At Home With The Templetons (55 page)

Nina busied herself opening her drink.

Hilary continued. ‘I still find it so weird that she never even tried to get in contact with him again. Eleanor I can understand, especially after you let slip about what happened with you and Henry. But from what you used to tell me about Gracie, she seemed so much kinder than that.’

After a pause, Nina answered. ‘Yes.’ She stood up then and went over to her niece with a towel. When she came back, she was careful to talk about anything but the Templetons.

Twenty-four hours later, the three of them were in Nina’s car on their way to the airport, in plenty of time for Hilary and Lucy’s flight home to Cairns. Usually Nina dropped her sister and niece in front of the airport, leaving them to check in and make their own way to the gate, none of them liking the farewell moment. This time was different.

‘I have to talk to you about something, Hilary,

‘ Nina said as they drove into the airport grounds.

Hilary noticed her sister’s serious expression. ‘I’m all ears,’ she said.

They found a cafe opposite a gift shop in the domestic terminal, took a table in the corner and settled Lucy with a book and her iPod. Once she was occupied, Nina spoke. ‘I need to tell you why I didn’t want Tom to go back to Templeton Hall.’

‘That’s what this is about? Look, I understand, Nina. It’s fine.’

‘You can’t understand because I haven’t told you everything.’ Hilary waited.

Nina took a breath. ‘If he’d gone there, he would have seen Gracie again. Talked to her again. And if he’d done that, he would have …’ She stopped. ‘He would have what?’

There was a pause before Nina spoke again. ‘He would have found out about her letters.’

‘What letters?’

‘The letters she sent him, after the accident.’

Hilary frowned. ‘But you told me that he never heard from her again. That she told you in Rome that she didn’t want anything to do with him again.’ ‘I didn’t speak to Gracie after the accident. I only spoke to Eleanor.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Hilary listened in silence as Nina told her everything. How Gracie had written to Tom many, many times. How the letters had been sent to dozens of different addresses, each of them eventually finding their way to Nina. ‘But you didn’t pass them on to him?’ Hilary stared at her sister. ‘Nina, you had no right. The letters were to him.’

‘I had every right. I’m his mother. Hilary, you saw him, saw how badly he was injured, how fragile he was.’ ‘But she was his girlfriend.’

‘He was in a mess, Hilary. Physically, emotionally. I didn’t want him upset any more.’

‘How would a letter from his girlfriend upset him? Wouldn’t he have longed for that?’

‘I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t ask him, either.’

‘Why not?’

‘Hilary, it was a terrible time. When I read Gracie’s letters -‘ ‘You read her letters? Her letters to Tom? You had no right to do that either.’ ‘It had nothing to do with right or wrong. Wouldn’t you do anything you could, anything, to stop Lucy being hurt? If you felt there might be danger, wouldn’t you stop her doing some thing? I didn’t know what Gracie might be saying to him, if she would hurt him even more. I didn’t know if she knew about me, about me and Henry. I was angry. I was shocked.’

‘But this was Tom’s life, not your life. His relationship with Gracie, not yours. Nina, I can’t believe this. You have to tell him she wrote to him. Now. As soon as you can.’ ‘It’s too late.’

‘But he must have always wondered. He must have wanted to write to her.’

‘He did.’ A long pause. ‘I didn’t post his letters.’ She spoke quickly, before Hilary had a chance to react. ‘I thought it was for the best. I had to cut off all contact between our families, for all our sakes.’ ‘So you let Tom think you’d posted them, let him wait to hear back from Gracie, knowing all the time that Gracie hadn’t even received his letters? You didn’t pass on the letters she had sent him, because you thought that was protecting him?’

A nod. Nina waited for her sister’s understanding. Instead, she got her fury.

‘How dare you, Nina! How dare you do that to Tom, to Gracie.’ In the background, their flight was called. Hilary didn’t move, just continued to speak in a low, cold voice. ‘I thought I knew you, understood you, but I was wrong. I don’t know you at all. Was this about Tom or was this about you? You and Henry?

Anger at Henry because you never heard from him again?’ Nina could only stare at her sister.

‘I thought you’d learnt your lesson when Tom was little, with the lies you told him about his father’s death.’ ‘That’s not fair. You know why I did that, how much I agonised over it.’

‘And yet you did it again? Lied to him again? Can’t you see how wrong it was?’

‘It wasn’t. It was what he wanted too. I asked him once, about a year after the accident, if he wanted to get in touch with Gracie. He said no.’

‘Of course he said no. How must he have felt? So hurt, so let down by her. You’d already done your damage by then. Can’t you see that?’

Nina didn’t answer.

Hilary abruptly stood up. ‘I have to go. I can’t talk about this with you now.’ She took Lucy’s headphones off and gathered up her belongings. ‘Come on, honey. Time we went home.’

Nina kissed Lucy goodbye. Hilary didn’t lean forward for a kiss or a hug. She walked away, hand in hand with Lucy. She didn’t look back.

In Perth at the end of the second day’s play, Tom switched on his BlackBerry to check his messages. There was one from Simon, inviting him to a barbecue the Saturday after he got back. A pause, then he heard Emily’s voice in the background, mentioning Gracie, Simon shushing her. Tom wasn’t surprised. Emily was very persistent.

It was the other message that did surprise him. It was from his aunt in Cairns.

‘Tom, it’s Hilary. I want you to ignore all I said about going to Templeton Hall again. I think you should, as soon as you can. If you want to know why, ask your mother.’

In London, Hope was on the phone to Gracie in Australia. Hope was reclining on the sofa in her sitting room. Gracie was calling from the front steps of Templeton Hall. She’d explained to Hope that the mobile phone coverage wasn’t great inside the Hall.

‘Never mind,’ Hope said. ‘I’ll lobby a local politician to get it improved.’

‘In time for your visit this week? You’re hopeful.’

‘By name and by nature,’ Hope said. ‘Tell me everything. How does the Hall look?’

Gracie gave her a full report. It was still standing, the basic furniture was still there, there were no signs of breakins or floods or rats or mice. The garden was very neglected.

‘I’ll take care of the garden. What about the bedrooms? All still habitable?’

‘Yes, but I’ve only made up your old room and mine. Did you want to try the others?’

Hope cursed her own big mouth. She was getting ahead of herself. Now her departure was this close, she was dying to see the Hall again and decide if her idea truly had legs. Her main worry had been that the building would need extensive repairs, and quite frankly, she’d had enough of that the first time round at Templeton Hall. But from what Gracie was saying, it was in good enough shape to start putting her plans into action immediately. Of course, there was the minor matter of tracking Henry down and getting him to agree to lease it to her - for a peppercorn rent, of course - but why wouldn’t he? The Hall had been lying empty for years. And hadn’t Eleanor, Charlotte, Audrey and Spencer already made it abundantly clear they had no interest in it any more?

Hope realised Gracie was still waiting on an answer. ‘No, of course not. My old room is fine. I was just wondering what condition the rest of the place was in.’ Time to change the subject before she gave everything away. ‘So, you’ll be okay there on your own until I get there on Wednesday? You haven’t had any nosy locals sniffing around yet, I hope?’

‘I haven’t seen anyone,’ Gracie said. ‘Really? No one at all?’

‘No.’

Hope couldn’t tell if Gracie was telling the truth or not. When Tom Donovan had rung after getting her letter, she’d been very clear about Gracie’s arrival date and time, and while he hadn’t said anything specifically, she had the impression that he intended to meet Gracie on arrival, or definitely before Hope herself arrived. And he’d also been very insistent she keep their conversation to herself. He’d been very impressive, in fact. She did like that kind of strength of will in a man, young or old.

‘Well, that’s good,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then, Gracie. Thank you again. Do buy anything you need to make the place comfortable, and be sure to keep the receipts.’

‘Receipts?’ Gracie laughed. ‘But it’s your money I’m spending. Don’t you trust me?’

Hope kicked herself again. Gracie wasn’t to know Hope planned to write off this entire trip as a business one for tax purposes. It was a business trip, after all. An investigating-possible-business trip. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she said with a casual laugh. ‘Victor was a stickler for paperwork. See you in two days, Gracie.’

After she hung up, Hope checked the time. Not even midnight. She was too awake to sleep yet. Once upon a time she might have enjoyed a glass of wine now, or perhaps even taken

a small pill to help bring on sleep, but these days all of that was out of bounds. God, the boredom of it. The most she managed now and again was an occasional joint, the guilty feelings associated giving her as much a high as the drug itself. Her AA mentors would be horrified if they knew, as would her clients. It was a good thing they didn’t.

She went into the spare room of the three-storey townhouse Victor had so kindly left her. The marijuana and the papers were hidden in the bottom of the antique bureau drawer in an old make-up bag. It took her only a minute to roll a perfect joint. Her next stop was her office on the first floor. The folder of paperwork she wanted to read again was on her desk. The hundred-page research document had cost her nearly ten thousand Australian dollars, but she considered it money well spent. If the Australian high-end residential drug-treatment market was anywhere near as lucrative as the English one, she’d make that ten thousand back from her first client in a fortnight.

Honestly, what had taken her so long to have this brainwave? It was almost criminal that Templeton Hall had been lying unused for so long. She should have thought of it when she heard about the failed attempt to use it as a meditation clinic. That had ended in disaster, from what Hope had gathered from Eleanor. Her own clinic wouldn’t. She’d make as big a success of it as she had the three clinics here in London. Not only that, it appeared she might even be able to get Australian government assistance to establish it. What a wonderful country! It was all there in the folder. The research firm had certainly done their job. It was compelling reading, filled with data about existing rehabilitation clinics and programs, statistics on drug and alcohol addiction, even facts about referral procedures and treatment costs.

The one thing she hadn’t asked the firm to do was find a location for any possible future clinic. She’d decided that for herself already. And once she’d visited the Hall again, with Gracie there beside her to record all the measurements and possibly stay on to do all the dogsbody preparation work for her regarding permits and builders’ quotes and the like, she estimated it would take her less than six months to employ all the counsellors and administration staff she’d need to get it up and running. A year at the very most. What to call it, though? The Templeton-Hall Clinic? No, she’d have to change its name, or there would be endless streams of

those ridiculous tourists turning up, convinced it was operating as a stupid living museum again. Something more discreet. She smiled. Why not? It was a vanity project, after all. Yes, she’d call it the Hope Clinic.

An hour later, she’d read all the research data she wanted to read and smoked another joint as well. She’d taken her shoes off, enjoying the sensual feel of the wool carpet under her bare feet. Her eyelids were fluttering, she was yawning and feeling pleasantly buzzy and languorous at the same time. Time for bed. She was halfway between the first and second landings on the way to her third-floor bedroom when it happened. She’d been meaning to get the stairway carpet repaired since she’d noticed a snag in the expensive wool pile. Afterwards she had no recollection of the moment she tripped, but she must have snagged a toe,

with the Templetons

twisted, overbalanced and while trying to right herself, fallen back down a flight of stairs onto the first landing.

It took her several moments to catch her breath, sit up, check her head, then her body. There was no blood. She could move her neck. Nothing too serious, thank God. The dope must have relaxed her muscles. It was when she tried to stand up, putting her weight on her left leg and shrieking with sudden agony, that she realised what she’d done.

The pain was excruciating as she inched down the stairs to the phone. The first number she tried was Eleanor’s. No answer. She tried again. Still no answer. Who else could she ring? She had no other friends in London. There was only one option. She dialled 999.

Twenty kilometres away, in a fine French restaurant in the middle of Mayfair, Henry Templeton was entertaining a table of four men and one woman from Hong Kong.

He’d arrived in London only that afternoon and would be flying back to San Francisco before lunch the next day. The expense - and the jetlag - would be worth it. When he’d heard from a London contact that this Chinese investment team were in England on a brief business trip, he hadn’t hesitated to make any arrangements necessary to meet them.

For the past two hours, he’d been sharing his best anecdotes of life in the antiques trade with them. There was nothing people liked to hear more than stories of dusty brooches found at the bottom of jumble-sale boxes being worth tens of thousands of pounds; of envelopes hidden inside the linings of cupboards turning out to be filled with rare and very valuable stamps. His guests had hung on his every word, even gasped collectively when he explained how a simple-looking red vase found in a charity shop had turned out to be an eighteenth-century Chinese masterpiece, made in 1740 for the Emperor Qianlong, worth not just tens but hundreds of thousands of pounds. So what if the stories he told weren’t all from his own experience? This was a business dinner, and what he was telling them was best for his business.