Chapter 2

“Hi, Jenny! Thought you might like some company!”

Frances had finally caught up with the youngest of her guests. She had been worried about her ever since the five of them had arrived here, four days ago. Jenny was usually the most effervescent of girls, by far the most light-hearted of this quintet of lifelong buddies, but had lately she been quiet and subdued, smiling sadly at the others’ little jokes and staring downwards seeming to be lost in thought. She had been devastated to lose her post at the merchant bank and seemed totally broken-spirited by it. Of all of them, Frances reckoned, Jenny was the one who most needed this time together.

Jenny smiled and allowed Frances to link arms with her. They walked together for some time and then Jenny laughed gaily, the first time she had not looked solemn for longer than Frances could remember.

“Lost your shoes, darling? Never mind, those are the sweetest feet! I always envied you them! Bet it feels sore, though with all this heat and everything so dusty and dry!”

“Yeah! It does a bit. I like your legs, come to that - and you sure seem to be showing a lot of them today!”

Jenny grinned. “I didn’t see where I’d put my shorts this morning, Frances, and it’s so warm, I decided to leave off looking for them until tonight. I love the sun on my legs - it feels so free somehow.”

Frances became thoughtful.

“Jenny, I can’t find my shoes, Dot can’t find her blouse and now you say your shorts have disappeared. A pattern emerges! I wonder who the silly bugger is - surely not Harriet or Elspeth - not their scene at all, I ‘d have said.”

“I don’t know, Fanny! I wouldn’t have thought any of us were that way inclined. Not really. Not like some of the other girls we’ve known. That Tricia Fordyce and her little gang at school - they liked horsing about - but we were always such goody goodies!”

‘Yes. That’s right,’ thought Frances, ‘We were all five of us serious minded little prigs and went on to be serious-minded hard-working women and look where it’s bloody well got us!’ She knew that Tricia was still going from strength to strength in her career as a fashion designer, and the five of them in their solid respectable careers had all come terrible croppers. What a very unfair business Life was! Still inheriting this house had been a welcome surprise - life wasn’t all bad.

The place had been built in the Eighteen Seventies by a great-great uncle who had made a fortune in questionable circumstances and then retired here to live out his long retirement. It had been left her by a distant cousin only a couple of years ago and she had not had time to spend a lot of time in it until she lost her job. It might be a bit of a ramshackle place and well off the beaten track, but it was certainly ideal for a summer retreat, with its extensive grounds, tennis court and enormous swimming pool, installed by the last owner.

She had fallen in love with the isolated and remote place, vowing to spend as much time here as she could, but work had been so hectic at the time that it had been impossible to get up very often. And then the crash had come and she was out of work, clutching a fat redundancy cheque and with all the spare time in the world!

As soon as she had become unemployed and learnt of her friends’ simultaneous misfortunes, she had invited them all down here to lick their several wounds and think how to get their lives back together. The first day had been spent in a serious discussion, reviewing the ways they could all set up in some kind of business together and then the wonderful weather had reduced them all to a state of semi-comatose and hedonist abandon. And then, this morning, they had started to lose their clothes.

Jenny and Frances continued walking and soon arrived at the highest point for miles around. They stood together and looked down at the Victorian pile below, the sole dwelling in their field of view. Both of them agreed that it was wonderful to be utterly away from it all. They lay down side by side and contemplated the view for some minutes before Jenny fell asleep. Frances sat by her side, her arm around her friend, and then dozed off herself. When the pair woke it was well into the afternoon and the sun well past its strongest. A cool breeze, the first stirring of the air in weeks of hot sultry weather, ruffled Jenny’s long golden hair as well as Frances’s shorter black locks. They enjoyed this refreshing change in the weather for a while longer, and then Frances got to her feet.

“Let’s get back, Jenny. We need to get together, the five of us and sort out what’s going on. I have a feeling thing are not as they ought to be, my dear. In fact, I feel very uneasy indeed for some reason!”