Dropping her denim jacket over the
chaise
longue,
she went
into the sitting-room and poured herself a vodka-martini,
switching on the answering machine before stretching out
along
the arm of the nearest chair with her
drink in one hand and a
joint in
the
other. Nico didn’t like her smoking grass, but since
he wasn’t here there wasn’t a lot he could do about
it, she
thought resentfully. At least
she would be free to do whatever
she liked when he flew off to
Montserrat on Wednesday, and
heaven knows,
she reasoned, the way things had been going
lately smoking a bit of
grass was practically the only enjoyment left to her.
The
messages on the machine were predictably mundane.
Monty Barton had called four times urging Nico to contact
him,
the BBC wanted to speak to him, some PR chap from the
record company had phoned twice, Nico’s sister Bianca once,
and
New
Woman
magazine once.
How nice, thought Caroline with
irritation. Nine phone
messages
for Nico and none for me. Am I alive? Do I really live here? Do I even
exist?
And if Nico isn’t with Monty, where the hell is he right now anyway?
The phone burst into life again at that moment. Knowing
that
if she picked it up she would only have
to pass on another
bloody message, Caroline glared at it and switched
the machine on again. That was what it was there for, wasn’t it?
But like most people she couldn’t
resist listening as the
machine
picked up the call.
And when she realized who was speaking her interest grew.
Camilla’s carefully nonchalant tone didn’t fool Caroline for a
minute as she heard her apologize for not meeting
Nico for
lunch. There were
unmistakable undertones in her words and
she knew intuitively that it had been no innocent lunch date.
Nico hadn’t mentioned it to her earlier, and she
didn’t doubt
that he wouldn’t when he eventually arrived home, which
only made it more significant still.
As she poured herself another hefty
drink she erased
Camilla’s message of
apology and her tentative request for Nico
to
return her call. Just because Camilla had been tragically
widowed, she
told herself grimly, didn’t mean she couldn’t fight
dirty. She was only too aware of Nico’s feelings for Camilla,
and
since chasing after a married man clearly didn’t fall outside
her moral code, Caroline had no compunction about
retaliating
in kind. Nico was hers, after all. And nobody else was going
to bloody well take him away from her.
At that moment Mrs Pargeter appeared in the doorway, Mr
Sheen in one hand and a duster clutched in the
other. She
coughed politely and
Caroline quelled the impulse to snap at
her. Good cleaning women, after
all, were as hard to find these days as faithful husbands.
‘
Come in, Mrs Pargeter,’ she said with a smile
and as much
grace as she could muster. ‘Is
there a problem? Anything I can
do to help?’
‘
Bless you duck,’ said Madge Pargeter fondly, ‘it’s kind of
you to ask but I’m fine. No, it’s a bit of a delicate matter I’m
afraid . . . it’s just that there’s something I felt you really ought
to know .
’Mum and I are getting on like a
house on fire,’ said
Natalie,
when Camilla returned downstairs after a shower and stretched out on the settee
in her favourite white silk dressing-gown.
Camilla, silently observing the ‘Mum’,
exchanged glances
with Roz whilst
Natalie wolfed down another jaffa cake.
‘
A singularly inapt
expression, I always think,’ mused Roz.
‘It always reminds me of alarm
bells and disaster.’
Natalie grinned. ‘OK, we’re getting
on very well then. Have
a jaffa cake,’ she urged Camilla. "They’re very good for shock.
Are your legs OK now?’
‘Only minor cuts,’ said Camilla, glancing at them. ‘They’re
nothing. And I phoned the hospital just now –
they’re keeping the chap in for a couple of days just to be on the safe side,
but
his head wound wasn’t serious apparently, and they’ve stitched
him up. He’s lost a tooth and a bit of blood, but
otherwise he’s
OK. He’s a lucky man.’
As she spoke, she glanced over at the
photograph of Matt
and herself which
stood on the mantelpiece and her eyes glazed over for a second. Natalie, who
couldn’t bear awkward silences, leapt headlong into the breach.
‘
Hey, I almost forgot –
the most gorgeous-sounding guy
phoned
up for you this afternoon. He wouldn’t give his name,
but he had
the
sexiest
voice I’ve ever heard. He wanted to know where he could find you so I told him
you were over at Zoë’s house. Who is he?’
So Nico had phoned Zoë’s and drawn a
second blank, thought
Camilla,
wondering if he had been home and listened to the message she had left for him.
Avoiding Natalie’s curious gaze she said blankly, ‘No
idea. Probably my ex-husband. Anyway, tell me what the two of you have been up
to in the last week. What do you think of the Cotswolds?’
Natalie pulled a face. ‘Dull, dull,
dull. I like London better.
But Mum and
I have had loads of time to talk, so it’s been OK.
She showed me a photograph of my real father yesterday – he
was only young when it was taken but he was dead
good-
looking. I can’t wait to meet him
– he’s almost as dishy as
Nico.’ Proudly, Natalie glanced across at Roz,
who was deeply
engrossed in lighting a
cigarette. ‘I’ll say this for Mum: she
hasn’t half pulled some gorgeous
men in her time.’
When Nico emerged from the shower
with a scarlet towel around
his hips,
his magnificent brown body gleaming with droplets of water, Caroline said
nothing. She had already asked, extremely casually, where he had been that
afternoon and Nico, apparently riveted by a TV programme about earthworms, had
replied, ‘Working’, which only confirmed what she already knew.
Now, she stepped out of her white silk knickers and stood
watching him.
‘
What?’ said Nico irritably.
‘
A journalist called round this afternoon,’ said Caroline softly.
‘He was kind enough to inform me that you were having an
affair with
another woman.’
‘
Journalists! You know what they’re like.’
‘
He also told me that in his opinion your career wouldn’t
easily stand another scandal. And I’m
talking about a really
messy
divorce scandal.’
‘I’m not having an affair,’ Nico countered, his green eyes
darkening. Reaching for him, pulling him
towards the bed, Caroline said soothingly, ‘I know you aren’t, of
course
you
aren’t, but once these press people
get an idea into their heads
. . . they think our marriage is on the
rocks and it’s up to us to prove them wrong, that’s all.’
As she drew him down on top of her, sliding away the ivory
towel and winding one curvaceous leg around
his hip, Nico
realized that there was
no longer any point fighting it. Camilla
had given him her answer this
afternoon, her non-appearance proving once again that she didn’t really give a
damn. At least
Caroline gave a damn, he
thought, weakening as she began
expertly to arouse him .. .
‘
We don’t have to prove
them wrong; it’s none of their
goddam business anyway,’ he said later
after a clinical but satisfactory bout of love-making. Caroline, stroking his
muscled
thigh with a pink-glossed
fingernail, smiled. ‘But why give
them
the pleasure of trying to break us up? And the journalist
was right – it can only mess up your image. Your
fans don’t
want us to split, do they?’
Nico shook his head. Staring at the ceiling, he willed
himself to stop thinking about Camilla.
‘So,’ concluded Caroline, dropping a kiss on his flat
tanned
stomach, ‘we’ll put a stop to those
boring old rumours. I packed
a couple
of suitcases this evening. The day after tomorrow,
we’re
both
leaving
for Montserrat.’
Chapter 49
’Camilla, I’ve got myself into a terrible mess,’ confessed
Roz, when Natalie had finally been persuaded to go to bed and they were alone.
Camilla, sipping coffee, curled her feet under the hem of
her dressing-gown and met Roz’s troubled gaze.
‘
You sound like Loulou,’
she said with a faint smile. ‘Come
on, tell me about it. Is it Natalie?’
‘
Who else?’ said Roz,
blowing a perfect smoke ring, but
looking
agitated. ‘Although I suppose it’s really my own fault.
You haven’t
asked me about Natalie’s father. Aren’t you curious to know who he is?’
‘
You were sixteen,’ said
Camilla thoughtfully. ‘Presumably
you
gave birth to Natalie just before you went to Elm House.
You always had lots of boyfriends ... I can’t even
remember
their names now.’
‘Remember this one?’ Roz passed across a slightly creased
Polaroid shot and poured herself another glass of
wine as
Camilla studied it. The memories flooded back instantly.
‘Sebastian,’ she said, holding the photograph up to the
amber
light and admiring the blond good
looks of the boy sitting with
his arm around a younger, softer-looking
Roz on the shores of Lake Geneva. ‘Of course. But why is it such a problem? You’ve
shown Natalie this photo. You lost touch with each other years
ago, presumably. Just tell her that there’s nothing
else you can
do. She’ll understand . .
‘But she won’t,’ interrupted Roz, taking the photograph
back.
‘She’s determined to track him down,
wherever he is. My
daughter thinks she’s Sherlock Holmes, for God’s
sake,’ she
concluded gloomily, and lit
another cigarette from the butt of
the last.
‘
Would that really be so
terrible?’ ventured Camilla, and
watched Roz shake back her spiky dark
hair, briefly closing her glittering black eyes.
‘Now comes the hard part,’ she said at last. ‘I know
exactly
where Sebastian is. We never did
lose touch. Once or twice a
year he
comes over to England to see me and occasionally I go
to Zurich to visit
him. He’s an international banker, as successful as they come, and he’s never
married. Natalie rattles on about
contacting
Interpol and all the time his phone number’s right
here in my head . . . but how the hell can I
possibly explain to
her that although Sebastian and I have been lovers
for almost twenty years, he’s never known that he has a daughter?’
Camilla’s mind reeled as she
struggled to assimilate this
startling
statement.
‘
You mean that you didn’t tell him you were
pregnant?’
‘
I told him I thought I was,’ said Roz evenly. ‘He went
berserk. Sebastian had very strong views even then and he
was violently anti-abortion — and equally violently anti-
fatherhood. He blamed me, because I’d told him I was on the
Pill when in fact I wasn’t. I worshipped him, but he simply
refused to tolerate the idea that I might be pregnant. He was
only seventeen himself but he called me an idiotic child, and
I knew that even if I had the baby and put it up for adoption
he’d refuse to have anything more to do with me. He didn’t
exactly
have a forgiving nature.’
‘
So what happened?’
Roz shrugged helplessly. ‘I was
totally besotted with
Sebastian.
He was my entire world; there was only one thing I could do if I ever wanted to
see him again. When I returned to England I wrote and told him that it had all
been a false alarm.
The next six months were
spent at a school for naughty girls,
and five weeks after Natalie had
been born and spirited away, Sebastian turned up in England none the wiser.
Somehow,’ she concluded with a bitter smile, ‘the appropriate moment in which
to tell him never arose. He’s still not at all keen on children and he’d be as
shocked as you are to learn that I’ve kept that kind of
secret from him for this length of time . . . so what on earth can
I
possibly tell Natalie?’