by Sue Welfare
Chapter Six
‘I was thinking we really ought to go and see the folly before we go home,’ said Fleur, moving aside cups and tea plates to make enough room to spread out a map of the stately home’s formal gardens on the picnic table. ‘I reckon if we go down that way—’ she pointed towards an impressive row of topiary arches, ‘and then turn right, that takes us down past the lake and out through the woods.’
‘Are you completely out of your mind?’ said Rose, finishing off a Danish pastry. ‘The bloody thing is miles away. When in heaven’s name did you ever want to see a garden folly?’
‘But you like gardens,’ protested Fleur. ‘That’s why we came.’
‘I know and I’ve had a really lovely time looking round this one, but my feet are killing me. We’ve been here all day. I’m dog-tired and to be honest I just want to go home now,’ said Rose.
‘Oh right, that’s it, it’s always what you want, isn’t it?’ snapped Fleur. ‘I’m only over here for a couple of weeks.’
‘So you keep telling everyone,’ said Rose with a theatrical sigh.
‘And it wasn’t cheap to get in.’
‘If it’s about value for money,’ said Rose, opening up her handbag and pulling out her purse, ‘please let me pay for me and Jack – that way you won’t feel as if you’ve been robbed.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ protested Fleur, holding up her hand. ‘It’s my treat.’ She said it with no grace whatsoever, making it sound more like a threat than a gift. ‘As I said, we don’t see each other that often and I’ve only got a few more days left before I go back and I didn’t know what else to buy you.’
‘And you’re telling me that your trip back to England won’t be complete without a walk down to this folly?’
‘It was built by the late fourth Earl and is designed to represent the ruins of a gothic fairy-tale tower,’ said Fleur, reading from the description on the map. ‘Complete with a spiral staircase, and one remaining stained glass window showing the slaying of the dragon by St George, it is considered one of the finest examples of architect Cornelius E. Fletcher’s early work.’
‘Really? Well, in that case you’d better go,’ said Rose sarcastically, waving her away. ‘We’re all right here, aren’t we, Jack? We’ll get ourselves another pot of tea and have a crack at the rest of the cakes. Don’t you worry about us. We’ll be fine. We’ll wait for you here. Knock yourself out . . .’
Fleur stared at her open-mouthed. ‘What?’
‘Well, you want to go and see it, don’t you? We’ll wait for you here,’ said Rose, glancing at her watch. ‘You’d better get a move on if you want to get a good look at it before closing time.’
Very slowly, Fleur got to her feet. Meanwhile Jack picked up the map and began to fold it up for her. He folded it carefully so that the route to the folly was uppermost. ‘There we are,’ he said smiling benignly. ‘You’ll be needing this . . .’
*
After checking her watch for what seemed like the thousandth time that day, Suzie made her way across the garden towards the house. The guests should begin arriving soon. She had been hoping that Liz would have reappeared by now, all buffed and puffed and oh-so-beautiful, to act as the chief meeter and greeter for their guests. Suzie’s baby sister Lizzie had always had a natural gift for the kind of social handshaking and air kissing that made people feel as if they were the centre of the universe. And who wouldn’t want to be met by Lizzie Bingham, the golden girl off the TV? So far, however, there was no sign of her.
Suzie glanced around: there were drinks on standby, canapés . . . Mentally she ran through the checklist, working out what else needed to be done.
She glanced at her watch again; all this clock-watching was getting to be a nervous tic. She really wanted to hand over responsibility to Liz for a while so that she and Sam could nip home, grab a shower and get changed. While she was there she’d have a chance to see if Hannah had sneaked home, she could feed the animals, let the dogs out, check the phone in case anyone had rung to say they were on their way or were lost or God knows what else. Even as she thought it, Suzie smiled to herself: actually, maybe going home wasn’t such a bright idea. There were almost as many jobs to do at home as there were at her parents’ house.
Pushing open the kitchen door of her parents’ cottage, she made for the hallway and called up from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Hello? Liz? Are you going to be much longer?’
Not a sound.
‘Lizzie, are you up there? How much longer are you going to be? Only Sam and I would really like to go home and get changed. Liz?’
There was still nothing.
Suzie climbed the stairs two at a time and knocked on Lizzie’s bedroom door. There was no answer.
‘Lizzie? You’re not still in the shower, are you? Liz!’ She knocked harder and then finally pushed the door open. Inside, her younger sister was lying spreadeagled on top of the bed wearing nothing but the skimpiest pair of knickers, basking under some kind of lamp. Her eyes were firmly closed, her head tipped up towards the light, with her iPod on and earplugs in.
The sound of the door as Suzie slammed it shut made Liz jump, her eyes snapping open. She leapt off the bed and snatched up her robe.
‘What the hell!’ she shouted furiously, pulling it on. ‘What are you doing? Why didn’t you knock?’
‘I did. I knocked and I called and then I knocked some more. What are you doing?’
‘It’s my new holistic body therapy, it energises and revitalises your skin from the cellular level. I need to—’
Suzie held up a hand to stop her. ‘What you need to do is to come downstairs and hold the fort while Sam and I go home and get changed. People will be arriving soon.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Look at me, I can’t go down like this, I haven’t done my hair or my make-up yet.’ Liz protested, tying up her robe. ‘I’m not ready—’
‘For God’s sake, Liz, you’ve been up here for ages. And don’t look at me like that. Sam and I haven’t stopped all day. You’ve had plenty of time to get ready, you swanned in and spread a little star dust around the place and basically you’ve done nothing else since.’
Liz squared her shoulders indignantly. ‘That’s not true. I’ve paid for all—’
Suzie spoke over the top of her. ‘I know exactly what you’ve paid for, Liz, we’ve chipped in too and we’ve done the lion’s share of the work, so please can you come downstairs and give me and Sam a hand?’ Suzie could feel her frustration bubbling over.
‘I’ll be down in half an hour,’ said Liz, sitting down at the dressing table.
‘But people could start arriving in half an hour,’ protested Suzie.
‘Well in that case it’ll be perfect timing then, won’t it?’ Liz snapped. As she was speaking, Liz opened up a Pandora’s box of potions, lotions and creams and started to unpack a selection of brushes.
‘I need to go home and get ready,’
‘Well, off you go then,’ said Liz, waving her away. ‘I’m not stopping you, am I?’
‘But—’ Suzie began.
‘But what? Oh for God’s sake, Suzie, stop being such a bloody martyr.’ Liz said furiously, spinning around to glare at her. ‘You’re not indispensable, you know. The whole world isn’t going to fall apart just because you’re not there to sort it all out. People can manage perfectly well without you. We can manage without you – now just go. It’ll be fine. Go!’
Suzie was about to protest and then stopped and stared at Liz, all the words jammed up in her throat in a tight and angry knot. Finally, not trusting herself to say anything civil, Suzie stalked out of the room, down the stairs and out of the front door. Pulling her keys from the pocket of her jeans, she headed for her car.
*
In the grounds of the stately home, Fleur, who was hurrying along one of the gravelled side avenues, glanced back over her shoulder to see if Rose had had a fit of conscience and decided to come with her after all. When she saw nothing, and was o
ut of sight, Fleur sank gratefully onto a stone bench beside a bubbling rill. She wondered if anyone would complain if she slipped off her shoes and stuck her tired, aching feet in the glittering tumbling water.
The irony of today’s day trip wasn’t lost on Fleur. Ill-named, Fleur loathed everything to do with gardening and flowers – although it wasn’t just that that was worming away at her. Being a confirmed singleton, there was something rather grisly about being asked to help celebrate forty years of someone else’s happy marriage. Talk about rubbing it in.
Fleur opened her handbag, took out her cigarettes and lit up – her last guilty pleasure. She blew out a long plume of smoke into the warm afternoon air and contemplated the present turn of events.
Forty years; it seemed impossible that it had been forty years ago since her little sister Rose’s wedding. She remembered it as if it had been yesterday. She had been chief bridesmaid in a blue and white Laura Ashley print dress with puff sleeves and a floppy hat. After the wedding, a few hours after the happy couple had driven off for their week’s honeymoon in Devon, Fleur had boarded a train to Heathrow to catch a flight to Australia.
Although Fleur had never said anything to anyone else, Rose getting married to Jack had been one of the factors that had finally convinced her to take the job in Australia.
Her little sister Rose had always seemed to have life so easy. Whereas Fleur was big and clumsy, Rose had always been petite and pretty, with those great big blue eyes and a mass of curls. Unlike Fleur, who had a gift for telling it as it was, Rose was more circumspect about what she said and how she said it. Rose had always been sweet and obliging, always laughing and kind, the apple of her parents’ and everyone else’s eye.
While Fleur had had to struggle every step of the way and work like a dog to succeed, things just seemed to drop into Rose’s lap. It all felt so unfair and it was difficult – even though she loved Rose with all her heart – not to be envious.
So while Fleur had slaved away at college, and spent all her money on books and cookery courses, no one had been at all surprised that it was Rose who managed to bag Jack, tall, dark, handsome Jack. Jack who owned his own business, Jack with money and prospects, a house of his own and a car.
Fleur sniffed; prospects – what an old-fashioned idea that was. While she had been working her fingers to the bone, no one would ever had said Fleur had prospects.
Fleur had studied and worked all the hours that God sent, taking poorly-paid jobs in good kitchens, and made herself comfortable up there on the shelf. Rose made jewellery and painted things and sold hand-decorated bowls of bulbs on a market stall, and always got on with her parents, while Fleur didn’t. Sadly, they were both gone now, which meant that she had never had a chance to heal all those rucks and scrapes and scratches that they’d had over the years. She had known deep down that they were proud of her, always pleased to see her when she came home, but there was a part of her that always believed they were even more pleased when she left.
Oh yes, Rose was most definitely their blue-eyed girl, but even so Fleur was expecting – hoping – that, when she announced she was considering going to Australia to take a job managing a restaurant, there would be someone in the family who would beg her to reconsider, tell her not to go, tell her it was a step too far, that they wanted her to stay. But – all caught up in plans for Rose’s wedding – no one had raised a single word of protest, not a single solitary word. Looking back at her younger self, Fleur knew she had come across as independent and bolshie, and that the lack of attention her family had showed was a matter of poor timing, not indifference. Nevertheless, even after all these years, it still hurt.
Fleur backhanded away an unexpected flurry of tears. They had let her leave, just like that, all those years ago when she had wanted everyone to tell her to stay, wanted them to tell her that they loved her too much to let her go. They had said nothing.
But pride is a strange thing. When no one had spoken up, Fleur had gone to work in a diner in Sydney, cutting off her nose to spite her face. Forty years on, she had ended up in Queensland, single, successful and still – despite plenty of relationships along the way – all alone, a wealthy woman with a chain of restaurants and enough money to do more or less anything she wanted. If only she could decide exactly what that was.
Forty years. Fleur sniffed back a fresh crop of tears. Where had all the time gone? And here were Rose and Jack, still up there in the spotlight with their perfect bloody marriage.
And now, just when she thought it was over, Fleur had finally met someone, Frank. Not that she had told Jack or Rose – or anyone else come to that. The trouble with relationships was all that love nonsense didn’t get any easier as you got older.
They’d been seeing each other for months now but she still couldn’t work out how he felt. What if he didn’t care after all? When she’d mentioned the idea that he might come with her to England he’d said he couldn’t get away.
‘Well okay, that’s fine,’ she had snapped. ‘Maybe that’s a good thing. It wasn’t going anywhere anyway, was it?’
And with that Fleur had left Frank sitting in the restaurant with his coffee, her dessert and the bill, and not so much as a backward glance.
She stubbed out her cigarette in an ornamental urn. God, there were times when she wished she had learnt how to keep her mouth shut.
*
Back at Jack and Rose’s house, Suzie was heading for the car.
‘Where the hell are you going now?’ shouted Sam, hurrying to catch up with her.
‘I’m going home to get changed and so are you. If anyone wants anything, just tell them to talk to Lady Bloody Bountiful upstairs.’
Sam stalled and came to a halt. ‘So now what’s happened?’ he said.
‘What do you mean “So now what’s happened”? You make it sound like I’m about three. I just want to nip home and get changed out of my jeans and put something nice on and Liz is upstairs being her usual self. When I asked her to come down and help she told me to go. Apparently you can manage without me.’
‘I can?’ said Sam, looking confused.
‘Not just you – everyone. I’m not indispensable, you know.’
‘Is that what she said? Oh come on, Suzie, you’re over-reacting.’
‘Oh right, so take her side why don’t you? I’m over-reacting? Oh, so it’s my fault that Liz is a lazy, selfish, spoilt, self-centred . . .’ Suzie ran out of air and words. ‘You know what she’s like. She thinks the whole world revolves around her. She drives me mad.’
Sam raised his eyebrows and, for the first time in weeks, laughed. ‘You don’t say.’
‘It’s not funny. She said that everything would be just fine here without me, without us.’
‘She’s probably right – come on, let’s go.’
Suzie stared at him. ‘But we can’t do that, you know she won’t do a thing. She’ll be upstairs painting her face and doing her hair and not taking a blind bit of notice of what’s going on out here. After all the planning and arranging and trying to keep it all secret that we’ve been through I want everything to be perfect—’
‘And it will be. I’ll go and pin a notice up on the marquee to say Liz is in charge and inside, and let everyone else know that if they’ve got any queries they just ask Liz. Oh and I’ll fetch Megan while I’m at it and leave a message with Matt just in case Hannah shows up. It’ll be fine.’
‘How will it be fine?’ Suzie protested.
‘Because when it comes down to it, these things always are. Why don’t you go and get the car. I’ll only be a couple of minutes.’
Suzie watched him go. He was right of course. They’d hired good people, and had already done most of the donkeywork themselves – the whole thing wouldn’t crumble and fail if they took half an hour out. Would it?
The trouble was that Suzie couldn’t help thinking that if they were going home, there really ought to be someone in charge. She had wanted to hand the baton over, not have it thrown back i
n her face. Liz always had a knack of getting out of things, as well as getting under her skin. Although Suzie had no doubt at all that when it came to handing out medals for who did the most on the day, Liz would be right up there, elbowing her way to the front to take the applause.
By the time Suzie had unlocked the car and moved a pile of boxes and bags off the seats, Sam was hurrying back across the grass.
‘Okay, let’s hit the road. I’ve told everyone that if they want anything Liz is in the house, and Megan said she wants to stay and get the rest of the tables done. I said we’d bring her dress and shoes back with us. Okay?’
Suzie was about to protest and then nodded. ‘Okay.’
Sam looked at her, eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Okay? Really? You’re not going to say it can’t be done, and that we can’t go and that we should hang around until Madam decides to put in an appearance?’
‘I’m not really like that, am I? Liz said that I was a control freak.’
Sam tipped his head to one side. ‘If the cap fits. You know as well as I do that someone’s got to take charge of things and you’re just naturally good at it. If that’s control freakery – who cares?’
Suzie glared at him and then gave in and sighed, ‘Actually you’re right and to be perfectly honest I’m way too knackered to argue. I just want to get home, grab a shower, have a cup of tea and put my frock on. Although at this rate I’m going to be too tired to enjoy the party.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Sam said, which Suzie realised was pretty much his answer to everything.
*
‘Just how much longer do you think Fleur’s going to be?’ said Rose, peering off into the middle distance beyond the topiary arches and the rose beds and the great borders of perennials and expertly trimmed shrubs. ‘She’s been gone ages. I want to have a shower and get changed before we go out to dinner. What time did she say Liz had booked the table for?’