Lost Innocence (49 page)

The answering silence stretched on long enough to make her want to shout at them to give her a break, but then to her surprise Nat said, ‘That’s great. So when’s he coming?’

Stunned into confusion, it took a moment for her to say, ‘Next Tuesday. I thought while you two were at the show with Rachel, I could brace myself for the worst and take him to the shop.’

‘Isn’t everything still packed up?’ Darcie said.

‘Yes, but…’

‘I know,’ Darcie broke in, ‘we should help you jimmy open the crates and set it up like a little show. We’ve got loads of white sheets upstairs that we can put over tables and boxes, and Nat can do some blurbs about each piece on the computer.’

‘I could design a brochure,’ he said, picking up the theme. ‘Do you know where the digital camera is so we can take some shots? We need some for your website anyway, so this could be the perfect opportunity.’

Amazed, and still not quite able to believe this was happening, Alicia said, ‘I’ve only got six pieces…’

‘That’s enough,’ Nat told her. ‘If we price them at four grand each and you sold only one…’

‘What?’
Alicia laughed. ‘I don’t sell them for that much. Nothing like.’

‘Then it’s time you did. Art is worth what someone will pay for it, and if you start low, so will they.’ Craig’s words to the letter.

‘But he’s not buying,’ she said, aware of the emotions swirling about inside her. This was starting to feel like the few other occasions she’d exhibited her work, when Craig and the children had thrown themselves into staging it all.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Nat told her. ‘It’s important to show that you value yourself. Darce, go and find the camera while I dig out something we can use as a crowbar.’

‘He’s not coming until Tuesday,’ Alicia reminded them.

‘That gives us three days to set up a private show to blow his mind,’ Nat decided, ‘come on, it’ll be like old times,’ and after planting a kiss on her forehead he took off to the shed to rummage through the tools, while Darcie went in search of the camera and Alicia fought back tears of guilt
for getting angry with them, and relief that she hadn’t let it show.

‘We’re getting damned good at this now,’ Craig declared, standing back to admire their handiwork after they’d finished setting up her third show. ‘I’m starting to think we could go into business.’

‘That would be so cool,’ Darcie agreed, clapping her hands, ‘but Mum’s the only artist we want to promote.’

‘Of course,’ he said seriously. ‘We’re very exclusive and only ever work with the best.’

‘Keep saying that,’ Alicia encouraged them. ‘I don’t care if you’re family, I’m ready to believe it.’

‘I’ve had a great idea,’ Nat piped up, ‘why don’t I write your reviews? I could sell them to a paper under another name and make some money.’

Laughing excitedly, Darcie said, ‘And I can be your publicist, keeping the paparazzi at bay.’

‘Excellent idea,’ Craig remarked approvingly, ‘and I shall be her umbrella carrier, because it’s belting down outside and we’re due in the restaurant in ten minutes for our pre-show dinner. Everyone ready?’

‘Yes,’ Nat and Darcie chorused.

‘Then go and find us a cab while I have a little smooch with our number one client.’

‘Oh yuk, gross,’ Darcie retorted, screwing up her nose.

‘You two are so embarrassing,’ Nat informed them, as Craig swept Alicia into a romantic embrace.

‘And you two are extra to requirements,’ Craig murmured against Alicia’s lips, ‘so hop it and get a cab.’

After they’d gone he kissed Alicia deeply, pressing his whole body to hers and seeming to wrap her in so much love that he made her feel like the most treasured woman alive.

‘How do you do that?’ she whispered as he pulled back to look at her, his dark eyes gazing lovingly into hers.

‘What?’

‘Make me feel so special after everything that’s happened.’ She swallowed. ‘Tomorrow I’ll be terrified again that you’re thinking of going back to her, but right now, I can actually believe you might still love me.’

His tone was dark with sincerity as he said, ‘I’ve always loved you, Alicia, from the day we first met. Nothing’s ever changed that, and nothing ever will. One day you’ll know that’s the truth and won’t doubt it any more.’

Alicia’s heart fluttered as she recalled that evening, and wished it was possible to replay memories like a film, so that Nat could remember it too, and hear what his father had said to her after he and Darcie had left the gallery that night.

She wouldn’t tell him how she’d then asked Craig if he’d switch off his mobile for the evening in case Sabrina called to ruin it all. He’d agreed, and had even given her the phone so she could be sure he wasn’t sneaking outside to check if there were any messages or texts. She’d dropped it into the bottom of her bag and they’d both forgotten about it until after he’d left for work the next morning, when he’d called from chambers to ask if she could take it to Knightsbridge Crown Court, where he was going to be all day. Inevitably, she’d turned the phone on, and had immediately felt sick with anger and dread to find two messages from Sabrina. The first was telling Craig that she’d be in London the following Wednesday, so could he please call to let her know if he was able to see her? The second gave details of the hotel she’d booked them into.

‘She does this all the time,’ he cried, when Alicia confronted him outside the court. He was wearing his wig and gown, and looked both impressive and frustrated. ‘Just delete them. She’s crazy. She thinks if she just turns up that I will too, but it’s not going to happen. I swear it.’

She’d believed him then, until he spent the night away from home the following Wednesday. In spite of calling the hotel near Winchester Crown Court and being put through to his room where he’d answered her call straight away, she’d had no way of knowing whether or not Sabrina was with him.

‘This is a
stupid
house, full of
stupid
people, in a
stupid
place,’ Annabelle seethed furiously.

‘Will you please keep your voice down,’ Sabrina hissed through her teeth.

‘Why? No one’s here.’

‘The staff speak English,’ Sabrina reminded her, ‘and I don’t appreciate being shouted at anyway. Now will you please do as you’re told?’

‘No! I don’t want to go to the Eden Roc for lunch, and that’s that. I hate it here. I want to go home.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t possibly hate this place. Look at it.’ The sheer luxury of Annabelle’s room was indeed breathtaking, with all its pale grey marble, copious mauve silk drapes and Louis Quinze-style bed, but it was only one small part of this palatial villa, secreted away in its own parkland garden on the western side of the Cap d’Antibes.

‘I don’t care what it looks like, I don’t want to have lunch with all those stuck-up people.’

‘Then come to the yacht later.’

‘No! Same people. And anyway, I get seasick.’

‘We didn’t even leave the port yesterday,’ Sabrina pointed out impatiently, ‘so how could it have made you feel sick?’

‘I don’t know. It just did, and I’m not going on it again.’

Sabrina was close to stamping a foot in frustration. ‘Honestly, most girls your age would give anything to be having a holiday like this,’ she fumed, allowing her temper to rise over all the fear and guilt bottled up inside her. She couldn’t deal with Annabelle and everything that had gone wrong between them while they were here, in someone else’s home. They needed to be good guests, appreciative of the honour being bestowed on them, and do everything they could to keep their skeletons hidden from view. There would be plenty of time, when they got back to Holly Wood, to give them an airing. ‘Why do you have to be so difficult?’ she asked plaintively. ‘I’ve really been looking forward to this holiday, and now you’re spoiling it…’

‘I didn’t ask to come,’ Annabelle shouted. ‘They’re your friends, not mine, and I hate them. They’re really up themselves…’

‘And you’re not, with this attitude?’

Annabelle’s eyes flashed, and sensing another explosion, Sabrina quickly said, ‘Look darling, I know you’re
worried about the case, we all are, but every time I bring it up …’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’
Annabelle seethed.

‘You see, you won’t discuss it. So why don’t we try to forget about it for a while and enjoy ourselves?’

‘I can’t just forget about it, you idiot. I was raped, OK? And if you don’t want your stupid friends to know, you shouldn’t have made me come here.’

Sabrina regarded her in overwhelming despair. She knew she was handling this badly, and had been ever since they’d arrived, but short of taking Annabelle home again, she was at a complete loss as to what to do with her. Struggling to keep the emotion from her voice, she said, ‘I haven’t brought you up to be rude about people and hostile like this. I’ve always taught you the proper thing to do, the right way to be…’

‘Oh yeah, you always get it right and proper, don’t you? Nothing you do is ever wrong. I don’t expect you even think having an affair was out of order. And it wasn’t just any affair, because you had to really go for it and pick on your sister-in-law’s husband. That makes you a great role model, doesn’t it?’

Sabrina’s face had turned white, her whole body was starting to shake. ‘What I did,’ she began, ‘the relationship between Craig and me …’ Suddenly she couldn’t go any further. The effort to hold everything back, the grief, the loss, the bewilderment and terrible sense of failure over Annabelle, came flooding so fast to the surface that she started to sob. ‘You have no idea what I’ve been through,’ she choked raggedly. ‘You seem to forget that I have feelings too, and the way you treat me …’ She grabbed a tissue from a box and blew her nose. ‘I’m trying to help you, don’t you realise that? I want us to be close again, but you keep attacking me – and to bring up the relationship I had with Craig, to throw it in my face like that … I loved him, Annabelle. It wasn’t just some sordid affair, the way you’re trying to make out. We meant everything to one another, and now we’ll never be together, so how do you think that makes me feel?’

Annabelle’s face was strained and confused. ‘Why don’t
you just go and join your friends?’ she said bitterly. ‘I’m staying here, and if you start arguing again, I swear I’m going to run out on to that balcony and jump off.’

Sitting where he was, further along the same balcony, outside his and Sabrina’s room, Robert couldn’t hear everything that was being said, but enough was reaching him for him to get the gist. She and Annabelle had been struggling dreadfully with one another almost as soon as they’d arrived, so he’d more or less been expecting the showdown – however, he hadn’t considered how revelatory it might prove. Though he’d known Sabrina was grieving for Craig, he’d evidently been blinding himself to the extent of her grief, or he simply hadn’t wanted to see it. However, this time, instead of the old wounds opening up with the same bitter and dull pain of rejection and fear of losing her, the way they usually did at any mention of his brother-in-law, he was finding himself far more concerned about Annabelle and how the continuing strain of it all was starting to affect her now.

Hearing Sabrina coming into the room, he gave it a few moments, then put his book down and went back inside. He wasn’t surprised to find her in the bathroom repairing her make-up. She’d need to hurry now to join the others for lunch.

‘Are you ready?’ she asked his reflection as he came to stand in the door.

‘You go,’ he said, ‘I’ll stay here with Annabelle.’

Though her eyes showed a moment’s unease as she realised he must have overheard the row, she covered it quickly as she said, ‘She’s a teenager, everyone will understand if she doesn’t come, but if you don’t it’ll just look rude.’

‘You can tell them I have to make a phone call for work, or that I have a headache.’

She turned round to face him, looking nervous and very unsure of herself. ‘Would that be the same headache as the one you’ve had several nights in a row?’ she asked hoarsely.

Knowing she didn’t really want to get into his reluctance to make love to her now, he simply said, ‘Go and join the others.’

‘Robert, I …’ She was so close to breaking down again that her words were swallowed by a gulf of emotion, and she quickly pressed her fingers to her lips to try to stifle a sob.

Reaching for her, he hugged her to him, and kissed the top of her head, trying to give her some reassurance, while knowing that he needed to sort out what was going on in his own mind before he could talk to her about what was, and wasn’t, starting to happen between them.

‘I’ll stay here, if you want me to,’ she whispered, looking up at him with misty eyes.

He shook his head. ‘No, you go and enjoy yourself,’ he said, and kissing her briefly on the cheek he left her to return to reassembling her mask of total happiness and fulfilment, while he went in search of Annabelle.

It was two thirty on Tuesday. Rachel’s husband, David, had come to collect Nat and Darcie half an hour ago, only minutes before Cameron had turned up with Jasper. Alicia was now playing with the dog at the front of the shop, unable to bear witness to Cameron’s scrutiny of her work in the back.

Between them Nat and Darcie had made a great job of turning the studio into a trendy-looking mini gallery, covering everything with crisp white bed sheets, and borrowing a black filigree three-fold screen from Mimi to mask the boiler and sink. Mimi had also provided some trailing greenery to help with the decor, and to Alicia’s amazement, Nat and Darcie had managed to dig out some old photos of her in the process of creating her pieces to scatter around the place (though in truth, in her welding helmet, flame-resistant coat and heatproof gloves, the artist at work could have been anyone). Shots of her moulding plasticine to form the bronze element of the pieces, however, were much more obviously her, but not particularly flattering, if the truth be told.

The sculptures themselves had each been allocated a stand of some sort, anything from a packing case to an upturned flower pot to a pile of bricks that might topple at any moment, all carefully disguised by the minimalist robing
of white cotton sheets. The order of viewing Nat had provided in the brochure he’d printed off that morning was 1)
Alligator Shoes
; 2)
Darcie Dreaming
; 3)
Bird in the Hand
; 4)
Ballerina Blues
; 5)
Snail Mail
; 6)
Wedding Night.