Tangled Lives (19 page)

‘How’s the Pilkington cake coming along?’ she asked Jodie, quickly forcing her feelings under control.

‘Finished,’ Jodie replied, stretching and yawning. ‘Go and take a look. Carol and Kadir have done a fantastic job.’

Annie got up from her office chair and went through to the bakery. Radio 2 was playing Glen Campbell’s ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix’ at full volume. The music took her back, and for a moment she was lost in her youth.
Carol was clearly enjoying it too, swaying to the beat as she poured sugar in a thick stream into the industrial mixer. When she saw Annie she waved her over excitedly.

‘Have you seen it?’ Carol walked over to the work surface and drew the lid off a large white cardboard box set beside the fridge in the area where the finished cakes were boxed up, waiting for Wes, the always-grinning dreadlocked delivery man, to collect.

Annie peered into the box. The cake was a masterpiece: a glittering castle in silver and white, with turrets, mullioned windows, a drawbridge and fluttering white ribbon pennants. The bride and groom, resplendent in golden medieval robes, stood high on the ramparts, overseeing their fairy-tale kingdom.

‘Wow! It’s really wonderful. Thanks so much, all of you. They wanted kitsch, they got it! Tragic, as always, that it has to be eaten.’ In awe, Annie carefully checked out the extraordinary detail around the cake. She patted Carol on the back, waved at Kadir. ‘Genius!’

Carol nodded, her red face beneath the white baker’s cap lighting up with pleasure.

‘Don’t forget to take a photograph for the website,’ Annie reminded Lisa.

As Annie walked back to the office, her thoughts returned to Charles. And Richard. What would he think of her swanning off to the Ritz with Carnegie? He’d been so emphatic about her not seeing Charles again after that first meeting. And what did Charles want to talk to her
about anyway? This man, who seemed to take everything with a large pinch of salt, had sounded serious for once.

She realised suddenly that Charles reminded her of her father. He showed the same mischievous humour and intemperance that, in Ralph Westbury, had driven her mother mad. She wondered, not for the first time, if her father’s death had been, in the marital sense, a relief to her mother.

That dreary November Sunday had been, she knew, the defining moment of her own life. Aged nine, she was awake early and reading J.M. Barrie’s
Peter Pan
by the light of her torch. She heard some noise from her parents’ bedroom across the landing, but thought nothing of it; her mother was an early riser. Then the telephone rang – in those days a rare event, especially at that time. But her book was absorbing and she read on.

It was just getting light when the bedroom door opened, the dull, grey dawn rendering her mother’s dressing-gowned figure almost ghostly. Eleanor sat down on her bed.

‘Your father’s dead,’ she had announced dully. ‘He was ill … he died this morning.’

Annie had looked at her blankly. She had no idea what her mother was talking about. She had waited for some sort of explanation, some clarification. But Eleanor had merely laid a hand on her pyjama’d shoulder for a second, then got up and left the room.

Her next memory was of sitting at the kitchen table.
Maria, the middle-aged Irish nanny who’d been with them for over two years – longer than any of the others to date – was red-eyed and silent. She plopped a boiled egg into the egg-cup in front of Annie and tapped the top of the shell with the wet spoon. Maria was normally never seen on a Sunday, and Annie had been curious to see her dressed in her best, obviously on her way to church. For a moment Maria had hovered uncertainly beside her. Then she had bent and put her arms tight around her.

‘You poor, poor child, losing your father so young. And such a lovely man he was. Such a gentleman. It’s a tragedy, it surely is.’

She remembered freezing in the woman’s embrace. She was not used to being hugged, especially not by Maria, who was normally quite brusque with her. But then something had snapped, perhaps it was the sound of Maria’s crying, and she had turned, her own tears hot on her cheeks, and buried her head in the nanny’s bosom, sobbing her heart out as she began to have an inkling of what had really happened that morning.

They had been interrupted by her mother, standing silent and disapproving at the door to the basement kitchen.

‘Maria …’ She didn’t need to say more. Maria loosened her grip on Annie immediately and turned back towards the Aga and the boiling kettle.

‘Annie, finish your breakfast quickly and come and say hello to your grandmother.’ She stood for a moment, regarding her daughter’s tear-stained face, and added, not
unkindly, ‘Wash your face before you come up, please.’

Annie had complied, of course. Today, as she thought back, she marvelled at the combined strength of will, the sheer, almost bloody-minded repression in the house that day. Her mother and grandmother (this was her father’s mother, all other of her grandparents were dead), were in the drawing room, both seated in front of the empty grate, both dressed and powdered as usual. Except for the silence, there was no evidence that anything had happened. Mrs Westbury senior was normally loquacious; a busy, bossy, high-coloured woman whose raison d’être was society gossip: who she knew and which title they held or were related to; their often disastrous liaisons with chancers and gold-digging arrivistes; to whom they left their money; how dismally their offspring had turned out.

‘Hello, Grandma.’ Annie had kissed the proffered cheek reluctantly that morning. She hated the sickly smell of her grandmother’s perfume – Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass, although she hadn’t known the name of it back then.

‘Uncle Terence will be here in a minute. He’s going to take you for a walk. He’ll bring you back for lunch.’

At school the following day, she hadn’t known how to tell her friends; the teachers didn’t mention it. So, when asked, she’d recited, dry-eyed, the poem she’d learnt on Sunday afternoon after a silent lunch with the grown-ups, and had the strange realisation that she was now forever changed, different entirely from all the girls sitting staring expectantly up at her.

She pulled herself back to the present and rang Richard. ‘I’m meeting Charles this evening,’ she told him. ‘He has a problem he wants to discuss about seeing Daniel.’

‘What sort of problem?’

‘He didn’t want to say over the phone.’

She heard Richard’s wry laugh. ‘Can’t be said over the phone? Ooh, must be serious then.’

‘Don’t be like that. Anyway, I won’t be late.’

‘Doesn’t matter, I’ll be late myself. More work.’ His voice sounded almost smug. ‘Where are you meeting him?’

‘In town somewhere … he’s texting me later.’ It was the first time in the whole of their long marriage that she’d ever deliberately deceived Richard. She’d done it quite spontaneously and she wasn’t even sure why, except that where she met Charles had seemed such an issue for him last time. He might prefer Charles’s flat to the Ritz, she thought, almost amused. The Ritz smacked of hedonism – and privilege. Richard wouldn’t like that.

13

Ed and Marsha both grinned as Lucy dumped her jacket on the chair and took a bottle of wine out of the orange supermarket bag.

‘Great. We got a couple too.’

Ed examined Lucy’s contribution. ‘Screw-top,’ he said, nodding approvingly, then disappeared into the kitchen to get glasses. He emptied a whole tube of Pringles into an earthenware dish and put it on the ancient, stained coffee table he’d made himself when he was in sixth form. He was touched Marsha still kept it. ‘Emms is on her way,’ he said.

The sash windows of Marsha’s flat were wide and high, letting a lot of light into the L-shaped sitting room/kitchen. Marsha had pushed them right up to get as much breeze as possible on this warm summer night.

‘OK, Lucy,’ Ed said, pouring them each a glass of wine. ‘You’re the resident spy in Maison Delancey. Is it going any better with the new inmate?’

Lucy groaned. ‘Not really.’

‘Let me guess. Daniel’s annoying everyone with his endless stories—’

‘It’s not Daniel,’ Lucy interrupted. ‘He’s fine, I hardly see him.’ She drew her legs up onto the sofa and clutched them to her, her chin balanced on her knees. ‘It’s Dad.’

They waited for her to go on. ‘He’s started doing this thing of not coming home till late. Sometimes really late.’

Marsha sat up. ‘What, every night?’

‘No, not every night, but quite often. He says he’s got some big drama on at work … some merger thing. I haven’t asked for details, but he’s stayed out twice already this week, and it’s only Thursday.’

‘How late’s late?’ Ed asked.

‘Oh, after two the other night. I heard him stumbling around on the stairs. He woke me up.’

‘God. What does Mum say?’

‘Mum is obviously annoyed with him – they niggle at each other all the time – but Dad doesn’t help. He’s all nonchalant, as if he hasn’t done anything wrong.’ Lucy shrugged. ‘I asked her if things were OK between her and Dad and I just got one of Mum’s looks – and she said “absolutely fine”. End of.’

‘I’m sure he’s just avoiding Daniel,’ Ed said. ‘You can’t blame him. He didn’t want him there in the first place.’ He had to admit that he’d hoped things wouldn’t go so well with his half-brother’s visit, but he’d never thought
his parents’ enviable closeness might be affected by Daniel’s presence in the house.

‘Maybe, but you don’t think it’s serious, do you? You don’t think they’ll split up?’ Lucy asked, her face a mask of anxiety.

‘No, Ed’s right. Dad’s just taking it out on Mum. Daniel’s going soon.’ Marsha sounded reassuring.

‘Mum and Dad are solid, Luce. You know that,’ Ed added.

‘Yeah … maybe. But why is he drinking such a lot, then? I heard them arguing about it again this morning in the kitchen. Mum was saying she was fed up with him coming home “stinking of booze”. I mean, Dad’s not even a big drinker normally.’

Ed didn’t know what to say, and Marsha didn’t respond either.

‘And he does things like not phoning to say he’s working late. You know Mum never kicks off if he’s got work to do, but not to phone and tell her …? It’s just not like Dad.’

‘He’s probably just skulking in a pub somewhere,’ Ed suggested.

‘At two in the morning? And Dad hates pubs.’

‘God, Luce. Poor you.’ Ed stroked his sister’s knee. ‘Must be grim being stuck in the middle.’ He suddenly felt a pang of guilt about his mother. He knew how upset she would be by his father’s behaviour, but he couldn’t bring himself to get involved with it all while Daniel was still there.

‘It is. They’re so nasty to each other. They don’t shout – it might be better if they did – it’s just sort of quiet and mean.’ She looked pleadingly at her sister. ‘Will you say something to Dad, Mash? Please … he’d listen to you.’

‘I could …’ Marsha thought for a minute. ‘But what’ll I say? It’s kind of awkward accusing your dad of being a dirty stop-out. And he’ll just blame Daniel.’

‘Mum left a message saying they were off to Cornwall for a couple of days, for Cousin Enid’s ninetieth. Maybe with Daniel out of the way they’ll bond again,’ Ed suggested.

‘Let’s hope,’ said Lucy. ‘I just want Mum and Dad back as they were before all this happened. Nothing’s been right since she got that bloody letter.’

‘I wish he’d never existed,’ Ed muttered. ‘Everything was fine before he pitched up. Now he’s going to be hanging about forever being handsome and clever and annoying … not to mention ruining our parents’ marriage.’

Even Marsha nodded wearily. ‘You’re exaggerating as usual, Eddie. It’s not his fault. But yeah, it might have been easier if he hadn’t got around to finding us.’

Ed suddenly cocked his head. ‘Hmm … I’ve got an idea! If they’re going away, why don’t we have a party at the house? It’d be fun … get rid of all this bloody tension, have a bit of a laugh. Mum never minds so long as we clear up. And Emms’s birthday isn’t far off.’

‘Daniel will still be there,’ Lucy warned her brother.

‘Oh, pish! We can deal with him,’ Ed replied. ‘He can go out if he doesn’t like it.’

‘Where is Emma anyway?’ Lucy asked. ‘I thought you said she was on her way.’

Ed sighed. ‘She said she was.’

Things hadn’t been so good with Emma recently. It was his fault, he knew that. She was tired of his moods and his constant grouching about Daniel. Even the sex, usually so incredible, hadn’t been so hot with him in this distracted state. He told himself he had to get a grip. He didn’t want Daniel wrecking his relationship too.

‘Everything alright between you and Emms?’ Marsha, as always, picked up on his mood. Or had Emma said something to her?

‘Yeah … great.’

‘Guys …’ Lucy wasn’t listening. ‘You don’t think …’ she began again, her anxious brown eyes darting between her two siblings. ‘You don’t think they’ve decided to split but—’

‘NO!’ Ed and Marsha shouted in unison, each picking up a cushion and bashing Lucy over the head in an attempt to drown out her fears – and their own – once and for all.

Annie was early for the drink with Carnegie. She wandered up to Boots on the other side of Piccadilly and paced the aisles, testing creams and lip-gloss to pass the time. It was raining and she hadn’t brought an umbrella, but refused to buy another, remembering the piles in the hall basket at home. She felt a wreck, exhausted and grubby from work, shamed
by her deception, her hair beginning to frizz in the moisture. What was she doing, seeing him again? Why couldn’t he just get on with it and meet Daniel without involving her in his problems? When she finally crossed the road to find Charles cosily ensconced in a leopard-skin chair in the centre of the glitzy bar, she greeted him with a certain froideur.

He rose as she approached and reached to kiss her cheek in welcome, but Annie held him off with her handshake. He pulled a face.

‘Bad day at the office?’

‘I’m not in the mood.’ She plonked herself down on her own leopard-print armchair, feeling totally out of place in the extravagant, glamorous surroundings – although the clientele at this time of night looked to be mostly businessmen or ageing American tourists.