‘You stabbed him?’ Juno stared open-mouthed at Lexia. ‘You actually stuck a knife in him?’
Lexia nodded and then immediately shook her head, while a little nervous titter escaped from her lips. ‘Parasoled him actually, Juno. I stuck the really sharp pointy bit of the parasol into him.’
‘But then you went for the knife and stabbed that into him as well?’ Ariadne had gone quite pale.
‘No,’ Pandora said, her tone defiant. ‘Lexia didn’t. I did.’
‘You did, Pandora? You stabbed him? Oh, my giddy aunt.’ If the saintly Laura McCaskill could manage not to swear, Juno thought, so could she. ‘So, Damian St Claire is standing there with the scone knife in his right side and a parasol in his other…?’
‘Well, not actually standing,’ Pandora said, almost brazenly. ‘By this stage he’d fallen, well, sort of slid, onto the grass.’
‘Oh, it was terrible.’ Any nervous laughter on Lexia’s part had now retreated and she put her hands up to her face, as if to hide from, to escape from, Ariadne and Juno’s horrified stares. ‘Then his white T-shirt started turning red and that was the worst bit of it all.’
‘What did you do? Ring for an ambulance?’
‘Well, I have to say, that was my first thought,’ Pandora said. ‘Actually, no it wasn’t. My first thought was, is Hugo alright? I wouldn’t have touched him if I hadn’t thought Hugo was in danger.’
‘And was he OK?’ Juno reached for her glass, realised it was empty, and put it down once more. ‘Hugo, I mean?’
‘Oh, he was fine. He never woke up once. Slept through the whole pantomime…’
‘Hardly a pantomime, Pan. Pantomimes are supposed to be funny.’ Ariadne continued to stare at Pandora and Lexia. ‘You could have both been up for attempted murder.’
‘Exactly,’ Pandora snapped. ‘Why the hell do you think we’ve tried to cover it up for the last thirteen years or so? Allowed effing St Claire to blackmail and control us? If he’d gone to the police at any stage in the last thirteen years we’d have been arrested. Knife crime, particularly recently, is hugely frowned upon. You know that.’
‘And I was suffering quite badly from claustrophobia at that point – still am to some extent – I knew I’d have died if I’d been locked up. Or gone mad, like Mum.’
‘Mum’s not mad, Lexia,’ Juno countered gently. ‘She has mental health issues.’
‘Juno, I was still only nineteen. Just a kid. I had the world’s media clocking every damned thing I did. I was terrified. Even now, today, whenever anyone mentions Norman’s Meadow, all I see is that white T-shirt turning crimson and I have to fight off a panic attack.’
‘Are you OK, now?’ Juno asked. ‘You know, talking about it?’
‘I’ve taken a Valium.’
Juno patted Lexia’s arm. ‘Don’t drink too much of this wine,’ she advised.
‘I never do.’ Lexia smiled, turning back to Pandora who was continuing the story of that hot June afternoon up in Norman’s Meadow.
‘And I had Hugo,’ Pandora said angrily. ‘I couldn’t lose him, couldn’t have it all come out that he was really Lexia’s, that he wasn’t mine. And that I – a sodding criminal lawyer for heaven’s sake – could have ended up in New Hall prison, sharing a cell with women I’d spent the last five years defending.’
‘Well, at least you’d already have had some pals in there.’
‘Don’t be effing flippant, Ari.’ Pandora was getting angrier by the second. ‘You’ve always gone on at me, asking why on earth I don’t follow my career anymore, why I threw it all up just to stay at home all day. Well, now you know. How could I carry on being a lawyer in the Magistrates’ Court knowing that I was as bad as, worse even, than those I was trying to defend? A lot of me did want to go back to work, especially when Hugo went away to school and I was missing him so badly, but there was always Mum to see to and at the end of the day I was guilty of GBH, if not actually attempted murder.’ Pandora’s face was flushed as she spoke so heatedly and, for once, Ariadne had the grace to look ashamed.
‘Sorry,’ Ariadne said, squeezing Pandora’s arm. ‘So, what on earth did you do?’
‘Aunt Georgina took complete control,’ Pandora said. ‘How she and Mum are ever sisters is way beyond me. Anyway, she made Richard – who was almost on the floor himself with shock at this stage – rack his brains to think of any doctor he knew from the golf club who would come and help us, you know sew him up a bit…’
‘Sew him up a bit?’ Juno was horrified. ‘You’d stabbed him in two places and you were talking as if you needed a bit of dressmaking doing? A couple of seams running up, a bit of hemming…?’
‘Lexia’s always made out the wounds to be a lot worse than they actually were,’ Pandora tutted.
‘There was a hell of a lot of blood,’ Lexia protested.
‘Yes, there was,’ Pandora agreed, ‘and we all thought, at the time – St Claire included – that we’d nearly killed him, that he was at death’s door but, really, the stab wounds were fairly superficial. Anyway,’ she went on, ‘oh, Tilda, are you alright?’
‘Could we have something to eat?’ Tilda stood in the doorway, staring at Juno and her aunts, rather taken back at the solemnity of the gathering.
‘After that huge supper? There’s one of Granny’s cakes somewhere.’ Pandora frowned.
‘That lovely packet of chocolate biscuits will do fine. May we have those?’ Tilda affected her most wheedling tone, dimpling at her aunt Pandora.
‘Yes, yes, off you go. Take them with you. Close the door behind you. Anyway,’ Pandora went on, after Juno had checked the door to make sure Tilda wasn’t eavesdropping, ‘Richard wasn’t much help. So, of course…’
‘You rang Jennifer DB?’ Juno could see immediately how it had all panned out.
‘Did we all have mobiles in those days?’ Ariadne looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure I did.’
‘It was 2007, not the dark ages,’ Pandora snapped. ‘Of course, we had phones. Anyway, Jennifer was as marvellous as she always is: practical, discreet, totally unflappable.’
‘The perfect girl guide.’ Juno smiled.
‘The perfect doctor,’ Pandora admonished. ‘She was out to Norman’s Meadow in ten minutes flat, bag in hand, and soon had St Claire stitched up and full of antibiotics and even more sedatives.’
‘But what on earth did you do with him then?’ Juno asked. ‘You couldn’t just leave him there among the buttercups and daisies until he was feeling better.’
‘No, of course we didn’t just scarper and leave him there,’ Pandora tutted crossly. ‘We lay him down on Aunt Georgina’s back seat. She was furious when she found some blood on her new BMW even though we’d wrapped him in my best – newly starched – tablecloth. And then Jennifer DB accompanied us back to our house.’
‘To Rushdale Avenue? You took him back there?’
Pandora nodded. ‘I was terrified, you know, with Lexia being in town, that there might be press waiting outside the house, but it was all fine. Damian was able to walk into the house, go upstairs and lay down in the spare bedroom.’
‘Blimey. How long did he stay?’
‘Well, Aunt Georgina was insistent that she drive Lexia straight back down to London. I don’t think you even went back to see Mum, did you?’
Lexia shook her head. ‘I just remember crying all the way back down to London with Aunt Georgina lecturing me about what I could say and what I couldn’t. Which was basically nothing. I had to keep my trap shut, she said or my singing days would be over for ever.’
‘Hmm, and all the money she was making out of you would have been over for ever too,’ Pandora interrupted. ‘Anyway, St Claire stayed in the house for two nights. Jennifer was an absolute brick as always – I mean, it certainly wasn’t very ethical of her, you know, not reporting a crime – and came back several times to check on him. It was the longest two days of my life. Having to go into my spare bedroom – I’d only just decorated it in the most beautiful Laura Ashley floral pink – and take him food on a tray and, you know, help him to the loo. Anyway, Richard eventually drove him back down to Emerald Street – wearing one of Richard’s new T-shirts I’d bought him for our holiday to Tenerife, for heaven’s sake – and a sodding great Tesco carrier bag full of twenty-pound notes to pay for his silence.’
‘Goodness me. And you never thought able to confide in me or Juno?’ Ariadne actually took Pandora’s hand in her own.
‘No of course not. The fewer people who knew about it all, the better. And anyway, you were still in California, Ari, and Juno hours away in Aberdeen. I told Lexia she had to stay away and never, ever speak of either Hugo or what had happened that afternoon, if she didn’t want to end up in prison.’
‘Bit harsh, that, wasn’t it?’ Ariadne reached for Lexia’s hand this time.
‘The only way forward,’ Pandora said firmly. ‘The only way.’
‘And,’ Lexia said, ‘I did stay away and I’ve never once said a word. To anyone. Whenever St Claire appeared in London, which he has done on quite a few occasions, either Aunt Georgina or I have paid him off. And always in cash.’
‘That’s terrible.’ Juno frowned. ‘You must have been a nervous wreck waiting for him to suddenly turn up out of the blue.’
‘I was. I am. I’m going to get better now though. He’s dead. And I’m glad.’
‘But, Lexia, I hate to remind you of this, but it was Theo who knocked him down and killed him.’ Ariadne was frowning. ‘There’ll be an inquest, they’ll want to know why St Claire was hanging around down your lane. What was he doing there? Did you know him? Had you ever seen him before. I mean, was it even deliberate? That Theo knocked him down because of what he’s done to you over the years. You know, was Theo protecting you?’
‘Pandora, Richard and I have talked about this already.’ Lexia appeared fairly calm at the prospect of being questioned. ‘I shall just say, and I shall stick to my guns – that yes, I knew him when I was fifteen, that he’d actually been my boyfriend, taken me to the Manchester TheBest auditions and then that was it. He was a known heroin addict, been in prison, and was hanging about hoping to see me. I’ve rehearsed this in my head, over and over again, and have even given a statement to that effect to the police already. They can’t prove anything else. They won’t be able to pin anything on Theo.’
‘But there’s nothing to pin on him, is there?’ Juno searched Lexia’s face. ‘Theo didn’t know anything about him, did he?’
‘No. In simple terms, Theo was furious that I’d kept the truth about Hugo from him, he’d already been drinking, and St Claire was hanging around hoping to get money from me and fell under Theo’s car because Theo had been drinking and was, as always, speeding. I never told him St Claire was Hugo’s father. End of story.’
‘Well, it’s not really the end of the story for you and Theo, is it?’ Ariadne stroked Lexia’s arm. ‘Where do you go from here? Do you want to stay married to him?’
‘After what he’s done to her eye?’ Pandora, after several glasses of wine, was really cross. ‘And her arm? Just look at that arm.’
‘I don’t understand why you put up with this all these years? Why didn’t you just leave Theo? It wasn’t as if you hadn’t enough money to leave and buy your own place.’ Ariadne poured more wine.
‘I didn’t have the confidence to be by myself,’ Lexia said sadly. ‘And Theo would never have let me take Cillian – and I just couldn’t lose another child.’
‘Why would you have lost Cillian? I can’t see any family court giving Theo Ryan custody of a child whose mother he’s physically abused over the years,’ Juno said.
‘And who has constantly had other women…’
‘And been a bit of a boozer…’
‘I’ve been in a bit of a bad way,’ Lexia explained, one single tear rolling unheeded from her bruised eye down her cheek. ‘I’ve had a lot of anxiety, depression, terrified that St Claire would finally go to the police and show his scars and demand I be arrested. Every time I imagined being locked up, being in a tiny cell with others, I became more anxious, more panicky.’
‘But there’s no way they’d lock you up, you daft thing. For sticking a parasol in someone who was blackmailing you.’ Ariadne almost laughed.
‘But I had no one to talk to. I had Aunt Georgina telling me to keep my mouth shut, Pandora telling me I must never return home and all the PR people pulling and pushing me and ordering me around. All I wanted to do was sing and I absolutely adored that, but all the other stuff that went with it just made me anxious. I did the Graham Norton Show quite a few years ago – do you remember? – and St Claire was actually sat in the studio audience, on the front row, just sitting there, grinning at me.
‘No way! You should have told security,’ Juno said, frowning.
‘I should.’ Lexia blew her nose and dabbed at her swollen eye. ‘But I was just twenty-one and wouldn’t have known how to do that and, if I had have done that, all I needed as he was being thrown out of the studio, was St Claire shouting out he was the father of the baby I’d given away to my sister, as well as lifting up his T-shirt and flashing his scars to millions of TV viewers. More Jeremy Kyle than Graham Norton.’
‘Gosh, yes, I wouldn’t have put that past him.’ Juno, Ariadne and Pandora all nodded in agreement.
‘So, when Theo came along, he was like a knight in shining armour. Someone to look after me, to protect me. He didn’t get on with Aunt Georgina – she was incredibly controlling by this point – and he sort of rescued me from her as well. Everything was great for years, and then it all fell apart when I started having real anxiety problems again, as well as every phobia going, but particularly a fear of being in enclosed spaces. Oh, and now a fear of blood…’ Lexia gave a little laugh. ‘Can you imagine dreading every period?’
‘Oh, I’ve always dreaded mine,’ Ariadne interrupted. ‘Headaches, bloating, spots, bad temper…’
‘Lexia means real dread,’ Juno said gently. ‘I’ve had patients with just that phobia.’
‘So, I’ve always assumed,’ Lexia went on, ‘that I was heading the same way as Mum. That if I didn’t end up locked up in a prison cell, there was every chance I was on my way to being locked up in a hospital ward. Theo didn’t help, constantly telling me I was a mad bitch like my mother and there was no way I’d end up with custody of Cillian. He’d make sure of that.’
‘What a dreadful man,’ Juno sniffed. ‘So, we Sutherland women don’t seem to do too well with men, do we?’ She paused, looking in turn at her three sisters. ‘What about Dad? Has he been in touch with any of you lately? Is he back in the country yet?’
‘The usual birthday card and occasional phone call we all get.’ Pandora shrugged her disapproval. ‘He’s still based in Manchester of course, but spends a hell of a lot of the time out of the country, particularly in the States on lecture tours. They love him over there. I’ve not heard anything from him since we all sat and watched him in that debate on TV last year.’
‘For years I’ve sort of promised Mum I wouldn’t have a great deal of contact with him,’ Juno admitted. ‘I think it’s so much better if we still don’t meet up with him, you know. Mum would feel terribly betrayed if she thought we three were having anything to do with him, but also with Anichka and Arius. And she really is so much better now, isn’t she? She rarely talks about Dad now because she doesn’t want to know, it’s too painful for her and I think it’s better that way…’
‘Absolutely,’ Ariadne interrupted crossly. ‘I’ve not spoken to him for years and have no intention of doing so. He abandoned us all, just swanned off, and didn’t go through any of what we went through with Mum, because of how he treated her.’
‘It is a shame with Arius being the same age as Hugo of course.’ Juno frowned. ‘Weird, isn’t it, that we have a brother we’ve never seen and who is the same age as Dad’s own grandson? God, men, honestly. I reckon you’ve landed up with the only decent one among us, Pandora.’
‘He’s my rock.’ Pandora gave a somewhat superior smile. ‘Don’t know what I’d have done without my Dicky Bird…’ As Ariadne turned a snort of laughter into a hurried cough and reached for her wine, Pandora patted Ariadne’s hand. ‘And what about you, Ari?’
‘What about me, Pandora?’
‘Well, you know, do you feel you’ve missed the boat? You know, not having found a hubby of your own?’
‘I was very much in love once, Pandora.’ Ariadne gave Pandora a little smile.
‘Oh dear. I’m so sorry… it didn’t work out?’
‘I fell in love with my Senior Fellow when I was at Berkeley. Had a very passionate affair that went on for several years while I was there. The main reason – apart from Mum – that I came back to the UK once it fell apart.’
‘His wife found out?’ Pandora patted Ariadne’s arm sympathetically.
‘No,’ Ariadne shook her head, ‘her husband.’
‘Her husband? So…’ Pandora stared, as the penny eventually dropped. ‘You’re…? So, what you’re saying is you’re a…’
‘Yes, Pandora,’ Ariadne, obviously enjoying Pandora’s discomfiture, spelled out the words slowly and loudly. ‘I. Am. A. Lesbian.’
Tilda, who’d quietly opened the kitchen door while the others were lost in Ariadne’s Coming Out speech, nodded sagely in her Aunt Ariadne’s direction and said, ‘Thought so… Right, can we have a bash at Granny’s cake now?’
*
As the Sutherland sisters, all feeling a collective contentment in their newly kindled sorority, started the process of making their way upstairs for the night – turning off lights; running a glass of water; locking doors and hunting for that elusive library book Ariadne was convinced she’d brought with her to Filey – Juno’s phone rang. At first, she couldn’t quite work out what Izzy was trying to say.
‘Speak slowly, Izzy. Have you been drinking?’
‘Just a couple,’ Izzy slurred. ‘We’re at Clementine’s and I need to talk to you.’
Please, Juno thought, please don’t say Izzy was ringing her to tell her she’d just spotted Scott Butler up against Clem’s wall again, this time with his new woman?
‘Been celebrating Declan’s birthday with Clem and Harriet and Grace. And their other halves, of course… you know, I didn’t want you to think I’ve dragged Declan out on a girly night. Not on his birthday.’
‘Right. OK. Happy Birthday to Declan. Tell him his card’s in the post.’
‘So, here’s the news – and I would have rung Pandora direct but didn’t know her number.’
‘Right?’
‘We’ve found Jesus.’
‘All of you? Good for you. Congratulations. It’s a good time, what with Easter next weekend.’
‘No, you daft thing.’ Juno could hear laughter down the phone. ‘Sh, shhh, you lot, I can’t hear Juno… No, we’ve got a new Jesus for Pandora…’
‘Has her old one worn out then?’
‘He’s fabulous. He’s rather gorgeous. And wait until you hear his voice. Absolutely superb. Mind you, I’m not sure your Tilda will be overly happy… She guards him very jealously, doesn’t she?’
‘What, Harry Trotter’s agreed to be the new Jesus?’ Juno almost looked at the phone, as if she were in a third-rate TV drama.
‘Heavens, no, he was a little hoarse last time I heard him sing.’ Izzy started laughing at that, and then coughing, and it was a few seconds before someone obviously passed her a glass of water and she carried on speaking once more. ‘We’re not going to take no for an answer. We really want to get back into rehearsals, tell Pandora. We absolutely insist. Now, you’re going to be Mary Magdalene, Juno…’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, absolutely. You can do it. You have a beautiful voice, Juno, and you just need to take yourself in hand and practise those high notes. We do still need Herod, but that’s not a problem. Baldy Wotsisname will probably be able to give it a go, even though he is a midget.’
‘Not sure you’re allowed to say midget anymore, Izzy…’
‘What, even before gems? Political correctness gone mad. So that’s it. Tell Pandora we’ll all be in the village hall next Monday evening. I’ll put up some notices in the surgery and around the village and in the church. You know, to say we’re back in business…’
‘So, Jesus?’
‘What about him?’
‘Who’ve you found?’
‘Oh sorry, of course. The very gorgeous and very talented deputy head of Little Acorns.’
‘Mr Donnington?’
‘Got it in one.’