Hothouse Flower

by Lucinda Riley

  ‘Oh, I see. That’s the spirit! Got to get back into the swing at some point. And back to that piano too.’

  ‘One step at a time, Dad,’ Julia cautioned.

  ‘Yes, of course. Well, I’m off this weekend. If you’re back on email, I’ll keep in contact as usual. Though what communications are like out there, I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Keep safe, Dad.’

  ‘And you, darling. Just remember, I’m proud of you.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad. Bye.’

  ‘Goodbye, darling.’

  As Julia ended the call she saw a text from Kit had come through. She pressed delete without reading it and finished her glass of wine and sandwich, thinking about tomorrow and the next difficult step of her journey. Now that it was imminent, she was dreading it. As she strolled back to her cottage, Julia pondered whether she was ready to leave. However irritating she found Alicia’s clucking attention, it had provided a sense of security.

  Back in France, she’d be on her own with the memories.

  But what choice did she have? There was nothing for her here, nothing.

  29

  By eight that evening, the hire car she’d used for the past few months had been collected. The cottage was clean and tidy, and the airport taxi booked for seven thirty the following morning. Her holdall was waiting by the door; she was ready to leave.

  She looked around the sitting room, suddenly fond of the four walls that had witnessed her distress and provided stoic, if basic, sanctuary when she had needed it most. She stood up, went to the front door and opened it. She breathed in the cool, clean smell of the North Sea, and looked one last time at the boats bobbing in the harbour below.

  ‘Hello, Julia.’

  A voice came out of the darkness and her heart jumped into her mouth.

  ‘It’s me, Kit,’ the voice said, as a figure moved into the pool of dim light emanating from the inside of the house.

  Julia froze. She urged her body to take just three steps backward, shut and bolt the door, and hide behind the sofa until he’d gone. It didn’t respond, so she was stuck where she was.

  ‘Look, I know you’re leaving tomorrow –’

  ‘How?’ she barked, pleased that her voice worked at least.

  ‘I called your sister. When I didn’t hear from you, I was worried.’

  ‘Hah!’ Julia couldn’t help herself.

  ‘Julia …’ Kit took another couple of steps forward, and Julia’s arms reached out instinctively to bar the door.

  ‘Look, I really do think there’s been a misunderstanding. Could I come in and explain?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary, actually. I understand the misunderstanding, Kit, all too well. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an early start tomorrow and I want to go to bed. Goodnight.’

  Julia took two steps inside and made to close the door.

  ‘Please, Julia,’ Kit reached out the flat of his hand to keep the door open. ‘Just let me explain, even if only so we don’t part on bad terms. I’d hate that, I really would.’

  Julia sighed, shrugged her shoulders and relented. ‘If you insist. Five minutes then.’ She turned and walked to the sofa to sit down.

  Kit followed her inside and hovered by the fireplace.

  ‘The reason I didn’t call you last week was because Annie had her baby.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Congratulations.’ Julia forced a smile.

  ‘Thank you. I’ll pass that on to her when I next speak to her.’

  Julia arched an eyebrow in disgust. ‘Please don’t bullshit me, Kit. I saw the three of you in Holt, looking very cosy. It’s fine, it really is.’

  ‘Yes, it is fine, Julia, at least now anyway. Look,’ Kit scratched his head in agitation, ‘do you want to hear the reality or would you prefer to stick to the script that the whole of North Norfolk has conjured up for me in the past few weeks? Really, it’s up to you.’

  ‘Sure,’ Julia shrugged non-committally. ‘If you want.’

  ‘Whether you’re interested in hearing it or not, I feel I owe you the truth. So,’ Kit sighed, ‘in brief, Annie is a very old and dear friend of mine. Twelve years ago, she helped me through a difficult time in my life. Anyway, she subsequently moved to the States and I visited her quite often. Then last year, she told me she’d finally met the love of her life. I’d never heard her sound so happy. The only problem, as she put it, was that he was a commitment-phobe. She was sure he loved her, but he couldn’t quite take the next step of joining forces domestically, let alone marriage. Then, bingo! Annie finds herself pregnant. She’s thirty-four, carrying the child of the man she loves, and there was no way she was going to terminate the pregnancy.’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t have done either,’ agreed Julia.

  ‘Of course, Jed, the commitment-phobe, freaks and breaks off the relationship. Annie is heartbroken and decides the best thing she can do is get away from the memories and concentrate on the pregnancy. So she calls me and asks if it’s okay to come and stay with me until the baby’s born. I say, yes, of course. At the time, I was just moving to Wharton Park and it’s not exactly lacking in space. To be honest, I was glad of her company,’ Kit explained. ‘So, last week, Annie goes into labour two weeks early, and there I am, trying to play the supportive partner role.’

  ‘That was very kind of you,’ said Julia grudgingly.

  ‘It was the least I could do for someone who’d been there for me when I’d needed them,’ reiterated Kit. ‘Although I felt like a total fraud. One of the nurses even commented the baby looked like me!’ he chuckled. ‘After Charlie was born, I emailed Jed in the States to let him know he had a beautiful son. And sent a photo I’d taken just after the birth.’

  ‘Did Annie know you were doing this?’ interrupted Julia.

  ‘No, she didn’t. But I knew she wanted Jed to be told. And I took a punt on the fact that seeing one’s tiny, perfect progeny might stir the emotions of the most impenetrable heart. And, voilà! It did.’ Kit smiled. ‘Two days ago, the real Daddy turned up at Wharton Park, fell instantly in love with his son and is whisking mother and child off to the States to a future of domestic bliss.’

  ‘Wow!’ Julia breathed. ‘Quite a story.’

  ‘With a spectacularly happy ending, which makes a change. For now, anyway,’ Kit added cynically.

  ‘Can leopards really change their spots?’ Julia murmured, almost to herself. ‘I don’t know whether I could have forgiven being abandoned like that. How can Annie ever trust him again?’

  ‘She has to. She loves him, Julia. And if anything will change those spots, as you put it, a small baby has to be the very best weapon. Add to that a very large diamond ring and a wedding as soon as Annie’s up to it, not to mention a list of appointments scheduled with realtors in Greenwich, and at least you have as positive a new beginning as one could hope for. She’s been brave and taken the leap of faith. I just hope it works out for her. Christ, Annie deserves it. She’s been through hell in the past few months. I did my best, but I was only a poor standin for the real thing.’

  ‘She was lucky to have you, Kit,’ Julia admitted.

  ‘Even if it meant putting you through unnecessary pain and letting you down. I had to be there for her, Julia, I really did.’

  ‘Yes.’ Julia stared into the fire for a while. Then she looked up at him. ‘Kit, why didn’t you tell me where you were? At the very least, I thought we were friends.’

  ‘Julia, Julia,’ Kit shook his head in despair, ‘can’t you see why I didn’t?’

  ‘No. Sorry, I can’t.’

  ‘Okay then, I’ll spell it out for you: I vividly remember the pain on your face when you met Annie in the Quad a few weeks ago. Seeing that pain, and understanding it was because you had recently lost your own young son, I thought the last thing you needed was a blow-by-blow account of a woman about to give birth, then bulletins from the hospital telling you how it was all progressing. Or, in fact, being confronted with a tiny newborn baby if you tipped up to see me at Wharton
Park. I was trying to protect you from it, Julia, that’s all. I didn’t want to upset you when you were making such good progress.’

  ‘Oh.’ Julia’s eyes filled with involuntary tears.

  Kit stood up and moved to sit on the sofa next to her. He took one of her hands and placed it in his own. ‘I completely admit to being naive and making a hash of it. I’d underestimated this small community, how word spreads, and the fact everyone seems interested in my “goings-on”, as my cleaner referred to it the other day. I’m used to being invisible, you see. I’ve never “lived” anywhere for long, always been a visitor. It’s going to take quite some getting used to. Half the county are raising their eyebrows at me at present, wondering where my “wife” and newborn child have got to.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ agreed Julia. ‘You did look very “together” when I saw you in Holt. I’m afraid I assumed the same.’

  ‘As did your sister, who spoke to me earlier as if there was a particularly nasty smell under her nose. Anyway, I accept it was my fault entirely. Perhaps I should have told you, but please believe that I didn’t, out of the best of intentions, really. I wasn’t prepared to lie and say I was somewhere else, so silence was the best option. I’m so sorry, Julia, I really am. In retrospect, I handled it badly. You must have thought me a complete bastard; kissing you and arranging dates one minute, parading a newborn baby around Holt the next!’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ Julia agreed. She could feel she was losing ground, being drawn back into wanting to trust him, believe him. If his story was true, it actually made him a very good person on all sorts of levels. And the contrast to her recent negative thoughts was a huge emotional leap to make. ‘Were you and Annie ever … involved?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Kit stated. ‘We really are that rare thing which is a close male/female friendship without a hint of sexual chemistry. Annie’s like my sister – or should I say, like the sister I’d have wanted if I hadn’t got Bella! No, I’m afraid I wasn’t Annie’s type at all. She’s always liked the rugger-buggers; all rippling muscles and bulging chests.’ Kit glanced down at his slim torso and grinned. ‘Not me, really, is it? And she wasn’t mine either; far too ballsy. I watched her eat men up and spit them out. Until, of course,’ he added, ‘she met the love of her life. Now she’s a pussycat.’

  ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘University. We shared a house when I was at Med School in Edinburgh. Until I dropped out, anyway.’

  ‘Why did you drop out?’

  Kit sighed. ‘Look, it’s not something I talk about very often. Do you really want to hear? It’s not a pretty story.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, knowing intuitively that this was the missing link to Kit and who he was. ‘Actually, I do. But only if you are up to telling it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Kit breathed. ‘Is there any wine left in this house? I could do with a glass.’

  ‘There’s half a bottle in the fridge, but it’s a couple of days old.’

  ‘Any port in a storm,’ Kit quipped. ‘I’ll restoke this pathetic apology of a fire whilst you get the wine and the glasses.’

  Julia padded off to the kitchen, feeling shell-shocked. Having struggled to find the strength to place Kit firmly in the past, she was now trying to accept what seemed a very plausible story. And when he’d held her hand, that same irritating bolt of electricity had ignited and slid up her spine.

  ‘Here you are. Probably disgusting by now,’ she said as she poured the remnants into the glasses and handed one to him. ‘So, fire away.’

  ‘It is,’ said Kit, taking a gulp, ‘disgusting, but never mind. Right … if you don’t mind, I’ll rattle through it, tell you the bare bones; it makes it easier, somehow.’ He sighed. ‘As I mentioned, I shared a house at uni with Annie, who was studying architecture, and a couple of other students. Annie’s best friend, Milla, came up from London to stay with her one weekend. I was twenty-two at the time, and from the first moment I set eyes on Milla, I fell passionately in love. She was the most vivacious, beautiful, charismatic human being I’d ever met. The room came alive when she walked in. She was at drama college, training to be an actress.’ Kit shook his head. ‘I know she would have been a huge success if …’

  ‘If what?’ Julia prompted.

  ‘I’ll get to that soon. Anyway, even though Annie warned me not to become involved, that Milla was a flighty butterfly with all sorts of hidden issues, I jumped in headlong. And Milla seemed to like me too, even though we were so different, and we became an item. In the following few months, I spent more time on the motorways between Edinburgh and London than I did working. She was like a drug. I just couldn’t be without her.’

  ‘First love,’ whispered Julia, thinking of Xavier and the moment she had met him.

  ‘Yes. Completely,’ agreed Kit. ‘And, of course, I decided to fall in love with the most complex, needy woman of the lot. But I know now that was partly what appealed. It was the excitement of the roller-coaster, never knowing where I was with her; whether she was really mine. She’d tell me she adored me, that she loved me more than anything, and then I wouldn’t hear from her for a week or so. Suffice to say, my work suffered and I was living on borrowed time as far as my course was concerned, but I didn’t care.’ Kit gave a strangled chuckle. ‘Julia, I was a basket case.’

  ‘So, what happened next?’

  ‘I staggered on, up and down to London, and after a while even I realised Milla was beginning to behave oddly. She’d always had lots of energy, able to stay up all night dancing and partying, but the energy began to take on a manic quality. Sometimes I’d spend an entire weekend with her and she wouldn’t sleep at all. She seemed to be mixing in some pretty seedy groups in London and was starting to lose weight. Then, one weekend, I caught her in the bathroom, injecting herself. She was using heroin.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Julia muttered. ‘Did she confess?’

  ‘She had to, she’d been caught red-handed. I knew Milla sometimes used coke, but this was a whole new level. She swore she could come off it, but said she needed me there to help her.’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘Like a lamb to the slaughter. I threw up my med course and hot-footed it down to London to save her.’

  ‘Oh, Kit! After all that hard work. You must have been about to get your degree.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kit sighed. ‘Told you I was a basket case.’

  ‘So did you save Milla?’

  ‘No. If only I’d known then, that the one person who can save an addict is the addict themselves. Yes, Milla tried, I know she did, going cold turkey for a couple of weeks, or maybe a month, but then it would start over again. And, naturally, I became the “enemy”, the beast who took money away from her, refused to let her walk down the street without me, listened to her calls in case she was contacting her dealer. She hated me. Hated me.’ Kit ran a hand through his unruly hair. ‘This went on for months, until I came back to the flat after a trip to the supermarket and found her gone. She was picked up by the police the following day, lying in a gutter, unconscious. She’d overdosed. The hospital booked her into a drying-out centre and she promised me she’d stick with it. She was desperate I didn’t leave her. I agreed not to, on the condition she stayed there and received the help she needed. I also told her if she went back on it, I would leave for good.’

  ‘You had no choice, Kit, surely? For Milla’s sake and yours.’

  ‘That was certainly what the professionals told me, yes,’ agreed Kit. ‘And that was the last good moment, really, when she came out of the rehab centre. We had three glorious months when I got my Milla back. She even talked of returning to drama school and I looked in to restarting my medical studies in London.’ Kit shrugged. ‘It was normal, and wonderful because of it.’

  ‘But it didn’t last?’

  ‘No.’ Kit shook his head wistfully. ‘By then I knew the signs: the mania, the purple shadows under her eyes, the weight loss … I may have given up my univ
ersity course, but by this time I had a PhD in Milla and addiction. Milla denied it, but I knew she was using again. So, I carried out my threat, hoping it might jolt her into realisation. God, Julia, it was dreadful. She screamed and cried, begged me not to go, said she’d kill herself if I left …’ Kit put his head in his hands. ‘It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. I loved her so very much, but I knew nothing would change if I didn’t leave her and, by this point, I knew I was being dragged down with her.’

  Julia instinctively reached out a hand to comfort him. ‘Kit, I can’t imagine …’ she whispered. ‘Did it help?’

  ‘No! Of course it didn’t.’ He gave a short, despairing laugh. ‘I stayed away for a week, literally having to stop myself going to her twenty times a day, then went back to find the flat deserted. I alerted the police, of course. And, eventually, two weeks later, they found her in the squat of a renowned dealer. She was dead.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Kit,’ Julia whispered, finding the words as useless as when the phrase had been repeatedly said to her.

  ‘Yup, well … so was I.’ He raised his head from his hands. ‘She’d said she’d kill herself if I left her and, in essence, that’s what she did. The autopsy showed she died of a massive overdose, but there was worse: it also showed she’d been raped repeatedly before she died. She’d obviously turned to prostitution to get her fix. I’d seen bruises in strange places on her body before, which I’d tried to ignore, but I had to accept she’d probably slept with men for money when she was with me.’

  As Kit paused and stared into the fire, she could see in his eyes he was reliving the pain.

  ‘I – oh, Kit, I don’t know what to say,’ she whispered.

  ‘As you know so well, Julia, it’s always best to say nothing, because there’s nothing to say. After that – well, I lost the plot. I felt so bloody guilty for leaving her, so angry she’d wasted her life and, actually, most of all, bitter she had chosen heroin and subsequent death over me. I simply lost my faith in human nature. All that stuff about “doing the right thing”, that “love will win through” … well, it hadn’t worked. There was no “happy ending”, just the dead, broken body of a young woman and the wreck of a man still alive.’ Kit smiled bitterly.