The House on Willow Street

‘Ah, your father, there was a great man,’ sighed Seanie.

Tess took her change and wondered why she’d mentioned her father. She’d dreamed of him the night before; the same dream she always had of him, on the terrace of the old house with his binoculars trained on the woods behind, watching out for birds.

‘I’d swear I saw a falcon earlier,’ he’d say excitedly. He was fascinated by all birds but particularly birds of prey, which was surprising, given that he was the gentlest, least feral person she’d ever met.

Above all, he was interested in everything – politics, art, other people. He’d have loved Something Old, even if he’d have hated to see his daughter working so hard and still not making enough money from the business. He would have liked Kevin too and if he’d only been alive he would have never let her consider something as crazed as a trial separation.

Milk purchased, Silkie and Tess walked across the square and the last few yards up Church Street to her shop. She nodded hello to Mrs Byrne and Mrs Lombardy, who were out doing their morning shop, an event which always looked like a patrol of the area to Tess, as their eyes beadily took in everything and everyone. A bit of paint flaking off a flowerpot in the square, and they’d be up to report it to Belle in the hotel.

So far as Tess was concerned, the only negative to living in such a small community was that it was hard to have secrets. Since she and Kevin had separated, Tess had told the true story to a few people she trusted, hoping that this would stop any rumour-mongering. But who knew? That was the question. Would Mrs Byrne or Mrs Lombardy have spotted what was going on by now? They mustn’t have, Tess decided. Else they’d have stopped her to console her – and look for a smidge more information.

She smiled at the thought. She was happy in Avalon. Not for her the itchy feet of the traveller. Not like Suki, that was for sure.

Something Old occupied the bottom half of a former bakery. Upstairs was a beautician’s salon, and the scent of lovely relaxing aromatherapy treatments often drifted downstairs. Tess’s premises consisted of two large rooms with a bow window at the front, and then a smaller storage room at the back, along with a kitchenette, toilet and a lean-to where she kept old, unsellable stuff that she couldn’t bear to part with.

As soon as they were inside, Silkie made for her dog bed behind the counter. After her two walks, she would sleep there all morning quite contentedly. Tess carried on into the kitchenette where she boiled the kettle for her second cup of coffee.

Tess loved her shop. Not everyone understood its appeal. To some, it might have looked like the maddest collection of old things set out on display. But to connoisseurs of antiques and those who purred with happiness when they found four strange little apostle spoons tied up with ribbon or a delicate single cup and saucer of such thin china that the light shone through, Something Old was a treasure trove.

It was all too easy to while away the morning half-listening to the radio as she opened a box of items bought in a job lot at an auction. Tess had found some gems that way; pieces that nobody had realized were precious in the mad dash of the executor’s sale. Some just needed a bit of work to restore them to their former glory. Like the silver trinkets that were dull nothings until she’d burnished them to a glossy sheen, or the filigree pieces of jewellery tossed unnoticed in the bottom of a box, which could be delicately polished up with toothpaste and a cotton bud, to reveal the beauty of marcasite or the glitter of jet.

She had two boxes to open today, mixed bags from a recent auction, and as she went to collect them, she realized that the light on the answerphone was winking red at her.

Sometimes people rang asking if they could bring something in so she’d value it, or saying they had antiques to sell and perhaps she’d like to see them.

The answer machine voice told her the message had been left at nine the previous night. ‘Hello, my name is Carmen, I’m working with Redmond Suarez on a biography of the Richardson family in the United States, and I’m trying to contact a Therese Power or …’ the voice faltered. ‘Therese de Paor. Sorry, I don’t know how to pronounce it. We’re looking for connections of Ms Suki Richardson. If you can help, please call this number and we’ll ring you right back. Thank you.’

Tess stood motionless for a moment. Every instinct in her body screamed that there was something very, very worrying about this message.

If Suki knew of anybody working on a book about the Richardsons, the wealthy political family into which Suki had once married, then she’d have told Tess. The Richardsons were powerful people and if someone wanted to talk to anyone connected with the family, a note on their fabulous creamy stock paper would have arrived, possibly even a phone call from Antoinette herself – not that Tess had had any contact with the Richardsons since Suki’s divorce. But she was quite sure that, if someone was digging into the past, they’d have been in touch, loftily asking her not to cooperate. That was the way they did things, with a decree along the lines of a royal one.

But there had been nothing. No correspondence from the Richardsons, no mention of this from Suki herself.

No, there was something strange going on.

Chapter Two (#ulink_47d92b02-bf8f-5e40-93b4-33fca9c28852)

Suki Richardson stood in the wings at Kirkenfeld Academy and wondered why she’d agreed to trek all this way into the middle of nowhere in a howling gale.

As in so many of the colleges where she was asked to speak, the radiators were ancient and stone cold. Suki knew from years of delivering speeches in draughty halls that an extra layer made all the difference, so tonight, under her purple suit, she wore a black thermal vest.

‘Where does your idea for a lecture begin?’ an earnest young girl had asked earlier, probably hoping to steal a march on the second-year students by putting a direct question to Suki, author of the feminist tract on their Women’s Studies course. ‘Is it an idea previously addressed in your books, or something new?’

Suki had smiled at her, toying with the idea of telling the truth: It begins with the phone call telling me the fee for showing up. That and the latest bill.’

‘It’s an idea I’d like to explore further,’ she’d told the student in a husky voice thickened by years of smoking. She couldn’t tell the truth: that her days of making money from TV and book sales were over; that since Jethro she’d been broke; that the bank kept sending hostile letters to the house.

Life had come full circle: she was poor. Same as she’d been all those years ago, growing up in the de Paor mausoleum in Avalon, always the kid in the shabby clothes with the jam sandwiches for school lunch.

Suki shivered. She hated being poor.

The woman at the lectern coughed into the microphone and began:

‘Our next speaker needs no introduction …’

Under her carefully applied layers of Clinique, Suki allowed herself a small smile. Why did people kick off with that – and then, inevitably, follow it with an introduction?

Nevertheless, she enjoyed listening to the introductions. Hearing her accomplishments listed out loud made her seem less of a failure. The litany of things she’d achieved made it sound as though she’d done something with her life.

‘… at twenty-four, she married Kyle Richardson IV, future United States ambassador to Italy …’

Poor old Kyle; he’d had no idea what he was letting himself in for. His father had, she recalled. Kyle Richardson III had soon realized that Kyle IV had bitten off more than he could chew, but by then the engagement was in the Washington papers and they’d been to dinner in Katharine Graham’s house, so it was a done deal. The Richardsons were fierce Republicans, flinty political warriors and very rich. There had been many women sniffing round Kyle IV, or Junior, as his father liked to call him. Junior would inherit a whole pile of money, the company – highest-grossing combat arms manufacturer in the US, what else? – and possibly his father’s senate seat. It was the way things were done.

‘… the enfant terrible of politics published her debut polemic, Women and Their Wars when she was twenty-nine …’

The reviews had been fabulous. Being beautiful helped. As her publisher at the time, Eric Gold, had pointed out: ‘Beautiful women who write feminist tracts get way more publicity than plain ones. People assume that unattractive women turn feminist because they’re bitter about their lack of femininity. They’re intrigued when someone as gorgeous as you speaks out for the sisterhood.’

Nobody could accuse Suki Richardson, with her full cherry-red lips, blonde hair and a figure straight out of the upper rack of the magazine store of being bitter about her femininity.

‘… she was one of the most respected feminists of her generation …’

What did that mean – was and of her generation? That lumped her in with a whole load of greying, hairy-armpitted members of the sisterhood who’d written one book before sloping off into obscurity.

She’d expected more, given that Women and Their Wars was on the Women’s Studies foundation course here at Kirkenfeld College.

Realizing that the head of the faculty was looking at her, Suki forced herself to smile again. That damned book had been published years ago; she had written three more since then, yet Women and Their Wars was all anyone ever talked about. That and her marriage to Kyle Richardson, her years with Jethro, and the fact that she was beautiful.

How ironic that, for all her feminist credentials, she seemed doomed to be defined by the very things she railed against: her men and her looks.

Of course it didn’t help that the next two books she’d written had bombed spectacularly. She’d done a coast-to-coast tour for her last book and still nobody had bought it, despite her enduring countless visits to radio stations where she was questioned endlessly about the Richardsons and what they were really like.

At least people still wanted to hear what she had to say, particularly when she got on to her pet subject about women and children: ‘What is this rubbish about biological clocks? Younger women should have children, not older ones. If there’s one thing I hate it’s hearing about some movie star who reaches fifty, then realizes she hasn’t had kids yet and plays IVF roulette until she gets one. Kids need young mothers who can roll on the floor with them and play. Not older ones …’

But it seemed as if Suki Richardson’s diatribes had lost their appeal. Once upon a time, audiences used to tune in hoping that she would tear into some television host who dared question her or fellow panellists who didn’t share her views. Producers used to think she was TV dynamite. But not these days. She’d become invisible since the years with Jethro. Add to that the fact that her books were out of print, apart from Women and Their Wars, which was only available in selected college bookstores, and it all added up to one equation: penury.

It cost a lot to live the way she’d got used to living before she’d left Jethro: she had acquired a taste for designer clothes and the best restaurants. And Dr Frederik cost a bloody fortune; invisible, top-of-the-range cosmetic surgery did not come cheap. Not that a tweak and a mini droplet of Botox here and there didn’t fit in with feminism, but her public might think otherwise. God forbid that Suki Richardson should be outed as having resorted to Sculptra to keep her face looking young. Not after she’d publicly declared that ‘women should stop trying to stop the years! Wrinkles are the proof that we have lived!’

Unfortunately she had acquired a little too much proof of having lived. At forty-eight, she seemed to have more than her fair share of lines. Who knew that smoking created all those lines around the mouth?

And she’d probably have a whole new set of frown lines after the phone call from Eric Gold.

Eric had always been straight with her. She wished they were still friends, because he was one of the few people she could rely on to tell her the truth, even when it hurt.

‘I got a letter requesting an interview from this guy who’s writing a book about the Richardsons.’

‘Ye-s,’ said Suki.

She’d been enjoying a nice afternoon relaxing in her cosy house in Falmouth, lying on the couch watching TV.