menu for lunch. When she finished, she started on the one for dinner, but stopped abruptly as an idea occurred to her. Tonight, she and Winston, Paula and Shane, would drive over to Beaulieu and have dinner at La Reserve. Just the four of them. Without the tribe. That would be much more peaceful. Not to mention romantic. Winston will approve, she thought, and smiled a small secret smile.
‘You clot! You unbelievably stupid clot! Look what you’ve done! You’ve splashed my beautiful painting and ruined it!’ Tessa Fairley yelled at the top of her lungs, glaring at Lorne, adopting an angry stance, waving the paintbrush in the air.
‘The side of the swimming pool is hardly the proper place to set up an easel and start painting,’ Lorne rejoined loftily, returning her glare. ‘Especially when everyone’s leaping in and out of the pool. It’s your own fault the watercolour’s been splashed, not mine. And one more thing – I’m not a stupid clot.’
‘No, you’re a stupid CRETIN,’ his twelve-year-old twin shot back, then sucked in her breath with a horrified gasp. ‘Don’t do that, Lorne Fairley! Don’t shake yourself like that! Oh! Oh! you rotten thing. You’ve spoiled my other pictures. Oh, God, you’ve made them all trickly.’ She had the sudden murderous urge to bash her brother in the head, to do him some kind of bodily harm, but instantly suppressed it because of her mother’s presence this morning. ‘Mummy … Mummy … tell Lorne to stay away from my paintings drying on the grass,’ she wailed.
‘I want this hat,’ Linnet announced matter-of-factly and snatched Tessa’s large yellow sun hat from the chaise near the easel, placed it on top of her bright red curls and happily marched off, dragging a rubber duck on a string behind her and pushing the hat up as it kept sliding down over her eyes.
‘Bring my hat back at once, you naughty girl!’
When her five-year-old sister paid not a blind bit of notice, Tessa exclaimed to no one in particular, ‘Did you see that? She took my hat without my permission. Well! Her behaviour certainly leaves a lot to be desired. Mummy … Mummy … that child’s spoiled rotten. You and Daddy have ruined her. There’s no hope – ’
‘Pompous, pompous, Tessa’s being pompous, just like Lornie, she’s parroting Forlornie,’ Gideon Harte taunted in a sing-song tone from the relative safety of the pool.
‘I won’t dignify that ridiculous remark,’ Lorne sniffed with hauteur and lowered himself onto a mattress, picked up his copy of Homer’s Iliad and buried his face in the book.
‘Bring my hat back!’ Tessa screamed, stamping her foot.
‘Oh for God’s sake, leave her alone,’ a faintly disembodied voice admonished from the pool, and Toby Harte’s reddish-gold head bobbed up over the side. The ten-year-old grinned at Tessa, who was his favourite girl cousin, and then hauled himself out of the water, being careful not to splash her or her paintings, having no wish to incur her wrath. Reaching for a towel, he added, ‘After all, she’s only a little itty bitty baby, and how could she – ’
‘Not a baby,’ a muffled voice informed them from underneath the large sun hat.
‘ – possibly damage it,’ continued Toby, towelling himself dry. ‘And why do you care so much, Tess? It’s only a stupid old hat you bought in Nice market … a cheap bit of rag.’
‘It’s not a bit of rag! It’s beautiful. And it cost me a whole week’s pocket money, Toby Harte!’
‘More fool you,’ called out Gideon, and with this inflammatory comment the eight-year-old paddled swiftly to the centre of the pool, flipped over, floated on his back, and began to make faces at her.
‘What do you know about anything, Gideon Harte! You’re a CRETIN like my brother. ’
‘Is that the only stupid word you know, Stupid?’ Gideon shouted back and stuck his tongue out at her.
‘Brat! Brat!’ Tessa yelled at him. ‘You’re a spoiled brat, too!’
‘Oh shut up both of you,’ Toby admonished in a bored voice. ‘Listen, Tess, can I borrow one of your old Beatles’ albums?’
‘Which one?’ Tessa asked, suddenly wary, squinting up at him in the bright sunlight, moving a strand of fair hair away from her face.
‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’
‘Oh no, I can’t possibly lend you that one! It’s er … er … it’s become a … classic. When Auntie Amanda gave it to me, she told me it’d be very, very valuable one day, ’cos it’s an early one … she’d had it since before we were even born. But … Well … all right, because it’s you I’ll make an exception, so – ’
‘Gosh, thanks, Tess,’ Toby cut in, his freckled face lighting up.
‘ – you can rent it if you want, it’s ten pence an hour,’ Tessa finished, sounding as magnanimous as she now looked.
‘Ten pence an hour! That’s highway robbery!’ Toby spluttered, his expression indignant. ‘No thanks, Tessa, I’m not going to help you become a capitalist.’
‘In this family, everybody’s a capitalist,’ Tessa declared smugly, with a small smirk.
‘Forget it, I’ll play my new Bee-Gees.’
‘Suit yourself.’
‘Aunt Paula. Aunt Paula … your daughter’s turned into a really nasty little sharpie this summer,’ Toby exclaimed scathingly and threw a disgusted look in Tessa’s direction.
‘Mummy … I’m taking my knickers off, they’re all wet,’ Linnet cried from the depths of the sun hat.
‘You see what I mean about her behaviour, Mummy,’ Tessa sniggered. ‘She’s the only five-year-old I know who still wee-wees in her pants.’
‘I don’t! I didn’t, Mummy!’ a clear voice shrilled as the hat was pushed back and Linnet’s round flushed face appeared.
‘Auntie Paula, may I have one of these ginger snaps, please?’ three-year-old Natalie Harte asked and promptly took one and crunched on it before she was forbidden to do so.
‘Mummy! Look at her now! She’s dragging my gorgeous sun hat in the puddles. Stop it, you little monster. Stop it! Mummy, make her stop. Mother … you’re not listening. If you throw that hat into the pool, I’ll kill you, Linnet O’Neill! Gideon! Get my hat! Quick, before it sinks!’
‘Okay, I will, but it’ll cost you plenty.’
Tessa ignored this threat. ‘Wait until I catch you, Linnet,’ she screamed after the small, plump figure retreating swiftly in the direction of the pool house.
‘Mother … Mother … will you please tell Tessa to stop screeching like a banshee? I’m getting a frightful headache,’ Lorne murmured languidly from the mattress where he lay reading.
‘Auntie Paula, Natalie’s eaten all of the ginger snaps,’ India Standish gasped and, turning to her cousin, she added in the most dire tone a seven-year-old could summon, ‘You’re going to be sick. Horribly, horribly sick, and it serves you right, you greedy little girl.’
‘Have this, India,’ Natalie said with a winning smile, pulling a half-eaten chocolate out of the pocket of her sundress, dusting it off and offering it to the older girl, whom she adored.
‘Ugh! No thanks. It looks icky!’ India pulled a face. ‘It’s covered in sand. And fluff. Ugh!’
‘Auntie Paula, there’s a dead something at the bottom of the pool,’ Gideon shouted, coming up for air with a splash,