She looked at the unfinished table setting without overt annoyance, and started to align knives and forks from the cutlery tray. ‘Could you ask Kerry to come and help?’
Jude nodded. ‘And should I be getting into my kit?’
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’ Jude grinned. ‘I always wanted a part in Gosford Park.’
As she approached the kitchen door, she could hear Kerry talking about her favourite subject.
‘I mean my voice is definitely good enough, and I know I’m better-looking than most of the girl singers you see on Top of the Pops, but in television you’ve got to get that one lucky break.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Max was saying, as Jude entered the kitchen.
The relaxed way in which Kerry lolled at the table, chatting to the chef, confirmed what Jude had suspected, that the girl’s talk of a dead body in the bar had been a spur of the moment fabrication, a cover-up for her brandy-sipping. According to her boss, Kerry, in spite of her age, had a propensity for sampling the goods in the bar; she had been ticked off more than once about it.
‘Suzy wants some help in the dining room.’
Elaborately lethargic, the girl rose to her feet. She was wearing the uniform Jude was shortly to don, a long black dress with a white, lace-fringed apron. By the time the guests arrived, they would both be wearing white lacy mob-caps as well. Kerry’s confidence about her looks was justified. She was a little below average height, but generously rounded, with that glow young women exude when they’ve finally put the awkwardness of adolescence behind them. Her naturally beautiful skin and blonde hair were enhanced respectively by skilful make-up and expensive cutting. Her manner implied a precocious sexuality, though Jude had no idea whether the image was backed up by actual experience. In her Edwardian black, Kerry looked good and knew it, Lolita in fancy dress.
Jude herself wasn’t particularly keen on being kitted out like a refugee from Upstairs, Downstairs and a thousand other television series, but that was Suzy’s house style, so she went along with it. The only advantage she could see, with an evening of drunken Pillars of Sussex ahead, was that none of them could put a hand up her skirt.
‘All right. I’ll go,’ said Kerry, as if the most unreasonable request in the world had just been foisted on to her, and slouched out of the kitchen.
As the door swung back and forth in her wake, Jude caught the sardonic eye of Max Townley. ‘Attitude problem?’ she suggested.
‘Whatever it is, Suzy’s stuck with it.’
‘Oh?’
‘Don’t you know who Kerry’s Dad is?’
Jude shook her head.
‘Well, stepfather, actually. Bob Hartson.’
‘Doesn’t mean anything to me.’
‘Big local property developer. Often seen buzzing around in a chauffeur-driven Jaguar. You’ll see him tonight. He’s one of the bloody Pillocks of Sussex. And he’s bailed Suzy out.’
‘What?’
‘She’s had a bit of a cash crisis in the last six months.’
‘I knew that, but I didn’t know how serious it was.’
‘Serious enough for her to look for an investor. Bob Hartson obliged. Which means that if he wants Suzy to teach his useless daughter the hotel trade – or if he wants her to do anything else for him – then that’s what Suzy has to do.’
While Jude was taking in the implications of this, the chef changed tack. ‘How long have you known Suzy?’
‘Goodness . . . Thirty years? Nearly forty now, I suppose.’
‘And did you know her through media connections?’
‘It’s so long ago that in those days the word “media” was hardly invented. But, yes, I suppose I met Suzy through the fashion world.’
‘Did you work in television too?’
‘A bit.’
‘And are you still in touch with people from those times?’
‘A few, yes. Friends like Suzy. Some others—’
‘Because what I really wanted to ask you, Jude, was—’
But Max Townley never got to his question, because the door banged open to readmit a heavily sighing Kerry, suffering the unjust imposition of having to fetch more side plates.
As Suzy had anticipated, for drinks before dinner most of the Pillars of Sussex favoured pints of beer. At least, maybe some of them would have preferred something else, but drinking pints of beer before dinner was a necessary component of their masculine ritual.
So Suzy was kept busy behind the counter, pulling pints, and Jude was kept busy handing them round and taking orders, a system that avoided a crush at the small bar. Dinner was scheduled to start at eight, and at ten past Suzy asked Jude to warn Max she was about to usher the Pillars through to the dining room.
In the kitchen, Max and the spotty youth who gloried in the title of sous-chef were rushing around in a panic of preparation, while Kerry sat at the table pontificating on the merits of the current Top Twenty. In front of her, there was an open bottle of wine the chef had been using for cooking. As Jude came in, Kerry pushed it away, as though she hadn’t just been taking a surreptitious sip.
‘Are you set, Max? Suzy wants to send them through.’
‘Bloody hell! Why doesn’t she ever give me enough notice?’
‘The dinner was meant to be at eight.’
‘Yes, but . . . Kerry, have you put all the bloody starters out?’
‘I will,’ replied the girl, once again put-upon.
‘They should already be bloody there!’
‘I’ll help,’ said Jude, and passed Kerry a tray of stuffed field mushrooms from one of the heated cupboards.
Kerry rose complaining from her seat, but at that moment the door from the hall opened and she lost all interest in the dinner. ‘Hello, Geoff. Is Dad here?’ she asked excitedly.
The man who had entered without knocking did not wear a uniform, but his dark suit instantly spoke the word ‘chauffeur’. He was short, thick-set and balding; his features sagged, as though they had melted in excessive heat.
Kerry’s manner towards him was one of indifferent acceptance, treating him like some kind of fixture or fitting.
‘Your Dad’s just freshening up in his room. I’m wondering where I’m going for the night.’ He nodded at Max Townley. ‘I’m Geoff, Bob Hartson’s driver.’
‘And what do you think you’re doing, just walking into my kitchen?’
‘It’s where the chauffeur always goes, in the kitchen,’ the driver replied evenly. ‘It’s his proper place. While the boss eats the posh grub in the dining room.’
‘Oh, shit!’ said the chef gracelessly. ‘I’m not meant to be feeding you too tonight, am I?’
‘No, I don’t want your ponced-up nosh. I’ll go down the pub and get something with chips. Then I’ll come back and play on my Gameboy, so if anyone can show me which room I’m in, I’ll be fine.’
‘Be in the stable block,’ said Kerry. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘Bloody stable block?’ the driver objected. ‘What’s this? Staff quarters? I thought if I got to stay in this poncy gaffe, at least I’d get a decent room.’
‘That’s where Suzy’s put you, Geoff. I suppose I could have a word and see if there’s a room in the hotel where—’
‘No,’ Jude interposed firmly. ‘Suzy’s got quite enough on her plate. If that’s the room she’s allocated, then you’d better stick with it.’
The driver shrugged, unworried. His protest had only been for form’s sake. Always worth trying, like asking for an upgrade on an aeroplane. Sometimes it actually worked.
Kerry took him out through the back door to the stable block.
At that moment, Suzy came in from the dining room. ‘OK. We’re off!’
Chapter Five