Chapter Twenty-Six
STUART, NINE YEARS EARLIER
Jessamine hasn’t suggested that I leave, and so I haven’t. I’m still here when Daisy goes back to school that week and I offer to accompany them on their walk to school.
Daisy is an interesting girl. Like her mother and her grandmother there is something strangely old-fashioned and formal about her, like a character from a slightly mannered London-set film of the sixties.
“I can’t face it all,” says Daisy, tying up the laces of her sensible school shoes. “All those stupid people. After we’ve had such a nice time for Christmas.”
“Well,” says Jessamine, sliding Daisy’s packed lunch box into her school rucksack, “it’ll do you good to get out of the house; you’ve barely been outdoors.”
“Neither have you.”
“No. That’s true. But it’s a new year now, a new term, a fresh start. Let’s all try and be a bit healthier, shall we? Let’s all try and leave bad habits behind.”
When she says “bad habits” she’s talking about two things. She’s talking about the booze, which I have been gently trying to coax her into considering giving up, and she’s also talking about the old man.
Harvey.
That’s his name.
Harvey Moor.
She didn’t tell me that. Daisy did. And of course, naturally, I immediately googled the fuck out of the dirty old bastard and discovered a few things about him.
Harvey Moor is the founder of a very traditional ladies’ wear company called Moor & Co, with a head office in London and a factory based in the Midlands.
His son Jason now runs the business and Harvey is semiretired.
Harvey’s wife is called Sherri and there is a younger son too, Alex.
I wonder if Alex and his brother know they have a little sister in London called Daisy.
“What job do you do?” Daisy asks as we cross over the busy road that separates the Vale from the rest of Hampstead Village.
“I don’t do a job.”
“So how do you pay for stuff?”
“I was… well, I was both lucky and unlucky, I suppose. My mum and dad died when I was quite young and left me a million pounds.”
Daisy gasps.
I continue. “My brother bought a house with his. I put mine in the bank and I live off the interest.”
“What’s interest?”
“It’s what a bank pays you to let them keep your money when you’re not spending it. It’s not much, but it’s enough to pay for the basics.”
“Why don’t you just buy a house?”
“Because then I’d need to get a job to pay for the upkeep of the house.”
“Well, what about a small apartment then?”
I sigh. Good questions, all of them. I smile at Daisy and shrug. “Just not my cup of tea. Property. In my will, whatever’s left over goes to my kids. I don’t want it all tied up in knots for them.”
“You’ve got kids?”
“Yes. They think I’m a nut. But it’s fine. I know what I am. I know my own limitations. I’m a free spirit. I know what works for me and what doesn’t. It’s good.”
“I can’t believe you’re a millionaire,” says Daisy, shaking her head. “Wow.”
I see Jessamine throw me a look. It’s a look of skepticism, but with a softness that shows she knows I’m telling the truth.
Because I am. And now I’ve made myself vulnerable.
Now she knows my big secret and she could, if she wanted, try to take advantage of me, but the money’s locked down.
I can barely get to it, let alone anyone else.
She’d have to work me so hard to get a penny out of me.
After we drop Daisy at school, I suggest a walk, a coffee in the village.
“Was that true?” she asks me urgently as we head down a narrow alleyway together. “What you told Daisy about your money?”
“Totally true. I’m living a good life this way. I’m free. I can… meander, you know. And if that means that one day I cross paths with someone who makes me feel compelled to turn up at their house uninvited with a bottle of champagne one dark December afternoon, then all the better.”
“Didn’t your children’s mothers try to get the money off you?”
I shrug. “I paid my maintenance. I send them cash on their birthdays, at Christmas. Both of them know what they’ve got coming when I die. Everyone’s happy.” I turn and look at her. “I’m a good person, Jessamine.”
“Then what the hell are you doing hanging around me?”
“You’re a good person too.”
“No, I’m not.” Hugo pulls her gently toward a lamppost and sniffs its base urgently.
“What makes you say that?”
She sighs impatiently. “Listen, Stuart. This is all… I mean, OK, I’m sure you’re a good person.” She says this as if it is purely a theoretical possibility. “I’m sure you are. And I enjoy spending time with you. But you can’t just move into my house, you know. It’s mad.”
“I haven’t moved into your house.”
“Well, you know what I mean. You’ve stayed.”
“I have. And now I can leave. I can leave whenever. Just say the word.”
“But you’ve got nowhere to stay.”
“I’ve always got somewhere to stay.”
Hugo finishes sniffing the lamppost and we move on.
“How much do you make in interest every month?”
“Varies. But roughly a grand. Sometimes two. Once I made three. Back in the day.”
She eyes me thoughtfully. “So, you could pay rent?”
“I’d rather not. That’s kind of the whole point of me sleeping on a futon in an attic for the last three years. I don’t want to pay rent.”
She nods. I can see machinations upon machinations. “I think,” she says finally, her voice thick with deep introspection, “that you should stay with me. Until you get your room back, and we will see what it’s like. To have a man in the house again.”
I cock my head slightly at her. What a strange thing to say, I think. To have a man in the house again.
“You mean like when your dad was around?”
“Yes. Dad was very handy. He was very strong. He was very… alpha. He fixed things, made things, kept us safe. He was useful, and me and Mum, we’re useless without him.
Without a man. Totally. You’ve seen the way we live.
You’ve seen us. I just think…” She looks at me with clear, bright eyes.
“We need something. All of us—Daisy too. But you have to promise,” she says, touching my arm with clawed fingers. “Promise not to make me regret this.”
I look at her and smile. “Romantic,” I say. “Really. I’m touched.”
I wait for her to smile, to acknowledge my joke, but she doesn’t.