Twenty-Four Hours Read online

  “Next turn-off, move into the left lane,” Jackie instructed, smiling in secret satisfaction.

  Oh, no! Ellis thought automatically. He had been driven along this motorway, turning left at that very corner, many times throughout his childhood, and never with any pleasure. Come off it! he told himself derisively, as they curved away from the motorway and on to a long, straight road with fences, hedges and occasional gateways on either side. Just because … he began thinking, then forced himself to notice the ordinary roadsides as if he had never seen them before. Some gates had signs beside them listing fruit and vegetables which could be bought during the day, but most signs were lying flat on the grass, flapping and bucking wildly as the wind pushed powerful fingers under them. One particular sign, hanging by short chains from a wooden support that reminded Ellis of a gallows, was stretched out almost parallel with the ground, straining to escape. The words, Fresh Lettuce, Tomatoes, Avocados, angled into sight, then vanished once more.

  But they were driving out of the path of the storm. The road ahead was suddenly dry. Hedges and trees which had been writhing on either side of the road were suddenly less convulsive, the sideways thrust on the car much less insistent.

  It was hard for Ellis to imagine any connection between the friends of his parents who lived along this road and disreputable Jackie Cattle, and yet he felt himself touched by apprehension. Don’t be crazy, he kept telling himself. There are a dozen places out this way. We’ll probably drive on past, and …

  “Big white gates!” announced Jackie, leaning forward.

  Oh, no! Ellis sighed to himself in fatalistic despair. The familiar gates were rushing towards him on his right – big, old, gates, white, pointed palings like teeth sweeping down, then up again in a long curve – a sarcastic grin suspended between high stone posts, also painted white.

  “White gates,” repeated Jackie. “And chestnut trees! This must be the place!”

  Ellis was already turning in at the gates, noting festive balloons tied to the rural delivery mail box. Though the wind was gentler now, the balloons still strained and bobbed furiously like a huddle of demented heads. But the car glided confidently past them and on between the double line of chestnut trees. Even though he was sitting correctly in the driver’s seat, both hands on the wheel in a ten to two position, Ellis felt his mother’s car, which had turned in at that gate many times before, was really finding its own way. Every cell in his body seemed intent on turning and going back to town again. But there, in front of him, set in orchards and wide lawns, sprawled the house, casually impressive among its old trees.

  “Oh, wow!” breathed Jackie.

  Suddenly the air grew rich with the smell of barbecued steak and fish – salmon, no doubt, wrapped in foil, cooking in its own juices, thought Ellis, remembering other barbecues in this very place.

  Beside him, Jackie pulled his knees up, bending and writhing inside his coat as he struggled to remove his roller blades. Ellis parked at the end of a long row of cars, then turned towards him.

  “We’d better walk the last bit,” he said, looking dubiously at Jackie’s socks, which were full of holes.

  “I’ll go barefoot,” said Jackie, peeling his feet. “I’ll look really laid-back!”

  “What about your coat?” asked Ellis, knowing just what sort of party they were going to walk into. “It’s a warm evening.”

  “Take off my coat?” cried Jackie. “Are you mad? My life story’s written on this coat. See this stain here? That’s a quarrel with my father, and this smear …”

  “OK! OK!” Ellis sighed, waving his hand, palm outward at Jackie. “I just thought you’d be more comfortable if …”

  “You think I’d sacrifice truth for comfort?” cried Jackie, settling the coat across his shoulders with a complacent grin. “It will be good for everyone here to see a coat like mine.”

  Directly in front of them, between two silver birches whose upper branches had grown together to form an arch, Ellis saw the familiar triple garage set beyond a turning space. He saw a shiny red car parked at such a careless angle that it blocked the main garage door, just as if the owner knew no other car would need to come or go, or did not much care, anyway. Ellis grimaced in spite of himself as he and Jackie strolled towards the bricked flank of the house, Jackie stepping carefully on fallen leaves and grass clippings spread across fine, sharp gravel. Earlier in the day someone had mowed these verges.

  Ellis slunk along guiltily, but Jackie, who had absolutely no right to be there (Ellis was sure), stepped out as confidently as if his bare feet were perfectly acceptable. The wind seemed anxious to push them away but, as they came round the edge of the house, the sound of many voices swelled towards them.

  “Don’t look so furtive!” muttered Jackie. “Chill out, man!” He improvised a dance step. “Just stroll on in and say, ‘Hey folks! Your lucky day! Here we are! Now the fun begins!’”

  “I don’t look furtive,” said Ellis indignantly. “And I know this crowd, which I reckon you don’t. The Kilmers are friends of ours – friends of my parents, that is! They’ve got one of those apartments in the old library, but this is their real home. I’ve visited them twenty million times before.” He looked sideways at Jackie, half-expecting to see capitulation of some kind, or even respect (because, after all, the Kilmers were rich). But in the clear, early twilight, Jackie’s expression was that of a child seeing a vision of wonder. Then he flung an arm across Ellis’s shoulder.

  “Hey, Ellis!” he cried softly. “Has anyone told you how beautiful you are? A car! Naturally curly hair! And rich friends! The lot! I love you! I love you! And, hey, isn’t that sunshine? Let’s enjoy ourselves.”

  6.30 pm – Friday

  Ellis stepped on to the wide, grassy terrace that led down from the veranda of the Kilmer’s house to the garden below, a familiar enchantment immediately taking hold of him. For there it all was: women in summer dresses, laughing and talking, leaning sexily into the intrusive wind; men in shorts hoisting long glasses of pale-gold lager. Elegant music came towards them in gusts and then retreated. Ellis recognised it as the theme tune of a television commercial in which an expensive car moved with grace and power through a bare, sculptural landscape. Farmers on horses (along with their dogs) watched the car go by with admiration and envy, and a beautiful woman studied it with voluptuous attention, licking her full, red lips.

  Jackie seemed to react to the gusts of music, too. He came to a standstill and Ellis saw him grimace.

  “Vivaldi!” he exclaimed, half-turning towards Ellis. “Poor bugger! Mind you, those musical jokers wrote a lot of stuff for parties, didn’t they?” Ellis found he had assumed yet again that, in spite of his unexpected accent, Jackie was a man without culture. “I mean, it’s so beautiful,” Jackie added. “But, by now, whenever I hear it going Tah dah dah dah da-da dah, I want to laugh. It’s become its own sort of joke. And it wasn’t meant to be funny, was it?”

  “Ellis!” called an astonished voice. “Who is it?” hissed Jackie.

  “Meg Kilmer! Hostess. Lives here,” Ellis muttered, grinning studiously at his mother’s friend and feeling suddenly treacherous. Why – why – had Jackie been so desperate to come here? There must have been other parties he could have gatecrashed – parties that were much more his sort of thing. Ellis wondered if he had unwittingly helped an enemy insinuate himself. For he was with Jackie, whose coat had one elbow burned out of it, who was barefoot, who was laughing at the idea of Vivaldi being played as background music, but who was also, at that very moment, turning to greet the hostess with a wide smile.

  “Ellis … lovely to see you,” Meg cried, seeming only slightly surprised that he should be there at all.

  “Just passing!” Ellis said, smiling too – the sort of frank, boyish smile a friend of one’s mother could trust – an actor’s smile. “Didn’t know you were having a party. Sorry!” He was relieved to find just how easily deception came to him. Though, after all, he hadn’t known: he was speaking
the truth.

  “Well, we did invite Kit and Dave,” said Meg Kilmer, referring to Ellis’s parents, “but Kit said she was having a few friends round tonight. Of course, she may have felt shy. People think it’s a bit strange celebrating a separation.”

  “Well, I think the Robsons are looking in,” said Ellis, his voice hesitant, wondering if he had really heard Meg say what she appeared to have said. His voice seemed to come and go in his own ears. “But Jackie and I – oh, this is my friend, Jackie Cattle, by the way. And Jackie, this is Meg Kilmer who lives here – well, we’ve been cruising around …”

  “Ellis shot home from school last night,” interrupted Jackie, speaking rather more easily than Ellis himself. “He’s getting himself reacquainted with this part of the world.”

  Ellis saw Meg exchange a worldly glance with Jackie at the expense of a younger man.

  “Well, lovely to see you,” said Meg warmly. “Go down to the lower lawn by the barbecue. There’s masses to eat and drink.” In spite of his ease and open smile, she was suddenly studying Jackie rather more intently. Ellis saw her expression change slightly – as if something was disturbing her. He felt she was aware of something rather more anarchic than either Jackie’s bare feet or battered coat. And Jackie, too, seemed to recognise her doubt.

  “I don’t want to push in,” he said, smiling with old-world courtesy.

  “Oh, you’re welcome,” Meg said, relaxing a little. “We always overdo things, so there’s plenty.” Someone called her name. She turned, laughed, and retreated, then looked over her shoulder, pointing vaguely into the crowd.

  “Christo’s somewhere around,” she called. “Be nice to him! He’s so grumpy these days.”

  Jackie and Ellis moved across the upper lawn between groups of chattering guests, nearly all protecting piled cardboard plates and glasses of wine from the wind, then down three wide, stone steps to a lower lawn. In spite of the big, brick barbecue, it was much less crowded, perhaps because the shade of tall lime trees imparted an early twilight to this part of the garden.

  “So you don’t want to push in,” muttered Ellis as they walked towards two long tables covered with bottles and plates. “You know, you’re a real bull artist!”

  “It’s my gift,” Jackie replied, “and we ought to use our talents. The Bible says so.”

  “You do what the Bible says?” Ellis asked, leaning back from Jackie and studying him with exaggerated scepticism.

  “When it’s in my interests,” Jackie replied, his own smile vanishing.

  Alan Kilmer came to meet them with a bottle of wine and what was left of a jug of beer balanced on a tray. He was wearing a striped apron and a cook’s hat with the word Chef printed on it in flowing letters.

  “I suppose you drink all the beer you can get these days, young Ellis,” he cried in the voice of a surrogate father keen to show how understanding he could be.

  “I’m driving …” Ellis said, and had a vision of the curls and the clean, open face that had flickered briefly across the looking-glass panel in the city street.

  “Oh, one won’t hurt you,” Alan said, “though you’re right to be careful. I only wish Christo was careful … But you’re a big boy now. Take it! Food and plates over there by the barbie. I imagine you’ve heard our news? Meg and I are separating. After all, Sophie’s left home – she’s over in Sydney doing very well, and of course Christo’s grown up.”

  “Gosh, I didn’t know …” began Ellis.

  “It’s time,” said Alan, a touch of mysticism creeping into his voice. “Meg and I both feel these rites of passage deserve celebration.” His voice became friendly and fatherly again. “Now, just help yourselves.”

  “We haven’t come to eat …” Ellis began guiltily.

  “We’re starving,” declared Jackie, interrupting before Ellis could reject the offers of food and drink, or ask for Kilmer family news.

  “Well, cram in all you can,” said Alan cheerfully. “We always cater for too many people. The steak’s from our own beast … but it’ll be dog tucker by tomorrow. Strike while the sausage is hot, eh?”

  Together, Jackie and Ellis made their way to the table by the barbecue. Plates of steak and sausages sat beside huge wooden bowls of salad, the meat drying a little, the lettuce leaves starting to wilt around the edges. Jackie piled a plate with salad and sliced tomatoes, as well as a fillet of salmon, glittering in a wrap of tin foil.

  “Have some steak,” said Ellis. It seemed the least they could do was eat the food most likely to be left over.

  “I’m vegetarian – all but,” said Jackie.

  “You?” cried Ellis incredulously.

  “I said, ‘All but’!” Jackie replied, snapping a piece of garlic bread from its parent loaf. “I’m not above stocking up when it’s free, and probably going to be thrown out, anyway. That’s another of my virtues … I don’t waste anything. Let’s move before the Killers close in again and begin telling you about the civilised way they’re managing their separation.”

  “Kilmers!” Ellis corrected him, not quite wanting to expose old friends to alien derision, and slightly irritated because Jackie seemed more at home with the gossip than he was. “Are they really separating?” He could not imagine Meg and Alan apart from one another.

  “They say they are,” said Jackie. “And they’re pretending it’s all good, clean fun. But my sources, of which I have one, say they really want to kill each other, and they’re waiting till after Christmas to fight about who gets how much. New Year’s the traditional time for murder, isn’t it?”

  “Do you know the Kilmers?” asked Ellis.

  “Never met them until five minutes ago,” said Jackie.

  Ellis came to a sudden stop. “Just level with me – what are we doing here?” he asked. “Why have we crashed this particular party?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth I want to make trouble,” said Jackie. “I didn’t mention it before in case you got all shy, but …” He tilted his head back and drank the whole glass of beer at what seemed to be a single swallow. “Don’t you do that!” he added. “Remember, you’re driving.”

  “What sort of trouble?” asked Ellis dubiously.

  “I’m still choosing,” said Jackie in a pious voice. Then his gaze sharpened and he stared past Ellis with an expression of such deep appreciation that Ellis turned too. And there he saw his childhood nemesis, the Kilmer boy, Christo, talking to a lanky young woman wearing jeans, a sleeveless blue top and round, wire-rimmed glasses.

  6.55 pm – Friday

  Ellis and Christo had never got on together, though both sets of parents had tried hard to encourage them into some sort of friendship. In normal circumstances Ellis would have gone a long way to avoid talking to Christo. But Jackie was drifting so casually in his and the girl’s direction that nobody watching him would have guessed how purposeful that drifting was. Only Ellis knew – and suddenly knew for certain – that Jackie had forced his way into this party with the single intention of breaking in on that particular conversation. Ellis had no choice but to follow him, though with increasing alarm.

  The couple had been chatting together cheerfully enough, or so it seemed to Ellis. Now, Christo, looking across the girl’s shoulder, met Ellis’s eyes and then, almost instantaneously, saw Jackie. Though Jackie was still pretending he had not yet seen Christo, Ellis felt the impact of Christo’s furious glance as if a dagger had been thrust towards them. Even from where he stood he could see Christo’s fair skin turn red as a wild blush of fury spread across it. A small mole, rather like an eighteenth-century beauty-spot, stood out darkly on Christo’s cheekbone as he grasped the girl’s upper arm.

  Christo’s grasp must have been severe, for she started, glanced at him, then turned in order to see what he was looking at. For a moment she was as amazed as Jackie could ever have wished her to be. Behind her wire-rimmed spectacles, under the shadow of her lashes, her eyes were a light, startling blue. Her first surprise gave way to instant anger.


  “What are you doing here?” she shouted.

  Jackie looked directly at her for the first time. His expression showed nothing but startled innocence.

  “Oh, wow!” he exclaimed. “You! What a coincidence! Hey, it’s a small world, isn’t it? Stunted really.”

  “What are you doing here?” she repeated so forcefully that Ellis stepped back in alarm.

  “Weird, eh?” Jackie went on. “Must be the morphic field! Or what’s that other thing? Chaos theory or something. See, I met up with Ellis – my old friend Ellis – you know, I’m always talking about Ellis – and he suggested …”

  “You’re such a liar!” exclaimed the girl.

  Jackie laughed. “Ellis,” he said. “This is Ursa Hammond. And you know Chris, don’t you?”

  “Christo!” Christo corrected him. He had always hated it when people called him ‘Chris’.

  “Oh! Sorry!” said Jackie, returning the hostility with his wide, innocent smile. “Hey, your parents know how to celebrate failure in style. Great party.”

  People always said how handsome Christo was. Even though Ellis had detested him for a long time, and so much so that he thought of him as essentially disfigured, he was fair-minded enough to admit they were right.

  “What are you doing here?” Christo was demanding, suddenly as furious as his companion, though Ellis understood there was a great difference between their two angers.

  “Doing here?” repeated Jackie, frowning. “Big question. But what are any of us doing here, if it comes to that? I reckon it’s pretty random myself. What’s that word you were going on about the other day?” he asked, turning to Ursa. “Not telepathy, but like telepathy. It was to do with design or something … that things keep happening because of what’s meant to happen.”

  “Teleology,” said Ursa. Ellis thought he could hear her first anger laced with some other mood as Jackie ran on and on, shaking his head in wonder. She was recognising something in Jackie and was unwillingly entertained by it. “Leave it alone, Jackie! Bug off!” she muttered.