Caught in the Act (7 page)

‘What have you been up to?' Adie said, swinging round and walking backwards. ‘We need to get the history all sorted before we get lost in the mêlée—so far we're not doing very well at all. You either ‘fess up faster than that or I'm going to have to come bunk down with you lot after all.'

Netty lit up another cigarette and blew out a blast of smoke. ‘Well, in that case, I'll hurry. I've
got four hairdresser's shops and beauty salons—all with nail parlours now.' She extended her hands to show off a set of perfectly manicured undoubtedly fake talons. ‘Two ex-husbands, a daughter called Kirsten, who hates me, and a toy boy called Paul, who thinks the sun shines out of—well, all of me, to hear the way he goes on. Kirsten has a real problem with him.'

Jan perked up. ‘Which is?'

‘That he doesn't fancy her.'

‘That'll do it,' said Adie, nodding.

‘And how old is he?' asked Carol.

‘Twenty-seven next birthday,' Netty said, almost defiantly.

‘Very nice if you can get it,' said Adie, with a grin.

‘What about you then, golden boy? You've been very quiet so far,' said Jan.

‘Only because I couldn't get a bloody word in edgeways,' he said, smiling still.

‘Well, now's your moment,' Jan fired straight back. ‘I mean, I know all about you but I'm sure your fans want to hear all the sordid details.'

He pulled a face. ‘There's not a lot to tell, re ally. I was hoping that we'd hear all about you first.'

‘What, so you're hoping for a big build-up, were you?' laughed Jan.

Adie shook his head. ‘No, I was being gentlemanly.'

‘OK,' said Jan briskly, as if her words and potted biography would clear the decks for his. ‘Well, I'm single.' She flicked her long hair back over her shoulder as if defying anyone to comment. ‘I've got a Fine Art degree and an MA in textile design and had planned to teach but changed horses after graduation and now I design fabrics, do some styling for magazines—occasionally get some interior design work—and I lecture as well. I've got a re ally nice little place in Highgate.' She paused. ‘That's about it, re ally. I travel a lot, work, love my job—well, jobs. It's a kind of patchwork of things that all tie in.'

‘It doesn't sound like very much for twenty years,' complained Netty, lighting up another cigarette. ‘Are these the U-certificate edited highlights? What about all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, broken hearts, mad passions, significant others?'

Jan waved the ideas away, a row of bangles on her wrist tinkling like sleigh bells. ‘Sometimes, occasionally kind of, but it's been a
now-and-then thing. To be honest, I travel so much and am so busy that I don't have the time. I kept thinking some day, one day—but it just hasn't happened.'

‘So far,' said Adie.

Netty pulled a face, her expression matched by Carol's.

Ignoring Adie, Carol said, ‘How can you say that you don't have the time? I don't understand. How can you not have time for
people
?'

Jan bristled. ‘I
do
have time for people,' she protested. ‘I just don't have time for the sort you wake up with in the morning. I lived with people and I went out with guys at college. And then about ten years ago I was part of a group that set up workshops in India and more recently in Africa. They're both run cooperatively and they print and export fabric. It has re ally taken off and that takes up a lot of my time and energy, and to be honest I never seem to have the time for all that, you know, bunny-slippers and kissy-face stuff. I've got two Burmese cats called Lucifer and Diablo, and yes, before you say anything, yes, they are my surrogate children and yes, I do spoil them. And that's about it re ally.'

‘Sounds a bit dull,' Netty growled. ‘I like a
man in my life. I've always enjoyed the exquisite pain that only a re ally bad relationship can bring.'

Jan grinned. ‘I've spent a lot of time in India and the Far East, sourcing silk and fabrics, and trust me, when it comes to pain, there's nothing beats amoebic dysentery.'

Netty snorted.

‘Right,' said Jan, with barely a pause for breath, ‘now then, Mr Can't-get-a-Word-in-Edgeways boy. Your shout. Off you go. Let's have it.'

They all looked at Adie, who held up his hands in surrender. ‘OK, I'm not fighting it, I'll come quietly. I went to uni straight from school. Got a pretty shitty degree and then I didn't re ally know what I wanted to do so I went travelling and did all sorts of stuff. I went to Australia, Bali; worked in bars, played guitar, grew my hair, smoked a lot of dope.' He laughed. ‘And I suppose I finally grew up. While I was in Thailand I met someone, we travelled together for a couple of years and then when we came back we decided to try and give it a go and we've been together ever since—I suppose that must be nearly fifteen years or so now.'

‘Someone?' asked Jan pointedly.

Adie nodded. ‘Yup. We bought a re ally nice place in Tunbridge Wells. I own a shop—I sell clothes—and…'

Carol was aware that they were all hanging on his every word now.

‘And you're happy?' said Netty suspiciously.

He grinned. ‘Blissfully, and before you make any kind of sarky remark about it, no one is more surprised than me.'

Jan made a funny little noise in the back of her throat that might have been disbelief but could equally well have been disgust.

‘re ally?' said Carol.

He nodded. ‘Yes, re ally. My partner is a GP and I can feel all sorts of middle-aged angst creeping up on me. I've started writing letters to the broadsheets complaining about young people, falling moral standards and litter in the street.'

‘Oh my God, you've grown up to be Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells,' said Carol with a giggle.

He grinned. ‘Not exactly. Actually, I've grown up to be Gay of Tunbridge Wells. My partner, Mike, said that if I get any more conservative he's going to buy me driving gloves and an Argyll sweater for Christmas.'

Carol looked at him. There was a brief moment when the waves parted, and then the sea closed back over the gap with no great sense of revelation, nor anything unexpected being revealed, just an acceptance of what had—at some level—always been obvious.

‘How was it at the pub?' Diana was in the dining room, hunched over a box of what looked like Christmas decorations, her whereabouts signposted from the main hall by a number of cards and home-made banners, that read: ‘BELVEDERE SCHOOL REUNION—THIS WAY' in a confident bold italic hand that suggested they had been written by someone with a lot of experience at impromptu crowd direction.

‘Great, you should have come. We ate, we drank, we were merry, but Carol here had a fit of conscience and decided it was too cruel to leave you with all the work, and actually she is most probably right. Here, give me that bunting,' said Adie. Grabbing one end, he clambered up onto a stepladder. ‘Have you got any drawing pins?'

‘Well, of course I have,' Diana said, sounding terribly affronted.

Carol laughed; as if Diana would be the kind of event planner who would arrive without every eventuality covered. It felt so good to be back with them all; why had they left it so long before meeting up? So many years…too many years.

‘Why didn't you ask us to help you with all this? We wouldn't have minded,' said Netty, pulling out a huge bag of balloons and a thing that looked like a cardboard bicycle pump from one of the boxes. ‘Do these things actually work?' she said to no one in particular, as she tipped the balloons out in a heap onto the table and then pumped the tube thing furiously into mid-air.

‘No, but they make a great noise if you put your finger over the end,' said Adie from the top of the stepladder. ‘Like a big wet fart.'

‘Oh well, that's re ally helpful,' growled Netty.

‘Here,' said Jan, ‘let me,' and started to stretch the balloons vigorously with all the zeal of a woman on a mission.

Diana seemed a bit stunned by their manic activity. ‘Are you sure you don't mind?'

‘Come off it, you can't do it all on your own,' Carol snorted. ‘And besides, you asked me to pitch in, I seem to remember.'

But before she could say anything else, Adie said, ‘Yeah, Di, lighten up. We're all more than happy to muck in, aren't we, folks?'

Everyone looked at him and pulled faces and groaned jokingly. Adie scowled, but unperturbed, unrolled a great string of flags that spelled out welcome in a dozen different languages.

Carol took hold of the cord of the flags and pulled it across the room, wondering how likely it was that she could convince them that any enquiry about who else had arrived since they had been down the pub was purely casual. Just as she was about to speak Jan threw down the balloon she had been torturing and snapped, ‘You're always so fucking flippant, aren't you, Adie? Mr Quickwit. So sure of yourself.'

Everyone looked at her; he hadn't said anything for the best part of two minutes.

Adie was stunned. ‘What on earth is the matter with you?' he said gently.

Jan flipped a stray hand across her face as if swatting away a fly, her eyes bright with tears. ‘Nothing,' she growled crossly. ‘Nothing at bloody all. I'm just pissed off with you always assuming you're master of ceremonies, Mr I'm so bloody funny.'

Carol stared at her.

‘I don't know what you mean,' Adie began, looking bemused.

Jan sighed. ‘Why am I not surprised?'

‘Hello, anyone home?' called a loud male voice from out in the hallway, diverting everyone's attention away from Jan. Seconds later a vaguely familiar face appeared round the door and then there was another; two more of the backstage crew appeared in the doorway as Diana headed off to greet the first two, and then there was another and another.

Callista Haze and George Bearman were amongst the flurry of newcomers, and all at once it seemed as if there was a roomful of people, the round of hellos and whoops taking the attention away from Jan, who picked up another balloon.

‘You sure you're all right?' Carol said in an undertone. ‘I mean, we all know how frustrating balloon-blowing can be.'

‘Yes, I'm fine.' Jan sniffed back the tears. ‘Don't mind me.'

‘But I do,' said Carol. ‘What's the matter?'

Jan shook her head and pulled a tissue out of her sleeve. ‘Nothing. I think it's seeing all you lot again. Where did the years go? You
keep thinking that there is plenty of time and then all of a sudden there isn't.'

Carol nodded and patted Jan on the arm. ‘I know what you mean,' she said softly. Raf and the boys felt a million miles away.

Gareth Howard picked up his mobile and, slotting it into the cradle on the dashboard, switched it back on to check his voice mail. There was Diana, ringing to make sure that he was still coming, three angry outbursts and furious pain-filled silences from Leonora and a call from Fiona. He pressed the recall button as Fiona's message ended.

‘Hi, Fiona. How's it going? Where are you?'

She giggled. ‘Oh, hi. It is so nice to hear from you. Stuck in a traffic jam on the M25. How about you?'

‘On the way. I'm re ally looking forward to catching up at long last,' he said. ‘Make up for lost time.'

‘re ally?' purred Fiona's voice on the end of the phone.

He laughed. Oh yes, Gareth planned to make up for lost time, all right.

The signal crackled and broke up. Gareth switched the phone off, threw it onto the
passenger seat and put his foot down. With a bit of luck he'd make it to Burbeck House in time for supper.

In her suburban house a long way from Burbeck House, Leonora settled the baby down in her cot and after checking that Patrick was still listening to his story tape in the nursery, headed across the landing into the main bedroom.

It had been such a quiet day since Gareth left. The children were subdued and slightly fretful, as if they knew something was wrong and were anxiously waiting too. Waiting. She had been waiting all day. No phone calls, no texts, nothing. It felt as if Gareth had stepped out of the door and vanished off the planet. Rapture.

In the dining room at Burbeck House, everyone was coming to the end of supper. Carol handed
the coffee-pot down the table to Adie, who grinned his thanks. ‘Penny for them?' he said.

‘I'd save your money if I were you. I'd have thought it was pretty bloody obvious what she was thinking about—or rather who,' said Netty, dropping sugar lumps into her cup. ‘She's been miles away all through supper.'

‘Looking at the door.' Jan.

‘And the clock.' Diana.

The four of them all turned to look at Carol and then at each other, and then Adie burst into the song ‘It Must Be Love'. Two bars in and all of them were singing.

Carol reddened furiously. It was getting re ally tough to sustain the illusion of being sociable when so much of her was busy waiting for Gareth Howard to show up. Damn him, it was totally crazy, but however hard Carol tried to deny it the feeling was getting worse and worse, and she was driving herself crazy, let alone the others.

‘Relax,' hissed Diana, dropping out of the impromptu barbershop quartet. ‘He did say that he would be here as soon as he could.'

Carol stared at her; she had had no idea that it was that obvious.

Diana grinned. ‘You scrub up well and you're
all nicely puffed up too. I'm sure he'll be impressed. We are.'

Carol resisted the temptation to pinch her.

Gareth would probably barely remember her; he was probably happily married. Actually, he probably was. The thought wedged firm. God, what if he was with someone else, someone he adored? What if he re ally didn't remember her? Carol shook her head to try and clear it.

‘Do you want that?' said Netty, eyeing up the after-dinner mint on her plate.

‘Paws off.'

‘Oh, come on,' she whined. ‘You won't miss it. You're in love, and we all know love makes you blind.'

‘Blind maybe, but it doesn't effect my eating habits.'

‘I always lose weight when I'm in love and then comfort-eat when they bugger off. Come on, let me have it, and then when it all ends in tears I'll send you a box of Kit-Kats.'

Whining aside, Netty was on top form, Adie too—the jokes, the funnies, the sharp digs and long-forgotten memories had been served and volleyed and smashed around the table all evening. Carol had laughed so much her
stomach hurt and her face ached. She'd heard about who had stayed in touch with who, courses and colleges, dogs and cats and kids and houses, lovers, love affairs and jobs that had gone horribly wrong.

From across the room came a great roaring whoop of laughter. Diana's decorations looked lost in the dining room, but even vaulted acres of institutional grey couldn't dampen the atmosphere. The long tables were full of people enjoying themselves, the room full to the rafters with the sound of voices and laughter—halfremembered, half-familiar faces all catching up.

She looked up at the clock again; she re ally ought to have rung Raf and the boys to tell them she had arrived safe and sound, so why hadn't she?

When Carol looked back not only had the mint gone but so had her glass, her coffee, the remains of her dessert and all the cutlery. She looked at the gang. ‘It's not big and it's not clever,' she said with grudging admiration.

‘Oh, for goodness' sake, lighten up. Diana said he'd be here,' said Jan. ‘Let's talk about something more serious, like the severe lack of alcohol.'

‘We could go down to the off-licence and
buy a few more bottles of wine, Di, unless you're up for the water trick—or is that just for weddings and the faithful few?' Netty mimed a magician's pass over the carafe of water on the table. Diana rolled her eyes and looked heavenwards while Netty continued, ‘It never occurred to me that the place would be dry. The backstage crew have all got the shakes from withdrawal symptoms.'

Grateful to be rescued, Carol nodded. ‘Just tell people if they want to have wine to go and buy some.'

Diana nodded and then very earnestly scribbled a note down on the pad beside her plate. Carol smiled. It was Netty's turn to roll her eyes and look heavenwards.

The instructions on the invitation were that although Burbeck House was relaxed about appearance, guests and delegates would be expected to dress smartly for dinner. Netty had taken that as a green light to drag out a sparkly cerise and silver cocktail frock from somewhere dark and dangerous that must lead straight back to the eighties, adding a pair of impossibly strappy killer-heeled sandals and a whole heap of diamanté. Everyone else had gone for smart casual or close to it—not that Netty
appeared to mind in the least. She was the kind of person who had enough front to carry off wearing a wetsuit and tiara.

Carol had thought very carefully about the clothes she'd brought with her; she might be nearly forty but she didn't want people to think that she had let herself go. She was wearing a long cotton jersey dress in navy, bias cut, with thin straps and a scooped neck that emphasised her narrow waist, toned body and showed off nicely tanned shoulders. She had added just enough makeup to emphasise those great big blue-green eyes and, with a hint of lipstick, she looked good. Very good.

Earlier, drawing and smudging kohl round her eyes, hunched over the child-sized sink in the communal bathroom next to the girls' dormitory, Carol had had to spend a while persuading herself that all this effort wasn't for Gareth—at least it wasn't
just
for Gareth. No, not just for him. She wanted to look good for herself.

Alongside her, Netty had grinned from behind her makeup box, face contorting so that she could outline her lips with a bright pink pencil.

‘Just like the good old days, eh? Us lot getting
all dolled up in the girls' loos for a night on the town. Shame we haven't got any panstick, re ally. You remember the stage makeup Miss Haze used to make us wear for the performances? It was like slapping on magnolia emulsion mixed with margarine.'

‘I'm sure if you ask, Diana has probably got some somewhere.'

Netty laughed. Her makeup kit had lots of lift-out layered trays that were now spread across the sink and adjoining bench; they looked like a cross between a mechanic's tool box and an artist's palette.

Carol, looking down at her own small makeup bag, said, ‘I see that you've come prepared.'

Netty—once she had blotted—sniffed. ‘Oh, come on, facing forty I need all the help I can get. Polyfilla, glass-fibre, sandpaper…' She drew a hand over the trays like a market trader displaying her wares. ‘Anything you fancy, you just dive right in. I get a lot as samples from work. How about a teensy weensy bit of glitter? You're looking a bit peaky.'

‘Uh, no, I'm fine, thanks.' Carol turned her attention back to the mirror and the kohl.

‘Great to see everyone again, huh?' There
were the sounds of giggling coming from the dormitory, although it was hard to work out exactly who it was. Painstakingly Netty filled in her lips with a tiny brush. ‘It is going to be all right, you know,' she said, eyes still firmly fixed on her reflection.

Carol looked up in surprise. ‘What is?'

Netty's concentration didn't waiver. ‘This whole weekend, the play—you meeting Gareth again.'

Carol stiffened and then attempted to sound casual. ‘It's no big thing,' she lied.

‘Yeah, right. You're not fooling anybody, you know. Relax, it'll be OK. Forty-eight hours on a magical mystery tour down memory lane and then nothing. Zilch, zippola. We meet up, we all cry buckets and on Sunday afternoon we'll all go home back to our own lives. And before you say I'm being cynical I'm not—not at all. I just know it's true. I went to a tech reunion last year with the crew I'd learned hairdressing with. Panda-eyes, mascara and big snotty hugs. It's all very lovely but, trust me, it won't make a blind bit of difference to your real life.'

Carol felt her colour draining. ‘What won't?'

‘Old passions, old pleasure—old boyfriends. People change. They move on. They grow up.
Even if you shag Gareth Howard blind all weekend, chances are that Monday morning, half-past seven, when you look in the bathroom mirror, nothing will have changed. Trust me, I'm a hairdresser.'

Carol felt a lump catch in her throat. ‘I—' she began.

‘You what?' said Netty, gaze swivelling to fix Carol's eyes reflected in the mirror. ‘You are still carrying a torch for him, aren't you?'

Carol nodded, not trusting herself to speak. How very silly it sounded spoken aloud.

‘Trust me, you're way better sticking with the fantasy.' Netty glanced over one shoulder in case there was anyone within earshot. ‘I've never told anyone this, not even Jan, but I had a crush for years on one of the boys in our year. Even after we left I used to fantasise about him and me. Sometimes it was wild sex and lots of snogging, but mostly it was all that happy-ever-after stuff. Two kids, him going off to work with me in a pinny. He worked in the bank in Belvedere for a while after we all left school. I'd volunteer to go and bank the takings from my mum's salon. Twice a week, come rain, come shine, I'd toddle off down to Barclays in full makeup and an outfit to die for, and then
after about a year he moved away. I was so gutted, I can't tell you. And you know what? He's going to be here this weekend.' She smacked her lips and admired the effects.

‘re ally?' said Carol incredulously. It hadn't occurred to her that anyone else was dreaming about might-have-beens. ‘Why on earth didn't you say something? Are you excited about seeing him again? How come you never told anybody? Who is it?'

Netty wound up a lipstick and dibbled the brush over the end to touch up a bald patch. ‘Peter Fleming.'

‘No, re ally?
re ally?
Not Peter Fleming?' Carol couldn't quite keep the incredulity out of her voice, despite trying re ally hard. Peter Fleming was real dyed-in-the-wool ginger, with hair the colour of bright copper and skin the colour of skimmed milk, and enough freckles to keep a dot-to-dot fanatic happy for hours. She had never dared let her mind wander to where exactly the freckles might stop—did freckles fade just below the collar or were they an all-over thing? Netty had them too but in a cute all-over-the-nose way. Carol tried to drag her mind from what might happen if two freckly people had kids. Was there an optimum
moment when they just had one big all-over freckle?

‘Peter Fleming?' she repeated.

He was nice enough but he had never struck Carol as sex on a stick, and certainly not the kind of man or boy that someone like Netty would be interested in.

Netty nodded. ‘I know, I know,' she said, as if she could read Carol's mind—except perhaps for the freckle thing. ‘Strange but true. Can you imagine what Adie would have said if he'd known? He would never have let me live it down. It doesn't bear thinking about. Between you, you would have made mincemeat of me, and despite what you think I'm not as tough as I look. So I just admired and lusted after him from a distance.'

‘
You lusted after Peter Fleming?
' said Carol.

Netty pulled a don't-push-your-luck face.

‘OK, OK—so are you excited about seeing him again?' Carol asked struggling to gain some ground.

Netty shook her head. ‘Nope, not so much as a flutter. You see, unlike you, I've already tried living the dream.' She said the last few words in a hideously camp American accent and waved her hand dramatically across the
mirror, tracing the arc of a cartoon shooting star.

‘re ally?' said Carol, aware that her mouth was open, aware that with one eye made up and the other one bare she looked daft, but who cared. ‘You tried living the dream
with Peter Fleming
?'

‘Don't say it like that,' growled Netty. ‘
Yes
, with Peter Fleming. I did see him again, we did meet up. It was maybe ten years ago, in a supermarket of all places. By coincidence we were both home for a visit, so we had a coffee and—well, we flirted and laughed and reminisced about the good old days and then I'm buggered if he didn't ask me out. He said he had always had this thing about me and that he thought our meeting up again was fate.' Netty paused.

Carol waved her on. ‘For God's sake, don't stop there—what happened?'

Netty pulled out an eye pencil. ‘Fate has got a very nasty sense of humour. It was a total and utter disaster. We had nothing in common, nothing at all, zilch, zippo, nada. They had all gone, my fantasies, my dreams—his too—just ashes, dust, a mirage.'

‘Oh, Netty,' murmured Carol as she heard
the catch in Netty's voice. ‘I'm so sorry. I'd no idea.'

Netty snorted. ‘Don't look like that. It was fine. re ally. Take my advice. Monday morning, take a look in the bathroom mirror, and see if anything has changed.'

‘Do you think I should say a few words now?'

Carol swung round in surprise, snapped back to the present by Diana's voice. ‘What?'

Diana, sitting beside her, was clutching a notepad. ‘I re ally ought to have said something before supper started, but I would have liked everyone to have been here.' She glanced round the room, heaving with the rest of the cast and crew. Miss Haze had taken her place on the top table, alongside Mr Bearman. Only Macbeth and Lady Macduff were now conspicuous by their absence.

‘I think you should go for it,' said Carol, nodding. ‘God alone knows what time—' she tripped clumsily over Gareth's name—‘the others will be getting here.'