‘This is Jules,’ said Gus. ‘Jules, these are my beautiful brothers, Claude and Marcus, and this, God help you, is my mother.’ She stared at me. ‘I have no idea who this is.’
‘She can’t be called Jules, Gus,’ said Marcus. ‘All lesbians are called Jules. It’s like a Spaniard being called Jose, or a Scotsman being called Jock.’
Winning my undying gratitude, Claude put his hand on my shoulder and drew me closer. ‘This is Darrell,’ he said, firmly. ‘Darrell, this is my sister, Augusta.’
She took a very brief second to look at me. ‘Hello.’
‘Didn’t you say you were going to be late?’ Marcus asked her.
Gus screwed up her nose. ‘I tried. Believe me. But Jules wanted to make sure we got here before the liquor ran out. I warned her how notoriously cheap our mother is.’
I was furious at how rude she’d been to me, but I was gobsmacked at how rude she was to her mother.
Anne, however, seemed not to be bothered in the slightest. Without any change in tone, she said, ‘Well, I must circulate. Do try to leave things as you found them. My insurance premiums become more crippling every year.’
Gus directed a one-fingered salute at her mother’s departing back.
‘Why did you bother to come, Gus?’ Claude asked quietly.
His sister had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Oh, you’re right,’ she said. ‘When there’s half a continent between us, I feel quite relaxed about the old trout. But as soon as we’re face to face, I want to slap her.’
Marcus had finally noticed that I was silently steaming. He put his arm around my shoulders and gave me an apologetic squeeze. ‘Sorry, Angel. Our mother tends to bring out the worst in us.’
‘I don’t know why,’ I said stiffly. ‘She seems perfectly all right to me.’
‘She’s got great legs, your mother,’ said Jules, the blazer-wearer, unexpectedly. ‘Great hair, too.’
‘And you have no dick,’ snapped Gus. ‘So bad luck.’
Jules offered her companion a lazy smile. ‘Show me round,’ she said. ‘Before it gets too hot to move.’
She was right. It hadn’t yet gone midday, and the heat was already becoming oppressive. Guests were shedding jackets and clustering under the shade canopies that stretched part-way across the paved area. Most faces were acquiring that reddened sheen that results from too many glasses of champagne quaffed to quell a thirst caused by too high a temperature. The waiters, in black shirts and trousers, were clearly dying to roll up their sleeves and undo a few buttons. Both Marcus and Claude had removed their jackets. Marcus had thrown his onto the nearest chair. Claude had draped his neatly over the back. I wondered what Jules would do if hers became too hot? Instinct told me I already knew the answer.
‘My God, is there anyone here under five thousand years old?’ Gus’ face was wrinkled in disdain.
‘These are mother’s friends,’ Claude pointed out. ‘And she is sixty-eight.’
‘Wow.’ Jules’ eyelids lifted a fraction. ‘Has she had work?’
‘Course not,’ sneered Gus. ‘She’s preserved by inner bile.’
She drained her glass in one go, and clattered it down carelessly on the nearby table. ‘Come on. Let’s do the grand tour of the old bat’s estate.’
Without saying goodbye to any of us, she started to jog down the stone steps that led to the gardens and lawn. Jules blinked vaguely after her, and began to follow, two glasses still in hand, in an unhurried fashion. I had a hunch that her leisurely response was quite deliberate. Fair enough. Trying to keep up with Gus and all her bundled angry energy would be exhausting.
Marcus was watching after them, grinning. His grin died immediately when he caught the look on Claude’s face.
‘Would it kill you to be polite?’ Claude asked. ‘Mother has gone to a great deal of effort and–’
‘Have I been rude to her?’ Marcus demanded. ‘I don’t recall that I have.’
‘You and Gus–’
‘Oh, leave it, Claude,’ Marcus snapped. ‘Just leave it.’
In a gesture that exactly echoed his sister’s, he lifted and drained his glass, dumped it on the table and snatched another from the tray of a passing, sweating waiter.
He waved the glass at his brother. ‘Have a drink, Claude. Lighten up. I promise you I will behave around Mother, but what Gus and I do or say together is none of your business. I think that’s fair, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Claude, after a pause. ‘Yes, that’s fair.’
Marcus narrowed his eyes, but Claude seemed to have meant it. Marcus then shifted his gaze outwards to the expanse of lawn. I could see Gus had almost made it to the river. Jules was only halfway. She had stopped under a tree and was showing no inclination to go any further. She leaned against the tree trunk and sipped from one glass, then from the other. I decided I quite liked Jules.
But Marcus wasn’t looking at Jules. Gus was at the river now, and was standing on one leg, taking off her shoes. As she started to wade into the water, Marcus put down his glass, and I knew he planned to join her. In the same instant, I knew I could never go with him. My insides began once more to crawl with a sick despair.
‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ said Claude, ‘but I am retreating indoors. This heat is starting to become absurd.’
Marcus seemed not to hear. Claude gave me an inquiring look, but I smiled and shook my head. I saw that he wasn’t the only one to have abandoned the patio. Marcus and I were now, in fact, alone. And suddenly, I was overwhelmed with a sense that if I didn’t do something drastic right now, right this second, I’d lose my chance with him for good.
For the second time in our acquaintance, I placed my hand on his crotch.
His head swivelled frantically, first to me, and then behind him to see who might be witness. When he realised everyone had gone, he expelled a relieved breath.
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘I thought for one minute we were about to become the floorshow.’
‘No, I’m more subtle than that,’ I said. ‘Not much more, but still–’
He moved up to me, slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me to him. I put my hand on him again, just to leave no stone unturned as it were, and he cupped my face with one hand and kissed me hard.
‘I believe,’ he murmured against my mouth, ‘that it may be time for a tour of the house.’
In my overheated state, the cool, airy interior was a blessed relief. We walked quickly back the way we’d come, through high-ceilinged, pale-walled rooms, sparsely and tastefully decorated with simple but obviously very good pieces of furniture. Nothing I would actually dare touch, of course, but very nice nonetheless.
‘The house is Queen Anne,’ said Marcus. ‘It was restored by the previous owners, a married couple whom the whole nightmare renovation process drove to divorce. Mother bought it lock, stock and period-perfect barrel. Neither husband nor wife wanted any reminder of the place.’
‘Does your mother like it here? It’s a big place for one woman on her own.’
‘What makes you think she’s on her own?’
When we reached the big double staircase, Marcus paused. The front door was still open, and the sun glinted off the cars parked outside, their metal shells pinking in the heat. Marcus nodded towards the side of the house we hadn’t yet seen.
‘Yonder lies Mother’s library. Again, it came with the house. I’m not sure she’s read a decent book in her life.’
Marcus gestured at the staircase. ‘And up there are the bedrooms–’
He met my eyes and pure lust shivered through me from top to toe. With a knowing grin, he took my hand and led me up the stairs.
We wound through several corridors and came to a halt outside a partly open door, through which I glimpsed a neat, white bed. Marcus pushed me up against the hallway panelling and ran his thumbs under my breasts and down to my waist. I could feel the blood rushing in my ears. His own breathing had quickened.
‘God,’ he murmured. ‘How much
do I want to fuck you …’
He cupped the side of my face again and kissed me. His tongue touched mine and I gave a small moan. He grabbed my hips and pulled me into him. His erection pressed the satin of my dress onto my bare skin. It was the most erotic sensation; I realised I may have been too quick to dismiss satin sheets as tacky.
With a short, muttered oath, he lifted himself away from me.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘before I am never again able to take these trousers to the dry cleaners.’
The bedroom floorboards were the same dark-stained wood as downstairs, but everything else was white on white. I dimly registered a pretty watercolour of a girl in a wild-flower meadow (undoubtedly not a print), but then Marcus had tipped me onto the bed and was running his hands urgently up under my skirt. I felt the seams of my dress tighten and strain, and I sat up in panic.
‘Be careful of the dress! I have to give it back.’
‘I’ll take it off then, shall I?’
And he did. Quickly and efficiently. Then he took off my bra, pressed me back down onto the bed and slid his hands into my knickers. I arched my back at the sheer unadulterated pleasure of his touch. And came in about thirty-two seconds.
‘Christ!’ He was propped up on his elbow, staring down at me, openmouthed. ‘Do you always come that quickly?’
I grinned, lazy with bliss. ‘Only with you, apparently.’
‘Right. Well. I’ll get–’ He hooked his legs over the side of the bed and glanced around. ‘Damn!’
‘What?’
‘They’re in my what is commonly called a blazer.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes. Hell–’ He peered down. ‘I can hardly go back out there in this condition.’
I shuffled over to sit next to him. He’d taken off his shoes but nothing else, and I snaked my arms underneath his shirt to find his bare skin. I pressed my lips against his shoulder and murmured, ‘There are other things we can do.’
‘True.’
‘Take your clothes off.’
He turned his head and smiled. ‘Your wish is my command.’
It was a rather frenzied and sweaty doing of other things. He brought me to the brink with fingers and tongue, but this time, I couldn’t quite get over. Then he coaxed me up onto my knees and slid himself between my legs from behind.
‘Press your thighs together,’ he ordered. ‘Christ, yes. That’s it–’
He had his hand on me, touching me, and I was so close, it was agonising. But then his hand shifted to grasp my hip, and I heard him say breathlessly, ‘God, I’m going to–’ and I almost sobbed in frustration. Not yet!
As he reached around to prevent the bed getting the worst of it, and came with a stifled shout, I felt my orgasm start. He was pulling away, which was fair enough, I suppose, given what he was trying to keep contained in his hand, but I gasped, ‘No, don’t!’ Startled, he stayed where he was. And I proceeded to come in intense shuddering waves, oblivious to all else.
After who knows how long, I heard, ‘Um, Angel? Would you mind? My knees are about to give in, and I have what resembles week-old vichyssoise leaking out between my fingers.’
‘Oh!’ I realised I was leaning back against him, and he was supporting my whole weight. He was right about the knees; I could feel them shaking. He was right about the handful, too.
‘Ick!’
‘Indeed …’ He shuffled carefully to the side of the bed and, with a slight trembling at the knee, stood up. He glanced down at his closed fist. ‘I now have complete sympathy with all those woman who are reluctant to swallow.’
He opened a door with his free hand, and I saw that the bedroom had an en suite. Probably not a period feature, but welcome all the same. I heard the tap run, a muffled curse, more running water, the squeak of a towel rail. And then he’d emerged, leaning against the doorframe.
‘All well?’
By now, I was lying full length on the bed, on my back, limbs deliciously heavy in the afterglow. I smiled. ‘What do you think?’
He flopped down on the bed beside me. ‘I think, unfortunately, that we’d better be getting back.’
‘Oh …’
My heart sank. I knew he wasn’t going back out of politeness to his mother. It was only his sister he wanted to see. I’d played the only card I had, and had temporarily been the winner. Now, I had nothing left. All I could do was delay for a few moments longer.
‘It’s all about the now for you, isn’t it?’ I asked him.
He raised an eyebrow, more amused than surprised. ‘What else do we have but now?’
‘The future?’
‘There’s no point in worrying what the future will bring,’ he said. ‘Because it will bring it despite us. And we can’t relive the past. So now has to be all that matters.’
I sighed. ‘I wish I could be like that.’
‘Chin up,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve got a mild case of post-coital depression. Come and get stinking drunk with me. Then you won’t care about anything.’
My heart sank further. ‘Are you going to get stinking drunk?’
‘Have you any better suggestions for surviving this hell?’
I replied, without any real hope. ‘We could stay here?’
He gave me a look. ‘Do you think I have more in me? After that?’
‘It seemed a lot, didn’t it?’
Marcus sat up. ‘And who says romance is dead?’
He shuffled off the bed and started to pull on his shirt. I had no inclination to move whatsoever. But if I didn’t, he would leave without me. With a sigh, I sat up. And in ten minutes, we were back out on the patio.
The heat was scorching now. The patio was still abandoned, but from the distant sounds of splashing and female laughter, I guessed that Gus and Jules had migrated from the river to the pool. In our absence, lunch had arrived in the adjoining room and it seemed people had set upon it like wolves because all that was left were sprigs of parsley and one squashed maraschino cherry, which I despise. I cursed silently, and ate the cherry anyway. It didn’t even touch the sides.
Marcus didn’t seem hungry. He, too, had guessed that Gus was at the pool. He started immediately down the steps.
I wasn’t even sure he realised I was still there, but then he looked back over his shoulder. ‘Coming?’
‘I have to find some food.’ I was pleased it sounded so plausible. ‘I’ll be there soon.’
But I stayed to watch him walk away. He had his hands in his pockets, creating a slight tautness across his admirable rear. His shoulders were strong and broad under the soft drape of the white shirt. His gait was leisurely, a confident saunter that just bordered on a swagger. I relived his kiss and his touch with a hot, vivid intensity, and as I watched him go, I suddenly felt as if he were pulling part of me with him, unravelling me as he went. It was if I were losing definition, like a cloud in the sky, stretching, thinning and eventually disappearing.
I heard a gleeful shout of greeting from the pool. And I turned away and walked back into the house.
As I did, I almost bumped into a blonde girl striding purposefully towards the door. She was wearing a serving uniform, and a pissed-off expression.
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ she said, meaning the opposite.
I’m no ma’am, I wanted to tell her. Just an ordinary Joe …
She began to gather up the last of the serving plates. When she was fully laden, she paused and took a breath, as if preparing for an ordeal. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ I heard her mutter. ‘Sherpa sodding guides don’t even have to go this far.’
‘Here,’ I stepped towards her. ‘Let me help.’
‘Jesus!’ She almost dropped her armload.
‘Sorry.’ I reached for a platter. ‘Want to hand me those?’
She scowled at me. ‘Are you winding me up?’
‘No. I’m hoping you’ll lead me to the kitchen,’ I told her. ‘I missed lunch.’
‘OK,’ she shrugged, and let me take a few of the big plates. ‘Whatever.�
��
As we were walking, she said, ‘Are you from Australia?’
‘New Zealand.’
‘What are you doing here?’
For a second, I thought she meant here – in the house. But then I realised …
‘Long story.’
She eyed me beadily. ‘Bloke?’
‘Well, yes. In a way–’
Thank God. We’d made it to the kitchen. She’d been right about the Sherpa guides. We’d been walking so long, my arms were trembling from the effort of holding the stack of plates. I dumped them on a bench with relief.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I dunno if there’s any food left, but I’ll do what I can.’
The kitchen, even given my limited posh-kitchen experience, was vast. There was a scrubbed table that would seat at least twenty, a single Aga but also a wall oven, and a gleaming brushed stainless double-door refrigerator. I sat down at one end of the table, keeping out of the way of the catering staff, who were washing dishes and scrubbing down benches.
‘Here.’
The blonde girl was back with a plate of cold meat and salad. I noticed she had a tiny diamond stud in her nostril, no more than a shiny speck against, I also noticed, her very good skin. She looked not unlike Princess Anne’s daughter, Zara Phillips. But everything else about her showed she did not belong here. Not that she seemed to have any desire to. She was glancing around the room, as if she only now had time to notice it properly. Her lip was curling.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ she said again. ‘You could fit my whole house in here.’
I laughed. ‘Mine too.’
‘Why would you, though?’ She stared at me in such a challenging fashion, I wondered what I’d done wrong. ‘Want to live here? Be one of this lot?’
Personally, I could think of many, many reasons. But before I could begin to list them, she went on. ‘It’s like you’re just passing through, just one in a whole string of people with the same sodding name. I mean, why live your life so all you can do is hand all this over to the next in line, and become another mark on a mouldy old family tree? I might not make anything of my life, but at least I get the fucking choice to do it all my way.’
The Sweet Second Life of Darrell Kincaid Page 22