen door shouting, ‘Champagne! Where are the glasses! We’ve got to keep them busy!’

  ‘What are they eating?’ Bel demanded, waving her largest wooden spoon.

  His mother was pacing about in front of the Aga in a kind of euphoria. She had spent a most enjoyable afternoon playing at being a master chef, beginning by bullying Toni into the garden to dig vegetables and de-feather the foxes’unlucky victims. The dog, scenting disaster, had installed himself in his basket and was watching the proceedings with an expression of pained mistrust. Garrick had no plans to move until the chaos subsided.

  In and around the Aga, every pan was hissing and every pot simmering, while in the sink a tap dripped helplessly on a mountain of those
utensils which had hissed and simmered earlier. The air was dense with good smells but the floor had been trodden to a treacherous swamp of mud, vegetable peelings and stray feathers.

  At the end of the kitchen table sat Tolvo and juri, who had been welcomed by Bel as ideal tasters for her artistry. Once Toni had extracted an account of their deprivation, Bel’s maternal instincts crashed into overdrive and she issued her guests with a serial banquet, fussing around them to make sure they were not too shy to eat it. After a while, she even remembered a few words of Polish, the exhortations which her own mother had used to make her offspring eat.

  The two young men were now sitting in stupefied heaps, not really sure that they were not dreaming, morbidly suspicious of their butter-basted, sauce-glazed good luck, their satiated minds half-heartedly alert for the closing of the trap into which they had surely walked while their best instincts suggested that all they had to do now was be grateful. Toni, sitting on a worktop, had meanwhile amused herself carving small turnips into waterlilies.

  ‘Nibbles! Have we got any nibbles?’ Oliver rummaged in a cupboard which sometimes contained cheese straws. ‘They’ve gone and ordered one of my wines. We’ve got to keep them busy while I get over to my place to find it.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Toni suggested.

  ‘No you won’t. You take them the champagne. Say it’s on the house. Talk pretty, for God’s sake. You know you can do it.’

  ‘I thought you hated this fat-cat minister bitch, whatever she is.’

  ‘I do, I do. But we need the money. The bigger the bill the better, remember. Get’em drunk, then they’ll really start spending money.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Toni. ‘Fuck off on my bike then. Leave the shampoo to me.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Oliver said, catching the bike’s keys as she tossed them at him. She was a brat, of course, but his stepsister could come through when she had to.

  ‘But what are they eating, Ollie? I’ve got to know!’ This was from Bel as he flung open the door.