[Churchminster #3] Wild Things (2 page)

‘Oh my God!’ squealed Camilla. Clementine looked like she might join her granddaughter in jumping up and down on the spot, but collected herself and carried on.

As I am sure you are aware, this is not just a competition about aesthetic qualities, and we were particularly impressed at how the residents of Churchminster rallied round after the dreadful flash floods of last summer
.

The judging will be held on Friday, 18 July, and full details of each category (community spirit, local
investment
, best-kept flowerbeds, etc.) will be sent to you shortly
.

The winner will be announced in a grand ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Friday 1 August, hosted by world-renowned gardener Alan Titchmarsh
.

As well as receiving the distinct honour of being crowned Britain’s Best Village, the victorious village will also receive £750,000 prize money to be spent on community projects
.

May I once again take this opportunity to congratulate you and wish your village the very best in the competition?

Best Wishes
,

Marjorie Majors

Head Judge

Britain’s Best Village

Open-mouthed, Camilla looked at Jed. He seemed just as stunned.

In the ten years since it had started, Britain’s Best Village (known in gardening circles as BBV) had become one of the UK’s most prestigious competitions. Sponsored by Greenacres, one of the biggest gardening centres chains in the country, the first prize not only came with the accolade of being the best place in Britain to live, but a life-changing amount of prize money. After the last few years of recession doom and gloom, the nation was desperate for a feel-good factor, and the event was receiving more publicity than ever.

‘That’s amazing!’ Camilla gasped, for the second time in ten minutes. Clementine drew herself up proudly, like a ship’s figurehead going into battle. ‘This is going to be Churchminster’s finest hour! We’re going to show the rest of this country
exactly
what we’re made of.’

‘Bravo!’ Camilla shouted, bursting into spontaneous applause. Jed followed suit. ‘Go Mrs S-F!’

With that, Errol Flynn trotted out of the pantry with Camilla’s knickers in his mouth and promptly deposited them on his mistress’s feet.

Chapter 2

IT WAS THE
day after Clementine’s announcement, and she was sitting at her desk in the sunny drawing room at Fairoaks House – a large, imposing building on the other side of the village green to Camilla’s cottage.

Photographs of the family adorned a grand piano in the corner, while a portrait of a stern-faced man with huge white whiskers and a gun dog by his side hung over the fireplace. Clementine’s beloved husband Bertie had passed away years earlier but she still took comfort in talking to him.

‘This is a turn up for the books, Berts,’ she said briskly, shuffling a pile of papers. ‘If only your mother were alive! What delight she would take from knowing we’ve made it through to the final of such a prestigious competition.’ Clementine’s mouth twitched. ‘Fortuna was always terribly vocal about the fact Churchminster was the only village in the Cotswolds worth a visit from London.’

‘Oh God, you’re not talking to yourself again are you, Granny Clem?’

Clementine looked up to see the leggy blonde figure of her youngest granddaughter Calypso. As usual she looked like she had just stepped out of an Aerosmith video, long wild mane tumbling down her back.

‘I was just relaying the recent events to your grandfather,’ said Clementine.

Calypso rolled her eyes affectionately and looked over at the portrait. ‘How about helping me get these sent out, Pops? I could use an extra pair of hands.’

‘I’m sure your grandfather would have much more pressing things to get on with,’ Clementine retorted, but her mouth had softened. She adored twenty-six-year-old Calypso, who was the youngest of the family and quite a handful. Ever since their parents had emigrated to Barbados, Clementine had kept a close eye on her three granddaughters, including the eldest, Caro, who was living in London with her husband Benedict and their two children. Calypso was now living back at No. 5 The Green with Jed and Camilla, eating them out of house and home and using the back garden as a giant ashtray.

Calypso threw herself down in the chair opposite. ‘I’m shagged!’

‘Darling, we didn’t bring you up to speak like a trucker,’ reprimanded Clementine. She peered over her glasses. ‘Are things not going well?’

‘Everything’s going
too
well, that’s why I’m so knackered,’ said Calypso, throwing her tanned legs
over
the chair. ‘Not that I’m complaining really, it’s all been brilliant.’

After a successful stint working as an event organizer in New York, Calypso had come home to set up her own company, Scene Events, which she was presently running out of a spare bedroom at Fairoaks. Despite the fact she had always struggled to apply herself to anything, Calypso seemed to have finally found her calling in life. She had been working flat out and, fingers crossed, it seemed to be paying off. Of course, it helped to have a contacts book that put Tara Palmer-Tompkinson’s to shame.

Calypso shot her grandmother a perceptive look.

‘This competition’s a turn up for the books, hey?’

The previous autumn, the nation had been ravaged by flash floods that had charged through homes, upturned cars and devastated hundreds of thousands of lives. Churchminster had been no different and Clementine could only watch in despair from the safety of Fairoaks, which was built on a slight hill, as the merciless brown waters had swept through her beloved village. To their anguish, it was the first time Calypso and Camilla had seen their grandmother cry. But when villagers had gone to the council to ask for money to floodproof the village, they were regretfully informed there was no money left in the pot to help them. The wealthier ones had put their hands in their pockets, coming up with an impressive three hundred thousand pounds between them, but it still wasn’t enough. They were sitting on a ticking time bomb – and winning Britain’s Best Village would safeguard
their
futures for ever. Clementine wouldn’t even entertain the idea that they wouldn’t.

‘Anyway, what are you up to grandmother dearest?’

Clementine held up a piece of A4 paper.

‘I’ve drawn up a poster for the Britain’s Best Village meeting in the village hall on Sunday. If we’re going to win this thing then we need to start a proper committee, so I need people to volunteer.’

Calypso pulled a face. ‘Why is there a lollipop in the corner?’

Clementine looked put out. ‘It’s meant to be a tree.’

‘Riiight.’ Calypso leant back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘Not meaning to diss your art skills or anything, Granny Clem, but it’s a bit, well, rubbish, isn’t it? It’s not going to get them flocking in their droves.’

Clementine frowned. ‘What do you mean? It’s got all the information, time, date and location. I thought my tree drawing rather jazzed things up.’

Calypso rolled her eyes again. ‘Yeah, but people need more than that these days, don’t they? Something eye-catching and inspirational, that’ll get them off their bums and down to the village hall.’

Clementine looked uncertain. ‘You think so?’

‘Like, deffo! Look, let me go and post these, and I’ll come back and do something on the computer for you.’ Calypso sprang up, revitalized, and bursting with one of her frequent bouts of energy.

‘Well, if you insist …’ Clementine wasn’t sure. She knew her granddaughter’s outlandish taste. ‘Just don’t do anything too avant-garde, will you, darling?’

Calypso’s hazelnut eyes, the exact same colour as her
grandmother’s
, twinkled mischievously over the desk. ‘Granny Clem, as if I would!’

Jack Turner, landlord of the Jolly Boot, polished a beer glass reflectively.

‘Interesting poster.’

Behind the bar his wife Beryl was sticking it up with Blu-Tack. As usual, every window in the bar was wide open, trying to get out the last lingering vestiges of the damp smell from the flooding.

‘There! Pride of place.’ Beryl smoothed down her tight pencil skirt. ‘I think it’s lovely, Clementine. Your Calypso is really talented.’

Clementine steeled herself to look at it again. ‘Do you think so?’

‘Oh yes!’ said Beryl. ‘It’s very er …’ She trailed off, searching for the right word. ‘
Colourful
.’

It certainly was. Printed on bright green shiny paper, the words ‘Come join our garden party!’ stood out in large, neon-pink letters. Taking up the whole of one side was a voluptuous woman, wearing some sort of sunflower headdress. Whichever way you looked at it, it was hard to ignore the fact she was completely naked, her comely charms barely covered by three strategically placed leaves.

‘It’s a photograph of a reveller from the Mardi Gras carnival, apparently,’ said Clementine weakly. ‘At least that’s what Calypso told me.’

‘Mardi Gras,’ echoed Beryl. ‘How nice!’

There was a brief silence.

‘You don’t think it matters that the words “Britain’s
Best
Village” are rather small?’ Clementine asked anxiously.

Jack seemed transfixed. ‘No, no,’ he replied, eyes glazed over. ‘They’re not small at all.’

The door at the back of the pub burst open and a buxom young lady with a combative look in her eye bounced in. Despite it being mid-March she was dressed like a podium dancer from Ibiza, in a crotch-skimming minidress, shiny black bomber jacket and towering high heels. Several lurid-coloured hoops dangled from both ears.

Jack was overly protective of his only child, and he did not like what he saw. ‘What the bleedin ’ell do you look like?’

Stacey Turner tossed her head, her shiny dark ponytail swinging like a show pony’s. She ignored her father. ‘Ma, I’m off shopping with the girls. Can I use your car?’

Jack interrupted. ‘Oi, young lady! Don’t forget you’re working tonight. We need you back at 6.30 p.m. sharp.’

Stacey rolled her eyes, no mean feat under four tonnes of black eyeliner. ‘As if I could forget! I’ll be stuck behind this stupid bar while everyone’s out having fun.
And
Kyle’s going’s to be at the Royal Oak later!’

‘You’re lucky you’ve got a job in this climate,’ Jack pointed out reasonably. His expression darkened. ‘Hold on, who’s this Kyle?’

Stacey sighed dramatically. ‘Dad, don’t start!’ She caught sight of the poster behind the bar and her face lit up. ‘Are we putting on a rave?’

‘Certainly not!’ interjected Clementine hurriedly. She knew the poster would send out the wrong message!

Stacey’s shoulders slumped. ‘Nothing ever happens round here,’ she muttered. ‘It’s
well
boring!’

Beryl smiled at her daughter. ‘Come on, Stace! Most people would give their eye teeth to live in Churchminster.’ She winked at Clementine humorously. ‘You never know, Orlando Bloom might pop in for a pint tonight!’

Stacey shot her mother a contemptuous look. ‘Like that’s ever gonna happen. Celebrities would never come to a dump like this.’ Snatching her mum’s car keys off the bar, she flounced out.

Chapter 3

ON THE OUTSKIRTS
of Churchminster stood Clanfield Hall, a magnificent stately home, with breathtaking gardens and a fountain that Queen Victoria herself was rumoured to have dipped her feet in during a summer party.

This particular afternoon the owners, Lord Ambrose and Lady Frances Fraser, were heading back towards the hall having just attended a charity lunch. As he floored the Range Rover round the winding country lanes, Ambrose was full of his usual bile about the ‘bloody silly sods’ who populated such functions.

‘I don’t know who the hell I was sitting next to, but she didn’t even know her Belgian sheepdog from her bearded collie.’

Ambrose had been born and raised at Clanfield Hall, which had been in his family for generations, and he had a morbid dislike of what he called the ‘town set’.

‘That was the Marchioness of Glenvale, she was
hosting
the lunch,’ his wife pointed out. ‘Ambrose, I really hope you weren’t rude to her.’

At fifty-four, Frances Fraser was nearly twenty years younger than her husband. An elegant Joanna Lumley lookalike, her cool manner and unruffled appearance couldn’t have been more at odds with her volatile husband. When Ambrose went off on one of his legendary rants Frances was the only one who could calm him down.

‘Harrumph!’ retorted Ambrose. ‘A bloody waste of time if you ask me, sitting around drinking champagne and talking about flower shows.’

Frances didn’t rise to this. She was actually rather surprised she’d got her husband along to the lunch in the first place. These days, Ambrose barely left the confines of Clanfield Hall, preferring to be out in the grounds walking his dogs, or shutting himself in his study with a tot of his beloved single-malt whisky.

By contrast, Frances missed their once-lively social life and, in spite of its size, she was beginning to find the whole house rather claustrophobic. Of course, she knew how privileged she was, and that many women would love to be in her position, but still. Frances couldn’t help feeling that something was
missing
.

‘It’s wonderful news about Britain’s Best Village,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘I saw Clementine when I was out riding yesterday. She’s holding a meeting on Sunday, to form a committee to get the village in tip-top shape. In fact, I was thinking of attending.’ She held her breath.

Her husband gave a derisive snort. ‘That Standington-Fulthrope woman! She’ll have you litter-picking on the green before you know it Frances. How old Bertie S-F put up with her, bossing everyone around … Must have been like sharing a bed with Mussolini.’

As they rounded a sharp bend his inflammatory comments were quickly forgotten. A large silver estate car was heading straight for them. Ambrose slammed on the brakes and the Range Rover came screeching to a halt just feet from the other vehicle.

Frances lurched forward, only just stopping herself from going into the dashboard. She could see a middle-aged man and woman and two young children in the car, with a boot full of suitcases. The man was shaking his fist out the window at them.