Pride and Avarice

by Nicholas Coleridge

  Bean was saying something about all these Poles and Croats flooding into the country, and how she’d heard there would soon be a million Eastern Europeans over here. ‘There are sixty thousand in Basingstoke already.’

  Assuming she was a racist—everyone in Hampshire was racist, Greg reckoned—he launched into a speech about economic migrants and how they had just as much right to be here as white, middleclass bigots.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Bean replied, thrilled to find someone who agreed with her on the subject. ‘We adore our Croat couple. Stanislav and Vjecke are practically family. And the Poles who retiled out swimming pool worked like Trojans, the more of them over here the merrier.’

  Archie was feeling thoroughly uncomfortable. Obviously he couldn’t say hello to Gemma, and he didn’t want to see the baby close up, and there was nothing else to do at this party. His mum was being weird too; she kept coming over to see if he was ok, and trying to introduce him to random people from the village. He would have liked to have gone outside to kick a football about on the lawn, or look round the Cleggs’ house which seemed cool. He liked their marble hall. It was all much more modern than their own house, he’d spotted an enormous plasma-screen in a room by the kitchen. It annoyed him the way Gemma had kept looking at him in church, and she was doing it again now. She had this really annoying expression, like she wanted to talk to him or something. He had to admit she was quite hot. But so thick. Like … hello? Is there anyone at home? Duh!

  Dawn was circulating with a plate of chipolatas on sticks, and Debbie helping hand round breaded scampi and tartare sauce with paper serviettes. Four big pizzas were warming through in the oven and wouldn’t be ready for another five minutes, so Dawn hoped people weren’t too hungry. Looking round, she thought things were going quite well. It was lovely to see the lounge being used at last. She’d put out coasters and mats on all the tables to protect them. The carpet worried her though, with the pile coming up in tufts, being new. She’d vacuumed it before church but now look at it! She’d like to have asked everyone to remove their shoes at the door.

  She had to admit she was nervous, having company in the house for the first time. She wanted everything to be perfect, especially with Philippa and Davina here, not that Philippa’s house was anything to write home about. Each time she went over to Stockbridge House for committee meetings, she was quite shocked, it was so untidy; piles of unopened post and dog leads in the hall, and dirty footprints everywhere and threadbare old rugs, she was amazed anyone could live like that, especially people like the Mountleighs with all their pedigree. To steady her nerves she had been at the sherry, just two small glasses to give her confidence, which it had. Suddenly she was feeling quite the lady of the manor. Spotting Miles alone and aloof in the window bay, she decided to approach him.

  ‘It’s such a pleasure to host you at the Park at last, Miles,’ she said. ‘It’s taken forever sorting it all out, and I feel terrible we haven’t got you over previously. We haven’t been able to entertain before now. Other than Mollie’s visits, of course, she’s become such a friend to the girls, like a third daughter.’ Emboldened by sherry, Dawn couldn’t stop talking. ‘It’s so nice Mollie’s a godmother to little Mandy, and so appropriate with the girls being such mates as well as the other …’ she lowered her voice ‘the other circumstance …’

  The conversation irritated Miles on so many levels, each new sentence provoking him in a fresh way, that he searched for a suitably damning response. Before he’d found one, however, the lady from Chawbury village stores barged over with her big buck teeth and said, ‘I bet I know what you two are talking about. You’re arguing over who is Lord of the Manor of Chawbury, aren’t you? Most people reckon the Park’s bigger than the Manor now. You’ll just have to build on some more rooms, Mr Straker.’

  Serena was waiting for her chance to catch Miles on his own. They hadn’t met up for three weeks and she was feeling horny and ignored. Last time, Miles had dangled a trip to Dubai to the new Zach Durban hotel, but there had been no follow-through, and she feared he might have invited someone else instead. There was always that worry with Miles, she didn’t really trust him. Although he had been careful never to make her any promises about the future, she hoped he would eventually leave Davina and she could leave Robin and they could lead a proper life together in the open. She never drove past Chawbury Manor without wondering if it would one day be her home. She had a fantasy that in a year or two, when the youngest Straker child—Mollie, was it?—finished college, Miles would sort things out with Davina and she, Serena, as the second Mrs Miles Straker, could move into the big house with her son, Ollie. Sometimes the fantasy felt so real and imminent she wanted to pack up her things in readiness; other times, she feared it was nothing but a daydream, and dreaded Miles ditching her.

  ‘Miles.’

  ‘Ah, hello Serena. How have you been keeping? How’s Robin?’ Whenever Miles met his mistress in public, he became archly formal and made a big deal of asking how her husband was, in case they were overheard.

  ‘Fucking useless,’ Serena replied. ‘Useless at work, useless at fucking.’

  Miles smiled smugly. ‘I was going to ask what you’re doing tomorrow evening? Thought we might have a quiet … dinner in London.’

  ‘I’d love to. Where?’

  ‘Call Sara at my office, any time after eleven. She’ll have booked somewhere.’ Then he said, ‘I hope you’re as hungry as I am, Serena.’

  ‘Starving.’

  ‘Don’t eat before then, will you?’

  ‘I’ll tell Robin I’ve got the curse.’

  Later she said, ‘I’ve just met Baby Mandy. She’s not yours, is she?’ Miles’s blood froze. ‘Mine? Whatever made you say that?’

  ‘Just kidding. She looks a bit like you, that’s all. Same chin.’

  ‘I don’t actually find that amusing, Serena.’

  She gave him a strange look. ‘Just a joke, Miles. Joke. I didn’t really imagine you’d got your rocks off with Gemma Clegg.’

  ‘Well, please don’t joke. I don’t like it. We’d better not talk too long either. People might get suspicious.’

  Samantha was wondering whatever could have possessed her. Fancying Greg in Thailand, she meant. Looking at him now, she thought she must have been on something at the time: magic mushrooms or hash cakes, or she’d passively inhaled a cloud of marijuana. He had to be the ugliest, most obnoxious man she’d met. She could hear him scolding the vicar on the malign influence of Christianity through the ages. And now he was arguing with Nigel Winstanton over inheritance tax, saying it should be fixed at 100 percent so everyone began life on a level playing field, and nothing could be passed down. She could see Greg had presence; that was probably it. He seemed so convinced of his own opinions, and stood his ground when Nigel, who was at Lehman Brothers and accustomed to being agreed with, told him he was a naive idealist. But as boyfriend material, Sam rated him zero.

  Peter was chatting away to a group of ladies from the church who were involved with the flower rota and Brasso-ing the altar rail. They were all very interested in talking to him, since they knew Mrs French, the Strakers’ housekeeper, and loved visiting the garden at the Manor on the occasions it was open for general inspection, though they said they would not themselves like the upkeep on a big place like that. When they asked Peter what he did for a living, he hated replying that he worked in his father’s business.

  ‘That’s nice dear,’ one said. ‘Working alongside your dad.’ Peter wanted to reply, ‘No, you’ve no idea. It’s not nice at all. Each day I spend there, I feel my soul corroding a little more.’ He wanted to say he was a … what? A deep-sea fisherman, a shepherd, a folk singer … Anything but a PR account executive. He’d spent the previous week trying to persuade minor celebrities—or, more accurately, minor celebrities’ agents—to get their minor celebrities to show up for five minutes at the launch party of a new watch store in Regent Street, just for long enough to get photographed by t
he paparazzi on the red carpet, in exchange for which they’d receive a new Arditti oyster solar-powered chronometer with platinum bracelet, something like that anyway. How crass was that? How totally, numbingly pathetic. And the rest of his working life he spent persuading Pendletons shoppers to stay with the brand, and not switch to the cheaper offerings of their host today, Ross Clegg, who Peter had decided he very much liked. Whenever he’d broached the subject of leaving Straker Communications with his father, Miles became furious, telling him he was damned lucky to have a job and he’d never get another one. So, for now, Peter devoted as much time as possible to practicing the guitar and working on his songs about seabirds and Hebridean islands and shingle along the high-water mark on Atlantic beaches.

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ a teenage girl was asking him.

  ‘Of course I do, Debbie,’ he said. ‘You bought CDs at my stall at that garden thing. My best customer, in fact.’

  ‘You sold them too cheap. You can’t have made much for the charity,’ Debbie said.

  ‘You’re right there. They were quite annoyed about it. I had to put in a fiver of my own to cheer them up.’ He laughed. ‘They were mostly scratched anyway. They probably didn’t play, half of them.’

  ‘Mine were fine. I like the Joan Baez one.’

  ‘I forgot you bought that. She’s a genius, Joan Baez. Up there with Joni Mitchell.’

  Debbie was thinking what a nice man Peter was when Ross cut them short, tapping a spoon on a champagne flute. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. May I kindly crave your attention for just a few moments for the formalities.’

  Ross had been thinking a toast was in order, but appreciated it was all a bit irregular, things being as they were. So he decided to keep it very short, with no speech at all, just a raise-your-glasses to the beautiful Mandy on her special day and life’s luck to her. ‘Now, is everyone here? Where’s young Archie? He should be here. Anyone seen Archie Straker?’

  Miles froze again. Why the hell was Ross bringing Archie into it?

  ‘I last saw him watching TV in the kitchen,’ Mollie said.

  ‘Well, be a good lass and fetch him, will you? He won’t want to miss the toast.’

  Everyone stood round waiting for Archie to be fetched, so Ross’s speech could go ahead. Miles was sweating inside his suit. Ross wasn’t going to let the cat out of the bag, surely?

  A minute later, Mollie returned alone. ‘He says he’s not coming. The film’s reached a really good bit, they’re about to blow up the bridge.’

  ‘No matter,’ said Ross, shrugging. ‘I’m sure the movie’s more exciting than my toast in any case. Now, ladies and gentlemen, charge your glasses please and drink the health of Mandy Grace Clegg, for a long and happy life.’

  ‘Mandy Grace Clegg,’ chanted everyone, raising their glasses.

  It was at that moment Miles had his brainwave.

  22.

  Miles made a point of always being civil to gossip columnists. Many people in his position didn’t bother. Once they’d made it, they wouldn’t be seen dead saying good evening to the tribe of diary editors and scandal scribes that hung about the fringes of London events. You could not say Miles exactly fraternised with them—he was far too grand for that—nor did he invite them to his private parties. But whenever he ran into them—the haggard stringers from the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard—he greeted them cordially, and periodically slipped them a story when it suited him to do so.

  The following evening, when Serena escaped up to town for their clandestine dinner, he took her first to a cocktail party at the Italian embassy in Belgrave Square in honour of his new client, Fiat. He went because he knew Nigel Dempster, the Daily Mail’s chief diarist at the time, would be there, and he needed a word with him. Naturally, it was all done with tremendous subtlety. First, Miles worked the room, greeting the ambassador, greeting the chief executive of Fiat who was in town for the event, introducing his clients to socialites he knew they would be flattered to meet. He reintroduced Serena to Dempster, who remembered her from her previous life as girl about town.

  Then Miles said, ‘Oh, Nigel. You didn’t hear this from me, but here’s a possible story for you. Does the name Ross Clegg mean anything? Downmarket supermarket tycoon? That’s the one, often in the financial pages. Well, word to the wise, his sixteen-year-old daughter has had an illegitimate child. Big scandal down our way in Hampshire …’

  Nigel looked like he was taking the bait.

  ‘If I were writing the story myself,’ Miles went on, ‘I think I’d compare and contrast the parvenu Clegg family, who let me tell you are loathed in Hampshire, with the Pendletons, so classy and philanthropic. I’ll have my people fax over an updated list of their charitable bequests.’

  ‘Do we know who the dad is? The kid’s, I mean?’

  ‘Not a clue. Probably the girl doesn’t know herself,’ Miles said airily. ‘Just some yobbo from the village, probably. No one’s come forward.’ Miles knew it was a dangerous tactic, reckless even, since if anyone dug too deep on this story Archie might be implicated. But Miles reckoned he could control the situation. And the opportunity to damage Ross was irresistible.

  After they left the party, Serena said, ‘That was mean of you. Why tell Nigel about the baby? It was really unnecessary. He might put it in his column.’

  ‘That’s the point. I want him to.’

  ‘But you were at Ross’s yesterday. And your daughter’s a godmother, isn’t she? I don’t get it.’

  ‘Business,’ Miles replied. ‘If you don’t approve, let’s not have dinner.’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s fine, no problem. Where are we going anyway?’

  ‘The Knightsbridge Towers. I thought we might eat in our suite. Alright with you?’

  ‘Very alright,’ Serena said. ‘I hoped you might suggest that.’

  By long arrangement, Miles and Davina were having lunch that Saturday with James and Laetitia Pendleton at their country house, Longparish Priory. As the crow flew, Longparish Priory was scarcely more than seven miles from Chawbury, and the stretch of the Test which flowed through Miles’s meadows also flowed through the Pendletons’ estate downstream. Miles often declared that, one day, he would arrive for lunch by canoe, though of course he never would in case his clothes got splashed.

  Miles had mixed feelings about their regular lunches and dinners at the Pendletons’. Naturally, it was imperative they be there; if the invitations ever dried up, he would be concerned. It was also a privilege to be asked. James and Laetitia generally invited no more than ten guests at a time when they entertained, mixing grander neighbours with one or two more exciting imports, painters or ballet dancers connected to their artistic endeavours. At previous lunch parties, the Strakers had met Howard Hodgkin, whose work James Pendleton collected, and Darcy Bussell, the ballerina. It was always civilised and low-key, with deliciously understated food. Although Laetitia made a big point of supporting the family firm and buying all her ingredients at Pendletons, her French chef was a genius, and you could not possibly confuse his delicate salmon mousses with the microwaved ready-meals which fed the nation. And, of course, the house in its parkland setting beside the Test was breathtaking. It stood in the heart of that part of Hampshire know as ‘Brand Valley,’ where the Sainsbury family and the Cadbury family all had houses; a manicured billionaire microculture where, so it seemed, every couple of miles stood another enormous house occupied by very rich people. Being intensely competitive, Miles never visited Long-parish Priory without feelings of envy. He adored Chawbury Manor, but after a visit to the Pendletons’s, it felt small and unimpressive.

  The journey by car from Chawbury to Longparish always took longer than envisaged, since you had to make lengthy detours around the various estates with river frontage. The route took you through pretty flint villages, impeccably maintained by their owners who weekended there. Daffodils were bursting out on the verges, with every hedgerow trimmed, shaped and tamed in the way Mil
es admired. He slipped a Shirley Bassey CD into the car stereo, a sure sign he was in splendid form. In fact, he had been in splendid form ever since yesterday morning, when the story about the Clegg baby surfaced in Nigel Dempster’s column.

  Gratifyingly, Nigel had gone for it full hog. It had been the lead item, eight hundred words of it, with a photograph of Ross and a photograph of James and Laetitia with Princess Margaret. Miles knew in advance it was running in Friday’s paper, so he’d sent his driver, Makepiece, to pick up an early edition on Thursday at midnight from Charing Cross station, which was the first place to get them, and bring it round to Holland Park Square. He saw at once that the story was perfect. It could hardly have been better if he’d written it himself, which he practically had, with all the additional facts he’d been faxing over.

  The hazard of leaking stories to gossip columns was that so many of the diarists had tin ears, but today’s offering hit the bull’s-eye. It made Gemma sound like the village bike, available for anyone to ride. Freeza Mart was described as ‘a downmarket cash-and-carry, unlikely to catch on in upmarket Hampshire.’ Dawn was ‘a peroxided Northern lass.’ The Cleggs’ house was likened to ‘a footballer’s mansion in Cheshire,’ and the county was united against them. In short, anyone reading it would be unlikely to enter a Freeza Mart ever again.

  Furthermore, the item was wonderfully sycophantic about the Pendletons. Four entire paragraphs were devoted to their charitable activities. There was stuff about the ballet, the museum bequests, research fellowships, all of it. It made Lord and Lady Pendleton sound like latter day saints. It even praised their supermarket food. Miles felt a glow of satisfaction. No one could say he hadn’t earned his fee today.