Camellia (55 page)

'That's what she's like now,' he urged him. 'Does she look like some cheap hooker? Isn't she entitled to have made a few mistakes along the way and be forgiven for them?'

The strangest expression passed over the old man's face as he looked at the picture. Nick couldn't read it at all. There was an element of surprise, but there was more to it than that. The length of time he took to study the photograph was odd too: most people would have glanced at it and then handed it straight back.

'No, she doesn't look like a hooker.' Sir Miles's voice had lost its growl. 'But I can't help you, Nicholas. I know Magnus isn't her father, surely that is enough for you.'

'How can you be so certain?' Nick was studying the man. He was ruffled; he did know more.

'The eyes,' Sir Miles snapped. 'Your father's are blue, as I remember, and so were Bonny's. I believe it's impossible for two blue-eyed people to produce a brown-eyed child.'

Nick felt a surge of wild elation. 'We never thought of that,' he managed to say. To his shame a tear rolled down his cheek.

'Come now,' Sir Miles said, leaning from his seat and patting Nick's arm. There's no need to get emotional about it.'

Nick wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and began to laugh. This whole interview was so strange.

'That's better,' Sir Miles chuckled. 'If I'd known that was all it would take to get rid of you I would've said it straight away.'

It was then that Nick saw the old man's eyes properly. In laughter they opened wider and despite the bags of flesh beneath them, he saw they were darkest brown and almond-shaped. Just like Mel's.

'What we both need is a brandy.' Sir Miles's tone was jocular now and his eyes retreated back into the flesh again. 'Now let's get off this subject. What production are you in at the moment.'

Nick told him his situation and mentioned things he'd done recently. Rather shame-facedly he also added
Hunnicroft Estate.
He'd discovered this now interested agents and producers. Enough time had passed for it to have become almost a cult series.

'So you were the thug?' Sir Miles poured the brandy and passed it over to Nick. 'I remember it well. The script was appalling, but you played a good part.'

'You watched it?' Nick gulped at the brandy, amazed at this turn of events.

1 always make a point of watching new series, especially when they claim to be controversial. That one certainly was, such awful language! Had I known you were Magnus's son then, I might have been able to help you. As it is I'll drop your name in a few likely places, maybe something will come of it.'

Nick was suddenly on his guard. It felt as if he was being offered a carrot to go away and ask no more questions. He finished his drink. 'I think I'd better be off now,' he said, standing up. 'I've taken up enough of your time. There's only one more thing I'd like to ask, if you don't mind. As you were a guest at the Nortons' wedding, do you have a photograph? Call it nosiness if you like, but I've never seen a picture of John Norton.'

Nick saw relief flood across the man's face.

'Yes, there's one here somewhere,' he said with a smile. 'I'm sorry if I've been a little churlish with you, Nicholas. It was just that dreadful woman. I don't mean her child any harm and I hope you find her.'

He opened a drawer and pulled out three fat albums. Leafing through the first one quickly, he moved onto the second. 'Ah! Here we are.' He handed over a glossy picture of the bride and groom with other people around them. "This was my wife's favourite one.'

Nick could see exactly why men fell for Bonny. She was breathtakingly lovely in white satin. In this picture she was laughing, brushing confetti from John's jacket, her veil thrown back. John Norton was much as Nick had imagined, tall, slim with a rather aristocratic nose and a small moustache. Yet apart from his colouring there was no real resemblance to Mel.

'Who are the other people,' Nick asked. There were three women, one tall and slender, around forty or so and very attractive, the other two older, all three in fancy wide-brimmed hats. Beside Bonny was Sir Miles, still stout but without the sagging skin round his eyes. Nick saw Mel's eyes staring back at him. He felt faint and looked again, but he wasn't mistaken. They were identical to Mel's.

'That one was a charming lady, Linda, Lorna, something like that,' Sir Miles said, pointing out the younger of the three women in the picture. "This one is my late wife, Mary. The other was John's godmother, Lady Penelope Beauchamp. She died a year or so after John from a brain tumour.'

'Would that be Lydia Wynter?' Nick asked going back to the attractive younger woman. Magnus would be pleased to know Bonny hadn't lied about her; she did look rather grand and extremely photogenic.

'Yes, that was her name, a dancing teacher. She was a second mother to Bonny, poor woman. Have you met her?'

'She died too,' Nick said quietly, suddenly aware that Sir Miles was the oldest in the group and the only survivor.

Sir Miles took back the photograph and slipped it into the album again. Nick knew this time he really must go. 'Thank you for seeing me,' he said. 'You've been a great help.'

'Chin up.' The older man smiled, with a hint of smugness. 'I don't doubt she'll turn up again. As for your career maybe that'll brighten up too. Now go on home and stop worrying about things past. Get your father to have a blood test – that will give you both peace of mind.'

Nick paused for a moment at the door. 'One more question and I'll be off. Do you know why Bonny fell out with Helena Forester?'

Sir Miles was busy placing the albums back in the drawer, but his head jerked up sharply. 'Helena had nothing to do with any of this.' A red flush flooded his face. 'She is a serious actress. All there was between the two of them was a stage act.'

After leaving Sir Miles's house Nick went into Holland Park gardens and sat on a bench. He wasn't absolutely sure Miles was right about two blue-eyed people being unable to produce a brown-eyed child. In any case Magnus's eyes weren't a true blue – they were speckled with green and amber. But he'd check that out.

For some reason that last retort of Sir Miles's seemed the most important thing he'd said. Why should he say Helena had nothing to do with anything? She hadn't been mentioned in the entire conversation until then. Wouldn't any normal person say something like, 'I don't know, perhaps Bonny was jealous', or 'they grew out of one another'.

Suppose Sir Miles had been having an affair with Helena? Suppose Bonny lured him away for a while, perhaps thinking he would further her career too, and got pregnant by him?

That could have caused the girls to fall out and finished their friendship – especially if Helena had a close relationship with Miles. Perhaps Bonny had written to him out of pure spite, threatening to tell his wife about their child.

Although Nick couldn't imagine two such young pretty women squabbling over an old man's affections, it was the most likely answer yet. It would also explain Miles's animosity towards Bonny, and why he'd read every last word about Mel in the papers. Why else would a man keep such close tabs on a child?

Chapter Twenty

Mel got off the bus in Wandsworth Bridge Road, Fulham and walked disconsolately towards Steven-dale Road and her bedsitter. It was six months since she fled from Oaklands, and she'd just been turned down for a job with the Grand Metropolitan group of hotels, because she couldn't give references from her previous employment. The personnel manager had treated her as if he suspected she'd just come out of prison. She wished now she hadn't put herself through such an embarrassing ordeal.

She wondered what had possessed her to return to a part of London which evoked so many painful memories. She'd taken the room because it was cheap and accepted a job as a cook in a World's End café, purely because Peggy and Arthur, her employers, weren't concerned about insurance cards, tax codes, or even what she'd done before. But now she regretted both decisions.

At first she'd been glad to work from eight in the morning until six in the busy café since by the time she got home in the evening she was too exhausted to dwell on all she had lost. But now the ever present stink of fried food, the mountains of washing up, and the lack of appreciation from her employers were wearing her down.

On the bus ride home from Kensington, she'd been close to tears – not just because she hadn't got the job, or that she'd have to stick Peggy's café a little longer, but because she still missed Oaklands so much. If she was back in her old room she'd see a green haze on the trees, lambs in the fields and a golden sea of daffodils out on the lawn. In London the seasons weren't as clearly defined as they were in the countryside. There was the odd window box bright with spring flowers, and suits in pastel colours in every shop window, but there wasn't anything like the thrill of seeing green shoots thrusting out of the soil, or finding clumps of primroses in the hedgerows. Every day now she found herself hating the drab grey streets more. She longed to feel the wind in her hair, to hear birdsong instead of traffic, to stand on a hill and gaze at a beautiful view, to feel she was part of a bigger scheme of things, to have some purpose in life other than mere survival.

Aside from her own troubles the whole country seemed to be in a state of depression. Edward Heath had ordered the farcical three-day week back in December, when the miners went on strike, and although Heath had now resigned and Harold Wilson had taken over, things still looked bleak.

Mrs Smethwick, Mel's landlady, was cleaning the brass on the front door as she turned into Stevendale Road. From a distance she looked like Andy Capp's wife: a cross-over pinny in pinks and reds, nylon scarf tied over her curlers, cigarette dangling from her lips, and a large protruding bottom.

Mrs Smethwick cleaned the brass daily, more for an excuse to spy on her neighbours and goggle at the new young executives who were moving in than out of any desire to make number forty-seven attractive.

Many of the Victorian terraced houses in the road now sported coach lamps and paved front gardens with evergreen bushes in tubs. Estate agents were fond of describing these as 'town houses of character' or even 'artisans cottages'. But even they would be hard pressed to find something inspiring to say about Mrs Smethwick's house. The area between pavement and house held a collection of open dustbins, and an ancient armchair left to rot all winter. The window frames sagged, the paint was chipped and a broken downpipe had left a green slimy streak from roof to street level.

As Mel drew nearer, her landlady grinned at her, revealing an absence of upper teeth. 'Did yer get the job, ducks? Yer don't 'alf look smart.'

'It wasn't quite what I wanted,' Mel replied, smiling politely even though she loathed the woman. 'How did you know I was going for an interview?'

'I put two and two together,' Mrs Smethwick said, small bright eyes glinting with pride at her powers of deduction. 'I seen yer newspapers with rings round. And then you went out all done up.'

Mel felt she might just write something nasty about the woman one day and put it in her bin – but not yet. She needed the cheap room a little longer.

Trudging up to her room on the first floor, she covered her nose with her hand. The house always smelt dreadful: a mixture of boiled cabbage, cats, nappies and the unspeakable emissions from her neighbours' bowels.

Mel's room had been advertised as a 'serviced flatlet for business person'. In fact it was a poky ten-by-eight room with a diseased mattress on the bed and an electric hotplate and sink in a cupboard. The servicing meant that Mrs Smethwick emptied the wastepaper bin, put a fresh sheet on the bed once a fortnight and pushed the hoover round the bits that showed. As far as Mel could see she was the only one of the six tenants who had a job and sometimes the noise in the house was on a level with living at London airport.

Back at Christmas she had stayed in bed all day reading, pretending to herself it was just another Sunday. When her mind switched back to the Christmas tree in the drawing room at Oaklands or the dining room laid up with silver, starched white napkins and crystal wine glasses, she had pulled the covers over her head and sobbed.

Mel put a coin in the meter, then switched on the kettle and fire. Someone was cooking curry upstairs and by evening the smell would be trapped everywhere in the house. If it hadn't been so cold she would have gone for a walk after the interview to delay returning here.

There were no comforts – not a radio, television or even a bedside lamp. Everything in the room belonged to Mrs Smethwick, from the unmatched thick china to the picture of swans hiding a nasty stain on the wall. Mel knew she was almost at the end of her tether.

How many more plates of pie and chips could she dish out before screaming aloud? How many more nights could she come home exhausted and cry herself to sleep before she cracked up?

Nick's face haunted her. He was on her mind from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning until she fell asleep at night. Daily she blamed herself for the events of that last morning at Oaklands and cursed her stupidity for not having left six months earlier. As for Magnus, that hurt even more because as well as missing him desperately she didn't know what sort of state he was in. Could he walk yet? Was his speech distorted like many stroke victims? She knew he was back at Oaklands before Christmas because she'd telephoned but the girl on reception had said he was confined to a wheelchair. Whenever she'd phoned since, Mrs Downes or Sally had answered, and she'd had to put the receiver down without speaking.

She pined for her pretty room, the beauty of her surroundings and the other staff who had been her friends. She was so lonely that sometimes death seemed preferable to the constant pain inside her.

'You're just tired,' she whispered, looking at herself in the mirror as she took off her navy-blue suit and hung it on a hanger. Her hair and eyes were dull, even her skin had a yellowish tinge. She had lost weight too, and her shoulders looked gaunt. Even her bra was too big now.