Heaven's On Hold Read online

  ‘Mine’ll be done by Christmas, she must come over and use it. And yourself, if you’re into all that.’

  ‘I can’t say I am.’

  Harper seemed already to have lost interest in the subject, and was gazing upward. ‘ This is nice though. Mind if we look around?’

  ‘Help yourselves.’

  They were gone at once, with the world-weary savvy of the rich and famous, leaving David feeling strangely abandoned at his own party. It was with relief that he caught sight of the Bryces in conversation with Maurice Martin. Hilary Bryce wore the frill-necked jumper and culottes which she clearly considered suitable for the occasion but which didn’t become her half as well as her jeans and Guernsey.

  ‘I can’t tell you what a hoot this is,’ she told him. ‘Geoff and I haven’t met anyone new in ten years, and now blow me down there’s a whole roomful when we don’t need them.’

  ‘Steady on,’ put in Maurice in his personable way, ‘you might meet us on the way down.’

  Geoff Bryce looked across at David. ‘ I can’t say I know Newton Bury well, but I did used to come across someone from here when I was in Rotary. Robert Townsend, mean anything?’

  ‘It rings a bell …’ David frowned. ‘But we’re shamefully guilty of not having mixed enough since we got here.’

  ‘Too late anyway, poor chap died,’ said Maurice. ‘ I took his funeral a few weeks ago. Standing room only in the church – not that he was a churchgoer, but he was a man who lived life to the full, and was taken in the midst of it.’

  Geoff and Hilary murmured something appropriately regretful. But David was assailed by the memory of that afternoon only a week after Freya’s birth. He could almost feel the still heat of the sheltered churchyard … see the drift of just overripening flowers and smell their dying sweetness … and the woman in the floppy hat, sitting on the bench.…

  ‘I remember,’ he said.

  Maurice gave an apologetic grimace. ‘ Parking difficulties?’

  ‘No … no. I think I read something.’

  Hilary started in on how parking and potholes were the abiding issues in village life, and David began to move away, then paused to ask Geoff:

  ‘How well did you know Townsend?’

  ‘Not well. Fellow Rotarian, no more than that. Immensely likeable and energetic. Never still. Never off, if you know what I mean.’

  David considered this assessment as he wove his way through the chattering groups, noting the doctor, their neighbours, one or two half-recognised others. He accepted a top-up from Julie and a filo parcel from Karen who enquired confidingly: ‘Enjoying yourself?’

  ‘Yes indeed.’

  ‘It’ll be nice when it’s over I expect,’ she said, displaying an uncomfortable degree of intuition.

  ‘Not at all. I think it’s going rather well.’

  She leaned her head towards him. ‘ You got the old rocker and his missus out then.’

  ‘That was Annet.’

  ‘I told her to give it a go. Bit of a result.’

  ‘Is it?’

  She batted his arm with the back of her free hand. ‘Course it is. You can tell the others are fit to be tied, or they’d all be staring.’

  This aperçu was echoed by Tim, who having negotiated his way out of the drive home was taking full advantage of the refreshment opportunity.

  ‘How do you know old red eyes? The housewives’ choice?’

  ‘Through the housewife,’ said David drily.

  Tim barked with laughter. ‘I’ll tell her you said that!’

  ‘It’s true. Annet met his amanuensis at the school gate.’

  Tim massaged his brow. ‘Stop, stop, this is all too complicated for me.’

  ‘Good,’ said David. ‘ Now is there anyone I can introduce you to before I come up for air?’

  ‘Well … Would the rock chick be entirely out of the question? She really is something special.’

  I did ask, thought David as they went into the garden, so I can hardly blame him for giving a straight answer. Marina, Mags and (curiously) Chris Harper were at the far end of the lawn, talking to the children in charge of the pram.

  Luckily for Tim, Lindl Clerc sat alone on the edge of the terrace, still not drinking, still smoking. She seemed almost to be killing time, but without signs of impatience. It struck David that the apparent self-sufficiency of beauty isolated the possessor, and that unlikely though it seemed he might be doing her a favour by introducing her to his brother. And Tim, to be fair, was nothing if not pleasantly and openly admiring.

  ‘How do you do, it’s a real pleasure. I was getting bored with worshipping from afar, OK if I join you?’

  ‘Sure …’ Tim’s reward was a smile, tired but friendly. And a little gesture of tucking her skirt to one side as if making room.

  ‘May I get you a drink?’ David asked her.

  ‘No thanks. I hardly ever do. Don’t worry I’m quite happy.’

  ‘You run along and enjoy your party, bro,’ said Tim pointedly. ‘I’m here now.’

  He left them to it, trying to picture Mags’ potential role in the mix, which in turn made him wonder what had become of Annet. His thought was answered by Karen, emerging from the drawing room with a half-empty tray of eats, and a smile on her face, a huge burst of laughter eddying behind her.

  ‘She’s in good form,’ she said, ‘keeping them all amused.’

  He paused in the doorway and there indeed was his wife, glass at the high port, hip cocked, one eyebrow slightly raised – the cowboy look, but warmed by a nice chewy Bergerac and an appreciative audience. An audience comprising – he flashed a look round – Doug and Marsha Border, four locals including the neighbours, Hilary Bryce, and a dapper (one might almost have said spivvy) individual whom he took to be Harry Bailey.

  Hilary caught sight of him. ‘What a hoot she is, your wife!’

  ‘It’s the way she tells them,’ he agreed with mild pride.

  ‘I should say so – and looking like that only five weeks after having a baby, it’s not fair.’

  ‘She’s been working on it. She goes back to work in a week’s time.’

  Hilary directed a series of interested blinks his way. ‘Nanny all lined up?’

  ‘Oh yes … Jolly New Zealander. and jolly competent with it, you know the kind of thing … I expect to be marginalised instantly.’

  ‘Just so long as she’s nice. May I go and look at your garden? I enjoy grubbing about and we’re about to get a proper garden again in North Yorks, having been in the wilderness for years, so I’m picking up tips wherever I can.…’

  People seemed always to be leaving his side. He was aware of his own apparent dullness next to Annet’s spirited sociability, and turned towards the group, intending to identify himself with the main attraction.

  Doug Border interposed himself and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘So, my old mucker, how does it feel to be the host with the most?’

  ‘If you mean Chris Harper, it had nothing whatever to do with me.’

  ‘I never assumed it did. It’s clear Annet’s been networking like a good’un during her maternity leave.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ declared Marsha en passant, ‘I’m going to get some cooing done.’

  ‘You mean that Bailey chap?’ said David. ‘Yes, she disliked him on sight but she seems to have got over it.’

  Doug sucked his teeth leeringly. ‘Never a good sign, early antipathy. Light blue touch paper and retire.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ David was deliberately cool, he didn’t care for his partner in full man-of-the-world swing. ‘I haven’t met him before today. Still haven’t, actually.’

  ‘If you’re interested,’ said Doug, pointing over his shoulder ‘they went thataway. I’m going to see if Harper and his totty want a Granny annexe.’

  David waited till he’d gone and then went in the direction of the hall, where he’d pointed. They weren’t there, but he could hear Annet’s voice from the kitchen, and then Julie’s giggle, ju
st before she almost bumped into him in the doorway.

  ‘Sorry – on my way!’

  Bailey was perched on the edge of the kitchen table with his arms folded and ankles crossed. Annet, pink-cheeked and animated, was filling her glass from a bottle on the table. Without looking at him she said: ‘Hi darl, anything I can get you?’

  ‘No thanks.’ He extended a hand to Bailey. ‘How do you do?’

  Bailey at once sprang to his feet and replied, in the American manner: ‘Good, thanks,’ which inclined David to the view that Annet’s first impression might have been correct. But the man’s handshake was firm, and his brown eyes – David arrived unwillingly at the word – cheeky, rather than shifty.

  ‘I understand you’re building a swimming pool up at Stoneyhaye,’ he said, sounding stuffy without meaning to.

  ‘Chris is up to all sorts,’ confirmed Bailey, watching as Annet poured more wine into his glass. ‘I was saying, you must come up and use it any time when it’s done.’

  David noticed that he looked extremely fit, in the bunched, tensile, rather pointless way of people who worked on muscle groups.

  ‘I suppose there’s already a gym?’

  Bailey nodded. ‘We put some air machines and weights in one of the rooms, but it’s a shame I reckon to fill a beautiful space with that crap. I think they might do something with the stable block.’ The words ‘ beautiful’ and ‘crap’ sat side by side easily in this observation, gaining lustre from each other. ‘ But the pool’s the main thing. Jay’s going to enjoy that.’

  ‘Jay’s Lindl’s son,’ explained Annet. ‘Remember I met Harry when he was collecting him from school …?’

  David was comforted by this reference designed to establish the openness between them.

  ‘You’re a man of many parts,’ he said. He seemed unable to open his mouth without sounding pompous, but Bailey jerked his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘You said it. IT, contracts, blagging, bullshitting, moving, shaking, childcare, that’s me.’

  Annet, on her way out of the room, leaned towards David. ‘ I’ve told him to let us know if he’s free. We could do with an understudy for Lara.’ She winked. ‘I’m going to check on Freya.’

  David found himself alone with Bailey, who seemed more at home in his kitchen than he did.

  ‘So where’s your charge today?’

  ‘Gone to a friend’s. If we’d known there were going to be other kids we’d have brought him along, but there you go.’

  With Annet’s departure, David’s resentment had largely evaporated, to be replaced by curiosity.

  ‘Do you have any children of your own?’

  Bailey shook his head. ‘Two wives, didn’t get that far with either of them.’ He glanced meaninglessly at his watch. ‘ Shame, because I like kids – I mean I really do. I like their company, I like the way they think. Shouldn’t say this but I like the way they look.’

  ‘They’re not all the same, surely?’

  ‘Right, but there’s something the same about the way they’re different.’

  This seemed to David to be a point well, if allusively, made. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And I like it,’ Bailey repeated.

  ‘I hesitate to say this,’ said David, ‘but perhaps if you had one of your own you might not feel like that.’

  As soon as this remark left his lips he regretted it, feeling it left him open to an obvious accusation which Bailey, to his credit, did not make.

  ‘You could be right – not much point in speculating.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How’s your little girl?’

  ‘Doing well.’ David sensed Bailey’s eyes resting on him, waiting for more. ‘A big change in our lives, naturally.’

  ‘I can believe it.’

  ‘But one for the good.’

  ‘Sure.’

  There followed a short pause, more relaxed on Bailey’s part than his own, before David said: ‘I’d better return to my guests.’

  Bailey gave another glance at the Rolex, more meaningful this time. ‘I’d better return to your guests and all. And get going while you still have some Sunday left.’

  Back in the drawing room the drift towards departure had begun. Annet was standing near the door, without her glass, acknowledging thanks and farewells. Luke was on the sofa drawing something on the back of his hand with a red biro. Marina, still with glass in hand, had cut off the Borders at the pass which caused David a certain quiet satisfaction.

  He wanted suddenly, urgently, to hold Freya – to confirm to himself, and her, that the house was theirs again and the invasion over. But on his way to the garden door he was accosted by Hilary Bryce.

  ‘Thank you so much, it was the greatest fun.’

  ‘I’m glad you could come. I’m only sorry it’s hello and goodbye, rather.’

  ‘Paths cross, you never know, I’m a great believer in coincidence … and by the way I like your careless garden.’

  David wouldn’t have been entirely sure how to take this, but then Maurice Martin, at his elbow, delivered himself of a slightly extended version of the same comment.

  ‘This is how a country garden ought to be. Which of you’s the expert, or is it a joint effort?’

  ‘Joint, but neither Annet nor I would claim to be experts. It was pretty much like this when we came, and we were told to leave well alone for at least a year to see what was here. So idleness and expediency came together nicely.’

  ‘Take it from me, it paid off. Marsha and I tend naturally towards regimentation. Lamentable, but a habit that’s hard to kick.’ He clasped David’s hand. It’s been a very pleasant interlude, you must come to us as soon as we can summon a comparable number of amusing and witty people. Or since we’d like you to come in the forseeable future, even if we can’t.…’

  David emerged on to the terrace. Harry Bailey was escorting his charges up the lawn. At the far end, David noticed, Sadie (happily accompanied by Louise) was sitting on the bench on the far side of the pram, holding Freya.

  ‘So you’ll come and check out the pool then,’ said Harper. ‘We don’t give parties, so no use waiting for an invitation.’

  ‘We’ll certainly drop round, thank you.’

  Lindl gestured towards the pram with her cigarette. ‘She’s such a darling baby, so good. Jay never stopped crying.’ She flashed him her sweet, unfocused smile. ‘Neither did I!’

  ‘Nice people,’ said Harry Bailey. ‘ Nice party.’

  David should have felt patronised, but didn’t. He stepped back inside and encountered Coral, who took him by the shoulders and pressed a smacking kiss to either cheek.

  ‘Darling heart, we’re off.’

  ‘Must you?’

  ‘No, you’re right, may we stay the night?’ She waited for the dismay to show itself before adding: ‘ Settle down, we’re going.’

  ‘Marina still has a glass.’

  ‘She can take it with her, for all I care, we’re still going.’

  David felt a surge of affection for Coral. ‘So when’s the big day? We’ll mark it in the calendar.’

  ‘Her indoors already did. October twenty-eighth.’

  ‘Good luck – does one say good luck?’

  ‘Say what you like, but—’ she pushed her face towards his – ‘be on our side.’

  ‘I am,’ he declared.

  She went over to where Louise stood with Annet, and placed an unself-conscious arm around her waist. It was perhaps two seconds before he grasped the implications of this, and less than one before he was out in the garden. It was empty, but for the pram.

  With an effort that almost burst his lungs he ran the length of the lawn. When he reached the pram his legs were shaking with strain.

  The pram was empty. Freya, crying feebly, lay in the long grass beneath the bench.

  ‘I haven’t been down there for half an hour,’ said Louise to Coral, as though David weren’t capable of hearing.

  ‘Sadie!’ Tim crouched down by his daughter. ‘We aren�
��t cross—’

  ‘Yes we are!’ said Mags.

  ‘We’re not cross with you, but you mustn’t ever, ever put a little baby on the ground like that.’

  ‘Da-ad …’ Sadie’s impatient whine had the terrifying ring of honesty. ‘Get off, I didn’t!’

  ‘Then who the bloody hell did?’ enquired Annet furiously over Freya’s head. ‘Luke?’

  Mags reddened tigerishly. ‘ Come on Annet, don’t pick on him, he’s been loafing around up here for ages.’

  ‘If there’s nothing we can do …’ said Coral, with a well-judged ellipsis. ‘Come on Lou. Marina?’

  David, gazing out of the window, didn’t move. Behind him his daughter, and the battle, raged. Outside, it was beginning to rain. Great slow drops fell heavily, and the pram was still standing, uncovered, on the grass.

  ‘I put her in the pram!’ protested Sadie. ‘And that other lady was going to look after her.’

  ‘Which other lady?’ asked Annet.

  ‘That blonde one.’ Sadie’s voice quietened at the possibility of being taken seriously. ‘That friend of Uncle David’s.’

  The rain intensified with abrupt fury, and David, charging out into it to rescue the pram, chose not to hear Annet’s question.

  Chapter Eight

  It was one of those things that in the end they had to let go. Freya after all was unharmed, and there seemed to have been no malign intent – whoever had put her on the ground had left her sheltered beneath the seat, and must certainly have known that she would be found within minutes. Disturbing though it had been at the time they agreed that they could hardly ring round everyone who’d been there and question them. Indeed, another bizarre aspect of the incident was that no adult had noticed anything untoward, or commented on the strange female guest.

  Annet’s money remained firmly on Sadie.

  ‘It’s all right, I’ll never mention it again,’ she said later, with a twist of anger still in her voice. ‘But I think she was lying. Children do lie. She’s a nice kid, it’s not the end of the world, but I fully expect Mags at some point in the future convenient to her of course, to tell me that’s what happened.’