He was starting to warm towards Lavinia. She was one of the plainest women he had ever met and this, he thought, explained her bossiness. After all, beautiful women didn’t have to assert themselves; doors opened, barriers melted. Underneath the head-girl exterior, however, the turtleneck jumper and pearls, he sensed a women riven with insecurity. Even her lack of humour could be excused as a form of deprivation. All that wealth, you would think they would loosen up a bit. But then he had never understood the upper classes; he preferred to pity them. All that entitlement, all that privilege, those beautiful homes with their herbaceous borders, and yet Lavinia looked no happier than Connie at Costcutter’s.
So his heart ached for her when he snuck into the bar that afternoon and found half her audience asleep. And in those plastic chairs too! The morning’s weeding had exhausted them; Lavinia’s demonstration on pricking-out was accompanied by a snuffling chorus of snores. However, she was soldiering on. ‘I would recommend John Innes Number 2. Thoroughly soak the compost before you plant the seedlings.’
Buffy tiptoed to the bar counter, notebook in hand, to check the stock. Scanning the shelves, he noticed a gap. A bottle was missing – a full bottle of Jamaican rum. It had been there for months because nobody drank rum nowadays. Though, apparently, somebody did. He opened the honesty box – just a couple of pounds. Besides, that was for drinks, not for a whole bottle.
Buffy gazed at the snoozing guests, lolling in their chairs. Could there really be a thief in their midst? It was a horrible thought. He ran the place on openness and trust – my home is your home, read my books, play my CDs. His early plan to close off the lounge for his own use had never materialised; he liked people wandering in and out for a natter, and he could always retreat to the kitchen or his bedroom if he wanted to escape. Nothing had been stolen before, as far as he knew. In fact, the opposite seemed to be the case. People were always leaving things behind – scarves, brollies, books, sunglasses, body lotion, even a waxed jacket whose owner he had been unable to trace and which he had finally appropriated for himself. One could even say he made a modest profit in this respect.
Lavinia said: ‘These little chaps will produce their first flowers in early April and provide some much needed colour in your garden. At Tite Hall we plant them among the tulips, an idea I stole from Chatsworth.’
Buffy frowned at her. Perhaps she was the kleptomaniac. Everyone knew that the aristocracy had the morals of polecats, that’s how they became aristocrats in the first place. Perhaps she was prey to uncontrollable urges like Lady Isobel Barnett, famous TV personality and shoplifter!
India and Voda wouldn’t know about the Barnett woman, of course; she was before their time, like Charlie Drake. He had better tell them, however, about this latest theft.
Buffy left the bar and went down the corridor to the kitchen. It was empty except for the dog, asleep on the rag rug. There was a delicious smell of baking.
Harold
Harold had wandered into the kitchen for a chat. Voda was making a cake. After she had poured the mixture into the cake tin she let him lick the spoon, something he hadn’t done since he was a boy, back in Golders Green. He also discovered that she kept hens. He told her about his own chickens, now fully feathered but repulsive in a new way.
‘They’ve developed very unattractive scaly legs,’ he said.
‘That’ll be scaly leg,’ she said.
‘It’s called that, is it?’
She nodded. ‘It’s caused by the scaly leg mite.’
‘Fancy that. So what do I do about it?’
‘You need some scaly leg mite powder. They sell it at Bob’s Poultry Supplies.’
She said that Bob’s Poultry Supplies was situated on the industrial estate beyond the bypass, and offered to take him there.
‘You’ll never find it, and I need a break.’ She slid the cake into the oven and wiped her hands. As they walked along the hallway, Lavinia’s plummy voice could be heard in the bar. Harold was playing truant again, but what the hell. He was an adult, he could do what he liked. Whatever pricking-out was, he didn’t know and he would never discover. After all, he’d managed without it up to now.
Voda, square and sturdy, wore a striped poncho thing and sequinned trainers. Her dreadlocks were tied up in what looked like a duster. He considered the nostril stud ill-advised, it resembled a bogey, but there was something satisfying about Voda’s looks – an autumnal wholesomeness, like a russet apple. Apparently her boyfriend was a tosser and currently banged up in prison. Harold already felt protective of this plucky young poncho-wearer. Buffy said she worked like a navvy, was always cheerful, and could be depended on in a crisis. And the woman ran the darts team! Was there no end to her talents? Harold learned this as they walked past the pub, where she was waylaid by a cheery old drunk who congratulated her on their latest win.
‘That’s Walter,’ she said as they walked on. ‘He used to breed shire horses. Once he was doing a ploughing contest with one of his mares, who’d just foaled, and he got so thirsty that he stopped her, bent underneath and had a drink from her teat.’
Voda was full of such stories. How Connie, who worked at Costcutter’s, had once been a man. How Robbie, who ran the deli, had a secret second family in Plymouth. How Dafydd, the barman at the Knockton Arms Hotel, had decamped to Goa with a busty Russian, where he had set up a diving school and partied the nights away on the beach. ‘Then one day his arm was paralysed by a jellyfish sting, and while he was in hospital she scarpered with his savings, so he crawled home, tail between his legs, and begged his wife to take him back. But she’d changed the locks and become an MP.’
And all this before they had even reached the high street. Harold was riveted, not just by the stories but by the number of people who greeted Voda and stopped for a chat. He was surprised anybody got anything done at all. Back in Hackney he knew practically none of his neighbours.
The rain had stopped; in the road, the potholes glinted in the sunshine. Voda said that all was not what it seemed; beneath the bonhomie, the town was in a terrible state. Services were being run down or cut altogether. They walked past the recycling centre; black bags were heaped around the skips; she said that refuse collections had been reduced and people were driving there in desperation and flinging out their rubbish. Half the kids were unemployed.
‘Stuff’s happening now you wouldn’t believe,’ said Voda. ‘Friend of mine’s husband topped himself because he’d lost his job. They found him hanging in the woods. I blame the wankers in the banks.’
Voda showed no interest in Harold’s own life but he didn’t mind. This was far more fascinating. By the time they reached the industrial estate he was starting to feel a curious sensation. His skin was prickling and his face heating up. At first he thought it was the beginnings of flu.
Harold’s heart thumped. As he paid for the mite powder he noticed that his hands were trembling. It was only then that he realised the cause for this turbulence. Deep down in his body’s engine room, the rusty old boiler was rumbling to life.
Mary Pickford’s cat. What an asinine idea that had been. The couple of notions he’d flirted with since then hadn’t been much better. Here, in front of his nose, lay all the material he needed for his novel. Knockton was heaving with drama – farcical, tragic, duplicitous, touching. The light side; the darker side.
And little did he know there was more to come.
Buffy
India came into the kitchen and dumped the shopping bags on the table.
‘Cor, that cake smells good,’ she said. ‘Where’s Vody?’
‘Popped out, I think.’ Buffy looked at his stepdaughter. She was wearing Voda’s long fringed skirt. ‘You and she are looking more and more alike.’
India pulled out a bundle of leeks. ‘Well, I’m staying with her, aren’t I? We like trying on each other’s clothes.’ She sighed. ‘It’s so beautiful at her place, isn’t it? Hens clucking round, lovely view. Even in the rain.’ She emptied a bag of potatoes i
nto the sink. ‘Do you ever miss London? Theatre? Old mates?’
‘Strangely enough, hardly at all.’ Throughout his adult life Buffy had been unnerved by how easily he sloughed off the past. Serial marriages had something to do with it. Each one brought its new location, its new set of friends. With each marriage one became a subtly different person. Besides, he was an actor, acquiring and then losing a series of close-knit families, always moving on, calling them darling when he bumped into them again because he had forgotten their names. Impermanence seemed to be the only permanent element in his life.
India was washing the potatoes. ‘It’s just . . . I was wondering what it would be like to live here. What one would miss.’
Buffy stared at her. ‘You’re not thinking about it, are you?’
Under the strip light, India blushed. ‘The thing is . . .’
‘The thing is what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘India?’
‘Nothing!’
Far off, the front door slammed. Voda came into the kitchen.
‘Where have you been?’ asked India.
‘Buying mite powder with Harold.’ She opened the oven. ‘How’s that cake coming on?’
An hour later the course members gathered in the dining room for tea. The cake was to celebrate the new baby. Buffy, however, couldn’t concentrate. What had India been trying to tell him? There was something thrumming beneath the surface, something unsettling about the whole day. After they had raised their cups for a toast he beckoned Lavinia into the hall.
‘I thought I ought to tell you,’ he whispered, ‘there’s things going missing. My BAFTA and a bottle of rum. I was wondering if any of the class has mentioned – you know – if anything’s disappeared. Personal items, stuff like that.’
There was a silence. Bridie’s grandfather clock struck five.
‘I wasn’t going to say anything,’ said Lavinia. ‘After all, it was a long time ago and she’s paid her debt to society.’
‘What?’ asked Buffy. ‘Spit it out, woman.’
She looked at him, startled.
‘Sorry,’ he said. He’d forgotten she was an Hon.
Lavinia took a breath. ‘One of the ladies here, Mary Taylor, is a convicted shoplifter.’
Buffy knew who she was talking about – a shy, inoffensive creature who wore vaguely inappropriate clothes – shirt-waisters, frilly blouses; the clothes of somebody who was playing the part of a woman and not getting it quite right, like a transvestite. She was occupying the Honeysuckle Room, up in the attic.
After tea, they all trooped off to their next class. When he was sure the coast was clear, Buffy made his way upstairs. His heart was heavy. He dreaded finding proof of her crime; what was he going to do then? Call the police? He hated confrontation. He also hated the idea that somebody was taking advantage of him under his own roof. He ran this house on trust. On generosity too. Voda thought he was mad to throw in the wine with meals, but it seemed too complicated to mark each person’s bottle or tot up what they had drunk. Besides, he was getting the stuff at rock-bottom prices, having abandoned Costcutter’s for a cash’n’carry near the M5 motorway junction, a peeling prefab in a no-man’s-land of lorry containers and abandoned shopping trolleys.
The Honeysuckle Room was tiny, home to generations of lonely housemaids. It had a sloping ceiling and doll’s-house fireplace, speckled with soot. Sunlight shone onto the single bed.
Buffy closed the door behind him and looked around. A laptop lay open on the chair. A pair of chaste white knickers hung drying on the bedpost. On the chest of drawers sat a small jug, purloined from the kitchen, in which Mary Taylor had arranged a bunch of Michaelmas daisies, probably picked from his own garden. He couldn’t decide if this was touching or rather a cheek. On the bedside table sat a copy of That Takes Ovaries! An A–Z of Female Empowerment and a saucer, also purloined from the kitchen, with two cigarette stubs in it. A secret smoker! It made the woman more interesting. Did it also make her a thief?
In fact, it was he who felt the criminal. Buffy cocked his head, listening for footsteps, but all was quiet. A search through the chest of drawers revealed nothing except an astonishingly large vibrator, nestling beneath her underwear. There was nothing in the wardrobe, or her suitcase. He even, with difficulty, crouched down and peered under the bed. Nothing there but fluff and hairpins.
Buffy got to his feet, his joints cracking like pistol shots. He suddenly felt a pang for Bridie. She would have found the whole thing hilarious. They could have compared notes on running a guest house; they could have spent a convivial evening in the pub, talking about the good old days in Edgbaston – Sir Digby Montague, naked except for his monogrammed socks! Buffy missed her. He missed the person he was, in her company. Both those people had gone. Just for a moment his real relationships felt as insubstantial as the roles he had played. Odd, really, that one of those had resulted in something as solid as a BAFTA.
Where the hell was his BAFTA? It was his prized possession, the crowning glory of his career. Buffy, exhausted by his exertions, went down to his room and lay on the bed. Fig jumped onto the counterpane and tenderly licked his face. Dozing off, Buffy dreamed that he had grown donkey’s ears and that Titania was softly covering him with kisses. They were on a stage, the audience sighing and rustling like leaves in the forest. Titania was played by Lorna, his long-lost love – Lorna, who had given birth to Celeste, the child he never knew he had . . . and now the audience was bursting into thunderous applause –
Buffy jerked awake. Outside, a storm was brewing. The wind battered at the window, rattling the panes. Across the landing, a door slammed shut. By God the house was draughty! Buffy sat up and switched on the light. Through the wall, he heard a thud.
Buffy heaved himself to his feet and went out. He tapped on the door of the next bedroom but there was no reply. When he entered the room the cold air hit his face; somebody had left the window open. The standard lamp had fallen over.
It was then that he noticed the wardrobe. Its hinges had perished with rust; due to this, and the slope of the floor, the door normally hung ajar.
Not now, however. Jamming it shut was Buffy’s BAFTA.
At six thirty they all gathered in the bar for drinks. Outside, the storm was raging. Everyone seemed to be in a high good humour, as is sometimes the way with groups.
‘I think we’re still a bit tipsy from your lovely cake,’ said one of the women to Voda, who was bringing in the ice bucket. ‘You must give me the recipe.’
‘I use double the amount of rum,’ said Voda. ‘The book says one cup but I use two, that’s what makes it so moist.’
Buffy spun round and looked at the shelf. The Bacardi bottle was back in place, some of its contents gone.
‘What’s so funny?’ asked Harold, who was waiting for his gin and tonic.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Buffy.
Lavinia
Lavinia had meant to leave before dinner but she phoned home and told Teddy she was staying on. He could make himself beans on toast. There was bound to be a cricket match on somewhere in the world if he could work out how to use the new TV.
The thing was, she was having too good a time to leave. To talk about gardening all day was her idea of heaven, and the responses she’d had so far were gratifying. She didn’t realise she knew so much; one thing led to another and lo and behold an hour had whizzed by. One lady had even called her a born teacher. No wonder the prospect of dinner was so appealing. The choice between such appreciative company and Teddy’s grunts was, as they said, a no-brainer.
She was also developing a bit of a crush on Buffy. This seemed ridiculous when he was far too fat and at least twenty years older than herself, but there was something raffish and twinkly about him, a whiff of the greasepaint, that was mildly intoxicating for someone from her background. Bohemians had a lot more fun than the county set, where the men were such dry sticks. Besides, judging by the photo in the bar, he had once been quite a dish. And t
he chap chatted. She was so unused to this that she felt like someone going to the first talkie – they opened their mouths and words came out! She also felt a certain complicity between the two of them, bound together as they were in their roles as course tutor and host. They had had an enjoyable little huddle in the hallway when he’d told her about his ‘stolen’ goods. Fancy somebody using his BAFTA as a doorstop! And the rum going into the cake! She had come over all giggly; it reminded her of her pashes at school.
As they took their places for dinner, however, she found herself sitting next to Mary Taylor. Her heart sank. Tonight Mary resembled a Ryanair stewardess in a red suit and white blouse. She frowned at Lavinia.
‘I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to work it out for the past two days.’
‘Maybe you’ve visited my garden under the National Gardens Scheme,’ said Lavinia shortly.
Mary shook her head. Her blouse was fastened at her throat with a fancy brooch. Were those real diamonds? Jensen’s the jewellers had reported a spate of thefts, it had been in the local newspaper. ‘I wasn’t interested in gardening till recently,’ said Mary. ‘That was my husband’s domain. He didn’t like me helping, he said I pulled up the wrong things. But now he’s gone I thought I’d better get to grips with it. That’s why I’m here.’ She paused. ‘You weren’t in the Christmas panto, by any chance? In the scouts’ hall?’
‘Good God no,’ said Lavinia.
‘I’ll work it out in a minute,’ said Mary. ‘I can feel it coming.’
Lavinia hastily turned to Harold, who was sitting on her other side. ‘Where were you this afternoon? I noticed you weren’t in the class.’
‘Sorry,’ Harold said. ‘I was buying stuff for my hens. Then I stopped at the bypass to listen to my messages. You can get a signal there.’