Stealing the Show

by Christina Jones

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it Nell, then? Is it to do with today?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Nothing like that either. Do you know where she went?’

  ‘Not a clue. You know what she’s like about keeping secrets. Your ma is the only person I know that can wheedle information out of Nell – hey, what are you doing?’

  Sam lifted her moist curls away from her face. ‘Just looking. I can look, can’t I?’

  ‘Stop it.’ She jerked away.

  Sam kissed her cheek gently. There was no one to see but Claudia felt as though she was illuminated by flashing neon lights. It was nice, though. Gentle and loving. What a shame that gentle and loving had to turn into groping and heaving. She turned her head to meet his eyes and felt the slightest tremor deep inside.

  Confused, she slid from the bumper. ‘I’d better go. I’ve promised Nell a drink and I need a shower first. And, if Danny is going to make one of his famous Bradley family announcements, I suppose we should be there. Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Because you’re beautiful.’ Sam stood up beside her. ‘And because you didn’t smack my face or shudder with revulsion.’ He walked away from her, looking over his shoulder. ‘Come on then, Mrs Bradley. We’d better not keep your husband waiting.’

  ‘Everyone got a drink?’ Danny perched on the arm of the William Morris sofa. ‘Good. I’ve got a bit of news.’

  Claudia, showered and wrapped in her silk kimono, sipped her second large vodka. Nell looked as though she was going to drop from tiredness. Sam was leaning back, completely relaxed.

  Danny cleared his throat, sounding pompous. ‘I’ve been having recent meetings with Clem Percival – and Ross, of course.’

  Claudia glared at Sam. He’d said it wasn’t anything to do with the merger. And poor Nell looked as though her headache had returned with a vengeance. Danny was beaming. ‘I’ve acquired some pretty prestigious ground from them.’

  Nell stirred in her chair. ‘Aren’t we supposed to discuss this, Danny? If Percivals are letting sites to us, doesn’t it have to be a unanimous decision?’

  ‘Usually, yes, of course. But this was too good to pass up. Clem was going to advertise the space in The World’s Fair, but he gave me first refusal. I knew you’d all be for it. Apparently, he’d got the ground rights and wanted to take the Ice-Breaker and a couple of his other rides, then discovered they wanted older stuff –’

  ‘Really?’ Claudia swirled her slice of orange in her glass, grinning across at Nell. ‘One in the eye for Mr Hi-Tech, then. Where is it? And when?’

  Danny frowned at the interruption. ‘It’s a one-off. After Henley and immediately before Haresfoot, so we can fit it in without any trouble. And it’s big. Very big. We could take as much there in one night as we have here in a week.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be difficult,’ Claudia muttered.

  Nell shifted in her chair. ‘For God’s sake get on with it, Danny. I’m dropping here.’

  ‘Blenheim Palace,’ Danny said smugly, as though he was on chatty first-name terms with the Marlborough family. ‘The South Lawn. They’re having a concert – orchestra, champagne picnic, fireworks, fountains – and Bradleys’ Mammoth Fun Fair.’

  Claudia smiled. No wonder he was looking so pleased with himself. It was quite a coup.

  ‘I take it there are no objections?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘Great.’ Danny leaned down from his sofa arm, letting his hand stray along the cushions. ‘Now why don’t we have one last drink to celebrate and –’

  ‘All be over the limit for the drive to Henley in about four hours,’ Claudia said, struggling to her feet to reach for the jug. ‘Great idea, Dan.’

  She had her back to them. She was aware that they’d stopped talking. With the jug of vodka and orange still in her hand, she turned round. Nell and Sam looked openly appalled. Danny’s face was turning purple. He was dangling something from his fingers.

  ‘These,’ he said icily, ‘were behind the sofa cushion.’

  Claudia swallowed. It was a packet of condoms.

  Danny’s voice was dangerously level. ‘They’re certainly not mine, so whose are they, Claudia? Just who have you been entertaining?’

  ‘No one. Don’t be silly –’

  She looked at Nell. But Nell knew Terry had been in the living wagon at the start of the week at King’s Bagley. She had seen him. And Nell had thought that she and Terry had been ‘snuggling up’ only hours earlier. Claudia thought frantically. Terry must have dropped the condoms when he and Karen had used the shower. They had been hidden for all that time. Oh, holy shit …

  ‘They’re not mine.’ Her hands were shaking. ‘I’ve got no idea how they got there – or who they belong to or –’

  Danny’s fists were clenched. The veins were standing out on his forehead.

  Sam reached out his hand, not looking at Claudia. ‘They must be mine. Must have fallen out of my pocket. I was up here earlier, Dan, remember? When you told me about Blenheim? I really ought to be more careful.’ He laughed. It sounded wrong. ‘Thank God you found them – it could have really fouled up my love-life.’

  He took the packet and pushed it into the back pocket of his jeans. Claudia let the jug clatter back on to the tray. She could tell from Nell’s eyes that she knew he was lying. And she didn’t dare look at Danny. Everyone was standing up now, the refills forgotten.

  Claudia rushed to open the door for Sam and Nell, both of whom muttered their goodnights. Closing it behind them, listening to Danny stomping around in the bedroom, Claudia realised with frightening clarity that it was far more important that Sam believed in her innocence than her husband.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘And lift – and lower – and rest …’

  Adele lifted and lowered and panted as she glowered through a veil of perspiration at Emma; blonde, lissom Emma, who looked so young that she was probably bunking off school. Emma, of Emma’s Exercise, who, after her third class of the morning, hadn’t even broken into a sweat.

  ‘Well done, ladies.’ Emma had the sort of irritating nasal sing-song voice that is compulsory behind cosmetic counters. ‘Now, if we can all rest. Rest is vairy, vairy important. Exhale to twenty – vairy slowly, ladies – and then let each muscle unfurl itself. And when we’ve exhaled and unfurled, vairy slowly of course, we can take our crash mats back to the receptacle, jump on the scales, and then avail ourselves of the refreshment facilities.’

  Adele always forgot the exhaling and had never unfurled in her life. Now she lay rigidly on her back, her arms clamped to her sides, her eyes seeking guidance from above. The ceiling of the Body Beautiful, tiled in greyish polystyrene, refused to give her any comfort. What she was doing, she thought fixing her attention on a skew-whiff tile in the corner, wasn’t that bad, surely? Yes, people might say she was meddling in her family’s lives, but it was from a purely selfless motive. In one fell swoop she would solve everyone’s problems. Surely that wasn’t wrong?

  All around her, middle-aged bodies were jerking aching muscles and breathing noisily. It was like being in a labour ward. Since her meeting with Clem at Wantage and her momentous decision to buy the Crash’n’Dash, she’d tried on several occasions to tell Peter. But somehow the words had failed to materialise. It wasn’t the money. Peter had enough money, and he never minded how she spent hers. It was the scale of the thing. The whole massive deception. She had never deceived Peter before – and even if this was for the right reasons, she still felt tidal waves of guilt. And Nell? Would Nell ever forgive her for her interference? Adele gulped nervously. Still, there was no going back now. After today, there would be no going back at all.

  Scrambling to her feet and tugging her square yard of latex across the Body Beautiful’s gymnasium floor she stumbled over Cynthia Hart-Radstock, who was exhaling dutifully.

  ‘Sorry, Cynth. Bit of a rush.’

  Cynthia Hart-Radstock opened one perfectly-made-up green eye. ‘Are you sure you’ve unfurled
fully?’ In her designer yellow Lycra leotard she looked like a slinky Siamese cat. ‘You’ll knot your muscles, Adele, dear. One needs to cool down, you know – and at your age –’

  Adele bumped the mat over two further exhalers. ‘No time for any more. I’ve got an appointment this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh?’ Cynthia raised her head. ‘Medical? Hair? Facial? Voluntary work?’

  ‘Business.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Cynthia gave a little smile. Her lipstick was still in place. ‘With Peter?’

  ‘Without.’ Adele frowned at the immaculate lipstick and wondered why she was the only one who perspired inelegantly throughout Emma’s Exercise. Pulling up her leopardskin leggings to meet her tight pink T-shirt, she knew full well that Cynthia Hart-Radstock would translate ‘business’ into ‘affair’ and have the whole of the bowls club humming before tea-time.

  Well, let her. Peter thinking she was romping with a lover somewhere in a New Forest hotel was probably preferable to him knowing the truth. The truth – along with the hot flushes – kept Adele awake at nights.

  ‘Not taking advantage of the facilities, Mrs Bradley?’ Emma enquired as Adele lobbed her mat into the box. ‘I understand there is a simply delicious pureed carrot and celery drink available today.’ She dragged out the regulation scales – no one was allowed to escape from the Body Beautiful without a weigh-in.

  Adele was still not quite sure why she put herself through this weekly torture and public humiliation. During her travelling days, exercise had been part of life, lifting, heaving, constantly working. Her muscles had only started to sag once she’d entered the soft and pampered flatty world. She stepped on to the scales and tried not to look at the flickering digital read-out. Not that it would have been any good. It weighed in kilos. Adele didn’t trust kilos. She always felt they were heavier, somehow.

  Emma beamed. ‘It’s a loss. Nearly two hundred and fifty grams, Mrs Bradley. Super.’

  Adele practically cartwheeled from the scales. Two hundred and fifty grams! That had to be at least a stone. She could try out that new Delia recipe tonight, the one with the pork and the sautéed onions and the fried potato wedges.

  ‘Try not to be too disappointed.’ Emma filled in Adele’s card. ‘Think of it as a pack of butter.’

  Screwing in her earrings, Adele felt her euphoria grind to a halt. A pack of butter? A measly half-pound! She groaned. That was the trouble with this EC stuff – it fooled you every time. Bang goes Delia then, she thought, wondering how Peter would react to a plateful of radishes for supper. She should, she thought, be dishing him up a huge slice of explanation pudding followed by humble pie.

  She hurtled into the car park, unlocked the Jag, and slid her feet into the Gucci loafers. It was too late to go back to Graceland to change. She’d just have to hope that the addition of patent stilettos to the leopardskin leggings and the tight T-shirt would make her look a bit like one of the Shangri-Las.

  She had to be in the Midlands by two o’clock. To be at Jessons’ factory to meet Clem Percival. The Bradleys’ Crash’n’Dash was ready for testing. Adele was already in fourth gear as she left the car park.

  ‘Crackin’, Princess!’ Clem strode to meet her. ‘You look a picture. Like one of the Ronettes.’

  Close enough, Adele thought, as her hands were crushed. ‘Is Ross here, yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Clem strode across the concrete apron in front of Jessons’ factory. ‘He shouldn’t be too long. Gives us a bit of time to have a quick look-see at the old workings.’

  He opened large, reinforced glass doors with a swipe card and ushered the still breathless Adele inside. ‘Been to one of these before, Princess?

  Adele puffed as she bobbed along behind him that, no she hadn’t, but she was really looking forward to it, and was the Crash’n’Dash set-up inside?

  ‘Bless you, no.’ Clem wheeled smartly into a factory complex which hummed with fluorescent lights, ranks of computer screens, and some very hi-tech work-benches. ‘She’s outside. On the test bay. Here we are then. The boys are building three Ice-Breakers at the moment for the Far East, a Crash’n’Dash for Hamburg, and two Moon Missions for Australia. Business is doing nicely.’

  Several Percival millions nicely, Adele thought as she nodded at the boys who were wearing corporate coloured overalls and goggles and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Grand Prix pit lane. The boys looked up and nodded back politely over the sound of drills and grinders and Radio One.

  Clem walked between the benches and desks pointing out everything in technical terms, referring to structural loads and effects, weight limits and G-forces, while managing to keep up a string of Cockney banter with the boys. Adele could only hope that she was nodding and laughing in the right places. Wasn’t Donald Duck rhyming slang for something extremely rude?

  Heaps of coloured fibreglass littered the benches, as the computer screens flickered with what must be the up-to-date version of blueprints. Little fire-bursts of welding and soldering lit the darker corners. Adele thought it was very impressive. She was also even more nervous. It was far too late to back out now, she realised that. The machine had been commissioned and built. Soon she would have to tell the rest of the family what she’d done. She hadn’t even plucked up the courage yet to mention it to Danny.

  ‘Ready?’ Clem was cupping her elbow. ‘Best foot forward, Princess – and don’t look so worried. It’s perfect – and we’ve got everyone on hand for testing. I’m going to have a go myself. How about you?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ Adele’s earrings jangled frantically. ‘I haven’t got a head for heights, Clem. I’m a martyr to anything higher than a four inch stiletto.’

  With the aid of a further swipe card and the punching of a multi-buttoned panel, Clem led Adele out of the factory’s back door. Pressed up against his broad back, hardly daring to breathe, she didn’t raise her head.

  ‘Whatcher reckon, then?’

  Adele took a deep breath and peeped from behind his shoulder. ‘Jesus!’

  The Crash’n’Dash, all fifty tons of it, loomed into the pellucid sky. Silent, towering, awesome. Adele could feel the adrenalin rush even before the power was switched on. In the catalogue it had looked spectacular. In reality it was mind-blowingly stupendous. Nell would throw a fit.

  Constructed in clashing swirls of colour – mauve and orange, red and pink, bright blue and lime green – twin tracks reared upwards. Twelve two-seater cars were suspended from each of the tracks which criss-crossed in four places, and the elliptical design caused all the cars to hang upside down at the highest points, which, Adele calculated giddily, had to be about sixty feet in the air. Huge hydraulic cylinders were poised like rocket launchers at the base, making the Crash’n’Dash look as though it had wandered away from NASA and got lost.

  ‘You’ll get a better idea once we start the test.’ Clem didn’t seem to notice that Adele was still rooted to the spot. ‘The main idea is, of course, that the cars travel upwards and outwards on their individual tracks while tumbling and spinning, then hurtle towards each other and look as though they’re going to collide at the four crossover points. We reach speeds of seventy miles an hour both on the almost-impact points and on the downward tracks. The ride lasts a minute and a half. It should seem like two hours.’

  Adele tried to swallow. ‘It’s … it’s quite … spectacular.’

  ‘And it’s all yours, Princess.’ Clem gave her a beefy hug. ‘Ah, here come the reinforcements. Now we can really get the show on the road.’

  Jessons’ rear doors opened and a bevy of people poured into the yard. The overalled boys pushed sack trucks piled high with sandbags, and were followed into the sunshine by two white-coated professorial types and a youngish man with a wispy beard and ripped jeans.

  ‘Test engineers,’ Clem whispered, ‘and the scruffy hippie is the doctor.’

  ‘Is he expecting accidents?’ Adele felt faint.

  ‘God, no!’ Clem’s roar bounced off the dizzying walls o
f the Crash’n’Dash as the workforce strapped the sandbags into the seats. ‘He works alongside the techno boys at every stage of development, following the international safety codes, and so on. His main purpose is to make sure the acceleration force is enough to give the punters a kick – but not enough to finish ’em off, you know?’

  Adele didn’t. There had never been this sort of palaver with the dodgems.

  The test engineers had settled themselves behind the ranks of buttons in the pay-box and the doctor was supervising the loading of the sandbags into the seats.

  ‘’Course,’ Clem lit a cigarette, ‘it’ll all look so much more gutsy in darkness with the lights an’ all – but I’m sure you’ll get the gist.’

  The doctor wandered across and shook Clem and Adele by the hand. ‘Magic piece of equipment,’ he beamed. ‘Can’t wait to have a crack at it. Funny to think that something built on the same lines as a heavy industrial crane will bring pleasure to so many people. Fascinates me every time.’

  Clem glanced at the doctor and ground his cigarette out with his heel. ‘It’s all hydraulics, electronics, compressed air, and sheer bloody brute force. Push-button stuff. Folds away as neat as ninepence. And the punters can’t get enough of it, thank God, eh, Princess?’

  Adele felt cold suddenly. The overalled boys were standing clear; the two white-coated engineers had taken up their positions behind the computer panel. The doctor started a countdown.

  A galaxy of dazzling white lights appeared as if the North Star had gone in for amoeba-like reproduction; a heavy metal rock anthem echoed from the bowels of the tracks; the hydraulic cylinders quivered and hissed. The twenty-four cars and their sandbag passengers swung gently as the tracks moved on their axis, then slowly began to climb. Adele wiped her palms on the leopardskin leggings. The track speed increased with the bass line of the music, and the lights became more frenzied as the cars started to tumble into the air. The tracks moved suddenly together, swinging half the cars straight towards the other half. She screamed. The miss was merely hair’s-breadth.