We spent the afternoon sorting out a couple of riding habits. I learnt that what is worn nowadays are called jodhpurs. The boots were awesome and would have made kinky bedroom attire. During the afternoon we had to go to a friend’s house. I was driven by Vera to the next village in her BMW. Vera’s friend had two daughters and hence a collection of ball-gowns. The girls were away at boarding school, so would not be needing gowns.
By the time I met Sid for our walk home, I was fully equipped – mentally and physically – for the execution of Vera’s scheme. The physical bit I would like to have saved myself. The bag with riding outfits, including boots, and the two ball-gowns were more than I could carry, so I was pleased to palm the gowns off on Sid.
She looked mistrustfully at the packet and then asked, 'What actually is in this bin-liner?'
'Two ball-gowns. We are going to do it.'
'We are so not going to go to either the hunt or ball! And you can’t go on your own, because I’m the one with the invitation.'
I ran her through Vera’s arguments, about it being an opportunity to broaden one’s experience and how she couldn’t be expected to lend random horses to random employees, who fancied a ride. She was running a business after all, and one from which we all profited. And, of course, we shouldn’t prejudge the county set or aristocracy.
Sid dropped her bin liner in the dust and sat down in the bus shelter.
'You, Millicent Backhouse, are talking shit! I am not going to be the token pleb for the entertainment of Lady Ashington’s’ plum-mouthed, weak-chinned, degenerate, dawky, bloodsucking leeches, who exploit us, every day of the year, while they fart around on their fucking nags, chasing a fox for fun, or worrying about the scratch on their Off-Road gas-guzzler, that has never been off road, and was actually scratched when they last reversed past their scarlet climber. You can tell Lady Vera to shove her ball-gowns and jodhpurs up her arse. She and you are so full of crap, of course, that nothing else will fit up there. I know that!'
I was left trying to suppress a fit of the giggles, but managed to maintain a straight face for long enough to say, 'Don’t let me put words in your mouth, Miss Sidonie Walker, but I think that was a ‘no’ wasn’t it?'
We both collapsed in a heap, hugging each other, tears of laughter streaming down our faces, bags of gowns and jodhpurs in the dust under our feet. We failed to notice the black Beamer, windows down, cruise silently by.
When our mirth had subsided, I took Sid to task.
'You have certainly dealt with my revisionist tendency to fraternise with the enemy, but may I remind you, that you were prepared to sleep with Vera if the terms were right.' There was no reply so I added. 'So, you said.'
'Everyone is entitled to their moment of weakness,' she replied, 'and she is a very elegant woman. We all have our desires and are likely to weaken when confronted with a more bourgeois existence than we presently have. I work in her café, don’t I? I, as the only regularly waged person in our household, have also to grovel for my share of the crumbs from her table. Didn’t Lenin describe us as the running dogs of capitalism?'
'I think it was Chinese, pre-dates Mao, but I take your point. I take hers, too. She, too, is the victim of her circumstances.'
'She copes better than me, because of all the hundred-pound notes that have been stuffed in her mouth since birth. If she suffers so much, it is far easier for her to do something about it than for me to change my circumstances.'
'You’ll have to send an official thank you, but no thank you letter.'
'I don’t have to do anything. She’ll know the answer when she finds those bloody bags behind her grizzly bears. Let’s do it now.'
I glanced up the road towards the visitors’ entrance to the house. Just a few hundred yards separated us from the grizzlies. At that moment in time, Sid’s idea made sense. Sometimes ideas have the capacity to sweep you away on a wave of excited action. Twelve hours later you awake and cringe at what had seemed such an obvious path to take the day before. This was to be such a situation, and I underestimated its cruelty and gravity that evening, sitting at the bus stop.
As we walked through the gate we met Charley coming the other way.
'Hi, Millie! I was just looking for you two. I was told you were coming for riding lessons this evening.'
'It’s cancelled. Can we get through to the grizzly bears without being spotted?'
'Probably. Why?'
'We need to leave the bags behind them.'
Charley looked concerned, like a man who had everything to lose and nothing to gain. Finally, he answered.
'I’d better do it.'
He took the bags.
'Thanks, Charley. And the horse thing is off for the rest of the week. For ever.'
'Drat. And I thought I had some overtime.'
He disappeared through the brick arch. I turned to Sid.
'You see? There is always a loser in this life. You could have done the riding, the hunt and ball for him and he’d have five hours overtime.'
I watched Sid put on her earnest face - the one that doesn’t reveal if she is sincere or making a mockery.
'Oh, Millie. You are such a dreamer. His overtime would have been at flat-rate. This way, we’ve struck a blow for the working classes, by preventing him accepting the exploitation.'
'Oh, Sidonie. You must go into politics one day. No one can turn an argument or take the piss like you.'
Bedtime. Finally remembered to put Wilf’s money in an envelope and take it round to his house. He wasn’t in and I had no reason not to give it to my Aunty Gladys. I warned her it wasn’t as much as he expected, but she took it, wrapped a scarf round her unkempt hair and immediately went through the village settling various bills and accounts. Wilf will be beside himself. I must remember to keep a very low profile in the coming days.
Then disaster struck. I was taking a walk in our garden, admiring what seemed like acres of the most beautiful young lobelias that my father had sowed at the request of Mrs Gormley-Stuart, when I heard a car coming down the lane. Was it a premonition? Did I assume it was Uncle Wilf’s plumber’s van? Instinctively, I chose my childhood hidey-hole and slipped into the tiny gap behind the privet hedge and under the mulberry tree.
The car stopped. It had been too quiet for Wilf’s clapped out van. I was baffled who the visitor could be at this time of the evening until I spied Vera, with a face of thunder, storming up our path. I couldn’t hear what she said to Dad, but I heard him reply, 'Sorry, Vera. I don’t know where she is. She shouldn’t have upset you like that. Most ungrateful. I’ll have a word.'
Now, dear Diary, since when has my dad been on first name terms with Lady Ashington? I bet he’s been giving her one. Cunning old fox! That would explain her ‘research into my background knowledge’, as she calls it.
As soon as Vera left, I emerged and ran over to where Dad was picking some soft fruit.
'Well?'
He looked at me.
'Well what?'
'What did Vera want?' I accentuated the ‘Vera’.
'You know already. I said you’d annoy her and you have. Bit cruel of you, but nothing more than she deserves. I told her I’d have a word with you - tell you off etc. So consider yourself told off. She intimated that Sid would be sacked, which is serious for her, so maybe you two need to stop fooling around where you don’t belong. They will always be stronger than you. Stop fighting battles you can’t win.'
He offered the bowl of redcurrants to me. I devoured a slack handful and changed the subject.
'Lobelias look strong.'
'Don’t mention it. You know Mrs G ordered a thousand. She wanted the long bed next to the drive all in blue. I took them round, stacked all those trays in the van, out the van, in her shed, and she sent a message that it’s not to be blue this year after all.'
I gasped. Had that woman any idea how many hours go into preparing a thousand plants, twelve to a tray, eighty odd trays, the seed cost, compost, time?
I put my arm round the old man.
'I’ll ask around.'
The sack for Sid. A disaster. What about me?
I still haven’t seen the House. Probably never will now.
I still haven’t asked Vera for a sub or asked my dad why he is so chummy with her. If he did once have a fling behind the haystack, it shoots my theory about her sexuality down in flames. Plenty of material there to speculate on. Who cares about the accuracy?
I do, as it happens.
Day 7.Sunday.I’ve got myself in a corner of my own making. Should I go to the House as though nothing had happened? Was I expected there on a Sunday? Should I go to the café? It was another beautiful day. There would be enough work, but maybe Sid and I had burned our bridges there, too. Should I stay in bed and say, ‘Sod the lot of them?’Then I had a genial idea. Go to church!I hadn’t been to church since being chucked out of Brownies for swearing, and when Brown Owl chastised me, I blasphemed, which was obviously much worse than the F-word. I knew enough about Vera’s habits to know she always went to church when she was ‘at home’.I imagined asking Sid.'Is it tactically better to be early or late for church?''You never go to church. What’s got into you? But late is better.''It’s an opportunit
Vera should have called ‘Sultan.’ I had just lied to her for the second time in our friendship. Of course, I had been taken in by her offer, was flattered by the opportunity to play at the big table, had found her logic, that one shouldn’t turn an experience down without having tried it, convincing and conscience calming. So, I kept quiet about my unprincipled slide into ‘Vera’s Way’, and continued. 'Sid put me right. What we want and need is not a seat at the posh table. It’s a job with proper living wage that allows us a functioning family life, without overtime, but with children-time instead. Do you know that Mrs Gormley-Stuart cancelled an order for a thousand lobelia - worth perhaps two hundred quid - and it is a big deal for my father? That can’t be the world we want to live in.' 'I know. She told us, last coffee morning.' 'She told you what?' I shrieked. 'Why would my father’s nursery business be of interest to you or your ladies, at a snobby bun-figh
We drove in silence the leafy way to Sid’s cottage. How odd life is? Sid was the girl I’d called a friend since we were eleven, and I was about to visit her house for the first time. I should have asked her questions earlier, but that may have ruined more than it solved. Perhaps her flee into butch dress was to prevent any lads getting the idea to call on her. The recent kiss on the lips, the offer to sleep with Vera, the claimed knowledge that Vera was lesbian? Could it all be to maintain her defences and keep people from her private sphere? Then again, she may be trying to come out to me. I figured I could solve some of the riddle by asking Vera. 'Do you bat for both sides, Vera?' My timing was awful. We were following the old road, which was a tiny, single tree-lined track, through the outskirts of the village. We arrived at the cottage seconds after I spoke and Vera ignored my question. 'Well, do you?' I tried again as she swung from the car. 'Wha
Day 8. Monday.Not even out of bed yet and a text from Vera. I always put my phone on quiet, but my sister, Sonya, nosey as ever, opened an eye.'Who’s that?''Vera.''Why?''Can I pick up her Financial Times? Seems they forgot to include it this morning.'How can such an irrelevancy spark off the imagination of an eleven-year-old?'Have you seen the heap of papers poor Georgie has to lug up to the House every morning?''She’s a big strapping lass. I’m sure she can cope.''Aren’t we related to her somehow?''Our mums share the same great grandmother.'There was a pause while Sonya let that filter through her sleepy brain. I found I was dressing rather slowly.'And the girl in the stores is related to Georgie somehow, so she must be related to us.''Too complicated. Sonya.''Shouldn’t you be hurrying or something?
Vera insisted on playing in her new tea-kitchen. She served Darjeeling. I was feeling very wicked and very on form.'As a tea-snob, I think Darjeeling is an afternoon drink, but you’ve made it for mid-morning. What did they teach you at finishing school, Vera?'This time she stood up, came round the table and gave me a hug.'That was brilliant, Millicent!' she squealed. 'Larissa Gormley-Stuart couldn’t have said it better. I’ll make a lady of you yet.''Karl Vera. That was beautiful too. I try a put down on you and your class and you counter with a declaration that there is hope for me in the world of snob.'She stood back a little, still holding me. She stared into my eyes. It was a real moment of friendship and expression that told me I was worthy of being in her confidence. Then she spoiled it.'Millicent, you are wearing so much make-up today. Why is that? You really do and have such lovely skin.'I blushed.
'By the way, I have to go to the solicitor tomorrow, early. Hopefully, there is something that prevents me interfering with the planning process. Then the farmer gets his blasted windmills and I don’t have to annoy the county set.''Is that likely?''No idea? The family has been farming that patch for generations. Who knows what was agreed in seventeen fifty something and how easily it can be applied to wind farms?''Why can’t you lie about the legal position and tell your posh chums you can’t block it?''Because Larissa insists on accompanying me.'I looked blank, then the penny dropped.'Larissa Gormley-Stuart intends to stake out the solicitor’s office, to make sure you don’t try to deceive the county set. She suspects you of some fifth column activity.''And with good reason. I’d love to let Giles Ferguson have his windmills.'A plan formed in my mind. I was willing to form a Vera-support
Day 9. Tuesday. Five o’ clock. I heard my phone vibrate. ‘Shit and derision,’ I mumbled. Through half-opened eyes I saw little sister spring out of bed and grab the phone. 'Give it here,' I barked, but it emerged as a croak. I was on a loser. 'Let me read it or I’ll tell Dad you swore and had a wet dream about Charley boy.' 'Girls can’t have wet dreams, you berk.' 'Well you had something. What are wet dreams?' 'Give me my phone and I’ll tell you.' She was already flicking through my mails. 'I’m not falling for that one. I want to know who texts you at five in the morning.' She paused and then giggled. 'There’s a thing. It’s Charley lover-boy and he says, ‘assume S at 9. Leave L 8. be in bushes opposite drive for 7.30, with camera ready. I have to work and will miss the fun, so make some good pics. Love Charley.’' We had to go through the obligatory
Day 10. Wednesday.'So what did you buy in Lowestoft? Anything pretty?''What did you do with your day off, you little rascal. Larissa was indeed held up by a gate getting in the way, but you forgot to mention you were immediately on the spot, offering help.''Oriolus oriolus, Vera, sitting on her gate. Sonya, my little sister, eleven you know, said she heard one, very typical fluty, challenging ‘whoareyou-oo,’ call and we went to photograph it, very shy too, so without much hope, and there it was sitting on the Gormley-Stuart Gate. Just as Sonya swung the camera up, Larissa jumps in her car, fiddles with something and starts to drive at the gate like a thing possessed, still attending to her dash paying no attention to where she was going, oblivious of the fact that the gate hadn’t opened and had black smoke pouring out the motor end.'I paused for breath. Vera