The Perfect Retreat

‘Thanks,’ said Willow and hung up the phone.

Thirty-one years old, unemployed, broke, a single mother and homeless. Willow wondered how much her Oscar would bring her on eBay.

CHAPTER TWO

When Willow had left the house that morning, Kitty surveyed the mess that Poppy had left in the living room. ‘Poppy, come here please!’ she called up the stairs, and Poppy came stumbling down in the purple dress which Willow had tearfully accepted her Oscar in. ‘Should you be wearing that?’

Poppy shrugged. ‘Mummy put it in my dress-ups,’ she said.

Kitty had raised her dark eyebrows. ‘Well, if you say so – but I will check with Mummy. OK?’

‘Whatever,’ said Poppy. It was her new favourite phrase, picked up from the television she watched for hours on end. Willow didn’t mind it being on all the time, but Kitty did.

‘Can you put these things away please, Poppy?’ asked Kitty, gesturing to the clothes, books, dolls and crayons covering almost every surface in the room.

‘No,’ said Poppy, and picked up a crayon. She held it against the wall, daring Kitty to say something.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Kitty.

‘Why? I feel like doing art,’ she said, and she slowly drew a wobbly line down the Colefax and Fowler wallpaper. Kitty held her breath. Poppy stopped and they faced each other, their eyes meeting.

Kitty won the stare-off, and Poppy walked over to a doll and picked it up. ‘What did you say?’ she asked the doll, and then held it up to her ear. She laughed and then looked at Kitty. ‘Yes, Kitty is a fatty,’ she said.

‘Poppy, you must never call anyone fat,’ admonished Kitty. Compared to Poppy’s mother, she must seem huge, she thought. She wasn’t fat, she was curvy, with a tiny waist and large breasts. She had the kind of body men either wanted to paint or fuck, and she refused either offer, although plenty came her way. Her dark hair and eyes, courtesy of a French gene from way back in her family tree, gave her a sleepy exotic quality and immediately made men fall in love with her. Kitty declined most adult attention, endearing her to children and making her misunderstood by her peers.

Being a nanny for Willow and her children was her perfect job, albeit trying at times like this morning.

Lucian was a dream, although it would be better if he spoke; and Poppy had too much to say. She was wise beyond her four years – she watched television that was too old for her and Willow put no boundaries on her. When Kitty told her off, Poppy either ignored her or laughed at her.

Kitty knew the best thing for Poppy would be kindergarten. She was bright and understimulated at home, and Kitty knew she could be no help in this area. Willow had it in her head that she and Kitty would homeschool the children, but Kitty thought she would have resigned before that happened.

Willow’s impending divorce from Kerr was proving difficult for Poppy to understand, and she pined for her father. When she had first started at the house, before Willow became pregnant with Jinty, Kerr was around more. He gave his attention to Poppy and usually ignored Lucian, although once she had caught him calling Lucian a dumb idiot and demanding he spoke, which only made Lucian wet his pants. Kitty had gently led Lucian from the room, cleaned him up and sat with him on the bed telling him fantastic stories about the boy with magical mind powers until he settled down.

Kitty’s relationship with Willow was mostly formal. Willow’s aloofness was difficult for Kitty and even the children to penetrate. Lucian didn’t bother Willow; his quietness suited her, although it worried Kitty. Poppy was too much for her mother to handle. She was so like her father that Willow often gave in to all her wants and desires, particularly since she and Kerr had split up. Jinty had no idea who her father was. She clung to Kitty as though she was her mother, which Willow encouraged as she had so many other things to think about.

The idea of teaching Lucian and Poppy at home was daunting to Kitty. She hadn’t done well at school, leaving as soon as she could, much to her father’s disapproval. Her much older brother, Merritt, had gone all the way through to university and was Kitty’s father’s pride and joy. Merritt was now a garden designer and writer on all manner of gardening subjects, travelling the world and sending her copies of his books whenever a new one was released. Almost twenty years older than Kitty, he was a mysterious brother, whom Kitty shared no similarities with. He was as fair as she was dark, tall and muscular where Kitty was curvy and soft. He could spend hours reading or in the garden, Kitty remembered from her childhood, whereas she didn’t know a weed from a petunia and only knew the plots of books if they’d been adapted into a film she’d watched.

In the company of children was where Kitty felt the most comfortable. They had no expectations of her, and she had the ability to calm them down with her stories or comfort them when they needed it most. Kitty’s lack of superficiality and her joy in the everyday was what Willow’s children loved most about her and she in turn loved their innocence and lack of judgment.

Growing up in Merritt’s shadow hadn’t been easy, especially after her beloved mother, Iris, died when Kitty was twelve. She had navigated her way clumsily through puberty, school and boys – not that many of them had been interested in her until her breasts began to show. Kitty avoided boys at school and then men as she became older. Moving to London when her father died just as she was turning eighteen, she had moved into a bedsit, leaving behind the house and attempting to leave her memories too.

It was only when Merritt’s short-lived first marriage to Eliza failed that she had seen her father angry with her golden brother. She still remembered the shouting coming from downstairs and her father saying how disappointed he was that Merritt didn’t have the tenacity to stand up and be a man. Merritt had shouted back and then left the house, not returning for years till their father had died of a heart attack in the garden.

Kitty had not heard from Merritt for those years either. She and Merritt had never been close so she hadn’t minded. Kitty had hated Eliza; she thought she was rude and pretentious, always speaking in an affected tone and telling Merritt to get a real job. What did he see in her? she had wondered. When their marriage had lasted for less than a year, Kitty had silently rejoiced.

Eliza had started measuring up Middlemist House as soon as the emerald engagement ring was on her finger. Eliza had pranced around telling everyone it was a Middlemist family heirloom, as old as the house, but Kitty knew her family hadn’t even kept hold of any jewellery. If they had, their father would have sold it years before for the upkeep of the house. Eliza’s ideas for Middlemist made Kitty feel sick. Working in a modern London gallery, she envisaged Middlemist as a grand modern home. She wanted to get rid of most of the wonderful Gothic features and fill it with giant sculptures of malformed babies and chandeliers made of rubber gloves. Kitty’s father had put his foot down and told Eliza and Merritt in no uncertain terms that there would be no rubber gloves as light fittings, and that until he died and was under the ground then the house would remain as it was.

Kitty thought Middlemist was fine as it was, filled with hidden rooms, bay windows and turrets. Her favourite memory of the house was of taking the hidden passage from the library to the dining room on the other side of the building, with only a torch to light the way. Kitty knew every flagstone by heart, she had walked it so many times. Her father said he had walked the same route as a child, and his father before him.

No matter how familiar she became with it, Middlemist House had never bored Kitty. She loved the romance of the balconies and the columns, the dark woods and the sweeping staircases. Her father had told her the house housed many secrets, namely the great treasures his great-grandmother had supposedly spoken of, but the generations that followed had never found them.

Kitty’s father, Edward, had been a stern man, more concerned with appearance and the family name than caring for his two children. When Kitty’s mother had died, he was caught up in trying to save Middlemist from massive debts and rising running costs. The house was a money pit as far as he was concerned, and eventually he gave up trying to rescue the grand dame. Slowly the house fell into disrepair. Edward managed to sell some land at the back of the property, which paid the debts but that was all. When he finally died he left the house to Merritt and Kitty on the proviso they not sell it for ten years, along with the small amount of cash that he had saved. There were no staff to let go of and Merritt and Kitty had locked the house up after the funeral. Pulling the keys out of the massive iron gates, Merritt had handed them to Kitty.

‘Take these,’ he had said on the road outside Middlemist. ‘I don’t want them.’

‘What am I going to do with them?’ she had asked.

‘Keep them safe. I’ll call you in ten years when it’s time to sell,’ he said, looking down the road.

Kitty took the keys and tucked them into her backpack. ‘Take care Merritt,’ she said to the brother she hardly knew.

‘You too, Kitty Kat.’ He touched her shoulder briefly with his hand, and then turned and walked down the road without a glance back.

Kitty had got onto the bus at the other end of the road, and when it drove past Merritt walking down towards the village, Kitty had tried to catch his eye. He never looked up, even though he knew she was driving past him.

Kitty had soon moved out of the bedsit when she landed her job with Willow, courtesy of a nanny agency in London. Although she had no experience or references, she had an innocent charm about her that the owner of the agency liked. When the opening came up to be Willow Carruthers’s nanny, Kitty was sent on a whim – partly because when asked if she knew who Willow was, she said she had no idea, and partly because the nanny agency had no one else suitable. Willow’s brief was for an English country girl, with cooking skills and a liking for children. The woman at the agency had raised an eyebrow at the last request, but Willow was of the opinion that you couldn’t be too careful. Kitty ticked all the boxes, and had been happily ensconced at Willow’s London home ever since. She never thought about Middlemist, never told anyone about it, and she hadn’t heard from Merritt since that morning outside the house. She still had the keys though, in her jewellery box, next to her mother’s locket.

Things at Willow’s house had become more and more tense over the last two years. Kerr was a shocking father, worse than her own, and Willow was self-absorbed, although she meant well. Kitty ended up taking on all the duties of a nanny and a parent, but she didn’t mind. It was nice to be thought of as smart and clever for once in her life.

Since Willow had come back from that meeting with her lawyer, she had taken a call and then locked herself up in her bedroom for the past hour. Kitty wondered if she should see if she was alright. She was never sure what to do in these situations. She found it best to stay put when faced with the unknown though, so she stayed with the children till Willow made the first move.

After Kitty had put Jinty down for a sleep and Poppy and Lucian were watching some bizarre movie about a hotel for pets or some such rubbish, Willow crept into the doorway of the playroom where Kitty was tidying up the toys and beckoned to her to follow her to the front room. This room was Willow’s pride and joy – the children were never allowed in. All lavenders and blue silks, the walls were white and a stunning glass cherry-blossom-shaped light fitting hung over the mantelpiece. Kitty thought that this room utterly reflected Willow: icy, perfect and cool. Willow sat on the blue silk couch and motioned for Kitty to sit down on the adjacent lavender wingback chair.

As Kitty approached she noticed Willow’s swollen red eyes. Willow clasped her hands in her lap. ‘So, as you know Kerr and I are divorcing,’ she said uncertainly.

Kitty nodded, unsure what to say or do.

‘Well there is a problem, you see.’ Willow nervously cleared her throat. ‘It seems that Kerr has spent all of our money.’

As Kitty opened her eyes wide in shock. How could you spend that amount of money? she wondered. Still she said nothing.

‘Yes, so it’s a big problem. You see I’ve got two weeks to get out of the house and take what I can and find a new place for the children and me.

‘I can’t return to America with the children until the divorce is settled, and I’ve nowhere else really to take them. I’ve tried to ring my agent to see what work is around, as I will have to get some cash fast.’

Kitty sat still, waiting for the final blow.

‘I am afraid, Kitty,’ Willow paused, as if swallowing tears, her voice breaking, ‘I will have to let you go. I can’t afford to pay you until I start to work, and you won’t be able to live here as the bank are repossessing. I’ve tried calling Kerr but he won’t answer. It’s all a bit of a cock-up I’m afraid. The paparazzi are going to go nuts when they find out. I don’t know where the hell we’re going to go!’

Kitty stared down at the perfect white carpet, the pile vacuumed a certain way to make it look as though no one had ever entered the room.

Willow put her head in her hands and the tears started to flow. ‘I’m so sorry Kitty. I’m so sorry.’

Kitty got off the chair and knelt on the carpet in front of her boss. ‘It’s OK – it will be OK,’ she soothed, unsure if it was the right thing to say. ‘Can I help in any way? Can I do anything?’

Willow looked up at Kitty’s kind face and shrugged. ‘Do you know anywhere we can hide till I get a job?’ she said, sarcasm thick in her voice.

Kitty sat and thought hard. She took Willow’s cold, white hands in her warm, soft ones. ‘Actually, I do.’

CHAPTER THREE

Willow had jumped at Kitty’s idea as soon as she suggested it, and the more Willow thought about it the more she was convinced this was the right idea.

Kitty, however, was regretting mentioning it to Willow; the house hadn’t been opened for three years, and god knows what state it would be in. She had hoped to get up to the house as soon as she could to try and make it respectable for Willow and the children, but Willow had kept her busy with plans for their move. Willow had moved everything that she loved from the London house to a storage place, under Kitty’s name. Everything of Kerr’s, she left in the house, including some of his prized artefacts, such as a letter by J D Salinger that he had paid a huge amount at auction for and a series of artworks that gave Willow the creeps. She hated modern art as much as Kerr loved it, so she left his things on the walls and in the cupboards. She knew from her lawyer that whatever the bank found in the house they would repossess and sell to pay off the debt.

The children’s things and some of Willow’s personal items were to be shipped to Middlemist in Kitty’s name. The plan was that the five of them would sneak out of the house in the night and drive to Middlemist undetected.

On the evening of the planned getaway, Poppy was beside herself with excitement. ‘I saw this on The Sound of Music!’ she said to Kitty, who was packing the Range Rover in the downstairs garage. ‘We are escaping the papanazis,’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ said Kitty, trying not to laugh. ‘The papanazis.’

Willow came downstairs with the last of the food she had packed up from the kitchen, even though Kitty had tried to tell her they had supermarkets in the village. Willow would have none of it. ‘Organic, Kitty – we must be organic. Does Middlemist have solar power or is it powered from the grid?’

Willow thought about the flickering lights and the occasional blackouts that occurred for no apparent reason. ‘It’s a combination,’ she said.

‘Ah, a dual-fuel house. Very good!’ Willow bustled in the car, reorganising Kitty’s packing.

‘OK, well I’ll get Jinty and Lucian and we can head off then,’ said Kitty as she went upstairs.

Willow followed her and they stood in the kitchen together. ‘Is it terrible?’ asked Kitty without thinking. It was a habit she was trying to break.

Willow turned to her. ‘What? Leaving the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not as bad as I thought it would be. Not as bad as Kerr leaving. I just want to start again,’ she said, looking around the once-perfect kitchen, cupboards open and drawers pulled out.

Willow swept up Jinty, and Kitty went to find Lucian. He was sitting in his now empty room. Kitty went and sat next to him. ‘Time to go, Lucian. I’m taking you to my house. OK?’

Lucian said nothing. Kitty continued, used to his lack of response. ‘I have sheep and gardens and exciting things in the house. I think you’ll like it. It’s fun! There’s so much to do,’ she said gently.

She stood up and held her hand out to Lucian. ‘Come on tiger. Let’s go and get dirty in the country!’

Lucian stood up and took her hand. They walked down to the car and found everyone waiting for them inside.

Willow was in the driver’s seat. She knew Kitty couldn’t drive when she hired her and up till now she hadn’t needed to, living within walking distance of everything.

‘Hop in Luce. Time to go!’ She started the car and opened the garage door. There was no one waiting for them at the front of the house. No papanazis. Willow had chosen tonight as she knew Matt Damon and George Clooney were at dinner together at Nobu. Willow and Kerr were invited but she had begged off, claiming the kids were sick. Every pap in town was over at Nobu waiting for their shot and Willow had a free and clear ride to the country.

Once out of London, the children fell asleep in the back seat and Willow and Kitty sat in comfortable silence.

Willow listened to the sat nav give her directions to the house, which was near Bristol. She turned off the motorway and onto smaller and smaller roads, and eventually they were in front of a pair of enormous gates.

Kitty jumped out of the car quietly so as not to wake the children and pulled the keys from her backpack. Heading over, she found the key to the gates’ padlock. She tried to open it but it was stuck, rusted from lack of use over the past three years.

Willow got out, and having watched Kitty’s attempts with the lock, went to the back of the car to rustle through the organic cotton bags. She found what she was looking for, walked up and sprayed the lock. Kitty turned the key and the lock opened.

‘Organic olive oil,’ said Willow as she walked back to the car holding the can.

‘I’m impressed,’ said Kitty as she swung open the gates. Willow steered the car through them and waited for Kitty to get back in. Lucian stirred and rubbed his eyes to try and focus on the darkness outside.

As they arrived at the house, Kitty suddenly remembered she had forgotten to ring the power company to reconnect the electricity. The house looked black and forbidding in the moonlight and Kitty felt slightly sick at the thought of Willow and the children staying in the dark and cold all night. ‘Only for a few weeks,’ Willow had promised her, but now Kitty wondered if they would make it through the night. Kitty prayed there wouldn’t be any dead birds in the entrance hall. Three years was a long time to leave a house locked up.

Kitty alighted from the car, pulled her keys back out and opened the front door. Willow followed her. The door swung open and the smell of dust and old air filled their nostrils. Kitty made a face as she felt for the light switch, silently praying that perhaps the electricity would still be on, although she distinctly remembered getting it switched off before she and Merritt had left three years before.

The power gods were obviously listening; miraculously the light turned on, and Kitty blinked a few times in amazement as her eyes adjusted to the light. Memories of the house flooded her mind and she stood in the large entrance, spellbound.

Willow was entranced. ‘Jesus, it’s amazing Kitty! Why didn’t you tell me you lived here?’ Willow was circling in one spot, looking up at the vaulted ceiling. She stopped and gazed up the magnificent oak staircase that stretched before them.

Kitty was in a trance as she stood by the front door, not hearing Willow. Memories of running up the stairs with Merritt; the sound of her mother in the kitchen. Bach flowing out of the drawing room when her father took to the piano in the evenings. He had stopped playing after Kitty’s mother died. It was as though the music in him died with Iris.

‘Kitty, Kitty!’ Willow’s voice shook Kitty from her daze.

‘Sorry,’ said Kitty. ‘I’ll go and turn the lights on and unpack the car, if you want to get the children.’ Kitty walked towards the kitchen.

‘Great, I’ll meet you back here,’ said Willow, looking happier than Kitty had seen her in months.

Kitty wandered through the house, turning on lights and opening whichever windows would allow her. Some were tightly stuck, but she figured she could get Walker, the local handyman, to get them opened – if he was still working.

As she walked back to the entrance, she could hear Poppy’s voice. ‘I can be a princess here!’ she was yelling. Jinty was crying and Lucian was as silent as ever.

Willow handed Jinty to Kitty, as she usually did when she cried. ‘Show me everything,’ she said, her cheeks flushed.

‘OK, well, this is the entrance. The staircase leads up to the first floor, where there’s an ancient bathroom and sixteen bedrooms of different sizes, plus a nanny’s quarters and two smaller rooms, including a playroom. There’s also another wing, but we never open it as it’s just more to look after.’

She walked with a now settled Jinty, who was going back to sleep on her shoulder, towards large oak double doors to the side of the entrance. ‘This is the drawing room,’ she said as she opened the doors and turned on the light. Willow took a sharp intake of breath. ‘My god! Did a Brideshead Revisited bomb go off in here and time has since stood still?’ she laughed.

Kitty looked at her blankly.

‘You know, Brideshead Revisited, the book? Evelyn Waugh?’ said Willow.

‘I’ve never read any of her work,’ said Kitty.

‘Evelyn was a man, and Brideshead Revisited was the book that made me fall in love with England. I read it when I was fourteen. It’s set in the twenties,’ said Willow as she walked around touching everything that wasn’t covered with a dustsheet.

Kitty felt embarrassed. Willow was so smart. She was forever offering to lend Kitty books, but Kitty always declined – although she devoured the glossy magazines.

Willow walked around the room looking at its contents. There was no television. The only television they had was in the parlour off the kitchen, where Kitty had hidden herself away after Iris had died. Merritt preferred the library.

‘It’s a bit out of date, I know. We didn’t have a lot of money to do it up with. A house like this eats money, I’m afraid,’ she said, rocking Jinty in her arms.

‘It’s not a criticism. It’s wonderful. People go to great lengths to get their houses to look like this nowadays. If it were mine, I wouldn’t change a thing,’ said Willow, picking up a bronze astrolabe off a side table. ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘It’s some astronomy thing,’ said Kitty.

‘How do you use it?’

‘No idea. My brother knows,’ said Kitty as she tried to open a window with one hand, careful not to wake Jinty.

‘You have a brother?’ asked Willow. ‘Where’s he? Why doesn’t he live here?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kitty honestly. ‘After my father died we went our separate ways and said we would meet again when we could sell the house. There’s a caveat on it. We can’t sell it for ten years.’

‘Don’t you and your brother get along?’ asked Willow. She had longed for a sibling as a child. The idea of never speaking to one seemed unnatural.