CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The hotel was certainly impressive, all glittering gilt and mirror. The necklaces on sale in the foyer display cases were as vast and sparkling as any oligarch’s wife could wish. Uniformed flunkies whisked away the smart packages, Sophie had allowed herself to be bought more to humour Simon than because she really wanted an azure ostrich-skin passport cover and a pair of violet maraboutrimmed mules. Up they went in the suite’s personal lift. She was beginning to think of elevators as Simon’s leitmotif.
Yet, for all the splendour, she was miserable. The thought of Arthur tugged on her heart. She had been all but wrenched away from him.
The suite they were now shown into could have housed a small aeroplane comfortably; the carpet was like wading through a cornfield, albeit one printed in swirling pink and yellow flowers. There was a special designer mixer tap in the dazzlingly bright marble bathroom that stretched the width of the tub and looked like the mouth of a chrome fax machine. A hi-tech telephone was positioned right next to the lavatory; a faintly disgusting juxtaposition in Sophie’s view. And outside the bathroom door, above the enormous minibar, was a small shop unit selling honey allegedly produced by the bees who lived on the top of the Paris Opera. Sophie thought that she would far rather have sampled what was produced below the roof rather than above it.
She glanced apprehensively at Simon, who was frowning at the financial channel on the widescreen television that he had uncovered behind two vast burlap doors within seconds of arrival. He had spent much of the train journey on the mobile which, while rude, had at least saved her the effort of having to make conversation. Some difficult piece of business was in motion, she had gathered.
She took a step towards him. Perhaps this was the time to gently suggest that, grateful though she was for his friendship and support, she could stand on her own feet from now on.
The doorbell rang. A buttermilk-jacketed waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket which was accompanied by a vase containing a pink orchid. Sophie’s spirits lifted at the sight of alcohol.
Simon happily passed her a foaming flute. He was feeling triumphant. He had foiled Mark spectacularly and could not be suspected himself. And now, the icing on the cake, a complex takeover he had been working on for several weeks had finally overcome its difficulties and was going well. It had cost him valuable time on the journey; time he should have spent charming Sophie. But that could not be helped. He looked speculatively at Sophie. She seemed contented enough, anyway. And now, Simon thought, it was time to complete the other important takeover he planned. The one of Sophie.
He watched approvingly as Sophie emptied her glass. He filled it again. She was obviously enjoying herself. This was encouraging behaviour, no doubt about it. More encouraging still was the fact she had not remarked on the one double bed in the suite’s adjoining bedroom. What further proof did he need that she had accepted his advances and was willing to surrender? Tonight was going to be the night. This whole tiresome, time-wasting courting business was about to move up a level. And not before time, frankly.
Sophie, meanwhile, had walked over to the vast windows and the huge view of a magnificent winter sunset over Paris. Its beauty made the guilt she felt well-nigh unbearable. She quelled the notion that the same sun would be reflecting its dying rays on Arthur’s nursery wall. She grasped the refilled glass that Simon passed her. Surely he would be glad to hear she felt independent enough to lead her own life from now on? That he need not spend every weekend supporting her.
‘Simon.’ She turned to him with a smile. ‘There’s something I wanted to let you know. It’s about you and me.’
‘And there’s something I want to tell you,’ he butted in, excitement that she seemed to return his intentions removing any caution. ‘You’re a fabulous woman, Sophie.’ It was extremely satisfactory. They could get their own terms and timetable agreed and he could get back to the takeover. ‘And a wonderful, intelligent, caring person,’ he added. He had been intending to add ‘fantastic mother’ as well, but did not want to risk dragging the whole boring Arthur business up again.
Sophie stared at him, puzzled ‘Thanks, Simon.’
‘And very beautiful . . .’
Embarrassment surged within her. Where, exactly, was this conversation going? Not where she had intended it, she suspected.
She looked out of the plate-glass penthouse window. The view was glorious. Over to the west, the sun was now sinking into a curtsey of billowing flame clouds. The intense tawny light lit the trunks of the leafless trees far below them in the Tuileries Gardens. It was set to be a clear and possibly frosty night. Above the sunset, the duck-egg sky was darkening and the first star could already be made out. Or was it a planet? Sophie didn’t know, although she would have liked to. It was the kind of thing Mark was good at. He had had a small boy’s enthusiasm for astronomy, although a grown man’s scorn for the newspaper horoscopes she herself could never resist. She felt her lips press together in a rueful smile.
‘Is that Venus up there?’ she asked Simon abruptly. It would be wise, she thought, to move on to a topic other than her own personal charms. She realised immediately the choice had been unfortunate.
‘The planet of Love,’ Simon intoned rapturously. ‘I’m sure it must be.’
‘Or Mars,’ Sophie interrupted, hastily. ‘The planet of War.’
Simon turned to her. ‘Winter,’ he breathed, ‘is such an exquisite season.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Sophie agreed nervously.
‘It reminds you,’ Simon skewered her with a meaningful gaze, ‘that it’s not all just about the blaze and fanfare of summer.’
‘I suppose it does.’
‘It reminds you that it’s never too late.’
‘Yes,’ yelped Sophie nervously. ‘What time is dinner, exactly?’
‘I’m so glad, my darling,’ breathed the banker, suddenly moving close and clasping her hand. ‘You’ll be the most perfect mistress of Swaying Willows.’
Sophie’s head seemed suddenly full of noise. With shattering suddenness, everything crashed into place. Helen’s suspicions about Simon had been spot on. That she herself had not realised before could only be due to colossal self-delusion and wilful ignorance. It was more than friendship, was more than the simple wish to cheer her up. Simon wanted to marry her! He wanted her to live at Swaying Willows.
She pulled her hands out of his in horror.
‘You can do whatever you like to Swaying Willows, you know,’ Simon added, in a rush of generosity.
Sophie fought for words. Swaying Willows was possibly the most hideous, soulless house she had ever seen in her life. The only thing she would want to do to it was knock it down. ‘I couldn’t possibly...’ she gasped.
‘Well, I suppose it is perfect as it is.’ Simon smiled complacently.
Sophie forced back a loud exclamation of disgust. Swaying Willows, with its marble halls, its sterile lifts was a house so disgusting it made her think with warmth for the first time in ages about the house in Verona Road. Scruffy it might be, with dust-clouded windows and with paintwork sporting more chips than Harry Ramsden’s, but it had soul at least. With pictures and proper books. Music, too. There had been no music at Swaying Willows. Apart, of course, she recalled with a fresh stab of horror, the line-dancing CDs.
Her mouth opened and closed. It was impossible, embarrassing, awful. How could he possibly think she would want to marry him? Her just-ended marriage lay in smoking ruins around her. She had a child. Was Simon Sharp mad?
It was now that, through the open door of the bedroom, Sophie noticed the large double bed. The one and only double bed. There were no other doors in the suite, and therefore no other bedrooms. Why had she not noticed this before?
Simon’s eyes followed hers. He had watched the procession of emotions across her face and entirely misread it. Now he mistook the leap of horror in her eyes for one of excited anticipation. His teeth gleamed in a smile of victory. Slowly he leant towards her and pressed his lips to hers. He felt a thrill of triumph. At last. He’d got her.
‘Simon!’
To his amazement, he felt hands at his throat. But not pulling him towards her as he might have expected. These hands were pushing him away.
‘Simon! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ She pushed again, hard. ‘Get off me, for Christ’s sake!’
She looked desperately around for an aid to her predicament. Her glance fell on the champagne ice-bucket. While she continued to push him away with one hand, she lunged at it with the other. With the tips of her fingers, she seized its chilly, slippery metal rim.
As the icy cascade suddenly swamped his head and shoulders, Simon screamed. Shock ricocheted round his veins like a pin-ball. When the water cleared from his eyes, the world looked blurred and lopsided. One of his contact lenses had washed out, damn it.
The room was silent, apart from Simon’s subsiding gasps. Sophie adjusted her clothes, feeling horribly foolish, frightened and guilty in equal measures. Now he had declared his intentions, they were always obvious. Only she had been too preoccupied to notice; rather, had never imagined it possible that anyone could be so crass.
‘Look,’ she said, agonised. ‘I’m sorry. It’s all been a misunderstanding. ’
Simon stared at the part-fuzzy image that was Sophie. His body twitched with panic even more than with cold. He had put so much into this takeover bid; time, money, ingenuity. And the Wintergreen hoe-down was, like the Deadwood stage, coming on over the plain. Fast. He could not allow all his effort to end in failure. His entire future depended on its success.
As he extended imploring, dripping arms a lump of ice slid from his head, down his nose and into his groin. ‘Please,’ he begged Sophie. ‘You’re my dream woman. Come on. Think of what I can offer you and Arthur. Financial security...’
Sophie’s insides twisted with shame. And surprise; she had no idea he had felt so strongly. That he was capable of such mediterranean displays of passion. She searched for a way to let him down gently. ‘It’s very flattering,’ she lied. ‘But there’s no way I’m your dream woman, Simon.’
‘Yes, you are!’ he shouted.
‘No, I’m not. We’ve got virtually nothing in common.’
‘That’s not true!’
‘Yes it is.’ Sophie paused. ‘Simon, let’s be honest. We don’t share any interests. You don’t like the theatre and I do. Your idea of a nice house isn’t the same as mine . . . not at all.’ She remembered the bedside tables at Swaying Willows. ‘And you like line dancing and I hate it.’
Simon’s expression changed. His brows drew together, his mouth turned down. Beneath the melting ice, his eyes froze. ‘What?’ he rasped.
‘You like line dancing,’ Sophie repeated. ‘I saw some CDs on your bedside table.’ Perhaps she shouldn’t have snooped. Certainly, Simon did not look very pleased. He looked very angry, in fact.
‘And you don’t?’ he growled.
‘No. It’s not my thing, I’m afraid. I’ve never done it. I wouldn’t know how to.’
Another sound now echoed in the room - that of the telephone. Simon’s soggy spine jerked upright. The takeover. Had to be. The only people he’d left the hotel number with were business contacts. Apart from Shirley, that was, at Sophie’s insistence, but it was hardly likely to be her.
He had to answer. Everything else - he shot a burning look at Sophie - would have to wait. Dripping but determined - there were billions at stake here, after all - he rushed into the loo, where, as Sophie had noted earlier, the nearest phone hung on the marble wall by the lavatory. But the voice at the other end was not, as he had expected, the monotonous, well-fed tones of the corporation’s lawyer. It was the sparsely fed and obviously hysterical tones of the co-architect of the personal takeover he was handling at the moment.
‘Simon!’ gasped Shirley.
It had, Shirley thought, been the day from hell. First there had been the early-morning strain of persuading Sophie to go with Simon to Paris. Then with the post had come the discovery that she and James had not, after all, been invited to Venetia Bothamley-Tartt’s sixty-fifth birthday party. Talk of it had buzzed about the village for weeks. From her bedroom window, which overlooked part of the Bothamley-Tartt demesne, Shirley had watched the marquee being erected. Her misery as to the whereabouts of her invitation was only slightly alleviated by the sight of the group of strikingly young and muscular tent-builders whose presence reduced the average age in the village by a good decade.
The party was to be held on the Saturday night. As the Saturday morning post came bringing nothing but a gas bill, a letter for James and a flyer from the local supermarket about reductions on beef joints, Shirley was despondent but not yet entirely defeated. There was most of a day to go, at any time during which Venetia might, with a horrified clamp of a hand to the mouth, realise her omission and rush round with a gold-edged stiffy.
‘I don’t know why you’re worrying,’ James had said on his return from his Genealogy Workshop that lunchtime. ‘We hardly know her anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’ Shirley demanded, stung at hearing her worst fears expressed so baldly. ‘I’ve met her at meetings of the Gibbet Preservation Trust. And I’ve had Anti-Velux Windows teas there several times.’
James shrugged and turned his attention to the letter that had arrived for him.
Shirley stalked out into the kitchen and stared out of the window. Far away, at the end of the garden, the gracious beeches in the Bothamley-Tartt garden could be seen swaying in the early winter sunshine. There seemed to be something mocking about the movement. Venetia, Shirley reasoned, would never have not invited her if she had had a son-in-law who owned a manor and was a millionaire banker to boot. But did she now want one anyway? She thought worriedly about Simon and Sophie in Paris. Did she really want such a frozen bully - however rich - for her daughter? Not to mention her grandson. There was a heavy feeling of dread in her stomach.
James suddenly burst into the kitchen. ‘You’ll never believe it!’ he cried excitedly.
Shirley turned. Seeing that he was waving something in his hand, the hope fluttered within her that the longed-for invitation had finally arrived, perhaps slipped under the door by a red-faced Venetia. ‘Is it . . . ?’ she gasped.
‘Yes!’ James shouted. ‘He is my cousin once removed after all.’
Shirley realised that what James was waving was a limp piece of paper, that looked very like the recently arrived letter.
‘Who is your cousin?’ she asked icily.
‘That chap I was telling you about. I tracked him down through the Internet site, remember?’
Shirley did not remember. There had been many such chaps, many such sites. ‘He’s related to me via Ezekiel Heckmondwike, who was a grave-digger in Halifax.’
‘Oh God,’ Shirley groaned, pushing past her husband. ‘Let me out of here.’
‘Oh, but I haven’t finished yet,’ James cried. ‘He’s coming down here this weekend.’
She turned, electrified. ‘What? You’ve invited him to stay? Here?’
‘No need,’ James beamed. ‘He’s coming down already. Family visit to someone who lives nearby, or something. We’ve arranged to meet!’
Shirley nodded wearily. Just so long as she didn’t have to meet him, that was all. ‘I’m going upstairs to check on Arthur,’ she announced.
The fact that their grandson’s cold had suddenly worsened again had cast a further shadow on Shirley’s gloomy day. She felt Arthur needed to see a doctor but this was not something the hard-pressed receptionist at the local health centre seemed to be able to accommodate. On the understanding that he probably had nothing worse than flu, Arthur had eventually been booked in for half past five and had spent the afternoon so far in bed. Shirley had dithered about the matter of calling Sophie. If it was only a bad cold, she didn’t want to disturb her. Still less the terrifying Simon Sharp.
In Arthur’s room now, Shirley discovered that her grandson’s wheezing had worsened. Everything, frankly, had worsened. The little boy lay on his pillows at a drunken angle. He was hot and sweating.
Terror swept Shirley like a blowtorch. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
‘James!’ she screeched, flying out to the landing.
An ambulance was called. Then, swallowing hard, with trembling hands, Shirley stabbed out the number of the hotel in Paris.
‘Well, I’m rather glad you’ve called, as it happens,’ Simon said petulantly from the looside. ‘There appears to have been something of a misunderstanding about Sophie and line-dancing.’
‘Bugger that!’ shrieked Shirley. ‘Give me Sophie. It’s urgent. It’s Arthur. He’s ill !’