The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) (11 page)

‘Jason!’ she squeaked. ‘Where have you
been
? I haven’t seen you in
months
.’ She planted a couple of loud
mwahs
on his cheeks, and Jason grinned.

Lucy was a slim brunette with a figure that spoke of hours at the gym. She wore skin-tight white jeans, a skimpy emerald-green blouse, which showed off her impressive cleavage to its advantage, and caramel-coloured peep-toe ankle boots giving her at least five extra inches. Gold rings on eight of her ten fingers glinted as she waved him inside, and a heavy gold pendant with Queen Nefertiti dangled to below her bosom, drawing the eye to where she no doubt wanted it.

Jason gulped. Lucy was, as always, just a little overwhelming.

Attracted by the commotion, Lucy’s Rottweiler came up behind her, growling. His aunt was another dog lover, and although Rottweilers weren’t Jason’s favourite breed, he preferred them to his mother’s dogs. You got more dog for your money.

‘Don’t growl at Jason, you silly girl!’ Lucy dragged the enormous dog away by the collar so she could close the door.

‘It’s okay.’ Jason dropped to his haunches. ‘Come, Jessie. Come, girl.’

Tentatively, the dog stopped growling and stepped forward to sniff Jason’s hand which he held out palm facing upwards to show he wasn’t a threat. After a moment or two, Jessie began licking his hand then rolled onto the floor to have her tummy rubbed.

Crossing her arms, Lucy shook her head. ‘I don’t know who’s the craziest of the two of you. She’s supposed to be a guard dog and you’ve got more balls than sense sitting down in front of a Rottweiler like that. She could rip your throat out.’

‘But you’re not going to do that, Jessie, are you? No, no, we’re not going to do that at all.’ He continued talking baby-talk to the dog while it groaned with pleasure, then he rose with a grin.

‘Dogs like me,’ he smirked. ‘Besides, you know how I like to live dangerously.’

‘Lunatic,’ she said. ‘I was just getting the roast out of the oven. Come and have some dinner. Trevor is carving once the footie’s finished.’

‘I didn’t stop by for you to feed me.’

‘
That
is a barefaced lie, but I’m prepared to let it go. Anyway, who says I can’t invite my favourite nephew for dinner now and again?’

‘Your only nephew.’

‘Who’s counting? You’re still my favourite.’

Jason followed her to the back of the house and commented on her tan.

‘We’re just back from Dubai.’

Lucy went on to talk about their holiday to a destination which had never held much fascination for Jason, then handed him a G & T and told him to get out from under her feet. He joined Lucy’s husband, Trevor, who was slurping gin and shouting at their massive flat-screen TV in the den just off the kitchen.

Trevor turned away from the screen. ‘Well, if it isn’t Master Moody! What brings you here?’

‘Very funny. Like I haven’t heard that one before.’ Jason perched on the armrest. ‘Thought I might watch the game with you. How’s it going by the way?’

‘They’re a couple of clowns short of a full circus, that’s what. And you, young sir, are a terrible liar. What can I do for you?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘I’m good at complicated.’

‘Okay, then, what would you do if you knew someone was lying to you?’ Jason sat down on the sofa properly.

Trevor raised his eyebrows. ‘I dunno. Try to get the truth out of them?’

‘What if you knew they’d either disappear or feed you another line?’ A sudden roar from Trevor caused him to nearly spill his drink.

‘Oh, you complete fucker! You’re depriving a village of an idiot somewhere!’ Trevor continued hurling abuse at the TV, then turned to Jason with a sheepish grin. ‘Sorry. Tell you what I’d do. I’d drop them like a hot potato. Life’s too fucking short.’ He swirled the ice cubes in his drink with a pained expression. ‘You know, you’re not making a lot of sense.’

‘What if you couldn’t bring yourself to do that?’

‘A girl, is it? Does your loving father know?’

Jason hesitated. Trevor had once worked for his father as a chauffeur and general fixer, and had strengthened the bond by later marrying Lucy. He wanted to keep this matter out of his father’s reach for as long as possible, but he needed Trevor’s help because of his various contacts. Which meant trusting him.

‘Not yet, and I’d like to keep it that way.’

‘This “no parental involvement” thing you have going, will it lead to conflict of interest for me?’ Trevor asked.

They both knew what he was referring to. Trevor was the one who’d let slip, inadvertently, that Jason’s involvement with Cathy had developed into something more than a fling. Derek had put the screws on, then, got the whole story. Jason had tried not to blame Trevor when the whole sordid affair went belly-up, but it had cost him.

‘It shouldn’t do,’ he said. ‘It’s just an enquiry.’

Trevor downed the last of his drink. ‘Okay, so let me get this straight: you’ve met this girl, you like her, she’s lying to you about something, and you want to know what and why.’

Jason nodded.

‘Christ, you don’t ask much,’ Trevor grumbled. ‘Why don’t I discover a cure for cancer while I’m at it? Who is she?’

‘Her name is Helen Stephens, and she’s just moved into my house. Claims she’s been to prison, but I think she’s lying about that.’

‘Why on earth would anyone do that? I mean, the other way around, yes, but …’

‘Beats me,’ Jason shrugged. ‘She said a child died, in an accident. I think she might be telling the truth about that bit, but there’s more to it than that. Perhaps she used to be a nanny or something and is hiding because she’s worried about the family coming after her. I’d like to help her if I can. Except I can’t find any information about her. Do you know how many people are called Helen Stephens in this country? I tried everything, Google, combinations with
murder
,
child
,
manslaughter
,
drink-driving
,
Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy
, you name it, but nothing came up.’

‘Maybe she’s the sort who just falls under the radar,’ Trevor suggested.

‘No one falls under the radar, you know that. Not completely. Something would show a connection.’

‘Mhm.’ Trevor’s eyes had slid back to the TV screen. ‘Oh, you twat!’

‘Could you look into this for me?’

‘You’re not giving me much to go on.’

‘That’s all I have, I’m afraid.’ Jason handed him a slip of paper with a description of Helen and a guesstimated age of somewhere in her mid-twenties. ‘And while you’re at it, could you check that she isn’t one of Dad’s spies?’

Trevor put it in his shirt pocket. ‘I’d need to take a look at this bird myself, though.’

‘Won’t be difficult. She hangs around the house at the moment, going in and out.’

They were interrupted by Lucy dressed in an apron with a bikini-clad torso on the front. ‘Could one of you be a real darling and lay the table while I get the roast out of the oven?’

Leaving Trevor to his game, Jason followed his aunt back into the kitchen. The Rottweiler was lying prostrate in the middle of the floor, and as he stepped over the huge lump of a dog to get to the dinner plates, he realised how much he felt at ease here, amidst the noise from the TV, the homely smells and the gentle chaos. He couldn’t recall his own home-life ever having been anything like this, and it gave him a sense that he’d been deprived of something which was both normal and rare.

‘Have you found a job yet?’ Lucy asked, stirring an Oxo cube into the pan of meat juices.

‘I’m still at the Market, and that’s going well. Dad’s finally signed his Acton house over to me, and it needs a lot of work.’

Lucy looked at him sharply, her carefully plucked eyebrows coming together in a frown. ‘He did? That’s a first. Did you hear that, Trevor?’

‘I heard. Good for you.’ Trevor paused. ‘What a load of rubbish!’ he shouted, to the TV.

‘You do know he’ll want to have a finger in the pie,’ Lucy added in a low voice.

‘Actually, he says he doesn’t want to know.’

‘He might say that, but trust me, I know my brother extremely well.’

Jason decided to play it down. ‘Then I’ll just have to make sure I don’t draw attention to myself, won’t I?’

‘Yeah? How?’

‘By staying out of his line of sight.’

Lucy snorted.

‘Naïve, I know,’ said Jason, ‘but I thought once the house was in my name, and since I don’t ask him for money or anything, that I really would be beneath his notice.’

‘Go home, Earth is full!’ Trevor bellowed.

‘You’ll never be beneath his notice. He loves you.’

‘He has a funny way of showing it.’ All of a sudden blue-eyed Cathy and his own fantasy image of the child that never was popped up in his mind. Some loving father. He tried to suppress the memories once and for all. It was in the past, he had to let it go.

‘I wouldn’t know what the right way is,’ said Lucy. ‘I never had children.’

A shadow crossed her unlined face – Botox, and why not? – and he was cross with himself for touching on the one subject which could make his tough, loud-mouthed aunt go quiet.

‘Don’t worry about it, Jason,’ she said, guessing his thoughts. ‘We’re happy as we are, aren’t we, Trevor?’

Having switched the TV off, her husband joined them in the kitchen and was rummaging in a drawer for a carving knife.

‘Happy as Larry,’ came the reply. ‘Or I would be if it weren’t for bleedin’ referees.’

Lucy shrugged. ‘I was quite sad about it a while back, but I got over it. Some people don’t. They become totally obsessed with what they can’t have, and it eats away at them until there’s nothing else that matters. It can make a person very bitter and twisted. We’re not like that, me and Trevor, are we?’

Brandishing a lethal-looking knife in one hand, Trevor smiled and caressed her cheek lightly with the other. ‘No, we’re not, dolly.’

Feeling like an intruder all of a sudden, he admired their quiet resignation. His own sense of loss was nothing compared to theirs, yet he thought he understood. And just like them, he had to learn to accept what he couldn’t change.

Helen left Letitia’s office and stopped outside on the pavement to think about what had just happened. Then she laughed. The look on the secretary’s face had been priceless; the woman clearly didn’t think Helen fit in. Nothing strange about that either, because, in truth, she didn’t.

For her it had never been about money and status. That was Letitia’s world. And Aggie’s. What drove Ruth heaven only knew, but Helen had a feeling she was different.

What little she remembered of Ruth from her early childhood had been drowned out by resentment when the doors to the family had been shut in her face. Back in the office Letitia had hinted it was all Aggie’s decision, and she believed it, but it still angered her that Ruth hadn’t stepped in. Ruth had been her favourite, her husband Jeremy too, even if Aggie thought of him as a ‘disaster’.

They could have been a proper family, the one she never had even when her mother was alive. It could have been perfect. Ruth never had children of her own and desperately wanted some. So why had she rejected Helen?

A series of images flashed through her head. Ruth, angry and wistful, staring at Helen as if she wanted to scoop her up and never let go, yet hating her at the same time. Those images had stayed with her all these years, as clear as day, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t conjure up any real memories of her own mother. In the past she’d had the odd recall, but as soon as she tried to pin it down, it was gone.

Lost in thought, she crossed Berkeley Square and headed for the Tube. It had rained recently, but the sun was shining now. A young woman played catch with a little boy in the dappled sunlight under the large trees. A lady in a Burberry raincoat walked two frisky poodles who kept getting entangled in their extendible leads. On a bench a man in a black suit lit a cigarette and then stared at nothing in particular through mirrored sun glasses.

Helen frowned. The ordinary scene struck her as very familiar, but her mind refused to cooperate.

She reached Piccadilly and stopped for a moment, squeezing her eyes shut. If she squeezed hard enough, perhaps she could force her memories to come back. Nothing happened except for a dull ache in her chest and a feeling of exhaustion. Sighing, she opened her eyes again.

A grey mist rose from the pavement, obscuring her vision. Her arms twitched involuntarily, her fingers tingled. She picked at her clothes, only partly aware she was doing it, and swallowed back a metallic taste in her mouth.

‘Not now,’ she whispered.

Brief, excessive electrical discharges fired in her neurons, a simple partial seizure. Her mind told her this rationally, but powerless to stop it, she was suddenly gripped by terror and a feeling that this was the end of the world. Putting her shaking hands on the wall beside her, she anchored herself so even when her brain switched off, her body wouldn’t continue walking and send her right out into the traffic without knowing it.

The raw stone scraped reassuringly against her knuckles as the seizure took hold of her …

‘Bit early in the day, wouldn’t you say?’

Someone was shaking her gently, an old guy with dark, bushy eyebrows. Helen registered the look of concern, the hand on her shoulder. For a moment she had no idea where she was or what she was doing, but slowly the pieces fell into place again.

He was a newspaper salesman, from a nearby stand. She’d been to Letitia’s office, had thought of Ruth, had become distressed because she couldn’t remember her mother. Then the seizure had imploded inside her.

Her arms down by her sides, she leaned against the wall. The traffic was roaring past, clogging the air with car fumes. The pavement teemed with office workers, tourists and shoppers too busy to notice a person whose brain had just glitched.

Except this guy.

‘S-sorry, I didn’t catch that.’ Helen’s tongue felt enormous in her mouth. Somewhere hidden above her pigeons cooed, a reassuring sound, a sign of normality returning.

‘I said,’ he repeated, slowly as if he were talking to an idiot, ‘it’s a bit early in the day to be knocking them back, innit?’