by Wendy Holden
Cassandra grimaced as a bilious intestinal twinge almost bent her double. But was it any wonder she had stomach problems? She’d been stuffing herself lately—she’d eaten a whole lettuce sandwich and a ricecake yesterday before reading the fortuitous Daily Mail article about how skinny women in New York kept their weight down by eating naked in front of mirrors. Seizing another ricecake, Cassandra had straightaway gone into the bathroom, stripped off, and sat with her legs apart. It certainly removed the urge to eat. The problem was, contemplating her dry patches, thread veins, incipient turkey gobble, and wrinkled labia in the mirror almost removed the urge to live as well.
Unfortunately, it didn’t bring back the urge to write. Since being dumped by its publishers, A Passionate Lover was currently as high and dry as a hallucinating bone. Of late, the only occasions Cassandra had ventured into her study were to rifle her gin fund to satisfy Zak’s incessant demands for money. On these visits, she had tried not to notice the dust thickening on the laptop lid. Her writer’s block had become an entire thousand-foot-thick barrier; the Great Wall of Writing China. Her agent was getting frantic.
“Try anything,” he urged, whilst privately wondering if he should dump Cassandra. Half literary London was calling her the day before yesterday’s woman; having her on his books was getting embarrassing. Not that it hadn’t always been, but at least she used to make money. Perhaps, he suggested, colonic irrigation might help unplug the flow.
Cassandra liked the idea of recharging her creative batteries with alternative therapy. Especially if it meant charging Jett’s platinum card.
“I want to feel inspired again,” Cassandra told a New Age therapist in Hampstead, who advised “the all-over spiritual spring clean approach. You wash yourself from the inside,” he explained. Ugh, like those bristly things you put inside bottles, Cassandra shuddered. The white witch in Camden she consulted next advised flushing out the system by sticking her bottom in cold water and her feet in hot. Or was it the other way round? But sitting with her buttocks in a warm sink with her feet dangling in the loo didn’t feel very inspiring.
By the time the crystal therapist in Crouch End advised she stick crystals up her bottom, Cassandra was beginning to doubt alternative therapy could do the trick. On the other hand, the engagement ring Jett had given her could scarcely meet a more suitable fate. She’d try anything once.
Once. Having placed the sapphire in her sphincter, Cassandra quickly became aware that her writer’s block had suddenly changed from being a metaphoric to a literal condition. She would have sued the therapist had she not been fearful of all the publicity that would, given her celebrity status, no doubt follow. As it was, she was not entirely convinced that her regular Harley Street doctor had believed her protestations that she had fallen over in her bedroom and landed on her jewellery box. Had she not known better she would have sworn that, as she was leaving, the bellow of loud laughter following her down the corridor had definitely come from Dr. Monson’s office. From now on, she vowed, the only crystal I’m prepared to take internally is the sort with Louis Roederer on the label.
The end finally came when the Tufnell Park thalassotherapist told her not to “sweat the small stuff.” Cassandra had indignantly pointed out that she didn’t sweat any stuff, thank you, she’d had the botox injections to close up any glands of that nature, and swept out. She decided to return to the Bombay Sapphire.
Bloody nannies, she thought, sloshing another measure furiously into her glass. Her thoughts returned to the Mégane-coupé-demanding one she’d just seen. Bloody cheek. And there’d been plenty of that on show as well—Ivana, or whatever her name was, had been wearing a miniskirt practically up to her pubes.
Cassandra sighed. As if the Nanny Question wasn’t enough, there was the continued and worsening matter of finding a school that would take Zak. It was hardly surprising she hadn’t written a sentence for weeks. Every ounce of her literary ability was currently employed in restricting to a few scant paragraphs the wonders of her son in letters to boarding school headmasters.
The clang of the letterbox alerted her to the arrival of the post. Cassandra ground her teeth as she opened the usual fistful of rejection letters from schools. Until a thought occurred to her. Why not educate Zak at home? Much cheaper, for a start. And talking of starts, there was no time like the present. She tripped up the stairs to his room.
***
“Oh, Mum.”
“Mama. Come on, darling.”
“Only if you buy me a mini CD player.”
“Yes, all right then, darling. Come on. Let’s count up to ten in French.”
Around two hours was the approximate time it took Cassandra—and Zak—to realise that she had forgotten every French phrase she had ever learnt, with the notable exception of haute couture. Switching subjects to maths, she realised she had never, in the first place, grasped the principles of long division. Similarly, the only geographical fact she was in possession of was that a by-product of the Australian sheep industry was lanolin for lipstick and the sort of moisturisers that gave you a hairy face. Even Cassandra realised that this probably wasn’t going to get Zak very far.
Finding a boarding school was of the utmost urgency. For Zak was beginning to get out of hand in other ways as well. Only last week he had threatened to sue her retrospectively over his unsatisfactory Christmas presents and there had been ugly scenes just yesterday when the tooth fairy had left only ten pounds and not the twenty pounds Zak had apparently been expecting. Adore him as she did, it was beginning to dawn on Cassandra that the costs of keeping him at home were astronomical, psychologically as well as financially.
***
Anna’s love strategy had not got off to the most brilliant of starts. Taking the initiative, as Geri had suggested, she had arrayed herself in her best underwear, used the last of her Chanel No. 5, fanned her hair out across the pillow in approved bra-model-ad fashion, put a candle by the bedside—and waited. And waited. And waited. And, eventually, fell asleep.
She woke to find the candle out and Jamie snoring gently beside her. Damn. She’d missed the opportunity. Take the initiative, she urged herself.
Taking a deep breath, Anna stole a hand across the customary foot of uninhabited sheet that separated her from her husband-to-be. As usual, Jamie was wearing thick flannel pyjamas, but she deftly circumnavigated the folds and ties to slip her hand through the gap in his bottoms. Running her hand swiftly over the bristle of his pubic hair she at last gained what she was seeking: his warm, soft, sleeping penis. To her astonishment, it was rigid. More than that, it was as thick and as hard as an oak.
A thrill ran through Anna as she lay on her back in the darkness. Had her underwear had the desired effect after all? Smiling, she circled the warm, wet, and rubbery tip of his penis with her finger. She stroked his hot, swollen, bristly balls and was gratified to hear the steady breathing interrupted by a faint but distinct groan of pleasure. As she increased the pressure of her fingers, the groans increased. Without giving herself time to worry about the consequences, Anna slid down under the covers and pushed her face straight into his salt-scented pubic hair.
His penis was almost too big for her mouth; it seemed the approximate size and solidity of a cricket bat handle as she began inexpertly to circumnavigate it with her lips and tongue. Still, as she was buried beneath the covers, Jamie would be unable to hear any slurping sounds and anyway, from the still louder moans of pleasure she could hear from above the blankets, she was having roughly the effect she was intending. As matters quite literally seemed about to come to a head, Anna pulled herself up, over, and on to her fiancé’s body. Wet with excitement herself, she slid him inside her just as he came.
“Aaaargggh. Uuugghh. Headmaster! Headmaster! What’s going on?” Jamie, wide awake now, was thrashing around wildly in terror. For a few seconds, Anna held on as if to a bucking bronco, hoping for an orgasm, but she realised she migh
t as well hope for a miracle as the engorged muscle inside her shrank to the proportions she was more familiar with.
“What’s happening?” The night being blacker than the inside of a Highland cow, it was impossible for Anna to see Jamie’s expression but his voice still held traces of genuine fear.
“Oh, nothing,” said Anna bitterly. She swallowed hard to keep down the choking in her throat. The love strategy had been a dismal failure. Everything about coming to Dampie had been a dismal failure. She was a dismal failure.
***
As soon as, after breakfast, Jamie had headed off muttering something about drains, Anna had gone outside with the mobile and called Geri.
“He was definitely thinking about someone. Another woman.”
“Doubt it,” said Geri. “He was probably fantasising about a lovely stretch of releaded roof.”
“Can’t you come up? Please?” Only Geri, Anna was certain, was capable of sorting out the mess she had got herself in.
“Mmm. As it happens, this is a good time. Savannah and Siena are off to Opera Camp for a week and I could do with a change of scene. What are the men like up there? I rather fancy getting my hands on something big, hairy, and Highland.”
“Well, there’s plenty of that about,” Anna said. No need to tell Geri she meant cattle.
“Fantastic. I’m desperate. I’ve even started doing yoga classes,” Geri continued, “hoping I’d get the chance to do the lotus position with some supple young sex god. But everyone in my class is either pregnant, gay, or has nasty toenails.” Geri sighed. “So here I am with this lovely flexible pelvis and no one to flex it on.”
“Poor you.” Anna tried to sound as if she wasn’t smiling. Funny how Geri could cheer her up even in the most wretched of circumstances. “But at least you must be full of inner calm.”
“Funnily enough, I’ve never felt so ratty as I have since starting yoga classes. But that’s probably a lot to do with the nasty toenails. We’re always being told we need to keep our anuses soft as well, which as you can imagine makes for some rather ripe results. Which tend to interfere with one’s contemplation of the immortal.”
“But at least it explains levitation,” Anna said. “There’s plenty of fresh air up here, anyway.”
“Right. That’s settled then. I’ll come up on the plane. After all this jetting around with the family I’ve got enough air miles to practically get to Pluto.”
“Oh Geri,” Anna breathed in relief. “That would be fantastic. I’ll go straightaway and get Nanny to sort out a room for you. The best one the castle has, promise.”
“Well, that’s not saying a lot.”
Re-entering the castle, Anna firmly squashed the qualms of marrow-freezing fear that the thought of an encounter with Nanny provoked. She marched with as authoritative a step as she could muster down the stairs, back down the corridor, and into the stone-flagged kitchen beyond. Nanny was nowhere to be seen.
From an open door leading to an outhouse, the vague murmur of voices could be heard. Loud and vaguely obscene noises seemed to be punctuating the conversation. As she crept nearer it sounded, to Anna’s quailing ears, horribly like naked flesh being slapped.
“Do ye think she’s worked it out yet?” The man’s voice, Anna realised, was MacLoggie’s. Slap. Squelch.
“Nae idea,” Nanny said in her slow, deliberate monotone. “She’s nae too bright, ye know.” Slap.
Anna stood frozen to the spot. She would have been in any case, given the plunging temperatures of the kitchen passage, but the realisation that they were talking about her sent an additional chill down the cord of her spine.
MacLoggie snorted. “Surely even someone that stupid must have realised by now,” he drawled in a contemptuous tone accentuated by his Scots accent. “After all, why else would someone as bonny as him want to marry someone like her?”
Nanny snorted. Anna flamed with indignation. That was rich, coming from MacLoggie, who even in a good light looked as if he’d been pile-driven into a brick wall. As for Nanny, the only good light was no light at all. She looked as if her idea of sartorial effort was to shave the hairs off her moles.
“All because the old laird put that clause in saying the young maister had to have a wife before he could properly inherit,” MacLoggie observed laconically. Slap slap slap.
Anna breathed in deeply and slowly. Her knees had gone weak, and something seemed to have stopped her moving. Something else, however, was slipping slowly into place. Was this the reason Jamie wanted to marry her?
“Well, ye canna blame the old laird for wanting to make sure there’d be an heir,” Nanny pronounced. A strange flubbery noise like the breaking of wind accompanied her remark.
“Well, and will there be, do yereckon?”
“Well, not if ye’re judging by the bed,” Nanny cackled. Anna’s stomach hit the flagstones. “I’ve looked every morn and there’s ne’er anything on the sheets.” Squelch.
Anna ground her teeth, her fury now overtaking her surprise. The thought of Nanny on the loose in their bedroom—as, to judge by the rigidly tucked-under sheets, she was on a daily basis—had never been a comfortable one. But never in her worst, most paranoid moments had Anna imagined Nanny checking the bed for stains of activity.
“Aye, bu’ that might not be the lassie’s fault,” cackled MacLoggie. “There’ve always been a few question marks over the maister in that department. That’s wha’ comes o’ sendin’ him to public school in England.”
Anna decided she had heard enough. She gave a loud cough and stepped forward. As she entered the outbuilding, the far door was still swinging in the wake of MacLoggie’s sudden departure. The slapping noise continued and was explained by the fact that Nanny was noisily rinsing something wobbly and bloody in a shallow stone sink. She turned her heavy face to Anna. “Can I help you?”
Anna boiled at Nanny’s level tones, salted with just a hint of insolence. To think that Jamie had wanted her to discuss a wedding with this termagant. Well, the old battleaxe had asked for it. She’d make her squirm. Anna took a deep breath. “I couldn’t help overhearing…” Yet, somewhere along the lines the words came out differently. “I’d like you to get the best room in the castle ready please, Nanny.”
The slapping continued. Looking around her, Anna saw that a deer carcass hung from one of the hooks in the stark white walls. Near the sink, a vast wooden block on which lay a hatchet, several knives, and a considerable quantity of blood confirmed that Nanny had recently been indulging in a little light butchery.
“Did you hear me, Nanny?” Anna was aware that her voice had gone up an octave or two.
“Aye.”
Suddenly, Anna realised that the bunch of unidentified organs hanging from a hook on the wall were the bowels of some unfortunate deer. She knew this because she could see a passage protruding from the organ mass in which small, round black pellets of deer poo were held in their own separate sacs, like the French sweets sold in long ropes of individual plastic packets. Looking at the unexpunged faeces, Anna had an overwhelming sense of life and all its natural rhythms suspended.
“I’d be grateful if you could do it immediately,” Anna said tightly. “I have a friend coming to stay.”
Chapter Eighteen
Geri’s eyes flicked open. Something strange was going on. It wasn’t just that she was slammed into the nasty-smelling grey carpet wall of her bunk every time the train rounded a bend, or grappled with the wrong sort of leaves, snow, or, more probably, rail. It wasn’t even that the lid of the cabin’s tiny sink, theoretically held up by a catch on the wall, kept being loosened from its moorings by the locomotive’s wilder lurches and slamming down with the force and violence of a maniac’s fist. Nor was it that the cabin was so airless she could barely breathe, and small enough to satisfy the most rampant agoraphobic. She could barely turn round standing up; lying down, on the other hand,
had involved a different set of challenges altogether. When first entering the sleeper, Geri had laughed aloud at the size of it. Now, in the shaking, rattling watches of the night, it didn’t seem nearly so amusing. Anna, she thought. The things I do for you. The opportunities I set you up with, and the minute I take my eye off the ball…Fancy not even having managed a wedding date yet. Still, hopefully it wouldn’t take long to get everything back on track. After all, she hadn’t bought that Gucci dress for nothing.
Irritating though her inability to get on a flight to Scotland had been—when was she going to use all those air miles?—the news that the quickest way up had been by sleeper had not worried Geri unduly. There was, after all, something very romantic about spending the night on a train. Geri’s fond visions of walnut panelling, lamplit buffet cars, and steam trains puffing gracefully across northern uplands in the sunset had, however, reached the end of the line rather sooner than she had anticipated. At Euston, in fact. Before the train had even set off.
For Geri, any romance the journey might have held was quickly obliterated by the sound of the couple next door going at it hammer and tongs before the rear engine even pulled away from the buffers. “Didn’t even bother putting my knickers on this morning,” gasped a woman’s voice. “Didn’t see the point—you always want it the minute we get on.” Brief encounter, thought Geri, it wasn’t. Literally.
The rest of Geri’s Orient Express–inspired expectations met with much the same disappointments. There was no walnut panelling; the only thing in sight even coming close to resembling a walnut was the short and intensely wrinkled old steward who asked her if she wanted tea or coffee in the morning (and quickly gave up on his attempts to elicit the same information from her neighbours). The lamplit buffet car had turned out to be an ordinary carriage filled with the sort of drunken, disappointed, rootless, and downright strange human flotsam and jetsam one might expect to find in a sleeper bar on a weekday evening.