The girl in dark glasses looked up and peered at Harriet.
‘Hullo!’ she said to Harriet, ‘You must be Cory Erskine’s nanny. I’m Sammy Sutcliffe; I look after Elizabeth Pemberton’s kids across the valley; they’re more or less the same age as Chattie and Jonah; we ought to get them together.’
‘Oh that would be lovely,’ said Harriet, suddenly craving companionship her own age.
‘We’ve been skiing, or I’d have come over before,’ said the girl.
‘You look terribly brown,’ said Harriet.
‘Yes,’ said the girl, ‘but it only goes down to my collar bones. Stripped off, I look like a toffee apple.’
She giggled and took off her glasses to show large, rather bloodshot, green eyes framed by heavily blacked lashes.
‘They’re to hide my hangover, not to keep out the sun,’ she said. ‘You never see the sun in this backwater.’
She put the lentils, which were spilling out of their packet, back on the shelf, took another packet and moved towards the cash desk.
‘And put those sweets back, you little monster,’ she screeched at the small boy, who was busy now appropriating tubes of Smarties. ‘You’ve got the morals of an alley cat. He’s a little bugger our Georgie,’ she added to Harriet. ‘Just like his Dad, except his Dad pinches bottoms rather than sweets.’
Outside she admired William.
‘What a little duck,’ she said. ‘You must be knackered looking after three of them. Why don’t you bring Chattie and William over to tea tomorrow and I’ll fill you in on all the local scandal?’
‘Gosh, thanks awfully,’ said Harriet.
‘Ours is the big house stood back from the river on the Skipton Road, just beyond the village,’ said Sammy. ‘You’ll recognize it by the sound of crashing crockery. Don’t be alarmed. It’ll only be my boss hurling the Spode at her hubby. Actually I think Cory’s coming to dinner tonight. She rather fancies him, my boss. Can’t say I blame her. I think he’s lovely too — looks straight through one in such a god-damned sexy way.’
Cory got home about eight. He looked terrible. He’s been in the pub, thought Harriet. She accosted him with a list of telephone messages.
‘Mrs Kent-Wright rang. Could you open a fête in May, and if not could you find one of your show business friends to do it?’
‘No,’ said Cory. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘A lady from Woman’s Monthly wants to come and interview you next Wednesday at seven.’
‘No,’ said Cory, ‘ring and say I can’t.’
‘And Elizabeth Pemberton rang to say they’re wearing black ties this evening.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ said Cory bounding upstairs. ‘I’d forgotten. Bring me a drink up in my dressing room, would you?’
In twenty minutes he was gone, leaving the bathroom awash, five towels at high tide, and his five o’clock shadow in the basin.
Through her two-Mogadon-induced slumber Harriet heard ringing and ringing. Don’t answer she thought, it’s someone trying to get through with a secret code. She pulled the blanket over her head. The ringing went on. It was the doorbell. Cory had a key. Who the hell could it be calling at that hour? Burglars, she thought in terror, then realized they’d hardly be ringing the bell. It must be some maniac off the moor, bent on rape. Wearing only her short scarlet nightgown, her hair falling in tangled curls down her back, she turned on all the lights, and nervously crept downstairs. Tadpole emerged, frowsty and bug-eyed, from the kitchen, and thumped his tail.
‘You’re a fine watch dog,’ she said. The ringing went on. The chain was on the door. She opened it an inch.
‘Who is it?’ she said nervously.
‘It’s me, Cory.’
‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ she said undoing the chain. ‘I thought you had a key.’
He stood in the doorway, swaying slightly. He was deathly pale; there was a cut on his forehead where the blood had dried; his tie was crooked, his hair ruffled. He looked at her intently, trying to focus but squinting slightly like a Siamese cat.
‘What have you done to your head?’ she said, thinking irrationally of Elizabeth Pemberton’s flying Spode saucers. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I am,’ he said in a blurred voice. ‘The car’s a write off.’
He walked into the house unsteadily, heading towards the drawing room.
‘Oh my God,’ said Harriet running after him. ‘You poor thing, sit down at once.’ She dived under the table, pulling her nightgown as far as it would go over her bottom, to put on the lights by the fire. ‘I’m so terribly sorry. Shall I ring for the doctor?’
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ said Cory. ‘I ran out of fags on the way home, which didn’t help.’ He took a cigarette with a shaking hand out of the green jade box on the table. Harriet found a match and lit it for him.
‘I’ll get you a cup of strong, sweet tea,’ she said.
‘You can fix me a drink,’ said Cory.
He’s had far too much, thought Harriet. ‘You might be concussed,’ she said aloud.
‘I’m OK,’ he said irritably. ‘I walked all the way home from the other side of the village, following the white lines in the middle of the road admittedly; so I’ve had plenty of time to work up a thirst. So if you please. .’
Harriet poured him a large whisky and soda. He drained half of it in one gulp.
‘Why didn’t you ring me?’ said Harriet, ‘I’d have come and collected you.’
‘I’d spent my last 10p in the pub this afternoon,’ he said. ‘And that reminds me, I took a quid out of the housekeeping. Do you want a drink?’
Harriet looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. She’d have to get William up in three and a half hours.
‘Go on,’ said Cory.
She poured herself a small glass of white wine.
Tadpole scratched at the fur rug in front of the fire, circled twice, then sat down as near the dying embers as possible.
‘Are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea?’
‘I just want someone to talk to for a few minutes.’
Harriet curled up on the sofa, trying not to yawn, tucking her long legs under her. She hadn’t shaved them for months, not that Cory would notice in the state he was in.
‘Was it a good evening?’ she said politely.
‘Bloody awful. “Just a few friends”, said Elizabeth, and I arrive an hour late to find three couples and a battle-scarred thirty-five-year-old with a “for hire” sign on her forehead lined up specifically for me. She was called Geraldine or Jennifer or something. We were put next door to each other at dinner, with everyone surreptitiously watching to see how we were hitting it off, just like mating dogs.’
‘Was she very beautiful?’ said Harriet.
‘Very — but she laughed too much, and asked too many questions about the ages of my children, and the script I’m writing at the moment, and didn’t I adore ballet, because she simply adores it. I was lumbered with her after dinner too, and out of the back of my head, I could see Elizabeth mouthing to all her friends, “It’s going frightfully well.” “Frightful” just about summed it up. Then at midnight she asked me if I’d terribly mind running Jennifer or Geraldine back to her cottage in Gargrave.’
The pale mask of his face was expressionless. He finished his drink and put his glass very carefully down on the table.
‘So I ran her home, and she gave me all the old crap about dropping out of London and leaving her stockbroker husband because he didn’t want children, and anyway he was knocking off his secretary, and how much more genuine and sincere people are in the North. And tomorrow I shall get a bollocking.’
‘Who from?’ said Harriet.