by Ann Purser
“Fergus Forsyth, Rain or Shine,” he said confidently. The girl looked down the guest list that Jean Slater had given her, and ticked off the name. “Welcome,” she said brightly. “Champagne is circulating … just go on in. You’ll find lots of friends, I’m sure,” she added, and turned to the person waiting behind Fergus.
Jean, standing unobtrusively chatting to Doreen in the corner, watched carefully. “He’s here,” she said, and Doreen nodded. “Should be interesting,” she said lightly, and walked across to join a group of women from the Soroptomists. These businesswomen would have been the last people Doreen would have sought out, except that she wore her chain of office, and that, for the moment, was her passport to their snooty circle. And, more importantly, from their position in the room, she could keep an eye on Howard.
Jean, too, made sure she had a clear view. Fergus was working his way round the room, and Jean smiled at the startled faces of some of those he passed on the way. He was approaching Howard now, and … yes, Howard was turning in his direction. She saw Fergus’s smile freeze, and then watched with increasing gratification as Howard’s colour rose to a vivid purple.
Fergus, on the other hand, was puzzled. Howard Jenkinson hissed at him, “What the hell are you doing here!” Fergus produced his invitation. “Same as everyone else, I suppose,” he had answered. “I was invited. Look …” But Howard did not look at it. He glanced swiftly round the room, and took Fergus by the elbow. “You’re leaving,” he said. “I did not invite you, and you have to go. Right now.” All this was said in a desperate undertone, as he hustled Fergus through the dense crowd towards the exit.
“Ah, Mr. Forsyth, how nice of you to come!” It was Jean’s cool voice, and she placed herself squarely between the pair of them and their route to the door. “Let me show you where refreshments are,” she added sweetly, without a glance at Howard. “Just follow me … Fergus, may I call you?” she said. “It’s a bit of a scrum!” Finally she turned to look at Howard. “So sorry to interrupt, Mr. Mayor,” she said, with a social smile, “but don’t worry, I’ll bring him straight back. How’s your own glass?” she added. “Shall I get you a refill? You look as if you need it,” she whispered, so that only he could hear.
Howard glared at her. There was nothing he could do without making a scene, and he turned away in despair. As he did so, he intercepted a look from his loving wife across the room to her old friend, Jean Slater, and did not like it. He did not like it at all. He returned to the window and made a great effort to listen to the parking problems of a transport company director, but he was uncomfortably aware of the silence that had fallen, and that only now was the buzz of conversation resuming. He was not imagining that voices were lowered, and heads swivelled between himself and that interloper now lifting a full glass of champagne to his lips?
After all the guests had left, Howard went to find Jean. She was in her office, waiting for him. “Right!” he said furiously. “What’s the explanation?”
“For what?” she said.
“You know perfectly well,” he said.
She shook her head.
“That Forsyth man!” he shouted at her. “How did he get an invitation?”
“He was on the list,” said Jean calmly. “Didn’t you notice his name? I did show you the final list this afternoon.”
“No, I bloody well didn’t notice!” Howard yelled. “Of course I didn’t! I trust you, you stupid bitch, to do your job properly! I’ve a good mind to send you packing right now!”
“I shouldn’t, if I was you,” said Jean, standing up and reaching for her handbag. “It wouldn’t look good, would it? People might put two and two together, and you know how rumours circulate. Now, I must be going, Howard. Ken and I are off to the pictures tonight. Another re-run of Brief Encounter at the Classic Cinema. Quite appropriate, really,” she added with a smile. “See you tomorrow. Good night, Howard. And don’t bother to thank me for all my hard work. I really enjoyed it. G’night!”
TWENTY-THREE
RUPERT FORSYTH SAT ON A RICKETY CHAIR IN THE back room of Rain or Shine, and stared angrily at his son. “Well, what did you expect?” he said. Fergus had told him of his humiliation in the Mayor’s Parlour.
“You’d have thought I was a dirty old tramp off the streets!” Fergus said again. “He was about to turf me out by the scruff of the neck, when that nice Mrs. Slater rescued me. I kept on telling him I’d received an invitation and been checked in on the list at the door, but he wouldn’t listen. Just kept spluttering and pushing at me to get out. God, what a nasty piece of work!”
Rupert was silent, thinking. If Howard had been as angry as Fergus reported, he’d be unlikely to help them now with the planning permission for the extension. The boy had undone all the good done by his mother. Daisy had been so sure it would all be fine. “No problem,” Howard had said. And he, Rupert, could not pretend he did not know how she had persuaded him. It rankled still, after all these years, although Daisy protested, now as always, that she regarded the whole thing as a means to an end. “Nothing serious, dear,” she always said. “Think of it as a job I quite enjoy. And a little hold on Howard Jenkinson is all to the good, you can’t deny that. We’ll need a fair bit of influence to get those plans through.” Now he saw his son looking at him as if expecting an answer to some question.
“Are you listening, Dad?” Fergus was still simmering. “I’ve a good mind to get my own back on the two-faced old devil!” he added. “We bloody well know enough about his private life to humiliate him in spades!”
“Don’t swear in this shop,” Rupert said automatically. “And anyway, I reckon he was already humiliated,” he added flatly. “What’s more, this business depends on absolute confidentiality. So don’t even think of it.” He was silent again, and after a few minutes stood up. “Well, I must be getting back,” he said. “There is one thing you can do with your hours of spare time,” he said acidly, “and that is give some thought to the question of how your name came to be on that invitation list.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to do anything about it, then?” asked Fergus angrily.
Rupert’s fists were clenched. “Oh, I promise I’ll do something about it, all right,” he said, and added fiercely, “but it’s nothing to do with you, so I’d be glad if you’d just get on with your work and keep your eyes away from that window. The women in New Brooms are also nothing to do with you. I want to see some improvement in our sales figures, otherwise I shall have to come back in the shop myself and keep a check on you.”
Fergus looked at his father, at the veins throbbing in his temples and his high colour, and decided to say no more on the subject of Howard Jenkinson. Dad had said he intended to do something about it, and he seldom broke his promise.
IN THE KITCHEN OF THE JENKINSON HOUSE, THE ATMOSPHERE was heavy with tension. After the reception the previous evening, Howard and Doreen had been driven home in complete silence. Neither said a word. Howard was too furious to speak, and Doreen was waiting patiently until he did, in order to assess the damage. She knew from the way he sat in the back of the big limousine, with a good metre of space between them, that he suspected her involvement in the Forsyth fiasco. She hugged herself with delight when she thought about it. So she had been right, then, about his den and what it contained. Den of iniquity, she reckoned! She’d seen the stack of videos through the keyhole, and the rest was easy, knowing Howard’s proclivities.
His reaction to young Fergus Forsyth couldn’t have been more revealing. Goodness, in some ways Howard was a complete fool. Anyone with a grain of sense would have welcomed Fergus with a smile, pretended not to know him, asked his name, got away with it smoothly. But then, Howard was in some ways not a sensible man. He always said, at every possible opportunity, that he was a man who called a spade a spade. “Plain man of the people,” as he had once sickeningly described himself to a local journalist. He never looked beyond the obvious, not even when—as in the case of Ken and herself—it stared him
in the face.
Now, the next morning, they studiously ignored each other, and read their separate newspapers. Finally, Doreen decided to push things forward, one way or another. For one thing, she wanted to know how far they’d got with the Farnden house. One or two telephone calls from Howard could usually circumvent the most slow-moving bureaucrats or, come to that, any of the solicitors, agents, surveyors and all the company of hangers-on involved in house purchase.
“It was a nice evening, wasn’t it?” she said conversationally. “Successful, would you say?”
He stared at her.
“How dare you!” he spat at her.
“I beg your pardon?” she said politely. There was a strength in Doreen that always prevailed when under attack. Howard knew this, and though he would like to put her over his knee and smack her bottom as hard as he could—well, yes, he would quite like to do that!—he knew that her careful refusal to quarrel, or even raise her voice, always won in the end.
Useless, then, to attempt a confrontation, and ask what the hell she and Jean Slater thought they were up to. He knew, anyway. Jean was angry at him because of her job, and Doreen was angry on Jean’s behalf. Funny, that, he thought, as he managed a half-smile and a grudging apology. It was funny that Doreen should be so close to a woman who’d happily tumbled with him in the hay. Well, women were a mystery. A lovely mystery, but very puzzling to a straightforward chap like himself.
“Yes, well,” he said, “I suppose it was quite a good do. Last one for me, unless I do another Mayoral year sometime. Now, time for a little drinkie before lunch. Your usual, pet?”
After that, Doreen spent the rest of the day in the garden. Jean came round after work and they strolled about the immaculate lawns chortling over the previous evening. Howard was still at home, and looked at them from inside the sitting room, wondering what they were talking about for such a long time. Perhaps he’d ring Ken and fix up a round of golf. It looked like being a fine evening. Yes, that’s what he’d do. He always won, and Ken never seemed to mind. He opened the French windows to join the girls and tell them what he planned.
IN LONG FARNDEN, DEREK WALKED INTO THE KITCHEN and pecked Lois on the cheek. “Hi, love,” she said. “Good day?”
“Not bad,” he said. “Traffic was bad in Tresham. I stopped to get an evening paper, and wished I hadn’t. Anyway, there’s a picture of one of your clients. His Important Worship the Mayor, seen chatting at a champagne reception in the Town Hall. All right for some, I reckon. Especially as my taxes are probably paying for it.” He put the Tresham Chronicle down on the table, and washed his hands at the sink. Lois idly took up the paper and looked closely at the photograph.
It was indeed Howard Jenkinson, towering over a familiar figure. Howard was not smiling. In fact he looked frighteningly angry. Somebody had mischievously chosen an unflattering aspect of Tresham’s Mayor.
“I reckon a few harsh words are being said,” Lois laughed. “Here, Derek. Isn’t that young Forsyth? Our Rupert’s son? Hazel and her pal are chums with him, seeing as his shop’s opposite ours. A surprise guest, from the look of it. What a joke!”
“Wheels within wheels, if you ask me,” said Derek. “Corruption in high places. You stay well clear of it, me duck,” he added, seeing Lois’s expression. “Nothing to do with us.”
But Lois remembered the anonymous telephone call. She looked again at the photograph, and decided she’d not want to meet Howard Jenkinson in a narrow passage on a dark night. Especially if she’d somehow got on the wrong side of him. Whoever made an enemy of Howard Jenkinson would have cause to regret it. She was sure of that.
TWENTY-FOUR
A MONTH OR SO LATER, HOWARD HAD, AS DOREEN ANticipated, pulled out all the stops. He’d arranged to buy the Farnden house, had put their own on the market, sold it within a week, and got builders working on old Cyril’s roof and windows. A moving date was fixed, and the removal vans ordered from a local company who owed Howard one or two favours.
“They’re doing all the packing, pet,” he said to a dutifully impressed Doreen. “And all at a very good rate. I’ve got some chaps from the yard coming to help sort it all out at the weekend, and we should be straight by Monday.”
“I might go up to London tomorrow,” Doreen said lightly. “Get new curtain fabric and one or two other things. Probably go to Harrods.”
“You’ll be too busy see your sister, then?” Howard dreaded Doreen’s visits to her sister. She always returned with stories of how emancipated and successful the wretched woman was. Unmarried, she had made a brilliant career in banking, and Doreen was exceedingly proud of her. And, thought Howard, more than a little envious.
“Of course I shall. It’s only a step away from Harrods. I’ll probably be fairly late back. She likes me to have supper with her.”
“You’ll need some extra cash, I suppose,” said Howard grudgingly.
“That’s nice of you, dear,” she said. “My account’s healthy, but curtains and things aren’t personal, are they? Don’t worry, Howard, I’ll go easy.”
Privately, Doreen had no qualms about the spending spree she intended to have. They’d sold the Tresham house for well over a million, and Howard had beaten down the Farnden price. The work being done was all in the trade that Howard knew so well. It would be cost price for everything at old Cyril’s. She always thought of it as old Cyril’s. Maybe she’d have a house nameplate engraved “Old Cyril’s.” That would annoy His Worship!
She was a wonder, this wife of his, Howard thought. He congratulated himself on choosing her from all the others. And now, as the move drew closer, she was unflustered, and seemed to think the whole thing was a great adventure.
THE WEEK BEFORE THE MOVE SAW A GREAT DEAL OF ACTIVITY in Farnden. The village knew all the details, of course, and was looking forward with eager anticipation to having such a rich source of gossip living amongst them.
In the shop, Gran and Josie were laughing at Derek’s suggestion that they should put a welcome card through the Jenkinsons’ door, with a list of specialities available. “Fat chance,” Bill had said. “Mrs. Jenkinson has shopped at Waitrose since time began. She ain’t likely to change her ways now.”
Lois propped herself on a stool by the post office window and said she thought it was an extremely good idea. The Jenkinsons already employed a Farnden cleaner, so why shouldn’t they patronise the village shop? Josie agreed to think about it, and Gran disappeared to the store room to check supplies. “Looks like they’re just about finished across the road,” Lois said. “The big day is almost here. Bill says Mrs. J is very organised. Everything labelled and sorted. He’s been helping her, as there’s not much cleaning to do now. Mayor’s useless, apparently. Just walks about giving orders, which Mrs. J ignores. The only thing old Jenkinson has done is pack up his mysterious den himself. Bill offered to help, but no, it was to be left to him.”
“Well, we all know now what he’s got in there, grubby old sod,” said Gran, coming in with a pile of boxes. “Anyway, who cares? Probably keeps the likes of Rupert Forsyth in business, from what I hear.”
“Is there anything you don’t hear, Mum?” said Lois, laughing. “Now, what did I come in for? Oh yes, Josie, have you got any more of that cheese your dad likes?”
NEXT MORNING, DOREEN LEFT TRESHAM ON AN EARLY train. She parked at the station, and bought a return ticket to Euston. Once on the train, she felt all the heavy weight of being Howard’s wife, Mayoress of Tresham, mother and grandmother, gradually slipping away. Now she was just Doreen, on her own with a pleasant day ahead. She had one duty job to do, and then she could relax in Harrods, meet her sister and talk about a different world altogether.
“You look good, for a woman about to move house,” her sister said. They were sipping martinis before supper, and Doreen looked around approvingly at her sister’s cool, elegant flat.
“I’m looking forward to it. Chose some gorgeous stuff for new curtains, and ordered a new suite for the lounge. Howard will be
furious, but he’ll get over it.” She settled comfortably in her chair.
“Here,” said her sister, “you’ve dropped a letter.” She looked at it idly. “Ay it yours?” she added. “It’s addressed to a PO Box.”
Doreen took it swiftly and put it in her handbag. “I just collected it for a friend,” she said. “Now, how d’you make this martini? It’s really delicious! I think I could be persuaded to have another.”
And so they moved on to other topics, were relaxed and happy with each other, and consumed a supper of salmon and strawberries with relish.
It was late by the time Doreen collected her car from Tresham station, and set off for home. She was pleasantly tired, but alert enough, she told herself. How had Howard managed? she wondered. Probably spent the evening at the Club with Ken Slater. She hoped all had gone well. So far, her plans for the day had been trouble free. She turned into the drive and saw the house in darkness. Fair enough, she said to herself, it is very late.
She walked through to the sitting room and put on a low lamp. There were newspapers on the floor where Howard had dropped them, and a whisky glass left on the table by his chair. All perfectly normal. She tidied the papers, stretched out a hand to pick up the glass, but then left it where it was. Then she walked over to the French windows, opened them wide, and walked out into the starry night.
“How lovely!” she murmured to herself. “A perfect end to a perfect day.”
She walked through the shrubbery that Howard claimed was his idea, though in fact she had selected the plants and overseen the planting. Strolling out on to the lawns that swept up towards the pond, she smiled to herself. One day away from Tresham made her see things in perspective. Could I have lived my life differently? she wondered. Set out on a different course right from the beginning, more like my sister?