Pleasant Vices by Judy Astley Page A

the end of the school year.
    â€˜Do say if you’d rather not, won’t you?’ Laura Benstone’s pretty, ski-tanned face was peering anxiously at Jenny round the lilac tree by the front gate.
    Jenny, stiff from thinning out the dead bits of lavender in the hope that it would last through the coming summer, stood up and tried to straighten her back. ‘Rather not what?’ she asked Laura warily. Why did Laura always do this, she wondered, start talking to her as if they’d already had half the conversation?
    â€˜Your house of course!’ Laura said, with a smile as if she was about to give Jenny a huge present. Jenny flicked earth from her gardening gloves and waited, smiling encouragingly. ‘The people filming, they can’t use mine because I’ve booked it out for a fashion catalogue, all stills. So they said could they possibly use yours, as it’s almost identical?’ Laura looked worried, as if it had suddenly occurred to her that Jenny might not want two tons of film equipment and thirty total strangers taking over her home. But then she cleverly pulled the plum from the pie: ‘You do get an awful lot of money for it,’ and then she whispered, as if Neighbourhood Watch might be all-hearing, as well as all-seeing, ‘cash, if you prefer.’
    Jenny laughed. ‘That’s not the sort of thing you’re supposed to say to the wife of an accountant!’ she told Laura.
    Laura looked momentarily confused and then grinned. ‘Could be worse, darling,’ she replied pertly. ‘You could be married to a tax inspector. Anyway, will you do it? Pretty please? I hate to let them down, they might use someone else next time and then I’d have to go out and get a proper job. And we are trying so hard for another baby . . .’
    Jenny really wished people wouldn’t say things like that. Into her head rushed an unstoppable vision of Laura and Harvey having frenzied sex in their kitchen against their vast Bosch Gourmet Food Centre, magnetic plastic fridge letters clattering to the floor around their feet like multi-coloured rain. Jenny fiddled guiltily with her trowel and tried to concentrate.
    Laura, huge eyes staring appealingly out from under her dark fringe, was looking alarmingly as if she might cry, making Jenny feel personally responsible for the eventual size of Laura and Harvey’s family.
    â€˜OK, OK, I’ll do it,’ Jenny told her. ‘Or at least, they can come round and talk about it so I can find out what’s involved. It’ll have to be a stupendous amount of cash if it means weeks of disruption, though,’ she warned Laura.
    â€˜It won’t, I promise. They only usually take one day. Oh super, you’re wonderful!’ Laura gushed delightedly. ‘I won’t forget this, you and Alan must come to dinner.’
    Well if she couldn’t get flute pupils, this would have to do instead, Jenny thought as she scrubbed earth from under her nails in the kitchen. The spectre of a future on half the income with the same expenses briefly chilled her again. But just then the phone rang. Perhaps it will be one of the answerphone parents ringing back at last, Jenny thought, as she hastily dried her hands.
    She liked the man’s voice, there was a sense of humour in it. She didn’t get much of that in the usual music-pupil parents. Usually they were too concerned with instrument prices, making sure they got their full half-hour, and the whereabouts of the nearest Royal Academy examination centre to waste time with friendly badinage. It would be nice to teach a grown-up for once too, someone who was learning to play because they had chosen to.
    â€˜Is my being disabled a problem? Or, sorry, I should say, “physically challenged” shouldn’t I?’
    â€˜As long as you can hold a flute, it doesn’t make any difference,’ Jenny told him, which for some reason made him laugh. ‘How