by Rosie Thomas
He began, ‘If I might propose—’
Bottrill snarled. ‘Propose nothing, friend.’ And then he turned to Harriet. He thrust out his big hands, front and back, like a huge, meaty, aggressive child presenting them for adult inspection before eating. ‘Take a good look,’ he shouted at her. ‘Look at them. I’ve worked with my hands. I started out, shovelling rubble. I’ve made a living at this business. I’ll go on making a bloody living out of it.’
Oh yes, Harriet thought. A living, all right. Your gold bracelet and your Rolls-Royce initialled KGB, and your ranch house with the swimming pool, all made out of people’s land and hopes and security. I’ve got you now. I’m not afraid of you.
She listened to him ranting. He was trying to make an honest living. He had had years of the privileged classes, Harriet and her kind, blocking his path and spouting their lily-white ideals at him, they should try to live life the hard way, live it as he had been forced to do. Then they would know what he stood for.
The coarse words crashed around the listeners’ ears. Piers studied the blotter in front of him, and Mr Montague sat with one hand shading his eyes, his body curved away from his client’s bull by the merest suggestive millimetre.
The voice went on. The man changed his tack, from self-justifying to threatening. He would buy more land and block Harriet’s scheme. He would sell his interests to a third party and defeat her in that way.
Harriet lifted her head. She had heard enough. She looked full at him, as cold and reasonable as he was sweaty and incoherent. She used his name for the first time.
‘Mr Bottrill, there is only one buyer for the Birdwood land. And that buyer is me.’ The pleasure of it was better than any sensation she had ever known. She sat still, and let the fire of it burn through her veins.
Keith Bottrill subsided. As if the wind was blowing out of him, he seemed to grow smaller and quieter. Harriet knew that there was nothing to fear from Bottrill, neither for herself nor Linda. There would be no men stepping out of the dark to bar her way. Another kind of silence occupied the room now. It was thoughtful, even calculating. And then Bottrill’s sausage fingers made a surprisingly fine, snipping movement, as if severing an invisible thread.
‘Let’s cut through all the talk, shall we?’
‘By all means.’
‘What are you offering?’
Harriet said, ‘You bought in the region of two thousand pounds per acre. I will give you fifteen hundred, for the portions of the site you already own. I will take over your options, and give you ten thousand pounds for the lot.’ She spoke colourlessly but she thought, Count yourself lucky, too.
The man and his solicitor murmured together. Piers stood up, as if to stretch his legs, and wandered to the window to look down the street. Harriet waited.
‘All right,’ Keith Bottrill said, as if he was agreeing the price of a used car.
It was the lawyers’ turn, then. Piers returned to his seat, and the blood seemed to flow back into Mr Montague’s frozen limbs.
Fifteen minutes later, the meeting was over. The English rose came to the doorway, and escorted the property developer and his solicitor away.
Piers Mayhew held out his hand to Harriet. ‘Congratulations,’ he said.
Harriet took his hand. The moment of triumph was like a physical thrill.
She thought, if only Robin were here to see me now.
Twenty-One
The white van marked ‘Decorations for All Occasions’ was still parked in front of the house and, even though the November evening was chill and murky, the double doors stood open, letting the night’s dampness seep inside and bead the old tiles with tiny drops of moisture.
One of the caterers’ assistants came in, two cardboard boxes filled with glasses balanced in his arms. He passed through the hall towards the kitchens at the back of the house, where food for two hundred and fifty people was being assembled.
Harriet leaned on the smooth wood of the gallery rail, looking downwards and letting her eyes follow at random the stars and diamonds and octagons of the tile patterns. The wind blew in a flurry of wet leaves that stuck themselves down like defects in the geometrical repeat. It didn’t matter, Harriet thought idly. It suited the theme of the party. She straightened up and went slowly down the wide stairs. Her fingers ran down the mahogany banister, moving with the fat curves of it. The carving had been dusted, but not very thoroughly, and she could still feel the faint furring of the years under her fingertips. The bare boards of the stairs had been swept, but there were still fine particles of grit that made a tiny crackle under the soles of her shoes.
The evidence that the slow decay of Birdwood had been barely interrupted did not disturb her. It gave her, rather, a sensuous awareness of what was waiting to be done. She would do it; she could do it, now that the house was hers. The roof would sit taut and dry again, the wind and the rain would make no impression, and beneath the roof the proper mahogany and glass and tiles and marble would shine once more.
Mine. Harriet looked up into the dim space over her head. Three or four of the first floor bedrooms had been hastily cleaned for this evening, and lights shone in them as if they were already lived in. My beautiful house. She felt a pride of possession as strong as she had once felt for Peacocks.
‘Sorry. The boys keep leaving this door wide open.’ The cheerful, hearty girl who ran the party organisers came through the hall in her white apron. She grinned at Harriet, standing at the foot of the stairs. ‘Gosh, you look nice.’
Harriet was already dressed for the evening. She had stared at her own reflection and the unfamiliar dress of ivy-green velvet in a faded and spotted mirror in one of the bedrooms. The dress seemed to suit the house.
‘Thank you. Don’t worry about the door, I’ll do it.’
She crossed the hallway and slipped out into the porch, pulling the big doors to behind her. Through the broken ironwork she could see the sky. The moon was briefly visible behind the clouds.
Harriet had lost her fear of the dark. She found comfort in the shelter and anonymity of it once again. She walked slowly now across the bitten grass, listening to the creaking of the huge trees that sheltered the house. The bare branches slapped and twisted in the wind.
Away from the house and the trees, at the farthest point of the patch of Birdwood ground that she now owned, Harriet saw another van parked. Torch beams streaked across the grass, turning it momentarily green. The men were setting up in readiness for the fireworks display.
Harriet kept away from the farthest-reaching arcs of light. She came to the shrubbery and stood for a moment in the shelter of the evergreens, breathing in the musty smell of recent rain. There were lights in all the downstairs windows of the house, shining out where two of David Howkins’ men had torn down the black-scribbled boarding. Birdwood had come to life again.
Harriet did not know how long she stood there, looking at it. She only became aware that the damp soaked up through her shoes, and that the velvet dress did not keep out the cold. She retraced her steps, across the grass and under the broken porch. The double doors stood ajar, showing the jewel colours and the brightness inside. There was the smell of cooking, and the sound of laughter. Harriet went inside again, leaving the doors as an imitation.
She walked from room to room, looking at what had been done.
It was not the big corporate party that she had once imagined herself giving. This was a party for Everden, and the prospect of it pleased her more.
Decorations for All Occasions had done their job well, assisted by the builders and contract cleaners. The house was semiderelict and unfurnished, but a theatrical scene had been set. The big, empty rooms were low-lit, and the light was enhanced by log fires burning in the open hearths and hundreds of candles set in sconces. The designers had taken sheets of white fabric, and dipped them in plaster of Paris. Then they had hung them up, to set in ripples and folds. The effect was of broken marble pillars and crumbling classical balustrades, set within the rooms
to create dim alcoves and receding grottoes. The pillars were wreathed in garlands of ivy and misdetoe, and great branches of fir were draped on the marble mantelpieces and over the doors, to give off their celebratory, Christmas scent in the rooms’ warmth.
In the plaster recesses there were simple benches and folding chairs; in the biggest room a dancefloor had been laid and a band would play; in another round tables were covered with floor-length white cloths, ready for supper.
Harriet approved of what she saw. The fire- and candle-light cast wavering shadows of the temporary pillars on the intricate mouldings of the ceilings, and shone on the glossy tendrils of ivy. The old house had been transformed for one night into a part-Gothic, part-Arcadian fantasy. Soon the people would come. If Harriet had taken Birdwood with one hand, she was trying, tonight, to give it back with the other.
The big, white imitations with the deep embossing had gone out to as many local people as she felt could squeeze into these rooms. The Parish Council was coming, with wives and husbands, and the Wheatsheaf regulars, and the vicar and the churchwardens and the outskirters from the big houses with the new conservatories. The local farmers and their wives were coming, and the big landowner, and the smallholders who had sold options on their parcels of land to Keith Bottrill. The Women’s Institute was coming in full force, and the Young Conservatives, and the Pensioners’ Club, or most of it. Even Miss Bowlly was coming.
They were coming, Harriet knew, to peer into the rooms and to nudge each other and to take another look at Meizu Girl, if they hadn’t seen enough of her already. Part of her, in her pride, wanted to take their breath away with the house’s splendour for the night. But another part of her, a better part, wanted them to see that Birdwood House was still here, and to convince them that it still belonged to Everden.
Harriet was wandering between the broken pillars when she heard a sound behind her. She turned, and saw Alison.
‘What do you think?’ She spread her arms wide. She was proud of the renaissance, even though it would last for only one night.
Alison looked at the ivy garlands and the blazing candles and the dark, massed weight of the fir branches. ‘Like I said. When you do something, you give it your full attention. No half measures. It looks – wonderful.’
‘I’m nervous,’ Harriet confessed. ‘Do you think they’ll come? Will they enjoy themselves?’
‘Will they come? Nothing else has been talked of in Everden for weeks. When I came through tonight, the excitement was palpable. But I can’t predict what will constitute enjoyment for the Pensioners’ Club. Spotting Tom Frost with the vicar’s wife behind the plaster groves, perhaps?’
They laughed, but Alison was thinking that, for all her capability, there was an uncertainty in Harriet that could make her seem oddly vulnerable. It must be the combination, of fragility with her undoubted power, that made her attractive to men. Alison had seen the eyes that followed her, but she didn’t suppose the admiration compensated for the thinness of Harriet’s skin that aroused it. It would be easier, she thought, for an entrepreneur to have an elephant’s hide.
‘Come and see the rest,’ Harriet invited.
They toured the house, walking through the expectant rooms where waiters and waitresses were taking up their stations, and penetrating into the kitchens where a canvas encampment had been erected beyond the back doors. There seemed to be dozens of people, all working like clockwork.
To Alison, Harriet seemed lonely in the midst of it all, in all the briefly made-up crumbling splendour of her big house. They came back to the hallway and stood at the foot of the sweep of stairs. Harriet was looking out into the darkness.
‘They’ll be here soon,’ she whispered.
Suddenly she turned to Alison. She took her hand, with a slight awkwardness. ‘It’s because of you that I’m here,’ she said. ‘Because you were generous, and invited me to stay with you when you hardly knew me. I wanted to say thank you.’
Alison was touched. The impressions that had drifted around her as they toured the house swam together now, and coalesced. Harriet was powerful, and she was very rich, and very busy, and she was in need of friends. It was so obvious that Alison was irritated with herself, although she prided herself on being perceptive, for not having expressed it to herself before. She had been deceived by the façade, as others were.
‘I’m glad I did,’ she said. ‘Although there’s no need to thank me for anything. I wouldn’t have missed tonight for all the world.’ She held Harriet’s hand for a moment, and then let it go.
‘Look,’ Alison said. She pointed, out through the open doors. There were car headlights, turning in at the Birdwood gates.
Harriet put her hands to the skirt of her green velvet dress, and then stood up straight. They came, in a steady stream.
There were the pillars of Everden, the women in best dresses topped off with woollens, as if they couldn’t bring themselves to believe that the derelict rooms would be warm enough, and the men in stiff suits. There were the outskirters in last-season’s designer outfits and some of their husbands in dinner suits, and the farmers and their wives, and the pensioners, and the young people, who came in bigger groups exuding noisy, nervous bravado.
Harriet shook every hand, and welcomed each arrival back to Birdwood.
The people flooded into the rooms, whispering at first and peering sceptically at the theatrical decor and nudging one another, but they swept the glasses of champagne off the silver trays held out by young waiters, and the volume of talk and laughter swelled until it filled the rooms and drowned the soft music played by the band.
David came with Anthony Fell, bringing a double contingent of their staffs so that brawny, suntanned young men and black-clad design people filtered between the cardigans and outskirter taffeta. Harriet, who had worried that there would be an imbalance of elderly ladies, began to see that there was no need. Anthony Fell bore down on Miss Bowlly, and pressed another glass of champagne into her hand.
A hand touched Harriet’s shoulder, and she turned to see David beside her.
‘It looks spectacular. Just what they need to convince them that anything can be done, with a will.’
She turned her face up to his. David didn’t remove his hand.
‘Will it be a success?’
‘It is a success.’
Harriet looked away from him, abruptly, at the throng around them. ‘Mingle, mingle,’ she begged him.
‘I know what to do,’ David said. He half smiled at her, and went away into the crowd. Harriet found that her eyes followed him. She allowed herself to take a glass of champagne from a passing tray.
A small nucleus of Harriet’s own friends came, Jenny and Charlie and Jane and Karen among them. Jane stood in the big room, framed by ivied pillars. Candlelight shone through her faintly frizzed hair, making a nimbus around her head, as she surveyed all the people and the waiters and the musicians circulating under the grand plaster ceilings.
‘Jesus,’ she breathed.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Harriet said warmly.
‘The lady of the manor commands, and we can only obey.’
‘Don’t say it like that.’
Jane turned to her. ‘I was only joking.’
‘I know, but don’t.’
Charlie came between them, put his arm through Harriet’s. ‘Show me everything,’ he commanded. They wound away, between the knots of chattering people, and Harriet pointed eagerly past the decorations for the night and described the work that would be done, must be done, to put the house back into order.
‘You really love this place, don’t you?’ Charlie asked.
‘Yes. I never felt I had a home before. Charlie, I have to go and talk to people.’
He let her go, watching her with amusement as she plunged into the task.
Harriet worked her way through the rooms, talking and laughing, shaking hands and making introductions. The separate groups began slowly to mingle and then to coalesce. The party was movin
g under its own momentum. Harriet drank another glass of champagne, and began to enjoy herself.
Among Harriet’s own guests were Kath and Ken. Ken had gravitated naturally towards the building contingent, and Kath pecked at the edges of the Everden ladies groups, with Harriet watching her from the corner of her eye. After two drinks Kath’s fair skin flushed pink and she grew animated, laughing at something Anthony Fell told her and then resting her hand confidingly on Karen’s arm.
When the people began to drift into the supper room and settle themselves in coveys at the round tables, Harriet found herself sitting with Kath on a garden bench in one of the plaster grottoes.
‘Are you all right, love?’ Kath asked, as she almost always did.
‘Yes, Mum, I’m all right.’
‘It’s a very grand party. It’s not what I was expecting, not at all.’
‘What were you expecting?’
When Kath laughed, in a certain half-apologetic way she had, Harriet was reminded of the young girl she had once glimpsed behind her mother’s face. She saw the girl now. Kath’s fingers came up to smother her laughter. ‘Something more like a village fete. Ice cakes, tea urns and wet grass. I should have known better, shouldn’t I, since you had the planning of it?’
She was looking across the room, into the heart of the log fire. Her expression was a mixture of pride and awe.
‘It must all be costing a fortune,’ she murmured.
What Harriet saw was the anxiety that habitually overlaid her mother’s face.
‘It’s all right,’ she reassured her. ‘It’s important, and the cost doesn’t matter.’
Kath sat up straighter, as if determined to make a confession. ‘I never said I was sorry. I was sorry, Harriet, but I did what I thought was right.’
‘I know you did.’ Harriet wasn’t going to say that it was all right, offering yet another reassurance, because it was not. With Kath, she could have saved Peacocks from Robin Landwith. ‘I know why you did it.’