Bed of Roses (38 page)

Louis. Post-coital. Relaxing, on top of Kitty. Noticing how old her neck looks from this angle, and feeling a twitch of distaste. His preliminary sketches for her book are strewn all over the bed, and so is a cheque for £10,000, written to Louis and signed by Kitty in advance, she says, of the publishers ever getting round to paying him.

Moments earlier, Kitty’s noisy enthusiasm for the work he’d done had been jangling on his nerves. So it was he, most unusually, who had initiated the lovemaking. He eased the sketches from her paws, kissed her at the back of her neck, murmured ‘
Shhhh
’ into her ear, and finally, when that failed, placed his lips on top of hers, and kept them there.

He would finish the illustrating job. Of course. For £10,000 he’d be a fool not to, given his current financial situation. But it occurred to him, as he ran his tongue between her voluptuous breasts, and Kitty moaned ecstatically, that he should concentrate his efforts back on photography after that. It was more fun. He was better at it. And now that the commissions were picking up again –

‘Mmm, sweetie, angel, oh!
Louis
. Don’t stop…’

– he was feeling much more positive about everything.
Well, almost everything…He’d learnt two important lessons this last month. Firstly, never fuck a friend you really care about. Secondly, never, as a freelance photographer, disappear on holiday without a mobile.

‘Sweetie!…Ohhh.’ She came. He came. Post-coital flop.

And then his mobile rings.

‘Leave it,’ she orders.

He ignores her.

It’s the picture editor from one of the Sunday magazines with a big assignment; the biggest of his career so far. They want a series of full-page colour photographs to accompany a piece about a village deep in the south-west, which is on the brink of civil war.

‘Sounds like fun. What’re they fighting about?’

The picture editor chortles. ‘I’m going to email you the paragraph I’ve got. It’s complicated. Basically, it’s a piece about the New Village Life, OK? The impact of our new “Urban Refugees” on English country life. So it’s a – you know – gone-are-the-days, blah blah blah, when Farmer Higgins did whatever with his cows. God knows,’ she adds, from her seventeenth floor in Canary Wharf. ‘I don’t know what he did with them in the first place…’

‘The mind boggles,’ drawls Louis, stifling a weary sigh, because Kitty’s going down on him. Again. Gently, with a friendly smile, he pushes her head away.

‘The point is, there’s going to be some sort of garden-party
sit-in
, on the Saturday afternoon. Tomorrow, that is. Tomorrow afternoon. Very picture friendly, you can imagine. Old world meets new, etcetera. Organised by a London-based art dealer who has a house down there.’ She snorts. ‘He’s having a croquet and darts party, if you can believe it, for the entire village. Only it’s sort of transmuted into a quasi-political rally. Their head teacher’s been fired for abusing the pupils. I don’t suppose you’ve heard about it?’

‘Mmm. Uh-huh. Certainly sounds familiar,’ says Louis, swatting at Kitty. ‘I guess you’re talking about Fiddleford?’

‘That’s the one! We’ve had the woman who runs the Manor Retreat on the telephone most of the afternoon. She’s trying to whip up support for the head teacher.’

‘Jo Maxwell McDonald?’ he asks.

‘That’s the one. Nightmare. Unbelievably pushy.’

‘Not really,’ says Louis, feeling a rush of gratitude for her. ‘Jo’s kind of sweet, actually.’

The conversation takes some time after that. He has to disentangle himself from Kitty to fetch paper and pen, but as he leans against the chest of drawers, balancing the mobile between shoulder and ear to take notes, Kitty’s already dragged herself off the bed. She’s on her knees, burrowing away, trying to get at him.

Finally he hangs up.

‘For Christ’s sake, Kitty!’ He says it through his teeth. Louis never speaks through his teeth. ‘That was
business
. That was an important call. What the fuck is the matter with you?’

‘Oh, Louis. Don’t be such a baby!’ She laughs bravely but she immediately moves away from him. She pads back towards the bed for the cigarettes. Lights one. He notices her hands are trembling.

Downstairs they hear Scarlett, distantly, banging the front door as she comes in.

Louis goes to the bed. He sits, puts an arm around Kitty’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Kitty. I didn’t mean to snap.’

‘Besides which,’ she exhales, ‘it’s awfully low rent not to be able to do two things at once. You’d make a rotten President Clinton.’

‘And is that such a terrible thing?’ He makes himself smile. He looks at Kitty: brittle and still wounded, but determined at all costs to keep her tone light. Witty and bright. He feels
a wave of intense claustrophobia. Kitty’s old enough to be his mother. Almost. Not really. But old and crazy, and not only that but also an open, unabashed enemy to his only real friend…
What the hell was he doing in here?

‘Kitty, honey,’ he begins…

He’s never done this face to face before. Not officially, with an actual, verbal declaration. He takes a deep breath.

‘
Kitty
,’ he says again. She knows what he’s going to say, probably even before he does. She’s heard it so many times. ‘I swear I’ve had some of the best fun with you, Kitty. You know I have. But…’

On his way out he knocks gently on Scarlett’s bedroom door. ‘Hey, Scarlett,’ he says, ‘your mom’s in a bit of a state. I’m sorry…I’m sorry to drag you into this. But maybe you could go see her?’

He leaves his sketches – and her £10,000 cheque – on the bed.

Later that afternoon, as Robert rests semi-conscious in a pool of blood on his otherwise very clean kitchen floor, and Fanny, Brute and the Creasey girls roam the garden, waiting for Solomon and looking for grass snakes, Kitty stays in her bed and cries.

Scarlett brings her toast and tomato soup, as she always does when Kitty has a break-up. She is kind. (Scarlett is generally kind.) But for once there is a hint of weariness about her, and Kitty senses it.

She says, ‘I don’t blame you, Scarlett. Of course I don’t. It’s just that ever since you came along…’

Scarlett lets out a sigh. ‘Come on, Kitty,’ she says. ‘Maybe it’s time you and I tried to get beyond that.’

Kitty, lying back on the pillows, glances up, startled. Frightened, actually. She changes tack at once. ‘So,’ she says
brightly, giving Scarlett a watery smile. ‘How was school? Did you give your little statement to Robert? About the assault. I’m so sorry you didn’t feel you could tell me about it earlier. You do realise that, don’t you, Scarlett? I feel awful about it. Sometimes I think you forget it…perhaps we both forget it a teeny bit.’ Another half-smidgen of smile. ‘But darling, I am your
mother
.’

Scarlett looks away. ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t go to school today.’

‘Oh.’

Silence.
Oh
. They both know what it means. When Kitty demanded the statement last night Scarlett hadn’t said anything; she’d stood up and hobbled out of the room. Kitty had been irritated, but said nothing. Back then, yesterday, Scarlett always did what Kitty asked her. Always. She shared her book credits with her, cooked her mother chickens, cleaned her mother’s dirty clothes. Last night Kitty had assumed that Scarlett would do this for her too, and so did Scarlett. But something happened to Scarlett while she was sleeping. Something shifted. Kitty’s last request had been the request too far, and she woke up knowing she wasn’t going to agree to it.

‘I like Miss Flynn, Kitty,’ she says, her voice low but clearly audible as she stands there, holding the soup. She looks Kitty straight in the eye. ‘And I don’t remember her kissing me. Or hugging me. Or whatever it is Mr White says she did. I don’t remember it at all. Miss Flynn has never laid a finger on me. She’s the best teacher I ever had.’

‘
Oh
.’ It is Kitty who looks away. For once she is lost for words.

Solomon doesn’t arrive back from London until almost eight. The Russian with bodyguards had taken up the entire morning, and then insisted on joining him for a long and heavy lunch, before leaving at four without parting with a single rouble. Solomon spent the long drive back to Fiddleford on the telephone, making frantic, last-minute plans for tomorrow’s party.

He finds Fanny and the children swinging croquet mallets, heavily involved in a discussion about where on the long-grassed lawn they should hammer in the hoops. He watches them for a while, unwilling to interrupt. She looks happy, he thinks. They all do. He hesitates, unwilling to ruin things, and imagining how her face will cloud when she sees him; she has, after all, every reason to be angry. Finally, he clears his throat and prowls silently across the space towards them.

‘We’re going to have to cut the grass before we put in the hoops,’ he says. They all jump. The children immediately throw themselves into a fresh argument about whose turn it is to operate the mower (a mini tractor variety, and the only one of Solomon’s many vehicles he allows his young daughters to drive). He and Fanny look at each other over
the children’s heads. And Fanny, for no good reason at all, feels herself blushing.

‘Have you got a drink?’ Solomon asks.

‘No. Thank you. I don’t want a drink. I ought to go.’

Except somehow he and his daughters manoeuvre her into helping lay out the croquet lawn first. Which takes ages, much longer than Solomon has promised. Then the children insist she sticks around until they’re all in bed, and she feels it would be mean to refuse.

‘Everyone at school wishes you’d come back, you know,’ Dora says, as Fanny kisses her goodnight. ‘Mr White’s
foul
. Please don’t leave, Miss Flynn.’

Fanny doesn’t answer; she nods very briskly, straightens up. ‘Goodbye, girlies,’ she says. ‘Have fun. And go to sleep. It’s very late.’ She leaves them with Solomon.

She’s standing in the hall, holding a hand out for the car keys, when he finally comes downstairs. ‘Come on, Solomon,’ she says. ‘I’ve really got to get going now.’

He stands in front of her as if considering it. He puts a hand in his suit pocket. She hears a jangle of metal and feels her heart miss a beat.
Please don’t
, she’s thinking;
please, please, please
—

With a grin he pulls the keys out, dangles them in front of her. ‘All yours,’ he says.

She wavers.

‘Ah-ha!’ And in one swift movement he snatches them away again and drops them back into his pocket.

‘
Solomon!
’

‘Why don’t you stay the night?’ he says. ‘Come on. It’s nearly ten already. I’ll bet you still don’t even know where you’re going.’

‘Darlington.’ It’s the first town that comes into her head.

He rolls his eyes. ‘Have a drink. And stay the night. You
look exhausted, Fanny. Get a decent night’s sleep and you can be on the road first thing tomorrow morning…’

They don’t bother with dinner. It’s a warm, clear evening. Solomon takes a bottle of wine from the fridge and they wander outside on to the terrace. Sit side by side on the russet stone bench, not touching each other, watching the stars and talking. About this and that. About Robert White, and Louis, and Kitty Mozely. She asks him more about Nick Faraday, about the last few months of his life, and Solomon tells her something of what he remembers, but not everything.

‘Did he…talk about me?’ she asks eventually.

Solomon hesitates. ‘Not much. A little bit.’ All the time. Incessantly, towards the end. Solomon remembers that Faraday had been trying to track her down. ‘I think,’ he adds tentatively, ‘he wanted to see you.’

One more time – for the last time, perhaps – she feels the tears spilling for him, rolling fat and slow down her cheeks. ‘I wouldn’t have come, anyway,’ she says. ‘I hated him. I
hate
him.’

‘Well. He’s dead now.’

‘I know…I know.’ A silence.
So what next?

‘The question is, Fanny,’ Solomon turns to her, ‘what do you tell yourself you’re running from now?’

She looks down at her glass, takes a long, slow glug, until it’s empty. ‘Well, Solomon,’ she says brightly, ‘I think, before we get on to that, we need another bottle, don’t you?’

‘Fine.’

‘And by the way, after we’ve sorted me out, we’re going to move on to you.’ She tilts her head, grins at him. ‘Because, honestly, I don’t know what it is about you, but it strikes me you’re even more fucked up than I am.’

He laughs his big booming laugh (it will be heard all over
the village). ‘Fair enough,’ he says, standing up to fetch a new bottle from the kitchen. ‘Perfectly fair enough.’

‘And have you got any crisps or anything? Or biscuits. I’m starving.’

He blinks.
All the other ladies…
just pushing it here, pushing it there…In Solomon’s world women didn’t eat biscuits. ‘I’m not sure, Fanny. I’ll have a look.’

Solomon disappears into the house, spends several minutes rifling through his kitchen in search of crisps he knows he doesn’t have, and returns, finally, with a plateful of cheese-and-pickle sandwiches. He finds Fanny stretched out on the red stone bench, fast asleep.

He looks at her, screws up his eyes. She has a bra strap, grey – a grey bra strap – showing, and the yellow string of her cotton pants has ridden up above the waist of her jeans. She has greasy, messy hair and trainers –
trainers
– which almost definitely stink…And she likes eating crisps. He wonders what it is about her, exactly, which moves him so much.

She scowls in her sleep, mutters a word, something, possibly ‘
fuck
’, and follows it with a ripping snore. Quietly, Solomon puts down the sandwiches and carries her indoors.

It’s always the same after Kitty’s been dumped. Scarlett has to coax her out to the first few social engagements before she rediscovers the impetus for herself again. On this occasion, however, Scarlett is noticeably less persuasive than usual. When, at ten past eleven the following morning, she finds her mother still flopping in bed, she sounds positively pleased about it.

‘Oh. Are you not coming, then?’ she says, not at the bedside, where she normally stands, but at the door, her hand resting on the knob, ready to pull it closed again.

‘I can’t face it, Scarlett,’ Kitty moans, eyes to the wall. ‘Truly, I can’t.’

‘All right, then. Well. It starts in about half an hour, so I’d better get going. If I’m going to walk—’

‘
What?
’ The head turns to look at her. ‘
Walk?
No, no, no. I can’t let you walk. You poor angel. Have you gone mad?’

‘Kitty,’ Scarlett laughs, ‘I walk to school every single day. And the school’s further away.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Kitty begins to haul her puffy, panda-eyed face from the pillow. She looks dreadful. ‘Give me two minutes and we’ll go together. We’ll go in the car.’

‘Seriously. I can walk.’

‘No, you can’t.’

Scarlett’s hands twist on the bars of her crutches. She’s frowning. ‘Are you sure…you’re up to it?’

‘Of course I am, Scarlett. Thank you for asking. But one has to be brave in life; one has to
face down one’s demons.
And so on. Life must go on.’

‘Seriously, Kitty. Louis’ll be there. You look awful.’

‘Try not to be too cruel, Scarlett. I’m coming. And that’s that.’

‘Well—’

‘Apart from anything else, there’s sod all else to do in this village…And
God knows
where bloody Geraldine’s gone.’ Kitty glances irritably at her daughter. ‘Aren’t you hot?’ she snaps. ‘Why have you got that bloody great jersey on? Just looking at you is making me sweat. Take it off!’

Scarlett ignores her, breathes in. ‘Kitty, are you sure you want to come to this party? I don’t think you’re going to like it.’

‘I’m going to adore it. I’ve always been very good at croquet. Scarlett, could you be very kind and quickly run an iron over that Monsoon skirt? Pretty please? While I have a bath? I’m not certain where it is. It may be in the sitting room…Or what about if I wear the new one, with the floaty bottom bit? Which do you think? Perhaps you could have a quick scout around for them both, Scarlett. Could you?’

‘We ought to be leaving.’

‘Please, Scarlett, don’t be horrid. I can’t go anywhere until I’ve had a bath.’

With a sigh, Scarlett sidles off to the telephone. She needs to warn people that she’s going to be late.