The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes

by Catherine Robertson

  ‘I’m Charlotte.’ She gave Rosie a baleful look. ‘My apologies for the limpet.’

  ‘Ned.’

  He scooped Rosie back up into his arms, whereupon her expression, Charlotte noted, became insufferably smug.

  ‘Come on, flower,’ he said to Rosie. ‘Time for cold drink in t’ shade.’

  As it transpired, all Ned had was a half-drunk bottle of water and, God knows why in this heat, thought Charlotte, a Thermos of tea. So, after making sure that Harry and Tom were indeed alive, she left all three children with Ned and took herself off to the kitchen.

  It occurred to her, while she mixed a jug of lemon cordial and cut up some bread and cheese, that this was possibly not the wisest move. She was the only adult in the house. Clare and Patrick had taken the ferry to Bellagio, Chad and Michelle were shopping in Como, Darrell had gone for a drive with Cosmo, and Anselo was … out somewhere. Ned was a large man in anonymous overalls, who’d emerged from nowhere, and who could right now be bundling the children into the back of an unmarked van, ready to transport them to Albania, or wherever the nearest child-slave ring was headquartered.

  Instinct reassured her that this was nonsense. Ned had not looked at all shifty. Slightly rustic about the edges, yes. Shifty, no. Still, thought Charlotte, it would pay to dig a little deeper as to his identity.

  ‘I’m t’ gardener,’ he told her, while, incomprehensibly to Charlotte, drinking hot tea from the Thermos. ‘Here, and at couple other villas.’ He eyed her speculatively. ‘And you’re t’ nanny?’

  ‘Well,’ said Charlotte, ‘temporarily.’

  ‘Pity.’ Ned stared into his Thermos cup as he swirled the last dregs of tea. ‘We could have ’ad a right Upstairs Downstairs thing going on.’

  That did not sound like flirtation, thought Charlotte. But then he’s not exactly Mr Effervescent. Whatever it is, she decided, I will discourage it. He is not unattractive, despite those overalls, but I have absolutely no intention of recreating a modern-day Lady Chatterley’s Lover. No, wait — he was a gamekeeper. All right then, The Go-Between. No, he was a farmer …

  Charlotte shook herself. Focus, she told her herself. It’s discouragement time.

  ‘Except that I’m a bit posh,’ she said briskly. ‘Not properly posh. But certainly a lot posher than you.’

  Ned’s response was a long, steady look during which Charlotte became very aware of a certain toughness about him. There was a tension in his posture, like that found in a boxer waiting to be called into a ring, and a steely hardness about his physique that Charlotte felt was due to something other than hours forking manure and tilling soil.

  I would be unwise to underestimate him, she thought. Unwise also, perhaps, to take liberties.

  ‘So what are you, when tha’s not mindin’ this lot?’ he said.

  ‘I’m a personal assistant,’ she said. And because she liked to say his name, added, ‘To a man called Patrick King.’

  ‘Are thee now?’ he said.

  There was a definite pause before he spoke, Charlotte noted with slightly wary interest. What’s that about?

  Ned glanced over to where Tom and Harry were still playing together. While Charlotte had been asleep, the pair had foraged for sticks, and Harry had formed them into a pretty good semblance of a race track. Tom now had a piece of broken tile, and was pushing it round and round the track with a quiet determination. Harry was sitting on the grass watching, stuffing bread — and quite a lot of dirt, Charlotte saw — into his mouth.

  Harry was not one of the world’s great multi-taskers, she thought. One thing at a time, and quite a lot of time for each thing — that was Harry. God knows how he’ll cope with the demands of adult life. Then again, if you looked closely at Chad, you could see that they were cut from exactly the same cloth, and Chad had managed to become a successful banker. Rosie, on the other hand, was pure Michelle. And if Michelle were here right now, she’d probably be sitting on Ned’s lap, too, and making it even more difficult for him to drink his bloody tea.

  Ned lifted a finger and stroked Rosie’s cheek. The little minx was practically purring, Charlotte saw with outrage.

  ‘Is she his?’ said Ned.

  ‘Is she whose?’

  That hesitation again. ‘Patrick King’s.’

  Charlotte felt the sudden bodily freeze that acts as a warning to proceed with extreme caution.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ she said.

  Ned tilted his head. ‘Just askin’.’

  Charlotte made an executive decision. ‘No,’ she said. ‘This is Patrick’s son.’ She indicated Tom.

  ‘Does he look like ’is mother?’ Ned said after a moment.

  ‘Not really,’ said Charlotte. ‘As far as I can tell there’s a rogue set of genes in Patrick’s family that randomly produces copper-haired males. They pop up at least once a generation. So far, I’ve counted two cousins, an uncle and Tom.’

  ‘Jenico Herne,’ said Ned. ‘That t’ uncle?’

  Anger, both defensive and protective, swept through Charlotte. She felt that he’d somehow made a fool of her, taken advantage — and she was now very nervous about his intentions towards her and the children.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

  ‘Us?’ said Ned quietly. ‘Oh, I’m no one. No one at all.’

  ‘What a load of rot!’ Charlotte shot to her feet and glared down at him. ‘Tell me at once, or I’ll—’

  For the first time, he smiled properly. He had excellent teeth, Charlotte observed with some annoyance, white and even, with not a filling in sight.

  ‘Or tha’ll what?’ he said.

  Charlotte sat back down. ‘I’m not sure yet,’ she said crossly. ‘But you won’t like it!’

  Ned offered Rosie the last piece of bread, which she snatched as if he’d been deliberately trying to conceal it from her.

  ‘I’ll watch my back,’ he said.

  Charlotte was irritated to see he was still smiling.

  ‘Is he a good boss?’ Ned said after a while.

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlotte, then felt it wasn’t enough. ‘He’s kind and he’s funny and he’s generous, and he’s pulled himself up by his bootstraps and achieved considerable success!’

  ‘Success.’ Ned nodded slowly. ‘Which, o’ course, he deserves.’

  Charlotte disliked the way her heart had begun to pound again. It was as though she’d just learned that a vital piece of information had been kept from her, information that would have made all the difference to the course of her life.

  However, she told herself sternly, Ned may have known Patrick once — that much is obvious — but he just as obviously does not know him now. And I do — which makes all the difference to me.

  ‘What is your problem?’ she said. ‘Or do we not have enough time to list them all?’

  Well, that wasn’t terribly sensible, thought Charlotte. Ned had sat up and squared his shoulders, the kind of movement most commonly followed by an invitation for another man to proceed in a forward direction if he considered himself hard enough. Eyeing the breadth of Ned’s shoulders, Charlotte could safely say it was an invitation she would be happy to decline.

  ‘I believe in character,’ he said. ‘I believe we are judged by what we do, not what we have. I believe that we mun atone for all t’ misdeeds in our life afore we’re free to move on. If we don’t—’

  Swiftly, gently, before she could protest, he lifted Rosie off his lap, and stood up.

  ‘If we don’t,’ he stared down at Charlotte, ‘then I believe we deserve all we get.’

  He lifted the Thermos from the table, and in a gesture that could only be ironic, Charlotte decided, touched his free forefinger to his temple.

  ‘Tarra, Charlotte t’ temporary nanny,’ he said. ‘Happen I’ll see thee round.’

  When she was certain he’d gone, Charlotte checked her watch. Today, she decided, three-thirty was not too early for wine.

  At six-fifteen, Charlotte was feeding the children tea, and counting down
the minutes until their bedtime. Darrell was in the adjoining living room, feeding Cosmo. None of the other adults had come home.

  Darrell’s demeanour was making Charlotte’s mental radar ping. She’d made polite, token enquiries as to Darrell’s day, and received equally polite, token answers. Charlotte had the distinct impression that Darrell had either driven for miles, or sat for hours by the side of the lake somewhere — alone, if you didn’t count Cosmo, which, as he was rarely conscious, Charlotte generally did not. Charlotte wanted to ask why Anselo appeared to be missing in action, but had decided the direct approach was unlikely to be productive. She vaguely recalled that he’d said something about work when he’d left the house in the morning.

  If I’d paid more attention, Charlotte thought, I might have been able to tell if his excuse was plausible or not, which would have told me if I needed to be concerned or not. But my mind was elsewhere this morning. It was still in bed with Marcus Reynolds.

  He had taken her, as promised, to a pizzeria, of which Charlotte had no firm memory whatsoever, and then to an apartment that apparently belonged to his sister. Charlotte’s recall of the apartment was slightly less fuzzy — it was a good size, almost scarily stylish, and one wall was almost entirely taken up by a large black and white photograph of a vagina.

  ‘Gus — Augusta — my sister,’ said Marcus, ‘is a lesbian. She’s in New York right now.’

  ‘Oh, so’s mine!’ said Charlotte. ‘I mean, my sister’s a lesbian. She’s in the Orkneys, though, not New York.’

  ‘Does she get a lot of Sapphic action there?’ said Marcus.

  ‘I don’t think she wants any,’ said Charlotte. ‘She’s an archaeologist and, as far I know, quite happy that it’s just her and her trowel.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you a trowel,’ said Marcus, drawing her to him. ‘Will this do instead?’

  The following hours were burned into Charlotte’s mind like a brand on a steer from the Ponderosa.

  He woke when she slipped out of bed at five in the morning to call a taxi. He did not promise to call her, which Charlotte was glad about; she loathed insincerity. But he gave her a parting kiss that made her wish very strongly that he might.

  No. Charlotte shook herself mentally. It was tremendous, she thought, but I can’t afford to be distracted.

  She heard a bustle at the front door and then familiar footsteps that made her heart beat faster. Into the kitchen walked Patrick. Charlotte found that she was studying him intently, trying to read how his day with Clare had gone. He looked happy enough, if somewhat sweat stained.

  He stooped and kissed Tom on the top of his head. ‘How are you, tiger?’ he said.

  Tom looked up and regarded him in his usual serious manner, before he bent his head back to his plate and resumed eating.

  ‘Tom and Harry made a race track,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘A train track,’ said Harry, with the sigh of one surrounded by the terminally stupid.

  ‘Out of sticks,’ Charlotte continued firmly.

  ‘Well, I saw a mountain of tourist tat.’ Patrick opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. ‘And way too many Englishmen in shorts.’

  He collapsed into a chair. ‘That’s how the fuck we won two world wars. They saw us in shorts and died laughing.’

  ‘Where’s Clare?’ Charlotte tried to sound casual.

  ‘Taking a shower.’ He lifted one arm and sniffed. ‘I should, too, but I can’t be—’ He caught Charlotte’s warning nod towards the children. ‘—bothered.’

  Darrell came into the room, Cosmo asleep in her arms.

  ‘Hey, you,’ said Patrick. ‘Beer?’

  ‘You know what?’ said Darrell, taking a chair. ‘I will.’

  ‘Where’s your other half?’ said Patrick as he placed one in front of her.

  ‘Working,’ said Darrell.

  Patrick stared. ‘Really?’ He lifted his beer. ‘Diligent sod.’

  The front door crashed open again, and a jangle of voices increased in volume as the group neared. Michelle appeared in the doorway first, her face bright with the excitement of news to tell.

  ‘Guess what?’ she said to Darrell. ‘Guess! Guess! No, don’t bother! You’ll never get it!’

  ‘What?’ Darrell’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, my God! Don’t tell me you saw George?’

  ‘Almost! Very nearly as good!’ she said. ‘No offence,’ she added over her shoulder.

  Bursting with glee, Michelle reached behind her and dragged someone into the room.

  ‘Look! Look who we found!’ she said. ‘It’s him!’

  The short pause that followed was broken by the splat of a ball of lemon gelato as it left the scoop in Charlotte’s hand and plummeted wetly to the tiled kitchen floor.

  13

  Anselo had revised his vision of hell. It was not an endless, crammed, sweltering bus ride but this: sitting at the kitchen table of the Italian villa in which you are supposedly spending a relaxing holiday, watching your wife’s ex-lover, whom you loathe, tell stories that make everyone else laugh like drains and ask for more. Everyone. Including your wife.

  I suppose I have to believe in God now, Anselo thought, or at least the kind of deity that relishes seeing the punishment fit the crime. An eye for an eye, and a right prick for—. Yeah, well played, you karmic bastard. Well played.

  Look at the smug, shallow sod. Telling tales of being right-hand man to some famous producer in Hollywood. It was the kind of stale cliché job, Anselo felt, that only a man with as little substance as Marcus Reynolds could possibly do without his soul shrivelling to dust. Hollywood was the natural place for him in Anselo’s eyes. He was the type of man that you could turn side-on and see that he was nothing but a painted façade propped up by a piece of untreated four by two.

  As the litany of the man’s shortcomings sped along its track, Anselo was dismayed to feel righteousness jostling for a window-seat position with envy. Marcus Reynolds has not a care in the fucking world, thought Anselo. He has money and privilege and the freedom to come and go where he pleases, as he pleases. He has no responsibilities, no ties. No doubts about his place in life. No guilt. And perhaps that, more than anything, is why I hate him.

  Anselo had guilt that he did not want. It was there because he had come home very late, and he couldn’t justify any of the time he’d spent away. He’d made the phone call, which had led to three more phone calls to track down missing tradesmen. But that had taken him all of an hour, not the whole day. And he could have sat in a quiet room at the villa and made the calls — he had not needed to catch the bus to the nearest town and sit in a café. He had not needed to catch the ferry from there into Como, and start walking around. He had not needed to duck back around the corner when he spied Chad and Michelle up the street, peering in shop windows. He had not needed to retreat into the bar of a side-street hotel in the hopes that it was the last place Chad and Michelle would go. He certainly had not needed to say yes when the attractive Italian woman with the Gucci sunglasses and the short white dress that showed off her exceptional legs asked if she could join him.

  Not that I actually did anything except buy her a grappa, thought Anselo. Then I sat by the ferry terminal for a good hour afterwards to clear my head. And, you know, I almost felt like I had it straight in my mind. But then I came home to this …

  To be fair, Darrell’s expression when he’d finally come through the kitchen door was exactly what Anselo had been hoping for — a mix of entreaty and relief. She had been worried by his absence, he decided. She thought it was her fault, after this morning.

  Which, Anselo admitted a little reluctantly, is exactly what I wanted her to think. I wanted to make a point. And why shouldn’t I? he thought, guilt vying with defensiveness. A relationship has two people in it, doesn’t it? Two people giving and taking equally. If there’s an imbalance it should be up to the person most responsible to right it. I tried this morning to get close to her, and she rejected me once again. I know I’ve not been perfec
t, he thought, but I can say with all honesty that I’ve been doing my bit for bloody ages, and now it’s Darrell’s turn. It’s time she started giving to me.

  Anselo saw Darrell smile at something her loathsome ex had said, and an idea flashed into his head, swift and lethal as a ninja shuriken. If Darrell had an affair with him, he thought, it would make at least one big chunk of my personal shit-heap go away.

  Like a Glasgow bouncer, Anselo’s mind threw the thought back out on its arse.

  There is no way I will lose my wife to this smarmy, arrogant fucker, he vowed. Listen to him. He has the morals of a liver fluke. And yet everyone else is lapping it up. Am I the only one who can see he has all the fucking charm of a flatworm?

  Marcus was now relating a story about having to find someone prepared to administer cocaine to an ageing film star in the style of her choosing, namely to blow it up her backside through a straw.

  ‘You’d be amazed,’ he said, ‘at how many willing contenders there were. I suppose it is a little more interesting than pumping gas. Though in many ways not dissimilar.’

  Everyone laughed again. Anselo picked at the cold pasta on his plate. Michelle had brought home a giant lasagne from a deli in Como, and she and Clare had made a salad. Michelle, Anselo had gleaned, had also brought home Marcus Reynolds. Clare, who had been in the shower when Marcus had made his entrance, asked Michelle to describe again how they’d met.

  Clare looks as if she can’t quite believe it either, thought Anselo. But for her, it’s only a credulity-stretching coincidence. For me, it’s a living fucking nightmare.

  ‘It was at the deli counter,’ said Michelle. ‘I wanted cheese, so I pointed at one, and said formaggio, and the deli man decided I knew Italian and began to tell me all about it. Fortunately, after cinque minutes of cheese rave, he realised he’d just wasted his breath, because he stopped and glared at me and said “Non capito”, and I had to confess that he was one hundred per cent correct. At least, I think he was.’ Michelle turned to Marcus. ‘Non capito means “useless foreigner”, doesn’t it?’