Finn
‘Yeah, right she was,’ I laughed, until I saw Henry making frantic gestures behind Lilith’s back. ‘Sweet Jesus, you’re serious?’ I had never detested my enforced ignorance more. I recalled yesterday’s pass in light of Lilith’s revelation and inwardly cringed. ‘Henry, you miserable little fucker. You’ll have known would you?’
Henry nodded sadly. ‘I’m sorry, Finn, really I am. It’s just that –’
‘Yeah, okay, I know. Can’t have Mother distressed now, can we?’ I turned to Lilith. ‘Look, I know it makes no bloody difference at all now, but I’m sorry for yesterday – if I’d known…’
‘But you didn’t know, did you? And from what I can gather, that was all part of whatever sick game I’ve just had the great misfortune to stumble across. So if this is the time for apologies, will you accept mine for my anger?’
Apart from Henry’s constant twittering remorse for everything he did, I couldn’t recall the last time anyone had apologised to me, and Lilith held out her hand in a gesture of reconciliation. Of levelling. We shook.
I suddenly recalled the weak-chinned guest from a few months ago – one that Blaine had dealt with herself, thank God – and looked again at Lilith. ‘So, your ma... Jesus. But isn’t your old man someone?’
‘Sir Simon Montfort CBE, failed MP, Knight of the Realm, and all-round spineless twat and waste of DNA. My birth name was Clarissa Montfort, before you ask. ‘Bresson’ was my mother’s maiden name, and ‘Lilith’ was our gamekeeper’s cat.’
‘So how the hell did that one work out?’ I asked, desperate to fill in a few gaps. Henry mimed pulling a zip across his mouth.
Lilith saw him this time, and he blushed. ‘It’s all right, Henry. I think it might be a good idea to clear a few things up, don’t you?’
I had the feeling I had just managed to screw up once again.
‘My father met my mother when he was an exchange student at the Sorbonne, and she was a prostitute in a Montmartre brothel. He started out as a customer, but by all accounts romance blossomed.’ Lilith stubbed out the cigarette that had barely touched her lips. ‘Knowing my father I find that part rather hard to believe, but I digress. It became our Big Family Secret – the story was that they’d met one sunlit autumn afternoon whilst admiring the same Cezanne in the Louvre, and despite my mother’s humble background my father was determined to marry her. It wouldn’t have been hard for people to believe that, at least. She was the most beautiful girl you could imagine. Anyway, it remained secret for the best part of fifteen years.’
I stood to rifle through a cutlery drawer where I knew Henry had hidden a packet of cigarettes I’d foolishly left on the kitchen table a few mornings ago. ‘It all went tits up, huh?’
‘Beyond belief. It was an election year, and my father was defending his nice, safe seat, full of lots of blue-rinse brigade crones who’d have removed their false teeth and sucked him off as fast as he could unzip his flies.’
‘Goodness.’ Henry busied himself with stacking away the clean dishes.
Lilith didn’t seem to notice. ‘A week before the polls, he got a call from some scumbag from The Herald, saying he’d uncovered some interesting stories about Paris in the springtime. Within two hours my noble shit of a father had issued a statement that told of his shock and disgust at this revelation, and within a day my mother and I were shipped out of the family home with whatever we could carry.’
‘He threw you out too?’ I found two crumpled, sorry-looking fags in a packet and lit the least wrecked.
‘That would have been too cruel, even for him. Evicting his thirteen-year old daughter just before polling day? No, I was given the choice: stay or go, and an hour to decide.’
‘Shit, they were the pictures, weren’t they? That night, on the TV, that was you; your decision.’
‘That’s right. Stick or fold – I folded. My mother lasted two years after that. Her latent schizophrenia upgraded itself into full-on howling-at-the-moon madness. A week after my fifteenth birthday she hit lucky with her third suicide attempt.’
‘How?’ Any minute now I expected her to tell me to mind my own bloody business but she didn’t flinch.
‘Stopped eating, and saved up her meds. I came home after my Art GCSE and found her choked on her own vomit. Fortunately her death coincided with a boundary shift in my father’s constituency, and Sir Simon Montfort’s lovely safe seat suddenly became a hotly contested marginal.’ Lilith gave a bitter laugh. ‘Challenged by some perma-grinning lefty chiropractor – everything my father loathed. He needed something to boost his popularity, and he thought that bringing his prodigal daughter back into the fold would be just the thing. He still lost by two hundred and sixty three votes, thank fuck.’ Lilith sat back in her chair. ‘So. There you have it. You now know pretty much the same as everyone else on the planet.’
I had seen guests with a lot less at stake, all of them bastards, fall to pieces once they had been for their ‘morning after’ chat with Lady Blaine Albermarle. The most recent had been the local council’s Head of Planning who had been presented with a photograph of his enthusiastic session with Blaine and had approved an extension to her listed mainland restaurant on the spot, sobbing gently as he did so. Lilith Bresson, innocent of everything except having a bastard for a father, took her new fate with a calm that was terrifying.
I flicked ash into my empty mug. ‘Welcome to our exclusive club.’
Lilith looked at Henry and me. ‘I take it that your terms of employment are a little harsh?’
‘You could say that,’ Henry said. ‘When I took up my post four years ago, one of the rather generous benefits was private care for my mother – she’s got Alzheimer’s, bless the poor dear. Unfortunately Blaine neglected to tell me which home she chose, so I rely on a weekly call from a withheld number that tells me everything’s fine and mother’s doing well.’
‘Let me guess. As long as you continue to perform your duties with discretion?’
‘That’s the one. Mother’s none the wiser, thank heavens. In fact, she often mentions the ‘nice man’ who’s just paid her a visit.’ Henry’s voice cracked a little. ‘Oh dear, I really shouldn’t get like this. I mean, at least she’s content. And it’s nothing to what Finn -’
‘Shut your fucking face, Henry,’ I snapped. I had so little that was my own that I was determined to hang on to this one secret for as long as I possibly could. I glanced across at Lilith, who had just spent the last five minutes unwaveringly laying her life bare. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ I began.
‘I think if I were in the same circumstances, I would want to hold close whatever I possibly could,’ Lilith said, and then I couldn’t look at her at all. ‘Now if you two gentlemen will excuse me, I have a job to do.’