Life Class (43 page)

‘A million’s not enough. Just think how much looking after a place like this takes. You’d have to win ten times that to pay for upkeep and the staff to maintain it. You don’t think Michael rakes the gravel himself?’

‘As usual, you’re being perfectly logical, but logic doesn’t stop you dreaming.’ From this vantage point at the top of the stairs, there was a view of the whole garden. ‘It’s nothing like I imagined,’ Fran went on. ‘I was expecting one of those romantic landscapes …’

‘What? With a ha-ha, a turreted gothic folly across a lake?’

‘And a hermit’s cave, complete with hermit.’

‘Don’t forget the mob of rioting peasants outside, whose village was levelled in order to create the fantasy.’

‘Very romantic!’

‘Instead we found a garden designed by good old Unpredictability Green!’ They both giggled, and Fran gave Dory a hug, reminded of how good it could be spending time together. ‘All those ghastly gods and Buddhas and whatnot? Not my cup of tea.’

‘Nor mine. And I don’t think they’re Michael’s either, from what he was saying. He was talking about getting earth-movers in, remember? But this pool … I’m sure he had this put in, and …’ Fran nodded towards the substantial cabin, set back from the flagged surround of the pool, a handmade sign on the door, proclaiming it to be the toilet. ‘That’s never
just
a loo! I’ll check it out in a minute.’

Dory nodded, then gazed over the surrounding acres, the people milling about below them. She shook her head as if momentarily overcome by the sight. ‘But there are so many different kinds of loveliness, aren’t there? Your garden is utterly gorgeous, Fran, you know it is. There’d be nowhere to put a swimming pool without spoiling it! Surely you wouldn’t move, even if you did come into shed loads of dosh?’

‘Hah! I may not have the option of waiting for a lottery win. These last few weeks have been a nightmare. The way Peter is, it’s as if he hates me. He’s been madly de-cluttering, almost as if he wants to sort things out before putting the house on the market and petitioning for divorce!’

‘I’m sure that’s not true. He’s hurting, Fran. He’s lost trust in you. Hang in there. Give him time. It’s not as if you actually
did
anything. It was just your thoughts that strayed. It’s still a blow to his pride, but I’m sure he’ll be able to put it behind him. What did the police say about your stalker?’

‘I saw their liaison officer. She was very reassuring. In these cases, apparently, it’s almost always all talk. It’s very unlikely he’ll ever
really
try to track me down. She said that if I don’t log on, which of course I won’t, I haven’t got a PC anymore, the address I used will lapse anyway. Even
I
won’t be able to access it.’

‘
I
told you that,’ Dory said.’

‘The liaison woman told me he’d be hard to trace, because he’s masked his ISP, but they haven’t the time or resources to pursue someone they see as low risk. If he was a paedophile or threatened violence, they’d consider setting up a sting operation. But she reassured me that he’s just a sad little tosser who’ll get bored and move on now I’ve stopped replying to him. She said I’ve got to put it behind me. But then …’ Fran paused, wondering if she should confess. ‘Out of the blue I got a call from Sally. Do you remember her? From school? When I was trying to trace Dan I didn’t think of her because we weren’t at college together. But she was part of my circle, so of course she knew him. After catching up, we got talking about Dan. I mean, I didn’t tell her anything about … you know … but she recalls everything so differently. She thought it was
me
who broke it off! That it was Dan who was really broken-hearted. Funny, isn’t it?’

‘The brain can play tricks on you. You remembered what you wanted to remember. The only boyfriend
I
recall you raving about was Peter. Once you met him that was it. Mr Right.’

‘Sally said she’d heard Dan was killed in a motor-bike accident a few years after he left college …’ Fran faltered, feeling the blush rise in her face. ‘When she told me, I didn’t feel a thing.’ Fran kept her eyes averted from her sister’s. It was too shaming. She continued, ‘I wonder who he was? DB, I mean. I was thinking about that website the other day. You know? The torture chamber? In the cold light of day I can now see how ridiculous it all was. A bunch of middle-aged saddos, admittedly with unusual sexual tastes, dressed up in ludicrous costumes. The women with big bottoms and cellulite, the men with double-chins and paunches! How did I let myself get so upset, as if it was somehow my fault?’

Dory didn’t reply immediately. Her gaze shifted away into the distance, her expression remote. ‘Sounds as if you’ve achieved some perspective and you’re close to being able to forgive yourself.’

‘Perhaps. It would help if Peter showed any sign of forgiving me.’

‘I’m sure he will.’

‘What is it? What have you seen? Dory?’

‘Nothing. Just looking.’

Fran followed her sister’s gaze. A couple, the woman with a papoose tied across her chest, began to mount the steps towards them. Recognition blossomed. Fran gripped her sister’s arm.

‘She’s that actress, isn’t she?’ she whispered. ‘You know, English, but in that American soap? What’s her name?’ But Dory’s eyes remained unfocused and misty, as if she’d not heard. These lapses of attention were becoming more and more frequent.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Fran persisted, as the couple drew level with them. Not much was visible of the baby. Its face was crumpled against its mother’s bosom, eyes closed. The actress smiled at them. ‘You seem permanently distracted.’

Dory sniffed and scrabbled in her shoulder bag. ‘I should have worn sunglasses. It’s so bright today my eyes are running. Have you got a tissue?’ After dabbing at her eyes, and blowing her nose, she looked at her watch again.

‘
And
you keep checking the time. It’s obvious you’ve somewhere more important you want to be. Why won’t you tell me?’

Dory turned and smiled, and patted her arm. ‘Sorry. You go and use the deluxe facilities. I’ve just spotted Michael. I want a word with him …’ Again, she glanced at the time. ‘Then we’ll have a cream tea?’

Not sure whether to be pleased or put out by her sister’s condescending tone, Fran watched her rapid descent of the steps. Left by the swimming pool, her curiosity grew. It was almost as if Dory had wanted to guarantee a few minutes alone with their host. Why? She had never been especially friendly with Michael.

When Fran eventually arrived back on the terrace, she was dying to tell her sister about the pool’s changing room, but Dory and Michael were still talking. He turned to her, laughing.

‘What do you think of my garden, then?’

‘It’s immaculate. The planting schemes are beautiful …’

‘It’s all right. You don’t need to be tactful. What about the statuary?’

‘Well …’

‘Load of lurid, hippy-dippy, tacky, new-age rubbish,’ he supplied with a delighted chuckle, as if he enjoyed surprising his visitors. ‘But solid and well cemented in. I’m planning to bulldoze the lot of ’em. All apart from Andromeda.’ He turned briefly to Dory with a smile. ‘As I said, I’m kind of fond of her, despite the damage.’ Then, raising his voice and extending his arm to a woman who approached them, he added, ‘How long did it take us to rid the house of the stink of joss sticks, patchouli, and wacky baccy, darling? Have you met Helen, my lovely wife …?’

As they got into their separate cars they waved to one another. Fran started her Mini Cooper and followed her sister’s yellow KA out of the gate, and wondered again where she was going. Infuriatingly, Dory still wouldn’t say. For a few hundred yards the sisters drove in convoy along the narrow lanes. Perhaps she would get a clue where Dory was headed by clocking where she turned off the main route home?

Clear of the speed restrictions of the village, they’d just begun to accelerate when a tractor emerged from a concealed farm gate just after Dory passed it. Braking hard, Fran heard a subdued thump and rumble from behind her. Sealed in her stationary air-conditioned car, no-one but herself heard her enraged scream of ‘Bastard!’ as she watched her sister’s car disappear into the distance. For the next several miles Fran crawled along behind the farmer’s hay-bale piled trailer, swearing intermittently as she envisaged the interior of her boot with its cargo of gently rolling pots, loose earth, and bare-rooted plants.

Back home, she left the car in the drive. As she fetched the dust-buster and the dustpan and brush from the garage, she could hear the sound of the mower from the back garden. Be thankful for small mercies, she thought. Still in their pots, the plants lay on their sides, roots clinging to a few inches of damp soil. A surprising quantity of grit, peat, and perlite was flung across the floor of the boot. She righted them and scooped up as much of the loose earth as she could, trickling it back into the pots from her cupped palms. It was Dory who had insisted on visiting the plant stall on the way out of the garden. Only now, as she vacuumed out her boot, did she wonder where her sister intended to plant the summer flowering jasmine she’d bought, given she didn’t have a garden.

Apart from the odd eclectic sculpture collection in Michael’s garden, the biggest surprise of the afternoon had been his wife, whom she’d always heard him refer to, with calculated irony, as ‘her indoors’. Though fashionably, and doubtless expensively, dressed, her clothes were understated. There was obvious grey in amongst the highlights in her curly hair, and her lines did not look tampered with. Admittedly, she had a good figure, but Helen was definitely not the trophy wife Fran had expected. As they’d stood talking, Michael’s hand had been slotted into a back pocket of his wife’s jeans with more unselfconscious affection than Fran had believed him capable of.

Bent over with her head in the boot – which still retained that brand new leather smell – she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

‘Was it all as glamorous as you expected?’ Fran didn’t look up at her husband, but picked up the brush and resumed her task, pushing the bristles hard into the furthest edges of the boot to sweep out invisible grit and dust. ‘Oh, dear. Had a bit of an accident?’

‘Had to jam on my brakes for a tractor. Friable is only a good word when it’s applied to the earth
in
flowerbeds,’ she added, not looking up to see if she’d prompted a smile. ‘But it’s all right. I’ve cleared it up.’

‘I can see. You’ve made a good job of it.’ He nodded towards the six plants, now looking slightly worse for wear, lined up on the ground near her feet. ‘What are they? Will they be all right after their adventure?’

Fran poured the contents of the dustpan back into the pots before she answered him. Only now did she register that he was talking to her normally, about inconsequential things, and without that controlled timbre to his voice.

‘Lavender. It’s tough. They’ll survive,’ she said.

‘When you’ve finished,’ he went on, ‘I want your opinion. Earlier, before I started on the grass, I was going through some stuff in the house …’

When wasn’t he going through stuff, she wondered, thrown back into her habitual pessimism. What she’d momentarily hoped might be a bridge-building overture was apparently just another demand for her to make decisions about throwing her life away.

Peter was in the kitchen when Fran came in. She noticed two mugs on the table, teabags already in them. He flicked the switch on the kettle.

‘Is Mel in?’ She couldn’t believe the tea was intended for Peter and herself.

‘She’s out with Jacky. Their friendship has gone up a gear since …’ He paused. ‘Is this OK, or would you prefer me to make it in a pot?’

‘It’s fine,’ she said faintly.

‘They talked about going to Painchester.’

‘On a Sunday? How were they planning to get there?’

‘Jacky’s driving now, isn’t she? She’s got a car. So?’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Tell me about your afternoon.’

Fran could have sat down at the kitchen table, could have talked about her wealthy friend’s house, the strange garden, the celebrities, the wife who wasn’t a bimbo, or her sister’s odd behaviour, but the awaiting task depressed her.

‘Can we look at this stuff you’ve been sorting out? I’d rather get that out of the way before anything else.’

She followed him upstairs and saw him making for the back guest bedroom. Oh no. This was where her life-drawings were kept. He had pulled them all out from under the bed and left them on the floor in a haphazard pile weeks ago. She’d hoped he would forget about them, and had been planning to tuck them back where they’d come from in due course.

Fran slotted her hands into the back pockets of her cut-offs. No longer pristine, they were smudged and dusty with earth and grit.

‘These drawings …’ he began, gesturing at the bed where he’d laid them. She looked at him, anticipating the demand that she throw them away.

‘I’ve been going through them. Looking at them …’
And?
She thought testily. ‘They made me think.’

Fran couldn’t interpret the expression on his face. It wasn’t the bitter, shutdown anger that had hovered there for weeks. If anything, he looked sad. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever given you the credit you deserve,’ he said.

What credit? Fran sat down in a chair. ‘What are you saying?’

‘When we got married, you gave up your art degree.’

‘Because I was expecting Mel.’

‘You didn’t have to. I didn’t demand it of you.’

‘No, you didn’t. It was my decision. At the time I didn’t feel I could do both.’

Peter scratched his head. ‘What I’m saying is … I never really realised how good you were.’ He glanced towards the drawings and paintings fanned out on the duvet. ‘How good you
are.
I didn’t really comprehend what you gave up. I’ve always looked on your art, I suppose a bit dismissively, as your “little hobby”. But some of these … they’re amazing, Fran! Why do you just put them under the bed? Why don’t you do something with all this talent?’ He stopped talking and looked at her, puzzled regret in his eyes. He held out his arms. It was only when she walked into them that she realised she was crying.