by Fern Britton
Jesse looked at her sharply. ‘Will he ever wake up?’
‘It’s possible that he won’t.’
The sound of Jan’s anguished wail filled the room.
*
‘Live by the sword, die by the sword,’ said Greer, handing Jesse a whisky. She settled herself into the depths of their elephant-grey velvet sofa.
Jesse rubbed his forehead. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I’m just saying he chose to live recklessly and that’s what happens.’
‘He might never recover.’
‘Yes, and that’s awful, of course, but it’s not your responsibility.’
There was a knock at the front door. ‘I’ll get it,’ said Greer, unfolding her slim legs from underneath her.
Moments later she arrived back in the room with the policeman Jesse remembered from the night before.
The constable stepped awkwardly into the room, his hat under one arm, his radio burbling indecipherable messages. Jesse stood up. ‘Hello, I’m sorry, I don’t think I got your name last night.’
The policeman held out his hand. ‘Constable Steve Durrell. Steve.’
‘Sit down, sit down. Would you like a drink?’ asked Jesse.
‘A soft drink, please.’
Greer disappeared to the kitchen. Steve watched her go.
‘I’m afraid I have bad news.’
Jesse felt his stomach twist. ‘What?’
‘Your brother, Grant … He died an hour ago.’
Jesse could hear the rushing of his own blood in his ears. ‘He can’t have. I’ve been at the hospital all day. He had his operation. I saw him, on his bed, being wheeled back into his room.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Greer came back in with a beautiful tray laid stylishly with a linen napkin, a small jug of orange juice, a glass and a ceramic dish containing olives. ‘Here we are,’ she said.
*
Grant’s body was released after a post mortem. The police investigation had been unable to turn up any leads for the actual attack, but all their enquiries led them to the unsavoury characters and unfortunates with whom he had spent those lost years after he had left prison. Jan was tortured anew as details came out of his years of drug dealing and a drug habit that he had picked up in prison. It seemed that in the last months he had taken up dealing again and his life was starting to spiral out of control. The paraphernalia of a drug habit had been found in his rooms and the general consensus seemed to be that things were heading in only one direction for Grant.
Despite all this, Jesse made sure that the funeral befitted a Behenna. Grant hadn’t many friends in Trevay, but the town turned out to honour Edward and Jan. Reverend Rowena gave a suitable tribute to Grant. She didn’t go into his army career or his violent and often drunken personality. But she carefully described him as a son of Trevay. One who had had the joy of growing up in a tight community and loving family. ‘The choices he made in this life were never the easy ones, but we trust in our heavenly father to take Grant’s soul and heal it. We pray too that his murderer will one day be revealed and that the grace of God be with his parents, Edward and Jan, and his brother, Jesse. Let us pray.’
Jesse looked at the hunched figure of his mother, clinging on to her husband like a child as tortured sobs racked her body.
Jesse sat bolt upright in his pew and stared at the stained-glass window of Jesus calling the fishermen to be his disciples. He was glad that no one could hear the conversation in his head. ‘Forgive me but I’m glad he’s dead,’ he said to the sunlit face of Christ. ‘I’m glad. He hurt us all. And he’s not going to hurt us again. I didn’t mean him to die. But he did. Finally he did the right thing.’
The vicar ended her prayer and the congregation intoned ‘Amen’.
Greer got up from the embroidered hassock she’d been kneeling on and squeezed Jesse’s knee. ‘All right?’ she whispered.
He nodded.
The organist started to play ‘The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended’. Everyone stood and began to sing. Jesse, Mickey, Hal and Freddie went to the coffin with two of the funeral directors and lifted it onto their shoulders.
Outside the sun shone and a flock of seagulls cast their shadows as they flew over the churchyard cackling into the wind.
The freshly dug grave accepted Grant into its red earth, allowing him to rest on the slate beneath.
Jesse stepped back and bowed his head with a respect he did not feel. Greer slipped her arm through his elbow. ‘It’s over,’ she said to him quietly.
He looked at her sharply. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said: It’s over.’
He looked at her intently to see what, if anything, she knew. He examined the expression in her eyes, the turn of her mouth, the colour of her cheeks, but there was nothing.
‘Yes.’ He dropped a kiss on her dry lips. ‘You’re right. It’s over.’
30
New Year’s Eve 2012
Jesse was woken by the weight of four paws kneading the duvet around his chin.
‘Bugger off, Tom.’ He pushed the fat rescue cat – which Greer had brought home without asking him – off the bed. Tom sat on the floor twitching his tail and looking astonished, before jumping up again, and this time wiping his wet whiskers across Jesse’s lips.
‘I said bugger off.’ Jesse took his arm from under the covers and caught Tom by the scruff of his neck, throwing him back onto the floor.
The bedroom door opened and Greer came in with a chink of mugs on the morning tea tray.
‘Is Tom up here?’
‘Yes,’ Jesse grunted with his eyes closed and his face pressed into the pillow.
‘Did he wake you up?’
‘Yes.’
Geer put the tray down and Jesse heard tea being poured. ‘Did you wake Daddy up? You naughty puss,’ she said to Tom, who was mewing loudly and pushing himself around Greer’s legs. ‘And did he throw you off the bed?’
‘He jumped off of his own accord,’ mumbled Jesse.
‘I think Daddy’s lying,’ said Greer, walking round to Jesse’s side of the bed and putting his mug of tea on the coaster on the mahogany bedside table. She bent down and kissed his bristly cheek. ‘Happy Anniversary, darling.’
He opened his eyes and squinted at her. ‘Happy Anniversary.’ He sat and yawned, rubbing a hand across his face. ‘Twenty years. That’s some bleddy time, in’t it?’ Jesse found it hard to believe that it was twenty years ago that he had walked down the aisle with Greer. Twenty years since he and Loveday …
‘Yes, it is,’ said Greer, getting into her side of the bed and pulling the covers up. She took a sip of tea thoughtfully and said, ‘I think we’re just about all ready for the party.’
Jesse groaned. ‘I ’ate bleddy parties.’ He already felt that his house was barely his own. It looked like something from a magazine rather than a real home where a man could be himself. He’d rather be down at the boat-house on the beach at Tide Cove. It was his domain. It housed lobster pots, fishing gear, all the small things that Freddie had made at school, which Greer did not want cluttering her pristine house, but which made Jesse’s heart swell with pride and love for his son.
Greer couldn’t hide her irritation. ‘Well, you only have to come and enjoy it. Everything else has been done for you.’
Tom jumped back onto the bed and nudged Greer’s hand. ‘Tom, you nearly spilt my tea. Be careful.’ She reached out a hand and stroked Tom’s ears. He began purring loudly.
‘That bleddy animal oughtn’t be allowed on the bed. ’Tis unhygienic,’ moaned Jesse.
‘He’s spotless. Besides, he’s been out all night in the cold and needs to warm up.’ Tom dribbled with ecstasy and, opening one yellow eye, gave Jesse a look of pure disdain. ‘He just wants a little affection.’ Greer held Tom to her and nuzzled him against her cheek. ‘Don’t you, Mr Tom?’
‘Mr Jesse could do with a little affection too,’ Jesse said, turning to Greer and giving her what he assumed was an alluring
look. He put his hand on her thigh and slowly ran it upwards.
Greer was not in the mood. ‘Mind Tom. You’ll squash him.’
‘I don’t care.’ Jesse began his well-worn foreplay routine and started to nibble Greer’s ear. Tom, totally affronted, jumped off the bed and left the room, tail high.
‘I’ve got a mug of hot tea in my hands,’ said Greer pathetically, pulling away from her husband.
Jesse stopped the nibbling and took the tea from her. He put it on his side table and turned back to her. ‘There. No tea. No Tom. Just you and me.’ He restarted his nuzzling.
Greer attempted another diversion. ‘The florist is coming at ten. I haven’t got time for this.’
‘Don’t ’ee worry about that. I’ll be coming before him.’
‘Her. And don’t be crude. It puts me off,’ she scowled.
‘Come on, Greer. It’s been a while.’ He was on top of her now, whether she liked it or not. ‘And it is our anniversary.’
Greer went through the motions. Sex had never really been her thing. Her sex drive had always been at odds with Jesse’s. But she’d been dutiful. Nowadays she’d do anything to avoid it. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Jesse. She did. Very much. But all this physical stuff was, frankly, a bit of a bore. A chore. She’d asked Loveday once when they’d had a couple of glasses of wine on one of their infrequent girls’ nights out: ‘Do you and Mickey still, you know, fancy each other?’
Loveday had answered with passion. ‘Course! It’s the glue that keeps a marriage together.’
‘Oh. Yes. Absolutely.’ Greer had felt a deep sense of inadequacy and a feeling that she really must try harder.
*
‘That was lovely, wasn’t it?’ asked a satisfied Jesse, as he hoicked himself back onto his side of the bed.
‘Uha,’ Greer replied.
‘What’s the matter with you? Come, on, give me a cuddle.’ He put an arm around her and she was obliged to settle into his shoulder. She waited until his breathing became shallow and even, and then made her escape.
Without disturbing his slumber, she tiptoed to her new pride and joy. The en-suite wet room. This was what turned her on. Her interior design work. Her natural sense of style and feel for colour. The wet room was an oasis of Zen beauty. From the fat alabaster Buddha sitting beneath the waterfall shower, to the underheated Delabole slate on the floor. There was a mirror covering one entire wall and she glanced at herself. The light from the adjacent window, with plantation blinds providing moody shadows, played across her skin. She took off her silk Elle Macpherson chemise and carefully hung it on the padded hanger on the hook on the back of the door.
She looked intently at her still slender body from all angles. The pain she felt at Louisa’s death still had the power to take her breath away. It would creep up on her suddenly when she wasn’t expecting it. But, looking at her slim outline, she thanked God that she hadn’t ended up looking like Loveday. Loveday was fatter than ever and the size of her humungous breasts was just embarrassing. Greer had once asked her if she hadn’t thought of a breast reduction. Loveday, hurt and embarrassed, had said something about leaving alone things that God had intended.
Now, Greer switched on the daylight lamp surrounding the circular and magnified mirror above the basin. She checked her wrinkles and the tautness of her neck. She was satisfied. Finally she reached for the tweezers and plucked a couple of stray hairs from her brows and, horror of horrors, a wiry one from her chin.
Job done, she stepped back and took a last pleasing look at herself. Yes, the self-denial over Christmas had paid off. Her Donna Karan evening dress, all four thousand pounds of it, would fit like a glove.
*
The house was busy all day long. The florist, the cleaners and the caterers were finally all done by four o’clock.
At five o’clock, Loveday drove over with the twins, Becca and Bea, who had made the celebration cake as their gift.
‘Oh my goodness,’ exclaimed Greer, who had to admit that the confection looked rather good. ‘When did you girls get so clever?’
‘It is good, isn’t it!’ said Loveday proudly. ‘They’m loving their baking. I blame that Mary Berry and Mr Blue Eyes.’
‘Paul Hollywood,’ sighed the girls in unison. ‘We done what you asked for, Auntie Greer. Top tier white chocolate. Bottom tier dark with brandy-soaked cherries.’
‘And,’ said Loveday, grinning from ear to ear, ‘we found you something special to go on the top. Show her, girls.’
From out of one of the many shopping bags they’d brought with them, Becca pulled a smallish cardboard box. She thrust it towards Greer. ‘Open it!’
Loveday and her girls stood in harnessed excitement as Greer removed the rubber band then opened the lid, pulling away at some scruffy pink tissue paper. Resting inside were two hideous china figures.
‘’Tis a bride and a groom,’ squealed Bea.
‘It’s you and Uncle Jesse!’ panted Becca. ‘We got them in the charity shop over St Mawgan.’
‘It’s shabby chic. Just your thing!’ breathed Bea.
‘We washed them in a drop of Milton, so they’m clean,’ Loveday told Greer, thrilled with herself and her girls.
Greer didn’t know what to say. ‘It’s … the last thing I expected,’ she managed to blurt out, and kissed the girls, wondering how she could possibly avoid spoiling the beautiful cake by putting this worst bit of kitsch on the top.
‘Right,’ said Loveday, gathering up the various bits of baggage that she’d sprawled all over Greer’s immaculate kitchen table. ‘We’m off home to get ready. Kick-off is at eight o’clock, right?’
‘Right,’ confirmed Greer. ‘Drinks at eight, dinner at nine.’
*
Greer was dressed and looking perfect by seven thirty. She went downstairs to admire her beautiful home. Tide House always scrubbed up well. The candles, the Christmas tree, the flowers. It all looked ravishing. In the library and the drawing room the fires were lit, giving out a subtle and pervasive scent of pine. In the dining room the table, set for twenty friends and immediate family, shimmered with crystal and silver.
One of the four waiting staff stepped into the dining room as Greer was straightening an errant napkin. ‘Good evening, Mrs Behenna. You look very nice this evening. Can I get you a drink?’
Greer gave the young man a quick once-over, satisfied to see he was wearing the black linen shirt and trousers with long white apron that she had specified for all the waiting staff. ‘Thank you. You look very smart too … and yes, please, I’d like a cranberry juice.’
‘Of course, Mrs Behenna. Would you like a vodka in that?’ He gave her a cheeky glint.
‘No, thank you.’ She smiled. What a charming young man. ‘Too early for me.’
‘Not too early for me, though.’ Jesse stood in the doorway dressed in black tie. ‘Get me a large Scotch, would you, before the hordes arrive?’
‘Certainly, Mr Behenna,’ said the young man, gliding out of the room.
‘He’m bloody gay, ain’t ’im?’ remarked Jesse.
‘You sound just like your father.’ Greer tutted. ‘Please keep your sexist, racist opinions to yourself.’
Jesse walked into the hall and stood before the large gilt mirror that greeted all guests. He was fiddling with his bow tie. ‘Have I tied this thing right? Why you won’t let me have one on elastic, I don’t know. And this shirt collar is choking me, it’s so tight.’
Greer went to him and smoothed his tie and eased his collar. She looked at both their reflections. ‘We look OK after twenty years, don’t we?’
Freddie came down the stairs in an open-necked white shirt and tight blue jeans. ‘I’d say you look pretty good for a pair of wrinklies.’ He kissed Greer and hugged his father.
‘How come he got away with jeans and I’m dressed up like next year’s turkey?’
‘Because he’s young and he can get away with anything,’ replied Greer, gazing fondly at her son. ‘Freddie, would you
get my camera for me? It’s in the drawing room on the ottoman. I think we need a family photo.’
*
Dinner was delicious. Seared scallops in lemon chilli butter, rib of beef with all the trimmings and a light syllabub with fruit salad and a cheese board to follow.
Greer excused herself from her father-in-law on her right and Mickey on her left and went to the kitchen to congratulate the staff, who were busy stacking the dishwasher.
‘Well done, everyone. Superb work.’
‘When do you want the cake served?’ asked the young chef, Danny.
‘Oh, I think mulled wine and cake in the conservatory after the fireworks, don’t you?’
‘Right-oh, Mrs B.’
‘Thank God it’s not raining!’
*
At five minutes to midnight, everyone had their coats found for them and they were ushered out, through the conservatory, into the front garden overlooking Tide Cove.
Freddie and Hal found Radio Four on the house sound system and wound up the volume so that everyone in the garden could hear the countdown to Big Ben.
‘… Three, two, one … BONG! Happy New Year!’
Mickey gave his wife a kiss and a cuddle. She still looked beautiful to him and Loveday hugged him back tightly.
‘They’ve put on a good show tonight, don’t you think?’ He nodded towards Greer and Jesse.
‘They always do, don’t they? Greer knows how to throw a good party,’ Loveday agreed.
‘Even Jesse looks like he’s enjoying himself.’
Loveday knitted her brow thoughtfully. ‘Mmmm.’ She hadn’t said anything, but she thought Jesse had been drinking a bit more than usual of late. He often worked long hours, but more often than not these days he seemed to have a bottle of whisky to keep him company as he pored over the figures.
‘It’ll be our anniversary soon,’ Mickey said. ‘Shall we throw a party?’
Loveday hugged him tighter. ‘Let’s just do something with the kids, shall we?’