Choral Society

by Prue Leith

  They followed the path steeply uphill, and then the land flattened to a plateau and sloped gently down to a cliff edge. They could hear, but not see, the waves crashing onto the cliff below.

  Lucy was out of breath, but exhilarated. She stopped at the top, hands on hips, and looked to the distance where the blue of sea met the blue of sky. The hackneyed descriptions are correct, she thought, the deep blue sea is just that, and the sky is exactly the colour she understood by sky-blue.

  She did not dare go closer to the cliff edge, and Joanna’s knee needed a rest, so they sat on the sheep-cropped grass, a little back from the drop. They watched Rebecca run down to peer over the edge. She turned to shout to them to join her, but they shook their heads.

  ‘For God’s sake be careful,’ Lucy called. ‘The edge could crumble.’ But Rebecca just waved merrily and walked further along the edge, trying to see down to the beach or rocks or whatever was below.

  Both women were uneasy until Rebecca rejoined them and flopped down with the ease of a thirty-year-old.

  ‘You should take a look, you two. It’s great. There’s a little strip of pebbly beach. And then jagged rocks and white foamy sea, swirling about. The cliff seems to slope back under your feet. I couldn’t see where the gulls go to. I guess to nests in the cliff face.’

  The breeze from the sea lifted Lucy’s hair and cooled her face. Content now that Rebecca was back on safe ground, Lucy leant back on her arms, raised her face to the sun and closed her eyes. The pungent scent of cut fields, the fragrance of sun-warmed pasture beneath her and the whiff of ozone made a heady cocktail, calming and narcotic. She listened to the gulls making seaside soundtracks. It was unbelievably peaceful and no one said a word for several minutes. Lucy could not remember when she’d sat in silence like this, just enjoying it.

  But of course Rebecca broke the spell. She sat up.

  ‘ Lucy and Jo, what are you thinking about this very minute?’

  ‘Mmm,’ Lucy said, ‘I was thinking how much David would have loved this.’

  Something in her voice must have got to Rebecca, who said, ‘Poor Lucy. Widowhood must suck.’

  ‘No, it’s getting better. Not all misery now. I’m not so lonely.’ She was silent for a minute, her eyes turning to scan the sky, sea, fields. ‘Sometimes I’m even happy. Last night I was daydreaming about living down here. It is heavenly, Joanna.’

  Joanna smiled her agreement but Rebecca said, ‘Not in the winter, I bet.’

  I wonder, thought Lucy. It might be wonderful. No tourists, great landscapes, early springs. Camellias and palm trees. Very good seafood.

  Rebecca interrupted her reverie with her penny-for-your-thoughts question to Joanna.

  ‘I was thinking how nice it would be if Stewart appeared over that horizon.’

  Rebecca sat up with a jerk. ‘Oh God, we are all so feeble! Every one of us thinking about men. What’s the matter with us? I was thinking that women are all very well, but what I really really want is a lover instead of you lot!’

  And then everyone laughed, even Lucy. They stood up, telling each other that nothing beats the friendship of women. It’s true, thought Lucy: young women seem to have a whole support system of friends, but our generation were generally so tied up in looking after our men and children, or trying to be superwomen of house and office, that we didn’t realise what we were missing.

  What Lucy felt at that moment was not just gratitude towards her two friends, it was love.

  As they walked down the hill towards the car, she found herself saying, ‘Do you know, I think I might have topped myself if it wasn’t for you two.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The longer Joanna spent at Pencarrick the more she liked it, but her initial instincts about the business were daily confirmed. The current strategy just would not work and they would have to take the hotel seriously up-market and aim for a far richer, international clientele. As it was, with most of the courses fully booked, it was a respectable small business, but would never make the level of returns Innovest required.

  If they built a world-class spa, even more luxurious than Armand’s Halcyon Days, with plenty of Eastern overtones, it would push the room rates up too, and give them a low-season trade. And they should begin to lose the less profitable courses and concentrate on really fancy ones with celebrity tutors. At the moment there was still a slightly hippy atmosphere to the place, fun but not expensive. They needed rich couples, learning to cook with a Michelin-star chef in the morning and being pampered expensively in the afternoon. What they did not need were school kids on a sailing course, or social workers, funded by the local council, learning about healthy school lunch-boxes.

  Mercifully, they’d seen little of the sailing lads because they slept in the rooms over the stables and were out on the water all day, and Joanna had decreed that they should not come back for lunch. The cooks provided picnics which they ate in some cove or creek. They loved it, and it took some of the pressure off the kitchen – adolescent boys have appetites like racehorses, and besides, one dose a day of their boisterous company was quite enough for the older guests.

  But Rebecca was proving a problem. Yesterday she’d stormed into Joanna’s office.

  ‘Joanna, it’s ridiculous. I’ve got the whole day off today, OK? So I thought I’d go sailing, but do you think that prim little runt who’s in charge would let me? No chance. I am not enrolled on the course, he says. And I haven’t been through the safety instruction. And I’ve missed the first two days. And I haven’t paid! For God’s sake, what’s the matter with him? Doesn’t he know I’m your guest? You’ve got to—’

  Joanna interrupted, ‘Becca, Becca, calm down. Start at the beginning.’

  And then it transpired, of course, that she wasn’t interested in learning to sail. She was interested in the lads on the sailing course. She wanted to tag along and go picnicking with a bunch of adolescents on a beach.

  ‘Becca,’ said Joanna, ‘I can fix for you to have a sailing lesson. Free. But you can’t go with the Etonian dream team because they are all sailing Lasers which are single-handed dinghies. No room for passengers. And if you haven’t done the course so far you won’t be able to manage a boat of your own. And you don’t want to capsize and be rescued by a nineteen-year-old, do you?’

  Rebecca looked at Joanna with fury. Then suddenly burst into her hiccupping laugh.

  ‘Why not? I look good with my hair all wet and my boobs halfway out of my bikini! Being rescued by that curly blond one with the angel face would do just fine!’

  Joanna could not help smiling. It was impossible to stay cross with Rebecca. She was so good-humoured, and she never pretended to be what she was not.

  On Friday evening Joanna organised another beach barbecue. London was sweating through an August heat wave, but Cornwall was as good as it gets, with sea breezes to temper the sun, blue skies and no humidity.

  Pencarrick had been packed all week and almost all the guests, demob happy at finishing their courses, came down to the beach. They included the sailing boys, half a dozen painters, Orlando’s cooks, Lucy’s writers and Nelson’s singers. And Lucy was there with her photographer admirer, so with staff and tutors they numbered sixty-odd.

  It really was a perfect evening, one of those soft balmy ones which lift the toughest heart with gentle melancholy. Joanna felt a mild but persistent longing for Stewart. She missed him far more than she admitted, even to him. She wanted him with her when Pencarrick was, as now, at its absolute best, with the great orange sun racing for the horizon, speeding up as it sank into a gleaming sea.

  Someone had put Jacques Brel on the CD player and the simple sad cadences contributed to the peace of the beach. Everyone sat talking quietly or gazing out to sea, stilled by the music and the evening light.

  Things hotted up once the sun was set, supper was over and the bonfire blazing. Jacques Brel gave way to Latin American rhythms and the younger guests started to dance on the beach. Rebecca was in the thick of it,
wiggling her bum and stamping her feet like a twenty-year-old. Joanna had to admit she was by far the best dancer there, and by far the oldest.

  Joanna watched as she quit dancing and walked over to the sailing lads.

  ‘C’mon boys,’ she said, leaning down to take a beer bottle from the nearest young man’s hand. ‘I’ll teach you the salsa. Anyone game?’ And she began dancing, swirling about and pulling her skirt up to reveal her legs. Then she turned her back and jiggled her bottom at them. They laughed and jeered but they could not take their eyes off her. Tipping the bottle up to drain it, she went prancing round the beach on her own, as though this display was just for the pleasure of it because she was so good at it, and had nothing to do with having an audience.

  She sashayed across to Orlando and took his hand in hers. With the other hand she tossed her empty beer bottle into the sandbank. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘no one wants to dance with me, so you have to.’

  Everyone’s eyes were on her as she closed in on Orlando. He was a good dancer and they did the simple steps of the merengue and then the rumba, which, slow and sensuous, became progressively more raunchy.

  Joanna could feel irritation flaring into anger. Why, she wondered, do I mind if Rebecca is a flirt?

  Rebecca dragged Orlando over to the cluster of sailing lads and pulled one of them to his feet, then another.

  Now she was dancing with both young men and Orlando, weaving her body close up against them one by one. The beat, switching to salsa, grew more frantic and the dancers became increasingly wild, kicking up sand and occasionally falling over, laughing. Rebecca pulled off her shirt to reveal a black bikini top.

  The boys were all clapping now and some started shouting, ‘Get ‘em off, Becca.’ She went on dancing and the calls got louder. Then, without losing a beat or pausing in her dance, she used both hands to unhook her bra behind her back. She did a few more stamps and twirls holding the bra in place, then suddenly she yanked it off and whirled it around her head. The boys clapped and cheered as she flung it at them.

  They went on shouting ‘Get ‘em off!’ and Joanna knew it would be the skirt and knickers next. She was tempted to intervene, but knew as soon as the thought occurred to her that she would only make a fool of herself. She turned away to hide her anger, and joined Nelson at the bar. He poured them both a rum punch.

  ‘Let’s get away from this,’ he said, handing her the drink. ‘Shall we walk along the beach?’ Joanna, looking at his set face, realised he didn’t like watching Rebecca on heat any more than she did.

  ‘She’s something else, isn’t she?’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘Becca? Yes, she is. I don’t know why I get so cross. It’s none of my business.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ he replied. ‘This is your show and you’ve employed us all and she’s breaking an unwritten rule: no fraternising with the guests. Besides, if she occupies Orlando’s attention he will not do what you hired him to do, which is charm the women guests.’

  Indignant, Joanna protested. ‘That’s not true! I hired him because he’s a good cook and teacher.’

  Nelson looked sideways at her, an amused and disbelieving eyebrow raised. He was right of course. Joanna hadn’t even known if he was a good cook or teacher. She just knew he was famous and he’d draw in the punters.

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I admit his celebrity was a factor.’ They skirted some rocks and took a grassy path just above the beach. ‘But Rebecca gets to you too, doesn’t she? Are you jealous?’

  ‘Yes and yes. Which is one of the reasons she does it, of course.’

  ‘But you were never serious about her. Or were you, Nelson?’

  ‘No, she’s too demanding for me. She needs wall-to-wall attention, constant admiration, endless tributes at her feet. I just can’t keep up with her. She’s exhausting.’

  Nelson’s criticism of Rebecca somehow gratified Joanna, and she could afford to be kinder.

  ‘But she’s such fun and she’s very generous. Sometimes I think her capacity for milking pleasure out of everything – shopping, decorating, flirting, lunching with her girlfriends – is admirable. Life-enhancing. She is such an antidote to my careful business instincts and Lucy’s seriousness. Maybe we all need a Rebecca in our lives.’

  ‘Sure, but on the fringes of one’s life, not at the heart of it.’

  Joanna’s tolerance of Rebecca did not last. When she and Nelson returned to the party, all the sailing boys had disappeared. She peered at the thirty-odd remaining guests on the beach, but Rebecca was not among them. Joanna thought they might have gone back to the hotel but somehow doubted it. Vaguely anxious, she walked round the little bay, past the staff packing up the equipment and collecting scattered towels and empty bottles. She climbed up the rocks at the end of the beach and looked down on the second, smaller, cove.

  The bright moonlight gave the scene a washed-out sheen, and the sea looked silky and slick, with tiny white ruffles at the shore. The scrap of beach and rocks were festooned with shorts and T-shirts, and both halves of Rebecca’s bikini were draped over a piece of driftwood. The boys’ heads were bobbing in the sea, and deep adolescent shouts and laughter accompanied Rebecca’s exit from the water. She was stark naked and on the back of one of the boys, who was naked too. He zigzagged drunkenly through the soft sand, Rebecca’s sopping hair hiding her face, buried in his neck.

  Joanna watched in furious disbelief as the boy – it was the curly-headed blond one she’d said she fancied – put Rebecca down. She took him by the shoulders and turned him to face her, and put her hands on his bare buttocks and pulled his body into hers. Joanna turned away, seething, as Rebecca scooped up a towel and led Curly-head up the beach and offstage behind some rocks.

  Joanna climbed the steep steps up to the hotel with her heart thumping as much from anger as from exertion. She went straight to her office and wrote a short note:

  Rebecca, I’d like you to leave Pencarrick in the morning. Your behaviour tonight was absolutely out of order. I’m happy to pay you for the decor designs, but I cannot have you staying in the house. Joanna.

  She felt better when she’d put the note (marked Rebecca, Urgent) on Rebecca’s pillow. Good, she thought, that should get through her thick skin.

  The next day Joanna had calmed down a lot, and when Rebecca appeared in her office looking distinctly the worse for wear, she was tempted to relent. She wanted to put her hands on her friend’s shoulders and shake some sense into her.

  ‘Look, Joanna, I am sorry,’ Rebecca said. ‘And yes, I agree I went too far with those boys. Only they are adults, and they loved it. Where’s the harm?’

  But Joanna remained distant. She was determined not to get into an argument and simply repeated her request that Rebecca leave.

  Joanna asked Lucy to drive Rebecca to the station. She had not discussed last night with Lucy, and was a little uneasy that Rebecca would put a spin on events that would exonerate her and make Joanna into a prim schoolmarm, ice-cold and unfeeling. But, thought Joanna, I cannot run a hotel where one of the staff behaves like a whore. However much the punters like it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rebecca sat in the corner of a first class railway carriage, sniffling into a handful of Kleenex. She was bunched up, huddled with her head down, rocking on her bottom just as she used to rock when unhappy as a child.

  Her thoughts were running from angry to paranoid. What is the matter with me? Why does everyone want to change me all the time? Why do people always chuck me in the end? I never want to pick a quarrel. I’d never hurt anyone. All I want is for everyone to be happy, but in the end I always get dumped.

  And I bet the fucking inspector comes and finds I haven’t got a first class ticket.

  She leaned back in the seat, gulping back tears and feeling drained. Every time she thought of that note of Joanna’s a little wrench of misery wrung her guts.

  She told herself she should be more resilient to disapproval. She should be used to it by now. Bill h
ad spent their whole marriage trying to reform her: ‘You are so extravagant’, ‘You drink too much’ (which was rich since he drank like a fish), ‘You are never serious’, ‘You are such a flirt’. Even Nelson found her ‘too demanding’, whatever that meant.

  Rebecca half-expected men to find fault with her. But Joanna and Lucy! She loved those women and she had thought they really liked her. And she’d been so proud to have them for friends and so delighted to be taken seriously by them. She knew that they were big achievers and she was not, but they’d never let that show. They’d always been so great. So what had happened? What did she do? OK, she thought, it wasn’t clever bonking Curly-head, but it’s the twenty-first century for God’s sake. And it was hardly a crime to be cast out into the cold for, was it?

  Lucy had put her arm round Rebecca as they walked to the train, but Joanna! She would never have believed Jo-Jo could be so cruel. It had been just horrible, standing there in her office, trying to apologise, and Joanna looking at her with absolutely no understanding, no affection, nothing. Chin slightly up, mouth rigid, cold indifferent eyes, she just kept repeating, ‘I won’t discuss it, Rebecca. You’re leaving, that’s all.’

  So here she bloody was. Sent home alone, expelled from the Garden of Eden. Yet again. Story of her life.

  Rebecca stared out of the window onto a suitably miserable rainy Cornwall, while her mind drifted uncomfortably over previous rejections.

  Of course the first time she’d got the heave-ho was when her mother dumped her in the orphanage at eighteen months old. She supposed a shrink would have some platitudes to utter about rejection and loss, but the truth was she did not remember that at all.

  But she did remember being ejected from plenty of foster homes, so-called care homes, and schools. There was obviously something about her that invited the boot.

  She knew she’d been difficult sometimes, but she was only trying to get people to like her, damn it. And the things that had caused the expulsions were always so bloody trivial. Ridiculous.