Blowing It (10 page)

‘Get rid of the bugger, that’s what you can do! Eat him!’

‘Well, he’s very old. He’d be a bit tough.’ She tried a reasonable approach. ‘He’s kept in a dark henhouse at night – that’s the best I can do, I’m afraid. It’s just nature.’

‘Nature! This is Surrey, not the wilds of bloody Dartmoor! We don’t want “nature” and the racket it makes shoved in our faces!’ the Major ranted, getting into a familiar stride. What had it been last time? Lottie tried to remember. Ah yes, Gaz’s car, pimped up with a go-faster exhaust of ear-splitting volume and roaring away from the house at 2 a.m. There, she’d admit, the Major had had a point. And
before
that it had been Adrian from Treescapes, up an oak by the gates with a chain-saw, taking out a rotten and potentially lethal branch. The Major had sent the conservation people round about that, citing planning laws and talking about wilful destruction, only to find all permissions had been properly granted.

‘Nothing but trouble …’ the Major now muttered.

‘Hey, look, it’s not for long,’ Lottie soothed. How surprisingly easy it was to be kind to the moody old man, now that they were leaving.

‘What do you mean, not for long? Don’t tell me you’re actually going to kill the bloody thing, just when I’m off to Eastbourne for the peace and quiet!’ The Major’s long nose almost quivered with curiosity. He looked pleased at the prospect of rooster-slaughter.

‘Kill the chicken? No. Well … I hadn’t actually thought about the hens yet. I suppose they’ll have to have a new home somewhere.’ Lottie mentally added the livestock to her list of things to be dealt with. It was becoming a very long one.

‘No, it’s us – we’re thinking about selling up, moving on.’ She’d said it now. Lottie realized, the second the words were out, that the news would be all round the village by the afternoon. The place might be bigger on fancy gift shops, antiques and delicatessens than on corner-shop gossip-exchanges but when it came to house sales, every resident pricked up their ears, agog as to what could be
price-tagged
at that magic million-plus and what couldn’t. Telling the old man was more than passing on a bit of information – it was a commitment of the no-going-back sort.

‘Ah! So where are you going? And when?’ he asked. He seemed quite pleased about that too. She’d made his day.

Lottie laughed. ‘To the first question I’ll have to admit I don’t quite know. Everywhere and anywhere we fancy, I think. We thought we’d see what’s going on in the world. And to the second, I suppose we’ll go as soon as someone wants to buy the house.’

‘Hmm …’ The Major shuffled his feet and looked doubtful. ‘I hope you’ll be, you know, careful about … Well, I mean, I just hope the buyer …’

Lottie waited patiently for him to choose his words, wondering how he was going to get across what he actually meant (which was: make sure you sell it to the Right Sort) without actually being thoroughly offensive. Perhaps she’d suggest a high-profile footballer had shown an interest, just to stir up the village into collective excitement.

‘Of course … um … we’ll, er … you’ll be missed and all that,’ he mumbled. Lottie looked at him closely, wondering if she’d heard him right. He looked ancient suddenly, rheumy of eye and his face randomly sprouted with whiskers, a sign of failing eyesight and having no one to prompt his grooming efforts. He went on, gruffly, ‘I know we haven’t
exactly
seen eye to eye about everything. You young people—’

‘Not young any more,’ Lottie pointed out gently. ‘Not that young for a while now.’ She and Mac would go on their travels and when they came back the ancient Major might be back in the village, but this time alongside his wife under the yew in the churchyard.

‘I’ll miss you, Major,’ she suddenly said, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek. ‘You haven’t been such a bad neighbour. After all,’ she laughed, wondering what he’d make of her word choice, ‘
your
cock never woke me before dawn.’

‘Yo, Sorrel! I hear you’re flying off to Oz in September. Everything’s, like,
soooo
sweet for you li’l rich girls, innit? You don’t have to slave for months in some crap job saving up the air fare like the rest of us.’ Carly did a bit of her trademark queen-bee blonde hair-tossing as she looked round her circle of loyal allies and was rewarded with a collective snigger of support.

‘
Some
of us have to pay rent at home as well as save up for travelling.’ Carly’s second-in-command Rosie got in quick with her back-up contribution and Sorrel, who had been crossing the canteen with Millie on her way to the lunch counter, stopped to see if the rest of this alpha-girl group had anything to add. They were, as at every lunchtime, gathered like a leggy coven round their prime window-side
table
on which the only evidence of food was three low-fat yoghurt cartons and the arch-minger Stacey’s empty family-size Doritos bag (possibly not the easiest lunch choice for someone who’d deliberately sicked up every school meal since Year Eight. Perhaps she liked a challenge). Sorrel’s thinking was that she might as well get this bitching session over with in one go. These things dragged on otherwise and she could be fielding spiky little digs for the next few weeks till the A levels were over. Not what you needed a few minutes before you had to come up with your best-ever reasoning as to why, exactly, Othello thought it a great idea to murder his wife. Gaz must have been shooting his mouth off again, telling them about her plans to go away straight after the summer. If it was him, they’d know everything by now, from the universal sink plug on her packing list to all the stuff she’d bought in Top Shop, right down to colour and size.

‘I can’t go off travelling at all – I’ve got to bank what I earn to pay my own way through uni
and
get a job when I get there.’

Sorrel looked with derision at the girl who’d just spoken. ‘Polly, you need to take Kwells just to get the train from Guildford to Waterloo. No way would you choose to travel the world. Or have you got a new hobby, collecting sick-bags?’

‘Nice one, Sorrel.’ Millie laughed.

‘OK, anyone else got anything to say?’ Sorrel asked calmly. ‘Anyone with a terminally ill mother
to
support, a house they’ve got to rescue from repossession? Couple of orphan cousins to raise?’

‘We were only saying, like, you’re
sooo
lucky, Sorrel, that’s all.’ Carly put on her best hurt and misunderstood face, the one she’d perfected over the school years for the benefit of teachers who might dare to accuse her of talking too much in class, of putting less than her best effort in to homework, or of reeking of cigarettes after every break time. ‘So are you flying first class, then?’ Carly added.

‘Well of course I am. And there’ll be a guard of honour and a limo waiting for me at Sydney airport. What d’you think?’ Sorrel snapped.

Why did they do this? Why hadn’t they grown out of it after seven bloody years in this place? It had always been that same little cluster of stupid, bitching girls. Sorrel wasn’t the only one they picked on – though it had reached a peak after Christmas when she’d passed her driving test and got her car. Maybe she should have held out for an old-style rusty Mini but that was devoted dads for you, they just wanted you to be the safest, even if it meant she got crap from the school divas for driving something so offensively new. You also got it from this lot if you were too poor, too fat, too clever, too blonde, too sexy. Obviously not if you were too dumb though, or they would have to start on each other. How had they scraped together enough GCSEs to get on to the A-level courses when they clearly had IQs smaller than their bra sizes in inches?

‘C’mon, Sorrel, I’m starving. They’ll run out of chips if we’re not quick.’

Millie pulled on her friend’s arm and Carly grinned, triumphant. ‘Yeah, go on, Sorrel, go and stuff your face. Charge it to your platinum Amex.’ Carly’s entourage laughed long and loud with their pout-painted mouths wide open showing flawless teeth and greying knots of half-chewed gum.

‘Bunch of slags,’ Millie muttered as the two girls walked away. ‘They’re so not funny. They’re just jealous – no change there.’

‘I know,’ Sorrel said, feeling miserable. ‘But why are they so pathetic? Why do they think I’m loaded? My family just so
isn’t
. They should see our house – it’s falling to bits around us.’ She felt in need of comfort and chose both pasta and chips to go with a token bit of salad and sod Jamie Oliver.

‘Yeah, but to be fair, it is mega-big and kind of historic and grand. Plus you’re one of those girls who looks annoyingly fantastic without making any real effort
and
you drive that black Mini
and
you’re going out with Gaz. Carly wanted Gaz. Still does – you saw her at Tasha’s eighteenth, practically oozing herself over him.’

Sorrel giggled. ‘I think I’ll tell her she can have him, and then, when she has – because he’s not going to say no to her, is he, not when it’s on a plate and she’s in that denim micro-skirt? – I’ll get her on her own and come over all girl-to-girl and tell her
he’s
left us both with a nasty little infectious problem that needs clearing up.’

‘Excellent! I’ve still got some of those flyers they gave us after that sexual health reminder-lecture last year. You can give her the phone number.’

‘Better yet, I’ll make an appointment for her and offer to drive her there – make sure she goes!’

Millie thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, but then you won’t have Gaz any more. Wouldn’t you miss him? And who’ll you go travelling with? I can’t go – I don’t want a gap year. Med school is long enough as it is without taking time out as well.’

Sorrel sighed. ‘I’m not that sure if he’s really serious about going. He likes the idea but he’s not what you’d call organized. And he’s broke – everything he gets he spends on computer games and stupid pimping-up toys for his car. But anyway,’ and she laughed, ‘I could always tag along with my folks. They’re selling the house and spending the dosh going round the world. And, hey, Carly would love this – they really
are
talking about going first class!’

‘Mad! Mad but brilliant! Are they serious? Where will you all live after the trips are done?’

‘Who knows? Up a tree or something.’ Sorrel arranged her chips in sunflower petal formation round the edge of her plate. ‘They’re always serious – at first. They were serious about the restaurant; then Mum was serious about the gallery in the village – the one she sold to Susie Granger – and serious when she gave up on that and did painting
for
a couple of years till the house filled up with horrible sticky canvases that we’ve mostly still got because nobody wanted to buy them. Now they’re both serious about their herbs and their vegetables and being self-sufficient if you don’t count having to buy in the meat and the fish. Plus stuff in tins and pasta.’

‘And loo rolls and washing powder and tea-bags and wine and just about everything else?’

‘Yeah – my parents’ idea of self-sufficiency is a bit lacking. Or was. I guess they’re over that phase now. Still, I’m just glad they didn’t decide that keeping a couple of pigs would be a great idea. They’d probably have let them into the house in winter and have them sleeping in front of the fire. You’re right about mad though. It’s highly possible that I’ll come back from travelling and not have anywhere to live. I just hope they leave their new address with Clover.’

‘Chips
and
pasta, Sorrel? Tut tut!’ Carly commented snidely as she swaggered past, leading her team out of the canteen.

‘Chips, chips, straight to your hips,’ two of Carly’s minions chorused as they passed.

‘God – who’d think they were eighteen and not eight?’ Millie said.

‘What, Carly and friends or my parents?’ Sorrel spluttered. ‘Because sometimes, Mills, when it comes to my family, I do wonder.’

* * *

Mac’s studio was the one bit of Holbrook House that was truly up to twenty-first-century standards. Separate from the house and alongside the back terrace, it had once been a barn then was later converted to a five-car garage until Mac had concluded that he wasn’t the type to collect cars, especially the kind that needed indoor pampering. What was the point of having a Cadillac under a tarpaulin? Or a Ferrari that simply begged some envious waster to run a key along its body-work every time you parked it in a street? Toys like that drew attention. Mac had had plenty of that onstage – you didn’t want people gawping at you twenty-four/seven. Even at Charisma’s peak, he preferred, when not actually performing, to be Joe Normal. The garage had been rebuilt and fitted out as every rock musician’s must-have accessory: a fully equipped recording studio. Most of his original kit had been sold off several years before. The days of needing a full-scale mixing desk and ninety-six track recorder together with a selection of wardrobe-sized synthesizers were long gone and he could produce all the sounds he wanted using a simple Macintosh computer, a Yamaha Clavinova, his beaten-up Steinway grand and a couple of old favourite guitars. All the same, the studio room still smelled authentically businesslike – a mixture of new wood, warmed-up electronics and the faint, ingrained scent of old coffee and cigarettes. If he closed his eyes he could easily conjure up a memory of studio
two
at Olympic and Eric Clapton playing table football in the studio kitchen. In here he kept the gold discs, the framed
Billboard
listing from the time the band topped both the US singles and album charts, his Ivor Novello songwriting awards and various other bits of Charisma memorabilia that Lottie considered far too naff to have in the house.

‘I’m not having that lot in the downstairs loo like some kind of shrine to the glory days,’ she’d declared when Mac had had the builders in to update the studio and he had jokingly suggested, after being impressed by a visit to the Long Room in the Lord’s pavilion, having a trophy cabinet built. And so Mac’s past successes were displayed on the studio shelves, reminding him uncomfortably that such a lot of time (and an awful lot of money) had vanished since he’d last achieved anything of note – either musical or otherwise. He was pretty glad now about Lottie’s loo-ban. He could quite easily face the evidence of how decidedly the best part of his career was over in the once or twice a week he ventured into the studio: being reminded every time he went for a pee would be just too much.