Glittering Fortunes (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘T
HERE
—
THAT
’
S
IT
.’

Olivia pointed to one of the houseboats, on the stern of which hedge betty gleamed in the headlamps’ glare. The boat was third in a chain of vessels moored to the mossy bank, obscured by dripping foliage and tethered by a wooden gangplank. In keeping with its neighbours, the aft deck of his uncle’s barge revealed a makeshift yard boasting an array of stone ornaments and flower troughs.

He parked and they climbed out. Olivia stretched in the drizzle. The dogs bounded from the back, rooting into the ferny undergrowth. Charlie whistled for them, roping them to a sheltered post and scratching their soggy heads.

‘Stay, pups,’ he told them. ‘I’ll be back for you.’

They crossed the walkway, Charlie shouldering their bags. Rain pattered on the leaf canopy, plopping thickly into buckets and empty pots. A tin mailbox had been erected at the gate, partway up a pole, and much higher, clearly out of reach of anyone of reasonable height, another was facetiously marked bills.

A promising blaze was coming from inside. As Charlie was thinking about changing out of his damp clothes and feeding the dogs their supper, the door opened and a woman stepped out. She was sixtyish, pretty, her silver-blonde hair tied in a loose, wispy bun and a jangle of bracelets adorning her wrists. She wore swathes of richly coloured fabrics, chiffon and silk, and a generous smile.

‘You must be Charles.’ She hugged him, a proper tight squeeze that caught him off guard. ‘It’s a brilliant relief you came. I’m Decca.’

‘Call me Charlie. And this is Olivia.’

Olivia returned the embrace without question. He liked how easy she was in company, how natural, and wished he could be more like that.

‘I hope I’m not imposing,’ she said.

‘Not a bit,’ Decca assured them, ‘there’s plenty of room. Cato and Susanna dropped in earlier—heavens, she’s glamorous, isn’t she? They’ve opted for a hotel in town, so as it happens we’ve more than enough space. Look at me, forcing you to stand out here in the rain. Come inside, let’s get you warm and fed.’

Olivia almost tripped over the heap of shoes at the entrance. Decca kicked off her sandals, adding to the pile, and stopped to light a roll-up from a scented candle.

The interior of the barge was a treasure trove of curios, its surfaces packed with souvenirs of a colourful, travelled life. Shelves teemed with artifacts, paraffin lamps and pewter jugs, hatboxes, candles and books. A printer’s tray was fixed to the wall and filled with keys, pocket watches and miniature glass vials, shiny pennies and spiky watch cogs. In the corner a traditional queenie stove glowed orange. A picture of a younger Decca, draped round a man Charlie recognised as his uncle, hung above a sofa that had burst at its seams, a single velvet glove thrown across one arm. On the table was a handsome record player, a library of vinyl wedged beneath, and a glass diamond-shaped ashtray in which half a joint had been ground out.

Steps led them down into a galley kitchen. Whatever was cooking smelled delicious, smoky and robust. Vases of wild flowers were scattered on the window ledge and a heap of plates piled up happily on the draining board.

‘You must be ravenous,’ called Decca, lifting the spoon from a simmering pot and touching it to her lips. ‘I’m making Barney’s favourite—Sennet stew. It’s a family recipe,’ she tapped her nose, ‘if I told you I’d have to kill you.’

Olivia examined a picture tagged to the fridge. ‘Is this Barnaby?’

‘In better days.’ Decca tried for a lightness of tone but the context was wrong. ‘He’s asleep,’ she explained to Charlie, apologetically. ‘He sleeps a lot these days. It can take him a while to get off so I like to leave him when I can... You’ll be anxious to see him, I understand that.’

He nodded, though part of him was relieved at the delayed encounter. Barnaby Cartwright was the closest thing to Beatrice they had left. How would it feel to be reunited after all this time, after so much had happened?

They were shown to their rooms, identical cabins made up with dozens of cushions and ripe with the smell of incense. Across the passage Olivia knelt on her bunk and wiped condensation from the porthole. The back of her hair was a nest from where she’d slept in the car. She yawned. The yawn turned into a sigh and she stared out of the window. Charlie watched her for a second before returning to the kitchen.

Their host was adamant he brought in the dogs. Decca’s own, an Irish wolfhound called Bess, ‘almost as ancient as he is’, was snoozing on Barnaby’s bed.

Olivia offered to fetch them, and headed into the night before he could object.

‘Bess refuses to leave Barney’s side,’ Decca admitted wistfully, ‘especially now. I worry myself silly thinking she’s got a sixth sense about these things, that she’s making the most of him while he’s still here.’ She shook her head. ‘But that won’t help anyone. Having your two indoors will be a welcome distraction.’

‘Decca,’ he began, ‘do you know what this is about?’

She went to set the table. ‘I know part of it,’ she replied carefully.

‘And...?’

‘And when I ask for the full account Barney tells me that’s for your and Cato’s ears only—no one else’s. I must respect that.’

‘Can you tell me?’

‘No.’ She was definite. ‘He will.’

‘It sounds critical.’

Decca regarded him squarely. ‘I know his getting in touch so suddenly must have put you both at sixes and sevens, but rest assured you’ll be abreast of everything soon enough. Barney wants to speak to you and Cato together.’

‘Which won’t be tonight,’ Charlie granted, ‘because Cato’s in town.’ It was a typical manoeuvre of his brother, changing plans to suit his own ends.

‘I don’t think our standards are quite up to Susanna’s.’ Decca was diplomatic. She said it without a trace of affront. ‘She wanted a hot bath, you see, and I’m afraid our little shower’s temperamental at the best of times...’

As Decca chatted on about what a novelty it was to have film stars in their midst, he caught sight of a closed door beyond her shoulder. Anticipation prickled. Questions assailed him.

What did Barnaby have to tell them?

Was it about his parents? Was it the mystery of the Lomax disappearance?

Why hadn’t he contacted them before?

Why hadn’t Barnaby come to say his goodbyes on that horrible day of the memorial, when they had stood like ravens in a dark September field and the ground swallowed up his invisible mother and father...nothing to bury and nothing to kiss?

Decca interrupted his thoughts.

‘I’ve put you and Olivia in separate rooms,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t sure if you...?’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’

‘You haven’t.’

Retrieving a loaf from the oven, Decca tore into it. Steaming, floury hunks fell apart and she winced at the heat on her fingers. She smiled. ‘Good.’

He changed the subject.

‘How long have you and my uncle been together?’

‘Fifteen years.’ Her tone grew serious. ‘Long enough to be sure that he’s thought of you boys every single day. Barney was heartbroken—he still is—that things ended the way they did. There wasn’t any choice. Beatrice was everything to him. He wept for months when she died. I didn’t think he’d ever get over it.’

‘Did they make peace?’

‘The animosity was between him and Richmond—it had nothing to do with your mother. They were always close, even when separated.’

Charlie thought of his mother on her desert island, plane-wrecked in the clothes she had vanished in, her hair matted and tangled with sand, her lips cracked with thirst, slowly perishing in the shade of a brittle palm tree.

‘We never knew why.’ His eyes flicked to meet her. ‘What did he do wrong? Why did my father send him away?’

‘This is a conversation you should be having with your uncle, not with me.’

An explosive coughing fit erupted from behind the closed door. ‘Please excuse me.’ Decca vanished into the depths of the boat, calling back, ‘Open the wine, would you?’

Charlie busied himself with the extraction of a tricky cork. At last, the hacking subsided. He could hear the lilt of Decca’s voice and the occasional burst of a deeper note, which he strained to identify, to grab hold of its counterpart in his memory. He could picture his uncle at Usherwood so clearly, the feel of his wiry jumpers when he lifted Charlie on to his shoulders; the smell of cut grass when they played hide-and-seek on the lawn; visiting the cottage by the sea, the path that led down to the beach...

A fiction, possibly, stemmed from wishful thinking. But there
had
been a man at the house when the boys were small, besides their father. There had.

Barnaby’s letter had oiled a jammed cog free. Glimmers surfaced from depths he had never plumbed, flashes of recollection, cloudy and discoloured, glimpses fickle as rain. One thing remained: he had loved his uncle, and his uncle had loved him.

‘How is he?’ he asked when Decca returned.

‘Not good.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but he isn’t up to visitors tonight. It’s difficult. He doesn’t want you witnessing him like this. Today’s bad—the bad ones come and go, you take them when they’re due.’

‘I understand.’

Olivia returned with the dogs. All three were drenched. She knelt to run a towel over their coats and Comet took it for a game, chasing the rag round in circles.

‘I hope you don’t mind muddy paws.’ Olivia worked the dirt from between their pads. There was a groove by her mouth when she smiled. He liked it.

‘Not a bit.’ Decca encouraged them to sit. ‘I’m used to it by now.’

The stew was as tasty as promised, hearty and rich. As they ate, Decca regaled them with stories of her and Barnaby’s life together, from meeting on a commune in the nineties to their nomadic adventures across South America and Asia, from living on ranches and Patagonian grasslands to a stint in a Mongolian yurt. Sigmund and Comet roamed, restless for supper, appetites staved by Decca slipping them scraps of potato and the diligent courtesies of Bess the wolfhound, who, after an introductory frenzy of sniffing noses, gently prodded their hindquarters for attention. Olivia shared her own unorthodox upbringing living in her mother’s caravan. Charlie knew just where it was, even though he had never been. Up the green lane past the bend in the road, where every day she would turn off and vanish into that shadowy jungle.

At Towerfield he had been collected in the big, bragging Bentley that turned up like clockwork at the gates—three-thirty p.m. sharp, on Richmond’s instruction. Teasing laughter would chase him into its soft interior. He would sooner have walked. If he had walked he might have caught up with her. She wouldn’t have thought he was anybody out of the ordinary, just a regular boy, and he could have started the conversation he’d rehearsed so often in his head. Instead the car would pass her on her bike, silently aching, day after day after day, rain or sun, frost or wind, and Charlie would watch from the window as she weaved up the track, swallowed by foliage. He thought of her caravan home as bright and original, just like she was.

After supper, they went to bed. By the time Charlie got in, he was so tired he couldn’t sleep. The moon leached in, leaking across his chest.

He rolled over. Each time he closed his eyes he saw the rain-soaked road, glistening tarmac vanishing beneath him, the swishing wipers and Olivia’s head as it rested against the window, her hands in her lap, breathing gently.

Chapter Twenty-Three

R
ISING
FROM
THE
claw-footed bathtub, Susanna whacked her head on the ceiling and cried out in pain. She crouched to let the shock of impact pass, hunched naked like Gollum in the draining water and clutching her skull.

‘Hmm?’ was the extent of Cato’s enquiry. He was sitting on the edge of the bed intently examining his Cartier watch, whose second hand had stopped.

‘This is meant to be their “luxury suite”, is it?’ Susanna glared at the low beams, the quaintly sloped rafters and the tiny square window through which fishing boats bobbed in the dark. She never had been one for miniature dwellings that made you feel as if you were about to sit down to tea with a hedgehog. ‘All that hypnosis I had against claustrophobia and here we are, stuck in a rabbit warren.’

‘It was this or the pub. We’re not in fucking Belgravia.’

‘Clearly not!’ She reached for a towel. ‘I mean, come
on
: bath in the bedroom? What a novelty. It couldn’t be more dated if it tried.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’

‘We’re beggars now, are we?’ Certainly they were according to the girl at the hotel reception, who had failed to recognise either of them. Not a trace! She had even dared smirk when Susanna requested their most expensive lodgings. What kind of a place was this? Stickling was about as clued-up as the moon.

‘What
is
the matter with you, Mole? Stop behaving like a spoiled brat.’

Susanna pouted. Understandably she was feeling tender. It had been a horrible day—in fact ever since Jonty turned up at that disastrous party things had gone from bad to worse. She had volunteered to come to Norfolk in the hope that the father of her child might deem it a step too far, but on the contrary it had been tagged as the perfect mother/son bonding opportunity. Having a kid she never saw was one thing when Susanna was in LA—after all, what was she meant to do from all the way over there? But in England it was a pick-sharp reminder of everything she had turned her back on. Every time Thorn falteringly called her ‘Mummy’, every time he gazed beseechingly up at her as if she had the answer to some profound philosophical conundrum, every time he asked why she didn’t visit more often, guilt twisted like a barb in her stomach. Wrong as it might be, at least in California she could forget.

What on earth was she going to do with the child? Susanna didn’t know how to be a mother; she’d never had to do it before. On the way over Thorn had been sick, splattering the inside of the helicopter with the goop of pulverised gummy bears Cato had fed him as bribery to keep quiet. Cato had gone ballistic, disgustedly pressing a silk handkerchief to his nose while Susanna cleaned Thorn up and told him not to worry. What else was she meant to do? The situation was impossible.

Come the morning she would offload him on to Olivia—heaven knows she had paid the girl enough for the assurance of her company. Finally Susanna would be able to exhale. She would root out a health spa for the day, enjoy a spot of pampering and indulge in a well-earned massage while Cato saw to business.

Buoyed by thoughts of her imminent wind down, she decided to try and make the best of the trip. Perhaps it was a chance for her and Cato to reconnect. He’d been appallingly annoyed with her the past few days.

‘Oh, darling?’ She patted herself dry, taking time to do it sexily. In the mirror she caught her tanned, lithe twin, and was pleased with her reflection, sporting not an ounce of fat, the arms lean, the ass pert, her breasts high and round on her chest. How could he resist? She let the towel drop, tantalisingly slow.

Cato brought the watch closer to his face. ‘Come on, you dicky bugger...’

‘I’m cold now I’m out of the water...’

Still he didn’t tear his eyes from that blasted timepiece. ‘And?’

‘I was hoping you might warm me up.’

‘Go and stand by the radiator.’

Crossly Susanna collected the material and knotted it across her bust.

‘What’s eating you?’ she demanded.

‘You are,’ he strapped the mended watch to his wrist, finally engaged, ‘in about five seconds. Put your back into it this time, won’t you; that last blowjob you subjected me to was terribly lacklustre.’

Susanna’s mouth fell open.
Lacklustre?
She had always given a hundred per cent with Cato, even when she was tired and would really rather have nodded off, even when he took so long to come that her jaw seized up, even when bobbing up and down in his lap began to feel about as erotic as fellating a sausage roll.

Cato began unbuckling his trousers.

‘Unbelievable!’ Susanna threw on her dressing gown, knotting the cord fiercely across her waist, definite as a padlock.

‘What?’

‘Don’t you think you’ve got some making up to do?’ she snapped. ‘After today, that freak show of a boat, bringing me here—’

‘I didn’t ask you to come.’

‘I did it for you!’ she lied. Thinking of his uncle’s barge was enough to make her shudder. ‘Excuse
me
if I thought you might appreciate some support when it came to greeting your long-lost family. Isn’t that the sort of thing girlfriends do?’

Girlfriend.
It sounded so flimsy, so incidental...so dangerous.

‘For Christ’s sake, Mole, keep it down; that tyke of yours is next door.’

‘He’s fast asleep. I checked.’

‘Thank God for that. All that yabbering on the way over nearly split my head in two. Not to mention spraying the interior of my aircraft with that
Exorcist
gunk.’

‘Try to be reasonable. He’s a child.’

He snorted. ‘And who made you Mother of the Year?’

‘Jonty says I could be a great mom if I put my mind to it.’

Cato hooted a laugh. Susanna didn’t understand what was funny and in that cruel guffaw heard confirmation of her fears. No longer did Cato see her as the sexy, successful siren he had met, clapping eyes on her across the crowded pool patio of a friend’s Bel Air villa and deciding her beauty was
criminal
, and that anyone in possession of those kind of looks
needed taking down a peg or two
. How she had giggled at those arch British expressions, captivating him with her girlish charm, and they had fallen into bed later that evening, where Cato had proceeded to de-peg her for the duration of the night. Gone were those halcyon first forays. These days he was quick to ridicule, to dismiss her with a lash of the tongue or a snort of derision.

Was that why he hadn’t proposed? Because he had simply fallen out of...

She couldn’t bear to think it.

‘To hell with Jonty,’ he growled. Not normally one to admit defeat, he peevishly zipped his fly. ‘The man’s a joke.’

Was that it? Was Cato green about Jonty?

‘You’re jealous!’ she crowed triumphantly.

‘Of what? That beach ball you had sex with?’

‘You’re threatened.’

‘I’m never threatened.’

‘You can’t stand sharing me.’

‘I wouldn’t mind sharing you,’ he reached for room service and browsed for Eggs Florentine, ‘with a big-titted brunette. But we’ve talked about that, haven’t we?’

She balled her fists. ‘Can’t you take
anything
I say seriously?’

‘Not when you get hysterical.’

‘
I
am not hysterical!’

Cato snapped the menu shut so sharply she jumped.

‘I am not in the mood, Susanna,’ he warned. ‘All I want is supper, a shit and at least twenty minutes of seriously filthy sex. If you must know I don’t care a bit about whom you might or might not have dropped your knickers for before we became acquainted. All I’m concerned about right now is getting out of this dump as quickly as is humanly possible. The sooner the senile old goat gets whatever gibberish this is off his catarrhous chest, the sooner I can go home. I’m ordering for both of us.’

Sulkily Susanna plumped the pillows and rested against them, listening with her arms folded as Cato barked directions into the phone. His spinach was to be underdone and thoroughly drained, his yokes the colour of pumpkin, not apricot, and his muffin to be toasted golden but not brown, with both halves cut the same width.

‘What’s the betting Charles is staying with the gypos,’ Cato mused once he’d hung up. ‘He always was the pliable one.’

‘Pity him if he is.’ Susanna had a sneaking recollection of her post-party come-on and withered inside. Much of the night was a pickled blur but inconveniently Charles’ rejection remained, an itch beneath the skin.

He’d said
no
? Why? Whatever was wrong with her?

And more to the point, when had she become so damn insecure? It wasn’t just the absent engagement; it was her lover’s flash acceleration into the fast lane. Cato’s career was soaring from strength to strength—he had been tipped to star in titan Stanley Gooch’s new venture—-while her own had slowed to an almost stop. In the early days it had been the other way round.
She
had been in the coveted position: directors lunched her, producers craved her; gossip columns were rife with rumours of a new relationship, a sensational diet or a sought-after wardrobe.

Was she too old? Was the chick-flick dead? Was she dead with it?

She blinked her way into Cato’s monologue.

‘“Why can’t you be more like Charles?”’ His lips twisted into mimicry, his face distorted. ‘“Why can’t you be more sensitive, more thoughtful, more perceptive,
more like bloody Charles
?” Well, look how far sensitivity’s got him. To get ahead in this world you’ve got to be brutal! If Father could see me now he’d take it all back, he’d be eating his words. He’d tell us this trip was a waste of bloody time. He’d say Charles was a fool for chasing it. He’d be on
my
side.’

Susanna watched him. ‘Are you thinking about the letter?’

‘Absolutely not,’ he barked. ‘Why would I be?’

‘I don’t know.’

In truth
she
was thinking about the letter—she had hardly stopped thinking about it since they had set off from Usherwood. Was it another inheritance for Cato, another property, perhaps—this one a castle, or a mansion abroad?

He sighed deeply, pinched the bridge of his nose and lay down next to her.

‘Let’s not argue, Mole, hmm?’ Slowly he began to stroke the inside of her leg.

She saw he was hard through his jeans. Was it the promise of sex, or the anticipation of the Eggs Florentine? Cato really did like Eggs Florentine.

‘Do you love me, Cato?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Do you?’

‘I adore you.’

‘That’s not the same thing.’

I
don’t care a bit about whom you might have dropped your knickers for
...

Why
didn’t
he care?
She
certainly would if he had knocked up someone six years ago and one day presented her with a child to whom he was eternally indebted. The thought sent her frigid with envy. If another woman so much as
looked
at Cato in a way she didn’t like, Susanna would have no hesitation in wringing her neck.

‘Yes, then,’ he conceded.

‘Say it.’

‘What?’

‘Say you love me.’

He sighed. ‘I love you. There. Satisfied?’

She thawed, slightly. His hand slipped into her gown, tracing the outline of her breast, and then gave her nipple a sharp, unexpected pinch. She gasped.

‘You do know I’m going to be forced to tell you off,’ he breathed, ‘don’t you?’ A chain of kisses was planted very, very delicately across her neck. She was fully melted now, spilling to meet his touch. ‘Making me listen to every shade of nonsense when all we ought to be doing is fucking each other senseless.’

The cord on her gown was released with a sharp tug. Cato’s fingers trailed down her chest, her stomach, across her carefully tended strip of honey-coloured bush, and plunged into the wetness between her legs.

‘Oh, Cato...’ she moaned.

‘Open up, little piggy,’ he growled, ‘there’s a wolf at your door.’