Kiss and Tell (117 page)
Appearing at last in the doorway, Alexandra looked quite extraordinary in an orange and purple kaftan, her skin tanned deep walnut and her neat, shiny bob now pure white. She was slimmer than ever.
‘Caught dysentery in India. Great for the figure,’ she explained, rushing forward to embrace her daughter. ‘Tash, sweetheart, you feel like you’ve had a bout of it too – there’s nothing to you.’ She stooped to gather up her grandchildren. ‘My lovely Cora – and Amery! We meet at last. My goodness, you are so handsome!
Just
like your father.’
Tash burst into tears.
Striding out of the house behind his wife, Pascal had been about to bear down on his favourite stepdaughter with kisses and Gallic bonhomie, but faced with a vision of wailing heartache he abruptly diverted his welcome towards the children, whom Alexandra swiftly handed into his care. The ultimate double act, they communicated with just a brief exchange of nods so that Pascal swept the disoriented toddlers away with promises of chickens, geese and ponies to admire, while Alexandra ushered Tash into the house for a strong drink and more hugs.
‘What is it, my darling?’
As the enormity of her messy marriage struck her afresh, Tash found she couldn’t even begin to explain. Instead, she hid behind cliché. ‘I’m just tired,’ she said lamely. ‘You’re even harder to pin down in France than you are when you were globe-trotting.’
It had been a nightmarish journey, with the car breaking down just outside Caen, forcing her to book into a hotel for two nights while the mechanic ordered parts. There, she found she’d left her BlackBerry at home with her address book stored on it and so couldn’t ring around her mother’s many numbers to find out whether they had arrived back in France and if so where they were, and her calls to Hugo seemed destined to be answered by a machine. When she’d finally got hold of somebody in Pascal’s office who knew the d’Eblouirs’ whereabouts, she was told that they were in Paris, Marsailles
and
the Loire, which hardly helped.
‘Polly wanted to stay on in Paris after we landed, but I was desperate to see this place again,’ Alexandra explained, hugging her again. ‘Darling Pascal had to fly down to the coast to see his mother – she’s almost a hundred now, you know. But he’s back now and you found us, so we must celebrate being together.’ Alexandra
filled two small sherry glasses with clear liquid from an unmarked brown bottle. ‘Jean’s
eau de vie
. You remember him?’
Tash nodded; nobody could forget Le Manoir’s ancient retainer, now widowed and living in the village with his large family, most of whom still worked for the d’Eblouirs. The drink was pure fire, but at least it scorched some much-needed colour into her cheeks and warmed her belly.
They settled in the Blue Room at the back of the house, which years ago Tash had helped decorate as an impoverished art school student, with little
trompe l’oeil
streaks of cirrus crossing the cerulean plaster ceilings. Now she had no such blue-sky thinking she wanted to grab a stepladder to add thunderclouds and the odd flash of lightning.
‘Will Hugo be joining us this week?’ Alexandra settled beside her as she gazed into space.
Tash said nothing, listening to the spaniels snuffling around underfoot and the lone cockerel patrolling on the highest terrace crowing outside the windows. Pascal had taken the children into the garden below now and little chatters and giggles indicated an
entente cordiale
. Hearing them, she started to cry again.
‘Oh sweetheart.’ Alexandra drew her daughter’s head beneath her chin and stroked her hair. ‘I shouldn’t have gone away so long. I might have guessed you’d get in a terrible pickle.’
‘I must c-call h-him.’ Tash straightened up eventually. ‘W-would you and Pascal mind looking after the children for just a little bit longer?’
‘Of course.’ Alexandra patted her knee. ‘We’ll talk later. Come and find us in the garden when you’re ready.’
Tash went next door to Pascal’s book-lined study and dialled Hugo’s mobile, her heart ratcheting its way up into her mouth when she heard him answer.
‘We’re here,’ she managed to croak. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine.’
The silence between them stretched on. She could hear music in the background and someone complaining loudly that the bridle numbers were missing before apologising when he realised Hugo was on the phone.
‘Is that Rory?’
‘He’s lending a hand. We’re at Knotton Manor.’
Tash chewed her lip. A year earlier the big Leicestershire trials
had been the British Olympic team’s final run. Heavily pregnant with Amery, Tash and Cora had gone to cheer Hugo on. They’d all camped in the horsebox, a supportive, happy little unit. Twelve months on, she could hardly believe they were the same family. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Not great,’ he admitted.
Another voice was talking in the background now, a booming female tenor, demanding to know whether the call was from Tash. ‘Give the phone to me
now
, Hugo.’
There were several tussling, thudding sounds and then, to her horror, Tash found herself on the end of the line to her mother-inlaw, who spared no time or rod in waging an attack. ‘I thought better of you, Natasha. D’you know how selfish it is swanning orff on holiday at a time like this? We need you. I had to cancel a bridge evening to come here.’ She ignored Hugo’s protests that he hadn’t even asked her along. ‘You must come home
at once
. D’you know how bad this looks for Hugo? All he did was fondle a pretty girl at a party. Now you’ve gorn it looks so much worse. Show some bloody backbone and stand by your man. If you can’t toughen up, God help you when you find out about any others.’
At this point Hugo managed to wrench the phone from his mother and there was a lot of background movement as Rory escorted Alicia out of the horsebox for some fresh air. When he came back on the line, he was obviously alone. ‘Sorry about that.’
Tash ran her fingers along the carved scrollwork of Pascal’s desk. ‘What does she mean by “others”?’
‘I have no idea. She’s gone quite mad since you left. When are you coming home?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Call me when you are.’ He rang off.
It was hardly the conversation Tash had hoped for, but she supposed it was better than the screaming row they risked if they’d continued any longer. He had a competition to win, and she had children to feed. She was too weary to fight.
As soon as she’d fed, bathed and settled Cora and Amery in the little tower rooms that her nephews and nieces had traditionally occupied during family holidays, Tash fell straight into bed in the Salle Orchidée, one of the prettiest rooms in Le Manoir, nervous exhaustion pitching her into the blackest of deep sleep.
Far beneath her, Alexandra and Pascal debriefed in the kitchens, sharing a candlelit supper of globe artichokes and garlic butter washed down with a bottle of local rosé. Pascal loved to cook; food was his great passion after wine and love.
‘She would not eat,’ he complained in French, always highly offended if somebody spurned his fabulous fare. ‘She said she was too tired.’
‘She is,
chéri
– it’s exhausting travelling alone with children of that age, but I am glad she came. We should not have been away so long. Of all my children, I could have guessed Tash would be first to welcome me home.’
‘I think there is more to it than that.’ Pascal had seen Tash’s haunted face that day. ‘I think she is running away.’
‘Oh, I’m sure of it,’ Alexandra agreed.
Tash had always been notoriously difficult to open up, bottling things up for months and sometimes years. It was a family trait. There had been secrets stuffed in the cupboards and swept under the carpets of Benedict, her childhood home, since she was born, so it was hardly surprising she’d picked up on the habit. Sometimes Alexandra wished that she’d been more open with her children, had been a stronger character and a better mother, but she had little hope of redressing that now – apart from to do everything in her power to prevent the same legacy befalling Cora and Amery. She had a plan.
‘Tomorrow we will all relax together,’ she told Pascal. ‘Then you must go travelling again, my darling.’
‘But I have only just unpacked my walking boots and my Deet.’
‘Oh, you won’t need those,
chéri.
Just a raincoat and an umbrella. You’re going to England.’
At Knotton Manor, Rory and Alicia took shelter in the Moncrieffs’ horsebox and gratefully accepted cups of tea.
‘Hugo’s pretty exploshive this evening,’ Rory apologised, grimacing as he slurred his words. ‘He needs to shimmer down for a bit.’
‘Just like his father.’ Alicia looked wistful. ‘I’ve told him to go and fetch Tash back, but he’s got Henry’s stubborn bloody pride, too. When we were first married, and living in Kenya, I once wandered into in the bush alone and was trapped there for three nights before
he came looking for me because he thought I’d gone orff to sulk, whereas in fact I’d got caught in a poacher’s trap. I was lucky to survive, quite frankly. I loved Kenya – such wonderful years.’
‘Has Tash got in contact?’ Penny settled down beside them at the cramped table with a box of fresh cream éclairs, berry eyes eager for news.
Rory nodded. ‘She’s in France, apparently.’
‘Poor Tash.’ Penny looked worried. ‘She must be in such a state.’
Alicia let out a deep sigh and stroked Beefeater, who was curled up on her lap. ‘Always was a lightweight, although I’m frightfully fond of the gel. What did Hugo think he was doing, groping a groom? His father didn’t start doing things like that until his sixties.’
Penny and Rory exchanged glances. Alicia was in fact a lot more upset by recent events than she let on, hence her recent haranguing Tash on the phone. She’d insisted on coming along to Knotton Manor because she hated being left alone at Haydown with her family so shattered. But she’d had rather too many toots from her hipflask that evening, making her unpredictable and malicious. Now she fixed Penny with a beady look. ‘Where’s your chap?’
‘Checking the horses.’
Alicia’s faded blue eyes softened amid their heavy veils of creased skin. ‘You’re lucky there. He’s got a bit of class. Told Hugo as much: “At least Gus Moncrieff is shafting the daughter of an ambassador – any wife would turn a blind eye to that”.’ She fed Beefy a piece of her éclair and beamed across at her.
Penny carefully set her cup of tea back down on the table. With great effort she returned Alicia’s smile and turned to Rory, who was staring fixedly at the old calendar pinned to the wall, cheeks colouring.
‘Four weeksh to go until Burghley!’ he said brightly.
‘Who exactly knows?’ she breathed in an undertone so low that Alicia, who was going deaf, couldn’t possibly hear.
‘Everyone,’ he whispered back, mortified for her.
But Penny was made of sterner stuff. When Gus finally joined them, looking flustered and shifty, his hair on end and his shirt buttons done up the wrong way, she offered him an éclair. Then she picked up a knife.
‘Imagine this is your cock,’ she hissed, slicing the pastry neatly into two lengthways, and then making three more divisions widthways. ‘If you go anywhere near Lucy Field again, it
will
be your cock.’
Turning pale, Gus didn’t touch his éclair. Alicia was only too happy to snaffle it up.
‘Delicious! I must get Tash to put these on my grocery order when she gets back. Lord, I hope she gets back soon. I’ll run out of fags, and who else is going to put on my bets for me? I was thinking of getting an au pair, but apparently most of them don’t speak fluent English, which is such a bore.’
‘I hear the Ladbrokes website is very good,’ Penny told her brightly, laying the knife back down. ‘And Ocado deliver whenever you like. You just need a laptop and you’re away.’
‘Marvellous.’ Alicia wiped choux pastry from her lips. ‘Can one hire in staff to work one’s laptop?’
Dillon loved the drive up to Scotland with Pom and Berry. It felt so normal and fatherly to sing songs in the car, play I-Spy and number-plate snap, although he was less keen on the service stations with their uniform bad food and over-priced shops. Getting recognised was always a pain, the camera phones angled towards him, the elbow-nudging conversations about him as though he was still on a television screen and unable to hear them.
Not that he was recognised much on this trip, not even when he forgetfully signed himself in with his real name to the rather bleak Northumberland guest house they stayed in overnight to break up the journey. Now tipping the scales at two hundred and twenty pounds with long hair and beard, his kids had nicknamed him Hobo. Certainly his ex-wife’s aunt, a strict Presbyterian who thought her niece’s acting life debauched, couldn’t wait to get him off her front step and away, gathering in the little girls like evacuees from a war zone.
The return journey was not enjoyable at all. Dillon hadn’t wanted to let them go for a week in Scotland in the first place, but Fawn insisted that they must stick to their routine, and his management were still eager to send him to St Croix with Sylva.
The situation was like a bad joke, and one he stewed over for
many motorway miles. He hadn’t seen her once during his week in the Cotswolds, despite various texts promising she’d ‘pop by for a chat’. He’d seen her children – all three of them, it now transpired – arriving to play with Pom and Berry. They had been accompanied by the quiet, stern Hana, who maintained so much dignity despite the tabloid revelations in recent days, with her ex-husband appearing out of the woodwork to claim that Sylva had paid them to raise her daughter and that this cuckoo child had wrecked their marriage. Dillon didn’t believe it for a moment. One only had to see Hana with Zuzi to realise that the two were utterly and unconditionally bonded by love, and Zuzi was certainly one of the best-adjusted kids he’d ever come across. ‘My mother says that honesty is always best,’ she’d told him this week. ‘She says a good conscience makes a soft pillow.’
Dillon wondered how Sylva was sleeping at night. He certainly wasn’t; even West Oddford had failed to bring him its usual solace. Now that he had no children around, no fun chatter to accompany him everywhere and no chance of any more playdates with Zuzi and Hana, he was reluctant to rush back to the farm. It was harvest, usually his favourite time, but his heart was restless and, instead of heading towards Birmingham to pick up the M40 he stayed on the M1 to the London Orbital, tempted to head for Notting Hill to see his sister Kat, who always cheered him up. He stopped at London Gateway services to refuel and call ahead, but when she answered her mobile Kat told him she was in Ibiza.
