“I don’t understand.” He’s not looking at me now, he’s staring down the beach, where Lily and James are only just visible now, tiny figures in the distance now. Reluctantly he drags his gaze away.
“Keep your voice down. I don’t want him hearing.” He glances over at where Oscar and Jennifer are still playing bat and ball.
“Who?”
“His vicious little sidekick, that’s who.” Eric beams at me, and I figure out he means Oscar, though I still don’t really know what we’re talking about. Even so I’m desperate to know more. There’s something fascinating about these people, all of them.
“Oscar’s known James for even longer than Lily has. They go right the way back.”
We’re both watching them now. Still playing tennis. Jennifer’s bikini bottom has got a bit caught on one side of her bum, so there’s a little section of whiter skin exposed. Then she reaches down and smooths it out.
“To where?”
“Pre-school I think. They’re closer than brothers.”
“And you don’t like him?”
Eric turns away from Jennifer’s backside.
“Now why would you say that?”
I’m confused again. I don’t know if I should turn back to him. But I don’t.
Eric smiles. “Oscar and I get along fine. Just as long as I stay in my place, that is.”
I realize I haven’t paid Oscar much attention so far, and for the first time I study him. He’s quite pale – he’s taken his shirt off to play – but at the same time he’s muscular, obviously strong. Yet as I’m watching, something else occurs to me. Something more important.
“Did you say ‘Bellafonte’?”
“Hmmm? What?”
“Is that Lily’s family? Is that her surname?”
Eric turns to me with a curious look.
“Yes.”
I start thinking. I don’t know how common that name is, but it doesn’t sound too common. I’ll be able to run a search now. I might not even need Blackhorse. But Eric seems to read my mind.
“I’ll save you the trouble of Googling.” Eric gives me a cold smile. “The Bellafonte’s are one the East Coast’s biggest industrialist families. Lily’s grandfather built their fortune, making chemicals, but when he died the firm was split into two. Now one half is owned by Lily’s father, the other by her uncle. I guess he thought it would stop them arguing over the money.”
I listen, not really understanding, and thinking that there’s absolutely no way I’m not going to Google for myself. But then something else occurs to me.
“So why are you here?” I ask suddenly, and this time it’s him that doesn’t understand, so I explain. “If Lily is with James, and Oscar is with Jennifer. Where do you fit in?”
Eric takes a long time to answer this, but when he does his voice is very serious. It’s like he’s given this a lot of thought.
“Lily is astonishing in many ways, but she’s far from perfect.” He says, and when I frown at him – since this isn’t a real answer – he goes on.
“She’s a collector. Of fascinating things, and fascinating people. That’s why I’m here. I amuse her. And that’s why James, and Oscar tolerate me, because I amuse her. But I’ll only be here for as long as that remains the case, and then I’ll be cast out.” He’s quiet for a moment. And then he continues. “But actually the real question, young Billy,” he gives me that cold smile again. “Is why you’re here?”
But I don’t get a chance to answer that one, because Jennifer takes that moment to wander back, and lie down again on her towel, with Oscar beside her. For a few moments Eric and I fall into silence, until he starts asking me about my course, as if that’s what we’ve been talking about the whole time. About a half hour later James and Lily come back into view, and just like Eric said they’re holding hands, and when they get back they seem much more at ease with each other. And though Lily is perfectly kind and gracious to me, for the rest of the day, right up until James drops me off outside my house, it’s not quite the same.
Chapter Nineteen
Bellafonte. Lily Bellafonte. I don’t google her as soon as I get home. I’m actually tired tonight. So instead I just roll her name around in my head while I clean my teeth and then go to bed. As I fall asleep I hear thumps and shouts from the kitchen, and the corridor outside my room. There’s a bit of a party going on in our house tonight.
Then in the morning I sleep late, and when I do get up the internet isn’t working in the house, so I go off to my classes first, but as usual, they’re pretty basic, so instead of listening and pretending to take notes, I sit on my own and pull out my phone. And even with her surname, it’s not easy to find her. But eventually I do.
Lillian Bellafonte, 18, daughter of Fonchem CEO Claude Bellafonte.
That’s the caption beneath a photograph in the New York Times. It was taken at the Black Tie Gala of the Eastern Division Annual Business Awards of the American Chamber of Industrialists, whatever that is. It’s definitely her, smiling a little bit shyly at the camera, and dressed in a white ball gown. She looks amazing. I glance up and around the lecture theater. Without meaning to I catch the eye of the woman I spoke to the other day, Linda something, the mature student. I look away quickly. It’s odd too – Lily I mean – because I can’t find anything on Instagram, or Facebook, or twitter, or any social media of any kind. Everyone has social media these days. Well almost everyone. In fact the only person I can think of who doesn’t have it is me. I dig around a bit more, and I do find another couple of mentions of her, but no photographs, and nothing particularly interesting, so instead I focus on
