Glittering Fortunes (13 page)

‘I’m sure he will.’

Chapter Nineteen

W
HEN
C
HARLIE
ARRIVED
home that afternoon, Cato was waiting for him in the library. He was sitting in Charlie’s chair, at Charlie’s desk, reclining against the leather Chesterfield that had once belonged to Richmond Lomax. He had his feet up, and was engaged in the important business of excavating his gums with a toothpick.

Surrounding him was a fortress of their father’s tomes. Richmond had been a scientist, concerned with sums and specifics, points and particulars, and the steady reliable bulk of history. Buried among them were the stories their mother had loved—a du Maurier here, a Brontë there, a Christie gathering dust in a pile of papers—-secret voices that no longer tried to be heard. Richmond hadn’t wasted time with fiction.

‘I’m sorry, old bean,’ Cato said. ‘There simply isn’t room for the two of us.’

Charlie hung back, a visitor to his own space. The words he’d rehearsed on the walk back dissolved. ‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘There’s room enough for a dozen families.’

Cato turned the pick between his finger and thumb. ‘I don’t mean physically.’

‘Then what do you mean?’

‘Come now.’ The feet came off the desk and Cato sat forward, elbows on knees like a benevolent boss at pains to make a dismissal. ‘You and I might be cut from the same canvas but you know as well as I do that cohabitation is not an option. With regret,’ he savoured it, ‘you’ll have to move on.’

‘Like hell I will.’

‘Before you overreact, think about it.’ Cato touched the tips of his fingers together. ‘I’d make it worth your while, Charles, you know I would; you’d receive a nice slug of money every month, a tidy allowance to keep things ticking over.’

‘That would have been helpful when I needed it here. I came to you so many times. Do you know what it took for me to do that, after everything that’s happened?’

‘I feel for you,’ Cato commiserated. ‘Often I think how terrible it must be to be you. Which is why I’m offering to step in. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?’

‘Not like this. You know it isn’t.’

‘Have a break!’ Cato spread his arms wide. ‘Anywhere you want to go. Take a holiday. Lie on a beach. Soak up the rays. Have sex with a beautiful woman. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, now, there’s a sensible chap.’

It had to be a joke. His brother couldn’t seriously imagine he was going to sit back and accept this preposterous consolation prize.

‘This is just a game to you, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘This whole thing, it’s just a game. There I was thinking we could move things forward; try to put the past behind us. But you? You don’t care. You led me to believe that last night’s monstrosity was a shared venture; that if you weren’t prepared to donate then at least this was a chance to bring in the cash together—’

‘Together?’ Cato snorted unkindly. ‘Do you really think we’d have secured those tidy deals with the press if it weren’t for Susanna and me?’

‘And you treat her just beautifully, while we’re on the subject.’

‘A shame that we’re not.’

‘I take it she’ll be moving with you.’

Cato made a face. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

‘You can’t blackmail me into leaving: Usherwood’s mine, too.’

‘To a lesser degree,’ his brother conceded. ‘But if you insist on staying, well, let’s just say I could make your life awfully uncomfortable.’

‘More uncomfortable than you already have? I don’t know, Cato, you’d need to stretch it pretty far to exceed your record.’

‘Oh, you’re bringing up
that
again, are you?’

‘I’ve lost track of how many “that”s there are.’

‘No wonder the finances are up shit creek if you can’t count to two.’

‘You’re doing this out of spite. There’s no other reason than because you can. If this is some warped reminder of your filial superiority—’

‘You said it.’

‘—then give up now. My hands are raised. Don’t ask me to go.’

Cato sighed deeply. Eventually, as if he had been given no other choice than to break the news as gently as he could, he said, ‘I’m going to present the facts for you as plainly as I can. As the eldest this house is my inheritance and therefore belongs to me. I’m afraid that is a pill you are just going to have to swallow. And since the property will be in my name, and will, to all intents and purposes, be in my possession, I have final say in who I share it with.’

‘I suppose you’ll be holding on to Caggie.’

‘She rather likes being held on to.’

‘And Barbara’s for the chop—after years of faithful service, you’ll be getting rid of her. You’re brutal. You’re absolutely fucking brutal.’

‘Baps is a tough old turkey. She’ll live.’

On cue there was a rap at the door. The housekeeper put her head round.

‘Excuse me for interrupting, but this arrived by courier.’ She held up an envelope. ‘I thought you should see it right away.’

Charlie took the missive. The envelope was handwritten, addressed to both brothers, and one corner bore a large red stamp: urgent!

Cato snatched it from him. He tore it open and unfolded a single sheet of A4.

His eyes scanned the document.

‘Well,’ he raised his eyebrows, ‘this is a turn up for the books. Old Barnaby Cartwright, I thought he’d kicked the bucket.’

Charlie absorbed it. The letter was cryptic. Barnaby had been banished from the family when the boys were young. They had received nothing from him in over twenty years.

‘
Uncle Barney won’t be coming to see us any more...’
he remembered his mother saying, tucking him into bed one night, her face streaked with tears. ‘
Daddy’s decided.
But Uncle Barney loves you very
,
very much
,
never forget that...’

‘What must he be now, a hundred and seventeen?’ Cato reclaimed the message and screwed it up. He strode to the fire. ‘Clearly he’s off his rocker.’

‘Don’t you dare.’ Charlie grabbed him. ‘This is the first address we’ve had for him since before Mother died. She’d want us to follow this up.’

‘So he’s dragging us to bloody Norfolk, of all places? Sounds deathly dull to me.’ Cato turned on the housekeeper. ‘Finished eavesdropping yet, Baps?’

‘Forgive me, my lord.’ She closed the door.

‘Barbara knew our uncle better than we did,’ said Charlie incredulously. ‘God, you’re hideous.’

‘Not as hideous as a load of inbreds living in windmills.’

‘We have to make the trip. It doesn’t sound like there’s much time.’

Cato grimaced. ‘What the fuck is “
Hedge Betty
” anyway—surely he doesn’t expect us to stay somewhere that sounds like a pensioner’s muff? Can’t he come here, for pity’s sake? I’ll send a chopper if he’s at death’s door.’

‘That’s a really wise idea. Haven’t you read this?’

Cato unfurled the letter and perused it once more. ‘Fine,’ he barked, ‘but it had better be worth it. If the old man croaks while we’re there then on your head be it.’

His brother’s voice caught him as he exited the library.

‘Oh, and Charles?’

He stopped. He didn’t turn round.

‘Now I think about it, this jaunt could be a sensible move. It’ll be good for you get away from the house for a while. You never know, you might get used to it.’

Chapter Twenty

Barnaby G. Cartwright

Hedge Betty

Stickling

Norfolk

NF12 7TW

Cato & Charles Lomax

Usherwood House

Lustell Cove

Cornwall

LC20 3AU

August 1st 2013

My dear Cato, my dear Charles,

Please accept my apologies for writing to you out of the blue, and after so many years have passed. I pray this is not too much of a shock.

My health is failing and I have vital news to impart, the nature of which is of the utmost importance to you both. I should have done this a long time ago, had I possessed the courage—I’m sorry that I did not. If I depart this life without full disclosure of the facts, I fear it will only cause more suffering.

I request that you come to see me. I am unable to travel myself and trust this does not put you at too much of an inconvenience. My address is at the top of this letter. I await your arrival with anxious affection.

Yours, in anticipation...

Your loving uncle,

Barnaby Cartwright

Part Two

Chapter Twenty-One

T
HE
HELICOPTER
GENERATED
a terrific wind. Olivia held Thorn’s plump hand as the giant dragonfly came to land on Usherwood’s lawn, its rotors a deafening blur. Susanna shot out of the house, Burberry luggage trailing after her, and rushed towards it.

‘Are we going in that?’ the boy asked excitedly.

‘You are,’ said Olivia, relieved that she didn’t have to board. ‘I’m not.’

‘Then how are
you
getting there?’

‘In the car.’

He pulled a face. ‘Slooooooooow!’

Olivia was learning that Thorn had been raised to expect speedy results. He couldn’t understand why plants took so long to grow, why morning took so many hours to come or why he had to wait to get the toy superbike he’d been promised because it wasn’t his birthday until October. Jonty had left that morning, zooming off in an oxblood Porsche Carrera and spraying them all in a cloud of dust, impatient to get back to his full-throttle London life. It wasn’t hard to see where Thorn got it.

The prospect of spending half a day holed up on the motorway with Charlie, however, was not one she relished. When she’d heard the party was heading off she had been relieved—a chance to press on with the Sundial Garden, peace and quiet in the house, time away from the brothers—until Susanna announced that if Cato were going then so must she, and if she were going then so must Thorn, and if Thorn were going, then... Well, there was no way she could look after her own son without at least a little bit of outside help. Naturally Olivia had rejected the offer, before Susanna had proposed an obscene lump sum payment to secure the pleasure of her assistance.

It would take months to earn this kind of money. The trip to Norfolk, what would amount to a few days of her life, would be more than enough to fund her move back to London. Already she was dreaming of returning to the city. Since the blow-up with Beth all the magic had drained out of Lustell Cove, and now she could see it for the illusion it was: a childhood temptation, a sweet-scented nostalgia trip, an interval before real life resumed. She had to get away. Her head was a mess over Addy. Flo was in her space 24/7. Beth didn’t want to see her. There was nothing to stay for.

Norfolk wasn’t Cornwall, and right now Olivia wanted to be anywhere in the world but here. Besides, there were worse ways to spend one’s time than playing sandcastles with a six-year-old in the sunshine. How hard was it going to be?

‘Are we ready?’ Susanna was yelling over the noise, as she attempted to harness her billowing headscarf. ‘Do we have everything?’

Cato emerged with the last of the bags and marched across the lawn.

‘Must we take
quite
so much, Mole?’ he lambasted. ‘For God’s sake!’

‘Oh!’ Susanna squeaked, suddenly remembering. ‘My son!’

At Cato’s frantic beckoning Thorn hurried to join them.

‘Wave at me from the sky!’ Olivia called after him, watching his rucksack get smaller and smaller until it was tidied into the aircraft.

Minutes later the helicopter rose shakily from the ground. Olivia saw Thorn’s excited face at the window, happily flapping his goodbye, before the chopper tipped its nose, hovered for a few seconds and then sailed off over the forest.

Without Cato and Susanna, Usherwood exhaled. The bricks seemed to relax, the cherub in the fountain seemed to sigh; even the swallow-song played a lighter tune.

She returned inside to gather her things.

* * *

C
HARLIE
’
S
L
AND
R
OVER
had seen better days. The front was littered with wrenches and screwdrivers, old cassette tapes, bottles of water and crumpled newspapers, and she’d seen less sand on some beaches. There was a pervading scent of salty dog, which wasn’t altogether unpleasant, and with Sigmund and Comet’s hot breath on the back of her neck for the duration of the cross-country journey, not altogether surprising.

The radio was bust, which meant the long silences she’d feared opened up uninterrupted. Neither Lomax seemed to know what the trip was about, or what would be waiting when they got there.

‘Do you remember him?’ she asked as they eased out of the estate gates and joined the main road. Usherwood diminished to a dot in her wing mirror.

‘Vaguely.’ He switched gear. He was a stoic driver, fast but safe. His knuckles on the stick were weather-cracked and wide, flecks of dark hair spilling from the wrist. They looked as if they could strangle something one-handed. ‘I remember him not being there more than him being there. I remember him going away.’

‘Was it something he did?’

‘I don’t know.’

Charlie’s tone told her not to press further. She turned to look out of the window, at the receding cove, the houses steadily building to towns and the distant, charcoal sea: a fading strip that eventually vanished to nothing. This trip was a means to an end, and the family history had nothing to do with her.

After Bristol they stopped at a service station to give the dogs a run. Olivia went inside to browse for a book and was distracted by row upon row of glossy magazines, almost all bearing Cato and Susanna’s blissful image. Most had been taken at the Usherwood party, Susanna’s devilish dress stealing the limelight despite her lover’s pristine good looks. Olivia resisted the onslaught of flashbacks. Each time Beth’s stinging remarks came back they struck her harder than before.

She focused on the headlines: cato relocation! couple to return to cornish love nest! usherwood welcomes home lord! cato and susanna to wed!

It was strange seeing the place splashed across the press. This time a year ago she would have walked straight past such displays, untroubled by the serenely vacant smiles of the rich and famous. Now, she had peeled back their glossy veneer. They were still people, with dreams and hopes and fears just like anyone else. Every picture told a story. Every smile masked a truth. Every house hid its secrets.

Olivia lifted an article. Cato was ultra-photogenic, his debonair smirk lighting the page. Privately she thought he was more attractive in pictures than he was in real life. That kind of chiselled artifice worked on camera, a polished, airbrushed perfection, but was disconcerting close up. She squinted at it.

Weird, but Cato reminded her of someone, a face she knew from long ago. It had never struck her before. It was close, but she couldn’t put her finger on whom.

When she arrived outside with two cups of coffee, Charlie took his without a word. He was on the ridge of the tailgate, securing the knot in a rope. His boots were coming apart, and she thought his feet must be cold.

‘Are Cato and Susanna getting married?’ she asked, blowing the hot liquid.

He slipped the loops over the animals’ heads.

‘Why,’ he said at last. It wasn’t phrased like a question.

She took a sip. ‘Just something I heard.’

‘I’d be surprised if they were.’ He scuffed the dogs, rubbing them vigorously around the ears and muzzle. ‘I don’t see Cato getting married.’

‘That’s not what the papers say.’

‘The papers are full of shit.’ Charlie tugged them to heel.

She waited in the car for him to come back.

* * *

T
HEY
CAME
OFF
the M11 after six. Olivia was tired and the drive seemed endless, pockets of time expanded and compressed by sporadic bursts of half-sleep. She dreamed of the man they were going to see, his mysterious summons, and would blink awake into a world she didn’t recognise, halfway gone and halfway there.

Predictably, winding A-roads arrived with the weekender motorhome brigade, slowing to forty before Charlie overtook in an accelerating surge. Olivia glimpsed the caravans’ signatures on the way past—swift, voyager, lightning.

The landscape was vast and flat, another England from the rolling dips of Cornwall. At home the sea always seemed to her the more abundant thing, the sky its painter’s less preferred subject, but here it was the other way round. The dimming blue was a vast roof, closer to them than at Lustell Cove, and flush with brushstroke clouds that chased themselves to a distant point. The fields were wide and yawning.

Some time later it started to spit with rain. Charlie cursed the wipers when they froze, clearing their vision one minute and sticking the next, the windscreen pooling with water. In a layby he stopped and climbed out. The dogs were roused and craned to see what was going on, their heads appearing by Olivia’s shoulder and their hesitant paws testing a path to the front. Sigmund yowled gruffly when he saw his master lean over the bonnet, and his tail thumped frantically.

Charlie’s hair was wet. He frowned as he focused, leaning to examine the wipers. Dark water stained his coat. He didn’t seem to notice or mind the rain. At this range there was a foot or less between them, the closest they’d been, and Olivia glanced away, rummaging in her bag for her phone.

Seconds later the door opened and he reached in, releasing a lever under the dash. The bonnet popped and he ducked back out to lift it, obscuring him from view. She was thankful for the curtain raised between them. The dogs were going crazy, desperate to be outside, and Olivia leaned into the back to reassure them.

The boot liner confessed yet more miscellanies. Dog stuff was everywhere, towels, rugs, more for them than he’d brought for himself, and a mattress covered in muddy prints, from which Comet gazed back at her with friendly inquisitiveness. At the rear a dust-covered box was partly open, its cardboard flaps fringed with age.

She reached into it for something to placate the agitation. To her surprise, it was filled with photographs. Intrigued, she pulled out a handful and flicked through them. Some were portrait, others landscape; some six-by-four, others bigger; some in colour, others black and white. All could be recognised as Lustell Cove. Olivia would know that ocean anywhere: the rugged moors and the ghostly, windswept bluff; the Candle Point lighthouse shot from below, its rusted gunmetal dog steps like stitches in a stone shaft, and the gleaming cage of its lantern; spray lashing against rocks, a whirlpool of living, liquid silver; heifers grazing in March, marmalade brawn against bountiful green; the forsaken engine house of a disused mine, its chimney castrated, the sea brimming through its arched windows; the beached sailboat
Atlantis
wedged in the sand, clumsily, like an old man leaning on an elbow; a washed-up jellyfish dried out in the sun...

There had to be hundreds. All were magnificent. The pictures made Olivia do more than see; they made her feel. They had been shot with an instinct for the living, vital moment, and stripped through with raw, violent passion. Stills of Usherwood featured heavily. She tore through them, each frame more powerful than the last: the lake, the chapel, the stonework...the pillars,

the pond, the statuary. This wasn’t about documenting the building’s collapse; it wasn’t about recording crumbling bricks or time-worn mortar for posterity, or to articulate the failings of the estate. It was simply an ode to the beauty of Charlie’s home, a song he sung entirely by himself and for himself. The tenderness with which its scars had been captured made her want to cry.

Why should she be shocked?

It just wasn’t how she’d pegged him. Charlie didn’t see the world as she did. He worked with his hands, not with his head. He was a man who built, who made, who put things together; a man who was physical; a man who swore and sweated, who fixed car engines and eased thorns out of dogs’ paws; a man who split his palm and wrung out the blood and called it a scratch. He was obtuse. He was rude and bad-tempered. He was tactless and blunt and boorish. He was proud and conceited and up his own arse. He didn’t know how to express beauty or fragility or angles or shade or any of that, because that required intuition, and he had never intuited anything with her because if he had then he wouldn’t have been so hostile from the moment she’d shown up. He would have known they weren’t so different, after all; that despite his wealth, despite his upbringing, despite his home and his lands and everything that set them apart, they had a shade of a soul in common.

He wasn’t these photographs, or anything like them. He was Charlie Lomax.

A light crept under the door she had locked him behind. A changing Lustell morning when she would lean from her bedroom window, praying for sun, the dense bank of grey blinking for an instant and flooding the fields with gold.

The door to the cab opened. Hastily Olivia replaced the stills, shoving the box away and returning to her seat as Charlie climbed in and told her: ‘We’re fixed.’

Sigmund was soothed by his master’s voice and settled as the engine roared to life. Rain was dashing hard at them now, the wipers working briskly.

Charlie pulled out on to the road. It was deserted. Though she wanted to turn to look at him, to see him in the glow of her discovery, she resisted.