‘You were too good for her, you know that?’
Jeff looked at the ground. ‘I know I’m not George Clooney, and I don’t bring in a fortune, but I loved her, you know?’
Angelica’s heart filled with pity. Poor Jeff had squandered too much of his life on her mother.
‘Don’t waste your time a minute longer, Jeff. She’s an ungrateful cow. A mad, ungrateful cow.’
From inside the house, music started up at full blast. The walls shook. Bloody Fleetwood Mac. Her mother thought she was Stevie Nicks. Angelica couldn’t count the number of times she’d seen her do ‘Dreams’ at a karaoke night.
Jeff blew out his cheeks and scratched his head.
‘Where are you going to go?’ Angelica asked.
‘My mum’s. At least I know where I am with her.’ He looked down. ‘I feel bad about Dill. I was supposed to be taking him to the football.’
Angelica glanced away, because she thought she might cry. Jeff was brilliant with Dill. He quite often took him off on little excursions. It eased the pressure a bit. But she couldn’t expect him to carry on, not now that Trudy had kicked him out.
‘Dill will be okay,’ she assured him. ‘He’s got me.’
She held out her arms to give Jeff a hug, holding her breath so she didn’t have to breathe in the smell of slightly stale sweat masked with cheap aftershave. Then she watched as he ambled off down the hill to find his van and go to his mother’s in St Austell.
He had a kind heart, did Jeff, and that counted for a lot. But deep down Angelica understood her mother’s frustration. Bastardness was so much more attractive than kindness. Look at her, for God’s sake. Pining over Luca, patently a card-carrying bastard and all the more alluring for it.
But then where was her Jeff? wondered Angelica. Some kindly soul whose raison d’être was to make sure she was happy. Maybe if she had a Jeff, she wouldn’t be so besotted.
She’d watched Luca go into the dining room with Claire and the Parfitts this evening. She would have given her right arm to be in Claire’s place – to be plotting and planning with them. And she could tell by Claire’s face that she wished she was anywhere else in the world.
Funny, thought Angelica, how we always want what we can’t have.
She braced herself and went in to find her mother.
The scene was predictable. The lounge was a tip. Dill, along with Kimberley and Faye, her half-sisters, had obviously eaten dinner in front of the telly and just left their plates. Someone had bought a tub of popcorn, and half of it was trodden into the maroon carpet. The leather sofa, which had been bought on four years’ interest-free credit and had once had pride of place, was scratched and scuffed and split open, the stuffing poking out. There was a half-empty bottle of pop with the lid off, several plastic beakers dotted about, and two very telling empty bottles of cheap wine from the garage.
Trudy was in the middle of the room, swaying her hips to the music, her long, blonde hair wild with split ends around her shoulders, her make-up smudged. She was smoking a cigarette while she sang along and gesticulated, totally caught up in the music, her face taut with concentration.
‘Go your own waaaaaay,’ she sang tunelessly, pointing her fag at Angelica accusingly before raising her arms skywards and waving them around.
She was completely pissed. As she looked at her hopeless, feckless, useless mother, Angelica realised that any dream she might have had of making her possible new life a reality had definitely been extinguished now.
‘Why do you have to ruin anything that’s ever good about our lives?’ she shouted. ‘Why is it always about you?’
Trudy looked at her blankly. There was no point in shouting. She was too far gone.
Angelica left the room, hot with fury. She looked up to see Dill at the top of the stairs. His Super Mario pyjamas were halfway up his legs and barely covered his stomach. She would have to get the train to Exeter when she could; get him some new stuff from Primark. He was growing so fast.
‘Can’t sleep,’ he complained, grumpy with drowsiness.
She ran up the stairs. ‘Come on. Let’s get you back into bed.’
She snuggled in beside him, pulling the cover over their heads to drown out the music. His breathing was soon heavy next to her as he fell back to sleep. She held him tight to her. This was love, she thought. This was what mattered. How could she ever have thought about leaving him?
Ten
It was just gone midnight, and gradually doors were closing and lights were being turned out in the hotel. In the height of summer, Pennfleet might still be lively at this time, but it was too early in the season for raucousness and revelry. Even the stags had gone to bed, knowing they had to be up for a day’s sailing first thing in the morning: they all knew from experience that hangovers and sea were bad bedfellows, and they were saving up the real celebration for the next night. A gentle quiet descended on the building as the night wrapped its softness around the walls.
In the room at the top, Luca was lying on the bed in his boxer shorts, his arms behind his head. His body looked lean and chiselled in the lamplight; his eyes were dark with wine.
‘Come here,’ he said, holding out an arm.
Claire hesitated in the doorway of the bathroom, pulling her kimono more tightly around her.
She would have to feign illness. There was no alternative. There was no way she could have sex with Luca tonight. He would be expecting it, and usually she relished the chance to make love after an evening spent together. So often he was locked in the kitchen until late, and by the time he got to bed she was asleep. On any other occasion she would have wallowed in the luxury of his undivided attention.
There was no point in waiting for him to drift off. After sex, yes, he’d be out like a light. But in the meantime, he wouldn’t rest until he was satisfied.
‘What an amazing evening,’ he said. ‘I think we’re going to nail it, Claire. We’re on our way. Can you believe it? A London hotel.’
‘We haven’t said yes yet,’ she replied, padding towards the bed. ‘There’s a lot to think about.’
‘Yeah, but it’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? They put up the money; we put in the time. We’re never going to get that opportunity again.’
Claire hesitated. She didn’t want to put all her objections forward now. She was tired, and confused, and didn’t know what she really thought. If she started picking holes in the project, Luca wouldn’t let it rest. And she needed the chance to think. The sooner Luca was asleep, the better.
So she just smiled. ‘We are lucky.’
‘It’s got me thinking about something else,’ said Luca. ‘Something I’ve been thinking about for a while.’
‘What?’ Claire sat on the edge of the bed tentatively, affecting an expression of interest, wondering when she should start mentioning that she felt a bit off colour. She could blame the oysters.
He gazed up at her, a smile playing on his lips.
‘Marry me, Claire.’
If she didn’t feel sick before, she did now.
‘What?’ She felt her face go pale. ‘You are joking.’
A dark shadow flickered across Luca’s face. ‘That wasn’t really the reaction I was hoping for.’
She laughed, a nervous, playing-for-time laugh.
‘I’m just . . . surprised. I didn’t think you were the marrying kind.
‘Neither did I.’ He rolled closer to her, looked into her eyes, stroking the inside of her thigh under the silky fabric of her kimono. By now she would usually be melting. ‘But you know – maybe you’ve made me grow up. You’ve helped me realise my dreams, Claire. It means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me. I want to recognise that. And what better way of doing it?’
Claire had no idea how to react. If he’d said to this to her just twenty-four hours before, she would have been weeping with joy, accepting his proposal with fervour. Now she felt dread in the pit of her stomach. How the hell was she going to get out of this? Luca wasn’t the sort of perso
n who would take kindly to the refusal of a proposal of marriage.
He rolled away from her and stood up. Claire panicked. She didn’t want to start an argument.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m just shocked . . .’
She broke off. He was rummaging in his bedside drawer, looking over at her with a smile. He found what he was looking for and held it aloft.
It was a box. A small box that could only contain one thing. She felt an icy-cold shiver pass over her body as he walked back round the bed and sat beside her.
‘If you don’t like it, or it doesn’t fit, we can change it.’
This couldn’t be happening. Luca wasn’t this sort of person. Never in her wildest dreams had Claire envisaged this moment. Yet she watched as he opened the box and pulled out a ring, holding it reverently between thumb and forefinger as he reached for her left hand and put the box back on the bedside table.
He looked at her, his eyes feverish with excitement.
‘I want us to get married, Claire.’ Before she could protest, he slid the ring on to her finger. ‘I want us to get married here. On the terrace. As soon as we can. I want us to go into this new venture as man and wife.’
She looked down. The ring was perfect. A love knot of brown diamonds: unusual, discreet, elegant. She couldn’t have chosen better herself.
She swallowed. Her mouth was as dry as dust.
He was gazing at her.
‘Claire?’
She felt a wild desire to burst out laughing. This was a combination of her dreams and her nightmares come true. How could she say no? She couldn’t. Not without revealing what had happened between her and Nick. An image of their recent lovemaking slid into her mind, crash-cutting with a vision of herself dressed up in white on the terrace, her past, present and future spinning round and round.
‘I don’t know what to say . . .’ she managed. The ring was burning on her finger, the hot metal digging into her flesh.
‘Yes! That’s all you have to say! Yes.’
He grabbed her, held her tight, looking into her eyes.
‘Yes . . .’ she managed. What else could she say? Luca was wrapped up in the romance of his gesture – he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He took her in his arms and kissed her, in a frenzy of passion she had hitherto only dreamt of. They fell back on to the bed.
No, thought Claire. Please, this couldn’t be happening. He was kissing her neck, pulling at the tie on her kimono. As he pushed the slippery silk aside, she tried desperately to think of how to take evasive action. He pulled her on top of him, running his hands over her, stroking her breasts.
There was only one solution. She pushed his hands away.
‘Now, now!’ she said playfully, holding up an admonishing finger. ‘Don’t touch. Just lie there, and keep your hands to yourself.’
She gave him a wicked smile, keeping eye contact, and he smiled back as he realised her intention. He wasn’t going to refuse. She sat astride him, running her fingers over her breasts, her hair tumbling over her shoulders. As he watched, his eyes glazed over with lustful appreciation.
She leant over and snaked her way down his chest, kissing and licking, teasing him with her tongue and her hair, until she reached his cock. She took him gently in her mouth and he gave a groan. She’d got him. Tenderly, expertly, she circled her tongue around him, moved her lips up and down, until she got the desired result. He held her hands tightly as he came, his body tensing for a full ten seconds until he fell back, seemingly exhausted, his breathing deep.
Moments later, he drifted off into sleep. Claire looked down at him, unable to resist tracing her fingers over his stomach, his chest, his shoulders. She always felt compelled to touch him. Yet his beauty was no longer enough, not even when combined with the energy and vitality he brought to her life; the edge. She longed for something sweeter, mellower, deeper.
She rolled off him and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Then she held her hand up in front of her and gazed at the ring. It glittered in the half-light. For a moment she was entranced.
It was everything she could have wished for.
Trevor Parfitt had never been a praying man, even after everything he had been through. But as he stood on the balcony of his bedroom and looked out at the stars spattering the inky blue of the sky, he wondered if perhaps he was wrong; if perhaps there was a higher being out there whose help he could invoke after all.
No deal had ever been so important to him. And he’d done a fair few in his time. It wasn’t as if this was even a profitable venture – in fact, he would bank on losing a fair bit of money, at least in the beginning. His own secret business plan, the one he hadn’t shown anyone else, showed a significant loss for at least three years, because Trevor was a realist. Anyone opening a hotel in the current climate had to expect to take a hit until they could guarantee some customer loyalty and repeat business.
No, the reason this new hotel meant so much to him was because it mattered so much to Monique.
He looked over at the bed, at his sleeping wife. She was out for the count, and would be until nine o’clock tomorrow, thanks to the pills. There was no way she would sleep without them. He had put his foot down, after years of her pacing the floor, gazing out of the window, smoking cigarettes (which he’d finally got her to stop). He’d sent her to the doctor. He didn’t want her tranquillised, but she had to sleep. She’d drive herself insane otherwise.
Tonight at dinner she had sparkled and shimmered, just like his old Monique. Tomorrow she would charm and cajole. She was still the perfect hostess. She could turn it on and off like a tap. Only he knew the truth. She was like a ghost; a ghost who could bring herself back from the dead at will, for as long as it mattered, only to take off the mask and shrivel back to her cadaverous self as soon as the attention was off her.
He shivered as a cloud glided in front of the moon and the water below turned black. He walked over to the minibar and pulled out a miniature of brandy. As the fiery liquor hit his throat, he thought about Luca and Claire. He was pretty sure Luca had taken the bait. He would make a lousy poker player, thought Trevor, who had taught himself to read people very well over the years.
No, it was Claire who was the weak link. Claire who had reservations. Claire who needed to be worked on. There was something holding her back. Trevor wasn’t sure yet what it was. He needed to get her on her own; gain her trust in order to allay her fears.
And maybe, just maybe, taking her into his confidence was the way to do it. He looked over to the Provençal sleigh bed, piled high with bedding and pillows and cushions that were as soft as a cloud, where Monique lay as still as Sleeping Beauty. She hated anyone knowing their business. Of course, close friends from the time knew, but anyone they met now, through either business or pleasure, was kept from the truth, and that included Luca and Claire. It wasn’t relevant, argued Monique. There was no reason for people to know. Trevor had always respected her wishes – anything to help her cope – but now he felt the time was right to let Claire into the secret. Monique need never know.
In a room two floors above, Nick sighed and looked at his watch. One thirty-eight. He should have been long asleep by now, but it wasn’t going to happen. He threw back his duvet, got out of bed and stood by the window, watching as the moon slid shyly out from behind a cloud, like a girl appearing from behind a changing room curtain. He thought about leaning out of the window and having a cigarette. It wouldn’t, he knew from experience, set the smoke alarm off. But somehow he didn’t want to break the rules in Claire’s hotel. Maybe he’d go outside, take a walk in the fresh air and clear his head. He’d drunk a fair bit tonight, though not a ridiculous amount by stag-weekend standards. Nevertheless, the melancholy that a surfeit of cocktails, wine and tequila shots often brought was settling in. Melancholy, disconcertion and paranoia.
In the bed next to his, Gus turned, then sat up. Bugger, thought Nick. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
‘What’s
up, mate?’
‘Can’t sleep.’
‘You’re not getting cold feet?’
It was a jovial question. Nick didn’t reply. It wasn’t a question of cold feet. It was far more complicated than that.
He looked over at Gus, who was staring at him quizzically. He and Gus had been firm friends for five years. Okay, so they didn’t have the history of someone you’d grown up with, someone you’d been to school with, but they’d done a few business deals together that had required a certain trust. He was pretty certain he could take him into his confidence.
If Felix or Shrimp was here, they might know what to do. They knew the story, after all. But he wasn’t seeing them till Thursday, and he couldn’t call either of them at this time of night, out of the blue.
‘I don’t know what to do, Gus.’
‘Hey.’ Gus swung his legs out of bed. ‘Last-minute nerves. You’d be weird if you didn’t have them. It’s a pretty big step.’
‘It’s not last-minute nerves.’
The tone of Nick’s voice made Gus frown. ‘Then what?’
‘The girl who owns this hotel? Claire?’
‘The pretty one? With the . . .’ Gus indicated lots of hair with his hands. ‘You haven’t got a crush, surely?’
‘She was . . . my girlfriend. I was going out with her when my mum died. We broke up. It was all pretty messy.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Gus nodded, pretty sure there was more to come.
Nick looked at him, anguished.
‘She was the love of my life. What can I say? And here she is. A week before I’m due to get married, she walks back into my life.’
Gus flopped back on to the bed with a groan.
‘Don’t say it’s made you have second thoughts.’
‘Of course it has!’ Nick turned away from the window and started pacing the room. ‘She’s never been out of my thoughts, Gus. Even now, twelve years later. I think about her hourly. About where she is, what she’s doing, who she’s with. And now I know . . .’
The Long Weekend Page 17