Believing the Lie

Once inside the structure, however, she discovered a whimsical blend of everything from the medieval to the modern.

Nicholas Fairclough answered the door. He admitted her into an oak-panelled entrance hall whose marble floor was detailed in a pattern of diamonds, circles, and squares. He took her coat from her and led her down an uncarpeted corridor and past a large room having the look of a medieval banqueting hall, complete with minstrels’ gallery above a fireplace inglenook. This hall was something of a wreck as far as Deborah could tell, and as if in explanation of this, Nicholas Fairclough said, “We’re restoring the old pile bit by bit. That’s going to be last, I’m afraid, as we need to find someone who can cope with the most astounding wallpaper. Peacocks and Petunias, I call it. Peacocks is accurate but I can’t swear to the other. Here, we can talk in the drawing room.”

This was sunshine yellow with a white plaster frieze of hawthorn berries, birds, leaves, roses, and acorns. In any other room, this elaborate decoration would have been the main feature, but the drawing room’s fireplace served as a remarkable focal point of bright turquoise tiles and a hearth that duplicated the diamonds, circles, and squares of the entrance. A fire was burning here and although the fireplace — like the one in the great hall — formed part of an inglenook with bench seats, bookshelves, and stained glass windows, Nicholas motioned Deborah to one of two low-slung chairs in one of the bay windows from which they had a view of the water. A table stood between the chairs, a coffee service and three cups on it, along with a fan of magazines.

“I wanted to speak to you for a moment before I fetch my wife,” Nicholas said. “I must tell you that I’m completely on board with talking to you and with having the project featured in this film if it comes to it. But Allie’s going to take some convincing. I thought I’d give you a heads-up.”

“I see. Can you give me some idea…?”

“She’s rather private,” he said. “She’s from Argentina and she’s self-conscious about her English. Frankly, I think she speaks it perfectly well, but there you have it. Plus…” He tipped his fingers beneath his chin and looked thoughtful for a moment before saying, “She’s protective of me, as well. There’s that.”

Deborah smiled. “This film isn’t an expose or anything, Mr. Fairclough. Although, to be honest it could turn into that if you’re enslaving recovering addicts for your own purposes. I suppose I should ask if you need protecting for some reason?”

She’d meant it lightheartedly, but she couldn’t help noting how seriously he took the question. He appeared to be tossing round a few possibilities, and she found this detail rather telling. He finally said, “Here’s what I think it is. She worries that I’ll be disappointed in some way. And she worries where disappointment will lead me. She wouldn’t say that, but one has a way of knowing these things about one’s wife. After a bit of time together. If you know what I mean.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Two years last March.”

“You’re quite close then.”

“We are indeed, I’m pleased to say. Let me fetch her to meet you. You don’t look all that frightening, do you.”

He sprang up from his chair and left her in the drawing room. Deborah looked around. Whoever had decorated it had an artistic flair that she could well appreciate. The furniture reflected the period from which the house had come, but it managed to remain secondary to the features of the room. Aside from the fireplace, the most notable of these were columns: slender poles surmounted with capitals that were bowls carved with birds and fruits and leaves. They stood at the sides of the bay windows, they formed the ends of the inglenook’s benches, they held up a shelf that ran round the room just beneath the frieze. The restoration of this room alone must have cost a fortune, Deborah reckoned. She wondered where a reformed drug addict had managed to come up with such a sum.

Her gaze went to the bay window. From there it fell upon the table and the coffee service that sat upon it, waiting for someone’s use. The fan of magazines next to this caught her attention, and she idly fingered through them. Architecture, interior design, gardening. And then she came to one that caused her hand to stop abruptly. Conception, this one was called.

Deborah had seen it often enough during the endless appointments she’d had with specialists before receiving the disheartening diagnosis that had sunk her dreams, but she’d never looked through it. It had seemed too much like tempting fate. She picked it up now, however. There might well be, she thought, a form of sisterhood between Nicholas Fairclough’s wife and herself, and this could be useful.

Quickly, she flipped through it. It consisted of the types of articles one might expect in a magazine of such a name. Appropriate diets during pregnancy, antenatal vitamins and supplements, postpartum depression and related problems, midwives, breast-feeding. All of it was here. But in the back was something curious. A number of pages had been torn out.

Footsteps came along the corridor, and Deborah replaced the magazine on the table. She got to her feet and turned as she heard Nicholas Fairclough say, “Alatea Vasquez y del Torres Fairclough,” and added with an appealing, boyish laugh, “Forgive me. I rather love saying that name. Allie, this is Deborah St. James.”

The woman was, Deborah thought, quite exotic: olive skinned and dark eyed, with cheekbones defining an angular face. She had an abundance of coffee-coloured hair so wiry that it sprang from her head in a billowing mass, and enormous gold earrings shone through it when she moved. She was an odd match for Nicholas Fairclough, former drug addict and family black sheep.

Alatea crossed the room to her, a hand extended. She had large hands, but they were long fingered and slim like the rest of her. “Nicky tells me you seem harmless enough,” she said with a smile. Her English was heavily accented. “He has told you I have a concern about this.”

“About my being harmless?” Deborah asked. “Or about the project?”

“Let’s sit and have a chat.” Nicholas was the one to speak, as if worried that his wife wouldn’t understand Deborah’s mild joke. “I’ve made coffee, Allie.”

Alatea poured. She wore gold bangles on her wrists — first cousins to her earrings — and they slid down her arm as she reached for the coffeepot. Her gaze seemed to fall on the magazines as she did this, and for a moment she hesitated. She cast a glance at Deborah. Deborah smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging fashion.

Alatea said, “I was surprised about this film of yours, Ms. St. James.”

“It’s Deborah. Please.”

“As you wish, of course. It is small up here, what Nicholas is doing. I did wonder how you learned about him.”

Deborah was ready for this. Tommy had done his homework on the Faircloughs. He’d found a logical point of entry for her. “It wasn’t me, actually,” she said. “I just go where I’m pointed and do the preliminary research for the filmmakers at Query Productions. I’m not sure exactly how they decided upon you” — with a nod at Nicholas — “but I think it had to do with an article about your parents’ house.”

Nicholas said to his wife, “It was that sidebar again, darling.” And to Deborah, “There was a piece written about Ireleth Hall, my parents’ place. It’s an historic old pile on Lake Windermere with a topiary garden round two hundred years old that my mother’s brought back. She mentioned this place — our home — to the reporter and as it’s a bit of an architectural conversation piece, he trotted over to have a look. Not sure why. Perhaps it was a historical-restorations-are-in-the-blood-of-the-Faircloughs kind of thing. This place was given to us by my father and I reckoned taking it on was better than looking a gift horse. I think Allie and I would have preferred something new with all the mod cons in working order, though. Isn’t that the case, darling?”

“It’s a beautiful home,” Alatea said in reply. “I feel fortunate to live here.”

“That’s because you always insist upon seeing the glass half-full,” Nicholas told her, “which makes me a very lucky man, I suppose.”

“One of the film producers,” Deborah said to Alatea, “brought up the Middlebarrow Pele Project at an early meeting we had in London, when we were looking at all the possibilities. Frankly, no one knew what a pele tower was, but there were several people who knew about your husband. Who he is, I mean. As well as other things.” She didn’t elaborate upon those things. It was obvious to them all what they were.

“So this film,” Alatea said, “I do not have to be involved? It is, you see, a matter of my English — ”

Which sounded, Deborah thought, not only excellent but charming.

“ — and the fact that Nicky has done all of this on his own.”

“I wouldn’t have done it without you in my life,” Nicholas put in.