Heartbreaker (33 page)

V

After talking to Lewis I did feel better, and although I still found it hard to visualise how I could keep pushing the right sublimation button, I knew he had given me a useful idea to explore. I was not in the least bothered by the fact that he had broken so many of the rules of modern spiritual direction, the rules which required today’s spiritual director to be more of a non-directing “soul-friend” than an authoritarian adviser. The last thing I ever seemed to want was a non-directive “soul-friend” shyly fostering insights. I always wanted a clerical buccaneer who would take charge and tell me what to do, and although I did realise that Lewis was able enough to adopt other styles with other people, I found this thought unsettled me. It made me wonder if his decision to serve up the style I preferred was because he felt I was too spiritually stupid to respond to a more sophisticated approach, and this suspicion made me feel more spiritually stupid than ever.

My conversation with Lewis concluded the important discussions resulting from Gavin’s visit to the Healing Centre. There followed an interval of several days during which Gavin remained out of sight, but eventually he phoned to identify my new hot prospect, Sir Colin Broune, as his client, and the coming weekend in Wiltshire took on an entirely different dimension.

I did wonder whether to call Eric to keep him abreast of the news.

But in the end, unable to face another row, I did nothing.

VI

My ploughed-up private life explains why I was not only willing and able to work through the weekend but was actually looking forward to the visit to Sir Colin’s country house near Devizes. Despite Gavin’s participation, I knew it would be a mistake to regard the donation as in the bag and I was stimulated by the challenge Sir Colin represented. I had already worked out that it was Nicholas who would have to take the fundraising lead; after further research I had pegged Sir Colin as a man who was not just indifferent to women but averse to them, and who would always prefer to do business with his own sex. His big interest outside his work was music, but neither Nicholas nor I were experts in this field.

“The topic that we all have in common is the City,” Nicholas had said when we brainstormed our approach to this big fish. “You can talk money and business to him and I can talk the livery companies, the Lord Mayor and the Corporation hierarchy. Is he interested in cars? I wouldn’t mind chatting about his latest Rolls.”

Although Nicholas had a private income and could well have afforded a smart car he always chose to avoid extravagance and demanded no more of a car than that it should get him from A to B without a fuss. On the journey down to Wiltshire that Saturday he drove his white Peugeot which contained no tape deck, no phone and, most amazing of all, no radio. This should have made the journey restful, but I could have used some soothing music. I had never before spent a weekend in a grand country house, and my working-class Glaswegian roots were twitching.

Nicholas, on the other hand, seemed wholly relaxed about the inevitable grandeur to come, but his roots were rather different from mine; he actually owned a small country house, his mother’s family home, which had been let for years to an Anglican religious order. Alice said he wanted to retire there eventually, but I couldn’t quite imagine Nicholas being content to loaf around in the country being uncharismatic.

We drove on. It was a cool November day with strong gusts of wind and big fleecy clouds which moved at a brisk pace across the sky. Once we left the motorway the Wiltshire countryside was all smooth green hills dotted with sheep and garnished with the occasional clump of trees. It was an ancient landscape. Megalithic stones standing in a nearby field contrasted oddly with the warning notice of the Ministry of Defence that the area beyond the fence was an army shooting range.

“It’s good to get out of London,” Nicholas commented as we approached our journey’s end. “Despite Lewis’s misgivings I think this trip’s going to be a success.”

“Is that a psychic prediction?”

“Let’s hope so!”

As we laughed we reached a village where the cottages were built of stone and roofed with dark thatch. There was no village green but a stream ran alongside the main street, and beyond the church a signpost marked THE HALL pointed across the bridge into the woods.

A minute later we saw the house. The car swerved as Nicholas’s hands slipped on the wheel and I gave a gasp of astonishment.

An enormous Gothic pile, towered, turreted and teased into fantastical shapes, was glowering at us beyond the gates by the lodge. There was even a gatekeeper who sprang out and checked who we were before opening the gates with the flick of a remote control. As I glanced up the drive again I felt that the architectural corpse, mummified for twentieth-century living, looked both utterly surreal and deeply unpleasant. I had never seen anything like it except in horror films, the kind where the heroine runs screaming down the grand staircase only to trip over a severed head in the hall.

“Roll out your ghost-busting skills, Nicholas!” I said, trying to make a joke of my uneasiness, and he smiled, but as soon as he had parked the car on the gravel sweep in front of the house his mood changed. He said abruptly: “I’m getting very bad vibes.”

“Because of the architecture?”

“Because of the symbolism. We both expected a pleasant country house and we’ve been handed a Gothic horror.”

“Sorry, you’ve lost me. Are you implying—”

“Something frightful’s going to hit us. Lewis got it right. We should never have come.”

“But Nicholas, the situation hasn’t changed just because we now find Sir Colin lives in a Gothic mansion! What frightful thing could possibly happen?”

The front door of the house opened and out walked Gavin.

VII

I said: “Oh my God.” I tried closing my eyes and opening them again but Gavin was still there. “Nicholas,” I said weakly, “Nicholas—”

“Yes. Disaster.”

“What on earth do we do?”

“Be normal. Betray nothing.”

We crawled out of the car just as Gavin surged up to us. He was wearing a mixture of smart casualwear, plenty of blue and palest grey with a subtle dash of creamy white, and looked like a film star taking time out on the set of his latest multi-million-dollar movie. I tried to think of him as my younger brother. Nothing happened.

“Hi!” he said, smiling radiantly. “Surprise!”

“Surprise!” I echoed, smiling radiantly back as the chaotic knot began to re-form in my head.

“Welcome to the modern version of Hellfire Hall! Did you ever see such a perfect location for a horror film?”

“Can’t wait for the buckets of blood. When did you get down here?”

“Last night . . . Hi, Nicholas!”

Nicholas casually gave him a hand to shake before saying: “I thought you didn’t do escort work?”

“Bloody right I don’t but—hold it, here’s Colin. I’ll have to brief you later . . .”

A middle-aged man, well over six feet tall and built like an American refrigerator, was now watching us from the vast doorway of his home. His baldness was alleviated by a few strands of greying hair. His plain face was scored by a set of harsh lines which suggested belligerence, cunning and a vile temper when crossed. I immediately took a deep dislike to him.

“Mr. Darrow,” he said, rudely looking Nicholas up and down, but if he had thought Nicholas was a limp-wristed pushover, he was now disillusioned.

“Sir Colin? How do you do,” Nicholas said effortlessly, quite unintimidated. “May I introduce my colleague, Carta Graham?”

A fleshy paw was shoved at me. I slipped my hand into it and had my bones crunched.

“Come in,” said Sir Colin, still not bothering to waste energy on a smile, and as soon as he turned to lead the way across the threshold Gavin gave me a sultry look as he allowed his arm to brush against mine. To my horror I realised he was not only deep in denial again but still fixated on playing the stud. That mystical clasp of the hands might never have happened, and as the weekend’s gruesome potential for disaster flashed before my eyes I had to fight the urge to slug him in what he coyly referred to as his “equipment.”

Or at least that was what I told myself as the physical contact seared my arm like a burn.

“As it was Gavin who aroused my interest in your cause,” Sir Colin was saying to Nicholas, “I thought it would be appropriate if he joined us this weekend. I understand he met you at the funeral of Richard Slaney.”

“That’s correct.”

Sir Colin said no more on that subject but suggested that Nicholas should give his car keys to a hovering flunkey (footman?) who had been told to retrieve the luggage. A much grander person (definitely the butler) was lurking in the triple-height hall to show us to our rooms.

Up the grand staircase we toiled and down a picture-studded gallery we trailed. Acres of soft rich carpet ensured our footfalls were noiseless, and yards of dark oak-panelled walls enhanced the atmosphere of somnolent gloom. Eventually the butler stopped and opened a door. “This is your room, sir. The lady’s room is at the end of the passage.”

Nicholas thanked him and added to me: “I’ll call for you in ten minutes.”

The butler moved on. Following him to the end of the corridor I found myself in a large round room set in one of the many turrets. Beyond the four-poster bed there were views across a striking garden, beautiful even in November, to the woods which surrounded the village.

My suitcase arrived within moments of the butler’s departure, and Nicholas soon followed.

“Time for an emergency conference,” he said as I let him in. “Can we or can’t we believe that the discreet Sir Colin Broune’s deliberately flaunting his male prostitute?”

“We can’t. He’s either gone fruity-loops or—”

“—or he has no idea we know Gavin’s a prostitute.”

“Sane but ignorant?”

“That’s the most likely explanation, but it needn’t be the right one. Okay, while we’re waiting for Gavin’s briefing, let’s just do a reality check to try to get our heads round this mess. We know for a fact that Gavin tipped off Sir Colin about St. Benet’s, and we know for a fact that Sir Colin’s Gavin’s client, but that’s about all we do know. We’ve been assuming Sir Colin’s more than capable of making his own independent decision about whether to support us, but if he’s infatuated with Gavin— infatuated enough to invite him to be present this weekend—that may not be the case at all.”

“You’re saying the prostitution could be crucial here.”

“Well, what do you think? What are the odds that Sir Colin’s said to Gavin: ‘I’ll give to your cause but I want you for a weekend in the country’? Gavin doesn’t do escort work and doesn’t work on weekends, so it’s a safe bet he’s here to provide the sweetener that’ll open the chequebook. That means that if we accept the resulting donation—”

“—we’d be not only accepting the fruits of prostitution but condoning Gavin’s lifestyle—”

“—and that’s something which we can’t and mustn’t do. It was different with the other three donors, when we took the money in good faith, but this time we’re hopelessly compromised.”

“Nicholas, I agree with every word you’ve said, but how on earth do we get out of this disaster?”

We had been standing by the window during this fraught conversation but now, as if to reflect the fact that we were mentally shifting gears, we both sat down on the wide window seat and racked our brains for inspiration.

“I could make a secret call to Lewis,” I said at last, “and get him to phone you here with news of an emergency which requires your immediate return.”

“No, I can’t lie my way out of a tight corner. We’ve somehow got to survive the weekend here without nailing the donation.”

Another twinge of inspiration flared. “Hang on,” I said, “you’re making the assumption that the donation’s now inevitable, but that still needn’t be true. Supposing Sir Colin actually has no intention of giving to St. Benet’s. Supposing he’s just been stringing Gavin along in order to get him to do the escort work he never normally undertakes. If Sir Colin has no intention of giving, we’re off the hook.”

“No, we’re not. I’m still left condoning a wrong relationship which is being played out under my nose.”

“But don’t you see? If you’re not profiting from the situation, the weekend becomes viable! Where’s the Church law that forbids Christians to follow Jesus’s example of mingling with prostitutes and other lowlife?”

Nicholas mulled this over. “Okay, but I still ought to be upfront with Sir Colin. I have to say right from the start that I can’t take his money.”

“But he may not offer us any! Look, Nicholas. If you go downstairs now and say to Sir Colin: ‘I’m sorry, I can’t take your money because of its association with your prostitute,’ I think that would be pretty damn crude and unkind. We’d do much better to wait until he actually offers the money because (a) it may never happen, and (b) at least the truth would then be a required response and not just an unsolicited verbal mugging.”

Nicholas was silent, thinking.

I pushed on. “It’s unlikely anyway that Sir Colin will make a decision about the donation this weekend,” I said. “Remember that we’ve been invited here only to allow him to explore the option. Of course if he admits the prostitution you’ll have to make your position clear, but I’m certain that’ll never happen—he won’t even admit the homosexual relationship! Gavin will have a cover story to explain how they know each other.”

“But what do I do when Sir Colin asks about the Appeal?”

“Tell him about it. Why not? Downplay the financial angle, of course, but talk up the ministry of healing and all the good work done at the Healing Centre.”

Nicholas made up his mind. “Fair enough,” he said, “we’ll tough it out, but Carta, can I now give you some advice about how to survive this weekend? One: do your best to have no time alone with Gavin, who’s clearly back in denial and panting for a sexathon. Two: if a tête-à-tête proves unavoidable, make sure you’re nowhere near a bedroom. And three: lock your door tonight
and
wedge it shut. The keys on this floor could be interchangeable.”

“Message received and understood!”

“Sorry to play the Victorian paterfamilias—”

“Relax! You’re well within your rights as my boss to give me advice on how to avoid wrecking myself, and I promise not to behave like an airhead.”

Brave words. But what was the reality beneath the tough talk? I tried to think of Lewis’s image of the high wire, but the conversation seemed remote and I was unable to connect with it on an emotional level.

With growing uneasiness I followed Nicholas downstairs.