The Hive (20 page)

Everybody collected their things and drifted towards the door.

“Oh, Rachel?” Tom, with his back to the room, was at the bookshelves, his hand at the M for Morpurgo. “Could I just have a quick word? Artistic Adviser?”

Georgie winked at her, bundled Heather and Clover down the corridor and shut the office door. The sound of the school was muffled again. They were alone.

“Sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me…I’m not normally quite such an idiot.”

“We’re all a little altered in that particular environment, I find.”

“Well you weren’t an idiot. You were dead brave taking that lot on. Gold medalist at the Dead Brave Olympics.”

“Excuse me?” His face was straight, but a smile was creasing round his eyes.

“Sorry. So sorry. Just something I say to Poppy sometimes.” Christ, she really must get out more. “I mean, the Man Who Told Bea She Was Cliquey. Blimey.”

“Didn’t quite come to anything, though, did it? I fear I lost the meeting round about three minutes in. Yet again. I seem to have instituted something called the People’s Lunch Ladder. How did that happen? You do have to hand it to her…”

“Come on. All that long experience in the world of high finance, all those masters of the universe—surely you can handle our little Mrs. Stuart?”

“It turns out to have been no sort of preparation at all.” He grinned back at her. “A few years up a mountain with the Taliban might have been a bit more useful. Well, a grounding, at least…”

Something somewhere deep inside her gave a little jump. As if it had been caught on something; hooked. Right at that moment, she could not quite speak.

“Anyway,” he went on. “I just wanted to show you something.” He opened his desk drawer and produced an old album of dark brown card. “For my prep on
War Horse
I thought I’d check out what impact the First World War had on St. Ambrose, and I found this.”

Rachel stepped forward and they bent their heads over the pages. “One of my predecessors, Mr. Stanley.” There was a sepia photo of a tall, handsome young man in uniform. In the background was some sort of parade, and the hill that Rachel walked up every day.

“He was headmaster? He looks very young…”

“He’s only twenty there.” Tom was visibly moved as he looked down on him. “He was a heroic figure, apparently. Destined for amazing things: politics, the Bar.” He turned the pages on a few years. “Until he came back like this.”

Rachel gasped at the next photo: still Mr. Stanley, but with one eye patched, one arm missing, listing to one side, a dazed expression. “Oh, the poor man…”

“Indeed. He wasn’t going very far after they’d done that to him. But he was head here for over twenty years. So who knows what we all owe to him? Anyway.” He shut the album and handed it to her. “I don’t know if you’ve got to that point yet, but I thought it might be useful for your time line?”

Her—? Oh shit, the bloody time line. “Yeah. Brilliant. Definitely still space to fit that in…”

“Great. And the one other thing was: we have a dinner outstanding.”

“Oh. No. Really. You don’t have to do that. At all. Honestly. It was…” she gibbered.

“A prank. Yes. No need to go over it again. We’ve cleared that up.” He was looking down at his desk, collecting bits and pieces—pencils, paper, a photo of a horse with a soldier on its back. “But still, I do owe the lucky winner one dinner. And I do like to settle my debts.”

“Even though,” she found her voice, “you were in the City?”

“One of the many reasons I felt I had to chuck it in. And anyway,” he looked up then, his eyes locked on to hers, “I’d very much like to. If you don’t mind. Do you have a free evening next week by any chance?”

Let’s think—only about seven or so. “Hmm, that should be OK.”

He slipped his jacket on and held open the door for her. The grumpy secretary looked up from her screen to give Rachel a filthy look. The racket of lunch was easing into the quiet of classtime with a slow diminuendo. “Shall we aim for Thursday?”

Heather stamped her feet while she waited. She had offered to drop Poppy back on the way home, so that Rachel could get on with her work. The girls were becoming inseparable now anyway—although Maisie still adored Scarlett—so they might as well share duties. Ah. Here they came. Oh dear. They did look worried. Heather’s stomach clenched. She could hardly bear it. What had happened now?

“Are you all right, girls? Good day?”

They looked at one another and then Poppy nodded. “I’ll tell you when we’re on the hill,” said Maisie, marching off to the gates with Poppy, so that Heather had to almost run along behind.

“What’s up?” she hissed when they got out onto the pavement.

“It’s Milo Green…” Maisie began.

“…and Scarlett,” finished Poppy.

“She’s horrid to him every break”

“unless we look after him.”

“And we want to play our game”

“but we can’t.”

“Because then she starts.”

“But, Maisie, love, you adore Scarlett! She’s your best friend!”

Maisie carried on as if Heather hadn’t spoken. “See, Milo says his favorite color’s orange, but he doesn’t like eating oranges”

“and Scarlett says he can’t have orange as his favorite color if he won’t eat an orange.”

“He has to have green.”

“But this is just silly, silly stuff,” said Heather crossly. “Really, you two…”

“She started again today. Bringing in an orange and trying to force him to eat it.”

“She was doing it last term, and it makes him cry and we—”

“Look, girls, I think you should keep right out of this one.” It sounded a bit daft, to Heather, that someone should want to pick it as their favorite color if they refused to eat the fruit. Sort of asking for trouble, really. Just drawing attention. “Well, girls, it sounds to me like this is Milo’s fight. He’s been silly enough to pick it so he should jolly well get on with it.”

It would be a huge mistake, in Heather’s view, for the likes of Maisie and Poppy to take on Scarlett. Or her mother, for that matter.

Thank God for the creation of tinted windows, thought Bubba as she hunkered down farther into her car seat. She had arrived early this afternoon, with the sole ambition of bagsying the space next to the car-park gate. It was a coveted position, that space: the only spot on the school premises where you could see your children come out of school, stay in the car, and not speak to anyone. She had managed to nip into it just in front of grumpy Ashley’s fat mum and had felt a small flush of triumph. Her first, she realized as she turned off the ignition, for some time. What on earth was she turning into? Once upon a time, Bubba Green was a woman of substance. She was used to making a difference, sometimes even, though she said so herself, changing actual lives. Now look at her: “Good day, darling?” “Yes, brilliant, thanks. I got to the car park
just in time
and nipped in front of grumpy Ashley’s fat mum.” Christ. She had prepared herself for a quiet life with this career-break nonsense. She had no idea it would be actually, literally, The Night of the Living Dead.

As the parents started to drift in, one by one, pair up, form groups, she stayed firmly in her Range Rover, as assimilated as a traveler come ashore among the peoples of some obscure island in a distant sea—Margaret Mead or Michael Palin or someone. There she was, Bubba, used to running the vast and teeming human resources division of a serious corporation, and yet somehow she had failed to make head nor tail of the human resources of St. Ambrose. She had to be honest—and Bubba valued honesty; self-awareness was, in her view, a cardinal virtue—it was all going wrong. Again.

Of course, less than a month had passed since the ball, and time had not yet worked its healing powers upon the open wounds, the stigmata, of her savaged pride. She hadn’t spoken to anybody here since the moment the floodwaters had swept through her gorgeous, her bloody
fabulous,
tent, and the longer she left it the more remote it seemed that she might ever be accepted here again. But it wasn’t just that. Even before the St. Ambrose Tsunami, she was not—face the facts, Bubbs—fitting in. It was no surprise. She’d been here before. It wasn’t that she was an unpopular sort of person, she was just—and she’d learned to live with it by now—almost
too
good-looking,
too
bright,
too
successful. Other women might want to
be
her but they did not, so much, want to
be with
her. And that was just the cross she had to bear. She had said it before, she would no doubt say it again:
Tall Poppy
would be the title of her autobiography.

She sighed, burrowed deeper, then started as she became aware of a face pressed up against the glass. “Oh! Gosh! Scarlett!” She lowered the window. “I literally jumped out of my skin!”

“I
love
your car, Mrs. Green.” Scarlett was passing her open palms across the shiny bodywork like a prospective purchaser. “Could I look inside?”

“Of course. Hop in out of the cold.”

Scarlett circled the Range Rover and pounced into the passenger seat in a flash. “I
love
the cream interior, Mrs. Green.”

“Well thank you, Scarlett. And please, call me Bubba.”

“Why are you called Bubba, Mrs. Green?” Scarlett was twisted round, sizing up the room in the back. “Is that your real name?”

“No, no. My name’s Deborah really but my little brother couldn’t say that so he called me Bubba and it sort of stuck.” Ah, there were Milo and Martha coming out together now.

“Gosh. You’ve got a little brother too! So have I.” Scarlett opened the glove compartment and peered inside. “Aren’t they funny? I
love
mine.”

Bubba leaned forward and shut it firmly. “Not in there, if you don’t mind. That’s where I keep all my secrets.”

“I
love
secrets.”

“I’m sure you do.” But that little stash of emergency ciggies was top,
top
secret. “Anyway. My little brother’s thirty-six now.”

“Ahhhhh.” Scarlett’s ah was a long, pretty, musical thing, full of meaning. For the first time, she was looking at Bubba rather than her car.

“So is he special needs too, then? Your brother?”

“Special needs?
Too?
” Despite the efficient seat-warming system, Bubba felt a sudden chill. “Scarlett, what on earth are you talking about?” They both now faced the front, as the Green children approached. Smaller, younger, sturdier Martha was leading the way as Milo dragged behind, his face set down at an angle to the world. “Nobody’s special needs. My brother is in property and making an absolute mint. And Milo…” Milo was shaking his left hand as he walked, like he did when he was stressed. She was trying to nudge him—gently, mind—out of it now that she was at home and they’d got rid of that psycho nanny, but he did still lapse. Though only very occasionally. “Milo’s more of the
Talented
and Able—”

“Gift-ed and Talent-ed. It’s Gift-ed and Talent-ed,” corrected Scarlett.

What-
ever,
said Bubba. But only to herself.

“So is that why Milo writes backwards?”

“Mirror writing,” said Bubba firmly. How often had she said those words in the past two years? Mirror writing. Mirror writing. Some days it seemed to be all she ever talked about. “It’s called mirror writing. And it is most commonly associated with
extreme
intelligence.” Why she was always having to explain this, she simply did not know. Had nobody round here even heard of Leonardo da Vinci?

The children were now at the car.

“Ah. Yes.”

They opened the back doors as Scarlett let herself out of the front.

“How clever.”

Scarlett looked at Milo as if he were an exhibit in a museum and she was the expert who’d dug him up in some bog.

“I
love
mirror writing.”

And with that she flew off.

“Mummy?” Martha reached over for Milo’s hand as together they watched Scarlett’s skinny little shape melt away into the gloaming. “What did she want?”

S
o, really,” repeated Heather, “if you look at it up and down and backwards and forwards, all roads lead to the one, um, thingy: Bea must've asked me to do this lunch today, on her actual fortieth birthday, because Bea must've wanted me to do her actual fortieth-birthday lunch.”

“Mmmm,” murmured Rachel, again. She had lost count of how many millions of times Heather had been over this fascinating topic. To avoid being driven completely bonkers, she had tuned out ages ago, when they were still halfway up the hill.

Rachel had first developed this particular mental skill back in her teens, when all she had wanted to do was draw at the kitchen table and all her mother had wanted to do was chatter on. But now, during this past year of too much time spent with Heather—who was actually, officially, an über-chatterer—she had perfected it. It was easy, really: all she did was envisage her brain as a suite of rooms or chambers. Each had its own place, its own purpose and its own infallible security system so that unwanted personnel from one area of her life could not intrude upon the thought processes of another. Only the very special, like Georgie, had access to almost all of it. Chris might have had once, and Bea, but Rachel had recently had to revoke their clearance, for obvious reasons. Of course, the kids were allowed to burst in wherever they liked—even into her work chamber, unannounced. But nobody else could penetrate its reinforced, soundproofed walls. And most people never even got beyond her foyer. Quite a crowded place, Rachel's mental foyer. That was where she liked to keep her mum, for example: she could always envisage her there quite clearly, standing in the entrance hall somewhere in a frontal lobe, calling her yoo-hoos, issuing forth instructions and opinions, wondering if any of them were getting through, if anybody was even at home.

And that was where Heather was right then, that morning: out in her foyer, wittering on about Bea's bloody birthday.

“It was code. It must've been. For ‘Please, please can you be the person to give me a birthday party?' So I've made a whopping cake. And ordered those balloons with a forty on them…”

“Mmmm.”

And meanwhile, Rachel could be alone. In her deepest, most private chamber of all. With a warm fire and a soft light. And the peace and quiet to think over—and over—the events of the night before.

Like most of the things in her life that turned out to be the best, the evening had got off to a rubbish start. Naturally, she'd been feeling sick all day—with nerves, with shame, with a morbid hatred of her tragic self. Not only was she the Oldest Woman in the History of Humankind to Go on a Date—no need to Google it, it was perfectly obvious. Also, she was doing it—a nice touch, this; well done, Rach—with her daughter's headmaster. And it was only happening because her bestest frenemy wanted to make her look a pillock. How could she stack a few more odds against herself? Here's how: she could decide to walk down there—partly to quell the nausea, partly so that she could, if needs be, get completely rat-arsed—thus ensuring a turn in the weather. By the time she arrived at her “date”—ugh, so embarrassing—rivulets were coursing down her pinkened nose. And not, she suspected, in a good way…

She opened the door and fought her way through an overgrowth of taffeta curtain. It had never occurred to her to go to the French place in Market Street before, and now she could see why. It was like entering a giant pair of old lady's knickers: flounces, frills, flock…This was not an actual smart restaurant, it was Colette's idea of a smart restaurant: two entirely different things. The headmaster sat alone, in the middle, sort of around where the old lady's gusset might be, looking totally out of place. Oh God, she thought. Oh God oh God oh God. How excruciating is this? We can't get through an entire evening in here. What are we going to talk about?

He had been studying his phone, but looked up at her approach. His eyes blinked into a smile. And, Gosh, thought Rachel, with a start, it's almost as if he's actually pleased to see me.

She sat down on the puffed-up chair and leaned across the table. “What,” she whispered to him, “are we doing here?” That was weird—straight from what-are-we-going-to-talk-about to this instant intimacy. What suddenly happened? Whatever it was, they were off.

“Ah.” He raised his eyebrows. “Straight in there with the metaphysics.” He lifted the wine list, shielded his face from the waiter and whispered back. “Or were you dealing more in specifics?”

“Specifics. Definitely. It's a bit, well, poncy, isn't it?”

“I thought we were contractually obligated. It's what you bid for, after all, Mrs. Mason—dinner with the headmaster at the French place in…”

“I DIDN'T BID—”

A waiter turned round.

“All right, all right. You're the innocent pedestrian, I am the banana skin…”

“But this place was Colette's idea. This is the mood music by which Colette was planning to pounce on you.”

He blanched. “Please…”

“Sorry. Only we don't have to be here, is the point I'm trying to make.”

We? We? Mrs. Mason, calm it…

“Yes. See what you mean: ergo, why are we here?” He called the waiter over, ordered a nice-sounding bottle of white, and leaned back in again. “You know what? You have actually made an extremely valid point.” He loosened the knot in his tie and undid his top button. Hmm, thought Rachel, that's better. “You're completely right.”

“Oh good. Am I?”

“This evening just about sums it up. Why am I sitting here? Because some woman came into my office in not quite enough of a very tight top and told me to. I mean, I am the headmaster.”

“Indeed you are.”

“And do you know why I wanted to do this job? Because I thought here was an area which might offer both power and responsibility.”

Rachel snorted. “Surely, in the City, you had a bit more power than you get at little St. Ambrose. All that money. All those seaplanes…”

“Not so many seaplanes, actually. You'd be frankly scandalized by the paucity of seaplanes…” The waiter poured the wine for him to taste. “And it was all power and no sense of responsibility whatsoever.” He took a sip. “Thanks. Yes. Very good.”

Rachel watched hungrily as her own glass was filled. Rat-arsed was still an option.

“But so far, St. Ambrose has been all responsibility and precious little power over anything. The church, the governors, the parents, the children…It's been one long power struggle between me and the lot of them, and I don't even seem to have put up a fight. I tell you, I was never this biddable as a schoolboy.”

“Excusez-moi. Are you or are you not the Man Who Told Bea She Was Cliquey? I've only just come out of my swoon.”

“I'm also the man she squashed flat, if you remember, like a very, very small gnat.”

“Well, I guess you're still learning…” She raised her drink to him.

“Guess I am.” He clinked his against it. “And yet you, apparently, know it all already—the holder of the key that unlocks the mystery of our existence. Who'd a thought it? You, Mrs. Mason, are the philosopher's stone.”

“Why, headmaster, thank you.” She shimmied off her sopping blazer and draped it over the back of her chair. Apparently she was no longer planning to cut and run. “I bet you say that to all the mums.”

It was about the most manic morning Heather could ever remember. What with cooking lunch for goodness knows how many people and taking on the business of The Birthday. And running around the house from up to down to make it all presentable. Still, she was on top of it all now—“Make a list and tick everything off as you do it,” as Bea always said. She was actually ahead of herself by about fifteen minutes. Which was why she was having a quick shower in the first place. It was supposed to calm her down, because, although everything was organized, her head was still spinning. Indeed, it was still spinning to such an extent that initially she got her shower confused with her tidying up. And when she first felt it, she thought it was a marble. A marble that had got into the wrong place, and needed tidying up. Tsk, she thought to herself. A marble. How on earth did that get there? And only then did it hit her. It couldn't be a marble. Because it was in her left breast. And anyway, Maisie didn't even own any marbles. Heather would have bought her some if she'd wanted any, of course, but she'd just never shown the interest.

Immediately, she regretted having a shower at all. Why she had even thought it would calm her down she did not know. Showers were generally a disappointment, in her experience. In the films, people were always in these huge, clean spaces, with hot hot water beating down all over them, cocooned in luxury. The Carpenters' shower was nothing like that; partly because Guy had installed it himself, and the door was so flimsy it sort of wobbled all the way through, but also the nozzle thingy was all built up with limescale so the not-very-hot water only came out in a limp trickle. Never very satisfactory, even at the best of times.

Her next thought was to blame Georgie. If Georgie hadn't simplified the menu for her in her normal bossy Georgie-Martin-knows-best way, then Heather would not have had the time to even think about a shower, let alone get in there and find the, you know—oh God, if only it was a marble. Heather's immediate instinct, when Bea had picked her for the People's Lunch Ladder-slash-fortieth, was dim sum. Homemade dim sum. Don't ask her why—it just popped up, a vision of a vast and varied Oriental spread that would have had them all gasping. And if she'd been making dim sum for up to twenty people right now, well, a shower would be right out of the question. But when she just mentioned it, in passing really, Georgie had grabbed her arm like she was about to jump off a railway bridge, really stuck her nails in—or what was left of them—and plain forbidden her. So now, as decreed by Madam, it was roast chickens with herbs, jacket potatoes, two salads—tomato and green—and a bowl of strawberries. Very simple. And very boring. And even after she'd put her signature twist on it, still simple and boring enough for her to think: I've got fifteen minutes. I'll just nip in the shower…

She was out now, wrapped in a towel, sitting on the edge of the bath and staring at herself in the mirror. Oddly enough, she looked exactly the same as she had ten minutes ago. Perhaps she was paler. Actually, now she was white as a sheet. And when she let her hair out of its scrunchie, she noticed that her hand was trembling. Uncontrollably. But that was all. And right there, right then, she resolved two things. 1: She was not going to be bossed around by Georgie anymore. She'd put up with it for thirty years. Enough was enough. It was time to take a stand. And 2: She was going to get through this lunch as if nothing at all was wrong. She had to. She would be brave. For the People's Lunch Ladder. And for Bea.

She reached for her mascara wand—she would jolly well paint on a happy face—and heard her phone beep. It was a text back from Bea, in response to the “Happy Birthday” one she'd sent earlier: “Thank U lovely! Feeling so spoiled ☺!!!! Good luck with the lunch. Cld you pick up kidz for me 2day? Be with you by 6, 4 sure!! Love u loads!!”

Georgie was just parking when she saw Rachel coming round the corner. “Thank God for that,” she threw over her shoulder to Hamish in his car seat. “We will at least have one human being to talk to. But I promise you, baby, it's in, scoff and out again as fast as we can manage it.” She turned off the ignition and jumped down onto the grass verge.

“Hi, Georgie. Hi, my scrumptious plumptious one.” Rachel was already at the rear car door, detaching Hamish and burying her face in his neck. “Well this is a pleasant surprise. It's not like you to be arsed to turn out for this sort of thing, is it?”

“Humph. How very dare you? When all one ever does, all day long, is One's Bit?” Georgie grabbed her bag and locked her car and together they walked down Heather's little drive. “I thought I'd better just check that menus didn't get switched at the last minute. That we're not going to find ourselves at the mercy of Heather Blumenthal.” She mimed a quick vomit into the lavender border. “Anyway, I had to come so that I could pin you down. Enough with the idle chitchat. Now. How did it go last night?”

Then the front door opened, and there was Melissa.

“Hi!” said Rachel, far too loudly, as she threw Hamish back to his mother. “How great that you're here.”

“Thank heavens you're here too.” Melissa stepped back to let them through.

“Why do you say it like that? Don't tell me it's just The Clique?”

Georgie went straight through while Rachel brushed her feet repeatedly on the doormat. Heather was practically OCD when it came to housework, known to hoover not just before and after social occasions but often while they were in full swing—or as full-swing as they ever got chez Carpenter. Georgie saw it as her moral encumbrance to always pig things up a bit round there whenever she got the chance. It felt that little bit healthier for all concerned.

“Quite the reverse.” Melissa dropped her voice as they headed back towards the kitchen. “No clique at all. It really is the People's Lunch, or will be if we can only get a few more people…”

“Oh yeah, course,” Georgie stopped and said over her shoulder. “They've all gone on their stupid sodding spa day.”

“Is that where they are?” Melissa leaned forward and shut the kitchen door quickly before Georgie could get through it. “And you
knew?
” Melissa sounded surprised.

“Oh yes. They only invited me along, that's all. Can you believe it? I mean how rude do I have to be to the bloody woman? Am I never to be left alone? Apparently not. It's all ‘Geor-gie'”—her Sharon-slash-Jasmine voice sounded exactly the same as her Katie Price voice, she realized, but so what? She was a busy woman, it would just have to do—“‘we're going on a spa day for Bea's fortieth. Treatments in the morning and bubbly in the Jacuzzi. Wanna come?' I mean, I ask you…The sheer bloody cheek of it. Excuse me, but do I look like I'd want to go on a spa day?” She spat the phrase with contempt. “I don't think I've ever been so insulted in my—”