Darling Sweetheart

by Stephen Price

  The Palomino had been the best present and the worst. She’d found the beautiful animal tethered outside her window the day before her eleventh birthday and had immediately christened it Jasper. Mr Crombie had duly accommodated Jasper in the old stable block and had seen to practical things, like feeding him hay. Her mother had refused to buy her tack, but Mr Crombie had managed to find some second-hand stuff around the local farms and he’d even given her a few lessons. However, her mother had fought bitterly over every vet’s and blacksmith’s bill and, one fine day, Jasper had simply disappeared. Annalise had gone straight to the stable as usual after school, but he hadn’t been there. Her mother had told her that she had had Jasper shot. Annalise had cried for a fortnight and had prayed that the woman was lying to upset her and that, like everything else, she’d simply sold him.

  As she approached sixteen, Annalise had been out of school for almost a year. Fernhill was a Catholic, girls-only establishment in Kildare town. Katie Brennan and Hannah Cowen had transferred there too and, within no time at all, had turned the entire class against her, just as they had at Kilnarush primary. They had told everyone that Annalise’s mother was a witch and that she lived in a haunted house where devil stuff happened. Annalise was so rich, they had maintained, that she could afford to come to school in a gold-plated limo with a uniformed driver, but the driver had quit after riding her mother, which was why Annalise travelled to Fernhill by bus, slumming it with the rest of them. There had been nowhere to hide on the school bus and the jibes had begun the moment she’d climbed on board. To avoid her tormentors, she had taken to missing it, but arriving late had only got her into trouble, so she’d stopped going to school at all. Most days, she’d hidden with Froggy upstairs in the library, where she’d read every book on the shelves. Her mother had been aware of her truancy but hadn’t seemed to mind, she had been so wrapped up in her own erratic routine, which had involved drinking a lot, sleeping late and otherwise busying herself with her new religion in which she was both high priestess and devoted congregation of one.

  Far from the life of glamour and privilege that the surrounding countryside had ascribed to the inhabitants of Whin Abbey, by the time Annalise had quit school, the house had been crumbling and the gardens and fields had been overgrown, Mr Crombie had died and Mrs Crombie was in the local nursing home. When Annalise was fourteen, her mother had evicted the Crombies from the gate lodge and that callous act had been the last straw for the inhabitants of Kilnarush, who were already deeply suspicious of her mother’s Englishness and general looseness of character. For it was in fact true, as Katie Brennan and Hannah Cowen had alleged, that her mother had been with a driver.

  Dermot Fanning was from Tullamore in the neighbouring county of Offaly. Her mother had advertised for a handyman in the Offaly Independent – to avoid hiring anyone from Kildare – and Fanning had been the only applicant. At that point, Mr Crombie had been dead for six months, but the work had been too much for him for many years, so there had been no shortage of tasks. Her mother had given Fanning the empty gate lodge to live in and, at first, things had gone well. He had fixed its broken windows, cleaned the graffiti from the gate pillars and set about clearing the whins that had invaded the front lawn – the dense, prickly, yellow-flecked bushes from which the house took its name. Fanning had not been handsome, but he had been vigorous. More than once, Annalise had caught him watching her, even though at that stage she was awful with puppy fat.

  Fanning had been intrigued to discover some of her father’s old cars, mouldering in the garages. One was a gold-painted Rolls Royce that her father had bought as a joke, turning up at the wheel of it on Christmas Eve 1991, when Annalise was six. Oliver Reed was asleep in the back seat. The two had been on a binge together in London and, at some point, Reed had, apparently, demanded to be conveyed to Ireland in a golden chariot, so her father had acquired the Roller at short notice from a used-car lot in Lewisham. It was tatty but went fine, and Reed had woken up to find himself at Whin Abbey. He had immediately tracked down the nearest drinks cabinet, snaffled a bottle of brandy and had loudly demanded that her father drive him on to Cork, many more hours distant. Froggy and Annalise had hidden at the top of the stone staircase to watch this strange visitor prowl the black-and-white tiles of the hallway like some zoo-mad bear. Froggy had told Annalise to drop coins through the gallery balustrade and the clinks on the tiles had confused him mightily. But she’d giggled and given their position away, then run and hid in the library in case the scary man came up the stairs. By the time she’d emerged, he’d been taken away in a taxi. For the rest of that Christmas, Darling Sweetheart and her mother had fought nonstop.

  Anyway, Fanning had tinkered with the Roller engine, pumped the tyres up and had got it going. He had driven it around the estate a few times and then had offered to take Annalise and her mother up to Dublin for the sheer bloody hell of it. Already tiddly at lunch-time, her mother had thought this a splendid idea and had squeezed into an old Valentino outfit. She’d given Fanning a black jacket belonging to her husband and had told him to pretend to be a chauffeur and to drive slowly through Kilnarush, to give the locals something to gossip about – as if they had needed that. Annalise had refused to accompany them; her mother had screamed at her then gone off with Fanning anyway, not to return for three whole days. Obviously that was when they had started their affair, for on their return, Fanning had moved out of the lodge, up to the abbey and into her mother’s bedroom. That arrangement had lasted several months, during which time Fanning had worked less and less and he and her mother had drunk more and more. He had driven the Roller at every excuse, around the gardens, even to go and buy milk – or, more usually, alcohol.

  When she had been in good humour – and Fanning put her in good humour for a while – her mother had accompanied him to the village and sat in the back like Lady Muck. That’s where Katie Brennan and Hannah Cowen had got their story from; when it came to lurid tales about Whin Abbey, there was never any shortage around Kilnarush. As for Fanning, when he’d discovered that her mother hadn’t owned the house or grounds, the fights had started and, one day, he just left – taking the car, which he’d said he was owed in wages.

  When the call had come through from her father, it had been so long since they’d spoken that, at first, she hadn’t been able to grasp what he had been saying. Typically, he launched straight in, without asking how she was or – heaven forbid – what her mother was up to. Meditating in the walled garden, as it happened. He said that he’d heard that she’d left school, but no daughter of his was quitting school at fifteen. He had decided to take her upbringing in hand, since her mother was obviously incapable. He commanded her to do two things: first, to fetch her mother to the telephone, then to go and pack a suitcase. ‘What for?’ ‘To come to London, you ninny – God knows you’ve wasted enough time languishing in that backward bloody hole of a country, so go and fetch your mother and then get packed.’ Walking to the walled garden, Annalise had experienced a second wave of disbelief – he’d have hung up by the time she returned, impatient at waiting, or else the two would have a shouting match and that would be the last she’d ever hear of London.

  Her mother had built a temple in the walled garden. It consisted of mirrors, bells and beads, all hung on a web of strings around the long-dry fountain. Without a word of protest – almost as if she had been waiting for the moment to arrive – her mother picked herself up from her prayer mat and followed Annalise to the phone, where she listened calmly and, to Annalise’s utter astonishment, handed her back the receiver.

  ‘Looks like you’re off to London,’ was all she said, before gliding off across the hallway, her purple robe trailing on the black-and-white tiles.

  ‘Right, that’s her sorted,’ her father’s crackling voice snapped.

  ‘But how…?’

  ‘I told her I’d put a few grand extra in her bank account. Now listen to me: I’m posting you an airline ticket and enough money for a taxi up to Dublin
. You can bring one suitcase, just one. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anything else you need, we can buy here. No shortage of shops in London, so just one suitcase, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Another thing: do you still play with… you know…?’

  ‘I’ll bring him.’

  ‘No, don’t. Leave him behind, okay?’

  ‘But–’

  ‘Don’t argue. See you next week.’ And he hung up.

  So that night, she staged a farewell production for Froggy. She built an elaborate set in the library, just like the ones her father used to make, out of books, chairs and even a part of the sycamore that had fallen in the meadow. She sawed an entire branch off by herself and dragged it up through the house, trailing leaves everywhere, but her mother didn’t notice. She chose the final act of Dancing at Lughnasa, abridging and improvising as she went. Furious at her news, Froggy refused to do his lines, which made her sad but also made it easier to put him away.

  Naturally, Annalise thought she would live with her father in London, but as it turned out, he made other arrangements. A driver with a big, black car met her at Heathrow and took her to a mansion block in a place called Hampstead, then up a lift to what he told her was the penthouse. But the penthouse wasn’t a house, it was more like a very big flat. Beyond the windows, London stretched forever. Everything smelled new; most of the furniture was black and the walls were all painted white. She felt like a time-traveller; not from the future, but from a long time ago.

  He appeared from one the bedrooms, still wearing his dressing gown at two in the afternoon. She heard female laughter as he closed the door. He told the driver he could leave, hugged her, poured himself a drink, relaxed onto one of his black sofas and asked her what she thought of London town.

  She didn’t know what to say but didn’t have to say anything because, just then, a woman came out of the bedroom, wearing one of his shirts and nothing else. She looked like she was in her twenties; she flicked her eyelashes at Annalise.

  ‘A bit young, David – even for you.’

  ‘For god’s sake, Tilly,’ he snapped, ‘it’s my bloody daughter so go and make yourself decent or, better still, throw yourself off the balcony!’ Tilly pouted but took her time about fixing a drink before flouncing back to the bedroom. Her father rubbed his forehead.

  ‘You won’t be staying here,’ he muttered. ‘It’s, uh, not convenient and I’ve organised something much more appropriate for a girl of your age.’

  He downed his drink and went back to the bedroom, where he slammed the door. Annalise heard cross words. He reemerged, dressed in a white suit, and lifted her suitcase.

  ‘Come on then. Come and see your new home.’

  She didn’t speak in the lift to the basement garage. He put her in a car – he said it was a Bristol, but that didn’t mean anything to her. As he drove, he tried to make cheery conversation, but she barely answered, and when he finally stopped in a street of tall, brown-brick houses, she started to cry. She tried not to, because she thought he would shout at her, or maybe even send her back to Whin Abbey, but instead, he took his glasses off and looked at her with those big, sad eyes. He said he loved her very much and she wasn’t to worry, because she was his favourite girl in all the world. She would like the people she was staying with because they had a girl her own age, and she would find Kensington a really nice place to live. He said sorry for being such a bad father, but this really was for the best. Then, he carried her suitcase up some steps to a yellow door and introduced her into the home of Geoffrey, Monica and Lucy Goddard.

  Geoffrey had been a screenwriter, which was how, Annalise assumed, her father had known him. Monica was always being mistaken for Liza Minnelli, such was her resemblance to the American star. Geoffrey came from a dynasty of wine importers, so the Goddards lived in relative opulence without engaging in what an ordinary person might conceive of as work. He was tall, bearded and vague. He spent most of his time writing Haiku poetry in a mews building at the bottom of the garden, the latter modelled in the Japanese style. His poetry, which hung in delicately framed transcripts around the walls, seemed as vague as he was. Still, the Goddards moved in the sort of circles where no literary effort ever went unpublished. And whilst Geoffrey shut himself away with his syllables, Monica attended every opening, reading, first night and preview the city had to offer.

  Although Annalise was initially unhappy at the arrangement - it was as if her father had finally invited her into his life but left her standing on the doorstep – she soon recovered. Indeed, after the isolation of Whin Abbey and the hateful small-mindedness of Kilnarush, London was like waking up from a nightmare. Her father justified the informal adoption in many ways: she and Lucy would attend the same school, Broken Cross in Brompton Road. The Goddards had oodles of space; it wasn’t Whin Abbey, but at least the roof wasn’t falling in. And they were a proper family, or so it seemed at first.

  Lucy Goddard resembled neither of her parents. She had long, blonde hair, almond eyes, wide cheekbones and a small mouth. She was slender, yet developed for her age. Annalise felt like a peasant before her, plump and out of proportion, her face still childish, her hair a mess and her clothes a profound source of shame. When her father introduced them in the immense kitchen-conservatory at the rear of the house, Lucy had simply looked Annalise over the way the farmers sized up cows in Kilnarush Market Square and said, ‘Good. You’re tall.’

  ‘You two will be great friends,’ her father had grinned, ‘great friends.’

  Lucy had raised an eyebrow; Annalise wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

  The real reason for the new arrangement, Lucy explained the following day, was that Lucy had never made any friends at school. That certainly resonated with Annalise. In a matter-of-fact manner, Lucy also explained that she had been caught with a bag of grass in her sock drawer, and not the sort of grass that grows in Hyde Park (whatever that meant). Apparently Geoffrey and Monica – she called her parents by their Christian names – had decided that a sister-figure was just what Lucy needed, and how timely that their good friend David Palatine should also require a surrogate home for his daughter. Only seven months lay between her and Lucy, although to Annalise it felt more like seven years.

  Lucy lived by a strict set of rules – her own. Her first rule was that all her other rules had to be obeyed. As long as Annalise did exactly what Lucy told her to, life would be ‘sweet’. Lucy would sort her out: bring her to all the right shops and buy her all the right clothes. Then, she might get to meet all the right people. Gratefully and without hesitation, Annalise complied.

  Over the following months, Annalise found that ‘all the right people’ inhabited the nightclubs of Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grove, Hammersmith and Camden. She herself had had no friends at her former schools in Ireland because she had been bullied; Lucy had no friends at Broken Cross because she regarded her fellow-students with complete contempt. They were all, she said, ditsy fucking airheads; bankers’ daughters, most of them, and banker rhymed with wanker. They were worse than their mothers, always crapping on about their skiing holidays in Klosters and their gymkhanas in fucking Kent. I mean, who wants to spend their weekends in fucking Kent, when the real fun was happening in town?

  The school uniform for Broken Cross was a white blouse with a green-and-black tartan skirt, white knee socks and black shoes. Lucy wore her skirt turned up as far as she could get away with, her blouse a size too small and always with the wrong-coloured bra underneath.

  Her second rule was ‘don’t get caught’. The bag of grass, she said, had been the exception that proved that rule (whatever that meant). She’d been minding it for a friend – a dealer, of course – but when Monica found it she had lied and said it was for personal use, as the truth would have caused much more trouble. Annalise being tall was good because, with a bit of work, she could pass for much older. Fifteen can be eighteen if you’re smart about it, and if you’re eightee
n, female and good-looking, then London can be yours.

  A year later when, under Lucy’s expert tutelage, Annalise was no longer quite the neophyte she had been upon her arrival in London, her father invited the two of them for a summer break on his yacht, which was moored at Nice. Lucy jumped at the opportunity ‘to lie naked in front of all those handsome crew – I bet they’re French and know exactly where to get good coke in Nice’. As ever, she was right. But the eye-opener for Annalise, the moment when she finally realised that her father was not the man she still fondly imagined him to be, came about a week into their stay.

  They’d been out on the town, first to a restaurant on the harbour, then to a string of nightclubs along the Promenade des Anglais. Her father had really looked the biz with his white suit and a glamorous young girl on each arm; they, in turn, had been dazzled by the fawning recognition he had received everywhere he’d gone. It had all been innocent fun, if rather drunken. The next morning, Annalise had slept late to get over her hangover and had crawled up from her cabin at midday, wearing a swimsuit and a blouse. The stairs emerged onto a covered deck, which overlooked a sun deck at the rear of the boat. She heard her father’s voice and glanced over the railings. What she saw made her freeze. Directly below, Lucy lay on a lounger, wearing only bikini bottoms and shades. Her father was crouched over her, his bald patch showing. His hand was on her stomach. He said, ‘Come on, she’s not awake, she’ll never know.’ He tried to slip his fingers under Lucy’s bikini bottoms. Lucy giggled and slapped his wrist, but not too hard. He withdrew, but only slightly, then said, ‘We can go to my cabin; she’ll never know.’

  Stifling a scream, Annalise fled back to her own cabin. She had just enough presence of mind to leave her door open, in case they tried to sneak downstairs. God knows it wasn’t the first time Lucy Goddard had let an older man touch her, but this was her father! He was feeling up the only female friend she’d ever made! Was that why he’d arranged for her to live in Kensington? So that, one day, he could stick his hand down Lucy Goddard’s knickers? A wave of revulsion swept through her, but she had no one to turn to, so she just lay on her bunk feeling sick.