The Birthday Party (38 page)

‘Delilah wouldn’t do it. I know she wouldn’t. Never.’ He poured some fresh coffee beans into the grinder, and winced as the
machine pulped them into fine powder with seconds. It should be his dick in there, he thought. That was the punishment he
deserved.

Doug the Pug stared at him from his basket, his eyes glassy.

‘Even the bloody dog knows.’

‘Don’t be so stupid.’ Genevieve couldn’t be doing with sentimentality over animals.

‘He does. He’s lying there looking at me accusingly.’

‘He’s lying there because he’s too fat to get up. He needs to lose some weight.’

‘He is losing weight. He’s pining—’

The security buzzer went, which meant someone had driven in through the gates. Raf’s stomach lurched. He had no idea how they
were going to react. Which one of them would judge him, and which one would forgive?

The first to arrive was Coco. She looked around the kitchen suspiciously. ‘What’s the story? Where’s Mum?’

Raf cleared his throat nervously. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ll make you a coffee.’

‘No thanks.’ Coco was fiddling with the trio of slim gold bangles she wore on her wrist. She looked at Genevieve suspiciously.

‘How’s the show going?’ asked Genevieve. ‘We’ve been watching it when we can.’

Coco looked backwards and forwards between her and Raf. ‘We?’

‘All of us. In the digs. I love the guy who plays your boyfriend—’

‘He’s a twat.’

Raf put a cup of coffee down in front of her.

‘Dad – I said no to coffee. What is all this about?’

‘Let’s wait till the others get here. I don’t want to go through it all twice.’

He didn’t want to go through it all once, for that matter.

Finally, they were all lined up in front of him, sitting at the island. His beautiful daughters: Coco, cool and classic, slightly
haughty, the most suspicious and hostile; Violet, exotic with her short, sharp bob and her cherry-red lips, and Tyger, fizzy,
kooky and lovable. How was he going confess he had betrayed not just Delilah but the three of them?

Genevieve had tactfully asked Louis to come out into the garden with her, for which he was grateful. And Polly had scuttled
back into the office yet again, only appearing to kiss all three girls hello before vanishing with yet another reproachful
glance.

‘I’m not proud of what I’m about to tell you,’ Raf began. ‘I’ve been a selfish, foolish, uncaring, self-indulgent—’

‘Cut to the chase, Dad,’ said Violet, rolling her eyes. ‘We can decide what you’ve been when you tell us.’

‘OK. Your mum caught me in bed with another woman.’

There was a stunned silence.

Coco banged her hand down on the island.

‘I knew it,’ she exclaimed. ‘Fucking Genevieve Duke. How dare she even show her face here? Get her out of here now.’

‘No, no. It’s not Genevieve,’ Raf assured them all hastily. ‘Believe me; she’s given me a harder time than anyone over it.
No, it was … Pandora Hammond.’

‘Pandora Hammond!’ sputtered Tyger. ‘She’s young enough to be—’

‘I know. I know.’

‘So hang on. Where is Mum? What happened when she found out?’ Violet demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Raf. ‘She’s … done a runner. She just drove off into the night, and I haven’t heard from her since.’

‘So she could be dead? She might have had an accident.’

‘For God’s sake, Dad!’

‘Have you called the police?’

They were all talking at him at once. He held up his hand.

‘Hold on. She’s sent an email to Polly saying she’s perfectly fine, but she doesn’t want anyone to know where she is.’

‘So she’s safe?’

‘As far as I know.’ Raf ran his fingers through his hair. ‘But she’s not answering her phone or her emails. And we’ve got
no way of finding out where she’s gone.’

‘What about the police? Surely they can help?’

He shook his head. ‘She’s not officially missing, because she’s contacted us. There’s nothing they can do.’

‘Everyone can do something for the right price,’ Violet pointed out.

‘Well, we could contact the papers. Ask for the public’s help. But I don’t think that’s what your mother would want.’

‘Or you,’ said Coco, harsh to the end. ‘They’d soon get to the bottom of what has happened.’

‘Yep,’ agreed Violet. ‘The Raffertys’ dirty linen all over the headlines. Again.’ She stared stonily at her father. ‘Why?
I don’t get it.’

‘Yeah, Dad,’ chipped in Tyger. ‘Why are you shagging someone half your age?’

Raf flinched. It sounded so cheap, coming from the lips of his beloved youngest daughter. Well, it was cheap. There was nothing
honourable about it at all. It wasn’t as if he’d gone and fallen madly in love with Pandora. There was no defence for it at
all.

‘I don’t know,’ he said bleakly. ‘All I know is we need to try
to track down your mother. So if anyone can come up with any ideas …’

Justine stood uncertainly in Violet’s kitchen, peering in through the glass of the oven door, wondering how her asparagus
quiche would turn out. Would it be like the picture, or would it be a total disaster? It certainly smelled delicious, but
she wanted it to look perfect too. Just like the photo in Delilah’s cookery book, which was lying open on the work surface.

In the past, she had never spent any more time in the kitchen than was necessary, but since she had turned her back on her
career, there was a whole new world opening up for her. And she was astonished how relaxing and therapeutic she found it.
Normally on a Saturday she’d be at the gym or the pool undertaking one of her punishing regimes, or meeting Alex and his gang
for a late lunch at the Bluebird Café, or calling into one of her favourite boutiques to check out their new stock.

Instead, she’d had the radio on while she chopped and stirred, humming happily with an apron on! Not stalking Sloane Street
in her killer heels. It was strange. Men had always found her intimidating and slightly aggressive. It had taken another woman
to soften her. She felt as if she was turning from a predatory puma into a fluffy kitten. And she loved it. She was purring
her way through life, discovering things about herself that she never knew.

She tried to analyse it. What did she have to prove? Was she trying to show that she was as good as Delilah in order to win
Violet’s affections? Or maybe it was simply that she was happy and relaxed, and therefore content to indulge herself in something
she had previously considered mundane, not to mention messy. Her philosophy had always been why get your hands dirty when
there was usually someone else around to do it for you?

The timer pinged and she opened the oven door tentatively.

As she pulled the quiche towards her, she felt an immense glow of satisfaction. It didn’t look bad at all. OK, so she hadn’t
made the pastry herself – hadn’t even rolled it, in fact, but had bought a ready-made shell – but there was no point in trying
to run before she could walk. This was her first culinary triumph, and she couldn’t wait to share it. It bubbled golden, the
spears of asparagus perfectly spaced. Her mouth watered.

When she heard Violet at the door, she rushed to greet her, hardly able to wait to show off her achievement.

She stopped in her tracks when she saw her. Violet’s face was blotchy from crying. As soon as she saw Justine, she fell into
her arms, sobbing.

‘Bastard,’ she sobbed. ‘What a complete and utter bastard. I can’t believe it. After everything he put us through, he goes
and does it again.’

Justine could barely make out what she was saying. She put her arms round Violet, stroking her back, shushing her until she
had calmed down enough to explain what Raf had told them.

‘I just feel so guilty,’ she wailed. ‘I had that stupid row with Mum and I didn’t phone her. I left Coco’s screening without
making it up to her properly. And now she’s vanished off the face of the earth. Who knows what she’s going to do?’

‘Now come on.’ Justine was the voice of reason. ‘Your mum’s not stupid. She probably just needs a bit of time out. Some space
to think.’

Violet calmed down eventually.

‘I’m so angry with him. Why does he have to do it? Mum is so gorgeous – why does he feel the need to be unfaithful to her?’

‘Why does anybody?’ asked Justine. ‘People do it all the time.’

‘I thought he’d changed. He was so awful when we were young. It was unbelievable, what Mum had to put up with. Every week
his name was linked with some actress or starlet. He had the most terrible reputation. And he was always drunk.

I don’t think I had a proper conversation with him until I was fifteen. Some of the time he didn’t even recognise us, he was
so out of it. We could never ask friends back, even though they were always dying to meet him.’ She wiped her nose with the
back of her hand. ‘Then he turned into Mr Nice. For ten years he was the perfect father. Always there, completely reliable,
supportive. And now he’s reverted to type. But he can’t blame the booze this time. He’s obviously just a bastard through and
through.’

Justine made no judgements, just murmured soothing phrases as Violet talked. Which she did. She poured her heart and soul
out about their childhood and how difficult it had all been. How she used to feel sick because she was so worried that one
day her mother would have had enough and would kick her father out. And in the end how she would pray that she would, just
to bring an end to the terrible cycle.

‘It’s obviously engrained in him. Some terrible need to feel irresistible. He needs some bloody counselling. All those smug
articles where he said he didn’t need help to kick the booze? Took the credit for sorting himself out? Well, what about the
sex addiction? He hasn’t addressed that, has he?’

She started crying again.

‘And I feel so guilty, because I was a bitch to Mum. I should have phoned her and apologised. She only wanted to help, and
I didn’t want her help, and I wanted to talk to her about you and I didn’t have the nerve …’

Justine held her.

‘Your mum will be fine. She’s an amazing woman. She’ll pick up the phone and talk to you when she’s ready. She won’t hold
anything against you.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘Of course not. She’s not that sort of person.’

‘No …’ Violet looked doubtful.

Justine was wonderful. She listened, and she didn’t judge. She didn’t tell Violet not to be silly, or say she was making too
much of the whole thing, like a bloke would have. She cuddled
her, and wiped away her tears, and made her delicious rose and cardamom tea to calm her down, then fed her the asparagus quiche
that she had made. That made Violet cry again, because Justine had used one of her mum’s recipes, and it tasted so good and
so familiar.

Then she tucked her up in bed, in freshly laundered sheets, and stroked her brow until she slept for two whole hours in the
middle of the afternoon. And when Violet woke she felt much better, much stronger, and she reached out for Justine, who hadn’t
left her side all the time she slept. And when they made love it was sweeter and more tender than it had ever been before.

In the middle of the night, Violet slipped out of bed and went to her piano. She wrote a song, a passionate outpouring of
all the guilt and anger she felt at Raf’s betrayal. It was bitter and heartfelt, very close to the bone. Violet didn’t know
if she could ever perform it in public. It would be like performing naked, stripping yourself bare in front of an audience.
But she knew in her heart it was the best song she had ever written.

At dawn, she climbed back into bed. The birds were starting to sing. Justine stirred slightly in her sleep, turned over and
instinctively slid an arm around Violet’s waist, pulling her close. Violet felt safe and protected. She felt loved.

How could she reject Justine, when she made her feel like this? You didn’t kick a love like that out of bed, not if you were
sane.

Coco was enraged by Raf’s confession, but she was determined it wasn’t going to ruin her evening with Benedict. She gunned
her car out of The Bower and drove at top speed to The Melksham, where she had a full body massage and an oxygen facial. She
prayed she wouldn’t get a chatty therapist, and she didn’t. She was able to mull over the morning’s events in her own mind,
while undergoing the most heavenly treatments imaginable. Benedict had been right when he told her he
only ever hired the best, she thought, as the girl trickled sweet-scented unguents onto her skin.

Her father’s undoing had come about from the pressure of working in a tight team to a tight schedule, Coco concluded. Shooting
a film was claustrophobic and incestuous. Relationships became very intense very quickly, and you had to trust people or you
were sunk. She knew this from working on
Critical but Stable
. Actors had affairs the whole time. They couldn’t help themselves. They were needy and narcissistic. Coco had been able to
resist getting involved with any of the cast because none of them were really her type, but she could see how it might happen.

She was also pretty sure her mother would survive. Delilah was tough. She would be figuring it all out somewhere. And when
she came back she would have decided what to do. She wouldn’t emerge as the victim in all of this. You didn’t pull off what
Delilah had pulled off, against the odds, by being a victim. Coco believed implicitly in her mother’s capabilities. It would
take more than Pandora Hammond to knock Delilah off her perch.

So although Raf’s confession had left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, Coco wasn’t unduly worried. It wasn’t as if he harboured
any strong feelings for Pandora. She would have been more worried if it had been Genevieve he had taken up with. Genevieve
Duke was definitely more of a threat, but in fact had turned out to be an incredible ally. Coco had warmed to her immensely
after this morning. She seemed to have the measure of Raf, and was dealing with him firmly and sensibly. Her father would
be safe in Genevieve’s hands, she felt certain.

After her treatments, Coco got herself ready for the evening. It was only while she was getting dressed that she realised
she felt grotty again. She decided it must be all the toxins coming out after the massage – the therapist had warned her she
might feel a bit below par, and to drink lots of water to flush them away. So she ordered up a bottle of Badoit and drank
it down while she did her make-up.