She said Gemma had taken Mandy up to Droitwich for a few days, to show her off to her old schoolmates, which was virtually the first time she’d left Chawbury Park since Mandy was born, which would be a nice change for her, and good that she was finally spreading her wings a bit. There was always a slight awkwardness when Mandy entered the conversation, despite Davina and Dawn’s best efforts; by the same token, Davina seldom mentioned her younger son in front of Dawn: Archie remained a perpetual spectre at the feast, expunged from the family run-down. Dawn told them how well Debbie was doing at her hotel (‘Though I do worry about her. She was exhausted, poor love, last time she came home. All she could do was sleep and sleep. I wish she’d do something else, its no life for her … but she won’t listen’) and how Greg was ‘so caught up in all his politics we scarcely clap eyes on him from one month to the next.’ She said he’d upset Ross who’d offered him some Freeza Mart Chablis and own-brand samosas and all-day-party snacks and dips for a political husting at the Labour Club, but Greg turned him down flat, saying the voters wouldn’t appreciate the gesture. ‘They’re chalk and cheese, those two,’ Dawn said. ‘Greg winds Ross up every time, knows just how to do it. Niggle, niggle, niggle and they’re fighting like cats in a sack.’
‘Not that our lot ever squabble,’ said Davina, turning to Mollie. ‘You and your siblings never exchange a cross word.’
‘As if! You should have seen us last summer in Italy, Dawn,’ Mollie said. ‘Peter and Archie were unbelievable, much worse than my worst school kids. They bickered all day about everything, like whose turn it was to drive the speedboat and who’d lost the car keys. You wanted to bang their heads together.’
‘And how’s that beautiful Samantha?’ Dawn asked. ‘Every magazine I pick up, she’s in it. Gemma gets OK! at home, and there’s a lovely photo of her in the new one. She’s like a model.’
‘That’s what she wants to be,’ Mollie said. ‘How sad is that? Not using your brain, just standing there like a dumb blonde posing all day.’
‘Now, now,’ said Davina. ‘You’re all very different and that’s what makes it interesting.’ Then, turning to Dawn, she said, ‘We hope Sam’s alright. She seemed a bit withdrawn over the summer, and we haven’t seen enough of her lately. She’s got very involved with this boyfriend of hers, who Miles doesn’t approve of, so it’s all a bit tricky. He’s quite a lot older, and we do worry.’
‘Well, I wasn’t going to mention anything,’ Dawn said prissily, ‘But I did see a picture of him. A slightly larger gentleman?’
‘He’s gross,’ Mollie said. ‘Not wishing to be fattist or anything. He visited us in Italy in this huge yacht which must emit about fifty million tons of carbon.’
Then Dawn talked some more about the committee she sat on with Laetitia Pendleton, and how the opera and theatre programmes were so well received in the schools. ‘We took a delightful Much Ado to a primary school in Farnborough recently. Anyway, watching their little faces I couldn’t tell how much they were taking in, Shakespeare’s quite challenging for the best of us, but Laetitia says it all sinks in somehow, even if its … what’s the word? … subliminal. I was sitting with James Pendleton, who’s such a dear man, and he explained the plot to me as we went along.’
Listening to her, Mollie had a brainwave. ‘Dawn, do your opera people only do schools round here, or would they ever consider a London performance, do you think? You see, I was just thinking how great it would be if they came to my school.’
‘Well, I don’t exactly know, I’d have to ask Lady Pendleton,’ Dawn said doubtfully. ‘So far it’s always been in our area, but I could ask her. I’m meeting her for a coffee next week.’
‘Please do ask her, it would be brilliant. It could be a life-changing experience for my kids. I’m sure none of them has ever seen an opera in their lives, they’d be so excited. And we’ve got the space for it. The old gym hall’s been turned into a multimedia studio space.’
‘I’ll put it to Lady Pendleton over coffee. The family are friendly with your father in any case, so I’m sure she’d want to help if she possibly can.’
Mollie thanked Dawn profusely, though the fact that Miles might be a factor in the decision deflated her. Sometimes Mollie felt that, no matter what she tried to do in life, the long shadow of her dad always fell across her.
36.
Sam didn’t know which was fading quicker: her suntan or her illusions about Dick.
Her rescue from the Italian villa had been gloriously liberating despite, or perhaps partly because of, the breach it had opened up with Miles. He had been furious, hating his authority being publicly challenged. And life on Gunnslinger II suited Sam perfectly, being aimless and luxurious in equal measure. They had cruised down the coast as far as Ischia, stopping only for dinners at a succession of harbour-side restaurants, and waited on hand and foot by Dick’s eleven-man crew, including an on-board masseur and Pilates teacher. She spent hours every day in the Jacuzzi in a contented haze, watching the coastline drift by. Her transfer on board also gave her access to fresh supplies of grass and cocaine, Dick’s guests being well provided for, and her position as Dick’s squeeze-of-the-moment gave her honoured status with crew and guests alike. She had only to clap her hands, or extend a long brown leg from the hot tub, and someone rushed over with cocktail, towel or fluffy bathrobe.
If she was honest, the sole aspect of the cruise she didn’t relish was the time she spent alone with Dick in their cabin. Despite his limitless mental energy, which drove him to make and remake half a dozen deals at a time, buying and divesting himself of businesses, he was correspondingly lacking in physical energy in the bedroom. Grotesquely obese, he found it difficult to complete sexual intercourse, huffing and puffing on top of her for four minutes maximum before rolling off and asking to be finished off manually. The fact was, Dick seldom initiated sex with Sam. As with previous girlfriends, once he had had them half a dozen times and established them as part of his retinue, he lost interest. When he felt horny, which normally only happened in the early mornings following boisterous alcohol-enhanced celebration of some deal, he would roll over towards Sam with his semi-erect cock rubbing up against her warm back, and invite her to take care of it, like bleeding an airlock on a radiator. Within minutes of coming, his penis shrivelled to a tiny walnut-sized knob nestling in the under-hang of his belly. Sam couldn’t help feeling the name Dick was singularly inappropriate. The only time he showed her affection was in public, when he liked her to sit on his lap, or knead his back on the massage platform with her fingers. She found it repellent the way her hands sunk into the lardy folds of his back fat.
Back in London, the afterglow of the holiday overtaken by the sterility of life in Dick’s Eaton Square apartment, Sam idly wondered what to do next with her life. The prospect of marriage and becoming Mrs Dick Gunn, with all that implied, was not something she was prepared completely to rule out. While recognising it was less than ideal, and scarcely conformed to the fairytale ending she once envisaged for herself, her character did not run to affirmative action. She lived by the day, content to take things as they came. And what was coming now was breakfast on a tray, delivered by Dick’s Thai housekeeper, consisting of yoghurt with wheat-germ, a cup of strong coffee and sliced fruit. After a long bath and the daily ritual of washing, conditioning and drying her hair, Sam considered ringing her mother who, it being a Friday, would be down at Chawbury. But something stopped her: the inevitable hassle of being told Miles was still angry with her, and the promise Davina would try to extract to ring him and make things up, was more than she could quite face, any more than she wanted to commit to a country weekend at home.
She was setting out for a trot round the shops along Elizabeth Street when she heard the phone ring, and Lila, the Thai maid, saying she would fetch her. Gingerly she took the handset. ‘Hello?’
‘Darling? It’s your mother.’
‘Oh, hi Mum. I was about to call you.’ She spoke warily.
‘Look,
I’m not ringing about the holiday. You know how your father can be, and he is still rather upset, but I’m sure it can all be sorted out. I’m ringing to remind you it’s the big garden lunch party at Chawbury this weekend. You haven’t forgotten? We’re expecting you to be there, your father especially.’
Sam made a face. She had forgotten all about it. It was the last thing she needed.
‘Is Dick asked?’
‘I’m afraid not. I’m awfully sorry, Sam, it just wouldn’t work this year.’
Samantha knew how stubborn Miles was, and how annoyed Dick would be if she sloped off to Chawbury without him. It wasn’t as if Dick would actually want to go himself, but recently he had become oppressively possessive, demanding to know where she was all the time, and unhappy if she was unavailable for him at a minute’s notice. He expected to be able to ask his PA to get her on the line and be instantly put through. If she turned her mobile off while having a massage or some other treatment, she would find half a dozen missed calls and urgent messages to ring when she switched it on again, and further messages at the flat. She found herself habitually lying about where she was and what she’d been doing. Even if she said she’d been having lunch with old school friends, Dick was disapproving, hating her to have any other life. When she went round to Gaz’s for supplies, which happened more and more, she pretended she’d been at the hairdressers.
Caught in the crossfire between Dick and Miles, Sam knew she had no choice but to support Dick.
‘Sorry, Mum, I can’t make it this weekend. I’m doing something.’
‘Oh dear, are you sure you can’t?’ Davina sounded worried. ‘Isn’t it something you can change? Your father will be so upset if you’re not there, you know how he is about that lunch.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, goodness. Well, if you can’t come you can’t come, I suppose. But it’s not going to go down well.’
37.
Resplendent in a new lightweight summer suit, pale blue cotton shirt, dark blue silk tie and a sleek pair of sunglasses, Miles stood on the terrace surveying the lunch party preparations. Waiters and waitresses from Gourmand Solutions were delivering glassware to the twenty-five round tables in the marquee, and further glasses for cocktails and champagne were set-up on tables outside the orangerie for the pre-lunch reception. There were still too many clouds scudding across the sky for Miles’s liking, but the forecast promised sunshine by noon so drinks in the garden remained a possibility. He certainly hoped so, since his brigade of gardeners had been working for weeks to produce perfect herbaceous borders for the 250 guests to admire. Miles’s eyes scanned the horizon and, as usual, flinched at Ross’s house. From this elevation you could see the rooftops of the entire mansion, as well as the outhouses and stables. Leylandii had grown to sufficient height to shield part of the tennis court, but you could spot the ornamental lampposts on the lawn. According to Davina, Ross had started taking shooting lessons which was obviously risible, and Miles was listening out for the blam-blam of clay pigeons. If he started blasting off in the valley, Miles would report him to the council.
Davina had been making a ridiculous fuss about wanting to invite the Cleggs to the lunch, and Miles had once again put his foot down.
‘It’s so embarrassing,’ Davina said. ‘What am I meant to say to Dawn? She’s probably my best friend, one of them anyway, and she must know about the lunch. She must think it’s so odd—and so hurtful—not to be included when they live so close.’
‘This is a business event. It isn’t appropriate.’
‘You’ve invited all our other friends. They’re all coming. The Mountleighs and the Nairns. And Nigel and Bean. And James and Laetitia. Laetitia sees Dawn all the time, they’ve become very close.’
‘Well, I’m sorry. I don’t want the Cleggs and that’s all there is to it. They wouldn’t fit in.’
‘They’d actually be an asset. Everyone likes Ross, he’s so easy, and I’m sure he knows plenty of your clients already. He’d get on like a house on fire with those airline people, the ones who came over in Italy, Bradley and Carole.’
‘I’m sorry. The Cleggs are not invited. That’s final.’ Having closed the subject, Miles felt rather pleased with himself. He believed it was important for the man of the house to take a stand.
This year, apart from the Cleggs, there had been the irksome business of Samantha and Dick to contend with, and Miles was in a bate at the thought of his daughter defying him by boycotting the lunch. His first act had been to ring his bank and cancel the monthly allowance he still paid into her account. His second had been to inform Carmelita that Samantha was no longer welcome in Holland Park Square. If Dick wanted to carry on with his daughter, he could pay for the privilege, Miles would no longer subsidise it. He was still feeling sore that Dick had declined to mount a takeover of Freeza Mart. It seemed the least he could do, given his situation with Samantha.
The guests began to arrive and Miles, Davina, Peter, Archie and Mollie took up their position on the terrace to receive them, with the famous long view of Chawbury valley behind. A line of waitresses stood with outstretched trays of drinks, to sustain guests until they reached the longer bar by the orangerie. Miles was greeting the most prominent visitors with his customary warmth, gripping and embracing the managing directors of Eaziprint and Trent Valley Power 4 U. ‘I think you’ve met my wife Davina—of course you have—and these are three of my reprobate children … Peter works with me at Straker Communications, poor chap … Sadly Samantha can’t be here today, got herself a better invitation, ha ha …’ All the time he was looking out for James and Laetitia—the Pendletons business accounting for forty-two percent of his annual revenues—at whose arrival he would dissolve the receiving line and escort Laetitia down to the lawn for pre-lunch drinks.
Paul and Brigitte Tanner rolled onto the terrace, Paul full of swagger now that Iain Duncan Smith was installed as Conservative leader. ‘Never mind what the newspapers are writing. They’d be bound to take cheap pot-shots. But inside the party morale is high. We’ve got a grown-up, experienced leader again, and it’s playing well on the doorsteps. The tide’s finally turning.’
‘God it’s all looking immaculate here, Miles,’ he went on, staring down the valley. ‘Impeccable.’ Then he said, ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed that other house before. Was it always there? I don’t remember seeing it.’ He peered at the rooftops of the Clegg mansion.
‘Perfectly vile, isn’t it? Should never have been allowed. We’re furious about it.’
‘Whose is it? I can see a tennis court … and a ménage, isn’t it? All the toys.’
‘Chap named Clegg. Moved down from Birmingham. Runs supermarkets.’
‘Not Ross Clegg? That’s a coincidence. We were talking about him yesterday as a potential party donor, but no one knew him. Is he going to be here for lunch?’
‘No, he certainly isn’t.’
‘Pity. Tell you what, I might trouble you for a phone number. He’s done awfully well I hear, and might be able to help us.’
Miles was still feeling irritable when Nigel and Bean bustled into view, Bean full of noisy exclamations about the beauty of the garden. ‘The phlox by the front door are thriving, I see. Well done. Our soil’s too alkaline, such a sadness.’ Then turning to Davina, she said, ‘Darling, promise you won’t let me leave before I’ve spoken to Dawn Clegg. I want to ask if we can use their fields for the Pony Club gymkhana.’
‘I’d love to, but very sadly they’re not coming.’
‘Oh, dammit. I’ve been meaning to speak to her, I was sure they’d be here.’
It was ten minutes before one, and Miles was beginning to wonder what had become of the Pendletons, when they finally turned up, full of apologies, explaining that a man from the Royal Academy in London had arrived very late to look at their Lucian Freuds for a forthcoming retrospective. Laetitia was carrying an envelope which she said contained tickets and car passes for a production of Der Rosenkavalier to which sh
e and James were taking Ross and Dawn the following weekend. ‘I guessed they’d be here, since you’re all part of the Chawbury mafia. I keep telling people, “All the brilliant people live in Chawbury. They must put something in the water.” ’
Miles, aghast, replied, ‘Actually, Laetitia, Ross and Dawn couldn’t make it this year. I think they said they’re abroad.’
‘Goodness how sad. We do enjoy them. But what a party you’re giving us as usual. Everything so pretty.’ And with that they moved into lunch.
Surveying the marquee, Miles felt everything was going as well as could be hoped. The waitresses from Gourmand Solutions were bringing out the first course of pate de foie and toasted brioche with a marmalade of onion and quince jelly, and the tables of guests all looked appropriately animated. He spotted Serena and Robin at table four and acknowledged her with a discrete nod of his head.
This year he had doubled the size of the top table to accommodate as many of his most important clients as possible, though the table was carefully segregated with the Pendletons, Mountleighs, Tanners, Nairns, Zach Durbans, Sir Korma Gupta and Strakers insulated at one end, and less elevated guests well away at the other. Peter, Archie and Mollie were allocated to tables composed of secondary VIPs and marketing people, who would nevertheless appreciate the presence of a Straker. Archie looked like he was doing well, making the Corporate Communications Director of Trent Valley Power 4 U laugh, but Peter was struggling, and Mollie looked way out of her depth. Once again, Miles cursed the absence of Samantha. It would have been helpful having a gorgeous daughter here, to lift the scene.
Pride and Avarice Page 29