‘And you have cake mixture on your suit.’ There was a sad laugh. ‘You always get yourself in a mess. I’ll try some water on it.’
As she rubbed at his lapel, he fought the urge to kiss the top of her head.
‘Fran,’ he said, softly, making her look up at him. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done anything so bad that you deserve to be treated like this. Tell me what it is and maybe I can help.’
‘Oh, Tom.’ She pressed her lips together as if saying anything else was too difficult.
There was more wiping before he said, ‘Dry-cleaning job, I think,’ and she agreed and offered to pay.
‘No, I’ll send Mrs Mawson the bill. It’s her fault.’
‘I don’t disagree with that. Oh, if only she were a different kind of woman …’
He guessed that made sense to Fran, but knew it was pointless asking her to explain.
She disposed of the paper towel in the pedal bin, saying, with her back to him, ‘I’m so sorry about this, Tom. You’ll have to start looking all over again for someone to do Charlie’s pages. I did so much enjoy working for the magazine. And for you.’
When she turned back to him, her eyes were grave and a few days ago he might have thought that ‘And for you’ was a sign. Now he knew she was just being polite.
There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that and so he left her and when he got outside and glanced back through the window, she was retrieving the earthenware bowl from the sink, the wooden spoon in her hand.
CHAPTER 36
Everything about the Mawson residence was designed to impress and intimidate.
During the long drive from the gates to the front door, it was possible to catch glimpses of woodland and lake. There were gardeners, mowing and clipping. You passed the sign for the stable blocks – plural. Nearer the house, the drive was gravelled, with a turning circle bordered by large urns filled with spiky foliage.
The building itself was a square property, not pretty enough to be called a manor house, not fortified enough to be a castle.
He was met at the door by the housekeeper and shown into one of the sitting rooms. The massed ranks of the ancient Mawsons and Coburgs looked down from the walls in oils. The more recent ones were gathered on the piano, black and white photos in silver frames. Charlie appeared as both a young and an old man and on his wedding day,
it looked as if someone had taken the bride and groom from two different ceremonies and thrown them together.
The clock tastefully chimed two, the hour agreed, and Tom waited.
When the door opened, it was only Natalie with coffee. He saw she had a housecoat on that covered more of her than he’d seen covered for a while. Perhaps Mrs Mawson demanded it.
‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘It’s like someone’s died.’
He shrugged as answer to that and she took the hint and went out again.
He drank his coffee and knew he was being kept waiting on purpose, a version of the Mawson game where they stared you out. When it got to twenty past two, he went over to one of the bookshelves and picked out a book.
Bleak House
– how apt. He was trying to read it when the clock stirred itself to tell him it was now two-thirty, and in came Mrs Mawson and Edward the Sneer. There was no apology for being late and Mrs Mawson’s greeting was brisk, her son’s non-existent.
Since Mrs Mawson’s husband had dropped dead on a shoot five years before, Edward had taken over much of the running of the Mawson Empire. Natalie’s take on him was that he only had time for things with four legs. Even
then they had to be trained and subservient. Or killed. With most people, including his wife and children, he was short-tempered and very aware of his own superiority.
‘I see you’ve made yourself at home,’ he said, staring at the book in Tom’s hands.
‘Well, I had a little bit of time to kill,’ Tom said affably. ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
Mrs Mawson inclined her head. ‘If we could get on with this? I have another meeting at three.’
Tom got the point that he was barely being afforded half an hour of her time.
‘I’ll be brief, then,’ he said. ‘Your phone call this morning has thrown up some … interesting issues about my role.’
‘In what way?’
‘Primarily that I’ve never consulted you before about who I hire – permanent members of staff or freelancers. I’m the editor, it’s my call.’
‘Yes it is.’ Mrs Mawson’s tone suggested she was feeling more conciliatory. ‘And I have no wish to interfere in how you run the magazine, Tom. Since you took over, circulation has risen and so have standards. You’ve proved yourself an able editor.’
‘Despite not being the best-qualified candidate for the job,’ Edward said.
Mrs Mawson’s smile for Edward was different from the
one for Jamie. It was more of a ‘Sit, boy. Wait. You’ll get your turn’ command.
‘But in this instance, you
are
telling me what to do,’ Tom said. ‘You’re saying I can’t use Fran Mayhew even though her work is, as you agreed, of an excellent standard.’
At the mention of Fran’s name, Tom felt the atmosphere in the room change. Something to do with the angle of Mrs Mawson’s chin.
‘This is an isolated incident,’ she said, coldly. ‘A response to an unusual situation, and does not indicate any change to your position or my position.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that, but I’m still concerned. How do I know that an “unusual situation” won’t happen again and once more I’ll be kept in the dark and decisions taken away from me?’
‘Because my mother has just bloody well told you this is a one-off,’ Edward blurted out. ‘For God’s sake.’
Tom was struggling to stay professional. ‘So, even though we’ve agreed you trust me, you won’t tell me what the problem is with Fran Mayhew?’
‘No,’ Edward said, that small word managing to get across that people like them shouldn’t even be asked to give people like Tom explanations. Just orders.
‘It’s not a question of trust,’ Mrs Mawson said after giving her son that smile again. ‘It’s a question of my right
to privacy. This is a highly sensitive issue. I thought I made it clear earlier that I didn’t want to discuss it any further? Didn’t I make it clear?’
Tom wasn’t going to do the first-school question-and-answer shtick, and silence set in until Mrs Mawson said, ‘I must go. Edward will see you out.’
She paused en route to the door. ‘And, should you
ever
find someone who can do a proper job on the nature pages, check with me first that I’m satisfied with them.’
‘You don’t look very happy,’ Edward said when they were alone. ‘Of course, you could refuse to do as my mother asks. I’m sure if push came to shove, the management board would support you rather than her.’ He laughed and Tom wanted to practise push and shove with Edward, but knew that was a one-way trip to a P45.
When Tom stood up, Edward nodded at the book, now on the table. ‘Aren’t you going to put it back?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Tom said. ‘I thought you had servants for that.’
*
He got more annoyed as he drove away, not less. That visit had achieved nothing. He should have just knuckled under from the start. Then he thought of Fran crying and cancelled that last thought.
Why was the might of the Mawsons being used to crush
her? Whatever she’d done to produce such an extreme reaction had obviously taken all her courage.
Or did he just want to believe her because he was doing what he’d done with Steph? Creating an ideal woman? He considered that and decided this wasn’t the case. Apart from choosing another man over him, Fran had always been kind. And tactlessly honest.
This whole Mawson thing smacked of bullying.
He hated bullying.
He went back over Mrs Mawson’s words – ‘a highly sensitive issue’.
A family scandal.
The question was, did that mean an old or a new one?
*
His mother looked alarmed when she opened the door. ‘Is there a problem with Hattie?’ she said, smoothing down her hair.
‘She’s fine.’
He waited for her to invite him in, but she said, loudly, ‘Oh good, Tom. So, you were just passing?’
‘Not really, I want to pick your brains.’
‘Right. Tom.’
He wondered if she was starting to go deaf, she was talking much more loudly than normal.
‘So … shall we go into the house?’ he suggested.
‘Of course, Tom.’
The way she kept repeating his name was worrying too. He made to move forward, but she wanted to show him how good the clematis on the front wall was this year.
When he was finally inside, they sat in the kitchen and she told him she’d talked to Rob and he’d said all the right things, but she wasn’t convinced he meant them.
‘If you can keep him busy and occupied, he’s fine. If not, he over-thinks everything. Always has.’
Tom moved the conversation along to the Mawsons and asked her if she’d heard any gossip about the family recently.
‘Why would I?’
‘Because you’re on just about every committee in Northumberland. It’s like having access to a network of spies.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘But, no, can’t say I’ve heard a peep. Since Charlie died, they’ve been squeaky clean. Well, really since the younger generation took over – Mrs Mawson, her husband. Edward.’
‘So if there’s a skeleton, it’s likely to be in Charlie’s cupboard?’
‘It’d be a pretty old one, and who’d be interested? I’m not saying he wasn’t a handful. And that wife of his, she was a chilly mare.’ There was an almost camp wave. ‘Mind
you, she had a lot to put up with. Drinking, gambling, growing cannabis in the greenhouses.’
‘Cannabis?’
‘Oh yes. Women all over the county too.’ His mother tutted. ‘He’d be besotted for weeks and then on to the next one. I think that’s why his wife put up with it – knew none of them were a threat. After all, Charlie was never going to up sticks and leave – the money was all on her side.’
‘I’m probably barking up the wrong tree,’ Tom said. ‘Doesn’t seem to fit the “sensitive” and “private” description.’
His mother looked puzzled. ‘Am I allowed to ask what this is about?’
He gave her an edited version of what had happened with Fran and how the Mawsons had been with him. Said he’d have to kill her now she knew. Or she could just promise not to discuss it.
She held up her three fingers as if taking the Brownie oath.
‘So … Fran, have I met her?’
‘She was the one interested in the baking at the County Show. She guessed what Hattie’s vegetable sculpture was.’
His mother seemed surprised at that, before asking, ‘Grey-blonde hair?’
He nodded and she did too, before looking thoughtful.
‘So … scandal … what else can I think of …?’ She was drumming her fingers on the table. ‘Drink driving? That would have been reported at the time – no secret there. Mooning? That was one of his party tricks, but then you know that. Although, by the time you went to the magazine, he’d calmed down a lot. Had a health scare back in the late 1980s – he was drinking too much. Got packed off to a clinic abroad. Suppose you’d call it rehab nowadays.’
‘I can’t remember that.’
‘Why would you? You’d only have been about thirteen at the time. Other things on your mind. He was away a long while.’
‘But he never did knock his drinking on the head – not totally?’
‘He was a lot less wild when he came back, believe you me. And he lived to a good old age, didn’t he?’ His mother went back to drumming her fingers before concluding, ‘No. Can’t think of anything else.’
He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. ‘Don’t worry. It was just a hunch. Might even be something different – like Fran’s a hunt saboteur and has it in for them.’
‘Well, she’s in danger of Edward Mawson shooting her, then.’
Tom felt a bit queasy at that thought and stood up and opened the back door to get some fresh air. He looked out
over his mother’s garden. It was at its best this time of year – a profusion of what she called ‘old-fashioned’ flowers; hollyhocks, lupins, nasturtiums, stocks and foxgloves. There were fruit bushes too against one wall and wigwams of runner beans dotted around the flowerbeds.
When he looked at flowers these days, he thought of Fran and her dresses. He remembered how she had been in her kitchen. All that terrible baking. Which got him thinking that even if he couldn’t alter Mrs Mawson’s attitude, he might be able to help her in another way.
He asked his mother and she laughed and said she’d never made home visits before, but she’d see what she could do and why didn’t he come and sit back down.
It was as she was talking, that Tom noticed one of the wigwams of beans had feet. There were legs there as well and all the other bits that made up the rev.
Now he knew why his mother had been shouting and repeating his name and keeping him on the doorstep – buying enough time for the rev. to hide.
‘Do you know George is in your garden?’ he asked and his mother did a theatrical start.
‘Is he?’ she said innocently, but when Tom gave her a disbelieving look, she suddenly spat out, ‘Oh, I’m sick of this. I’m a sixty-year-old woman and I’m skulking around like a teenager just in case I upset my sons. Yes, I know he’s
in the garden and yes, he’ll probably stay here again tonight and yes … he is my Fuck Bunny.’
Tom heard himself gasp. Actually gasp. And then he said, ‘Do you mean Fuck Buddy?’ and she said, ‘That is
so
typical of you, here I am trying to be honest and all you can do is correct my English. And don’t look so bloody superior or even surprised. I know you saw us in that hotel, and at least I haven’t directly lied about George. I haven’t said I was watching a play when I obviously wasn’t.’
Rocked back on his heels, Tom replied, like an automaton, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. George seems nice and you should bring him round for tea,’ to which she said, ‘Haven’t you been listening? We don’t have that kind of relationship. We just have sex and I sometimes cook him a meal afterwards. Really, Tom, what else would I have in common with a man of God, for God’s sake, but sex?’
Tom didn’t remember saying anything after that and was only aware he was back in the car when he had to stop at the traffic lights just before the bridge in Tynebrook.