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

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?

'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 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

Julie was not so shy about standing at another door eaves-dropping. Later she came up to my room, sat down and made an afternoon of it.'Vera said she had the video stored in a safe place, and if Larissa didn’t drop the gate issue, the police may get hold of it and then they would add dangerous driving if not driving with undue care and attention to the charge list. Larissa wanted to play the private property card, but Vera said . . .' She paused to get Vera’s words right. The sentence came a word at a time. 'Vera said, even if she was on private property, it was her intent to enter the public highway in a reckless manner, and for that the police were after her.''Wow!' was all I could manage. 'Vera said she would destroy the video!'Julie gave a mocking laugh.'Wake up, Millie. Vera will keep that for a rainy day. No woman would give up a lever as powerful as that. What video did she mean? What was on it?''No idea,' I lied.The