Caught in the Act (4 page)

‘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.