Making Hay

by Veronica Henry

  Exasperated, Barney went to mock throttle her. She pushed him away, laughing.

  Suddenly there was a furious knocking on the loo door. Sasha became very serious. She put her face up close to his.

  ‘OK. It never happened.’

  She turned and, unlocking the door, walked away very quickly.

  Barney followed, rather sheepishly, giving an apologetic shrug to the bemused customer waiting outside.

  As Sasha made her way back down the high street, she thought for the millionth time in her life that it wasn’t fair. She wondered sadly if she’d ever find someone like Barney: someone cute and cuddly who you could occasionally entice into a bit of wickedness, but who would always be there. Someone who was essentially good. You came into this world good or bad, and Sasha was certain she was bad. And it was very tiring. You were constantly having to try and extricate yourself from the evil you’d done; it was a permanent damage-limitation exercise. How much easier to have been born Kitty…

  Sasha tossed her head and told herself it would be boring to be a little goody two-shoes. She decided to cadge a lift into Evesham and go and get bombed. Her mate Midge had got some draw that he said was a total trip, and Sasha reckoned that was just what she needed to forget the last couple of days.

  That evening, Ginny was curled up on the sofa, reading a novel she’d been meaning to read for ages, luxuriating in the silence and sipping a glass of wine. Kitty was at work; Sasha was out somewhere. She felt thoroughly relaxed. She’d had a wonderful weekend doing absolutely nothing but please herself.

  At nine thirty, the phone rang. Ginny hated it when the phone rang late. It used to mean people with abscesses. Now it could only mean trouble.

  She was right. Sasha’s voice came down the line. It sounded very tiny. Very far away.

  ‘Mum. I’ve been busted. I need you to come to the station in Evesham.’

  There’d been a load of them in a café, apparently, when the police had decided to do a raid. Ginny tried her very best to sound calm, a nervous reaction to how frightened Sasha sounded. She’d never heard her like that before. What did this mean? Prison? A court case? Would she have to stay the night, or would she be released? Ginny didn’t have a clue. She didn’t know how to handle the procedure; how to deal with the police. Who could she phone?

  Not David. He’d go berserk and only make matters worse. He had zero tolerance on drugs, Ginny knew. She herself didn’t condone it, but she was a realist. Experimenting was part of growing up. So she made sure the twins were well-informed, and told them a few cautionary tales of people who’d ended up in the casualty ward where she’d done her training as a result of drug abuse.

  She thought fleetingly of Bertie, but wasn’t convinced he’d deal with the situation with the gravity it deserved. She had no proof, but he was no stranger to drugs, she was sure.

  Keith. She’d phone Keith. He’d know exactly what to do.

  Keith was wonderful, and took immediate total control of the situation. Within ten minutes he arrived at her door in the Land Cruiser.

  ‘Get in,’ he ordered, calm and authoritative. As he drove towards Evesham, he made several calls on his mobile until he got in touch with the solicitor he wanted. Ginny sat by meekly as he rapped out questions and took in the answers, then ordered the solicitor to stand by in case he was needed.

  He swept into the police station with Ginny close behind, demanding to see the most senior officer in charge. He wasn’t remotely intimidated, whereas Ginny knew she would have been submissively meek, and probably taken all the blame for her daughter’s wayward behaviour.

  Keith soon satisfied himself that Sasha hadn’t actually been in possession of anything, so wasn’t being held. She emerged looking remarkably sheepish. Keith grabbed her firmly by the scruff of the neck, before she got any ideas about slipping off with the rest of her mates who’d been released.

  ‘Right, young lady. In the car.’

  Ginny sat by as, unabashed, he gave Sasha a serious talking to.

  ‘I don’t know how you’ve got the nerve to put your mother through that. You’ve got no thought for anyone but yourself. Don’t you understand the implications? You’re lucky you got off with just a warning. You wouldn’t get very far in life with a record, I can tell you.’ He turned to give her a look that said he meant it. ‘You’re lucky I’m not going to sack you from the Honeycote Arms for a start. I won’t tolerate drug users on my staff.’

  Sasha, amazingly, kept quiet and looked suitably chastened. Ginny didn’t think anyone had spoken like that to her before.

  Keith drove them both back to Honeycote with nobody daring to squeak. But as soon as they had arrived in the warmth and safety of Tinker’s Barn, he turned from nasty cop to nice cop.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I think we need a bit of light relief after that. I’m going to get us all a Chinese takeaway.’

  Ginny was pleased that she wasn’t going to have to spend the rest of the evening alone with Sasha, and examine her own shortcomings. Rationally, she knew that she was a good mother and that she’d done a good job of bringing the girls up. But it was only natural to blame yourself when they did something silly. What if? If only? Should have. Shouldn’t have. Though thankfully Sasha’s escapade hadn’t come to anything. Better to be picked up from the police station than the hospital. And maybe it would teach her a lesson.

  Sasha slunk upstairs to get changed while Ginny set the table for supper. She found bowls and chopsticks, soy sauce and paper napkins, then lit some little tea lights round the room to give it some atmosphere.

  Sasha came back down, soberly dressed in jeans and a grey cardigan, not displaying her usual flamboyant style. Mother and daughter looked at each other, neither quite sure what to say.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ croaked Sasha, and threw herself into her mother’s arms. ‘I’m sorry I’m such a stupid cow. I can’t do anything right. I bet you hate me!’

  ‘Darling, of course I don’t!’ Ginny hugged her daughter tightly. Keith’s lecture had obviously hit home. ‘I just wish you’d think a bit more, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t you wish I was more like Kitty?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Ginny stoutly. ‘That would be… boring.’ She hoped by saying it she wasn’t being disloyal to Kitty, but Sasha obviously needed a boost. The two of them were both having a little weep, mixed with laughter, when Keith arrived back with the Chinese, and with Kitty behind him, having finished her shift at the pub.

  The meal was, surprisingly, after everything that had happened, great fun. After a couple of glasses of wine everyone relaxed. Sasha became her old self again, but instead of demanding attention by being confrontational she was actually quite amusing. She looked almost happy, thought Ginny, and wondered why.

  As she looked round, she thought she knew the answer. There might only be the four of them, but it felt like a family, sitting round the table, enjoying a meal, sharing experiences, having fun. She watched as Keith insisted Sasha had the last spring roll, and Sasha insisted on cutting it in half to share with him.

  At nearly midnight, Keith announced reluctantly that he had to go. Ginny saw him to the door. Unnoticed by her, Sasha and Kitty had slipped away discreetly.

  ‘Thank you so much for this evening. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

  He smiled kindly.

  ‘No problem. I enjoyed it. I was feeling rather sorry for myself, anyway. Mandy left for Australia this morning. It’s going to be strange without her.’

  Impulsively, Ginny reached up on her tiptoes and kissed him. Full on the lips. A kiss that was full of promise. She gave him a mischievous smile.

  ‘I would ask you to stay’, she said, ‘but I think Sasha needs me tonight.’

  It took Keith a second to recover and realize what she was saying.

  ‘No. Quite right.’

  ‘But if you’re not doing anything later in the week… maybe we could go out?’

  His smile lit up his whole face and
Ginny thought what a nice face it was, a trustworthy face, and one she could grow very fond of given time.

  As he went back down the path to his car, Keith felt the urge to leap in the air and click his heels together in glee. He decided that probably wasn’t wise. But in his head he did a merry dance of triumph all the way home.

  *

  After service that night, Barney went to extricate his wife from the kitchen. He’d got a bottle of chilled white wine and two glasses. She was busy swabbing down the surfaces.

  ‘Come on. That’ll wait till morning.’

  ‘I’ve nearly finished. I can’t leave it dirty.’

  Suzanna’s idea of dirty was most people’s idea of sparkling clean. Barney grabbed her firmly by the hand and led her upstairs to their bedroom, where he poured them each a glass of wine.

  ‘I think we need to talk everything over,’ he said firmly. ‘But before we start, I want to tell you that I love you. And admire you. And respect you. More than anything in the world.’

  Suzanna looked at him. She took a thoughtful sip of her wine. He was so big. So kind. So strong. And so…

  Suddenly she put her glass down. She walked over to him and took his out of his hand. Then she leaned forward and kissed him. Hungrily. Passionately. Barney didn’t even have time to be shocked. He responded with equal passion. Within moments, their clothes had tumbled to the floor. Warm skin met warm skin. Lips, tongues and fingers bestowed caresses that woke in each of them a wild need to show that their love was stronger than their grief. Fear melted away as they came together to kill the dark spirit that had threatened to destroy them.

  Afterwards, Suzanna sat up with a smile, her hair tousled, her skin slick with sweat, her eyes huge with exhilaration.

  ‘Jesus,’ she breathed, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of bliss that had washed over her. ‘That was the best ever.’

  The ghost was gone.

  25

  It was a boiling hot August day, the sort of day that made people say no one would bother going abroad if you could rely on the weather being like this in England. Everyone who had planted hanging baskets or containers was cursing at having to spend so much time watering. Some had given up.

  Even the flower arrangements in the little church at Honeycote were starting to wilt in protest. Caroline, riddled with nerves, was furious that the florist had fobbed them off with blooms that were less than fresh, and threatened to cancel the very substantial cheque she’d given her, but James calmed her down. Nothing was capable of withstanding this heat. Henry was doing his best, looking perfectly splendid in the Liddiard christening gown. Patrick had worn it, and James and Mickey before him, and the silk was now yellowing and worn right through in places. But Lucy had very carefully sewn up the tears with tiny stitches, as Caroline hadn’t ever so much as threaded a needle, and they both agreed it was so much nicer to christen your baby in an heirloom than spend money on some awful frilly, white monstrosity.

  At the instruction from the vicar, Patrick stood up and made his way to the font. The card he’d been given with the words printed on it shook slightly in his hands. Bertie took his place beside him in a white linen trouser suit, rakish as ever but somehow more wholesome than usual, less as if he’d spent the night languishing in an opium den. His girlfriend was in the congregation, too. Erica. A cool, Greta Scacchi-like blonde, she was in a floaty tea-coloured silk dress, with hundreds of silver bangles up each arm and beaded slippers. A white Zimbabwean who had fled to England when things had got sticky on her family’s game reserve, she was more than a match for Bertie. Anything he got up to was nothing compared to the drama she’d already experienced in her twenty-four years. She had her own company, organizing riding safaris to countries in Africa that were less dogged by political upheaval than her own. She could shoot a charging rhino from fifty paces; break a wild horse; fly a plane. Bertie didn’t phase her in the least – he was firmly under her thumb. And he clearly worshipped her. He seemed to be settling down at last.

  They were all growing up, thought Patrick. Poor Henry. He was the one with it all in front of him: the potential minefields that life presented to you. Then he grinned. Henry would be all right. He had Patrick and Bertie looking out for him. He couldn’t go wrong.

  He thought about the e-mail he’d received that morning, from Mandy. She absolutely couldn’t wait to see him, she’d said. She was counting the days. Patrick felt in his pocket for the ticket that Keith had presented him with the day before. A ticket to Australia – return, Keith had pointed out mock-sternly. It was a reward for all his hard work. Incredibly, since its opening in May, the pub’s profits had doubled each month and looked set to rise even further.

  Patrick was hoping against hope that this long-awaited holiday would result in him bringing Mandy back home. Home being the operative word – he’d done little this summer but work on the pub, then go straight to Little Orwell Cottage, which was now almost worthy of a feature in House and Garden. He couldn’t wait for Mandy to see it, and put her own imprint on the place. Patrick knew he’d done a good job, but he wanted to wake up and feel it was their home, not just his…

  Inside the Honeycote Arms, Damien and Kelly and Anastasia were finishing lunch. Anastasia was scraping up the last of some home-made vanilla ice cream which had been, to her delight, served with star-shaped shortbread biscuits. Damien and Kelly were lingering over coffee, surrounded by pieces of paper on which they were doing calculations.

  Damien was in the process of buying a local manor house, Barton Court. It belonged, apparently, to the man who had backed Kelly’s salon, who was now living with his wife in Portugal. He wanted to get shot of his old house so he could increase his sun-drenched property portfolio. The garden centre adjoining the house had been sold off as a separate enterprise, but Barton Court itself was perfect for what Damien and Kelly had in mind.

  A day spa. An absolutely top-of-the-range, unashamedly luxurious and self-indulgent day spa, where you could wrap yourself in seaweed from head to toe, enjoy ayurvedic massages and hot-stone treatments and thalassotherapy. And all sorts of cosmetic enhancements of the kind that were becoming increasingly popular, the ones that stopped the ageing process in its tracks. Kelly was going to manage it: she’d sold her interest in the salon in Eldenbury for a nice profit. And although it wasn’t quite – quite – the fulfilment of Damien’s ultimate dream, it was well on the way. And anyway, contentment was dulling his ambition.

  He thought about the past couple of months and the person he had now become. Since he’d followed his resolution, to be true to himself and not try and be something he wasn’t or what he thought people wanted him to be, he’d felt more comfortable in his own skin. He’d become accepted. He was now on first-name terms with Coral in the post office, who’d been so snotty to him when he first arrived. She even saved him his copy of the Mail each day. He and Kelly had been to Anastasia’s end-of-term concert at school and had mixed freely with the other parents. Emily’s Mum and Dad had asked them to a barbecue. Damien had brought Dom Perignon, because that was what he liked and what he wanted to bring, and he no longer cared what anyone thought. He didn’t have to.

  True love meant not having to prove yourself…

  There had been a bit of a cloud on the horizon. A cloud which, if you looked hard enough, had had a silver lining, although Damien would never have actually wished death on Nicole.

  She’d had an overdose. One of her brothers had called him on his mobile. Barry was the best of a bad bunch who’d realized not only the severity of the situation but also the fact that, of any of her feckless relations, Damien was the one person likely to be able to create order out of the chaos.

  He got to Bristol Royal Infirmary twenty minutes too late. He’d steeled himself to look at her lifeless body and had been shocked. If he’d thought she looked bad the last time he saw her, she’d deteriorated tenfold since then. Heroin, Barry told him bitterly, and all Damien wanted to know was why? Barry hadn’t blamed him, had just shrugge
d and said but for the grace of God went the whole fecking family. It was a well-travelled path when you lived in the arse-end of Bristol, surrounded by the sort of scum and lowlifes who were happy to bring you down with them.

  ‘I couldn’t have done anything to help her,’ said Damien desperately. ‘She didn’t want to know.’

  ‘I know she didn’t,’ said Barry. ‘All Nicole ever wanted to do was escape. She should have known heroin wasn’t the way out.’ He put his hand on Damien’s shoulder. It wasn’t quite affectionate, but it was a gesture of recognition. ‘You were her only chance. I don’t know why she fucked it up.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said Damien, and felt sick. Was there a point at which he should have put his foot down? Paid her more attention? Been more sympathetic? Less sympathetic? But no – he remembered the nights he’d spent racking his brains as to how to make her happy. She was flawed. Rotten to the core. And he hoped fervently that Anastasia wouldn’t inherit any of those genes that promised nothing but eternal unrest, a constant quest for something that was never going to happen, a quest that ultimately ended in self-destruction.

  All he could do to counteract it was surround his daughter with love, give her the strength of character and self-esteem that would allow her to enjoy life as it was and not think that gratification was always round the next corner. It was a huge responsibility and a daunting task, and having failed with Nicole, Damien occasionally had a crisis of confidence. But he thought, with Kelly at his side, he’d be able to manage. She was extraordinary. She treated Anastasia as a proper person, had time for her, was interested in her, had incredible patience – yet never spoiled her somehow, as she was very firm about things like table manners and bedtimes.

  She’d be a fantastic stepmother, Damien found himself thinking, as he watched her show Anastasia how to put her spoon neatly on her plate when she’d finished and wipe her mouth with her napkin.

  And perhaps, one day, a mummy in her own right.

  In the kitchen, Suzanna was putting the finishing touches to the christening tea. Jonty had taken care of lunch in order to free her up. It was incredibly hot in the kitchen, a combination of a blazing August afternoon and the fact that the cookers had been going full blast for over two hours. It was making Suzanna long for a cool shower and a lie-down, but that was out of the question. Instead, she filled a glass with iced water and pressed it to her head for a moment before drinking it.