Jude, who was not very good about staying angry for long, found that her mood was shifting. The humour of the situation now seemed more compelling than its offensiveness. That Phoebe Braithwaite could be completely unaware of how insulting she was being … Jude couldn’t wait to tell Carole about it.
Another thought struck her at the same time. The public announcement of Kent Warboys’ purchase of Polly’s Cake Shop had been made at the EGM on the Monday. Only three days before. Phoebe Braithwaite hadn’t had time to marshal all her Joannas or Samanthas into a Volunteer Rota by then. Quintus must have tipped her the wink and she must have started her planning before the news was public knowledge. That casual disregard for democracy, she was beginning to realize, would have been entirely characteristic behaviour for the Braithwaites.
‘Anyway, Phoebe,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to find a full rota of volunteer waitresses without me.’
‘Yes,’ Phoebe agreed, ‘no problem about that.’
Now, as each unwitting insult slammed home, Jude was beginning to feel an irresistible instinct to giggle. To avoid giving into it, she looked out down Hiawatha’s back garden towards the sea. ‘Lovely position you have here,’ she said, just as if she were one of Phoebe Braithwaite’s regular coterie of Joannas or Samanthas.
‘Oh, it is, isn’t it?’
‘Pity you have to have the razor wire on the fence and gates.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t agree with you more, Jude. So unsightly, isn’t it? But I’m afraid one has to adjust to the times one lives in, doesn’t one? I’d get rid of all the razor wire tomorrow … if there weren’t so many immigrants around.’
‘Oh?’
‘It used to be the Poles, now it’s Romanians and Bulgarians, I believe. I’m the last person to be racist, but …’ And as Phoebe Braithwaite’s rant continued, Jude wondered how many times Josie Achter had heard similar sentences started like that. She wasn’t part of the latest influx from Romania and Bulgaria; she belonged to a race that had arrived in the British Isles many centuries before. But maybe Josie’s allegations of anti-Semitism in Fethering weren’t so far off the mark, after all.
Jude came out of her reverie to hear Phoebe continuing, ‘… steal anything that’s not nailed down. Do you know, some Romanian youths actually tried to steal that dinghy down the garden only a few weeks back.’
‘Oh, did you see them doing it?’
‘No.’
Then how, Jude was tempted to ask, did you know that they were Romanian? Or youths, come to that?
‘But there was no doubt there’d been a break-in. Quintus found the evidence the following morning. They’d used wire-cutters to get through the chain that holds the gates together and they’d definitely been messing about with the dinghy.’
‘But it was still there, was it?’
‘Oh yes. Though Quintus wondered whether the youths might have actually taken it out during the night and rowed it about in the sea.’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘Sheer vandalism. That’s what happens if you grow up in a country that has no respect for property. Places like Romania and Bulgaria may not still be called communist states, but that’s what they are. And the communists have never had any respect for property.’
Jude had a feeling that what was being quoted at her were the undiluted opinions of Commodore Braithwaite. She looked down to the end of the garden to the blue rowing boat under discussion.
‘Anyway, that morning, when Quintus inspected the dinghy, he found there was water and some shingle in it. He was convinced the youths had actually taken it on the sea during the night.’
‘Well,’ Jude said with a grin, ‘at least they had the good manners to bring the boat back.’
‘Huh,’ said Phoebe, who clearly didn’t believe that any excuses should be made for the Romanian youths (or whoever actually broke into Hiawatha’s garden).
‘And when did you say this was?’ asked Jude. ‘A few weeks back?’
‘I remember exactly when it was, because Quintus and I had just come back from visiting one of our sons who’s at university in St Andrews. We arrived back late on the Saturday, the third. So Quintus found that the boat had been tampered with on the morning of the Sunday. Sunday the fourth of October.’
Jude didn’t show any outward sign of the impact that Phoebe Braithwaite’s words had had on her. The fourth of October was, of course, her birthday.
Not only that, it was also the morning that Sara Courtney had found no sign in Polly’s store room of the corpse she had seen there the previous night.
A corpse which might have been rowed out to sea, had weights tied to its legs and then been dropped off the side of a small boat.
EIGHTEEN
The launch for the new incarnation of Polly’s Cake Shop had been scheduled for the Saturday before Christmas. Some members of the Action Committee, including Jude (who still hadn’t managed to get off the bloody thing) and Arnold Bloom (who saw it as his mission in life to oppose any proposal made by Quintus Braithwaite), had been of the opinion that this was not a good date, because everyone would be scurrying about preparing for the festive season and wouldn’t have time to spend drinking free coffee and eating free cupcakes.
But they were overruled by the Commodore, whose view was that Fethering Parade was never fuller than in the weeks before Christmas. Also there would be a bonhomous Christmas Spirit in the air, which could only help to make the launch a joyous occasion. And given the media blitz that Lesley Tarquin was going to unleash about the event, soon no one in West Sussex would be unaware of Polly’s Cake Shop’s resurrection.
It had also been agreed by the SPCS Action Committee that Polly’s Cake Shop would be closed from the Monday before the launch for ‘necessary refurbishment’. And Lesley Tarquin had had the idea of having ‘a mega-countdown’ sign on the door, starting on the Monday with ‘FIVE DAYS TO REOPENING’, and building to ‘REOPENING TOMORROW’ on the Friday. There would be lots of streamers and lametta and balloons for the Saturday, and every visitor would have a ‘WELCOME TO POLLY’S COMMUNITY CAFÉ’ badge stuck on them on arrival. Lesley knew ‘some really good places in London that do that kind of party/event stuff’.
When Jude passed on this information to Carole, it was greeted by a predictable blast of cold air. Being a grandmother twice over had not diluted her cynicism about certain things. ‘“Christmas Spirit”?’ she’d echoed derisively. ‘If Christmas Spirit does exist at all, there’s certainly no evidence of it in the weeks running up to the event. Everyone stressed to bits, pressured into excessive purchasing of presents, anxious about all the cooking that will have to be done, and paranoid at the prospect of having to spend a fixed sentence of time with relatives they can’t stand.’
Good old Carole, Jude had thought, she can always be relied on to cast a wet blanket over any potential ignition of jollity. But as Christmas – and the relaunch – drew nearer, Jude found she was developing more sympathy with her neighbour’s views. Scrooge ruled in High Tor and Woodside Cottage.
Since her encounter with Phoebe in the kitchen of Hiawatha, Jude had had no further calls from the woman. Her Volunteer Rota was undoubtedly being worked out, but she had got the message loud and clear that Jude had no wish to be a part of it, a decision which, undoubtedly, all of her Joannas and Samanthas would have supported.
In the run-up to the relaunch a predictable ritual had been played out between the two neighbours. As soon as the date was fixed, Jude mentioned it to Carole and got the huffy response that: ‘I’ve got better things to do with my time than go to that kind of event.’ So the subject wasn’t mentioned again until Carole herself raised it in a casual way. ‘What was the date when they’re going to do the relaunch of Polly’s Cake Shop?’