Sheer Mischief

by Jill Mansell

Hooray, thought Josh. Aloud he said, “Oh. So what are we going to do?”

  “Only one thing for it.” It was Wednesday night, Berenice was getting married on Saturday, and he had to fly to Paris for a prestigious calendar shoot on Monday morning. “We cancel Berenice’s wedding.”

  • • •

  “You’ll have to answer it,” said Maxine when the doorbell rang. She was wearing bright-orange toe separators, and the crimson nail polish on her splayed toes was still wet. “I look like a duck.”

  “You look like a duck,” Guy Cassidy remarked when Janey showed him into the sitting room two minutes later.

  Maxine, sitting on the floor with her bare legs stretched out in front of her, carried on eating her Mars bar. “Just as well,” she replied equably. “It means your insults roll off my back.”

  Mystified by his unexpected appearance on her doorstep, Janey said, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Thanks.” He smiled at her and lowered himself into an empty armchair. To Maxine, whose attention was fixed upon an old rerun of Inspector Morse, he said, “Haven’t you seen this one before? Lewis did it.”

  Her gaze didn’t waver from the television screen. With thinly veiled sarcasm, she countered, “Who’s lying now?”

  Janey fled to the safety of the kitchen.

  “Go on, then,” said Maxine eventually, when she had finished the Mars bar and dropped the wrapper onto the coffee table. “Tell me why you’re here.”

  There wasn’t much point in beating around the bush.

  Guy said, “The job. If you still want it, it’s yours.”

  “You’ve been stood up then.”

  He nodded.

  “Gosh,” said Maxine, her expression innocent. “You must be desperate.”

  His mouth twitched as he allowed her her brief moment of triumph. “I am.”

  “And here am I, such an all-around bad influence…”

  “You might well be,” he replied drily, “but your sister put in a few good words on your behalf, and for some bizarre reason, my son has taken a liking to you.”

  “And you’re desperate,” Maxine repeated for good measure, but this time he ignored the jibe.

  “So are you interested, or not?”

  “We-ll.” Tilting her head to one side, she appeared to consider the offer. “We haven’t discussed terms yet.”

  “We haven’t discussed your funny webbed feet either,” he pointed out. “But ‘live and let live’ is my motto.”

  Janey had been eavesdropping like mad from the kitchen. Unable to endure the suspense a moment longer, she seized the mugs of tea and erupted back into the sitting room.

  “She’s interested,” she declared, ignoring Maxine’s frantic signals and thrusting one of the mugs into Guy Cassidy’s hand. “She’ll take the job. When would you like her to start?”

  Chapter Six

  Guy Cassidy was twenty-three years old when he met Véronique Charpentier. It was the wettest, windiest day of the year and he was making his way home after a grueling fourteen-hour shift in the photographic studios where his assignment had been to make a temperamental forty-four-year-old actress look thirty again.

  Now the traffic was almost at a standstill and his car was stuck behind a bus. All he could think of was getting back to his flat and sinking into a hot bath with a cold beer. In less than two hours, he was supposed to be taking Amanda, his current girlfriend, to a party in Chelsea. It wasn’t a prospect that particularly appealed to him, but she had insisted on going.

  There was no room to overtake when the bus came to a shuddering halt and began to spill out passengers. Guy amused himself by watching them scurry like windblown ants across the pavement toward the relative shelter of the shop canopies lining the main street.

  The last passenger to disembark, however, didn’t make it. As her long, white-blond hair whipped around her face, she struggled to control her charcoal-gray umbrella. At the exact moment the umbrella flipped inside out, she stumbled against the curb and crashed to the ground. Her bag of groceries spilled into the gutter. The inverted umbrella, carried by the wind, cartwheeled off into the distance, and a wave of muddy water from the wheels of the now-departing bus cascaded over her crumpled body.

  By the time Guy reached her, she was dragging herself into a sitting position and muttering “Bloody Eenglish” under her breath.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, helping her carefully to her feet. There was a lot of mud, but no sign of blood.

  Her expression wary, she shook her wet, blond head, then cast a sorrowful glance in the direction of the spilled shopping bag lying in a puddle. “Not me. But my croissants, I theenk, are drowned. Bloody Eenglish!”

  “Come on.” Smiling at her choice of words, he led her toward his car. When she was installed in the passenger seat, inspecting the holes in the knees of her sheer, dark tights, he said, “Why bloody English?”

  “Eenglish weather. Stupid Eenglish umbrella,” she explained, gesticulating at the torrential rain. “And how many kind Eenglish people stopped to ’elp when I fell over? Tssch!”

  “I stopped to help you,” he remarked mildly, slipping the engine into gear as a cacophony of irritated hooting started up behind them.

  The girl, her face splashed with mud and rain, sighed. “Of course you did. And now I’m sitting in your car and I don’t even know you. It would be just my luck, I theenk, to get murdered by a crazy person. Maybe you should stop and let me out.”

  “I can’t stand the sight of blood,” Guy assured her. “And I’m not crazy either. Why don’t you tell me where you live and let me drive you home? No strings, I promise.”

  She frowned, apparently considering the offer. Finally, turning to face him and looking puzzled, she said, “I don’t understand. What ees thees no strings? You mean like in string you use to tie up parcels?”

  • • •

  Her name was Véronique, she was eighteen years old, and she lived in an attic that had been shabbily converted into a studio apartment but that had the advantage—in daylight at least—of overlooking Wandsworth Common.

  As a reward for not murdering her on the way home, Guy was invited up the five flights of stairs for coffee. By the time his cup was empty, he had fallen in love with its maker and forgotten that Amanda even existed.

  “Let me take you out to dinner,” he said, wondering what he would do if Véronique turned him down. To his eternal relief, however, she smiled.

  “All wet and muddy, like thees? Or may I take a bath first?”

  Grinning back at her, Guy said, “I really don’t mind.”

  “It is best if I take a bath, I theenk,” Véronique replied gravely. Rising to her feet, she gestured toward a pile of magazines stacked against the battered, dark-blue sofa. “I won’t be long. Please, can you amuse yourself for a while? They are French magazines, but maybe you could look at the pictures.”

  The tiny bathroom adjoined the living room. Guy smiled to himself as he heard her carefully locking the door that separated them. The magazines, he discovered, were well-thumbed copies of French Vogue, one of which contained a series of photographs he himself had taken during last spring’s Paris collections. The thought of Véronique poring over pages that bore his own minuscule byline cheered him immensely. It was, he felt, a good omen for their relationship.

  But the magazines were also evidently a luxury for her. The studio apartment, though charmingly adorned with touches of her own personality, was itself unprepossessing and sparsely furnished. The sofa, strewn with hand-embroidered cushions, doubled as a bed. Strategically situated lamps drew the attention away from peeling wallpaper, and the posters on the wall, he guessed, were similarly positioned in order to conceal patches of damp. Neither the cinnamon-scented candles nor the bowls of potpourri could eradicate the slight underlying mustiness that pervaded the air.

  And ther
e was no television; a box of good quality writing paper and a small transistor radio seemed to comprise her only forms of entertainment. Guy, exploring the meticulously tidy room in detail, greedy to discover everything there was to know about Véronique Charpentier, felt an almost overwhelming urge to bundle her up and whisk her away from the chilly, depressing house, to tell her that she no longer needed to live like this, that he would take care of her…

  And when she emerged from the bathroom twenty-five minutes later, he actually had to bite his tongue in order not to say the words aloud. Mud-free, simply dressed in a thin, black polo-necked sweater, pale-gray wool skirt, and black tights, she looked stunning. The white-blond hair, freshly brushed, hung past her shoulders. Silver-gray eyes regarded him with amusement. She was wearing pastel-pink lipstick and Je Reviens.

  “OK?” she said cheerfully.

  “OK!” Guy nodded in agreement.

  “Good.” Véronique smiled at him. “I theenk we shall have a nice evening.”

  “I know we will.”

  She blew out the cinnamon-scented candles and picked up her bag. “Can I make a confession to you?”

  “What?” Guy’s heart sank. He couldn’t imagine what she was about to say. He didn’t want to hear it.

  But Véronique went ahead anyway. “I theenk I begin to be glad,” she confided, lowering her voice to a whisper, “that I fell off the bus in the rain. Maybe Eenglish weather isn’t so bloody after all.”

  • • •

  Oliver Cassidy wasn’t amused when his son informed him, three weeks later, that he was going to marry Véronique Charpentier.

  “For God’s sake,” he said sharply, lighting a King Edward cigar and not bothering to lower his voice. “This is ridiculous. She’s eighteen years old. She’s French. You don’t even know her.”

  “Of course I do!” Guy retaliated. “I love her and she loves me. And I’m not here to ask your permission to marry her, because that’s going to happen anyway. I’ve already booked the Register Office.”

  “Then you’re a bloody fool!” Oliver glared at him. “She’s in love with your money, your career; why on earth can’t you just live with her for a few months? That’ll get her out of your system fast enough.”

  “There’s no need to shout,” said Guy. Véronique was in the next room.

  “Why not? Why can’t I shout?” His father’s eyebrows knitted ferociously together. “I want her to hear me! She should know that not everyone is as gullible as you obviously are. If you ask me, she’s nothing but a clever, scheming foreigner making the most of the opportunity of a lifetime.”

  “But I’m not asking you,” Guy replied, his tone icy. “And Véronique isn’t someone I want to get out of my system. She’s going to be my wife, whether you like it or not.”

  Oliver Cassidy turned purple. “You’re making a damn fool of yourself.”

  “I’m not.” His son, sickened by his inability even to try to understand, turned away. “You are.”

  • • •

  They were married at Caxton Hall, and Véronique accompanied Guy on a working trip to Switzerland in lieu of a honeymoon. Upon their return, she moved her few possessions into his apartment, gave up her job in a busy North London delicatessen, and said, “So! What do we do next?”

  Joshua was born ten months later, a perfect composite of his parents with Guy’s dark-blue eyes and Véronique’s white-blond hair. With no family of her own, Véronique said sadly, “It’s such a shame. Your father hates me, I know, but he should at least have the chance to love his grandson.”

  Guy, though not naturally vindictive, wasn’t interested in a reconciliation. “He knows where we live,” he replied in dismissive tones. “If he wanted to see Josh, he could. But he clearly doesn’t want to, so forget him.”

  The arrival of Ella two years later brought further happiness. Contrary to Véronique’s plans that this time the child should have silver-gray eyes and dark, curly hair, she was a carbon copy of Josh. Guy, his career skyrocketing, took so many photographs of his family that they had to be stored in suitcases rather than albums. It wasn’t until he received a large manila envelope through the post, addressed to him in familiar handwriting and containing a selection of the choicest photographs, that he realized Véronique had sent them to his father. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said furiously, hurling the envelope to the ground. “He doesn’t deserve anything. I’ve told you before…just forget him!”

  But Veronique could not forget. All children were supposed to have grandparents, and her enduring dream was that her own children should know and love the only living grandparent left to them. As the years passed and the rift remained as deep and unbridgeable as ever, she became quietly determined to do something about it. Both her husband and her father-in-law were clearly too proud to make the first move, but for Josh’s and Ella’s sakes, she was prepared to take the risk. If Oliver Cassidy were to come face-to-face with his grandchildren, she reasoned, the rift would instantly be healed. It would be a fait accompli, following which human nature would take its course and all would be well.

  Knowing that her fiercely protective husband would never allow her to make the initial move toward reconciliation, however, she planned her campaign with secretive, military precision. Oliver Cassidy was living in Bristol, so she waited until Guy was away on a two-week assignment in New York before booking herself and the children into a hotel less than a mile from her father-in-law’s address.

  By the time of their arrival at the station, Véronique’s head was pounding and she was feeling sick with apprehension, but there was no backing out now. For the sake of Josh and Ella, she struggled to maintain a bright front. At their hotel, overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge, she treated them to ice cream sundaes on the sweeping terrace and said gaily, “Eat them all up, and don’t spill any on your clothes. We’re going to see a very nice man, and he might not be so impressed with chocolate ice cream stains.”

  Josh, six years old and enjoying the adventure immensely, said, “Who is he?”

  But Véronique, whose headache was worsening by the minute, simply smiled and shook her head. “Just a very nice man, my darling, who lives not far from here. You’ll like him, I’m sure.”

  Josh wasn’t so sure he would. The big house to which his mother took them was owned by a man who didn’t look the least bit pleased to see them. In Josh’s experience, very nice people smiled a lot, hugged you, and, perhaps, gave you sweets. This man, with fierce, gray eyebrows like caterpillars, wasn’t even saying hello.

  “Mr. Cassidy,” said Véronique quickly. It was an unpromising start, and her palms were sticky with perspiration. “I have brought Josh and Ella to see you… I thought you would like to meet them…your family—”

  Oliver Cassidy didn’t like surprises. Neither did he appreciate emotional blackmail. A man who seldom admitted that he might be in the wrong, he saw no reason to revise his opinion of his only son’s French wife. In her flowered dress and with her straight, blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders, she still looked like a teenager, which didn’t help. And as far as he was concerned, the fact that she thought she could simply turn up out of the blue and expect some kind of fairy-tale reunion proved beyond all doubt that she was either stupid or staggeringly naive.

  “What’s the matter?” he said coldly, eyeing her white face with displeasure and ignoring the two children at her side. His gesture encompassed both the Georgian house and the sloping, sculptured lawns. “Afraid they’ll miss out on all this when I’m gone?”

  “No!” Appalled by her father-in-law’s cruelty, Véronique took a faltering step backward. “No,” she cried again, pleading with him to understand. “They are your grandchildren, your family! This isn’t about any inheritance—”

  “Good!” snapped Oliver Cassidy as Ella, clinging to her mother’s hand, began to cry. “Because they won’t be seeing any of
it anyway.”

  “I feel sick,” Ella sobbed. “Mummy, I feel—”

  “And now, I have an urgent appointment.” He glanced at his watch in order to give credence to the lie. Then, with a look of absolute horror, he took an abrupt step sideways.

  But it was too late. Ella, who had eaten far too much chocolate ice cream, had already thrown up all over her grandfather’s highly polished, handmade shoes.

  • • •

  It wasn’t until they were back at the hotel that Véronique realized she was ill. The headache and nausea that she had earlier put down to nervousness had worsened dramatically, and she was aching all over.

  By early evening, a raging fever had taken its grip and she was barely able to haul herself out of bed in order to phone downstairs and ask for a doctor to be called. Summer flu, she thought, fighting tears of exhaustion and the shivers that racked her entire body like jolts of electricity. Just what she needed. A fitting end to a disastrous visit. Had she been superstitious, she might almost have believed that Oliver Cassidy had cast a malevolent jinx in order to pay her back for her impudence.

  The doctor, however, took an altogether more serious view of the situation.

  “Mrs. Cassidy, I’m afraid we’re going to have to get you into the hospital,” he said when he had completed his examination.

  “Mais c’est impossible!” Véronique cried, her fluent English deserting her in her weakened state. “Mes enfants…”

  But it wasn’t a suggestion; it was a statement. An ambulance was called, and by midnight, Véronique was being admitted to the neurological ward of one of Bristol’s largest hospitals. The hotel manager himself, she was repeatedly assured, was contacting her husband in New York and had in the meantime assumed full responsibility for her children, who would remain at the hotel and be well looked after for as long as necessary.

  By the time Guy arrived at the hospital twenty-seven hours later, Véronique had lapsed into a deep coma. As the doctors had suspected, tests confirmed that she was suffering from a particularly virulent strain of meningitis, and although they were doing everything possible, the outlook wasn’t good.