Score!

87

Lucy’s safe-house was a rescue kennels outside Boston. She had begged Gablecross to find her a place where she could put her terrors and utter anguish in perspective by looking after those even worse off than herself. But nothing had prepared her for the sadness of falling in love with one terrified, often dreadfully maltreated dog after another, nursing it back to health only to find it had to be put down after a few weeks to make way for a newer, younger arrival. She was tormented that she had no idea what had really happened to James and, as her longing for him and Tristan grew more desperate, she felt as in need of rescuing as the dogs, and wished she could plunge the fatal needle into herself.

There were moments of happiness when a dog was rehomed, and the other kennelmaids, who seemed to love their work, sensed her misery and were incredibly kind. But she always refused their invitations to come out in the evenings in case she broke down.

She had had little contact with England since she left. Her family had been told nothing except that she was safe. Karen and Gablecross had been over and were now painstakingly piecing together the prosecution’s case, but Rozzy had become so mad it seemed doubtful she would ever be brought to trial.

‘But don’t feel sorry for her,’ warned Gablecross. ‘She’s an evil, cold-blooded psychopath, and clever enough to be faking.’

Constantly, Lucy woke screaming from nightmares of drowning in the torture chamber, of Tristan covered in blood being dragged away from her and, worst of all, of Rozzy’s crazy laughter as, like a tolling bell, she listed Lucy’s imperfections, ‘Too common, too dull, too ugly, too presumptuous.’

As a result, Lucy had steeled herself not to ask Gablecross about Tristan. By now he must have got it together with Claudine or Tabitha, and moved back to his own world.

She had no access to English or French newspapers, but occasionally came across snippets about Don Carlos. Flipping through yesterday’s Boston Globe during her lunch hour on 13 January, she stumbled on a photograph of Claudine and Tristan.

‘Scent of Victory Brings Lovers Together Again,’ proclaimed the headline to a story that the French film The Lily in the Valley was tipped to sweep the boards at the prestigious Academia Awards that evening, which would be broadcast on PBS the following night.

Looking at Tristan’s young, happy face as he gazed so proudly down at Claudine, Lucy gave a wail of misery. She had been given a new name, Linda Gilham, a new passport and a new social-security number. Why couldn’t someone provide her with a new heart? As she stumbled out into the yard, dogs everywhere started barking their heads off, scrabbling against the wire fencing.

‘Oh, shut up,’ screamed Lucy, then, knowing she’d been horrible, ran forward to stick her fingers through the wire to be nuzzled and frantically licked.

Like a vicious cancer, her longing for Tristan had grown more unbearable every day. There was no morphine to ease the pain, but as some compensation she could record tonight’s awards and play the tape over and over again.

It was her turn that evening to muck out the kennels. Afterwards she went straight into the shower, scrubbing herself clean and washing her hair, which as part of her disguise hung blonde and straight an inch below her collarbone. As she put on a nightie, which Tab had once given her, with a picture on the front of Peter Rabbit eating a carrot, she reflected that Tristan probably wouldn’t recognize her now. He met so many people, he might not remember her anyway. At least she had a lovely warm bedsitter, centrally heated against the East Coast winter and with views over the kennels and the park where she walked the dogs for their allotted twenty minutes a day.

She had bought a litre of white and poured herself a large drink to steady her nerves. The sweat was already coursing down her ribs. Over and over she checked the tape was working and that she’d got the right channel.

But in the end the awards passed in a blur. As the cameras roved around the tables, Lucy was conscious of the depressing number of ravishing women. Then she gave a cry of delight, as through a cloud of Gauloise smoke emerged Oscar, Valentin, Bernard, Sylvestre and Ogborne, all getting plastered. But as she searched in vain among the other flushed self-satisfied luncheon guests there was no sign of Tristan or Claudine.

Up and down, up and down, gush, gush, gush, went the winners, thanking everyone from Auntie Glad to the guinea-pig.

‘Oh, get on with it,’ implored Lucy.

But at last it was Best Actress. In the clips from The Lily in the Valley, Claudine looked so beautiful that Lucy groaned. It was impossible Tristan couldn’t still be in love with her and, sure enough, it was her name Stephen Fry drew out of the gold envelope.

From an aerial view, the round tables covered in white damask, all with their rings of green Perrier bottles at the centre, floated like water-lilies on the bluey-green carpet, as Claudine glided between them up onto the stage. She was wearing a beautiful suit, the colour of bramble fool, which brought out the violet in her wide-apart eyes. Lovingly stroking her award, which was gold and in the shape of an owl, she murmured a few platitudes only redeemed by the sexiness of her French accent. Although it wouldn’t seem so sexy to Tristan, thought Lucy, helping herself to another glass of wine, because he was French anyway. Claudine didn’t look a bundle of laughs, nor did she get tumultuous applause. She had lost too many Brownie points not coming forward to save Tristan in July.

Valentin won the award for Best Cameraman. The prize for Director of Photography went to Oscar, who caused huge laughter by being caught fast asleep on camera when his name was read out. But he woke up enough to tell the audience Tristan was the finest director he’d ever worked with.

‘Hear, hear,’ shouted Lucy. ‘But where is he?’

The Best Actor Award went to Anthony Hopkins, which was an excuse for another glass of wine, and at last it was Best Director. Tristan was competing with Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. Lucy’s nightgown was drenched in sweat, she couldn’t stop shaking. ‘Please make him win,’ she prayed, ‘so that at least I see him.’

As more clips were shown of Claudine in The Lily in the Valley, Lucy hurled a cushion at the television set, narrowly missing her fast-emptying bottle. Julie Christie, just as beautiful as Claudine, was slowly opening the envelope, tantalizing, taking her time.

‘And the best director is Tristan de Montigny for The Lily in the Valley.’

Lucy’s scream of excitement was lost in the roar of applause as the whole audience rose to their feet to pay tribute to the courage with which Tristan had faced his terrible problems in the past year. But Lucy’s tears of joy turned into wails of despair as, after a roll of drums, the spotlight once more tracked bloody Claudine coming back through the tables up onto the stage.

And her make-up’s been redone, thought Lucy savagely.

Claudine wasn’t looking very sunny, however, particularly when there were groans of disappointment and a flurry of booing and shouts of ‘Where’s Tristan?’

‘I am afraid Treestan de Monteegny ees eendisposed,’ said Claudine defensively, ‘and cannot accept this award. But I know he would thank you all for this wonderful honour. I am so ’appy to accept it on his behalf because he is most wonderful director I ever worked with and the one with the most integrity.’

‘Which is more than can be said for you,’ shouted a drunken Ogborne.

Poleaxed with disappointment, Lucy switched off the television and threw herself on her bed. The pain was unendurable. Hearing his name, seeing the others in the crew had brought everything back. How could she exist for another second without him? She was crying so hysterically, at first she didn’t hear banging on the door.

‘Linda, Linda, Linda,’ shouted Bella, the senior kennelmaid, ‘what in hell’s the matter? Please open the door.’

‘Go away,’ sobbed Lucy. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘Gee, I’m sorry to bother you, but you know about lurchers and some guy’s brought one in. I told him to come back tomorrow, but he seems desperate. I said you’d take the dog’s particulars and settle it in.’

‘We don’t want any more dogs,’ wept Lucy. ‘It’ll mean another one put down to make room for him.’

Wiping her face on the counterpane, seizing a handful of tissues to blow her nose, mumbling that she simply wasn’t up to it, Lucy stumbled downstairs into the freezing cold night to discover it had been snowing. The dog pens on either side of the rough track leading up to the check-in office were empty of dogs but blanketed in snow. Snow lay on the roofs of the kennels behind, where she hoped the dogs were sleeping and wouldn’t wake up when she installed the lurcher. Newcomers were often traumatized by the din.

Snow, already freezing on the wire fencing and the dogs’ nameplates on each pen, reminded her unaccountably of Valhalla. And then she saw him tiptoeing tentatively out of the office, a big grey shaggy dog, and her eyes were full of tears once more because in the moonlight he looked like the ghost of James. He was a little rickety on his legs, but as she drew nearer he suddenly noticed her, stiffened and his tail began sweeping back and forth, almost touching his ears as he broke into a lovely loping canter.

He must be a ghost, he must! But as she ran forward, and he bounded towards her, swifter than eagles, she could see his dark paw prints stretching out behind him in the snow. Then he sank down on his ancient legs, squeaking and pirouetting four times in the moonlight, and, sneezing in excitement, he collapsed at her feet.

Totally immobile for a few seconds, Lucy fell to her knees, hugging him, wailing as she felt the razor sharpness of his ribs and backbone, but all the time his tail beat frenziedly as his long tongue shot out to lick away the waterfall of tears.

‘Oh, James darling, how come you’re in America?’

Wiping her eyes on his fur, Lucy raced up the snowy path in her bare feet with James bounding beside her.

‘It’s a miracle,’ she screamed, ‘someone’s brought in my James. Tell me I’m not dreaming.’

Then she heard a voice, the most heartbreakingly husky voice in the world, saying indignantly, ‘No, I didn’t make myself clear. I want to keep the dog. It is your kennelmaid that I want to rehome.’

‘Tristan,’ croaked Lucy. ‘Oh, Tristan.’

In the doorway to the waiting room her knees gave way, with James’s shaggy body the only thing propping her up. As Tristan came through the other door from the general office, she gave a gasp because snow was melting in his hair as it had been on the first day of filming, and because he was even thinner than James and, under the fluorescent lighting, looked greyer and more ghostly than James had in the moonlight.

It must be a dream. Her eyes were so wet and her throat so dry, she couldn’t cry out, and neither, it seemed, could he. They just gazed at each other. The only sound was the brisk drumbeat of James’s tail against a metal filing cabinet.

‘Where did you find him?’ At last she stammered out the words.

‘In Edinburgh, outside my hotel. Some bastard use him to beg for money. He was so thin I didn’t recognize him. He was the clever one who recognized me.’

As someone closed the door discreetly behind him, Lucy’s thanks came tumbling over each other. Wiping her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her nightie, she crouched down beside James, clinging to him, kissing him over and over, as he snaked against her in ecstasy.

‘I thought I’d never see him again.’ Her voice broke. ‘Oh, how did you find me?’

‘Gablecross finally admit you are here, or I would have arrived seven months earlier.’

Lucy gazed down, thinking how tearstained and soppy and Pollyanna-ish she must look in her Peter Rabbit nightie with her yellow hair in bunches. But Tristan was only aware of her sweet, trembling mouth and the way her cheekbones shone like mother-of-pearl as the tears slid over them. Then, suddenly roused from shock, he noticed her bare feet and how little she was wearing.

‘You mustn’t catch cold.’ Whipping off his coat, he wrapped it round her. Breathing in the tang of Eau Sauvage on the dark blue collar, fighting the temptation to fall into his arms, Lucy collapsed instead on to a leather sofa.

‘I didn’t wake you?’ asked Tristan.

‘No, I was watching the Academias. Lily in the Valley won everything. You got Best Director.’

‘I did?’

‘You don’t sound very excited. It’s a huge honour.’

‘Other things matter more.’

‘How’s Don Carlos?’ Anyone would think she was at one of Helen’s drinks parties.

‘People seem to like it. Everyone loves your make-up, and have bet you get Oscar.’

Soothed by Lucy’s stroking, James had collapsed on the floor, but kept one eye open — after all, his future was at stake. All round the walls hung photographs of beautiful, happy, rehomed dogs, cheek to cheek with adoring but often extremely plain owners. Maybe, thought Lucy hopefully through a haze of white wine, one didn’t need to be beautiful to be loved. Then she made the mistake of asking how Tab was.

‘Blissful,’ said Tristan happily. ‘Rupert’s revving up for a massive wedding at Penscombe in April.’

How lunatic she’d been to hope. Smoothing the feathers on James’s legs, Lucy felt the tears starting again.

‘That’s great.’ Desperately she tried to keep the conversation light. ‘I can be godmother to your first child.’

‘I’d much rather you were its mother,’ muttered Tristan.

But Lucy wasn’t concentrating, only noticing that he seemed to be edging across the room towards her, like James trying to get on to her mother’s double bed when they stayed in Cumbria.

‘Lucy darling, please stop crying,’ begged Tristan, ‘I can’t bear it. Listen to me. Hortense die last week.’

‘Oh, no, I’m so sorry.’ Lucy looked up in horror. ‘She was such a darling.’

‘She love you too, and eef you hadn’t sought her out, I would never have known I was Laurent’s son. That parcel was most wonderful present I ever have. I can never thank you too much.’

‘But it’s me who should thank you. You saved my life, you brought James back. We’ll have to settle abroad,’ said Lucy, in a worried voice. ‘He’d never cope with quarantine, nor would I.’

Tristan was so close now, she could again breathe in the familiar heady cocktail of Eau Sauvage, peppermint chewing-gum and Gauloise, and her heart started to hammer as his knees brushed against hers.

‘James and I had long conversation on the plane coming over.’

Was she imagining it or had his hand just stroked her hair?

‘James detest crate I have to put him into,’ continued Tristan. ‘He didn’t believe I was taking him to you. He was so depressed and nervous I had to sit in the hold and hold his paw. It was very uncomfortable for both of us. There were two parrots with us, who both learn to say “I love Lucy” by end of flight.’

Still unable to take in what he was saying, Lucy gave a shaky laugh.

‘James want to live in France,’ insisted Tristan.

‘We don’t know anyone in France,’ said Lucy, in a choked voice.

‘You know me.’ Crouching down beside her, Tristan put one hand over her mouth, ‘Tais-toi, my darling, for just one second. Since you go away nothing in my life has been so dreadful. I suffer over Claudine, but nothing to the purgatory of life without you. Those months of filming, you bring such sunshine into my life.’

With the other hand he was now stroking her forehead, fingering her feathery eyelashes, wiping away a fresh supply of tears, running his finger down her nose in wonder. ‘You are really real,’ he whispered. ‘I have nightmares every night that you are dead.’

‘Oh, so do I,’ breathed Lucy, appalled to find she couldn’t stop kissing his fingers.

‘Hush, I talk. First, I kid myself you are sweet little sister I never had. When you take care of me after Rannaldini tell me about Maxim, I kid myself you are mother I never had. But then you come back from France looking so beautiful in that pink dress, and I sack you because I am so white-hot jealous you’re having affaire with Wolfie, I suddenly realize you are true grand passion I never have. When you nearly died, I died with worry, but when you went away, I died worser.’ Tristan removed his hand from her mouth and waited. ‘Lucy, Lucy. Please look at me and say something.’

But she was so stunned by the wonder of his words, she could only stare down and ask herself how the hell Peter Rabbit could stuff his face with carrot at a time like this.

Tristan picked up one of her bunches. ‘You look so sexy with blonde hair.’ Then a horrible possibility dawned on him. ‘There is not someone else?’

‘Someone else?’ squeaked Lucy incredulously. ‘Of course not. I’ve never loved anyone but you since that moment I saw you with snow in your hair. The Prince with the heavy heart.’ Then she remembered the occasion and cried out despairingly, ‘But what about Tab and the wedding?’

‘What’s she got to do with it?’ asked Tristan in amazement. ‘Tab’s marrying Wolfie. Oh, my God, did you think it was still Tab and me? Oh, my poor angel.’ Kneeling up, he pulled her against him, feeling the frantic pounding of her heart, as she in turn felt the exquisite pain of being crushed against the hardness of his big gold blazer buttons.

‘That’s wonderful for Wolfie,’ gasped Lucy, ‘but weren’t you heartbroken?’

‘Not in the least. They will have pretty blond babies.’

‘And Wolfie’ll look after her so well, he adores her so much.’

‘Not as much as I shall adore and look after you.’ For a second Tristan sounded almost beady. ‘And you and I will have lots of babies with dark curly hair, who will be even prettier. I know how you love kids.’ He picked up Lucy’s hand and kissed each finger. ‘As Maxim’s son, I couldn’t give them to you so I back off. By the time I open parcel and learnt the truth you had gone. Why did you run away? It broke my heart.’

‘I couldn’t bear the pain.’ Tentatively Lucy’s hand crept up to the dark stubble along his jaw. ‘I thought you were in love with Claudine or, at least, Tab — that’s stiff competition — and Rozzy…’ Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.

‘Rozzy what?’ demanded Tristan, forcing her face upwards.

‘She, well, she said I was too plain, ugly and common, and your family would be furious. Ouch!’ Lucy screamed, as Tristan’s hand clenched on her chin, then gasped in alarm because his eyes had become black whirlpools of hatred.

‘Eef that evil monster weren’t in security prison,’ he spat, ‘I break in and tear her to pieces. How dare the beetch! You have sweetest face in the world. And my family will love you. Whether you will love them is different matter. My brothers are very pompous. And it’s me they are furious with at the moment because Aunt Hortense leave me so much money, and’, Tristan smiled suddenly, ‘they don’t quite know how to handle Griselda. I adore your face.’ Very gently he covered it in kisses. ‘And now it will grow as familiar as the paintings on my bedroom wall.’

But Lucy wasn’t ready for certainty. ‘What about Claudine? I read the Mail.’

Tristan scrambled to his feet, pulling Lucy up against him. Despite his thinness, his chest was still broad, and his arms incredibly strong as they closed round her.

‘I should have level with you,’ he muttered, ‘my love for her die, the night Rannaldini die. I drive to Wales and find I am chasing dream.’

‘Did you see her in Edinburgh?’

‘No, I run away. I call her from airport. She was furious. “Are you sick?” she shout. “No,” I say, “I am seeking.”’

Running his hands deep into Lucy’s hair, he gazed down at her. ‘You have no need of Oscar’s lighting.’

Then, breathing in faint traces of Bluebell, he knew spring had at last returned. As he kissed her Lucy could feel his wonderful big bruised lower lip crushing hers, and his tongue caressing her tongue. Just for a second her eyes flickered open and saw that his were closed in ecstasy, the thick dark brown lashes fanning his beautiful cheekbones. As she swivelled her head sideways so he could kiss her even harder, she felt as though she was being drawn up to heaven like one of Chagall’s angels. And what her head still couldn’t quite take in, her heart accepted completely, that he truly loved her.

As they broke for breath, she flung her arms round his neck. ‘You are the most blissfully gorgeous man who ever walked this earth, and I’m going to love, cherish and adore you for ever.’

‘If you don’t, I shall be horribly jealous,’ said Tristan. ‘Even of Pierre Lapin.’ He fingered Peter Rabbit. ‘Look at lucky him, lying against those wonderful breasts.’

‘How d’you know they’re wonderful?’ mumbled a blushing Lucy.

‘I have Hype-along’s picture in my wallet. I show it you later. But first you must have this.’

Reaching down to his coat which had fallen on the floor, he took a little black velvet box from the inside pocket. ‘Aunt Hortense leave me ring, which once belong to Marie Antoinette. You give me back my name, Lucy, now I want you to share it with me.’

Lucy’s hands were trembling so violently, Tristan had to open the box. Inside, like mistletoe berries waiting for kissing lovers, gleamed three pearls.

As a tear splashed on one of them, Tristan said shakily, ‘I would be safest, happiest guy in world, if you would wear it always.’

They were brought back to earth by a great snore rending the air. With his future assured, James felt safe to fall asleep.