The Perfect Retreat (21 page)

Kitty started to cry openly now, and snot and tears poured over her face, ruining Willow’s makeover.

‘You have no idea how hard it is to be me. To be so stupid. I can’t do anything, ever. I want to, but I don’t know how. The letters and words don’t make any sense,’ she cried, and Ivo thought she looked about four years old.

‘So now you can go and be smart somewhere else and I will leave you alone because I’m so stupid,’ she said angrily.

‘Kitty, that makes no sense. Why would I want to go
somewhere
else because you can’t read? For fuck’s sake,’ said Ivo, angry now. ‘I don’t give a shit about you reading. Trust me, there are plenty of genuinely stupid people who know how to read,’ he said.

‘Who?’ asked Kitty forlornly.

‘Me,’ answered Ivo.

‘Don’t be daft. You’re so smart and I wish I were like you. That’s why I’ve been hanging around you even though I said I wasn’t interested. It’s not that you aren’t attractive – you are – but when I’m with you I feel smarter,’ cried Kitty.

Ivo felt his heart melt. He took Kitty into his arms and hugged her tight. ‘Don’t worry Kits, we can work this out,’ he said, and he held her till her sobs subsided.

She pulled away from him and looked in her bag for a tissue, but all she found was an old packet of dried-out baby wipes. She wiped her nose. Ivo took one from her, wiped her eye makeup away and stood back to look at her.

‘Better,’ he said, and he took her hand.

‘Come on, I’m not letting a silly thing like you not being able to read twenty-six letters get in the way. I can think of twenty-six things that I don’t know, so let’s call it even,’ he said, and he took Kitty by the hand and led her back to the museum.

As they walked back to the painting, Ivo spoke. ‘The reason I wanted you to see this is because this is your great-great-great-grandmother, the woman whose journals you let me read. This is her, and I think she bears a striking resemblance to you. Now you look while I read to you what this label says.’

Kitty stood back, trying to compose herself.

‘
This painting is called
In the Orangery
by George Middlemist – 1851. George Middlemist used his wife, Clementina, as his model for many of his paintings. Clementina was born in France to wealthy parents who disapproved of the marriage. She and George resided at their home Middlemist House. The orangery was built for Clementina and filled with exotic fruits, including clementines, which symbolise joy. Soon after this painting was finished Clementina had their first child, Albert.
Who was your great-great-grandfather,’ pointed out Ivo proudly.

Kitty forgot about her problem for a moment and stood gazing in wonder at the painting. ‘Didn’t you know about this?’ asked Ivo.

‘No idea,’ said Kitty. ‘Actually I don’t know anything about George at all,’ Kitty said, embarrassed.

‘We have to sort that out,’ said Ivo. ‘I know so much about him, and about art. How about I tell you?’ he said, liking the feeling of usefulness that washed over him.

Kitty looked up at him shyly. ‘I would like that,’ she said, and Ivo felt proud of himself and proud of her for telling him.

‘Now, we need a drink,’ he said. Kitty nodded, desperate for something to calm her nerves.

Ivo took her hand and they walked towards the nearest pub and sat down. It was cosy and not crowded and Kitty felt herself relax slightly.

‘Gin and tonic?’ asked Ivo, and she nodded. He gave the order to the waiter and they sat quietly till the drinks were served.

‘So I have to ask you about it,’ said Ivo, and Kitty grimaced. ‘Just so I understand,’ he added gently. ‘How did you get through school?’

‘I didn’t. I fudged my way through for as long as I could and then I left once a few teachers began to get clued in,’ she said, twisting the drink in her nervous hands.

‘How do you get through life?’ he asked. ‘Forms, banking, driving, reading to the children?’

‘I don’t drive. I look at the pictures in the story books and I just make it up.’ Kitty paused. ‘You actually get to be quite clever. I got someone at the bank to show me how to use the ATM a few times and then I just remembered the process, and when I have really hard forms to fill in …’ she took a deep breath, ‘I wear a sling.’

‘A sling?’ asked Ivo, confused.

‘Yes. I pretend I’ve hurt my arm and get someone at the place to fill it in for me,’ she said, taking a sip of her gin and tonic.

‘Jesus,’ said Ivo, trying to imagine his life without reading. ‘Does your brother know?’

‘No, he just thinks I’m a bit thick,’ she said sadly.

‘I’m sure he doesn’t,’ said Ivo, frowning.

‘He does. Everyone does,’ she said, feeling tears springing into her eyes again. ‘I think that’s the hardest part,’ she said quietly.

‘What?’ asked Ivo.

‘Being underestimated. Nobody having any expectations of you. When you talked about your father and how he was disappointed with your choices because he thought you could be so much more, I wondered what that was like. My father had no expectations of me. My mother got sick when I was five years old, when I should have been learning to read, and
it kind of took over the house. Merritt was so much older than
me – he wasn’t about to sit and explain the letters to me. Then Mummy died and I was forgotten. I guess that’s why I’m with children; they don’t know any better, and they don’t realise that I’m the same intellectual age as them,’ she said sadly.

‘Oh bullshit. You’re not retarded, you just don’t know how to read,’ said Ivo, impatiently.

‘You don’t understand,’ said Kitty crossly. ‘It seems so big now, the whole reading thing. It’s like a giant mountain of letters jeering at me.’

Ivo sat thinking about his father and the last time he had seen him, when he had gone to borrow money from his mother. His father’s words rang in his ears.

‘Ivo, you are wasting your future and your talents. You are making a complete cock-up of your life. Do something with it, boy, or stay away. You hear me?’

He held Kitty’s hand over the table.

‘Kits,’ he said, and she looked up at him sadly. ‘How about I help you? I’m not a teacher but I can help you read the letters. I could look it up on the internet,’ he said, wondering if he could do it.

Kitty looked up, her eyes red ringed – but still so beautiful, he thought. ‘Could you?’ she asked.

‘I could try,’ said Ivo, feeling more confident as he looked at her. She gave him a watery smile.

‘Well, I guess I could try too. Can you promise me one thing?’ she asked.

‘Anything,’ he answered, looking at her pinched face.

‘Can you promise to not tell anyone? Ever?’ she implored him.

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘No, I mean it. No one must ever know. Do you promise?’ she asked him again urgently.

‘I promise, Kitty. Cross my heart and hope to die,’ he said gravely.

She smiled wanly. They finished their drinks and walked side by side back to the car in silence, each absorbed in the thought of the task ahead of them.

As Ivo unlocked the car Kitty got into the passenger seat, held up the disabled sign and looked at it.

‘At least you have a real reason to use this now, at least whenever I’m in the car,’ she said sadly, a single tear falling down her cheek, and Ivo couldn’t help himself. He burst into laughter.

Kitty looked at him, shocked, and then she started to see the funny side of it and laughed with him.

And Kitty felt like she had just made it to first base camp on the mountain that loomed before her.

Merritt and Willow lay under a tree in the field near the house on a blanket. Jinty slept in the pushchair next to them and Lucian was being bossed about by Poppy, who was holding a large stick, in the distance.

‘Happy?’ asked Willow, who already knew the answer.

‘Perfect,’ answered Merritt, and Willow rolled over onto her elbows and looked at him.

‘This morning, in bed …’ she started, and Merritt opened one eye and looked at her. ‘What did you mean?’ she asked.

‘I meant what I said,’ he replied, not looking at her.

‘You love me?’ pushed Willow.

‘Does that scare you?’ he asked, carefully looking at Poppy still.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long time. My life is complicated and big.’

‘My life was small and easy,’ he said. ‘Until you came into it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I like it much more now,’ he said, and he turned to her and smiled.

They slipped into easy harmony together over the next few weeks and Willow all but forgot her financial woes back in London. Kerr still hadn’t returned her calls and she had stopped ringing him. He seemed so far away now, and Willow didn’t want his memory spoiling her daydreams.

When Willow watched Merritt sitting with Poppy on his knee, Lucian next to him on the sofa in the drawing room, all shiny and clean after their baths; and when Merritt read them story after story and listened when Poppy constantly interrupted; and when she saw Jinty asleep on his shoulder, dribbling on his shirt and him not noticing, she found it hard not to wish he was their father.

Willow found herself doing more for the children when she wasn’t working. Partly because Kitty was asking for more time off to spend with Ivo, and also because she liked to pretend that she and Merritt were married and that they lived a perfect, easy, uncomplicated life.

They didn’t push for answers about each other’s intentions. Instead Willow worked on the film and Merritt worked on the house.

Their nights were spent in the drawing room, her putting together the final touches to the scrapbook for the interior design inspiration for Middlemist House, Merritt poring over garden books and plans from the library.

Ivo visited Kitty every night at the house after filming and stayed till late, but Merritt and Willow stayed out of their way. Merritt figured he had no right to ask about Ivo’s
intentions
for Kitty when he didn’t know his own towards a woman not yet divorced, with three children.

Merritt tried to not think about the three weeks left on the film and what would happen after that. He found himself becoming more attached to the children, and there were times when he looked at Willow and his heart swelled with something unfamiliar. He was sure he loved her, but enough to take on three children and a complicated career? And what could he offer her anyway? he wondered while she worked away at the computer. Her phone rang and she left to go and answer it.

Her plans, although he hadn’t seen them, would cost money he didn’t have. Even with the money from the film, and discounting the cost of the clearing work the crew had done in the garden, he wasn’t even close to having what he needed for the repairs to Middlemist.

He put his thoughts away when Willow came beaming into the drawing room.

‘That was Lucy,’ she said. ‘She’s organised the shoot for the makeup line I told you about.’

‘Right,’ said Merritt. It rang a bell somewhere in the recesses of his mind.

‘They want to shoot it here, with the children in it,’ she said. ‘Is that OK? I said I would ask you first, in case you went nuts at me again.’ She sat on his lap.

Merritt put his face into her shoulder. ‘Don’t remind me what a shit I was,’ he said.

‘Yes, you were a prick,’ laughed Willow. ‘Although in a kind of sexy, Mr Darcy way.’

‘Yes, it’s fine for you to shoot here; I’m sure Kits will agree,’ he said, and she wiggled in his lap to get comfortable.

‘Great.’ And she kissed him softly on the forehead and he breathed in her scent of roast chicken and mimosa and felt her hair fall onto his face. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. They melded into each other in the chair, and he slipped his hand up her t-shirt and felt her braless breast.

Their kissing became more urgent and Willow felt his hard-on underneath her. She reached down and rubbed her hand against it gently and Merritt moaned.

Standing up, still holding Willow, he took her over to the worn, sagging couch and laid her on it. They made out on the couch, seeing how long they could last before they needed to tear each other’s clothes off. They lasted for half an hour, grinding against each other, Merritt allowing himself to taste her breasts as he shoved her t-shirt up under her arms, and then finally she stood up and wriggled out of her t-shirt and leggings and stood naked in front of him.

‘No underwear?’ he asked, his voice low with desire.

‘I’ve wanted you all day,’ she said. ‘So I came prepared.’

‘Well I hope you do come – prepared or unprepared,’ he said, and he watched as she lowered herself, unzipping his pants and pulling them down as she went, releasing his cock from his boxer shorts.

Lowering her face, she peeked up at him and winked as she took him in her mouth. She sucked and licked and tantalised until Merritt groaned.

Willow stood up and straddled him, lowering herself onto his cock, and sat waiting for him to get his breath.

Merritt looked up at her and saw how truly beautiful she was, without makeup or accessories and with pure ecstasy on her face. They moved together and she pulled Merritt’s t-shirt up over his head. He pulled her down onto him and as their skins touched, she felt her body shudder at the electricity between them. They kissed, their tongues meeting in each other’s mouths.

As she felt herself about to reach orgasm, she stopped moving and Merritt looked at her, feeling her internal pulse against him. He held her. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

‘I’m great. I’m about to come and I want to be prepared,’ she said.

Merritt laughed. ‘I love you Willow,’ he said, and she felt her body lose control. She came to a body-shaking orgasm, and then she looked down at him and smiled.

‘Lucky I was prepared,’ she said, and then she rode him with abandon. As she felt his legs come together and sensed that he was about to shudder to his own orgasm she took his face in her hands. She peered into his eyes as his pupils dilated and she whispered.

‘I love you too Merritt.’