by Wendy Holden
"I don't know where he is," snapped Rosie, still trying to work out how far Matt Locke could be blamed for the evening's incidents. He had lied to her, hadn't he? Called himself Kevin. Lured her into a corner so that Mark had leaped to conclusions. Well, pole-vaulted to them, really.
"And then Mrs. Grabster attacked her husband."
Rosie tuned back into the present to find that Duffy was midway through a dramatic account of the events of the night before. "Attacked her husband?" she echoed. She vaguely remembered seeing the gold turban racing around the marquee like a fake hare at a dog race but had not understood why.
"Yep," confirmed the postman. "Caught him in the bathroom with old Yo-Yo Knickers from up the lane there." Duffy jerked his thumb in the direction of Dungarees' cottage. "Tried to drown him in the toilet, they say."
Rosie blinked. "The toilet?" She remembered seeing, dripping wet, the drunken, red-faced man who had been leering at her before Kevin—Matt, rather—had rescued her. She twisted her lips. Some rescue that had turned out to be.
"Then Mrs. Grabster went berserk because Mr. Grabster's daughter was at the party." Duffy's eyes rounded in wonder. "Didn't know she was coming, apparently. Shows you've got to RSVP, doesn't it? I always tell people they have to. But you'd be amazed at how many don't."
"His daughter? What do you mean, his daughter?"
Duffy looked at her slyly. "A biscuit wouldn't come amiss, I must say. I've just been to Dame Nancy's and she's clean out of custard creams."
Rosie recognized the deal. The cookie package rustled deafeningly as she passed it over. The postman, she thought resignedly, truly took the cake.
"Insult's his daughter from his first marriage," Duffy told her, pulling one out.
"Insult? She's called Insult?"
"Something like that," said Duffy, with what, had Rosie been less incapacitated, exhausted, distracted, and ill, would have struck her as a revealing lack of interest in accurate detail. "Lived with her mother until recently, didn't see much of her father. Mostly, it turns out, because Mrs. Grabster couldn't stand her and wouldn't have her in the house."
"How absolutely awful." Rosie felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy for Guy and his daughter. Samantha was obviously even worse than she appeared.
"Very embarrassing for Mrs. G., making scenes like that in public. People don't forget that sort of thing round here, they don't."
Not with you around to remind them, thought Rosie.
"And the fire can't have helped things."
"Fire?" exclaimed Rosie, as another wave of pain crashed against the inside of her forehead.
Duffy reached for another cookie. "You've not heard, then? Big fire, there was. Mrs. G. knocked over a lamp or something. Sheet of flame in seconds, the side of the tent was. Went up in smoke, the whole thing did. Surprised you didn't see it."
"I must have left by then," Rosie murmured, something starting to work at the back of her brain. Funny, given the perfect recall she had of the Mark episode, including the explosive row with Matt Locke at the end of it, she could remember so little about getting home. She had a very vague memory of stumbling out and walking barefoot down the High Street with the vintage high-heeled white sandals Mrs. Womersley had lent her dangling from her wrist. Someone had been with her…
"Must have," said Duffy, his voice pregnant with meaning.
Who had it been? Rosie tried to rack her brains, but they were fully engaged in undergoing some other form of torture. Someone, she was sure, had accompanied her to the very door of Number 2…
"How bad was the fire?" Rosie demanded. An unnameable fear, which had nothing to do with her mystery escort, started to build inside her.
"Very bad. Fire brigade managed to stop it before it reached the house, but there's nothing left of the tent. Or anything inside it," Duffy added with relish. "Burned to a cinder, the stuffed sheep were, they say. Like a furnace, it must have been in there."
Rosie felt her heart begin to bang like a drum.
"Did they get everyone out of the tent?" she whispered. Mark had been unconscious when she left. During a fire, with the air thick with smoke and everyone panicking, it would have been easy not to notice a body slumped underfoot in the stampede…"He'll be all right," Matt's unconcerned drawl echoed in her memory. "He'll come round in a minute, more's the pity." But what, Rosie thought, panic clutching her throat, if he hadn't?
Duffy shrugged. "Who knows. Why?"
Rosie shoved her trembling hands under the table as images of body bags, courtrooms, and jail scrolled hideously through her mind. "If you'll excuse me," she declared in as steady a voice as she could manage, "I'm just going over to The Bottoms."
Duffy looked surprised. "Left something there, did you?"
***
Even the joyous reunion with his daughter could not dispel the dread Guy felt about facing Samantha over the lunch table the day after the party. A vicious row was more than he could bear, even if he hadn't happened to have the mother of all hangovers. But to his amazement, Samantha arrived not, as anticipated, in the most vitriolic of tempers but calm, cheerful, and wreathed in smiles.
Of all possible outcomes, this was the least expected. The disaster had, after all, been infinite in its variety. The fire—started, as far as anyone could make out, by Samantha herself knocking over some lanterns—had been the worst aspect. But ancillary incidents such as the collapse of the main buffet table, thanks to some old slapper shagging one of the waiters under it while her cockerel screeched at the top of its voice, had hardly helped matters. Nor had Sholto's subsequent screeching at the guilty lovers, for which he had been rewarded by a stream of insults and falafels from a bunch of camp actors. And it had, Guy admitted to himself, been regrettable in the extreme that Samantha should come violently into the bathroom just as he and the waitress were doing exactly the same.
Yet Samantha, toying delicately with her lunch, did not so much as mention the events of the night before. She had apparently not even noticed the succession of workmen walking past the window bearing the cremated remains of the marquee. It was, Guy thought, her finest acting performance ever.
Pushing his fork lugubriously through his couscous, he wondered whether they would be eating the caterers' leftovers for the rest of their lives. Yet even this strong hint that something of an Eastern persuasion had recently taken place failed to elicit an acknowledgment from Samantha. He winced as he bit on a preserved lemon.
Was there, Guy wondered, a clue to Samantha's carry-on- regardless attitude in Iseult's presence at the lunch table, albeit late, sulky, and lurking behind a cloud of cigarette smoke? It was just possible that Samantha was determined not to give her stepdaughter the satisfaction of seeing her admit that anything untoward had happened. Attack, she seemed to have decided, was the best form of defense.
"Tell me," Samantha's voice was all concerned brightness, "do you have a boyfriend, Iseult?"
Iseult looked coolly at Samantha. "Sort of."
"How fascinating. Do tell me about him. We're all ears, aren't we, darling?" Samantha bared her gums at Guy, who looked fixedly at his plate. "Where does he live?"
"On an estate," Iseult muttered.
"An estate?" Samantha was on red alert. Guy could see the possibilities rippling through her brain like destinations on the Waterloo noticeboard. Badminton, Woburn, Alnwick…"What, with land and farms?" she gasped.
"Sort of a farm, yeah."
"What's it called?"
"Broadwater Farm. It's a council estate in North London." It took all of Guy's effort not to snort at Samantha's confounded expression. "Actually, I was thinking of asking him up here if that's all right with you," continued Iseult, the picture of blue-eyed innocence.
There was a silence.
Guy waited for the fireworks, but they did not come. Instead, Samantha rose to her feet, bundled up her napkin, and dropped it on the table. "Excuse me," she said with exaggerated politeness. "I have some business to attend to."
"Oh really
, darling?" said Guy, expecting any moment to feel the hot, molten lava of her fury.
"Acting business, as a matter of fact. Something very big and exciting has just come up."
Iseult sniggered, pretending to stir her tea despite there being no milk in it. Milk, suspected by Samantha of harboring calories, was banned from the table.
As Samantha left the room, Guy sighed. "Bit close to the edge, that, darling. Samantha doesn't like being laughed at. Even when she's in a good mood."
"Could have fooled me. The woman's a comic genius. That outfit last night. Last night in general—"
"We're not talking about last night. We will never talk about last night. Last night is out of bounds. More than that—it never happened."
"Good at blocking out the past, aren't you." Iseult tossed her hair back over her narrow shoulders. "Like me, for example. For about eighteen years."
Guy pulled a face. "God, I'm sorry. I was a terrible father," he admitted, abandoning the pretense.
"You bet you were." Iseult fixed him with her candid blue stare. "What about that time my tooth came out, but I lost it and put a note to the tooth fairy under my pillow explaining what had hap pened. I got a note back the next morning saying 'No tooth, no money.' In your handwriting. How generous was that?"
"An early lesson about disappointment, darling," Guy said lightly, hoping to disguise a sharp pang of guilt.
Iseult fiddled in the sagging black-beaded bag apparently welded to her shoulder and dragged out a new pack of Marlboro Lights. "Well, I suppose I was hardly the ideal daughter," she said easily. "I was spoiled rotten. Remember when Mummy tried to make me take piano lessons and I stuck peppercorns down the keys to block them?"
Guy, nodding, felt slightly prickly about the eyes. Thank God she didn't seem to think it was too late for him to make amends. Because he would. And enjoy himself in the process. Now firmly persuaded that the heart attack had forced him to take stock, he was almost grateful that it had happened, even if it had meant entombment in The Bottoms. Still, he was working on that. And now that Iseult was here, she could work on it with him. It seemed incredible that he had actually preferred amassing piles of money for Samantha to spend rather than spending time with his daughter. She might be oddly dressed—his eye ran resignedly over a long tie-dyed skirt and a T-shirt obviously pulled out from under the bed—but without a doubt she was a beauty in the making. His proud glance lingered on Iseult's brilliant blue eyes, so like his own, the full lips, so like her mother's and so unlike the thin ones that Samantha had to double in size with the judicious application of her lipstick pencil.
"Well, you weren't very interested in music. A shame, because you always had a lovely voice."
"But I am interested now, Dad," Iseult said earnestly.
"Well, you can always join the choir of whatever university you decide to go to."
"I don't want to go to university. I want to be a singer."
"Yes, well, you've definitely got your mother's voice," said Guy, wondering where all this was leading. "What," he asked with elaborate casualness, "is her new boyfriend like?"
Iseult rolled her eyes. "A creep. He's persuaded Mum to be Violetta in this version of La Traviata set in seventies Islington. Mum has to fall in love with Alfredo over the melon and ginger. Her death from TB is supposed to be some sort of allegory about Watergate, which is itself an allegory about spin doctors and corruption in contemporary politics."
Guy winced. "I've heard about it. I always thought your mother hated things like that."
"Oh, Jez'll have screwed her into it," Iseult said matter-of-factly. "They're at it all the time at home."
Guy's eyes bulged. He stirred his tea thoughtfully.
"Anyway," said Iseult, "I don't want to be an opera singer. I'm in this band called Thrilled Skinny and everyone thinks I'm really good. She fumbled in her bag. "Here's our demo tape. Will you listen to it?"
Guy wasn't listening to anything. Remembering Marina's soft and curvy body, he was busy comparing it to Samantha's bony frame. Beside Marina, screwing Samantha was like screwing a ladder, though without the warmth and responsiveness of the average ladder.
Just then Consuela appeared at the door. "Ees someone…" she announced haltingly, seconds before Rosie, wild-eyed and hysterical, burst into the room.
"My boyfriend…" she gasped, her eyes a vicious blur of redness and tears. "Been searching…" (hiccup) "…the garden…" (gulp) "… no sign of him…" (hiccup) "…knocked out at the party…" (sob) "…probably dead…" (hiccup) "…don't know what to do…" (sob). Turning to the wall, Rosie threw herself against it and wailed in hopeless anguish into William Morris's Strawberry Thief.
Calmly filling a glass of water from the jug on the table, Iseult took it over to Rosie. Guy, meanwhile, grabbed at the bottle of Macallan's lurking under His Lordship's Tipple on the Georgian drinks cart. Unwelcome and alarming though the news was, he was unable to stop himself hoping the fatality was Sholto.
"Dead?" he said. "Who's dead?"
"My boyfriend," gulped Rosie, about to add "ex-boyfriend" and realizing with horror that he was now ex in every sense of the word.
"The one Matt Locke hit?" asked Iseult. "The one in the, um, gold trousers?"
"I'm not at all surprised, in that case." Guy was swigging vigorously from his tumbler. "Those trousers were tight enough to kill anyone."
At this, Rosie's anguished, jerking sobs began once more. "I'll probably end up in prison," she wailed.
"Of course you won't," said Guy, upon whom the whiskey was beginning to have an unfortunately jocular effect. "If anything, the costume company will. You'll get millions in compensation."
"Shut up, Dad," snapped Iseult. "Can't you see she's upset?"
"The last I saw of him he was lying unconscious," Rosie said, sobbing, terrified. However much Mark had upset her, she had certainly never wished such a grisly fate upon him. "He died in the fire. Everyone must have stampeded over him and left him there. I should have taken him home with me…"
"Well, I hate to say this…" said Iseult.
Rosie's heart froze. Confirmation then. All hope gone.
"…but he seemed to have a great time after you'd gone."
"Great time?" Rosie frowned. "You mean, he was…conscious? Alive? Well?"
"Not sure about well. When everyone who was left went into the house after the fire, he talked to my stepmother practically all night. Hardly behavior of the sane."
Chapter Twenty
There was no doubt in Samantha's mind that the party had been a triumph. It had, however, taken her some time to reach this conclusion. After the ghastly business of Guy and the waitress, followed by the horror of realizing her wretched stepdaughter had infiltrated the guests, it had seemed to Samantha that things could get no worse. Until, that was, she stood watching the flames from the marquee roaring into the sky and resisting the strong temptation to fling herself on the pyre of her destroyed social ambitions.
Her pride as devastated as her party tent, Samantha had been at her lowest ebb when Dame Nancy came to stand supportively beside her. She felt pathetically grateful for the company. It became quickly apparent, however, that Dame Nancy was there less to offer thespian solidarity than to get a bird's-eye view—as well as a cock's-eye one, the bird being still clamped to her bosom—of the firemen training jets of water on the blaze.
"They've got marvelous hoses, haven't they?" Dame Nancy murmured admiringly. "So big and thick. And powerful." She turned to Samantha. "Splendid party," she said. "I enjoyed myself enormously."
Even through her misery, Samantha registered the "enormously" and recalled something about Dame Nancy, a collapsed buffet table, and a well-endowed wine waiter. She noticed, too, that for some reason Dame Nancy had bits of falafel stuck all over her hair.
"Never mind about the fire, dear," the actress added. "Bound to happen at some stage. We were all expecting something of the kind."
"What do you mean?" Samantha demanded hysterically. How c
ould she possibly be expected not to mind? This was, after all, her darkest hour even if—her eye caught the flames illuminating the night sky for miles around—it was, in a sense, her lightest as well.
"Well," Dame Nancy said mildly, "anything could happen in a house as haunted as this."
Shocked to the core, Samantha went gray beneath her gilding, which was itself dissolving in the heat from the conflagration. Was there no closely guarded secret that tonight was not going to lay bare? Her hands trembled. Not content with the other devastating blows she had had to endure over the space of the past few hours, fate had seen fit to deal her the lowest one of all. People other than herself and Guy— who only suspected anyway—knew about the haunted Bottoms. Or was Dame Nancy trying to catch her out? Samantha steeled herself to brazen it out and looked back blankly at her interrogator.
