CHAPTER 13
I managed only three, maybe four hours sleep, and the bags under my eyes were there to prove it.
I wanted to face Lord Shanderson looking as though I had slept like a baby, as though the events of the previous night had not troubled me in the slightest. I poked and prodded my face in the mirror, wondering what I was going to do to remove all traces of fatigue and worry. And then, I remembered a tube of very expensive and very potent moisturizer hidden somewhere in the depths of my wash bag.
I emptied the entire contents of the bag onto the bed and marveled at how much money I must have spent on lotions and potions over the years. In London, buying expensive face creams had been my favorite pastime, second only to buying over-priced cashmere sweaters.
Eventually I found a tube of Beauty Flash Balm—every party boy’s secret weapon. I can’t remember the number of times I’d turned up for work at the hotel on no sleep, looking like I’d been at a health farm for a week. In fact, looking back I really should have offered to promote the balm for the manufacturer. I slathered on the thick lotion, made myself a double espresso, and waited for both to work their magic. By the time I’d drunk the coffee I could feel the skin around my eyes tightening.
“Well, don’t you look fresh as a daisy this morning,” Vera said cheerfully when I walked into the kitchen.
“Well, thank you, Vera. I must say I am in a rather buoyant mood today.”
I picked up a piece of buttered toast from a pile in the middle of the table and gobbled it down in seconds.
“Well, I’m glad someone is,” Vera said, shaking her head in dismay.
“Why? Who’s in a grumpy mood then?” I asked, reaching for more toast. “Not you, is it, Tom?”
“I’m never in a bad mood, me,” he said, looking up from his bowl of cereal.
“His Lordship is in the darkest mood I’ve seen him in for many a long month. The last time he was this foul tempered was when she was here,” Vera huffed.
I didn’t need to press Vera for any more details, as it was pretty obvious I was the problem. The thought of it instantly killed my appetite, so I placed the slice of toast I was holding back onto the plate and headed for the dining room to face the music.
“Where you off to?” Vera asked as I was halfway out of the door.
“To serve him his breakfast,” I said.
“Don’t bother. His Lordship called me an hour ago saying he didn’t want anything. Not even a cup of tea—most unlike him.” She scraped a pile of sausages from a silver dish onto a plate and banged it down on the table.
“Waste not, want not,” said Tom, spearing two of them with his fork.
I made my excuses and headed up to Lord Shanderson’s room to see how he was. He might have been in a foul mood, but it was going to be impossible to avoid each other, so it would be better to have our chat about my future role at Castle Beadale sooner rather than later.
I knocked sharply on the door before entering. Inside the room was, as usual, in complete darkness, so I moved toward the window to open the curtains.
“Good morning, Lord Shanderson,” I said as the room flooded with bright morning sunlight. But when I turned to greet him I could see that the bed had not been slept in. The cover was still folded neatly back the way I had left it last night when I had come in to do his turndown.
I walked into the bathroom, and that hadn’t been touched either: towels still folded neatly on the washstand and the toiletries by the sink all perfectly aligned.
“Where on earth are you, Drummond?” I said to myself, looking around the room.
With none of the usual mess to clear up I decided to have a quick tidy-up of his dressing room. The small cedar-paneled room where Lord Shanderson’s clothes were stored was truly a thing of beauty. Just off the main bedroom, it was fitted with exquisitely built-in rails for his suits and sports jackets, brass-handled drawers for shirts, and custom-built racks for his multitude of handmade shoes. It even had a glass-topped display case just for his collection of cufflinks, lending the room an air of the old-fashioned gentleman’s outfitters. I stood looking at my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, imagining what it would be like to have a room like this of my own one day.
I began to flick through the suits, checking for any that could do with a press or needed sending away to be cleaned, when I heard someone cough. It definitely hadn’t come from inside the room, as it was barely audible. I checked the bedroom just in case, but as I suspected, I was alone. I returned to the wardrobe and carried on, but seconds later I heard it again. This time the cough was louder and slightly more prolonged. It seemed to be coming from behind the suits. I parted the garment bags sharply, feeling slightly foolish when all that was revealed was the wooden paneling behind them.
Jesus, Anthony, what did you expect to find? I thought as I slid the suits back into place.
But as I was carefully arranging them, one of the jackets caught on something and wouldn’t budge. I tugged at it, but was afraid it would rip, so I took down all the suits on either side of it to see what it had snagged on.
The cuff of the jacket had been caught between a join in two halves of the wooden paneling, but, when I pushed on the part where the fabric was trapped, something clicked loudly, and the paneling creaked open to reveal a very narrow spiral staircase. It was thickly carpeted, and tiny stained-glass windows in the curved walls flooded the stairwell with jewel-colored light. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and listened for signs of life above me.
I heard nothing at first but then, louder than before, I heard someone clear his throat. I squeezed into the narrow space, and before I could stop myself I was climbing the stairs two at a time. When I reached the top I gently pushed open a wooden panel just like the one at the foot of the stairs and peered nervously around the edge of it to see where the stairs had brought me out.
To my amazement, I was in my old room in the turret, and there, lying in bed cocooned in a mountain of blankets, was Lord Shanderson.
“So, this is where you are hiding, is it?” I said, closing the wardrobe door behind me. He emerged from beneath the mound of bedclothes and rubbed his eyes as if to check that what he was seeing was real.
“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked, sitting up. “I thought I had locked the door.”
“Maybe you did, but I found another much more interesting way in,” I said, pointing to the wardrobe.
“Ah, yes. The back stairs. Always came in so handy when Mr. Johnson was alive.” He smiled weakly and shrugged his shoulders. “They haven’t been used for years.”
He was wearing a pair of fine white cotton pajamas with his initials embroidered on the pocket. The jacket was unbuttoned slightly, exposing a glimpse of his well-defined chest and its light dusting of salt-and-pepper hair. Never in a million years had I ever thought I would be aroused by anyone in pajamas, but something about them on him was incredibly sexy.
“Get out of bed!” I snapped suddenly, taking us both rather by surprise.
At first he looked slightly taken aback by my tone, but a flicker of understanding crossed his face before he did as I asked. I walked over to a thickly upholstered chair positioned in the bay window and sat down. He stood rooted to the spot as I got comfortable.
“I think it’s time you were taught a lesson for disappearing like that,” I said, patting my knee. “Get over here.”
He obeyed immediately and positioned himself slightly to my right.
“I think you know what you need to do, Drum,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. He started to loosen the cord on his pajama pants, but I raised my hand to stop him.
“Leave them on,” I said.
He lowered himself over my knee and placed his palms on the floor, saying nothing. I let my hand explore the contours of his cheeks and marveled at how firm and round they were. I suppose a lifetime of horse riding would give anyone a bubble butt, but it was still impressive in someone old enough to be my father.
&
nbsp; I circled a couple of times before I administered a sharp slap to each cheek, one right after the other. He said nothing, but I could feel his entire body tense and then relax with each blow. I waited a few seconds before I slapped him again, harder and sharper this time. As my hand rained down on his buttocks, I felt something hard stir and press into my thigh. I also felt a slight dampness soak into the fabric of my trousers.
I slipped my hand under the waistband of his pajama pants and pulled them down a few inches to reveal that tattoo. I ran a finger over it as I read out the words aloud.
“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” I said quietly as I pulled the pants down farther to reveal his entire backside.
When I tugged at the waistband, he raised his hips to allow the pants to fall down to his knees. I left him there for a few minutes, just circling his cheeks with the palm of my hand and allowing a finger to momentarily disappear into the darkness at the base of his spine. When he raised his hips I saw a glimpse of his balls and reached down to feel them. They were hot and felt incredibly heavy.
“Don’t stop,” he muttered.
“Who asked you to speak?” I barked at him, bringing my hand down as hard as I could onto his bare flesh.
He moaned deeply, but didn’t utter another word. I felt him pulse uncontrollably when my hand made contact. Then, just at eye level on the tall chest of drawers to my side I spotted a large silver-backed clothes brush. So with Drummond still positioned over my knee I quickly reached over and grabbed it. It was the perfect shape and size for my purposes, making me wonder if it might have been used to teach Drummond a lesson in the past.
I administered a couple more blows with the palm of my hand before, without warning, changing to the brush and bringing it crashing down onto his bare skin with a loud and satisfying “thwack.” It instantly sent the blood rushing to the surface of his pale skin and left a distinct, angry, hand-shaped mark that would last a couple of days at least.
“So, is this the kind of arrangement you had in mind?” I asked.
He nodded his head, but stayed silent.
“Speak up, Drummond!” I barked.
“This is precisely what I had in mind,” he said quietly.
“You can get up now; your punishment is complete for today,” I said, pushing him off my knee.
He stood before me with his pajamas still around his knees, making no attempt to cover himself up; he looked almost mesmerized. I reached out and gently stroked him, making him gasp sharply. It was obvious he wanted me to carry on by the way he moved his hips toward me. But I knew instantly that giving him what he wanted would serve neither of us well in the long run. I looked into his eyes and saw a look of absolute surrender and contentment. It was then that I realized I had the power to give him the very thing he desired most in the world. But today was about laying down some ground rules and showing him who was in charge. From now on I would be the one to decide when he got what he wanted.
“Pull up your pants,” I ordered.
There was a look of disappointment in his eyes, yet he seemed completely at peace. From the expression on his face it was obvious he had just experienced the most elusive kind of release, the kind he had been searching for all these years: the release of power.
I left the room without another word, leaving him to gather himself and reflect on the seismic shift in the nature of our relationship.
For the rest of the morning I kept busy polishing silver and organizing the butler’s pantry. By the time I’d finished cleaning every candlestick, table centerpiece, and entrée dish in the silver vault, my stomach loudly reminded me that it was time for lunch, so I locked up and wandered through to the kitchen.
“You staying for a bite to eat, dear?” Vera asked from over the top of a wooden trug filled to the brim with salad from the garden.
“No, thanks, Vera. I think I’ll nip back to the cottage and try and get the smell of silver polish from under my nails. I’ll grab something to eat there,” I said, slipping on my jacket.
“Well, whatever was bothering him earlier,” Vera said, breaking apart the lettuce and dropping the leaves into a sink of icy water, “it’s not bothering him now. His Lordship just about skipped through here earlier, he did. Even got a kiss on the cheek!” She laughed, shaking her head. “I don’t know what gets into that man sometimes; I really don’t.”
“Any idea where he’s gone?” I asked, trying to sound professional rather than plain nosey.
“Out for the day, he said. Not the faintest idea where, and he’s driven himself, so I can’t even ask Tom where he is.”
Back at Rose View I set about making myself a sandwich, but the second I sat down to eat it there was a knock at the door. When I opened it the rear end of a van was just disappearing up the drive, but on the doorstep there was an enormous bouquet of long-stemmed white roses. There must have been at least ten dozen of them, and they were taking up most of the doorway. I struggled into the kitchen and stuck them in the sink until I could figure out what to do with them. As I was removing the cellophane wrapping I saw there was a small card taped to it. I opened it and read the message out loud to myself:
Thank you for making my dream a reality.—DS
“Drummond Shanderson, well, well, well, you old romantic,” I said to myself as I placed the card on the mantelpiece.
Just as I was about to go back to my lunch there was another knock at the door. Jesus, what now, a box of fluffy kittens? I thought as I went to answer it.
When I opened the door I screwed my eyes closed for a second, but sure enough when I opened them again there she was, large as life and as bold as brass: my mother.
“Hello, Tony. You going to invite me in then?”
CHAPTER 14
One of my earliest memories of Mommy Dearest is of being on the sleeper train from Cornwall to Scotland with her. The train was the old-fashioned type with compartments that ran off a connecting corridor. You could still smoke on trains back then, and my mother took full advantage of that fact from the minute we boarded. The journey’s starting and finishing points are so far apart that they effectively bookend the whole of the United Kingdom, and back then it took an entire day and a night to complete the trip. It sounds romantic, and under very different circumstances I suppose it could have been, but as with most of my mother’s grand plans it turned out to be anything but.
I was five years old, and it was February 1988. Of this I am 100 percent sure. Why so sure? Because that was the month that Kylie Minogue scored her first number-one hit with “I Should Be So Lucky,” and for some little boys that’s the kind of fact that leaves a life-long impression. (I still know all the words by heart.) Another thing I am sure of is that it felt like the longest journey in the world and my mother spent most of it trying to drill the intricate details of her plan into me. We were traveling with my mother’s new boyfriend whom I didn’t particularly like. I had developed a way of ignoring most of her men friends and skillfully deflecting their feeble attempts to befriend me. They usually stopped buying me sweets and toys as soon as they realized my mother couldn’t care less whether I liked them or not. Alan was a nice enough guy from what I can remember of him, but I had a built-in disdain for anyone who was stupid enough to fall for my mother. As the train snaked its way the entire length of the country I would have been perfectly content to watch the scenery and count telegraph poles, but my mother had other ideas.
“Now, remember, Tony, this is your Uncle Alan and, if any grown-ups ask you any questions about him, you tell them that—Mummy’s brother, got it?”
“He’s not my uncle,” I said, turning my attention back to the window. “He’s your boyfriend.”
Even at that age I knew exactly how to get to her. Usually, if I was being difficult or misbehaving, she would have just hit me round the head and sent me to my room, but I can remember thinking that whatever the reason it meant an awful lot to her that I went along with her plan.
“If you don’t call him Uncle Alan this won�
��t work, and then we will all be in a lot of trouble, and you wouldn’t want that, would you, Tony?” she said, breathing a heady mix of cigarette and booze fumes into my small face.
I have no recollection of arriving in Scotland, but I do remember waking up in my granny’s house. I didn’t know at the time that it was my granny’s house; in fact before that train journey I hadn’t even been aware I had a granny. For some reason, not only had my mother omitted to tell me I had a grandmother, she had also conveniently forgotten to tell my granny she had a grandchild.
Her house was a tiny railway cottage on the outskirts of Glasgow. Not much more than a two-up two-down with an outside loo, so when we turned up it was quite a squeeze. I must have been carried upstairs the minute we arrived, because when I woke up I was alone in a huge brass bed in a room I didn’t recognize. The room was as neat as a new pin and smelled sweet like freshly cut flowers. I later learned that the smell that followed my granny wherever she went was Lily of the Valley, and even now I can’t smell that perfume without thinking of her. Even though I was alone in a strange house, I must have felt safe, as I made no attempt to go and look for my mother. The room was in darkness, but somebody had conveniently left the door ajar so I could hear voices in the room below.
“How do I know you are telling the truth?”
“Here, this is his birth certificate. That should be all the proof you need. Your son’s name is right there under Father. See? That’s your grandson up there.”
“Why have you never contacted me until now? Why wait until my son is dead?”
“Too busy bringing up his kid, that’s why. And you aren’t exactly local, are you?”
The voices trailed off, and a few moments later the woman I came to know as Granny entered the room and flung her fleshy arms around me and sobbed herself to sleep right next to me.
The next day I was woken by the smell of a huge breakfast being prepared. When I wandered down the stairs, Granny was dishing up bacon and eggs whilst my mother and “Uncle Alan” chain-smoked by the back door. Granny seemed to be more or less ignoring them, but when I walked into the kitchen her face lit up. What struck me even at that tender age was how very different she was from my mother. I loved her straightaway, and it certainly felt like the feeling was mutual.
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