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Athena chewed on her bottom lip, oversized sunglasses hiding her reddened eyes. It was almost ten in the morning. We had knocked on every bedroom door. We had checked the summerhouse and the long-unused stable block. We wandered the gardens calling Freddie’s name, peered up trees, rattled bushes. I had even walked to the end of the lawn and looked back to see if he had curled up and fallen asleep on the scaffolding. Nobody we spoke to could remember having seen him for hours—although neither did anyone apart from Athena seem at all worried about that.
The longer we searched, the more annoyed with Freddie I felt—and the more anxious I was to get away. From this house, this family. Any minute, Granny Violet might emerge and start screeching at me again. Philip Willoughby could already be sifting through Austen’s studio looking for Self-Portrait as Sphinx to throw on last night’s still-smoldering bonfire.
“Look, Athena, why don’t you call Karl and get him to take you home? Or Patrick can drop you at the station and then come back for me. I promise, Freddie will turn up soon enough.”
Athena was adamant she had to stay until he returned. “Something’s happened, I can just feel it. It was a silly fight. But I went too far. I said things I shouldn’t have. I upset him and maybe he’s done something stupid,” she said ruefully.
“It didn’t sound so different,” I said, without thinking.
“Excuse me?” she said sharply.
Oh damn, I thought, mentally kicking myself.
“Sorry, Athena. It’s just that I was in my room last night, changing shoes, and, well, I could hear you two through the wall. Shouting. And—obviously I didn’t catch everything and I don’t know the whole story, but from the sound of it, it didn’t seem that unusual for you...”
“So you were eavesdropping on us.”
“I couldn’t really help it, could I?” I said, irritated by her tone, especially after the hours I’d just spent scouring Longhurst with her. “Look, we both know he’ll turn up soon enough, having spent the night in a laundry basket or a cupboard or somewhere else ridiculous enough for him to make a story out of it. And either he won’t remember there was an argument or he’ll claim not to remember what he said, or anything he’s done, and he certainly won’t apologize, and honestly, Athena, I don’t know why you put up with it, I really don’t. He made you beg for an invitation to come to this party, refused to give you a lift, hasn’t introduced you as his girlfriend to anyone in the family, and now he’s ruined the whole night with his disappearing act. Just call Karl and get him to pick you up in your dad’s car and drive you back to Cambridge. Please. This doesn’t need to be your problem. Freddie doesn’t have to be your problem.”
Athena said something I did not catch.
“Excuse me?”
“I said look who’s an expert on relationships all of a sudden.”
I decided not to rise to this.
“Look, have you eaten anything, at least?” I asked, changing the subject as I cautiously opened the trunk of Patrick’s car, just enough to put my bag inside. As I did so, I could not resist checking to make sure the picnic blanket was where I had left it. I pressed it with my hand and could feel one hard corner of the painting underneath. I placed my overnight bag carefully next to it, then closed and locked the trunk again.
“It looks like they’re handing out breakfast somewhere,” I said, jerking my head toward Terry, Patrick’s neighbor from college, who was silently standing next to a little wheely suitcase staring at us and eating a bacon sandwich, dripping ketchup onto the gravel. Seeing us look over, he raised a hand abruptly in greeting, losing several slices of bacon as a result.
“I can’t possibly eat right now,” Athena told me, irritated.
Something suddenly occurred to me. “Have you checked where Freddie’s car is?” I asked her. “He drove himself up here, didn’t he?”
“My God, you’re right. The car. What if he sped off somewhere, drunk?”
“He’s more likely to be asleep in the back seat with an empty wine bottle,” I said, meaning to sound reassuring. Athena did not take it that way, letting out an angry little humph and setting off at a clip in search of Freddie’s car.
“See you back in Cambridge, okay?” I shouted.
Head down, Athena ignored me. She’ll be fine once he turns up again, I told myself. Right now I had bigger things to worry about. This was the last possible point that I could change my mind about taking the painting, and even then it would be practically impossible to return it without alerting anyone. I had tossed and turned all night in that creaky iron bed, trying to come up with a plan, waiting for Patrick to stumble back, my triumph at having found the painting, saved it from destruction, slowly curdling as a series of realizations hit. I couldn’t keep the painting, couldn’t sell it or donate it to any institution. I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened, or how I had come into possession of it. I wasn’t even sure yet how I would confess to Patrick what I had done.
Terry, having finished his breakfast, ambled over. “I don’t suppose you can give me a lift?” he asked, eying the car. “I need to get back to college and everyone else I know seems to have left without me.”
“I’m really sorry,” I told him. “It’s not my car and there really isn’t room. Perhaps one of the Willoughbys could call you a taxi to the station?”
I called a further apology after him as he shuffled back toward the house.
A few minutes later, Patrick emerged from the front door and made his way down the steps juggling two coffees in white Styrofoam cups and his suit carrier. He opened the passenger door for me, and I sat down—before leaping out again immediately.
“Urgh, God, what’s that?” I squealed, touching the seat. “It’s soaking.”
Patrick shook his head. “Fuck’s sake. I told Arno he could borrow the car to go get cigarettes. What’s he done?”
A frown creased his forehead. He knelt to inspect the seat more closely. After a moment, he gave it a sniff.
“Just water,” he said, straightening up, obviously relieved. “Here, there’s some tissues in the glove compartment we can mop it up with, and I’m pretty sure this is waterproof.”