The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  Fen snorted quietly at the irony – but turned it into a blow of her nose so as not to be hurtful. Or, rather, to steer clear of the imminence of broaching the subject she’d come all the way from London to discuss.

  James was now well aware of her unease. It unnerved him. After all, today was the day he had to tell her that which he’d been putting off. She was still holding the Bourbon biscuit, she was still staring at her plate. She was twitching her lips and he could see that she was simultaneously trying to talk but stopping herself, too.

  Does she know? Has she somehow found out? She was quiet, obviously uncomfortable. Shall I own up right now? Is that what she wants? Is that why she’s here?

  ‘Fen,’ James began, ‘I wonder – I need –’

  ‘Wait!’ she butted in. ‘It’s just that I –’

  ‘Shall we go for a walk?’ James suggested briskly, taking the uneaten Bourbon biscuit from her fingers and holding her hand. He tried to look into her eyes but they were resolutely downcast. He thought how neat and shapely her eyebrows were.

  ‘’Kay,’ Fen said.

  ‘Come on,’ James said softly, giving her hand a squeeze.

  You’re a funny girl – I do rather love you, I suppose. But –

  The dogs, blissfully unaware of the impending but major event, charged about the garden, head-butting hedges and nose-diving into the shrubbery, barking spontaneously with delight every now and then. James took Fen’s hand as they walked. She let it be held. In fact, she didn’t want him to let go; she didn’t want to let go. But she knew she had to. They walked through the garden, where James hovered once or twice, and strolled out into the woods. They talked about the weather, they talked at length about the dogs, Django, Fetherstone; they veered sharply from talking about that which they needed to. They continued to hold hands. Every now and then, Fen took James’s to her lips, kissing his fingers lightly (he smells heavenly, he smells of wood smoke), having to turn away from him should he spy the tears prickling her eyes. Every now and then, he’d touch her cheek with his thumb, or kiss the top of her head (she smells of apples, she smells delicious), or place his hand gently on her bottom.

  There’s never going to be a right time, he thought, but chose instead to point out tiny violets growing with determination in seemingly the dankest of places

  There’s never going to be a right time, she thought, but decided she’d rather tell James all about the Alpine stages of the Tour de France, specifically the statistics of L’Alpe D’Huez.

  Both knew, however, that timing was essentially in their command. Both knew they were ignoring the fact. They were helpless to do otherwise. Soon enough, of course, they were heading back again. Through the woods. Into James’s garden.

  For Christ’s sake, he reprimanded himself, I’m practically fifty years old – why on earth do I feel so bloody timid? I know the difference between right and wrong by now.

  Jesus, Fen chastised herself, get a fucking grip. Do what you know is right.

  Their pace had slowed dramatically. James was now hovering by the great cedar, under whose boughs the wooden hut, like a miniature Swiss chalet, was nestled. James’s hands were thrust deep into his pockets. Fen’s fingers were pulling at her lips, itching her nose, scratching her forehead. Barry and Beryl, having dutifully peed, were racing each other up the incline of the lawn, over the gravel promenade and up the stone steps. There they sat, waiting for their master to catch up and let them into the house. But James stayed put. And so did Fen. The dogs turned to statues.

  ‘Um,’ he said, ‘you need to know something.’

  ‘Er,’ Fen replied, ‘so do you.’

  Oddly enough, now the time had come, there was no need for deep breaths. She could hear her voice out in the open.

  Thank God, it will all be out in the open.

  It was time.

  With a hand on each of James’s shoulders, she gazed lovingly, sadly, into his face. ‘James,’ she whispered, because it was all she could manage, ‘it’s just – I can’t.’ She shook her head and tears were flung from her eyes like heavy raindrops preceding a downpour. Two sharp, painful swallows kept sobbing at bay for the time being. James was scanning her face, his eyes darting here and there, as if to find clues, as if to guess how her sentence would end, as if he knew what she was about to say, as if to commit to memory every detail of her.

  ‘James,’ Fen said, her voice loud but broken, ‘I do so love you. But I feel – I really do – that I must call it a day.’ He stared at her. She couldn’t gauge his reaction and therefore was obliged to elaborate. She turned away from him and gazed up at his charming house, at his two gorgeous dogs sitting expectant at the top of the steps, still stock-still like statuary. She breathed deeply the sweet clean air and tuned her ears to the skylarks. Underfoot, the lawn was springy. All around her, the land was fertile and verdant. It was peaceful. Beautiful. It was Fen’s idea of paradise. ‘It’s over,’ she said. Fleetingly, he frowned and a muscle twitched along his jaw. ‘It’s just,’ she elaborated, touching his chin with her fingertips and longing to kiss him there one last time, ‘I come here to escape – that’s the crux of it. To escape London, my week, my house – all my day-to-days. I come here to retreat. And when I melt into your arms, I’m sort of escaping, retreating, too. When I’m here,’ she continued, having paused to gaze at his Adam’s apple, ‘when I’m with you, it’s like make-believe come true.’ Her eyes locked on to his. She shook him gently in rhythm with her words. ‘But only whilst I’m here.’ She held him at arm’s length to judge whether he understood. She wasn’t sure. ‘The love that I have for you, James, is very real,’ she told him, ‘but the circumstances under which it is generated are not.’

  She dropped her gaze. Regarded his feet and hers. Stared at the lawn, the mossy springy grass. She heard James take in breath and release it.

  I won’t tell him about Matt. It would just be an easy way for me to dump my guilt elsewhere, shift the weight of it away from my shoulders.

  She brought her eyes up to his. James smiled at her; a gentle, mature smile infused with regret, sadness, acceptance.

  ‘Fen,’ he said, brushing away hair clinging to her tear-slicked cheeks, ‘there’s something you need to know.’

  He brought keys from his pocket and unlocked the door to the wooden den. He pushed the door ajar. ‘Go in,’ he said, placing his hand on her shoulder almost sternly. He walked off up the lawn to let his dogs into the house.

  Fen felt his hand on her shoulder long after he’d taken it away. Then she felt a little flummoxed. She frowned and wanted to swear.

  ‘I’ve just finished the relationship and he wants me to go and look in his sodding shed?’ she said out loud. She turned and watched him walking up the steps. Barry and Beryl had metamorphosed from elegant statues to hurling, leaping mutts.

  ‘Doesn’t he have anything to say? Doesn’t he feel a thing? Does he not give a toss?’

  Fen felt somewhat ungratified.

  I suppose I thought we’d talk through our feelings. I feel, perhaps, my words have fallen on deaf ears. Or perhaps his reaction suggests this was never the relationship for him that it was for me. Perhaps the love never had the depth for him that it has had for me. Maybe he’s simply not bothered in the slightest.

  Actually, Fen, James Caulfield is sitting at his kitchen table with his head in his hands. Oh, he understands all right. He understands perfectly. But he is sad. He is so sad that not even keeping his outdoor boots on indoors, not even the adoring faces of both of his dogs resting their chins on his thighs, comforts him in the slightest.

  Leave him be. Grant him his space, his privacy, his prerogative to react in his own idiosyncratic way. Go and look in his shed instead.

  The shed has one window, the frame subdividing it into four panes, one of which is cracked diagonally. The interior is not visible because the window is nearly opaque with dust. Fen creaks open the door. It is heavier than she anticipates; than the somewhat ornate design of the exterio
r would suggest. The shade of the huge cedar tree casts shadows over everything under its boughs. The shed itself is dark inside.

  Fen enters. She stands still, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Underfoot, she can detect leaves from last autumn – perhaps the autumn before, or even before that. Gradually, shapes emerge from the darkness. To her left, there are sun loungers. A rake is propped immediately to her right. There are some tea chests stacked up just further along. A dog’s carrying basket. Jerrycans. A neat pile of dust-sheets. And then not much else. It’s quite roomy inside. Quite spacious. A fabulous structure for a Wendy house, Fen thinks distractedly, or for children to play at the Swiss Family Robinson. Only James doesn’t have children, she remarks to herself, he just has his dogs. You can buy battery-driven lighting, she muses. A lick of whitewash inside would work wonders. Little gingham curtains at the window. Some brightly painted furniture – however mismatched.

  ‘Mismatched,’ she says softly, ‘me and he.’ There’s something cathartic about the rhyme, about grammar abused for emotional ends.

  Her breathing has calmed. Her hostility has abated. Eventually, her eyes growing accustomed to the darkness, she peers deeper into the interior. There is something very large looming at the back of the room. As it takes form, it gives Fen a jolt – it looks like a monster, whatever it is, lumbering under its heavy shroud. She takes a step forward. It’s all that’s needed. She stops abruptly. Her heart is in her mouth. It is as if she can see through the heavy canvas cover though she has walked only a step further into the darkness. She has started to cry – painful chucks of her voice; tearless. She continues to edge in deeper. Gingerly, she extends her left arm and her fingertips make light, quick contact with the canvas. It is thick, waterproofed; an industrialized tarpaulin of sorts. She’s only touched it briefly but the entire form it cloaks is known to her at once.

  Though dust and moths and cobwebs and even a bat start careering around the shed, Fen pulls and hauls and heaves the covering away. She is choking. She can’t see a thing. Mind you, she doesn’t need to keep her eyes open any longer. She puts out a hand to steady herself. She has touched down on stone. It is smooth and cool but not cold. A marble elbow. Dust settles. Fen stops crying. A little light seeps in from the garden. Light radiates out from the marble. Fen stands still. Dust and dirt and her heart are in her mouth. She looks up. Her hand is holding a marble elbow. She looks up. Fetherstone’s Abandon towers above. She is dwarfed by it. She is absolutely terrified.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Fen stayed in the shed for a long time, though she was utterly unaware of the passing of seconds, minutes or hours. Time was suspended. Initially, she just stood there, mouth agape despite dust and debris catching at the back of her throat. She backed up a few paces and sat on one of the tea chests awhile. Then she crossed the room and heaved down a sun lounger, reclining on it to gaze at the sculpture. Finally, she stood and went over to the marble, circumnavigating it, her hands never leaving its surface; touching, feeling, grabbing, groping. She smelt it and she licked it, she pressed her face, her torso, her back, against it. She stared and stared and stared. She hadn’t a clue what to do. She knew, though, that she’d never be the same again. It was one of those life-defining moments.

  She remembers Cold Comfort Farm, which she’d read years ago as respite from studying for her A levels. She thinks she’ll probably become like Stella Gibbons’s character of Aunt Ada Doom who was never quite right having seen what she saw in the woodshed.

  I will never be the same again.

  That took care of the future – but what, exactly, should she do right now? Should she call the police? The Tate? Django? There again, if she told no one, Abandon could well be hers. She could leave London and live here. With James. With Julius. Should she go back to the house and say she hadn’t meant what she’d said and that, actually, she’d rather like to live with him until death did them part?

  Hang on.

  How the hell did it get here?

  How the fuck did James come by it?

  ‘Oh my God!’ Fen cried, believing she knew the definitive answer. ‘Of course! He’s a thief! Is he? Is he a thief?’ Suddenly, she felt sick at the thought of the Adam and Eve, the bronzes and oil sketches, about to take residence in the Tate gallery. Ill-gotten gains. Illegal, full stop. She’d have to do something. Because, it struck her, she’d had something to do with it. But what? And what could she do? And would she? A tiny, evil little voice was telling her that Abandon could well be hers.

  No one need know – because no one knows it’s here.

  But Fen felt trapped. The pressure of making sense of the immediate situation, of trying to figure out what to do, was all too much for her. Instead, for some reason, all she could think of was The Thomas Crown Affair – a favourite film of hers in its original and remade state. ‘Steve McQueen! I mean, Thomas Crown!’ she whispered. ‘Pierce Brosnan! – James Caulfield! Suave! Elusive! And he’s conned me! He lured me into his bed so he could pass the buck and heap his filthy secret on to me!’

  Fen was absolutely enflamed with rage. She was livid – a state she had seldom experienced; certainly never this degree of anger. She stormed out of the shed, stomped up the lawn, stamped over the gravel, marched up the steps two at a time and strode into the house, not taking her boots off.

  Fen barged into the kitchen, stood still momentarily with her hands on her hips, and glowered at James. Instinctively, Barry and Beryl slunk off to the utility room and curled up together in just one of their baskets. James arose. Fen went directly to him and, with all the force she could muster, belted him with the flat of her palm smartly across his cheek. She couldn’t even hiss an insult. She simply stood there and shook.

  ‘I –’ James attempted. He certainly hadn’t anticipated that she’d react like this. Fen thumped him hard on the shoulder. Then she pummelled his chest with her fists, the effort finally opening the sluice-gates to her torrent of tears and rage and frustration and fear.

  ‘You bastard,’ she sobbed, backing off him before returning to his body. She had little strength left but feebly, she tried to punch him some more. ‘Bastard!’ she cried, her sobs heaving her entire body which started to crumple. James supported her, literally holding her up.

  ‘Fen, listen,’ he implored, ‘just sit down and listen.’

  ‘You’re a thief!’ she exploded, unable to listen. ‘You’ve conned me! You’ve conned everyone.’ She stamped her foot. ‘I’ll see you go down for this!’ she cried histrionically.

  ‘Fen!’ James exclaimed, as if to a child. Fen, behaving like a child, hurled the biscuit barrel on to the floor, shoved James hard and ran out of the house, down the steps, across the promenade, down the sweep of the lawn and back into the shed, slamming the door behind her. Then she heard the latch lock behind her. She held her head, scrunched and pulled her hair, and yelled with exasperation.

  James left her there. Not as punishment but because he knew it was the only place that she would calm down. If he was honest, he was, quite literally, knocked for six. Knocked, hit, punched, shoved. And he felt bruised, inside and out. He’d anticipated that divulging his secret would elevate him to hero status in the eyes of Fen. In reality, it had served only to disgust and distress his now ex-lover. He picked the smashed biscuits from the floor. Glancing round, he saw his dogs lurking at a safe distance in the utility room. They looked uneasy but they couldn’t help themselves from glancing longingly at the crumbs and fragments of Bourbon and Hobnob.

  ‘Come on, dogs,’ James invited. They came into the kitchen with caution, regarding James, regarding the floor, regarding James again. ‘Go on,’ he encouraged. They began to lick the floor cleaner than it possibly had ever been. ‘Poor Fen,’ James said, sitting down watching his dogs. ‘I mean, it’s not every day one comes across a long-lost work of art in a shed in Derbyshire.’ He suspected that, in her rage, she’d locked herself in the shed. He felt it would do her nerves good to stay there awhile. She needed to calm
down. She needed time to formulate questions – all of which he could answer.

  ‘My ex-lover is locked in my shed,’ James said aloud. He laughed. There was, undeniably, a comedy element to it all. ‘Shall we keep her there? Ranting and fuming?’ he suggested to his dogs. ‘A twenty-first-century Mrs Rochester?’ The dogs didn’t seem to understand. ‘She’s locked in my shed, she is,’ James said quietly, ‘my ex-lover.’ The dogs seemed to understand that. They came and sat by his side. James felt sad, an emotion that years of self-sufficiency and contentment had kept at bay. ‘We’re not right for her,’ he told them, with conviction. He fell silent. He thought over her words – about how their love really only existed outside their day-to-day lives. How it took form and flight only in the confines of the house, the grounds, a hotel room in Paddington; when it was just the two of them. And now she was confined to the shed. With Abandon. James glanced at his watch. She’d been in there three quarters of an hour.

  ‘I’ll go and release her.’ The word struck James as highly appropriate.

  Sweet Fen. I will release you. I could plead with you to continue with me – just the way we have been. But I have a responsibility to your future – and I think you are right, I am not your future. Nor are you mine.

  Fen looked at her watch. She did not know precisely how long she’d been locked in the shed but she reckoned it was almost an hour. She’d been clambering all over Abandon. She’d felt the breasts of the woman, the pectorals of the man; she’d run her hands over his smooth buttocks and fingered the woman’s lips which were parted in a gasp of sexual ecstasy. Being with the marble apotheosis of a work so familiar to her was incomparable. Hitherto, the bronze casting she’d been so captivated by as an A level student visiting the Neue Pinakotek in Munich had been her most intimate experience of the work. But she hadn’t been allowed to touch, just to look, to marvel, to study every aspect of it. She thought she knew Abandon by Julius Fetherstone. But it was only now, today, having had hands-on, direct contact, that she really felt she understood the work. It was about climax, she defined. Not just the thematic depiction of the throes of sexual ecstasy. Somehow, there was tragedy imbued in it – Fen sensed that the work marked the climax of the figures’ relationship. That when they pulled apart physically, they left each other too. In terms of technique, of anatomical awareness, it was unarguably the virtuoso highpoint of the artist’s career.