Secret Schemes and Daring Dreams (2 page)

So she was somewhat relieved when the perfect solution presented itself. Not only the perfect, and basically undemanding, part-time job for her; but more importantly, a little money-spinner for Lucy, who was in the throes of one of her ‘I'm so useless, no one would employ me' premenstrual cycles. OK, so when Emma told her about the plan, she did seem a little distracted and less enthusiastic than she'd hoped, but she put that down to the fact that Lucy was hyperventilating over her upcoming driving test and, once that was over, she'd be speechless with gratitude.

So the last thing that Emma expected at nine o'clock on the leavers' evening of her final term at Deepdale Hall, the exclusive co-ed day school on the outskirts of Brighton, was to have all her carefully laid plans thrown into disarray.

The evening had started so well: the in-crowd had met up on the roof garden of the Freaked Out Frog (which as
anyone with style and savvy will know is just about the coolest place in Brighton to hang out on a hot summer evening) and Emma had instantly been the centre of attention. This had a lot to do with the fact that she had just dished out a batch of tickets for Shellshocked's Gig on the Beach later in July, courtesy of her father. Her dad was the Seventies rock star, now turned eco-warrior, Tarquin Tee (he had never thought Woodhouse was a suitable name for him – ‘sounds too much like woodlouse' he used to say). Although Tarquin no longer made the centre pages of
MusicMaker
magazine, or headlined at gigs, he was very much in the public eye, fronting TV's
Going Green
programme, appearing in ads for energy-saving light bulbs and hybrid cars, and regularly lambasting MPs about their carbon footprints. In Emma's set, having a parent with a name suitable for dropping into conversations was a decided asset, and Tarquin still had enough contacts to be able to get tickets for all the best gigs. Emma felt able to forgive some of his more way-out idiosyncrasies in return for being flavour of the month with the entire Sixth Form.

‘I can't go,' Lucy had said as Emma tossed a ticket in her direction. ‘I'll be working.'

‘Working?' Serena Middleton-Hyde fiddled ostentatiously with the clasp on her Gucci bag and stared at Lucy in amazement. ‘Whatever for?'

‘Money,' Lucy retorted. ‘I need to save up for – well, things.'

‘Oh don't worry, I'll get you the time off,' Emma assured her hastily. ‘I've got loads of influence with the Knightleys.'

‘The Knightleys?' Chelsea Finch had exclaimed, turning to Lucy. ‘You're going to be working at their hotel? Donwell Abbey?'

‘It's not a hotel,' Emma informed her sharply. ‘It's a Country House Experience. And yes, Lucy and I have got jobs to die for – right, Lucy?'

‘Well, yes, but actually . . .'

‘What? You as well?' Serena interjected, draping an arm seductively around Angus MacKenzie. ‘How can you bear to spend the summer slogging your guts out for a pittance when you could be partying on the beach at Rock like us?'

Emma, who had absolutely no intention of slogging for five minutes let alone a whole season, pushed her shades on to the top of her head and gave Serena one of her most withering looks. ‘Why would we waste the summer getting trashed with a load of airheads when we could be mixing with celebs?'

As she had hoped, her words had an immediate effect.

‘Celebs? Like who?' Serena demanded suspiciously.

‘All sorts,' Emma declared. ‘Donwell attracts the A-list' (it wasn't a complete lie – a
Blue Peter
presenter had stayed there only a month ago) ‘and besides, Today TV are going to be filming an episode of
Going Green
in the village. Dad reckons Lucy and I might get filmed too.'

‘I get split shifts at Happy Hamburger – you get a manor house, champagne lifestyle and instant fame!' Tabitha Baxter burst out.

‘That's because some of us won't settle for second best,' Emma commented calmly. ‘Right, Lucy?'

‘What? Oh. Yeah, right.' Lucy seemed nervy and out
of sorts and suddenly Emma realised why. Clearly the thought of the new job was suddenly getting to her – she had always been a bit on the shy side, and a Grade One worrier. Donwell Abbey was the ancestral home of the Knightleys, who were close friends of Emma's dad; the house stood halfway up a hillside above the village of Ditchdean, four miles from Brighton, its mullioned windows catching glimpses of the English Channel in one direction and the South Downs in another. Emma's home, Hartfield, stood in its extensive grounds and had once been the Dower House of the estate. Emma had played with the Knightley boys, George and John, since she was in nursery and, as a result, treated the whole place as if it were her own.

Thirteen generations of Knightleys had lived at Donwell, but sadly the first ten had spent money like water, and Guy and Candida Knightley, the eleventh generation, had died within a few months of one another, which thrilled the men at the Inland Revenue who were in charge of death duties, but did nothing to ease the way for their descendants. Emma had still been a little kid, riding her pony in the Knightleys' paddock, when the deer park was turned into a golf course, and the lake on which she and George acted out
Swallows and Amazons
when it was stocked with trout and leased out to local anglers in the hope of raising money. The tack room became a tearoom and the orangery was turned into a small health club, much to the delight of the middle classes of the surrounding villages and the local suppliers of Lycra bodywear. The extensive gardens were open to the public every weekend and children
were kept occupied on the Woodland Walk and Nature Trail complete with Tarzan-style rope swings and hollow logs for hide-and-seek. Despite all this, the upkeep of thirty rooms and the remaining twenty acres was a huge burden and so, when George's father, Max Knightley, overheard a visitor to one of his Open Gardens days the previous season remark that it ‘wouldn't half be good to live like the gentry for a bit', he had the brainwave of turning his home into a place where social climbers could live out their fantasies while paying handsomely for the privilege. It was, he declared, to be very tasteful: just a dozen or so guests for a long weekend and the atmosphere of a nineteenth-century house party. Emma thought it was hilarious; but clearly Lucy was totally intimidated by the whole thing.

‘Look, you guys,' Emma announced as Lucy's nailbiting frenzy increased, ‘I need to check some stuff out with Lucy – catch you later, OK?'

She seized Lucy by the arm, picked up her drink and dragged her to the one available bench overlooking the crowded street below. It was the warmest evening of the summer so far, and the fountains in the square were a magnet for slightly inebriated holidaymakers and snogging couples. This was the Brighton Emma loved: its seafront tackiness, the fading splendour of its Regency architecture and the constant swooping and squawking of the seagulls as they hunted for discarded ice-cream cones and decaying bits of doughnut.

‘Listen, there's something I've got to tell you.' Lucy began speaking before Emma had the chance to launch into her impromptu pep talk. ‘And I know you won't
like it . . .' She looked as agitated as she had on the day she had confessed to losing Emma's favourite shirt.

‘It's OK, I know what you're going to say,' Emma assured her.

‘You do?'

‘I guess it's about the job.'

‘Well, yes, it is actually. You see, the thing is . . .'

‘Look, you don't have to worry!' Emma butted in, sipping her Summer Cooler. ‘It's not even like you've got to live in at Donwell – you're staying at my place, and you've done that enough times!'

‘Yes, but listen . . .'

‘Honestly, it's going to be so cool. You only have to waitress for breakfast and dinner . . .'

‘Will you just shut up a minute!' Lucy burst out, her freckled face flushing. ‘I'm not taking the job.'

‘Not taking it?' Emma stared at her open-mouthed. ‘What are you on about? Of course you're taking it – you can't let nerves get in the way of an opportunity like this.'

‘It's got nothing to do with nerves. I applied for another job a couple of weeks ago, and this morning I heard that I'd got it,' Lucy admitted, sipping her drink and avoiding eye contact with Emma.

‘Oh, is that all?' Emma shrugged. ‘No probs – you can back out of it. We'll think up a really good excuse and, if you want me to write the letter, that's fine. I'm good with words.'

‘I don't want to back out of it,' Lucy protested. ‘I'm over the moon about it. See, it's with Adam. At the Frontier Adventure Centre. He's got a job as sports instructor and I'm going to be a lifeguard and swimming coach.'

‘Lucy, what are you on?' Emma demanded. ‘What's that going to look like on your CV?'

‘I don't care about my CV.'

‘Well you should – you need to be more ambitious,' Emma retorted. ‘Besides, you can't back out now. Not with George's dad at death's door and him coping single-handed to keep the place afloat.'

When push came to shove, Emma regarded exaggeration as a perfectly legitimate tool to getting her own way.

‘Death's door?' For an instant, Lucy looked guilt-ridden.

‘Well, pretty much. And you know what that family mean to me,' Emma added, with what she hoped was a pitiful sigh. It wasn't a lie: all the time Emma and her sister, Bea – who was four years older than her – had been growing up, Sara and Max Knightley had been like second parents to them, having them to stay regularly, helping with fancy dress costumes, period pains and all the other things that motherless girls worry about, and even, as they got older, taking them on holiday with them to their house in Provence. George's older brother, John, was totally besotted with Bea (and had been for years, even before they went off to do voluntary work together in somewhere unpronounceable in South East Asia), with the result that George had somehow adopted the big brother role in Emma's life.

‘And besides, I've already told George you'll be there,' Emma finished.

‘Well, you'll just have to un-tell him,' Lucy said emphatically, scooping her ash-blond hair into a ponytail. ‘I'm going to be with Adam and that's that.'

‘Oh, so now he's on the scene I don't count, right?' Emma snapped, unexpected tears pricking behind her eyes.

‘It's all about you now, is it?' Lucy replied, a flush spreading across her freckled face. ‘Anyway, who was it that got Adam and me together in the first place? You!'

‘I know but . . .'

‘ “Hey Lucy, he's so right for you! Go for it.” '
That's what you said. Well, that's what I'm doing.'

Lucy took another swig of her drink.

‘But that doesn't mean you have to take some crummy job,' Emma pleaded.

‘It's not crummy. I want to work with kids, and this is a great opportunity. Anyway, being with Adam is what counts. I thought you'd be pleased for me. You said that you wanted me to be with the right guy and now I am.'

It occurred to Emma that Lucy would never have been so assertive in the old days. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I suppose I'm being selfish.'

‘Look, I'll get us another drink!' Before Emma could speak, Lucy had jumped up and was heading towards the bar, clearly anxious to take advantage of Emma's apology to cool things a bit.

Emma sighed. She felt gutted; if there was one thing to which she was not accustomed, it was having her schemes scuppered before they had even got off the ground. For the past ten years, it had always been Emma who had taken the lead and set the rules and Lucy who had been willing to fit in with whatever scheme or dream she had cooked up. They hung out together at weekends; they decided which boys were fit and which
definitely weren't; and every summer Lucy spent at least a month at Emma's house while Mrs Taylor, a high-flying art historian, hurtled round the world talking about Botticelli and Bruegel. And now here was Lucy leaning on the bar and joking with a couple of guys from the art college. She'd never have had the nerve to do that in the past, but, ever since she'd got it together with Adam back at Easter, she had been a different girl. She dressed more sassily and was positively brimming with newfound confidence.

What's more, she was making her own decisions and that was something that Emma found very inconvenient.

‘Hey, Emma, what do you say you and I go down to Mango Monkey's right now and get hammered?'

Emma's musings were interrupted by Simon Wittering, who was digging her in the ribs, splashing her ankles with lager and leering at her.

‘Get a life!' When dealing with idiots, Emma believed in cutting to the chase.

‘That's just what I intend to do.' Simon laughed. ‘Just think – a whole summer of boozing and bonk—'

‘You,' declared Emma, standing up and giving him a withering look, ‘are so sad it's unreal. But then again, the absence of that other “b” must be a real problem for you.'

‘Er – what?'

‘Brain, Simon, brain. Not having one must be such a handicap.'

‘Hell, Emma, you can be so up yourself at times,' Simon snapped, taking another swig of lager. ‘I don't know why I bother wasting my time talking to you.'

‘Me neither,' Emma replied sweetly. ‘So may I suggest you give us both a break and simply shut up?'

Simon was hardly out of earshot before Lucy was at Emma's elbow. ‘So come on, what did he say? Did he ask you out again? Did you say yes?'

‘Oh puh-leese!' Emma exclaimed, sticking two fingers into her mouth and making gagging noises. ‘Funnily enough, I prefer
not
to go out with adolescent schoolboys. If you ask me the only things testosterone seems to hand out are spots and sweaty armpits.'

Lucy burst out laughing. ‘Clearly this is your PMT week, right?'