The Party Season

by Sarah Mason

  Aunt Flo has lent me a black dress for this evening. It is absolutely beautiful, unspeakably elegant and completely timeless. The straps are very delicate silver chains which link behind my neck in a halter-neck and then hang down my back, ending in diamante balls which knock against my shoulder blades as I walk. The rest of the dress is very plain and exquisitely cut, with slits either side of the skirt that run all the way up to my thighs.

  We are running a little behind schedule and I am starting to feel stressed. Mrs Delaney is upset about something and is banging pots and pans around like there is no tomorrow. Monty is making a huge fuss about joining everyone for dinner, something about his health, and Aunt Winnie almost has to lock him in his room to get changed. I haven't seen Flo since she popped in with the dress first thing this morning which is highly unusual and I am hoping that Poppet hasn't eaten her or something.

  I hurriedly dress, shove my hair up and then go to put on my pair of very strappy God-send shoes. The same shoes I was wearing when I met Rob, I think bitterly, sitting down and beginning the arduous task of wrapping the leather straps around my ankles akin to ballerina pumps (unfortunately there the similarity ends). In the background, Meg is rustling about in the wardrobe, burying another of her Bonios.

  I am just about to slip the second shoe over my heel while admiring my freshly painted toenails when I hear my name being called and turn around to see Dominic throwing himself into the room.

  Without so much as a hello, he takes firm grip of my elbow, hauls me up and, like one of those little tugs that pull ocean liners, turns me around and hurries me out of the room. I resist strongly, digging one heeled shoe into the carpet, saying, 'Dom, what on earth are you doing?'

  'Izzy. You have to come. Now,' he hisses and pulls at me. He has quite a job on his hands; I am no lightweight.

  'What's wrong?' I ask in alarm, 'God, is it Flo? Is she okay?'

  'She's fine. The spider has gone though.'

  'Gone? How do you mean gone?' I squeal, my first thought being for my cowardly custard self.

  'Gone to the pub for a drink with its mates. OF COURSE I MEAN GONE GONE. Aunt Flo has been looking for it all day.'

  'Christ! It could be anywhere by now!' I start to frantically limp down the corridor, still carrying my shoe.

  'Yes, but that's not the problem.'

  'It's not? Are you sure? Because that sounds like a problem to—'

  'No. I went up to help her look …' he pants as we belt through the doors at the end of the passage and through to the wing where Monty and Flo live ' … and she was frantic. Apparently she only let it out for a walk and it just disappeared …' We arrive outside Flo's room and knock at the door.

  'What's the other problem?' I urge.

  'Come and see,' he says grimly.

  Flo opens the door. 'Hello dear! That dress does look wonderful on you!'

  I spy Harry in the corner on his hands and knees. 'I promised him ten bob-a-jobs if he finds it,' Dominic murmurs.

  'Only one shoe though? New fashion?' Flo questions.

  I simultaneously hold up my other shoe and say, 'Aunt Flo, I hear Poppet has gone missing?'

  'Sorry?'

  'I SAID, I HEAR THE SPIDER HAS GONE MISSING?'

  'Ssssshhhhhhh,' Dominic hisses. 'Someone will hear you.'

  'Yes dear. She's done this before,' says Aunt Flo.

  'Oh really?' I squeak. 'Em, quite recently? Over the last few weeks at all?' I've read somewhere that you swallow ten spiders a year while you're asleep. The ridiculous thought springs to mind that I might have inadvertently swallowed Poppet while dead to the world. Thinking of my own precious neck again. Dom gives me a sharp poke in the ribs with his elbow.

  'I take her out for a little walk every morning.' Another ridiculous image springs to mind of Aunt Flo wandering around the garden with the spider on a red leash.

  'Er, sorry?'

  'I SAID, I TAKE HER OUT FOR A WALK EVERY MORNING.'

  'Sssshhhhh,' hisses Dominic again. I hastily tuck a few inches of my dress into my knickers and balance on one shoe. Don't want Poppet mistaking me for a climbing frame.

  Dominic gives me another nudge. 'That is not the only problem,' he whispers, 'look at this.' He leads me over to a chest of drawers and stands me in front of it. I warily lift my foot off the floor again.

  'What?' I ask.

  'That,' he hisses and points at a very innocuous-looking urn.

  'What about it?'

  'I've already seen it.'

  Has Dom completely lost it? 'Have you?' I ask carefully, still looking around, much more concerned with where the spider is than where Dom is.

  'I took it up to Mr Berryman's room.'

  I am thoroughly confused by this point. 'So? He's got one just like it. Strange that he would carry it around but—'

  'It's the same one,' Dom hisses.

  I frown. 'How do you know?'

  'I carried the damn thing, stupid. You told me to. This is what was inside the wooden box. Look inside …' I lean cautiously over and lift the lid. The urn is full of strange grey stuff. 'His mother's ashes. He told me earlier that he carries them around with him. He pulled me to one side to ask if the house was safe.' Dom looks at me wide-eyed at the implication of the last word.

  Bloody hell! I drop the lid with a loud clunk and swing around to face Flo, who is prostrate on the floor looking under the sofa. 'Er, Aunt Flo?'

  'Still can't see her …' she murmurs.

  'Aunt Flo?' I say again. 'Em …' She is paying no attention to me whatsoever so since we seem to have taken up pole position on the floor I drop down to join her. Could do with a nice lie down actually.

  'Aunt Flo? Where did you get that lovely urn thing?' I ask urgently from our horizontal positions.

  'Hmmm? Oh that? I found it. Nice, isn't it?'

  'When? When did you find it?'

  'Today while I was looking for Poppet. It was in a wooden box. Dominic, be a darling and lift up the sofa?'

  I leave Dominic to heave up the sofa and hop like I've never hopped before downstairs.

  I locate Simon in the drawing room with the rest of his crew. They all look at me in astonishment as I hop in but I have other things on my mind. 'Simon? Can I talk to you for a second?'

  'Er, sure.'

  'In private?' Eyebrows are raised even higher. I hop across the hallway into his still-empty study and flop on to a bean bag. I gabble away, explaining the sorry situation but missing out the part where Poppet goes walkabout, all the while desperately trying to put on my other shoe.

  'So you see, I'm sure she didn't mean to steal it. Or take it. Or … or … however you want to put it.' I don't really want to accuse his nearest and dearest of being a thief – I'm not quite sure how Simon will react.

  'She does have a habit of taking things,' he says slowly.

  I blink nervously. 'What do you mean, a habit? Like a, er, kleptomania habit?'

  'Well, if you want to get technical about it. We just go and pick up our stuff from her room once a month.'

  'She's a kleptomaniac?'

  'Izzy, all families have their idiosyncrasies.'

  'That's an idiosyncrasy? Actually, now I think about it, I'm missing my white bra.'

  'Are you?' He blinks quickly.

  'Anyway, don't you think you should have warned me about this?' I jab out quickly, to get off the subject of the bra.

  Simon looks surprised. 'I had forgotten about it. It's kind of second nature to us here. In fact, I thought all aged aunts were the same.'

  'Not my Aunt Winnie!'

  'Well, she's not really your run-of-the-mill aunt, is she?'

  'She's never nicked anything.'

  'Oh I wouldn't say that. She's stolen three rooms' worth of antiques.'

  'She did not steal them, she borrowed them to save your precious neck!'

  He raises his eyebrows at this. 'And yours.'

  I nearly laugh out loud. Somehow this little exchange has gotten off track. I swiftly re-direct it by
saying, 'I'm not going to start splitting hairs with you on the subject of aunts. What are we going to do about the urn?'

  'Oh yes, the urn.'

  'Where are the guests?' I ask.

  'In the gardens. Having a wander about before dinner. Some of them might have gone to get changed already.'

  'So Mr Berryman might have already noticed it's gone.'

  'But he might not have.'

  'This is not going to look good, is it? A treasured item missing from his room.'

  'No, I think we can safely say it is not going to look good.'

  'He might want to call the police or something; the urn looks quite valuable.'

  'That would certainly put a dampener on the takeover.' Dom arrives in the room with a screech. 'We're just going to have to put it back.'

  'Right! What if he's missed it already?'

  'Well, Aunt Flo took it out of the wooden box, which is presumably still there, so unless he's checked the box he'll be none the wiser. Besides, I think if he'd noticed it was missing he would have said something by now. If he catches you putting it back we can just say it was taken away accidentally … for cleaning.' Out of the thirty-odd words he has just uttered one in particular catches my attention.

  'What do you mean me? I'm not putting it back.'

  'I can't pretend it was mistakenly taken away for cleaning. He showed it to me and told me it contained his mother's ashes,' says Dom. I narrow my eyes at him. What a weak and feeble excuse.

  I look and feel absolutely aghast. 'Me? Why me? Why can't Harry do it? It must be worth at least ten bob-a-jobs,' I bleat. I'm not a terribly brave person but I am perfectly willing to send an innocent boy scout in there.

  'Too young,' says Simon.

  'What about Monty?' I continue, determined not to be sidetracked.

  'Too old.'

  'Mrs Delaney?'

  'Too busy. She's cooking dinner for twenty.'

  'How about me being too scared? Or too jumpy? What about that?'

  'Aww, come on Izzy! It's not going to be difficult!' Dom says encouragingly.

  'Flo?' I counter. 'She obviously managed to take it, she could put it back!'

  'She'd probably nick something else while she was in there,' Simon says.

  'What about you then?' I demand.

  'I couldn't get caught in a guest's room.'

  'That's mighty convenient,' I snap.

  'Shall I slap you, Izzy?' says Dom hopefully. 'You seem a little hysterical.'

  I give Dom a look which suggests that if he even thinks about slapping me …

  'Come on, Izzy.' Both men are hauling me to my feet.

  'What if he catches me? What shall I say?' I whimper.

  'Just say you found it downstairs, knew it didn't belong to the household and discovered it had been mistakenly removed from his room.' They are pushing me out into the hallway now.

  'Where shall I put it? Where did he leave it?'

  'Back in the wooden box which I put in his bedside cupboard for him when I carried it up,' says Dom, 'I'll stand watch outside the door and whistle if anyone comes. We need to wait until he's gone down for dinner.'

  'Thanks, Izzy. You'll save our necks,' pants Simon, almost dragging me across the hallway. 'I'll go and see to Aunt Flo while you two are doing that.'

  'NO!' Dom and I yell simultaneously and our little party comes to a standstill.

  'Em …' Dom and I look at each other. Simon doesn't know about the spider.

  'It's just that it would be better if she was with us and not wandering the house nicking other stuff,' I stutter.

  'Why?'

  'Well …' I think briefly about covering for Flo but then decide that a tarantula and a dead mother are too much to handle in one evening. If Poppet continues her tour of the house then perhaps it's best if Simon knows about it. 'Flo has a pet.'

  'A pet?'

  'Yes. A sort of spider.'

  'A pet spider?'

  'Well, more of a tarantula actually.'

  'Poppet? God! I told her to get rid of that bloody thing!'

  'She's probably lonely! Old people need pets!' I say defensively.

  'Isabel, how could anyone be lonely in this house? Apart from when you're asleep, have you ever had a moment of privacy? And in case you haven't noticed, we have about a thousand dogs littering the place. The spider was supposed to go because Mrs Delaney was refusing to clean in there and kept having the vapours every time Poppet had a walkabout.'

  This brings me very neatly to my next point. 'It's very funny you should mention that. You'll laugh at this—'

  'It's escaped again, hasn't it?' He looks quite weary.

  'Er, yes.'

  'It's always escaping.'

  'Well, it's probably a bit pissy at being called Poppet, isn't it? Hardly the name for a fierce street-fighting tarantula,' proffers Dom. 'God, it all happens in the country, doesn't it? City life is looking terribly tame!'

  'Getting plenty of material for your novel?' I ask acidly.

  'Plenty thank you.'

  'Right,' Simon says decisively. 'You two go and put the urn back, I'll see to Aunt Flo.'

  After several years working for one of the finest caterers in London, here I am hanging about suspiciously outside a guest's room clutching an urn full of ashes. Life is a funny old thing.

  Dom and I pretend to be studying something enormously important out of the window.

  'Why is Mr Berryman carrying around his mother's ashes, Dom?' I ask suddenly.

  'A good question, Izzy and indeed, at another time, something that I would love to discuss with you in more depth. But I think we should concentrate on the key issue here and not get sidetracked. Whatever Mr Berryman does with the bloody thing, the point is that you need to get it back to him so he can carry on doing it.'

  'Good point.'

  'Are you clear about what you're doing?'

  'Crystal. Well …'

  'What's the problem?'

  'The plan seems a little simple for my liking.'

  'Izzy, love, I know you always want to over-complicate things, and again that's something else we can talk about later, but the plan is simple because it is simple. So, to recap, I will be out here keeping a look-out and if I see someone coming I will whistle. What happens then?'

  'I leg it.'

  'Any questions?'

  'Yes.'

  Dominic mutters something and rolls his eyes dangerously.

  I don't get to ask him any of the numerous questions on my list because at that moment Mr Berryman comes out of his room and starts to walk down the corridor towards us. In a loud voice I start to explain to Dom various tasks in the gardens that need to be attended to. Thankfully, the fact that it's starting to get dark and I'm in full evening dress doesn't seem odd to Mr Berryman. The urn is hidden behind one of the curtains. We greet each other with a great deal of jollity on his part – lots of shaking of hands and water-skiing references which hopefully mean he hasn't noticed his precious urn is missing.

  As soon as he has disappeared down the stairs, I move towards his door, urn in hand. Dominic starts to dust a table of ornaments with his hanky.

  I gently open the door to Mr Berryman's room, walk inside and close it behind me. I sprint over to the bedside cabinet, shove the urn inside the wooden box and am about to run for the hills when a thought occurs to me. I hate it when that happens.

  Could I find something here which would be of use in the takeover? Help Simon out? An image of myself saving Pantiles single-handedly and thus being free from crushing guilt flashes into my mind.

  My eyes narrow as I spot a black leather attaché case on top of the wardrobe. Just a quick peep, what harm could come of it? On impulse, I seize a chair and drag it to the front of the wardrobe. I am just balancing on tip-toe and reaching for the briefcase when a disembodied voice says out of nowhere, 'How are you getting on?'

  With a loud parrot-like screech I stumble and then crash to the ground.

  'Jesus, Dominic!' I snarl from my sit
ting position, rubbing my shoulder. God, what is wrong with everyone? Do I look like I need winding up any more? 'What are you doing?'

  'Just came to see if you were all right. I thought you might have taken up Buddhism you've been so long.'

  'I was going to look in this attaché case,' I hiss, 'to see if there's anything in it that could help Simon.'

  'God, Izzy you're becoming positively immoral! How marvellous! Go on then!'

  'Go back outside and keep watch!'

  He scurries out of the room and I climb back on the chair. In the background, a couple of grasshoppers begin their warm-up, as is their wont at this time of the evening. I silently curse them and get on with the job in hand. Looking up at the door every now and then, I remove the attaché case and try to open it. It's locked. Damn.

  After replacing the case, I get down off the chair as softly as I can, return it to its usual position and then have a quick prowl around. I'm just about to give it all up as a bad job when I notice something quite peculiar. By the foot of the bed is what looks like a small furball. I kneel down next to it and instinctively put out my hand to touch it. It flinches. Bloody hell! It's Poppet!

  C h a p t e r 20

  When he hears my scream, Dominic hurries in. 'God! Izzy! What the hell has happened now?'

  I clutch my arms to myself and hop around well away from the vicinity of the bed. I point manically at the bed. My mouth has become paralysed with fear. I'm not that fond of common or garden spiders, let alone ones that are the size of your fist and answer to the name of Poppet.

  'What? Is this some sort of happy-clappy hostess dance? I can't see anything. What?'

  I stab with my finger in the direction of Poppet until Dominic finally gets the message and peers cautiously at the floor.

  'JE-SUS!' he shouts and sprints to join me on the other side of the room. 'What shall we do?'

  'Simon!' I manage to mumble and together we scramble for the door in a mess of limbs as though we're joined together in a three-legged race.

  Believe me, I can run when I feel like it. And I really, really feel like it. When we reach the study Simon is talking to someone on his mobile phone. He must already have dealt with Aunt Flo. I tug urgently on his shirt and he frowns at me. I twitch madly for a few seconds while he rants on about PE ratios and suchlike. God! To think I almost touched it! Maybe it bit me and in the heat of the moment I didn't notice. I look anxiously at my hand for fang marks. Simon looks at me worriedly but continues his conversation. I pick irritatingly at his shirt again. 'Simonsimonsimonnnnn,' I hiss, looking like I'm about to wet myself. I think he picks up on the note of urgency in my voice because he tells the person on the other end of the line that he'll call them back and rings off.