The Gatecrasher (11 page)

“A penny for your thoughts,” said Gillian, appearing at the door of the conservatory.

“They’re worth more than a penny,” retorted Fleur cheerfully. “A lot more.”

She looked quizzically at Gillian’s attire. She was wearing a tangerine-coloured dress with a nasty, fussy neckline and, draped straight across it, Fleur’s blue scarf. Not a day went by now without Gillian wearing that scarf, always in exactly the way Fleur had shown her—no matter what the outfit. Fleur supposed she should be flattered, but instead she was beginning to feel irritated. Was the only answer to supply the woman with a scarf in every colour?

“We’d better be off in a moment,” said Gillian. “I don’t know what the form is. Maybe everybody arrives late. Fashionably late.” She attempted a little laugh.

“Fashionably late is out,” said Fleur idly. “Although I suppose it might still be fashionable in Surrey.”

This afternoon, she thought to herself. This afternoon she’d have another shot. Perhaps while Richard was out on the golf course. She could keep Gillian in the kitchen by suggesting that she make a cake. And maybe she could find some reason to borrow Richard’s keys. She would be in and out before anyone even wondered where she was.

“I don’t know who’ll be there,” Gillian was saying. “I’ve never been to this kind of thing before.”

Gillian seemed unusually loquacious, thought Fleur. She raised her eyes and Gillian met them imploringly. My God, she’s nervous, thought Fleur. I’m the impostor and she’s the one who’s nervous.

They were about to walk down to Eleanor Forrester’s house, to have brunch and look at the range of jewellery which Eleanor energetically sold whenever she had the chance. Gillian had apparently never been to one of Eleanor’s brunch mornings before. Reading between the lines, thought Fleur, Gillian had never been asked before.

Fleur’s own instinct, when Eleanor had asked her, had been to turn the invitation down. But then she’d seen Richard’s delighted smile, and she’d remembered her own guiding principle. If a man smiles, do it again; if he smiles again, don’t stop.

“Of course,” she’d said, darting a glance at Gillian’s stiff, averted cheek. “We’d love to come, wouldn’t we, Gillian?” After that, she hadn’t known which to enjoy most,
the embarrassed expression on Gillian’s face or the discomfited one on Eleanor Forrester’s.

Gillian was shifting from one foot to another and mangling the end of the scarf in her anxious fingers. For the sake of the scarf if nothing else, Fleur got to her feet.

“OK,” she said. “Let’s go and look at this woman’s baubles.”

Eleanor’s garden was large and sloping with many arbours and wrought-iron benches. Two trestle tables had been erected on the lawn; one covered with food, the other with jewellery.

“Have some Buck’s Fizz!” exclaimed Eleanor as they arrived. “I don’t have to ask if you’re driving, do I? Did you hear about poor James Morrell?” she added in an undertone. “Banned for a year. His wife’s
furious
. Now, go and sit down. A lot of the girls are here already.”

The “girls” were aged between thirty-five and sixty-five. They were all tanned, fit and vivacious. Many wore brightly coloured clothes with what looked like expensive appliqué work. Little tennis players careered across bosoms; little golfers danced up and down arms, endlessly striking tiny beaded golf balls.

“Aren’t these fun?” said one woman, noticing Fleur’s gaze. “Foxy sells them! Polo shirts, trousers, everything, really. Foxy Harris. I’m sure she’ll tell you about them when she arrives.”

“I’m sure she will,” murmured Fleur.

“Emily had quite a collection of Foxy’s clothes,” chimed in another woman, dressed entirely in pink. “She always looked absolutely lovely in them.”

Fleur said nothing.

“Were you a close friend of Emily’s, Fleur?” asked the pink woman.

“Not really,” said Fleur.

“No, I thought you couldn’t have been,” said the woman. “I suppose I knew her the best out of all of us. I expect she mentioned me. Tricia Tilling.”

Fleur gestured vaguely with her hand.

“We all miss her,” said Tricia. She paused as though lost in memories. “And of course, Richard was devoted to her. I used to think, I’ll never see a couple as much in love as Richard and Emily Favour.” Fleur was aware of Gillian shifting awkwardly beside her. “They were
made
for each other,” continued Tricia. “Like . . . gin and tonic.”

“What a beautiful thought,” said Fleur.

Tricia’s eyes met hers appraisingly.

“That’s a lovely watch, Fleur,” she said. “Did Richard buy that for you?” She gave a little laugh. “George is always buying me little things here and there.”

“Is he?” said Fleur. She idly fingered the watch and said nothing more. From the corner of her eye she was aware of Tricia’s satisfied face.

“You know,” said Tricia, as though beginning on a new subject, “poor Graham Loosemore has got into an awful pickle. You remember Graham?” There was a murmur of assent.

“Well, he went to the Philippines on holiday—and married a local girl! All of eighteen. They’re living together in Dorking!” There was a general gasp. “She’s after his money, of course.” Tricia drew up her face as though gathering the neck of a shoe-bag. “She’ll have a baby so she can claim
support, and then she’ll be off. She’ll probably get . . . half the house? That’s two hundred thousand pounds! And all for a silly mistake. The fool!”

“Maybe he’s not a fool,” said Fleur idly, and winked at Gillian.

“What?” snapped Tricia.

“How much would you pay a strapping young Filipino to make love to you every night?” Fleur grinned at Tricia. “I’d pay quite a lot.” Tricia goggled at Fleur.

“Just exactly what are you saying?” she whispered, in tones prepared to be astounded.

“I’m saying . . . maybe this girl is worth it.”

“Worth it?”

“Maybe she’s worth two hundred thousand pounds. To him, at any rate.”

Tricia stared at Fleur as though suspecting trickery.

“These wealthy widowers have to be very careful,” she said eventually. “They’re terribly vulnerable.”

“So are wealthy widows,” said Fleur casually. “I find I have to be on my guard constantly.” Tricia stiffened. But before she could speak, Eleanor Forrester’s voice interrupted the group.

“More Buck’s Fizz? And then I’ll start the presentation. Did I tell you all about poor James Morrell?” she added, handing round glasses. “Banned for a year! And he was only a tiny bit over the limit! I mean, which of us hasn’t been a tiny bit over?”

“Me,” said Fleur, putting her glass down on the grass without drinking from it. “I don’t drive.”

A babble broke out around her. How could Fleur not drive? How did she manage? What about the school run? The shopping?

Tricia Tilling’s voice rose truculently above the rest.

“I suppose you have a chauffeur, do you, Fleur?”

“Sometimes,” said Fleur.

Suddenly, without meaning to, she remembered sitting behind her father’s driver in Dubai, leaning out of the window into the hot dusty street and being told in Arabic to sit still. They’d been driving past the gold souk. Where had they been going? Fleur couldn’t remember.

“Now, are we ready?” Eleanor’s voice pierced Fleur’s consciousness. “I’ll start with brooches. Aren’t these fun?”

She held up a gold tortoise and a diamanté spider and began to talk. Fleur stared ahead politely. But the words washed over her. Memories, unbidden, were flooding into her mind. She was sitting with Nura el Hassan and they were giggling. Nura was dressed in pale silk; her small brown hands were holding a string of beads. They were a present; a ninth birthday present. She’d put them round Fleur’s neck and they’d both giggled. Fleur hadn’t admired the beads aloud. If she had done so, Nura would have been obliged, under custom, to give the beads to Fleur. So Fleur had simply smiled at Nura, and smiled at the beads, to let Nura know that she thought they were very pretty. Fleur knew Nura’s customs better than her own. She had never known anything else.

Fleur had been born in Dubai, to a mother who ran off to South Africa with her lover six months later and a rather older father who equated bringing up a child with throwing money at it. In the shifting, rootless world of Dubai expatriates, Fleur learned to lose friends as easily as she made them, to greet a new intake at the British School at the beginning of every year and say good-bye to them at the end; to use people for the brief period that she had
them—and then discard them before she herself was discarded. Throughout, only Nura had remained constant. Many Islamic families would not allow the Christian—in truth, heathen—Fleur to play with their children. But Nura’s mother admired the pretty, insolent little redhead; pitied the businessman who was having to raise a daughter as well as hold down a demanding job.

And then, when Fleur was only sixteen, her father had suddenly suffered massive liver failure. He had died leaving Fleur a surprisingly small amount of money: not enough for her to continue living in the luxury apartment; not enough for her to stay on at the British School. The el Hassan family had kindly taken Fleur in to live with them while her future was decided. For a few months, she and Nura had slept in next-door bedrooms. They had become closer than ever; had discussed and compared themselves endlessly. At the age of sixteen, Nura was considered ready to marry; her parents were in the process of arranging a match. Fleur was alternately aghast and fascinated at the thought.

“How can you stand it?” she would exclaim. “Marrying some man who’ll just boss you about?” Nura always simply shrugged and smiled. She was a remarkably pretty girl, with smooth skin, dancing eyes and rounded features verging already on plumpness.

“If he is too bossy, I will not marry him,” she said once.

“Won’t your parents make you?”

“Of course not. They will let me meet him and then we will talk about it.”

Fleur stared at her. Suddenly she felt jealous. Nura’s life was being comfortably mapped out for her, while her
own wavered uncertainly in front of her like a broken spider’s web.

“Perhaps I could marry, like Nura,” she said the next day to Nura’s mother, Fatima. She gave a little laugh, as though she were joking, but her eyes scanned Fatima’s face sharply.

“I’m sure you will marry,” said Fatima. “You will find a handsome Englishman.”

“Maybe I could marry an Arab,” said Fleur. Fatima laughed.

“Would you convert to Islam?”

“I might,” said Fleur desperately, “if I had to.”

Fatima looked up. “Are you serious?”

Fleur gave a tiny shrug. “You could . . . find me someone.”

“Fleur.” Fatima rose and took Fleur’s hands. “You know you would not make a suitable bride for an Arab. It is not just that you are not Islamic. You would find the life too difficult. Your husband would not allow you to answer back in the way that we do. You would not be allowed to go out without his permission. My husband is very liberal. Most are not.”

“Are you going to find a liberal man for Nura?”

“We hope so, yes. And you will find a man too, Fleur. But not here.”

Two days later the betrothal was announced. Nura was to marry Mohammed Abduraman, a young man from one of the wealthiest families in the Emirates. It was generally acknowledged that she had done very well indeed.

“But do you love him?” asked Fleur that night.

“Of course I love him,” said Nura. But her eyes were distant, and she wouldn’t discuss it further.

Immediately the family was plunged into preparation. Fleur wandered about, unnoticed, watching with disbelief the amount of money being spent on the wedding. The bolts of silk, the food, the gifts for all the guests. Nura was whisked away into a whirl of veils and scented oils. Soon she would be whisked away for ever. Fleur would be on her own. What was she to do? The el Hassan family didn’t want her anymore. Nobody wanted her anymore.

At nights she lay quite still, smelling the sweet musky scent of the house, allowing the tears to trickle down the sides of her face, trying to plot her future. Nura’s parents thought she should go back to England, to the aunt in Maidenhead whom she’d never met.

“Your family is the most important,” Fatima had said, with the confidence of one surrounded by an extended web of loyal family members. “Your own family will care for you.”

Fleur knew she was wrong. It was different in England. Her father’s sister had never shown any interest in her. She was going to have to rely on herself.

And then Nura’s betrothal party had been held. It was an all-female affair, with sweetmeats and games and much giggling. Halfway through, Nura took out a little box.

“Look,” she said. “My betrothal ring.”

On her hand it looked almost incongruous, a huge diamond set in an intricate web of gold. The room was filled with satisfactory gasps; even by Arabic standards it was enormous.

That’s got to be worth a hundred thousand dollars, thought Fleur. At least. A hundred thousand dollars, sitting on Nura’s finger. It’s not even as though she’s ever going to be able to show it off properly. She’ll probably
hardly ever wear it. A hundred thousand dollars. What could you do with a hundred thousand dollars?