Pleasant Vices (31 page)

The copy of
Hello!
fluttered and moved interestedly, and an astounded streaky face peered round the edge. Jenny giggled, and said deliberately loudly, ‘No, it's not a problem. It was purely business. I hope you'll be very happy etc. etc. I'm just surprised, that's all. Well, amazed really. I didn't think people bothered to get married any more.'

‘Oh well, deep down, he's very old-fashioned, you know. Like me,' Sue told her, laughing at her own absurdity.

The two women climbed out of the turbulent jacuzzi and started the lazy up-and-down swimming that passed for exercise in the warm pool. The mothers and toddlers had left, relieved to have successfully filled the dragging few hours between their au pairs going to English classes and lunch. Once she was reassured that Sue wasn't intending to move house, but instead move David in with her (so handy for the rehab. unit up at Roehampton), Jenny started to wonder if it was going to be a problem, having, only yards away up the road, a man on whom she had actually performed fellatio in exchange for folding money. They would meet constantly, there would be suppers and barbecues and Christmas parties and sundry opportunities for all the indiscretions that could be blurted out wherever too much drink was available. With any luck, though, David would have similar lurking fears about Jenny, and they could co-exist in a state of truce, each holding hostage to their wicked little piece of knowledge, and hope they never came to bitter territorial wrangles over road-widening, tree-lopping, or Close residents' planning applications.

‘Look at that.' Sue swam alongside Jenny at the shallow end, and pointed to the jacuzzi. The
Hello!
woman was still there, but the magazine was damply abandoned in a puddle beside her. She lay stretched out on her front in the steaming bubbles, her head resting on her folded arms on the poolside, eyes closed and her mouth opened slightly. Like a dreaming child, oblivious to all around her, she was making small sighing noises, her face busy expressing little bolts of pleasure.

‘See that? You do understand about David don't you Jen? I don't want to end up like that, reduced to having lonely sexual experiences in a public jacuzzi.'

Jenny giggled. ‘Oh I don't know,' she teased, ‘doesn't look all that bad to me. Perhaps after this swim . . .'

When Jenny collected Daisy from school, it was hard to tell which of them was the more nervous. Daisy skulked quickly into the car in case anyone saw her being ignominiously picked up by her mother, and slumped in the passenger seat, peeling and chewing the skin round her thumbnail. Jenny, with the uncomfortable feeling that Big Policeman already had his eye on her, drove cautiously, stopping for extra long moments at road junctions, and using her indicators far too early, as if she was on a driving test. Daisy still had the scarf wrapped snugly round her neck, chilled, Jenny assumed, by the idea of having to go and say her piece to the police. The blue hair was neatly tucked away under it, at least, so that was something. Jenny herself, with her long-standing dread of being given the once-over by a judgmental inspector who fancied himself as a domineering TV cop, could still smell chlorine from the pool. By the time she and Sue had breast-stroked their ten lazy lengths, she hadn't had time to rinse it off her hair, and it gave off reassuring wafts, reminiscent of purifying disinfectant.

Waiting in the reception area for the impossibly young desk sergeant to go and find the inspector, Jenny had another look at Daisy to make sure she was presentable. It was hot, and the orange plastic chairs were against a bubbling and gurgling ancient radiator, the huge and curvy sort that reminded Jenny of infant schools. The walls were painted bright, cheery yellow, as if to counteract the feelings of apprehension and fright that must pervade the place and its visitors.

‘It's baking in here,' Jenny complained, waving her hand in front of her face to make a breeze. ‘Daisy you'd better take that scarf off or you'll faint.'

‘I'm OK, really. Don't fuss,' Daisy said, kicking at the floor and rocking backwards and forwards nervously. Jenny got up and wandered round, reading all the posters on the walls: a big bright cartoon one reminding children about locking their bikes and getting them post-coded, a slightly malevolent one about the benefits of Neighbourhood Watch and another inviting anyone over 5'4” (and presumably without a criminal record) to do their bit and join the Specials. She resolved to suggest it to Paul Mathieson, then perhaps it would take his mind off trying to root out imaginary criminal goings-on in the Close.

The noise of Daisy scuffing her feet rhythmically on the floor stopped suddenly as she got up and started pacing the room.

‘Won't be long now,' Jenny reassured her. ‘I can't think what's keeping them, it's way after four. Try not to worry.'

‘Not worried,' Daisy snapped. ‘Just can't stand the noise that radiator makes. It reminds me of Ben's tummy in the mornings.'

Jenny could hear booted feet returning heavily along the corridor. ‘Looks like they're ready for you,' she said. Daisy looked hot, and the thought crossed her mind that the poor girl really might actually keel over. They'd just have to put up with the blue hair. Whatever did it matter, really? ‘Here let me take this,' she said helpfully, reaching for the scarf before Daisy could stop her.

‘No!' Daisy squealed, hands clutching, but it was too late, and Daisy stood in front of the sergeant and inspector brazenly revealing not only the blue-tipped hair but also a scarlet string of huge and hectic love-bites round her otherwise pale, slim neck.

‘Oh God,' breathed Jenny as Daisy shot her a look of pure venom. ‘You'll probably get Life.'

What Daisy got was a good telling off for cheating British Rail, nothing else. She was to stay out of trouble for ever more, or at least till she was eighteen, when her record would be destroyed and her crime deleted from the computers. (‘Oh sure,' Daisy had mumbled when this was explained to her.) The inspector wasn't there to inspect her sex life, and besides there wasn't much he hadn't seen before. A row of hickies on a nine-year-old neck would have been something to worry about, but Daisy was nearly fifteen, and whatever else were teenage years for if not the chance to go around showing off their over-active hormones? Nevertheless, as Daisy slumped out of the police station with her anxious mother, the inspector felt glad relief that he and his wife had only produced sons.

‘How could you?' Jenny said to Daisy in the car. ‘Whatever do you think you look like? And who is he and when was it?' The two avoided looking at each other, Jenny concentrating hard on driving home as fast as was safely possible, glad that her eyes could not be drawn to the livid vivid marks of passion on her daughter. Daisy was more worried about Jenny finding out about Sophie's party than anything else, and had to invent quickly.

‘I'm going out with someone. Have been for ages,' she quickly spat out her lie. ‘Sometimes we see each other in school lunch breaks.' She stared out of the window, disgustedly watching a lone man picking his nose in the next car. ‘He's at school with Ben, one of his friends,' she added slyly, making a bid to get round Jenny on grounds of snobbery. The boys at Ben's school were what the Close would collectively consider ‘suitable'.

‘Goodness, I don't mind who you go out with, or what you do, as long as you're careful,' Jenny told her more gently. ‘You know that. But those marks! They're so, well, so . . .'

‘Common?' Daisy bravely and loudly challenged. ‘You don't mind what I do so long as nobody knows?'

This was something uncomfortably like the unpalatable truth, and Jenny pushed it out of her mind as she squeezed the car through the weary rush hour traffic and across a snarled-up road junction with faulty traffic lights.

‘Disfiguring, that's the word,' Jenny finally came up with. ‘And so blatant. Haven't the staff at school noticed? Whatever will they think of you?'

‘Don't care. And no, no-one's noticed. That's what the scarf's for.'

Well that was something, Jenny thought, at least Daisy knew when to cover things up. They were home now and Jenny rushed in to the house to see if Alan had left any news about the office on the answerphone. There was just the brief message form Fiona Pemberton's secretary, requesting Jenny and/or Alan to make an appointment about Polly. The secretary had an infuriatingly apologetic voice, almost as if she was afraid she would offend even by so much as breathing down Jenny's phone. ‘It's
vis à vis
Polly,' she'd whispered, adding ludicrously, as if Jenny would need reminding, ‘Your daughter. In form four.'

‘I'll call them in the morning.' Jenny pressed the off button and then called to Daisy, ‘Defrost some of the chicken and do a salad will you please, Daisy, while I get Polly from Ceci's? Thanks!' she added, on the hopeful assumption that Daisy would have heard her.

At Ceci's there was a festive, celebratory air, as if it was someone's birthday. The front door stood wide open and as Jenny walked up the garden path, pushing her way through the overstocked borders of leggy lavender, she could see figures running about, criss-crossing the hallway in a flurry. Ceci, who was normally to be found being languid on a sofa while children were chaotic in another room, bounced excitedly to the doorway to meet Jenny. ‘Did you get your letter?' she asked, her face split by a triumphant beam, her big round eyes sparkling with triumphant delight.

‘What letter?' Jenny enquired, carefully bypassing the voluptuous tangle of clematis that was just about to flower around the doorway.

‘School! The results! Harriet has passed – I can't believe it!' Jenny smiled, genuinely pleased for Harriet, but well aware that what Ceci would have really found hard to believe would have been her daughter's failure. Jenny hadn't had a letter from school that day. Did that mean Polly had failed her exam? They hadn't even considered what would happen if she did, and it was too late to apply anywhere else, even the local comprehensive. ‘Oh yours will probably arrive tomorrow,' Ceci said kindly. ‘Just a postal delay I expect.'

‘I did get a phone call – Mrs P wants to see me. Strict orders, via the answerphone,' Jenny confided.

Ceci looked slightly miffed. ‘Goodness, probably got a scholarship then, that's what it will be. We were hoping for one for Harriet, but we'll have to try for the assisted place scheme instead.' As they walked to the vast, walnut-and-wenge kitchen through the sumptuously decorated hallway, Jenny couldn't hide her amazement. Ceci's house had at least six bedrooms, plus nanny flat, there was a lavish swimming pool built into a conservatory extension, and Ceci's annual tan was given a kick-start every February in St Lucia.

‘Assisted place?' Jenny asked incredulously before she could stop to think about being polite. ‘How on earth could you swing that?'

Ceci smirked guiltily. ‘Holiday cottage. You know the one in Wales? Told them that Howard has left me and lives there full time. I'm just a lone mother, you see,' she said with mock tragedy on her face, ‘making ends meet on a teeny bit of maintenance . . .'

‘But that's . . .' Jenny began.

‘Not quite terribly 100 per cent honest? Oh darling, everyone's doing it! And I do put an awful lot of effort into charity work.' She tapped a petulant foot and said sulkily, ‘Otherwise I'll have to get a job . . .'

Yes, you'll have to get a job, Jenny thought, like the rest of us. Though not quite like me, she amended hurriedly to herself. She couldn't quite see Ceci deglossing her lipstick round some paying customer's penis.

Alan was home early. As Jenny swung the Golf into the driveway she could see his BMW was parked neatly in front of the garage. (No quick getaways, no getaways any more at all, perhaps?) Alan was concentrating in the kitchen, doing something complicated with red peppers and fennel.

‘Stinky fennel! Yuck!' Polly skipped around the room holding her nose dramatically. ‘Can't I have spaghetti hoops?'

‘I wonder if Raymond Blanc has this trouble,' Alan sighed dispiritedly.

Jenny was saddened by his disconsolate face. Polly could usually make him laugh, however dreadful the day had been. ‘What happened at work? Did you all solve the cash flow thing?' she asked, fetching them both a rather early Budweiser from the fridge.

‘Solved that. Not for the first time. Bernard's bloody useless. Couldn't run a bath, let alone a business,' Alan said, peeling his peppers and avoiding her eyes. ‘But there's something else,' he glanced at Polly, then rather shiftily at Jenny and Jenny felt her heart thud and her insides tighten. This was going to be it. The moment she sent Polly off to watch
Neighbours
, he would be telling her something she absolutely wouldn't want to hear. Surely she'd been right about Serena, hadn't she? The love of Serena's life was Frankie, wasn't it? Not Alan? She felt herself crossing her hot, sticky fingers, childlike with nerves.

‘Polly, you're about to miss
Neighbours
,' she said with just enough courage. Then it was just a matter of waiting and listening.

Alan made his humble confession in the conservatory facing Jenny across the cane table and a bowl of tulips, which were the colours of rhubarb and custard. Jenny picked her flute up from its stand and used her skirt to polish the mouthpiece, preferring not to watch Alan's face. He told her flatly what had happened in the office, using the same downbeat, depressed tones to describe both the financial crisis and his clumsy pass at Serena. ‘. . . So it looks like there will have to be cuts, and after the ridiculous, stupid thing I did it also looks like Serena won't be the one who has to leave. I think it's the only decent thing to do, really, don't you? Sort of honourable resignation?' This sort of formal pomposity didn't at all suit Alan, slouching in his tattiest old rainbow sweater at the table, picking guiltily at the falling tulip petals.