The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew Read online

  ‘By all accounts, Sophie did intervene to pull Irina off Magda Oakes. It did appear that Irina was intimidating—’

  ‘I wasn’t at—’ interrupted Irina.

  ‘Will you be quiet,’ yelled Miss Egerton. ‘I’m speaking about you, not to you. As I was saying . . . Magda has a friction burn on her arm—’

  Sophie’s turn to interrupt now. ‘Which she put there,’ she stabbed her finger at Irina. Before Miss Egerton could admonish her, Miss Palmer-Price held up her hand.

  ‘All right, I’ve heard enough. Miss Egerton, please escort Irina to her room where she will remain until tomorrow morning. She will miss the Wednesday high tea’ – punishment indeed for the food-orientated Irina – ‘. . . Sophie, stay here, please. Thank you, that will be all.’ Miss Palmer-Price was careful to make the tone in her voice imply that Sophie was in for an equally harsh, if not worse, penalty. She always had to play a careful game where rich parents who over-indulged their daughters were concerned. Her ploy had obviously worked if the smug look which Irina flashed her fighting counterpart as she swaggered out was anything to go by.

  When Miss Egerton and Irina were gone, Miss Palmer-Price indicated the chair at the other side of the desk and smiled at Sophie.

  ‘Sit down, Miss Calladine. Please.’ Sophie obeyed but remained stiff-backed, her body language signalling that she did not trust that this request was as friendly as it seemed. Miss Egerton smiled when she punished a pupil; Irina smiled when she terrified younger girls. Smiles were often no more than a mere deceptive flexing of muscles and, as such, to be viewed with caution.

  ‘I understand that you interceded to rescue Magda from an unpleasant situation, would that be fair to say?’

  ‘It would,’ answered Sophie.

  ‘I also understand it isn’t the first time you and Irina have crossed swords over similar matters.’

  She saw Sophie’s jaw drop slightly open that she knew this. But Miss Palmer-Price was aware of everything that went on in her school: smoking, bullying, bulimia, so-called ‘secret’ assignations with local boys, and she moved to stamp such misconduct out always at the perfect time for maximum impact.

  ‘Well?’ she prompted.

  ‘She’s a bully, madam. One who only ever picks on weaker girls. She seems to derive particular pleasure from distressing Magda.’

  Miss Palmer-Price leaned forward, rested her elbows on her desk, threaded her fingers together.

  ‘Sophie, I think it’s very noble that you stood up for Magda. Magda, as you know, is here because of the Phyllida Grainger sponsorship that recognises excellence amongst the less fortunate girls in society. Phyllida Grainger girls always struggle here; their background is very different, too different for them to fit in, I’ve always maintained but . . .’ She sighed resignedly before continuing. ‘And Magda’s accent is especially . . . alienating. That can exclude her from most friendship groups.’

  ‘She’s really nice,’ said Sophie. ‘She doesn’t deserve to have Irina keep seeking her out to torment her just because she feels bored and needs entertainment.’

  No one in the school had a family as rich as Irina’s, but she couldn’t truly look down on the other girls because they had what she never could: breeding, pedigree and a long association with money, which far outweighed newer fortunes at St Bathsheba’s. Sadly, Magda didn’t have any finesse, background or money – old or otherwise – and therefore was doomed. She’d been forced upon them thanks to a benevolent gesture by a former headmistress in her dotage: one girl per year from a working-class background joined the ranks of the senior school. It had been a disastrous initiative. Most had left somewhere between the first month and the end of the first year and the school had silently rejoiced about that, because they really didn’t want them there. Magda, dumpy, plain, quiet and studious with a hideous (according to Miss Egerton) Liverpudlian accent, had acquired no friends and had been singled out ‘for special treatment’ by Irina’s gang since day one.

  Miss Palmer-Price studied the beautiful girl in front of her with her molten-sunshine hair and a defiant set to her full, dark-pink lips. Unlike Irina, there was an intelligence, a bright light behind her hazel eyes which fascinated the headmistress. She considered herself an expert at reading pupils but Sophie Calladine mystified her. She should have been one of her star students, yet there was a worrying spark of rebellion in her that showed itself rarely but never as spectacularly as today. Her two sisters had exhibited no such defect. Their ships had sailed calmly through the sea of their school years here, both achieving the highest status of head girl. Both characterless and instantly forgettable, it also had to be said.

  Irina Morozova was at the school at the behest of her parents, who saw the value in their daughter being educated at one of the most exclusive and oldest private schools in the country despite the fact that she would never in life need the evidence of a single GCSE pass. Irina was destined for a life of luxury sailing on daddy’s yacht, maybe having a role within one of his shady companies that involved her having a prestigious job title but not actually doing a lot of work. She would go on to marry another oligarch’s son and come to rely on plastic surgery to reconstitute her fading looks; but a much different fate awaited Sophie. She would be nudged firmly towards a man who needed her. Not emotionally, because he would be cold, fixated on a career in industry, banking or politics – the top job, though. Sophie would be the power behind the throne, but never actually sit on the throne herself. The girls of St Bathsheba’s were proud supporters, the oil in the family machines, wind beneath wings, lynchpins. Their men stood in the limelight that their wives enabled them to reach. St Bathsheba girls did not burn their bras.

  ‘The reason I asked you to stay behind, Sophie, is to give you some advice,’ said Miss Palmer-Price. She owed the Calladines some goodwill; after all, Angus Calladine had recently financed repairs to the east wing of the school, which is more than Mr Morozov, with his bank vault stuffed to the rafters had done. ‘Answer this: the most important person in your life is whom?’

  ‘My mother?’ replied Sophie. Not the right answer obviously, she took from Miss Palmer-Price’s unflinching expression. ‘Father?’

  ‘No. It’s you, Sophie. You. And you need to remember that always and make provisions for it. The Irinas in life will be more useful to you than the Magdas. Altruism is an admirable quality, but it won’t get you as far as you might think, because this is a dog-eat-dog world. A semblance of it is all that is required in this day and age. You must learn to hide your true feelings, Sophie. Play the long game in life. The girls here do not become nurses and social workers and shop assistants: they leave as soldiers, tough, adroit, capable and fully aware that self must be preserved at all costs. Kindness is a weakness and it will be used against you.’

  Miss Palmer-Price saw Sophie’s eyes blink as if there was a massive surge of brain activity behind them. And she was right, because less than an hour ago Sophie had been sitting in an RE lesson hearing evidence to the contrary.

  ‘But Jesus . . .’

  ‘Jesus taught us that kindness is a good thing, Sophie, yes. But there are different sorts of kind. Sometimes by being kind you interfere with fate, you do not let the recipient of your benevolence learn lessons, ergo that sort of kindness is actually a form of cruelty, do you see?’

  She let that sink in, waited until Sophie answered with a slow nod of understanding.

  ‘The time will come when you will need to put others before yourself; but not the Magdas of this world. Not them.’

  She watched Sophie’s eyebrows dip in confusion, trying to make sense of this apparent paradox: put yourself before others but not everyone. Who, then?

  ‘You are looking puzzled, Sophie,’ said Miss Palmer-Price. ‘It is a tough world. Here at St Bathsheba’s we have always recognised that its girls need to be prepared fully for life and all its complexities. There is no school like us: we are unique. You will leave us as intellectually accomplished young ladies, but our educatio
n goes far beyond that. We educate your soul at St Bathsheba’s, Sophie. Our girls are polished jewels. Your inner strength and resilience will attract rich, powerful men and I’m sure you’d want one of those, my dear; which girl wouldn’t? Trust me, love is no substitute for a private jet. Choose the most successful man you can find, put him first in your life and scythe to the quick anyone who stands in your way. But power does corrupt itself, so occasionally that will involve self-sacrifice on your part. Emotion will be of little use to you at these times. Get used to controlling it, not it controlling you; and that discipline starts with leaving kindnesses to the devotees of the Dalai Lama. Thank you for listening.’

  That was an obvious cue for Sophie to go. And she did so, with bewilderment weighing down her features; but she would remember Miss Palmer-Price’s advice and her words would come to make sense in time. More than she could ever guess at.

  Sophie was the nicest girl that Miss Palmer-Price had taught in years, but ‘nice’ was no compliment, not in this singular school. She had high hopes for Sophie because she had the full complement of essentials: money, breeding, intelligence and beauty. If she could just learn to fight, claw and scratch on behalf of herself instead of underlings; not with nails and fists however, but with more guile than Black Ops could employ. That was why parents sent their daughters to St Bathsheba’s. To learn skills from a forgotten era that the modern world scoffed at whilst envying also.

  Chapter 3

  Seven days before Doorstepgate

  Something was different. Sophie felt it as soon as she woke up that morning even though it was an ordinary day with the alarm going off at the same time as it always did. A mere quiver of disparity, as if she were a spider sleeping soundly and a fly’s leg had brushed across her web at the furthest point causing a low, low vibration, a tingle in her limbs.

  The last time she had felt anything like this was four years ago. A strange prickle in the air, something amiss, something she had put down to the hormonal changes in her body, because she had nothing in her life to cause any anxiety. She had it all and the biggest adventure of her life was about to begin.

  Then three days later Crying-girl turned up at the flat they had in Westminster. She marched straight in, unlocking the door with a key that John later said she’d stolen from his desk.

  ‘Mrs Mayhew, my name is Malandra Moxon and I’ve been having an affair with your husband and I’m really really sorry,’ Crying-girl had said, her voice starting off strong but losing impetus with every word, as she dissolved into sobs. ‘And I wanted to tell you what a total and utter bastard he is,’ she went on, her eyes dropping from Sophie’s face to her well-rounded stomach. She gasped then, and she dropped the key onto the floor as she ran out. The sound of that gasp seemed to hang in the air as if it were loaded with many unsaid words that took their time to die.

  Shaking and confused, Sophie rang John immediately. He was a fifteen minute bolt from her but it took him over an hour to get there and she knew, though it took her a long time to admit it to herself, that his priority would be rounding up his troops: Rupert, Edward, Findlay, Len – oh, especially Len.

  Malandra was an intern who hadn’t fitted in, and when she’d been caught taking photos of his diary pages, John had told her to leave the office immediately. She was angry and aggrieved and humiliated. It was textbook easy how to try and avenge yourself when you worked for a politician. Just accuse him of having an affair and watch the poison spread, said John. Malandra Moxon was blowing off steam but that’s all it was because he was innocent of all charges.

  ‘Do you think I would be so idiotic as to fuck an intern in my position?’ he’d laughed. ‘You really do have to believe me here, Sophie. When have I ever given you cause to doubt me?’ She didn’t cite Lady Cresta as an example because they weren’t married then and he didn’t have a political career to gamble away. He was too ambitious to be so stupid now. He then rolled out the Paul Newman line with his own twist, ‘Why would I go out and shop for cheap scrag end when I have the best fillet steak at home?’ Why indeed. It was a convincing argument when you wanted to be convinced.

  Malandra Moxon’s name had never appeared in any newspaper attached to a scurrilous story and that – said John F. Mayhew – spoke volumes, because if she’d had anything to take to the press, she would have, wouldn’t she?

  Malandra Moxon slipped into the background of their charmed existence and then further into obscurity. Sophie never wanted to hear her name again because it would forever be associated with the lowest point of her life. But a couple of months ago, for no reason she could think of, Sophie had googled her name and found a recent wedding notice in the Kentish Herald: ‘Teaching assistant Malandra Rebelle Moxon and accountant Charles Andrew Edward Anderson’. The groom’s parents were obviously fans of the Royal family, thought Sophie as she read it. It was definitely the same woman because there really couldn’t have been that many twenty-four-year-old Malandra Rebelle Moxons in the UK. The accountant was forty-five, so clearly Malandra still had a thing about older men.

  Four years ago John had been a junior minister, fully proficient in the art of expert schmoozing and oiling his way around the corridors and people of Westminster. He had a gift for playing people, saying the right thing at the right time, flattering in exactly the correct dose so there was no suggestion of toadying. It helped that he had a Hollywood smile, a mesmerising oratory style and looked shit-hot in a suit. Women loved him and men liked him, even those in the party who envied him. He had a Midas touch with life as well as with money: he was unstoppable, a political superhero. In the last cabinet reshuffle, John had been made Secretary of State for Family Matters. With his own parents and in-laws solidly behind him every step of the way, John F. Mayhew epitomised the core strength and values of family – immediate and extended. Nowadays it was the turn of others to grease around him. And boy, did they.

  ‘I could really do without this today,’ said John, as he and Sophie drove past the queue waiting outside the cricket club in Cherlgrove for his political surgery. He hated mixing with the hoi polloi but it was a necessary evil and he’d managed to avoid doing one for nearly two months. A rare space in his midweek diary had to be filled and he might as well load himself with brownie points, so Len Spinks said.

  He knew that most of the waiting constituents were going to be whingeing about the plans for a new housing estate in the town and/or the decimation of a square of green in order to widen a road, because he always insisted on an appointment-only system with advance warning on what people needed to consult him about. Sophie dealt with most of the constituency correspondence, though John F. publicly maintained he did it himself. She’d even perfected his signature for letters. John F. preferred the thrill of Westminster life and playing with the high-value cards. He considered Cherlgrove business the twos and threes in the pack: required in order to play the game but annoying to be dealt them.

  It was a beautiful bright day, no breeze, clement temperature – in other words, perfect golfing weather. As soon as John had finished his business here, he was heading off to the course with Sophie’s father and their Pringle-jumpered ‘Old Lions’ cronies. It was Sod’s Law that the sun had brought everyone out today in order to moan at him, hoping he would deign to see them despite having no appointment (fatter than fat chance). Didn’t they have anything better to do than prattle on about traffic? he grumbled.

  ‘Let’s just make a lot of promises and get out of here,’ said John, as they parked up. ‘I’ll find out and get back to you is the order of the day, okay, Sophie?’

  Unlike her husband, Sophie enjoyed mixing with people of the town and she got a buzz from the fact that John trusted her so implicitly to manage this side of things, which she did to the best of her ability. But the surgeries brought out the worst in John and highlighted that with him it was always ambition before people, self before others. He was driven to win at everything and primed to snowplough all opposition out of the way with ruthless speed. The per
fect man, according to the dictates of St Bathsheba’s. Sometimes she wondered if he would have been such a good family boy if family hadn’t been so instrumental to his success. His father and father-in-law both threw a lot of money at the Conservative party. The husbands of Sophie’s sisters were useful business contacts, John’s eldest brother worked for his office in London, the middle brother was his solicitor. The families of others were much less important to him. In saying that, John had a vested interest in getting that housing estate vetoed because it was going to be built on green-belt land adjacent to Park Court. Luckily this allowed him to make a song and dance about it for personal reasons whilst also being a champion of the people at the same time.

  ‘Morning, Mr Mayhew,’ some women said as he walked past them and into the club, swinging his important-looking carried-to-impress briefcase.

  ‘Morning, everyone,’ he trilled back to them, pearly-whites on full display.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Mayhew.’ Delivered politely but with less flirtatious eyelash-wafting.

  ‘Good morning.’ Sophie’s smile was smaller and infinitely more genuine, but size is deceptive in so many areas of life.

  The caretaker had a tray of tea and biscuits waiting for them as always. John rubbed his hands together gleefully.

  ‘You always make the best tea, Mrs Farley,’ he said and Mrs Farley did that little shoulder-judder of joy at the compliment. Mrs Farley always served John before Sophie. Mrs Farley barely ever looked at her.

  ‘All right then, let’s get started,’ said John after a quick glug from his cup. A rough-looking woman was first in, carrying a toddler with bright red cheeks, a small army of followers in her wake.

  ‘Oh God, it’s Mrs Sillycow,’ growled John through gritted teeth, for Sophie’s ears only. ‘Ah, Mrs Sillitoe, please take a seat. Now, the last time you were here you were concerned about the closure of the green, I believe.’