Beggar Bride (13 page)

‘What about Honesty?’ she made herself call across the controls.

‘What?’

Ange shouted louder. ‘Honesty. She is rather possessive.’

‘I’ll handle Honesty,’ Fabian shouted back. ‘Everyone else thinks you are wonderful.’

Why? wondered Ange, amazed, yet again, at the effect beauty can have, particularly on men. And to think she’d gone through a phase in childhood of praying to God every night to make her, not quite ugly, but plain and dumpy, round and ordinary so that she could become a nun.

‘I’m sorry. I rushed it. That’s the way I work. I’m an ideas man. You must be shocked to receive a proposal out of the blue from someone you hardly know.’

‘No,’ called Ange. ‘It’s not that. It’s just that I lead such an independent life and I’ve never considered sharing it with anyone.’

‘I know that,’ Fabian replied. ‘For me that’s part of the attraction.’

Was that all she was? An attraction? Difficult to believe that a hard-nosed financier with such enormous experience of worldly affairs could jump into such an enormous commitment on the strength of the kind of impulse that sends people into shops to overspend.

If this is how Fabian Ormerod approached his previous marriages then no wonder they failed.

Maybe this was not the most suitable place to discuss such weighty matters, but Fabian, having got her entrapped in straps beside him, seemed determined to press his suit. ‘You must have turned so many disappointed people down in your life.’

Ange bit her lip. So that was it. He considered her a prize, sought by many, like a famous picture, a giant marrow, or a vintage car, something he could display to his friends in a low-cut dress, a dolly bird on his arm. A conquest which would certainly add gloss to his reputation. Fair enough. Lesser people aim for a line in the
Guinness Book of Records
or fifteen minutes of fame making fools of themselves in some awful gameshow. He’d acquired just about everything else one could ever hope for… except a suitable wife.

‘Let’s not be foolish enough to talk about love,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Ange, thinking of Billy and feeling, for the first time, some small sorrow for the lonely man beside her. ‘Of course not.’ She smiled as she quoted the Prince of Wales. ‘Whatever love might mean.’

‘Exactly,’ said Fabian. ‘My sentiments entirely.’

It was such a relief to get home and out of those uncomfortable clothes.

Tina, next door, had brought her washing round to stand in front of their fire because she couldn’t afford the gas for her own. The flat stank of Persil.

‘But how d’you feel about him? That’s what I want to know. And I don’t think you are being honest with me.’

‘OK, Billy, I’m going to be honest. I can take him or leave him. He is just a man, but not like you, nothing like you. He is direct and determined, even in the way he walks along, with his head stuck up in the air. Superior to everyone else. His whole family is just the same. And he’s no idea of what life is like at the dark end of the street, we are definitely lesser mortals. He is never wrong, pompous, vain, pleased with himself, never listens to what anyone says, monopolises conversations. Everyone stops and listens when he talks. Yuk.’

‘You don’t like him.’

‘No, not very much.’

‘And yet he must be in love with you.’

‘I don’t think people like that really know what that means. They’re too wrapped up in themselves really to care for anyone else. Not in the way we care for each other.’

‘So you said yes?’

‘Of course I said yes.’

‘Let’s see your ring then?’

‘We’re going together to choose it next week. There used to be family rings, heirlooms I suppose, but they’ve been given out already, to Ffiona and another to Helena. Ffiona refused to give hers back and Helena’s is put by for the first twin who gets married.’

Billy was as good as his word and had stayed up to wait for Ange’s return. She could smell lager on his breath and Jacob had been sick on his shoulder. He’d had a dreadful day, he said, worrying about her in that helicopter, worrying about what he’d do if she crashed. He’d wheeled Jacob to the park as it was a fine day, and sat there, lonely, for an hour feeding the pigeons, loath to return to the confines of the flat because there was nothing on telly. He had no money to take a bus ride to anywhere more interesting because Ange had spent it all.

She was careful not to say too much about Fabian Ormerod’s home, or his lifestyle. No need to goad Billy into one of his terrible furies. Nor did she mention the twins’ ludicrous remarks. Billy would balk at that sort of trouble. He did ask her, however, if she managed to whip a few gold teaspoons.

‘That sort of behaviour would be fatal!’ she laughed, but tiredly. ‘Surely you can see that!’

‘It’s just that it would make such a difference,’ said Billy.

‘Well I know that,’
said Ange.

‘And you’re sure that once this is signed and sealed you can worm some worthwhile dosh out of this bastard?’

‘Once that ring is on my finger.’

‘In two weeks?’

‘Yep. That’s what he said. And I’m just sitting back and going along with all the arrangements.’

‘What about Aunty Val?’

‘She never leaves her house,’ grinned Ange. ‘Not even for a wedding, and certainly not at some dismal register office.’

And that was Friday night.

This is Monday evening.

Panic stations.

Would you credit it?

It never rains but it pours etc.

The proposal is no longer enough.

If only she had someone to talk to.

Tina? Could Tina be relied upon to keep her mouth shut?

No. Tina’s got problems enough of her own.

Now Ange is going to have to use all her wiles and charms to tempt Fabian to bed before the wedding day. All the portents are telling… she is one week late for a start, her breasts feel sore, she’s been sick two mornings, and not just the result of a helicopter ride. She and Billy should have been more careful, especially at such a delicate stage in the proceedings, but nevertheless Ange can’t stifle that little stab of joy.

Not that she believes for a minute that she’ll still be with Fabian after eight months have gone by. But the legal process could still be in progress, and the last thing she wants is for anyone to suggest she was pregnant when she married him.

No, this child, if child it be, must be seen to be his.

She ought to view this as a useful bonus, after all, Fabian will have to pay for its keep and what about the entailment requiring a male to inherit Hurleston?

Muddy waters indeed. How will that affect matters now?

And Billy will have to know. Billy will have to know first so that he sees that he is the father.

‘There’s a problem.’ Ange chooses her time with care. Billy is settling down with a six-pack about to watch live football. He eases off his shoes with a groan. There’s a new packet of fags on the coffee table. Jacob is happily kicking on the rug. Billy has wrapped a West Ham scarf round his tummy. For Billy, this is a little bit of heaven.

‘Eh?’

‘I said there is a problem. Only a small one.’

‘What the hell are you on about?’

‘Me and Fabian.’

‘Huh. I should have known. What else do we talk about just lately?’

‘I think, I’m not sure, but I think I am pregnant.’

‘Mine?’ is his first alarmed reaction.

‘Of course it’s yours. Who else’s?’

‘It could be his. I’ve only your word…’

‘Oh Billy, shut up. You know sodding well it’s yours. If I’d been with Fabian I’d have told you, after all, it’s going to happen one day. I don’t want him to counter-claim for non-consummation or something. No big deal. Don’t be like this.’ Ange is close to tears. She never expected this cold reaction. ‘I’m talking about our child.’

‘Well that’s fucked it.’

He invents trouble so he can be destroyed by it, again and again. How typical that he should only look on the negative side.

‘Of course it hasn’t.’ And the damn football has just started, just when she needs Billy’s full attention.

‘How come?’

‘Well, we’ll just have to pretend it’s his.’

‘Fabian’s? For God’s sake, Ange! Get real.’

This is not the time to explain about Fabian’s entailed estates. Oh, she’s had it up to here with this. She wants to get herself over there and tip the ashtray over his head but she grits her teeth instead. This business might be painful for Billy, she understands that, of course, but it’s not easy for her, either. Right from the start, when she first put the idea forward, Billy has behaved like a selfish prick.

She’d love to see what his mother is like.

Time and time again Ange has suggested they go and visit his mother and father at their house in Weston-super-Mare. ‘Now we’ve got Jacob. Now we’re married. They’d be thrilled to see you, Billy, I’m certain they would.’

‘Don’t talk about things you know nothing about,’ is his only response.

‘But Jacob has the right to know about his roots.’

‘He’d be better off not knowing.’

‘But why, Billy? What the hell’s the matter with them? They can’t be monsters.’

‘Of course they’re not monsters. They are just very uptight, boring people. And they wouldn’t like you. They’d think there was something wrong with you because you look like you do.’

‘Why wouldn’t they like me? I don’t know how you can talk this way about the people who brought you up. You might see them differently now. Now you’re a father with responsibilities of your own. Your mother must be tearing her hair out with worry. Listen, why don’t you just give them a call and tell them you are alive. There’s even a confidential number you can ring, and they’ll let them know for you, see.’

‘Leave it out, Ange.’

But she’d looked at Jacob wistfully, knowing how great it would be for him to have a granny and grandad, someone to send presents on his birthday, and maybe they could go down for a seaside holiday next year when he’s toddling. They could buy sandcastle flags, he could stick them in the sand. You see other families…

Now if this new baby truly belonged to Fabian Ormerod, think what a different start in life it would have. Not just a family, but a family tree going back to the Norman Conquest. Not just a home, but several homes, one in London, one in Devon, a small island off St Lucia—Fabian showed her the photographs, a villa covered with flowers and little thatched huts on the beach. Not just a mother and father but grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all rich and influential. People of education and culture.

And if she divorces Fabian immediately after as planned, could she give up her child in order that it receive such benefits—as Ffiona possibly gave up Honesty in her own best interests? Or would she, loving it too much, deprive it of all these privileges and bring it back home to Billy?

If only little Jacob…

She stops her thoughts from taking her further.

Billy has come to join her on the hard Ercol sofa. He puts his strong arms around her. ‘I’m sorry, Ange. I’m sorry. Please give me a kiss and forgive me. I’m just pissed off with it all at the moment… but I’m pleased about the baby. Really I am.’

‘You’ll look after me, Billy, won’t you?’

He takes her hand and strokes it. ‘Don’t I always look after you, Ange? Wasn’t I with you all the time while Jacob was being born? Didn’t I find us a temporary home, and now we’ve got the flat, and as soon as you get rid of Fabian we can lead a different sort of life. I’ll be able to get a job, run a car, we can behave like a proper family at last and do things like go to the pictures.’

Go to the pictures?

‘Have holidays in Benidorm.’

Benidorm?

‘Buy a caravan, perhaps…’

A caravan? Ange smiles fondly, she loves him so very, very much, she thinks she would die without him. Theirs is an instant understanding. He is her companion, lover and friend, and they don’t have any other friends, only the tossers and dossers they once went round with, and life was too much of a struggle to form any lasting relationships. Ange never made friends in her succession of foster homes, and Billy’s been on the run since he left home.

Billy grins as he gives her a nudge. ‘So don’t worry, Ange. I love you and I’ll always look after you.’

‘W
ELL I’M NOT GOING
for a start.’

So incensed is Honesty by the news of her father’s impending nuptials that she hurries to visit her mother in St John’s Wood where she lives in straitened circumstances caused by her own darn cussedness.

‘Well one thing’s for sure, I won’t be asked,’ says Ffiona. ‘I thought your father had been put off women for life, after his last disaster.’

‘Cunning little tart,’ sobs Honesty. ‘And the beastly thing about it, Mummy, the really horrid thing is that Laura Fallowfield and I watched her do it! We could actually stand there and watch her hypnotise Daddy!’

He always was a weak man where the ladies were concerned, though never brave enough to act upon it. And a pity, thinks Ffiona, unkindly, that poor, virginal Honesty didn’t pick up a hint or two of the woman’s obvious talent.

‘Divorced, beheaded, died…’ says Ffiona, laughing, still in her old silk pyjamas at eleven o’clock in the morning and going to draw back the drawing-room curtains.

‘Divorced, beheaded, survived,’ enjoins Honesty, ‘and let me tell you, Angela Harper looks like a real survivor to me. She knew what she was doing. She’s a hard little nut.’

‘Darling, you sound so terribly bitter.’

But isn’t Ffiona bitter?

Ffiona, dark roots weeping into the platinum blonde, moves around the room now, tottering on tatty high-heeled slippers, emptying last night’s ashtrays, removing the bottles, straightening the cushions and finally going to fetch a can of alpine fresh air from the lav. She only bothers because of the disgusted look on her daughter’s haughty face. ‘Whoever Fabian decides to bed, nothing can affect you now. You’ll be off, leading your own life, anyway, soon, with your own money behind you. It’s time you moved out and got a flat, perhaps this would be an appropriate moment.’

How can her mother live like this? Especially after the life she was once used to. From a neat, pretty, sophisticated woman Ffiona has gradually disintegrated into a run-down, middle-aged slag. She is one of a multitude of divorced women who have turned this street into a landmark, somewhere for married women to point at and dread, as once they dreaded the bogeyman. For this, Alexandra Avenue, is where they congregate in middle-of-the-market Victorian houses in some distress and with parts missing like their owners. The leavings that Ffiona now clears from her drawing-room floor were caused by a get-together last night. No men in sight. A gathering, a flange, a whoop of disgruntled women who operate a support system which requires much cheap wine, Indian take-aways, hour after hour of gossip and some babysitting services for those who have been abandoned at the most unfortunate time.