Snobs: A Novel

'I'm not often in Shropshire, actually.' Henry rolled away from her, bloated and breathless, like a beached whale far from the water.

'I'm going for a swim,' said Charles.

They lunched late on paella with too much squid in it in an open-air restaurant overlooking the harbour with its bobbing flotilla of yachts and then set off in two cars for the Franks's house, which lay outside the town on the edge of the sea and appeared to be entirely surrounded, on the land-locked frontier at any rate, by a high stone wall, topped with broken glass.

The gates were not gates but rather iron doors, which swung open automatically when they identified themselves and then clanged shut, only just missing the rear fender of the second vehicle. 'Well, they're obviously not expecting two cars,' said Annette with a laugh.

Undaunted, Caroline, who was driving the first car with Edith, Annette and Henry, ploughed on through the enormous, empty pleasure gardens. Tantalising glimpses through the trees of Henry Moores and Giacomettis flashed past until rounding a huge clump of rhododendra they came to a fork in the road. One led apparently up to a nineteenth-century castle that was perched on the highest point of the estate, which Edith had assumed was their destination, while the other, incredibly, pointed the way to another house, as large as the first only modern, which had been built at the water's edge. It was too low, with its balconies thrusting out barely higher than the waves, to be seen from the road.

'Which one do we go to?' said Edith.

'The bottom one. Mrs Frank likes to be near the sea.'

'What happens up on the hill?'

Caroline looked suitably vague. 'I think it's mainly for the grandchildren.'

'Blimey O'Reilly,' said Annette and Edith noted with interest that no one else would acknowledge the strangeness, the orgiastic luxury that they were witnessing. She was beginning to understand it is a point of honour in that world that one must never be overawed by any display of wealth, no matter how fabulous. To register that riches on any scale are not routine, even mundane, is to risk being 'middle-class' — a sector of society to which many of them spend most of their lives proving to no one in particular that they do not belong. There are exceptions to this rule. It is possible to exclaim, 'How simply lovely!' but it is done in such a way as to show generosity rather than awe on the part of the speaker. Better yet, 'My dear, how grand!' This in a tone to show that the decoration, menu, whatever, is excessive and verging perilously close to vulgar. Lady Uckfield was particularly adept at crushing with smiling enthusiasm. These are hard skills for the novice though and Edith did well not to attempt them.

A white-coated footman took the party through the gleaming marble rooms out on to the terrace where Mrs Frank, a sun-beaten, robust figure, reclined in a brightly coloured cotton sarong, chunky bracelets bouncing and rattling against her sinewy, masculine arms. She waved them all over towards her.

Caroline took charge. 'How do you do?' she said lazily. 'I'm Caroline Chase.'

She started to indicate the other members of the party, deliberately pausing a fraction of a second before the three non-Broughton guests, Bob, Annette and Peter's girl, as if to demonstrate to Mrs Frank that they were not in the first circle and she need not therefore bother with them. Mrs Frank took the signal and welcomed the outsiders with a perceptibly cooler smiling nod than the one she reserved for the principals.

'You must be the bride,' she said, rising and taking Edith by the arm to lead them back into the house. Edith smelled the strong musk of her scent and watched the leathery creases move around the thin, scarlet-greased mouth. 'How are you enjoying Mallorca?'

'We only arrived last night. It seems lovely so far.' She smiled back into the glassy, bored eyes of her grinning hostess.

'You must let us entertain you while you're here. Tell me, how is darling Googie?'

'She's fine. She and Tigger are in Scotland.' As the words came out, Edith realised that this was the first time she had spoken these ludicrous nicknames out loud. Before her marriage she had privately determined to address her inlaws as Harriet and John, but already the unspoken urgings of intimacy, of club-membership, which rippled through Mrs Frank, had made her break her vow because the truth was that whatever she might say to her friends, she did not want to be the 'foreign' daughter-in-law. She did not want people to sympathise with Lady Uckfield that Charles had not done better. She wanted her mother-in-law to be congratulated on her, Edith's, brilliance, on her taste, on her charm, on her entertaining. And so Edith learned the first lesson of why England has had no revolutions, of what has emasculated so many careers from Edward IV's queen to Ramsay MacDonald. Namely that the way to deal with a troublesome outsider is to let him in, to make him a convert with a convert's zeal and in no time he will be plus Catholique que le Pape. Learning this lesson did not reduce Edith's resentment of the forces that taught it to her but she had another heady moment of realising she was now a member of the Gang. It made her feel powerful. She turned and smiled at Charles.

A tour of the sculptures had been planned and the party set off. As they came out of the front door they were approached by a young, rather stringy woman, a reduced, ferret-sized version of Mrs Frank. She had obviously just been playing tennis and carried a slightly oversized racket in front of her, covering her face, half shield, half fan. Their hostess introduced her as her niece, Tina. Unlike her aunt the girl was painfully shy. She fell into step with them as she was quite clearly commanded to do but mutely, only muttering miserable, whispered answers if she was directly addressed.

They passed a swimming pool, cut into a small cliff above the sea, and Edith heard Annette asking about the terracotta vases that surrounded it, apparently continually filling it with faintly steaming water.

'They are Roman,' said Tina almost inaudibly. 'My uncle had them brought up from a wreck off the coast near here.'

'And now they're plumbed in?'

'What is 'plumbed in' excuse me?'

Charles cut off Annette rather irritably. 'She means that now they're used to feed the pool.'

'Yes. With sea water.'

'Sea water? Warmed sea water?'

Tina nodded. 'It's much better for you, no? We have another pool with clear water but I think this is good,