‘So I see,’ said Ace dryly.
‘Rose! Everyone! Ace is back,’ Jack shouted down the hall.
Rose gave a muffled shriek and after a few seconds came running downstairs patting her hair. Her dress was on inside out. Goodness knows what she’d been up to.
‘For heaven’s sake Jack, don’t play silly games.’ Then she saw Ace and turned pale.
‘My God, Ace, how wonderful to see you.’
‘So nice to feel wanted,’ said Ace dryly.
I couldn’t take any more. As I fled upstairs I heard him ask, ‘Who’s that? For a minute I thought Maggie’d lost weight.’
‘Pen’s girlfriend,’ said Jack. ‘She’s called Prudence.’
Ace laughed. ‘A singularly inappropriate name,’ he said.
I was horrified when I looked in the mirror. Crying had streaked my mascara, kissing had smudged my lipstick like a clown. The top buttons of my dress were undone, and my bra strap had slipped down to my elbow. I washed my face and tried to screw up enough courage to go downstairs. I jumped in terror at the knock on the door.
To my amazement it was Pendle.
‘Pru,’ he said, ‘are you OK? Suddenly you disappeared. Ace has arrived a day early and my mother’s having hysterics. Come and meet him.’
He took my hand and led me downstairs, stopping on the way to say, ‘Sorry I’ve been uptight. This place always has a devastating effect on me. Thank you for being so sweet.’ He squeezed my hand and suddenly kissed me on the cheek.
That threw me. I nearly started crying again. What the hell was going on? Perhaps things were going so well with Maggie, he could afford to be nice to me. On the other hand it was only Jack’s word against his. All that talk about Pendle and Maggie might easily be Jack’s method of prising me loose from Pendle!
In the drawing-room I was hailed like a long-lost sister. Conversation was very sticky with everyone trying to conceal the fact that they were half cut. All the guests had evaporated which only served to emphasize the chaos. A battalion of empty bottles stood on the table. Records out of their sleeves lay like a handful of loose change in the corner.
‘Pru, darling,’ said Rose, pronouncing her words very carefully. ‘This is Ace, twenty-four hours early, but no less welcome for that.’ Ace got to his feet and shook hands with me, giving no sign that he had already met me in less happy circumstances.
‘Come and sit down,’ he said, pointing to the big armchair, right away from Jack. Pendle sat on the arm. Maggie and Jack were holding hands on the sofa.
‘Why
‘The Venezuelan riots were crushed much quicker than anyone thought they would be. There was no point in hanging around, so I flew straight back.’
‘How long will you be here?’ asked Rose.
‘Hard to tell — perhaps indefinitely. The BBC have offered me a news programme.’
‘That would mean you’d be in England all the time?’ said Rose faintly.
‘Yes,’ said Ace, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Then I could keep an eye on you all, couldn’t I? How’s Lucasta?’ he said to Maggie and Jack.
‘Oh she’s absolutely gorgeous now,’ said Maggie enthusiastically. ‘We’ve got her next weekend, so you’ll be able to see her.’
She’d certainly changed her tune — not a trace of the wicked step-mother anymore.
‘Humbuggery is legal after ninety days at sea,’ I muttered.
I could now understand why they were all so wary of him. He was tall — easily the tallest of the three brothers — and even broader than Jack, and his skin was tanned to the colour of old leather. He’d grown a black moustache since the photograph was taken, which made him look not unlike a Venezuelan bandit himself, and he obviously hadn’t slept for days. But even exhausted, he was formidable. He was one of those tough, self-assured men who rove round the world in search of truth, always where the action is, watching wars begin and governments fall. Each time he opened his mouth, I expected the
He had a rough, abrupt way of shooting out questions, then listening closely to the answers. I sat in a semi- comatose state as he asked Jack about the mill, Pendle about the Bar and Maggie about the new house — just as if he were conducting a series of short, sharp interviews. Each time Rose chipped in, he brushed her aside. Occasionally his eyes flickered over me. My turn would come later. I don’t like him, I decided. He’s a bully.
Rose picked petulantly at her nail polish for a few minutes, then announced she was off to bed. I went too. In the hall we found someone had left the telephone off the hook.
‘What a frightful waste of electricity,’ said Rose, putting it back.
This time when I got upstairs, I strewed my clothes all over the bedroom, and when I lay down the room went round and round.
Chapter Seven
I dreamt I was trapped by falling masonry, with the flames flickering towards me. I woke up pouring with sweat to find Coleridge lying heavily across my legs. After yesterday’s deluge, the waterfall outside the window was thundering on the rocks, which did nothing to alleviate my excruciating hangover. I lay for a bit trying to adjust to the pain. After all, people learnt to live with suffering, people with cancer, and Odette Churchill having her fingernails pulled out. Just relax into it, I told myself, clutching my head. I gave a low moan. It was no good, I got up and staggered down the passage to the bathroom, where I was confronted by the most glorious back view: broad brown shoulders, thick black hair curling into the nape of the neck, powerful haunches wrapped in a scarlet towel, and long brown muscular legs. Perhaps I’d died after all and gone to heaven.
Next moment my illusions were shattered. Ace Mulholland turned round, the bottom half of his face covered with lather. Under the black thatch of hair, his eyes were swollen with sleep and not particularly friendly.
‘Won’t be long,’ he said, starting to scrape off the soap.
‘At least the rain’s stopped,’ I said faintly, hanging on to the door handle for support. ‘We might get a lovely day.’
Then I remembered I was wearing my black temptress see-through nightie, which must look pretty incongruous in my present state of collapse, so I went back to my room, and sat on my bed groaning. If I didn’t get a drink pretty soon the top of my head would come off. I put on a brown sweater, and a pair of brown corduroy jodhpurs which were fashionable that autumn. (I’d never been on a horse in my life.) It took centuries to get dressed, and I had awful trouble with my new walking shoes. Every time I bent down to do up the laces, I was nearly sick. It was a bit late anyway to try and impress Ace with my respectability. I threw my walking shoes in the corner, and put on my orange boots. I seemed to have gone downhill rather fast in the last two days.
Clinging on to the banisters, holding my head in place with my left hand, I found Ace prowling round the downstairs rooms drinking black coffee, and looking bootfaced. Certainly the state of decay looked even worse by daylight. Coleridge, now stretched out in the hall, thumped his tail.
‘Oh please don’t,’ I groaned. ‘Have you got any Alka-Seltzer?’
‘You’ll never keep it down in that condition,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you a Fernet Branca.’
In the kitchen I found Mrs Braddock noisily washing up, trembling with rage that she’d been caught on the hop.
‘Mrs Mulholland should have warned me Mr Ace was coming back,’ she grumbled.
‘She didn’t know,’ I said, remembering Rose’s inside-out dress. ‘She was more surprised than anyone.’
‘Probably never read Mr Ace’s letter properly, and I was going to take the budgie in for a check-up this morning,’ said Mrs Braddock, viciously crashing a saucepan down on the draining-board, which didn’t really help matters.
