Anne spent Monday morning watching Beatrice Miller doing clever things with chandelier drops, and found the experience very dull indeed, for Bea resolutely refused to talk whilst she was working, and also asked her hold a ladder steady. Anne found her request a little demeaning, but Charlie was looking after the shop and she was not keen to leave Bea on her own, for Bea was an antique dealer, and the Manor House was a treasury of precious artefacts. They might be good friends, well, goodish friends, but Anne knew better than to trust anyone buying and selling second-hand goods, particularly when there were treasures around.
Bea began at ten, and by midday it was plain that she would continue for at least another hour. Anne realised that she would have to offer lunch, and whisked off to ask Mrs. Bates to make up a couple of light salads. But it was not a comfortable meal. The two woman sat awkwardly in the diningroom, making small talk, and Bea ate much too rapidly, plainly wanting to get back to her work, whilst Anne would have much preferred to eat on her own, for she was a woman with a strong appreciation of the niceties of life. She felt that inviting an acquaintance to perform a job of work created rather a mistress-employee relationship, and was not quite the same as inviting them to dinner. But she did not dare tell Bea to eat in the kitchen, and she was also not sure that Mrs. Bates would have stood for the idea. Then she had to sit on one of her uncomfortable hall chairs again for another hour and a half, because Anthony was out doing some manful digging in the kitchen garden. But Bea eventually twisted a last drop into place, and the two women stood back to admire her handiwork.
Anne was impressed. The chandelier certainly looked a good deal better now than before Bea had started, far more glittery and glistening. She took a deep breath. ‘How much do I owe you?’
Bea pondered for a moment. She knew that Anne was both rich and mean, in a world where the two qualities often travelled hand in hand, and she had smarted at being treated virtually like a servant. She counted mentally as she replied. ‘I popped in ten big drops, they’re a fiver apiece, and another eight at three pounds apiece, and the ball will cost you twenty.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It also took me four and a half hours, give or take a few minutes. Call it a coupe of hundred.’
Anne winced. She looked at the drops Bea had discarded. ‘Do you knock something off for them?’
Bea shook her head firmly. She was not about to have Anne beat her down. ‘You can keep them. They’re just cheapies.’
Anne wrote her cheque reluctantly. At least Bea had the grace not to ask her to add a card number on the back. She eyed the discarded drops as Bea packed all her bits away, and then pushed them towards her.
‘You better take them anyway. They’re no use to me.’
Bea smiled quickly. They would come in handy, useful for restoring cheap little lamps. ‘Thank you.’ She looked up at the chandelier once again, and then back at Anne. ‘Take me with you, next time you go to France and think of buying a big one. I might save you a lot of money.’
Anne was not sure whether to smile or spit, but managed a tight little grimace somewhere between the two. ‘I will, darling. You can be sure that I will.’
Charlie Miller played shopkeeper whilst Bea was fixing Anne’s chandelier. It was not a task he much liked, because nothing very much ever seemed to happen – women wandered in, probably wanting to gossip with Bea, took one look at him, and wandered out again. He sold a little jewellery for Janet, one of Bea’s partners, and glowered aggressively at a couple of young men in white teeshirts and jeans, with baseball caps turned from back to front, who asked him to open Janet’s display case. They were both very casual, but he suspected that they might have an eye on a couple of Janet’s gold bracelets, and Bea had warned him about young men taking a close interest in gold. He suspected that one might try to distract him, and the other might essay a grab, and doubted whether he could cope with both. So he told them that he did not have a key to the case, which was not quite true, and the two young men left, though one said something that sounded rather rude as he closed the shop door behind him.
Charlie shrugged. He was an easygoing man, tall, with brown hair and eyes, dressed casually in a blue summer shirt and jeans. He knew a little about chandeliers, enough to answer basic questions, and he was writing a novel where antiques figured quite large. He helped Bea with her work, driving her to markets in Britain and Belgium, where chandeliers cost much less. He hoped that his novel would also bring home some bacon – he had a lifetime of writing for newspapers and magazines behind him. He knew that Bea was doubtful, but then she was no intellectual. Clever with her hands, but less bright with her head, considering the successful completion of a Daily Mail crossword a major attainment.
He sat staring holes in the air, wishing the day would pass faster. Young men with baseball caps turned from back to front were not much by way of entertainment. Then the shop doorbell rang, and a woman walked in. Charlie got to his feet as he recognised Emma Carnes, formal in a black trouser suit. He beamed. Emma was a bit stiff for him, a stocky little fairhaired woman with a round pudding face and icy blue eyes, but it was nice to see someone he knew. Perhaps she would talk to him.
Emma nodded to him rather formally, and his smile faded a little. ‘Can I help?’
‘Jack thinks we need a chandelier.’
‘Oh.’ Charlie’s beam revived. Anne Chapman’s dinner party looked like proving profitable for the Millers. Money was short – he was thinking of going on a vehicle maintenance course at the local technical college. Bill Grant’s bills on his ageing Volvo estate seemed to be growing apace. ‘You must have been impressed on Saturday night.’
‘She was showing off.’ Emma Carnes pursed her lips a little sourly. She was an ambitious woman, but had suffered all her life through over-rating herself. She had always hoped to marry well, perhaps a senior partner, and had saved herself up. But only Jack Carnes had showed any serious interest. He had been a senior partner, sure enough, but in rather a second-class firm, and a taciturn beau, very proper and precise. A bit of a disciplinarian. He had seemed a good catch at the time, but then Emma had learned, after their marriage, that he had only walked up the aisle at St Joseph’s because public opinion held firmly that county council chairmen needed wives. He had wanted the glory, so he had married. But he was not really a marrying man, and Emma sometimes wished that he might show a little humanity. Well, a little warmth, of the kind she heard colleagues gossip about. Coupling for the Carnes was always quick, and sometimes hasty, and she felt she deserved some warmth, particularly as Jack now preferred to spend his evenings in male company. He often drank with Bill Grant, the owner of Tithing St. Mary Motors, on his way home from work. Emma disliked and mistrusted Grant.
Charlie shrugged. ‘She can afford to. She has the money.’
‘I think it’s vulgar to flaunt it.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Charlie grinned. He was so bored that he felt playful. He would try taking a rise out of this stern little solicitor. ‘I’m just jealous. I wish I could live like her.’
‘Do you?’ Emma scowled. ‘She’s not got much depth.’
‘Depth?’
‘Nothing intelligent.’
This was a challenge, and Charlie looked winsome. ‘Are you intelligent?’
‘More than you know.’ Emma’s tone was gruff.
‘D’you read books?’
‘I write poetry.’ Emma stared at him, and suddenly her blue eyes reflected a flash of sunlight on distant glaciers.
Charlie was so taken aback that he stood opening and closing his mouth like a stranded fish. ‘Poetry?’ He repeated the word on a rising inflection. This was the last thing he might have expected of such a dry stick of a woman. ‘Romantic poetry?’
‘Passionate poetry.’ She spat the word out almost as though it offended her.
Charlie stared, and suddenly he was looking at a whole new person.
‘You seem surprised.’
‘I am.’ He could not speak a truer word. All of a sudden he was talking to a real person hidden beneath all this ice. ‘Can I read some of it?’
For a moment ice blue eyes faltered. Then Emma Carnes shook her head. ‘I’m not fond of mockery.’
‘Why should I mock you?’
‘You’re a man. Men aren’t sympathetic.’
‘I write as well.’
Blue eyes shadowed a little in thought. ‘I might show you some. But no mockery.’
‘No mockery.’
‘And nobody else.’
‘I won’t show a soul.’
They were both silent, and Charlie realised that their exchange had come to an end. Emma Carnes walked to the end of the shop, inspecting a few of the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling with a distant air, and then she was gone. Charlie sat again, and wondered. She had not really shown any interest in chandeliers at all – it was almost as though she had come in merely to talk to him. Charlie’s imagination began to weave illusions. Perhaps Emma needed a man. Perhaps he might fit her bill. He was certainly willing, even for a woman solicitor. Bea was a hard-working woman, and often tired when desire tempted tempt him. Perhaps he needed an affair.
Anne drove into Windsor after paying off Bea, to browse some shops, but found nothing she likes. She wanted something smart, perhaps from Ros in St. Leonards Road, so that she could hostess another dinner party to celebrate her chandelier’s ennoblement, but nothing took her fancy, and anyway Harry was in London, making a fresh fortune. So she watched a little light television and thought of an early supper. She knew that Harry would be working late, glued to his computer screen, and dining off something quite unsuitable, like a Marks and Spencer microwave meal. But she saw no reason to deprive herself, and got Mrs. Bates to make her a nice halibut steak in an egg sauce, with a small boiled new potato and a few green beans on the side, to go with half a bottle of Sancerre, with a coffee meringue for dessert. The meringue was dangerous food, of course, but she weighed herself at least three times a week, and was still comfortably below her recommended Body Mass Index. Then she took the rest of the Sancerre to settle down with her Rolf Harris video. The man was a master, with an ability to dash off pictures almost without thinking. She dreamed of being as good one day. Finally she tottered off to bed. She had done a good day’s work, and deserved a good night’s sleep.
She woke again fairly late next day, to a blue horizon and a sun high in the sky, and thought of calling Harry, but knew that he would already be at work. Harry was a man who hated being disturbed on the job, with an ability to grow really quite bad-tempered. She ate a modest breakfast, just a couple of small slices of toast, and several cups of strong black coffee, because the Sancerre had really been very heady, and punched Cordelia’s number. She would tell her daughter to find a carer for the boys on Wednesday and take her out somewhere smart for lunch, with an afternoon’s shopping to follow. She knew that James, Cordelia’s husband, was a a touch on the mean side, with a tendency to keep his wife short. Shopping on mother’s credit card would boost Delia’s morale. She could catch up on the latest developments in her daughter’s life, fill Delia’s boots with goodies, and pop a nice little cheque in her handbag.
Cordelia sounded exhausted as she answered. Anne set herself into bright mode.
‘Hello, darling. How about lunch tomorrow?’
Cordelia’s voice crumpled. ‘Mother, I’m shattered.’
‘Yes, dear.’ Anne stayed bright. Cordelia was always shattered. She was a nice girl, and a dutiful daughter, when duty suited her. But she spoiled her two boys something rotten, and both ran wide rings around her. ‘We could meet at General Trading for lunch, and have a look round Peter Jones.’
‘I’d love to, Mother.’ Cordelia revived a little, reaching for her diary, on the table next to the play house she had been building with three-year-old Tom, scowling at her son as he tried to snatch the diary from her reach. ‘But we’re having a young mums’ lunch.’
‘You choose a day then, darling.’ Anne was scrabbling for her own diary, and realised with a sigh of relief that she was running through a relatively free period. ‘Daddy’s staying at the flat – he’s putting a big deal together at Canary Wharf. I thought we might meet up, and focus on some serious shopping, and then I could scrounge dinner from him, spend the night up in town, and come home.’
Cordelia perked up. She could always count on father for donations when he was doing big deals. ‘Do you think he’d feed James and me as well?’ She knew James would stump up much more readily for a babysitter if Anne talked Harry into paying for them to eat somewhere smart.
Anne frowned slightly. She had set her sights on a cosy little tete-a-tete, not a family get-together. She was not sure that she much liked the idea, or even that she could swing it. Harry and James approved of each other, in a rather formal sort of way. But they were not close. ‘I’ll have to talk to your father, darling.’
‘See if you can nail him for Friday, mother, then we could come down for the weekend.’ Cordelia hung up quickly, before her mother could back away, and began slotting together plans for a nice quiet country weekend in her mind. She and James would dine with her parents, with James under strict orders to be his most charming, and then drive down on Saturday, because she really needed a break. James could keep an eye on the boys, whilst she started working on her father. The house in London had grown rather small, and she liked the idea of moving somewhere greener, perhaps out of town along the Thames Valley. Somewhere within babysitting distance of Tithing St. Mary, because then she could start living a decent social life again, particularly if she could talk James into funding an au pair, something Slav and rather plain, for choice.
However at this point her train of thought closed on a red warning signal, grinding to a halt. James might well jib at anywhere too close to her parents, and train services past Slough might be tiresome. So perhaps not the Thames Valley. But she had also seen pictures of some nice houses in the Sunday Times, down towards Guildford, in an area with good train services to Waterloo, and good schools, and Dad might help, because she knew she was thinking in terms of an arm and a leg type prices. She would bribe James to leave London, and a nice house would be a good investment.
She smiled to herself at her cleverness. She could sell Daddy the idea of donating his slice of the house as an advance on his will, and a neat way round death duty, and he would understand perfectly. Hats off to Delia. Sometimes, as a small girl, she had rued being an only child. Life had been quite lonely, though the odd cousin had come to stay. But only children never had to worry about wills, as long as they behaved reasonably. She would have a big house, and an au pair, and possibly then a living in couple like the Bates, and become a pillar of some cosy little community, and the boys would be away at school, because Daddy has already set up some complicated tax-dodge arrangements to pay for their education, and the future would be wholly rosy, and suddenly she began to feel very much brighter.
She looked around for her younger son, realising that he had vanished whilst she had been daydreaming, and leaped to her feet. ‘Tom! Where are you?’
The trouble with small boys was that they always vanished when they were wanted, and never vanished when they were supposed to be out of sight. Then she heard the sound of small boy laughter from her drawingroom doorway, and crept towards the door on silent feet, pouncing as she reached it.
‘Tom, you’re being naughty again.’
But Tom merely laughed louder. He knew, even though he was only four, that he could twist his mother pretty much around his little finger, and it was a game he greatly enjoyed.
Anne had to wait for a couple of minutes to reach Harry. Christine explained that he was frightfully busy, in the voice that secretaries kept for times when they must tell bosses’ wives that queues had formed, and that marriage cut no corners. Harry took the call a little half-heartedly. The Wide Horizons bid was moving along smoothly, and he was hoping for an untrammelled weekend. He tought that he might rent a chopper and fly Doreen over to Jersey. France would be more romantic, but he imagined she might not have a passport. Or else they might motor out to a nice little country hotel he used sometimes with Sylvia, just out past Oxford, and dally there a while. He was sure country air could whet both their appetites.
It took him a good moment to realise what Anne was asking. He sat in his chair, dumbfounded for a second, and then craned his head to make sure Christine was out of earshot. He disliked lying, particularly on the home front, but some occasions called for duplicity on a high scale.
‘I can’t, my love, pressure is really building up.’ He used the voice he kept for flat rejections. ‘Friday?’ He shuffled papers on his desk as though trying to reschedule the whole of his immediate future. ‘I’ll be working flat out all day.’ More shuffling as he scrabbled for ideas. He must keep Anne away from Canary Wharf at all costs. Concepts of advance, retreat, tactics, strategy, shot through his mind like silver spears, and he snatched at a passing haft. ‘We’re having a strategy meeting on Friday night, and then Levon wants me to meet with a bunch of Swiss bankers.’
Anne sniffed. She had a feeling that Harry was being evasive, and she needed to pin him down. The idea of having to cope with Delia, her two boys and her husband all on her own was just too alarming. ‘But you will come for the weekend?’
Harry hesitated for a moment, and then agreed reluctantly. Anne was sometimes too sharp for her own good. She might come up and wait for him at the flat on Sunday night, if he refused to come home. But he was still mapping escape routes in his mind. ‘I’ll come about lunchtime on Saturday and invite Levon to Sunday lunch.’
He remembered that Shosanah would also be flying in some time, and mapped on, because he did not much care for Levon’s wife. She was exotic, and extremely bossy, and expected to have her way in all things. ‘Then you might take Delia and the boys down to France for a few days, and get the house ready. Levon is expecting Shosanah – she might like France.’ He smiled to himself as he spoke. This was good planning, because it would clear Anne out of the way for a while. Then he could pop down for a Saturday night, and dream about Doreen.
Doreen. Harry was thoughtful. He would have to leave Doreen alone in his flat whilst he was away. The thought shadowed doubts in his mind. Perhaps he should send her out on a shopping spree, well, spreelet, before his going away, to keep her onside. Perhaps a grand or two in pink grannies. Sylvia had spent several on the black and white dress. Then, once he had Wide Horizons in the bag, he could find her something to keep her busy. He smiled to himself. She was a touch too bright to be a butterfly. Perhaps Christine could take her in hand and train her up. Perhaps she might like to work for a firm of solicitors.
Anne scowled as she replaced her receiver. She knew Harry had fobbed her off. She decided to take a tour around the garden and plan colour combinations.
She was heading for the front door when she saw Anthony talking to someone. He crossed the hall to speak to her. ‘Are you at home, ma’am?’
Anne frowned. She was not having a good day. ‘Who is it?’
‘Mrs. Harriman, ma’am. She looks a little upset.’
Anne took a deep breath. Hilary Harriman was about the last woman in the world she wanted to meet right there and then. Then she relented. She was, after all, a pillar of the Tithing St. Mary community, and charity formed an obligation. ‘All right. Show her into the drawingroom.’ She glanced at her watch. Watching Bea do bright chandelier things and talking to Delia and Harry had pushed the clock on. ‘You better ask Mrs. Bates to knock up some tea. Ask her if she can make some cucumber sandwiches.’ She paused. Hilary Harriman was as thin as a rake, but she possessed a prodigious appetite. ‘Ask her if she can also throw in some of her pound cake – that always goes down well.’
Hilary Harriman sat in a crumpled heap on her sofa. She tried to stand, but seemed to be shaking a lot, and Anne graciously waved her back into her seat.
‘You wanted to see me.’ She made her manner rather Lady of the Manor, to show that she was not a woman to be taken lightly. Hilary was quite acceptable, in limited doses, but could tend at times to be just a little tiresome.
‘I’m worried about George…’ The woman on the sofa left the end of her sentence floating up in the air, as though uncertain how best to address her hostess.
Anne smiled regally. ‘Anne’.
‘I’m so worried about him, Anne.’
The drawingroom was silent. Hilary’s mouth worked nervously, in the manner of a fish out of water. She had clasped her hands, and her long bony fingers writhed like long thin snakes, twisting themselves restlessly. Anne felt her crumpled blouse and skirt could both have done with a good wash, not to say a good iron, but she suspected that good washing and ironing would have shredded both. Hilary also smelled vaguely of boiled cabbage. Anne wondered whether she had ever been fetching, though she supposed that she must have possessed something at some period in her life to land a husband. Perhaps she prayed well.
She waited for Hilary to speak, but the woman on the sofa remained silent, and the silence grew embarrassing. Anne had a distinct feeling that the vicar’s wife might be about to start weeping, and moved to forestall her. ‘You seem rather stressed.’
Hilary’s watery blue eyes moistened. ‘He’s having an affair with Julia.’
Anne stares, open-mouthed. She had no idea who Hilary might be talking about, but the idea of George Harriman having an affair with anyone was wholly impossible. He was a vicar, and bearded, and totally sexless, a wholly wimpish weed of a man. She opened her mouth to speak, but Anthony came into the room carrying a tea tray, and she watched in silence as he set a small table between them and arranged plates and cups and saucers, teapot and milk jug and sugar bowl, a plate with several layers of neatly cut and trimmed cucumber sandwiches and a second plate with slices of sand-coloured pound cake. She waited until he had left the room before pouring two cups. She was playing for time, her mind in a whirl. She might imagine a man like Harry attracting women. But George? Never.
The two woman sipped decorously. Anne looked up. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ She was still trying to square George with lechery, but it was hard work.
‘She lived somewhere near Maidenhead, and she’s been in hospital. She used to be an accountant.’ Hilary spoke fitfully, in jumps and starts. ‘Phyllis Adams of Mencap asked us to keep an eye on her.’
Anne pursed her lips. She knew Phyllis Adams vaguely, an interfering busybody of a woman, with a large idea of her own importance. ‘Was she ill?’
Hilary looked down at her cup. ‘She was…’ She hesitated. ‘She was disturbed. She suffered a breakdown.’
‘Mad?’ Anne disliked beating around bushes. She believed in calling a spade a spade, and damn political correctness.
Hilary nodded weakly.
Another long silence. Anne realised that she risked being stuck with the woman for dinner if they progressed at this rate. Perhaps George was leching whilst they were having tea. The thought was so improbable that she had trouble stifling a small giggle. She decided to pierce straight to the heart of the matter. ‘What did she do?’
Hilary quivered nervously. ‘She kissed him.’
Anne waited for more, but no more came. Now it was her turn to hesitate, because she really did not want to become involved. She was not a counsellor. But she knew that she must press on, at least for a little, if she wanted the woman out of her house before nightfall. ‘What else did they do?’
‘I think he kissed her.’
Anne had to lean forward to make out Hilary’s words, because the vicar’s wife had spoken in a whisper. She waited again. She was really starting to grow rather bored. She wondered whether she would have to tell this woman some basic facts of life. ‘Do you really think kissing was so very bad?’
‘But she stuck her tongue in his mouth, and pressed his hands on her breasts, and tried to push down his trousers.’
Anne stared at her unbelievingly. ‘You were watching?’
‘He told me.’ Hilary looked up, and her face was mottled somewhere between pink and grey. ‘We don’t have any secrets. We swore complete honesty when we married.’ A large grey tear trickled down her nose, and she mopped at her face with a handkerchief the colour of a dirty dishcloth..
Anne decided to be direct, and have done. ‘Did he encourage her?’
‘Oh, no.’ Hilary was quivering again. ‘But he told me that he found it pleasurable.’
Now it was Anne’s turn to reach for a hankie. She knew that she would explode if this saga spun out any longer. ‘You better tell Phyllis to find her somebody else.’
Hilary’s watery eyes widened. ‘But that would be wicked.’
Anne felt rather like saying that it would also clean up a mess, but she refrained. ‘Tell Phyllis to send her somewhere else.’
More quivering. ‘She suggested I talk to you.’
‘To me?’ Now Anne felt irritable. Phyllis Adams was carrying interference a step too far.
‘She thought you or Mr. Chapman could help Julia find a job, to get her out of the village. She said Julia was very good at her job, before she …’ Hilary did not finish her sentence. Madness was a taboo concept to some.
‘I see.’ Anne drained her cup and got to her feet. The cucumber sandwiches had barely been touched, and she felt more than a little put out. But she was also a pillar of local community life, when all was said and done, and in a way it was flattering for people to bring her their problems. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
She racked her brains as she spoke. She knew a woman called Barbara Hanson, who had just begun beefing up rather a dull chain of fashion shops. Barbara was tough and cheerful and sparky, and always willing to do a good deed. Perhaps Julia might add some excitement. She would take a look at the girl, and have a quick word with Barbara. But she would not bother Harry. He was much too busy with his big deal.
She escorted Hilary to the door, with a brief to bring Julia back with her for morning coffee, and watched her trudge away down the Manor House drive, before glancing at her watch. Windsor was now totally out of the question. She would call Barbara, and do her good deed for the day.
Suddenly she fell prey to a totally unexpected fit of the giggles. The thought of a young woman making a pass at Geoffrey Harriman, kissing him passionately, pressing his hands on her breasts and trying to get into his pants was so totally unbelievable that it might have come straight from a Whitehall Theatre bedroom farce. She thought she might enjoy inspecting this deranged little sex bomb - though of course she knew she would carry out her inspection with total decorum. She giggled again, before quickly regaining control over herself. Village life could sometimes throw up some very strange moments.