From my cold dead hands, p.14
From My Cold Dead Hands, page 14
Money comes in, but I look closely at what goes out. There’s been a series of large withdrawals over the last ten months, although even that has hardly dented the amount in there. Backtracking many pages reveals that I’m a stingy bitch. Not a charity in sight. How can I have this much money rolling in and not donate a penny to Cancer Research? Or the Women’s Refuge? I will get it sorted. There seems to be an anomaly. I am paying for three iPhones, not one. They all have a different number, so I fish the one I have out and match it up. But why do I have another two? I probably have a back-up in case I drop one down the toilet or get pissed and go swimming in my clothes. But where are they now? I dial the other numbers to find one goes straight to voicemail.
‘Er, hello? This is Cassie Davenport, and if you get this message, please can you call me back. It’s urgent. My number is…’ I read it from my list.
The other phone is answered immediately. I can hear breathing, but the person on the other end doesn’t say anything. It sounds like a man.
‘Hello?’
Still nothing but the breathing quickens.
‘Sorry, but this seems to be my phone. Did you find it or something?’
Breathing and then a laugh. The phone goes dead, except I’m left shaking and disorientated. Why didn’t he answer? And there’s more. I know that laugh. I know it like I know my own. It’s a laugh that has only ever meant violence and death. What the hell is happening? Who was the man on the other end of the line? How can I find out? And more to the point, do I want to? There are spangles of bright, white light as if a disco ball is spinning at the edge of my vision. I know that laugh.
It takes me a long time to calm down, as I try to rationalise this feeling. I have to change to be ready for the barbeque but it’s like I’m wading through honey. Glancing repeatedly at the clock, I make sure I’m not early to the barbeque, but as before, Senator Raines is already there. Dad is nowhere to be seen.
‘Cassie, my little darlin’.’ Bob places his hands on my shoulder, his fingers trace down my neck and across my collarbone as if this is what he always does. He leans in to kiss me, but I twist my head and the kiss lands on my cheek. If I hadn’t, I would’ve had a “smacker” right on the lips. Is that how the Southern gentry greet each other then? Kisses for married ladies on the lips? I squirm from under his embrace.
‘I didn’t really get a chance to say this last night, but you’ve had a bad time of it, and now we’re all praising God for your safe return to us.’
‘Yep, praise God.’ If only they knew the half of it. I try not to think about the man on the end of my phone. How did he get it? I must know him, surely? Just the thought of him makes me queasy.
I spot Dad striding toward us from the other side of the pool. ‘Good, we’re all here.’
Dolores is standing at the end of the table. Initially, I think she’s been invited, then I notice she’s still in her uniform. Dad clicks his fingers, and Dolores snaps into action like an automated doll that has been wound up and let go. She pulls a wine bottle from a silver bucket of ice and pours a thimble-sized slosh into a tall-stemmed wine glass.
‘Your wine, madam.’ She hands it to me. It’s barely a mouthful, and I wonder how I’ll make it last for longer than a minute. I sip at my wine and eye the bottle. How I can get another glass in without them noticing?
Dad is in a gaudy set of swimming shorts with a Hawaiian theme, all palm trees and coconuts. ‘It’s hot enough for the steaks to griddle themselves.’ He wades down the circular steps of the pool, and I hear him sigh as he immerses himself. ‘This is heaven.’
‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’ Bob pulls off his crisp, white linen shirt. His deeply tanned chest is covered in tiny white curls of hair, but some part of me suspects he is holding his stomach in. He’s wearing khaki shorts with large pockets. As he jumps in, they fill with air like emergency airbags, and he floats around the pool. I laugh but then cover my mouth.
‘Ho, ho. Find that funny, young lady?’
‘Well, it is.’ Have I already gone too far? The sun is in my eyes, and everything is pale like I’m wrapped in white gauze. I can feel the heat tighten my skin as if I’m under the grill and not the waiting steaks. This man is supposedly a long-standing friend. I want to be able to laugh, to have fun and to feel that it’s allowed, that I’m good enough to be loved and cherished, yet I can’t seem to let go of the feeling in my gut that something’s not right.
My dad is thrashing up to the deep end, sending bow waves crashing into the sides of the pool.
‘Come on, Cassie. What ya waitin’ for?’ Bob throws a handful of water over me. Quite frankly, these two old men, splashing about like children in the pool, give me the collywobbles. ‘Get that dress off and come in. You must be cooking out there.’
There’s something in the way that he’s looking at me that I find disconcerting. It’s like the dress is already off, and he’s mentally eyeing up my naked skin. I don’t know how to get out of this situation without offending someone. So, I wriggle out of the summer dress at the edge of the pool and dive in. I found the dress hanging off a hook on my bedroom door. I surface close to him, and he lunges across the pool and pushes my head under. I flail around, and then I hear “burbling” sounds above me. I splutter as I break the surface and push my dripping fringe away from my face.
‘Ouch, you’re hurting me.’ I pull from him, but his fingers are tangled in my hair. A creeping panic slides over me.
‘I’m sorry,’ Bob rubs water from his own face, ‘I completely forgot about your injuries. Please forgive me for being an old fool who still believes he’s thirty.’
‘That’s okay, but can you let me go now.’ The moment he releases me, I scoot across the pool and clamber up the steps, though he’s right behind me. His hands reach out and sort of bump me up.
‘Need a helping hand there, darlin’?’
Not where his hands are now. Confusion and embarrassment overwhelm me like I’ve fallen into a pit of low-level poisonous gas. I’m finding it hard to breathe. What is he doing?
‘I don’t know about you guys,’ Dad is also heading for the steps, ‘but I’m about ready for that cow.’ He doesn’t seem to notice the impropriety of the senator’s actions. Is this normal then? Is this what we do?
‘Hungry, Cassie?’ Bob grins at me as he hauls himself out of the water. ‘I could eat the whole cow, hooves and all and leave nothing but the “moo”.’
I don’t feel safe enough to leave the dress off. I pick it up and wrench it down over my wet skin, but it sticks and gets rolled up.
I hear Bob laugh behind me. ‘Need a hand with that?’ He yanks and tugs, and the dress inches over my hips. He gives it one last wrench, and his hand brushes my inner thigh. I jump away from him as if he’s stung me. Was that on purpose?
I feel chilled, even though the day is practically nuclear hot, and I head quickly for the long table under the cabana. It’s already laid out for us: big white plates, serrated steak knives and an assortment of sauce-pots and bottles. I pick one up. Orange-soda-flavoured barbecue sauce. Orange soda?
‘I do believe that the barbecue is nicely glowing.’ Bob throws a few tons of red and bloody meat onto the ribbed griddle. I thought Dad had been joking, but nearly a whole cow is searing, and I wonder whom we are catering for? It’s a state-of-the-art gizmo that does all singing and all dancing stuff, short of eating the food for you.
I need to get back to some semblance of normal, but instead, I think about a comment from last night that troubles me, although I might be putting my size-six foot in it again. ‘So, Bob. What’s your viewpoint on guns? Do you really believe it’s our constitutional right to be armed?’
‘From my cold, dead hands.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s the AGA’s slogan. “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” Charlton Heston epitomised it in his speech when he was President of the AGA. That man knew what he was talking about.’
‘Okay, that sounds pretty scary, but I like Charlton Heston. I mean, he was great in Planet of the Apes. I’m sorry, but what does AGA stand for again?’
‘American Gun Association. We’re all members, and I do mean all of us.’ He nods, and I realise he means me too. ‘I have an M16 in my living room and a handgun under my pillow. So what do you think my view on guns is?’
‘Come on, that can’t be true. An M16?’ Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut?
‘I’m not joking, darlin’. They’re already at the gate. I’m not waiting for others to come and savage me and mine in my own home. No, siree.’
‘Who is coming to savage you?’
‘You know the answer to that, don’t you.’ This is said as a statement of fact, but if I do know the answer, I’ve entirely forgotten.
Dolores appears from inside the kitchen with a jug. She pours a tall glass and hands it to me. The ice clinks, and there’s a sprig of mint in it. ‘It’s such a hot day; I thought Madam Davenport might like a glass of freshly made lemonade.’
‘Thank you,’ I whisper. Dolores does a sort of “wink” at me.
Bob beckons to me. ‘Come on, Cassie, help me here.’
I’m sure I can still feel him on my skin like an imprint, but I push this aside. He was only trying to help me. I can’t contemplate what it might mean if it was something else. I take a swig of my drink and then realise what the wink from Dolores meant. There is a hefty slug of some “devil” liquor in it. Hallelujah!
‘You can put the buns on there.’ Bob points to the appropriate place on the griddle, and then I feel his hand on the small of my back. I lean forward to prise the buns from the bag when his hand slides down a bit. ‘Talking of nice buns…’
I was right then. What should I do? I swivel to look him in the eye. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but whatever it is, I don’t appreciate it. In case you missed this, I’m a married lady with kids. A Southern lady, no less.’
‘Like that ever bothered you before.’ There’s a tone in his drawl that leaves me shaking. He grins and flips the steaks. They hiss on the hot griddle. I can feel another kind of heat like I’ve pressed my cheeks onto the burning coal surface.
Oh, dear God!
Am I having an affair with this awful, smarmy, jumped-up little man? And more to the point, does my dad know? Was this set up? My dad’s words come back to me: “You know him well”.
‘I’m just going to powder my nose.’ I could kick myself, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say apart from I’m just going to throw up, hope you don’t mind. I walk past the table and then backtrack to grab the jug of lemonade. Hell, I need some more of this stuff. I don’t look back, but I know they’re both staring at me.
I skid into the kitchen. ‘Dolores?’ I’m hissing so she realises there’s something wrong. ‘Where are you?’
‘Here, madam.’ She is pulling a dessert from the fridge that looks like it is made from cream with added cream.
‘Am I having an affair with Senator Raines?’
She nearly drops the cream concoction. ‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ Lucy materialises from behind the fridge door as if she’d just climbed out of it. By the tone in her voice, frosty doesn’t even cover it. ‘Oh, let’s see. Maybe it’s the way he paws at your ass?’
‘I’ll take that as a “yes” then, shall I?’ I put both hands over my eyes, but they can’t blot out the horrible image playing out in my mind, involving large gilt mirrors and hairy bums. ‘How long?’
Lucy sticks her finger into the dessert and then licks off the cream. ‘Maybe a year now.’
Dolores tuts and then smooths over the indent with a knife. ‘Carida, I’ve told you not to do that.’
I sit down at the island. ‘Does Nick know?’
‘We’ve been living at the lodge for months. Since you were fighting so much here, you both thought it was for the best if you separated for a while.’
‘Then none of you live here with us?’
‘We have our own rooms here and come and go as we please.’
‘Do you know what’s happened between Nick and me?’
‘He found out you were having an affair.’
‘With the senator?’
‘I don’t know if it was the senator. I thought it was someone else.’
‘Then he’s the one leaving me?’
‘As far as I can tell, yes, but I think you were trying to defend your honour by inferring that he had an affair first.’
‘Did he?’
‘Dad isn’t that kind of man. He still loves you, the stupid shit, but hey, love is blind, or so I’ve been told.’
‘Why am I doing this? Senator Raines is nearly as old as my father.’ I cling to the breakfast bar, afraid that if I let go, I’ll crumple in a heap on the floor.
‘It’s the prestige. A senator’s mistress? Isn’t that something that every woman aspires to, and if she can then become his wife, well, all the better.’
‘You are joking, aren’t you? You’re saying I’m not even in love with him?’
‘I would say you are in love with his power.’
Dolores is making shushing noises and swatting at invisible flies, but it’s too late for discretion now.
I ignore her. ‘And my dad knows?’
Lucy turns to Dolores, who is now looking out of the window, a hand hovering over her mouth. ‘Dolores, does Grandpa know?’
‘Oh!’ She bites at her bottom lip. ‘I shouldn’t say anything. It’s not my place.’
‘Tell her.’ Lucy lounges across the counter, one thin strap of her vest flops down her arm. I can see another tattoo, one word, ‘Equality’. ‘Go on. Tell her.’
‘Your father instigated it.’
‘Why?’
‘This is not my business to tell you.’
‘I’m drowning here, Dolores!’ I say. ‘Throw me a rope, please.’
Her hands flutter with anxiety, like they’re small caged birds. ‘I don’t know if you will thank me.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘When you married Nick, your father did everything in his power to stop you. But you were always a headstrong little girl. Nick, though, he’s the son of a middle-class tradesman that has come from outside, and that’s a different thing entirely. No class, no true heritage.’
‘Is my father really that shallow? Am I?’
‘He is really that proud. And as for you, only you can answer that.’
Lucy dances over to me in that lithe, gymnastic way she has. ‘Did you look up that flag? The one on your sweatshirt?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘And what did you discover?’
‘That there’s something not right in my world.’
She cocks her finger like a gun and makes a “clicking” sound. ‘You’ve got it.’
‘Okay, I’m going to go back out and get through this without, hopefully, offending anyone. Dolores, please keep this lemonade topped up. I’m going to need it. Lucy, are you coming out?’
‘I wasn’t invited.’
‘I’m inviting you.’
‘In case you didn’t realise, I’m not welcome. It’s a wonder they let me through the gates, but then…’ she trails off.
‘I’d really appreciate it if I could speak to you later.’
‘If I’m still here.’
15
Shadows
Bed is welcome tonight. I pull the covers up and close my eyes tightly. I wish my performance could’ve been filmed as I think I would have won an Oscar with the many ploys I used to avoid Senator Bob and his wandering hands, even to the point of feigning heatstroke and leaving the barbecue early.
I’m beginning to have my doubts. If I’ve managed to get all this wrong so far, maybe I’ve done Nick a dishonour? Perhaps I’m the monster, and he’s the one who has been wronged? Lucy did not make an appearance, so she wasn’t here to visit me. I have a feeling in my gut that she was here to see Dolores. Carida. Dearest. Is Dolores the woman who brought my daughter up? Where was I? Off riding that bloody awful horse? What did she say the other day about Caesar being my “everything”? Did she mean that he came above everyone, including my children? Whatever was in that lemonade has now, coupled with stress and nausea, made my head pound like I’m at a thrash metal concert standing by the speakers in the mosh pit.
My hair is standing on end. But that’s probably because someone is standing at the end of my bed. I didn’t think I’d slept at all, but now a figure has emerged by the chest at the foot of the bed, silhouetted through the gauzy curtains against the light seeping through the shuttered windows.
I shrink back into the bedclothes, feeling like I’ve just been tasered, my breath coming in ragged little pants. There’s something horribly awry with the shadow that’s being cast, and I realise that there’s seems to be another “thing” standing up. There’s a man with a massive erection creeping up on me. Oh, hell! What do I do? I fumble around me for a weapon. I grab the nearest thing, which is a photo frame of Caesar and lunge through the curtains.
‘Take that!’ I do my best to bash my assailant on his head, hoping that it’ll be enough to give me a fighting chance against him, except now I can see his face.
‘Bob?’
‘What the hell are you doing?’ He rubs at his skull.
I yank the covers back up around me. ‘What do you mean, what the hell am I doing? You’re the one sneaking around my room. What on Earth do you think you’re doing? You scared the shit out of me!’
‘I thought that’s what you wanted, that it was on as usual.’
‘I don’t even know you. I find this extraordinary. I’m an amnesiac, which means I can’t remember anything, and I certainly don’t remember you. How dare you think you can just pick up where we might or might not have left off. You’re a bloody stranger, mate, so get out of my room before I call the police!’
‘Hell, I love it when you’re mad. Cassie, you’re so hot and sexy…’ He’s reaching for me as if my words have whizzed over his head and bypassed his ears completely.
