Lilith
‘Let Lilith see what?’ I asked.
‘Ooh, fuck.’ Finn actually laughed, which was the last thing I expected to hear right now. Nat just sat there and looked sheepish.
‘This,’ he finally said, and angled the screen towards me.
It was a picture of my father, lying on a bed. He was wearing a giant nappy and precious little else, an oversized dummy hung around his neck, and he was cuddling an Albermarle teddy bear. ‘Oh, the ridiculous old man.’ I pushed back the blanket and went to take a closer look.
‘Want some?’ Finn offered me a decanter with a couple of mouthfuls of liquid left in it; I guessed it had been full not too long before. I wordlessly took it and finished off what had been a fairly decent Laphroaig.
‘Look, Lilith, we don’t have to do anything with this one,’ Nat said. ‘I can just delete it.’
‘Bury him. Do anything you can to destroy whatever remains of that pathetic, parasitic inbred’s existence.’ I jabbed a finger at the screen. ‘I want that sending to the editor of the Herald, the secretary of his gentlemen’s club and the Archbishop of bloody Canterbury if you can find his email address.’
‘Don’t hold back now,’ Finn said.
‘Okie-doke.’ Nat began to type. ‘The tabloids are going to have a field day with this one – you know that, don’t you?’
‘Well I’ll just have to weather the storm, won’t I? If it finishes that spineless little shit, it’s worth it,’ I said. ‘And anyway, I shouldn’t get too much hassle from them once we’re home, thanks to Benedicta.’
‘The landlady of our favourite bar. She’s kind of protective of Lilith,’ Nat explained. ‘She pulled her dad’s old civil war Mauser on the last pap who came sniffing around. It was a pretty effective deterrent.’
‘I can well imagine it was,’ Finn said.
Just then, a decidedly crumpled Gabriel returned to the study, clearly ready to crash. He stared at the screen and shuddered. ‘Holy fuck, who the hell’s that perv?’
‘Daddy,’ I said.
Gabriel slapped a hand to his mouth. ‘Oh. God, sorry.’
‘Don’t worry about it – I’d say ‘Perv’ is spot on. So, did you met any restless spirits?’
‘No, but I’ve been keeping my eyes tightly shut, just in case,’ he yawned, all trace of his Mockney accent long gone. ‘Henry said he’d do an hour or so by himself if I wanted a break, then I’ll take over when he does the bacon sandwiches.’ He collapsed onto the divan. ‘Seriously, Lilith, I didn’t know what the fuck to think when we got here, other than you were in some kind of trouble, but I tell you what, this place – it’s really freaking me now. Me and a couple of the guys from the band, we’ve had a few nights at…’ he cast a quick glance at Finn. ‘Well, you can probably guess. And it was okay at the time, you know? We had a bit of a laugh, the girls were pretty amazing, but this?’ He pulled his hands through his hair. ‘It’s just wrong, isn’t it? Evil.’ He gave a shudder. ‘I can promise you, from this day forth I’m a changed hedonist.’
‘Oh yeah? And what do you think now, then?’ Finn asked.
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously.’
‘Well for a start, you, my delightful Irish friend, terrify me,’ Gabriel said, and pulled the blanket over his head like a shawl. ‘You look like you’ve just stepped off the catwalk, you’ve got the stare of a serial killer, and you’re clearly one of the hardest bastards I’ve ever met. Basically, I’m terribly keen to ensure that I’m never on your wrong side for the remainder of my existence – will that do you for now, you fucking sociopath?’
There was silence as Finn considered Gabriel’s statement, then he gave a tired grin. ‘Aye, you posh twat. That’ll do.’ He turned to me. ‘Lili, would you do us a favour, and pass Little Lord Fauntleroy here the sherry, would you? He looks like he needs it.’
*****
At ten to six in the morning, Gabriel was sound asleep on the hearthrug and Finn and I were dozing against each other on the divan when Nat stood up and stretched, exposing a couple of inches of tanned belly as his sweatshirt slid up his lanky frame. ‘Well, that’s my bit done, people. As of now, there’s a whole bunch of dudes whose lives have just been flushed down the pan of creation.’
‘Excellent news. So, what now, genius?’ I asked.
‘We wait. Ed’s holed up with his techie guy in a B and B just down the road, and I imagine he’ll stay put until he’s had a chance to check through the files I’ve just sent him before he heads over here.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got about forty minutes, I guess.’
As if on cue, the phone rang, and Nat picked it up. ‘Hi, Ed.’ He paused and nodded. ‘Sure. Cheers for that. Yup, will do. See you soon.’ He put the handset back on the cradle and turned to us. ‘Make that an hour – apparently the snow’s made the roads absolute hell. And he says to have the kettle on.’ He nudged Gabriel gently with the tip of his toe. ‘Come on, megastar, rise and shine; we’d better be keeping an ear open for guests beginning to wake up. And what was that you were saying about a bacon sandwich?’
‘Uhm, kitchen, Henry,’ Gabriel mumbled, still half-asleep, and slowly got to his feet. ‘You two coming?’
‘Tell Henry I’ll be along soon,’ I said. ‘I need to call in at my studio first. There’s one last job I need to do.’
‘You want company?’ Finn asked.
I thought about it, then nodded. ‘Yeah, company would be good.’
*****
Finn stood at my side in the gloom as I hauled away the sheet that covered Blaine’s portrait. She stared down at us, naked and regal and surrounded by greenery, and I resisted the urge to throw the sheet straight back over her smug face.
‘I forget, sometimes,’ Finn said.
‘Forget what?’
He slid his hand into mine. ‘That this is what you do. It’s breathtaking, Lili.’
‘It’s not my best.’
‘Really? Jesus, it looks pretty good to my admittedly uncultured eye.’
I ran my fingers over the canvas, feeling that wonderful texture of oil over linen for the final time. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong – it’s good, but it’s nowhere near great. I have this prodigious talent for painting the person behind the façade, but with Blaine the façade is all there is left – just artifice, guile, and an expensive pair of silicone tits.’
‘So what’s goin’ to happen to Blaine the Second here, now?’
‘That’s why I needed company,’ I said. ‘It needs a finishing touch.’