Rumours (23 page)

‘I didn't mean Xander,' said Caroline, regarding her oddly, ‘I meant the guy you were on a date with.'

‘Oh,' said Stella. ‘Oh.' Mortified. ‘Him.' She paused. Caroline's gentle, friendly face was creasing into a grin. ‘Between you and me,' said Stella, ‘he was a tosser.' She glanced down at her basket. Sonny was still fingering the biscuits. Nice. They were called Nice. She was never sure whether that was ‘nice' as in the adjective, or Nice as in the place. She'd chosen them because they were comfortingly nostalgic, those sugar-encrusted oblong thins with a subtle coconutty hint. ‘Xander,' she said, ‘I mean – sorry – yes, he's a nice chap too, I'm sure. Your friend.'

‘How do you know Xander?'

And though Caroline was chatty and light, Stella wasn't sure what to say because though the sale of Longbridge was official, it wasn't yet on the open market. ‘Oh. I just know him – from around.'

Caroline thought, with some consternation, oh, you're not one of his fuck-buddies, are you? And then she thought, no, you're not. And she thought, I know you're not because unlike when I walked in on Xander at that pub in Standon, he wasn't the least bit embarrassed to come across you on Saturday night, despite the state you were in. An image of Xander quietly holding Stella steady, Stella's head against his chest, confronted Caroline. And Caroline thought, oh yeah?

‘Hope I didn't ruin your evening,' Stella said, bashfully.

‘Hope you didn't ruin your Sunday,' Caroline laughed. ‘Did you chuck?'

Stella nodded, ruefully. ‘Thanks for the strategically placed washing-up bowl.'

‘All part of the service,' said Caroline. ‘What are you doing here, by the way?'

Stella liked this woman and wished she could be honest. ‘Some business, nearby,' she said. ‘I'm working with a photographer today.' That sounded good. And it was true. ‘So I just nipped in to buy some snacks.'

Caroline nodded. ‘Well, it's nice to see you again,' she said.

‘You too,' said Stella. ‘And thanks. And sorry.'

‘No problem,' said Caroline. ‘Any time!'

‘There won't be another time,' Stella said grimly.

‘Oh, I always say I'm never going to touch a drop again,' Caroline said, opening a pack of Nicorette not yet paid for and chewing as if her life depended on it.

‘Not that – the dating. First one in two years – a nightmare. Never again.'

Suddenly, Caroline thought how she'd love to know more, that she'd probably enjoy chatting to Stella over a coffee; imagined them putting the world to rights, bantering; imagined it all getting gloriously salacious. But Mrs Patek was telling Caroline it was £7.42 but to call it £7.40 and Sonny was dangerously near the racks of chocolate. And she'd been queuing for ages. It really was time to go.

‘Ta-ta,' said Caroline. ‘It's nice to see you. Say bye-bye to Stella,' she told Sonny.

‘Bye-bye, Stella.'

‘Bye-bye, Sonny,' said Stella and Caroline really liked the way she waved to her son, opening and closing her hand methodically, just like he did.

The shopkeeper rang through Stella's items. ‘Oh, that's not mine,' Stella said, as the tube of sweets Sonny had placed in her basket were put into the bag.

‘You want me to refund it? It's 10p.'

‘No,' Stella laughed, ‘no, of course not. It's OK. It's fine.'

And she put them into the glove compartment in her car and drove back to Longbridge.

‘Do you know what I think?' Caroline didn't wait for Sonny to answer. ‘I think, when you're having a nap, I'm going to phone Uncle Xander.'

Lydia returned to Longbridge to find Stella and the photog-rapher having an impromptu picnic by the statue of Lord Frederick. Stella scrambled to her feet as she approached and Lydia saw her nudge the photographer with her foot to incite him to do the same.

‘Hullo!' said Stella. Lydia nodded at her. ‘This is Malcolm Brown.'

‘Nice place,' he said. And both Stella and Lydia cringed.

‘Would you like a biscuit?' Stella said, offering the packet to Lydia who declined with a look of slight distaste. ‘They're Nice.'

‘I'm sure they are,' said Lydia vaguely. And Stella wondered if there was home-made shortbread waiting for Lydia in the house.

‘We'll be in shortly – if that's OK.'

Lydia nodded and walked stiffly to the house.

Malcolm and Stella were setting up the shots in the drawing room, having done the library and the dining room, when they next saw Lydia. She stood alongside Stella and they watched, quietly, Malcolm at work.

‘You know, during the War, this room was out of bounds – all shut up,' Lydia said. ‘Mostly empty, just dust sheets over the furniture. Tape and blackout at the windows. But I had to come in every day.' She started to laugh at the memory. ‘I had to do my piano practice. The war was no excuse.' She laughed again. ‘Dear God, it was cold.' She looked at Stella. ‘The curtains wafted against the walls even though there was blackout and the windows were locked. It was so cold I'd come in here in full outdoor regalia – balaclava and mittens – and poke out my fingers at the very last minute.'

Stella looked at the grand piano. ‘Was it the same piano?'

‘Same piano, same position,' said Lydia.

‘I always hated piano practice,' said Stella.

‘I did too,' said Lydia. ‘But during the War, I didn't mind it so much. Despite this room being the bloody North Pole.' She paused, to let the memories turn from sepia to full colour. ‘I was the only one allowed in here – and I liked that, I liked having a little bit of the house all to myself, time by myself, in a room that was just mine.' She trilled a little Chopin, a little quakily. ‘During the War, Longbridge was billeted – I don't know if I told you. It was quite mad, really. Chaos. At one time, there were fifteen children living here. My sisters and I. My mother. My aunt and her daughter. And all these other –
people
.' She said it as if referring to a different species altogether. ‘From the city. All types, my dear. We had the Smiths, from the East End – cockneys, you know! They taught me to rhyme. And the Coopers – they were East End too. They taught me to swear. And music-hall songs. And some Jews from somewhere in deepest darkest London too.' She spoke lightly, fondly.

‘Fifteen children?'

‘Four different families – not counting Fortescues,' Lydia said, and she said it proudly. ‘Just women at the helm, of course. All the men were at war. Apart from Clarence's father. But they weren't in the house. They were with the cows.'

‘With the
cows
?'

‘Not
with
the cows – in the farm cottage, in those days. It's gone now. It was really rather jolly. Just blessedly cold, of course, during the winters. But actually rather gay. When any of the men came back on leave, they became everyone's father.' With that, Lydia left the room. Stella was transfixed by the piano, imagined the room covered in sheets, crosses of tape at each window pane. She conjured an image of a young Lydia, wrapped to the gills, coming in to tinkle the ivories once a day while England was at war and Longbridge was overrun with commoners.

‘Here.'

Lydia was back at her side, holding a photo album open, heavy black pages, white ink annotations. It was a photograph of a line of children from tallest to smallest, outside in the grounds. One by one, Lydia attempted to name each of them, substituting Youngest Cockney or Eldest Jew if she'd forgotten their names. ‘That's me,' she repeated, and she touched gently where she was, the fourth tallest. ‘That's me.' And there was such wistful affection in her voice Stella felt compelled to gently tap at the photograph too.

Strange to think of Lydia as a child in a white frock with hair loose and enormous ribbons like rabbit ears. Odd to think of Longbridge being noisy, of every room having a purpose – even a deserted drawing room whose function it was to provide the young Lady with a little solitude to practise piano. Stella imagined the melodies filtering through the cold, working their way out through the closed doors, bringing a little light music to all the disparate souls mucking in together in the great old house. Suddenly it struck her as unbelievable that Lydia could consider leaving it all behind. Whoever buys Longbridge needs to know these tales, thought Stella. They need to be a fixed part of the fee. They're non-negotiable.

It was after the children's bedtime that Caroline finally had the chance to call Xander.

‘Hullo, Mrs,' he said.

‘Hullo, yourself,' she said.

‘Good day?'

‘Busy,' she said. She paused. ‘About last Saturday.'

‘What about last Saturday?' Xander said though he knew where this was leading.

‘About Penny.'

‘About Penny.'

‘You liked?'

‘I liked,' said Xander evenly, thinking back to the curry, to Penny quite surprisingly running her hand along his inner thigh under the table.

‘You want to see again?'

Xander paused. ‘I no want to see again.' He paused again. ‘Why are we speaking in pidgin English?'

‘I don't know,' said Caroline. ‘Why don't you want to see Penny again? She's gorgeous and bright and you made an impression on her.'

‘She's just not my type,' said Xander. ‘I told you at the time.'

‘You've been out of the loop long enough to no longer have the right to a choice of specific type,' Caroline said. ‘Soon you'll just have to take what you can get.'

‘I'm fine as I am,' said Xander, not quite so larkily. ‘Stop fussing over me. I'm fine.'

‘Oh?'

‘Shut up, woman!'

‘Charming.' Caroline paused. ‘By the way – I bumped into your friend today.'

‘My friend?'

‘Stella.'

Caroline grinned at the long silence she'd anticipated through her sixth sense. ‘Yep,' she said. ‘Stella.'

‘She's not my – friend.'

Is that so? Caroline thought, conjuring again the image of Stella snug against Xander's chest.

‘Far from it,' Xander said.

‘She was in the shop today.'

‘You know why, don't you?' Xander said, curtly. ‘She's from Elmfield Estates. She's the one selling Longbridge.'

Caroline had not seen that coming. Now she was silenced.

‘So you see, she's really
not
my friend.'

‘You might not like what she does,' said Caroline, measuredly, ‘but that's not to say you can't like her.'

‘She's annoying. She's an estate agent. And she's a stroppy mare. Look, what the hell – I'll call Penny. Why not. Give me her number. Must be two sides to every Penny. I'll call her.'

‘OK,' said Caroline, slowly while her brain racketed around with new information and forward planning. ‘I'll text it to you.'

After the call, Caroline sat looking at her phone for a long time. Penny was not exactly a friend, but on the occasions Caroline had met her, she'd liked her very much. Penny was just the kind of girl Caroline had thought it would be fun to finally have Xander partnered with; at nights out, dinner parties at theirs, pub lunches on a Sunday. But Caroline found herself thinking about Stella and staring at her phone. And then she deleted the text containing Penny's number that she was about to send Xander.

‘What
are
you doing?' Andrew asked, having noticed his wife transfixed by her phone.

‘Nothing,' she said. ‘Just sorting out Xander's love life.'

‘The words “Xander” and “love life” are a contradiction in terms,' Andrew laughed. ‘Leave the poor sod alone.'

Caroline couldn't quite believe she was going to do it – but still, she felt strongly that what she was about to do was the right thing, even if she intended to keep it to herself. She tapped out a text to Xander and sent it.

Spoke to Penny – she said you're a lovely guy, but not really her type. Hey ho! Cx

And so the rumour mill swung fully into action, grinding down the tiniest nibs of information into a powder so insubstantial it was carried easily on the prevailing gossip winds of Long Dansbury, where fiction mutated easily into fact and fed the tongues that wagged.

‘Apparently it's Madonna.'

‘Madonna? No no, she turned it down. She likes the city. No – what I heard is that it's Anton Deck.'

‘Who's Anton Deck?'

‘Someone off the telly – so I'm told. He was on that
Get Off My Celebrity
programme.'

‘Haven't seen it.'

‘You know – when they send them to an island to eat insects. Look! It's Rachel Brightey – she'll know. Mrs Brightey?'

Rachel had just said goodbye to Caroline and was walking to the postbox, by which Nora and Marjorie stood. ‘Good morning, ladies.'

‘I was just saying to Nora that you'd know who I mean. That Anton chap off the telly who does
Celebrity Island
.'

It didn't seem to ring a bell with Rachel.

‘Anton,' Nora prompted, ‘Anton Deck.'

‘Ant and Dec?' Rachel looked over her shoulder, willing Caroline to catch her eye so she could come and hear all this.

‘That's the one.'

‘
I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here
?'

‘That's the show – not that I've seen it. Well, it's him who, apparently, is buying Longbridge. But you didn't hear it from me.'

Rachel was stumped for words and far too tickled by it all to enlighten the women so she just said, wow! and, is that so! and made a detour back to Caroline because it was too good to wait.

‘They're from your neck of the woods, aren't they – Ant and Dec?' Rachel asked her. ‘Good Geordie stock? You lot'll be bringing coal to Dansbury and have us all gallivanting around in T-shirts and bare legs in December, before long. I think we should have border control.'