Neurotica (22 page)

While Brenda wandered round the room examining the portraits
of grim-faced Hardacre ancestors and looking down her nose at
Lavender's floral linen loose covers and needlepoint cushions, Anna
went over and introduced herself to a group of three women who
seemed to be getting fiercely competitive about their respective
husbands' company perks.

The husband of a woman in Armani jeans and a navy blazer
appeared to have the edge. She broke off briefly from telling the
other two women how many pairs of Gucci mules she packed for
her holiday at the company villa on Mustique to find out what
Anna's husband did for a living. Deeply unimpressed that Dan was
a newspaper executive, they turned away from her and the blazer
reclaimed center stage.

“So, when we got back from the Caribbean and the company
delivered a Mercedes in the wrong color, I insisted that Jeremy fax
the MD, ASAP. Jeremy protested and said he didn't want to bother
him, and anyway, the MD had abandoned ship for three weeks and
gone off to an interim target forecast conference in Kansas City.
In the end I thought, to hell with it, and I faxed him myself. And
do you know what? There was an olive-green Mercedes sitting in our
drive at eight o'clock the next morning. I tell you, darlings”—she
lowered her voice as a preface to the indispensable counsel which
was to follow—“strictly
entre nous,
it definitely pays
to let the MD squeeze your breast at the Christmas bash.”

The other women guffawed. Just then Anna noticed Lavender come
into the room carrying a tray. She made her way towards the group.
Smiling and saying thank you, Anna took the two cups and saucers
off the tray.

“Right, as everybody's here,” Lavender said heartily, “I
think it's just about time to bully off.”

She stood in front of the inglenook fireplace, gave a dainty
clap of her hands and raised her voice to a polite rallying cry.

“Do, please, gather round, ladies. .   .   . Squat
wherever you can. That's it. Budge up .   .   . room
for a little 'un there, I think. And there are a couple of ancient
pouffes down here if anybody fancies them. .   .   .
Good-o .   .   . Right, first of all I would like to
welcome you all on to the How to Be the Perfect Company Wife
course.   .   .   .”

T
he women took notebooks from their
handbags. Anna and Brenda
sat next to each other on a sofa, sipping their coffee. Lavender
cleared her throat and announced that the first part of her lecture
was entitled “Company Don'ts for the Company Do.” Everybody
chortled. The woman on the other side of Anna wrote down the title
in what looked like her best handwriting and underlined it with
a Perspex ruler.

“When it comes to making conversation at that all-important
company dinner,” Lavender began, “the perfect company consort
doesn't ever
talk about herself. It is vital that she is an
excellent listener. She must be endlessly fascinated not only by
the intimate details of her husband's career, but also by those
of his colleagues.”

The women scribbled. Lavender followed this advice with
instructions on the appropriate dress for the annual company jaunt
to Glyndebourne, an excellent tip about using salt to remove
menstrual flow from a white cocktail frock and the importance of
keeping a hostess book when entertaining company executives and
their wives. “In it you must write down the names of your guests
and the date they came to dinner, what you cooked, what you
wore. By keeping a record you will never cook the same thing twice
for the same people, or, heaven forbid, commit the ultimate social
faux pas of letting them see you in the same dress.”

She then went on to explain how the perfect company wife is
always prepared for the unexpected and has no problem knocking up a
quick suprême de volaille and a dozen meringue swans covered in spun
sugar and floating on a sea of chocolate cream when hubby phones
from the station at seven o'clock and announces he's bringing home
nine Japanese for dinner.

At that point one woman put up her hand to ask if, once she had
served dinner to her husband and his colleagues, it was her place to
stay and eat with them. Lavender frowned slightly as she paused to
consider her reply.

“Christ,” Brenda muttered to Anna, “some of this lot are
seriously off their hostess carts. They'd need years of assertiveness
training just to become doormats.”

Having considered her response to the woman's question,
Lavender started to speak.

“Not an easy one, this, but I think one's best bet under these
circumstances would be to retire discreetly to the kitchen and catch
up with some of those annoying odd jobs one never seems to have time
for—like cleaning out the lint filter on the tumble dryer or
relining the cutlery drawer with sticky-backed paper.”

Brenda decided she'd heard enough. Lavender wasn't just evil,
she was also a moron. Brenda was about to seize the moment. She
put up her hand. Lavender smiled at her.

“Yes, Begonia?”

“Lavender, I was just thinking .   .   . what
d'you reckon to company wives who go in for a bit of extramural
how's-yer-father?”

Lavender gawped at Brenda in horrified silence. Anna couldn't
decide if this was due to the content of Brenda's question, or her
inelegant use of English. There were muffled giggles from around
the room.

After a few moments, Lavender took a deep breath and spoke.
“If she were found out,” she said in a clipped tone, “it would
most certainly affect her husband's promotion
prospects. .   .   . Now then, where had I got
to.   .   .   ?”

Brenda had the bit between her teeth.

“Say,” she went on, devilment all over her face, “she had
some kind of dodgy past .   .   . I dunno, s'pose for
instance that as a student she shagged a bloke in front of two
hundred people at the university rugby club dinner. I mean, if that
came to light, don't you think that might be a teensy bit
problematic?”

Lavender's expression turned to flint. She could smell enough
rats to fill an entire sewer. In a pitiful effort to appear
uninterested in what was being said, the other women lowered their
heads and began pushing back their cuticles.
“I .   .   . I have absolutely no idea what you are
talking about,” Lavender stammered, close to tears.

“Bollocks,” declared Brenda.

There were umpteen sharp intakes of breath.

“I think you know precisely what I'm talking about,” Brenda
said evenly. “I'm talking about the woman known as Shagger
Hardacre who leaves threatening messages on answer machines and
sends abusive letters.”

Lavender gave a tiny, horrified yelp. She produced a lace
handkerchief from her sleeve, brought it to one eye, paused for a
moment and then shot out of the room.

Brenda and Anna got up and ran after her. They followed her to
the kitchen.

They stood in the doorway. Lavender was sitting sobbing at the
far end of a long pine refectory table. The end nearer to Brenda
and Anna was covered with pale-green-and-gold dessert plates. Each
contained a white meringue swan covered in spun sugar and floating
on a sea of chocolate cream. A heavenly roasting chicken smell
was coming from the Aga. Lavender had clearly spent ages preparing
lunch for the group. Despite the woman's abominable behavior,
slight pangs of guilt began to prick Brenda and Anna.

The two women stood watching her shoulders heave as she sobbed
into the handkerchief. Having prepared themselves for a fearless
tirade rather than tears, they exchanged what-the-fuck-do-we-do-now
glances. As luck would have it, Lavender spared them from having to
do anything. She looked up.

“Brenda .   .   . I presume you are Brenda
Sweet,” she began, doing her best to speak calmly through involuntary
sobs. “You will probably never realize how desperately sorry and
ashamed I am. Threatening you was the most ghastly, wicked thing I
have ever done in my life. But, you see, I was at my tether's end.
Giles's affair with you was the final straw.”

“That's rich coming from an old slapper like you,” Brenda
said, marching into the kitchen, leaving Anna hovering by the door.
“You've been cheating on Giles since you got married.”

Lavender stared hard at Brenda. In the distance they could hear
engines starting up and the sound of tires on gravel.

“That just isn't true.” Her tone was almost desperate. “I
have never once been unfaithful to my husband. I have spent the last
fifteen years raising four children and running this house
single-handed, while he carved out an exceedingly successful career in
politics, and bedded anything over the age of consent. He always
promises each affair will be his last and that he loves me. Then he
begs me to stand by him. I always do and I suppose, despite
everything I've said about divorcing him, I always will. He's so
hopeless, you see. I know he couldn't manage without me here to
organize him. The thing is, I know they're only flings because
they're always with common types and I'm certain he'd never leave
me for a floozie.”

Anna, who had now come into the room and was standing next
to Brenda, watched her friend clench her fists and turn purple with
rage at this final remark.

“Leave it,” she hissed. “Just leave it.”

“So,” she said to Lavender, “how did we manage to get the
story so wrong?”

“You got it wrong because you listened to Fleet Street gossip.
One night, eight or nine years ago, Giles and I had a flaming row.
I'd just found out about another of his affairs and I said I would
sell my story to the papers. He then shot off back to town and got
legless with a chap on the
Express
and gave him this sob
story about
me
being unfaithful. The journalist phoned me.
I told him it was all lies and begged him not to run it. Thank the
Lord, he was a decent chap. He took pity on me and Giles's story
never appeared. Nevertheless, a huge amount of whispering went
on and the dirt stuck.”

“What about the rugby club dinner. Is that true?”

“Yes, but I was twenty and high as a kite on coke and booze.
Surely you weren't planning to use that against me?”

Brenda could feel another wave of guilt descending. She looked
at Anna.

“Only to stop you going to the newspapers about me and Giles.
Have you any idea the harm you could do my reputation and my
business?”

Lavender stared down at the table.

“Please, please forgive me. I couldn't think what else to do
to make him stop. I know I'm supposed to be divorcing him, but you
see, I still love him. I just can't put up with his women any longer.
I'm so tired.”

With that Lavender got up, went over to the wine rack next to
the Aga and opened a bottle of red wine. The bottle in one hand
and three long stems in the other, she came back to the table and
poured them each a glass. Brenda realized it was the first time in
weeks that she had fancied alcohol.

Lavender knocked back half a glass of wine in one go and began
crying again. Brenda got up, hesitated for a moment and then put
her arms round her.

“Ssh, ssh, 's OK,” she said, realizing she had absolutely
no doubts as to the truth of Lavender's story. “You're
forgiven.”

Lavender looked up at her meekly, through red pug eyes.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Don't thank me too soon. I mean, my outburst in there can't
have done much for your reputation as the perfect company wife.
I thought you were out to destroy my career and now I've managed
to destroy yours. I s'pose you'll have to give up running the
courses.”

For a moment Lavender said nothing. Anna and Brenda could
sense she was turning over ideas in her head. Then she wiped her
eyes one last time, shoved her handkerchief firmly up her sleeve
and banged on the table.

“Give up? Never!” she boomed, sounding like a memsahib
determined not to relinquish her bit of India. “I know exactly what
I shall do. I shall write to all the people who came today and, with
your permission, make up a story about you and Anna being members
of the gutter press sent on a muckraking mission, the object of
which was to discredit me. I shall lie magnificently about how I
outwitted you and sent you packing. What's more, I will announce
that I am running a company wife course next month devoted to
coping with press harassment. To accompany the course, I will,
naturally, provide a glossy handbook outlining my utterly brilliant
and infallible ten-point plan for keeping journalists at bay when
hubby is discovered tethered to a dog kennel in some tart's flat
wearing nothing but a leather muzzle and harness. For this I will
charge a fiver on top of the usual course fee. Won't take me more
than a couple of hours to write. Truth to tell, the women who come
to these things are such morons, they wouldn't know the difference
between a manual on dealing with press harassment and a list of Girl
Guide instructions for tying knots.”

Lavender drained her glass and placed it triumphantly on the
table. “What do you reckon, chaps? Is that damage limitation or
what?”

Gobsmacked by the sheer energy and enthusiasm of Lavender's
comeback, Anna and Brenda could only smile and nod their
agreement.

A gleeful Lavender topped up their glasses and then, probably
due to the onset of squiffiness, began talking nineteen to the dozen
about her rotten marriage.

They finished the bottle of wine and started on a second. It
wasn't long before Brenda took her wig off and was telling Lavender
about Elvis and how he had abandoned her while she was pregnant and
how she'd been a single parent for the last ten years. Finally,
Anna decided to throw caution and loyalty to the wind and tell the
story of her sexless life with a hypochondriac.

Gradually the atmosphere lightened. The more drunk they became,
the funnier everything seemed.