“Leeds is great, Dad. Can we move?” she asked, looking up from under the table. Even she was different, brighter, almost vivacious. “Have I missed Christmas Day?” she added, with one of her more familiar, peculiarly adult expressions.
“Honest, I had no idea what you were going through. I thought she was on a legitimate visit. Mark, isn’t it? Tony’s talked about you.”
“Has he?” Mark couldn’t keep the coldness out of his voice. Richard was merely implicated, there was no need to freeze him out. For the moment Mark could only look at how he was being construed in all this—the furious, bereft father storming into the antique collector’s priceless haven, kicking up a fuss. Richard’s shy deference puzzled him, too. Richard saw him as the straight man, vengeful, rightfully so, a breeder on the rampage. Mark was furious at himself for thinking that Richard was actually quite sweet: that offhand shyness was balanced by real concern. Mark was the one being strong, that was how Richard saw it, but all Mark wanted now was to cling to Richard’s apron and ask for some comforting.
He was surprised. Richard smiled again gently, handing him the tea. “I think it’ll be all right,” he said, adding, “The phone’s right beside you.”
“PEGGY!” THE SHRIEK RANG THROUGH THE HOUSE.
Peggy was in the bath and came lumbering down the hall to meet Iris.
“I’ve got the address. She’s with Mark. She’s perfect. I mean, she’s safe, happy…she’s all right!”
Peggy grasped Iris to her and gave her a soaking. “Oh, God! Oh…my Orlando.”
SAM WAS ASHEN-FACED, EXHAUSTED. THE PHONE SLIPPED FROM HER grasp and hit the carpet. Carefully Bob replaced it and didn’t dare ask what had been said.
A few second passed and then she looked up.
“It’s an address in Headingley. We’re going tomorrow. Will you drive?”
SIXTEEN
SALLY HAD BEEN GIVEN A ROOM THAT HAD ONCE BEEN A SORT OF DRESSING room adjacent to Mark’s. At first he insisted on keeping her where he could see her.
“She’ll be all right,” Richard told him, showing them round upstairs. The ceilings were too high here as well. Mark couldn’t help feeling intimidated.
Since Simmonds had gone off into the night, the atmosphere had lightened. Dinner was in the warm kitchen. Richard produced food from the cupboards and the narrow fridge and they sat by candlelight, talking quietly and laughing. They were like three children with the grown-ups away; Sally was pleased they could stay up so late.
Richard had opened some wine and Mark did something he had never believed he would that night: he got happily drunk. After Richard had shown him where Sally would sleep, within his earshot, and they had seen her to bed, they went back to the kitchen, drank some more and screamed with laughter at Mark’s story about Christmas Eve, the bits about the walkabout and the orange in the copper’s mouth.
The tension had gone. Everything that had tightened and tightened and then burst into disaster over the last few days was suddenly erased. When Mark reflected on the events leading up to Christmas, he marvelled that he had never seen the danger signs. Sam had been flaunting them. He saw that now. She had worn them appliqued on every word and gesture during the whole month’s run-up to Christmas. Even that final, patronising kiss on the chest had been an act of sarcasm. Gradually, Mark came to the realisation that Sam had been looking for a reason to leave him. That fitted. It really made sense. The mad letter from Tony she had found gave her the perfect excuse.
He was smiling, confirming this to himself, when Richard ducked back into the kitchen, clumsily uncorking a bottle with the wrecked opener and a teatowel. “What’s so funny?”
“Not funny,” Mark said. He wore the smile of someone about to make a major life change, the sort of smile he had seen on Oprah during afternoons home with the telly. “Just sort of pleasing.”
“Good,” Richard said, pouring.
“So what’s the set-up here?”
Richard’s face darkened momentarily. Then he blushed, and they both laughed. “I’m never quite sure,” he admitted. “But whatever it is these days, Mr Simmonds just isn’t happy with it.”
“No?”
“Well, you saw how he was. They got me in about a year ago, to look after the house. They go about all over the place, selling stuff. I don’t know much about the business, though I’m supposed to be learning. I was hand-picked to carry on the family firm.”
“Here’s to happy families!”
“Yeah, right. To both of ours, invented or otherwise.”
“So what’s Tony like now?”
The younger man rubbed his eyes with a sigh. He looked tired. Mark realised that Richard had spent quite a lot of time in Sally’ company, and he knew how conversations with her could go on and on, once they started. Once she knew you were interested, there was no letting up. Richard looked wrecked. But Mark needed some advanced warning about Tony.
“You do know,” Richard said, “that the minute he gets back, he’ll harass me for the same information about you?”
“We’re not playing bloody courting games,” Mark said. “He kidnapped my fucking daughter! He’s lucky I’ve not had the police in and—”
“Well, he knew you wouldn’t do that.”
Sinking back into his chair, Mark said, “I thought he was still in prison. He wrote me letters for years pretending that he was.”
“A little game. They’re always playing games here.”
“It’s just so bloody weird.”
“I suppose it is,” Richard admitted. “And it’s wrong to include people from outside, like you and your family. It’s bad enough when its just indoor games, when they’re fucking up each other’s minds, and my mind. But we’re all willing victims of it, here. Even I am.” Solemnly Richard swished his glass. “I’m no innocent. I wasn’t in the first place.”
“Why do you stay here?”
“It’s a job.” He shrugged. “A bloody good job. You want to see the money going through
