People We Love Page 4

  He approached the gate to the park and slowed down. A car behind him tooted impatiently. On the right, there was no-one coming out of the park, but a woman to his left looked round at the sound.

  It was Lexie – instantly recognisable from a hundred yards, let alone twenty. He speeded up, his heart thudding. Had she seen him? He didn’t want her to think he was stalking her, he wanted only to be able to see her sometimes, unobserved.

  Annoyed with himself, he punched a number on short dial. He needed company, any company, except his own.

  ‘Diana?’ he said. ‘How are you fixed for tonight?’

  ‘Did you remember the fish?’ Martha asked as soon as Lexie stepped inside the front door.

  Lexie held up a bag. ‘Got it.’

  She was sure she’d seen Patrick’s car just after she’d crossed the road from the Park, but it might have been another Mercedes convertible, she hadn’t been able to see the driver’s face. In fact, it couldn’t have been Patrick, he worked Thursdays in London. For a moment she melted, remembering his fiery belief in her ability. Together they’d soared…

  Patrick Mulgrew was skilful, capable, charming, astute and passionate, a workaholic who could turn base metal into gold – but he was also a self-centred bastard who couldn’t stand not being in control.

  She dropped the carrier onto the kitchen table and draped her jacket on the back of a chair. She was still in her workaday ‘uniform’, a skirt (today it was a 1950s dirndl in pink cotton with a net underskirt) and a tweed jacket. Her boots were Edwardian, butter-soft milk-chocolate leather with a row of buttons up each side that must be fastened with a special hook. Someone had inhabited these clothes before her and she liked that feeling. It was about style too, of course, and detail, and quality of fabric. Why head for the monolithic high-street stores when you could own something unique for next to nothing? Her hands rested on the jacket. It was one she’d bought from Pavel, who had developed a knack for knowing what she might like. Small pleasures, acquired back in impecunious student days in Edinburgh, had developed into a habit.

  ‘Thank you. I was worried that you’d forget. I should have gone myself.’

  ‘It’s no bother, Mum. Really.’

  Shadows sketched dark half-moons under her mother’s eyes and the skin on her face was taut. What had she been doing all day, to be so exhausted? Probably, Lexie guessed, like all of them, she hadn’t slept last night.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘I’m a little tired. Maybe I’ll rest before Dad gets home.’

  ‘Okay. Don’t worry about supper, I’ll see to it.’

  ‘Thank you, darling. You’re very good to us.’

  Without planning to, Lexie said, ‘Cameron Forrester came into the store today.’

  Martha’s concern was immediate.

  ‘Oh, my dear.’

  Having blurted out her news, Lexie discovered she didn’t want to talk about it. After Cameron’s back injury, he’d never really settled. Perhaps he’d been addicted to adrenalin, because without its buzz, his exuberance had turned to a kind of dullness that she’d challenged and picked apart until he’d started staying over less and less. One day, he’d simply left Hailesbank, without explanation or any proper farewell, just a note, propped up on her easel, together with her spare keys.

  ‘Lexie,’ it had read. ‘Sorry. Got to go. Can’t explain. Don’t wait for me.’

  She’d read it with disbelief. She’d tried his mobile, but it had been dead. She’d called his uncle, who’d been evasive and embarrassed, and unable or unwilling to answer her questions. ‘Got to go.’ Go? Go where? Why? Go with someone, or on his own? She’d looked again at the bold scrawl, untidy but unafraid (so utterly Cameron in character) and had been mystified. Was he running from her? What was it that was so impossible to discuss that it required complete and permanent removal?

  She’d taken the note to Molly, who’d been appalled.

  ‘What a scumbag!’

  ‘But he’s not, is he, that’s the point. I can think of a few men who’d run off and wouldn’t even bother with a note, but Cameron’s not like that.’

  Molly had shrugged.

  ‘But he is. Obviously.’

  ‘But he’s not. I know him.’

  ‘Lexie, dear heart, it pains me to point this out, but you clearly don’t know him at all.’

  The truth of this statement had hurt almost as much as the disappearance itself. Lexie had been forced to accept that she must have misinterpreted the tenderness of his kisses and the way he had hooked her hair delicately behind her ears with fingers so strong that they looked incapable of such gentle intimacy. The way – even though it was infuriating – that he’d said things before he thought and apologised afterwards. The way he’d made her laugh with his madcap antics.

  To avoid letting her mother see this in her eyes, she busied herself by extricating the trout from her carrier bag and turning to the fridge.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘That was all so long ago. What shall we do with these? I was thinking I should maybe find a new recipe.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject. Tell me about Cameron.’

  Lexie shut the door of the fridge rather more firmly than she meant to.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. He’s back. I have no idea for how long, or why, or what anyone thinks about it.’

  ‘But he came in to the store to see you.’

  ‘I said so, didn’t I?’

  ‘He’s not planning to start something up again, I hope?’

  When Cameron had disappeared, her disbelief had turned to distress. And distress had become a breakdown in confidence so that even painting had become impossible for some time.

  After a little, when nothing had changed and Cameron had made no contact, she’d taken a grip of herself, handed in her notice on the studio-cum-bedsit in the barn outside Hailesbank, (‘So perfect,’ she’d once said to Cameron, ‘I could work here for ever’) and rented space at an artists’ co-operative in Edinburgh, where she’d abandoned her colourful landscapes and begun to paint dark, obsessive pictures full of allegories of danger and death. It had been a crazy, tumultuous time and her parents had been deeply concerned.

  To reassure her mother now, Lexie said, ‘Don’t worry, Mum. I’m not interested.’

  She meant it, or at least, told herself she did. She had lost the knack of intimacy. After Cameron had taken off, she’d tried half-heartedly to date one or two other men in Edinburgh. There’d been an excruciating mismatch of spirits with a nerdy computer-game designer who’d thought only of the next new technology and had no sense of history. He’d been surprised when she’d suggested they call it a day, but not unhappy.

  Then there was Patrick.

  ‘I don’t make a habit of screwing my new protégées,’ he whispered hotly in her ear on the first occasion he did exactly that, ‘but you, Alexa Gordon, are ravishing.’

  Four months of glorious but secret passion had followed. Patrick had a rule that he never got involved with artists under contract, and could not bring himself to make this breach of his rules public. Lexie hadn’t been hurt by this, because in the wake of the hurt Cameron had caused, she wanted to be quite sure of her feelings before facing the inevitable inspection of friends and family. She wasn’t ready to deal with their hopes or expectations, or their criticisms. If they adored Patrick, her parents would adopt him as one of the family, and that would bring pressure of another kind. If they saw only the man who prided himself on self-control, and missed the tender person she knew to be inside, they might dislike him, and she could not bear that.

  Besides, there was something exciting about secrecy. Stolen moments behind closed office doors. Weekends in comfortable but anonymous guest houses in remote parts of the country. Covert glances and the swift locking of fingers – they had been thrilling.

  Whispered promises: ‘When the exhibition is over, if we still feel the same way…’

  It was hard not to think that her affair wit
h Patrick might have developed into the most important relationship in her life if she hadn’t withdrawn from the exhibition. Or rather, if Patrick hadn’t thrown a tantrum of magnificent order and, instead of supporting her decision, made a melodramatic renouncement of absolute finality.

  Since then, there had been nothing. She’d had neither the energy nor the spirit for the endless patience and relentless compromise a new relationship would demand.

  Her mother’s concern clearly ran deep.

  ‘I just wouldn’t want you to be hurt again,’ she said emphatically.

  Lexie smiled. Smiling was her main job this year, after all.

  ‘I know. I’m all right. Go and rest.’

  ‘Where’s he been, anyway?’

  ‘Cameron? A cruise ship, I believe.’

  ‘What?’

  Lexie laughed out loud at the look on her mother’s face.

  ‘Working. Go and lie down. I’ll fix the fish in a bit.’

  At the door, Martha turned.

  ‘Your father will want it the usual way, you know.’

  ‘Yes.’ Lexie’s lips were still twitching with amusement. ‘I know.’

  Chapter Four

  Catalogue number 6: Bamboo sandals worn by Robert McAndrew, prisoner of war at Hakozaki, Japan. Fashioned from bamboo, patched and mended with torn strips of cotton. Donor: Alice McAndrew, Hailesbank. ‘My father never spoke about his time at Hakozaki, but after his death we discovered these, and our hearts cracked.’

  The door on the half-landing was kept closed, because her mother treated this room like some sort of shrine. Nothing could be thrown out, or touched, or moved. It wasn’t likely to be, because Tom wouldn’t come near it, just as he wouldn’t talk about Jamie or his feelings about the accident. He had closed in on himself and, clam-like, pulled his shell tight. Nothing could reach him.

  When had she last been in here? Ages ago. Yet Lexie knew she had to go in, today more than any other. Coming to terms with Jamie’s death would be a long, slow process, but if they could work out why he got in the car that night, surely it would help them to understand?

  She stood outside the door, hesitating. She half turned away. She swung back. She raised a hand, dropped it to her side, and finally reached out and rested it on the doorknob. The polished wood felt cold and uninviting, but she ignored this slender defence. Going in would hurt no-one. She turned the handle.

  The door opened smoothly. There was no protest, not even a squeak.

  Lexie had forgotten how good this room was. It faced south, towards the back of the house and the main part of the garden, and it was above the kitchen, so it benefited from the extra warmth from the old Aga in the winter. The window looked down on the cherry tree, now lit by the late afternoon sun, and the pergola, where she and Jamie had played as children. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, leaning back so that her hands splayed against the wood.

  There they were. Two children, sitting on the floor, legs crossed, concentrating. Lexie could see them as plainly as the pattern on the carpet. They were playing cards.

  ‘Snap,’ an eight-year-old Jamie shouted triumphantly, slapping a card down. His hair was thick and brown and he was like a stick, all arms and legs and knobbly knees and elbows, but the competitiveness had been there, even then. Especially then. Jamie could never bear to lose at anything. ‘And I’m out.’

  Ten-year-old Alexa’s hair was so long she was sitting on it, the brown curls unruly. ‘That’s not fair, you cheated.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. How did I cheat?’

  ‘I don’t know. You must be hiding some cards. Shove over, you little toad, and let me look.’

  The card game descended into rough and tumble (as most games usually did) with Jamie winning, as ever.

  They’d had their share of sibling spats. Yet each argument now felt like an opportunity squandered. Lexie moved into the room, walked right through the spot where the children had once played and fought, and perched on the edge of the bed. Jamie’s presence was so strong that it was almost overwhelming. She’d hated his aggressiveness at the time, but that will to win had become a powerful tool in Jamie’s adult life. Had it been some weird, twisted kind of competitiveness that had killed him?

  You stupid idiot. Why didn’t you stop and think?

  When they’d been children, he’d teased her unmercifully – about the fact that she couldn’t climb a rope in the gym and because, even aged nine, she’d refused to conform to fashion. But he’d protected her too. Once, when she’d wandered across a road without looking, he’d sprinted five yards in a second and wrenched her to safety.

  ‘Don’t ever do that again!’ he’d yelled, furious and shaken. ‘Think! You could have been killed!’

  A year ago Jamie had climbed into a car, knowing he was drunk, and driven into the dark. It was out of character. What had been so important that it couldn’t wait?

  It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

  The sun was sinking below the trees and Lexie shivered. Something didn’t feel right. This room – neither up nor down – had once been a maid’s room. There was a modest fireplace on the far wall. In the recess to the right of the chimney breast stood a chest of drawers and, to the left, a wardrobe.

  She realised what was wrong. It should be messy. Jamie had never been tidy. She’d never been in here without seeing clothes strewn on the floor, a jersey here, some socks there. He’d left books and magazines open on the bed or the floor, drawers and doors ajar. She thought he’d probably been unaware of this – he’d quite simply always been more eager to get on, get out, get going than to take the trouble to tidy.

  Lexie slammed her fist into the bed. Cameron was right. Jamie’s death had been a waste.

  A small cloud of dust rose into the still air and a thousand motes drifted lazily back downwards, their progress backlit by the low sun. Lexie watched them abstractedly. Why would you put your life at risk? Why would you inflict such pain those who lived on?

  On the floor, something glinted. She bent to pick it up – a small gold butterfly scroll from an earring. Lexie didn’t wear gold, only silver, so it had to be her mother’s. She’d been in here, she realised, but she would never admit it. She dropped the clip into her pocket. She’d put it on Martha’s dressing table, but in a corner behind some pot, so that its discovery would be delayed a day or two and seem natural.

  A desire to protect each other had made them all secretive.

  Later, she washed the trout and patted them dry with kitchen roll. In the larder, she found potatoes and was staring at them considering the options – boiled, baked, chipped, creamed or grated and fried like rösti – when a noise at the window made her turn round.

  Someone was standing outside, trying to slide up the lower frame.

  Lexie froze, hands full of unwashed potatoes. All she could see was the top of a hat, dark green and rigid, shaped in asymmetric circles like terraces in a lawn, the sort of hat her grandmother might have worn in the 1950s. It bobbed and wobbled, while arms clad in something baby-blue wrestled with the frame.

  ‘What the—’

  The window shot up, wood scraping on wood. She and Jamie used to do that trick. There was a knack to it, even when the catch was closed. If you wiggled the frame in just such a way, the latch loosened then slipped, and a counter-intuitive shove and heave produced the desired effect.

  A thin voice said with satisfaction, ‘There. I knew it.’

  Now there was no glass between her and the figure, and she was being examined.

  ‘Hello, dear.’

  Wisps of hair escaping from the hat were as white and fine as best Brussels lace. The eyes were cloudy, as if age had already drawn a veil of time across them, but creased skin split into a toothless grin. The smile was so genuine, so lacking in artifice, that Lexie found herself starting to smile back.

  ‘Hello, dear,’ the woman said again.

  And to Lexie’s utter astonishment, she started to climb in.

 
With one leg in and the other still outside, age clearly got the better of intention. There was a high warble.

  ‘Oh bother. I’m stuck.’

  Lexie dropped the potatoes onto the table and crossed the kitchen in three strides. Behind her, the potatoes teetered and rocked, then headed inexorably for the edge of the table and rolled off, hitting the floor one by one. Thud. Bump. Thud.

  ‘Here. Take my hand.’

  ‘Thank you, Maud.’

  Maud? A second skinny leg hooked over the sill. Bemused, Lexie saw sheepskin slippers, brown and battered with a sad apology of wool round the top. The ankles disappearing into them were bony and veined and completely uncovered, the flesh tinged an alarming blue. There was surprising strength in the grasp on her hand, but Lexie tucked her other one firmly under a bony arm as a wobble threatened to become a totter. The baby-blue fabric might have been soft and fleecy once, but it had been washed to the point of extinction and plump fibres had thinned and flatted. Was it a dressing gown?

  The skeletal hand was cold. It was only April, and although the day had been pleasantly warm, the temperature was dropping fast now that the sun was low in the sky. Concerned, Lexie steered the woman to a chair by the Aga.

  ‘Here, sit down. You’re frozen.’

  ‘You get used to it, at my age.’ Cloudy eyes scanned the room. ‘You’ve moved the dresser.’

  ‘The dresser?’

  ‘By the door.’

  Lexie stared across at the door. There was no dresser. There never had been a dresser.

  Beside her, there was an explosion of laughter as the woman chortled at some memory.

  ‘Father was terribly cross about it, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Of course, Mother always got her own way.’ Another giggle.

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  The woman clucked impatiently.

  ‘The dresser, Maud. Don’t you remember? She said she’d buy it, and she did.’