by Anna Jacobs
He had to do something to prove to his selfish half-sister once and for all that firstly he wasn’t rich and secondly he had better things to do with what money he did have than take care of her. But would that be enough to ensure that she wouldn’t try to use him again?
It really ought to be up to Pierre to look after her and what was presumably his child. But did he still want her? Whether he did or not, surely he cared about his unborn child?
On that thought Russ got out his phone and checked it again, but Pierre hadn’t replied to his message yet.
‘Hurry up, damn you!’ he muttered.
He picked up a pencil and began to doodle, which usually helped him to think more clearly. To his surprise he found himself drawing Simone’s face. It came out well, too. His sketches of people didn’t always do that, for some strange reason. He was better at sketching animals.
Simone had not only been kind to him, she’d made him laugh as well. He added a few more pencil strokes. He felt as if he had known her and her face for a long time. She wasn’t beautiful, she was … comely … an old-fashioned word but then her attractiveness was old-fashioned.
‘Who’s that woman next door? I thought you said an older couple lived there.’
He jerked round to see Justine standing just inside the doorway. ‘My temporary neighbour is an Australian. She’s swapped houses with them for a while.’
‘Oh. I thought she might be a close friend of yours.’
‘I’m working on that.’
‘But she’s fat! How can you even be interested in her?’
She scowled at him, though what business his friends were of hers he didn’t know. ‘I like women with nice curves.’
‘You always have been weird, Russ. Fancy being attracted to fat women.’
‘She isn’t fat by anyone else’s standards but yours.’
‘Of course she is. We know now that fat is unhealthy and thin is best.’ She gave one of her elaborate, artificial shudders. ‘The woman must be weird too. Who’d want to come to this dump of a place, stuck out in the middle of nowhere when they could be in a sunny country lying on a beach?’
‘You, apparently. Feel free to leave at any time.’
She began to walk round, fingering his things. ‘This is a lovely room. I could work in here.’
‘You’re not going to do that. And please don’t touch my art materials. I have my own way of arranging them. In fact, please go and wait for me in the kitchen.’ When she made no attempt to leave, he grabbed her, ignoring her whine of protest and pushing her gently out of the door. He shut it firmly.
Hmm. She’d be in here again as soon as he turned his back since the door didn’t lock. The trouble was, this room was very important to him and he didn’t want her messing around in it at all. She’d spill paint on the new carpet and mess up his supplies, and he’d hate her to get her hands on his cameras.
He remembered suddenly that he had an old lock in one of the unpacked boxes standing along one wall. He’d used the lock to secure the shed at a rented house a couple of years ago and removed it when he left. He wasn’t in the habit of throwing away perfectly good items that might be useful one day.
He opened the door, checking its construction. Yes, he could fit the lock into it quite easily and he’d do it before he went to bed, because Justine had no respect whatsoever for other people’s possessions.
She didn’t seem to have much respect for anything, actually. How she’d managed to get Pierre to stay with her for so long was a miracle. She might be physically lovely, especially her face, and able to turn on the charm when she wanted, but she was selfish to the core and incurably untidy. Russ could never have lived with her chaos.
She ought to be wearing a sign saying Only rich men need come near me. She was stupid to have run away from Pierre.
Russ’s phone pinged and he got it out of his pocket quickly. ‘Ah.’ He made sure the studio door was firmly shut before he answered, switching into adequate French as he and Pierre chatted.
‘Is Justine all right, Russ?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s not, um, hysterical or anything?’
‘Not hysterical but acting rather strange.’
‘Can you keep her there till tomorrow afternoon? I’ve had a doctor looking after her and we thought she was settling down. I can hardly drag him out and take him to England in the middle of the night, though. I’ll have to see him first thing and get a recommendation for a similar service in the UK.’
‘Service?’
‘Mental health. She’d grown more unbalanced than before because she’d been taking drugs again till I found out and stopped it.’
‘Oh hell, no.’
‘I’m trying to keep her calm until the child’s born. She seemed to have settled down so I took the opportunity to nip across to Frankfurt for an important meeting. I thought I’d made sure she didn’t have any money, but she took one of my statuettes and I should think she’s sold it. I’d removed all her fancy luggage, too, but she must have found something in the attic. When I got back, she’d left and taken some of her clothes.’
Unbalanced was a good way of describing Justine. Her moods had always been up and down, and had got worse since their mother died. Had that led to her going back to drugs? Ah, who knew what motivated the silly girl?
‘So, you’ll look after her?’ Pierre prompted.
‘Yes, I’ll keep an eye on her tomorrow. But she’s not staying here any longer than that.’
As he put the phone away Russ nodded in satisfaction. It would all be sorted by tomorrow night. He opened the packing box he thought the lock was in and yes, there it was!
Better and better.
Before he started work he peeped into the living room. Justine didn’t notice him. She was lounging in front of the television. Heaven alone knew which channel she was watching but she’d turned up the volume and was wagging her head to and fro in time to some ghastly thumping music.
He had the lock fitted in his studio door within half an hour. Piece of cake.
When he went back into the living room, the music was still blaring loudly and Justine was asleep again.
He turned the volume down and got himself a sandwich, switching to a news channel as he ate it.
Two hours later he shook her awake. ‘You need to eat something.’
‘Not hungry. Food makes me sick.’
‘How about something light like a yoghurt with a bit of fruit?’
She considered that, head on one side, then nodded slowly. ‘I think that might stay down. And it wouldn’t be fattening, well, not much.’
When she’d finished most of the yoghurt, she pushed her bowl aside.
‘Time for bed now,’ he said.
‘It’s far too early to go to bed. Are you mad?’
‘This is the time I like to go to sleep and I’m not having that racket on. It’ll not only disturb me, it’ll disturb the neighbours. If you’re staying here, you’re living by my timetable anyway.’ He switched off the television to encourage her on her way.
It felt like having a wild animal in the house. She’d never seemed this irrational before. Was it because of her pregnancy – or because of the drugs?
Russ didn’t know her well enough these days even to guess. He’d not lived with her in recent years and only seen her at rare intervals.
Pity he’d had to bring her back here. But you had to look after your relatives when they were in trouble, even the nuisances.
Well, she wouldn’t be able to get into his studio at least and he only had to keep her here until tomorrow, then Pierre would come and take her away – and hopefully, keep her away permanently.
With a bit of luck she’d sleep late in the morning.
Chapter Nine
In the middle of the night Russ was woken by the sound of bumping and clattering downstairs. He tried to work out what the noise was, then remembered Justine and rolled quickly out of bed, grabbing his dressing gown and stuffing
his feet into his slippers as he moved towards the stairs.
He shoved her bedroom door open as he passed, just in case, but of course she wasn’t there.
He moved quietly down the stairs but he needn’t have bothered. She was in the kitchen, taking things out of cupboards and thumping them down on the surfaces as she continued her search. She didn’t even notice him.
As he watched she pushed some of the items aside impatiently and knocked them on the floor, breaking one jar. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Looking for where you keep your wine. It’s the only thing that puts me to sleep at times like this.’
‘Wine? But you’re pregnant. You shouldn’t be drinking anything alcoholic.’
‘I just told you: it’s the only thing that gets me to sleep. Where do you keep it?’
‘I don’t have any wine here at the moment. I used up my only bottle and haven’t bothered to buy any more yet.’
She picked up a tin and hurled it across at him, fortunately missing. ‘You stupid fool, we were at a shopping centre. You could have bought some there.’
‘I’m not a heavy drinker so it didn’t even occur to me. Are you telling me you can’t live without it?’
‘Of course I can! But I don’t see why I should. Isn’t this bad enough?’ She jabbed one finger at her stomach then hurled another tin at him.
He ducked and ran across to grab her as she picked up a jar of jam. For that short distance, thank goodness, his leg behaved. He managed to pry her fingers off the jar so that it dropped back onto the surface. As he kicked aside the pieces of broken glass and yellow mush from what had been a jar of peaches, she started to struggle violently, scratching him with her long red fingernails and screaming mindless abuse at him.
He tried to talk softly, he shouted, he even shook her, but he couldn’t calm her down or get her to listen to him.
He had to hold onto her arms to stop her hurling things about, was getting seriously worried about her state of mind and the safety of the unborn child. She kept trying to get away, even kicked him and all the time the shrill screaming and cursing continued.
What would the neighbours be thinking? She must have woken some of them by now.
Simone had been having another of those wakeful times, lying in bed wondering when jet lag would abate fully and allow her to sleep through the night. Suddenly she jerked upright as she heard a woman scream shrilly nearby.
The noise stopped then started up again, this time going on and on. It was coming from Russ’s house. What on earth was going on? Simone quickly dragged on some clothes and went to investigate.
She stood at the front outside the window of his kitchen and stared in, amazed at what she saw. A woman was throwing tins from the kitchen cupboards at Russ, who was dodging them and begging her to stop.
‘I won’t stop till you stop attacking me!’ she shrieked.
Only, he hadn’t moved, let alone tried to attack the woman.
It was a good thing she’d come to investigate, Simone thought. It wasn’t the screaming woman who might need her help but Russ if whoever this was maligned him to others.
She let out a shocked gasp as the woman lashed out at Russ. If she’d ever seen someone who’d ‘gone mad’ it was this woman, who was still yelling at him to stop attacking her.
She leant closer to the window because it seemed as if – yes, Russ had fresh scratches on his cheek, with blood trickling down, and still he was desperately trying not to hurt the woman.
Who was she?
She saw a light go on in one of the other houses and decided it was time to intervene, so went and rang the doorbell. Maybe her arrival would help calm the woman down.
Justine was making so much noise it took Russ a while to realise that the front doorbell had rung several times.
By now he’d realised that his half-sister was beyond reason. He kept hold of her to stop her doing further damage to his kitchen – or to herself – but couldn’t think what to do next. He didn’t let go of her but dragged her across with him to open the front door.
When she saw Simone standing outside, Justine immediately began screaming for help, yelling that she was being raped.
‘I’ve been watching through the window and I think it’s you who needs help, Russ, not to mention an impartial witness,’ Simone said quietly to him.
‘Did you hear me?’ Justine screeched. ‘Make him let me go!’
She ignored the woman.
Russ looked at her in obvious relief. ‘Oh, I do need help! I’m so grateful. Please come in and close the door. I don’t want her getting away or waking the whole street.’
Panting with the effort, he dragged the woman back into the living area. ‘This is my half-sister, Justine, who turned up suddenly today. She’s always been – um, volatile – but I’ve never seen her like this before.’
The ongoing moans and accusations of being attacked cut off abruptly and Justine yelled again. ‘Save me from him. He’s raped and abused me! That’s incest.’
His grip slackened, he was so shocked at this and she at once snatched up a vase of flowers and raised it in the air as if about to smash it on his head. But he grabbed her arms before she succeeded in doing anything except shower them both with water.
Simone grabbed the vase from behind the hysterical woman and put it quickly out of reach on the windowsill. ‘What on earth has set this off, Russ?’
‘You might well ask. She woke me by pulling things out of my cupboards and throwing them about. She claimed she was looking for a bottle of wine to calm herself down so she could sleep. Then she began screaming.’
‘Why is she here?’
‘She rang earlier to ask if she could stay with me, said she’d run away from the man she’s been living with for nearly two years in Paris.’
‘I had to run away!’ the woman yelled. ‘He’s been ill-treating me. You’re all against me, every last one of you.’ She began sobbing loudly like a child, burying her face in her hands, swaying back and forth.
Russ kept an eye on her and held onto her arm, continuing to speak to Simone in a low voice, ‘I think she must be an alcoholic – or maybe even on drugs – she’s behaving so irrationally. She doesn’t seem to care about the baby at all.’
‘I never wanted this damned baby!’ Justine yelled at him. ‘Never, ever! It was an accident. He’s paying me to carry it to term, but I’m not going to do it any longer. I can’t bear looking like this.’
She glared at Simone, then let out a mirthless laugh. ‘If I’m not careful, I’ll get as fat as you are, you interfering bitch.’
They both goggled at this unjust accusation, then she jerked away from Russ, picked up a cushion and tossed it at him. ‘Will you stay away from me?’
He didn’t move but once again she jerked back as if someone had hit her and began screaming for help.
‘I think we’d better call an ambulance,’ Simone said. ‘She’s beyond reasoning with, and she may harm the baby.’
‘I hope I do!’ Justine yelled at them.
‘Can you call them, Simone, while I keep an eye on her?’ he asked. ‘My phone’s over on the breakfast bar.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Simone dialled the emergency number and spoke to someone who said it would be at least an hour before anyone could get there.
Justine began to shriek for help and yell that she was being raped.
‘Is that her?’ the emergency officer asked, sounding shocked.
‘Yes. There’s no one near her and Russ hasn’t touched her. We’re worried because she’s pregnant, quite a good way along, we think.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘No. I only just met her a few minutes ago when I came to help my neighbour. She’s his half-sister and he’s not touching her, but we’re worried sick that she’ll hurt the baby.’
‘If there’s a baby involved, we’d better get someone there as quickly as we can.’
Justine began laughing hysterically. ‘I heard
that. They’ll be arresting you by the time I’ve finished laying charges of rape and incest, Russ bloody Carden.’
He didn’t even attempt to answer, just continued to keep a wary eye on her. He murmured to Simone, ‘I hope the ambulance will come quickly.’
So did she. This was like a nightmare.
Time seemed to pass slowly, with occasional outbursts of yelling from Justine, and it was over half an hour before the ambulance turned up. When the paramedics found themselves confronted by a violent, screaming woman, they insisted on calling in the police to help them subdue her on the way to hospital.
By that time there were lights on in a couple of nearby houses and the security officer at the hotel had phoned to ask if everything was all right.
The police arrived quickly and took over the task of keeping Justine from attacking Russ. By that time the paramedics had phoned the duty doctor for guidance on dealing with a violent pregnant woman.
The police officer questioning Russ kept her voice low but she was looking at him rather suspiciously. Simone couldn’t bear to see it and moved to stand next to him, linking her arm supportively in his.
The thankful look he gave her made her stay by his side while the paramedics managed to coax Justine to go with them quietly.
In the end Russ agreed to accompany the police, first to the hospital to give them Justine’s details then on to the station to make a statement about what had happened.
‘Can I phone the baby’s father in Paris first?’ he asked.
‘You’re not the father?’
‘I told you: I’m her half-brother. What sort of man do you think I am? She turned up here today, saying she was running away from Pierre. And she keeps saying she’s going to get rid of the baby.’
‘I heard her say that more than once in this short time,’ Simone put in. ‘And I saw her arrive. She wasn’t here before.’
‘I phoned the father earlier and he’s coming here tomorrow – no, it’s today now, isn’t it? But she’s grown so hysterical he needs to find a way to deal with her more quickly if he wants to protect his unborn baby.’
