The exes, p.23
The Exes, page 23
‘Hi, hon.’
‘Hi. I just made a lemon drizzle cake and I’m pleased with it.’
‘Well done you. How are things Chez Holly?’
‘Fraught with James.’
‘As per usual.’
She recalls Laura’s earlier rebuke that Holly only ever goes on about her own problems.
‘But OK. How are things with you? Is the atmosphere at work any better?’
‘Not at all. Face-Ache is throwing her weight around! I’ve had enough and started approaching other companies who have openings.’
‘Good move. They don’t deserve you. Oh, I hope you get something really good and can resign with a flourish.’
‘I wish! My CV is out there. We’ll see what happens. And I’m so sorry but I’ve realised I can’t get away in August after all. It will be work or wedding stuff all the way until the big day.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Iona has asked me to design and write the menu and the place names. And she wants my advice on dressing the tables, you know, with my events expertise. Bless. Did I tell you I’m paying for the flowers? Let’s aim for a break in the late autumn instead. After the wedding. Maybe do the Canary Islands again.’
‘You didn’t like Tenerife.’
Holly recalls Laura nicknamed it Tener-Rip-Off-A-Touristica.
‘I liked the weather, and Saskia says Gran Canaria has some lovely beaches.’
‘Does it,’ Holly says, with little enthusiasm.
Laura is ringing from the office and Holly hears the thrum of a printer in the background. ‘I better go. Face-Ache approaches. Talk soon, sweetie.’
She hasn’t once mentioned Holly’s suggestion of the west of Ireland. Has she even read Holly’s detailed email? Holly gets up and a worm of suspicion grows. Laura usually takes a week off in August. Does she plan a week in the sun with Max rather than with her? Holly knows Max stayed with Laura most nights while he was working at Saskia’s. What will they do now Max is coming back to Brighton? Will Laura go to his flat and stay there? Or will he spend his weekends in London, more likely given the space and comfort of Laura’s flat.
She looks at her cake thinking she’ll offer Spencer a slice later. As she feared, Laura’s relationship with Max is creating a distance between them.
The next day Holly hears the text ping and it’s a message from Nikki confirming their meet-up at the Wakehurst country house estate at eleven. Nikki was a colleague and kindred spirit at the sixth form college where she worked, and Holly has kept in touch with her by email since moving to Brighton.
This will be the first time they’ve seen each other since December and a day exploring the house and gardens followed by lunch in the National Trust tearoom is just what Holly needs. James is in London with his mother and Spencer is helping a friend move house over in Saltdean. Holly double locks the house when she leaves.
As Holly gets home that evening, she smells the gas so drops her bag and runs into the kitchen. The large back ring on her hob is on full, hissing out gas. She turns it off and flings open all the kitchen windows and the door to the garden, which she wedges open with a chair. She goes back into the hall, opens the front door wide and leans against the door frame.
Crushed and humiliated, her throat is on fire and her eyes are watering. She stumbles into her sitting room, sinks onto the sofa, and cries bitter tears. She knows she did not leave the gas on. OK, she concedes she’s been losing it recently, has been preoccupied and forgetful, but she did not leave the gas on. She hadn’t even used the hob this morning before she set off for Wakehurst.
But will anyone believe her? She cannot stop crying. There is a reservoir of unresolved grief, and it is flooding her, unstoppable. Her second miscarriage. The sudden death of her father. The mess she’s making of living in Penumbra House. And underneath it all the knowledge she’s being targeted by someone who wants to harm her. She staked so much on getting the house right and on creating a happy household with the men. But she’s no good; she’s a failure on every level.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
PENUMBRA HOUSE
* * *
Recently Spencer has started to spend a few nights at the house, sleeping on the camp bed in the front upstairs room. He tells Holly he wants to work late and start early to make the most of the long days and the summer light. Yet she wonders if the real reason is so he can keep an eye on her.
She’d caught his concerned look when he came back from Turin. There have been other worried looks at her since. She tells him to use her bathroom whenever he needs it and this morning, she heard the shower running hours ago, at first light.
Later she hears him coming down the stairs.
‘How did you sleep?’ he asks.
‘So so. You were up at the crack of sparrows.’
‘I was. Shall I make us coffee?’
‘Please.’
He fills the kettle. She has a recipe book open on the table and has been looking at recipes hoping to take her mind off darker things.
‘I’ve always been nervous of cooking a whole fish. Having to deal with the head and the tail, but I’m going to try it,’ she says.
‘Do you have time to look at something? I’ve taken photos of my paintings to send to some London galleries. I’d love your feedback on which ones to send.’
‘Of course.’
He pours boiling water onto the coffee and brings the cafetière to the table.
‘You want soya milk or are you avoiding it?’
‘I’m back on it.’
She boots up her laptop, and he forwards the photos on his phone to her account. The doorbell rings, and he looks over at her.
‘Please leave it,’ she says, getting up to close the kitchen door as the bell rings again, longer this time. They hear James walk down, open the front door, greet someone and their footsteps head up the stairs.
Holly and Spencer exchange conspiratorial looks. She sits close to Spencer, their heads together as they spend the next hour choosing the best shots. He has painted the fig tree in winter, in early spring and in June. His work is striking and his talent evident, but she can’t shake the feeling that there is something unlovely about the fig tree. It is the rapacious way it has taken over the garden. Very little thrives beneath its thick and spreading foliage. They agree on the photos he should send to the galleries.
‘This is your best work, Spencer.’
‘That means a lot, thank you.’
‘I want to buy one of the canvases for my sitting room. I’d like one of the less-tormented ones.’
He laughs.
Later, Spencer goes upstairs, and as she heads for her bedroom, she hears him talking to James who is on the first floor.
‘Spencer, would you do me a favour? Will you answer the doorbell if you hear it? I don’t always hear it at the top,’ James says.
‘Don’t you know when your patients are coming? Surely they make appointments.’
‘I hoped you’d help me out.’
‘O… K…’
Holly experiences a pulse of irritation. Why can’t Spencer just say no to James.
James continues. ‘By the way, while you were away the tap started running in Holly’s bathroom in the middle of the night. Freaked her out big time. Yet she swears she turned it off.’
‘What are you implying?’
‘This house seems to be accident prone; don’t you think? Things keep going wrong and Holly is spooked by it. That night she woke me up she made me search every bloody room in the house. Absurd!’
‘Something’s going on and I don’t like it. Where was Max?’
‘Christ’s sake, Spencer, it’s not Max. He was in London.’
‘I was only asking.’
‘I think that Barry is an odd character. Have you noticed how he pops up unannounced?’ James says.
‘Odd maybe, but harmless.’
‘He’s a cantankerous old sod who spends a lot of his time on his own. His wife died years ago, and I think he broods.’
‘You’re making him sound positively unhinged.’
‘He behaves as though he is at times. He chops at those plants as though he’s enjoying killing them. And Holly’s all over the place emotionally. She’s not coping. I heard her talking about the house being malignant and making her ill. That’s nonsense! The Holly I married had more common sense.’
‘Lay off Holly,’ Spencer says.
‘Just saying.’
She hears Spencer go into his studio and bang the door shut. James carries on up to his floor and she leans against the wall in the hall before walking quietly into her kitchen.
Thanks for the character assassination, James – the Holly he married indeed. And they are still married, though once they reach the five-year mark of separation, and he can’t contest it, she is going to divorce him. Though given the petulant way he’s been behaving recently she wouldn’t put it past him to argue against their divorce.
Spencer stuck up for her and she appreciates it, but honestly what’s wrong with her? She keeps listening in to what people say about her and she fears there’s a grain of truth in what James just said. She isn’t coping very well, hasn’t been for a while and fears she may be slipping into paranoia.
Holly’s up early on Friday because she and Spencer will set off for their weekend in Norfolk this afternoon. She has been looking forward to it and packs with a sense of something promising yet also tentative between them. Folding her prettiest pyjamas and underwear into her case makes her feel foolish and girlish. She packs her perfume and a favourite pair of earrings. On top of her lacy knickers, she dresses for Norfolk in jeans, a shirt and sensible walking shoes.
As she comes out of her bedroom, she sees the white pages glimmering on her doormat. A groan escapes from her lips. She bends down addressing the anonymous poster of the pages in her head – you can’t let me be happy for even one day, can you? Her eyes race across the words.
BRITTANY APRIL 2016
Looking back last year was the most terrible one, truly my annus horribilis.
The heartache started early in the year when my dear brother Leo died suddenly in February. It shocked me Leo died before me because he was eight years younger and appeared to be in good health. He was a keen walker and was temperate in other ways.
I loved my brother and tried to help him when his feckless wife ran off leaving him with a small child to comfort and care for. He was a good father to little Holly, and he deserved a longer life. What a cruel lottery death turns out to be.
I always planned for dear Leo to have Penumbra House when I die and had bequeathed it to him. I was sure Leo would have appreciated the house and brought out its qualities. It could be a very fine house, but I have neglected it for too long and am now too sad and too weary to do anything about it.
After Leo’s death I changed my will and bequeathed the house to my niece, Holly.
In the autumn came the deepest cut of all when my beloved Jacques died.
I have not had a moment of peace or even mild contentment since he passed away. He was my soulmate and my life partner. We could not agree about Emmanuel, yet we had such deep love and respect for each other for over forty years. It is utterly bleak to carry on without Jacques.
I have been reading Tennyson’s In Memoriam, recommended to me as the greatest poem ever written on bereavement. Tennyson loved Arthur Hallam and was shattered at his death at the age of twenty-two. He writes that time softens the pain, and he had his religious faith to turn to. I have no faith and cannot believe that time passing will lessen my grief.
After I held the wake for Jacques and we had scattered his ashes, I lowered the portcullis and have hardly ventured out. I did not care if I survived the winter.
Now it is spring, and I must try to carry on. I have decided I will not go to England again. I cannot face another visit to Penumbra House, which was to be the home where Jacques and I would live out our days.
I have been troubled by a sense of unfinished business and the only way to allay this was to travel to Rennes to meet with my solicitor again. He is an honourable man and I trust him. I made the journey and gave him a letter for my niece Holly to read after my death.
We discussed Emmanuel Pichois and his possible claim. My solicitor is crystal clear on my unshakeable wish that he gets nothing from me and because Penumbra House is in England, he cannot claim it under French Law.
Holly feels on the edge of a panic attack as dots dance before her eyes. Her aunt was a broken woman in the last years of her life. Heartbroken and alone. If Emmanuel Pichois is posting these pages through her door, why has he allowed her to see that last paragraph? There it is in black and white. It was Lillian’s last, rational, and unshakeable wish to disinherit her son. She was of sound mind when she made her will. It doesn’t make sense for him to let her see this.
Holly’s left arm and torso start up their familiar itch and her temples throb. What scares her the most is that it feels like they are approaching the end game. These are likely to be the last pages of Lillian’s journal. Emmanuel Pichois is the only person with the motive to drive Holly out of her mind and out of Penumbra House. He is succeeding in destabilising her.
She is barely coping these days and is convinced all the things going wrong in the house are connected to these revelations about Lillian’s life. Maybe all her symptoms are the result of stress too. Stress makes you ill and she’s been stressed for months.
With no more pages to torment her, Holly fears his next step will be to appear in person and attack her physically. How will she protect herself? She doesn’t know what he looks like or when it might happen. She adds the latest pages to the others in the plastic folder and is suddenly clear what she must do.
While they are in Norfolk, she’ll show all the journal pages to Spencer. And Lillian’s draft letter too. Holly will ask him to read them and seek his advice on what she must do to save herself. There are such dark and fearsome secrets here, and she cannot carry them alone anymore.
Chapter Forty
PENUMBRA HOUSE
* * *
At 5pm on the Friday Spencer texts he is on his way over and Holly places the plastic folder with all the pages at the top of her small case.
She is in the hall talking with Ray when they hear footsteps and laughter on the upper stairs. She is surprised to see Max walking down with James. This is the first time she has seen Max since Laura’s disclosure and she waits, feeling awkward. James is in front, and he adjusts the rucksack slung over his shoulder and nods at her case.
‘You off somewhere?’ he asks coldly.
‘A weekend in Norfolk,’ she says.
‘I’m away this weekend too,’ Ray says. ‘Spending the weekend with my lad in Milton Keynes.’
Max is right behind James, looking delighted with himself. The cat that got the cream, she thinks.
‘Max, hello. How’s it going?’
‘Great, thanks, Holly, really good. I hope to be back at work on your hallways next week.’
‘That’s good to know. Thanks.’
He’s positively beaming. ‘And Laura says hi.’
Holly blushes. It’s the first time either of them has made any reference to her best friend sleeping with him. She hates the way he said that; his little smirk as if he has one up on her. She’s sure Max has told James about his new relationship. James probably confided to Max too about what a bitch she’s being about the doorbell.
Is Max heading up to London to stay with Laura? Probably. It appears Laura has thrown caution to the wind. As she closes the door behind the two men she sighs, wishing she could be genuinely pleased her friend is happy to be in a new relationship.
‘What was that all about, with Max?’ Ray asks.
‘You probably don’t know yet. Laura’s involved with him.’
‘Blimey! That was fast work.’
Holly agrees. ‘I hope she isn’t opening herself up way too soon.’
‘On the make, he is. Has been from the start.’
‘Well, Laura likes him,’ she says gloomily.
Spencer has borrowed a friend’s car for the weekend. As he drives them out of Brighton, Laura and Max are still on her mind. She hadn’t told Spencer about the affair because she needed time to process her feelings about it, her negative feelings.
‘Did you know Laura and Max have become an item?’ she says.
‘No way!’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘He was working late at Saskia’s and got himself an invitation to stay in Laura’s spare room. One thing led to another and now they’re dating.’
‘How do you feel about that?’
‘Uneasy actually. It’s all happened so quickly. Laura is impulsive and, oh I don’t know, she’s been looking for a relationship. She wants to have someone to accompany her to Charlie’s wedding. But she’s happy about it and she’s my best friend, so I’m trying not to say anything negative.’
‘I hope she’ll be all right.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘She has this confident devil-may-care manner, but I suspect there’s something more vulnerable underneath.’
Spencer increases his speed as they head along the A23, and Holly thinks about his words. She’s pleased Spencer has seen beneath the shell Laura puts on to face the world.
‘She is vulnerable,’ Holly says. ‘She has moments of acute self-doubt and self-criticism. Both about her work and about herself. It’s not helped by her father and brother implying she’s failed somehow. The whole unmarried mother nonsense. I love her dearly and it makes me sad she’s pulling away from me.’
