Birthdays Can Be Murder (7 page)

‘In the back pantry, keeping cool,’ Jenny said, and led the way. Justin looked first at all the crates of champagne, and then his eyes saw the cake, and widened. He stepped closer. It was six layers, artfully held up by white columns, almost like a wedding cake. Except that the icing was a lovely deep cream colour, and was decorated with lemon and orange icing sugar roses. On the bottom and largest tier, in flowing orange lettering, were the simple but exquisitely rendered words:
Happy 21st Birthday Alicia
.

He held out a finger, intending to snitch an orange rose, and found his wrist smartly encased in a grip of steel. He turned and found himself not two inches from Jenny’s nose. For the first time he really noticed her eyes, and was amazed at their deep blue beauty.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Jenny advised him, and smiled sweetly.

Justin straightened up and grinned. ‘You know, Jenny Starling, if you were six stone lighter, I think I’d marry you.’

Jenny, mortally offended, stared at him for a shell-shocked instant, then spun on her heel and stormed into the kitchen. The grey cat, prowling around the waste bucket for scraps, took one look at her and hissed massively. Jenny hissed back.

Marry her indeed, Jenny fumed. Hah! Did she look as if she had so little taste that she would actually marry a man like Justin Greer?

‘I do hope you can get that monstrosity into the ballroom without an accident.’ Justin’s laughing voice followed her across the room, and a little while later he emerged from the pantry, closing the door behind him. ‘I’d hate to see that marvellous edifice, like Humpty Dumpty, having a great fall.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Jenny said grimly. ‘I’ll see to it. It only needs myself and one other to handle it. Perhaps the florist. He looks as if he could handle anything,’ she said, more to herself than to anyone else. She was still subconsciously worrying about Arbie and the grasping Babs.

‘Florist?’ Justin said, his voice sharpening.

‘Hmm. Arbie-somebody-or-other.’

‘I doubt he’ll be around for long. You’d better be quick. I saw them unloading the last of the flowers just now. Daphne’s in seventh heaven.’

‘But he’s staying to the banquet,’ Jenny said, looking around in surprise. ‘Your sister invited him.’

Justin stared back at her, his handsome face darkening. ‘Did she now?’ he said, his voice suddenly low and ominous, all good humour vanishing. ‘Did she really?’

Jenny turned and began rattling pots and pans in a tellingly loud manner. ‘I imagine Alicia felt that she could invite who she liked,’ she said diplomatically, her voice deliberately vague. From behind her, Justin laughed harshly.

‘No doubt she did, the little mischief-maker. But then, two can play at that game. And
I
can invite who
I
like as well.’

Jenny spun around sharply, not at all sure she liked the sound of that, but he was already halfway out the door. Jenny threw her head back and gave a yell. Vera dropped the pan she was stirring and the cat shot two feet in the air, turned, landed, and streaked to the door.

After her shriek of pure frustration had finished rattling around the rafters, Jenny felt much better, and calmly began seeing to the various sauces, while Vera watched her anxiously.

She’d be glad when this damned party was over. But she didn’t realize, then, just how permanently ‘over’ the party was going to be – for someone.

‘H
ELLO IN HERE
. Anything I can do to help?’

Jenny looked around and smiled vaguely at Mark Greer as he came down the few steps that led into the kitchen and took a deep, appreciative sniff.

‘Thanks, no. Everything’s just about ready, final touches notwithstanding.’

‘Ah, it’s those final touches that sent me down. Alicia wants to make sure that the flat wines are uncorked and breathing. She doesn’t trust the wine waiters to do it, apparently.’

Jenny, taking a delicate taste of her cherry sauce, nodded and then quickly showed the elder Greer to the back pantry. ‘Look at all that champagne!’ Mark gasped, turning a shade green. Then he forced a laugh. ‘I’d better get someone to take a few crates into the ballroom. My daughter must think people are going to bathe in it.’

Jenny smiled distractedly, her mind on her Prawns Magenta. She mustn’t forget the final squeeze of lemon.

‘These are the reds then. And the whites are, oh yes, over there. Why are these two dozen champagne bottles set aside?’ Mark asked.

Jenny glanced in, and shrugged. ‘I don’t do wine,’ she said firmly.

‘I believe, Mr Greer, that Al wants those for the toast.’

Both Jenny and Mark jumped at the unexpected interruption, with Mark going slightly stiff-backed at the sight of the young man in front of him. Not that Keith Harding didn’t polish up well in an evening suit. He did. The black and white ensemble only served to make his hair more richly thick, his athletic body more manfully elegant and his handsome face even more pronounced and undeniable.

‘Oh. Ah, right. I’d better leave it here then.’

‘I saw you come in,’ Keith said, by way of explanation, ‘and wondered if there was something I could do. Al asked me to come early. I daresay she thought an extra pair of hands around the place wouldn’t hurt.’

‘Er, no. Well, perhaps you could lug a crate of this champagne into the ballroom for me then?’ Alicia’s father obliged. ‘We can’t have the waiters traipsing in and out of the kitchen too often tonight.’

‘No,’ Jenny said quickly and loudly. ‘We can’t.’ She went to the fridge to check on her mousses.

As the two men left, Keith Harding carrying the crate with a telling ease, Jenny watched them go, her eyes troubled. Things were all topsy-turvy in this house. Nobody wanted Alicia and Keith to marry, except Alicia and Keith. Arbie-the-florist was a powder keg getting ready to explode, and Justin, unless she missed her guess, was about to pull a fast one on his sister. It all made her deeply uneasy. She sighed, trying to talk herself out of her doom-laden mood, and checked her watch. One hour until the banquet was due to begin.

‘Hello. Alicia sent me down for some champagne.’

Jenny swung around, annoyance leaping across her face. The kitchen was like Piccadilly Circus tonight.

‘Sorry,’ Arbie said, obviously and accurately reading her expression. ‘I wouldn’t bother you otherwise – I know how annoying it can be when you’re trying to work – but Alicia insisted. Champagne?’

‘In there.’ Jenny nodded to the pantry and watched him go, then gave a start and rushed to the oven to check the various meats. They were, as she’d really expected, cooking perfectly. Arbie appeared a little while later, puffing slightly, just as Mark and Keith came back.

‘Hello, Arbie,’ Mark said cheerfully. ‘Alicia has you working as well, I see. She seems to think guests are invited for her private whims, rather than to be entertained.’

Arbie smiled such a knowing smile that Jenny felt disconcerted. Here was a man who missed very little, and understood a great deal about human foibles, she thought. She wondered how such an obviously sensitive and intelligent man coped with life’s blunt instruments. She wondered, too, how he felt about Alicia Greer and her cruel little games. As she watched his white-suited, comical figure stagger under the weight of the wine, she wondered even more how he felt about Justin Greer’s golden beauty, inherited wealth and easy elegance.

‘I don’t mind,’ Arbie, the easygoing friend of the family said lightly. ‘I daresay I shall be drinking my fair share of the stuff tonight, anyway.’ And he laughed, joining in Mark’s happy acknowledgement.

Jenny nodded, finding it all very interesting. Arbie was obviously a ‘good sort’ to Mark Greer. To Alicia he was a joke. To Babs Walker he was a meal ticket. Jenny got the weird feeling that he could be all things to all men. But when he looked in a mirror, who did
Arbie
see?

As he struggled up the steps and nudged open the door to the hall, Jenny sighed in relief at the sight of a gaggle of catering staff coming their way.

‘Well, I suppose we’d better let you get on with it,’ Mark said jovially to the impressive cook. ‘We’ll leave the champagne for the toast until the final minute, if you don’t mind. Ah, here they come. Don’t they look smart,’ Mark said as the waiters and waitresses, indeed looking very smart and crisply clean and tidy, filed past.

Keith Harding, looking and no doubt feeling uncomfortable, pressed back into the wall to let them pass, then suddenly froze. Jenny clearly saw his eyes widen and his face muscles collapse in total surprise. And a moment later, she saw why.

Margie Harding, carefully standing at the back of the group and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, stared grimly at the floor in front of her. And then Jenny remembered seeing her frizzy blonde head earlier on that afternoon, in the garden. Hard on the heels of that memory came another. Jenny’s glance fell to the rounded collar of her blouse. The one she’d been buying in the jumble sale. The one that she had indeed dyed, for her uniform looked exactly the same as the others. But surely legitimate members of the catering firm had their uniforms supplied? Jenny felt a cold chill run down her spine. What the hell did she think she was doing?

Margie glanced up at her husband, who was staring at her blankly, a peculiar expression in his eyes.

‘You wanted to speak to us, Miss Starling?’ The head waiter, a very competent individual named Georges, grabbed her attention, more with his fake French accent than with his actual words. Jenny smiled automatically, dredging up her pep talk from memory, and out of the corner of her eye saw Mark Greer leave the room. Keith Harding, she noticed, stayed exactly where he was.

‘Er, yes. I’m sure you all know the routine. And the party co-ordinator has gone over things with you.’ There was a general, well-repressed groan of agreement. ‘However, I just want to go over the menu, just to get the timing right. The soup needs to be served quickly, so I suggest …’ Jenny rattled through the procedure, her mind and her eyes on the husband and wife standing only yards, but light years, apart.

Georges, knowing and always impressed by professionalism when he heard it, listened intently, but Jenny, who would normally have been pleasantly flattered, hardly noticed. When she was finished, Georges reassured her that he would follow her instructions to the letter then clapped his hands imperiously and collected his brood. As they trailed past him, Keith reached out and grabbed Margie’s arm. She didn’t, Jenny noticed, make any move to pull away.

It became deathly quiet in the kitchen as the last of the staff left. Vera had been asked to stay on, just to help with any little emergencies – spilt drinks, dropped plates, and such – but she and Martha had disappeared about an hour ago, no doubt to sulk somewhere out of the hurly-burly and sip some of the Greers’ finest port. Now, only the sound of simmering saucepans and spitting meat disturbed the silence. From the shadows at the top of the stairs, Margie finally spoke. ‘Hello, Keith.’

‘Margie.’ His answering voice was quiet and unbelievably tired. ‘What are you doing here? Have you gone completely round the bend?’

‘I had to come. You wouldn’t talk to me. You wouldn’t come to the phone at work. Every time I saw you on the street you ran away from me. You moved from your mum’s house, and she wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone. The only place I knew where to find you is here. Tonight.’

Jenny saw him run a hand wearily through his hair. ‘I moved out. I left you. Don’t you understand?’

‘Other men leave their wives, but they don’t avoid them. It’s just childish, that’s what it is.’ Margie’s voice was getting tearful now, and Jenny shifted uneasily. She wished they’d go. She’d had enough of fraught human relationships to last her at least a month. What was it about The Beeches that seemed to ferment unrest?

‘I tried that. Remember? Coming to see you and the kids. And what happened?’

‘Well, what did you expect to happen?’ Margie asked, anger and tears now in equal proportion. ‘I wanted you back. I
still
want you back. Did you expect me to just give up? To not even try to get you to come back home where you belong?’

‘I tried to warn you it was no good. I tried to tell you if you didn’t stop that I wouldn’t come again. But you wouldn’t listen.’ His voice rose to a kind of hopeless wail.

‘And what about the kids?’ Margie asked, all trace of tears now gone. ‘You stop coming to see me, you stop coming to see them. Or are you so wrapped up in your new life that you didn’t notice?’

‘Of course I noticed,’ Keith snapped, his own voice bitter now. ‘I hate not seeing them. But you didn’t think of that when you drove me away, did you?’

In the silence, Jenny clearly heard the other woman gasp. ‘You think it’s all my fault?’ Her voice was incredulous. And the tears were back. ‘I love you. Oh, Keith, I’ve always loved you. Ever since we were kids at school, there was never anyone else. There won’t ever be anyone else. You know that. Why are you being so bloody stupid?’

‘Oh, Margie, don’t.’ Keith sighed deeply. ‘Why can’t you just accept it? I have to have her, Margie. It’s like it is for your old dad and his whisky. I can’t stop. I can’t give her up. Don’t you understand? I just can’t.’

Margie began to cry. Soft, heartbroken sobs that had her husband reaching for her and holding on, but not giving in. ‘It’s no good, Margie,’ Keith said softly. ‘It’s no good. We’re through.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Margie howled, pulling away. ‘You’ll never become one of them, no matter how much she tries to make you one. You’ll always be poor, and they’ll always have money. Just because of that, they’ll never accept you. Everyone else knows it except you! You’re the laughing-stock of the village.’

The harsh words rang around the quiet room.

‘I know,’ Keith said, his voice flat and bitter. ‘You think I don’t know all that? But it doesn’t matter. That’s what you don’t get, Margie. What nobody gets. Alicia and I can’t live apart. We can’t
be
anything if we’re not together.’ His voice was passionate now. Desperate, almost possessed.

Jenny winced. She stared at the oven, then at the fridge, then out of the window. The marquee was up, she noticed vaguely. The tables would be set up, and she really should set about transferring the buffet. She wished these two young people would go. Just take their pain and their tragedy, and get out of her kitchen.

‘She’s a witch, that’s what she is,’ Margie said bitterly. ‘If we’d lived 300 years ago I could have had her burned alive for putting a spell on you. And I would do it too. Just give me the chance!’ There was such hate in her voice that her husband stared at her, as if at a stranger. Finally, he shook his head.

‘Go home, Margie. Go home to the kids and just forget about us. OK? I’ll see you and the kids don’t suffer. You’ve been getting the money all right?’

Margie began to cry in earnest now. It was obviously more than her husband could take, for he suddenly roared, ‘Go home!’, making both women jump. Jenny, having thoroughly had enough, picked up a tray of Bengal eggs and very loudly slammed it down on the table.

The voices above her promptly lowered to become a whisper, but such were the acoustics that Jenny could still clearly hear them. ‘I won’t let you go,’ Margie warned. ‘You may think I will, but I won’t.’ And there was something maniacally stubborn in her tone.

Jenny heard a door open somewhere in the hall, and looked over her shoulder. Then they all heard a blithe voice calling Keith’s name. Then, ‘Oh, Daphne, have you seen Mr Harding?’

‘I believe he’s in the kitchen, Alicia.’

‘The kitchen?’ Alicia’s voice came sharply. ‘What on earth’s he doing in there?’

‘Helping your father with the champagne crates, I understand.’

‘Oh, hell!’

As Jenny began to move rapidly across the room, to do what, she wasn’t quite sure, Margie backed away, her face white and pinched. At the same time Keith opened the door and left quickly. Nobody, it seemed, wanted a confrontation. When she was sure the coast was clear, Margie left as well, looking stiff and drained. She never gave the cook so much as a backward glance.

For a long time Jenny stared at the closed door, her heart thudding painfully. When the door suddenly flew open again she nearly screamed, but only Martha, Georges and two of the waiters appeared in the doorway. ‘Time to load up the marquee, yes?’ Georges said, eyes twinkling and moustache twitching. ‘The dining guests are already arriving. The party crowd will not be far behind, and they must have their nibbles, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Jenny agreed automatically, and watched them unload the food from fridges, ovens, cupboards and table tops, never once remonstrating at the proper way to transfer stuffed tomatoes from baking tray to platter.

‘Getting worried, eh?’ Martha Vaughan said smugly. ‘Don’t worry. They won’t dare complain. Not about such an accomplished cook as yourself.’

Jenny glanced at Martha and smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she said sweetly. ‘Perhaps you’d care to give me a hand with the giblet gravy?’

Martha paled but gave in gracelessly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought the likes of you would have known what good old-fashioned giblet gravy was,’ she sniffed. ‘I thought you fancy cooks always dined on them foreign sauces?’

‘You can’t beat giblet gravy,’ Jenny said sincerely.

‘No,’ Martha said, stunned into agreeing with her. ‘Oh. Well. That’s all right then.’ Then, realizing that an olive branch had been offered, and feeling strangely obliged to take it, the resident cook said as pleasantly as she could manage, ‘That cake of Alicia’s looks a treat.’