The Queen of New Beginnings (12 page)

Stomping across the fields, Alice experienced a sudden longing for her mother. Her parents may have fought like mad, but there had been a predictable and honest madness to their relationship. Neither one of them had pretended to be anything other than the person they were.

• • •

Alice wasn’t the only one to be in a bad mood. Back at Cuckoo House, Rufus was in a furious temper and was refusing to say why. What was more, he was leaving. He was in his room, packing to go and stay with a friend.

Alice climbed the stairs to the top of the house and knocked on the door of her father’s darkroom. When he let her in and she’d adjusted her eyes to the darkness, she asked him if he knew what had upset Rufus. He laughed.

“Cheeky sod demanded I bought him a car. He even tried to blackmail me. I told him to get lost and buy himself a bike. Does he think I’m made of money? Nobody bought me a car when I was that age.”

“What did he try to blackmail you about?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” He returned his attention to what he must have been doing before she had disturbed him. Scrutinizing the photographs that were pegged above his head, he said, “What do you think of these, Alice?”

“Are they from Iceland?” she asked, looking at a photograph of what could have been the surface of the moon.

“They certainly are. I haven’t lost my touch, have I? Am I a genius, or what?”

She forced herself to smile. “You’re a genius, Dad.”

“Right, that’s enough flattery. Off you go and play.”

“Dad, I’m sixteen. I don’t
play
anymore.”

“Oh, Alice, that’s the saddest thing I ever heard. We’re never too old to play. Now bugger off and let me get on.”

• • •

Tasha was upset her brother was leaving so suddenly and she kept asking him why he was going. He wouldn’t say.

When it was almost time for Rufus to go—he’d called for a taxi to take him to the station, refusing his mother’s offer to drive him—he knocked on Alice’s door. She let him in, but couldn’t look him in the eye. She was angry with her father for being the cause of Rufus’s departure, but she was also angry with Rufus for behaving like a spoiled child. She wanted to bang their heads together.

“I know why you’re going,” she said, going over to the turret and sitting in her great aunt Eliza’s rocking chair. “Dad told me.”

He came and stood in the window in front of her. Sunlight poured in on him, making his black hair shine iridescently like the feathers of a raven. He stared out at the view, then turned to face her. “I know he’s your father and you’ll always take his side, but have you ever thought how difficult it must be for me? He hates me.”

“Don’t exaggerate. He doesn’t hate you. He doesn’t hate anyone.”

“You’re wrong. He hates me because…because he knows how I really feel about you.”

Alice stopped rocking and held her breath. “What do you mean?”

He knelt in front of her, tipped the chair towards him and took her face in his hands. “Your father doesn’t think I’m good enough for his only daughter. It’s possible he could be right.” Brushing the hair from her face, Rufus closed the gap between them and kissed her. Alice kept her eyes open, not wanting to miss a second of the single most important moment of her life.

He pulled away, his eyes lowered. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.”

She breathed out. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to risk ruining things between us. We’ve always had…” he broke off as if searching for the right words and reached for her hands on her lap. He raised his gaze to hers. “We’ve always had such a close relationship,” he said finally. “You understand me, Alice. In a way no one else does. Have I ruined everything by kissing you?”

Mesmerized, she shook her head.

“May I kiss you again?”

She nodded. The power of speech had deserted her.

He lifted her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her for the longest time, her head spinning, her heart bursting. She had got her wish, at long last.

“I have to go now,” he whispered in her ear. “Come and see me in London. But don’t tell anyone. Especially not your father. Promise me that.”

“I’m sorry, I must be boring you to death with my rambling on.”

Clayton shook his head. “Not at all.”

“There’s no need to be polite.”

“I’ve been accused of many things, but politeness is not one of them.”

“Even so, I ought to be going.”

They both looked at their watches. It was gone ten.

“I had no idea it was so late,” she said, rising from her chair.

Clayton was out of his chair, too. He was disappointed she was leaving. He’d not only enjoyed the novelty of having some company for the evening, he was fascinated by her story. “You can’t leave me on such a cliff-hanging moment,” he said. “You have to tell me what happened next. I insist.”

“You really want to know?”

“I shan’t sleep a wink.”

She smiled faintly. “Got any theories how it works out?”

“I have the feeling there’s not going to be a happy ending between you and Rufus. Doubtless, he proves to be less than a perfect gentleman?”

“Not even close.” She hooked her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you, then.”

“When exactly?”

• • •

Clayton woke several times in the night. Something was nagging away at him inside. It was a sensation he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time. He almost didn’t recognize it. But when he did, he sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. He was breathing hard. He felt a little shaky. A little panicky. He pushed back the bedclothes, slipped out of bed and steadying his breath, he stood for a moment, very still, very quiet. He waited to see if something else would happen.

It did.

The nagging turned to a flutter of exhilaration that caused a low, resonating buzz in his head. He shook his head, testing to see if it was really there.

It was.

He smiled.

But then the smile slipped from his face.

Too soon
, the voice of Captain Sensible warned him.
You’ve been here before. And on more than one occasion
.

He got back into bed. He lay down. He closed his eyes. The buzzing receded.

There
, Captain Sensible said smugly.
I told you it wasn’t to be trusted
.

An hour later Clayton stirred. “Cherry liqueurs,” he mumbled sleepily. “What about the cherry liqueurs?”

• • •

The next morning, Alice was having trouble concentrating.

“Anything wrong?” Josie asked her.

At Alice’s request, they had stopped for a short break. She had made mistake after mistake, misreading lines, stumbling over words, mispronouncing names or getting the intonation wrong. Her stomach was rumbling as well, despite the two bananas she had eaten earlier, and with every slightest sound picked up by the microphone, poor Chris had had his work cut out. She was glad James wasn’t here to witness her making such a hash of the closing stages of Mattie’s latest adventure.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said to Josie as they stood in the small kitchen with their drinks, “I didn’t sleep very well last night. I’ve got a fuggy head.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but you do look a bit rough.”

“Thanks!”

“You know what I mean. You’re not—” Josie leaned away from Alice “—coming down with something, are you?”

“I’m fine. Really.” In her line of work, a cold, a sore throat, or a bunged up nose caused no end of problems. She took out a jar of her favourite honey from her bag and helped herself to a spoon from the cutlery drawer. She placed a spoonful of the honey on her tongue and let it slowly slide down her throat. It was just one of the many things she had to do to keep her voice in tip top condition. She had a whole armoury of herbal remedies at home that she relied upon to take care of her one and only asset.

Forever the task master—time was money after all—Josie checked her watch. “OK to carry on, now?”

Alice nodded and went back to her side of the studio. Watching Josie and Chris resume their positions the other side of the glass, she put her headphones back on and tried to focus her thoughts. But she couldn’t. She was here in body, but her mind was elsewhere; it was with Rufus and Tasha, her father and Julia. And Isabel. After all, it was all down to Isabel what happened in the end.

Alice hadn’t been lying when she had told Josie that she hadn’t slept well last night. But what else could she expect after spending the entire evening reliving the past? And reliving it with such poignant clarity by being back at Cuckoo House. For hour after hour she had lain awake in bed haunted by painful memories of those she had once loved. What little sleep she had finally snatched had been disrupted with myriad dreams. Most of them had revolved around Rufus. She had loved him so very much, to the point of misery. She could still vividly remember how when he’d kissed her, her ribs had felt too tight and she had thought she would pass out for lack of oxygen. She had believed that Rufus was the only man she would ever love and to her shame, so far that had been true. All of her relationships had come undone for the same reason—she simply couldn’t commit herself enough. Rufus had ensured she had never been able to trust anyone again.

She hadn’t intended to tell Clayton her story in such detail last night, but once she had started she had been like a moth drawn to the light and had become totally caught up in reliving those past events. More surprising was that the man on the receiving end of her tale, a relative stranger, had been such an attentive listener, to the extent of wanting to know what happened next.

In exchange for him cooking her supper this evening—heaven only knew what he would give her!—she had promised to conclude her story. She could have offered him the no-frills-cut-a-long-story-short version last night before she had left him, but she had chosen not to. She had wanted to squeeze another evening out of him in the hope that she could try and get to know him better. Well, it wasn’t every day you stumbled across a man like Clayton Miller. She had loved
Joking Aside
from the very first episode and had been a dedicated fan right through to the final series, so naturally she was keen to know more about one of the show’s creators. He struck her as being a one off.

Then, of course, there was all that stuff written about him in the newspapers. Could any of it be believed? The question they were all obsessed with was whether Clayton Miller was mad or just plain old malicious, desperate to get back at his ex-partner and ex-girlfriend? He struck Alice as being neither mad nor malicious. Above average cranky was how she would describe him.

Mad was how she would describe her behaviour last night. After she had left Cuckoo House, she had tried ringing James. She had promised herself faithfully that she wouldn’t do anything silly—like ring James—but ring him she did. She simply
had
to know what it was he had wanted to say to her. When she’d got no reply—his mobile must have been switched off—she had been relieved. Especially so when she realized just how late it was. Any sane person would have accepted that if James had had anything of importance to say, such as—”Alice, I can’t live without you!” he could have called her by now. It was probably safe to assume that all he had had in mind to ask her was something so inconsequential that he’d forgotten all about it since yesterday.

Work, she reminded herself when Josie’s voice came through her headphones asking if she was ready to continue. “Ready,” she replied.

• • •

Clayton was pulling out all the stops. He was cooking. Not just frying or grilling, but the real thing. Actual hot-diggity, death-defying, back-against-the-wall cooking! And all, drum roll if you please, without a safety net.
Ta-daar!

He had the Armstrongs’ CD player on—music was piped through the ground floor of the house, just as he had at home in London—and having raided their CD collection, Leonard Cohen was singing “First We Take Manhattan.” Accompanying the great man, Clayton shimmied his way across the kitchen, juggling a couple of eggs, tossing them deftly higher and higher, then lower, then one behind his back. Oh yeah, look at him go! He had taught himself to juggle during the early stages of his writer’s block. He had read somewhere that it could unblock and free up the mind. Just went to show that you couldn’t believe a damn word you read.

He placed the eggs carefully on the worktop beside the bag of flour he’d found in one of the cupboards and rolled up his sleeves. “Right,” he said, flattening the pages of the cookery book he’d helped himself to from the shelf above the wine rack. “Toad in the hole. First catch your toad. Ha, ha! Nothing like an old gag. What’s that you say, Leonard? There ain’t no cure for love? Sure there is. It’s right there, where it always is, at the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s! You just gotta keep on digging for it, Lennie my old mate.”

A loud rapping at the window made him jump. “What the hell!” he exclaimed.

It was dark now so all he could see as he tried to peer through the window was his startled reflection looking back at him. That and the rain lashing against the glass. He bent forward to see better. But then he leapt away from the window. What if Alice had lied to him? What if she had called one of the newspapers and told them where he was? So much for giving him her word!

Another sharp, insistent rap at the window had him jumping again.

“Shannon!” yelled a voice. “What are you playing at in there? Hurry up and let me in. I’m getting soaked to the skin out here.”

He recognized the haughty voice as belonging to the gun-toting old crone from yesterday. He went to let her in. As rude and as batty as she was, she was a better prospect than some scuzzy journalist dropping by in the hope of getting an exclusive.

“You looked scared to death through the window,” she said, stripping off her dripping wet coat and shoving it at him. “You’d best put that near the boiler to dry.”

“You’re stopping, then?”

“Looks that way to me. I’ve bought you a present.” She brandished a bottle which worryingly bore all the hallmarks of something homemade.

“What is it?” he asked.

She smiled. “Wait and see. Go on, hang up my coat. The last time I was here, the boiler room was second door on the left.”

He did as she said then found that she’d disappeared. He went through to the kitchen and found her poking about inside a cupboard.

“Bingo! I’ve found the glasses,” she said. “Come on, sit yourself down and have a sip of this. It’ll put the colour back into your cheeks.”

“You seem very at home here.”

“If you’re referring to me using the back door as opposed to the front, that’s what I’ve always done. As for helping myself to a glass, I was merely being helpful.” She cocked an eye at the open cookery book. “What are you cooking?”

“Roast neighbour. I haven’t measured her yet, but I reckon she’ll just about fit in the oven.”

She laughed throatily and passed him a shot glass. “Here’s mud in your eye!” She chinked her glass against his.

“It’s not the mud I’m concerned about,” he said, regarding the urine-coloured liquid warily. He took a cautious sip. It seemed innocuous enough. Nothing too…
Whoa
.
He opened his mouth, half expecting flames to leap out and scorch the table in front of him. He caught his breath. “What the hell is that?” he gasped.

“Just a little something I like to throw together. Top up?”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” He slammed a hand over his glass. “Get on with you.” She downed her glass in one then poured herself another shot.

OK, she was a total show off! “I hope you’re not planning to get drunk and take advantage of me,” he said.

She roared with laughter. “What a splendid idea! Bottoms up!”

He watched in amazement as she downed yet more of her devil’s brew. “Why didn’t you wait for me yesterday?” he asked.

“I told you to be there on time.”

“I was two minutes late.”

She shrugged. “You may have time to squander but I don’t. At my age, every minute counts. So what’s cooking chez Cuckoo House? If I like the sound of it I might stay.” She frowned and cupped a hand behind her ear. “Who’s the crooner? He doesn’t sound very happy. Wouldn’t have thought a man in your state should be listening to something as grim as this.”

“Oh, really? What do you recommend? ‘The Birdie Song’? And what do you mean, a man in my
state?
”

“Your breakdown. The reason you’re here. Taking it easy. Although in my opinion, some good old-fashioned hard work would sort you out a lot quicker. Tidying yourself up would help, too. Who wouldn’t be depressed seeing that reflection in the mirror every day? You look like a train wreck.”

“Speak your mind, why don’t you?”

“I will when we’ve got to know one another better.”

“I look forward to it.”

“So what caused your breakdown?”

Good God, she was obsessed with the idea! “How can I say this in terms that you’ll actually understand?” he said. “I. Have. Not. Had. A. Breakdown.”

“Really? You do surprise me. Oh, well, never mind. What time’s supper?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, but I have someone coming.”

“Oh?” She made a great play of tipping her head back and sniffing. She looked ridiculous, like a Pekinese dog twitching its nose. “Is there love in the air?” she asked. “And would it have anything to do with Alice Barrett?”

“Shoemaker,” he corrected her. He immediately regretted opening his mouth. Now he’d as good as admitted he and Alice had something going. “Not that she and I—” he started to say in an attempt to refute any conclusion she might have leapt to.

The old woman held up a gnarled hand. “Please, spare me the details,” she interrupted him. “Another person’s love life is their own affair.”

“I’m glad you consider some subjects to be off limits, but Alice has nothing to do with my love life. Such as it is.”

“What? A dearth of nooky? None at all? A fine specimen like you. Heavens! What has the world come to? There again, you’ve obviously let things slide. That would be a contributing factor to your current dry patch.”

“And what’s your excuse?”

She chortled. “Who says I’m not getting my share? A catch like me, I have them queuing at the door.”