by Kathy Shuker
*
Terri walked through and paused inside the drawing room door. Someone was playing ragtime piano while guests stood around in small groups, clutching drinks. A buzz of conversation punctuated by occasional laughter competed with the music. She could see Angela, stunning in a sheath of pale blue satin, chatting nearby to an elderly couple.
‘Terri darling,’ said Angela, smiling a welcome and moving across to join her. ‘Don’t you look pretty? I was beginning to get worried about you. Is everything all right?’
Terri forced a smile. ‘Yes, fine. I’m sorry I’m late. I completely misjudged the time.’
‘Not to worry. Not everyone has arrived yet.’ Angela leaned close and dropped her voice. ‘I’m afraid Luc isn’t here. Peter says he hopes to come along later. I’m so sorry.’ She straightened up and gave an expansive smile to the room. ‘But you know most of these people don’t you? We’d intended something smaller but it’s difficult to leave people out, you know? Anyway, everyone’s waiting to see you. Oh, Hugh and June have just arrived. Do excuse me.’
Terri stood, looking round blankly. She recognised a few faces and some of them had been at the preview the night before though she barely remembered their names. Fortunately there was no sign of Celia but Lindsey was standing with Thierry by the patio doors. At the top of the room, Corinne, wearing her customary black dress and white apron, was moving back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, carrying plates of food.
‘Terri, you haven’t got a drink.’ Peter’s booming voice cut through the chatter and he descended on her, pushing a glass into her hand. ‘Don’t look at it so suspiciously. It’s a Manhattan. Haven’t you had one before? Try it. Everyone’s talking about the exhibition. Such a success. Have you seen the reviews today?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘No? I’m shocked. I thought that would’ve been the first thing you’d have done.’ Peter stared at her as if only now seeing her properly. ‘Are you feeling well? You’re pale.’
‘Yes, of course. I’m fine, just a little tired.’
‘Reaction,’ said Peter stoutly. ‘Hardly surprising. Well, believe me, the reviews are excellent.’
‘Good, I’m glad. You deserve them.’
‘We all deserve them.’ He raised his glass to her. ‘Congratulations my dear.’
Terri raised her own glass to touch his. ‘And to you.’
‘I’m afraid Luc’s not here. I was hoping you’d both...you know.’ Peter cleared his throat and left the thought unfinished. A stocky man with a grey moustache approached and patted Peter on the back. ‘Nigel, how are you?’ Peter turned and flashed Terri a smile. ‘Excuse me, dear. Nigel’s an old friend. I’ll go and get those reviews for you when I get a moment.’ He moved away. ‘Yes, Nigel, thank you. Glad you enjoyed it.’
The next couple of hours passed in a daze. Terri spent time with Lindsey and Thierry, chatted to people she didn’t know and ate food she didn’t want. She was complimented on the exhibition and accepted the congratulations by rote. Angela, drink in hand, sang a couple of songs; Peter persuaded Lindsey to play the piano. He retrieved the reviews and Terri dutifully read them but struggled to take them in. Then he was standing at the head of the room, clapping his hands and calling for quiet.
‘Thank you everybody. I won’t keep you long. But, as you all know, this little party tonight is a farewell affair for Terri.’
People moved back leaving a broad semi-circle of space in front of him and several hands pushed Terri forward until she was standing on the edge of it. Behind Peter, she saw Celia walk into the room and look in her direction. Terri quickly pulled her eyes away.
‘Don’t be shy, Terri,’ said Peter. ‘You weren’t that shy in the studio as I recall when you were telling me how I should re-organise myself.’ There was a sprinkling of laughter. Terri tried a smile. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you for long.’ He paused and embraced his audience with a roaming gaze. ‘It’s hard to believe that it’s only six months since Terri came into our lives. She’s managed to not only change my working habits – something which no-one would have thought possible...’ (More laughter) ‘...but she has entered our affections too and become, if I might make so bold, one of the family.’
Peter turned towards the archway and nodded. Corinne walked towards him pushing a trolley bearing glasses filled with champagne. Peter turned back to his audience.
‘I’d like you each to take a glass of champagne for the toast.’ He waited while the glasses were distributed. The buzz of chatter in the room slowly subsided and was replaced with an expectant silence. ‘The retrospective is excellent,’ Peter went on. ‘Thanks must go to Terri who has done me proud, but sadly she must move on. Someone else’s gain will be our loss. But we would like, Terri, to drink to your future health and happiness and what we are sure will be your continued success. Though we hope that your success won’t be so great that you forget where we are.’ He hesitated. ‘Indeed there is actually a strong possibility that Terri is a member of the family and I couldn’t be happier about it.’ He looked at her directly. ‘I’m sure I speak for Angela and Lindsey if I say that you will always be welcome here.’ Peter lifted his glass. ‘To Terri,’ he bellowed.
Her name was echoed round the room and everyone drank the toast.
‘Terri?’ Peter produced a small blue padded box and held it out to her on his upturned palm. ‘Please accept this small gift as a token of my appreciation. These belonged to Madeleine. It seems appropriate that you should have them.’
Terri frowned and glanced around uncertainly. Celia had moved to her left. A short distance to her right, Angela was staring, open-mouthed, an expression of horrified amazement on her face.
‘Really Peter, it’s not necessary,’ said Terri.
‘For once in your life, don’t argue.’ Peter thrust his hand further towards her. ‘For God’s sake, just take it.’
Terri relinquished her champagne flute to Celia’s grasp, reluctantly picked up the box and lifted back the sprung lid. Inside, resting on a padded cushion was a pair of stunning diamond and sapphire earrings. She pulled one out and watched the stones dance with light as they fell over her fingers.
‘They’re beautiful.’ She lifted her eyes to Peter’s face. He was smiling but she felt dead inside.
‘I remember Madeleine wearing those,’ proclaimed Celia. ‘She loved them. She’ll be so glad they’ve come to you.’
‘Indeed,’ Peter grunted. ‘Well, time we got the coffee going, hm?’
He moved away towards the kitchen. People began to cluster round, wanting to see Peter’s gift. There were murmurs of astonishment at the generosity of it, puzzled questions about the reference to Madeleine and then whisperings about ‘some long lost granddaughter’.
‘Silly old fool,’ Terri heard Angela mutter at her shoulder. ‘Stupid, bloody silly old fool,’ she said more loudly as her temper grew. ‘What does he think he’s playing at?’
Her anger was palpable. The veneer of hospitable charm had slipped away and the green eyes now fixed on Terri held pure hatred. Terri had a sudden memory of the dinner they had shared, out under the pergola, when Angela’s easy conversation had smoothly given way to insinuation, accusation and barely veiled warning, before just as smoothly reversing again. This woman wore a different mask for every occasion; she was clearly able to change them at will.
Angela turned on her heel, pushing her way through the circle of people towards the kitchen. A couple of minutes later raised angry voices could be heard from behind the half-open door.
The interest in the earrings quickly subsided and people began to shuffle away, embarrassed, talking loudly to cover the row. Lindsey exchanged a few words with Terri and said she was leaving with Thierry. Corinne, with a fixed expression, emerged through the door with a trolley of coffee things. Terri quickly closed the jewellery box and pushed it into her clutch bag. Celia thrust Terri’s champagne flute back at her.
‘Drink up,’ she
said. ‘You can’t waste good bubbly.’
Terri took it and immediately put it down on a side table nearby.
‘I don’t want it,’ she said crisply.
‘Now, now. What’s got into you?’
‘You should know,’ snapped Terri. She couldn’t tolerate Celia’s whimsy when the woman had been manipulating her into this intolerable position all along.
The kitchen door banged and there was silence. The conversation started up again and an atmosphere of fake bonhomie filled the room. Peter walked in, looking strained, took a cup of coffee and engaged in loud but flat conversation. Celia began telling Terri about a painting she’d started on the Thursday but hadn’t been able to finish because of the weather. She rambled on, wondering when the light conditions would be the same again. Terri excused herself and walked away.
People had started to leave; Peter was sitting on a sofa, looking suddenly very weary. A few people made their excuses; others just slipped away. Terri went across to him.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
He raised bleary eyes. ‘Mm? Yes, champion m’dear. Champion. Did you have a good party?’
‘Yes, thank you. And thank you for the earrings. They’re lovely but you shouldn’t have done that.’
‘I wanted to.’
‘Angela didn’t like it.’
‘No. No, she didn’t. I hoped she’d understand.’ He frowned, then sighed heavily. ‘God I’m tired. I should go to bed.’ He made a weak effort to get up and she automatically put out a hand to help him. He waved her away impatiently and struggled to his feet. ‘I’m not decrepit yet,’ he said brusquely.
The salon had rapidly emptied; footsteps and subdued voices could be heard from the terrace. Celia, a fresh glass of champagne in one hand, a cigarette in the other, was standing just outside the open patio doors, staring up at the sky.
‘Is the sky more of an ultramarine or an indigo, do you think?’ she could be heard enquiring of no-one in particular.
Terri walked with Peter through to the hall. Corinne had already set the dishwasher going and gone home. After the bustle of the party the house had a melancholic air. Terri watched Peter slowly climb the stairs to his room, then turned away and walked into the sitting room. The front of the room was thick with darkness but the table lamp was still lit on the cupboard at the back and in the circle of light it shed, Terri noticed something wrong with the portrait. She moved closer. The canvas had been repeatedly ripped across Madeleine’s face, leaving sections of it hanging down in strips.
‘Oh my God,’ she said, stretching her fingers up to push the canvas back in a completely futile gesture. ‘No...it can’t be...what’s happened?’
‘Yes, such a shame,’ said a voice behind her.
Terri spun round but struggled to see into the gloom. A dark shape rose up from the wing-backed chair and walked into the ring of light. Terri already knew who it was, though Angela’s distinctive voice now had a slurred edge. She’d clearly drunk a great deal and still had a balloon glass in her left hand containing a finger of brandy. In the dim light her eyes glinted darkly. It was clear her anger had little abated.
‘But I suppose we’ll manage to find something...’ Angela hesitated and gestured vaguely with her right hand which held a sharp little kitchen knife. ‘...fresher, to replace it. Did I hear Peter going to bed, by the way?’
‘Did you do this?’ Terri pointed at the canvas with a shaking hand. ‘What the hell were you thinking of?’
‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, Terri Challoner. You’re not family, whatever the stupid man says. Not now, not ever, not if I have anything to do with it.’ Angela’s eyes narrowed. ‘I knew all along that you were in some conspiracy with that crone. And now you’ve got the old fool giving you Madeleine’s jewellery. What’s next? A new car perhaps, a down payment on a flat? Lindsey pushed out and forgotten because you’ve got Madeleine’s eyes.’ She scoffed.
‘I didn’t ask for presents...or anything else. That’s not what it’s been about and you know it. I just wanted to know if Josephine was my mother.’
‘Darling, you can drop the act now. This is me, remember?’ Angela took a sip of brandy. ‘You know, I really thought Peter had begun to lose interest in this fantasy but then we get that nauseating performance...and in front of everyone too.’ She regarded Terri disdainfully. ‘There’s no proof that Josephine was pregnant, you know. That’s just Celia’s bit of fiction.’
‘But she was pregnant,’ said Terri, increasingly angry. ‘She said so in her last diary.’
‘Oh please. There are no diaries, Terri.’
‘Yes there are. There are four and I’ve read them all.’
‘You found them?’ Angela was frowning now. ‘Where?’
‘In the attic.’
Angela studied Terri’s face, then laughed shortly.
‘You’re bluffing. I searched everywhere up there for those diaries. They weren’t there.’
‘They were. I found them weeks ago. Though it took me a while to find the last one. It was hidden in the writing box.’
A flicker of doubt ran across Angela’s eyes. She raised her chin in a show of defiance. ‘Show me this diary then.’
Terri shook her head. ‘I’m keeping it in a safe place.’
‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’ Angela pointed the knife dangerously close to Terri’s face, her eyes blazing. ‘You are, aren’t you? Well, it won’t work. You’re a parasite.’
‘No,’ said Terri in a quiet, steely voice. ‘It’s you. You’re a cheat and a liar.’ She met Angela’s gaze and stared her out.
Angela looked disconcerted, momentarily uncertain. She let the hand drop and turned away, glancing back at Terri uneasily. ‘What is it you want exactly? Tell me. I can see you’re not going to go until you get something out of this.’
‘What I wanted was to find out the truth about Josie and Tom. And now I have.’ Terri snorted, scornfully. ‘And what a sordid story it is. Even so, I’d half decided to let it go. I thought, why make Peter hurt again after all this time? But I can’t let it go. And no, Angela, I won’t.’
‘Peter? Everyone always worries about Peter, don’t they? Poor Peter this and poor Peter that. What about me? No-one thinks how hard it was on me, always playing second fiddle to that.’ She pointed the knife towards the shredded portrait. ‘Little Miss Perfect there. And not only do I have to live in her shadow but I inherit her insolent daughter and a spastic boy as well.’
‘Is that why you let Josephine take the blame for Tom’s accident: to get rid of both of them in one go?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Yes you do. You’d arranged to meet one of Peter’s students in the pool house. I’m guessing you’d found out somehow that Josie had an appointment at the doctor’s so you thought you’d be safe. Then you saw Basma bring Tom to the pool instead and you had to get her out of the way. But if you’d told her to take the boy and go, Tom would have made a fuss, so you said you’d watch over him and you sent Basma away. Or maybe you saw a perfect opportunity to get rid of him permanently and it wasn’t an accident at all.’
‘You’re making this up,’ said Angela. ‘I wasn’t even at the house when Tom went swimming. I only got back after it happened.’
Terri ignored her. ‘When Tom asked for his arm bands, you told him to manage without them. You’re too big a boy to use those now, you said.’
‘You can’t possibly know what happened,’ said Angela, looking scared. ‘It won’t say in the diary; Josephine wasn’t there.’
‘No, exactly, because Josephine wasn’t there. But Basma was - and she heard what you said to Tom. She hung around, didn’t she?’
Angela’s expression froze, then she laughed, ostentatiously downed the last of the brandy and put the glass on the sideboard. ‘Basma was a liar, a thief and an illegal immigrant. I sent her packing.’
‘Well, she’s legal now - and ready to talk. She was never a thief or a
liar, she simply didn’t want to leave Tom with you - she’d seen the way you treated him. So you got cross and told her to disappear, permanently, or you’d tell the authorities about her. You couldn’t risk her saying who you’d been meeting. Later, you’d tell Josie that it was Peter who’d sent her away. And then you let Tom drown while you made out with your lover, just a stone’s throw away. Tell me, was it easy to ignore his distress while he thrashed around in the water, struggling to breathe?’
‘No,’ pleaded Angela. ‘No, you’re twisting everything. I didn’t do it intentionally. I would have helped him if I’d realised there was a problem. By the time I got dressed he was already dead. I never meant that to happen.’
‘But you didn’t give him his arm bands on purpose. He had to have them to protect him from his spasms.’
‘No, no,’ she almost shouted. ‘I didn’t think it would matter. I didn’t like handling him. He was...all hands and silly grins...and he dribbled. I didn’t like to touch him. And he could swim surprisingly well. I didn’t know about the spasms. I didn’t.’
‘You knew. Everyone knew. And you abandoned him. When Josie came back from her appointment with the doctor, she found Tom dead in the water and no-one else around. What sort of woman are you to leave a boy to die while you cheat on your husband, then let the boy’s sister take the blame?’
‘The sort who is treated as second best behind a dead woman who can do no wrong.’ Angela pointed angrily at the painting again. ‘I was just looking for a little tenderness,’ she said pathetically. ‘I mean is that so bad? I was unhappy. I was young and lonely. I didn’t mean anything by it.’ Her voice hardened again. ‘Don’t you dare lecture me.’
‘You had tenderness,’ said a man’s voice.
Terri swung round to see Peter standing in the doorway behind them. He stepped further into the room and let his gaze wander over the scene, then settle on the damaged portrait beyond the two women.
‘Peter darling...’Angela stepped quickly across to join him. ‘...what are you doing here?’