There was something so bland about this history, something so sterile and almost corporate, as though it had been constructed rather than created. No gossip, no comedy, no online shopping, no pictures of baby animals – and most certainly no social media. Nothing like mine.
It was so lonely, I thought. Lonely and sparse.
Troubled, I shut the computer off and went to bed.
* * *
The next day I worked from my dad’s hospital room, with my phone on his bedside table.
At exactly 8 a.m. that morning I’d had an email from Benjamin:
Sophia,
Please can I have your report on the Scottish Heritage project. I have a project meeting with James in fifteen minutes and you failed to send an update yesterday.
Also, HR mentioned to me that you haven’t cleared yesterday’s day off through the proper channels. I invite you to look at section 5.2 of your employment terms and conditions on the intranet: www.amitynet/intra/employee-procedures for the correct process.
I hope all further extra days you take are cleared appropriately.
Benjamin Velasquez
Senior Architect
He’d cc’d James, the managing partner, in because where would the fun be in leaving him out?
I read this, my throat swelling with alarm and something a little like rage. At no point had he requested an update on Scottish Heritage – he hadn’t even acknowledged my email taking the project back.
I wanted to fight back against this intransigent corporate bullying that was covering up his vicious sexual anger, but in my frayed and exhausted state, half of me wondered whether he was right. Maybe I should have written up a report for him.
I was in his power, after all. He was there, able to cover things, while I drifted in and out of work and office politics like a weak radio station. I was vulnerable.
I decided it was better to be safe than sorry and typed an update while I was waiting for Max to call.
When he did, it was with mixed news.
‘Hi, Sophia. Sorry I’m so late getting back. It was all a bit of a faff in the end. I wanted to wait until I could tell you something concrete.’
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘What did you find?’
‘So,’ he said. ‘It was four out of six in the end. We never did find Wolf – it’s almost certainly not his real name, but it doesn’t matter, as we couldn’t track him down so he never heard about the book. Anyway, except for Tristan, the others are still alive, kicking and accounted for, which is good to know.’
‘Tristan’s dead, too?’ I asked.
Max was silent for a moment.
‘Max?’ I asked, wondering if we’d been cut off.
‘Yes, yes, I’m still here. He, well, he killed himself. In nineteen ninety-one.’
‘Oh.’ I didn’t know what else to say.
I felt a wan, fleeting pity for him; golden Tristan with his trust fund. I had the distinct sense that this news would have deeply saddened my mum.
‘Yes, it was very upsetting. He threw himself in front of a train somewhere in Germany. Emily, his sister, tells me it was his third attempt. She said, “After the first two overdoses, he wanted something he couldn’t be pulled back from.” ’
I was speechless.
‘Yes,’ said Max gently, ‘that was my reaction at the time. I had more luck with the others. Lucy Trinder, now Lucy DuBois, is based in Paris.’
‘Paris?’
‘It’s where Aaron Kessler first met her, funnily enough. After Morningstar, she went back there. Landed on her feet. She married this older guy – a famous photographer – had a couple of kids with him and lives in Faubourg Saint-Germain. She absolutely would not talk to me. Or you, I suspect.’
I’ll bet she wouldn’t, I thought viciously.
‘However, Penelope and Tess are both in London. Tess Hotchkiss is a pastor now …’
‘Tess is what?’
‘A pastor. She counsels cult victims, believe it or not, and lives in Stockwell. Not far from where you are in Brixton, now that I think about it. She’s part of some little evangelical church in Vauxhall. She wasn’t that open to the idea of the book, to be honest, but somewhat less terrified and hysterical in her opposition than the others.’
‘That leaves …’
‘Penelope. And Aaron, of course. No show without Punch. We had a go at tracking down some of the servants at Morningstar – such as the cook, Michelle Lomax, and had some luck, but by the time Peter died Aaron had dismissed them and the members were doing all of the housework and maintenance.’
‘And Penelope?’
‘Her married name is Longman, and that’s what she practises under.’
‘Practises?’
‘Law. She went back and finished her degree. She’s a barrister now.’ He paused, as though considering. ‘And better yet, she’s agreed to meet you.’
‘She has?’ I touched my dad’s hand, let my fingers intertwine with his. His face was as still as always, though a little vessel beat near his hairline, a tiny sign of life. ‘When?’
‘How’s tomorrow looking? About three?’
My mouth was dry. I had wanted to see these people, to question them, to get to the bottom of things, but now I was going to face one I felt giddy and sick with fright.
‘Good. Tell her yes.’
And that’s when I felt it, for the first time – my dad’s rough fingers ever so gently and fleetingly squeezed my own, once, and then twice.
* * *
Penelope, not Penny, never Penny, was still recognizable from my mother’s descriptions of her. That white-blonde chignon had become a tight, highlighted ash-coloured helmet. Her wispy pre-Raphaelite figure had evolved into something a little sturdier, a menopausal barrel shape her well-cut suit worked hard to hide. She had very clever-looking, cold, green eyes that her welcoming smile in no way touched.
‘Sophie, isn’t it?’ she asked briskly, shaking my hand as I offered it.
‘Sophia.’
‘Sophia. Well, well. Have a seat. What can I do for you?’
Her chambers were in the Inner Temple, and behind her I could see the courtyard and round dome of the Temple Church, and the monument celebrating the Knights Templar rising up on its pillar; two knights sharing a single horse, rendered in bronze.
The air was scented with a fresh bouquet of flowers placed on a low table between us. Her desk was slightly to one side, a vast glass altar boasting the latest technology, crowded with folders, out of which papers threatened to burst.
But for now we were being non-official, and she took a seat on the low sofa. Her arm stretched out along its red leather back with a proprietorial air, and on her plump hand was a white-gold wedding band and matching engagement ring with a vast solitaire diamond.
I wondered if her husband knew the things I knew about her.
I settled into the chair opposite, and pondered how I was going to handle this. I could have eased into it, but something about her told me, Cut to the chase. Or to the quick. Either would be true.
‘I’m here about Morningstar. And Aaron Kessler.’
Her stillness was my only answer. But those green eyes did not flicker. She already knew what this was about.
‘As I am sure you know, my mother died recently …’
For a second I was distracted from my purpose, contemplating the awful finality of these words. She did, indeed, die. She was gone. And yet, in the flood of memory that washed in, she had never seemed so vital, so near me – standing in our garden, picking tiny sour apples from the tree, pacing in her room amongst her piles of papers in her bare feet, her passage stirring the dust devils in her wake.
She was gone. But she was also here. And I was here on her behalf.
‘My mother recently died,’ I began again, ‘and I’ve been going through her old correspondence. I understand that you and she were in a … a group together.’
‘A group?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Yeah, you were all in a
cult, remember? Having sex with rock stars on camera? Recall any of that?
But I’m not here for retribution, I reminded myself. I’d come here to find out what happened to my mum. I forced myself to be calm, not to clasp my hands in my lap, not to hunch. ‘A kind of … religious group.’
She shrugs, but the gesture is so elegant, so practised, it’s like watching a performance. ‘I’m so sorry, Sophia, but I’ve met so many people. And perhaps I was a little … wild in my youth, but I don’t remember anyone called Nina.’
She met my eyes almost defiantly.
This I hadn’t expected, this bald-faced denial, and I was completely at a loss.
‘No?’ I asked, trying to wrap my head around this. ‘I’m surprised you agreed to see me, then.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘that young man from the publishing house said that your mother had passed away – there were mental problems, apparently – and you were desperate to talk to people who knew her.’ She sat upright. ‘He’s been in contact before about this business, about some apparent … association between myself and Aaron Kessler.’ Her voice did not change in timbre or tone, nor did her pose alter one iota, and yet I saw her absolutely harden, as though she’d turned to diamond. ‘And I’ll tell you exactly what I told him. I don’t remember everyone I met while I was a student. I don’t have to. But I very much resent these repeated assertions about me.’
I blinked at her.
‘And,’ she continued – there was a tiny note of triumph in her voice now – ‘all of this despite the fact that nobody has ever once been able to prove any of it, nor will they ever.’
‘But—’
‘So, dear, I thought it best that we talk in person, so I could make myself crystal clear: I don’t remember your mother. I don’t remember Aaron Kessler. I don’t know what you’re talking about when you speak of this group. And, as you can tell that young man when you see him next, if I have to have this conversation again, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to take legal advice.’
She offered me a tiny, almost motherly smile.
‘Slander and libel isn’t really my area, but happily I have very deep pockets, and many good friends that would be more than happy to act on my instructions.’
I sat in the ringing silence that followed this last pronouncement.
‘I think this meeting is concluded.’ She sat back on the sofa. Her gaze didn’t flicker. ‘I’m sure you can find your own way out.’
* * *
Max wasn’t answering his phone.
I sat on the bench outside Temple Church, scowling at the pigeons pecking in the courtyard. I felt hollowed out, utterly humiliated, almost giddy with anger. That bitch. That liar.
And now Max wasn’t picking up. He’d told me to ring him the minute I came out. I was trying not to be unreasonably furious with him, too, for exposing me to what had just happened.
This is not his fault. Or yours. Or Mum’s.
I let my head rest in my hands and sighed, while passing lawyers studiously ignored me. They must see desperate people sighing every day of the week in this part of the world, I thought, and this consideration made me sit upright, not wanting to give them the satisfaction.
I was forced to admit, Penelope Longman had no more looked the sort of woman to be filmed engaging in drug-soaked rituals to access her Creative Spark than she was to sprout wings and fly.
Maybe she hadn’t.
After all, it was like my mum’s time at university, something there seemed to be no evidence for, something I couldn’t prove.
Somewhere, church bells were ringing on Fleet Street.
For now, though, it was time to get back and check in with my dad.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Dad?’
I stood in the doorway to his hospital room, not quite able to believe my eyes.
My father was lying upright, propped up on pillows, but despite his pallor and a kind of trembling that seemed to shake every muscle in his body, he was undeniably awake. His eyes caught sight of me and tracked me into the room, as his lips started to move inaudibly.
‘Dad!’ I ran up to him, hugged him in my arms, planted a kiss on his pale, waxy forehead and started to cry great whooping sobs of exhaustion and relief.
‘Oh my God! Dad! When did you wake up?’ I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘I can’t believe it!’
‘Just an hour or so ago,’ Rowan’s voice was behind me. ‘We tried to call you. We left a message.’
My dad’s voice, when it came, was impossibly tiny and low, less than a whisper; no louder, it seemed to me, than the sound of the sea in a shell. ‘I heard talking.’ He paused, a little wheezy, as though even this much speech was too much.
‘Do you want anything?’ I asked, feeling like a little girl again, babbling in my surprise, my amazement. ‘Like water or more pillows or tea? I brought your slippers in, they’re in the cabinet by your bed. Rowan’s been looking after the gardens while you’ve been ill. He’s been a star …’
I realized, with a falling sense of shock, that he might not know Mum was dead. I took his hand in mine, carefully, so I didn’t dislodge the cannula bandaged to it.
I opened my mouth, closed it again. I just couldn’t do this. I didn’t even know where to begin.
‘Your mother,’ he said; and that hoarse, nearly silent sound, more like a breeze than a voice, seemed to come from the bottom of the ocean. ‘I know, Sophy.’
My heart was in my mouth. It was as though he’d read my mind.
‘Dad, do you remember what happened?’
He fell silent, then very slowly he raised his head again.
‘Nina …’ His eyes grew narrow, his brow furrowed. ‘Your mum … she couldn’t stick it.’
This, I had not been expecting. Not at all. Suddenly there was a hole in me, and all my feelings, all my thoughts, were draining out of me.
‘Things had been … bad.’ His voice was growing lower, slower, as if even these few words were exhausting him. ‘She stopped …’ He paused, sucked in some more air, and I was aware once again that not just his bowel but his lungs had been injured. ‘She tried to …’
‘Dad, I don’t understand,’ I said, but to my horror, I did. I just didn’t want to believe it. ‘She hanged herself? Deliberately?’
He offered me a single trembling nod. ‘I tried …’ His face was paling, whether through the memory or the effort of speaking, I could not tell.
‘Dad …’
It was as though I couldn’t breathe either. I had been so counting on another answer, that I hadn’t realized how reliant I’d become on this outcome.
‘I …’ I was going to cry, I knew it. I covered my eyes with my hands, tried to pull myself together. ‘I thought it was that cult.’
He blinked at me, his brows contracting together.
‘What cult?’ He sighed in, a hitching breath. He was exhausted.
And when he said this, once again that terrible suspicion blossomed in me. The one that had bloomed within me while I had sat on that park bench in Inner Temple.
It was the one thing I couldn’t admit to myself, even while it spread malignantly in my thoughts. One I had not given any voice to, but once it occurred to me, I couldn’t shake.
What if none of this was real?
I mean, I knew the Order of Ascendants was real. Max had said as much. Aaron Kessler was real. The people in my mum’s book were real.
But what if the things she said had happened weren’t real? What if she’d made them all up?
How, though? And more importantly, why?
‘It doesn’t matter, Dad,’ I said, and put my arms around him, kissed his warm cheek with its little sprouting of greying bristle. ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re back with us, that’s all that counts.’ My tears mashed into his skin. Whether he liked drama or not, they would not stop. ‘We can talk later. You need to rest.’ I kissed his pale temple, where that tiny beating vein had been the only sign of life.
I waite
d there for a while until he drifted off again, talking only occasionally with Rowan about inconsequential things. My guts were churning, though.
Once I was sure he was asleep, I muttered to Rowan that I was going to the toilet and burst out into the hospital corridor.
‘Hey,’ Rowan said. ‘Is everything all right?’
He’d followed me out of the room. ‘Hey, Soph, it’s OK. This is good news, even if what he’s telling you about your mum is not what you wanted to hear. He’s getting better.’
I burst into tears.
He held me, rocking me very gently, as though I was a child, while I sobbed.
He was right, of course. I was lucky. I could have lost both of them.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you sorted out before you go back to your dad. He doesn’t need to see you like this.’ He guided me to a chair in the ward lounge, which smelled faintly of disinfectant. His hands were warm.
‘You know, Sophia, I feel like … I dunno …’ He looked away. ‘I know you’ve never believed, like, that Nina would kill herself. And you were so into this alternative theory, with these notebooks and this cult, I started to believe it, too.’ He sighed. ‘I wanted to believe it.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Sophia, this shock you’re in right now, I can’t help feeling it’s our fault.’
‘What do you mean?’ I had snatched up a paper towel, hospital-rough and pink, and was dabbing my eyes with it.
‘Your dad and I – we should have said something to you about the burglaries the minute they started happening, but Jared and Nina didn’t want to worry you or get you involved. So, like, you never understood when other people said Nina was depressed and not herself. It’s all been … we were trying to protect you, and … and it’s just worked out all wrong.’ He offered me a bleak look. ‘I’m so sorry, Soph. I really am.’
I had no idea how to respond to this. I couldn’t respond, really, because I was having to start mourning my mum all over again, alongside my failure to be of any help to her. To be of any help to my father.
Everything Is Lies Page 21