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Dylan’s good humour lasted until they got into the car, and he discovered that Ethan was going to drop him off with Emily first before driving Carly back into town to her cliff-top villa. He took his revenge by whispering all the way home in Emily’s unwilling ear, telling some irresistibly funny jokes, and making much of their apparently intimate conversation.
Emily, aware of Ethan’s cool eyes using the rear-vision mirror with a meticulous regularity that would render him a pin-up with the traffic safety boys, squirmed uncomfortably in the knowledge of what he must be seeing, while Carly haughtily appeared not to notice, turning up the classical music station on the radio to drown out the whispers and giggles floating over from the darkness in the back seat.
The laughter was abruptly cut off as Dylan stood under the portico of the house and watched the red lights at the rear of the BMW flare briefly at the gates of the house before the headlights swept into the darkness along Ridge Road.
He withdrew his keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door for Emily, then, muttering under his breath, he spun on his heel and started walking across the drive.
‘What are you doing?’ called Emily softly, suffering her own form of depression. After all, Ethan had never actually confirmed her inference that he and Carly were merely acting a charade for Dylan’s benefit. And perhaps he thought she had been encouraging Dylan’s behaviour in the back seat, rather than simply enduring it.
‘Going out,’ he said, jingling his keys, and she realised he was making for the Porsche, parked in the inky shadow of the garage.
Emily ran after him, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket.
‘You can’t drive,’ she told him. ‘You’ve been drinking.’
He gave a short crack of disbelieving laughter and she snatched the keys out of his hand. ‘Hey!’
‘I’m serious, Dylan.’
‘Then you drive me.’
Drive the Porsche? She had a wistful image of herself at the wheel, zipping past Ethan on the motorway. ‘I’ve probably had more to drink than you,’ she said.
‘I want to go clubbing,’ he said sullenly, making a swipe for the keys. ‘Hand them over!’
‘Dylan, you told me the Porsche is only leased because you couldn’t afford to buy one. If you crash it you’ll have to pay for it. And are you really in the mood to party? Or are you just going to go to a bar somewhere and get smashed—or drive over to Carly’s and sit outside in your car, brooding?’
‘Huh!’ he muttered.
Emily didn’t know which option he was choosing, but at least his flare of temper seemed to have died down.
‘If you have to go somewhere, call for a taxi,’ she said, turning him back in the direction of the house.
‘No, I may as well just go to bed,’ he said, stomping into the hall. ‘What a bitch!’
‘I hope you’re not referring to me.’
‘I was talking about life in general…and her.’
Emily was beginning to have reluctant sympathy for Carly. Dylan was a temperamental handful, in love with a richer, classier, older woman. His masculine pride was on the line and, even though he was gasping his last, he was refusing to admit he was hooked, gaffed and landed.
She watched in relief as he vanished into his room, hoping he didn’t have a second set of keys hidden in there.
Glancing at her watch and mentally juggling time zones, she detoured to the telephone in the lounge and waited for the minute hand to tick around to the half hour before she punched in the number that she had been given. It took four re-dials before she got through and even then the interference on the satellite phone at the other end was considerable, and she wasn’t able to recognise the language of the garbled voice. Then she hit a clean patch and a new voice came on the line.
‘Mum? Mum, is that you?’
The phone roared, then mumbled, then dropped out completely, but then she heard loud and clear, at least for the first four words: ‘Emily? Right on time…Almost missed y…Dad says ‘hi’…What’s happening, Em? I haven’t forgotten your birthday again, have I?’ A familiar, faraway, tinny laugh that she hadn’t heard for several months.
‘No, it’s not for another six months, Mum. How are you both…?’
She struggled on with the usual set of commonplaces for a few more minutes, and then, conscious that the reception at the other end was getting worse not better, hurriedly told her mother about the fire.
‘Too bad, Em…wish…help…absolute chaos here at the moment…need money?’
It was always chaos, wherever they were. They thrived on it. And she knew very well that most of their money they gave away to people a lot more needy than Emily, who at least had food to eat, and a blanket at night and didn’t risk rape or mutilation or worse every time she ventured away from the perimeter of the house. She would feel as guilty as sin if she pleaded poverty over those to whom mere poverty would be a luxury.
‘No, no, I’m fine, I’m managing. But, Mum, a funny thing happened…’ she haltingly told her mother about Peter Nash taking her in, and his fantastic notion that she might be adopted, pausing between running phrases for the worst of the white noise to fade.
