Chapter 16
‘She’s lying,’ Miranda said. ‘You’re lying, right? She has to be lying. Lewis, tell me she’s lying.’
‘I don’t think she is,’ I said.
‘I’m going to start hyperventilating,’ Miranda said.
Holly waved Morag, who was hovering nearby, over. ‘She needs a whisky, asap,’ Holly said.
Morag eyed Miranda, who had her arms wrapped around herself, face screwed up with pain. ‘Everything okay? Has somebody died?’
‘Not yet,’ Miranda said. ‘Although I might be about to have a heart attack.’
Morag went off to get the whisky. Miranda knocked it back, gasping and wiping her eyes.
‘So that’s why you haven’t given us any details about the wedding,’ Holly said, after Morag had gone. Lewis was sitting there looking dumbstruck, but Holly still seemed calm.
‘It wasn’t planned,’ Jasmine said. ‘I was kind of kidding around, saying wouldn’t it be awesome to just elope, not have to go through the whole big expensive wedding thing, and that I didn’t want anyone to think it was a shotgun wedding – everyone in my family is super fertile; it’s kind of a miracle I’ve never got knocked up before – and the next thing I knew, Charles was booking us on to a flight. ’
‘Why aren’t you wearing a wedding ring?’
‘Because we don’t have them yet. We just got a couple of cheap ones for the wedding which we took off on the way here.’
‘If … when you have a baby, where are you planning to live?’ Holly asked.
‘Charles is going to join me in Miami. He can do his work for Gravitas remotely.’
Those bombshells just kept coming.
‘Oh. Oh my God. I need to …’ Miranda didn’t finish the sentence, almost knocking her chair over as she stood. She staggered off to the ladies.
‘Should I go and talk to her?’ Jasmine asked.
‘I really wouldn’t.’ That was Holly. She looked properly upset now. Pale, shaking a little. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. ‘He already has a family, you know.’
‘Of course.’
Jasmine glanced up at Lewis as if appealing for help. He had been awfully silent during this whole conversation.
‘It’s …’ He groped for what to say. ‘I actually think it’s exciting. I mean, you were going to get married anyway so I think it makes sense for you to do it quickly and quietly. And I like the idea of having a little half-brother or -sister. Someone to look up to me.’
The part about Charles moving to Florida seemed to have affected Holly the most, as if that had made her realize how serious all this was.
Made her worry she was losing her dad to this woman and their plans to start a new family.
I reached out to take her hand, to offer comfort, and held it, limp in mine.
Lewis stood up and opened his arms to Jasmine. ‘Come here.’
Jasmine got up, too, and allowed Lewis to hug her.
As they broke apart, Miranda reappeared, phone in hand. ‘I tried to call my dad. He’s not answering. Neither of them are. Did Zack know about this?’
‘No,’ Jasmine replied.
‘I don’t believe you.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘I need to get out of here.’
She moved towards the door of the pub, Lewis following her. Jasmine said she needed the bathroom, and then Holly said, ‘We haven’t paid. I’ll do it. Brenda will just have to put up with seeing me.’
I went outside, instantly hit by a blast of frigid air.
Lewis and Miranda were over by his car, talking with their backs to me.
I headed in their direction, then stopped.
Did I really want to talk to them? The whole scene had made me deeply uncomfortable.
In that moment, all I wanted was to go home to Brighton, back to my and Holly’s happy cocoon, far away from these people and their dramas.
The wind carried Lewis’s and Miranda’s voices over to me.
‘Why are you being so nice to her?’ Miranda asked. ‘I don’t get it.’
I didn’t catch his response.
‘And you’re still taking her to see the caves. Isn’t it too late for her to touch the stupid Serpent Stone now?’ Her tone was sarcastic.
This time I heard his reply. ‘It’s for new brides, too. And people who are trying to get pregnant.’
‘I don’t want them to have good luck. I wish she’d drop dead.
’ She was talking at a high volume, her voice cracking with emotion.
I realized there was an extra layer to this, that made me feel some sympathy for her.
If she and Zack had tried to conceive but hadn’t been able to, hearing from Jasmine that not only was she planning to have a baby but that she was ‘super fertile’ must have been painful.
They still had their backs to me, unaware I was listening. Lewis put his hand on Miranda’s shoulder, and she shrugged him off violently.
‘Mum will be spinning in her grave. They’re going to have more children! She is going to take away everything that’s rightfully ours.’
And there it was. The true reason for Miranda’s hostility. Her inheritance. Because, of course, if Charles had a new wife and more children, the share that she, Lewis and Holly got would be lower.
‘You’re exaggerating,’ Lewis said. ‘If they have one kid, it will mean we’ll get a quarter each instead of a third.’
‘What about Jasmine’s share? How do we know she won’t persuade him to leave everything to her and this brat?’
My sympathy for her ebbed away.
Miranda went on. ‘On top of that, she might spend everything while Dad’s still around. Expensive schools for their offspring. A mansion on Miami Beach. I can see it all vanishing.’
There was a very long pause, and then Lewis said, ‘You don’t need to worry.’
‘How can you say that? I can see it.’ She put on a terrible American accent. ‘Oh, Charles, we need a new car, a bigger house. Little Chuck Junior needs to go to the best school in the state, and don’t forget about the college fund.’
Lewis laughed. ‘Chuck Junior.’
‘It’s not funny! She’ll bleed him dry, and then, when she’s facing the prospect of living with an old man, of having to take care of him and wipe his arse, she’ll run off with some young stud and take whatever’s left.’
‘I promise you, Miranda,’ Lewis said, ‘it’s not going to turn out like that.’
‘You don’t know that. You probably don’t even care. You’ve never been interested in money, although you still seem to have plenty.’
‘You have no idea.’
There was a pause and he said something I couldn’t quite make out but his next words were clear. He said, ‘I’m going to fix it. Trust me.’
I had gone rigid. Earlier, I had decided the overheard phone call was related to a business deal and that Lewis hadn’t been talking to Miranda.
Had I been wrong about that?
‘Why are you standing around in the cold?’ Holly asked, appearing behind me, with Jasmine beside her. ‘Lewis, I assume this trip to the caves is off.’
He and Miranda broke apart. He looked shifty.
‘No, why would it be?’ he said. The smile he aimed at her looked fake, betraying his claim to be a good actor. ‘As long as you’re still up for it, Jasmine?’
‘Sure. Whatever.’
It seemed to me that her motivation for going now was to delay being back at the house with Miranda. But what was Lewis’s motivation?
He caught me staring at him. ‘What is it?’ he snapped. Without waiting for a reply, he said, ‘We’d better get going. Miranda, you’ll have to get a ride home with Holly and Pat.’
‘Where are these caves?’ I asked, feeling deeply uneasy.
He pointed vaguely behind him and upwards, to where the big derelict house was. Shifty was an understatement. I could detect the energy pouring off him, a desperation to get going. ‘That direction.’
I turned my head – and saw a bike coming towards us down the lane. It was Avril. Seeing us, she slowed, then came to a halt beside Lewis’s car. Staring straight at him, Avril narrowed her eyes, and I remembered overhearing her telling him that she hated him.
Now, she marched up to him and said, ‘Mum’s money hasn’t turned up.’
‘What are you talking about?’ He said it with a smile, but I could tell he was growing increasingly irritated. Here was another interruption. Another delay.
‘It always comes at the end of the month. It’s late.’
‘That has nothing to do with me,’ Lewis said. ‘It’s paid through the company, right? You need to ask my dad, or Zack. Shame they wouldn’t let you go on their hunting trip with them.’
‘It’s probably been held up by Christmas,’ Miranda said in a dismissive tone.
‘We need it now,’ Avril said. ‘We’ve got no food in the house and Mum’s too much of a pushover to ask you.’
‘Hey,’ said Jasmine, and I saw Avril give her the once-over. ‘Maybe we could lend it to you? How much is it?’
‘Three thousand pounds.’
Miranda curled her lip and said, in a voice that dripped sarcasm, ‘Worth every penny.’
In Avril, Miranda had a competitor in the death-stare Olympics.
‘I’ll speak to Zack,’ Miranda said. ‘Tell him to expedite it.’
‘Tell him he’d better,’ Avril said. Now, I detected a tremble in her voice and, seemingly drained by the emotional toll of confronting the Grants, she slunk into the pub.
‘Charming,’ Lewis said.
‘Well, it is shit when you get paid late,’ said Holly. ‘Not that either of you two would know.’
Miranda rolled her eyes then got into the back of our car, slamming the door. Holly got behind the wheel.
I waited a moment, watching Lewis and Jasmine get into his Mercedes.
I wanted to say something. To tell Jasmine not to go.
But what would I say? That I’d eavesdropped on half a conversation then heard the tail end of another?
I was afraid they would think I was being paranoid.
Melodramatic. Lewis looked at me through the car window, as if daring me to speak up, a smirk on his lips.
And I was about to do it, was going to run around the car and pull the passenger door open, when he pulled away, almost running over my foot.
He sped off, heading in the opposite direction to the Grants’ house, past the row of houses and up the hill.