The Perfect Retreat

CHAPTER FIVE




The next morning when Willow was still asleep and Kitty was up with the children, Merritt came stomping into the kitchen, his boots caked with mud.

‘F*ck a duck, it’s a shithole out there!’ he exclaimed, and he heard a child laugh.

Looking up he saw three faces staring at him. ‘Whoops … sorry about the language.’

Kitty frowned at him. ‘Be careful what you say. Poppy repeats everything.’

‘And what about you? Do you know that swearing is the sign of a low vocabulary?’ he said to Lucian as he poured himself a mug of tea from the brown pot on the table.

‘Lucian doesn’t talk. If you want to tell him anything you have to go through me,’ said Poppy with her little arms crossed. This morning she was wearing her pyjamas with a dressing gown that he was sure had once belonged to his father; navy silk with stains and moth holes.

‘OK, roger that,’ said Merritt, and he raised his eyebrows at Kitty. She met his gaze and shook her head imperceptibly. ‘Well, you’d better introduce me then.’

Poppy turned importantly to Lucian. ‘This is Merritt Edward Oswald. He’s Kitty’s brother.’

Kitty laughed. ‘She has a mind like a steel trap,’ she said to Merritt.

‘And who’s this seedling?’ he asked, looking at Jinty, who was shoving toast into her mouth.

‘This is Jinty. She can’t talk either. I’m the only one who can talk.’

‘Well done you,’ said Merritt. ‘So, what’s on this morning?’ he asked.

‘Not sure yet,’ said Kitty. ‘Mummy’s still asleep isn’t she?’

‘Mummy sleeps in every morning,’ said Poppy.

‘Lucky her,’ said Merritt. ‘I’ve been up since five o’clock.’

‘Why?’ asked Poppy as she peeled the cheese off her toast and ate it first.

‘Best time, the morning. Quiet. No one to disturb you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because no one is up yet.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they are all asleep.’

‘Why?’

Kitty looked at Merritt. ‘This is her new thing. Enjoy.’

Merritt laughed.

‘Well, I’m heading off on a tour of the other gardens. Anyone want to come?’ he asked.

‘Me!’ cried Poppy.

‘What about Lucian?’ he asked the small boy, who stared straight ahead.

‘He wants to come too,’ said Poppy with authority.

‘Do they have some sort of secret language, like twins?’ he said quietly in Kitty’s ear.

She shrugged. The truth was she had no idea about Lucian and Poppy’s bond, and even less idea about Lucian’s reluctance to speak. His fascination with his blocks and Thomas the Tank Engine hadn’t waned since she had started working for Willow, and she figured if he was happy then she shouldn’t interfere.

‘Well go and get dressed,’ he said to Poppy and Lucian. ‘Quickly. I’ll meet you out the front.’

‘I’ll leave you here with Jinty for a moment, OK?’ Kitty said as she hustled the two children upstairs.

Jinty and Merritt eyed each other, and Jinty promptly burst into tears. ‘Oh dear. What a roar,’ he said, undoing the straps on her highchair. He picked her up and she stopped crying, looked at him and smiled.

‘Hello Jinty,’ he said seriously.

She blew a raspberry at him and covered him in bits of soggy toast. He laughed and looked up to see Willow watching him.

‘Morning,’ he said, and held Jinty out towards her mother.

‘Hi,’ she said, and took Jinty in her arms. Jinty started to cry again and reached out for Merritt.

‘It seems she likes you,’ said Willow tiredly.

Merritt was surprised. He had little experience with children and Jinty and Poppy’s enthusiasm for him was unusual, and flattering. Taking Jinty back into his arms she settled with her blonde head against his shoulder and Willow smiled.

‘You have a fan.’

Merritt snorted but was secretly pleased. Jinty was warm and soft and her little wisps of breath on his neck tickled him.

‘I’m about to take your other two for a tour. I hope that’s OK,’ he said.

‘Fine,’ said Willow. She didn’t mind as long as she could have a coffee and time to make her phone calls.

Willow started opening random cupboards and Merritt watched her. She was dressed in leggings and a t-shirt with a long cardigan over the top. Her legs were so thin he thought they might snap.

‘Have you lost something?’ he asked.

‘The coffee pot,’ she said. ‘I was sure Kitty had packed it.’

Kitty walked back into the kitchen with the children dressed for outside, although Poppy had added her purple feather boa. ‘Kitty, where’s the coffee pot?’ snapped Willow.

Kitty thought of the coffee pot and remembered she had left it sitting on the bench back in London. ‘Oh no, I knew I forgot something!’ she cried.

‘Christ Kitty, do I have to remember everything?’ Willow glared at her and thumped out of the kitchen.

‘She’s lovely in the morning,’ said Merritt under his breath.

Kitty looked crestfallen and took Jinty from his arms. ‘Don’t let them near the lake,’ she said.

‘Sure,’ said Merritt and he took one of the children’s hands in each of his. ‘Alright explorers. Let’s go!’ he said and Kitty watched as they headed down the gravel driveway together.

As she took Jinty upstairs for her sleep she heard Willow on the phone in the drawing room.

‘Of course I will. Thanks Simon. No, I haven’t heard,’ Kitty overheard as she walked past the room towards the stairs. ‘He’s a shit, I know.’

Simon was Willow’s agent. Kitty had only seen him in the flesh once in three years, at a party Willow hosted at her home, which had gone well until Lucian had come downstairs and set up his Thomas the Tank Engine train set in amidst the feet of the guests.

Lucian had been so engrossed in his trains that he had refused to move, and Kitty had been called to try and shift him back upstairs. She had sat next to him in the centre of the room and talked quietly to him for over fifteen minutes until Lucian finally let her pack up the tracks and the trains and take him back to his room. Willow had laughed nervously to Simon, who she was chatting to, and Kerr had shaken his head and gone outside onto the balcony for a joint. Most of the guests had tried to ignore the scene, except for a young man who had observed from across the room. He had watched Kitty’s face as she talked to the child, whose face was absent of expression, and saw how gently she spoke to him. He noticed her wet hair and long fingers and how they touched his little face to turn it towards her, and how the child’s eyes never met her wide brown ones. He saw how the room full of London’s glitterati didn’t faze her, and how her intention was solely to help the small, lost boy.

Kitty had had no idea she was being watched. The party was just after she had started with Willow and Kerr and all she wanted was for Lucian not to make a scene. She had been in the bath when Willow had banged on the door telling her to come and get him.

She had put Lucian back to bed and made sure he was asleep. Then she snuck down the back stairs to the kitchen to see if there were any of those crèmes brûlées in tiny teacups left that she had seen the waiters handing around.

As she walked into the kitchen there were a few waiters and a guest. Kitty ignored them and walked over to the bench, which was filled with leftover delights from the party.

‘Hello,’ said the guest.

Kitty looked up and saw a handsome man, maybe a few years older than her. He was wearing a dinner suit with the tie casually undone and hanging around his neck.

‘Hi,’ said Kitty shyly.

‘You did very well with your little friend in there,’ he said, sipping from a highball glass.

‘Thanks,’ said Kitty and wondered if he would think her greedy if she got a tray and piled it high with tasty morsels to take back to her bedroom.

‘You the nanny then?’ he asked, eyeing her over and noticing her tiny waist and large breasts in her tracksuit bottoms and long-sleeved thermal top. Kitty wished she had put on a bra when she had jumped out of the bath.

‘Yes,’ said Kitty, trying to cover her breasts with her arms.

‘I had a nanny when I was small. Never looked like you though.’ He raised one dark eyebrow at her.

Kitty didn’t know what to say, so she stood silently.

‘You’re a bit of a kiddie whisperer then?’ he asked.

‘That sounds terrible when you say it like that,’ she said, startled.

‘No, no, no tawdry intention; just commenting on your brilliance with the kiddies,’ he laughed.

‘Are you a friend of Willow and Kerr’s?’ she asked, wanting the conversation with the handsome man to continue.

‘Me? No. I don’t think they have any friends here. I don’t think they have any friends at all actually. No, I’m sleeping with one of the guests, who’s here with her husband,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said Kitty, shocked and disappointed. Of course a man like this would be with the fabulous people; she had forgotten her place.

‘Are you shocked?’ he asked her, liking the flash of disappointment that had fleetingly crossed her face.

‘Yes,’ she answered honestly. ‘It’s not very nice for the husband.’

‘I suppose not,’ said the man, clearly not caring.

Kitty stood waiting for him to say something else, but the room was silent except for the sound of glasses and plates being packed up by the catering staff.

‘Well I’m off to bed,’ she said finally.

‘Alone?’

‘Yes!’ she said, shocked again.

‘Shame. What’s your name then?’

‘Kitty,’ she said shyly.

‘Goodnight little p-ssy,’ he said sexily, and Kitty felt herself go weak at the knees.

‘Night then.’ Kitty left the kitchen without anything that she had come for.

Boys had always pursued Kitty, but this one was different, she had thought. The last boy she had slept with she had met at a pub nearby when she was exploring the nightlife in her new city. He was a funny New Zealander who had plied her with vodka and taken her back to his hostel. They’d had quick fumbling sex and she’d passed out on his bunk bed, to awake to him packing his rucksack and telling her he was off to Prague that day and to look after herself.

Kitty had done the walk of shame home to Willow’s, where she had snuck upstairs before the rest of the house had awoken.

After her recent bad experience she was trying to stay away from the opposite sex. She always seemed to choose the wrong ones. She had lost her virginity to Merritt’s friend Johnny Wimple-Jones, which she would never be telling Merritt about. It had been a mistake, she realised in hindsight, but Johnny had been so nice when he had turned up at Middlemist claiming he needed to speak to Merritt urgently. Merritt had already left the country and her father was in London for the night. Brandy and flattery had got Kitty into bed, and Johnny had taken her in a haze of drunkenness and a small amount of pain. Truthfully, she was happy to get rid of her virginity. It sat in the corner of her adolescence, in turn berating her and scaring her until she finally laid the ghost to rest – or Johnny did, so to speak.

After Merritt told her about Eliza cheating on him with Johnny, Kitty was shattered and had vowed to keep her tryst with Johnny secret forever.

The young man at Willow’s party unnerved her. His grace and casual elegance was something she had never seen in a man. Her own father and Merritt were men of the land, all dirty fingernails and work boots. There was a feline quality about this man in his dinner suit, and his upper-crust, lazy accent reminded her of Alan Rickman and Jude Law rolled into one.

She had never seen him since, but she thought about him sometimes, never daring to ask Willow who he was. Instead, when she was lonely in her bed, she would make up her own fantasies about him. It was easier than actually having to have a real conversation with a man; small talk and secrets. Kitty preferred the world in her head to the world outside. She knew why Lucian kept to himself.

Kitty left Jinty sleeping and found Willow waiting for her in the hallway.

‘I have to go back to London. You going to be alright here for a few days with the children?’ Willow didn’t give Kitty time to answer; she started walking towards her bedroom expecting Kitty to follow, which she dutifully did.

‘I’m seeing a new PR girl. Some young gun apparently; Simon recommended her. If I need money quickly then I have to get back to work. Simon believes – and I agree with him – that my re-entry into the public eye needs to be managed carefully.’

Kitty nodded. It all seemed so hard, this celebrity life of Willow’s. Nothing was ever done honestly, she thought, her mind on the hair and makeup artists who would spend hours on Willow to get her looking like she was naturally fabulous. If they could see her now, thought Kitty as she looked at Willow in her leggings and odd socks.

‘I’m pleased this woman will take me on as a client actually. She set up the deal for Gwyneth to work for Estée Lauder. And Simon has a film he’s putting me up for that Kate Winslet’s just dropped out of because of her divorce, so that’s good.’

Kitty was silent, although she wasn’t sure Kate Winslet thought her divorce was good. She wondered if Willow had any empathy for the woman, who was only in the same situation she was in herself.

‘I’m going to shower and head off now. I’ll be staying at the Dorchester until I get things sorted.’

Kitty wondered how she was going to pay for the Dorchester if she was running low on cash. Willow, as if reading her mind, spoke up. ‘Simon set it up. I’m going to be photo-graphed coming and going – they’ll give me a suite for as long as I need.’

‘That’s nice of them,’ said Kitty.

‘Nice? No it’s business, Kitty,’ said Willow. ‘So call me, OK?’

‘Are you going to wait for the children to return?’ asked Kitty.

‘No, no time. You can say my goodbyes. They’ll be fine,’ she said, taking her large Louis Vuitton toiletry bag and walking towards the bathroom, with Kitty following her out down the corridor. As she was about to go through the bathroom door she stopped and turned. ‘Kitty?’

Kitty turned and looked at her employer.

‘Thanks.’ Willow looked uncomfortable as she spoke the word.

‘It’s OK,’ said Kitty, and she smiled at Willow. For a brief moment the women looked at each other as equals. Then Willow shut the bathroom door on her, and Kitty was outside again.