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33

The moon, pale and sinister as Rannaldini, kept vanishing behind fluffy sable cloud. A witch’s trail soared straight through Hercules. A chill breeze ruffled the leaves as Tristan walked through Hangman’s Wood. The stench of decaying wild garlic was stronger than ever.

Rannaldini, waiting in the watch-tower doorway, was wearing a black crew-necked sweater that gave him a vaguely ecclesiastical air.

‘How’s Tab?’ he asked, as he led the way to the glowing red sitting room on the first floor.

‘Very shaken.’

As Tristan collapsed on a pale-grey sofa, his tummy rumbled. The last thing he’d eaten had been one of Rozzy’s croissants at breakfast, and he didn’t remember finishing it. The vast Armagnac Rannaldini handed him would go straight to his head. ‘She’s OK,’ he went on, ‘but we must tell the police. It can’t have been an accident, and about Flora’s fox being cut up. Tab was so brave,’ then, unable to help himself, ‘and so adorable.’

Rannaldini had gone very quiet, frowning as he paced up and down, trampling on the red roses that patterned the faded Aubusson carpet.

‘I have been sad recently that you and I have so often come to blows,’ he said gently, ‘but we only fight because we so passionately want Carlos to work.’

‘Of course.’

‘But I never stop loving you, Tristan. You are still my little godson.’

Rannaldini’s voice was so hypnotic. Perhaps he should do those introductions after all, thought Tristan.

‘And I love you,’ he stammered. He felt very happy that everything was falling so wonderfully into place. But Rannaldini went on pacing.

‘There is…’ he began. ‘No, I cannot.’

‘Go on,’ urged Tristan.

‘There is secret I prayed I would never have to tell you, but as very close friend of your father…’ He paused.

Tristan went cold.

‘Have you never wondered why Étienne neglected you and never loved you?’

Tristan winced.

‘All the time,’ he said wearily. ‘Laurent died, I suppose. I lived. Laurent was my father’s favourite son, then Maman committed suicide. Maybe it deranged him. On his deathbed, he was rambling on that my father was my grandfather. I didn’t know what he was talking about.’ He shuddered, remembering Étienne in the huge bed, with the determinedly cheerful nurse siphoning off the fountains of blood.

The moon, like a Beardsley rakehell, was leering in through a high window covered in a black lacing of clematis, whose quivering shadows in turn cast an illusion of mobility on Rannaldini’s cold, impassive face.

‘Your mother was most stunning woman I ever meet. Turn round. I don’t think you ever see painting your father did.’

Tristan leapt to his feet. Behind him on the scarlet wall was a small oil of a young girl, her naked body as white as Tab’s but far more softly curved and passive. She leant against a dark green sofa. The young Rannaldini, black-haired, black eyes glittering with lust and power, was stripped to the waist in tight breeches and boots. He had a hunting whip in his hand, and had coiled the long lash round the girl’s neck. There was an expression of terror and wild excitement on her face.

‘Maman,’ stammered Tristan, finding himself blushing in horror and sick, shaming excitement at what was clearly one of his father’s masterpieces.

‘It is called The Snake Charmer,’ purred Rannaldini. ‘The texture of her body is quite extraordinary. I shall miss her dreadfully.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘The Tate and the Louvre are planning a huge Montigny retrospective. Your beautiful mother will tour the world and take her place in the pantheon of women who inspired great artists.’

‘Non!’ cried Tristan, in outrage. ‘For God’s sake, Rannaldini.’

He wanted to throw his shirt round Delphine’s naked body. Dragging his eyes away, he collapsed, trembling, on the sofa, fumbling for a cigarette.

‘She certainly inspired your father,’ began Rannaldinisoftly. ‘What Étienne did not know was that her father, Maxim, your grandfather, was a thug, brutish, utterly unstable, his sole passion his daughter. He was obsessed with her. Delphine only went out with me,’ idly, Rannaldini flicked a speck of dust from a bronze of Wagner, ‘to escape him. For the same reason, she marry your father. Maxim, her father, was so crazed with jealousy he wait till she and Étienne return from honeymoon — which had not been a success, the marriage hardly consummated. Étienne fly to Australia for two months to fulfil commission.’

Rannaldini paused, his face full of compassion.

‘My conscience torture me. Should I tell you this?’

‘Go on, for fuck’s sake.’

‘A week later, Maxim roll up at empty house and rape her.’

Breath swamped Tristan’s chest, his heart had no room to beat.

‘By horrible luck, she became pregnant.’ Rannaldini admired his expression of genuine concern in a big gilt mirror. ‘But she was too terrified to tell Étienne so she passed the baby off as his.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ croaked Tristan, his legs shaking with a violent life of their own. ‘Why didn’t she have an abortion?’

‘She was so young, a strict Catholic, and terrified of it coming out that her father was clinically insane, that people might commit her because she was insane too, that Étienne might kick her out, back to Maxim.’

‘You could have helped her,’ spat Tristan.

‘My poor boy, I was in Berlin. I knew nothing. After you were born, Delphine sink into depression and reject you. Your father was too devastated by Laurent’s death to give her any support. Then he do sums. You are large, healthy boy, not premature. He furiously cross-question your mother. She collapse from guilt and weakness and tell him everything, then take her own life. That was the dreadful irony.’ Rannaldini’s eyes were velvety dark as pansies with sympathy. ‘That Laurent, the flower of the Montignys, was dead… and you…’

‘A little incestuously conceived bastard,’ said Tristan, with a dry laugh horribly reminiscent of Étienne’s death rattle, ‘was alive.’

‘I am so very sorry,’ murmured Rannaldini. ‘Étienne was never able to speak of Laurent again.’

‘What happened to my…’ Tristan couldn’t say father ‘… to Maxim?’

‘He go off his head with grief when Delphine die. He was committed and die shortly of ’eartbreak in the asylum.’

‘It’s not possible.’ Tristan winced as he put his head in his sore hands, but it was nothing to the pain in his heart. ‘My grandfather was my father. Oh, Christ.’

Rannaldini put a caressing hand on the boy’s rigid, shuddering shoulders. ‘My poor child. Knowing all this, I deliberately take interest in you, hoping to give you back some of the love that deserted you.’

The wind had risen, frenziedly shaking the trees. Rose stems scraped at the windows, lacerating each other with their thorns. Rannaldini was trampling over the Aubusson roses again.

‘But, when cheeps are down, Tabitha is my daughter.’ He sighed. ‘I see the longing in your eyes, but she is better off married to Isa, even if he is Rupert’s deadly enemy. She needs babies. Marcus is homosexual. There is little likelihood of you fathering healthy kids. You are three-quarters Maxim, remember.’ Rannaldini watched the boy shove his fists in his ears, trying to shut out the horrors. ‘One day, Tabitha will be reunited with Rupert. He would not be ’appy with some unstable, misshapen offspring.’

‘Like the vrai Carlos,’ whispered Tristan bitterly.

Picasso’s one-eyed girl over the fireplace had the same Greek nose as Tab.

‘Tonight I find her.’ Tristan’s voice broke. ‘I love her, Rannaldini.’

‘There is only a couple of weeks left of filming. Everyone fall in love on location. Chloe and Oscar, Alpheus and Chloe, Baby and Flora, Sexton,’ Rannaldini gave a wry shrug, ‘and ’Ermione, Sylvestre et tout le monde. ’Ave you also not notice the way your niece Simone gaze at my Wolfgang?’

Tristan was too shocked to take in any of these pearls, gleaned from Rannaldini’s monitors.

‘You will soon forget her.’

‘Never.’ Tristan’s mind was reeling.

Not only was he not a Montigny, but his identification with Don Carlos, because the Inquisition had murdered his Montigny ancestor, was a sham.

‘No wonder my father — Christ, I mean Étienne — sneered at my obsession with the family. No wonder his lip curl when kind people say I inherit his talent and paint with light. Not one drop of Montigny blood — oh, Christ.’

Then another devastating hammer-blow struck him. ‘If I am not Montigny, I have no claim to any of Papa/Étienne’s money. I have handed eet over to production. I am a thief.’

His voice rose, his eyes rolled crazily. As he jumped to his feet, he caught sight of Étienne’s painting. For a second Rannaldini was alarmed he was going to tug it from the wall and smash it.

‘Calm down. No-one has discovered secret in twenty-eight years. Why should it come out now?’

‘But I will be living a hideous lie.’ Tristan turned, pleading, back to Rannaldini. ‘How can I be sure? Everyone says I am all Montigny.’

‘Adopted children pick up parents’ mannerisms.’

Tristan slumped on the sofa. ‘Why did Étienne keep me?’

‘Guilt that he’d pushed Delphine over the edge, and after all his boasting to his friends that he fathered beautiful son in his sixties he was too proud to admit you weren’t his. But you should be proud of yourself,’ continued Rannaldini warmly, ‘knowing ’ow much you’ve achieved from such unpropitious beginning. But I beg you, never have cheeldren. Have a vasectomy at once. Perhaps, one day, like Rupert, you can adopt. Maybe a geneticist would say you could produce normal children. But you must not risk it with my Tabitha. She was so devastated to lose that baby.’

Tristan gave a groan that was almost a howl. ‘“The knell of all our hopes has sounded,”’ he mumbled. ‘“The dream that has faded was so fair.”’

‘“Oh, dreadful cruel fate.”’ Continuing the quote, Rannaldini stroked Tristan’s hair.

‘Oh, Rannaldini, are you quite sure?’

‘My dear boy, if only I weren’t.’

From his desk he took a dark red Bible, and from between its gleaming gold pages drew out a yellowing letter. Everything was familiar, the beautiful black script, the thick paper with the serrated edges, the Montigny crest of the chained snake, the little drawing of the entwined lovers in the top right-hand corner, that he’d so often seen on letters sent to his brothers but never to himself. Étienne had written,

My dear Rannaldini,

Thank you for all your understanding and kindness. Without these, I doubt if I would have survived. I cannot imagine a crueller betrayal, but I must accept that Tristan is the product of this obscene incestuous union. Delphine took the easy way out, so I am forced to bring up the boy, although it will be a constant reminder of the foul nightmare of his conception. I can never bring myself to love him.

Unable to read more, Tristan thrust the letter at Rannaldini and stumbled out into the woods. Cannoning off trees like a drunkard, longing to uproot them and build his own funeral pyre like Hercules, he reached the park where he wandered, sobbing, ‘Oh, dreadful cruel fate,’ over and over again.

At dawn he chucked his signet ring into the lake. Would that it could have been himself but the water had almost dried up in the drought. Beautiful, pale, like a sadistic marquis, totally untroubled and unmarked by his night of vice, the moon on its side lay over Rannaldini’s woods.

The rising sun was already gilding the little wood that formed a halo round Magpie Cottage. His halo had gone. Tristan longed to level with Tab, but the truth was too hideous and he couldn’t bear to read the sickened distaste in her eyes, or to listen to her lame excuses as she backed off. She needed perfect children to carry on the beauty of her family. She deserved only the best.

Tab had waited up all night. When he told her he wasn’t coming back, her howled ‘Oh, no!’ were the most agonizing words he’d ever heard.

‘It’s not anything you’ve done, my darling. It’s my fault. You’re married. Try and make a go of it with Isa. I’m no good to you. One day I’ll explain.’ Then, when there was total silence, ‘Tabitha?’

‘I’ve just lost another father,’ whispered Tab, and hung up.

Lucy didn’t want people to hear her crying, so as soon as shooting had finished the night before she retreated to her caravan. James, who was upset by tears, curled himself into the tiniest russet ball on one of the window-seats, letting out occasional deep sighs to rival Rannaldini’s.

At first when Tristan hammered on her door, she thought he was drunk: his shirt and jeans were ripped, his face was covered in scratches, his eyes rolled wildly. He was shaking so violently that she wrapped him in her duvet. As he sobbed his heart out, gabbling in French, often quoting Don Carlos and occasionally laughing inanely, he was difficult to understand, but gradually she pieced together what Rannaldini had told him.

Lucy was furious.

‘The bastard.’ She handed Tristan a cup of black coffee into which she’d poured a miniature Drambuie. ‘He knows you’re bats about Tab, and Tab is bats about you.’

Oh, why was she cutting her own throat?

‘He’s jealous you saved Tab’s life and she was so frantic for you to take her home. You’re a Montigny, sure as oeufs is oeufs. I can tell by your bone structure and your mouth and the height of your eyes in your face. Why don’t you nip back to France and ask Auntie Hortense?’

‘Non, non, non.’ Tristan shook his head back and forth. ‘It’s all in the letter. I am very fashionable, incest is hot, as Sexton keeps saying.’ His wild laughter turned into sobs.

Sitting down beside him on the bench seat, Lucy gathered him up, stroking his hair, trying to still his desperate shuddering.

‘I love Tab so much, Lucy. Last night she was Holy Grail in my arms.’

‘I know, I know.’

Even a worried James leapt down, and nudged him with his long nose.

‘Dear James.’ Avoiding his sore palms, Tristan smoothed the shaggy head with the side of his hand. ‘I can’t stop thinking of that monster raping my mother. She had no-one to turn to. If only she’d had an abortion.’

‘No!’ shouted Lucy, clutching him even tighter. ‘That would have deprived the world of a fantastic director.’ She gave a sob. ‘People forget you’re only twenty-eight, and you’ve kept this bloody great show on the road. You’re exactly the same person today as you were before Rannaldini told you all that junk. It’s what you are that matters.’

‘But what can I do about the money I put into Carlos?’

‘Nothing. Your fat-cat brothers aren’t exactly skint. Carlos is going to be such a smash hit you’ll easily be able to pay them back afterwards.’

‘“You have the heart of an angel,”’ quoted Tristan wearily. ‘“But mine sleeps forever closed to happiness.” Promise you won’t tell anyone.’

He refused to be comforted.

Tab was equally distraught. She had been offered a glimpse of Paradise. What was it about her that no-one could love?

Rannaldini moved in swiftly. ‘My poor child, but you know Tristan’s track record. He cannot commit himself. He ’ave you so he dump you.’

Wolfie was more hands-on. Woken by a pitiful telephone call from Tab, he hunted down Tristan as he was leaving Lucy’s caravan, and sent him crashing to join the debris of cigarette butts, skeins of hair and cotton buds on the grass outside Make Up.

‘How dare you lead her on, you smarmy Frog?’ Then, as Tristan staggered to his feet, Wolfie hit him again.

Hearing the din, Lucy emptied James’s water-bowl over Wolfie.

‘Stop it, you revolting bully.’

Slumped against the steps of Lucy’s caravan, Tristan told Wolfie he had never meant to hurt Tab, but he had learnt something last night that meant he was useless to her, or to any other woman. When he wouldn’t explain what it was, Wolfie stormed off unconvinced.

By this time heads, including Meredith’s and Rozzy’s, both in rollers, were emerging from windows so Lucy patched Tristan up, dressed his hands and sent him back to the set, where he heroically carried on directing. But everyone noticed he wasn’t all there and the spark had gone. Soon rumours were flying around that he’d blown Tabitha out, that she’d blown him out, along with all the old chestnuts that he was gay, impotent, violent and incapable of commitment.

Rozzy was angry and hurt Lucy wouldn’t confide in her.

‘I thought we were friends. Can’t you trust me?’ Then she stormed off, when Lucy couldn’t.

It really irritated Lucy, the reproachful way Rozzy instantly topped up James’s water-bowl and tested the earth of her plants whenever she came into the caravan. Even more maddeningly, there were tears in Tristan’s eyes later that afternoon, when he told Lucy that ‘Knowing we are haemorrhaging money, Rozzy offer to work for nothing. She is so sweet.’

‘Sweet,’ agreed Lucy, bitterly remembering James Benson’s bills. Even darling Rozzy’s getting on my nerves, she thought, in despair.

But that evening, as she put a patch of a greyhound’s head over one of the rips in Tristan’s jeans, there was a knock on the door. It was Wolfie, looking desperately tired.

‘Sorry, I flipped this morning. We had a whipround for the greyhounds in Spain.’ He handed her a jangling brown envelope. Inside was nearly three hundred pounds.

‘Oh, Wolfie.’ Fighting back the tears, Lucy hugged him. ‘Come in. Oh, thank you ever so much.’ As she poured him a glass of wine, she said she couldn’t tell him what Tristan had found out, but if it were true she understood why he’d had to dump Tab.

‘She is destroyed.’

‘So’s Tristan. He needs you.’

She also didn’t want to upset Wolfie by letting on to him the part Rannaldini had played.

From then on Wolfie carried Tristan, which aroused the enmity of Bernard, Oscar, Sexton, even of Rannaldini, and most of all the women, because he was so clearly now le favori du roi.