by Fiona Walker
Édith slid in alongside Legs again, voice low and confiding. ‘Isn’t Kizzy a darling? So devoted to love and to duty – or should that be torn apart by it?’
She swallowed miserably, fighting an urge to run out to the terrace and away over the parkland straight away. ‘I’ll leave Farcombe as soon as I can.’
‘Oh, please don’t.’
‘I can’t possibly steal Francis back from her.’
‘You must. She’s quite wasted on him.’
Legs turned to face her, bewildered, but Édith was glaring over her shoulder at Jax still perched on her windowsill watching the sunset. Then she looked back at Legs, dark blue eyes wide and restless. ‘My big brother is so deadly dull he can asphyxiate without touching his victim’s throat. I never knew how you put up with him, darling, but I have to say I’m terribly glad you do. Everybody is.’
Legs looked across at Francis in alarm, but his blue eyes were fixed on the door through which a thoroughly overexcited Poppy was leading Byrne.
‘Everybody, I’d like to introduce my son, Jamie!’
Byrne looked like a starving tiger that had prowled carefully and strategically into new jungle territory over many weeks, finally arriving in its new hunting ground only to find itself tranqued and transported from deep forest to city, then posted into a cage in front of an eager bunch of day trippers. He stared at them all in bewilderment.
‘Good to meet you,’ he said eventually in that deep, peaty burr.
‘Oh my, he’s handsome,’ Gayle whispered to Jax, who admired his bone structure coolly.
‘Great physique,’ she conceded. ‘But his face is too symmetrical. He looks like a character from a Vettriano painting.’
There was a hiatus as nobody seemed to know quite what to do with this newcomer, who Poppy was holding lovingly at arm’s length, the prized white tiger that she’d adored as a cub, who had now been returned to her fully grown and capable of killing a man for fun.
Legs grabbed a bowl of pistachios to go with her olives and waded in.
‘Hi. Welcome! I’m Allegra, as you know. Have a traditional peace offering with apologies that the branch is missing.’
Looking somewhat perplexed, he took a green olive and smiled faintly, but those dark eyes blazed in a way she was certain spoke volumes.
‘Legs is Francis’s loveliest friend, Jamie dear,’ intoned Poppy, unaware that the two were already acquainted. ‘She is like family. We all adore her, and she’s been terribly clever in engineering Gordon Lapis a prime slot here at the festival next month. You know, Ptolomy Finch’s creator? Dreadful tosh, but very commercial.’ She spoke the word like a sacred oath.
‘I’ve heard of him.’ Byrne seemed to be having great difficulty swallowing his olive. ‘Do you know him well?’ He asked Legs in a choked voice, looking around for somewhere to spit out the little fruit.
She shook her head, but Poppy had already decided to share a sworn family secret in her loud baritone.
‘Legs is Gordon’s confidante. He’s apparently very difficult and moody, more so now that ever, but Legs has a way with him. Did you know the publishers hated the name Ptolemy Finch at first? It was felt nobody would know how to pronounce it, and Finch was far too insignificant a bird. They wanted to call the character Tyler Falcon, but Gordon refused point blank and threatened to return their advance if they changed it – this is long before he became a star; the advance was paltry.’
Legs could have happily throttled her, but was too fascinated by Byrne spitting out his olive to dwell on it.
‘Pistachio?’ she offered brightly.
But Byrne was looking boggle-eyed, making her step back. He looked furious.
‘They’re organic.’ She waggled the bowl temptingly.
Byrne shot her an even more disgusted look and shook his head, moving hurriedly away. Trying not to feel hurt, Leg gave a shelled pistachio to Fink who had just waddled up soulfully. Meanwhile, Poppy dashed after her son, turban bobbing. ‘You must meet lovely Vincent.’
Within moments, Byrne was being circulated amongst the Keiller-Myleses and the Hawkes like an exotic souvenir brought back from a grand tour.
‘And what do you do for a living?’ asked Yolande, regarding him down her long nose as though he was a particularly unpleasant smell.
‘Jamie is an assistant trainer in his father’s point-to-point yard,’ Poppy said proudly, having already decided that the safest way to introduce her long lost son into her life was to speak for him. ‘Brooke was one of the best jump jockeys of his generation before the accident. Everybody said he had a magic eye for a horse.’
‘Just not a fence,’ Byrne muttered drily, and Legs suddenly noticed that his knuckles were tight white and his face quilted with tension.
‘Such a dreadful accident.’ Poppy shuddered, closing her huge, tortured eyes as though trying to blot out the memory.
‘It was no accident,’ Byrne breathed, but his words were drowned as Imee rang the huge Farcombe dinner gong with a deafening stroke, making Legs jump so much that the last of the olives went flying like marbles.
Chapter 16
Aware that most popular knowledge about her first marriage was made up of myths of her own creation, that had perhaps demonised her ex-husband Brooke too much in order to cast her in a positive light, Poppy was eager to swiftly rewrite history before too many contradictions showed themselves. As soon as they sat down for supper in the exquisitely lit palm house, with Poppy softly highlighted in the rose-tinted rays of a sunset at the head of the long table, and Byrne cast in palm-striped shadows at its foot, she took up her story with customary dramatic force:
‘I was very young when I married Brooke,’ she told her assembled guests, ‘but he was so dashing and talented, and Jamie was such a beautiful child – our perfect gift to the world – that we tried to make a happy life. I had terrible post-natal depression, and Brooke was always away riding out and racing through winter, which was bitterly cold in a draughty old cottage with no heating. We lived in the middle of nowhere in a god-awful rented dump that Brooke got cheap because it was falling down around our ears, but had a small yard that he could use to train point-to-pointers, which was his real passion.
‘Then he took that terrible fall at Wincanton and life changed for ever. He was in hospital almost five months. When the specialists told him he would never walk again, he refused to believe them. There was so little help in those days; my parents were from the class that thought one should just “jolly well get on with it” and said we were “marvellous” every time they visited, but still expected a full Sunday lunch and a walk through the woods with the dogs afterwards; Brooke’s family were all in Ireland. I had to look after both my invalid husband and our darling boy who was still in nappies when the fall happened.’
Legs didn’t dare look at Byrne, imagining the mortification of listening to it all, yet the equal fascination of knowing the other side of the story at last.
Seated between leery Vin and ultra-dry Howard, she was having a tricky time following Poppy’s story in detail because Vin ate with his mouth open, grunting loudly and appreciably as he masticated his way through the blue cheese and pear tart on its watercress and walnut salad; and Howard – infuriatingly disinterested in the story at hand – had been trying to engage her in a quiet conversation about her career at Fellows Howlett throughout the starter. It was quite obvious he was angling for a way to bring his academic tomes to a greater audience. He’d certainly done his homework about the agency.
‘I gather Conrad is a commercial maverick within the firm,’ he droned on in her ear, ‘but Dennis Nobbs sounds a good man to approach.’
‘If you can take the BO,’ Legs said, desperately trying to listen to Poppy talking.
‘There was talk of moving away from Nevermore Cottage and the farmstead to a specially adapted bungalow,’ she was saying, ‘but Brooke couldn’t bear to leave his horses and we had terrible rows about it because I had to look after them as well as do everything e
lse; I used to carry Brooke up and down stairs myself, heave him in and out of the bath, dress him and help him change his catheter. He wasn’t a big man, but I was even more of a swallow then and it wrecked my back, so I was always pill popping, and we both drank too much. We started to resent one another, he for being utterly reliant upon me and me for being a full-time carer. We both got terribly depressed. I felt I’d lost the man I loved and ended up with a lifetime of punishment.’
She cast a distraught, short-sighted look down the length of the table towards her son, but a huge modern arrangement of alliums and globe thistles at its centre blocked her sightline completely, so she hurried on.
‘Money became ridiculously tight. Brooke was such a proud man he refused to claim the benefits we were entitled to, as though it was an admission of failure. He kept talking about getting back into training, but it never happened. Old racing friends stopped by a lot at first, but gradually they all faded away, frozen out by our fake-believe that all would be all right. The Injured Jockey’s Fund helped us out, and I did dribs and drabs of work after Jamie started school, but mostly we lived from hand-outs from my parents.
‘Jamie was so little when the accident happened, he probably hardly remembers his father without a wheelchair, but I remember just how tall Brooke walked for a small man; he was a brilliant talent and a total charmer. It’s impossible to sum up how deeply and passionately I loved him. I was utterly enthralled by him. I turned away from my family, my class and my friends to be with him.’
‘Then you turned away from him to be with Hector,’ Byrne said matter-of-factly, his starter still untouched.
There was a collective gasp along the table. Few ever dared to interrupt one of Poppy’s monologues.
But beyond the alliums, huge eyes swimming, she simply dipped her head with infinite regret and lowered her fork, taking it as a cue for more soul-searching.
‘I still think of it as a moment of madness, especially in the light of—’ she stopped herself, knowing she must focus the story around young Byrne and not herself. ‘Hector made it clear from the start that Jamie could never be a part of any future we might have together; Brooke made it equally clear that if I ever took his son away from him he would kill himself.’
Byrne looked away, his face high with colour.
Again, Legs shared his mortification, knowing that Poppy was simplifying things appallingly and that it must be hell for him to listen to, yet he had been waiting so long to hear it he wasn’t going to interrupt. He was the ultimate good listener after all, with the patience to know that questions could come later. She admired his guts.
‘I had to escape to stop myself going mad, but leaving my boys crucified me, it still does.’ Poppy’s voice broke, and she took a moment to compose herself – perfectly timed to allow Imee to discreetly clear the starter. Sitting on Poppy’s right, Vin patted a big paw on his hostess’s narrow, silk-smocked shoulder.
She inclined her head gratefully, thinking he was offering sympathy, but then he said ‘Great cheese tart, Pops,’ which rather ruined the moment.
Beyond the alliums, Édith was now well into her second bottle and eager to stir. ‘Lucky Hector was still alive to run away with, the way he treated my mother. Inès cannot tolerate false-heartedness. I’ve inherited that. We’d kill rather than compromise.’
There was a loud clatter further along the table as Kizzy dropped her fork.
Édith pushed her plate away for Imee to take, food barely touched. ‘I think if one must leave a relationship then it’s important to do it as soon as one decides, don’t you?’ When nobody immediately answered, she looked across at Jax. ‘You agree, don’t you darling?’
Jax flashed her cool smile before turning to ask Gayle Keiller-Myles whether she’d seen the latest Chapman Brothers exhibition.
Poppy was eager to rally her audience again. ‘You are so right, Édith darling. It’s a trait that has always marked me out as a rebel like my paternal grandmother, Clarissa, who refused to live without love and wrote the most amazingly erotic Sapphic poetry. She became a family legend – she had five husbands and countless love affairs with men and women, royalty amongst them, and was eventually murdered in Florence by a spurned lover. Daddy used to say that he got his romantic streak from her, but I think it just gave him an excuse to be a terrible philanderer.’
Desperate to hear more, Legs was still under attack from boring Howard and his questions about publishing. Showing no regard for etiquette, he refused to relinquish her to Vin on her other side as the next course arrived. But at least facing down the table afforded her a good view of Byrne, with Kizzy to his right and Francis beyond that, all three of them barely speaking, eyes forward like statues. Kizzy looked like she was having teeth pulled, Legs noted. She had hardly said a word since the toast to Byrne, the translucent pearl skin on her face pale as marble.
By contrast, Byrne was increasingly red-faced and agitated, his hand raking his hair one moment and scratching his chin the next. His mother’s story was clearly getting to him, Legs realised with compassion.
Over a main course of mouth-watering sweet butterfly leg of lamb drenched in Indonesian satay sauce, Poppy regained her equilibrium enough to continue, her turban yanked back to give her an impromptu facelift, which made those huge dark eyes all the more mesmerising.
‘When Hector gave me a job here, I was at an all time low. I weighed less than six stone, was crippled with pain and slept less than four hours a night. Jamie was having terrible nightmares, and bed-wetting persistently, but I couldn’t get close to him emotionally. He was terribly obsessive and independent, forever disappearing; he would only talk to his father’s horses. I feared autism, but what mother wants to admit their only child exists behind a glass wall? I was too much of a coward to seek help.’
Legs lay down her fork, food sticking in her throat as she realised what Poppy was doing. This was machine gun fire self-defence. But Byrne, despite his reddened face, said nothing.
‘I fell in love with Hector out of survival instinct, knowing he had the intellect, wealth and strength of character to rebuild me. It was that or almost certain death.’
She left a dramatic pause. To her right, Vin continued devouring his lamb with audible appreciation, now sounding like a bloodhound with a mutton bone.
Legs was watching Byrne worriedly. Again, he had pushed his plate away without touching his food, and his red face was starting to swell. He really looked quite ill. Whatever was killing him could be staging an untimely coup, she thought in fear. Surely he should say something?
But at that moment his puffy eyes met hers and he gave her daggers, warning her off.
‘Hector begged me to leave Brooke and I resisted every time,’ Poppy continued, ‘but I was so frail he eventually forced the situation, taking me away for a weekend and proposing. We returned to break the news to his family first – at his insistence. But then I went back to the farmhouse and found Brooke and Jamie gone, with just a note left, saying I would never find them.’
She had to break off once more to mop her eyes. Imee discreetly filled wine glasses during the pause.
Looking at Byrne, Legs saw his face was like a huge red Edam cheese, his eyes barely visible. Again they managed to seek her out and warn her off. But this time, she had to mouth ‘Are you ill?’
He shook his big red head firmly and waved her away.
Her eyes reluctantly jumped to Francis, still poker-backed and facing forwards like a stone statue, although he had made good headway into the lamb, she noted. Sensing her gaze, he returned it with such bright blue, police-light intensity that she lost her breath.
‘I love you,’ he mouthed, damson streaks touching his cheeks, blue eyes deepening to ripe sloes. ‘I love you, Legs.’
Legs glanced instantly and guiltily to Kizzy. But her chair was empty.
She must have slipped out of the room unnoticed. As she’d been sitting beside Byrne, Legs could only hope that she was fetching much-needed medical supplie
s. He looked close to passing out.
Poppy’s bass deep, emotion-infused voice broke across the table again, ‘I tried everything to find my baby, my boy.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she pressed her bony fingers over her ears, which was presumably why she couldn’t hear her baby gasping for breath beyond the flower arrangement at the far end of the table. ‘But he seemed to have gone for ever, along with his father. I thought I’d never see them again. And now, like a miracle, here he is.’ She tilted her head and gestured dramatically to the alliums, turban shooting forwards to reverse the facelift effect, instantly rendering Poppy’s face like a Shar Pei dog, creases pressing down over her luminous eyes.
Unable to see much at all now, Poppy was totally unaware of her son’s deteriorating state, and everybody else was too intimidated by her high emotion to point it out.
As Imee whisked in, clearing plates and shyly promising guests that the praline, yam and pecan cheesecake would be with them in just a few minutes, Legs could clearly hear Byrne fighting for breath.
She pushed back her chair in horror, amazed at the polite calm around her as Poppy’s guests listened to her describing how her sculptures had always been ‘a repressed cry for help’.
‘Sit down, Legs,’ Francis muttered across the table.
She ignored him. ‘Can’t you see he’s ill?’
‘Hector has never appreciated the pain behind my art!’ Poppy was proclaiming.
It was a long time since Legs had passed her First Aid course, but she remembered the basic ABC – Airway, Breathing and Circulation.
Byrne was clutching at his chest.
‘I channel my inner child through my art!’ Poppy asserted behind the alliums.
Legs tried to pull him out of his chair in order to settle him in the recovery position on the cool slate floor beside one of Poppy’s amoeba sculptures, but he gripped tightly onto the arms with swollen fingers, wheezing ‘shot’.