More Than Meets the Eye (4 page)

The en suite toilet flushed. Alison checked her hair again in the mirror. You had to make the effort; it was the least you could do.

Peter Nayland had also made the effort. His hair was carefully brushed forward to minimize the effects of its thinning and receding. His small moustache was immaculately trimmed. His face was a little florid still, but that should surely be taken as a token of the ardour of his recent lovemaking. If the odour of his aftershave and his deodorant was a little strong for Alison's taste, it must surely be a compliment to her that he chose to return so fragrantly to her presence.

Alison gave him a smile, then turned for a last look out of the window. She wouldn't tell Peter, but she'd never stayed in a room or a hotel quite as well appointed as this one. He came and stood behind her, sliding his hands round her waist, letting his head rest for a moment on the top of her hair. It was a surprisingly slim waist. He pressed his thighs against the back of her thin fawn trousers, feeling the curve of her bottom, comfortable with the intimacy of his sated lust. He said softly into her ear, ‘Watching the world go by?'

She turned her head a little, brushing her lips against his cheek. ‘I was savouring the view of the river, the boats, the theatre, the people. Trying to fix it in my mind for ever.'

‘Glad you approve my choice of hotel.'

She wondered how much the room had cost him. She'd have known the exact cost, if this had been Dennis. He'd have made sure of that. But then it never would have been Dennis. A room like this wouldn't have been ‘value for money'. But you shouldn't even be thinking about your husband, when you were with another man.

Money didn't matter to Peter. He had clubs in Birmingham and other businesses he didn't care to detail to her. Fair enough: she was more interested in spending his money and having a good time than knowing where it came from. That made her shallow, she supposed, but she wasn't going to feel guilty about that. There was a kind of honesty in recognizing yourself for what you were and living out your life as that person.

Alison said softly, ‘This is so perfect I'm loath to leave it.'

‘We don't have to, you know. I can make a couple of phone calls and—'

‘We do, my darling. I must get back home and take up my other life.'

‘Whatever you say, pet. You're the boss here.'

She wished for a moment that he'd argued a little harder to keep her here. And perhaps she should take exception to his Geordie habit of calling her ‘pet'. It had shocked her at first, but now she found she rather liked it, just as she rather liked the fact that his father had been a riveter in a Tyneside shipyard, when such trades had still existed. It seemed to give a respectable base to Peter's dubiously achieved affluence.

She glanced once again at the river and the theatre and sighed. Then she turned to face him and slid her arms round his broad shoulders. ‘There'll be other times, won't there?'

‘Of course, there will, Ally.' He kissed her on the lips, his mouth firm and experienced. She found herself wondering how many other mouths those lips had touched in his fifty-five years – she had no wish to think of that, but the human brain is a complex and unpredictable organ.

She glanced unwillingly at her watch. ‘I must go. I'll be late as it is.'

They went down together. She waited at a discreet distance whilst he checked out and settled the account: she had no wish to know how much the night here had cost. In the car park, her white Fiat Uno looked very small beside his maroon Jaguar. She reversed out quickly and confidently; men liked a woman who was competent behind the wheel, whatever jokes they made about women drivers. She waved to him, threw him the best and most mischievous of her smiles, and drove quickly away.

Peter Nayland watched her until the small white car disappeared, then opened the Jaguar door and sat down heavily on the driving seat. He hadn't criticized that wimpish husband of hers. He knew from experience that it was better not to cast slurs upon the husband you hadn't seen and never meant to see. And Alison had done a good demolition job herself on Dennis.

All the same, if things developed as it seemed they could do, he might have to do something about Dennis Cooper.

At Westbourne Park, Dennis Cooper looked at his watch. Five minutes until they opened to the public; he smiled as he caught the buzz of conversation and laughter from the other side of the high wooden gates. Opening them was a little like ringing up the curtain at a theatre, on a scene which altered slightly and subtly with each passing day.

He found Jim Hartley completing his mowing of the area they called the Wilderness, where visitors were encouraged to picnic. As always when the head gardener left it ready for occupation, the area looked far too trim and well cared for to be called a wilderness. That term came from the man who had initiated and developed this great garden, who regarded any area not crammed with plants, preferably new and interesting, as a wilderness, waiting to be tamed and colonized with new horticultural introductions.

He was a pioneer with vision, imagination and energy, the original owner. He had also amazed his gardeners by his seemingly unlimited funds. But he had also had the single-minded, blinkered vision of the pioneer, with its refusal even to consider other points of view than his own. Not for the first time, Dennis admitted to himself with a rueful grin that the quiet American with the will of steel must have been a very irritating man at times. No wonder his mother had threatened to cut him off from the family riches.

Dennis asked Jim Hartley how the latest children's activity sheets for the garden had gone down with Sam and Oliver. They had taken to using those two boisterous boys as guinea pigs for their efforts to make Westbourne lively and interesting for youngsters, for whom gardens had no obvious and immediate interest. ‘Not bad,' said Jim, with the grin which came automatically when he thought of Sam and Oliver. ‘Some of the things they were supposed to discover were a bit difficult for a six-year-old, but Olly was all the more pleased when he did get there. I've already got three or four suggestions for when we reprint at the end of the season.'

‘I'll need to chat to you about the apprentices in the next week or two.'

‘They're all doing quite well. No slackers and all willing and able to learn.'

Dennis suspected the young men wouldn't dare to be anything else, in the face of Hartley's own enthusiasm and commitment. He allowed himself a rueful smile. ‘That's good to hear, Jim, but it gives us a problem. It looks as if we'll be able to take one of them on to the permanent staff at the end of the season, but no more than one. National Trust finances won't run to it.'

They went through the ritual of complaint about the unfairness of life, about the success of Westbourne being used to shore up other, less visited properties, about unseen moguls who expected you to maintain high standards with thinly spread resources. Hartley eventually said, ‘We develop more and more each year here. They can't expect us to extend the acres under cultivation and maintain our standards without the staff to do it.'

‘And they'll say we're getting the extra member of full-time staff for exactly that reason. You know the score.' Both men nodded, content to grumble about the mysterious ‘they', aware that their moment of protest was over and their sights reset. You indulged in a little harmless whinging, then you got on with the work and enjoyed it, in this perfect setting. That was the British way. By way of closure, Dennis Cooper said, ‘How's young Alex Fraser getting on?'

‘Well enough. No, he's doing better than that, if I'm honest. He's got the poorest qualifications of all our present trainees, but I'd say he's the most intelligent and the most determined. That makes him a quick learner.'

Cooper nodded. ‘He's got the toughest background. I suspect he truanted from school for a lot of his last few years. It was something of a gamble to take him on, in view of that. I'm glad he's making the most of the opportunity.'

Jim hesitated. He didn't wish to run the young Scottish lad down, because he liked him and was delighted with the man's love of plants and the propagation of them. But you had to be fair to the others as well as Fraser. ‘The only fault I'd find with him is that he's not much of a team player. He takes on anything I ask him to do without complaint, but I find it better to use him on individual tasks. He's not as good when he's working in a group. But that might come with time.'

Cooper nodded thoughtfully. He wandered away to the edge of the gardens as the first influx of the day's visitors flowed into the popular areas. Near the southern boundary of the property, he found Alex Fraser at work with a scythe beneath ornamental trees. He was stripped to the waist, but there was no mistaking the fiery red hair which marked Fraser off from his peers. He watched him swinging the scythe rhythmically, the naked torso and the ancient implement moving almost as a single unit, the long blade cutting the lush grass with surprising swiftness round the boles of the trees.

‘You've got the knack of that quickly!' Dennis said as the scythe reached the last tree and its handler prepared to move on to the next section of his task.

Fraser jumped a little at the comment. He had been so absorbed in the rhythm of his task, so dedicated to the movement of man and scythe as a unit, that he had been totally unconscious of any other human presence in this quiet place. It took him a moment to realize that this was not a member of the visiting public, who often felt the need to compliment him upon his work, but the boss himself. The big boss, the man who controlled the careers of even men like Jim Hartley.

Alex managed a smile as he said, ‘You get the hang of it, eventually. I'd never even seen a scythe afore I came here. You have to get your whole body moving with it, to get the best out of it. You sort of let the blade control you.'

Cooper looked at the widely spaced handles, polished smooth by decades of use by long-departed hands. ‘I'll take your word for that. I've never even tried to use a scythe.'

For a moment, he thought Fraser was going to offer him the use of the implement. Then he grinned and said, ‘There's no need, is there? You've got other things to do.' Though exactly what bigwigs like Cooper did had always been a mystery to Alex. Took decisions, he supposed. But you couldn't do that all the time, could you?

Dennis said as casually as he could, ‘Like it here, do you, Alex?'

Fraser was always suspicious when bigwigs used his forename. When people had done that in the home, there had usually been something bad coming up. ‘S'all right.' Then, realizing that he should have grown out of this teenage surliness, he made an effort. ‘It's better than all right. I'm enjoying the work here even more than I expected. Better than I ever thought I could.' He realized that this might be one of his rare chances to talk to the top brass, the person who made decisions. He wasn't stupid, and he also realized that he should be making out a case for himself. ‘I'm glad of the chance I was given, Mr Cooper, and I want to make the most of it. I like the work here.'

Alex wondered if that sounded too much like arse-licking. But he wasn't used to sucking up and the chance had come to him unexpectedly. He said desperately, ‘I'd like to work here permanently, if there was any chance of that. But I don't suppose . . .' His voice trailed away miserably and he wondered if he'd said too much.

‘Out of my hands, that, Alex. All depends on the funds available to the Trust at the end of the year.' Cooper delivered smoothly the answer he had ready for anyone who mentioned permanent employment. He leaned a little towards Fraser, looking at the green of the trees above his head even as he spoke almost into the young man's ear. ‘With a bit of luck, we might be able to take one of you lads on, in due course. But there can't be any promises as yet.'

He wasn't saying more than he should do. He'd say the same to any of the other apprentices, if they pressed him about the possibilities of work here. There was nothing wrong with encouraging a little healthy competition among your workers, in Dennis Cooper's view.

Cooper went back to his office, dictated a couple of letters, and then slipped back for a few moments to his house in the grounds. It was good to be able to shut yourself away from the crowds in the privacy of your own thatched home when Westbourne was at its busiest. He'd have coffee with Alison and welcome her back. His wife would be pleased to see the place so busy. Maybe he'd start to rebuild a few bridges, if she was in a receptive mood.

Alison wasn't there.

He made his own coffee and munched a biscuit savagely as he glanced at his watch. It was silly to allow yourself to get so upset. It wasn't as if he was afraid for her safety. She was a good driver and she wouldn't have been involved in an accident. But when they'd been young, she'd always been a stickler for punctuality. She didn't seem to have much sense of time, these days.

You could be on top of things in your job, but you couldn't always control things in your private life. He contemplated that bleak truth as he walked over to the window of the bedroom and stared out at the heads of the crowds. The heads moved as busily as ants in the quadrangle near the entry point, where the toilets, shop and restaurant diverted people away from the main purpose of their visit, the gardens. He saw the head and shoulders of Hugo Wilkinson hurrying towards his kitchen at the rear of the main restaurant. He didn't like Wilkinson, who could be truculent and sometimes seemed to question his authority as the senior person here. But the man certainly knew his job. He might need something outside his work, something from the man's private life, if he was to bring Wilkinson to heel.

It was high time he was back at work. He checked his face in the mirror; it was important that you projected an air of calmness when you were in authority. He was descending the stairs when he heard the key turn in the lock.