The Hive (17 page)

“Is that right?” Tom thrust his hands into the trousers of his DJ in what was, Rachel thought, quite a dishy sort of way. “Well I’ll let you in on a little secret. You might not believe this, but…” he leaned towards her, turned sideways and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “I didn’t actually want to be put up for sale.”

“Oh. God. Sorry. Course you didn’t. I’m having this really rubbish time…”

He drew up a chair and sat beside her, right foot on left knee. “Bet you mine’s a whole lot worse.”

“At the risk of offending you yet again, I really don’t think it can be.” And out poured everything: Tony Stuart’s pouncing, the Unfortunate Incident of the Mothers and the Warts, the horrors of the auction and the setup by Bea. He laughed quite a bit along the way, but she thought she could forgive him. She even thought that she might laugh about it all herself. One day.

And then he reached for her hand and pulled her up. “OK. You win. But come on. Everyone’s staring. We’ve only got one course of action left at this particular juncture.

“I think we should dance.”

Bubba was very tired and pretty tipsy so perhaps not all her reflexes were on top alert. She was watching Rachel and the headmaster, who were still dancing—and chatting and laughing—together even though the fast track had become a slow one…The first inkling that something was going horribly, catastrophically wrong went right over her light head.

“Bubba, you’re even cleverer than I thought,” Jasmine shouted at her over the music. “Lolz!”

“Awesome!” bellowed Sharon. “You’ve got the tide coming in!”

Bubba smiled and lifted her glass in response. It was lolz. And she was awesome, actually, wasn’t she? It had gone
so
well. It was actually
brilliant
to have a beach party in December. She gave a little wiggle of her hips. Everyone was in the mood for it. She shuffled around a bit, in an attempt at solo slow-dancing. Mark was perfect in every way, but for some odd reason she could never get him near a dance floor. So now I’ve got the tide coming in! That
is
clever, isn’t it? Because, you see, it goes with the theme. Sensational! I
am,
as Jasmine says,
so
clever.

And then, suddenly, the dance floor started to empty, and more than a few people started shrieking about shoes and dresses and someone mentioned an inability to swim. And then the music stopped and Wayne was pulling out plugs as fast as he could and lifting up his equipment but when he put some large black box on top of one of the tables everything seemed to sink and then people were running—no, not running, they were
wading,
really fast
wading
—to the door and up to higher ground.

So it
isn’t
a pond, she thought calmly to herself as the water level rose and the chairs down at one end started to lift up and sort of bob, bob, bob around. It
is
a lake—not quite the size of Windermere, it’s true, but a serious body of water. Definitely a serious body of water. So serious, the hem of her Stella McCartney was now completely underwater. And then lots of little beads of worry—far too many to count—started to rush out and tie her up in knots and this was it, here they came, they were all going to come and throttle her. Or could it be that she was just drowning?

It had been a strenuous couple of hours. Everyone else had fled, in a state of some panic. Bubba, hysterical, had been bundled off by Mark and somehow it seemed to be left to Rachel and Tom Orchard to deal with the crisis. Tomasz and Kazia had stayed, of course; they had been brilliant. Tomasz was beside himself. He said that he had been wanting to fortify the banks of the lake since he’d started work for them, and that he knew it would flood with a rise in the water table, but “Mrs. Green she does not listen.” Eventually Tom had sent them tottering off to bed too.

So now it was just the two of them, alone. They had salvaged as much as they could and were now collapsed, worn out, on a pile of rolled-up carpeting at the back of the marquee. They lay there together, side by side like holidaymakers on an atoll, beneath the stretched-out fishing nets and the cobalt sky, relaxing while the gentle waters lapped around them.

“Should’ve brought a picnic, really,” said Tom, leaning back. “Silly of me. Didn’t think.”

“Well, you’ll know next time. We at St. Ambrose generally like to end our evenings like this.” Rachel slipped off her sandals—ruined—and looked down at her bare feet. She rather wished she had indeed gone for a mani-pedi over at the Serenity Shed. “Whenever possible.”

“Do you know, I used to think you threw a fund-raiser for a tsunami—”

“But now you know it can also work the other way round.”

They giggled. She tucked her toes under the wet hem of her long dress.

“It’s your first headship, isn’t it? Experience is everything.”

“Tell you what: the learning curve is a little steeper than I had anticipated. All those training courses did nothing to prepare me.”

“So, um, where were you before this?” At last, her opportunity: the pop star, the footballer, the punch…?

“Well, I started out as a teacher, then had a quick detour into the City for all the obvious reasons. Did that for a bit, and then really felt the urge to, you know, give something back.”

“So a bit like when you’re on the motorway, and there isn’t a petrol station and you have to come off the motorway to fill up, so that you can get back on it again and get on with your journey?”

“Exactly.” Tom picked up a bottle that came bobbing past on a wave. “Except not quite.” He took a swig. “Because my girlfriend decided she’d stay in the petrol station, as it were, rather than get back on the motorway—”

“Ah.” Pop star by any chance?

“—and that she would be keeping fifty percent of the metaphorical petrol. For her own separate metaphorical tank.”

What, no triangle of lurve? That Destiny in Year 3—she’s a right fibber. Still, this version was pretty riveting. But at that moment Mark Green came sloshing back in. They both pulled themselves up, perhaps a bit too quickly.

“Nah, nah, don’t bother to get up. Give her one for me.”

“Oh! Gosh! No! We were just—”

“Bloody relief to see someone actually enjoying themselves, to be honest. Fuck a nun sideways.” Tom and Rachel each gave a startled, synchronized little jump. “Got to hand it to my missus.” He looked about him. “Full of surprises.”

“Oh dear.” Rachel sank back again. “How is Bubba?”

“She was pretty pissed anyway, so I threw some sleeping pills into the mix and now she’s mercifully out of it. But she keeps muttering numbers in her sleep—three thousand divided by twenty and ten thousand minus twelve thousand and all sorts of crap and I thought”—he tapped the side of his head—“I know what’s going on here. She’s worried about the profit side of things.”

“That’s sort of understandable,” said Rachel, looking around at the debris. “There are going to be a few insurance issues, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Mark brandished his checkbook. “Yeah, well. I can’t take any more of this. I’ve had it up to here. Having to buy that up-himself bugger Farr in the auction was the last bloody straw.” He leaned on the table and started to write. “This should do it.”

He handed the check to Tom, who took one look and began to protest.

“Nope. Take it. Give it a good home. But I only give it to you on two conditions.”

Tom propped himself up on one elbow and nodded.

“One: I never hear any mention of this bloody ball ever again.”

“I think that might be a relief for all concerned.”

“And two: I take my kids out at the end of the summer term. I’ll clear it with Bubba much later on. But I tell you, they’re going back to yet another nice toffee-nosed fucking academy for the offspring of vulgar arseholes where you don’t have to do a fucking thing but show up and flash your wad about and that’s that. Christ, I can’t afford any more of this state-school shit. One more year of it and we’ll all be in the sodding workhouse.”

And with that he turned and sloshed back out again, away from the drooping tent, back presumably to the ravings of his unconscious wife.

Rachel and Tom sat on their carpet atoll in silence, listening to the whooshing sound of the departing wellies. When she was sure the coast was clear, Rachel said, “Bubba was worried, when she chose St. Ambrose, that we might be a little ‘
rough
and
sweary
’ for the Green family, but she was willing to take a risk…”

“Glad they did, though,” said Tom, showing her the check. “Look at that.”

Rachel gave a low whistle. “You might get your library after all, then.”

“
Our
library.” Tom stood up and pulled Rachel to her feet. “I mean, everybody’s library. Yeah. And you get to do your time line!”

Gulp. The sodding time line. “Ah. Yes. Jolly good.” Totally forgotten about that…

“I’m sure it will be fantastic. Have you started work at all?” He took off his jacket and wrapped it round her bare shoulders. “You’ll need this.”

Together they waded out of the marquee. “Sort of, you know, early thoughts…” Not a bloody jotting. Hell. She flicked each leg at the knee to get her sandals back on, and then they walked back to the road. “But now we know it’s definitely happening…” the rain had stopped now, but the air was chilled, “I can start properly getting down to it…”

Rachel got into her car and handed back the jacket. “Anyway, um, thank you—”

“No, no.” Tom, smiling, leaned in as he held the door. “Thank you”—he straightened up—“for what was a truly memorable evening.”

They laughed. She pulled the door in. He waved. She drove herself home. There you are, Mother, she thought with a smile. I have made a whole new friend.

R
achel walked up the hill, hearing Heather twittering on about something or other but not really listening. There was a minor malfunction with her concentration this morning. The world seemed to have slightly tipped on its axis. She was feeling a bit dizzy, had lost her bearings. When they got to the playground, the little gathering was already there under the tree, humming.

“Hi,” said—who? Jasmine? Sharon? Someone or other. “We were just going over it all. Performing the autopsy. Wasn’t it a complete disaster?”

“Mmm? What? What was a complete disaster?” Rachel couldn’t think for a moment. “Oh. The ball. Was it?” She pointed Poppy towards the door with a floaty gesture. “You think so? I thought it was all rather…wonderful.”

“Glad to hear someone got something out of the evening,”
Geo
rgie said with meaning, and narrowed eyes. “I wonder what it was? Going to share it with the rest of the class, are we?”

“Funnily enough,” chipped in Jasmine, “my Richard said if only he’d known it was fish and chips and home for half-ten he would’ve looked forward to it more.”

“Shhhh. Act normal. Here she comes.”

They watched as Bubba’s Range Rover drove into the car park at a snail’s pace. She emerged with the children, and dragged behind them as they made their way into school. Her hair was unwashed; it had not recently been brushed. She wore tracksuit bottoms and a droopy maroon cardigan. “Pssst,” Heather whispered to the others. “Look. Furry slippers.” Her sunglasses covered her eyes, but the rest of her face was unmade-up, and ashen.

“Poor thing…” said one.

“She seems…” trailed off another.

“She looks…” tried Heather.

There was only one person who could actually put a finger on it.

“She looks,” Georgie said briskly, “just like one of us.”

Georgie’s mobile rang and she passed the baby to Heather while she dug into her pocket to find it.

“Ye—

“Wha—?”

There was something terrible in the tone of her voice. They all turned away from Bubba and clustered around Georgie.

“I’m coming. OK, love? I’ll be there.”

She lowered the phone and raised wide, blue, terrified eyes to the group. Her face was contorted with panic.

“That was Jo.

“It’s Steve.”

Her voice broke. She was trying to say something but it wasn’t coming out clearly. They only caught the last word.

“…suicide.”

The school bell had rung a while ago, but nobody had moved. The adrenaline-shot panic in the immediate wake of Jo’s call had given way to a deep, dull collective misery. Rachel stood, a little apart from the others, pinned to the spot, incapable of speech. There goes another one, was all she kept thinking: another seemingly normal St. Ambrose family picked off and blown to pieces by the violent, mindless hooligan that is fate.

She looked around. The morning was gloomy so the school was lit from within; the arched, churchlike windows shining with a confident glow. Rachel stared at it, wondering at how it could still stand there, just going on, as if nothing had happened. St. Ambrose was, after all, no more than the composite of its families; they were its DNA. It is only what it is, she thought, because of us. Because our little individual units have miraculously chosen to combine together. We are the cellular structure, the building blocks, of the school. And yet these cells are all so fragile. They keep splitting. Molecules keep dying. How much more of this can the place take before it, too, starts to change, or decay?

The group under the tree had grown and Rachel was now gathered in. Most, like her, were silent. Only the dimmest among them felt there was something to say.

“Poor kids.”

“But my boys are in the same Sunday team as their boys. They saw Steve every week.”

“And a week before Christmas…”

Rachel was grateful for her inability to comprehend the horror of a suicidal depression, but she could just about grasp that, if Steve had been locked in ferocious battle with his demons, it would have been a struggle to hold them off just for the sake of a bit of turkey and a cracker. The black, bleak awfulness of it all was overwhelming, and she felt trapped, suffocated, by the group pressing in around her. She stood there, with the rest of the herd, shivering, like the rest of the herd, unable to escape. She listened as they exchanged little anecdotes—“
I’ve
known them since NCT”—their credentials that they might claim this tragedy as, in part, their own. All Rachel wanted to do was get home, slump down and sob, alone. If only she could move…

Georgie suddenly lifted her head, sharp and alert—a wild animal with the scent of danger. For a moment Rachel was worried she was going to pick a fight. She certainly wouldn’t put it past her. But no. Her eyes were narrowed, her nostrils flaring. She was taut and focused on what was going on over by the prefab, at the entrance to the school.

“I do not believe this. Tell me this is not true. What. The. F—” And off she flew, with the group falling in behind her.

Bea was standing by the door, holding a clipboard and wearing black. Her eyes were dry, but her features were neatly arranged into the accustomed positions of grief. She spoke to another parent in a murmur—“Thank you, that’s kind. It is very hard. A
lovely
family. A
terrible
shock”—and wrote down a name. Then she saw Georgie’s approach.

“Oh Georgie, I’m
so
sorry to be the one to have to break it to you. I’m afraid I have some tragic,
tragic
news. Steve—that’s, you know, Jo’s husband?—has…”

“Thank you. So much.” Georgie’s voice was thickened by tears, but plenty loud enough. “I do know who Jo’s husband is. And I do know the tragic news…”

Bea put her hand to her chest. “Well that’s a relief for
me,
at least.” She shook her head and smoothed away her hair. “This really is one of the hardest mornings I’ve ever had to—”

“But how do you, eh? How on
earth
do you do it, Bea? She only just found him. She hasn’t even managed to get hold of his brother yet. So how come
you
know it all?”

Bea took a few paces back towards the prefab wall. Georgie advanced on her.

“You’re like one of those tabloid creeps who’s written up the story before it even happens.”

A proper crowd was gathering now.

“Have you got an ambulance crew on retainer? Have you got a mole in the police? Eh?”

She was right in Bea’s face, and hissing into it.

“You don’t like Jo and she does not like you. You never knew Steve. You know nothing, nothing about their lives. How dare you stand there with your clipboard, dressed like an undertaker, and act like this is anything, anything whatsoever, to do with you?”

Rachel was just about to burst into spontaneous and what would have been quite shockingly inappropriate applause when she was saved by Mrs. Black, the school secretary, opening the front door.

“Ah.” She too had clearly been crying. “I can see you’ve all heard already. The headmaster is very keen to deal with this as carefully as he can within the school. So he has asked me to come and see if Mrs.…”

She paused as she put her glasses on to read from the spiral-topped notebook. Her hand was shaking. The assembly on the tarmac held its breath. Georgie clenched her fists. Bea started to reach towards the school steps, as if she were in the final throes of drowning and Mrs. Black a rope.

“…Spencer? Yes, Melissa Spencer might be willing to come in and offer her expert support to him at this horrible, difficult time.”