Honeycote (5 page)

Half an hour later, Lucy slid the car through a huge stone gateway that no longer bore any gates, and up a pot-holed drive that sprouted grass at regular intervals. In front of them lay a house that looked as if it had nestled in this spot since the dawn of time, and had actually laid down roots. It was a substantial size, but so mossy, mellow and crumbling that it didn’t seem at all grand. It didn’t stand to attention, or seem worried about the odd missing roof tile or cracked window. Like a truly beautiful woman, it stood unselfconscious and with no need of cosmetic artifice. It took Mandy’s breath away.

‘How long have you lived here?’

Sophie wrinkled her brow trying to calculate.

‘I don’t know. For ever. We were all born here. And dad, I think.’

Lucy intervened. ‘It used to belong to the local squire. He was a dreadful gambler – lost every penny, so my husband’s grandfather bought the house off him.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Brewing was the business to be in then. There were lots of thirsty farmers around, who weren’t worried about drinking and driving. Not like now.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘You might not be so enamoured once you’ve spent the night here. It’s freezing – bed socks and hot-water bottles, I’m afraid.’

‘And there’s never any hot water for a shower. Sophie and I have to shower at school.’ Georgina sounded outraged.

Mandy grinned, sure they didn’t mean it. She stepped reverently into the flagstoned hallway of Honeycote House, and as she was ushered into the biggest kitchen she’d ever seen, she was overcome by a wave of desire. For there, in front of her, was everything she’d ever wanted.

It wasn’t the size. Her parents’ ostentation had taught her that big certainly did not mean beautiful. No – what was truly overwhelming was the feeling that this was a room where people had fun, where people wanted to be and, more importantly, wanted to be with each other. Its charisma was tangible, seductive, and Mandy was instantly under its spell.

The focal point was the table, which sat twelve comfortably and was ranged on both sides by wooden church pews. When you looked closely, you could see there were sets of initials carved at random all over it. Sophie explained that whoever sat there had to leave their mark. Mandy thought of her mother’s dining table, protected first by a heat-proof undercloth, then mats at each place setting, then a starched cloth over the top. And always napkins in a bishop’s mitre. She knew there’d be no such fripperies here. Her eyes moved to a large pine dresser. There was no carefully arranged display of cut glass and bone china, just a hotchpotch collection of mementoes haphazardly arranged, which clearly hadn’t seen a duster for weeks. Photos of family antics were stuck on to the walls with browning Sellotape, a faded sofa sporting a hambone and a coating of hairs indicated Pokey’s territory and a row of empty champagne bottles were inscribed in black marker with the events they had celebrated (Sophie’s GCSEs, Pokey’s puppies, Georgina making the county netball team). There were hardly any gadgets apparent: a coffee machine and a toaster but certainly no dishwasher, merely a huge stone sink piled shamelessly high with washing-up.

Mandy was given tea in a chipped Bart Simpson mug. And, when Mr Liddiard got home, champagne in an ancient and heavy crystal glass to celebrate the end of term. They had shepherd’s pie for supper: not a microwaved supermarket offering, but ground steak flavoured with herbs and garlic and mushrooms and, strange yet deliciously appropriate, baked beans. Then ice cream, not presented in prissy little glass bowls with fan-shaped wafers, but served from the tub at the table and smothered in Mars Bars that Georgina melted on the Aga. And all the way through the meal the Liddiards laughed, chattered, laughed again and, most of all, listened to each other.

Suddenly, everything fell into place and Mandy knew she’d found the way forward. This was the answer. A house where you had what you wanted, not what you thought you ought to have, and where nothing was done for effect, but for a good reason, or maybe for no reason at all other than you just felt like it. And where everyone was made welcome. Somehow, effortlessly, the Liddiards had made her feel one of the family, which made Mandy realize she’d never been made to feel one of her own. Silently, she vowed that she’d recreate. all this for herself, someday, somewhere, somehow. She was just toasting herself with the last drop of champagne in her glass – it wasn’t every night you found the meaning of life – when the door opened and in strolled a tall, languid-looking young man with satanically dark eyebrows. Laughing, he gave each of his sisters a high five, kissed Lucy and nodded to Mickey. Sophie drew Mandy forward.

‘Patrick, this is Mandy, from school. Her parents are away so – ’

‘Great. The more the merrier. Have you told her about Saturday?’

‘Not yet – ’

Patrick sauntered round the table, his rangy, Levi-clad legs covering the distance effortlessly, and he held out his hand to Mandy. She took it: it was warm, dry and confident. Somehow, she didn’t want to let go, but she did, and watched as he reached out for the bottle of red wine his father had opened and casually filled himself a glass. His hair was sleek, blue-black, cleverly cut to look as if it needed cutting, with an untameable lock that fell forwards on to his eyes. He pushed it back and smiled at Mandy, and she felt her insides turn to syrup.

‘We’re having a charity fund-raising bash at the local hotel. I’m on the committee, for my sins, so I’ll wangle you a ticket.’

Mandy realized that his eyebrows looked so dark because his eyes were icy-blue. She smiled back.

‘Thanks. But I haven’t brought anything to wear.’

‘I’m sure Sophie can lend you something.’

Sophie squawked with indignation. ‘Me? I haven’t got anything for myself – only that old maroon velvet. Georgie can wear that.’

It was Georgie’s turn to be outraged. ‘I don’t want your disgusting cast-offs – ’

‘Now, girls. Don’t panic. We’ll go through everything tomorrow and see what we can rustle up.’ Lucy was anxious to avert the sartorial panic that an impending social occasion always brought.

‘But there isn’t anything!’

Mickey, mellowed by the wine and further softened by the knowledge that he had his whole family around him and therefore couldn’t be cornered by Patrick, came to the rescue.

‘I’ll take you shopping in Cheltenham tomorrow.’

The squeals of joy gratified him. Patrick grinned at Mandy.

‘It doesn’t take much to make some people happy.’

That, thought Mandy, was what made them so lucky. She could have any frock she wanted, and it had never made her happy. She had an idea what would, though, and it really was frighteningly simple. She gave herself a mental pat on the back: not only had she found the way forward tonight, but now she had the key.

After the excitement had died down, Patrick produced a penknife from his pocket and Mandy went through the ritual of carving her initials on the table, although it was difficult to find a space. As she carefully scraped an M, followed by an S, she promised herself that one day she would rub out the last letter and replace it triumphantly with an L for Liddiard.

Next morning, Mickey felt as if his head was in a vice and some particularly nasty rodent had crawled into his mouth and died. As he walked into the kitchen, the smell of percolating coffee made his stomach churn. What he saw at the table, however, made him forget his hangover. Mandy was sitting in one of his old shirts with the sleeves rolled up and precious little else. She was smiling at him; saying something – what was it? Mickey could hardly hear through the pounding of the blood that had rushed to his head.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Liddiard. I spilt hot chocolate all down my front last night and I didn’t have a spare nightie. I found this in the ironing basket. I hope you don’t mind?’

‘It’s only fit for the bin.’ Lucy was doing battle with the percolator, which hissed malevolently at her. To Mickey it sounded like a mighty roar. ‘I’ve been trying to make him get rid of that shirt for ages. It’s gone completely at the collar.’

‘Oh, you should never get rid of your favourite clothes. I always think they’re like old friends, don’t you?’ Mandy was fiddling absent-mindedly with the third button down. Mickey couldn’t look. She couldn’t possibly know the effect she was having, this woman-child, with her long legs, semi-clad at the breakfast table. Could she?

He looked at Sophie instead.

‘God, I’d throw all my old clothes away tomorrow, if I could,’ she was saying fervently. ‘By the way, dad, you haven’t forgotten you’re taking us to Cheltenham? We need some serious retail therapy.’

Why had he ever opened his mouth? He was supposed to be meeting Kay at two, to make up for that debacle the night before last. She’d arranged it specifically; she was twitchy about whether they’d been seen. He’d told her that she needed to toughen up a bit – she always found the danger of being caught a thrill, until it became a possibility. Never run away from the scene of the crime, he’d said, and if you get caught never admit to anything. A plausible excuse can always be found. She replied, rather tartly, that she wasn’t a seasoned adulterer like him. He’d have to go and placate her. He wouldn’t mention that Kelly had seen her. He didn’t know what Patrick had made of it – he didn’t have the mental energy to go down that path.

‘Are you all right, darling? You look ghastly.’ Lucy had managed to wheedle a cup of coffee from the machine and was handing it to him.

‘No, no – I’m fine. I’ve just got a heavy day ahead of me.’

That was an understatement. A nightmare of a day. A meeting with Cowley at the bank: Mickey knew exactly what he was going to say, but he would have to sit there and listen to him say it because you had to play by the rules of people you were horribly in debt to. And now he was going to have to cancel Kay and go shopping with the girls in Cheltenham. He dimly remembered promising to buy them party outfits. Christ, how was he supposed to pay for those? He’d have to tell them no. Better three disappointed schoolgirls than one wrathful Kay. He tried to judge their reaction. Georgie was happily mashing a banana, her faith in her father implicit. Would she mind? She wasn’t as obsessed with her looks and her clothes as Sophie seemed to be, though he suspected it was only a matter of time. She was fifteen, bordering on that dangerous age when girls seemed to turn into sirens almost overnight, exposing flesh and slathering themselves in make-up in a determined effort to torture every male for miles around. Thankfully, trophies and cups seemed to be more important to Georgie than Wonderbras and lipstick, and Mickey hoped it would stay that way. Lacrosse matches he could cope with; hormones he couldn’t.

Sophie, however, was a different matter. She was already looking at him anxiously, a hint of panic in her eyes.

‘You haven’t forgotten, have you, daddy?’

He couldn’t do it; he couldn’t let her down. She’d lost half a stone this term and she was so proud. The layers of podge that Lucy had spent years reassuring her were just puppy fat really were finally melting away. Exquisite bone structure was emerging from her previously plump cheeks. His little duckling was becoming a swan, and she deserved the fine feathers to go with it.

Kay would bloody well have to lump it.

‘Of course not. I’ll meet you here at half eleven.’

Sophie whooped and hit the table in an American gesture of triumph that made the coffee cups rattle and Mickey wince. He couldn’t go back on his word now. He was always putty in the hands of his daughters. He looked at Sophie again, her eyes shining with excitement, and realized with sadness that at best he probably only had a couple more years of her to enjoy. She was only a few years younger than Lucy had been when he’d met her. He allowed himself to wonder who she’d meet and marry; how he’d feel about any of her suitors. He hoped darkly that none of them would turn out like him. A feckless, duplicitous wastrel. His daughter deserved better than that. Mind you, so did his wife.

Mickey wished he could crawl back into bed and sleep off his indulgence, but it wasn’t an option. He’d better go and put a suit on. That way the bank would think he was taking them seriously.

It was a credit to Graham Cowley and his loyal customers that his bank, or rather the bank of which he was manager, was the only one in Eldenbury to stay open five days a week. The little town couldn’t really sustain any more. It was situated on the Oxford to Evesham road, and was essentially split into two. The Oxford end was rather smart and served the tourists, being filled with antique shops and art galleries that required a bell to be rung before entry. The Evesham end was more utilitarian and served the locals, with its Budgens and Chinese takeaway. The Horse and Groom sat firmly in the middle, with a foot in both camps, and Cowley could see it from his office window, the Honeycote Ales sign swaying gently in the breeze.

Honeycote Ales’s greatest strength, he reflected as he flicked through their file, and probably its saving grace, was the fact it made bloody good beer. A rich, deep gold, with a curious sweetness that matched its name, the brew was acclaimed both locally and nationwide. Real ale fanatics, notoriously purist and difficult to impress, lauded Honeycote Ale as one of Britain’s finest, and recommended all the pubs in their guide as being unspoilt and traditionally welcoming, all sharing an uncontrived charm. Largely of local Cotswold stone, they were rickety, quaint and warm. Their decor was conventional olde worlde – original, not faked by a design company – with the usual smattering of horse brasses, farming implements, hunting prints and fading, tattered chintzes, the patterns barely discernible. Open fires, beams, flagstone floors: traditional country hostelries where locals, from landowners to farmhands, could rub shoulders to moan about the latest dictates from Brussels, and could, if they wished, choose a warming soup or a hearty casserole from the menu. There was nothing adventurous in the culinary stakes – no polenta or rocket – but good, wholesome, home cooking that the landladies had learned at their own mothers’ feet.

Thus packs of ramblers planned their routes along the Cotswold Way via Honeycote pubs, knowing that they could slake their thirst with a well-deserved pint of the local nectar and confident that they would not be greeted with snotty requests to remove their muddy boots, but with platters of doorstep sandwiches filled with thickly cut beef and eye-watering horseradish. Most of the locals had been weaned on the stuff, and experienced their first kiss giddy on its hidden strength. Londoners with weekend cottages brought their chums in for a ‘proper’ pint, not the gaseous excuses for beer served in the pseudo-Victorian hostelries they frequented in the City. But none of these were enough to sustain the monstrous overheads the brewery now faced.