The Perfect Retreat

CHAPTER THIRTY




Ivo headed up the driveway towards Middlemist and felt sick with nerves. No girl had ever made him feel like this. He was unsure what to say to Kitty.

He had promised her he wouldn’t tell her secret but he had; he had announced it in front of the worst possible people. He hoped – no, he had actually prayed – she would forgive him.

The house was silent when he arrived. No doubt Willow had run off with the children after the dressing-down that Merritt had given her, he thought.

The film crew had left and there was no sign of Merritt. He rang the bell by the front door and waited. No one answered. He walked around to the back of the house and saw a lone figure in the distance; Merritt, he thought; and he walked towards the man with the spade and wheelbarrow, his usual accoutrements.

‘Hey there,’ he said.

‘Hey yourself,’ said Merritt, and he continued to dig the soil over. He had worked so hard in the last week since Willow had left. Every time he plunged the spade into the earth, he felt as though it was digging into his heart.

‘Kitty around?’ asked Ivo casually, as though nothing was riding on her being there.

‘Nope,’ said Merritt.

‘Will she be back?’ asked Ivo again, trying unsuccessfully to keep the disappointment from his voice.

‘Nope,’ said Merritt again.

Ivo sat on the stone seat dejectedly. ‘Shit,’ he said.

‘Yes, it’s all a bit shit,’ said Merritt, stopping his work to look at Ivo. He was clearly devastated that Kitty had gone.

‘I was made to promise I wouldn’t tell you where she was,’ said Merritt with a shrug. ‘Sorry.’

Ivo nodded. At least one of the men in Kitty’s life could keep promises, he thought.

‘You heading back to London?’ asked Merritt.

‘I guess, although I don’t have much to go back to,’ said Ivo, thinking aloud.

He had no solid work lined up. He had managed to get an agent from the film but the offers weren’t exactly pouring in; no one knew he existed yet. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to act; it all seemed a bit silly, he had decided.

Henry had told him in no uncertain terms that his tenure as houseguest was up, and there was no rich girl on the horizon for him to shack up with. The only girl he wanted to be with was Kitty, and she had disappeared.

Merritt looked at Ivo. He felt sorry for him. ‘You can stay here for a while I guess. I could use the company.’

He was surprised at himself for being so honest. It was lonely in the house without everyone around him. He had become used to the sound of the children and talking to Willow at night and chatting with Kitty over a pot of tea in the morning.

Ivo looked up. ‘Really?’

‘Why not?’ said Merritt, going back to his task of digging the same area of soil, over and over again.

Ivo reached into his jacket pocket. ‘I have Clementina’s journals. Kitty lent them to me,’ he said, holding them in his hand.

Merritt looked over. ‘Ah yes. There are letters too, but I haven’t gone through them yet,’ he said.

Ivo looked up. ‘She mentioned that there were also some letters. Would you mind if I had a look at them? The journals are fascinating, and I would love to piece them together with the letters.’

‘Go for it,’ said Merritt. ‘They are in the drawing room, I think, near the computer.’

Ivo jumped up. ‘I’ll head back to town and get my things then. Do you think Kitty would mind me being here after everything that happened?’ he asked carefully.

Merritt looked over at him. ‘I understand why you did it. I would have done the same thing. Willow’s behaviour was appalling. Kitty will understand one day,’ he said, a frown on his face.

Ivo nodded. ‘Thanks.’ He started to walk away.

‘I don’t think she meant it,’ he said as he turned back to his new housemate.

‘Who? Kitty?’ asked Merritt.

‘No, Willow. I think she was under enormous stress and while it doesn’t give her the right to say or do what she did to Kitty, she just lost it. I think it was actually about everything,’ said Ivo slowly, thinking. ‘She’s not a bad person, she’s just a bit out of touch with the real world,’ he said.

Merritt said nothing. He went back to the earth, and Ivo walked away.

He had run through his time with Willow over and over again in his mind. It was as though there were two sides to her: a lovely, warm person and then a spoilt brat with a huge sense of entitlement. Her treatment of Kitty was unforgivable, thought Merritt, but when she had revealed her secret to him and to Lucy, he had been shocked. No wonder she was so insecure, he thought as he packed up his tools and headed back to the house. Kerr cheating on her, denying her child was clearly not right, no money, accolades for an Oscar that didn’t really exist.

As he walked towards the house, he saw a flash of blue in the grass. He picked up Lucian’s Thomas the Tank Engine. He would miss that, thought Merritt, and he wiped away the dirt from its little face and put it in his pocket.

Ivo was back within the hour and had set up in one of the draughty bedrooms of the manor.

He found the letters where Merritt had said they would be, next to the new computer that Willow had installed.

‘Did Willow leave this here?’ asked Ivo as he sat down at the screen.

Merritt looked over from where he was sorting through the accounts on the sofa.

‘Yes, she sent for most things, gave a list to the packers, but she left that and a few other items here,’ he said. ‘I think she forgot about it. I’ll return it to her,’ he said distractedly.

Ivo nodded and opened up the internet browser. ‘I might use it for a bit then, if that’s alright?’

‘Go for it,’ said Merritt.

Ivo sorted through the pile of papers on the desk and found a black linen-covered sketchbook. He opened it and saw individual pictures of every room in Middlemist. On the other side of the page, fabric swatches were pasted onto the paper, with images cut from magazines and printed off the internet with recommendations for the interiors of the rooms.

Paint swatches were also included, as were images of light fittings, even taps and door handles, and notes in an uneven scrawl.

‘Here you go, you left your book here,’ said Ivo. He stood up and passed the book to Merritt and went back to his desk.

Merritt looked at the front and was about to say it wasn’t his until he opened it. His heart skipped a beat. Every page was a work of art and inspiration. Her choices were perfect and considered, he thought. As he leafed through the book, he saw how much care she had taken, writing little notes about the way the sun came through the windows in certain rooms, their draughts and their sounds.

He turned to the last page and gasped. There was a picture of the front of the house, dressed in wisteria for the film, the light shining on it. Willow had cut some figures out of a photograph from the Blessings shoot and pasted them on top of the photograph of the house. Willow in all her glory, the kids smiling and Merritt standing behind her proudly. George the dog was actually sitting down for a brief moment. The photographer had taken it for the light reading, but Willow must have got him to print it out for her.

She had written underneath. ‘Merritt and Willow Middlemist and their children at their newly renovated family home, Middlemist House.’

And then she had drawn a big smiley face beneath it.

‘Don’t worry Merritt, I’m only teasing.’

And Merritt felt his stomach tighten, as it always did when he thought about what he had lost. His eyes ran over the collage of faces again and he looked at the old house in the background of the image.

Please let her come back to me, he wished silently.

Somewhere he heard a door slam and he jumped a little and then closed the book of everything that could have been.