on the question of your fee,’ said Lauren. ‘I’m
afraid we can’t see our way to paying the quoted rate. It’s
really very high. What would you suggest on that?’
‘I told Lauren we couldn’t—’ said Octavia.
Melanie flashed a brilliant, warning look at her and said, ‘Lauren, we can meet you on the fee, of course. We want to help and you are a friend of Octavia’s. Tell us your
budget and we’ll work something out.’
Octavia felt a flash of anger and humiliation; Melanie’s
concession had diminished her in Lauren’s eyes at a stroke.
I’m the boss round here, that statement had said, ‘I make the
crucial decisions, it’s my word that counts.
‘Marvellous,’ said Lauren, smiling briefly in her direction.
‘I had hoped Octavia might be wrong on that one. Now, as
to the details of the day, what would you suggest?’
After they left, Octavia walked back into her own office
and shut the door. Melanie followed her in without
knocking.
‘Well done, bringing that one in, Octavia.’
‘Melanie, why did you do that? Agree that she could pay
whatever she liked, really, without consulting me at all? I’d
already told her we couldn’t do anything about our fee, I
felt extremely silly.’
‘Octavia, I’d do that job for absolutely nothing, just to
get Next Generation. It’s one of the highest-profile
charities there is, a huge notch in our gun. I’m going to do
a release to the papers right now.’
‘Melanie, I don’t need a lecture on our position in the
league table. We’re partners, or so I understood. I’m not
some pathetic little assistant, however much you like to give
that impression.’
Melanie’s face became very hard suddenly. ‘Don’t be so
fucking stupid, Octavia. And don’t let your personal
insecurities colour your professional ones.’
Octavia stared at her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I would have thought it was perfectly clear.’
‘Well, it’s not. Clearly I am fucking stupid, as you put it
so attractively.’
‘Octavia, you’ve been in a highly neurotic state for days
now. Impossible to work with. I don’t know what’s the
matter with you, but—’
‘Nothing’s the matter,’ said Octavia and burst into tears.
Melanie was silent for a moment, then she said, quietly, ‘Is it Tom?’
‘What do you mean? Why should it be Tom?’
‘Octavia, I’m not a complete idiot. Something’s happened
to you. Most likely explanation is it’s Tom. Come
on, you’ll feel better if you talk about it.’
‘Yes,’ said Octavia, after a long silence. ‘It’s Tom. He’s
well, having an affair.’
‘I thought he might be,’ said Melanie.
Octavia stared at her. ‘Why did you think that?’ she said,
trying not to betray her panic. This was what she had most feared: people knowing, talking about it, laughing at her.
‘How long have you been thinking it, does anyone else
know?’
‘Octavia, calm down. Of course I thought it. It was
inevitable that—’
‘Oh, was it really? Inevitable he should have an affair?
Why, because I’m so unattractive, so unsexy, so fucking
naive?’
‘No! None of those things. Oh, God — excuse me a
moment.’
She went out of the room, came back with her cigarettes
and a bottle of whisky.
‘Here, have a drop of this,’ she said, pouring some of it
into Octavia’s water glass.
‘Melanie, I don’t need alcohol. I don’t need nicotine.
Come on, tell me for fuck’s sake. What did you mean?’
Tears of fright stood in her eyes; she had shocked herself,
she never swore.
Melanie looked at her, blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘I
meant that when a woman is as upset as you are, it’s almost
always because of a man. In your case your husband. That’s
all, for Christ’s sake. That’s all I meant.’
Octavia stared at her in silence, then she reached out for
her glass. ‘But you didn’t suspect before?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Oh, I see.’ It was strangely comforting.
‘When did you find out?’ said Melanie.
‘Last Tuesday. The day we went to Ascot.’
‘And there’s no doubt? You couldn’t be mistaken?’
‘No. No doubt at all.’
‘Have you confronted him with it?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Melanie,’ said Octavia, a stab of violent irritation overriding
her misery, ‘just leave me to run my own
Marriage, she had been going to say, then realised it was the
last thing she could be trusted to run and her voice tailed
off. She sipped at the whisky.
‘Bastard,’ said Melanie. ‘Bastard. Do you know who it
is?’
‘No. I’ve no idea.’
‘God, I hate men,’ said Melanie savagely, blowing out a
great cloud of smoke. ‘They’re all the fucking same.’
‘All fucking the same,’ said Octavia and giggled. Then
she couldn’t stop giggling, and then she was laughing
hysterically, and then she was crying again, wailing almost,
really quite loudly.
In the middle of the noise, her direct line rang; Melanie
picked it up. ‘Yes? Oh, hi, Mr Miller, it’s Melanie Faulks.
Sony, she can’t talk to you now. She’s a bit upset. No,
nothing serious. Yes, sure, I’ll get her to call you.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Octavia. Her tears stopped abruptly, her
father’s name as effective as the traditional hard slap. ‘Did he
hear me? Crying, I mean?’
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Melanie cheerfully, who had
actually had some trouble hearing Felix Miller herself above
the noise. ‘Anyway, what if he did? So what are you going
to do? Divorce the bugger, I hope.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more. I’m just
trying to get by. For the moment.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Melanie. ‘Sorry I said what I
did. About you being insecure and neurotic. It was unforgivable.’
‘It
wasn’t, but thank you, Melanie,’ said Octavia. She sat
there, sipping her whisky, wondering what she would feel next. There didn’t seem very much left. But the conversation
had done one thing for her; had made her decide it was
time to talk to Tom.
Octavia was surprised at the calm of her voice. ‘Tom?’ she
said.
‘Yes?’ His voice was wary, cautious.
‘Tom, will you be back tonight?’
‘I’m afraid not. I’ve just spoken to the chap, he’s booked
me into a hotel.’
‘Which one?’
‘He didn’t say. You can get me on my mobile if you—’
‘Oxford isn’t so terribly far. I’d appreciate it if you did
get back. However late. There’s something I really want to
discuss with you.’
A long, long silence. Then he said, rather heavily, ‘No,
I’m sorry. I really can’t get back tonight. We can talk
tomorrow maybe. I’ll be back quite early, nothing on in the
evening.’
‘Sure,’ she said and put the phone down. And picked it
up again almost immediately.
Patricia David was massaging Megan’s legs when the
telephone rang. She went to answer it, and came back
smiling.
‘That was Mrs Fleming. You know, you met her once,
she helps us run Foothold. And now she’s helping us to save
the wood. She’s coming to a rather important meeting
down here tonight. I’m so pleased.’
‘From London?’ said Megan. ‘That’s a long way to come
for a meeting.’
‘Yes, all the way from London. She says it’ll only take her
about two hours. I expect she’s got a very powerful car.’
‘Is she rich?’ said Megan.
‘Yes, I’m sure she is,’ said Patricia. ‘I don’t think there’s
very much that Octavia Fleming hasn’t got.’
After the meeting, Octavia thought, she might go and see
Louise.
The thought of Battles Wood and the havoc that her
future and very public outward involvement in it would
cause at Fleming Cotterill was cheering her up considerably.
She felt only a little sorry for Aubrey — he must have
known what was going on, must have. Every time she
thought about the people who must have known about
Tom, who would have known about other, earlier liaisons,
and kept it from her, people she saw and dealt with almost
every day — Aubrey, Barbara, everyone probably at Fleming
Cotterill — she felt like screaming very loudly and shrilly, for
a very long time. The conversation with Tom, his refusal to
come home even when she specifically requested it, had
had a very odd effect on her. Something had closed down
in her heart, and for the moment at least she felt no pain:
merely a fierce, clear rage. She knew it would come back,
the pain, but the respite was very sweet.
Hex father had phoned three times; she had not spoken to
him, couldn’t risk herself, simply let him leave messages on
her voice mail.
Each one was the same. ‘Octavia darling? It’s Daddy. I
know you’re upset. Let me know what I can do to help.’
She knew if she spoke to him today, she’d have to tell
him. And she couldn’t cope with that. Not today.
‘Tom? This is Barbara. Is it okay to talk?’
‘Yeah, sure. Go ahead.’
‘Have you got time to speak to Felix Miller? He phoned
in a state of great agitation, said it was terribly important.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ said Tom. ‘It’ll be some bloody nonsense
about Cadogan. I can’t face it. You’d better say you
couldn’t contact me.’
‘He’s got your mobile number, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes. Look, I’ll put it on to Divert. Get the calls put back
to the office. That okay?’
‘Ye-es. Until I go home at seven.’
‘I’ll switch it back then,’ said Tom.
Octavia started calling the Madison number as soon as she
was clear of Heathrow; it was engaged. After the third try,
she gave up. Probably some crisis with Anna, and they were
trying to get hold of the doctor. She hoped it wasn’t
anything too serious. Every time she thought of Anna
dying, she felt a great slick of fear. She was so brave, Louise,
but she was vulnerable too: how would she cope with this
second, awful loss? She would ring her later: after the
meeting. Plenty of time.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Barbara.
She was listening to Tom’s voice mail.
‘Tom, this is Felix Miller. I need to talk to you urgently,
about Octavia. I phoned her at the office today and she was
hysterical. I could hear her screaming down the phone.
There’s obviously something very wrong, and if you don’t
know what it is, you ought to. Would you ring me, please,
most urgently.’
Barbara decided she should pass this message on to Tom,
but she couldn’t contact him. His mobile appeared to be
switched off.
‘Tom Fleming,’ she said aloud, ‘you really are an absolute
bloody idiot.’
Gabriel Bingham was beginning to wish he hadn’t said he’d
come to this meeting. The women who were organising it
clearly saw it as an indication of his support. He felt
genuinely torn about the whole issue; he had moved to the
area five years earlier, when he had been adopted as Labour
candidate for the constituency, and had fallen in love with
its beauty. He had been born and brought up in Suffolk,
and had studied estate management at university. While
there, he had become involved in the political scene, first,
and ironically, rather actively with the Conservative Party,
and then, after some impressively fierce debates with them,
the Socialists. By the end of his three years, driven as much
by a conviction that Socialism was the only way forward for
the country as by a genuine passion for social change and a
strong distaste for unearned privilege, he was president of
the university Labour Party, and a committed party
member. After ten years’ hard graft in local politics he
began to apply for seats. Two turned him down, then
Somerset North became vacant. He won the nomination by
one vote. At the ‘92 election he was hopelessly beaten, but
that magical Tony Blair’s May, he turned an 8,000 Tory
majority into a 2,000 Labour one. His philosophy, like
Blair’s, was totally pragmatic. ‘We’ve got to get in,’ he
would say, at meeting after meeting, in the face of
opposition from the old-school Socialists. ‘Once we’re in, we can do something. Trust us.’
They trusted him; he was popular, despite being young,
having no wife, no family, a public school accent, a posh
name, was seen as genuine, thoughtfully idealistic. He
worked tirelessly, his surgeries often continuing until late
into the night, had a reputation for getting things done, for
cutting through officialdom; and he was not predictable,
outspoken against the worst excesses of the Welfare State,
the workshy, the black economy. For this reason he was
popular with some of the old-guard Tories as well as the
new-style Socialists; for this reason also, Patricia David and
her cohorts felt at least hopeful in looking to him for
support.
‘Mr Bingham, a cup of tea?’
‘Oh, thank you, Mrs David. That would be very nice.’
‘Please call me Pattie.’
Gabriel looked at Pattie David, looked at her rather faded
face, at her faded fair hair, her middle-class uniform of neat
skirt, white shirt, navy blazer, absorbed the slightly high