Shopaholic to the Stars (9 page)

‘No, you go and say hello,’ says Dad. ‘If he wants to, we can take it from there. Like I say, it’s been a long time. He may not be interested.’

I really don’t get the older generation. They’re so
reticent
. If it were me getting in touch with my old friend from all those years ago, I’d be sending them a text instantly:
Hi! Wow, it’s been decades! How did THAT happen?
Or I’d track them down on Facebook. But Dad and Mum just aren’t into it.

‘Fine,’ I say, and put the piece of paper into my bag, too. ‘What about your other two friends?’

‘Corey and Raymond?’ He shakes his head. ‘They live too far away. Las Vegas, Corey is. I think Raymond’s in Arizona somewhere. I’ve stayed in touch with them … at least, I have in a way. But Brent just disappeared.’

‘Shame you didn’t have Facebook back then.’

‘Indeed.’ He nods.

‘Oh, thank you so much! They’re a new present from my husband.’ Mum’s voice rises above the hubbub and I turn to look. Some lady I don’t recognize is admiring her pearls, and Mum is preening in delight. ‘Yes, lovely, aren’t they?’

I grin at Dad, who winks back. Mum was so thrilled with her pearls. They’re antique, from 1895, with a ruby clasp set in diamonds. (I helped her go shopping for them, so I know all the details.) Dad’s BB was bigger than usual this year, so we all went a bit mad.

BB is our family shorthand for ‘Big Bonus’. Dad worked in insurance for years, and now he’s retired. But he still does consulting work, and it’s amazingly well paid. He goes off a few times a year in a suit, and then once a year he receives a bonus cheque and we always get a treat. This year it was particularly good, because Mum got her pearls, and he bought me an Alexis Bittar necklace and Minnie a new dolls’ house. Even Luke got a beautiful pair of cufflinks.

Luke always says to me that Dad must have some sort of niche, specialist knowledge that is really valuable, because he commands such high fees. But he’s so modest about it. You’d never know.

‘My clever husband.’ Mum kisses Dad fondly.

‘You look beautiful, my love!’ Dad beams back. Dad bought himself a new tweed jacket with his share of the BB, and he looks really good in it. ‘Now, where’s this famous fountain?’

A few feet away, Tarquin is being interviewed for the TV. Poor Tarkie. He’s not cut out to be a media star. He’s wearing a checked shirt that makes his neck look bonier than ever, and he keeps wringing his hands as he speaks.

‘Ahm,’ he keeps saying. ‘Ahm, we wanted to … ahm … enhance the house …’

‘Bloody stupid idea,’ comes a gruff voice behind me.

Oh God, it’s Tarkie’s dad, the Earl of Whatsit, stalking up. (I can never remember where he’s earl of. Somewhere Scottish, I think.) He’s tall and lanky with thin, greying hair and an Aran jersey, just like Tarkie wears. I’ve never spoken to him properly, but he’s always seemed pretty scary. Now he’s glowering at the lake and jabbing a weather-beaten finger at it. ‘I said to the boy, that view’s been unspoiled for three hundred years. Why on earth would you want to go messing with it?’

‘They’re going to do fireworks on the lake in winter,’ I say, wanting to stand up for Tarkie. ‘I think it will be beautiful!’

The earl gives me a withering look and turns his attention to a plate of canapés being offered to him. ‘What’s this?’

‘Sushi, sir,’ says the waitress.

‘Sushi?’
He peers at her with bloodshot eyes. ‘What?’

‘Rice and raw salmon, sir. Japanese.’

‘Bloody stupid idea.’

To my relief he stalks off again, and I’m about to take a piece of sushi myself, when I hear a familiar, ear-splitting noise.

‘Please! Pleeeease!’

Oh God. It’s Minnie.

For a long time, my daughter’s favourite word was ‘mine’. Now, after intensive training, we’ve got her on to the word ‘please’. Which you’d think would be an improvement.

I swivel around wildly, and finally spot Minnie. She’s balanced on a stone bench, tussling with Suze’s son Wilfrid over a red plastic truck.

‘Pleeease!’ she’s yelling crossly. ‘Pleeease!’ Now, to my horror, she starts hitting Wilfrid with the truck, yelling with each blow, ‘Please! Please! Please!’

The trouble is, Minnie hasn’t really absorbed the
spirit
of the word ‘please’.

‘Minnie!’ I exclaim in horror, and run towards her across the lawn. ‘Give the truck to Wilfie.’ Luke is coming towards her too, and we exchange wry looks.

‘Please truck! Pleeease!’ she cries, clutching it harder. A few people gathered around start to laugh, and Minnie beams at them. She is such a show-off, but she’s so adorable with it, it’s hard to stay cross.

‘Hey, Becky,’ says a cheerful voice behind me, and I turn to see Ellie, who is Suze’s nanny and absolutely brilliant. (There’s also Nanny, who looked after Tarkie when he was little and has never left. But she just potters around and tells people to wear vests.) ‘I’m taking the other children to watch from the steps over there.’ She points at a bank on the other side of the lake. ‘They’ll get a better view. Does Minnie want to come?’

‘Oh thanks,’ I say gratefully. ‘Minnie, if you want to go to the steps with the others, you have to give the truck to Wilfie.’

‘Steps?’ Minnie pauses at this new word.

‘Yes! Steps!
Exciting
steps.’ I grab the truck from her and give it back to Wilfie. ‘Go with Ellie, sweetheart. Hey, Tarquin!’ I call, as I see him hurrying by. ‘This all looks spectacular.’

‘Yes.’ Tarquin seems a bit desperate. ‘Well, I hope so. There’s a water-pressure problem. Whole area’s affected. Terrible timing for us.’

‘Oh no!’

‘Turn it
up
,’ Tarkie says feverishly into his walkie-talkie. ‘Whatever it takes! We don’t want a feeble little gush, we want a spectacle!’ He looks up at us and grimaces. ‘Fountains are trickier blighters than I realized.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be great,’ Luke says reassuringly. ‘It’s a marvellous idea.’

‘Well, I hope so.’ Tarkie wipes his face, then checks the countdown clock, which reads
4.58
. ‘Crikey. I must go.’

The crowd is getting bigger and there are now two local TV-news crews, interviewing people. Luke takes a couple of glasses of wine and hands me one, and we clink glasses. As we near the cordoned-off VIP area, I can see Suze talking animatedly to Tarquin’s business manager, Angus.

‘Tarkie must surely have business interests in the States,’ she’s saying. ‘I’m certain he needs to do a trip out there. Don’t you agree?’

‘It’s really not necessary, Lady Cleath-Stuart,’ Angus says, looking surprised. ‘All the US investments are taken care of.’

‘Do we have any investments in California?’ persists Suze. ‘Like, an orange grove or something? Because I think we should visit them. I’ll go, if you like.’ She looks over at me and winks, and I beam back. Go Suze!

The earl and countess are making their way to the front of the crowd now, forging a path with their shooting sticks and staring critically at the lake.

‘If he wanted to build something,’ the earl is saying, ‘what’s wrong with a folly? Tuck it away somewhere. But a fountain? Bloody stupid idea.’

I stare at him angrily. How dare they come along and be so critical?

‘I disagree,’ I say coolly. ‘I believe this fountain will be a major landmark in the country for centuries to come.’

‘Oh, you do, do you?’ He fixes his baleful gaze on me and I lift my chin. I’m not afraid of some old earl.

‘Yes,’ I say defiantly. ‘Today will be unforgettable. You’ll see.’

‘Sixty! Fifty-nine!’ The loudspeaker guy starts chanting, and I feel a sudden rush of excitement. At last! Tarkie’s fountain! I clutch Suze’s hand and she beams back excitedly.

‘Twenty-three … twenty two …’ The whole crowd is chanting by now.

‘Where’s Tarkie?’ I say over the noise. ‘He should be here to enjoy it!’

Suze shrugs. ‘Must be with the technical guys.’

‘Five … four … three … two … one … Ladies and gentlemen … The Surge!’

A roar of cheers breaks out, as the fountain spurts up from the middle of the lake, and hits the height of …

Oh. OK. Well, it’s about five feet. It’s not
that
high for a fountain called The Surge. But maybe it’ll go higher?

Sure enough, it slowly rises up to about twelve feet, and there’s renewed cheering from the crowd. But as I look at Suze, she seems horrified.

‘Something’s gone wrong!’ she exclaims. ‘It should be about five times that height.’

The water falls back down; then, as though with a massive effort, pushes itself up to about fifteen feet. It drops a little, then rises again.

‘Is that it?’ the earl is saying contemptuously. ‘Could do better myself with a hose. What did I tell you, Marjorie?’

Now there’s as much laughing in the crowd as there is cheering. Every time the fountain lifts, there’s an outburst of cheering, and every time it drops down, everyone says, ‘Aaah!’

‘It’s the water pressure,’ I say, suddenly remembering. ‘Tarkie said there was a problem.’

‘He’ll be devastated.’ Suze’s eyes are suddenly bright with tears. ‘I can’t believe it. I mean, look at it. It’s pathetic!’

‘No it’s not!’ I say at once. ‘It’s brilliant. It’s … subtle.’

The truth is, it does look pathetic.

But then suddenly there’s an almightly
Bang!
and a stream of water surges right up into the air, what seems like a hundred feet.

‘There you are!’ I yell, and clutch Suze in excitement. ‘It’s working! It’s amazing! It’s fantastic! It’s … aah—’ I break off with a strangled yell.

Something’s gone wrong. I don’t know what. But this isn’t right.

A mass of water is falling at speed towards us, like a water cannon. We stare, transfixed – then it splats all over three people behind me, and they start screaming. A moment later, the fountain fires another waterbomb into the air, and we all start holding our hands above our heads. Another moment later and there’s another
splat
and two more people are drenched.

‘Minnie!’ I call anxiously, waving my arms. ‘Get away!’ But Ellie is already shepherding the children back up the steps.

‘Women and children to safety!’ the earl is thundering. ‘Abandon ship!’

It’s mayhem. People are running in all directions, trying to dodge the falling water. I manage to get up the slippery bank, then suddenly see Tarkie, standing apart from the crowd, his shirt soaked.

‘Off!
Off
!’ he’s shouting into his walkie-talkie. ‘Turn everything off!’

Poor Tarkie. He looks stricken. He looks like he might cry. I’m about to go and give him a hug, when Suze comes running up, her eyes glowing with sympathy.

‘Tarkie, never mind.’ She throws her arms around him. ‘All the best inventions have glitches at first.’

Tarkie doesn’t reply. He looks too devastated to speak.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Suze tries again. ‘It’s just one fountain. And the idea is still brilliant.’

‘Brilliant? Catastrophe, more like.’ The earl is stepping forward over the puddles. ‘Waste of time and money. How much did this fiasco cost, Tarquin?’ He’s jabbing with his shooting stick as he talks. I feel like jabbing
him
. ‘Thought your fountain was supposed to entertain the troops, not drown them!’ He gives a short, sarcastic laugh, but no one else joins in. ‘And now that you’ve bankrupted the place and made us a laughing stock, maybe you’d like to take a few lessons in running a historic house
properly
? What?’

I glance at Tarquin and flinch. He’s turned puce with humiliation and his hands are nervously rubbing against each other. My chest starts heaving with indignation. His father is
awful
. He’s a bully. In fact, I’m drawing breath to tell him so, when a voice suddenly chimes in.

‘Now, now.’ My head jerks up in surprise: it’s Dad, pushing his way through the throng, wiping his dripping forehead. ‘Leave the boy alone. All great projects have stumbling blocks along the way. Bill Gates’s first company failed completely, and look where he is now!’ Dad has reached Tarquin now and pats him kindly on the arm. ‘You had a technical hitch. It’s not the end of the world. And I think we can all see, this is going to be a fine sight when the details are perfected. Well done to Tarquin and all the Surge team.’

With deliberate resolve, Dad starts to applaud, and after a few seconds, the crowd joins in. There are even a few ‘Whoo-hoos!’

Tarquin is gazing at Dad with something close to adoration. The earl has retreated, looking all cross and left out, which is no surprise, as everyone is totally ignoring him. On impulse I hurry forward and give Dad a hug, nearly spilling my wine as I do so.

‘Dad, you’re a star,’ I say. ‘And Tarkie, listen, the fountain’s going to be amazing. It’s just teething troubles!’

‘Exactly!’ echoes Suze. ‘It’s just teething troubles.’

‘You’re very kind.’ Tarquin gives a heavy sigh. He still looks fairly suicidal, and I exchange anxious looks with Suze. Poor Tarkie. He’s worked so hard, for months. He’s lived and breathed his precious fountain. And whatever Dad says, this is a huge humiliation. I can see both TV crews still filming and I just know this is going to be the comedy ‘And finally …’ piece on the news.

‘Darling, I think we need a break,’ Suze says at last. ‘Clear our minds and have a rest.’

‘A break?’ Tarquin looks uncertain. ‘What sort of break?’

‘A holiday! Some time away from Letherby Hall, the fountain, all the family pressure …’ Suze flashes a mutinous glare at the earl. ‘Angus says we need to make a trip to LA, to check on our investments. He recommends a trip to California as soon as we can. I think we should
definitely
go.’

PLEASEGIVEGENEROUSLY.COM

Give to the world … share with the world … enhance the world …

YOU HAVE REACHED THE PLEDGE PAGE OF:

DANNY KOVITZ

Personal message from Danny Kovitz

Dear Friends

I’m inspired to be writing to you in this, my year of ‘giving back’, of ‘challenging myself’, of ‘taking myself to a whole new place’.

This year I will undergo a series of endeavors designed to test myself to the limit and raise funds for a number of very deserving causes. (See Danny’s Charities.)