Plots and Errors

by Jill McGown

The Garden at Little Elmley.

  They walked through a little copse, and Sandie found herself back more or less where she had started, looking across a long mowed and clipped lawn to the terrace where the Esterbrooks were gathered, having their pre-dinner drinks, unaware of her and Josh’s proximity.

  Josh stopped walking, and drew her under the branches of a weeping willow which trailed down into a small pond. ‘Paul wants you to learn to dive,’ he said.

  ‘Does he?’ What Paul wanted was of very little interest to Sandie right now.

  ‘I could give you a crash course next weekend,’ Josh said. ‘If that would suit you. It would be here, not at the club. We’ve got a pool.’

  She frowned. ‘You’re going to give me diving lessons instead of taking your boat out?’

  He nodded. ‘We could do the theory over a couple of evenings during the week. You’ll have to complete a medical declaration that says you’re fit to dive, and get it signed by your doctor, and then we can do the practical instruction at the weekend.’

  ‘But you’ll lose money if you don’t take the boat out, won’t you?’

  ‘That’s up to me. Does it suit you?’

  Sandie wasn’t sure she fancied the idea of swimming underwater. ‘Why on earth did he tell Elizabeth I could dive?’ she asked.

  ‘He’d be explaining you away,’ he said, and smiled. ‘And we wouldn’t want to make a liar of him, would we?’

  She didn’t want to learn how to dive. But she wanted to be with Josh. ‘No,’ she said, smiling back. ‘We wouldn’t.’ She leant back on the tree, looking at him. ‘You don’t like him, do you?’

  ‘Not much. Do you?’

  She looked through the leafy branches to where Paul sat chatting to his wife and mother, acting the part of the perfect husband, even though they both must know that he wasn’t. Lying when people knew you were lying was somehow worse than actually deceiving them, but whether or not she liked him wasn’t something to which she had given any thought before today; he had just been there, a stepping-stone to a better life.

  He had always been all right up until now; it had all taken place in seedy city hotels when they were at invented business meetings, but she hadn’t minded that. She hadn’t minded anything much; that was why she had been able to get herself the job at IMG. And when he had told her his plans for his weekends in Cornwall, she hadn’t even minded that. But his wife taking him up on the mocking invitation that he had clearly offered her every time he went to Josh’s boat had brought him out in his true colours, and she had minded that.

  First, he had used her to humiliate Elizabeth, then, upon Elizabeth’s unexpected departure before the morning session, had bundled her down into Josh’s cabin, and stinging slaps had landed on bare skin tender from the sun in a space too confined for her to get out of the way of them. She had been told, when he had finished, that it was for taking too much interest in Josh, had been warned that if she came on to him again she would get a great deal worse, and then had been locked in the cabin so the angry red marks would fade before anyone saw her. He hadn’t let her out until the afternoon divers had boarded, and now he was sitting chatting to his wife and mother as though none of that had happened.

  ‘If you want to know, I think he’s a shit,’ she said.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Josh.

  ‘So why do you let him use you like he does?’

  Josh smiled. ‘Shouldn’t that be my question?’

  ‘I didn’t grow up with all of this. A good job, a good salary and a company car are what I get out of the arrangement. If I don’t like it, I can move on, and I might do just that. What do you get out of it?’

  ‘It never hurts to be owed a favour or two by someone who wants to pass his girlfriend off as your girlfriend.’ He smiled, and moved closer to her. ‘And we just agreed we didn’t want to make a liar of him, didn’t we?’

  His hand was moving up under her skirt, pushing down her bikini bottoms, and she caught her breath when he touched her. She had known it would happen sooner or later; she just hadn’t expected it to happen in broad daylight with Paul as a possible onlooker. She glanced over her shoulder at the group on the terrace, just a few thin branches between her and them, and looked back at Josh. All anyone had to do was look in their direction, but somehow the imminent possibility of being seen just made what Josh was doing all the more arousing.

  ‘This is crazy,’ she said.

  ‘But you want to do it. I know you do.’

  She could feel her face grow a little hot as her excitement grew, her heart beating faster as she pulled down his zip. And it happened, as it had been going to happen ever since that question had appeared in his eyes, happened in as near silence as they could manage, her swift climax leaving her breathless and exhilarated.

  She glanced over at the terrace as they got their breath back, and rearranged their clothes; no one had seen; no one had heard. She looked back at Josh. ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked.

  ‘Because it was dangerous,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Why did you let me?’

  ‘Because it was exciting.’

  Josh nodded. ‘Shall we join the others?’ he said.

  SCENE XV – BARTONSHIRE.

  The following weekend, Saturday, July 19th, 8.15 a.m.

  The Master Bedroom.

  Paul opened his eyes to see Elizabeth putting on her housecoat. Morning. It always took him a few moments to sort out his thoughts when he had been asleep, but that didn’t stop Elizabeth immediately beginning a conversation because his eyelids had parted.

  ‘It’s past eight,’ she said. ‘I take it there’s no diving this weekend?’

  He blinked a little, then sat up. ‘No,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. He’d spent all week looking forward to the weekend, only to have Josh ring him up last night and tell him that he wasn’t taking the boat out. He was giving Sandie a weekend diving course, he’d said, and Paul was far from happy about that. He had thought he’d made his feelings clear. Still, perhaps he could turn it to some sort of advantage; it did, after all, reinforce his cover-story. ‘He’s doing something with Sandie this weekend.’

  Elizabeth didn’t believe him, of course. ‘So how long have she and Josh been an item?’ she asked.

  Paul threw back the duvet, and swung his legs out of bed. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well – how long has she worked at IMG?’

  Paul sighed. ‘Two months or so,’ he said.

  Josh would be taking Sandie to the reservoir tomorrow, and he had informed his brother that he would pop over there to check up on her progress. There had better be some progress, he thought grimly. No sudden colds in the head or any other excuse. If she’d been doing anything with Josh other than learning sub aqua, she’d be very sorry.

  ‘And how long was it before you offered her the job?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ He got off the bed and went into the bathroom, closing and locking the door.

  SCENE XVI – BARTONSHIRE.

  Saturday, July 19th, 8.25 a.m.

  The en-suite Bathroom.

  She was doing this on purpose, the bitch, he thought angrily, as he relieved his bladder, and sighed aloud when she knocked at the door. ‘What?’ he said, flushing the lavatory.

  ‘I need some stuff that’s in there. Why have you locked the door?’

  He pulled back the bolt, and she came in as he stepped into the shower and slid the panel over. He could hear her busily picking things up that she had no need for at all; she just wanted to carry on this conversation, because she knew it annoyed him.

  ‘Strange that Angela didn’t know about her,’ she said, raising her voice so that he could hear her above the shower.

  ‘Well, Josh doesn’t exactly confide in her any more, you know.’ That was true. Every now and then he had the luxury of telling the truth. Josh used to be great mates with his stepmother, but not any more. Of course, it was his bloody mother he had to thank for Josh’s monopolization of Sandie; she was determi
ned to throw him at the first woman he looked remotely interested in.

  ‘What happened between Josh and Angela?’ Elizabeth asked.

  At least he’d got her off the subject of Sandie for the moment. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said. Also the truth. ‘It was after father died. Perhaps it was just being forced to move back in with her that caused a problem.’

  ‘Josh wouldn’t blame her for that.’

  ‘No,’ Paul agreed. Josh hadn’t blamed her; indeed, he had seemed relatively happy with the idea at the time. It was a bit later on that it happened, whatever it was. ‘They must have had a row about something, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Though they seemed to be getting on all right last week,’ he added. Of course they were, with Josh squiring Sandie around like some sort of son of the big house, instead of the ne’er-do-well that he was, and Sandie behaving like every mother’s dream daughter instead of the tart that she was.

  ‘She’s very keen on Sandie, isn’t she?’

  Jesus. Between them his mother and his wife were making his life even more difficult than it had to be. Sandie would never have had the chance to discover that she fancied Josh if it hadn’t been for Elizabeth’s insistence on going to Cornwall with him, because she would barely have spoken to him. And his mother would have minded her own business; it was Elizabeth’s presence that had bothered her, not Sandie’s.

  Then something occurred to him. The precautions that he took had been, until now, the sort that any good undercover man took. Assume the enemy knows more than you think he does, and act accordingly. But now, as he thought about it, he began to wonder about that pincer movement that had ended up with Sandie’s feet literally under Josh’s table. Did Elizabeth really have someone watching him? Someone who had already told her about Sandie? And had she gone running to his mother? Had they arranged this between them? Why had Elizabeth decided to come with him? Why had his mother come down to the boat? She never came to the boat. Damn it, his wife and his mother were conspiring against him, and Paul felt a sweep of sheer, impotent rage as Elizabeth’s voice reached him again.

  ‘Are you ever coming out of that shower?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ he roared. ‘We’ve got two fucking shower-rooms and a whole other fucking bathroom! What’s so fucking great about this one?’

  ‘Do you speak to your employees like that?’ she asked archly. ‘Sandie, for instance?’

  Yes, he thought, as he heard the door close. He had not only spoken to Sandie like that, he had given her a good hard slapping while he was at it. What he wouldn’t give to do that to Elizabeth. He sighed, because he knew what he wouldn’t give. Three-quarters of IMG was what he wouldn’t give, and that was what it would cost him.

  SCENE XVII – BARTONSHIRE.

  Saturday, July 19th, 8.45 a.m.

  The Swimming Pool at Little Elmley.

  Josh led the way through the grounds until they were walking along the green glass wall of the covered swimming pool. ‘He had it put in so that Paul and I could learn what you’re just about to learn,’ he said, pushing open the door. ‘Angela wanted somewhere a bit safer than the reservoir.’

  They walked into the damp warmth that was always present despite the cool marble floor. The three high sandstone walls were inset here and there with thick stained glass, the deep, rich colours glowing with reflections from the water, and the pool itself was lit by the morning sunshine that filtered, tinged with green, through the plate glass of the fourth wall.

  ‘Wow.’

  Josh smiled. ‘He never did anything by half,’ he said.

  ‘You never answered my question,’ she said.

  ‘Which was what?’

  ‘Why does everyone in this family have money but you?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ he said. ‘Anyway – the deep end is much deeper than a normal pool, so that you can learn how to do all the things you need to know before you do a sheltered-water dive. It had to be as long as it is so that it wasn’t a sheer drop, but it’s still got a very steep rake, so you have to watch yourself.’

  ‘And that’s safer than the reservoir?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure my father thought a good drowning would make men of us. This was his idea of a compromise. He built it where Angela could keep an eye on us from her study.’

  ‘Try me,’ she said.

  Josh frowned. ‘Try you with what?’

  ‘With whatever it is I wouldn’t believe about why they’re rich and you’re not.’

  ‘It’s all very embarrassing,’ he said. ‘My father made one of those ridiculous wills.’

  ‘Ridiculous how?’

  ‘The capital and his seventy-five per cent share of the business got put in what he called the Esterbrook Family Trust,’ he began.

  ‘I thought Paul owned the business.’

  ‘Not yet. He’s the boss. He can hire and fire. He runs it. But he only gets the controlling interest if he stays married to Elizabeth for at least twenty-five years, does not choose to live apart from her, and isn’t divorced by her for adultery or cruelty.’ He grinned. ‘He can control his temper, but not his urges. Hence his complex weekend arrangements, because if she can prove his adultery in court, sixty per cent of IMG goes to the Esterbrook Marine Research Fund, and the other fifteen per cent goes to Elizabeth. None of it goes to Paul.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I’m not allowed anywhere near the business. Nor any member of my family, should I ever have one. My father thought I had tainted blood or something.’

  ‘Tainted with what?’

  ‘Madness,’ he said, with a leer. ‘He had a very Victorian outlook on everything. My mother wasn’t exactly—’ He didn’t go on with what he was going to say, but gave a short sigh, and changed the subject. ‘Did you get a proper swimming costume like I told you to?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  She removed her blouse and skirt and revealed an eminently sensible swimming costume, and he watched as she let herself into the pool’s warm depths, walking down a little way, finding out for herself just how steep a rake the pool had. She regained her composure, and swam to and fro across the pool until he told her to come out. She was a good, strong swimmer, so there was no problem there.

  ‘So your half-brother’s rich because he’s the chairman of IMG,’ she said, as she climbed out of the pool. ‘What about your stepmother?’

  ‘My stepmother got left the income from the capital, and the right to apply to the Trust for anything she requires over and above her income, providing the Trust regard the request as reasonable. That’s how come she bought Lazy Sunday. The Trust decided it was reasonable, as long as it was registered to her.’

  ‘I take it that your stepmother’s reasonable too, or she wouldn’t have got it for you.’

  ‘Oh, yes. My stepmother’s life is a monument to reason. Unlike my mother’s, apparently.’

  ‘Do you remember much about your mother?’

  ‘Yes.’ Josh blinked away the tears that still, after over thirty years, would threaten when he spoke of her. ‘I remember someone who was great fun to be with sometimes and difficult other times.’ He shrugged. ‘My father said it was much worse than that. And he believed I take after her.’ He smiled. ‘I probably do.’

  ‘Did he cut you out of the will altogether?’

  ‘Not quite. I’m on probation, like Paul, but for a lot less, for a lot longer, and with considerably more restrictions.’ He motioned to the bag that she had brought with her. ‘Let’s see what you bought.’

  She opened the bag to reveal shocking pink fins, mask and snorkel. ‘Don’t blame me,’ she said, when he grinned. ‘It was either that or lime green.’

  Josh watched as she put on the wetsuit, which flattened her breasts and made her look more like a cat than ever. A pink and blue cat.

  She looked at him in his traditional black, and shrugged. ‘This was the nearest I could get to good taste,’ she said. ‘What restrictions?’

  Josh smiled at her pe
rsistence, and rewarded it with the information she wanted. ‘The judge had recommended fifteen years before parole for my partner in crime, so my father said he was giving me fifteen years to serve on top of my sentence, to reflect the enormity of my deed, which the court had failed to do.’

  She frowned. ‘What did he mean?’

  ‘Fifteen years after the date of his death, I’ll get what it pleased him to call the family home, but only if I live in the aforesaid family home at the time, and have lived there continuously since the date of his death. If I’m away from the family home for anything other than what he called ‘‘normal breaks of reasonable length and frequency’’ or if I indulge in inappropriate behaviour while I’m there, I forfeit any claim on the estate.’

  He knew the wording off by heart. He had pored over that will, trying to find a loophole, but his father had left none.

  ‘I take it indulging in a quick knee-trembler in broad daylight where your stepmother could have seen you is inappropriate behaviour?’

  ‘Highly.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘But you only did that because of the inappropriate behaviour clause,’ she said. ‘Why did he have it in the will in the first place?’

  Josh smiled. It had been a long time since anyone had truly understood him and his motives for doing anything. His mother had. ‘My stepmother has the right of abode until my sentence is up, and the inappropriate behaviour clause was put in so that I couldn’t make her life a misery and force her out, either deliberately or because of my inherited madness. My father thought of everything.’

  ‘Is she here now?’

  ‘No – she went to Penhallin yesterday, as usual, which surprised me a little.’

  She smiled at him. ‘So you can behave as inappropriately as you like?’

  ‘You’re here to work,’ he said. ‘One day in here, and one day at the reservoir, and I can have you ready for your first open-water dive.’

  She looked a little sceptical about that. ‘Two days?’ she repeated. ‘How long did it take you and Paul to learn?’

  ‘We learned very gradually, but this way is perfectly possible. You’ll need to get in a lot of practice after that before you can call yourself a novice, even, but you’ll have all the basics, so you’ll be able to practise to your heart’s content if you join the diving club.’ He already felt sure that she would be doing just that.