by Simon Brett
“I do wish you’d treat this seriously, Jude. And, incidentally, you clearly have done a numbers check. You said you were expecting sixty-three people.”
“No, I didn’t. That was just a random example for my pretend mental arithmetic challenge.”
“Oh. Well, you should have thought about it. Your open house is the day after tomorrow, you know.”
“Yes, I do know. But come on, it’s only a party, nothing to get hung up about.”
Though Carole Seddon would never be heard to use the expression, for her a party was exactly the sort of thing to get ‘hung up about’. She sniffed. “Well, I would want a bit more information about numbers for any social event I was catering for.”
Someone of less benign character might have made some sharp riposte to that, but all Jude said was, “It’ll be fine, I promise you.”
“And you’re confident you’ll have enough to drink?”
Jude grinned mischievously. “I’ll have enough till it runs out.”
“But you don’t know when that’s going to be. Suppose someone arrives at the party after it’s all run out?”
“I promise you, there’ll be plenty.” Jude ran a chubby hand through the blond hair piled up on her head. She was dressed, as ever, in an array of draped garments which embellished rather than disguised the contours of her ample body. “I’ve got plenty in,” she went on, “and a lot of people will bring bottles, anyway.”
“Oh, is it a ‘bring a bottle party’?”
“No.”
“It didn’t say it was on the invitation.”
“It didn’t say it was because it isn’t. It’s just that when you invite people to a party, a lot of them do instinctively bring along a bottle.”
Another thing of which Carole would have to make a note. And another moral dilemma. What kind of bottle should she take along to the open house? Jude, she knew, had a preference for Chilean Chardonnay, but would her other guests like that? And then again, what sort of price level should one aim for? Carole rarely spent more than five pounds on a bottle of wine, but when her contribution joined the others on the Woodside Cottage sideboard, she didn’t want to be shown up as a cheapskate.
“Anyway,” said Jude, slurping down the remains of her coffee and picking up her tatty straw shopping bag from the ultraclean floor of the High Tor kitchen, “I must get on. Bit more shopping to do.”
“For the open house?” asked Carole, still intrigued by the stage management details of the forthcoming event.
“No, I’ve got most of that. A few presents outstanding, though.”
“Oh, I’ve done all mine,” said Carole, instinctively righteous. “Well, I’ve done Stephen, Gaby and Lily. Those are the most important ones.” The last sentence was a bit of a cover-up. They were not only the most important ones, they were the only ones. Carole didn’t buy presents for anyone other than Stephen, Gaby and Lily. For many years the only name on the list had been Stephen. But she didn’t want to admit that, even to Jude. Once again there loomed the awful fear of being pitied.
“What have you got for Lily?”
“Oh, she’s easy. There are so many things out there for little girls. I got her some lovely baby outfits from Marks and Spencer. Their children’s clothes are very good, you know. And not too expensive. I checked the sizes with Gaby, but of course, being Marks, she can exchange them if she doesn’t like them.”
“Oh.” To give something on the assumption that it might well be changed seemed to Jude to be a negation of the principle of present-giving. She spent so much time matching the gift to the personality of its recipient that no one ever contemplated returning one of hers.
“That’s what I do with Stephen too,” Carole went on briskly. “I always give him two Marks and Spencer shirts. And I put the receipts in the parcel.”
“So that he can change them?”
“Yes.”
“And does he often change them?”
“How would I know?”
“Well, if you see him wearing a shirt you recognize as one you gave him, then you’ll know he hasn’t changed it.”
“I’d never thought of that.” But now she did think of it, Carole realized she had recognized some of the shirts her son had worn over the years. Maybe he did appreciate his mother’s taste, after all. She didn’t allow herself the thought that he might have worn them simply because they were her gifts.
“And what about Gaby? What have you bought her?”
“Oh, toilet water. Lily of the Valley. You can never go wrong with toilet water.”
Jude’s plump face screwed up in disbelief. “Toilet water? You’re giving your daughter-in-law toilet water?”
“Yes,” Carole replied defensively. “Toilet water’s always a safe present.”
“A safe present for a maiden aunt fifty years ago, perhaps. But Gaby’s in her early thirties. If she opens her present on Christmas morning and finds she’s got toilet water, she’ll be depressed for the rest of the holiday.”
“We don’t open presents till after lunch on Christmas Day,” said Carole primly.
“Well, whenever she opens it, a bottle of toilet water is going to have the same effect.”
“Are you suggesting I should give Gaby something else?”
“Of course I’m suggesting you should give her something else. And you should give Stephen something else, too.”
“But what’s wrong with his shirts?”
“They are totally impersonal. They could have come from anyone. Come on.”
Carole’s pale blue eyes blinked behind her rimless glasses. She didn’t think receiving a present that could have come from anyone was necessarily such a bad thing.
But she felt her thin hands grasped in Jude’s plump ones as she was pulled up from her chair. Her dog Gulliver looked up hopefully from his permanent position in front of the Aga. People getting up could sometimes presage being taken out for a walk.
“Where are we going?” asked Carole plaintively.
“Shopping.”
“Where?”
“Gallimaufry,” Jude replied.
Her neighbour’s entire body registered disapproval at the choice of destination.
∨ The Shooting in the Shop ∧
Three
The architecture of Fethering was a living history of its development from an assemblage of fishermen’s huts to something more like a small town than the ‘village’ which description stubbornly remained in all official documentation. The returning economic confidence of the late fifties and early sixties was expressed in the High Street’s shopping parade. This terrace of buildings had resolutely resisted being rebranded as a ‘shopping centre’ or, even worse, a ‘shopping mall’. It still remained essentially as it had been built, a row of matching shop fronts, pillared by red brick and with a residential flat over each one.
When originally completed, the shops had had their names fitted into a strip above their windows, all co-ordinated in identical lettering that looked like – but probably wasn’t – brass. Continuous shifts of ownership and corporate branding meant that most of the original signs had gone. Only the Post Office retained its brass lettering, though beneath it the part that dealt with postal services was now just a tiny corner of a large convenience store.
Over other frontages were displayed the logos of the chain that ran the local bookies and of Allinstore (probably the most inefficient supermarket since records began), signs for Polly’s Cake Shop, Urquhart & Pease and another estate agent (both apparently riding out the slump in house prices), the hairdresser’s Marnie, three charity shops and a couple of other premises which seemed to change hands every six months.
Amongst these last was Gallimaufry, which had opened early in September with champagne, balloons and a lot of local press coverage. It was a shop whose contents intrigued Jude, but were dismissed by Carole (who’d never been inside the place) as ‘overpriced rubbish’.
The word ‘gallimaufry’ had culinary origins, describing a dish m
ade of odds and ends of leftovers, but soon came to be applied to any kind of hotchpotch or mix of unlikely elements. And the word was certainly apt for the stock in the store on Fethering Parade. What appealed to Jude about the place was that she never knew what she might find there. It wasn’t a dress shop, though there might well be some Indian print shifts on display. It wasn’t a furniture shop, though it sometimes sold intricately carved stools and tables from Africa. Gallimaufry didn’t specialize in any particular lines, and yet it was the kind of Aladdin’s Cave where anything might be discovered.
The Aladdin’s Cave parallel was emphasized as they entered the shop that December morning. Stock items were draped from hooks and hangers, intertwined with strings of fairy lights. Large candles in sconces higher up the walls made the scene even more exotic (and prompted in Carole sour thoughts about health and safety risks). The effect was studiedly casual, that apparently random set-dressing which could only be achieved by meticulous preparation.
If the pot luck element in shopping at Gallimaufry, the fact that she never knew what she would find there, was what appealed to Jude, the very same quality was what had kept Carole away from the place until that Friday morning. She reckoned there was quite enough imprecision in life without going out of one’s way to discover it. Carole Seddon liked to have things cut and dried.
Of course, the success of a shop like Gallimaufry would always depend on the mind behind it. An eclectic buying policy was not necessarily good news, and the retail trade was littered with businesses that had gone belly-up because their premises were filled with stuff that nobody wanted to buy.
But the mind behind Gallimaufry appeared to be a shrewd one. A careful analysis of the requirements of Fethering consumers had been conducted and, rather than filling a single large niche, the new store had aimed for many small niches.
Though the village had its less salubrious area – rather appositely called ‘Downside’, some ill-maintained roads of former council housing to the north – Fethering was, generally speaking, quite well-heeled. The bungaloid straggle of interlocking villages between Worthing and Littlehampton, nicknamed locally the ‘Costa Geriatrica’, contained many people who had retired on good pensions (in the days when there were still good pensions to retire on). Even with a recession looming, there was plenty of spare cash in the Fethering area. The skill for a retailer was to get its owners to part with it.
And that was a skill that, gathering from the crowd when Carole and Jude entered the shop that Friday morning, the owner of Gallimaufry possessed. It was also clear, from the lavish embraces they exchanged, that Jude knew the owner of Gallimaufry very well.
Introductions were made. Carole silently disapproved of the woman’s name almost as much as she did of her shop. Lola Le Bonnier. Surely nobody was actually christened that? No amount of vindictiveness of parents could land someone with the name of Lola Le Bonnier. Maybe it was a misfortune of marriage.
And the woman was wearing a wedding ring. She was tall, slender, in her thirties with hazel eyes and chestnut hair skilfully shaped short around the nape of her neck. She was dressed rather too stylishly for Carole’s taste, but there was no denying the look was effective: an Arran cardigan with impossibly large wooden buttons over a pink silk T-shirt fringed with so much lace that it looked like lingerie, and skintight jeans disappearing into the tops of knee-high brown leather boots with implausibly high heels. Carole supposed rather sniffily that if you owned a shop which sold overpriced knick-knacks, then you had a duty to dress like an overpriced knick-knack.
“Hello,” said Lola Le Bonnier, giving a firm shake to Carole’s hand. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before, have I?”
“No,” came the reply that its speaker knew was too brusque.
“Well, browse at will.” Lola made an elaborate gesture at her stock. There was something theatrical about her voice too; it had a husky, breathy, actressy quality. “Plenty of stuff still here, if you’re looking for that final present for ‘the person who has everything’. All heavily discounted too. Everything must go. Welcome to credit-crunch shopping.”
There was a wryness in her tone as she said this, an implication of understatement. Maybe the confidence of Gallimaufry’s champagne opening in September had been diluted by the harsh realities of the economic downturn. Perhaps, even though the shop was crowded, people were more cautious than they had been about parting with their money.
Certainly the stock was covered with labels bearing come-ons like ‘Final Reduction’ and ‘50% Off’. Carole’s interest was stirred. ‘Overpriced knick-knacks’ held more appeal for her when they ceased to be overpriced. They’d still be ‘knick-knacks’, obviously, but it might be worth her casting her eye over them.
“Oh, by the way, Lola,” said Jude suddenly, “if you and Ricky have got any time on Sunday, I’m having an open house. Starting twelve o’clock, going on till God knows when. You’d be very welcome.”
Really, Jude, thought Carole, if you go around randomly scattering invitations to every shopkeeper you happen to meet, no wonder you haven’t got a very clear estimate of how many people are going to come to your party. And I see the timing of the event has changed. ‘God knows when’ might be very different from ‘when the booze runs out’.
“Thanks,” said Lola Le Bonnier, her response as casual as the invitation itself had been. “I’ll check with Ricky. Sunday’s Varya’s day off – she’s the au pair, but Ricky’s mother will be with us by then…”
“Oh, she’s the actress, isn’t she?”
“That’s right, Jude. Flora Le Bonnier.”
“You’ve heard of her, haven’t you, Carole?”
“I don’t believe so,” came the sniffy response.
“She is – or at least was – quite a grande dame of the English theatre.”
“Very grande,” Lola confirmed. She gestured to a pile of books by the till – glossy hardbacks with a monochrome glamour photograph of an aristocratic-looking woman on the front and the title One Classy Lady. “Her autobiography. No way I’d get away with not stocking that in here. But fortunately she’s devoted to her grandchildren, so we might be able to leave them with her and come to your party for a while.”
“Well, be great to see you if you can make it.”
“We’ll definitely try.” Lola looked at her watch. “Actually, I’ll ask Ricky straight away. We’re just about to go up to London for a lunch thing. Christmas ‘do’ for one of the record companies he’s worked for.” She looked across at a woman busy dealing with purchasers behind the counter. “Got to be on my way, Anna.”
There was a slight tug of resentment at the corner of the woman’s mouth as she took in this information, suggesting to Carole that maybe Lola made rather too frequent demands on her to hold the fort. The assistant was probably early fifties, with thick make-up, cupid-bow lips, sculpted eyebrows and ash-blond hair. Marilyn Monroe gone to seed, or perhaps Marilyn Monroe at the age fate never allowed her to reach.
Carole realized with a slight shock that she did actually recognize the woman, though she was used to seeing her with her hair covered by a hat or scarf. Anna was one of Fethering Beach’s regular dog-walkers. She had a small West Highland terrier with a little Black Watch tartan coat. If Carole took Gulliver out a bit later than usual in the morning, around half past seven, she would quite often pass the woman. Being Carole, of course, she had never spoken to her, just given the abrupt ‘Fethering nod’ of acknowledgement which was customary at that time in the morning.
“All right,” the woman called Anna replied to Lola, contriving to keep the irritation out of her voice. “Will you make it back before closing time?”
Lola Le Bonnier’s lower lips jutted forward doubtfully. “Try to. But when Ricky gets chatting to his music industry mates, it’s sometimes hard to drag him away.”
“We are open till eight tonight.” Again the woman put her argument into the words rather than intonation.
Lola was busy reaching behin
d the counter for a violent-pink fake fur coat and a bag shaped like an upmarket leather coalscuttle. “I’ll try and get back before you close. But you and Bex will be OK. You’re a star. Bless you, Anna. See you, Jude love – hopefully on Sunday.”
And, without allowing time for any responses, the owner of Gallimaufry swept out of her shop. Anna exchanged a look with a teenager whose fringe was purple-streaked, and who Carole reckoned must be Bex. The expression of sullen boredom on the girl’s face suggested that not much help would be coming from that quarter. Anna would effectively be managing the shop on her own until eight o’clock.
∨ The Shooting in the Shop ∧
Four
Jude was already away cooing at the array of discounted goods that Gallimaufry had to offer, so Carole thought she’d better join in. She was still slightly upset by her neighbour’s reaction to her proposed presents for Gaby and Stephen, but at least she’d show willing by looking for alternatives.
“Perfect!” squealed Jude as her friend approached. She had perched a tinsel crown on her head, and she was holding up a box whose contents were a sudoku jigsaw puzzle. Carole thought it was a pointless present. Her mental workouts were with words rather than numbers. Now, if they made a jigsaw of The Times crossword, that might have engaged her attention. Except, of course, you could only answer the clues once, and when you’d done that, all you’d be stuck with was a jigsaw.
“It’s the perfect present!” Jude continued.
“For whom?”
“Georgie.”
Carole had a rule with herself, that she would never ask for information about her neighbour’s friends. If such information was volunteered, fine, but she didn’t want to appear curious. It was a rule she broke frequently, as she did now, asking instinctively, “Who’s Georgie?”
“Former client of mine. Came with a terrible pain in the neck.”
