Resurgence (13 page)

Early afternoon, April 26, 1987

“Fix me,” Simon says, as he often does when something’s wanting. This time he’s only asking for release from the booster chair now that lunch is finished, but there have been times when the same plea could seem to be addressing what’s wanting at his core—the indefinable lack that may not be fixable.

Laurel lifts him up and kisses him, then resists the temptation to carry him upstairs instead of allowing him to climb on his own. She resists the temptation to rock him before he’s settled for a nap; she does, however, stay with him while he drifts off, and indulges in a little drifting herself.

A week has passed since Amanda’s Easter Sunday visit—a week when nothing’s occurred that would alter Laurel’s suspicion that her former assistant and Colin’s former manager are allied in more than a casual way. Romance is not beyond the realm of possibility, but if that were the case, would not one or the other have admitted as much in the recent conversations she’s had with each?

Just yesterday, Amanda had the perfect opportunity to share a confidence after they exhausted the scheduled topics during a regular morning update. But all she wanted to talk about was the need for heightened security now that Colin and the Verge reunion have supplanted Rayce Vaughn’s controversial death as front page news. And just the day before, Nate was stingy with small talk at the end of his regular update. His only extraneous comments alerted her to a possible connection between the murders of Cliff Grant, Gibby Lester, and the opportunistic photographer Colin was briefly accused of dispatching.

Why Nate felt that information important enough to relay remains a mystery. If she was supposed to hear something sinister in his remarks, she didn’t; she heard only that his proclivity for worrywarting was still vigorous and had infected Amanda.

Simon’s fast asleep now, so she’s out of excuses for delaying her return to the business of evaluating the several financial proposals Nate has faxed to her so far. And she has no good excuse for further delaying a decision regarding Colin’s stalled biography.

She hesitates at the door to the office, surprised to see Colin sitting at the desk she planned to use. Her mouth is open to say so; her expression says she thought he would be in the studio, rehearsing for the sixth day in a row.

Colin scowls at her through a pair of wire rimmed eyeglasses she hasn’t seen before. “Good,” he says, “I won’t have to go looking for you.”

He brushes aside a stack of opened envelopes and a commercial size check book, and takes up a sheaf of papers she recognizes as a week’s worth of electronic communications from Nate—the very proposals she was planning to review.

“Tiresome this is, this being informed by fax every time someone near or dear sets out to deceive me. As Amanda would say—you are
so
busted.”

“Sorry?” she says and backs off a step.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. Don’t pretend you weren’t counting on me to be elsewhere when you left these faxes scattered about.”

Nate’s warning flashes through her mind. Not the implied one about a possible whackjob on the loose; it’s the one about full and immediate disclosure to Colin of her arrangement with Nate that comes to the fore. Of old habit, she puts the freestanding desk between them, but that’s as far as old habit goes because she has nothing to say for herself at the moment.

“I’ve looked at these, I know what they represent.” Colin brandishes the evidence as though he’s about to swat a wasp with a rolled up newspaper. “I
do
recognize your need for someone to manage your affairs in the States, but bleedin’ hell, did it
have
to be Nate Isaacs?”

She gulps. “It did.”

“You willing to say why?”

“Why?” She struggles for her bearings. “Why? . . . Because while you were incapacitated he had the opportunity to screw you over—big time, as Amanda would say—and he didn’t. And because he went against your express wishes and had me investigated rather than see you fall prey to a gold digger or worse. Because he ultimately pointed me in the right direction, which was straight at you. Because I trust him . . . and so should you. And I should mention that if I wanted to conceal my association with him, I wouldn’t have asked him to fax me here—here where you could so readily come across the evidence.”

“You nevertheless withheld information from me.”

“I procrastinated telling you, that’s all. You already have too much on your mind.”

“You were sparing me, then. Protecting me.”

“If I was protecting anyone it was myself.”

“Because you figured we’d get into a row over it.”

She nods.

He sighs. “I’m gonna disappoint you, actually. I think you made the right choice in Nate and I won’t get in the way unless he oversteps the bounds. If he tries to insert himself into any of my affairs—that I won’t accept. Okay?”

“Very well,” she says, thereby eliminating the need to share Nate’s exaggerated concern about the three homicides.

Colin invites her to pull up the only other chair in the room— an armless swivel that’s seen better days—and removes the eyeglasses that did nothing to diminish his appeal. Once she’s seated, he explains that he came to the office with the sole intention of reconciling household accounts and got distracted with list-making before he noticed the faxes. He hands her a page of notes that translate into a rough game plan for an August wedding. Friday, August 14, 1987, to be exact; approximately four months from now and approximately four weeks from the end of the European tour.

“Is that date acceptable or will astrologers have to be consulted?” Colin says.

He warms her with one of those full-wattage smiles she used to have to work so hard to resist. She looks away rather than try to match it, and she can’t think why. And she doesn’t answer right away, even though there’s no good reason not to accept the date.

They don’t have to book a hall, after all. Or a band, for that matter. With a little outside help, the kitchen staff could probably handle most of the catering needs; gardens at peak splendor could provide nearly anything a florist might suggest. The fall term wouldn’t yet have begun, so her brothers and sister would be free to attend. Colin’s sister certainly wouldn’t need more than three months notice to arrange a trip from Australia, and Rachel certainly wouldn’t object to expediting a ceremony she’s so actively encouraged. The guest list would comprise members of a social tier seldom locked into traditional time constraints, and there wouldn’t be any budgetary constraints to slow things down.

The only iffy proposition, as underlined in his notes, is securing a proper venue for the ceremony, and that would have to be done right away. She frowns over the entry and he quickly points out the advantage in requesting a Friday booking when Saturday is the most popular day for weddings.

“And there are a great many suitable churches in this parish. I’m dead certain one will strike your fancy,” Colin says, eyeing her hopefully.

She continues to stare holes in his page of notes.

“Laurel?”

“Sorry. I was thinking.”

“About astrologers?”

She still can’t give a straight answer, and still can’t think why. She doesn’t even have to look at him to feel what Amanda must have felt the first time she encountered him—what the twittering matrons in the Oyster Bar must have felt before they were shooed away—what the young girls in the museum must have felt when they discovered him there—what her sister Emily must have felt when he kissed her—what countless numbers of female fans must have felt any time he took the stage or took his pick of them.

“Is August too soon? Too late? You wanna just slope off somewhere and be done with it?” he says.

“No, absolutely not. I want a traditional wedding. I want what you want. The date’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Then what’s goin’ on over there? You’ll hardly look at me.”

“Something’s been happening . . . I think it was when I started listening to all your old albums and then it increased when I watched you in rehearsal and now . . . now—”

“
What
happened? Are you tellin’ me you’ve changed your mind? C’mon, Laurel, I need to know. I’ve a bleedin’
right
to know.”

“I think it’s finally landed on me that you are Colin Elliot . . .
the
Colin Elliot, and you actually want to marry me. I think I’m finally acknowledging your iconic stature and the tremendous pull of your music and I’m—”

“Dare I ask
what
in bloody hell brought this on?”

“What I just said. Seeing you rehearse, listening to your recordings, watching the video you made for me. It’s all combined to be an ultimate reality check and I’m . . . I’m absolutely staggered.”

“I suppose I ought to be flattered and I’m not, actually. But I do know a little about the reality check shit because whenever I catch sight of you in the garden running after a football with Anthony, or watch you show Simon the tenderness you did just a bit ago when you didn’t know I was spying on you, I wanna pinch myself to be sure I’m not dreaming. It’s like during the night when I wake up to be sure you’re still next to me and still breathing.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, so’s going openmouthed and drooling because you’ve just got round to seeing me in different light.”

“I have to agree, but I’ll never be able to write about you without extreme prejudice.”

“Old news, that. Objectivity’s vastly overrated anyway. Just put in a disclaimer saying you became smitten with the irresistible subject and all the opinions expressed are slanted. That should take care of it, shouldn’t it?”

“Kidding aside, are you saying you do want me to go on with the book?”

“Yeh, I do. Please. All this fresh publicity renews the need, plus now I know the story’s gonna have a happy ending.”

“We’ll see.”

“Does that refer to the writing or the happy ending?”

“The writing, silly.”

Laurel gets to her feet, rolls the chair back to its place and turns to find that Colin has anticipated her. Then, as his arms go around her and hers around him, Anthony makes his presence known with an exaggerated expression of disgust.

“Do you have to do that
all
the time?” he says of their embrace, something he should be used to by now.

“Yeh, we do,” Colin says,” and when we’re done we’re going up top.”

“To the roof?” Anthony’s face lights up with no suggestion of the guile that sometimes lurks there.

“Yeh, time Laurel saw the view, and I can dangle you over the edge till you promise to mend your ways.”

After fetching one of the upstairs maids to keep an eye on Simon, Anthony runs on ahead to the attic, where he practices leers and grotesque postures in front of the two tall floor mirrors. His reflected antics are visible well before she and Colin are fully emerged from the enclosed stairwell, where she makes a mental note to ask about the presence of the mirrors before the expedition ends. Then her attention is drawn to the complicated matter of gaining access to the roof.

The bar across the heavy door is secured with padlocks at both ends and the door itself is double locked with deadbolts top and bottom. After Colin keys open the locks and creaks open the door she expects to encounter stairs at least as sturdy as the door itself. Instead, she’s met with an open ironwork platform similar to a fire escape landing, with railed steps leading upward that are more ladder than staircase. A dizzying look downward reveals a spiral of narrow metal steps that disappear into an aggressive growth of wisteria she’s observed numerous times without realizing what it concealed. And therein must be the reason the wisteria proliferates behind bars, from within an enclosed garden with a locked gate. Those safeguards can only be another example of Anthony-proofing, as must be the multiple locks on the door leading to the roof.

Vertigo is more than a possibility when she reaches roof level. Although a waist-high parapet defines the perimeter, a sudden gust of wind increases a feeling of disorientation, adds to the same kind of disjointedness she experienced on the helicopter. But she got over that in short order, didn’t she?

When she gains her roof legs, so to speak, the view is indeed spectacular, and well worth a little discomfort. She can see all the way to the largest of the copper beech trees and the columned folly just beyond. In another direction, the peaked roofs of the oast houses thrust up on the horizon. From here, it’s easy to spot the break in the hedgerow that tempted Anthony and his friends to go adventuring. From this height, it’s possible to trace the symmetry of the formal gardens, comprehend the function of a water meadow, and embrace the sheer scope of the natural attributes.

Colin draws her attention to the raised rectangular skylight that centers this largest flat portion of roof. He explains that the earliest laird dignified his servants to the extent that they were provided light and ventilation in what might otherwise have been dark and airless quarters beneath the eaves. “Whilst any similarity can only be coincidental, Anthony likes to point out that the skylight looks like a glass casket for a giant Snow White.”

“It does at that,” Laurel says and gives Anthony’s arm an affectionate squeeze as she takes in elaborate detailing only hinted at in the view from beneath, and estimates the Snow White he envisions to be in the twenty-foot range.

“And if she didn’t wanna wait for the prince, she could just pull this chain, the slats’d open and she could get away.” Anthony indicates one of two chains that extend through to the floor below for the operation of the wide louvers at either end of the coffin-like structure.

Laurel laughs, kisses the top of his head. “What a mind you have.”

“Doesn’t he though—already thinkin’ of clean getaways at his age,” Colin says.

The boy joins their laughter without knowing what’s funny and it’s a moment to hold onto as they make one more stately promenade of the rooftop before the gusting wind chases them inside.

After the door has been closed and locked behind them, Laurel remembers to ask about the presence of the mirrors and banquet chairs.