Chain Reaction (12 page)

His smile was crooked, only half his mouth moved into it. ‘I don’t believe you. I truly don’t believe you. You are just too much!’

‘I’m not sure I know what you mean, Jamie.’

‘Oh, never mind. Forget it.’

He rarely talked about his older brothers, George, the heir to the throne, grave and shy, just married to a Princess of Denmark, and Rupert the sporty one two years younger. She sometimes wondered whether he was actually happy at home, wherever home really was, they moved about so often. They didn’t seem to have much family life but then it’s so difficult for Them, isn’t it? Always in the limelight. After all, their bond is probably stronger than blood alone. So many disguises. Sometimes it’s dark glasses and a wig. He always gives a false name if he is ever asked and says he is of no fixed abode, like a tramp, poor thing.

Everyone at school had a crush on James Henry Albert, by far the most attractive of the Queen’s three children. If it wasn’t Agassi pinned on the wall above the bed in the dorm it was him, decked out on a horse in all his splendour, or striding across the moors in a deer-stalker with a gun over his manly shoulder. Arabella longs to tell her secret to some of those old friends of hers; she keeps in touch with most of them by letter or meeting in town occasionally for a coffee or a salad to chew over the good old days. She longs to see their reaction, those Janets and Jillies and Judies with whom she shared so many windy hours on the lacrosse pitch, or down by the tennis courts dreaming and gossiping. Gosh. How they will envy her when they know! And he’s so much sweeter than any of them had imagined.

When she first met him at the wine bar in Maida Vale he told her his name was Wayne.

And what is more—she believed him. Called him Wayne for a week and talked about motorbikes until it slowly dawned on her that the young travel agent in the horn-rimmed glasses who so resembled the Prince was actually Him Himself. Their eyes were the first physical parts to meet, meaningfully, across the proverbial crowded room, causing Peaches to come close to swooning. It only took one week for the rest of themselves to be introduced, and yes, yes, everything about him is as powerful as his eyes were then.

‘So when are you going to tell Them?’ she asked, cuddling into him like a fluffy toy. She loved the way he wrapped himself around her.

‘You’ll have to give me time, old horse,’ he told her seriously. ‘This is a grave matter.’

‘Oh yes, it is grave,’ said Arabella pouting. She didn’t like the word ‘grave’; it reminded her too much of death.

‘They might be rather taken aback.’

‘Because I’m just a commoner?’

‘Yes, probably.’

‘They’ll have to look into my background, I suppose. All that takes time. And what about the love affair I had before I met you?’ Arabella flushed and started to panic. ‘What if that counts against me?’

‘Well,’ Jamie said slowly, ‘that is a possibility.’

‘But it didn’t mean a thing, honestly, Jamie!’

‘Well, I know that. But I am supposed to marry a virgin so that nobody can tell tales, and Tom was a bit of a playboy…’

‘Yes, I know, Mummy warned me. She didn’t approve of him at all. Thought he was leading me into temptation but he was always perfectly sweet to me.’

‘I’m sure he was,’ mused Jamie, ‘but your relationship with him is certainly a factor they would want to take into account.’

‘Perhaps I should give up my job, go into purdah so I don’t offend anyone before it all starts to happen?’

‘No, no, don’t do that.’ Jamie was most insistent that she go on with her life just as if nothing had happened. ‘There’s loads of time for that, old bean. You won’t start showing for weeks, and people might get suspicious.’

‘You are quite right, of course.’ And secretly Arabella was glad. She loves her job at Habitat, enjoys the companionship and the stuff they sell and the fun of unpacking a new delivery, and everyone likes her. And what would she do if she did give up work? She cannot imagine hiding away in the flat all day, and it would be rather premature to move into the Palace.

So when Dougal Rathbone came round with the brochure on the Grange she was startled at first, undermined, wondering whatever was happening. I mean,
Clitheroe—
what sort of a place was that? However, a second meeting made her see that there was something afoot. Jamie was trying to smooth the pathway so the big announcement would be easier. After all, if she stayed in London she would be a prisoner hounded by the press and They would probably want the wedding to take place as quickly as possible.

It wouldn’t look too good, would it, if she had to heave herself down the aisle heavily pregnant, clutching her back and unable to kneel without toppling over. Giving up the job, she supposed, as Dougal was now suggesting, was unfortunate but just the first of the many sacrifices one must be prepared to make when marrying a Royal. Arabella would just have to accept it.

Thank goodness she’s over her morning sickness.

‘I hate lying to Charlie and Mags,’ she confides to Dougal when they set off on the second leg of the journey, having wined and dined in a glorious setting in an hotel among the trees beside a lake. She shouldn’t have drunk quite so much. She is not used to drinking at lunchtime but Dougal was so persuasive and the wine was delicious. He didn’t touch a drop, she noticed with relief. That was the trouble with Jamie. He thought he could drink and drive and he was so fast and reckless, she hated travelling anywhere with him, always ended up feeling sick. ‘They have been such super friends to me. I told them we were visiting some relatives of yours in the Lake District. They were surprised. They keep asking about Jamie, of course, and it’s terribly difficult to deceive them. After all, they, of all people, know how I feel about him.’

They are cruising along in companionable silence through a landscape browned by the sun. A silver tremor runs over the hills like a happy little sigh which matches her mood. She thinks she can hear the birds singing, and even the cows munching in the distance make a chewy sound in her ears. She is in love and in tune with the whole wide world. In a few hours she will see Jamie! Arabella glances at Dougal but his expression is giving nothing away, not so she can notice. How long will he carry on the deception? Is he going to tell her about the surprise waiting at the end of the journey, or will Jamie show her himself? This is all so terribly exciting!

‘I even practise my wave,’ she confesses, smiling and feeling silly but Dougal is the sort of person you feel you can trust with anything, ‘in front of the mirror! Don’t laugh. I know it’s just playing with a dream but this dream is about to come true. And a gracious smile, whatever that might be. I want to get everything exactly right.’

Dougal compresses his lips. The little fool. She’s going to take one hell of a tumble. ‘Arabella, I think you are being a trifle over-romantic about all this…’

‘Oh, you don’t need to tell me!’ cries Arabella, her voice rising dramatically. ‘I know the job isn’t all romance and flowers. I know it involves sacrifices and hardships. I understand what a strain it must be, I have thought a great deal about it.’

‘I am sure you have,’ says Dougal, now decidedly uneasy.

She must control her vivid imagination. She must not be so selfish. Perhaps poor Jamie won’t be there, after all. Perhaps he couldn’t get away or feels it is too dangerous, even here, in this bleak and windswept part of the world, to break cover and reveal too much to his mother’s unsuspecting subjects. Waiting eyes, sun glinting on long-distance lenses. Well, she’ll put a brave face on it and be patient. She will go along with all this and give her opinion on the Grange which is what is expected of her today; she won’t make things any more complicated for Them than they already are. This is the least she can do, after all, for her future husband, for the man she loves more than life itself.

M
ISS BENSON IS NOT
even slightly shocked when she first sets foot in Greylands because the home where her own mother died not three years ago was depressingly similar. Funny how you’re upset by things that threaten you most… It’s like those women who shriek outside the courts—they are the ones who most nearly batter their kids, or the anti-abortion campaigners who are the ones least likely to sympathise with fallen women.

Generally speaking, thinks Miss Benson, of course. Everything is generally speaking.

Greylands. Anyone can come in or out—burglars, rapists, swindlers—security is nil. She goes to the office at the side of the hall with the door marked:
Matron—Miss Blennerhasset—
and an impressive list of nursing qualifications set out below her name. Miss Benson, smart in her crisp white blouse this evening, her pale brown hair having flown into a kind of halo over her head in the wind, ignores the list and knocks politely.

‘Come!’

Miss Benson’s timid head edges round the door. Everything in the room looks pink because of the subdued lighting, even the budgie which chirps from an elaborate cage. ‘Excuse me, I am looking for a Mrs Irene Peacock.’

You can tell by Matron’s expression that Mrs Peacock is not her favourite resident.

‘Are you a relative?’

‘No, I am just a neighbour.’

‘I don’t think we’ve seen you here before.’

The use of the royal ‘we’ does not phase Miss Benson, whose voice is naturally apprehensive. ‘I would have come before, but not being family I was worried about imposing. But now I have cleared it with Mrs Peacock’s daughter.’

‘Come in, come further in,’ says Matron, leaning back in her chair, putting her supper tray aside, and sensing an ally. ‘And take a seat.’ Matron considers what to say next, ever cautious. Visitors, in her experience, can be easily upset and troublesome. ‘I don’t know how much of Mrs Peacock’s circumstances you are aware of, Mrs…?’

‘Miss, and it’s Benson.’

Miss Benson takes the soft chair offered, situated beside the unlit gas fire in Matron’s cosy office. On the glass coffee table lies an assortment of gardening magazines and one copy of
The Lady.
The remains on Matron’s plate are of egg and cheese pie; she has pushed the hard-boiled and blackening yolk to one side. The handmade rug has obviously been done by one of the more able residents and so has the embroidered cushion of a seagull coming in to land on which she settles.

Miss Blennerhasset’s long-fingered hands are actively independent, picking up objects from her little footstool like a ball of wool, a pen, a diary, turning them over and over to examine them as she speaks. ‘Unfortunately, Mrs Peacock has found it hard to settle here, and we are quite concerned about her at the moment. It is important that both staff and visitors adopt an encouraging attitude, not too much impractical sympathy, if you follow my meaning. Listen by all means to what she has to say, but a gentle yet firm reaction is the best one to take.’

‘Poor Mrs Peacock,’ sighs Miss Benson unthinkingly, her memories going to her own mother’s plight.

‘There is nothing poor about her,’ Matron contradicts with a look of sad reproach, and Miss Benson wonders what it is about nurses that make them so unimaginative, what makes them so convinced that suffering must be endured regardless? Miss Blennerhasset, hunched a little in her easy chair (back trouble probably) does not look like an unkind woman. Indeed, her long, rather ponderous face and her broad forehead give the impression of a thoughtful person, but she is a woman without animation, someone who has, maybe, been sat on in childhood so she would always speak without inflection or raising her voice. Miss Benson sniffs, and over the scents of cheese and egg pie she can definitely smell mice.

‘No, of course not,’ backtracks the constantly apprehensive Miss Benson, eager to avoid the slightest confrontation.

‘She is in comparatively good health, has her eyesight and her hearing and a family who care about her,’ Matron goes on indignantly. ‘It is just that her mind is becoming a little enfeebled so it is all the more important not to put any ideas in her head.’

Miss Benson has heard all this before. ‘So I believe.’

‘And unfortunately her recent behaviour is causing some nuisance not only to ourselves and her daughter but to the police and the ambulance service who have more to do with their time than rush around finding confused old ladies who are intent on making trouble.’

Now Miss Benson is fond of Irene Peacock. She has known her for two years, since she arrived at Albany Buildings and moved into the flat below her looking rather dazed and bewildered. Cautiously, Miss Benson looked out over the road and watched the daughter, Frankie, a hard, bossy creature, and the grandchildren, Angus and Poppy, carting Irene’s bits and pieces from the hired van, across the pavement and up the steps into the foyer. No man then.

She tried to concentrate on
Wildlife on One
but could not get the newcomer’s face out of her mind—there was something so tragic about it all. After everyone had gone there was such a silence from the flat underneath her that Miss Benson, not normally one to push herself forward, went downstairs in some trepidation and rang Mrs Peacock’s bell. She still doesn’t know what impelled her to do this, something so way out of character. She took a packet of Earl Grey tea and some M&S shortcake biscuits.

Miss Benson knows what it’s like to be frightened and lonely, and early evening is the part of the day she hates most. Early evening, and Sundays. You could talk about this with people and they would say they understood but they didn’t, not really, not unless they’d been through it themselves.

After a longish pause during which Miss Benson wondered if the newcomer might be deaf, there was a nervous rattle of locks and a sobbing, a muttering under breath.

‘Yes?’ The red-veined cheeks hung loosely from the bones of a face which must have been pretty once, the shape was still there. The eyes that fixed on Miss Benson’s were bright and incredibly blue and wisps of grey hair escaped from the hairnet round the base of the old woman’s neck.

Miss Benson looked doubtful. ‘My name is Miss Benson and I live directly upstairs. I watched you move in today and I thought I’d pop down and introduce myself. I know what it’s like—’