December (31 page)

      
Well ... because it had a perceptible air of femininity, the
shade, and would sometimes leave a distinctive scent behind, slightly musty
like
pot-pourri
. And when she broke a
plate - an expression of her distress at, say, Martin losing his temper over a
business hiccup - she'd delicately drop the thing from the dresser, not fling
it with any violence. Sometimes this was accompanied by a sharp tap on the
floor, as if Her Ladyship was petulantly stamping her foot.

      
Tonight, Meryl had made
a
point of seating Sir Wilfrid and Lady Tulley at the foot of the table,
either side of the place laid for Lady Bluefoot. For while he was hardly
aristocracy - no more, indeed, than a snivelling little civil servant
collecting his expected reward - they were likely to be less disruptive than Tom
Storey, if what Meryl had heard had any truth in it.

      
And she'd heard quite a bit because her brother played darts
in the Swan with that scruffy little chap Beasley, who, according to Ted, told
you more about life with the Storeys with all the things he
didn't
say.

      
She positioned the last mousse on the large oak trolley and stood
back.

      
'Now then, m'lady. Will it do, do you think?'

      
Nothing fell off. Meryl smiled in delight. 'Well,
good
! Thank you so much.'

      
She gave a gracious semi-curtsey and strode briskly across to
the half-length mirror next to the larder door to inspect herself before taking
in the sweets.

      
The mirror was in a wide frame of American oak to match the
fitted kitchen which Martin had allowed her to install - she couldn't abide the
dingy Victoriana it had replaced.

      
Meryl patted her lustrous hair, liking what she saw: a tall
woman who was forty-eight and probably, she would admit, looked it. But her age
would be expressed chiefly by the wisdom lines around her eyes, which was no
bad thing, not so long as her carriage was still good, her waist still slim,
her breasts still proud, her neck long and unlined. She was looking, in fact, every
bit a lady and rather more of one than Angela Tulley.

      
'Right,' Meryl said to the
other
lady. 'Let's see if Martin's managed to soothe the ruined feelings.'

      
As soon as the dreadful Sir Wilfrid had made his thoughtlessly
insulting remark about Tom Storey's night-time guitar playing reminding him of
a horse having a tooth pulled, Meryl had seen a gleam spring into Martin's eyes
and his fingers begin to make little twiddling movements on the table, a sure
sign of rising adrenalin.

      
He was much admired for his charm and aplomb, was Martin,
especially in the village, where Meryl's appointment as his cook/housekeeper
had, she knew, aroused gossip only of the most envious kind - while Martin was
well aware that the role of cook/housekeeper, as it were, suited Meryl as well
as it suited him (and who was she to object if he was lusting after Mrs Storey's
spectacular bosom?).

      
Their arrangement was one giving, you might say, satisfaction
to both parties.

      
Meryl smiled at herself in the mirror. She'd leave the
sweet-trolley in the hall and take in the smaller one for the dirty dishes
      
As she turned, two hands gripped
her waist.

It was the way he was
staring, and the way his breathing had become harder and faster. She'd seen it
before, and Shelley had had a mental preview of Tom thrusting back his chair
and shambling gorilla-like to the bottom of the table, there to snatch Sir
Wilfrid out of his seat and throw the old man through the leaded casement.

      
The straight line of candle flames had leaned towards Sir
Wilfrid's end of the table, as if propelled by Tom's staccato breath.

      
And then, like a thoroughbred engine slipping into higher gear,
Martin Broadbank had gone smoothly into diplomatic action.

      
'... ever want to sell your place, Sir Wilfrid, you'll find a
few hundred wealthy rock fans happy to pay well over the odds just for the
sheer privilege of being awoken in the night by the golden er ... licks ... of
the great Tom Storey, wouldn't you agree, Steve?'

      
God bless you, Martin, Shelley thought.
      
Stephen Case was nodding expertly.
'What was it we used to say? Hendrix, Clapton, Beck and Storey.'

      
'But not necessarily in that order, eh?' said Broadbank. 'If I
were you, Sir Wilfrid, I'd be out in my garden with a tape recorder. Make a
fortune. Bootleg tapes. Isn't that what they call them?'

      
'Steady on, Martin.' Stephen Case flashed his host a warning glance.

      
But Shelley saw that Tom hadn't even heard. He was staring
down along the line of candles towards the other end of the long table.

      
'Get out,' Tom was whispering with each rapid breath. 'Get out.'

      
And she realized he wasn't looking at Sir Wilfrid at all but
at the empty place where a chair had been pulled out and where, she noticed for
the first time, a full place-setting of cutlery had been laid for no one.
      
Oh
no
.

      
'But talking of tapes,' Case said, turning casually to Tom.
'Some old ones of yours have sort of come into our possession. Really terrific
stuff, Tom, which you recorded for Epidemic some years ago and ...'
      
Oh!

      
Shelley became aware that Martin Broadbank had placed his warm
hand between her shoulder-blades. She was wearing a cream dress which was high
at the front but backless, and Broadbank's touch was not entirely unpleasant.

      
'Shelley,' he said warmly.

      
'I'm sorry?'

      
'My dear, we were going to talk about your wholesale business.
As Angela's already pointed out, much of the appeal lies in the presentation.
Am I right?'

      
'Lovely shop
.' Lady
Tulley's enthusiasm was doubtless more fulsome in the uncomfortable aftermath
of Sir Wilfrid's regrettable outburst. The moving candlelight rippled across
her large and too-perfect teeth.

      
'Precisely,' Broadbank said. Shelley thought, damn the man.
He's trying to draw my attention away from Tom, leaving him exposed to this
bloody Case.

      
'… conscientious,' Case was saying. 'We're a company which
likes to do the right thing. And as it's obviously incomplete, we'd love it if
you could listen to it again, see if there's any changes you feel you'd like to
make.'

      
Tom was still staring at the empty place; his left hand was
trembling - Shelley could see his gold ring vibrating in the shivery light. She
fell a slow thickening of the air, and if nobody was smoking, why was there a
blue haze?

      
'I make no bones about it,' Broadbank said. 'I think my
outlets could benefit enormously from your input.'

      
Some of the candles had melted down into gnarled and curly
stubs and were issuing more smoke than you'd expect.
      
Tom spoke. 'I don't know nuffink
about no tapes '

      
He didn't move his head. Shelley wanted to bury hers
somewhere.

      
'Tom,' Case said caringly, 'nineteen-eighty, as we all know,
was a bloody awful year for you, and it's hardly surprising if anything you
recorded around the end of the year, especially at the Abbey, was ...
disregarded ... abandoned ... forgotten about ...'

      
'But I think we have to do
more
than simply stock the products on the shelves, Shelley ... What I'd really
like
to see ...'

      
'I never done no album.' Tom was talking tonelessly to the air
ahead of him. 'Anybody says otherwise is a bleeding liar.'

      
'... an entire display unit set apart in each of the stores, arranged
with a distinctive …'

      
'Tom, we
have
those
tapes.'

      
'... in the inimitable Love-Storey fashion, perhaps with an attendant
to explain ...'

      
To Shelley, the room seemed much larger but the table smaller
and further away, the voices too, as if she was watching it all on a cinema screen
from the back circle. As if she was not involved. Drink could do this, but
she'd had less than a glass of wine, and with food.

      
Tom said, 'You ain't got shit, mister.' His left hand closed
around a sharp little knife provided for cutting into bread rolls.

      
The air, to Shelley, was suddenly almost black with tension. She
began to cough.

      
'... and with perhaps a market-stall effect or continental
blinds in the famous blue and white Love-Storey livery, it would all look
really quite terrific - what do you think, Shelley?'

      
'I ...' Shelley watched - as though from fifty yards away,
seeing the table as if from above so that it was like a runway with the twisted
candles as landing lights for something coming
down
- as her husband rose to his feet, gripping the little bread knife
like a dagger.

      
'That would be wonderful,' she said faintly.
      
Angela, Lady Tulley screamed as,
one by one, the candles went out.

      
There was a rush of movement.

'Oooh!'

      
Martin did this occasionally, so Meryl was not unduly
perturbed - until she saw that the door was still closed and there was no one
else in the long kitchen.

      
She gasped in genuine shock. 'Oh, my lady!'

      
This was not like her at all. The Lady Bluefoot did not
touch
.

      
Meryl's hips tingled where the hard, lascivious hands had slid.
A strong smell wafted across the kitchen, and it was not raspberry mousse and
not pot-pourri.

      
'Who's there?' she called out sharply, wrinkling her nose in
distaste, her fingertips moving to her velvet choker.

      
The smell was oil, engine oil, reminding her immediately of
the decrepit cabin cruiser her ex-husband used to keep at Minchead. It certainly
wasn't a smell you wanted in your kitchen.

      
'Oh, m'lady,' Meryl called out in dismay. The stench would offend
her terribly.

      
Meryl was concerning herself with the Lady Bluefoot and how
such an intrusion might offend
her,
because she was not prepared even to contemplate anything else in here. Lady Bluefoot
was
the
ghost of Hall Farm; she was
fragrant, sad, graceful and considerate, and Meryl loved her.

      
And believed in her.

      
Yes.

      
And knew the truth of her.

      
Knew that she was not 'condemned for all eternity' to walk
this house, as it said in the flimsy Cotswold guidebooks, a shoddy
misinterpretation of the role of the earth bound spirit.

      
The truth was that a spiritual aspect of the Lady Bluefoot,
fine as a veil of muslin, lingered in the atmosphere of this place as evidence
of the survival beyond the grave of a loving and beautiful grief.

      
She was not here to
frighten
people but to offer comfort ... just as comfort should be extended to her.
Which was why Meryl (who had accepted many years ago that she would never experience
a great and profound love with another human being) attended the spiritualist
church in Gloucester every other week: to learn how she might help.

      
And so she spoke regularly to the Lady Bluefoot, with sympathy
and humility and respect ... and the hope that one day she would be granted a
manifestation.

      
Now the air had gone stiff and somehow gritty around her, the
concealed lights grown dim and greenish, draining the kitchen of its glamour,
reducing the opulent sheen of American oak to the stained drabness of the old
Victorian fittings which had been here before but were still too recent to be a
part of Lady Bluefoot's world.

      
'Go away!' Meryl snapped, not yet afraid. 'This is not your
house. You don't belong here.'

      
It had not touched her again, but it was spreading over the
room, an aura of damp and dust, a dreary atmosphere reeking of low-life
depression.