Love on the Rocks (12 page)

Afterwards, Bruno felt paralysed. He couldn’t tell where his grief finished and the guilt began. The two emotions churned together in an endless cycle that tortured him from the moment he woke up. To his shame, he took the coward’s way out. Jettisoning all the plans he had made, he couldn’t face staying in Mariscombe, with the ghost of his brother taunting him at every turn. He swiftly arranged managers for all his business interests, left the house he had just bought in preparation for his return locked and empty, and slunk back to London.

He should never have been so harsh and so judgemental with Joe. He should have recognized his vulnerability in that small moment when his brother had tried to open up and confess. But Bruno hadn’t wanted the responsibility of being in the wrong. He could have given Joe his support, some encouragement, even just listened. But no, he had chosen to believe the swaggering bravado and not look underneath. He’d taken the easy way out.

Would it really have hurt him that evening to sit down and talk to his brother? Have a real heart-to-heart? Dig a little deeper and find out if there was some ambition lurking there? No. He’d chosen to kick him down. He’d rubbed his brother’s nose in his own success and crowed over him without a hint of compassion. Bruno had no idea how it felt to be a failure, a misfit, a black sheep. He hadn’t had the grace to step down off his platform, come down to Joe’s level and listen for just five minutes. Because he’d had a train to catch. He felt entirely responsible for his brother’s death. He’d driven him to drink, he’d left the keys on the table, he’d swiped away any self-esteem Joe might have had in order to feed his own self-importance.

Self-importance which had swiftly metamorphosed into self-loathing.

To the outsider, Bruno functioned. He went back to work, his decision-making ability seemingly unaffected, and for eight hours in the day he was able to displace his grief temporarily. But outside the office, the pain was intolerable. There was no distraction. Food was tasteless, like sawdust in his mouth. Drink was bitter. Music was a white noise that drove him demented; television filled with talking heads issuing meaningless drivel he couldn’t begin to follow. His relationship didn’t survive. His girlfriend, Serena – sharp, clever, glacial on the outside but buttersoft at heart – insisted she could wait, but Bruno insisted on releasing her from the bond of her relationship with him. Sex was out of the question – not just physically, but because he knew he couldn’t cope with the emotional intensity. And sleep provided no escape. In the end, Bruno had to resort to sleeping tablets, for he felt sure he could feel insanity approaching. It was either that or drink himself into oblivion. For nearly two years, he operated on autopilot, accepting that his torture was in some way his atonement.

Today, however, as he looked down at the hotel, he felt a little prickle of something that bordered on optimism, a little shoot of green after an endless winter. And this time he didn’t try to suppress it. He’d wallowed about in negativity for long enough. Guilt was self-indulgent. And one thing was certain – it wasn’t going to bring Joe back.

He called Hector and together they walked out of the graveyard back into Higher Mariscombe, following the road back up past the Mariscombe Arms, then turned off down the winding lane that snaked through several fields before arriving at his parents’ bungalow. He walked into the kitchen, just as his mother drew the cosy over the teapot. Bruno smiled. Joanie had an instinct for people’s arrival that bordered on the uncanny. He went over to hug her, holding her to him a fraction longer than usual, his little mother whom he had inadvertently caused such pain. The spark inside her had died with Joe, and he knew she was never going to get it back. His father, too, would never be the same. He never spoke about his pain, but there was a grimness in the set of his mouth that hadn’t been there before. Bruno imagined the pair of them sitting night after night, staring at the television, locked in their grief but unable to share their feelings.

‘Mum,’ he said. ‘I’m coming back. To Mariscombe. To live.’

Something flickered in her eyes, but it was only fleeting. Had it been joy? Bruno wasn’t vain enough to think that his return could make up for Joe’s loss, but he did hope she would be pleased.

And she was. ‘Good,’ she said, with feeling, and Bruno was reassured at his decision. It was his duty to come back. He should never have left in the first place, but he’d needed time to heal at his own pace. Now he felt strong enough to live among the memories. It was time to look to the future . . .

R
ealistically, what chance does a forty-six-year-old man have against two scheming seventeen-year-olds? Especially when he is a vain, wealthy forty-six-year-old man convinced he is devastatingly attractive to women?

Miranda Snow, commonly known as Mimi, strolled out of the back gates of Lansdown Academy for Girls, linking arms with her best friend Yasmin. In deference to the spring, the two of them had already ripped off their ties, unbuttoned their blouses and rolled up the waistbands of their green pleated skirts to reveal slender, cellulite-free legs. Over-the-knee socks and clumpy-heeled shoes completed their outfits: two terrifying Lolitas with their hair in loose plaits, their eyes ringed with black kohl, their lips smeared with sticky lip gloss.

Yasmin was lolling against Mimi, trying to extricate a piece of Wrigleys from its wrapper.

‘He is such a total lech. I still don’t get how your mum can fancy him.’

‘Dosh.’ Mimi stated the fact baldly.

‘Well, he’s gagging for it. I can tell you.’

‘Are you sure you want to go through with it?’

Yasmin looked sideways at her friend as she popped the gum in her mouth.

‘Hey – isn’t that what friends are for?’

‘I guess.’ Mimi, usually so resolute, was having a moment’s doubt.

‘It’s perfect timing. I mean, he nearly crashed the car three times when he dropped me home last night. He couldn’t stop looking at my legs.’

Mimi made a disgusted face.

‘I know. He does the same to me. It turns my stomach.’

‘I’m just going to have to shut my eyes and think of somebody old but attractive.’

‘Why don’t you just think of the money? Like Mum does?’

‘Do you really think that’s the only reason she’s with him?’

‘It’s not for his looks, is it?’

‘The trouble is he thinks he’s gorgeous. He’s such an eighties throwback!’

‘He has his back waxed, did you know that?’ Mimi convulsed with laughter. ‘And he’s got a special colour chart that he carries everywhere with him. So he knows what colour clothes to buy.’

Mimi looked at her watch, suddenly serious. The bus was due in five minutes. She prayed it wouldn’t be late. Or, worse, that it wouldn’t turn up at all.

‘OK. Here’s the schedule. Mum’s taking the afternoon off work – she promised. She should be back around two. Nick usually gets back around one so he can play golf. If we time it right, get him all relaxed so he doesn’t suspect anything . . .’

It was Yasmin’s turn to look doubtful.

‘Your mum is going to wig.’

‘Listen, you’re doing her a favour. Come on, Yas. She needs rescuing from that creep. This is the only way to do it.’

Mimi’s tone was urgent. She didn’t want Yasmin chickening out now. She was usually up for anything. If Yasmin didn’t do it, she’d do it herself, even though the fallout would be much, much worse. But Mimi was desperate. She really couldn’t stand it any longer.

Yasmin was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, contemplating the deal.

‘Two hundred and fifty,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Two hundred’s not enough. I’ll do it for two hundred and fifty. You’ve got to make it worth my while. It’s my reputation. And then I can get those boots from River Island as well.’

‘Jeez!’ Mimi grabbed her friend’s arm. ‘What is it about women and money? Have you no integrity?’

She dragged Yasmin towards the bus stop. They were going to miss the bus at this rate and that would mean blowing the whole plan. It was now or never. Mimi couldn’t bear it another day.

Mimi’s friends were all green with envy that she had such a trendy mother, who wore really cool clothes and listened to music at full blast with the roof down on her sports car. Who swore like a trooper and didn’t care if Mimi and her friends smoked, and let them pinch her cigarettes because she had boxes and boxes of duty-free, so afraid was she of running out. But personally Mimi wasn’t impressed. She longed for a normal mother. She wanted to be able to rebel! There was nothing she wasn’t allowed to do; nothing she was forced to do against her will. Victoria never chased up her homework, or pored over her report demanding why her grades weren’t better, or threatened to collect her hideously early from a party. In fact, she didn’t bother collecting her from parties at all – Mimi had the number of a cab firm and she just had to call. She didn’t even have to pay – it was all on account. She didn’t bother telling her mother she was home. Victoria would either still be out, or zonked out in bed. ‘You are so lucky!’ her friends would groan. They all had curfews. But Mimi thought it would be fantastic to have someone expecting you home at eleven o’clock, demanding to know where you had been if you were five minutes late.

Saturdays were another case in point. Mimi longed for riding lessons, or tennis, or piano – all the activities her friends seemed to get locked into on a Saturday and moaned about. Instead, she had to go into town with her mother. Victoria usually booked the two of them into the hairdresser – Mimi was the first girl in her form to have highlights – for trims, touch-ups and blow-drys, in readiness for some social function that evening. Then they would spend an hour in Space NK, while Victoria tried out all the new products and demanded makeovers from the long-suffering assistants, desperately in search of some magical potion that would roll back the years.

‘Try not smoking, Mum.’ Mimi would roll her eyes. ‘Try drinking loads of water. If you look like an old hag, it’s because of what you do to your body.’

Then lunch, where Victoria would definitely drink too much white wine, would wave and greet and kiss people, who she would then tear apart, safe in the knowledge that she would probably see them again several hours later at one or other dinner party. In the afternoon, the hunt for a new outfit would begin in earnest, with Victoria moaning that Bath was parochial, behind the times and boring. This wouldn’t stop her from buying, however. Then she’d come back home, try on everything that she’d bought again and shove it all back in the bags in disgust. But somehow they’d never find their way back to the shops. Her walk-in wardrobe was stuffed with things she’d never worn. Mimi never had to buy any new clothes. She just plundered her mother’s cast-offs and gave it her own style, mixing designer rejects with her own teenage tat.

At six Nick would open champagne, for Victoria to drink while she had her bath and got ready. Mimi would be called upon to dry her hair, apply her fake tan (only a smidgeon, to give her skin a glow) and generally tell her she looked gorgeous. Which she did, her skin youthful and dewy, her hair glossy, her eyes bright. After three glasses of champagne, when she was perfectly done up and immaculately dressed, for a short while Victoria would be confident, ready to take centre stage. Victoria thrived on attention. At social gatherings she was the life and soul, a sparkling party animal. Only Mimi knew the angst she went through getting ready, both internally and externally. She was shored up by booze. And, Mimi suspected, something harder at times, though she never actually witnessed her mother indulging. But those pupils and that gushing, bubbly, extrovert exterior definitely weren’t natural.

Then Nick would emerge in his black designer jeans and his tight, silky long-sleeved T-shirt that was supposed to show off how much time he spent in the gym but actually just showed his nipples. For a moment you could believe they were Bath’s golden couple, him the media mogul, her the PR whizz, as they shared the rest of the bottle of champagne in the kitchen, some happening album on the sound system. (Nick was very serious about keeping up with music trends. He could bore for hours about how he’d discovered the latest band six months before everyone else.)

Ten minutes later, they would be gone. And Mimi would spend all evening praying that there would be a break in the pattern. She knew how it would go without even being there. Victoria would fizz and sparkle for the first half of the evening. By ten o’clock she would be three sheets to the wind. Then Nick would start winding her up, subtly, so no one could hear. And she’d take it out on other people. She would be provocative and argumentative. Then, when people fought back, told her to shut up, she’d end up in tears. And Nick would drag her out, apologizing to all and sundry, with no one realizing he had provoked her behaviour and done nothing to save her from herself.

Mimi would usually be in bed when they got back, and she would lie tense under the duvet, hearing Nick telling Victoria she was a waste of space. A raddled old drunken has-been who was riding on his coat-tails. She’d been virtually washed up when he’d found her. If he hadn’t come along and rescued her, she’d be nothing. She could hear him, his voice low and vicious, as he ripped her apart. Then Victoria would retaliate. Mimi could imagine her lunging for him. Then the part that she really hated. Muffled thuds. Her mother’s voice, high, hysterical, shrieking harsh expletives. The sound of a body falling to the ground. Hideous silence for a few long seconds and then more thuds. Something crashing against the wall. Her mother threatening to call the police and Nick laughing. Mimi had never dared interrupt. She was too afraid. She didn’t want to humiliate her mother. And she suspected that if she did intervene, her mother might turn on her. She had a curious loyalty to Nick that Mimi could never quite fathom.

She had never seen physical evidence of any violence. The only proof she had was what she heard. On Sundays Victoria would be unabashed. As would Nick, up and about with a spring in his step, perfectly able to look Mimi in the eye, off to the gym followed by golf. Sometimes they all managed to have dinner together. Mimi would find herself carrying on a false, animated conversation with Nick, hating herself for her hypocrisy but as desperate as everyone else to pretend things were all right, while Victoria toyed with her food and drank water.