‘I hope this evening takes away the bad vibes and replaces them with good vibes,’ said Jenna. ‘Harville Hall is mine now. Its rotten past is over and done with.’
‘I know,’ said Kayley. ‘I’m glad you’ve changed the kitchen so much. I seemed to spend a lot of time in the kitchen at those parties for some reason.’ She shuddered. ‘Getting perved on by creeps. Those friends of his. They never told me their real names. I’d know ’em if I saw ’em though. I bet he’s staying with them now. I bet they’ll give him all the cover he needs. They’ll have to. He’s got stuff on them.’
‘And they on him,’ said Jenna. ‘That seems to be how his style of friendship works.’ She filled her lungs and stood straight. ‘But he’s got nothing on us, and he knows it. And doesn’t he hate it?’
She smiled.
‘That’s why he came tonight. All he’s got left is the power to creep us out. But we aren’t going to let him even do that. Right?’
Kayley saluted.
‘Right you are, sister,’ she said.
The door to the hall opened again as a waiter came in to deposit a tray of empty glasses. Over the hubbub of general conversation, a more querulous voice could be heard.
‘He’s my boy. Ain’t I allowed to drink to him?’
Jenna and Kayley swapped quick looks.
‘Linda,’ they both said.
‘Time for some damage limitation,’ added Jenna, as they headed out into the throng.
‘Ah, Jenna, at last,’ cried Tabitha, who was propping up a very woozy-looking Linda Watson. ‘She keeps trying to go over and monopolise Jason, but he’s very busy talking to potential customers and all the top critics. I’ve told her it isn’t really the time, but . . .’
‘Sorry, I should have been here,’ said Jenna. ‘Got side-tracked. Linda, please, why don’t you come into the kitchen and have something to eat?’
‘I wanna see my boy,’ she slurred belligerently, trying to extricate herself from Tabitha’s clutches by sheer force.
The force succeeded only in propelling her to her knees on the floor.
Several heads turned, faces expressing a mixture of amusement and concern, to watch the performance.
‘Linda,’ hissed Jenna, determined not to expose Jason to embarrassment on his big night. ‘That’s enough. Come with me.’
This time, Linda didn’t have enough strength left in her to resist Jenna’s firm hand on her elbow, and she followed her into the kitchen.
‘Do you know what?’ said Jenna, once Linda was safely seated and handed a glass of water. ‘This is a very big night for Jason and for me. It would be nice if I could go and join in with it. But apparently, the whole thing’s going to end without me enjoying a minute of it.’
‘S’not my fault.’ Linda sloshed the water around in her tumbler, spilling a fair bit on to the hallowed granite flagstones. ‘Big night for me too, ain’t it? My boy, ain’t he?’
‘Yes, he’s your boy. So act like a responsible parent and lay off the booze, instead of making him a laughing stock. Because that’s what you’ll do, Linda, if you don’t get a grip on yourself. Is that what you want to see in tomorrow’s papers? Big headline? Big photograph of you, paralytic drunk with your knickers on show? How do you think Jason would feel about that?’
‘’M not drunk,’ she insisted. ‘Bit merry. Thass all.’
‘Stop lying to yourself. You’re pissed. And you aren’t going anywhere near Jason until you’re sober.’ She passed a plate of smoked salmon mini frittatas over. ‘Here, eat a few of these. They might soak a bit of it up.’
‘Don’t like fish. Where’s me champagne? I had a glass of champagne.’
‘No more champagne,’ said Jenna firmly. ‘You’re going to have something to eat and then I’m going to take you up the back stairs for a little lie down.’
‘Who do you think you are? Treating me like a, like a . . .’ She belched. ‘Little kid. I’m not a little kid. I’m his mum. Everything he’s put me through . . . I deserve to be here . . .’
Jenna sighed. With any luck, Linda’s ramblings would soon subside into snores. Until then, she had to be kept out of harm’s way.
She belched again.
‘Sorry,’ she said, briefly putting a hand to her mouth. ‘Them bubbles. Not used to it. Champagne lifestyle from now on, though, eh? All them rich bastards out there, lapping our Jase’s work up, they are. Easy street for us, eh? Well, not you. You’ve always had it easy.’
‘How about a piece of toast?’ suggested Jenna brightly, moving away from Linda before she was tempted to slap her face. She took half a loaf from the breadbin. Jason’s loaf, not hers. Jenna tried to avoid carbs.
‘I’ll have a champagne, thanks,’ replied Linda stubbornly. ‘I’ve had it hard, I have.’
‘Yes, I know you have,’ said Jenna, deadpan. This was Linda’s constant refrain. It might be true enough, but it certainly got tedious to hear. ‘But, so long as things go well for Jason tonight, the hard times could well be over.’
She popped a slice of bread in the toaster.
‘I fucking well hope so,’ muttered Linda. ‘Horrible, it were. Never two pennies to scrape together. No money, no work, no dignity. Then our Jase. Getting up to all sorts. He was a good boy really, though. It was just a phase. All kids go through phases, don’t they?’
‘Oh yes. I certainly did. I was awful to my mum as a teenager.’ Jenna turned around and smiled, softening towards Linda, imagining how awkward Jason must have been as an adolescent. She probably did have it pretty hard, back then. ‘I cringe when I remember some of the things I said to her. I was a right little cow. And she near enough had a heart attack when I went off with Deano.’
‘Yeah, I remember that. Mind you, she’s done all right out of it now, hasn’t she? Sunning herself over there in Spain. So perhaps your phase was all to the good. Jason’s did nothing but land him in hot water.’
Jenna leant against the kitchen counter, giving Linda a long and sympathetic look.
‘You brought him up all alone,’ she said. ‘That can’t have been easy.’
Linda reached in her handbag and brought out a packet of cigarettes.
‘I’m gasping,’ she said. ‘Mind if we go outside for a bit? It’s stopped raining.’ She stood up and Jenna followed her to the patio doors. ‘Seeing as you’ve banned me from drinking,’ she added, loudly but without too much rancour. She seemed to have accepted the situation.
They stood on the damp patio slabs while Linda lit up. The place was still empty. Jenna couldn’t help straining her eyes for signs of a potentially lurking Harville.
‘You’re all jumpy. What’s up?’ said Linda.
‘Oh, nothing. You do understand my point of view, don’t you?’ She held Linda’s bloodshot eyes with her gaze. ‘This is such an important night for Jason. It could make him. But it could also break him. It’s enough to make anyone a bit jumpy. Especially somebody that loves him.’
Linda took a long drag on her cigarette.
‘Aye,’ she said at last. ‘You’re all right, you. You do love him, I get it. I wondered at first. Thought you must be using him for something. But you’re on the level, I reckon.’
‘Yes, I am. Thanks for recognising it.’
There was a crackle in a nearby bush. Jenna jumped forward, then saw it was a bird, rising out of the branches.
‘What the heck’s up?’ Linda flicked ash into a pot holding a perfectly spherical bay tree.
‘I saw someone earlier,’ Jenna confessed, wanting to get her spooked feelings off her chest. ‘Someone I didn’t want to see.’
‘Why the bloody hell did you invite them then?’
‘I didn’t. Look, have you finished that cigarette? Because I need to see Jason and Tabitha. Come upstairs for a little rest, won’t you?’
‘Oh, come on, I’m fine. I’ll just stay out here if I’m showing you up.’
‘I don’t know if you should stay out here on your own . . .’
‘Who is thi
s person you’ve seen? A hitman?’ She was joking but her voice was laden with indignation.
‘No, of course not. It . . . OK, if I tell you, don’t tell Jason. Not tonight. It can wait till tomorrow.’
‘Don’t tell Jason what?’
He stood behind them at the open patio door, clutching a bottle of champagne, looking bright-eyed and flushed and full of his brilliant self.
‘G’is a swig of that, love,’ said Linda, snatching the bottle from him and upending it into her mouth.
Jenna rolled her eyes.
‘Nothing. How are you doing? I’ve hardly had a moment to . . .’
Jason put his hands on her shoulders and bent to kiss her neck, then her ear.
‘They want me,’ he murmured. ‘They want me real bad.’
‘I knew they would,’ she said, pleasure flooding in to replace her nervousness. ‘I knew it. Didn’t I say so?’
‘I’ve sold a few already,’ he said. ‘Tabitha reckons it’s her most successful opening night in years. But we want you out there. I’ve come to get you.’
‘I’ll be out, I promise. I was just going to see if your mum wanted a rest.’
Linda took a break from guzzling champagne to practise her best indignant stare.
‘I’ve told you I’m fine, haven’t I?’
‘Mum, lay off the booze,’ said Jason, wearily authoritative. ‘Or I’ll kick you out myself.’
‘Well, can you hear him?’ Linda’s indignant stare went into ‘ultra’ mode. ‘His own mother. I’m standing lookout here.’
‘Lookout? What d’you mean?’
Jason straightened up and peered into the darkening corners of the garden.
‘Nothing,’ said Jenna hastily, but Linda wouldn’t have this.
‘Oh, come on. You said yourself. Someone you didn’t want to see. Not invited. There’s an intruder on . . .’ She belched. ‘The premises.’
‘What? What’s this?’
Jason walked out across the patio, squinting in every direction.
‘Come back,’ said Jenna. ‘It’s fine. He’s gone.’
‘Who’s gone?’
Kayley appeared through the side door.
‘Ah, there you are, Jen. It’s OK. He’s gone. I had a word with security and they said they’d seen him get in his car and leave.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Jason exploded. ‘Who?’
Kayley blinked. ‘Lawrence,’ she said. ‘Did Jenna not say?’
Jenna put her hands to her face and shook her head.
‘Lawrence? You aren’t telling me . . .?’
Jason stared wildly at each of the three women.
‘Don’t look at me,’ slurred Linda. ‘Nobody told me.’
‘He’s been here? Lawrence Harville? Tonight?’
‘But he’s gone now,’ said Kayley urgently.
‘Just as well,’ seethed Jason. ‘Or I’d have belted the fucker into next week. What was he doing? Jen?’
Jenna shook her head.
‘Nothing. Just wanted to tell me the CPS had dropped the case. Can we forget about it now, and concentrate on the exhibition?’
But it didn’t seem so, not judging by the ferocious light in Jason’s eyes.
‘Forget about it? That scrote gets off scot free after all he did and you want me to forget about it? Not fucking likely. I’m going to kill him.’
‘Then that’ll be the shortest-lived artistic success of all time,’ urged Jenna. ‘Because you’ll be straight back in prison.’
‘I don’t care. I’d happily swing for him. Where is he? Where’s he staying?’
‘Jason, stop it,’ said Jenna.
‘You can’t kill him,’ added Linda. Three-quarters of the champagne had disappeared inside her by now. She hiccupped, keeping a wavering finger pointed at Jason to make it clear that she had more to say on the matter. ‘Cos you can’t. Cos it’s a crime, that’s why.’
‘Murder? A crime? Well, how about that? Jen, did he touch you? Did he threaten you?’ Jason grabbed hold of Jenna’s arms, searching her face for the answers.
‘No, s’not what I mean,’ insisted Linda loudly. ‘Course murder’s a crime. But it’s worse, ain’t it, when you kill, like, there’s a special name for it, like, when you . . .’
‘What are you on about? Zip it,’ said Jason impatiently.
‘Like a something-cide,’ she continued undaunted.
‘Homicide?’ suggested Kayley.
‘No, it’s a different one, and you can’t kill Lawrence Harville cos the thing is, that’d be it. The thingy-cide.’
‘Shut up, Ma, if you can’t talk sense. This is between me and Jen.’
‘When you kill your brother,’ shouted Linda over the top of him. ‘What’s it called when you kill your brother?’
There was a moment of silence.
‘What do you mean?’ said Jason.
‘Fratricide,’ said Jenna helpfully, though she was sure now that Linda must be raving, out of her mind with champagne.
‘I ain’t got a brother,’ said Jason.
‘That’s what I’m saying,’ said Linda, as if she had been patiently explaining something for a long time. ‘You see. You can’t kill Lawrence Harville cos it’s – what she said – icide.’
‘You’re not making sense,’ said Jason, and Jenna nodded her agreement, though a creeping kind of sick feeling was unfurling in her stomach.
‘No? Well, make sense of this. You’ve got the same dad. You and him. He’s no better’n you. Never was.’
‘This . . . Come on, Mum. This is bullshit. You’ve had too much to drink and you’re making up stories. Go and have a lie down, yeah?’
‘Don’t you talk down to me, son!’ she shouted, suddenly furious. ‘Don’t you call me a liar! I’ve sat on this for near-on thirty years and it’s killed me, d’you hear? Killed me, not saying anything. Killed me!’
‘Then why didn’t you say it?’ Jason shouted in return.
‘Please, can we keep it down?’ begged Jenna, picturing a dozen hidden hands with tape recorders around every corner.
‘Because I was scared to,’ she said, suddenly breaking down in tears. ‘I couldn’t tell you. I wanted to. I couldn’t do it.’
‘This is bollocks,’ said Jason, rolling his eyes. ‘You’ve told me so many different stories about my dad, I can’t believe a word you say any more. First he’s this bloke, then he’s that bloke, then you don’t know, it could be anyone – and now it’s Lord fucking Harville? Well, excuse me for not falling for it, but I’m sick of being spun all these lines. Fuck it, I’m going back to find Tabitha. I need some sanity. Jen, come with me. Everyone’s asking for you.’
‘Oh. I’ll be there. Give me a minute. I’ll just take your mum up to bed.’
‘Let Kayley do it, for God’s sake.’
‘No, it’s OK,’ said Jenna. ‘I want to. Tell Tabitha I’ll be out in a minute.’
Jason stormed off with Kayley at his heels, leaving Jenna with a wailing, champagne-swigging Linda.
‘Here.’ Jenna handed her a tissue from her handbag. ‘You . . . Did you mean that?’
Linda nodded, catching her breath.
‘I’ve never told him. At first, I daren’t. I thought I’d lose him. Harville would have him taken off me. That’s why I made out like I’d had five different fellas it could have been. When I got pregnant, it put him off the scent. But there weren’t no one else. Only George. Harville, that is.’
‘How did you . . .? I mean, you can’t have moved in the same circles.’
‘At the Gala. I were with a group, majorettes. I were only sixteen. You wouldn’t know it, to look at me, but I used to turn heads.’
Good God, was Linda really only forty-five? Jenna had to look hard, to see the girl she must have been.
‘I mean, I used it,’ said Linda. ‘Won’t claim I were an angel. My looks were all I had in life, so I got the most out of ’em. If I fancied a lad, I had him, and that were that. So George wasn’t my first, not at all.’
‘Surely he was married?’
‘Yeah, with a little lad, three years old. But that wasn’t going to stop him taking what he liked the look of. Took me up into the attic, he did, the old servants’ quarters. I felt like Lady Muck, even though it was a dirty little secret thing. We met up a few times after that, in the fields, or down by the reservoir. Then I fell pregnant with Jason and I got scared. I told him it were over. He didn’t argue with me. A few months later, he sent me a letter, said he’d heard I was pregnant and I’d better not say a word to anyone about us or he’d have the kid taken off me and adopted by a childless couple he knew. I told him the kid probably weren’t his, and he seemed happy about that.’
‘And you never told Jason?’
‘I was going to tell him on his eighteenth birthday. But by then, he was so angry and everyone was so anti-Harville. I thought it’d only make things worse.’
‘I see. Yes. Fancy growing up on that estate and then finding out you were related to your worst enemies. Oh, Linda. What a thing to carry around with you all these years.’
Linda staggered gratefully into Jenna’s embrace. As she hugged the woman, her mind raced. This was crazy. Jason was a Harville, possibly even conceived here at Harville Hall, in the very attic where she had first found him.
‘God knows,’ sniffed Linda, ‘I don’t like the shower of bastards any more than the rest of Bledburn does. But they’re his family. What am I going to do?’
‘There’s nothing you can do,’ said Jenna. ‘Leave it now. The decisions all lie with Jason. Oh God.’ The little outburst was brought on by the repeated thought that Lawrence Harville was Jason’s half-brother. It was hard to say which of them would be more revolted by the idea.
‘Tell you what,’ said Linda. ‘I could murder a good strong brandy.’
And I could murder you, thought Jenna grimly. Turning Jason’s big night into some kind of alcoholic Jeremy Kyle turn.
Instead, she escorted the shambolic Linda to the back staircase and helped her up to the only bedroom that was properly habitable at the moment – hers and Jason’s.
Leaving her half-conscious on the bed, she went back down the front stairs to do the mingling she had once been looking forward to.
But how difficult it was to be charming and effervescent when her mind swarmed with thoughts of Lawrence Harville’s and Jason’s parentage. She went to stand by Jason, to join him amidst a crowd of potential investors from eight different countries.
Hearts and Diamonds Page 24
