Rumours (3 page)

‘Morning, Mrs Gregg,' Xander said. He respected her right to be addressed like this – even though eight years on and being privy to the end of her marriage, the birth of her grandchildren and that Unfortunate Incident at the Roundabout With That Silly Car Which Wasn't Her Fault, Xander considered Mrs Gregg to be on the outer ring of his family.

‘Seventy-two minutes?' she ventured. Xander cocked his head and smiled. ‘Seventy?'

‘Sixty-eight,' he said.

‘Very good, that,' said Mrs Gregg. ‘Tea?'

‘Please.' They sipped in amicable silence, each leafing through the documents on their desks. Xander looked up. ‘You've had your hair done.'

Mrs Gregg touched it self-consciously but smiled. ‘Yes.'

‘Very nice,' said Xander. He wished his own mother would wear her hair in a similar style – elegant and in place – instead of the unruly thatch half in, half out of a bun, invariably adorned with debris from the garden. ‘Mrs Gregg, can you take this to the post office? And can you pick up a nice greetings card – blank inside?'

She glanced at him. When Xander had been steady with Laura for all those years, he'd never once asked her to help assist in the running of that relationship. He'd scoot off at lunch-time himself and return with flowers or something bulky in a bag which would sit quietly taunting her from the chair in the corner until he left in the evening. That was another part of her training going to waste – he had no need for her to alert him to Valentine's Day, or Special Occasions. Yet today he was asking her to buy a card, blank, just like his expression.

‘Blank inside,' she said, writing it down and, without looking up, she asked, ‘And what should be on the outside?'

‘Oh,' he said, ‘something soft – floral perhaps. Or a landscape.'

She wrote it down. Floral. Landscape. Unlikely to be a
special
card for a ‘significant other' – or however his generation referred to girlfriends these days. She felt strangely relieved and yet somehow disappointed for him too. He's such a nice young man, she often described to her friends at bridge. It's a bit of a waste, she'd say. Perhaps he's not a
lady's man
, one of her chums might venture. Oh, he's not like
that
, Pauline would say, almost defensively. The contradiction had never confronted her – how she wanted to mother him, be at the helm of his life, yet keep the Decorum of Division she'd been trained to maintain.

‘Anything else?'

‘Treat yourself to a Danish pastry,' said Xander.

‘Why, thank you!'

With Mrs Gregg gone, Xander leafed through his diary and in-tray. Design, print and packaging wasn't a sexy business, but it was a solid one and even in the dire economic climate, Xander found his long-term clients remained loyal. He'd cut overheads instead of staff and it had been serendipitous that Keith, the designer, had asked to go part-time just when the office rent had been hiked, so Xander and Mrs Gregg moved to these smaller premises in the same building. Everything remained the same. Apart from the chair that had been in the corner of the old office, on which the flowers or the bag with the bulky object for Laura had once sat.

I don't need that chair, Mrs Gregg, Xander had said. And that's when Mrs Gregg realized Xander had broken it off with Laura – right at the point of engagement, she assumed. Though he said they could bring the chair with them, if she felt it might be useful, she'd declined. If he didn't need it, who was she to suggest he might, at some point, in the future?

‘I bought this card – it has flowers
and
a landscape and is what I'd call gentle. I have paper napkins with this very design.'

‘Monet,' said Xander.

‘No, no – it wasn't pricey.'

‘
Monet
,' Xander said again, as if he hadn't heard her. ‘The Garden at Giverny.'

‘One of my favourites,' Mrs Gregg said, as if there'd been no faux pas.

‘It's most appropriate, thank you.'

Xander made a couple of calls and then, with the card open on his desk and his pen thoughtfully pursed between his lips, he gazed out of the window before beginning to write.

‘I'll take the post,' Mrs Gregg said at the end of the day.

‘There's not much,' said Xander.

‘It's not a problem.'

‘I can post it on my way home.'

‘Let me,' said Mrs Gregg. ‘You know those country lanes – if you get stuck behind something, you'll be trundling along for hours and miss the post altogether. I'll pop it in the box outside Elmfield Estates – it's at the end of my street. It's never collected before six. Never.'

‘OK,' said Xander. ‘Thanks.'

She was barely out of the office door before she was leafing through the mail. Yes, yes, them, them, boring, boring. Ah! Aha!

Lady Lydia Fortescue

Longbridge Hall

Long Dansbury

Hertfordshire

Xander's handwriting: even, bold and steady, written with his trademark calligraphy fountain pen. Mrs Gregg tutted at the envelope. Convene with women your own age, Xander, not an upper-class old battleaxe. Cut your ties with minor aristocracy! Venture forth into the real world – the one beyond Long Dansbury.

Stella didn't often go out, nor had she had her friends over that much recently. Her social life had dwindled over the last three years but this was her call because the invitations to socialize were no less forthcoming. Her close friends, her oldest friends – those she could count on the fingers of one hand who brought her all the dependable warmth and comfort of a well-fitting thermal glove – were always at the end of the phone, consistently energetic respondees to text messages and Facebook updates. Indirect contact and communication had become so easy that it was hard to remember when time was last spent together actually in person. She didn't mind; she was always busy and, with the new job, tired too. It wasn't as if she had much spare time to wonder how to fill it. But two weeks into her new position at Elmfield Estates, Stella had now settled into the routine. It was as if she'd been swamped by paperwork, floor plans and surveyors' reports and had suddenly looked up and thought, where is everyone? So tonight, butternut squash soup simmered on the stove and a baguette was ready on the breadboard awaiting the arrival of Jo, the closest Stella had to a sister. Tomorrow, she'd invited herself over to her older brother Robbie's and the day after that, their eldest brother Alistair would be hosting Sunday lunch for her on the condition she brought their mother
and
dessert. It did cross her mind that in one weekend she could conceivably regain the stone she'd lost over the last two years.

Jo arrived with a packet of tortilla chips, a jar of salsa, a great new haircut and, predictably, the suggestion of a date with some bloke who had a tenuous link to someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew Jo – and Stella had barely closed the front door.

‘Come on in, madwoman.'

‘You do realize I haven't actually seen you since Pancake Day?'

Stella laughed. ‘Ah yes, when Stevie burnt herself on the pan, Scarlet spilled the sugar all over the floor and you referred to Michael as Tosser all evening?'

‘He
was
Chief Tosser – in charge of flipping the flipping pancakes,' Jo justified. ‘And I told my daughters to keep away from the stove and let me do the sugar sprinkling.'

‘How are they all?'

‘Fine. Gorgeous.' Jo kissed her friend three times: ‘There – their kisses are delivered.'

‘Thank you thank you thank you.' Stella paused and raised an eyebrow. ‘I do have a bowl, you know. A veritable selection, in fact.' But Jo had already opened the tortilla chips en route to the kitchen and updated Stella on her various nightmares at work through a mouthful of crumbs.

The salsa was pretty hot, the soup was delicious and butter oozed fragrantly into the warmed baguette but Jo and Stella barely tasted any of it, their hunger for conversation outweighing what was to eat. Stella regaled Jo with the details of Elmfield Estates and it provided ample opportunity for the merry chinking of glasses.

‘Any news from Charlie?' said Jo. ‘Dare I ask?'

Stella chewed thoughtfully. ‘Not a word. Funny how, before it all happened, you always used to call him Chuck—'

Jo interrupted. ‘And when it was all kicking off, I called him Twatface.' She paused. ‘I did wonder – even after all this time – with what's happening
now
, whether he'd be in touch.'

Stella shrugged. ‘So did I. Yet the fact that he hasn't, well –'

Jo nodded. ‘The lawyers – it'll be any day now, I expect.'

‘I know,' said Stella.

‘You'll call me – won't you?' Jo stretched over the crumbs, the globs of salsa and splashes of soup which now decorated the table like a minor work by Jackson Pollock. She squeezed Stella's arm. ‘Call it the last piece of the jigsaw – the final nail in the coffin. It's a good thing.'

‘I'll drink to that,' Stella said, raising a glass and sipping so that she didn't have to talk about it any more.

‘By the way,' Jo said and, slowly, she let a lascivious smile spread, ‘your hair is looking a bit mumsy.'

‘Well, you look like a wee blonde elf,' Stella said, in her defence.

‘That, my love, is intentional.'

‘But I wear it like – this – for work,' Stella demonstrated, scooping it away from her face.

‘That's highly appropriate for an estate agent,' Jo said measuredly, ‘but a bit dull for a gorgeous, single, early-thirties gal.'

‘I'm mid-thirties, practically. So what is it you suggest I do?'

‘You phone Colin at Pop, that's what you do. And tell him I sent you. And don't tell him what you think you want – just put your head in his hands. Promise?'

‘Yes, Mum.'

‘How
is
your ma?'

‘I'm seeing her on Sunday, actually. At Alistair's.'

‘And how's the Robster?' Stella's brothers were as close as Jo came to having any.

‘I'm seeing him tomorrow, funnily enough.'

Jo was pleased. Stella, it seemed, was emerging from her self-imposed hibernation. At long last.

* * *

‘Mummy?' Will called. ‘Mumma?'

Where
was
his rucksack? The medium-ish bluish one with the Clone Trooper design? Where had his mum
put
it? He looked in the usual places where she thought she tidied but really it was just moving his stuff to higher levels, to free up floor space. Well, it wasn't in any of those places. Nor at the back of the cupboard. Nope, not under his bed either. Where
was
it? ‘Mummy!' He really didn't want to take the greenish, smallish rucksack because that had Ben 10 on and he
so
wasn't into Ben 10 any more. ‘Mumm-y!' He opened his bedroom door and stood at the top of the stairs, placed a cupped hand either side of his mouth and bellowed for her again.

There was a tap on his shoulder and Will jumped out of his skin. How did she do that? That teleporting thing? Suddenly appearing right behind him with precisely what he'd been looking for all along, and that Am-I-or-Am-I-Not-the-Best-Mum-in-the-World look on her face? She was, of course, the Best Mum Ever – and he'd bought her the birthday card with a badge that said so – but she still liked to pull that particular face all the time.

‘Why didn't you answer me?' Will said. ‘I was yelling and yelling. I thought you'd been taken by aliens or fallen down the loo or something.'

‘Thank you darling Mummy for my medium-ish bluish rucksack,' said Stella.

‘Thanks, Mum.'

‘Mummy,' said Stella.

‘Do I really have to be forty-five before I can just call you
Mum
?'

‘Absolutely. Now stuff in whatever it is you want to take to Uncle Alistair's and we'd better get going.'

Will went back into his bedroom and his mother went downstairs. ‘Remember the Stickies could choke on any small pieces of Lego,' she called.

How did she know he was piling Lego into his bag? How did she
know
that? Will knew she had eyes in the back of her head – he'd known that from an early age. But how could she see through brick walls and closed doors? She said she'd tell him when he was ten – so just two years, six months and about a week of days and a zillion hours to go. He emptied out the Lego bricks and jumbled in some Bionicles pieces instead. His cousins – three-year-old Ruby and five-year-old Finn, commonly known as the Stickies on account of their constant general jamminess – were unlikely to eat Bionicles. Not once he'd explained their super powers and alarming weaponry. Anyway, his little cousins thought he was amazing in much the same way as he thought his older cousins, who he was seeing tomorrow, were incredible. And all his cousins called him Will-yum, sometimes just YumYum. Like he was delicious. And, as his mum told him he was precisely that, at least once a day, he sort of believed it too.

* * *

The Huttons were scattered over Hertfordshire; as if a handful of wild-flower seeds had been tossed from their mother's front doorstep in Harpenden. Alistair lived with his family in a lovely 1930s semi in a good suburb of Watford just a stroll from Cassiobury Park. Robbie had settled with his tribe in St Albans, Stella had spent almost a decade just around the corner from Alistair and was now in Hertford and Sandie, their mother, still lived in the family home in Harpenden. Their father, Stuart, had a flat in Hemel Hempstead but seemed to spend most of his time with an odd woman called Magda at her bungalow near Potters Bar, though he resurfaced each Christmas and steadfastly made no mention of her. In terms of quality time, it was pretty much on a par with how much his offspring had spent with him when he'd been married to their mother. Whenever they referred to him, it was accompanied by a roll of the eyes and a quick tut – as if mention of him caused a minor tic. But it was indeed minor, Stuart having never played a major part in their lives.