Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Yes,’ Rachel answered, taking the wine from the fridge. ‘He writes poetry himself from time to time, which probably won’t surprise you if you’ve seen The Geddons. He’s devising some kind of an exhibition now, with Ernesto Gomez providing visual interpretations of the poems in the play.’

  Laurie looked impressed. ‘Certainly sounds like something worth seeing,’ she commented.

  ‘Could you pass me the corkscrew from the drawer in front of you?’ Rachel said, pointing to a small pine chest that sat snugly between the stove and a corner.

  ‘Isn’t he turning The Geddons into a film at the moment?’ Laurie said, passing the corkscrew over.

  ‘That’s right,’ Rachel said. ‘Anna’s one of the producers, actually, which is why she can’t spend as much time here as she’d like to.’

  Laurie watched her as she tugged out the cork, then took a glass from a cupboard over the fridge. ‘Aren’t you having any?’ she said. Then remembering, ‘Oh no, I don’t suppose you can.’

  ‘I’m trying not to,’ Rachel grimaced, ‘but I can tell you it’s been hard, because I’ve never wanted one more than in the past few weeks. And with only the very lowest dose of Valium and strictly no sleeping pills at all … Well, let’s not encourage the self-pity,’ and reaching into the fridge again she took out a large carton of tomato juice. ‘My only vice,’ she said. ‘But Anna will join you when she gets back from Helston. She went to Tesco’s to make sure I’m all stocked up before she returns to London.’

  Laurie waited until they were both holding glasses, then after clinking she took a sip of wine, and said, ‘I take it you won’t mind me talking to your family about what’s happened.’

  ‘No, of course not. They’re expecting it.’

  ‘Does Tim have anyone?’

  ‘No. He was an only child whose parents drowned in a boating accident when he was a boy, so his grandparents brought him up. His grandfather died about ten years ago, and his grandmother just five years ago. This was their cottage, actually. I always wished I had met them. Tim adored them.’

  ‘So he grew up in Cornwall?’ Laurie said, surprised.

  ‘No. In London. His grandmother grew up here though, in this very cottage, so it’s been in the family a long time. She moved to London when she married, so the place has really only been used as a holiday home since her mother died back in the thirties.’

  Laurie looked around at the low, wooden ceilings, rugged stone walls and terracotta tiled floor. Opposite the stable door they’d come in through was another with a stained glass window and ornate brass handle that opened into a bathroom, and adjacent to that was an archway over a step down to the sitting room. ‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ she said, ‘what are you going to do with all your time while you’re here? Apart from reread The Magus?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know how long I’ll stay,’ Rachel answered. ‘But I’ve promised myself a couple of weeks, at least, and the way I feel about London right now I wouldn’t mind never going back. So, unless I get horribly lonely, I’ll probably stay at least until I’ve sorted this place out, which is something Tim and I had been intending to do for ages. And though I blush to admit it, I’m thinking about writing a book. I know, everyone says that, don’t they? I’d write a book if only I had the time. But my brother-in-law insists now is an excellent time, because, so he says, intense emotion can be very productive for a writer. And knowing him as well as I do, I have every reason to believe him.’

  ‘He’s an extremely talented man,’ Laurie remarked. ‘I wish I’d seen The Geddons. The reviews were glowing.’

  ‘Yes, we’re all extremely proud of him,’ Rachel said. ‘But talk to Anna, she’ll tell you what a handful he can be, especially when he’s going through one of his phases.’

  Laurie looked surprised.

  Rachel’s tone was droll as she said, ‘I’m told a lot of creative people go through them, so maybe that’s what I’ve got to look forward to, if I do write a book – huge self-doubt, fear of losing my talent, or going unrecognized. In Robert’s case, he’s hardly got anything to worry about, when he has Anna behind him, and not only for moral and wifely support, because she produces his films, directs his stage plays, which is how they met, actually, while they were both at university where she directed his first play. She promotes him and his work, raises the finance for it all … She’s amazing, because she does all of that while he whips up all manner of conflict and havoc in order to help himself create. It’s probably all a subconscious thing, because when it’s happening, she says, he truly seems to believe that he’s going insane, or being possessed, or whatever. And then it all just calms down again and life goes on as normal.’ The corners of her mouth went down in a grimace. ‘Try living with that, two small children, a sister whose husband has just been murdered, and staying sane yourself.’

  Laurie laughed. ‘Well, she certainly looked it, when we met,’ she said.

  ‘She’s a saint, and frankly I don’t know what any of us would do without her.’

  Laurie’s smile turned almost wistful, and sad. ‘That’s what we used to say about my sister,’ she said. ‘And then we had to learn.’

  Rachel’s heart contracted. ‘You’re talking about your twin?’ she said. ‘The one who committed suicide?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Laurie said, adding, not without irony, ‘You’ve obviously been doing your homework on me too.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rachel admitted, ‘that’s what people like us do, isn’t it? So I also know that you have a difficult man of your own to deal with. That’s presuming you and Elliot Russell are still together.’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ Laurie replied, ‘but I sometimes wonder why – or how. He’s hardly been in the country this past year, which was why I was in the States, so I could actually get to see him.’ She pulled a face. ‘But you don’t want to hear about that. You’ve got enough to think about. He knew your husband, did you know that?’

  ‘I know they met a few times,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Mm, just a shame not more recently, otherwise Elliot might have been some help with this. He probably will be anyway. Certainly I’ll be making use of his research team. They’re the ones who helped crack the billionaire syndicate behind the Ashby affair.’ As she finished they both turned at the sound of the gate banging open.

  ‘Hi, I’m back!’ Anna declared, coming to dump the shopping on the doorstep. ‘Oh great, the wine’s open. Pour me one, will you? I’m just going back to the car for the rest of the bags. Has Robert called yet?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ Rachel answered.

  Anna immediately wheeled back. ‘No?’ she demanded. Then, glancing at her watch, ‘I hope they haven’t allowed him to go into overtime.’ She pointed at the groceries. ‘Those are the things for the freezer, so don’t let them sit.’

  Rachel looked at Laurie. ‘You could be forgiven for thinking she’s my mother, because believe me, she definitely sounds like her. In fact, that’s why we didn’t speak for almost a year, she just couldn’t stop bossing me around, and one day I flipped. Now, I love it so much, I can hardly get through a day without it.’

  Half an hour later, having left Anna trying to get hold of Robert, Rachel and Laurie wandered down the footpath towards the pub, passing a few neighbours on the way, whose mumbled greetings told Rachel that they were no less awkward with her now than they’d been two days ago. She wondered if Laurie was noticing their gruffness, but if she was, she didn’t mention it, so Rachel didn’t either.

  Apart from a handful of tourists and Dapper, the landlord, who was chalking that night’s menu on to a blackboard, the bar was empty when they walked in, so Rachel introduced Laurie to a few portraits of the heroes of the old Killian lifeboat that were hanging on the wood-panelled walls. She felt her mouth begin to water as Dapper hung the board and she read: Crab Salad, Lobster Thermidor, Monkfish with Lemon and Capers, and Hog’s Pudding Pasty.

  ‘Hi, Dap,’ she said, when he finally put the chalk down. ‘T
his is a friend of mine, Laurie Forbes. We’d like to book her a room for a couple of nights.’

  Dapper’s round face started to turn red, as his button eyes shifted off sideways. ‘Got no rooms,’ he grunted, starting to polish the pumps. ‘Fully booked.’

  Rachel felt her own face starting to colour, for it was such an obvious lie that she could hardly believe he was saying it. ‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘There don’t seem to be many people around at the moment.’

  ‘No. We’re full,’ he retorted, avoiding looking at Laurie as he finally directed his eyes defiantly at Rachel.

  ‘Oh well, OK,’ she said, angry enough to get into an argument, were she only emotionally equipped for it. ‘Then I don’t suppose we’ll be having a drink either,’ and turning to Laurie she said, ‘Shall we go?’

  Outside, on the terrace, Laurie put a hand on her arm and found she was shaking. ‘What was all that about?’ she said. ‘There’s a board in the window that says vacancies.’

  ‘I know … I’m really sorry,’ Rachel responded. ‘I feel so embarrassed. But it doesn’t matter, you should stay with us anyway. We’ve got the room, it just means three of us sharing a bathroom, if that’s OK.’

  ‘Of course it is. But don’t you want to know why he said there were no –’

  ‘No, please, let’s just drop it. Where’s your car?’

  ‘Up the hill, in the car park.’

  ‘Yes, of course. There’s nowhere to park in the village. But you can probably squeeze it in next to mine, in the little clearing at the side of Beanie’s cottage. Her motorbike and trailer don’t take up quite so much room as the old Citroën she used to drive. And once Anna’s car’s gone there won’t be a problem at all.’

  As they walked on down through the village, along the top of the beach where sand and pebbles had been scuffed out on to the road, they passed half a dozen or more fishermen, standing around their boats, and several more villagers either going in or out of the small handful of shops that seemed to sell mainly postcards and handicrafts. All of them appeared almost hostile to their presence. In fact the atmosphere was so strained, and even strange, that Laurie wasn’t sure she liked being here at all, for though everyone watched them, they were careful to avoid any eye contact, and the faint sound of whispering might have been almost comic had it not been so bizarre. Then, to her amazement, when she stopped to admire an assortment of hand-carved wooden boxes laid out on a table at the side of the gig house, the owner, and presumably artist, suddenly spread her hands over her wares saying ‘It’s not for sale.’

  Laurie blinked. She hadn’t even got as far as touching anything, so it wasn’t possible to know what had taken her fancy. But she said nothing, merely followed Rachel on past Tucker’s Crabbe Shoppe, up the hill towards the phone box that was at the road end of the todden, then into the narrow leafy lane that led up past the rose-covered chapel, until finally they climbed over the stile into the car park.

  By the time they got there Rachel’s distress, far from being under control, was pushing its way past her defences so that Laurie could see it was hard for her to speak.

  ‘Please don’t tell Anna about any of this,’ she said, shakily. ‘She’ll only feel she has to stay, when I know she’s worried about the film.’

  ‘But what’s it all about?’ Laurie pressed. ‘Surely they’re not always like that? You wouldn’t come here if they were.’

  ‘No, of course they aren’t. I just think … Anna thinks they’re finding it hard to deal with what happened to Tim.’

  ‘And you aren’t? Anyway, they’re Cornish. Half of them crew lifeboats, so for heaven’s sake, if they don’t know how to handle death, then no one does.’

  ‘But murder’s different. It has a stigma attached to it … Look, it doesn’t matter. They’ll come round, I know they will, and I have to stay because I just can’t face going back to London right now. So please, not a word to Anna.’

  It was a promise Laurie would have preferred not to make, for she’d have liked to hear Anna’s take on what this strange behaviour was all about, but Rachel was obviously so worried about becoming even more of a burden to her sister that she had no choice but to agree.

  Rachel smiled, obviously relieved. ‘OK, so which is your car?’ she said, looking around at the handful that was parked on the rough patch of ground.

  Laurie grimaced. ‘I’m afraid it’s the Porsche,’ she confessed. ‘It’s Elliot’s. He’s letting me use it, while he’s in the States.’ She looked around. ‘Actually, it doesn’t look quite as flashy as I’d feared, with these Range Rovers and Volvo estates. I thought the fishing industry was supposed to be in a decline. Or I guess they belong to the tourists we saw in the pub.’

  ‘Probably,’ Rachel answered.

  ‘Which means,’ Laurie said, pulling another face, ‘we have to drive down through the village in this, with everyone staring at us the way they were just now.’

  Rachel looked at her, then quite suddenly their eyes started to shine, and moments later they were laughing. ‘The hell with it,’ Rachel declared. ‘Let them eat cake.’

  Still laughing, Laurie pulled open the passenger door and waved Rachel to her seat. It was good to see her laugh, for it had brought some colour back to her face, and life to her eyes, though Laurie guessed it would be only fleeting. No doubt because of how all-consuming and debilitating her grief was Rachel was failing to see that the villagers’ peculiar behaviour might not be quite as straightforward as she was presuming. In fact, Laurie wouldn’t mind betting that it had much less to do with the stigma of murder than with the outside attention, as Tim Hendon’s widow, that Rachel was bringing to the village. For there was no mistaking the fact that they didn’t want Laurie here either – no room at the inn, no goods for sale – and for a village that surely must be even more dependent on tourism than it was on its catch, it just didn’t make any sense not to want publicity, no matter how it was attained. So if she was right, and it was the limelight they were trying to avoid, then it quite naturally begged the question, what, in this quaint little piece of paradise, did they have to hide? And if she couldn’t work that out, she had no business calling herself a reporter. However, it wasn’t why she was here, so she’d just turn a blind eye and hope that time would prove they had nothing to fear from her, or more importantly, from Rachel.

  Robert was pacing his study at home, tapping the blunt tips of his fingernails against his teeth, while casting anxious, fervid glances at the phone. In the room next door the girls were watching TV with Cecily, their nanny, the volume turned up too loud for him to work, but he wasn’t going to complain. They should be in bed by now, but he wasn’t going to do anything about that either – at least not until he’d made this call. He wanted it out of the way, off his mind, so that he could concentrate fully on his daughters as he read them a bedtime story and assured them that Mummy would be home soon – though maybe not as soon as they expected. However, he wouldn’t know that until he’d made the call, telling Anna not to worry about rushing back, to stay as long as she liked in Cornwall.

  He looked longingly at the exquisitely crafted wooden box on his desk that contained a dozen fat cigarettes. Stacey had given them to him the night before last – a gift to commemorate the first of many precious evenings they’d promised to spend truly getting to know one another.

  ‘And may each hour we share take us more deeply, more satisfyingly into each other’s souls,’ she had said, when she’d given him the box, and his hands had shaken as he’d taken it, for the desire to penetrate her fully, from every angle, in every place, for every moment, of every day, was as constant as the beat of his heart.

  How desperately he wanted one of those cigarettes now to help him relax and feel convinced that everything was going to be all right. But no matter how strong the craving, he couldn’t smoke dope while the girls were in the house.

  He continued pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. The dilemma was clashing around in his head, a deafening cacoph
ony of vice against virtue, while his conscience retained full claim on his heart. Was it really only forty-eight hours since she’d pulled him back from the brink, and insisted he stay to talk? It seemed so much longer. But time’s only relevance was in the knowledge that, from now on, nothing in his life would ever mean as much as the sacred moments he could be with her, holding her, touching her, feeling the tremulous whisper of her breath on his skin, the rhythm of her heart beneath his cheek as she cradled his head, the tearing ecstasy of joy as her eyes gazed so tenderly into his. He could see their cerulean beauty now, flickering with emotion, as he’d unburdened the might of his passion, and then he’d known the liquid lightness of relief as she’d told him she understood his need, and adored him for it. She even welcomed his love and rejoiced in his lust, for no one, she’d said, could put it into such words as he – words that were forming the poems for Ernesto to turn into art. And the demons that raged inside him, goading him towards acts of violence and obscenity, she was willing to embrace them too, in the hope of soothing, quieting and eventually conquering them, so that he no longer had to be afraid.

  What a rare and sensitive woman she was. Had anyone ever shown a man such kindness, such faith? She had opened her arms to embrace him, and offered her face for his kisses, even though she felt no passion of her own, and was unable to give him her love. The agony of his unrequited madness was like a dagger in his heart, but one of creation not destruction, for when he’d returned home he’d sat in this room until dawn penning line after line of desperation, rage, ardour, and such rapture as he had never felt before in his life.

  Then today, in her dressing room, after she’d read his verse, meant only for her eyes, she’d sent her assistant away so that they could be alone. She’d let him hold her, and kiss her, just as she had that night. She saw how it energized and inspired him, and how in turn his euphoria boosted the cast and crew. So the day had been a pleasure for them all, right up to the moment of leaving, when she’d smiled at him secretly across the set, making him feel they were as inextricable as dream and dreamer.