A Woman's Place (28 page)

Mutely Karen nodded. At the door Anthony turned. The misery on his face was similar to the dreadful stricken look as he had wept in his sleep half an hour earlier.

‘You won't… tell anyone, will you?'

She shook her head, but stayed modestly covered up in the bed until he had disappeared. Then she rose sadly and silently, found her slippers and tiptoed out.

Karen flicked over the pages of the
Radio Times
and turned as usual to the horoscope. Holding court in the centre of the kitchen, surrounded by men rushing to eat their breakfast against a background of the
Today
programme, she peeled a banana and read bits out loud.

‘Fred – you're Pisces, aren't you? It says here: “By now it should have dawned on you that there is no way you can accomplish all your ambitions in the time scale you have set yourself.” Cheerful, that.'

‘And correct, probably.' Fred lunged for the marmalade. In his haste his arm trailed over his plate and a blob of butter stuck to his shirtsleeve. ‘Damn. It'll take even longer if I have to go and change.'

Karen was sympathetic but made no offer to take care of the shirt for him; it would not have occurred to her or the others present that it was anybody's job to look after Fred's laundry but his own. She half turned.

‘And Lachlan – Taurus? “Beware of going over the top or overstating your case, even though you may have every reason to be angry or disillusioned.” That's exactly the opposite of you. A more measured or balanced soul I could hardly imagine.' She grinned at him good-naturedly. He gave an affectionate nod.

Before she could reach her own prediction her eye was caught by a cartoon which looked familiar. It was her mother, with a short paragraph in quotes. She read it and frowned, then exclaimed as she threw the paper down.

‘It makes me so mad,' she declared, ‘the way they trivialise Mum. I bet she didn't say those things – or if she did it's all been taken out of context.'

Fred reached over, picked up the paper and read out: ‘“I know Libra's controlled by Venus but she seems to me a rather dozy lady, a bit excessive. By contrast I've never had trouble making decisions. I tend to know what I want and how to go about it; I've been lucky in that I've usually achieved what I set out to do. Other people would say I'm dogmatic but I think I'm perfectly reasonable. I'm not known for my tact but you know where you stand with me. I'm not easily led at all. I rarely quote other people in my speeches – I let other people quote me. And they do.'”

Anthony surfaced from behind
The Times
. ‘It was probably written without even asking your mother. I should ignore it. However, Karen, I feel left out. What does it say for a Virgo?'

Karen traced a finger across the page and her spirits sank, but she was not quick enough to manufacture something more suitable. For a brief moment she wondered if the predictor had a genuine talent. She kept her voice light.

‘For you, Mr York, it says, “Although you maintain such a cool exterior, deep down you are certainly more emotional than you care to admit. The time has come to let the mask slip, show others how you really feel, and reject once and for all the foolish notion that to ask for assistance is in some way a sign of weakness.”'

Both Fred and Lachlan were engrossed in toast, radio, post. She bit her lip. He did not meet her eye but his hand on the coffee-cup trembled and he put it down quickly.

The damage was done. She grabbed her jacket and bags. ‘Right! I'm off,' she announced, pulled open the door and fled.

With the greatest care Pramila moved plates, cups, butter and preserves out of harm's way and spread open on the table the copy of the
London Gazette
which had arrived in the post. Her mother peered around her right elbow; the kitchen was unaccustomedly calm as her sister Lakshmi waddled into the
breakfast room, respect and envy mingled in equal parts in her expression.

‘So you will be Lady Bhadeshia?' The old lady spoke in a hushed tone but her voice was anxious. ‘This is not a joke?'

Pramila wanted to scream it from the housetop, but the imminence of the title and its extraordinary responsibility weighed heavy on her. ‘Yes, this is real,' she whispered. Then her natural exuberance reasserted itself. ‘I will need to have new notepaper printed. Blue, with gold lettering. No: plain cream, heavy vellum, with dark blue lettering. And robes with ermine for Jayanti. Do we buy them, or have them made, or what?'

Her mother looked worried. ‘It will cost a great deal of money. You will have to put up a fine show.' She laid a hand on her daughter's arm. ‘Tell me – was it very expensive?'

Pramila brushed her off impatiently. ‘Don't talk like that, Ma. Don't even think it. Your
son-in
-law is being honoured because of his charity work, and his efforts for the Conservative Party over many years – look!' She pointed at the framed photograph of her husband at the 1990 Blue Ball alongside a smiling Lady Thatcher. Her heart missed a beat as she pictured her husband seated right beside the baroness on the red leather benches of their Lordships' House.

More immediate concerns preoccupied her. ‘And it says here we will have entitlement to a coat of arms. My goodness – do I put that on my notepaper or not?'

‘A coat of arms!' Lakshmi was so startled she reached for a chair and sat down heavily. The large white envelope with its royal crest served as a fan. ‘My God! Soon you will be too proud to stay in the same house as us, your own flesh and blood. You will walk around with your nose in the air and be mighty important. What will become then of your old mother and your poor unmarried sister? Are we to be turned out?' And she put her tea towel to her eyes and began to wail.

Debrett's Etiquette and Modern Manners
had been Pramila's bedside reading for a week since Bhadeshia had returned from a private visit to 12 Downing Street. The many hints dropped to her for more than a year had turned out to be well founded. But that posed the most monumental problem for her. Jayanti had threatened divorce if she breathed a word. As she had been sworn to secrecy with oaths and threats, she had decided that the only way to keep the momentous news to herself was to take to her bed as if ill.

These had been the hardest days of her life, having to pretend an infectious illness, with even her closest relatives barred from her room. The curtains had stayed drawn and the telephone went unanswered. In this state she had striven, and prayed, and kept silent.

At last it was a secret no more. She could not use the title officially, of course, until Jayanti had been invested into the House of Lords, which might take months. Yet from the instant of the honour's gazetting, and the arrival in the same post of the official notification from the palace, the book insisted that she behave like an English lady – and that meant putting a stop to her sister's caterwauling.

Pramila rose gracefully, head held high, and kissed first her mother then her sister, and hugged Lakshmi, cooing at her, until the latter's shoulders ceased to heave. A new order was clearly already in place. Shows of mutual affection between the females in the Bhadeshia household, where there was much jostling for position, were normally restricted to noisy embraces when someone else was in the vicinity, or moments of particular emotion such as a romantic film on TV. Lakshmi, the precious envelope still clasped to her bosom, collapsed into an astonished but wary heap.

‘You will stay with me and Jayanti, and you will come to the ceremony and sit in the gallery of the House of Lords,' Pramila announced regally. ‘Both of you will have a new outfit. Yes, Ma, you too. You cannot stay home on such a special day.'

‘Will they give you a coat of arms, or can you choose your own?' Lakshmi's eyes were enormous.

Pramila knew the answer to that one. ‘We discuss it with the Garter King-of-Arms and tell
him what we would like included.' The possibilities began to entertain her. ‘I think maybe … something to do with commerce – scales, perhaps, and a roll of cloth, since we have been in textiles, or a bag of rice to represent our lives in the grocery trade.'

‘Nothing from our origins?' The old lady was instantly suspicious. ‘Remember the sages tell us that if we forget where we come from we can never feel at home anywhere else.'

Pramila pondered. ‘A gazelle, maybe, for East Africa,' she conceded, ‘and a rose for Gujarat. Or do you want a holy symbol? The flaming sun of the Lord Krishna – that would bring us luck.'

The design committee, brows knitted, considered the suggestion reverently and nodded gravely in unison.

‘No good crying about it, Deirdre. It's over.'

Derek Harrison strode back to his desk in impatience. The girl hovered limply by the door, her weeping increasingly noisy, the file she had used as a pretext for entry upside-down in her hands.

What had he seen in her? Under his lashes he subjected her to a cursory examination. Nice figure, certainly. She had a pleasing habit of wearing thin cotton dresses with puff sleeves and low-cut bodices which showed off her breasts tantalisingly. Pity the face was so ordinary. He had not meant the affair to last long; it was a bit risky, a liaison with a higher executive officer in the heart of the department, especially one who confessed to not being a Tory. You never knew who you could trust.

Her sobs were likely to attract attention if he could not shut her up. With a grim sigh he walked over and stood before her, his hands on her arms. For a moment he felt the warm flesh tingle beneath his palms and a whisker of desire stirred in him. Then he remembered her big feet in their sandals and her irritating efforts to talk politics to him.

‘Look, Deirdre. You knew it couldn't last. You're a lovely person. You should find some nice bloke from the print section and marry him and have loads of kids. Forget me.'

The girl sagged as if to fall into his embrace but he held her rigidly away. An anxious thought occurred to him.

‘You're not … pregnant, are you? You did say you were on the pill…'

‘No, don't worry.' There was a sudden tinge of malevolence in her tone. With the back of her hand she wiped her eyes and tossed her head. ‘You're pure shit, Derek Harrison, you know that? After all you said about love … I believed it, every word. Well, I hope you're pleased with yourself. You've wrecked my life.'

Derek resisted the sarcastic rejoinder that her life couldn't have been up to much if a brief fling could so easily have damaged it. He was becoming bored. With as much gentleness as he felt the occasion needed he turned the girl around and propelled her to the door. He was not prepared for the bitterness in her voice as she left.

‘And if the chance comes, I warn you, I'll do my best to wreck yours.'

Time to make a start, Jim Betts told himself, on the series of articles about Asians in Britain. A few general remarks first. He entered his password, pressed the key for ‘text' and began.

Not too bad. Betts lit a cigarette and scrolled through the piece. He liked the way it assumed right from the second paragraph that something underhand was going on. That set the tone nicely.

For the next half-hour he tapped energetically. Each article would profile a different selection of families or individuals to create human interest. Photographs taken in sumptuous homes and offices had not been difficult to obtain: vanity was much the same whatever the background. These men and women of substance would be held up as examples both of success and of the un-English methods adopted to obtain it: characters like Nazmudin Virani, who was estimated to have lost £100 million in the collapse of the BCCI after playing a vital role in hoodwinking its auditors. Once he had rubbed shoulders with Prime Ministers and royalty; more recently he had spent a year or so in Sevenoaks Prison as an unwilling guest of Her Majesty.

The idea, however, was not to pin the tail on one donkey but to set a whole herd by the ears. The
Sunday Times
had tried to subvert not one but ten MPs over the ‘cash for questions' lark and captured two, thus making it appear as if the whole place were awash with greed – which, on the whole, in Betts's view, it was. Thus the pattern of reportage in which he was about to indulge was likely to produce a more accurate picture than targeting a single luckless individual like Virani alone.

One name, however, leapt out from his most recent researches: Jayanti Bhadeshia. He was not only easy meat but tremendously good value. His wife had posed for some memorable pictures surrounded by evidence of her excessive wealth and atrocious taste. And here he was, about to step from obscurity into the limelight as one of the nation's newest ennobled legislators.

His emergence on to such a public platform could only be cause for rejoicing in the
Globe
office. All being well, Bhadeshia'd make some priceless boobs in debate; and he, Betts, could guarantee those utterances would get every scrap of the publicity they deserved. Even if the remarks were anodyne, Betts had sufficient confidence in his own ability to make something sinister, or foolish, out of them. The man was a sitting duck and in a week or two would know it.

But what if the bloke didn't say a word – or, like Lord Young of Graffham, a former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, attended only four times out of nearly 200 sitting days in a year? So much the better. Then his absences would be a perfectly good if slightly weaker story, and attention would divert more to the foolishness of the government which appointed him. Both would be ripe for ridicule.

For the moment the question was where, with the mass of information now at his fingertips, the attack should start. Betts pondered, then reflected that the less familiar world of Bhadeshia's East African antics might do nicely. His contacts had turned up a juicy episode of which he suspected even his victim was unaware. He opened a new file for a fresh article, typed in opening sentences which reminded his readers of the scene set so far, and continued.