Hubble Bubble (12 page)

‘Where’s the biscuits?’ Lavender had joined Lob. ‘I’ve made the tea and put out the plates and the doilies and the cups are on the trays – but there weren’t any biscuits.’ She looked accusingly at Mitzi. ‘You did remember biscuits, didn’t you, dear? We know how easy it is to forget little
things when your mind starts to go.’

‘Here—’ Mitzi scrambled behind her chair, snatched at several of the Tupperware boxes, and passed them down from the stage. ‘They’re not biscuits exactly – they’re sort of fairy cakes.’

‘Oooh, lovely …’

‘Take one each and then share the rest round when you do the teas,’ Mitzi said. ‘You can’t have them all.’

Goodness knows what might happen if the Bandings necked back the entirety of Granny Westward’s weird mixture.

‘And why are you wearing cycle helmets indoors? You did remember to lock your bicycles, didn’t you? You know what the kiddies are like round here.’

‘Goodness,’ Lavender chortled, ‘we didn’t cycle here, Mitzi, dear. At our age? Whatever next! No, we walked.’

‘Then, why …?’

‘Because Shay said they were imperative,’ Lobelia said with a grave expression. ‘He said he’d been to an RAC and that a little boy had been badly hurt because he hadn’t been wearing a helmet and—’

‘She means RTA,’ Lavender broke in. ‘She’s useless at Scrabble. But yes, young Shay said everyone must wear cycle helmets. All the time.’ She beamed up at Mitzi. ‘You must get one, dear. It’d suit you.’

‘Please just hand the cakes round,’ Mitzi whimpered. ‘And make sure no one takes more than one.’

The scrum ensuing in the hall still resembled a sort of lunatic Paul Jones without the music.

Lav and Lob, always happy in a crisis, scurried among the crowd dishing out tea and the little dark-brown cakes. The refreshments seemed to be going down better than the organising.

‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Mitzi muttered, sinking down onto the chair again. ‘Don’t let this turn into yet another dismal Hazy Hassocks failure. Just let them sort themselves out.’

She wasn’t quite sure what had changed, and when or
how, but something certainly had. The hall wasn’t quite so manic. The noise wasn’t quite so loud. And the heaving knot seemed to have miraculously separated into neat and orderly groups dotted through the village hall’s gloom.

Blimey, Mitzi thought faintly, it worked.

And twenty minutes later it was still working. Coincidence of course. Again. They would have managed it without the Powers of Persuasion Puddings. Of course they would – wouldn’t they?

Lavender and Lobelia, brown crumbs dusting their upper lips, seemed to have attached themselves to the cricket team. Looking on the bright side, at least they wouldn’t have to shell out for the protective headgear.

Trilby Man, clutching a sheaf of papers, bounded up onto the stage. ‘Any more of them crunchy cakes left, Mrs B? Went down a treat. No? Damn. Well, okay – this is what we’ve got sorted so far …’

Mitzi studied the lists. It all seemed to be extremely well organised. She was particularly delighted to see that her library friends had managed to find several things to do. And even some of the more odd requests from the phone callers seemed to have found a home. If it worked as well in real life as it appeared on paper, then Hazy Hassocks’s grey army would have plenty to get their teeth into. The Baby Boomers Collective was – fingers crossed – practically up and running. Why on earth no one had thought about it before she had no idea. All they had to do now was arrange regular meetings each week to get the final details ironed out and follow up the progress. Wednesday afternoons would be a good idea. She’d suggest it later.

She beamed at Trilby Man. ‘This looks really great. Now all we need to do is fix a time to meet for updates and things, and book the village hall for the indoor classes, say once or twice a week for each activity, and of course, find somewhere outside for the sporty stuff.’

‘Snepps Fields would be ideal.’

Mitzi pulled a face. Snepps Fields were completely out
of the question. Tarnia guarded the use of the village hall with all the watchfulness and vengeful fury of Cerberus; trying to get her to agree to the hoi polloi playing rough games on her meadows would be absolutely impossible.

‘Leave it with me. I’ll have to speak to Tarnia about all this anyway.’

‘Rather you than me,’ Trilby Man said mournfully. ‘And if you haven’t squared it with her already, then we might as well kiss it all goodbye. The old bag has always squashed anything we’ve suggested before.’

‘Yes I know but—’

‘But nothing,’ Trilby Man looked most disgruntled. ‘What’s the point in raising all their hopes—’ he jerked his head towards the body of the hall ‘—only to tell them that they can’t have their dancing and firework displays and football and heavy metal bands and—’

‘They’re going to form a heavy metal band?’ Mitzi interrupted. ‘Really? How lovely!’

‘Yeah, well, may as well tell ’em not to bother now … or the dance troupe … or the ones what want to put on a musical …’

Mitzi gave a little groan. It all sounded wonderful. An over-fifties revolution … But if she couldn’t persuade Tarnia to allow them to use the facilities it would all sink without trace and it would be her fault for raising hopes and – she looked down at the stage. A solitary Tupperware box lurked behind her chair. She smiled to herself. Could she? Should she?

Well, why not? It was worth a try, wasn’t it?

‘Just leave it with me,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll go and see Tarnia as soon as we’ve finished here. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.’

An hour later, sitting in her Mini outside Tarnia Snepps’s house on the outskirts of Hazy Hassocks, Mitzi wasn’t feeling anywhere near so confident. She’d left the village hall like some sort of conquering hero – they’d all been so
delighted with the strides the Baby Boomers had made. And they were all now relying on her to secure the use of the hall and the land and the facilities so that their plans could blossom into reality. It was all down to her – and Tarnia Snepps.

Mitzi peered at the Snepps’s mile-wide drive through the gathering gloom and sighed heavily.

As self-styled Lady of the Hazy Hassocks Manor, Tarnia had installed herself in a monstrosity that would more than do justice to the nouveau riche bad taste of a Premiership footballer. Having more money than sense, and more grandiose ideas than either of those things, she’d eschewed the centuries-old mansions and manor houses in the area and designed her own palatial abode.

Sprawling like South Fork at the end of a multicoloured gravelled drive, it was stuccoed and crenellated and adorned with curlicues and cornices and cherubs puking blue water from every surface. There were modern latticed windows and gilded lions and neon-bright flower beds even in late October, and some really tacky wrought-iron gates.

Tucking the Tupperware box into her basket, Mitzi shuddered as she left the cosy warmth of the Mini and headed for the intercom. A gust of icy wind took her breath away.

‘Tarnia,’ she called into the voice grille, ‘it’s Mitzi. Have you got a couple of minutes, please?’

There was a lot of crackling, then a foreign voice echoed through the darkening afternoon. ‘Mizz Snepps is not at ’ome.’

Mitzi grinned. ‘I know that’s you, Tarnia. You never did have a clue about accents. Open these damned gates.’

‘No. Mizz Snepps is not at ’ome to casual callers.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Mitzi shivered again. ‘But remember I know all about Duncan Didsbury and the strawberry yoghurt.’

‘Sod you, Mitzi Blessing!’ The voice lost its Eastern European mystery. ‘Five minutes – that’s all.’

As she sprinted out of the gale back to the car, the
wrought-iron gates swung open to the tune of Big Spender, and Mitzi prepared to do battle.

Tarnia, wearing a size 8 velour tracksuit in gold and matching gold tinselly mules, opened the door herself, which was no surprise to Mitzi. The Snepps no longer had regular staff. Once the word had spread throughout the au pair network like wildfire, they’d had to resort to agency workers who did one or two shifts and then fled. Even the most desperate and destitute would-be domestic gave the Snepps a wide berth. Some of the more foolhardy locals came in to give a hand when the Snepps threw parties – but not often.

‘Lovely to see you,’ Mitzi beamed. ‘So kind …’

‘Come in and stop being polite,’ Tarnia snarled. ‘You know I hate you.’

‘Likewise.’ Mitzi beamed again as she stepped into a white and gold and pink hall of the worst opulence money could buy.

Surely even Tarnia could see that fountains and statuary at the foot of the stairs were a little de trop? Especially the one with that hermaphrodite child standing atop a dolphin and peeing.

Tarnia, her short coal-black hair razored into vicious stand-up spiky layers by Justin of Rip-Off Hair-Care, her eyes widened by far too much Botox, her skin spray-tanned to an even orange, looked about sixteen. Whatever else she’d wasted money on, Mitzi thought, the plastic surgery had been worth every penny. You couldn’t even see the joins.

‘Shall we go into the library?’ Mitzi ventured.

‘Kitchen,’ Tarnia snapped, click-clacking away across the pink marble floor.

Following her, Mitzi managed to avoid looking too closely at the Barbie-pink, trimmed, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, or the recently installed stained-glass window which dominated the stairwell and poignantly depicted the Beckhams en famille.

‘Right,’ Tarnia’s voice echoed from the depths of a vast chrome-and-glass kitchen which had seen even less proper cooking than Mitzi’s had. ‘Let’s get this over with. Marquis will be home soon.’

Mitzi stifled a snigger. ‘Ooops, sorry. It just slipped out. This is me, Tarnia, remember?’

Tarnia glared. ‘Which is why I don’t want you in my house. But I suppose even that is preferable to having you standing at the end of my drive and screaming my private business to all and sundry. So, what do you want?’

‘A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you.’ Mitzi perched awkwardly on the edge of something Terence Conran could have had a hand in. ‘I’ve brought some cakes.’

‘I mustn’t have cake. Atkins Diet. No carbs.’ Tarnia gave Mitzi an up-and-down glance. ‘Clearly not something you’ve ever heard of. You must be a good size 12. Still, it’s so easy to let yourself go at your age. No, sorry. No carbs.’

Bugger. Mitzi tried not to look disappointed. ‘Oh, these are very low carb, low everything … And they taste delicious …’

She tipped the remaining Powers of Persuasion Puddings on to the pristine table top. They still smelled rich and spicy and warm. Tarnia, clearly existing on a diet of not very much at all, turned from making tea in a transparent kettle, and weakened immediately.

‘Oh, they do look – um – I mean … well, I suppose just one – before Marquis comes home and—’

‘For God’s sake stop calling him Marquis,’ Mitzi giggled. ‘I can’t take it seriously, I’m afraid.’

Tarnia’s lips puckered into a moue of anger. Her hand, hovering over the cakes, withdrew. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that we’ve moved on, Mitzi. Marquis and I. We do not wish to be reminded—’

‘No, no of course not.’ Mitzi realised she’d have to eat a lot of humble pie if Tarnia was going to eat the Powers of Persuasion Puddings. ‘I keep forgetting. I’m sorry.’

Mollified, Tarnia continued making the tea in a transparent teapot with transparent cups on a transparent tray. Of milk and sugar there was no sign. Oh, well.

It was all a far cry from their growing-up years, Mitzi thought. When she and Tarnia had been almost neighbours on the Bath Road Council Estate on the outskirts of Hazy Hassocks, classmates at Winterbrook Grammar School, and had both dreamed of being secretaries for record companies and marrying Scott Walker.

‘So.’ Tarnia slid her tiny frame onto one of the strange chairs. ‘What do you want?’

Pushing the cakes forward and trying not to look over-eager, Mitzi explained about the Baby Boomers Collective.

‘Absolutely not,’ Tarnia sniffed, when she’d finished. ‘No way. Not a chance. Okay? Now you can go.’

No, she couldn’t. The cakes were still untouched. Mitzi steeled herself for a sip of the transparent tea.

Jesus! Jeyes Fluid!

‘Earl Grey,’ Tarnia said. ‘Not cheap sweepings from the 8 ’til Late’s own label.’

‘Lovely.’ Mitzi smiled gamely. ‘But why won’t you let people use the hall and the fields and—’

‘But I do. Only this summer Marigold Soames-Hartley had her Belinda’s wedding reception in several marquees in the lower meadow, and the Pugh-Padgetts always have their charity functions in the village hall, and—’

‘But they’re not real villagers!’ Mitzi put down her teacup. ‘They don’t even live in Hazy Hassocks.’

‘No, they don’t. And that’s why they can use the facilities with impunity. They’re the kind of people Marquis and I now associate with. They are our social equals. Our chums.’

‘You mean they don’t know that you lived on the Bath Road Estate or that your dad was a bus driver or that … that Marquis was known as Snotty Mark at school and his dad is still the milkman in Winterbrook and his mum works in Tesco … Or—’

‘Exactly!’ Tarnia’s eyes flashed. ‘Exactly! And why I want nothing to do with you, either! Why would I, having moved on from all that crap, want to surround myself with the dregs of the village who would take great delight in reminding me and my new friends – not to mention Marquis’s business colleagues – where our roots actually lay? Why?’

Mitzi sighed. She’d known this would be Tarnia’s reaction. It always had been. Ever since Marquis – no damn it! Mark – had got eight score draws on Littlewoods long before the lottery had been thought of, managed to make some sensible investments in vehicle leasing to multinational companies, and had built the Snepps’s Bad-Taste Palace on the only decent bit of land for miles around. Ever since they’d discovered the deeds also covered the village hall.

It was an eternal stumbling block.

Mitzi shrugged. ‘I don’t think any of these people are the slightest bit interested in your past. Even those who remember it have got far more pressing things to worry about. All they want to do is spend their autumn years in enjoying themselves, using their brains, being useful members of society. They’re our age, for heaven’s sake – middle-aged – they don’t deserve to be pensioned off and forgotten about.’