The Invitation

by A. M. Castle

  Then dealing with staff is, to be frank, a pain. Yes, it’s nice not having to cook, for example. But first, catch your chef, as they say. Then things get formal; background checks, contracts, non-disclosure agreements … It might be easier if I knocked up my own coquilles St Jacques. Though obviously that’s not going to happen.

  And that’s leaving aside the issue of trust. Plenty of trust funds, precious little of the actual commodity. It’s the one luxury denied me. Are my friends here because I’ve bought them, or because they actually like me? Welcome to living without ever really knowing.

  That’s why I’ve always been fond of Vicky. Respected her, even. I bet she was genuinely surprised the other day, when I paid for lunch. Admittedly, I used to mock her behind her back, laughing with Gita. I’d make jokes about her family having a bath full of ferrets or her daddy labouring down the black pudding mines, in an absurd fake Northern accent. Nowadays that’s probably a hate crime. But all the time, I rated Vicky’s ingrained resistance to the idea of my being born into staggering wealth. And she has remained true to her roots. Her City flat, once a warehouse, may be gentrified to the eyeballs, but her voice is not. Despite all her years in London, for Vicky ‘baths’ will always rhyme with ‘maths’.

  Now here they both are, Gita and Vicky, trudging up the path towards the castle. I’m watching them through the oriel window in my turret, the place where I’ve created my bedroom. Mine and Ross’s. As soon as I saw it, I thought of Rapunzel. And I had to have it. Ross’s daughter Penny didn’t mind, not really. All right, it’s a stretch, to picture Ross scaling the walls with my blonde hair wrapped round his wrists – I smile at the thought – but what he might lack in youthful athleticism, he more than makes up for. In other ways.

  Gita and Vicky are chatting now as they follow the path. Behind them trails their baggage, real and metaphorical. Tom’s in charge, with Vicky’s Raf as his number two. They both have that musclebound build, perfect for shouldering luggage. Funny to think I once quite fancied Tom. Well, we all did. The three of us met him at one of the endless series of uni house parties we went to in those days, in scruffy bits of south London. For me, they are still some of the most exotic safaris I’ve ever undertaken. He was doing biomedical science then, before he swapped courses.

  ‘What are you going to do with that?’ I asked naively, when Tom grabbed my bottle of rather nice Châteauneuf-du-Pape the moment we crossed the threshold.

  ‘Come and see,’ he said with a wink over his shoulder. And I trailed behind him into the stinky kitchen.

  ‘Ever seen anyone make a cocktail?’ he asked. I suppressed the thought of the little beachside bar in St Kitt’s that I’d rather taken to over the Christmas holidays, and of the staff at home for that matter, and I shook my head the way he wanted me to. He pushed the cork down into my bottle. I suppressed a wince. ‘Couldn’t be simpler,’ he said, glugging the contents into an enormous pan, which looked like something Vicky’s granny might have boiled her smalls in.

  Then he added two litres of own-brand lemonade, chucked in a sprig of mint, scooped some into a plastic cup, and passed it over. ‘Glass of Pimm’s, milady,’ he said, holding my eyes. Funny how sexy it seemed, for a minute. We were all so young, babies really. Tom already had that confidence, some indefinable air of command. No wonder he went for a job with a uniform.

  I look at him now, manhandling the suitcases. He isn’t in bad shape for his age. No dad bod there.

  Back then, I could have sworn Vicky was keenest on Tom. But it was Gita who got him, and who now has those three girls to show for it. Tasha, the eldest, is as tall as her mother, and has her grace. She keeps a little distance between herself and her younger sisters.

  Meanwhile, Vicky and Gita march on, oblivious to Tom’s efforts to keep the youngest girl’s case clear of the water. Now he’s telling my favourite – sulky, gawky middle child Nessie – to keep up. I wonder if I’m going to regret extending the invitation to children. Ruby, the littlest, is really too young to join in with all the fun I have planned, but I couldn’t exclude her. I didn’t want to give Gita any excuse to duck out. Besides, Ruby does make up the numbers.

  I laugh to myself, enjoying my private joke. I’m expecting Vicky to get it; she’s the one with the talent for figures. But it’ll go over the heads of the rest. And having drinks tonight will help disguise it. It won’t be until we sit down, tomorrow night, for the Halloween feast, that they’ll discover we are a very special group indeed. Thirteen of us, to be precise.

  Lucky for some, they say. Not for others. I narrow my eyes at the group, focusing, assessing. Yes, this invitation was long overdue.

  Gita and Vicky are laughing now. I hope they are excited; as excited as I am. I wonder what they make of my causeway. I adore the way it’s revealed by the ebbing waters. It’s so beautiful, now I’ve had it restored. And the way it leads straight to me, and Mount Tregowan, makes it a delicious cross between the parting of the Red Sea and the Yellow Brick Road. The thing I love most is its disappearing act. Twice a day, the relentless tides cover it, cutting off my castle completely.

  When Ross told me the way the sea severs us from the mainland, I nearly swooned at the romance of it all. If he’d asked for my hand right there, right then, I’d probably have said yes. And it wasn’t long after that he actually did. I had no doubts, none at all. When I look into his eyes, I’m home. He knows what it is to be surrounded by rumour and gossip, to need only a few loved ones to feel secure. That whole business with his first wife, for instance. The way he had it covered up. He’s never discussed it with me, and I like that steadfast loyalty, reaching even beyond the grave. But it’s still the talk of his little social circle here, and it didn’t take long for me to glean the necessary. Bless Ross, thinking no one outside the family knows, believing this island keeps his secrets safe. He’s such an innocent. I love that about him. And I’m so glad we’ve found each other, at last.

  Of course, my splendid isolation is an illusion. You can always reach the island by boat, no matter how deep the sea lies over my causeway. Well, except in the most awful storms. It’s a short hop. You need to be an experienced sailor, to weave between the rocks, but thanks to me, we now have the best mariner on the mainland at our beck and call. There are ways round anything and everything, always. But I won’t be letting on about that. It breaks the spell of Tregowan; the legendary feel of a place that no one can leave – until I say so.

  I step away from the window. I don’t want Gita and Vicky to see me too soon, though I suppose it might feed into the Rapunzel theme, my blonde hair cascading from the oriel. But no, I want to be in full-on chatelaine mode when they finally make it up to the castle. I’ll greet them at the heavy oak door, banded with iron bars. It opens with a groan from rusty hinges, swinging back on the splendour beyond. Yes, I could easily have it oiled, or plane the bottom of the door where it catches the stone, but there’s no drama in that. Creaks and clanks go with an old castle. I’m only sad there’s no portcullis to lower, no moat around us here.

  What am I thinking? The sea is my moat. It will be rising up behind Gita, Vicky and the rest right now, a dark green wall, my careful restoration job a fathom deep by the time they’re halfway up the hill. I love the way I’ve got the hang of the tides so quickly; it makes me feel part of the place. A rightful queen.

  My dress for tonight reflects this. I’ve been torn, I admit, between wanting to lay down my position immediately and trying to avoid any derision from Vicky. But in the end, I know Vicky will always find something to be sniffy about; that chip is even more a part of her shoulder than Tom’s epaulettes. So I’ve picked a simple, flowing Dior number that drapes with every move. Best of all, it billows behind me when I walk, like my own in-built train. I smile at the thought of pageboys to carry it for me. I would have loved that, but God, Vicky would have a field day.

  The shame of it is that Vicky and I find the same things funny – but we can’t ever acknowledge that we both find my situation ab
surd. I have to revel in it, as far as Vicky is concerned, and Vicky has to hate it, as far I am allowed to see. Maybe this weekend will finally be our chance to put all that behind us. We could become the true friends we always should have been. Or, just maybe, we could turn into sworn enemies.

  So much is going to shift in the next forty-eight hours, so many secrets will finally come to light, thanks to me. I’m looking forward to putting my world to rights at last.

  I’m going to make it a healing, positive experience, whether the others like it or not.

  After all, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Doesn’t it?

  Chapter 6

  Geoff

  Mount Tregowan, 30th October

  It is somewhat unfortunate, but yes, we did arrive late for Lady Tregowan’s drinks. My fault entirely. I’m afraid I chanced on a bookshop, not far from the island, and I persuaded Jane that it would be a good idea to pop our noses round the door. ‘I’ve clean forgotten to bring anything to read, and you can’t pretend your Rachel is a books person,’ I said. At that point, needless to say, we knew nothing of Lord Tregowan’s library.

  ‘She’s not my Rachel, but fine,’ said Jane. ‘I told you, you should have let me pack.’ I wasn’t too worried by her expression; she loves a bookshop as much as I do. We weren’t disappointed; it was an independent outlet with a good selection of ordnance survey maps. I’m researching our next walking holiday at present.

  Jane made straight for the children’s section, of course. Oh, not for our own little ones; we’ve not been blessed in that department. But Jane is an author. The Melford Mice? Tiny dancing rodents, who live in a house and garden very similar to our own. They have long been a favourite with the nation’s offspring.

  Jane often feels a little awkward amongst groups of mothers. I’m afraid females don’t always grow out of silly, cliquey schoolyard behaviour. I include Rachel and her coven in this. But sometimes it can be good to confront one’s fears. Anyway, when I looked over, Jane seemed happy enough amid the Kate Greenaways and there were only a few fractious toddlers playing nearby.

  I was soon deep in my maps, lost to the world. It wasn’t until Jane coughed by my elbow that I realised how much time had ticked by. One look outside confirmed the worst; the tide had turned and we’d missed our chance with the crossing.

  For a happy moment, I thought I’d been let off the hook, and we could return safely home, with only the minor inconvenience of purchasing a new rail ticket to show for the weekend. But no; Jane had a plan B. She’s very efficient, my wife.

  I was rather appalled when we finally tracked down the boatman on the pier. Not only had the wind got up, adding a distinct chill to proceedings, but the boat he indicated didn’t look particularly seaworthy. You would think, with the Cadogan millions at her disposal, that Rachel would have bought a nice new vessel. But no. We had to lurch aboard a leaky old skiff and sit amongst lobster pots and nets festooned with defunct sea life. I did quip to Jane that we might not arrive scented with the sort of eau de toilette that Rachel might expect. But she didn’t seem to find it amusing.

  At first I thought our skipper was going to row, and I believed we might miss most of the first night’s festivities. But he soon got an outboard motor to splutter into life and then we were zipping along like billy-o. Jane certainly perked up, and I resigned myself to the approaching ordeal, her smiles a recompense for all I was sure was to come.

  I’ve never much enjoyed the company of the Rachel set over the years, even at the most propitious of times – the usual slew of gatherings, drinks parties and the like, that keep the social wheels turning. And, with everything that’s transpired recently, I can truthfully say I am not looking forward to this at all.

  However, with my good wife at my side, I am confident we will get through the event and emerge at the end of the weekend, as Henley put it in Invictus, ‘bloody but unbowed’. Of course, Rachel’s island isn’t going to match the rest of that poem, and turn out to be a ‘place of wrath and tears’, full of ‘the horror of the shade’.

  Or at least, I certainly hope not.

  Chapter 7

  Jane

  Mount Tregowan, 30th October

  So we finally arrived half an hour late for the drinks. It was Geoff’s fault. It usually is. I love him dearly, but what did I expect, marrying a lawyer? In his funny old head, he’s always right.

  As soon as I saw the bookshop, I knew there’d be trouble. And it was a mistake, saying we had to cross Rachel’s blessed causeway at a certain time. That’s Geoff for you. He doesn’t much like deadlines, unless they’re his own.

  It’s been a while since I’ve got up the courage to visit a bricks-and-mortar children’s section. I always feel a fraud, as though the parents there have X-ray vision, and can see my withered, incompetent womb. They might force me out with pointed sticks, these mums and dads, if they knew the horrible truth.

  But someone up there with a rare sense of humour has decreed that my mouse stories ‘delight generations of little girls,’ as it proclaims on my covers. So I have a legitimate reason to be there, keeping an eye on the competition.

  Five years ago, the room I’d earmarked as our own nursery finally got converted into the second study neither of us wanted, needed or could bear to look at, let alone work in. We didn’t say a word as we slapped a coat of grown-up greige over the joyful yellow walls.

  It’s one of the reasons I can’t ever get cross with Geoff. He’s gone through so much for me. Well, we’ve both been through hell, but many men would have given up long since, decamped for the easier shores of a partner with a functioning uterus, her sturdy child-bearing hips the pathway to family life. Never mind, we’ve got dogs. I think of Dolly and Molly, our two little wire-haired Dachshunds, with the sitter at home. Though my heart pretends they’re not substitutes, my head tells me differently. I can only just about resist the temptation to knit them bootees.

  There’s never a reproach. I must live up to his forbearance, I must deserve his tolerance. It’s not easy. A lot of the time I want to hit things, including him. The worst bit is my dirty secret. It’s all my fault.

  I worry this lovely weekend is going to tip me over. I see Vicky every now and then, and she’s casual about Raf, though I know he’s the light of her life. I still feel proprietorial about him, having helped Vicky so much before and after his birth. That was when I still thought I’d have children of my own, some day.

  Gita, meanwhile … Well, her Instagram is about as much of her as I can usually cope with. That beautiful string of daughters, they seemed to pop along at my worst moments, every time our hopes of a family were being dashed. Do I really want to see them in the flesh?

  But Rachel – childless, haphazard Rachel. She will be a comfort. She’s never been the maternal type. Now she’s married a much older man, all that must be done and dusted. I don’t suppose she cares a jot; kids would just get in her way. I can imagine her losing one at an airport, then deciding to board the plane anyhow. I must try to be more like her.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I smiled, as Geoff looked gloomily at the feet of water covering the island causeway. In theory, he’s the details man, the punctilious lawyer advising clients on obscure pitfalls. And I’m the ditzy creative. But in fact, I deal with the day-to-day stuff. It makes sense. My books might sell for £20 as lavish hardbacks, for Granny to give to her favourite granddaughter as a disappointing birthday gift (even I know any child would prefer the latest gadget to rodent romps), but my share of the spoils is pennies. So I take up the household slack to make my contribution. Today that included knowing about the boatman.

  I’m looking forward to seeing Vicky. Last time we had lunch I had a lot on my mind. She’s super-busy and super-successful, and was even harder to reach than usual behind her financial wizard facade. ‘What are these weekends of which you speak?’ she said when I suggested she visit us. ‘It’s work, work, work, Jane. You know that.’ I felt guilty taking up her time, when I wasn’t making th
e most of it. Something was eating her up. I wonder if it was, you know, her usual problem. Even back at uni, she was always first in the queue for the bar.

  I also know she feels she’s failed with Raf. ‘He’ll be back. Once the novelty of living with his dad has worn off,’ I said. Mind you, it’s been well over a year now.

  I’ve never been as close to Gita. Her friendship with Rachel was so intense, when Vicky and I first met, that it was easy to avoid her, even if I hadn’t had good reason. When Rachel jetted off, we all plodded on, then graduated and scattered anyway. Gita was in the thick of her fling with Tom by then. Who’d have guessed it would actually end in marriage? And one that seems to be lasting, too. Then those three little girls, their adorable hand-knitted jumpers and long shiny plaits. ‘More pictures,’ Geoff would warn me, opening all envelopes from her. What would she do if she knew those photos ended up ripped smaller than confetti, and thrown in the bin? But now they are teenagers. You can’t be jealous of someone’s spotty, mulish brat, can you?

  Of course they’re not going to be like that, Gita’s girls – they’ll be slinking through adolescence as painlessly as their mother no doubt did. ‘Are you sure you want to go on this jaunt? We can always turn down the invitation,’ Geoff has said, more than once. But I’m braced. And Raf is something else again; Gita, Tom and I are all his godparents, and I’ve become one of his many devotees. He’s a lovely boy; gorgeous, so sporty, a real credit to his mum. And his dad, I suppose.

  By this point, Geoff and I had made it over to the boat. Now that I looked at it, the peeling paint, the interior coiled with ropes, the way that it swayed under the heavy-handed slaps of the water all around, I did feel a bit peeved about that nice dry path. But Geoff was mouthing sorry to me even as the boatman helped me clamber aboard. Once I’d got used to the rocking, I was a bit calmer. Geoff came to rest heavily beside me, with our bags, and I snuggled gratefully into his side. We cast off.