‘Footballer? What, when was this, back in the baggy shorts?’
‘You really are childish sometimes, Gareth.’
‘Isn’t he?’ agreed Clara. ‘ He really is.’
For this shaft she received a shin-cracking kick beneath the table which galvanised her into leaning across and grabbing her brother’s hair.
‘I’ve got nits!’ bellowed Gareth. She at once released him.
‘You are revolting.’
‘You haven’t, have you?’ I asked anxiously. Keen though I was for excuses to visit the surgery, I did not feel that an infestation of headlice constituted the gateway to passion.
‘Of course not.’
‘In any case,’ I went on primly, ‘you’ll be extremely lucky if anyone agrees to manage you lot, with your track record. Tell that shower you play with to pull finger, why don’t you. Dr Ghikas is a very busy man, and he has a season ticket for Ipswich. I’m sure he’d much prefer to sit in a comfortable seat and watch decent soccer than to freeze on some God-forsaken recreation ground encouraging you lot!’
‘Thank you,’ said Gareth with ponderous sarcasm. But I had seen the look of avarice cross his face at the mention of Ipswich, and I left this point to do its work without further underlining from me. So wrapped up had I been in my final blast at Gareth that I had not noticed Clara leaving the room. By the time Gareth had assembled his school bag and sports kit and gone, she had still not reappeared. I looked at my watch and called, but there was still no response. She should have left, in order to visit Stu en route to school.
I went back into the sitting room. Breakfast TV burbled in the corner. Samantha Clack, blushing and bridling in an angora jumper with koalas on it, was making some hackneyed pronouncement about fashions in swimwear. There was something about TV ‘personalities’ (oh most vile misnomer) which set my teeth on edge. They seemed so smug and safe. Insulated from reaction and retaliation, on a constant drip-feed of mindless admiration from people who mistook exposure for importance. And saints preserve us, here was Fred Cluff, cuddly and avuncular in roll-neck and tank-top, saying that if all women looked like Samantha they would not need to worry about the style of their swimsuit. The saccharine tone of this exchange was enough to make you gag.
‘I’m going, I’m going,’ said Clara, who was not in fact going but kneeling on the floor on elbows and knees with her bottom in the air, writing something.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ I said, ‘ switch off that twaddle and get going, you’ll be late.’
‘No I won’t.’ Clara rose with maddening slowness, folded the piece of paper on which she’d been writing, and put it beneath a vase on the windowsill. Then she scooped up her PE bag off a chair and offered me a coolly tilted cheek.
‘ ’Bye.’
The moment I heard the front door close I went to the window and removed the paper from beneath the vase. I experienced not the tiniest twinge of guilt, for Clara was so scornful and secretive that only the most rigorous surveillance could ascertain what she was up to.
It was a list of song titles, quite blameless in itself, but for one thing. In the top left-hand corner was written the word: ‘Damon’. My suspicious nature went into overdrive. Only a few days ago Clara had barely acknowledged Damon’s claim to be a member of the human race, and now here she was writing him billets doux on the subject which was, after horseflesh, closest to her heart. What the hell was going on?
I replaced the piece of paper and went back to the kitchen. Tomorrow was Thursday, Damon would be coming in the afternoon. I would watch him and Clara closely. And perhaps Gareth would have some inside information. With lists on my mind I sat down at the table with notepad and biro. Beside me sat Spot, eyelids drooping, keeping slumber at bay on the off chance I might whip a marrow bone from beneath my jumper, or take him for a nice slow walk in the woods.
I wrote: 1. Take invitation to C. G. Ask about soccer but almost at once crossed it out. This was the plum, the juicy reward for completing the other, less appetising tasks.
I started again: 1. Write to George. This was crucial, after the poor showing I had put up on our wedding anniversary. The closer I came to my adulterous objective, the nicer (at a distance) I would be to George.
2. Ask Bren. Tun about kids, Buchfest.
3. Ring Nita re disco.
Number three was a nice tactical point. To relieve a Nutkin of the initiative was to draw its sting. ‘Nita!’ I would say. ‘I’ve drawn up a list of what we might need. Why don’t you pop round for a coffee and we can discuss it?’ The thought of her frustration was exquisite. I was just about to reinstate ‘C. G.’ at the foot of the list when the phone rang.
‘Harriet? Nita Atkins here! No time like the present, I thought, so I’ve drawn up a bit of a list of basics I think we’ll need for the disco, and another of optional extras, funds permitting. Any chance you could pop in this afternoon and we can chat about it?’
I swear she must have been able to hear my teeth grinding.
‘Harriet?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, you’re still there, I thought I’d lost you! How about It?’
‘Um—yes, I suppose I can drop in. I take it you’ll be in all day?’
Nita deflected this thrust with a brief: ‘Goodness yes, I’ve got to finish new loose covers for the settee before the weekend!’
I did not—I would not—ask her what pressing and peculiar circumstance required that the settee be recovered before the weekend. I had seen the Nutkins’ settee and it was unimpeachably clean, neat and plump, like its owners; a paragon among settees, tastefully sprigged and braided, its crevices innocent of mouldering detritus, its arms neither greasy nor threadbare.
‘See you later then,’ I said. I put the phone down and went back, with much recourse to the copulative adjective, to the kitchen table. Never mind, if I called on Nita in the early afternoon I could go on to Basset Parva from there. Mid-afternoon might be a good time, doctor-wise, falling as it did between house calls and evening surgery, and I might well find Constantine Ghikas at home.
I went up to the study and did a couple of hours at Kersey House, assiduously deleting my aberration of the previous night. I then completed another work of romantic fiction, in the form of a letter to George. At two o’clock I left, posted the letter and went to call on Nita.
Her settee was certainly unclothed, quite indecent in plain white cotton, like a nun in her underwear. But there were plenty of other seats in the Nutkin household. From the sunlit pine kitchen wafted the aroma of a nourishing casserole, prepared by Nita to welcome Stan on his return from the Betabise depot at Basset Regis.
‘Bless you, Harriet!’ said Nita, furnishing me with coffee and home-made butter-crunch bikkies. ‘I’m rushed off my feet at present, it’s a case of finding a spare moment to catch up on these things.’
‘It must be.’
‘Stan and I are having a gang of country people round on Saturday,’ she confided. By this I knew that she meant people dressed not in Burberrys and flat caps, but in leather waistcoats, chaps and stetsons. Among their many interests the Nutkins numbered country music, and were often to be seen decked out like Annie Oakley and Wyatt Earp, heading for venues as far afield as Maidstone and Basingstoke to share this esoteric pleasure with dudes of like mind.
‘We love it,’ she went on. ‘ We’re going to have a real down home evening. My brother’s bringing his original Box Car Willie.’
‘Wonderful,’ I agreed. So this was why the settee was to be recovered. Perhaps Nita’s plans for its refurbishment included a saddle and sheepskin noseband.
‘About the disco …’ I suggested.
On her list, Nita had catalogued, as basics: crisps, bread, cheddar, chutney, marge, sausages, lettuce and salad cream. Oh, and salt. Her optional extras included such delicacies as peanuts, pickled onions and crudités with dips. The disco would need to be loud.
‘Any comments, Harriet? Any suggestions?’
‘No—you’re so
much better at all this than me,’ I said grandly.
‘Well then, what about the shopping?’
‘Whenever you like.’ I utterly refused to join in her display of hectic busyness.
Nita proposed a day and time and I agreed. ‘And now,’ I said firmly, rising from the bandylegged reproduction chair which Nita had but recently re-upholstered in avocado Nulon, ‘ I must be off. I have to be somewhere in—’ I glanced at my watch like an Olympic track coach —‘fifteen minutes.’
‘It’s all go, isn’t it?’ chuckled Nita, hoisting me neatly with my own petard. ‘Never a dull moment!’
She came with me to her front door, complete with dimpled glass and leaded fanlight, and stood on her tiled porch, by the brass carriage lamp, to wave me gaily on my way.
As I snarled out of the Nutkin driveway, blipping the accelerator for maximum disturbance of the gravel, I wondered why it was that women like Nita, who would never dream of serving bangers and Branston at their own board, knew instinctively that they were just the thing to serve to the proletarian masses at any social gathering at the village hall. I was sure that the yodelling sharpshooters and cowgirls assembled chez Nutkin on Saturday night would feed like fighting cocks on the rare and delicate dishes which were now so many lumps of coloured concrete in Nita’s jumbo freezer.
I was filled with fear and loathing for the Nitas and Babas, with their boarding house brains, their cash-and-carry cards, their full diaries and clean carpets.
In my irritation I drove so fast that I was in Basset Parva in six minutes flat, and only narrowly missed running down the octogenarian post-lady of whom the village was justly proud.
I slowed down. The address on the doctor’s card was The Rickyard, Fore Street. It turned out to be a house I had often admired, and which, when it came on the market just after Christmas, I might have been tempted to buy myself had it not been snapped up by Dr Ghikas.
I turned into a gentle ‘U’ of drive, encircling an island of lush grass and hydrangeas which contrived to appear both well cared-for and unforced.
The house itself seemed to be snoozing in the afternoon sunshine. The front door stood invitingly ajar, and most of the sash windows were open. A marmalade cat paced in a measured way towards me, then suddenly lay on its back and writhed voluptuously, asking to be tickled, just like its owner (I hoped) soon would.
There was no sign of the green Fiat, but outside the garage stood a svelte Honda Civic in a coppery brown like an Ambre Solaire bottle. As I got out I took a peep inside, looking for clues. The seats of the Civic were upholstered in an oyster suede-look fabric, of the sort which would not have lasted a week beneath the calibre of passenger I normally carried. On the front seats lay a Barbra Streisand tape and Yves St Laurent silk scarf. Neither car, nor tape, nor scarf fitted in with my picture of the Ghikas household. I did hope that I was not going to find the doctor and a beautiful, wealthy female patient exchanging confidences over Earl Grey tea in what I did not doubt would be a William Morris drawing room.
I went up to the front door. There was an old-fashioned bell-pull and I gave it a tug. A melodious, distant chime sounded in the house. As I waited I glanced down at myself. I had changed out of shorts and singlet into a longish printed cotton skirt and an embroidered blouse, pretty and demure enough to satisfy even the most exacting and old-fashioned mama.
The marmalade cat ran past me into the house with a proprietorial air. I began to feel slightly ill at ease. The house exuded a lazy confidence and effortless chic which I would have mistrusted in a woman and which was no more comforting in bricks and mortar. Purple clematis curled in airy profusion round the door, honeysuckle massed by the wall, lilac and rhododendron vied in shades of purple, bees hummed and butterflies hovered—
‘Come in!’ A woman’s voice came faintly from the far side of the house. ‘Come through the gate and round—I’m in the garden!’ To the left of the house was a wooden gate. I went through it and along a narrow path between shrubs to where the back garden opened out, sunny and idyllic.
A woman came towards me. She had on a huge, brightly printed cotton square which she had wrapped about herself, sarong-style, and the halter-straps of a yellow bikini showed against her smooth, tanned skin. She was small, trim and graceful. Her short hair was swept back in a style both chic and boyish. She was of at least a certain age, but she wore her years with such dash it was impossible to pinpoint their exact number. She was, in fact, the human embodiment of the Honda Civic I had admired in the drive—sleek, coppery and aerodynamically perfect.
Behind her on the lawn, in the shade of a large chestnut tree, stood a white wooden lounger with red and blue cushions. On the lounger lay an open book, face down, and next to it on the grass a tray with a jug and tall glass. The whole picture was one of ease and self-indulgence, but with none of the sluttishness which generally attends these states.
I at once felt hopelessly declassé in my flowered drapes and homely flat sandals, but the woman smiled charmingly.
‘I’m so sorry not to have come to the front door, but I was in a state of undress when you rang.’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ I burbled, ‘for disturbing you when you were enjoying the sun. Actually I was looking for Dr Ghikas …’ I stared about me with a wild surmise, as if he might be hiding amongst the flowering shrubs.
‘He’s out at a home delivery, I’m afraid,’ said the woman. ‘Can I help?’
‘Um …’ I was tongue-tied. For one thing I had no idea whom I was addressing. I clutched my dinner party invitation like a child on an adult errand.
‘I’m his mother,’ she said, as if reassuring me as to her credentials, ‘if you want to leave a message.’
To say my gast was flabbered would be the understatement of the decade. I could not have been more stunned if ET had sprung from the branches of the laburnum and shaken me by the hand. And not just stunned. Bouleversée! Apalled!
‘How do you do, how nice to meet you,’ I murmured weakly. ‘I’m Harriet Blair—’
‘Oh, but what a coincidence, how lovely!’ she cried. ‘I’m just re-reading one of your marvellous books and enjoying every page. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to receive that signed copy of your new one, I shall simply treasure it … come and sit down. Would you like a glass of iced coffee?’
I followed like Big Foot or the Incredible Hulk as she opened another chair, patted the seat invitingly and picked up the jug.
‘I’ll just go and get some more and another glass. Don’t go away, it’s so delightful to meet you …!’
She wafted off towards the house and I sat there, pole-axed by the unexpected. Where, oh where was the dumpy Greek matron clad in all-concealing black, ready to protect her son tigerishly from the predations of loose women? I had taken such care to dress appropriately. I had organised my face (unmade-up), my hair (smooth and clean) and even my armpits (unshaved) to suit with this imagined parent. I had been prepared to win her over with my wholesome charm and good manners. But now it was perfectly plain that Mrs Anna Ghikas could outcharm me, even on a bad day. She was twice as smart, a lot better-looking, and I could not even dismiss her as small-minded since she would obviously prefer to read a book in the garden than to dust her furniture.
Hopelessly fazed I watched her come back, and pour us both iced coffee.
‘Kostaki,’ she said pleasantly, ‘will be so sorry he missed you, but unfortunately confinements wait for no man. All the same, I can’t say I’m sorry, because it gives me a chance to talk to you on my own.’
‘I’m glad you like the books,’ I said.
‘Like them? I love them—they’re the most tremendous fun!’ Thus she paid me a nice enough compliment, while unmistakably implying that mine were bubblegum books, enjoyable but insubstantial. She was right, of course, but with a genuine grudge against her I felt happier.
‘When I last saw Dr Ghikas I invited him to a dinner party next week,’ I explained. ‘But I said at the time that I’d give him a proper w
ritten invitation, otherwise these things sometimes get forgotten, don’t they?’
‘How sweet of you.’ She took the invitation. ‘I’ll make sure he gets it. Do tell me, are you working on another book at present?’
I told her what there was to tell concerning TRT, and she prompted me with occasional perceptive, interested questions. Affirmed, so to speak, as a person of consequence, I became more daring.
‘Please don’t think me nosey,’ I said, ‘but Ghikas is a Greek name, and surely you—’
‘No, but my husband was,’ she replied, reading between the lines. ‘I’m as British as Yorkshire pud.’
The mere mention of this homely dish emphasised how very unlike it she was, and I was sure she knew it. ‘I met and married Spiridion when I was working in Greece between the wars. But Kostaki was educated at Winchester and St Andrew’s.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘Kostaki and I bought this house jointly,’ she went on gaily, ‘when he knew he was coming to work here. But I’m just a long-term visitor, I wouldn’t dream of asking a man to share his home with his poor old mother,’ she laughed engagingly. ‘Spiridion died a few years ago and I’ve been rather a gypsy ever since.’
The more she rattled on, the more punch-drunk I became, and the more glad that she was not a permanent fixture at The Rickyard.
‘I’m a marine archaeologist,’ she said.
If I’d been punch-drunk before, this piece of information practically had me out for the count. I had always thought archaeologists, whether marine or lubberly, to be whiskery persons with rope sandals and grit beneath their nails.
‘My work is my passion,’ she went on, ‘ especially now Spiro’s not here. One old wreck hauling up another, so to speak.’
I was dazzled. For one wild moment I fancied that if I had said to Anna Ghikas: ‘I want to lay your son, and as soon as possible,’ she would have made the spare bedroom instantly available.
I croaked something about old wrecks being far from the case, but she was off and running now.
Hot Breath Page 8