Finding Dreams, page 14
As I read, I can picture every room in the house – albeit lit by candles, not electrics – that Victoria inhabits. The great hall, the library, the drawing room. The little similarities: a woman’s face carved on a mantelpiece, crests made of coloured glass set high into the windows that look out over the river, the great studded door made from timbers of a ship. I also recall the photo of Veronica Jones that I took at the museum. As far as I know, her mystery remains unsolved. Did she go off with a lover or did her husband, Zachary, ‘do away’ with her? At some point, I’ll go back to the museum and find out some more information. Information that Phillipa King has already found, read, and used in her bestselling novel. She may have set her book at my house, but at least it’s still my house.
I finish the chapter – Victoria hears a noise in the night. She goes downstairs and outside wearing a diaphanous nightgown and thin flannel dressing gown; her auburn hair flowing around her shoulders (of course). She hides in the hedge as the smuggling boats arrive, their lanterns flickering like fireflies against the blackness of the trees. And overseeing the unloading of the cargo is the master, William Clarke. He’s a tall, dark, and handsome hero – nothing new there. But it’s his intensity – the smouldering masculinity – that might be anger and cruelty, but also might be wild, untameable passion – that keeps readers like me turning the pages.
Did Dave and I ever have that kind of passion? If we did, it’s so long buried in the past that I can barely remember. I suppose it was exciting in those early months. I’d be working late at the office and he’d call me up and invite me out to a club in Soho. We’d share a bottle of champagne, then take a taxi back to his flat in Battersea. When we woke up in the morning, we’d go for breakfast and then a long walk in the park or along the Embankment. I remember the little pub we went to behind the Tate Modern with the dark little booths. I was flattered that he’d chosen me, and the fact that I sometimes didn’t hear from him for days kept things on edge.
And then, over time, things changed. Marriage, children, moving out of London. When I think of him now, I see him as a loving but absent father, and a companionable but disinterested partner. In the years after the children came along, I suppose I kept thinking that things would change – when Jack went to nursery/ when Katie could go to afterschool club/ when I went back to work/ when Dave finished this deal or that deal and finally started making more time for the family. We’d eventually start having ‘date nights’ again. We’d eventually rekindle whatever spark we once had. Eventually… someday… in the future…
Now, in hindsight, I can see it was never going to happen. Dave did manage to rekindle a spark – with women who were not me. In fact, he never gave up that illicit London lifestyle at all. And there’s a part of me that doesn’t even blame him. I’m not one of those women that finds motherhood easy and fulfilling in itself. I can hear myself complaining, nagging, feeling secure and complacent in my right to do so. I stopped seeing our marriage as something important, something that needed nurturing just like the children did. My hope that things would change eventually was just one more illusion; a fantasy trapped in a soap bubble that was destined to burst. While I still struggle with the finality of Dave’s death, in a way, it provided a much-needed catalyst for change.
I pull the duvet up to my chin and sigh, feeling guilty for even contemplating Dave’s death as a good thing. But nothing is going to change the fact that he’s dead, and I can’t keep using guilt as an excuse to avoid getting on with my own life. Connie says that it is better the second time around. It’s only in the last few days and weeks that I’ve even allowed myself to imagine the possibility of a second time around. Am I mad to want a new relationship – a new love – if not now, then sometime in the future?
Eventually, under the watchful eye of the dreamcatcher, I drift off to sleep. My dreams are chaotic and indistinct, all except for the strong sense of a masculine presence – watching me from the shadows, wanting me in a way that I’ve never been wanted before. But as I twist and turn through the labyrinth of the dream world, try as I might, I can’t catch a glimpse of his face.
Chapter 18
I was prepared for excitement; prepared for chaos and disruption. Prepared for the huge upheaval that people like Connie said would happen but that I chose to brush off and sweep under the carpet. But none of my so-called preparation comes close to reality once the film crew moves in.
The house clearance team arrives in mid-March. Luckily, Jack and Katie are at school, because, otherwise, I’m sure there would be tears and sit-in protests. They attack all of our worldly possessions on the ground floor with bubble wrap, shove them into boxes, and cart them away. All the toys, all the photos, all the books and DVDs – even the TV has to go. And all the while, I’m standing there watching them, wondering why I didn’t anticipate this, and do more sorting and packing myself. Our things will be sent away to storage for three whole months – we might as well be moving to America or Australia rather than into the two spare bedrooms in the wing above the kitchen.
When Jack and Katie do finally arrive home, the ground floor is almost completely bare, except for in the kitchen (I had the old piano moved in there so that Katie could keep practising for her Grade II exam) and one sofa in the drawing room. Katie immediately dons her roller blades (which were squirrelled away in her room upstairs) and spends two hours careering round the slippery wooden floors. Jack has a good howl when he discovers that his Cozy Coupe is gone, but he persuades Simon to bring his tricycle in from the shed, and he and Katie chase each other on their wheels. Jammie goes berserk, nipping at their heels like a young pup. Of course, it all ends in tears when they collide like errant atoms, and Katie sprawls onto her face, bloodying her lip, on top of the yelping dog, and Jack goes down with them like a wiggly domino. He proceeds to scream for England.
I expected to feel sad, or at least nostalgic, at seeing the house so bare. In fact, the opposite is true. As I walk through the ground floor while the kids are eating, it’s like looking at an oil painting that’s been cleaned of the layers of old vanish and grime and suddenly regains its colours. I notice the grain of the wood panelling, the cracks and tool marks in the carvings, mineral veins in the stones of the hearth, the irregularities in panes of glass that have survived for hundreds of years. The old curtains are gone (and I gave a firm instruction that they were not to be brought back), and there’s dust and dog hair in all the nooks and crannies behind where the furniture was. But the rooms themselves are elegant and spacious. Instead of sadness, I feel, if anything, a little excited. Having a blank canvas in my own home seems like just the thing I’ve needed.
And true to my bargain with the divine powers that be, when Katie and Jack are finished eating, I find a pencil and call them over to the door to the hall.
‘What’s up, Mum?’ Katie looks wary.
‘Stand against the door frame,’ I say. ‘Back straight, chin up.’
She rolls her eyes as I mark her height and the date. I feel a little bit teary as I see how much she’s grown. I then measure Jack, and then (because they insist) the dog. And when I’m done, I pull them to me, and we all have a big hug. For once, even Katie doesn’t protest.
*
After supper, I begin to move our things upstairs to the spare bedrooms. Technically, we have another day, but somehow it seems best just to get it over with in one fell swoop. I lug two laundry baskets full of clothing from my bedroom to the rooms we’re moving to. I don’t have to clear my closets, but once my room is taken over – including my huge, canopy bed – for the filming, I might not have access if I need anything. Katie’s room is also going to be used for the filming, but not immediately. Still, I’ve warned her that she’ll need to pack what she needs, and for once, she actually listens. She packs laundry baskets, suitcases, and plastic bags full of nearly everything she owns – books, journals, colouring pens, clothing, toys she hasn’t played with in ages, and, of course, her precious Kindle Fire tablet. I draw the line when she tries to move the entire fifty-volume set of Encyclopaedia Britannica in with us. As it is, there’s so much stuff that there’s barely room around the bed, and that’s before I’ve even attempted to move Jack’s clothing, books and toys. His room isn’t being used for the filming, but it seemed best just to have him with us. As I drag the Pack-N-Play travel cot down from the attic for him to sleep in, I feel the familiar prickles of guilt. What kind of mum am I to uproot my son from his cosy room with the Winnie the Pooh wall stickers, superhero mobile, and everything that’s familiar to him since he was a baby? On the other hand, if we didn’t have this project, we might not be able to keep our home.
It’s late by the time everything is moved. Jack is fast asleep in his cot and Katie is in bed reading. I kiss them both goodnight, and go to my room to spend a last night in my own bed. It feels even more final, because tomorrow’s the day – the one-year anniversary of Dave’s death. I’ve arranged with Connie and Hannah that we’ll take the children and go out to the grave and put flowers there.
I lay down in bed staring up at the dark blue canopy over my head and the heavy wooden posts that support it. I’ve moved the dreamcatcher to my new room, and I miss its now-familiar presence. We moved to Tanglewild when Katie was only a year old. She wasn’t conceived in this bed, but Jack was. How long ago that seems. And now, it will be used for a simulated love scene between Victoria and William – played by Natasha Blythe and Dominic Kennedy. I feel a sudden pang of guilt, but quickly talk myself out of it. It wasn’t me who ‘violated the sanctity of the marital bed’, but rather, my husband.
In my head, I rewind the past year. So much of it was spent in darkness, anger, turmoil, fear, and now…? Now, I’m a different person – better or worse, I’m not sure. But different. And I’m not going to feel guilty for it.
I open my e-reader to the place where I’d ended the night before – where Victoria watched the smugglers unloading their cargo. In the next part, she sneaks back to the house:
She closed the door silently behind her, letting out a relieved breath. No one had seen her – and if anyone asked, she had seen nothing. But as she made her way silently across the hard stones of the kitchen floor, she heard a sound behind her. The door opened and slammed shut. Hard footsteps came towards her. She willed herself to run, but instead, her legs froze uselessly beneath her.
His eyes were wild as he came to where she stood, rooted to the spot.
‘What did you see?’ he asked her, his voice dark and menacing.
‘I… I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I… I’ll leave in the morning. It’s better that way.’
‘It’s better this way,’ he growled. And in an instant, his hands were circling her waist, pulling her to him, his mouth hot and wet as he found hers. She felt like she was teetering on a ledge, defying gravity only by his iron grip, and the sheer force of his desire. He pushed her against the wall, struggling more with himself than with her.
But then, just as suddenly, he removed his hands from her, stepping back, pushing her away. She slid to the floor, her heart exploding in her chest, unable to remember what it ever was to breathe. His spurs clicked on the stones as he stalked across the kitchen, and went back outside into the night…
The upshot is that Victoria is left panting, terrified, and wanting more.
As am I, and no doubt, millions of other readers as well. I turn out the light, feeling not very proud of what this says about me and my fellow womenkind. But then again, surely we’re as entitled to our guilty pleasures as men are. Either way, since the dawn of time, Adam and Eve have an awful lot to answer for.
*
Where guilty pleasures are concerned, it’s like speaking of the devil. The next morning, who should arrive at Tanglewild, but The Master himself – Dominic Kennedy. The house is a flurry of removals and deliveries – the movers come to cart away our things from the upstairs rooms, and several loads of tools and materials and props are delivered. Parts of the ground floor are going to be repainted and a kind of industrial plastic is to be installed over all the floors to protect the cast and crew from trip hazards and loose wires. What’s more, they start awfully early in the morning. I manage to give Katie and Jack their breakfasts just as the crew is starting to arrive, but when it’s time to do a last-minute scramble to find homework and gym kit, and finish brushing their teeth and hair, the kids are more than usually hyper and distracted. I end up yelling to try and get them out of the house, Jammie doesn’t want to be locked up in her run, and I’m stressed and I know we’re going to be late—
Which is, of course, exactly when Dominic Kennedy arrives.
He pulls up in his low black sports car, rolls down the window, and speaks to the security guard who is now posted at the entrance to the drive to monitor the comings and goings and keep out any paparazzi or onlookers. The guard waves him in and he parks next to the stone wall just as I’m trying to wrestle Jack into his car seat, out of breath for having run back to the house to retrieve a forgotten Spiderman. For a split second, I debate just getting in the car and driving off, but as soon as Dominic gets out of the car and I see him in the full light of day, I suffer a momentary paralysis. My God – he’s hot.
Like the rest of the world, I’ve seen him in a few mini-series on TV. In them, he usually plays the dashing rogue – tall, dark-haired, perfectly turned-out in period costume. In real life, he’s a little bit shorter and a little bit thinner than the screen makes him out to be. He’s wearing a grey T-shirt, just tight enough to hint at the chest that launched a thousand hot flashes, and well-fitting jeans. If anything, he’s even more handsome than his on-screen alter egos.
‘Mum, we need to go,’ Katie calls out.
‘Um… yeah.’ I find I can’t move.
‘Elizabeth.’ He walks towards me. ‘So what do you think, Miss Bennet?’ he quotes in a deep, Shakespearean voice. ‘Will you come to Pemberley?’
The cheesiness of the quote almost puts me off him. Almost. He immediately senses my reaction and drops the bad Derek Jacobi impression.
‘Sorry, Lizzie.’ He leans casually against the wooden post of the garage. ‘Couldn’t resist.’
‘I’m sure, uh… Dominic.’
His beams his smile upon me, his lips full, eyes rakish. He may be too handsome for anyone’s own good, but there’s a warmth about him too. I find myself wanting to like him.
‘Please – call me Dom,’ he says. ‘I’ve just seen the call sheet. It’s pretty full-on. I think we’re all going to be getting rather cosy around here.’ He gives a little laugh, and I join in. No matter how chaotic it might turn out to be to have the film crew around, there are worse things than having Dominic Kennedy at my house for three months.
‘Are rehearsals starting already?’ I say. ‘I didn’t expect the cast to be here until after they finished the set. But then, this whole thing is completely new to me.’
‘No, you’re spot on,’ he says. ‘The rest of the cast won’t be here yet.’ His smile fades and I detect an undernote of something unexpected. It could be – and probably is – an act. But it almost seems like vulnerability. ‘I like to get on location before anyone else, if possible.’ He casts his eyes to the ground. ‘The truth is, I get stage fright. How lame does that sound?’
‘Not at all,’ I say. ‘I mean I can’t even imagine…’ I trail off, realising that I’m the one sounding lame. The scene I read last night pops into my head – William Clarke entering the house wild-eyed and sweaty, teeming with testosterone. Demonstrating his feelings – or, not to split hairs, forcibly accosting Victoria Easterbrook – leaving her a quivering mass of heaving bosom. This man. In my house. And eventually… though I haven’t got that far in the book yet, only a moron would doubt the final outcome… he’ll be in bed with her.
My bed.
He studies me with half-closed eyes; his eyelashes are long and black. For a moment, I’m sure that he can read my thoughts.
‘Mum!’ Katie calls out, breaking the moment.
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I suppose that there are some parts of the job that are harder than others. For me, it’s that first bit – getting into character. Once I’m there though…’ And this time, there’s no mistaking the spark in those melting brown eyes.
I flush to the roots of my hair. My kids are in the car and we’re late. I don’t have time to let him practice ‘getting into character’ on me.
As delicious as that sounds.
‘Well, knock yourself out,’ I say. ‘Under the terms of the contract, the umm… house… is at your disposal.’
*
‘I think he likes you.’ The incredulity in Katie’s voice jars me from my thoughts. We’re already late, and to top it off, we get stuck at the level crossing while the 8:29 to London Victoria boards.
‘He’s an actor,’ I say. ‘He’s paid to be like that.’
It strikes me that Dominic Kennedy is kind of like a con man. Not the kind who perpetrates a scam by making his victims trust him, but who dupes his victims by pretending that it’s he who’s trusting them. If he is playing a role, pretending to suffer from stage fright, and then winning me over by confiding in me, he’s well-practised and very convincing. Or, maybe he’s just a nice guy who, thanks to an accident of birth, scored a perfect ten in the genes department and became an unwitting sex symbol. If there is such a thing.
‘Is he going to be our new dad?’ Jack says, the words muffled by the thumb in his mouth.
‘No, silly,’ Katie cuts in. ‘Not him.’
I have to slam on the brakes to avoid a shunt with a Range Rover at the chicane. Why are we even having this conversation? What the hell has Connie been saying?
