The Four of Us (23 page)

If Kiki really had asked him to be her manager again, then she could only have done so that morning. Had he, instead of either remaining at the flat so that they could meet up after her visit to the dressmakers, or driving down ahead of her to Cedar Court, arranged to meet up with Kiki so that they could talk things over further? And if he had, was he going to be so hyper at the thought of being part of the rock world again that talking him out of it was going to be a real problem?

With a level of anxiety that was completely foreign to her, she rang the Kensington flat.

Primmie answered the phone.

‘Hi, Prim. Is Kiki with you?'

‘No. Are things seriously wrong between you and her?'

‘I'm not sure.' It was, Geraldine reflected, the stark truth. ‘Is anything wrong your end, Prim? You're voice sounds odd and I've never known you be as quiet as you were this morning when your dress was being fitted.'

There was a slight pause and then Primmie said, echoing her, ‘I'm not sure. It's just that Simon still hasn't returned home. He phoned me last night to say that he's not going to be back until the wedding.'

‘My wedding, or his and yours?' Geraldine said, making the effort to put a bit of their usual banter into the conversation.

‘Yours.' Unusually for her, Primmie didn't giggle. ‘He says whatever the bug that's laid him low, it's left him feeling whacked and he doesn't want to put himself back into circulation too quickly. And he says that when he comes back there are lots of things he wants to talk to me about.'

‘Well, yes. I suppose there will be. Wedding preparations can be pretty hectic. I don't know how I would have managed if it hadn't been for my mother doing everything for me whilst I was away.'

There was no chirpy response.

‘Is there something else, Primmie?' she said at last. ‘Something you're not telling me?'

‘Yes. I didn't mean to break the news like this – before I've even told Simon – but I'm pregnant, Geraldine.'

Geraldine sucked in her breath sharply and Primmie said hurriedly, ‘It isn't a problem, Geraldine. I'm happy about it – in fact, I'm overjoyed about it, but it has happened at a bad time. It isn't news I want to break to Simon over the phone – and I'd much rather not be telling him until he's spoken to Kiki and set his mind at rest that she's going to be happy for us. Then there's Artemis. How can I tell Artemis that I'm having a baby when she's so distraught about not being able to have one of her own?'

It was a question Geraldine didn't have an answer for. She was too busy trying to get her head round the fact that Primmie's baby would be Kiki's half-sister.

The sound of Francis's sports car, speeding towards the house through the parkland, brought her concentration smartly back to her own problems.

‘I must go, Prim. I can hear Francis's car. I'll ring you again this evening. Love you. Bye.'

‘Not before time, boy,' her Uncle Piers said minutes later, striding out of the house ahead of her, to greet his only child. ‘It's a miracle to me you didn't come to grief in the Khyber Pass, or the Himalayas, or whatever other godforsaken place it is you've been to – and I suppose I've Geraldine to thank for the fact you haven't!' He hugged Francis tightly. ‘And why is your hair on your shoulders?' he demanded irascibly. ‘You can't get married looking like that. You'll be mistaken for the bride!'

‘Don't worry, Dad. I'll be wearing it in a ponytail on the great day.' He winked at Geraldine. ‘I knew you'd be here, Ger. I came as soon as poss.'

Geraldine walked across to them and slid her arm round Francis's waist. ‘Have you been having a meeting with Kiki?' she asked, not allowing a trace of tension to show in her voice.

‘You're a witch. How did you guess?'

His father was now stomping back into the house and, with his arm round her shoulders and hers still round his waist, Francis began walking her across the courtyard towards the gardens and the parkland that lay beyond them.

‘She told me she'd spoken to you when I saw her at the dressmakers this morning.' For the first time in her life, Geraldine found that keeping her voice casual was an enormous effort.

‘And so it's not going to come as too much of a shock to you when I tell you that I'm going to be managing her again?' He was looking down at her as he spoke, and he was smiling.

They had only reached the grey and white garden – but Geraldine came to an abrupt halt.

‘She did tell me, but I didn't believe her.'

‘Because it clashes with our plans for Cedar Court?'

‘Because it isn't what we'd planned.'

He made an awkward grimace. ‘It won't make too much difference. I won't be managing a whole stable of singers and bands. It will only be Kiki. And she's good, Geraldine. Aled Carter is trying to present her as an all-round family entertainer, and for Kiki that's the kiss of death. Wholesomeness isn't what she's about. She's a British Janis Joplin. A hard-edged, badass chick!'

Geraldine bit back a tart response with difficulty.

His grey eyes pleaded for her understanding. ‘My managing Kiki and your organizing things here at Cedar Court could be run in tandem. And think of the pop parties we could have. If we started the organizing now we could hold a huge pop festival here next spring. The Duke of Bedford's Festival of the Flower Children at Woburn attracted twenty-five thousand people. Even if entry was kept down to a pound apiece, the sums are magic.'

At the thought of thousands of hippies, out of their brains on dope, ploughing up Cedar Court's gardens and parkland and trashing them into a quagmire, Geraldine went paper white.

‘It isn't what I want, Francis. You said yourself that when Kiki appeared at the Shepton Mallet Festival the place was a mudslide … and all festivals attract Hell's Angels. The thought of droves of them descending on Cedar Court is unbearable. It isn't what Cedar Court is about.'

‘OK,' he said ruefully, tilting her face to his and kissing her. ‘No pop festival.'

‘And no managing Kiki's career?' Her arms were round his neck, her mouth still only a fraction from his.

He winced, as if in pain. ‘Kiki's a hard lady to say no to.'

‘Then don't,' she said huskily, pressing close against him. ‘Let me do it for you.'

With a deep sigh of acquiescence, he slid his hand over the thin material of her dress, cupping a small breast in his hand. ‘Are you always going to fight all my battles for me?' he murmured, amusement as well as desire in his voice.

‘Always,' she whispered, in the second before his mouth closed on hers in a long, deep, arousing kiss.

For the next week she was rushed off her feet as she helped her mother finalize all the wedding arrangements. Francis opted to stay in his Chelsea flat as, once again, the caterers moved in to Cedar Court and a magnificent, medieval-looking marquee was erected and fireworks were set in position all along the banks of the ha-ha. The wedding itself was to take place in the nearby village church, and there, too, decorations were under way.

‘How you managed arranging a wedding at St Margaret's, Westminster, is beyond me,' she said to Artemis, over the phone. ‘The choirboy who is singing the solo has gone down with flu. The vicar has suddenly informed me that he isn't happy for confetti to be thrown in the churchyard and Primmie's bridesmaid dress still hasn't been delivered.'

‘Well, mine has,' Artemis had said, pacifyingly. ‘The main thing is, has Kiki's dress arrived? And does it fit?'

‘Yes, to your first query. I don't know, to the second.'

Kiki, in many more ways than one, was proving to be a major problem. As she hadn't returned for a final fitting of her dress, Antonella had simply finished it off without any of the last-minute fastidious attention Artemis's and Primmie's dresses had received.

‘Are you telling me you haven't seen her all week?' she asked Primmie when she phoned her for what was their ritual nightly chat.

‘No. She's begun recording her album and is working, eating and sleeping at the studio.'

‘And Simon? Have you heard from him?'

‘Yes. He'll be back the night before the wedding, so we're going to meet up at the church.'

‘And Kiki? Has he broken the news of your engagement to her yet?'

‘No.' Primmie sounded bewildered. ‘It isn't something he'd ever do over the phone, Geraldine. Just as I'm not going to tell him about the baby over the phone.'

‘Yah. Right. Of course. Bye, Primmie. I'll speak to you tomorrow.'

It had been a phone call Geraldine had pondered over for quite a long time. Kiki ‘working, eating and sleeping'at the studio sounded very much to her as if Kiki were avoiding Primmie. If she were, there could only be one reason for it: that unknown to Primmie, Simon had already told Kiki their news and Kiki was having problems with it. Worse, the problems were such that Simon was having second thoughts, hence his disappearance off the scene – not because he was ill, but because he was giving himself time to reconsider Primmie's and his future. All in all, the scenario didn't bode well for Primmie's happiness and nor did it help with her own patience levels where Kiki was concerned.

Every phone call she made trying to contact her ended in failure. Kiki was either recording or not at the studio – and if she wasn't at the studio, no one at the studio knew where she was. Not until the following Wednesday, three days before the wedding, did she finally succeed in reaching her, via Kit.

‘Hi, Geraldine,' Kiki said laconically when she came to the telephone. ‘I hope you're not phoning fussing about the dress, because it's going to be fine.'

‘Great. It isn't what I'm phoning about, though. I know Francis told you he'd take over managing you again, but he hadn't thought it through when he said it. It just can't be done, Kiki.'

There was a short, tense pause, and then Kiki said in a voice dripping ice, ‘Are you telling me that you've strong-armed him into changing his mind, Geraldine?'

‘I'm telling you Francis has changed his mind, Kiki.'

‘If he has, you've changed it for him!'

As denying it would have been untruthful, Geraldine said with all the patience she could summon, ‘It isn't the end of the world, Kiki. You'll find someone else. It will be easy, now you have so many contacts in the business.'

‘I don't want anyone else!'

Geraldine could almost hear Kiki stamping her foot.

‘Stop being so childish,' she said, exasperated. ‘All Francis's thoughts and efforts are going to be directed towards opening Cedar Court to the public. He simply isn't going to have the time for other things. You're going to
have
to find someone else.'

‘Oh no I'm not.' There wasn't a fraction of give in Kiki's voice. ‘I want Francis, Geraldine. And you're making a huge mistake if you think I won't get him!'

She slammed the telephone receiver down with such force that Geraldine winced.

‘Oh no you won't, Kiki,' she said beneath her breath, wondering just what the chances were of Kiki having got over her rage by Saturday. Somehow, she didn't think they were too good. Usually, Kiki's explosive temper tantrums were over in the blink of an eye. This time, though, the issue was so serious there was a definite risk that when she walked down the aisle on Saturday there would be a gloweringly sullen-faced bridesmaid walking in her wake.

She woke early, at Cedar Court, on the morning of her wedding. It certainly wasn't traditional for a bride to leave for her wedding from her bridegroom's home, but she had never had any intention of starting the day differently. Cedar Court was her family home, it was what her life was about, and Francis hadn't slept under its roof since their return from India.

‘I'll stay in Chelsea until the big day,' he'd said on their first morning back in London, ‘then I won't be underfoot while you and your mother are tearing your hair out getting things ready for the wedding.'

It wasn't either in her or in her mother's nature to panic unnecessarily, and they hadn't done so. Francis absenting himself from Cedar Court had, however, meant that she'd been able to enjoy her wedding preparations with total concentration.

Pushing herself up against the pillows, she looked across the room to where her grandmother's dress was hanging in layers of protective polythene. Had her grandmother, on her wedding day, felt so utterly certain of her future happiness as she now did?

With a shiver of joyous anticipation she swung her feet to the floor and padded barefoot across to the windows with their decorative leaded tracery. The sky was already blue, the dew sparkling.

Ten minutes later, in jeans and a T-shirt, she was running through the gardens towards the parkland and the oak tree.

In its high, familiar branches, she could view Cedar Court and its surrounding estate in their glorious entirety. It was hers and Francis's now – and one day would be their child's. In the year before they'd gone off on the hippie trail, and whilst Francis had been managing Kiki's career, she had spent her time with her uncle, studying every aspect of how to care for the house.

‘The sooner you take over doing it, the better I shall like it, Geraldine,' he had said, heavily. ‘A house this age needs constant vigilance and maintenance. Nothing is permanent. Lead on the roof wears thin, a hole the size of a pinhead lets in rain which can soon turn it rotten. Woodworm is a constant nightmare. Deathwatch beetle a torment. Francis simply won't accept just how much effort is necessary to preserve the house. If it were up to him, it would be a ruin by the time his heirs inherited it. You, thank God, will see to it that it isn't.'

She lifted her face to the already warm, early morning sun. The bough she was seated on swayed gently, creaking like the timbers of a ship. Her uncle had lived in only a few of Cedar Court's many rooms. She and Francis were going to live in them all, opening them up for the purpose for which they were built; having paintings made indistinguishable by layers of treacle-dark varnish cleaned and made beautiful again; having ceilings restored and old and beautiful carpets mended.