We Are Family Page 9

  ‘I’d like to see you again,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ she teased. ‘All of me?’

  ‘I was thinking dinner. I was thinking I’d like to take you out. I’m new to the island. You could show me around, if you wanted. I was thinking we could talk and get to know each other a little. You know, do some of that stuff other people do before sharing a bath . . .’ Immediately, he wondered if he’d sounded too keen, whether he might have scared her off.

  She studied his face in the same way a jeweller might study a gem, searching for signs of authenticity. Her toes wriggled against his. ‘Perhaps,’ she finally answered, standing up and stepping out of the bath.

  Water chased itself in runnels down her golden skin, splashing on to the terracotta floor.

  ‘Is that a perhaps yes, or a perhaps no?’ he asked.

  ‘A perhaps sooner than you think . . .’

  She was right. He left her apartment half an hour later and three hours after that he found himself sitting beside her in an exclusive harbourside restaurant, topping up her glass with Chianti and discreetly whispering in her ear, ‘You knew all along, didn’t you, you crazy girl?’ to which she only laughed in reply.

  Because of course she really had known all along who he was. Because she’d guessed the moment he’d told her he’d moved into the apartment beneath hers. Because she’d already known that her grandfather had earmarked that apartment for his new star employee. Sam’s seduction had all been part of a risqué game to her, a game she was still playing now at dinner, as she slipped her hand under the tablecloth and along his thigh.

  On the other side of the table was Tony Glover, chairman of Ararat Holdings, Sam’s new boss and Claire’s grandfather, or ‘Pops,’ as Sam had already discovered that she liked to call him. In between Tony and Morgan Cole, Ararat’s financial director, was Tony’s wife and business partner, Rachel.

  As Sam looked up from whispering to Claire, he saw Tony smiling at him. It was a smile which Sam recognised, a smile of approval. It was the same smile Tony had given him when Sam had accepted the position of marketing director six weeks earlier, after no less than five rounds of weeding-out interviews. There was confidence in the smile, too, the same confidence that had told Sam then that Tony had already known that Sam wasn’t going to turn the job down.

  At the end of the meal, it was Tony who asked Sam if he’d make sure Claire got safely home, making Sam suddenly wonder whether it wasn’t only the job which Tony had been vetting him for.

  ‘She’s my princess, Sam, so you make sure you take good care of her, OK?’ Tony said.

  Back at Claire’s apartment, Sam and Claire drank champagne and laughed about what she’d done till four and then fucked till five. By six he’d fallen in love, in love with her voice, with the Mediterranean heat, with the contours of her breasts, the touch of her tongue, the smell of her sheets and with the oil painting of the monastery of Santo Bartholomew on her bedroom wall. He’d fallen head over heels in love with her life, thinking that perhaps it could one day be his.

  By the time he woke at noon and saw the sunlight filtering in through the window’s muslin drapes, he was already fantasising about building a long future for himself on this beautiful island off the coast of Spain. Because if things were to work out with his job and between himself and this crazy, intriguing, boozy-breathed, beautiful, game-playing girl, then who knew how different and amazing his life might become in a few years’ time?

  And wasn’t that why he’d quit his job in the City and decided to move out here? Because he’d wanted to differentiate his life from those of his broker colleagues, who’d all been set on following the same uninspired, if well-remunerated, blueprint through life. And wasn’t that also why he’d recently broken up with his girlfriend of the last three years? Because hers had been a creature-comfort-driven suburban dream and it had made him want to scream.

  He reached over and kissed Claire gently on the lips as she slept: because she’d shaken his world up in less than a day and had given him exactly the fresh start he’d wanted. But much more than that, because he hoped that, with this girl, each day would feel like a fresh start in a freshly shaken world.

  Nearly a decade later and Sam still desired her. It was one of the few things in their relationship which hadn’t changed. He sat on the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar bedroom in Dreycott Manor, fastening his black silk tie over his crisp white shirt, and watching Claire as she finished dressing for Tony’s funeral. He smoothed down his hair with the palms of his hands.

  Claire sat down beside him and pulled on her leather boots, then stood up and turned her back on him. ‘Be an angel, darling,’ she said.

  He could feel her shaking as he zipped up her simple black dress. She’d wept again since Brenda had shown them up to this rarely used and rather shabby guest room in the old servants’ quarters at the back of the house. The room had an air of hopelessness to it and neglect. It reminded Sam of his parents’ room in the modern estate house he’d grown up in. It felt like being trapped inside a sigh.

  Sam knew his wife’s predilection for drama and emotional dishonesty only too well, but he’d never seen her genuinely knocked like this. Nor had he seen her so uncertain of herself. It was as if, with Tony gone, her world had lurched suddenly sideways and she’d yet to find her feet.

  Sam kissed her lightly on the nape of her neck. She held his head there a moment for reassurance, before releasing him and walking to the tarnished, full-length mirror on the wall.

  ‘She’d better be pretty damned special, whoever she is,’ she said, starting on her make-up. She flicked Sam a glance. ‘I still can’t get over it. Bloody cuckoo.’

  The ‘new cousin’. That’s how Brenda had described the interloper whose belongings were currently ensconced in the largest and most impressive of the guest rooms at the front of the house, the same room which had been Claire’s room while she’d been at school near here, and in which Sam and Claire had stayed on every single one of their previous visits.

  ‘I don’t want a new cousin,’ Claire grumbled.

  ‘Well, technically, she’s not your cousin,’ Sam pointed out. ‘She’s your great-uncle Bill’s daughter, which makes her your –’

  ‘I don’t care if it makes her my fairy fucking godmother,’ Claire snapped. ‘She still shouldn’t be here. In my old room. With all my old things.’ Claire sighed. ‘Pops would’ve been appalled, you know. He wouldn’t even allow Bill’s name to be mentioned. There’s no way he would have wanted his daughter here.’

  Sam knew the story of Tony and Rachel’s falling-out with her brother Bill as well as anyone. Not very well at all, in other words, seeing as Rachel and Tony had always remained remarkably unforthcoming about the details. It all revolved around some crazy quarrel from fifty years ago surrounding their mother’s death. Which had been a tragic accident anyway, so Sam understood, so what exactly all the subsequent fuss was about he didn’t know. All he did know was that Rachel had now obviously made overtures to heal the family rift. Hence their own relegation to the back of the house.

  ‘But Rachel obviously does,’ he pointed out to Claire. ‘Otherwise she wouldn’t have invited her.’

  ‘She’s probably so upset she doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

  ‘Somehow I doubt that.’ Rachel was one of the most clear-headed people Sam had ever met. He’d flown out to see her in Biarritz the day Tony had died, taking his lawyer with him. He’d wanted to be there to comfort her, but also to help her with the mass of bureaucracy and paperwork which would have arisen. But he needn’t have worried on either count. Armed with only a phone, Rachel had dealt with everything, up to and including the transportation of Tony’s body back to the UK, by the time Sam had arrived. Her resilience and reserves of strength had left him in awe.

  ‘What was it Brenda said she was called?’ Claire mused aloud. ‘Laura? Louise?’

  Sam didn’t know either. He’d been too preoccupied with carrying a wriggling, giggling Archi
e up the stairs at the time and had only caught snatches of Claire and Brenda’s conversation.

  ‘Something beginning with L, anyway,’ Claire concluded.

  ‘She might be nice,’ Sam suggested. ‘And Brenda says she’s only a few years older than you, so – who knows? – you two might even end up friends.’

  ‘Sure, and pigs might fly.’ Claire lit a cigarette. ‘She’s probably just after some cash, you know. I bet that’s what it is. She’s probably worked out how much Pops was worth and figures we can spare a bit.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’ He pulled on his suit jacket.

  ‘And I don’t not know it, either. I can’t think of another reason why some long-lost relative would crawl out of the woodwork at a funeral. Can you?’

  ‘Even if that were the reason,’ Sam equivocated, ‘she’s not going to get any.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because she’ll have to get past Rachel first. And me.’

  Sam hadn’t meant to say this last bit aloud. But it was out now and Claire was far from lacking intuition. Her eyes flashed with interest.

  ‘She’s spoken to you, hasn’t she?’ she demanded, spinning round to face him, all thoughts of her mysterious ‘new cousin’ instantly brushed aside. Stubbing out her cigarette on the ornamental commemorative plate she’d been using as an ashtray, she hurried over to him. She gripped his suit collar in her fists and pulled him towards her, staring deep into his eyes.

  ‘She’s asked you to run Ararat with her and not Uncle Chris and Uncle Nick, hasn’t she?’

  Claire had guessed right. Rachel had called Sam that morning, offering him a 5 per cent shareholding in the company and the position of managing director. From now on, in conjunction with the board – which would include the other family members – and under the chairmanship of Rachel herself, Ararat’s destiny lay in Sam’s hands.

  He’d been half expecting it, knowing that, of all the family members, he was the one best placed to take over. He knew, of course, that Rachel was more than capable of running the company, but it seemed she no longer had the will. As it was, she’d already started withdrawing herself from her management role these last two years. The same had been true of Tony. Rachel had wanted them both to enjoy their money before they’d got too old.

  As a result, in the last couple of years, Sam’s job had been injected with a new lease of life, as he’d been given an increasingly free reign in strategising Ararat’s future. He’d concentrated on centralising the company’s administration in Palma, while aggressively expanding its interests around the Mediterranean. Sam had always loved the variety of his work, and he’d immediately set about broadening his knowledge, taking a personal interest in learning even the smallest details of every aspect of the business, from the accounts of each hotel and villa, to the names of each and every one of Ararat’s four hundred employees.

  His hands-on approach had worked. He’d increased the company’s operating profits by nearly 30 per cent. Tony and Rachel had been delighted, but unsurprised. And Sam had loved every minute of it.

  Which was why, that morning, he’d had no hesitation in accepting Rachel’s offer. As he’d listened to the favourable terms she’d outlined, he’d silently sworn to repay the trust she’d placed in him with interest. Rachel had then told him that she was planning to break the news to the rest of the family after the funeral and that she’d want him by her side when she did. She’d asked Sam to tell no one until then and also to prepare a few remarks of his own to make.

  ‘I knew it,’ Claire squealed. She wrapped her arms around Sam’s waist and pressed her forehead against his chest. ‘You’ve worked so hard. I’m so proud of you. Of us.’ She looked tearfully up at him. ‘Pops would have handed it over to you when he retired anyway, you know. He told me. I just wish he’d lived long enough to tell you himself.’

  Sam pulled her in tight, enveloping her with his arms, hugging her as she quivered against him, the same as he had done when he’d come back from France three years before to tell her that he’d fallen in love with someone else and was leaving.

  X. His Ex. That’s how he thought of her now, the other woman, the woman he’d fallen in love with – thought he’d fallen in love with – in less than three weeks in southern France in the summer of 2000. X, like he’d tried to cross her out in his mind, which he had. X, like she no longer existed, which in his world she no longer did. X. He’d burnt the only photographs of her he’d ever possessed.

  Even though he’d been with Claire for several years then, they hadn’t been married. Not that he saw that as any kind of an excuse for what he’d done. He knew that infidelity had nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with love. Either he hadn’t loved Claire enough to stay faithful, or he’d loved or desired X more.

  Immediately after he’d finished the affair, he’d tried thinking of X as a Siren, who’d entered his life and whose call he’d been unable to resist. But he’d soon come to recognise this for the lame excuse it was. He’d been the one to blame. Like an adolescent, he’d bought into the fantasy of love making anything possible, that was all. For a while, he’d cut loose and let his emotions carry him away. But only for a while. Because then he’d grown up and reality had staked its claim in his life once more.

  In the run-up to the affair, Sam had been living with Claire in a small finca in the mountain town of Deià in the north-west of Mallorca, while their new penthouse in Portals Nous – infinitely more fashionable than Palma, in Claire’s opinion – had undergone the lengthy process of being restyled to suit Claire’s taste.

  Six years had passed since Sam had first met Claire, and their afternoons of lying toe to toe in her aloe-scented bath had long since been squeezed out to make room for business commitments on his behalf and social engagements on hers.

  In the week, he worked and she didn’t. In the evenings, after suppers with her family and friends (whom they often chatted to more than each other), Sam went home and Claire stayed out. On the rare weekends when he wasn’t working, he clambered through the mountain olive groves on his own, while she drove down to sea level and lazed on the beaches and lounged in the bars.

  He knew, of course, that something was wrong. His problem was that he couldn’t see what. Not enough to do something about it anyway. He and Claire had different interests, and he couldn’t see how to bring them closer. He wasn’t ecstatic about being with her, but he wasn’t unhappy about it either. They got along most of the time, like friends. Sometimes they had fun. Occasionally he adored her. And there was always the sex, which was always good. All of which, when combined with a job he loved, and a boss who actively condoned his match with Claire, made for an attractive status quo.

  Then in 2000 he met X, at the bottom of a swimming pool in southern France. It was like discovering he could breathe underwater, like his life could become a place of miracles.

  He’d been overseeing the final phases of the construction of one of Ararat’s boutique hotels near Cannes at the time and had taken the opportunity to tour the three villas owned by the company in the surrounding vicinity. He hadn’t seen Claire for over two weeks and hadn’t spoken to her for four days.

  X had been staying at one of the villas with a group of friends. The water in the villa’s swimming pool had drained away overnight. As Ararat’s mortified rep, who’d been driving Sam around, attempted to sort out this unforeseen problem by phone, Sam climbed down the pool steps and on to the dry pool bottom to take a look for himself.

  She was already standing there with a sarong wrapped round her tanned hips. She had one foot either side of the rip in the pool lining and was peering down at the crack in the concrete beneath. As she looked up at Sam, they both smiled. (Within a week, he’d have convinced them it was because they were destined to be together; within a month he’d have attempted to convince himself it had been nothing more than a case of infatuation, brought about by the heat of the noonday sun.)

  ‘What do you think happened?’
she asked. ‘An earthquake?’

  ‘If it was,’ he wanted to tell her, ‘then it’s still going on,’ because looking into her eyes, that’s exactly how he felt.

  And he wanted an earthquake. That’s what he suddenly realised, after having chatted with her for an hour. He wanted his precious status quo to be shaken and rocked. He wanted to feel this alive and to remember what it felt like to flirt. He wanted to take his emotional life off hold and run forward and see what was round the corner.

  He came back the next day, ostensibly to check on the pool. And the day after that, openly to check on this woman. All the time he was gone, he missed the smile she put on his face. He missed her voice, telling him more about her life. He asked her out for a drink and then dinner, and then, while her friends were packing their bags, he asked her to stay for another week. He recognised the moment she agreed as the happiest of his life.

  Before they slept together, he told her about Claire. And he told her about Ararat. He explained how he could no longer tell where his work life ended and his home life began. He told her he’d got lost somewhere in the middle, stretched between the two. He’d compromised his passion to fuel his ambition, he now realised. He was living a half-life, a lie. It was like being slowly suffocated, he said. X was like oxygen to him, he told her. She was extraordinary and with her he could be extraordinary, too. He told her she’d made him remember himself.

  If she wanted him to, he’d give it all up for her. He promised her this. He’d go back and tell Claire that he’d fallen in love with someone else and was leaving. He’d tell Tony and Rachel and then he’d resign. He wanted to be with X because of who she was, not because of who she knew, or where she lived. He’d return to the UK to see her. If she wanted to, they could make a fresh start then, together. All she had to do was say yes . . .