“Come in, come in. You must be Scarlett.” A short Persian man with a Saddam Hussein moustache and a beaming smile stood up to greet her. “I’m Uzai Garfi. A pleasure to meet you.”
“Hi,” said Scarlett, shaking his hand warmly. Behind him, on the bed, she saw Cameron, but his face was turned away from her toward the wall. “I wasn’t sure you were going to be here.”
“I won’t get in your way,” he assured her. “I’ll be waiting outside so you have some time alone.”
“Oh, that’s OK,” said Scarlett hurriedly. “You don’t have to leave.”
“You’re not in any danger, my dear, I can assure you,” said Dr. Garfi, lowering his voice. “And he may well be more responsive if I’m not here. It’s very early days, as we discussed on the phone, but so far he’s been highly reluctant to talk at all, to me at least. Which is not uncommon,” he added. “The majority of new patients view their psychiatrists with suspicion at first. Anyway, I’m right outside the door if you need me.”
Once he’d gone, Scarlett peeled off her outer two sweaters, dumped her handbag on an armchair, and walked over to the bed.
“Cam?” She laid a hand gently on his shoulder. “Cameron, it’s me, Scarlett.”
Slowly, he rolled over and looked at her. The odd thing was that, if it hadn’t been for the hospital gown and the fact that they were here, in this room, he wouldn’t have seemed any different. The neatly parted investment-banker hair, the slight hint of fatcat double chin, the pale, permanently moistened lips…all he needed was a suit, tie, and his trademark superior sneer, and he might be on his way to work at Canary Wharf right now. For a second she jumped as he pulled one arm out from under the covers and reached up to touch her face. Then she watched his bottom lip quiver and his eyes well up, and a wash of genuine sympathy came over her.
“Hi,” he said so quietly she had to bend lower to hear him. “Thanks for coming.”
“So you…you know who I am?” she asked. She felt stupid asking the question, but after everything she’d been told it was something of a surprise to find him so lucid.
“Yes.” He nodded. “I know I lost it pretty badly before. I don’t…I can’t remember everything. How long have I been here?”
“Not long. A few days,” said Scarlett, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “They found you out in Surrey by the roadside somewhere, in a pretty bad way. What happened, Cam?”
She immediately regretted being so blunt. Letting go of her hand, Cameron started to cry and shiver, his eyes darting all around the room as if searching for some half-expected intruder.
“Hey, hey, it’s OK,” she said softly. “You don’t need to answer that.”
“I don’t know…” he began shakily. “I don’t know what I was doing in Surrey. The car…I can’t remember that part. What day is it today?”
“Wednesday,” said Scarlett. “Honestly, Cam, you mustn’t worry about the details. It’ll all come back with time. Dr. Garfi says that—”
“Fuck Dr. Garfi,” hissed Cameron, a flash of his old self breaking through the mental fog. “Listen to me, Scarlett. We only have four days left. In four days, they’ll know. Everyone’ll know! You have to protect Mummy.”
Shit, thought Scarlett. His lucidity was obviously a lot more fragile and sporadic than she’d first thought.
“Shhh,” she said, stroking his forehead. “It’s all going to be fine. Mummy’s fine.”
“No, Scar, listen to me.” His voice was getting louder and increasingly urgent. “They’re going to publish on Sunday. Last weekend, that’s when they called me, asking for a comment. They’ve got pictures!”
“Who, darling? Who’s got pictures?” she asked, humoring him.
“The News of the World,” he whispered, tears streaming down his face. “Those bastards are outing me. They picked up on the story in a local paper and are threatening to go to town on it: ‘Scarlett Drummond’s brother outed!’ I’m finished, finished at the bank, finished at Drumfernly. What’s Dad going to say? Oh God. It’s over! I want to die!”
Reeling, Scarlett sank down into the nearest available chair. Was this true? Or was it the psychosis talking? Suddenly her suspicions of last year, about Cameron’s sexuality, came flooding back to her. If he was gay and had been living a lie all this time, well that was exactly the sort of thing that gave people breakdowns, wasn’t it? And Dr. Garfi had spoken about a specific, traumatic event. A call from a national newspaper that had incriminating pictures, pictures that could overturn and destroy your entire life? It was certainly pretty traumatic, if it had happened.
“So, you’re gay?” she asked at last, as kindly and unthreateningly as she could. “Is that what you’re saying?”
He stared at her blankly for a moment, then retreated back under the covers, curling up into a fetal ball and turning back to the wall.
“Cameron, come on, don’t,” she pleaded. “It doesn’t matter.”
But whatever protective shell he’d emerged from on first seeing her was now firmly back in place. It wasn’t even as if he were ignoring her, more that he no longer seemed able to hear. He’d shut down his senses.
After a few long minutes of silence, Scarlett walked sadly into the corridor.
“I heard voices. He spoke to you.” Dr. Garfi sounded delighted. “Well done, my dear, that’s quite a leap forward.”
“Thanks,” said Scarlett, “but I’m not sure it is. He disappeared on me again.”
“Like I said,” said the doctor, “it takes time. Is there anything you feel I ought to know? Anything that might help his recovery?”
Scarlett thought for a moment. Her initial instinct was to repeat everything Cameron had just told her. But the memory of the panic in his eyes held her back. What he feared most appeared to be exposure—that, and the impact all this might have on their parents. Would he want his doctor to know? If not, did she have the right to tell him? Moral considerations aside, she still wasn’t sure that everything Cameron had told her wasn’t a figment of his increasingly paranoid imagination. She ought at least to get the facts straight before she opened such an enormous can of worms.
“Not really,” she hedged. “He knew who I was, and who he was. He seemed pleased to see me, which is kind of unusual for us. We’re not exactly close.”
“All right, well, we’ll leave him to rest for tonight,” said the doctor. “I’ll write you another slip for tomorrow, and one for your parents too. They are still coming?”
Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Unfortunately, yes. They get in later tonight.”
“Right. I’ll see you all here tomorrow afternoon then,” said Dr. Garfi brightly. “Try and get some sleep, my dear. You look exhausted.”
Miraculously, despite her jet lag, Scarlett did get some sleep and felt almost human when she came down to breakfast the following morning.
“Darling.”
Her parents were already in the dining room and halfway through their bacon and eggs when she walked in. Hugo, looking every one of his seventy-two years, stood up to greet his daughter.
“Hello, Daddy,” said Scarlett, kissing him on both cheeks before stooping down to do the same to her mother. “What time did you get in in the end?”
“Late,” said Caroline. Immaculately dressed and made-up as always, in a crisp white shirt and cashmere cardigan, her hair scraped meticulously up in her trademark tight bun, she nevertheless looked tired and drawn. The strain of the last few days had taken quite a toll on her. “Did you see him?”
Sitting down and pouring herself a coffee from the stainless steel pot on the table, Scarlett nodded.
“And?” said Caroline impatiently. “For God’s sake, Scarlett, how was he?”
“OK,” she said. “Better than I expected. You’ll see for yourself this afternoon.”
“Was he able to shed any light on, you know, what happened?” asked her father.
Steeling herself, Scarlett took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “But you’re not going to like it.”
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As straightforwardly and dispassionately as she could, she told them both what Cameron had told her last night. Hugo sat rigid backed, listening intently throughout. Caroline, by contrast, squirmed and twitched in her seat, as if Scarlett were pouring itching powder down her back. Finally she could bear it no longer.
“It’s nonsense, absolute nonsense!” she exploded. “Clearly he’s unwell; he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“That’s very possible,” agreed Scarlett. “There’s one simple way to find out, of course. We should call the paper this morning, find out if there’s any truth to it.”
“Absolutely not,” said Caroline, her lips tightening in resolution.
“But Mummy,” Scarlett reasoned, “we must. That way we’ll know for sure.”
“We already know for sure,” said her mother. “Cameron is not a homosexual. The very suggestion is ludicrous.”
“Darling.” Hugo reached across the table for her hand. “It’s no good sticking our heads in the sand. If these imbeciles have pictures, and if they intend to publish those pictures, we need to be prepared. It may not be too late for some sort of injunction. I could talk to my lawyer—”
“No!” Caroline snatched her hand away. “What’s wrong with you both? Has my entire family gone mad? They do not have pictures. Because my son is not gay. He’s confused; he’s rambling.”
“You know, I’m not entirely surprised.” Hugo turned to Scarlett. “I’ve often wondered if he might be a bit that way inclined.”
Scarlett was amazed, both that her father had had the sensitivity to notice such a thing and by the fact that he seemed remarkably unfazed by it.
“Really?”
“Yah,” mused Hugo. “We had quite a number of them at Harrow, you know,” he mused, reflecting on the posh private boys’ school he’d attended. “Terribly nice chaps, mostly.”
Caroline looked as if she were about to spontaneously combust.
“Listen Mummy,” said Scarlett, who felt sorry for her, despite everything. Cam had always been her golden child. Accepting this would mean reconstructing her entire worldview, never an easy thing to do. “You may be right. This might be nothing but rambling.”
“Of course I’m right.”
“But it may also be connected with me. With my charity campaign.”
Caroline frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”
Scarlett told them about the radio program she’d been involved with, reigniting Trade Fair and her efforts to bring Brogan O’Donnell to some form of justice. When she mentioned Andy Gordon’s death, Hugo jumped in.
“The fellow from the BBC? Yes, of course, we know all about it.” Caroline looked blank. “Yes, darling,” said Hugo, “you remember, the young man, the Scot. It’s been all over the news. I had no idea you knew him, Scarlett.”
“We worked together,” she said, “recently. He was a lovely man, funny and terribly brave.”
“I still don’t see what this has to do with Cameron,” snapped Caroline.
“Maybe nothing,” said Scarlett. “But it’s not inconceivable that Brogan’s the one behind these pictures. If they exist,” she added hastily. “Cam’s been complaining for a while about being followed. To be honest, I never took him too seriously. But since Andy’s death, and now this…”
“You mean you believe this O’Donnell creature might be using your brother as a way to get at you?” said Hugo slowly.
Scarlett shrugged miserably. “It’s possible. It’s possible he’s the one who had Andy killed. I don’t know.”
“You selfish, selfish, stupid girl.” Caroline, unable to control herself any longer, unleashed all her pent-up rage at Scarlett, relieved to have found a scapegoat for her own unhappiness. “I warned you years ago to drop this nonsense. So did Cameron. I remember that conversation at Drumfernly as if it were yesterday.”
“I remember it too,” said Scarlett meekly.
“But would you listen? Oh, no! Far be it from Miss Know-It-All to consider anyone else but herself and her precious cause.”
“Dearest, steady on,” mumbled Hugo. But Caroline was far from finished.
“You’ve ruined your brother’s life, not to mention mine. You’ve gone and got that poor man from the BBC murdered.”
“Caroline!” said Hugo. “Really.”
“It’s all right, Dad,” said Scarlett. “Let her finish.”
“I am finished,” seethed Caroline, flinging her napkin down on the table. “Finished with you. If Cameron doesn’t recover…if these filthy journalists print their lies about him…I will never forgive you, Scarlett. Never.”
Scarlett watched in silence as she left the table and stormed back upstairs to her and Hugo’s bedroom. Only once she’d gone did Scarlett allow the tears to flow.
“Poppet, you mustn’t cry,” said Hugo, pulling out the neatly folded linen handkerchief he always kept in his breast pocket and handing it to her. “This business with Cameron has been a lot for Mummy to take in. You know how she dotes on him. It’s hardly your fault the lad’s a momma’s boy, a whoopsie.”
Despite herself, Scarlett laughed. The alternative was collapsing into a heap, and she couldn’t afford to do that. One nervous breakdown in the family was more than enough to be getting on with.
“I don’t know what to do, Daddy,” she told him, honestly. “I don’t know where to begin putting any of this right.”
“Well,” said Hugo, wiping his mouth with his napkin and pushing his chair back thoughtfully. “First things first. I’ll go with Mummy to the Maudsley. You call this newspaper and see what you can find out. In the meantime I’ll put in a call to Kevin Fahey, my lawyer, and suss out the lie of the land.”
“All right,” said Scarlett. She’d never seen her father in decisive mode before, but she couldn’t have been more grateful to discover this side to his character now. It was a relief not to have everything falling on her own overloaded shoulders.
“At some stage,” Hugo went on, “we need to have a little chat about Drumfernly.”
“We do?” Scarlett looked perplexed.
“I’m afraid so,” said Hugo. “Of course it’s far too early to make any long-term judgments yet. But if your brother should remain…shall we say, mentally incapacitated? I’ll need you to take over the estate.”
“But it’s entailed,” said Scarlett, her heart thumping with panic. At some point, when all this was over, she wanted her life back. The thought of being manacled to Drumfernly was too awful to contemplate. “It would go to cousin Ronan, wouldn’t it, if Cameron couldn’t inherit?”
“Over my dead body,” said Hugo, deadly seriously. “That house is not going to the junior branch of the family, not after four hundred years. I won’t allow it.”
Scarlett’s heart sank, but she said nothing.
“I’m not sure how we’d work it,” said Hugo. “I need to talk to Kevin about that too. Perhaps Cameron would inherit, but you would act as his agent throughout his lifetime. Then it could pass to your sons. Anyway, as I say, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. One step at a time, eh?”
“Hmm,” Scarlett nodded, wishing she had Jake or Nancy or even Boxie here to talk to. “One step at a time.”
Two weeks later, Danny Meyer sat opposite his boss at Gemology, the trendy West Village jewelry store where he’d been working for the past two months, and tried to picture him naked, taking a dump.
It was a trick he and Jake had learned at school, whenever authority figures like teachers or prefects lectured them. Picture the guy naked, having a crap. It helped to mentally level the playing field. Over the years Danny had found it worked equally well in adult life, with anyone who tried to lord it over him. With a petty-minded megalomaniac like Todd, his current boss, it was proving particularly effective.
“What are you smirking at?” Todd looked positively furious, his pink baby face reddening exponentially as Danny smiled back at him across the desk. “This is not a joke, Daniel. You are this close to getting fired.�
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“I’ve told you. It’s Danny,” said Danny. “No one calls me Daniel. And I can’t see what you’re getting so hot and bothered about. Customers appreciate honesty in a salesman.”
“Don’t be facile,” snapped Todd. “No one appreciates being told they’re too fat to wear a choker.”
“Her saggy neck folds were hanging over the pearls like fucking foreskin,” said Danny bluntly. “No one should shell out a hundred grand on a necklace they can’t even see for double chins. It’s grotesque.”
“Your job, Daniel, is to make sales. To make our clients feel good so they buy something. What part of that concept do you find so hard to grasp?”
Danny stared over Todd’s bald head out the window. What the fuck was he even doing here? He’d taken the Gemology job in desperation, after every half-decent outfit in town had turned him down, fearful of making an enemy of Brogan O’Donnell. He tried to remind himself that he was working to survive and to provide for his child, that there was no shame in it. But recently that rationale had begun to look as hollow as everything else in his life. Brogan and Diana were back together, living, as far as he knew, as man and wife. What use would the baby have for his feeble paycheck? Brogan might be a card-carrying cunt, but he could provide a far better life for the kid than Danny could dream of doing, and he knew it.
He’d thought about fighting for joint custody once the kid was born. He no longer doubted but that it would be a fight if he chose to go that route, and his lawyer had stressed how important it would be for him to show he was in regular work and could provide a stable, loving environment. Jake and Minty, needless to say, were very gung ho about this idea. But Danny himself wasn’t so sure. “Loving” he could do, but “stable”? He still woke up crying most days, which, let’s face it, wasn’t exactly normal for a grown man. And though he hadn’t voiced the fear to anyone, even Jake, he worried that the child might remind him too much of Diana. That if he played an active part in its life, he was effectively giving up all hope of ever getting over her, of ever being happy again.
“Am I boring you?”
Flawless Page 41
