The House On Willow Street (51 page)

“He’s sleeping a lot now,” Steve said. “It’s the medication.”

“What happened exactly?” she said.

“He had a fall on Christmas Day, Danae, and we took him to hospital.”

“Why didn’t you phone me?” she said.

Steve put a hand on her arm.

“The director made a decision not to tell you. I know, in any other case, we would have called, but, Danae, you’ve been through so much. The director insisted. It was when the hospital X-rayed him that they realized this wasn’t a simple break. There was more to it. I don’t know how they caught it, really, but someone was obviously on the ball that day. They kept him overnight to be on the safe side. A chest X-ray showed the tumors in his lungs. He needs full scans to establish where the primary site is, but it looks like he has secondaries in his lungs and it’s spread to his bones.”

Danae had to hold herself up by grabbing the door.

“He’s on a lot of pain medication,” said Steve. “It’s really all they can give him. Even without scans, they’re pretty sure from his blood tests that it’s all gone too far. It’s only a matter of time now. We’re doing everything we can to keep him comfortable, but we really need to move him to the hospice. The director will discuss it with you. I’ll leave you alone now. Tell me if you want anything. A cup of tea after your long drive?”

“That would be lovely, Steve,” Danae said automatically, although she didn’t think she could bring herself to drink anything; the liquid would feel like sand in her mouth.

The end was finally near.

Suki stretched at her desk, a stretch of satisfaction. The book was coming together. It wasn’t exactly what she’d promised her agent, Melissa, or indeed the people at Box House Publishing. It was better. Instead of finding new ground to look at, Suki had come up with a brilliant idea. She would revisit the issues she’d raised in
Women and Their Wars
and pose the question:
What has changed?
There were so many areas in which no progress whatsoever had been made, and yet few people were battling anymore.
Feminism
was a dirty word. Young female singers who should have been role models were portrayed as nothing more than sex objects. Despite everything, women didn’t get paid as much as men. They did all the housework and caring for the children, even if they had an outside job. There was no such thing as having it all. Women’s lives were like hamster wheels, endlessly turning. That was what she was writing about.

“Hey, you finished there?” said a voice at the door, and she turned to see Mick lounging against the doorjamb, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt he’d been wearing for at least two days.
His feet were bare, his toenails dirty, and suddenly she was sick of the sight of him. Sick of having someone living off her, parasitically. It would have been one thing if he couldn’t find a job, but Mick refused even to look.

“I can’t take no civilian gig, Suki,” he’d said a week before, when she’d brought it up for about the third time. “I’m a musician, I can’t sell out and become an ordinary joe, you know that.”

Today, finally, looking at him, knowing full well that even though she’d been working upstairs all day, it wouldn’t have occurred to him to make an effort by cooking dinner, or tidying the house, or taking care of the laundry—hell, she was pretty sure he didn’t even know how the washing machine worked. He hadn’t showered, he hadn’t shaved: he didn’t care, basically. And she was fed up living with a man who not only didn’t care about himself but, by proxy, didn’t care about her. If he gave a damn about their relationship, he wouldn’t be living off her, he’d be looking for a job. And if he couldn’t find a job, then he’d be taking care of her, looking after the house, finding cheaper ways to eat instead of ordering a takeout every night. He wouldn’t be whining about his music when she was sitting up in her study, doing her job—which was pretty much the only thing standing between them and total bankruptcy.

“Mick,” she said, fixing him with a stare, “I’ve been thinking. You’re right: you are a musician and you shouldn’t have to take any old civilian job.”

“What?” he looked at her, confused.

“The argument we had last week, when you said you couldn’t possibly get a civilian job—well, you’re right. If you don’t want to live that way, you’re entitled—it’s your life, no one else’s. But you know what . . . ?”

She saved the document she was working on, clicked the
computer to shut down and got to her feet so she was facing him. Suddenly the strength that she thought had been drained from her began to return; she could feel it surging through her body. “Mick, it’s over between you and me. You clearly don’t respect me, or you wouldn’t be living off me like this. And I don’t think I respect you anymore either. It’s time we broke up.”

“What do you mean, babe, break up? Things are good, and the band will get gigs soon . . .”

“No, the band won’t get gigs. Bands are a dime a dozen out there, Mick, and you know it. If you haven’t made it by now, you’re never going to make it. You’re clinging to a hopeless dream.”

“Yeah, you’re saying that with all the knowledge of someone who screwed around with the lead singer of TradeWind, huh? That’s where you get your inside information on the music industry,” he snarled.

“You don’t have to resort to cheap shots,” said Suki. “It’s been good, now it’s over. Okay? Why don’t you get your stuff and move out. You were never really supposed to move in, but you have.”

He stared at her but she didn’t feel any fear; Mick wouldn’t try anything, she knew that. She’d hit him where it hurt most and he was going to go.

“I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out,” she added, “I really am. But we’ve got to face facts: you and I want different things.”

“Well, don’t think you’re gonna get anyone to replace me, baby,” he snapped at her. “Look at you—you’re not some hot rock chick any more, not with those wrinkles. Jethro wouldn’t look twice at you now.”

Suki swallowed the insult. He couldn’t hurt her. She was getting older. She knew that and she was writing about it in the book. Women and age. Aging into invisibility, and why
that was wrong. She’d spent so long teasing out the arguments in the book that she wasn’t overwhelmed by Mick’s spite.

“As I said, Mick,” she replied calmly, “let’s try and do this like grown-ups. We want different things out of life, so let’s split up, that’s all.”

He slammed her office door shut and she could hear him moving about in their bedroom, swearing. She recognized the sounds of cupboards being wrenched open, then the sound of him stomping downstairs, dragging a bag behind him. There wasn’t much of his stuff in the house anyway.

“I’ll be back later with a van to pick up my chair,” he roared up the stairs.

She didn’t hear the door slam and she waited, breathing heavily now, feeling the anxiety hit her. She was not going to have a panic attack; Mick’s leaving was a good thing in her life, there was no reason to get upset.

It took at least ten minutes before his car started up and then she heard him drive off down the street. Only when she heard that and knew he was gone for good did she come out of her office and head downstairs. The front door was wide open and there in the living room, looking closely at one of the framed photos of her, Tess and Zach, was a strange woman. Tall, blonde, young, New York slim, wearing a neat black suit like she worked for the government, with a white shirt, low heels and a briefcase.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?” Suki said.

“Oh hello,” said the woman, giving Suki the benefit of a syrupy smile and great dental work, “how lovely to meet you. I’m Carmen LeMonte—I work with Redmond Suarez and we so want to talk to you. You’ve probably heard that Redmond is writing a book about the Richardsons and I’m sure you must want to tell your side of the story . . .”

Suki realized that in the outstretched hand was a small digital tape recorder, and it was obviously rolling because there was a little red light glowing.

“Talk about what?” said Suki. This she wasn’t prepared for. This was her every nightmare rolled into one.

“Y’know, talk about your life with the Richardsons—I’m sure it must have been really challenging.” The woman smiled sympathetically. “We’d like you to share your insights into their life, share some details about what really went on—readers would love to know. And why did you leave the family? Redmond Suarez thinks you might have a secret, ’cos there’s got to be something there. And you might need the money, huh?” The woman’s gaze took in the cottage, the open cupboard doors and scattered belongings Mick had left in his wake.

Suki didn’t know what to say. Panic-stricken, she could only bluster, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, now come on, Suki, I think you do,” said the woman, still in that same wheedling tone. Suki was suddenly reminded of movie portrayals of hard-hearted tabloid reporters on the trail of a story, and how far they’d stoop to get it.

“Put down my photograph,” said Suki.

“And this is your sister, I guess, and her son? They live in Avalon, your hometown. Would they be able to fill us in on anything?”

The young blonde woman moved closer, holding the small digital recorder out in front of her.

“We were wondering why you sort of disappeared out of the Richardson family. Is it true that Antoinette hounded you out?”

The way the woman hissed
“disappeared”
reminded Suki of a cobra about to strike. Desperate to get rid of her, she grabbed the photo and tossed it on the sofa, then took the
woman by the shoulders, spun her around and pushed her out the door before she even had time to register what was happening.

“Get out of here,” she said. “You are trespassing—next time I see you on my property, I’m calling the cops. And if you think you are going to get any salacious rumors out of me, you are very much mistaken. Leave me alone!” And she slammed the door in the woman’s face.

Heart racing, tears brimming in her eyes, she leaned against the door, all strength deserting her. The fear, oh my God, the fear, came back.

She rang Tess’s mobile, something she never did. It had to be at least eleven o’clock in Avalon, but she didn’t care. Tess answered after about five rings, sounding tired. “What is it?” she said.

“It’s me,” said Suki. “Oh, Tess, you’ve no idea. One of the researchers for that Suarez guy turned up, I found her in the house because I’d just thrown Mick out and he must have let her in and—”

“Slow down,” said Tess.

“I threw Mick out and when he was going, this woman must have been at the door—she’s a researcher for the biographer who wants to write a book about the Richardsons. And they know something happened!”

“What do you mean, they know?” said Tess.

“They know,” hissed Suki. “I’m finished. Nobody will want to publish my book by the time Redmond Suarez is finished with me—I’ll look like the whore Antoinette called me.”

“How could they find out?” asked Tess, shocked.

Suki lost it. All the anxiety she’d been holding in came rushing out and, searching for a target, found one in Tess.

“People like Suarez can find out anything they want!”
shrieked Suki. “First example, Antoinette has never paid the staff a decent salary and she treats them like dirt, lest they figure out she’s not as blue-blooded as she likes to pretend. All Suarez needs is to find one maid or housekeeper who’ll talk, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. The people who worked in the Massachusetts house would know everything.”

Suki recalled the times she’d seen Antoinette use the bell beside the fire to summon a servant to perform some task so servile and pointless that it wasn’t worth the effort of walking to the bell. Another log on the fire—when she was standing beside the log basket; some more ice for the Senator’s drink—when the ice bucket was sitting (giving off less frost than Antoinette, admittedly) on a low table to his left. He’d have been able to reach it without moving from his seat.

But that wasn’t the point for Antoinette. The family had servants, and by all that was holy, they were going to use them.

Suki had tried to make peace with the staff in her own way: smiling excessively, learning everyone’s names and ostentatiously using them, but it was no good. As Kyle Junior once said in a rare moment of awareness: “You’re on the other side of the divide, Suki. The staff won’t let you forget it, even if you do your best to.”

Any one of the many people routinely humiliated by Antoinette Richardson could have sold information to Suarez and his researchers.

“This will destroy me,” Suki went on.

Three thousand miles apart, the two Power sisters let out a breath at exactly the same time.

“I wish I could help,” Tess said.

“I know,” said Suki.