A second, even larger flight now broke cover, eighty pheasants at least and some tiny French partridge. This time, none came over Miles so he watched the action below. Ross had adopted a ridiculous half-crouching position like some red Indian tracker with his barrels flailing about in the sky. But he was shockingly accurate. Miles saw him take a left and a right, swap guns, then immediately hit a third. By the time the horn sounded to signal the end of the drive, Miles was spitting.
In the Land Rover to the second drive, Miles pretended to be unaware how well Ross had shot, and said nothing, but the loaders were full of congratulations.
‘Beginners luck, nothing more,’ said Ross modestly. ‘I can tell you, there’s a definite knack to this lark. Different to clays.’
But at the second drive Ross again shot well, while Miles found himself to be off-form. By lunch-time, when they were joined by Laetitia and some of the other wives at the barn on Longparish Down that the Pendletons had converted for shooting lunches, Ross was the hero of the hour. Dawn, who had spent the morning with Laetitia at the big house occupied on charity matters, was warmly congratulated for being married to a crack shot.
‘You have to come out after lunch and stand with him,’ they told her. ‘Your husband’s incredible. This can’t be his first time.’
The food at the Pendletons shoot, chosen and supervised by Laetitia, was famously generous, as was the wine. James, almost teetotal himself, went to endless trouble to provide only the finest clarets for his guests. Under ordinary circumstances Miles relished the lunch recess, considering it the heart of the day, but today it was another burden to be borne. The sight of Ross, embraced by the other guns and now sharing his predictions for the economy to a receptive audience, was intolerable. His mood hardly improved when Laetitia and Dawn cornered him after lunch, and reported what a marvellous job Mollie had done with the inner-city schools opera performance. ‘You’ve got a little star there,’ Dawn said. ‘What a pity neither you nor Davina could make it, you’d have been so proud.’
‘Yes, well, I’m afraid some of us have livings to earn,’ replied Miles, and then regretted saying it, because it sounded impolite to Laetitia when he had intended only a snub to Dawn.
Feeling the liverish after-effects of three large glasses of claret, Miles staggered to the Land Rovers for the afternoon drive. The last drive was always a short one since the light was going, and the guns were ranged up along two sides of a wood, full of oaks and elms of great antiquity. From his middle peg, Miles had a fine view of the other positions in both directions. Ross re-adopted his crouching stance, legs bent at the knee; like a weightlifter waiting to take the strain, Miles decided. Far above them in the treetops, black rooks tumbled and cawed at the sinking sun.
The beaters had advanced two thirds of the way through the wood now, striking at tree trunks and sweeping the air with flags. Solitary pheasants were breaking out for open country to a crackle of gunfire. Twenty metres into the wood, swooping on majestic tawny wings from its roost in a hollow tree, came a large owl, heading in the direction of Ross.
In an instant, Miles had an idea. ‘Cock bird over,’ he hollered, as the protected owl emerged from the wood.
A single shot from Ross brought it down, and the other guns looked on in dismay. Miles felt the eyes of his loader boring into his back, but ignored him and slowly shook his head. ‘The trouble with shooting these days,’ he declared at last, ‘is that some of the people taking it up don’t have the slightest idea.’
44.
Davina and Dawn had joined a weekly ladies’ exercise group held in the communal garden of Holland Park Square, and fallen into a routine of having coffee together afterwards. Sometimes they would head for Davina’s cosy kitchen, sometimes to Dawn’s larger, more impersonal one. Sitting around in exercise pants, sweatshirts and trainers, waiting for their metabolisms to normalise with the aid of a cafetiere of coffee and a digestive biscuit, they talked openly about their children and more guardedly about their husbands. Both women were aware that eachothers’ men could be handfuls on occasion.
Dawn, in particular, was concerned about Davina, who behind a stoical front frequently seemed downhearted. ‘All my birds have flown the nest,’ she would say. ‘Not one of them wanted to come home this weekend, the house feels so empty and pointless really.’
‘But Miles was with you? Isn’t it nice spending time together for a change? Being able to talk?’
Davina laughed ruefully. ‘He was physically there, yes, and he came through for meals, but most of the time he shut himself away in his study working. He’s very uncommunicative at the moment, I keep worrying I’ve done something to upset him, which is ridiculous because we all tread round him on eggshells. The only time he cheered up was Saturday night when we went over to the Mount-leighs’ for dinner.’
‘They didn’t invite us,’ said Dawn, sounding peeved. Lately, Davina had noticed how social Dawn had become, and quick to take offence when excluded from any gathering, large or small.
‘It was only a few old locals,’ Davina reassured her, ‘Robin and Serena Harden and Nigel and Bean.’
‘Do you trust Serena?’ Dawn asked suddenly.
‘Serena? Yes, of course. Why?’
Dawn made a face. ‘I don’t know. It’s probably nothing. Just something about her, like she’s a bit forward around men.’
‘Really? I’ll pay more attention. I’ve always thought of her as a bit sad. They’re frightfully hard up. Miles has never liked her much either, now you mention it. Whenever I’ve suggested getting them over to dinner, he’s said no, unless it’s a big party.’ Davina blushed, because Miles also excluded the Cleggs. It was another topic the friends never broached, along with the old Archie-Gemma situation.
‘Not that I’m worried. Ross works too hard for anything like that. Getting him to do anything at the moment is like pulling teeth. I’ve been on at him about a weekend in Paris to visit Debs at her hotel, but it’s hard pinning him down. I had quite a go at Jacqui his PA about it: Give me back my man. I’m putting a stop to weekend business engagements. Between store visits and the shooting, we’ve no Saturdays left.’
‘Miles is the same. He’s travelling four weekends out of five this month. If I complain he says, ‘Come with me,’ but I don’t think he means it. He says he’d be out at meetings all day and I’m not a great one for shopping. So thank heavens for the garden to keep me busy.’
‘Perhaps you should accompany him,’ Dawn said, rather prissily. ‘It’s helpful for an important man to have his other half with him. Laetitia accompanies James to all his work functions, she’s the one who memorises the names of his managers and their ladies. I’ve been trying to learn them myself at Freeza Mart, but it’s such a big concern these days, and some of the wives look so alike. All those awful haircuts.’ Dawn’s own awful haircut was now such a distant memory, having been reshaped by ever-more-fashionable metropolitan scissors, that she no longer acknowledged it had ever existed. Similarly, Davina noticed whenever Dawn was introduced to anyone new whom she wished to impress, she implied Chawbury Park and Hampshire was their lifelong home and the old Droitwich years had been erased. Davina kept this observation firmly to herself, since she was extremely fond of Dawn, and she knew Miles would use it against the Cleggs, if she said anything.
‘I know what I meant to say,’ said Davina. ‘Mollie adored her supper with Greg, she said he was sweet to her, when he’s so important on the council and everything.’
Dawn looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know they’d had supper. He never tells us anything.’
‘Oh yes, he invited her to a lovely Middle Eastern restaurant, she said. Wanted to talk about local schools and get Mollie’s views. She says Greg’s awfully impressive, sorting out the whole borough.’
‘He takes it very seriously. It’s a bit much, the way he lectures us. He came over recently and was on and on about this house: how it’s too big, the central heating’s too high, you’d think we were terrible people
the way he goes on. Drives Ross up the wall.’
‘Well, he’s got a fan in Mollie. Her headmaster was very impressed that she’d had supper with him. They’re all slightly in awe of Greg because he sits on the education committee.’
‘It was very kind of Mollie to help. In fact it’s rather encouraging, because Greg never seems to have any lady friends, not ones he mentions anyway. It’s all politics, politics in unpleasant smelly pubs. I hope he looked after her nicely and didn’t just talk politics all the time.’
‘He sounded lovely, from what Mollie was saying. He made a big impression on her. It was Greg says this, Greg says that.’ Davina could have added, but didn’t, that it had driven Miles mad, hearing so much about Greg Clegg.
‘What is it about my children and that frightful family?’ he’d complained to Davina afterwards.
It was in a spirit of adventure that Archie abandoned his comfort zone on the north bank of the Thames and took a cab to the address Gemma had texted to him across Waterloo Bridge. Roupell Street turned out to be a Victorian terrace of flat-fronted railwaymen’s cottages, long since confiscated from their intended inhabitants, now the gentrified preserve of professionals and young families.
He pressed the chime and heard a voice, ‘Hang on, just coming,’ and there was Gemma in jeans and a white tee-shirt, hair freshly washed and smelling of shampoo. Sheltering shyly behind her on the doorstep with a thumb stuck in her mouth was the cutest little girl Archie had seen in ages, a mini-me version of her mum, with big blue eyes staring up at him and the same mouseycoloured hair.
‘This is Mummy’s friend Archie, Mandy. Say “how do you do Archie,” sweetheart, it’s nice to be polite.’
‘How do you do Arch …’ mouthed Mandy in an almost inaudible whisper.
They entered into a sitting room which was very neat and rather empty, with a pair of cane-sided sofas and a television sitting on a cloth-covered table. A Disney cartoon of Aladdin was playing and Gemma said, ‘We can’t watch videos when we’ve got a visitor, can we?’
Mandy looked crestfallen, and when Gemma moved to switch it off she developed a trembly lip.
So Archie said, ‘Oh do leave it on, why don’t you? It doesn’t bother me. Anyway I love Aladdin. It’s just coming to the good bit when he snogs Princess Jasmine.’
‘You seem to know it very well,’ Gemma said.
‘We’ve got this one at home, I watch it in bed all the time. I’m too lazy to fetch another vid from downstairs. There you go you see, Mandy, he’s kissing her. It’s deep tongues …’
Gemma giggled. ‘Don’t say that. It’ll put her off for life.’
Just then, Mandy covered her eyes with her small pink hands and said, ‘Yuck, I don’t like that princess. She’s nasty.’
‘Ah, jealousy, jealousy,’ said Archie. Then, to Gemma, ‘She’s definitely jealous, I think she fancies Aladdin. You do, don’t you Mandy? Admit it. Are you going to marry Prince Aladdin when you grow up? Is he going to be your husband, is he?’
Mandy stared at him very seriously, trying to work out if he was teasing her.
‘Maybe,’ she whispered at last.
‘So you’re going to be Mrs Aladdin! Can I come to your wedding? Will you invite me?’
‘No,’ She replied defiantly, and Gemma looked worried in case she’d caused offence.
‘Oh, come on, please let me,’ said Archie. ‘I’ll bring you a wedding present, a really nice one. Not a saucepan or a dishcloth, I promise. What would you like for a wedding present then? Sweets? Ice cream?’
‘Sweeties.’ Mandy wrapped her legs round each other in shyness.
‘Alright then, I’ll bring you sweeties, a big bag for you and Aladdin to share on your magic carpet. How’s that then?’
Gemma watched the exchange, thrilled Mandy and her dad had such instant rapport. ‘You’re really good with her, Arch,’ she said. ‘How do you know about talking to kids then?’
‘I work in a club, don’t I? Half the chicks who come in, they’re not nearly so bright as Mandy. I’m telling you, they couldn’t follow the plot of Aladdin, “Eer, who’s this wicked Vizier geezer then? Duh, I don’t get it.” ’
‘You’re terrible, Archie. And I haven’t even offered you anything, what am I thinking? I’ve got lapsang, Earl Grey, Freeza Mart blend, herb and fruit ones if you prefer?’
‘Freeza Mart, please. No, bugger that, what about that wine you mentioned? You said there’d be wine. I’ll have a big mug of that, please.’
He trailed her into a small back kitchen, with views over a yard with washing hanging out on a droopy line. A plastic pedal car and plastic sandpit covered by a plastic lid were just visible, protruding from under the weight of bed sheets and laundry.
‘Sorry about the washing,’ Gemma said. ‘I’d meant to bring it in before you got here, but it got rained on.’
‘I like it,’ said Archie. ‘Especially the bra display. These are your B-cups, I take it, dangling on the end?’
Gemma coloured. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Why sorry? Normally I spend ages on the Internet searching for excitements like them. When I’m fed up with Aladdin.’
Gemma opened a bottle of Freeza Mart’s Californian cabernet sauvignon with a screw top, which was currently sweeping the country, being priced as a promotional loss-leader at £2.15 to lure punters from Pendletons and Tesco.
‘I love that wine,’ Archie said. ‘Such a steal. They were blind tasting it on one of the afternoon food shows, and this ditsy wine expert, can’t remember her name now, thought it was the twenty-quid one.’
‘Dad drinks it at home. They were going to sell it in proper bottles with corks, but dad said go for screw tops because corks put some people off. They think it’s too posh.’
‘Yeah, well I prefer screw tops myself. Quicker. No arsing about with corkscrews.’ He knocked back the wine in two gulps, then said, ‘How about the other half, Gems? And in a bigger glass this time. You don’t get enough taste in these incey-wincey ones. And, go on, have one yourself. I hate boozing alone. Tell you what, how about we take the bottle through and catch the end of Aladdin? Prince Aleee,’ he sang, ‘Wonderful me … Come on, and bring those pretzels. I love Freeza Mart cheese pretzels. Much nicer than Pendletons pretzels but don’t tell my old man I said that.’
They sat side by side on the little sofa, watching the film with Mandy perched on Gemma’s lap, while Archie kept the wine flowing. At some point he fetched a second bottle from the fridge and they got stuck into that too. ‘So what do you do with yourself all day then, out here in the badlands of Sarf Lundun?’
‘Depends what day it is. Mandy does playschool three mornings, so I have to drop her off and collect her again at twelve, which doesn’t leave much time in-between, cos I like to stay with her ‘til I know she’s settled. And then I fix lunch back here, and in the afternoon sometimes we go for a little walk down to Vauxhall market or to the playground, not that it’s a very nice playground because there’s gangs of teenagers hanging about in hoodies, so we do watch quite a few videos, I must be honest. You love your videos, don’t you sweetheart?’ said Gemma, hugging her daughter. But Mandy was too absorbed to reply.
‘Doesn’t sound too riveting so far,’ said Archie. ‘So when does the partying go on?’
‘I wish.’
‘But seriously. You can’t have a nice place like this all for yourself and not throw parties. This place should be Party Central. I’d kill for somewhere like this. I’m banned from using our house, Dad totally overreacted after these gatecrashers turned up, and Carmelita our maid’s like a Stasi spy, she’s completely untrustworthy and tells him the smallest thing.’
‘Even if I did have a party, I don’t know that many people in town to ask. Just a couple of school friends—you met them outside the club, Rachel and Becky—and my sister Debs comes over too, but she’s working in Paris so she’s not around much. Maybe I’ll meet more people when I find a job. That’s what I’m hoping. I’m meant to be l
ooking for one, but it’s got to be part-time because of Mandy, so it’s not easy.’
‘That’s tough. About the job, I mean. And being on your own all day. Must get boring.’
Gemma shrugged. ‘I’m used to it, I’m not complaining. Mandy’s company enough most of the time. The past five years I’ve hardly seen anyone, just Mum and Dad. And Debbie before she began at her hotels. And Mollie sometimes. She comes to visit Mandy, she’s been a lovely godmother to her. How is Mollie, by the way?’
‘Obsessed with teaching asylum seekers how to read and write English, so they can defraud the benefits system when they leave school. No I didn’t say that, it’s grossly racist, I should be ashamed, I should be arrested. Please don’t report me to the authorities, Gemma, I’ll do anything, anything, pour you another glass of wine, you need a top up …’
‘No more wine. I’ve had plenty. I wont be able to put Mandy to bed.’
‘Now there’s a thought,’ said Archie. ‘Put Mandy to bed. Why don’t you just do that? Then the grown-ups can do grown-up things together undisturbed.’ He held her with a quizzical, flirtatious gaze. ‘We, Gemma, have a lot of catching-up to do, you realise? Five years in Chawbury cooped up with your mum and dad? Doesn’t bear thinking about, you must have been climbing the fucking walls.’
Leaning behind Mandy across the back of the sofa, he kissed her on the mouth, and was encouraged when she kissed him back.
‘Well, hurry up then, put the sprog in her cot or whatever. It must be well past her bedtime. Off you go. I’m rewinding Aladdin, I missed the beginning.’
45.
Samantha was on the early-afternoon Eurostar from Waterloo to the Gard du Nord. Above her on the rack was the leather Mulberry bag Dick gave her once as a present, containing her wash-bag with the tricks of her trade, condoms, lube, her make-up, a change of clothes for tomorrow and a nightdress. She wondered whether she wasn’t being ridiculous, packing a nightie?
Pat from the agency had been particular about not bringing a big suitcase. ‘Nothing you can’t carry yourself. You don’t want to attract the attention of hotel porters.’
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