Heaven's On Hold

by Heaven's on Hold (retail) (epub)

  David thanked him and continued, but the exchange and the tractor engine had woken Freya. She didn’t cry, but her startled gaze was fixed on him as if demanding an explanation.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Horrible racket.’

  Even at twenty miles an hour he almost overshot the entrance to the house. This first gate was no more than two mossy pillars – you had to look hard to see that they weren’t treestumps among the beech and oak that surrounded them. He reversed and turned in, the car pitching and roiling slightly on the less even surface of what was scarcely more than a cart track. After a couple of long ox-bow bends that almost doubled back on themselves – he’d probably travelled no more than a hundred yards from the lane – he found himself confronted by the first of Harper’s security arrangements. As checkpoints went it was tolerably unobtrusive, an apparently simple wooden barrier with equally unthreatening post and rail fencing stretching away from it beneath the trees. No barbed wire or Rottweilers, David noted gratefully. The barrier wasn’t manned that he could see, and he was about to get out and look for some way of identifying himself when the barrier lifted. There was something almost eery in this bland acceptance of him – it raised the disturbing likelihood of an invisible watcher – but he drove on without further interruption, and as the trees began to thin out so the house came into view.

  Stoneyhaye was built of mellow brick, a Georgian gentleman’s residence rather than a stately home, its proportions not grand but graciously domestic. Much of the walls were covered with flame-coloured creeper. Because it sat not on rising ground but in a shallow valley its presence was benign and welcoming – a house with sufficient confidence to allow the visitor to look down on it. This approach led through open parkland, but behind the house the woods drew in again – it was here that the Nevitt’s smaller sibling, the Prinn, provided the trout fishing which had been one of Stoneyhaye’s major selling points (though not, David suspected, as far as Harper was concerned).

  Accustomed by training and experience to spot unsympathetic adjustments and near-the-knuckle extensions, he could see nothing to affright the eye. Except perhaps the helicopter, perched like a bluebottle on the grass before the main entrance.

  At the bottom of the hill the drive swept round to bring him in at right angles to the house. He slowed down respectfully as he approached the house. In the stableyard to his left he saw two Mercs, one black and one violet, both limited edition sports models, a Rolls Royce Corniche, a muddy Land-Rover and Bailey’s yellow Mazda. All were untidily parked, with an air of having been simply driven in at speed and left where they came to rest. For some reason this struck him as the most obvious manifestation of casual wealth that he had yet seen.

  Here a young man in a Donegal tweed jacket and open-necked shirt halted him with an upraised hand and a disarming, almost apologetic smile.

  ‘Mr Keating?’ He was softly and well spoken.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you with this, but do you have any means of identification on you?’ The question was tactfully phrased, with the emphasis on the ‘have’, as though conceding that it was a slightly unreasonable thing to ask, and accompanied by a quick smile in Freya’s direction. Ageing rocker he might be, but Harper clearly had an astute grasp of what was required front of house.

  ‘I might have, I don’t know …’ David felt in his pockets, then checked himself. ‘Hang on – you know my name.’

  The young man, whose lapel-badge proclaimed him to be Simon Acourt, laughed charmingly, allowing the stupidity of the whole charade. ‘Well actually we know your car.’

  David remembered the eerily-rising barrier in the woods. ‘I see. How’s that?’

  ‘We have your registration down as a possible visitor.’

  ‘Heavens, what thoroughness.’

  ‘Thorough but discreet. And sadly necessary.’ With this, the merest glint of steeliness accompanied the smile.

  ‘Will a cheque card do? I’m afraid it’s all I have on me.’

  ‘Cheque card’s fine.’ Acourt took the card and subjected it to a lightning inspection. ‘ Thank you.’ As he handed it back he nodded at Freya. ‘ Your baby?’

  ‘My daughter, yes.’

  ‘My Cleo’s eighteen months, and already I’m putty in her hands. Park wherever you like Mr Keating, and if you want to leave the keys with me I can always move it if necessary.’

  David felt he’d been subjected to one of those comedy taps on the shoulder, invited to turn one way only to find the person on the other side. Nothing was quite what it seemed including, these days, himself. And he was getting old.

  He popped the boot and took Freya out of her seat. The young man came briskly over to him, no longer the security guard but the meeter and greeter.

  ‘I expect you know Chris is away this week in Hong Kong.’

  ‘I didn’t actually. He and – um – Mr Bailey—’

  ‘Harry, yes.’

  ‘They were both kind enough to extend an open invitation to my wife and myself.’ Acourt’s bland smile prompted him to add by way of explanation: ‘I work for Border and Cheffins. I was instrumental in helping Chris Harper to buy this house.’

  ‘Right.’ The young man glanced around. ‘Splendid, isn’t it? My uncle’s got a place of this general feather in County Clare. It’s a house that lives in you as much as you live in it. Gets in your bloodstream.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ David felt unable to cope with much more of this gilded youthfulness. ‘Is Harry Bailey here?’

  ‘He is, but he’s a bit tied up right at this moment. And Lindl’s here, but I don’t know where – would you like me to check?’

  ‘Please don’t worry. Would it be all right if we went for a bit of a walk?’

  ‘We—?’

  How odd, thought David, that even this young father discounted the baby’s presence. ‘Freya and I.’

  ‘You and your daughter – of course.’

  ‘Then if someone could tell Mr Bailey I’m here I might be able to see him before I go – it’s purely a social call, I don’t want to keep him from what has to be done.’

  ‘That’s cool.’ The young man’s hunt-ball vowels made the phrase sound quaint. ‘I’ll let him know.’ He swept an arm through three hundred and sixty degrees. ‘Wander where you will.’

  As David sat in the back seat of the car and went through the manoeuvres involved in getting Freya into the papoose and on to his back, he saw the young man speaking into a small black object which he thought was a mobile phone until he considered that it was held in front of his face, and was therefore a walkie-talkie. So the ‘liberty hall’ angle was part of the staff briefing: he was going to be watched.

  When he’d locked the car and was setting off, the gadget had disappeared, but he was sure it had been used to apprise various other smart cookies that an elderly chap with a baby on board was roaming about, and could do with keeping an eye on.

  On the way out of the yard, he said to Acourt:

  ‘I’d quite like to explore the woods at the back …’

  ‘Sure, just go across the front of the house, and round the side and you’ll hit the path that follows the river. Then you can take it upstream or down, and in both cases there are crossing places if you feel energetic and want to climb the hill.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He set off at a brisk place. It was a while since he’d used the papoose and it was strange not to be able to see Freya’s face, but he enjoyed the feel of her clinging Koala-like to his back. Reflecting on the gently-born Acourt and his walkie-talkie he formed the opinion that those who worked here probably started out with the idea they were on a cushy number, and soon learned otherwise. He was prepared to bet that Harper was a ruthless boss. Anything other than exactly what was required would be a sacking offence. This impression was reinforced when he stopped to admire the helicopter and saw a girl in a grubby white boiler suit cleaning it as one might a family car, with a bucket, a rag, and something in a can. Absorbed
in her task, she paid him no attention, but he saw the black stalk of another two-way radio sticking out of her back pocket.

  He followed the path, past the secretive flank of the house, where he almost tripped over a child’s trailbike, and into the edge of the woods. It was quite chilly here in the afternoon shade and he put a hand behind his shoulder to touch Freya’s cheek. But it felt warm, and her head nodded, relaxed, against his fingers.

  He felt the spell of the house, commented on by everyone who came here. Stoneyhaye was a spellbinding place, its magic for him only intensified by the occupancy of this bizarre, money-hardened bedouin. The complete otherness of the owners and their retinue, coupled with their straightforward admiration for the house, he found moving. It was the very opposite of the visceral attachment of the previous owners, but none the worse for that.

  The woods that accompanied the Prinn, en route to its assignation with the Nevitt, were not that large, but they had a wonderful wildness. The woods had always been part of the Stoneyhaye estate, they had seen few people, and those they had seen had belonged here. Yet he didn’t feel like an intruder; rather the reverse, as though these trees had known only gentleness and expected nothing less. The quiet that enveloped him and Freya was not secretive and sinister, but an embracing peace.

  Now that David was out of sight of the house – although realistically, recalling the walkie-talkie, he realised his progress was almost certainly being monitored – he slowed his pace. When he came to the river he found that at this point it was wider than the Nevitt, but very shallow. It seemed scarcely to be moving, so leisurely was its progress, and when he stood on the grass at the edge he could easily see a group of brown trout hovering in the lee of the bank, only the wavering of their tails betraying the current.

  He followed the river for a hundred yards or so till he reached one of the crossing places mentioned by Acourt. It was no more than a tree trunk, planed off and laid across the water at its narrowest point, which was also its deepest, with a rope handle slung above it. It didn’t look awfully secure, but he walked over quickly, keeping his eyes on the far bank and his objective. He could see where another path led away at right angles to the river, presumably towards the open hillside – the path began to rise very slightly at its furthest visible point.

  He was immediately attracted by the idea of climbing the hill and looking down on Stoneyhaye from a new vantage point – to see the valley as only those who lived here saw it. This notion made him wonder whether in fact the new owners or their staff ever did walk up here, or whether the land that surrounded the house was simply treated as a no-man’s land, protecting their hard-earned privacy.

  No sooner had he thought this than he glimpsed someone amongst the trees ahead and to the right of him. Stupidly, it made him jump – the back of his neck prickled and he felt a flash of adrenalin. For goodness’ sake, what was the matter with him? He was on private ground, a whole colony of people lived at the house and could presumably go where they liked; added to which it was entirely possible that one or two had the responsibility of patrolling the woods to keep an eye on outsiders such as himself.

  He kept walking at a steady pace, and didn’t see the figure again for a minute or two, until suddenly she – for he saw now that it was a woman – crossed the path ahead of him. She had maintained the distance between them and was too far away for him to see her face, but for a second she glanced in his direction and he saw that it was Gina King.

  He didn’t doubt his judgement even for a moment. It had been her. The look, at once deferential and insinuating … the long fair hair … the rather hesitant stride. Neither was he surprised to see her here. This, he now realised, was because she had come to occupy some place at the back of his mind, constantly. She seemed to be with him always, so to see her quite clearly in return, even here at this moment, was perfectly natural. She was showing herself.

  ‘Gina …?’ He didn’t so much call her as speak her name in acknowledgement of her presence. But having heard his own voice once he felt braver, and raised it enough to be heard.

  ‘Gina!’

  He walked faster until he reached the place where she had crossed the path; the trees thinned out here, and he could clearly see the open hillside beyond, but there was no sign of her. He turned quickly in the direction she’d gone and at once stumbled and nearly fell into some sort of drainage ditch. Freya let out a wail of fright as he staggered to right himself, and he sat down heavily and awkwardly to avoid squashing her, chastising himself for his foolishness and giving his back a painful tweak in the process.

  ‘Who is that? Oh, hi …!’

  Lindl Clerc was standing on the path looking down at him without surprise. She wore fawn cord trousers, so tight he could see the indentation between her legs, and was carrying a white plastic bowl.

  ‘Hello!’ He struggled to stand, but couldn’t get a footing on the sharp slope.

  ‘Want a hand?’

  He would like to have declined, but was in no position to do so, especially with Freya on his back. He clasped the forearm that she extended, and clambered back with giant ungainly strides on to the path.

  ‘Thanks. I wonder – stupid question but you can see better than me, is my daughter all right?’

  Lindl took a look. ‘She’s a little cross—’ she pronounced it charmingly, ‘liddle’ – ‘but she’s fine. I was picking blackberries,’ she explained, holding out the bowl, ‘you want one?’

  ‘I won’t thanks.’ He dusted at his knees, his backside, fussing and discomforted. ‘You must wonder what on earth I’m doing here.’

  ‘Not at all. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t meant to be.’

  This struck him as a curious form of words, implying perhaps unintentionally that destiny, and not just an efficient security system, was at work.

  ‘We were taking a walk, and then I was going to call in and say hello to Harry Bailey. I understand that your – that Chris is away.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She began to walk slowly down the path, the bowl clasped to her midriff with both arms. ‘ Hong Kong.’

  He wondered, though was too polite to ask, why she hadn’t gone too.

  ‘I hate Hong Kong,’ she said, mindreading, ‘so I let him get on with it.’

  ‘He’s doing a concert?’

  She shook her head. ‘Private party. That man who makes the jeans …? It’s his anniversary or something … I don’t know. Fancy taking Chris all the way over there to play at a party.’

  David wasn’t sure if this was a comment disparaging extravagance, or the dragging away of a family man.

  ‘Is your son at school?’

  ‘Yes, I’m going to collect him now. He plays soccer on a Wednesday. Normally Harry goes, but he’s kicking ass.’ She used this phrase in the wholly unironic way of someone for whom even the most scatalogical English was not a first language. She turned her wrist and leaned over the bowl to look at her watch. I’m going to be a little late, I don’t like all those mothers.’ Her tone suggested that she was using the word in its unflattering American sense.

  ‘Villages are gossipy places,’ he agreed. ‘Being high profile must make you feel very exposed.’

  ‘Yeah …’ she nodded. ‘I’d prefer the city—’ siddy – ‘but this is Chris’s dream.’

  He found himself liking her. This afternoon, without make-up but if anything more beautiful, there was a kind of no-crap directness about her that was endearing. He realised that this must simply be because her lifestyle required no crap: she asked, it was done; she desired, and received.

  ‘Is Jay happy at the school?’ he asked.

  ‘He loves it. He’d like to live there.’

  ‘And later – when he gets to eleven – what will you do?’ He asked in a spirit of genuine enquiry, interested these days in the decisions people made about their children.

  ‘Who knows?’ She pouted and lifted her shoulders. ‘Who knows where we’ll be?’

  Her frankness shocked him,
reminding him as it did that not only was she not married to Chris Harper, but that Jay was not Harper’s son. Sentimentally, he had assumed that the two of them had entered into some sort of pact, but now that assumption was well and truly rattled.

  ‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘Of course.…’

  They reached the river and she walked ahead of him across the log-bridge with a practised lack of concern, pausing at one point to look down into the water. On the far side she waited for him.

  ‘It’s steadier than it looks,’ she told him.

  ‘I’m being careful because of the backpack.’

  ‘She’s a good baby.’

  ‘By and large.’

  Lindl gave a little sigh. ‘We all have to cry some time.’

  They walked on for a minute or so, and then she asked: ‘Who were you calling?’ She turned to look at him. ‘You were calling someone, back there?’

  ‘Yes – it sounds ridiculous but I thought I saw someone I knew. I mean, how could it have been? Anyway, it turned out to be you.’

  ‘You know me,’ she pointed out. ‘And I live here.’

  ‘Exactly. I think—’ he paused, trying both to get it right and to finish this particular line of conversation. ‘I think sometimes when a particular person happens to be in your mind and you see someone who resembles them … well, you see what you’re expecting to see.’

  This begged a question, but happily she was too discreet or too uninterested to ask it.

  She led him back to the house the other way to that by which he’d come, rejoining the drive at the far side of the stableyard. Of Simon Acourt there was no sign, and David recalled how he had seemed to materialise out of thin air. By the violet Merc she stopped, handed him the bowl of blackberries, and thrust a long finger and thumb into her hip pocket to produce a car key.

  ‘Nice seeing you again,’ she said, ‘ Do you mind putting those in the kitchen on the way through?’