by Clare Boyd
‘Even if that was true, isn’t that their mistake to make?’ I yelled.
‘If they went to Poland to visit Piotr’s nephew now, they’d end up dead! You think that’s what I want? Wouldn’t you ground your teenager if you knew he was about to go out and rob someone’s house and end up in jail? That’s all I’m doing, being cruel to be kind. I don’t care if I look like the bad guy, as long as they’re safe.’
‘What about their money? Dad says you don’t pay them.’
‘I pay their wages monthly into a bank account I set up for them. But Piotr refuses to have anything to do with it. He says it’s controlled by the people he was brought over by.’
‘Then how do they live?’
‘Piotr gets paid a wage from his construction job in London. They eat here, they don’t go out. What do they need money for? What I pay them is effectively savings. Maybe it’ll benefit his family back home one day.’
I was running out of questions, finding it hard to dismantle his side of the story.
‘What about my parents’ loan?’
‘Why, what have they said?’ he asked cautiously.
‘A loan for that van can’t have cost as much as sixty-two grand!’
‘Sixty-two thousand pounds is half of what your father owed the bookies. I paid a lump sum back to them on his behalf, and he insisted on paying the rest. I have begged him to stop the repayments. A few hundred quid every month is nothing to me. Why would I need that?’
‘Why would they lie?’
‘You think your dad wants your mum to know how much he fucked up? He’s hiding the full extent of the debts from her, don’t you see? It’s easier for him to lie to both of you and to vilify me. For fuck’s sake, Heather, your dad brought me Agata and Piotr in the first place, as a way of making up for all the money he owed me. He said I didn’t have to pay them! He used them! I’m sorry to say it, but if anyone’s the villain here, it’s your father. I’d guarantee he’s still gambling.’
‘No, no, no,’ I said, jumping up and storming away. I couldn’t hear any more of his lies.
‘Heather!’ he called after me.
Why was he going to such lengths to lure me back to him? Nothing would change what had happened between us when I was fifteen. He couldn’t lie about that.
When we reached the meadow, I ran out of steam. He grabbed my arm and I swivelled around, yanking myself away from him, hissing, ‘Don’t you dare take advantage of me again.’
He reeled back, putting one hand flat on the top of his head in utter dismay. ‘I know what we did was wrong back then. But I was in love.’
‘You knew I was underage!’
‘You told me you were sixteen!’
‘You should have stopped it when you knew.’ But I felt guilty. I regretted not telling my parents that I had lied about my age. When Lucas had found out the truth, he had backed away, but I had been crazed by the loss and begged him to come back.
‘There’s not a day goes by that I don’t regret that. But I knew I would hurt you if I ended it, and I knew I wanted to be with you anyway.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. It was wrong. I should have known better. I should have waited. I’d wait forever.’
‘Don’t give me that crap. I’ve heard about what you force Agata to do!’
He shook his head again, as though shaking off a thought, and his frown deepened. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Sexual favours?’ The words were bitter on my tongue.
‘That is a lie!’ he bellowed. ‘I’ve never laid a finger on that girl! Elizabeth’s jealousy is out of control. I can’t actually believe what I’m hearing.’
As though his legs had given way, he dropped onto the stone wall, wrapping his arms over his head.
‘The way you speak about Elizabeth doesn’t add up, Lucas. You forget, I’m here, seeing stuff, hearing stuff. And only today I saw you playing in the pool with her and the kids. All happy families and splashing about. You’re not leaving her for me! You’re a fantasist!’
His head snapped up and he glared at me. ‘She’s the fantasist! She’s deluded. She sees things that don’t happen! And I’ll do or say anything to keep her happy so the kids are safe. Anything! What choice do I have? One minute I’m playing a game with Isla and the next she’s accusing me of trying to kill her! Look what she did to those paintings. They’re her brother’s paintings and she cut through his work with a piece of glass, on purpose. Who the fuck does that?’
‘Stop! STOP TALKING!’ I clamped my hands over my ears.
‘You don’t have to listen to me, you just have to read this. It says everything you need to know, written by an independent expert in the field of psychiatry. Look at all the letters after his name, for Christ’s sake! Do you think he’s making it up too?’
He backed away and left the papers on the wall. ‘Read them, that’s all I ask.’
They fluttered off the wall and into the breeze, landing around my feet. If I left them there, at the mercy of the weather, they might blow away. I considered letting them go, making up my mind without having to read them.
‘What if I let them fly away?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t need them to prove my wife is ill. I live with her every day. All I’ll say is this, that after this Seacart deal is closed, I’m going to divorce her. Earlier this year I begged the authorities to keep the kids in her custody, promising that we would consider boarding school to make sure Isla was protected from any further episodes, but I can’t do it any more. I can’t fight for her any more. I want out. I want more for them. Is that so wrong?’
His voice cracked and I thought he might cry. Instead, he turned and jogged away. My instinct was to run after him and comfort him, until I remembered my parents’ warnings, Agata and Piotr’s unhappiness, Elizabeth’s desperation, and my own memories. None of that made sense in the face of his tears. Or did it?
When I thought about it, I surmised that my parents’ information had come from Elizabeth, and from Agata and Piotr. With that in mind, I raked over the last few weeks, re-analysing events.
Had I myself not questioned Elizabeth’s sanity on the day she had turned up in Rye with an envelope of money? Had I not seen the craziness dancing in her eyes on the night we had stolen the paintings? Had I not been slapped by her? Was her point of view to be trusted?
Even earlier today, I’d wondered if I had misunderstood Agata’s low mood. I had assumed she had been resigned and depressed about their entrapment at Copper Lodge, but it was equally plausible that she had been wrestling with Lucas’s information about their forged documents, unsure who to trust. The language barrier between us had made communication spare and open to interpretation. In the light of Lucas’s information, I could imprint a different theory onto both Agata and Piotr’s behaviour: disbelief and denial perhaps. Having discovered that they had been duped, Piotr might feel responsible and guilty and Agata quiet and resentful. Piotr’s non-stop hard work on the pool house could be a self-imposed punishment rather than a manifestation of subservience and fear; a show of stubbornness perhaps, as he blamed himself for the situation they had found themselves in, too proud to accept that Lucas was right, too humiliated to accept his help.
Before I had even read a word of the file on my lap now, I realised that Lucas’s story held up. Believing him meant dismantling much of what my father had told me. It meant that Dad was covering up far more than I dared think about. It meant he had lied to my mother about his gambling debts and had hidden behind the saintliness of the Salvation Army to recruit vulnerable adults for his own gain. My head and heart ached; it suddenly seemed easier to demonise Lucas than to believe that my own father was a bad human being. He was my flesh and blood. He was the man who had shaped me. The man my mother worshipped.
As I stared at the escaping pages, I reminded myself that the truth was more important than misplaced loyalty. I had to find out who was lying to me and who was genuine. Regardless of blood ties, loyalty shou
ld be earned.
Quickly I gathered the loose papers, then I sat on the wall that I had sat on with my father every lunch break, and read the contents of the blue file.
Thirty-Four
She said goodbye to Lucas and hung up the phone, unable to believe what she had heard. In the searing heat, her mind might have been playing tricks on her. She flapped her shirt, trying to cool herself down, and considered calling him back to double-check, to reconfirm that finally, after years of waiting, Huxley Property was now officially merged with Seacart Capital Management to create Seacart–Huxley Investments.
It meant they were likely to become multimillionaires in the next few years; rich beyond their wildest dreams. It meant they could have anything they had ever wanted. For a fleeting moment, admiration for Lucas tweaked at her heartstrings as she remembered how bowled over she had once been by his charisma and ambition. His potential had been almost visible, like an aura around him. Everything he touched had turned to gold. Agata, Piotr, Heather and Elizabeth herself had been incapacitated and possessed by him; his Midas touch a curse rather than a blessing.
She reflected on Heather’s future. What Elizabeth had planned for everyone tonight would inevitably send Lucas running into her arms. But it couldn’t be helped. Heather’s trust and naïvety reminded her of her own. It might take her years to fully comprehend that she was trapped.
Barefoot, wearing the lightest dress she could find, she ran down the garden to the pool house site to ask Piotr for a hammer and some nails. She was going to fix up the garlands on the beam above the dining room table for tonight’s dinner party with the Seacarts.
Her whole body jolted to a stop, stunned by the sight of Gordon snatching a thick envelope from Piotr. The exchange was followed by angry words. In response, Piotr hung his head. Anger rose in her. It seemed Gordon had adopted the role of Lucas’s foot soldier.
She cleared her throat, making herself known.
‘Give that back,’ she said, feeling beads of sweat pop onto her top lip and the tip of her nose.
Seeing her, Gordon’s sturdy expression collapsed. Piotr took a step back, standing on one of his power tools, losing his footing. He shook his head and held his palms up, fingers splayed. ‘No, no.’
‘You owe Lucas nothing, Piotr. Gordon, give the money back to him now.’
Gordon fondled the envelope and looked down at her. ‘I don’t think Lucas would like that.’
Even as the sun beat down on her head, Elizabeth experienced a shiver up her spine, but she recalled how Gordon had come to her rescue in the lock-up last week. She knew he was only following Lucas’s orders to collect Piotr’s debts. And, perhaps wisely, he was cautioning her. Lucas’s phone call about the deal came to mind. She thought of the dinner party later. Today of all days, none of them needed any trouble. A small incident might ignite Lucas’s suspicion, and her own plans for the evening could be compromised. She had to consider the bigger picture.
‘Okay,’ she conceded.
‘Let me know if you need any help with anything today, Mrs Huxley,’ Gordon said, before striding off.
Elizabeth gathered herself, feeling the perspiration pool at her lower back. ‘Piotr, could I please borrow a hammer and some nails?’
* * *
As she pinned up her garlands, she processed what she had seen in the pool house. It proved that Lucas was still taking money from Agata and Piotr, further embedding her certain knowledge that he would never change, that he would never improve their living conditions. Unless she followed through with her plan tonight, they would never be free.
A nail slipped out of her sticky fingers and clanged on the concrete. She wiped her hands on her jeans. The newspapers had predicted record temperatures today, which would work in her favour tonight, but the thick air was tiring now, slowing her down while she prepared the house. She pictured Isla and Hugo holed up in Jude’s small London flat, stifled and sweaty, wishing they were at home by their pool.
They would have to get used to having less, she thought. After tonight, everything was going to change for them.
* * *
The four of them stood staring at Jude’s three oil paintings on the wall. Lucas had insisted they hang them on the oak partition between the bedrooms and the living area, replacing a series of Tracey Emin line drawings that Lucas had bought in a charity auction a few years ago. They took up the space with a magnificent sense of belonging, adding a dimension and depth to the room that Elizabeth hadn’t realised was missing.
‘I’ve finally decided which house they’re going in,’ Bo said, sipping her cocktail of gin and lime and fresh mint, which Agata had prepared with extra ice.
Earlier, they had pulled back the sliding doors, hoping for a breeze, but the wall of hot air outside had collapsed into the cool interior of the house and they had closed them again, hoping to keep the heat out. The reflections of the dozens of candles with which Elizabeth had decorated the room bounced off every surface, setting the blackened windows alight with gold.
‘You sure about that, honey?’ Walt snorted, rolling his bloodshot eyes at Lucas, who chuckled with his new best friend, taking a larger-than-usual glug of champagne.
‘For real,’ Bo said. ‘It’s been a head-fuck, seriously.’
Fighting back the urge to commiserate with Bo for having to wrestle with a decision only a hedge-fund billionaire could relate to, Elizabeth said, ‘Bridgehampton?’
‘Oh, you guessed already!’ Bo cried.
‘It’s by the beach,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Where I would have put them.’
When she imagined the paintings on Bo’s wall, as disturbed and rousing as the sea that would churn only a few feet beyond where they would hang, she felt a sting of regret. Letting them go was going to be hard.
‘Correct! They’ll look phenomenal against the whitewash, won’t they? You’ll just have to come out there next summer to see them. The ocean is as wild as they are.’
‘One day you’ll want to buy your own beach house there,’ Walt drawled. ‘The realtors on that strip are snakes, but I’ll know if a property comes on before it goes on, if you catch my drift.’
‘I’ve always dreamed of living by the sea,’ Elizabeth said, as something to say, knowing it was what other people wanted. Lucas raised an eyebrow at her. Bo took up the cue and elucidated the pleasures of beach life. Her wittering was peppered by too many swear words – perhaps she thought it brought her down to earth – and a self-conscious confession of how they had sponsored the twin daughters of their Filipino maid for immigration to the USA.
As Elizabeth listened, she placed herself there, in the Hamptons, with Isla and Hugo, a few houses down from Bo, whiling away summers, sandy and salty, reading on a swing seat, drinking fresh lemonade, away from home, maybe even away from Lucas. Swearing too much. Laughing more. Happy. Happier.
She stood next to Bo, with all her wealth and beauty, shoulder to shoulder as an equal, and comprehended that the exclusivity of Bridgehampton was now within their reach. Or perhaps Cap Ferrat in the South of France – the European equivalent of the Hamptons, where the super-rich spent their summers. Before today, she had not wanted more than she had, but now it seemed her desires were ever-evolving, shifting up a notch when presented with a lifestyle change she hadn’t previously considered attainable. Within hours of the ink drying on the contracts, she was imagining how the money could work for her, how this new house might solve all their problems.
This line of thought ruffled her, and she wondered whether there was a cap on wanting more, whether there would be a moment when they knew they had everything they needed, or whether, at that point, they would be dead. Dead inside? A spiral of greed that lead to nothingness?
‘Excuse me, I’m just going to check on supper.’
The open-plan space did not allow her to talk to Agata alone, but she would have to take her aside and warn her of what was ahead of them.
There was still time.
The brittle flower garlands
, weighted by a smattering of shells, hung low over the table centrepiece of dried flowers and reeds. The napkins they had rolled into the rustic burlap napkin rings were made of paper, not linen, breaking one of Elizabeth’s key hostess rules. The origami seagulls acting as place cards had wings that flew close to the heat of the fifty jam jars, each decorated with starfish emblems that glowed hot orange. It had taken Elizabeth and Agata twenty minutes to light them, leaving them with burns on their wrists. The overall effect was glorious, fitting; and nobody had noticed how precarious it was. Like tongues, the flame tips of the tea lights flicked hungrily at the centrepiece.
As the potatoes boiled in the pot, Elizabeth seared the halibut and Agata seasoned the dill sauce.
‘Go fill up everyone’s glasses, Agata,’ she said, dissociating from Lucas and their guests’ spending sprees, focused on the show she had in mind for them.
When the idea had first come to her, her palms had sweated and her heart rate had picked up. Over the past few days, the minutiae of the pre-planning had smothered her initial anxiety and excitement, too busy with the technicalities to be emotional about the consequences. Now the agitation was rising inside her again, and she worried about how she would conceal her nerves. Wet patches spread in the silk under her arms. Damp tendrils pinged out from her blow-dried hair.
She pictured the line of lit torches leading the way to the pool, where they would end their evening, and hoped the cloud cover would trap the warm air. Even in the height of summer, it was rare for their garden to retain its heat beyond sunset. But tonight, the weather was working in her favour. Still, she had asked Gordon to prepare a fire pit under the tree next to the sunloungers, just in case the temperature dropped.