Never Tell Read online

  ‘And you’re prettier. Well, marginally.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, Xav. Don’t go overboard.’

  ‘Listen, something else has just come through on the wire from Qatar about Kattan. It might be nothing. But I wanna be first if it’s there. Specially after the fucking Telegraph stealing our ten-p tax thunder. I’ll send everything over.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And, Rose, one thing. Be careful of interesting angles.’

  ‘Funny,’ I said shortly. I’d nearly been sued by the South African government the last time I’d written for Xav. Thankfully my instinct had been right, but it had been scary there for a while; the court costs mounting into six figures, me envisaging utter ruin.

  ‘You’ve got a week.’

  ‘OK.’ I hung up. Effie looked up at me and then carefully poured some sand into her red plastic cup.

  ‘Cup of tea, Mummy?’ she asked earnestly, holding it out to me.

  ‘Do you know what, my angel,’ I lowered myself into the sandpit between them, ‘I don’t mind if I do.’

  I had meant to discuss my plans with James that evening, though secretly I was dreading it. He was happy with me doing one day at the local paper: returning to a national would be entirely different.

  But by the time the children were fed and bathed and I’d thought of all the right things to appease him with, James’s partner in crime, Liam, had arrived for the night. Unsurprisingly, he had a new girlfriend in tow, a tiny jolly redhead with see-through skin and an over-inflated bosom.

  Lord Higham was being interviewed on Radio Four when they arrived. I was desperate to listen but turned it down hurriedly as James walked into the kitchen. I knew he’d freak if he so much as heard the name.

  ‘Hey, babe,’ Liam kissed me. ‘This is Star.’

  ‘Wow.’ I suppressed a smile. ‘Hi, Star.’

  ‘That’s a funny name,’ Alicia said. ‘It’s like being called Moon.’

  ‘Or Bum-bum,’ said Freddie with a joyful snigger.

  ‘No it’s not, silly,’ said Alicia. ‘It’s not like Bum-bum is it, Mum?’

  ‘No it’s not,’ I said, trying to keep a straight face. ‘It’s very silly, Freddie.’

  ‘Bum-bum,’ Freddie repeated, his eyes round at his own daring.

  ‘Anyway you shouldn’t say that, should he, Mum? It’s rude.’

  ‘No, he shouldn’t,’ I agreed solemnly. ‘It is very silly, Freddie.’

  ‘Bum-bum!’

  ‘That’s enough, Fred,’ his father warned.

  ‘It’s not my real name actually – Star,’ Star offered in rather vacant Northern tones. ‘I wish it were, but it’s not.’

  ‘Oh.’ Alicia, disappointed, took a moment to absorb this. ‘What is it then?’

  ‘Sarah. But you don’t meet many film stars called Sarah, do you? It’s dead dull.’

  ‘Are you a film star then?’ Alicia’s eyes widened. ‘A real live one?’

  ‘No.’ Star shook her head sadly. ‘Not yet. I’m a podium dancer. But I will be one day.’

  ‘What’s a – a podion dancer?’

  ‘Well, my darling,’ Liam’s eyes lit up, ‘it’s a lady who—’

  ‘Alicia, have you finished your homework?’ I cut across James’s friend and partner, throwing him a warning glare. ‘We should do your reading, shouldn’t we? Do you need a hand?’

  Liam was now swinging Effie wildly over his shoulder to screams of huge delight.

  ‘My turn, my turn …’ Freddie hopped up and down like a small jumping bean. ‘My turn, Uncle Liam!’

  James pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and three glasses out of the cupboard. ‘We’re going through to the studio.’ He winked at me. ‘All right, petal?’

  It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Come on, Liam, put her down. You’ve got to listen to this new mix. And Don’s sent the new plans through. They’re fucking wicked.’

  ‘James!’ I admonished, but he just gave me a look.

  ‘Why don’t you all have some dinner first?’ I offered hopefully. I could do with the company. I wanted to hear Liam’s news and Star’s views on podium fashion and world politics – anything, really, rather than be stranded high and dry with my own thoughts. The radio stared at me malevolently.

  ‘You must be hungry. Did you eat on the way? I could knock up some pasta, if you like.’

  ‘That’d be grand,’ Liam began, but James glowered at him.

  ‘No time to eat, mate,’ he said. ‘No rest for the wicked!’

  Liam shot me a look that said he wasn’t arguing. My heart sank. I knew this was the last I’d see of James till at least midday tomorrow. I made a final attempt.

  ‘Oh, come on, guys. You must be starving after your trek up the M40.’ I was almost pleading. ‘It’s no trouble. How about a nice carbonara?’

  ‘Rosie, love.’ James kissed me on the cheek, his voice dangerously low. I could smell whiskey on his breath. ‘I don’t think you need any more slap-up feeds right now. Know what I’m saying?’

  I turned away quickly before they caught the glint of tears, knocking my notebook off the counter by mistake. I used to be at ease with my body, like Star seemed to be – once, before I’d had the children. James picked the notebook up. Idly he flicked it open at the last page, the page I’d scrawled on earlier, and began to read aloud in a stupid voice.

  ‘“I feel savage, and I can’t be, not here. I am confined by the honey-coloured stone, the sheer niceness of it all, the pretty houses, the postcard perfect village, the cricket green shorn to within an inch of its life, the twitching net curtains that are snowy white. It’s all perfect and yet I am not. It is perfect and it’s killing me.”‘

  ‘James, please,’ I said, trying to grab it back. Mortified, feeling like I’d just been horribly exposed, I couldn’t bear to look at the others as James held the book out of reach high above his head; with sinking heart, I saw he was poisonous with drink.

  ‘Oh dear, Rosie darling,’ he pouted. ‘Bit bored? Poor you. The perfect idyll and you’re suicidal.’

  ‘I’m not at all suicidal.’ I was flushing violently now. ‘It’s just an idea for a story.’

  James chucked it down on the side. ‘Don’t give up the day job,’ he said with malice. ‘Oh, that’s right, you don’t have one any more.’

  ‘Come on, mate,’ Liam muttered. Star seemed oblivious, thank God.

  ‘James!’ I mumbled. ‘Please, don’t.’

  As quickly as he switched, he switched back again.

  ‘I’m only teasing, darling,’ he said, stroking my face. His eyes were black with something. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it. Come on, guys.’

  ‘You’re gorgeous, babe.’ Liam squeezed my hand as he left the room. ‘Ignore him. He doesn’t know he’s born.’

  ‘I like your house,’ I heard Star saying as they disappeared in James’s wake, off to the studio built in the old garage. ‘Is it real?’

  As the door shut on them, I opened the biscuit tin and crammed two Jaffa Cakes down in defiance before sharing the rest with my delighted children. I wasn’t gorgeous any more, if I ever had been. I knew that.

  ‘Right, you lot. Bed.’

  We’d moved from London just after I’d had the twins. I’d been in a stupor of sleep deprivation and cracked nipples, and possibly undiagnosed post-natal depression, worrying about Alicia and whether she felt pushed out, worrying that I didn’t have enough time or love to split fairly between three children. I did have enough love, it turned out – more than enough – but I didn’t have enough time. That had become clear quite quickly.

  My mother had come to stay for the first month, unpacking boxes, heating bottles and washing an endless rotation of small babygros. My father watched the golf; sometimes I slumped beside him on the sofa, wondering how a woman who’d once partied for England, ridden in army helicopters above battlegrounds and regularly flown into places like war-torn Sarajevo for work could be so utterly pole-axed by two tiny babies and a boisterous three-year-old
. Occasionally I also wondered what the hell I was doing in the middle of the Cotswold countryside, pretty but reminiscent of the rural life that I’d left behind in the Peak District as a teenager – and far too near Oxford for my liking. But I was victim of James’s whim after he’d shot a music video at Blenheim Palace and fallen in love with the place – apparently. Worried about the nightmares and the depression, I’d let myself be roller-coastered by his enthusiasm.

  I’d given up everything for my kids, willingly; one of us had to and there didn’t seem to be any question that it would be me. I’d certainly never argued. I’d simply switched off my computer and left the paper, my city friends and my beloved flat in Marylebone for my children and the country air they needed. There wasn’t enough room for the pram on the pavement any more and, crucially, I didn’t want to foist them onto a nanny whilst I continued tearing round the world unmasking controversy in often dodgy situations. It was time for domesticity, I’d accepted that quite readily. I was tired of running – that was the truth.

  When the children were asleep, I sat at the kitchen table and poured myself a small glass of wine. I opened the laptop, attempted to write something about Edna’s allotment – but giant marrows kept popping into my head. I saw myself through James’s eyes: I was just like a benign shepherd. Not even that, a well-trained and obedient sheepdog. I rounded my children up and chased them gently through the day, and even when they or I were asleep, one ear was always cocked, one ear pinioned by my duty. Gone were the days when I went leaping to the challenge of a good story. Now my role was to stay close, although James was apparently still free to roam, and I was too exhausted to argue.

  After about twenty minutes of desultory typing and deleting, typing and more deleting, I checked my emails for distraction.

  There was one from Xav with biog details of Hadi Kattan, which I perused quickly. He was a fascinating man. He was born in Iran. His parents and sister had been incarcerated under the Shah’s regime; he was the only survivor from his immediate family, thanks to being away at school in Britain. After their deaths he’d stayed here for some time, under an uncle’s wing, educated first at Rugby and then Cambridge. He had famously denounced Islam in his thesis, part of which was published to great acclaim and controversy in The Times, after which he’d rejected the literary career so many had predicted and had gone on to make his reputation as a brilliant but ruthless trader on the London and New York stock exchanges. He briefly headed the Equities division of the World-Trident Bank before moving into the art world and retiring early with a huge fortune. His wife, Alia, had died five years ago, leaving him two children. The rumours of political intrigue, and an al-Qaeda connection seemed unlikely to me, given Kattan’s political and religious background.

  Below Xav’s email was another, forwarded from Tina at the Chronicle.

  ‘ASH KATTAN: HOPE FOR THE FUTURE,’ the header said, and there followed a message from Tina: ‘Hadi Kattan is hosting a party at his place on Tuesday to mark the launch of his son’s political campaign: we’re invited. Perfect opportunity to ingratiate ourselves. Grab that lovely husband of yours and get a babysitter.’

  I contemplated it for a moment. I felt the adrenalin begin to course through my veins, and I knew, as I’d known all day, that I wasn’t going to be able to resist chasing the story.

  UNIVERSITY, OCTOBER 1991

  Sweet roses … Of their sweet deaths are

  sweetest odours made.

  Sonnet 54, Shakespeare

  Despite Dalziel’s apparent – if rather lackadaisical – enthusiasm for my help in the pub that night, I didn’t hear from him again. I was hugely disappointed, but not that surprised. Along with the realisation my brief encounter with him had been just a drunken fancy of his, my nebulous hope of acceptance into the upper echelons slowly died.

  The Student Union put on a do on Saturday for Hallowe’en; resolutely I bought my ticket. Moany Moira was going home for the weekend, and I saw my chance. I had to make some proper friends. The theme was ‘Spooky ‘60s style’; I eschewed the normal array of ghosts and werewolf costumes, and went for a pretty spectacular multicoloured Mr Freedom jumpsuit I found in the local Oxfam and some plastic fangs. After an hour or so of pretending I was having a good time with a few people from the Poetry Society, bobbing around to the Bee Gees and Mama Cass, James arrived looking rather handsome as a be-fanged vampire in a Beatles suit, a besotted freckle-faced girl dressed as Twiggy in tow. James waved but didn’t come to say hello, and I felt a faint lurch as I watched the pair kissing passionately beneath fake cobwebs in the corner.

  Surprised at myself, I drank too much cider, ending up cornered by an over-enthusiastic rugby player, a tall sandy-haired boy called Peter whose long hair had a nasty slick sheen, and who was so drunk he kept calling me Rosemary. Eventually I relented and let him kiss me outside the girls’ loos, but when he started to paw at the zip of my jumpsuit with a large sweaty hand, I pushed him away gently.

  ‘Com’on, Roze-mary,’ he slurred, swaying dangerously. ‘You know you want to really.’

  ‘Actually, I really don’t,’ I insisted, but he was heavy and drunk, and horribly persistent. His breath a cloying mix of beer and peanuts, his wet pink mouth leered above my face before closing down on mine.

  ‘Please!’ I pushed him away harder this time, his lips leaving a trail of smelly saliva and peanut crumbs across my cheek. ‘Get off!’

  ‘Fucking Christ,’ he snarled. ‘You bloody plebs are all the same.’ He lunged forward, slamming me against the wall as he pinioned me there, so hard that I hit my head on the skeleton hanging behind me. ‘Little prick-tease.’

  ‘Ow,’ I clutched my head as the plastic bones rattled, a little stunned. Before I could move, Peter lunged forward again – and then, as if an invisible wire had pulled him, suddenly he flew backwards, landing on his arse on the beer-stained floor.

  ‘Didn’t you hear the lady?’

  Startled, I gazed at a glowering James.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes. Fine, thanks.’ Together we stared down at the crumpled Peter. Greying Y-fronts were visible above his ill-fitting brown cords, large sweat-patches staining the underarms of his striped shirt. I shuddered. I was drunker than I realised.

  ‘I don’t think she was enjoying that very much.’ James was absolutely nonchalant, but his fists were both clenched. ‘Were you, Rose?’

  ‘Not much,’ I agreed, nervously.

  ‘Who the fuck … ?’ Peter scrambled inelegantly to his feet, a mottled red suffusing his clammy complexion. ‘Who the fuck asked you?’

  ‘No one,’ James shrugged pleasantly, turning away.

  ‘Oi!’ Peter pulled James round by the shoulder. ‘I said, who asked you, you jumped-up little twat?’

  ‘Let go, mate.’ I could feel the tension rising in James as he stared at Peter’s hand.

  ‘You’re one of those Society X morons, aren’t you? Licking bloody St John’s arse.’

  James punched Peter square on the nose. There was a nasty crunch and an almost immediate spurt of blood. The taller boy crumpled forwards again, clutching his nose. James just stared down at him, and the blankness on his face chilled me.

  ‘James!’ The pale girl he’d been canoodling with in the bar stood in the doorway, her red beret pulled down over her curls, false eyelashes like spider-legs framing her huge shocked eyes.

  ‘Yeah, all right, Kate.’ James shook his hand ruefully. ‘Ouch. His nose was harder than it looked.’

  I gaped at him.

  ‘You might want to think about leaving now,’ James said softly, propelling me back towards the bar. ‘We could walk you …’

  ‘James!’ The girl was scowling. She was very young, fifteen or sixteen maybe. Younger than we were. Peter groaned on the ground.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ I sensed her hostility. I’d had enough aggro for one night. ‘Honestly. Thank you, though.’

  As I left the bar, I glanced back at James. He was holding
his companion’s arm, apparently soothing her as they gathered their coats to beat a retreat themselves. Catching my eye, he held a hand up in farewell. I was utterly confused.

  The following day was the anniversary of my French grandmother’s death. I spoke to my mother on the phone in the morning; she tried valiantly to mask her sadness.

  ‘Light a candle, love, if you get the chance. She’d like that,’ she said, but I knew it was unlikely I’d be near a church. I mumbled something placatory, and promised to write soon.

  Around four o’clock, after a day spent struggling with Blake’s Songs of Innocence, I was desperate to get out of my stuffy little room. I grabbed my coat and fled into the fresh air.

  The light was already dying in the chilly autumn afternoon as I walked aimlessly; my feet taking me across the Christ Church Meadow towards the old cathedral. The windows suffused with gold looked welcoming against the darkening velvet of the sky, and the choir were just finishing their rehearsals as I slipped into a pew at the back of the great building, listening to the last few beautiful lines of what I later learned was Handel’s Messiah.

  I waited as they packed up, calling to each other jovially, agreeing to meet in the pub over the road, and then I wandered down to the great table where the candles were kept.

  The door slammed behind the last chorister. I put my money in the honesty box, chose a candle and then carried it to the wooden rack where the others flickered. I placed it alongside the others, some still lit, some melted to tiny jagged stubs, the flames shining bravely in the dim light.

  As I picked up the matches I thought I heard a footstep, but when I looked round, the cathedral seemed deserted apart from me. I lit my candle and tried to focus my mind, thinking fondly of my grandmother, her funny Anglicisms, her boeuf Bourguignon that melted in your mouth, her horror when my mother cut my infant hair short. (‘Mon Dieu! So common, Lynette. Vraiment, tout le monde dirait qu’elle est un garçon!’)

  Placing the matches back, I felt a draught down the back of my neck. A sudden scraping noise made my heart jump – and then a great gust of wind blew through the cathedral from nowhere. All the flames guttered. My candle went out.