Loe raamatut: «Master of the House»

Chapter One

A village fete. That was the best they could find for me.

‘It’s being opened by a celebrity,’ the editor had said, as if this made it more like a summit of world leaders.

‘Who?’

‘Forget his name – bloke off that talent show, the one with the mad sideburns.’

‘Right.’

So there I was, with a photographer who looked about twelve, interviewing people who were betting on which would be the first ferret to pop its head out of a length of plastic piping. Me, Lucy Miles, who once had a byline on the international news pages of the Correspondent.

The elderberry fizz I was sipping from a paper cup might have won a prize, but as far as I was concerned it tasted of abject failure.

‘I need a proper drink,’ I told teen-snapper, eyeing up the bunting-strewn beer tent. ‘Before I go insane.’

He happily went along with this, shambling after me into the sanctuary.

‘Not what you’re used to, I s’pose,’ he offered, by way of conversation, once we had our plastic half-pints of Randy Old Shagger, or whatever it was called.

‘Hardly. Back in Hungary I was covering human rights abuses, anti-government protests, racially-motivated murders, political skulduggery and intrigue.’ I enumerated these shiny nuggets on my fingers, then sighed. What was the point of dwelling on it?

‘Shame they cut your budget,’ offered teen-snapper.

‘Yeah. Hungary got lumped in with Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic and they gave oversight of the lot to the Prague guy. Even though Prague is nothing like Budapest, and even less like Bucharest. But they don’t care about cultural nuance, so back to the Vale for me.’

‘The Vale of Tears.’ Teen-snapper did a sort of snuffly chuckle at the hoary old local joke. I fished a wasp out of my beer.

‘Vale of Tylney versus Budapest. Not comparable at all. Still, I don’t really envy the guy in Prague. He’s got his work cut out for him with the way everything’s going over there.’

‘You’re better off at the Vale Voice,’ said – was his name Kai? – with a wink.

I didn’t want tiny little boys winking at me, so I gave him a hard look and pushed the rather over-treacly beer aside.

‘Whatever,’ I said. Ugh, there was a lump in my throat. An accordion struck up outside, closely followed by the jingle of bells and clatter of batons. Just what I needed to cheer me up. Fucking morris dancing.

Kai got busy with the camera while I stood at the beer-tent flap, trying so hard not to cry that I gave myself a headache.

I’m twenty-seven and my life is over. Living with my mum in the town that time forgot, back at the paper I did my work experience for. And I hope Károly is having a nice time with that bitch he was shagging behind my back. Fuck him, fuck her, fuck everything.

The morris music mocked me and I stormed away over the grass, intent on hiding out in the car until the prize draw was announced.

‘Lucy! Lucy Miles!’

It took me a moment to work out where the voice was coming from, but eventually I traced it to a bric-a-brac stall, presided over by an old schoolfriend.

‘Jamila. What are you doing in … what’s this place called?’

‘Fossey Bassett,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m teaching at the village school here now, Key Stage Two. I can’t believe it’s you. Haven’t seen you since A levels.’

‘Ahh, Stalag Tylney. I heard they turned it into an academy.’

‘Yeah. Same building, same teachers, same everything, different name.’

‘So how are you?’

We chatted, in-between serving customers with knitted egg cosies and the like, for a good half-hour. I kept my side of the story light, swerving questions by asking plenty of my own. Jamila was engaged to be married to a doctor, still living in Tylney, still seeing a lot of the old crowd.

‘Aren’t you in touch with anyone any more?’ she asked.

‘Nah. I stayed in London during university holidays and then got the gig in Budapest pretty much straight after graduation.’

‘Your mum must have missed you,’ she said, with a sideways look.

‘My mum? Are you kidding? I don’t think she noticed I was gone until I rang her up to ask her to send on some books.’

‘Is she still …?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You don’t know what I was going to ask!’

‘Well, she’s still a tree-hugging hippy, if that was it.’

‘No, it wasn’t. I was going to ask if she still had that cleaning job up at the Hall.’

I stopped, picked up a china dog and examined it minutely, catching a breath.

‘No, no, she quit that years ago. She’s got a stall in Tylney market now. Crystals, tarot cards, all that kind of thing.’

‘Oh, right. Doesn’t she live in Willingham any more?’

‘No, no. She moved about a year after I went to uni. Why?’

‘Well, you’re a journalist, aren’t you?’ Jamila looked painfully furtive. She was never good at discretion.

‘Yes.’

‘You might know something about what’s going on up there … maybe?’

I put the china dog down. My hands were shaking.

‘At … the Hall?’

‘Dad says it’s been leased to somebody. A very rich person, maybe a famous person. And it’s being used for –’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘– something dodgy.’

‘Dodgy? What sort of dodgy?’

‘You don’t know?’ Disappointment weighted her voice.

‘Give me a chance, Jam, I’ve only been back three weeks.’

‘Dad doesn’t know for sure, of course. But he’s heard so many rumours. Drugs, sex, porn, prostitution, all kinds!’

‘What? Are the family still living there?’

‘You knew Lord Lethbridge died last year, right?’

‘No. Shit. No. I had no idea.’

‘Well …’

The tannoy blasted into life, announcing the prize draw.

I cursed under my breath.

‘Sorry, Jam, got to cover this. Are you free for coffee afterwards?’

She shook her head, her dark eyes sad.

‘No, I’ve got house-hunting appointments with Akram. Really sorry. Can we catch up another time?’

‘Sure.’ I grabbed a business card from my handbag and waved it at her. ‘Sorry to be official. Got to dash though.’

I couldn’t think straight. I wrote the draw winner’s name as Sandy when it was Sadie and got all my shorthand symbols mixed up to buggery. I called the Church of England vicar ‘Father’ and dropped a complimentary scone smeared with award-nabbing jam on the grass.

After kicking Kai out of the scoopmobile (aka 2003 model Fiat Cinquecento) in Tylney, I found myself driving over to the other side of town, back out into the Vale. The road wound past field after field of bursting ripe fruit and vegetables, bordered by high green hedges. Pick-Your-Own signs flourished like native plants beside wooden five-barred gates. Every few miles, a half-timbered village punctuated the lushness, all the schools and church halls turned into holiday cottages and second homes while the local families were priced out to Tylney and, ultimately, Birmingham.

In the distance, high blue hills surrounded the fertile basin, a barrier to be crossed if you ever wanted to look beyond the Vale. But some never did. And then some came back.

‘Willingham’, read the black and white sign, then, ‘Best Kept Village 2010’. It was still looking pretty spruce, the green bordered with summer flowers, even the ducks on the pond exceptionally well-groomed. The little flat-roofed bunker where I learned to read and write still functioned as a school, apparently, and a huge banner across the railings proclaimed that Ofsted had rated it Outstanding.

The Feathers was a gastro-pub now and there was a small estate of new-built houses right on the edge of the village, still dusty from construction and with stickers on some of the windows.

Leaving the village, the grass verge on the right gave way to a high red-brick wall, following the road for more than a mile. The Hall. I passed the gated entrance, catching my quick glimpse of the driveway until it bent to the right, cheating the viewer of any sighting of the house itself. The stone stags still stood atop the gatepost pillars and the little lodge was still occupied, judging by its tidy state of repair.

More wall again, yard after yard after yard, bending round with the road until I came upon the river, sparkling and replete with anglers on both banks and then, beyond it, the caravan site where I grew up.

I pulled into a lay-by near the entrance and got out, breathing in the air with its ever-present whiff of fertiliser. The blank wall of Willingham Hall faced me and I faced it. If I walked on another half-mile, I would come to the secret way in through the woods. Was I ready for that?

I walked up anyway. The road was quiet – it didn’t really lead anywhere except to the hills. The late-afternoon sun went behind a cloud and the swish of the trees in a little gust of wind was almost more unnerving than total silence would have been. More unnerving and much more evocative.

Here, a little way after the wall ended, was the broken section of wire fence. If I squeezed through the gap, I would be in the woods behind the house. I looked into the dark tangle of bark and branch and saw myself there, twenty years ago, allowed to play there while mum cleaned in the school holidays. I was against a tree, a captured squaw. The game was exhilarating and I enjoyed being caught and marched to my doom, until he broke off a section of branch and whipped my legs with it.

I shut my eyes tight as the memory flashed through; the pain, then the fear, then his sneering face right up against mine. I was seven, he was nine.

I can do what I like to you.

When mum had asked about the marks, I said I got caught on some brambles.

That holiday, and for all those that followed, I did everything I could to avoid having to go with mum to the Hall. I invited myself to Jamila’s; I offered to help Mrs Wragg, the caravan site owner, with all her errands; I even joined the church summer holiday club. Oh, how many brasses did I rub, all in the name of avoiding Joss Lethbridge.

Of course, I couldn’t get away with it every time. At least once a week I’d have to pack a bag with books and toys and trudge with mum up the long, long driveway. I’d follow her and her vacuum cleaner from room to room until, inevitably, Joss would track us down and ask if I was coming to play.

I’d say I was feeling sick, or I had hay fever, or was coming down with chickenpox, but mum never seemed to cotton on.

‘He’s trying to be friendly, Lucy-In-The-Sky-With-Diamonds.’ (Yes, that is my full registered name.) ‘Don’t mind her, Joss, she’s in a mood. It’s very kind of you to ask her.’

He didn’t always hurt me. Sometimes he was even quite nice. But that seemed all part of the game with him. I suppose he thought it kept me on my toes.

Whatever he thought, it was an occasion of major rejoicing when I left primary school and was deemed old enough to take care of myself in the summer holidays.

I tried to put a foot forward, to place it on that old ground, but a rush of something both bitter and sweet prevented me and I turned away, blinking out tears.

I thought about going to the caravans and looking up Mrs Wragg, but I wasn’t really fit for conversation and ended up driving back home.

When I say ‘home’, I mean the tiny one-bedroomed flat above Tylney Pet Supplies that mum occupied.

I fell into a coughing fit halfway through announcing my presence, my throat clogged by a cloud of patchouli joss-stick smoke, entwined with something a little less legal.

Mum was lying back on her collection of kilims and cushions with a guy in a New Model Army T-shirt. They had matching nose rings, which was nice.

‘How was the fete?’ asked the guy, I think he was known as Animal, more because he was a drummer in a band than because of any anti-social habits.

It was an innocuous enough question, but it sent both of them into paroxysms of giggles.

‘Great. Mum, do you know who’s taken the lease at Willingham Hall?’

She tried to focus, but the effort required was too great.

‘What? Dunno. Hey, did you know Lord Lethy … bridge … died?’

‘I just found out. Joss’s not living there, I suppose?’

She shrugged.

‘Put a brew on, will you?’

That was Animal.

‘Do it yourself.’

I huffed into the bedroom, which was not mine, but the only place I could get a bit of peace and quiet and breathable air. I opened the window wide, replacing fragrant smoke with dry dog food and hamster bedding. Not much better, to be honest. I shut it again.

Lying flat on the bed, I looked up at the mobiles on the ceiling.

The room was sparsely furnished – a wicker bookcase, a reclaimed dresser covered in cheap beaded knick-knacks, a spider plant. It wasn’t much to show for a life, I thought. Mum was nearly fifty and this was everything she owned. But she was happy. Perhaps I should take a leaf from her book, travel light, live for the moment.

You’re so serious, Lucy-in-the-Sky. How did I make such a square?

Whenever I was around mum, I felt like a teenager again. My rebellion had taken a mirror-image form from the usual. No trying to get into nightclubs with a bottle of smuggled cider for me. I’d joined the Vale Operatic Society and spent my spare time reading about the politics of central Europe.

But at night, in my bed, I’d been less sober and sensible. At night, I’d thought about Joss and the cold look in his eye when he laughed at my distress.

I can do what I like to you became something other than a threat in those lonely bewildering nights. It was a dark promise, a hint of unspeakable pleasures that I could only guess at. I would remember how it felt when Joss twisted my arm behind my back and the recollection of my helplessness reached a pitch of such intensity that it seemed natural to put my fingers between my thighs and rub.

I hated myself for seeing his face when I came, but it was his face I always saw and his name I always spoke in the drugged aftermath of orgasm. It wasn’t exactly pleasurable – it was too guilty and furtive for that – but there was nothing I could do to change it.

I tried to tell myself I wasn’t mad for feeling this way, but I had my doubts. In reality, I hated him for everything he had done to me. The Joss in my head was not the Joss of flesh and blood but a fantasy creature I could warp to my will. I suppose, looking back, it was my way of dealing with how badly he had hurt me. Perhaps it wasn’t the most emotionally healthy way of processing it, though.

I sat up. I didn’t want to be thinking this. I wanted to know what was going on at the Hall. I didn’t want to sit through mum’s bloody Chumbawumba album either. I still had the general office number for Willingham Estates on my mobile phone.

I took a deep breath and dialled.

Obviously half past five on a Saturday afternoon in June wasn’t going to find the place manned, and I resigned myself to having to leave a voicemail message, but I was surprised when the ringing was cut off after two beeps and a female voice answered.

‘Willingham Estates, hello.’

‘Oh. Hello. You’re in.’

‘Yes. May I help you?’

‘Well, I was just wondering if Lord Lethbridge was available. I need to ask him something.’

A pause.

‘Who is this, please?’

‘So he is still living at the Hall?’ I could barely speak and I had to hold the phone tight to prevent it slipping from my sweaty fingers.

‘Who is this?’

‘Lucy Miles. Can you tell him Lucy Miles would like to talk to him?’

‘Lucy Miles?’

There was a kerfuffle and the next voice I heard knocked all the breath out of my body.

‘Lucy? Is that you?’

‘Joss.’

‘Aren’t you in Poland or something?’

‘Hungary. No. I’m back. You’re still there.’ My words came out in stupid monosyllables while the laconic drawl I’d been aiming for whirled somewhere out of reach.

‘Of course. You heard about the old man?’

‘Yes, just now. I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks.’

To call the silence that followed awkward would be like calling Antarctica a bit nippy.

‘So, er, to what do I owe the pleasure?’ he said, saving me from having to blurt some nonsense.

‘I’m just … you know … got back from Hungary and thought I’d say hi.’ It sounded lame and I thought perhaps I should return my journalism qualification to the college that so mistakenly conferred it on me. ‘Wondered if you might like to …’

‘Meet up?’ he said. He sounded quite eager, for some reason. ‘Yes. We should have dinner. Catch up with each other. When are you free?’

Well, this was surprisingly easy.

‘Oh, any time, really.’

‘Tonight? What about the Feathers at eight? I know it’s short notice but I’m busy tomorrow and it looks as if I’ll have to go to London next week so –’

‘No, tonight’s fine. I can do tonight. The Feathers.’

‘It’s changed a lot since you left. I’m not some cheapskate trying to fob you off with a microwaved pie and crinkle-cut chips.’

I laughed.

‘I know – I went past it earlier. Where will I go now for my Vimto and crisps?’

It was his turn to laugh, and the genuine warmth of it, with a little hint of regret, snagged at my heart like a fish hook.

‘Oh, Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Vimto,’ he said.

Stop it or I’ll cry.

‘Eight in the Feathers, then,’ I said, determined to sound businesslike. ‘Will you book?’

‘Leave it with me. See you later then.’

‘Yes. Goodbye.’

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ he said softly before hanging up.

What a bombshell to leave me with. But it was all just veneer, I told myself sternly, simply the standard-issue Lethbridge charm, taught on the playing fields of Eton and showered over all and sundry.

More importantly, what was I going to wear?