A deathly silence ensued. Edwina was very pale. Her hands shook as she raked through her handbag for another cigarette. Cat’s eyelids felt heavy but she fought off the urge to yawn.
The only sound was Edwina sucking the life out of her cigarette. Tim reverently placed a martini in front of her but she didn’t deign to acknowledge him. He gave Cat a sympathetic glance and withdrew.
Edwina eventually broke the silence. ‘So, you want to work with Jim Blade? Fine, I’ll arrange it. But I want you to know that you’re making a big, big mistake. You’ll become the laughing stock of London, once the social elite find out you’ve chosen to become the hotel dick’s apprentice.’
Cat made no response, she just gave Edwina a long steady look. She knew if Edwina provoked her into losing her temper, she’d forfeit the advantage. As Mary put it, ‘Sometimes you have to fake knowledge, in order to get your own way but be careful who you tangle with. It’s only smoke and mirrors, kid, and silence can be very powerful. Think of Jim’s blank poker face when he’s playing for big stakes. Nightmares are forged in the darkness of silence.’
Edwina drained her martini in one gulp. ‘You’re making a huge mistake if you think you can rattle me. Word of warning though, if you keep resisting my efforts to ensure your future, I shall simply cut off your allowance. Defy me and you’ll discover how ugly life can be once you’re penniless. And don’t even think about moving out, I’ve got no intention of giving these bitches further ammunition. Trust me when I say this – you will obey me. And if you don’t, I’ll go to great lengths to secure your compliance.’
Cat stared into the chilly depths of her stepmother’s blue eyes. They were harder than Matthew Lamb’s sapphire eyeballs. Cat recoiled. ‘Are you threatening me, Edwina?’
‘But of course and don’t ever forget, I’m the one holding the purse strings. You don’t inherit one single penny of your own until you turn twenty-one.’
Another society matron was bearing down on them. Edwina seized the teapot and cheerfully brandished it over the table. She said loudly enough for the whole of Toucan Court to hear, ‘More tea, poppet? And just to please Mother, I insist you eat some of these delicious fish paste sandwiches. You’re only cranky because you’re dieting. And I’m so terribly worried that you’re getting just a tad too thin, darling.’
14
Keeping Oneself Nice
Dr Otto Rubens stretched out his legs and admired his new footwear. Damn fine handmade boots, incorporating the best of imported leathers, comfortable yet stylish at the same time. That Thomas Rodd certainly knew his onions. Otto’s long fingers played with his gold pen and he checked his watch again. Where was she? He hadn’t clapped eyes on her for nearly eleven hours and twelve minutes.
Mary Maguire knocked and entered. ‘Good morning, Otto.’
‘Morning, Mary.’
Otto’s face lit up and he nervously straightened his tie. There wasn’t enough air in the room. Today his goddess was wearing a fine emerald cashmere sweater. It clung to her voluptuous curves and drew attention to her green eyes. She had her hair up today, elegantly coiled in a French chignon. Dr Rubens fantasised about removing her hair pins and letting her hair tumble down. Caught out. She was looking him straight in the eye, so he averted his gaze and made a big show of turning the desk calendar over to the correct date. Thank God she wasn’t a mind reader. Or was she? Small talk was required.
‘How cold is it, eh? Practically had to skate to work. The Thames could well freeze over. Well, what do we have on today?’
He needlessly moved some papers around his desk, trying to present a picture of the successful psychiatrist readying himself for a day of trauma, distress, hysteria and angst. Turning thirty-five had not impacted on his boyish good looks. Today he’d experimented with parting his fair hair down the middle in the hope of looking more mature. But this had failed to age his cherub’s face or negate the youthful freckles across his nose.
One potential client had recently told him, ‘Dr Rubens, you came highly recommended. I like your forthright manner and demeanour, but confiding in you is simply out of the question. I’d feel utterly ridiculous consulting a psychiatrist who looks younger than my grandson for advice on how to conquer my fear of death.’
Otto hoped Mary liked the cut of his new suit, bespoke tailored on Savile Row. He flexed his elbows slightly and shot his silk cuffs just a tad. Shame overcame him. Good God, he was turning into one of those lovesick twats who couldn’t keep their mind on the job.
She was smiling at him. Christ. She must have just asked him something. ‘Are you paying attention, Otto?’
Yes, yes, yes. ‘Sorry, Mary, I was thinking about a difficult patient. What were you saying?’
‘Here’s the files for today’s patients. Your first appointment is Miss Caterina du Barry. And these auction papers need your signature. I’ve made sure everything is in order.’
‘Excellent. Hope you don’t mind me asking but I need to know. Is there any truth in the rumour that you’re Miss du Barry’s mother?’
‘None. I looked after her before she was adopted by Daniel du Barry. Mrs du Barry thinks Caterina is my illegitimate child. Danny didn’t want Edwina to know the real story. And I want to keep it that way.’
No surprises there, thought Otto. He’d recently seen how Eddie could turn on a sixpence once she felt betrayed. She’d tried everything to bring him to his knees over his hiring of Mary but he’d stood his ground. Recommending Caterina to his care was probably Edwina’s way of declaring a truce. Otto already knew hell would freeze over before she apologised.
He looked Mary straight in the eye. ‘I completely understand. You have my word, Mary, that anything you’ve told me will not leave this office.’
Over the years Dr Otto Rubens had been eviscerated by numerous patients; troubled folk had a tendency to foist their anger onto their psychiatrist. Otto had seen firsthand that the line between sanity and insanity was as thin as gossamer. Subsequently he thanked his lucky stars he only knew Edwina du Barry socially.
Otto had many theories as to Edwina’s strong sense of false entitlement but he still hadn’t got to the bottom of the matter. He was aware that the widow fancied him something rotten but recognised it had more to do with his international reputation and high social standing than any deep feeling on her part. Otto had been swatting away bored, rich housewives ever since he’d first established his Harley Street practice and he was adept at avoiding planned seduction. But their ruthlessness still astonished him.
Mary handed Otto a sheaf of papers and he tried not to ogle her magnificent cleavage as she leant over his desk. He mentally slapped himself. For God’s sake, Otto! Mary has shown no interest in you whatsoever and you need to get a grip on reality.
Otto signed the last document and tossed his pen aside. ‘Mary, please take these documents down to my lawyers and get them to start proceedings. They know you’ve got full authority to expedite all paperwork. Keep an eye on clauses ten and eleven. And send in . . . ah, what’s the receptionist’s name again?’
Mary gathered up the documents and filed them in an attaché case. ‘It’s Miss Sylvia Jennings. Please make the effort, she’s been with you for over two years.’
‘Yes, of course. Sorry, I’ve got a lot on my mind.’
The curve of your abundant breasts, the corners of your eyes crinkling when you smile. The peachy pink of your Irish complexion. Your quickness, your wit, your innate intelligence. The redness of your hair. Like autumn. The sound of your high heels tapping their way up the stairs. The urge to bury my head in the nape of your neck. The irrational urge to say ‘I do’. Just so I can obliterate all those fuckers who lust after you. I want to put a gold band on your finger to deter those lost souls on the underground who watch you on the platform, devouring you with their greedy eyes. I want to protect you, defend you, die for you. Who shares your bed, Mary Maguire? I need to know, so I can flagellate myself day and night. Just imagining your lovely head on another m
an’s pillow makes me want to chew the legs from the chair and tear holes in the curtains. This is insanity. I’m a rabid dog who should be put out of his misery.
The door clicked shut and she was gone. For at least two hours. Possibly three. Otto slumped in his chair and refilled his pen with black ink. He dreamily wrote Mary Maguire on the blotting paper. Then crossed it out and wrote Mrs Otto Rubens and Mary Rubens. His heart thudded until he came to his senses and tore the blotting paper into tiny pieces. Otto retreated to the window alcove and stared out at the pouring rain.
His elevated position on Harley Street gave him a bird’s eye view of London. Beyond the opulent Georgian terraces were Marylebone Road and Regent’s Park. In the distance was a group of schoolchildren, dressed in dark mackintoshes, scurrying towards Madame Tussauds. They resembled a long line of shiny-backed, black cockroaches. Otto was not fond of children. And he had a horror of waxworks, which reminded him of the cadavers he’d dissected when he was training to be a surgeon. After months of heaving his guts up in the Gents toilet, he’d decided to specialise in psychiatry. The smell of formaldehyde still made him nauseous. Becoming a shrink was an inspired choice as he had a knack for deciphering the workings of the human brain. Unless of course it was his own brain. Shameful to think that even now he couldn’t cure himself of irrational thoughts and grubby schoolboy obsessions.
It scared him how quickly he’d lost his objectivity after hiring Mary Maguire, because until recently he’d seen himself as a rational man. He’d hired her on her professional merits and hadn’t had any ulterior motives. What had gone wrong? But when Otto researched the emotion called love, he’d drawn a blank. In his profession there wasn’t actually any agreement as to what love was. Finally he’d turned to a learned Venetian, a self-described unrepentant libertine and by turns a gambler, violinist, alchemist, soldier, writer, composer, lottery director, preacher and spy. In his spare time this chameleon had been the lover of hundreds of women.
Otto opened his desk drawer, dug out a notebook and found the relevant quote. The Chevalier de Seingalt, also known as Giacomo Casanova, had written: ‘What is love? . . . It is a kind of madness over which philosophy has no power; a sickness to which man is prone at every time of life and which is incurable if it strikes in old age . . . Bitterness than which nothing is sweeter, sweetness than which nothing is more bitter! Divine monster which can only be defined by paradoxes!’
Otto frowned. Small wonder I’m feeling out of sorts.
Cat had managed to remain awake by fiercely concentrating on the pattern in Dr Rubens’ Persian rug. She wondered why he’d furnished his consulting room with so many antiques. The room exuded sobriety and felt like a museum. It reminded her of a photograph she’d seen of Dr Sigmund Freud sitting at his desk. Perhaps shrinks favoured a specific décor style: solid wooden desks, glass-fronted bookshelves and classical objets d’art. Or maybe there was a style bible that psychiatrists had to swear allegiance to. Concentrate. Consulting a psychiatrist is a serious business.
Cat wiped the smile from her face. Doc Rubens didn’t look old enough to be a shrink but Mary held him in high regard, so he might be of some use. After all, he’d successfully treated traumatised soldiers and had an international reputation for his research on phobias and nervous disorders. Hell, maybe he already knew why she kept nodding off.
Cat glanced at the antique clock and stifled a yawn. There were only a few minutes left and then she could head straight home for an afternoon kip. The silence lengthened until Dr Rubens spoke, ‘Tell me, in what situations are you most likely to fall asleep?’
‘When I’m feeling extremely tense. The location is irrelevant.’
‘Why are you anxious now?’
‘Because I’m knocking myself out trying not to sound like a crazy girl.’
Otto smiled reassuringly. ‘What about people? Does anyone in particular make you tense or anxious?’
‘I’m pretty relaxed with friends but I’m always anxious around my father’s wife.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘The new employee.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Her butler, Julian Bartholomew. He’s about twenty-two but nobody knows much about him.’
‘You dislike him?’
‘I like him a lot but I don’t know why. Sometimes I think I’m going mad.’
Otto waited expectantly but she was glaring at the rug again. Perhaps she too, was afflicted by Casanova’s ‘divine monster’. Otto flipped the page of his notebook. ‘When you’re sad, what makes you feel better?’
‘Hiding out among the washing.’
‘Any particular place?’
‘The Hotel du Barry’s got clotheslines stretched across the laundry yard. Every day in warm weather they’re full of wet sheets and white hotel linen flapping in the breeze. Blinding white. It’s sort of like sheltering in an igloo in the middle of a snowstorm.’
‘How do you feel when you’re there?’
‘Secure, happy. It’s where they found me.’
‘Found you?’
‘Yes, I was only a few weeks old and my biological mother had hung me on the clothesline. Or got someone else to do her dirty work.’
Otto paled and put down his notebook. ‘Good God!’
Cat laughed. ‘No, no. I wasn’t hanging by the neck or anything. I was swinging in a sort of cat’s cradle.’
‘Ah.’ Otto sucked his pen. ‘Let’s free associate. I want you to picture yourself as a baby hanging between the white sheets. What words spring to mind?’
Cat carefully studied Otto’s boots. They were very new and shiny and the leather soles were still unmarked. A minute ticked by slowly. ‘Abandonment and safety. Rejection and being cherished.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the staff who found me became family. My mother rejected me but they stuck their necks out for me. Especially Mary Maguire, Doc Ahearn, Henri Dupont, Sean Kelly, Jim Blade and Bertha Brown.’
‘Who is Bertha Brown?’
Cat told him.
‘Did you ever feel you might be different from other children?’
Cat examined the back of her hands and said nothing. Otto let her be. The clock ticked and the sound of the rain on the roof became louder. Hail hammered against the windows. He threw another log on the fire. Sparks shot up the chimney and landed on the hearth rug. An odour of burning wool provided a frisson of danger.
Cat blinked away her tears. ‘When I was about six years old, Daniel told me the Roman myth about Romulus and Remus. How they were abandoned as babies and left floating on the river in a cradle. Later they were found, nurtured and suckled by a she-wolf. I figured Romulus and Remus were like me and I concluded that it was probably a normal occurrence for mothers to abandon their children.’
Her sadness was palpable. Otto kept his face impassive but put a smile in his voice, ‘Does Bertha Brown share any characteristics with a she-wolf?’
Cat grinned. ‘Heck, no. She’s rather like a stern but kind headmistress.’
‘Headmistress?’
‘Bertha’s girls are naughty but they and everyone else in the labyrinth respect her. She’s tough but fair.’
‘What’s the labyrinth?’
‘That’s what we call the double basement. It’s like a self-contained city down there. If London was under attack, you’d want to hide out in the labyrinth. The plumbing and heating are modern and there are secret storerooms and staircases. There’s also a pirate’s treasure trove of silverware, crystal, luxury foods and wines, spirits and champagnes by the truckload.’
‘It sounds marvellous. Tell me, is Mary a surrogate mother too?’
‘No. She’s more like the head girl. She was only about sixteen when she found me hanging on the clothesline and she’s always protected me. Mary’s got a short fuse and won’t let anybody put me down. Apparently Mary once knocked out a Hotel du Barry chef.’
‘Knocked out?’
‘Yes. Chef told her I was a stray mongrel pup. R
eckoned I’d never amount to anything and I’d come to a sticky end. He told her only pedigree dogs made it in the du Barry world. Chef had been bullying Mary for weeks and she’d had enough. So she gave him a right hook and he went down like a sack of potatoes.’
Otto smiled. That was his girl, all right. Or she might become his girl if he had the guts to make a move. Risky. She might punch out his lights.
‘How do you feel when you’re with Mary and Bertha? Do you have to fight the urge to nod off?’
Cat’s face softened. ‘No, I feel very alert. In a good way.’
‘Yes. I can imagine you would.’
Otto consulted his notes. ‘As a child you got on well with Jim Blade?’
‘Yes. Jim’s always been there for me. I was only about six years old the first time I went on my own to the dentist. Daniel didn’t want me turning into a rich, spoilt brat, so I had to use the underground. I was terrified. Daniel gave me a map, some spending money and an umbrella. I was scared I’d fall asleep on the train or get lost. But I managed it. And it was only when I was going up the steps of the hotel that I realised Jim was right behind me. Daniel had asked him to shadow me all the way there and back.’
‘Is Jim still a big part of your life?’
‘Yes, I see him every day. I’m helping him out around the hotel.’
‘But I thought you were a full-time art student?’
‘Edwina wants me to work forty hours a week in the hotel. And spend only two days at art school.’
Otto was nonplussed. Why is Edwina being such a bitch? ‘How do you feel about that, Caterina?’
‘Look, you know Edwina socially. Is everything I tell you private or not?’
‘But of course. I’ve already discussed this with Edwina and she now knows that I always maintain patient confidentiality. I will not tolerate any interference from her. This was a stipulated precondition.’
‘I understand.’
‘You know, Caterina, I have a duty of care to you and all my other patients. We psychiatrists take oaths about that kind of thing. You can trust me completely. Nothing you say to me will leave this room.’
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