“Skiing.”
“Harry?”
“Checking out his vineyard in Italy apparently.”
Arabella sighed. “And Toby?”
“Still married to his patients.” Dianne glanced at her watch. “Probably doing a late surgery or something.”
Arabella tapped her glass thoughtfully and gazed round the room. “There was a time when I’d have considered Toby. But he’s getting frightfully old and much too dedicated to his work to have time for a wife.” She turned to Dianne. “Did you ever wonder…?”
“Wonder what?”
“If Toby’s gay?”
“Of course I did! Didn’t everyone?” Over Bella’s shoulder, someone caught her eye. “Hello, Luther,” she said.
Bella backed away. “I’ll leave you two to chat.”
Luther Chevalier had lost weight. Not a lot, but Dianne noticed his jawbone was a little more angular, his jacket slightly looser. He was only a little taller than she was, his hair the dark blond of cut wheat lapped in a field. He used to tell her that their hair colours were different swatches from the same shade card. He nodded, his smile slight and tense.
“Welcome back, Dianne.”
“It’s good to be back.” She hid behind a sip from her glass.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Luther looked around the room and then back at her. “Is the library being used tonight?”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to you. Alone.”
She tossed her head. “There’s nothing to say.”
“Between you and me? There was always plenty to say.”
He stood aside and motioned for her to pass him. After a moment, she did. The library was through an archway and further down the hall. He closed the door behind them, the sounds of chatter, laughter and the chink of glasses smothered to a distant murmur. Three lamps diffused a soft light across the room. She set her glass on the ledge that ran along the wall of bookcases with their carved wood and glass fronts, and turned to face him, leaning back on her hands. Beside her, the heavy curtains had been drawn across the bay window. He stayed by the door.
“I’ve been watching you for a while.”
“Oh? I didn’t see you.”
He picked up a porcelain figurine from beneath a lamp on a small table; turned it round; set it down again. “So how’s it working out, Dianne?” he asked.
She walked round the sofa and sat down, crossed her slender ankles. “It’s working out just great. Really. You should be happy for me.”
“I am really happy for you. If you’re telling the truth.”
“You think I’m not?”
He came and sat where her father had sat earlier that day. A guard was across the whitened remnants of the log fire. “I’ve known you since you were born. I’m the one person here who can read you like a book.”
“And what do you see?”
He sighed and pressed his finger and thumb into his eyes. After a moment he looked up. “Why did you do it, Dianne? Why him and not me?”
She laughed merrily at him. “I think we’ve had this conversation before.”
“Let’s have it again.”
“Oh, don’t be so boring!” She stood up. “Let’s go back…”
She staggered a little as he jumped from the chair and confronted her. “Paul isn’t who you thought he’d be, is he? He’s lost his money-making power. He’s lost his fans. He’s jumped off the ladder. You thought you were marrying the Next Big Thing but he’s buried himself in the Irish bog he came from and he’s burying you with him!”
She felt the scarlet rising on her face to match the flush on his own pale skin.
“And what would you have done for me, Luther?” Her voice became icy. “You’ll never be anything. Your father hadn’t enough brains to keep his money or his job.” She stepped away from him, flinging her words like stinging hail. “You know how families go. They branch off. Some do well, some don’t. You get the successful ones and the failures.” She jabbed her finger at him. “You’re just average, Luther. Mr Average. You’ll never be anything else.” She took a breath and added, “It was OK being my ‘chevalier’ when we were children. A Huguenot family tree and big spaniel eyes don’t do it for me now.”
His face bleached to the colour of his lashes and he said quietly, “I was a lot more than your chevalier. Have you forgotten?”
She went to the bookcase, picked up her glass and fingered its stem for a moment. Then she turned. “No, I haven’t forgotten.”
There was a silence. Then she pushed her hair from her eyes and walked past him. His hand flashed like a cobra and bit her wrist. Her glass smashed to the floor. Gasping, shocked, she jerked to a stop. His grip covered her gold bracelet and made it cut into her skin. She pulled away but his fingers bit harder. He brought his face close to hers, his voice hoarse.
“Does he make love to you like I did?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away. They stood like that for a moment, frozen. Then shock and anger made her vicious. She turned her mouth to drip each whispered word into his ear like acid.
“No, he doesn’t make love to me like you did. He’s much…” she licked her lips slowly and nudged her mouth closer “… much, much better than that.” Her lips touched the flesh of his lobe. “He sends me to the stars. You never even reached lift-off.” She felt his muscles bunching and hissed, “You never did it for me, Luther. Never.”
It was fortunate that the sofa was behind her, for he threw her away from him with force. She rubbed her wrist where the pattern of her bracelet was incised in a red welt. He spoke with rigid control.
“You’re still a lying bitch.” He looked at her for a long moment and then he dropped to his heels and began to pick up pieces of glass from the carpet. He brought them to the fender and set them in a heap. He turned back to her. “When that man breaks your heart…” he gestured at the glass fragments on the fender “… don’t wait for me to gather up the pieces. And when he gets you pregnant and you’re lying in his bed beside him, terrified and thinking about your mother…” he sliced his hand sideways “… don’t even tell me.”
He walked to the door and touched the handle, let it go again and turned back. His voice shook a little. He wasn’t as calm as he was trying to appear. “Just tell me one thing. I need to know.” Her mouth was dry. Luther took a deep breath and the lick of hair at his brow trembled. “If he hadn’t appeared, we’d have made it. You and me. Wouldn’t we?”
She didn’t reply at once and he came to stand in front of her. She put her hand to her collarbone in a gesture of defence, but he bent and there was unlikely tenderness in his touch as he lifted her hand and pulled her back to her feet.
“We nearly made it, didn’t we?” he repeated. “Until he came, there wasn’t anyone else.” His tongue flicked across his lips. “Was there?”
She shook her head and found her voice, small and strained. “No, Luther, there was no-one else.”
“You’re a spoilt brat.” He smoothed the hair over her ear. “I know you inside out, and I have no idea why I still love every hair on your selfish head.” His eyes travelled to her mouth. She held her breath. He dropped her hand and stepped back. “You made a big mistake.”
He left the door open when he walked out.
Her legs gave way and she sat abruptly. She put both hands over her face and started to shake. She’d been all right until he mentioned her mother. And being pregnant. She had no idea that she had hurt him so much.
“There you are, Princess! I’ve been looking for you.” Her father stood in the doorway. “Have you and Luther been catching up on old times?”
14
HOW MANY MORE evenings like this could he stand? Paul backed into a corner, held his glass like a shield. Next week they would go back, go home. Five more days. He pressed each finger in turn into the cold glass in his hand, counting up to five as he did so.
He coiled his body tight be
hind the chimney breast. He was doing this because he really did want to try, doing this because Dianne was homesick, doing this because they should stay together, because he was stronger than she was.
He looked at his feet. That last one was wrong. Jenna was wrong there.
He escaped from the Butler house when he could. He had files full of images of grand façades, massive columns, stone lions and fussing pigeons. He had experimented with winter lighting, contra-jour, shadows, filters. Today, he had concentrated on shapes, close-ups, juxtapositions. He’d stayed away as late as he could to capture the tricks of evening shade.
Arabella was crossing the carpet towards him, business in her eye. Dianne ambushed her. A woman in rumpled green appeared beside him. He’d forgotten that corners weren’t a good idea. No back door.
“What a treat to see you again, Paul!” she declared. “You really must come back to us.”
“Why must I?”
Chevalier had arrived in the room.
“So many of my friends ask for you. They say ‘We want that marvellous young man who did the christening for you.’ You’ve abandoned us!”
“I just went home.”
Chevalier was talking to Dianne.
“But poor Dianne! She must be so lonely. It’s such a shame!” He watched her sherry glass wave in agitation. She was going to spill it. “The photos you took of Oliver have been so admired.”
Chevalier and Dianne were leaving the room.
Civility left him. “Who the hell’s Oliver?”
She blinked. Her chin tucked in. “My son! He’s four now, you know.” She leaned towards him. “You must remember. He was sick on your bag and you were so patient with him.”
He remembered. The brat.
She threw a smile up at him and dropped her voice. “But I’m sure you’ll be photographing your own soon.”
“Are you?”
He pushed his way past her, out of the corner and into a pool of space. Bella was on the loose again. Through the archway he could see the stairs and an oasis at the top where the landing bowed out from the mouth of the passageway that led to the bedrooms. It formed a veranda overlooking the hall. He didn’t make it to the first step.
“Well, Paul. What have you been up to today?”
“My own business, Bella.”
She gave a deep chuckle and moved her cleavage into his line of sight. “But I find your business absolutely fascinating.”
He tried to move past her but her neat side-step kept her in front of him. He stood perfectly still for a moment, looking at her. Her eyes darted up, a glance crooked from the corner of her lids. Then he put his hand on her bare shoulder and returned her gaze with deep concentration.
“Tell me something, Bella,” he said, his brow furrowed. Surprised, she glanced round at his hand. “Certainly.”
“Would you sleep with me?”
Startled, she backed away and his hand dropped from her shoulder. Her laugh was awkward. “A lady would never answer a question like that!”
“Maybe a lady wouldn’t.” He raised an eyebrow. “But I’m asking you.”
She ran her finger slowly round the rim of her wine glass. “I could be offended at that.”
Chevalier and Dianne had not returned.
“Suit yourself. I thought it was what you wanted me to ask.”
He tried to move past her again. She touched her fingers to his arm. He looked down at them, scarlet nails against the dark navy of his jacket. Nails that had probably never touched the grain of old wood in wonder or felt hot tears of humiliation run over them and onto ragged grass at midnight. Disgust boiled up in him. She was speaking again.
“Well, maybe I like a man who says what he means.” He felt a slight pressure from her fingers. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m very choosy.”
He lifted her hand from his arm. “But then, Bella…” he dropped her hand with a flick of distaste “… so am I.”
This time she let him pass. He almost felt the venom hit the back of his neck. Inside, part of him smiled. She’d be back for more tomorrow.
Careful not to catch anyone’s eye, he hooked his fingers round the wooden sphere on top of the newel post and swung himself up the curved and carpeted staircase. At the top he turned and looked down with the relief of a squirrel in a tree. It was a broad landing consisting of two deep armchairs arranged at an angle to a low table. Against the wall were a grandfather clock and a semi-circular table on which there was an elaborate arrangement of large white lilies and broad green leaves. Its twin was in the hall below. The calm of sanctuary creamed over him.
He sat down, patted his pocket and took out his phone. His Uncle Bob answered on the third ring. His mother was in another room. He listened to her name being called through the house in Coleraine. Opposite him, beyond the rail around the landing, a large chandelier hung from the ceiling, lighting the hall below. He counted the bulbs on it while he waited.
Hazel’s voice was bright, eager.
“Paul?”
He smiled at the chandelier. “Hello, Mum. Just checking in. How are you?”
“Great. I’ve never eaten so many chocolates! Bob and Sally have been wonderful.”
“Well, it’s about time you had a break from making the dinner.”
She wanted to know all about his Christmas, where he’d been, what he’d been doing. How was Dianne? And Charles? She had met him only once, at the wedding, but had liked him.
“What about you, Mum?” he asked eventually.
“Well, I’ve already told you about the chocolates. But I miss you. That’s been really strange. Not having either you or Christopher.”
“It’s different this year all right.”
“And how!” she said. There was a silence. Then he heard her voice become slow, tentative, as if she wasn’t sure she should say this. “I remember… when there was only you and me. You were too young to remember.”
“I remember some things. Feelings mostly,” he said. “But things changed for the better for you.”
“For me, maybe, but sometimes…”
“Stop it, Mum,” he said sharply. “How’s Adam?”
He heard her take a steadying breath. “He’s eaten even more than me,” she said brightly. “But he’s anxious to get back to Belfast. Probably misses Jenna.”
Paul put his foot up on the edge of the coffee table.
“Has he spoken to her?”
“I think so.”
He could think of nothing else to say.
“Well, I’ll see you next week.”
“You will call in as soon as you get back?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe next Christmas,” she said, and he heard the spirit in her coming back, “you and Dianne will stay here. Turn-about with the in-laws. Lots of people do that. At least until the children come along.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
“Yes, do that,” she replied. “Don’t forget I need you too. And any children you have will have only one granny. Me.”
He snapped the phone shut and dropped it back into his pocket. For a long moment, he was motionless, his eyes wide and unfocused. Below him, someone was telling a funny story. The last line was punched out and an explosion of laughter stampeded the stairwell, swirling him into a vortex of noise. Suddenly, as if an invisible rampart had been stormed, he raised both his arms high above his head, stretched his fingers to the roof.
“Please God!” he cried.
The laughter subsided, trickled back down the walls, left him marooned as if he had never uttered a sound.
He stood and went to the rail, bent to lean his forearms on the wood. Some people had seen him, but not being family, they would not go up the stairs of their host’s house without an invitation. His eyes swept the room below him and he began to play his game. ‘Rich’ was an obvious word. A group of three men was standing near the front door. One man was talking, his hand resting on his chin; the other two had their heads tilted slightly, listening. ‘Frien
ds’. Somewhere out of sight, Arabella’s laughter rose and fell, joined by a deeper guffaw. ‘Slut’. Maybe that was unfair. He tried ‘pest’. That was better.
He was tiring of this very quickly. There wasn’t much scope. A woman in a pink dress squeezed between the three men and a bay tree in a pot. ‘Jenna’.
He mulled that one over. It must have been the dress that popped the name into his mind. That and his mother mentioning her. She had looked well that night at the hotel, despite how it ended for her. He didn’t know why he called her plain when he had first seen her. She wasn’t. He had also called her ‘fresh’. He rolled that one round his mind. It still fitted.
He wondered where he would photograph her if she were here tonight. Probably down there, sitting on the bottom stair and leaning against the bannister. Would she wear that dress and would it still have the tear in its hem? Like a sculpture through drifting mist, her figure surfaced in his mind. She was in her combat trousers and denim jacket, incongruous in this clot of opulence. A scarf lay tangled beside her. She was turning, looking up at him with those bright, inquisitive eyes. From her open palm hung the chain of a gold cross.
Why had that image fixed in his mind? Of course! He had a photograph of her preserved in that pose for ever.
He stiffened. From beneath where he stood, Chevalier appeared. Paul recognised the fair hair and the broad shoulders. He was walking quickly, looking to right and left. He checked the room through the archway and then swung on his heel and looked up, directly at Paul. Paul didn’t move as Chevalier locked eyes with him. He watched as hate and pain struggled on the face of the man below. Chevalier took three steps towards the stairs. Then he turned, pushed his way to the front door, and left the house.
Paul straightened. He should go and find Dianne now. A lethargy came over him. He found he didn’t care. If she wanted to see him, she could come and find him. He rubbed his brow. He really was a bad bastard.
He looked down again. Now Charles was crossing the hall. His arm loosely on her waist, he was leading Dianne back into the company. Paul couldn’t see her expression, just the blonde hair on the bare shoulders where he had laid his head last night. But her posture was tense, her head turning quickly from side to side.
Maker of Footprints Page 14