‘Look, Sandra, Mandy’s invited Sophie and Georgina now, and that’s the end of it. There’s no room for anyone else.’
‘But it was supposed to be a family outing.’
‘Family.’
Keith tried the word as if it was totally new to him. He frowned.
‘I wouldn’t say we were a family, really, would you? We didn’t have a family Christmas. We don’t have family friends. We don’t have family traditions. People with a sense of family’ – he underlined the word with a heavy irony – ‘don’t go buggering off to Spain at the drop of a hat without a by your leave.’
Sandra looked deeply shocked. She’d thought that after a good night’s sleep Keith would have calmed down, tried to see things from her point of view. After all, he’d never stood up to her before. All their married life he’d given in to her whims, anything for a quiet life. She’d always been in the driving seat and made all the decisions while he just made the money to pay for it all. She rallied.
‘How long are these friends staying anyway?’
‘As long as they like. Because Mandy’s spent a lot of time enjoying their hospitality. And they very kindly asked us to spend Christmas with them, so I thought it was the least I could do to repay their generosity. And as I had a spare ticket for the panto – or at least thought I had – ’
Sandra felt rising panic, but took in a deep breath – then realized she was being silly. She could use the time while they were out of the house very usefully indeed. She assumed a mask of understanding.
‘Of course. I’m sorry. Off you all go.’
She’d waited till they were safely out of the drive before setting to work. Then she painstakingly searched the house from top to bottom for evidence of Keith’s business interests. She wanted to know what he was actually worth, in case things really did get nasty. She spent a good hour and a half in the study, taking photocopies of various documents on his fax machine, until she had a neat file which she stored away in the box that contained the foot spa he’d bought her two Christmases before. She’d heard too many stories about sly husbands trying to disguise their assets – she wasn’t going to give him half a chance. Satisfied that she’d done her homework, she was about to reward herself with a nice jangly gin and tonic when she spotted the answerphone. There was no flashing light indicating a fresh message: not surprisingly, as most people recognized the sanctity of family over the Christmas period. But she did wonder if there was anything worth listening to on it. A frosted talon hovered momentarily over the replay button before pressing it defiantly.
Keith came back from the pantomime full of resolve. He’d taken no notice of the plot at all, but had spent the entire two hours thinking about his life. He concluded that he needed to put things on an official footing, and told Sandra as such only ten minutes after walking through the door.
‘I want a divorce.’
Sandra gripped the cut glass that held her gin. Her foot was jiggling up and down, her face rigid with bitterness.
‘I’ll take you for everything you’ve got.’
‘I think not.’
She turned to face him triumphantly.
‘I know you’re selling the business. I’m entitled to half.’
She was pleased to see Keith looked shocked. Perfect. She wanted him to think she had her spies out; that every move he made would be known to her. In fact, she’d simply rewound all his answerphone messages and listened with particular interest to the one Roy had left a couple of days ago, saying he thought he’d found a buyer already.
Keith recovered himself and batted the ball back.
‘If you know that, then you must know my other plans, too.’
She smiled tightly and nodded. From that Keith knew she was bluffing, as he hadn’t mentioned a word to anyone else, so unless she was a mind-reader… He looked at her, saw how her maroon lipstick was bleeding into the little vertical lines that ran along her top lip. She glared back at him defiantly.
‘So – what are you going to tell Mandy?’
‘Me?’
‘Absolutely. You’re the one who wants a divorce, so you can tell her. And where are we going to live? You can’t throw us out of here. We’ve got rights. This is the family home – ’
‘I think you’ll find that as she’s over eighteen those rights don’t necessarily apply. And anyway, she’ll probably live with me.’
Sandra flushed a dark puce.
‘What have you been saying to her, you bastard?’
‘Please, Sandra – we’ve got guests.’
‘Oh yes. Your precious bloody Liddiards that you seem to worship so much all of a sudden. Your new best friends. Well, I’m telling you, Keith. You’ll never be like them as long as you live.’
Keith looked at Sandra. She did sometimes have an uncanny knack of hitting you where it hurt. But, in fact, he was immune to her insults on this occasion. OK, he knew he’d never be like the Liddiards. That didn’t mean he had to stoop as low as her. Her haranguing stiffened his resolve. If he was going to achieve anything in the next six months, it was to save Mandy from becoming a parody of her mother, taking on her values and her aspirations. He didn’t think it was too late. Mandy hadn’t spent much time with her mother, after all. She hadn’t been unduly influenced. You only had to look at them. Today Sandra was sporting a knitted ensemble in deep coral with batwing sleeves and the ubiquitous gold stilettos, highlighted hair blown dry into a rigid helmet. He could see a tidemark where her foundation ended, the foundation that showed up her facial hair rather than disguised her wrinkles.
Mandy, by contrast, was in cream jeans, a black polo neck and black suede boots, her hair caught loosely at her neck in a tortoiseshell clip. Arguably she had youth on her side where make-up was concerned, but even then she was able to resist the temptation of the young to slap it on with a trowel, and was content with a light brushing of mascara on her lashes and a slick of lip-gloss. Keith noticed that she had some colour in her cheeks from the time she’d spent outside at Honeycote. The sooner he could get her riding that little horse, the better. In fact, the sooner they moved to the countryside, the better. He wouldn’t even sell The Cedars first. He’d buy somewhere cash –
Oh God. There he went again, buying his way in. But actually, did he really care? Yes, he had money, but was that such a fault? One thing was certain: if he couldn’t use it to get what he wanted, then what was the point? The most important thing was that Sandra shouldn’t get her hands on it. Keith had made sure that there was nothing of great importance lying around the house, just enough detail so that she wouldn’t become suspicious if she went rifling through his filing cabinet.
His serious money was well offshore. Virtually off the planet and totally untraceable, for he was a cunning investor. He’d got it all stashed away, quietly waiting for a window of opportunity to become apparent. Which he felt pretty sure it had.
Lawrence had woken up on Boxing Day feeling like hell. He’d hit the malt whisky in an attempt to reach the arms of Morpheus and was now regretting it deeply. Little memories of what had happened the day before were coming back to him in snatches and they made him squirm with embarrassment. The vision of Lucy’s sympathetic face detracted from the pleasure of Mickey’s shocked demeanour. Opening his mouth like that wasn’t usually Lawrence’s style at all. He blamed the excellent wine they’d been drinking. Wine of that quality slipped down so easily and loosened the tongue.
He spent the day at the garden centre, preparing for the sale that was going to start the next day. By the evening, he needed to get out. He didn’t want to stay at home; the house felt like a mausoleum. What he needed was some company to take his mind off things.
He phoned Kelly and asked her out for dinner, but she was reluctant to leave her mother. Poor Eileen had been rushed off her feet. Even though the pub was closed on Christmas Day, all their relatives came to the Honeycote Arms for lunch, because of the space and the kitchen – twenty-seven of them altogether. Eileen insisted that she
loved it, and that everyone did their bit, but it seemed unfair to Kelly that Eileen spent every night of the year rushing round serving people and didn’t get the day off on Christmas Day, so she always tried to make it up to her on Boxing Day. She was going to give her a top-to-toe beauty treatment that evening, pamper her, take the aches and pains away. Lawrence felt a twinge of jealousy. He longed for one of Kelly’s top-to-toe treatments, but today wasn’t the time to ask. He persuaded her to come out for a quick drink instead, just two hours out of her day with her family, and she agreed. Despite her loyalty to her parents, she had to admit it was a strain keeping everyone’s spirits up when they knew this was the last Christmas they’d be spending at the Honeycote Arms.
Lawrence took Kelly to the Lygon Arms in Broadway. There was no way anyone couldn’t relax in its cosy, unashamed luxury. They sat down on a huge, squashy sofa in front of an enormous fire, which suffused the air with the sweet smell of woodsmoke. Kelly flopped back on the cushions with a sigh of contentment. Lawrence tried not to look at her chest, covered in pink fluffy angora. He focused instead on pouring her some champagne.
‘So – come on, then, Kelly. Tell me your dreams.’ She told him about her goal. To have her own beauty salon. She’d only got six more months at college before she took her exams – and her tutors had told her she should fly through, as long as she concentrated on her theory. Lawrence privately vouched for her practical.
‘But actually – that was before all this business with the pub. Now my dream is to help mum and dad get it back. Though I know that’s impossible.’
She laughed, but Lawrence could see the sadness in her eyes and was yet again touched by her devotion to her parents. She patted him on the knee.
‘So – come on then. Tell me yours.’
‘Mine? Oh – nothing, really. I suppose I’ve achieved mine – the garden centre.’
He didn’t want to tell her the truth. He would never tell anyone that all he dreamed of was a house filled with his children, sliding down banisters, sitting on rocking horses, a row of red wellies lined up by the back door. Little bodies hurling themselves at him as he came in from work, smothering him in hugs and kisses and patting his pockets for the treats he would always bring them. Exhausted children slumbering in their beds surrounded by teddies, dreaming their own dreams that he would do his damnedest to make come true…
He stopped himself. There was no point in having a dream that you knew could never come true. There had to be an element of attainability about a fantasy, some small chance that fed it and kept it alive.
But if he couldn’t achieve his own fantasy, then he’d help Kelly achieve hers. Although it was beyond her wildest dreams, it was well within his powers. He’d fulfil his fantasies vicariously, through her. And exact a bit of revenge at the same time.
He dropped her back home at half past seven. He supposed the easiest option would be to buy the pub off Honeycote Ales and keep Ted and Eileen on as managers. But somehow that seemed too pat an answer, plus it had the added disadvantage of giving Mickey Liddiard the cash he so badly needed. He wanted to ruin him, not help him out.
He sat in the car park and looked at the pub, wondering whether, if he didn’t buy it, anyone else would. Ted and Eileen kept it ticking over, but that was about it. You couldn’t just buy it and walk in; it certainly needed twenty odd grand throwing at it, if not more. The only reason anyone would really want it would be to convert into a house, though Lawrence knew from experience how reluctant local authorities were to grant permission to do this. Country pubs were becoming something of a rarity and the local council were usually desperate to keep villages alive.
As he sat there brooding, inspiration hit him with a flash. You might not get permission to convert any of the pubs into housing, but what about the brewery itself? It was bloody ripe for conversion, and what better man to do it than him? After all, wasn’t that how he’d made his money in the first place, yuppy-fying redundant buildings?
Lawrence felt a familiar tingle that meant he’d hit the jackpot in some way. He drove back home with a purpose. At the very least, this would take his mind off things.
The consultant came to talk to Kay again before she was finally discharged, to check her over and to see what she was going to do. She gave her a stern lecture. Whatever happened, Kay had to register properly with a GP, get some antenatal care and decide what sort of a birth she wanted. All Kay knew was she had to get out of the hospital. She’d had enough of the curious glances from the other patients, who were clearly all speculating on her condition. She wouldn’t have been surprised if they were laying bets, and she couldn’t blame them – anything to relieve the tedium of lying in that ghastly ward with those relentlessly cheerful carols blaring out.
Kay decided to go back to the hotel for a couple more days. Get some rest, get her head together. It was luxurious enough, and she was impressed to hear that the manager had phoned up twice to check on her welfare. She was sure she’d be well looked after while she contemplated her future, because the plans she’d made only four days ago were now obsolete. She certainly couldn’t take on a job at the estate agent knowing she was due to give birth in just over three months – even if she could hide her condition under a well-cut jacket. And she’d have to phone the girl who owned the Coach House, tell her the deal was off, due to unforeseen circumstances. She wouldn’t give her the details: the girl probably wouldn’t believe her. She wasn’t sure if she believed it herself.
She gathered her belongings together, thanked the consultant and the nurses, and strode out into the night air to find a taxi.
That evening, Caroline let herself into her house and immediately wished she’d gone somewhere – anywhere – else. The cold air jumped up and caught her in the back of the throat. She knew it would take at least an hour to warm up, even if she turned every heater up to full blast. She wondered about filling a hot water bottle, turning on the electric blanket and climbing into bed to mull over her predicament.
She thought of the optimism she’d woken with that morning. How she’d looked forward to a bracing ride to clear away the vestiges of Christmas over-indulgence, followed by a couple more days of indulgence with James, interspersed with a bit of merriment and high jinks at Honeycote House.
Now here she was, horseless, manless, moneyless, with nothing but a pretty clear message from most of the Liddiards that they thought she was a waste of space. Even though she’d been trying to help – albeit because she had a vested interest. But she was stung by their slurs, their intimations that she was only after James for his money, which couldn’t be further from the truth. She admired him because he was everything she wasn’t – controlled, patient, organized, tidy – and she was a great believer in opposites attracting. You couldn’t live with someone who was your own mirror image. You’d end up boring each other to death. Perhaps that’s what would happen to James and Lucy, if they ended up together. They’d suffocate each other with their understated bloody good taste.
OK. So the Liddiards had made it clear between them that she’d never be one of them. They’d slammed down the portcullis and pulled up the drawbridge. She’d got the message all right. She wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life being patronized and looked down on.
It didn’t do, did it, mixing with the wrong class? She should try someone ordinary, someone who knew how to have fun. She thought of Gerry, who’d started as a photographer on the paper three months ago and had hounded her from day one. He was cheeky, comical, with a wry sense of humour and absolutely no airs and graces. They’d have a laugh together.
She walked over to the phone and punched in his number. He’d given it to her often enough. He answered after three rings.
‘Hello?’
‘Gerry? It’s Caroline.’
‘Cazza! How are you doing?’
‘Fine. I just wondered… that drink you’re always going on about. Do you fancy it?’
There was a silence that Caroline could detect was embar
rassed.
‘Shit, Cazza. I’d have loved to. But… I’m going out with Gemma. You kept me hanging around too long, babe. I never thought I was in with a chance.’
Caroline put the phone down slowly, then picked up a cup and threw it at the wall. It exploded with a satisfying smash, leaving a spattering of coffee in a four-foot radius. She tried a glass, with the same effect – red wine everywhere. Suddenly she found she couldn’t stop. Everything within her reach was hurled at the wall, until she collapsed in a heap, crying despite herself. She’d sworn they wouldn’t get to her. But what did she have? Fuck all.
Lawrence’s hand was shaking with excitement as he sat at the kitchen table with a sheet of graph paper, trying to work out exactly how much living accommodation the brewery could offer.
He hadn’t been able to remember the brewery’s shape and size at first. A few square feet here and there would make a huge difference to the profit margins. He’d rummaged in the hallway until he found a pair of racing binoculars, then rushed out to his car. No. Too conspicuous. He went back inside and found the keys to the Fiesta that the garden centre staff borrowed sometimes. He could hardly bear the five minutes it took to reach Honeycote Ales. He found a vantage point and trained the binoculars on his prey, straining his eyes in the dark. Eventually he refreshed his memory as to its layout and greedily counted up the outbuildings, each one a potential unit yielding hard cash.
Now here he was, committing his plan to paper, and feeling an increasing sense of excitement. The time was right for a new challenge. The garden centre at Barton Court was running itself, having achieved its maximum potential. Expansion now would mean acquiring another branch and the thought of that bored Lawrence rigid. He hated doing the same thing twice.
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