Pandora (32 page)

A string orchestra booked to play light classics and golden oldies, because Anthea loved ballroom dancing, was already belting out gems from
Oklahoma
. After dinner they would alternate with a heavily vetted pop group.

Raymond, who had swapped his morning coat for a dinner jacket, welcomed new arrivals alone until his wife, having been photographed changing by
Oo-ah!
, put in an appearance. Anthea had looked enchanting in church but really took the breath away as she floated down the stairs in clinging ivory silk shot through with rainbows. Her boyish curls had been swept up into a plaited hairpiece studded with rubies and intertwined with gold leaves – the exact replica of Hope in the Raphael.

Everyone in the crowded hall on their way to the garden clapped and cheered. Raymond couldn’t speak for a moment.

‘Oh Hopey,’ he muttered, ‘what a wonderful thing to do.’

Jupiter was less happy, not wanting the world to know that there was a Raphael hidden upstairs.

‘Brilliant, Anthea’ – he kissed her gold-dusted cheek – ‘you’ve never looked more stunning. All the same’ – he dropped his voice – ‘on the grounds of security, it’s better not to tell
Oo-ah!
who you’re supposed to be.’

‘Understood.’ Anthea smiled up at him. ‘This was for your father.’

‘Abandon Hopey, all ye who enter here,’ murmured Jonathan, catching sight of his stepmother.

Despite the warm night air soft as cashmere on her skin, Anthea shivered as she went into the garden. There was security on the gate, but so many other ways, through the woods or over the river, to crash the party.

Oh please, don’t let Charlene roll up unexpectedly.

Many of the guests had retreated from the midges into the marquee and were examining the seating plan. Some were already settled in their allotted places. But not the Belvedon children, who had commandeered their own table in defiance of any placement and, all extremely arrogant, were yakking away, making private jokes.

The waitresses, having read of his laddish pranks, were very taken by Jonathan, who was as naughty and manipulative as he was extraordinarily handsome. Deathly pale with thick ebony curls, a big sulky mouth, a long nose and huge, dark, restlessly roving eyes, he exuded trouble like a thoroughbred colt about to bolt across a motorway. He was now wickedly caricaturing guests on a pile of paper napkins. Each time he finished a drawing, a waitress grabbed it, aware it might keep her in her old age.

Harriet from
Oo-ah!
was equally captivated: ‘What artists do you most admire?’ she asked earnestly.

‘Amanda, my ex-girlfriend, could have told you,’ sighed Jonathan, ‘but alas we’ve split up.’

‘Oh dear, why was that?’

‘I’m dumb-blonding down, and she hated me falling asleep on the job. I need my eight hours a night.’

‘Your eight whores,’ growled Alizarin disapprovingly.

Tall and thin, despite massive shoulders, Alizarin had short, spiky dark hair, gaunt craggy features, Galena’s high cheekbones, her slanting dark eyes framed by big black spectacles and the suppressed outrage of someone who had struggled to the top of Everest to find it wasn’t there.

In between reading the latest on Kosovo in the
Guardian
, Alizarin gazed at Hanna Belvedon, Jupiter’s big blonde wife. The myth of the eldest son wanting to kill his father, and the second son wanting to kill the eldest, certainly applied to the Belvedons. If Jupiter longed to strangle Raymond for being a whimsical old dodderer, Alizarin wanted to murder Jupiter for stealing and marrying the one woman, apart from Galena, he had ever really loved.

Hanna, sitting a couple of tables away, pretending to listen to the solipsistic ramblings of Casey Andrews, was miserably aware that her diet hadn’t worked, that her black dress was too tight and that her long hair needed cutting. She was drawing bluebells on the tablecloth and comfort from Alizarin’s dark ferocious passion.

The marriage service earlier had reminded her painfully of the hopes and excitement with which she had, five years ago, made her own vows to Jupiter, who she was convinced was no longer forsaking all others. He wasn’t sleeping. He was curt and silent and, having hitherto insisted they spent every night together, had suddenly suggested she remain down in Limesbridge next week because of a forecast heatwave.

‘Sprog on the way?’ Casey leered at the black silk straining over Hanna’s tummy.

Blushing, she shook her head.

‘Career minded, are we? Don’t want to leave it too long.’

‘Somerford is a-coming in,’ sang Jonathan, who was drawing the venomous critic as an obscenely fat python. Idly caressing his sister Sienna with his other hand, he asked, ‘Why, apart from a crap review, does Casey want to murder Somerford?’

‘Somerford’s decided to write a monograph on Joan Bideford instead of Casey,’ said Sienna. ‘More interesting really. Joan’s like living on Lesbos with a Swedish bus conductress.’

A swan dressed as a very ugly duckling, Sienna seemed to have studs on every part of her body not covered by her leather catsuit. Only that afternoon she had dyed her lovely long Marmite-coloured hair bright scarlet to match her drooping mouth and bitten nails.

She was now moodily telling a more subtle redhead, Harriet from
Oo-ah!
, about her latest installation on display at the Saatchi gallery, which was called
Aunt Hill
and consisted of piled-up stiff-legged nude models of her Aunt Lily.

‘It like illustrates the evils of ageism,’ said Sienna with a yawn. ‘How like we chuck the old on the scrap heap.’

‘Did your auntie mind posing in the nude?’

‘Why should she? I gave her a large cheque for Badger Rescue. Lily’s like my Auntie Hero.’

‘Any plans for the future?’

‘Putting her in a glass case with a bottle of whisky. If Damien can pickle sheep and sharks, why can’t I like get a hundred grand for a pickled aunt?’

‘It’s shocking’ – Harriet from
Oo-ah!
was not sure how to take Sienna – ‘the way we sideline our senior citizens.’

No-one could have looked less sidelined than Aunt Lily, Raymond’s older sister, who’d made a killing on the horses that afternoon. Nearly eighty, and still beautiful, with Raymond’s luxuriant silver hair and brilliant turquoise eyes, she lived (to Anthea’s intense irritation) in Raymond’s nicest cottage overlooking the river, and caused coronaries at White’s and Boodle’s whenever she threatened to write her memoirs. She had a blond streak in her white hair from chain smoking, and was working her way down a bottle of champagne and observing everyone with intense amusement.

‘What did you give Anthea and Raymond for a silver wedding present?’ she shouted at Jonathan, who was now drawing his brother Jupiter as a lurking wolf.

‘A tin of Quality Street. I thought Anthea looked like one of those women in poke bonnets on the lid. But Knightie and I’ – Jonathan blew a kiss to Mrs Knight who, in a short and fetching maid’s uniform, was directing guests to their seats – ‘ate most of them.’

Overhearing this, a hovering Jupiter, who’d scored a hit with his present of Emerald’s head, looked smug. Glancing contemptuously at his brothers and sister, unaware that he himself epitomized Envy, Avarice and, since he’d met Emerald, certainly Lust, he thought how they personified the deadly sins. Alizarin, refusing to compromise, was Pride; the constantly raging Sienna was Wrath; Jonathan, who had just nodded off, pen in hand, head on Sienna’s leather shoulder, was Sloth; and Visitor, the yellow Labrador sitting in the chair allocated to Jonathan’s ex-girlfriend, grinning in his master’s Old Rugbeian tie, was certainly Greed.

Visitor, who always appeared to be trying to compensate for Alizarin’s hostility, was borrowed by other Belvedons if they wanted to appear more lovable when being photographed by the media.

True to his name, Visitor toured the various Foxes Court houses every day for pieces of cheese from Raymond, rich tea biscuits from Anthea (who was surprisingly fond of him), bridge cake and cat leftovers from Aunt Lily, hash cookies from Jonathan, scrambled egg from Mrs Robens, and even wiggled his plump hips against Hanna’s bird table in case there were crumbs left to dislodge.

In the past he had carried the rare cheques received by Alizarin to the bank, where the manager would always give him a piece of shortbread. Alas, Visitor continued to take cheques there, after Alizarin had left the bank in a huff for restricting his overdraft, so Alizarin now posted his even rarer cheques instead.

Visitor’s tawny eyes were sparkling. He had already lifted his leg on several guy ropes and made his number with the chef. Visitor loved parties. They meant abandoned food, because there were invariably several Belvedons too uptight to eat, and dancing. Visitor adored dancing, bouncing round the floor with Dora and Dicky, who, drowning his sorrows at the prospect of appearing in
Oo-ah!
in a purple suit, was getting even drunker than Aunt Lily. Xavier Campbell-Black, who was in the same form as Dicky, would piss himself.

After an hour and a half of drinking, when the majority of the guests were seated and the waitresses were revving up to bring on the first course, Emerald and Zac arrived. They were late because Emerald kept saying she couldn’t go through with it.

Yesterday she had painted a watercolour of herself edging across a high bridge with half its slats missing. Behind her on the bank waved the disconsolate Cartwrights. On the bank ahead stood the hazily drawn Belvedons. Rocks and a raging torrent lay far below.

As she and Zac came off the motorway, a huge red sun was sinking into the downs. This is the last sunset I’ll see before meeting my real mother, she thought. Tears welled up in her eyes as she simultaneously experienced intense loneliness and a feeling of coming home.

The moon was hovering on the horizon like a great gold air balloon and the sun had set as they drove under the archway of white blossom. As the big golden house reared up before them, a deafening roar could be heard coming from the marquee.

‘I’m about to open Pandora’s Box,’ moaned Emerald, dabbing at beads of sweat with a powder puff, ‘and all the evils of the world are going to fly out and sting me.’

‘I’ve got insect-repellent in the dashboard,’ said Zac calmly, ‘but your Violetta smells much more exotic.’

‘Stop taking the piss,’ snarled Emerald.

In her evening bag was the little musical box that played ‘One two three four five, once I caught a fish alive’, which Anthea had given her as a leaving present when she was three days old and which Patience had hung over her cot. As they walked from the car park through the garden, Emerald only noticed how beautifully the sculptures were floodlit.

‘I’m frightened, Zac.’

‘No, you’re not. I’ll be right beside you all evening.’ Zac’s fingers clamped on her elbow, propelling her through the front door.

‘Do I rush forward and hug Anthea or appear cool?’

‘Neither – remember our game plan. Don’t say a word until she can’t escape. Just relax – be yourself.’

‘How can I be, when I’m not sure who “myself” is? Oh, what a stunning house!’

Emerald gazed round the hall and through into the drawing room, admiring glittering chandeliers, gilt cherubs frolicking around ancient looking-glasses, incredible pictures on faded terra rosa walls, richly swagged curtains swarming with pink peonies.

At least we’ve come to the right house, she thought, clocking Emma Sergeant’s portrait of Anthea.

‘That’s kind of kitsch.’ A grinning Zac was pointing to a blow-up under a picture light of Anthea and Raymond outside Buckingham Palace.

‘Shut up,’ hissed Emerald.

Her first glimpse of her real mother was Anthea glancing round in fury because they were so late. Everyone was sitting down. The orchestra were poised to play ‘See, the conquering hero comes!’ The guests led by Green Jean would clap in time as Anthea and Raymond walked in hand in hand and regally took up their positions at the top table. The whole marquee was already lit by flickering candles.

Anthea’s rage however evaporated at the sight of such a good-looking couple. Gushing like a Cotswold stream in February, she seized Zac’s hand when he introduced himself and Emerald.