Читать книгу Caught in the Act - Gemma Fox - Страница 5

‘Are you sure that you re ally don’t mind doing this?’ Carol stood near the front door. Her suitcase was over by the hall stand, she was just about ready to leave, and was only too aware of what a stupid question it was. What on earth would she do if Raf turned round and said yes?

‘I’ve already told you a dozen times, it’s fine. Besides, you’re always telling me that I’m a Friday-to-Sunday thing. Today’s Friday, I know my place.’ Raf grinned at her grimace and waved her away. ‘Relax, go, have a good time and don’t look so worried. We’ll be all right. I’ve got the list. I know what to water, who to feed and what to turn off. You’re OK about the directions? You know where you’re going? You’ve got everything you need?’

Carol patted her jacket theatrically. ‘Uh-huh, I think so—let me see: dagger, eyeliner, bad attitude—just about wraps it up. I’m just going to go and say goodbye to the boys and then I’ll be off. Oh, and did I ever mention, don’t fuss?’ she added, acting playfully grumpy, touched that he cared whilst all the while struggling to suppress the feeling that she was sloping off for a dirty weekend.

She glanced in the hall mirror and tugged her hair into shape. She’d had it cut and coloured. It looked great. She looked great.

So, OK, Gareth Howard was going to be at the reunion too. So what? So what did that re ally add up to in the great scheme of things? Nothing, not a thing. Anyway, he was probably old and bald and…Carol stopped herself from conjuring up an image of an older worldweary Gareth Howard, aware that Raf was still talking and that she was still smiling and nodding inanely and not listening to a single word he was saying.

The fantasy Gareth refused to be old and bald; instead he looked more or less exactly the same as when Carol had last seen him, just slightly thicker-set with greying hair, swept back from bold regular features that made him appear distinguished and sexy as hell. Carol sighed; the bastard.

Tucked into the top of her handbag was a battered copy of Macbeth—stolen from the English and Drama Department twenty years earlier and autographed by all the people who had been there on that last summer tour. Gareth had signed his name with love to her, love and a single kiss. It looked very classy amongst a sea of bad jokes, slushy sentiment and poorly drawn hearts and flowers. Doggedly Carol dragged her attention away from the book and the memories, but it was like trying to take a steak away from a terrier.

‘Have a good drive,’ Raf was saying, ‘and don’t worry about anything or anybody here. We’ll be just fine. I’m considering renting a few of those films you said you don’t ever want in this house, and filling up on fast food, pizzas, beer and take-out burgers.’

She couldn’t think of a smart reply quickly enough, so Carol plumped for looking at Raf all damp-eyed and feeling guilty instead. She’d done nothing at all and yet she felt guilty, horribly guilty. Ridiculous. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Ridiculous.

Raf put his arm round her waist and kissed her, and Carol immediately found herself wondering if Gareth would kiss her when they met. Did he still kiss the same as he had all those years ago? She seemed to remember he was a re ally good—and then, suddenly horribly aware of Raf’s lips on hers, Carol hated herself for thinking about Gareth. What a cow she had grown up to be.

Raf looked her up and down admiringly. ‘You know, you’re gorgeous,’ he purred. Carol softened. This man adored her; he cared for her, stood up for her, stood up to her and wanted to be with her. Raf wanted to marry her, for God’s sake—how crazy was that? Over a glass or two of wine out on the terrace he would look up at the stars and wax lyrical about the house they would buy together, the house they would love and grow old in together. He cooked, he bought her flowers and presents that she liked and wanted. He made her laugh; when she was sad or feeling down he brought her carrot cake with proper cream cheese icing from the baker’s on Bridge Street, or lemon drizzle cake with crystallised sugar on the top. Carol looked up into Raf’s big brown smiling eyes and tried very hard not to cry.

Carol loved Raf and she knew he loved her and yet…and yet, that thing, that, that little zing wasn’t there, that thing that made something happen in your gut every time you saw someone. It was the bastard factor that was lacking, that little edge of unpredictability that adds a bit of a challenge, a bit of bite. Raf was too nice, and it worried Carol. What if she got bored; what if, despite all evidence to the contrary, Raf wasn’t the one after all? What if loving him turned out to be a terrible mistake? What if…? The possibilities haunted her. Raf was so safe, so kind, so right for her—so why was it exactly that she was thinking about the might-have-beens with a man she hadn’t seen for twenty years?

Raf drew Carol closer still and kissed the tip of her nose. He smelled of sunshine and a hint of aftershave all wrapped around by a warm musky man smell. She felt safe curled in his arms; it was one of the things that had made her hang on and try to quell the fear. Maybe, just maybe that she had got it right this time and she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

‘Now you be careful,’ teased Raf. ‘We’re expecting you to phone home every night. Don’t go talking to any strange men and if they offer you sweeties or to show you their puppies—’

‘I’ll tell them to bugger off, pull out my plastic dagger and then get Diana to flash them the wart.’

‘Good, now have you got a clean hanky?’ he continued in the same jokey paternal tone.

Behind them Jake thundered down the stairs, taking the last few steps two at a time and then swung round the newel post so he was standing right in front of her. ‘And there’ll be no staying up late, no drinking, no drugs and no monkey business,’ he said, wagging a finger at her.

Carol stared at him. ‘What?’ she spluttered.

‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. Just make sure you behave yourself, young lady,’ he said, all mock-parent and raging acne.

To her horror Carol felt her colour rising furiously as she hugged Jake goodbye. Of course she would behave herself. Wouldn’t she?

‘Ollie?’ Carol called, struggling to regain her composure. She glanced down at her watch to hide her discomfort; it was high time she was gone.

Ollie was in the kitchen, excavating something from the Mesozoic layer in the bottom of the fridge.

‘I’m off now, love,’ she said cheerily.

‘So’s this yoghurt,’ he huffed miserably. ‘I might have got food poisoning or something.’

Carol took the offending article out of his deeply disgusted paw and dropped it into the pedal bin. ‘For God’s sake, Ollie, you’re a new lad, you’re not supposed to read the sell-by dates,’ Carol growled. ‘You’re meant to eat it and then burp appreciatively, green hairy mould and all.’

Ollie’s expression of unrelenting disdain did not waver. Carol held up her hands in surrender. ‘OK, OK, my mistake. You can go and buy more tomorrow. Organic, low fat, no fat—whatever.’

He sniffed.

Carol pulled him closer and brushed her lips across the top of Oliver’s spiky hard-boy haircut. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll be back on Sunday evening to mop up any unused emotional blackmail and residual maternal guilt.’

His eyes twinkled but his expression remained steadfastly hard done by. ‘Just as long as we’ve got that perfectly clear,’ he said.

Carol resisted the temptation to scrunch his carefully teased and heavily gelled hairstyle into prepubescent fluffiness. ‘Have a good time without me.’

‘Yeah, right, we will. Bye, Mum,’ Ollie said grudgingly.

At least he helped her to feel slightly better; resentment and grumpiness made Carol feel she had every right to go. After all she did for them, ungrateful buggers. She sighed; who the hell was she trying to kid? Although she did want to go and meet everyone and see what they had been up to—she and Diana had got a brilliant response from their ad on Oldschooltie’s message board—Carol knew that the main reason she was going was so that she could take a long hard look at Gareth Howard. Not only to see what the years had done to him but also to see if there was a flame still burning after all.

What if she had met Mr Right all those years ago and had been too blind or too young or too naïve to see it? Maybe it wasn’t too late to go back and pick up the pieces.

She’d had a thing for Gareth for years—but it wasn’t until they started rehearsing the play that he suddenly seemed aware of her for the first time.

‘I was looking for you,’ he’d said, bounding up to her in the corridor on impossibly long legs. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to read the script through some time before we start rehearsals?’ Carol had been hurrying out of the common room, her arms full of books.

‘Sorry, that was the bell—I’m supposed to be in History…’ Ah, that was it. And she had turned away and Gareth had caught hold of her elbow and turned her back towards him. ‘When’s your next private study? It would be good to go through the play a couple of times—you know, get a feel for it.’

Carol could feel her colour rising; wasn’t this what she had been daydreaming about for years? Her annoyance at being held up faded to a kind of self-conscious discomfort. Get a grip, she thought, and tried smiling.

‘This afternoon, after lunch I’ve got a double free,’ Carol had heard herself saying, stumbling over the words, trying to forget the pile of work she had to catch up on.

And then Gareth had grinned and brushed his fringe back off his face; he had been playing cricket and tennis and had a tan that made his eyes seem far too blue. ‘Great. Me too, any idea where we could go?’

Carol stared at him; where the hell did you go with somebody you had been lusting after since you were fourteen?

‘How about the library?’

He pulled a face; so maybe it wasn’t the best choice but it was all Carol could come up with under pressure. ‘Someone is bound to complain about the noise. We need somewhere quiet where we can read through without being disturbed. How about if we go over to the pavilion; we could sit out on the veranda. At least it will be out of the way.’

Carol felt her stomach fluttering. The cricket pavilion was up on a bank overlooking the cricket pitch, sheltered on two sides by huge horse chestnut trees with a view back over the main school. People mostly went there to smoke or snog.

‘Sure, sounds like a good idea,’ Carol said, with a confidence she didn’t feel.

‘OK,’ he beamed. ‘See you there first period after lunch then?’

All these years on and Carol could still feel that intense little flutter in the pit of her stomach that he had made her feel then. Across the kitchen Raf was looking at her quizzically.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You look a bit pale.’

Carol made a real effort to smile. How could she possibly tell him? ‘I’m fine.’

‘I love you,’ Raf said gently. ‘And I’ll be here…’

What was that supposed to mean? For an instant Carol wondered if Raf had some inkling of what was going through her mind, some Celtic intuition that told him that she was floundering. She stared at him. Why didn’t she want to commit herself to living with Raf? Was that what all this hankering after Gareth was re ally about? Wasn’t she aching for a fantasy, some perfect love that had never re ally had the chance to blossom, or go wrong or get dull or cruel? Fancying Gareth after all these years was like loving a dead war hero; in her mind he hadn’t aged, he didn’t fart in bed and his hair hadn’t thinned or been combed over.

Raf’s expression crinkled up a little. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

Carol waved her thoughts and his words away. ‘Just a bit nervous, that’s all. I mean, do I re ally want to see just how wrinkly everyone else is and know they’re thinking the same thing about me?’ she said with a grin. ‘All those old faces, all those old memories.’

‘And all those old flames?’ he added casually.

Carol stared at him. He knew. ‘Maybe,’ she hedged, aware of something that Shakespeare had written in another play about what a dead giveaway it was to protest too much. Any heated denials would only make things worse, not better. ‘There’s bound to be one or two but they’re probably balding with false teeth and half a dozen kids by now,’ she joked.

‘They?’

Carol felt a great rush of heat. ‘He,’ she said uncomfortably, cursing her inability to lie.

Raf nodded. She wondered if for an instant he felt worried or hurt or threatened. If he did, it didn’t show. Raf looked at her with his big brown eyes and smiled. ‘Well, have a good time and give my love to Diana. We’ll be fine, assuming we can avoid yoghurt poisoning.’

They both looked at Ollie, who made a big point of ignoring them.

‘God, I’m so glad that you arrived early,’ said Diana. ‘I was beginning to panic. I’ve got the list—did you receive any more replies or apologies?’

She was standing all alone in the huge vaulted hallway of Burbeck House. Once a great baronial manor, it was set in its own grounds at the far end of an impressive sweeping drive. The interior was now painted a pale and rather morbid shade of November afternoon grey. The enormous entrance hall was dotted with hessian pin boards screwed to walls that would have looked far more at home under rows of stags’ heads, axes, spears and suits of armour. A reception desk, dwarfed by stone columns, was set up inside the great double door and beside it Diana was standing, surrounded by various boxes, shopping bags, bits of costume and piles of books.

Carol pulled a sheet of paper out of her handbag. ‘All present and correct, Capt’n Bligh.’

‘Sorry,’ said Diana. ‘It’s just that I’ve been panicking. You found it all right, then?’ she continued, gathering assorted bits and pieces together.

‘Eventually,’ said Carol, bending down to help her. ‘It’s a bit out of the way, but it is such a great place. It was a good idea to hold it here, Di. Do you have any idea who designed the park? It almost looks like it might be Capability Brow—’ Glancing up, Carol could see from the anxious expression on Diana’s face that architecture and landscape weren’t the most pressing things on her mind. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘We’ve got a bit of a problem. Well, I’m not sure it’s a problem, exactly,’ she said, shifting her weight uneasily from foot to foot.

‘Spit it out,’ said Carol, straightening up under a carton full of props. ‘What’s the trouble? I’m good at crisis management.’

Diana looked even more uncomfortable, as if struggling to find exactly the right words.

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Carol, ‘you’ve accidentally booked the wrong weekend and nobody is coming after all. Just you, me and a box full of papier-mâché crowns, plastic swords and a pile of scripts?’

Diana shook her head. ‘Oh, no, as far as I know everyone is coming. It’s just that when I rang up to book the rooms I must have said something about it being a school reunion and the receptionist got hold of the wrong end of the stick and…’ Diana bit her lip and pulled one of her world-famous faces.

‘And?’ said Carol, willing the words out of Diana’s mouth.

‘And they’ve allocated us the dormitories.’

Carol stared at her. ‘The dormitories?’

‘Uh-huh, you know—bunk beds, communal washrooms. They thought we were some sort of school party.’

Carol laughed. ‘You’re joking?’

‘No. We’ve been allocated segregated dormitories in the east wing with separate accommodation for the members of staff. I couldn’t understand why the weekend was so cheap; I thought that maybe it was their group rate. Now I know why.’

Carol put the box down. It wasn’t that serious, surely—but then again how long was it since she’d slept a dozen to a room in a bunk bed? Probably the last school drama tour.

‘And there’s no chance of changing it?’

Diana shook her head miserably. ‘Apparently not, I’ve already tried. Unfortunately, they’ve got some sort of delegation of lay church workers in this weekend and they’re all very keen on personal space—not seeing each other in their jarmies and rollers, that sort of thing, and that’s just the men. No, I’m afraid we’re stuck upstairs in Teddy Towers.’

‘Teddy Towers?’ Carol laughed.

‘It’s what we call it when we bring the Sunday school kids here. Come on, I’ll show you what I mean. I’m just hoping that people won’t mind too much.’ Diana sounded genuinely worried.

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ said Carol, in what she hoped would pass for a jolly, ‘it’ll be all right, how bad can it be, after all it’s only for a couple of nights’ sort of voice.

‘Bloody hell…’ hissed Carol as they crested the stairs up into the east wing.

Along one apparently unending landing were two dormitories. The corridor was lit by a series of bare bulbs that dangled on long flexes from high, hugely ornate ceilings. There were two communal bathrooms, two staff bedrooms and a job lot of six-inch-wide border printed with assorted toy town animals that ran the whole length of the wall—in fact as far as the eye could see—all pasted to the battle-scarred plaster at around six-year-old paw-print height. Above the frieze the walls were painted an unpleasant shade of nursery yellow. The ceilings too. Here and there on the walls were outcrops of teddies glued in bouquets of beardom. While below the frieze everything—radiators, skirting boards, even wall sockets and what looked like oak panelling—was painted the same unrelenting battleship grey that graced the rest of the house.

‘Oh, don’t worry, it gets worse,’ said Diana grimly as they headed along the corridor.

She pushed open a heavy door on which someone had Blu-Tacked a laminated sheet of A4 paper which read ‘Girls/Drama Tour’, and then stood aside to let Carol step past her.

‘Sweet Jesus…’ breathed Carol as the door swung open.

The enormous room was grey, with a row of wooden lockers and cupboards built in along one wall. The bottom pane in each of the tall sash windows had been replaced by obscured glass, and the carpets—a lurid mustard yellow and grey with a bitter and twisted orange fleck—were definitely not the kind of thing Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would have chosen for any kind of make-over. But what struck Carol—what would have struck anyone—were the bears.

Some lunatic evidently in the throes of mental illness had pasted cut-out teddy bears to every flat surface—hundreds of bears: tall bears, thin bears, bears with bows, famous bears, unknown bears, cartoon bears, bears cut from wildlife magazines, bears with fish, bears in hats, bears juggling beach balls. Even the beds—great sturdy two-storey, iron-framed monstrosities that looked as if they might be army surplus—hadn’t escaped. On every upright and cross member someone had lovingly stuck pictures of Pooh and Paddington and every bear and shade of bear between, and then varnished over them so that they were sealed on for ever. The bed linen, by contrast, appeared to be ex-army too: crisp white sheets with heavy itchy grey blankets tucked drum tight around wafer-thin mattresses.

‘Oh my God,’ whispered Carol in horrified awe. ‘Who the hell did this?’

‘I’ve always thought it must have been psychotic nuns,’ said Diana, dropping a bag onto one of the bedside cabinets. ‘It used to be various shades of grey, fawn and bilious yellow like the rest of the place—which was bad enough—and then we came back one summer and, shazam—Teddy Towers.’

‘What’s the boys’ room like?’

‘Same, although rumour has it that they have the odd goat to relieve the tension.’

‘Goat?’

Diana shook her head. ‘Yes, goat. And before you ask, I have no idea.’

Carol didn’t know what to say. Instead she stared at the décor while trying hard to hold on to her jolly ‘it’ll be all right, how bad can it be, after all it’s only for a couple of nights’ thing.

It was then that the double doors behind them burst open and in giggled two other women clutching bags and suitcases, talking ferociously. As they realised they were not alone there was a moment’s silence, almost instantly followed by a great whoop of recognition.

‘Bloody hell, as I live and breathe, if it isn’t Mrs Macbeth and her evil sidekick Witch One,’ said the smaller of the two women, slinging her bag onto the floor.

Carol felt her jaw drop and then grinned. ‘Oh my God, Netty Davies? Jan Smith? The rest of the coven. Oh, wow—God, you look wonderful, both of you,’ she shrieked in amazement and delight, as the four of them got caught up in a round of hugs and kisses and more giggles.

Annette Davies—Netty Davies to her friends—was, and had been since she was around thirteen, a small curvy brunette with freckles, a lot of red in her hair and even more in her nature. Jan Smith, on the other hand, had thickened up a bit since sixth form, but then again, as she had once been referred to as, ‘your mate, the stick insect’, she could afford a few extra pounds.

Netty had a healthy tan and was dressed in designer jeans, a little V-necked top that emphasised a pair of unnaturally pert breasts and had a cleavage you could park a Harley-Davidson in. By contrast, Jan was very tall, pale and willowy, dressed in what looked like Mary Quant retro—a black and white A-line dress, with black boots and a lot of eye make-up. She still had her trademark hair—long, dark and as straight as expensive well-weighted curtains, which hung more than halfway down her back and was still remarkably very dark brown for a woman of not far off forty.

‘Is this our room?’ said Jan, looking round speculatively. They seemed totally unfazed by the teddy bear epidemic or the fact that it was a dormitory.

Diana nodded. ‘Yes. I’m sorry—’ she began.

‘Great, well, in that case, bags-I the top bunk,’ yelled Netty, and, taking a great whooping run up, leaped onto the nearest bunk bed with an amazing agility for someone in such high heels.

‘In that case I’ll have the one underneath,’ said Jan with equal enthusiasm, dumping a large holdall on the bed.

Without a word Carol and Diana took the set of bunks next to them, Carol on top, Diana underneath. With Netty and Jan next door it was just like the good old days—the three witches and Mrs Macbeth back under one roof for the first time in God knew how long under the watchful eye of God knew how many teddy bears.

Netty and Jan—slightly calmer now—took one look around the room and burst into great gales of laughter.

‘What an amazing place,’ said Netty. ‘God, I’ve so been looking forward to this. It’s going to be such a laugh.’ She pulled a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag. ‘I presume this place is non-smoking—everywhere is these days. I’ll have to go and find the fire escape or stick my head out of a window. It’s ridiculous, grown adults having to go and hang around the back of the bike sheds. I did that when I was fifteen. What is the world coming to? Where’s the bar?’

‘I’m afraid there isn’t one,’ Diana said with a grim smile.

Netty and Jan groaned in unison.

‘But,’ continued Diana hastily, in case it dampened their obvious enthusiasm, ‘the nearest pub is down in the village. It’s not far; it was part of the Burbeck estate, ten minutes, if that. You can walk it from here.’

‘Good-oh. Do you think they’ll still be open, only I’m absolutely famished?’ asked Netty, fiddling with an unlit cigarette.

Carol looked round at the faces of her friends; the years might all be there, picked out in a raft of lines, but underneath it didn’t feel as if very much had changed at all.

Before Diana could answer, a cultured male voice said, ‘Knock knock, anyone home?’

The four women turned in unison. Standing in the doorway was a tall, blond, nicely tanned man dressed in cream chinos and a black Tshirt, with shoulders to die for, a leather jacket hooked casually on one finger over his shoulder and wearing a pair of shades that made him look like a male model.

Carol stared; who the hell was that? Her brain stalled for a few seconds and then frantically began rifling through the images in her memory. Maybe he wasn’t with the drama group at all; maybe he worked at Burbeck House. Maybe he’d found them by mistake; maybe he was one of the lay Christians who had lost his way; maybe he was someone’s partner, come to drop her off. Lucky, lucky girl, thought Carol wistfully; at which point the tall blond guy grinned and whipped off the shades to reveal a pair of enormous blue-grey eyes.

‘It is you lot. I thought it might be,’ he said with genuine delight, and Carol gasped as her brain joined up the dots.

‘Adrian—Adie Gilbert?’ she said in amazement. ‘It is you, isn’t it? Bloody hell, whatever happened to you? You’ve changed.’

‘How kind of you to notice,’ he said, doing a little twirl.

‘Jesus,’ said Netty, a split second behind her. ‘Adie Gilbert, as I live and breathe. Well, hello there, big boy.’

The beautifully even grin widened out to full double-page spread and he dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘Well, hello yourself, Netty,’ he said. ‘Good to see you too.’

‘God, you’re bloody gorgeous,’ stuttered Carol, while making an effort to clear her mind and close her mouth. Adrian Gilbert, terminal acne sufferer, last seen on leavers’ day when he could barely muster five foot six of pale sinewy flesh, the boy who used to have an underbite, and a chest and shoulders that looked as if they were permanently hunched in anticipation of an unexpected gale. Adrian Gilbert, who made them laugh, could plait hair, dance and play Spanish guitar like an angel, Adrian Gilbert, who played Macduff, and who now looked like a million dollars well spent.

‘I’ve just been next door, along the corridor.’ He indicated an unspecified somewhere over his broad and very muscular shoulder. ‘God, what a place. The woman downstairs, the one with the moustache and bat-wing arms, directed me up to bear boy city—but none of the other guys seem to have arrived yet and then I heard giggling and thought I’d take a look. I might have guessed it was you lot.’

You lot. Twenty years on and they were still ‘you lot’. Carol felt her heart lift and then wondered if the whole weekend was going to be a messy medley of heart-warming moments and eyes filling up like fountains—and whether she could cope with so much undiluted sentiment.

Diana grimaced. ‘I’m so sorry, Adrian. You don’t mind about the bears, do you?’ She sounded horribly apologetic. ‘I didn’t realise that they had given us the dormitories.’

Adrian snorted and then raised a hand to disburse any lingering doubt. ‘Oh, please. It’s fine, honey, don’t panic. I’ve slept in places a lot worse than this.’

Carol resisted the temptation to ask him where that was exactly.

‘Yes, for God’s sake, Di, stop apologising and just relax about the bloody bears,’ snapped Netty, still toying with her cigarette. ‘No one gives a shit. Now will you excuse me while I retire to a nearby bike shed before I die of nicotine withdrawal?’ She glanced round. ‘I don’t suppose anyone else would care to join me?’

‘Hang on, don’t go. It would be a shame to break up the party before it gets going. I’ll open a window,’ said Adie, going over and unfastening one of the sashes. ‘There’s a fire escape out here,’ he said cheerfully.

Netty peered outside and then with a hand from Adie clambered out onto the windowledge and lit up.

Once Netty was settled, Adie tipped the sunglasses back onto his head and clapped his hands together. ‘So—’ he began, but Netty was way ahead of him.

‘What in God’s name happened to you?’ she asked, snatching the words clean out of Carol’s mouth.

He laughed and shrugged. ‘You know how it is. I grew up, worked out, got a job. How about you?’

Netty sniffed. ‘Nothing so interesting.’

Carol hugged him. ‘You look absolutely amazing.’

‘You too. I just love what you’ve done with your hair,’ he said, holding her at arm’s length to admire her and then cast an eye round the rest of the gang. ‘And, Jan, I adore that colour. Was it that colour last time I saw you? Netty, it’s nice to see that bitch never went out of fashion. God, it’s just so good to see you all again. This was such a brilliant idea.’ Jan reddened furiously under his undisguised delight at her dye job. Carol hugged him tighter, relishing the smell of something expensive and the feel of his nicely muscled body under her fingertips, Diana grinned with sheer pride and Netty, perched like a grumpy dragon out on the windowsill, laughed, blowing out a great plume of smoke. Adrian Gilbert, home from the hills with fantastically good highlights and fabulous teeth—it was enough to restore anyone’s faith in the power of fate, peroxide and cosmetic dentistry.

There was a moment then when they all settled and paused to take stock and in a tiny intense silence Carol thought that maybe it was going to be all right after all. She felt the tension that she didn’t know she had been holding on to, slip away.

And then Jan said, ‘So who else is coming?’ unzipping her holdall and taking out a fluffy white dressing gown and toilet bag.

Carol seemed to remember that Jan—even in her teens—liked to move into a place. Every stop on the drama tour, out would come a big pink throw, clock, photos. True to form the next thing Jan pulled out of the bag was a thin scarlet Indian cotton throw, which she arranged over the miserable grey army blanket. It was like lighting a fire in the huge grey room.

Diana, meanwhile, was extricating a printed list from her bag, together with Carol’s sheet, and said, ‘I’ve got it all written down on here, somewhere,’ and began to scan the neatly typed pages. ‘Us, obviously—and the drama teachers, Mr Bearman and Miss Haze.’

‘God, they’re coming too, are they? How the hell did you pull that off?’ said Adie.

Diana looked bemused. ‘I asked them,’ she said as if it was perfectly obvious.

‘That’s great. I wonder how old they are. As kids you just don’t think. I mean, Miss Haze could only have been, what—four, five years older than us? I often wondered if those two had a thing going. You know,’ said Adrian conspiratorially, ‘all that late night rehearsing, away for weeks on end together every summer. The way they looked at each other sometimes. You must have noticed.’

‘Of course we did, everyone noticed, and we all thought the same thing,’ snapped Jan.

‘You never said anything.’

‘That was because everyone already knew,’ Jan bitched right back. ‘It was obvious.’

‘Ouch,’ whined Adie. ‘Don’t bite.’

‘Play nicely, you two,’ hissed Netty.

Carol found herself looking backwards and forwards between them, spectator to their verbal tennis match. She had completely forgotten the little needly thing between Jan and Adrian.

‘I don’t take any notice, she’s always like this,’ said Adie.

‘I’m not.’

‘Are too. Last Christmas you bit me.’

‘You were the one feeding people grapes.’

‘No one else bit me.’

‘Is there any chance we can carry on fighting over a sandwich and pint?’ asked Netty, stubbing out her cigarette on the windowsill. ‘Only I’m dying upwards from hunger over here.’

‘Great idea,’ said Adrian. ‘Everyone coming? We can always unpack later.’ He looked pointedly at Jan who was busy arranging two small, embroidered cushions. ‘It’s a shame that I’m not bunked down in here with you lot, re ally.’

‘Not a chance,’ said Diana wearily, although Carol wasn’t sure whether she meant Adrian sharing a room with them or heading off down to the pub. ‘I’ve got to stay here and meet people as they arrive—but you lot go. It’s not far. You go out of the back doors of the hall, follow the path down through the vegetable garden,’ by this point Diana was pointing and directing with her hands, ‘out through the gates and there you are. Pub, post office and a Spar shop with an offie.’ She paused, looking pleased with herself. ‘Everything a girl could want.’

‘You live in the country, don’t you?’ Netty said, eyeing Diana thoughtfully as she attended to her lipstick in a tiny silver mirror. ‘What about you, Jan, are you coming or are you planning on a complete makeover to the whole place before everyone else gets here?’

Jan, busy fluffing the cushions with care, wasn’t at all put out. ‘I just like to be comfortable, that’s all. I’m curious about who is going to show up. What time does this shindig officially kick off?’

‘Five o’clock,’ said Diana, glancing at her watch. ‘Informal high tea in the dining room and then dinner at eight. I thought I might say a few words. Adie, is there any chance you’d be master of ceremonies? I’ve got a programme of events and rehearsals printed up for everyone but if you could maybe read it through, say something clever, be funny, whatever.’

He groaned theatrically but didn’t actually say no as Diana handed him one of her photocopied sheets.

‘And I just want to say I’m re ally glad you all got here early. I was worried—well, you know, it feels like you lot are the vanguard—the inner circle—and it means that everyone else will probably turn up as well, and if you don’t mind the bears and the bunk beds then maybe nobody else will either.’ Diana reddened furiously, eyes all bright. ‘It’s so good to see you again.’

Carol could see that the nostalgia virus had infected Diana too.

‘For God’s sake, stop going on about the bloody bears,’ snapped Netty. ‘Unless you glued them up yourself they’re not your fault.’

‘Everyone be here for tea and buns?’ asked Adrian, looking down at the paper.

Diana shook her head. ‘No, not everyone—some people have said they won’t be able to get here until later. Sheena Mason, Phillip Hudson—Gareth Howard.’

As if on cue, everyone, including Adrian, turned to look in Carol’s direction. Carol felt a little flurry of something in her belly but, pretending to be totally unconcerned, she carried on unzipping her suitcase.

‘Have we got a cupboard each?’ she asked casually, hanging a towel over the rail at the end of the bunk to stake her claim, not that she was fooling anyone. There was a pause; she could feel them all still looking at her. ‘All right, all right, so it will be great to see Gareth again—is that good enough for you?’

Adrian lifted an eyebrow. ‘We don’t know yet, do we? What else had you got in mind?’

Carol slung a pair of socks at him. ‘Nothing, nothing at all. Besides, Gareth is probably happily married with half a dozen kids, a fish farm and a bloody Labrador by now. It will just be lovely to see him—to catch up, to catch up with everyone—but come on, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since…since…’ She couldn’t quite find the right words to describe exactly since what.

Adrian came to her aid: ‘Since you and Gareth slipped off to God knows where with a sly grin and a packet of three?’ he suggested helpfully.

Carol felt the heat roar through her. ‘I did no such thing,’ she protested furiously.

There was another weighty silence and then Carol’s composure and outrage deflated. ‘All right, all right, so maybe I did, but that doesn’t mean that anything like that is likely to happen again—not at all. Is that clear?’

‘OK, well, as long as we’ve got that straight,’ said Adie wryly. ‘So are you coming down to the pub? Only I’m desperate to get all the gossip and, let’s face it, we’re going to need all the time we can get if we’re going to catch up on twenty years each.’

Carol hesitated, unsure whether she ought to stay with Diana. After all, hadn’t she made some kind of rash promise to pitch in? Also Carol wasn’t sure she could stand up to too much close questioning about her motives when it came to seeing Gareth again.

‘Go,’ said Diana, waving Carol away before she could offer to stay behind. ‘This lot will need someone to ride shot gun on them.’

Carol picked up her handbag. ‘If you’re sure…’

‘I’m sure,’ Diana said. ‘Go.’

‘Oh, by the way, is Fiona coming?’ asked Netty as she got to the door.

There was a fraction of a second’s pause. Fiona Templeton, the girl for whom the phrase ‘drama queen’ could well have been invented.

Diana nodded. ‘Yes, well, at least she said she would be here.’

‘I can’t imagine that Fiona would miss it,’ said Netty. ‘Any chance for a little limelight and adoration.’

‘Just as long as she doesn’t bring her mother,’ laughed Adrian.

‘That’s not funny. That old stoat used to make my life hell. Lights out, fags out, boys out. God, the woman was such a pain in the arse,’ snapped Netty. ‘Her and her precious little kitten.’ She mimicked Fiona’s mother with spiteful accuracy for someone whom she hadn’t seen for years.

‘Oh, come on, Fiona has done well for herself,’ said Diana pleasantly.

‘What do you mean well?’ said Jan. ‘First road kill in Casualty?’

‘I saw her in an ad on telly for Boots last Christmas,’ said Netty.

‘Third bunny on the Emmerdale Easter special,’ laughed Carol.

‘And first drownee on the Titanic,’ continued Adrian, topping the lot of them.

‘Oh, I didn’t know that she was in Titanic,’ said Diana innocently, at which point Netty and Jan keeled over giggling.

‘You pair are bloody horrible,’ growled Diana as the penny dropped, although she did say it with a certain affection, which made them laugh all the harder.

‘So Fiona is definitely coming?’ asked Carol.

‘She said she would, although apparently there was a chance she might be called back for filming, in which case it could make things a bit tight.’

‘Oh, she was just saying that to impress you. Of course she’ll be here,’ said Adrian. ‘Understudy to Mrs Macbeth, Lady Macduff—if there was ever a woman who needed stabbing…’ He hesitated and then said to Carol, ‘You want to watch yourself on these steep stairs, you know. I don’t think she ever forgave you for stealing the lead out from under her retroussé nose. She’s probably still out for blood.’

Carol smiled grimly. ‘She was always out for blood.’

Netty nodded. ‘She was re ally pissed off with you, you know—you getting the leading role and the leading man.’

‘Come off it, it’s a long time ago now. Let’s go. I could murder a drink,’ said Carol uncomfortably.

‘Poor choice of words,’ said Jan. ‘I remember she was livid when the reviews came out; didn’t get so much as a word.’

Carol laughed. ‘That’s only because you three stole the show. Madam here,’ she waved towards Diana, ‘and her magic wart.’

‘Anyway, Fiona said she might be delayed,’ finished Diana, determined to bring the conversation round to something a little less anarchic.

‘So that’s her and Gareth,’ said Adie archly. ‘Right, well, let’s go and find this pub then.’

The gang moseyed out with Adrian in the lead.

As they fell into step Carol let thoughts surface that hadn’t come to the fore since she left school: why was it Gareth hadn’t been interested in Fiona instead of her? Perhaps it was that he couldn’t stand the idea of sharing the limelight. Two egos that big would probably have sent the place up in smoke.

‘And Gareth said he had a few things to sort out before he left,’ said Diana to their backs.

‘And what did you say?’ asked Carol, turning back but trying hard not to sound too eager.

‘Nothing much—God, you have got it bad, haven’t you?’

Carol shook her head, reluctant to commit herself. ‘Not re ally, I just wondered…’

Diana grinned. ‘You don’t fool me. You’d better head off and catch up. We can talk later.’

Carol nodded, while somewhere deep in her heart she felt a sharp little stab of betrayal for Raf.

Meanwhile in a large semi-detached town house in an unfashionable suburb of Hemel Hempstead, Gareth Howard was pulling on his jacket.

‘About these…’ Leonora began, as she and Gareth arrived together at the front door. She held a sheaf of bills in her hand.

Gareth leaned forward and kissed her hard on the lips and then each cheek. ‘I’ll miss you, sweetie,’ he purred.

‘What about th—’ she began again, but wasn’t anywhere near fast enough.

‘My God is that the time?’ he said, looking down at his watch. ‘I re ally need to be gone, darling.’ As he stepped through the door Gareth took a small box from his jacket pocket, on top of which was an intricate curl of scarlet ribbon.

Leonora pulled a face, trying very hard to sustain the emotion that had propelled her downstairs after him. ‘What on earth is this?’ she snapped.

He grinned. ‘Something to remember me by.’

‘What do you mean, remember you by? I thought you said you would be back on Sunday evening?’

As she lifted the lid Gareth was already stepping out into the street. Inside the box was a pair of black silk stockings, not unlike those he had tied Leonora to the bed with the very first night they had slept together.

‘Gareth?’ she said, looking up, but he was already gone.

‘Mummy?’ Patrick tugged at her cardigan. ‘Where’s Daddy gone?’

Leonora shook her head. ‘I’ve got no idea,’ she said, taking his hand and scooping the baby up from the pram just inside the hall door. ‘No idea at all.’