by Liz Evans
‘Is this about your writing again? Because I’ve got to tell you Jonathon, this is one hell of an extreme reaction to writer’s block.’
‘Writing? Yeah I guess you could say this is partly down to writing.’ But not yours, I deduced, willing him to start talking about those letters.
‘You ever think about battery hens, Grace?’
‘They’re rarely far from my thoughts.’
He twisted, still in the crouching monkey position. His eyes were slightly too bright, leaving me to wonder what he’d taken. ‘Do you think they know that that’s all there is? That this is it until they get too old to lay, and then it’s off to the electric shock and bye-bye chicky.’
‘I shouldn’t think so. By definition they’re bird-brained. It kind of comes with the feathers. Is that what this is about? Your future is mapped out? Be reckless. Take a detour. Step off the rails.’ I winced as I heard myself say that.
‘That was kind of my plan here, Grace.’
‘And what do you figure comes after you’ve made with the birdie impression?’
‘Nothing.’ He waved his free arm and leant precariously out over the void. ‘Blackness. Oblivion. I’ll have screwed her.’
Screwed who? Clemency?
‘What about your family? How do you think they’re going to cope?’
He gave another one of those amusement-free laughs. ‘I hate my family.’
‘You definitely haven’t thought this out then. See, there’s a concrete patio down there that juts out farther than the balcony. If you manage to jump clear of it, you’ll hit muddy lawn. And as one who has been tramping over it the last few days, I can tell you it bears more than a passing resemblance to a bog. There’s a good chance you’ll just break a few limbs and look stupid. Ditto if you go down feet first on to the concrete, you’re going to end up with smashed ankles, leg-bones, pelvis. Nasty, but not necessarily fatal. If, on the other hand, you hit head first, on either grass or concrete, you’ll probably break your neck. But that’s no guarantee you’ll die. You could end up paralysed for life. Think of that Jonathon. No movement from the neck down. A lifetime of having your nappies changed for you by the family.’
That knocked the light from his eyes. And the colour from his sallow skin. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ He tried to step down. And promptly lost his balance. He ended up straddling the railing. It looked like it hurt. I was debating whether to go help him, when there was a scrabble of claws on the floor behind me. Cappuccino had found me.
I’d no idea rabbits could jump that far. He cleared the width of the room in one enormous bound. I just had time to register twenty pounds of fur flying towards me, before I scrambled over the sill and slammed the sash window shut. He landed a foot short of it and skidded on the polished boards, sliding like a little toboggan out of my sight.
‘Grace.’ Jonathon beamed. He’d gone from depressed to loving everybody. ‘You have redeemed me after all.’ He peered into the garden. ‘There’s a mattress trying to escape down here.’
I peeked over the rail. A blue mattress was edging into sight. We both watched for a moment. I tried to pretend I couldn’t hear the squeaks and tappings from inside the room. Cappy now had his front paws on the sill and his nose pressed to the glass.
‘Hey, there’s the rabbit. Yo, Cappuccino!’ Jonathon waved and nearly tipped sideways. I grabbed an arm and ordered him off the rail. He obediently decanted himself on to the balcony and wrapped his arms around me. I shoved him off. ‘What’s the matter, Grace? Don’t you fancy me? And what the hell is that?’
‘That’ was a high pitched whistle emanating from the kitchen. An answering bleep wailed from the room behind us. Bianca erupted from the house clutching the base unit and ran down the garden yelling, ‘Cappuccino! Cappuccino!’
‘I think Bianca’s set the rabbit’s alarm to the wrong range.’
‘No shit?’ Jonathon said. Then he passed out.
I had to yell at full volume. ‘Bianca! The rabbit’s up here. Can you kill the alarm and come up please.’
With me carrying his top half and Bianca the legs, we heaved Jonathon over the sill and across the room. Cappuccino hopped after us, a placid, house-trained bunny without a single lascivious thought in his little furry head. As we manoeuvred Jon around the furniture and out of the door, I registered the furnishings.
It was a nursery: a big cot swathed in floaty white muslin, a changing trolley, nursing chair, musical mobiles twirling from the ceiling. Everything but the kid.
I took it all in as we staggered through and then started down the stairs with Jonathon. Bianca would have left him in his bedroom, but I suggested an empty room downstairs. ‘We can pull the mattress back in there. And you’ll be able to check on him more easily. In case he chucks up and chokes on whatever he’s taken.’
‘He doesn’t usually,’ she puffed, obediently starting down the next flight. ‘He never takes anything really dangerous.’
‘Is that what he says?’
‘Yes. Just wizz and E’s. And a few lines of charlie. He’s not an addict. He can give up any time he likes.’
‘He says that too, does he?’
‘Yes.’ Bianca backed into the bare room at the front of the house which now had a near complete layer of floorboards. I helped her pull the mattress back in and arrange Jonathon on it in the recovery position. His pulse was strong and his breathing regular. I figured he’d be fine once he’d slept it off.
As soon as we’d settled him, I turned towards the stairs, ready with a loo visit as an excuse for getting back up there. While the study was empty, I intended to risk a quick snoop for further letters, hoping the anonymous writer had been more specific about their grievance. If I knew what, I figured I could find out who.
Bianca’s chubby fingers locked around my wrist like a vice. ‘I have to talk to you. It’s very important.’
I was dragged back to the kitchen and plonked in a kitchen chair.
Bianca took the one opposite. ‘You must,’ she announced. ‘Forget what you have just seen.’
‘Consider it forgot, Bianca. Although I always thought a bit of pill popping amongst the celebrity crowd was kind of obligatory.’
‘Not Jonathon, the nursery. You mustn’t tell anyone about the nursery. It’s a secret.’
That was the big secret of floor three? ‘I don’t get it.’
Bianca leant across the wooden table. She’d have grabbed the wrist again if I hadn’t moved it sharpish. ‘We’re going to have a baby.’
‘Congratulations. Is it you or Clemency who’s expecting?’
‘Neither. I mean I can’t have children, so it couldn’t be me. But Clemency is going to have it. I’m going to look after it when she goes back to work, because it’s best for babies to be cared for by family, isn’t it? My bedroom’s upstairs, right next to the nursery.’
So not just an unpaid cook, secretary and decorator, but an unpaid nanny too. Clemency really had her domestic problems solved in one lumpy package.
‘But nobody can know. Because Clemency has just had a baby.’
‘Has she?’ What had they done with it? Traded it for the rabbit?
‘It’s her stepfather’s.’
I recalled Jan’s run-down of Shorelines plot and realised Bianca was talking about Clemency’s character. ‘The defrocked vicar who’s into devil-worship?’
‘I knew you watched it! So anyway, Clemency can’t be pregnant again. Usually when that happens they just send the character away to look after a sick relative. But that’s if they have a contract. And Clemency’s is due for renewal soon. If the studio finds out, they won’t sign her up because then they’d have to pay her to do nothing for months. And it’s not like she can get another job.’
‘Can’t she?’
‘Oh no.’ Bianca’s round eyes became even wider at my ignorance. ‘They don’t employ pregnant actresses. Not even to play pregnant people. Clemency explained it all to me. They have to pay loads to insure a pregnant actress.
So the only way you can work if you’re pregnant, is if you’re already under contract. Otherwise they just get an actress and put her in one of those big padded suits.’
It sounded a bit odd to me. Why didn’t she just take a year out? But I guess in showbusiness, if you’re on a roll, you’ve got to go with it. ‘Trust me, Bianca. I won’t breathe a word. When are you expecting …?’ I mimed rocking a baby.
‘Oh, quite soon. That’s why I had to stay down here and get the house finished. I’m so looking forward to being an auntie. Have you got children?’
‘No. I’ve got nieces though.’
‘Really. How old are they? What are they called?’
Her eagerness for details was palpable. She wanted to know everything about my sister’s family. And from there we got on to my brother; my parents; our childhood. She was particularly insistent on details of family rituals: when did we open our Christmas presents? What did we do at our birthday parties? I tried to keep the details as sparse as possible; sharing personal details is a big no-no in this job.
‘I love hearing about other people’s families,’ Bianca sighed. ‘We never did much, Gran and me. Gran said it wasn’t worth making a fuss, just for the two of us.’
‘Don’t you have other relatives? Aunts, uncles, cousins?’
‘I expect I do. In Spain. Only we never heard from my dad’s family. Gran said she expected they didn’t even know about us.’ A wistful longing passed fleetingly over her face and was replaced by a big smile. ‘But now I have Clemency and Jonathon. And soon we’ll have the baby. We’re a real family.’
They were a weird family. But then I guess to outsiders, most families have a tinge of oddness. The missing member of this strange set-up arrived at that moment.
‘Who’s home?’ Clemency called from the hall. She was in the sawn-off trousers and T-shirt again, a look she seemed to favour. Today’s were black. They matched her mood, judging by the thunderous expression.
‘You will not believe what that stupid, frigging producer has done now. The bitch has totally lost the plot.’ She slung her shoulder bag on the floor and hitched herself on to the kitchen counter. Legs dangling, she looked around the space and pointed to the fridge. Bianca immediately got up, opened the door. ‘White wine. Large.’ Bianca poured a glass and handed it to her. And then stood waiting. Clemency took a few sips. Deciding the refreshment order was completed, Bianca sat down again.
‘What has Opal done?’ she asked, slipping from waitress mode to sympathetic ear.
‘You know the serial killer storyline? Well, she’s decided it’s not scary enough. She wants to juxtapose innocence with menace to create more terror. So guess what Opal has come up with?’ She took a large slug of Chardonnay and waved her glass at the picture Bianca had stuck to the wall. ‘That! We’re all going to be stalked by the frigging Easter Bunny!’
‘Oh Clemency, that’s so sweet!’ Bianca clapped her hands.
‘Sweet!’ I could see Clemency biting back the words she wanted to let rip with. She substituted them with, ‘It’s not sweet, B. It’s ridiculous. The whole frigging show is getting more and more ridiculous by the week. Thanks heavens I won’t be …’ She stopped. I realised she’d said more in front of me than she’d intended. Well, that would teach her to treat the hired-help like part of the furniture.
‘It’s all right, Clemency,’ Bianca said. ‘She knows.’
‘What?’ The perfect porcelain skin paled. ‘How?’
Er, hello, Clemency. She’s sitting right here. Why don’t you ask her?
Bianca was anxious to reassure. ‘She’s sworn she won’t say anything about the baby. Honestly she has. She saw the nursery. I’m really sorry Clemency, but she had to go up there to get Jonathon. He was on the balcony.’
‘So?’
I laid it out for her. ‘Your husband had decided to check out.’ I mimed a diving motion. ‘I pointed out he could end up permanently crippled rather than dead.’
She let her breath out in a soft ‘Oh’, before running her fingers through the blonde locks pushing them from her face. ‘The idiot, oh the stupid — where is he?’
‘Sleeping it off in the front room.’
Using both hands, Clemency levered herself off the work surface and headed for the front room, muttering something under her breath.
‘I’m heading out too, Bianca. I’ll just use the loo first.’
Once again Bianca frustrated my plans to snoop in the study. ‘The downstairs one is working now.’
She showed me to the small room just inside the front door. As if I might somehow miss it in the vast expanse of the narrow hall. When I came out again, however, she’d returned to the kitchen. I could hear her crashing around. And the low murmur of voices from the front room.
Clemency had closed the door, but it hadn’t quite caught, leaving a gap through which the sound could drift to my straining ears. In fact, if I stood in one particular spot, I discovered I could see the sliver of room that contained the top section of the mattress. Clemency was sitting on it, her knees pulled up to her chest, with Jonathon’s head resting near her ankles. Her fingers were buried in his dark hair.
‘Promise me, Jon. You won’t try that again. It’s like she said, you could have been paralysed.’ He didn’t answer her, although I could see his eyes were open. After a moment, Clemency said, ‘Was it another letter?’
‘Uh-huh. Someone else must know. We have to say something, Clemmie.’
‘We can’t. You know the rules.’
The crashing of pots in the kitchen had stopped. I slipped out of the house before Bianca could catch me eavesdropping again.
Chapter Fifteen
I’d arranged to meet O’Hara at Vetch’s, prior to our visit to the Walkinshaws.
On the top floor of Vetch’s premises, sharing a landing with my office and Annie’s, was a bathroom left over from the days when Vetch’s grandmother (a graduate of the Genghis Khan School of Hotel Management), had run the premises as a boarding house. It wasn’t exactly the last word in comfort with its cracked lino floor patterned in black and white diamonds, copper pipes encrusted with rust and algae, and framed notice informing guests that baths were to be taken between four and six on Tuesdays and Thursdays only. But it had one major advantage: unlimited free hot water.
When I finally emerged, fully dressed and with a slick of make-up, I expected to find O’Hara lounging in my office, but it was a man-free zone. Wondering whether he’d decided to renew his acquaintanceship with Annie, I tried her office.
‘Haven’t seen him,’ she said, not looking up from a sheaf of papers she was ploughing through, using a thick bar of blue highlighter to pick out sections. ‘Should I have?’
‘He’s late. Usually he’s irritatingly early.’ I dropped into the visitors’ chair and looked at the top of her head. She didn’t bother to colour her naturally mousy brown, but a Caribbean holiday had bleached blonde highlights that were just growing out. ‘What was that performance this morning about? Since when did you get to check out my fellas?’
She looked up, pushing the red frames up her nose with one finger. ‘Is he your fella?’
Was he? Not really, I had to admit. ‘We’re keeping it platonic. Just mates.’
‘His choice? Or yours?’
‘Mine.’
‘Why? He’s a good-looking bloke. Apparently unattached. He has no strange personal habits — that you’ve ever mentioned?’ She raised enquiring eyebrows.
I shook my head: no habits unless you counted the breaking-and-entering and the unlicensed firearms — but hey, nobody’s perfect.
‘You plainly fancy the pants off him. What, precisely, is stopping you from getting it together with this prime piece of male tottie?’
‘I … er …’ Confronted with a direct question like that, I couldn’t put the basis for my reluctance into words. I couldn’t even put it into a coherent thought.
Annie frowned. ‘Can you smell something odd?’
I sniffed
but could detect nothing other than Annie’s perfume and the residual aroma of ground coffee.
She drew in another nostril of air and said, ‘It’s gone now.’
I checked my watch. O’Hara was definitely running late. ‘Did my phone ring while I was in the bath?’
‘Not that I heard. Jan might have picked up the call.’
We both had the same thought. ‘I’ll go down and check her wastepaper bin.’
When I reached the bottom flight of stairs, I discovered the man himself was seated at Jan’s desk casually flicking through one of her gossip magazines. Jan was sitting on the fourth stair applying her make-up.
‘Ready to roll, duchy? We’re running late.’
‘I’ve been ready for fifteen minutes. Why didn’t you say you were here?’
‘Couldn’t get past your rottweiler.’
‘Annie said I wasn’t to let people come upstairs,’ Jan said, her voice distorted by the fact that she was also applying a liberal coating of aubergine lipstick.
‘Until you’ve buzzed us, you idiot.’
*
The Walkinshaws’ house was at the farthest end of Seatoun, where the land rose slightly and then dropped again into West Bay. The streets up this end had been planned and laid out in a grid pattern in the early years of the twentieth century (unlike those in central Seatoun, which followed the haphazard lanes of earlier Tudor and Georgian fishing villages). The longer roads ran west to east, parallel with the coastline; the shorter roads bisected them north to south. The Walkinshaws lived in one of the shorter roads.
As we walked up the front path, I saw the twitch of net curtains next door and glimpsed Graham’s drinking buddy, the military-styled Roger Eh-Eh. Graham Walkinshaw tried to usher us both into the sitting room. I’d just got an impression of a large room with bay windows overlooking the front garden, when Imogen skipped from the back.
‘Hello. I’m Imogen. Who are you?’
She was going to be prettier than Heidi. Dark blonde hair and big brown eyes. Skinny and tall for her age.
‘Imogen!’ Ellie Walkinshaw had followed her daughter out. ‘These people are strangers. What have you been told about speaking to strangers?’
