In all her days as headmistress of Redfields, she had never encountered such froideur. She could, just about, have accepted receiving the news in a letter: the matter was indeed delicate and personal and she could appreciate Mr Sherwyn not wishing to discuss his private life over the telephone. But an e-mail that had obviously been typed by his secretary? She imagined the scenario: ‘Irene – book me a table for lunch at Eduardo’s. And confirm tomorrow’s flight: make sure I’ve got a window seat. Oh, and e-mail Mandy’s headmistress – tell her Mrs Sherwyn and I have split up…’
And now it was up to Miss Cowper to tell Mandy. Initially, she had felt inclined to refuse Mr Sherwyn’s request to break the news to his daughter, but as he had indicated that he would be out of the country for the next few days, she was left with little alternative. Half the girls at the school were boarders, so, being in loco parentis, Miss Cowper often found she had unpleasant news to dish out, but it was usual in the event of a divorce or separation for the parents concerned to take their daughter home for the weekend while they told her themselves, and a special, kindly eye would be kept on that pupil when she returned. Mr Sherwyn’s request was a first, and Miss Cowper reflected that it might be harder to explain to Mandy why her parents had chosen not to tell her in person than to tell her they had separated. A few white lies would be necessary; she certainly wasn’t going to present the facts to Mandy in the bald, ugly manner they had been presented to her.
Miss Cowper was proud of Redfields. She’d managed to transform what had been a less than mediocre girls’ school into a huge success story. She’d turned it round in the past five years, doubling the number of boarders and also attracting an impressive quota of day girls in a catchment area of up to thirty miles. And although it would never have the kudos of Cheltenham or Malvern, Redfields boasted a happy, healthy environment that turned out happy, healthy girls with the confidence to achieve their ambitions, even if they weren’t heading for rocket science. But she sometimes wished the parents would leave everything up to her. She’d make a perfectly good job of bringing their daughters up if only they wouldn’t interfere.
She ran her eye down the list of Mandy’s classmates. One of them would have to be told in advance, to give the poor girl a shoulder to cry on and take her off for an illicit cigarette, to which the all-seeing headmistress would for once turn a blind eye. Sophie Liddiard. She was sensible; unlikely to gossip to the other girls before Mandy chose to tell them herself. She lifted the phone that connected her to the school secretary and debated a tot of Dutch courage from the handsome decanter that housed the sherry she dished out to visiting parents. Afterwards, she promised herself. She needed all the wits, tact and diplomacy she could muster for the task in hand.
Later that afternoon, when everyone else had been dispatched off for compulsory games (Miss Cowper was a stickler for fresh air and exercise, even for the sixth-formers), Mandy Sherwyn and Sophie Liddiard sat on the huge stone sill of the mullioned window that dominated Mandy’s study bedroom. A half-demolished box of Maltesers lay between them and Robbie Williams was playing just loudly enough so as not to attract attention – music was forbidden until after six.
Sophie sighed as she reached for another chocolate and looked down at the tops of her legs. If black opaque tights were supposed to be slimming, why did her thighs look so enormous? She looked enviously at Mandy’s colt-like limbs strewn carelessly in front of her, and carried on listening in round-eyed sympathy to the details of her meeting with Miss Cowper.
‘Apparently mum’s gone to Puerto Banus to recuperate. Fornicate, more likely. There’s a slimy bloke at her health club who’s got an apartment there.’ Mandy shuddered at the memory of the man, leathery and drenched in aftershave, endeavouring to put his hand up her skirt on more than one occasion. She’d solved that problem by wearing snow-white, skin-tight shorts that gave the creep even more idea of what he was missing but nothing to hide his hairy hand under.
‘That’s awful. Aren’t you upset?’ Sophie, who always found it very hard to hide what she was feeling, was intrigued by Mandy’s matter-of-fact manner. If Miss Cowper had just told her that her parents had split up, she’d be hysterical, she knew she would. She could feel tears welling up just imagining it. But Mandy merely shrugged and bit a Malteser in half neatly, surveying its honeycomb interior. She looked up at Sophie gravely with her baby-blue eyes. Sophie wondered if she dyed her eyelashes – they couldn’t be natural, surely.
‘With any luck she’ll bring me back some shoes. They’ve got great shoe shops over there.’
Sophie thought, with a seventeen-year-old’s grasp of psychology, that Mandy was studying the Malteser too intently to be convincing and was probably devastated deep down. She decided not to probe too deeply. After all, she didn’t really know her well enough to go delving into her innermost feelings: Mandy had only joined Redfields in the sixth form and even after eighteen months this was probably the first time they’d had a one-to-one conversation, privacy being a rare commodity at Redfields. If she wanted to pretend everything was fine, then Sophie wasn’t going to push it: she’d just make sure Mandy knew there was a sympathetic ear if she needed one.
Mandy, however, wasn’t pretending. She’d let a few tears trickle out in front of Miss Cowper, primarily because she knew it was expected and it didn’t do to let your headmistress think you were in any way odd. Also, something deep down inside told her that it was a tiny bit sad that she wasn’t able to care, and the crocodile tears had relieved that feeling. At least the emotional display would make Miss Cowper feel she’d done her job properly. She’d shown such genuine concern that Mandy had been touched. If it had been her own mother making a perfunctory attempt to comfort her, Mandy knew she’d have been suffocated by the fumes of Poison dabbed on her perpetually racing pulse points.
She and her parents lived what Miss Cowper, being a historian, would have dubbed a laissez–faire existence. Mandy knew she got in the way of her mother’s pursuit of sport (both vertical and horizontal) and her father’s moneymaking, but didn’t want to spend time with them any more than they wanted to spend time with her. She threw herself into the whirlwind regime that her mother organized to keep her out of the way during the weekends and holidays – tennis, ballet, riding, photography, gymnastics, even, one half-term when her mother was particularly desperate to dispose of her, dried flower arranging – thus becoming an accomplished and self-sufficient child. She was as overjoyed as her parents were when they hit upon the idea of sending her away to board for her A levels. As her father had driven out of the school drive, waving his hand with its bejewelled pinkie out of the car window, she had felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Perhaps now she’d have the chance to settle down and make some friends. Her peripatetic lifestyle had made her adept at making acquaintances but not at forging deep friendships.
She’d been an object of envy amongst the other girls when they’d learned of her curiously independent and sophisticated lifestyle. They’d all have died for their own self-contained suite with satellite TV, charge cards for Kookai and Warehouse, and an account with a cab firm that would take her anywhere she wanted. But they didn’t understand it was all a meaningless pay-off, or why she was almost deliriously happy at Redfields. At least here she was somebody. The recognition she’d received after winning the inter-house tennis match still made Mandy glow with warmth inside. No hollow parental praise, no empty reward in the form of a crisp twenty-pound note from her father, but genuine back-thumping congratulations and glee. She was beginning to realize what it meant to have her own identity, and that it was up to her to make what she would of her life.
‘What about your dad? Won’t he be upset?’
Mandy shook her head, a rueful smile playing on her lips. ‘He’ll be too busy flogging bathrooms to notice, I expect. Anyway, they’ve never really liked each other, my parents.’
Sophie was inwardly appalled. Only a minute ago, she’d have given anything to be as thin as Mandy. But not now. Th
at was too high a price, to have parents that thought so little of each other. Her own parents adored each other – you only had to look at them. She was excited at the prospect of breaking up for the Christmas holidays the next day, and spending nearly four long weeks at home. She and her younger sister Georgina were day-girls, but their home was nearly twenty miles away and the travelling was a drag. She sometimes wished they boarded, but she knew her parents wouldn’t be able to find the extra money for the fees. She suspected they were struggling as it was, and if it hadn’t been for Georgina’s hefty sports scholarship they might have found themselves at the local comprehensive.
While Robbie serenaded them, the two girls sat in companionable silence for a moment reflecting on their respective predicaments. Sophie let her mind wander ahead to the next Saturday night. Her brother Patrick was organizing a charity dance – he was on the committee for some reason. And so was Ned, so he was sure to be there. Sophie toyed with asking Mandy for some advice about Ned – she was bound to be an expert on blokes and how to handle them – but decided it would be selfish, so she offered her another Malteser instead. Chocolate, in her experience, was very comforting.
*
Kay Oakley slipped into the car and out of her black suede court shoes. Three-inch heels were no good for driving, but they’d been a necessity today. While it usually suited her to accentuate her diminutive frame, she liked to look people in the eye when she was doing a deal. That way they got the full benefit of her mesmerizing, some said almost alien, green eyes. Before she drove off she checked her hair in the vanity mirror – she’d only just had it done and she wasn’t sure how the new style would hold up to the rigours of theworking day. But her hairdresser was an artist – it was razored and sliced to perfection, and highlighted to suit, giving her an artfully tousled style that belied the amount of time it took to perfect each morning. She dusted herself with some bronzing powder to take away the pallor induced by a day under artificial lighting, slicked on some lipstick and spritzed a squirt of Allure on to each wrist and down her cleavage.
She pulled out of her parking space, then tutted with annoyance as she saw the long line of cars edging painfully slowly towards the exit. She should have left the Exhibition Centre earlier; but the best business was often done at the end of the day, when people were tired and capitulated more easily. She’d negotiated an excellent price on a range of rustic kitchenware: the garden centre had already opened an extensive delicatessen, so this seemed a logical diversification to Kay. Whether it would to her husband Lawrence was another matter; but at least he’d be mollified by the knock-down price she’d got.
The queue edged forward another three feet. Kay’s patience left her. She pulled sharply out of the line and accelerated to the front, where the next escapee was about to insert his ticket into the machine that activated the exit barrier. Kay could feel forty pairs of angry eyes boring into her back as she lowered the electric passenger window and adopted a suitably distressed expression. She indicated the mobile telephone on the seat next to her.
‘I’m awfully sorry. I’ve had a phone call… It’s an emergency. Would you mind?’
Kay never tempted fate by lying. She was merely economical with the truth. She had had a phone call earlier: from Lawrence, to find out what time she’d be back. (‘Not before midnight, darling. More like one. I’ve got to do dinner with some of the suppliers – keep them sweet.’) And it was an emergency: if she didn’t see Mickey tonight, she’d die. It had been almost four days and she needed her fix.
Of course the driver let her out, and she flashed him a smile of such triumphant brilliance that he instantly realized he’d been duped. But by then she’d reached the freedom of the open road, and put her foot down hard. As she gained the motorway, she glanced at the digital clock. Just over an hour, traffic willing. The thought sent a pulse racing between her legs, and she put an experimental hand down to feel it. God, it was as strong as a heartbeat. Anticipation made her push the speedo up past ninety. The little Boxster managed it effortlessly. It was her ally, and the result of one of the few battles she’d won with Lawrence; if he’d got his way she’d still be lumbering along the feeder road in a Range Rover. OK, so you couldn’t get much in it, but speed was more important to Kay than capacity. To her mind, its only slight drawback was lack of anonymity. A Range Rover went unremarked in most of the places she frequented; a high-powered electric-blue sports car did not, which was sometimes inconvenient. But Kay was expert at weighing up pros and cons, and right now her choice was saving her precious time.
Austin Healeys really weren’t meant for screwing. But Patrick Liddiard was damned if he was going to sacrifice his pride and joy for the luxury of getting his leg over in comfort. Besides, Kelly was obliging and supple and didn’t seem to mind having her head jammed up against the window, judging by the appreciative noises she was making. He knew her appreciation was genuine, for he’d long concluded that the only thing that wasn’t fake about Kelly were her orgasms. From the roots of her candyfloss hair to the tips of her false nails (he’d had a terrible shock once, when he’d found one of them in his Calvin Klein boxers), she was a walking temple of artifice. Patrick could only be sure that her heart-stopping breasts were her own because a publican’s daughter studying beauty therapy at the local tech couldn’t possibly afford silicone implants.
Ten minutes later, as Kelly retrieved her G-string from the glove compartment, Patrick lit a Marlboro Light and stared out of the window. He never watched her get dressed; it inevitably depressed him and made him wonder, as she struggled into her cheap, gaudy, too-tight clothes, what on earth he was doing with her.
He knew the answer, of course. Because even if Kelly’s conversation was limited to the regurgitated contents of Hello! magazine, at least she took his mind off things with her effervescent babble. She was uncomplicated and a great shag. What more could you ask for? The last thing Patrick needed at the moment was a bird in tow that made endless demands and played mind games. He’d gone down that road before – it was exhausting. And at the moment he needed all his mental energy.
As Kelly prinked in the vanity mirror, he pondered his predicament. He hadn’t really expected things to turn out like this. His father had always insisted, from a young age, that Patrick should feel no obligation to step into his shoes at the brewery. For Mickey himself had been groomed to take over from his father before him, and he felt strongly that his children should be given the chance to choose their own path in life without being unduly influenced by the spectre of Honeycote Ales.
But it hadn’t been that easy to escape the legacy. Patrick had never been a great academic, and had scraped through his GCSEs with just enough marks to get into the sixth form to do A levels. They, however, had proved a spectacular failure. Mickey had been furious, not with Patrick, but with the school for allowing him to suffer all those years of struggling before admitting academic defeat. He’d taken him off to a crammer in Oxford, where within half an hour they’d pronounced Patrick borderline dyslexic. Had it been diagnosed at an earlier age, they said, he would have been spared the humiliation of always coming bottom of the class, being branded a ‘thicko’. Patrick was somewhat relieved. In his head, he’d never felt intellectually below his peers. It was just that he hadn’t been able to express himself on paper, and now he felt vindicated.
Mickey had been beside himself with guilt, and had totally over-compensated for what had not been entirely his fault. But he blamed himself for choosing the wrong school for Patrick, for trusting them to take charge of his education when clearly they were incompetent. He knew Patrick’s confidence had taken a severe knocking over the past few years, and he wanted to atone for what must have been a total nightmare for the boy. As compensation he gave his son a salary from the brewery, without actually giving him any responsibility with which to earn it. So Patrick became what was really a glorified temp, standing in whenever anyone was ill, whether it was driving the delivery lorry, humping sacks of hops or superv
ising the stringent tests they had to undertake several times a day. Although as a result Patrick was more familiar than anyone with the workings of the brewery, albeit on a junior level, Mickey was insistent that he spend the rest of his time working out what he really wanted to do with his life.
And now, at just twenty-three, Patrick realized that he’d reached something of a dead end. He didn’t have good enough qualifications to get a job of the sort of calibre he felt he deserved – sending endless CVs to estate agents and wine merchants had proved that. He couldn’t face another envelope landing on the mat with a rejection letter politely refusing him so much as an interview. He’d toyed with the idea of art college – if he excelled at anything, it was drawing – but the establishments he’d visited had appalled rather than inspired him. The students seemed pretentious, intent on shocking rather than the pursuit of the aesthetic. So that idea had gone out of the window. Of course, what he’d really like to do would be to race his Healey, but as that involved spending money rather than earning it, it wasn’t really an option. He had to content himself with its restoration, a slow but rewarding process that helped him take his mind off things from time to time.
Meanwhile, being around the brewery had aroused his interests, despite Mickey’s constant reminders that he was a free agent, that he should become a hot air balloonist or a lion tamer before taking up an official position at Honeycote Ales. But Patrick was gradually coming to the conclusion that this was where his future lay. After all, he loved Honeycote – the house they lived in, the countryside, the people, the way of life. And he knew he was lucky. A lot of people spent their entire lives trying to get away from where they’d been born. So he’d come to a decision – he was going to ask his father for a proper managerial position. He was going to stop messing around and do some hard work, earn his salary. He knew he was going to meet considerable resistance from his father, who seemed to be under a lot of pressure at the moment. In fact, deep down Patrick suspected that Mickey was keeping him at arm’s length deliberately, and it irked him. He wanted to be able to help. But it was going to be a question of timing, finding the right moment to ask. He sighed a deep sigh.
Honeycote Page 2
