What Became of You My Love?

by Maeve Haran

  ‘There’s one little problem. I want to nip down to The Glebe tomorrow and sort out this recording we want to make but I don’t dare call a cab or it’ll be all over Surrey that I can’t walk.’

  ‘So you wondered if I would give you a lift?’

  ‘Stella, lovely Stella, always so generous and obliging.’

  ‘Why can’t Duncan do it? He usually sorts this kind of thing out.’

  Cameron looked positively puckish. ‘Because Duncan’s lady friend is back.’

  Maybe it was exhaustion at overdoing things lately, but Stella felt the sudden need to sit down.

  ‘She’s been taking her ghastly art around Japan. Pity it didn’t stay there, if you ask me.’

  ‘Of course, she’s an artist.’

  ‘If you can call it art. She knew Duncan’s wife Connie a bit.’

  ‘Yes, I think you told us about her. What’s her name?’ Stella asked casually.

  ‘It’s hilarious. Poncy as you like. Scarlett? Lola? No, I’d remember that. Amber. Amber O’Somebody. An Irish name. Amber O’Reilly?’

  ‘Not Amber O’Riordan?’

  ‘The very one entirely!’ congratulated Cameron in a cod Irish accent. ‘You never know, maybe it’s love, begorrah. It’s time he got over Connie and found someone else. He’s always been a one-woman man, our Duncan. What’s that Byrds song about a time to love and a time to hate? Maybe Dunc’s found it’s a time to love again. Pity it had to be her, though. They got together in California. I was rather hoping he’d forget about her when she was in Japan, but no dice.’

  ‘What’s she like, then, this Amber O’Reilly?’ Matthew enquired.

  ‘O’Riordan,’ corrected Stella. ‘She’s quite famous. She paints enormous 3D wombs and breasts, rather like medical scans.’

  Matthew refilled their glasses again.

  ‘Typical of Duncan!’ Cameron continued. ‘Trust him to fall for some crazy painter. He’s always had this hang-up about High Art. He even dated an opera singer once. The lads and I thought she’d smother him in bed.’

  Personally, Stella thought Amber O’Riordan’s work, from what she’d seen of it in magazines, was showy and pretentious, the opposite of High Art. But there was no doubt it was collected and that gullible people paid large sums for it.

  Listen to you, Stella told herself sternly, anyone’d think you were either narrow-minded or jealous. Possibly even both.

  She left them to it and retreated to the peace of the kitchen, where she found herself staring at a fly buzzing pointlessly in its attempt to get out of the closed window. Outside, the weather blazed, but Stella felt oddly disconnected. When Duncan had admired her painting of the fox and even talked of using it, she’d been elated, had even believed it held a touch of genuine talent. Now, hearing that he had fallen for a celebrated artist, even one she didn’t personally rate, she felt she was just a painter of pets. She could well imagine what Amber O’Riordan would think of her modest output.

  Stella poured herself a glass of white wine and held it up to the light, seeing in it the greenish glow of summertime. How stupid she’d been, believing she was still young, that if you kept the spark alive in your heart, that moment of gilded youth could last forever. She ought to content herself with the amazing fact that Cameron had once written a song about her. She would have her tiny moment of immortality, which was more than most people had. She held the glass up again, cheered by the thought. ‘Here’s to you, Stella Ainsworth, remember you’re a muse and pull yourself together.’

  Like a million women before her, she calmed her soul by fulfilling small familiar tasks: the laying of the table, beating eggs for an omelette, the assembly of a salad, the preparation of a smooth but tart vinaigrette. Then she announced lunch.

  She could see that if she didn’t accept Cameron’s request to take him to The Glebe, he would behave like a sulky teenager all evening. So it was with an air of veiled irritation, trying not to think of the million tasks on her list which no one else considered important, that Stella brought the car round the next day and she and Matthew helped Cameron in.

  The manageress at The Glebe greeted them eagerly, mainly because Duncan had phoned ahead to warn her of the likelihood that she would be visited by a god. Stella smiled to herself, imagining Duncan saying something like ‘Don’t worry, he probably won’t be disguised as a swan like Zeus,’ and the girl’s puzzled incomprehension.

  ‘Mr Keene! This is an honour.’ The young woman had the high good sense not to add the usual response from someone her age: ‘My mother loved you.’ She added that she had been going to take him on a tour of the hotel but, given his injury, maybe they should put that off till another time. ‘I have been doing a little research,’ she announced proudly. ‘The place where you made the original recording was in the ground-floor lounge.’

  ‘Perhaps you could show me that?’ Cameron favoured her with one of his wolfish smiles.

  She led the way along various corridors to a large sunny room, decorated with trellis wallpaper adorned with sweet peas, echoed by an enormous arrangement of flowers in a vast vase in the middle of the room. French windows led into the garden. Tables and chairs, mostly occupied by chatting women, were scattered throughout. It was almost unrecognizable from the freezing half-empty room adorned with fading brocade and Indian bedspreads and reeking of patchouli that she remembered so well.

  ‘What’s that godawful pong?’ demanded Cameron.

  ‘That’d be the sweet peas.’

  ‘It’s not air freshener, is it?’ Cameron swept on regardless. ‘I hate bloody air freshener. Duncan’s forever spraying it in the bog whenever I’ve had a crap. I have to say to him, “Dunc, old boy, before, it smelt like I had a crap. Now, it smells like I had a crap in a flowerbed”.’

  ‘What a lovely room,’ congratulated Stella, trying not to laugh. ‘Such a great view of the garden.’

  ‘This is where we normally celebrate special occasions,’ the manageress enthused.

  ‘Of course, all the furniture will have to come out.’ Cameron shrugged. ‘Probably the carpet and curtains too.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You can’t have them muffling the sound. The place was almost empty when we did it before.’

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t possibly consider that,’ was the appalled reaction. ‘We’re really booked up for weddings. We’ve invested a lot of money to make this a premiere wedding venue.’

  ‘You’ll just have to cancel them, then, won’t you?’

  The manageress looked at Cameron as if he were an escaped lunatic. ‘I’m afraid that’s entirely out of the question.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, woman,’ bellowed Cameron, making all the flowery-hatted occupants jump, ‘don’t you realize you’ll be making musical history? Where’s Duncan, anyway? He should be sorting this kind of thing out.’ He got out his iPhone and sacrificed any small street cred owed to rock stars by having to ask Matthew how to work it. None of them could blame him when Duncan did not pick up.

  It was obvious to Stella that without Duncan, Cameron was like a Rolls-Royce without an engine.

  ‘Does this godforsaken place have a bar? Or is it too full of wedding planners and pushy mothers having afternoon bloody tea?’ He stomped out of the room on his crutches.

  ‘You’d better go with him,’ Stella murmured to Matthew. ‘I’m afraid I’m due at Emma’s.’

  The fact was, Stella was still worried about Jesse. She assumed he must have come home or she would have heard, but the disappearance with no word wasn’t like him.

  Although Emma and Stuart’s house was on an executive estate handy for the station with twenty identical others, Emma had managed to make theirs individual. It was a three-bedroom house, and one of the points of contention, when Ruby had come along, had been that for six months she had to sleep with Stuart and Emma. Izzy, although she had liked the idea of a baby sister a lot more than her father, was outraged at the idea of suddenly having to share her bedroom just when she wante
d to be private. The only solution had been a loft conversion, which cost them a lot more than they could afford, but at least it meant an extra bed and bathroom. Jesse had been allowed to change rooms to general relief as he preferred listening to such weird music. Ruby inherited his old bedroom.

  The months of builders had only added to the household stress but finally things had seemed to calm down at last.

  But when Stella rang the doorbell, it was answered by a tearful Izzy, who flung herself at Stella. ‘Gran! I’m so glad you’re here. It’s Mum and Jesse! She’s just got back from seeing his teacher. They’re in the kitchen shouting at each other.’

  Stella’s relief was short-lived since she, probably along with the rest of the street, could hear that any fragile family peace they had achieved was in the act of being shattered.

  ‘Your teacher says you haven’t been in school for two days,’ accused Emma furiously. ‘Your bed hasn’t even been slept in last night. I know it’s down to that little slag Dora.’

  ‘How dare you call her a slag!’ Jesse looked angrier than Stella had ever seen him. ‘If anyone’s a slag round here, it isn’t Dora.’ Things must have got very bad for lovely Jesse to speak to his mother like that.

  ‘Right, I’m not taking this from you . . .’

  ‘You don’t need to,’ Jesse insisted quietly. ‘I’m going. Right now.’

  ‘Gran!’ Izzy begged. ‘Stop them!’

  ‘Emma,’ Stella tried not to let the annoyance she was feeling seep into her voice. ‘I know you love Jesse and he loves you.’

  ‘Not as much as he loves the little slag, obviously.’

  Stella walked across to her daughter. ‘Don’t, Emma. He really likes this girl. If he goes, you’ll only regret it.’

  Emma seemed to come to her senses. ‘You’re right. I overreacted.’ She started to walk towards the stairs just as Jesse almost tumbled down them, holding his backpack and his guitar. ‘Jesse, I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘I’m going, Mum. I stayed because I thought maybe you and Dad were going to be all right, but do you know what? I feel sorry for him. It would have been better for us all if you’d left.’

  He hugged Izzy. ‘Don’t worry, Izz, I’ll be fine. And remember, you’ve always got Gran. Give Rube a kiss from me.’ And he was out of the door.

  At these words Stella almost wanted to cry herself. How had Emma got so caught up with Hal and this stupid job that she couldn’t see what was happening to her own family?

  Emma sat down heavily at the kitchen table and began to cry.

  Twelve

  ————

  Stella made Emma a cup of tea and kept her peace, hoping that she would have drawn her own lessons without further parental interference.

  Emma looked as if she might collapse. She reached out to her daughter. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I shouldn’t have said that to Jesse and especially not in front of you. Maybe if Mum could make you a sandwich, I’ll help you with your homework.’

  ‘We’re only doing test papers and I did some with Roxy.’

  She could see that Emma was about to protest and thankfully thought better of it.

  ‘What about supper?’ Stella asked.

  ‘Oh shit, supper.’ Emma clutched her head.

  It was odd, Stella decided, because she used to be so fussy about stocking all things organic. ‘I’ll see what I can rustle up.’

  Stella found some rather sad-looking vegetables in the bottom of the fridge and some Parmesan cheese that had taken on the consistency of cement and threw it all together with a packet of frozen peas and some pasta.

  ‘This is really nice, Gran,’ Izzy commented, when Stella served her some.

  Stella saved some of the sauce, put it aside till it was wanted for Stuart’s and Emma’s supper.

  ‘Dad’s going to be livid. About Jesse, I mean.’ Izzy sounded depressed rather than nervous.

  ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’ll just wait till you’ve gone and then be livid.’

  Emma appeared with Ruby enveloped in a giant fluffy bath towel. Oblivious to the volcano erupting around her she kicked her bare legs and put out a hand to try and grab some pasta.

  ‘Wait a minute, Greedy-guts.’ Emma smiled and dried her lovingly, stuffing one gorgeous plump arm into her pyjamas, then the other. ‘Thanks a million for supper, Mum, it smells delicious. You’ve saved my life. Oh God, Mum, what am I going to do about Jesse?’

  ‘Where do you think he’s gone?’

  ‘To see Dora. He’s totally obsessed with her. Just when he ought to be revising. And she’s cool as a cucumber, getting him to test her all the time for her exams. She’s so much more grown-up than him.’

  ‘I’m surprised at her parents allowing him to stay so close to their exams. I got the impression they were pretty strict.’

  ‘They’ve got quite a big house. Maybe they think it’s better for Dora’s calm approach to exams not to have a fight about it. I’m sure they’d be in separate rooms. Izzy, would you get me Ruby’s socks?’

  Izzy got up and looked at her mother levelly. ‘I know what you’re going to tell Gran when I’m out of the room. You think they’re having sex. Which socks do you want?’

  ‘The blue ones,’ Emma replied in a chastened voice. ‘God, Mum, how do kids know everything?’

  ‘Mainly because adults talk to their friends in front of them.’ Stella wondered if she ought to mention the incident in her studio, then remembered Jesse’s plea not to tell his mother and decided to respect it.

  They both heard Stuart’s key turning in the door. ‘I must go.’

  ‘Mum, stay.’ The urgency in her daughter’s voice made Stella sit down again.

  ‘Hello, Stella,’ Stuart greeted her. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. Mmm . . . something smells good.’

  ‘Mum made it. Stuart . . .’

  Stuart, halfway through taking his coat off, looked at her warily. ‘What?’

  ‘Jesse’s taken off.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Where do you think? Gone off to that little slag.’

  Stella shot her a look. Hadn’t she learned her lesson after all?

  ‘Right. Well, I’m going to have some supper and a beer, as it’s been a long day, and after that I’ll go round and see if he’s there.’

  Stella hugged Izzy, kissed her son-in-law on the cheek, and nuzzled Ruby. ‘Good luck.’ She smiled hopefully. ‘He’s not a bad lad.’

  ‘I know,’ Stuart seconded, casting a stormy look towards his wife. ‘Thanks for helping out, Stella.’

  ‘Let me know when you find him, won’t you? A text will do.’

  Stuart nodded. He was looking exceptionally tired.

  After all the emotional upheaval, Stella realized how tired she felt herself. There was nothing that wore you out like worrying about your children, and it didn’t matter if they were three or thirty-three. She’d probably still be worried when they were sixty-three. The one thing she longed for was a bath, preferably with a glass of wine, and an early night.

  Stella was surprised to see Suze’s car in the drive, next to the Airstream, and wondered why she’d dropped in. As soon as she opened the front door, she was hit by the sound of clinking glasses and laughter. Obviously there were far more people in the house than just Suze. Stella wondered if she could make a quick getaway and hide in the studio at the bottom of the garden, but Cameron had already spotted her. He was enthroned like Henry VIII, his gouty leg on a stool, surrounded by his courtiers. Or, in this case, a rather drunk Matthew, who sat next to Fabia. Debora and Suze were in armchairs near the fire.

  But the real shock was who was sitting on the sofa.

  Duncan had leaned forward to laugh at something the woman next to him had just said. She was tall and Junoesque, about thirty-five, with dark curly hair and bright red lips and a clinging red wrap dress, displaying a cleavage the size of the Grand Canyon. At her feet dozed an enormous drooling boxer dog.

  Debora w
as the first to her feet. ‘Stella, darling girl, Matthew invited us all back to celebrate Cameron finally persuading The Glebe to let him do his famous recording. Well, actually, it was Duncan who persuaded them, but still.’

  ‘How kind of Matthew.’ Stella tried not to sound sour. ‘The only thing is I haven’t got any food to offer you.’

  ‘I will cook,’ Fabia announced grandly. ‘Debora has brought some scallops and I will prepare them with lentils and bacon. If you will let me use your kitchen?’

  ‘Stella,’ Duncan had got to his feet, ‘may I introduce you to Amber O’Riordan?’ His tone, she noted, was almost apologetic.

  Amber nudged the dog with her foot and stood up. ‘Wisht, Donleavy, out of the way now!’ She was taller than Stella had thought, almost six feet, certainly as tall as Duncan, though she was wearing ridiculously high heels.

  ‘Hello, Amber, obviously I’m familiar with your work.’

  ‘Duncan says you paint as well.’

  ‘Oh, well, animals mostly.’

  Amber laughed with a hint of patronage. ‘Maybe you could paint Donleavy here!’ She looked coyly at Duncan. ‘Men always say I care more about the dog. Always making a fuss of him and petting him instead of them.’

  Stella decided she didn’t want to contemplate this affecting image. ‘Has Matthew given everyone a drink? I hope you’ll excuse me while I get one myself.’ She beckoned Debora into the kitchen and shut the door.

  ‘My God,’ Stella whispered, ‘how long has he been seeing the Irish Valkyrie?’

  ‘They’ve been going out for a while but we didn’t know if it was serious. He hadn’t really got over Connie, if you ask me. Then she went off to Japan. She must have just got back. Someone should tell her that wrap dresses are so ten years ago.’

  ‘She must look like the Statue of Liberty to the Japanese!’

  ‘Do we detect a sour note from lovely Stella?’ Debora teased.

  The door opened. It was Suze come to join in the gossip. ‘She really should put those tits away before someone gets hurt diving into them!’

  Matthew appeared on her heels, swaying gently as if in a strong breeze. ‘Girls, girls, do I detect a little jealousy from the post-menopausal towards the abundantly fertile? Men are always drawn to women with overt sexuality. It’s all down to the primal need to reproduce.’