The House at Midnight (30 page)

'I just don't understand why,' said Lucas eventually.

'Because he loved your mother. No, it was more than that. It was a kind of madness. He was obsessed with her. Completely obsessed. He wanted to ... possess her. She
was the only thing he couldn't persuade or buy or charm.

That just made him want her even more. He thought if I was gone he'd get her.'

I thought of Patrick and Claire on the first cines we'd seen. The way Patrick had looked at her as he'd stroked back her hair. Mtidev dydv, I thought.
Nothing in excess.

'He was with Mum before you were, wasn't he?'

'Did she tell you that?'

'No. It doesn't matter how I know. Tell me how it happened.'

'Before I met her I'd been away filming. Patrick and I weren't close but we stayed in touch for our parents' sake. They hated the idea of us not getting on. Even before Claire, Patrick thought I was some sort of threat. God knows why. He beat me in everything. He was cleverer, more successful, richer - everything. Even as kids, he was Oxbridge material and I scraped along two years behind him. There was this rubbish about me being better-looking than him but that's crap.'

I thought of how he looked on the films and knew that the sort of beauty he'd had then was something that couldn't be dismissed. It was a form of power, however much he was denying it now, a currency, just like talent or wealth.

'Anyway, we hadn't seen each other for months so I came up here for a weekend and I met Claire. I loved her, Lucas, from the first moment I saw her. It was the real thing. The only person I ever came close to loving as much was you.

'And the real miracle was that she felt the same. Somehow she could see that I was something apart from this supposed beauty' - he spat the word out - 'which was all anyone else ever cared about. She knew me. What your mother and I felt for each other was mutual, right from the start. We made each other so happy. And it made me happy that I could make her happy, this incredible woman ... it was like
realising why I was put on the earth.' He smiled for the first time as he remembered, going back to the memory as if to a dog-eared favourite photograph.

'So she left him.'

'Yes. We were as honest and gentle about it as we possibly could have been but he went nearly insane with jealousy. In London he used to come round to Claire's flat at three o'clock in the morning, crying and shouting and pressing on the bell. If we didn't answer, he just carried on. The neighbours called the police a couple of times. He refused to sell a picture to a director who gave me a job. He even threatened to kill himself. It was a very difficult time. For a while I thought it wasn't going to be possible for us to have any sort of relationship with him at all.'

Again I thought of the cines, the scene on the terrace with the picnic on that summer's afternoon. justin's hands on Claire, his fingers sliding around the edge of her bikini while Patrick sat stonily on the balustrade, fully dressed despite the heat. I had thought her uneasiness was shyness of the camera but I saw now that she had been thinking of Patrick's hurt and didn't want him to see them.

'Then something changed,' said Justin. 'I think he realised that if he carried on the way he had been he would lose her completely, even as a friend. He didn't give a toss about me. I think he might have killed me if he thought he could get away with it. He hated me for taking her - God, he hated me. It finished any chance of our ever having a proper relationship. We were civil to each other for her sake, but that was it.'

'Why did you still come here?'

'For her. She liked the people who came here, the artists. They had become her friends. And she liked him. She told me that she had mistaken friendship for attraction. She said once that Patrick was the man she had thought she loved before she discovered what love really meant.'

Greg took my hand and squeezed it.

'I was always a drinker, even then. A bit more than everyone else but it was still fine, under control. But then I couldn't get work. You were growing up and I wasn't earning enough to keep the three of us. That TV drama I'd done just before I met your mother was a big hit. I thought I was made, and I did get work for a few years but then it all just evaporated. Claire was doing her best with the money from her books but it wasn't enough. She would have liked another baby but we couldn't afford it. I was a failure. Not enough of a man to keep my wife and child. Patrick was always offering handouts but I wouldn't take them. How could I? He would have owned us.' His face had taken on its pinched look again as he remembered. 'And as well as that, I had the feeling all the time that he was waiting. Watching me and waiting for me to screw up. And I did, didn't I? I played right into his hands. Oh Lucas, if I could do anything to turn back the clock I would. Anything.'

'Where did you go? Afterwards?'

'Morocco. I knew the police would be looking for me so I needed to go abroad, somewhere where I could be anonymous. I've been living there under a different name. I drank for the best part of sixteen years, trying to obliterate it all. The guilt of thinking I'd killed someone. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The pain of not being with you and your mother any more. It tore me apart. I didn't know there was pain like that in the world.'

'You don't drink any more?'

'No. One day I woke up and I was in hospital; I'd been found unconscious in the street, half dead. They cleaned me up and wouldn't let me go. I haven't had a drink since, not one.' There was pride in his voice. 'I thought about you and your mother all the time. I've got all her books. They were the only thing that gave me a connection to you. They were so sad. I felt she was writing to me, to let me know she still thought about me.'

'She never stopped loving you. She loved you till the day she died.'

Justin began to weep again. I had never seen anyone so broken.

'Didn't she look for me?'

'Patrick insisted on doing it for her. For years he made this big show of trying to find out what had happened. He told Mum that he'd tried private detectives and everything. He made out he'd spent a fortune.'

'And she believed that? She didn't look for me herself?'

'After you left, she had a breakdown. She wasn't able to.' Justin closed his eyes.

'She wouldn't let Patrick give up, though. Eventually he told her it was destructive. He tried to have you declared dead but she wouldn't let him. In the end he told her you had to be dead, because if you'd been alive, you would have come back to her.'

Justin gave a horrible cry and put his hands over his ears. 'It makes me sick to think of it. Sick. I had nightmares where he tried to get her back. He was all over her. I saw him trying to pretend he was your father.'

'So why did you wait so long to come back? Why only now?'

'I came back last year, after she died. I saw her obituary in the paper, Lucas. Patrick didn't even tell me she was ill. The woman I loved died and I read about it in the paper, thousands of miles away. After that, I knew I had to come back, to ask him to let me have another chance with you, to get to know you at least, before it was too late. I didn't come back before because I thought he would hand me over to the police, but after Claire died I didn't care - she was gone and nothing I did could hurt her any more. But it all went wrong. Patrick was terrified to see me. It was like he'd seen a ghost. He was so frightened, Lucas, I could smell it on him. All those years of blackmail. That man left for dead. He told me that he would think about the best way for me to meet you, to sort it out, and that I should come back the next day and we'd talk. When I came back, he was dead, full of pills and booze, slumped in a chair upstairs. He was a coward, too.'

Lucas was staring. 'You were here then? I found the body. You saw it before me.'

'Yes, but when I found it, I ran. Back to Marrakesh. Think about it: the long-lost brother returns and the next day Patrick's dead. What does that look like to you, when the last thing the police knew they were looking for me for a hit-and-run? I'm a weak man, Lucas. That must be pretty clear.' 'It doesn't explain why you're back now.'

'I came back in January. I think your friend there recognises me.' Justin pointed at me and Lucas turned his head quickly.

'New Year's Day,' I said. 'You were in the pub. I hadn't seen a picture of you before and when I did I didn't make the connection. You look so different.'

He nodded, acknowledging it. 'I went there to see if I could find out anything about you, Lucas. It was incredible to see your friends, talking about you. Grown-ups. The last time I saw you, you were ten years old. It was amazing. You were there, so close.'

'And you didn't think to come up to the house and find me?'

Justin nodded slowly. 'Yes, I did think about it. For days. But I couldn't. I wasn't ready. I was afraid that you would reject me. I needed to be ready, to know what to say. I went back again, while I thought about what to do.'

'So how did Danny find you?'

'I came back again a week ago. I'd had time to think and I knew I had to make contact with you. I was still scared as hell but I had to do it. I went to the pub again, to see if I could find anything out, ask the locals, and I met Danny there.'

There was a silence. justin's anticipation was almost palpable. He was waiting for Lucas's response as if waiting for his sentence to be handed down.

'He ruined your life,' said Elizabeth. We all turned to look at her. She had sat down suddenly on the low Victorian chair by tbe wall.

'Yes,' he said. 'And he ruined yours, too, didn't he? You've never been able to move on, not really. I couldn't believe it when Danny told me you were still here.'

'I loved him.' There was a note of disbelief in her voice. 'But he never loved you.'

Her public face, usually arranged so carefully, was gone. It was horrible to witness the unprotected person underneath. 'That's not true,' she said weakly.

'It is, Elizabeth. Can't you let it go, even now, when you know what he did? And think about what he did to you. He used you.'

'No.'

'Yes. He did. He used you to make Claire jealous. To pretend to her that he was happy without her and that she hadn't been everything to him. You wanted him, too, of course. Beneath all that
image,
you were as vulnerable as anyone else. You looked at Patrick and you saw someone who would protect you. Nothing's changed, has it?' he said and his eyes found Danny. 'You're still looking for someone to look after you. The man who'll make everything all right. I think you've been looking for Patrick - or what you thought he was - all your life.'

'Stop it,' said Lucas. 'This is cruel.'

'No, Lucas,' she said. 'He's right. Patrick did use me. He took me on because I looked like her, I know that. Sometimes he could make it work. Sometimes it was like he had convinced himself that he was with her. He could be loving but then he went cold. Can you imagine what that's like? To know the man you love is only with you because you remind him of someone else?'

'You tried to make it work, though, didn't you? You tried everything. Running round trying to help people like she did, modelling for him, copying her. It was sad.'

'It was your fault. If you'd been more of a man, it would never have happened,' she hissed back at him. 'Patrick wouldn't have thought he could get her back. He would have given up. But all the time she was with you he thought he could get her back. You were right before. He did know you'd screw up sooner or later.'

'At least Claire loved me. What we had was real, not some piece of artifice and presence You tried every trick in the book, didn't you, stroking his ego, flaunting your body at him. Jesus, the way you used to sunbathe. There wasn't a man within fifty miles without a hard-on apart from the one you wanted.'

'Get out,' said Lucas, getting to his feet. 'Both of you. I can't listen to this.'

'Lucas, I'm sorry.' Elizabeth was on her feet.

'Please. Just go.'

I thought she would protest but she didn't. Instead she drew her shoulders back and walked out of the room with as much dignity as she could muster. She had to pass Greg and me, and I saw that she was pale. The youthfulness she had had earlier in the evening was gone; for the first time in the months I had known her she looked her age.