Chain Reaction (5 page)

Decent garden?
Christsake. Jacy, with a furry tongue, a glass of wine and a cigarette, looks out over his fifty acres and shudders. His eyes focus and shift to the enormous gilt mirror that dominates his marble fireplace and there is his peering face, the flesh of his cheeks hanging haggardly, dark lines engraved from his nose to the corners of his mouth and bags under his eyes.

‘What are the good times without the bad?’ says Belle.

Where have they all gone, his hopes, his dreams—the looks and the self-respect? Look at him now. There are tell-tale nicks of a clumsy shave on his neck and chin. He is forced to admit it, hell’s bells, he could be mistaken for fifty.

A surprisingly short man as stars often are, he paces the thick, gold carpet, no longer noticing the priceless curtains in a paper-thin silk, silver moons against midnight blue. Beyond the sliding plate-glass windows, outside on the terrace the geraniums in the jardinières are headless and dead. Azaleas and rhododendrons hedge the length of his driveway. The only shade on the daisied lawns comes from a scattering of three-hundred-year-old oaks. The swimming pool he installed is now only a deep black pit with frogs and eels living in the soupy dregs at the bottom.

Jacy inhales a long fern of smoke. What will the press say when they learn he has gone to live in a Close? What about a barge, or a gypsy caravan? Something with style, please,
please!
But Belle’s not having any of it; she lost her awe of him years ago. Give her her due, she has stuck by him through thick and thin—the fights, the jealousies and the chaos—and she loves him in spite of the fact that he treats her like muck.

The real thing!

But poor Jacy does not feel loved.

He is surprised by the strength in her voice. ‘Those sadists can’t be crueller than they’ve been already. Let them say what they like. I would feel proud to live in a Close. What’s the matter with you anyway—snob?’

But it’s not snobbery, it’s image; Belle ought to understand that by now. Ah, and the press
can
be crueller, yes they can, and Jacy gives a derisive snort.

But before all that, oh those were the days.

Pure gold flooded him.

Muscles burning, lungs exploding, he was saturated by the intensity of the whole wild show. With blood pulsing through every part of him Jacy was suffused, engorged by it all, his ego ballooned by one exhilarating sensation after another, kids screaming, lights blazing, music thrashing, power, wonder, his mind a blur, and now it has vanished and is only a woman with a broom sweeping between the seats.

The sadness of an empty theatre.

And can you blame him for being unable to recover from any of this? It is only by rubbing his eyes with his fists like a child, keeping the pressure there, that he can still conjure up the shimmering bubble of foaming colours, the magnetic pull into that black hole…

Jacy is in mourning. In mourning for sensations as brilliant as all eternity; no man-made substance can touch it, no, not even the juice of the poppy. It fizzed his veins. Like a desperate, passionate fuck that he thought would go on endlessly.

Real life was nothing but a bothersome scratch on his mind.

In those days.

But suddenly his business head, the head that made and helped him spend over five million dollars in five years, takes over. He runs his hands through his shock of black hair. ‘Why are they selling this house?’ he asks Belle suspiciously. ‘Nobody sells these days unless there’s something up. What’s wrong with it? Dry rot? Or it’s probably subsiding, knowing our luck.’

‘No, slaphead, nothing like that,’ says Belle, who makes a point of never reading the papers. ‘The bloke’s moving jobs, that’s all.’ She crosses the room to give him a nuzzle and makes her little fretting sound. ‘Now is the time to be positive, Jacy. The agent says it’s a snip. There’s hope for us yet, you’ll see. And anyway, we have no option. You know that.’

The sickening thing is that she is right. ‘But they’ll find out…’

‘No, Jacy, no one knows you.’

‘People might recognise…’

Belle puts her arms round her man and tells him gently, ‘No, Jacy,
not any more.’

Pig-ignorant! ‘For God’s sake,’ and he pushes her away. She can be so cruel, so unthinking sometimes, but with an uncanny knowledge of where to aim, what will hurt the most. Christ, he could do with a joint. He might have changed superficially but he’s still the same charismatic and talented man underneath. Worry and stress have conspired to age him before his time, but give him some peace and normality and he’ll get his old looks back again. Women will fancy him again as his intense brown eyes wreak their charms on the fresh young things, and when he has rested, who knows, he might even get back on the circuit again, do some jamming with a few old buddies… there must be some still around who are sane. No, Jacy suspects that Belle is making the most of his present misfortunes, weakening him, trying to smother him so that she feels less threatened. That’s understandable, he supposes, but it’s not quite as easy as that. She might be a clever jailer but he is an unwilling prisoner.

Jacy’s not finished yet.

‘You’ve just lost your centre, that’s all—the part that holds you together,’ Belle says with an almost satisfied tone to her voice. ‘But it’s only temporary, you’ll see. It’s this intense absorption with yourself that’s doing it. Perhaps you should get some counselling.’

What am I now? thinks Jacy sadly. Just a fading figure in the world’s imagination?

Sometimes he looks through the windows of the houses he passes, at all the flickering televisions, families sitting, babies crying, children playing, cats and old people dozing, but try as he might he can no longer identify with the human race on their side of the curtain. Secretly he wishes he could, but success takes normality away. His restlessness and his yearning make him separate, some other species never to be engulfed by the mediocre rest. Sometimes he used to flinch and feel nauseous when they reached out imploringly to touch him, so afraid they might pull him down into their own dreary, subordinate worlds. When he felt like this, his minders used to push them away and hurry him out the back of the stadium. Those immortal words:
Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.
Their lives are bleak and grey and cold. Sometimes he pities Belle’s ordinariness, at other, more realistic times, he envies her.

Jacy purses his lips.

He can hear the Hoover coming towards him.

His staff left months ago as he was unable to pay their wages and now Belle goes round the eight-bedroomed house like a head-scarfed slag with a fag hanging between her lips and her fluffy slippers clacking, pushing the groaning Hoover. Round and round in an ashy circle. The house has developed a tatty, unkempt look, the windowsills spattered with dead flies and wasps, dirt-engrained soaps in the basins, dark, hairy rims round the baths and mottled stains round the skirting boards. He has to shop for stuff like Vim. She flails her hands. ‘I can’t be expected to cope with all this, Jacy. The least you could do would be to cut the grass. When people come viewing they must be allowed to see the potential.’

There’s a gleam of something in her eye, Christ, her bullying makes him nervous.

From the squashy white leather sofa Jacy waves his arm a fraction and turns up the thudding CD.
February Rain,
his last real hit.

He lets out a long moaning breath of anguish as he disappears into his own music. The ride-along mowers, a novelty when they first bought them (he and Jip the drummer used to race the two machines over the flat and glossy acres) are boring now and nothing but a chore. One is dead on its feet and the other’s a hell of a job to start. He can’t afford to get the blasted things mended. The villagers around here were never too accommodating; even when he was in his prime they viewed him with suspicion although he did his best to support the local shops and small businesses. He and his entourage chased round the lanes and villages on low-rider trikes, still piled up in the garage somewhere, not working. They’d had the nerve to get up a petition when they heard he was buying the Grange. The press lapped that one up and Jacy pretended not to be hurt. Well, they’ll have a good laugh now, won’t they, at his expense, now they know the place is up for sale. He is shunned by everybody; even if he had the dosh, no one round here would work for him. Everyone said he was mad to buy up north where the people are so barbaric and primitive, and they were dead right, no matter what Belle said. He should have chosen Surrey. And as for the grass… ‘They’ll think we’re just encouraging the wildlife,’ he said lazily. ‘It’s more natural like this, more laid back.’

Since the gardeners left, even the fountains are all blocked up.

Jacy smiles faintly. He turns his cigarette in his fingers.

The snooty prat from the agents shows the viewers round, the upper-middle classes with their flowing names, their braying voices, their dogs and their long noses. On these humiliating occasions Jacy and Belle make a point of being out, or they hide in the grounds like guilty children discovering places on the estate they never knew existed, and hidey-holes. Because the Grange is for sale Belle refuses to allow any of Jacy’s old mates to visit. They’re a bad influence on him, she says, they are messy and they cost money. Not that there’s many requests these days and so they are living like recluses. Jacy refuses to go and look at the house in the Close; he doesn’t think he could stand it. What a dump. ‘The Middletons are terribly odd,’ says Belle, not helping. ‘Jumpy and peculiar. And funnily enough the last time I went to measure for carpets and curtains I got the oddest feeling that hundreds of eyes were watching me.’

She’s measured already? The nerve of the woman. She must be fairly certain he is prepared to go along with her plan. ‘What eyes?’

‘Eyes behind curtains. Perhaps I’m getting a complex, like you. But they are desperate to go. I imagine he wants to start his new job soon as poss. The woman hardly speaks a word, leaves it all to him and those unwholesome kids with their deadpan eyes. Probably some sort of promotion. And there’s no photographs anywhere. Don’t you think that’s pretty weird?’

Is she suggesting that Jacy himself finds a job, an ordinary nine-to-five job in insurance or something like that? Or selling second-hand cars on a forecourt? How mean can she get? What is she trying to do to him—sapping his strength, tormenting his mind, sapping his bodily juices. ‘I work,’ she likes to remind him whenever she gets the chance. ‘There’s nothing wrong with work.’

She is so transparent. He would like to perceive her as weak, clinging and needy, but she’s not. Her beauty is the only valuable currency they have left. Belle still works as a model for the exclusive mail-order magazine
Elegance,
gallivanting off to sumptuous places where seas glimmer like pewter behind her stretching, sand-kissed body and silver horizons circle her waist. A silver woman with a silver smile. His smile, slow and long, was once described as the smile of a wolf. He liked that. He still likes that. Hers is the only money that’s still coming in, and that’s what they are planning to live on. ‘Some people would consider it perfectly adequate,’ says Belle.

He is sure they would.

There’s no talk about moving south now. It’s too late—the great divide, house prices, forbid it and because of his financial position Jacy is forced to sell the Grange at a ‘realistic price’. Realistic my foot. It’s the cheapest house in
Country Life.
His heart clenches and unclenches like a fist wanting to hit somebody, anybody, punish the world for failing to love him. Perhaps he should have done himself in like The King, and left his audience while in his prime. But no, it looks as if they’ll have to endure a few more years in Lancashire until Jacy’s star rises once more in the heavens.

As it will, one day. As it will…

T
HE PURCHASE OF THE
house near Clitheroe is a tricky and sensitive issue, dealt with by a succession of trusted professionals trained in the ways of The Family. Despite the fact that the private secretary, Sir Hugh Mountjoy, is by now well used to pouring oil on the troubled waters of his superior master, James Henry Albert, this is one of the most delicate matters to which he has been forced to put his great mind.

There is nothing that pleases Sir Hugh more than the generalship of a major operation, a trait no doubt passed down by his highly decorated fighting forefathers. If only the young fellow would listen and ditch that attention-seeking and ludicrously conspicuous Packard Convertible and run a Vauxhall Corsa instead.

Damn the fellow.
So persistent, so enthusiastic.

The young lady must be bought off. The official engagement is imminent and in Sir Hugh’s opinion the thing should have been done long ago. Bed companions come two a penny, so why oh why couldn’t young Jamie, twenty-three but still very much an adolescent at heart, have stuck to his own kind—the sort of docile, respectful young woman who would keep her mouth shut, stay out of the limelight and take care of ‘that side of things’.

Arabella Brightly-Smythe, known to her friends as Peaches, was and is the gravest of errors. Knowledge of her existence was dropped upon him light as a hint by the Prince, at first, but since then the weight of her being has grown with a steady and fearful importance, as her own body is destined to grow for the next six months. Unfortunately.

The northern climate might cool her down. Remove her from the social circuit for a good while anyway. That has to be part of the bargain.

The house in Clitheroe is perfect for the job. They found it in
Country Life
and originally considered the purchase for Civil Servants recovering from stress and requiring peace and privacy for the painting of egg boxes and the weaving of baskets. Unfashionable area. Suitable for security. Off the beaten track. And going for a song as the present incumbent is desperate.

So far, more by luck than judgement, the national newspapers have been kept at bay and the regal heads of The First Family need not be bothered with the scandal. They’ve had enough on their plates just lately, poor things, and this could prove the last straw—the scandal of scandals designed to rock the Crown at its roots. Luckily, this most unfortunate business is in the very safest of hands.