by Fiona Walker
Lucy thought back. ‘They had no children.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘What else do you remember?’
Lucy looked away, watching the trees being buffeted by the strange sea winds. ‘They were having an affair.’
‘Who?’
‘Nigel and Yolande.’
‘That’s so awful!’ Legs gasped, struggling to ever imagine Daisy’s lovely, urbane father enamoured of big-boned, raven-haired Yolande with her forceful opinions and booming voice.
‘Darling, everybody was at it in those days. I remember thinking that there should be another stage of life named ‘adulteryhood’ which came somewhere between early parenthood and mid-life crisis. Babs had a lover too; Howard Hawkes was clearly at it with half his tutorial group; most of our married friends in London were having affairs; your father was—’
‘No!’ She covered her ears. ‘Don’t self justify. You and Hector were obviously at it like rabbits.’
Lucy waited patiently for her to uncover her ears.
‘We were the only ones not at it.’
‘And now we’re making up for lost time!’ boomed a voice from the door, as Hector broke up the mother-daughter confessional with a steaming espresso pot and an open kimono.
‘You’ve come untied, Hec,’ Lucy pointed out gently.
‘Oh yes.’
Legs averted her gaze. Poppy had definitely got her ratios very wrong.
Outside the Book Inn, the seagull and several of its friends had christened the new car with white good luck blobs. An anonymous note tucked under the driver’s wiper warned her that parking in the quay was strictly forbidden. Somebody – possibly the note-writer – had thoughtfully closed the passenger door.
She decided to call the car Tolly after Ptolemy Finch because it was quick, young and silver-topped. She knew Francis disapproved of giving cars names – the red Honda had once been christened Wayne Rooney in an era when it had seemed ironic as opposed to just plain sad – but this time, she felt certain she was on safe ground with a literary legend.
She showered and packed hurriedly, aware that she was already running impossibly late. Yet her feet dragged as she criss-crossed Skit gathering the last of her belongings, feeling the wrench of abandoning Farcombe with so much unresolved. Ironic that Francis had given her the means of departing so swiftly.
‘I’ll be back,’ she told the sleeping bats and their babies overhead.
As soon as she came downstairs, Nonny thrust a huge cappuccino at her and, eager to accept the stay of execution, Legs settled at the bar while the little blonde drilled her about Gordon Lapis.
‘We’re getting calls every five minutes from people desperate for accommodation during festival week. Our waiting list is so long we’ve already had to close it. All the local campsites are booked out, plus every B&B within a ten-mile radius. Is somebody arranging crowd control for this thing?’
Knowing the chaos involved in policing the midnight book launches, Legs suddenly baulked again at the scale involved in organising the first public appearance of Ptolemy Finch’s genius creator.
‘It’s all in hand,’ she said smoothly, knowing she had a lot of work ahead of her that week. The sooner she got back to London the better. Yet the emotional pull of Farcombe meant she lingered over her coffee, staring out at the tilting boat masts in the harbour, half-hoping Byrne would stride in smelling of surf-splattered walks to tell her off for being a hopeless romantic. She knew she was really only hanging about in the hope that she’d see him again.
‘What’s Gordon Lapis like?’ asked Nonny.
‘Infuriating,’ she said indiscreetly. ‘I have no idea how he’ll react to public scrutiny.’
‘He’s probably hideous looking with a stutter,’ Nonny giggled.
‘I think he is quite old,’ Legs recalled his description of his face being of no great merit and haunted by the past. ‘You have to feel sorry for him; he never wanted this media mania, after all.’
‘What’s he worth these days? Twenty, thirty million?’
‘At least double that.’
‘Forgive me if I don’t weep for him. Where’s the great man staying?’
Realising her drastic oversight, Legs swallowed uncomfortably. ‘Did you say you’d closed the waiting list here?’
Nonny went very still, her face pale. ‘You are kidding?’
She shook her head. ‘I think he’ll love this place, but I warn you he’s a bit of a fusspot.’
‘Hey, I worked in record promotion. I know all about celebrity riders. He can have Grey Goose vodka, whores on tap and a box full of kittens. It’s cool.’
When Legs listed Lapis’s demands for a pet-friendly bath and pot plants, Nonny laughed in amazement. ‘Is that all? What an old poppet. He can have Octodecimo,’ she said excitedly, towing her towards the reception computer. ‘It’s already infused with the smell of sea-soaked basset hound, after all, and the bath is huge. I’ll juggle the bookings and make it work.’
Unable to resist, Legs casually asked after Byrne, to learn that he’d come in from a run two hours ago, eaten a bowl of Frosties in his room with devilled kidneys for his dog, demanded to know where he could hire a horse locally and then stormed out like whirlwind with a laptop tucked under one arm. Nonny snorted with amusement, ‘Who takes a computer horse riding?’
‘Maybe he’s hacking?’ Legs suggested.
‘He’s one strange individual,’ Nonny shook her head with a smile, folding Legs’ printed receipt and handing it over. ‘But seriously sexy with it. I can’t believe we thought he was Michelin. Is it true he’s Poppy Protheroe’s son?’
Gossip travelled faster than the sea breeze in Farcombe.
‘If I leave him a note, will you make sure he gets it?’ She scribbled her mobile number on a Book Inn postcard, along with a squiggle that could be interpreted as a kiss or a little artistic fish depending on one’s outlook.
Legs paid her bill and thanked Nonny profusely. To her surprise, Guy came out of the kitchen to see her off with the full Book Inn VIP treatment, giving her a tight bear hug and a pat on the back.
‘Come back soon,’ he instructed fondly. ‘We can’t wait to have Farcombe’s answer to Will and Kate back in action.’
She went outside to put her bag in the new car. Then she doubled back and reclaimed the postcard she had written to Byrne which she screwed up and threw away.
Sitting on Tolly’s very clean-smelling upholstery, protected by the high tech armour of roll bars, airbags, ABRS and traction control that Francis had given her, she took the ring-box from her pocket and flipped it open. The last time she’d looked at it properly, through puffy, weeping eyes, she had just wrenched it from her finger ready to hand back to him.
It had been his mother’s ring, bestowed before Hector had made his real fortune yet showing his generosity and thought-fulness as he’d had it specially designed in Hatton Gardens, a pretty marquise sapphire like a blue iris, surrounded by clusters of diamonds three deep and set in white gold so that it resembled an eye. It had always reminded her of the Greek good luck charms that she and Francis had brought back from holidays in Crete and Athens, and which had decorated their flat, protecting them from evil.
Carefully, she flipped the ring box shut again, an eyelid closing over a big blue eye like a knowing wink.
Chapter 21
Legs drove to Somerset in Tolly, stereo blaring, loving its nippy, shiny newness. She had plenty of opportunities to admire it from the outside when she stopped at garages for a wee, a side effect of having drunk so much coffee before setting out.
She needn’t have worried about running late; Daisy and Will were still in bed, along with all their children, the family Herbert turning the superking wooden sleigh bed into a big duvet-strewn family raft on which they bobbed contentedly through the morning while napping, scrapping, snacking, reading and listening to Radio 1.
Not recognising the strange car pull up outside, th
ey all lay low and pretended to be out. Legs had to throw pebbles at the window.
‘Will and I were celebrating until the early hours.’ Daisy waddled out to greet her after a long delay, wearing voluminous pyjamas covered with big red lips. ‘We’ve accepted an offer on the house.’
‘Congratulations!’ Legs hugged her and the bump.
‘It’s a lot less than we paid for it,’ she admitted, leading the way into the kitchen which was already a bombsite compared to its coffee-scented perfection two days earlier. ‘We’ve been agonising all weekend, but now the decision’s made, we couldn’t be happier and realise we could have saved ourselves two sleepless nights. We’re going to Farcombe!’ She put on the kettle, ‘I got Will to buy freshly ground coffee especially for you. Now tell me all about my gorgeous Spycove.’
Smelling coffee, Legs already needed the loo again. ‘Well, you might be in for a bit of a shock when you meet the loved-up neighbours.’
‘Don’t tell me your parents have rented their cottage to Harry and Chelsy to try to rekindle the flame?’
Shaking her head miserably, Legs told her about her mother and Hector Protheroe.
‘Man alive.’ Daisy sat down heavily on a kitchen chair, and one look at her shocked face left Legs in no doubt that it was the first she knew about it. ‘Are you OK with that? That must be a mind-wrecker. I thought my mum and Gerald was bad enough.’
‘It’s still sinking in.’
‘And they’ve felt like this about each other for years, you say? Your dad must be going demented.’
‘He clearly thinks it’ll all blow over and that Mum should have her fun in the sun before coming home to roost. But Poppy is livid.’
‘I can imagine. They’re far too old for bed-hopping these days.’
‘You mean to say they really were all bed-hopping when they were younger?’ Legs baulked, trying not to think about the ‘adulteryhood’ years her mother had described.
‘I heard rumours that the eighties were pretty wild; keys on the table type thing,’ Daisy mused, then seeing Legs’ horrified face, quickly added. ‘I don’t think your mother was anything to do with that scene.’
‘Well she’s certainly making up for it now,’ she huffed, ‘and I can’t see Hector getting his longed-for knighthood if he carries on with the naked love-in much longer.’
‘God, this would make such a fabulous screenplay. Is Poppy hell bent on revenge?’
‘Oh, you know Poppy – she’s finding solace through her art,’ Legs said carefully, not liking the idea of her parents’ private lives being immortalised in one of Daisy’s scripts.
‘Creating huge depictions of Hector as a blob, no doubt,’ Daisy was never far off the pulse.
Legs accepted a cup of strong coffee and crossed her legs.
‘Well she has got a bit of a distraction,’ unable to resist raising the topic, she told Daisy about Byrne turning up out of the blue. ‘He’s her doppelganger in some ways, but a totally unique individual in others, and incredibly complex.’
Daisy was unimpressed. ‘He sounds deeply dodgy.’ She clearly agreed with the Protheroe children that he wanted to see what his mother was worth. ‘Never trust a man with more than one name; always smacks of fraud and extortion.’
‘I think it’s about far more than money,’ she insisted. A curious loyalty stopped her betraying Byrne’s confidence about losing his life, but she suddenly wanted Daisy to like him very much. ‘He has this way about him, a sort of aloofness and watchfulness, but you can see a tortured soul ablaze underneath.’
‘Crikey, Legs,’ Daisy snorted with laughter. ‘Be still your beating heart, oh fickle friend. Isn’t juggling Conrad and Francis enough for you without factoring in the tortured son of a batty agoraphobic?’
‘When do you move?’ Legs demanded irritably.
‘They’re cash buyers, so they want us out as soon as possible. We could even be in Spycove in time for the festival. I’m dying to see Gordon Lapis in person. What a story. Will is mad at you about that, by the way; you could have tipped him the wink about the man himself appearing at Farcombe.’
She bit her lip guiltily. ‘It was a delicate negotiation. I wasn’t sure the Protheroe family would exactly welcome the idea, or me brokering it.’
‘But, don’t tell me, they’ve looked at the projected ticket sales and now they love it.’ Daisy gave a sardonic laugh.
‘They’re onside, yes.’
‘I bet that Francis welcomed you back with open arms.’ There was an edge to her voice as she heaved frying pans onto Aga plates.
‘He was a little more circumspect.’
‘And the Francis situation is what?’
Legs started to explain that her head and heart were at ever more confusing odds, but Daisy was so overrun gathering her brood, making a big champagne brunch, packing Nico’s things and chasing away the flock of angry bantams that had invaded the kitchen complaining that they’d had no breakfast, she hardly seemed to be listening and kept laughing or sympathising in all the wrong places. In the end, Legs gave only edited highlights.
Sometimes the two women’s long friendship was a comfort and therapy to both, but the confessional side worked better via email and long-planned phone calls these days. In person, Daisy was such a chaotic, cheerful, overextended multi-tasker that it was impossible to get her to concentrate.
‘I have three episodes of Slap Dash to script by the end of this week,’ she lamented. ‘Mum was supposed to be coming here to help with childcare, but bloody Gerald’s just sprung a surprise trip to France. I’m sure it’s deliberate. He’s furious that we’re planning to move back to Spycove. I bet he wants Mum to flog it, eradicating a few more memories of a happy family life with Dad.’
Again, Legs kept quiet about what her own mother had said just that morning about the Adulteryhood years and Nigel’s affair with Yolande. But she did tell Daisy about Kizzy de la Mere’s mysterious parentage, her clifftop Kate Bush shanties and her sudden disappearance halfway through supper. ‘I keep imagining her swimming out to sea and dissolving into the waves, like the Little Mermaid, you know?’
Cramming cherry tomatoes and fat field mushrooms in between split-skinned sausages frying in a big skillet, Daisy sucked her hot fingers; ‘How fantastically fishy, although frankly Poppy is hardly about to croak so I shouldn’t think the matter of inheritance is particularly important right now, unless they bump her off.’
‘Don’t joke. It feels like walking into Evil Under the Sun down there, everybody has so many grudges and secrets.’
‘It always feels like that,’ Daisy sighed happily. ‘God, I can’t wait to get back!’
Today, with an offer accepted, she was busy turning all life’s punches into punchlines and seeing only the positives in life.
‘This Gordon Lapis connection is such a career coup for you, Legs, you must use it to your advantage,’ she insisted as she plated up brunch from the old brown Aga. ‘He obviously feels an affinity with you.’
‘He’s madder than the tea party Hatter,’ Legs sighed, reluctant to admit how many times she’d reread his heartfelt message about the Emperor’s New Clothes, certain she had let him down somehow.
‘And you’re his Alice.’
Seeing it from that perspective, Legs felt strangely buoyed up, her resentful affection for Gordon bubbling gaily once more. She had yet to email Kelly to make tactful enquiries about his sanity, she remembered guiltily. She’d do it as soon as she got back to London.
‘Maybe Gordon Lapis is the raven at the writing desk?’ Will joined them. ‘Oh boy, this is looking good. I can smell my cholesterol count rising already.’
He was in just as ebullient mood as Daisy, making the family brunch infectiously jolly. As the only one drinking the champagne they’d brought out to celebrate their news, he got increasingly raucous and indiscreet over lunch. Keeping the children in stitches, he pulled faces, tickled, told stories and play-fought with all of them, baby Eva on his knee, as flirty and happy as Le
gs could remember him.
‘Why are you driving a hire car?’ he asked her as they all wolfed back scrambled egg, bacon, hash browns and a mountain of fried toast.
‘It’s not hired.’ She felt her heart drum-roll. ‘It’s called Tolly; Francis gave it to me.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Daisy spat out a mushroom in shock. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Grace parroted delightedly from her high chair, cramming scrambled egg up her nose with a plastic spoon.
‘Francis has changed,’ Daisy was too amazed by the car news to notice. ‘He was always such a tightwad.’
‘He was not,’ Legs defended.
Her confused heart rolled over a few more times in her chest, full of nervous butterflies, like tickets in a tombola with dwindling prizes on offer. She wished they could have talked more. They hadn’t spoken about the break-up at all, nor had he mentioned the letter she’d sent him pouring out her heart so soon afterwards. And the Kizzy situation still mystified her.
‘My mother always maintains that Francis’s meanness is a reaction to Hector’s gambling,’ Daisy was saying. ‘Children of addicts either replicate the addiction or have an almost unnatural aversion to it, as in Francis’s case. He’s the same with infidelity.’ She gave Legs a penetrating look.
Legs side-stepped the deliberate dig. ‘Hector will probably start gambling again now Poppy’s not there to stop him.’ She had a sudden and alarming image of her mother pawning the Spywood furniture to settle his Ladbrokes account.
‘Why so?’ asked Daisy. ‘Poppy had nothing to do with him giving it up.’
‘He always says she did.’
She shook her head. ‘He stopped at least a year before they met. I remember because Dad used to talk about it; he said Hector’s betting habit got seriously out of hand after he sold Smile and came back to live in England full-time. Then there was that massive clampdown on race fixing, with trainers being banned and jockeys suspended all over the place. The media loved it; rumours were rife about the big gamblers involved from the business world. It was all fantastically Dick Francis stuff. Hector’s name came up more than once. Nothing ever stuck, but Hector never went to a racecourse again.’