Nothing to Lose

by Christina Jones

  ‘Not really. She thought it was stupid. She’s not an animal lover.’ And that, Ewan reckoned, was the biggest understatement so far. Katrina had been scathing in her contempt. Especially as the rescue operations costmoney rather than made any.

  ‘Sod her, then.’ Jasmine carried on smiling. ‘So, is it all over now? This particular crusade? Or are you still involved?’

  ‘I’ll always be involved. Once you’ve witnessed that sort of horror – and been able to do something about it – you can’t give it up. I’ve left the European side of things now, but I’m going to be raising awareness over here, canvassing for people to take retired greyhounds as pets, that sort of thing.’

  Jasmine nodded her approval. ‘Count us in, then. I mean, there’s no problems round here, but no doubt there are unscrupulous people hidden away all over the place.’

  Ewan looked at her, plump and warm and kind. He couldn’t tell her just how unscrupulous some of the people he’d dealt with, duped, and double-crossed were. And how they would happily break his legs if they ever caught up with him again. Greyhounds meant big money to so many unregistered and unlicensed people. Greyhounds weren’t flesh and blood – just a means to a financial end.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing – it’s probably better not to mention any of this to Peg just yet. She’s no mug, and she’ll only panic if she thinks I’ve got embroiled in something nasty.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Jasmine yawned. ‘Oh, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to go to bed. Do you want the eiderdown?’

  Ewan grinned. ‘Please. And a good-night kiss.’

  ‘Think yourself lucky you’ve got the eiderdown.’ Jasmine hauled herself to her feet and poked out her tongue. ‘I don’t do extras.’

  Less than twelve hours later, after having been given the full Prodigal treatment by Peg, Ewan was sitting in her office high above the deserted greyhound track. The windows were open to the summer sounds of the beach, and an ozone-loaded breeze rattled round the edges of faded posters from long-demolished cinemas called the Roxy or the Gaumont. Roger and Allan, leather-faced, and with their braces rakishly on show over their open-necked shirts in deference to the heat wave, were each gummily munching their way through one of Gilbert’s ‘whoppa’ hot dogs. Bunny, the hare boy, was adding ice, very slowly, to a jug of lemon barley, and Peg and Jasmine were totting up figures on the back of an old envelope. As board meetings went, it was very relaxed.

  Peg stopped in her mathematical equations and adjusted her wig. It was a French pleat today, to go with a sheath dress and very unsuitable – Ewan considered – stiletto sandals. They didn’t sit well with the corn plasters.

  ‘Right, then. We’re all agreed. Jasmine will go and approach her damned father about the proposals for the Merry Orchard Shopping Plaza. Yes, I know it was put forward at the last meeting, but Jasmine wasn’t keen then, were you, pet?’

  Jasmine shook her head.

  ‘Right, but now she is.’ Peg tapped along with the bass line of ‘Whatever Will Be Will Be’, her biro becoming quite agitated on the chorus. ‘And, anyway, now we’ve got our figures together – and we know what alterations we want to make – I’m going to tell Frobishers that the new Benny Clegg Stadium is getting ready to stage the Platinum Trophy.’

  Roger dislodged a piece of caramelised onion from between his false teeth. ‘Won’t that mean they’ll have to come and inspect? What if we’re not up to speed by then?’

  ‘We’ll just show them the plans, of course.’ Peg frowned at this display of leaden-footedness. ‘They’re business people. They’ll understand. But according to the bumph, all tendering tracks have to be inspected by the end of August so we’ll have to get a shift on.’

  ‘But what if bloody Philip – sorry, Jasmine – says the place is definitely going to be demolished?’ Allan rolled his greasy paper napkin into a neat ball. ‘What then?’

  Peg anchored the French pleat more firmly into place. ‘Good Lord! We won’t say anything about it! Have you never heard of subterfuge? No, we’ll welcome the Frobisher’s contingent with open arms, lie through our teeth, and we’ll tackle the planners this end. They’ll have to carry me out of here in chains before they demolish one inch, believe me.’

  Ewan smiled to himself. She meant it. He could see it happening. But really ... he looked fondly at them all: Peg, Allan and Roger, all well past retirement; Jasmine, far too innocent for her own good; Gilbert, Ampney Crucis’s one-man answer to McDonald’s; and Bunny, the hare boy what chance would they have against the might of the planning committee? What chance, in God’s name, did they have of staging the biggest race in the greyhound calendar? Surely it would be kinder to disillusion them now, before it all went too far?

  ‘And you, pet,’ Peg zipped round and fixed Ewan with a beady stare, ‘you’ll have your part to play, of course.’

  ‘Look, I hate to be a wet blanket, but–’

  ‘Frigging ’ell!’ Bunny, the hare boy, catapulted into the room at that point, tripping over his plimsoll laces and simultaneously losing his grip on the jug of lemon barley and his own centre of gravity. Ice cubes rained down on the board members like hailstones in a summer downpour.

  Peg removed melting ice from her cleavage without a word. Jasmine had quietly stood up and was mopping down the distraught Bunny. Roger, Allan and Gilbert were resignedly dabbing at sticky pools on the top of the table with their hot-dog papers.

  Ewan felt his grip on reality slipping slowly away. He was getting sucked deeper and deeper into Frank Capra country with every passing second. He sighed. ‘OK. What have I got to do?’

  Peg dropped the ice cubes into the wastepaper basket and gave him one of her killer smiles. ‘Well, we’re all going to use our strengths, of course, darling. So I thought you’d have guessed.’

  Jasmine giggled. Ewan shook his head. What strengths did he have that would possibly be of any use here? Well, he supposed he could heft and heave with the best of them when it came to demolishing the old stadium and building the new. Or public relations work? That might be quite good fun. And he’d still have time to slope off and rescue greyhounds without anyone asking awkward questions. And, anyway, it would be a good thing to keep his head down in the wilds of Ampney Crucis for the time being. It would mean he could keep an eye on Peg, too – and of course, rekindle the flames with Clara. He could think of worse ways of spending a summer.

  ‘OK, I’m up for it. Put me out of my misery. Tell me what I’m going to do.’

  Peg burst into a little bit of ‘Move Over Darling’, then stopped and smiled flirtatiously. ‘You, sweetheart, are going to seduce the pants off Brittany Frobisher.’

  Chapter Ten

  It was going to be easier said than done, Jasmine thought, as she clambered over the kitchen furniture and tried to peer into the mirror: getting her father to regale her with his plans for the greyhound stadium. She balanced on two chairs and took a closer look. God! She looked like a clown! Why was she so ham-fisted when it came to putting on make-up? Why hadn’t she asked Clara to give her a hand? And why – she stopped, balancing precariously on the edge of the draining board on her way down – was she bothering anyway?

  She was only going home to see her parents on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, after all. Oh, and possibly Andrew. He’d threatened to abandon the dealership for a couple of hours to be there. It was her mother’s afternoon off, and she knew that Philip always escaped the Tuesday committee meetings if possible. It seemed the perfect time to catch them unawares. But even so, why would any of them even notice that she was wearing make-up? They’d probably just open the door a fraction, recognise her, and slam it shut again with a cursory, ‘Not today, thank you.’

  She somehow felt that, despite Peg’s enthusiasm in the boardroom the previous day, tackling her father about the council’s plans for the Merry Orchard Shopping Plaza wasn’t going to be a piece of cake. Like everything put off for too long, there came a time when it was simply far, far too late. She should have gone home we
eks ago. And there was a greyhound meeting tonight as well. And Clara was helping her write up – and she hadn’t yet got round to telling Clara that Ewan was back in town, or that his sole mission for Peg was to become the next notch on Brittany Frobisher’s bedpost.

  ‘Oi!’ A small child in a sand-encrusted bathing costume stood on the veranda gazing in at her. ‘You do ice creams?’

  ‘What? No, sorry. Shit.’ Jasmine jabbed the mascara brush in her eye and blinked damply at the child which had now turned fuzzy at the edges. ‘Try the kiosk.’

  ‘This is the kiosk. My mum said.’

  ‘It’s a beach hut.’ Jasmine scrubbed at the affected eye with a tea towel. The black streaks spread down her cheek. ‘Bugger. It’s my home.’

  ‘Stone me.’ The child kicked dismissively at the veranda with the toe of its pink jelly shoe. ‘Ain’t you got no ice creams, then?’

  ‘No. Nor hot dogs, nor chips, nor whelks nor – oh God!’ Jasmine surveyed the result of her scrubbing in the mirror. She looked like Alice Cooper.

  ‘Sod you, then.’ The child turned on its heel and climbed carefully back down the steps. ‘This ain’t a proper holiday place, this ain’t. They does ice creams in Benidorm.’

  ‘Naff off back to Benidorm, then,’ Jasmine muttered under her breath, trying to repair the mascara damage. ‘And if this afternoon goes the way I think it will, I’ll probably join you.’

  The house on the Chewton Estate stood back from the road, a mirror image of the other ten houses in the crescent. Its allotted semi-circle of turf was protected by a low-slung link of white chains, a pampas grass stood dead centre, and a tub of geraniums was placed with geometric precision on either side of the front door. It had been the only house in which she had lived and yet, Jasmine thought, surveying it almost impartially now, it had never been home at all. Home had always been Benny’s jumbled, comfortable, cornucopia of a council house, where the larder always offered up forbidden treats, and the rooms were stuffed full of child-proof glories in primary colours.

  ‘Tasteless tat,’ Yvonne had always said. ‘Glittery, tacky, tawdry, outdated junk.’

  Jasmine had loved it. And now she lived with it. And the beach hut had quickly become far more her home than this place had ever been.

  There were no cars in the drive, but that didn’t mean that her parents weren’t at home. Jasmine reckoned that Philip and Yvonne must be the only people in the world who actually used their double garage for its intended purpose. The cars – purchased from Andrew’s dealership, of course – were not only status symbols to her parents but also prized possessions. They were, as was everything in the house, to be admired and boasted about, but not enjoyed.

  As she scrunched her way up the shingle drive, Jasmine was uncertain as to whether she should just walk in or ring the bell. How strange . . . She opted for skirting the side of the house, and tiptoeing in through the open kitchen door. There was no welcoming smell of familiarity; no cooking, no animals, not even bleach or disinfectant. It was like a show house: everything colour co-ordinated, neat, clean. Sterile. Nothing out of place. It didn’t look as though people actually lived and ate and slept in this house. Well, really she supposed they didn’t. Not any more. She’d been the only one who ate anything. Everything.

  When she’d lived here, returning bored and frazzled from the accounts department at Watertite Windows, Jasmine had had a secret carbohydrate stash behind the 98% Fat Free section in the top cupboard. As Yvonne spent all day spreading fear and loathing at one of her two posh frock shops – she resolutely refused to refer to them as boutiques – and Philip had always been out on council business, Jasmine had eaten gluttonously and alone. Her parents’ meals arrived hygienically packed from the once-a-month supermarket shop, and if they couldn’t be microwaved and contained more than ten calories then they simply weren’t served up. Her father, she knew, made furtive evening sorties to the Crumpled Horn, and necked back massive portions of shepherd’s pie with chips and baked beans.

  Jasmine leaned from the kitchen window. The garden was empty too. The pool, Yvonne’s pride and joy, sat in its turquoise rectangle beneath the sun’s relentless glare, its surface unruffled, its surrounding honey-coloured flagstones bone dry. The garden furniture, ordered in from Scotts of Stow, still looked as untouched as the day it had been delivered. It was all soulless, anonymous, dead.

  ‘Jasmine! Goodness! This is a surprise!’ Yvonne was standing beneath the arch to the dining area, looking slightly startled. ‘Why didn’t you ring to say you were coming?’

  Jasmine jumped guiltily. ‘Hello, Mum . . .’ As soon as the words were out, she was aware how ridiculous they sounded. ‘I suppose I should have phoned you.’

  Yvonne, wearing skimpy shorts and a brief sun-top, with her golden curls pinned neatly on top of her head, was barefooted. Jasmine presumed that was why she hadn’t heard her come into the kitchen. The bone-thin body was an all-over even caramel colour, her make-up was salon-perfect, and her finger and toenails glistened with some expensive opalescence. Jasmine, with her smudged mascara, baggy denims and an extra large T-shirt, felt that her mother had done it on purpose.

  ‘Well, we offered enough invitations.’ Yvonne looked martyred. ‘Andrew said that he’d told you that you were welcome to come home on more than one occasion. Even when you refused to return my calls.’

  Jasmine shuffled her feet. ‘Yeah, I know. After what happened, I just – well, I didn’t want to. Sorry. And, anyway, there would have been conditions attached, wouldn’t there?’

  Yvonne shrugged. ‘Maybe. Like giving up this ridiculous pretence of being a – a bookmaker.’

  Her mother’s lips, Jasmine noticed, made a fat pouting moueround the word. She wondered suddenly if Yvonne had had collagen treatment.

  ‘There’s no point in saying anything else, Mum. I love being a bookie. I’m getting quite good at it, actually.’

  ‘Dear God in heaven! That’s like saying you’re making a success of being a prostitute!’

  Jasmine heaved a huge sigh. Her immediate reaction was to turn tail and walk out – but then Peg and Roger and Allan would never forgive her if she left before she’d accomplished her task, would they? ‘Don’t be so insulting! Being a bookie was good enough for Grandpa. Anyway, you know it’s what I’ve always wanted – to be like him.’

  Yvonne swept an immaculately manicured hand across her brow in a theatrical gesture. ‘And I’ve spent my entire married life trying to live it down! Being related, albeit only by my wedding vows, to Benny Clegg! Your father and I have struggled against the slur for years – and we’d both lived, prayed, for the day when he was no longer with us and we could hold our heads up in the golf club and -’

  ‘Mum! How can you say that? I loved him!’ Jasmine’s eyes filled with tears. She had to clench her teeth together to stop the tears from spilling down her cheeks. ‘I miss him so much! He was the best, the kindest, most wonderful person in the world!’

  Yvonne’s tongue clicked against her teeth in irritation. ‘To be honest, Jasmine, we’ve had this conversation a thousand times. I really don’t want to hear it any more. So, if you haven’t come here to offer the olive branch, and you’re not intending to stop making a fool of yourself with those geriatric reprobates at the greyhound track, just why are you here?’

  ‘I was asking myself the same question.’ Jasmine was bitingly angry. ‘But actually I’ve come to see Dad.’

  ‘Your father’s not here. He’s playing golf at Poole and then going on for a back-slapping dinner. I’ve no idea when he’ll be home. And sorry to be blunt, but I’m just going out – so if you’re not coming home to stay, there’s not much point in you hanging around, is there?’

  None at all, Jasmine thought sadly. She’d have to ring the council offices and make an appointment to see Philip, just as if she was planning to add a porch or extend her conservatory or something. Yvonne was looking quite twitchy, and the house was beginning to stifle Jasmine.

  She took
a deep breath. ‘Fine. I’ll go, then. Can I use the loo first?’

  ‘This is still your home. You don’t have to ask.’

  ‘Oh, I think I do.’ Jasmine brushed past her mother, far too angry to look at her. If she saw the flint in Yvonne’s eyes she’d only cry. ‘Up or down?’

  ‘Whichever . . .’ Yvonne held herself away as Jasmine passed.

  Jasmine chose up. The downstairs cloakroom, with its frills and flounces and the crinoline lady hiding the spare loo roll, had always depressed her. She belted through the familiar stripped pine and cream rooms, up the cream and pale pink staircase, and into the cream and cau-de-Nil bathroom. Everything was as it had always been. Like a pastel stage set.

  It was only on her way downstairs again that she noticed the spare bedroom door was open. Of the five bedrooms, Yvonne and Philip had the master with the en-suite overlooking the crescent, Jasmine’s had been at the back of the house, and two of the remaining rooms were turned into a study and a mini gym. The cream and ice-blue guest room, at the end of the landing, was usually stripped and clinical, waiting for visitors who rarely materialised. Today, though, there were clothes on the end of the bed and the curtains weren’t quite properly pulled back.

  Jasmine frowned. Had her parents got someone staying? A colleague or a distant relative? Funny, with all the time he seemed to spend here, that Andrew hadn’t mentioned it. She trotted downstairs again, curious, but really not wanting the curiosity to show. She’d ask the identity of the mystery guest, though, she decided, just in case it was someone she knew. Someone who might be a friend or ally. Someone, like ancient Aunt Edna from Scotland, who could share memories of Benny.

  ‘Mum? Who’s sleeping –’

  Yvonne’s voice, obviously on the telephone, floated up the staircase. ‘. . . just leaving. Give it half an hour, eh? Just to be on the safe side. Yes, of course it’ll be worth the wait . . . Isn’t it always?’