Bad Heir Day Read online

  Wheeling round on her chair, Cassandra stabbed her cigarette out in her Matthew Williamson ashtray and seethed. A month! She’d kept at least two nannies for six weeks; Isabel, that fat one from Wales, had lasted two months until that unfortunate business with the flower vase. Cassandra stuck by her guns, even now. That bunch of flowers had been unspeakably vulgar. Carnations, for Christ’s sake. She’d been firm and unyielding. Isabel’s boyfriend may have had every right to give her carnations but Isabel had no right—no right whatsoever—to expect to display them in Cassandra’s house. She couldn’t quite believe Isabel considered it a resigning issue, but so be it if she did. Cassandra permitted herself a slight sigh of regret. Isabel had been the best of a bad bunch—quite literally, in the case of those carnations—particularly because she had been so reassuringly plump and therefore Jett-proof. Her husband was not a big fat fan, unless you counted the beef dripping sessions he occasionally indulged in to keep in touch with his working-class roots.

  At the thought of Jett, a chill suddenly swept through Cassandra. Was she meant to be doing the school run this morning? She scrambled to her feet in panic. Anyone delivering the children late got an automatic black mark in the headmistress’s book, and Cassandra had few lives left with Mrs. Gosschalk as it was. Last term she had been publicly humiliated when her car had been one of those named and shamed in the school magazine for parking on double yellow lines with the hazards on at dropping-off time. Still, at least she hadn’t been on that dreadful list taking to task those mothers who turned up at the school gates in jeans, which had appeared in the same issue.

  “Did Mr. St. Edmunds take Master Zak to school?” Cassandra demanded as Lil returned with a large cut-glass tumbler. The ice cubes crashed and shook together as Cassandra lifted it to her lips.

  “Yars,” rasped the cleaner in a voice so gravelly it sounded as if her oesophagus had been pebbledashed.

  Cassandra was relieved and slightly amazed to hear that her husband had managed to perform at least one parental duty. For, despite the staff crises in which he had most certainly had a hand—in the case of Emma, Cassandra chose not to dwell on exactly where that hand had been—Jett was scarcely displaying Dunkirk spirit at the moment. More bunker mentality as he disappeared for days on end into a studio whose precise location had never been satisfactorily pinpointed.

  Cassandra frowned hard at the screen of her laptop. It was a magnificent machine, customised in her trademark zebraskin, with a matching carrycase and special supersensitive keys designed not to break Tyra’s nails. When she switched it on, an encouraging electro-musical burst of “Diamonds Are Forever” greeted her, while each time she completed five hundred words, a little pink cartoon figure appeared at the corner of the screen to blow her a kiss. It corrected the spelling for her, it suggested alternative words for her, it could do practically everything except write for her, something Cassandra profoundly regretted. Still, it did its level best to encourage her—its Screensaver swirled with the affirming messages “Just Do It” and “Go For It” in about a hundred different typefaces, which, in her present mood, Cassandra found more irritating than motivating. The very fact she was sitting there staring at “Just Do It” meant she wasn’t doing it. And the only It she felt like going for now was the sort you put in gin.

  She decided to go for a walk. A walk would clear her head, Cassandra thought, emptying the last of the Bombay Sapphire down her throat.

  “Just going to the library,” she called to Lil, now busy bashing the paint off the skirting boards with the Hoover.

  “I ’aven’t done in there yet,” Lil thundered over the vacuum cleaner.

  “No, not our library,” Cassandra screeched. “The local library.”

  She rarely, if ever, made an appearance in the mock-Victorian Gothic book repository Jett had had built for himself for his fortieth birthday—or what he claimed had been his fortieth birthday—the year before. God alone knew what he wanted it for, certainly not for reading. Jett’s idea of quality fiction was the front and back pages of the tabloids. He had never read a single one of Cassandra’s novels, although she derived some comfort from the fact that she was up there with Tolstoy and Dickens in that he had never read one of theirs either.

  A walk round Kensington Library, Cassandra decided, was what she needed to stir her into action; the sight of all those volumes by other writers would ignite the petrol-soaked rag of her latent competitive spirit. It would also be interesting to see how many of hers were out on loan. All, hopefully.

  Cassandra pulled on a shiny zebraskin mac and, conscious of the thick-waisted Lil watching her from the end of the hall, dragged the belt round her thin middle as tightly as it would go. Who cared if she had writer’s block, husband problems, and a galloping staff crisis? She had the waist of a sixteen-year-old, didn’t she? And the bottom of a twenty-year-old—Jett was always telling her she had the best arse in the business. A frown flitted across her face as she wondered for the first time what business he meant exactly.

  Cassandra negotiated the front steps as well as she could in her high-heeled leopardskin ankle boots. She trotted unevenly down the street, glorying, as always, in the fact that it was one of Kensington’s most recherché roads and her house one of the most expensive. They can’t take that away from me, she thought, sticking her scrawny, plastic-covered chest out with pride and trying not to dwell on the fact that, if she didn’t keep up with the mortgage payments, they most certainly could—and would. She simply had to get on with this book…

  And to do that, she simply had to sort out a new nanny. The only slight hitch was her usual agency’s flat refusal to supply her with any more staff. Cassandra twisted her glossy red lips as she recalled that morning’s conversation with the head of Spong’s Domestics.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Knight,” Mrs. Spong had told Cassandra. “I’m afraid we’re unable to recommend you to our clients as employers anymore.”

  “What the hell do you mean?” Cassandra had raged, embarrassed as well as furious. Spong’s was the smartest staff agency in the area. To be treated like this by them was humiliation of the first order, or rather it would be if anyone found out. She’d heard of employees being struck from agency books, but never employers. Really, this Spong woman had the most ludicrous airs. “Do you know who I am?”

  There had been a polite silence before the agency head had, downright insolently, Cassandra considered, informed her that yes, she knew exactly who she was. “So what’s the problem?” Cassandra had demanded.

  “The problem, Mrs. Knight, is that we have supplied five nannies to you in the last twelve months, none of whom have managed to stay with you—or, more to the point, your son—for a period any longer than two months. It would seem that, ahem”—Mrs. Spong cleared her throat—“perhaps we are unable to supply quite the, um, calibre of staff you are looking for.”

  “Well, do you have any suggestions as to who might?” Cassandra had demanded. “I suppose it’s back to trawling through The Lady,” she had added furiously.

  “I think, Mrs. Knight,” Mrs. Spong had replied, utterly deadpan, “that you might have more luck with Soldier of Fortune magazine.” Cassandra had never heard of it, but she liked the sound of it. It must be for rich military types. Another good reason for going to the library. She could save money by helping herself to their copy.

  Cassandra swept into Kensington Library and sailed straight for the shelf with her works on it. She was horrified to see that the whole fat-spined four of them were in residence. Furious, she pulled out Impossible Lust, marched purposefully towards the display cabinet at the back of the room, and replaced Captain Corelli’s Mandolin with it. Who wanted to read about a bloody mandolin anyway? Feeling better, Cassandra returned to her shelf and flicked to the front of The Sins of the Father, the book that had gone through the five hundred thousand barrier and netted her the Schnabel. She felt comforted by the date stamps tattooing the firs
t and second pages—there had obviously been no shortage of borrowers. Then, absently, she flicked to the back, whose last page, she was disgusted to see, was covered in shaky initials in pale blue Biro; put there, she knew, by old women who couldn’t remember what they’d read. Realising that the initials at the back tallied roughly with the number of date stamps at the front, anger coursed through Cassandra. If only the old bags would leave her books on the shelf for more than five seconds, perhaps some fashionable people would have a chance to borrow them.

  Her mood did not improve as a stooping old woman with a slack, trembling jaw, thin grey hair, and skin like a raisin came shuffling into the room and made the sort of line a shaky, ancient bee might manage in the direction of Cassandra’s shelf. Cassandra shrank against the Sidney Sheldons—at least they weren’t all out either—and watched in disgust as the woman took Impossible Lust between her liver-spotted fingers and turned to the back page. Apparently unable to decipher her initials, the old woman grunted with satisfaction and shuffled off with the volume towards the librarians’ counter. Cassandra’s hand flew up to her skinny throat. She felt violated. Seeing that old woman’s filthy old hands over her precious words was, she shuddered to herself, like being raped. Bile welled up within her. Cassandra hated most of her readers—the pitiful, pathetic, poor masses who bought her books in their hundreds of thousands. But even more despicable were the readers who got her books free from the libraries.

  As best she could in her crippling heels, Cassandra rushed dramatically out of the room and into the library foyer, where she paused to catch her breath against the noticeboard. As her hammering heart calmed down, her eyes wandered across the many ruled and drawing-pinned pieces of card offering everything from Opera Camp for musical fives-and-up to wine appreciation courses for under-eights. There was hardly time for a panicked Cassandra to wonder whether she should be sending Zak on the latter before her eye fell upon the bright pink card pinned next to it. English Graduate Seeks…Cassandra did a double take. Her eyes narrowed. She read it, then read it again. Finally, she snatched it off the board, slipped it into her plastic zebraskin pocket, and left. It was only when she was halfway up Kensington Church Street that she realised she had forgotten to look for Soldier of Fortune. But hopefully she wouldn’t be needing that now.

  Chapter Six

  Anna heard the snap of the letterbox and wandered slowly down the long, white-painted corridor to the post lying on the mat. Not more wedding invitations for Seb, she thought in amazement, picking them up and almost buckling under the weight of the thick, cream envelopes.

  Over the few weeks since she had moved into his flat, the wedding invitations on Seb’s solid Edwardian marble mantelpiece had grown from a mere spinney to a mighty forest. The rather hideous ormulu clock was now entirely obscured by folded cards in Palace script concealing lists from smart interiors stores and directions to receptions—including, once, instructions on how to arrive by helicopter or Gulfstream jet. None of them, however, bore Anna’s name. “And Guest” seemed as far as most of Seb’s friends were prepared to go. Given his track record with girls, it was probably a sensible policy; sometimes Anna wondered if he was only with her because he’d been out with everybody else.

  Yet soon after they had met—at a wedding party, naturally—Seb had invited her to move in with him, which surely was an encouraging sign. Anna tried not to dwell on the fact that he had more or less had to. Having just lost the latest in the series of post-university, part-time dead end jobs she had taken while trying to get her writing off the ground, Anna could no longer afford to rent a flat of her own and was about to give up on London altogether and go back up north to her family.

  It had seemed like a miracle, Seb’s offer of free flat space, yet in Anna’s more paranoid moments she wondered if he had merely calculated the cost to himself of losing not only her unquestioningly adoring company, but also a free laundress, cleaner, and cook. Anna performed these duties in lieu of rent and on the vague understanding that sooner or later she might move out. The feeling that she was living on borrowed time, both in the flat and in his affections, hung heavy. Yet, given that no one else was currently occupying either, squatter’s rights didn’t seem out of the question.

  Anna came to the last of the envelopes. Another frightener. The steady stream of what Anna had come to think of as “frighteners”—routine rejection letters for the many jobs she applied for out of the Monday Media Guardian—continued their daily trickle through the front door. Anna swallowed as she bent to retrieve this one. Although it bore no corporate logo and was handwritten, the second-class stamp was a giveaway. Someone obviously thought she was not worth first. Anna slid her nail under the flap, wondering how they had phrased it this time. Overqualified? Underqualified? Overwhelmed by applications?

  “I don’t believe it,” Anna muttered to herself. She stared at the white piece of paper in her shaking hand, heart thumping. “I don’t believe it.” She let out a whoop and rushed into the sitting room where Seb was crouched, fists clenched, in front of the lunchtime racing. Despite his marked and consistent inability to pick a winner, the delusion that he was a keen judge of horseflesh died hard. Perhaps, Anna thought nastily, this explained his attraction to the distinctly equine Brie de Benham. But this was no time to dwell on her, still less on the mysterious, anonymous click-burr answerphone messages that had appeared since the Scottish wedding. “It’s fantastic!” Anna shrieked, jumping up and down in front of the television. “A writer saw my ad in the library and wants to see me straightaway. I’ve got to ring immediately. I could go this afternoon. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “Not as wonderful as you getting out of the way of the television would be,” Seb drawled. “I’ve put a hundred on Friend of Dorothy at twelve to one. I could clean up.”

  Anna stood aside and watched as Friend of Dorothy started last, reared at the first hedge, and finally threw her hapless rider into the water jump. Having rid herself of the unwelcome burden, the horse then galloped merrily down the course, passed the leaders, and crossed the finishing line. Seb looked on furiously. “Bloody useless nag,” he snarled. “That was the last of my sodding week’s allowance. Still, I suppose I can always ask Mummy for some more tonight.”

  A 2000-volt electric charge went through Anna. “Tonight?” she stammered, the momentous piece of paper in her hand quite forgotten. “Mummy?” she croaked.

  “Mm, Mummy’s coming tonight,” Seb yawned, his eyes still glued to the Newmarket paddock. Swallowing, Anna faced the terrifying prospect of meeting Seb’s mother in the flesh. The only contact so far had been her tones, crisp and chill as an iceberg lettuce on the answerphone, barking out instructions for Seb to call her. “We’re having dinner,” Seb added.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Anna was panic-stricken in the knowledge that the fridge and cupboards contained little beyond anchovy paste and Pop-Tarts.

  “Forgot, I suppose,” Seb said, over-casually. “But you don’t have to meet her. Mummy will quite understand if you are out. I can take her to the Ivy or something.”

  “But of course I want to meet her.” Anna gave Seb a puzzled smile. “And where else would I go? I live here, don’t I? There’s no need to take her out. I’ll cook.”

  Dinner, it suddenly struck Anna, was a cast-iron if not a Le Creuset opportunity to impress Seb’s mother with her cooking skills. Or at least the ones she planned hastily to acquire with the help of a notebook and an hour’s browsing in the cookery section of W. H. Smith. “I’ll do the shopping on my way back.”

  “Back from where?” asked Seb.

  “From here.” Anna waved the letter at him. Surely he hadn’t forgotten about her interview already?

  Seb looked at Anna blankly.

  ***

  Anna had been up and down the smart Kensington street three times now. People were starting to appear at the corners of the windows to stare. Anna, however, had no option
other than to continue squinting at their houses. For, among the figures painted neatly in black on the white pair of pillars framing each imposing doorway, number 54 did not seem to register.

  Where 54 should, by process of elimination, have been, the letters Liv were painted. Liv. Odd name for a house, thought Anna. Then it hit her. LIV. Fifty-four in Roman numerals. Of course. A tad pretentious for a house name, perhaps; she hoped Cassandra had a classically educated postman. But then, most of the postmen round here were probably out of work ex-students like herself. Post-graduates, in fact.

  Despite its number—or was it its name?—the house looked just like the rest of the street. A tall, wide slice of West London real estate heaven, its stucco gleaming white in the sunshine, its shining black railings thick and bumpy with a century and a half of paint. An Upstairs Downstairs house with a basement kitchen and five floors above it, their windows decreasing in size and grandeur towards the top. Anna went slowly up the paved path, jumping as the gate clanged treacherously behind her, and, using one of the many pieces of brass door furniture on offer, knocked.

  “Yars?” The black-painted door swung back to reveal an overalled woman with electric yellow hair and a suspicious expression. “Can I ewp you?” She shook her peacock-blue feather duster enquiringly.

  “Er, I’ve come to see Cassandra Knight,” said Anna. “I’ve got an appointment.”

  “Carm in. You’ll ’ave to wait in the kitchin. Mrs. Knoight’s busy at the mowment.”

  In the kitchen, airforce-blue panelling coated every vertical surface including, Anna was interested to observe, the front of the dishwasher. A single lily stood atop the vast steel fridge. The black stone table was supported by skinny chrome legs fashioned into spirals; arranged in precisely-measured ranks beneath it were two rows of three tractor-seat stools in chrome. Anna heaved herself on to one, aware she had completely disrupted whatever visual concept prevailed.