Veil of Darkness (19 page)

‘What’ll you do with all this money?’

‘I haven’t got it yet,’ said Bernie.

This disrespectful member of the press overpowered the rest. ‘I hear you’re sharing it with your friend there. That’s very unusual. She must be a really special friend. What does your boyfriend think about that?’

Oh no, no. Avril, sitting there quietly, had hoped to be kept well out of this, and Candice Love hoped so, too. But Bernie smiled at Avril, quite happy to involve her. ‘Avril did most of the hard work, didn’t you, Avril?’

Avril cringed, turned puce and stuttered. ‘N-not really. I only t-t-typed it. I didn’t do much really.’

‘Have you two been friends for long?’

Candice Love sussed which way the questions were going. It wouldn’t do Bernadette any harm to be thought of as bisexual, it would only add to the fascination and hidden depths of her new author, except that Candice knew this to be untrue and so it could make for future misunderstandings. She would have to nip it in the bud. ‘They work together,’ she answered for Avril. ‘They have only known each other since June.’

Meal times are difficult. It’s easier when Candice Love shares their table because her outrageous confidence carries them through, and they’re so busy discussing the future that they take no notice of their fellow diners.

But at breakfast this morning Avril found the experience painful. Not that the waiters were rude or nasty, it wasn’t anything like that, but they were taking the piss, and Bernie didn’t seem to mind, but Avril’s eyes were constantly searching the other guests for signs of amusement, and, to her shame, there were many.

The half-hidden smiles were the worst. The smiles followed by whispered remarks as, in Avril’s imagination, they were watched for bad table manners, for being too showy, for lacking
savoir-faire
. They were clearly the talk of the moment, the Cinderellas who had made good, and naturally it was difficult for people used to giving the staff their orders to suddenly accept them as equals.

Avril ordered a kipper, thinking this might atone, but hardly anyone else had kippers, she could happily have chosen bacon and egg. When Bernie lit up she nearly died and Michael, the head waiter, had to step over politely and ask her to refrain from smoking until she left the dining room.

Only the thought of Ed Board waiting for her outside gave Avril the courage to go through with it all. ‘You were brilliant,’ he told her after the interview, giving her bottom a painful slap.

In spite of a lifetime of Mother’s contrary signals, Avril knows only too well that the Stotts are rather common. The same could be said for Bernie, of course, but being from Ireland, she can carry it.

Unlike Bernie who seems to have shed it completely, or never had it, Avril carries the burden of guilt when it comes to poor, neglected Kirsty. There is something so basically wrong with all this that she and Bernie are living in luxury while Kirsty works her fingers to the bone and worries about her children. Where is this going to end? Kirsty plans to move to a mobile home at the Happy Stay when the season is over, but surely they will have money by then, real money, not the silly money enthused over by Candice Love and the press. Then she and Bernie will rejoin Kirsty so she no longer has to contemplate those cold months in spartan conditions at the bleak and windswept Happy Stay, which must be so soulless in winter.

Oh dear.

But there’s something more worrying going on, something so subtle it’s hard to pin point, but it keeps Avril awake at nights, even in the comfort of their wonderful bed. The three of them seem to be growing apart. Gone is the closeness there once was between them. Avril feels awkward in Kirsty’s presence. When Kirsty comes in to clean the room they still laugh together, of course—they still have this mighty secret to share—and Avril makes sure she has cleared up beforehand so that Kirsty’s workload is halved. But that bitch Bernie just lies on the bed, smoking, or preening herself in her new clothes, or ordering snacks and drinks from room service when they’re not hungry. She won’t even rinse the cups when she’s finished.

No, the only time Avril can relax and be her true self is when she’s on the golf course with Ed. When Ed first heard the amazing news about the book and the funny money he took her straight into his shop and made her equip herself properly.

‘But I can’t pay for this,’ said Avril, staggered by the prices. ‘I’m still poor as a church mouse.’

‘Not for long,’ said Ed. ‘Don’t worry. If you want to play golf seriously you must have your own clubs and it’s essential to look the part.’

Oh Lord. Avril still isn’t sure. Fashion sense is not her bent. She came out of the pro’s shop with a manly beige skirt with a pleat, a padded waistcoat in hunting green and a pair of white studded shoes. It took hours to choose the right clubs. Ed put a peaked cap on her head and said it was his treat, but she feels it doesn’t do her justice. She hasn’t dared show Bernie yet. She hasn’t even dared get them out of the wardrobe to try on in front of her mirror.

‘You might find my family rather prissy,’ Avril tries to warn Ed, afraid this friendship might be jeopardized, too. ‘They are quite old-fashioned, conservative with a capital C, they never swear and they don’t like jokes.’

‘I don’t care what they’re like,’ says the kindly, carrot-headed Ed, his stout moustache bristling protectively. ‘It’s you I care about, Avril, not them, and I’m not that bad, am I? Most people seem to like me.’

But most people aren’t like Avril’s mother.

‘L
ET ME GET THIS
quite straight.’ And although Dominic Coates throws out a small embarrassed snort, nothing about this woman is funny. ‘You had the nerve to get me here under false pretences and now you’re telling me that if I don’t go back to Bernadette you’re going to go to the family of that little kid and tell them I caused the death of their father.’

‘Well, didn’t you?’ asks Kirsty.

Dominic, who has only just recovered from the surprise of Bernie’s success, now regards Kirsty steadily, wondering what she knows, and if she knows. How the hell does she know? He has never met this odd woman before, although she works in Bernie’s hotel. Somehow Bernie must have found out, but who else could have let on but Belinda?

And Belinda has gone back to Bath in a huff. That beautiful relationship lasted less than three weeks and he has since regretted the morbid stuff he came out with when he felt he was safe in her arms. He was upset, unnerved, hyper during that mega-crazy time.

Is his visitor high on something? He searches for signs in her eyes, in the steadiness of her small hands. ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re getting at.’

She had called him at the guest house, a phone call right out of the blue having asked the council for his number, saying she had something of his that she’d promised to return. She refused to tell him what. His curiosity was naturally aroused and so he agreed to meet her at a cafe in St Ives. He arrived early and watched this woman be dropped off by a taxi. And now he twiddles the sugar tongs while waiting nervously for her answer.

She doesn’t look like a blackmailer: T-shirt, jeans, sloppy espadrilles. If she was younger she’d be quite attractive, especially with that Jilly Cooper gap between her two front teeth. But her dark-brown eyes have a strangeness about them, as if they aren’t seeing him, but looking right through him into the birdcage directly behind.

She sounds like a copper reading his notes out in court. Each word calculated to convict. ‘I am getting at the fact that your alcohol intake was considerable on the afternoon you were called out to rescue that child. I am getting at the fact that, had you been on top form, you might well have rescued them both, and I might as well point out, while I’m at it, that the coroner might be interested to hear that a direct karate chop to the drowning man’s throat may have been something to do with the cause of death. Not the unknown floating object they assumed must have hit him at the inquest.’

‘Belinda must have told you this.’ At this point, astonished, Dominic leans back, laughing coolly, his fingers tapping on the table. Shit. He can get out of this. This is all hearsay. A right load of crap. ‘Belinda has one helluva vivid imagination. Anyway, for your information, the inquest is closed.’

The woman across the table just shrugs.

‘Did Bernie put you up to this?’

‘Bernie knows nothing about it,’ says Kirsty, knowing full well she has won the fight. A weak man he might be, a flighty, cock-driven runt, but Dominic will make a useful spy and she needs someone close to keep watch on Bernie. Despite what she might say in public, Kirsty does not trust her Irish friend one inch.

‘But what the hell are you doing this for?’ he splutters. ‘Bernie doesn’t want me back, not when she’s got all this fame going for her. Bernie was over me months ago.’

‘That shows what an ignorant sod you are.’

This is unbelievable. Dominic looks round to assure himself he is not stuck in some booze-induced dream, but no, there are a few other customers in here, mostly having scones and cream, there’s a high chair with a snivelling baby and an elderly couple holding hands. No, he couldn’t be inventing them all. ‘You’re telling me Bernie’s still interested?’

What a fool he is, what a fool.

They will give him a Morgan when he gets his degree and send him round the world for a while, backpacking with the proles and an American Express card.

He will marry well, in the end, an upper-class girl with a daddy who thinks the sun shines out of her arse. They will drive BMWs and Porsches and live in a house with a shingle drive and a turning circle round a rose bed.

Dominic must be punished. Of course Bernie passed on to Kirsty all that Belinda had told her, supplied the right ammunition, or Kirsty would not have the weapons to bring this beach
bum to justice, as Magdalene the nun would have done.

Kirsty is not happy this morning. The latest letter from Maddy upset her. ‘The children keep asking for their daddy, but don’t worry, I fended them off. It’s often distressing but understandable the way traumatized children do this. In my experience this often means they are trying to work the past through their systems. No doubt they will stop asking soon. Otherwise all is well…’

She takes a sip of her tea and dunks a plain digestive, staring stonily at Dominic Coates.

‘I’ve a good mind to get up and walk out of here.’

‘Go on then,’ says Kirsty, ‘that’s your business. But you know damn well what will happen. Mummy and Daddy must have been thrilled by your bit of fame, their precious son hitting the headlines. I bet you sent them the local papers. I bet they ordered the original prints from the local photographer, especially that one of you coming out of the sea like King bloody Neptune with the little mermaid in your arms.’

‘What the hell has this got to do with them?’ This can’t get any worse, thinks Dominic. What has he got here, some serious head case? This is the kind of stuff you read about or watch in American TV dramas. She’ll bring out a knife in a minute.

But Dominic can’t help but imagine his father’s disappointed face, just when he has started to believe that Dominic will make a man yet. And his mother will go back on the Valium and start booking into nursing homes.

‘So what the hell do you expect me to do?’ But still Dominic pretends amusement, summing her up, taking the piss.

‘Ring Bernie up and suggest a meeting.’

‘You know she’ll probably turn me down.’

‘She won’t turn you down.’ Kirsty leans closer. He can see every muscle is taut as if she is fending off some old anger. ‘If Bernie agrees to meet you then do it dead right! Are you listening, you arsehole? You tell her you’ve missed her, all you want is to start again, you want to be around her, support her, to make all those wasted months up to her and to beg her forgiveness for the shit you gave her.’

‘Bugger that.’

‘OK,’ says Kirsty with menacing sweetness.

‘What d’you get out of this, are you some control freak or something? Getting some weird kick out of buggering up other people’s lives?’

‘Yep, I probably am.’

‘You bet you are, lady. If Bernie found out you were doing this she’d die of humiliation. Nobody wants this sort of sick joke played on them behind their backs. And anyway,’ Dominic pauses, ‘it couldn’t possibly work. You can’t convince someone you love them, not when you don’t give a damn.’

‘I’m sure you can,’ is Kirsty’s response. ‘If you try hard enough.’

‘I go back to Liverpool in September. So we’re only talking about three weeks.’

‘Now that’s something you’ll have to put off.’

‘Now you’re really kidding me on. Miss out on my last year?’

‘What will it matter whether you get a degree or not? I’ll bet you my next week’s salary that you will end up in Daddy’s firm anyway.’

‘So this is all down to envy, is it?’ Dominic leans back and smiles a superior smile. ‘Jesus Christ, I should have known.’

But Kirsty snaps back with venom, ‘D’you really believe it’s that simple?’

‘Why do you hate me?’

‘I have no feelings for you. Certainly nothing as strong as hatred. If it’s anything at all, it’s distaste.’

‘Quite a one for the compliments, aren’t you?’

‘Why the fuck don’t you grow up and face up to what you are?’

Despite this brief show of strength, Kirsty, in her disturbed state, is beginning to relish the role of martyr, mooching about and sighing, sending out messages of ‘unfair, unfair’, lingering in Bernie’s suite, being pandered to by the gullible Avril, who wants to make amends.

She might have ousted her terrible husband but Kirsty still needs to play the victim.

‘Don’t be taken in by it,’ Bernie sneers at Avril, too excited to be bothered with such qualms of conscience, ‘Kirsty knows that in the end everything will equal out. She agreed to this deal. This is only a blip; when we leave the Burleston Kirsty can come with us.’

But Avril is not convinced. The fat girl’s hurt face streaks with indignant pink.

But Bernie, on the other hand, sincerely believes she is carrying them all. Without her genius they couldn’t pull this off; it is Bernie’s charisma and charm that has captivated the national press and given them the sensational headlines that so delight Candice Love. And although all this was Kirsty’s idea, and they owe her some gratitude and consideration, Bernie just wishes the gullible Avril would show her the same sort of appreciation. Kirsty might well be suffering—she carries the suffering on her face like Bernie carries Boots’ Sierra Sunset Blush—no wonder she drove her husband to violence. But Bernie is suffering, too—from stress. Every time she opens her mouth Bernie is afraid she’ll cock up. It is she who has to look her best while Avril trails along behind looking like a damp old pillow, part of the background furniture. Avril, with her moans about unfairness and her disapproving glances, has done rather well out of this arrangement.