The Finishing Touches

by Browne, Hester

  At four o’clock on the dot the girls bailed out as if the place were on fire. I was in dire need of a cup of tea, possibly fortified with a shot of whiskey. I didn’t drink whiskey, but there was something about Miss Thorne’s uptight conversation class that made me want it. Just for the sake of being unladylike.

  I made my way through the neglected garden toward the mews cottage, which was, in contrast, neatly kept, with the brass knocker gleaming out of the dusk on the front door. Before I’d even lifted it, the door had swung open and there was Nancy, welcoming me in as if I’d just crossed the Arctic, which in a way it felt like I had.

  She rushed me inside and settled me in the chair by the big old kitchen stove while Kathleen piled up my plate in the manner of someone constructing a dry stone wall of sponge cake.

  “So, how did it go?” Kathleen asked when I’d downed my tea and held out my cup for a refill.

  I hesitated, trying to think of something positive to balance out the negatives, but she caught me. “Be honest, Betsy,” she said sternly. “Tell the truth and shame the devil.”

  “It’s…in need of a spring clean,” I said.

  “What’s to be done?” asked Nancy. “Do they need some new teachers? I know Maureen’s been there for years. And Miss Thorne did make a lot of them redundant last year. There’s only her and Edwina Angell left.” She smiled. “I expect you can think of some clever things to do. You’ll make one of your lists, I expect.”

  I looked at them—the kindest, sweetest, most honest old ladies—and struggled. They’d been here nearly all their lives and adored everything Franny had stood for—kindness, manners, decency. How could I tell them things were so bad that I almost agreed with the bursar about closing the Academy down, when they expected me to be able to put it right?

  But they’d also brought me up to be honest, so I made myself meet their expectant gazes.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I confessed. “It’s going to be very hard to persuade new students to come here, unless a lot of things change. No one really wants to learn how to meet the Royal Family anymore. The bursar thinks we might have to advise Lord Phillimore to sell.”

  “Sell?” gasped Nancy, and her china cup rattled on its saucer.

  “Now, Nan, we knew that was in the cards.” Kathleen gave me a stout look.

  “Well, what if he does sell?” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “It just means you’ll get some squillionaire offshore businessman next door—they’ll only be there twenty days a year!”

  At that, Kathleen’s face took on a worried shadow, and Nancy pressed her lips together. The lines deepened around their eyes, and I was painfully reminded of just how old the two of them were getting. I wanted to hug them both to me, just like they’d once crushed me to their mighty bosoms, but my bosom was nowhere near so comforting.

  “What?” I asked, and for once neither of them corrected me.

  “Well, it’s not just the house that’d go on the market, is it?” said Kathleen. “There’s not many properties round here come with their own three-car garage and staff quarters. He’d put the lot up for sale. The mews too. We’re tenants, you see, Betsy. Always have been. Part of our retirement package, this.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I could have slapped myself for being so slow. It had never even occurred to me that selling the Academy would make Kathleen and Nancy homeless.

  “But—but surely Lord P would find somewhere for you in the country,” I stammered. “At Bellingham Manor—there must be some room…”

  Kathleen folded her arms. “Live in the country? At our age? I don’t think so, dear. Dreadful place. Smelly. And dark. Not like London.”

  “No, we don’t want to be moving out of London, not now. I suppose the new owners might want some staff,” said Nancy, her brave smile wobbling. “I hear you can get vacuum cleaners that go up stairs these days, save my old back. And Kathleen’s still a dab hand—”

  “No!” I said, pushing back my chair. “That’s not going to happen! Do you think Franny would allow anyone to throw you out of your own home?” I demanded. “She’d be furious!” I blinked, because I was very near crying now, and I knew Nancy was too, and I didn’t want to set her off.

  “The Phillimore Academy is not going to close, and it’s not going to be sold,” I said, and grabbed my notebook. Doing something always made me feel better. “There must be something we can do. I’ve got the brochure, and it’s mad. Flower arranging, dinner parties, dealing with staff…as if we’re still in the nineteen-fifties. Aren’t there any teachers under fifty?”

  Nancy and Kathleen exchanged looks.

  “Well, there’s always Adele,” said Nancy.

  “Who’s Adele?” I asked. I hated the name Adele. I couldn’t hear it without thinking of the only Academy girl I’d ever really disliked. But then, no one had liked Adele Buchanan, and she hadn’t cared. She wasn’t what you’d call a girl’s girl, even at eighteen. Her nose had been like a spring onion at the beginning of the year, and then she “went skiing” and came back with a teeny button nose and new teeth.

  “Adele Buchanan,” said Kathleen, as she got up to put the kettle on. “Do you remember her? Bottle blond, never bothered with the regulation skirt. Or regulation knickers, come to that. She’s very thick with Miss Thorne—flounces in now and again to ‘mentor’ the girls. Whatever that means.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t imagine Adele teaching. “Isn’t she married and running some huge estate somewhere? That was what she said she was going to do. She wanted a helicopter pad before she was twenty-three, I remember her saying.”

  “Recently widowed,” said Nancy meaningfully. “She married the Duke of Pertonshire. Rather tragic—they were playing tennis one night, and a bolt of lightning hit his pacemaker and struck him stone dead. Still, he was over eighty. Fancy him being so active! I suppose it must have been a floodlit court…”

  Kathleen met my eye and pursed her lips. Neither of us needed to say any more, although Nancy was still musing on the oddness of it.

  “If you ask me,” said Kathleen, “that one’s got her eye on Lord Phillimore. Always manages to be here in a tight skirt whenever he pays a visit, and makes a big thing about her husband’s only just dead. She’s giving him grief counseling, Geraldine Thorne says.”

  “Oh, no, Kathleen,” said Nancy, looking at me quickly. “I’m sure she wouldn’t be so bold.”

  “I’m sure she would,” retorted Kathleen.

  I felt something twist inside my chest. The Phillimores had had the perfect, supportive marriage I dreamed of—the kind of breakfast-in-bed, nights-by-the-fireside security I was still holding out hope of finding, somewhere. You couldn’t replace that overnight! Not with someone like Adele Buchanan.

  I didn’t mean to say anything, but it burst out of me anyway. “But they were married for forty years! He still has her breakfast tray set up by the kettle in the butler’s pantry—I saw it at Christmas! And you know what he’s like about ladies—he’s got no idea that women like Adele even exist!”

  “Pay no attention to Kathleen, Betsy!” said Nancy, tucking her little hand around mine. “I’m sure it’s never even crossed his mind, even if the silly girl is setting her cap at him. No one could replace Lady Frances. Don’t you go worrying yourself! You’ve quite enough to think about.”

  As I squeezed back, I felt a sudden jolt of fear at how fragile her hand seemed.

  Franny had already gone, and when Nancy and Kathleen went, who would there be to tell me who I was? If I couldn’t find my mother, there’d be nobody.

  Kathleen, though, was still gnashing her teeth about Adele. There was obviously a raw nerve there. “Lord alone knows what she’s teaching those girls. She’s just as hard-faced as she ever was,” she snapped. “And she’s got one of those Shih Tzu things, brings it in with her in its own little handbag. Its own handbag, if you don’t mind! Can you imagine anything less sanitary?”

  Well, she couldn’t have designs on Lord P, I thought wi
th relief. He was a Great Dane man through and through. The Phillimore Great Danes ate lapdogs for a midmorning snack, between cats and pheasants.

  Eight

  Find your stop valve and your fuse box, and tape the number of your nearest plumber and electrician to them before you have an emergency.

  By the time I arrived on Liv’s doorstep at seven, I felt like I’d been up for about three days straight, even though that morning I’d been in Edinburgh and in a whole different world.

  My legs ached from marching around in my high consultant heels, my head was pounding from my early flight, and my mind was going round and round in ever-tightening circles as I turned over my stupid promise to Lord P and the Academy. I knew I had to do something, but what? I didn’t even know where to begin.

  If I told Lord P to sell the Academy because it was a money-sapping, feminist-enraging dinosaur, Nancy and Kathleen would be out on their ears, Franny would turn in her grave, and I’d never find out who’d left me there. On the other hand, if I encouraged him to keep it open, I’d have to find a way to make it work, and I had more chance of bringing Jane Austen back to life to teach a minuet class than of pulling that off. Plus, I’d have to keep up my impression of a business highflyer for another fortnight and persuade Fiona not to sack me for deserting my post.

  I swung my leather carry-on bag over the other shoulder and pressed the doorbell. Maybe something would come to me when I tried to explain it to Liv.

  I closed my eyes and wished really hard for some divine bolt of inspiration.

  Inside the house, footsteps thundered toward the door, which swung open with some force to reveal Liv, her blond hair soaked and plastered over her face. In the background I could hear a thudding sound.

  “Betsy!” she gasped, grabbing my hand. “Quick! Help!”

  “What?” I dumped my bag as she dragged me down the hall toward the kitchen. “What’s happened?”

  “I’ve flooded the house!” she wailed. “And I can’t find the cat! And—”

  “Deep breaths, Liv,” I said firmly. “Take a deep breath and tell me what’s happened.”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and shoved her long blond hair off her face. “I thought I ought to wash the sheets before you came. I used the last clean ones and didn’t have time to buy any more, so I put them in the wash.”

  “And?”

  “And…” Liv blinked and raised her hands. “And I don’t know after that!”

  I rushed past her to survey the chaos in the kitchen. Soapy water was creeping across the tiles, with a pretty pink froth on top, and it seemed to be coming from the washing machine, which was making weird banging, grinding noises.

  The washing machine door was partly open and a slimy pile of pink sheets had disgorged onto the floor in the manner of a gruesome birthing scene from a vet drama. Worryingly near the puddle of standing water was an ironing board, with an iron laid flat on a wet sheet, and a…

  I didn’t waste time asking. I bounded across the kitchen, unplugged the iron, yanked it off the sheet just as smoke was beginning to rise from the scorch mark, and then, twirling round for somewhere to put the iron, turned the washing machine off at the mains for good measure.

  Then I turned the radio off too, just to give myself a clear head, at which point the sound of a cat throwing up could be made out in the sitting room.

  At the door Liv burst into tears. “Sorry!” she howled. “Sorry!”

  “Liv, it’s fine,” I said, scooping up the soggy sheets and dumping them in the sink. “Everyone has a washing machine disaster at some point. I’m sure manufacturers cut deals with the bed linen people, to make sure you replace your sheets regularly.”

  But Liv had sunk into a chair and was burying her face in her arms. “I’ve had such a shit da-a-a-ay!” she howled. “Everything’s going wro-o-o-o-ong!”

  I tried to keep calm and picked out a rogue red, hand-dyed T-shirt, the source of the pink.

  “Look, at least you tried to wash the sheets,” I said, looking under the sink to see if she had any color-run remover but finding only an empty can of fly spray and a used J Cloth. “That’s much more sensible than just going to buy a new set.”

  Liv made a terrible gurgling sound, much worse than the washing machine. “I couldn’t get new sheets! My card got refused! I’ve got twenty-three quid left in the world, and Dad’s on the run! From the law!”

  “What?” My head bounced up so rapidly I almost hit it on the ironing board.

  “Dad’s gone to Spain and he hasn’t paid my allowance and he can’t help me because he can’t move any money out of his accounts!” Liv dragged her hair back off her face, and I could see the whites around her eyes. She looked a bit mad. “I mean, he’s not acting worried, but he won’t say what’s up, just that his assets are freezing or something, and I—” She clapped her hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. “What if the police kick down my doors?”

  I dumped the sheets in the sink to drain. “Liv, that only happens on telly. Calm down. Deep breaths. Tell me properly. What’s happened?”

  She wiped the mascara from under her eyes and fought to stop her sobs, staring at the mess between hiccups as if she couldn’t believe how it had got there. “I wanted to get the house nice for you coming to stay.” She hiccupped. “I put everything in together, and it took me ages to work out which liquid was which, and—”

  “Forget the washing machine. I mean, what’s happened to Ken?” I asked. “This is soon cleared up. Look, we need tea. You put the kettle on, and I’ll start on the flood. Did he say when he’d be back?” I dragged the squeezy mop out of the cupboard and began squidging.

  “No. But now that wad of cash he gave me last week makes sense…Oh,” she said, peering at my rapid mop action, “is that what you’re meant to do? Push, then squeeze? I’ve never used that. It’s clever, isn’t it?”

  “Easy when you know how. Keep taking deep breaths.” The water was receding, and so were Liv’s hiccups. But that only gave her more breath to panic with.

  “What am I going to do? No Erin, no Joan, no Dad…I can’t even put a wash on without flooding the house,” she said, following the mop, hypnotized. “And I’ve got a whole bunch of letters from the bank and the mortgage people, and I don’t understand them because Dad always takes care of stuff like that—”

  Liv stopped suddenly and looked me in the eye. “Tell me honestly, Betsy—I need to learn. That washing machine. The door’s meant to open, right? If you press the emergency stop button?”

  “Olivia,” I said. “I’ll be frank with you. There isn’t an emergency stop button on a washing machine. That’s the on/off switch.”

  “Really?” she said. “And do you put the liquid bag things in the…drawer part?”

  “You really don’t know how to work your washing machine?”

  “No,” she said in a small voice. “Does that make me a bad person?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again.

  I’d always known Liv was one of those lovably ditsy types whom people rushed to bail out—I’d been explaining everything from bicycle locks to the euro to her since we were at school. But I had no idea she’d managed to arrange a whole wall of people to shield her from the grim reality of washing machines. If she couldn’t wash her own pants, what was going on in her brain about mortgages? Liv wasn’t stupid, far from it. She had, after all, managed to line up four fiancés, one of whom had his own plane, and keep all the engagement presents afterward.

  She does know about wine, I told myself. And she has basic French, her hair’s immaculate, and she always looks like she has a live-in stylist.

  “You are OK to make the tea, aren’t you?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Of course!” Liv pouted, then undermined herself by having to check all the cupboards before she located the tea bags.

  I shook the last drops off the mop into the bucket and pointed to the kitchen table, which was, I noticed, covered in the same piles of paperwork I’d so
rted when I was last there. “We’ll sit down, open all those letters, and get things straightened out. I’ll help. It’s not that hard.”

  Liv had one final hiccup and managed a smile. “God, Betsy, you make it sound so easy. How come you always know what to do?”

  “I don’t,” I said simply. “I just deal with things one at a time. Now, from the start. Ken called you to say that he’s not on holiday but on the run…”

  It took a while to extract the details, since it hadn’t occurred to Liv to ask certain key questions (like why or for how long), but reading between the lines, it seemed that certain officers of Her Majesty’s Inland Revenue Collection Agency had sniffed fruity accounting, and now investigations were afoot into Ken’s returns. Consequently, Liv would no longer be receiving her monthly allowance—the proceeds from certain rental properties.

  “It’s a nightmare!” she wailed. “He kept saying, ‘It’s better if you don’t know, princess.’ I don’t mind not knowing, so long as I know roughly what it is he’s not telling me! I mean, is it better not to know he’s going to prison? Or that he’s remarried and doesn’t want to tell me? Or what?”

  Much as I liked Ken, if he’d been there, I’d have kicked his sweet-talking rear end right over Clapham Common and into Wandsworth. It was one thing treating your little girl like a princess, but leaving her in the lurch with a mortgage that she didn’t even know how to pay wasn’t fair at all. Until now, Liv’s part-time job in a Scottish-themed wine bar run by Ken’s dodgy friend Igor, plus Erin’s rent, had been keeping her in takeout and shoe money while the “house account” took care of the serious expense of living in London. The house account currently had fifty-three pounds and ten pence in it, and Liv’s Vogue subscription was due to go through any moment, which could wipe out the lot since Liv couldn’t recall how much the direct debit was for.