Lynne Graham: Angel Of Darkness

The first news she had had of the marriage had been in the headmistress’s office at school. Called from class without any prior warning of what was coming, Kelda had been absolutely shattered when she was faced with a strange man with a proprietorial hand at her beaming mother’s waist and told he was her stepfather. And she hadn’t reacted exactly politely either. She had been appalled, resentful and alienated by the startling fact that the mother she loved could have kept so much from her. It had not been a promising start.

At the time, Kelda and her brother, Tim had been living with an elderly great-aunt in a quiet suburb of Liverpool, seeing their mother on only occasional weekends. Daisy had been unable to find a decent job outside London and her salary had not been enough to run to childcare outside school hours. She had refused to listen to Kelda when she argued that she was old enough to look after herself. Living as she then did in a far from salubrious inner city area, Daisy had been convinced that her children were far better off with their great-aunt.

‘We’ll all be together now!’ Daisy had enthused. ‘Tomaso wants us all to be one big happy family. He’s bought us a beautiful house in Surrey.’

She could have coped with Tomaso with her hands tied behind her back. It had been Angelo she hadn’t been able to handle. Angelo Cesare Rossetti. In the City, they called him the Angel of Darkness. It fitted him like a black velvet glove. Like an avenging dark angel, he destroyed anything and anybody foolish enough to get in his way. In comparison, his father was a positive pussycat, a gentleman of the old school, who treated women like creatures of spun-glass fragility in need of cherishing protection.

While Tomaso and Daisy had regularly scarpered abroad on what seemed to be one long impossibly extended honeymoon during the first years of their marriage, no doubt avoiding as best they could the poisonous atmosphere in their English home, Kelda had been left to Angelo’s tender mercies. Angelo, the stepbrother from hell, who had loathed her on sight. Mind you, it had been mutual, she conceded grimly. Even now when she saw Angelo’s name in a gossip column she still burned with an unholy, burning hatred that threatened to lick out of control.

As she slammed cups out on a tray, intelligence told her that she should be concentrating on Tomaso’s sins, not those of his son. Tomaso, who had probably ordered all his business acquaintances to stay away from the hospital while he plucked violin strings and talked about the misery of his lonely life at the top. Daisy was an easy mark for a sob-story.

Well, never let it be said that Kelda didn’t see her duty before her, even when it was unpleasant. The Rossettis had given her poor mother a very rough ride the first time around. Kelda intended to make sure that her mother thought twice, thrice and even more before she took the risk of marrying Tomaso again.

‘So when did Tomaso pop the question?’ she prompted with a brittle smile as she poured the tea.

‘Last night over dinner.’

‘He’s out of hospital, then.’ Kelda had had vague hopes that Tomaso had proposed from his sickbed. Her mother’s dreamy expression might then have been excused as compassion.

‘For ages. It wasn’t a bad attack, more of a warning really,’ Daisy shared. ‘And Angelo has persuaded him to retire. He knows just how to talk to his father and he’s been so kind—’

‘Angelo? Kind?’ Kelda echoed incredulously.

Her mother tensed. ‘He sent a car to pick me up and take me home again every time I visited the hospital.’

‘How many near-fatal collisions did it have?’

‘Angelo really has been wonderful, Kelda,’ Daisy murmured tautly. ‘He...he even took me out to lunch. I find him rather overwhelming but he is trying to be friendly and considerate...’

Kelda wanted to laugh like a hyena. Angelo...kind, wonderful, considerate? Only her trusting mother could be so easily taken in. But on another level she was deeply hurt that so much had been happening behind her back. ‘Does he know that his father’s proposed again?’

Daisy nodded and smiled. Kelda ground her teeth together.

‘Angelo even asked about you,’ her mother advanced in a clear effort to impress. ‘He was very sympathetic and understanding about...well, about that awful business in the papers.’

Kelda went white with rage and mortification and turned her head away. Of course, it had clearly been too much to hope that Angelo hadn’t been laughing heartily over her recent sufferings. He never read the tabloids but she just bet that he had made an exception when the gutter Press were tearing her apart. Kelda still felt soiled and besmirched by the lies that had been written about her and the vicious quotes from ex-boyfriends who had jumped on the bandwagon in revenge.

‘It’s such a shame that you didn’t let Danny Philips down more gently.’ Daisy sighed regretfully.

‘He was a married man!’ Kelda reminded her acidly. ‘Naturally, I got rid of him as soon as I found that out.’

‘I expect he didn’t mean to fall in love with you,’ Daisy murmured sadly.

‘He wasn’t in love with me...he just wanted to get me into bed like all the rest!’ Kelda fielded.

‘But he must have been terribly hurt to take an overdose like that, and maybe if you’d gone to see him in hospital—’

‘I’d have finished him off!’ Kelda broke in rawly. ‘He took an overdose because his wife found out he’d been seeing me. He took it to get back in with her and then he spilt his guts in that filthy newspaper to get his own back on me!’

‘It was wicked of him to tell all those lies about you.’ Daisy’s large blue eyes were swimming with tears. ‘I told Angelo that you’d never had an affair with anyone...’

‘P-Pardon?’

Her mother reddened. ‘I wanted Angelo to know that there wasn’t a word of truth in any of it. You’re not that sort of girl.’

Kelda was in agony. She adored her mother but she had never come closer to killing her! ‘Kelda’s saving herself for marriage.’ She could just hear her mother saying it! And she could see Angelo, struggling not to choke on his wine, sardonically amused by her mother’s blind faith in her daughter’s virtue. Hellfire embarrassment scorched Kelda.

‘Well...what do you think?’ Daisy asked hesitantly.

‘About what?’

‘About me marrying Tomaso again?’

Kelda steeled herself. ‘I think you’d be making the biggest mistake of your life. But of course...it’s your decision.’

‘I suppose the idea of us all being a f-family together is a little fanciful.’ Looking stricken, Daisy was visibly swallowing back tears of disappointment.

Kelda felt torn apart by guilt but she reminded herself that it was for her mother’s own good. ‘Have you given him an answer yet?’

‘No,’ Daisy conceded tightly.

‘If you do marry him, I’ll hardly cut you off...I expect we can still meet for lunch occasionally...’

‘Y-yes,’ Daisy gulped, bending her head. ‘But you and I are so close...what about weekends?’

‘I will never cross the threshold of any house that harbours Angelo as a regular visitor,’ Kelda stated without apology.

* * *

‘You mean she just dropped it on you?’ Her brother Tim burst out laughing. ‘Isn’t that just Daisy?’

It was the following day. They were lunching in a wine-bar round the corner from the insurance company where Tim worked.

‘It wasn’t funny! Why didn’t you warn me?’ Kelda snapped, throwing an icy glance of hauteur at the man at the next table, who had sat fixedly trying to catch her eye ever since she sat down.

Tim followed her gaze ruefully. ‘The Iceberg buries another victim...’