by Cathy Kelly
“Hey, you finished there?” said a voice at the door, and she turned to see Mick lounging against the doorjamb, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt he’d been wearing for at least two days. His feet were bare, his toenails dirty, and suddenly she was sick of the sight of him. Sick of having someone living off her, parasitically. It would have been one thing if he couldn’t find a job, but Mick refused even to look.
“I can’t take no civilian gig, Suki,” he’d said a week before, when she’d brought it up for about the third time. “I’m a musician, I can’t sell out and become an ordinary joe, you know that.”
Today, finally, looking at him, knowing full well that even though she’d been working upstairs all day, it wouldn’t have occurred to him to make an effort by cooking dinner, or tidying the house, or taking care of the laundry—hell, she was pretty sure he didn’t even know how the washing machine worked. He hadn’t showered, he hadn’t shaved: he didn’t care, basically. And she was fed up living with a man who not only didn’t care about himself but, by proxy, didn’t care about her. If he gave a damn about their relationship, he wouldn’t be living off her, he’d be looking for a job. And if he couldn’t find a job, then he’d be taking care of her, looking after the house, finding cheaper ways to eat instead of ordering a takeout every night. He wouldn’t be whining about his music when she was sitting up in her study, doing her job—which was pretty much the only thing standing between them and total bankruptcy.
“Mick,” she said, fixing him with a stare, “I’ve been thinking. You’re right: you are a musician and you shouldn’t have to take any old civilian job.”
“What?” he looked at her, confused.
“The argument we had last week, when you said you couldn’t possibly get a civilian job—well, you’re right. If you don’t want to live that way, you’re entitled—it’s your life, no one else’s. But you know what . . . ?”
She saved the document she was working on, clicked the computer to shut down and got to her feet so she was facing him. Suddenly the strength that she thought had been drained from her began to return; she could feel it surging through her body. “Mick, it’s over between you and me. You clearly don’t respect me, or you wouldn’t be living off me like this. And I don’t think I respect you anymore either. It’s time we broke up.”
“What do you mean, babe, break up? Things are good, and the band will get gigs soon . . .”
“No, the band won’t get gigs. Bands are a dime a dozen out there, Mick, and you know it. If you haven’t made it by now, you’re never going to make it. You’re clinging to a hopeless dream.”
“Yeah, you’re saying that with all the knowledge of someone who screwed around with the lead singer of TradeWind, huh? That’s where you get your inside information on the music industry,” he snarled.
“You don’t have to resort to cheap shots,” said Suki. “It’s been good, now it’s over. Okay? Why don’t you get your stuff and move out. You were never really supposed to move in, but you have.”
He stared at her but she didn’t feel any fear; Mick wouldn’t try anything, she knew that. She’d hit him where it hurt most and he was going to go.
“I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out,” she added, “I really am. But we’ve got to face facts: you and I want different things.”
“Well, don’t think you’re gonna get anyone to replace me, baby,” he snapped at her. “Look at you—you’re not some hot rock chick any more, not with those wrinkles. Jethro wouldn’t look twice at you now.”
Suki swallowed the insult. He couldn’t hurt her. She was getting older. She knew that and she was writing about it in the book. Women and age. Aging into invisibility, and why that was wrong. She’d spent so long teasing out the arguments in the book that she wasn’t overwhelmed by Mick’s spite.
“As I said, Mick,” she replied calmly, “let’s try and do this like grown-ups. We want different things out of life, so let’s split up, that’s all.”
He slammed her office door shut and she could hear him moving about in their bedroom, swearing. She recognized the sounds of cupboards being wrenched open, then the sound of him stomping downstairs, dragging a bag behind him. There wasn’t much of his stuff in the house anyway.
“I’ll be back later with a van to pick up my chair,” he roared up the stairs.
She didn’t hear the door slam and she waited, breathing heavily now, feeling the anxiety hit her. She was not going to have a panic attack; Mick’s leaving was a good thing in her life, there was no reason to get upset.
It took at least ten minutes before his car started up and then she heard him drive off down the street. Only when she heard that and knew he was gone for good did she come out of her office and head downstairs. The front door was wide open and there in the living room, looking closely at one of the framed photos of her, Tess and Zach, was a strange woman. Tall, blonde, young, New York slim, wearing a neat black suit like she worked for the government, with a white shirt, low heels and a briefcase.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?” Suki said.
“Oh hello,” said the woman, giving Suki the benefit of a syrupy smile and great dental work, “how lovely to meet you. I’m Carmen LeMonte—I work with Redmond Suarez and we so want to talk to you. You’ve probably heard that Redmond is writing a book about the Richardsons and I’m sure you must want to tell your side of the story . . .”
Suki realized that in the outstretched hand was a small digital tape recorder, and it was obviously rolling because there was a little red light glowing.
“Talk about what?” said Suki. This she wasn’t prepared for. This was her every nightmare rolled into one.
“Y’know, talk about your life with the Richardsons—I’m sure it must have been really challenging.” The woman smiled sympathetically. “We’d like you to share your insights into their life, share some details about what really went on—readers would love to know. And why did you leave the family? Redmond Suarez thinks you might have a secret, ’cos there’s got to be something there. And you might need the money, huh?” The woman’s gaze took in the cottage, the open cupboard doors and scattered belongings Mick had left in his wake.
Suki didn’t know what to say. Panic-stricken, she could only bluster, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, now come on, Suki, I think you do,” said the woman, still in that same wheedling tone. Suki was suddenly reminded of movie portrayals of hard-hearted tabloid reporters on the trail of a story, and how far they’d stoop to get it.
“Put down my photograph,” said Suki.
“And this is your sister, I guess, and her son? They live in Avalon, your hometown. Would they be able to fill us in on anything?”
The young blonde woman moved closer, holding the small digital recorder out in front of her.
“We were wondering why you sort of disappeared out of the Richardson family. Is it true that Antoinette hounded you out?”
The way the woman hissed “disappeared” reminded Suki of a cobra about to strike. Desperate to get rid of her, she grabbed the photo and tossed it on the sofa, then took the woman by the shoulders, spun her around and pushed her out the door before she even had time to register what was happening.
“Get out of here,” she said. “You are trespassing—next time I see you on my property, I’m calling the cops. And if you think you are going to get any salacious rumors out of me, you are very much mistaken. Leave me alone!” And she slammed the door in the woman’s face.
Heart racing, tears brimming in her eyes, she leaned against the door, all strength deserting her. The fear, oh my God, the fear, came back.
She rang Tess’s mobile, something she never did. It had to be at least eleven o’clock in Avalon, but she didn’t care. Tess answered after about five rings, sounding tired. “What is it?” she said.
“It’s me,” said Suki. “Oh, Tess, you’ve no idea. One of the researchers for that Suarez guy turned up, I found her in the house b
ecause I’d just thrown Mick out and he must have let her in and—”
“Slow down,” said Tess.
“I threw Mick out and when he was going, this woman must have been at the door—she’s a researcher for the biographer who wants to write a book about the Richardsons. And they know something happened!”
“What do you mean, they know?” said Tess.
“They know,” hissed Suki. “I’m finished. Nobody will want to publish my book by the time Redmond Suarez is finished with me—I’ll look like the whore Antoinette called me.”
“How could they find out?” asked Tess, shocked.
Suki lost it. All the anxiety she’d been holding in came rushing out and, searching for a target, found one in Tess.
“People like Suarez can find out anything they want!” shrieked Suki. “First example, Antoinette has never paid the staff a decent salary and she treats them like dirt, lest they figure out she’s not as blue-blooded as she likes to pretend. All Suarez needs is to find one maid or housekeeper who’ll talk, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. The people who worked in the Massachusetts house would know everything.”
Suki recalled the times she’d seen Antoinette use the bell beside the fire to summon a servant to perform some task so servile and pointless that it wasn’t worth the effort of walking to the bell. Another log on the fire—when she was standing beside the log basket; some more ice for the Senator’s drink—when the ice bucket was sitting (giving off less frost than Antoinette, admittedly) on a low table to his left. He’d have been able to reach it without moving from his seat.
But that wasn’t the point for Antoinette. The family had servants, and by all that was holy, they were going to use them.
Suki had tried to make peace with the staff in her own way: smiling excessively, learning everyone’s names and ostentatiously using them, but it was no good. As Kyle Junior once said in a rare moment of awareness: “You’re on the other side of the divide, Suki. The staff won’t let you forget it, even if you do your best to.”
Any one of the many people routinely humiliated by Antoinette Richardson could have sold information to Suarez and his researchers.
“This will destroy me,” Suki went on.
Three thousand miles apart, the two Power sisters let out a breath at exactly the same time.
“I wish I could help,” Tess said.
“I know,” said Suki.
Tess sat up late in the kitchen, worrying about Suki. Zach was upstairs, studying or listening to music, and Kitty was asleep. She was alone at the kitchen table with nothing but the Something Old account books and a glass of red wine.
This had been her plan for the evening, but Suki’s frantic phone call had upset her so much that she could barely concentrate on anything.
Poor Suki. She hadn’t been exaggerating: if this nasty biographer twisted the story the wrong way, Suki’s name would be mud. If only Tess could do something. But she couldn’t. Money and power were the only things that could hold off people like that, and the Powers had neither.
She herself was broke. The business was on the verge of bankruptcy, nothing could save it now. Her only option was to sell her remaining stock to other antique shops or go to one of the big auction houses and let them offload it; either way, it would probably mean selling at way below what the stuff was worth. And you never quite knew what was going to happen at an auction house, it was like betting on a horse. Who knew which horse would win, which horse would lose?
Tess drank her wine and tried to concentrate. She couldn’t help Suki, but she had to work out how to make enough money to keep herself, Zach and Kitty going. The problem was that the anxiety over her situation was so overwhelming it had paralyzed her mind; try as she might, she couldn’t think what she was going to do next. The only plus was, she seemed to have reached the point where she no longer cared that Kevin wasn’t there to hug her and tell her it would be all right, to give her the fake assurances that they’d get through it.
She had finally realized that, in letting him go, she had made the right decision. At the time of the separation, she hadn’t really been sure. For months afterward, she’d wavered, wondering whether they should get back together. When Claire had come into his life she’d felt anger at having been replaced so quickly. But that’s all it had been: anger at being replaced. It wasn’t the realization that she did love him desperately. It was more a feeling of incomprehension that her love didn’t matter and another woman’s love would do.
At least whatever she had to face now, she’d face on her own, with darling Zach and Kitty. They wouldn’t suffer, she’d make sure of that. There was no telling what sort of job she’d get, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t care what she did; she’d be a cleaner, she’d take in ironing, anything—although nobody wanted cleaners or people taking in ironing anymore. Nobody could afford it. There had to be something she could do to make sure they stayed in their home. There were a few things she’d hung onto from Avalon House that she could sell. Precious things, like the portrait of her mother, a beautiful oil by a minor artist who’d been popular in the 1960s, but it would be worth something now. Her mother had been so beautiful. Plus, there was a story to it. A beautiful woman cut down in her prime, killed in a car accident. The story might add to its salability.
She’d bring it to Adams to get it valued. And there were a few pieces of her mother’s jewelry too. Sadly, jewelry, albeit jewelry with precious stones, made very little. So many people were trying to sell off jewelry these days. The market was flooded with diamonds and rubies and emeralds. It was sad, seeing them in the shops. Gifts, given in love, sold out of desperation.
But Tess didn’t care, the sentiment behind her jewelry and her mother’s picture was immaterial now. What mattered was taking care of Zach and Kitty.
Blissfully unaware that their mother’s business was disintegrating, Zach and Kitty were both blossoming. Zach was totally in love with Pixie Martin; the pair of them were now inseparable. Plus, Kitty loved having her around. Loved the sense of finally having a big sister to play with. And Pixie was endlessly kind to her. Helping dress dolls and playing Sylvanian Families at length, and listening to Kitty explain how she was going to be a big sister to whatever baby Claire had. “So you’ll have to teach me how I have to do it,” Kitty would say self-importantly to Pixie. Despite her pain, Tess smiled. As long as her children were happy, they’d muddle through. As long as they had each other, she would keep going no matter what.
24
Danae wasn’t sure how she felt about accompanying Antonio to the hospice. She had always assumed that the nursing home would care for him right until the end, but the director had explained to her that they couldn’t do that in Antonio’s case. The cancer had metastasized into his bones, making it incredibly painful, and Refuge House was not equipped to provide the kind of pain management he would need. “We simply don’t have the staff,” he said. “It’s too difficult. I know you’d prefer him to be here, but . . .”
“No,” said Danae. “I understand, totally. We want him to go as painlessly as possible.” It seemed like the last gift she could give her husband.
They’d been so lucky that a bed had become free.
“This is the right place for your husband in his final days,” the lady from the hospice had said to her when she phoned during her lunch break. “We’ll see you tomorrow. He’s going into a lovely room overlooking the garden.”
It was that last little detail that had made Danae want to cry. How wonderful these people were, how caring, in their love of the dying, their gentleness, their kindness. She’d sobbed on the phone. And the lady, who was clearly used to it, told her it would be all right. “You don’t think you’ll get through it, but you will,” she’d said. “With your husband’s brain injury, you’ve clearly gone through so much over these years. You must miss him terribly.”
Danae had felt like a charlatan, because she didn’t miss him at all.
And then she’d h
ung up the phone and shut the post office and ventured out to buy herself some more tea bags. A short journey, maybe one hundred yards, and she’d slipped on the ice and fallen down. She knew immediately that she’d done something unutterably painful to her ankle.
The doctor, summoned out of his surgery, took one look at it, bound it up and said, “I’m afraid it’s hospital for you, my dear. You need to get that X-rayed.”
Mara had immediately whisked Danae off to the local hospital, where she’d been told she had a fractured ankle bone that would need to be strapped up for at least six weeks.
“No weight on it,” the orthopedic A&E doctor said, looking at the X-rays again. “Absolutely no weight on it. This is a tricky little fracture.”
At this point, Danae had been given a shot of painkillers so she wasn’t feeling any pain, but the anxiety in her head was destroying her.
“What’s wrong, Danae?” said Mara. “What are you not telling me?”
“I didn’t want to drag you into all this, Mara,” said Danae, beginning to cry. “But I need your help . . .”
They were on the road early the next morning, hens fed, Lady left outside because she’d have gone mad locked inside the house. Mara had spent ages settling Danae, pushing the car seat back and arranging cushions for her back, more cushions for her ankle to rest on, and blankets in case she got cold.
“Now,” said Mara finally, popping a CD in the car stereo, “it’s too exhausting for you to talk, so we’ll listen to music on the way up and only talk if you want to. We’ve lots of time, so we can take it slow, stop for a coffee and a bite of brunch on the way, then we’ll go to the nursing home and take it from there.”
