Prologue: The New Arrival
Maggie Willis had seen the removal van pull up at Number 12 yesterday afternoon. Her living room window faced down the length of Banbury Road, and she could see all the comings and goings. Not that she was particularly interested, but removal vans are noisy, and it had caught her attention for five minutes, then she had forgotten all about it. Until the doorbell rang.
Maggie had lived alone since her Sebastian had died seven years ago, and the house was far too big for her. But it had the advantage of being right around the corner from her younger daughter and exactly one-third of her grandchildren, on whom she doted and in whom she rested many hopes and ambitions. It was altogether too far from her comfortable sofa to the hallway, and she vaguely grumbled as she made her way there. She was in good health for a sixty-one-year-old woman, but her knees never appreciated the first two or three seconds after getting up from a sitting position, and she was a woman who liked to be comfortable. She opened the door to be met with the sight of an extremely handsome woman in her early thirties, blonde enough to have stepped out of a Wagnerian opera but slim and well dressed. Her cheekbones might have been carved in Eastern Europe, but when she spoke it was with a clipped, upper-class English accent.
"Mrs Willis?" she enquired.
"That's me," frowned Maggie, certain that she'd never seen this woman before in her life. She would have remembered. The woman was ridiculously attractive.
"I just moved into Banbury Road..."
"Number twenty-two. Yes, I saw the removal van yesterday. Welcome to the Village, Miss..."
"Carrington," smiled the woman. "Isobel Carrington."
She extended her hand, but Maggie was so taken aback she stood there frozen for several seconds before remembering her manners. She took Isobel's hand and shook it limply. "I used to know a woman named Barbara Carrington," she began.
"My grandmother," smiled Isobel. "When she found out where I was moving to, she asked me to look you up, and to say, 'Shameless Greetings, sister'. She remembers you with a great deal of fondness."
Maggie narrowed her eyes, refusing to respond. "Not many blonde Carringtons," she said.
"I'm a Barton on my mother's side," replied Isobel, raising a sardonic eyebrow.
"Hmph. So, you're Tony and Eleanor's daughter."
"I am. I took after mommy."
Maggie pursed her lips. "You'd better come in, then. I never did learn to turn away a Carrington."
Part One: Four Bored Wives
I. The Ennui of Elizabeth Brookes
Age and looks are irrelevant. The only true ugliness is chastity
Sir William Carrington, On Society and Religion, Maxim 7
i. Hosting the BHC
Elizabeth Brookes enjoyed playing the hostess. It gave her a feeling of being in control that was all too rare in her humdrum life. It also went some short way to alleviating the boredom. There were only three guests, friends from around the neighbourhood, all of them mature women with too much time on their hands and too little to entertain them. On the first Wednesday of each month they would get together at one of their houses (they took turns, pretty much), and enjoy a couple of hours of wine, weed, ribald conversation, and raucous laughter. Today was the day of the February meeting.
Annie had been first to arrive, just as she always was. Her oldest friend in the world, Anna Stewart was, by Elizabeth's estimation, the perfect housewife and mother, always elegantly dressed, always polite and proper and always, always, punctual. She was bubbly and friendly though in her grey eyes there was the same boredom, even deep-seated sadness, that Elizabeth herself felt most of the time. She greeted her friend with a peck on the cheek, vocally admiring her bottle-green dress and its plunging neckline. Annie had nice tits, after all. Why not show them off a little? As ever, Annie was surrounded by a cloud of pungent perfume.
Maz was next, flustered and in a slight state of disarray, suggesting she had come out in a hurry, and left a hundred vital tasks unfinished. Having four children would do that to a woman, she supposed. A tall and leggy redhead, Maria McNish could have been quite the glamour puss had she chosen to be. And she
did
scrub up nice when she made the effort, as Elizabeth knew for a fact, but today was not such a day. She was in a baggy sweater and jeans, her lush waves of Titian hair scrunched up into a ragged ponytail. Her makeup was perfunctory.
"Am I last, Beth?" she asked.
Elizabeth shook her head. It was always Maria's first question, as if she both expected to be and dreaded being the last of three visitors to arrive. What did it even matter? "Annie's in the living room. But you surely didn't expect Tilda to get here ahead of you."
Maz laughed. Her kiss for Elizabeth was on the lips, the swift peck of a woman perpetually in a hurry. Unlike Annie, Maz did not smell of perfume but nevertheless had a comforting, womanly scent about her.
Last to arrive was Matilda Ellis - 'Tilda'. A cool, gorgeous blonde, Matilda was pretty much used to the world revolving around her, and was never bound by such dull, worldly concerns as manners or time-keeping. She breezed through the front-door with an air-kiss. She was clad in a powder-blue blouse and matching skirt. She had the looks of a film star and the figure of a model, the bitch, and Elizabeth both adored and hated her in equal measure. She could be as charming and as generous as she was exasperatingly inconsiderate.
Once all four were sitting together, sharing a joint and sipping red wine, they quickly relaxed into the familiar round of chatter and laughter. They had known each other for years. Elizabeth had lived in the Village all her life and so had Annie, and the other two had moved there when they were still newlyweds, so many years ago. They all either had rich husbands or rich inheritances and either worked part-time or not at all. Annie wrote children's books and had done well enough from them that she could afford to write more only when she was in the mood to; Maria's husband owned his own business as did Tilda's, though Tilda had been born into wealth and privilege all her own. As for Elizabeth, her late father had been a millionaire and her mother, who had moved into the Village while still pregnant with her, used to own her own business, though nowadays she was content to paint, to make pottery, and to pass her days in pleasant if industrious comfort. Elizabeth's husband continued to work, but she hadn't felt the need, not since the children were born.
The subject of the four housewives' conversation had meandered to the destination it always and inevitably reached - their boring, boring sex lives.
"I swear," said Annie, leaning forward as if to impart a secret that was in danger of being overheard, "if it wasn't for my battery-operated friend, I would, er, 'clam up' altogether."
That made them all laugh. Elizabeth felt wine snort into her nose, and she had to reach for a tissue.
"I wore out two vibrators last year alone!" claimed Maz. "I mean, Josh does his best, bless him, but a girl has needs. Lots of needs!"
"Will doesn't even do his best," said Annie with a scowl. "He
must
be fucking someone else. No man can have
that
low a libido."
"He's a handsome man, too," observed Elizabeth. "If he wants pussy, it must be there for the taking."
Annie shrugged. "I almost wish he
was
having an affair. At least it would mean he still had a taste for it. Jesus! And now, as you might say, the pussy's come to
him
. Or tell me you haven't seen the blonde bitch who just moved in next door to me!"
"Oh my God, she's fucking gorgeous!" said Maz, who lived on the opposite side of Banbury Road to Anna. "Her little girl's a head turner too!"
"It's her niece, apparently," said Annie. "That's what Elle Hemmings told me."
"Well, her family certainly inherited the gorgeous gene. I've seen them coming and going. If
I
were looking for an affair, even I'd be fucking tempted!"
"I can't wait to see her!" said Elizabeth. Of the four of them she was the only one not to live on Banbury Road, though she was only one street away. "Always nice to see a bit of glamour coming to the Village."
"Hey!" protested Tilda. "Aren't I glamour enough for one little town?"
"I dunno," laughed Elizabeth. "Aren't you getting a bit long in the tooth now?"
"Fuck you, you bitch!" Matilda had turned forty at the end of last year and was still extremely sensitive about it.