Gemma herself was trailing up and down the aisles with Debbie, feeling fatter than ever and trying to avoid her dad’s workmates, several of whom were eyeing her bump in a knowing way. She wished she hadn’t come, but Dawn wasn’t prepared to leave her at home on her own so close to the due date, and anyway she had to support her dad. But she felt so self-conscious, it was excruciating. The joints of her fingers and ankles were swollen and puffy, and if any of her old schoolmates saw her they’d be bound to guess. To make matters worse, she couldn’t forget about babies even for a second, because wherever she looked chubby-faced toddlers gurgled down at her from packs of Pampers.
Now the transvestite country music band started up on a stage near the entrance. Ross winced at their appearance, which was shockingly tacky, with the lead singer in a cowgirl fringed jacket, short skirt, fishnets, sequinned Stetson, beauty spot and full moustache; the rest of the band wore cowhide bustiers and buggers grips. Their patter between songs was so vulgar and full of double entendres, it made Dawn blush to her roots. She prayed Philippa Mountleigh wouldn’t show up and hear it.
‘I thought you said you’d booked this shower before?’ Ross snapped at his PR, Lysette.
‘Not actually booked them, Ross. But they did come highly recommended by their talent agency.’
Ross groaned as the band launched into a highly camp rendition of ‘Stand by Your Man.’
Meanwhile, a hundred yards across the car park, Miles was feeling quietly gratified. Always at his most adept when interacting with royalty, he was ushering Her Royal Highness in the direction of the concert marquee which had been erected behind the loading bay. James Pendleton had already welcomed HRH to the store and would be seated next to her during the concert, so was now hanging back to talk to the lady-in-waiting and to Philippa Mountleigh. Davina was bringing up the rear with Johnnie Mountleigh, and trying to make conversation with the Mayor of Andover who was proving hard work. Half her mind was anyway on her children, whom she hoped had made it to the marquee and were seated before the royal party arrived. Miles would be furious if they were late. Peter was meant to be working in any case, as part of the Straker Communications team co-ordinating the day, and was driving Archie, Samantha and Mollie over from Chawbury in his own car.
As it happened, the Straker children were at that moment circling Andover’s one-way system for the second time, having overshot the car park first time round, and finding there was no other way to get back. Peter was panicking, his alarm clock having failed to go off, and then it had taken ages to get Sam and Archie up and out. Only Mollie had been ready on time. Then Sam announced she’d come out in the wrong shoes, and insisted they had to turn back a mile from the house, and then she’d realised she left the pair she wanted at the London house, so had to wear the original ones anyway.
They swerved into the car park with a minute to go, to find every parking bay taken. Desperately following a succession of blue arrows which sent them round in circles, they abandoned Peter’s Golf in a disabled bay and raced to the rear flap of the marquee. As Miles cosseted Princess Margaret into her cushioned seat next to Lord Pendleton, he was annoyed to spot Peter, Samantha, Archie and Mollie disrupting an entire row of guests as they headed for their places. It was monstrous. Miles was inclined to blame Peter, who was meant to be working, for God’s sake. And Mollie looked like a student in her grungy corduroy smock.
The concert began. Looking around the tent with its lime-green lining in Pendletons’s corporate colours, Miles knew he had pulled off a magnificent coup. Less than a fortnight earlier, there had been no concert, no reception, no nothing. And yet here they all were, the cream of Hampshire society, all the movers and shakers; here was the Philharmonia Orchestra with its fabled Hungarian conductor, Milo Magyarovitch, and to crown it all a tame royal, which would wipe Ross Clegg’s event clean off the front pages.
The orchestra was playing a particularly gentle passage by Schubert—a pianissimo aria for piano and violin—when Miles became conscious of a distant racket intruding from somewhere outside. At first, he thought it must be a radio, perhaps belonging to a workman. Suddenly, however, it became a whole lot louder. It sounded like a live rock concert carrying in the wind from across the car park. Other guests were starting to notice it too. Miles saw Laetitia look round and Princess Margaret shifting in her seat, an imperious expression on her face.
Unable to spot an usher, Miles tried to catch Peter’s eye. It would be easier for him to slip outside and investigate than Miles, seated in the middle of the VIP section. He glared at his son, six rows back. It took Miles several minutes of gesticulating to realise Peter was listening to a Walkman. He could see the headphones buried in that untidy mop of hair. Miles wanted to throttle him. The extraneous beat—rock music, pop music, whatever it was—was all the time becoming more obtrusive. A pained expression appeared on the face of the conductor, Milo Magyarovitch, as he tried to screen it out.
Giving up on Peter, Miles directed his voodoo powers towards his other children, eventually catching Archie’s and Mollie’s eyes. Mollie had been transported by the Schubert, hardly registering the rival music, but Archie, playing with a Gameboy on his lap, had tuned into it, greatly preferring it to the classical witter. ‘Y-M-C-A’ they were singing now. ‘Y-M-C-A.’
Miles was desperately semaphoring instructions they should go outside right now and kill the music, when the orchestra dried up mid-aria. Milo Magyarovitch, shaking with Mittel European fury, hurled his baton to the floor. ‘No, I cannot perform like this. It is not possible.’ Then he stormed off stage.
‘Quite right too,’ piped up the Princess, who loved her music and was looking round for a culprit to blame.
The concert prematurely curtailed, guests were directed back inside the supermarket, where a buffet had been set up in the aisles showcasing the pick of Pendletons’s most upmarket lines, including Pendletons’s premium-cut oak-cured smoked salmon, Pendletons’s charcoal-cindered Somerset chevre, and Pendletons’s own-brand buffalo mozzarella, from the buffalo herd grazing Nick Pendleton’s private Italian estate.
The Princess, her lady-in-waiting, numerous Pendletons, the Lord Lieutenant and Philippa Mountleigh, Ridley and Suzie Nairn, and Miles and Davina were now whisked off to a private dining room, well insulated from the other guests, for a VIP luncheon at which the place setting for Milo Magyarovitch was hastily removed since he was too upset to attend. Realising the event had not gone off as planned, Miles’s charm became supercharged as he worked to turn the atmosphere around, and by midway through the main course the Princess was actually laughing, which made the Pendletons relax too, and by the end of lunch the day had somehow redeemed itself from catastrophe to humorous mishap.
Ross was having a grand time. Against all expectations the opening was going off far better than he could have hoped. For one thing, the store was chock a block with customers, and what’s more they were shopping, the tills hadn’t stopped ringing all morning. Then from midday onwards loads more people began drifting over from the Pendletons bash, having finished the buffet and following the music from the car park. Others spotted the posters in Freeza Mart’s windows and couldn’t believe they were selling Veuve Clicquot champagne by the case at only £7.99 a bottle, and were loading up their Volvo Estates. Archie, who had downed a whole bottle of Pendletons’s house cuvee, shoved his way through the dusty shrubbery which separated Pendletons from Freeza Mart. Following close behind came Peter, fed up with chatting up clients, plus Samantha and Mollie.
With only five minutes to go before the trolley-dash, excitement was running high. Everyone who’d posted a form into the plastic barrel was eligible, and the three winners would have ten minutes to load up a trolley with as much free stuff as they could push. Archie quickly entered, saying if he won he’d head straight for the off-license aisle. And Samantha, who initially turned her nose up at the whole idea, noticed the cosmetics aisle and fancied a trolley-full of Rimmel products. Mollie announced that if she was the winn
er she’d fill hers with nutritious food and give it out to the homeless.
Ross now observed a disturbing development. A lot of customers seemed to be heading for the exits, all clutching lime green pieces of paper. From what he could see, half his shoppers were melting away, just as the trolley-dash was about to be drawn. He hadn’t walked five yards before an attractive blonde in a Pendletons t-shirt accosted him, saying ‘Free twenty-five pound Pendeltons voucher. Redeemable only in the next half hour.’ Suddenly, wherever he looked, there were attractive girls pressing gift vouchers on his customers. Sprinting to the entrance, Ross took the microphone and announced the trolley-dash.
Dawn was delighted when the first winner turned out to be the single mum with the toddler who’d been queuing outside before they opened. The other two winning tickets were held by Archie and by Philippa Mountleigh, who’d arrived hotfoot from the royal luncheon.
A photographer from the Andover Daily Echo, who’d got enough shots of the Princess, wandered over to check out Freeza Mart, and was thrilled by the prospect of the Lord Lieutenant’s wife taking part in a trolley dash. Quickly loading his Pentax with fresh film, he knelt by the till for the off.
Ross started the countdown from ten, and everyone joined in. ‘Five-four-three-two-one-GO.’
The single mum headed for the frozen pizza aisle and loaded enough supplies to last two months. Archie piled his trolley with twelve different brands of vodka. Philippa Mountleigh, in a lather of indecision, kept saying, ‘God this is such fun, I can’t believe it. Now, lightbulbs … where do they keep lightbulbs? … Johnnie’s always telling me we need lightbulbs.’
Gemma had been hiding away in the stockroom, but now the pain had got too much and she was searching for her mum. It felt like her stomach was splitting in half, it was definitely contractions, exactly like they’d described at antenatal classes. Bent double in agony, she looked up to find herself face to face with Archie.
‘Archie? Have you seen my mum anywhere?’
‘Er, hi Gemma. No I haven’t … but I’ve won the trolley-dash. Gotta run.’
‘Can you find her? I really need to find mum.’
‘If I see her, I’ll tell her,’ Archie called over his shoulder. ‘There’s only thirty seconds left. I’ve got sixty bottles of vodka.’
‘Gangway! Gangway!’ trilled Philippa, as she raced past. ‘Anyone know where they keep the dog food?’
Hundreds of shoppers cheered them on, as the winners lumbered to the finish.
‘Just room for some beeswax candles,’ Philippa said, throwing ten boxes onto the top.
‘Five—four—three—two—one,’ chanted the crowd as they reached the tills just in time.
In aisle seventeen, Gemma sat on the floor as her contractions became shorter and shorter. She was still sitting there when Dawn found her fifteen minutes later, and summoned the ambulance.
19.
Having finally persuaded her parents to let her leave her snooty all-girls boarding school and go to sixth form college in Andover to study for her A levels instead, Mollie was spending the middle part of each week at Chawbury Manor largely alone, with only the Strakers’ housekeeper as chaperone. Peter took a lift up to London every Sunday night with his father for their week of work, Archie was back at boarding school for the Michaelmas term, and Davina reluctantly headed up to Holland Park Square on Tuesday afternoons to accompany Miles to client dinners and cocktail receptions.
For Mollie, after the hustle and bustle and social competitiveness of boarding school, where all anyone talked about was clothes, parties and where their families were going next on holiday, sixth form college felt like a rewardingly real experience. For the first time, she felt people could relate to her for who she was, and not for which designer skirt she had on or who she knew. It had been all right for Samantha, who liked nothing better than to compare the merits of Caribbean islands—St Lucia versus Mustique—and who knew half the people in Tatler’s Bystander social pages, but Mollie didn’t, and what’s more she didn’t want to either. It was all so trivial … so nothing. Mrs French the housekeeper dropped her off each morning at the bus stop on the Micheldever-Andover road, and she caught the bus into town and made her way down Cornmarket and through Friar’s Yard pedestrian precinct to the windblown concrete campus that was Mid-Hampshire College for Further Education. From day one, Mollie knew this was the college for her. It was all so inclusive and democratic. Where her former school had at its heart a curved Victorian staircase and walls hung with portraits of former headmistresses and posters announcing dances at Eton and Radley, here it was all ramps for the disabled and posters for world peace and war on famine. For the first time ever she felt exhilaratingly anonymous. No one knew she was Sam’s plain younger sister; how many times had people exclaimed, ‘I can’t believe you and Sammie Straker are sisters,’ with all its too-obvious implication. Nor did anyone know Miles was her dad and, anyway, he wouldn’t mean anything to anyone here. At school, quite a few of the girls had kept giggling about him and saying their mothers really fancied him, which made Mollie squirm with embarrassment. She’d hated it when Chawbury Manor had been in that magazine, which so many people had seen, it seemed like showing off. And shameful to read in print they had two full-time gardeners and one part-time gardener, when most people didn’t have a garden at all, like those poor people crammed into tower blocks. Most of all, she was excited about being at a college where the terms of reference were so completely different. If you’d stood up at breakfast at school and asked, ‘Anyone here been to St Moritz or Val d’Isere?’ there would have been a stampede of girls who’d been skiing there, or whose families owned a chalet nearby, or who were planning on becoming chalet cooks in their years off. At Mid-Hampshire College, such a question would have been received with dumb incomprehension. And Mollie loved it that way.
Her first six weeks, it was true, had turned out lonelier than she’d expected. It was proving difficult to make friends, partly because not that many students turned up for lectures or even for tutorial groups. Sometimes even the lecturers didn’t show up. And in the cafeteria the other students had friends already, or sat together in ethnic groups she was too shy to try and infiltrate—tables of Koreans, Spaniards and Serbs—so she mostly pushed her tray round the metal counter, collected her food, and sat alone to eat it. Not that everyday was entirely lonely, of course. In economics class, she’d kind of made friends with a bovine Greek girl, but it was difficult to get very far because of her English. And after a history tutorial she’d nearly died when an English boy in her group asked, ‘Are you posh or something? Your voice is so weird.’ After that she dumbed-down her accent to make it less distinctive.
It turned out, too, that her timetable at college was a lot less full than she was accustomed to at school. On busy days she had only two or three lectures, and occupied the remaining time using the computers in the library (which wasn’t that nice in any case, she had to admit, since it wasn’t only used by students at the college but all sorts of homeless people came in too, and it sometimes got smelly and didn’t feel that safe; though obviously the homeless had a perfect right to be there—in fact they were welcome), so Mollie spent a lot of time pacing the streets of Andover awaiting her next lecture. Out of boredom, she would wander into Woolworths and buy a cream egg, or into the bakery for a danish pastry. Sometimes when she had a couple of hours to kill, she’d walk across town to Freeza Mart where you could get really cheap fresh soup and pasties at the grub-on-the-run counter. It gave her a wicked thrill spending her money there, because she knew how annoyed Miles would be if he knew. You only had to mention the name Clegg and he went ape. Mollie knew her mum had been to visit Gemma’s baby, but Miles never had, and he’d forbidden any of the children to visit her either. Mollie thought it was ridiculous. From what she’d heard and read in the papers, Ross sounded like an amazing guy who’d overcome childhood polio and set-up all these supermarkets selling basic food at fair prices. She really admired people like
that, who’d done it all on their own without any advantages, and started something so worthwhile. Furthermore, she was longing to meet her new niece—Archie and Gemma’s daughter—even if Archie claimed not to be interested himself. It was lovely, too, that she was a baby girl. According to mum, she was being named Amanda, ‘Mandy for short.’
‘Mandy, indeed,’ Miles had snorted when he heard. ‘Like Peter Mandelson. Ghastly!’
On Wednesdays when she had no lectures after midday, she caught an early bus home and often walked the final three miles cross-country from the bus stop on the Micheldever road. It was a particularly pretty stretch of country, passing through gentle downland planted with beech and oak coppices and teaming with pheasants. A local farmer, Matt Marland, ran a shooting syndicate on the land, and in winter the ground was littered with spent cartridges. Miles had several times expressed the wish to one day buy the farm himself for the shooting, should Matt Marland ever sell up. The final part of the route took Mollie along footpaths close to Chawbury Park, before reaching the long valley up to her own house. Having not walked that way for several months, she was at first disorientated by the numerous changes along the way. Previously, the footpath had run directly past old Silas’s cottage, cutting between the pond and tithe barn. Now as she trudged along the ancient footpath her way was blocked by the impenetrable boundary netting of an En Tout Cas tennis court, it’s sprung green surface glistening in the sunshine. She doubled back to find a route round the tennis court, but a huge expanse of freshly seeded lawn was bordered by wire fencing encircling the entire property. The lower path was blocked by a densely-planted screen of leylandii. Heading in the opposite direction this time, she found herself following the newly-built rear wall of a sauna and solarium annexe, with an overpowering smell of pine wafting from an extractor fan. Eventually she arrived at a wooden gate into a gravelled stable yard, with loose boxes and mounting block and a second gate beyond, leading out towards Chawbury valley. Seeing nobody about, she sneaked across the yard.
Pride and Avarice Page 15