The Hive (16 page)

“Oh, and every leg has been waxed and brow threaded and every nail painted courtesy of our Colette at her delightful shed-slash-spa.”

They both looked over at the Silent-Auction table. Bea was relieving Colette, it seemed, so that she could go and get something to eat. Sweet of her, really, thought Bubba. Bea
could
be really sweet.

“Yup. They’ve all spent a fortune.” She picked up a chip and spoke through it. “You can congratulate yourself, old Scrubberdubbadub. You might not have raised a penny for the poor old school, but you’ve sure given one hell of a boost to the local economy.”

Beads of worry, legions of them, plopping out, plop, plop, plop, rolling everywhere…

“Ha. Only joking.”

“Oh, Bubba,” interrupted Heather. “What a party. You are amazing.”

“
Heather!
Look at you.
Transformed.
”

“Thanks. It’s new. Hi, Georgie.”

Georgie held out her hand politely. “Hello. Shorry. Do forgive me. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Rachel sat alone, elbows on the table, licking the salt and vinegar from each fingertip with somber deliberation. It had been a day of shocks, the biggest of which was that Jo’s Wayne-with-the-disco who “would turn up” did actually turn up. And yet Jo herself had not. She hadn’t been that keen all along, Rachel knew that, but she had said that she would come. And she had bought a ticket. It probably had something to do with Grumpy Steve. Miserable old bugger.

Unlike our Wayne here. Boy, did he know how to get a party started. Freddie Mercury was requesting—at a very high volume—that nobody stop him then because he was, apparently, havin’ a good time…Bully for you, thought Rachel. I’m not.

Bea’s parents were at the other end of the table, but the music was so loud that it was well within the boundaries of acceptable social behavior to just wave, smile and stay silently where she was. With a bit of luck, she could just sit here for a bit and then slip away, back home. Even get an early night. The key thing was not to engage with anybody else, and not to draw attention to herself.

Colette came and sat down next to her. She tried her silent smile, cocking her head towards Wayne and his deck, shrugging at the booming noise around them, but Colette was there to talk.

“WON’T BE LONG,” she bellowed into Rachel’s ear. “ANY MINUTE. MY BRILLIANT PLOT IS ABOUT TO COME TO ITS DRAMATIC CONCLUSION.”

It was bad enough sitting on her own while all the tent was getting up to dance; it was even worse to be seen to be sitting on her own talking to Colette. Wayne introduced “The One, the Only, the Completely Fabulous Gloria Gaynor, Who Will Sur-
vive,
” and Rachel noticed that to add to her joy, her mother was tottering over towards them, rubbing her arthritic hip.

“‘At first I was afraid, I was petrified,’”

“OH DO LISTEN, GIRLS,” Bea’s mum shouted over to Rachel and Colette. “WHAT A SCREAM. HE’S PLAYING YOUR SONG.”

And whoomph: Rachel’s mum went straight into battle. “OH NO, PAMELA. YOU’VE GOT IT ALL WRONG,” she bellowed back over the table. “IT’S ONLY A TRIAL SEPARATION. THEY’RE JUST WORKING THINGS OUT.”

“Mu-um. God’s sake,” said Rachel, but through teeth so clenched her mother couldn’t hear her.

“‘I should have made you leave your key,’”

“THAT’S WHAT YOU SHOULD DO, RACHEL.” She pointed to Gloria Gaynor’s imaginary door while jigging along in her seat. “DON’T HAVE HIM BACK, WHATEVER YOU DO. I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF WHERE HE’S BEEN.”

Bea’s dad intervened, clearly urging some sort of caution before proceeding down that particular route, but Pamela was not for turning.

“APPARENTLY SHE’S HAD A SPOT OF BOTHER, HIS BIT ON THE SIDE, WHOEVER SHE MAY BE.”

What? Rachel was racking her brains to think what on earth the mad old trout was on about.

“PAMELA, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” Rachel’s mother went straight in, head-first.

“A NASTY CASE OF SOMETHING VIRAL. MOST UNPLEASANT. THAT’S WHAT I HEARD, ANYWAY.”

Bea’s dad got up and went.

“OH,
RACHEL.
” Her mum turned on her with dismay. “HOW
COULD
YOU?”

“WHAT? DON’T BE RIDICULOUS, MOTHER. IT’S NOT MY FAULT.”

Her mother still sported a disappointed look.

“AND SHE HASN’T ANYWAY.”

Both old busybodies were turned on her now, eyebrows raised.

“IT’S NOT EVEN TRUE.”

Excellent. Here we go, thought Rachel. Now I’m the Great Defender of the Bloody Intern. Thank you, Mother.

“IT WAS JUST ONE OF GEORGIE’S STUPID JOKES. SHE HASN’T
REALLY
GOT”

The music stopped, the mike started to crackle, the tent fell silent. Rachel seemed to be having an out-of-body experience. She was somewhere up on the cobalt-and-white-striped ceiling, with the fishing nets. She was looking down, she could see herself quite clearly. Yet somehow, she could do nothing to intervene.

“GENITAL WARTS.”

“Fascinating though that sounds,” announced Mark Green to the stunned crowd.

Some feedback in the sound system gave a little shriek.

“…it is now time to put you out of your collective misery. At last, we have”—Wayne put on a little drumroll—“the Results of the Silent Auction. And here to give us the results is the One, the Only”—the drums rolled again—“ANDY FARR!”

And then there was another roll, of thunder this time, and an earsplitting crack. It was almost overhead. And when it finished, yet more rain hurled itself towards the Greens’ garden with a ferocity that Rachel had not heard for years.

Bubba looked on as Andy Farr took to the little stage. She could not help but notice there was a little rustle among the ball-goers. They were all so excited to have someone like Andy among them, which was really sweet. Bubba hadn’t realized that so many people would be so aware of late-night history programs on BBC4, but that was St. Ambrose for you. Not just one big happy family: one big
brainy
happy family.
So
much
cleverer
than those in the private sector.

Bea was passing him the notes on the lots, and the winners. Bubba had thought that it had all been Colette’s baby, the Silent Auction, but she was sitting down next to Rachel, with excitement all over her face. Ever so sweet.

Some of the things that had been put up were—whilst being really, really generous and though every little bit did of course help just so much—not actually that, well, glamorous. But still, Rachel’s mum was obvs over the
moon
with Georgie’s half a pig and the headmaster had nicely bought Rachel’s mum’s year’s supply of honey. Heather’s offer to cook a dinner party for six went to Heather’s husband, which was sweet. He must really love her cooking. Adorable. The week in Bubba’s Cornish cottage went to the Farrs, which was kind of them. Bubba had been slightly hoping for a sort of St. Ambrose club-together on that one. It was very much a cottage—it was where they went for their absolute back-to-basics,
total
Bear Grylls—but it did sleep fourteen to sixteen. Although the pool was mi-
nute.
She hoped it was grand enough for the Farrs…

“Lot number six: one day of pampering in the Serenity Spa Sanctuary Beauty Therapy Suite, kindly donated by Colette. Thanks, Colette. It sounds fantastic, ladies, but only one lucky winner and that is”—Andy leaned in to the mike and looked out at the tent—“Rachel Mason.”

Bubba was pleased. Rachel did actually look fabulous tonight. That plain black halter-neck looked incredible with her red hair and slim, pale shoulders. But generally, Bubba felt, she did not make the best of herself. Perhaps this was the beginning of her own personal new dawn. Although at the moment she was frowning and looking baffled. And sort of screwing her nose up…

“And lot number seven: lunch in London with the TV celebrity Andy Farr”—Andy smiled—“kindly donated by…the TV celebrity Andy Farr.” Bubba led a smattering of applause. “And the lucky winner is…Once again, Rachel Mason!” Everybody clapped. Rachel held both arms out, bent at the wrist, in a kind of er-hello-what’s-going-on? sort of way.

“I’m looking forward to it too, Rachel. And now, the final lot of the evening, dinner with the headmaster at the new French place in the High Street, kindly donated by the headmaster.” Much more interest in the tent for this than the last lot, Bubba noticed. Which was odd. Colette was sitting up straight and grinning widely. “And the winner is…” Wayne—good old Wayne,
such
a laugh—did another drumroll, “as if we couldn’t guess, our local millionairess…RACHEL MASON!”

Bubba was so touched. She did like Rachel, really felt a natural bond. It was lovely that she had shelled out so much on making tonight a success. Bubba tottered over to congratulate her on her purchases—
so
happy for her. She was surprised to encounter something of an atmosphere.

“Hello? Excuse me? What the fuck?” Rachel was hissing to Colette. “What the actual fucking fuck just happened to me?”

“I might ask you the same thing.” Colette stood up. “Thanks a bunch, sister. Thanks a bloody bunch. How could you?”

“I didn’t—”

“You knew I’d set up that date for me and Tom. And you know how much I was prepared to pay to get it. I cannot believe you snatched it away from me like that. And where are you getting all this money from, that’s what we want to know?”

“I didn’t bid for anything, Colette. I haven’t got any money. And I don’t want your bloody date. My avowed intention is never to go on another date for the rest of my life. I didn’t do it. This is a”

She was looking wildly around. Bea—Bubba just happened to notice—was standing in the corner watching them all. Wearing a secret, knowing sort of smile.

“setup.”

Then Tony Stuart, on his way to the bar, leaned in to them and sort of slurped, “Well aren’t you just the moneybags, Rachel? I think my mate Chris had better get himself a better lawyer.”

And Mark was suddenly with them and stage-whispering, “Rachel, listen, sorry about that. Just that nobody had put in a bid for lunch with Andy. He didn’t seem to float the St. Ambrose boat, and I’m not surprised. He’s a right little prick.”

“Mark!”

“Sorry, love. But I bought it, didn’t I? Someone bleedin’ had to.” He patted Bubba on the back.

Then Heather slipped into position next to her. “That’s a present from us—the spa day!” She beamed into Rachel’s really quite ashen face. “Are you thrilled? We all clubbed together! You know how I was saying Colette was just desperate to get her hands on you?”

“Hey. I hear congratulations are in order.” Georgie swung towards them, toasting Rachel with an almost empty glass. “To genital warts! Thought I was making ’em up but Destiny’s mum says it’s all true!”

Georgie and Will had taken to the dance floor for “Walking on Sunshine.” Rachel watched them dreamily, and she wasn’t the only one. Their performance was attracting quite a bit of attention. It wasn’t just that they were both such good dancers. It was that together they looked really, well, hot. In fact, they were practically shagging.

There were quite a lot of people dancing now. Even the grumpy secretary, with Wayne-with-the-disco gyrating behind her, doing a slightly unsavory charade of grinding his pelvis into her bottom. They too were practically shagging, but Rachel’s mind did not want to go there.

She returned her focus to the Martins. They were such an advert for the state of marriage, those two; they should be put on a billboard to promote it to a disenchanted nation. Even before her own ugly dramas—when Rachel had thought herself to be loved, in love, generally content—she had not always liked to look upon the spectacle of most other marriages in the raw: couples sitting in restaurants in a cloud of silence, or dragging around the shops with tetchy boredom. All those people might think themselves to be perfectly happy, yet their marriages never looked so great, it seemed to her, in the beholding eye.

“Dancing in the Moonlight” was on now, which Rachel knew to be a favorite over at Martin’s Farm. Georgie was spinning around Will, and he was gazing at her with a mixture of adoration and open lust. How do they work, these relationships that go on and on for year upon year without any fatigue or dissatisfaction? Perhaps they never quite move on, or never notice that they have moved on. Looking at Will, looking at Georgie, Rachel could see that he was seeing the girl he had first fallen in love with. The eyes of someone who met her tonight for the first time would take in a great long list of marks and stains upon her appearance, from age and childbirth, hard bloody work and sheer neglect. They would look and see a woman bedding down into middle age. But his eyes weren’t seeing that. His eyes were clearly seeing all the way back to how she was before.

It had been the same thing with Rachel’s old family home, the one she had grown up in. They had all loved it for years—it was still her ideal house—and when the children had left home and her parents had decided to sell it, they sort of presumed it would go for a fortune; that someone else would love it as they had done. So they were shocked when the estate agent billed it as “in need of modernization” and listed all the cracks and droops and failings and general out-of-dateness of it. The decline had happened so gradually that none of them had even noticed. They had fallen in love with the place when they moved in and they had never had cause to revisit their original opinion. That’s how Will and Georgie were with each other. And obviously, now, that would never happen to Rachel. It was too late. She was officially past it. Who would ever take her on these days, with her droops and failings and out-of-dateness?

“Good evening. I thought I’d better come and say hello, as you were kind enough to spend so much on the privilege.”

“Ah. Mr. Orchard. Thanks so much for coming over.” Rachel was about to make an arse of herself again, she could just feel it. “A few things,” she coughed in a businesslike way, “to clear up.”

“Tell you what, call me Tom. Seeing as how you went over the three-figure mark—”

Three figures?

“I think I might just throw in a first name.”

“Ah. Well, you see, I didn’t. This is all frightfully embarrassing but I didn’t want to, you know, buy you at all. And I didn’t, in fact.”