Chapter 30
‘You look pretty,’ Gregory says, considering my cobalt, high-neck dress.
‘Thank you, but I feel like I look like I ran out of time to get dressed after having sex in the shower.’
‘Maybe that’s why I like how you look.’
I watch his hand moving across the steering wheel, the diamond bezel of his Rolex – one of multiple extortionate watches – gleaming. There’s something strangely erotic about that hand.
‘Who will be at lunch?’
‘My mother and Lawrence. Charles and Camilla, their friends. Wi?—’
‘Charles and Camilla?’ I giggle.
‘Is that really funny to you?’
I giggle some more. ‘It sounds like we’re having lunch with the king and queen.’
His steely eyes stay on the road ahead but there’s a cute crease at the side of his mouth. ‘I don’t understand what’s funny about that.’
‘Your self-importance really knows no bounds.’
He guffaws so loudly, I’m left rolling my eyes but smirking out of my window.
‘Williams will probably be there too. He usually turns up regardless of whether he’s invited. He can’t resist my mother’s honey-glazed ham.’
‘Your mum cooks?’ I ask, returning to real time.
‘Well, the honey-glazed ham she pays for.’ He laughs. ‘There’s someone else going you might like to see.’
I ponder the very small list of people we both know. ‘Who?’
‘Jackson. And he’s bringing Sandy.’
‘Sandy?’ Of course, Jackson and Sandy . I still can’t get my head around that. ‘Does Jackson usually go?’
‘He’d usually be there in one capacity or another. Driver, security. But my mother invited him to dine, and to bring Sandy today.’
‘Is that strange?’
He shrugs.
Does it matter? Everything in life has been strange since I met this man.
We travel out of the countryside and back towards civilization, the evergreen trees replaced by tarmac and streetlamps.
‘Are you and Jackson friends?’
‘It would be unfortunate if we weren’t. I spend more time with Jackson than anyone else I know. We go most places together, he lives with me, we work out together. He’s definitely not just an employee, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Kind of like Sandy and me. It’s quite cute actually, Jackson and Sandy, isn’t it?’
He scoffs and raises his shoulders again. ‘I guess.’
‘What’s he like? Objectively. Will he be around a lot to see her, if things get serious? What about their living arrangements – I mean, where would they live? With you? Will you give him more time off so he can take her out on dates?’
‘Scarlett, I?—’
‘Do you think they’ll have kids? Maybe they’re too old now, would you say?’
‘Scarlett,’ he says, slightly louder than normal. ‘I really have no idea. It’s all new; I doubt even they know the answers to your million questions yet.’
I scowl at him then watch the cars in the middle lane of the motorway as we fly by. My nerves build as we pull off the main road and drive closer to Lara’s house. The last time Lara saw me, she was begging me to forgive her son. I was cold and uncompromising.
‘Gregory,’ I say meekly, ‘do you know your mum came to see me? It was after my dad died. Before… before you came that night in the rain.’ The memory of Gregory’s face flashes painfully in my mind. ‘You should know that I was sharp with her.’
Gregory’s jaw tenses. I wish I could read his thoughts.
‘Whatever happened between you is private. Unless, she didn’t upset you, did she?’
‘Oh, it’s not that, I just don’t want today to be awkward.’
‘Scarlett, my mother invited you,’ he says, resting his hand on mine.
‘She told me some stuff. About you… About Pearson.’
He takes his hand away and concentrates on the road. He swallows subtly but the sinews in his neck tense. He’s not ready and I won’t push him.
The road becomes increasingly lined with conifer trees and flanked by grass. Gregory pauses the car at tall, black, iron gates and waits until a voice comes through a speaker on the white wall.
‘Where are we?’ I whisper, so the intercom voice can’t hear me.
‘Cobham. Surrey.’
He picks up speed as we drive another hundred metres or so along a tarmac pathway.
The trees come to an abrupt, perfectly straight, trimmed end, exposing an enormous, white mansion, three triangular peaks and floor-to-roof windows marking the front of Lara and Lawrence’s home.
Gregory rolls the DB9 around to one side of the house and stops in front of a four-door garage.
An inordinate amount of land is accessed at the back of the house by twenty or so steps leading down from a large veranda.
A pool house extends from the side of the house furthest away from us.
On the lawn, maybe fifty metres from the house, men are working to construct what looks like a grand pavilion.
‘It’s for the party,’ Lara says, having appeared from the front of the house.
‘Party?’ I ask Gregory as Lara approaches.
‘Hi, handsome,’ Lara says, kissing her son on both cheeks. ‘Go on, get inside.’
I know immediately she wants to be alone with me. Gregory does as instructed and walks to the front of the house but not without casting one last look over his shoulder to me.
Lara stands in front of me, putting us face to face. The last thing I want is conflict. Doubt begins to ask me why I agreed to come.
‘How’re you holding up?’ she asks me softly.
She’s not pissed at me? It takes a moment for that to hit home.
‘I’m okay, thank you.’
She places one hand on my shoulder. ‘I don’t know why or how or what convinced you and I don’t ever need to know but for his sake, I’m pleased you changed your mind.’
I study her face, trying to understand the mens rea , the motive, the hidden meaning, but there’s nothing to uncover.
We both wait in anticipation of me finding the right words to say but they don’t come.
Eventually, she rubs her hand briskly up and down my shoulder and that’s the end of the matter.
‘Come on, you must be freezing,’ she says, turning on her patent heel, her wide-legged trousers swinging to expose their full width. She offers me a flexed arm that’s sheathed in a silk blouse.
‘What’s the party in aid of?’ I ask, linking my arm through hers.
‘That son of mine hasn’t told you yet? I throw a bonfire night party every year. A hideously extravagant thing but I love it. You have to come.’
A housemaid opens the large, white, double front door for us and I smile at her as I step inside.
‘If nothing else, it’s an excuse for a new dress,’ Lara adds as she scuttles along the high-polish, wood floor and dips into a room to the right of the hallway.
‘She’s a whirlwind,’ the housemaid says. ‘I’ll show you along. This way.’
‘Do you live here?’ I ask of the slim, mousey-blonde whom I’d I guess is about my age.
‘We all do.’
‘All do?’
‘Me, Mack who works the garden and Tony, the chef. You’ll enjoy his food. His honey-glazed ham is the best.’
‘That’s not the first time I’ve heard that today,’ I admit. ‘I’m Scarlett, by the way.’
‘Oh, I know.’ She glances at me without breaking pace. ‘I’m Miranda. It’s this one.’
She motions to the open door and walks back down the corridor when I step inside.
The first thing I notice is the regal crystal chandeliers hanging over the sea-green, suede sofas and two large, leather chairs, one brown, one burgundy, in that 1920’s, stately-home library kind of style.
The second thing I notice is the touch of Gregory’s hand on the small of my back.
‘Scarlett, I’d like you to meet Charles and Camilla.’ Surprisingly less regal than he sounds, a very ordinary man with a wealthy, rotund stomach shakes my hand, a short woman with a precisely styled bob and more diamonds on her fingers than in a De Beers window next to him.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ I tell them.
‘Camilla designed all the interiors here, Scarlett,’ Lara calls from the sofa.
‘Wow, they really are beautiful. You have such a talent.’
‘Thank you. It’s easy to decorate a beautiful home,’ Camilla says.
Charles takes a seat in the leather reading chair, picking his half-full glass of champagne from a side table and crossing one tweed leg over the other. Lara pats the space beside her on the sofa and Camilla fusses with the gold chain belt, pulling her blouse neatly onto her pleated trousers.
As I wave to Lawrence at the far side of the lounge, a familiar form stands from the sofa opposite to Lara and looks nervously around the other faces in the room before shuffling towards me.
‘Sandy.’ I throw my arms around her.
Across her shoulder, Jackson rises, still dressed as if he’s on duty in his black suit, white shirt and black tie. He nods towards me in his usual way then he, Gregory and Lara leave the room. ‘How are you?’
‘Fair to middling, as your dad would say. Lots of change: some bad, some good.’
‘I know what you mean. Have you been staying at home?’
Startled, she opens her mouth to speak then closes it again. Her cheeks flush to a beetroot shade.
‘I didn’t mean, you know, I’m just worried that you’re in the house on your own. I went back yesterday to get some things and it was… different.’
Sandy’s cheeks return to a shade of normal. ‘I couldn’t face it. Actually, I stayed here last night.’
‘Here? This house? Why?’
‘Something to do with Gregory’s work, I think.’
‘Gregory’s work?’
‘Champagne, Scarlett?’ Miranda interrupts, holding a full single flute on her black tray.
I remember waking by the fire to hear Gregory vexed on the phone to his mother.
‘Thank you. Erm, could you tell me where the ladies’ room is?’
‘I’ll take you.’
‘I’ll be right back,’ I say to Sandy as she holds out a hand to take my champagne.
‘You can just point it out to me,’ I say quietly as I follow Miranda out of the room.
‘It’s no trouble,’ she sings, much too conspicuous for my liking.
We walk further down the long hallway. I hear Lara’s voice coming from a room opposite a grand staircase that veers off both left and right at the top.
‘Just here,’ Miranda says, directing me to a door under the stairs.
‘Thanks.’