Page 53 of Happily Ever After
‘I’m teaming it with the diamanté Jimmy Choos,’ he said. ‘For the length.’
‘Mmm,’ I said, not really listening. Hugo didn’t need my input, he just liked to drop designer names. Not his fault, of course, he couldn’t talk about his interests anywhere else, so he had a lot of pent-up chat to get through when we found ourselves alone and outside his mother’s influence.
There was a strange smell in the Yellow Room this evening. It came and went, faintly, as though blown in on a breeze. ‘Ta da!’ Hugo swirled out from behind the changing screen. ‘What do you think?’
‘Does it smell weird to you? Is it the dress?’ I sniffed once or twice.
‘Can’t smell anything,’ Hugo said briskly. ‘Anyway. What about this?’
He did a twirl. I didn’t know anything about fashion history, although Hugo was doing his best to enlighten me, but I wasn’t completely sure about the provenance of this particular gown. ‘It’s very pretty, but I’m not sure about the Doris Day-ness of it.’
‘They did only say that it wasrumouredto have been worn by her.’ Hugo stopped rotating and stroked the skirt. His joy and enthusiasm were infectious.
‘It’s lovely, whoever wore it, and does it really matter after all?’
‘I do like the gowns to have history. It’s part of the fun, imagining who wore them and to which event. If I can find pictures it’s even better. Hollywood glam, and all that.’
Another billow of vague, mysterious smell. It was faint, and had that edge-of-recognition nudge, as though I ought to know what it was.
I looked at Hugo, nearly seven feet tall in his enormous heels. The look of love and pleasure on his face made him extremely handsome, particularly as he hadn’t got his wig on, his fair hair standing up at angles and his cheeks partially shaded by stubble. I made a sudden decision.
Heshouldknow. Maybe he could use the knowledge as leverage with Lady Tanith? ‘Let me live my own life and I won’t mention what I know?’ Could I do it? Could I destroy his innocent happiness and belief in his mother and her stories of her past?
But was it fair to keep it from him? If he understood, if he could see what had made her so desperate to keep first Jasper and then himself close – her lack of experience of how parental love should look or howanyform of real love should look – it might make it easier for him to finally break away and have an independent life. ‘I just need to pop to my room to fetch something,’ I said. ‘Be back in a minute.’
Hugo was stroking the fabric down over his hips, admiring the fall of the skirt. ‘All right,’ he said cheerily. ‘I’ll let you out. Usual knock to come back in though.’
‘Of course.’
We’d had to develop a ‘secret knock’, to ensure he didn’t throw the door blithely open to Lady Tanith or Mrs Compton, whilst fully encased in a Vera Wang sheath dress or similar. It gave everything aSecret Sevenvibe, a childish fun pastime air which I hadn’t objected to, because it matched Hugo’s childlike glee.
Cautiously, and with much giggly staring up and down the landing, because we were pretty certain that Lady Tanith had gone to bed, andIwas pretty certain that she’d been up in the loft at her home-made altar for most of the afternoon so would have taken to her room, Hugo unbolted the door and let me out.
‘I’m going to put something else on while you’re gone,’ he said, as though promising me a treat. ‘This one is a wee bit tight and I don’t want the seams to give.’
I nodded, my mind far away in a time where he already knew.Wasshowing him the diaries the right thing to do?
I went next door to my room and fished the plastic bag out from where it sat in my bag under my neatly stored clothes. The smell was out here too, still faint and almost imperceptible, a chemical, swirling smell. Maybe Mrs Compton hadn’t gone home as promised, but was cleaning with some industrial bug spray. Fumigation was probably what Templewood Hall needed.
Back to the Yellow Room, secret knock given, Hugo let me back in with a half-curious glance at the bag swinging from my hand, the weight of years of lies making it hang heavily. He was wearing his favourite dress, the full-length blue velvet with the spaghetti straps, still teamed with the Choos, and he’d put his blonde wig on. It gave him a certain Cate Blanchett look.
‘Can you smell something weird?’ I asked.
‘Not really. What have you got there?’ Hugo pointed at the plastic bag looped over my wrist. He looked so innocently happy; did I really have the right to blow his life out of the water? My heart felt swollen and just under my throat with the potential of what I was about to do.
‘It…’ I started, but that was as far as I got.
A tremendous clanging started, distant at first but closing in on us, a dreadful, mechanical wailing sound, seemingly issuing from the far wing of the house but advancing, and, at the same time, something heavy hit the window of the Yellow Room.
Hugo and I looked at one another.
‘That’s the smoke alarm,’ he said.
‘Then what the hell isthat?’ Another soft weight against the glass.
I went to the window and threw it open. Jay stood outside on the lawn below, with a couple of other people from the estate. ‘Thank God you’re in there!’ he shouted up. ‘I’ve been trying all the lit windows. The house is on fire, you need to get out, now!’
The words were in English, they were logical and spoken in a tone loud enough for me to hear, but somehow they made no sense.
