The Perfect Retreat

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE




Merritt and Willow were having an almighty row. Filming was halted until they had sorted out their differences, but it seemed they were at a stalemate.

‘You were kissing him,’ said Merritt accusingly.

‘You didn’t see me clock him in the face!’ she screamed at him.

Merritt chose to ignore this. The jealousy he was experiencing far outweighed what he had felt when he caught Eliza and Johnny together. He was furious with Willow and with Kerr for spoiling his idyllic life.

‘Stop being such a jealous pig, Merritt. You have no right,’ she said wearily.

‘No right? I f*cking love you! That’s what right I have!’ he screamed.

Jenny the production assistant popped her head around the doorway. ‘I know this is a terrible time, but we have to push on; it’s the last day,’ she said, embarrassed.

Merritt glared at her and Willow walked towards the door. ‘If you are going to act like this then I’m going back to London,’ she said and she walked into the hallway.

‘Have you got a pen and paper?’ she asked Jenny, who handed her the clipboard.

Scribbling quickly, she ripped off the piece of paper and handed it to Jenny. ‘Get this to Kitty, my nanny, will you please?’ she asked, and Jenny nodded.

Willow walked out and went to costume to prepare for the next scene, ignoring the stares from the crew and extras and holding her head up high. F*ck you Merritt, she thought; you’re no better than Kerr. How dare he be so rude and accusatory? she thought. Well f*ck him. She would head back to London for a while and see how he liked that.

Shooting through the afternoon, Harold worked her hard and she barely had time to think about Merritt. When she finished shooting she changed and walked back inside the warzone. She could hear Jinty crying, and Poppy was sitting in the dark watching television, her nose pressed up to the screen.

‘Where’s Kitty?’ she asked, looking around.

‘Dunno,’ said Poppy.

‘I don’t know,’ corrected Willow.

‘Yeah, I dunno,’ said Poppy again, and Willow shook her head. Merritt was nowhere to be seen, and walking upstairs she found Jinty in her cot, screaming and purple in the dark. She was sweaty when Willow picked her up, and her nappy was dirty and wet through. She must have been alone for hours, thought Willow angrily.

She changed Jinty and, soothing her, carried her downstairs. She started to make scrambled eggs and toast with one hand while holding Jinty in her other arm.

‘Poppy, Lucian, eggs!’ she cried.

Settling Jinty into her highchair, she set the plate in front of her with a sippy cup of juice. Poppy wandered in. ‘Can I eat it in front of the TV?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Willow firmly.

‘Lucian!’ she called again.

‘He’s not here,’ said Poppy sitting down.

‘What do you mean? Has he gone somewhere with Merritt?’ she asked, remembering the sound of Merritt’s car speeding off from the house and interrupting a scene.

‘No, he went with George. He’s gone to America I think,’ she said, licking the butter off the toast.

Willow felt panic welling up inside her.

‘America? What do you mean, Poppy?’ she shouted at the child.

Poppy looked at her mother. Gone was the happy version she had come to know, and back was the angry Mummy she remembered from London.

Poppy said nothing, afraid of what might happen if she spoke.

Willow felt sick. ‘Where has he gone, Poppy? Where?’ She started to shake the child. ‘Where?’ she screamed again, and Jinty and Poppy started to cry.

‘What’s going on?’ she heard, and she looked up to see Merritt standing in the doorway.

‘Lucian’s gone! Poppy said something about America,’ Willow screamed at Merritt. ‘Where were you?’

‘America? He’s not going to America. Kerr wants to take Poppy,’ said Merritt, trying to soothe the girls. ‘I just went out for a while to clear my head.’

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ he said, lifting Jinty from the chair. Poppy ran to his side, sobbing desperately into his leg.

Willow ran to her mobile phone and dialled Kerr’s number. He didn’t answer.

‘I swear if you have taken Lucian as some sort of punishment for me hitting you I will f*cking kill you, you hear me?’ she spat down the phone. ‘Bring him back at once!’

She hung up and wrung her hands together. ‘Where is he? Why weren’t you here? Where’s Kitty? F*ck, she’s stupid,’ said Willow.

‘That’s enough, Willow,’ said Merritt, with a warning in his voice.

‘I sent her a note.’ Willow picked up her phone again, and tipping a sheaf of papers out onto the table, she leafed through them till she found what she was looking for: the numbers of everyone in the production from the call sheet.

She started to dial with shaking hands and tried three times to get the order of the numbers right.

‘Jenny, hi. It’s Willow. Did you give that note to Kitty? You did? When? OK, thanks. No, fine, all fine,’ she said and hung up.

‘I gave Jenny a note for Kitty to get the children ready and to help me and she has left them here, alone. What sort of a person does that?’ she screamed at Merritt as she ran into the hallway calling Lucian’s name.

She ran back and dialled Kitty’s number. ‘Kitty, where are you? Have you got Lucian? Please call me back.’

She ran around the house, calling Lucian’s name and then calling Kitty in between, her messages becoming more desperate.

‘God dammit Kitty! Call me back.’

‘Kitty, where the f*ck are you?’

‘Kitty, for god’s sake, you better have a good excuse.’

Finally she sat on the stairs and cried. Merritt walked out with the girls. ‘I think we’d better call the police,’ he said.

‘No police, no – they’ll make it all too hard with the press and everything,’ she wailed.

‘Who gives a f*ck about the press? Your child is missing,’ he said to her.

‘You think I don’t know that, you f*cking idiot?’ she screamed at him, and she dialled another number.

‘Lucy, Willow. Can you come down? We have a situation. Yes. Lucian’s missing,’ she said. ‘OK, see you soon.’

‘A situation? You call your autistic son missing a situation?’ asked Merritt, incredulous.

‘He’s not autistic! How dare you?’ she said, standing up. Poppy watched them from behind the banister.

‘He f*cking is and you know it,’ said Merritt back to her. ‘You have to hear it at some point. You are living in a made- up world, Willow.’

‘F*ck you,’ she said, crying. ‘You don’t know anything! Stop trying to be their father, they have one already. You are so f*cking needy with your love bullshit and waving at Lucian and all that crap. It’s so transparent, you make me sick.’

Merritt put Jinty down on the floor, pulled Poppy out from behind the banister and pushed her towards her mother.

‘They’re your kids, you deal with them!’ he yelled. ‘Now get the f*ck out of my house!’

Willow fell to the floor with Jinty and wept while Merritt stepped over her and walked upstairs. It was Poppy who knelt over her mother as she slumped there, stroking her hair like Kitty did to her when she was sad.

‘It will be OK Mummy, you can come to America with Daddy and me and see Lucian. We might need to leave Jinty here though. Daddy said she was a mistake.’

And Willow wept harder than ever before.