Pandora (45 page)

Next door at the Old Rectory, Rosemary Pulborough, who had not expected to be invited to her husband’s little dinner for Si Greenbridge, was still harbouring dark suspicions that Emerald could be David’s child.

Rosemary had been half relieved when Galena had died, because she’d had such a hold over David, but she’d infinitely preferred Galena’s reign to Anthea’s. Galena had been great fun. She, Lily and Rosemary had had merry suppers together, and Galena had never humiliated nor sidelined her.

Rosemary remembered David going ashen that October morning nearly twenty-six years ago, when a tear-stained Raymond had stumbled round to the Old Rectory announcing that everything was going to be all right because Anthea was on her way.

And from that day, Anthea had never stopped tormenting Rosemary, subtly putting her down, letting her know that David had confided some secret, praising everything he did, but quite unable to acknowledge any of Rosemary’s achievements: whether it was the brilliant marriage made by her daughter Melanie, or the snowdrop she had propagated in Galena’s memory which had won first prize at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Rosemary, however, was planning her revenge. She had recently been appointed Chairman of the Limesbridge Improvement Society and held her first meeting at the Old Rectory on the afternoon of the third Thursday in June. This was packed out because everyone was not only dying to see Rosemary’s newly decorated kitchen but also how Lady Belvedon was looking after her skeleton-outing in the press. Radiantly complacent was the answer.

Anthea arrived early and found the new kitchen something else to disapprove of. How could Rosemary have made it so messy so quickly? Look at all that garlic, onions, herbs and lavender hanging from the beams, those ragged recipe and gardening books all jumbled together, those piles of papers and photos of cats and children and all those vases of wild flowers on the table.

And you’d have thought Rosemary had chosen the colour of the walls – the rich reddy brown of newly ploughed Larkshire fields – specially to flatter her three marmalade cats: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who sauntered up and down the long scrubbed table as if they were modelling their opulent ginger fur.

And what was Joanna Trollope’s latest doing with the spine up by the Aga? Rosemary should have been making a cake instead of reading. Now she was handing out bought chocolate cake and not even bothering with cake forks and serviettes. Fancy giving kitchen roll to the Lord-Lieutenant, General Aldridge, with whom Rosemary was on ludicrously chummy terms because he was some cousin of Melanie’s boring husband. Finally, what kind of bag lady did Rosemary think she looked like, still in her old gardening trousers and one of David’s cast-off shirts?

Hanna looked a wreck too, decided Anthea. She deserved to lose Jupiter if she didn’t smarten herself up. Hanna and Lily, who was puffing away on some disgusting cheroot, flanked Rosemary like neighbourhood witches, all discussing the wild flowers still needed for Hanna’s painting. They made Anthea feel twitchy.

‘Cup of tea, Anthea?’ asked Rosemary, brandishing a big brown pot.

‘Have you got camomile? No? Well, I’ll have water.’

‘Isn’t Rosemary’s kitchen super?’ shouted Lily, who liked stirring things, to a chorus of assent.

There was a pause while Anthea’s judgement was awaited.

‘Well, it certainly makes the room look bigger,’ she said coolly, then, turning to the Lord-Lieutenant: ‘Which Sunday are you opening, General? We had over a thousand through last year. Folk came, of course, to gaze at Sir Raymond as much as the garden.’

‘This year they’ll gaze at Emerald,’ snorted Lily. ‘Why don’t you plant her in the herbaceous border?’

Anthea’s lips tightened.

‘Shoo,’ she cried as Shadrach padded purposefully towards her.

On the wall by the window hung Galena’s
Wild-Flower Meadow
, which Sir Mervyn had given David and Rosemary and which was being admired by two shopkeepers. Anthea was sure Rosemary had held the meeting in the kitchen so everyone would see it. If Galena had been alive she’d have been a bloated old wino, fat as Falstaff, but because she was dead, everyone hero-worshipped her. Anthea wanted to scream. Shadrach settled purring on Lily’s lap.

‘Shall we begin?’ asked Rosemary.

After touching on the village fête which Emerald was going to open on 3 July, and Limesbridge’s certainty of being the Best Kept Village in Larkshire (if someone could persuade Alizarin to cut his nettles), and the excessive use of pesticides threatening to wipe out the skylarks for which Larkshire was famous, discussion moved on to a proposed clay shoot in aid of the Distressed Gentlefolk.

‘Shoot the lot of them and save a lot of bother,’ said the landlord of the Goat in Boots, to sexist guffaws.

Rosemary then brought up the old chestnut of the Borochova Memorial. Galena, she persisted, had immortalized Limesbridge by making it her home for nearly fifteen years and painting glorious pictures of the Silver Valley. These now hung in the greatest galleries of the world and had saved the valley from developers.

‘Here, here,’ shouted Lily.

Shadrach purred in agreement. Abednego took up perilous residence on the bony thighs of General Aldridge.

‘People come from all over the world to honour her,’ went on Rosemary. ‘Surely there should be a statue in her memory in the High Street, and why can’t we apply for lottery money, and turn one of the outbuildings at Foxes Court into a museum about her work?’

‘Good idea,’ said the landlord of the Goat in Boots.

Nice woman, Mrs Pulborough, he reflected. No side to her. Pity she was married to that shit. One of the joys of coming to these meetings had been to gaze at Jupiter’s bonny wife Hanna, but today she looked wretched. Her eyes, once like pale blue lakes on a map, were red and piggy with crying.

Anthea was furious inside, but putting on her martyred virgin face, said she couldn’t possibly upset Sir Raymond by evoking memories of Galena’s tragic death.

‘And as we are already providing accommodation for Sir Raymond’s sister’ – she nodded coldly at Lily – ‘and Jupiter and his wife’ – she nodded coldly at Hanna – ‘and Alizarin, and Jonathan and Sienna when they deign to roll up, there is no room for a museum.’

General Aldridge, who was known as ‘General Anaesthetic’ because he was so boring he sent everyone to sleep, had just taken out a subscription to the
Erotic Review
because his wife was going through the menopause. He also had a thumping crush on Anthea.

‘No-one does more for the village than Lady Belvedon,’ he brayed.

Why didn’t they put up a statue to Anthea instead? suggested Green Jean, the vicar’s wife, who also had a crush on Anthea, and who had been so pleased she, and not the doctor’s wife, had been asked to the silver wedding party.

‘We ought to do something in Galena’s memory,’ said Rosemary stubbornly.

All the local shopkeepers and the landlords of the Mitre and the Goat in Boots, who wanted to attract tourists to the area, agreed noisily.

‘We don’t want Searston to get the memorial instead of us,’ called out Lily.

As the scent of lime blossom drifted in from the churchyard, Rosemary had a brainwave.

‘If Lady Belvedon has no room for a Borochova Museum, and as our children have flown the nest’ – Rosemary smiled as she imagined fat Barney taking off like a Christmas turkey – ‘why don’t we convert our empty barn into one instead?’

Resounding cheers all round.

‘Ouch,’ shrieked General Anaesthetic as Abednego plunged his long claws into his thighs before flouncing off.

Anthea was seething. There was no way she was going to allow the despised wife of her darling David to gang up with Galena’s supporters.

‘That would be totally unacceptable, Galena is after all a Belvedon.’

No-one could see this mattered a scrap and before Anthea could say ‘knayfe’ Rosemary was promising to approach her husband and Geraldine Paxton about lottery funds and the best way of launching an appeal.

‘Why don’t we ask local artists to submit ideas for a statue?’ said the doctor’s wife, who’d been forced to go away for the weekend so people wouldn’t know she and her husband hadn’t been invited to Raymond and Anthea’s party. ‘And then we can ask the best three or four to produce maquettes. We gather your new daughter is an accomplished sculptor, Lady Belvedon, perhaps she could enter.’

‘I’m still happy to offer you the barn for a museum,’ said Rosemary.

We’ll see what your husband has to say about this, thought Anthea.

‘My daughter-in-law’ – she nodded at Hanna – ‘is doing a lovely watercolour of all the wild flowers contained in Galena’s
Wild-Flower Meadow
.’ Anthea waved a pretty white hand at the painting on the wall. ‘Surely Hanna’s canvas hanging in the village hall would be a more fitting memorial?’

‘It can grace the museum instead,’ said Lily firmly.

The meeting broke up because the General was pushing off to award prizes to the Guides in Searston.

‘Garden’s looking great,’ he told Rosemary as he followed her into the sunshine. ‘And Isobel wanted you to know she’s ordered a thousand of your Borochova snowdrops for the Long Walk.’

Then, as Rosemary went pink with pleasure, he turned to Anthea, who was just behind them: ‘You’d better get your order in early.’

‘I may be old fashioned,’ simpered Anthea, ‘but I prefer my snowdrops to look like snowdrops. Lovely news about Melanie, Rosemary.’

‘What?’ demanded Rosemary.

‘About the new baby. She hasn’t told you? Oh, stupid me. I expect she wanted to be quite sure. Mind you, she’s always been Daddy’s girl. David is
delighted
.’

Hanna, who had followed them out through the front door, looked at Anthea in horror, and put a comforting hand on Rosemary’s arm.

‘Did you hear that, Hanna? Melanie’s expecting,’ repeated Anthea. ‘High time you and Jupiter got your skates on.’

Still seething, despite delivering such body blows, Anthea paused in the churchyard on the way home. On the lichened headstone were carved the words: ‘Galena Borochova Belvedon 1932–1973. Heaven lies around us.’

Someone had left a bunch of meadowsweet and wild roses in a jam jar. In a fit of rage, Anthea kicked it over, then kicked the headstone. Hearing a step, she looked round and gave a gasp of terror. Alizarin was towering over her, blotting out the sun.

‘Get away from her,’ he roared.

Because Visitor had just bounced into Rosemary’s kitchen in search of chocolate cake, Hanna, realizing Alizarin must be in the vicinity, crept into the churchyard hoping for a brief bittersweet word. Then she froze to see him talking to Anthea. No-one would be quicker on the telephone to Jupiter, sneaking about secret trysts.

Emerald raged with paranoia at the prospect of her birthday party. She was convinced all the Belvedons, except Raymond, Anthea and Dicky, detested her. Patience, Ian and Sophy must loathe her after the way she’d slagged them off in the press and ignored them since the silver wedding. What would happen if the two families hit it off and united in righteous indignation against her? More likely the Belvedons would sneer at the dowdy, plain and two-thirds overweight Cartwrights. And why had Zac ratted on her, when he’d set the whole thing up? She felt as if both her shrink and her bodyguard had gone on permanent leave.

And now four days before her birthday, she had the added nightmare of opening the bloody fête.

‘I’d like to thank everyone in Limesbridge for being so welcoming,’ Emerald was practising her speech in her bedroom before leaving, ‘particularly my new parents, Anthea and Raymond Belvedon.’ Emerald smiled at Raymond who was perched on her bed, nodding approval. ‘And all their wonderful children.’

The little fuckers, thought Emerald savagely, particularly Dora, who was acting up because Emerald had refused to be run away with in the family trap pulled by a delinquent Loofah through bunting-decked Limesbridge. She had opted instead to arrive at the fête by river in Raymond’s boat.

‘How could the bitch deny Loofah such a photo opportunity?’ raged Dora.

Anthea had already gone down to the wild-flower meadow, where the fête was being held, to rally the troops, but kept ringing up: ‘Where on earth are you? The nation’s press is waiting, we’ve got to begin.’