In Bed with Mr. Plantagenet Read online

  IN BED

  with

  MR. PLANTAGENET

  A contemporary novel

  DEANNA MACLAREN

  Copyright © 2014 Deanna Maclaren

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

  or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

  Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

  any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the

  publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with

  the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries

  concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador®

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  Kibworth Beauchamp

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  Tel: (+44) 116 279 2299

  Fax: (+44) 116 279 2277

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  ISBN 978 1783068 227

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB

  To Cathy, with thanks for the shared laughter

  down all the years.

  Contents

  Cover

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  The one big drawback to her job, Eugenie considered, was that she couldn’t have any friends.

  Lovers,yes. Lots. No problem there. Except they had to be able to afford either a central London pied a terre, or a discreet hotel. If they couldn’t pay, Eugenie wouldn’t play.

  She had, she admitted, broken her rule last night and allowed a man into her apartment. She’d never dreamt that he, a man she knew very well, would treat her as he had. She shouldn’t have let him in. It had been a mistake. A bruising mistake.

  Friends. Think of nice,warm old pals.

  Her old friends from school would have been welcome, but they were involved now in their own adult lives. They sent letters, birthday cards, swapped news. But they were no longer close.

  What Eugenie didn’t have was the neighbourly friend who’d drop in for a cuppa and a gossip. Eugenie was quite partial to a bit of gossip. The trouble was, she was only too well aware that, later on in the day, she would be the one being gossiped about over the neighbourly garden fence.

  ‘Yes, it was her. I thought I should pop in. All on her own. Lonely most like. Medway Mansions. That big place on the Marylebone Road. Quite grand, caretaker at the door gives you a right sharp look. And you know what we talked about, me and her? I told her about my old man’s leeks doing so well and she said she likes them in shepherd’s pie. Can you Adam and Eve it? I said I’d take her some round, but madam said she only likes the clean ones the greengrocer does special for her. And let me tell you, she can’t make a decent cuppa. Some dishwater stuff with a slice of lemon banging into your teeth. No milk, of course. Probably gone off. You know what these young girls are like. Now I’m not one to gossip, as you know, but…’

  Eugenie’s thoughts turned to more pleasant climes, to the bars and bistros where she met up with work colleagues and anyone who was, or might be, a useful contact. A few drinks, dinner, all very agreeable. But none of them were ever invited to her home.

  Bearing all this in mind, Eugenie was surprised one wintry Sunday afternoon when the caretaker rang up.

  ‘Visitor for you, Miss. A Mrs Davenport.’

  Impatiently, Eugenie retied the emerald ribbon holding her red hair. A visitor? Was it some sort of special day?

  Yes, actually, it was. February 7th. Her twenty-eighth birthday.

  Davenport. Davenport?

  ‘Are you sure this Davenport woman asked for me?’

  ‘Yes, Miss. Says it’s urgent.’

  ‘Can you keep her downstairs for ten minutes, and then send her up?’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  In her office Eugenie reluctantly pushed aside her Adler typewriter. She never knew whether to call it her study or her office. An old classmate, who scoured Homes and Gardens magazine for tips on gracious living, said Eugenie should call the room her library. She would need a globe. All country house libraries, apparently, contained a globe.

  Eugenie reached for her contacts book, the one that went with her to work and lived in the red-brick mansion block at weekends. She felt bewildered. She simply didn’t have visitors. Had she ever met anyone called Davenport?

  She riffled through the D’s in her contacts book. Driberg, Dors, Diana Manners, Lady – see Cooper. The best-looking woman of her generation. Eyes the colour of forget-me-nots and no, there was never any question of forgetting Diana. You just couldn’t stop looking at her.

  Du Maurier, Deedes, Dimbleby – Richard. Her boss called him Dimblebore, but to most people Richard Dimbleby was the trusted voice of the nation on state occasions. Imposing house in Richmond.

  Dreena – see Price. Whatever happened to Dreena Price? Last heard of in Aberystwyth. I should have kept in touch. Didn’t.

  No Davenport.

  Were any of her lovers surnamed Davenport? Eugenie couldn’t remember. She didn’t always know. They were listed by Christian name in her private address book. But could it be that the Mrs Davenport shortly to ascend in the lift, was a wronged wife, seeking vengeance?

  Still, however ‘urgent’ the mysterious Mrs Davenport’s business was, Eugenie had no intention of allowing her into the apartment.

  Pausing only to grab her keys from the French-polished hall table, Eugenie shut her front door, went down the carpeted hallway and stationed herself opposite the lift. She was a slim five-foot-five, with hair re-tinted that morning to a shade the bottle assured her was corn gold. It annoyed her having to resort to tint, when her hair was a natural marigold colour. But her mother had reportedly started having grey hairs when she was in her mid-twenties and Eugenie was afraid she was following suit.

  Mrs Davenport, emerging briskly from the lift, was sturdily stout and looked cross. She was wearing something Eugenie would never have been seen dead in.

  A heather-mix wool suit. Badly cut. Eugenie guessed that Mrs Davenport would call it a ‘costume.’ In dull purples and greens it was, no doubt, very ‘serviceable.’

  Eugenie moved sideways to a space between the Swiss cheese plant and a rubber plant. They were dusted each morning by the caretaker’s wife and, once a week, the leaves were shined up with milk.

  ‘How may I help you, Mrs Davenport?’

  The middle-aged woman frowned. ‘I am here to advise you, Mrs Plantagenet, that your husband will be ready to come home at four o’clock.’

  Husband? Home? The woman’s mad, Eugenie decided. Either that or this was all a practical joke. Except, Mrs Davenport didn’t look strong on clowning around. Eugenie decided to play it straight, and if there was any more nonsense, she’d press the emergency bell by the stairs and get the caretaker to evict the woman.

  ‘Mrs Davenport, I don’t have a husband. That is – we’re estranged.’

  ‘Your personal circumstances are no concern of mine. M
r David Plantagenet is at the Carlton Clinic. Do you know it?’

  ‘Of course.’ It was in Harley Street. As a child, Eugenie had spent a week in there, quite pleasantly actually, with tonsilitis.

  ‘I have come here myself, from the Clinic, to advise you that you must bring him home at four o’clock. His room is needed.’

  Her patronising tone almost goaded Eugenie into demanding, imperiously, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

  No, no. Impossible. She mustn’t blow her cover.

  ‘I was obliged to come myself, Mrs Plantagenet, since you don’t appear to be in the telephone directory.’

  Of course not. Eugenie had gone ex-directory years ago. But Davenport’s lack of initiatitive in finding out her phone number proved just what a clod the woman was. In her job, Eugenie had to be able to track anyone down and ring them up, famous, royal, ex-directory, anyone.

  She realised she must take immediate charge of this interview. So far, the Davenport creature had run rings round her. Eugenie wasn’t accustomed to that.

  ‘What exactly is your role at the Carlton Clinic?’

  ‘I am an Administration Executive.’

  Dogsbody. Eugenie was glad the Plantagenet team had managed to do something to mess up her Sunday.

  ‘And why is David in the Carlton?’

  ‘A taxi driver found him, at first light yesterday, lying on the pavement in Park Lane. The driver took him to a police station.’

  ‘Why not a hospital?’

  ‘Takes too long. All that procedure in Casualty. And the driver suspected, at that stage, that Mr Plantagenet was drunk.’

  At the cop-shop, Eugenie established, the police doctor had determined that David was not drunk. He had, like many Britons that bitter winter, been poleaxed with a virulently nasty strain of flu. It was known to everyone as This Flu or That Flu. It had killed people. Newspapers had run scary features comparing This Flu to the Bubonic Plague. The Daily Express had even managed to get the Great Fire of London in on the act, with a cut-out-and-keep map, with arrows showing how the fire had spread from the pie shop in Pudding Lane.

  David had no money – wallet stolen, presumably. A police search of his mud-splattered clothes brought to light a scrap of paper containing Eugenie’s name and address, plus a valid health insurance card, entitling the bearer to treatment at the Carlton Clinic in Harley Street.

  ‘The police sent him straight there.’

  ‘I wonder why they didn’t let me know?’

  ‘I have no idea. But I do know that the taxi driver left his licence number with the police, so perhaps you’d like to send him your husband’s fare from Park Lane.’

  At least it was Park Lane, Eugenie thought. How shaming if Mrs Davenport could gleefully report that David had been found face down in Smithfield meat market.

  ‘Has he said –‘

  ‘Said? He can’t say anything, Mrs Plantagenet. He has a raging sore throat. You’ll have to bring him home, get him to gargle with soluble aspirin, get plenty of lemon and honey drinks down him, nourishing soups, total rest and warmth. Oh, and when you come to the clinic, bring a dressing gown. He hasn’t got anything to wear.’

  ‘Surely he had clothes?’ He couldn’t have been lying naked in Park Lane?

  ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Plantagenet, his clothes were so – well, they had to be incinerated.’

  As she spoke, Mrs Davenport was backing into the lift. Clearly determined to have the last word, she called, as the lift doors began to close, ‘Four o’clock!’

  Why the hell should I, Eugenie raged, returning to the oasis of her apartment. Why should I let this husband person come here, invade my home, disrupt my life? And that bloody Clinic, that bloody woman, assuming I’d meekly put on a nurse’s uniform and trot around with a thermometer and meals on trays and – why the hell should I?

  But she knew why.

  In the Carlton Clinic, David Plantagenet lay in a swamp of fevered confusion. Carlton, Mr Carter, Cara and the girl with the marigold hair. That summer…

  In the hot summer of 1969, David was sixteen-going-on seventeen. During his school holidays, each day, in his van, Mr Carter drove David and huge vats of ice-cream, to an ice-cream parlour called Cara in Oxford Street. Inside Cara, busy shoppers could rest their boiling feet and enjoy a sundae. In winter, there was hot chocolate or coffee and tempting slices of ice-cream cake, which Mr Carter told customers was an Italian delicacy.

  David’s pitch was at the front of the shop, a big fridge into which the jovial Mr Carter placed, each morning, enormous containers of ice-cream. David also sold ‘real fruit’ ice lollies. Orange, lemon, lime, strawberry. Any unsold lollies appeared again quite soon in the ice-cream parlour, denuded of their sticks and rechristened Milanese sorbet.

  Cara was called Cara because everyone knew Italian ice cream was best, and a veil definitely needed to be drawn over the fact that all Cara products were made at Mr Carter’s premises in Stupples Road, Wembley. Norman Carter regarded his Italian ice-cream cake as a major triumph. It was, in fact, bargain-priced chocolate swiss roll with a blob of ice cream swirled in to disguise the cardboard taste. Mr Carter was always on the look-out for a new product. Currently, he was experimenting with peanuts which he wanted to smother in green-dyed ice cream, so the whole thing could be passed off, and sold expensively, as pistachio.

  In Oxford Street, David was busy all day, but his peak hours were between five and seven, when the office workers streamed past. David had to work fast, so he didn’t hold anyone up who was running for a train.

  The girl he called Marigold usually came past him just after six. For David, she stood out from the other girls, not just because of her striking hair but because of her lovely clothes. She didn’t wear droopy skirts,or big floppy hats or wilting flowers in her hair, or cheesecloth tops, or anything purple. Marigold wore dresses, nicely short and sort of fluid, so they moved with her when she walked.

  But she was always walking away from David.

  *

  ‘She never notices me,’ David told Art on Sunday. Art was Mr Carter’s son, and David’s best friend. The two young men were the same height – just on six foot and could have passed for brothers. Both had light brown hair that they were determined, in the holidays, to grow long, even if the barber was going to sheer it all off before the start of autumn term.

  David and Art had become real best friends because they were the only boys in the class who wore glasses, and got fed up with punching any Smart Alec who called them ‘four-eyes.’

  They spent most of each Sunday together at one of their homes in Stupples Road. Allegedly, they were doing their homework, but in reality they listened to records and talked about sex.

  Initially, David been the expert, because he’d been the first to lose his virginity. But Art had caught up and temporarily abandoned his fantasy of Mr Carter’s girlfriend throwing off some filmy, lacy thing and throwing herself into bed with him. Her name was Frieda and she appealed to Art because she had long platinum blonde hair, huge breasts and red nails. Art had spent a great deal of his homework time sketching Frieda as he imagined her, naked. In none of these portraits did Frieda have much in the way of a face, but the breasts featured prominently and were what Art worked on first.

  ‘You’ve got to have a plan of campaign,’ Art told David. ‘Why don’t you offer her a free cornet?’

  ‘She might be offended.’

  ‘No she won’t. My dad says no-one minds getting something for free. Then ask her out for that night.’

  ‘She might be busy. Girl who looks like her, she’s bound to have some seven-foot-six, jealous boyfriend.’

  ‘She might not. Or she might be fed up with him. So ask her out for the next night. And the next. And the one after that. Frieda says girls find this very flattering.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll give it a go.’

  *

  David spent all Monday dreading six o’clock. He’d offer her the ice, she’d chuck it back, he’d ask her out, she’d te
ll him to piss off.

  He could see it all, hear it all. At least, as it was, with never having spoken to her, he could dream. But his dreams were becoming more and more frantic. So he’d got to do it. He’d got to stop fantasising, and get to know her for real. He couldn’t lose face with Art.

  Oh God. There she was. She was wearing the blue dress. David was familiar with all her dresses. The blue one was his favourite because she’d been wearing it the first time he’d spotted her.

  Okay. This was it. Deep breath. NOW!

  He stepped firmly in front of her. ‘Excuse me, would you like an ice-cream? It’s free.’

  ‘Thankyou. But I don’t eat ice-cream.’

  ‘That’s because you haven’t tasted Cara. It’s special. It’s Italian. Oh hell, no it’s not. It’s made in Wembley.’

  She burst out laughing. He could barely speak, watching her, close up. Her eyes weren’t greenish, as he’d imagined. They were blue. A heavenly blue.

  Quickly, having made her laugh, David followed up. ‘I was wondering…would you have a drink with me tonight?’

  Art had said, ‘If she says, But I don’t know you, just say if she’d come for a drink, it would be a nice way to get to know one another.’

  What Marigold said was, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m going out to dinner with someone.’

  ‘How about tomorrow?’

  She shook her head. ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Wednesday?’

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Is this the same guy? Do you have a special arrangement?’ Art had told him to say arrangement. ‘It’ll make you sound grown up.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I go out with lots of men. Look, how old are you?’

  ‘Nearly seventeen.’