by Fern Britton
They had also knocked through the old walls separating the kitchen from the dining room, which had in turn been merged with the drawing room, creating a glorious flow of light and space.
The study now doubled as a rumpus room for the girls and their school friends, who would join them for summer holidays.
It was the very epitome of eighties chic.
Outside, the ancient back door led to a newly planted herb garden and, Henry’s pride and joy, the renovated smugglers’ cave.
The curious room above ground was cool enough to house his wine cellar and the steep stone steps leading down to the cavern had been made safe.
‘Mind your head,’ he told Dorothy as he led her by the hand, the light from his torch bouncing off the dimpled walls. ‘The electrician is putting lights in next week.’
‘I still don’t like it, Henry. You shouldn’t have wasted time and money on this. It would have been better blocked up. It scares me.’
‘Don’t be silly, old thing. It’s exciting – smugglers and redcoats and all that stuff – a slice of Cornish history, right in our own backyard.’
Dorothy’s concern was writ large across her furrowed brow. ‘I don’t want to be proved right on this, Henry. It’s an accident waiting to happen.’
Henry patted her arm reassuringly. ‘I promise you, there’s nothing to fear, darling. Besides, the children aren’t little any more, so stop worrying!’
The steps took a twist and a turn and then opened out into the natural boathouse under the cliffs.
‘Ta-dah!!’
Henry stretched out his right hand and Dorothy saw something bobbing on the water.
‘What the hell is that?’
‘A 1967 Riva. The best speedboat money can buy. And you see?’ He pointed at the floor. ‘I had the lads concrete a level jetty on the old rock ledge so we can tie her up and get on and off easily.’ The torchlight picked out the jetty and the polished wooden hull. Dorothy could make out cream leather seats and a shiny wooden steering wheel.
‘How much?’ she said in an angry voice.
‘It’s a present to us from the company. We deserve a little toy.’
‘You and your bloody toys! That’s not a board game. That’s a monstrous waste of money.’
Henry was crestfallen. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. I can take you and the girls out for trips around the coast and picnics on secluded beaches.’
‘That’s another thing.’ She rounded on him. ‘Can you even drive the bloody thing?’
Henry smiled. ‘Ah well, yes, you see, I’ve booked the whole family on a seamanship course.’
Dorothy pursed her lips.
‘Don’t you want to know what she’s called?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Look, darling,’ he urged, pointing towards the boat.
She shook her head in disbelief as she picked out the golden letters painted on the stern: Dorothy.
Dorothy scowled. Henry kissed her. She frowned. He hugged her. Finally the beginnings of a smile reached her lips.
‘You’re mad and bad but lovely to know, Henry Carew.’
‘No greater compliment was ever received – thank you.’
*
Henry and Dorothy were very pleased with their newly restored home and loved inviting the locals in to marvel at how the old house was being reborn.
Prudence and Constance had come down to see it during the Christmas holidays and had been less than impressed. Still in the throes of being renovated, the house was barely habitable. The girls were billeted at a local hotel while the damp and mould in the bedrooms was being dealt with.
‘It’s so cold,’ shivered Pru, clad in her new striped dungarees and red ankle boots.
‘And spooky,’ added Connie, shaking her wash-and-wear perm so the corkscrew curls bounced.
Dorothy looked at them sternly. ‘There are no spooks here. And it’s cold because the central heating hasn’t been installed yet. Want to see your bedrooms?’
‘Do we get to choose?’ asked Pru.
‘Well, let’s see.’
Sighing inwardly, knowing that a jealous spat between the siblings was bound to ensue, Dorothy led the way upstairs. The three of them picked their way over the dust sheets, abandoned tools and other builders’ detritus cluttering the landing to the first door.
‘Look at the view, girls!’ Dorothy threw open the door leading to the yellow room. ‘Who wants this one, overlooking the garden and the cliff?’
Assuming their mother was showing them the best room in the hope of winning them over, Pru, who was always quickest off the mark when it came to getting what she wanted, jumped in: ‘I do!’
Connie’s shoulders slumped dramatically. ‘I knew she’d get the first choice. It’s not fair. I really like this room. Pru gets the best of everything.’
Fighting the urge to scream, Dorothy forced a bright smile and kept her voice tone jolly as she told them, ‘Prudence, wipe that conceited look off your face. Connie, please refrain from sulking. I have a super room for you – follow me.’
Pru pushed past Connie, who whispered, ‘You always get the best.’
And Pru replied sotto voce: ‘Tough shit, little sister.’
When their mother opened the door of the blue room, Connie’s mouth dropped open as she took in the double-aspect windows with views of the beach and the bay. ‘Yes!’ she cried, fist punching the air. ‘Yes! This has to be the best room. I love it! Thanks, Mum.’
Pru was now the one who was in a sulk. ‘I thought you said you wanted the other room.’
‘Nope. This is mine and that is yours. Fair’s fair, eh, Mum?’
Dorothy, distracted by the screech of the plumber drilling in the en-suite, answered vaguely, ‘Yes, of course, darling. Sort it out between the pair of you. Off you go.’ Moments later she was lost in a discussion about power showers and hot-water tanks.
Pru glared at Connie. ‘Give me this room.’
‘No. You chose yours. This is mine.’
‘It’s too big for you.’
‘No it isn’t.’
‘The other room suits you much better.’
‘Why?’
‘Yellow is your favourite colour.’
‘No it isn’t. I like blue.’
‘You’re spoilt.’
‘You’re jealous.’
Dorothy wandered back in from the bathroom.
‘All settled, girls?’ Registering the sulky expressions on the girls’ faces, she promptly abandoned all efforts to placate them. ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake – why don’t you two go and explore the beach before I banish the pair of you to the box room – you’ll have plenty to mope about then, won’t you?’
*
Nothing more had been said about the bedrooms. Not because Pru had given up; she was just biding her time.
The family didn’t visit Cornwall again until the Easter holidays. That first day, both sisters were squashed into the back of their father’s new Range Rover, surrounded by the bedding, kitchenware and other household bits and pieces their mother had packed around them after they’d got in.
Henry insisted on having Radio 4 on for the entire journey, so the girls plugged themselves into their Sony Walkmans, staring glumly out of the windows at the passing traffic.
At Bristol they stopped for elevenses. Moody as hell, Pru and Connie trooped in behind their parents, scowling at the food on offer in the cafeteria.
Dorothy tried to adopt a light, cheery tone: ‘OK, girls, what do you want?’
‘A doughnut,’ said Connie.
‘That’s very fattening,’ said Dorothy, looking pointedly at Connie’s rounded tummy. ‘Have an orange juice and a banana. Pru?’
Connie’s lip wobbled, stung by the suggestion she was overweight.
Pru, still plugged into her Walkman, didn’t respond. ‘Pru!’ her mother asked again. No response. Henry took the headphones off his elder daughter’s ears and shouted, ‘Take those bloody things off and answer your mother!’<
br />
Pru stared blankly. ‘What?’
‘Your mother has asked you three times: what do you want to eat?’
‘Nothing. And she only asked me twice.’
Henry took the Walkman and headphones from Pru’s hands and stuffed them in his pocket. ‘Right. I’m confiscating these.’
‘But, Dad!’
‘What do you want to eat?’ he barked again.
‘Nothing,’ she shouted, and stalked off to W H Smith, throwing over her shoulder: ‘This is SO unfair.’
Henry nearly went after her, but Dorothy laid a hand on his arm. ‘Let her go. I’ll be glad of the peace.’
*
Back in the car, Pru glowered and sulked without her Walkman. Connie smugly and irritatingly listened to hers, flicking her sister the occasional two-fingered salute.
After a while, Pru waved her hand in front of her sister’s face in order to attract her attention.
‘Hello,’ she said exaggeratedly. ‘Earth to Constance! Let me have a listen to yours, Con.’
Connie was indignant. ‘Why should I? It’s your own fault Dad took them off you, not mine!’
‘Oh, come on, Connie,’ Pru wheedled, going for the sympathy vote – a tactic Connie was always a sucker for. ‘You know I’ve been desperate to listen to that new Madonna tape for weeks, and you did promise to swap when we left London. I was going to let you have the Kylie one, remember?’
‘But Dad’s confiscated it.’
‘Exactly – not fair! Come on, you know I’d do the same for you.’
‘You would not!’
And so it went on, with Pru eventually breaking her gentler sister down.
Connie managed to tune out the tinny strains of Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself’, and stared out of the window, drinking in the Cornish scenery as it sped by. She hoped that Pru wouldn’t be a complete cow over the whole bedroom business, but she had a horrible suspicion that her sister would outwit her again, same as she always did. She sighed loudly, attracting a quizzical look from her father through the rear-view mirror.
At last the Range Rover crunched slowly down the lane and into the driveway of Atlantic House. Pru got out quickly and, with suspicious brightness, told her father: ‘I’ll help you take the luggage upstairs.’
He raised an eyebrow in surprise and disbelief, but handed her a suitcase and a couple of pillows and opened the front door for her.
A couple of minutes later, Connie climbed the stairs, lugging her bags behind her, and threw open the door of her bedroom, the big and beautiful blue room.
‘Surprise!’ sang Pru from the depths of the pretty four-poster bed. ‘Your room is down the hall, little sister.’
‘Very funny, Pru,’ laughed Connie, before turning to her mother. ‘Mummy, thank you. This is the best room ever.’
‘Which is why I am having it,’ said Pru. ‘The yellow room is so pretty and just right for you, Connie. Much more suitable for a fourteen-year-old.’
Connie’s face darkened. ‘And why should this room be suitable for a horrible sixteen-year-old?’
‘Because,’ Pru said reasonably, ‘I am studying for my O-levels and I need this room to study in. It’ll be quieter for me.’
‘Mummy!’ Connie turned to her mother for justice. ‘You said this was my room.’
Dorothy, staggering up the stairs with her own luggage, heaved a sigh. She was tired of constantly having to adjudicate in her daughters’ petty squabbles. Opting for the path of least resistance, she turned to Connie. ‘Darling, be a sweetheart. Pru needs to do lots of studying to get good grades, or else she won’t get a place at university. As soon as she’s through with all that you can swap rooms – OK? Hmm? For my sake?’
Connie knew she was defeated before she’d even started. It was typical of Pru to resort to these guerrilla tactics. Mum always said she loved them both equally, but somehow she always ended up twisted around Pru’s little finger. She was so manipulative!
Nonetheless, Connie acquiesced. She had no appetite for a fight she was bound to lose.
‘OK, Mum – but I’m only doing this for you, not her.’ Connie cast a filthy look in her smirking sister’s direction.
‘Good girl. Right, girls – let’s give Daddy a hand with the rest of the luggage.’
Pru got off the bed and put her arm round Connie. ‘Your room is lovely. It’s perfect for you. I’ll help you settle in.’
Connie looked at her sister and silently swore that she would get her sister back for this. Never mind how long it took.
3
Some decades later
‘What on earth is your father doing now?’ Connie Wilson could feel her temper starting to rise. ‘Greg?’ she shouted up the stairs. ‘Come on – we’ve got to go.’
Calm down, she told herself, you’ve got the whole summer ahead of you. Don’t let the holiday get off to a bad start, don’t let it get to you!
Abigail, sitting quietly on the sofa, bags packed and at her feet, looked up from her book. Though only sixteen, she had endured enough family holidays to realise how stressful her mother found the whole business. With an expressive shrug of the shoulders, she returned to her place on the page.
Connie tossed her expensively highlighted hair back and put a hand over her eyes.
‘God, we’re going to be late again. Why does everybody leave it all to me?’
Abigail sat unmoving, peering over the top of her book as her mother pulled the specs from her blonde head and checked for the umpteenth time the long list of notes she’d made in her Smythson diary.
‘Well?’ She looked at Abi pointedly.
Abi indicated the bags at her feet. ‘Mum, I’m all packed and ready to go.’
‘Sorry, darling. I don’t mean to be a grouch, it’s just that I hate the thought of Pru getting there before us.’ Connie glanced towards the stairs. ‘What on earth is your father doing? Why is he taking so long?’ Rolling up the sleeves of her stripy sweatshirt, she marched to the foot of the stairs and bellowed, ‘Greg! Please can you turn your computer off. Surely work can wait for a few hours? We need to get a move on.’
Upstairs, Greg had his feet propped up on the wide and empty expanse of his ultra-cool desk, or ‘work space’ as he preferred to call it. This was his oasis. A place of sanctuary from the bedlam of his wife’s domain. A place of privacy. He slowly rocked himself on the ergonomically designed kid leather chair, sighing as he ran his hand through his wavy dark hair, now speckled with grey – much to his annoyance.
Raising his voice he shouted back, ‘Darling, won’t be a minute. Just got some loose ends to tie up at the office. Your father will want to have a full report as soon as we get there.’ He listened for a response from below, but none came. ‘Sorry about that, Janie,’ he murmured into the receiver of his agonisingly trendy and sleek steel handset.
‘That’s all right, Greggy,’ returned the voice of a well-educated young woman. ‘I’m so going to miss you.’
‘And I shall miss you. But I shall be thinking of you every moment of every day and every night, Janie darling.’
‘You will call me when you get there won’t you, Greggy?’
Irritation flared in him. Janie was getting too clingy.
‘Greg!’ Connie was shouting again. ‘Please hurry up!’
Greg, beginning to lose interest, was eager to end the call. ‘Yes, Con, I’m coming,’ he shouted. Then, speaking softly into the phone: ‘I’ll try. I’ve got to go. If only for Abigail’s sake.’ He started to tidy his desk, closing the lid of his laptop and looking round for its leather case. Lately he’d found himself wondering whether the time had come to kick Janie into touch. Lovely girl and all that, but it was asking for trouble, having an affair with your secretary. Especially when your father-in-law owned the company. Maybe he could pay her off, get her another job in a friend’s company. He’d write her an excellent letter of recommendation. After all, she was very good at her job. And very, very sexy.
Greg Wilson considered hims
elf a reasonable man. A man who was satisfactorily married while indulging in a slice of illicit cake. Surely it was expected that a man in his position would have a mistress? Then again, mixing business with pleasure … that was where he’d made a mistake. He’d have to give some thought to the Janie problem over the summer hols.
‘Janie, I really have to go. I’m only off to Cornwall. Not to the other side of the world. I’ll call when I can.’
‘Promise, Greggy?’ she purred.
‘Promise.’ Greg was now standing up with the phone sandwiched between shoulder and ear, shovelling things into his briefcase.
‘Bye bye, baby cakes.’
‘Bye, sexy.’ And he hung up. He’d added the ‘sexy’ to keep her sweet. She did the ‘sexy secretary’ look very well. Business suits with tight pencil skirts and high heels. And beautiful underwear that encased her twenty-six-year-old derrière to perfection.
He could hear the sound of a heavy suitcase being dragged across the hallway below.
Taking one last look around the room to see if he’d forgotten anything, he gathered up his laptop and went downstairs to inspect the damage.
His wife frowned up at him, ‘Greg, you know I want to leave as early as possible. We must get there before Pru.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Connie. Why you and that sister of yours insist on this ridiculous battle of wits each year is beyond me. And watch what you’re doing to the floor. It costs a fortune to polish those marks out.’
Connie was at the front door with the largest of three suitcases. She turned very slowly, took a deep breath, was on the verge of saying something unkind but thought better of it. Instead she continued towards the front door.
‘Here, let me help you. Before you scuff the paintwork as well.’
‘It would have been nice if you’d spared the time to do your own packing as well,’ Connie muttered, then, more loudly: ‘I think I can manage, thank you.’
Greg moved towards her just as she got the front door open. There ensued an unseemly scuffle as he tried to wrench the case from her hand and she held fast. It was Abigail who stepped in.
‘Mum! Dad! Why do we have to start every summer holiday with all this aggro? It will be brilliant once we get there and we’re going to have a LOVELY time! Let’s get on the freakin’ road.’
