Alison Fraser - Tainted Love

Eventually her mother had transferred to the position of housekeeper. At the same time, Clare had grown apart from the children of the house. On the few occasions Sarah or John had been home from school, they’d usually been accompanied by friends and had treated Clare very distantly.

Clare had been a little hurt but understood. She might have the same accent, acquired in those nursery days, and she might dress similarly, albeit in Sarah’s discards, but the social gulf between them was a chasm.

It had been different later, when Clare had flowered from an awkward, mop-headed tomboy, with sticks for legs and a chest flat as a board, to a suddenly beautiful redhead, with a swan-like neck and a slim, curving figure and the face of a model, all huge green eyes and hollow cheeks. Then one of the Holstead children had taken notice of her again, only this time he hadn’t played tyrant.

Clare caught the drift of her thoughts and stopped them dead. She wasn’t going to go up that road another time. She had cried enough for Johnny. She wasn’t going to cry any more—not for him or any man.

She bent to start her unpacking. It didn’t take long. Her clothes took up a tiny corner of the wardrobe. She caught sight of herself in the mirror on the reverse side of the door and pulled a face. She still appeared young, remarkably so after three years inside, but her looks had gone. She was thin to the point of emaciation, like an anorexic schoolgirl, with a complexion of paste. She recalled how she’d looked the summer she’d turned seventeen, how she’d felt, and for a moment she mourned the loss of that beauty. Then the film rolled on and she saw how it had really been a curse, not a gift, and she called herself a fool for even minding.

She firmly closed the wardrobe door and jumped a little when she turned to discover herself no longer alone.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded of Miles Marchand, standing there, quite coolly spying on her.

He shrugged. ‘Nothing. Why shouldn’t I be here?’

‘Because it’s my room,’ she said very clearly, ‘and you don’t come in without an invitation. OK?’

Clare wasn’t kidding and she gave him a look that said as much.

‘OK,’ Miles muttered back, ‘there’s no reason to get uptight. I got you the job, you know,’ he claimed in an arrogant tone, reminiscent of Marchand senior. ‘He didn’t want to employ you. He said you were too young. You don’t look particularly young to me.’

‘Thanks.’ Clare grimaced but didn’t take offence. No adult looked young to an eleven-year-old. ‘Would you like to sit down?’ She sat herself in the wicker chair.

He was slow to accept the invitation but eventually he slouched down on the velvet settee, hands stuck in his pockets. He wanted to make it clear that he was doing her the favour.

‘Can you swim?’ he asked after a minute’s silence.

‘Yes.’

‘Well?’

‘Moderately.’

‘Can you bowl?’

‘Ten-pin?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then no.’

The boy looked disappointed. She’d failed that one.

‘I don’t suppose you can ride a horse,’ he said disdainfully.

‘As a matter of fact,’ Clare responded, ‘I can.’

He looked sceptical, much in the same way his father did. ‘A proper horse, I mean. Not a pony or anything.’

‘A proper horse,’ she echoed, picturing the beautiful animals in the Earl’s stables. She’d mucked out, washed down and brushed up, for the privilege of exercising the less important racers.

‘I had a horse once,’ the boy announced. ‘A bay mare.’

‘What was her name?’ she asked.

‘Flash,’ he replied. ‘She was called that because she was fast. I mean really fast. Her sire was a Derby winner,’ he declared proudly.

It was Clare’s turn to look sceptical. The fact did not go unnoticed.

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he accused. ‘But it’s true. My grandfather bought her for me. Then she sold him.’

‘Your mother?’ Clare guessed.

He nodded. ‘After Grandpa died, she sold everything she could—houses, cars, paintings, the lot, so she could follow Ricky boy round the world.’

‘Ricky?’ Clare echoed automatically before she realised it might not be a good idea.

‘Her boyfriend Ricardo,’ he said disdainfully. ‘He was an Argentinian polo-player. When he lost a match, he used to beat his horses.’

‘Did he hurt you?’ she asked quietly.

He pulled a slight face, then shook his head. ‘He used to shout at me sometimes. I didn’t care. Mostly it was in Spanish and I only know a little... He shouldn’t have hit his horses, though.’

‘No.’ Clare agreed with this solemn judgement.

Then he added matter-of-factly, ‘Never mind. He’s dead now.’

‘What?’ Clare wondered if she’d heard properly.

‘He died in a car crash,’ Miles relayed, ‘with my mother.’

‘Oh,’ Clare murmured inadequately, then added a quietly sympathetic, ‘You must miss her.’

It drew a belligerent look and an immediate denial. ‘No, I don’t! Why should I? She didn’t care about me.’

Clare shook her head. ‘I’m sure she did, Miles. Sometimes grown-ups are too busy with their own lives, but that doesn’t mean—’

‘What do you know?’ Miles cut in abruptly and jumped to his feet. ‘You’re just a servant!’

It was intended as the ultimate insult but Clare didn’t take offence. She could tell from the colour suffusing his face that he regretted his words the moment they were out, but didn’t know how to take them back. Instead he turned and ran.

Clare heard him take the stairs two at a time, clattering noisily down the plain wooden treads, and sighed aloud. It hadn’t taken her long to upset Miles, and he had been the one to secure her the post. But did she want this job so badly that she was willing to let herself be ruled by the moods of an eleven-year-old boy?

The answer was no, but that wasn’t exactly the correct question. She might not want the job, but she needed it—at least until she found something else.

Perhaps she should put an advert in the paper:

Female ex-con, twenty-six, with drugs and theft convictions, no good with children, no good at being humble either. Anything considered. Apply Box...

Somehow she didn’t think she’d get much response, yet there seemed little point in lying about her past when it would inevitably be found out.

Plainly, this was her best chance. If the Marchands, senior and junior, would just let her get on with the cooking and cleaning, without expecting anything else from her, she could be reasonably content here. She’d work hard for them when on duty, and, when not, she’d escape to her attic sanctuary.

She looked round the room again with an appreciative eye. As bed-sits went, it was beautifully furnished, comfortable without being over-fussy, nothing too valuable to use, but nothing cheap and nasty either. Louise’s son had been lucky to have such a place to study in.

Clare stretched out on the bed and, as in prison, let her imagination wander to better things.

How different it would all be if she’d come to Oxford to study, not skivvy—to work for a degree that would be her passport to a new life. It wasn’t so fanciful. She’d been considered fairly bright at school. She’d gained eight O levels, and gone on to do A levels...only that same year Johnny Holstead had been sent down from university, and her studies had flown out the window, along with her common sense.

She couldn’t believe now that she’d been such a fool. To give up a future for a few meaningless words of love and a summer of stolen meetings. He’d never once taken her out, never shown her his world, yet she’d turned her own life upside-down for him, believing he meant his ‘forever’ promises.