Diamonds Forever (15 page)

‘No, not really,' he said, smiling warmly at her. ‘We've had different childhoods but it doesn't mean we can't move in the same circles now.'

‘Oh, get off. My social life consists of going down the canal bank with my mates and a bottle of White Lightning.' She bit her lip, wishing she hadn't mentioned this. ‘At least, it used to. Not any more. I don't really knock around with them these days. Stay in with my dad and watch
Hollyoaks
on telly now.'

Ross was silent for a moment, regarding her over the top of his waxed coffee cup as if trying to read her thoughts.

‘There's a party on Saturday,' he said slowly. ‘Someone from school. Would you like to come?'

‘What, from your rich kids' school? Won't I show you up?'

Kayley laughed, half horrified and half excited by the idea.

‘Absolutely not,' insisted Ross. ‘You're a good person and a good laugh. That's all they'll be interested in. Go on, say yes. I'll pick you up.'

‘No,' said Kayley quickly, not wanting Ross to see where she lived. ‘I'll meet you somewhere. Is it in Bledburn?'

‘Yeah, Harville Hall. Do you know it?'

Her jaw dropped.

Two days later, she stood outside the McDonald's on Bledburn High Street, wearing an outfit she hoped wouldn't disgrace her in the company of aristocrats.

Ross laughed when he pulled up in his car and stuck his head out of the window, and she nearly turned and walked away.

‘Since when do you wear pearls?' he said, opening the car door for her.

‘They aren't real,' she said. ‘They're plastic. I borrowed them off my auntie.'

‘Kayley, this isn't a dinner party. You didn't have to go to all that trouble. Most of the girls will be in jeans.'

Her face fell. ‘You could have said!'

‘Oh, don't worry. You look lovely. Get in, then.'

Kayley hadn't been near Harville Hall since the last gala. She had been a very tiny girl then. She knew that lots of estate kids liked to trespass in the overgrown back garden, but she had never joined in. Truth to tell, she found the place a bit creepy and thought it was probably haunted.

But she was too old for that kind of fantasy now, and she followed Ross through the rusting front gate into a place that had fallen into very obvious neglect.

At the gala, the gardens had been smart and colourful and the façade of the house splendid, its pale grey stone seeming to shine down on her four-year-old's gaze. The jolly tiddly-pom of the brass band blared from the rear of the building and everywhere were people, holding plastic cups of beer, playing games at the different stalls and marquees. It had felt like a wonderland.

Not so much now, with the grey stone falling away and the garden wild with brambles.

But the front door was wide open, and a cluster of people sat on the front steps, drinking out of champagne bottles.

‘Yo, Ross,' called one man in an Abercrombie hoodie. ‘Who's your friend?'

‘Nice dress,' said a girl in the group, giving the others a droll look.

Kayley bristled. They were taking the piss out of her. The dress had cost thirty-five quid at Florence and Fred, and she wasn't about to take any crap from some stuck-up bitch with a rich daddy.

‘Thanks, lend it you if you want,' she said belligerently, giving the girl a hard stare.

‘That's all right,' said the girl, but she appeared to have been neutralised, no longer rolling her eyes at the rest of the group.

‘I see Ross has
gone native
,' she heard one of them say as they walked on through the open door.

‘Ignore them,' muttered Ross. ‘I always do.'

‘I thought they were meant to be your friends.'

The entrance hall was dusty and unkempt, but underneath the layers of grime she could still make out the splendour that had once been. She walked into the centre of the room and looked up in wonder at a great cobwebby chandelier. It wasn't working – the place was lit only with candles in every alcove and nook – but Kayley could imagine how glowing and beautiful the hall had once been.

People stood or sprawled in corners, drinking and smoking and, in some cases, sleeping.

‘Ross.'

A confident voice addressed them from a side door. Kayley saw a handsome, well-dressed man leaning against the door frame, holding an opened champagne bottle.

‘How's it going, Loz? This is Kayley, a friend of mine from college.'

‘Ah,' said Loz, coming forward and holding out a hand to shake. ‘College, eh? A scholar. And a lady. Delighted.'

He shook hands and offered her the champagne bottle.

Kayley, somewhat flattered by the way this very elegant gent was giving her the full beam of his approving attention, giggled and shook her head.

‘Don't you have any glasses?' she asked.

‘No, I'm afraid we're barbarians here,' he said with a charming smile. ‘Especially barbaric of me not to have introduced myself. I'm Lawrence Harville.'

‘Oh!' said Kayley.

He must have noted the slightly conflicted response this provoked in her, because he sighed and cocked his head to one side.

‘Ah, now you're judging me,' he said. ‘A local girl, I take it?'

‘Well, you know your family aren't exactly the most popular round here,' she said. ‘But don't mind me. I know it's not your fault. You were a little kid when it all kicked off.'

‘Indeed I was. And Ma and Pa are a long way away from it all now. They knew better than to stick around.'

‘So they've left all this to you?' She waved a hand, indicating the house as a whole.

‘Yes. Foolish of them. I'm no housekeeper, I'm afraid, and my trust fund doesn't seem to stretch to domestic help.'

‘It all goes on fun,' said Ross, with a slight edge of disapproval. ‘Honestly, Loz, you don't want to let the place fall down. If I got my hands on it, the things I could do …'

‘You'd turn it into a fucking … day centre for underprivileged kids,' said Lawrence, laughing. ‘Always a bleeding heart, this one,' he said, turning to Kayley. ‘Always on about how we didn't deserve our superior education if we don't use it to give something back to those less fortunate. Such a mealy mouthed phrase, don't you think? “Those less fortunate”? Sounds like a fat, brandy-swigging vicar on School Speech Day. “Those less fortunate”.'

Kayley realised now just how much champagne Lawrence had got through. He was beginning to slur.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I think it's pretty sound myself. Why do you need a massive house like this when there are kids coughing their lungs up in mouldy one-bed flats on the estate?'

‘Oh, God help us,' said Lawrence, rolling his eyes at Ross. ‘Why have you brought me Leon Trotsky's sister? What did I do to you, to deserve this?'

Ross laughed. ‘It's good for you to be challenged now and again, Loz. I'm only thinking of you.'

‘You're too … too … kind,' he said, with a pause to belch out some regurgitated bubbles. ‘At least she's pretty.'

‘Loz.' A girl in heavy black eyeliner appeared beside their host, eyeing Kayley with suspicion before laying her head on Lawrence's arm. ‘Missing you, babe. Come upstairs.'

‘Look, sorry, Tigs, I'm not really in the zone. Later maybe, yah?'

The girl pouted and flounced upstairs, if skinny jeans could be made to flounce. Kayley didn't own a pair herself – they hadn't made it to the Bledburn shops yet – but she'd noticed pretty much every girl was wearing a pair of Topshop Baxters.

‘Is that your girlfriend?' asked Kayley, looking wistfully at her enviably tight bum below the hoodie.

‘No,' said Lawrence. ‘Just a friend. I'm a friendly guy. I'd like to be your friend, as long as you stop telling me what an evil capitalist swine I am.'

‘I tell it like it is,' said Kayley. ‘But if you get us a beer I might go easy on you.'

He returned her flirtatious smile with interest.

‘Deal,' he said. ‘Ross, there's a barrel in the kitchen. Could you oblige the lady?'

Kayley wasn't sure at what point Ross disappeared, but by the time darkness fell she was sitting outside on the back kitchen step with Lawrence, having discussed Bledburn politics, state versus private education, popular music of the day, the weirdness of parents and, it seemed, every other subject under the sun until they were hoarse. They disagreed on all of them, and yet Kayley enjoyed their conversation more than any she could remember in ages. She had a sense of being properly listened to that was almost new to her. And Lawrence, even when he was saying something outrageous that would normally make her angry as hell, was so charming and sweet with it that she somehow couldn't take offence.

‘I've never met a person like you,' he said, coming back outside with a blanket to wrap around her shoulders.

‘What, a normal person?'

He laughed.

‘Quite possibly. Look, I've brought us a little something … a treat.'

Kayley saw the pills he proffered and sucked in a breath. She had promised herself she wouldn't, not any more, not now she was in college and looking at a decent future. But she was drunk and full of the joys of attraction and new, intoxicating company, and she didn't want Lawrence to think she was some kind of uptight goody-two-shoes. So she took the pill and put it in her smiling mouth.

The gathering cold of the night was forgotten in a haze of blissful well-being and sensuality. It seemed such a natural progression, to go from conversation to kissing, from kissing to entwining, and from there to a long, slow coupling on the grass. It must have been damp, but Kayley didn't notice. She lay looking up at the stars, feeling an enveloping love for Lawrence that was more universal than personal.

How beautiful life was.

How wonderful to be her, with him, tonight.

It was a little less wonderful to wake up with a stiff neck on a dusty, dog-smelling rug in some back kitchen.

Ross was rolling a cigarette at a big wooden table.

He looked down at her and laughed.

‘How's your head?'

‘Where did you go?' she yawned. ‘You disappeared.'

‘You didn't seem to miss me too much,' he said archly. ‘Seems somebody took a shine to you.'

‘Where is Lawrence?' She sat up and looked vaguely around. The plastic pearls had wound tight around her neck, leaving rounded impressions in her neck. She pulled them loose and felt her hair with a hand. Rough. Perhaps it was just as well Lawrence wasn't here to see it.

Ross didn't answer, but went to the fridge to get her a bottle of mineral water.

‘Here. You must be gasping.'

‘Don't mind if I do.'

The ice cold water was nectar, sliding down her sandpaper throat.

‘Got any painkillers?' she asked, once her mouth was ungummed.

Ross handed her a blister pack from his jeans pocket.

‘So …' he said pointedly.

‘So what? It was a party. I was having fun.'

‘I'm not judging you, Kay. I'm just asking … I don't know … how you feel.'

‘How I feel? Rough as a badger's backside.'

He laughed.

‘I'm thinking more of the, er, emotional side of things.'

‘What, 'cos I shagged Lawrence? It was nothing. He gave me an E and it made me horny. Don't look so shocked. Girls get horny too, you know.'

‘I … know. I know that.' But Ross still looked at her as if she'd just confessed her alien heritage. ‘So you're OK?'

‘Fine. Why wouldn't I be?'

‘Good. Just didn't want you getting in too deep with him, that's all.'

Kayley struggled to her feet and looked around her.

‘You seen my handbag?'

‘Sorry …'

‘It's OK, it'll be around somewhere. Just wanted to look in a mirror, that's all.'

She settled for staring into the chrome kettle, tweaking her hair and rubbing stray make-up off with a wetted thumb.

‘God, the state of me,' she muttered. ‘Do you know where the tea bags are?'

She flicked the kettle switch on and started organising mugs and milk.

‘Loz isn't a tea drinker,' said Ross. ‘It'll be coffee.'

‘Black coffee,' said Kayley hollowly, sniffing at an ancient looking milk carton located in the fridge. ‘Honestly, for a posh boy, he lives like a pig.'

‘He's been looked after all his life,' said Ross. ‘He's never had to fend for himself till now.'

‘What, he had a nanny until the age of twenty-one? Is that what you're saying?'

Ross laughed.

‘No, but he was living with a girl at university and she might as well have been his nanny. They split up over the summer. He's gone a bit … off the rails.'

‘Yeah?' Kayley flicked off the kettle. ‘I don't want coffee. I think I'm just going to get my handbag and leave. You?'

‘I'll drive you home.'

‘You safe to drive?'

‘I didn't have much to drink – couple of glasses of wine and the rest was all spliffs. Perfectly clear-headed now, though.'

Kayley roamed through vast room after vast room, picking her way over lifeless bodies in skinny jeans as she went. She trod on the hair of the girl who had sneered at her dress.

No matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find her handbag though, and there was no sign of Lawrence either.

Perhaps she'd taken it upstairs? Though she didn't think she'd been upstairs … but it wasn't impossible.

She made her way up the grand staircase, noting a number of broken banister posts. Nothing drew her in any particular direction – it was all totally unfamiliar – but one of the doors was half-open and low voices issued through the gap, so she decided to start there.

‘Just looking for—'

She stopped, frozen in her tracks, at the sight beyond.