Bed of Roses (17 page)

‘No, I know that, Trace. But there’s no sense to be got out of Kitty tonight, is there?’

Fanny looks around her. Apart from the two white-haired tourists, still whispering in the far corner, only Mack and Tracey remain. She feels like an intruder, doesn’t want to polish off an already rotten evening by being made to feel like a gooseberry. She takes a subtle step back towards the door.

‘Where are you off to?’ Tracey asks sharply. ‘I should think you need a drink after that! What can I get you, Fanny? This is Mack, by the way. Macklan Creasey. Solomon’s son.’ She smiles. ‘You know Solomon, don’t you, Fanny?’

Fanny shakes her head. ‘No. Amazingly, we still haven’t met.’ The General’s promised lunch at the Manor has yet to materialise, of course, but as the weeks go by she learns more about the fabled Solomon. She knows he donated something in the region of £350,000 (actual figures vary) to put a new roof on the church a few years ago. She knows he has three young daughters of primary school age, and a stream of magnificent-looking Euro-splendid girlfriends who follow him about everywhere. And she had understood he was in his late thirties. Still quite young. Macklan looks much too old to be his son.

‘I’m twenty,’ Macklan says, reading her thoughts. ‘My dad was just seventeen when I turned up.’

‘Oh! Sorry, was I—’

He smiles. ‘Save you the trouble of asking. Different family set-up. Well, “family’s” probably putting it a bit strong.’ He laughs. ‘I don’t suppose him and Mum would even recognise each other now. Anyway, nice to meet you, Fanny. At long last. Everyone I meet seems to think you’re the bee’s knees.’

‘Really?’ says Fanny, astonished. ‘Who?’

‘Well, my dad, obviously.’

‘Oh.’ She sounds deflated. ‘Him again. I told you, I’ve never even met him!’

Mack shrugs, doesn’t seem to think much of it. ‘But Grey McShane keeps telling Dad what a catch you are.’ He laughs. ‘And frankly, anyone’s better than the usual tarts he drags round with him…But Dad listens to Grey. We all do. Grey’s no fool, is he, Trace?’

‘You obviously haven’t seen him this evening,’ Fanny says, laughing.

‘Certainly have. But he was celebrating! Poor chap’s got to celebrate once in a while…Want to know who else says lovely things about you?’

‘Of course I do. But only if they’ve actually met me. Or it’s hard to see how it counts.’

‘Well, there’s Tracey. True, isn’t it, Trace?’

‘Shut up, Mack.’

‘And Dane.’

‘Dane?’

‘And Robert White,’ Mack says, warming to his theme.

‘Oh, no,’ Fanny laughs. ‘You’re a bit out of date there, Macklan. Robert hates me. Won’t even come to work any more, he hates me so much.’

‘Anyway, fuck Robert,’ Tracey says. She doesn’t often swear. Fanny and Macklan stare at her.

‘I’d rather eat my own eyeballs,’ Fanny says at last. ‘To be frank,’ but Tracey doesn’t smile.

‘Right then,’ declares Mack, standing up from his stool. ‘I’m going for a piss. Why don’t you get Fanny a drink, Trace, since she’s come all this way, and you’re supposed to be the drink-getter. You can tell her about the other fellow who’s been mooning after her these past weeks.’

Fanny asks for a pint of Guinness and a whisky mac and settles herself on a stool at the bar. ‘So?’ she says. ‘Who, exactly, in this village of strangely attractive but unavailable men—’

But when Tracey plops Fanny’s whisky mac on the counter, she’s not looking amused. ‘And before you go saying anything stupid,’ she mutters, ‘he’s not my boyfriend.’

‘Who?’

‘Him.’ She nods at the door. ‘Macklan, of course.’

‘Oh.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

‘No. Fine. That’s a shame. He’s lovely. I’m sorry, did I—?’

‘He’s not my feller, all right? I’ve got enough problems.’

Fanny takes a moment trying to make sense of that. ‘OK,’ she says slowly. ‘Well, are you going to tell me then? Which
guy’s been mooning after me? It is a guy, isn’t it, Tracey? Tell me it’s a guy!’

Tracey manages a sulky smile. ‘You’re supposed to be the brainy one. Can’t you guess?’

‘No! Of course I can’t.’

‘Oh, come on. Have a guess!’

‘I can’t. I’ve absolutely no idea…It’s not What’s-his-name. The hat maker?’

‘Daniel? Don’t be stupid, he’s gay!’

‘It’s not the General, is it?’

‘NO! Don’t be disgusting, Fanny.’

‘Then who?’

Tracey shakes her head. ‘He flops in and out of here like a ruddy love-struck Romeo. All he talks about is you. And Fanny, if you don’t know who it is by now, you don’t deserve to know.’

‘Oh, come on! That’s not fair.’

She laughs. ‘No. I’m not telling you.’ She glances up as Macklan Creasey lopes back into the room. ‘And neither will he. You’ll have to work it out for yourself.’

Jo Maxwell McDonald, now in charge of Kitty and Scarlett’s book publicity as well as Fiddleford Primary School’s, has escaped briefly from the neurotic demands of her cabinet minister guest and organised, with Fanny’s approval, a press call in the school playground for eleven o’clock. She has ignored Kitty’s sex-driven demands regarding Louis’s exclusive rights to the event and he will, after all, be only one of several invited photographers. She calls Kitty at half past eight that morning to warn her.

‘You are
mean
, Jo,’ Kitty moans. ‘It’s too awful for poor Louis not to have his little exclusive.’ Kitty has woken in the Old Rectory’s front guest room, and is still in bed, propped up against Geraldine’s crispest linen-covered pillows. Clive (to keep Kitty out of the way) has already brought coffee, newspaper and the telephone up to her bedroom. He’s pulled back the double-interlined cream silk curtains and opened the pretty sash windows so she is bathed in soft, early-morning sunlight. ‘Poor Louis. I did promise him.’ On the other hand the prospect of a whole gaggle of young men aiming their cameras at her is hardly torture. ‘Well, as long as you tell Louis that I tried. Would you do
that, Jo? Would you be kind? Tell him I’ve fought
tooth and nail.
But I suppose we must bow to your superior knowledge. I imagine you understand how these things work…’

There is a knock on the door. Scarlett, already dressed and breakfasted, comes in as she does every morning before leaving for school, carrying a plate of toast and Marmite, and a second cup of coffee for her mother.

‘…But will you make it clear to him, Jo dear,’ says Kitty, ‘how important it is to me that he’s there? In fact, could you ask him to call me, just to confirm? That would be terribly kind.’

Scarlett clears a space on the bedside table and very carefully lays down the plate – without incident. Which is good, considering how nervous she is. This is the first time she and Kitty have been alone since hearing old Twiglet’s news and Scarlett’s coffee-and-toast delivery, even on ordinary mornings, usually involves at least one spillage.

She smiles at her mother but Kitty is still engrossed in her conversation. She’s discussing what she should wear for the photo call: ‘You know I’m wondering, actually, Jo, if it isn’t worth contacting that little shop in Lamsbury – do you know it? The only place that sells decent clothes in the entire bloody county. I’m sure you do know it. What’s it called? Couldn’t we get them to donate something in exchange for a little free publicity?’

Scarlett waits patiently, but Kitty shows no sign of getting off the telephone and after a few minutes Scarlett gives up. She leans over the bed and drops a noiseless kiss on her mother’s cheek. Suddenly, and still without actually looking at her, Kitty snatches hold of Scarlett’s arm.

‘Jo, angel,’ she says, ‘can I call you back? I’ve got my daughter here. And everything’s happened so fast, we haven’t even had time to congratulate each other. Could you give me half a minute?’

After she’s hung up Scarlett and Kitty look at each other for a short, quiet moment. They can hear Lenka the au pair standing at the bottom of the stairs shouting that it’s time to go to school, and then Ollie, yelling at her to hurry. Normally, Scarlett would have jumped. Kitty would have snapped at her for keeping them waiting. This time they both ignore it.

Kitty’s eyes slide away from Scarlett’s, to the floor. ‘Well done, old girl,’ she says at last – more quietly than Scarlett has ever heard her say anything. ‘Clever girl.’ And then more quietly still, so quietly Scarlett isn’t even sure she heard it, ‘
Thank you, Scarlett.
’ Scarlett can think of nothing to say to that, but she can see her mother’s eyes are brimming and quickly looks away. ‘SO ANYWAY,’ adds Kitty, pulling herself together. ‘Didn’t we do well!’ She beams at her daughter. ‘We’re going to be fine now, darling. Everything’s going to be
fun
again.’

Scarlett pitches forward to give her mother a second awkward kiss and her foot catches on the bedside table, sending the toast and coffee to the floor. She watches in horror as the dark brown liquid spreads slowly over Clive and Geraldine’s 190-year-old silk Chinese rug. But for once her mother laughs.

‘Go on,’ Kitty says. ‘I’ll clear it up later. No one’ll notice. And if they do we can buy them a new one! Ha! Can’t we? So run along. They’re waiting. You’ll be late for school.’

Fanny tells the children they can come out to the playground and watch when the press arrives to interview Scarlett and her mother. ‘
BOR-ING
,’ moans Ollie Adams. ‘What’s so interesting about watching somebody having their photo taken?’

‘It’s not just “somebody”, Ollie. It’s Scarlett. And there won’t only be photographers there. There’ll be people from radio stations, possibly. Maybe even someone from the telly,
and they’ll all be here, in our playing field, not at the Manor, and they’ll be firing all sorts of interesting questions at Scarlett. Can anyone think what sort of questions they might be asking her?’

A long pause.

‘They might ask her if Jesus exists,’ ventures a boy called Carl, whose mother ran away with the woman from the mobile bank last summer.

‘They might well ask her that. What else might they ask?’

‘They might ask her what it feels like to be so brilliant,’ suggests little Chloe Monroe.

Fanny grins. ‘Well?’ She turns back to Scarlett. ‘Feel like telling us?’

But Scarlett is tongue-tied, as usual. She smiles and shrugs, finally opens her mouth to speak—

‘Anyway, everyone knows it’s her mum who wrote it. They’re only pretending it was Pebble Eyes to make people buy the book.’

‘That’s horrible, Oliver Adams!’ pipes up Chloe bravely. ‘You’re only saying it because you’re jealous.’

‘Of course he is,’ Fanny agrees. ‘Oliver Adams, you’re being loathsome. Either apologise to Scarlett or get out of the room.’

He chooses to leave the room. He stands up, burning with self-righteous anger, and begins the long, humiliating walk from the back of the yellow assembly hall to the door beside Fanny’s chair.

‘
Jea-lous…jea-lous
,’ mutters Dane Guppy merrily, as Ollie trundles by.

‘Stop it!’ snaps Fanny.

‘
Jea-lous!
’

‘Dane, that’s enough,’ says Fanny irritably. ‘Ollie, get a move on. Go on. Get out of the room.’

Ollie pauses in front of Dane, points his small white finger
into Dane’s large, greasy face. ‘
You’ve had it
, Penis Guppy. I’m gonna get you.’

Dane goes, ‘
Ooooh. Scary
,’ and every child in the room starts to giggle.

Jo Maxwell McDonald arrives at the school half an hour early, as arranged. She’s brought armfuls of white clothes from the shop in Lamsbury for Kitty to try on, and a fulllength mirror. Kitty said she was feeling too hungover to go back to the cottage so she borrowed from Geraldine’s glorious collection of make-up and is using the school staff room as a changing room. Jo’s assistant, meanwhile, has gone to arrange some chairs in the playing field.

‘You do realise, don’t you, that these clothes are not freebies,’ says Jo, trying one more time to pull up the zip of a long white velvet evening dress which Kitty is insisting on trying on, in spite of its being at least two sizes too small and with a neckline which plunges halfway to her navel. ‘All these clothes are only on loan.’

Kitty gives one of her fruity chuckles. ‘We’ll see about that,’ she says.

‘No. We won’t, Kitty. You have to give them back.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

‘No, Kitty.’ After her last few years running the Manor Retreat, Jo is entitled to think she’s an expert when it comes to managing spoilt and difficult customers, but there is something
unruly about Kitty which makes her harder to control than any of them. Because, unlike the streams of cabinet ministers and television presenters who come tripping through the Manor Retreat doors, Kitty doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about anything, except fun. It makes her difficult to work with.

‘As I just explained,’ Jo tries again, ‘I’ve got to give these clothes
back
at the end of the day, OK? It’s not a joke. And by the way, this dress doesn’t fit. I think you should choose something else.’

‘Of course it fits!’ cries Kitty. ‘Are you mad?’ She tilts her head, examines her reflection. ‘You’ve got to admit it looks bloody marvellous from the front.’

Jo doesn’t say anything.

‘Seriously. Look at my boobs. For someone of my age, they’re bloody amazing!’

‘They’re certainly big,’ Jo says sulkily.

Kitty laughs. ‘If you could just stand next to me, where the zip is. That’s right. Then nobody’s going to see if it isn’t done up, are they? See? And look, if I keep my arm here. It’ll be fine!’

‘It won’t be fine,’ says Jo through gritted teeth. ‘You look ridiculous. By the way, where’s Scarlett?’

‘Scarlett? In lessons, I should think. You couldn’t just move the mirror up a bit – that’s better…What I really need to set this all off is some sort of hairpiece…sparkly…I don’t suppose you brought anything like that? In your bag of goodies?…Or maybe just a very long feather.’

‘We need to talk about how you’re going to answer the questions, Kitty. We’ve got quite a few people turning up today and I don’t know if you’ve ever been to anything like this before, but they’ll all be throwing out questions. It can be quite disconcerting. So we need to be sure you and Scarlett know what your answers are before we begin. It’s
very important you’re both reading from the same prayer sheet, so to speak.’

‘Prayer sheet?’ repeats Kitty, slightly alarmed. She hasn’t been listening.

‘We need to prepare what you and Scarlett are going to say,’ Jo repeats patiently.

‘Oh, don’t worry about Scarlett,’ Kitty says. ‘She’s awfully shy, poor little mite. She’ll probably leave all the talking to me. More importantly, Jo. Did you speak to Louis?’

‘I did. Louis’s coming. He’s going to be a bit late.’ Jo glances at her watch. ‘I’m going to ferret out your daughter now. I feel terrible. I haven’t even congratulated her yet.’

But Kitty won’t allow her to go, and the more insistent Jo is the more demanding Kitty becomes, so that when, already fifteen minutes late and still in her ludicrous bulging white evening dress, Kitty is finally escorted by Jo to one of the two chairs which have been set up in the sunny playground, Jo has broken the rule of a lifetime. Because the press is already waiting (all except Louis), and so is Scarlett. She is sitting in her chair in front of the cameras, with her crutches beside her and with Fanny and Jo’s assistant standing protectively behind her. And she and Jo haven’t even met.

‘Oh,
I say
, she’s bloody well starting without me!’ cries Kitty to the pressmen, settling her merry velvet arse on to the chair beside Scarlett’s. ‘Next thing we know, she’ll be saying she wrote the damn thing, won’t you, darling?’ There is an edgy silence. They had been expecting somebody mousy and careworn, someone so overwhelmed by gratitude at the turn her life had taken she would need to be coaxed to speak. And here was Kitty, dressed all in velvet and with bulging breasts on show, not showing a hint of remorse for having kept everyone waiting. ‘
But don’t you believe it
,’ she continues blithely. ‘She didn’t write a damn word!’

Kitty leans across her daughter’s chair, so that only Scarlett
can see her face, and gives her a giant wink. Scarlett bursts out laughing.

‘OK,’ begins Jo, ‘I think most of you probably know me already. But for those of you who don’t, hi. My name is Jo Maxwell McDonald, of McDonald PR, and also, of course, the Fiddleford Manor Retreat. Thank you very much for coming. I think my assistant has already handed you a little press release, so I’m going to kick off straight away…It is my great pleasure to introduce to you the incredible mother–daughter double act, Kitty Mozely and her brilliant daughter Scarlett, who is, of course—’

‘By the way, boys,’ interrupts Kitty (though of the ten or so people before her, at least half are women). ‘As you may notice, the zip on this marvellous dress I’m wearing doesn’t actually
do up
. Not on me, anyway! So please, please, please, be kind. Don’t photograph the rolls of flesh that may possibly be bulging out of it. Jo, you promised you were going to stand beside me – here. That’s right. So they wouldn’t be able to see…’

It happens to be one of the mornings when Geraldine is providing her surreptitious civil rights classes to the juniors, and since Fanny has given the children time off to witness Scarlett’s moment of glory, it would have been churlish of Geraldine not to come out and watch it too. But of course it’s one thing, getting drunk with an old friend the night before – it’s actually quite another having to stand on a netball court with sundry staff members (Linda Tardy the teacher’s assistant, Mrs Haywood the glass-eyed secretary, and some unknown supply teacher) and a gaggle of yokel children, to applaud her through each individual moment of her glory.

She might have felt a bit better if it weren’t also for the fact that her son is in disgrace as a result of something he did in assembly this morning, and is the only member of the school forbidden to watch the show. Fanny refuses to tell
her what he’s done wrong. Which Geraldine thinks is outrageous, after all she’s done for the school.

‘So,
Scarlett
,’ a female journalist ventures, about twenty minutes in, ‘would you tell us in your own words, what’s the story actually about?’

‘Do you want to tell her, darling? Or shall I?’ But then Kitty makes the grave mistake of pausing for breath, and Scarlett’s small voice can be heard, clear as a bell. ‘No, it’s all right, Kitty,’ she says. ‘I’ll explain.’

Kitty double-takes. A look of irritation flits across her face. But she smiles, not unpleasantly. ‘Oh!’ she says. ‘Jolly good. Well, go on then, darling. Tell-tell. What it’s really about, of course,’ she adds, turning back to the journalists, ‘as always with my work, for those of you who haven’t read it, is the indomitability of the human spirit. And, need I add, the truly unpackageable magic of childhood!’

Fanny’s been listening to Kitty bombast her way through this whole process. She’s watched the journalists, like putty in Kitty’s hands – and even she can’t quite deny that Kitty is funny. But beside her, she sees Scarlett, bursting with pride and yet never, not even once, getting a chance to speak. ‘Scarlett?’ she blurts out. ‘Is that how you would have described it?’

Scarlett chuckles. ‘Not really, no.’

‘Oh!’ says Kitty, not in the least put out. ‘Scarlett, you are awful! But she’s quite right, of course, I’m talking absolute nonsense. As always.’

‘So? What is it about then, Scarlett?’ persists Fanny. She has to raise her voice to be heard over everyone’s laughter.

Scarlett doesn’t mind sharing credit for having written the book. She doesn’t mind sitting here and smiling while her mother enjoys herself, showing off – in fact, she loves it. She’s never seen her mother on such good form. But there is one thing she wants to make clear to everyone, and it’s this:

‘The book,’ she says, ‘is about a real boy, who I know very well. He’s spoilt and stupid and nasty. He bullies the children. He bullies me. And yet his parents think he never does anything wrong…I wanted to write –
we
–
we
wanted to write a story where he gets his just deserts.’

Kitty cackles wickedly. She steals a glance at Geraldine; she is standing next to Linda Tardy, wearing a tired, distracted grin. Obviously not listening. Lucky.

‘Who’s the boy? Does he go to school with you here in Fiddleford?’

‘Well,’ she says solemnly, ‘I don’t think I should probably tell you that. But I’m hoping his mother will read it to him every single night as a bedtime story, since he’s probably too thick to read it himself. And that one night, in a terrible, blinding flash, he’ll suddenly realise the story’s all about him.’

Kitty cackles again. Naughty Scarlett, teasing everyone like this! She’d never realised her daughter was such a good sport.

‘So it’s revenge against the playground bully, is it?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘No, but it’s only pretend, though, isn’t it, darling?’ says Kitty suddenly, remembering Clive and Geraldine’s swimming pool, and the fact that they are lawyers. ‘Those people don’t really
exist
. The horrid boy and his ghastly parents and so on. It’s just pretend.’

Scarlett gives her mother a strange, cold look. ‘No, Kitty. It’s not pretend. I really hate him.’

‘No, but sweetheart, he doesn’t actually thump you or anything horrid like that. Of course not.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘OK,’ interrupts Jo, sensing danger. ‘I think that’s probably enough questions.’

‘
So who’s the bully?
’ demand the journalists. ‘What’s his name, Scarlett? Can you tell us that?’

‘Of course I can,’ she says, stung by her mother’s uncharacteristic attempt at diplomacy. ‘His name is—’ at which point Kitty and Fanny and Jo, too – who doesn’t know the name but most certainly knows that nobody else should either – all start shouting at once.

‘
What? Who?
’ The journalists turn in frustration from Scarlett to one another. ‘
Did you catch that? What did she say?
’

‘His name is—’ Scarlett tries again. But it’s too late. Everyone’s making too much noise. Jo has moved in front of Scarlett and is yelling about coffee being available in the village hall. Kitty is yelling about authors believing their characters are real. Journalists are shouting that they can’t hear. Photographers are shouting that they can’t see. And Fanny is clapping her hands, yelling over everyone that it’s time for the children to go back inside.

She feels her mobile telephone vibrating in her jeans pocket.

‘Yes? Hi! Who is it?’

‘Louis,’ he says coldly.

‘Who?’ She walks away from the noise. ‘I can’t hear!’

‘It’s Louis. I’m standing in front of the school and I think you might like to get out here.’

‘What? Why?’

‘I should hurry if I were you.’ He hangs up.

Fanny turns to look back at the school. There is a tail of smoke rising from the far side of the building. ‘Keep them here until I say,’ she mutters to Jo. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

The bonfire, on the tarmac just in front of the girls’ cloakroom, is raging a metre high by the time she turns the corner. She sees him laying something on top of the flames: another dead bird, by the look of it, with a couple of fireworks strapped on to its back.

‘Dane Guppy!’

He jumps, obviously guilty, but still can’t drag himself away. His fireworks could go off at any moment.

‘
They’re going to explode!
’ shouts Fanny.

‘I hope so.’ Dane bends closer over the fire to get a better look.

‘
Get back, you idiot!
’

He doesn’t move.

‘
Get down!
’ Fanny, not much larger than he is, throws herself on top of him and knocks him to the ground just as the first firework fires off into the morning sky…

…and the last frame Louis takes is of Fanny, scrambling up from on top of her pupil, a furious finger pointed at the camera while the bird and remaining firework explode above the bonfire’s flames. As he lowers his camera Louis is weeping with laughter.

‘Give me that fucking camera. It’s not funny, Louis.’

‘Oh, sure, it’s funny.’

‘Why didn’t you stop him?’

‘I did, didn’t I? I called you.’

She looks down at Dane, still flat on the ground. ‘Dane, you idiot. Go and wait for me outside my office. I’ll be there in a minute. And you,’ she spits at Louis, ‘give me that film!’

‘What?’ He laughs. ‘No. Of course not.’

‘Give it to me!’

Louis smiles, indicates the playing field on the other side of the school. ‘By the way,’ he asks lightly, ‘about how many journalists you got over there right now?’

She gazes at him. ‘Oh…fuck.’

He gazes back. Gives another burst of laughter.

‘Louis…please.
Please…
There’s a fire extinguisher in the hall.’

Somehow they manage to put the thing out and sweep away most of the embers just as the first few reporters begin
to file out through the front door, so that the only telltale signs of Dane’s experiment are a lingering smell and the black smears on Fanny and Louis’s clothing.

And then Fanny and Louis are left alone. They are standing side by side where the fire had been, Louis with his hands in back pockets, Fanny absorbed by her shoe stitching, both uncertain whether their shared adventure constituted any kind of a truce.

‘Thank you, Louis. Thank you very much.’

‘Where’s Mr White when you need him, huh?’

‘What’s that?’ she asks hopefully.

‘Robin Grey. Whatever he’s called. The skinny teacher.’ He shrugs. ‘Doesn’t matter.’ He looks at her, at last. Most of Fanny’s hair has tumbled out of its clip and she’s got a smear of soot across her nose and cheek. She looks slightly mad, he thinks, and wild, and – it demands all his willpower not to take the cheek in his hand; not to bend down and kiss her. ‘I’m late, Fan,’ he mutters. ‘I should get on. Scarlett and Kitty are waiting. They’ll be pissed.’