KATE
By Karen Mason
Published by Karen Mason at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Karen Mason
All Rights Reserved
Smashwords
Edition, License Notes
This
ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may
not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to
share this book with another person, please purchase an additional
copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not
purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please
return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.
Book Two - Kate
The story so far….
It is 2009 and Government minister Julia Newbury is about to be named as the new leader of the Labour Party, and therefore, the first female Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher. Alistair Mitchell, the current PM is losing in the polls and wants a new, strong, popular leader, to take Labour into the next election.
Julia, who is married with three children, has however, been having an affair with a Polish builder, and the story is about to be exposed in the papers. Julia is scared of losing everything she has worked for, and feels she is cursed somehow. Her grandmother, Maudie left her husband for an Irish poet, scandalising 1930s society; and Kate, her mother, had Julia by an eighteen year old actor when she was thirty-eight.
When Channel Four want to make a documentary about her family history, Julia thinks about the generations of women before her who have risked it all for passion, and she wonders if she can be the one to break the curse.
Prologue
By the time Emma, the researcher from Channel Four left, Julia was exhausted. It was difficult to talk about her family when she felt her family was somehow to blame for the predicament she was in.
She couldn't wait to get out of the library and went back into the house. The boys were much quieter now, watching a DVD and laughing, as though the arguments of earlier on hadn't happened. Julia went upstairs and had a chat with Rebecca about the day's events. She then went into Tilly's room, kissing her already sleeping daughter goodnight. It was nearly nine o'clock and she felt like turning in too; but she couldn't. She guessed the boys hadn't eaten, and it was her duty to feed them.
She trudged downstairs and went into the living room, sitting down on the sofa next to her sons. In typical teenage fashion, they ignored her and carried on watching the Ben Stiller film on the TV. Julia looked at them and wondered where the time had gone. Will would be fifteen at the end of the year, and he was looking more and more like Dan by the day. Julia remembered her first day at Cambridge and being introduced to Dan Newbury. She’d been convinced someone so tall and blonde and beautiful would never take an interest in a gawky girl like her. Now Will's beauty far surpassed his father's. Ed had taken after her - at thirteen she too had been a little chubby and ruddy faced; she hadn't really blossomed until she got to twenty. Both boys were naughty and rude to her but she adored them and their little sister, and she knew that if it came to the crunch she could give up her career, her marriage - everything, for Pavel, but not her children. The worst punishment for her sins would be for Dan to take her babies away.
‘What do you want for dinner?’ she asked, and this was met by a shrug from Will, and Ed laughed at a funny scene from the film before answering his mother.
‘Pizza,’ he said.
Normally Julia didn’t like them indulging in takeaway pizza, but she was so tired and had no appetite of her own.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You can order pizza, put it on your dad's account. But I want you in bed by ten. You've school tomorrow.’
She left her sons and went up to her room. Her head was pounding and she couldn't even be bothered to get undressed or take off her make-up. She just switched off the light and lay on the bed, wishing she could turn back time to that moment she stepped off the train feeling happy about Alistair's decision. She would freeze that moment, and the horror that happened afterwards would never occur.
She thought about her conversation with Emma, the researcher, and how obsessed everyone was with her family. Even when she'd first been elected, so much had been made of the fact that she was Kate Ryder and Jason Manley's lovechild. Back in 1968, when thirty-eight year old Kate had given birth to a baby by eighteen year old Jason, it had caused a terrible scandal. The term ‘toy-boy’ had yet to be invented, and Kate was just considered a dirty, predatory older woman. It was all so hard to believe now. Julia didn’t see her father often – he was based in LA, but he was fifty-nine and greying, and it was hard to imagine him some young impressionable thing seduced by her mother.
It had taken Kate forty years to confess the truth to her daughter - what had driven her to act so recklessly. And the truth was far more shocking than Kate had ever imagined. She'd never really seen her mother in a relationship. Kate had dedicated her life to bringing up Julia, and her political career, and the only men she hung around with were male friends who would accompany her to Party dinners, or else the occasional trip to the theatre. Kate never seemed to hanker after romance, and in her naivety Julia had believed it was Henry, her mother's first husband, who'd broken her heart and made her run into the arms of a man young enough to be her son. The truth was, she had given her heart to someone who could have ruined everything for her. Julia was definitely beginning to see a pattern emerging.
Chapter One
January 1967
It was quite possibly the coldest January day Kate had ever experienced, and she thought how appropriate it was for a funeral. She'd been to funerals before where the sun had been shining and somehow it had seemed immoral. The bleak weather also matched the fact that today she became thirty-seven - officially on her way to forty. And to be burying a parent made her feel awfully old. A freezing mist swirled around the graveyard of Redlands House, where generations of Ryders were buried, and one day Kate would be too. Julian was being buried next to Agnes, who had died four months earlier, aged ninety-eight. Some of the more sentimental villagers claimed Julian had died of a broken heart, missing his mama. But those in the Ryder inner circle were more willing to believe his heart attack had been brought on by the sheer relief of not being under the old dragon's thumb any more.
Kate didn't cry - she'd done all her sobbing when she received the phone call, telling her that her father had dropped dead whilst out on a walk with Bunty. Indeed in a lot of ways it was like losing a favourite uncle. From the age of three she'd lived with her mother and Brendan, and even though his pig headedness and utter conviction he was right the whole time, drove her mad, Kate loved her step-father ferociously and the thought of anything happening to him was too unbearable to even contemplate.
She still called Julian, ‘Papa’, but she'd only ever seen him in school holidays, and when she’d stayed at Redlands in the winter of forty-seven, when her mother and Brendan had gone on a joint book tour of Australia. Her brother Sean had come with her, and her grandmother had distrusted the young boy so much she would get the servants to check his pockets every time he left the house!
But Kate was still sad that her father had died and felt sad for poor Bunty, who looked truly devastated. She stood on the other side of the grave, trying to mask her crying with a hanky, and Kate felt like shaking her and telling her to stop being so British about it all. Her husband of the past thirty-odd years had died - wasn't she entitled to show some emotion?
Henry let out a discontented sigh and reached into his inside pocket.
‘Is this ever going to finish?’ he whispered. ‘I swear when I go, they can chuck me to the wolves in London Zoo. It'd be quicker than this.’
‘You can be so fucking disrespectful at times,’ Kate hissed at her husband. ‘This is my father's fucking funeral!’
Henry shut up, but as Kate looked around, she saw various relatives giving her a filthy look. She smiled sheepishly and retuned to looking into the grave.
Once the burial was over, everyone headed back to Redlands for tea and light refreshments. It wasn't a big group of people, just Kate and Henry; Bunty, who was being supported by Adrian her younger brother, and a few distant cousins. Hugh and Louise Huntingdon were there, and even today, at his friend's funeral, Hugh had been throwing lascivious looks at Kate. He'd been doing that since she was seventeen and it made her feel as sick now as it had then.
The Ryders now only occupied the West Wing of Redlands. Julian had lost a lot of money after the war and had been forced to convert the east wing into apartments. Kate had vague memories of this place being filled with servants - all terrified of her grandmother. Now today, the only staff were Peters the butler, Lucy the housekeeper and Doris, the cook. Whatever was left of Redlands was now Kate's, and she wasn't sure what she was going to do with it. Her life was down in London. She did toy with turning it into a hotel, but that would make Bunty homeless, and she didn't want to do that to her step-mother.
Between them Bunty, Lucy and Doris had put on a fine spread in what used to be Agnes' drawing room. As the new lady of the house Kate did her best to entertain the guests, while her husband sat sulking on the sofa, smoking a cigarette and looking at his watch.
The vicar who had conducted the service had come in for a sherry, and Kate was talking to him, telling him about her childhood at Redlands, when Hugh Huntingdon sidled up, his nose red and swollen from far too much drink, his revolting breath wafting up into Kate's face and making her feel nauseous.
‘So,’ he slurred. ‘Is it true what I read in the paper? That you're going to be appearing nude in your next film?’
‘This really isn't the place Hugh,’ she cringed.
‘I should be off anyway,’ The vicar said. ‘Thank you for your hospitality Mrs Mandeville.
‘You're welcome Reverend,’ she replied. ‘That was a wonderful service.’
The vicar smiled and walked off. Kate waited until he was out of earshot, then threw Hugh a dirty look.
‘What did you do that for?’ she snapped. ‘You can be so inappropriate Hugh.’
‘Old Julian would have found it funny. Stop being so touchy Kate. If you wanted to be modest, you shouldn't have agreed to make a dirty movie.’
‘It's not a dirty movie, it's an art film by one of Europe's top directors. But I'm sure you're quite familiar with dirty movies aren't you Hugh?’
Kate walked away him from before she caused a scene, and sat next to Henry, who was lighting his next cigarette with his last one and idly twiddling a lock of his scruffy grey hair. She wished he'd made an effort for this funeral. He did have some smart black suits somewhere in his wardrobe, but instead he'd pulled out this monstrosity. It looked like an ill-fitting de-mob suit. He hadn't even bothered to wear a tie, and his shoes were so scuffed there were holes in the toes. His arty Bo-ho look was well appreciated down in London, but up here Kate had a status to maintain and she would have appreciated it if her husband had tried to look the part of the new man of the house.
‘You know I can still feel that old bag's presence in this room,’ he said. ‘I bet she haunts the place at night.’
‘It wouldn't surprise me. I'd like to sell it to a hotel chain or something, but I wouldn't know what to do with Bunty.’
‘Well she's not coming to live with us,’ he snapped.
‘I never said I wanted her to. Why do you always assume things of me?’
The door opened and Peters came in, Kate watched as the middle aged man, who had been a teenage general help when she was a child, dithered, wondering which woman he should go to - Bunty, who was in conversation near the fireplace with one of Julian's distant cousins, or Kate, who now owned the house. In the end, he remembered his etiquette and came over to Kate, bowing low enough for her to hear his whisper.
‘Mr Osbourne is here madam,’ he said.
‘Oh okay,’ she said. ‘Can you show him through to the study?’
‘Yes madam. He has another gentleman with him, a Mr Smith. Are you expecting him.’
‘Smith? No, can't say I am. Okay, we'll be in, in a minute.’
The butler went off and Kate looked at Henry.
‘Are you coming in for the will reading?’ she asked.
‘Why? Will Julian have left something for me?’ he asked mockingly.
‘No. But I thought you might want to give your wife a little support.’
‘Alright. Anything's got to be more exciting than socialising with these bores.’
Kate got up from her seat and went over to Bunty, telling her they were about to do the will reading. Bunty thanked her and made her excuses to her companion. Bunty looked so frail that Kate felt tempted to reach out and grasp her arm. Her step-mother had always been slim, but since Julian died, the weight had dropped off her. She still was so elegant, with her curled grey hair and her finely made up face, and Kate remembered being about twelve and being so obsessed with the beautiful Bunty, she’d even contemplated dying her hair blonde, just so she could try and look like her.
They went into the study at the back of the house, outside the window were all the wild flowers her mother had planted many years ago. They were now so out of control and scruffy, Maudie would have gone mad if she came over to England and saw them. Kate still remembered her mother's pride at her cultivated and yet wild garden, and it had angered her that Agnes had given the staff strict instructions not to touch it. Now eight foot reeds stretched up, blocking the light and it just looked neglected and sad.
Miles Osbourne, who was a senior clerk for Guppy's, the family solicitor, was sat by Maudie's old Davenport desk. He had the flap down and his papers resting on it, but he sat facing his audience, which at the moment consisted of a tall man in late middle age, with a head of thick, greying fair hair and a rather ruddy face. Kate had no idea who he was, and when Osbourne instructed her to sit next to him, she did so; but was rather puzzled why. Bunty and Henry sat in the two dining chairs that had been placed behind, and once everyone was seated, Osbourne began, taking a piece of paper from the desk. But before he started to talk, he looked from Kate, to the other man.
‘Let me just introduce you to our guest,’ he said. ‘This is Geoffrey Smith. Mr Smith, this is Mrs Mandeville.’
The solicitor went to put his glasses on, to read the will, but Kate stopped him, looking at Geoffrey.
‘I'm sorry, who are you?’
‘Your father was very good friends with my mother,’ the man replied in a gruff, Yorkshire accent. A feeling of suspicion crept into Kate's bones. He had the same colour hair as Julian and that wide, Ryder mouth. Her father had had it, and she had it too - so did half the relatives in the paintings on the walls. Was this a bastard son? And had he been left something in the will?
‘Right, I shall begin,’ Osbourne said, returning to the will. ‘This is the last will and testament of Julian John Ryder of sound mind. To my beloved wife Bunty I leave the sum of five hundred thousand pounds and my mother's jewellery. To my daughter Catherine I leave the sum of ten thousand pounds, and two properties - number sixteen and number twenty two Queens Drive, Liverpool. I leave this to her because her mother is Liverpudlian and it's only fitting she retains these properties to do as she sees fit. To my son Geoffrey Ryder Smith, I leave Redlands House, ownership of Cleland Holdings and all its companies. I also leave the sum of five hundred thousand pounds, all my cars and any horses belonging to the family. My only request is that my wife Bunty is allowed to remain in the house until her death.’
And that was it, the will reading was over. Kate was stunned, convinced what had just happened was some elaborate trick, or a nasty dream; or that Henry had thought it fun to slip some LSD into her tea to make her hallucinate. She couldn't possibly believe that this man who she did not know from Adam, who had just walked into her house, was taking it from her.
‘Can someone explain to me what's just happened?’ she uttered.
‘Mr Smith was the first child born to your father, in 1909. He's male, and therefore the rightful heir to Redlands House.’
Kate shot a look at Geoffrey, who sat with a very smug smile on his face.
‘Are you a bastard?!’ she exclaimed. ‘Was your mother married to my father? In 1909 he was seventeen!’
‘They were childhood sweethearts,’ Geoffrey replied. ‘Mother was working as a maid at Burton House in Leeds, and Julian came to stay for the summer of 1908, that was when she became pregnant for me.’
‘Well I demand a blood test!’ Kate huffed. ‘What proof have we got that he's my brother?’
‘The late Mr Ryder never denied the existence of Mr Smith,’ Osbourne said gently, trying to calm Kate down. ‘He made regular visits to him and his mother, and paid a regular amount to maintain him.’
Kate looked round at Bunty, who sat with her head hung low, clearly embarrassed and answering Kate's question before she even asked it.
‘Did you know about this?!’
‘It's not how it seems Kate,’ Bunty said.
Kate couldn't take any more. Her legendary temper was rising, and when it did, she became violent. She'd been expelled from two schools because of it and right at that moment, the urge to push the fat, smug, righteous Geoffrey Smith off his chair, and to rip up her father's will and shove it down Osbourne's throat, was overwhelming. But instead she ran out of the room and up the stairs to her old nursery. She always slept in there when she came to stay at Redlands; and it could belong to Geoffrey Smith until the cows came home, it would always be her bedroom.
Throwing herself face down on the bed, she started to cry. Not just because she'd had her inheritance snatched from her, and a brother she didn't know existed, thrust upon her. She also felt great injustice for her mother. The Ryders had treated Maudie so cruelly - Agnes accusing her and Brendan of being IRA members who wanted to rob or kill the family. Kate even had vague memories of her mother being banished from Redlands, and how she'd cry for her every night. And yet all the while Julian had had an illegitimate son hidden away. Kate wanted to phone her mother in Chicago and tell her everything, but Maudie had had a stroke in '65 and since then she liked to have a sleep in the morning. It would be unfair to trouble her now.
She heard the door open and glanced round to see it was Bunty. Trust Henry not to bother to come and see if his wife was okay - he was probably downstairs raiding the wine cellar before they were told to leave by the new squire.
Bunty sat upon the bed and laid one of her elegant hands upon Kate’s shoulder, squeezing it slightly.
‘I'm so sorry Kate,’ she said. ‘I've been sworn to secrecy for all these years.’
Kate rolled onto her back, hardly able to see her step-mother through her tear-filled eyes.
‘It's so unfair,’ she sniffed. ‘Mummy was treated like a leper because she fell in love with Brendan, and all the time Papa had a bastard tucked away in Yorkshire.’
‘It was the reason why Agnes always wanted your mother to give Julian a son, to stop Geoffrey from claiming his inheritance. When Julian and I married, Agnes pressured me into going to Harley Street to have tests to see if I was capable of having children, but I was thirty-eight by then and badly damaged internally after Maurice had kicked me once. It was then that Agnes came to terms with the fact that Geoffrey Smith was going to take over this place.’
‘Why didn't you tell me?’
‘Julian planned on changing his will when Agnes died. The will you've just heard was drawn up before Agnes became ill, and she threatened to disinherit him if he didn't leave the money to Geoffrey.’
‘But why? I don't understand. She wanted Papa and you to have a son so Geoffrey didn't get the money.’
‘It was to spite your mother.’
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes.’
Bunty fished in the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a white envelope, passing it to Kate.
‘This is from your father, it explains everything far better than I can.’
Bunty got off of the bed and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Kate sat up in bed and wiped her tears on the cuff of her black, Mary Quant blouse. She felt the letter before opening it, and realised there were keys inside. She wondered what they were for. She tore the envelope open and tipped a set of door keys onto her lap, she then pulled out the letter, immediately recognising her father's neat, tiny handwriting, done in his favourite blue fountain pen. It was dated the third of October 1966, three weeks after her grandmother died.
My darling Kate
If you are reading this, it means I have died before I had a chance to change my will. Mother's death has not come as a shock to me but there is so much for me to sort out before I find the courage to go against her wishes and reinstate you as the heir to Redlands. I have left this letter with Bunty to give to you on event of my death, and told her to discard it if I get to change my will.
I am so sorry about Geoffrey Smith. I fathered him when I was sixteen years old and infatuated with Florrie Smith, a pantry maid at Burton House. She became pregnant by me and gave birth to a son, Geoffrey. Lady Carlton, Florrie's employer was livid and demanded mother did something about it, so a provision was made that until I was twenty-one, a small sum of money was paid to Florrie by my parents. When I reached maturity, the money came out of my own earnings. When Maudie became pregnant with you, mother had hoped you'd be a boy, so there would be a legal heir to Redlands, but you were instead a beautiful girl, and even though I was fond of Geoffrey (I visited him from time to time). You were, to me, my first child. Despite what happened afterwards, I loved your mother deeply, and she loved me and you were made from that love.
When you were born I wanted to change my will, to make you heir to Redlands. With a role model like Grace Gilbert-Wood around, I knew you'd have no difficulty in taking over your ancestral home. But mother forbade it, insisting we did our best to get a son. When Maudie ran off with Brendan, my mother never recovered from it and hated your mother until the day she died. I pleaded with her once more to let me leave Redlands to you, but she refused, saying she would disinherit me if I did. I could have coped with that, but she also threatened to start spreading rumours that you were not actually my daughter and not entitled to a penny. So I gave in to her. Once it became evident that Bunty would not provide me with a son, mother even suggested I take advantage of one of the young maids in order to get her pregnant! I refused of course, and it was then that she forced me to change my will, leaving everything to Geoffrey.
I have made sure you receive something. I know you don't really need the money - you are a successful actress in your own right. But if you and Henry ever did decide to start a family, then use the ten thousand pounds as a trust fund for your children. I've also left you the two houses in Walton that we own. Cleland Holdings haven't any interests in Liverpool now - those two houses are all that remain. They always bring in a steady rent and you can sell them whenever you see fit.
Also in the envelope are some keys. I never told my mother that I bought a house in Chelsea in 1950. I bought it for you. Chelsea is a prime location and the house is probably worth more than Redlands nowadays! I know you and Henry don't often see eye-to-eye, so perhaps you could use it as some sort of retreat, or just sell it. I will leave it up to you. It is number eleven Elm Park Road, a lovely little road off Beaufort Street. The tenant has recently died and I don’t think anyone else has moved in.
Once again my darling, I am so sorry for this. Try to establish a relationship with Geoffrey. He is your brother after all. And let some good come out of this horrible situation.
All my love
Papa x
Kate read the letter again and tried to make sense of it all. Wondering how Agnes Ryder came to be so hateful. She felt ashamed to have the same blood running through her veins.
Exhausted, she fell asleep and the next time she awoke the room was freezing cold and pitch black. Everything that had happened came back to her and she realised she was now a lodger in her own family's home. She sat up and switched on the bedside lamp, looking at her watch and seeing it was half past seven. If she and Henry started driving now, they could be home by early morning.
Levering herself off the bed, Kate stumbled over to the mirror above her washstand and remembered as a little girl pulling a stool over to it and climbing upon it, staring into the mirror and pretending to be a fairy tale princess, convinced the mirror was magic and it would grant her wishes. Now all she wished for was to have come from a nicer family....and for her face to stop ageing! With her coal black hair, big blue, sleepy eyes, perfect nose and that luscious Ryder mouth, she was still considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. But very slowly, tiny crows feet were beginning to appear beside her eyes, and around her mouth there were faint spider lines which her lipstick had started to seep into.
She turned around, and checked herself out from the side. She was the only person she knew who actually lost weight over Christmas. Her and Henry's house in Putney was always full of people over the Festive Period - a lot of them Kate didn't actually know; they just descended upon the Mandevilles, like some sort of extended family. The house would be filled with fellow artists, actors, musicians and models. Most of them were drifting through London with no family to call upon, so Henry made it an open house. Of course, Kate was the one expected to do all the running around, and the stress of it all made her lose weight. Now she looked too skinny, and she knew Roberto Sabatini would want her to gain at least seven pounds before she made 'Sheba' - his 'dirty movie'.
Kate went downstairs wondering what she was going to find - the balifs waiting in the lobby with all her belongings? Geoffrey Smith hanging a portrait of himself along with the other Ryders? Instead she found the lobby dark, with just a light coming from under the drawing room door. Without knocking, Kate pushed it open and found Henry sitting drinking brandy with his new-found brother-in-law. Kate felt a sense of betrayal, knowing her husband would rather spend time with this stranger than find out if his wife was okay.
‘How are you feeling?’ Henry asked, his voice slurred and his chubby face ruddy. It was clear this was not the first drink he'd had since the funeral.
Kate ignored him and sat down on the same sofa; but at the other end so she didn't have to be near him.
‘I can perfectly understand if you want to contest the will,’ Geoffrey said. ‘But I want you to know you will always be welcome here. You are my sister after all.’
‘Did you know about me?’ Kate asked, still finding talking difficult, given how hurt she was feeling.
‘Aye, our father told me all about you. He would show me photos when he came to visit.’
‘Did he visit often?’
‘When he could. He was a busy man.’
‘What do you do Mr Smith?’ she asked, trying to sound polite and mask the hatred and resentment she felt for this man.
‘I'm a butcher, I own several shops in Leeds and the surrounding areas.’
‘Paid for by my father?’
‘That's none of your business darling,’ snapped Henry. ‘Geoff has won this place fair and square.’
‘It's not a competition Henry! I am my father's only legal child and Redlands should be mine. Instead, my grandmother bullied him into leaving everything to your friend Geoff to spite my mother for leaving Papa for Brendan.’
‘I'm sure that wasn't it,’ Geoffrey said. ‘It's just that I'm the only male heir.’
‘Bunty filled me in on everything. Where is she by the way?’
‘In bed,’ Henry said. ‘The day took it out of her.’
‘No, perhaps she just isn't a Judas like you and couldn't bear to be in the same room as this impostor.’
‘I'm not an impostor Kate,’ Geoffrey insisted. ‘Your father has left everything to me in sound mind, whether our grandmother bullied him or not.’
Kate looked at Henry and reached out, snatching away the glass he was just about to put to his lips.
‘I want to go home,’ she declared.
‘Don't be ridiculous!’ Henry scoffed. ‘I'm too shattered to drive.’
‘Well I'm not, so I'll drive.’
She stood up and looked down at her brother, who appeared to be quite bemused by everything that had happened up until now.
‘Thank you for your offer of hospitality Mr Smith,’ she said. ‘But my husband and I will be leaving for London immediately.’
Chapter Two
After driving for six hours, followed by a blazing row with Henry when they got in, Kate got about four hours sleep before she was awoken by workmen doing roadworks outside her window. With her nerves shattered, she got out of bed and went downstairs for coffee, on the way forgetting to overstep the second stair and treading on it, getting one of its many splinters in her heel. With a yelp, she hobbled down the rest of the stairs and into the scruffy living room, where Henry was still asleep on the sofa, his horrible suit even more crumpled.
Ignoring him, Kate sat down and lifted her leg, taking the vicious looking black splinter from her foot. For ages she'd nagged Henry to put carpet on the stairs, but he insisted on keeping the house's rustic features. It was a two storey semi in Putney, hardly a run down gitte in the Dordogne!
Kate wondered why she hadn't told Henry about her father's letter, or the gift of the house. She'd gone to tell him lots of times that night, but something held her back. Maybe it was the thought of having her own place to go to when things got too unbearable with him. After fifteen years of marriage, the magic had long gone, and if he wanted to bring one of his floozies home, well they could have the place to themselves if Kate wasn't there. They'd both had affairs over the course of the marriage, but Kate always had the decency to see her lovers outside the home; but Henry had the horrible habit of bringing them home like stray dogs.
Henry stirred and turned onto his back, letting out a loud fart, followed by a disgusting belch that made Kate’s stomach turn. She would have liked to fool herself into believing he'd been a different man when they'd met back in 1951, but he'd been exactly the same, only with a little more charm. Even then he was fat, out of condition and indulged in too much drink and sex with other people. But as a naive, young drama student, she'd been smitten with him, convinced she was the woman to tame him, and in turn he would change the things about herself she didn't like.
‘What are you up to today?’ he grumbled, not even bothering to open his eyes.
‘I thought I'd go into town to see Mickey,’ she said. ‘Then this afternoon I'm meeting with Anita Bellamy about a Vietnam protest she's organising.’
‘Bloody Vietnam. It's thousands of miles away, we're not even fighting in it. Why are you bothering to protest?’
‘Because it's bloody disgusting American Imperialism at its worst. They're drafting young men in to go and slaughter innocent people, and be slaughtered themselves. Doesn't it worry you that you fought in the War to bring peace to this world and now the Americans are just using their might to destroy it?’
‘I fought in the war because I was conscripted,’ he replied sardonically. ‘I couldn't give a stuff about world peace. In fact, have you seen some of the architecture from Nazi Germany, fucking amazing. They may have been evil, but their aesthetics were fantastic.’
‘I can't talk to you when you're like this,’ she said, getting up and going into the kitchen.
‘Well don't talk to me then!’ he called. ‘And don't bring back any of your protesting friends tonight either, I want peace and quiet, I'm starting my new work.’
‘Oh get stuffed,’ Kate snarled, and she slammed the kitchen door behind her.
A cup of strong coffee and a shower later, and Kate felt ready to face the world. She wrapped herself up in a black, woollen dress and her knee length boots and set off to Knightsbridge to meet Mickey, her best friend. As she drove through the suburbs of Putney, people stopped and stared at her - the beautiful, famous movie star in the bright green Chevrolet Impala convertible that Maudie and Brendan had had shipped over for her on her thirtieth birthday. A cold January day was hardly fitting for posing in an open topped car; but Kate enjoyed feeling the wind blow through her hair, brushing away the cobwebs as she drove too fast over Putney Bridge.
Kate had been friends with Mickey Santangelo for fourteen years. Ironically he'd been the first of Henry's extra marital conquests that she got to meet. Henry had got in with another group of artists who smoked opium and drank absinthe, claiming that if mixed together, it opened their minds. All it did for Henry was convince him he was bisexual, and he wanted to express it by painting pretty boys. Mickey became his muse, after Henry found him working as a waiter in a restaurant in Bayswater. The young boy moved into their house, and when the still fairly naïve Kate found him in bed with her husband, she left him and went home to Twickenham to her mother and Brendan. She only changed her mind when Mickey phoned her and invited her out for a drink and told her that barely anything had happened between him and Henry. He reassured her that Henry wasn't bisexual at all, and she had nothing to worry about. Still besotted with her husband, Kate came home and over time, Henry's boorish behaviour just pushed her and Mickey together as friends. Not long after Henry, Mickey met a rich man who bought him his own hairdressing salon, and now he was a stylist to the stars. He was also now married to a woman - Elinor Gunn, an older actress Kate had introduced him to. Although they slept in separate beds, Elinor liked to parade Mickey around like a trophy.
Pulling up outside his large, glass fronted salon, two doors down from Harrods, Kate laughed when she spotted all Mickey's minions come running to the window, excited because Kate Ryder had come to visit. They all knew that Kate had partied with the Rolling Stones and acted with Terence Stamp, and hoped that some of her glamour would rub off on them. Kate parked the car and got out, striding confidently into the salon, wondering which of the little helpers would get there first. It turned out to be Patty, a pretty little thing with a Twiggy haircut and big, doe-like brown eyes.
‘Hello Miss Ryder,’ she gushed. ‘How are you today? Have you come in for a cut?’
‘No, I want to see Mickey, is he here?’
‘Mr Santangelo's in his office. Shall I see if he'll see you?’
‘He will,’ she said. ‘Thanks Patty.’
The girl gasped on hearing that Kate had remembered her name, and ran to the other little dollies, squealing. Kate couldn't deny that she enjoyed the adoration. Strangely enough, it was always girls who went potty over her. Geraint Bailey, an old ham who she acted with in a TV play once told her it was because, despite being beautiful, there was something boyish about her and she reminded girls of their first crushes at school - the young boys who were quite feminine and pretty and unthreatening.
Mickey’s office was on a mezzanine floor at the back of the building. From here he could survey his empire and check on everything that was going on. Today he was sat with his feet up on the desk, on the telephone to someone, laughing at whatever they were saying. At the moment Mickey was going through an American gangster phase; his outfit of choice a pin-stripe suit, black and white spatz. His dark hair slicked back from his brow. He could just about get away with it - his father was Italian and he had the dark good looks to carry it off.
Kate perched on the side of the desk, and waited while he finished his phone call. When he put the receiver down, he nodded his head in the direction of the door, indicating for her to close it.
‘You’ll never guess who that was,’ he said in his brash, East End accent.
‘Who?’
‘Jane Asher’s agent. She’s coming here next Thursday for a cut, and guess who’s she’s bringing with her…..’
‘No!’
‘Yes. This place is going to erupt into chaos. A Beatle in the building! I’m going to have to close it to the public and everything.’
‘Paul McCartney’s lovely, I met him at a party up in Liverpool a few years ago.’
‘You and your name dropping!’ Mickey laughed. ‘Anyway what can I do you for?’
‘Fancy a chat? Lito wouldn’t let us go in for a quick one would he?’
‘Oh I think we could persuade him.’ He got up and grabbed his crombi from the coat stand, finishing it off with the fedora hat that had been resting on the back of his chair. ‘Come on, let’s go and make him an offer he can’t refuse.’
Carlito’s on Basil Street was a drinking den to the stars. Quite often events that had happened there would be in the papers the next day - be it a fight that had broken out between two hot-headed young actors, or a forbidden romance between a married actor and starlet. Somehow it would end up making the headlines, and Carlito’s notoriety grew. Lito, the owner was good friends with Mickey, and often allowed him and Kate to pop in there before opening time for a few drinks while he set up for the day, and today wasn’t any different.
The bar was in a basement, and walking down into it felt like stepping into the bowels of the earth, heading for hell. Kate had also committed her fair share of sins in here, the last one being back in August of the previous year, when she’d done some acid and had ended up passionately kissing a young starlet called Candy Edwards. Fortunately for her, that night, a terrible fight had broken out between two pop stars, and their antics made the papers, and hers went unreported.
The door was open and they stepped inside. The place smelt of disinfectant that was masking last night’s tobacco and stale alcohol. It was hardly appealing, but right then all Kate wanted to do was hide in one of the dark booths with Mickey and talk about herself. Lito was behind the bar, polishing glasses. He and Mickey were the same age and of the same ancestry, but it was so hard to believe. While Mickey had kept his looks, Lito was at least four stone overweight, had lost his hair and wore a permanently miserable expression.
‘Any chance of a sneaky one Lito?’ Mickey asked in his most whiny, persuasive voice.
‘What do you want?’ Lito snapped.
‘Anything,’ Kate said. ‘Something that will get me drunk fast.’
‘I’m out of mixers. How about wine?’
‘Wine’s fine,’ Mickey said. ‘You still got that Chianti?’
‘Yeah, loads of it.’
‘Give us a bottle of that then.’
Before Christmas Lito had bought several crates of Chianti off his Tuscan cousin, thinking it would sell well. No one liked it and he was still stuck with it. He gave Mickey and Kate two of the unusual straw bottomed bottles, and a couple of glasses, and told them to fuck off. As was the procedure, they went into the darkest booth, in the corner of the room. It was partially hidden by wooden beams, so if the people from Licensing turned up, they were unlikely to spot them.
In ten minutes, Kate got through two glasses of the sweet red wine, and poured out her troubles to her friend. She laughed at Mickey's agog expression as she told him about her long lost brother and how he'd robbed her of her inheritance.
‘You know what you should do with that letter?’ he suggested, lighting a cigarette and glancing around, wary that it had created too much light and drew attention to them. ‘You should take it to the solicitor and contest the will. Surely that letter proves your father didn't want to leave Redlands to this Geoffrey person.’
‘I don't know,’ she sighed, dragging hard on her cigarette and taking another large gulp of wine. ‘I don't know if I even want Redlands, or Cleland Holdings or any of that shit. I've never been materialistic, you know that Mickey. What hurts more is that I always thought I was Julian's only child, and really I had a brother who was twenty-odd years older than me. And then there's mummy, treated like a leper because she met Brendan, and all the time the Ryders were hiding their dirty secret.’
‘Have you been to see this house in Chelsea?’ Mickey asked.
‘No. I might go later on, I've got the keys with me. I don't think I'll sell it. I'll keep it and if Henry's pissing me off, I'll go and stay there.’
‘Things not going good?’
‘The man's a nightmare. He was only thirty-five when you met him Mickey, and he was difficult then. Imagine what it's like living with him at fifty.’
‘You need to find yourself a lover,’ Mickey laughed. ‘You've never had a proper affair have you? Only the odd one night stand with some boy or girl who's taken your fancy.’
‘I've got to be careful Mickey,’ she snapped. ‘If I have a fling with a woman I'll end up becoming infatuated with her, and if I have a fling with a guy, I could get pregnant or something.’
‘Get pregnant!’ Mickey urged. ‘You'll have proper heirs to Redlands then.’
‘Too late. Geoffrey told Henry that he's got a thirty year old son and a five year old grandson, so there you have it. Besides, I don't want a baby. Never have done, and I'm getting too old anyway.’
‘Rubbish. My aunt Theresa had Luca when she was forty-six.’
‘Yes and Luca is twenty-eight and has the mental age of four. I don't want to give birth to some imbecile.’
‘You're thirty-seven and a day. You're young and healthy. Truth is you don't want a kid cos it would ruin your figure.’
‘Too right it would. My time as a sex symbol is coming to an end as it is. I don't want it speeded up by stretch marks and floppy tits!’
‘I hope you're not going to be this miserable at the party on Saturday. It took a lot of persuasion on my part to get Cassandra King to lend the house to us. I don't want the whole thing spoilt by you being a miserable cow.’
‘As long as there's plenty of the good stuff, I won't be. And maybe see if you can score some cyanide for my husband won't you?’
By the time Kate left Carlito's, she was so drunk she could barely walk. She had to lean on Mickey and let him take her back to his flat in Beauchamp Place to sleep it off. He went back to the salon, and left her on the big, white leather sofa in the middle of his little studio apartment. Mickey only used the place as a Pied a Terre - somewhere to crash after a late night at the salon, or else to bring a conquest back. Most of the time he and Elinor shared a huge cottage in Epsom.
By the time Kate woke up, she saw it was half past four and realised she'd missed the chance to meet with Anita Bellamy. The actress was an avid protester and was holding a meeting about Vietnam above the Bell and Compass pub in Fulham at three o'clock. It would be over by now, and no doubt Anita would think Kate another air-brained glamour-puss jumping on a band wagon.
Climbing off the sofa, Kate's head pounded, and she stumbled into the immaculate white kitchen and made herself a strong coffee; then another until she started to feel normal again.
Clutching her third cup of coffee, she wandered over to the window and looked out at the dark afternoon. Over the tops of the houses and across the road she could see the lights that decorated Harrods and she found herself longing for her mother. She remembered being a little girl and Maudie bringing her and Sean here at Christmas. They saw Santa and afterwards Maudie took them to the toy department and bought Sean a huge fire engine, and Kate a massive golden dog to cheer her up because Puggle had died. What Kate didn't realise was that Brendan and Maudie had brought her a real puppy for Christmas - a Cairn terrier she called Smokey. In her hungover, self-pitying state, Kate missed her family, wishing they were here and not in America. They'd moved out to Chicago in 1959, when Brendan was offered the job of Literature Professor at the University of Illinois. Even though he'd never been to university himself, his poetry about Ireland and its struggles was considered amongst the greatest of the twentieth century, and it was enough for them to make him an honorary professor. Maudie's books had always proved popular in the States, and Sean was in Ireland, at Trinity College, finishing his PhD in genetics, so Kate was the one left behind. She spoke to them at least twice a week, but since her mother had a stroke two years ago, it had become less. The doctors reckoned Maudie would always be weak down the left side of her body, and at the moment her speech was still slurred. But right now, Kate just wanted her mother to put her arms around her and tell her everything was going to be okay.
Now relatively sober, she left the flat and walked back round to the salon and picked up her car. Patty, the junior, was on her own, sweeping up, and gave Kate a little wave, accompanied by an adoring smile. For a moment Kate wondered if she should invite the girl out for a drink and have fun trying to seduce her. But she thought again. However pretty Patty was, she was an innocent, and she might go running to the papers if Kate tried to touch her. If the press found out Kate was bisexual, then that would be the end of her career. So instead she waved back at the girl and got back into her car, setting off for the short journey to Elm Park Road in Chelsea.
The house her father had bought for her was beautiful. Elm Park Road was tucked away between Kings Road and Fulham Road, lined with trees and filled with dark bricked villas. Kate's house was in the middle, with a driveway and a finely landscaped front garden. Kate felt a rush of love for her late father for investing in such a beautiful property, and she couldn't wait to see the interior.
Stepping into the dark, musty smelling house, Kate switched on the lights and strangely saw the place through Henry's eyes. Her husband liked everything to be natural - wooden floors and stairs, walls painted neutral white - even their kitchen table had been imported from a French farmhouse, and was covered in other people's scratches and cigarette burns. This place was a world away and reminded Kate of her grandmother's drawing room at Redlands. The walls were decorated in a beige wallpaper with tiny swallows all over it. The furniture was antique, probably brought from a dealer down in Lots Road. Beneath her feet was wine coloured deep pile carpet, and up the windows hung deep red curtains. It was quite charming and Kate felt ashamed at the snob in her, that fleetingly felt this was the sort of place she belonged.
The kitchen was huge and modern but still had a huge larder at the back. Kate remembered hiding from Bunty in the larder at Redlands once, and she fell asleep from the cold. When cook found her, apparently all her extremities were blue and they thought she was dead. She was such a naughty child.
Kate fell in love with her new house and wondered if Henry would consider moving into it. She knew deep down he never would. He'd made the house in Putney too much his own. He'd transformed their attic into a studio, and was so set in his ways he wouldn't think of creating another one somewhere else. Besides, Kate liked the thought of this being her own secret bolthole. It was reassuring to know that only Mickey and Bunty knew about it. And that was how it was going to stay until she made up her mind what she was going to do with it.
She drove home to Putney. The little terraced house off the High Street looked so modest and scruffy compared to her new palace in Chelsea, and she suddenly felt very depressed about having to come back here. She let herself in, and the first thing she was greeted with was a girl coming down the stairs wrapped up in a green, silk dressing gown. She stopped mid-stair and gave that look people always did when they recognised Kate, then carried on walking.
‘Hello,’ Kate said, feeling a little politeness wouldn’t have gone a miss.
‘Hi,’ the girl said and she turned and walked towards the kitchen. Kate presumed her to be Henry’s latest muse. He’d been going on about a series of paintings based on Hollywood glamour, and this one certainly fitted the part. Her hair was honey blonde and shoulder length, and the belt of the dressing gown cut into a tiny waist that then spilt out into wide hips that wiggled as she walked. Kate hadn’t seen girls look like that in about five years.
‘Oh you’re home.’
Kate looked up to find Henry at the top of the stairs in that awful robe he always wore that was far too short, and from this angle she could see he was naked underneath. Obviously Miss Dolly Bird was more than just a muse.
‘Have I interrupted you?’ she snapped.
‘I was just doing some preliminary shots with Jane.’
‘That required you to be naked? Very original Henry.’
Kate went into the kitchen and found ‘Jane’ sitting at the table, and the kettle warming up on the cooker. This girl had obviously been told to make herself at home, and she was doing just that. Kate went to the fridge and got out a bottle of white wine and a dusty wine glass from the cupboard. She looked round at Jane.
‘Can I tempt you?’ she asked.
Jane looked round and saw the wine bottle being brandished at her and smiled.
‘Go on then,’ she giggled.
Kate got another glass from the cupboard and sat opposite Jane. As she poured the wine, she discreetly looked at her in the way she’d clocked so many girls of Henry’s in the past. It was a strange mixture of checking out the competition, and looking at her out of her own curiosity. Jane couldn’t be described as a typically pretty girl, but there was certainly something about her heart shaped face, and her big blue eyes, and the mole above the full lips that were still stained with red lipstick. Another half a stone and she would have been fat, but just as she was, she oozed all the glamour of the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield. She was a world away from the mini-skirted, skinny little dollies who worked for Mickey.
‘You know I just slept with your husband don't you?’ Jane asked. Her accent was what Kate called 'BBC English'. She'd heard many actresses speak like it over the years. They were usually working-class, but their agents thought they would get more work if they sounded like some sort of BBC announcer. It was very false, and Kate would lay money on Jane being common underneath all the glamour.
‘You wouldn't be the first,’ Kate said pragmatically, sipping her wine and immediately regretting it. After her and Mickey's indulgencies earlier on, she felt sick. ‘Henry likes to audition most of his muses.’
‘I think I'd go mad if I came home and found one of my husband's mistresses coming down the stairs, naked except for a robe.’
She took a box of Benson and Hedges from the robe pocket and offered one to Kate, which she accepted.
‘Are you married?’ Kate asked, lighting her cigarette.
‘Separated. I married too young, sixteen. I got to twenty-one and realised I didn't want to be tied to a husband and child, so I left my son with my husband in Luton. I've been down here three years now and I get by.’
‘Do you still see them?’
‘Occasionally. Len's got a new girlfriend, and Bobby thinks of her more as mum than me. He's better off without me anyway.’
Despite its affectations, her voice had a hard tone to it, which Kate got the feeling was masking hurt feelings. Not many women could walk away from their child and not feel guilty.
‘So have you done much acting?’
‘I've appeared in a couple of films. I studied at the Sylvia Manning School - that was where I learnt to speak properly. Sylvia got me a role in a comedy film, Laughter in the Rain.’
‘Laughter in the Rain!’ Kate exclaimed. ‘One of my best friends, Helena Allen, was in that.’
‘Yes, she played the lead role,’ Jane smiled. ‘I played Girl in the Department Store in the Tight Jumper.’
Kate's eyes wandered down to Jane's ample bust and laughed.
‘I can see why.’
Jane laughed too and sucked hard on her cigarette. Kate could see under the smudged make up and Hollywood hair, she was indeed very young. Her skin was milky and smooth, and despite being a separated wife and mother, her eyes held the innocence of youth. Something stirred in Kate, but she wasn't sure what it was. Was it envy because of her own impending middle-age? Was it jealousy that Jane was so much more feminine than her, and had just had her husband? Or was it something else?