Kitabı oku: «Fame and Wuthering Heights», sayfa 5

CHAPTER SIX

‘Hey, Mum, guess what?’ It was the third time Abel Crewe had asked this question in the last minute. ‘If a dinosaur fell over, it would die.’

‘Would it?’ said his mother absently. ‘My goodness.’

Tish and Abel were in the back of a taxi, on their way home to Loxley from Manchester Airport. Tish’s eyes were glued to the familiar, craggy beauty of the landscape outside. She’d thought about it every day since she’d been away, but she realized now that she’d forgotten just how breathtaking the Peak District really was. This afternoon a light rain was falling, but a few pale sun rays fought their way bravely through the clouds, bathing the jutted tops of the Pennines in a soft, celestial light. With the exception of the odd crumbling farm-worker’s cottage, this stretch of the Hope Valley was devoid of buildings, and seemed barely touched by man. After the ugly urban sprawl of Oradea, it was a blessed relief for Tish’s senses, and she drank it in like a hummingbird gorging on nectar.

Abel, on the other hand, was far more interested in talking than sightseeing. If there were an Olympic team for not-drawing-breath, Tish’s five-year-old son would surely have been appointed captain.

‘Do you know why it would die?’ he asked, not bothering to wait for a reply. ‘Because dinosaurs are allergic to falling over. Like I’m allergic to mushrooms. What are you allergic to, Mum? Some people aren’t allergic to anything, also some animals aren’t, but some are, like monkeys. Not giraffes, though. Unless they ate a log. That would prob’ly get stuck in their necks and then … hey, look, another tractor! Seven! That’s seven, Mum! I’m gonna be seven, after I’ve been six. Where’s my birthday gonna be again? At home, or in In-ger-land? Can I have two parties?’

‘England,’ corrected Tish, who was only half listening. ‘Not Ing-er-land. Try to stop talking just for a few minutes Abi, OK? We’re almost there.’

The taxi took a left turn and the road narrowed sharply as it climbed and weaved its way around the hillside. Occasional farms gave way to grey stone houses, their walled front gardens bereft of flowers other than the occasional early snowdrop bravely rearing its flimsy white head above the muck. This was the outskirts of Loxley village. Tish felt her heart soar as they passed each familiar landmark: Bassets Mill, Mr Parks’s farm, the abandoned dovecote that the local children used as a makeshift climbing frame-cum-treehouse. A few moments later and they were in the village proper.

A five-times-winner of Britain’s Best Kept Village competition, Loxley was small but perfectly formed. It had a triangular green that was bisected by a tributary of the Derwent, which villagers had crossed for centuries by means of a Saxon stone footbridge. On one side of the green stood the post office and village shop. On the other was the perfectly preserved Norman church, St Agnes’s, and on the third, the focal point of all village life great and small: The Carpenter’s Arms pub.

‘What do you think, darling?’ Tish hugged her son excitedly.

‘It’s really pretty!’ Abel grinned. ‘It’s like a picture from my book.’ His sweet, snub nose was now glued to the window. Villages, apparently, were a lot more interesting than fells. ‘Is it a park? When does it close?’

Tish squeezed his hand. ‘It never closes.’

‘Never? Cool! Can we go in that shop? Do they have M & Ms? Do they have Lego?’

The taxi continued through the village and down a gentle escarpment, Abel chattering excitedly all the while. The lane narrowed to a single car’s width, hemmed in on either side by thick bushes of dog rose and briar, so it was almost like driving through a tunnel. Then suddenly, without warning, the valley opened up again to breathtaking views. A few hundred yards further and the road abruptly stopped in front of a pair of lichened wooden gates, propped open with two stone saddle stools. Through the gates, a wide, sweeping driveway wound its way into the distance, looking for all the world like the entrance to some enchanted land.

‘It’s a palace!’ gasped Abel, his eyes on stalks. ‘Who lives up there?’

‘We do.’ Tish laughed as the taxi pulled through the gates. ‘For a little while, anyway. The house actually belongs to your Uncle Jago –’ the words stuck in Tish’s craw–‘but he’s away at the moment. Mummy’s friend Mrs Drummond has been looking after it for him while he’s gone, and we’ve come to help her.’

This seemed to satisfy Abel, who was more interested in the oak trees in the park and which of them might be most suitable for his planned Tarzan treehouse than Loxley’s complex ownership structure. In-ger-land, he had already decided, was infinitely superior to Romania. He hoped his Uncle Jago’s holiday lasted a long, long time.

He hoped it even more when he saw the house, a turreted, Disney fairytale that was just crying out for someone to play knights in it. While Tish paid the cabbie and struggled to drag her suitcase across the gravel, Abel raced ahead of her, bounding up the stone steps through the open front door.

A plump, elderly woman, wearing a striped apron over her gardening trousers and sweater, appeared in the hallway.

‘Who are you?’ Abel asked bluntly.

‘I’m Mrs D,’ said the woman, smiling as she wiped her floury hands on her apron. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Abel Henry Gunning Crewe,’ said Abel. ‘Do you like dinosaurs?’

Before she had time to answer, Mrs Drummond saw Tish lugging an enormous suitcase into the hallway. ‘Darling! Let me help you.’ She relieved Tish of the case, plonking it down at the foot of the stairs, and threw her arms around her former charge, enveloping Tish in a bosomy, cinnamon-scented bear hug. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you.’

‘You too, Mrs D,’ said Tish with feeling. ‘You met Abel?’

‘I did indeed,’ Mrs Drummond grinned, turning to watch the little boy who was now mountaineering his way up the banisters. ‘He’s gorgeous.’

‘Isn’t he?’ Tish grinned back. ‘I thought he’d be tired after the flight and everything, but he hasn’t stopped talking since six o’clock this morning.’

‘Not to worry,’ said Mrs Drummond. ‘I’ve made some cinnamon pound cake. A couple of slices of that will take the wind out of his sails. Now, what would you like to do first, lovie? Eat? Have a bath? Unpack?’

‘No,’ said Tish resolutely. ‘I’d like to meet our house guests.’

A cloud of anxiety descended over Mrs Drummond’s kindly features. ‘I don’t think you should do that right away, Letitia. They’re not very nice people. Wait till this afternoon and I’ll get Bill and one of the other farm boys to go in there with you. They mostly keep to the East Wing, so they shouldn’t bother us here.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Tish. ‘I don’t need a bloody bodyguard in my own house. If you’d take Abel and get him something to eat, I’ll go and sort them out.’

‘I really don’t think you understand, darling …’ Mrs Drummond began. But Tish was already marching off down the hallway towards the East Wing. She always was a stubborn child, thought Mrs Drummond, watching her retreating back. Perhaps she should call Bill Connelly, just in case.

Walking down the East corridor, past Loxley’s grand, formal rooms, Tish gasped in horror as the extent of the damage wrought by Jago’s ‘friends’ unfolded. Every few feet, dark rectangles of wallpaper revealed the places where paintings had been removed and, according to Mrs Drummond, taken to London to be sold for drugs. In the library, antique bookcases stood with their doors hanging off the hinges and an array of beautifully bound first editions spilling out onto the floor. In the grate, Tish saw torn spines and singed pages: some Barbarian had used her father’s books as kindling! Everywhere there was dirt, Persian runners covered with the imprints of muddy boots, empty mugs and glasses littering every available surface, some of them growing livid green mould on the dregs of whatever vile, stagnant liquid they had once contained. The deeper Tish walked into the East Wing, once the most impressive part of the house, the more the place looked like a squat, littered with empty beer cans and overflowing ashtrays.

Finally, she approached the drawing room. There was music coming from inside – Jimi Hendrix, if I’m not mistaken – and raucous, male laughter. Her hand was on the door handle, but she hesitated.

Not yet, she thought. There’s something I have to do first.

In the kitchen, Mrs Drummond watched in awe as Letitia’s son inhaled his fourth, slab-sized slice of cinnamon pound cake. The child was an eating machine. And he was still talking.

‘If you could make dinosaurs un-extinct and have one for a pet, which one would you have?’ he mumbled through a fine spray of cake crumbs.

‘My goodness, Abel. I’ve never really thought about it. I don’t suppose I’d have any of them. Would dinosaurs make good pets, do you think?’

Abel looked at her pityingly. ‘Of course they would. A T-Rex would be the most excellentest pet you could ever have, and do you know why? Because it would kill all the baddies, and eat them, but it wouldn’t kill you because you’d be its owner. Pets’ owners are kind of like their mum or dad. So pets actually love them. Even a T-Rex would love its owner, but you’d have to help it not to fall over, because do you know what happens to dinosaurs when they fall over?’

Mrs Drummond shook her head.

‘They die!’

‘Do they really?’

‘Uh-huh. And do you know what else?’

Suddenly the clear, unmistakable crack of a shotgun being fired rang out.

‘Good heavens!’ said Mrs Drummond. A few seconds later there was another shot, then another, all of them from the direction of the East Wing.

‘Was that a bomb?’ asked Abel cheerfully. ‘Bombs are cool.’

‘You stay there my darling. Don’t move.’ Running into the hallway, Mrs Drummond picked up the telephone and dialled 999.

In the drawing room, a dreadlocked man in his mid-thirties stared at the petite, blonde woman in front of him in terrified astonishment.

‘What the fuck?’ he shouted, as his cowering companions scrambled to their feet. ‘You could have killed me!’

‘Indeed I could,’ said Tish. She pointed her father’s shotgun slowly and deliberately at the man’s crotch. ‘And if you and your mates aren’t out of this house in the next two minutes, I probably will.’

‘You wouldn’t bloody dare,’ said the man.

Tish cocked the gun’s hammer. ‘Try me.’

Henry’s gun cupboard was upstairs in what had been his dressing room. Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, and that a loaded shotgun would provide a lot more effective protection than Bill Connelly, Loxley’s elderly farm manager, Tish had retrieved the key from its usual hiding place in the airing cupboard and armed herself for confrontation. When she reached the dressing room her heart was in her mouth. The squatters had evidently been here before her. Deep scratches on the thick oak closet doors documented their multiple, frustrated attempts to break it open. Tish shuddered to think what might have happened had they succeeded, high out of their minds and with poor dear Mrs Drummond in the house.

‘We’re guests here, you mad fucking cow,’ the man snarled, stepping out from behind the Knole sofa. ‘Your brother invited us to stay for as long as we liked.’ His fear seemed to be receding and his aggression returning. His patchwork trousers and CND shirt suggested a peaceful, hippyish, eco-campaigner type, but the bullying look in his eyes said otherwise. You’re a thug, thought Tish. I’ve seen your type in Romania countless times: pathetic little local government Hitlers trying to intimidate the weak and helpless. You don’t scare me.

‘Yes, well, unfortunately for you my brother isn’t here, is he? I am. And I’m telling you to get out.’

‘Fuck you. You’re not gonna shoot me.’ The man took two steps towards Tish, a look of cold hatred on his drug-ravaged face. For a moment, Tish experienced a stab of panic. Mrs Drummond was right. He was menacing. They all were. Sensing a shift in the room’s power dynamics, his previously comatose friends began to rally themselves, lining up behind him like backing singers in some sinister, junkie band.

‘Get her, Dan,’ one of them shouted.

‘Fucking posh bitch,’ hissed another.

In a couple of seconds the ringleader would have reached her. Twice her size, he would easily be able to overpower her and grab the gun. There was no time to think. Switching aim from his groin to his foot, Tish fired.

For a split second there was silence. Then came the screams. ‘Dan’ collapsed in a heap on the floor, clutching his leg. Blood poured from his foot, seeping through his soft moccasin shoes onto the carpet. The noise coming out of him was blood curdling. His friends rushed to his aid.

‘Fuck!’ said the smaller, rat-faced one. ‘We need to get him to hospital.’

‘That’s GBH, you cunt. You’re looking at ten years for that.’ Another of the men bared his yellowing teeth at Tish. ‘I’m calling the fucking police.’

‘Be my guest,’ said Tish, passing him the phone with a nonchalance she was far from feeling. ‘When you’re finished, I’ll fill them in on your thefts of my family property. I might ask them to bring over a few sniffer dogs while they’re at it. Although I doubt they’ll need them. They can just follow the trail of needles.’

Dan looked up, his face white as a sheet. ‘Leave it,’ he whispered, through gritted teeth. The pain was clearly excruciating. ‘Just get me to A and E. Get the others and let’s get the fuck out of here before she kills someone.’

Tish watched as his friends scooped him up off the floor, staggering under his weight as they carried him out of the room. Once they’d gone, she bolted the drawing-room door behind them and waited, Henry’s shotgun still in her hand. There were muffled noises of a commotion upstairs. After about ten minutes, Tish heard the last door slam. Looking out of the window, she saw a straggling group of eight men and women climb into their dilapidated camper van and drive off, spraying gravel noisily behind them in their eagerness to get away. It was only once they’d gone and the rumble of the van’s engine had faded into silence that Tish realized her hands were shaking violently.

Forcing herself to calm down, she unlocked the door and walked upstairs, checking each room to make sure that no one was left hiding or passed out on one of the beds. If it were possible, the squalor upstairs was even worse than it was in the rooms below. Drug-related detritus littered the beds and floors, along with filthy clothes and sheets, and plates covered in rotting food. Bastards. Only once she was convinced they had all gone did Tish carefully replace her father’s gun in the closet, lock it, and go back downstairs to check on Abel.

She found him in the kitchen, along with a visibly shaken Mrs D. And three policemen.

‘There she is!’ cried Mrs Drummond. ‘Oh, Letitia, thank goodness you’re safe! What happened? We heard the shots.’

‘Is everything all right, Miss Crewe?’ The senior policeman stepped forward. ‘Was anybody injured?’

‘Everything’s fine, officer,’ said Tish calmly, scooping Abel up into her arms and kissing him. ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you. There was an accident I’m afraid. One of our unwanted visitors managed to break into my father’s gun closet. I arrived in the drawing room to find him fiddling about with one of the shotguns. Damned fool. Before you knew it the thing went off and he’d managed to shoot himself in the foot. He’s on his way to A and E now. His friends took him in their camper van. I have a sneaking feeling they won’t be back.’

The policeman raised an eyebrow. He was no fool. ‘I see. And that’s the same story he’s going to be telling us, is it? The injured gentleman?’

‘Well, of course,’ said Tish, flashing him her best, butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. ‘Although I’m not sure gentleman’s the word I’d use.’

‘And where is the weapon now, miss?’

‘The gun? Oh, I put it back in the cupboard, officer, safely locked away. I didn’t want to leave it lying around for my son to find.’ Sensing this was his time to shine, Abel fluttered his eyelashes at the policeman and clung tightly to his mother, the picture of innocence.

‘Would you like to see it?’

The policeman sighed. He’d had a long day. Unless the squatter actually reported a crime, there was no official need for him to inspect the weapon.

‘Not for the moment, miss,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch if there’s anything else we need.’

Later that night, once Abel and Mrs Drummond were both in bed, Tish sank down into the Chesterfield chair in her father’s old office and poured herself a much-needed glass of single malt.

What a day.

Despite Mrs D’s flat-spin panic about the shooting, Tish had not been worried that Dan and his friends would spill the beans to hospital staff, or the police. They had too much to lose. If there was one thing wasters like them valued above all others, it was an easy life. As of today, Loxley Hall had become more trouble than it was worth to them. They wouldn’t be back.

The bad news was that the quid pro quo for their silence about her trigger-happy antics would be that Tish could not now report them for criminal damage. She would have to find the money to make the necessary repairs and replacements herself. But, after a cursory glance at the estate’s latest accounts, it was hard to see how that was going to happen. As a going concern, Loxley was losing money hand over fist. Most stately homes did. That was why you needed tenants, and/or a professional company to manage them. Had Tish’s mother Vivianna done what was expected of her and put such arrangements in place, instead of handing the place to Jago on a silver platter, they wouldn’t be in this mess.

It wasn’t just the practical and financial recklessness of her mother’s decision that had upset Tish. It also stung that Vivianna had deliberately cut her out of any possible inheritance. Secretly, Tish had hoped she might take over at Loxley one day, once her work in Romania was done. The estate meant far more to her than it ever had to Jago.

‘But darling,’ Vivianna told her at Henry’s funeral, ‘you’ve been so occupied with those waifs and strays of yours. I didn’t think you’d be interested. Besides, the house would always have passed to Jago if he and your father hadn’t fallen out. It’s not right that Henry should be able to spite the boy from beyond the grave.’

But it’s OK for you to spite me from this side of the grave? thought Tish furiously.

Behind Henry’s desk, on the largest expanse of wall in the room, hung an enormous, framed photograph of Vivianna, stark naked. It had been taken in the Sixties, at the height of her youthful beauty, and mercifully had been tastefully done (Vivi had her back half turned to the camera, so only her perfect, peach-shaped bottom and half of a breast were visible). But it still had to go.

You left us, Tish thought bitterly. You left all of us. What right do you have to be up on that wall, with your glossy black hair and your enchanting smile and your sultry black eyes, a female version of Jago?

Vivianna Crewe had abandoned both her children, but it was only Jago that she’d ever missed. At least, that was how Tish saw it. Maybe handing over Loxley was her way of trying to make amends to him?

Whatever her motives, there was nothing Tish could do about it now. Her job was clear: to repair the estate, rescue it from total financial ruin, and then walk away and leave it all to Jago, until the next time he fucked up. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but she had no choice. Unless of course Jago really did spend the rest of his life as a sworn celibate in a Tibetan cave. In which case perhaps, one day, Abel could inherit as the next male in line.

But she was getting ahead of herself. Right now it was by no means certain that there would be an estate to inherit, for her children or Jago’s. The squatters were gone, but the real work started now. They had to cut back. First thing in the morning, Tish would turn the heating off. They could all wear lots of sweaters.

On Henry’s desk, her BlackBerry buzzed into life. It was a BBM, from Michel. Involuntarily, Tish’s heart rate shot up.

‘How was it? As bad as you thought?’

‘Worse,’ she texted back. ‘You still in Paris?’

‘Yes. Miss you.’

Not as much as I miss you, thought Tish, her stomach lurching with hope. Did he really miss her? He’d never said anything like that before. Then another message came through. Reading it, Tish felt a skewer being pushed slowly through her heart.

‘Met someone-Tell you all about it when I see you. Xoxo’

Tish turned off her phone in a daze. Depression washed over her. Without even registering what she was doing, she unscrewed the top of the whisky bottle, poured herself another and drank it. Her throat burned, but she didn’t care.

Michel had met someone. Someone who wasn’t her. Someone who deserved him. Tish tried to picture such a woman.

She’s probably a supermodel. Or a brain surgeon. You’re nothing to him, she told herself cruelly. Just some silly girl with a crush.

Closing her eyes, she offered up a heartfelt prayer.

Please, God. Let me get over him.

In the cold, empty house, the silence was deafening.