In her career as an investigative journalist, Kitty vicariously uncovered the secrets of other dysfunctional families, directing her mind from the terrible scandal of her own childhood.
Last year, Paul had found a new love, Cerys, a fussy little Welsh woman with an ample bosom, about whom Kitty’s feelings were ambivalent. Kitty’s mother, Fee, left Paul when Kitty was five, and for months after their separation, until the couple improved their relationship, Kitty had lived mainly with her.
Since Fee’s passing, Kitty had survived by pretending her mother’s death had never happened. She had ploughed through life looking neither left nor right, and this had worked well until the string of letters started to arrive. Now, a dribble of unwanted recollections was easing its way through the protective wall she had constructed. With her eyes shut, Kitty tried to block them out, but it was impossible.
The pain in her crouching knees reconnected her with the present, and with a grimace she pushed herself upright and hobbled along the hall to retrieve the crumpled missive.
2 MAX 1967
Mother was too excited to listen to Max’s concerns. Besides, the whining engine of the Austin Metro made conversation impossible. As they ploughed along the M40 towards London, the usual questions preoccupied little Max: Would they have anywhere to stay? Did his mother have money in her purse and had they enough petrol?
They had left home without the knowledge his father. This was not unusual, but that did not make it any more acceptable to Max. He pictured Sean’s arrival home after a day at work, to find the dirty breakfast things on the table and the front door wide open. Max wished he had disobeyed and closed it, but Claudine was blind to the danger. On a previous occasion, a group of teenagers had used the inviting entrance to spray graffiti on the walls and furniture and spread excrement around the kitchen.
This latest mad dash to a part in the musical, Hair, was one of many to which his mother had subjected him during his seven-year life. He had never remained at the same school for more than two years and he wondered if she realised the intelligence of her only son. It was clear that she cared nothing about his well-being. If he objected, Claudine would intone, ‘My work is everything.’ Her only interest was her ‘art’, and apparently, she needed him with her. In truth, Max decided, what she wanted was a lacky to entertain her cronies and run her errands. It was her arrogant assumption that that anyone close to her shared responsibility for her success. One night, when Max was only three years old, she had shaken him awake at two in the morning and carried him downstairs to the hotel bar. There she demanded he showed off his juggling and dancing skills, which he did, to the hoots and claps of drunken actors and actresses. Another time, she had forgotten her room key. After he had stumbled to let her in, she plonked herself on his bed and railed about the talentless efforts of the rest of the cast.
They arrived at the Waldorf with rain bouncing off the pavement. Striding beneath an umbrella held by a doorman, Claudine dropped her keys into the man’s outstretched hand and left him with Max to unload their suitcases. Once the bags were on the baggage trolly, Max shook rain from his hair and caught up with his mother in the foyer.
She was complaining, in a voice that echoed round the foyer, because no room was ready for her. ‘Do you have any idea who I am?’ she demanded.
The young concierge stuttered that indeed he recognised her, and it would be a matter of ten minutes before her room was available.
Mollified, Claudine swept to a white leather sofa, and subsided in a cloud of fur and Jean Patou. Max trotted behind her and waited.
‘Find me a gin and tonic, Maxy.’
‘I can’t go into the bar, Mummy.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course you can. Tell them it’s for Claudine Owen.’
As always, objection was futile. Max’s small heart knocked against his sternum as he peeped into the red plush bar area. An odour of cigarettes and alcohol emphasised its adult nature, but he crept on across an expanse of scarlet carpet towards a barman who was polishing glasses and humming under his breath.
The fellow raised a flute to the light and stood it on a shelf behind him. When he saw Max, he raised his eyebrows. ‘Hello young man.’ His unfamiliar accent was not English.
‘Hello, Sir.’ Max might have had an interrupted education, but he had learned that being ‘quaint’ was an effective weapon in disarming adults - apart from his mother, who didn’t seem to care how he behaved unless they were in public.
‘Sir, is it?’
‘Yes sir. Please will you help me? My mother would like a gin and tonic.’
The man leaned over the bar and looked down at Max. ‘And can she not come and get it?’
‘Max shook his head.’
‘Does she have a working pair of legs?’ Max nodded.
‘Well, go back to your mum and say she must come and get her own drink, and that I do not allow children into my bar.’
Max’s insides did a flip. ‘Sir, she is Claudine Owen.’
The man’s face grew full of regret and he sighed and shook his head slowly.
