In Search of Love, Money & Revenge

by Hilary Bailey

  Mrs Walters beckoned them to the window and pointed across the courtyard. ‘A lot of them over there have bought the houses. Some of the flats have been sold, too. See – new front doors, taking care of the garden. Do you think they’ll be trying to get rid of them?’

  ‘They’ll have to try to buy them out, if they’re going to rebuild,’ Ben said.

  ‘That black woman with all the kids has had one of these letters, too, look – she’s going next door to see if the neighbours had one. I’ve been here since the flats were built – brought the kids up here. I’ve seen what they offer you in exchange – rubbish. I’d never get the rooms – if they didn’t look at my age and push me in an old folk’s home. I’ve got friends here. And a job. It isn’t fair. Is it fair?’

  The doorbell interrupted her. After an agitated conversation in the hall Mrs Walters ushered in a plump, middle-aged woman whom she introduced as Mrs Wainwright.

  ‘This gentleman’s from the Kenton Post,’ she explained.

  ‘I’m shattered,’ said the newcomer. ‘I just don’t know what to do. Ted’s up north working. I can’t get hold of him. What are we going to do? Move? It’s disgusting. Mrs Walters says you’re from the paper – I hope you’ll quote me,’ she addressed Ben. ‘It’s disgusting – we ought to fight it. Who’s our MP?’

  ‘Is there a tenants’ association?’ asked Ben.

  Mrs Wainwright looked at Mrs Walters doubtfully. ‘There’s a woman who pushes things through the letterbox. Or is that the Social Services?’

  ‘I’ve got one about dogs fouling the courtyard,’ said Mrs Walters. ‘Did I throw it away – no, here it is.’ She showed Ben a photocopied circular letter headed Savernake Estate Tenants’ Association.

  Vanessa came in carrying a tray with a teapot and cups on it. Mrs Walters drank some tea and sighed. ‘Who’d have believed it?’

  ‘Them down there in the houses’ll sell and make a killing,’ Mrs Wainwright said. ‘They’re laughing. Half of them are having trouble with the mortgage.’

  ‘You can’t sell until you’ve owned the place for three years,’ Ben told her.

  ‘Is that a fact?’ said Mrs Wainwright. ‘That won’t please them.’

  ‘They’ll get round it somehow,’ Mrs Walters said. ‘What do you think?’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I think it’s been cleverly done,’ Ben observed, looking out of the window at the silent estate in the sunshine. A man came out with a transistor radio and a bucket, to clean his car. The music came faintly up to the windows. A girl with blue hair opened a window and flapped a duster out.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Vanessa. ‘Who says they can get away with it? Who? Haven’t you got any right to stay in your home if you want to? Get organised, get the MP on your side and lobby the councillors. Ben – you can get it in a paper, can’t you?’

  ‘The meeting’s on Wednesday, too soon to do much,’ said Ben.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Mrs Walters declared, ‘she’s right! We’re not beaten yet.’

  On another estate a mile away Betsey Jones interrupted herself to ask her daughter to make coffee.

  ‘Well, Les,’ she resumed, ‘that’s agreed. We refuse a vote on Wednesday and ask for an inquiry.’

  ‘Joe Banks’ll force a vote,’ said Les.

  ‘We’ll ask for a vote on the vote. We’ve got a probable nine on our side and the same on theirs. Then there’s the undecideds and do you know what I’m going to do? Ring Emily Littlejohn, Hugh Patterson and Jim Lloyd. I’m going to try and recruit them.’

  The only three Conservative councillors on Kenton Council were hardly the natural allies of the extreme left-wing faction headed by Les Dowell and Betsey Jones.

  ‘You never know with these Tories,’ continued Betsey, transfixed over a cigarette she was rolling, her red hair pointing down at the carpet. ‘OK, Jim Lloyd’ll be all for the project. He’s a surveyor. His brother’s an estate agent. They’ll be licking their lips. But the other two are turning against this ruthless capitalism.’

  ‘I’ll ring Emily,’ Les said.

  ‘No. She’ll trust you less than me,’ declared Betsey, and seized the phone from him.

  Not long after this it was established that, unusually, two of the Conservative councillors would be voting with the loony left against a vote on the Savernake Village project and in favour of a motion demanding an inquiry about how it had reached such an advanced stage without the knowledge of the council.

  ‘That’s stopped Joe Banks in the short term,’ said Les with satisfaction. ‘Now I’d better ring this woman who runs the Savernake Tenants’ Association. Time to get some grassroots activity organised. Where’s Susie with that coffee?’

  In Bedford Square, tea was being taken. The maid wheeled in a trolley. Jasmine poured. Sun came in through the windows on to green and gold walls. Jasmine said discontentedly, ‘I wish we could be in Portugal.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. Not until this Savernake business is a bit more resolved,’ Nigel told her. To his father he said, ‘It’s all going pretty much as Joe Banks predicted. Or so he tells me. The opposition’s started to mobilise. The MP seems to have taken the point that half the new residents at Savernake will be voting in other constituencies, in the country, or not voting in this country at all. So he’s gone for the consultancy we’ll luckily be able to offer him. He’s got no choice really – Joe Banks has got a lot of pull on the Labour Party selection committee. So our sitting member for Kenton South isn’t going to create too many problems, and Kenton North’s hardly involved.’

  ‘It all looks all right,’ declared Sir Bernard. ‘God willing.’

  Nigel nodded but felt less than happy. After the opera he’d endured a bad hour with Max Craig. Jasmine had gone to bed and he and Craig had settled in the study at the Kensington mews house. Craig had told him bluntly he was paying his fee for nothing, that if a man went to his doctor and was told he had a certain condition, returning to the doctor next week and hoping for a change in the diagnosis wasn’t likely to be productive. Perhaps Nigel wanted a second opinion, he suggested, and offered to give him names. Nigel’s annoyance at being ticked off by Samco’s astrologer was mingled with some awe. In the dimly lit study it was very quiet and Craig’s brown eyes regarding him so steadily made Nigel ill at ease.

  ‘Well, Max, all right, but you told me you’d come up with some details, so, have a drink and how about it?’

  Max told him, ‘This building project is going to be more trouble than it’s worth. The outcome’s unclear but what’s certain is that there’ll be many problems on the way. There’ll be a death, and a birth in your family, and both, to some extent, shocking and in some way connected with business matters.’ He stared at Nigel. ‘All this is very serious, Nigel.’

  But suddenly Nigel was too excited to pay proper attention. He believed Max was telling him Jasmine would bear his child. The pleasure he felt outweighed the rest of Craig’s message. Craig continued remorselessly, ‘The immediate future gives indications not just of financial problems on quite a large scale, but also of a scandal, legal proceedings and some further, rather odd, problems – arcane, mysterious, not evil, though. It’s a complicated pattern, but my conclusion is that you’d do very well to put everything you’re doing on hold. Weather out the storms. You cannot make progress at present. And,’ he added, ‘there are several women gunning for you.’

  This warning Nigel completely ignored. He considered the news of a child more important. As far as business went, it was unlikely women could have any damaging effect. They were seldom involved, so how could they make any trouble?

  He was canny enough, however, to ask the crucial question, ‘The child, will it be mine?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ replied Craig. ‘It might be.’

  This was a true answer. It wasn’t very clear to Craig himself. As a man of experience and intuition he’d sensed from the moment Jasmine Fellows had come into the box at the opera that she’d come from someone’s be
d. The secret of his success, Craig considered, was partly that he heard rumours early but also that he had an ability to observe, even scent people as animals do. Now, and without much difficulty, he could tell that Nigel was in a state of obstinate irritability, verging on anger. His head was down, he was about to charge. The thought that he might be about to become a father, head of a family, was only reinforcing his aggression. Craig knew it would be wiser to leave before a scene took place. He said coldly, ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Times?’ asked Nigel.

  ‘It’s going on now,’ Craig said. ‘There’s one thing – it’ll be all over by Christmas. And I must tell you, when you think you’ve won, you will not have. My advice is to do nothing.’ He stared at Nigel. ‘Nothing,’ he repeated emphatically. ‘And I must also say that if you ignore my advice I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me in when things start going wrong.’

  Nigel felt annoyed. How could he have a child by Christmas? It was July already. He wanted to ask about this, but didn’t want Craig to know how desperate he was to have an heir, or, even if the child were a girl, at least to confirm that he and Jasmine could eventually produce one.

  Craig guessed this much, but did not wish to pursue the subject. He rose. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Please remember – your best course at present is to block dangerous loopholes and take as little action as possible. Defence, not attack, for the next few months at least.’ They shook hands.

  Nigel went gloomily up the pretty staircase of the mews house. Jasmine was already asleep and Nigel’s lonely thoughts, accompanied by the thin sound of late-night traffic in the hot July streets, kept him awake until the early hours of the morning.

  15

  Rivals

  The Savernake Tenants’ Association had been unable to get the community centre attached to the church next door unlocked, so they held the meeting in the courtyard. The residents leaned against cars or sat on kitchen chairs and stools from adjacent houses for a lively, argumentative, muddled and sometimes ferocious protest meeting. Les Dowell’s contact on the estate had rung him about the impromptu assembly and Dowell had been there, checking strengths and weaknesses, assessing the revolutionary potential of the audience, but as yet no one knew what attitude Kenton Council would take to the proposed sale nor who Savernake Developments actually were. Meanwhile home-owners on the estate who had the chance to sell were attacked by tenants who had not. Some tenants wanted more information about the terms of the deal before they made up their minds. Some felt they had no choice but to accept the offer, whether they wanted to or not, because if they didn’t accept the Council could somehow punish them. Some swore they’d never move, not even when the builders came in.

  The group broke up just before eleven, to let the children in the flats get to sleep. Les Dowell, emerging late from the crowd, made a speech saying he would fight for the council to reject the sale, and suggesting a further tenants’ meeting a day after the emergency meeting of the council, called by him, had taken place. His remarks, made standing on a car bonnet, were energetic and cliché-ridden and he conveyed the air of a man all too keen to lead a peasants’ revolt anywhere, anytime, on virtually any grounds. He went down badly with all but experienced trade unionists, who were used to that sort of thing. ‘He’s an agitator,’ said Kathy Slater, chairman of the Tenants’ Association to Ben Gathercole in the pub afterwards. ‘I don’t like them – but at least he turned up, which is more than you can say for the others. I’ll invite them all along on Thursday, but I don’t envy Joe Banks if he comes. Whatever anybody thinks, for or against, everybody knows he’s been highhanded. The old people are worried to death. They’re afraid they’re going to find their few sticks out on the pavement. That’s the sort of thing they can remember from the old days. This could kill some of them, that’s what I think. It’s no way to run things.’

  ‘Joe Banks had better come,’ her husband said grimly.

  ‘So you’ll be lobbying the council on Wednesday?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Bloody right we will,’ he said.

  ‘Get in touch with Thames TV,’ Ben advised. ‘They might send cameras.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kathy Slater. ‘We’ll do just that.’

  On Monday Vanessa and Ben Gathercole were having an early breakfast at Rutherford Street before Alec and Joanne got up. Both were tired, Vanessa because she always was, Ben, because after the tenants meeting he had spent the rest of the night first with Les Dowell and Betsey Jones chewing his ear off, then, on the telephone, to Joe Banks, listening to his justifications of his position.

  ‘Well,’ Ben now said, as Vanessa passed him his breakfast of sausages and tomatoes, ‘by the end of today I should have an idea who’s behind all this. This could be a major story. I’ll ring the papers, and South East News, see if I can get some mileage out of it myself.’

  ‘Those tenants haven’t got a chance, no matter what they do,’ Vanessa said.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because Abbott wouldn’t be trying to buy our restaurant if he thought they were going to fail. And,’ she added, ‘because people like that get what they want.’

  ‘Not if the council refuses to allow a vote. And even if the Department of the Environment overrules them, the tenants can go to court and challenge the decision.’

  ‘And who’s the court, and who’s the judge?’ asked Vanessa. ‘The same people who want that estate sold off. This is the sort of thing the Government wants. Even if they say it’s illegal today, they’ll make it legal tomorrow. Are you sitting there telling me that isn’t what’s going to happen? Ben …’ she appealed, ‘you weren’t born yesterday. These people can do as they like.’

  ‘If there’s enough fuss they won’t.’

  Putting Alec’s and Joanne’s breakfast in the oven to keep warm, she said diplomatically, ‘Perhaps.’

  Ben put down his knife and fork. ‘I’ve got to go and see Frances tonight,’ he said abruptly. ‘She’d left two messages on my answering machine when I checked it. Martin is asking for me. Also she wants to talk about schools.’

  Vanessa looked at her plate. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Will you be back tonight?’

  ‘Of course, love,’ he said. He came round the table and kissed her. ‘What she wants,’ he told her, ‘is money for school fees to send Martin to a small fee-paying school round the corner.’

  Vanessa looked up at him pleadingly. ‘Don’t be too late.’

  He said, ‘I won’t.’

  But Ben was – very late. For two days, forty-eight hours of nightmare for Vanessa, she heard nothing from him. Her concentration failed her and her temper became short. She snapped at Annie’s suggestion that she ring Ben at the paper to find out what was going on. Melanie muttered to Annie, ‘He might be in hospital, or lying in bed with flu. Anyway, look at the state of her …’ She nodded towards Vanessa, drooping over the till. ‘It’s pathetic. And there’s not even anything to do.’ Melanie gestured round the near-empty restaurant.

  ‘She should find herself another man,’ was Edward’s opinion. ‘No point in sitting and pining away.’ He looked at Vanessa speculatively.

  At that moment a hot-looking Sam Abbott came into the restaurant wearing a dark suit. ‘I haven’t come here to eat,’ he said as Annie advanced with a menu in her hand. He added sarcastically, ‘Place full, as usual, I see. Have you got an answer for me?’

  ‘I’m discussing it at the bank tomorrow,’ Annie said inventively.

  Abbott looked around him, an aggressive expression on his unimpressive face. ‘The facts are staring you in the face, Mrs Vane. I’ve come to tell you my offer’s only open to the end of the week.’

  Annie decided to flush him out. ‘Your offer’s connected with this Savernake development, isn’t it? That’s why you want the restaurant.’

  Abbott was annoyed. ‘That’s part of it,’ he said curtly. He was not going to reveal more. To create a diversion, he walked over to Vanessa. ‘Message from your husband. He doesn’t like
what he hears about you and that reporter from the local paper. He’s married, I hear.’

  Vanessa didn’t reply.

  ‘So’s Vanessa’s husband, they tell me,’ Melanie piped up to Annie so that Abbott could hear.

  ‘Not when his divorce goes through,’ Sam Abbott said, and left the restaurant. Edward followed him closely, lending a hint of menace. Vanessa blew her nose.

  ‘Take no notice, he’s a nasty little man,’ said Annie. ‘Why don’t you go home?’

  ‘My mother’s there, looking after the kids.’

  ‘That’s unusual,’ said Annie.

  ‘Dad’s gone to Bristol,’ Vanessa said flatly. ‘She doesn’t like being on her own.’

  But in the end Vanessa did go home. Her mother was watching television. Vanessa made some tea. Anita Davis enquired about Ben Gathercole. Vanessa didn’t tell her she feared Ben had gone back to his wife. ‘It seems all right,’ said her mother. ‘These journalists can be well paid. Maybe he can get on TV. Once his divorce is over you can pack in that restaurant and settle down.’

  Vanessa didn’t reply. The phone rang and she picked it up eagerly. It was a wrong number. Her mother, instincts aroused and chin up, demanded, ‘He’s gone back to his wife, hasn’t he? You’d better do something.’

  ‘I’m going to bed, Mum,’ Vanessa said.

  ‘Ring him, meet him, get round him. Do you want to live alone, running a snack bar to the end of your days?’

  Vanessa walked out of the room. Her mother followed. ‘I’m talking to you, Vanessa. Don’t walk out of the room when I’m talking to you.’

  ‘He has gone back to his wife, Mum, if that’s what you want to know. There’s nothing more to say, is there?’

  ‘You’re a fool, Vanessa. How many men are you going to let walk out on you? And do nothing about it? Look – I’ll stop over tonight and tomorrow you can go into town, get your hair done, buy a dress. Ring up, say you want to meet him. If this is important to you, you’ve got to fight.’

  ‘Like Cindy Abbott fought,’ Vanessa told her, ‘to get my husband off me. Thanks, but no thanks.’