Lady Mary said, ‘Go on.’
‘She said they were the children of her sister and Sim,’ Juliet said, studying Lady Mary’s face. ‘Sim and the twins’ mother, Josephine, were married in Barbados over a year ago. Before she disappeared, the woman said that she didn’t know where the children’s parents were. She hadn’t seen them for nine months.’
‘My God!’ said Lady Margaret.
Lady Mary’s response was simple, ‘Are you sure they’re Sim’s children?’
Juliet said, ‘They’ve checked the church in Barbados. There was a wedding, also a christening.’ She added, ‘The mother is black, born in London.’
‘My God!’ Lady Margaret said again.
‘Annie simply didn’t know what to do,’ Juliet told Lady Mary. ‘We all agreed that whether the story’s true or not we couldn’t keep it from you any longer.’
‘It’s some hope, at last,’ Lady Mary said in a low voice. She closed her eyes. ‘It may mean he isn’t dead … Where are the children?’ she said, suddenly alert.
‘At Froggett’s,’ Juliet said. ‘They brought them down in the van.’
‘Does Nigel know?’ asked Lady Mary.
Juliet looked at her cautiously. She shook her head. ‘I thought I’d tell you first.’
‘I’ll phone Jessop,’ said Lady Margaret, referring to her husband.
‘I’d like to see them,’ Lady Mary said. ‘We must find this young woman, the aunt. She may have some clue about where Sim and his wife went.’
‘I’ll phone Jessop,’ Lady Margaret announced again and went to the telephone. Lady Mary got to her feet, went over to the dressing table and combed her hair. She said, ‘Margaret – you know best but I don’t think Jessop is a good idea.’ Her sister took no notice. Then Lady Mary took Juliet’s arm and they left the room. Together they crossed the grass, and negotiated a path through the crowds of villagers. ‘First prize, sponge cake, Mrs Bleasdale of Durham House,’ came the voice over the tannoy, ‘second prize, Mrs J. Corn, Bassett’s Farm.’ Sam Anstruther made a lunge at Juliet, who only shook her head. ‘Perhaps tomorrow,’ she said. Anstruther withdrew, shaking his head in disbelief. Arm in arm Juliet and Lady Mary walked past the lake, down the path, went through the gate and up the hill to Froggett’s.
Les Dowell was shouting above the voices at a packed meeting in the Savernake Community Hall. ‘Friends,’ he cried, holding up his arms, ‘Friends – let’s keep calm. We can get this vote overturned. We can get a new vote—’
‘Rubbish,’ shouted protesting voices.
‘Your advice is not helpful,’ cried Mohammed Nasruddin.
‘Get up there, Mr Nas,’ called a voice.
Mr Nasruddin marched forward and stood on the platform. ‘I’m sure I speak for many of us,’ he said. The noise began to abate. He went on, ‘I’m sure I speak for many of us, when I say, with all respect to Mr Dowell, that we may not be able to fight this any longer. Yesterday tenants received notification from the Town Hall that their applications for new tenancies elsewhere must be in by 1 September. Failure to comply would mean being given low priority on the list. We all know what that means. Late arrivals will get the worst housing possible. They add that all rent arrears will be voided, and that Savernake Developments has raised its relocation offer to households to two thousand five hundred pounds. You ask us to strike, refuse to apply for new tenancies, refuse to move. And we are saying we don’t believe in this new vote. We don’t believe we’ll win and if we stand out against the council and the developers we and our families will be crushed. We came here to see what you had to tell us and, Mr Dowell, with all respect, you have told us nothing new—’
There were sounds of approval. Most of the audience sat glum, listening. Nasruddin went back to his seat. A big, solid man in a T-shirt and jeans stood up. ‘They’ve got us,’ he said. ‘All right, it’s a clever conspiracy, no one’s denying that, but you’ve got to know when you’re beaten. You,’ he said, pointing a finger at Dowell, ‘are trying to persuade us to fight back, but it’s not your home and your family on the line. Be honest now, admit it. OK, we can ask for a new vote. We can go to the Town Hall. But don’t come here and tell us not to fill those forms in because it’s us and not you who’ll wind up on bad estates – noisy, broken nights, no repairs, women with prams getting mugged for the housekeeping—’
Les Dowell said, ‘Look. All I’m doing is saying we’ll fight them, if you stand firm—’ but already people were leaving.
Betsey Jones stood up shouting, ‘You’ve got to try,’ but she wasn’t heard. Those who weren’t departing to catch up on the housework, go for a drink at the pub or give the children their tea stood in small knots, talking amongst themselves. Betsey Jones looked at Les Dowell. She was furious, ‘This is a victory for Joe Banks,’ she said angrily. ‘And as for the Right Honourable Willie Carlyle MP—’
‘Like I said, there’s a drink in this one for him, somewhere,’ Dowell remarked bitterly. ‘Well, I’m not finished yet.’
‘We’ve got to keep trying,’ she replied. She knew Les Dowell’s disappointment. The people had not risen; as a career fomentor of social discord and revolution he had failed. Then the two elected councillors of the Borough of Kenton got into Betsey Jones’s dusty Renault and drove away.
In Rodwell House Mrs Walters got her letter from the council from behind the clock on the mantelpiece and she stared at it. ‘Two thousand five hundred pounds in exchange for a lifetime,’ she said to plump Mrs Wainwright.
‘It’s disgusting,’ said her friend from the chintz-covered armchair. ‘But what can you do? Maybe they’ll get this new vote, but even if they do I reckon this estate’s doomed. There’s too many powerful people involved.’
‘That’s what I think,’ Mrs Walters said. She looked small and frail, Mrs Wainwright thought. She was too old, now, to take the shock of moving so abruptly and under pressure, too.
‘Don’t suppose we’ll be seeing so much of each other in future,’ Mrs Walters remarked, still facing the mantelpiece.
‘We’ll keep in touch,’ said Mrs Wainwright to her back, but they both knew that once they were no longer neighbours the bonds of a long friendship would quickly dissolve.
On a mattress at the foot of Juliet’s and Howard’s four-poster lay the twins side by side. They both wore red dungarees. Dark-haired Joseph, who, awake, had sharp blue eyes, lay on his side, thumb in his mouth. Miranda slept on her back. A friend of Vanessa’s had redone her pale brown hair in little plaits all over her head. Lady Mary stood for some time in the darkened room, looking down at the babies who might be her own grandchildren, noting the long skull characteristic of many members of her own family, including two of her own three children, Sim and Claudia. Then she left the room and went downstairs. Her face was expressionless as she sat down, saying nothing.
‘I suppose the process known as DNA finger-printing could establish definitely if the children are really Sim’s?’ said Howard.
Lady Mary nodded. She said calmly, ‘I believe so. We’ll do that. But I think myself the children are Sim’s.’ She paused. ‘Will you be wanting to keep them with you, Juliet, or shall I take them?’
‘Well, as you have more room, and I’m trying to finish the last painting for my new exhibition …’ Juliet’s reluctance was clear. ‘Maybe only until the aunt comes back …’
‘Quite,’ said Lady Mary. ‘Good, that’s settled then.’
The sound of the back door opening broke the silence that had fallen on the group round the kitchen table. Nigel came in, Jasmine close behind him.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Margaret tells me some children purporting to be Sim’s are here. Jessop’s galloping south. She’s summoned the solicitor – Hugh Brown will be here by dinnertime. What on earth’s happening?’ Large and demanding in his pale suit, Nigel stood in the long kitchen at Froggett’s, the setting for years of plain living and artistic endeavour, looking as if he had landed accidentally and unwillingly in a slum. He
gave the impression his lungs needed all the oxygen in the room and that he was prepared to breathe it.
Worn out with coping with the twins, who had woken twice the night before and been sick in the van on the journey, Annie realised she was not prepared to be bullied by Nigel Fellows. She quickly outlined the story of the twins’ arrival. Nigel became more irritable as the story went on.
‘Why weren’t we told all this earlier?’ he demanded.
‘It’s only just happened,’ said his mother. ‘You weren’t about at the time and my impulse was to come straight here and see them.’
‘I gather they’re black,’ Nigel said.
‘Not particularly,’ responded Lady Mary. ‘I think you’ve jumped to the conclusion that they’re impostors. But if it’s a plot, it’s a remarkably clumsy one. In any case, Howard points out that genetic fingerprinting could establish whether or not they’re Sim’s children. Nigel, I think this might be a way of finding Sim.’
‘If they are Sim’s,’ he said.
‘I think they very well might be.’
‘Mother!’ Nigel exclaimed.
Jasmine looked at Annie, despair in her eyes. Annie returned the glance and remembered Jasmine’s childless state and her stupid plan to remedy it.
‘Perhaps we should be discussing this at home,’ said Jasmine.
Belligerently, Nigel said, ‘Well, I think I should see them first.’
‘I suppose it’s about time they got up for tea,’ murmured Juliet. ‘Jasmine, come and help me.’
Over the sleeping twins Juliet asked, ‘Jasmine – are you pregnant?’
‘I think so,’ Jasmine said. ‘But I don’t know whose it is.’
Juliet closed her eyes. ‘I suppose it doesn’t really matter,’ she said faintly. They both jumped as Nigel came into the room looking like thunder. He glared down at the sleeping twins who woke up and began to cry. Juliet and Jasmine picked up the children and, with Nigel following, went downstairs.
Tom held out his hands and took the little boy from Juliet. ‘Jasmine and I will change their nappies in the kitchen,’ he said easily. ‘You’d better sort out what’s to happen next.’
They stripped the children who escaped and toddled about, cheered by having nothing on. Tom said, ‘Honestly, Jas, the look on Nigel’s face as you left the room made me think of the little princes in the Tower. What’s come over him?’
‘Claudia’s boyfriend says he’s got to mourn his father properly,’ reported Jasmine. ‘It’s a strain on all of us. He’s obsessed with this Savernake business – half the board’s against him. He thinks he can cope but he can’t. And all this just makes him think about Sim. He’s mourning him, too, I think, but he won’t admit it. Is there any chance of finding him? Are these children really his? This is killing Nigel, you know. You should have heard him, coming over …’
‘Glad I didn’t,’ muttered Tom. ‘Of course these nippers, especially the boy, really muck up an already complicated situation as far as Bernard’s will’s concerned.’ He gave Jasmine a sharp look. ‘You look awful.’
‘I love Nigel,’ Jasmine said simply.
‘I know,’ Tom said.
They captured the twins as Nigel reappeared.
‘It’s all settled,’ he said. ‘They’re coming with us. Soon as they’re ready.’ He left the room.
Tom stared at Jasmine. She said, ‘Don’t be silly, Tom, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking. I expect Lady Mary’ll telephone Lady Margaret’s daughter to borrow their nanny.’
‘I hope she’s got weapons training,’ muttered Tom.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Jasmine as they pushed the children into shorts and T-shirts.
‘They’ve called in the family solicitor,’ mused Tom. ‘And Jessop. That proves it’s serious. There’s going to be trouble, Jas.’
‘Please don’t,’ pleaded Jasmine. ‘I can’t bear it. Those poor little babies. I don’t suppose their aunt realised what a maelstrom she was plunging them into when she disappeared. She must be found. If only Sim were here.’
24
Savernake Blues
The imposing office of the leader of Kenton Council overlooks, from one set of windows, the four lanes of traffic going up and down Foxwell High Street and from the other, the road south-east and the Edwardian central library. Joe Banks, seated in his leather chair, was having a word with Willie Carlyle, MP for Kenton South. Banks was aware that Carlyle had been offered a consultancy with a subsidiary of Samco for not opposing too vigorously the sale of the Savernake Estate and Carlyle knew he knew.
Carlyle, a small, pale man of fifty, once a teacher, glanced apologetically at Banks. ‘There’s a lot of pressure on me to take up the matter of this revote with the Department of the Environment. It’s pretty worrying. I’d like a briefing from you on it.’
Banks thought. He hadn’t known until then that Carlyle’s opposite number, the Conservative MP for Kenton North, was pushing for a revote. If they got it and then the vote went to the tenants, Carlyle, a Labour MP, would be in the absurd position of having given less support to them than his Conservative rival. And although Carlyle’s reselection depended largely on Joe Banks, it was just possible that if there was enough resentment by others in the local party about his failure to support the Savernake tenants, a campaign to get him deselected might begin. And if that happened they’d both be in trouble, Banks reflected. In fact, he might have to dump Carlyle …
Carlyle was saying uneasily, ‘I’m with you all the way in believing the borough desperately needs the cash from the sale of Savernake, but with a Conservative supporting the tenants, even though they’re not in his part of the borough my position’s getting very difficult.’
‘Yes, Willie, I know,’ said Banks, his eye catching a furious argument between two policemen outside a parked police van and a gesticulating man with long Rasta locks tied in a bunch at the back of his head. ‘Tricky for you!’
‘Mind you,’ he added. ‘I don’t think you’ve got a thing to worry about. I have reason to believe there’s no way the Department of the Environment is going to allow a revote just because the original vote took place while people were on holiday. Insufficient grounds, that’s what they’ll say.’
‘Well then,’ said Carlyle. ‘In that case, I can support the tenants, can’t I?’
Banks looked shocked. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as that—’
‘You’re telling me the appeal will be overturned anyway—’
‘That doesn’t mean you can rush in—’
‘Look here, Banks,’ Carlyle said. ‘I don’t like the sound of this. It isn’t going well, is it?’
‘I didn’t tell you I knew every detail of how it would all happen,’ Banks said defensively. ‘But I’ve been right so far, broadly speaking,’ he appealed. ‘I mean, for goodness sake, they’re already moving off the estate, taking the money and going.’
‘Good. Glad to hear it,’ Willie Carlyle said, but his tone was unenthusiastic. He stood up and held out his hand. ‘Well, keep going, Joe. Best of luck.’
Joe Banks shook the hand, but once Carlyle had gone he muttered, ‘Bastard.’ He suspected Willie Carlyle, a man good at looking after himself, was preparing to renege. It was a bad sign.
Hot though it was in Banks’s office, if he opened a window the noise of the traffic would fill it. He’d hardly be able to hear his own phone ring. It rang. The editor of the London Post group was on the line. Banks said cordially, ‘Ken – what a surprise! What can I do for you?’
‘I wondered if you had any comment on this plan at the Savernake Estate for the residents to barricade themselves in when the bulldozers arrive,’ Ken Lambert asked.
‘I should say this is premature. We’re still waiting to see if we appeal to the DoE on a revote,’ Banks told him, sweating and concealing his anger. ‘I think you’re jumping the gun, Ken.’
‘That’s not my point,’ Ken Lambert said. ‘Obviously, if the residents of the estate go ahead with banners
out of windows, the police called in and so forth, from our point of view we’ll have a big story on our hands.’
‘I see that,’ Banks said. ‘But I think you’d be wise to wait and see how this really turns out.’
‘So – a comment?’ asked Ken.
Banks could barely keep his temper under control. ‘Not at this time.’
‘Fair enough,’ Lambert said. ‘Well, take care, Joe …’
‘And you. Glad to comment at the proper time, of course.’
‘Bye for now, then.’ Lambert hung up. In his own office, he turned to Ben Gathercole and winked. ‘No comment – but he’s worried. I don’t think he knew about this.’
At the Town Hall Joe Banks leaned back in his chair, fuming. The Kenton Post was opposing the Samco plan to buy the estate. There’d been a leader last week deploring the sale of a public park, no matter how great the financial needs of the borough. The selling of the family silver had been mentioned. Savernake Park, the article had declared, was Savernake’s family silver – a funny way, Banks thought, to describe eight acres of rusty swings, strewn Coke and lager cans, condoms, crisp packets (some used by glue-sniffing teenagers) and benchloads of alcoholics and homeless people. And the Post had dragged in the environment, the ozone layer and the Amazon rain forests. What was worse, Banks mused furiously, this planned tenants’ revolt had Les Dowell’s name all over it, and his sidekick’s, that feminist Betsey Jones. They’d be describing it as a manifestation of grass roots democracy. Grass roots codswallop, Banks muttered aloud.
He rang Sam Abbott in the planning office. He was out. Banks swore. He rang the housing department and was told thirty tenants had opted for other flats and would be moving out. The man who gave him this information was polite but not friendly.
‘Have you any information about a plan by some of the tenants to barricade themselves in and resist the bulldozers?’ Banks asked him.
In Search of Love, Money & Revenge Page 30
