Glittering Fortunes (20 page)

‘Orion’s Belt.’

‘Whatever. I’m spiritual.’ He held her shoulders. ‘I see beneath the surface of things. It just so happens that our getting together coincides with my deciding what direction my life should go in, right? And why shouldn’t it? It’s all connected, don’t you see? You’re part of that, Oli; you’re
part
of the direction.’

‘Things have changed, Addy. I’ve changed.’

‘If you’d rather I never mentioned the Lomaxes again, I won’t. Happy?’ He pouted. ‘I mean as a girlfriend it
would
be kind of cool if you shared it, and it couldn’t exactly do my prospects any
harm
, but none of that matters really because it’s you I want. It’s you. It’s you I want by my side as I take this journey.’

‘Not Thomasina?’

‘Nah,’ he rubbed his nose, ‘been there, done that.’

The words that weeks ago would have ripped her to shreds now met her with barely a ripple. She couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that escaped her throat.

‘What?’ He frowned.

‘Nothing.’

Addy puffed air out, imploring the sky as if he had mislaid his vocabulary up there. ‘The fact is, Oli, I’m putting myself on the line here. All signs point to you.’

‘That makes me sound like a cul-de-sac.’

‘You’re not a cul-de-sac.’

‘That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.’

She’d meant it as a joke, but probably it was true.

‘Be serious for second, would you? Why are you giving me such a hard time?’

‘I’m sorry, Addy, I don’t mean to. I just don’t think you’re listening to me.’

‘No,’ he objected, ‘you’re not listening to me. I
want
us to be together. Do you hear? I
want
it to be us. I
want
you by my side. You and me, Addy and Oli...’

His features came closer, his lips millimetres from hers.

‘I’m crazy about you...’

Abruptly she pulled back, and rested her hands on his chest.

‘OK, Addy,’ she conceded, and his face brightened, not surprised because he had known she would come round. She had always been sweet on him, good old reliable Oli who worshipped the ground he walked on.

Stepping from his hold, she said, ‘For the first time, shall I tell you what I want?’

Chapter Thirty-Two

T
HE
FUNERAL
TOOK
place on a muggy afternoon, in a churchyard overlooking the bluff. Clouds brooded, darkening menacingly over the sea. The sky growled with the onset of a storm. Branches tangled and ivy crept, and a pre-Raphaelite angel rose in prayer, one wing crumbled to dust. A crow came to rest on a crooked headstone, yellow eyes flicking across the mourners as it picked its way along the slab.

Olivia hadn’t deemed the couple to be advocates of turgid ceremonies, but the church had been Barnaby’s wish. Outside seemed a more apposite goodbye, the fresh air bracing and cold, and as the wooden box was lowered into the ground she heard Decca’s sob, a soft, sad song of a sob, her family huddling close. Olivia dipped her head in respect and caught a flash of blue hovering over the grass, its wings like lace.

I
look for her everywhere
...

She hoped that, wherever Barnaby was, he had found his sister at last.

Charlie was on the fringe of the congregation. Against the creepers he stood still as a tomb, as pallid as if he belonged in one. He was unshaven, his hair wild and unkempt. There was an absence about him, an uncanniness, as if he had been superimposed on to their backdrop and wasn’t really there at all.

They retired to the wake for hushed conversation and an unappetising spread of sandwiches and quiche. Olivia looked for Charlie but couldn’t find him, and after offering her condolences she headed down to the beach. The path from the road was a crooked arrangement of wooden planks meandering between profuse dark woodlands, arid shrubs and a fence of rickety posts, eventually disappearing into powdery sand. The tide was out, the sea a football pitch away, and Olivia spilled on to a vast stroke of pale beach. Grey sky whipped overhead. The air was raw in her lungs.

Rivulets threaded through the bay, slicing its canvas into waterlogged squares, knotted with lugworm trails and grit-filled shells. The path she had come in on had disappeared, swallowed by murky firs.

She put her hands in her pockets and looked out to sea. A figure stood at the shore, lonely and dwarfed, a fleck of paint on a sprawling landscape.

It took minutes to reach him. When she did he made no acknowledgement, just carried on watching the water as it rolled in on its endless, shapeless tide.

‘So I found out,’ he said, feeding a hand into his coat and retrieving a scrap of paper. ‘I’ve known all week. It’s me.’

She read it.

‘Cato got hold of it,’ he continued hollowly. ‘He left it on the boat. I picked it up the night Barnaby died... We came back from the hospital and there it was.’

‘Bloody hell, Charlie.’ She gripped the letter. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

Olivia pictured the question as an epitaph, inscribed on his headstone, fitting for a man who spoke only when there was something worth saying—and even then with the sense that words were futile, pebbles being thrown into a wide bottomless lake, a disturbance on the surface before nothing. Punctuation marks on silence.

‘Pretending for a few days more?’ he answered. ‘I don’t know. Now I let it go, it’s really happening. I can’t believe it’s happening.’

Her arms dropped by her sides. ‘Neither can I.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I saw it coming.’ His voice skidded before righting itself. ‘I’ll go away for a while. I can’t be there when Cato comes back to live.’

‘You can’t leave.’ She couldn’t think of Usherwood without him, of the cove without him. He belonged to Lustell as much as the sea.

‘Can’t I?’ The wind picked up. Finally he gave her his face. ‘It’s been a fake, hasn’t it? All of it. That house was never mine, my father was never mine, and now what do I do? Who do I talk to? Who gives me answers? No one. There’s nobody there. Years of devotion, and what it amounts to is a fucking illusion—a waste, a complete and utter fucking waste.’

‘You can’t think like that—’

‘How am I supposed to think? What would you think? Come on, since it’s so easy looking in from the outside, since you haven’t a clue what I’m going through or what I’m dealing with, why not tell me what you think?’

She ignored it. He was angry.

‘Cato can’t take it from you,’ she said, but even as the words flew out they died on the ground; it wasn’t true. ‘He won’t make you go.’

‘Before this blew up I was already under orders, and do you know what the funny thing is, the really funny thing? There I was hoping this trip might iron things out; that maybe for once luck was on my side and whatever this was could help my situation.’ He laughed joylessly. ‘I can imagine most things but never in my life did I imagine this. The final twist in my and Cato’s story, and I’m not hanging around for the curtain. I’ve had enough. It’s over.’

He started walking. Olivia chased after him.

‘Running away isn’t the answer.’

‘Isn’t it? There’s nothing to stay for.’

‘I’ve seen your photographs,’ she blurted. ‘They’re wonderful. You’re talented, Charlie, really talented. You could do something with this.’ Her thoughts ran away with her, anything to stop him leaving. ‘We could speak to Sackville Grey—’

‘Wasn’t once enough?’

‘What?’

‘The first time you went through my stuff—wasn’t that enough?’

‘I didn’t mean to pry,’ she floundered, ‘I was—’

‘It’s a stupid waste of time and I don’t need you patronising me about it. You had no right. It isn’t your business.’

He started walking, stopped and came back again.

‘Come to think of it,’ he flashed, ‘none of this is any of your business. You must think you’ve hit the jackpot. Biggest scandal the cove has ever seen and here you are right at the heart of it. I’m sure it’ll be a fine story to tell your friends.’

‘You don’t believe that of me.’

‘What are you even doing here, Olivia? Why are you wasting your time? You should have gone back with the others. In fact you shouldn’t have bothered coming in the first place, I never wanted you here.’

Her face torched. She wanted to slap him but she didn’t want to hurt him. She never wanted to hurt him. Every word she choked on. What she was feeling was too big to express, too much and too different to make sense of.

‘I wanted to stay for Decca,’ she said. ‘And...’

‘And what?’

‘And for you.’ The words were thick, tied together with rope, a knotted cord being pulled from her throat one notch at a time. ‘I wanted to stay for you.’

His expression flickered, open and closed too fast to catch hold of.

‘That’s a funny way of showing it, running off the minute your ex-boyfriend shows up.’

‘It wasn’t like that. And he isn’t my ex-boyfriend.’

‘Your boyfriend, then.’

‘He isn’t that either.’

‘I’ll tell you what he is. He’s a spoiled, selfish kid who will never see you for what you are. He’ll never see you like I do. You’re a fool if you think he cares about you. You’re blind to the person he is. So don’t go telling me how I should run my affairs when you haven’t got the first idea how to run yours.’

She was close to tears. ‘I’ll stay out of your business if you stay out of mine. Sound fair?’

He gripped her shoulders. The sky opened. Thick splashes sprinkled the sand with pockets of dark.

‘Leave me alone.’ She tried to tug free.

‘What if I have something to say?’

‘You couldn’t say the right thing if you tried.’

‘Just because I don’t voice it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Why do you have to talk so much anyway? Why does talking have to be the beginning and the end of a thought, as if it can’t exist by itself and you have to catch it and pin it to the wall, so you can examine it from every single angle till you’re satisfied? If I have something to say to you then I’ll say it; if I don’t, I won’t.’

His hair was wet. A raindrop gathered in his top lip.

‘You said I hadn’t got a clue,’ she threw back. ‘What if I do? What if I know what it’s like to lose something, to face every day with a hole in my heart? You don’t know a thing about my life so don’t pretend to know me now.’

‘I know I can’t trust anyone, but I do trust you,’ he said. ‘I know you miss your dad, even though you never talk about him. I know that necklace you wear is a gift from your mother, and you keep them both inside it, and if you had to save one thing in your world that would be it. I know you love my dogs and you brought my garden back to life. I know that when you get a splinter you know how to take it out with a needle and hot water and you never make a fuss. I know you can ride a bike faster than most boys. I know when you pour a cup of tea you put the milk in first, which I find really irritating by the way. I know you made the dress you wore at my brother’s party and I know I’ve never seen anyone look so beautiful. I know you know where the Lustell Cove treasure is buried because when you were small you drew a map that took us to it, and I know that for longer than you realise I’ve wanted to find it with you. I know I like your teeth, and your laugh, and your eyebrows. I know I want to take your picture, but at the same time I don’t because you’re the only person I can think of who should never be still, you should never be caught, you should always be free. I know I want to keep you from the cold. I know I don’t want to be a stranger any more. I know I want to kiss you every day for the rest of your life; more, for all the days I’ve missed. I know you’re the most amazing girl I’ve never known. And I know that might be all I’ll ever know, because you’ll go back to London and I’ll move away and there won’t be Usherwood between us any more. I know this whole thing’s useless because I don’t have anything left that I can give you, and I know, after this, it’ll be easier on me if we don’t see each other again.’

She searched his changed face, open for the very first time, at last without shadow or shade, without darkness, only light. Perfect.

‘Usherwood releases you,’ he finished. ‘I don’t need you any more.’

He walked away. The rain came down.

Part Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

B
AD
WEATHER
CHASED
him all the way back to Cornwall. Charlie left late at night, hailstones pounding the windscreen from a black and inscrutable sky, the motorway an endless bleed of melting lights. Olivia had already gone.

With the aftershock of Barnaby’s news had settled a kind of detachment, enabling him to make the journey with a heart full of steel. By the time dawn broke across a wide West Country sky, the sight of Usherwood didn’t rip him in two as he had thought it might. Instead he regarded it steadily, as a bruised, beloved building that never had and never would belong to him. They had been guardians of each other for a while, that was all. Usherwood was Cato’s now, to do with as he pleased.

A removal van was parked outside, a man loading crates in the pouring rain. The fountain wall had been smashed on one side where Cato’s car had reversed into it—the Bentley’s bumper confessed to a crumpled dent—and its bricks were dissolving.

‘What’s this?’

‘Junk, according to ’im indoors.’

Charlie lifted the flap on one of the boxes. He recognised his own clothes, several books and his stash of journals. The picture of Penny from his bureau drawer.

‘Have you taken anything away?’

‘This is the first load. Plenty more to come, apparently.’

‘Would you hold off a second?’

The man winced up at the glaring sky. ‘I’m not hangin’ about, mate.’

‘Five minutes, that’s all.’

With an unhappy grunt he hauled open the door to the cab and climbed inside. ‘Whatever you say.’ It slammed behind him.

Charlie faced the arched entrance, rain driving across his vision. The dogs bounded in before him, excited to reclaim their territory, making a beeline for the kitchen and their usual feeding spots, ensuring all was as they’d left it.

It wasn’t. The hall was unrecognisable, piled high with cardboard. He checked another package and this time recognised his mother’s belongings: her lilac dressing gown, a casket of hair pins, a framed picture of Cato and Charlie before they returned to Harrow. A handkerchief he remembered Barbara sewing, bearing her initials.

Cato wasn’t just clearing his brother out, he was clearing out the attic and with it Usherwood’s history: the totems of the past, all reminders of the mother who had soiled the Lomax name. For Charlie, it was harder to let go. Beatrice was all he had left, the only thing he had to hold on to. Without her he was rudderless.

Sigmund and Comet circled his legs, looking up for reassurance that he couldn’t give. Outside, the downpour slashed furiously against the panes, whistles of chill needling through the stonework and down the chimneys.

‘Mr Lomax?’

Barbara appeared at the foot of the stairs, a crumpled tissue in her hand. Her cheeks were red from crying. ‘Please tell me it isn’t true.’

He wrenched the words from his gut. ‘It’s true.’

‘It can’t be.’ Her face was drained. ‘I refuse to believe it. Her ladyship was... She would never have... There has to be some mistake, Mr Lomax, there has to be...’

‘There isn’t.’

Barbara came towards him, enveloping him in her arms. He stood rigid as a pole, her soft hair beneath his chin, scented like Parma Violets.

‘I can’t understand it.’ Her voice was stifled against his jumper.

‘Did you know?’

‘No,’ her answer was instant, ‘and you must never doubt it. All those years I never thought, I never would have once suspected...’ She drew back. ‘I promise you.’

‘You would tell me if you knew who he was...’

A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye. ‘My loyalty is yours, Mr Lomax; it always has been. If I had so much as an inkling I swear I would not keep it to myself. I’ve been racking my brains trying to find a clue, something I might have missed; anything she might have said, anything to help you find your...’ She swallowed. ‘I wish I could help you, my darling. I wish I could make it better.’

He found it impossible to look at her. ‘Cato’s here?’

‘Upstairs. It’s been a dreadful week. They’re planning to make the move quicker than we thought. Cato wants to be in by the end of the month. I tried to stop them clearing your things, but he won’t listen...’ Barbara averted her gaze. ‘After all, what am I but the housekeeper, and after this who knows for how much longer... He’ll let me go, I know he will. What with Arthur being at home I can’t afford to lose this job. This house means so much to me.’ Her voice cracked.

Charlie put a hand on her cheek. ‘I won’t let that happen.’

* * *

T
HE
STORM
GREW
louder as he mounted the stairs. Usherwood shook precariously on its higher levels, windows rattling and shuddering, and channels of cold ribboning through the vaults. He wondered how Cato would take care of the place. Electing not to do the work himself, he would hire in an army: one that spent a morning at most in the grounds, and whose creative direction would alter its character completely. Did Cato care about that? Would Charlie come to visit ten years from now, and find it had been bulldozed, or ransacked, or turned into a hotel, a spa resort, a theme park?

With Susanna in charge, anything could happen.

He heard her voice before he saw her.

‘How about this one?’

She was at Beatrice’s wardrobe, holding a sweeping gown to her chin and turning to appraise her reflection. Cato sat at the dressing table browsing through a jewellery box, and extracting bracelets with the exactitude of a surgeon.

‘Was your mother terribly fat?’ Susanna asked, bunching the material. ‘If I keep this we’re going to need to consult a
very
expensive tailor.’

‘Depends if she got knocked up again,’ Cato replied, holding a pair of cufflinks to the light to inspect their hallmark. ‘It’s always a possibility, I suppose...’

Charlie stepped in. ‘Excuse me for interrupting.’

‘Oh, look,’ Cato said, not looking, ‘a visitor. Good trip back, old bean?’

‘Where do you get off chucking my things?’

‘I’d rather assumed you’d be moving on.’

‘Nothing like striking while the iron’s hot, is there, Cato?’

‘Don’t be sensitive; there’s a good chap. Forgive me if I thought you might find the process painful. It’s like packing up a dead person’s home, isn’t it? Can’t be easy at the best of times. Let me shoulder some of the responsibility.’

‘There’s a first time for everything.’

‘Come now,’ he drawled, twirling the links between his fingers, like the gem-encrusted knuckles of a tyrant king. ‘I know this isn’t easy. Why not stop with us for a few nights? I’m not heartless, Charles; I’m not turfing you out on the street. We can put you up in the servants’ quarters, can’t we? Mole will sort it out. Get a fan heater going in there and a spot of air freshener; it’ll be as good as new.’

Susanna’s eyes slid towards the brothers, pretending not to be interested.

‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve made arrangements. And I’d appreciate looking after my own belongings. I’ll organise them as and when I see fit.’

‘As you wish.’

‘Mother’s too—her clothes, possessions, everything. There are things that are important to me; things I want to keep.’

‘Where?’ Cato couldn’t resist. ‘In your father’s paddock?’

‘You came this close.’ Charlie pinched a slice of air. ‘
This close
, Cato. Consider that for a moment.’

His brother smirked. ‘It’s considered.’

‘You’re loving this, aren’t you?’

‘Whatever makes you say that?’ A bracelet dripped from Cato’s fingers. Slowly he released it, the chain pooling on to dark velvet.

‘And another thing: you’ll keep Barbara on.’

Cato snorted. ‘Will I?’

‘She has nowhere else.’

‘And exactly how is that my problem?’

‘If you don’t make it your problem then I will.’

His brother shot him an alligator grin. ‘So easily wound up, Charles. Don’t you ever trust me to do the right thing?’ He plucked a ring from the casket. ‘There’s a fortune in here if you find the right seller. Couldn’t you have pawned some of it off? It might have helped your money troubles no end.’

‘I’ve parted with enough, and not through choice. Everything you see, our mother held dear. That’s her engagement ring right there.’

‘A fine omen that turned out to be.’ Cato chucked it back into the coffer, snapping it shut with a tight
click
.

‘She wasn’t all to blame.’

‘My father was too good for her.’

‘He made her life hell.’

‘She castrated him.’

‘He did the same.’

‘Do you think she ended it?’ Cato toyed with him as he had when they were children, planting an idea and watching with interest as its dark implications flourished. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it; you’ve questioned it as much as I have. She took herself down in the plane that day and she decided to take Daddy with her. Just like Barnaby said.’

‘Just keep your fucking mouth shut.’

‘Now, now, don’t go overreacting. You always did take things to heart.’

‘Watch what you say, or I swear to God I’ll...’

‘It must be why you insist upon keeping the remnants of a lying, conniving tart. Then again you’re fond of a tart, aren’t you? That ex-girlfriend of yours—’

Charlie punched him. With all the strength he had, with all the hate and all the pain and all the anger Cato had heaped his way, he launched a swing and smacked it straight back into his brother’s jaw. The impact had been a long time coming and was delivered with a deep fierce smack that lifted Cato clean from his chair and sent him crashing like a rag doll against the window. It was the first time Charlie had struck him. At the end of his crunched fist his brother felt smaller and weaker than the giant he had made him. In the flesh Cato was just a man, and a slighter man than he was.

‘Darling!’ Susanna bolted to his side. She whirled on Charlie. ‘Are you
insane
?’ she shrieked. ‘Have you lost your
mind
?’

‘I’ve never been thinking so clearly.’

Cato’s lip was bleeding. Deranged, he fronted to full height, squaring for a brawl, but the twitch by his eye betrayed a realisation. They were no longer boys, thumping each other on the lawns or in the back of Richmond’s car. He was no longer ten, his brother no longer five. Gone were the days when he could attack without risk of retaliation. Charlie’s muscular chest was concrete. Words were the safer bet.

‘Don’t you ever speak of Penny like that again,’ said Charlie. ‘Ever.’

Cato tasted the iron of his blood. ‘Get out, Mole.’

‘Why? Who’s Penny?’

‘Do it.’ He didn’t take his eyes from Charlie. ‘I will not ask you again.’

Obediently she retreated.

‘You killed her, Cato. Admit it.’

‘Never,’ he spat.

‘Admit that you killed her. Admit that Penny didn’t stand a chance. Admit that stealing her from me wasn’t enough; that you had to steal the breath from her lungs before you were satisfied, and even then you didn’t have the balls to look yourself in the mirror and confess to what you’d done.’

‘She left you of her own accord.’

‘She did. And your affair was something I could eventually have got my head around. Maybe I could even have come to terms with her death. But your denial... No, never that. Of all the debts you owe me, that one’s the hardest to bear.’

‘I owe you nothing.’

‘If that’s what you truly believe then you’re more fucked up than I gave you credit for. You’re so deluded you don’t even know what day it is.’

‘Oh, I do.’ Cato’s voice was smooth as a snake. ‘Today’s the day when you’re not welcome here any more. Get out of my house, Charles, and never come back.’

‘Do you know the one good thing to come out of this?’ Charlie leaned in. ‘I’ll tell you.
I’m less your brother than I was before.
’

‘Without me you’re nothing. A farmer’s bastard.’

‘But an honest one.’

‘You’re going the right way for a rucking, old boy. Don’t make me hurt you.’

‘Go right ahead,’ said Charlie, rising against him. ‘Do your worst. After everything we’ve been through, whatever you do, however hard you fight, however you make me bleed, you can be sure of one thing: you can’t touch me. You can’t touch what’s important, Cato, because I hid that from you so long ago that you wouldn’t know where to start looking for it.’

Cato clenched his fists. He considered combat, asked what for. He had won. Charles had lost. That was all. ‘You’re not worth it,’ he rasped, turning away.

Before he could, Charlie grabbed his collar. He pulled his brother up close. He could smell Cato’s breath, sour with tobacco, and the sharp tang of fear.

‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘
You’re
not worth it. You never were. You’re a liar, Cato. A liar and a coward and a murderer, and when you lie in bed at night I hope to hell you know that one day everything you’ve done, all the hurt you’ve inflicted and all the damage you’ve caused, will be revisited on you tenfold. And when it is, you had better pray you’ve got people around who care a damn about what happens to you—because I’m telling you now, I won’t be one of them.’