The Perfect Retreat

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX




Willow fled with Lucy to pick up Lucian from the police station and Kerr stood helplessly looking at the sobbing girl on the ground. Johnny sat next to her, rubbing his jaw where Merritt had hit him.

Tatiana watched with a vested interest. ‘You OK, darlink?’ she asked Johnny, concerned whether he would still be able to make her a star of the art world.

‘Fine; I probably deserved that.’ He laughed and got to his feet. ‘You care to have a go now that I’m running away with your lover?’ he asked Kerr.

‘No, I’m fine thanks,’ said Kerr, rubbing his own face in the same place Merritt had hit Johnny and thankful it hadn’t been him on the end of those enormous hands.

Tatiana tottered over to Kerr. ‘Darlink, we’re over, you know. I just wanted to come and meet the director but instead I meet Johnny, so it all works out, da?’ she said, in that cloying voice that annoyed Kerr more than he could explain.

Kerr shrugged. ‘Fine, fine, whatever,’ he said, and he meant it. He had new plans now, and they certainly didn’t involve Tatiana and her need for public adoration. He had his own public to adore him and he was planning on getting a new fanbase, in the US.

Tatiana touched his face. ‘You’re a good man,’ she said insincerely.

Johnny looked at Kerr. As far as he could see there was nothing about Kerr that was decent, and certainly not the way he spoke about his own flesh and blood. So the child was simple; what was the harm in that?

Probably took after his old man, thought Johnny, as he left Middlemist with Tatiana.

Johnny had a younger brother who wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he did OK. Didn’t get through Eton of course, but his parents had made sure he learned the basics and now he had a good life on the farm, working with the animals. Johnny liked his brother’s company; he kept it simple in an otherwise complex world of art and reputation.

Kerr had watched as Willow and Lucy left to pick up Lucian. Eliza stood beside him.

‘Where’s the weeping retard?’ she asked.

‘Her gay friend has taken her up to bed,’ said Kerr of the boy in the pink scarf.

Eliza raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. That boy wasn’t gay, she was sure of it, but she knew it was best to keep her mouth shut.

‘So what now?’ she asked. ‘America?’ She looked at his doughy profile.

The last few years hadn’t been kind to Kerr and his looks were puffy. Too many carbs, too much cocaine, thought Eliza.

Kerr nodded. ‘But first I have to sort a few things out with my children.’

Eliza tried not to roll her eyes. Hopefully he would give up on his dream of taking the girl with them to LA. She seemed vile and looked just like her mother, the hysterical tyrant. Even Eliza was shocked at Willow’s outburst. Americans, she thought; too many emotions.

Kerr pulled out his phone, walked into the drawing room and dialled a number.

‘Gerry; Kerr. Listen, we’ve had a situation up here with Willow. Yep, she lost one of the kids, f*cking her boyfriend at the time I think, and then she had a complete meltdown. I’m going for complete custody,’ he said down the phone.

‘Yeah and one more thing mate, I need you to look into a school that takes retarded children. Yep, full-time boarding,’ he said, and he hung up the phone.

Eliza stood in the doorway, watching and listening.

‘You cannot be serious?’ she said. ‘There is no way I am looking after three children, Kerr; not even for a minute. You have completely the wrong idea about me.’

Kerr laughed, ‘So the evil stepmother does exist.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid she does,’ said Eliza in her primmest voice.

‘Don’t worry darlin’,’ he said. ‘It’s just for the money. She has a cosmetics contract and this film. There’s more to come, and she can f*cking look after me in my old age,’ he said, and pulled Eliza into his arms.

She wrapped one leg around him, her black Jil Sander trousers pulling across his thin thigh, and she shoved her tongue into his mouth.

‘I like the way you think,’ she said as she pulled away from him.

Merritt stood outside the French doors watching them. He realised Willow had been telling the truth about Kerr. He was disgusting, and a pig of a father.

It still didn’t redeem her for her treatment of Kitty though, he thought, and he wanted to weep thinking of Kitty struggling for all those years, trying to learn to read on her own. The way her father used to yell at her, calling her stupid and telling her to try harder at school.

He couldn’t hear what Kerr and Eliza were saying, but he knew it was something Machiavellian. Eliza was awful and it hadn’t taken him long into the marriage to realise it. Actually he was grateful that Johnny had taken Eliza off his hands, otherwise he would have had to have given her half of Middlemist.

He had wondered over the years what Johnny had seen in her, and now he understood. Eliza was the sort of woman a man needed when they didn’t know themselves. Before they matured.

Merritt was socially inept when they met. She had brought him into the world with her vivacity. Johnny was living with the pressure of a younger brother who would never amount to anything, so his ambitious parents had put the heavy mantle of success onto Johnny’s shoulders. Eliza gave him direction and pushed him the way he needed to go. She was a muse with standards, he thought, and Willow came to his mind.

She wasn’t back yet. Kitty had left with Ivo. He didn’t know where she had gone; she still wasn’t answering her phone.

He heard the sound of tyres on the gravel driveway and he walked around to the side of the house. He saw Lucian and George tumbling out of Willow’s Range Rover.

‘Hello there! Go off on an adventure did we?’ he said to Lucian, who ran to Merritt holding Custard and a piece of paper.

Willow walked straight past him with her head held high. Ignoring Kerr waiting in the hallway, she walked into her room, picked up her jewellery case and a file filled with documents. Taking a sleeping Jinty from the cot, she dragged Poppy out of bed by the hand and walked downstairs again.

Putting Jinty into the car seat, Merritt watched her. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked her.

‘You told me to go and we’re going,’ she said.

Poppy climbed into the car and Willow took Lucian by the hand and put him in the car beside her. Kerr walked out. ‘Just a minute Willow, we need to talk,’ he said, looking serious and folding his hands across his chest.

Willow looked at him. ‘We’ve nothing to say to each other. You want to talk to me, then go through my lawyer,’ she said, and she got into the car.

‘You remember, we talk or I spill the secret, Willow,’ said Kerr, his head turned to the side as though giving her a warning.

‘Oh f*ck off, I don’t care any more,’ said Willow wearily.

She looked at Merritt and Lucy. ‘You want to know my big secret?’ she asked. They stood silent, unsure what to answer.

Willow started to laugh. ‘You know my Oscar? You know how it was presented by Roger Wood? The oldest man in show business – he died soon after, you know? Well guess what? I didn’t f*cking win. It was a mistake. He read out my name as a nominee, not the actual winner.’

Willow started to laugh and laugh, as though relieved to finally have the monkey off her back.

Lucy’s jaw dropped open. Merritt stood in shock.

‘So there, Kerr, I have done it. I have told the big secret. I was contracted to secrecy by the Academy and only Kerr, me and Roger know – but he’s dead now so no worries there,’ she said to Merritt and Lucy.

‘I am a terrible actress, a terrible mother, a terrible wife, and now, it seems, a terrible lover. Lucy, you would do best to be rid of me. I’m a hoax,’ she said, laughing and crying at the same time.

‘Do you want to take George?’ Merritt asked, holding out the puppy.

‘What, and f*ck him up as well?’ she asked, and she looked at Merritt and stopped laughing. ‘And I f*cked it up with you, and I really love you. I was horrible to Kitty. And you want to know something?’

Merritt nodded, his own eyes welling with tears.

‘Lucian knew he belonged here, because he knew how to write down some letters at the police station,’ she cried.

‘He wrote Middlemist?’ asked Kerr, astounded.

‘No,’ said Willow as she got into the car. ‘He wrote Merritt’s name. He missed one “r” and one “t” and they thought he wanted a certificate of merit. So they printed him one out.’

And she wound up the window and sped off down the driveway with a spray of gravel flying into Merritt and Kerr’s faces.