The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew

by Milly Johnson

  Sitting there, watching Elliott hold court in church she thought again what a lovely man he was. Solid and steady, and kindness shone out of him. She couldn’t think of him as the sort of person who might use her heartache to score him points with the general public. She couldn’t imagine him tricking her into visiting a hospital ward knowing that it would slice her up inside. She could imagine, however, what he would look like first thing in the morning with his dark hair tousled and his eyes sleepy. And looping his arm around her in bed, pulling her close, finding her lips with his own and that was a big problem. Little Loste was binding her to it with tendrils as strong as the weeds she had hacked at to free the flowers in the almshouse garden. She had a place in life, duties, responsibilities, a man and none of them were here.

  Tracey had insisted Sophie join them for Sunday lunch again. She had agreed on condition that as soon as she’d had her last mouthful, she would be starting on Jade’s dress. She wanted to get all the pieces cut out today so she could begin sewing tomorrow. Even when it was all put together, there would be lots of little tweaks in order to make it the perfect fit and they were already on a tight schedule. The sooner it was hanging up in Jade’s wardrobe, the better.

  She didn’t go with Tracey to pick up Luke from Sunday school; she didn’t want to see Miriam Bird spontaneously combust because she was still on the scene. In any case, Miriam wouldn’t have long to wait before she was gone for good, she thought as she waited outside the church.

  ‘Look what we made in Sunday School,’ said Luke, running to Sophie, holding aloft what looked like a ball of scrunched-up white paper. Because it was a ball of scrunched-up white paper.

  ‘It’s the rock that was in front of Jesususes cave and that got rolled away,’ he explained. ‘But it’s also a toy for Plum.’

  ‘They could at least have used grey paper,’ said Tracey quietly. ‘Jade ought to thank her lucky stars that Miriam Bird isn’t making her frock. She’d make me look like Vera Wang. Oh, Pom, I’m so nervous about that dress. Jade’s going to hate me, knowing I failed her.’

  ‘Jade will know only that you made it. But do me a favour and tell her that it was such an ordeal it’s put you off sewing for life. Do not volunteer to make her wedding dress in the future.’

  Tracey slipped her arm inside Sophie’s as they wended their way on, which surprised but also touched her. It was the sort of thing she’d always thought sisters would do. Hers didn’t, obviously. The Calladines were not an affectionate or a demonstrative family. She’d often wondered if Annabella had become pregnant by osmosis.

  Plum was mewing pitifully when they walked into the vicarage.

  ‘Look, he’s missed you, Luke,’ said Tracey.

  ‘Awww I’m here, Plum, don’t worry,’ said Luke, smothering the kitten with kisses and taking him into the lounge.

  ‘Funny thing, isn’t it – love. Do you ever stop to think about it?’ asked Tracey, turning the hob on. ‘What makes us love one person and not another? Why have I known Steve Darlow all of my life and yet one night across a crowded – well, an empty pub, it was like a switch went on and I suddenly thought phwoar.’

  Elliott Bellringer squeezed my hand and turned on a light inside me.

  ‘Er, no idea. It’s strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘And then it can go the other way, as quick as that.’ Tracey clicked her fingers. ‘Once I thought that if Barry and I ever split up I would die. Now life is a non-stop party because I’m divorced from the horrible bastard. Why is that?’

  Sophie couldn’t answer. She had no idea why love rushed in, what made it choose to stay, or why it decided to leave. All she knew was that she had just heard the front door of the vicarage open and her heart had skipped at the thought of Elliott Bellringer being a few steps away.

  ‘Hi, girls, sorry I’m late. Mrs Braithwaite wanted a few hundred words.’ Elliott crossed to the oven, took out the pork joint, turned up the heat in readiness to cook the Yorkshire puddings. ‘I’m going up to change, I won’t be long.’

  ‘I have no idea what he ever saw in Joy, or what she ever saw in him,’ said Tracey, when he was out of earshot. ‘The biggest mismatch in history. I think Cupid must be a really screwed up, vindictive, nasty individual.’

  ‘People don’t always marry for love though, Tracey. My eldest sister married for money, without question. And I’m pretty sure the other one married for prestige, because she’ll be a Lady when her in-laws shuffle off this mortal coil. I’ve never detected a lot of love between them. Even when they were first going out together.’

  ‘Opposites attract sometimes, that’s what it was for me and Barry, i.e. I was human and he was an alien from Planet Knob. It was certainly the case for my brother and that hippy cow. He felt protective and she wanted a change from her usual scabby boyfriends. Trouble is, she likes scabby men. If Luke hadn’t looked so much like the Bellringer side of the family, I would have been very suspicious, if you know what I mean.’

  There was no mistaking that Luke was his father’s son though. That hair, the summer-blue eyes, the form of his lips when he smiled.

  ‘Do you love John?’ asked Tracey then, but the subject was cut off before Sophie could answer as Elliott walked into the kitchen, wearing tracksuit bottoms and an AC/DC T-shirt.

  ‘I thought you were heckling me today, Pom,’ he said.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ Sophie replied. ‘I was thinking aloud. About the prodigal son and returning home and what reception I’ll get.’

  ‘Presumably not a full roast dinner then,’ said Tracey, taking some apple sauce out of the cupboard.

  ‘Not even a parboiled carrot.’

  ‘They won’t be pleased to see you?’ asked Elliott, eyebrows dipping in disbelief.

  ‘I expect they will really,’ replied Sophie, because to admit anything otherwise would be humiliating.

  ‘I’m sure they will. How could they not?’ said Elliott.

  Clearly, Elliott had no experience of belonging to families like the Mayhews and the Calladines, thought Sophie. Lucky him.

  Chapter 36

  Over at Glebe Hall, the Mayhew seniors’ residence, a pretentious, draughty Georgian pile that was originally designed for a Lord with more money than sense, Sunday lunch was being served to the immediate and extended families. The Calladines had been invited over, seeing as this dratted business involved them too.

  ‘I mean, where the bloody hell has the girl got to?’ said Angus Calladine. ‘The trouble she has caused us all!’

  ‘I hear your housekeeper is firmly back in the ranks, John,’ said Alice. ‘At least that’s some good news.’

  ‘He’s had to give her a monster pay rise to reaffirm her loyalty though,’ said Robert, with more glee than he intended to expose.

  ‘Robert!’ admonished his mother. ‘Revelling in the misfortunes of others is not what we do.’

  A sarcastic snort from Edward, followed by an ‘ow’ as Davina gave him one of her infamous elbow digs.

  ‘This is delicious, Mother,’ said John, after swallowing a chunk of lamb.

  ‘Thank you.’ Celeste took full credit even though their housekeeper had prepared, cooked and served it.

  ‘Anyway, back to this ridiculous situation, what’s the full SP,’ barked Angus, who was too cross even to taste what he was eating.

  ‘PM’s behind me all the way, said John. ‘I have a legal team sifting through every word that woman has said and will be suing at least two tabloids and possibly a broadsheet.’

  ‘I heard she was on Loose Women, if that wasn’t meant to be ironic,’ chortled Davina. ‘And she didn’t go down very well.’

  ‘Not what I heard,’ muttered Edward, which prompted yet another elbow jab. The sexual reference went over the elders’ heads, clearing them by at least six foot.

  ‘Someone must know where Sophie is, she can’t have just vanished into nothingness,’ said Alice with a haughty trip of mirthless laughter. ‘I am totally ashamed of my daughter and when she does eventually t
urn up, I will be telling her exactly what I think of her.’

  ‘Aren’t you worried about her?’ The words tumbled out of Edward before he could halt them. They transformed the whole table to a silent, frozen tableau. His natural instinct would have been to apologise for the remark but on this occasion he overrode it. ‘Sophie went through a terrible humiliation which she didn’t deserve. Isn’t anyone concerned that she might have harmed herself ?’

  ‘Of course she hasn’t harmed herself, don’t talk rot, Edward,’ said Clive. ‘She’s stamping her foot and—’

  For the first time in his life Edward spoke over his father. ‘It occurred to me last night how many conversations we’ve had since Sophie left about who could possibly know where she’s gone. Who could she turn to? Who were her friends? And no one can answer those questions because she has nobody, she was entirely devoted to John and his career. She is both condemned and revered in the press at the mob’s whim, all because John has to court publicity. She puts up with being thrown to the lions day after day, not for herself, but for her loving husband, a man who can’t keep his own dick in his trousers.’

  That threw the cat amongst the pigeons, but Edward was not to be shushed, not even by another vicious elbow from Davina.

  ‘Oh yes, John F. Mayhew, family jewel. Has Britain at his feet. Has wealth, has charm, looks, is married to the most magnificent woman but is it enough for him? Nope. God’s Gift here with his best fillet steak at home has to go and shop in the abattoir for a bag of rotting giblets. And don’t you dare . . .’ He turned to Davina after seeing her arm draw back. ‘Don’t you bloody dare.’

  John burst into laughter. ‘Eddie, I register your stress, we are all stressed here, so let’s just bring this down a couple of levels. This is not the Roman Senate.’

  But Robert decided to poke the beast with a stick rather than offer it a conciliatory banana. ‘Seems Eddie has a bee in his bonnet that he’s not the family jewel,’ he smirked.

  ‘Funny word, family, isn’t it?’ said Edward. ‘Implies trust and love and care, but listening to this diatribe today I have no doubt in my mind why Sophie didn’t turn to anyone around this table when she was obviously desperate enough to abscond over a six-foot wall. Aren’t you supposed to run to your family, not away from them as if your rectum was on fire?’

  ‘Now steady on there, Edward,’ warned Clive.

  ‘John comes running to me when he needs help. Mainly in a professional capacity, of course, because he pays me to watch his back,’ continued Edward. His flow could not be stemmed because the banks had broken and it felt very very good to let out what had been pent up behind his internal dam walls for too long. ‘You would think that Sophie might have approached her siblings for advice, succour, perhaps? I wonder why she didn’t. Could that be because one of them looks like a bullfrog and is so hideously jealous of her sister’s beauty that it’s almost tangible, and the other is so twisted that she finds it acceptable to wave her ability to produce a child in Sophie’s face like a point-scoring sheet.’

  ‘How dare you speak like that of my family,’ said Alice Calladine, throwing her napkin down onto the table like a gauntlet.

  ‘Apologise immediately,’ roared Clive and Angus together, perfectly synchronised both in their fury and in rising to their feet.

  ‘I will not,’ said Edward, standing also. ‘I’m the only person around this table who is hoping that wherever Sophie is, she’s actually with people who don’t want to use her, who don’t want to show off in front of her, who don’t want to punish her for having the gall to be selfless and bloody lovely. I hope she’s with people who are caring for her, being nice to her. In fact – I hope she’s so happy that she doesn’t come back.’

  John couldn’t take his brother seriously. Especially not this version of his brother with his Y-fronts in a twist. He’d never seen him so ballsy – it was hilarious.

  ‘She will come back, Edward. Despite what you think, Sophie has an enviable and easy life and I know her, she will be missing her home comforts. And she loves me.’

  ‘I don’t think you know the meaning of the word,’ Edward rounded on him. ‘I mean what sort of husband actually considers locking up his wife in a psychiatric hospital in order to get out of all the shit he caused himself ? How very loving and considerate of you.’

  ‘Edward, sit down now or we are finished,’ growled Davina.

  ‘I’m not sitting down and we are finished.’ Then Edward gasped; he hadn’t intended to say that, then he realised that he’d meant it. ‘Yes, we are finished. Davina, you are one of the coldest women I’ve ever met in my life, so you might fit in with everyone around this table; but seeing as I don’t fit in with them, we should call it a day. You look down your nose so much at everything I’m surprised your eyeballs haven’t migrated to your nostrils.’

  ‘Edward!’ Now Celeste was on her feet as Davina’s face started to crumple.

  John once again called for peace. ‘Come on, this infighting isn’t helping any of us. Eddie, apologise and eat your lamb.’

  But this went far beyond an uncharacteristic outburst for Edward. He’d been thinking so much about Sophie since she ran off, thinking about how scared she must have been to go to the lengths she had.

  Four years ago, he’d not only known all about Malandra Moxon, but he’d enabled the affair by covering John’s tracks for him. Then he’d been party to his brother and Len putting the frighteners on the woman with the result that she had confronted Sophie and whatever the doctors said, no one could be absolutely sure that there had been no correlation between Malandra’s visit to the London flat and Sophie’s miscarriage. Maybe if she could have carried the baby for one or two more weeks, he might have lived. If only Edward, as a brother, as soon as he’d known what was going on, had taken John to one side and told him not to be so bloody stupid, to end this before it had properly begun. He hadn’t, because he knew that John did what he wanted, when he wanted and with whom he wanted. But he should have tried, John just might have listened. That was why Edward had never been able to mentally untangle himself from the tragedy that unfurled and why he’d sworn to himself that he would always be Sophie’s invisible knight from then on.

  So far as the Rebecca Robinson episode went, he hadn’t known about her until the day before the story hit the papers, and he’d worked harder than Len Spinks to try and halt the leakage. Len was spinning to save John’s reputation, Edward to stop Sophie getting hurt again. They’d all stood in that room on the morning before she absconded, listening to John’s arrogant affirmations that everything would be all right because Sophie would back him up. He’d watched his parents – and hers – clucking around John, bolstering him, pandering to him and he’d noticed too late that she was alone, ignored. He’d felt disgusted with them all – and himself. He’d let her down again; it would never happen a third time.

  Edward gave his mother a dry smile. ‘Thank you for lunch, Mother, but leave me off the invitation list in future.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going anywhere,’ humphed Davina, recovering quickly from her loud – and tearless – sobbing.

  ‘Stay or go, I don’t care,’ said Edward. ‘I will not be marrying you. If you’re adamant about wanting to be a Mrs Mayhew, I suggest you try and cop off with Robert. You’d make an excellent match.’

  ‘What?’ Robert was confounded by this doppelganger who looked like his brother but was behaving nothing like him today. ‘Eddie, are you on your period?’

  ‘Enough is enough now,’ said John, his patience fraying.

  ‘I’m sick of clearing up your effluent, John. You’re a human version of a muck-spreader. Well, I say “human”. . .’

  ‘That really is enough, Edward,’ said Clive. ‘Get out of this house until you can behave yourself.’

  ‘I’m going, don’t you worry, Father.’

  ‘He’ll be back,’ chuckled Robert. ‘Or maybe not. Maybe he’ll start up an estate agency.’

  Davina gave a hoot of laughte
r, offsetting her humiliation by savouring Edward’s.

  Edward, who had reached the door by this stage, turned slowly, gleefully.

  ‘I already have,’ he said. ‘Remember the “to be recommended” estate agency your neighbour used, Angus? I handled that sale. My new estate agency. At least, I say new but it’s been up and running for a year. I just wanted to make sure it was on course for succeeding before I told you all, because you’d expect me to fail; but then I sold a Saudi Prince’s apartment in Knightsbridge for ten million, so I’m really not going to. I was planning to leave your employ when Sophie returned, but I think this is as good a moment as any to tell you to stuff your job right up your sanctimonious, faithless, selfish arse, John Effffff.’

  The sea of open mouths was a bigger reward than this week’s commission for Edward. And with that, the eldest Mayhew brother, newly single and smiling, flounced out of his parents’ house and experienced a little of what his sister-in-law Sophie was feeling: that a tight band across his chest had snapped and he could breathe properly at last.

  Chapter 37

  Tracey watched Sophie cut, the newly sharpened scissors slicing through the material like a hot knife through butter. She was fascinated by the ease with which she operated, as if every movement were instinct rather than design.

  ‘Don’t mind me noseying, do you?’ she asked. ‘I’m not putting you off am I?’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Sophie.

  ‘I am so worried.’

  ‘Don’t be. The one thing I do know about is dressmaking. You’re in safe hands. Especially when I haven’t had any parishioners’ home-made wine with my lunch.’