An Eligible Bachelor (27 page)

Guy stood at the top of the steps and gave an Oscar-winning smile.

‘Guy Portias. Welcome to Eversleigh Manor.’

The host of the party stepped forward and gripped his hand firmly.

‘Terry Spittle. We never knew Wolverhampton was so convenient for the Cotswolds. It took the limo driver less than an hour down the M5.’

‘Good.’

‘Just long enough to sink a few bottles of bubbly.’

That would explain the high spirits and the lack of balance, thought Guy. He suffered two more bone-crushing handshakes, then stepped aside as the women clacked past him into the hall. The ceilings rang with their high-pitched, sing-song accents.

‘Wow – this is amayzing.’

‘Look at the toiles, Ken. These are like the ones I wanted for our conservatory.’

‘Mega stairs, look. You could do a real Scarlett O’ Hara down those stairs.’

‘How much does this place cost to heat?’ the shortest of the men asked in awe.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Guy, bewildered that anyone should think to ask.

‘You want to get underfloor heating. It’s much more cost-effective. That’s what I’ve got in moy place.’

Guy nodded politely. Shredded Tweed clawed at his arm.

‘You’ve got a really beautiful home,’ she gushed. ‘I don’t know how you can bear to share it.’

Guy managed heroically to bite back a retort.

‘I love that picture,’ said Tasteless Trouser Suit. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘It’s been in the family ever since I can remember.’

‘It’s not for sale, then?’

‘Er – no.’

‘Only sometimes when you go to these posh hotels everything’s for sale.’

‘Well, nothing’s for sale here, I’m afraid,’ said Guy firmly.

Trouser Suit’s husband nudged him in the ribs.

‘You’ll have to watch Trudy. She’s terrible when she sees something she wants. She’ll have it in her handbag.’

The woman laughed at the look of horror on Guy’s face.

‘You’re all right. I’m not a klepto.’

‘More of a nympho.’

The entire group collapsed into giggles. Guy took a deep breath and picked up two suitcases from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Shall I show you to your rooms?’

The three blondes surged forward eagerly and started up the stairs, twittering and giggling excitedly. A noxious cloud of their suffocating scents, all fighting for supremacy, engulfed Guy as he followed them. He showed them the three bedrooms, to exclamations of delight, and decided to let the six of them sort out who was sleeping where. As they were all virtually identical, he didn’t suppose it mattered much, but they might have preferences.

‘Right.’ The man who was obviously the ringleader clapped his hands together decisively. ‘I expect the girls would all like a bath before dinner.’

‘Girls?’ Guy looked round wildly. Had they brought their children? Then he realized that he was referring to the wives, who were protesting.

‘We can’t have baths. Not till tomorrow.’

‘We all had a St Tropez before we got here.’

What was that? Guy wondered. A cocktail? Or rhyming slang for something obscene? He shuddered to think. He started backing obsequiously down the corridor.

‘We’ll be serving drinks in the small sitting room at half six.’

‘Small sitting room? I wouldn’t have thought a place like this had a small room.’

‘It’s a relative term,’ said Guy kindly, and made his escape. Not before he was called back by the tallest and stockiest of the men, who looked uncomfortably like a retired boxer, with huge shoulders and a squashed nose. He put an avuncular arm around Guy’s shoulder.

‘Now listen. It’s my Gaynor’s fortieth birthday treat, this is. I want everything to go perfect for her. Whatever she asks for, just get it – all right? And add it to the bill.’

‘Within reason,’ said Guy.

‘And by the way, she only drinks champagne. Krug. Is that a problem?’

Ten minutes later Guy was pacing up and down the kitchen with the telephone clamped to his ear.

‘Felix – get up here now with a case of Krug. I’ve got some mad Brummies with a raging thirst on and they won’t drink anything else. Cheers, mate. You are a life-saver. I owe you one.’ He chucked the phone down on the kitchen table. ‘It’s a fucking travesty. I bet if I served them up bloody Asti Spumanti they wouldn’t know the difference.’

Honor was putting the finishing touches to the blinis, which she’d topped with oak-smoked salmon, crème fraiche, finely-chopped egg and white onion, then arranged on a huge white plate.

‘Look – it’s money for doing nothing. Stick thirty quid on the price of each bottle they drink.’

‘They won’t pay that, surely?’

‘They certainly will,’ said Honor. ‘Guy – those are the
customers you want. You keep them happy and they’ll pay you. And they’ll give you a whopping tip. Cash. So be nice.’

‘I will be the personification of charm itself’.

Madeleine was looking shell-shocked. Honor grinned.

‘Don’t worry. They might be loud and brash, but they’ll behave themselves. Only people who’ve been to public school know how to behave really badly’

Richenda sat in her bedroom feeling sadly neglected. She wanted desperately to help, but it was obvious she wasn’t needed. And she was absolutely starving, but she didn’t dare go down to the kitchen and make herself some toast. Perhaps she should just slip out later and go down the road to the pub for something to eat? No one here would care. But then she realized her days of melting into the background were long gone. It would probably be plastered all over the papers the next day: Lady Jane on her own in the pub, nursing a glass of white wine and scampi in a basket. She was trapped.

She should have stayed in London. One of the other cast members was having a party that evening. It wasn’t really her cup of tea, but at least she’d feel one of the gang, as if she belonged. Here she was neither one of the household nor a guest.

She got out her copy of
Wild Swans
and lay down on the bed to read. From down the corridor she heard a raucous cackle from one of the guests. She was glad someone was having fun.

*

Sally stood in the queue at the post office.

‘I want a first-class stamp, please.’ She shoved a fifty-pence piece under the window. ‘Will it get there tomorrow?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ The woman behind the counter shrugged as she poked a stamp and some change back towards Sally. ‘Last post goes at half five.’

Sally licked the stamp and stuck it on as squarely as she could. Somehow it was important that her letter looked perfect; she’d printed the name and address out three times before being satisfied that it was neat enough. She stood for a moment in front of the red pillar box, her heart thumping, wondering if tomorrow her daughter would be holding this very envelope in her hands. And what would happen then. Briefly, feeling rather silly, she kissed it, then shoved it through the letterbox and walked away.

Honor treated herself to a luxurious lie-in on Saturday morning. She could hear the cartoons thudding up through the bedroom floor as she snuggled under the duvet, looking back over the week’s tumultuous events and knowing this was going to be her only chance to recharge her batteries, both physical and emotional. She wanted more than anything to be strong for Johnny’s arrival that afternoon. They might have signed a peace treaty, agreed to move on from the past, but she was still aware that Johnny was capable of railroading her, despite his reassurances. She was sure he was genuine when he said that Ted came first, but he wouldn’t put himself far behind.

She’d gone to collect Ted from Henty’s the night before, but there hadn’t been a quiet moment to ask her advice, or seek her reassurance. It wasn’t a scenario you could blurt out in ten seconds flat, and there was too much going on at Fulford Farm for a heart-to-heart. Henty had looked amazing, for a start. She’d had her hair done, and it made her look totally different. There was a definite gleam in her eye that hadn’t been there before.

‘Wow,’ said Honor.

‘Travis made me,’ explained Henty.

‘Travis?’

Henty beckoned to her with a mysterious grin, opened
the door to the playroom and pointed to Travis, who was supervising an elaborate Meccano construction with Ted and Walter.

‘My new nanny’

‘You’re kidding.’ Honor couldn’t fail to be impressed. She did a mock swoon. ‘He’s divine.’

‘He’s Mary Poppins on testosterone. He’s totally changed my life.’

‘What are you going to do with yourself?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Henty, half wanting to spill the beans about her new project, but knowing that Charles was likely to be earwigging. ‘Some of the house could do with redecorating for a start.’

‘That’s deeply dull,’ protested Honor. ‘You should do something for yourself’.

‘Something will come to me,’ Henty assured her. ‘If not I can always just sit and look at Travis.’

Honor smiled at the memory of her friend’s transformation, and snuggled deeper down into the blankets. Just as she’d managed to doze off again, the phone rang.

‘Sorry,’ said Guy. ‘Complete emergency. It’s Gaynor’s fortieth. We need a cake. Tell me to fuck off and go to Marks and Spencer if you like, but I thought I’d try you first.’

‘It’s OK,’ Honor sighed, pulling on her dressing gown. ‘I’ve got just the thing in the freezer.’

The cake took her the rest of the morning to decorate. By the time she and Ted had cleared up and had some lunch, the doorbell rang. Honor opened the door to find Johnny proudly bearing a state of the art Perspex guinea pig run that was going to take up the entire
living-room floor. And a cardboard box stuffed with hay.

‘Eejit!’ shouted Ted. ‘Eejit’s arrived!’

‘Have some respect,’ joked Johnny as he carried in the guinea pig palace.

‘It must have cost a fortune!’ Honor exclaimed, as Johnny carefully slotted the myriad pieces of see-through tubing together, Ted hopping up and down with excitement beside him.

‘Nah. One of my clients was getting rid of it. One of the perks of being a vet.’

Finally the palace was assembled and Eejit was ceremoniously removed from his cardboard box.

‘There, now hold him gently but firmly, under his tummy.’

Honor felt a lump in her throat as she watched Johnny show Ted how to handle the little bundle of fur. The look of pure delight on Ted’s face as he watched Eejit scurry through his new home matched the look of delight on Johnny’s as he surveyed his son. Her heart contracted slightly with guilt – she’d deprived the two of them of this joy for the past six years. How selfish did that make her?

‘I’ve got to go,’ said Honor hastily, before she lost it.

‘No problem,’ said Johnny. ‘We’ll be all right, won’t we, big guy? Did you get the beers in?’

Ted looked slightly baffled.

‘Mum said we could have Coke.’ He went over to the fridge and pulled it open, lugging out a big bottle of Pepsi.

‘Not too much,’ warned Honor. ‘Or he gets hyper.’

‘On Pepsi?’

‘You’ve obviously never seen a roomful of kids with a sugar rush.’

Johnny grimaced.

‘Jaysus,’ he remarked. ‘I’ve got a lot to learn.’

‘I’ve left chicken drumsticks and jacket potatoes in the oven. Will you be able to manage?’

‘Oh ye of little faith. I’ll have you know I can now cook a mean Thai chicken curry’

‘By piercing the film lid three times and putting it in the microwave?’ Honor couldn’t resist teasing him.

‘From scratch. With fresh coriander on top. I’ll prove it to you. I’ll cook for you one night.’

‘I shall look forward to it,’ said Honor drily.

It would be highly entertaining to watch Johnny in the kitchen. Apart from his superiority on the eggy-bread front, he was a culinary klutz. He used to survive on takeaways and cheesy Wotsit sandwiches, until Honor came along and urged him to up his fruit and vegetable intake. The prospect of becoming a fat bastard convinced him, for if Johnny was anything it was vain – when Honor wanted to really wind him up she used to pinch his waist and tell him he was putting on weight.

She picked up the cake box on the breakfast bar. Curious, Johnny peered inside, then recoiled in horror at the man’s torso clad in leopardskin underpants.

‘What the hell is that?’

‘Don’t ask,’ said Honor. ‘I know it’s hideous. But these cakes are de rigueur when you hit your fortieth.’

She put the lid firmly back on the box, and took forty candles and a packet of sparklers out of the drawer where she stored them.

‘Be good’, she said to Ted, and gave him a kiss on the nose. ‘And you,’ she said to Johnny. ‘You’ve got my mobile number if there’s a problem.’

‘There won’t be,’ Johnny assured her. ‘We’re going to be fine.’

As Honor walked up the road to Eversleigh Manor, she suppressed the urge to run back and peep in through the window. It was obvious that Johnny had no real experience with children, but as he was little more than a child himself in hundreds of ways, she thought they would probably get on. And Ted was no trouble. A lot of the kids that came back to play were absolute horrors – unable to take no for an answer, with appalling manners and a tendency to tantrums if they didn’t get their own way. Ted was polite, easygoing, happy to share: she knew that because she’d been told so by other parents, who marvelled at her doing such a good job when she was bringing him up on her own. But then she had time to spend on him. She wasn’t a mad career woman who had to overcompensate by showering him with toys and treats, like many of the other mums in the area. So she was quite happy that Johnny’s few hours of childminding wouldn’t be too traumatic for him.

What was making her really anxious, though, was what was going to happen if they
did
get on? Where on earth did she go from here?

She didn’t have very long to dwell on the matter. As soon as she arrived at Eversleigh, it was quite clear that somebody needed to take control. Madeleine might seem redoubtable, but she had moments when her judgement
and her nerve failed her. Honor suspected Guy didn’t
quite
care enough about what he was doing – he had a tendency to sneak off for a fag at a critical moment. And there was nothing Honor liked better than choreographing the behind-the-scenes chaos necessary for people to really enjoy themselves. So by six o’clock she had nominated herself in charge, and delegated appropriately.