The Eunuch's Ward (The String Quartet) (20 page)

Rosie frowned. ‘We’re overdue for a long heart to heart, Nat. I’ll...’

Skype suddenly cut off. I waited for a minute, but the buffering wheel was churning over ominously. I logged out but not before I left a message for her:

‘Please don’t do anything, Rosie. Not on my account. My new experience is making me over-emotional. I’ll be perfectly fine. You two must promise me to enjoy yourselves and send a lot of photos. Say hello to Asha for me if you catch her online. Haven’t heard from her in ages. Xxx’

* * *

I spent the next half an hour trying to revive the sense of freedom and simple, domestic happiness. True enough, I was a disaster in the kitchen but I had some experience with cleaning. I’d vacuumed up my room at the String at least five times throughout the school year, and I did my best to take an ink stain out of the sofa bed there after a red pen had leaked out. Once I read up the instructions, loading the dishwasher was a doddle, and the vacuum cleaner was set for the stone floor anyhow. Hugh had cleaned up the cooker after he’d used it. That left only the crumbs and little splashes, mug rings and a few inexplicable ugly spots all over the work tops and the breakfast table. I read up the labels on various spray bottles under the sink, chose the one that seemed most appropriate for the job. The kitchen and dining room were gleaming, with the smell of chemical flowers wafting about. It was only then that I realised that good will and brute force were not enough. One needed experience as well. I should have done the tops before I’d cleaned the floor for that was where most of the crumbs, cornflakes and burned bits ended up. Got the vacuum cleaner out again, then used the mop over the tricky areas for good measure, and that was it. I was done.

I checked both my phones and the Skype again, expecting little and founding nothing. I felt a little guilty about giving the Sanctuary a miss, they were always short-handed and desperate for help, so after a few desultory turns around the garden, I picked up my grandmother’s almost dry overalls from the washing line and headed over to the animal kingdom.

I was in luck. No dirty, smelly jobs today. Mrs Brackett needed someone to supervise the food and bedding deliveries. Thirty six items altogether, and each needed to be checked against the order lists.

‘Ever since the suppliers started using the drivers to double up as delivery boys, we’ve had to do their job for them,’ she whined. ‘Even a total fool should be able to recognise that the bedding for rabbits can’t be used for finches.’

I didn’t have the faintest idea what kind of bedding finches might need, but I agreed.

‘I’ve missed your boyfriend yesterday,’ she continued in the same tone, as if that was my fault or a cunning plan. ‘Very good looking, as the three girls who were on duty yesterday and Wayne assure me.’

Wayne was a member of regular staff, in charge of the coffee shop. Yes, I thought that Wayne had been quite impressed by Hugh yesterday. He pointed out that he’d put extra wrapping around the tuna bake in case of spillage, and held the door open on the way out. I didn’t think that was for my benefit.

As luck would have it, deliveries went off smoothly and relatively quickly. I was done in just over an hour and was wondering whether to offer the blessed Wayne a break after the lunchtime rush of about five people wanting sandwiches and cold drinks from the cooling cabinet all at once when I saw Hugh running down the slope from the bungalow.

‘Let’s have some coffee.’ He kissed me quickly on the temple and with his arm around my shoulders continued in the direction that I’d been heading in.

‘How did it go?’ I asked when we settled in the small garden behind the makeshift building. Wayne had been replaced by two women that I’d never seen before, leaving me with clear conscience.

He just shrugged.

I tried to read his mood, without any success whatsoever. Bemused? Sad? Worried? All of it? None of it?

The coffee was boiling hot and I sipped slowly, leaving it to him to talk when he was ready.

In the end, he smiled. Ruefully. ‘We, you and I, I mean, we were right about one thing. I’m not a gold digger.’

I was gobsmacked. ‘You and the whatshisname... that Xango person... you talked about my father? And about me?’

He first shook his head, then nodded. ‘No, no, we didn’t talk about your father. I did tell him about you, though, about you and me. That was later. I hope you don’t mind. He is my best friend.’

‘And I told Rosie about us, too. She’ll tell Ela at some point, of course. I would have told Asha, too, only she’s been incommunicado for the past fortnight... It’s not that... It’s... I don’t know what it is. Just tell me what’s happened.’

‘The bottom line is, my darling, that when I left here this morning, I was a struggling charter flight operator, up to my ears in bills. I’ve returned as a sole owner of three Cessnas and four Hawkers of various ranges, all of them practically brand new and in an immaculate condition. How’s that for starters?’

‘What’s for the desert?’ Silly, I know, but I truly didn’t know what to say. For all my profound ignorance about private jet planes... what the heck, about any kind of planes in fact, I was certain that those Cessnas and Hawkers amounted to good many millions of pounds. ‘Has your fairy godmother explained himself?’

‘He said that he was ordered by his team of accountants to get rid of as much taxable income as he could... something like that. I’m still calculating my own taxes and the VAT using the abacus. Now I too will have to hire a better accountant...’

I stopped him. ‘Hugh, you’ve just been given a fortune, an absolute fortune. If you just sold them all you wouldn’t have to do a single day’s work for the rest of your life...’

‘I couldn’t not work...’

‘I know you couldn’t and wouldn’t, that’s not what I’m getting at. What I want to know, what probably you want to know too is why are you looking so worried? You don’t believe in the tax story, do you?’

‘I do to some extent,’ Hugh emptied his cup and refilled it from the pot. ‘His accountants will make the most of the gift. But, you’re right, that can’t possibly be the only reason. In this recession, his profits must have dropped across the entire corporation, and the needs of the charities that he’d set up himself must have gone up.’ High fell silent again, frowning. ‘I told you he was ill?’ he said quietly after a while.

‘What of? Cancer?’

He nodded. ‘I think so. He never talks about it, he never lets anyone even refer to it. But, this was the first time in a long time that I saw him without two or three medical people on call. He also looked a little better than the last time. Even so...’

‘Even so you fear that he’s living out his last Will and Testament?’

‘Precisely.’

There wasn’t much more to say.

It was sad that Hugh had just had the best news of his life but didn’t feel at liberty to rejoice and celebrate.

Later, we went for a long walk through the fields. There was an interesting little pub at the end of the village, offering freshly picked wild mushrooms.

‘I promised to meet him on Saturday again,’ Hugh said when he was done ordering and collecting our drinks from the bar. ‘Will you still be here then?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ll start my thinking tomorrow. I won’t be much fun tomorrow.’

* * *

The next morning found me vomiting into the bed of chives at the back of the house. It wasn’t even seven yet.

Hugh followed me out barefoot. My sharp exit must have woken him up. ‘Pregnant?’ There was a lovely little smile hanging off the corners of his mouth. I loved him for it.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not pregnant. Hunted down.’ I handed him my mobile. ‘Here. Read it.’

‘Get your arse back here by lunchtime. Bring your little pilot with you if you must,’
Hugh read out and looked at me. ‘Your father?’

I nodded.

‘A little pilot will never become my nom de plume of choice, but on the whole, it doesn’t sound too bad. What’s so bad about it?’

I just waved my hand helplessly and bent over again to eject another bout of bile and fear.

The message was sent to my own, supposedly secret phone.

* * *

Hugh insisted on flying me back to London. ‘I don’t like the idea of you driving in this state, Nat. I can easily find someone to bring the car to your garage. Just leave it at Upper Fold and I’ll come back with a co-pilot who can fly the plane back, and I’ll see to your car. Anything. Just don’t drive. Please.’

It wasn’t that I wanted to drive, not with wet palms and shaking knees. What I needed was time to readjust. Kick my brain into a gear. Gain some kind of control over myself, if not the situation. How could I have been kidding myself with ideas of freedom? So stupid. So stupid.

‘I’m not sure that I’ll go back, Hugh. Ever. Obviously, I can’t stay here. He’ll send down an entire regiment to take me back under a blanket at the back of a van. Soon. Very soon. I’d better make a move...’

Hugh was cradling me in his arms, making quiet shush shush noises and kissing my hair. ‘You’re just panicking, my darling. If he wanted to take you back by force, he would have done it already. Why give you notice?’ he asked when I finally shut up.

‘Because he expects me to follow his orders without a quibble. He says Jump, I jump hoping that it was high enough. That’s how it’s always been?’

Hugh didn’t answer.

I resented the silence. ‘What?’

He turned my face up to him to look into my eyes. ‘If that’s how it’s always been, why not now?’

That hurt. ‘And you think that my loyalty rode off into the sunset in the same saddle as his wealth?’

‘No,’ he said evenly, ‘that’s not what I think. I’m waiting for you to tell me what to think. But, that’s what I’d be probably thinking if I were in his shoes. And could you blame me?’

Of course! I’d never told him about my father’s mad scheme for recovery of his business. About his worst enemy’s alleged proposal of marriage to me. Or about the supposed engagement party tomorrow night. Of course he couldn’t make any sense of it. But, I still couldn’t tell him. That man who’d started to mean a world to me had warned me against disloyalty to my father once before himself. Angry and scared as I was, I’d never been more aware of how deeply and truly I loved my parents. He was tyrannical and she was a drug addict, but they were my tyrant and my drug addict. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. I simply couldn’t expose them to ridicule, not in a million years.

‘Sorry, I said, ‘sorry. There are things I can’t talk about. They’re too... too out there. One day when I understand them better myself, I will. But not now.’

‘All right, all right. But you’ve got to go back and face him. It seems to me that one of your major problems is that you’ve been treated like a child? Yes? Well then, don’t...’

‘...don’t act like a child,’ I finished the sentence for him.

In the end, Upper Fold offered a solution. A couple of regular clients were trying to rent a small plane for a week of frolicking. Hugh snatched them up with an offer they couldn’t refuse. Then he drove us both to Chelsea Embankment.

‘Shall I come with you? After all, I was invited.’ Hugh was doing his best to look cheerful.

I smiled back at him. ‘I’ll call you if and when I can.’

Chapter 18

When I entered the flat, the Boys were watching TV in their room, Bakir was playing chess against himself.

‘Where are they?’

With his eyes on the white knight, Bakir pointed upwards. ‘She’s by the pool.’

‘And him?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve just taken a plate of snacks upstairs. Let me know if you need anything else.’

Mother was on the sun-lounger, propped up, reading. The heat had somewhat subsided, there were a few clouds floating across the sky. She had moved the seat away from the shade of the umbrella, catching up on sunbathing before the weather reverted to its more usual whimsical self. The last thing that I’d expected to do on my return was to stand by the door, admiring her looks. Her figure had always been fantastic with good posture and healthy muscle tone. Her hair, natural, dye-free ash blonde, had been looked after by the best of hairdressers in the profession; there were no surprises there. It was her face that amazed me. I’d seen her dopey and almost out of it often enough, I’d seen her putting on a show for the media and father’s business friends, and another kind of show, the impression of a devoted wife and mother in Hampshire, and I’d seen her chirpy and relaxed, funny and lively as was been in the days that immediately followed the news of Father’s problems. And each time not even the perfect, professionally applied makeup managed to conceal the shade of weariness around the eyes, and deep wariness in them.

If I’d expected to find a worried wife and a deeply concerned mother on that roof, sitting there with her forehead creased and her fingers tapping on the table in expectation of news, I was badly mistaken. Whatever it was that she was reading made her smile. The smile produced the cutest little dimple in her cheek, a lightly tanned cheek, smooth and taut.

I walked over and picked her glass from the table. There was a greenish tint to the drink. I took a sip almost before she noticed me.

‘Ugh!’ I spluttered. ‘What on earth is this?’ My mouth contracted in revolt.

‘Lime juice,’ she smiled at me, amused by my discomfort. ‘It’s a bit tart today. Still, keeps me hydrated.’

I should have been pleased that it wasn’t gin or vodka, chemically coloured to make it look respectable. ‘Well, I’m glad that you don’t have hydration problems. That would only make your anxiety about your husband and only daughter that much worse.’

Mother lowered her feet to the floor and patted the space next to her. ‘Want to bring me up to speed with your love life?’

With ill grace, I accepted the invitation. ‘Ah, so he’s told you, then?’

‘Leon? No, he’s told me nothing. He did tell Bakir that you were making hay with our next door neighbour at my parents’ house, in their absence. That surprised me. I was sure that you intended to join the Brazilian crowd on their shopping trip.