'Will!' I say in delight as I heave open the door and clamber in.
He rewards me with a kiss on the cheek and a huge smile. 'How's tricks?'
'Fine! How's things with you?'
'Good! All set?' He puts the car into gear and we whizz off.
We chatter idly about the weather and then move on to the family.
'How's Aunt Flo?' I ask.
'She and Dad are fine.' He glances over at me. 'Simon is back tomorrow.'
'Is he?' I say, feigning nonchalance.
'Don't worry!' Will says, most likely seeing the slight shadow pass over my face. 'We probably won't see much of him!'
I feel comforted by the 'we' and smile back.
Monty comes charging in at breakfast the next morning, 'Isabel, me dear,' he pants, 'I'm glad I've caught you. Will says you're going to Bury St Edmunds.' I'd asked Will last night if I could borrow the Land Rover to get to my meeting with the marquee company. They want me to approve the final design for the 'Big Top'.
'Er, yes. Do you need anything?'
'Could I come with you?'
'Of course.'
'And Flo?'
'Absolutely.'
'When were you going?'
'Sort of now-ish.'
'Take my car, it's the old Jag. Bring it round to the front while I go and get Flo.' I give Will's keys back to him and pick up my handbag. 'Am I insured?' I ask Monty.
'I'm not sure any of us are, me dear.'
'Yes, all the cars are insured third party' says Will, smiling at my look of apprehension.
'By the way, Mrs Delaney,' I say. 'My runner, Dominic, is arriving this morning. He's interviewing all the entertainers from about eleven onwards. If he turns up before I get back, would you mind terribly showing him to his room please? He's staying tonight.'
'Of course,' she answers shortly, without actually making eye contact with me. I think she is secretly thrilled that I will be out for most of the morning. Her idea of a happy day seems to be one with at least ten miles between us.
I carefully drive Monty's old car round to the front of the house and soon enough Monty and Flo emerge, accompanied by three dogs. I lean over and open the passenger door for one of them and Flo clambers in.
'Monty do you want to drive?' I yell through the open door.
'No, me dear. You drive, I'll stay with the dogs.' He waits until all the dogs have settled themselves in the back and then squeezes in beside them.
'Good morning, Aunt Flo. How are you?' I greet her.
'Fine thank you, dear, except that my knee is playing up a little.'
'What's wrong with it?'
'What did you say?'
'I SAID, WHATS WRONG WITH YOUR KNEE?'
'Arthritis, dear.'
There's a loud snort from Monty at this. 'Arthritis? She wouldn't know the meaning of the word.'
'I heard
that
, Montgomery,' says Aunt Flo from the front.
'You should see the doctor about your selective hearing, not your knee.'
'The doctor said my knee must be very painful. More painful than your foot, I would imagine.'
'Your foot?' I ask Monty in concern. I regret pursuing this line of questioning almost as soon as I say it.
'Old war wound, me dear. Can barely walk on it.'
'War wound, hmph! You fell down the cellar steps. You had been drinking!' says Flo of the front seat.
'Take that back, Madam!'
'Well!' I say, feeling we ought to stop this little interchange before it gets to bath chairs at dawn or something, 'are the dogs with us for any particular reason, Monty?'
He leans between the front seats. 'They need to go to the vet.' I notice that one of them is the little white Westie that gets pushed about by the others.
'What's her name?' I ask, nodding to the Westie.
'Meg. We haven't had her long. One of the estate workers found her wandering about. I just want her checked over by the vet to make sure she's okay.'
'Poor thing.'
Making conversation never seems to be an issue with Monty and Flo, so they chatter constantly and I drift in and out, thinking of my lists and the things I need to do. We arrive in Bury St Edmunds and arrange to meet back at the car in an hour's time. I spend the next sixty minutes looking doubtfully at a drawing of the Big Top and madly praying that the entire thing won't collapse on top of me and five hundred guests. I arrive back to find Monty and Flo waiting for me by the car.
'How's Meg?' I ask as I climb in. Monty is already in the back so I am assuming he still wants me to play chauffeur.
'Absolutely fine.'
'What have you got there, Aunt Flo?' I ask, indicating her large plastic bag as I reach for my seatbelt.
'Grasshoppers.'
I blink. 'God, sorry, I thought you said grasshoppers!' I release the handbrake, reverse out of the parking space and set off back to the house.
'I did. They're grasshoppers.'
'Oh. And, em, what do you want with those?'
'They're for my pet tarantula.'
I nearly run over a couple of pedestrians. 'Your pet what?'
She looks at me as though I really ought to get my own hearing problem sorted out. And soon. 'My pet tarantula. Poppet.' I have a quick look around my immediate vicinity while we wait at traffic lights in case Aunt Flo has brought her along for the ride.
'Poppet? You haven't mentioned her before.'
'Most people are a little scared of her.' Really? I wonder why that is. 'I thought you might not want to come and have tea with me if I told you.'
Too bloody right. 'Why? Is she loose in your room?'
'Sorry, dear?'
'I SAID IS SHE LOOSE IN YOUR ROOM?'
'No, Poppet has her own tank. She comes out now and then.' When she asks nicely? To eat small children?
'Really?' I say weakly. I fish about wildly for something nice to say about a pet tarantula called Poppet. 'She must be a great comfort to you,' doesn't somehow seem to fit. Monty chips in before I can say anything. 'You'd better not let her out when Simon's around.'
'I'll make sure she's kept in.'
'If she escapes there will be hell to pay. Simon doesn't know about Poppet,' Monty confides to me. I look at him in the mirror. Lucky Simon.
'I won't tell,' I promise. 'Maybe it would be best, Aunt Flo, not to let Poppet out until everyone has gone.' Namely moi.
We arrive back at the house at about eleven and the three of us plus dogs walk back into the kitchen carrying our various purchases. I am just about to say, 'Don't drop the grasshoppers!' to Aunt Flo in a jaunty, jokey sort of fashion when one of the dog leads gets twisted around her legs and she falls forward. I grab the bag containing the grasshoppers from her, breathe a small sigh of relief when she steadies herself with the aid of the kitchen table and go to check she's okay. I subsequently trip over one of the dogs and drop the entire bag on to the floor. I stare for a couple of seconds in utter incredulity as one hundred grasshoppers leap forward with the alacrity of escaping prisoners, unable to believe their luck. The next few minutes are mayhem: the dogs make a mad scramble in all directions to escape; Mrs Delaney starts screaming and gets up on a chair while Harry stares in absolute delight; the rest of us get down on all fours and try to catch the buggers.
'Excellent!' cries Harry. 'Does each one I find count as a bob-a-job?'
'Just get on with it, Harry,' roars his mother from her eyrie.
Now normally, if someone were to point a grasshopper out to me, I would say something like, 'How nice!' or, 'Isn't that a cocktail?' or some other such vague nonsense. Never would I lunge forward and actually attempt to pick up one of the little critters. Yet here I am, faced with catching a hundred of the buggers, all of whom are moving at great speed towards freedom.
I snatch a pan and its lid from the draining board and use it as the central holding cell. We leap all over the place, shouting to each other, panting madly at the sheer exertion of it, trying to catch the pesky insects. Until a voice stops us in our tracks:
'WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? I CAN HEAR YOU IN MY STUDY.' We all stop short and straighten up. I think Simon might be home.
C h a p t e r 12
S
imon impatiently rakes a hand through his hair, which is short at the sides and long on top à la Hugh Grant. He is tall, dark and looks just like Will, but he has an unattractive, arrogant air. He is dressed in faded olive green cords and a thin jumper which is pushed up at the sleeves. I notice that the top of his hair is wet. He must just have had a shower, I find myself thinking, but then he has flown across the Atlantic.
I shove my hand, which contains five wriggling grasshoppers, into my coat pocket and clasp it shut. I gulp, trying hard not to think of grasshopper poop and dry-cleaning costs.
It's amazing how quickly grasshoppers can disperse. Amazing. One of them must have shouted, 'Quick! Run, boys! Run for your lives!' and the others must have taken heed. We have about thirty in the pan which means there are seventy or so more on the hoof. And I can only see about three of them.
I'm glad to say that Simon looks taken aback to find me in the heart of this little group. He moves towards me. 'Isabel? Is that really you?' he says in surprise. 'Dad told me you were coming back. How lovely to see you again!' This is ironic considering our previous meeting. His voice is slightly clipped and makes him sound peculiarly pedantic. He obviously doesn't know whether to shake my hand or not but since he's caught me on the hop and my right hand is holding five grasshoppers in check, I move forward and kiss him on the cheek. He looks abashed at the greeting.
'Good flight?' I ask quickly.
'The old red-eye. But yes, fine, thank you.'
As an afterthought, he moves forward and kisses his relatives too.
Once the greetings are over, I tilt my head to one side, raise my eyebrows and assume an enquiring look, as if to say, 'And is there anything else?'
'So what's going on?' Simon repeats.
With Simon's ignorance of Poppet's existence in mind, I bleat, 'We were … em … we were … er …' I am blatantly playing for time here and we all know it. Simon is making me feel incredibly nervous. Perhaps I can continue in this vein until everyone forgets what the original question was? We all follow Simon's eyes as he catches sight of a particularly lazy grasshopper half-heartedly jumping after his fellow ex-cons.
'Racing grasshoppers!' interrupts Monty.
'GOD, YES!' I practically yell in admiration. I have to hand it to the man, it's a stroke of sheer genius.
'Racing grasshoppers,' says Simon in a somewhat disbelieving fashion.
'That's right,' says Monty. 'We were racing grasshoppers. All of us. Apart from Mrs Delaney of course,' Mrs Delaney is standing on a chair looking ashen so she can't feasibly be included.
'Well perhaps you could race your insects a little more quietly?' he asks dryly. 'I have to get back to work. I'll see you all at dinner tonight. It'll be nice to catch up, Isabel.' He says all of this without any semblance of emotion and leaves the room without another word.
I turn around slowly to face the others. The remaining grasshoppers have legged it a long time ago.
'I stepped on one,' says Aunt Flo, looking distressed.
'Flo, you were about to offer them up as dinner to a spider and you're upset about stepping on one?' Monty says incredulously.
'Ah, yes,' she acknowledges, nodding thoughtfully.
I bite my lip. Somewhere, a grasshopper chirrups to itself. I look around at everyone and we all start to giggle.
Dominic arrives shortly afterwards. None of the family are around so I manage to hurry him through to the drawing room without interruption. I quickly brief him on the list of entertainers he needs to interview and he looks absolutely aghast at the amount of work he has to do. I haven't got the time or the inclination to soften the blow so I give him a couple of pats on the knee and return to the library and my plans.
I had forgotten, however, how seriously Dominic takes his food. He honestly thinks something absolutely heinous will happen to him if he goes without the stuff for more than a couple of hours. He sleeps with a packet of Penguin biscuits by his bed, 'just in case'. (Of what? A hypoglycaemic burglar?) So it comes as no surprise that at some point during the day he manages to locate the kitchen and befriend the most important member of the household: Mrs Delaney. His charm is utterly effortless. When I arrive in the kitchen hoping for an aperitif before my first meal with Simon, Dom is sitting on the table with a packet of biscuits and a glass of wine by his side. There is no mistaking the love light in Mrs Delaney's eyes. He doesn't even have a coaster.
'Evening, Izzy!' he says cheerfully, a huge beam on his face. 'I've just been telling Mrs Delaney here what an excellent place I think the countryside is! Do you know they get post here and everything! Marvellous! Biscuit?' He proffers the packet.