Simply Heaven (50 page)

‘I was buying a pork pie,’ I tell her, ‘at Lambourne’s in Stow. That was why I was up there in the first place. I thought maybe I could keep it up here and eat it in secret.’

Nessa laughs. ‘Well, there you go. You’re way off mad yet, girl. Those pies are ripsnorters. They’re the dog’s bollocks.’

‘I thought they were meant to be pork.’

She laughs again, claps me about the shoulder.

‘So what’s the verdict?’ I ask.

‘You know what I think your problem is? Stickybeaks. Stickybeaks and stirry old chooks. What you need is a bit of rest and a bit of privacy and you’ll be as right as rain.’

‘But what about the car?’

She reflects. ‘Yes. You’re right there. There’s no way around that one, is there? I’ll call Littlemore and get them to send a van and a couple of blokes with white coats.’

‘Nessa, I feel …’ I’m hopelessly lost as to how to express it. Alternative therapist maybe, but I’m as inarticulate about my own feelings as the next guy. You still tend to stick to talking about people’s holidays when you’re poking them in the feet.

I get my hand taken for the second time today, but this time it’s the firm, reassuring hand of friendship. ‘I know you do,’ she says simply. ‘Don’t let them win, girl. You’re better than that.’

We sit for a minute, just holding hands, then she gets up, goes over to the armchair-cum-closet and throws me a robe.

‘I lost Beatrice for an hour once,’ she tells me. ‘I thought I’d put her down for a rest in the garden when actually I’d left her on the khazi. Mind you,’ she adds, ‘I think it might have been one of those accidents of the Freudian persuasion.’

Rufus is white with fear. Green about the gills. It’s the only way of putting it. It’s like someone’s turned down the reds on his colour palate. He’s got eyes like saucers and his hair is standing on end. Maybe that’s from dragging his hand through it, but the effect is the same as though he’d just opened a cupboard door and found an ogre.

At least, thanks to Nessa, I’m dressed and my hair is brushed. Otherwise I’d’ve been sparko when the summons came, via Tilly, for everyone to gather in the library.

‘What’s going on?’

Tilly shrugged. ‘Haven’t the foggiest, but I don’t think we’ve all been written into a comic opera.’

‘Sounds more like the end of an Agatha Christie to me. Do you think he’s found out where the bodies are buried?’ As I said this, I got another pang, a stab of guilt for taking the mick when there’s obviously something serious in the air. God, am I even going to be robbed of my flippancy? What weapons will I have left?

‘More like that they’ve lost the venue for the hunt ball and want to have it here, I’d say. That would be a joy,’ said Tilly. ‘Got to go. I’ve left Lucy locked up in the old salt safe and I’d better get back before she turns inside out and shrivels.’

So here I am, and I’ve found the room full not only with Wattestones, but with the surveyor and the geologist as well. And all of them sporting that don’t-care look on their faces which in England passes for concern.

‘So what’s up?’ I ask as I take a seat by Tilly and start poking my goddaughter with an index finger. She’s a nice little thing, Lucy. I don’t mind what people say: I like gingas. They look like they’ve come pre-peeled.

‘Right, well, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news,’ says Rufus.

‘Oh, dear,’ says Beatrice. ‘Not another socialist government.’

‘No. Worse than that, I’m afraid.’

There’s an explosive sound of disbelief from Beatrice’s corner.

‘This is John Gregory,’ says Rufus. ‘He’s the surveyor from English Heritage. And this is Colin Bardwell. He’s a geologist from Oxford. The university,’ he adds, I guess because otherwise Beatrice will be asking why they didn’t get one from Fortnum and Mason.

‘Uh-huh?’ says Edmund. ‘So what’s the verdict?’

‘Not very good, I’m afraid,’ says Colin Bardwell.

‘Not very good at all,’ echoes John Gregory.

They both look expectantly at Rufus. Evidently neither of them wants to break the news himself.

‘OK,’ says Rufus, and his hand flies up his hair. I am surprised he’s not started pulling it out, from the look of him. ‘Right, well. It seems – there’s no other way of putting it – that the whole place is falling down.’

You don’t say. And he needed to pay these guys to tell him that?

The news takes a while to sink in. For the first time, probably ever in history, not one single member of the Wattestone family has an opinion. Finally, Tilly hoists Lucy up on to her shoulder and says: ‘How, exactly, falling down?’

The geologist clears his throat. He wears thick-framed glasses and a cagoule indoors, and his curly hair looks like it’s been cut by lamplight, in a tent, with the little scissors on a Swiss Army knife and no mirror. He looks, in short, exactly how I would expect a geologist to look. ‘Well, it seems … I’ve been going over the old plans of the house and grounds, and I think the most likely explanation is the goldmine.’

‘The goldmine?’ asks Beatrice. ‘But that hasn’t been worked since the eighteenth century.’

‘Granny,’ says Rufus, ‘you know that’s not true.’

‘Yes it is – oh,’ she says.

‘What?’ I ask. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Stupid, short-sighted greed, that’s what,’ says Rufus bitterly. ‘I’m afraid the Wattestone family didn’t want to pay tax like everyone else, so one of the ancestors came up with the wizard wheeze of saying the mine was dead and dealing in gold on the black market.’

I’m not quite there yet. ‘Sorry?’

Rufus sighs.

‘Your husband tells me,’ says the surveyor, ‘that the seam of gold didn’t actually run out until some time soon before the Second World War.’

Rufus nods. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Dad?’

Edmund looks a little pink in the face. ‘So I gather …’ he hedges.

‘No, not “so you gather”. You were there at the time. That’s how we had the money to build the Victorian wing and the Edwardian wing, and how come we managed to keep hold of an entire village when virtually every other estate in the country sold theirs off. And how come we carried on employing the same number of people for decades despite electricity and tractors and combine harvesters and machine shearing and automated milking systems and the rest of it. People in tied cottages tend to keep shtum, don’t they, if the alternative is homelessness and unemployment?’

‘I don’t get it,’ I say. ‘So we’ve got some sort of back tax problem?’

‘No,’ says Rufus. ‘There’s a statute of limitations on those sorts of things. It’s far worse than that. What we’ve got is a honeycomb of unmapped tunnels running under practically every square yard of the park. And it seems like they’re probably running under the house as well. Because that’s what happens when you’re not being kept an eye on by people who know what they’re doing. You dig about the place and jabber on about ancient skills and government interference, and no one has the first idea where they’re actually going down there in the dark. Remember when the Greek temple collapsed back in eighty-seven, Dad?’

‘That was the hurricane,’ says Mary.

‘We were lucky the insurance company fell for that,’ says Rufus. ‘But it wasn’t. You know as well as I do that a bloody great hole opened up underneath it and it all fell in. If the entire country hadn’t had claims in at the same time, they would probably have sent someone out to check and noticed it themselves. Anyway, the same thing’s happening to Bourton Allhallows now.’

‘But how come,’ I ask, ‘there’s been no sign of it up until now? If the workings have been abandoned for over sixty years, surely …?’

‘Trees,’ says the surveyor. ‘I dare say it would have shown under the house eventually, but I would say that the entire park has been held together by tree roots for the last couple of hundred years. The thing is, for the height of every tree, there’s a root system at least as long under the ground. Sometimes twice as long. And you used to have excellent tree planting in this park.’

‘Until Dutch elm,’ says Rufus glumly.

‘Europe. Stuff and nonsense. I knew no good would come of it,’ says Beatrice. Everyone ignores her.

‘I told you,’ Mary says accusingly to Edmund, ‘you should have replanted.’

‘Wouldn’t have made much difference,’ says John Gregory. ‘Even if you’d planted straight away, they wouldn’t be much over thirty feet high by now. The old root systems have shrivelled up and rotted, and as a result the ground’s a bit like Emmenthal. It’s surprising it’s held together as well as it has, to be honest. As for the house … well. I don’t think any amount of planting could have stopped what’s going on now.’

Mary’s finally catching on. ‘So how much,’ she says, an edge of panic to her voice, ‘is it going to cost to rectify?’

The surveyor shrugs. ‘Hard to tell without a lot more work, I’m afraid. We’ll have to get some sonic equipment in to see what the extent of the workings are. And, of course, it depends how bad the damage to the house is already and how much more there is before we can stop the rot. Though I have to say, from the look around I’ve had, it’s pretty bad.’

‘So how much?’ she asks again.

Rufus clears his throat. ‘Anything between fourteen and thirty million pounds,’ he says.

The surveyor and the geologist make themselves scarce in a flurry of briefcases and waterproof fabric. And the elder half of the family goes straight into denial the minute the door shuts.

‘It’s ridiculous,’ says Beatrice. ‘I’m not having it.’

‘How can he stand there and tell us that?’ demands Mary. ‘These people … they think we’re made of money. We can’t raise that sort of cash overnight.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Mary,’ says Tilly. I’ve noticed that she has started talking back a lot more since Lucy was born. I don’t know if it’s the hormones, or the independence of having a house of her own, or some primal motherhood protectiveness thing, but I like it. The girl’s got spunk, after all. ‘He’s not trying to pull a fast one: he’s just telling you the truth. And anyway, let’s be realistic. We can’t raise that sort of cash, full stop.’

Mary rounds on me. ‘I’ll bet your father’s laughing in his boots,’ she says.

I raise my hands, palms forward, at her, say: ‘Don’t bring
me
into it, Mary. I didn’t undermine your precious house. And nor did my dad.’

Edmund simply stands up and helps himself to a large gin.

‘Well, we’ll just have to …’ says Mary.

‘Have to
what
?’ asks Tilly.

‘Well,
I
don’t know. And don’t speak to me like that. I won’t be spoken to like that.’

‘No,’ says Tilly. ‘Someone’s got to talk some sense into you. All of you. You’re behaving like schoolchildren. Sticking your fingers in your ears and thinking that if you go “la la la” loudly enough then you won’t have to hear it.’

‘We’ll get a second opinion,’ says Beatrice. ‘We know what they’re like. Just trying to get his hands on our house. Eaten up with envy, the lot of them.’

‘Get a grip, Beatrice,’ I hear myself saying.

Rufus raises his voice above the bedlam, shouts: ‘SHADDAP!’

We all close our mouths at once, like geese when a barn door slams.

‘I don’t have the energy for fighting today,’ says Rufus. ‘Please, just stop it.’

‘I’m not fighting,’ says Mary.

Rufus quells her with a look. ‘Sit down. Everyone,’ he says.

Edmund is already sitting. Gradually, we all drift into chairs and wait for Rufus to speak.

‘Mummy. Daddy. Granny. I know this is tough, and I know it’s hard to get your heads round, but we have to make some plans and we have to do it now.’

‘Well, obviously,’ says Mary. ‘We can’t be here when it’s swarming with builders.’

Rufus sits down himself, heavily, as though someone’s kicked him in the back of the knees. Rubs the back of his neck. ‘I don’t think you’re getting it, Mummy. I don’t think there are going to be any builders.’

‘Don’t be silly, Rufus. You heard what the man said.’

‘Yes, Mummy. I heard exactly what he said.’

‘Well, then. I’m sorry. I can put up with a lot, but if you think—’

‘Mummy, where do you think we’re going to get this sort of money
from
?’

‘The bank. Obviously,’ she says as though this is the most natural thing in the world.

‘No. No, Mummy. Did you hear what I said? Did you hear me at all? Did you hear anything I said? Banks aren’t charities. They don’t just hand out money because you want some. They need paying back. And besides: what sort of collateral are we going to offer them?’

No-one answers.

Rufus speaks softly, dejectedly. ‘If this house was in good nick, it would still only be worth maybe ten million on the open market. And that would be without the loans we’ve already got on it. It’s not going to work.’

‘Well, someone can …’ Mary sounds bewildered more than anything. ‘A sheikh …’ she says.

Rufus closes his eyes, grits his chompers. ‘There is no sheikh, Mum. There’s no sheikh and there’s no fairy godmother and there’s no benevolent banking family who want to throw money at us because of their reverence for history.’

‘You are not,’ says Beatrice, ‘selling this house. It’s unthinkable.’

‘No, Granny,’ Rufus says, ‘you’re right. We’re not selling. It’s too late for that. Don’t you see? While we’ve been treating the place as a pearl beyond price, it’s become completely worthless. The house, the park: all of it, worthless. The only thing it’s good for now is landfill.’

‘B—’ begins Mary.

‘Shut up, Mummy. Tilly’s right. It’s over. There’s nothing left. We’ve got to make plans for how we’re going to salvage what we can, and we’ve got to do it fast. Do you understand?’

Edmund speaks. ‘I’ve lived here all my life.’

I glance over at him. He suddenly looks very, very old. Beaten.

He raises his glass, drains half of it in a single draught. ‘My whole life. I’ve never been away from it for more than three months at a time. It’s sat here on my shoulders and never let me go for seventy-four years. And now you’re telling me it’s all been for nothing.’

‘We all had a duty, Edmund,’ says Beatrice. ‘Do you think I enjoyed it, maintaining your inheritance while your father attempted to drink it away? Keeping the barbarians from the gate?’