Second Night Page 2

  A blast of music from the room below startled him back into the tedium of the dismal afternoon. He stamped several times on the floor, shouting, ‘Use your headphones, will you?’

  ‘Sorry!’ called Jemima. ‘I thought you were up at the yard.’

  Headlights shone across the wet lawn. A car drew in and parked beside the house. He heard voices calling out and doors slamming.

  Jas and Sara are home already. It must be getting late.

  The screen blanked. He shovelled the pile of papers unchecked into the bin under the desk and stood up abruptly, clutching at his stomach as the first familiar pangs of dreadful hunger spasms gripped his guts. The sun is setting!

  Jemima looked out of her room as he ran down the stairs. In her arms, she cradled a white cat with sleepy blue eyes.

  ‘It’s me cooking tonight,’ she said. ‘What time will you be back?’

  Wide, green eyes gleamed above them from a precarious perch on a narrow ledge over the door. The cat leapt down and settled, purring, on Caz’s shoulder.

  ‘Give me an hour. Make sure you do enough.’

  ‘I’ll do loads.’

  ‘Good.’

  The kitchen was warm. A kettle steamed on the back of the old iron range. Jasper was sitting at the table, checking his phone. Sara Tate was spooning coffee granules into mugs. Her hair was shoulder length, bleached blonde with pink and silver highlights. Her blue-grey eyes twinkled behind chunky, black-framed glasses.

  ‘Have you got any coffee for me?’ asked Caz.

  ‘It’s just coming,’ she replied.

  Jasper tipped his chair back against the wall, yawning and stretching expansively, watching her under half-closed lids as she moved around the kitchen, refilling the kettle at the sink and putting it back on the stove. She was older than he was. They had been together for nearly two years and a couple of months before, on her nineteenth birthday, she had put her university place on hold and moved in with him at the lodge.

  He only admitted to himself how amazed he was that she wanted to be with him. Committing to a relationship was a risky business. Living in the shade of his mother’s heartbreak after the early death of his father had taught him that much, and a lot more besides. He wanted what he had with Sara to last forever but he couldn’t tell her. He hoped she knew.

  ‘Wait on me, woman,’ he commanded.

  She put his mug down at the far end of the table. He groaned, rocking the chair sideways and reaching for the coffee.

  ‘No matter what I do, I can’t tame her, bro,’ he sighed.

  Sara grinned. ‘The day you do, we’ll be long past saving.’

  ‘You’re so right,’ he agreed.

  She passed a cup to Caz. ‘Take care. It’s hot.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He poured the scalding liquid down his throat.

  She frowned, concerned. ‘You don’t do yourself any favours drinking it like that.’

  He handed her the cat and picked up his coat. ’Good coffee.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Stat,’ said Jasper, as the door closed. ‘You know bro’s a bit strange.’

  ‘But was he always like this?’

  Jasper yawned again. ‘Our Caz discovered coffee the day he hit puberty and it’s been all downhill since then.’

  CHAPTER 3

  Daisy Flint changed her uniform black apron for the third time that day, preparing to serve the supper at the manor house. She glanced into the stained mirror propped on the shelf behind the kitchen door, studying the aging face looking back at her. The furrow between her sparse, white eyebrows looked deeper than ever.

  She shook her head at her reflection. ‘You never were a beauty, my girl, but these last couple of years have been the finish of you.’ She patted her hair into place and straightened her apron. ‘Now where’s that boy got to?’ she muttered. ‘Everything will be cold and spoiled if he doesn’t get in here soon to eat it.’

  A big pan full of thick meaty soup was set ready on the kitchen table. Three large loaves of freshly baked bread were sliced and stacked in a dish beside it. She hoped she had prepared enough food to help Caz through the worst of the terrible hunger spasms until he went back to the lodge for supper with the family, who appeared to have accepted that he would only join them for one daily meal. There were potatoes and a chicken roasting in the oven, and more bread and some cakes and a bowl of fruit in the scullery for him to eat later when he returned. If he was still hungry after that, there was a big chunk of cheese in the fridge and more biscuits in the tin.

  She limped down the passage to the dining room, opened the double doors to the reception room and went to one of the tall latticed windows that looked out over the rose garden and into the stable yard. Cold rain pounded the cobblestones and flooded the water trough. A steady stream of water bubbled into the drain. There was no sign of Caz but the lights were on in the boxes and the yard gate was open.

  Out of habit she craned her neck, looking past the garden wall towards the bleak expanse of water edging the elegant sweep of the lawns. It grieved her that there had been no waterfowl on the lake since the swans had left on the night of the red moon. She had been born in the manor house and brought up on the estate. Yet this was the first time she could remember in all her long life when there had been no dabchicks scuttling between the reeds in the springtime and no geese stopping over on the flight from their Arctic breeding grounds.

  She saw movement by the barn. Caz was bringing in the horses from the winter paddock. He was riding Kyri, bareback and with no bridle as he always rode her, at the head of three tall grey mares. A bay-coloured weaner foal skipped ahead of them across the wet cobbles. Freyja and Rúna, the two larger mares, took themselves into their respective loose boxes. The third fussed after the foal, trying to follow him into the box next to the tack room. Kyri put herself between them while Caz leaned down and closed the door.

  ‘Go on, Nanna!’ he said, shooing the mare away. ‘He’s not your baby.’

  The mare went reluctantly into her box at the other end of the line. Rúna paced the partition wall beside her, whickering to her newly weaned foal, already happily head-down in his feed bucket. The mare in the first of the two boxes between them snorted irritably and stamped.

  ‘Lighten up, Freyja!’ Caz told her.

  He rode into the empty stable, ducking his head under the beam over the door. Kyri shook the raindrops out of her glistening mane and put her head to one side to accept the handful of horse nuts he held out to her. He slid down from her back and she bent her head, touching her forehead to his.

  ‘Rest now and eat,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll be back soon and then we’ll ride.’

  A white-hot spasm searing his entrails made him gasp and stagger. The filly whickered softly. He leaned against her, breathing heavily and groaning.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he panted. ‘See you later, Kyri.’

  The filly stood by the stable door, watching him leap up onto the garden wall and run sure-footed along its length. She watched the outline of the woman at the window raise a hand to lift the latch, heard the bent wooden frame creaking as it opened to let him jump down into the dimly lit room. She raised her head, looking eastward, her luminous eyes searching among the grey shadows of the hills where the evening was fading quickly under a covering of sombre cloud driven down from the north. She called once, deep and resonant, before she turned her attention to her feed bucket.

  Daisy closed the shutters and drew the curtains. One brief glance had been enough to see the sweat pouring down Caz’s face and the strained look of pain beyond control in his eyes. He was deathly pale. By the time she came to the kitchen, the soup pan was empty and he was stuffing the last of the bread into his mouth. A vestige of colour had returned to his cheeks.

  ‘Is that going to be enough for now?’ Daisy asked anxiously.

  ‘It’ll do. Where’re the biscuits?’

  She put a bag into his hand. ‘They should see you right until you get down to the lodge. Who’s cooking down there
this evening?’

  ‘Jem,’ he mumbled, between mouthfuls.

  ‘Will she have it ready in time?’

  ‘She’d better.’

  Daisy peered up at him over her silver-rimmed spectacles. ‘Have you told her anything about this?’ She pointed to the empty pan.

  He laughed, his voice suddenly harsh, grating uncomfortably on her ears.

  ‘What could I tell her?’ he demanded. ‘What could she know? What can any of you know?’

  Daisy folded her lips. Tears don’t help anyone, she told herself, struggling with the prickling behind her eyes. She gestured in the direction of the cellar door. ‘Is there anything you’ll be needing to do downstairs?’

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t worry, you can lock up. I’ve got my keys.’

  She picked up the empty pan. ‘Don’t bother with the washing up. I’m in early tomorrow. I’ll do it then.’

  Her husband found her a few minutes later, furiously scrubbing too much scouring powder around the already spotlessly clean sink.

  ‘So the boy’s been in,’ he said. ‘I thought I saw him go haring off down the old drive.’

  She faced him squarely. Her eyes were wet. ‘Boy? What boy? Where’s the young fresh-faced lad that we used to know? What have we done?’

  ‘What we said we’d do,’ John Flint replied sadly. ‘You know that well enough.’ He picked up a tea cloth and dabbed gently at the tears trickling steadily down her cheeks. ‘Don’t take on so, old Dark-eyes. Fretting won’t help.’

  ‘But we never dreamed it would come to this, did we?’

  ‘No, we didn’t.’

  She pushed the cloth angrily aside, speaking through clenched teeth. ‘I can’t stand it, I tell you! I can’t stand it! Night after night, the minute the sun sinks out of the sky, I see the state he gets into and every day I’m sure it’s worse. This business of only eating once a day will kill him! How can he manage so much food at one time? And when does he sleep? He works all day as bright as a button, he goes through heaven only knows what hell at sunset when he finally needs a meal, and then he’s out with the horses all night. All night! I asked Alan and he told me, so don’t you try telling me otherwise, John Flint! And what will it come to in the end? That’s what I want to know!’

  John turned away. ‘None of us knows. Perhaps it’s best we don’t.’

  The bell-call tinkled above the door. Daisy pointed to the loaded supper tray set ready beside the stove.

  ‘You take it,’ she said bluntly. ‘I don’t think I can bear to set eyes on that old man the way I’m feeling tonight. I might say something I’ll regret.’

  He picked up the tray. ‘I’ll have this along to the study in a jiffy. You fetch your coat, and then we’ll get off home.’

  His wife’s bitter sobbing haunted every one of John’s footsteps echoing down the long passageway. Her reproachful face appeared in each of the empty, glass-fronted display cases stood up against the panelled walls.

  ‘Integrity and faithfulness, integrity and faithfulness,’ he repeated to himself, reminded of the Pring family motto emblazoned over the great stone fireplace as he crossed the main entrance hall and stepped into the welcome silence in the library. He stood before the portrait of the stern-faced man in a scarlet hunting coat hung over the fireplace at the far end of the enormous room.

  Old Sir Saxon Pring, he thought. He was the one who started all this. If he could see us now, what would he be thinking?

  ‘But I gave my word, like my father and mother before me, and I’ll not falter. I’ll not falter,’ he repeated aloud.

  He set the tray down carefully on the polished table and knocked on the study door, calling out, ‘Your supper’s here, sir.’

  The response was faint. ‘Thank you, Mister John.’

  And he doesn’t sound too good, either. Old Dark-eyes upset and Sir Jonas getting too frail. What are we coming to?

  CHAPTER 4

  Lauren Taylor-Tanning followed Miss Fox into the coffee shop. The harassed young teacher stood on tiptoe, peering around the crowded room until she saw a group of girls sitting at a table beside the window.

  ‘Ah, they’re here!’ she exclaimed, in obvious relief. ‘For a minute there I thought we might be too late. Come along.’

  She stepped around the bags thrown down between the tables, making for the window where four pairs of heavily made-up eyes turned and looked the tall, naturally blonde and expensively dressed American girl up and down, trying to put a price tag on her clothes.

  ‘Girls, this is Lauren,’ said the teacher brightly. ‘She’s from New York and she’ll be with us this term while her father is working in the area. I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce her to some of you.’

  ‘Nice to meet you Lauren,’ said the girl sat next to the window. She was hairdresser-blonde and not so well groomed.

  ‘Can I leave her with you, Bryony?’ asked Miss Fox.

  ‘Of course.’

  The girl nearest pulled her bag off the one empty chair. ‘You can park here if you want.’

  Lauren sat down. Bryony held out a manicured hand. ‘I’m Bryony Peacock.’ She indicated the girl with sardonic brown eyes and black-dyed hair sitting next to her. ‘And this is Gin, otherwise Virginia Harris.’

  Gin didn’t offer to shake hands.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Gin,’ said Lauren.

  ‘This is Jen, also Jennifer Smythe,’ continued Bryony, pointing to the sullen-faced girl, with no dress-sense and bad hair, sitting opposite.

  ‘And I’m Shriek,’ interrupted the girl who had given her the chair. ‘My real name’s Sharon, Sharon Reake, but everyone’s called me Shriek since I can remember.’

  ‘Her parents were left brain-dead by the shock of her birth,’ remarked Gin.

  Shriek shrugged. ‘I screamed a lot when I was a baby and my dad’s got a weird sense of humour. My mum calls me Sharon sometimes. Not very often though.’

  Lauren smiled. ‘Good to meet you all.’ She waved to the waitress.

  The woman stood over them, a fixed, surly expression on her face. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I need a cappuccino, please, and the same again for my friends here, my treat, and a muffin each.’ She looked around the table. ‘Is blueberry good?’

  The girls nodded. The inevitable, first-meeting frostiness melted away as the waitress went off to make up the order and they edged their chairs closer to the table, conspiratorial under the cover of the uproar around them.

  ‘So I take it you are in the same year as us, Lauren?’ said Bryony.

  ‘I guess so. I’m sixteen at the end of the month. I was a Hallowe’en baby. This birthday, I’ve got something to lose and something to gain. Are you all virgins?’

  She relished the look of shocked surprise on their faces. Affirmative, she decided, although maybe not Gin.

  Bryony sniggered. ‘What a question!’

  ‘Considering how long you’ve been going out with Carl, Bry,’ agreed Shriek. ‘He’s a bit old to be a virgin, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘It would be sad if he was,’ reflected Jen.

  ‘I take it that’s a negative then?’ said Lauren.

  A collective grin answered her.

  ‘Well, that puts me one major step behind all of you, but not for long.’

  Gin leaned back in her chair. ‘Are you always so direct?’

  The waitress deposited five steaming cups in the middle of the table. Lauren opened her purse and sorted through the unfamiliar coins.

  ‘I’m up front,’ she replied. ‘It saves a lot of time and breath.’

  A particularly noisy group at another, much bigger table in the far corner, shouted at someone just arriving. ‘Hey Caz! Over here!’

  ‘Coffee’s hot, bro!’

  Lauren saw Bryony redden and Gin grimace. Jen and Shriek exchanged looks. The waitress dumped the muffins. She pocketed the money without bothering to count it and hurried away to prepare one of her ‘specials’.

  ‘As I was saying,’
said Lauren, her eyes fixed on the tall, dark-haired newcomer. ‘This time I’ve got something to lose and something to gain and, if I’m not mistaken, he’ll do the job very nicely.’

  Gin laughed. ‘Shall we tell her?’

  ‘I think we’d better,’ agreed Bryony.

  ‘I see there’s a story here,’ said Lauren. ‘So what does he do? What’s he into?’

  ‘He rides horses,’ said Gin.

  ‘That’s cool. So do I.’

  ‘He writes weird poetry that only the sad teachers like,’ added Jen.

  ‘And he drinks coffee all the time and doesn’t eat,’ finished Shriek.

  Lauren raised perfectly penciled eyebrows. ‘What do you mean, he doesn’t eat?’

  ‘He never eats lunch and he doesn’t snack. He just drinks endless, and I mean endless, cups of vomity-sweet coffee.’

  ‘So how old is he? Nineteen? Twenty?’

  ‘He’s sixteen next month,’ said Bryony.

  ‘You’re kidding! Wow! I guess he works out.’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Bryony ironically.

  ‘So he’s still in school then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The same school as us?’

  Bryony sighed. ‘Yes.’

  Lauren’s blue eyes lit up. ‘This is so exciting! And he writes poetry! That’s so romantic.’

  ‘Don’t get too thrilled,’ drawled Gin. ‘You only get a poem when he’s ditching you.’

  Lauren was instantly intrigued. ‘You don’t say! So who’s tried him out?’

  ‘Jen and me are untouched by choice,’ said Shriek.