by Unknown
Pheely’s cottage was a real mess.
It wasn’t the Lodge itself, but a ramshackle building tucked behind the big house that its occupant described as a seventeenth-century Nissen hut. Part artist’s studio, part open wardrobe, its interior was an installation in itself – something Tracey Emin couldn’t hope to achieve in a lifetime of lying in bed sulking.
Having been guided to it through a disorienting maze of overgrown topiary, past astonishing lichen-coated statues, fountains that spurted ivy in place of water, and twisted fruit trees that looked like goblins, Ellen had to look long and hard at Pheely’s mess to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming. No, dreams didn’t contain fifteen-kilo bags of dog food slumped beside a filthy potter’s wheel on which stood an open box of Tampax. Dreams didn’t feature a row of huge red knickers drying on an empty wine rack, or enough washing up in the Belfast sink to keep Nanette Newman’s hands soft for years to come. Compared to this, the Shaggers’ mess in Goose Cottage was a dropped sock in a show home.
‘I had a quick tidy-up in your honour,’ Pheely announced proudly, ‘which is why I’ve only got one eye made up. There’s plonk in the fridge – crack it open and I’ll daub the other.’ She whisked through to the modern lean-to extension, which housed a small bathroom and toilet from which Hamlet was taking a noisy drink.
The ‘cottage’ was as extraordinary as its wild surroundings. Tucked behind the huge boarded-up Lodge, it was little more than a long, low Cotswold-stone barn with a chimney at each end. With its vaulted roof and hefty oak cross-beams, it felt like the hull of an upside-down ship. Perhaps that was why Pheely’s possessions had fallen everywhere when it capsized, Ellen thought, as she picked her way past bags of earthenware clay, and over a carpet of lone shoes and dog chews to the ancient, rust-flecked fridge, which when open revealed nothing but wine and fruit.
Despite the weirdness of the set-up, she found the place surprisingly comforting to mooch around. Like her parents’ dishevelled bedroom at Goose Cottage, it reminded her of surfers’ cottages in Cornwall and crowded camper-vans on the road.
Looking around for a corkscrew, she wondered where Pheely slept. The cottage was just one big double-height room, the fireplace at one end housing a small, grumbling Rayburn and the one at the other a big kiln – the only sources of heating, it seemed. Beneath the illogical untidiness, there was a logical progression between the two, from kitchen-cum-laundry, past a dining-table-cum-paper-mountain to two very high piles of clothes in the shape of sofas, indicating that there was some sort of seating arrangement somewhere below. To one side, in front of a row of huge north-facing french windows, was a series of clay-crusted benches, shelves, another sink and the potter’s wheel with its Tampax installation. Through the open doors, Ellen could see a small terrace cluttered with pots, statues and garden ornaments, some glazed, others left natural and quite a few broken.
But there was no bed. Ellen had no idea where Pheely slept – and she had a daughter living here too.
‘Is Daffodil out?’ she asked, when Pheely emerged, both amazing green eyes now painted with dark, luscious shadow so that they gleamed from her face like slices of kiwi fruit. Dressed in a purple velvet top that clung to her curves and a fantastically clashing long, burnt-orange silk skirt, she looked amazing. Ellen felt very understated in her best cream cord hipsters, a white shirt knotted tightly under her bust. She’d hoped they showed off her tan, but beside Pheely’s colourful presence she felt drab and sepia.
‘Away at school,’ Pheely explained, carefully extracting two dirty glasses from the crowded sink then finding she was unable to get to the taps to wash them. ‘But I have her back here next weekend, mugging up like mad, poor darling. God, they work hard for these exams. Sometimes I’m glad I never went through it. This was Daddy’s studio.’ She did her change-of-subject butterfly dance as she headed to the sink in the workshop area to clean the glasses. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes.’ Ellen wrestled with an ancient, rusty corkscrew as she tried to open a bottle of something that simply declared itself ‘Cheap White Wine’ on the colourful label.
‘It suits me here,’ Pheely said, without total conviction. ‘I can’t possibly afford to run the Lodge – Daddy put it in trust for Dilly, which at least keeps the property vultures at bay. She turns eighteen this August, so I guess I’ll be her lodger if she claims her inheritance. The Lodge lodger.’ She winked, holding up two dripping glasses, which still bore multicoloured lipstick rims. ‘There! Squeaky clean.’
Ellen had dragged out the cork a lump at a time and now splashed out the CWW. ‘Were those your father’s sculptures in the garden?’ she asked, passing Pheely a glass.
She nodded. ‘His “bronze meddles” as he called them. Mostly experimental. I can’t bear to sell them. Ironic, really – I long to cast in bronze but I can’t afford to. One has to be a very successful sculptor to go the cold-cast route without a commission, like Daddy could. So I stick to clay pots and gnomes. Selling one of his works would raise the money to make twenty bronzes of my own but I’d need more meddles and less honour. And nobody would buy mine, of course.’ She laughed at herself. ‘That’s the difference. Cheers! To new friendships,’ she toasted gaily, almost smashing both glasses in her enthusiasm to butterfly-dance away from the subject and get drunk.
Cheap White Wine was surprisingly good. Because there was nowhere to sit, they wandered on to the little terrace to drink it.
‘Okay – here’s your brief.’ Pheely was already half-way down her glass, the bottle clasped under one arm in anticipation of a top-up. ‘Tonight, Hell’s Bells has called the great and the good – that’s the rich and the talented – of the village to the manor for an auction of promises. The idea is that talented creatures like you and I flog our wares to talentless rich bastards like the residents of Gin Palace Heights to raise money for the restoration of the loo with the view.’
‘The River Folly?’
Pheely shuddered. ‘As you can imagine, I was not keen, but Hell’s has a very persuasive air about her as you’ll no doubt see.’ She took a long draught of CWW. ‘I, for my sins, have agreed to auction a portrait bust, which quite frankly is far too generous of me. Do you know how long it takes to sculpt somebody in clay?’
After a discreet look at some of the earthenware gargoyles and fairies around her, Ellen guessed it took a while.
‘You – lucky girl – only have to donate a massage. Very easy. You can knock one off in under an hour, I should imagine, although I wouldn’t mind betting that whoever buys it will probably be far too embarrassed ever to claim it. They’re a conservative lot round here.’ She drained her glass. ‘But I had to offer your services to get you in. It’s a very select event – strictly by invitation – no blacks, no Irish, no Wycks.’
Ellen raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to question this, but Pheely was already talking again, topping up her glass as she spoke. ‘Now, tonight will undoubtedly be quite a hoot, so please don’t worry, I’m not dragging you through the gates of hell – just to the rather fascinating spectacle of Ely Gates sucking up to Hell’s Bells. I’ll point him out later. And to spice everything up no end, Spurs is staging his first appearance in over a decade.’ The bottle clattered against the glass, spilling its contents over the rim.
‘Spurs?’ Ellen quickly took the glass from her to prevent the lovely purple and orange outfit getting spattered.
‘Thanks. Sorry, I’m a bit het-up.’ Pheely stepped back quickly and blinked as a thought occurred to her. ‘Do you think we have time for a quick joint?’ She sounded like a little girl asking if there was time to go to the loo before they set out.
Ellen felt a great big grin wrap itself around her face. ‘You have gear?’
‘Grow my own.’ Pheely looked at her watch. ‘Oh, fuck it, we’ll be a bit late. I have to relax. You’re so sweet putting up with me. I will explain why I’m all over the place about this thing, I promise.’
Oh, the heaven of really good grass on a su
nny evening in an enchanted garden, Ellen mused cheerfully, ten minutes later, as she perched on a gargoyle head and held a breath of sweet, pure sensimilla in her lungs. It certainly beat the nicotine cravings, and made her first day in Oddlode seem like the best of her life.
‘Mmmmmmmmm.’ Pheely had taken the joint and was inhaling a grateful drag. ‘God, that’s better. Think slow, Pheely, think sloooooow.’ She giggled, dropping her neck to relax it and sending a waterfall of dark curls on to the burning spliff. Not seeming to notice, she tipped her head back and took a deep breath, gazing at Ellen with her luminous eyes.
‘Jasper Belling – known to all as Spurs, and that’s not one of my nicknames, I promise -was a terrible tearaway. You really can’t imagine how bad he was. I quite liked him at one time, before he turned too twisted. He did a lot more than cost his father his political career. When he left this village eleven years ago, he left it very, very bitter. I really think that had he stayed a day longer somebody would have killed him. And now,’ she took a toke and handed back the joint, ‘he’s back.’
Ellen let this sink in along with the delicious sensation of total and utter doped-up happiness. It was hard to marry the two. Pheely’s homegrown stash was potent stuff. She was already almost too far gone to talk. ‘Why?’ she croaked.
Pheely shrugged. ‘Nobody knows. Glad Tidings has sniffed around like a bloodhound, but the one Oddlode family she can never dig up gossip on is the one she works for. They keep extraordinary close order – probably wise with Gladys keeping house.’ She started to giggle, finally falling victim to her potent foliage. When the rush hit, it was like inhaling laughing gas while rocketing around on a bouncy castle. Her green eyes rolled in amazement.
Ellen, suddenly finding this bad joke ridiculously funny, fought to talk through her own unstoppable giggles: ‘What did he do that was so bad?’
Snorting and weeping so much that she had to clutch her chest, Pheely stamped her feet in delight. ‘Well, he once redesigned Hunter Gardner’s disgusting Swiss-chalet garage by burning it to the ground, along with the Mini Metro and the pleasure dinghy inside. That was quite funny, actually. I mean, who has a watercraft in the Cotswolds?’
‘I have surfboards,’ Ellen pointed out, and they both fell about, howling gleefully as they slid from their pottery seats and knelt on the terrace, hysterical with laughter.
‘I – think – I rolled – this – a – bit – strong,’ Pheely gasped, between hoots.
Ellen nodded. She was waiting for the stitch in her side to pass. At last, they confined their hilarity to occasional snorts.
‘Oh, Jasper did do some wildly funny things.’ Pheely wiped her eyes as she ground out the roach, then stood up unsteadily. ‘But he did some truly awful ones too. I haven’t time to tell you now. We’re going to be really, really late, and I have to see who gets my lot. If it’s Lily Lubowski, I’m leaving the country with you.’
How somebody so stoned could find their way through the tree and sculpture maze was beyond Ellen, but she trusted Pheely as she followed her through the twists and turns that took them over grassy banks, under iron park railings and through tiny openings in wild hedges.
At last they were through the arched gate in the Lodge wall and trotting past the lime tree towards Goose Lane.
Goose Cottage was looking very fairytale princess in the evening sun, despite all her late nights. Every window, apart from those in Fins’ barracks, winked open as she gave Ellen a come-hither look.
‘Are you sure that’s wise with the Wycks on the loose tonight?’ Pheely whistled as they passed.
‘You think I should close them?’
‘No – you’re fine. People will think you’re in.’ Pheely clearly didn’t want to be any later. ‘Besides, the Wycks’ youth are all in the village hall celebrating an eighteenth, and the seniors are in the Lodes Inn.’
As they panted along the lane towards Manor Street, Ellen told her about the Goose Cottage Shaggers. ‘I don’t really mind – I mean, God knows, Mum and Dad’s bedroom could use some action, but I’d like to know who it was. I’ve got their PlayStation for a start. I want to borrow a game.’
Hit afresh by the dope, Pheely roared so hard with laughter that she had to stop beside the manor gates and bend over to hold back threatened stitch. Her curls swept the blossom on the Tarmac towards her high-heeled sandals. ‘Oh, I so wish it were Dot and Reg. That would be such joy.’ She straightened up, wiping her smudged eye makeup, and let out a delighted sigh. ‘I only wish I knew anything that might help – I’m sorry. I don’t get to twitch curtains much in my grotto. Was your mother very angry?’
‘I didn’t tell her.’ Ellen was cocking her head to work out where the music she could suddenly hear was coming from. Loud and decidedly unkempt, it seemed an unlikely musical accompaniment to Lady Belling’s select soirée. It sounded more like foxes raiding dustbins full of tom-cats.
‘Roadkill.’ Pheely nodded in the direction of the village hall, which they had just passed and was now hidden by the high wall dividing it from the manor’s front drive. ‘Local band – playing at the Wycks’ party. Tuneful, aren’t they?’
Ellen just managed to hold back another giggling fit.
‘Hell’s Bells was furious when she found out they were playing at the hall tonight.’ Pheely winked. ‘Come and see her wrath – and wrath’s child.’ Hooking her arm through Ellen’s, she steered her through the huge gateway and they teetered up the carriage sweep, decidedly stoned, decidedly late and firmly decided to be very good friends.
‘Do I hear ninety? Superb! With you now, Ely, at ninety. Ninety-five anywhere in the room? Is that a bid, Digby, or a nervous twitch? . . . I see. How unfortunate. Now surely I have ninety-five? Marcia, you haven’t bought anything yet, have you?’
Isabel Belling, or Hell’s Bells, was an auctioneer who used her gavel much as she used her beloved Cogswell and Harrison twelve-bore sidelock to shoot pheasant, swinging it around with deadly intent. Standing on a set of library steps in front of a huge stone fireplace, flanked by two sleeping Labradors, she eyed the field for signs of movement. Behind her was her trusty loader for the night, housekeeper Gladys, who clutched a clipboard and made a note of birds as they were shot down. She’d also made a mental note of which guest had knocked back more than one glass of wine at the welcoming drinks and was therefore more likely to break cover.
The great and the good that had gathered in Oddlode Manor’s blue drawing room sat on their hands and maintained expressions of serene blankness to avoid being misinterpreted as bidding. Nobody dared catch Hell’s Bells’ eye, sniff, cough or clear their throat for fear of being saddled with lot fifteen – a meal for two at the Duck Upstream, wine not included.
‘Three capers skewered on a rosemary twig and no booze. You’d have to pay me,’ muttered Pheely. ‘Ely’s only bidding because he’s desperate for his wife to lose weight.’ She nodded towards a very plump figure sitting beside the bearded man who was currently leading the bidding. ‘Poor Felicity gets taken to the Duck Upstream every week for a romantic dinner and has no idea that her husband has an ulterior motive.’
Ellen suppressed a giggle. She stared intently at her auction catalogue and bit her lip. The catalogue, which Pheely called the going-for-a-song sheet, listed the lots with a brief description of the promise offered and the name of the benefactor. Hand-written at the end was the unfortunate ‘Lot 69 – all-over massage from new local sports physio Ellen Jamieson (as used by England Rugby Internationals and Oxford University Rowing Team)’. Pheely claimed innocently that Isabel must have misheard her when she called through with the information.
‘Who will give me ninety-five? Marvellous lot, this – worth every penny.’ Hell’s Bells consulted her notes and, perhaps realising that it wasn’t such good value, cleared her throat, then added, in her forthright baritone, ‘And it’s in a very good cause.’
Looking at her, Ellen decided that Lady Belling was rather magnificent. Her initial impression that their
hostess bore a striking resemblance to Ann Widdecombe with a perm hadn’t lasted long: Hell’s Bells had once undoubtedly been ravishing, and in many ways she still was.
‘Who will give me ninety-five pounds towards the restoration of our wonderful River Folly? I must have ninety-five!’
Barely five feet tall and probably as wide, she was far from the elegant aristocrat that Ellen had envisaged being married to tall, dishy St John, yet she was as spectacularly eye-catching as the huge house she inhabited. Like the manor itself, she was handsome rather than beautiful and had been enlarged over the years so that she was now a mismatch of styles. The amazing pale freckled skin and silver eyes were original, dressed up with fifties-style makeup that was clearly as rarely used as the Victorian wing in which the auction was taking place. The high-cheeked, square-shouldered bone structure had become buried in muscular annexes and fleshy extensions, but was still symmetrical architecture at its most classic. The hair – a short riot of tight black curls – had defied a hundred different hairdressers’ attempts to tame it, just as the huge yew hedge that divided the manor’s gardens from its stables and the old hunt kennels had defied generations of gardeners to impose a topiary form. And, like her beloved house, she dominated the village by more than just her age, size and superior heritage: she had a magical, unexpected glamour.
‘Ninety-five! Thank you, Mr Hornton,’ boomed Hell’s Bells, twirling her gavel as if it was John Wayne’s pistol at a shoot-out. ‘Now, who’ll give me a hundred?’ She sighted Ellen over the gavel, silver eyes sparkling like bullets aimed at a werewolf. Behind her, Gladys puckered her lips and gave Ellen a wise look.
Caught in the force of Hell’s Bells’ stare, like a hare pinpointed by a poacher’s lamp, Ellen almost stopped breathing. If Glad Tidings could determine one’s DNA structure at a glance, her boss possessed the sort of gaze that could unravel it and bend it to her will. They were a formidable combination.