Just a Family Affair

by Veronica Henry

  There in front of them was a magnificent carousel. Two dozen white horses rode proudly up and down, the only hint of colour the gilt on their bridles and the red of their nostrils. Three thousand tiny bulbs lit up the inside and were reflected against a myriad squares of cut glass that reflected the ornate gilded carvings. The organ was playing ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’, the same music that had played Mandy up the aisle.

  Around the perimeter of the paddock was a range of tents and fairground attractions. Fat and thin mirrors and a glass maze; a stall cooking organic burgers and hot dogs; another dispensing candy floss, toffee apples and doughnuts. There was even a coconut shy.

  ‘Mum,’ breathed Mandy in amazement. ‘It’s fantastic.’

  ‘I know it’s all a bit over the top,’ said Sandra happily, ‘but I wanted something for you to remember. And once I’d started, I couldn’t really stop.’

  From the humblest Honeycote Ales employee to the upper echelons of the Eldenbury hunt, the guests swarmed enthusiastically over the fairground, whooping and shrieking with glee, letting their hair down. Soon every mount on the carousel had a rider, the air was thick with flying coconuts and howls of laughter greeted the reflections in the hall of mirrors.

  Even Lucy, the arbiter of good taste and understatement, had to admit it was fantastic, as Mickey grabbed her hand and forced her onto the dodgems. James and Caroline were already in one car; Ned and Sophie were in another.

  ‘I hate to admit it, but Sandra’s got it absolutely right,’ said Lucy to Mickey, taking the wheel. ‘There’s no way I’d have thought of this. But it’s just what everyone wants. Everyone’s equal in a fairground.’ She put her foot down on the throttle and aimed straight for Eric, the brewery handyman, smashing him out of the way.

  ‘Hey!’ said Mickey. ‘Steady on!’

  The next moment they were bombarded by Ned. Their car spun round. Lucy was laughing helplessly, her elegant hairdo collapsing, her shoes long discarded. As they whirled off in another direction, Mickey caught sight of Bertie lifting Flora onto a white horse on the carousel, then leap onto the one next to her. Kay stood on the ground, her dress obviously unsuitable for a merry-go-round, but she was smiling. Everyone, noticed Mickey, was smiling. Even his po-faced, uptight brother.

  It seemed that everyone loved a wedding.

  Ginny collided with Sandra by the white chocolate fountain. She felt a rush of pity for her. She had pulled together such an amazing spectacle, yet here she was on her own, with no one to go home and swap notes with. No one to share the memories with.

  ‘It’s completely fabulous, Sandra. You’ve done a wonderful job.’

  Sandra dipped a skewer of pineapple idly into the swirling sweetness. ‘I wanted it to be special. I haven’t been here for Mandy for the past few years, so I wanted to make it up to her.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you have. More than made it up. No one will ever forget this.’

  Sandra gave a little nod and a smile. Ginny hoped she hadn’t sounded too patronizing. She certainly hadn’t meant to.

  ‘By the way,’ said Sandra. ‘I’m impressed with your will power.’

  She looked at Ginny with a sly smile. Ginny looked back, startled.

  ‘What?’

  Sandra drew a piece of pineapple off its skewer with her teeth.

  ‘Alejandro was very put out. He said you were the first woman ever to resist his charms.’

  Ginny felt her cheeks flush red. ‘I couldn’t imagine what he saw in me. I thought he was teasing.’

  ‘Oh no,’ replied Sandra. ‘He adores older women. And I’ll tell you something. You missed a treat.’

  She tapped Ginny on the chest with her skewer, winked and waltzed off.

  Ginny was left shell-shocked. Was Sandra winding her up? Was this her way of saying that she knew what Ginny had been up to? Or had Alejandro really made out Ginny had rejected him? Panic flooded through her. Was she going to spend the rest of her life worrying about the truth coming out? She couldn’t bear it. The only way to stop the torture was to confess to Keith . . .

  Then, as she stood there, she started to giggle. What would she say? ‘By the way, I screwed the arse off Sandra’s drop-dead-gorgeous, Johnny Depp lookalike, twenty-three-year-old pool boy.’

  No one would believe it in a million years. Her secret was safe. And best of all, it had taken years off her. She’d cancelled her appointment at the clinic in the end, but everyone kept telling her how amazing she looked, and asked what her secret was. If they only knew . . . Guests looked at her askance as she walked through the fair, her head thrown back, laughing.

  Sandra knew she shouldn’t have wound Ginny up, but she hadn’t been able to resist it.

  Amidst the wedding preparations, she had spent the week taking a long, hard look at herself. She couldn’t maintain her smash and grab attitude to life any more. She had been so certain of getting Keith back, it had shocked her when he had rejected her outright. And of course he had been right, in retrospect. They couldn’t go backwards. They could never recapture what it was that had brought them together in the first place. They were both totally different people. She had been foolish to imagine that it could ever have worked, that she could slip into the new life he had built for himself and become accepted.

  If she wanted to share her life, if she wanted someone to enjoy the considerable fruits of her success with her, she had to do it for herself.

  She had begun by placing an advert on an internet dating site.

  ‘Successful mature businesswoman with a love of the finer things seeks a kind, generous and thoughtful gentleman to share . . .’

  Share what? She didn’t have any hobbies or interests. Her work had been her life. She hadn’t even played golf for the past two years.

  She rewrote it.

  ‘. . . to rekindle a passion for golf and find out what else life has to offer.’

  That would do. She didn’t want to be too exacting. And if her mental image of her ideal man looked rather like Keith - with a hint of Julio Iglesias thrown in - then that wasn’t so surprising.

  Patrick stood still. For a moment, he was transported back more than ten years, to that night at Eldenbury fair. The smells and the sounds were almost the same: music, generators, candy floss, diesel. He shivered as he remembered the dark eyes, the full lips, and what she had done to him.

  Mayday, as sweet and wild as the most out-of-reach blackberry. He’d thrown her to one side like a piece of autumn fruit that hadn’t quite made the grade. He felt sick with guilt. What was she doing, while the rest of the county celebrated his nuptials, gorging themselves sick and drinking themselves senseless?

  He shivered, despite the warmth of the evening. Then he turned to find his bride beside him.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Mandy anxiously, and by way of a reply he took her in his arms.

  ‘I’ve never been happier,’ he told her, thinking that as lies went, it was the perfect colour. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Aren’t we supposed to make an official departure?’

  ‘Never mind that. No one will notice. They’re all having too much fun.’

  He took her by the hand, led her through the fairground, back up the path, over the lawns, and into the house. They stood in the middle of the kitchen, arms around each other.

  ‘I remember the first time I came into this kitchen,’ said Mandy dreamily. ‘I fell in love with it, completely and utterly. It was so unlike our kitchen. It was mad, chaotic, full of people and laughter and music. And then you walked in . . .’

  ‘I remember too,’ said Patrick. ‘I saw this girl sitting at the table. Next to Sophie. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.’

  ‘And now here we are,’ said Mandy. ‘You’re mine. And this kitchen’s going to be ours.’

  Patrick led her over to the kitchen table. It was a Liddiard ritual for guests to carve their initials into the wood. The entire top was smothered in letters.

  ‘There’s just one thing that needs to be done,
’ he said, searching for Mandy’s. He found them at the top left hand corner. M S for Mandy Sherwyn.

  He handed her a Swiss army knife. She smiled and took out the blade, then scratched through the S and replaced it triumphantly with an L.

  Twenty-Two

  It was just over a week after the wedding. The fairground had been packed away, the plates and dishes and glasses washed and returned, false nails and fake tans had peeled off and faded, and the grass had grown over all the heel marks on the lawn.

  Patrick was driving hell for leather through the little country lanes to Honeycote. His hair was still wet from his hasty shower. He’d only just had time to jump in and pull some half-decent clothes on. It was jolly hard work being a newly-wed, he thought with a grin. Lucky Mandy was having the week off. She had thank-you letters to write. And she was making a start on packing up Little Orwell Cottage so that Kay and Flora could move in. Lucy had been horrified when she’d seen the state of the flat at the Peacock, and had insisted that they shouldn’t stay there longer than was necessary. After all, there was more than enough room for Patrick and Mandy at Honeycote House, even with Sophie and Ned there too. In the meantime, Lucy had found an architect and was drawing up plans for the stables to be converted. Rather elaborate plans, Patrick mused, involving floor-to-ceiling windows and mezzanine floors and spiral staircases. Whoever their potential investor was, he hoped they had their cheque book handy.

  They were meeting the investor today. They all had bets on who it would be. Robert Gibson wouldn’t be drawn on their identity. Patrick actually didn’t care much, as long as it meant they could bloody move on. It wasn’t as if they were going to be giving away a controlling interest any longer. Only James wanted to sell up completely. Mickey and Keith were both going to keep ten per cent, and stay on as consultants. Which left Patrick and the investor with forty per cent each. So whoever it was couldn’t do anything they didn’t agree with, or anything that wasn’t in line with the Liddiard ethos. There was nothing wrong with a bit of fresh blood. And from what he had seen of the proposal, even if he didn’t agree with every idea on it, it was certainly in keeping with what Honeycote Ales stood for.

  He turned left and whizzed down the hill to the brewery. Robert Gibson’s car was already there. Next to it was a gleaming Aston Martin. Bloody hell, thought Patrick. He couldn’t think of anyone he knew with a car like that. James had an old one stuffed in his garage, but this was brand new, with a private plate he didn’t recognize. MP. He ran through the few people he knew with initials that matched, but didn’t think any of them were likely investors. Never mind, he thought. He’d find out soon enough. They must all be in the boardroom already. He was only five minutes late.

  He jumped out of the car, ran his fingers through his hair, which was now nearly dry, and strode inside.

  He smelt her perfume first. The scent of wild roses filled his head, propelling him to another time and another place, making his heart skip a beat. He would recognize it anywhere. It was the scent he had chosen.

  And then he saw her. She was standing with her back to him, talking to the others. She was wearing a black dress that was severe and sexy at the same time. Extremely simple, extremely expensive - he knew that, because he remembered seeing the label when it was strewn on the bed at Claridges - and he was surprised it suited her. Her hair was straight and gleaming and her make-up subtle, though she still hadn’t been able to resist her dark red lipstick. In her hand she held a leatherbound document wallet, and each place at the table had a similar wallet placed next to a glass of water and notepad and pen.

  ‘Patrick!’ Mickey moved towards him, his face wreathed in a smile. ‘We thought you’d never get here. Come and see.’ He put a hand on Patrick’s back, ushering him across the room. ‘I expect you’ll be as surprised as I am. But it just goes to show, you shouldn’t scoff at all those people who do the lottery. Mayday bought her ticket in the post office in Honeycote, apparently. Nearly six bloody million quid! All right for some. All right for us, actually, it would seem.’

  Six million? Mayday? As the truth filtered in through his brain, Patrick took a guarded step towards her, trying to assimilate what this meant. To her, to him, to Honeycote Ales. She looked the epitome of a successful businesswoman. Polished, confident and focused. She peeled away from James and Keith as soon as she saw him.

  ‘Patrick.’

  They met in the centre of the room. Patrick felt all eyes were upon him as he put out his hand for her to shake and his cheek for her to kiss. A formal gesture with a hint of familiarity. It seemed the appropriate greeting. After all, everyone knew they were old friends and that they worked together. To keep too great a distance might seem odd.

  ‘Mayday,’ he managed. ‘This is a . . .’

  A total shock. A blow that had sent his senses reeling. Was it a stab in the back? Was this some sort of twisted revenge, because he had rejected her? Was she showing she could have him by the metaphorical balls? Was she going to taunt him, make him grovel, rub his nose in it?

  He struggled to find a suitable response.

  ‘A surprise,’ he managed lamely, as Robert Gibson came across to shake his hand too.

  ‘Sorry. I couldn’t breathe a word before,’ Robert said jovially. ‘We wanted to keep the whole thing under wraps. It doesn’t always do to advertise the fact that you’ve come into money - you get all sorts of strange people asking for handouts. And Mayday was particularly anxious not to overshadow the wedding.’

  Patrick glanced at her sharply. And she smiled back. And in that moment, he knew that her intentions were not malicious. On the contrary, she had done it out of her love for him. So many times he had shared his fears and worries about the brewery with her, and expressed his desperate wish for a change in their fortunes. She was coming to the rescue.

  She was doing it for him.

  Keith came over to join the group. ‘We better sit down and start thrashing things out,’ he said, ever businesslike. ‘There’s a lot of small print to get through before we actually shake hands on a deal.’

  Everyone moved to take their place at the table.

  Patrick took the opportunity to move close to Mayday, close enough to murmur in her ear. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She looked at him. He couldn’t quite describe the look in her eyes. Was it sorrow? Hurt? It certainly wasn’t scorn or triumph.

  ‘What difference would it have made, Patrick?’ she asked softly. ‘If you had known about the money? Would that have changed your mind?’

  He felt as if he had been punched. He wanted to shout that it wasn’t fair, that he hadn’t chosen her because the sacrifices they would all have had to make would have been too great. Or so he’d thought.

  He hadn’t believed in their love enough.

  Shaking, he took his place at the table. He had to say something. He couldn’t endure the prospect of having her as a partner. It was no good pretending that he would be able to keep his distance. If he was going to be taking on more responsibility, he would have to liaise with her, consult her, have discussions with her. Probably every day. With that scent driving him demented, reminding him of their passion. He would go insane, trying to resist her.

  But if he protested, they would be turning down a golden opportunity. Where the hell else were they going to get that kind of money melded with that kind of freedom? Because Mayday was perfect for Honeycote Ales. She understood exactly how it worked, and where it needed to go. He knew that because of what she had done at the Horse and Groom, because of all the conversations he’d had with her, because of the bloody document she had drawn up behind his back that gave him a glimpse of a future that was beyond rosy, and that he now didn’t want to relinquish.

  Besides, what he could say? What reason could he give the rest of the board for not wanting Mayday as a partner?

  But if he said yes . . .

  Could he trust himself?

  Of course he could. He was a married man. He loved his wife. He’d ma
de his decision over a week ago, on that hilltop overlooking Honeycote, made his pledge in the sight of God, and he was going to stick to it.

  Patrick opened his document wallet as Keith called the meeting to attention. His head was swimming. He took a gulp from his glass of water as Mayday took the chair opposite him. He barely took in a word anyone was saying. Keith spoke first, welcoming Robert and Mayday. Then Mickey, who gave a heart-warming speech about what Honeycote Ales meant - to the family, to the board, to the workers, and to the community. Robert gave a brief official introduction to Mayday, explaining that he was in a difficult position with a foot in both camps, but how he hadn’t wanted to miss out.

  And then Mayday stood up. No one could keep their eyes off her as she spoke. Softly at first, but as she became more impassioned her voice gained in strength. She talked about growing up with Honeycote Ales, about waking up to the smell of malt in the air each morning, about the journey from Tizer to cider in the pub gardens throughout her childhood, her first underage drink, her first legal drink. How the pubs had provided her with a certain security throughout her troubled adolescence, about how when she had taken her first job at the Horse and Groom, she had suddenly become someone in her own right. She had felt she had an identity. Which was why she was still there now.

  ‘When I won the money,’ she said, ‘the first thing I realized was I didn’t need my job any more. There would almost be no point. I’ve got a bloody fortune. I don’t need to get out of bed ever again if I don’t want to. But I love the Horse and Groom. And the brewery. They are part of who I am. If you cut me, I’d probably have Honeycote Ale running through my veins.’