The Love Letter

by Fiona Walker

  ‘So they were really works of genius all along.’ She laughed in amazement, thinking of the hundreds of blobs littered around Farcombe, each containing a detailed sculpture one could only guess at.

  ‘She says she wants their secrets to be discovered after her death because she doesn’t deserve the recognition in her lifetime. She’s so trapped by her own veils.’

  ‘Like mother like son,’ Legs sighed. ‘I want to break them all open like Easter Eggs straight away, don’t you?’

  ‘My offers to liberate them haven’t gone down too well so far.’ He looked out distractedly through a clematis-veiled window towards the woods, ‘Nor did sailing, horse-riding, local galleries or anything beyond Farcombe’s walls. Our biggest adventure was lunch in the village, and of course Hector gatecrashed that. I can’t stand her blind devotion to him. He’s her jailer, but she can’t see it.’

  Another shot went off, much closer by, making them both jump this time. Across the room, Fink woke from a sonorous slumber and barked. Byrne pulled his hand free from the water bath, ever more alert.

  ‘Did Hector really threaten to kill you that day?’

  ‘He said he’d put a bullet in me if I did anything to upset Poppy again.’

  No wonder he was now so jumpy around Hector’s gunfire, Legs mused. Then she gasped as she remembered: ‘Hector thinks you’re the one behind the death threats!’

  On cue, a blast went off at such close range, shot showered down on the roof. Upstairs, Lucy screamed.

  ‘Jesus!’ He glanced towards the door, reaching to pick up the charred notebook and pocket it. ‘I told you I wasn’t safe to be around. I must go.’

  ‘Where will I find you again?’ She realised she had no idea where he was even sleeping. He was like the Farcombe hermit, she thought wildly. She had visions of him and Fink holed up in the Lookout.

  ‘You won’t; I’m not putting you in any more danger.’ He reached out to lift her hand from the bowl of water, examining the wrinkled, burn-whitened skin of thumb before tracing each of her fingers with the tips of his until her hand felt newly baptised. ‘There’ll always be a sting in my tale, remember, however many times you try to rewrite it with a happy ending.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ she was punched back by the force of her own longing.

  ‘Goodbye, Heavenly Pony. Don’t meddle any more or you’ll get your fingers burned.’ He dropped his lips tenderly on the tip of her scalded thumb before turning to leave. The gunshots were moving away again now.

  Legs covered her mouth, slumping back down on her chair in defeat, angry tears sprouting from nowhere. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave Ptolemy snogging Purple at the end of Raven’s Curse like everyone in the world wants?’ she shouted after him.

  He slowed in his tracks, not turning round. ‘Who says I don’t?’

  The sobs in her throat caught a crab of laughter. ‘Do you really? Is Purple a she or a he? Is it a good kiss?’

  ‘You must read the book to find out,’ he said with infuriating Gordon Lapis pedantry, stooping down to clip a lead on the sleeping Fink’s collar. But then he dropped it, the sleeping basset not even stirring. Turning, Byrne marched back to the table, stepped right onto it and sat down in it directly in front of her so their faces were level, his legs to either side of her.

  Reaching his hands to her cheeks, he drew her into a kiss that broke their personal best one kiss record for unforgettableness, although Legs was pretty sure she blacked out completely this time as lust dragged all the oxygen from her brain so fast that her erogenous zones were the only things thinking for themselves.

  At last, Byrne pulled away, whispering breathlessly: ‘It’s pretty much that sort of kiss.’

  Legs found it was a long time before she could speak. ‘Please don’t tell me Purple wakes up and it’s all been a dream?’

  Shaking his head, he let out his gruff, bittersweet laugh, but his face was pinched with sorrow. ‘Don’t skip ahead. It’s a good book.’ He pulled away. ‘Now leave me alone to lose my life the way I see fit.’

  ‘You can’t mean that?’

  His beautiful scroll of a mouth twisted into a half-smile. ‘I’ve already lost my heart and my head. What’s left hardly counts.’ Kissing her cheek, he whispered something into her ear which she didn’t quite understand. ‘Gráim thú.’

  Dark eyes even more regretful, he blew her a kiss and slipped out through the door.

  ‘Wait! What did you just say to me?’ she called out, but the door was closed.

  She slumped her hot face down on the table, chest burning. Exhaustion and emotional overload enveloped her along with a merciless coughing fit. She badly needed another Fisherman’s Friend. Her lost heart thundered. It was cannoning over the clifftops.

  She tried to repeat what he’d whispered in her ear again, but whichever inflexion she gave, it still sounded like ‘Grime poo.’

  A call came from overhead. ‘Legs, are you still down there?’

  She trailed upstairs.

  Still wearing the tablecloth, Lucy was stretched out on the bed, an eye-mask in place, along with her iPod now to drown out the gunshots.

  She lifted the mask briefly to smile before dropping it back like a letterbox flap, talking over-loudly because she had opera in both ears. ‘Could you fetch me another glass of wine? I have a terrible headache!’

  ‘Wouldn’t a paracetamol be better?’

  But Donizetti had taken over once more.

  Tucked into the William Morris fabric were several pieces of scrunched up writing paper. She didn’t have to look very hard to see that every one was addressed to My darling Dorian, and invariably began, How can you ever forgive my summer madness, my darling man? What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour’d of an ass.’ Feeling guilty of prying, she carefully retreated downstairs.

  There was a knock on the door. Abandoning the bottle of wine on the table, Legs found Byrne leaning against the oak porch, draped in fronds of overgrown clematis and rambling rose, like a woodland god, his face in dappled shadow.

  ‘I forgot to give you this.’ He took her hand in his, placing a little parcel into her palm before enfolding it in her fingers and drawing them hurriedly up to his lips. Then he said it again: ‘Grime poo.’

  As Legs opened her mouth to ask what he meant, a shot rang out, the closest yet, twelve-bore lead hitting the porch roof at such velocity its whole frame shook, throwing down great veins of oak splinters and thatch from above along with pellets of shot.

  Legs screamed, her hand still gripped in Byrne’s as she ducked low and he shielded her with his body.

  ‘Keep very quiet,’ he breathed, covering her mouth to stop her screaming again.

  Another shot blasted higher into the trees surrounding the cottage, splintering bark so that it showered over their heads. Hector was shouting from beyond a line of poplars at the wood’s boundary with estate parkland. ‘Show yourself, you little bastard!’

  ‘Stay here and don’t move,’ Byrne breathed. ‘I’d give you all my heart if I had a life worth living. Grime poo.’

  A kiss landed on her lips with such speed and lightness it was as though her mouth was visited by a zephyr before it blew away. He was gone, crossing the garden and into the woods.

  ‘Over here!’ he shouted at Hector, who had now reloaded and blasted a shot after him.

  Head buried in her hands to muffle the sound and terror, Legs sat shaking for a long time before realising that her own heartbeat was crashing far louder than any gunfire. The woodland around her had fallen silent.

  She uncurled her fingers and let out a sob of disbelief as she saw a packet of Fisherman’s Friends creased in her palm.

  Then she noticed something else in the packet. It was a gold signet ring. The engraved crest on it featured a tower supported by two lions rampant. With shaking hands, she slid it onto her little finger, but it was too big. It fitted exactly on her ring finger and she held out her hand to admire it, cursing herself because it was still trembling so much
that the lions danced like two punks in a mosh pit.

  Legs found laughter and sobs tangled in her throat. She looked up to the gnarled beams overhead, and told their wise eyed knots. ‘I love him. Both of him.’

  ‘I need that wine,’ came a voice from the top of the stairs as her mother reappeared dressed in an inside-out smock dress, sleep-mask round her neck like a velvet choker, one iPod earphone dangling. She started downwards then paused, cocking her head, removing the other earpiece. ‘Why is Hector making all that noise? I thought he was shooting wildlife not giving it a forty-one-gun salute?’

  Legs groaned as she heard familiar, barracking shouts from the far end of the garden.

  Dressed incongruously in a kaftan and ancient cords, Hector had several brace of pheasant swinging from an old leather belt around his hips so that he looked like he was wearing a feathery game tutu. Matched with the cartridge bag slung jauntily over his shoulders and the hippy beads around his neck, the look was psychotic transvestite meets trapper. Far worse, he had Fink the basset pressed up against a gnarled oak at gun-point, just a few feet from the cliff’s edge.

  ‘Admit you wrote them, you little bastard, or the dog gets it!’ Hector was snarling in his deep drawl.

  Was he referring to the threatening letters or the bestselling novels? Legs wondered wildly as she ran towards them, watching in horror as Byrne stepped from the shadows to place himself squarely between the gun and his dog.

  Crashing through the undergrowth like a wild boar, Legs panted up to Hector’s side. ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Legs, poppet, what in the name of Charlie Parker are you doing outside in a party frock?’ he demanded, aim not faltering.

  ‘Get back inside,’ Byrne warned. Only Fink showed grateful relief that backup had arrived. Taking advantage of the distraction, he wriggled away from his master and raced up to Legs, long ears swinging.

  ‘Hector, please leave the poor boy alone,’ Lucy said soothingly as she appeared behind her daughter. ‘He’s doing no harm.’

  ‘He is doing a great deal of harm!’ Hector raised the gun to Byrne’s throat. ‘And he’s about to admit the truth.’

  Byrne looked at him levelly. ‘I have indeed written something I regret,’ he said. ‘But it wasn’t a letter, I can assure you.’

  ‘I want you to get off my bloody land!’ Hector raged.

  ‘This is the North family’s land actually,’ Lucy pointed out.

  ‘It’s leasehold; it belongs to me.’

  ‘How typically feudal,’ Byrne hissed. ‘I suppose you think that gives you the right to claim your tenants’ wives as mistresses whenever you feel inclined?’

  ‘Take that back.’ Hector fingered the trigger.

  ‘Stop this!’ Legs wailed in horror as the gun moved closer to Byrne’s face.

  ‘You certainly had no qualms about stealing Poppy from my father,’ Byrne went on, hardly seeming to notice the gun’s presence.

  ‘She was trapped and dying of unhappiness.’

  ‘She still is.’

  With an enraged howl, Hector lifted the stock to his shoulder.

  Byrne’s reactions were breathtaking. Before anybody could take in what was happening, he’d reached out to grasp the gun-barrel and wrenched it upwards. The shot that went off cracked through the oak canopy, showering them all with twigs and acorns.

  Lucy let out a high-pitched scream and grabbed Legs’ arm, dragging her back towards the house as another shot went off, this time blasting into the garden shed.

  ‘Get in before they kill us!’ Lucy pushed her daughter into the cottage porch.

  ‘The gun’s empty now,’ Legs pointed out, but Lucy was taking no chances as she slammed the door behind them, then chivvied her upstairs, where they peeked out nervously from one of the tiny thatched dormers overlooking the garden.

  Hector and Byrne were squaring up to one another amid the trees now. Fink retreated hurriedly beneath the old wooden bench.

  ‘Where’s the gun gone?’ Lucy whispered as Hector reached for his cartridge bag. But instead of opening it to draw out more ammunition, he hooked the strap off his shoulder and took a swing at Byrne with it.

  ‘He’s hand-bagging him,’ Legs gasped.

  Byrne caught the flying canvas sack by its straps and tugged it from Hector’s grip before aiming a punch towards him. But before he could land it, he received a face full of feathers as the older man hurled a pheasant at him.

  Caught by surprise, Byrne reeled back.

  ‘Ha!’ Hector laughed. ‘The early bird catches the worm!’

  ‘This is the only bird you deserve,’ Byrne flicked up his middle finger.

  ‘You bloody thug!’ With an enraged bellow, Hector threw two more pheasants which Byrne ducked to avoid. As he did so, his eyes alighted on the shotgun lying in the undergrowth. The cartridge bag had landed just inches away from it.

  Spotting it too, Hector lunged towards it at the same moment and the two men clashed foreheads with matching cries of pain.

  Seeing an opportunity to pillage, Fink had now re-emerged from beneath the bench to lay claim to the nearest pheasant, just as his master finally landed a punch on Hector, who lurched back and inadvertently trod on the dog’s tail. With an incensed howl to rival those of either human fighter, Fink sank his teeth into Hector’s ankle.

  ‘Good lad!’ Byrne whooped, but then his expression of delight turned to horror as the ankle kicked out violently and Fink shrieked with alarm, flying through the air before landing in a clump of forget-me-nots.

  Glaring at Hector with open venom, Byrne stooped quickly for the gun and the bag.

  ‘No!’ Legs cried in horror, starting back towards the stairs. ‘I must put a stop to this.’

  ‘It’s not safe to go out there.’ Her mother tried to bar her way, but she pushed past.

  By the time she made it outside, Hector had let loose his remaining stockpile of pheasants like plumed cannonballs and Byrne had reloaded the gun, which he now pointed at his nemesis.

  ‘Go on, shoot me!’ Hector goaded. ‘I’ll see you in hell soon enough.’

  ‘Birdshot’s too good for chicken-shit like you, Hector.’

  Legs panted up to them. ‘Will you two stop talking like cowboys in a bad Spaghetti Western? Give me the gun, Byrne.’

  ‘I want Hector to apologise.’

  ‘What for?’ Hector goaded. ‘Falling in love with your mother? Never!’

  ‘In that case, keep pointing the gun while he apologises to me for that one too,’ Legs joked nervously, glancing up at the cottage window through which Lucy was watching, then baulking when she realised her mother had a fresh glass of wine on the go, as though watching Shakespeare in Regent’s Park.

  Hector stubbornly said nothing. He didn’t look remotely frightened.

  Clambering out of the forget-me-nots unscathed, Fink flapped his long ears and sat down briefly to scratch his neck before waddling towards the scattered pheasants once more, issuing a low, possessive growl to nobody in particular.

  ‘Please just give me the gun, Byrne,’ Legs beseeched.

  ‘Do as the girl says,’ Hector barked irritably before turning to her. ‘Shouldn’t you still be in bed? You’ve had pneumonia.’

  ‘You’ve had what?’ Byrne swung round in shock, not realising he was pointing the gun straight at her now. ‘You said it was just a touch of flu.’

  Legs held up her arms nervously. ‘I’m better now,’ she insisted, trying not to cough or faint, both of which she had a sudden overwhelming urge to do.

  ‘Does Francis know you’re here?’ demanded Hector.

  ‘I have a right to see my mother without his written permission.’

  ‘Well get inside the house, for goodness’ sake. Lucy will make you herb tea. Let us settle this man to man,’ his eyes flicked over the gun, clearly plotting a heroic lunge to wrest it back. He seemed to be almost enjoying the drama.

  But before Hector could make his move, Byrne broke open the breech and pulled out the two cartrid
ges.

  ‘I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one day. You’re right, Allegra needs to rest,’ he smiled at her anxiously as he handed her the gun. ‘Can you look after this? It’s not too heavy?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ she insisted, slinging it over her shoulder like a hearty mercenary and almost falling over backwards.

  ‘Just till I’m gone,’ Byrne’s brows lowered with concern as he watched her. He turned to Hector, face hardening. ‘If you’d hurt my dog, I’d have shot you right here. For hurting my family, that’s far too merciful.’

  ‘Get off my bloody land or I’ll have the police on you,’ Hector snapped.

  ‘You don’t own the sea.’ With a final glance at Legs, Byrne turned towards the cliff.

  ‘You can’t go that way!’ she cried. ‘There’s no path down.’

  But he didn’t even look round, and she watched in astonishment as he disappeared into the bright sunlight between the two outermost trees and seemed to drop off the edge of the garden to the sea. Only Fink looked unsurprised as he set off purposefully in the direction of the track towards the cliff path that led safely down to the cove below, a pheasant still clutched proudly in his jaws.

  ‘I’ll take that.’ Hector snatched back his gun and hurried to his abandoned cartridge bag, clearly eager to open fire over the cliff side like an overzealous Home Guard brigadier.

  ‘No!’ Legs tried to grab hold on his sleeve to stop him, but he was too fast, marching towards the trees to look over the precipice. He then let out a loud huff of frustration. ‘Damn man’s disappeared!’

  Realising that she was shaking so much her knuckles were rattling together like a Newton’s cradle, Legs rushed to the cliff’s edge and looked over, but all she could see was the long, rocky drop past the gulls’ nests to the sea below.

  Hector’s hand landed heavily on her shoulder. ‘Only wanted to scare him off. Bloody troublemaker.’

  She looked up at him in shock. There was something truly bizarre about a twelve-bore Browning resting on a Barry White kaftan with hand-embroidered slash neck. Looking very pleased with himself, he turned to gather up the scattered pheasants.