Live and Fabulous! (11 page)

But the bottom line was they just couldn't let us.

 

“We must come clean about that final ticket and invite Daphne,” Claude finally warned me and Fleur that Wednesday night. “Time's running out. We've only got one week left now.”

Fleur fumed for a while, staring at her “Wall of Spike” poster montage, featuring several pictures of Spike Saunders's naked bum, tattooed intricately with the sun rising from his bum crack. Eventually she turned to us with a pained yet stoic tone: “Okay, let's just flipping do it then, shall we?”

Daphne and Paddy were summoned into LBD HQ, where we confessed exactly how many tickets Spike had given us. That wasn't fun: I've been telling a lot of lies recently, but it never gets any easier.

Of course, all hell immediately broke loose. Daphne went absolutely wild with excitement. She even offered to drive the LBD the 600 miles round-trip to Marmaduke Orchards, where the festival is held, in her silver Mini Cooper.

“That would be like a proper road trip! Woweeee!” I grinned.

“Oh my God, that would be sooooo great, Daphne!” hooted Claude.

Fleur said nothing.

“Er, excuse me, has someone thrown my invisibility cloak over me again?” shouted Paddy, looking more than a little weary. “Can anyone actually see me here?”

“Oh, sorry, Dad,” said Daphne respectfully. “Of course, I know you've still got final say on this. I mean, you're the head of the house, after all.”

“You total ass kisser,” whispered Fleur.

“Oh, why don't you just shut your trap, knock knees,” retorted Daphne.

“I'd rather have knock knees than a wonky eye,” said Fleur, crossing her eyes cruelly.

“Shh, Fleur. Daphne's doing us a favor here!” shouted Claude.

“Oh, go on, take her side!” huffed Fleur, crossing her arms.

And at this point I was just about to get in with my tuppence worth, when I noticed that Paddy's eyes looked about ready to explode.

“Enoooooooough!”
shouted Paddy, clutching his stubbly head.
“Enough bickering! You're all driving me insane!”

Now we'd really blown it. Not only had we lied to Mr. Swan in a bid to go to Astlebury alone, but we'd then added insult to injury by squabbling like kids in front of him. Paddy was staring at the four of us with a look of utter bamboozlement, his eyes had narrowed and his mind seemed to be racing with thoughts.

“Right. I'm going to act swiftly on these new developments,” he announced officiously, slamming the door to Fleur's bedroom as he left. Paddy did act swiftly. He vanished into his study, plundered his Rolodex and within that very hour telephoned Loz, Magda, and Gloria, inviting them to a meeting at the Swan house the following evening.

“Oh, this will really be a night to remember, believe me!” I heard Paddy ranting down the phone line as I tiptoed to the bathroom. “I'm really ready to let off some steam.”

Back in Fleur's bedroom, the girls let out a groan when I told them.

You should never make Paddy Swan angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

 

“Oi bleugh,”
grunts Joshua, stuffing his face with an enormous tortilla chip and mayo sandwich. “If you were a proper sister, you'd give those tickets to me.”

“Oh, go and die, Joshua,” says Fleur crossly as the LBD slump miserably around the Swans' kitchen table, gathering our nerves to face Parent Inc., who are gathered in the den. “I'd rather drop them down the drain.”

“Oh, well, that's charming,” says Josh. “That's the last time I give you lot a lift anywhere.”

“You don't give us lifts anywhere,” says Fleur.

“Well, that's because you're all about ten and you don't go anywhere,” says Joshua smugly.

Fleur scowls at Josh, clearly wanting to strangle him.

“And from what I gather from Paddy,” Josh smirks, “you
especially
aren't going to Astlebury Festival!”

Josh picks bread out of his back teeth, examines it, then eats it.

Yuk. How can he be so vile and still have so many women hanging about him?

“Right, anyway, girlies, can't waste time gossiping,” Josh says. “I'm off to Wazzle's house. We're building a laser. See you later, eh?”

As he reaches the door, he turns and grins. “Oh, and by the way, I won't be requiring those tickets anyway ... kind of you to offer though.”

“Why's that?” sighs Fleur.

“ 'Cos I'm off to Amsterdam next weekend with the lads, remember ? For Fordy's eighteenth birthday? We're taking him to a strip joint. It's gonna be a total riot!”

We all stare at him in varying stages of annoyance or disgust.

“Hey, but before I go,” he smiles, “Ronnie, pull my finger, will you?”

Josh holds out his hand with the little pinkie stuck out.

“Why?” I ask.

“Just pull it,” he says.

I pull the slightly nicotine-stained finger as Fleur looks on in total disbelief.

“Ronnie! Don't!” she squeals, but it's too late.
Paaaaaaaaaaaaarp
goes the unmistakable sound of Joshua's bum letting rip. A tremendous unholy stench fills the air.

“Gahhhhhh! Josssssssh!
You're vile!” screams Fleur, running for the window.

“See ya!” says Josh, with a huge satisfied grin, exiting stage left.

“Ladies, we're ready for you now,” announces Mr. Patrick Swan, sticking his head around the door. “Could you all make your way orderly into the interrogation chamber, er ... pardon me, I mean, the den.”

“We're on our way,” says Fleur in defeated tones.

Paddy looks around the kitchen, wrinkling his nose. “I take it I've just missed my son?” he says, flapping his hand around to disperse the acrid bum fumes.

Fleur says nothing. She just scowls.

“It was a farce, Patrick, a total farce,” mutters my mother, perched on the Swans' pale leather sofa. “The police should never have been involved. What a waste of time!”

“Thank you, Magda! Yes, the whole fandango was a diabolical miscarriage of justice,” Paddy fumes from his leather La-Z-Boy chair.

“Everyone at my golf club agrees with me too.”

“Not everyone, darling,” says Saskia Swan, clad in flawless cream silk trousers and an elegant cream cotton blouse. “The judge who cautioned you plays a round or two down at Greenford Drive? He certainly thought you were guilty.”

Paddy's silvery-grayish crew cut seems to bristle with fury. “Pah! That mad old goat? Well, he clearly hasn't got teenage daughters, or he'd have sympathized with my plight! I should've got a medal, not a police caution!”

Poor Mr. Swan. He's still getting over catching Fleur's ex-boyfriend, Tarrick, climbing through her bedroom window at 3 A.M. last January.

Ouch! Fleur's little Romeo and Juliet fantasy hadn't included ear-shattering burglar alarms, swarms of police cars, all the neighbors out in their gardens in their pajamas and Paddy Swan being cautioned for threatening a fifteen-year-old boy with a golf club. He was in the
Local Daily Mercury
and everything.

As Paddy rants on and on, my father stares at him, trying to find noncommittal words that won't get him into trouble with anybody. Dad's probably feeling very much like I do when I'm summoned into the Swans' lounge with its cream carpet, fawn curtains and masses of sandy leather furniture and luxurious
objets d'art
scattered precariously—that is, scared to exhale in case he leaves a grubby smear somewhere. How do they live like this? Our house has got clutter everywhere. No wonder they try to keep Josh quarantined in his bedroom.

“Cuh. Britain today, eh?” Loz eventually remarks while Paddy rambles on, ignoring him.

“I mean, for crying out loud,” splutters Paddy. “Me? Patrick Swan? Leaping around a community center with a dozen other stressed executives learning anger management!?”

Paddy shakes his rather purple face crossly. “Tell them, Saskia! I'm not an angry person, am I?”

“Of course you're not, darling,” Saskia agrees serenely. Saskia's the kind of woman who can wear cream trousers like that all day long without getting a blob of marmalade down the front of them. In the far corner sits Gloria Cassiera, clad in one of her scary business outfits: smart navy suit and shiny black court shoes. Claude's mum is secretary to the best solicitor in town, so she always looks really smart. She's one of those people who really loves her job, y'know, really embraces the whole idea of loafing about, slurping tea and hiding from their accountant. “Isn't anyone eating the nibbles?” asks Saskia, pointing at the table of expensive-looking stuffed olives and vegetable tempura before her.

“I will in a moment,” says Gloria. Gloria's keeping a serene silence over the whole Tarrick incident, although she knows the story better than all of us, having been the main peace negotiator in the days after the spat. Not only did she let Fleur sleep over at the Cassiera house while the dust settled, but she even swung by the Swans' house with a bottle of rum and homemade banana bread, somehow sweet talking Paddy out of putting Fleur up for adoption. Apparently Paddy became much more affable after several cocktails. Fleur was home in time for supper.

Over by the drinks cabinet, Daphne Swan is fixing Paddy a shaken-not-stirred martini in a fancy glass with a sliver of lemon peel.

“I thought he was a bloody burglar!” Paddy says again.

Claude and I step gingerly into the room, perching on the three dining room chairs that Paddy has arranged in the middle of the den.

Fleur flounces in after us, not acting in the least humble and coy like we'd expressly requested.

“A burglar?
Really,
Father?” Fleur announces. “You know, that's the first time I've heard that story. Ooh, please! Again, again!” she says, clapping her hands.

“Fleur, try not to rile Daddy,” husks Saskia rather pointlessly.

“Button it, Fleur!” hushes Claude.

“Yeah, big mouth, shut your trap!” tuts Daphne.

“No, you shut up, Daphne duck eyes!” squeals Fleur.

Paddy stares momentarily at his warring daughters with an irate look. Then his face seems to soften. He looks almost happy ... as if he's just envisioned himself in a quieter, idyllic place.

Weird.

“Let's get down to business, shall we?” says Paddy, putting down his drink. “And I'll chair this meeting, if there are no objections.”

Paddy loosens his tie and looks to the parents. “Oh, and don't worry, I'll be keeping this as short as possible, as we're all busy people. I know the Rippertons have a pub to run ... and Gloria, you have choir practice, don't you?”

“I'm singing the lead,” says Gloria, looking at her watch with a little concern.

“Well, let's get this one nailed quickly then,” says Paddy.

The LBD shuffle in our seats uncomfortably. This doesn't sound good.

“So, as we all know,” begins Paddy, “our delightful daughters have come into possession of tickets for a two-day pop festival, taking place next Friday over three hundred miles away.”

“I've heard about nothing else,” says Magda, rolling her eyes.

“Amen to that,” says Gloria with a firm gaze.

“Now, I don't know about you, but over the last few days I've formed some very strong opinions on this,” says Paddy, beginning to wag his finger.

“Here we go,” whispers Claude, so quietly only I hear.

“I'm on the edge of my seat,” says Fleur crossly.

Everyone stares at Paddy, waiting for him to begin ranting.

“I believe,” he says, “I believe that this could be a marvelous character-building opportunity for our daughters.”

Errrr
what?

“In fact, under controlled circumstances, it could be a valuable life lesson that these young women will always refer to in later years,” Paddy enthuses, waving his hands.

The LBD look at one another in bewilderment. Are we hearing things?

“However,
I also strongly believe,” continues Paddy, flourishing his hands like a stewardess pointing out emergency doors, “that Daphne, my eldest daughter, should accompany the girls for the four-day trip.”

Daphne bristles with pride. She begins waving her hands too. “I've traveled a lot, you see,” she smiles. “In fact, I've just got back from Nepal.”

Fleur opens her mouth, then shuts it again quickly.