The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes

by Catherine Robertson

  ‘And Darrell?’

  ‘Darrell is out.’ Charlotte reached for the plate of biscuits and lifted it up to him. ‘Coconut macaroon?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Patrick felt his gorge rising. He was feeling the sun, too, even though this day was cooler than others before had been. The heat, on top of his recent exertion, was making his shirt stick to his back and he could feel rivulets of sweat trickling uncomfortably down from his armpits. He ran his hand over his forehead. It came away damp.

  ‘Hard night?’

  Ned’s tone and half-smile filled Patrick with resentment. I bet that bastard knows exactly why I’m sweating, and that it’s not all the fault of the alcohol. I bet he was carrying Tom on purpose, just to wind me up.

  ‘Don’t you have a job to do?’ Patrick said.

  ‘Aye,’ said Ned. ‘But your nanny invited us t’ have morning tea with t’ children.’

  Rosie chose that moment to get up and toddle over to Ned, and crawl onto his lap. She sat facing him, so she could thrust the chewed, spit-slick remains of her macaroon at his mouth.

  ‘Rosie bikkit Ned!’ she insisted.

  ‘Ta, flower,’ said Ned, deftly ducking his head to avoid it. ‘But ’tis all yours.’

  He turned her in his lap, so she was facing forwards. Rosie settled happily against his chest, and began to masticate the remains of her sticky macaroon.

  ‘Rosie bikkit,’ she said smugly.

  ‘Charlotte?’ Patrick gave himself a pat on the back for how calm he sounded. He beckoned with his finger. ‘A word?’

  Charlotte added a notch to Patrick’s blood pressure by turning first to Ned, who, after a sly glance at Patrick, nodded. She hopped up and Patrick took her by the arm and led her as fast as he dared out of earshot of the group on the lawn.

  ‘Charlotte, what the holy flying fuck?’ he said. ‘Why are you letting Ned Marsh within twenty fucking miles of our children?’

  ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t,’ said Charlotte crisply. ‘He’s not a paedophile. Or a serial killer or a child slaver.’

  ‘That’s not the fucking point!’ Patrick could feel the return of the black swarm. He paused to regulate his breathing. ‘Ned Marsh fucking hates me! I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could fucking throw him!’

  ‘It’s only you he’s keen for revenge on,’ said Charlotte. ‘Tom’s perfectly safe.’

  Patrick blinked at her, and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes.

  ‘My brain is not firing on all cylinders this morning,’ he said, ‘but I’m getting the distinct impression you know all about me and Ned. Who told you? Clare?’

  Charlotte hesitated. Long enough for Patrick to consider the only other option.

  ‘Ned told you?’ He noted her brisk nod in disbelief. ‘Charlotte! What the fuck?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know who he was before he told me, did I?’ Her voice rose, too. ‘And honestly — it’s ridiculous! It happened almost thirty years ago! How can anyone possibly carry a grudge for that long?’

  ‘Because it still hurts.’

  Ned was right behind them, carrying Rosie and holding Tom’s hand.

  ‘Give him to me.’

  Patrick lunged forward and snatched Tom up into his arms. The speed, the rough handling, startled the boy, and he began to cry.

  ‘Shit.’ Patrick cradled his son’s head into his shoulder, rocked him. ‘Sorry, tiger. Didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘Didn’t mean, didn’t mean.’ Ned spat out the words in a contemptuous singsong. ‘You nivver do mean it, d’ you? But ye do it, all t’ same.’

  ‘Stop it!’ said Charlotte firmly. ‘There are children present. Ones who generally behave a sight more maturely than you two are right now.’

  ‘Top it!’ yelled Rosie cheerfully. ‘Top it! Top it!’

  Tom had quietened down, but Patrick continued to rock him. ‘She sounds like she’s in the Coliseum,’ he said. ‘Baying for blood.’

  He looked at Ned. ‘Is that what you want? Blood? A pound of flesh?’

  ‘There’s nowt you could gi’ me,’ said Ned. ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘Ned, honestly,’ said Charlotte. ‘I’m so sorry you lost your sister, but really, does it do any good to still be this angry, after so many years?’

  ‘Shit,’ said Patrick. ‘Is she dead? Is Julie dead?’

  ‘Did ye not think t’ find out?’ said Ned. ‘She’s been dead twenty-five year. Most people might have asked by now.’

  ‘Yeah, they would have,’ said Patrick. ‘I don’t have any excuses.’ He paused. ‘Was it drugs?’

  ‘’Twas,’ said Ned.

  ‘Like I said: I don’t have any excuses,’ said Patrick. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry. She deserved a better life than that. So did you.’

  ‘You got a better life, didn’t you?’ said Ned.

  A sudden, intense rage galvanised Patrick from head to toe.

  What do you know about my life, Ned fucking Marsh? he thought. What do you know? My life is escaping me, galloping madly off in all directions like a bad novel. My grip is being prised off it, finger by finger, and, when it goes, where and how far will I fall?

  ‘Charlotte.’ Patrick drew himself up, and spoke quietly but with steely resolve. ‘If you want to see Ned, see him on your own time. I won’t stop you. But during the day, when the children are here, I don’t want you anywhere near him. Ned will keep to the garden and you’ll keep out of his way. No more tea on the grass, do you hear me?’

  I’ve not spoken to anyone like this in months, he thought. It’s my deal-making, don’t-fuck-with-me tone. And you know what? I’ve missed it.

  ‘Do you hear me, Charlotte?’

  She nodded. Her face was pale, and, for a second, Patrick felt a stab of guilt.

  But no, he thought. Fuck it. This is how it has to be.

  ‘Pack up and bring Rosie,’ he said. ‘I want you inside in no more than five minutes.’

  He did not wait for a response. He did not need to. He held Tom securely in his arms and walked back to the house.

  19

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Darrell. ‘About the drive.’

  ‘What worries you about it?’ said Marcus. ‘We won’t get lost. I have a sat-nav that speaks like Sophia Loren. She makes “Take the first right at the roundabout” sound like phone sex.’

  ‘Italians drive like maniacs,’ said Darrell. ‘Have you seen the road around the lake on a Sunday? Like Crash Bandicoot on the Nürburgring. Every lunatic with a fast car or motorbike going flat out, with skeins of cyclists and walking school-buses of nuns thrown in on blind corners to help them hone their overtaking and braking skills.’

  ‘You’re worried we’ll have an accident?’

  Marcus wasn’t smiling, Darrell saw. He’s taking me seriously. Anselo would have just rolled his eyes.

  ‘I’m not that keen on driving with Cosmo in the car,’ she admitted. ‘The plane trip was bad enough. “The crew has a life-jacket for your baby. Put on your own oxygen mask first.” Jeepers.’

  ‘Hm.’ Marcus put his arm round her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. ‘We’ll give it a miss then. How about a ferry jaunt to the Villa d’Este, instead?’

  A throng of emotions formed a less-than-orderly queue in Darrell’s mind. I’m being stupid about Cosmo, she thought, I know that. I can’t keep him safe forever — no one can. Am I going to be one of those hyper-vigilant paranoid mothers who refuses to let her children out the front door without a subcutaneous GPS tracking device? I cycled down the street to the playground when I was five years old. I’m still here, aren’t I? And I want to go for this drive. I want to see more of the country. I’ve been cooped up here in the villa for almost two weeks. I haven’t even been to Como. Last time I went out in the car, I drove as far as the next town and sat by the lakeside. I’ve seen a lot of lake. It’s beautiful, but after a while even beauty is boring.

  And then there’s Marcus. It was slightly terrifying how much I liked his arm around me just n
ow. He was always an excellent hugger, always made me feel warm and — well, appreciated. If we take this drive, we’ll spend the whole day together. I don’t know when Anselo will be back; he’s not texted me and I don’t expect he will. Late, I imagine. After I get home. He probably won’t even know that I’ve been out.

  ‘No, let’s do the big drive,’ she said to Marcus. ‘I’ll have to stop and feed Cosmo. But that’s OK, isn’t it?’

  He smiled. ‘Of course,’ he added. ‘And I can very nearly promise not to look.’

  Marcus helped her carry all of Cosmo’s paraphernalia, and strap the baby seat into the back of a sporty little two-door Alfa Romeo.

  ‘Gus’ car?’ Darrell said.

  ‘Well spotted,’ said Marcus. ‘It’s a Giulietta. Gus bought it because it reminded her of her great lost love, Jules.’

  Darrell had met and quite liked Jules. Jules had not let Gus boss her around.

  ‘I thought Gus dumped her?’

  ‘She did.’ said Marcus. ‘But she regrets it. Of course, if Jules were to come back, Gus would probably dump her again. She is nothing if not predictable, my sister. Pygmalion-like. Prefers to create ideal women in her mind because reality so rarely measures up.’

  He slung the baby bag in the back and closed the hatch. ‘Whereas I have the opposite problem. Every woman I meet seems ideal to me.’

  ‘That must make lasting commitment somewhat of a pipe dream.’ Darrell bent into the back, and strapped Cosmo into his seat. She checked the fastenings, and tugged on the seat belts to make sure they were firm.

  When she straightened up, Marcus was right next to her. ‘Eventually,’ he said, ‘I hope to find one who is more ideal than the others. Pygmalion and Galatea did live happily ever after. Or so the story goes.’

  He gestured for her to take the passenger seat, and when she was in, he shut the door, and came round to hop into the driver’s seat. Darrell became suddenly aware of his physical presence, the space he occupied in the small car; his smell — in Darrell’s experience, Marcus wasn’t a cologne wearer, but he had something on today that smelled good; and his proximity, his body only inches away, his hand on the gear stick almost touching her leg.

  I once had a fantasy, Darrell recalled, where he and I were driving flat out in a classic Bugatti, and he turned to me and said—

  ‘Happy, darling?’

  My God, thought Darrell. That! Exactly!

  ‘What decade are we in?’ she said. ‘I need to check.’

  Marcus put the car in gear, and manoeuvred out onto the road. ‘I love that phrase. So very Georgette Heyer. I would have been a perfect nineteen-thirties Hooray Henry. I look sensational in a striped blazer and tennis whites.’

  ‘“Blazer” is common,’ said Darrell with a smile. ‘You should say “jacket”. Your brother taught me that.’

  ‘Claudie has many appealing qualities,’ said Marcus. ‘An anally retentive adherence to the rules of U and Non-U is not one of them. He even texts me with full punctuation and no abbreviations whatsoever.’

  ‘And I bet you send him back texts with “Gr8”, “LOL” and “IMHO”?’

  ‘Not “IMHO”,’ said Marcus. ‘I’ve never had a humble opinion in my life.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘I forgot to set Sophia.’

  To Darrell’s alarm, he took one hand off the wheel and reached out to press the screen on the sat-nav. After a few seconds, a road map appeared, and an accented, sensual female voice said, ‘Take the next left, then keep right for five hundred metres.’

  ‘Everything she was, she owed to spaghetti, apparently,’ said Darrell glumly. ‘Everything I am, I owe to forty extra pounds during pregnancy. They say the weight drops off like magic when you breastfeed. Obviously, I forgot to say abracadabra.’

  ‘You look magnificent,’ said Marcus. ‘Goddess-like. And besides, I’ve always rather liked a bit of fat on a woman.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ said Darrell.

  ‘It’s true! I once had sex with a beauty who was sixteen stone. It was tremendous. Like erotic wrestling on a jelly-filled waterbed.’

  ‘Take the first right at the roundabout,’ said Sophia.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Marcus, ‘if I can drive for three hours while nursing a semi?’ He grinned at Darrell. ‘Shall we experiment? In the name of science?’

  ‘You are a bad man,’ said Darrell. ‘I’m glad my impressionable child is asleep.’

  Her voice was stern, but she couldn’t help a smile. Marcus could always make me laugh, she thought. So could Tom. My Tom was more focused, less flippant, but he and Marcus, thought Darrell, were optimists, the pair of them. Life always seems brighter when you’re around positive people like that.

  Marcus even drove positively, she noticed, confidently and skilfully, with no aggression or impatience. The car purred along the motorway, and Darrell felt herself relax into its new-smelling leather seat.

  I’m going to enjoy this drive, she thought. In more ways than one.

  ‘Snow!’ Darrell’s voice squeaked, but she was too excited to be embarrassed. ‘How can there be snow in August?’

  ‘We’re on the highest paved mountain pass in the eastern Alps,’ said Marcus. ‘According to the tourist guide.’

  They were standing beside the car, in the parking area near the top of the pass. Darrell shaded her eyes and peered upwards.

  ‘Can we get to it?’ she said. ‘I haven’t touched proper snow in ages. If you get anything in London, it’s grey slush. All of the inconvenience. None of the pretty.’

  ‘If you’re keen to scale that vertical shale slope, then certainly.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Darrell. ‘Cosmo is somewhat of an impediment to scaling.’

  ‘Or wait for a month until it gets down to the car park.’

  ‘Have you been up here before?’ Darrell asked him.

  ‘I drove up here once in a borrowed Maserati. The roads were slick with ice and I was out of my mind on cocaine,’ he said. ‘I’ve never had so much fun in my life.’

  ‘You’re a very bad man,’ said Darrell. ‘I’m glad you took it easy on those hairpins coming up here — how many were there?’

  ‘Forty-eight, I believe.’

  ‘Seemed like more. Thanks for not hurtling round them. I didn’t really want to add the aroma of vomit to my customary scent of stale breast milk and baby wipes.’

  Marcus put his arm around her shoulders again, and pressed his face briefly into her hair.

  ‘You smell delicious,’ he said.

  He kissed her temple, and Darrell pulled away.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘You’re a married woman.’

  It was a statement of fact; there was no judgement or resentment in his voice. Darrell, to her dismay, felt her throat tighten, and tears prick her eyes. Bugger, she thought. Don’t cry. I mustn’t cry.

  She looked away, taking deep breaths of the crisp, clean air, and gazing out over the mountains that stretched, layer upon layer, into the bright blue distance. They appeared barren, rocky, but patches of green and yellow proved that even snow could not kill everything. The concrete car park had been laid, flat and bleak, on the edge of a shingle slope. Above them, the road went straight up to tourist shops and restaurants, before, Darrell imagined, beginning its descent through more hairpin bends into — where? Switzerland? Germany? I really must get a better grip on geography, she thought.

  The tears appeared to be under control. She risked a look at Marcus. His expression was one of mild concern. He saw my reaction, thought Darrell. Now what?

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I’m starving. Fancy an overpriced, weak coffee and a meat-like substance in a bun?’

  Darrell heard a small cry through the open car door.

  ‘I’ll have to feed Cosmo,’ she said. ‘But don’t let that stop you.’

  ‘I’ll bring something back.’ He glanced around at the grey concrete slab of the car park. ‘Not the most picturesque of picnic spots. But it does have a very fin
e view.’

  Darrell tried not to watch him walk away, but failed. A dark-blue Aston Martin convertible was pulling into the car park, and Marcus had to stop to let it pass. Inside were a solid, ruddy blond man with a substantial moustache and his female companion, also blonde, but — Darrell could see even from a distance — glamorous and almost certainly moustache-free. The woman turned her head to look at Marcus as the car passed. Darrell could not see Marcus’s face, but she could picture the smile on it, the unabashed expression of appreciation and, without doubt, invitation. Marcus behind them now, the blonde woman took off her sunglasses and slipped the end of one of their arms between her lips. He got her, thought Darrell. She’s imagining Marcus instead of that moustachioed slab of ham in the car next to her, imagining leaning over, unzipping his fly and—

  Darrell was jerked back to reality by Cosmo’s unusually piercing yell.

  ‘All right, all right!’ And she climbed into the back seat to feed her baby.

  20

  The drive back was long. There was an accident on the main road, and Marcus had to negotiate with Sophia to find the most direct detour. Before they reached the main motorway, Cosmo needed feeding again, so they pulled off into a vacant lot in a dusty industrial township that appeared to have no redeeming features whatsoever.

  ‘Most of these places house workers for the factories around here,’ said Marcus. ‘This area is the hub of Italian industry. Everything from cosmetics to tomatoes.’

  He was outside, leaning against the car, speaking through her open door. Darrell was in the passenger seat this time, as the back seat had proved extremely cramped.

  I don’t know why Italians bother to make cars with more than two seats, she thought. The back seats are only ever suitable for infants or people with tea-trolley wheels instead of legs.

  ‘Do you like living here?’ she said. ‘Would you stay here permanently?’

  ‘I’m not sure Italy is large enough to hold more than one Reynolds,’ he said. ‘Gus and I are already personae non grata in two Milanese nightclubs. When she returns, we may very well aim for the hat trick.’