Country Plot (3 page)

Sybil had all the right ideas about how to handle a jilted woman. Jenna spent the next few days on the sofa watching self-indulgent movies, reading comforting favourite books (
I Capture the Castle
,
A Company of Swans
,
Persuasion
), and being brought delicious food by Sybil, not to mention tubs of Ben and Jerry's, chocolate biscuits and fresh boxes of Kleenex. When the children came home from school, Sybil told them that Aunty Jenna wasn't well, and hooshed them off to play in the garden or another room. Jenna adored them, but couldn't have coped with them just now. They reminded her too much of what she had hoped to have with Patrick and now never would.

From time to time in her busy schedule Sybil would come and sit with her so that Jenna could pour out her misery.

‘I loved my job,' she wailed, ‘and I've lost that as well as Patrick. I haven't even got anywhere to live now.' Patrick owned the flat in Fulham. Jenna had rented before, so she'd had nothing to sell when she moved in with him. It hadn't seemed a risky move at the time. How naive she had been! What was that poem?
I thought that love would last for ever. I was wrong
.

‘I loved that flat. Now I've got nothing. Nothing to show for four years of my life. I'm nearly th–thirty. I'll never find another b–boyfriend . . .'

Wisely, Sybil did not attempt to refute any of this, merely listened, nodded sympathetically, and made another cup of hot chocolate.

By the third day, Jenna was up to telephoning various friends to explain where she was and why. They were all shocked and sympathetic, perhaps the more so because they were worried for themselves.
You and Patrick were so settled, such a good couple, so good together. If it happens to you, what hope is there for us?

They condemned Patrick roundly. ‘He's a rat – a pig – he's scum. He's not worthy of you. You're too good for him.'

To which Jenna's sad reply was, ‘But if I can't even keep a man who's not good enough for me, what hope is there?'

They all assured her that she
would
find someone else, that her life was
not
over, that she
wasn't
doomed to eternal spinsterhood. ‘You'll find someone much better. I never really liked Patrick, anyway. I always thought there was something not quite right about him.'

Why didn't you mention it before
,
then
, Jenna thought. Not that it mattered. In a break-up, it's a woman's nature to assume it was because
she
wasn't good enough for
him
. And in any case, her friends had spent the last four years telling her he was perfect and she was so–o–o lucky. On the whole, she preferred Sybil's approach – to listen, say nothing, and apply chocolate cake in industrial quantities. For pin money, Sybil baked cakes and tarts for a very upscale farmer's market, so the house was often full of delicious smells, and dangerously well supplied with goodies. It was a wonder the children weren't fat as geese, but they seemed to have inherited good genes, and were whippet-thin despite having a mother who baked like an angel. Jenna wasn't quite so lucky, but felt she was off the leash for this week at least. Sybil's offerings seemed to soothe the places other comfort couldn't reach.

By the time the weekend arrived, when the children were off school and Oliver came home, she was over the floods stage, was sitting up and taking notice, and was able to play with the former and welcome the latter.

On Saturday morning the children were agog to talk to her.

‘Did you have a cold?' Allegra asked. ‘Your nose is still a bit red and you've got
huge
bags under your eyes. Everybody in our class had a cold last term except me. It wasn't fair. I didn't get to stay home
once
. Are you going to put some make-up on for when Daddy comes home? Mummy always does. I expect it would make you look a bit better,' she concluded kindly, ‘and p'raps not quite so old. Can I look in your make-up bag? Sorcha Ravenscroft came to school in nail varnish last week but they made her take it off with smelly stuff. Do you like nail varnish? Do you think I'm old enough to have my ears pierced? Mummy says not.' Allegra was ten, and longing to be twenty-seven. Jenna could have told her that age was not all it was cracked up to be.

Inez, who was seven, had less complicated needs, and just wanted Jenna to play Tummy Ache and Greedy Gorilla with her. Tertius, who was nearly six, wanted to show her his entire collection of Carz, and then stage races and horrific crashes on the floor at her feet, which he really didn't need her to pay attention to. Sybil flew round doing housewifely things, and looked in from time to time to say she was grateful to Jenna for keeping the children occupied. Then as the moment approached for Oliver's return, she went upstairs to make herself glamorous.

Jenna was still in tracksuit bottom and sloppy T-shirt – her widow's weeds – but the general excitement of the house at the wanderer's return finally filtered through to her vanity, and at the last moment she dashed upstairs too, changed, whacked on some slap, and raked the knots out of her hair. She stared a moment at her image in the mirror, and felt her lip tremble and tears threaten from the back of her nose. She looked pale and haggard and Allegra hadn't been wrong about those bags. But what did it matter now? No one was ever going to love her again.

Since the first day, Patrick hadn't phoned once. She'd had her mobile turned off, but there was nothing on voicemail; and though she hadn't told him where she was going, he could have guessed, surely, and rung her on Oliver's landline. Well, he didn't love her any more, that was clear – not that she didn't know that already, after finding him in bed with another woman (and who
was
she, anyway? None of her friends had had any clue). She was homeless, jobless and manless, putting on make-up for her
brother
! How sad was that? But then she gave herself a brisk shake –
none of that, now!
– told herself not to spoil Oliver's return, and went down for the hugfest.

Oliver was shiny-eyed with tiredness and the long flight, not to mention the punishing work schedule and the horrible climate. He had been away three weeks this time. He hugged Jenna briefly but hard, and whispered, ‘Poor old monkey-face,' into her ear. Sybil had told him the story during their daily telephone talks. He had to give his immediate undivided attention to his excited children, sit with them while they had supper, and then put them to bed, and then he wanted a long bath while Sybil prepared the grown-ups' meal; so it was not until he came down, clean, damp-haired, freshly-shaved and smelling of Radox, and was wandering round the kitchen with a bottle of Burgundy in his hand looking for the corkscrew, that he was able to address his sister's woes.

Jenna looked at him admiringly, thinking how handsome he was: tall and strong, with a slightly darker version of her own red hair – auburn, where hers was red-gold – and really blue eyes, instead of the greenish-blue hers were. They both took after their mother in colouring, while the rest of the family were dark like their father. It had always made her feel closer to him when they were children. When she had been mocked at school for being a redhead (
Ginger, you're barmy!
) he had made her see it as being different in a good way – special. He had been her hero: there was nothing, she had felt, that Oliver couldn't do. When she was about fourteen she had been so in love with him she thought she would die if he ever went away and got married; but he did go away, of course – to university first, which had eased the parting somewhat. He'd been going away ever since; but he always came back. And when he did marry, it was to Sybil, who was as unlike Jenna as could be, and whom she was glad to be able to feel was worthy of him. So that was all right.

Oliver found the corkscrew where Tertius had left it under the kitchen table – he'd been using it as an alien robot in one of his savage games – drew the cork and poured them all large glasses. ‘First today,' he said. ‘God, that journey gets longer every time I do it. Why doesn't anyone ever want a dam built in St Albans or Enfield?'

‘Next time, maybe,' Sybil said, prodding the potatoes.

‘The first thing I want to say to you,' Oliver went on, sitting at the kitchen table across from Jenna, ‘is that you're not homeless. You can stay here as long as you want. It's as much your home as mine, after all.'

‘Hardly,' Jenna said.

‘It's true. We all grew up here, and Ma didn't give it to me or anything. I just live here by default, because no one else wanted to.'

‘But she's bound to leave it to you in the end, because you
do
live here. Isn't she?'

He grinned. ‘I hope to God she does. Imagine moving this lot out at a moment's notice! But I don't even know if she's made a will.'

‘Michael would know,' Sybil said. Michael was not only the eldest sibling, but a solicitor. ‘And if she hasn't,' she went on in her practical way, ‘he ought to make her. If she died intestate the state would get most of it, since she's not married to the Major.'

‘Where are they, anyway?' Jenna asked. Their mother communicated more with Oliver than anyone else. In every large family there's always one sibling who is the correspondent, who keeps it all together.

‘On a yacht, belonging to a friend of the Major's. It's been lent to them for some unspecified time. They're sailing up and down the south coast of Crete. But the Major's apparently got an exhibition coming up in September in Cannes, so they'll have to be back at Juan-les-Pins by then. You could do worse than think about angling for an invitation, Jenna. The Cap d'Antibes in September? How bad could that be?'

‘It'd work for me,' Sybil remarked.

Jenna shuddered. ‘No, thank you. I've no desire to see my mother disporting herself among the Eden Roc set. Why can't she live in a bungalow in Worthing and knit things, like anyone else's mother?'

Oliver laughed. ‘Oh, come on! Which would you rather, if you were her? Cocktails at the Hotel du Cap, or a Thermos of tea in a beach hut in Bexhill? Even at the price of living with the Major . . .'

‘But he's sweet,' Sybil protested. ‘I like him.'

‘Well, I'm not likely to have the choice,' Jenna said, feeling herself choke up. ‘I'm going to end up all alone in a council flat with seven cats. I'll die and nobody will know, and the cats will eat me.'

‘Oh, that's absurd,' Sybil said.

‘It certainly is,' Oliver said vigorously. ‘You'd never qualify for a council flat.'

Jenna couldn't help laughing, though it ended up as a snort forcing its way through the lurking tears. ‘Beast,' she said.

Oliver refilled her glass. ‘Seriously now, tell me what happened. Every detail.'

So she told him. He was wonderful to tell, because he really did want every detail, and he sympathized with her completely. By the time she had talked herself out, they had consumed Sybil's salmon with ginger and coriander, crushed potatoes and baby pak choi, and were finishing off the second bottle of Meursault before tackling her magnificently boozy tiramisu, Oliver's favourite pud.

‘He's a stinker,' Oliver said in judgement. ‘He doesn't deserve you.'

‘Definitely not. He's a rat,' Sybil agreed.

‘A louse,' Oliver improved. ‘You shouldn't have got yourself mixed up with an architect, you know. You can never trust them. You should have picked a nice engineer instead.
Roads and bridges, docks and piers, that's the stuff for engineers. Wine and women, drugs and sex, that's the stuff for architects
.'

Jenna had heard that rhyme before, many times, but it still amused her. ‘Yes, but where am I going to find a nice engineer?' she objected. ‘You're married. Anyway, you're my brother and, to quote Sir Thomas Beecham, you should try everything once, except country dancing and incest.'

‘I don't think I'm the only one. I'm sure I could set you up with someone if I put my mind to it.'

‘I don't want to be set up, thank you,' Jenna said. ‘I've had it with this whole relationship thing. I'm so off men, you wouldn't believe. How do you become a lesbian?'

‘Two members have to put you up,' Oliver said. ‘And there's a frightful initiation ceremony. I found out about it by accident and I'm sworn not to divulge. It involves biceps tattoos and Melissa Etheridge CDs. I can't say more.' He looked at her seriously. ‘You wouldn't like it.'

Jenna laughed, but she cried a bit at the same time. ‘Oh, Oliver, what am I going to
do
?'

‘Oh, darling, everything will sort itself out in the long run. It's the short term we have to think about – what you're to do with yourself while you get over it. I'll bend the mighty brain and come up with something. I'm home for ten days so we've got plenty of time to talk everything through. For now, let's just enjoy pud, and then have coffee and lots of Marc in the drawing room. And some music. I'm so ready to listen to something that doesn't involve sitars and finger bells!'

Sybil brought the tiramisu to the table. ‘You ought to take a holiday,' she advised.

‘No money,' Jenna said. ‘And with no job, I can't afford to put it on the credit card. I'm homeless, jobless, loveless, penniless and hopeless. Damn Patrick!'

Oliver reached across and laid his hand briefly over hers. ‘We'll sort it out,' he promised.

He was such a comfort. And Jenna could see how the tiredness was catching up with him, and could not be so selfish as to keep him talking about her problems now, so she let herself be comforted, and reached for another subject.

‘How's everyone else?' she asked. ‘How's Rock?'

Oliver was the third child of the Freemont family. Michael was the eldest and Jenna the youngest, and Oliver came between two other sisters, Rachel and Harriet. When he was about ten, and precocious, he had announced to their parents one day that it was like being between a rock and a hard place, and the parents had thought it rather clever. For a time everyone had tried calling Rachel and Harriet Rock and Hardplace. Hardplace was too unlike a name and didn't suit Harriet anyway, so it lapsed. But Rock had stuck, and Rock Freemont was such a brilliant name for being famous with that Rachel had gone to Los Angeles as soon as she was able, to be famous properly in the best place for it. She had blagged her way into an agency in a menial capacity, and worked herself up, until she was now, at thirty-six, one of the big-name agents in Hollywood and earning shedloads of money. She had married a producer, Greg Scarpaccio, and they lived in a vast house in Beverley Hills that Oliver always referred to as Cliché Towers. Though she didn't communicate much with the rest of the family, she kept in touch with Oliver by email. He said it was from a residual sense of gratitude to him for having given her the fantastic name.