To Be the Best (11 page)

‘Pompous, pompous, Tessa’s being pompous, just like Lornie, she’s parroting Forlornie,’ Gideon Harte taunted in a sing-song tone from the relative safety of the pool.

‘I won’t dignify
that
ridiculous remark,’ Lorne sniffed with hauteur and lowered himself onto a mattress, picked up his copy of Homer’s
Iliad
and buried his face in the book.

‘Bring my hat back!’ Tessa screamed, stamping her foot.

‘Oh for God’s sake, leave her alone,’ a faintly disembodied voice admonished from the pool, and Toby Harte’s reddish-gold head bobbed up over the side. The ten-year-old grinned at Tessa, who was his favourite girl cousin, and then hauled himself out of the water, being careful not to splash her or her paintings, having no wish to incur her wrath. Reaching for a towel, he added, ‘After all, she’s only a little itty bitty
baby,
and how could she – ’

‘Not
a baby,’ a muffled voice informed them from underneath the large sun hat.

‘ – possibly damage it,’ continued Toby, towelling himself dry. ‘And why do you care so much, Tess? It’s only a stupid old hat you bought in Nice market…a cheap bit of rag.’

‘It’s not a bit of rag! It’s
beautiful.
And it cost me a whole week’s pocket money, Toby Harte!’

‘More fool you,’ called out Gideon, and with this inflammatory comment the eight-year-old paddled swiftly to the centre of the pool, flipped over, floated on his back, and began to make faces at her.

‘What do you know about anything, Gideon Harte! You’re a CRETIN like my brother.’

‘Is that the only
stupid
word you know,
Stupid?’
Gideon shouted back and stuck his tongue out at her.

‘Brat! Brat!’ Tessa yelled at him. ‘You’re a spoiled brat, too!’

‘Oh shut up both of you,’ Toby admonished in a bored
voice. ‘Listen, Tess, can I borrow one of your old Beatles’ albums?’

‘Which one?’ Tessa asked, suddenly wary, squinting up at him in the bright sunlight, moving a strand of fair hair away from her face.

‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’

‘Oh no, I can’t possibly lend you that one! It’s er…er…it’s become a…
classic.
When Auntie Amanda gave it to me, she told me it’d be very,
very
valuable one day, ‘cos it’s an early one…she’d had it since before
we
were even born. But…Well…all right, because it’s
you
I’ll make an exception, so – ’

‘Gosh, thanks, Tess,’ Toby cut in, his freckled face lighting up.

‘ – you can rent it if you want, it’s ten pence an hour,’ Tessa finished, sounding as magnanimous as she now looked.

‘Ten pence an hour!
That’s highway robbery!’ Toby spluttered, his expression indignant. ‘No thanks, Tessa, I’m not going to help you become a capitalist.’

‘In this family, everybody’s a capitalist,’ Tessa declared smugly, with a small smirk.

‘Forget it, I’ll play my new Bee-Gees.’

‘Suit yourself.’

‘Aunt Paula.
Aunt Paula
…your daughter’s turned into a really nasty little sharpie this summer,’ Toby exclaimed scathingly and threw a disgusted look in Tessa’s direction.

‘Mummy…I’m taking my knickers off, they’re all wet,’ Linnet cried from the depths of the sun hat.

‘You see what I mean about her behaviour, Mummy,’ Tessa sniggered. ‘She’s the only five-year-old
I
know who still wee-wees in her pants.’

‘I don’t! I didn’t, Mummy!’ a clear voice shrilled as the hat was pushed back and Linnet’s round flushed face appeared.

‘Auntie Paula, may I have one of these ginger snaps, please?’ three-year-old Natalie Harte asked and promptly
took one and crunched on it before she was forbidden to do so.

‘Mummy! Look at her now! She’s
dragging
my gorgeous sun hat in the puddles. Stop it, you little monster.
Stop it!
Mummy, make her stop.
Mother
…you’re not listening. If you throw that hat into the pool, I’ll kill you, Linnet O’Neill! Gideon! Get my hat! Quick, before it sinks!’

‘Okay, I will, but it’ll cost you plenty.’

Tessa ignored this threat. ‘Wait until I catch you, Linnet,’ she screamed after the small, plump figure retreating swiftly in the direction of the pool house.

‘Mother
…
Mother…
will you
please
tell Tessa to stop screeching like a banshee? I’m getting a frightful headache,’ Lorne murmured languidly from the mattress where he lay reading.

‘Auntie Paula, Natalie’s eaten
all
of the ginger snaps,’ India Standish gasped and, turning to her cousin, she added in the most dire tone a seven-year-old could summon,
‘You’re
going to be
sick.
Horribly, horribly sick, and it serves you right, you greedy little girl.’

‘Have this, India,’ Natalie said with a winning smile, pulling a half-eaten chocolate out of the pocket of her sundress, dusting it off and offering it to the older girl, whom she adored.

‘Ugh!
No thanks.
It looks icky!’ India pulled a face. ‘It’s covered in sand. And
fluff.
Ugh!’

‘Auntie Paula, there’s a dead
something
at the bottom of the pool,’ Gideon shouted, coming up for air with a splash, triumphantly holding the sodden sun hat aloft.

‘Oh my God, my beautiful
gorgeous
new sun hat has been ruined! Mummy, she’s ruined my
expensive
hat.
Who’s
going to buy me a new one?
Mummy,
did you hear what I just said?’

‘Where’s the dead
something?’
Patrick asked, throwing himself flat on the ground, dangling his dark head over the
pool, craning his neck so that he could peer down into the depths. ‘Can’t see it, Gid.’

‘I’ve got to dive for it,’ Gideon explained, running his hands through his wet blond hair, taking a deep breath and instantly plunging underwater again like an agile little dolphin.

‘Patrick, don’t lean over the edge,’ Linnet warned from the door of the pool house. ‘You’ll fall in.’
‘Won’t
fall.’

‘Will you take five pence an hour for Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?’ Toby negotiated hopefully. ‘Eight pence…
perhaps.’

‘No thanks, Miss Sharpie. You can go and shove it up your…jumper.’

‘Oh Mummy, Mummy, look! A bird.
Dead,’
Patrick cried. ‘Oh poor birdie. Funeral. Can we have a funeral?’

‘Auntie Paula, please make Gideon get rid of that foul, disgusting, revolting object,’ eleven-year-old Jeremy Standish exclaimed. ‘It pongs to high heaven and it’s contaminating the air.’

‘No, it
isn’t!’
Gideon glared at his cousin. ‘We’re going to bury it, like Patrick wants, aren’t we, Auntie Paula? Auntie Paula, cooee!
Auntie Paula,
we
can
bury it, can’t we?’

‘Mummy,
can birdie have a funeral?’

‘Mummy,
I want some dry knickers.’

‘Mother,
look at Linnet now. She’s waving her knickers in the air. She’s a disgusting child. Just look at her, Mummy.
Mummy.
MOTHER!’

‘For Christ’s sake, Tessa, stop screaming,’ Lorne shouted. ‘How can I concentrate on my Homer with you bellowing in my ears. I’ll be jolly glad to get back to school next week and away from you. Far, far away. There’s never a minute’s bloody peace when you’re around. You’re a bloody little pest, a bloody nuisance.’

‘If Daddy hears you swearing, you’ll catch it.’

‘And who’s going to tell him, Miss Tattle Tale?’

‘I’ve never split on you yet, you MORON.’

‘If I’m a moron, then so are you, TWIN!’

‘Don’t bring that frightful smelly disgusting
thing
anywhere near me, Gideon, or I’ll punch you on the nose,’ Jeremy threatened.
‘Auntie Paula,
please make him stop waving that beastly dead bird in my face.’

‘Auntie Paula! Auntie Paula! Natalie’s being sick! I
knew
she would be. Look, over there by the tree.
Auntie Paula,
did you hear me?’

‘Gideon Harte, I’m
warning
you. Keep your distance or I’ll thump you!’

‘Stop it, Gid, stop being childish,’ Toby ordered loudly.
‘I’m
not.
He
is. Sissy! Sissy! Lord Jeremy Standish’s a sissy!’

‘I’m going to really
thump
you for that!’ Jeremy cried, jumping up.

‘Gideon, give me that dead bird,’ Toby shouted, racing after his brother, catching him by the top of his wet bathing trunks.

‘Auntie Paula,
tell Toby to let go of me!’ Gideon screamed. ‘He’s
hurting
me.’

‘And it’s
my
turn next,’ Jeremy threatened with sudden manic glee.

‘Mummy,
Mummy,
make the boys stop fighting,’ Linnet shrieked.

Paula threw down her book and angrily leaped to her feet.

She began to chastise them loudly and vociferously, but they heard nothing. Her voice was drowned out by a series of strange booming echoes that reverberated on the warm air, and as the echoes died away, Paula was able to ask, in a tone that rose slightly, ‘What on earth was
that?’

‘The gong,’ Linnet said.

‘Gong,’
Paula repeated in perplexity, and it instantly struck her how chastened the children seemed and she stared
at them sharply through narrowed eyes. ‘What gong? Whose gong?’

Lorne explained, ‘Auntie Emily’s gong…she bought it – ’

‘From the house up the mountain,’ Tessa quickly interjected, then volunteered to her still-baffled mother, ‘The old lady who owned the house died, and there was a sale. Two weeks ago, just after you left, the last time you were here, Mummy. And we all went with Aunt Emily, she thought we might find some bargains.’

‘But all we found was the gong,’ Jeremy muttered.

‘And where does Aunt Emily keep this gong?’ Paula inquired, her eyes flicking over each one of them with considerable interest.

‘Up there in the gazebo,’ India replied.

‘But why did Emily buy the gong?’ Paula wondered out loud.

Toby supplied the answer, when he said quietly, ‘Mummy uses it to signal us. One strike means that breakfast’s ready, two is for lunch, three is to summon us inside, to get ready for dinner, and – ’

‘When she bangs and bangs and
bangs,
like just now, it means we’re going to
catch
it,’ Linnet confided and grimaced. ‘For being
bad.
For something
terrible
we’ve done.’

‘I see,’ Paula said and her shrewd eyes swept over the group of youngsters yet again. It was more apparent to her than ever that each child was suitably intimidated – even the most recalcitrant of them. She turned away to hide a smile, thinking how terribly clever Emily was.

‘We’re definitely in for it. Because of the unholy row we’ve been making,’ Lorne muttered, jumping up, edging away.

‘You’re right,’ Toby agreed. ‘Come on, Troops, let’s skedaddle before my mother gets here and starts giving us stupid chores to do, or worse still, starts thinking up idiotic activities to keep us properly occupied.’

Within the space of seconds, the older children had raced after Lorne and Toby, as always the ringleaders, who were heading at breakneck speed for the steps that led down to the beach below the promontory. Only Patrick, Linnet and Natalie remained with Paula in the pool area.

Silence finally reigned.

Paula sank gratefully into her chair, delighted to have peace and quiet for the first time that morning. She had done her utmost to ignore them, had remained aloof from their endless bickering – as she had learned to do over the years – at least until Toby and Gideon had started fighting and Jeremy had seemed about to join in the
mêlée.
She couldn’t permit that to happen. Anthony and Sally Dunvale’s eldest son had not been well, and the last thing his father had said, before leaving for Ireland earlier that morning, was for them to make sure the boy did not overtax himself for the rest of his stay at the villa. Paula knew that if Jeremy went home to Clonloughlin looking as if he had been scrapping with the boys, she and Emily would never hear the end of it from his mother. Their cousin Sally fussed a great deal about her first born, the heir to the Dunvale title, lands and fortune.

Paula took a deep breath, and was about to give her small daughter a stern lecture about removing her underclothing in public, when she saw Emily hurrying down the path between the lawns.

‘Cooee! Cooee!’ Emily called, waving.

Paula waved back.

A moment later, Emily drew to a stop and she and Paula exchanged looks. They began to laugh.

Emily said, ‘I know it’s noisy, but it’s
very
effective.’

‘And
how,’
Paula agreed. ‘I’ve never seen them silenced quite so quickly.
Never.
It was an inspired buy on your part.’

‘Yes,’ Emily chuckled, ‘so it’s proved. My God, they were
kicking up such a racket, I’m surprised you don’t have a splitting headache by now. I know I could hardly hear myself think when I was in the kitchen, talking to Marcel about the meals for today.’

‘Mummy, I’ve been sick,’ Natalie announced, going over to Emily, tugging at her shift. ‘I frowed up.’

‘Don’t talk like a baby, you’re a big girl. And it’s
threw
up,’ Emily corrected. She looked down at her youngest child, frowning, and put a hand on her forehead in concern. ‘Are you feeling all right? Are you better now, angel?’

‘I don’t know, Mummy.’

‘It’s because she ate
all
the ginger snaps,’ Linnet said.

‘Now, now, Linnet, you know it’s wrong to tell tales out of school!’ Paula reprimanded sharply, scowling at her daughter. ‘And let’s not forget that you’ve been very naughty this morning. First, flinging Tessa’s sun hat in the pool, and then taking your knickers off in public. I’m terribly cross with you, and ashamed of you, Linnet.’ Paula shook her head, trying hard to look appropriately angry without much success, but nevertheless, she added, ‘You’ve disgraced yourself, and the only reason you haven’t been punished
yet
is because I’m still trying to think of a
suitable
punishment.’