A Hidden Life (52 page)

‘Right,' Matt said, relieved to see her leaving the room. He exhaled, unaware until that moment that he'd stopped breathing naturally the minute Ellie walked into the kitchen. The danger was over. He walked over to the window to see what Phyl was up to and found her talking earnestly to Lou. Poppy was trailing her hand in the pond and running around the rim, obviously following one of the fish as it swam along. He smiled. He remembered Tamsin doing the same thing, exactly.

The truth of the matter was, he did still think of that night with Ellie. It was something he'd tried to eradicate from his memory with no success at all. He couldn't help it. He fancied Ellie like mad and always would and that night with her was … what was it? Amazing. Unforgettable. Marvellous. He felt guilty that his own wife didn't make him feel like that, but it couldn't be helped. He loved her. He could no more envisage living without Phyl than living without his right arm, but it was thoughts of Ellie which made his pulses race; Ellie he fantasized about; Ellie who came into his mind at inopportune moments, and there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. He sighed and wondered how long this effect would last. Maybe as time went on, as the memory faded, he'd forget how it was, that night. How he'd felt. How he'd almost passed out from
an overdose of pleasure. Phyl was waving at him from the garden, smiling at him and he smiled back and felt like a rat. But I'm not a rat, he thought. I'm here. I've sent Ellie packing. I love my wife. I love her. There's nothing wrong with having a fantasy life. Show me the man who doesn't.

Harry was on the phone when Lou came into the room to talk to him about a script she'd just read about two sisters working in a supermarket. It made her laugh, though the title,
Special Offers,
obviously needed work. Harry nodded at her and indicated that she should sit down so she did, wondering why he was smiling so hard into the handset. Why was he looking so pleased with himself? She looked at him as he spoke, comparing him to Jake and feeling happy. She had a lot to thank Harry for, she decided. If he'd become her boyfriend, she'd never have become involved with Jake and how dreadful that would be … even though she hadn't been going out with Jake very long, she found it hard to imagine a life without him and the moment she thought this, she suddenly felt herself turning cold. What if something happened to him? To her? What if he grew tired of her? What if it didn't work out? What if, all sorts of ghastly things … No, I'm not going to think like that, Lou thought. I'm going to be positive. Look on the bright side. Harry was looking directly at her and nodding and saying, ‘Yes, yes, she's right here as a matter of fact – sure. No, I'll go and get us a coffee while you speak to her. Okay … be in touch. Ciao, Ciaran!'

Ciaran? Could it be? Harry was holding the handset out so that she could take it. He was grinning all over his face.

‘Hello? This is Lou Barrington.'

‘I've found you. I'm so sorry. This is Ciaran Donnelly. I owe you an apology – you must think I'm so rude. The fact is, I've only just read your script. Would you believe it got buried under some files? I'm sure you would. You've been to my house, have you not?'

Lou nodded and then realized that he couldn't hear her nod and said, ‘Yes, yes, I have.' What was he going to say? Why had he rung Harry? What was happening? She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and breathing had turned into something she found difficult.

‘I love it! It's great … I'm going to option it. Not a lot of money, I'm afraid, in an option, as you know, but I do think it's a grand little screenplay you've written and I don't want anyone else getting wind of it. I'll try and raise some finance now – you know how it works, don't you? No guarantee that it'll be made, but a first step.'

‘Yes. I'm so sorry to be so – tongue-tied. I don't know what to say. I'm … I'm overwhelmed … completely knocked out. I didn't think for one second that you'd like it. I used to dream about it at night … how you'd look at it and throw it across the room in disgust …' Lou stopped speaking, aware that she was babbling. Talking nonsense in all probability. And in her head, like a pulse, beating and beating were the words
grand little screenplay, grand little screenplay.
She wanted this conversation to go on for ever. And she wanted it to be over so that she could phone Jake, and Mum and Dad and tell them. If only Grandad were alive! He'd have been so pleased:
Blind Moon
coming out again, for everyone to read and now maybe –
maybe
 – a movie. A movie she'd written. Lou was finding it hard to believe this was happening.

‘Not at all, not at all. No disgust, I assure you. We should meet soon, I think. I'd like to meet you properly now that I'm investing in you – does £2000 sound very stingy?'

‘No, not at all. That's fine.'

She had no idea whether that was fine or not, but she'd have sold him the option for much less than that. He wasn't just anyone. He was Ciaran Donnelly.

‘I'll be in touch soon, then. Goodbye to you, my dear.'

‘Goodbye. And thank you very much.'

‘My pleasure!'

Lou put the handset down in its cradle just as Harry came back into the room. He patted her on the shoulder as he went to sit at his desk. Then he grinned at her.

‘You're a cagey thing, Lou Barrington. You never said a word. You might have given me first look.'

‘I didn't want to. You know me. It would have been difficult for you to be honest, wouldn't it? You'd have wanted to let me down easily.'

‘Apparently, it's great. Well, no more than I'd have expected.
When can I see it? Will you email it to me? I really, really want to read it, Lou.'

‘Okay. And I'd like to know what you think. I'm a bit scared to be honest, but I would like to know.'

‘You went to his house? Really?'

Lou nodded. Harry said, ‘I never would have guessed you had that kind of nerve. Well, it paid off. I reckon your chances of him finding the finance for it are better than average. He's obviously very keen.'

‘He did sound keen, didn't he?'

‘Yup. And you've changed, Lou, since the summer. Are you in love? That's the only thing I can think of that would account for that – well, that glow. Tell me about him.'

‘How d'you know it's a him? It could be a her.'

‘NO! Really!?'

‘No,' Lou laughed. ‘It's a him. My sister's in love with a woman, though. They're having a civil ceremony at Christmas.'

‘Blimey! What did your family say?'

‘Nothing much, really. You have to accept it, don't you? No one is going to bust up with someone for life just because of who they're sleeping with.'

‘Not everyone's as broad-minded … Tell me about the him, then.'

‘He's called Jake Golden – of Golden Ink.'

‘You're kidding me!' Harry's eyes were wide open, and so was his mouth. ‘Talk about landing in the jam. Do you have any idea of how rich that guy is?'

‘Well, I haven't asked him but I'd assumed he was quite well off. He's got a publishing house …'

‘Publishing house is peanuts, Lou. His dad is Morton Golden – internet and communications wizard. They are in the stratosphere as far as the spondulicks are concerned. I reckon you can take me out to lunch on the strength of that. And I want to meet him. Make sure he's good enough for you, Lou.'

‘What a cheek, Harry! I will take you out to lunch for sure, but you've got a nerve, asking if he's suitable. Well, you can relax. He's lovely, don't worry. Really, really lovely.'

She rose to her feet and left the room.

Harry called after her, ‘Are you going to give up your job now you're a screenwriter?'

‘No, of course not.'

‘But with such a rich boyfriend? You could lie on satin sheets eating caviare all day long.'

‘He's not my husband, you know. His money has nothing at all to do with me.'

She knew she wasn't quite telling the truth even as she spoke. There were all sorts of ways in which Jake's wealth had made a difference. If the truth were told, she was still trying to take in this new information. I knew he was rich, she thought, but this. This was a bit overwhelming and Lou made up her mind to deal with it later on, when she was alone. I ought to have guessed ages ago, she told herself. She took out her mobile and dialled Jake's number.

‘Jake? Can I buy you lunch? Yes, Dolce Vita is fine – my treat. I've got a marvellous piece of news … What? No, I'm not telling you over the phone. You be there at one.'

As she made her way to the Underground, it occurred to Lou to wonder what Jake would be imagining – could he possibly think she was pregnant? She nearly dialled again, just to save him the worry. Would that occur to him, even for a moment? No, of course not, but he might wonder. She hadn't confided in him about the screenplay. Was that wrong? Would he mind? No, he'd understand. She was sure of it, as sure as she could be of anything. Jake was too level-headed, too easy-going, too. And it wasn't such a big deal anyway. Lots and lots of screenplays got optioned and not made into movies. A huge majority of them, in fact.
Blind Moon
wouldn't be a movie – she had to start telling herself that to avoid disappointment. She wouldn't mind. She was happy now. About Ciaran Donnelly and what he said. About Jake, especially. And there was a tiny part of her that was happy to see Harry looking slightly wrong-footed. That was mean of her, she supposed, but she couldn't help it. Serve him right if he was jealous – only a tiny bit maybe, but still jealous – of Jake.

The house was more of a ruin than a house. Lou had hired a car at Rennes airport and driven to the edge, almost, of a high, white
cliff at what felt like the end of the earth – Finistére was a good name for it, she thought. It was a stormy October morning. The wind was whipping the navy-blue ocean into crests of white and the village she'd driven through was not much more than a street. She had found the place after asking in the local café which was called Les Naufragés. A bit of a strange sense of humour, she thought, calling something The Shipwrecked.

Jake would have come with her if he'd been able to. He'd been just as keen as she was to see the house, but a last-minute business meeting in New York had suddenly come up and couldn't be postponed.

‘It's okay,' he said, making the best of it. ‘I'll come with you later. As soon as I can and we'll fix it up together and spend holidays there together and it'll be great, but the first time, I reckon you ought to be by yourself, Lou.'

‘That's nonsense,' Lou had said. ‘It'd all be so much easier if you came. Am I really going to have to deal with French lawyers and real-estate people and so forth, all on my own?'

‘Sure. Why not? You're not scared, are you?'

‘No, but—'

‘There you go. I'll help you book your flight and hotel on the internet and that's it. You'll be fine.'

And she had been fine and of course Jake had been right. M. Thibaud had come down from Paris to meet her flight and guided her through the legal stuff with the local notary or whatever he was called, and he'd even offered to accompany her to the house. She'd refused, as politely as possible, so he'd agreed to provide her with directions and leave it at that.

I'm glad, she thought, that I did come by myself. This place will be lovely in the summer. The landscape seemed a bit savage at the moment, but that made her feel strangely excited. Lou loved the whole idea of a house perched on a cliff. She loved the thought of looking straight down to the sea. She'd studied the photograph of the first Louise, as she thought of her, for clues as to what the house might be like and imagined a solid building, planted firmly in its foundations and four-square to the winds coming off the ocean.

The
patron
had told her where the Franchard property was: about a hundred yards further than the last house in the village, he said, on
the cliff side of the road. She wouldn't be able to miss it, because it had no roof and the door was painted red. Red, it turned out, was the colour of the bits of paint still clinging to what remained of the warped wood that must once have taken up the entire doorway.

Lou parked the car in front of the house, which stood with its back to the cliff, separated from the road by a small garden full of overgrown trees all bent low as a result of wind. She got out, and pushed open a shutter that was hanging off its hinges and peered inside at what seemed more like a deserted barn than a house real people had once lived in. The room she could see, which must have been the kitchen, was big but beyond that, there was an even bigger room.

She went in past the splintered wood of the door and looked around her. Two large rooms on the ground floor. An ancient wooden table, wobbly on its legs, stood in the middle of the kitchen. Lou went up the rickety stairs to the first floor and examined the three bedrooms, each one exactly like a whitewashed cell. Then she went downstairs again and walked over to the back window, which she recognized at once. This was where Louise Franchard had stood as a young woman, smiling and with the sea behind her. The place was completely empty and the table was the only sign Lou could see of human habitation. Milthorpe House, when she'd gone round it with Jake, was empty as well, but you knew it had been lived in recently. Ceiling roses, dado rails, working light bulbs, pale rectangles where paintings had hung: everywhere there were signs of human attention. Here there was nothing, and yet Lou could imagine what it had been like when the Franchards were living here: spartan, but comfortable. There would have been lamps. Floor coverings. Curtains at the windows. Beds on the upper floors with fat quilts on them, probably stuffed with the feathers of seabirds.