by Maeve Haran
Stella glanced round. Cameron was over by the bar, predictably knocking back free fizz – not by the glass but the bottle, which he held by its gold-topped neck like an Elizabethan lady in her ruff heading for the executioner. Roxy was there too, managing to look hip and modern in some kind of retro tea dress. And, oh my God, next to her was the French bulldog owner, complete with his dog in its socks.
When he caught sight of Stella he broke away from the group, Roxy in tow. She hadn’t realized how very handsome he was. Clearly Roxy thought so too.
‘Mrs Ainsworth,’ he protested, ‘I thought it was funny at first but my life’s been made a misery by everyone wanting my dog. I can’t get on with my work.’
‘Come off it,’ interrupted Roxy, ‘I bet you’ve been loving every minute!’
Stella watched her, fascinated.
‘So your dog’s famous. Get over it. And she doesn’t have to wear the socks, does she?’ She leaned down and took them off. The dog looked at her gratefully.
‘Hang on,’ he protested, ‘it’s my bloody dog!’ He studied her intently for a moment. ‘You’re Foxy Roxy!’ he accused as if she had been deliberately concealing her identity.
‘Yes.’ She grinned. ‘I’m nearly as famous as your dog!’ She linked arms with him and picked up the dog at the same time. ‘And now, sexy bulldog owner, we’re going to get ourselves another glass of champagne.’
On the other side of the crowded lawn Stella saw Emma and Stuart arriving. Izzy spotted her brother and ran whooping towards him. ‘Jess . . . eeee!’ She threw herself into his arms.
Her daughter and son-in-law, holding Ruby, followed almost shyly.
Stella held her breath, hoping they had the good sense not to be angry.
‘Mum, Dad, I can’t tell you what an incredible time I’ve had!’ Jesse stopped, realizing how this must sound to them when they’d been worrying about him so much.
‘Jesse, darling,’ Emma flung herself at him. ‘As long as you’re home safely none of it matters.’
Then Stuart was hugging him too and Ruby made a grab for his shirt collar. Stuart was the first to speak. ‘Stella sent us the recording of last night. You were amazing!’
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ Stella realized he was choking back the tears, ‘I didn’t mean to cause you all that worry. It’s just that I couldn’t go on as I was.’
Emma touched his cheek with her hand, tears streaming down her own face. ‘Dad and I are going to have proper counselling, not with that silly woman.’ She looked appealingly at Jesse. ‘We could do it as a family, if you like, then you’d really get the chance to say what you thought of us.’
‘No way.’ Jesse shook his head. ‘I’m quite happy to give it to you straight. I don’t need the Nuremberg Trials.’
Stuart looked at him, amazed, hardly able to believe this was the same inarticulate boy who had disappeared such a short time ago.
‘Oh,’ Izzy said, disappointed. ‘I thought it might be like when we tried to go to church as a family. We got Crunchies after that.’
Jesse grinned at her and turned back to his parents. ‘You might not like it when I do.’
‘Anything’s better than what we’ve been through while you were gone. We love you, Jess.’
Jesse stood up straight and looked his father in the eye. ‘Then you’ll forget wanting me to read Law at university and let me go to music college.’ He looked over towards Cameron, who was still quaffing free champagne at the bar. ‘I might even get a celebrity reference to put on my CV and how many kids my age can claim that!’
Stuart grinned. ‘I’m proud of you, Jess.’
‘I know, Dad, but we need you at home more. You’re an amazing lawyer, the way you stick up for the underprivileged, but I’m quite deserving too. I could teach you the guitar! Two months, maybe three and you’d be playing “Stairway to Heaven”.’
‘That’s right, Jesse!’ Roxy was passing, Phil the bulldog owner in tow. ‘Get it in writing while you’ve got the power. Knowing parents, I give it a week at the most!’
‘Thanks, Roxy,’ Jesse replied. ‘Gran says it was your tweet that helped her find me.’
‘As long as you wanted to be found. I wasn’t sure about that.’
Jesse looked at his mum and dad. ‘I think maybe it was about time.’
Stella felt tears blur her eyes and turned away. She had to admire the fact that Emma and Stuart hadn’t even mentioned the exams he had missed.
Where the hell was Matthew? Buried in the middle of the crowd somewhere?
And then she saw his car draw up and park behind the Airstream. She ran across the lawn greeting people as she went.
Fabia and he were emptying the boot of what looked like crates of wine.
‘Stella, hello!’ There was no delight in his voice, not even the stirrings of affection. ‘These buggers are drinking us dry. We’ve just been to Aldi to replenish the champagne.’ He put the last case down on the pavement.
‘Stella . . .’ at last there was some emotion . . . ‘we really need to talk.’
And with those words, standing like Ruth amid the alien fizz, Stella realized her marriage was over.
Nineteen
————
The extraordinary thing was, she felt only a lack.
She ought to feel something, she knew; fury, sorrow, resentment, loss, even emptiness, and yet she felt none of these things. And then she realized she did feel something: relief. Then, suddenly, other things too, fear uppermost, the terrifying question of what she was going to do now, how she would survive financially, the fear of loneliness, or perhaps even dying alone, but there was another feeling. That if she could conquer the fears, as she had the rollercoaster, perhaps there would be something better waiting for her on the other side.
But she hadn’t been alone when she’d conquered the fear of the rollercoaster. She’d been with Duncan.
Fabia had had the tact for once to go and look for someone to help with the wine and left Matthew and Stella to face each other in the deserted driveway. Even Bernie had abandoned his post and joined the happy crowd.
‘I’m sorry, Stella, I didn’t mean to fall for Fabia. I expect you think it’s pretty ridiculous, a stuffy accountant like me falling for someone so glamorous. You probably think it’s pathetic, an old man suddenly wanting to dance and play the saxophone and feel young again.’
‘No, Matthew, I don’t think it’s pathetic at all. I’ve watched you coming back to life since Fabia appeared. It was she who did it, not me.’ She couldn’t have been this generous, Stella knew, if Duncan hadn’t come back into her own life. Yet soon he would be leaving again.
‘Are you and Pappy going to get divorced?’
Stella swung round to find Izzy standing behind her, small and anxious, seeing another of the pillars of her own insecure life tumble before her eyes.
‘I don’t know, darling.’ Stella opened her arms and pulled her granddaughter to her. ‘But I’ll always be here whatever happens, I promise you that.’
Izzy buried her face in Stella’s familiar-smelling flowery shirt. ‘I came to tell you, Cameron’s going to be on soon. Jesse doesn’t want you to miss it.’
The clapping started behind them. The auction was beginning. Stella tried to shake off the sensation that she was under anaesthetic, that when she came round her life would somehow be exactly as it had been before Jesse ran away, before Cameron’s Airstream appeared, before she’d met Duncan again.
She wondered who would be conducting it. The usual charity auctioneer from the last remaining cattle auction in the South East?
‘I’d better go,’ Matthew told them both, ‘I’m afraid it’s me.’ He started to walk towards the stage. ‘Hello, everybody!’
When there was rather a feeble response, he repeated, louder, ‘Hello, everybody!’
This time the response was less feeble. ‘Hello, Matthew!’
‘Thank you for supporting this wonderful venture, which, thanks to the incredible generosity of Ca
meron Keene –’ he paused for the loud cheer as Cameron raised his bottle of fizz – ‘we have been able to call Rock for Regeneration. And I want all of you to remember, as you reach for your wallets, what we’ve got to save here. In Camley we’re near the city, but not in the city. We have the smell of mown lawns, while they have the smell of rubbish. The suburbs may be laughed at and yet this is where a lot of people live and a lot of people LOVE living. Let’s show them how good Camley is, let’s show Shoreditch and Chelsea that Camley is great, Camley is hip! And with your help, proud suburbanites, let’s raise some money to save the places we love!’
The auction started, as many auctions do, with the generous offer of the hire of a country cottage in Cornwall. Stella smiled to see the husbands and wives debate that it was a five hour journey, versus the number of people they could fit in the cottage for the price. Then the bidding started, closing at £1,100.
Next up was Stella’s offer of a pet painting. Maybe the presence of the French bulldog, plus Licorice in her red bandana and the sheepdog puppy, melted pet lovers’ hearts because this went for a respectable £600.
A day with Roxy took them all by surprise by raising £1,500.
Debora’s cookery course at The Glebe went for a modest £400, but Debora clearly didn’t give a toss.
The adorable old English puppy went to Bernie for £300, to replace his dead black Lab. Everyone who knew him roared their delight as he tucked the wriggling bundle under his arm.
Then came the star attraction, Amber’s giant technicolour womb.
Stella couldn’t stop herself glancing around to see if Duncan had arrived and looked quickly away. He was standing under her weeping willow, between Amber, hateful Hal and the hideous dog, Donleavy. For a moment she wondered what had happened to Dolours.
And then the bidding began.
It was slow at first. Stella imagined this was what always happened when the item was genuinely valuable. And then it began to hot up. Stella could see that after five minutes it was between only two people, an earnest-looking man in spectacles and Hal.
It was already at five thousand pounds. Five thousand pounds! At a little unofficial auction in a suburban garden. She could see the doubt begin to settle on the face of the man in specs. His wife was already elbowing and tutting. Soon he would drop out.
To Matthew’s utter amazement, Stella stepped in, telling Izzy she wouldn’t be a minute.
She had a score to settle with Hal, and though she had no intention of owning the hideous geometric uterus, she thought he deserved to pay the maximum possible for it. This, she knew, was a dangerous game.
She was spurred on by the oohs and aahs of the audience and the announcement that wafted clearly across the crowd from Amber, ‘Oh look, Duncan, Stella wants my womb!’
Hal, she knew, saw her simply as Emma’s disapproving mother, a granny, and part of the pre-digital generation, whom everyone knew were simply a joke.
But, living in Camley, Stella was a regular at various small local auction houses. A life with Matthew had meant that they were forever bidding for works by the master, no matter how humble, that hopefully no one else had recognized.
Matthew watched as Stella bid, teased, drew back till the last possible moment, then bid again. When the spectacled bidder finally dropped out it became a duel between her and Hal. A game of poker.
And unlike Hal, Stella was good at reading reactions, which was why she managed to leave him hanging on, via her teasingly provocative tactics like coitus interruptus, at seven and a half thousand pounds.
The whole audience clapped as a slightly dazed Hal made the accidental final bid against himself of eight grand.
Amber ran towards him and planted a kiss on his lips in front of the whole gathering.
She then took a bow as if she were a Covent Garden diva, and she and Hal progressed through the admiring audience like Antony and Cleopatra.
Stella glanced at her daughter to see what she made of this but Emma simply shrugged at such mad extravagance and went on talking to Stuart.
Stella walked up to Amber and congratulated her. ‘And of course on your pregnancy. Will you live in America?’ She took a deep breath. ‘I suppose you can choose wherever you want now that Cameron’s getting a new business manager.’
She could see the shock registering on Amber’s face. She wasn’t to know it was something Stella had cooked up with Cameron to put the fear of God into her. Amber, like so many others, had assumed that Cameron was the one with the money and Duncan simply worked for him. Amber might do quite well from her painting but she hadn’t expected to have to live off it.
Behind them, Cameron raised his glass wickedly as if in endorsement.
Stella glanced around the garden to make sure that Duncan was nowhere near and saw that Dolours, this time a vision in purple velvet, had arrived and was looking around her, shy for once, because she didn’t know anyone.
Stella almost ran across the crowded lawn towards her. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ She grabbed a glass from a passing helper and handed it to Amber’s sister.
‘Not really my scene.’ Dolours grinned. ‘I’m usually the one serving behind the bar.’
‘I just thought I’d warn you,’ Stella announced with a conspiratorial smile, ‘your sister’s just announced she’s pregnant.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Now that really would be a miracle!’
On the other side of the garden Cameron had decided to abandon the bar and start making for the stage where he was about to be announced.
Laurie intercepted him, waving the free paper Stella had brought with her from Brighton. ‘Cameron, old son, did you know you were a venerable institution?’
Cam stopped in his tracks and looked penetratingly at his roadie. ‘What did I hear you say, minion?’
Laurie smiled blissfully. ‘Not just a venerable institution, you’re a heritage brand, mate, like the National Trust and HP Sauce!’ Laurie fell about laughing just at the moment that Amber O’Riordan, emerging artist and mother-to-be, noticed her younger sister Dolours standing next to Stella at the bar.
The triumphal smile vanished from her face as she strode towards them, shaking off Hal’s supportive arm. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘Well, now, Bernie, that’s not a very nice greeting, is it?’ replied her sister. ‘I thought seeing as you couldn’t make it to my hen party, I’d catch up with you here.’
‘Your sister and I got quite friendly in Brighton, didn’t we, Lou?’ Stella smiled.
Duncan was standing just behind them, talking to Cameron.
‘Duncan,’ Stella raised her voice, drawing them both into the conversation,
‘I don’t think you’ve ever met Amber’s sister, Dolours, have you?’
Duncan shook his head in astonishment at the moment Dolours met Amber’s horrified gaze.
‘So, Bernie – sorry, Amber,’ Dolours addressed her sister with a wicked glint in her eye. ‘I hear I’ve to congratulate you. Stella tells me there’s going to be a happy event. I hope you’ll be inviting the whole family to the baptism.’
Amber turned to her new benefactor, Hal, with a beseeching look worthy of a Puccini heroine and fainted into his arms. Since Amber was generously built and Hal a fashionably skinny nerd, the poor man staggered under his newly acquired burden.
Stella and Dolours exchanged a satisfied smile. ‘Hal,’ Stella suggested, ‘why don’t you take Amber inside. I think she needs a little lie-down.’
‘I really ought to go with her,’ Duncan began to protest before Dolours gripped his arm. ‘Duncan,’ she insisted firmly, ‘I think there’re one or two things you ought to know about my sister . . .’
Dolours led a bemused Duncan back towards the bar just as Matthew, by now relishing his role as Master of Ceremonies, began to announce the highlight of the afternoon.
Cameron came to the microphone. Stella could see that Jesse was longing to be on stage but was hanging back, his old shy sel
f now that he was on home ground.
‘Right, you lot of rich shits,’ Cameron announced, dispensing with the more usual ‘ladies and gentlemen’. ‘Personally, I loathed Camley and couldn’t get out quick enough.’ The audience roared with laughter. Being insulted by Cameron Keene was clearly a rare treat. ‘But now I see the place isn’t as bad as I thought. That must be a sign of ageing.’ Another laugh. ‘So, thank you for paying good money to see this venerable institution.’ He grinned and waved his copy of the Brighton paper. ‘Apparently, what we “heritage brands” need is a bit of youthful energy, so would Mr Jesse Cope step up onto the stage and join us for the first number, please!’
Jesse ran through the crowd as his delighted parents applauded and hugged each other.
‘Now, before I start, I’d just like to say that I’d like my wife to come up on stage.’
‘Which one?’ heckled someone in the audience.
At the back of the crowd Roxy looked at Debora and said, ‘He means you, Debora. He always meant you. Me and Halle, we were just distractions.’
‘But you’re married to him!’ Debora pointed out.
‘Yeah, well, he’s asked me for a Haitian divorce. It’s a reference to some song by Steely Dan, whoever they are. I said fine but I’d prefer one from England.’ She pushed Debora through the crowd until she was climbing onto the stage.
‘I am one helluva bad bet, Debora, but will you have me back?’
Debora looked at the audience of nice middle-class people from the suburbs. ‘Shall we make him beg, ladies and gentlemen?’
‘Yes!’ roared the audience.
