Chapter 28
28
AUGUST 2018, SUFFOLK, ENGLAND
‘So lovely of you to invite us into your stunning home, Antonia, it’s just superb out here.’ Kate drinks in a little too much from her flute, and perfectly chilled pink champagne runs into her doughy bosom, dampening the V of her swallow-print dress. She thought the white bird silhouettes on navy cotton was rather natty when she picked it up in M&Co when she was getting Jack a gilet last autumn. The dress had become a bit snug by spring, but since Kate decided to snap out of her rut, to stop being suspicious and needy, and to get back to Weight Watchers, she’s actually felt better. And the dress fits her again, so she decided to wear it to Antonia and Archibald Barrie’s annual cheese and wine party. In fact, Kate’s honoured to be invited this year. Last August, she and George didn’t cut the mustard, which was a bit of an outrage given all the hard work Kate had put into the WI summer jamboree, but they were on holiday in Lake Annecy so they couldn’t have made it anyway, as Kate kept telling herself.
This summer, the Wheelers have arrived, and Kate is standing on the terrace under a pagoda trimmed with fairy lights, admiring the sweeping view of the Suffolk countryside alongside WI, PTA and NCT chums. Even George has come willingly – he’s been much more compliant lately, which is great for Kate as she hates turning up to drink parties alone – although he is skulking around in the kitchen, talking hedge funds with Nigel Pickover, who runs the cricket club.
It’s not quite dark, so Kate surveys the pink sunset that’s peppered by the silhouette of a church steeple as she sips champagne with Antonia Barrie, lady of the manor, who is regaling Kate with her plans to have a set of stables and a paddock installed at the far end of the field. It was when Antonia told Kate that she’d fallen for a sixteen-hand grey Hanoverian that Kate choked on her drink. She had no idea what any of it meant.
Antonia gives Kate a smile to veil her pity – she saw the champagne trickle into that inelegant cleavage of hers but decided to carry on talking about her architect’s plans for the stables and horses to fill them with.
‘It’ll be so wonderful for the children – all of them. Alistair and Bertie really ought to be riding by now,’ she says, but she can’t hide her disdain any longer. ‘Chen!’ she calls to a woman topping up glasses. ‘Napkin please, we’ve had a little accident…’
We. How thoughtful.
Kate blushes and apologises, fumbling to take the crisp white linen from an obliging servant.
‘Sorry, Antonia, I got a bit carried away! Big gulp. I’m just so pleased to be here, it’s such a beautiful evening.’ Kate presses the linen into her cleavage to absorb the moisture. ‘So, how many horses will the stables house?’ Kate asks, not interested in horses in the slightest, but doing her best to pretend she is.
Amber Barrie sidles up to rescue them both and Kate doesn’t see the knowing look dash between mother and daughter.
‘Sorry to interrupt.’ Amber nods at Kate, not sounding in the least bit sorry. ‘Marta has managed to get Alistair and Bertie down. Clarissa has just gone over to Meadow’s house.’
‘Meadow’s house? At this time? What could possibly be more exciting at Meadow’s house?’ says Antonia in high-pitched outrage, laughing. ‘Meadow ought to have come here.’ She strokes her daughter’s long golden mane. ‘Thank you, sweetpea. Oh, have you met? Darling, this is, er, Kate, Kate Wheeler , from the WI. She’s very talented with a spreadsheet.’ Kate tries not to look offended, but this time she does notice a loaded look between Antonia and Amber, right about the point when Antonia said ‘Wheeler’.
You thought my Battenberg was the best in the blind tasting.
‘Kate, this goddess of a girl is my daughter Amber.’
‘Yes, Mummy, we’ve met…’ the goddess says, glowing.
Kate is both fascinated and intimidated. How does a woman as fragrant and floaty as Antonia Barrie have two grown-up daughters and two young boys – who would be in the same school as Jack and Izzy if they weren’t at the private school in the next village? Antonia must have been well into her forties when she had Bertie, but she doesn’t look like a woman who’s harangued with homework and sticker charts and cricket practice. And now her daughter is standing next to her, like Antonia v.2. A younger, more charming, more attractive clone, with swishier hair and peach-perfect skin.
‘Nice to see you again,’ Kate bumbles, trying not to spill anything else from her flute. ‘Looking forward to the new term next week?’ she adds keenly.
‘Can’t wait.’ Amber smiles.
‘It’s Amber’s first teaching job – and in a state school! It’ll be quite a different environment to what you experienced at school, darling.’
‘Oh, it’s OK,’ Amber says, slightly flustered that her mother might not know that Kate’s son will be in her class. She’s preoccupied by a secret she’s trying to conceal. ‘I trained in East London, Mummy, I’m ready for anything!’
The quiet lioness in Kate feels slightly riled by the implicit criticism, and emboldened by champagne.
‘Well, Jack is raring to get back to school. And Claresham might not have the facilities of Saint Felix’s, but it’s a really lovely school. My eldest daughter Chloe was sad to leave this summer. She’s had a marvellous time there.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.’ Amber smiles without using her eyes.
There is a lingering pause in the conversation and Kate feels scrutinised by the two polished women, looking her up and down with pitying smiles. Suddenly, Kate’s Weight Watchers success doesn’t seem like such a triumph, and she shuffles from one foot to the other before deciding she ought to move along now, to make it easier for Antonia to mingle. She knows when she’s not interesting enough.
‘I wonder where George has got to,’ Kate says, looking back over her shoulder to the guests behind her on the terrace.
‘He’s in the kitchen,’ Amber replies in a flash.
‘Oh. Thanks. Excuse me…’ Kate smiles meekly as she walks away with uncomfortably damp nipples.
In the vast expanse of the beige and black kitchen, guests mingle around a huge granite island, while Chen, and Antonia’s other minions, glide around with platters full of manchego tartlets and quince.
Nigel Pickover walks towards Kate, standing in the wide doorway as she surveys the room looking for George, and raises a hand as if he has something important to say to her. He looks sozzled and sweaty, with a plump red face. Kate pauses to see what Nigel wants to talk to her about.
‘Where’s the big white telephone?’ he stumbles, putting an unwieldy hand on Kate’s shoulder to steady himself, desperate to find one of the seven bathrooms.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Kate, shrugging. ‘Where’s my husband?’
Nigel walks past without answering, and Kate wonders if she really might be invisible after all. In the kitchen, she is horrified to see George hanging off one of the double doors to the fridge, leaning in and helping himself to a beer. He looks quite at home for someone who usually eschews such parties. ‘George!’ Kate scolds, embarrassed by his overfamiliarity but relieved that she can’t see Archibald, Antonia or Amber anywhere in the vicinity. ‘What are you doing?’
George rummages before he finds a brand he likes. One of the waiting staff rushes over with a bottle opener.
‘You can’t just help yourself to beer in someone else’s home!’ Kate says as she studies George’s flushed face.
‘Why not?’ He shrugs.
‘I think we’d better start making a move. I told Susannah we wouldn’t be late.’
‘She’s all right,’ George says with a cavalier gleam in his eyes.
‘Well, I’m not, and you look like you’ve had enough already.’
‘Party’s only just getting started,’ he slurs, looking out the kitchen window onto the terrace outside.
Kate can’t put her finger on it, but after hankering for an invitation to Archibald and Antonia Barrie’s annual cheese and wine party for years, she doesn’t like being in Claresham Hall, or Barrie Manor as everyone in the village calls it. She just wants to get home.