Charlie Glass's Slippers (32 page)

“No . . . I was just trying to say . . . well, hey. That’s all.”

“Right. Well, hey to you, too.”

And he rolls his window up again, busying himself with some controls on the dashboard, the way he’s been busying himself with his engine all morning.

“Ferdy!” I flap my hand in a window-rolling gesture again, and with an expression of extreme weariness, he rolls his own window back down. “Is there some kind of a problem?”

“Problem?”

“Between you and me.”

“There’s no problem.”

“Good.” I don’t know what to do, now that he’s flat-out denied there’s an issue, with my irritation. I take a deep breath. “It’s just that you seem annoyed about something.”

“I’m not annoyed, Charlie.”

“Okay. Well, that’s—”

“I’m . . . unimpressed.”

I gaze at him. “Unimpressed?”

“That’s right.”

“But why?”

Oh. It’s the car, isn’t it? It’s the fact that I accepted the car from Jay, when—as Ferdy clearly thinks—I should have turned it down.

“Look,” I say, with a smile, “I know it’s a bit full-on to give someone a car when you’ve only been dating her a couple of weeks. But I could hardly—”

“It’s not the car, Charlie. I’ve got no problem with Jay giving you a car.” Ferdy fiddles with his dashboard again for a moment, not looking at me. “Though, I mean, if he wanted to make it clear just how little anyone else can compete with him around here, he might as well have just handed around his latest bank statement. I think we’d all have gotten the message loud and clear that way, too.”

“He wasn’t . . . I don’t think he was trying to show everyone that they can’t compete with him.”

“Okay. Maybe not everyone. Maybe just me.”

He says this in such a low mutter that I can’t be completely sure he’s actually said it.

And before I can ask him—before I can also demand of him what, if it’s not the car, he’s so unimpressed about—Jay calls over to me from where he’s about to get into his own Jaguar.

“Hey, Charlie! Why don’t you have a bit of a practice lap? Then you can get safely out of the way when we all come thundering around.”

“Sure!” I call back. Because when the alternative is sitting here having Ferdy disapprove of me through his open window, I’m perfectly happy to shoot off in my super-duper sports car, no matter how fast it goes.

I wind up my own window, studiously ignoring Ferdy myself now, then pull on my seat belt, turn the key in the ignition, and start up the engine. It gives a low hum, quite unlike the tinny choking sound my old Fiat used to make. I slide the gearstick into first gear and press my foot, gently, on the accelerator.

Of course, the thing about five-inch wedge espadrilles is that they’re even less appropriate as a driving shoe than they are for standing around in the rain. Factor in the fact that they’ve gone hopelessly soggy and you may as well have sellotaped a couple of bars of wet soap to each foot.

My right foot, precariously perched five inches above the accelerator, slips sideways out of its espadrille and lands on the brake. Startled as the car jolts to a juddering halt, I instinctively try to get my foot back onto the accelerator. I succeed. Only this time, flustered by all the slippery-slidey action, I don’t put it down quite so gently. The car lurches forward, and even though my right foot scrambles for the brake again, it doesn’t quite make it until a split second after the car has lurched smack into Honey.

I shriek. Oh, no, hang on—that’s Honey shrieking. Her mouth is a perfect O as she gazes at me through the wind
screen. I’m fairly sure my mouth is a perfect O as I gaze back at her. I just have time to think
oh, thank God, she’s still standing
when the same thought seems to occur to her. With a second, even louder shriek, she falls to the ground, suddenly invisible behind my hood.

“Oh, my God . . .”

Nausea rising in my gullet, I scramble out of the car. Next to me, Ferdy is doing the same, but quickly enough to get to Honey first. When I get around to the front of my car, I see that she’s clutching her head, even though I’m quite sure that’s not where I hit her.

“She tried to kill me!” she gasps.

“It was an accident . . .”

“
There are no accidents!
She tried to kill me, Ferdy! Did you see? Did you see?”

“Honey, calm down.” Ferdy, compared to the two of us, is unruffled. “Tell me what hurts.”

“
Everything!
” Her face has crumpled and huge, accusatory tears are already pouring down her doll-like cheeks.

“Can you walk?” I’m stricken with visions of operating theaters and wheelchairs. Of me, pledging myself to another invalid for the rest of my life, trying to atone for my terrible driving error by pushing an increasingly aged and bad-tempered Honey around Sainsbury’s and giving her bed baths. “Please tell me you can walk.”

“Of course she can walk,” Ferdy says. “You barely bumped her.”

“
Barely bumped?
I went down like a skittle.” The full realization of this trauma seems to hit Honey and she starts to sob louder than ever. “She’s lucky my brains aren’t splattered all over the front of her car!”

“Honey, come on.” Ferdy is looking embarrassed now, rather than merely concerned. “Charlie’s mum was killed by a car, you know.”

“
That’s
what you’re concerned about? Charlie’s post-traumatic stress? Rather than the fact that she tried to kill me?”

“I really, really wasn’t trying to kill you . . .”

“Everything okay here?” It’s Jay, coming over to help. “Ouch,” he says cheerily to Honey, reaching down, grasping a hand, and pulling her to her feet. “That’ll be a nasty bruise on your backside tomorrow morning.”

Honey looks so distressed at this cavalier attitude to her health and welfare (not to mention to her backside) that she doesn’t seem to realize, for a moment or two, that she’s standing unaided, with no sign of anything broken, fractured, or dislocated. When she does notice this, she lets out a little gasp and swoons, rather prettily, into Ferdy’s arms.

“Maybe I’d better take her back to the house,” Ferdy says, after a moment of rather embarrassed silence. “Let her have a bit of a lie-down.”

“Or maybe you should take her to a doctor.” I’m still racked with guilt, and cursing the moment I ever put on these blasted wedges. “Just in case . . .”

“Honestly, you barely touched her.” Ferdy doesn’t meet my eye. He’s carrying Honey around to the passenger side of his car, where Jay is waiting to open the door for her. “She’ll be fine.”

“Ask Hannah to bring her up a cup of hot sweet tea or something,” Jay suggests. “And how about you?” he adds, shutting the door behind Honey and then coming around the car towards me. “You okay, babe? That must have been a bit of a shock.”

“Yes . . . but honestly, Jay, I wasn’t trying to kill her! My foot slipped . . .”

“Yeah, I should have told you it’s a bad idea to drive in heels . . . but then, I can’t get enough of you in heels.” He grins and gives me a kiss. “Look, why don’t you have a bit of a sit-down and another bacon sandwich,” he suggests, leading me
away from the ill-fated MG and back towards the clubhouse, “and watch me and Pal have a go around the track. Take your mind off it.”

“Yes, okay. Another bacon sandwich . . .”

“Exactly.” Jay plants a kiss on my lips. “Sit this one out. And hey, I’ll hop in the MG with you later, if you like. Get you straight back on the horse. Okay?”

I agree that this is okay (demonstrating that I’m lusty and zesty, etc., etc., even though I’d happily never get behind the wheel of any car again after what’s just happened) and plaster a cheery grin on my face as I wave Jay off towards his Jag.

Well, it was nice of Ferdy to be so openly forgiving of me. But if he was unimpressed by me before I rolled my car into his girlfriend, Christ only knows what he’s really thinking of me now.

• • •

When we finally head back to the house, in time for afternoon tea at three thirty, I head straight up to Lucy’s bedroom (making sure Pal is safely downstairs). But she’s not there.

This is hopefully a sign that the hangover has finally worn off and that she’s downstairs waiting for tea. I pop along to my room for a hasty freshen-up and then head back down the stairs for tea, and to find Lucy, wherever she may be.

At the bottom of the stairs, I freeze, in abject horror.

Through the picturesque leaded windows of the great hall, I can see out onto the driveway. Jay is still out there, giving instructions to Groundsman Pete, and Ferdy is leaning against his Jaguar and chatting, rather uncomfortably, to Pal. And all of them are turning, suddenly, to look at the mud-spattered Land Rover that is just pulling up beside them. A Land Rover with an extremely surprising figure behind its wheel.

Diana.

“Oh, that’s Mrs. Forbes-Wilkinson, from the Old Vicarage in the next village, isn’t it?” Hannah has appeared in the great hall, bearing a plate of mini scones and another of jam tarts towards the sitting room, where tea has presumably been set up. “Nobody told me she was coming for tea! Though as we’re two down already, I don’t suppose it really matters.”

“Two down?” I manage to ask.

“The fluffy blonde and the boozy brunette. That nice Ferdy chap gave them both a lift to the station after he brought the blonde back here from the track. In hysterics, she was. Apparently someone had tried to kill her or something . . .”

“It was an accident! And Lucy’s
gone
? Are you sure?” But I don’t, I realize, have time to stand here quizzing Hannah on the comings and goings of the weekend’s guests. Far, far more important right now is the fact that Diana—
Diana
—is climbing out of her Land Rover and heading, beaming, towards Jay.

I dart around Hannah, almost knocking her scones out of her hand in the process, and head for the driveway myself.

“And here she is!” Diana declares, as soon as she sees me scurrying towards her. “Charlie, darling! Robyn mentioned that you were coming here with Jay for the weekend . . .” A swift kiss on either cheek, not to mention the fact that she’s calling me
Charlie
rather than her usual
Charlotte
, suggest that she’s in charm-offensive mode for some reason. “. . . so seeing as I’m only just along in the next village, I knew I had to find time to pop by!”

I get it now. This is revenge, on behalf of Robyn, for me daring to date Jay. Diana is here to do some damage. As much damage as she possibly can.

Not that she looks like it just at the moment, beaming beatifically at me like this. And of course, it’s perfectly reasonable for anyone to assume that she
did
just happen to be at her country house for the weekend. She’s in full Country Living
mode, after all: quilted waterproof gilet, needlecord jodhpurs, Hunter Wellington boots, her bouffy hair covered by a suede Outback-style hat.

“And I haven’t seen Jay in absolutely ages,” she’s continuing. “Years, in fact! So I thought I really
had to
drop round and say hello. Now that he’s practically
family
, I mean!”

Thank God, though, Jay doesn’t react to Diana’s words the way she’s expecting him to. He just laughs, good-naturedly, and slips an arm around my waist.

“I’ll have to set you to work on Charlie, then, Diana,” he says. “Convincing her that I’m a suitable stepson-in-law!”

Crazy though this obviously sounds (I mean, he’s joking, right? Or just trying to be charming?), it obviously hits a raw nerve in Diana. Just for a moment, her beatific smile wavers.

“Anyway, now that you’re here,” Jay is saying, “you must stay for some tea. Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

I open my mouth (to say
Jesus, no, for the love of all that is holy, no
) but before I can even get started, Diana has heartily agreed and is already heading towards the house, cleverly ensuring that Jay has to go with her by starting up a volley of questions about his father and stepmother, and asking when they’ll next be at the house, and saying how lovely it was to see them at the Jefferies’ thirtieth anniversary party last August . . . I’m forced to follow, in mute panic, though I do manage to find my voice when I realize that Ferdy has left the driveway, too, and is coming into the house behind me.

“Oh, Ferdy! Hannah said you’d taken Lucy and Honey to the train station earlier . . .”

“Yeah, that’s right. They were aiming for the twelve-ten train back to town.”

“Lucy didn’t say she was leaving.” I blink at him. “Or that she’d left. Was she feeling that awful?”

“Don’t know. You’d have to ask her.”

“I will . . . Oh, God, Ferdy, I didn’t ask—is Honey okay?
I mean, she does know that I really wasn’t trying to kill her, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. No. Maybe.” He shrugs, staring at his feet. “She’s not the happiest camper at the moment. With you or with me.”

“I’m so sorry.” I’m torn between the need to apologize to Ferdy for causing him trouble and the need to get into that sitting room as fast as possible before Diana can wreak any of that damage she’s intent on. “If it would help, I’ll call her . . .”

“Christ, no.” Ferdy looks alarmed. “At least, not until she’s gotten over us splitting up.”

“You’ve . . .
split up
?”

How has any of this happened? Admittedly, Ferdy was gone from the racetrack for a fairly long time this morning, but to fit in an unscheduled trip to the station
and
a breakup in that time is quite some achievement. Mind you, since breakfast this morning, I’ve managed to fit in being given an MG, a quarrel with Ferdy, a minor car accident, the disappearance of my best friend, and the unwanted appearance of my evil stepmother. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore.

“Because I hit her with my car? Because I
accidentally
,” I hasten to add, “hit her with my car? That’s why you split up? Ferdy, I don’t know what to—”

“Look, it’s not your problem, okay? Besides,” he says, nodding towards the sitting room, “haven’t you got bigger things to worry about right now?”

He’s right. And let’s be honest, from the look on Ferdy’s face—closed down, pissed off,
unimpressed
, even—he’s not about to stand around here and bare his soul about this sudden breakup. Certainly not to me, anyway. So I head for the sitting room, making the mistake of getting to the door at exactly the same time as Pal, who icily stands back to let me through first.