The Four of Us (44 page)

Kiki, who had no reason for anger, except as a defence mechanism, was too interested in Geraldine's lifestyle in Paris to want to continue their furious slanging match.

Primmie, aware that the crisis had passed, put the million and one questions she was dying to ask Geraldine on hold and let out a deep, heartfelt sigh of relief.

Her moment of thankfulness lasted a second, maybe less.

‘Oh, no!' she suddenly shouted, looking out of the window. ‘Alice is in the garden and is eating everything in sight!'

Whirling round, she darted from the room, making for the front door.

‘Who's Alice?' Kiki asked Geraldine, per-plexed. ‘A child?'

‘A goat – and don't just stand there, Kiki. Goats are strong. We need to be out there with Primmie, helping her.'

It was as much of a flag of truce as Geraldine was ever likely to offer her, and Kiki knew it. On the stereo, Jerry Lee Lewis was singing ‘Whole Lotta Shaking Going On'. It was yet another of her favourite tracks. She didn't hang about to listen to it. Instead, she ran out into the garden to give chase to the goat.

‘Wine or whisky?'

It was four hours later and they were in the sitting room, Primmie and Kiki grubby and exhausted after chasing Alice the length and breadth of Ruthven and the headland.

‘Wine, please.' Geraldine was sprawled full length on the deep-cushioned sofa, her face so pale it looked carved from alabaster.

‘Whisky.' Kiki, the dog beside her, was seated cross-legged on the rag rug in front of the fireplace. The grate was empty of coals but made glorious by a jug of marigolds. She ran a hand through her fox-red hair, making her youthful, spiky hairstyle spikier than ever. ‘And what do we do with that black-hearted goat now we've finally tethered her? Where does she sleep tonight? With the cow?'

Sitting back on her heels next to the coffee table, Primmie poured Geraldine a glass of red wine. ‘I don't know. I haven't a clue what sleeping arrangements goats need. I'm not sure May-belline would like sharing with her, though.'

‘Sensible Maybelline,' Geraldine said dryly, taking the proffered glass from Primmie. ‘And what about other sleeping arrangements? The dog's, for instance?'

All three of them looked at the dog. The dog, happy at being the centre of attention, looked back at them from beneath its matted fringe of hair.

‘What about the kitchen?' Primmie poured Kiki a slug of Bell's. ‘He seems to like being on the rag rugs.'

The dog lolled a little more closely against Kiki.

‘By all means give the kitchen a try, Primmie.' Still holding her wine glass, Geraldine closed her eyes in exhaustion. ‘But every dog I've ever met prefers sleeping on its owner's bed. Which brings us to the subject of Kiki and whether there's going to be room for her here once the children arrive.'

‘Or room for you!' Kiki shot back instantly. ‘Why this assumption that if anyone is going to leave here it's going to be me?'

‘Because I'm working on the old trade union principle of last in, first out.' Geraldine opened her eyes again. ‘And because for you to stay here when the children are here would mean your sharing a room with me and I'm not prepared to do that, Kiki. I'm being civil towards you for Primmie's sake, but I'm not going to be
that
civil.'

Primmie, who had made a pot of tea for herself, poured a cup and said, ‘In the old days, Kiki and I always shared a room. If you move out of the guest room into my room, Geraldine, Kiki and I can move into the guest room. Problem solved.'

Kiki flashed Primmie a face-splitting grin. ‘Wicked,' she said, momentarily forgetting her reason for being in Cornwall.

Primmie grinned back at her, glad that another potential crisis had been avoided. ‘You speak like my daughter Lucy. Everything is “wicked” or “cool”.'

Kiki took another deep swallow of whisky. ‘So tell me about your kids, Primmie. How old are they? Where are they? What are their names?'

Primmie paused for a moment, struggling not to make eye contact with Geraldine, well aware that Geraldine would know how heart-stoppingly difficult it was going to be for her not to speak Destiny's name.

She took a steadying breath. ‘Joanne is twenty-three. She's office manager at D. P. International, a London advertising agency, and is married to one of the agency's account directors. Millie is thirteen months younger and married as well – though doesn't always remember it – and lives in London. Josh is twenty and single and a bit of a Romeo. Lucy is nineteen and is travelling in Australia.'

‘No grandchildren?'

Primmie shook her head.

Kiki shrugged. ‘I don't suppose it matters, does it? They've all still got acres of time. Do they visit you a lot? Are they the “children” you and Geraldine keep mentioning?'

‘No.' Primmie sat a little more comfortably on the floor and hugged her knees. ‘My aunt – who left Ruthven to me – gave holidays to groups of children who are in care. In an arrangement left over from last year, five of them are due to arrive in nine days' time.'

‘Cool.' There was no real enthusiasm in Kiki's voice. Children had never been of any great interest to her – unless they bought her records.

‘And you still haven't told us what brought you to Cornwall, Kiki,' Primmie continued, full of curiosity. ‘Have you been appearing at a rock festival? And how did you get here? Where's your car?'

‘And why is your dog in such a disgraceful, uncared-for condition?' Geraldine said from the sofa, her eyes again closed. ‘He doesn't look as if he's ever been brushed in his life, let alone bathed.'

The lines of Kiki's jaw tensed. It would be easy to make up a reason for being in Cornwall that would enable Primmie to keep her illusions about her. For a second she was tempted to say that she'd arrived by helicopter and that in a couple of day‘s time she would be whirling off again, back to London and then on to New York, to a flash, rock-star-style apartment in the Dakota. Primmie would believe every word, but she doubted Geraldine would.

Geraldine had always been far too sharp for comfort. When people had money – real money – they could smell it on someone a mile away. And it was obvious that Geraldine had real money by looking at her Ferrari. Geraldine would know that she was flat broke and her lying about it would only make her look pathetic. Besides, she'd finished with all the humiliating business of pretending to be something she wasn't – and of enduring the knowing, contemptuous looks when she hadn't quite pulled off the deception. Her determination to be done with all that was why she was en route to the highest cliff she could find.

‘The dog isn't mine,' she said, taking the easiest question first. ‘My car broke down on the motorway and I hitched a lift to Helston. The dog belonged to the truck-driver who stopped for me. He and the dog didn't get on.'

‘But what about your car?' Primmie asked, perplexed. ‘Is someone bringing it down here for you, when it's fixed? Your agent, or manager, or minder …?'

‘Agents and managers don't act as gofers, Primmie, and minders are for rock stars who need them to keep the fans at bay.' Still sitting cross-legged, her hands resting on her knees, she paused, gazing at Primmie and Geraldine defiantly. ‘And I no longer need to keep fans at bay,' she said at last, bitterly. ‘I'm a has-been. My career is over. Finished.'

It was the first time she had ever put the fact into words.

Primmie stared at her. ‘But how can it be? In April, in St Austell, I saw posters of a rock festival you were appearing at.'

‘Ah, the great Easter Rock Revival Concert!' Kiki breathed in hard. The St Austell gig had been good – mainly because two old buddies, Marty Wilde and Eric Burden, had flown over from the States to be onboard for it. It had been her swan song, though. For a long, ghastly period before the St Austell gig she'd had no work to speak of, and after it there had only been the death she had died at Grantley. ‘Yeah, well. That was a one-off, Primmie,' she said, her voice weary. ‘Despite anything you may have read to the contrary, I've been on the skids for at least a decade.'

There was a long silence.

Geraldine, well aware of how much the admission must have cost Kiki, was conscious of a flicker of respect for her. In the overall scheme of things, it wasn't much, but it made a decided change from the loathing and contempt she'd been nursing for the last thirty-one years.

‘I'm sorry,' Primmie said at last, inadequately. ‘I hadn't realized …'

‘Why should you?' Kiki managed to sound almost philosophical. ‘I don't suppose anyone's life is all it seems to be, is it?'

‘No, indeed.' It was said with a wealth of feeling as, with great effort, Geraldine summoned the strength to push herself up against the cushions on the sofa.

Primmie looked towards her – and saw that bruises were beginning to show on Geraldine's arms. ‘What on earth have you done to yourself?' she asked, concerned. ‘Those bruises were not there this morning!'

Geraldine tugged the sleeves of her cinnamon-silk shirt down as far as they would go. ‘No, they weren't. Don't worry about them, Primmie. They'll soon fade.'

‘I have some arnica tablets somewhere. I'll find them for you. You shouldn't bruise so quickly and so easily, Geraldine. You must be anaemic.'

Geraldine shot her a strained smile. ‘Very probably.'

Kiki, uninterested in Geraldine's bruises and not wanting the conversation to return to the subject of her dead career, said, ‘Neither of you has said a word about Artemis. Has she stayed here yet? That snobbish prick she married couldn't father children, could he? What was his name? Richard? Robert? What did they do? Did they adopt?'

‘His name is Rupert,' Geraldine said smoothly, saving Primmie from having to answer. ‘And yes, they did adopt. Primmie thinks they have two boys – though they won't be boys now. They'll be in their late-teens or early twenties.'

Kiki shifted her position to give the dog a little more room on the rug. ‘What do you mean, Primmie “thinks”? You didn't both lose touch with her, did you?'

‘I didn't stay in touch with her for the same reason I didn't stay in touch with Primmie. And Primmie …' Geraldine gave Primmie a swift glance, saw that she was still struggling to control her feelings, and said, ‘Primmie's life with Ted and the children was very different from Artemis's way of life. They drifted apart. It happens.'

‘Geraldine and I tried to make contact with her yesterday.' Primmie, her thoughts full of Destiny, kept her voice steady with difficulty. ‘She and Rupert have separated. According to him, they're getting divorced. Last night, when Geraldine spoke to him, he said Artemis had gone on a cruise, that he didn't know when she would be returning to England and that he didn't have a mobile number for her.'

‘I bet he was lying.' Kiki slid her arm round the dog's neck. ‘He
must
have a mobile number for her. He just doesn't want her old friends telling her how much she should be squeezing out of him in a divorce settlement. Wasn't the house a huge old rectory in the Cotswolds and didn't he have a string of polo ponies? If he was loaded thirty-odd years ago, when she married him, he must be really rolling in it now. If Artemis plays her cards right, she should come out of the divorce a wealthy woman.'

‘You're telling me I can't have the house?' Artemis's voice rose in hysterical disbelief. ‘But why not?
I'm
not the one breaking our marriage up!
You're
the one who is being unfaithful!
You're
the one who wants to leave!'

She was facing Rupert in the drawing room of their home, still wearing the floral silk print dress and jacket she'd travelled from Southampton in. Her handbag and travelling make-up box were at her feet and the rest of her luggage, which the taxi-driver had brought indoors for her, was standing in the large square entrance hall.

‘If you'd stayed in England, instead of haring off in a fit of pique on a cruise to the West Indies, you would have known from the beginning that this was the arrangement that was going to be made.' Rupert's eyes flicked beyond her to the open door leading into the hall.

Wildly, Artemis wondered if he thought the taxi driver was still waiting to be paid and was about to walk in on them.

‘And in the eyes of the law,' he continued, standing completely at ease with his hands in the pockets of his chinos, ‘
you're
the one who has left the marital home.'

‘Me?' Her voice rose to a disbelieving squeak. ‘
Me?
How? When?'

‘When you walked out of here with your bags and baggage six weeks ago.' There was dry satisfaction in his voice. ‘I informed both my solicitor and yours of your action.'

‘I didn't walk out!' Artemis felt as if she were struggling in treacle. ‘I went on a
cruise
because I was so distressed I was
ill
. I hoped that by the time I got back you'd have become bored with the Serena creature just like you did with all the others. I hoped that we could sort things out and …'

‘And that you could continue being a middle-aged, fifteen-stone dead weight around Ru's neck for a little longer?' an unmistakable Chelsea-set voice said from behind her.

Artemis spun round.

With pert, bra-less breasts pushing against a crimson silk shirt and wearing nothing else, apart from black silk panties, the Serena creature stood at the foot of the stairs, leaning against the mahogany newel-post, her waist-length hair mussed and tumbled as if she had just got out of bed.

Artemis sucked in her breath, her eyes bulging in disbelief.

Serena smiled. ‘You moved out, and I moved in,' she said with a fait accompli shrug.

Artemis whirled back to face Rupert. ‘You've had her living in my house?' she gasped. ‘Sleeping in my bed?'