The Perfect Retreat

‘We get along but we are very different. He’s almost twenty years older than me,’ said Kitty, feeling the cool night air on her face now the window was open.

‘Oh,’ said Willow. ‘Show me more of the house,’ she demanded, and Kitty sighed softly and did what her boss asked.

Kitty pushed open another set of doors and they stood watching Poppy as she climbed the steps and ran around the library mezzanine.

‘Careful,’ said Willow, as she looked up at the stone vaulted ceiling and the rows and rows of old books. The large reading table in the centre of the room was big enough to seat twelve for dinner and the battered Chesterfield faced a huge and ornate stone fireplace.

‘Now this is wonderful. You must have loved this room when you were little,’ said Willow, craning her neck to take in the room. The iron spiral staircase had metal serpents winding their way up to the mezzanine. Kitty watched as Poppy flitted about like a hummingbird in her favourite tutu and a purple feather boa.

‘No, I didn’t like it much,’ said Kitty quietly. She had hated the library, with its smell of books and air of seriousness.

‘Let’s keep going,’ said Willow, and Kitty showed her the dining room and the billiard room, where the billiard table was covered in a white dustsheet.

Every room they went into Willow went into raptures over it, exclaiming over the furniture; the carpets; the chandeliers. She even managed to get excited about the small powder room downstairs.

‘I’ll find it hard to leave,’ said Willow.

‘Well, you haven’t seen the kitchen yet,’ muttered Kitty as they walked through to it. It had lain untouched since 1960, when Iris had insisted Edward do it up for her as a wedding present. The old Aga stove had been left, but everything else was avocado laminate and white cane furniture.

Willow laughed as she entered the room. ‘This is very Austin Powers.’

Kitty laughed, not because it was particularly funny but because she was relieved to get the joke. She was still ashamed for having thought Evelyn Waugh was a girl in the drawing room.

Kitty walked into the small parlour to the side of the kitchen and set the sleeping Jinty carefully down on the old Laura Ashley sofa. She covered her with the throw that lay along the back of it. ‘Alright, well let’s unpack then shall we?’ she asked Poppy and Lucian cheerfully.

‘Why don’t I unpack and you go and get the children ready for bed? You can go and choose their bedrooms if you like,’ said Willow.

Kitty took her small charges upstairs and put them in a room together in twin beds. The bedrooms were sparsely furnished. Most of the good furniture had been sold over the years to pay for bills or repairs to the house. Kitty found clean linen in the hall cupboard, although it was a little musty. She reminded herself to air it in the morning.

Willow brought the first lot of cases upstairs, which were carefully labelled with each of the children’s names in Kitty’s childish writing. ‘Crazy,’ said Willow, looking down the wide hallway with all its paintings and the doors leading off it.

Kitty unpacked the children’s clothes and put them into a large cedar dresser, and then she changed the children into their pyjamas. Lucian was silent as she led him through the motions, but Poppy was high on the smell of dust and circumstance.

‘I love it here. I don’t think we’ll ever leave. I am sure I’ve been here before!’ Poppy rattled on, and Kitty nodded and agreed as she wrestled Poppy into her organic cotton pyjamas.

Taking them to the ancient bathroom, she watched as Poppy and Lucian cleaned their teeth and then took them back inside to tuck them up in bed. ‘Willow,’ she called down the stairs.

Willow came up with more cases and walked into the bedroom. ‘Night changelings,’ she said as she bent down to kiss them.

‘I’ll go and make us some tea, OK?’ Willow said as she went downstairs again, leaving Kitty humming the children to sleep. Kitty stayed with them until they’d drifted off.

As she walked down the grand staircase Willow touched the worn balustrade. She wondered what it would be like to own this house, to have all the history that Kitty had. Not that Kitty had ever shown it; she had made a huge effort to downplay her ancestral home, although Willow didn’t remember ever asking Kitty anything personal since her employment.

As she crossed the landing and continued down towards the entrance she looked down and was shocked to find a man standing in the entrance. ‘Who are you?’ she asked imperiously, taking on the tone of the lady of the house.

‘I might ask you the same thing. What the fuck are you doing in my house?’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘It’s a plant sample,’ explained Merritt to the customs official at Heathrow.

‘Right. Got a certificate for it then?’ asked the man, shaking the bag. It had a small cutting inside it wrapped in cotton soaked in water and Rescue Remedy.

‘Please be careful,’ said Merritt.

‘Sure, sure,’ said the official absently as he glanced at the certificate that Merritt handed over. ‘Effilum oxypetalsum,’ he read carefully.

‘Epiphyllum oxypetalum,’ corrected Merritt, trying not to let the disdain creep into his voice.

The man picked up the bag again. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, shaking it vigorously.

‘It’s a type of cactus,’ said Merritt, careful not to upset the officious man, who smelt of Vicks and cigarettes. He was tired and wanted to get out of the loud airport and have a shower and drink.

‘I hate cactus plants. When the wife and I bought our house there were so many, and we had them all pulled out,’ he said as he stamped Merritt’s certificate for approval.

Merritt grabbed the paper from the man, put his plant into his worn leather satchel and walked through to collect his luggage. He had hunted for this sample, a night-blooming Cereus known as ‘Queen of the Night’. It bloomed only one or two nights a year, around the full moon in May. The blooms only lasted for twelve hours or so and then it would take a full year for it to bloom again. He wasn’t about to have some tit at Heathrow who was high on the power of his job ruin his dreams of having one back at Middlemist again.

Since he had said goodbye to Kitty three years ago at the elaborate gates outside Middlemist, he had travelled constantly, designing gardens for a sheikh in Jordan, a sneaker entrepreneur in the Hamptons, and a luxury hotel chain in Bali, India and Mexico, which is where he picked up his precious plant sample. In between this he had written three books and filmed a television special for PBS in America.

Then one day, he woke up and wanted to go home. He was exhausted. Whatever he was looking for eluded him, and the thing he was trying to escape from had followed him from place to place. Middlemist had been calling him. The gardens cried for him, and he finally listened.

Returning home, he planned to head straight to Middlemist and then call Kitty. He had thought about her a lot over the past three years. She worried him, but he was not equipped to help her with what she needed. While he was still at home it had been painful to watch her struggle at school, with their father so proud of him but ignoring his daughter.

His marriage and fast divorce from Eliza had rocked his father’s world, although he had no idea why it had been so shattering to Edward. In hindsight, he saw that he and Eliza had never been a good match. He was swept away by her vivacity and ability to make small talk, both skills he severely lacked. But Eliza, it emerged, was actually a shameless social climber who wanted to be the lady of the house. She had assumed that Merritt’s family had more money than they actually showed off.

The separation from Eliza was swift, partly because he found out she had gone through not only the estate’s private accounts but his personal accounts too, but mainly after he had found her astride his best friend from school, Johnny Wimple-Jones, a gadabout and heir to an enormous property and large trust fund.

He had left Eliza and Johnny to each other, facing the disappointment of his father and the gossip of his friends. Such was his pride and shame, Merritt had refused to divulge what had happened in the marriage; not even to his father. It was only Kitty who he had told what had happened after he came back for the funeral. He still remembered her coming into his room in the middle of the night. She had sat on the end of his bed, held his hand and listened as he told her what he had discovered about Eliza. He wasn’t sure why he spilled his heart, but she was so unprejudiced about his and Eliza’s relationship that he felt himself able to tell her everything.

Kitty had said nothing. She had made soothing noises, which is what she reverted to when she didn’t know what to say. Her own memories rendered her silent. She was afraid that should she speak, Merritt might find more out about Johnny than he would care to know, and she would make things worse for him.

The ten-year caveat on Middlemist had always seemed tiresome. Merritt could have done with the money, as he was sure Kitty could have, but now he understood why Edward had created this stipulation in his will. Grief makes people commit impulsive deeds. Deeds like his – heading off around the world in search of something he still hadn’t found.

Three years later he could see that Middlemist House was bewitching, but while the Middlemist family name came with great history and once with great wealth, all of that had gone over the years. Now all he and Kitty had were the house and what they earned from their jobs.

Even though the house seemed stuck in time, and the gardens were probably overrun and perhaps even beyond repair, he figured he at least had to try to do what he could. If it proved too much then he would sell at the end of the ten years.

The only preparation he had made for his arrival was to have the power switched on again at Middlemist.

When he arrived at the house he was alarmed to find the gates wide open, and as he drove up the driveway in his rental car he was even more concerned to see a large black Range Rover parked on the gravel.

He got out of his car and peered through the windows of the Range Rover with his penlight torch. He could make out a packet of nappies, a doll and some bags of food. Perhaps Kitty had rented the house out without his knowledge, he thought crossly, striding towards the front doors.

As he stepped through the entrance he saw a very slender, beautiful blonde woman coming down the stairs, looking around in wonder. Maybe she was a squatter, on drugs, he thought. Then he wondered how many squatters drove top-of-the-line Range Rovers.

It was only after she rudely asked who he was that he felt his hackles rise. His retaliation alarmed her enough that she ran back up the stairs, calling out his sister’s name.

Kitty came to stand at the top of the stairs. ‘Merritt!’ she cried, and ran down to him where he caught her in a warm embrace.

Willow stood and watched the family reunion with interest. So, here’s the long-lost, astronomy-expert, green-fingered brother, she thought. Hopefully he won’t ruin my plans. She needed to stay at Middlemist for as long as she could, or at least until she could work out what she was going to do next.

The older brother was handsome. And so tall, she thought, watching him embrace his sister. He had a mop of brown curls with slight greying at the temples, a brown face, and brown arms in his white shirt with its sleeves rolled up. In his worn jeans and work boots, he had an air of the outdoors about him.

Merritt and Kitty pulled away from each other. ‘How are you, Miss Kitty?’ he asked kindly.

‘I’m OK,’ she said, grinning.

Willow walked down the stairs, but stopped before she reached the end. Standing on the bottom step, she was nearly as tall as Merritt. He looked at her, and Kitty shook her head. ‘Sorry – Willow Carruthers, this is my brother Merritt Middlemist.’

Willow held out her hand for Merritt to take it and plastered a careful smile on her face.

Merritt took her hand and smiled. ‘Hello. Sorry about the language. I thought you were a homeless person who had taken over my house.’

‘I am,’ said Willow simply, and Merritt laughed. He glanced at her, and realised she reminded him of a flower. Which one? he wondered. Her pale face bore a false smile and she was tired; it was as though her bloom had faded. Thin and tall, elegant but brittle. He searched his mind for the plant he was looking for.

Kitty looked at Willow, unsure of what to say next. Willow had told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to let anyone know about her financial situation until she had it worked out. Willow had paid her wages for the next eight weeks, but couldn’t promise any more after that until she got back to work.

‘Are you a friend of Kitty’s then?’ he asked.

Kitty laughed nervously. ‘No, Willow’s my boss. I’m her nanny.’

‘Oh great. Good for you,’ said Merritt cheerfully. ‘Is your husband here?’ he inquired politely.

‘No,’ said Willow. ‘I don’t have a husband.’

‘Right then,’ said Merritt, not knowing where to look.

‘I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry,’ said Willow, her face red.

‘Well it’s better to talk about it, I’ve found,’ said Merritt kindly, and he looked at Kitty who smiled gently at him in return.

‘What are you doing back here?’ asked Kitty. ‘I haven’t heard from you in three years!’ she admonished. ‘I would have written to you, but you know …’ her voice trailed off.

‘I know. I didn’t have an address anyway,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a drink. I’m desperate. I stopped at the off-licence and got some tonic and gin and a lemon. I wasn’t sure whether the lemon tree would be kind enough to give me anything after all these years. You up for a G&T?’

‘Yes please,’ said Kitty.

‘Sure,’ said Willow, not sure at all of the giant man with worn hands and curly brown hair in desperate need of a cut.

Willow and Kitty followed Merritt into the kitchen, where he set about making them all drinks. Willow sat in silence as she listened to Kitty and Merritt talk. Their familiar tone with each other, their joking and laughing, was something she had never experienced. She found it captivating.

He set the drinks down in front of them and sat down at the kitchen table. He looked huge on the delicate cane chair, and Willow tried not to stare.

‘So, Willow. What do you do?’ he asked genuinely.

Willow looked at him to see if he was joking but she couldn’t see any amusement in his eyes. ‘I’m an actor,’ she said.

‘Oh great. I love the theatre,’ said Merritt as he sipped his strong G&T.

‘More films actually,’ she said, with an edge to her voice.

‘Right. I don’t see many films. Sometimes I see them on the planes but I never pay much attention. Those headphone things are too small for my head,’ he said ruefully, rubbing his mop of hair.

Kitty laughed. ‘Silly. Willow’s won an Oscar,’ she declared, proud of her boss.

Willow shrugged. She wasn’t proud of her award.

‘Wow, an Oscar. Well done you,’ said Merritt, looking at her carefully. He knew what flower she was now. A Japanese windflower. Tall, fair, elegant. Liable to snap at any minute, he thought, looking at the dark circles under her eyes.

‘You still haven’t told me why you’re back?’ asked Kitty to Merritt.

Merritt turned the glass in his hand. ‘I just thought I should check up on the house. And you, of course.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re back,’ Kitty said happily. ‘How long will you stay?’

‘Not sure yet,’ he said vaguely, ‘I want to get an idea of how things are here, and if the house can be saved or if we should sell.’

‘What do you mean “saved”?’ asked Kitty.

‘Well, it’s in pretty bad shape,’ he said, looking around the old kitchen.

‘I know,’ said Kitty sadly.

The kitchen door opened slightly and the three turned to look. A small face peered through the crack at them. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ asked Willow.

Poppy walked through the door shyly and looked at Merritt. ‘Who’s him?’ she asked.

‘Who’s that?’ corrected Willow.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Poppy again, more confidently.

‘Hello, I’m Merritt. I’m Kitty’s big brother.’

‘I’m Poppy,’ she said, and stood next to Kitty.

‘Poppy – the flower of magic, beauty and imagination,’ said Merritt.

‘Your name is silly,’ said Poppy, and put her thumb in her mouth.

‘Poppy!’ exclaimed Willow. ‘That’s rude.’

‘No, she speaks the truth,’ laughed Merritt. ‘It’s terrible, I agree, Poppy. It’s a family name. Has Kitty told you her full name yet?’

Willow and Poppy turned expectantly to Kitty. She looked down at the table.

‘Tell us,’ said Willow, not quite believing Kitty had worked for her for three years and she had never known her nanny’s full name.

‘Katinka Iris Clementina Ceres Middlemist,’ she sighed. It was such an awful lot of letters to spell out. It always took her ages to fill in forms, and she had begun to hate it over the years.

Willow looked at her, eyes wide. ‘That’s quite a name,’ she said.

‘I know, I hate it.’

‘So where’s Kitty from?’ asked Willow, as Poppy crawled onto her lap.

‘My mother called me Kitty-Kat as a baby and the Kitty stuck. I much prefer it.’

‘They are all beautiful names though. Katinka Iris Clementina Ceres Middlemist,’ she repeated to herself. ‘How did your parents come to choose those names?’

‘Katinka is a family name – some mad aunt I think. Iris is my mother’s name. Clementina is after my great-great-grandmother and Ceres is the goddess of agriculture and the harvest. Merritt’s full name is Merritt Edward Oswald Middlemist. It sounds like a name for a duck,’ said Kitty.

‘Thanks so much. I shall walk about quacking now.’ He looked at Poppy and gave an almighty quack.

Poppy laughed hysterically and Willow smiled. ‘You have children, Merritt?’

‘No.’

‘You’re so good with them,’ said Willow, watching the adoration in Poppy’s eyes for her new friend. For a brief moment sadness swept over her and she wished Kerr had been able to have fun with the children, with her.

‘Perhaps. Kitty’s the one who children love,’ he said, and Kitty smiled at him. ‘What about your name, Willow?’

‘Ah, I was named after Willa Cather.’

Kitty looked at her, puzzled.

‘Willa Cather the author – you know, Prairie Trilogy and all that? Perhaps she’s not known in the UK.’

Merritt nodded. ‘I know of Willa Cather.’

‘No middle names?’ asked Kitty swiftly, moving the conversation along.

‘Nope.’

‘Lucky thing,’ said Kitty, thinking of all the letters in her long name.

Willow looked down at a tired Poppy in her arms. ‘Kitty, would you?’

‘Sure.’ Kitty stood up and took Poppy from Willow.

‘So, just Poppy?’ asked Merritt as Kitty left the room with the sleepy little girl in her arms.

‘No. Two more. Lucian, who’s five, and Jinty, who’s eighteen months.’

‘Wow, and no husband to help?’ Merritt shook his head.

‘No, but then who needs a husband when you have Kitty?’ said Willow.

Merritt looked to see if she was joking and saw she was serious. ‘Fair enough,’ he said.

Kitty came back into the kitchen. ‘She was asleep by the time I was at the top of the stairs.’

Willow stood up. ‘I think I might be also. I might head off to bed. What room should I take, Kitty?’

‘The one at the furthest end of the corridor on the left. There are clean sheets in the linen closet as you walk by. Bathroom opposite,’ said Kitty.

‘Great. Nice to meet you, Merritt. Sorry about the misunderstanding on the stairs,’ said Willow.

‘Lovely to meet you too, and I apologise for the language,’ said Merritt, laughing.

Willow smiled at him. For a moment their eyes met and she felt like she was about to say something, but then it was gone from her mind. Merritt stood waiting for her to speak. She’d looked as though she was going to say something, but then she’d stayed silent. Strange woman, he thought as she walked from the kitchen.

After she had left, Merritt turned to Kitty. ‘So what’s the story?’

‘Well I can’t tell you everything – it’s all a bit awful – but she needs to escape for a while and so I offered her the house until she works out what she’s doing with the divorce and all. If I had known you were coming back …’ Kitty trailed off.

‘No, no, I should have called you. It’s fine. I’m just going to do some assessing of the house and the gardens and try and work out a plan as to whether the house will ever be habitable, or whether we’ll have to sell to the National Trust.’

‘It looks shabbier than ever,’ admitted Kitty. ‘I hate to think what it looks like during the day.’

‘Well, we’ll see in the morning,’ said Merritt, standing up and stretching. ‘What’s she like? Your Oscar-winning boss?’

‘She’s nice. A little bit crazy at times, but she’s had a rough time over the years I’ve been with her. Did you really not know who she was?’ asked Kitty, as she stood opposite her brother.

‘Of course I knew who she was – I haven’t been in a coma – but I wasn’t going to let her know that. She has that look of haughty expectation. Way too high maintenance. I wanted her to keep it real.’ He laughed.

Upstairs, Willow lay on the flannel sheets she had found in the hall cupboard. They smelt of mildew and violets. Merritt’s face crossed her mind. It felt nice that he didn’t know who she was. Anyway, she had no idea who she was any more, so why should anyone else claim to know her? Rolling over, she faced the large window with only one curtain drawn. She could see the crescent moon outside.

Now was the time to find out who she was, and there was no better place to do it than here, she thought. She drifted off to sleep, dreaming of staircases and tunnels and violets.

CHAPTER FIVE

The next morning when Willow was still asleep and Kitty was up with the children, Merritt came stomping into the kitchen, his boots caked with mud.

‘Fuck a duck, it’s a shithole out there!’ he exclaimed, and he heard a child laugh.

Looking up he saw three faces staring at him. ‘Whoops … sorry about the language.’

Kitty frowned at him. ‘Be careful what you say. Poppy repeats everything.’

‘And what about you? Do you know that swearing is the sign of a low vocabulary?’ he said to Lucian as he poured himself a mug of tea from the brown pot on the table.

‘Lucian doesn’t talk. If you want to tell him anything you have to go through me,’ said Poppy with her little arms crossed. This morning she was wearing her pyjamas with a dressing gown that he was sure had once belonged to his father; navy silk with stains and moth holes.

‘OK, roger that,’ said Merritt, and he raised his eyebrows at Kitty. She met his gaze and shook her head imperceptibly. ‘Well, you’d better introduce me then.’

Poppy turned importantly to Lucian. ‘This is Merritt Edward Oswald. He’s Kitty’s brother.’

Kitty laughed. ‘She has a mind like a steel trap,’ she said to Merritt.

‘And who’s this seedling?’ he asked, looking at Jinty, who was shoving toast into her mouth.

‘This is Jinty. She can’t talk either. I’m the only one who can talk.’

‘Well done you,’ said Merritt. ‘So, what’s on this morning?’ he asked.

‘Not sure yet,’ said Kitty. ‘Mummy’s still asleep isn’t she?’

‘Mummy sleeps in every morning,’ said Poppy.

‘Lucky her,’ said Merritt. ‘I’ve been up since five o’clock.’

‘Why?’ asked Poppy as she peeled the cheese off her toast and ate it first.

‘Best time, the morning. Quiet. No one to disturb you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because no one is up yet.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they are all asleep.’

‘Why?’

Kitty looked at Merritt. ‘This is her new thing. Enjoy.’