11 #2
‘I probably have – somewhere,’ Jonas admitted, but without much enthusiasm.
‘I’d be grateful if you could let me have a copy of any old family photos you’d be willing to share with the world.’
Jonas shuffled, looking uncomfortable, and Lyssa quickly backed off.
‘You were saying how much Glen did for the family? Do you know if he gave much to charity?’ she asked, thinking of one in particular. ‘The YMT, for instance?’
‘He probably did,’ Jonas said vaguely. ‘My dad always said Glen was the best. He might have become a big pop star, but he never forgot his roots. And he was generous to a fault.’
‘And yet he left his estate to Amelia?’ Lyssa put in. ‘He must have loved her very much.’
Jonas shrugged. ‘I suppose he must have. Either that, or by then the drugs and drink had addled his mind a bit.’
‘Was he really into the drug culture though?’ Lyssa wondered aloud. ‘From what some people have been saying who knew him back then, he wasn’t as heavily into it as some of his contemporaries.’
Again, Jonas merely shrugged. ‘Who knows? The very fact that he died of a drugs overdose proves that he dabbled, at least. I think that’s what upset Nan the most – that he died so young.
Dad said she went around for months and months saying that it should never have happened.
He had his whole life ahead of him, and all that.
And she blamed her – Amelia Montrose – for it. I know that much.’
Lyssa nodded. ‘Did your father think she was to blame too?’
‘Oh yeah. I mean, she must have encouraged Glen, mustn’t she?
She was a bit of a rebel long before she met him, so it stands to reason, doesn’t it?
She was expelled from her posh boarding school for drinking and driving and all that.
She was already smoking cannabis when she first heard the Lucky Cuckoos playing in that pub, I know that much, because Dad said he could remember Glen talking about it.
He was at Monty’s Mansion one day, and Glen offered him a spliff.
Dad said he was a bit shocked, but also excited, and smoked it because he would have felt na?ve and square if he hadn’t. ’
Jonas paused, then smiled dryly. ‘He actually used that word, “square”. It sounds so pathetically outdated now, doesn’t it? In fact, looking back, it all seems rather sad and squalid. Two brothers smoking weed and neither one of them having any idea what the future held.’
‘I’m sorry if talking about it is bringing back bad memories for you,’ she apologised.
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ Jonas said, meaning it, his eyes drifting to the clock, then back to the woman seated in front of him.
He hadn’t expected her to be so lovely to look at, but he couldn’t let all that long black hair or shapely long legs distract him from the fact that she could cause him some serious trouble.
‘I can probably talk about the past until you’re fed up with hearing it,’ he said, a queer sort of smile flitting across his face.
Catching it, Lyssa, for some reason, felt a slight chill creep down her back and told herself not to be silly. She needed to concentrate on learning all that she could from him – especially as he seemed to be so amenable.
‘For all that, your grandparents still accepted Monty’s invitation to her birthday party, didn’t they?’ she asked, again careful to keep her voice neutral and light. ‘They were even staying the night at her house, along with their youngest child.’
‘Aunt Emily? Yes, that’s right. I’d forgotten about that. Poor Aunt Em – she must have been only, what, eleven years old at the time,’ Jonas mused.
Lyssa nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. By why “poor” Aunt Em?’ she asked, getting distracted somewhat.
‘Oh, I didn’t mean anything by that,’ Jonas said with a light laugh. ‘There’s nothing particularly tragic about her. Granted, she’s not all that well, and is living in a nursing home. It’s just that I’ve always thought of her that way.’
‘Any specific reason?’ Lyssa persisted.
‘No. Well, yes, I suppose. It’s just that she was always one of those people with a single over-riding passion in their lives, that blotted out everything else.
In Aunt Em’s case it was the desire to be an artist. My dad said that even as a very small girl she was always drawing with crayons and painting, getting mess everywhere.
Drove Nan mad. Pictures and pictures of cats and trees and houses stuck up around the house everywhere!
She was desperate to be a painter and had already won one or two kids’ art prizes that the newspapers and comics ran – you know the sort of thing.
Win a set of paints and a “proper” artist’s sketchbook for the best painting of a cat or something. ’
‘Did she achieve her ambition?’
‘Oh yes. Well, no,’ Jonas said, confusingly.
Then he smiled at himself. ‘I mean, yes, she became an artist all right and has been one all her life. But she never made it big. Not really big. Several galleries over the years have displayed and sold her work regularly, and she’s had one or two very modest critical successes with some of her more inventive canvasses, but mostly she was just popular with the middle-of-the-roaders.
You know, those people who buy pictures because they like them, and think they’ll look nice in the spare room or go with their current décor, or what have you.
But she was never feted by her fellow artists, never invited to join the Royal Academy or the things that really mattered to her.
I think that must be more soul-destroying than total failure, don’t you? ’
Lyssa sighed. ‘You mean, better to be a talentless no-hoper, than to have just enough talent to succeed, but not so much that you could ever achieve greatness? Yes, I think I agree with you there.’
‘Hence, poor Aunt Em.’ Jonas nodded. ‘She never married, you know. Didn’t have time for a husband and kids.
Still, I suppose she must have felt it was all worth it.
Following her dream and all that; and to be fair, she did enjoy painting so much, so who knows?
Perhaps she was the lucky one! At least she was able to go to art college after all.
Even as a little kid, Dad said, she’d been desperate to go.
And by the time she was old enough, the courts had already decided that Uncle Glen’s money should come to us anyway, so Grandad and Nan could afford to send her. ’
‘Did your grandad and nan ever talk to you about that night – the night Monty died?’ Lyssa asked, firmly drawing the conversation back to where she wanted it. ‘It must have been something they could never forget.’
Jonas nodded. ‘Sure – they talked about it a bit. But not much. I think they found the whole thing a total nightmare. To begin with, they’d only gone in the first place to try and see if they could get Monty to do the decent thing and just hand over Glen’s legacy without having to keep on dragging it through the courts.
Then when she was found dead, the police came and questioned them, and all the other guests, and until the inquest brought in a verdict of accidental death nobody really knew if she might have committed suicide after all. ’
He paused and shook his head slightly. ‘That upset Nan very much, I know – the thought that all her friends and neighbours were talking about her behind her back, speculating that the court case might have driven Monty to it, and that they might be blaming her and Grandad for putting extra pressure on Amelia. Public opinion at that point seemed to divide somewhat, Dad said. Whilst Monty was alive and Glen was dead, she was the scarlet woman, and all that guff. But after she drowned, she became more of a tragic figure. I don’t know – perhaps the Great British Public wanted to think that the wild child had redeemed herself somehow, by committing suicide for the sake of love.
Or perhaps it was just the pathos that surrounded the death of a young, beautiful girl who should have had her life ahead of her.
Who can say? But others still held fast and true to the idea that she’d brought it all upon herself with her lifestyle, and flaunting society’s rules.
Either way, Dad said they had a rough time of it for quite a while right after she died. ’
‘It must have been very unpleasant for them,’ Lyssa agreed quietly.
‘And of course, it set the bloody press off all over again,’ Jonas added.
‘Pestering them, following them, jumping out of the bushes and shouting out questions over the neighbours’ hedges.
Dad said it drove them mad. And it didn’t help that things dragged on a bit and that it took ages for Glen’s money to finally be handed over. ’
He stopped speaking abruptly, realising that he shouldn’t have said that last bit, and hastily sought for something else to say to distract her.
‘At least the police ascertained pretty quickly that Grandad and Nan stayed inside the house during the whole of the party. Those guests that had wandered outside into the gardens at any point were really put through it, though. Dad said he was glad he had kept well away from it all. He was just lucky he’d been at the pub with his mates back in their hometown at the time and could prove it. ’
Once again, Lyssa saw his eyes slide away from her and consult the clock on the wall. She hoped he wasn’t beginning to weary of all this talking – she still had so much to ask him about.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he offered pleasantly.
And relieved to have an excuse to prolong the interview, Lyssa happily agreed.
Jonas smiled and reached for his intercom.