In The Boss's Castle. Jessica Gilmore
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Gilbert, Diana and Matthew. This week anyway. It depends on what I’ve been reading.’ Actually it was always those names. They gave her hope. After all, didn’t Anne Shirley start off with nothing and yet end up surrounded by laughter and love?
‘Let’s hope you’re not on a sci-fi kick when you’re actually pregnant then, or your kids could end up with some interesting names. Why so many?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Four children. That’s a lot of kids to transport around. You’ll need a big car, a big house—a huge washing machine.’
‘I’m an only child,’ she said quietly. That, for once, wasn’t a prevarication, not a stretch of the truth. And she had vowed that when she got her family, when she had kids, then everything would be different. They would be wanted, loved, praised, supported—and they would have each other. There would be no lonely nights shivering under a thin comforter and wishing that there were just one person to share it with her. One person who understood. ‘It gets kind of lonely. I want my children to have the most perfect childhood ever.’
The childhood she was meant to have had. The one she had been robbed of when her mother refused to name her father. All she had said was that he was a summer visitor. One of the golden tribe who breezed into town in expensive cars with boats and designer shades and lavish tips. Maddison could have been one of them, but instead she had been the trailer-trash daughter of an alcoholic mother. No gold, just tarnish so thick hardly anyone saw through it to the girl within. Even when she had got out, the tarnish had still clung—until she left the Cape altogether and reinvented herself.
Kit looked directly at her as she spoke, as if he could see through to the heart of her. But he couldn’t; no one could. She had made sure of that. And yet her pulse sped up under his gaze, hammering so loudly she could almost hear the beat reverberate through the cemetery. She cast about for a change of subject.
‘How about you? Do you have any brothers and sisters besides Bridget?’
Kit wandered over to a statue of a lichen-covered dog waiting patiently for eternity. Maddison shivered a little, relieved of the warmth of his gaze, pulling her cardigan a little tighter around her. ‘There were three of us.’
Were?
Her unspoken question hung in the air. ‘My sister’s a lot younger, she’s still at university, but my brother...he died. Three years ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘You must miss him.’
He turned, his smile not reaching his eyes. ‘Every day. Okay, where are we headed?’
Maddison swallowed. It was a clear change of subject. He was not going to discuss his loss with her. There was no reason why he should; they barely knew each other. And yet there had been a connection last night, and now as they wandered through the gravestones. Maybe she’d imagined it. After all, didn’t she know how powerful imagination was? How important.
She held up the piece of paper and read out the first clue once again. ‘“Take the Northern line to Archway. Walk up Highgate Hill and through Waterlow Park to the final resting place of the city. Unite at the grave where you have nothing to lose but your chains. The last words on the fourth line are...?”’ She paused and looked up at Kit. ‘Unite at the grave? What does that mean? We have to split up?’
‘See, this is where in the actual trail you’ll read the information about Highgate Cemetery in the guidebook and hopefully work the clue out from there. Here.’ He passed her his phone. ‘Read that.’
She took it carefully and squinted down at the screen, angling it away from the sun so that she could make out the words. ‘“Famous people buried here include Douglas Adams, George Eliot and Christina Rossetti, although many people bypass even these luminaries and head straight to the grave of Karl Marx...” Oh! Of course.’ She read through the rest of the list. ‘Lizzie Siddal’s buried here too? I’d love to see her grave. I did a paper on the Pre-Raphaelites at college.’
‘Take your time. The whole point of this is that it’s fun and a way to explore London, not to tear around like some kind of city-wide scavenger hunt.’
‘True, but I’m testing it, not doing it for real,’ she pointed out. ‘I can come back. I might even explore the one in Stoke Newington. Maybe you’ve converted me to gothic tourism.’
‘That’s the aim. I’ll get you on to a Ripper tour yet. Look, there’s a tour guide. Why don’t you ask him the way?’
‘Only if you take my photo when we get there.’ Maddison examined the picture of the grave in fascination. ‘I’ve seen a lot of hipster beards since I got to London but Karl Marx has them all beat. I want to capture that for posterity.’ It wasn’t quite the type of picture she had intended to fill her social-media sites with but hey. Let Bart see she had hidden depths.
And more importantly that she was out, about and having fun.
Only, Maddison reflected as she walked towards the guide to ask for directions, it wasn’t all for show. She probably wouldn’t have chosen to spend her weekend in this way but she was having fun. And even more oddly, until the last minute she hadn’t thought about Bart once all morning.
She’d been banking on absence making the heart grow fonder but in her case it seemed that out of sight really was out of mind. Well, good. Maddison Carter didn’t hang around weeping about any guy, no matter how perfect he was. And the more she made that clear, the more likely he would be banging on her door the second she got back to New York, begging for a second chance.
That was the plan, wasn’t it? But the image didn’t have its usual uplifting effect and for the first time Maddison couldn’t help wondering that if she had to go to such extraordinary efforts to persuade Bart that she was the girl for him then maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the guy for her.
And if he wasn’t, then she had no idea what to do next.
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