Drawing the Line

by Judith Cutler

  And then depressed. My mother certainly hadn’t been the sort of woman you’d find at any of the places he’d been photographed. Not front of house, as it were. Backstage, yes. The woman passing the drinks or the canapés. That’d be my mum. Or even a washer-up. So how on earth could I link this man with her?

  I worked on and on. I must have got every reference to Lord Elham ever printed. He loved the press, didn’t he? If I’d been up to half as many jinks as he had, I’d have retired to a nunnery, or whatever girls like me did these days. Unless I’d been a Kylie or Lady Victoria or anyone else who seemed to grab publicity with both hands.

  I packed up my things and headed out, thanking the women who’d been so helpful.

  ‘No problem. Let us have a copy of the book when it’s published!’

  ‘Book?’ I repeated blankly.

  ‘Or dissertation or whatever: there’s more than just a project there, surely! Or you could write yet another piece on him. Sell it to Hello!’

  We both knew she was joking, but as I worked out where I could get the cheapest cup of drinkable coffee I was beginning to get the glimmer of an idea.

  By the time I’d got my caffeine-fix and a burst of sugar into the blood, via a doughnut that really wasn’t very nice, I knew what I was going to do. The first thing was to nip off to a phone box and dial a 118 number for a number – cheaper than calling from the mobile. Amazingly the guy wasn’t ex-directory. I put on a Mrs Hatch sort of voice and announced I was from Day Trip Films – yes, I know it sounded mad, but look at the names of real-life film companies getting stuff on TV. And somewhere deep down, I wanted some association with Griff, though whether for luck or revenge I didn’t know. As for me, I wouldn’t be Evelina, though I suspected that might be just the name for a girl from Day Trip Films: I introduced myself as Lena, as in Horne. After all, he might just have memories of an Evelina, and fear a trap.

  He didn’t sound suspicious, not at all. I might have been the long-lost cousin whose call he’d longed for for years. He took the lure of a biopic without question, and agreed he’d love to talk to me. Talk? Drawl, more like. Was it his education or too much booze?

  ‘Oh, yes – any time. Diary’s not very full these days. Only one condition. Have to be pretty, eh? Oh, and bring a bottle of champers. Decent stuff – don’t want to upset the old tum with Chateau Rot Gut. Tell you what – nothing on the box this afternoon. Why not toddle along after lunch?’

  There was no way I could toddle anywhere as I was. I might be clean and decent, but what I needed was the sort of clothes Lena as in Horne might wear: the suit and boots I’d bought at the Outlet. The suit and boots I’d left at Griff’s. Hell and damnation. But forget gear – what would a Lena as in Horne say?

  ‘Oh gosh. Golly, that’d be great.’ I mustn’t admit I was stuck with public transport. I’d get there somehow. ‘About four?’

  ‘I don’t know what time you have your meals, my dear,’ he brayed, ‘but four will be fine. You know how to get here?’

  Perhaps it would sound better if I pretended I needed directions.

  He gave them and rang off.

  I should have been over the moon. But when I tried to work out what my emotions were, there was a good deal of panic. I couldn’t go and interview a lord like this. I couldn’t go and interview my possible father like this. I couldn’t go and interview anyone like this. The Outlet was just within striding distance, but if I had to shell out for champagne, which would have to be good, that must take priority. I braced my shoulders and looked round. As I’d proved the other day, Ashford had its share of charity shops: Lena as in Horne would have to be into retro-chic and, given the walking she’d have to do, whatever she chose would have to work with trainers. Her budget had better run to some sticking plasters too, to protect yesterday’s blisters. As I headed for the shops – sorry, no tip today, either – I made myself a big and solemn promise. If I ever had the chance to get a lot of money, no matter what it involved, I’d grab it with both hands.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was a good job I’d pretended to be ignorant: Lord Elham’s directions took me not up the long avenue but past the Hop Pocket pub, and down a lane that started as a gentle slope and ended as a steep hill. I took the unmarked track to the left he’d suggested, warning me that it wouldn’t be good for a low-slung car and urging a slow walking pace. At last I was rewarded by a glimpse of chimneys. The track was so bad it helped me get my story ready. My car was in dock, and I was so eager to get my interview I’d come by cab, the driver refusing to risk his suspension for the last stage. Hence my arrival on foot, rather later than just after lunch. Just after three, in fact.

  This morning I’d buried my emotions in the search for decent gear. Now I could worry about where to put my feet – it’d be easy to twist an ankle in one of the ruts. But sometime I’d have to unearth and face them. Meanwhile, I’d know all too soon how it felt to see a man who might be my father, face to face.

  But it was me I saw first. His front door, tucked away at the back of the east wing, was panelled with bevelled glass. As I rang the doorbell I saw what he’d see: a small woman in something like combat gear, baseball cap at a rakish angle. The surprisingly painful trainers had gone: I sported baseball boots instead. Not second foot, as you might say. Still couldn’t face that. But dead cheap from the market. The clothes I’d set out in were in a stylish rucksack I’d picked up from Oxfam for fifty pence. Yes, Lena as in Horne looked good.

  Lord Elham didn’t.

  Despite Griff’s propaganda against the upper classes, I rather hoped that Lord Elham would be a handsome hero. Whenever Iris had overdone things, she’d retire to bed with hot chocolate and a Regency romance by Georgette Heyer. She swore she knew them all by heart, but that didn’t stop her having a wallow in escapism. She persuaded me to try a couple. After six I had to admit I was hooked. I never dared tell Griff, but when I was rifling through old books I’d look for copies for myself.

  This lord wasn’t a heroic dashing six foot, greying lightly at the temples and generally sleek and elegant like some of the money-splashers we saw at shows. He was about five foot six, and, while he wasn’t really fat, wore his trousers under the bulge of his belly. His hair was in dire need of conditioner, and his skin looked pasty and unhealthy like that of ex-cons during their first week out of gaol, even the young ones I’d come across who’d only had short sentences. I tried not to look at his teeth as he gave a welcoming smile. It was harder to keep my eyes off a fork that emerged prongs upright from his shirt pocket.

  I had to ignore the welcoming pong as he opened the door. The place smelt like a dossers’ den. No, there wasn’t any piss in the general stink, but I picked up food, dust of ages, unwashed male and booze, all in one quick breath. Plus there was something else, I wasn’t sure what, but I could have done without it.

  We shook hands. I made my shake the sort Griff insisted on, firm but not an unpleasant grip. His was barely more of a brush. I suppose the half bow with which he invited me in might have been courtly. But it was no better than Griff’s. He ushered me past a room full of Wellington boots and waterproofs – that was the smell I hadn’t identified. Old rubber, with old sweat inside. At least he didn’t seem to have any dogs, something I wasn’t really looking forward to. I found myself in a nondescript room, sixteen by sixteen, maybe, though it was hard to tell with all the clutter in it. Once, perhaps, it had been the estate office, since the butler’s and housekeeper’s accommodation would presumably have been near the kitchen and this looked as if it had never been grand enough to be on show. The wainscoting was grained brown, and the curtains were brownish heavily textured stuff, which gave the place a forties or fifties feel. The furniture was a funny mixture of what I was fairly sure was a Hepplewhite sofa, one of those clever library chairs concealing a couple of steps, a brass-inlaid nineteenth-century chiffonier Griff would have given his teeth for, and a set of 1960’s G-Plan dining-chairs and a matching table which was blotched with tom
ato ketchup and other things I didn’t want to touch. In one corner was a huge wide-screen TV, the sort that had a music system built in. Home cinema: that was it. Even that was smeared.

  Lord Elham cleared a couple of Readers’ Digests from a dining-chair and pushed it forward for me. I didn’t see any good reason not to park my rucksack on the table, apart from manners and a desire to keep fifty pence worth of investment clean. I put it at my feet, retrieving the bottle of champagne, the best that Oddbins near Canterbury station could provide. Within reason.

  He shuffled off in his Scholl sandals, stowing it in something I’d not noticed since it was tucked behind the door – a fridge, on which stood an electric jug-kettle. It seemed to house nothing but bottles. A couple of still sealed cardboard boxes had Pot Noodles stamped on them. At the far end of the table was a pyramid of upside down Pot Noodle pots. They didn’t seem to have been washed before they were made into sculpture. Beside them was a smaller pyramid of whisky glasses, all engraved with some sort of scene I couldn’t work out without standing on my head. From this distance they looked like lead crystal.

  What on earth had I let myself in for? I mustn’t start thinking; I must start acting. In both senses. Time for my reporter’s notepad and a couple of pencils. The Duke reached out a bottle similar to the one I’d brought, parking it on the fridge, and, bending with a grunt, hunted for something else. OK, what sort of glasses would he find? Nineteenth-century goblets? Plastic picnic cups? Habitat champagne flutes? He came up slowly clutching his back with one hand. He put his trophies on the fridge while he removed the cork gently – just a quiet pop and no waste at all – and poured.

  ‘There. Cheerio, my deario!’ He passed me my glass, holding his to be clinked.

  I clinked very carefully indeed. I was drinking from an eighteenth-century wineglass, with a double opaque air twist stem. Dropping it would set me back – or his insurance company, with luck – by at least four hundred pounds. The bonus was that the bowl was so small it’d take many refills to get me even remotely tiddly. Except I hadn’t had any lunch. I’d better factor that in.

  ‘Not a bad tipple,’ he declared. ‘Not vintage. The vultures won’t pay for vintage. Nor will the Scrooges.’

  ‘Better than an alcopop, anyway,’ I agreed.

  ‘Alcopops – what are they?’

  I explained.

  ‘Here, write a down a few names on that pad of yours. Must try those. Now, this film – tell me who’d be playing me. Or is it all a bit nebulous at the moment? Would I get power of veto? Don’t want the wrong sort of person playing me – couldn’t stand that Depp person. Have to be pretty short, of course – but then, a lot of them are. Look at Paul Newman. That pretty boy Capriatti or whatever. He’d be all right for me as a youngster, I suppose, but I don’t see him handling a cricket bat.’

  Was he serious or was he taking the piss? I was saved the trouble of answering as he made for the fridge again.

  ‘Always have a little something at this time of the afternoon. Care to join me? Ah!’ Clapping his hand to his head he wandered out of the room.

  I was ready to panic. What was I doing, alone in this weird room with a madman – except he’d just gone out, of course. Was he coming back? And what with? I’d been a total fool, putting myself in a position where no one knew where I was, and, probably, no one cared. He didn’t know that, of course. He thought I came with my boss’s backing, that if I disappeared someone would come looking. I’d better make sure he continued to think that. Just in case, I flicked on my mobile. If there were any signal round here I could always dial 999.

  All the same, something was missing, and I was pleased it had gone missing. My normal sense that I didn’t belong, the one that had bugged my early weeks in Bredeham, my visits to Oxford – where was it? I looked around again. Perhaps I felt a tip like this was my rightful place in life. But how could I possibly feel that if my natural instinct was to clean it all up?

  ‘Here we are,’ he declared, coming back clutching a fork. ‘What flavour? I can recommend the Bombay Bad Boy Beef. Or the Hot Chicken’s very acceptable too.’

  I plumped for the beef. At the very least it’d provide blotting paper for the fizz. Funny, I’d had a vague hankering for a Pot Noodle ever since I’d come to live with Griff, but I knew that he’d see it as an expression of his failure to educate me properly, so I’d kept my secret to myself. I’d tried to cut down on crisps and other snacks, too.

  ‘There’s quite a cult following for these,’ he said, boiling the kettle. ‘There’s a website, and you have to have a password to get in. Bloody childish, I suppose, but a harmless bit of fun, don’t you think?’

  I nodded. Was he on something? Or was his fuddled head the result of being on other things, and a lot of them too, according to my research, when he was younger? We’d always sneered at drugs education at school: maybe if he’d given the talks we’d have taken more notice. No. You never think that you’ll end up in a shirt and trousers with Pot Noodle stains down the front.

  I’d have liked to scald the fork before using it, only managing a quick wipe with a tissue when I thought he wouldn’t notice. There must be a kitchen, somewhere, surely – that was where people usually kept their forks. And washed up. There must be a bathroom and bedroom. There must be far more rooms in this wing alone than in your average family home – so why were things like a fridge and a kettle kept here? Griff and I had once had a horrendous week of picnicking when we had a drain problem and we couldn’t use the kitchen. But this chaos had a more permanent air. It wasn’t just a week’s mess. Look at those pictures: the frames hadn’t seen a duster in months. And the windows: you could have written your name in the grime.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I said. ‘I’ve never had champagne with Pot Noodles before.’

  ‘Champagne really is the only stuff to drink,’ he said earnestly, sitting at the table at right angles to me. ‘Doesn’t give you a hangover.’

  I smiled and flicked open my pad. ‘As you can see,’ I said, ‘I’ve already done a certain amount of research for this project. But we wanted to talk to you informally before involving lawyers to talk about contracts and –’

  ‘I don’t like lawyers. What’s your phone number?’

  I reeled it off. ‘Easier to get me on my mobile.’

  ‘Office?’

  ‘Usually we leave the answerphone switched on.’ I wrinkled my nose as if in disgust, trusting he didn’t like the things, either, writing the mobile number down, tearing off the sheet and handing it to him.

  ‘Who’ll play the leading ladies?’

  ‘We haven’t got as far as casting yet,’ I said trying to sound firm.

  ‘Ah. Yes, so you said. Have to be a lot of leading ladies, of course,’ he sighed.

  ‘We were thinking of focussing on just one relationship. Which would you suggest?’

  ‘One! This’d be what they call a low-budget movie, eh?’

  ‘More an in-depth portrait of one period of your life. Your glory days.’ Goodness knows where that sprang from but it pressed the right button.

  He smiled happily, staring at the TV screen as if watching a replay. Perhaps he was.

  ‘Was there any special woman then?’ I prompted.

  ‘My dear child, they were all special.’

  I jumped. No, he was only using a term older people often use to younger ones. That was all. What I should be paying attention to was the simple word, all. I repeated it. ‘All?’

  He chased a bit of noodle round, waving it on the end of his fork. ‘Yes, all.’ As if there were nothing more to say.

  ‘Could you elaborate?’ I asked.

  ‘Thought you were supposed to have done your research, my girl. What was your name again? Oh, yes, Lena. As in Horne.’

  ‘I did find your name romantically linked with a number of women,’ I said, ‘but thought that was because gossip columnists always exaggerate.’ Perhaps his teeth hadn’t always been that bad. These days I couldn’t imagine one
woman wanting to be kissed by a mouth like that, let alone enough to warrant all.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Would you have time to tell me about your life in your own words? That might clarify things for us.’

  He peered at the TV. ‘Rather late for that. I always watch Countdown at this time. But if you came a bit earlier tomorrow I could go through it. I could show you round a bit, too.’

  ‘I’d love to see the place,’ I said. ‘I always get so frustrated on those National Trust tours when all you get to see is the public rooms, not the real ones. Don’t you?’

  He laughed. ‘Why should I want to go traipsing over other families’ houses? There’s enough here to look at. See that – over there, by the fireplace? Any idea who painted that?’

  ‘Stubbs,’ I said promptly.

  ‘Not a bad guess. But it’s more likely a contemporary of Stubbs – the horse’s legs aren’t very good. See?’