by Simon Brett
Donald Chew, by now almost comatose with drink, smiled approvingly as the new president rose to his feet to reply to the young guest. James Baxter wore the heavy, over-elaborate chain which had, until recently, hung around Donald Chew’s neck. Baxter had spent his life in local government, working mostly in the planning department, and was seeing out his last couple of years before retirement in a job where, in spite of a fine-sounding title, he could do little harm. His main professional duty now seemed to be lunching, and he took disproportionate pride in being president of the Pillars of Sussex. He cleared his throat portentously before his reply.
‘Your words are pleasing to the highest Pillar of Sussex. Welcome, and may you enjoy our dinner.’
Since they’d already finished eating, this didn’t seem to make sense, but Jude had, much earlier in the evening, realized logic played little part in the protocol of the Pillars of Sussex.
‘And tell me, Mr Ackford,’ the President rumbled on, ‘a little of yourself . . . or of those details which you are willing to share with the Pillars of Sussex.’
This was greeted by another automatic ripple of hilarity. Not for the first time, Jude wished she understood the rituals of male laughter. Its triggers seemed to have nothing to do with the humour of what had just been said; there were just certain prompts which, in an all-male assembly, required an immediate responsive guffaw. How to recognize these prompts Jude had no idea; she reckoned she never would – having been born the wrong gender.
Trifle dishes balanced up her arm, a skill mastered in her late twenties when she’d run a cafe, Jude made her way back towards the kitchen. As she left, she heard Nigel Ackford begin to present his professional credentials to the assembled Pillars.
‘After being educated at Portsmouth Grammar School, and studying law at Bristol University, I was articled to Renton and Chew in Worthing . . .’ A rumble of appreciative recognition greeted the name. Donald Chew was his boss. The young man moved in the right circles. He was one of them. ‘I qualified as a solicitor two years ago, and was fortunate enough to be kept on by Renton and Chew, working mostly at the moment on the conveyancing side, though I hope in time to expand my portfolio of skills to include . . .’
When Jude and Suzy returned to the dining room with the coffee, the rituals were over. Guests had been welcomed, a new member initiated, and a toast drunk to ‘Pillars past, Pillars now standing, and Pillars yet to be erected.’ The wording of this last invocation, innocently coined in the late nineteenth century, was followed by the obligatory sniggering guffaw that in such company greets any form of the word ‘erect’.
This was the sound that met the two women as they entered. Then the rituals gave way to speeches. Expressionless, Suzy and Jude set out cups, saucers and coffee pots as, sycophantically and with a few limp jokes of his own, James Baxter introduced the evening’s guest speaker, the president of a local rugby club, ‘Who I’ve heard speak before and who I know will give us all a lot of good laughs. So, if any of my fellow Pillars suffer from weak ribs, be warned you’re likely to crack a few!’
The guest speaker started with a reference to the wives and girlfriends marooned at home by the Pillars’ dinner, and took this as a springboard for a sequence of quick-fire jokes about women, of a crudeness Jude found hard to credit. She caught Suzy’s eye and received the unspoken message to grin and bear it.
Jude realized she and Suzy had become invisible. They were merely functionaries, fulfilling their task of serving coffee. The fact that they had identities, the fact that they were women, the fact that one of them was a great beauty of her generation and was now dressed in a stunningly expensive designer black dress, had no relevance at all.
The jokes continued, each cruder than the last, and the raucous responses to them fed the communal hatred and fear of women. As Jude and Suzy slipped, unnoticed back into the kitchen, the fumes of misogyny rising from the Pillars’ table were almost visible.
The clearing-up took a long time, though fortunately the Pillars of Sussex did not keep very late hours. There had been much bold talk of ‘staying in the bar all night’, but their stamina did not match their bravado. Most of the men had had two or three pints before dinner, plenty of wine with the meal, and were pretty incoherent before they started on post-prandial Scotches, brandies, ports and further pints.
The drunkest of the lot was Nigel Ackford. Bob Hartson kept plying his guest with more drinks, and seemed to take pleasure in watching the young man’s movements grow more random, and in hearing his speech become more slurred.
‘Are you staying tonight, Bob?’ Jude heard Nigel say at one point. ‘Or are you being driven home?’
‘No, I’m going to stay. Geoff’s kipping down here too. He can drive me back in the morning.’
Nigel Ackford waved his glass. ‘Time I bought you one, Bob.’
‘No. This evening’s my treat, and that means everything. Here, sexy Suzy, same again, please!’
Jude was once again impressed by Suzy’s forbearance, as she watched her behind the bar, dispensing orders with efficiency and an automatic smile. Even Suzy’s automatic smiles were beautiful.
None of the men noticed this. Though their conversation was still largely composed of jokes predicated on rampant lust, the presence of a real woman seemed not to impinge on their collective consciousness.
With Suzy cornered behind the bar, Jude found she was doing the initial stages of clearing the dining room on her own. Kerry, who should have been helping, was sitting with her adoring stepfather, Bob Hartson, who, apparently amused by her precocious relish for alcohol, kept plying the girl with drinks. At no stage did Suzy make any attempt to remind Kerry of her duties.
The atmosphere in the bar was raucous, and the conversation degenerated into ever more misogynistic jokes and playground insults. Only Donald Chew seemed marginalized from all the banter. He smiled and joined in the automatic guffaws which greeted every punchline, but looked aloof, not quite one of the boys, as he continued steadily to drink and unsteadily to sway. He was the first to say he was off to find his bed.
‘Ooh, sweetie!’ someone shrieked after him in a mock-camp voice. ‘Hope you find someone nice in there waiting for you!’
And the Pillars of Sussex roared their obligatory laughter.
‘Spoilsport!’ shouted someone else, as the retiring president left the bar. ‘The rest of us have only just started drinking!’
Again the Pillars guffawed.
But, in spite of bold protestations about staying up all night, Donald Chew’s departure served as a signal to the others. Jude got the impression the Pillars were not drinking on out of enjoyment, but simply as some kind of endurance test. Now one of their number had given in, it was all right for the others to do the same. Within twenty minutes, the bar was empty. The clock showed a quarter to one.
Kerry had somehow contrived to vanish too. When Jude mentioned this, and the fact that the girl should be helping with the clearing up, Suzy just grimaced and said, ‘It won’t take us long.’
But it did. The hotelier’s high standards would not allow any detail to be left till the morning. So the two of them worked dourly on. The only interruption came when Suzy’s mobile phone rang. She answered it. ‘Hello. Oh, are you? See you then.’
She said no more, and offered no explanation for the call or the lateness of the hour at which it had been made. It was not in Jude’s nature to ask for such information, but she noticed there seemed to be a new tension and impatience in the way Suzy continued with the tidying up.
It was nearly half-past two by the time they collapsed in the kitchen.
Suzy moved to one of the fridges and took out an open bottle of Chardonnay. She filled two glasses and raised hers to Jude. ‘First of the day,’ she said. ‘And last of the day. It’s the only time I have a drink. Just one glass. I usually feel I’ve earned it.’
‘You certainly have tonight.’
‘Yes.’ Suzy sighed. The tracery of lines between her eyebrows bunched t
ogether.
‘What is it?’ asked Jude, returning to their conversation of earlier in the evening. ‘Money?’
‘Oh, there’s always money – when I can’t think of anything else to worry about.’
‘And can’t you think of anything else to worry about at this precise moment?’
But Suzy wasn’t going to be drawn. She grinned bleakly. ‘Things will get better. Or they won’t. Either way, life will continue . . . at some level.’
Recognizing a barrier to a subject when she heard one, Jude moved on. ‘That note Kerry found . . .’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Which bedroom was it in?’
‘I didn’t ask her. I’ll ask in the morning.’
‘Where is she? Asleep in her staff room?’
‘Presumably. Have you put your overnight stuff in the stable block yet?’
‘Haven’t had time.’
Suzy looked across at the rack, from which only one key still hung. ‘Well, just be careful you don’t walk into the wrong room.’ She gave Jude a tired grin. ‘Otherwise Max or Bob Hartson’s chauffeur will think Christmas and their birthday’s come on the same day.’
Jude grinned too. ‘I’ll be careful.’ But there was something she couldn’t let go. ‘Suzy, do you mind if I have another look at the note Kerry found? Just rather intrigues me.’
‘Look away.’ The hotelier rose wearily to her feet and crossed to the row of hooks from which a range of overalls and aprons hung.
She reached her hand into the pocket of the blue-and-white-striped one. A shadow crossed her face.
‘It’s not there.’
Chapter Six
Suzy Longthorne lived in a barn conversion behind the hotel, and the staff quarters were in a converted stable block. The rooms were functional rather than luxurious, but each had its own walk-in shower and tea-making facilities.
Because her friend looked so suddenly exhausted and keen to leave, Jude said she’d lock up. She’d stood in at the Hopwicke Country House Hotel often enough to know the routine. The internal fire doors had to be checked and then the external doors locked. There was an alarm system, but it had been triggered so often by insomniac guests it was very rarely activated. If any of the residents should require anything during the night, bells rang in Suzy’s barn and the staff quarters. They were rarely sounded; it was made clear to the guests on arrival that they were staying in a country house hotel; what was being mimicked was the genteel life of the upper classes, rather than the corporate luxury of twenty-four hour room service.
As she climbed the stairs to check that the fire doors were closed, Jude was struck by how quickly the raucous camaraderie of the Pillars of Sussex had been switched off. From some rooms snores rumbled; no doubt later in the night, as ageing bladders protested against the many pints that had been poured into them, toilets would flush. But at two-thirty in the morning the overall impression was of silence.
She was on the top landing when she heard the noise. It sounded like a gurgling at first, but after a few moments she identified it as singing. Not particularly sophisticated – or indeed varied – singing. Just one little nursery rhyme phrase endlessly repeated, circling round and round.
The sound came from behind one of the fire doors. These were a legal requirement, but took no account of the architectural values. Though designed as sympathetically as possible, they still spoiled the proportions of the elegant top-floor landing.
Jude opened the fire door to reveal the source of the singing. Nigel Ackford, still in his sharp suit, was propped up, his body slack as if boneless, against the wall of the corridor. There was a silly smile on his mouth, out of which the strange, circular song still dribbled.
Jude tried to wake him up, but he was too far gone to respond properly. He was aware she was there, and tried to focus his grin on her, but the effort was too much. He was amiably, rather than aggressively, drunk, and made no objection to her rummaging in his suit pockets. Jude quickly found his key. Its number matched the room outside which he had collapsed, so he had only just failed to make it all the way to bed.
She unlocked the bedroom door, lifted the young man with difficulty, and manoeuvred him inside. His limbs were slack and powerless, and there seemed to be a disproportionate number of them; Jude’s mind formed the image of handling a drugged octopus.
Nigel Ackford had been given one of the best rooms in the hotel, presumably at the expense of his sponsor, Bob Hartson, who, from what Max Townley had said about him, could well afford such extravagance. The room was dominated by a high four-poster bed, with heavy brocade curtains gathered around the uprights by silken ropes. The windows were covered with the same brocade, and when the curtains were drawn back in daylight, they would reveal a perfect view down to the English Channel. As she manhandled the comatose guest onto the bed, Jude reflected that, when he woke up the next morning, he wouldn’t be in much of a state to appreciate the vista.
She decided to take some of his clothes off, so he wouldn’t have a creased suit to add to the embarrassment of meeting the Pillars at breakfast. Though his body was unresisting, she had difficultly extracting his limbs from the jacket. Once she’d removed his shoes, the trousers slipped off more easily. The pastel tie came off too, and she undid the top couple of buttons of his shirt, in case he twisted in the night and constricted his throat.
Jude put the suit on a hanger in the heavy dark-oak wardrobe, then turned to look at the figure on the bed. In his rumpled shirt, striped boxer shorts and socks, there was something boyish about Nigel Ackford. Despite the heavy late-night shadow on his chin, and the dark hair on his legs, the posture of his body suggested a five-year-old crumpled in sleep.
She decided he’d be more comfortable under the covers and managed to extricate the duvet and quilted bedspread from under the deadweight of his body, and flip them over him. Surprisingly, this, the gentlest of the manipulations he had undergone during the previous ten minutes, woke Nigel Ackford.
He looked around in benign confusion, and took a moment or two to register Jude’s presence. His confusion intensified.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, remembering her strange garb. ‘You’re not in some dream of being tended by an Edwardian nanny. You’re in your room at the Hopwicke Country House Hotel. I’m Jude. I’ve just helped you get into bed.’
‘Ah.’ Nigel Ackford giggled, reinforcing his childlike image. ‘I’m sorry I needed helping.’
Jude let out a non-judgmental ‘Well . . .’
‘No, really sorry. I found the evening rather a strain. Very important to make the right impression with the P-Pillars of Sussex.’
‘They seemed quite impressed with you.’
‘Yes.’ He smiled beatifically. ‘Yes, I think I did all right.’ His smile grew broader. ‘Bob Hartson said he thought he might be able to put me up for membership soon.’
‘To become a full Pillar?’
As soon as she had said the words, Jude realized how ridiculous they sounded, but Nigel Ackford was unaware of any incongruity.
‘Oh yes, that’d be good. I’m quite young to be a Pillar of Sussex.’
Jude nodded, because that seemed to be the appropriate thing to do. The young man’s eyes gyrated in their sockets, and his lids flickered. He would soon be asleep.
But he overcame drowsiness for another mumbled communication. ‘Going to be a good year, this one. All my troubles are over. All sorted out. I’ve made up my mind which way I’m going. This is going to be a good year.’ His head nuzzled luxuriantly back into the soft pillow. ‘I’m going to ask Wendy to marry me. And I’m pretty confident she’ll say yes . . .’
He was asleep. Jude left the room quietly, but she needn’t have bothered. Nigel Ackford was so deeply under nothing would wake him until, presumably, the crushing agony of the morning’s hangover.
Jude was used to the routine of the staff quarters. She took the remaining key from its rack and went out into the deep blue calm of the April night. In the last light be
fore she locked the kitchen door, she saw from her watch that it was nearly three o’clock.
There was no bulb in the hall light of the stable block, so Jude couldn’t see the number on her key tag. With an internal grin, she remembered Suzy’s warning about not gatecrashing the dreams of the chef or the chauffeur, but if she didn’t take the risk, she wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep. So she pushed against the nearest bedroom door, which gave easily.
It was the wrong room, but not as embarrassingly wrong as it could have been. A small bedside light had been left on to reveal the usual chaos left by a teenage girl. Distinctive T-shirts thrown down on the unmade bed left no doubt as to the occupant’s identity. But of Kerry herself there was no sign. The room was empty.
The next door was locked. Jude’s key fitted, so no worries about chefs or chauffeurs. She let herself in. Suddenly aware of how tired she felt, she had only the most perfunctory of washes and fell into bed. The alarm was set for seven, so that she’d be back on duty to serve breakfasts to the Pillars of Sussex. She wondered, after the excesses of the night before, how many of them would feel ready to face the full English. Most, she reckoned, as she fell instantly into sleep.
Chapter Seven
Suzy, sensible as ever, recognized that Edwardian nanny costumes would look incongruous at eight o’clock in the morning, so the staff’s daytime uniforms were neat blue suits. Jude always found at least two in the uniform cupboard which fitted her, suggesting that a lot of the hotel’s staff were mature matronly women.
As she had surmised, almost all the Pillars of Sussex went for the full English breakfast option. One or two looked a little sweaty and greenish about the gills, but they managed to keep up a diluted version of the night-before’s banter. The misogyny certainly remained. There were many shouted exchanges along the lines of ‘Don’t get sausages this big at home!’
