‘I don’t agree with you,’ I said politely. ‘I think Gunilla is simply confused by being allowed total freedom, while attending a nursery with a very rigid structure that the other children have to stick to. It isn’t fair to her or the others.’
‘The lesson that life isn’t fair will benefit them all,’ Keith said deeply.
Little twerp.
‘It’s a pity Gunilla hasn’t learned that one yet, isn’t it? Still, if you’d like to pay me for the two mornings I’ve worked, I’ll be off.’
He looked taken aback. ‘But surely after what’s happened you don’t expect—’
‘The labourer is worthy of her hire. And look on the bright side: I won’t claim any money from you for this top, which Gunilla ruined by wiping her paint-covered hands up the back. It’s got poor little Josie’s blood over the sleeves, now, too.’
He stared at me, chewing his moustache, then grudgingly dipped into his pocket and counted out my measly wages in small change. ‘There. Now, perhaps you could go to Gunilla before you leave and make peace with her? Her sensitive nature has been troubled by your aggression, and—’
‘No,’ I interrupted firmly, ‘but if Gunilla would like to come to me and apologise before I go, you could fetch her now.’
‘Apologise? Gunilla?’
Seeing we had reached an impasse in understanding I left the house, jingling my money and limping, and Inga and Gunilla glowered at me silently from the schoolroom door.
For a moment as I turned away I felt like a horrible, evil, child-eating witch, but really, I didn’t want to hurt anyone, and would never have struck Gunilla however hard she kicked me.
But Natuw had a lot to answer for.
Then a small figure in an unzipped teddy-bear suit wriggled out between Inga and the door frame, ran up and hugged my legs fiercely – and painfully. Caitlin stared up into my face with her usual pugnacious expression and then ran off ahead of me to where the parents were gathering.
The actor swung Caitlin up into his arms as I walked past down the drive, and he did it with such infinite grace that I half-expected someone to roll out of the bushes on one of those trolley things with a camera shouting: ‘Take two, scene one!’ or something of that kind.
But nothing happened except for my very nearly being flattened by Mrs Whippington-Smythe’s big red off-roader hurtling up the path.
Skint Old Cook, No. 2
Savoury Ducks aren’t.
When I looked at the paltry coins Keith paid me, three were French and one German, which were of no earthly use to anyone, but perhaps my feng shui money frog would like them. I could sort of heap them round him like a dragon’s hoard.
One by one the little gremlins passed me, homeward bound in their monster carriers. The only ones walking up the hill were the actor and Caitlin, and they didn’t catch me up until I was nearly home.
I heard the thump of small feet behind me, and then Caitlin was embracing my legs again. I nearly fell over. When she held her arms out to be picked up I did, and hugged her, though I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it. Still, it did make me feel a bit less of a witch, and also suffer a sharp pang of regret for my lost chances of motherhood. A sort of strange, low pain inside.
Maybe my heart was in the wrong place.
‘Are you crying?’ asked Caitlin anxiously.
I smiled. ‘No, it’s the cold making my eyes water.’
She peered into them alternately from two inches away. ‘They’re a very funny colour.’
‘Em says they’re the colour of black grapes.’
‘Trodden-on black grapes,’ amended Caitlin. ‘The insides are sort of purply.’
‘Caitlin seems to like you,’ her father said, catching us up.
She looked at him severely. ‘She’s OK, Daddy. Gunilla bit Josie, and then she kicked Charlie, and Charlie sorted her out. She calls her Godzilla, and I’m going to call her Godzilla too, because she’s a monster.’
‘She’s just a confused little girl,’ I said to the actor, who was raising one eyebrow.
(How did he do that? I could never do it, even though I’d spent hours in front of a mirror trying. It was both, or nothing. I could twitch the end of my nose without moving my lips at the same time, though, and I bet he couldn’t.)
Mace had to be older than me, but he’d worn in a sophisticated, lounge-lizard sort of way. Nature, as well as artily silvering the odd strand of hair, had given him interesting lines around his dark eyes to map out what he’d been up to for the last forty-odd years. He also looked fit (as far as you could tell from someone wearing a duvet) without giving the impression his personal fitness trainer flew in by helicopter every day to put him through his paces.
Caitlin slid down again and took his hand.
‘So we meet again,’ he said, with more resignation than enthusiasm. ‘Em says you’re her sister?’
I didn’t blame him for sounding surprised. (And just when did Em get on chatting terms with him?)
‘Yes – Charlie Rhymer. I’m living in the Summer Cottage because my husband’s divorcing me and Father’s mistress has taken over my bedroom.’
‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he mused.
‘Which bit?’
‘The divorce.’
‘Like you and Mummy,’ commented Caitlin, swinging on her father’s arm like it was an exercise bar.
‘Mummy’s marrying Rod,’ she told me. ‘He’s very nice but
thick
, and he can’t be my daddy, because I’ve already got one. He says I can just call him Rod.’
‘That’s nice,’ I said weakly.
A faint spasm of something that might have been either pain or annoyance passed across the actor’s face, and he abruptly changed the subject.
‘I still think that lean-to is an excrescence on the beautiful face of Upvale,’ he said, his lovely posh and mellow voice at odds with his exotic face.
‘Like that duvet you’re wearing,’ I said shortly.
‘It’s Kenzo.’
‘So I’ve heard from Elfreda Whippington-Smythe.’
‘Which one’s she?’
‘Small, bun-faced, always wears jodhpurs, talks from up her nose.’
He shuddered. ‘Oh God, that one. She rides past every day, and lingers. And if I go for a walk, she always just happens to be crossing my path.’
‘I expect she keeps her binoculars trained on you from the other side of the vale. You should wear something more inconspicuous. My sister Anne’s an expert in camouflage, and she’s coming home soon – you could ask her.’
He looked down critically at himself. ‘Perhaps you’re right – this does look worryingly at one with your lean-to. Garish.’
‘Veranda. But don’t worry, I expect good taste is optional for the acting profession.’
‘Speaking of good taste, that’s the biggest garden gnome
I’ve
ever seen,’ he said blandly, pointing behind me.
I turned. Walter was standing just inside the veranda, wearing a red woolly hat and his usual voluminous corduroy trousers. He was beaming and pointing at where his eyebrows would have been had he got any. I blew him a kiss.
‘Walter made the veranda as a welcome-home present,’ I said, ‘and I think it’s perfect!’
Mace North and I stared at each other, then a most disconcerting smile appeared on his even more disconcertingly beautiful pinky-brown lips.
Wow.
I could probably have prevented my own plebeian mouth smiling back had I coated my face in concrete.
Caitlin, tired of jumping up and down waving at Walter, tugged his arm. ‘Come on, Daddy – I’m hungry.’
She turned to wave as they carried on up the path, but Mace didn’t.
Walter’s presence in the Summer Cottage was easily explained: an electrician was just putting the finishing touches to the socket and lighting he’d installed, probably illegally, in the veranda. Walter doesn’t trust any tradesmen not to make off with the family stainless steel.
‘Anne’s come,’ he informed me over his shoulder before escorting the electrician up the stairs to the Parsonage.
I changed and tidied up. There was no sign of Flossie, so she was probably up with Frost in the kitchen.
Anne was striding up and down the kitchen in her usual fashion, in khaki cotton trousers and a camouflage waistcoat that would have blended the actor into the woods quite nicely.
‘They entered from the left and circled—’ She broke off briefly to thump me on the shoulder and say: ‘Hi, Chaz. —circled the enemy before attacking.’
‘Where have you been? Which battle is this?’ I demanded.
‘Hospital,’ Em informed me. ‘Anne’s fighting the Big C.’ She carried on shearing chickens into pieces and tossing them into a big pot.
I recognised nourishing chicken soup in the making, and looked at Anne more closely. She did look fine-drawn and tired.
‘You don’t mean …?’
‘Cancer,’ Anne said. ‘Lump – left breast. I was just telling Em – they circled the little bugger, and whipped it out before it could invade.’
‘Oh, Anne! Why didn’t you tell us? We could have been with you.’
‘Enough on your plates already. Fight my own battles,’ she said.
‘Did Red go with you?’
‘Spineless git. Couldn’t face any of it – cleared off.’
‘Is – is that it, now? Do they think the cancer’s gone?’ I asked, worriedly.
‘So they say. Took a lymph node, too, and it wasn’t in that. Got more puckers than Bride of Frankenstein. Just as well I’ve got no boobs to speak of anyway.’
I sat down at the table next to Em, feeling limp.
Em tossed the last chicken piece into the pot with the vegetables. ‘They took the gland from under her arm to check if it had spread, but there was no sign of it,’ she interpreted. ‘So she’s clear.’
‘Left arm’s a bit sore,’ Anne admitted. ‘Got to go over to the hospital every day for six weeks for treatment – back-up stuff. Then back to work.’
‘Have you told them?’
‘Told them it was a small op on my dodgy knee – rest up, back right after Christmas.’
‘What about Red?’
‘Break
his
knees if he says any different.’
‘Why don’t you go and lie down for a bit?’ suggested Em daringly.
‘Fall back, regroup, and fight another day,’ she agreed, to my astonishment. ‘You’d better not have put that tart Jessica with the see-through blouse in my room: where does she think she is, the bloody Cannes Film Festival?’
‘No, she’s in Charlie’s room.’
‘Bad luck, Chaz.’
‘Never mind – I quite like it in the Summer Cottage,’ I said. ‘Did Em tell you Bran’s home too?’
‘Seen him – didn’t know he spoke Croatian.’
‘I’ve put your stuff upstairs, our Anne,’ Walter said, hobbling in. ‘Outside the door.’
‘Good man. See you’ve got no eyebrows yet.’
‘No bodily hair whatsoever,’ he agreed, beaming.
Tips for Southern Visitors, No. 3: Fashion
1) It is socially acceptable now, and always has been, to wear white stilettos with jeans.
2) If going out for the evening in a big city, remember, even in winter, that
one
layer of clothing is enough. Coats and tights are for wimps.
3) If you are wearing a bra you do not need a handbag.
‘Well,’ said Father sarcastically, gazing at the complete family circle around the breakfast table next morning. ‘All my little chickens come home to roost?’
‘Cluck,’ said Anne, who was eating French toast lovingly prepared by Em, who was inclined to hover over her – but then, we’d never seen Anne looking ill before. She moved stiffly, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
Bran stared across at her and smiled. ‘There’s no reason why we can’t
all
use the click language,’ he said in perfectly intelligible English, before resuming the creation of a strange triple-decker sandwich that involved a lot of marmalade and bacon, watched with fascination by the two little girls.
Frost came in with a mouthful of letters and spat them onto the carpet.
‘Must all my post be covered in dog saliva?’ demanded Father distastefully.
‘Beats me why folks bother writing to you at all, you great lump of nowt,’ Gloria said, coming in just then with more toast and the teapot.
‘Thank you for that vote of appreciation,’ he said. ‘Do you think you could ask Walter if he’d take a look at my desk? One of the legs is a bit wonky.’
He and Jessica exchanged fleeting but meaningful glances.
‘I’m not surprised,’ Gloria commented cryptically, and patted me on the head like an infant in passing as she went out again.
Jessica was rather daringly eating a boiled egg, but I didn’t think she would make it through the whole gargantuan repast; she’d already had one spoonful and a bite of dry toast.
‘Well, it’s nice to meet all Ran’s family at last,’ she said, ‘even if Anne and Em do rather dwarf poor little me!’
‘Bran and I aren’t much taller than you,’ I pointed out.
‘No – you two certainly don’t take after Ran, do you? In fact, it’s hard to believe you are related!’
‘Charlie looks exactly like her mother – Lally Tooke,’ Ran said, looking up from his paper.
‘And does Bran look like
his
mother?’ asked Jessica, slightly waspishly.
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember,’ he replied calmly. ‘It was all a long time ago. Aren’t those girls going to be late for school?’
Jessica looked up at the clock, squawked, and dragged her protesting children away. I peeled the rest of her boiled egg and tossed it to Frost, who ate it in one gulp.
Not having to go to the nursery ever again made me feel inordinately happy – until I discovered the hate mail from Angie, dewed with dog drool, under the table.
… better start looking over your shoulder, Charlie, because I’m coming to Upvale. Soon everyone will know you’re a murdering whore, leading men on and then turning on them …
Life was just a rollercoaster of pleasure lately.
Health Check, No. 1
There are few minor ailments that cannot be alleviated by the application of two large gin and tonics.
‘Get your coat,’ Em said, appearing on the stairs after dinner.
‘Why, where are we going?’
‘Freya’s house – it’s her turn.’
‘What for?’ I asked, obediently pulling on my coat and hurrying after her. Flossie’s snores reverberated up the stairs behind me.