Simply Heaven (30 page)

‘I know,’ I say. ‘It’s one of the things I love about him. The fact that you can trust him to keep his word.’

‘Oh dear,’ says Beatrice, ‘I’m not making myself clear, am I?’

‘Oh, I think you are. It’s just that I’m not going to pay any attention.’ I say this a bit more sharply than I mean to. Repeat to myself: I will not pick a fight with a hundred-year-old woman. I will not pick a fight with a hundred-year-old woman. ‘Sorry,’ I say as an attempt at amelioration.

‘Very well,’ she says. ‘It is evident that I have misjudged you. I was under the impression, I must say, that you were rather nicer than the usual run of your sort, but it seems that I was mistaken.’

I’m beginning to understand something about the clunky dialogue in Barbara Cartland novels. This is actually how the aristocrats of that generation, brought up, at least in their formative years, by servants – generally by literate servants, but by servants none the less – spoke when they were being formal. A sort of language lifted from the sort of novels servants would get out of penny-lending libraries. So a manner of communicating that only existed in the fevered minds of popular scribes transferred itself back, over a generation, to an entire nanny-raised class. Who wrote it down in their own popular novels.

‘It was foolish of me, I suppose,’ Beatrice says, opening a drawer and fossicking about inside. ‘I always
have
had a fatal tendency to try to see the best in people. I honestly believed, from talking to my grandson, that you were the victim in all of this. I really didn’t want to believe you were an adventuress in search of profit. Still …’

‘Beatrice …’ I begin, but she isn’t listening. I’ve a pretty good idea of what’s coming. Half of me is horrified, half is full of glee. A giggle rises in my throat.

‘… have it your way. How much would you like?’ As I had suspected, she has produced a cheque book from the drawer, and is looking at me with an air of contemptuous expectation over the top of it. ‘How about twenty thousand?’

‘How’s the weather in Lala Land?’

She doesn’t get my drift. Thinks I’m holding out for more. ‘Well. Perhaps you could name the sum
you
had in mind.’

I’m interested here. I’d like to know how much someone like Beatrice actually values Rufus’s freedom at.

‘How about a million?’

There she goes, tinkling like a bloody sleigh bell. ‘Come
come
, Miss Kalamari. Even
you
cannot be so blinded by greed that you believe that I can write you a cheque for a million pounds. Still. At least we have opened the bargaining and I know I am not mistaken.’

My word.

‘Well, I dunno …’ I say doubtfully.

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Well, it’s a pretty penny. A gel from your background could do far worse than a tax-free lump sum to get her started in life.’

‘Twenty grand’s hardly enough to buy a decent car these days.’

‘All right,’ she says. ‘Shall we say thirty?’

I look at her.

‘That and the family jewellery I see he’s given you should certainly … you could buy a little …’ a pause as she searches her database for the sort of pastimes that might get a gel like me’s juices flowing ‘…
hat
shop …’

It’s too much for me. I should have brought a tape recorder. My desire to laugh overcomes me. Looking at her sitting there in her big hat, all serious with her pen poised, is almost as funny as seeing someone slip on a banana skin. You know you shouldn’t laugh, but the laughter comes anyway. I’m unable to stop myself, try to cover it up by putting my hands over my mouth, but realise, too late, that my shoulders are shaking and tears have sprung to my eyes, and that someone with the mindset of the woman in front of me will interpret it as …

The head tilts. Little beady eyes attempt to glisten with sympathy.

‘There, there, dear. Never mind. I know it’s come as a shock, but the money will be a great compensation, I’m sure.’

‘No,’ I stutter round my fingers, ‘no, it’s not that. It’s that—’

‘Money is a very important commodity,’ she tells me, ‘though I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of that. I don’t blame you for thinking you could get the blue ribbon, but I can assure you …’

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice movement through the window, out in the park. There seems to be a car approaching.

I pick up my bag and get out my own chequebook. ‘No, you’re right, Beatrice. Money
is
important. And I’ll tell you what. How’s about I write
you
a cheque for
fifty
grand to get off my case? Then maybe you could buy a bit of family jewellery of your own, eh? Make up for the stuff you’ve mislaid over the years? I know it’s not enough for a Callington Emerald, but it’ll certainly get you more than a
hat shop
.’

It’s like watching someone pick up the strings on a marionette. All of Beatrice’s limbs go at once, in all different directions, eyes bulging in her tapioca face. For a moment I’m afraid she’s going to slide off her chair and break her hip or something, but she recovers, grips the arms and says: ‘I
beg
your pardon?’

It’s not a car. It’s a limo. A big, white limo with blacked-out windows. It looks totally out of place in the park. I can’t think which of the Wattestone social circle would be likely to turn up with such a flourish of ostentation. It’s the vehicular equivalent of pink plastic flamingos. It’s a pimpmobile.

‘Looks like you’ve got visitors,’ I say.

She’s still gawping at me. ‘
What
did you say?’

‘What? Oh. I said I’d give you fifty grand to shut the fuck up,’ I say.

She winces at the swearword.

I can hear how my drawl sounds in her ears; ham it up for good measure. ‘Thing is, Beatrice,’ I tell her, ‘it’s not all about money. Or status. Or any of your not-in-front-of-the-servants gibberish. It’s about love, actually. It’s about the fact that I love your grandson to bits, and he loves me to bits back. And if anybody in your family could see past their own precious prejudices for one blind second, they’d probably have noticed that, far from being after your bloody money, I’m bringing money
with
me. I’ve tried to respect your age and allow for your brain not being what it should be and all, but talking to you today’s convinced me your marbles are perfectly intact when you want them to be. As is your hearing. You’ve got selective deafness, Beatrice. But if you listened for one blind second, you’d understand that it’s too bloody late. Rufus married me nearly two months ago and it’s no good being in denial about it. Get used to it. I’m here and I’m not going away.’

Beatrice is stunned into silence. I don’t give three toots what they say. It may be the preserve of the inarticulate, but swearing is a bloody powerful weapon.

I leave it three beats. Look out of the window and notice that the limo seems to have come to a halt halfway down the drive. It seems to have skewed slightly on its course, as though it’s skidded. The front door has come open and the driver has got out, is looking at the ground just under the front wheel.

‘So,’ I say, ‘would you like that cheque now?’

She doesn’t answer. I look over and see that she is craning round in the direction in which I’ve been looking. The hat is bobbling like nobody’s business. I’ve lost her. I’ve forgotten the old saying about never arguing with someone with an attention span of less than ten seconds, and I’ve lost her.

‘What a ghastly car,’ she comments. ‘Who on earth would be coming here in a car like that?’

‘Search me,’ I say.

‘Well, it can’t be anyone
we
know,’ she says. ‘They would know better than that. It must be something to do with
you
.’

And when she says it, I have a sudden, blinding realisation as to who it is, and I’m up and off like a bride’s nightie.

I don’t even pause to find a coat: just belt down the stairs and through the Great Hall – Rufus, who’s been waiting outside the study door, on my heels – fling open the front door and cannon over the gravel to the drive.

Emerging from behind the wall, I see that not only have they really hired an honest-to-God white limousine, but the chauffeur is standing by the bonnet, scratching the back of his head, with his hat in his hand. The back door has come open and a set of legs is emerging.

Oh God. Trust my family to hire a limousine. Any number of Mercedes and Audis and Jags and Beemers and even, God help us, Bentleys for hire to make a splash with, but oh no: they have to go the whole hog and plump for something designed for New Jersey prom parties. I don’t know why it’s stopped on the drive, but I’ve certainly got an excellent view of its eight metres of gleaming white paintwork and bulletproof tinted windows. I can just see the white-leather-and-varnished-woodwork-cocktail-bar interior. It’s even got strips of pink neon lights running up the sides; they flash, gaudy and bold, in the gathering gloom, and the creeping colour on my cheeks is not just the byproduct of this unexpected burst of exercise. You can always rely on the Mummydaddy to do things by tens.

I set off up the hill. Have to slow to a jog to manage it. The limousine’s occupants move into my sight-line around the sides of the car doors. My heart leaps. They’re here: my dad, short and squat and cuddly in a baseball jacket; my mum, blonde hair and a white velour leisure suit. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t changed into it in the toilets at the airport once she’d verified what colour the car was. They look exactly the way they looked when I last saw them. I can feel emotion welling up inside me like a flash flood. It’s funny how sometimes you only realise how much you’ve been missing someone when you catch sight of them again.

Several sets of eyes bore into my back from the study window.

My mother’s voice drifts down the hill over the chilly air. Well, drifts isn’t really the word for it. My mum is descended from a long line of Buchan fishwives. Brawny women who followed their menfolk, rolling pins at the ready, down to Cape Town and on across the Indian ocean. They didn’t start breeding out until they’d been in Oz for a couple of generations. My mother’s bloodline is near intact, and her vocal chords with it.

‘What the bloody hell’s going on, Don? My teeth damn near bounced clean out of my mouth.’

As I hear her, I feel my heart swell close to bursting. Great gouts of joy swoosh through my circulatory system, freeze up my throat, bring tears straight to my eyes. And, oddly, I find myself slowing down over the last couple of hundred metres, as though I’ll get to savour the moment better that way.

My mum! My dad! Here in this silvery field, rooks exploding from the empty treetops. My people!

‘I don’t bloody know,’ says my father, who is bending, hands on knees, beside the chauffeur, gazing down at the front wheel. ‘Looks like there’s a bloody great hole or summink.’

‘Gone into it right up to the axle,’ adds the chauffeur.

‘Well, what the bloody hell did you drive into
that
for?’ bawls Mum.

‘Pretty hard to avoid it,’ says Dad. ‘It’s right across the way and halfway across the field.’

‘Christ, have you brought us the wrong way?’ asks Mum.

‘Well,
I
don’t bloody know!’ replies Dad. ‘It’s what’s on the bloody map, isn’t it?’

They are so intent on their argument that they don’t notice Rufus and me approaching. That’s my family all over. Squabbling their way across the hemispheres. I break back into a half-jog as I get closer.

A small figure, bundled up in black, emerges from behind my mother. Oh my God. Yaya! It’s my yaya! She’s not been beyond Sydney in twenty years! Swore that the only thing that would get her on an aeroplane again would be if they could scatter her ashes at Famagusta! My entire family, all here, large as life and twice as brassy!

I reach them. ‘My word,’ I say.

Mum looks up. ‘What are you crying about? You’re meant to be glad to see us.’

And then she enfolds me in a hug and rubs my back like she’s trying to light a fire there. And I’m squashed into the middle of the three of them, Rufus and the chauffeur standing on the outside like spare pricks at a wedding, and I’m bawling my eyes out, rubbing mascara down my cheeks and touching their dear, dear faces like I’m trying to check that they’re really real. I know I’m only here because I was running away in the first place, but there are no people you miss more than the ones you run away from.

‘What are you doing here? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been trying to call you for days.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if we’d told you, would it?’ asks Mum matter-of-factly.

‘No, I … oh my God! Yaya! How are you?’

Yaya does her usual trick of staring you out before she opens her mouth. Yaya has piercing blue eyes. I don’t know how it works, because the rest of us are moo-cow brown. ‘I tired,’ she says eventually, in her customary reproachful tone, the one where she hams up her Cypriot diction, ‘and I cold. Why you got a hole in your road?’

Rufus steps forward. ‘I don’t really know. We’ve been having a few problems with subsidence recently …’

The lot of them clam up, like the blokes in the pub yesterday. They look at him like he’s an exhibit in a waxwork museum. Practically walk round the back to check out the joins.

‘You must be this man,’ says Yaya.

If he’s at all taken aback by this novel address, he doesn’t show it. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Rufus Wattestone. How’d you do?’

‘Good to meetcha, Rufus,’ says Dad, and claps him on the shoulder with a hairy brown hand. Then they all line up to shake his paw.

‘I thought,’ Mum says to me, ‘you said his name was something-something-something.’

‘It is. But they call it Wattestone for short.’

‘Pretty smart,’ says Ma. ‘You’d waste an entire year of your life saying it otherwise. So how’s my girl? How are they treating you?’

‘Great,’ I lie. Then follow it up with a truth: ‘All the better for seeing you.’

‘That’s the spirit. So where’s the rest of this famous family, then? Couldn’t be arsed to come out and meet us?’

I glance over my shoulder. I had sort of assumed that at least one or two of the family might have made the effort, but the drive behind us is empty, and the courtyard as well. The entire Wattestone clan has stayed indoors, observing the interlopers from the safety of the shadows.