Darling Sweetheart (23 page)

As they stood together, Annalise covertly compared Emerson to Proctor. It seemed that the actor was talking to an imperfect version of himself: Proctor was taller and younger, but Emerson took such care of his appearance that the age gap was not glaring. They both had the same build, but whereas Emerson was handsome and all-American, Proctor’s face looked lived-in, as if he were descended from a long line of heavy smokers. His hair had been coloured and brushed to sit the same way as Emerson’s, but at close quarters it was thicker and Annalise saw dark-blond roots. Emerson clapped a hand on the stuntman’s shoulder.

‘So you’re responsible for this stunt?’

Proctor nodded. ‘Yeah, pal.’

‘I’m not your pal. If Miss Palatine so much as gets a scratch on her pretty face, you’re fired from my movie, okay?’

A gasp went around the nearby crew and the other stuntmen muttered and stared at Emerson with contempt, but Proctor just smiled.

‘She’ll be fine – I promise.’

Roselaine de Trenceval looked over the heart-stopping precipice.

‘It is so far down,’ she panted, ‘I don’t think I can do it!’

Bernard de Vaux took her by the shoulders. ‘You must do it for your faith! Do it for your father!’

‘My father… my father!’

‘Don’t be afraid – I’ll be with you all the way!’ He lifted the rope, wrapped it around her waist, then embraced her with one arm and held the rope with the other. ‘Ready, men?’ A group of soldiers took the slack and braced.

‘Cut!’ shouted Tress. ‘Hold your positions please! Can we have Harry’s double, quickly!’ Proctor took Emerson’s place. He fixed a webbed harness around Annalise and used mountaineer’s clips to attach her to his harness and the steel cable. Tress spoke into his walkie-talkie. ‘David, stand by. They’re coming over.’

‘We’re ready,’ crackled the response. Lamb had a camera trained upward, at the base of the cliff.

‘Maria?’

‘We’re rolling.’ Kepecs and her crew were on the far side of the river to capture a vista of the tiny figures against the drop.

‘Okay, Sergio,’ Tress instructed his cameraman, ‘be sure to get Roselaine’s expression as she is lowered. Roselaine, you are looking up at your father’s castle, yes? This is the last time that you will ever see your home. So there is no fluffing, I need sadness and fear, yes? Sadness and fear. Action!’

Holding the fake hemp rope, Proctor and Annalise sat on the parapet then slipped into the void. Proctor kept his face averted as Palmiro leaned outward to film Annalise. To summon the requisite mixture of sadness and fear, she ignored Tress’s jibe about fluffing and thought about her parents, which did the trick. Two charge hands held a nylon strap attached to Palmiro’s waist to prevent the hefty cameraman from toppling. Another unit filmed the stunt-soldiers as they pretended to play the hemp rope out, while the winch truck slowly unwound the steel cable, lowering Proctor and Annalise down, down. When they were about
halfway, they stopped.

‘I think that’s a cut,’ Annalise eventually said. ‘Sergio’s pulled back, looks like we’re clear.’

‘Smoother than a baby’s bum.’ Proctor gave a relaxed grin. Dangling together on the cable, the two were body-to-body, nose-to-nose, like a couple on a dancefloor – only there was no dancefloor, just air beneath their feet. From this close, Proctor’s features seemed less haggard; there was something mischievous, almost cuddly about him. She pretended she couldn’t feel him up so close and made a show of looking around.

‘Nice view.’

To her left, the rock face was almost within touching distance, but below to the right lay the streets of Beynac and the sweeping, tree-lined bend in the river. A few insect-like tourists pointed upward and stared; the dying sun burnished everything with a brazen light.

‘Mind if I smoke?’ Proctor reached inside his tunic and came up with a lighter and the butt of a rolled cigarette, which he lit. She recognised the sweet smell instantly.

‘Is that dope?’

‘Want some?’ He offered her the glowing joint.

‘No!’

He took a deep drag. ‘I love the smell of hashish in the evening.’ She averted her face from the smoke. ‘If it’s a problem, I’ll put it out.’

‘No, it’s just… we’re halfway down a cliff!’

‘So if the cable snaps, I’ll die stoned with a beautiful woman on top of me. I can think of worse ways to go.’

She laughed. ‘You’re not from Glasgow…’ she tried to place his accent, ‘…Edinburgh?’

‘Place outside of Edinburgh called Kirkcaldy, no one’s ever heard of it. You’re London, right?’

‘Sort of.’

‘I didn’t think your boyfriend was going to let you do this.’

‘Oh, he’s just embarrassed about needing a stand-in – he musn’t like heights. And he’s not my boyfriend.’

‘Sorry, your fiancé.’

‘He’s not my fiancé either.’

‘So they’re wrong?’

‘Wrong?’

He glanced upward. ‘The cast of thousands. They’re all convinced you’re going to marry him. They read the papers too, you know.’

‘Oh well, if the papers say it, then it must be true.’

He laughed. ‘Are you telling me you’ve said no to Harry Emerson? To a life of total luxury and international stardom?’

She bristled. ‘So everyone thinks I’m a gold-digger, do they?’

‘Have you turned him down or not?’ But she didn’t answer, just gave a dry laugh. He flicked his stub away. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘What’s so funny is I’m dangling two hundred feet above the ground, but I’m still not safe from total strangers poking their noses into my private life. What is this? Are you trying to pump me for a story you can sell to the newspapers?’

Suddenly, the steel cable jerked and she instinctively grabbed hold of him, but then they began to rise. Flustered, she released him. She glanced upward. Emerson and two of the charge hands were peering down. Proctor waved; Emerson withdrew.

‘I’m not a snitch, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ He smiled. ‘Quite the opposite – I’m very good at keeping secrets. But I
was
pumping you.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ve been asked to give you a message.’

‘What? Who from?’

‘Can’t say, but the message is that marrying Harry Emerson would be the biggest mistake of your life.’

She was flabbergasted. ‘Who… who the hell do you think you are?’

‘Hey – it’s traditional not to shoot me.’

‘Did Tress tell you to say that?’ But Proctor put a finger to his lips. ‘Emerson!’ she guessed. ‘Harry sent you to…
test
me!’

‘My, you are paranoid.’ The cable stopped – they were level with the crew again.

‘Holly Spader!’ she guessed again.

‘Who?’

But before she could interrogate him further, powerful hands grabbed her and pulled her onto the rampart. Emerson immediately wrapped her in a blanket that he’d acquired from somewhere.

‘You okay, honey?’

‘For God’s sake, Harry – I’m fine.’

‘You’re paler than Caspar the friendly fuckin’ ghost.’

The crowd parted. She had insisted on doing the stunt precisely because she wanted everyone to see that she was her own woman, yet here she was, being led away like a wee wifey. She looked over her shoulder. Proctor stood with his fellow stuntmen, laughing and chatting. He winked at her.

‘So what was that all about, huh?’ Emerson steered her towards his trailer. His bodyguards converged around them.

‘Hmm?’ She lurched, feeling off-balance.

‘Arguin’ with me in fronta all those people?’

‘I need to lie down.’ She shrugged off the blanket, broke free of his grip and stumbled towards her own trailer.

‘Annalise! We need to talk!’

She opened her door. A perfumed wall hit her and she knew without looking that yet again, someone had filled her trailer with white roses. But for some reason her legs didn’t seem to be working very well. She grabbed the handrail and heard Emerson shout, ‘Holy shit!’, so she turned around to see his bodyguards run towards her, pulling guns from their jackets. The world went black even before she hit the grass.

‘Do you think she’s down there? Sounds like she’s watching TV.’

‘I’d say she’s asleep in front of it, smashed off her tits.’

Annalise and Froggy crept from the library to forage for food, but the babble of her mother’s television set echoed through the lower hallway from the little reception room where she spent most of her waking hours. They peered down the stone staircase, weighing up their chances of getting past unseen.

‘Let’s have a bet,’ Froggy said. ‘I bet you fifty million pounds that she’s comatose on cheap vodka and you bet me fifty million that she’s stone cold sober, watching a nice bit of afternoon telly before cooking us a lovely dinner, like a proper mother would.’

‘You shouldn’t make fun of her problems.’

‘It’s after midday; take my word for it – Mother’s wrecked.’

Annalise tiptoed down the great sandstone steps, past the altar on the return, the one with the spooky frog-headed statue on it. She slipped quickly across the hallway, down a corridor and into the kitchen. The big iron range, she was certain, had not been lit since Mrs Crombie had died. Empty cans, bottles and instant pasta packets littered the filthy work surfaces; the sink was hopelessly stacked with encrusted dishes, steeping in cold, particle-filled water. She shook her head at the awesome mess.

‘I really should clean up.’

‘Not clever,’ Froggy advised. ‘If you do, she’ll remember you’re here and come after us again.’

‘Hmm. Good point.’ She began opening and closing cupboards.

‘Errr… I hate to be a party-pooper, but what makes you think that mother has bought any food since we checked yesterday?’

‘I don’t know, I’m just famished!’

‘You’re wasting our time. You know what you have to do.’

‘But I’m sick of Brussels bloody sprouts!’

‘Tough cheese, ’cos that’s all there is.’

‘Please, don’t mention cheese. If we could find some loose change, maybe we could walk to the village shop.’

‘There
is
no loose change – we’ve found it all. Now hurry,
before she wakes up, or then we’ll have nothing.’

‘It’s not you that has to eat the bloody sprouts.’

‘So get yourself stuffed with synthetic foam, just like me.’

Sulkily, she let herself out the back door and trudged across the courtyard, around the side of the house towards the walled garden. She still wore her Doc Marten boots, tattered jeans and Oxfam overcoat, although her hair was a nightmare and she’d lost a lot of weight. Too much weight, she knew, because she hadn’t eaten properly in weeks.

Her mother had boarded most of the outhouses up with plywood, to deter youths from the village from prowling late at night. From the library window, Annalise had spent hours watching the bare woods at the bottom of the drive, but it was as if Whin Abbey was too depressing for even the most brazen yob to approach, by day at least. Or perhaps they were wary of her mother, which was understandable. As ever, the only sign of life was the smattering of little yellow buds across the ubiquitous whins.

She opened the door to the walled garden carefully; sopping black branches surrounded her and layers of mulch obliterated the path, but mother had been busy in other ways. Her temple at the fountain had become much more elaborate – it had acquired a roof, which tilted precariously on wooden poles. The fountain itself had been decorated with bits of broken mirrors, bottles and seashells, and a grotesque frog-headed statue now squatted on top – like everything else, it looked home-made. Strings and ropes hung from the fountain to distant points in the garden – suspended from these were pots, pans and copper pipes; indeed, anything that would make a noise when disturbed by the wind, or by someone, as Annalise had recently seen her mother do, running in circles and wailing incantations while striking the objects with a stick.

However, her mother did not seem to be at worship, so cowering beneath the insane geometry, Annalise made her way to
the northernmost wall, the one that caught the weak December sunshine. For here was further evidence of maternal industry – potato drills; stakes for runner beans; untidy, alien-looking fennel plants; crooked rows of Brussels sprouts and, incredibly, a few hardy lettuces. With a sigh, she tucked Froggy in her coat, pulled a plastic bag and a fork from her pocket and hunkered down to excavate her daily meal.

‘GOTCHA!’

A howling figure erupted from one of the compost bins – Annalise screamed and fell backwards on her bum.

‘DON’T FUCKIN’ MOVE OR I’LL SHOOT YA CLEAN DEAD!’

‘M…m…mother?’

The hollering nightmare was indeed her mother, twigs clinging to her hair, her stained nightdress plainly visible beneath her purple robe and – although she struggled with its weight – Darling Sweetheart’s old shotgun clenched in her hands.

‘Annalise? Is that you?’

‘Yes!’ she squeaked. ‘Don’t shoot!’

Her mother lowered the gun and rummaged in her folds, coming up with a pair of men’s reading glasses. From their thick, black frames, Annalise could tell that they had also belonged to her father.

‘Why, so it is! You look different – when did you get here?’ Annalise opened her mouth to answer, but her mother ploughed on. ‘Someone’s been stealing my vegetables,’ her tone turned angry, ‘those little thugs from the village, I expect.’ She patted the gun. ‘So I thought I’d surprise ’em! When did you say you got here? I thought you were in London!’

‘Mum, I’ve been home for nearly a month.’

‘Really?’ Her mother squinted, then grunting and using the gun for support, stepped out of the bin, compost falling all around her. Annalise, dreading to think what would happen if the gun went off, picked herself up. ‘You know,’ her mother continued,
‘you musn’t think of Whin Abbey as your home any longer, because it isn’t. Your father didn’t leave us a home… I take it you heard what happened? He’s dead, you know.’

‘Yes. That’s why I came… home.’

‘That silly little aeroplane of his! I never set foot in it and I was right not to!’ She shook the shotgun in the air like a foxhunting witch. ‘He left us nothing,’ now she aimed it at the house, ‘not even that bloody ruin of a place. I rang the solicitors and everything’s tied up, a right bloody mess they say it is. That’s how much he cared for us! A miserable bastard alive and a miserable bastard dead!’