Читать книгу Glittering Fortunes - Victoria Fox - Страница 15

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.

‘Susanna’s awfully distressed over the beasts.’ Cato took a cigar from a box he had positioned on the mantelpiece and lit it. He ejected a billow of smoke. ‘She’s allergic to your menagerie; I knew she would be.’

Charlie glanced out of the window. His brother’s girlfriend was under a parasol, fanning herself against the thunder flies.

‘I’m sure she’ll survive,’ he said.

‘She’s very sensitive. I may have to ask you to keep them outside.’

‘And I may have to remind you that this is my home.’

‘Your home?’ Only Cato could lace two words with such a potent mix of spite and incredulity. ‘I rather think you’re just looking after it for me, old bean.’

It was a good job Barbara came in when she did, or Charlie would have floored him. ‘How many for supper?’ she asked.

‘We’re heading out this evening,’ mused Cato, pouting out a smoke ring, ‘it’s arranged. I suppose I ought to show Susanna what this backwater’s got to offer.’

‘Very well,’ said Charlie. ‘It’ll just be me, then, Mrs B-T.’

‘Oh, no, it won’t. You’re coming with us and you’re bringing that girl with you. I’d say an evening out was the very least you could do.’

‘Olivia?’

‘Of course Olivia—whom else would I be talking about?’

Beyond Susanna’s elegant pose Charlie spotted his new planter’s distant shape in the Sundial Garden, crouched over the foxglove bulbs. He had recognised Olivia the moment she’d shown up—the girl who used to hang around the Towerfield gates on her bike, bare legs smeared with mud from where she’d charged through a puddle or fallen out of a tree. It had been years, but he remembered. Charlie had observed her some days, sitting in the shade while she waited for the school bell, scribbling in a book or making a chain out of daisies. He’d wanted to go and talk to her but he hadn’t known what to say. She’d had a thing for the pretty boy—all the girls had, though he couldn’t see why. Adrian Gold didn’t play rugby in case it messed his hair up. He couldn’t put up a tent. He didn’t read books, or play music, or know how to tie a reef knot. He didn’t get jokes the first time and once during a test he couldn’t arrange the vowels in ‘beautiful’, which had struck Charlie as unfortunate because there was enough prettiness in the world but beauty was rarer to come by, and if Adrian was friends with Olivia Lark then he ought at least to know how to spell it.

‘Do you really want her running to the papers,’ Cato rampaged on, ‘saying Charles Lomax all but finished her off with whatever health and safety transgression the pedants’ contingent are creaming their frillies over these days? She might act like butter wouldn’t melt, but believe me: they’ve all got an eye for the main chance. If you don’t keep her happy it’ll be your name on the line.’

‘I would’ve thought that might have been yours.’

‘Don’t flaunt your ignorance, Charles.’

‘I hired her. That’s a line I don’t wish to cross.’

‘You might have hired her, but you very nearly did away with her.’

‘Wasn’t it you behind the wheel?’ His temper swelled, bright and lethal. ‘Forgive me if I’m sensing a pattern developing here—’

‘If I could interrupt.’ Barbara stepped between them, compelled to make the peace as she had done for the last twenty years. ‘I spoke with Olivia this morning and she’s adamant that no one’s to blame. She’d like us to forget the episode, if possible.’

‘Go away, Baps,’ said Cato.

The housekeeper dutifully retreated.

‘Do you get a kick out of being so vile all the damn time?’ demanded Charlie.

‘Ah, look at her.’ Cato came to stand next to him at the glass.

At first Charlie thought he was talking about Susanna. He wasn’t.

‘Such a pretty little thing,’ said Cato, ‘and so nice to have a bit of flesh to bite into. Susanna’s a minx but it’s all bone and sinew.’

‘Keep away from her, Cato. I mean it.’

Cato smirked. He puffed a bit more on the cigar.

‘Come on, Charles.’ He winked. ‘You know me better than that.’