Wild Oats (44 page)

He found Jamie curled up in the leather chair in
the living room, staring into space, looking thoroughly miserable.

‘Come for a drink at the Royal Oak. I’ll buy you scampi in a basket,’ he offered.

Jamie shook her head, smiling wanly. ‘No thanks.’

‘Why not? It’ll do you good to get out.’

‘For God’s sake, why can’t people realize I want to be left alone?’ snapped Jamie.

Olivier looked aggrieved. ‘Sorry. I was just –’

‘Yeah, well,
don’t
just.’

Jamie knew she was being unreasonable, and put her hands up to her face, pressing her fingers into her sockets to stop herself from crying. She shouldn’t be beastly to Olivier; it wasn’t his fault that she’d found the love of her life and lost him again in the space of twenty-four hours. It wasn’t his fault that Tiona had been snotty about the farm. It wasn’t his fault that her father was planning on swanning off to the other side of the world with Lettice, even if the old bat wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought. Which meant she’d be left all on her own, with nowhere to live and no one to love. A ball of self-pity rose up in Jamie’s throat and she choked back an enormous sob.

The next moment she could feel Olivier patting her on the shoulder awkwardly. The physical contact opened up the floodgates.

‘It’s so unfair,’ she sobbed.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Everything! And bloody Dad’s landed on his feet,
as usual. Ducking out of his responsibilities. He didn’t have to stand here while Tiona Tutton-Price looked down her nose at this place. And he’s thinking of buggering off to Cape Town with Lettice. Mum hasn’t even been gone a year. It’s disrespectful.’

She looked at Olivier for support, but his face was stony.

‘Don’t you think it’s out of order?’ she persisted.

‘No.’ Olivier’s tone was flat.

Jamie frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Olivier paused for a moment before looking at her defiantly.

‘I think that if you knew the truth about his marriage, you’d say good for him.’

Jamie thought she’d misheard. Or misunderstood.

‘What?’

‘I think he deserves someone like Lettice, after putting up with your mother.’

‘I think you’d better explain what you mean,’ said Jamie indignantly.

She looked at Olivier and felt a tremor of fear. The look on his face was grim. His tone sent a shiver down her spine.

‘It’s about time someone put you in the picture about your precious, sainted mother.’

Jamie’s hackles rose. ‘What picture, exactly?’

‘Your mother,’ he explained carefully, ‘ruined my parents’ marriage. They were perfectly happy until she came along. We all were.’

Jamie laughed in relief.

‘If your parents couldn’t get on, it certainly wasn’t Mum’s fault –’

‘Shut up,’ he said fiercely. ‘Shut up till I’ve finished.’

Something in his voice made Jamie obey him.

‘That day we were called in from the pontoon? My mother had just found your mother and my father in bed together. And your mother laughed. She just shrugged and laughed. Said they were bound to get caught sooner or later. She didn’t have an ounce of shame. She couldn’t have cared less.’

Jamie was utterly outraged.

‘You’re sick –’

‘I tell you what makes me sick. Your father having to take the rap all these years. Everyone called him the irresponsible one. He took the blame. Because he was loyal to your mother – God knows why. He didn’t want your precious illusions about her shattered, even to this day.’

Jamie stood up, trembling.

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I had to suffer the truth. And the consequences. Thanks to your bloody mother, my mother almost had a nervous breakdown. I had to look after her. She was like a zombie doped up to the eyeballs on tranquillizers the doctor gave her to cope. And Dad was no better. Your mother had bewitched him. Every given opportunity, she gave him the come-on. Enticed him. Lured him. In the end he couldn’t resist –’

Jamie snapped. She hurled herself at Olivier’s chest, beating her fists against him.

‘Shut up! Shut up, with your filthy stinking lies.’

He stood impassively as she railed at him, not flinching from the blows, until she eventually collapsed in a heap and fell back into her chair. He stood over her, defiant.

‘I’m sorry it had to be me who told you. But I don’t think it’s fair on your father. The only thing he cared about was protecting you from the truth, even if it meant him getting the blame for everything. Even now! None of this is his fault, not really. It’s all down to your mother and her selfish, self-centred –’

Jamie clamped her hands over her ears.

‘Get out. Get out of this house. I don’t ever want to see you again.’

Olivier gave a defeated shrug.

‘You see, even now she’s coming between people. Driving a wedge –’

‘Just go!’

A moment later, he was gone.

Jamie slumped in her chair, shaken by the scene that had just unfolded. What on earth had come over Olivier? Where on earth had he got all that rubbish about Louisa? She tried to look at it rationally, from his point of view. She remembered from that summer that Olivier’s relationship with his father had been an uneasy one, that he had been much closer to Isabelle. No doubt when the holiday had come to such an abrupt end, it had been natural for him to jump to conclusions and blame his father. And not want to
believe his mother capable of any wrong. But Jamie had known better, had seen right through Isabelle and her come-hither, bedroom eyes. And she knew her father had no will-power, had never been able to resist temptation.

It was amazing how that single incident, so many years ago, should still be causing dissent. She felt a bit guilty that she’d sent Olivier packing like that, but he’d chosen the wrong moment to unload his misguided theories on to her, when she was feeling particularly vulnerable and defensive.

She went into the drinks cupboard and poured herself a hefty slug of brandy, to calm her nerves and take the edge off her emotions. Sleep, that’s what she needed. A nice, deep, oblivious, healing sleep. She’d wake up tomorrow and start with a clean slate. Concentrate on sorting her life out, because it was becoming increasingly clear she was on her own.

Olivier stormed out into the stable yard, hurled open the doors of the barn and threw himself down on a bale of hay. He fumbled in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, furious with himself. Why the hell did he have to open his mouth like that? It was the last thing poor Jamie wanted to hear, the horrible truth about her mother, even though Olivier wasn’t entirely sure she’d believed him about what had really happened that summer.

He’d heard the story often enough, from his own mother, as she retold it over and over in her tranquillized
stupor, as if sharing the horror with him could lessen the pain she was feeling…

Isabelle Templeton’s Charles Jourdan heels had clacked along the cool marble corridor. It was too hot in the mid afternoon to roast in the sun; Jack had suggested a walk along to a nearby bar, and she’d agreed. She wasn’t one for a siesta like the others. It always left her with a heavy head for the rest of the afternoon, and then she could never get to sleep at night – she’d been dogged by insomnia for years. She and Jack usually stayed on the beach, to keep an eye on Jamie and Olivier, even though they were old enough to look after themselves, really. But you never knew. There had been an incident a couple of years ago, when a young teenager had over-indulged on his first beer and drowned. And Isabelle had a tendency to be neurotic.

She’d come back to the villa to get something to put on over her bikini. She twisted the heavy wrought-iron handle of her bedroom door and pushed it open. Then froze. For there in front of her, on the enormous double bed with its ornately carved headboard, was Eric, lying on his back with Louisa astride him, her chestnut hair falling wantonly over her creamy shoulders, rotating her slender hips sensuously.

Eric was totally oblivious to his wife in the doorway, lost as he was in impending ecstasy, judging by the way he was groaning and urging her on. Louisa, however, had a clear view of Isabelle in the mirror
that hung over the bed. She met her eyes boldly in the glass, and didn’t stop in her stride for a moment.

Isabelle, being French, was used to the concept of affairs and mistresses. Normally, she might have turned a blind eye to her husband’s indiscretion. But, somehow, Louisa’s flagrant mockery of her presence enraged her. In two steps she had reached the bed, grabbing Louisa by her chestnut mane and pulling her firmly backwards.

She didn’t lose her dignity. It didn’t descend into a brawl. Eric cowered and gibbered excuses. Louisa just rolled her eyes.

‘For God’s sake, stop apologizing. It was only a quick bonk,’ she drawled. ‘This hot weather always makes me rampant in the afternoon, and Eric was the only one around. Think yourself lucky it wasn’t Olivier.’

Isabelle ignored her, and pulled two large suitcases out of the sliding wardrobe.

‘Get dressed,’ she snapped to Eric. ‘And take our things out to the car. We’re going.’ She turned to Louisa. ‘You’d better go and pack yourself. You needn’t think you’re staying on here.’

Louisa shrugged.

‘If you really want to spoil the holiday for everyone,’ she said, and sauntered out of the room without a care in the world.

The embittered cold war that his parents subsequently embarked upon put Olivier off marriage for life. The
antagonism between them lurked like a venomous snake in every corner of the house; you never knew when it might strike and unleash its bitter poison. The atmosphere was constantly threatening; every now and then recriminations would lash out, spiteful barbed attacks that would leave open wounds for days. His mother was on the attack, his father on the defensive, each equally capable of inflicting pain and misery on the other.

Olivier found it unbearable. And he couldn’t see the point. Why didn’t they just split up and get a divorce? He knew his mother was Catholic, but as far as he knew not a practising one. Why did they carry on torturing themselves and each other?

One afternoon, he found his mother breaking up the dinner service they’d been given as a wedding present. She was slowly and deliberately dropping each plate on to the marble floor, where the delicate bone china shattered into a thousand pieces, her face totally impassive. It wasn’t an impulsive reaction to a heated argument; it was a cold, calculated act that symbolized how she felt. When every last piece had been destroyed, she calmly walked out of the room and locked herself in the bathroom. Olivier swept it all up before his father could see it. He knew she was goading him by her actions, and Eric was capable of far worse than smashing a few plates. If he could hide the evidence, then it might be weeks before Eric noticed the service was missing, and immediate recriminations could be avoided. Olivier wrapped the
shards carefully in newspaper, took them out to the bins, then went to pack.

He escaped as quickly as he could, hitching a lift to Dover, crossing over to France on the ferry, then working his way gradually over to the Alps, where he got a job as a barman in one of the lesser resorts in the Trois Vallées. He worked hard, played hard, and was particularly delighted that as Christmas was the resort’s busiest week he needn’t come home and suffer his parents’ hideous snarling over the season of goodwill.

The only thing he learned from the experience was that the more you loved someone, the more you could hurt them – or be hurt by them. Thus he had danced round the issue of love for all of his adult life, and found that it suited him to avoid it. If he didn’t get attached, no one could take him unawares by lulling him into a false sense of security and then hurting him.

There had been a couple of near misses, times when he had found himself becoming more fond of someone than he would like, which made him feel very exposed and vulnerable. And the subsequent evasive action he had to take left a very bad taste in his mouth, as he knew he was causing damage, and leaving his victims hurt and bewildered. There had been Imogen, golden-hearted, gung-ho and as mad about skiing as he was, who was a chalet maid in the resort where he had been coaching. They had clicked immediately, spending their days off skiing together
and the nights, rather predictably, embroiled between the sheets. There had been one night, after a particularly hairy escapade on a black run when things could have turned very nasty indeed had the weather not been kind to them, when he had felt incredibly close to her, as if by flirting with death their souls had been welded together. And by the way she clung to him, he knew she felt the same and it had all gone too far. The next day he arranged for a transfer to another resort and left, leaving no forwarding address and no explanation. He hated himself for it; he never liked to dwell on how Imogen must have reacted to his disappearance. But surely one short, sharp shock was better than years of mental anguish and torture and abuse that he would have learned courtesy of his parents?

As he lit another cigarette from the butt of the one he’d just finished, Olivier knew instinctively that his treatment of Jamie that evening was his usual defence mechanism kicking in. He should never have said that about her mother. But the only way to keep her at arm’s length was to inflict pain upon her.

He was becoming far too attached.

The other night, after a couple of pints of Honey-cote Ale, he had found himself slipping into a fantasy involving him and Jamie in Jack and Louisa’s four-poster bed. It wasn’t a sexual fantasy, far from it. No – what he saw was himself bearing a tray, with mugs of tea and a pile of toast and the papers, slipping back under the duvet with her for a cosy, lazy Sunday
morning, the picture of contented, domestic bliss, Parsnip and Gumdrop at their feet. And it frightened him. It was definitely time for him to move on.

Adding to Olivier’s discomfort was his shame at betraying Jack. When he’d arrived at Bucklebury, they’d had several heart-to-hearts, and Jack had made him promise never to reveal the truth about Louisa and her bedroom habits. And Olivier had sworn not to breathe a word, though time and again it had frustrated him to see Jack taking the flak. It had been all he could do to keep his mouth shut on several occasions. When he’d seen Jamie curled up in that chair, raging at the world, beside herself with sorrow and holding Jack responsible, he hadn’t been able to keep quiet any longer. He’d wanted to see justice done. But it had backfired on him. Badly.