The Queen of New Beginnings (35 page)

“Of course. Ask anything you want. I have nothing to hide from you.”

“Do you think Rufus really loved you?”

“Perhaps in his young and limited way. But I think what he was more in love with was the idea of me and in particular the lifestyle he thought I could offer him. You see, he knew about my trust fund and as we both came to know, Rufus had more than a passing interest in wealth and the status and security it could bring.”

“I think on one level my father was worried that Rufus was only interested in me because he hoped that I might come with a conveniently generous bank balance, but on the whole I think he was more concerned that Rufus was using me to get at him. I didn’t believe it at the time, for the simple reason I didn’t want to believe it. But I soon realized Dad was right. He was right about so many things.”

• • •

With promises made that they would get together soon, Alice left Squirrel’s Patch after lunch the next day. It had been one of the most enjoyable weekends she had experienced in a long while and she headed north a lot happier than when she’d set off from home yesterday morning. She no longer felt any apprehension that Grace wouldn’t like her. And best of all, she felt as though she had finally made peace with her father.

She was stuck in a long tailback of traffic on the M1, remembering how she had made Grace laugh with her impersonations of Lisa and Marge Simpson, when her mobile went off on the dashboard.

When she heard what the person on the other end of the line had to say, her happiness evaporated in an instant.

Stacey had once said that Clayton was a natural for attending funerals. Something about him being a miserable sod. Fair enough.

As far as he was concerned, funerals were meant to be sombre occasions. He had no time for those people who showed up wearing bright colours and a beaming smile and claimed that it was what Great Uncle Arnold would have wanted. Wrong! Great Uncle Arnold deserved a little respect. Not to mention a display of reverence. What he didn’t deserve was a load of relatives or so-called friends who couldn’t be arsed to do things properly. Was it any wonder society was going to hell in a handcart when basic social niceties were being flouted so flagrantly?

Which was why, when he had got the call from Alice, he had immediately taken his black suit to the dry cleaners and bought himself a new white shirt. He was wearing the suit and shirt now, complete with a black tie. Every now and then, when the train he was on passed through a tunnel, he caught sight of his reflection in the window and he had to admit the colour black suited him. OK, he looked like a character out of
Reservoir Dogs
, but there was no denying the severity and sharpness of what he was wearing was scoring highly in the gravitas stakes. Perhaps he should wear it more often.

The last funeral he had attended had been his mother’s and he’d been adamant then that things would be done properly for her. Just as he had for his father. When his time came, he planned to have as sombre and mournful an occasion as possible. Plenty of long faces; that’s what he wanted. The
pièce de résistance
would be his choice of music. He had that planned already: lots of stirring Russian funeral music. You couldn’t beat it for top-quality gloom. There would be nothing light-hearted about his passing. Death was a serious matter and it should be treated with due deference.

He just hoped that George hadn’t left any daft instructions for the way her funeral was to be conducted. All he knew at the moment was that she was to be buried in the cemetery of Stonebridge’s Methodist Chapel and that she had picked out her plot many years ago, alongside her parents. Personally, he was all for burial, as opposed to cremation. There was something very unceremonious and cheapskate about being cremated.

He had spoken to Alice almost every day on the telephone since she had called to tell him about George. He was merely being a sympathetic shoulder on which she could lean during a difficult time, he had told himself every time he dialled her number and waited for her to answer. But when he had found himself looking forward to those times which he’d set aside to chat with her, he knew he was fooling himself. It had started when he had heard the tautness in her voice as she tried to hold back the tears while breaking the news. She had seemed so lost and vulnerable. So alone. It had made him want to be with her so he could offer more than a long-distance sympathetic shoulder.

He had contemplated telling her about Bazza and Stacey, by way of a distraction for her, but he had deemed it inappropriate, given that she had more important things on her mind right now.

When he’d told Glen about his night out with Bazza, Glen had been all for leaking Bazza’s confession to the press, but Clayton had put a stop to that. Despite the depth of Bazza’s duplicity, Clayton couldn’t help but feel a degree of pity for his old friend. It had been a depressing experience witnessing Bazza drunk and pathetically weepy and he kept wondering if there wasn’t a way to get him off the hook. Not completely—Bazza would have to face some kind of music—but he could quite understand the predicament in which the fool of a man had found himself: that of being under the thumb of a very determined woman.

He had no idea how to go about it, but what Clayton wanted was for Stacey to be forced into making a full confession, and the more public the better. He wanted her to feel just a fraction of the humiliation she had put him through. He wanted to wipe that pious, self-seeking, camera-hungry smile right off her face. He was sure that there would be those who would accuse him of being vindictive, but he’d challenge anyone not to react in a similar fashion if they had gone through what he had.

The morning after that revealing night out with Bazza, Bazza had called Clayton. “Um…I’ve woken up with the…with the vague recollection that something important took place last night,” he had said. The cautious anxiety in his voice had spoken volumes—all of Proust, Dickens and Shakespeare put together.

“What exactly do you remember?” Clayton had asked him. He hadn’t reached the magnanimous stage of understanding the predicament his old friend had found himself in at this point. No, at that particular point, he’d felt nothing but furious contempt. It had been all he could do not to yell down the phone at Bazza and tell him just what he thought of him.

“I remember telling you something,” Bazza had replied.

“Can you remember what?”

“Oh, come on, Clay, don’t do this to me. Help me out. Tell me what I said.”

“Nice one, Bazza. You screw me over, then ask me for my help. That really takes some doing.”

There had been a groan from the other end of the phone and then the unmistakable sound of Bazza being sick. Clayton had put the phone down. Ten minutes later Bazza was back on the line. “Just tell me,” he said, “what did I say?”

“Well, let me clue you in.” And Clayton had. Every incriminating word of Bazza’s confession.

“What are you going to do?” Bazza had asked when Clayton had finished speaking.

“I haven’t decided yet. I’m waiting until the urge to kill you has passed.”

• • •

His train arrived on time and as he stepped down onto the platform, Clayton looked for a familiar face. Isabel had telephoned him last night and offered to meet him at the station and then drive him to Stonebridge for the service. He felt glad for Alice that Isabel had gone to the trouble to come up to Derbyshire for the funeral. Isabel had only met George once, and a long time ago at that, but as she had explained to Clayton, apart from wanting to support Alice, she felt it was something Bruce would have wanted her to do.

Like Isabel, Clayton had two reasons for coming today: one, he wanted to be there for Alice, and secondly, he wanted to pay his respects to an extraordinary woman. It was funny how you could go through life moving casually from one acquaintance to another without a single one ever touching you, but then suddenly someone could appear out of the blue and stop you stock still in your tracks. Although in George’s case, that may well have been more to do with the fact she had been pointing a gun in his face.

He spotted Isabel before she saw him. She was dressed in a black trouser suit and a pale-grey silk blouse and she stood out effortlessly from those around her. As Clayton made his way across the platform towards her, he did a double take. Alice had told him about Grace, but seeing the young girl in the flesh, he was struck by her likeness to Alice. It was all in the eyes and the mouth. Amazing.

“Clayton!” Isabel greeted him as if he were a long-lost friend. “Goodness, you look smart. How was your journey? Are you hungry?”

“Yes, I agree I do look very smart. Yes, I had a reasonable journey. And no, I’m not hungry. I had a sandwich on the train.”

“Very comprehensively answered,” she replied with a playful smile. She turned to her daughter. “Grace, this is Clayton.”

“Durr, Mum, I had worked that out for myself. Hello,” she said politely to Clayton.

“Hello to you, too.”

“Well then,” Isabel said, “let’s get out of here, shall we?”

• • •

They drove straight to Stonebridge. The area around the Methodist chapel was jam-packed with cars and enormous four-by-fours covered in dust, mud and goodness knows what else. George’s funeral had clearly brought the world and his wife down from the hills. They managed to find themselves a space to park the car and walked the short distance back to the chapel. Inside, the place was full to overflowing. Isabel led the way to the front, where Alice had seats reserved for them. Clayton experienced a peculiar sensation as he took his seat in the pew with Isabel and her daughter. It took him a moment to establish precisely what he was feeling: it was a sense of belonging.

A tap on his shoulder made him start. He turned round and found himself face to face with Ronnetta and Bob the Body Builder. He smiled awkwardly. Ronnetta came close to smiling back at him but Bob looked as if he might like to rip Clayton’s head off and kick it into next week.

He was saved from this ignominy by the arrival of George’s coffin. Borne aloft on the shoulders of six burly, ruddy-faced men, Clayton watched its progress. Behind it and looking pale but composed, was Alice. She was wearing a close-fitting black dress that stopped well below her knee and with the combination of high heels (something he’d never seen her wear) and her hair swept up on top of her head, Clayton thought she’d never looked lovelier. Was it weird of him to think that, given the circumstances? She slipped into the pew next to Isabel and leaned forward to give him the faintest of smiles. It felt good to be on the receiving end of a smile from her, even as fleeting and strained as this one was.

• • •

The general consensus was that George would have strongly approved. The service had been conducted in a simple but traditional manner and afterwards everyone had enjoyed drinks and sandwiches in the private room Alice had booked at The Hanging Gate, a pub conveniently placed just a short walk from the chapel. When the guests had finally drifted away, each taking the time and trouble to thank her, they had all said the same: “It was just as George would have wanted.”

Now, as Alice kicked off her shoes and sank gratefully into the softness of the cushions of her favourite armchair by the French door that looked into her garden, she listened to what was going on in the kitchen. Isabel, Grace and Clayton were putting some supper together.

She had been banned from helping. “You’ve done quite enough,” Isabel had said firmly. “Now do as you’re told and sit down.” Alice hadn’t put up any argument; she was exhausted. It had been ten days since she had got the call from the hospital to say that George had died, but it felt longer. She had been devastated that the old lady had died alone and it still bothered her now. She should have been with her. With no official next of kin on hand, the task of organizing George’s funeral had fallen to Alice. She had done it willingly.

She closed her eyes and listened to the clatter of crockery and the soothing murmur of voices. Isabel and Grace were staying with her for a couple of days and she couldn’t be happier about that. Clayton was stopping the night at The Hanging Gate and returning to London in the morning. No matter what had passed between them previously, she had known that she had to let Clayton know that George had died. She had also been very aware that George would have liked the idea of him coming to her funeral.

She didn’t know how it had happened, but since that phone call, she and Clayton had slipped into a routine of him ringing her every evening. Knowing that he cared sufficiently to do that had meant a lot to her. Maybe it meant too much. It was proving impossible to stay angry with him. Despite some aspects of his behaviour, he was, she had to admit, a good man at heart. Isabel said that in some respects he was like Bruce, in that his decision-making process didn’t work like most people’s did. But there again, who was Alice to talk? Hadn’t she made some off-the-wall decisions in the past? Such as pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Such as deliberately misleading people. Perhaps she and Clayton had more in common than she had supposed.

“Are you asleep, Alice?”

She opened her eyes and found herself being stared at by Grace; she was standing just a few feet away from her. “No, I was just thinking. How’s it going in the kitchen?”

“That’s why I’m here. Mum wanted to know what you wanted to drink with your supper. Red wine or white wine?”

Alice roused herself from the armchair. “That’s all right,” she said, “I’ll come and help now.” No sooner had she stood up and stretched the tiredness from her body, than Isabel’s voice rang out loudly from the kitchen. “
No!
I don’t believe it! How could they have done that to you?”

Alice looked at Grace. “Any idea what they’re talking about?”

“Clayton was telling Mum something I don’t think I was supposed to hear. He was talking very quietly. I’m pretty sure Mum made me come and ask you what you wanted to drink just to get rid of me.”

“And did you hear anything?”

Grace’s face lit up with a conspiratorial smile. “Do you know someone called Bazza?”

“I know
of
him.”

“Well, Bazza drank too much wine and he got very drunk and then he was sick and—”

Isabel burst into the room. “Alice! You’ll never guess what Clayton’s just told me!”

Following behind Isabel was Clayton; he didn’t look happy. “All things considered, I’d rather we discussed this later,” he said in a tone of voice that suggested no one dare argue with him. He cast a meaningful glance in Grace’s direction.

• • •

“We need a plan,” Isabel said. “A really good plan. We need to come up with something that will teach Stacey a lesson she won’t forget in a hurry.”

“What’s with the ‘we’?” Clayton asked. “Who said I needed any help?”

“Don’t be silly, Clayton,” Isabel replied, “of course you need help. Isn’t that right, Alice?”

They were in the sitting room, Grace had gone to bed and finally Alice had been let in on the big secret. She was shocked that anyone could have been so publicly duplicitous, that Bazza and Stacey had not only blamed Clayton for something he hadn’t done but they had gone out of their way to encourage the press to vilify him as a monster. Even that hadn’t been enough for them. They, or maybe Stacey in particular, had then made it their business to take advantage of his downfall. “If Clayton doesn’t want us interfering, then I really think we should respect his wishes,” she said.

“Oh, don’t be boring. Come on, everybody, think! There must be something we can come up with.”

Alice looked over to the sofa where Clayton was sitting. She thought of the first time he had kissed her when she had been upset about her father. It was after they’d been watching that awful chat show on the television with Bazza and Stacey. How the two of them had had the nerve to be interviewed like that and to put on such a breathtakingly sanctimonious act she didn’t know. She recalled Stacey’s sugary platitudes, her sickening facial expressions, her artificial smiles and laughter. All faked. All designed to gain public sympathy. All carefully planned, right down to the irritating little tilt of her head. What a fraud the woman was.