The Forgotten Sister

by Nicola Cornick

  I giggled. ‘Robert,’ I said, playfully pushing away his hands to encourage him all the more, ‘Anna is with child. Now for that I do envy her.’

  Robert laughed. ‘There’s an easy remedy for that, sweetheart,’ he said. He rolled me beneath him. ‘We try…’ His lips brushed my ear, then moved down the line of my throat, ‘and if at first we do not succeed, we keep trying. How does that suit you?’

  ‘It suits me well,’ I admitted.

  Robert’s hands were moving over my body now and my skin was damp and my heart was pounding with the pleasure of it. I forgot everything. I forgot about Anna. I forgot to ask for the favour for Antony Huddleston. I never thought on it again.

  Chapter 9

  Lizzie: Present Day

  Lizzie worked herself hard in rehearsal that day. Partly it was to distract herself from thinking about Johnny Robsart – and Arthur. She still couldn’t get hold of Dudley and felt as though she was letting him down, but what could she do if he didn’t answer his phone? She could hardly go around to his flat, not without sparking a whole load more speculation. But the anxiety gnawed away at her so she focussed it all into the practice. Even Alessandro, her professional dance partner, who was a perfectionist, brought her a bottle of water and an energy bar after she had spent nine hours and skipped lunch to practise her steps for the jive.

  ‘Take some rest, Lizzie,’ he said, ‘go home.’ He smiled at her. Alessandro was ridiculously handsome, almost stereotypically so with his dark puppy eyes and curling lashes. Whenever he smouldered at her during their live performances Lizzie wanted to burst out laughing. ‘It won’t make any difference how much you practise,’ he said. ‘You dance like an angel, but…’ he gave an expressive shrug, ‘but they will vote us off anyway when they get the chance.’

  ‘I know,’ Lizzie said. She snapped the top off the water bottle and took a deep gulp. ‘I want to do my very best all the same,’ she said fiercely. ‘I want to show everyone what a farce it is.’ To her horror her eyes filled with hot tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Al,’ she said. ‘We were good. We could have won and now it will all go wrong. It’s so unfair.’

  Alessandro gave another very expressive shrug. ‘It’s life, Lizzie. It’s show business. You know that.’

  ‘It’s still wrong,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s not your fault, is it?’ Alessandro had been one of the professionals on Stars for four years now and had never been in the final. This time she knew he had thought he had won the jackpot and it was going to be snatched away from him because of her.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s your fault either,’ Alessandro said. ‘People say you broke up Dudley’s marriage and caused his wife to kill herself.’ He made a scornful sound. ‘This is rubbish. He did that all by himself.’ He wrapped her in a very muscular hug. He smelled outrageously of a mixture of citrus and jasmine and something Lizzie thought was black pepper. She tried not to sneeze. It was very comforting though. She snuggled closer.

  ‘Thanks, Al,’ she said. ‘I really need a friend at the moment.’

  ‘Hey,’ Alessandro released her gently and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘You’ve got plenty of friends. Come around for supper with Christy and me sometime soon. I will cook you proper spaghetti.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Lizzie said. ‘As long as Christy doesn’t think I’m trying to break you up. I do seem to have a reputation as a home-wrecker at the moment.’

  Alessandro rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. ‘Listen to me, Lizzie. Dudley and Amelia got married too young. They were infatuated with each other and when that went—’ he snapped his fingers, ‘there was nothing left. You are not to blame. You are just friends, no?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lizzie’s head ached suddenly and she rubbed a hand across her eyes. ‘We’ve been friends since we were kids,’ she said, ‘but no one seems to get that. They treat it as though it’s weird.’

  Alessandro smiled. ‘It’s tricky, you know? The two of you seem very close. People are either going to think that you’re secretly having an affair, or – how you say it? – you’re kind of dependent on each other and it’s a bit childish and inappropriate?’

  Lizzie pulled a face at him. ‘Thanks!’ she said. It was hurtful to have an outsider’s view of her friendship with Dudley spelled out in those terms even though that was only what Kat and Bill had been trying to tell her, in their different ways. Move on, grow up, get yourself a boyfriend…

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t had relationships. She’d gone out with one of her co-presenters on Saturday Survival School for six months, but somehow, he hadn’t been as much fun to hang out with as Dudley was. And there had been a fling with a backing singer she had met on tour, and a few other dates that hadn’t amounted to much, but she worked too hard to bother with casual relationships and spent too much time away for serious ones, and anyway, why would she want to when she was the poster child for dysfunctional families? She knew that her parents’ marriage had been a disaster area. She had stored away the fragments of memory, the tactless comments people had sometimes made, and most of all the vicious headlines from the newspapers. Harry Kingdom had been fodder for gossip and scandal long before the Internet age. It was not the sort of thing Lizzie wanted to read and it had left her with the fierce belief that it was easier, safer, to be self-reliant and keep away from complications.

  Alessandro shrugged. ‘It’s true. You and Dudley, you want different things. It’s not a good combination and it means you are bad for each other.’ He looked away as though weighing whether or not to say anything else; then he sighed. ‘Dudley does care for you, I think. It’s sweet, but he also wants to use you. You’re more successful than he is, on the way up…’ He shrugged again. ‘You know how ambitious Dudley is. Whereas you…’ He took her by the shoulders, his gaze searching her face. ‘I’m not sure what you want from him, Lizzie,’ he said slowly. ‘You care for him too. I realise that, and you’re very loyal to him. But you’re too good for him. He doesn’t deserve you.’ His hands fell to his side. ‘Cazzo! This is none of my business. I should just shut up.’

  Lizzie’s lips twitched. ‘I’m not sure what “Cazzo” means, Al, but I get the general gist.’ She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘Thank you. I know you mean well. You’re such a good friend.’

  Alessandro shook his head, said something else in Italian that she didn’t understand, and wandered off to pick up his bag, giving her a casual wave as he went out. Lizzie felt bad, as though she had trivialised his kindness to her.

  ‘Lizzie.’ Kat, as ever, was at her elbow. ‘The car’s waiting.’

  ‘Thank you, Kat.’ Lizzie tried to shake off her dark mood but she could feel it dogging her steps as she went outside. So many people disliked Dudley. They didn’t understand. It felt as though her friendship with him was always under siege. She knew that Dudley had ruffled some feathers in the carving out of his career, but so had most people. It was part of the business. There were journalists he had insulted and paparazzi whose cameras he had broken. There was a long line of bar and hotel staff across London and the world who had had to clear up after his excesses. He could be short-tempered and impatient to the point of rudeness. He made fun of people he didn’t like and because he was clever, he could also be cruel. It was no wonder that some parts of the media were taking this opportunity to crucify him. She didn’t like it but she could understand it. She wasn’t blind to Dudley’s faults. She knew he could be selfish and self-seeking. In a tiny corner of her heart she was almost prepared to admit that perhaps Bill and Alessandro were right and Dudley did use their friendship for his own advancement.

  She stared unseeingly at the London landmarks as they sped past. To her, Dudley was also the boy of eight who had been the first, the only person, to speak to Lizzie when she had arrived, grief-stricken and alone, at her new school. Her mother had died, she had hated the world and been horribly rude and prickly, but somehow Dudley had understood that and had tolerated her. He had helped her with her homework until she caught up with the rest o
f the class and then she helped him because she was as clever if not cleverer than he was. He was interested in mathematics; Lizzie had preferred languages. They had been friends ever since. How long ago it all seemed now.

  She remembered how she had felt when Dudley had met Amelia. They had had a whirlwind romance and married and Lizzie had been riven with jealousy and fear to start with: fear that she would lose one of the few lasting relationships of her life. But as it had turned out, nothing had really changed. Dudley still hung out with her. They still talked about anything and everything. Soon Amelia had moved to Oakhangar Hall whilst Dudley lived most of the time in London. It had felt almost as though Amelia did not exist.

  Lizzie shifted uncomfortably on the seat. The feelings she had for Dudley were deep-rooted and important to her but they were completely devoid of sexual desire. Not once in their long, intimate friendship had she felt the same shock of connection she had experienced that morning with Arthur Robsart. She had never felt such awareness, such a sense of recognition, with anyone else. In fact, now she thought about it, she had seldom been strongly attracted to anyone. It wasn’t just the wariness engendered by her childhood; it had been lack of interest, almost to the point where she had wondered if there was something wrong with her.

  And then she had touched Arthur and the world had exploded into sensation.

  I know you.

  It was stupid. It was mad. In some way it had to be connected with her gift of psychometry but she had no idea how. Yet it felt as though there was an affinity, an instinct as old as time, that drew them together. Lizzie felt the goosebumps rise over her skin. She did not want that connection to Arthur and she was certain he didn’t want it either. She curled her fingers over the scar on her palm and squeezed tightly as though she could eradicate it. She told herself it didn’t matter anyway. Very probably she wouldn’t see Arthur again – it was hardly likely she’d be invited to Amelia’s funeral – and even if she did see him, she’d make sure never, ever to touch him.

  She felt restless, thoughts of Dudley, Johnny and Arthur turning over and over in her mind. As soon as she got home, she went down to the swimming pool in the basement. To her relief, it was empty. It lay flat and turquoise blue as a summer sky, the underwater lights throwing ripples and shadows upward to reflect against the white arch of the roof. There was a strong smell of chlorine and the hum of machinery, and beyond the huge glass windows the river Thames ran dark grey, another world.

  Lizzie swam lengths for as long as she had the energy, counting her strokes, feeling the resistance as she carved through the water, emptying her mind of thought and focussing only on sensation, sound, light and touch. She was exhausted when she climbed out but infuriatingly, as soon as she stepped from the water, the thoughts she had kept at bay for the past hour and a half rushed back clamouring for space and attention. She wondered what Johnny had wanted to talk to her about. She wished he had had the chance to speak to her, wished she had insisted on it. Remembering the solemn child she had met at the wedding and seeing him as this damaged teenager was deeply painful. His situation resonated deeply with her. She wanted to help him and was furious with herself for standing back. Not getting involved, avoiding emotional engagement of any sort had become something of a habit with her. She wondered whether that was why she relied so heavily on the people she had known right from the start, because she was afraid to make new connections…

  She sent out for sushi and tempura scallops and settled on the balcony in her bathrobe, her laptop on her knee, watching dusk sink over the river.

  Once the food had arrived, she put the boxes on the wooden table next to her, dipping into her favourite Albacore Truffle Ponzu whilst she typed Amelia Lester’s name into the search box. She forced herself to scroll past all the recent lurid stuff about Amelia’s death and the headlines from that morning describing her showdown with Johnny. It seemed like an age ago. Out of sheer curiosity she clicked on the Wikipedia entry that gave Amelia’s family background and found that it was almost as dysfunctional as her own. Half- and step-relations littered the page; it seemed that Arthur Robsart was the eldest, the son of Amelia’s father Terry and a super-model called Layla El Ansari who originally came from Dubai but now lived in America. Terry Robsart had been a fashion photographer in the eighties and his affair with Layla had been as tempestuous as it was short. He had cheated on her with another model, Jessica Scott, whom he had gone on to marry. This second relationship had produced Amelia, Anna and Johnny before Terry was caught in flagrante again and Jessica walked out on him. After their divorce, Jessica had married an academic called Sam Appleyard, who worked for the British Antarctic Survey.

  Lizzie scrolled through various images of the family. Terry Robsart looked startlingly like her own father, not in looks but in the fleshy, bon viveur style of a man who had enjoyed the finer things in life and taken them to excess. He had been a very well-known and successful photographer until he’d drunk himself into an early grave. Jessica, Amelia’s mother, had also died relatively young, from cancer, a few years ago. Lizzie grimaced. Johnny could only have been about fourteen at the time and his siblings not much older. Their mother’s death must have devastated their lives and now they had lost Amelia too. She pushed the hair back from her face with hands that shook a little. What utter crap people had to deal with sometimes.

  A buzzing on the entry phone disturbed her. She didn’t really want to see anyone this evening. She was bone tired and wanted to sleep.

  ‘Lizzie.’ It was Dudley’s voice. ‘Let me in.’

  Lizzie’s heart leaped with a mixture of relief and anxiety. She’d kept trying to ring Dudley and had sent him a load of texts but he hadn’t replied to any of them. She jumped up, pressing the button to let him in and rushing across the flat to the door. She grabbed him as soon as he came in, wrapping her arms about him, holding him close. He felt warm and reassuring and smelled of his citrus cologne, and she almost cried at the familiarity of it.

  ‘Dudley,’ she said, muffled against his shirt. ‘Thank God. Oh, I’m so glad to see you.’ She hugged him tighter. ‘I’m so sorry, so very sorry about everything.’

  It took her a moment to realise that Dudley wasn’t returning the hug. He stood limp within her grasp, and when she drew back to scan his face, he looked down at her with an expression she recognised from childhood. Lizzie’s heart sank. Dudley was sulking. Next would be the recriminations.

  Dudley pulled away and strode across the room with restless energy to throw himself into one of the low armchairs by the window. His fair, open face was marred by a ferocious scowl.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he said, running a hand through the hair that flopped over his brow. ‘Where have you been when I needed you?’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ Lizzie felt awful, hot, guilty and miserable. ‘I’ve been working all day today. It’s not as though I didn’t get in touch. I tried ringing but you were always engaged or your phone was switched off. I texted you as soon as I could and I’ve lost count of the messages I’ve sent you since. I’ve been worried sick about you!’

  Dudley stared at her, his dark eyes full of bafflement and anger. ‘Why didn’t you come to find me?’ he asked. ‘Oh wait – I totally get it. You’re cutting me loose like everyone else. I’m toxic now. My career’s over.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Lizzie stared at him. She’d expected Dudley to be devastated; she’d imagined that he must be experiencing a whole cocktail of complex emotions about Amelia’s death and the police investigation, but she hadn’t expected his prime concern to be his career.

  ‘Bill told my agent today that they’ve offered the cohost role on Musical World to Damon Wood,’ Dudley said. He sat forward, his gaze accusing. ‘I thought you and I were doing that show together?’

  Lizzie spread her hands wide. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, that was really insensitive of Bill to do that now—’

  Dudley interrupted her. ‘Don’t give
me that bullshit,’ he said. ‘Bill doesn’t breathe without your permission. Of course he would have told you.’

  He stood up and strode across the room as though he couldn’t keep still. Lizzie could feel the air crackling with his anger and frustration. ‘Have you any idea how crap all this is for me?’ he burst out. ‘Dina practically forced me to withdraw from Stars of the Dance even though I didn’t see why I should. Now I’ve lost this show too, and another three jobs I thought were in the bag. Everything’s falling apart around me and you don’t give a shit.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Lizzie said, trying to hold onto her temper. ‘Of course I care! But you know what this business is like, Dudley. It can be brutal. You just need to give everything time to settle down. It’s hardly surprising people are jittery. You’ve just lost your wife and there are a lot of rumours going around…’ She thought of Johnny and his vivid despair, and the contrast with Dudley and his self-pitying interviews online and in the news. She rubbed her forehead. She wanted to tell him that he needed to show some humility and preferably some genuine grief if he wanted to get people on his side, but she knew that would only make him angrier.

  ‘That stupid cow,’ Dudley said, with a savagery that shocked her. ‘I swear she did this on purpose to ruin everything for me. The police have interviewed me twice now and the press are crucifying me and it’s all her fault.’

  ‘Dudley!’ Lizzie shook her head. ‘I know you’re upset that Amelia’s dead—’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about Amelia,’ Dudley said with brutal frankness. ‘She was like a fucking leech, living off my money and my name. We were separated. I’d told her I wanted a divorce, so why does everyone expect me to be sorry she’s dead?’ He looked genuinely baffled.