*****
I stood with my head bowed under the pounding force of the shower, letting the scalding water continue Nat’s work on my shoulder. My visitor would sleep like a reclining Adonis for an hour or so, before reluctantly leaving for an evening shift at the café. We might meet again later that night if I still felt like his company, or it could be days or weeks before our paths crossed again. Whatever, Nat would be flirtatious and benignly opportunistic and the threads of this easy, low-maintenance friendship could be gathered up without issue.
I was just starting to consider a more leisurely repeat performance when I heard voices. At first I assumed Nat was calling to me and I was just about to reply when the second voice drifted through. In that instant, my warm, tidy world froze and cracked around me and I reached into my bathroom cabinet to grab an inhaler that hadn’t been used in months. I pulled my bathrobe over my tensed shoulders and stepped out to meet my unexpected guest.
Nat sat on the bed, a hastily grabbed t-shirt just about covering his modesty as he faced the intruder. ‘Sorry mate. Didn’t think her next client was due for another hour.’
I stood on the threshold. ‘Nat, I don’t think you’ve met my father.’
*****
Sir Simon Montfort CBE sat at my table in his crumpled, grubby linen suit and polluted the air with his presence. ‘Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’ he asked. I made a note to count my cutlery once he had left.
‘There’s mineral water in the fridge. Help yourself.’
‘I’d appreciate something stronger.’
‘That’s reserved for invited guests. How the fuck did you get into my apartment?’
‘It was quite simple, really.’ My father gave a thin-lipped smile. ‘I told the concierge I was your adoring daddy – armed with a few old school photographs as proof – and I needed to tell you your grandmother was dead.’ He surreptitiously brushed the dandruff from his shoulders; whatever dye he was currently using to keep his hair a hideous shade of chestnut clearly wasn’t agreeing with him. The dust spiralled and floated across my kitchen on a shaft of light from the setting sun and I felt sick.
‘I know. Three years dead. The first time you told me she was gone I cracked open the Bollinger and stayed pissed for a week.’
That my father didn’t reproach me spoke volumes. Yet again, he clearly needed me far more than I had ever needed him.
‘So. What do you want?’ I finally asked.
‘This might just be a social visit. Perhaps I thought it was time to rebuild bridges. Did you consider that, Clarissa?’
‘Not for a second. And if you call me that again I’ll throw you back onto the street myself.’
‘I’m sorry.
Lilith
.’ My father said the name as though it were a profanity. He narrowed his eyes and I knew he was choosing his next words. He gave a nervous gulp of air as he worked up enough courage to explain his sudden reappearance. ‘You’ve, ah, heard of a Lady Albermarle?’ Under pressure, he returned to the same bumbling style he had adopted as an MP.
‘No. Why? Are you fucking her?’
He actually winced at my words. ‘There are times when you disgust me. And no, I’m not. Actually, she runs an exclusive island retreat -’
‘What, some ridiculous nursery for spoilt bastards exhausted from too much wealth and privilege? A couple of weeks of yoga and wheatgrass to recover from being a millionaire?’
‘Don’t be so bloody facetious,’ my father snapped, his Adam’s apple bobbing with nerves and irritation. ‘I’ve recently been a guest there myself.’
I widened my eyes. ‘Really? You never struck me as the joss-stick type.’
‘It’s nothing like that.’
Ten minutes of his malodorous presence and I was tired of him already. ‘Look, as delightful as this conversation about your holiday is, I’ve got a life I’d like to get on with. So why don’t you just tell me why the hell you’re here?’
‘Well if you insist on being so direct, I need a favour.’
‘For fuck’s sake. How much do you owe this time?’
‘It’s not a debt as such. There was a slight misunderstanding over my hospitality bill, that’s all.’
‘And this ‘misunderstanding’ – it wouldn’t be of the ‘left without paying’ variety, would it?’
‘I had every intention of settling my debts. There was some difficulty in processing my credit card.’
‘That’s because they only bloody work if there’s credit there,’ I snapped. ‘And I told you last time, I’m never bailing you out again.’
‘It’s a little more complicated than that on this occasion.’ My father’s cold, predatory smile returned. ‘I’ve got you some work.’
‘I don’t
need
work, for fuck’s sake. I’ve got a waiting list that could take five years to work through.’
‘You don’t understand. I’ve committed you to this, Lilith.’
I shivered. There was a sudden victorious look on my father’s face that I hadn’t seen in years. ‘Go on.’
‘Lady Albermarle has refused late payment. She’s decided that she would rather have a portrait by the notorious Lilith Bresson. Painted
in situ
at Albermarle Hall.’
‘Well golly fucking gosh how terribly delightful for her. Now get out.’
‘That’s enough.’ My father held up a hand that was prematurely stippled with liver spots. ‘You
will
let me finish.’
‘Or?’
‘I’ll be forced to adopt a more formal approach to a request that, to me, appears to be perfectly reasonable.’
‘Oh God, you talk such shit. And if I say no?’
This was his big moment. ‘I pull a few of my remaining strings and get this enforced.’ Like some third-rate magician he produced a letter from his jacket and handed it to me with a flourish. ‘And
this
, my beloved daughter, is a restraining order that bans you from setting foot within five miles of your half-brother. It cites your unreasonable, threatening and frankly unpredictable behaviour as a threat to the safety of a disabled, vulnerable child. I must say, after your ridiculous performance live on air, it was easy to find the necessary legal chaps to draft the thing.’
‘You
bastard
.’
This man, who had willingly abandoned his damaged, fragile wife and his tainted daughter, who had lied again and again and betrayed any value he had espoused in his inglorious political career, gloated whilst I read the litany of petty fabrications.
This man sat at my table and smiled, because he knew he had won. I sat opposite him and wished him dead as he feigned indifference to my fury.
‘Under the circumstances, Lady Albermarle has been extremely understanding. She appreciates that you must have commitments, loose ends so to speak, that need attending to.’ He picked up his vile document and slid it back into its envelope before tucking it into his breast pocket with a smug pat. ‘You have a week.
Blaine
expects you no later than nine, on the evening of June the third.’ He stood and brushed the fresh layer of scurf from his jacket. ‘Feel free to call at Foxrush for drinks once you’re finished, won’t you? I’m sure your stepmother will be delighted to see you.’
On the morning of June the second, I went for my final run in Santa Marita. The Plaza del Cristo, with its towering plane trees and puddles of dappled shade, marked the close of my eight-mile circuit, and I had already begun to slow my pace as I rounded the final corner and pounded past Benedicta’s, past the memorial to the town’s legion of Civil War dead, and past @, the internet café where Nat pretended to work as he honed the perfect programme to hack MI5.
Bach’s
Toccata and Fugue
thundered in my ears and I could feel my pulse throb in my temples as I touched the sun-warmed bench that marked my finish line. I placed my left foot on the peeling green paintwork, pushed the heel down to stretch my Achilles tendon, swapped feet and repeated. My daily ritual.
I turned off my MP3 player and gave my head a moment to deal with the sudden silence. I knew I was courting deafness if I continued to listen to music at a volume that would make anyone else’s eardrums bleed, but I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, it was only real music if I could still hear a phantom beat echoing in my skull three hours after I’d switched it off.
‘I’m surprised the pigeons haven’t issued you with a noise abatement order.’
To my dismay, Nat had seen me run past the café window and came to meet me with a bottle of mineral water. ‘Thanks.’ I took the water and wiped away the crystal beads of condensation with my thumb before taking a grateful drink.
‘I was going to call when I’d finished my shift. There’s this cool gig at Ben’s tonight – thought you might fancy it if you weren’t busy.’
I shook my head, and sweat spattered down onto the pavement. ‘Sorry. Stuff to do.’
‘Maybe tomorrow, then?’
‘Won’t be here. I’m flying back to
England
in the morning.’
‘Oh.’ His warm, hazel eyes widened in surprise. ‘You never said.’
‘No, well you never asked.’ I didn’t have to add that it was none of his damn business. My expression said it all.
‘Okay, okay.’ Nat held up his hands. ‘So, what is it this time? Another TV show?’
‘No, it’s not another bloody TV show. It’s work, if you must know.’
‘How long will you be away? Only, if it’s more than a few days, I’ll water your plants if you want…’
‘There’s no need. For God’s sake Nat, what is this? Twenty fucking questions? If you must know,
Rosario
’s taken my plants. I could be away for a couple of months.’
‘And that’s
it
?’
The fury I still felt at my father spilled to the surface before I had chance to check it. ‘What the fuck’s that meant to mean?’ I snapped.
‘You weren’t going to tell me, were you? If I hadn’t seen you today, you’d have buggered off without saying a word. I thought you and I were friends, Lilith. Maybe even more than that.’
‘Oh you have to be kidding me. You really are the last person I expected to turn into a needy bastard.’ I began to walk away, but to my surprise Nat fell into step beside me.
‘
Needy
? A woman I thought was my friend decides to fuck off to the Motherland for a few months and doesn’t even have the courtesy to call in and say ‘see ya’, and that makes me
needy
?’
I had never heard Nat raise his voice in all the years that we had known each other. Now the early morning market-goers stopped in their tracks to watch our scene and guilt-fuelled indignation swelled inside me. ‘We were never friends, Nat. I don’t know your birthday, your shoe-size or anything about your childhood. I couldn’t give a toss about your favourite film, and I really don’t see us settling down by the fireside with a sweet sherry to reminisce about the good times.’ I aimed my parting shot. ‘And if the separation anxiety really kicks in, try thinking of us as acquaintances who had the occasional mediocre fuck because you were too lazy to get off your arse and find a real girlfriend.’
Nat bit his bottom lip, and for one awful second his eyes misted over. Then he summoned the trace of a smile. ‘God, I pity you, Lilith. Have a safe trip, won’t you?’ He crossed the street without looking back as I thumbed the ‘on’ button and let the music obliterate my thoughts.
I dragged a Rococo wardrobe from the guest room into the corridor and hoped that I hadn’t managed to break off anything too priceless on the journey. ‘So, any particular reason we’re going into the removals business?’
Henry Masterson,
Blaine
’s personal assistant, paused in his unhooking of several tons of damask curtain and patted his glowing forehead with a starched cotton handkerchief. ‘New guest. Arrives tomorrow. Doesn’t like clutter.’
‘Jesus, but you’re an unfit little fucker, Henry. Anyone’d think you were the fifty-a-day man.’ I reached for the pack of Marlboros that was already half-empty at eleven o’clock in the morning.
‘Don’t you
dare
light one of those filthy things in here!’ Henry snapped, and I reluctantly slid the cigarette back into its packet with my teeth.
‘So. Who is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Henry lied.
‘Bollocks. C’mon, Henry. Male or female. Tell me that at least, will you? Whoever it is, they’ve got the best room in the place. Must be someone important.’
There was the first glimmer of pity on Henry’s face. I hated that, but it meant that he was starting to crack already. ‘I’m sorry, I really can’t say, Finn.’
‘For fuck’s sake! Just a name, an age – anything. Just something off the bloody form, huh?’
‘Actually, she didn’t submit a… Oh
bugger
.’
‘She. Thank you, Henry. That’s a start, at least. So, what else?’
‘Look, I know this is always difficult for you, but
Blaine
insisted. You’re not to know until she arrives.’ Henry glanced out of the window. ‘I don’t suppose your roses are in bud are they? A vase would be lovely for the dresser.’