He took my hand and explained softly, “There’s so much you need to know, if you want to understand the whole context. It’s difficult for me to know where to begin because this is such a major head fuck, even for me… and I was there.”
“I’m here for you, Cai. Please, tell me everything. I love you so much.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll start where this whole thing really began…”
Chapter 42
Past
IT HAD BEEN another summer spent trying to avoid Bonnie and Clyde. The only remarkable thing about it up until that point was that he had shared his first kiss with Jackie. One summer night while they snuck into the pool of her parent’s house, he noticed how pretty she looked with her hair slicked down her back—wearing one of those Baywatch swimsuits—and he just grabbed her neck and kissed her on the lips. Quickly. She giggled. That was that.
In his mind, he thought that perhaps girls started out innocent and then got tarnished as they went along. He had taken her offered kisses ever since that moment in the pool, even though he didn’t love her and knew he never could.
Cai was filling out and felt really happy about this. It meant he would be better placed to stand up to his father when it came the time to tell his parents that he was going—and he was never coming back. He knew he might reach his father’s six feet and three inches or even get taller than that. He also knew he wanted to train in boxing—there was just something about fighting that he loved.
Cai snuck in to speak to his ill mother whenever he got the chance. He asked her on numerous occasions whether Aunt Jennifer might visit. After all, Claudia constantly talked about the sister who was making a name for herself in the fashion world. He listened intently as she often repeated, “Your Aunt Jennifer… she’s going places. She’ll be running her own magazine before you know it.” Claire often picked up magazines for Claudia and stacks of reading material laid on the floor of the bathroom.
His mother seemed to hold Jennifer on a pedestal so high, he wondered why they didn’t see each other more often, if at all. Surely Jennifer travelled for work and if so, she’d stop by New York often… so why didn’t she ever visit the house? Then again, Cai was never informed about anything. Sometimes he only knew his parents were alive because he could hear them through the wood of his hiding places.
Caius was even naïve enough to ask Claudia if he might one day be allowed to visit Jennifer himself—to get some work experience or something. His mother’s reply was, “The simple fact is your father will never let us leave this house.”
SEPTEMBER 2000 arrived and with it, the internet. Claire discovered it would be a great tool with which to teach Cai and after some convincing, Philippe allowed this newfangled service to be installed alongside a set of computer equipment. (Cai still wondered where the new money was coming from). The only downside was that the PC was password protected, at Philippe’s command. When their lessons began, however, Claire was often slow to enter the password on the keys and one day Cai noted down what it was.
Creeping down to the study one night to use the PC, he knew exactly what he wanted to say to his aunt. He had seen Claire using the computer and knew how to get to webmail sites and felt sure he could do this—and somehow get away with it. He found Jennifer on the Elle website and set up an email account without trouble.
Cai discovered Jennifer was only contactable through an assistant so he noted down the assistant’s email address and wrote this message:
Dear Miss Johnson,
I believe you are my aunt’s assistant? Well, I am Caius Cortez, her nephew. I am enquiring about some possible work experience next year? I am interested in photography and it would be great to spend some time with my aunt, whom I have never met. My mother talks of her all the time. Will you forward this on for me?
Kindest regards,
Cai
Convinced he sounded professional and cordial, Cai pressed send as quickly as his finger would let him. When he heard the unmistakable sound of Dirk’s footsteps coming down the hall, he quickly deleted his sent items and the trash, shut down his email account and logged off the PC. Dirk poked his head around the door when Cai showed himself, explaining, “I thought I left a book down here, but I can’t find it.”
“Cai, it’s three in the morning. I thought we had a burglar. Even your parents are in bed.”
“Sorry,” the young man said sheepishly, though he still felt sure he was going to get away with it. The following night he crept down again but was so careful to ensure he didn’t step on even one creaky floorboard.
He checked his emails and sure enough, discovered Jennifer herself had emailed him back, not the assistant! It read:
Dear Cai,
How nice to hear from you! What a surprise! Of course work experience would be possible for my only nephew.
To tell you the truth, your mother and I haven’t spoken in many years and I’m genuinely surprised you mailed me. Genuinely. I’m sure you know that a woman as busy as me has lots of post to open but your message caught my attention!
I’ll certainly be in touch.
Yours,
Jennifer
It struck Cai as odd that the tone revealed Jennifer thought of herself as estranged from Claudia even though his mother raved about her sister on and on and on. He had the sudden feeling that something had happened between his aunt and mother that he had no comprehension of—and possibly, it even went beyond Philippe’s intervention.
Cai went to bed that night feeling very pleased with himself. He congratulated himself on being very clever.
He woke up to discover he had caused a lot of harm, however.
When he went down for breakfast, he found his father waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs with a stern, cold expression that was easy to read.
“Kitchen now, son,” he gestured, and grabbed the boy by the back of his neck to direct him right there.
The door shut and he found Claire and Dirk also waiting with the same consternation gripping them.
“Your aunt sent these this morning,” Philippe said, pointing at a bouquet of roses on the worktable in the centre of the room. Cai gulped. “Your mother saw them when she came down to get some tomato juice for her Bloody Mary… and now she’s taken ill.”
Silence. Deafening silence.
Was he meant to say something?
He gulped again, trying not to say anything. Maybe if he kept quiet they would never know it was him. Then again, why would a bunch of roses have this effect on his mother?
“Doesn’t Mom like roses, Dad?”
“She doesn’t, son. She hates the damn things. Those paintings are created right out of a nightmare. Hell… god knows why she got in touch after all this time.”
Cai looked at Dirk who seemed to suspect him but the old man shook his head, telling the youngster not to admit a thing.
“How ill is she?”
“We need to be very careful and make sure she doesn’t try to hurt herself. If you see her wandering round, you need to let one of us know, okay? I locked her door but she may well try to escape.”
All my fault. It is all my fault.
But why would Jennifer send roses if his mother hated them?
A few frightening days passed when Cai didn’t really know what to do for the best. Help? Or just stay in his room and read books? He wanted to know what was going on more than anything else in the world. He wanted to know about the secrets these people were trying to keep.
Eventually he got the feeling that his mother was better so he breathed a sigh of relief but didn’t show it. Instead of risking the PC again, he decided to go on a mission.
So one evening, while he was supposed to be in bed, he took himself off to the secret hole in the dining room wall and waited, very patiently. If his mother was back on her feet, he knew they would be up to their usual antics. Just after midnight, as was common once they got their festivities out of the way, his parents entered. A clatter of plates on the table sign
ified they were eating. Midnight feasting—probably whatever they found in the refrigerator. When Cai pressed his ear to the relatively thin wood of the hidden hole, he could hear everything they said.
In the bleak dark, he waited for something. Anything.
“It does not please me to do those things for you,” he said in a rushed voice.
“I know. Sorry. Doesn’t seem to be any other way, though,” Claudia replied.
“Would you like for me to get you something to numb the pain?” He gestured at her poor hands and wrists, red from being bound.
“No, I’m fine. This is nothing.” His mother and father conversed in their usual distant manner.
“You should get to bed,” he ordered in a tired voice.
“But I want to help and do my duties.”
“If you must, then.”
Cai heard them munching for a few minutes longer before his father said, “If Jennifer’s trouble, we’ll just get rid of her. No biggie.”
“The bitch better stay out of our way,” Claudia said. “The boy didn’t know what he was doing, did he?”
“It’s dealt with, anyway. C’mon, let’s get to work.”
But you love Jennifer…
Cai felt terrified but intrigued beyond measure. They pushed their chairs back and walked off into the corridor. Get to work? They didn’t work!
To escape his hiding place Cai had to give the door a slight shove, so he waited a moment and then launched himself out. Once out in the corridor, he followed the sounds of their voices.
The noise took him to the basement where nobody usually ventured except to retrieve liquor, which had never interested Cai in the slightest.
He peeped his head around the door and spotted laboratory equipment. Along one, long worktable were rectangular bags of white powder, ready to be distributed. No doubt, heroin. He hid behind the door for as long as he dared and despite the hour and his earlier fatigue, now found himself wide awake… his adrenalin pumping.
You bastards, you bastards. This was how they funded their lifestyle, their filthy habits. This filled in the blanks and explained why so many women were drawn to this house—for more than just his father’s body.
He wondered where they got the stuff from until he saw a pile of discarded, rubber-tipped opium heads rotting in a crate in the corner.
“This year’s crop was pretty great, huh?” His father’s cocky, self-satisfied voice rang out clearly.
“Not too shabby,” Claudia said mechanically.
Cai chanced another peek around the corner and saw her weighing and packing the goods. She didn’t see Cai but somehow he knew his luck was running out, so he left them there and headed to his room, tiptoeing all the way.
A mere two weeks after Cai discovered his parent’s were farming drugs in the basement, something seemed to have changed. Something in the air. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but even Claire and Dirk were much quieter and moodier than usual. Something was happening behind the scenes and he had no idea what. He only knew it seemed to have been sparked by Jennifer and whispers of her presence out there, in the world.
Nobody had ever treated Cai badly. His father often spoke to him coarsely and pushed him around a bit, but Philippe had never thumped or punched his son. Neither had anyone else in that house. The worst crime he could think of them having committed, really, were all the lies that he could almost smell but never quite taste.
The lies were about to get a whole lot worse.
Cai knew his curiosity might undo him but he needed to know something. Why did his mother speak so highly of Jennifer to his face, but when she mentioned her to his father, it was as though the sisters were actually worst enemies?
He went to her room and found Claudia stood by the easel, a brush in her hand, poised to cast the first stroke. He watched her for several minutes, stood with the brush, not moving. As he moved closer he saw the thin pencil sketch she’d done, ready to be filled in. His footsteps suddenly made her scrunch the large canvas up and throw it at the fireplace.
She turned in a rush, her eyes wide like saucers. “Caius, you startled me. Don’t you know, my work is sacred. Nobody sees my work.”
“Sorry, I didn’t… I forgot. I apologise,” he said, trying to appeal to her motherly side.
“It’s okay, let’s sit by the window.”
He sat at her feet, her hands stroking his hair, their eyes trained on the burnished yellow leaves of Fall outside.
“Tell me about Aunt Jennifer,” he said, and she smiled like it was the first time he’d ever asked.
“Oh, your Aunt Jennifer,” she said with glee, “you’d like her. She’s the best sister in the world.”
“Yeah?” he glanced over his shoulder, watching as an honest smile spread across her pretty face.
“Oh, yes.”
“Has Dad ever met her?”
“Oh, no.” Her voice calm, jovial even, he still knew he needed to be careful in what he said. However, he couldn’t help himself.
“Why doesn’t she visit? I’d like to meet her.”
“Your father wouldn’t allow it. He thinks Aunt Jennifer only reminds me of the past.”
“The past?”
“Hmm. I don’t have a nice past, Cai.”
“Was someone mean to you?” He attempted to seem naïve like she sometimes seemed to be. He never was naïve; not growing up there.
“They were,” she offered freely.
“But… Aunt Jennifer, she was nice?”
“Oh yes, she was never nasty. Not to anyone. She was the best sister in the whole world.”
“I wish so much to meet her, do you think I will one day?”
“One day… if we can get rid of him. Then, we can escape.”
“Oh.” His voice dejected, he wondered whether the conversation was veering dangerously off topic.
“Jennifer used to make all our clothes… she sold to stalls all over London, too. She bought me paper and pencils with the proceeds of her sales. Her clothes… were great. Word got about and eventually she was selling stuff to everyone. We were only young then, 14 and 15. One day she came home with this man called Willem Häuser, an entrepreneur. He wanted to sell some of her things.”
“Was the man foreign?” Cai asked, turning to gauge her eyes.
“He had a German or Swiss accent, I don’t know.” She seemed unclear about that, nodding in vague remembrance. “He had stores in London and New York, a design school associated with his brand. He wanted Jennifer to train with his firm and learn to be a proper dressmaker. The only thing was, our mother hated the thought of Jennifer leaving and going on to success. She said Jennifer couldn’t go.”
“That sucks, so what happened?”
“We waited until Jennifer turned 16, then we left together, working for Willem, the both of us. It was Jenny’s express wish that I be trained, too, although I was somewhat dragged along. A few years later, we heard our mother had remarried… our father’s brother, Chester. They somehow reconnected… the rest, history. Jenny occasionally went back home to visit our mother but I never did.”
Cai liked hearing stories and wanted to know more. “So, how did you discover you loved painting?”
“Willem liked to paint and taught me in his spare time. I’d drawn since forever, so it was natural. I got introduced to lots of Willem’s friends and we did retreats… they taught me a lot, but I knew how to draw and paint like Mozart knew piano. I couldn’t explain it but I just loved it. While I started painting more, Jennifer opened her own shop and her designs got noticed. However, later on when she was mid-twenties, she started getting the same thing our mother suffered from. It’s called rheumatoid arthritis and makes your joints very poorly. All her years of sewing might have advanced it… and that’s when she started branching out into brands, marketing, things like that.
“Jenny was always so encouraging… so proud I got into the Royal College of Art because of all these artists helping me… I could sculpt and draw,
paint and… I read a lot about art history.”
“You didn’t stay on, though?” Cai knew this already, somehow.
“No. I inherited this place. I was needed here and I moved.”
“Who died first? Grandma or your Uncle Chester?”
“Oh, they died together in a car accident.”
Chapter 43
Past
ONE DAY IN late September, 2000, Philippe Cortez did something out of character. Despite the fact he was wanted by the FBI, his brothers and some other cartel leaders who’d put a price on his head, he left Sub Rosa to head out for a drive, just to escape that house. He and Claudia had argued over a lot of things that day, the first being her sister Jennifer. Ever since Caius had contacted Jennifer, the long-lost sister had been constantly calling and emailing Claire, asking for information. Jennifer had just decided to take up a new position—assistant editor at Frame in New York—with the sisterly hope that she and Claudia might reconnect somehow.
So when Philippe chased off in the Lincoln that day, it was no surprise to Claire and Dirk when the police called to let them know that the vehicle had left the road in wet conditions. Did he write the suicide note? Or did someone else? Did he even die?
CLAUDIA spent two weeks implementing her plan. It had always been The Plan. Now was the time. She felt an incredible peace knowing she was regaining control.
Her last work. Always, the last. It was important to finally finish it, so she could rest easier knowing she had at least gotten one version of it out there. She’d spent so many years trying to complete it, but it was always ripped apart just at the last minute.
During the period since Philippe’s death, she thought a lot about her sister, Jennifer. The two of them used to be so close and now she knew she was heading for her end, her mind went back to all that had transpired between them, namely Willem Häuser. The man had been obsessed with Claudia but she’d never reciprocated any of that devotion. On the other hand, Jennifer loved Willem with a mad, unrelenting passion that made no sense because he didn’t have any interest in Jennifer… besides her designs. The sisters fell out because of that disparity and when Claudia moved to Sub Rosa, taking a lover finally, Willem, Claudia and Jennifer all drifted apart.
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