Pleasant Vices (6 page)

The client in the chair opposite was unhappy, complaining that the Inland Revenue were claiming his blood and bones as well as what was left of his now meagre income. Alan found meetings like this more depressing than any other, for although his own long-ago fantasies of stardom remained just that – distant unreality – here at least was one who had, at the time, done all the fantasy-fulfilling for him, for him and his generation. At nineteen, after three blissful, girl-pulling, school work-wrecking years in an atrocious part-time band called Snakepit, Alan had given in both to the nagging of his frantic parents and the growing knowledge that he was an essentially inept guitarist, and sold his precious Telecaster. Sadly he had not, as he had daydreamed, been telephoned by Mick Jagger begging him to join the Rolling Stones in place of the dead Brian Jones. He was nowhere close to the Jimi Hendrix league when it came to sex appeal. So, worn down by a finger-wagging lecture from his headmaster that he had been undeservedly lucky not to fail his A-levels, Alan had been persuaded that one day he might want to live somewhere more secure than on a mattress in the back of a Transit van with a woman who would hang around for more than a torrid twenty minutes in the Watford Gap car park, and he had gone off to study accountancy for no worthier reason than that he was better at maths than anything else. It had felt like conceding defeat, abandoning his fantasies and joining the grown-ups, but at least there were still other, braver people who would do the rich and famous and badly behaved bit on behalf of him and the rest of the more cowardly conventional. Now he sat, comfortable in his well-worn leather chair, watching one of those whom he had relied on to fulfil his there-but-for-qualifications-go-I dreams, scratching round in a column of pencilled figures for the wherewithal to fund his next telephone bill.

Alan felt depressingly adult. He studied the lined face of the man opposite, a drug-ravaged face that looked as if it had lived three debauched lifetimes, and he felt sorry for him. Alan didn't like this feeling, he didn't want to feel pity for a former hero, that wasn't what heroes were for. The whole point about them was their indestructibility. They were supposed to be made of different, star-dusted stuff.

He sighed, promised to sort out the official receiver and, charitably, did not point out that the lifetime earnings of the average middle management employee must have been sniffed up the client's nose during the past ten fame-diminishing years. There was no point, and it would make no difference now. Unfortunately for this client, cocaine was not tax deductible.

When Jenny eventually got into the house, there were already two messages on her answerphone, both of them from men enquiring about the flute lessons. Jenny was pleased that men were taking an interest in their children's music lessons. She was too used to pushy mothers, asking things like why hadn't little Petronella been entered for Grade 3 yet, surely she was more than ready. Fathers tended to keep out of the way, occasionally turning up to collect their children from the lessons, but as often as not hanging around outside in the car boredly flicking through their
AA Book of the Road
rather than coming in and risking a chat about progress and practice.

Jenny was just opening the front door to go and collect Polly from school when the phone rang again.

‘It says flute lessons on your card.' Yet another male voice, this time sounding like he had a bad cold and was talking through a handkerchief, mumbled at Jenny.

‘That's right,' she said brightly. ‘Is it for a child?' Jenny tried to be welcoming, business-like. ‘I normally charge £16 per hour, £9 for a half hour . . .'

‘A child what do you mean, a child?' the man interrupted, spluttering down the phone at her.

‘Well, I teach all grades of course, complete beginners too . . .' The phone went dead. ‘Oh terrific,' she said into it. ‘Thanks for wasting my time and making me late.' She flung the phone down and dashed out to the car, glaring at the ruined wall as she passed. It might be a good day for seeing Fiona Pemberton about teaching flute at the school. Biggles was sitting in a patch of sunshine on top of the rubble, washing his back leg. I wonder how long it will take Alan to sort that lot out, she thought. It could end up like Mrs Fingell's garden. She bent down to stroke Biggles, and picked up a blown-in Snickers wrapper.

‘Pity about your wall!' Carol trilled at her from the window of her all-white Peugeot. Pity about your bloody husband, Jenny felt like shouting back.

Polly was looking unusually subdued, sitting big-eyed and wary out on the school steps, watched over protectively by her loyal friend, Harriet Caine. Jenny sensed trouble as she struggled to squeeze the Golf between a Nissan Patrol and a Vauxhall Frontera.

Harriet did the talking. ‘Mrs Spencer says she would like to see you,' she reported quietly to Jenny, standing guard in front of the guilty-looking Polly.

Jenny gently moved Harriet aside. ‘What have you done now, Polly? You know this is an important time, with your exams coming. I hope it isn't anything naughty.'

‘Depends how you look at it. Not very naughty. I don't think so anyway, but I think maybe Mrs Spencer does.'

Jenny strode up the steps into the grandiose Victorian building, wishing she wasn't wearing her oldest jeans and sweatshirt but was one of those mothers who always dressed as if they were about to go to a charity lunch. The building was scruffy, a large converted house forming the tacked-on junior department of the High School. Few of the parents here had ever visited an ordinary modern primary school, but had they done so they would have realized that no state school would have tolerated the dingy corridors and lack of space that parents here were taking out second mortgages to pay for. What they wanted and got for their money was to have their little daughters grandly presided over by the formidable Fiona Pemberton, to learn French from the age of eight, and to scramble at eleven for the forty or so places reserved for them in the famously successful senior department of the school.

Ahead of Jenny a gaggle of the velvet headband brigade (pie-crust collars and cashmere to match) were discussing the forthcoming exams, which would weed out the no-hopers from those who would make it through to the senior school and safely on their way to Oxbridge, exams which would make lifelong enemies out of politely ruthless mothers. The crowded corridor, cheerfully lined with splodgy paintings, smelt of brown rice and chicken, overlaid with the soupy aroma of pre-pubescent little girls. The lino floor was scratched and filthy, and Jenny wondered, if it wasn't in the interests of keeping the place clean, why the uniform list required the girls to have three pairs of shoes each.

Jenny took a deep breath and knocked on the open door of Polly's classroom. She felt guilty herself, summoned like this to the teacher's presence. She should have waited and got some idea about what Polly had actually done before she rushed in, then she could have prepared an informed defence. Mrs Spencer, a brisk young woman with neatly bobbed, conker-brown hair, was sitting at her desk marking the day's maths.

‘Ah. Mrs Collins,' she said, but didn't continue, and Jenny thought, Oh God, it's so serious, the poor woman doesn't know what to say. ‘Ah. Mrs Spencer,' was the most tempting reply, which Jenny, wisely, didn't make.

‘Polly tells me you want to see me,' she said instead, as evenly as she could manage.

‘Yes. Mrs Collins, I'm afraid I found Polly and her friend looking at this during the lunch break.' Glancing nervously towards the open door, Mrs Spencer pulled the
Playboy
magazine from under the pile of exercise books. Jenny could feel her mouth twitching treacherously into a smile and fought to resist it. Mrs Spencer had put the magazine down and moved her hands down to her lap, as if not quite liking to touch. She's only young really, Jenny thought, early thirties perhaps. Where do teachers leave their sense of humour? In a staffroom locker every morning? Is it confiscated by the head teacher and kept in a cupboard till the end of term?

‘She's just a typical little girl with a highly developed sense of curiosity,' Jenny said, getting in quickly with her defence of Polly.

Mrs Spencer regarded her coolly. ‘There are plenty of things for little girls to feel curious about at ten, Mrs Collins. Pornography isn't usually one of them.'

You've been dying to say that, Jenny thought, you've been rehearsing that all afternoon.

‘She says she found it in your house.' The teacher leaned forward slightly and stared at Jenny intently and with scarcely-hidden curiosity. ‘Should you have left it lying around do you think?'

Oh no, thought Jenny, she thinks we're regular readers. She's sitting there wondering if Alan is trying to perk up a flagging sex life. Jenny had already realized the magazine must be Ben's (mustn't it?). Who but a teenage boy would want to gaze at these glossily sanitized gynaecological studies? Who but a teenage boy and blasted Polly.

Jenny felt as defenceless as when she herself had been caught smoking at her own school. ‘I'll have a word with her,' she promised, giving in feebly and mindful of the exams. ‘It won't happen again.'

Behind Jenny there was a brisk rustle and a slight breeze, and Fiona Pemberton, looking queenly in something floral and silky swept into the classroom. Jenny wished that she and the magazine could hide under the desk. ‘Glad to see Daisy is feeling better. We missed her yesterday. You do know you're supposed to send a note of course, but as it's you . . . Trouble with Polly?' Fiona suddenly said, her face switching from all-purpose professional smile to furrowed concern as she caught sight of the magazine. She picked it up, thumbing through it with no hint of the genteel repulsion of Mrs Spencer. Her frown deepened, as her well-practised brain sorted out what was happening. ‘Can't have this you know, Mrs Collins. Corrupting the other girls. I'd be sorry to see Polly turning into a Bad Influence.'

‘Just a bit of childish fun, I expect, Mrs Pemberton,' Jenny said firmly, standing up both to leave and to feel on more equal terms with the headmistress. She'd never liked being loomed over. ‘I must get back. I've got a pupil at 4.30.' Fiona was still flicking through the magazine and Jenny smiled at her as she walked towards the door. ‘Do keep it if you like,' she couldn't resist saying, and then could have kicked herself. She could hardly add, after that, ‘I suppose a job's out of the question?'

Daisy was wrong if she imagined, on her return from school, that the destruction of her Walkman would result in any leniency in her punishment for fare-dodging. A girl at school was having a party a few Saturdays ahead, and Daisy was quietly desperate to go to it. Everyone else was going. She put on a desolate, wronged expression and wandered sighing round the kitchen, toasting a crumpet on the Aga and waiting for Jenny to feel sorry for her. The Walkman suddenly became her most prized possession, now lost for ever together with her new Senseless Things tape, her absolute unchallengeable favourite. She put on an expression that she hoped looked like deep mourning.

But, with an end-of-the-day headache from a hopeless Grade 1 pupil shrilling and stumbling over his scales, and no fruitful response to her advert, Jenny was adamant. ‘No of course you can't go out to parties. You haven't even missed out on one single weekend yet. You skived school and you stole; you can't expect us to overlook it completely.' Jenny then smiled with some sympathy. ‘Look, it won't be for ever. But it will be long enough for you to think about what you've done.' She reached for her jacket, hanging on the back door. ‘Keep an eye on Polly for a bit will you, love,' Jenny went on. ‘I'm just going round to tell Paul he needn't worry about replacing your Walkman.'

Daisy flipped from feigned misery to real anger, waving her crumpet in the air and dripping butter onto the floor. ‘Oh Mum, that's not fair! Why should I have to lose out on that too?'

‘Don't jump to conclusions! I'll get it on the house insurance! Or from those trigger-happy police.' And she made her escape, before Daisy could wear down her resistance.

‘Good thing I was home, really. Anything could have happened,' Paul Mathieson was bragging to Carol as he watched her chopping leeks. In the ice-white, germ-free kitchen she chopped fast and firmly; bits did not fall off the scrubbed board onto the floor, or stick to the knife in an undisciplined way. The knife was stainless steel, it wouldn't dare be otherwise, and the shining blade flashed up and down. Paul, flinching, put his hands in his pockets on their way to a gesture of protection.

‘Anything could
not
have happened, Paul,' Carol said, stopping briefly to point the knife at him. ‘There was nothing in that bag but Daisy Collins's Walkman. I think that Mr Hasty is going to have to volunteer to pay for that, isn't he?'

‘Yes Carol,' Paul conceded meekly, wondering if it would be all right to help himself to the sherry, even though it wasn't quite time yet. He glanced into the sitting-room at the glass cabinet containing the decanter. If it wasn't locked, she wouldn't hear him opening the door. But if it was locked he was in trouble, for although the lock was tiny, it had a distressingly loud mechanism to it that no amount of oiling could silence. ‘Can I tempt you to a teeny drink, my pet?' Paul said, thinking to entice her to early alcohol. He took a hopeful step towards the cabinet. A couple of sherries inside Carol, and she might be in the mood for a bit of conjugal access later on.

‘Not until you've fed the cats,' she replied sternly, not even looking up from the chopping.

Paul turned back and dutifully opened the catfood cupboard. Ming and Mong, the matched pair of squint-eyed pale Siamese cats yowled at him from the kitchen floor, plaiting their skinny bodies round his legs. Greedy little buggers, he thought, why should their dinners get priority over me and my drink?