by Aileen Izett
She crossed her arms and looked at me defiantly.
“You stupid girl.” It just came out. Instantly I regretted it. “You could have burnt down the house.”
She shrugged. I was so angry I struggled to speak. “You have no right.”
Her eyes, for one unguarded moment, were full of disdain. “More right than you’ll ever have.”
Somehow she had managed to shame me again. I blushed.
“My brother’s going to take a pretty dim view of this.”
She shrugged again. Her expression blank.
“He arrived this morning.”
“He’s here?” Startled, she looked up at the château.
Greg gathered up the hose, winding it over his arm.
“She’s right you know,” he told Eveline. “It’s like a tinderbox at the end of the summer.”
“Sorry,” she said, completely ungraciously. She turned on her heel and walked away.
“It’s totally out of order,” he said, staring after her.
“Maybe she just didn’t want them dumped in some landfill somewhere. I can understand that.”
I picked up the can of kerosene, thinking that I must put it away safely.
“Then you’re as nuts as she is.”
“That’s it,” I said, flushing for the second time in as many minutes. “I’ve had it.”
I left the kerosene in the shade of chapel wall.
I caught up with Eveline by the stables.
She tried to shake me off. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Well you had better.”
She looked down pointedly at my hand on her arm. I let her go.
“I felt like an idiot this morning,” I told her, “with Tom. I know so little about you.”
Her reply took me completely by surprise.
“So what do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Everything,” she repeated, sadly. “I wish I’d known my brother better.”
She bent down to unlatch the gate to the woods. Before she disappeared up a track to the woods, she looked back.
“I’ve got to find my bag.” She meant her diamonds.
Chapter 32
Tom slept through the fire. I spent the rest of that long afternoon painting the walls of one of the first floor rooms. I used an extension pole so that I could reach the ceiling. The repetitive act should have been mind-numbingly soothing, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how, with one little slip, Eveline had betrayed her brother. I wondered how she remained sane. Was she sane? The bonfire was not a sane act. The pole swished back and forwards across the ceiling, painting out the blemishes, while my thoughts went around and around, never reaching a conclusion.
There was a knock on the door. Eveline looked unsure of her welcome.
I gestured her to enter.
With one fluid movement she sat, cross-legged on the bare floorboards.
“I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I have no money and nowhere to go.”
I laid the roller back in its tray, determined that she would explain herself.
“What possessed you to burn the clothes?”
She looked up at me, her eyes huge, her lower lip quivering, her fingers plucking at the floor.
“They don’t belong to you. I didn’t want them just to be put in a black bin liner like they were rubbish…”
She buried her face in her hands and let out a long anguished wail. “You don’t believe me about my brother!”
I was completely unnerved.
“I do!” I raised my voice above her crying. “In fact I’ll show you…” I was about to go and get the passport but when I took a step towards the door my path was blocked by a tree with its branches being shaken.
It amazes me how I didn’t question my own sanity because I could see the tree, even though I knew it wasn’t real. It was little and compact, with dark green oak-like leaves and in its middle, a tall man, crouching down, thrashing the stubby branches.
“Hush,” I said, cradling over Eveline, “I do believe you.” The man was quite still, watching us, his eyes burning in his face. He moved then, he moved out of the tree and I shut my eyes for a second and when I opened them again, Tom was standing between us and the man from the tree.
“What the hell is going on? Is everything okay?” Red-faced and worried, he was shouting. He had changed out of his suit, wearing a shirt and shorts and loafers on his bare feet. Eveline raised her tear-stained face.
“This is my brother, Tom.”
Eveline stopped shaking. She struggled to her feet. “Hello,” she said, without looking at him. Unsteadily, and without a glance back, she left the room.
Despite his change of clothes, Tom still looked like a city slicker, still very tired, with dark indentations underneath his eyes. I got up off the floor and started to gather together the equipment. The man and the tree disappeared.
“I was outside,” he said, “looking for you when I heard her scream.” He shook his head. “God, it gave me a fright.”
“I am going to have to show her the passport. It’s the only way she’ll know for certain if her brother was here.”
“Are you keeping it safe?”
“Locked in a drawer in the library.”
“Good,” he said. “What was Greg thinking having a bonfire that near to the house?”
I’d been dreading telling him.
“Christ. She’s completely unhinged. The sooner she leaves, the better.”
“I’ve told her she can stay a while longer.”
“What’s got into you?” He looked at me speculatively. “What is it with this girl?”
“I think,” I chose my words deliberately, “that it is in all our interests to find out what happened to the brother. I don’t think that there will be any peace in this house until we do.”
Tom picked up the hand brush which I’d left lying on the floor. He started to sweep desultorily, leaving two long arcs on the wooden boards before I stopped him for fear of dust on the wet paint.
He wiped specks of dirt and paint off his knees. “I’ve opened a bottle by the way, for this evening.”
“Hell. I forgot to go to the supermarket. There’s nothing to eat.”
“There must be something.”
“Tins. Or we could go to the restaurant? There is one, in the village.”
“Tins are fine. I’m not particularly hungry anyway.”
Nor was I.
As we go down the stairs to the kitchen, he asked about Greg’s whereabouts.
“What time is it?”
He looked down at his chunk of a watch. “Ten past seven.”
“He’ll have gone home.”
“Sis,” he said gently. “Don’t mention anything about the passport this evening, please. I couldn’t bear another scene.”
The wine from the cellar was glorious. Somehow, it made the food not matter too much: pasta and pesto, with a tin of bamboo shoots and two tins of artichoke hearts, all from château stocks. Eveline refused wine. In Tom’s presence, there was a truculence about her, like a naughty child who had been caught doing something silly. She wouldn’t catch Tom’s eye. We ate in silence, chasing pasta shells around wide-rimmed plates. Tom and I gave each other occasional glances, when Eveline’s head was bent. When Tom finished, he wiped his mouth with paper towel and looked steadily at Eveline until she had to raise her face and give him her attention.
“My sister tells me that you think your brother stayed here?”
She said nothing, mopping up the sauce with day-old bread.
“Eveline,” I said. “Please.”
Tom shot me a warning glance.
I shook my head. No, I was not going to mention the passport that evening.
Eveline didn’t notice our unspoken communication. She looked steadfastly at Tom. “I know he did.”
“Tell me,” he said conversationally, almost changing the subject but not quit
e, “it’s been puzzling my sister — just how did you arrive here in the first place?”
“My husband drove me.” She told Tom what she had told me. “He’s divorcing me.”
“That seems a little brutal.” Tom’s tone was smooth.
“The marriage was arranged any way.”
“Okay, let’s start from the beginning.” He wasn’t rude, just firm. “With facts. What’s your connection with the Kumono family?”
Eveline looked at her plate. It was empty except for the bamboo shoots.
“You have to talk,” my brother said. “If you don’t, my sister and I can’t help you. You will have to find some other accommodation.”
“Tom…”
He ignored me.
Eveline looked at him with her great, unfathomable eyes.
“Did you know the General?” she asked.
“Me?” Tom was taken aback. “Why ever would you think that?”
“You have his château.” Eveline was very intent.
“No, not in as…” Tom chuckled unconvincingly. He looked to me for support.
“The truth,” I mouthed, “tell her the truth.”
Tom swirled the wine around his glass, playing a game with it, retrieving it before it slurped over the rim. “I met him a couple of times.”
“All part of a marketing initiative,” I smiled, giving him support.
“We pulled out years ago,” Tom smiled back.
“What sort of company?” There was a very insistent quality to Eveline.
“Preliminary exploration. Nothing came of it. I tell you what Sis,” he leant towards me. “Let’s have one last glass outside. I’m so looking forward to a good catch-up with you.”
“What were you looking for?” Eveline persisted.
Tom laughed. “Goodness, and I thought I was the one asking the questions!”
“It’s my country,” Eveline said stiffly but she got up and offered to clear the table and do the washing-up while Tom and I had a chat. “It will be nice for you and your brother.” I felt horrendously guilty.
*
I glanced over at Tom who had been standing impatiently by the door, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for me. The luminosity of her beauty had suddenly registered with him. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Thank you.” She allowed me to press her close.
“I am going to repay your kindness,” she whispered, “by helping more around the house.”
Tom and I sat by the swimming pool and watched as the sun turned an incandescent, putrid orange colour before sinking out of sight behind the mountains.
We were both lying on sun loungers. I remember that my legs were chilly and Tom insisting that it was warm still. It was growing dark. The cicadas were making a racket, as they did every evening.
“There is something extraordinary about her.”
“Her beauty apart from anything else.”
“It kind of ambushes you,” he said distractedly. Then he sat upright.
“Sam’s left me. For real this time. Oxfordshire is on the market. London’s for sale. As she says, it’s not as if the kids see much of me anyway.”
I understood the psoriasis then. I stretched out my hand and he clasped it. His hand felt dry, flaky, almost reptilian.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“I didn’t want you to feel that you’d been wasting your time here.”
“Don’t be silly. I was grateful for the chance to get away.”
He smiled but he couldn’t hide the hurt. It was in the set of his shoulders as he turned his head away from me.
*
Years and years ago, I was at a function of Tom’s. Philip wasn’t there. He avoided Tom’s parties if he could. He called him an asset stripper. He said that Tom was amoral. That he flew too close to the wind.
I was standing alone on the terrace, the party going on in the restaurant behind me. I was escaping the hub-bub for a minute, when my brother came up and put his arm around my waist.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” He always thought that he could surprise with his approach, but I always heard him coming. Stretched out in front of us was the night-time silhouette of London, from the Houses of Parliament to St Paul’s with a barge chugging slowly up the Thames.
“It’s fantastic.” It was the first time I had spoken to him that evening. “Congratulations.”
“I’m thinking of giving it all up. Spending more time with Sam and the kids.”
My reaction was immediate. “You can’t do that.”
“Why ever not?”
“You’re not the type for domestic bliss.”
There was a pain in his eyes then, a sort of confusion. He knew I was referring to his many affairs.
“Honestly, you’d be bored. You’d miss the buzz.”
He looked deflated like a little boy. “Do you think so?”
“Trust me,” I laughed. “I know so.”
Except that I didn’t know and I wasn’t about to admit, even to myself, that my brother’s success was important to me. I liked him being rich. I loved being the sister of ‘Tom Braid’.
What I didn’t realise was that his business interests would expand to such an extent that his wife and children, never mind me, would rarely get to see him.
*
An owl hooted in the woods.
“And you,” he asked, “how are you?”
“You haven’t been seeing other women have you?”
“Give us a chance.” Tom’s laugh was genuine. “I haven’t broken my promise to Mum yet.”
“Mum knew about your affairs?”
“Why so shocked?” He was teasing me. “Of course I told her.”
Tom and our mother had finally grown close during her final illness. They caught up with a lifetime of intimacy in a few short months — although he wasn’t with her the cold November weekend six years before when she had died. Urgent business was the on-going story of his life.
“I thought I was the only one who knew.”
“She weaselled it out of me.”
Tom sensed my change of mood. “Come on, Sis,” he said, picking up both empty glasses “of course she knew. She of all people.” I was too tired to quiz him on exactly what he meant.
“You know,” he said, as he gave me a kiss good night, “I don’t believe that girl is married.”
“Why ever not?”
He grinned tapping the side of his nose. “I see a lot of girls like her in hotel bars.”
“You’re wrong.”
Up in my tower room, I couldn’t sleep. I wedged a chair against the door handle in case the naked man tried to insinuate himself into the warmth of my bed.
Chapter 33
The following day, Tom’s first full day at the château, he didn’t appear until noon. I knew that he had already been out because of the way my car was parked — almost, but not quite in its usual spot — but when I checked to see where he was, he was sleeping like a baby on Greg’s mattress in the gym room.
Eveline wasn’t in her room. I presumed that she had gone up to the woods, in search of her diamonds. I was glad that she wasn’t around.
“Is there anything for lunch?” Tom was like his old self again.
He turned up his nose at the cupboard full of tins and I found myself in my car with Tom at the wheel, hurtling down the hill to catch the last of the open air market in the village square.
We parked in a side street baking in the sun.
Tom made no move to get out of the car as I retrieved the baskets from the back.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I’ll wait here for you.”
“Why ever not?”
“Seriously Sis, I’m too tired.”
“Come on. We’ll be in and out in a jiffy. It’s lunchtime, don’t forget. Hardly anyone around.”
He put on his sunglasses and levered himself out of the car, wincing when his fingers touched the hot roof.
The stalls hadn’t
quite packed up. We bought heaps of fruit and veg. It was just like old times, Tom and me, when our mother used to send us out together to do the shopping. I was experiencing the same heady sense of freedom.
We were at our last stop, at the ready-roasted chicken stall waiting for two chickens to appear from the back of the van, when a young Asian man with narrow-framed sunglasses approached Tom.
Tom was squatting, trying to find space in our baskets for the chickens.
The young man bent towards him. “Excuse me, but you’re not Tom Braid are you?” His accent was broad Essex.
“Tom who?” Tom asked without so much as a glance up at the man. I stood by, silent and puzzled.
“Sorry,” the stranger apologised, embarrassed. “It’s just that we all work in the City…”
“What? You mean there is more than one of you?” Tom stood upright, his free hand shading his sunglasses, a string of onions dangling from the other.
The stranger pointed to three people watching us from one of the tables outside the Café de Paris. They waved. “They swore you were him, and I said you couldn’t be not with all the rumours flying around London.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Tom transferred the oranges we had bought from one basket to the other.
“Actually,” the stranger called as Tom and I hurried away, “Tell the bastard he deserves whatever he gets if you should see him.”
“What did he mean by that?” The questions tumbled out as soon as we were out of earshot.
“I hope he isn’t some arsehole of a journalist. That would be the last straw.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’ll blow over. Has he gone?”
The man was still standing by the chicken van, hands in pockets, watching us.
“Why did he call you a bastard?”
“A minion from a rival company? Who knows?”
“But — ”
“No buts,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t anyway.”
“We can’t leave the chickens.”
“Could you go back and get them? Please. I can’t go anywhere without being accosted these days.”
I know what it is like to have unwanted attention from the press. When Tom made his first million with a lot of fanfare, I was button-holed by a spotty journalist who must have been as young as I was. I was aware — I took an active interest in Tom’s businesses then — that there was speculation that the deal had been brokered with the help of some very shady people. This journalist though, had decided to approach his piece on Tom from another angle.