by Jenny Harper
‘And not for sharing. Have you seen Lexie yet?’
‘Is she coming?’ Patrick affected indifference.
‘Silly boy. As if I don’t know about how you feel…’
Patrick’s eyes narrowed and his gaze intensified. Pavel turned to see what had attracted his attention.
Patrick’s wealthy patrons, Sir James and Lady Catriona Armstrong, had arrived and escorting them into the gallery was Diana Golspie. Patrick’s lips tightened. He hadn’t invited Diana. Tagging along with important clients was manipulative, and he didn’t like it.
‘Excuse me, Pavel.’
His hand rested lightly on Pavel’s arm for a moment, before he turned away. He’d have to be charming, so he might as well get the encounter over with. He started to wind his away across the room, but it was jammed full. Too full – Cora had underestimated the interest in The Maker’s Mark. He had only closed the gap between himself and Diana by a few feet when someone bumped into him, spilling champagne down his suit. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at it.
‘Oops, sorry mate! My elbow got jogged.’
He recognised the voice and looked up. It was the man who’d been driving, the one who’d hit the deer. In the bright lights of the gallery he was easier to appraise: a rugged look made more interesting by a broken nose, a thatch of sandy hair falling over one eye, muscles bulging under the white tee shirt. In short, powerfully built, outdoorsy, more strength than brains at a guess, but a type he imagined women might find attractive.
‘It’s not a problem. Let me find you another drink.’
‘No worries. They’re coming round topping it up. Anyway, there’s some left. Here, Lexie—’
He handed the half-full glass to Lexie, who had appeared at his side.
‘Here, take this one.’ Irritated by the man’s lack of courtesy, Patrick switched the glass with his own. ‘I haven’t had time to have any.’
Lexie’s expression was unreadable, but she dipped her head a fraction and raised the glass an inch, as if in acknowledgement. She looked extraordinary tonight, elegant in the way only Lexie could be: art-school rebelliousness had been refined into something unique and even distinguished. Her dress was 1950s-style, pale peppermint and white stripes, nipped in to a wasp waist, the skirt full and flaring, supported by stiff layers of net. The bodice was sculpted to her curves, with a slash neckline that drew attention to her delicate throat. . She wore simple a pearl stud in each ear. Patrick’s heart kick started, as it so often seemed to when he was near Lexie Gordon. He stared until he realised he was staring, and forced himself to switch his gaze to the man she was with. God, he was young. How must he appear to Lexie, next to this man? He found the comparison unfavourable and brazened it out in conversation.
‘So, all sorted with the car?’
‘Car? Oh, was it you that night? Thanks for stopping, mate. Yeah, not too much damage, thank God, it was Lexie’s dad’s car.’
Patrick was acutely conscious of how terrified Lexie must have been. An accident – at night – had uncomfortable echoes of the past.
‘You’re all right?’ he asked her quietly.
Again, her nod of acknowledgement was tiny, but it was there. Sod Muscle Man. Sod his damn pride. He had to tell her how much he still cared.
‘Lexie—’
‘Patrick. Darling! There you are.’
Diana was sweeping towards them with great purpose. She asserted ownership by putting her arm around him and turning up her face for a kiss.
‘I slipped in with James and Cat—’ she drew the couple in so that Cameron and Lexie were edged out of the circle. Patrick made a half-hearted attempt to rectify this, but Lexie had started talking to her friend – Molly? – and the opportunity for conversation was lost.
When the crowds thinned and Lexie and her friends had disappeared, Patrick saw that Diana was still there.
‘Lovely little gallery,’ Diana said, hooking her arm through his again. ‘Well darling, shall we go? I’m yearning to sink onto that wonderful sofa of yours.’
Patrick extricated himself from her grasp.
‘I don’t think so.’
How could he ever have considered she might make a permanent companion? All he could think of was dark eyes and scarlet hair and a relationship he wished he could restore. He looked at Diana as candidly as he could.
‘It’s my fault,’ he started, and watched with a pang of guilt as he saw that she’d guessed what he was about to say. ‘My fault, because perhaps I allowed you to believe that our relationship might become something more serious. But it’s not what I want, Diana. I’m so sorry.’
She was in control of herself, as she always was.
‘We’re good together, Patrick. You know we are.’
‘We’re too well matched,’ he countered, smiling, ‘two strong people, who both like to be in control. You’re clever and cultured and very beautiful. But be truthful, Diana, you don’t love me.’
She was about to protest when she stopped abruptly.
‘Do you know,’ she said, the beginnings of a smile playing about her lips, ‘I do believe you’re right. But it’s a great pity.’
Patrick put his hand gently on either side of her face and turned it first one way, then the other, placing a gentle kiss on each cheek as he did so.
‘Good luck, Diana. Thank you for everything. Follow your dreams.’
She didn’t look round as she left the gallery. He had to admire her.
‘Some woman that,’ Cora said from behind him, ‘but not for you, I think.’
‘No,’ Patrick agreed, ‘not for me.’
‘It’s about time, Pats. I mean, it’s ten years since Niamh—.’
‘Stop it, Cora. I know you mean well, but—’
Cora had no fear of Patrick. She ploughed on. ‘She was a cow. You know she was. You shouldn’t let what she did have such an effect on you.’
Patrick’s eyes glinted dangerously, but all he said was, ‘Believe me, there’s no effect, other than a slight regret at having a brother excised from my life. Enough, Cora. I mean it. I don’t criticise the way you choose to live your life, please keep out of mine.’
He turned towards the door. Cora, watching him, shook her head, but the movement was so small that the only evidence was the slightest sway of her hair near where it touched her shoulders.
He walked home alone. It was a balmy evening and he needed the exercise. Besides, the episode with Diana had had an effect on him – and so had Cora’s words. Much more than he cared to admit.
The truth was that although the hurt had long since gone, there had been a lasting legacy from Niamh and Aidan’s betrayal. He had built walls around his heart and although it wasn’t rational to feel that Lexie’s rejection had added to his issues with trust, since then he had strengthened his defences.
The High Street was quiet – this was not the part of town for late-night merrymaking. He passed the Duke of Atholl pub, then changed his mind, retraced his steps and went in to the old bar. The place had a small bunch of regulars, some of whom he knew well enough to pass the time with, so he stopped to down a swift pint. He knew he was putting off going home. There were some feelings no defences could keep out and he had become acutely aware of the emptiness at the core of his life.
He had a sudden vision of himself as a sad, lonely drunk, and put down the glass on the counter.
The rain had started. He speeded up. It wasn’t far to The Gables if he cut up Kittle’s Lane. He crossed the High Street. Somewhere, a blue light was flashing. He could see the light glinting off the windows of the baker’s and the bank, and half wondered what had happened, while thinking about the success of the opening. Rounding the corner of the Lane, he saw an ambulance outside Cobbles. A small crowd had gathered and there was a sense of urgent activity. Someone was being lifted on a stretcher into the back of the vehicle. Gripped by sudden anxiety, Patrick quickened his pace, but as he arrived, the doors closed and the ambulance began to move off.<
br />
‘What is it?’ he asked, ‘what’s happened?’
A stout woman in tweed skirt and twin set shook her head. He recognised her as the woman who lived opposite the shop – she was Pavel’s ‘Her Nosiness Bessie Brown’.
‘No’ looking good,’ Bessie said in a broad brogue. ‘The wee man’s been taken poorly. It wis me wha’ called the paramedics,’ she added with a hint of pride. ‘Ah wis jist closin’ the curtains at ma windae when I spied him clutching at his chest, like, and fallin’. I called the service at once and they came right quick, but ah fear it wis too late.’
‘Pavel? Was it Pavel?’ Patrick asked, distressed.
‘Aye. Oor wee rock star.’
She sighed heavily as the crowd joined in with anecdotes and reminiscences.
‘Is he dead?’
‘All but.’
Patrick shoved his way through the crowd and into the gloom. Pavel – dead? If it hadn’t been for Diana gatecrashing the opening, if it hadn’t been for Cora’s little homily, if he hadn’t gone into the pub, if he hadn’t waited for a pint…
He strode home. At least he was still under the limit. He would drive to the Infirmary and see if there was anything he could do.
Chapter Twenty
Catalogue number 28: Undertaker’s shoes. British-made Loakes, Oxford-style, black, highly polished leather. Donor, Ian Draper, Draper and Son, Funeral Directors, Hailesbank. ‘My father wore shoes like these throughout his lifelong career as a funeral director. Every pair of shoes he had was polished daily. My father was a great respecter of the dead.’
Lexie was lying awake, staring at the ceiling in her small bedroom. It was only five thirty, but already it was starting to grow light. Outside, she heard the rustle and flutter of the sparrows and blue tits in the bushes and trees that surrounded her home. Their sweet trilling songs told of breakfast procured, of busy home-making and affection and the joy of being alive.
She wanted to get up and work, but her mind drifted back to last night, to the opening of The Maker’s Mark, and to Patrick.
It was a beautiful little gallery. She was thrilled for Harry Buchanan, the blacksmith whose work was featured. He was showing ten pieces, none of them cheap, and nine were already sold. The supporting makers had done well, too. She’d seen red dots everywhere.
Cora Spyridis, who had supervised the renovation and put together the gallery’s summer programme, was an enigma. Lexie knew most people in the area and certainly most people involved in the creative arts, but she’d never come across Cora before. She’d made a point of spending some time talking to her and had found her charming – full of energy and drive, and remarkably knowledgeable – but Cora had confirmed she was not the owner of the gallery.
‘The owner is from London,’ she had said in a lightly accented voice, ‘and no, he could not be at the opening tonight, but is delighted everything is going so well.’
The guests at the opening read like a Who’s Who of East Lothian. She knew many of them – art critics, local gentry and a sprinkling of titled guests, as well as quite a few excited craftspeople and shopkeepers from High Street in Hailesbank.
She should not have been surprised that Patrick had been there. After all, he was one of Hailesbank’s wealthier residents – and without question the most knowledgeable about art – but stupidly, she’d neglected to prepare herself for meeting him. She’d been with Cameron while Patrick was with some über tall natural redhead whose dark copper locks clashed quite horribly with Alexa’s bottle scarlet and made her feel cheap.
Sometimes Lexie wondered if Patrick still desired her. There had been a current of connection between them, she was sure she hadn’t imagined it.
But lust was one thing, love another entirely.
There was a loud rat-a-tat-tat at her front door. Lexie sat up, startled. What the hell? The knock came again, more insistently. Who could it be, at this time? She flung herself out of bed and pushed the curtain aside a fraction, peering sideways to try to see who it was.
There was another knock, then a low voice.
‘Lexie? It’s Patrick. Are you awake?’
Lexie shrugged on an old silk robe She hurried to the front door, which rasped along the stone floor as she hauled it open.
‘I am now, for God’s sake. What the hell do you think…?’
She stopped. She had never seen Patrick like this. His suit looked as if he had curled up under a hedge and slept in it; his hair, usually carefully brushed so that it tumbled in a well-tended waterfall onto his collar, was wild and unkempt; and his chin was heavily shadowed. He had clearly not been home.
‘Do you think we might have some coffee?’
She opened the door and allowed him to come in. She had seen Patrick intense, lecherous, funny, masterful, randy, efficient, cool, angry, disappointed, ecstatic, but never soberly serious in quite this way, and it alarmed her.
She opened the kitchen door and ushered him towards the table. Outside, the sun was starting to rise above the trees. It was the time of day the room was at its best, because the light fell in a shaft on the few treasured possessions she kept on the dresser – a plate and jug she’d thrown at art college, a bronze bust of a friend she’d modelled in second year, a clock of her grandmother’s, a small silver cup Jamie had won at tennis before he’d taken up rugby. She filled the kettle and switched it on as Patrick sank into a chair and rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, like a tired child.
‘Sit down, Alexa.’
She noticed the formal form of her name with mounting alarm. She was clenching her hands round the back of a chair for support. The knuckles were white, bone pressing through the thin area of flesh.
‘What? Tell me, Patrick.’
He reached across the table and took her hand.
‘My darling, it’s Pavel.’
She barely noticed the endearment, she only heard the name, Pavel.
‘He’s dead. I’m so sorry. He had a heart attack last night. It was very sudden, and he didn’t suffer for long.’
‘Pavel? But he was at the opening. He was in great form. I spoke to him. You spoke to him. I saw you.’
‘Yes. He was in great form.’
Behind her, the kettle bubbled and steamed. Dazed, she pulled her hand away and began to stand.
‘Your coffee. I must…’
‘Forget the damn coffee.’
Lexie started to tremble. The kitchen was cool and she was wearing only thin silk.
‘Sit down, sweetheart. It’s a shock, a terrible shock. On second thoughts—’ he got up, ‘I’ll make the coffee, you need a hot drink.’
She watched him as he found his way expertly around her kitchen. Coffee appeared in front of her, black and strong, just as she liked it. How did he know that? The power of logical thought had deserted her. All she could think was, Pavel is dead and I shall never see him again. Somewhere outside she heard a bird sing. The world was coming to life, as it did every day – only not Pavel’s world.
Patrick sat again, and this time took both her hands.
‘I happened to walk by Kittle’s Lane on my way home and I saw the ambulance, but he was already in it and it shot off to the Infirmary before I could check what was happening. Thank God I hadn’t drunk much. I was able to run home and pick up my car and follow him.’
‘Did you see him? Was he still alive?’
‘Yes, he was still alive. We even managed a few words, but he had another heart attack, a major episode. They tried resuscitation, but it didn’t – they couldn’t – he died, I’m afraid. All I could think was, “I must tell Lexie”.’
She didn’t think this odd. She didn’t think about it at all, she was only grateful that he had thought to come, in person, to break this terrible news. She wanted to sip her coffee but she didn’t want to move her hands from the place they felt so safe – inside Patrick’s strong grasp. She didn’t realise she was weeping until he offered her a square of white cotton, and then the sobs came, great juddering howls as she felt
the pity of it and the loss began to register.
‘He was so dear to me.’
‘I know.’
His arms came around her and she buried her face into his shirt, feeling utter safety in his embrace.
‘He was such a support. He wouldn’t go to the doctor, I tried to make him.’
Eventually, she was all sobbed out.
‘The coffee’s cold,’ she snuffled, taking a sip.
‘I’ll make more.’
‘No.’ She refused to relinquish the mug. ‘It’s fine. I’ll drink it. I like cold coffee.’
‘Do you know what his last words to me were?’
She shook her head.
‘Tell Lexie to take the sherry glasses.’
‘Oh Christ.’
Tears began to well again.
‘I’ll never drink sherry again without thinking of him.’
She made a small sound, she wasn’t sure whether it was a laugh or a sob.
‘Actually, I’m not that keen on sherry. I only drank it to please him.’
Unexpectedly, Patrick grinned.
‘I think he knew that. It was his last little joke.’
He stayed with her for an hour.
‘Why did you come?’ she asked him when she’d dressed. Now that everything was sinking in, his arrival struck her as odd.
‘I think Pavel wanted me to.’
Lexie frowned. She couldn’t see how he could know this, if they had had so little time to talk. She was about to debate the assertion, when something struck her.
‘Oh, shit.’
‘What?’
She had pulled on old leggings and a baggy sweater, and her eyes felt puffy and scratchy, but how she looked was the last thing on her mind – she was thinking about her exhibition. She was on the point of telling him about the room at the back of Cobbles that Pavel had been preparing for her, when she stopped herself. This was Patrick Mulgrew, after all. ‘Patrick never forgives,’ she’d once said to Molly, and she had to remind herself that this man was multi-faceted. Maybe he was being considerate now, but this was the same Patrick who had shouted in a rage that she was not professional, that she would never be successful without his support. But she had found her true path, and with it had come a gritty determination to prove him wrong, and she would not falter. Anyway, Pavel had promised her, the room was all but ready, and hopefully their agreement would be honoured?
