Wild Oats

by Veronica Henry

  ‘How are things?’

  Rod knew exactly what that meant. He just gave a thin-lipped smile.

  ‘Oh, you know. Fingers crossed this month.’

  She was the only person he’d spoken to about it. His brothers and sisters all thought he and Bella were enjoying their hedonistic existence too much to worry about children, that they would only cramp their style. They couldn’t be more wrong.

  ‘You should go and see someone. A specialist.’

  ‘I know. If it’s nothing doing this time…’

  Nolly pressed her lips together. ‘You know what the problem is. She doesn’t eat enough.’

  ‘She eats, Mum. Honestly.’

  She didn’t, of course. Not properly. Bella was the only person he knew who had no interest in food whatsoever.

  ‘Do you want me to do you some dinner? Lamb hotpot?’

  Rod’s mouth watered at the thought – big chump chops, the meat falling off the bone, chunks of potato, sweet melting leeks. But he had an assignation this lunchtime, with Bella. A vital assignation that couldn’t be missed for all the hotpot in Shropshire.

  Jamie awoke the next morning confused and disorientated. The dogs had long abandoned her, leaving a slightly hairy indentation on her bedcover. She pulled her curtains open, and smiled to see a jolly yellow sun hovering over the stable yard and the fields beyond – judging by its height it was almost midday. She padded down to the kitchen in her nightshirt. She was perturbed to see that, despite their assurances the night before as they’d urged her off to bed, neither Jack nor Olivier had done the washing-up from supper. The stout little brown teapot was still warm, so they’d managed to lever the kettle under the tap despite the dishes piled up in the sink.

  She made a fresh pot of tea and sawed a chunk off the loaf she’d bought in the post office the day before. She spread it liberally with butter and jam, then stuck her feet into her hiking boots and went outside.

  It was a glorious day, one which promised a gentle heat to soothe her aching bones and brought out the scent of roses by the back door. The old cockerel stood on the water butt, crowing defiantly for the benefit of anyone who would listen. She headed down towards the stables, walking in through the archway topped by the clock whose hands had stopped years ago. She felt a tinge of sadness to see all the loose boxes now empty; the concrete was cracking and grass was growing through. It had once been immaculate, not a speck of dust or stray strand of straw across the cobbles, the stable doors always freshly creosoted where now they had faded to a silvery grey, many of them hanging off their hinges. The flower baskets that Louisa had put up every year were dry and empty; some of them sprouted weeds in a ghostly imitation of what they had once been.

  The far side of the yard had a five-bar gate leading to the top paddock and the fields beyond. Jamie was puzzled to see that a large part of this area had been marked out with stakes and orange plastic tape. She wondered if perhaps Jack was arranging to have it all re-concreted. Maybe he had plans to renovate it? She thought for a moment that perhaps they could open a livery yard. It would make quite a nice little cash business – DIY liveries almost ran themselves if you were well organized. She felt cheered by the idea. Bucklebury Farm needed horses.

  She wandered over to the old barn that made up the fourth side of the courtyard. Inside, Jack and Olivier were bent over the Bugatti. Jack was in the driver’s seat, foot on the throttle, thraping the engine, while Olivier peered with a frown under the bonnet, ear cocked to one side, not quite liking what he heard. Though how he could discern anything through such a deafening roar was a mystery.

  When the revs finally died down, Jamie ventured a greeting. The two men looked up absently. Jamie felt rather as a woman might on entering a gentlemen’s club, as waves of unspoken hostility told her she was stepping into forbidden territory. She received a somewhat cursory nod of acknowledgement from each of them. It was clearly a crucial moment. At a signal from Olivier, Jack turned off the engine. Olivier, hands black with oil, delved into the depths with a spanner and made a minor adjustment. Jack restarted the engine, and after listening carefully for a few moments the two men nodded at each other in satisfaction. Only then, and more out of politeness than because they wanted to, Jamie felt, did they turn their attention to her. She felt she had to justify her presence.

  ‘I wondered if you fancied coffee?’

  The enthusiasm with which they greeted her offer made Jamie realize her first mistake. If she didn’t watch her step, she could easily become an unpaid skivvy. She’d do coffee this once, then things would have to change. She was about to turn and go when she remembered something.

  ‘By the way, what are all the stakes in the yard for? And the orange tape?’

  Olivier and Jack exchanged a glance. Jamie detected guilt. She frowned.

  ‘What?’

  Jack put down his spanner. ‘I need to talk to you about that.’

  Olivier looked awkward.

  ‘I’ll go and make the coffee, shall I?’

  He headed for the door. Jack panicked.

  ‘No. Stay. You can help me explain.’

  ‘Explain what?’ Somehow Jamie knew she’d hit upon the secret she felt had been kept from her ever since she’d arrived. The sense of exclusion, the paranoia she’d felt was not unfounded after all. So what was it all about? Was it police tape? Was there a body under the stable yard? Were teams of forensic officers about to start digging for bones?

  Jack was looking uncharacteristically nervous.

  ‘I’m not going to beat about the bush, Jamie. I’m broke. I haven’t got a bean. I’ve got no income, no pensions, no capital… Nothing to live on. And nothing to fall back on.’ He paused awkwardly. ‘Except Bucklebury. That is my only asset.’

  ‘You’re not selling the farm? You can’t!’

  ‘Not exactly. No.’

  ‘What do you mean, not exactly? Either you are or you aren’t.’ Jamie hated it when her father prevaricated.

  ‘It would kill me to leave Bucklebury. There’s nowhere else I want to go. So I’ve come to a compromise.’

  In Jamie’s experience, compromise meant something that nobody liked. She looked at Jack suspiciously.

  ‘What sort of compromise?’

  She could see Jack was choosing his words carefully.

  ‘I’ve done a deal with a developer. He’s going to convert the stables and the barns into houses. I get to keep one of the barns, this workshop and the top paddock. And some cash – enough to see me out if I’m sensible with it.’ Jack had the grace to look a little shamefaced at this. It would be the first time in his life he had been sensible with money. ‘I can show you the plans. They’re very sympathetic –’

  But Jamie was shaking her head.

  ‘You can’t! You just can’t! It would destroy the place.’

  ‘I’ve racked my brains to think of a better solution. And there isn’t one. If I stay here, the house is going to fall down around my ears.’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘While I starve to death. At least this way I don’t actually have to leave. And I’ve got something to live on.’

  Jamie sat down on a dusty old bale of hay, staring dully into the middle distance while she took in the implications. Jack exchanged glances with Olivier, who gave him a wry, sympathetic smile of support. Encouraged, Jack went and put a reassuring hand on Jamie’s shoulder.

  ‘I know this must come as a shock. But everyone has to rationalize in their old age. Make changes they don’t necessarily like.’

  She stared up at him accusingly.

  ‘Not people who’ve planned ahead. Not people who’ve put money aside all their life. Not people who save money when they make it, instead of blowing it on flash holidays and ridiculous get-rich-quick schemes that never bloody work –’

  Jack put his hand up to stop the onslaught.

  ‘Please, Jamie. Think it through.’

  ‘I don’t need to think it through. It’s the most terrible idea I’ve ever heard.’ She paused a
moment as something else occurred to her. ‘And who gets the house? The actual house?’

  ‘The developer. He’s keeping it for himself.’ Jamie looked grim.

  ‘So who is this developer?’

  Jack didn’t answer immediately. He drew breath, ready to drop perhaps the biggest bombshell of them all.

  ‘Rod Deacon.’

  A swirling red mist came down. Jamie could barely speak.

  ‘Rod Deacon? You’re not seriously telling me you’ve done a deal with Rod Deacon –’

  ‘He’s as sound as a pound, Jamie.’

  Jamie spluttered. ‘I hope you counted your fingers after you shook his hand.’

  Jack looked at his hand, as if he suddenly expected to see a digit missing.

  ‘You misjudge Rod. He’s not like the others –’

  ‘You watch. They’ll all be living here. They’ll be swarming all over the place like bloody tinkers. Your washing won’t be safe on the line.’

  Jack stared at her bleakly. His voice became harsh; defensive.

  ‘Unless you’ve got any better ideas, I’ve got no alternative.’

  ‘I don’t know how you dared go through with this without consulting me. This is my home too, you know.’

  ‘You’ve been somewhat incommunicado. Or had you forgotten?’

  ‘I won’t allow it!’

  ‘Jamie – it’s a done deal. There’s nothing you can do. It’s in the hands of the solicitors.’

  Jamie glared at her father. How could she have been lulled into a false sense of security? He was never going to change. He was going to go to his grave with a champagne lifestyle on a beer income, totally irresponsible, utterly selfish.

  ‘You’ll have to get rid of me first.’

  She swept out of the barn, as dignified as she could be in a Snoopy nightshirt and hiking boots. Olivier shrank back into the corner as she went past, desperately wishing he was somewhere else. As soon as she’d gone, he looked at Jack, who looked like a dog that had been caught weeing on an expensive rug.

  Jack smiled weakly.

  ‘Let’s take her for a spin, shall we?’

  Olivier hesitated.

  ‘I should go after her.’

  Jack put up a warning hand.

  ‘No. Give her a bit of time to think about it. Trust me. Jamie always goes off at the deep end – she’ll calm down when she’s had a chance to think about it.’

  But Olivier felt the situation had been handled badly. He could see that Jamie was most upset by having a bombshell dropped upon her in front of a relative stranger, and he wanted to reassure her that he wasn’t part of some evil plot. The look of distaste she had thrown him as she left the barn made it clear she thought he was colluding.

  ‘I’m just going to make sure she’s all right.’

  He caught up with her by the back door.

  ‘Jamie!’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘You’re bound to be upset.’

  She snorted in derision. ‘Upset?’

  ‘I don’t think your dad explained things very well –’

  ‘Is it any of your business?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m just trying to help.’ Olivier was starting to realize he would have done better not to interfere. Jamie looked at him venomously.

  ‘If you want to help,’ she hissed at him, ‘then do the washing-up. This place is a fucking pigsty.’

  She stomped over the flagstones in her boots and up the stairs, wishing she hadn’t said that. She wasn’t the sort of person who bitched about dirty plates lying around. But anything was better than entering into a debate with Olivier about what she’d just heard.

  9

  Forty miles away, on the drive in front of a sprawling gentleman’s residence in Edgbaston, Claudia Sedgeley sat astride the bonnet of her Bugatti, dressed in a white satin trouser suit and a matching fedora, her red-nailed feet bare and a huge Havana cigar clamped between her teeth. The photographer from the Birmingham Post snapped away in delight. The paper was running a series of features on local girls infiltrating worlds traditionally dominated by men, which certainly made a change from photographing the usual charity committees and be-chained dignitaries. Meanwhile, the stylist was sulking. The cigar had been Claudia’s idea. And the bare feet. And it worked a treat.

  From the grandeur of his portico, her father watched and smiled.

  Anyone who called Ray Sedgeley a scrap-metal merchant was asking for trouble. He preferred steel-broker. Scrap metal was one up from being a rag-and-bone man. Though he couldn’t deny he’d once ridden round Kidderminster on the back of his dad’s flatbed truck, slinging in people’s unwanted junk. He’d come a long way since then. Now there was a depot, offices, staff, a fleet of trucks. And a large house on the outskirts of Birmingham. Built in the thirties, Kings-wood sat in grounds of nearly an acre in leafy Edgbaston, and had served Ray and his wife Barbara as a very comfortable family home for over twenty years.

  Not that he ever tried to hide where he had come from. Ray was a rough diamond, and he didn’t care who knew it. He made few attempts to soften his image or modulate his Black Country accent. With his brightly coloured silk shirts, close-cropped hair and Rolex the size of a dinner plate, he knew he looked like a gangster. In his opinion, that was a good thing. In his line of business, people had more respect for a hard nut than a suit with a posh accent.

  Ray only had one weakness and that was his youngest daughter, Claudia. She was his Achilles heel, the one part of his life over which he had no control, but which really mattered to him. She was beautiful, untameable and mischievous and she was going to break his heart one day, when she finally got married and went off to make some other man’s life hell.

  She’d certainly led Ray a merry dance. Until she was twelve, she was merely lively. It was when the hormones kicked in at thirteen that the trouble started. She failed every single exam that she sat at the private school he paid through the nose for – he might not mind looking like a gangster, but he wanted his daughter to have polish. Her teachers despaired. Educational psychologists were brought in; discreet suggestions made of some attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity. But no one could make a conclusive diagnosis. They were all clear about one thing. Claudia was perfectly bright. If she applied herself she could do well.

  But Claudia just wanted to play. And to be the centre of attention. If she couldn’t be the thinnest, richest and prettiest, she found some other way of outshining those around her. Ray tried very hard to think of her misdemeanours as youthful high spirits, but sometimes it made him shudder to think how close she came to danger.

  He remembered when she was fourteen, and had ostensibly gone to a friend’s house for the night. A chance phone call had ascertained that the mother of the friend thought her daughter was spending the night at Claudia’s. A frantic search of all the bars and clubs on Broad Street had ensued. He’d finally found Claudia and Naomi at about one o’clock, being plied with champagne by unscrupulous-looking men in suits and black T-shirts.

  A middle-aged man dragging a screaming, barely-dressed pubescent girl out of a nightclub was bound to attract attention. Protestations that he was her father had received cynical glances, especially as Claudia volubly denied this, and declared him a pimp. The bouncers had turned nasty. The police had been called. Ray had to put in a call to a superintendent friend of his and only narrowly escaped being locked up. Claudia was unashamed, defiant. What did he expect, for spoiling her fun?

  Grounding her had no effect. She just ignored it. Short of tying her up and locking her in her bedroom, there was nothing Ray could do. Stopping her allowance didn’t help either. The one time he’d done that, she’d taken to shoplifting, coming home with bags of designer gear she’d brazenly pinched, totally unrepent ant – even when she’d got caught. He’d had to spread some backhanders around that time. For years, he prayed that she would calm down, that someone or something would catch her eye and absorb her attention.

  His wife Barbara event
ually became battle-weary and withdrew from the fracas, writing Claudia off as a lost cause and concentrating her attention on Debbie and Andrea, Claudia’s sensible and reliable older sisters. Left to deal with his daughter alone, Ray despaired time and again. He’d heard the phrase ‘tough love’; he considered washing his hands of her entirely, throwing Claudia out on the streets to give her a short, sharp shock. But Ray Sedgeley, tough and uncompromising Ray Sedgeley, who’d been known to sack a man for a misdemeanour as minor as making private phone calls on his time, couldn’t do it to his own flesh and blood.

  For somehow, just when he’d reached the end of his tether, Claudia would always do an about-face and surprise him by playing the doting daughter, and she did it so well his heart would melt and he would forgive her for the hell she’d put him through. Over-night, she would become biddable and demure, loving, affectionate and thoughtful. He found it unsettling, because it usually heralded trouble. But he made sure he enjoyed it while it lasted.

  Once she left school, Claudia’s life had settled into a pattern. She would find something to occupy her, a new job or a new business project with a friend, and for a couple of months she would be totally absorbed and apparently fulfilled. Until the novelty wore off. Then there were usually disastrous financial consequences and a falling out, followed by tears, tantrums and a credit card bending to make up for the fact that she, Claudia, had yet again been let down or betrayed or stitched up – because it was never her fault. And Ray was always there to pick up the pieces. What the hell else could he do?

  He’d lost track of the ventures he’d subsidized. A sandwich delivery service. A tanning studio. And one involving counterfeit designer handbags that had resulted in a visit from the Customs and Excise people. Ray’s name had been on all the paperwork and for a nasty moment he’d been convinced he was going to end up in jail. Claudia had drifted through the entire episode oblivious and unperturbed.

  Thus Ray had accepted that things weren’t going to change, until, miraculously, they did, one glorious Saturday in June. He’d been invited to a corporate day out by his stockbrokers; they were taking a hospitality tent at a vintage race meeting and had asked a select number of clients to come and watch the fun. Ray quite fancied going, as it sounded eccentric and English, but Barbara had promised to babysit for two of their grandchildren. He’d resigned himself to going on his own, when he found Claudia lounging in front of the telly at a loose end. Not thinking she’d take him up on it, he suggested she came with him. He was amazed when she agreed, even more amazed when she was standing by the car less than half an hour later, suitably dressed and seemingly looking forward to a day out with her dad.