Honeycote (30 page)

She let herself into the kitchen and stopped short. There, at the table, sat Lucy Liddiard, wearing what looked suspiciously like one of James’s shirts and some cotton long johns tucked into a pair of thick socks. She looked delicate and fragile and irritatingly gorgeous. Caroline was immediately on her guard. Lucy always made her feel cumbersome, cheap and ginger.

‘Merry Christmas,’ said Caroline, in a tone that blatantly asked, ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘Merry Christmas,’ said Lucy, in a tone which gave absolutely nothing away. She was clutching a cup of tea. A proper cup, bone china, with a saucer. James didn’t possess anything as commonplace as a mug. Caroline thought that as soon as she was in charge, that was the first thing that would be introduced.

‘Is James here?’

Caroline’s question incorporated a thousand others, but still Lucy shed no light on her presence.

‘He’s getting dressed.’

Caroline just managed to keep her temper under control. What the hell was going on? Lucy Liddiard was lolling about in James’s kitchen, having brazenly raided his wardrobe, looking bedraggled and big-eyed and annoyingly vulnerable. She’d obviously just had a bath – the ends of her hair were still wet, and anyway, Caroline could smell the Czech & Speake James kept in his bathroom.

She hesitated, not too sure how to regain the advantage, and marched over to the Aga to put the kettle back on. She noticed with fury an untouched breakfast tray by the sink, with brioches and apricot conserve. James always had porridge or grilled bacon. What was going on? She turned to Lucy and smiled sweetly.

‘I think it’s coffee time, don’t you? Did you have a nice Christmas?’

‘Lovely, thanks’ Lucy’s tone was dull, unconvincing. She obviously had no intention of explaining her presence. She was in another world. Caroline was wrong-footed. Notoriously confrontational, for once in her life she didn’t feel she could go in with all guns blazing. Before she could decide on her next move, James entered, dressed down in a pair of faded jeans and a grey marl fisherman’s sweater.

‘Caroline.’ It was a statement rather than a greeting. His voice wasn’t exactly suffused with warmth. Nevertheless, Caroline went to give him a hug, to stamp her possession over him, but to her astonishment he put out a hand to stop her.

‘You should have phoned. It’s not a good time.’

Caroline’s jaw dropped.

‘Phoned? I didn’t realize I needed to make an appointment.’

Flummoxed, she looked between James and Lucy. Lucy was gazing into space, still clutching her teacup. Caroline wondered if she was in some sort of post-coital reverie, if they’d been at it all night. If they had, neither of them looked in the least shamefaced. Feeling rather outnumbered, she put her hands on her hips.

‘Does somebody want to tell me what’s going on?’

James put a calming hand on her elbow and manoeuvred her out of the room. He spoke in a confidential undertone that Caroline found profoundly patronizing.

‘Lucy’s having a bit of a crisis.’

‘Well, so am I. I’m having a lot of a crisis. Demelza – ’

James cut her off, uninterested.

‘We need to talk.’

Speechless, Caroline followed him into his study. It smelled of beeswax and was piled high with papers and auction catalogues, back copies of
Country Life
. Something that could only be called a wireless cranked out Classic FM. James snapped it off and turned to face Caroline. She realized this was serious.

‘I think we should give things a break.’

‘Why?’

‘Lucy’s having a few problems. She’s staying here for the time being, while she sorts things out. I think she needs some space.’

Caroline took in a sharp breath. If she’d had nails, they’d have been digging into her palms, but she’d bitten them to the quick on the journey down. She turned to James with an icy smile.

‘I see. So Lucy Liddiard has a little tiff with her husband and you think you’re in with a chance. Is that it?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘That’s how it looks to me.’

‘Caroline – she’s family.’

Caroline just raised an eyebrow.

‘So there’s nothing going on but you don’t want me here?’

‘Look – maybe it’s time we called it a day anyway. We weren’t exactly heading for the altar, were we? Let’s face it.’

Caroline couldn’t believe the irony. Little did James know the plan she’d had in store for him.

‘It’s news to me. I thought we were quite happy! OK, so we don’t live in each other’s pockets. But isn’t that what we both wanted…?’

She trailed off. James was looking uncomfortable. Caroline knew he was weak and wouldn’t be able to stand up to her. She just had to be persistent. Yet again she marvelled at how useful her sales training was in her everyday life. And anyway, she hadn’t played her trump card yet. He’d be putty in her hands. She smiled to herself as she walked over and grasped the brass of his belt buckle. She hooked her finger behind the leather and tugged. To her astonishment James grabbed her wrist and jerked her hand away.

‘Just go, will you? Lucy needs me.’

Caroline didn’t know whether to laugh or slap him round the face. She felt outraged. Ousted from her position by Lucy Liddiard? How bloody ironic could you get?

She’d known from the moment she set eyes on him that Mickey Liddiard could be tempted to play away from home. He was an easy target. True, he’d never tried it on with her, but she’d always put that down to fraternal loyalty. Given half the chance, she could have worked on Mickey, could have had him any day of the week. But she’d recognized that he was off limits; that it would have been ill-mannered to sleep with James’s own brother when she didn’t really want him. So out of deference to etiquette, she’d left him well alone.

But Lucy was obviously working from a different set of rules. That was the problem with these moneyed country types. They moved the bloody goalposts all the time. She was shamelessly sitting in James’s kitchen, half dressed, and hadn’t even looked mildly abashed.

Caroline was tempted to fly into one of her famous rages. That was one of the few advantages of having red hair – people were afraid of you when you got angry and tended to give in. She knew that was the case with James. He hated scenes and always backed down before she became too hysterical. But somehow, this time, she suspected this was not the way to play it. Getting angry would only highlight the difference between her and the ladylike paragon of virtue sitting in the kitchen, who undoubtedly never lost her cool. No, Caroline knew she had to retreat with dignity if she had any chance of winning the battle. Anyway, she needed time to think. The wind had been taken out of her sails somewhat. James was obviously quite determined that his loyalties lay with Lucy, and she wasn’t going to degrade herself by arguing with him about it. Better that she withdrew from the situation gracefully until she had a chance to think of a game plan.

‘Fine. Merry fucking Christmas. Lucky I remembered to keep the receipt for your present.’

James hesitated. He’d wrapped an exquisite pair of Moroccan kelim slippers and a silk dressing gown for Caroline. He wondered if it would add insult to injury to give them to her, then decided yes, it probably would, as she stalked out of the study, through the hall and out of the front door without looking back. Never mind. He’d kept his receipt as well.

*

For the second time that day, Caroline leaped into her car in a towering fury and drove off at top speed. She grabbed for her packet of cigarettes and tried to shake one out. Empty. She knew there was no point in stopping at the newsagents. Already there was nowhere in Eldenbury to park – the square was filling up for the hunt with horseboxes and onlookers parking willy-nilly. She tooted impatiently at someone unloading a highly strung pony in the middle of the road and received a mouthful of abuse. Caroline put her foot down and roared past, not caring.

On automatic pilot, she pointed her car along the road that would eventually lead her back to the cramped one-bedroom starter home she’d reluctantly bought three years earlier, realizing that the rent she’d been paying was just dead money and she really should be getting on to the property ladder. It was totally soulless – she felt no inclination to inject any of her own personality into it – though in fact it was very revealing of her lifestyle. She thought of the tights and cotton wool balls littering her bedroom floor; the empty coffee cups and the CDs lying around without their cases. If she went home, she’d have to address all of that. A knot grew in her stomach as she thought how uninviting the prospect was; how much she’d been looking forward to spending a couple of days with James. Denham House was luxuriously indulgent: she’d been planning to lounge by the fire, reading a trashy novel and sipping champagne. Now she felt filled with gloom. She hadn’t even left the heating on at her house. It would take hours to take the chill off.

The honeyed buildings either side of the road out of Eldenbury dwindled away and were replaced by drystone walls and trees. Caroline realized she was starving. There was a Little Chef a few miles further along the road. She’d stop and have a fry-up and two gallons of coffee. Bugger the spots. Hopefully it would be open on Boxing Day.

The thought cheered her and she put her foot down. As she passed the white sign whose black lettering pointed to Honeycote – 11/2 miles – she wondered yet again what on earth had gone on in the Liddiard house the day before. James hadn’t given her any details. He’d been irritatingly discreet.

Suddenly she slammed on her brakes. What was she thinking of, turning tail like that and fleeing obediently? She wasn’t going to go without a fight. Surely she had a right to know what was going on? She turned the car round and retraced her journey, indicated right and swung into the lane that led to Honeycote House.

After Caroline had gone, James sat in his study for a few minutes to regain his composure. He needed a clear head and to be quite sure of his plan of campaign. Things were certainly in his favour, but the slightest error of judgement could tip the balance the other way. He looked through the lattice window out into his garden. The glass was so old that it gave a distorted view, but he always found the vision a pleasure, even now in the depths of winter when there was little flowering and frost still hovered in the shadiest corners, where the fingers of sunshine had not yet reached them. Two magnificent moss-covered urns stood either side of the path that dissected the lawn and led to an intricate knot garden he’d designed and grown himself from box seedlings. It had taken seven years to take proper shape, but the patience had paid off. It was his pride and joy.

The sight helped to calm him, bring him down, for he was as high as a kite. He felt like a dealer who had stumbled across a long-forgotten work of art in the corner of an auction room. He had to keep his find secret, play his cards close to his chest, feign disinterest until the moment of bidding when he had to hold his nerve until the prize was his, when at last he could take it home, dust it off and declare it as his own, in all its glory. For to him Lucy had always been a priceless treasure who had fallen by mishap into the wrong hands. And now it was only a matter of time before she could be claimed by her rightful owner, someone who would appreciate her beauty, her provenance…

James thought of the years he had been waiting and how, during all that time, everything he had bought, all the beautiful objects that he surrounded himself with, had been inspired by Lucy. Either because it reminded him of her, or because he knew it was something she would like. A graceful Lalique figure, arms stretching skywards. A sketch attributed to Augustus John. (James knew very well that he’d paid over the top for it; that the picture was more than likely a copy by some aspiring Bloomsbury wannabe – but he hadn’t cared because the way the model’s hair was pinned loosely on top of her head, the ends falling round her neck, reminded him so much of the neck he so wanted to kiss. He wanted to press his lips against that creamy skin and feel Lucy’s pulse, her very life force…) A Limoges coffee set. An exquisite button-back Victorian nursing chair. An Aubusson rug whose soft, muted colours reminded him of a dress she’d been wearing… His entire house was a shrine to her. A temple. And at last she had come here to be worshipped and adored.

James knew there was still some dirty work to be done, and he was a little nervous. He’d kept his hands so clean up until now. Plus he felt slightly guilty. Mickey was his brother, after all. He was soon able to dispel his doubts, however. Surely it was his duty to rescue Lucy? And anyway, at the end of the day, it had to be her decision. He wasn’t going to put a gun to her head. If she didn’t want him, she only had to say.

16

Caroline’s car crunched over the gravel at Honeycote House. She thought the house looked unusually forbidding, then decided she was being fanciful. She tried the door knocker, giving it an assertive rap, but there was no reply. Somebody must be in, surely?

She tramped round the house looking for signs of life and found the back door ajar. It led into the scullery area, a glory hole that contained boots, boots and more boots, hats, collars, dog bowls, lead ropes, macs, binoculars, scarves, umbrellas, waxed jackets, picnic rugs and baskets – the whitewashed brick walls and the quarry tiles were barely visible amongst the family debris. Piled up by the back door were crates and crates of empty bottles. A huge wicker dog basket was abandoned, the food and drink bowls next to it disconcertingly empty. A stout oak door led down some steps to the wine cellars, another led to a cloakroom, and next to that was the door leading into the kitchen. She opened it tentatively and stepped inside.

The kitchen looked as though a bomb had hit it. No one had touched a thing since Christmas lunch the day before. The turkey was still out on the side, surrounded by a few neolithic stuffing balls. Stone-cold vegetables sat in their dishes, coated in congealed butter. Piles of unwashed crockery and grease-smeared glasses were stacked up by the sink. Wedges of cheese lay uncovered and drying. The smell of stale cooking, booze and unemptied ashtrays pervaded the air.