Sin Tropez (36 page)

‘Well, cool! See you around.’

Abena stood on tiptoes to kiss him on both cheeks and turned and hurried off before Sebastian could notice how shaken up she was.

****

Philip’s course of treatment had finished some time ago and he’d been out of rehab for a month now. With Philip gone, Tara was fed up with rehab. She still sometimes
craved drugs but felt that the worst was over and that she’d regained control. All the physical withdrawal symptoms that she had suffered from at first, including her aching back and
sleepless nights, had disappeared. She was keen to go home to Willowborough. Of course she was sad not to return to her old life in Ladbroke Grove, but Abena had moved out, and besides she needed
to be far away from her dealers and druggie friends in London. Yes, she thought, living at home in the country for a bit would be relaxing. She wouldn’t need to work, and though she
wasn’t sure what state her parents’ marriage was in right now, surely, as the returned prodigal daughter, she’d be fussed over and spoilt regardless. Her mother had said something
about a slight mishap with her father ending up in hospital, but apparently it was nothing that Tara needed to worry about. Probably another case of gout. What a hypochondriac!

Checking her post, she beamed to see another small cream envelope with her name on it scrawled in Philip’s idiosyncratic handwriting. It was always such a thrill to receive his elegant
missives. She would read each letter again and again, and then spend an entire evening formulating her reply. His letters weren’t flirtatious and Tara knew he was the faithful type and
wouldn’t dream of cheating on his girlfriend, but the way he wrote made it clear that he saw a deep connection between Tara and himself. He’d never spoken about his late mother with
Diane in the way that he had spoken about her with Tara. Nor had he held Diane’s hand and wiped away her tears and soothed her shakes when she was suffering, the way he had with her. Diane,
from the little he’d told her, was very sensible. She’d never get herself into silly scrapes like Tara, she was more like Philip’s father. She held herself together at all times,
practical and unemotional. But Tara had sensed that he’d enjoyed helping her. It had drawn him out of his own sorrows and given him a sense of pride and strength and purpose, whereas Diane
seemed to make him feel weak and dispensable.

In the privacy of her living room she devoured each word he’d written. He always told her she was beautiful, in every way possible. Tara suspected he had read too much into her grotesque
self-portrait. But still it was nice to hear, and she was starting to believe it again. Even when she’d lost faith in herself, her friends had all stood by her and she felt so much renewed
love, in particular for Abena and Natalya, without whom she’d probably be sleeping with some gross old man in return for coke. She took out her laptop and started working on her CV. When she
got out, she was going to stop being such a brat, and get a job, and pay back everything she owed, and get all of her wonderful friends mind-blowing presents to apologize for months of
ingratitude.

The next days passed torturously slowly, but they passed nonetheless, and at long last it was time for Tina to come and fetch Tara from the clinic. With so much time on her hands, Tara had spent
her last days making petal-covered thank-you cards for her favourite therapists, who were all sad to see their most glamorous patient leave. Indeed, she was glamorous once more. Forced to attend
supper every evening and surprised by the excellent quality of the food, she’d put a stone back on and was delighted to see her little breasts regain their perkiness, after months of having a
chest like a ten-year-old boy’s. She had seen a dermatologist at the clinic and her skin was back to normal; her bowel gangrene had subsided too. She knew she had caused some irreparable
damage to her body, and she was well aware that any relapse would have severe consequences, but right now Tara felt like she could take on the world.

Tina jumped out of the Audi, followed by Hugo.

‘Papa!’ Tara exclaimed over the shoulder of her mother, who had buried her head in her daughter’s chest and was hanging on for dear life. ‘I didn’t think
you’d be coming too. I half expected you to have moved out! What a treat. I’ve missed you both so much. Did you bring Lamb? And Ferdy?’

‘Oh, darling,’ Tina stood on tiptoes to kiss Tara’s nose, ‘we’ve had such a terrible time without you. So much has happened. But your father and I have decided to
give our marriage another chance.’

Tara stood, speechless, staring from one parent to another.

‘Come on Tara-Bara, let’s get you home and we’ll explain everything.’

She didn’t have a clue what had happened while she was away, but it must have been good if her parents were back together. Now all that she needed was for Philip’s frumpy old bore of
a girlfriend to disappear and everything would be perfect.

Once they arrived home, Tina poured everyone a glass of sparkling elderflower cordial. Having already sneaked a peek in the drinks cellar, Tara knew that all the alcohol had been cleared out of
the house. Taking her cordial, she reacquainted herself with Willowborough’s treasures: the intricate painting in the Great Hall, her father’s fun portraits of Lamb and Ferdy, the
comforting warmth and smells of the Aga-heated kitchen. Inspecting her father’s bedroom, she was pleased to see evidence that Tina had moved back in. She might be rehabilitated now, but she
needed to know her father was too. She searched high and low for a secret stash of booze, knowing every possible hiding place as she’d used them all herself, and found not a drop of alcohol.
Good. She was about to leave the room when she noticed a letter poking out of a sketchbook on the windowsill, clearly bearing her father’s handwriting. She picked it up and read it.

Her father was on his way upstairs when he heard Tara’s crystal glass hit the floor and shatter loudly into fragments.

‘Tara-Bara is everything alright? What was that smashing sound?’

‘Papa,’ she sobbed, on her hands and knees with grief. ‘You tried to kill yourself?’

Hugo went to hug her but she shrugged him off. Tina was not so easily shaken off. She held her daughter tight and refused to be pushed away. For the first time in her life Tina demanded the
right to act like a mother. She held her daughter in the way she’d so desperately needed to be held all these years but was too proud, or too embarrassed, to ever ask for.

It soon emerged that events at home had been far more remarkable than those at the clinic. Tara learnt, with increasing incredulity, of how her father had ended up in A & E, saved just in
time by his little niece, who’d skipped into his room to show him her picture and found him passed out and soaked in sweat. He had been put on a life-support machine and had very nearly
died.

‘Why didn’t anyone let me know?’ screamed Tara, furious.

‘You had your own problems, darling. I was only thinking of you. And anyway, I knew he would live. And do you know how I knew that? Because at that moment, when I saw him there, on the
life-support machine, I realised that I couldn’t live without him. That I needed him, I needed him to live.’

Tina and Hugo exchanged looks of such unadulterated longing that if Tara hadn’t still been struggling to take in the dreadful details she would have felt quite queasy.

‘By the grace of God, your father pulled through, but it still wasn’t over then. He started to hallucinate and experienced a fit of mini-seizures, which the doctors said were the
symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. With the amount your father had been drinking, it was going to be dangerous for him to just stop immediately, so they kept him hospitalized for a few more weeks,
gradually reducing his intake.’

‘I only got out a week before you did,’ Hugo cut in. ‘And I’m sorry for not being there, for not helping you.’

‘Papa, I’m sorry for not helping
you
!’ Tara clasped her head as though it would burst open at any minute with the horror of what she was hearing.

‘So,’ Tina concluded, ‘the struggle is not over for either of you yet, but we’re all going to work together to help each other out. Firstly, none of us will drink alcohol
in the house, or in front of your father. And I’m going to be attending AA meetings with him; you’re welcome to come too while you’re here, darling. And, most importantly,
we’re going to keep in touch!’ A rueful smile played about her lips.

‘It had got to the point where the three of us were leading completely separate lives, and it was only because of this, this neglect on all of our parts, that none of us realized the
extent of everybody else’s problems. So as of today I’m reinstating the Sunday Lunch rule.’

The Wittstanleys went to bed early that evening. Each of them had a lot to think about. Tara opened her diary and started a new month and a new chapter, which she called ‘Hope’.

****

Sebastian Spectre sauntered over to his brother’s apartment a few doors down from his own. Despite living so close, he hadn’t seen Alex for a while. Probably too
busy lady-killing, he thought. He’d just pop over and say hi, see if he wanted to go and grab a quick beer. He thought fleetingly of his encounter with Abena. She’d been looking
super-hot. Even though he was seeing Jemima now, he’d been disappointed that Abena hadn’t invited him in for a drink. They’d been practically outside her flat, and he missed her
soft luxuriant skin and sinewy body.

He knocked on his brother’s door.

‘Come in – I left it open for you,’ Alex called in a breathy voice. Clearly his brother was expecting company. He pushed open the door and whistled as he walked inside. The
dining room table was set for a three-course meal for two, the lights were dimmed and a delicious scent emanated from the kitchen. Both brothers were foodies but they rarely got around to actually
cooking. Alex was making a big effort for some lucky girl.

Taking a peek into the kitchen, Sebastian saw a leg of succulent-looking lamb roasting in the oven. In the fridge were two bottles of the rare vintage champagne that had gone missing from their
father’s wine cellar.

Laughing to himself, Sebastian made his way to Alex’s room, expecting to find his brother arranging his hair in preparation for whichever beauty was on her way.

Hearing footsteps, Alex called out naughtily, ‘Baby, I’m waiting! Come on in …’

Sebastian suppressed a snigger and opened his brother’s door, to be confronted with Alex sprawled unclothed across his bed, both hands behind his head, legs spread wide and a comely smile
adorning his face.

‘What the fuck?’ both men spluttered in unison.

Alex grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist while Sebastian, now over the shock, bent double with uncontrollable laughter.

‘Sorry, mate,’ he laughed through his tears of mirth, ‘were you expecting someone else?’

Jesus! If this was the way Alex got his ‘highly sought after yet harrowingly elusive’ reputation with the girls, then he was no longer remotely jealous. You’d never catch
him
doing anything so humiliating.

Suddenly Sebastian heard a sound that made the hairs on his neck stand on end.

‘Cooeee! Baby, are you in there? I’m coming …’

‘W-wait!’ Alex tried to protest, but it was too late.

Henry, Reza’s gay assistant, was already in the bedroom. ‘Yummy!’ He licked his lips when he saw the back of a second man. ‘You didn’t tell me we’d be having
company, Alex, you naughty thing!’

Sebastian spun round to face him. Henry! And, bloody hell, that was a bottle of Montrachet 1978 in his hand!

Then, as the scale of this seismic revelation hit him, Sebastian collapsed on to the floor by the bed. Alex hung his head, brow furrowed in anguish.

‘Now,’ Henry said, as calmly as if he were making a cup of tea before settling down to watch
EastEnders
, ‘don’t you tell me you’ve never imagined your
brother might be gay?’ He placed a hand gently on Alex’s shoulder. ‘Hellooo! Wake up and smell the skinny latte!’ he shouted so loudly that everybody jumped.

‘How long has this been going on?’ Sebastian asked his brother.

‘What? Gay? Or you mean Henry and I?’

‘Well, I … I … both I suppose.’

‘I’ve always known, Seb. But it’s always just been so much easier to pretend. The girls were … so easy. It was just like, I’d smile at them, and they’d fall
at my feet! And I’d take them for the odd dinner, play with their breasts, or whatever. But mostly I ’d just get us all pissed or high and we’d … sleep. And then I got this
… reputation. And I was a god, and everyone wanted me and to know me and to hang with me – guys and girls – and yet nobody really knew me.’

Sebastian said nothing.

‘I’m sorry.’ Alex shrugged. ‘Sorry for living a lie. For not telling you. But, but I’d never, you know, done it with boys either. Well, a little fumble at
school—’ He saw the distaste on his brother’s face. ‘Sorry! But you know, I’d never done anything … serious, until I met Henry. And he made me face up to who I
am, and be OK with it. I was going to tell you and Dad and Mum and everyone, I was just trying to work out how.’

After a few minutes, Sebastian got up and walked out of the apartment. Alex lay face down on his bed and sobbed into his pillow while Henry rubbed his back.

Natalya was running, savouring her new-found freedom. Finally another week of solitary confinement in Claude’s house had come to an end. Her meals had been rationed this
time too and once she’d even passed out because she was so hungry. When she came to, she couldn’t immediately remember why they’d argued in the first place. Then it came back to
her. It was a look, a glance she had given the director of a children’s charity at a dinner he had held in honour of Claude, their main donor. She wasn’t to look at men like that, to
let her eyes meet theirs unnecessarily.

When they returned home from the charity dinner, Natalya had had to sit through a two-hour lecture from Claude on appropriate behaviour. ‘It always happens like this!’ Claude had
hissed at her. ‘You girls always start off sweet, grateful for the wonderful life I provide for you. But then you get used to it, take me for a fool, start to cast your loose eyes around at
parties.’