When war was declared, Clare shared Viviane’s fear for her male relatives who had signed up, and when the first casualty lists were announced, she held her hand as Viviane went through them and shuddered with relief when all the names were unknown, and comforted her at the deaths of distant nephews and cousins three times removed.
In all this time, she never met Alexander Bray, the golden disappointment of his parents, expelled from school after school for misbehaviour, the child who had shown such intelligent promise but was now wasting it in his associations with undesirable friends. Sometimes she would arrive to tales of what Master Bray had got up to the night before, but it seemed that he stayed away from the drawing room, perhaps aware of the cuckoo in its midst.
And then, one day, everything changed.
She arrived at the house to see an ambulance pulling away, and went down to the basement to find the servants grouped round Cook’s deal table, the girls white-faced and trembling, the men cupping glasses of brandy. It seemed that sharp, lively Gina Scott had killed herself the previous night, and nobody could understand why.
Rumours flew round the table. She had a condition – nobody explained this to Clare, but as a Princes Street child she knew exactly what that meant. She had been let down by a man, they said; had family trouble from back home in Shanker; perhaps she’d always been touched in the head but had never let on. The other girls asserted they would leave – said nobody would take a position in a house where such a thing had occurred. Mrs Bray should have known, they said. She’d been too involved in her own life to worry about the servants.
And here they stared at Clare, as if she had been the cause of Viviane’s distraction. Clare faced them out, declared her sorrow at Gina’s death – which was genuine, because she’d been her favourite of the female servants, and if any one of them should have killed themselves she would rather it had been dumpy Maggie, with her pockmarked face – and asked to be taken to Viviane.
It was a mistake. She should have left and returned on another day, not allowed her presence to be associated with Gina’s death. But she was young and lacked empathy, and could not understand why Viviane would be so upset. Yet she was – almost hysterical in fact, and her husband had arrived from London to comfort her, and Clare’s presence in the drawing room as a witness to this was extremely unwelcome.
‘Oh, Clare,’ sobbed Viviane when she saw her. ‘It’s too awful. It’s all my fault.’
This was typical of soft-hearted Viviane. Clare took a step forward, discomfited by Mr Bray’s hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Of course it’s not,’ she said, worldly wise at her grand age of fourteen. ‘You couldn’t have known this would happen.’
‘I should have,’ she cried. ‘I could have stopped it all.’
Clare thought she was being silly, in her usual Viviane-like way. ‘Please don’t be upset,’ she said, holding out a hand; a rather dirty little hand, she saw now.
‘I’d rather you didn’t touch my wife,’ said Mr Bray stiffly, and Clare took her hand back as if she had been shot.
‘I – I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Should I go?’
‘Yes, go,’ he said. ‘Go and don’t come back.’
Clare looked from him to Viviane, whose shoulders were still shaking, but who said, in between bursts, ‘Oh, Edward, it doesn’t matter.’
‘It does matter. It matters a great deal. We know you’ve been stealing from us, you ungrateful little girl.’
‘I …’ She wanted to tell them it had only been one teaspoon, two years ago, but then she wondered if she should admit even that.
‘Taking money from my wife’s purse. You knew where it was kept.’ He indicated the drawer where Viviane did, indeed, keep her purse. Clare knew this because Viviane drew it out every week to hand over a few shiny coins.
‘She – she gave it to me.’ She saw Viviane shaking her head desperately. ‘I don’t steal.’
‘The teaspoon,’ Viviane croaked. ‘It all started then.’
And now Clare understood Viviane’s treachery: the
handing out of money, unsanctioned by the bullying husband, and when he had found out, perhaps today, she had lied – undone by the discovery of Gina’s body and its implications, but lied nevertheless – and implicated Clare in crimes she had not committed.
‘You’re lucky my wife doesn’t want to call the police,’ he said. ‘I’d have you thrown in gaol, minor or not.’
She left then, still protesting her innocence, dragged out by the same male servant who’d carried her in on the first day. This time his hand was on the scruff of her neck, and as he tossed her on to the front steps she shouted, loud enough for Viviane to hear through the first-floor windows, ‘I’ll get you back! You’ll see! You can’t get away with this!’
The money had never been spent; it had been hoarded in the box of treasures. She went home that night and counted it all up into wavering columns. In the morning she dressed, rolled the money inside a change of underwear, tied the whole thing into a shoddy-looking parcel and told Dotty to say goodbye to her father when he staggered home later. She took the first train to London and went to visit an old Princes Street friend of hers, Lil, who was seventeen and making her way on the stage. Lil took her in and fed and watered her, taught her how to dress and make herself up, changed her name and shoved her on stage in baby-doll clothes in a grubby revue. She encouraged her to take lessons in elocution, deportment and the classics. Clara Fortescue found she had a talent for the stage, and as she got older the theatres became smarter and the men who pursued her became wealthier.
By the time she caught the eye of Alec Bray she had already received three proposals of marriage.
‘And how could I say no to him?’ she said, looking up at the stars. ‘He’d already promised me Castaway, without knowing I was a Helmstone girl. He said his mother was dying, and leaving it to him. He said it would be our home, that he was fed up with London, that all he wanted was a quiet, seaside sort of a life.’
We had drifted back to shore now and were lying half in, half out of the waves. Occasionally the water would unplug us from the sand, forcing us to dig our toes in and push ourselves back up again. Goosebumps speckled my arms, but I felt none of the cold.
I traced her profile with my eyes. ‘So you married him for Castaway.’
She shrugged. ‘He was attractive, naturally. He could be charming. Back when he was still wooing me, he brought me to Helmstone for the day. We were both a dreadful pair of liars, of course. I pretended I’d never been before, and he pretended the house was rented out. Didn’t want to let his parents know he was pursuing an actress. So we bought day tickets on the train and came down here, and it was lovely.’ She sighed. ‘We went looking for crabs over by the rock pools, and I found a little shell with a mother-of-pearl inlay. I scratched our initials on to it and gave it to him, said it would bring us good luck. He promised to wear it next to his heart for ever.’
‘And does he?’ I asked, suddenly nervous of the answer.
She snorted. ‘The very next day he told me he’d lost it. Said not to worry, he’d buy me a diamond ring instead.’
She shook her head. ‘That was when I knew I’d be a fool to lose my head over him. I accepted his proposal the week after. You know, with clear eyes and the conscience of a gold-digger.’
My heart was leaping inside my chest. She did not love Alec. Perhaps she’d never loved him. She’d married him for his house, and the security that came along with it. Possibilities lapped my feet with the incoming tide.
Clara propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at me. ‘It’s so nice to talk to you,’ she said. ‘It’s like talking to a brother.’
‘Like Billy?’ I mumbled, crushed.
‘Of course. You can be Billy.’ She smiled. ‘We’re sort of similar, aren’t we?’
‘Mmm.’
‘I mean, neither of us fit in. We always have to play the part.’ She sat up and hugged her knees. ‘And now Princes Street won’t have me either, so I’m sort of stuck. Nobody wants me, you see.’
I do
, I thought. I held out my hand and said, ‘Brother and sister, loyal to the end.’
She wrapped a fist round my little finger and smiled at me sadly. ‘Absolutely.’ She glanced down and grimaced. ‘Lord, there’s sand everywhere.’
She jumped to her feet and attempted to brush herself off, showering me with grit.
‘Hey!’ I said, standing up too.
‘Sorry.’
In the thick moonlight, I saw that she was plastered with the stuff. We both were; I felt it in my hair, under Alec’s swimsuit, at the backs of my knees.
She looked away from the beach and frowned. ‘I’ll have to rinse off.’
I looked about. ‘How …?’ I began, and then saw that she was darting up the slope towards the beach hut, shouting, ‘I’ll only be a minute!’
I waited for her, brushing off sand, until I heard her voice in the dark call, ‘Up this way, Robert.’
I made my way up the slope to where the beach huts hulked darkly before their wooden boards. ‘Where are you?’ I asked.
‘Here – at the end of the huts.’
Now I saw her, silhouetted against the furthest hut. Beside it, a tap jutted out of the ground, with a bucket below it. She held out a towel, and I took it.
‘I need you to do me a favour,’ she said. ‘I want to clean up, but I need somebody to guard my privacy. Would you do that?’
‘Of – of course,’ I said, not really sure what she meant.
‘Thank you.’ Her face was in darkness, but I thought I saw her smile as she began peeling off the straps of her costume.
Now I understood and, alarmed, I spread out the towel and turned my head away, towards the high, blank sea wall where, in a few hours, fishermen would start hoisting out their trolleys to display their catches of the morning. I heard water gushing, and resisted, hard, the temptation to look round.
‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ I heard her say, ‘but you can never be too sure, can you? One doesn’t want to be arrested.’
‘N-no.’
‘I’m so glad we’re friends now, Robert. God, this water’s
cold. You know, I do feel as if we have a sibling-like connection. Right, all done.’
I felt the towel pulled from my grip, and when I turned she was wrapping herself in it, her costume slung on the tap like a victory flag. ‘Do you want a go?’ she said. ‘It’s very refreshing. I’ll grab you the other towel.’
We reversed our roles. She held the towel high over her head, so high I could see her calves and ankles. As I pulled off Alec’s swimsuit, I heard the rumble of a motor car overhead and realized how much closer we were to the seafront road up here, compared to our idyll at the shore. I felt awkward and stupid, rinsing myself in freezing water, and the only positive effect, apart from ridding myself of sand, was that it also rid me of any latent desire. We were two silly kids, playing on the beach in the early hours of the morning, drunk and tired, and that was perfectly all right.
She thrust the towel at me when I had finished and then, shivering and giggling, we ran into the hut. I pulled the door closed, murmured, ‘I’m frozen solid,’ and turned to her. I could barely see her in the darkness, but I heard the squeak of the stacked wicker chairs and I thought she must have pulled herself on to them. Her leg banged into my shin. I stumbled forwards and brushed against her hair as I righted myself.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.
‘That’s all right,’ she breathed.
The space between us was changing. It had changed the moment that the door closed on us, but I was only just beginning to realize. The musty air in the hut crackled. I heard her short, high breaths. I bent down before I properly
knew what I was doing and placed my lips on her forehead.
She lifted her face. My lips found the tip of her nose and then her mouth. I kissed her, tugging at her bottom lip with mine, and, just as Lizzie had done to me, I pushed my tongue between her lips and Clara parted for me with a gasp.
I could not hold my balance. I sank to my knees. She bent her head towards me; her hair brushed my face and we kissed and then, when she released me, I said, as though possessed, ‘I worship you.’
She breathed heavily. ‘Then worship me,’ she whispered, and took my hand and traced it across her neck and down over her breasts. I felt her nipples and kissed them, and cursed that I could see nothing of her except a shadowy outline filtering through the wooden slats in the beach-hut door. The damp towel was rough about her sides; I kissed her stomach and she moaned. ‘Worship me,’ she said, and pushed my head lower, in towards the dark, salty heart of her. I felt my way, not even knowing what I was doing, guided by her hand and her whimpers, and, when I found the nub of her, caressed it with my tongue, over and over. She moaned louder and the wicker chairs squeaked and trembled, their legs rattling, and my knees grew numb on the gritty rug on the hard wooden floor. Sand on her thighs scraped my face, sand that she had missed, and her ankles crossed behind my neck, pulling me closer, and as I held on to the wooden struts of the hut to keep me stable, she bucked once, twice and again, and the wicker chairs creaked dangerously, and the beach hut shook, and she called out in a voice I’d never heard from her, ‘Oh bleedin’ fuckin’ fuck,’ and then all was still.
I gasped for breath. I kissed her thigh, found sand plastered to my wet cheeks. In all my dreams I had never … and the smell … and I was overwhelmed … and I sank down to sitting, gulping in the sweat-drenched air.
Then the chairs creaked again, and she knelt over me, pushing me backwards on to the rug. I felt my feet catching in the legs of the chairs, and my head knocked against the tip of a shoe as her hand felt for me, guiding me into her, and as she sank herself down around me all the stars illuminated inside my head and I thought,
Not yet, not yet, not yet
, and she moved up and down and up and down, and it was the dance and the swim and everything, and now I knew why I was alive, it was this, and it was so, so sweet.
I exploded in a confusion of sound and light and the chairs collapsing into the side of the hut and the shoe bruising my face, and then Clara was bending over me, our sweat sliding together, whispering something I could not hear, and I was barely aware of anything any more. She pulled herself away from me, her breaths hot and heavy, and the hem of her dress brushed my chest.