The Queen of New Beginnings (16 page)

“You think I do?”

“Yes.”

Julia cried even harder. “I don’t think I can take much more.”

“Then go. Just leave him.”

“It’s not as easy as that.”

No, thought, Alice, it isn’t, is it? “My father is nothing more than financial security to you, isn’t he?” she said coldly.

Julia blew her nose and glanced nervously at Alice. “Why do you say that?”

Alice looked her stepmother dead in the eye. “I know,” she said. “I
know
why you married him. So does my father.”

Julia’s lips trembled. “I don’t think we should continue with this conversation.”

“Why not? It’s the first time we’ve ever had anything that remotely resembles an honest conversation. And if you want the truth, you’re not a patch on my mother and that’s probably what drives my father mad. He despises you. He despises the fact that you’re so weak and can’t stand up to him.”

More tears spilled down Julia’s face. “You hate me, don’t you? You hate me nearly as much as your father hates me.”

“I don’t, actually. You’re nothing to me. Just as Rufus is nothing to me. Just as Tasha means nothing to me. Do you know what she’s put me through at school? She’s telling everyone I’m a slut for loving your precious son. I may be a fool, but I’m not what she says I am.”

Julia sniffed loudly and rummaged for a tissue in her bag. “Tasha’s very attached to Rufus. She…ever since her father died, she’s worshipped the ground he walks on.”

“And you think that’s healthy?”

“I don’t really see anything wrong in it. But I’ll tell you what is wrong, and that’s how Bruce treats me. Have you ever wondered about the way your mother died?”

Alice stiffened. “It was an accident.”

“Not suicide, then? You don’t think she finally snapped, that she woke up one morning and realized she couldn’t go on living with a mad man?”

Alice wasn’t proud of herself. But then these days she hardly knew herself. Nor did she seem able to control her anger.

She had said that Julia meant nothing to her, but this turned out not to be true. Alice was consumed with loathing towards the woman, spewing toxic hatred at her for the slightest of reasons. Often for no reason at all. If she couldn’t exact revenge on Rufus, she would settle for making his mother’s life even more wretched than it already was. Every time she laid eyes on Julia or heard her thin, pleading voice, the coil of revulsion inside Alice tightened. Whenever Julia made yet another attempt to placate or reach out to her, or excused Alice’s behaviour on the grounds that she wasn’t well, Alice upped her game. When her throat allowed it, she screamed foul-mouthed abuse at her stepmother. One day she hurled a book at her. Who would have thought she would prove to be so thoroughly her mother and father’s daughter?

After weeks of taking whatever insults and spite Alice threw at her, Julia finally showed a hint of spirit and came close to fighting back.

It was three days before Christmas—Tasha hadn’t yet come home from school; she had gone to stay with Freya—and Alice was in the kitchen rolling out pastry for mince pies whilst her father sat at the table reading aloud to her from P. G. Wodehouse’s
The Code of the Woosters
. Story time, late afternoon when the light had gone from the day, the two of them companionably alone in the kitchen, had become a regular event and was the highlight of Alice’s day. It was a comforting reminder of when she’d been little and her father had read to her at bedtime.

“That was Tasha on the phone,” Julia said, breezing into the kitchen and instantly destroying the cosy, tranquil atmosphere. “She and Rufus will be arriving tomorrow afternoon.” She looked directly at Alice, an unexpectedly brave, challenging look of score-settling in her eye. “Rufus is bringing his girlfriend with him. I trust you don’t have a problem with that?”

Alice tightened her hold on the rolling pin.

“You don’t think it would have been polite to have checked first?” her father asked without looking up.

“Polite, in the sense of tiptoeing around Alice’s feelings? Is that what you mean?”

Bruce carefully marked his page, closed the book and faced Julia. “You know damned well that’s exactly what I mean.”

Julia laughed bitterly. “Whoever considers my feelings? Whoever wonders how I feel about something?”

“Oh, do put a sock in it, Julia! Why should anyone else contribute to the stockpile of your self-absorption when you do such a fine job of it yourself?”

What little fight Julia had mustered was gone. “Is that what this Christmas is going to be like?” she asked, her voice tight and overwrought. “Am I to be nothing but the butt of your cruelly barbed comments?”

“We wouldn’t be having this tedious discussion if you hadn’t been so high-handed and encouraged your son to flaunt his new girlfriend under Alice’s nose. But thanks to you, I think it’s safe to say that we’re now set for a real old Rice Krispie Christmas. And by that, I mean there’ll be plenty of snap, crackle and pop. Really, Julia, you have only yourself to blame.” He turned his back on her dismissively and returned his attention to P. G. Wodehouse. He flicked through the pages. “Now then, Alice, where were we?”

“Do not treat me this way,” Julia said. Her words were spoken slowly and a little breathlessly.

He said nothing.

Alice resumed rolling out the pastry.

“I said do not treat me this way.”

“‘I am a shy man, Bertie.’” Bruce read aloud. “‘Diffidence is the price I pay for having a hyper-sensitive nature.’”

A stifled squawking sound came from Julia’s direction and then the door crashed shut. For several moments, both Alice and her father carried on as if nothing had happened. When the tense atmosphere in the kitchen had stopped reverberating, he raised his head from the book.

“You OK?” he asked.

Alice blinked. “I can’t believe Rufus could be so crass. Couldn’t he have waited?”

“I could put my foot down and say he can’t bring her with him, but that would be exactly what he’d want me to do. That way he gets to play the hard-done-by stepson. By letting him bring his girlfriend with him, you and I are going to prove just how meaningless he is to you now.”

Alice put a finger to her lip. Her father was right. But he was also wrong. Horribly wrong. This was the first time since she had blamed him for Rufus finishing with her that they had openly discussed him again. She knew though that he had had plenty to say on the subject with Julia. She had heard him shouting at her, describing Rufus’s behaviour as manipulative and cold-hearted, devious and callous. Julia’s response had been to say that Alice had known perfectly well what she was getting into, that in actual fact, it had been Alice who had cleverly manipulated Rufus into a relationship with her.

With her father so certain that Rufus now meant nothing to her, how could she tell him that she had secretly been hoping that when he returned to Cuckoo House for Christmas and spent some time alone with her, Rufus would see what a terrible mistake he had made? How could that happen now, now that he was bringing his new girlfriend home with him?

“Carry on reading, Dad,” she said as she pressed a crinkled-edged metal cutter into the pastry.

• • •

The following afternoon, in a state of high agitation, Julia set off to the station.

From the moment Isabel Canning stepped over the threshold of Cuckoo House, she swept into their lives like a breath of fresh air. In Alice’s mind this unknown quantity had been cast in the role of Public Enemy Number One. Meeting her face to face made Alice realize that her cause to win back Rufus was lost. There wasn’t a chance in hell of Alice competing with this incredible creature. Blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful beyond belief, she looked older than Alice had expected. She was charmingly jolly and she greeted Alice and her father like long-lost friends. Either Rufus hadn’t explained the situation to her, or she was a better actress than Alice could ever hope to be.

Within an hour of being in Isabel’s company, Alice could quite understand how Rufus had fallen under her spell. She had a knack for showing great interest—whether it was genuine or fake—in her surroundings or whatever somebody was telling her. She enthusiastically admired the criminally expensive curtains and sofa Julia had recently had made for the sitting room, she raved ecstatically over the Christmas tree Alice had decorated, declaring it the most perfect she had ever seen, and she was particularly interested in Bruce’s work, professing to dabble in photography herself—a remark that would normally elicit a snort of derision from him. She somehow managed to extract a promise from him to show her his darkroom before she left.

So much for Public Enemy Number One.

All the while, Rufus looked on with pride and adoration shining in his eyes. Never once did he look directly at Alice. Why would he when he had this wondrous and enchanting goddess to gaze upon? He was completely captivated.

However, Tasha was not so captivated. Maybe that was because she knew Isabel was a genuine threat. This was no teenage crush; this was a fully formed woman who had stolen her brother’s heart. It explained to Alice why Tasha appeared to have returned to Cuckoo House with a shyly extended hand of friendship towards Alice: she needed an ally. Who better than the girl whose heart had been broken by her brother? That was why she had been all smiles since arriving home. That was why she had asked how Alice was feeling. That was why she had said what an awful time she’d had whilst staying with Freya and how brilliant it was to be back and how much she had missed Alice. By anyone’s standards, it was an audacious U-turn. Did she really think Alice was so desperate for their friendship to be restored that she would conveniently forget all that had passed between them?

• • •

The running of Cuckoo House was not as efficient as it had once been. A sullen, greasy-haired woman with a nose stud and a habitual sniff came in once a week to clean halfheartedly and after suffering a heart attack, Mrs. Randall had abandoned their kitchen. Seeing as her father couldn’t really be trusted to cook without setting fire to anything and rarely could Julia handle anything more complex than an omelette without a panic attack, Alice had assumed responsibility for cooking over the Christmas holiday. Whilst stuck at home, and since she had been well enough, she had been teaching herself to cook to relieve the boredom. Stupidly she had planned to astound Rufus with her newly acquired culinary skills. Tonight she was going to cook roast duck with an orange and cranberry sauce.

But Isabel wouldn’t hear of it. “We can’t have you slaving away in the kitchen on your own,” she insisted, “not when you’ve been so ill. Tasha and I will help you.”

“What about me?” Rufus asked, “I could help as well.” He looked and sounded as if he didn’t appreciate being left out. He had a hand placed around Isabel’s waist; a hand Alice was trying hard not to look at.

Laughing, Isabel shook him off. “Away with you! Go and spend some time with your mother. It’s ages since you last saw her.”

When he pouted like a small child denied his favourite toy, she laughed again. “Go on,
shoo!
This is girl time. I’m going to find out from your lovely sisters everything about you that you’ve tried to hide from me, and I don’t want you butting in.”

Rufus exchanged his first direct glance with Alice and visibly paled. Oh, my God, she thought, Isabel didn’t know anything, did she?

• • •

Public Enemy Number One. Alice had to keep reminding herself. But it was useless. How could she hate Isabel? How could she hate anyone who was such fun and who was showering such warmth, kindness and encouragement on her? They were standing together at the sink, peeling potatoes, and Isabel was promising that when the time came, she would put in a good word for Alice and Tasha with an old family friend who was a theatrical agent in London.

“I don’t believe in nepotism,” Tasha said sulkily. She was sitting on the worktop, banging her heels against the cupboard below. She was twisting a length of silver tinsel in her hands and the glowering expression on her face suggested that any minute she might take Isabel from behind and garrotte her with the tinsel. “I want to know I made it to the top through my own merit,” she added, “otherwise why bother?”

Isabel had to be aware of Tasha’s brooding hostility towards her but nothing in her conduct betrayed how she felt about it. Her manners were impeccable. “Gosh, Tasha, you’re so right,” she said cheerfully. “I applaud your conviction. I’m afraid I don’t have half your talent, so am quite shameless in asking for a teensy leg up when necessary.”

“What kind of work do you do?” asked Alice, curious. She couldn’t imagine Isabel doing any kind of boring nine-to-five job or anything remotely practical. She couldn’t peel potatoes properly, that much was obvious. Alice had surreptitiously redone the ones she’d hacked at.

“What do I do? Oh Alice, I wish I knew sometimes. Well, officially I’m an events organizer, you know, organizing parties, conferences, charity balls, that sort of thing. Hopelessly superficial.”

“And unofficially?”

Isabel laughed. “Unofficially I’m a free spirit looking for a sense of purpose to my life. I dabble here and there. One minute I want to be an artist, the next I want to be a photographer. That’s why I’m so fascinated by your father. I’m so in awe of him. I’ve come across his work time and time again. He really does take amazing pictures. But then you know that, don’t you? You must have the most incredible photo albums of you growing up. I’d love to see them.”

Tasha’s heels had taken up a faster and more vigorous beat against the cupboard door. “That’s the funny thing about Alice’s father,” she said, “I can’t recall him taking a single photograph of us as a family.”

Alice smiled awkwardly. “It’s true. Dad’s always preferred taking pictures of wildlife or landscapes.”

“I don’t blame him,” Isabel said. “People can be enormously tiresome the moment you point a camera at them. Not that you’d be tiresome,” she added quickly before Alice had had time to register any kind of a slight.

“Exactly how old are you, Isabel?” Tasha said. “You seem so much older than Rufus.”

“Oh, I’m positively ancient.” She laughed. “Call the police, I’ve cradle-snatched your brother!”

“I reckon you’re thirty,” Tasha persisted.

“Thirty,” Isabel repeated with a raise of her elegant eyebrows. “Well, I’ve always been told I look older than I am, but you’re out by five years.”

“You’re twenty-five?” Alice intervened, keen for some strange reason to repair the damage Tasha was doing. “You look much younger than that.”

“That still makes you quite a few years older than Rufus, doesn’t it?” Tasha continued relentlessly. “What’s it like going out with a toy boy?”

“It can be a terrible pain sometimes,” Isabel said with a weary sigh. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve forgotten to blow his nose for him or make sure he’s home in time for bed.”

Alice smirked, but knowing she’d been made fun of, Tasha looked furious. She jumped down from the workshop. “I’m bored,” she said. “I’m going to go and talk to Rufus.”

When they were alone, Isabel said, “Would I be right in thinking Tasha doesn’t like me very much?”

“She’s very protective of her brother.”

“What about you, Alice? Are you very protective of Rufus?”

“Are you asking me if I like you?”

Isabel smiled. “That’s exactly what I’m asking you.”

To her amazement, Alice replied, “I didn’t think I would at first, but yes I do.”

“Thank you. Now tell me everything you think I should know about Rufus. No holding anything back. I want to know all his nasty habits. Apart from the fact he hates it when he can’t get his own way.”

• • •

During dinner, Rufus was displaying this very same trait. Tasha had laid the table in the dining room and had decided where they would all sit—she must have devised the seating plan with malicious pleasure. She had put her mother and Bruce at each end of the table with Rufus between his mother and Alice and Isabel between Bruce and herself. Rufus was far from happy with the arrangement. Especially as Isabel was asking Bruce so many questions about his work and was hanging on to his every word. Alice hadn’t seen her father so animated in a long while. He was happily playing the part of generous and affable host, pouring wine, cracking jokes and heaping endless praise on the cooks who had produced the meal. He was enjoying himself, Alice realized.