Olivia’s Luck (2000)

by Catherine Alliot

  I dropped the photos on the sofa and, almost as a reflex action, my hand reached up and shot the bolt across at the top of the French windows. Flinging them wide I wandered sadly outside. Around the terrace, stone urns tumbled with white pelargoniums, hostas, and variegated ivy, and in the surrounding beds, day lilies and michaelmas daisies jostled for position while lamb’s tongues crawled towards my feet over the mellow York stones. The lavender path ahead was humming with bees and above it, arches of heavy, tumbling climbers – Albertine, Madame Alfred Carriere and my lovely, lusty Rambling Rector – nodded invitingly to me in the breeze. Dredging up a great sigh from the soles of my feet, I ducked under it for the last time, reaching up to touch a blossom, which, being so overblown, fell to pieces in my hand. Scattering the petals regretfully on the parched grass I went on, on to take a last look at my herbaceous border, stunning now with its great clumps of delphinium, larkspurs and poppies, all finally out together and looking pleased as punch to be so thoroughly synchronised. It brought a lump to my throat to think there’d be no one out here with the hose at seven o’clock as usual tonight, seeing them through this dry spell, giving them just a few more days of precious growth.

  Down the yellowing lawn I wandered, my skirt brushing the fragrant brooms and hebes, shading my eyes to the river, to the glorious cedar tree, spreading its branches to give a cool blanket of shade beneath. I gazed across the river to the caravan. Still there, of course, I thought wryly, obscuring the view of the cherry tree as usual, except that – blimey – hang on, no – it was off! The bloody thing was moving! Well, of course it was, because – 1 squinted hard into the sun’s dazzling rays – there was a car attached to it. A car, attached and pulling. I ran down towards the water’s edge to watch, but just then the car stopped. Somebody got out, slammed the door, and walked round to peer down at the caravan’s wheels, checking to see if they were stuck. I stopped. Lance.

  “Lance!” My hand shot up in delight. He turned, shaded his eyes, then waved.

  “Liwy!”

  I grinned and ran, picking my way across the rickety bridge, brushing against bull rushes, and then along the bank on the other side. By the time I got there, Lance, bare to the waist, bronzed and bleached blond as ever, was busy digging a stone out of the way of one of the caravan’s wheels. He straightened up with a smile.

  “Well, I didn’t expect to see you back here after last night!” His blue eyes found mine, gently. “Are you all right? I tried to ring you at Molly’s but she said you’d gone.”

  I nodded. “I’m fine now, absolutely fine, it was just – well, it was just such a shock, Lance. I don’t usually pass out like that, like some nineteenth-century drip having the vapours, but a large gin and tonic on top of a very gippy tummy, plus – ” I rolled my eyes – “well, plus everything else…”

  “Well, quite. It’s not every day you discover a dead body lurking in your kitchen. I tell you, Liwy, I quite felt like passing out myself.” He regarded me earnestly with clear blue eyes. “And I really didn’t know anything about it, Liv, you must believe that. I would never have sanctioned it, however desperate they were.”

  I nodded. “I do know that, of course I do.”

  “And I can understand how – well, how you must hate them,” he said with difficulty. “For what they did.”

  “Well, as you said,” I said carefully, “they were desperate. Desperate men.”

  He nodded. Glanced down. Scuffed his toe miserably in the dirt.

  I sighed. “Look – don’t feel you have to take responsibility, Lance. It’s not your fault. I just wish – well, I just wish they’d driven back via the Thames and gone for the more conventional East End burial ground, that’s all.”

  He smiled ruefully. “They shouldn’t have done that either; should have gone straight to the police, right from the start.”

  “Bit late now,” I said grimly.

  Lance scratched his head. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but you know, perversely, apparently not. Who knows whether to believe them or not, but the police say there’s a good chance they’ll get off with manslaughter if they return to face the music. Apart from anything else their story is perfectly true, and since literally everybody will back them up – oh, and apparently there’s some marvellous left-wing brief who’s prepared to take Alf’s case on, and all on legal aid too – he stands a really good chance of getting off. I just have to persuade them to come back, that’s all, and that might be tricky.” He grinned. “Spiro reckons the ouzo will agree with Dad and I can just see Alf – ”

  “Ouzo?” I interrupted.

  “Oh,” he flushed suddenly. “Oh, no, nothing.” He bent down quickly, attending to the wheel.

  Ouzo, I thought, astonished, and Spiro knew about it, so – so not Spain at all. Greece, or to be more precise, I thought rapidly, a little island off the tip of Greece, a Greek-speaking community in the Balkans, a disputed territory just off Albania. Yes, a place where you could disappear, literally for ever, without a hope of anyone finding you. Particularly on a close-knit little island where everyone closed ranks. A little island called Mexatonia. An island, where a certain Gullopidus family pretty much ruled the roost, ran the show, owned the boats, the goats, the bars, and where a couple of Englishmen – friends of Mr Gullopidus’s son, don’t you know, friends of young Spiro, who’d been looked after so magnificently during his stay in England – could quite easily be found shelter, houses, jobs. God, I could just see Alf, mending boats on the beach, patching up the fishing nets, whistling away, quiet, contented, happy in his work, and Mac – yes, Mac behind the bar in town, measuring out the Metaxa, turning his quick mind to the lingo – unlike Alf, who’d barely mastered English and certainly wouldn’t be mastering Greek – ingratiating himself into local life, becoming part of the community. Yes, Mac, a colourful figure, bringing out his wife, Karen, the grown-up kids coming out for holidays, and running the place; drinking long into the night with all the old men, playing backgammon in the village square, chewing the cud with Spiro and Atalanta up the road…I smiled. Well actually, in spite of myself, I grinned, really quite widely. My God, what a life! They’d never come back. And, of course, Mac had very cleverly told me Spain, had let that slip quite deliberately to put me off the scent, and perhaps even hoped I’d tell the police. Which come to think of it…I frowned. Had I? Well, I certainly hadn’t disagreed when Shiny Suit had mentioned the Costa Brava as the spot she’d be dragging them back from. Well good, I thought suddenly. I probably shouldn’t think that, but I did. Good.

  “Forget I said that,” muttered Lance, straightening up for a moment.

  I smiled. “Forget you said what?”

  He grinned, but I glanced away, point made, but not wanting to prolong that conversation, thank you very much. I gazed back to the house, to the new kitchen, its windows flashing knowingly at me in the sunshine. When I’d turned back, Lance had bent down again and was tightening up a bolt on the wheel. His broad back was smooth and brown. I remembered it well, felt I knew it intimately, in fact, from our suntanning session, together with that blond hair that curled rather seductively on the nape of his neck. I watched him working for a moment. Swallowed.

  “Um, Lance, I don’t suppose you fancy a drink, do you?”

  He straightened up. “Oh, Liwy, I’d love one, it’s just that…” He hesitated, glanced down at his oily hands.

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s just that, I sort of said I’d – ”

  “Lance!”

  We both turned as a shrill voice rang out behind us.

  “Hey! You said twelve o’clock. It’s way past that. Come on!” Nanette was hanging out of her upstairs window, dressed in some sort of scanty, Caribbean sarong affair, complete with a flower in her hair. She waved an armful of jangling bracelets when she saw me. “Co-ee, Olivia! I say, all sorts of action been going on at your place, eh? Can’t wait to grill Lance!”

  I turned and raised amused, quizzical eyebrows at Lance. He had the grace
to blush.

  “Ah, I see,” I murmured. “Off for a grilling.”

  “Well, you know,” he said sheepishly, scuffing his toe in the dirt. “Seeing as how I’m going today, I thought – well. I thought just for old times’ sake I’d pop round and have a drink with Nanette. But you’re welcome to join us,” he added quickly. “I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  “Oh, I’m quite sure she will mind,” I laughed. “I’m not convinced that’s entirely what our Nanette had in mind, are you?”

  He looked at me a moment, then grinned. “Perhaps not. Well, bye then, Liwy. Best of luck.” He leant forward and kissed my cheek.

  We regarded each other fondly for a moment, and perhaps even a touch regretfully.

  “Bye, Lance,” I said with a smile, then I turned to go, making my way back up the parched lawn. A few steps on, though, his voice halted me.

  “Oh, by the way, that musician chappie called round.”

  I swung back.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, he’s gone to Vienna.”

  “Oh. Right.” My heart thudded on again. Of course. Ursula had said. With Imo. Hence the shuttered house.

  “But he popped in to say goodbye. Left a note, I think.”

  “Really? Where?”

  He shrugged. “Kitchen table?”

  Kitchen. Bloody kitchen. I hurried on up the garden, heart racing again, through the French windows, then steeled myself to – Yes, yes I could…I went in. I avoided looking at the Aga and glanced quickly at the table. Nothing. Totally bare apart from the fruit bowl. In the fruit bowl perhaps? No. Notice board? No. Counters, surfaces, pinned to the larder door? No, no note, nothing. I glanced all about now, even casting a desperate eye at the Aga. All was neat and tidy, and there wasn’t a fluttering piece of paper to be seen. He must have changed his mind. Dejected, I turned to go, but just as I was leaving, noticed that the rubbish bin was practically overflowing. Damn, I’d have to empty that or it would stink to high heaven in this weather. Irritated, I pulled out the plastic sack, but as I did, realised there were some balls of screwed-up paper on the top. They were from my telephone pad. I opened one.

  Dear Liwy,

  I popped round to say goodbye, but I also wanted to say…

  I opened another.

  Dear Liwy,

  I’m off to Vienna today, but I just wanted to write to…

  And another.

  Dear Liwy,

  I dropped them back in. One by one, slowly. Stared at the wall. What? What had he wanted to say? Deep in thought I lugged the bag outside and dumped it in the bin. I locked up the house, then, realising I’d left the photographs on the sitting-room sofa, went back in again, but I was totally distracted now. What? What had he wanted to say, for God’s sake? And why start a letter three times? I carried the photos back in my arms towards the front door, just as the telephone rang. I stared at it for a moment on the hall table. For some reason, I felt full of foreboding. Almost didn’t answer it. Then slowly, I put my bundle of photos down, and my hand went to the receiver. I picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Liwy, it’s Imo.”

  I gazed into the hall mirror, saw my eyes widen. “Imo, hi.”

  “Darling, I’m so sorry.”

  “What about?”

  “My bitch of a mother.” Her voice wobbled.

  I lowered myself very slowly on to the hall chair. “How did you know?” I whispered. “I mean – did she tell you what she’d – ”

  “No, no, of course not,” she sniffed. “When she came across to us in tears at the concert she just said you’d insulted her, called her some terrible names, accused her of being a culture vulture or something, but Daddy overheard the whole thing, he was just too terrified to interfere. We’re all too terrified. Have been for years.” Her voice sounded small and sad. Very far away.

  “So you know – ”

  “Not quite everything, but I’m keen to learn because, believe me, it’ll all be bollocks,” she rallied defiantly. “It always is with Mum, and there’s no way she’s coming between you and me, Liwy, no way on earth. So go on, darling, spill the beans. What’s the old cow been up to now?”

  I licked my lips. “Well, she said…well, first of all she told me about Johnny. Imo, I had no idea. I never knew you were so besotted back then. If I’d thought for one moment you were still in love with him – ”

  “You’d never have married him?”

  There was a silence. I swallowed hard.

  “Don’t be silly, Liwy,” she went on quietly, “you’d have followed your heart, and quite right too.”

  “So – you were in love with him then?”

  “Oh, back then, yes, I was, but the balls-up on that front was nothing to do with you, it was my own private tragedy, and my own stupid fault, too. You weren’t to know what was going on, but yes, there was a plan afoot, instigated by Mum, of course.”

  “So that was true? She did intervene?”

  “Of course! You know Mum. She knew that I was deadly serious about Johnny and was adamant that if he was going to take me to the altar so young he had to deserve me, or some such crap. Not coming back for weeks on end after Oliver died was her idea. It was all her idea.”

  “And Paolo?”

  “The son of a gallery owner she knew. He just arrived at my apartment one evening, asking if I’d like to have supper. Oh, I didn’t have to sleep with him, of course, but in those days I did most things Mum suggested…‘a delightful little dalliance’ was her euphemism for it, a brief romance, she said, before settling down as a wife and a mother for good. And I complied. Thought she was right. Thought I needed my last fling. Staggering really; I didn’t seem to have a mind of my own. She’s a control freak, you see, Liv, totally manipulative, and look where it’s got her. One of my brothers is dead from drugs, another one can’t stand her and married a hairdresser to thwart her, and the other one lives in New Zealand, so far away she can’t get at him. I always wanted to please her – we all did – but I can’t do it any longer.” She sucked in her breath. At first I thought she was crying, then I realised –

  “Imo – you’re smoking!”

  “I’ve smoked for years. Secretly, of course. Mummy would be horrified. And I’ve never, ever gone against her,” she said vehemently, her words tumbling out in a rush now. “Oxford, Florence, an art gallery where I’d meet nice, cultured young men – everything was her idea, and I so envied you with your sweet, unpushy mother who never – ”

  “My mother? Jesus, Imo, my mother was a nightmare!”

  “Only in your eyes. Molly and I were as jealous as hell. She was so discreet and elegant and unambitious, whilst I had the She-Devil Incarnate to deal with and poor Moll had the ghastly Millicent. But I envied you for defying her, too,” she said softly. “She was strong, your Mum, no pushover, but you signed up for that Cirencester course against her wishes and married without her blessing. I could never have done that.”

  I remembered the rows Mum and I had had when I’d told her I was marrying Johnny.

  “Well no,” I said slowly, “I’d certainly never let her run my life.”

  “You see? And I did. And look where it got me. I’ve gone from man to man to please her. Oh, she thought Hugo was absolutely marvellous in the beginning, but then Sebastian came along and he was even more marvellous. It’s been the story of my life. I don’t even know what I think any more,” she said unhappily.

  I licked my lips. “She said – Ursula said – that you were in love with him. With Sebastian.”

  “Ah. Yes. That much, at least, is true. But then again, it’s not the whole story. You see sadly, he’s not in love with me. And no point forcing a square peg into a round hole, eh?” She gave a hollow laugh and I heard her drag hard on her cigarette.

  “But I thought you were going to Vienna with him! Your mother said – ”

  “Well, of course she bloody did. That’s her oh-so-subtle way of angling for an invitation for me, and warning you off. Chri
st, I’m surprised she didn’t book the bloody ticket, drive me to the airport, shove me on the plane and strap me into the seat next to him, taking absolutely no notice of his horrified face!”

  There was a silence.

  “It’s you he wants, Liwy,” she said softly. “You must know that.”

  “Wh-why should I know that?”

  “Because…” she struggled. “Oh, I don’t know, don’t know for sure, but – listen, darling, I spoke to him this morning, before he left for Vienna. I wanted to set the record straight – my record straight, at least. Christ, I’ve made such a bloody fool of myself one way and another and I wanted to explain things, things that – Oh, but that doesn’t matter right now, the important thing is that he was asking about you. I think he might try and get in touch with you, Liv, write to you perhaps, or even – ”

  “Oh!” I nearly dropped the phone.

  “What?”

  I couldn’t speak for a moment. I went hot, then finally pulled myself together and dragged my eyes away from the window by the door. In the mirror I could see the colour rising rapidly up my neck.

  “Imo, it’s – it’s all right,” I breathed. “He’s here.”

  31