When the door swung wide and he came in, there was almost a little cheer as he greeted their enthusiasm with a smile.
I had literally no idea what to do or how to react. His beauty mesmerized me once again. I froze, panicking, completely at a loss, and it was only when he approached me first, leaning over to kiss me warmly, that I started to relax.
He tasted of toothpaste and smelled of some astringent, woody aftershave. It was going to be all right, I realized, as the others beamed at me without apparent jealousy. It was going to be all right.
Lucy and Penelope had already risen, fussing to make coffee, while Aaron settled into the comfortably stuffed leather chair which I noticed had been left empty throughout the afternoon.
‘So you’re here,’ he said, as though we were the only two people in the room. He lit a cigarette, something with dark brown paper and a strong scent, his broad hand cupping around the tiny flame as he sucked in hard, his dark hair stroking his cheek as he leaned forward. ‘Good. Good. Excellent, in fact.’
I managed a weak smile.
‘But you’re wondering what you’re doing here.’ He leaned back in the chair, meeting my gaze, while the others were silent, contemplating us both.
‘Well,’ I said anxiously, wrapping one of the skirt-belt ties tight around one finger and letting the tiny bell ring gently. ‘I had wondered. A little.’
To be truthful, I’d come in hopes of becoming his girlfriend, but in this room full of intent, evasive strangers watching me, this was more frank than I was capable of being.
‘But you came anyway,’ he said, as smoke curled out of his mouth. He offered me a faint knowing smile. ‘You are an adventuress.’
I just stared at him. Nobody in my wildest dreams had ever described me as an adventuress. I saw myself suddenly in a pith helmet, compass in hand, deliberately lost in uncharted, unknown territory.
I shook my head, to clear the illusion. ‘I don’t know about that …’
‘Nonsense,’ he drawled. ‘Of course you are. You are many things, Nina, and I don’t think you realize half of them yet. But you will. All of you will.’ He tapped the table, as though bringing us to order. ‘So, are we all ready for the next phase?’
Everyone around me nodded in unison.
‘What is the next phase?’ I asked.
Aaron regarded me for a long moment, his dark eyes considering me. ‘Hmm. Well. The next phase of what I and the other Ascendants do here.’
The what?
Everyone nodded again, looking at me.
I didn’t know what to do with this circular conversation, Sophia. I find straightforward conversations difficult enough, as you probably know. I’d already asked a direct question and been rebuffed, and I wasn’t sure what my next move should be.
‘What do you know about the Creative Spark, Nina?’ he asked.
The others waited in expectant silence.
‘The Creative Spark?’ Was this a test? ‘I … not much.’
‘Divine creativity, the kind that swoops down and possesses you.’ He inhaled smoke and watched me. ‘That’s the kind we’re interested in here at Morningstar. Maybe it’s the kind that interests you, too. And if that’s the case,’ he said, leaning forward, ‘then maybe we can do something about that.’
I didn’t understand what he meant.
But also, and this was the nub of the matter – I was incapable of telling love from desire. Aaron was, at the time, all I knew of desire in the world, and after those hours in his arms, and being charmed by his expensive car, his beautiful house and the kindling flame of his admiration, I would have persuaded myself to accept almost anything he suggested.
I was aware of them all awaiting my reaction, and it was making my cheeks heat with a blush.
He leaned back in the chair, those deep-set eyes fastened on me. Nobody, I realized, looked at me like that, with such fearless interest. And now I could feel myself growing wet and flustered.
‘So what do you say, Nina?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to take a risk? To learn a little more?’
I sat, paralysed. I had no idea what they were talking about, but if it kept me near Aaron – he called me an adventuress! – then what was the harm in it?
I tried to imagine the mortification of saying no, I couldn’t possibly stay, of getting back in that car with the driver and being borne away, followed by the waves of their disappointment, like a cold, lapping tide.
It would be the end of me and Aaron – so much I understood.
There was no way I could allow it to end. Not yet.
‘I … I don’t know anything about this kind of thing, but … yeah, sure. It sounds like it will be a fun weekend.’
The others broke into wild cheering, hugging me, kissing me, and I let them, inwardly stunned and confused (and a little bit suspicious, if we’re going for full disclosure) as to how I had caused this reaction, but also happy.
They were nice to me. They seemed to like me. I wasn’t tiptoeing around them like I did with Rosie and Piers. They all seemed free and easy and …
And this could be fun. All I’d agreed to do was find out a little more. To hang out with them.
What could go wrong?
* * *
There was no more talk of the Creative Spark that day. Instead, Aaron declared that since the weather was good we would go clay pigeon shooting.
‘I don’t know anything about guns or how to shoot,’ I confessed to him.
‘You’ll learn.’
Men in overalls drove us out across the green fields in two jeeps. I sat next to Aaron, between him and Lucy, Wolf riding shotgun. I kept catching Wolf’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, narrowing at me.
My first taste of shooting suited me down to the ground. I loved everything about it – far more than I thought I would. The smell of the gunpowder and oil and the crushed green bracken, the fulsome bang as I tracked the luminous discs of clay, even the subdued violence of the recoil into my chest, bruising me again and again, was exciting and dangerous.
‘To learn to shoot is to learn to surrender,’ that brogue of his murmured into my ear, raising the tiny hairs on my cheek as his warm breath brushed them.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You have to fire once the clay falls into your sights. You can’t wait, you can’t hesitate, you must pull the trigger right at that moment and let the gun slam back into you, let the shot fly, whether you’re ready or not.’ He chuckled, and his hands fell about my waist, caressed my hips, and just for a second one brushed over my crotch, with a deliberate, featherlight pressure. ‘It’s all about surrender. It’s a metaphor for sex. For life.’
* * *
That evening, after a good dinner that his cook prepared, we stayed up late into the night in front of a roaring fire in the library, smoking spliffs and making inroads into a bottle of cognac that Aaron had told us was worth a thousand pounds.
He sat in his armchair by the fire, his hair like a dark lion’s mane, his gaze lingering on each of us, one by one.
‘You first,’ purred Tristan, settling in next to me on the couch, combing back his rumpled blonde locks with long fingers that had clearly never done any kind of manual labour. ‘You’re the guest, after all.’
There was something very gentle yet clumsy about Tristan’s gestures, like a lot of very tall men. I intuited that he was someone like me, someone who had never been sure about himself or his place in the world.
He poured me a glass of the brandy while I giggled. This is what I remember about him – that there was an uncomplicated kindness to him, a trustworthiness, that didn’t make me think twice. The others were friendly and kind too, but not in quite the same way.
I tried to justify this to myself, because I wanted to like them, and Aaron clearly liked them, which was why we were all there. It wasn’t that they were false, I rationalized to myself, it was just that if I’d met any of them as a stranger, Tristan would be the only one to treat me exactly the same way.
; Poor, poor Tristan.
‘This is wasted on me,’ I protested. ‘I’m not an expert.’
‘You don’t have to be an expert,’ said Penelope coolly. ‘Just enjoy it.’
Next to her Lucy offered me a lazy smile, her head lolling against Aaron’s knee by the fire. ‘Just taste it, Nina.’
‘Why’s this cognac worth a thousand pounds?’ I asked, watching Tristan fill six tumblers with a fingersworth of the amber liquid. The bottle had a decaying and dusty label: Bisquit Dubouché Grande Fine Champagne Cognac Année 1856.
‘It’s a pre-phylloxera bottle,’ said Tristan, carefully pouring until all were level.
‘Preffilloxery?’ Tess asked, confused. I was struck again by how young she looked – barely old enough to drink. ‘What’s that?’
‘Pre-phylloxera,’ he repeated. ‘In the eighteen fifties in Europe, nearly all the old vineyards were destroyed by a parasite, the larvae of a fly called phylloxera.’ He held up a glass and offered it to me, which I cautiously accepted. ‘They were never the same afterwards. This bottle is one of the last survivors of a vanished age.’
‘It’s a waste of fucking money, that’s what it is,’ muttered Wolf.
‘Quiet, you,’ said Aaron. He reached forward, ruffled Tristan’s golden hair affectionately. ‘My sweet boy Tristan is also one of the last survivors of a vanished age.’ He gave his shoulder a light squeeze, almost a caress.
This gesture threw me: men didn’t act like this around one another in public then, and I was very innocent. I was still recovering from my surprise when the others took up their own glasses, Lucy sniffing hers greedily.
‘To the Creative Spark!’ said Aaron, raising the glass.
‘To the Creative Spark!’ rejoined the others, clinking their tumblers together.
‘Drink,’ Aaron commanded me, seeing me hesitate at this strange toast, and I instantly obeyed, as I was wont to do. The brandy was warm on my tongue, but burned all the way down, while I tried not to wince or hiss.
‘What does a thousand pounds taste like, Nina?’ asked Tristan, grinning. His cheeks were pink, his eyes shining. Aaron’s hand was back on his shoulder.
‘A thousand pounds tastes like caramel,’ I replied boldly, and filled with a kind of drunken bravado, I drained the glass in one, though it excoriated my throat all the way down. ‘And also alcohol.’
‘You little savage!’ said Aaron. ‘That’s an atrocious way to treat good cognac!’ He stood, and I found myself swept up and swung over his shoulder. He was unexpectedly strong. ‘You shall go to bed with no supper.’
‘Goodnight, Aaron! Goodnight Nina!’ came the cries from the room. I couldn’t see the others, as I hung upside down along Aaron’s back, the room spinning, my long hair shading my eyes as I tried to raise my head.
‘Oh, put me down!’ I cried weakly, giggling with nerves and desire. ‘You’re making me dizzy!’
‘Yes, yes.’ We were mounting the stairs and my heart was pounding. My hands moved against his back, his skin warm through his shirt. I knew what was coming next, and it made me breathless to think of it. ‘I’ll put you down. All in good time.’
* * *
‘Nina! Where have you been?’
It was five days later and I’d finally called, sitting on the Queen Anne chair next to the old-fashioned Bakelite telephone in the morning room.
It was hard to concentrate on what Rosie was saying. It was as though my attention and focus had somehow been moved out of my body, so that it hovered perpetually somewhere around Aaron.
Even now, I knew he was in the main drawing room playing pool with the boys while the girls sat in the bay windows, watching and calling out advice, and the feeling of wrongness in being separated from him for even the time it took to check in with Rosie was overwhelming.
I was in love. But it was more than that. I was understood here. I was accepted.
I was home.
‘Nowhere. Away. I’m with friends. In Kent.’
It was Thursday, and I’d made no plans yet to go back to college. The thought of it hung over me like a black cloud. I was missing lectures, supervisions, writing no essays. It had been quietly suggested to me by Aaron that I didn’t have to go back if I didn’t want to, not immediately, anyway – his driver could take my key and collect any things I needed from my college room.
‘But … I can’t just give up!’ I’d said, as we’d lain in his huge bed, tangled together in his glossy silk sheets.
‘It was only a suggestion,’ he murmured into my ear, then nipped the lobe.
Aaron was contemptuous of how much you could learn in a university. He didn’t see the point. He’d never needed to go. As much as it embarrasses me to admit it now, I had started to wonder whether he was right. Late at night, while I lay there with him, he told me the world was just a dream, the froth on the real existence that lay just underneath, beneath the surface. How was university supposed to help me access that?
Since my capacity for rational thought was draining away on a diet of sex, drugs, luxury and love, I didn’t resist much.
Of course I would go back to university, I told myself. At some point. Very soon.
In any case, Aaron was too clever to obviously disapprove of my plans, or forbid me. The few times I’d seriously mentioned returning, or at least checking in, getting my assignments and contacting my friends, had resulted in indifferent non-committal grunts and a vague feeling that I was disappointing him. He’d speak to the driver, he’d say dismissively, but then somehow that never seemed to happen.
Besides, the others told me, my focus should be here. I had been chosen, and handed a great opportunity. Everyone depended on one another here.
What was involved was still a mystery, but doubtless all would be revealed in good time.
‘What are you talking about, Nina? What friends? What about uni?’ Rosie sounded utterly perplexed, as well she might. ‘When are you coming back?’
‘Oh, I’ll be back. Soon.’
There was a long pause.
‘Nina, are you at Morningstar? With Aaron Kessler and his lot?’
I was aware, though there had been no prohibition – nothing was forbidden here, after all – that Aaron and the others didn’t like to talk about their group with ‘outsiders’.
‘Look, Rosie, I …’
‘You are, aren’t you?’
‘No … I’m just with friends …’
‘Nina, listen to me. Just please listen. You have to get out of there. They’re not good people.’
This was, on the face of it, such an absurd statement that I had trouble comprehending it.
‘What?’
‘No, listen. They were so weird with us when we came to that house party last week. They wouldn’t let me look for you, wouldn’t tell me anything, kept trying to get us drunker and drunker … they’re shifty. They’re into … some strange things. People say it’s a cult.’
I couldn’t help it. I snorted out a laugh. ‘A cult?’
Of course they were into strange things. But a cult? That was ridiculous. Rosie was just too provincial to get it.
Aaron had already said as much about her. He’d seen it the minute he’d laid eyes on her, he told me.
‘That’s absurd,’ I said. ‘They just have, you know, their own beliefs. You wouldn’t understand and I’m not supposed to talk about them—’
‘So you are there! Why did you lie to me?’
‘Rosie, I need to go,’ I said, deciding to lie again. ‘Dinner’s ready, and I have to set the table.’
‘Nina …’
‘Rosie, I’ll ring you back tomorrow, yeah? And please don’t worry about me. I’m absolutely fine.’ I smiled, happy now the call was ending and I could get back to the others, to Aaron’s side. ‘Never been better.’
Chapter Nine
It was nearly three in the morning. It was cool now in my dad’s shed, and my legs were stiff and my nails bitten.
I hadn’t been able to read past the f
irst notebook. I didn’t have the stamina. I needed to think about what I’d already learned. I gathered both notebooks up in my shaking hands, determined not to spend another second in the shed, with my mum’s ghost so vibrant and visible I could have reached out and touched her. She was the shade of a pale ingénue from a life she’d had before I was born, so young and innocent and so, God forgive me for saying it, so bloody, bloody stupid.
I took my feet off my dad’s desk and stood up, realizing with a shock that this had always been his gesture – when I glimpsed him through the window and he hadn’t been working, he had always been half-perched on this, his favourite chair (which had proved to be exceptionally uncomfortable, with its bunched cushions and slightly wonky leg), his shabby socked feet crossed over one another and parked on top of the scarred surface of the desk.
It was almost as if, by mimicking their gestures and reading their experiences, I could conjure my parents back to life again.
But the tragedy was that the people I conjured were still my parents, and as huge as my grief was, they both still drove me mad. I had recognized my mum in her writing, her hesitant patterns of speech, her desire to make everybody happy at her own expense, her almost pathological self-effacement …
I was just thinking about them both as I stood beneath the striplight over the desk, my irrational fear of the shed and the garden and the late hour gone, and without my noticing, for a nanosecond my grief was gone, too.
Yes, my mum had done a foolish, reckless thing, and Aaron Kessler had used his age and status to take advantage of her, of that there could be no doubt.
My mum and Aaron Kessler.
Wow! I bit my lip.
I’d heard of him, of course.
The Boarhounds were from well before my time, and I’d never been that interested in them personally. All I knew of them was that famous first album; the one that was always featured on lists of all-time greats in the music press, alongside Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy.
Everything Is Lies Page 11