Lovers and Liars Trilogy

by Sally Beauman

  Natasha had claimed, closing her bedroom door to him some months before their separation and divorce, that it was he himself who gave King power by believing, or half-believing, by dwelling on all the lies King wrote or said. She further claimed that his obsession with King had not only poisoned their marriage and permeated his work, but was slowly but surely eating away at his health. ‘That man will be the death of you,’ she had once said.

  Court did not view his concern with King as an obsession, and if it were, that was excusable—presumably he was allowed to be obsessed with a man who knew his wife’s and son’s movements so precisely, and constantly issued threats? But he did acknowledge some truth in her remarks: he admitted that, for several years now, it had been King’s actions or communications that brought on the worst of his asthma attacks.

  The cure, then, ought to be to forget King, to put out of his mind all those whispering suggestions King wrote, or said—a process that should become easier if King had been silenced and was actually dead. Yet Tomas Court was not sure he wanted to be cured; there was a part of him, and a vibrant part, that clung to King, even as he watched him destroy his marriage and endanger his health. He now missed King’s communications; sometimes, at night, when he lay on his bed, listening to replays of King’s past calls, he found himself frustrated at the five months of silence. What he wanted was a new message, another revelation, an up-date.

  He needed that dark side, he thought, as a cab finally pulled in at the kerb. He needed to listen to the unspeakable. He wondered, in a distanced way, as the cab eased forward into grid-locked traffic, whether he ought to explain that to his wife. Not necessary, he decided; such ambivalences lay at the very heart of his marriage, as he had been reminded when assaulted by the power of his wife’s singing, tonight.

  ‘So this is the Conrad,’ Colin Lascelles said to Lindsay, coming to a halt beneath a huge encrusted entrance portico. ‘Now do you see what I mean? It is powerful, don’t you think?’

  ‘I certainly do see what you mean. Dear God, Colin…’ Lindsay looked up at the portico, which towered over them both. The architect of the Conrad, as Colin had just been telling her over dinner, had been a strange man; the twin Conrad brothers, both financiers, who had commissioned him to design the building, had been equally strange, and—if Colin’s account was accurate—the building had a strange chequered past. It boasted several ghosts, the most fearsome and vengeful of which was said to be Anne Conrad, unmarried sister to the twins, who in 1915, or thereabouts, had leaped to her death from one of the windows of the apartment she shared with her brothers. Stepping back to examine the Conrad’s façade, Lindsay wondered which window this was.

  Anne Conrad’s manifestations were infrequent but ill-omened, Colin had said. Further details had not been forthcoming; Lindsay had intended to prompt Colin, but now she saw this building, she changed her mind. She was too suggestible: if Colin described these hauntings, she might imagine herself into an encounter with the dead woman, who had been young, beautiful—and deranged, or so people said, Colin had added, by way of an afterthought.

  She must have passed the building dozens of times, Lindsay thought, yet she had never paused to look at it. Now she did, and at night too, she realized just how magnificent and grim it was. This was how she had always imagined the House of Usher might look. She glanced across, over her shoulder, to the great tract of darkness at the heart of Manhattan that was Central Park, then looked back more closely at the Conrad building’s huge entrance mouth.

  A cluster of liver-coloured Corinthian columns flanked its approach steps, giving it the air of a sombre classical temple. These columns supported a vast dark carved pediment; even Lindsay’s untrained eye could see, however, that the proportions here were infelicitous, for the pediment was oversized, so that the pillars seemed oppressed by its weight. They looked squat, and their appearance was not enhanced by the surface treatment of their massive stone plinths. ‘Vermiculation’, according to Colin, was the correct term for this doubtful form of decoration; to Lindsay’s eyes, the plinths looked as if their stone had been eaten away by millions of blind, hungry worms—or maggots, perhaps.

  She gave an involuntary shiver. She began to see that Hillyard White’s heart had not been in the rigours of classicism in any case. There might be a suggestion of a Greekish temple, but the whole façade was a monstrous and heterogeneous sprouting of embellishments. This detail had been plundered from the French, this from the Venetians, this from the Egyptians, that from the Spanish; a smorgasbord of past centuries and architectural styles had been gobbled up and spewed forth.

  ‘Dear God, what’s that?’ she said, realizing that even the pillars were not unadorned, and that from some clustering stone vines mounting the wall behind them, a dark face was peering out.

  ‘A gargoyle of sorts.’ Leaning across, Colin patted its ugly head with affection. ‘I shouldn’t look too closely, Lindsay—some of the detailing is quite nasty.’

  ‘What’s that in his mouth? Oh—’ Lindsay frowned; from one angle the gargoyle was biting the head off a snake; from another angle it was possibly not a snake, and the gargoyle was otherwise employed.

  ‘In we go,’ Colin said, somewhat hurriedly, taking her arm.

  He drew her into a foyer (Citizen Kane, Lindsay thought) and greeted first a doorman, then a porter. It took Lindsay some while even to see the porter, who was dwarfed by the altar that served as his desk. They approached a wall of linenfold panelling, and Lindsay realized that although she knew how she had entered this cathedral—the entrance maw was somewhere at the other end of this nave, several miles back—she could see no other way out of it.

  ‘Full of tricks, this building,’ said Colin, delighted at this. ‘I did warn you. Not easy to find your way around unless you know it. Even Hillyard White’s plans are deceptive—which is one of the reasons why it’s so secure, of course.’

  He glanced around at the porter, then smiled at Lindsay.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘it gets worse, or better, depending on your point of view. Are you of a nervous disposition?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Hold my hand.’ He nodded at the porter. ‘We’ll go up by the main stairs, Giancarlo.’

  There was a low buzzing sound, and the linenfold in front of them opened up. They walked through into an inner hall, the panelling closing behind them with a hiss.

  ‘There is an elevator,’ Colin said, ‘but I thought you wouldn’t mind walking up. Emily’s only on the second floor, and I didn’t want you to miss this.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ Lindsay said.

  She walked forward a few paces, across a cold paved floor. She looked at the wide blood-red-carpeted oak staircase rising in front of her, which was lit at intervals by statues of blackamoors holding lamps aloft. It rose before her, then twisted back, and was cantilevered, storey by storey, so she found she was looking at the undersides of the stairs as they mounted up and up to a huge domed space which settled over the stairwell like a lid. She was in the gut of the building, she realized, and all the apartments must lead off this vast central digestive tract. The dome was at least ten storeys above her head, each floor was galleried, and an army could have marched up the stairs ten abreast, yet the effect was claustrophobic. The space was hushed, warm and curiously expectant, as if the stairs, blackamoors and shadowy galleries were waiting to see what these two new arrivals might do next.

  ‘What do you think? Monstrous, isn’t it?’ Colin was looking around him with affection and pride. ‘Sublimely monstrous. I never get over it.’

  The fat coils of the radiator next to Lindsay emitted a digestive gurgle, then a faint, satisfied hiss. She shivered again.

  ‘Hitchcock would have killed for that staircase,’ she said.

  ‘Wouldn’t he just?’ Colin sighed. ‘Embarrassing, those blackamoors. There was a move to get rid of them, a few years back. Emily nipped that in the bud very quickly…’

  ‘She likes them? Colin—she can’t p
ossibly like them.’

  ‘I’m afraid she does. She’s not exactly politically correct.’ He hesitated. ‘The thing is, she was right, from a purist point of view; they are original. And Emily’s lived in this building all her life. In fact, she was born here. In fact…’

  Lindsay, who was growing less keen on this visit to Aunt Emily by the second, sensed that Colin, too, might be having second thoughts. His manner, confident a moment before, was now becoming doubtful. She was beginning to recognize the symptoms of Colin’s insecurities, she thought.

  ‘I’m just wondering,’ she began, ‘isn’t it a bit late, this visit, Colin? We stayed longer in the restaurant than we meant to do, and…She’s eighty-five years old, after all…’

  ‘Oh, that’s not the problem. Emily’s a nightbird; she keeps very strange hours. She nods off during the day, though she denies that, of course, and sometimes it’s hard to know when she is asleep. She’ll be in her chair, I’ll tiptoe about, and then suddenly she’ll speak and make me jump like hell…So this is early evening for Emily. Around midnight, she gets very lively indeed…’

  Lindsay was now sure she recognized the symptoms of nerves, which included loquaciousness.

  ‘But there is a problem,’ she said. ‘Come on, Colin, what is it?’

  ‘Well, she’s a bit deaf…’

  ‘And?’

  Colin considered. ‘She can be a bit odd,’ he said finally.

  Lindsay wondered whether he might mean senile. Dotty? Eccentric? Slightly demented? Ninety-five per cent crazed? Since Colin was given both to overstatement and understatement, his remarks could be difficult to interpret. He was now looking both anxious again and downcast. Lindsay took his arm. ‘Well, I’m very glad you’re with me,’ she said. ‘With you here, I feel safe.’

  Immediately she had said this, it struck her that she truly meant it; Colin’s presence, for reasons she could not exactly define, was reassuring. Her compliment, or perhaps the fact that she took his arm, seemed to allay his anxieties; his confidence returned at once.

  ‘Not very odd,’ he amplified, leading her towards the staircase, ‘just odd occasionally. A bit of a tease, you might say. You may find it helps if you remember that

  Lindsay braced herself for this teasing great-aunt. The stairs were not really Psycho material, she decided—more Gone With the Wind, more Tara. Hello, Scarlett and Rhett, she thought, as they began to climb them, dreamily imagining herself as a feisty O’Hara, and Rowland McGuire as an improvement on Clark Gable. Hello, Polanski, and hello Repulsion, she thought, as they turned into a long, galleried corridor, where hands thrust from walls holding lamps. Colin rang the doorbell to Emily’s apartment and Lindsay waited for Dracula’s servant to answer it. Instead, Mrs Danvers opened the door, and led them into a very large and daunting drawing-room with a du Maurier whisk of her skirts.

  An old, a very old, very wrinkled, and very imperious woman held out her hand; introductions were made. Lindsay looked at Aunt Emily narrowly; Well, hello Miss Havisham, she thought.

  ‘I want a word with you. You’re late,’ Angelica said, as Tomas Court entered the quiet living-room of his wife’s Carlyle suite. Court moved past her without greeting her or looking at her, but his manner was often curt, even rude, and Angelica was used to this.

  ‘I’ve been talking to the bodyguard…’ he said.

  ‘Which bodyguard?’

  ‘The one here.’ Court’s manner was irritable. ‘John. Jack—whatever his name is.’

  ‘Jack.’ Angelica gave him a dismissive glance. ‘That’s why you’re over an hour late? You’ve been talking to the bodyguard for an hour? Jonathan’s been waiting up for you…’

  ‘I was delayed. I got held up.’

  ‘He won’t go to sleep until he’s seen you.’ She paused; Court had not looked at her once and had now turned his back. She sighed. ‘Maria stayed on to sit with him. He’s showing her his new animal books. He wanted to show them to you. There’s one on big cats…’

  ‘Maria?’ Court said.

  Angelica sighed again. ‘You’ve met her. You met her the other week. The one who comes to give Natasha her massage before the show sometimes. The aromatherapist. Dark hair, glasses. Jonathan likes her; she’s a nice girl…’

  ‘Well get rid of her. There’s enough women in and out of this apartment as it is…’

  Angelica, used to this complaint, did not reply. She left the room, and in the distance, Court heard the sound of women’s voices. The aromatherapist, the voice coach, the two secretaries, the Yoga expert who taught Natasha relaxation techniques, the personal trainer, also female; Natasha’s days seemed to him spent amidst a retinue of female helpers and supporters, and he loathed the way in which they treated her with a reverent concern, tending the hive, tending their queen, cosseting and protecting, grooming, feeding and honing. He found it unhealthy; Natasha had always had a tendency to surround herself with priestesses, and since their divorce, the tendency had worsened; he had often told her this.

  ‘Hi. Good evening,’ said a woman’s voice. Court glanced round to see Angelica and this Maria, who was being helped into her coat. Like most of Natasha’s priestesses, she was ugly, Court noted; overweight, cheaply dressed, with greasy hair tied back in an untidy bun, and hideous thick-lensed spectacles. He was making her nervous, he saw, as she glanced at Angelica in a faltering way, and then gave him a shy smile that was not, he supposed, unsweet.

  ‘Your son’s still wide awake,’ she said. ‘We’ve had a lovely time. He’s a really bright little kid. He’s waiting to show you his whale book, Mr Court…’ She glanced again at Angelica. ‘I thought—better avoid the fairy stories tonight. You know, if he’s still having those nightmares…so we just looked at the animal books. He’s so cute. Hey, it’s late…I’d better be off…’

  Tomas Court gave her a curt nod; he listened to the sounds of female conversation and laughter as Angelica showed her out.

  ‘Nightmares?’ he said, when Angelica returned, closing the door behind her. ‘What nightmares? Natasha never mentioned that.’

  ‘He wakes up sometimes.’ She avoided his gaze. ‘It’s been going on for a while now…’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Well, it started around the time of the divorce, then it got better for a bit. Now it’s started up again…’

  ‘He never gets nightmares when he comes out to Montana. He was fine last summer. It’s this place. Cooped up here; his mother out night after night…’

  ‘She has to work. The run’s nearly over anyway. She’ll be leaving the show any day now, then…’

  ‘Well, it can’t be soon enough. I don’t know why she did it in the first place.’ He gave an irritable sigh. ‘I’ll have to talk to her about this. If Jonathan has nightmares, I should be informed. Why wasn’t I?’

  ‘You didn’t ask, I guess.’

  Angelica’s tone was insolent, but then she never bothered to disguise her dislike of him. It was, indeed, more than dislike; Angelica’s hostility to him had always been unwavering and forceful; it was returned in good measure. The best that could be said of their relationship was that they eyed one another with the respect of combatants fighting their own weight.

  In their contests, unceasing since his marriage, Tomas Court had had one supreme advantage: he was male, and he was the husband, with all the husband’s rights. This advantage, as they were both aware, had diminished since the divorce.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Angelica said now, looking him up and down. She always delighted, as Court well knew, in the least evidence of his physical disability. ‘You’re white. You don’t look so good. You had an attack?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He turned away. ‘The pollution’s bad. The traffic was bad. I’m tired. I’ve been working since five-thirty this morning. You can make me some coffee. Bring it through to Jonathan’s room…’

  ‘You want it black?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’m going to wait for Natasha—’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that. She’ll be
late. She told you, she’s having dinner with that fancy broker of hers after the show, then she has an early start in the morning. The trainer comes at seven. She’s having breakfast with Jules McKechnie, then…’

  ‘Dinner and breakfast? Why’s that necessary?’

  Angelica gave a small gloating smile and a shrug.

  ‘It’s the committee meeting at the Conrad tomorrow, and they have to get the details right. It’s important to Natasha—and she’s nervous. She doesn’t want anything going wrong, and it’s Friday the thirteenth tomorrow—not too auspicious, right?’

  Tomas Court profoundly hoped it would not be auspicious. He might have liked to say this; he might have liked to question Angelica further; he would certainly have liked to know whether Natasha was dining with Jules McKechnie alone, or with others. Just the mention of McKechnie’s name set off those Joseph King whisperings in his head; King, his very own Iago, was always prompt on occasions such as this. Such questions, evidence of weakness, would have delighted Angelica. He looked at her bulk, at the flat hard planes of her face, at her small and malicious black eyes, and an exhaustion close to anguish flooded through him. Sometimes, especially after an asthma attack, he no longer had the energy to fight.

  ‘There’s something you wanted to say to me?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Sure. I want to know some things. About Joseph King. About what happened in Glacier.’ She paused. ‘I know what you told Natasha…’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘And I want the truth.’ She hesitated, the hostility in her face softening a little. ‘I’m here with Jonathan. I’m the one who’s right by his side, day and night. I need to know these things.’