Caught in the Act

Tongues loosened by alcohol and food and a sense of relief that things hadn’t changed so very much after all, the four of them headed slowly back, laughing, teasing, still easy and connected up after all these years, meandering through the village, then in through the gates in Burbeck House’s kitchen gardens. Although they could hardly say they’d caught up, Carol thought—it felt more like they had just scratched the surface.

‘So what about you, Netty?’ asked Carol. They were walking side by side, Carol relishing the sound of their feet crunching over the fine gravel, the afternoon sun warming her face. It was a glorious day. There was a sprinkler set up in one corner of the walled garden and where the water arced, rainbows filled the air as millions of tiny droplets refracted the sunlight. It was one of those perfect moments that would linger in the memory.

Ahead of them Adie and Jan were talking, laughing; Carol laid down the images like good wine. Espaliered fruit trees hung on tight to the old brick walls, creating a rich green backdrop to row after row of beautifully laid out vegetable plots, herb gardens and asparagus beds. Just past an old-style wrought-iron greenhouse, figs and peaches and grapevines settled back against a row of pan-tiled sheds and drank in the heat and light. You didn’t have to be any kind of gardener to appreciate the tranquillity or beauty of Burbeck House’s kitchen garden.

‘What have you been up to?’ Adie said, swinging round and walking backwards. ‘We need to get the history all sorted before we get lost in the mêlée—so far we’re not doing very well at all. You either ‘fess up faster than that or I’m going to have to come bunk down with you lot after all.’

Netty lit up another cigarette and blew out a blast of smoke. ‘Well, in that case, I’ll hurry. I’ve got four hairdresser’s shops and beauty salons—all with nail parlours now.’ She extended her hands to show off a set of perfectly manicured undoubtedly fake talons. ‘Two ex-husbands, a daughter called Kirsten, who hates me, and a toy boy called Paul, who thinks the sun shines out of—well, all of me, to hear the way he goes on. Kirsten has a real problem with him.’

Jan perked up. ‘Which is?’

‘That he doesn’t fancy her.’

‘That’ll do it,’ said Adie, nodding.

‘And how old is he?’ asked Carol.

‘Twenty-seven next birthday,’ Netty said, almost defiantly.

‘Very nice if you can get it,’ said Adie, with a grin.

‘What about you then, golden boy? You’ve been very quiet so far,’ said Jan.

‘Only because I couldn’t get a bloody word in edgeways,’ he said, smiling still.

‘Well, now’s your moment,’ Jan fired straight back. ‘I mean, I know all about you but I’m sure your fans want to hear all the sordid details.’

He pulled a face. ‘There’s not a lot to tell, re ally. I was hoping that we’d hear all about you first.’

‘What, so you’re hoping for a big build-up, were you?’ laughed Jan.

Adie shook his head. ‘No, I was being gentlemanly.’

‘OK,’ said Jan briskly, as if her words and potted biography would clear the decks for his. ‘Well, I’m single.’ She flicked her long hair back over her shoulder as if defying anyone to comment. ‘I’ve got a Fine Art degree and an MA in textile design and had planned to teach but changed horses after graduation and now I design fabrics, do some styling for magazines—occasionally get some interior design work—and I lecture as well. I’ve got a re ally nice little place in Highgate.’ She paused. ‘That’s about it, re ally. I travel a lot, work, love my job—well, jobs. It’s a kind of patchwork of things that all tie in.’

‘It doesn’t sound like very much for twenty years,’ complained Netty, lighting up another cigarette. ‘Are these the U-certificate edited highlights? What about all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, broken hearts, mad passions, significant others?’

Jan waved the ideas away, a row of bangles on her wrist tinkling like sleigh bells. ‘Sometimes, occasionally kind of, but it’s been a now-and-then thing. To be honest, I travel so much and am so busy that I don’t have the time. I kept thinking some day, one day—but it just hasn’t happened.’

‘So far,’ said Adie.

Netty pulled a face, her expression matched by Carol’s.

Ignoring Adie, Carol said, ‘How can you say that you don’t have the time? I don’t understand. How can you not have time for people?’

Jan bristled. ‘I do have time for people,’ she protested. ‘I just don’t have time for the sort you wake up with in the morning. I lived with people and I went out with guys at college. And then about ten years ago I was part of a group that set up workshops in India and more recently in Africa. They’re both run cooperatively and they print and export fabric. It has re ally taken off and that takes up a lot of my time and energy, and to be honest I never seem to have the time for all that, you know, bunny-slippers and kissy-face stuff. I’ve got two Burmese cats called Lucifer and Diablo, and yes, before you say anything, yes, they are my surrogate children and yes, I do spoil them. And that’s about it re ally.’

‘Sounds a bit dull,’ Netty growled. ‘I like a man in my life. I’ve always enjoyed the exquisite pain that only a re ally bad relationship can bring.’

Jan grinned. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time in India and the Far East, sourcing silk and fabrics, and trust me, when it comes to pain, there’s nothing beats amoebic dysentery.’

Netty snorted.

‘Right,’ said Jan, with barely a pause for breath, ‘now then, Mr Can’t-get-a-Word-in-Edgeways boy. Your shout. Off you go. Let’s have it.’

They all looked at Adie, who held up his hands in surrender. ‘OK, I’m not fighting it, I’ll come quietly. I went to uni straight from school. Got a pretty shitty degree and then I didn’t re ally know what I wanted to do so I went travelling and did all sorts of stuff. I went to Australia, Bali; worked in bars, played guitar, grew my hair, smoked a lot of dope.’ He laughed. ‘And I suppose I finally grew up. While I was in Thailand I met someone, we travelled together for a couple of years and then when we came back we decided to try and give it a go and we’ve been together ever since—I suppose that must be nearly fifteen years or so now.’

‘Someone?’ asked Jan pointedly.

Adie nodded. ‘Yup. We bought a re ally nice place in Tunbridge Wells. I own a shop—I sell clothes—and…’

Carol was aware that they were all hanging on his every word now.

‘And you’re happy?’ said Netty suspiciously.

He grinned. ‘Blissfully, and before you make any kind of sarky remark about it, no one is more surprised than me.’

Jan made a funny little noise in the back of her throat that might have been disbelief but could equally well have been disgust.

‘re ally?’ said Carol.

He nodded. ‘Yes, re ally. My partner is a GP and I can feel all sorts of middle-aged angst creeping up on me. I’ve started writing letters to the broadsheets complaining about young people, falling moral standards and litter in the street.’

‘Oh my God, you’ve grown up to be Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells,’ said Carol with a giggle.

He grinned. ‘Not exactly. Actually, I’ve grown up to be Gay of Tunbridge Wells. My partner, Mike, said that if I get any more conservative he’s going to buy me driving gloves and an Argyll sweater for Christmas.’

Carol looked at him. There was a brief moment when the waves parted, and then the sea closed back over the gap with no great sense of revelation, nor anything unexpected being revealed, just an acceptance of what had—at some level—always been obvious.

‘How was it at the pub?’ Diana was in the dining room, hunched over a box of what looked like Christmas decorations, her whereabouts signposted from the main hall by a number of cards and home-made banners, that read: ‘BELVEDERE SCHOOL REUNION—THIS WAY’ in a confident bold italic hand that suggested they had been written by someone with a lot of experience at impromptu crowd direction.

‘Great, you should have come. We ate, we drank, we were merry, but Carol here had a fit of conscience and decided it was too cruel to leave you with all the work, and actually she is most probably right. Here, give me that bunting,’ said Adie. Grabbing one end, he clambered up onto a stepladder. ‘Have you got any drawing pins?’

‘Well, of course I have,’ Diana said, sounding terribly affronted.

Carol laughed; as if Diana would be the kind of event planner who would arrive without every eventuality covered. It felt so good to be back with them all; why had they left it so long before meeting up? So many years…too many years.

‘Why didn’t you ask us to help you with all this? We wouldn’t have minded,’ said Netty, pulling out a huge bag of balloons and a thing that looked like a cardboard bicycle pump from one of the boxes. ‘Do these things actually work?’ she said to no one in particular, as she tipped the balloons out in a heap onto the table and then pumped the tube thing furiously into mid-air.

‘No, but they make a great noise if you put your finger over the end,’ said Adie from the top of the stepladder. ‘Like a big wet fart.’

‘Oh well, that’s re ally helpful,’ growled Netty.

‘Here,’ said Jan, ‘let me,’ and started to stretch the balloons vigorously with all the zeal of a woman on a mission.

Diana seemed a bit stunned by their manic activity. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘Come off it, you can’t do it all on your own,’ Carol snorted. ‘And besides, you asked me to pitch in, I seem to remember.’