"I might at that," says Simon, standing up. "Sure you won't have another?"
"Nope, going. Bye Bella. Remember not to bend over; it might be Colin Dunnock behind you next time."
Bella throws a beer mat at him.
"Nice guy," says Simon.
Bella shrugs. "He's okay. I can't imagine why he hangs out with that creepy Martin. Chalk and cheese I'd have thought."
"Shared values. Passionate belief in justice for animals."
"What's he in? Did you find out?"
"Office supplies. He knows all the local companies. Could be useful. I almost offered him some sort of deal. Maybe I will."
"Why was he talking about car-phones?"
"He'd like one. Like he says, they're the future."
"Aren't they desperately expensive?"
"Depends how you look at it. It means you're never away from the office. One or two extra deals could easily cover it. Ideal for him, I should think."
"And I suppose you'd like one."
Simon shrugs. "Maybe one day. Car-phone, Jag, sexy secretary."
"You've got a sexy secretary, the job's not vacant." She finishes her drink. "Does he talk much about it, the animal thing?"
"Surprisingly little, but then I didn't really give him a chance. They're definitely coming to next week's meeting by the way. Martin seems quite keen apparently."
"Oh, goody! Can't wait."
"Don't be like that. The more the merrier I'd have thought. Want another?"
"Can I have a brandy?" She immediately puts her hands up defensively. "No, don't say it. I'll have half a shandy."
"I wasn't going to say anything. You can have a brandy if you like; toast the new shop."
"On the house," says Charlie, glancing furtively along the bar.
"Bless you Charlie."
Bella is quiet and thoughtful for a while, sipping her drink. "To tell the truth I'm getting a bit fed up with it."
"What, being poor?"
"No, not that. Well I am, but I know that's my own fault. I mean the FROTH thing."
Simon smiles. "I wondered how long it would take."
"What do you mean by that? I just don't think it's going to work, that's all, not in the time we've got. I mean, I understand what he's trying to do, but it's all so long-term and low-key. I don't want to spend months clearing junk and cutting down pine scrub only to find that no-one notices or cares. It might be Julius's idea of fun, but it certainly isn't mine."
"But we're doing so well: a whole truckload of rubbish last week. The place looks better already, and the piece in the Bugle looked great. You've a real talent for it."
"I'm not saying it isn't a good thing to do. I just don't want it to be me doing it. My job is to protect the Stones. If it isn't achieving that then as far as I'm concerned I'm wasting my time. Where's the interest? Where's the feedback? Nothing! Just that stupid letter about the chainsaw noise. Nobody cares; that's what it amounts to. They're so indifferent they'd probably be perfectly happy to have a bloody great clay pit on their doorstep. And when Aunty and Miranda find out, which they will, I'll be in big trouble. For what?"
"We got a lot of new members out of it."
"Yes, and that's another thing. Do you really want to spend your weekends with those people?"
"They are a bit dull I admit, most of them."
"Dull! Brain-dead, more like. Why are they all the same? Do they clone them? Is there a breeding-centre for eco-nerds somewhere? Anyway, it may none of it be necessary now."
"You really think she'll lose interest?"
"Yup, soon as that baby pops out she'll be just another fat, bovine mummy; trust me. She won't want to be bothered with empire building then. It'll be all nappies and feeding routines."
"I'm not so sure. She seems a pretty tough cookie to me, very ambitious."
"Ambitious! What does she want to be ambitious for? She's married to a bloody millionaire!"
"Driven then. I don't know. Besides, they've got that inheritance tax money to find from somewhere."
"Oh it's all so stupid," says Bella crossly. "It's a completely artificial problem. Michael could pay that out of his small change and finance all the improvements she wants. Although, to be honest, I can't see much wrong with the estate the way it is, except perhaps the potholes in the lane, and I think Aunty and Uncle feel the same. At least, I know Uncle does. I don't know what to think about Aunty any more."
"But she doesn't want him to; finance it, I mean. That's the whole thing. She wants the estate to pay for itself. She wants it to be independent of his money."
"Is that what she told you? I wondered what you two were talking about all evening."
"She didn't say it in so many words, but it's obvious."
"Really? What else is obvious?"
"Oh, that the estate is her life; she's completely absorbed in it. That and the church, and tormenting various wildlife. God knows what Nick would think."
"Oh well, the family has always hunted. It's traditional."
"You don't."
"Not now, but I used to, when I was still at home." She gazes at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Do you fancy her?"
"Fancy your sister! What a question!"
"Well do you?"
Simon considers this. "I don't know. No, I don't think I do really. Too straight, not much sense of humour. I mean, very nice, very hospitable. Michael too, come to that; a bit overpowering perhaps, but —"
"I mean, physically. Do you fancy her physically?"
"Oh I see. Well she's very attractive, obviously. After all, she looks a lot like you."
"She doesn't look a bit like me!"
"Yes she does: same height, same colouring, same eyes, even the same mouth."
"The same mouth?"
"Yes, wide and sort of sulky."
"I haven't got a sulky mouth, I have a passionate mouth."
"Yes, sulky and passionate."
"Don't you like it then?"
"Yes, of course I like it." He leans forward. "It's an eminently kissable mouth"
"And you like hers too?" says Bella, drawing away.
"Yes, insofar as it's like yours."
Bella pouts. "But she's fat! She's got a big, fat bum. You should see her on a horse."
"Can't say I've noticed."
"You do fancy her, I can tell."
"No, not fancy. You can appreciate someone's looks without fancying them."
Bella finishes her brandy. "She fancies you."
"Does she? How do you know?"
"I just do. Women know these things."
"Well I don't fancy her. It has to be you. Cheap copies not acceptable."
Bella lets him kiss her for that. "You fancy Jacqui though," she says accusingly.
Simon sighs. "I do not fancy Jacqui."
"You think she's a nice bit of totty."
Simon looks heavenwards. "God, I wish I'd never said that. Look, she's a pretty girl, that's all. The world is full of pretty girls. They are not, however, you."
"You just appreciate her looks?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Nothing else?"
"No!"
"All right then." Bella allows herself to be mollified. "Can I have another one?"
Simon looks surprised. "Another?"
"Yes, why not?" She throws out a dramatic arm. "Let the celebration continue."
"All right then. Another brandy please, Charlie, and the same again for me."
"When do you get vacant possession?"
"October."
"Not till then?"
"It's just as well. It might take that long to complete on the house. I've had to scratch round for the deposit as it is. You have to pay three months in advance."
"Are we very broke?"
"Just about skint I'm afraid."
"Charlie. Put it back in the bottle."
"Don't be silly." Simon puts his head on one side and gazes at her thoughtfully. "This hunting business: do you approve? I mean, Would you do it now, as
an adult?"
As befits such a massive non sequitur, Bella blinks and gives her head a little shake. "Goodness, I don't know. I've never really though about it." She sits for a while considering her reply, pursing her lips so that Simon can see that she is doing so. "I mean, I can understand why Nick and people get upset, because they think it's just killing things for fun, which sounds awful. Well, it is awful, obviously. I mean . . . what I mean is, it would be awful if that's what they were doing, but when you're doing it, it never seems like that."
"No?"
"No. It's not that simple. I mean, I'm not defending it, because you can't really. And the control of vermin thing won't wash, although they'll tell you it's that, because if you kill one, another just pops up. The by-pass does it better anyway. But for most people it's more the riding and the company and the excitement of the jumps. The fox is just an excuse. It's not like you're thinking: gosh, I'm really looking forward to watching some poor bloody creature being torn to shreds by a pack of hounds. You're hardly ever in at the kill anyway. But for a certain sort of countryman it's more like . . . I'll tell you what I think it's like, it's like going to church, it's like taking communion."
"Taking communion! How d'you work that out?"
"Because it's a ritual. It's something very elemental. It brings people together, binds them. Ritual is very important. It has real power. We pagans understand that better than anyone. I bet Miranda would give up her church before her hunting. They'll never stop it you know; it goes too deep." She shrugs. "Anyway, if that Martin hates it so much, I'm inclined to be for it, just to spite him."
Simon smiles. Leaning forward he kisses her again. "I love you, Isabella Jane."
"Do you really?"
"Yes really."
"Why?"
"Because you're you."
Bella drapes her arms over his shoulders and kisses him back. She decides to stop thinking about Thurston, which is all she has done all week. Thurston wouldn't love her like that; he wouldn't know how. He's just a thick, dumb carpenter and Pat's welcome to him. She looks at her watch. "Let's go home," she says. "You can have your wicked way with me. But remember I'm back here again tonight."
*
"Anyway, I seen you," says Darren, nonchalantly wiping a table.
"Seen me, Darren?" sighs Bella, glancing at the clock.
"Yeah, want to know where?"
"Not particularly."
"You should. I know where you go. I followed you."
Bella has the cutlery trolley in the centre of the big dining room, setting places for the morning. Outside, coloured lights are blinking and moving on the black waters of the harbour. "Followed me where?"
"You know where," sneers Darren.
"Darren, what are you talking about?"
"You, at the Tenstones, dancin' about in the nuddy."
Bella pauses, spoon in hand, then continues very deliberately with her work. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes you do. You're a witch; you was doin' a spell." He picks up a folded table cloth, flicks it open and drapes it over a table. "I expect you was puttin' a curse on someone. They'll get sick and die and people will think it was natural causes."
"I don't believe you," says Bella, struggling to retain her composure. "I don't believe you saw."
"All right, you've got a big black mole on yer arse, yer left arse. I never seen yer arse, so how else would I know?" Darren sniggers. "You looked really stupid, jumpin' about like that. You oughter watch out who's comin'."
"You've got no business!" says Bella, hotly.
"It's a free country. I can go where I like."
Bella puts her hands on her hips and glares at him. "Do you seriously mean to tell me you took the trouble to follow me all the way to the Tenstones? Is your pathetic little life really that empty?"
Darren shakes his head disdainfully. "Nah, course not. Scramblin,' weren't I? Me and me mates. We often gets up there."
"You mean your bloody mates were gawping at me as well!"
"Nah, they'd gone, worse luck." Darren grins wolfishly. "I oughter've pinched yer clothes. Then you'd 'ave looked really stupid."
Bella pulls herself together, drawing on the natural dignity of a Priestess and a Hauteville. "If you must know, Darren, I'm a naturist, that's all. I like to feel the sun and air on my skin, and I like to do it alone. If I catch you spying on me again, with or without your mates, there'll be trouble, do you hear?" She moves away purposefully to the other side of the room, but Darren follows her.
"You're a witch all right. I knows about witches. You was shakin' some sort of potion out of a bottle and you said some words — spell words."
"Rubbish," says Bella.
"Have you got a coven? I bet you've got a coven."
"No, Darren, I haven't got a coven."
"Yes you have; that's what witches do. You do it in a circle with other women. It's called a Sabbath. In the day they're secretaries an' housewives an' that, but at night they're witches, naked." He follows her round the tables. "Sometimes there's men. You bewitch men so you can have orgies with them. You can bewitch me if you like."
"No thank you, Darren."
"Witches is Satanism," says Darren authoritatively. "You worship Satan. You worship evil. I got books on Satanism, and comics. There's some really good comics. I know how to conjure up the Devil; it's all in the books. You have to do evil; you have to spit on a cross an' turn yer arse on it an' say the Lord's Prayer backwards. And there's an altar, with a naked girl tied up on it, all spread out like, so you can see up her fanny. She has to be a virgin. There's a high priest and he has to screw the virgin." Darren leans across the table that Bella is laying. "He has to say, 'In the name of the Devil I defile thee.' And then he appears!"
Bella laughs. "Defile! That's a big word for you, Darren."
"Yeah, well, you can learn a lot from those books. There's these rituals. You have to have a dagger an' a chalice an' some incest. I'm gonna get some. You can get them from Cauldron; it's a sort of witch's shop in Pinebourne. Course, I expect you go there."
"Nope, never heard of it," says Bella, wearily. "Now will you please hurry up? I'd like to go home sometime tonight, if you don't mind. There are the napkins to do yet, and the condiments. Or are you just going to stand there, being evil?"
"Bet you have," persists Darren. "I bet that's where you get your stuff. You was burnin' incest. I smelled it."
"Incense Darren, not incest!"
"Incense, then. You oughta let me join your coven. I could bring a virgin to defile."
"Really? I'm surprised you know any, given your irresistible charm."
"Well that's where you're wrong, smarty-pants. I could bring Denise Dunnock. She's a virgin; she told me."
Bella raises an eyebrow. "Oh? I seem to remember you telling me in some detail how you had her in her mum's bed, while they were at the Licenced Victuallers Annual Dinner Dance."
Darren scowls. "Yeah, well, so I did, but that was just messin' about, like. I didn't actually enter her, see, so it don't count." He picks up a fish knife and begins tossing it in the air, catching it by the handle. "I bet you was a virgin once. I bet they used you to conjure the Devil. I bet they defiled you with a dagger." He illustrates this graphically with the knife. "That's how you became a witch, and now you can't escape the web of evil."
Bella sighs and closes her eyes. Despite her best intentions she is becoming seriously annoyed with this tiresome little nonentity with its nasty, smelly little aura and its nasty, white, groping hands and its nasty little mind. It has, after all, been a very long day and she is swaying with exhaustion. "All right, Darren," she admits, nodding resignedly, "you've found me out. I'm a bride of Shaitan, okay? A handmaiden of the Dark Lord. Do you know what that means?"
"Yeah, that you're a witch," says Darren triumphantly. "I knew it."
"But do you know what that means exactly?" She allows a note of quiet menace to creep into her voice.
"Yeah . . . What?" says Da
rren.
Bella begins to move threateningly, towards him, an entirely new look in her hooded eyes. "It means I'm dangerous, Darren, more dangerous than you can possibly imagine, especially to those foolish enough to cross me. Tell me, do you know what a ligature is?"
"Er, yeah, course," says Darren.
"Are you quite sure?" She comes even closer, looming over him yet somehow bent, as if the hag within is coming out; a long, curved finger with its long red nail probing the fleshy gap between his shirt buttons. "It's like a little magical knot," she says, stabbing at the unhealthy white skin. "You can do some very unpleasant things with it."
"Yeah, course I know that," says Darren, starting to back away.
Bella follows him, pressing the attack. "And do you know what testicles are, Darren?
Darren begins to smirk nervously, then abruptly stops. "Yeah, course."
"Well, Darren," says Bella, her voice dripping with maleficence. "If you don't get on with your work, and if you don't promise never to mention this to anybody, ever, and if you don't promise never again to touch me like you did in the corridor this morning, do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take some clay, some special clay that only I know how to find, and I'm going to make a little doll, an anatomically accurate little doll, and then I'm going to say some special words over it that you will not find in your silly books and then that doll will be you, Darren, as much you as you, and then I'm going to place a nice firm ligature round its nasty little testicles, your testicles, Darren, and then I'm going to tighten, tighten, tighten, a little bit more each day until they DROP OFF. Do you understand? And your nasty undersized little willy won't be much use to you then, WILL IT?"
"You're mad," says Darren, straightening his tie. "I'm gonna tell Dunnock on you."
CHAPTER TWENTY
"I'll say one thing for that Thurston, he's a grafter," says Rat, wandering out onto the balcony. "He's done more in a week than I've done in the last three months. Damn fine workmanship too."
Isabella: A sort of romance Page 25