Maxwell's Summer Page 5

  ‘What’s she after?’ Bob threw over his shoulder.

  ‘Pardon?’ Maxwell was confused.

  ‘Mrs HF. She usually wants something when you go to her office.’ Bob didn’t think it was worth mentioning that the twice he had been invited to step into her parlour he had been given, in no particular order, a verbal and then a written warning.

  ‘Well ... I’m not altogether sure. I knocked her over in the garden centre, but I don’t think it’s that.’

  Bob sucked his teeth, the few of his own and the others donated by the NHS. ‘Don’t you be so sure,’ he said. ‘She can bear a grudge, that one. She’ll lull ya, that’s what she does.’

  ‘Really?’ Maxwell was not convinced that Mrs Hale-ffinch would want to do much lulling with Bob.

  ‘Yeah,’ the man muttered. ‘Lull ya, that’s what she’ll do.’ He fell into a kind of mantra, murmuring ‘Lull ya, lull ya ...’ then suddenly stopped so that Maxwell had to be quite nifty to avoid cannoning into him. He gestured to a door, set beneath an armorial crest picked out on the weathering brick. ‘That’s her office. Best of luck, chum.’ And he rolled away, a sailor far from the sea.

  Maxwell tapped on the door and listened. The wood was thick and weathered – no uPVC here. He heard a voice call out and he stuck his head in, tentatively. He still hadn’t forgotten the day he thought he heard Dierdre Lessing, his deputy headmistress of blessed memory call him to come in when she was actually shouting something completely different to the rather strapping young groundsman who had recently joined the staff. It was a picture that still rose up to torture him if he had had cheese for supper.

  But this time, all was well. Mrs Hale-ffinch was sitting behind a desk reassuringly littered with papers. She looked up at him and ran a frazzled hand through her hair, which fell back into a perfect bob, as Maxwell had noted the hair of the upper crust so often did. She smiled and gestured to a chair. ‘Do take a seat, Mr Maxwell ... that seems very formal. What do your friends call you?’

  Maxwell thought for a moment. He could count his friends on the fingers of one hand, which he understood was a good thing. They called him anything they wanted, by and large. Acquaintances, and he could see that this was the category into which Mrs Hale-ffinch would fall, at best, also had a variety of names for him, but he settled on one. ‘Max, as a rule, Mrs Hale-ffinch.’

  She smiled, a little perplexed. How very unimaginative the Maxwell parents must have been. Maxwell read the look – he was the original reader of every tiny micro-expression to ever pass across the human face, adult or child.

  ‘My name is Peter. People call me Max.’

  Her smile became broader. ‘I see. So, you would prefer Max, then. But what about on the publicity?’

  It was Maxwell’s turn to be perplexed. ‘Publicity? I don’t quite ...’

  The woman frowned and beat her forehead histrionically with the heel of her hand. ‘Typical, typical, typical. Missing out yards of info, as always. I really must slow down, put things in the right order – my husband is always telling me. What I want to discuss with you, Max, is whether you would like to be one of our lecturers – conversationalists, I should say – over the summer. To entertain but more especially, to inform our guests?’

  ‘Guests? You mean ... oh, you mean you want me to be a guide?’ He smiled to take the sting out of the refusal. ‘I really don’t think so, Mrs Hale-ffinch ...’

  ‘Call me Harry, do.’

  ‘Er ... Harry.’

  ‘Short for Ariana.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maxwell knew that these old families did tend to recycle names, but he had assumed that that one, for obvious reasons, would be out of bounds. Then he realised that she had married in and he frowned.

  ‘I can see your confusion, Max,’ Harry said. ‘Did my husband scour the length and breadth of the country looking for a good breeding filly with the same name as his most scurrilous ancestor? No, actually, we are that most clichéd of couples, second cousins a couple of times removed. Though to be fair, we didn’t know it when we met.’ She looked down at the top of her desk and was clearly miles away. ‘It was quite romantic, as a matter of fact ...’ She smiled softly and then looked up, seeing nothing but understanding on the face of the man sitting opposite. She coughed and became business-like again.

  Maxwell followed suit. ‘So, Harry, no, I’m afraid I wouldn’t like to be a guide in your house, lovely though it is. My wife is a police person and I look after our little boy in the holidays.’

  ‘He could come to the stables,’ she said. ‘And anyway, I wasn’t thinking of you being a guide. That is so terribly National Trust, don’t you think?’

  To Maxwell, it was positively National Front. He was used to people trying to take Nolan off his hands. But the bottom line was, he and the boy got on like houses afire and he would rather be with him than almost any other person on earth. ‘He would love that, I’m sure,’ he said, not ungrateful. ‘But we really couldn’t impose. And I don’t need ...’ he realised that to the nobs, teachers were probably considered on the edge of penury ‘... I don’t need a summer job.’

  Harry pushed herself away from her desk in a sudden movement and raked her hands through her hair again. ‘Now I’ve upset you!’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. I just ... well, I have heard so much about you from so many of our summer staff. You call them Highenas, I believe.’

  Maxwell smiled and inclined his head. ‘I’m afraid I do,’ he said, with a laugh.

  ‘Well, they’re all the same,’ she said. ‘They know so much about the history of the period of this house and it’s all “Mr Maxwell told us this” and Mr Maxwell told us that” and so when I heard someone was doing such an amazing job in the house, telling everyone about the portraits, well ... something clicked and I checked and ... here you are.’

  ‘It’s very good of you, Harry, to think of giving me this opportunity.’ In meetings, Maxwell was not usually either circumspect or polite. Legs Diamond, his not-terribly-esteemed headmaster, was not an easy man to respect and Maxwell rarely bothered. But this woman had clearly made her offer out of a kind heart and Maxwell was so glad to have rid himself of the terrifying Birthday Girl that he was minded to be pleasant on this occasion. ‘But I really, really, don’t need a summer job.’ He leaned forward, sharing his secret. ‘I know that you probably think that teachers have it easy, six weeks off in the summer, half terms, Christmas, Easter – all those holidays that other people can only dream of. But we don’t just loaf, Harry, indeed we don’t. We prepare lessons. We mark course work. Some of us take the time off to have a nice quick nervous breakdown, courtesy of your children – well, not specifically yours,’ he added hurriedly, ‘but children in general. So ...’ he rose to go, ‘I’ll just collect Nolan and be on my way.’ He smiled, the smile that had disarmed more scary people than Mrs Hale-ffinch and turned for the door.

  ‘Max.’ She wasn’t used to people leaving before she said they could, that much was clear. ‘Let me outline the job before you turn it down. We have paying guests here these days, not ideal, but one must live. This house is a money pit, to be honest, and the family coffers are a little light, what with one thing and another. The guests are mostly American, sadly, but that’s the economy for you – they’re the only ones who spend money on culture these days. What I would want you to do ... would ask you to do ... is to spend time in the house and garden during the day and at the cocktail hour ...’ she screwed up her nose in distaste, ‘... not my favourite phrase, but they get used to it on cruises and similar, we would ask you to give a lecture, more a chat really, about the history of the house and the family. Then have dinner with the guests. You could stay over as well if you want, but I would imagine you would want to get back to the family.’

  Maxwell would.

  ‘And of course, Nolan – what an adorable name, by the way – would be welcome to stay at the stables all day. One of our cars could take him home, or he could stay with my children until his mother could collect h
im. Or he could ...’

  ‘You seem to have crossed all the tees, Harry,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘It’s what I do, Max.’ She slumped in her chair and closed her eyes. For a moment, she looked like the impecunious second cousin umpteen times removed who Thomas Hale-ffinch had scooped up and made a lady. Then, the lady was back. ‘If I didn’t try my best to make this business work, I don’t know who would. So, what do you think?’

  ‘Could I ... well, I really need to talk this over with my wife. And my son, of course. Nole and I had some plans for this summer and we haven’t even begun one yet.’

  The thought of including a small child in a plan was a new one on Ariana Hale-ffinch. In her world, you popped out the kids – three at her last count – then posed for a few attractive photos for Horse and Hound then handed them over to a nanny. But whatever floated the man’s boat.

  ‘Of course,’ she smiled. ‘I do understand. Oh ... silly me. I didn’t tell you the salary. ‘How does a thousand sound?’

  ‘Well ...’ A grand sounded all right, taken by and large. Cars to and from work, Nolan accounted for and as happy as a pig in shit, not having to nursemaid Mrs Troubridge and her mad friends ... ‘that is a little less than my normal rate of pay, Harry,’ he said, having done a quick sum in his head.

  Harry’s eyes widened. Obviously all she had heard about teachers’ pay had been false. ‘I could go to twelve hundred, at a pinch. Would that help?’ She hoped so – entertaining a load of Yanks with brains made out of porridge was beginning to do her head in more than somewhat.

  ‘As you know, Harry,’ he said, ‘it isn’t about the money so much as ...’

  ‘Family time, yes, I know.’ The veneer was beginning to wear a little thin. But money always talked. ‘What if I paid you in advance, gave you two days off a week, your choice but not weekends if you could manage it and ... and your wife could come to dinner when her shifts allowed for it. How about that?’

  Maxwell was caught on the horns of a dilemma but most of all, he was in uncharted territory. Usually, when negotiating anything financial at Leighford High, it was about getting an extra ream or two of copying paper before the end of the financial year. Those arguments could take weeks and in the end, no one knew who had won. This talk of twelve hundred pounds and a summer of free riding lessons for Nole, let alone the dinners, was a new experience.

  ‘I still need to talk to my wife,’ he said. Nolan, he knew, would happily swap a summer with him and Plocker for a summer on a horse.

  Harry Hale-ffinch was writing. She tore out a cheque from the book and passed it over. ‘Just to show good faith, Max,’ she said. ‘One summer, in advance.’

  Maxwell glanced at it, before handing it back, and his eyes nearly fell out of his head. ‘But ... but this is for six thousand pounds,’ he said, gobsmacked.

  She looked puzzled. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Five more weeks of the holiday at twelve hundred a week. Six thousand?’ She knew that he taught history, but you would have thought his maths would be better than this.

  Maxwell replayed the recent conversation in his head. ‘I thought ... I didn’t realise you meant a week,’ he said, at last.

  The woman laughed and slapped the desk with one hand. ‘Good Lord, Max,’ she said. ‘I know I said we were a bit strapped, but we’re not destitute!’ She gave a final chuckle and handed him the phone. ‘Would you like to see if you can get hold of your wife?’

  Maxwell took the phone and punched in the number. While he waited for it to connect and for Jacquie to answer, he spoke to Mrs Hale-ffinch. ‘I can’t guarantee her response, Harry ... Oh, hello, woman policeperson.’

  ‘Max? Is everything all right? What’s this number? Where’s Nolan?’

  ‘It is. It is. Mrs Hale-ffinch. On a horse. Look, I know you’re busy ...’

  ‘You don’t have any more mad old women, do you?’ Jacquie sounded frazzled, as anyone who spent more than five minutes with Mrs Getty had every right to sound.

  ‘Not old, no,’ her husband answered, cryptically. ‘But ... I’ve had a proposition and I need to pass it by you.’

  When Maxwell lapsed into archaic meeting-speak, Jacquie always pricked up her ears. ‘A proposition?’

  ‘A job offer, I suppose I should call it. A holiday job.’

  ‘Paper deliveries?’

  ‘Ha. No, as a ...’ he raised an interrogative eyebrow at Harry, who mouthed the word, ‘a conversationalist at Haledown House.’

  ‘A ... conversationalist? Is that even a thing?’

  ‘Apparently, yes. It’s a matter of keeping some Yanks happy and the fee is six thousand.’ He thought he would keep it simple. ‘Five days a week. Free riding for Nole. Car there and back. Oh, and you’re invited to dinner whenever you’re free.’

  ‘That sounds ... where are you, exactly?’ Jacquie Maxwell had never known her husband get a touch of the sun but everything was possible and today was certainly the day it would happen if it was going to; it was hot as hell out there.

  ‘I’m in Mrs Hale-ffinch’s office, with a cheque for six thousand pounds in my hand. But I said I had to ask you first.’

  ‘Really?’ Jacquie didn’t have time to list all the times he hadn’t bothered to do that and had almost died.

  Maxwell smiled. He knew what she was thinking. ‘This is ... this isn’t ...’

  ‘I know,’ she said. She knew she would never change him. ‘If you want to do it, do it. Nolan will love it. Perhaps you might try to negotiate a few free days for Plocker as well, then it will be perfect. Ummm ... about the dinners?’

  ‘Delicious, I expect,’ Maxwell said, circumspection to the fore.

  ‘What about Nole when we’re fine dining? Mrs Troubridge is in a bit of a state right now. The Petting Zoo thing rather discombobulated her.’

  ‘At the very least, I should think,’ Maxwell said. Mrs Getty could discombobulate a regiment of berserkers. ‘Mrs Hale-ffinch has kindly said that Nolan can join her children if we need a sitter.’

  Mrs Hale-ffinch’s face spasmed. People like her had nannies, not sitters, but she was of a mind to let it go. This time.

  ‘Well ... yes, then. Why not?’

  ‘Why not, indeed.’

  Mrs Hale-ffinch made genteel hooraying motions and the deal was done.

  ‘So ... shall we say tomorrow, Max?’ she said, taking back the phone. ‘I’ll send the car at ... ten?’

  ‘Ten thirty?’ It was a good idea to let her know who was boss from the start.

  ‘Ten thirty it is.’ She extended a hand across the desk. ‘I’m sure this will be a very fruitful collaboration, Max,’ she said. ‘Welcome aboard.’

  Looking at his watch, Maxwell understood why his stomach had been trying to get his attention for some while. It was way past lunchtime and the bottle of warmish water in his pocket just wasn’t doing the business. In a heart-stopping moment, he suddenly realised that he had left his only child out in the burning sun in the sole care of a Highena. A thoughtful and sensible Highena, he admitted, but still ... did teenagers realise that small boys needed to be protected from the sun and given food? He picked up the pace and was soon on the low rise at the side of the house, overlooking the paddock.

  Which was empty.

  It is said that in moments of extremis, your life flashes before your eyes. Maxwell had been in extremis more times than he could count, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the empty paddock, silent except for the distant murmur of paying visitors cooing at the statuary in the formal gardens or shrieking quietly at the cost of a cup of tea in the tea rooms. The sun beat down and seemed to be almost flattening the air with its heat. Somewhere far away – or was it close to, what with the beating of his heart in his ears, Maxwell found it hard to judge distance – a bee was buzzing. Further away, a horse gave a gentle whinny – Maxwell’s head snapped up. Though he had assembled many horses for his diorama of the Charge of the Light Brigade in his loft, he was essentially a stranger to their
behaviour in real life. Was the horse registering distress or not?

  Not waiting to find out by watching the stables burst into flames, Maxwell trotted down the slope and across the paddock. The gate was open. Was that a good sign or a bad one? Who knew? He walked on the increasingly stiff yet wobbly legs that all parents know at least once before their child is ten, along the line of stables. From most of them came a gentle whicker of a horse, stabled for now against the heat of the day. A few stuck their heads out and tried to chat him up for a carrot or lump of sugar, but most ignored him.

  At the corner of the paddock, the stables stopped and a building with few windows but a couple of ordinary doors faced him. Using techniques honed by years of finding where the smokers of Year Ten were congregating this term, he turned his head this way and that, triangulating for sound. He had seen the raptors do that in Jurassic Park and had smiled a small smile of understanding. He also sniffed the air. Hmm – low voices and the smell of burgers must mean people nearby. Hopefully, one of them would be his son. If not, he knew he may go berserk, using skills of which Mrs Getty could but dream.

  He pushed the door open quietly and there they were – a gaggle of stable-girls, if gaggle were indeed the word for more than one of the species, and in amongst them, sitting on a bale of straw with a burger as big as a baby’s head in his hands, sat Nolan, filthy, his fringe clotted on his forehead with sweat, but clearly alive and, as predicted, as happy as a pig in shit.

  Maxwell stood still for a moment, while his heart reallocated itself in his chest rather than in his mouth. When he could speak without squeaking, he said, ‘Nole. There you are,’ as if he couldn’t care less.

  The child’s head turned and his face was adorned with a smile from ear to ear, enhanced rather than marred by a good dollop of tomato sauce. ‘Hello, Dads,’ he said, with the insouciance only a happy, secure child can really pull off. ‘We didn’t know where you were, so we had lunch.’ He held out his burger. ‘Want some?’

  Maxwell could have eaten his own leg by this time, but the burger did look more than a little chewed, so declined with a smile. ‘I wouldn’t mind a drink, if that’s all right, though.’