The Snakes Read online

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Scratches.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I had to get my skirt out of a bush.’

  ‘What?’

  She didn’t want his concern, or for him to know she had used his name to save herself.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I went swimming.’

  ‘Where? Why?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Bea? What the hell?’

  ‘You woke me up at three in the morning to tell me how you felt.’

  ‘I thought that was what we’re supposed to do. Be honest.’

  ‘I’m going to have a shower.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We should talk about this.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

  He went to take her arm.

  She pulled away, but then halfway up the stairs she turned. ‘How could you? You fucking bastard.’

  When she was out of sight, round the corner, by Alex’s room, he called up after her.

  ‘You could at least talk about it!’

  ‘Why don’t I wait until something terrible happens?’ she shouted back, staring straight ahead at Alex’s door. ‘Then wake you up in the middle of the night to tell you I can’t stand living with you.’

  She went to their room and slammed the door. She cried in the shower, and washed the blood and mud off herself, then watched herself in the mirror as she dried her podgy, dimpled body. She should forgive him but forgiveness wasn’t going to help. He didn’t want her without her money. She dabbed antiseptic on her grazes, thinking of the boy staring at her, and jerking himself off, and wondering distantly how much danger she had been in, and, if he hadn’t run away, how long she would have had to stay in the water. She made herself smile, thinking he couldn’t have had much of a look at her to get so excited. She should be relieved not to be hurt, but she didn’t care. She noted coolly that she wasn’t able to value herself, and she felt sad, because it was something she had worked on being able to do, but it didn’t really matter.

  She got dressed again, and went out into the heat, and down the drive, to get her phone back. As she approached the gates, a blue car backed into the drive. It looked like a police car, and she began to prepare herself, but it wasn’t a police car, it was a different blue, much denser. It idled in the gateway as if the driver was deciding which way to go. She tried, but couldn’t see inside, past the reflections of the trees. The car drove off, and when it had gone she went out onto the road, to the lay-by, and got her phone from behind the log. There were a dozen missed calls from Griff, but no messages, nothing from Capitaine Vincent, no numbers she didn’t recognise.

  ‘Where were you?’ said Dan, when she came back in.

  She ignored him, and started up the stairs.

  ‘I heard a car.’

  ‘It was just turning.’ She wanted to lie down.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m tired,’ said Bea. ‘I was up half the night, remember?’

  ‘I said I’m sorry,’ he said again, to her retreating back. Then he added, ‘Griff called.’

  ‘So what?’

  She felt dread again. ‘Has he heard something?’

  ‘No. It was nothing like that. It’s OK. He just wants us to go and see them. Spend the day.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To be together?’ He said it sarcastically.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bea, come on, what are we going to do here?’ He was exasperated. ‘Let’s just go up to Chateau Whatever –’

  ‘God. It’s called Chateau L’Orée des Vignes, Dan,’ she said. ‘It’s not that hard.’

  ‘Hey! You’re not better than me.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was –’

  ‘You didn’t need to.’

  They went their different ways without another word.

  They stopped trying to speak, or act as if things were normal. It was easy not to meet, with the hotel to themselves. She didn’t want to eat with him, or be with him, she didn’t want to talk, she just wanted to lie down, she tried it, but it was too warm to stay in bed, and the Wi-Fi was weak. She came downstairs.

  She curled up on the swivel chair in the hall, and looked at YouTube kittens, and US politics on her phone, while Dan took up residence in the sitting room, with a beer, and played Skyrim. Hours and hours could be lost like that. They were.

  *

  The afternoon faded quickly and night fell. The fifth day. It was the fifth day since Alex died. She scrolled through videos of empty things, brightly coloured, comforting things, and stared at them with great attention. The view of the drive dimmed, and then it was completely dark. The windows showed the ghostly mirrored desk, and stairs going up to nothingness. The swivel chair kept swivelling. She had to put her foot on the floor to stop it. Her other leg went to sleep. She released it, shaking it out to get the blood flowing.

  She heard an engine. Bright white headlights swept across the windows.

  ‘Shit,’ she said, jolted from her digital anaesthetic. ‘What now?’

  Rubbing her dry eyes, she went to the window and peered out. A big black minivan was parking in front of the hotel. It stopped, and the doors opened, and two men got out, dressed in black, intent on something, signalling to one another. Then, like an apparition, her mother, steadying herself on one of the men’s arms. Like Cinderella, she had been transformed. She wore a silk dress, in bold rose colours, like moth wings. Griff climbed out too, and Liv went to him on tiptoe, and took his hand. The two men were dressed as waiters. No, they were waiters. One of them opened the back of the van, and started rummaging inside. Dan came into the hall.

  ‘What the hell?’ he said.

  Griff looked in her direction and Bea ducked out of sight, but there was no avoiding them. They heard footsteps on the gravel, and the doorbell rang loudly.

  ‘Did they tell you?’ he said.

  She shook her head.

  He shrugged. ‘Can’t ignore them.’

  ‘We could.’

  He opened the door.

  ‘Can’t you put the bloody outside light on?’ boomed Griff. ‘We can’t see a thing out here.’

  ‘It doesn’t work,’ said Dan.

  ‘The mountain has come to Mohammed. Are we allowed to say that these days?’

  Griff strode inside, slapping his shoulder.

  Liv came in behind him, light-footed; a different person.

  ‘Oh, there you are!’ she said, spotting Bea in the shadows. ‘My Bea-Bea.’

  ‘There you are!’ repeated Griff.

  ‘Yup,’ said Bea. ‘What’s going on?’

  In the light from the open door, they could see the elaborate crest on the side of the van, Chateau L’Orée des Vignes. The waiters were taking things from the back and assembling them on the gravel, shining a wide-beamed torch, like soldiers deployed on an aid operation.

  ‘We all need cheering up,’ said Liv, with shining eyes.

  ‘Cheering up?’ said Bea, incredulous.

  ‘We had a talk with Arun,’ said Griff.

  ‘Lovely Arun had a talk with us,’ corrected Liv. ‘He said we must let go of the expectation of answers.’ She spoke as though she were reciting. ‘We can’t live in limbo.’

  ‘The police investigation is ongoing.’ Griff said. ‘It’s a process. Likely to be a long one.’

  ‘So, we’re going to eat in the garden!’

  ‘Your mother organised it,’ said Griff, subservient.

  ‘We’re going to celebrate life,’ said Liv, her voice strident and brittle. ‘Alex loved life.’

  They had even brought a table. No cheap hexagonals for them. Linen cloths, candlelight, stemmed glasses and a hostess trolley.

  ‘Delightful,’ said Bea flatly.

  The waiters hurried back and forth from the van.

  ‘We’re going to have a party at home,’ said Liv.
‘I’ve decided.’

  ‘In London?’ said Dan. ‘When?’

  ‘Roche cleared it with Vincent,’ said Griff.

  ‘As soon as we can,’ said Liv.

  Dan glanced at Bea to see her reaction. She was blank. One of the waiters was very young; the other, lantern-jawed, was his boss. When Bea showed them the kitchen, they barely hid their disgust. Dan unlocked all the garden doors. They hadn’t bothered to open up the back of the hotel all day.

  ‘I don’t even need my pashmina,’ said Liv. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful night?’

  The question was, where to hold the party? She talked as the waiters trekked across the stringy grass, setting up the table, laying out dinner.

  ‘I thought Stowe would be lovely – what do you think? Because it’s so gorgeous, and Alex was so happy there.’

  ‘He was expelled,’ said Bea.

  But Liv had risen to an altitude too high to be brought down. Bea and Dan, opposite, not beside one another, barely spoke.

  ‘Then I thought, we could go more traditional, and do the Brompton Oratory? But it’s not a wedding. Or a funeral.’

  Her energy was electric. She thanked the waiters repeatedly, and jumped up to help, running back to the table when they shook her off. Polystyrene trays produced a feast. Lobster, salads and cheeses, on china, linen and silver, a heaped still life against the tattered canvas of Paligny.

  ‘Alex would love this,’ said Liv, commanding them to obey. ‘It’s like an enchanted garden.’

  ‘Yes, it’s very nice.’ Griff seemed cowed by her, and tentative, like a man handling a bomb.

  ‘We could have the party at home.’ Liv pushed the chives and dressing from her salad leaves with the back of her knife. ‘Or the Chelsea Physic Garden! I can’t wait to get out of here. I can’t wait to go.’ She gestured her neck as though she were choking, or overwhelmed by heat.

  Dan smiled at Bea but she didn’t notice. The waiters put new plates in front of them, the lobster, and silver bowls of sauce. Together, they stirred it and, with a synchronised nod, went inside.

  ‘Liv,’ said Griff, ‘tell them your idea for the music.’

  ‘Yes, do you remember Alex’s friend Will?’ she asked. ‘Who was in that band?’

  Bea, startled by her memory, nodded.

  ‘He lives near us. Tony and Erica’s son? We still see them, they’re lovely. We saw Will the other day. He’s married, and he has two little children! His wife is Billy Henderson’s daughter. Anyway, he’s working with Tony now, but he still has the band! They play pubs and things. You know, people from that old crowd. He was such a talented boy.’

  Bea put down her knife and fork, smelling blood again, the mangled car.

  ‘I wondered if I should ask him to play, at Alex’s party,’ said Liv.

  ‘He visited him at the Priory,’ said Bea.

  Liv reached to pat her arm, but Bea pulled away, knocking over a tall glass of water.

  ‘Christ,’ said her father. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  The water pooled and spread. Bea let it run from the table, calmly.

  ‘Liv,’ said Dan, ‘maybe you should have it at home. More personal, right?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, Dan!’ said Liv. ‘Griff? Don’t you think Dan’s right?’

  Bea left the table. She went inside. The two waiters were smoking by the open door. The older one threw away his cigarette, and asked her if she needed anything.

  ‘No, thank you. It’s all amazing, thanks. I’m just not feeling very well.’

  She went upstairs to her room. Dan stayed downstairs. She had known he would. He wasn’t doing it because he loved them. He was doing it for the money. She closed her eyes. She paid attention to the silence. She tried to.

  The four of them flew back to London, like a family. Bea and Dan brought only a few things, they weren’t planning to stay long. The memorial would be in two days. Bea surrendered. She gave up trying to travel separately, then gave up trying to go economy. She didn’t have the strength for battle. Liv emailed caterers from the first-class lounge. Eight seats on the plane, because Griff always had his assistant Solange book the row if he was forced to fly a commercial airline. Dan had brought the Italian leather holdall Bea had given him from the Oxfam shop.

  ‘You were right, babe,’ he said, as he put it in the overhead locker. ‘Turns out I did need hand luggage.’

  In the air, after the seat belt sign had been switched off, when the drinks trolley had been and gone, up in the nowhere, high-up place before the descent, the cabin was filled with thin, brilliant sunlight. It seemed to dissolve the sides of the plane, the air was suffused with sky. Bea leaned across the empty seat and took Dan’s hand.

  ‘So,’ she said briskly. ‘How much?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘How much money will it take, to stop you thinking I’m a hypocrite?’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘We should put a number on it, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘Bea, that’s messed up. Seriously?’

  He studied her face. Her eyes were as clear and true as ever.

  ‘Think about it, and decide,’ she said.

  The plane plunged to the right. The wing below them disappeared from view. They put their seat belts on.

  ‘I suppose it’s a pretty good problem to have,’ she said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Too much money.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘It is.’

  ‘Better than death and dying. Better than lots of problems.’

  They landed at Heathrow around lunchtime.

  ‘This way. This way –’ Griff barged ahead.

  VIP. Platinum. Ropes unclipped. Smiles.

  ‘You’re staying with us presumably?’ said Griff, as they skipped the queues. ‘Bea? You are coming home?’

  PART THREE

  21

  Griff had bought the house in Holford Road for £2 million in 1994, at the end of five years’ regeneration after the losses of ’89. He’d recently had it valued at £15.5 million. He wasn’t planning to sell, it held sentimental value. When he bought it, Bea was five years old, Alex twelve, and Ed was at Eton. They had done a lot of work to it before moving in, and then again when Ed’s eighteenth birthday party got out of hand. Rampaging sixth-formers had smashed chandeliers and crystal vases, and pissed on the sofas and carpets. They had ripped up the oak floorboards and thrown them onto a bonfire of garden furniture, lit with lighter fuel. The neighbours had called the police and the fire brigade. It had made the papers. Griff had been enraged by the high moral tone of the press. Teenage parties often turned into riots. Kids smashed stuff when they were drunk and stoned. Just because these kids went to schools with Latin mottos journalists indulged in end-is-nigh grandstanding. Griff took legal vengeance on the parents of the boys Ed didn’t like, and overlooked the others. The only thing that really upset him had been the large turd on his pillow.

  They bought another house nearby, and lived there while they redecorated Holford Road; they put in the garaging, pool, gym, and a glass-box extension, increasing the size by almost two thousand square feet. When they moved back in, he made a profit on selling the second house, so there was no harm done, but when it came to Alex’s eighteenth birthday, having learned a lesson, they hired a club for the night. Bea spent hers in a bar in Prague, InterRailing, so there was no need to bother about hers.

  Holford Road was Griff’s favourite house. The duplex on Central Park West, the chalet in Cortina, the manor house in Hampshire, and the house on St Barts were for investment, or entertaining. Holford Road grounded him. Here, he had been through scandal and public disgrace and still hung on to his money. He had reached his fortieth year of marriage in Holford Road; had four fucks serious enough to be called mistresses, and proved himself a gentleman by bringing none of them home – literally, if not figuratively. Griff saw property like any other investment, and cities were only differing markets to him, but Holford Road was more than property. It was a
family house. It was English. He was sure his parents had felt the same way about their seven hundred square feet in Whitechapel as he felt about his eight thousand in Holford Road.

  Griff’s driver Ashir had collected them from Heathrow in an outsized SUV that could hardly squeeze into the driveway, and started getting the luggage from the back before they had all climbed out. Dan squinted up at the house, adjusting from the darkness behind the tinted windows.

  ‘Fuck,’ he whispered.

  ‘It’s just a house,’ said Bea.

  Griff, first up the steps, opened the front door. ‘Porsche sweet Porsche,’ he said, as the four of them came into the hall, then he was off down the spiral stairs. ‘I tell you, I never want to see another rented car. That was a nightmare.’

  ‘Kiss the Merc for me,’ said Liv.

  Blessica came up from the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Liv. Oh, Mrs Liv. Home now.’

  Overcome with emotion, she ran forward to take the suitcases, her eyes brimming on Liv’s behalf.

  ‘Miss Bea!’

  ‘Hi, Blessica, how are you?’

  ‘I’m so sorry. So sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. This is Dan.’

  Bea and Dan went up to Bea’s room. He didn’t say anything as they went up, but his silence spoke. She heard every exclamation of awe as if she could read his mind.

  Her window on the second floor, overlooked the street. Dan put down his bag and went through the dressing room, to explore.

  ‘Mind if I take a bath?’

  ‘No, sure.’

  Who walks into a house and has a bath? she thought. It was like he had arrived at a hotel. She heard the water rushing from the taps as she turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows. Up in the eaves the ceilings sloped. Liv had redone the room more than once in the ten years since Bea left home, and nothing of her childhood remained. The walls were walnut-panelled now. It was no more strange or painful to be in this familiar-unfamiliar room than anywhere else.

  She went into the bathroom. Dan had taken off his T-shirt and was very slowly tipping bath foam into the water, and watching it as it poured. He stirred the water intently with his other hand, then put the glass stopper back in the bottle, wiped it and returned it reverently to the shelf with the others. He watched the bath running for a few more moments, stirred it again, then turned off the taps. In the quiet, he undid his jeans and pulled them off, and then his pants and socks. He kicked them out of sight, so they wouldn’t disturb his view, and lowered himself into the hot water. Consciously, gracefully, he went under, with the wordless sounds of a man in heaven. Coming back up with bubbles on his head he sluiced them from front to back, and rubbed his face, luxuriating.