Page 18 of Secrets at the Little Music Shop

‘Good thanks. Saskia’s coming over in a minute to pick these up. Do you have time to set a tripwire round the front?’

‘Snaring animals is illegal,’ I answered happily. It was so good to see her back on bantering form.

‘It’d be a kindness. Well, for us.’ She slipped the last batch of cards into the cardboard carton at her side and taped up the lid. ‘How was work?’

‘Do you mean the paid kind, or the artistically satisfying and yet strangely unpopular kind?’

‘In the shop. Whichever one that is.’

‘It was . . . yeah, it was okay. Um, Rosie, listen . . .’ I was about to start introducing the subject of, maybe, my needing to move on, head for pastures new, run away, when Rosie clutched at my arm.

‘It’s Saskia!’

We heard the engine approach, like the trumpets of doom, and then a huge 4×4 articulated itself around the corner from the road and drew up on the gravel drive outside the cottage gate. ‘Uh oh, there goes the neighbourhood,’ I muttered to Rosie. She smiled at me, a tight grin. ‘Am I allowed to hide?’

‘No!’ Rosie grabbed my arm. ‘You have to be all glossy and welcoming and stuff, but a bit scatty so that I look organised and together in contrast.’

‘So glad I’m only here as comic relief,’ I sighed.

‘Besides you couldn’t expect me to cope with Saskia on my own. She eats people like us for dinner.’

‘She doesn’t eat anything as common as dinner. She’d have us as a six-course banquet, with fruit and nuts.’

‘Sssh! She’s coming.’ The door to the 4x4 swung open but to my astonishment it wasn’t Saskia who made the descent onto the roadside, but her husband Alex. He walked around the bonnet, held the passenger door open for a pair of exquisite shoes to appear, and then went to the back door and held his arms inside. He turned towards us with their son, Oscar, in his grasp.

‘Ah, Rosie,’ said Saskia. ‘Nice to see the baby getting some air. Gosh, he’s rather small isn’t he? Is he, you know, quite healthy?’

Alex greeted us with his customary weak grin. I’d heard that he was a cut-throat businessman, that property markets would crash and burn without the attentions of Alex Winterington. But put him beside Saskia and he was just a thickset guy with receding chins and hairlines and no charisma to speak of. Or perhaps that was just the Saskia Effect. After all next to her Attila the Hun would have come across as a bit wussy.

‘Harry’s fine thanks. Oscar’s grown, I see.’ Rosie tugged her curls into order and smiled at Oscar, who grinned back with a five-year old’s blindness to nuance. He was a handsome chap, with blond hair which grew at improbable angles and brown eyes like his father. He was always pleasant-natured too. Saskia’s genes must be circling in there somewhere, waiting to stage a take-over, but there was no sign of them emerging yet.

‘Yes, well, Oscar is the tallest in his year at school. Actually, talking of schools, we were just on our way to have a look at Blandford. They’ve offered Oscar a place there in September, so we thought we’d combine the trip with picking up the cards.’

‘Isn’t he a bit young?’ I piped up. Blandford was the area’s leading boarding school, strict, religious and, I’d heard from Jason, the local centre for the acquisition of drugs, as the entire sixth form supplemented their trust funds.

Saskia rolled her eyes at me. ‘Darling,’ she said in a tone that implied I knew nothing, then turned back to Rosie. ‘Have you put Harry’s name down for anywhere yet? Or aren’t you planning on an education for him? After all, it can be such a waste of money if they don’t turn out to be high-achievers.’

Rosie and Alex rolled their eyes at each other and I warmed towards him a little more. In his arms Oscar was wriggling. ‘There’s Jason!’ he cried. ‘Let me go and see Jason!’

On the far side of the lawn where the big converted barn stood with its doors wide, Jason was just visible lurking in the shadow. He was smoking a huge roll-up which he hid behind his back when he saw Oscar leaping across the grass. He must have palmed it or shoved it in the bushes because when he led Oscar into the barn both hands were empty.

Alex bent next to Harry and tickled him, but straightened up when Saskia cleared her throat. ‘So, Rosie. Have you finished the consignment?’

Rosie waved a proud hand at the box. ‘Taped up and ready to go.’

‘Good.’ Saskia touched the cardboard with the tip of a French manicure. ‘I’m glad. Because I’d like another hundred, ooh, I was thinking . . . in time for the re-opening? Say, by next Monday?’

Rosie opened and closed her mouth. ‘I’m not sure—’ she began.

Saskia clicked her fingers at Alex. ‘Money sweetie,’ she said in the same tone that I would have used to ask a dog to sit. Alex pulled his wallet from the pocket of his beautifully tailored jacket and handed the whole thing over to Saskia. She didn’t even look at him, just closed her fingers around the pigskin and I found myself wondering what the hell the two of them saw in each other. Or I did until I saw what the wallet contained — Saskia definitely admired a man with a large wad. ‘Five hundred. And another four hundred if you get me the second batch before Monday.’

Rosie stared at the money.

‘You can get a lot of outfits for that,’ Saskia said, looking at Harry. ‘Or at least, you can in those high-street places you shop at. And this young man is going to start needing things, stimulating equipment, you know the kind of toy. I’d pass you some of Oscar’s old things but we’re still hoping that we might have another little one ourselves.’

I was sure I saw Alex give a shudder when she said that, but I could have been imagining it.

‘Trouble is, you see, Saskia,’ Rosie was holding the five hundred pounds in a clenched fist, ‘I’ve also got to supply a few other shops. Not in such quantity, obviously, a dozen cards here and there but, you see, if I’m doing all these for you I won’t have time!’

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