‘Watch it!’ Shanna-Mae warned as Diana now rose to her feet, half her hair still in the straighteners. Snatched from Shanna-Mae’s grip, they swung and hit her on the cheek. Diana hardly noticed. Her mind was a whirl of panic. Who was it that said you could never repeat successes?
Almost upsetting the dressing table, Diana hurried downstairs. She took a deep breath and smoothed her already-smoothed hair before reaching to the door-latch with a shaking hand and pulling it open.
The person standing outside, illuminated by the still-bare bulb hanging in the hallway, was not Richard Black. It was a skinny woman in improbable sunglasses – all the more improbable for its being dark now – and with long, highlighted blond hair, a tight, tiny denim jacket and very tight white trousers. She had on a fixed red-lipsticked smile, displaying dazzling white teeth. In one hand she held the handle of an enormous silver pod of a suitcase on wheels and on the other side stood a small, scowling boy of about nine. He was wearing a sweatshirt printed with neon skulls and clutching an iPad.
‘Sara,’ Diana said faintly. As she clutched the lintel for support, flakes of paint crumbled off around her fingers.
Two brown, clawlike hands, glittering with rings, came flying through the air and seized her shoulders. Two bony cheekbones crashed into hers. There was an overpowering wave of perfume. ‘Darling!’ exclaimed Sara Oopvard. ‘Here we are!’
Diana, stunned, looked helplessly at the box Sara had shoved into her arms. It was a battered container that had once evidently held twelve Krispy Kreme doughnuts, but now held four. Various grease-marks and drips of icing marked the places once occupied by the others.
Sara was looking at her, head on one side. ‘You were expecting me? Remember I mentioned it on the phone?’
‘Er . . .’
‘I wanted to show darling Milo here round the colleges. So he could choose which one he wanted to go to.’
Darling Milo did not even look up at this. He was frowning at his iPad, pressing it with his fingers and muttering under his breath.
‘So lovely to see you!’ Sara trilled. ‘I thought the TomTom had got the wrong place at first!’
Diana’s eyes flicked over Sara’s shoulder to the great white four-wheel drive she had seen from the bedroom window. It glowed at the kerbside beyond the broken gate and seemed, in the streetlight, to have an electric pink sheen about it. The number plate read, ‘SARA 1’.
‘Very different, isn’t it, darling?’ Sara remarked in her drilling voice. She had pushed back her enormous sunglasses now and her sharp eyes took in the bare light bulb, the battered hall and the underfelt in the passage in one forensic swoop. ‘Very, um, understated.’
Her bony profile – which looked even tauter than Diana remembered; her nose, certainly, was a different shape altogether – turned towards the small boy. ‘Milo!’ she urged. ‘You remember Mrs Somers, don’t you? She used to live next door to us in London, until it turned out Mr Somers was having an affair. And, when they got divorced, it turned out that they hadn’t any money either; remember all that darling . . . ?’
Milo took no notice. He had activated his iPad now. The real world was a closed book to him.
Sara’s words finally spurred Diana to action. ‘Was that necessary?’ she asked, her voice tight with anger.
‘Of course!’ Sara turned on her a surprised smile. ‘So important to be honest with children, don’t you think?’ she said in syrupy tones. ‘Terrible mistake, I always think, to brush things under the carpet.’ She looked at the hall floor. ‘Always assuming you have one, of course.’ She accompanied this remark with the laugh, which instantly transported Diana back to her former home. It sounded like a burst of gunfire; you could hear it through the walls. ‘I must say, darling, it’s terribly brave of you to live here.’
‘I like it here,’ Diana said doggedly. ‘My new neighbours are wonderful,’ she added pointedly.
Sara’s thin, manicured hand was at her mouth, as if pressing back amusement. ‘Oh, yes. Your neighbours. That Christmas light display is very . . . How exactly shall I put it? Special.’
‘Cheerful, you mean,’ Diana said firmly, aware of Shanna-Mae on the staircase behind her.
Sara giggled. ‘Well, it certainly made us laugh. Didn’t it, Milo?’
Shanna-Mae gave an audible gasp.
Diana was thankful, at this awkward juncture, to hear Rosie now start to come down the stairs. To her surprise, her nine-year-old daughter now took effortless command of the situation.
‘Hello, Mrs Upward,’ Rosie said politely. ‘You remember me, don’t you? Rosie Somers. And this is my friend, Shanna-Mae, from –’ Rosie left just the suggestion of a pause – ‘next door.’
Sara had no intention of acknowledging Shanna-Mae – too obviously the sort who’d have five different children by five different fathers just to get a council house and never do a day’s work in her life. Instead, she gave her entire attention to Rosie. ‘Goodness! I hardly recognised you. Is that really a school uniform you have on? Say hello to Rosie, darling,’ she urged Milo.
Milo took no notice. ‘He’s tired, poor little chap,’ Sara cooed, patting her son’s hair. He jerked his head impatiently. ‘The sooner we get him to his room, the better.’
‘His room . . . ?’ Diana gasped. There were only two bedrooms; both were occupied. Panic swirled within her. Richard would be here any minute and that was nerve-wracking enough. But that Sara Upward and Milo had turned up unannounced within minutes of his arrival and required accommodation was nothing less than a nightmare.
‘And then you can show me to mine,’ Sara ordered in a brisk voice that had a hint of impatience in it. ‘I could really do with a shower, if the en suite has one; but if not a bath will be fine.’
‘Now, just hang on a minute . . .’ Diana was about to tell Sara, in no uncertain terms, that they should go to a hotel, when her eye caught, down the road, a pair of slowly moving car headlights approaching. Someone was driving up, looking for something. An address? Was it Richard?
It seemed so. As the car slowed down outside her house, Diana wanted simultaneously to scream with frustration yet hide that frustration at any cost. The last thing she wanted Richard to witness was her rowing on the doorstep with Sara Oopvard. Sara was certain to be as obstructive and unreasonable as possible. Diana looked helplessly at her unwanted guest, not knowing what to say.
Sara unhesitatingly seized her chance. She now sailed into the hall, past an open-mouthed Diana, her high heels clacking on the boards. Milo followed her sulkily, shoulders slumped, staring into his screen.
Diana could see Richard – she was sure now it must be Richard – parking behind Sara’s white and pink monster. His lights flicked off.
She shot into action. Bedrooms, bedrooms . . . She had a mere few minutes to settle in her guests, get them out of the way. Infuriating though it was, she would simply have to move Milo and Sara into her bedroom for the night. She would move in with Rosie. There was no time to do anything else; she had to go out. They would have to sort it all out in the morning. She thundered back up the stairs.
‘Rosie!’ Diana gasped from the landing as she rushed about finding towels and duvets. ‘You can manage pesto and pasta for everyone, can’t you?’ It was Rosie’s signature dish, rustled up by her on the many occasions when Diana had been too tired to cook.
‘Of course, Mummy.’
‘Pesto and pasta!’ Sara shrilled in horror from the sitting room, where she had parked herself in the one armchair and produced a magazine from her bag. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t do carbohydrates.’
Rosie smiled sweetly. ‘You could always have just pesto, Mrs Oopvard.’
Sara seemed about to issue a sharp reply when her open mouth closed suddenly. Her eyes had left Rosie and were now appraising, through the sitting room window, the person coming up Diana’s garden path. In th
e limited light of the nearby streetlamp, he appeared both tall and good-looking – and dark, which especially appealed to Sara. Her last husband, that bastard Henrik, had been short and fair – in the hair sense, if no other.
Of course, this man probably lived on the council estate too – a neighbour, possibly. She was not interested in him in any serious way. And yet he could probably show a girl a good time, Sara thought, licking her lips and grinding her hips slightly into the seat cushions. He looked very fit and muscular. Not unlike some of the gardeners whose services she had enjoyed in the past.
And there was something else about him. Proud bearing, you might call it; a noble savage sort of thing. He might be on jobseeker’s allowance, or whatever it was called, but he had practically the same air of authority she recognised from her former wealthy London neighbours. The high court judge and the newspaper editor, say.
He was a distressed gentleperson, perhaps. As he reached the threshold, Sara raised herself unsteadily and sailed towards him over the underfelt, armed with her most dazzling smile. ‘Can I help you?’ she inquired magnificently.
Overhead, Diana could still be heard thundering about, looking for sheets.
Richard looked in astonishment at the female in heavily maquillage, wobbling before him on ridiculously high heels. ‘Do excuse me,’ he said, alarmed. Of course. It made sense now. He was in the wrong street. That ludicrous car he had parked behind could not possibly have belonged to Diana. ‘I’m in the wrong place,’ he added.
‘Aren’t we all, darling?’ Sara riposted with a giggle that sounded like gunfire. ‘Personally, I’ve never been on an estate in my life, unless it’s got butlers and stables. I expect it’s the same for you,’ she added in the spirit of social esprit de corps.
‘Not really,’ Richard said, surprised. What was this strange woman talking about? Hurriedly, he turned to leave.
‘Hold on,’ Sara gasped, batting her eyelashes wildly. ‘Perhaps I can help you.’ She paused for a few minutes before adding; ‘Were you looking for someone?’
‘I was looking for Diana,’ Richard said stiffly.
‘I thought so,’ Sara said. ‘And poor Diana does live here, actually. Dreadful business,’ she added, shaking her head pityingly.
‘Dreadful?’ Panic leapt within Richard. Had something awful happened to Diana? Was that why this ghastly woman was here? He felt real worry and realised with surprise how passionately he cared.
‘Absolutely.’ Sara shook her head mournfully. ‘Diana was my neighbour in West London,’ she announced, pausing for this to sink in. He was, it had to be said, looking most satisfactorily surprised. ‘But then,’ Sara bent forward, lowered her voice and shook her head pityingly, ‘her husband left her for his secretary.’
More fool him, Richard thought.
‘And Diana got nothing in the divorce, absolutely nothing.’
‘She got her child,’ Richard pointed out. That there had been a divorce was no surprise, of course; he had guessed as much. But why was this woman – in those ridiculous sunglasses – talking about Diana in this way on the doorstep of her own house? Was she mad?
He was now seriously concerned. Where was Diana? He tried to look behind this woman, but she kept striking poses and tossing her hair about so it was difficult to see anything else.
‘Her child!’ Sara let fire another volley of mirth. ‘What the hell use is that? She’s got no money!’
Fortunately, at this moment, a pair of legs in dark trousers came running down the stairs behind. As Diana appeared, looking flustered, Richard felt a warm, powerful, wave of relief.
‘Richard!’ Diana exclaimed, her delight at seeing him so intense that nothing else, suddenly, mattered. She was glad of Shanna-Mae’s foundation. The fact she was blushing furiously would be well concealed.
‘You can use my room now, Sara,’ she muttered to the figure in sunglasses who she vaguely sensed was behind her.
Sara, however, had no intention of going upstairs. She was standing in the hall alternately pouting at Richard and fixing Diana with a steely, inquiring beam. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’
Diana braced herself. ‘Richard, this is Sara Oopvard.’
‘Upward?’ Richard repeated incredulously.
‘Oopvard,’ Sara corrected, pushing her lips out suggestively. ‘Oop-vard. It’s Dutch. My husband, I should say ex-husband,’ she went on, with an inviting smile, ‘was Dutch.’
Diana interrupted hurriedly. ‘This is Professor Richard Black.’
She had anticipated that Sara would nod, shake hands and go upstairs.
Sara nodded and shook hands, but she did not go upstairs. ‘Professor?’ she repeated, evidently stunned.
‘He’s a professor of neuroscience and the Master of Branston College, one of the university colleges . . .’ Diana explained briefly, anxious to limit Richard’s exposure to her ghastly and unwelcome guest.
Sara was thankful for the recent Botox injections enabling her to maintain a serene expression. This – this dish – who she had supposed a mere horny-handed son of toil, was actually head of a college? A more perfect solution to her difficulty could not be envisaged. She saw herself already, sweeping across the college lawns in a ballgown, her laughter tinkling into her champagne flute.
Hurriedly, she marshalled her forces. So what if he was here to see Diana? Prising him away from her would be easy. Diana had always been a drip, the way she’d let Simon walk all over her.
Even so, it had not escaped her notice that Diana, who had formerly erred on the plump side, now looked positively lithe and that her make-up, also formerly cack-handed and applied in a rush, looked positively professional. Ironically, considering her appalling circumstances, she looked the best she ever had. Had she looked like that for Simon, he probably wouldn’t have left her in the first place.
Diana had her head down now, however. She looked the picture of embarrassed misery, Sara was satisfied to see. The professor, on the other hand, was looking at her with a steely glint in his eye. Sara fired at him a dazzling grin that he did not return.
‘Ready?’ Richard asked Diana.
Sara put her head on one side and shook out her glossy mane for Richard’s benefit. ‘Going somewhere nice?’ she inquired breathily.
Diana looked nervously at Richard, who looked impassively at Sara. ‘We’re going out for supper,’ he said flatly.
‘Really!’ Sara exclaimed, her eyes on Diana. ‘And leaving dear little Rosie behind?’
‘Shanna-Mae’s babysitting,’ Diana said, cross to be bounced into defending herself. What business was it of Sara’s? The suspicion that Sara was up to something was growing within her.
‘May I ask where you’re going?’ Sara beamed unwaveringly.
Richard’s eyes flashed briefly at the ceiling. ‘Out for dinner.’
Diana was growing increasingly anxious and irritated. Why wouldn’t Sara go upstairs? Or even into the kitchen, where she could hear Rosie getting out the dried pasta and trying to chat to Milo. ‘What’s your favourite lesson at school?’ she was asking.
‘Favourite?’ was the incredulous reply.
Sara seemed to follow Diana’s thoughts. ‘Pasta,’ she said again, shaking her head. ‘Carbohydrate’s just the worst thing for my digestion. If only there was something else I could eat . . .’ She shrugged helplessly at them both and Diana tried to suppress the feeling of rising dread, of impending doom.
‘I know!’ Sara added, with sudden, spontaneous excitement, as if the glad thought had only just occurred. ‘Why don’t I come out to dinner? With you?’
Diana sat in the car, full of admiration for the cool way Richard had dealt with Sara Oopvard. No, she could not come to dinner with them, Richard had explained. He needed to be alone with Diana. He had something personal to discuss with her.
As
even Sara could not argue with this, she had subsided, eyes spitting sparks of resentment. Diana was reminded of a snake settling back into its coil. And now, instead of making an unwelcome third at their evening together, Sara was spending the evening on the Campion Estate with Milo, Rosie and Shanna-Mae.
Diana felt guilty sympathy for her daughter and her friend. The two of them had been planning to experiment with making face cream in the kitchen; Shanna-Mae intended eventually – or perhaps next week, who knew? – to launch her own range of beauty products. They were also intending to hold make-up sessions in the bathroom where mirrored tiles – some cracked, admittedly – on the door and walls offered a range of viewpoints for various effects. Instead, as she and Richard had left, Rosie had been fighting for space on the kitchen table with Milo’s range of hand-held devices while Sara had set about using all the available hot water in what would no doubt be a prolonged bath. Diana hoped Sara would spare her Penhaligon’s bath oil, a rare survival from her old life and one of the few luxurious items she owned.
Diana darted a glance at Richard’s profile – handsome, sharply cut, preoccupied – as they drove along. She felt a wild fluttering within. He was telling her that the car was not his, that it belonged to the Bursar and he had borrowed it for the evening. It smelled both unexpectedly and markedly of cigarettes, as if the Bursar spent long periods sitting in it, smoking furiously. Diana now fixed her gaze on Richard’s hands at the wheel and wondered how it would feel to have them caress her. They were long, delicate, deliciously sensitive-looking.
Richard was staring straight ahead. He was babbling, he knew, about the Bursar, but something was bubbling within him and he felt – most uncharacteristically – almost chatty. He strained to stop himself before he told her what was at the very top of his mind: that he had hardly slept for thinking about her; that her gentle brown eyes, the shining folds of her hair and the soft, creamy curves of her face – as well as other soft, creamy curves elsewhere – had haunted what dreams he had managed. He had awoken with an ache he had thought long gone; he had imagined all desire in him to have died with Amy. But for the first time in many months he had wanted a woman – Diana, in particular. The thought of her had haunted him all day as well; so much so that he wasn’t sure he had packed up his last experiment properly. This was unheard of; his concentration was usually absolute. They would have to call in at the labs before going to the restaurant, at any rate.
Gifted and Talented Page 24
