The Long Weekend

by Veronica Henry

  Mummy xx

  Nick’s, however, had a separate PS.

  Darting Nick,

  Please don’t hold Claire accountable for being my ally. I needed someone very much, and she was very brave to respect my wishes. I know how difficult it was for her, but please know from me that she did the right thing. She loves you very much, as much as I did, and I know that your heart will always be safe in her hands.

  Mummy

  He lay on his bed, staring at the words. He realised now that he couldn’t bear to lose the two people he loved most in the world at the same time. The grief of losing his mother had cancelled out his grief at the loss of Claire, but at least he could get her back.

  He knew how cajoling his mother could be. How she could twist you round her little finger. He imagined those bright-blue eyes reeling Claire in, that husky voice dripping with honeyed persuasion, the emotional blackmail.

  He suddenly felt a surge of anger towards Isobel. What right did she have to jeopardise his relationship with Claire? She would have known that Nick would be furious, would find her actions untenable.

  He crumpled up the letter and threw it across the room, then rolled off his bed, grabbed his Converses, and ran for the door, along the corridor, down the stairs and out of the front door. He flew over the bridge and along the lane, jumping the fence that led to the field that was the short cut to Claire’s house.

  He arrived, breathless, at her front door. Her parents’ anonymous Rover was parked in the drive. There was no knocker, no bell, as if they had no need for one because they never had any visitors. He rapped on the glass, scanning the front of the house, trying to remember which was her window. He’d only been up to her bedroom once, when she went to find a cardigan.

  Her father answered.

  ‘Hello?’ He looked at Nick warily.

  ‘I wondered . . . if Claire was in. I need to speak to her.’ He smiled, as if to prove he wasn’t a madman, even though he knew he probably looked like one, breathing heavily, perspiring.

  ‘I’m sorry, but she’s not here.’

  ‘Do you know what time she’ll be back?’

  Mr Marlowe frowned slightly. ‘I’m afraid I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Is she working? Will she be back later on?’

  ‘I’m afraid . . .’ Her father trailed off, as if he was reluctant to be the bearer of bad news. Nick’s heart lurched. There could have been an accident. Of course there could, and he wouldn’t have known about it. ‘I’m afraid she’s gone away. And we don’t know when she’ll be back.’

  ‘You mean . . . like on holiday?’

  ‘No.’ His expression was solemn. Almost emotionless. ‘She’s gone abroad.’

  ‘Where?’ Nick tasted metallic fear. He hadn’t foreseen this eventuality. Claire didn’t strike him as a traveller, an adventurer, someone who would fling a few things into a bag and grab her passport. Then be gone.

  ‘I’m sorry. She’s asked us not to tell anyone.’ Mr Marlowe looked at him hard. Nick felt as if he was judging him. He wondered how much Claire had said to her parents. She usually told them nothing about her life, but after the way he had treated her, maybe she had taken them into her confidence. Who else would she have had to turn to?

  He appraised Mr Marlowe, wondering how much he knew.

  ‘It’s rather urgent. I’ve got something I need to tell her.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Marlowe, ‘I’m afraid it will have to wait.’

  How dare this man, who had shown his daughter no love or interest to speak of, stand there and judge him?

  ‘If Claire wants to get in touch with you, she will. In the meantime, I think you should respect her privacy. Please don’t call again.’

  And with that, he shut the door.

  Nick had no idea what to do next. There was no point in ringing the mobile phone he had given her for Christmas – she had left it on the table in the kitchen when she’d fled the Mill House.

  In the next few days, he tried everywhere else he could think of to find out where Claire had gone. He went to her old college and hung around outside the art block, approaching people who might have been in the year below and asking if they knew her or had heard from her, but all he got was strange looks, until eventually a teacher came over and warned him that he would be escorted off the premises.

  He went to the pub. Claire still worked there sometimes on a Saturday when they were busy. He thought that surely she would have given them a forwarding address, or some sort of explanation that would give him a clue.

  But Mel had no inkling either. She sat him down and gave him a lager and blackcurrant, as if he was still fifteen.

  ‘She just told us she wasn’t coming back. She didn’t even come in and pick up the rest of her wages. She said to give them to her parents. She wouldn’t tell me where she was going.’

  Nick buried his head in his arms on the bar top. Mel enveloped him in a hug.

  ‘Oh you poor chick,’ she said. ‘It’s unbearable for the two of you. For all of you. Life’s so bloody unfair.’

  ‘Not as unfair as death,’ Nick mumbled into his jumper sleeve.

  ‘It’s all right to cry,’ Mel told him, and he turned, sobbing, burying his face in her barmaid’s bosom that smelt of Obsession, and she was so kind, and although she wasn’t anything like his mother, it made him miss Isobel so badly he could barely breathe. They never cried at home, the four of them, because once they started they would probably never stop. He cried for over an hour, and Mel held him and stroked him and murmured comforting nonsense in his ear, rocking him like a baby.

  Afterwards, he walked back home, slunk up to his bedroom, bathed his eyes over and over again to try and hide the redness. Then he lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, wondering how to find someone who didn’t want to be found. All he could do was hope and pray that somehow she would feel his love and come back to him. That she would get to wherever she was going and decide it was the wrong decision.

  She hadn’t come back.

  He had spent the next few years grieving. For his mother and his lover, and the terrible turn of events that had taken away from him everything he held dear. Eventually the pain had faded, although it never disappeared completely, and he had edged himself back to a normal existence, going out with his mates, having the fun he deserved. And of course there were girls – lovely girls who helped him heal.

  And in time, there was Sophie, with whom he had fallen gently in love. Not a passionate, all-consuming love, but an easy, companionable love that he knew felt right, and that he could maintain. He told her the story one night, because you couldn’t decide to share the rest of your life with someone and not let them know the real you, and she had been so kind and understanding. She had held him tight and told him that it was all going to be okay, that they could be happy, that she wanted to make him forget and give him a reason to look forward.

  Until today, he’d thought Sophie was the answer. He’d been looking forward to her becoming his wife, the prospect of starting a family, which they’d talked about. But now that Claire had walked back into his life, all that had changed.

  And his mates were sitting downstairs, waiting to give him a send-off. He’d have to go down and pretend everything was hunky-dory. Until he knew what Claire was going to decide, he had to keep his options open.

  He rolled reluctantly off the bed and pulled on the jeans and shirt that were waiting for him. He couldn’t let his mates down. They were determined to make it a weekend to remember.

  It was certainly shaping up to be that so far.

  As soon as Luca came out of the shower, Claire slipped into the bathroom, locked the door and ran a deep bath, scrubbing away the evidence of her encounter.

  She didn’t feel guilty. She felt shaken. All the emotion of the last time she had seen Nick came flooding back. She could remember that afternoon as if it was yesterday. She had fled from the Mill House, over the bridge, and run all the way home without stopping, flinging open the front
door and running up the stairs to her room, where she had fallen on to her bed and wept. Her distress had been so audible, so tangible, so overwhelming that even her parents couldn’t fail to notice.

  In fact, if there had been one good thing to come out of the tragedy, it was that her relationship with her parents had deepened almost overnight. They had come to her room, concerned, and wormed the whole story out of her.

  Her father was magnificently furious. Not with Claire; not in the least. But with Isobel, and the rest of the Barnes family, and himself, and Claire’s mother, for letting the situation become so irretrievably awful.

  ‘What the hell was the woman thinking?’ he thundered to his wife. ‘Letting Claire take the burden? She must have been a monster. A selfish, uncaring monster.’

  ‘She wasn’t a monster,’ sobbed Claire. ‘She loved them all too much.’

  ‘Yes, but now she’s gone, and you’re paying the price.’

  ‘It’s our fault,’ said her mother. ‘Claire should have felt she could turn to us, and she didn’t.’

  Claire didn’t deny this. At no point had it ever occurred to her to draw her parents into the intrigue. Now she realised that by putting up a pretence of being able to cope, they had genuinely thought she was getting on with her life, and was happy. They had all co-existed in their own little worlds, oblivious to each other’s needs, never scratching beneath the surface of what they chose to present to each other.

  Now that the truth was out, however, her parents became stalwarts. They were a tower of strength to Claire, protective and loving and concerned. They talked the whole episode through with her, stressed that she should not feel guilty, that she had been put in an untenable situation. She couldn’t believe how understanding and kind they were. Why had she never trusted them before? She felt ashamed that she had treated them so shabbily, turning her back on them for her glitzy new life with the Barnes.

  Meanwhile, the cold that had started on Christmas Day was still lingering and had made its way down to Claire’s chest, developing into a racking cough that she couldn’t seem to get rid of. The trauma of Nick’s discovery only made it worse. That night, Claire developed a raging fever. By midnight, she could barely breathe. At one o’clock her parents called an ambulance.

  For five days she was dangerously ill with double pneumonia. It was touch and go as to whether she would survive. Eventually she started to respond to the antibiotics. It was another week before she was allowed out of hospital, pale and barely able to stand.

  When she was back home, in the safety of the kitchen, she asked her father if Nick had been to see her at all.

  ‘No,’ said her father. ‘No, he hasn’t. We haven’t heard a word.’

  Claire lay on the sofa, mute with grief. He didn’t want to know. He really didn’t want to know. If there had been any chance of him forgiving her, he would have been to see her by now.

  No way did she have the strength or the courage to go back to the Mill House and put forward her side of the story. It wouldn’t just be Nick she would have to face. It would be Gerald and Felix and Shrimp too. She had betrayed them all.

  ‘You should go and stay with Annie, in California,’ suggested her mother. ‘You need some sunshine. And Annie will be a tonic. I’ll get on to her straight away.’

  Annie was her mother’s sister, the complete antithesis of her and fifteen years younger. She lived in Sausalito with her architect husband and two young children, and had a California-dream lifestyle.

  Claire lay on the sofa and thought about it. It was the only answer. She had no job: she could hardly go back to Melchior Barnes. And the thought of getting far, far away from the nightmare was too enticing for words. She’d always been fond of Annie, who was as hyper and enthusiastic as her mother was understated.

  ‘Do you think she’d have me?’ she asked. ‘And what about the air fare?’

  ‘Of course she’ll have you,’ replied her mother, who was already on the phone.

  ‘And don’t worry about the fare,’ said her father. ‘Don’t worry about anything. We’ve got enough put aside to tide you over, for as long as it takes.’

  Annie was thrilled at the thought of a visitor. She’d been toying with the idea of starting up a new business making silver jewellery, and had considered hiring a nanny for her two children. She suggested that Claire take on the role for six months, while she tested the water to see if her business was viable. After that they could all reassess, but in the meantime it seemed to solve everyone’s problems.

  If she couldn’t heal herself in Sausalito, Claire realised as soon as she arrived, there was no hope for her. The house was stunning: a waterside haven overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge filled with light, and she threw herself into the relaxed Californian lifestyle. She slotted straight into the family, because of course she was family. The children were easy and biddable, and life adopted a gentle rhythm: walks along the park trails, cycle rides, messing about in the boat the family kept moored in the bustling harbour. It was a million miles from Mimsbury. And if, occasionally, she felt tempted to scrawl a postcard to Nick, she managed to pull herself back from the brink just in time.

  As she relived those warm, healing days, Luca banged on the door, dragging her back to the present.

  ‘Have you fallen down the plughole?’

  ‘Two minutes!’ Claire shouted in reply.

  She had to get dressed, paint on a face and gear herself up for dinner with Trevor and Monique. The last thing she felt like doing was discussing a bold new venture. But she had no choice.

  She slipped into the dress she’d bought earlier and let Luca do up her zip.

  ‘You look fabulous,’ he said, kissing her neck, and she fought off the urge to push him away.

  ‘Do you think this is stalkerish?’ Laura looked down at the email she had printed out, giving directions to Tony Weston’s house.

  ‘Immensely stalkerish.’ Dan looked at her, amused. ‘But sometimes stalkerish is okay.’ He paused. ‘I drove past your flat three times before I asked you out.’

  ‘No way!’ She looked at him in astonishment.

  He nodded. ‘Sometimes you just need to do the research. Get a feel for how things are.’

  She frowned at him, half laughing. ‘What did you see, when you drove past?’

  Dan laughed. ‘Bugger all. Just . . . your flat. You have a weird neighbour, though, who goes to the shop in her pyjamas.’

  ‘No,’ said Laura. ‘Those are her clothes.’ She laughed when he looked disconcerted. ‘That’s crazy, trendy Hoxton for you.’

  Dan hit his head as if he had forgotten something. ‘Of course.’

  Laura squinted along the terrace.

  ‘I think it’s that one. Clarence House.’ She didn’t point, just tilted her head discreetly towards it. She didn’t want anyone noticing them and thinking their behaviour odd.

  Clarence House was in the middle of a row of Victorian villas, positioned high on a steep bank to give them a view over the houses opposite, which backed directly on to the harbour. The villas were in various stages of dilapidation and renovation. Some were tired-looking; some had been given a state-of-the-art makeover, with black decking and balconies made of glass and stainless steel. Clarence House fell somewhere between the two: it retained its original features, but had been thoughtfully tweaked to bring it into the twenty-first century. The terrace at the front was crammed with pots brimming with geraniums and busy Lizzies. Rustic wooden furniture had been washed with a pale lavender paint. Moroccan lanterns were dotted amidst the pots, and an antique triptych mirror leant against the wall of the house, reflecting the sea in its glass.

  With a thump of her heart, Laura realised that it reminded her of home.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked Dan.

  ‘It’s a fantastic house. It must have a stunning view.’

  ‘No, I mean do you think it could be my dad’s?’

  Dan put an arm around her. ‘Laura, you can’t guess by looking at his pl
ant pots. You won’t know until you ask him.’

  ‘What if I bottle it?’

  Dan sighed. ‘Let’s forget about it for this evening. Let’s go back to the hotel and have a drink. Enjoy the weather. I don’t want you stressing about this.’

  ‘Sorry. I know I’m being a complete pain.’

  ‘You’re not. This is a huge deal for you. But there’s no point in speculating.’ He put his hands around her face and kissed her on the nose. ‘There’s going to be loads to talk about tomorrow. So let’s just have fun tonight.’ He took her hand and drew her back down the road towards the hotel. She had to run to keep up with his stride, but she knew he was right.

  They came to a gap in the houses where a little wall overlooked the harbour. The evening sun was an impossible orange; the water played with the light it threw, tossing sparks of gold and silver around the bay.

  ‘Stand there,’ Dan commanded, and pulled out a tiny camera from his pocket, the one he used for snaps.

  Laura leant back against the warmth of the wall, smiling. The sea breeze tossed strands of her hair around her face, and she tried to smooth them down.

  ‘No. Leave them. It’s fine. Windswept is good.’

  Afterwards, she looked at the pictures of herself on the screen. That’s me, she thought, the day before I meet the man who might be my father. How will I look tomorrow?

  Nine

  Colin was not enjoying his dinner.

  It was a shame. One of the reasons he had chosen the Townhouse was because he thought the menu looked wonderful. But Karen made it very obvious that it wasn’t her idea of good food. She didn’t like fish, for a start, and as that was a speciality, it narrowed her options considerably. In the end she went for pâté and steak, while Colin ordered mussels, which came in a big, steaming pan. She looked at him in disgust as he scooped up the shells and devoured them.

  ‘I don’t know how you can eat those things.’

  Something else turning their nose up at what you were eating invariably spoiled your pleasure.

  Plus Alison had phoned just before they had come down to dinner. She didn’t usually phone while he was away. She said she hated the idea of bothering him with trivialities while he was in the middle of something. But tonight she’d needed to double-check a date with him urgently, and when he reassured her that he wasn’t in the middle of business, she had chatted away to him about her day – a bit of village gossip, Ryan had sent through some photos, the agricultural contractor had finally come to trim the hedges . . . By the time they said goodbye, Colin wished he was at home, about to sit down to a quiet supper with his wife, instead of what he suspected would be a far from quiet dinner with his ex-mistress.