‘That’s not fair!’ chimed in Clara. ‘When I had my fifteenth you docked my allowance to pay for those curtains.’
‘Oh, don’t you worry,’ I said. ‘Gareth will have to cough. I’m just trying to persuade your father that damage to the house isn’t the end of the world.’
We’d met up with George in London. Over brunch in a Pizza Express I’d informed him of my imminent departure for New York and the consequent desirability of his taking up residence at the homestead once more. I could see that this was going down like a lead balloon, and I couldn’t really say I blamed him. I should have hated to be on the receiving end of it. But in my new persona as dollar millionairess and free spirit I was untroubled by guilt. And despite the all-night drive, a nap on the hovercraft and another on the way out of London had completely restored me.
‘Um – you won’t forget about me, will you?’ asked Naomi.
‘Damn,’ said George, ‘and double damn. Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said tolerantly. We were already on the road between Bassets Parva and Magna. The shortest route to the Nevilles’ was along the A road we’d just left. George screeched to a halt and bounced irritably into reverse.
‘Oh God,’ said Clara, ‘can’t you take me back first?’
‘Of course not,’ I said, all queenly serenity. ‘We’ll take Naomi home.’
George executed a three-point turn as though auditioning for Lethal Weapon 3, and gunned back the way we’d come in the direction of the main road.
‘Sorry about this,’ said Naomi.
‘That’s quite all right,’ I said, since George plainly wasn’t going to. He was in the grip of the most diabolical home-coming blues. Served him right for ducking out of the holiday in favour of fawning over Eloise and her organisational lacunae. ‘One good thing,’ I said as we turned out and pulled straight into the outside lane, ‘we can postpone looking at the mess at home for a few more minutes.’ Even going at ninety I could hear George’s teeth grinding.
At the Nevilles’ house on the outskirts of Regis I stood in the drive and chatted amiably to Mrs Neville while George and Naomi’s brother Luke, a goth, undid the rubber spider and hauled down her enormous case from the roofrack.
‘Thanks for your postcard, sweetheart,’ said Mrs Neville to her daughter. ‘It’s funny you mentioned that Lord de Pellegale – it’s the name of the firm Marie-Laure’s using to fit out her en suite.’
Naomi came over and kissed me. ‘Thanks ever so much,’ she said, ‘it’s been really great.’
I beamed indulgently. She advanced on George, but he stuck out a curmudgeonly pre-emptive hand. It was amazing how Naomi had improved. I could only think it was due to the polarising effect of so much thoroughly bad behaviour.
‘She’s looking so well,’ said Mrs Neville. ‘It was so kind of you to take her along. I do hope she’s been no bother.’
‘No bother whatsoever,’ I reassured her truthfully, without adding that we had lately experienced so much bother on a Wagnerian scale as to render anything Naomi could have managed completely negligible.
The girls exchanged whispered promises to get back together as soon as possible, and we piled into the car. George negotiated the circular drive like Dick Dastardly on speed, and we headed for home.
‘Wow,’ said Clara, as we approached the house, ‘there are plenty of people about.’
‘So there are,’ I said.
George moaned.
The place was a hive of activity. Most of the downstairs front windows stood open and the noise of a power drill was clearly audible even before George switched the engine off. A man in builder’s overalls was doing something to one of the outside window ledges and Declan was applying a screwdriver to the latch on the gate. Through the landing window I could see Mrs O’Connell stopped over the Hoover.
We didn’t bother to unload the car, but simply got out and advanced, intent on grasping the nettle. Declan, having caught our scent on the breeze, raised his head and glared at us like a bull surprised in a field.
‘So you’re back then!’
‘Yes, indeed, Declan,’ I replied sunnily. ‘My goodness, what a lot seems to be going on.’
‘They’re animals, so th’are!’
George stalked past us to talk to the man working on the window frame, and Clara disappeared into the house.
‘You really didn’t need to come, you know, Declan,’ I said soothingly, adding as a reminder: ‘But then I suppose this counts as overtime, doesn’t it?’
A glimmer, combining both avarice and resentment, lit Declan’s beady eyes for a moment. ‘He rang me, so he did! Said you were coming back a day early and he needed to get things straight. Jesus Christ almighty, I never thought I’d be rebuilding the place!’
I stepped back and ran an appraising glance over my property. Long experience had taught me that a bland affability was the best way to deal with Declan’s ire. ‘You’ve done very well, Declan.’
While he was still muttering and scowling I went into the house. It was very tidy: unnaturally so. This was due to last-minute ministrations before our arrival, and also because most of the surface items – vases, clocks, ornaments, plants and the like – had been removed. I applauded this precaution at the same time wondering where these items had been stowed. A glance through the half-open dining room door revealed a huge pile of mail lying on the table like an unexploded bomb. I closed the door.
Everything was slightly damp – walls, floor, carpets, surfaces – and there was a strong smell of disinfectant and cleaning fluid. I snuffed the air and wondered what other, less wholesome smells these had replaced. I opened the door of the downstairs cloakroom. Here it was the same story – scrubbed, clean, damp. There was no loo paper, and no hand towel: both must have fallen prey to some emergency that I did not care to picture. I looked into the sitting room, whence the sound of the power drill had emanated. The top bookshelf was now back in place, but the books were in piles on the carpet. The young man gave me a cheery jerk of the head.
‘Soon have you straight, missis.’
‘Good. You haven’t seen my son anywhere?’
‘In the garden clearing up a spot of litter.’
‘Thanks.’ Something he’d said prompted me to ask: ‘And you haven’t seen the dog?’
‘Dog?’ The man looked blank. ‘Nope.’
A pity. Beyond the window I could see George testing the window ledge with an expression both grim and doubtful.
I went out into the garden. At once Fluffy the cat, who had sensibly been roosting in a tree until the danger was passed, jumped down and came to say hello in his perfunctory way. He seemed small and streetwise after Teazel.
Gareth, dressed only in jungle-print cutoffs, was at the far end, but moving in my direction. He carried a black bin bag into which he was dropping the empty cans, cigarette packets, fag ends and worse which littered the grass. The bag was already half full.
‘Gareth!’
His face lit up. ‘Oh, hi, you’re back.’
‘Yes.’
‘Nearly there, shan’t be a tick.’
He reached me, and put the bag down with a clunk. ‘I’ll do the beds later.’
‘I hope you mean the flower beds.’
‘Good journey?’ He scraped his bristly cheek against mine. He had the warm, slightly rancid smell that I was not too old and sere to associate with a Great Thrash.
‘Yes, thanks. Good party?’
‘Brilliant. Everyone said it was magic. Best party around here that anyone could remember. And what do you think?’ – he made a sweeping gesture taking in house, garden and surroundings – ‘not a bad job considering you came back early.’ My son’s was a sanguine nature, capable of snatching credit from the darkest shitstorm.
‘I haven’t looked everywhere, but it doesn’t seem too bad.’
‘I had a bit of a ring round. Got the old bog-trotters over—’
‘Gareth!’
‘And Brett got hold of Si and
Dave from Turner’s, and two or three of us are getting together to pay them.’
‘As long as your father doesn’t have to.’
Gareth’s face became wary. ‘Where is he?’
‘Making a tour of the affected areas. More in sorrow than in anger.’ I heard a distant ping as Clara lifted the receiver on the upstairs telephone. ‘By the way, I don’t want to know whether anyone was in the bedrooms, but there had better not be the smallest trace of occupancy.’
Gareth slapped me on the shoulder. ‘No worries.’
I didn’t know whether this was a statement of fact or an exhortation, but from his complacent air I was obviously supposed to be reassured. I moved on to the last of the matters arising.
‘And Gareth, where’s the dog?’
‘What – Spot?’
‘Unless you’ve replaced him in our absence.’
‘I’m not dead sure.’
‘Hazard a guess.’
Gareth had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable. ‘He got out – some time during the party. A woman did ring earlier and said he’d had a bit of a go at her rubbish, but when I went round there he must have moved on. He’ll be back soon, you know what he is.’
I did know, that was the trouble.
‘Oh,’ called Gareth, as I went back to the house. ‘A bunch of flowers arrived for you. I put them in the utility room.’
Goodness knows how he’d managed to stand the bouquet in the sink, because the utility room was where everything else had been shoved. He’d had the foresight to turn on the cold tap but not to turn it fully off, so a small trickle of water was running over the side of the sink. I turned it off, hoisted out the bouquet – a gigantic stook of glads, lilies, dahlias and chrysanths – and stood instep-deep in water as I read the card.
‘To our very favourite and most successful author. Have a wonderful time in the Big Apple and come and celebrate when you get back. Lots of love, Tristan, Vanessa and all at Era Books.’
Well, that was nice of them. It was only a pity I shouldn’t be able to enjoy the flowers. I wasn’t staying.
Carrying the bouquet into the kitchen to put it in water I encountered Mrs O’Connell on the stairs.
‘Mrs O’Connell, you’re a hero,’ I said. ‘Let’s have a nice cup of tea.’
Ten minutes later the kettle had boiled and a surprisingly large number of people had gathered in the kitchen for tea and biscuits. There was George, Gareth, the O’Connells, Si and Dave, Clara, and two strange, red-eyed youths who had wandered down from the garden, having presumably spent the night beneath the stars. Only George and Declan were surly. Everyone else was in rather high spirits. There was something akin to a party atmosphere.
‘Right,’ I said to George. ‘I’ll leave you to see this lot out. I’ve got things to do.’
He looked dismayed. ‘Surely you can leave tomorrow morning? I thought the whole idea of coming back early was to have a day’s grace.’
‘Absolutely,’ I agreed. ‘But I’m not spending it here. It’s an early flight, so I’m going to have a night at the club.’
‘It seems a bit precipitate,’ he said.
‘Not at all. I’m only going to be away three nights. Better to go now, while I’m on the move. I’ll buy you something expensive and preppy from Sak’s.’
‘There’s really no need.’
I kissed him. Talk about the kiss of Judas. ‘Oh, yes there is,’ I said. ‘You’d be surprised.’
I left the house at six. I may have been a rat leaving a sinking ship, but I was a jolly virtuous one. I had driven eight hundred miles, unpacked, turned round three complete washes and put them away, sorted frozen meals out of the freezer, done some domestic shopping, showered, changed, packed and put the post where it wouldn’t be found till I’d gone.
As the taxi left the village, I saw Spot. He was trotting purposefully down the road in the direction of home. He looked self-satisfied and only slightly jaded. I knew that look. It did not surprise me that he was wringing wet: it had taken a hose to separate them. The enraged owner of the bitch in question was probably on the phone at this moment. But at least the call would interrupt George’s lecture to Clara on the advisability of re-takes …
Lew seemed worn out. ‘Bye, hon,’ he said to Monica. ‘Take care now.’
Monica made a face at me over his shoulder. ‘He’s such an old hen. For chrissakes, Lew, you’re only away a few days. And in case it had escaped your attention I’m all growed up.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ said Lew soupily.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘there’s a couple of things I have to get.’
I did the obligatory tour of the Sock Shop, Body Shop, Knicker Box, Boots and John Menzies. It was a funny feeling to know I could buy whatever I wanted – even one of those big, fancy baskets full of coconut milk foot salve and pine kernel skin freshener – and yet nothing took my fancy. It made me realise how potent a force was guilt in my shopping habit. With guilt removed, restraint returned.
I went back to Lew and Monica.
‘… Marks and Spencer do great ready meals for one,’ he was saying. ‘And do be careful with my yucca. It can’t stand over-watering.’
‘I shan’t go near it, honest Injun,’ said Monica, and they kissed.
‘I’ll see you in the departure lounge,’ I said, loudly and clearly in order to cut through the miasma of cheeping bluebirds and fluttering cherubs.
‘Sure! Bye-bye!’ they said without looking.
I went through to the Concorde passengers’ lounge and availed myself of a courtesy buck’s fizz and a dish of stuffed olives. This was the way to travel. I was fully refreshed after a night spent in one of the Gadfly Club’s recently refurbished guest rooms. Lew was in charge of the arrangements. He had made the bookings and fixed the meetings with Sonny Beidermeyer and others in New York. As Monica had so rightly observed, he was an old hen. I had nothing to do but attend to my appearance, keep my smile in place and my brain functioning at a fairly undemanding level.
I had brought the last part of Down Our Street with me and intended to get it typed up by someone else after we arrived. Wasn’t New York the city that never slept, and where anything could be bought if you had the money to pay for it?
I sipped my drink and let my mind cast about for whatever took its fancy.
It wandered, as it often had over the past couple of days, to the brilliant plan I had devised for Kostaki. So simple, so elegant, so fiendishly apposite.
My only regret was that I had not been there to see, as the Count had advanced on Kostaki’s enchanting, invitingly upturned tush – only to see a bright, glassy green eye staring back at him.
‘Now I know,’ said Lew as he arrived, ‘why the English call it gigglewater.’
Copyright
First published in 1992 by Macdonald & Co (Publishers) Ltd
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Copyright © Sarah Harrison, 1992
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Foreign Parts Page 21
