Master of the House

‘Vimto,’ I admitted, and he burst out laughing.

‘I’m not sure I even know what that is,’ he said. ‘It sounds quite dangerous. Lucy-in-the-Sky-with-Vimto.’

‘It’s a secret blend of fruit juices, herbs and spices,’ I told him, hating myself for getting lured into conversation like this but somehow unable to shut my stupid mouth.

‘How exotic. No alcohol?’

‘Nope.’

‘I can slip a vodka in there if you’d like.’

‘I wouldn’t like.’

‘Fine. As Madam wishes.’ The barman approached and Joss gave his rather extensive order. ‘Anyway,’ Joss resumed, turning back to me while the barman pulled the pints, ‘how are you?’

I shrugged. From the corner of my eye I could see, to my considerable chagrin, that Minna was flirting with the table full of toffs.

‘Left school, I take it?’ He was dogged in his pursuit.

‘Just finished A levels.’

‘Going to university?’

‘Yeah.’

He looked at me with this ‘I need a fuller answer than that’ look. Again, I was compelled.

‘London. English.’

‘Damn. I was hoping you’d say Oxford. I could show you around.’

‘I couldn’t be bothered with all the Oxbridge crap.’ Because I knew you were there.

‘Well, I’m sure you had better things to do. Come over to our table. Is she a friend of yours?’

He glanced at Minna as he put his legion of pint glasses on a tray to carry across the room.

‘Not really. Somebody’s visiting niece, that’s all.’

I narrowed my eyes at her. She was leaning over some Hooray Henry, giving him a faceful of her cleavage in its tight, skimpy vest top. It was plain that Joss’s friends had about as much respect for her as they had for the pub dog stretched out by the fireplace, but she was an amusement for them, so they tolerated her.

‘Minna, we should go,’ I said, avoiding taking my place beside Joss on the oak settle.

‘What the fuck?’ she whined. ‘Don’t be such a killjoy, Luce. Sit down and have a drink. You might even enjoy yourself.’

She looked around the group, lapping up their approval and their nodding heads and eager grins.

I wanted to kill the lot of them.

But I sat down.

It was one of the most excruciating half-hours of my life. Minna and I were exhibits in a zoo – look at the Local Girls in their Natural Habitat. They asked us questions and laughed at our answers, no matter how dull or ordinary they might be. Within five minutes, one guy had his hand on Minna’s thigh. We were just there to provide a bit of entertainment, like tavern wenches in ages gone by when the men of quality deigned to refresh themselves.

Joss, though, didn’t seem to be joining in with the heavily veiled barbs and slights. He tried to temper his friends’ increasingly drunken enthusiasm, remonstrating with them when they approached the verge of Going Too Far, and he defended me from all questioning with a flat ‘Lucy’s got more sense than to talk to the likes of you oiks. Leave her alone.’

The pint glasses emptied, one by one.

‘Would you ladies care to accompany us back to the Hall? We’ve got more beer and wine than you could imagine in your wildest dreams, and the lord and lady are on a yacht somewhere, so the place is ours?’

‘Yeah?’ Minna was wide-eyed and breathless. ‘Like, for real?’

‘No, thanks,’ I said.

Joss and his friends spent the next ten minutes trying to persuade me but I held out.

‘Well, we’ll walk you home, anyway,’ he decreed. ‘Come on, gents.’

They walked ahead with Minna while Joss hung back, not letting me away from his side.

‘I can understand why you don’t want to,’ he said.

‘Good.’

He looked up at the darkening sky. He was carrying a stick, broken off from a hazel bush, and he whacked it into the hedgerow as we walked, as if it helped release some nameless tension.

‘I’ve grown-up, you know, Lucy. I’m not the same person.’

‘Congratulations.’

A sigh and a pause.

‘How’s your mother?’

‘Same as ever. Don’t you see her, at the Hall?’

‘Oh, I don’t get up till midday. She’s long gone by then.’

‘Well, next time, get up a bit earlier and ask her yourself.’

‘Perhaps I will.’ We were walking along the edge of the caravan park now, in crepuscular light. ‘“She dwelt among the untrodden ways/Beside the springs of Dove,/A Maid whom there were none to praise/And very few to love.”’

‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘Don’t quote those poems to me.’

‘Why not? When we read them at school, I always thought of you.’

‘You had no right.’ We were at the entrance of the park. Minna was snogging one of the toffs, laughing as he slid his hand under her vest top.

‘No, I didn’t, you’re right, but Lucy, can’t we start afresh? As friends?’

‘Fuck off.’

I ran away from the lot of them – from the braying laughter of some of his chums, the smacking sound of Minna and the toff joined at the lips, the sickening memories in my head and most of all the desire to fall horribly in love with Joss for no better reason than that he knew a few lines of poetry and could use them like a deadly weapon.

‘You cheap fucking date,’ I railed at myself, slamming the van door behind it all. ‘He’s a bastard and a bully and you hate him, and you’ll always hate him.’

I fell on the bed and cried myself to sleep.

* * *

I was hoping, then, for a less traumatic encounter when I got out of the car and made a cautious way over the Feathers’ gravel.

His back was to me as I entered; he was talking to one of the villagers. Of course, they all fawned over him. Lord of the Manor and all that. He was broader, perhaps a little weightier than he had been. Nearly thirty with swept-back hair and one of those uncommitted beards that don’t know whether to be stubble or full-on growth. It looked good, all the same. He looked good. The sight of him made me feel ill and I had to clench everything to stay upright.

The villager had seen me, and Joss took his cue from the shift in his gaze and turned around.

‘Lucy,’ he said, very warmly, too warmly, holding out his hands.

‘Did you book?’ I asked, looking past him to what was once the Lounge Bar, now the restaurant.

‘No need. They always fit me in. Come on, let’s go and sit down.’

He nodded a goodbye at the villager and led me out to the patio tables, overlooking the newly landscaped garden. No more rusty old swing set. Now there was a pretty pond full of koi carp, and a fountain. Overhead was a trellis gazebo festooned with climbing roses and each table held scented candles in artisan-decorated glass jars.

‘I bet they don’t even serve Vimto any more,’ I said, pulling out my own chair before he could try and do it for me. ‘All bloody elderflower cordial and cloudy pink lemonade now.’

‘You haven’t lost that chip on your shoulder, then?’ he said, quite politely but with a glint of challenge in his eye. ‘Always ranting against anything remotely poncey or posh.’

‘Actually, I’ve developed a few poncey, posh tastes over the years,’ I confessed, fidgeting with the menu. ‘I’m very snobby about sausages now, for example, having lived in Hungary where the sausage is taken very seriously.’

Joss chuckled, his eyes brightening.

‘You have to be snobby about your sausages,’ he said. ‘Inferior sausages are quite intolerable.’

‘Well, yes.’

We ordered drinks and then sat, looking at each other until the tension almost cracked the artisan glass candle-holder.

‘So,’ he said, at the same time as I said, ‘Well.’

I looked away.

‘You aren’t here to reminisce about old times, are you, Lucy?’ he said softly, drawing my attention straight back to him.

‘My memories aren’t exactly fond,’ I snapped.

‘No. So why are you here?’

‘It’s been nine years. Perhaps it’s time to let bygones be –’

‘You’re a journalist, aren’t you?’ It was so abrupt, I started.

‘Cut to the chase, why don’t you?’ I said.

‘I didn’t want all that bygones crap to drag on,’ he said, accepting his champagne cocktail from the waiter while I took my, yes, elderflower fizz. ‘I know why you’re here.’

‘Do you? Please enlighten me.’

‘You’ve scented a story and you want to use your old connection with me to get at the heart of it.’

Very nicely deduced. I had to hand it to him, along with his scalpel of truth.

‘You’re not denying it,’ he said after a pause.

‘Why bother?’ I said. ‘If that’s what you want to think.’

‘It isn’t, actually. What I want to think is completely different.’

‘What, that I’ve come running back into your arms, ready for you to stab me in the back again? What do you take me for?’

‘Are you ready to order?’ the waiter asked.

We pinched our lips and muttered our food orders with flaming cheeks.

‘So you heard about somebody leasing the Hall,’ said Joss once the waiter was out of earshot.

‘Everybody’s talking about it. Of course I did.’

‘And you want to know who?’

‘And why.’

‘Of course, why. Lots of rumours out there, I hear.’

‘Tons. Are you going to put a stop to them? By telling me the truth of it?’

I sipped at my elderflower fizz, waiting for Joss to pull one of his trademark petulant strops. I guessed we’d be going Dutch on the meal now a shag was out of the question.

Instead he surprised me. After stroking his beard-thing for a moment or two, he said, ‘I can do better than that.’

‘Really?’

‘I can get you in there. Exclusive access to the Hall – and its mysterious lessee. And he’s a big fish, Lucy, a very big fish. This’ll be the scoop of your life.’

‘Who is he?’

Joss shook his head, peering fearfully around as if scouting for eavesdroppers.

‘If I tell you that you’ll be straight on the phone to your editors. No, you have to come into the Hall and see it for yourself.’

‘That’s an invitation, then? As simple as that. Why would you let me?’

‘Let’s say I’m not entirely happy with the situation. A big press exposé might blow the whole thing apart and give me back my birthright.’

‘Birthright,’ I scoffed. ‘You’re such a little prince.’

‘Do you want this or not?’

‘I suppose so,’ I said, but I wasn’t sure. I wanted – needed – something that would get me off the Village Fete Desk, but this sounded risky and strange.

‘Right. Come into the estate office on Monday morning and we’ll discuss it further.’

‘Why not now?’

‘Are you wearing a wire?’

I burst out laughing.

‘Joss, this isn’t a spy drama! Wearing a wire! For God’s sake!’

He looked discomfited by my mirth, and knocked back his champagne cocktail until he fell into a coughing fit.

I took advantage of it to click off my mobile phone’s ‘Record’ setting in my handbag.

‘So, can you give me a clue?’ I asked.

He shook his head.

‘I’ll tell you on Monday.’ He paused, looking at me too intently for comfort. ‘You aren’t married or anything, are you?’

‘God forbid. You?’

He shook his head.

‘Came close, last year,’ he said. ‘Until she saw my bank statements and ran a mile.’

‘Oh, dear. Did she break your heart? What a shame.’

If there was more sarcasm than sympathy in my tone, I figured he’d understand.

He looked at me for a long time then, until the waiter came with our starters, forcing him to drop the eye contact. Just as well, because I was starting to feel giddy.

‘You still aren’t over it, are you?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘What happened between us. It still hurts you.’

‘No, it doesn’t. I don’t let it.’ I stabbed at a disc of mozzarella, sloshing it around in its basil jus.

‘If only life were that easy. Life and love. I half hoped you’d have met someone else, settled down, found happiness.’

‘Only half?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, and it was more a breath than a word, floating over the candle flame. ‘Only half.’

‘I did meet someone else. In Hungary. But it didn’t work out.’

He smiled then.

‘Tell me about Hungary. I’ve never been there.’

He had given me the floor and I took it, relieved to have control of a conversation that had almost lurched beyond the boundaries I had set myself. No talking about old times. No recriminations. Definitely no flirting.

He played the perfect gent for the rest of the evening and no more reference was made to our common past.

In the car park, he offered to walk me home, and I had to remind him that I didn’t live at the caravan site any more.

‘I’m in Tylney,’ I said. ‘I drove here tonight.’

‘Oh, is that why you didn’t drink?’

‘No. I didn’t drink because I wanted to keep my head.’

He looked slightly furtive at that, a little guilty.

‘Well, I’ll see you on Monday, at the office,’ he said. He leaned forwards, a little awkwardly, aiming for my cheek, but I dodged out of the way.

‘About nine?’

‘Perfect.’

He didn’t set off for the Hall immediately but watched me get into the car and drive away. I felt the burn of his eyes on me as I belted up and chose a CD to listen to.

Go away, I thought, but at the same time a treacherous second voice chanted, Come back to me.

Chapter Three

‘I’ll tell you what, I didn’t realise how dirty posh boys are.’

Minna was full of her escapade at the Hall that next morning after we’d bumped into Joss at the Feathers.

‘Really?’ I said with a yawn, frowning at the wall my hairdrier was plugged into. The electricity kept cutting out and I had an idea that the way the socket was coming away from its moorings might not be helping.

‘God, yeah. Filthy, they are.’

I didn’t want to hear it. If she’d kissed Joss, or gone further with him, I didn’t want to know.

‘It’s all that repression, shut away at Eton. They go wild when they get a sniff of a woman, probably.’

‘Do you think so? Mmm, what a night. Three sexy boys and me in a four-poster bed.’ She was lying full-length on the sofa and she arched her back like a cat.

I had to know. I spat it out.

‘Was Joss one of them?’

‘No, Joss was boring. He went to bed, left us to it with a crate of beer and a multipack of condoms.’

‘And they say romance is dead.’ But my heart leaped up. Joss hadn’t touched Minna. Perhaps gangbanging just wasn’t his scene.

Or perhaps he was gay.

I shouldn’t care, either way.

‘Fuck this piece of shit,’ I fumed, throwing the hairdrier down and wrenching out the plug. ‘I’m going to see your aunt, get her to send the handyman over to fix this socket.’

It was going to be a hot day, the sun already high and so bright that I was a little dazzled as I climbed down the steps from the van.

It seemed like a holy vision, consequently, when Joss pitched up in front of me, illuminated from behind.

‘Am I hallucinating?’ I muttered, a little dismayed to be caught like this, barefoot in towelling shorts and a halter-neck top with my half-dried hair like wild rats’ tails down my back.

‘Lucy. I was just coming to see you,’ he said.

God, he looked like sex on a plate. Snake-hipped in blue jeans and a check shirt, unbuttoned far enough to give a glimpse of dark chest hair.

‘Why?’

He was carrying a small antique-looking book with a tooled leather cover, and he held this out to me.

‘I wanted to give you this. As a token of apology and … perhaps friendship?’

His eyes would put a doe’s to shame and his perfect lips were wet and a little pouty. He was stupidly beautiful. It was ridiculous. Why the hell would he care what I thought of him?

I took the book – Wordsworth’s Lucy poems.

Fuck it. I was doomed.

‘Will you come for a walk with me?’ he asked.

‘You aren’t hung over then?’

‘No, I left them to it. Wanted to keep a clear head so I could come down here and see you …’ He smiled, a little self-consciously, his eyes peering out from lowered lids.

‘Right. That’s … weird.’

‘Is it?’

I nodded.

‘Well, perhaps I’m weird. Will you? Come for a walk with me?’

The spell was cast and I couldn’t resist him.

‘You won’t tie me to a tree or anything like that, will you?’

He let out a quick burst of a laugh and his eyes flashed in a way that made my stomach turn over.

‘Not unless you want me to,’ he said, then he held out his hand and I took it.

* * *

On the way to Willingham Hall, I parked at the caravan site and took a walk along the river first, wanting to remember that day and the enchantment that lay upon it. If I could keep the memory alive, it might protect me against getting too close to Joss again. I didn’t know what he had in mind – he had made it sound strictly business, nothing social at all – but it was always wise to guard against the unexpected with Joss.

The same weeping willows and anglers were there along the towpath, like props in our drama. We had wandered past them all, talking about literature and schooldays and music, snatching at the little things we had in common as if they were treasures to be stored away.

Before half a mile had been covered, I was deeply lost. When we sat on the bank and he made his move to kiss me, I could no more have denied him than I could have called up a river god from the shining depths before us.

I kicked the grass at that place, then turned towards Willingham and the Hall.

The gatekeeper was surprised to see me come in on foot, but he let me pass and I walked on under the canopy of trees, enjoying the shade they afforded on this hot summer day.

The estate office, I recalled, was first left once you were through the door. I rang the bell, looking at the relevant window and wondered if Joss was waiting in there for me.

At a corner of the east wing I could see scaffolding and men on it, working to restore the somewhat neglected exterior of the Hall. This must be what the millionaire’s money was paying for. I watched them filling the peeling plasterwork, until the door opened and Joss stood in front of me.

‘Come in,’ he said, ushering me to his office. ‘Can I get you anything? A drink?’

‘Coffee, I guess.’

‘Coffee it is.’ He went over to a percolator in the corner and poured me a cup. ‘You won’t mind if I indulge in something a little stronger?’

He turned around, brandishing a half-bottle of whisky.

‘Joss,’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s nine o’clock in the morning.’

He shrugged, pulled out a chair for me and sat down at his desk.

‘Thanks for that – now I don’t have to ring the speaking clock.’ With an air of defiance, he uncapped the bottle and put it to his lips.

‘So you’re an alcoholic,’ I said, recalling how he had had a bottle to himself at the meal last night, plus his champagne cocktail and a liqueur in place of pudding. I’d thought nothing of it – he had always been a bon vivant. But whisky at this time of day was a different proposition.

‘I do what I have to to get through the day,’ he said, putting the bottle aside. ‘I’ve had some disappointments in my life, Lucy. It’s medication.’

‘You mean having to let the Hall?’

He gave me a chilly little smile.

‘That’s right,’ he said.

‘What happened?’

‘Pa left me this pile, but he didn’t leave me anything else. Not a bean. He spent the lot on yachts, apparently.’

‘You could sell up.’

‘No, I bloody couldn’t.’ Joss nearly spat the whisky over me. ‘Willingham Hall has to stay in the family. It has to. I can’t be the one who flogs it to a Russian oligarch, Lucy. I just can’t.’

‘You’re attached to this place.’

‘Well, I see that you might not understand having a sense of home, but I do. This is my place, my domain. But it costs a fucking fortune to maintain. The heating bills alone are probably more than your annual salary. Or they would be, if I ever turned the heating on. I keep it just high enough to stop the pipes freezing, because I’m not going through that nightmare again. You should have seen me last winter, Lulu. Three jumpers, five pairs of socks. I got through half the peat stocks of the Highlands in whisky.’

‘So it’s expensive, and that’s why you’ve let it. Not much of a story there, really.’ His catty remark about my upbringing, coupled with his use of his pet name for me, had turned me into Ms Uber-Professional Bitch like a charm.

‘No, but the story’s in what it’s being used for,’ he said, lowering his voice. Again, he looked around the office as if he thought it might be bugged. ‘And by whom.’

‘So? Is he here now?’

‘No. He comes here one weekend a month. He brings … friends … with him.’

I shook my head, still not seeing the whole picture.

‘Hookers?’ I hazarded.

‘No, not hookers. He uses the place for extravagant parties. Catering to a particular kind of guest.’

‘Swingers, then?’

‘Do you always think in tabloid-speak these days, Lucy? It’s so unrefined.’

‘I do beg your pardon.’ We gave each other bitter smiles. ‘Go on then. Tell me how elegant and sophisticated it all really is. I’m sure it’s not just rich people shagging on luxury furnishings.’

‘The thing is, Lucy, I’ve never been to one of these parties. I’ve never been invited.’

‘How rude.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? But he likes to keep me in my place. He says he’ll invite me when I have a … guest … of my own to bring.’

‘Joss, could you stop talking in riddles and get to the point? Please?’ I looked at my watch. I was supposed to be in an editorial meeting in an hour.

‘You know, perhaps you should call me Lord Lethbridge. It is my name now, after all.’

‘Might I enquire when His Lordship intends to spill the precious bloody beans?’

Joss hesitated. Actually, I think he was nervous. He was talking to a journalist about something he shouldn’t, after all. He always went all stiff and princely when he was nervous.

‘Please?’ I said, more softly. ‘I promise I won’t blab. It’ll be our secret.’

‘This is serious,’ he said, entreating me with his darkest look.

‘I know. I know it is.’

‘Willingham Hall is at stake. And that’s not all. My life might depend on your discretion.’

‘Wow.’

He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath.

‘I met … this person … at a party. The kind of party he likes to throw, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. It was in London. At a dungeon.’

‘The London Dungeon?’ I said, a little confused. Were they all mad-keen on grisly murders?

‘No, Jesus, Lucy, are you being deliberately dim? A dungeon. In London. Not the London Dungeon.’

Light dawned, albeit of a murky nature.

‘You mean a kinky fetish type of thing?’

‘That’s what I mean.’

I paused and stared at him.

‘Oh.’ It was all I could think of to say.

‘Yes,’ he said, inspecting his fingernails, with the odd surreptitious glance at my expression.

Joss in a dungeon. Was it such an outlandish thought? I mean, there had been nothing weird or fetishy going on when we were together, but we were young, and … actually, looking back, perhaps there had been signs.

A memory popped into my head, of him pushing me up against the tree he had used to tie me to in childhood, holding my wrists above my head, thrusting into me, his eyes like coals. Always that tree. Every time.

‘Whips and chains?’ I said, just for clarification.

‘Whips and, indeed, chains,’ he confirmed. ‘Although I prefer a more subtle approach myself.’

‘You do?’

He looked a little touched by my bemusement and he leaned forwards.

‘Dear sweet innocent Lucy,’ he said softly. ‘Did you never think?’

‘I … you were a bit … I suppose, looking back, it makes a kind of sense. But I never framed it that way. For me you were just on the slightly domineering edge of normal … slap and tickle … I didn’t think it went any deeper than that.’