Master of the House (2 page)

Mum was lying back on her collection of kilims and cushions with a guy in a New Model Army T-shirt. They had matching nose rings, which was nice.

‘How was the fete?’ asked the guy, I think he was known as Animal, more because he was a drummer in a band than because of any anti-social habits.

It was an innocuous enough question, but it sent both of them into paroxysms of giggles.

‘Great. Mum, do you know who’s taken the lease at Willingham Hall?’

She tried to focus, but the effort required was too great.

‘What? Dunno. Hey, did you know Lord Lethy … bridge … died?’

‘I just found out. Joss’s not living there, I suppose?’

She shrugged.

‘Put a brew on, will you?’

That was Animal.

‘Do it yourself.’

I huffed into the bedroom, which was not mine, but the only place I could get a bit of peace and quiet and breathable air. I opened the window wide, replacing fragrant smoke with dry dog food and hamster bedding. Not much better, to be honest. I shut it again.

Lying flat on the bed, I looked up at the mobiles on the ceiling.

The room was sparsely furnished – a wicker bookcase, a reclaimed dresser covered in cheap beaded knick-knacks, a spider plant. It wasn’t much to show for a life, I thought. Mum was nearly fifty and this was everything she owned. But she was happy. Perhaps I should take a leaf from her book, travel light, live for the moment.

You’re so serious, Lucy-in-the-Sky. How did I make such a square?

Whenever I was around mum, I felt like a teenager again. My rebellion had taken a mirror-image form from the usual. No trying to get into nightclubs with a bottle of smuggled cider for me. I’d joined the Vale Operatic Society and spent my spare time reading about the politics of central Europe.

But at night, in my bed, I’d been less sober and sensible. At night, I’d thought about Joss and the cold look in his eye when he laughed at my distress.

I can do what I like to you
became something other than a threat in those lonely bewildering nights. It was a dark promise, a hint of unspeakable pleasures that I could only guess at. I would remember how it felt when Joss twisted my arm behind my back and the recollection of my helplessness reached a pitch of such intensity that it seemed natural to put my fingers between my thighs and rub.

I hated myself for seeing his face when I came, but it was his face I always saw and his name I always spoke in the drugged aftermath of orgasm. It wasn’t exactly pleasurable – it was too guilty and furtive for that – but there was nothing I could do to change it.

I tried to tell myself I wasn’t mad for feeling this way, but I had my doubts. In reality, I hated him for everything he had done to me. The Joss in my head was not the Joss of flesh and blood but a fantasy creature I could warp to my will. I suppose, looking back, it was my way of dealing with how badly he had hurt me. Perhaps it wasn’t the most emotionally healthy way of processing it, though.

I sat up. I didn’t want to be thinking this. I wanted to know what was going on at the Hall. I didn’t want to sit through mum’s bloody Chumbawumba album either. I still had the general office number for Willingham Estates on my mobile phone.

I took a deep breath and dialled.

Obviously half past five on a Saturday afternoon in June wasn’t going to find the place manned, and I resigned myself to having to leave a voicemail message, but I was surprised when the ringing was cut off after two beeps and a female voice answered.

‘Willingham Estates, hello.’

‘Oh. Hello. You’re in.’

‘Yes. May I help you?’

‘Well, I was just wondering if Lord Lethbridge was available. I need to ask him something.’

A pause.

‘Who is this, please?’

‘So he is still living at the Hall?’ I could barely speak and I had to hold the phone tight to prevent it slipping from my sweaty fingers.

‘Who is this?’

‘Lucy Miles. Can you tell him Lucy Miles would like to talk to him?’

‘Lucy Miles?’

There was a kerfuffle and the next voice I heard knocked all the breath out of my body.

‘Lucy? Is that you?’

‘Joss.’

‘Aren’t you in Poland or something?’

‘Hungary. No. I’m back. You’re still there.’ My words came out in stupid monosyllables while the laconic drawl I’d been aiming for whirled somewhere out of reach.

‘Of course. You heard about the old man?’

‘Yes, just now. I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks.’

To call the silence that followed awkward would be like calling Antarctica a bit nippy.

‘So, er, to what do I owe the pleasure?’ he said, saving me from having to blurt some nonsense.

‘I’m just … you know … got back from Hungary and thought I’d say hi.’ It sounded lame and I thought perhaps I should return my journalism qualification to the college that so mistakenly conferred it on me. ‘Wondered if you might like to …’

‘Meet up?’ he said. He sounded quite eager, for some reason. ‘Yes. We should have dinner. Catch up with each other. When are you free?’

Well, this was surprisingly easy.

‘Oh, any time, really.’

‘Tonight? What about the Feathers at eight? I know it’s short notice but I’m busy tomorrow and it looks as if I’ll have to go to London next week so –’

‘No, tonight’s fine. I can do tonight. The Feathers.’

‘It’s changed a lot since you left. I’m not some cheapskate trying to fob you off with a microwaved pie and crinkle-cut chips.’

I laughed.

‘I know – I went past it earlier. Where will I go now for my Vimto and crisps?’

It was his turn to laugh, and the genuine warmth of it, with a little hint of regret, snagged at my heart like a fish hook.

‘Oh, Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Vimto,’ he said.

Stop it or I’ll cry.

‘Eight in the Feathers, then,’ I said, determined to sound businesslike. ‘Will you book?’

‘Leave it with me. See you later then.’

‘Yes. Goodbye.’

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ he said softly before hanging up.

What a bombshell to leave me with. But it was all just veneer, I told myself sternly, simply the standard-issue Lethbridge charm, taught on the playing fields of Eton and showered over all and sundry.

More importantly, what was I going to wear?

I went for the snake-print shift with the shoulder ruffle. It was vital that I looked grown-up and sophisticated, a woman in control of her destiny. I wanted the traces of what I was before I left Willingham to be completely erased, so that he had to double-take and harbour some doubt that I was the same person.

At least I was driving, so there was no chance of overdoing the wine and getting maudlin or antagonistic or, worst of all, amorous.

Mum had gone to watch Animal take part in a Battle of the Bands, and it was a relief to have this excuse not to join her.
You need some fun, Luce.
I hadn’t dared tell her who I was meeting. ‘An old school friend’. Not exactly.

I didn’t want to be kept waiting at the bar, so I lurked in the car park until I was ten minutes late, obsessing about that time we’d met here before, nine years ago.

There was nothing sleek about me then. I stood at the bar with Mrs Wragg’s cousin’s daughter, Minna, drinking Vimto through a straw, wearing a vintagey daisy-patterned dress and a crochet cardigan that made my arms droop.

‘Seriously, you haven’t been here before?’ Minna had spent all day making fun of me and the fact that I’d been eighteen for three months and still hadn’t had an alcoholic drink or a speeding ticket or a kiss. It was starting to get really annoying.

‘No, except in the garden, to play on the swings. A long time ago, of course. Not, like, last week or anything.’

She laughed, spluttering on her Malibu and coke.

‘You want to live a bit, Luce. Back at home, I’d be getting ready to hit the clubs. Couple of Breezers in the bedroom with my girls, music on, makeover time.’

Irritated, I had a go at trying to shock her. ‘I usually spend my Saturday nights skinning up in the van with the local biker crew,’ I said.

It was blatantly untrue. I’d had one toke of a joint, once, a few months back, and disliked the aftertaste so much that I never did it again. Besides, what it did to mum and her friends bored me. Why would I want to spend hours staring vacantly into space or giggling at the cartoon on a fucking crisp packet? No, thanks.

‘What, you’re on drugs?’ she said, wide-eyed, then, ‘Know where we can get some?’

I did, as it happened, but I shrugged and said, ‘Nobody’s holding this week.’

I could tell she was impressed by my knowledge of the terminology, though, and she was appropriately respectful when she asked if I’d mind her going and playing the slots for a bit.

I gave her my permission and watched her making the lights flash and the jingle-jangle until something terrible happened and I nearly ran out of the bar and into the lounge.

Joss Lethbridge walked in, with a contingent of preppy floppy-haired fools. His friends took a table while he came in to order the round. He didn’t seem to notice me at first, and I’d turned my back on him, but half a minute after he pitched up, I heard his voice at my shoulder.

‘Lucy, isn’t it?’

I couldn’t exactly ignore him, much as I wanted to, so I turned around and gave him a stony look.

He’d been twelve the last time I’d seen him. Of course, mum had filled me in, quite unnecessarily, with the saga of his doings and his goings-on and his Eton triumphs and polo-playing prowess, but I had never actually caught a glimpse of him in the eight years that had passed.

He had changed. As a boy, he’d been heavier-set with chubby cheeks and hair that wouldn’t sit neatly on his head. Now, at twenty, he had been chiselled and straightened and stood in front of me sickeningly tall and handsome. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t representative of the vileness within, and I felt sorry for all the girls who would be taken in by it. His eyes were the same, though, huge and dark brown and far too intense for comfort. At any minute, the sadistic smile I remembered would break through the wall of effortless aristo bonhomie and the real Joss would be out of his civilised box.

Worst of all, I knew I was blushing because of the way my skin prickled, and I was blushing because I couldn’t stop thinking about all the times I’d fantasised about him. God, what if he could read minds? What if he could
see
?

‘Well, I suppose I don’t deserve a smile,’ he said, and there was something in his eyes I’d never seen before. It reminded me of sadness. Perhaps it was.

‘No,’ I agreed.

‘I was a complete shit to you. You should slap my face. Go on.’

He brought his cheek close to mine, so that I had to jerk back to avoid his breath on my skin.

‘And get myself barred? Yeah, right.’

He straightened up.

‘At least let me buy you a drink. As a token of apology, though I owe you much more. What are you drinking?’

I didn’t want to tell him but something about him compelled me, even now.

‘Vimto,’ I admitted, and he burst out laughing.

‘I’m not sure I even know what that is,’ he said. ‘It sounds quite dangerous. Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Vimto.’

‘It’s a secret blend of fruit juices, herbs and spices,’ I told him, hating myself for getting lured into conversation like this but somehow unable to shut my stupid mouth.

‘How exotic. No alcohol?’

‘Nope.’

‘I can slip a vodka in there if you’d like.’

‘I wouldn’t like.’

‘Fine. As Madam wishes.’ The barman approached and Joss gave his rather extensive order. ‘Anyway,’ Joss resumed, turning back to me while the barman pulled the pints, ‘how are you?’

I shrugged. From the corner of my eye I could see, to my considerable chagrin, that Minna was flirting with the table full of toffs.

‘Left school, I take it?’ He was dogged in his pursuit.

‘Just finished A levels.’

‘Going to university?’

‘Yeah.’

He looked at me with this ‘I need a fuller answer than that’ look. Again, I was compelled.

‘London. English.’

‘Damn. I was hoping you’d say Oxford. I could show you around.’

‘I couldn’t be bothered with all the Oxbridge crap.’
Because I knew you were there.

‘Well, I’m sure you had better things to do. Come over to our table. Is she a friend of yours?’

He glanced at Minna as he put his legion of pint glasses on a tray to carry across the room.

‘Not really. Somebody’s visiting niece, that’s all.’

I narrowed my eyes at her. She was leaning over some Hooray Henry, giving him a faceful of her cleavage in its tight, skimpy vest top. It was plain that Joss’s friends had about as much respect for her as they had for the pub dog stretched out by the fireplace, but she was an amusement for them, so they tolerated her.

‘Minna, we should go,’ I said, avoiding taking my place beside Joss on the oak settle.

‘What the fuck?’ she whined. ‘Don’t be such a killjoy, Luce. Sit down and have a drink. You might even enjoy yourself.’

She looked around the group, lapping up their approval and their nodding heads and eager grins.

I wanted to kill the lot of them.

But I sat down.

It was one of the most excruciating half-hours of my life. Minna and I were exhibits in a zoo – look at the Local Girls in their Natural Habitat. They asked us questions and laughed at our answers, no matter how dull or ordinary they might be. Within five minutes, one guy had his hand on Minna’s thigh. We were just there to provide a bit of entertainment, like tavern wenches in ages gone by when the men of quality deigned to refresh themselves.

Joss, though, didn’t seem to be joining in with the heavily veiled barbs and slights. He tried to temper his friends’ increasingly drunken enthusiasm, remonstrating with them when they approached the verge of Going Too Far, and he defended me from all questioning with a flat ‘Lucy’s got more sense than to talk to the likes of you oiks. Leave her alone.’

The pint glasses emptied, one by one.

‘Would you ladies care to accompany us back to the Hall? We’ve got more beer and wine than you could imagine in your wildest dreams, and the lord and lady are on a yacht somewhere, so the place is ours?’