by Carol Smith
Barbara Cook, the American torch-singer, was in town for just a couple of concerts and it was amazing how many people had turned out to hear her, particularly in all this heat. That was some sort of pulling power, he thought, as he wove his way among the crowd, like the enticement he could feel from this unknown young woman, with her luminous lips and dazzling tan.
He stood looking down at her with a lazy smile and watched her melt.
“Here for the music?”
“You bet.”
“Like Barbara Cook, do you?”
“Of course.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a lawyer. And you?”
“Not a lot. Here, let’s get out of here. This heat’s really getting to me.”
“But the second half . . .”
“Don’t worry. I’ll buy you the disc if you’re nice to me.”
They threaded their way through the crowd and out into the blessed relief of the cool night air. That was more like it. Two swift knife-blows to the solar plexus and the mission was achieved. What people remembered later—apart from the blood and the screaming, and the general confusion—was a crushed straw hat, trodden underfoot.
Oh, and the smile. That smile.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Oh-oh-oh-Yes, I’m the Great Pretender . . .” warbled Beth as she banged about in the kitchen, opening cupboards, picking over the vegetable rack, making a list. It was Saturday morning and she was singing along with Brian Matthew’s Sounds of the Sixties. It was a muggy spring morning so she had all the windows open. Outside a fine drizzle fell.
The phone rang. It was Georgy with murder in her heart, keen to unload her venom at having been snubbed by Vivienne in Harrods. Beth grinned as she listened. Attacks on Oliver’s wife always made her warm inside, although she knew that wasn’t quite fair.
“And that’s all she said,” screeched Georgy, once she had spat out the whole sorry tale in one long gabble of rage. “Dismissed me like royalty meeting the housemaid on her afternoon off. After all we’ve been through together!”
“Indeed,” said Beth solemnly. “Shared bedpans, urine bags, the lot.”
Georgy didn’t know about Beth and Oliver, and Beth intended to keep it that way. Sally had long ago wormed out of her the basic details but only on the strictest injunction to absolute silence and the threat of certain death if she ever slipped. She wondered what Georgy would say if she did find out, whether she’d be sympathetic. Envious, yes; supportive, maybe—but only in the most extreme fashion. One word about illicit love and she’d be nagging Beth to have it out with him, to confront Vivienne on her own doorstep and tell her she was snatching her husband, so there. Beth shuddered. She loved Oliver to distraction but had no wish to break up his marriage. One husband had been enough for her; these days she was very content as she was. And besides, she recognized she was the one in the wrong, something Georgy would never be able to comprehend. Georgy who, by her own admission, had been known to phone her best friend’s boyfriend while the friend was away for the summer and entice him into bed. Just as good friends, you understand; nothing serious.
“Can’t stand here gossiping all day, hon,” she said. “It’s Saturday. Time for the Big Shop.”
She was cooking lamb couscous for eight for Sunday lunch and had a row of directors’ lunches the following week.
“Anyone coming?” she trilled over the racket Imogen was making from her bedroom. Imogen despised sixties’ music and was playing Meat Loaf at full volume in opposition.
“Where are you going?” Imogen’s head, still uncombed, hung over the bannister rail.
“Sainsbury’s, eventually. Come and help.”
“Yuk, major yawn,” said her charming child, and disappeared back into the chaos of her bedroom.
Beth backed the Volvo out of the driveway and drove up to Bleinhem Crescent to the cheery beat of “Pretty Flamingo.” She loved Saturday mornings, even though they were the busiest in the week, and she enjoyed the casual, ethnic area in which she lived when the whole population seemed to be out on the streets, shopping or simply hanging out. She popped into Books for Cooks for a word with Clarissa Dickson-Wright, then continued on to the Portobello Road for her vegetables and meat.
Turnips, butternut squash, fresh coriander—at this time of year there were vegetables in abundance and Beth simply wandered, her wicker basket over her arm, touching but not squeezing, having a friendly word with each of the familiar stall-holders, torn by the dreadful dilemma of having to decide which of their sumptuous offerings to add to her growing load. Aubergines, Jersey new potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes. One thing: with her busy work schedule, it would all get used. With her northern shrewdness and business brain, there was very little waste in Beth’s shipshape kitchen. She hadn’t forgotten that she’d been hungry enough in the past, and now it all added to the fun of making things work economically.
When her arms were starting to ache in their sockets she called it a day and headed back to the car. She packed all her produce into the boot, then drove on up to Sainsbury’s. She loved this place with a passion; just wandering along its air-cooled aisles with her trolley was Beth’s idea of absolute happiness. In the way that others might seek solace in a church, Beth visited Sainsbury’s when she needed a break, to get a little peace, absorb the atmosphere, study the other shoppers, see what the world was eating these days. And just occasionally, like now, she ran into a friend.
“Beth, my darling,” hooted Richard Brooke, crashing his trolley into hers to prevent her moving on and giving her a smacking kiss. “How are you?”
It was months since she’d seen him but he hadn’t changed. He still wore the same paint-spattered chinos and disreputable striped shirt, still looked as dashing and piratical as ever.
“I’m fine, what about you?” She was thrilled to see him, one of her oldest and most cherished friends, who had known her since her early days as an actress, back in the childhood of Methuselah.
“Not so bad.”
“Selling?”
“Occasionally.”
Richard was fashionable these days and his prices had rocketed alarmingly, but he still retained the diffidence which was his principal charm.
“Drop into the studio for a beer when you’re finished, why don’t you? I’m heading back there right now and a couple of my mates will be over.”
“I’ll try.” She still had a mass of shopping to get through but she was fond of Richard and liked to keep up with him. Creative people, among whom Beth loosely numbered herself, had to stick together. Likewise old friends. Life these days was altogether too tense and uncertain and old friendships, like good wines, were the best and improved with the keeping. They kissed again and she wandered on, aisle after aisle—admiring, pondering, plucking. Apricots, sun-dried tomatoes, goat’s cheese. Tinned tomatoes for her quickie pasta sauce, crushed dried chilis for tomorrow’s Bloody Marys. More Clamato juice. Fresh basil. It was not yet the basil season but Sainsbury’s, miraculously, now seemed to stock it all year round. It was expensive but who cared. There were certain little luxuries a person could not, for the benefit of their soul, afford to do without and basil was one of them. As was saffron.
With her cart piled a mile high, Beth at last propelled it through the checkout and outside to the car park to unload. It was a major undertaking, the Saturday shop, and she preferred to have Imogen along to help, which cut down the time considerably. But shopping, at least for food, was not one of life’s excitements when you were twelve so Beth was perfectly happy to do it alone. And it gave her space to think.
Poor Georgy, she couldn’t help smiling as she remembered her outburst. Georgy’s problem was she was so intense. It was hard to believe Vivienne Nugent would be quite so rude, but you never knew, and what, in the long run, did it matter? She was unlikely ever to become more than a passing acquaintance—she had made that abundantly clear in hospital—and it was also against the odds that Georgy’s path would cross hers again, o
ther than by accident. If Georgy were more aware, she would learn to make more use of Sally. Sally was young and on the loose and, more to the point, she was fun. Georgy could do a great deal worse than turn Sally into a friend; she might also learn a lot about life from her.
• • •
Richard’s studio was at the top of a converted warehouse backing onto the canal. It had huge, arch-shaped windows with wide, low windowsills and a clear northern light that was the envy of his artist friends. It was spacious and rather cluttered and smelled comfortingly of charcoal and turpentine. Beth loved it. Just walking up the rickety outside staircase brought back so many memories.
“Anyone home?”
Richard emerged from the room at the rear, beer can in hand, and hailed her with joy.
“You’re here! Splendid. Come on in and warm your bum.”
In the center of the room a wood-burning stove was smoldering. The day was mild but the warmth offset the damp and made the studio more homey and enticing. A couple of sagging sofas, covered in filthy afghans and smelling strongly of mildew, lined the walls; the rest of the space was taken up with wooden plan chests, canvases, and, by the window, Richard’s work area, a battered pine table that had seen better days, covered with brushes, sticks of charcoal, and tubes of paint.
Two more men were lounging by the window, drinking beer and watching a coal barge crawl by along the canal. Beth knew them both already—Ben the builder, Adrian a part-time poet—and they all embraced as Richard flipped open a can of Worthington’s for her. Outside it was definitely grayer and the rain was growing more serious.
“Typical Saturday,” said Ben. “There goes this afternoon’s match.”
Beth flicked through a pile of Richard’s rough sketches, mainly local views skillfully understated in pencil with a watercolor wash. He hadn’t lost his eye; she was impressed.
“When do you become a tax exile?” she asked and Richard’s eyes, the color of treacle, met hers for a moment and held them thoughtfully.
“Would you come with me?”
“Like a shot.”
He laughed. “If I thought you meant that, I might consider it.” He’d always had a soft spot for Beth and she knew it. “But lotus-eating on your own can’t be a lot of fun.”
“Go to Andorra,” said Ben, “then you can ski.”
“Are you kidding? Have you seen it? It’s nothing but a long ugly strip of camera shops and liquor stores, like an airport duty-free shop writ large. No, if I did it at all I’d go to Cannes. Or to Malibu, maybe, alongside David.”
“And paint swimming pools?”
“And make a fortune?”
“Something like that.”
Beth drank up. It was ten to two.
“I’ve got to go. My infant will be squalling for her food and I’ve still got the car to unload.”
“When will I see you again?”
“Tomorrow? I’m doing lamb couscous and you’re welcome to join us. The same applies to you two if you’re doing nothing better,” she said. “I’ve already got eight, another three won’t hurt.” She picked up her car keys and her bag and headed down the stairs. “Twelve thirty onward,” she shouted. “Bye now. Hope to see you.”
“Now that really is one classy lady,” said Adrian, as they all three watched her go, hurrying through the rain in her jeans and cheesecloth shirt, oblivious of the rain soaking her hair and sticking it to her head in rat’s tails.
“Yes,” said Richard dreamily, leaning against the glass but looking back into the past. “She always has been, a genuine life-enhancer.”
“Odd she’s never married again,” said Ben. “If I were free I’d be after her like a shot.”
“She wouldn’t have you,” said Richard. “That’s the original cat that prefers to walk by itself. And she’s better off that way. She’s a nest-builder, a nurturer, and she likes to spread it around, but don’t be fooled. I knew her when she was married and she wasn’t a shadow of what she’s become. No, Beth Hardy is unique. Let’s keep it that way.”
• • •
“Mum, I’m starving,” Imogen whined, hovering in the kitchen doorway as Beth humped Sainsbury’s bags onto the kitchen table.
“Then give me a hand and you’ll get fed all the quicker.”
She passed Imogen a basket of aubergines and squash, misted with rain and looking too perfect to destroy, and reached farther into the boot for the lamb. It was a good thing she was strong because catering certainly took it out of you. All this lifting, heaving, and stowing was a fitness program in itself. If it weren’t for the downside that went with it—tasting, assessing, adjusting—it would be a perfect health cure. Ah, well.
“Dad rang. He wanted to come over for lunch tomorrow but I told him he couldn’t because we had company.” There was just a hint of accusation in her voice.
“Then ring him right back and tell him it’s okay. We’re up to eleven, he’ll make it a round dozen. Unless he insists on bringing Karl. Did he mention him?”
“He didn’t. He wants to fix the shelves in my bedroom and then go see the orangutans, if there’s time.”
Beth smiled as she hung the garlic rope on a nail on the side of the dresser and put the coriander and parsley into cold water to keep fresh. He was a love, her ex. Imogen was lucky to have such a consistent man in her life and so, indeed, was she.
“Tell him they’re both welcome,” she said.
Thirteen, hmmm. Judas Iscariot.
But she’d cope, she always did, and at least if she had both Gus and Richard Brooke around her table, chances were she’d finally get that gate fixed. There was nothing like a little healthy competition among men to get them hopping. She laughed, threw a couple of handfuls of elbow pasta into a pan, and set about chopping shallots and parma ham to make a fast lunch for her starving child.
Chapter Twenty-two
Harrods Food Hall was crowded, but then it always was. Vivienne pushed her way through the throng in the charcuterie department and headed on into Wines and Spirits in order to be able to breathe. And to look for a bottle of framboises in case the weather picked up at the weekend and Oliver was home and wanted kirs in the garden. Fat chance.
This shop was becoming more and more of a showplace, with its Egyptian Hall and the band of marching pipers that patrolled each floor, but she loved it as much as ever and came here whenever she was feeling insecure. It didn’t matter that she often had nothing she particularly wanted to buy. She could always find something; that was never an issue. Harrods was not about shopping, it was a way of life, an attitude of mind. Vivienne had been coming here since childhood and although it had seen great changes, in essence it remained the same. Solid, secure, and comfortingly affluent. Some people turned to food when they were feeling unhappy or out of control. Vivienne always headed for Harrods.
She took the number 10 escalator to the first floor and trawled through the designer department as a matter of course. The thing about Harrods was knowing your way about it, and Vivienne was essentially a Knightsbridge child. Nothing here especially to make her want to linger but she enjoyed looking and touching and occasionally trying on. Service was not what it once had been but they did still treat you with an element of courtesy, and they also had changing rooms that were not communal, with full-length mirrors and flattering lighting, enough space to turn around, and thick fitted carpets to stand on when you’d kicked off your shoes. And, most important, they didn’t hustle. If you wanted to spend the morning debating the merits of just two outfits, Harrods was the place to go. They would even bring you accessories to try from other departments and when you left, your packages could be sent separately and would often get home first.
It was a pity about the fur department, once Vivienne’s mecca, but alas no more. Furs were no longer politically correct.
She flicked through Lingerie and bought herself a couple of satin bras, then went on up to Cook’s Way where she slowed her pace. Although she rarely cooked these days, Vivienne did appr
eciate copper pans. They looked so nice in the kitchen, even if they were hard work, and she did have Dorabella to care for them and scour them with lemon juice before use to avoid poisoning the guests. She studied the Le Creuset range and saw they now had a wok with a draining rack. She didn’t know if Dorabella would ever use it. She had terrible arthritis, and would constantly complain. Since they usually went out for Chinese, Vivienne decided to leave it, at least for the time being. No point in upsetting the hired help unnecessarily.
She wandered into Informal China and bought an Italian ceramic soup tureen just because it was so pretty, pale green with embossed butterflies, grapes, and vine leaves, so delicately wrought that she wondered if she would even get it home in one piece. So she asked for it to be sent and then added the platter and soup bowls so that they would have a matching set. And the jug too, which would be useful for lemonade in the summer if they ever had an outside party. Which they rarely did because the weather was so unreliable and Oliver away so often. That thought brought her back to the coming weekend and her basic anger with life in general and her husband in particular.
Vivienne wandered on into Linens and bought matching sets of table and cocktail napkins in apple green to go with the china, then on into the pet department in case they had Burmese kittens. There were no cats today—probably just as well, the way she was feeling—but there was a scarlet macaw. She was reminded of the veterinary surgery, then thought of Duncan Ross and poor Catherine. Her mind flicked over Catherine, who had looked so weak and frail the last time she had seen her, and settled—as it usually did—on Duncan, the Delectable Vet.