Darling Sweetheart (13 page)

Lucy Goddard resembled neither of her parents. She had long, blonde hair, almond eyes, wide cheekbones and a small mouth. She was slender, yet developed for her age. Annalise felt like a peasant before her, plump and out of proportion, her face
still childish, her hair a mess and her clothes a profound source of shame. When her father introduced them in the immense kitchen-conservatory at the rear of the house, Lucy had simply looked Annalise over the way the farmers sized up cows in Kilnarush Market Square and said, ‘Good. You’re tall.’

‘You two will be great friends,’ her father had grinned, ‘great friends.’

Lucy had raised an eyebrow; Annalise wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

The real reason for the new arrangement, Lucy explained the following day, was that Lucy had never made any friends at school. That certainly resonated with Annalise. In a matter-of-fact manner, Lucy also explained that she had been caught with a bag of grass in her sock drawer, and not the sort of grass that grows in Hyde Park (whatever that meant). Apparently Geoffrey and Monica – she called her parents by their Christian names – had decided that a sister-figure was just what Lucy needed, and how timely that their good friend David Palatine should also require a surrogate home for his daughter. Only seven months lay between her and Lucy, although to Annalise it felt more like seven years.

Lucy lived by a strict set of rules – her own. Her first rule was that all her other rules had to be obeyed. As long as Annalise did exactly what Lucy told her to, life would be ‘sweet’. Lucy would sort her out: bring her to all the right shops and buy her all the right clothes. Then, she might get to meet all the right people. Gratefully and without hesitation, Annalise complied.

Over the following months, Annalise found that ‘all the right people’ inhabited the nightclubs of Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grove, Hammersmith and Camden. She herself had had no friends at her former schools in Ireland because she had been bullied; Lucy had no friends at Broken Cross because she regarded her fellow-students with complete contempt. They were all, she said, ditsy fucking airheads; bankers’ daughters, most of
them, and banker rhymed with wanker. They were worse than their mothers, always crapping on about their skiing holidays in Klosters and their gymkhanas in fucking Kent. I mean, who wants to spend their weekends in fucking Kent, when the real fun was happening in town?

The school uniform for Broken Cross was a white blouse with a green-and-black tartan skirt, white knee socks and black shoes. Lucy wore her skirt turned up as far as she could get away with, her blouse a size too small and always with the wrong-coloured bra underneath.

Her second rule was ‘don’t get caught’. The bag of grass, she said, had been the exception that proved that rule (whatever that meant). She’d been minding it for a friend – a dealer, of course – but when Monica found it she had lied and said it was for personal use, as the truth would have caused much more trouble. Annalise being tall was good because, with a bit of work, she could pass for much older. Fifteen can be eighteen if you’re smart about it, and if you’re eighteen, female and good-looking, then London can be yours.

A year later when, under Lucy’s expert tutelage, Annalise was no longer quite the neophyte she had been upon her arrival in London, her father invited the two of them for a summer break on his yacht, which was moored at Nice. Lucy jumped at the opportunity ‘to lie naked in front of all those handsome crew – I bet they’re French and know exactly where to get good coke in Nice’. As ever, she was right. But the eye-opener for Annalise, the moment when she finally realised that her father was not the man she still fondly imagined him to be, came about a week into their stay.

They’d been out on the town, first to a restaurant on the harbour, then to a string of nightclubs along the Promenade des Anglais. Her father had really looked the biz with his white suit and a glamorous young girl on each arm; they, in turn, had been
dazzled by the fawning recognition he had received everywhere he’d gone. It had all been innocent fun, if rather drunken. The next morning, Annalise had slept late to get over her hangover and had crawled up from her cabin at midday, wearing a swim-suit and a blouse. The stairs emerged onto a covered deck, which overlooked a sun deck at the rear of the boat. She heard her father’s voice and glanced over the railings. What she saw made her freeze. Directly below, Lucy lay on a lounger, wearing only bikini bottoms and shades. Her father was crouched over her, his bald patch showing. His hand was on her stomach. He said, ‘Come on, she’s not awake, she’ll never know.’ He tried to slip his fingers under Lucy’s bikini bottoms. Lucy giggled and slapped his wrist, but not too hard. He withdrew, but only slightly, then said, ‘We can go to my cabin; she’ll never know.’

Stifling a scream, Annalise fled back to her own cabin. She had just enough presence of mind to leave her door open, in case they tried to sneak downstairs. God knows it wasn’t the first time Lucy Goddard had let an older man touch her, but this was her father! He was feeling up the only female friend she’d ever made! Was that why he’d arranged for her to live in Kensington? So that, one day, he could stick his hand down Lucy Goddard’s knickers? A wave of revulsion swept through her, but she had no one to turn to, so she just lay on her bunk feeling sick.

She was sullen for the rest of the holiday and insisted on leaving two days earlier than planned, much to the annoyance of both Lucy and her father who never – as far as she could tell – actually did anything. But she couldn’t relax; every noise on the boat sounded like a headboard banging against a wall, every joke her father cracked became a filthy chat-up line. The night before they left, she burst into tears at the open-air dining table. She refused to explain herself to a puzzled Lucy – what an actress Lucy had been – and her father exploded, calling her an irrational, ungrateful, sodding little bitch.

When they left the yacht the following morning, he didn’t
come out of his cabin to say goodbye, but as they went ashore on the motorboat, she spotted him on the covered deck. He was watching them, but when she waved, he didn’t wave back.

And that was the last time she saw him. Three months later, she and Lucy were no longer friends and Darling Sweetheart was dead.

She woke up in a cabin. For a moment, she thought she was on her father’s yacht, but there was a loud drone, a pressure in her ears… she was in the bedroom of Emerson’s private jet. She’d shut herself away before take-off, so that Levine and the pilots wouldn’t see her cry. She had expected to cry more but, instead, had set to thinking about Jimmy and must have dozed off. Now she lay spreadeagled on the duvet, staring at the padded ceiling.

When had Jimmy’s teenage-groupie thing started? Recently, with the tour? Or perhaps before, when he’d moved to Camden? Or earlier still, when Driscoll had become his manager? Driscoll was a sleaze, she knew that much instinctively. Perhaps he was using Jimmy as bait, prowling the audience during gigs, targeting likely candidates and saying things like, ‘Heyyy, doll, how would you and your friends like to party with the band?’ The kind of proposal Lucy would have leapt at, and often did. Don’t you know who I am? said the rock star to the fly. We can go to my cabin; no one need ever know. It occurred to her that she should tell the police about what she had seen, but she felt paralysed by fear; imagine the headlines if that story got out.

The jet thumped the runway and her body pressed down on the bed. She peeked through an oval window – the sky was cloudy, but she was back in France.

It was after eight that evening when they finally reached Beynac. Once again, the main street was packed with gawking tourists and drunken extras. Levine edged the car through the crowd then turned down Rue de L’Ancienne Poste. Peering anxiously
over his shoulder, she spotted them at the same time as he did: four men, smoking cigarettes, stood opposite the gate of her apartment building.

‘Photographers!’ they cried together. Levine revved the engine.

‘No!’ she ordered, ‘don’t! If you drive away fast, they’ll chase us! Just go past slowly.’

‘But Miss Palatine, H.E. said if there was any more trouble, I was to take you straight to his place.’

‘I don’t mean to be snotty, but the package wants to be alone.’

The car slid past the men, who flashed off a few shots regardless, but they could see nothing through the darkened glass.

‘So whaddya wanna do?’

She looked out the rear window – the paparazzi watched the car intently but did not follow. Three motorbikes were parked where they stood.

‘Go to the end of the street, turn round, then swing back again. But this time, stop in front of them.’

‘Are you tryin’ to get me fired?’

‘No, I’m trying to get home to the privacy of my apartment.’

‘They gonna get you!’

‘Stop, and they’ll rush me, but I won’t get out. Instead, drive off again, back to the main street. Hopefully they’ll chase us, but if we’re quick enough, I can jump out and you can draw them away – take them on a nice long drive around the countryside. Wouldn’t you like that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come on, these bastards cost you a night’s sleep and put me in that bloody newspaper – let’s get some revenge here.’

Levine grinned. He turned the car around as she suggested and cruised back up the street. Exactly as she had predicted, when he halted at her building, the photographers ran around to get a clear shot of her door, which she opened, then slammed
again. Levine mashed the accelerator and the powerful jeep sped off. In a panic, the paparazzi scrabbled to mount their motorbikes. When Levine reached the main thoroughfare, he had to slow for the crowds, but as he turned the corner, she had time to hop out.

‘Hey,’ she said, ‘thanks.’

‘Go, girl! Get outta here!’ Motorbike engines screamed behind them. She stepped nimbly into a shop and watched through the window as the paparazzi wrestled their machines through the tourists, trying to follow the black Range Rover down towards the river. When they disappeared from view, she bought a litre of water, a bottle of dry white wine and a packet of Marlboro Lights and then walked home along the now-empty street.

The smell hit her the instant she opened her apartment door. Sweet white roses: a bunch on the coffee table, one in her bedroom and another in the kitchen.

‘Bloody fucking… bloody…’

She slammed her provisions down, seized the bouquet from the table and, swearing incoherently, opened the balcony door and flung it off. It landed in the garden, which belonged to the ground-floor flat, and the other two bunches followed. Her hands were crisscrossed with scratches from the thorns but she was so angry, she didn’t feel them. After the bloody day she’d had! Who the hell was invading her private space with flowers she didn’t want? It wasn’t Emerson – or so he said – and Jimmy had never sent her a flower in his self-centred sodding life… She rummaged through her handbag for her mobile phone, before recalling that she’d thrown it away. She grabbed the apartment’s landline and tore through a local directory until she found the number she wanted. Hotel Duchesse, Sarlat.

‘Bonsoir. M’sieur Tress, s’il vous plaît.’

‘Oui, ne quittez pas…’

An extension rang.

‘’Allo?’

‘Peter, it’s Annalise.’

‘Annalise! How are you?’

‘You don’t happen to know how a ton of bloody roses ended up in my apartment, do you?’

‘I am sorry, but can you repeat that?’

‘White roses, in my flat – did you put flowers in my apartment? And in my trailer, the day before yesterday?’

‘Uhh… you are asking if I have sent you flowers?’

‘Yes.’

‘You would like flowers? You are angry because I do not send you flowers?’

‘No, I’m… God, sorry. Look, someone’s bothering me with flowers and I thought it might be you. I’m sorry, I’ve had a rotten day.’

‘What is wrong? Where were you this afternoon? Harry said that you needed a break – something in a newspaper that upset you?’

‘Yes. Something this morning… Jesus, it seems like last week. I shouldn’t have missed filming today. I apologise, it was deeply unprofessional of me. What time do you need me in the morning?’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. No. I’m not okay, but I will be by tomorrow. Six-thirty on set?’

‘Only if you are okay…’

‘I’m fine! What are we shooting tomorrow?’

‘We are set up for the rescue – if you feel ready for it.’

‘But what about the night scene in the forest and the interior scene I didn’t finish with Robin?’

‘We will try both again soon. Emerson is keen on action scenes at present – he is in a very boisterous mood. Are you sure that you are okay?’

‘Yes!’

‘We could have dinner, if you like. It would be nice to talk.’

‘Thanks, but some other time, I really couldn’t tonight. See you in the morning.’ She hung up. There was blood on the receiver from the scratches on her hands. She went to the bathroom and held them under the cold tap. The mirror made her eyes look big; her eyelids were puffy and rimmed with red.

She was playing by the duck pond when she heard the noise. The duck pond was in the cobblestone courtyard behind the house. Mr Crombie said it was fed by a stream. The stream fed the pond and she fed the ducks with her breakfast crusts every morning. Mrs Crombie was watching her from the kitchen window. She said the duck pond was too shallow for Annalise to come to harm, but you should always watch children around water anyway. Once, Annalise had walked out into the middle and overflowed her Thundercats wellies and Mummy had been cross and smacked her.

The crusts were all done and she was watching the boy ducks chase the girl ducks across the pond. It didn’t seem right that the boy ducks were lovely colours and the girls were just brown, but Mrs Crombie said wasn’t it lucky that people were the other way round.

The noise came suddenly and was very loud, like a tractor, but there was nothing in the yard except her and the ducks. Then she looked up and an aeroplane blocked out the sky then it was gone again. She started to run. Mrs Crombie shouted out the window for her to wait, but she pretended not to hear and ran down the muddy lane behind the sheds, through the gooseberry bushes and into the back garden. Hens scolded as they flapped out of her way. She jumped into the meadow and ran along the grass tunnel she’d made just in case. Mr Crombie had laughed at her tunnel, but the grass and the meadow flowers were higher than her head, so it had definitely been a good idea.