Veil of Darkness (27 page)

‘What did you come here for, Avril? To gloat? You can go back home like a good girl now and tell Mummy that her darling son has fucked up good and proper this time.’

‘I don’t think Mother cares any more,’ says Avril casually, ‘and, by the way, Fluffy has been missing for a whole week now and we’re beginning to think she might be dead.’

Graham laughs. A laugh she well remembers. A cruel, mocking laugh. He once put a kitten’s eye out with a sparkler. She is pleased to see he’s sweating, and his eyes are a little wary, perhaps he is as sorry as she.

‘It’s funny.’ Avril chats on again as if she is at some garden fête or one of Mother’s coffee mornings. There are screws in the room and Graham can’t hurt her, no, he can’t touch her any more. ‘You’re just the same as I remember, but it’s not a disguise, is it? Hiding some frightened child? I’d begun to think it was something like that because people aren’t born evil. Oh yes,’ Avril laughs gaily while Graham sits opposite in surly silence. There is something disturbing about the sound of her own shrill laughter, but she hasn’t the time to ponder on this. ‘Silly. I used to make excuses. I used to think it was my fault.’ Her expression suddenly changes and she stares at her brother with cold dislike. ‘But you were born evil, weren’t you, Graham? You were never badly wounded, deprived, lonely or neglected, you are the one they call sinner in church, and I never knew who they meant until now. I always suspected it might be me.’

‘You are so full of crap,’ says Graham. ‘Why don’t you sod off, dumping me in the shit then coming here pushing your sick ideas.’

‘I think I might just do that,’ says Avril, picking up her neat black handbag. ‘Is there any message you’d like me to give to Mother or Father?’

‘Drop dead, cunt,’ says Graham.

‘Is there anything you need?’

‘Just piss off,’ says Graham, lighting his cigarette at last, with a lighter in the shape of a naked woman, the flame spouting out of her fanny.

Avril nods to the screws as she goes, amazed at the lightness of spirit she feels. Strong. Exuberant. Even her step has a swing to it, the swing of a thinner person, and her eyes are bright and seductive. She half expected she might feel depressed, visiting her brother in such a place, seeing him vulnerable and alone. Not so. Hah!

It is half-past four, so she still has time before catching the last bus to the Happy Stay, which only operates during the season. She steps inside the first cop shop she passes and smiles at the sergeant on the desk. ‘I would like to make a statement,’ she says. ‘I know it’s something I ought to have done the moment I first suspected, but there’s family to consider, and then I wasn’t a hundred per cent certain…’

‘If you’ll wait in here, Miss, I will fetch somebody who knows about the case.’

So Avril sits in the stark little room rehearsing her story. It is essential she gets this right. Magdalene was a professional; she never messed up or went off half cock. Revenge was what Magdalene excelled at, and it’s high time Avril Stott took her revenge on the devil who killed the little child within her.

T
HIS LID IS BOUND
to blow.

The rusty screws are just too tight to hold this build-up of steam. And this is what Bernadette’s head feels like as the pace hots up, as contracts fly across the world and the tabloids continue to photograph her and treat her as their own little darling.

Sexy, topical, brilliant, and one in the eye for the literate.

Candice is far from happy with this. ‘It is a question of image. That crude picture in the
Mirror
—’

‘I know what you’re going to say and you’re wrong. It was a tasteful picture of me, under the willow in a punt on the water—’

‘With your boobs hanging out and a pen behind your ear. You really have got to stop these games or your work won’t be taken seriously. You might be the flavour of the month—poor little genius, the phenomenon crap—but this fame is fragile stuff, while the book is enduring, a true work of art. And to see you with your legs round that oar—’

‘I got paid, didn’t I?’ Bernie wheels round. ‘How else am I supposed to live while I hang around waiting for this legal stuff?’

‘Bernie, sweetie,’ sighs Candice tiredly, ‘I do understand, but you must be patient for a little while longer. You just don’t have enough experience of this media frenzy to foresee all the consequences. But we’re all concerned about the effect your sordid performances might be having on
Magdalene
.’

And worse, Kirsty and Avril, not to be outdone, are trying to cash in on her act. She spent hours trying to explain how quickly money gets gobbled up in London, how high the cost of living is, how clothes and accessories are so essential if they want her to take advantage of this unexpected publicity. And when all’s said and done what they’re talking about is a couple of tabloid features with pics, one modelling shoot for
Woman’s Day
, and she had to give the dress back after, a souped-up life story for
Young and Chic
and a list of her favourite food for
Valentine
.

Dominic keeps nagging her to take financial advice: ‘You’ll have to sort it out once these advances arrive,’ he goes on boringly, ‘you can’t just put that kind of money into a shopping account. Everything’s got to be tied up legally, for tax purposes you need a business with proper accountants and administrators, and this crazy partnership plan has to go out the window.’

Don’t say they are holding back with the money because they’re worried about Avril and Kirsty. They couldn’t do that, could they? Wouldn’t it be illegal?

They—Coburn and Watts, her publishers; the American agents and the main film company—think her deranged to even consider sharing her fortune with two nobodies who happened to be around when this prodigy was busy at work. She is too young and inexperienced to handle such huge sums herself; she must be under the influence of two more powerful characters.

Dominic rants on most of all. ‘It’s absolutely absurd that they should hold you to this promise; you made it in the heat of the moment when nobody had any idea what sort of reception the book would get.’ Dominic strides back and forth across the opulent Chinese rug in the drawing room at Arundle Muse after a particularly unpleasant row. Now he stops in front of Bernie, his hands behind his back like Prince Philip. ‘Why the hell don’t you do what Candice and I advise? Give them a couple of thousand each and call it quits. Nobody could expect any more.’

OK, to them it looks as if this is freakish behaviour, but they don’t know the half of it. She needs Avril and Kirsty. One look at the list of ‘suggested changes’ made by that shrewd old Clementine Davaine, a list she sent, ‘because I’m away in the States for a week, but when I come back we must get together and discuss these ideas,’ made Bernie puke.

Candice Love, normally supportive, had no sympathy when Bernie complained, ‘It’s my book and I like it exactly how it is. Why must I make these changes?’

‘I know, Bernie, I know,’ soothed Candice, making Bernie sound like an overindulged child. ‘And you don’t have to do anything you feel strongly about, but I can assure you that Clementine knows exactly what she’s doing, and that these improvements she is suggesting will be well worth following in the end.’

So Bernadette needs Kirsty, Kirsty being the only one who can manage these changes convincingly. And if Kirsty’s involved then so is Avril.

‘Every single word counts,’ said Candice alarmingly.

‘But I can’t use a computer, I can’t even type,’ wailed Bernie. ‘I relied on Avril; she did all that.’

‘Well then, we must find you a secretary,’ said Candice Love easily. ‘We’ll ask her to start on Monday.’

God, oh God.

Most threatening of all, and coming up fast on the calendar, is the tacky quiz show she agreed to take part in, directly contravening Candice’s advice.

Bernie’s dream is to get on TV.

‘But have you ever watched that farce?’ Candice was appalled when she heard. ‘Have you see the goons they get on it? Celebrities no-one’s heard of, has-been and no-hopers making spectacles of themselves in front of an audience of morons.’

‘They’ll pay me.’

‘They’d have to. No-one would appear on that flop for nothing.’

‘But I looked it up. It gets high ratings.’

‘God, I don’t believe this,’ said Candice.

The worrying thing about this venture is that Bernie will have to take part. It will no longer be a case of getting by with a flash of her Irish smile and a shake of her curly black hair. More will now be demanded of her—not much, but some.

‘Well, you can’t just sit there saying nothing.’ These days Dominic seems to enjoy making her feel worse. ‘You won’t get your fee for a start.’

‘Don’t you believe it.’

‘You’ll look like an idiot.’

‘Oh gee, thanks.’

‘It’s a quiz show,’ he tells her contemptuously, ‘there’ll be questions and answers. OK, the standard is abysmal, but have you honestly considered how you are going to win one point?’

‘If other dickheads can, why can’t I?’

‘Because, when it comes to general knowledge, or any knowledge for that matter, you are seriously out of the race.’

Bernie seethes with bitterness. ‘So how come writers of books need to have knowledge? They use their imaginations, don’t they? That’s how I did mine anyway. Everyone’s different. People might find it intriguing that an author can be thick as shit.’

‘But you don’t sound thick in
Magdalene
. You sound almost… wise.’

Dominic can’t get his head round this. He looks at her hard. Suspecting something? Suspecting she can’t write a postcard without a dozen spelling mistakes? ‘Take Candice’s advice and cancel,’ he tells her, still staring.

‘But it’s television, and I need the money. And it’s my life,’ says Bernie obstinately.

And anyway, Kirsty’s all for it. ‘Do it! Knock ’em for six.’

Bernie finds this hard to believe, but Dominic has started to irritate her. So precious only one year ago, so elusive she would die for him, and yet now he can’t seem to leave her alone, in a patronizing sort of way. Now she is seeing so much of him he comes over as a rather tedious person, preoccupied, like everyone else, with the mechanics of money and the best publicity and saying the right thing to the right person.

Oh she still adores him, of course, and is so grateful for his presence, but not so constantly and not with such cloying ardour. What has happened to the promises he made about not being bored in London, all those friends he was going to call on, all those contacts he wanted to make? He lazes around the flat, takes hours reading the papers, watches afternoon TV and tags along to every meeting, where he bores her silly with his pompous words and says he is looking after her interests.

Bernie fumes when she hears him nattering on the phone to his father, that snooty sod who found against her at the Imperial hotel. Now you’d think she was one of the family as he drones on to Dominic about which building societies she should invest in, which accountants deal best with artists, which tax breaks she should go for, and has Dominic managed to convince her of the foolishness of sharing her fortune with two drop-outs from Cornwall?

Hour after hour they go on together like two old gossips.

And Dominic doesn’t half brown-nose the literary folk they sometimes meet. OK, he wants to make his career in this new and exciting world, but to see him creeping and crawling, avidly interested in every morsel that drops from their blessed lips, is almost too much to bear. Twice they have been invited to dinner parties by people eager to meet her. Even the literate are fascinated; they see her as a freak. When these dinners begin to get chatty Bernie falls silent, only alive when first introduced, when her appearance so clearly impresses—she loves showing off her new dresses—and her voice, at first, seems to enthral them. Hallways were her successful places. In large hallways she triumphed. At the dinner table she quietly faded, became subdued, like the lighting, while Dominic took her place, refusing to let her drink too much, remembering the fool she’d made of herself at that fateful dinner with his parents in Chester.

With an extra-smart Candice Love, they dine at the home of Rory Coburn, the devastatingly charming, restless, affluent and black-eyed director of Coburn and Watts. Rory, three marriages on, now lives with his butler, Bentley, in a house with a garden sloping down to the Thames. Candice is besotted by him, Bernie is amused to see.

But who can blame her? Rory is irresistible. Magnificent in every sense, vibrant and supreme, with a magical presence and total confidence. This sort of chic, and the power that comes with it, is a new and fatal aphrodisiac, and Bernie’s composure collapses in ruins. This rapturous delight is the result of Rory taking her arm and turning her to face him.

‘You are enchanting, Bernadette,’ he said.

He has the look of the lecher about him, she has seen seeds of that in Dominic’s eyes.

‘Don’t fall for him, you’ll get eaten alive,’ warns Candice in the cloakroom. ‘He flirts with all his female authors, but I think the bastard might be gay. Well,’ she goes on as she powders her nose, ‘look at his taste in furnishings.’

Rich oriental carpets are strewn around the floor in a large square room with a fireplace large enough for a bed. And yes, his taste is colourful, purple velvets, chandeliers, jade lamps and carvings and everything luxurious, elegant and swish. There are leather-bound books in the recesses above the fireplace and Bernie feels a twinge of green jealousy because
Magdalene
is not there. No matter how brilliantly
Magdalene
does it will never be bound in scarlet leather.

The unattainable. Throughout an almost silent dinner on her part, Bernie suffers the same yearning pangs she had when she first met the arrogant Dominic, knowing then she was reaching too high, that he would never be hers. Some women seek out the knife that will stab them—she heard that once, probably in a film.

Then she was a humble waitress, skivvying round Liverpool, and he was a university student from a background as different from hers as night from day. He was the prince, she was the beggar girl. He was gold and she was sand. Bernie can blame Mammy’s, nursery stories for this penchant for impossible romance.