Victoria Fox - Glittering Fortunes

Thomasina was quiet. She was thinking more carefully about things.

‘By the way,’ she said mildly, ‘I saw Addy yesterday.’

Beth rolled her eyes. ‘Shut up, Thomasina.’

‘He was talking about you.’

‘Just go away, would you?’

‘He said how happy he was that you were back.’ Thomasina was all at once sweetness and light. ‘Addy finds it hard to express his emotions—but then he is a guy, what can we expect? I think he’s plucking up the courage to ask you out.’

‘Good for him,’ stepped in Beth, folding her arms. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’ve got a lesson to run and you’re in the way.’

‘I could put in a word,’ offered Thomasina innocently. ‘The trouble is, Olivia, I’m just not sure he’s confident you like him. You’ve been friends for so long, he probably reckons that’s all it is …’

Olivia had a recollection of her final term at Taverick, during which Addy had been discovered by Head Matron having frantic moonlight sex with one of the sixth formers in a broom cupboard. She remembered wanting nothing more than to wallow in a tepid bath of her own teardrops, and then possibly drown to death in them. To this day she was tortured by the idea that it could have been one of the Feenys.

‘Well?’ pressed Thomasina. ‘ Do you like him?’

‘Bye, you two!’ called Beth.

‘Seeing as you ran off to London .’ Lavender caught up and joined the assault. ‘Men are so sensitive, aren’t they, Tommy ?’

Thomasina nodded gravely. ‘Leave it with us,’ she said amiably. ‘Who knows, maybe we could organise a double date? You and Addy, me and Cato …’

Lavender was wounded.

‘You’ll have to have the other one,’ Thomasina explained snippily. ‘Cato already has a girlfriend. You’re not equipped to deal with that.’

‘With what?’ Beth spluttered. ‘Stealing other people’s boyfriends?’

Thomasina ignored her. ‘Just think about it,’ she finished, with a little quirk of the head. ‘Promise?’ She pulled the reins; Lavender followed suit. The girls turned on their steeds and sashayed off across the cobbles.

‘Can you believe them?’ Beth asked in wonder. ‘As if you’re dumb enough to fall for that.’ She peered sideways at Olivia. ‘And you’re definitely not dumb, right?’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

‘You won’t like me saying this but Addy’s just as bad as they are.’

‘He is not!’ she protested. ‘You just don’t get him like I do.’

‘I get that all he’s ever done is make you feel like shit. He’s aware how you feel about him and he loves stringing you along.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘You’re right, I don’t. But I do trust my instincts and I’ve known you both long enough. I don’t trust him, Oli, and neither should you.’

The first of Beth’s students arrived at the gate.

‘I’ve got to scram.’ She crossed the yard, calling back, ‘Catch up tonight? Come to mine. We’ll have pizza and you can talk to me more about Cato’s pants.’

Olivia smiled. ‘Sure.’

‘Don’t do anything stupid in the meantime. The Feenys are full of it, and so is Addy. Forget them. You will forget them, won’t you?’

‘Already have. Thanks, Mum.’

Beth smiled sweetly. ‘Always a pleasure.’

Olivia put her hand to Archie’s muzzle. She sighed.

Beth was right: the Feenys were poison.

But not Addy—Addy was different. He wasn’t like that. He was her friend, her partner in crime, her hero; he was the blond-haired soldier crashing through leaves in autumn, the boy who had taught her to surf.

Her head refused to believe a word that came out of the Feenys’ mouths.

If only she were able to tell her heart the same.

CHARLIE LAID THE PAPER in the tray, tipping it gently so the thick-smelling solution washed across the undeveloped image. He liked how the photograph revealed itself piece by piece, an outline here, a detail there, silver greys that became stark blacks, and whites that stayed as pure and bright as the gloss beneath. Ever since his father had given him his old Minolta Maxxum, he’d been hooked. Years ago it had been the magic of bottling everything he saw. Now, it was what he didn’t see that captivated: moments that slipped by too quickly the first time, things he’d missed—people he missed—contained on a sheet, for ever unchanged.

The darkroom was an extravagance he knew he ought to get rid of. Penny had encouraged him to build it after their first trip together; her hand in his as they had strolled the canals of Amsterdam, taken bicycles to the flower markets and marvelled at the brave, raucous colours. She’d been happy, her chin resting in the palm of her hand as they had lingered outside cafés and talked about the future.

You should do this properly , she’d told him when they returned, poring over stills he had captured of bridges, cathedral spires; a stray dog they had encountered on a street corner. He’d unveiled the room to her weeks later, holding his hands over her eyes as they had stumbled into the uncanny light; red glow bathing the benches and worktops in fire. They’d kissed, hard against the wall; papers swiped from surfaces, her knees hoisted up around his waist. Charlie had made urgent, passionate love to her against the cabinet, reels of negatives hanging between them like wilderness threads, the blackout curtain torn by a sweat-drenched hand so that his day’s work had been flooded with frozen daylight. It was how her love had made him feel: as if every slate could be wiped, every book rewritten, every bad memory erased …

Except for the memory of her.

It had taken a blind leap to open up to Penny in the way that he had. He should have known better. To trust her had been foolish.

To this day he could not forgive himself for allowing Cato into their lives. Everything his brother touched turned to dust.

Charlie pegged the images and emerged into the chill cellar, closing the door behind him. Along the walls were the powder-covered graves of vintage wines and ports, dusty hollows where the bottles had been removed and sold, leaving only cobwebs behind. Above him neat rows of Hungerford bells lined the passage, a remnant of life below stairs, the labels faded and tarnished: HER LADYSHIP’S ROOM. GRAND STAIRCASE. LIBRARY.

What must it have been like in the servants’ day, at the height of Usherwood’s glory? Hard to conjure it now: the energy, the bustle, the rush and spill of household secrets. His father had told him a story once about how as a boy he had crept underground for the servants’ Christmas party, had danced until he could no longer stand, and had to be carried to bed by a butler called Ashton. But by the time Charlie came along, servants were only good for gossip, my boy . No wonder the remaining few he could remember had been dismissed before Harrow.

Sigmund and Comet were panting at the top of the stairs, fur still damp from an afternoon on the moors. They wagged their tails when they saw him.

‘Hullo, pups.’

‘What’s that God-awful stink ?’ The quiet of the afternoon was obliterated.

Cato stormed into the hall with a hand clamped over his nose and mouth. His brother had taken to just appearing , cropping up unexpectedly like a grim rabbit out of a hat. The house was so big that it was possible to forget he was there.

‘Oh.’ Cato landed on the dogs and said disgustedly, ‘There’s my answer.’

‘They’re animals.’

‘Precisely my problem.’

‘This is the countryside, not downtown Los Angeles.’

‘Just because we’re in the countryside doesn’t mean we have to be in the countryside,’ came the riposte. ‘We might as well be rolling about in the bloody paddocks.’ Cato was wearing several bulky jumpers to drive home the fact he was cold, and had irately suggested over lunch that he would organise a cash injection to land with the estate by morning. Then we can get this wretched heating sorted at last! This sort of sporadic, mood-dependent handout was typical. Charlie had endeavoured on several occasions to secure a long-term solution to the invading damp—Cato matching every pound Charlie put in, for example—but such temporary measures were part and parcel of his brother’s warped sense of obligation: the sun had to be shining wherever Cato was, and everywhere else could languish in the rain.