CHAPTER THREE: A DINNER PARTY
Harry was expectant ahead of dinner. Anne had planned a big show: inviting Jack and Emma Carnes, the chairman of the local district council and his wife, a rather chilly solicitor, Beatrice Miller, a woman antique dealer with a flair for painting, married to Charlie, a retired journalist with novel ambitions, and Cliff Heyman, an estate agent with a large family, a finger in any number of pies, some of them reputedly rather murky, and a stay-at-home wife called Caroline. Harry wanted to cultivate Jack and Cliff. He had long set his eye on buying a couple of fields at the back of the Manor House garden, and wanted Jack’s assurance that the fields could never be anything but Green Belt land, and Cliff as a possible intermediary to the solicitor handling an estate controlling the fields. Anne was cosying up to Beatrice. Bea specialised in restoring chandeliers, and Anne was busy filling the Manor House: she hauled a big chandelier home from her holiday and thought that it might benefit from company. The spouses came as decorations.
She planned fish for both starter and main course, and had send Anthony, the Chapman’s handyman, and husband to housekeeper Mrs. Bates, to London’s fish market very early in the morning. Anthony has come home with a case of prawns, three dozen oysters, and a swordfish in giant steaks, and Mrs. Bates had locked herself in her kitchen through the day, only surfacing to serve a light lunch.
She dressed carefully for the occasion, in a cream silk shirt and matching raw silk slacks nicely setting off her tan and chestnut highlights, with a gold rope necklace and matching bracelet – what Harry called her ‘clonkers’ - as decoration. She felt pleased with herself. Playing Lady Bountiful at the parish hall had made her feel quite grand, even though the fete washed out, and she knew Harry’s contribution had improved her standing no end with George and Hilary. She had talked Harry into a blazer and flannels, and a plain white silk rollneck. They were both semi-smart, ready to welcome anything from suits to, well not quite jeans and trainers, but certainly sports jackets and old school ties.
Bea and Charlie arrived first. Anne received them with hazel eyes shining with the most sincere of welcoming lights, taking in Bea’s neat print linen jacket and skirt with the recognition one accords old friends. She knew the suit had once been expensive and quite smart, but Bea often wore it at her shop, and familiarity can frequently breed a touch of scorn. Anne knew Charlie was not very prosperous, and she supposed the shop was not doing brilliantly either. She turned the thought over in her mind with relish: Bea would not seek to hit her with high pricing. She beamed, noting the contours of Bea’s rather mousy hair. Bea looked as though she had trimmed her bob herself. She was not the smartest of women.
‘Darling, do come in.’
The two women airkissed with practised ease. Anne stood aside to let Beatrice pass, and then smiled at Charlie as though as an afterthought. Charlie was wearing an oatmeal seersucker summer suit and a dark blue silk shirt, both again limp with the usage of many occasions.
‘How’s your writing coming along?’ She let just a hint of condescension colour her tone. Gossip had it that Charlie penned porn novels under pseudonyms. Anne found the idea hard to credit: he was not a man she could see practising much seduction. She noted that he winced slightly, and judged that writing was probably bringing in very little.
‘Come and have a kir, I brought back lots of wine.’ She spoke breezily, the perfect hostess, guiding them across the hall of the Manor House towards the large drawingroom, where Anthony had already placed a bottle of Chablis in a cooler. She noted Beatrice glancing up at the big French chandelier suspended in the hall above them, and beamed with possessive pride. It was large, in five tiers, with arms encased in crystal, and festoons of crystal pendants.
‘Cost me an arm and a leg, darling. I bought it at a Salon des Antiquites in Draguignan and hauled it back in the Chrysler. What do you think of it?’
Beatrice paused. She was dying for a drink, because Charlie had been stroppy, glued to his computer all afternoon. But she was a professional, with a professional eye, and she was being asked her opinion. She stared at the chandelier, weighing it in her mind, noting places where drops had been replaced with mismatches, and one or two places where drops had been lost altogether, and found the chandelier rather wanting.
‘I’ll find you some replacements.’ She spoke drily. She had plenty of drops in the storeroom at the back of the shop she shared with a couple of other women, but no plans to sell them cheaply.
‘Replacements?’ The word halted Anne in her tracks, and her voice rose to an anxious squeak.
‘Up on that arm there.’ Beatrice gestured knowingly. ‘And there, and there, and there.’ Her arm swept in an arc. ‘They’ve put in glass ones, instead of crystal. And that one there.’ She pointed again. ‘It’s a completely different pattern, and you need a couple of others, there and there. And the ball at the bottom is glass as well.’
Anne stared, and swallowed. Bea was right, the drops were all of a mish-mash, and the glass ball completely bereft of any rainbow. Now she could see why the French dealer at Draguignan knocked a fifth from his price so quickly. He must have seen her coming, and judged her a rich Brit. Bloody Frog. She bit on the bullet. ‘But you’ve got them, darling?’
Beatrice counted in her mind and nodded, brisk and businesslike. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll put it to rights.’
‘Can you do it on Monday?’ Anne spoke quickly. She was not a woman to waste time hanging around, and others might notice her lack of percipience.
Bea looked judicious. Anne judged it an expensive look. Then she nodded again. ‘I’m supposed to be in the shop, but I’ll get Charlie to stand in for me. I’ll be here about ten.’
Anne’s hand trembled as she tops three glasses with Cassis. How very mortifying. How potentially and probably very costly. But she was a resilient woman, and she recovered quickly. The chandelier was still big enough and glittering enough to impress the Carnes and the Heymans, and she knew she could count on Bea to make it a real trophy. How nice to have friends with professional skills.
Jack Carnes arrived, dressed like an undertaker in a dark suit, with Emma very legal in black jacket and trousers and a white blouse that Anne judged cheap silk. She swelled with pride as they both looked up at the chandelier, murmuring admiringly. Some people wholly lacked class.
Harry joined them, to shake hands all round, and the Carnes stood holding their glasses of kir as though equipped with treasure. Anne could see that Harry was itching to corner Jack Carnes, but she frowned at him warningly. They were playing pre-dinner drinks, and rituals were always sacrosanct. Fortunately Cliff and Caroline arrived a few minutes later. Caroline gushed about the chandelier, and the circle around Anne glowed with praise as she explained that Bea would come in on Monday to work some further magic on it. Beatrice smiled a little drily, with the smile of an expert, whilst Charlie looked a little irritated. He was not keen on minding the shop.
The meal was a triumph. Anthony had laid Anne’s back-up dinnertable, with the Rosenthal china and Czech crystal: she kept the Sevres porcelain and Rohmer glasses for star guests, such as senior politicians, captains of industry and landed titles. Mrs. Bates had made a stunning arrangement of roses and carnations as a table centrepiece. A deferentially white-jacketed Anthony brought the oysters first, to the sound of small squeals of reluctance from Caroline Heyman, who protested that she could never swallow such things. Anne noted that Cliff Heyman downs them at speed, and that Bea pushed her half dozen across to her husband.
Then Anthony brought six prawn feuilletes: delicate puff pastry cases filled with souffles as light as feathers, serving them with a late vintage Vouvray, and the whole table beamed. It was plain that Mrs. Bates had set out to excel herself, and Anne revelled in her guests’ praise. She really was a fortunate woman to have such a couple for staff. Anthony always waited with skill, serving from the right, as in all the best society, and never leaned across her guests. He looked the part of a perfect servant: dapper, and middleaged, with the kind of face you might forget immediately you saw it. Mrs. Bates – for some reason she refused to be known as anything else, and Anne only knew her first name to be Grace because she paid her taxes – matched him as a perfect cook, buxom where he was stocky, spotless where he was all deference.
Gossip flowed as smoothly as wine. They were all curious about a popstar who has reputedly bought herself a large house just outside the village. Once it had been a school for backward children, but the county had then sold it off as part of an economy exercise.
‘She’ll be an asset,’ Cliff Heyman was enthusiastic. It was plain that he saw local property values soaring on the strength of this dazzling new arrival.
‘She’ll have to do it properly.’ Jack Carnes spoke magisterially. He was a stickler for observing planning regulations.
Anne glanced at Harry. She wondered whether a popstar would also drive up the price of the fields they both coveted. But Harry seemed to be in another world. She supposed he must be thinking about some new deal. She never took much interest in how Harry made his money, it was a man thing, and she just liked to see it keep flowing in. He partnered a rather exotic Turk called Levon Haris in a financial business called Dreamstone, buying and selling companies, wheeling and dealing. Levon spent much of his time in New York, and had recently married a wealthy Jewish princess named Shosanah. Anne had met Shosanah once, on a trip with Harry to the Big Apple, and found her rather brassy.
Anthony cleared the table to bring swordfish steaks in a rich creamy sauce, each of them accompanied by a little bed of rice and a halfmoon of braised carrots and peppers – Mrs. Bates liked to watch television chefs and read the cookery sections of Anne’s smart coffeetable magazines – serving a Pouilly Fume as accompaniment, and Anne noted with a touch of relief that Harry had come out of his distant mood enough to roll the wine appreciatively on his palate. Cliff Heyman murmured something complimentary, and Jack Carnes chimed in, plainly not savouring isolation. Anne guessed that Emma must be driving him home, because Jack was also a local magistrate, and a terror on drinking drivers. She noted that Charlie Miller had finished his glass. Anthony plainly noted as well, because he moved quickly to top Charlie up, and Anne nodded approvingly. Charlie was a former journalist, and could be expected to drink like a fish. She imagined Bea would notice as well, and factor it into her billing.
The conversation turned to a high profile scandal, recently much in the local papers. Some antique dealer from over Fulmer way had wrongfooted the police in some sex abuse case, and controversy still rumbled.
‘Men who prey on teenagers should be locked up and castrated.’ Caroline Heyman was now a little pink from her fish and her wine: she had two small children and worried about these things.
Jack Carnes paused between mouthfuls. He was a beefy man, heavy with vested authority. ‘The press take too many liberties.’
Emma Carnes nodded. She was very much law and order, with a severe look fit for a professional dominatrix. The Carnes had no children, and Anne wondered, in a passing moment of wickedness, whether she might beat her husband when the moon waxed and waned. ‘They just wanted to bring the police into disrepute.’
Charlie Miller stirred. He was now pink as well, and looked as though he might be spoiling for a fight. ‘The police tried to cover the whole thing up.’
Anne raised an enquiring eyebrow. Fiery temperaments always make for interesting exchanges, and she prided herself on her ability in managing dinnertable squabbles. She waited for a counterattack, shaking her head slightly at Bea. Fire first, then the fire brigade.
Emma Carnes was now gobbling, for all the world like an angry turkey. ‘The press set the whole thing up.’
Anne raises her hand, mistress at her own table. She noticed that Harry and Cliff Heyman had already begun whispering together. She was glad that Harry was back in the world of the living, but she had a circus ring to master. ‘Oh, come on. I’m sure these cases all have hidden undercurrents that we never hear about.’
It was a nice way of telling both Emma and Charlie to behave themselves, and they both shut up, though both gleamed rebelliously. Anne wondered how they might be, paired off together. Charlie was just the right sort of doormat for Emma to trample underfoot.
Anthony brought their desserts at just the right moment. Mrs. Bates had excelled herself again with little boatshaped individual shortcrust tarts piled high with wild strawberries from a corner of the Manor House vegetable garden, serving them with a golden Moscato. Good food, served at just the right moment, can quell all rebellion.
Harry was now deep in conversation with Cliff Heyman, and Anne saw that Jack Carnes itched to join them. She waited for the last morsels of shortcrust pastry to melt away and rose to her feet, gracefully sweeping the three other women with her. ‘I think we should leave the men to tell each other dubious jokes over their brandy and coffee.’
She beamed at Emma Carnes, who scowled. Emma liked to play the part of an aggressively liberated woman, equal with men in all things, but she could hardly refuse. Anne ran her own world much more subtly. She noticed that Caroline Heyman was now pinkly dreamy. She would have fun talking big chandeliers to Bea, and make Emma jealous. Caroline could sit and beam and dream about babies. Anne imagined that the four men might well play much the same game, with Charlie sitting and drinking himself gently into a stupor on his own, whilst Harry and Cliff and Jack went into a huddle. Everyone would enjoy themselves in their own chosen fashion.
However Harry found it hard to concentrate as Anthony served coffee and a choice between port and brandy. His mind was filled with the fairhaired girl from the church hall, and the obsession bothered him. He prided himself on having an ordered mind, a well planned and well run mental filing system, where everything had its set place and purpose. Sylvia was strictly a business arrangement, and he paid in jewellery, and smart clothes, and sometimes in cash. Desire, of the demanding, insistent kind triggered by the girl in the hall, had no place in his neat, tidy world. It was an alien thing, and an unwelcome intrusion. But it refused to be sent away.
He listened to Jack and Cliff talk local politics, and searched for some point of his own to cast anchor. He needed to get the girl out of his mind before she enslaved him. The thought stopped him dead. It was true, she had already captured him with a mere gesture and a handful of words. Anne has given him one child, their daughter Cordelia, and Harry would have liked to father a son. But Anne disliked being pregnant, took the view that a second daughter might well follow her first, and refused. She preferred to focus on entertaining. Cordelia married a banker, and now lived with her two small boys just north of Hyde Park. Mother and daughter lunched together, from time to time, to talk fashion and children, invariably in that order. Harry and James, Delia’s husband, smiled at each other, and Harry welcomed Joe and Tom, their two boys, as long as they behaved themselves. But emotional relationships had always ranked pretty low in his system of priorities.
‘How are you getting on with your fields?’ Jack Carnes’ voice broke into his reverie.
Harry shook himself, coming back to the real world. ‘They’re all still squabbling.’
The fields behind the Manor House garden formed part of a small farm. Well, it had once been a farm, but old Ted Hendry had let his farm buildings out to small businesses, metalworkers and car repairers, and allowed his grandchildren to graze horses on the land. Then Ted had died, leaving the farm to be split equally between his children, triggering bitter feuding. Jim, his eldest son, was now entrenched in the farmhouse and refusing to move. Ted’s will had mired in legal red tape. Harry had written to Steve Calshot, the Hendry solicitor, offering sixty thousand for the fields – a generous price for ten acres of scrubby grass and weeds – but the Hendry clan were convinced that building consent would one day be granted, even though the fields were classed as the greenest of Green Belt, and hedged about with all sorts of controls precluding all change of use, and wanted an astronomical offer. No number had been mentioned, but Calshot has murmured something about a ‘sum well into six figures’.
‘I might be able to gently twist an arm or two.’
Jack Carnes was a politician of the old school. In another age he would have cut a fine figure in wing collars and muttonchop whiskers. The District Council had threatened Ted Hendry with enforcement or was several times during his lifetime, seeking the return of the Hendry outbuildings to farm usage. Now he was dead.
Cliff Heyman looked judicious. ‘Calshot would stop you dead in your tracks.’ He knew Steve well, and both Harry and Carnes knew of the friendship. He has come to Harry’s table to listen out for an offer, and probe Carnes’ thinking on a couple of little schemes of his own.
‘The farm’s got to go back to original usage.’ Carnes speaks gruffly. He was not accustomed to being thwarted.
‘The businesses have been there a long, long time, and you’ll be depriving people of their livelihood.’
‘The law’s the law.’
Harry smiled to himself as he saw Heyman’s face drop. Heyman and Calshot might want him to open his wallet a little wider, but he could count on Carnes as an ally. Holidays in the South of France possessed a charm all of their own, and Jack knew the target Dreamstone was sighting. Harry imagined he might have bought a few shares. Cliff could go back to Calshot and tell him to stuff himself. ‘It’s Green Belt.’
‘No compromises.’ Carnes nodded vigorously. ‘Farmland is farmland. Nobody’s changing anything whilst I still have a say in these matters.’
Heyman opened his mouth to speak, and then thought better of it. Chapman and Carnes must have cut some sort of deal. Steve Calshot was a mean bastard, and he had better fish to fry.
The evening rolled on, and Charlie Miller began to look as though he might be ready to slide under the table. Harry hauled himself a little unsteadily to his feet. He was at home, with no need to drive anywhere. He eyed Heyman. The estate agent was now as pink as his wife.
‘Can I get Anthony to play chauffeur?’
Heyman frowned as he got to his feet, and caught at the back of his chair to stop himself swaying. ‘Does it show?’
He only lived on the other side of the village common, but he was inordinately proud of his shiny new BMW 7 series.
‘You’d be safer.’
Carnes looked grim. He could count on Emma driving him home, and he would make sure Heyman lost his licence if he left the Chapmans behind the wheel of his car.
Anne returned, followed by the three wives, and Beatrice Miller sighed despairingly as she inspected her husband. ‘Charlie’s gone and made a fool of himself again.’
Harry shrugged. Charlie has slid into drunkenness wholly peacefully, bothering no one. The Carnes drove off in their Audi, and Anthony chauffeured the Heymans, after a little initial reluctance on Cliff Heyman’s part, because the property developer had not even let Caroline drive his new treasure yet. The Millers drove off in an ageing Volvo estate, the kind that antique dealers prize. A village woman who helped the Bates at Anne’s dinner parties began to clean up. Anne looked very pleased with herself.
‘I think it went well, darling, don’t you?’
Harry rubbed his eyes. He had drunk a little too much brandy, and the fairhaired girl had returned to haunt him. He nodded. He felt tired and liverish, and thought momentarily of escaping into his computer. Then he sighed. Sleep offered a better reward, and perhaps he would dream.