Rich Again

by Anna Maxted

  ‘Can’t wait for dinner, Mum,’ he said. ‘I’m starving.’

  She managed a weak smile. ‘It won’t take me long, I prepared most of it this morning. You could have a shower while I get it ready.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He turned his face to the window, watching London speed by in a blur. She’d taken off her best shoes, as she always did the second they stopped walking, and was rubbing her feet together. Skritch, skritch. The nylon of her stockings made a sound that set his teeth on edge. Not long now.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She paid the taxi fare and he unlocked the door. She managed to prise a kiss off him before he escaped upstairs. He washed his face with Dettol and spat into the sink. Then he showered, washed his hair, shaved and changed. It was an occasion and he wanted to look his best. The huge bouquet was standing in water, by the window. He’d managed to sneak it in after school without her seeing – a fucking miracle as she was always watching, always. It was a tradition he’d established a couple of years ago: every Friday night he’d bring her flowers from one of a few flower shops in Hampstead. Preparation was everything.

  Tonight, it was a glorious extravaganza of yellow flowers: roses, foxgloves, freesias, snapdragons, dahlias and calla lilies. He opened his wardrobe and fetched a single stem from the back. It was pleasingly withered, and was shedding, as expected after a week without water. He took one of its fallen leaves, folded it into a tissue and stuck it in his pocket. Then he placed the withered stem in among the fresh blooms, so that it was barely visible.

  ‘Dinner’s ready, darling!’ she called. So was he. He galloped downstairs.

  ‘These are for you, Mum.’

  ‘Oh darling!’ More welling up. ‘They’re absolutely stunning! Darling, it’s your birthday! You shouldn’t have!’ He loathed how her mood was totally dependent on how he treated her. Now she’d been given a little pat on the head, she’d cheer up. It was pathetic.

  ‘Why don’t you put them in water,’ he said. ‘We can have them on the table as we eat. The freesias have an amazing scent.’ He’d be fucking glad when this was over. He was sick of sounding like a poof.

  ‘I’ll do it now!’

  Of course you will. He didn’t want to touch the vase.

  She arranged the flowers, placing them carefully in the centre of the table, and they sat down.

  ‘It looks delicious.’

  She beamed. ‘You made a good choice. Bitterleaf salad is so yummy – for a salad!’

  Yummy. Fuck’s sake. How old was she? Four?

  ‘So have you varied the recipe, or just stuck to the usual?’

  ‘Stuck to the usual! I know how you like what you like! There’s rocket, baby spinach, lamb’s lettuce, curly endive, chicory, radicchio and watercress in there, nothing more, nothing less. And I made double the usual amount of passion-fruit sauce.’

  Blahblahblah.

  ‘And the fish pie smells great. Tomato juice would go well with this, Mum. Is there any?’

  ‘I’ll have a look. I think there is, somewhere in the larder.’

  ‘Can I have ice and lemon, please?’ He paused. ‘And a splash of vodka?’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, why not! I think I’ll join you!’

  As she rattled around the kitchen, he took the tissue out of his pocket and delicately placed the wilted leaf in her salad. Then he poured a slosh of passion-fruit dressing on top. He was pouring his own when she came back into the room with his drink.

  ‘Your health.’ He smiled as they clinked glasses. She groped for his hand. She always, always had to be touching. It was vile.

  He grinned. ‘Let’s eat!’

  ‘Let’s! I’ve already had a nibble of the fish pie – it’s delicious, if I say so myself!’

  Subtext: I’m a good mother. I’m a good mother, aren’t I? See?

  Stupid dumb bitch; didn’t think it was strange that a sixteen-year-old would want to spend his birthday evening with an old hag who called herself his mother.

  He shovelled the bitter salad leaves into his mouth. She ate daintily, but finished the lot. He couldn’t stop grinning. According to his research, it wouldn’t take long. It didn’t.

  ‘I don’t feel so good,’ she gasped. She looked greenish. She clutched her stomach. ‘Oh my God.’ She staggered to her feet, but collapsed. ‘Nathan,’ she breathed, ‘help me.’ She was panting now, writhing on the floor, moaning in pain. ‘I can’t … breathe … going to be …’ She vomited on to her precious African rug. ‘My head’ – she was sobbing now – ‘hurts. Oh God, what’s happening to me … help me, please, I … I’m going to die …’

  He crouched beside her and tenderly stroked the sweaty tendrils of hair from her agonized face. ‘Mummy,’ he said. ‘It’s OK. You are going to die.’ He watched her struggle to lift her head. She couldn’t do it and sank face first into her vomit. ‘I’ve been planning it …’ He paused and laughed. ‘ … since before I met you!’ Her entire body was shaking. He watched with interest. ‘Digitalis poisoning. Pretty cool.’ Her eyes were rolling in her head and she was white with pain. ‘Fucking listen to me, you bitch!’ She met his gaze, her eyes dull with agony and disbelief, and he smiled. ‘Thank you. A little courtesy is all we ask! So, where was I? Ah yes. So, year in, year out, the fucking flowers. Those idiot florists think I’m such a doll. So I save a foxglove stem from last week, I don’t nurture it, in fact I leave it to rot without food or water and it withers. Same as a child, do you copy, Mother?’

  Her eyes were glazed. He bent, shouted in her face, ‘I said, DO YOU COPY, BITCH?’

  ‘Nathan,’ she rasped. ‘I … love you. So much.’

  ‘Love,’ he said. ‘What is that? You don’t love me, Mummy. You think you do, but it’s referred love. Like referred pain. You only love yourself. Your love is only in one place, it just seems to be in another. There is no love for me, it’s a fallacy.’ He paused. ‘You don’t get it, do you? OK, try this. Your love for me is moonlight, yeah? Oh God! Do I have to explain everything? There’s no such thing as moonlight, dummy! It’s the sun’s light, reflecting off the moon’s surface. You think you love me but your love for me is moonlight.’

  She looked at him, bleak, blank.

  ‘Oh, what’s the point? Like trying to educate a squirrel.’ He patted her leg. ‘You do deserve this, you know, Mummy. Apart from all the shit I’ve suffered because of you. I suffered before I hunted you down, and after. I mean, I’ve been abused by you. This fucking touch, touch, touch, kiss, kiss, kiss: it’s harassment. I’ve had to disinfect myself every night. So …’ He watched as she tried to lift her head, but sank again into the vomit. ‘Here’s the scenario. You suffer the worst pain you’ve ever imagined, while I go out for a birthday pint – pre-arranged – with my friends, and when I get back in a few hours’ – he glanced at his watch – ‘or I might get lucky and stay out all night, your stupid weak heart will have stopped. I’ll call the ambulance, but it will be too late. When they cut you open for the autopsy, they’ll find that you accidentally ingested a leaf from the pretty but lethal foxglove. What a tragedy! But kind of plausible, don’t you think? Its unfortunate placement on the table … one dying stem that shed just one leaf … into your salad. Enough to kill. The top leaves are the most potent, you see. I did my homework! No one, however hard they try, will be able to prove it was murder! Once again I’ll be the poor orphan – well, not so poor, thanks to you. I shall be able to start my life again, on my terms.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘Aren’t you proud?’

  The sweat was pouring off her, and she was doubled up, convulsing. And she stank of vomit and diarrhoea. Death was gross!

  He bounced up, wandered to the hall and got his favourite black leather jacket. All the phones were safely out of reach. There was nothing she could do.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he called. ‘I’ll be fine. Thanks for the leg-up. The world will be mine!’

  ‘Please,’ she croaked. ‘Please.’

  ‘Please, what?’ he snap
ped.

  She was struggling to speak. ‘Never … meant … hurt you …’

  These people! Honestly. You needed the patience of a saint! He stumped back into the room. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But so what?’ And then, ‘Sweetie, don’t flatter yourself. It’s not about you. It’s about me. You aren’t number one on my shit list, you’re the fucking hedgehog I ran over on my way to battle.’ He clenched his teeth to stop himself from pounding her brain out of her head right there. ‘You know,’ he hissed. ‘People like you are so fucking tactless! I didn’t want to think about Jack Kent – the prick who took over ruining my life where you left off – and now you’ve made me and I’m SO UPSET!’

  The sound of himself screaming brought him to his senses. He glared at her, breathed deeply, and tried to calm down. Eventually, he nodded, rolling his shoulders back to loosen the tension. ‘Jack,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘My argument is mainly with Jack. You were my Six Day War. Jack is my Vietnam.’ Then he smacked the side of his head lightly. ‘Duh! I almost forgot. There’s one more thing!’ He removed a flick knife from his pocket, and waved it in front of her nose. ‘Hey, there’s nothing to be scared of, Mummy! You won’t feel a thing.’

  She was retching, whimpering with fear. Her nervous system had gone to pieces. And her bladder control.

  ‘Mummy! Honestly. What a baby! I’d love to cut you up alive so you could experience a teeny weeny bit of the torture and misery that I’ve been through. But the bore of it is, a mutilated corpse would look suspect. So I’m forced to forgo the pleasure of your screams. Here’s the plan. As the grieving son, I’ll insist on having the last look at you in your coffin before the lid is shut for ever and you’re lowered into the ground. Oh, and by the way, I’m going to ask for you to be dressed in that peach trouser suit – the one that makes you look fat? I’ll ask not to be disturbed, and no one will disturb me, because you have to honour the bereaved. It will only take a few moments – I’ve rehearsed with that whiney little cat of yours. I’ll pop them out like peas from a pod and one slash of the knife – oh, bless you, you don’t know what I’m talking about! Your eyes, Mummy! As you’ve always said, you have my eyes.’

  She started to convulse. He grinned, sliding the knife back into his pocket. ‘They’re mine, Mummy,’ he whispered softly. ‘You have my eyes. I want them back.’

  BOOK FOUR

  PARIS, 13 OCTOBER 1998

  Tim

  Tim stumbled to his feet, coughing. He ran a trembling hand through his hair; it was full of dirt and rubble. His legs gave way and he sat down on the ground. His trousers were torn and his knee was wet with blood. An explosion – a bomb, a bomb had gone off. He had nearly been blown to shreds by a bomb, and there was devastation all around, like a scene out of the Middle East. He crawled over broken glass on his hands and knees, willing himself: Get up, get up, run; he was climbing over – oh good Christ, a body, a woman. Half of her face was blown off. He turned aside to retch.

  The air was filled with smoke and dust, and there was a huge hole in the ceiling. People were sobbing and crying; he was sobbing and crying, and the groans of the injured and dying curdled his blood. He could hear the wail of sirens. He was frozen with shock and his head ached as though it would split in two, but he was alive, he’d survived. He needed to get out, there could be another blast, but his legs wouldn’t obey orders. If he got out of here intact, he was going to make the most of his existence – yes he was. No more lying. He would be true to himself, and when he graduated from Cambridge he would not attend Sandhurst. He wanted nothing to do with the military. He would deal in art – yes he would. Today he had seen death and felt a fear like no other. But it wasn’t fear of death itself – it was the cold crawling fear of having wasted his life.

  ‘Here, let me help you.’ The voice was rich, deep, kind and calm – the voice of a hero – and Tim, in a daze of wonder, allowed the young man to lift him to his feet. The young man was strong and tall with an angel’s face and Tim let out a squeak of fear. Maybe he was actually dead and in heaven? The angel, breathing hard, hauled Tim’s right arm around his shoulder and hefted him towards the exit. ‘You’re going to be fine. What’s your name, friend?’

  ‘Tim Fortelyne,’ he croaked, and the angel – no, he was real, alive and earthly, his own age – smiled. His face was dirty with ash but he was unusually beautiful with white, even teeth, and Tim knew he was someone of note. Normal people did not look this perfect.

  ‘I’m Ethan,’ said the young man. ‘You stick with me, you’ll be cool.’

  The actor – the guy was an international superstar at twenty – he had saved the world at least twice on screen, and now he was saving Tim. ‘So very kind you are,’ he whispered, and then dizziness overtook him and he blacked out.

  LONDON, OCTOBER 1998

  Emily

  She had been thrilled to realize that she was being airlifted back to Britain. The thrill hadn’t lasted. The NHS hospital had been like something out of 1950s Calcutta. She had been put on a ward. Beyond disgusting. Two along, the patient was handcuffed to the bed, with a couple of policemen with sub-machine guns standing guard. She was terrified, horrified – had demanded to be moved to a private hospital, only to be told by a disapproving nurse, who called her ‘girl’, that no private hospital had their ‘excellent’ resources.

  Resources? Two hellish weeks, during which she barely slept. In the dead of night, the woman in the next bed prayed to Jesus, half sobbing, half hysterical; to Emily it sounded like voodoo. The food was, like, totally poisonous, and McDonald’s didn’t deliver, so she ordered a hamper, daily, from Fortnum’s, not knowing how else to survive. If she had to use the communal bathroom, she had to hold her breath so that she wasn’t sick.

  Finally, finally, she’d been moved to the Portland. It was almost as bad. She hated this hospital. It masqueraded as a hotel, but they had no idea. The food was a fucking joke, so this time she’d ordered an organic, no-gluten meal-delivery service from Selfridges on credit, and she’d spent three hours on the phone ordering silk cushions from Liberty and sheepskin rugs from Toast, Diptyque scented candles, porcelain dinner plates, a red La Chapelle side table, and a white leather Versace chair for the tiny room. She had it repainted in organic paint (best for baby). As for the bathroom, she would have had it ripped out and redone by Philippe Starck for her stay but they wouldn’t allow it – ridiculous, when it would be at her expense! The bathroom was like something out of a Bombay slum. She imagined.

  The room was now bearable, but she was so mind-numbingly bored of lying here. The bleeding had reoccurred. They didn’t like bleeding when you were seven months pregnant. Still, the baby’s heartbeat was fine and, according to the v. cute doctor, her cervix looked ‘gorgeous’. She’d smiled then, for the first time in a long while. Smiling made an interesting change from crying. Weird but true. It had sounded like bullshit when they said it in biology, but now she had discovered it for herself: people actually were 90 per cent water.

  There was a quiet knock. Her heart leaped. But it was probably the doctor, or the nurse, or the cleaner, or the million other people who kept barging in every other minute to jab a needle in her arm or stick a funny paper thermometer in her mouth. Private hospital, my arse! There was no privacy!

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Emily! Oh my God, is the baby OK? I’m sorry for not ringing first. I came the second I heard.’

  She flopped back on the five duckdown pillows. ‘Hi, Claudia. At fucking last.’ The sight of Claudia, hollow-eyed and wretched with a broken arm, was not exactly cheering in the abstract, but Emily felt a lurch of triumph.

  ‘So are they monitoring him? Or her? What is the … can they save it?’

  ‘The baby’s fine.’

  ‘Oh! Thank God! They can work miracles these days, they really—’

  ‘Claudia, I lied. The baby’s heartbeat did not stop. I just had to’ – she could feel her voice rising to a shout – ‘GET YOU HERE SOMEHOW!’

  Claudia sat down
on an Eames chair with a thump. ‘Don’t … you … so … wrong.’ She sighed. ‘But I understand. I’m sorry for not … coming before. I …’ She paused. ‘This room is rather gorgeous, for a hospital. I brought Alfie with me.’ ‘Alfie?’

  Claudia blushed. ‘Yes. You know. Alfie Cannadine. He was so upset to hear about the … thing …’

  ‘The bomb?’

  ‘He and Harry flew to Paris that night. Harry organized for everyone – us to be transferred by private air ambulance to – to English hospitals, although I, obviously, didn’t need to stay for long. Alfie has been so sweet. He made dinner for me every night of the first week: chilli con carne, Bolognese, home-made burgers, and brought it in. I don’t think he realizes I’m vegetarian. He doesn’t know about … Well, he knows I broke off my engagement …’ She blushed.

  ‘You fancy him,’ said Emily.

  ‘No!’ hissed Claudia. ‘He’s been seeing that Polly girl for three years. They’re very serious, so don’t say a word.’

  Emily rolled her eyes. Claudia was obviously rolling from one heartbreak to the next. Presumably it distracted her from obsessing about Martin. ‘So where is Alfie?’

  ‘Outside. He’s happy to wait. He doesn’t feel sure about the etiquette of visiting you when you’re—’

  ‘Oh, Jesus. The paparazzi lie on the floor when I get out of cars! The whole world’s seen my ass. Bring him in.’

  Claudia beamed and hurried to the door. Alfie entered, carrying a stylish bouquet. He looked slightly surprised to see forty-nine other stylish bouquets. She hadn’t seen him for at least four years. She remembered him as a posh geek, but, oh shit, he was gorgeous. A rugby player’s physique, and he’d grown into his generous features. She was meticulous about putting her ‘face’ on – a few weeks of not giving a toss and disaster!