by Wendy Holden
He tried to suppress these pictures burning in his mind. While the idea of Beatrice having murder in her soul was possible, he would not have imagined her capable of the organisation such an attack would involve. She must have watched the cottage. Waited for him to go out. She must have been intending to destroy his work. But that she had succeeded in eradicating an entire novel would have been beyond her wildest dreams. Had she read about it in the papers? he wondered. It had been all over them, according to his mother.
There was a police investigation under way, Dylan knew, but no conclusions as yet. With any luck they, like his parents, would decide it was an accident. He wanted to avoid a court case. Not because of any wish to protect Beatrice; the person he wanted to protect was himself. He wanted the Beatrice chapter to be as irrevocably closed as all the other chapters that had gone up in smoke.
An entire year’s work had been wiped out, and with it his future. That Charm Itself would never see the light of day meant the definitive end of his career as an author. He had been thinking about doing something else anyway; something more challenging. Now the decision had been made for him.
‘Visitor for you, Mr Eliot.’ It was the friendly nurse again. Dylan opened his eyes, not sure if he had been asleep.
What visitor? His agent again, to spur him back to the keyboard? Dylan’s announcement about stopping writing had met with disbelief. ‘Of course you’ll write another book, dear boy,’ Julian had said, in so exaggeratedly relaxed a tone Dylan knew he must be horrified. ‘You’ll bounce back. The best is yet to come.’
A glamorous brunette was now sitting down beside him. He did not recognise her. She was slimly elegant, with a delicate little face under a shining cap of short dark hair. She wore a navy blue shift dress and a big silver bangle that matched the silver hoops in her ears. She leaned towards him, dark cardigan slung over her shoulders, slim, tanned arms folded over the bag on her knee.
‘Dylan,’ she said softly. ‘It’s me. Eve.’
Dylan stared into the grave, dark gaze. Eve?
‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already.’
Dylan tried to shrug, which was not something he had done for a while. And perhaps this effort triggered another because quite suddenly, out of the blue, Dylan knew exactly who Eve was. His editor, at his publisher’s.
A flurry of images appeared behind his eyes. A large, light office in the corner of a tall building. A view over some Central London park.
‘Eve.’ Dylan attempted to raise himself. Too quickly; pain knifed through him. After the spasm was over he said, ‘It’s nice of you to come.’
Eve wrinkled her elegant nose. ‘You know “nice” isn’t one of my favourite words.’
They’d had a conversation about favourite words, he could now remember. Over lunch, at some smart place in the West End. He recalled white tablecloths, shining cutlery, oysters. The taste of oysters! Salty, creamy, with a sharp shot of shallot vinegar. He felt his spirits lift. He decided to tell her a joke.
‘Heard the one about the Serious Burns Unit?’
The shining cap of hair shook in a wary negative.
‘So, an English doctor’s being shown round a Scottish hospital, right?’
‘Right.’
‘He gets to a ward where the patients all look fine. No obvious signs of injury. Right?’
‘Er . . . OK.’
‘He goes to the first patient and has a look at him. The guy says . . .’
Dylan tried to imitate the consultant’s Scottish accent for the next bit.
‘Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place . . .’
Eve’s face was a picture. Her fine black brows were drawn together in the effort to understand.
Dylan grinned. He was almost enjoying himself. ‘So the English doctor’s a bit surprised, right? He goes on to the next patient, who doesn’t look injured either. And this guy turns to the doctor and says . . .’
Dylan took a deep breath. He hoped he’d remembered it correctly.
‘Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it
But we hae meat and we can eat
And sae the Lord be thankit.’
Sudden comprehension flashed over Eve’s features. She rolled her eyes and clapped her hands. ‘That’s terrible, Dylan. The Serious Burns Unit. As in Rabbie Burns. My God, that’s just about the worst joke ever.’
Their eyes held each other’s and just for a split second, Dylan experienced the delicious sensation of being normal. More than normal. People didn’t expect to come into places like this and laugh. He had surprised her, and that was a sort of power.
Eve was shaking her head. ‘Glad to see you’re still thinking in literary terms. That’s what I want to talk to you about, actually.’
Dylan’s smile faded. So Eve had an agenda. She wasn’t here just for a social call. Of course she wasn’t.
Eve had always been a friend to him, but even more, she was an editor. Without her, All Smiles would never have been so successful. She’d championed it from the start, pressed it into people’s hands, got her marketing team behind it. She’d even come up with the way it looked, the Rolling Stones mouth.
But it didn’t look that way now, of course. Something else was stirring in his memory. There was a new cover, a striped one. Orange and white. He’d seen it; but where? More pictures were struggling back. The inside of a taxi. The inside of a station. A grotty concourse pub; he’d sat in the corner. Then floating into his memory came a pale-haired woman, a woman who looked like an angel.
Who on earth was that?
He found himself looking up into Eve’s face. She was leaning forward again. ‘Dylan. About Charm Itself . . .’
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, meaning that he was sorry that he didn’t want to talk about it. But he had moved too suddenly again. He closed his eyes as the pain flashed and throbbed.
Eve interpreted this as apology for his non-delivery. ‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘Just put it behind you. For now. You can rewrite it, Dylan. When you’re better.’
He spoke through gritted teeth, without opening his eyes. ‘No. I won’t.’
There was a silence from the side of the bed. Then he felt Eve’s cool fingers tentatively touch his own. He opened his eyes; she was looking straight at him. ‘I can imagine that’s the way it feels now—’
He cut savagely in. ‘No. You can’t imagine. You can’t even begin to.’
He told her then. How angry he had felt after the fire. How he had been unable to accept that everything had gone. How his mind had clawed at the manuscript’s loss as if sheer force of thought could bring it back. Frustration had been followed by helplessness, then, finally, acceptance. The grieving process after a death, he had heard, went much the same way. This was a death. The death of a novelist.
‘You don’t mean it,’ Eve said gently. ‘You have such great talent, Dylan. You’re a great brand.’
‘Brand!’ He knew what she meant: a successful commercial entity. But the word also conjured up great burning beams crashing around him. Dylan felt that he didn’t like either meaning.
‘OK, maybe that wasn’t the right word.’ Eve hastened to undo the damage. ‘But you’ll write Charm again. You’re an artist. Artists have to express themselves. You just need time, that’s all.’
He glared at her from his pillows. What was it about the words ‘it’s over’ that she didn’t understand?
‘I’m not an artist,’ he said, grinding out the words. ‘People think I am because I knocked out a book and it did well and caught the bloody zeitgeist or whatever.’
Eve was nodding. ‘You did and it did and it was brilliant. And you’ll do it again.’
He tried to raise himself up in his bed but a shaft of pain brought him down again. ‘You’re right,’ Dylan began, getting a mordant satisfaction from seeing Eve look pleased. She wouldn’t be looking pleased in a minute.
‘You’re right that an artist would want to carry on writing, That’s how I know I’m not one. I can’t think of anything worse.’
Bewilderment flashed in Eve’s brown eyes. ‘You don’t mean that, Dylan. I can’t believe you do.’
She paused, but as he didn’t contradict her, she continued. ‘Well, if that really is the case I have to say I’m disappointed. You’re letting us down. Not just me and Julian, but your readers as well.’
Indignation was rising within Dylan. This was outrageous. He’d almost died in a fire! He opened his mouth to bluster, but she continued, in her steady tone, ‘You have responsibilities.’
‘If this is about the advance . . .’ he interrupted rudely.
Eve rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not about the money, Dylan. It’s about you. We all believed in you – we still do – and now you’re going to let us down.’
It was too much, Dylan decided. Too much to make him feel responsible, when the person responsible was bloody Beatrice!
‘I’ve heard you say before that you felt you needed more of a challenge,’ Eve went on. ‘Well, here is a challenge. Get out of hospital and back at your keyboard and give us the book we’re all waiting for.’
Never, vowed Dylan. Silent and furious, he turned his face to the wall and would answer no more questions.
Eve had not finished, however. Her disappointed tones floated over from the far side of the bed. ‘Look, Dylan. What’s happened to you is dreadful. No one’s saying it isn’t. It’s going to be very hard to write again after this. But that’s the very reason you should do it, don’t you see?’
Dylan glared at the wall and said nothing. Why didn’t Eve see? Writing was over for him. He wanted nothing else to do with it. When he got out of here, if he ever did, and when he worked again, if he ever did, he was going to get a job as remote from a keyboard as was possible. In a place as different from Cornwall, as far from the sea as he could find.
CHAPTER 12
Within an hour of Nell’s acceptance – by text, as he seemed unobtainable any other way – the flowers from Joey began to arrive. Arrangement after arrangement, in van after different van. There were large ones with lilies and small ones with rosebuds and everything in between. Her small sitting room billowed with blooms and colour, scent and cellophane, ribbons and small gold envelopes on sticks carrying messages. ‘I Love You’, ‘I’m So Proud’, ‘Together For Ever’ and, best of all, ‘To My Wife’.
‘I could open a florist’s in Gardiner Road!’ Nell exclaimed, when finally he answered his mobile. ‘And how appropriate is that?’
‘How do you mean?’ His tone was indulgent, but puzzled.
‘Gardiner. Like gardener,’ Nell explained, laughing. It wasn’t that good a joke but excitement had made her giddy.
Later that evening, in his flat, their reunion was ecstatic.
‘We need to fix a date,’ Joey declared. He was gazing at her from his pillow. ‘As soon as possible!’
Nell felt a bubbling happiness. But it couldn’t be that soon, not the actual wedding date. People took ages to get married. Years, sometimes. But they could start the ball rolling, definitely.
There was a beautiful church at the end of Joey’s road. Elegant and Georgian, with a white wooden bell tower and a clock with golden hands. Her mind tumbled with white dresses, veils, bridesmaids.
Joey had propped himself upon his elbow. ‘Register office, don’t you think? Then we can do it really, really quickly.’
Part of Nell wondered what the rush was. But a much bigger part didn’t want to puncture the moment and risk upsetting Joey again.
She quietly put aside the idea of marrying in church. She wasn’t all that religious anyway and a London register office would be glamorous and romantic. Chic, in a Sixties black-and-white photo sort of way. And in a catalogue way too. She’d done a bridal one once on a Beatles wedding theme, all miniskirts and white plastic boots . . .
She snuggled up to Joey. ‘When are you going to go and tell my father?’ Dad would be amazed, she thought. Possibly disconcerted. ‘Bit previous, isn’t it?’ she could imagine him saying.
But Joey would win him round. He could charm the birds from the trees. Convince anyone about anything.
Joey’s reply took her by surprise. ‘We don’t need to tell anyone. It can be just us. Me and you!’
Nell tried to answer his smile with one of her own, but alarm was clanging through her. Getting married quickly was one thing. But doing so without telling her parents was quite another. They would want to be involved. She was their only daughter.
Nell rolled away and stared, worried, at the polished door of the antique wardrobe. She had not expected this.
‘What’s the matter?’ Joey propped his face on her shoulder.
Nell felt nervous, but she had to tell him the truth. He was to be her husband, after all. ‘My mum would be devastated,’ she admitted quietly. ‘And my dad would probably be pretty cross.’
Joey did not reply. She had her back to him, so couldn’t see his face.
‘I guess we need to think about it,’ Nell offered hurriedly, and to her relief, Joey took the olive branch. He wrapped his arms round her and gave her a big squeeze. ‘Guess we do.’
They went out to celebrate with supper at the Pink Pirate, the local gastropub. Joey ordered a bottle of champagne, which arrived at the table in a shining bucket accompanied by two gleaming flutes. It was brought in person by Larry, the manager, a spry septuagenarian with gelled-up blue hair and jeans which fell off his bum like a teenager’s. ‘Enjoy!’ he instructed them, before flouncing off into the bar.
Nell was eager to do just this, but Joey seemed quiet and withdrawn.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked softly. Perhaps he was tired.
He lifted troubled eyes to hers.
‘Is everything OK?’ Nell pressed, worried.
‘Your parents,’ he began.
This ‘asking for her hand’ thing again! ‘Look, you’ll love them,’ Nell exclaimed. ‘And they’ll love you. You just have to meet them.’
He smiled ruefully, and reached for her fingers. ‘I’m sure they’re wonderful.’
Nell grinned. ‘Well, they have their moments. Like everyone’s mum and dad.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’ Joey spoke quietly.
‘What do you mean, you wouldn’t know?’ Something in his tone alarmed her. He was looking at her as if wondering whether to tell her something. Something momentous, evidently.
‘Go on,’ Nell urged, her heart hammering. ‘Tell me. Why wouldn’t you know about my parents?’
‘Because I don’t have any parents.’ Joey clung hard to her hand.
‘What . . . you mean they died?’
‘Might have been better if they had.’ He narrowed his eyes and looked, momentarily, like a different person from the one she knew. ‘I was brought up in a children’s home.’ He now pulled his hand from hers, as if emphasising his loneliness in the world.
Nell’s insides twisted with anguish. Poor Joey, he’d really been through it. Being dumped at the altar was bad enough without being dumped at birth as well.
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m a big grown-up boy now.’ Joey gave her a brave smile. ‘I made it without them.’
‘Oh poor you. Poor, poor you.’ Nell was passionate in her sympathy.
‘So that’s why I don’t want to have family at the wedding,’ Joey went on. ‘Do you see?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘Do you mind?’ His gaze was melting.
Nell shook her head. What choice did she have? She’d sq
uare it with her parents afterwards. Somehow.
She felt vindicated when she saw his eyes fill with tears. It was wonderful to make someone so happy. She told herself that it didn’t matter about her parents, about Mum not being able to fuss over a hat. What mattered was that Joey wasn’t afraid to show emotion and was so honest with her. Here was someone who would never let her down.
Afterwards, they walked back to the flat via the nearby heath, holding hands. It was a soft, early summer evening and the sun glowed brightly through the leaves. It was like a dream, Nell thought. A beautiful dream about the beautiful life she and Joey were going to have together. The golden future unfolded before her like a page from one of her own catalogues. But this was no fantasy spun with professional words and pictures. Her happiness was as solid and real as it was possible for happiness to be.
One evening midweek, Nell popped back to Gardiner Road. Her mission was to explain things to her new neighbour. It felt wrong to have had such a friendly meeting and then just to move out without a word.
She stood, awkwardly, on Rachel’s threshold. ‘I’m getting married,’ she blurted.
It wasn’t the most elegant of announcements but Rachel seemed thrilled for her. ‘Congratulations! Have to say, though, I did slightly wonder what was going on. All those flower vans arriving at all hours.’
Nell wondered if Rachel thought it was strange that she had not mentioned the wedding when they met. She hoped not.
‘And I’m moving out,’ she added apologetically.
Rachel chuckled. ‘I gathered that from the For Sale sign.’
According to Joey, Carrington’s had already shown five interested parties round the flat. Selling it really was as easy as he’d said it would be.
‘Come in!’ Rachel invited. ‘Have a drink!’
The upstairs flat was cluttered, yet had definite style. Rachel seemed to have a way of mixing vintage pieces with contemporary. Bright modernist prints in white wooden frames hung above a chaise longue covered with a fur throw. The kitchen table was new, but its surrounding chairs were mismatched and old.
Nell peered out into the rear garden. It looked different from up here, perhaps because Rachel had done so much. She and Juno seemed to have lots of plans. They would put in lettuces immediately, plant bulbs in the autumn and, in spring, calendula and dahlias. By next summer, Rachel said happily, the back would be a riot of colour.
