Misspent Youth

53. ALIEN HOME GROUND

WHEN TIM LOOKED AROUND the front of the manor he was almost surprised that nothing had changed. So many other aspects of his life had altered it seemed unreasonable that the façade and gardens remained the same. It was another standard high-season afternoon, a roasting sun turning the air so thick that it soaked up any sounds.

He pushed the e-trike’s parking legs down onto the gravel, and took his helmet off. The Jag was sitting outside the garage. One of the younger boys from the village had just washed it, and was now rubbing down the gleaming bodywork with a leather cloth. Tim gave him a hurried wave before pulling his sunglasses on.

The front doors were open. He went into the hall, where the air conditioning was losing its fight against the encroaching heat. Natalie Cherbun was in the small living room watching the monitor screens. She gave him a small authentic smile. “Hello, Tim.”

“Hi. You’re all okay, then?”

“I wasn’t out on the streets, no. I had the easy duty in the hotel. Especially after your father left.”

“Ah. Right. Good.” He found it tough to look her in the eye, especially as he was so conscious of the dye stains still marking his neck. It was a week since the last of the protestors had been picked up, a week in which every English news stream and current affairs show had been filled with vitriolic demands that the disgrace that was Europol should be disbanded at the very least, and President Brèque thrown into jail along with the force’s senior officers. The foreign animals who’d run amok should be tried in England by English judges; there was even talk of bringing back the jury system. Agreeing with such claims was easy when they were on screen, but when facing a Europol officer in the flesh it was a mite more difficult. “I’ll, er, go through then.”

“Good luck.”

Annabelle was sunbathing topless out on the terrace, wearing the world’s smallest bikini thong. Tim approached her slowly, still a little unsure how to behave toward her. She was lying on one of the sunloungers under a floppy ultraviolet filter parasol. He’d never seen her such a dark shade before. Naturally, Annabelle’s skin didn’t merely go brown; her tan gave her a wondrously healthy golden hue.

Someone was sitting on the sunlounger beside her. Another girl, the two of them chattering away and laughing.

Tim almost backed away. Then Annabelle saw him and let out a happy cry. “Tim!” She bounded up off the sunlounger, her smile wide and welcoming. Just the way he always remembered. “How are you?” she demanded.

“I’m okay. Suppose.”

Her expression settled into something close to serious. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Yeah, same.”

“I’m glad you’re here and cool about it,” she said. “Last week changed a lot of things for all of us, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“So? Friends again?”

“Sure.” Tim gave her a lame smile. It was all he ever could do with Annabelle, just get washed along in her wake trying desperately to keep his head above water. Her hair was different now, he noticed; she’d had it straightened, although it looked very natural. She’d lost a few kilos as well, which made her body look even fitter than before—if such a thing were possible. The overall effect was to keep her appearance girlish, but with a touch of sophistication she’d previously lacked.

He couldn’t recall exactly who’d said it was better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, but they’d clearly never stood in front of a near-naked Annabelle remembering what it had been like….

Annabelle darted forward and kissed him before he had time to react, or dodge. There was just the hint of a tease to her smile. “I want you to meet someone,” she said, beckoning the other girl. “This is Yoni.”

“Hi, Tim,” Yoni said. “Pleased to meet you. I’ve heard all about you.” She giggled wildly.

At first Tim thought she was drunk. Her voice was childlike, and the way she looked at him was so spaced out she could have been a groupie to his rock star. She was a couple of years older than he and Annabelle, and quite beautiful. Raven-black hair licked around a long oval face with perfect expressive green eyes. She was slimmer than Annabelle, but just as tall. He could see that. A tight black leather T-shirt thinner than cotton was molded to her torso; there was a broad strip of taut abdomen visible between that and a micro skirt, with a couple of gold waist chains looped around her waist, chinking softly at every movement. Clusters of bracelets skittered about on her bare arms. Tim held back on a frown: Who wore leather in weather like this? But it belonged to what she was, some uber-trendy city girl.

Yoni planted a big kiss on Tim’s cheek. He squirmed, not wanting to shove her away, but really…

Her hands clapped together. “Oh, he’s so cute.”

Panic froze Tim’s smile in place. “Thanks. You, er, look sensational.”

“I do? Wheeee!” Her whistle could have split stone.

Annabelle was grinning at his discomfort. “Yoni’s from the agency. She’s my chaperone when I go on assignments.”

“Right,” Tim said. It opened up a whole file of questions, which he simply refused to ask.

“Fibber!” Yoni protested. “I’m more than that to her, Tim. I do makeup, and I’m developing my talent as a stylist. I want to get behind the camera as well. I’m going to show the whole industry I’m more than just eye candy.”

“That’s nice.”

“Oh, you’re so desperately eatable. What’s your star sign?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Let me guess, I’m good at this.” Her hand slapped against her forehead as she squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m getting it. You have a strong aura.”

Tim gave Annabelle an accusing look. She winked back.

“You’re a Virgo,” Yoni announced. “You have to be.”

“Dead on. You got me.”

“I knew it! Yes! I’m an Aries, and I was born in the afternoon.”

“Excellent.”

“Isn’t it just. So are you doing anything tonight? We could double date with Jeff and Annabelle if you wanted. The club scene in Peterborough isn’t bad. They showed me round at the weekend.”

“I don’t think we want to do that,” Annabelle told her kindly.

“Ow.” Yoni frowned. “You’re so like Jeff, too. It would be such fun.”

“Another time,” Tim said. He hated people like her, never respecting anyone else, always an embarrassment in public—and private.

“Back in a sec,” Annabelle told Yoni. She inclined her head, and Tim walked with her out onto the lawn.

“She’s from an agency,” Tim said thoughtfully. “I heard you were doing some modeling.” Sue had mentioned it. His news snatch no longer fished out items concerning her and his father; he’d changed the programming.

“Yes. I couldn’t really turn that kind of money down. I’ve already done one shoot for Harice. Docini have booked me for next week. And I’ve got a catwalk gig coming up, too. It’s fantastic.”

“Congratulations.”

“I’m not going to live off him, Tim. I’m not like that.”

“What’s going to happen when you go to university?” He knew he was being unnecessarily cruel now, and simply didn’t care. Or maybe it was just a test, to see if they could talk. “Are you going to commute back here on the weekends?”

Annabelle looked out across the garden. “I’m not going to university. Not away to one, anyway. I’ve already signed for an online university course. That way I can hold onto everything I want to in my life. I can work, I can study, and I can be with Jeff.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“What? What don’t you believe?”

“You used to dream about making it out of here, out of Rutland. I admired you so much for that, for having that goal. The way you chased it was…awesome. Now you’re giving all that up.”

“I’m giving nothing up. I’ve got what I want, Tim. I’m sorry you can’t see that.”

It was his mother’s tone; that was how she talked to him. The little boy who doesn’t understand no matter how slowly and patiently it’s explained.

The voice actually shocked him. The condescension behind it; she’d gained a touch of something. Confidence, he supposed, always the twin of contentment. Annabelle would now be able to hold her own among the Rutland nonworking mothers’ club with no trouble at all. He could never have stayed with a girl like this, he knew. Maybe you had to have Dad’s personality and experience to cope with her.

“If that’s true, then I’m happy for you,” he said simply.

She studied him closely, as if suspecting some falsehood. “Tim, I know this is hard for you most of all, but I really do love Jeff. All I want now is for him to be happy.”

“He will be. He’s lucky to have you.”

“Yoni was right.” She grinned impishly. “You are so adorable.”

HE FOUND JEFF IN THE STUDY, bent over the drawer containing the desktop synthesizer. Just for an instant, as he walked in, he saw a flash of guilt on his father’s face. There was a giddy little moment when he recalled the last time he’d seen that expression on the same face.

Father and son stared mutely at each other.

The synthesizer pinged. Jeff picked some capsules out of the dispenser tray.

“What are you cooking?” Tim asked. Anything to lighten the atmosphere.

Jeff ran a hand over his forehead, dabbing at the perspiration. “Just some neurofen. I’ve got a headache, and it feels like a cold coming on. I think it’s this damn air conditioning. It’s freezing in here.”

Tim, who’d never had a cold in his life, didn’t feel much sympathy. He closed the door. It was uncomfortably hot in the study.

Jeff sat behind the desk. “It’s good to see you. Looks like the dye’s almost gone.”

“Oh, that.” Tim’s hand went automatically to his neck. “Yeah. It comes out eventually.”

“How’s Vanessa?”

“Okay. I’ll probably go up and see her again next week.”

“Good. She’s a nice girl.”

“How’s Lucy Duke?”

Jeff let out an amused snort. “Furious. But Downing Street has enough trouble right now trying to spin Lacey out of any blame for the riot. And even she had to concede, I went up in public estimation.”

“She must really hate that.”

“Oh, she does.”

Tim let out a long sigh, and checked the window. Annabelle and Yoni were back together on the terrace. The agency chaperone was blithely chattering away, waving her arms around as if she were at a rave. “I remembered something on the way over here.”

“What did you remember?”

“Rachel. You took Rachel to bed after the Summer Ball, after Annabelle.”

“Ah.”

“Annabelle’s so much happy with you.” He was still looking out through the window. Annabelle was walking down the steps at the shallow end of the swimming pool. Yoni had gone to lie on the side of the pool, propping her chin up on her hands to watch intently as Annabelle immersed herself. She shouted something as her legs waggled about, and Annabelle laughed in reply. “It would kill her to find out.”

“Tim,” Jeff said gently. “She knows what I’m like.”

“Are you sleeping with Yoni as well?”

“Don’t ask questions like that, Tim. I’m with Annabelle.”

Which wasn’t quite an answer, Tim thought. “Whatever.”

“I remember telling you, Tim: Never confuse love with sex.”

“I don’t get it, Dad, I don’t understand what you are. She loves you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“It means almost everything. The only person more important to me than Annabelle is you.”

“I don’t get her, either, not anymore. She just told me she’s staying here, that she’s taking open-line university courses.”

“That’s right.”

“She was going to go away to university. She used to have big plans for her life.”

“She still does.”

“She’s not Annabelle, not the girl I…used to know.” He nearly said: loved.

“I’m sorry, Tim,” Jeff said. “But she is exactly the same. And I haven’t changed so much, either. Sure, this body means I can have a decent sex life again, but that’s about the only difference. The rest of me’s the same, the way I think, the way I behave. It’s your perception of me that’s shifted. You know me a lot better now than you ever did before.”

“Really? I sometimes wish I didn’t.”

“Maybe I wish I wasn’t what I am. But I did what I did, I fucked up, and I’m not going to try and gloss it over or justify it. All I can tell you is that if you ever need me, then I’ll be here. That’s the bottom line, Tim.”

“I guess I know that now,” Tim said sheepishly.

“I’d do that again, you know. I’d do it every time for you.”

Tim cleared his throat, looked at his shoes. It wasn’t anything he could answer.

“Do you want to move back here?” Jeff asked.

Tim flinched. His gaze went back to the window again. Yoni was on her back now. She’d lifted her legs so they were pointing straight up into the sky, with her hands holding her knees. Presumably it was some sort of stretching exercise; Tim could only think of a tortoise on its back. “Colin’s parents have a bungalow in Norfolk; there’s a few of us going down for a week or so. Vanessa’s going to France before the end of the month, and she says I can come. And I promised Mum I’d visit the new house. Then I need to get ready for Oxford. But I was thinking, next holiday, when term’s over, would it be okay to stay here for a while then?”

Jeff’s smile was joyful. “You’ll be here for Christmas?”

“Guess so. A couple of days anyway.” Tim sort of smiled back at Jeff; it was hard not to. Maybe happiness was infectious.

“I’d like that a lot,” Jeff said.

LUCY DUKE ARRIVED at the manor forty minutes after Tim left. She walked through the hall with a quick nod to the Europol officer on duty. In the living room, she frowned disapprovingly at the sight of the two naked girls sunning themselves on the terrace. Yoni was rubbing sunscreen into Annabelle’s skin, taking a lot more time than she really needed.

Lucy went into the study. Her flexscreen fell from shocked fingers, bouncing on the tough carpet. “Shit! Dr. Baker? Jeff. Jeff, what is it? What’s the matter?”

Jeff was lying on the floor behind the desk, curled up in a fetal position. His skin was pale and glistening with sweat. When she knelt beside him she could feel his whole body trembling softly. He was conscious; dull eyes stared at her.

“Jesus Christ,” she gasped. His flesh was freezing below her fingers. “Help! Someone, help me. Get in here. Now!”