Glittering Fortunes (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

F
LORENCE
L
ARK
’
S
CARAVAN
roof shuddered in the howling wind. It had never been a structure adept in coping with the elements, and as Olivia lay on her bed, staring dazedly up at the ceiling and listening to the incessant lash of the rain, she pondered if it might not collapse in on her, and whether she’d much care if it did.

‘Aren’t you going to get up?’ Florence put her head round the door and lifted a concerned eyebrow. ‘It’s gone eleven.’

‘Mmm.’

‘You don’t look well, darling. Have you got a fever?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Try to eat something... I could make you cheese on toast?’

‘I’m just tired, Mum.’ She turned to face the wall.

The mattress yielded with the weight of her mother’s bottom.

‘Come on, pumpkin,’ Florence said. ‘Spill the beans.’

‘There are no beans.’

‘Ever since you got back from Norfolk you’ve been casting about like the war-wounded. What’s the matter? You can tell me.’

‘I already have,’ she replied flatly. ‘I’m worried about Decca.’

‘In that case let’s invite her to stay. A change of scene might be just what she needs, and I’d be happy to show her round the cove.’ Florence stroked her daughter’s back. ‘I think it’s lovely you’re so concerned, but Decca’s got people around her and that’s what matters most at a time like this.’

There was a pause before Flo continued carefully, ‘And I know you’ve become involved in this Lomax affair, but darling, it isn’t your responsibility.’

Various terms had been used around the town to describe the outrage:
affair
,
sensation
,
scandal
,
shocker
, the list went on. Doubtless there would be more to come with the nationals getting hold of the story. Soon it would be everywhere. With Cato’s removal team charging up and down the Usherwood drive it had been about as subtle as a call to the editor’s desk. Maybe he had done that as well, just to be sure.

‘If you’re worried about your job, I’m sure Charles will keep you on.’

‘Charlie won’t be living there any more.’

The stroking stopped. ‘Ah.’

‘He said he never wanted to see me again.’

There was a longer pause this time, and a longer, ‘Aah.’

‘We fell out.’

‘I see.’

Olivia sat up, as if besieged by a startling idea. ‘I don’t know what to do about it, Mum. He’s so difficult, and confusing, and he makes me so mad, and sometimes I absolutely can’t stand him and other times I just have to be with him, and it’s all so complicated and why can’t things ever be easy? His whole life’s imploded, everything he counted on, and he thinks I don’t get it and maybe I don’t, maybe I can’t, but at least I could try, and I could try to be his friend. But he says he doesn’t want that either, he says he doesn’t want anyone and most of the time I believe him, but then some of the things he said to me I can’t ever forget, not ever, and he must have meant them because I saw it in his eyes, I heard it and I felt it, and I wish he’d given me a chance because I never got to tell him; I never got to tell him that I feel it too...’

Her mother looked at her sideways. ‘It?’

Olivia slumped back on to the pillow. The wind moaned. She dragged the blanket up under her chin.

‘You know what it is.’

Florence slid her a glance. ‘I do. So where does that leave you?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Yes, you do. You’re my daughter. You’ll find a solution.’

* * *

S
HE
DID
. S
HE
called Beth.

The girls arranged to meet at the Anchor. They hadn’t been in touch since the night of the party. Olivia was nervous about seeing her again. What if things were different? What if they couldn’t get their friendship back on track? She couldn’t consider it. She needed Beth now more than ever.

The pub was packed with beachgoers taking shelter from the weather, and the odour of ales, anoraks and warming smoke proved a welcome haven from the bluster. Olivia got drenched on the way over and spread her coat by the fire to dry it out. She bought them both drinks, found a tucked-away table, and sat anxiously watching the clock. When Beth arrived she was equally bedraggled, a blustered, chill-blown figure hurrying through the door and flapping out her umbrella.

Hesitant across the crowded room, the girls exchanged a cautious, regretful smile. When they hugged, Olivia wanted to cry with relief.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Beth told her. ‘I’ve wanted to call you every day but I was too ashamed. I didn’t think you’d pick up—I mean
I
wouldn’t speak to me if I were you. I behaved so awfully. I should never have taken my problems out on you.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘No, it isn’t. I said some horrible things that night and I didn’t mean any of them. You’re my best friend, Oli, and I don’t ever want that to change. I was upset and I lashed out at you and I regret it. Please forgive me.’

‘Of course I forgive you. And anyway you were right—about Addy, at least.’

‘I heard he followed you. What happened?’

‘I told him where to go.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes. I said I wanted more from my life than what he could give me. I said I deserved better. That I’d felt that way about him once but that I didn’t any more.’

‘Wow.’ Beth winced. ‘What did he say?’

‘His ego was wounded. I’m not sure if he was.’

‘I’m proud of you. I really, really am.’

‘Oh, he never liked me properly.’ Olivia sipped her pint. ‘I mean there I was, waiting my whole life for Addy to fall in love with me, and in the end it came down to that. It’s like suddenly I opened my eyes. I saw the light. I realised it didn’t have to be like that, pining after the same person just because that was what I got used to.’

‘Hear hear.’

‘And anyway, this whole acting bag—how can I take it seriously? Remember when Addy wanted to “sign up” to NASA? Like it was an after-school chess club or something. Or when he said he had to go find himself in Africa building shelters for refugees and teaching kids how to speak English—that never happened, did it? Or when he wanted to join the army but then he realised there wouldn’t be anyone on camp to do his highlights every month, not that we’re allowed to talk about that...’

Beth laughed. Olivia joined her. There was an easy, happy silence.

‘Gossip’s rife around town,’ said Beth. ‘D’you want to tell me what happened?’

Olivia filled her friend in on Norfolk and the boat, Decca and Barnaby, Susanna and Thorn, deliberately skirting the edges of the Lomax exposé because it felt disloyal to be jumping on the tabloid bandwagon. She had ignored the turning heads when she’d entered the pub, as if she had now been inducted into the clique.

‘Is he OK?’ Beth asked. ‘How’s he bearing up?’

‘I haven’t seen him since we got back.’

Impish, she narrowed her eyes. ‘Something happened, didn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘But you wanted it to. Shit, are you serious,
Charlie Lomax
?’

‘Shh.’ Olivia batted her down.

‘Or should I say, Charlie whatever-his-name-is.’

‘That’s not funny.’

‘I know it’s not. It’s totally awful. What a minx that Beatrice turned out to be.’ Lightly she punched Olivia’s arm. ‘And what a minx
you
are—Addy showing up to whisk you off your feet on top of everything else. Did they fight over you?’

‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘I know, I’m only messing.’

Olivia changed the subject. She didn’t want to talk about Charlie any more. Her head was full of him. Her heart was full of him.

‘What’s happening with Archie?’

Beth grimaced. ‘I’ve been doing all I can to raise the money. We’re nowhere near.’ She thought twice, before admitting, ‘I even signed up for the Surfathon.’

Olivia nearly spat out her drink. ‘You
what
?’

The Lustell Cove Surfathon was infamous. In just a few days the biggest wave of the season was tagged to hit their shores, a crazy anomaly of swell conditions and Atlantic tides, and the contest was on for who had the guts to ride it. She and Beth had toyed with the idea in previous years but had always ducked out last-minute: they were good but they weren’t that good. This was the playground of the kamikaze.

‘I know.’ Beth smiled wryly. ‘One of us finally did it.’

‘Have you lost your mind? You’ll kill yourself!’

‘I had to do something, didn’t I?’ Beth bristled in defence. ‘I wasn’t going to sit about feeling sorry for myself, waiting for you to come home so I could moan about it some more—and only that if you were speaking to me, which I convinced myself you weren’t. I had to raise funds somehow so this is what I did. I’ve had loads of sponsors already and it’ll get me about a third of the way there—’

‘You don’t have to do it.’

‘I’m not teetering on the ledge of a New York high rise, Oli, and there’s no way I’m letting everyone down. They’ve already paid me. I can’t back out. You know what? The cove’s been brilliant. Fiona and Wilson pledged me two hundred quid! And Saffron on the Sea were really generous, too.’ She paused, blushed a shade. ‘
And,’
she added shyly, ‘you’ll never guess who else has got involved...?’

Olivia raised her eyebrows.

‘Sackville. Oh, my God I’ve been
dying
to tell you. I was so nervous going to see him but he was so sweet, he totally got it. He grew up with horses and he knows just what they mean. We’ve got tons in common. We talked for ages, and, well...’

‘What? Come on!’

‘He’s taking me out for dinner this Friday!’

‘Oh, Beth, that’s wonderful.’ She grinned. ‘I’m so pleased for you.’

Her friend was shining. ‘Thanks.’

‘But look.’ Olivia fumbled in her bag for a piece of paper, which she handed over, folded in half. ‘I meant it when I said you didn’t have to do the Surfathon.’

‘What is this?’

‘Open it.’

Beth did as instructed. She stared at the cheque for several seconds.

‘Did you win the lottery or something?’

‘No. I looked after a kid for a very rich woman who’s too lazy to do it herself.’

She passed it back. ‘I can’t accept it.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s an insane amount of money. You’re insane to give it to me.’

‘No, I’m not. I can’t think of a better thing to put it towards.’

‘Oli, come on...’

‘Don’t you know it’s rude to return a present?’

‘What about the move back to town? A deposit on a flat in London, all the stuff you talked about?’

‘I don’t know if I want that any more. I need to figure a few things out.’

‘There’s no way. Please. It’s too much.’

‘It isn’t.’

The cheque dangled forlornly between them. When Olivia thought of her time in Norfolk she ached, deep inside. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘I don’t want it.’

‘You make it sound like blood money.’

‘In some ways it is.’ Olivia put her hand over her friend’s, the paper tucked inside. She remembered her reasons for agreeing to the trip and realised the truth. ‘Take it, Beth. It’ll make me happy. Pay the Feenys off and put this whole thing behind you. That’s why I did it, that’s why I went to Norfolk in the first place, because I wanted to do this for you and I want you to be OK. OK?’

Beth’s eyes sprang with tears. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Thanks?’

‘Thanks. And I love you.’

‘I love you, too.’

‘And if there’s ever anything I can do in return, anything at all, you know you only have to ask.’ She smiled. ‘But you knew that anyway, right?’

Olivia leaned on the table, her chin in the palm of her hand.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘there is one thing. It’s about Sackville’s gallery...’

Chapter Thirty-Five

C
OME
THE
END
of the week, Susanna was settling into her new address nicely. Before Norfolk she had been a guest at Usherwood—an important one, yes, but still a guest—but since their return she had felt integral to Cato’s life, his staunch companion where so much else blew away. Now it was starting to feel properly like home.

The added press attention cemented their golden couple status. People were referring to them as the new Wills and Kate, which was deeply agreeable; and studios were sniffing round her again. Jennifer called daily with news of a fresh opportunity: a make-up giant was pursuing her as the face of their age-defiance range; a TV channel wanted to film the relocation to England, maybe even live with the couple in Cornwall for a while; a major publisher had been in touch about her penning a book on traditional British interiors. It seemed she and Cato could do no wrong.

Once she signed on Howard Brice’s dotted line, Susanna would begin packing up her LA pad—she hadn’t told Cato this yet, he had far too much else to think about—but she felt certain that his big proposal had to be just around the corner.

Descending the stairs on Friday night (Cato was indulging in a bath of Susanna’s remedial lavender beads because his shoulders were tense), she stopped at a portrait of the former Lady Lomax, and put her hands on her hips.

‘You naughty girl,’ she chided it. ‘What
were
you getting up to?’

The portrait returned her inquisition. In it Beatrice was seated, a sleek-snouted greyhound resting at her feet. Behind her spread a yawning forest, from which the twin spires of Usherwood could be seen breaking the surface, shapely as the peaks on a pronounced top lip. Her face was porcelain, the chin neat and the cheekbones sharp. Undeniably she was alluring, in a brittle, English way, and Susanna found herself wondering about this farmer of hers, someone she painted as rugged and thick with the hand span of a gorilla; a frantic love maker formed of fire while her husband cradled the dormouse coiled between his legs, as cold as an empty bed in winter.

Soon it would be Susanna’s own likeness on the wall. The thought was a thrill. Perhaps she would replace this one, for its scrutiny made her uneasy. Would Cato commission it for their wedding day? To whom would they bestow the charge? She was keen to depart from these starchy formal studies, opt for a freer pose that heralded a new generation of Lomax women. Reclining on a chaise longue, draped in a sheet? In ardent embrace with her bare-chested beau? Riding an ivory stallion, her hair blowing in the wind, as Cato the rugged woodsman gazed on?

What a kick it would be.

She wafted downstairs, enjoying the peace. No more Charles, no more dogs, no more frumpy Baps letting down the image. Who knew, in a couple of years’ time she and Cato might even have a family of their own. While Thorn was undeniably a darling he was still a boy, and in her heart of hearts Susanna craved a dolly-sweet daughter whose hair she could plait and who she would dress in frilly white ankle socks and who wouldn’t cause any mess, or charge about like a torpedo, or adhere molluscs to the palm of her hand when she was trying to eat her breakfast.

Of course she pitied the housekeeper but there was nothing else for it. Dead weight had to be cut. If only Cato would see sense about that cook.

‘We need
someone
to prepare meals for us, don’t we?’ Cato had argued when she’d complained about Caggie staying on. ‘Who else is going to do it? You’re hardly Michel Roux.’ Admittedly Susanna was no maestro in the kitchen—the most she’d managed was emptying a bag of salad leaves into a bowl: that was what caterers were for—but wasn’t there an alternative? She didn’t even like Caggie’s cuisine, it was so carb-heavy she felt as if she were a turkey being fattened up for Christmas, and she disliked the chef even more. Unfortunately Cato had a soft spot for his childhood nanny, and Susanna would have to play prudent if she were to get her way.

Trying her best to remain buoyant, she drifted into the scullery. Caggie was at the sink, brushing plates.

‘I think I’ll head to bed now,’ Susanna trilled, ‘it’s been an awfully tiring day. Make me a camomile infusion and bring it up, would you?’ She wanted a camomile infusion less than she wanted to give Caggie an order.

Caggie wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. ‘All right.’

Pleased at her ability to pull rank, Susanna contemplated her theme. ‘Cato’ll be out of the tub by now, I wouldn’t want to keep him waiting...’

‘Certainly not.’

‘I mean,’ she sidled along the counter, ‘when you’re in a relationship as sensual as mine, it’s impossible to keep your hands off each other. Cato’s a tiger.’

‘Is he really?’

‘We’re addicted to each other.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘He can’t help himself, you know.’ A thought popped into Susanna’s head and she ran with it, like a blind person into a river. ‘Sometimes he just wants to tear me right open and dive inside and wear my skin like a coat!’ Ugh, that sounded horrible. It was less
Sleepless in Seattle
and more
The Silence of the Lambs
. She wished she’d never said it—Cato certainly hadn’t. ‘What I mean,’ she clarified quickly, beneath the cook’s astonished glare, ‘is that ours is a very
physical
partnership.’

Caggie dried her hands on a towel and tossed it to one side. ‘Believe it or not,’ she said, ‘I’ve no interest in the ins and outs of your sex life.’

‘Of which there are
plenty
,’ Susanna replied smugly. ‘I guess you wouldn’t know what that’s like, being on your own and all.’

Caggie turned her back. ‘No,’ she mused, ‘I don’t suppose I would.’

There it was again—that tone!

Clearly Caggie imagined that she staked some claim to Usherwood, by virtue of her long service, and saw Susanna as a frittery amusement that would soon be cast to the wind. Logically she was jealous. What was she but an aged, frustrated spinster? Here Susanna was, passionately in love with the devilishly sexy Cato Lomax, and set to take her throne as Lady of Usherwood—-probably what Caggie had always wanted.

If Cato refused to put Caggie in her place, then Susanna most certainly would.

She stormed upstairs, deciding she would refuse to drink the tea even if Caggie did bring it, on the possibility it could be laced with arsenic.

She passed the portrait of Beatrice, climbed a couple of steps, stopped, turned back and stood in front of it. Susanna lifted the frame from its moorings, spitting out dust, and propped it gently against the panelling.

She brushed off her hands. Something was still not right.

With a final heave she turned it to the wall.

* * *

T
HE
QUALITY
OF
night at Usherwood was profound. It was the inkiest black to wake to, close and thick as liquid. Into it and into it you could stare, watching for a shape in the cloak, waiting for an outline to surface, no detail decipherable in the absolute pitch.

Susanna fumbled for her cell and its green display light bathed the room in a sickly, incongruous hue. She groped for Cato but he wasn’t there.

‘Cato?’ she whispered.

The emerald tinge made the room appear like some Gothic nightmare, or the bowels of a lunatic inventor’s laboratory. She rooted for the switch and the space was flooded abruptly, painfully, with white light. Shielding her eyes, Susanna listened with acute concentration, sorting sounds like marbles from a jar as she tuned into a frequency beyond the moan of the gale.

Two a.m.: the ghost’s hour! Susanna yanked the blankets to her chin. Panic filled her like oil. The wail swam at her with grim predictability, thin as a thread through a needle as it weaved between the hectic loops of the squall. She locked on to the door, counting the seconds before the handle turned, and imagined the gnarled hand on the other side, skin paper-thin, gripping with sinister intent...

Quick and brave as a ripped-off plaster, she flung herself from the bed. Throwing on her dressing gown she flew to the door and eased it a crack, pressing her ear to the gap. A cold mustiness assailed her. The wail was louder out here, and tinnier, but still so far away—that sad, sad song of exquisite agony.

Warily she peeled the door open. Moonlight flooded the hall, the floorboards a silver lake that swam around her naked feet. The gale was playing tricks, whistling close to her ear one second and flashing through a distant hollow the next.

And then, there it was.

Straight away she saw. A scream climbed from Susanna’s stomach into her throat and she had to clamp a hand to her mouth to stop it winging free.

The portrait of Lady Lomax had turned.

She flattened herself against the wall, terror circling like a giant bird.

There the picture was, exactly where she had left it—only now it faced out, the wrong way round, a macabre switch whose subject eyed her beadily in the pearly glow, daring her to approach. It was...
alive
. In the melting dark the face of Beatrice Lomax morphed and dissolved, still one minute and animated the next.

The realisation hit her like a slap.

The ghost had been Beatrice all along! Wretched, cursed Beatrice with her lover and her forbidden son and the covetous husband who kept her chained to the marriage like a bear to a post. Of all the people to haunt Usherwood, of all the people with unfinished business, it made absolute sense that it should be her. Beatrice had been tethered to the estate in life and so she had in death. Somehow Susanna had pitched into that dread; perhaps Beatrice had known her secret wasn’t long for the shadows, and pleaded with someone to hear her lonely cry? Susanna had. Only she had been privy to the calls in the night, the warning and the grief...

The howling grew intense, rising and falling and flipping like a paper bag on the wind. Susanna put her hands out, seizing pockets of dark as if the passage between them could be climbed on an invisible rope. She became convinced that any second the portrait would fold out of itself, Beatrice standing and dusting off her twenty-year-old clothes and stepping from the frame as if she were departing from her porch.

‘
Hello,’
she’d say, in a clipped British tone. ‘
You received the invitation...’

Instead the whimpering gathered, incessant now, breaking into a continuous bawl, and it seemed to get louder and louder the closer she came to the landing. Spreading her palm on the banister Susanna gazed to the rafters, half assuming Beatrice would be floating up there in her white gossamer gown; a phantom made of bed-sheets, two holes cut for the eyes. Beatrice’s yearning was everywhere, above, below, inside, throughout, and rising now to its familiar, dastardly crescendo. Susanna had never asked for this gift, yet here it was. She would be the vessel. She would help this creature if it were the last thing she did.

The sound travelled closer. In the grand hall the door was ajar, blown open by the gust. Susanna stepped outside, bracing herself against the cold.

A glow spilled on to the pebbles like a bucket of slopped paint, thrown from the side of the building. She rounded the corner and detected the light.

It was coming from the stables.

Rain soaked her gown. Silk caught on thorn but she paid it no heed, not even when a coarse rip tore through her sleeve.

As she approached, the plates of Susanna’s world shifted slightly, nothing seismic but a subtle manoeuvre that made her have to reach to steady herself, guided by the contours of the house, the bricks soaked and grainy beneath her fingertips.

She was itched by a niggling, horrible idea.

The stable gate was shut. As if in a dream she watched it swing open.

Cato’s bright white ass was the first thing she saw. She would know that ass anywhere. If she crossed oceans and found it darting between the trees on a remote island paradise, if she visited a telescopic planet and witnessed it crouched on an alien rock, if she uncovered a time machine and encountered it on a thirteenth—century moat, it was the most famous ass in America, and it belonged to her.

But not tonight.

Susanna absorbed the scene a clip at a time, because the entirety of it was certain to crucify her. Cato’s ass was earnestly clenching, pounding and releasing, and with every thrust eliciting those accustomed-to yelps of ecstasy that until this instant, this despicable, unimaginable instant had belonged to a nightmare no worse than this.

On top he wore a tailored blazer, his dark mane contained beneath a riding hat. His left hand was gripping a woman’s thighs, his right brandished a crop.

Susanna knew, deep in her heart, long before she saw her.

Caggie Shaw.

They were splayed on a bed of hay. Cato was rutting from behind. In the cook’s mouth she held a horse’s bit, a leather brow band wedged round her head.

‘Faster!’ she was crying, roiling on the brink of ecstasy as the bit was pulled and her throat laid open like a lamb to the slaughter. ‘Faster, ride me faster!’

‘Little pony likes that, does she?’ came the hoarse, guttural reply. ‘Little pony wants some more?’

‘Whip me again,’ she begged, ‘please!’

Cato did as directed, lashing Caggie’s pink flesh and rearing her up on the reins. Above, the ramshackle roof let in the whine of the wind as fast as it set free that persistent female moan, winging her song across the lawn and to the house, tapping on the windows and seeping through the doors. Waking Susanna in the night.

At first her own scream was indistinguishable from the ones coming from the horse, but long after Caggie’s shrieks abated her own continued to pour. Susanna screamed and screamed and screamed until there was nothing left.

‘
Jesus Christ!’

Cato’s mouth fell open in a ragged O. Still he was bucking, looking Susanna squarely in the face while boning Caggie squarely from behind. She couldn’t tell if he was coming or not. She turned and fled, blind with tears, suffocated with shock.

That was the ghost?
That was it?