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CHAPTER ONE
Alex
1987
Of course, I always knew I was ugly. How could I not know when those around me took pains to remind me at every given opportunity? I’m told my mother Beatrix cried her eyes out when the nurses presented me to her at the hospital. Apparently, my grandmother almost fainted. My father Neville refused to believe I was his offspring and accused my mother of having an affair, despite me having the same unique blue-green eyes as his. He said no way could I possibly be his, no way could his good genes and breeding have produced such a freak of nature.
But sadly, I am indeed a Kingswood. Believe me, sometimes I wish it weren’t so. Many times, over the years, I’ve fantasised that the man I called Dad wasn’t related to me, but…there it is. You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. But I digress. Back to the subject of my hideousness.
My aunt Priscilla once told me that my unfortunate appearance was God’s punishment for my father’s murky business dealings—the sins of the parent falling on the child, as it were. My dad was a wealthy arms dealer who spent half the year working abroad in the Middle East negotiating lucrative trade deals. Behind his back, Aunt Priscilla constantly berated her brother-in-law for profiteering from the pain and bloodshed of others. She said all he cared about was money and had no concern for the lives destroyed by the wars facilitated by the rapacious stakeholders of his company.
Another theory was that my accursed face was some sort of karma for my ancestors dabbling in witchcraft. The Kingswood family have long been famous for their nefarious obsession with the occult, the most prominent being my great uncle Lionel, a deeply feared black magician who worked as Winston Churchill’s personal advisor during World WarII.
Whether this is true or not, I couldn’t say. All I do know is that when it came to me, my father was a cold, cold bastard. Amongst our extended family, there were whispers he spent so much time abroad because he couldn’t bear the sight of me, so repulsed was he by my monstrous appearance. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was true.
On the face of it, I had an enviable lifestyle. My family lived in Claremont Hall, an impressive manor house on the outskirts of the village of Grimschurch in Surrey. Nestled in an array of beautiful gardens and immaculate lawns, to an outsider, my father’s ancestral estate looked like a dream but in reality, the stately home was more like a prison cell.
As a child, I was rarely allowed to go out, although I longed to explore the world outside. There was no warmth in my household growing up. No “I love you’s,” no hugs, no kisses. It was always purely formal. My father treated me with a mixture of disgust and distain and had little time for me. The servants were polite but kept to themselves.
Even my mother Beatrix, who deep down I knew loved me, was never very demonstrative. I ached for her to hold me, to cuddle me, but she never did. It was as if she didn’t want to touch me and could only offer her brand of love from a distance. Her feelings for me were complex, no doubt fraught with bitterness, as if she was resentful of the sacrifices she’d had to make for my sake.
Aunt Priscilla told me that before I was born, my mother had been a social butterfly, but retreated from the London party scene once I came along, becoming a virtual recluse to protect me from the daily abuse I attracted from strangers. The guilt-tripping was endless and made me feel bad for even existing, as if I was to blame for everything wrong in my parents’ lives.
Very early on, it was decided that I would need to be home schooled. Beatrix’s frequent trips to the village with me as a young child saw to it that this was the only way to go. Whenever the neighbourhood kids saw me coming, they screamed and ran away. They called me a monster and all manner of hurtful names; sometimes they even threw stones. Their cruel taunts made me cry but even so, I still longed to be with them. All I wanted was to play with the other children, to be accepted by them, but after a while, it became clear that the safest option was for me to stay locked up inside, shielded from prying eyes.
My mother engaged a governess, and I was taught English, Maths, Latin and French with a little History thrown in for good measure. I was also forced to learn the piano, which I hated as I wasn’t very good at it, but my mother insisted I carry on regardless. My grandfather had been a celebrated concert pianist so it was assumed I must have inherited some of his musical talent (believe me, I hadn’t).
The turning point in my life came in the winter of 1987 when Aunt Priscilla gifted me a beautiful ginger kitten for my tenth birthday. Soft as silk with a lovely shiny coat, the cat was the sweetest creature I had ever seen, and I was overjoyed that she was mine. I had been begging for a pet for years, but Neville had always forbidden it as he detested animals. However, with him safely away on a business trip to Saudi Arabia, I’m sure Aunt Priscilla was making mischief, but I couldn’t care less.
I absolutely adored the kitten who I named Trinity, and everywhere I went, she followed. Soon, the two of us were inseparable and we did everything together. Having a pet was a complete revelation. Trinity was not afraid of me, she loved me to touch and stroke her, and for the first time ever, I knew what it felt like to be loved unconditionally and not be judged on my looks. Trinity wanted to be around me all the time, even slept next to me every night on my pillow. She more than quelled my deep sense of loneliness and I had never known such happiness. Finally, at last, I had the warmth and companionship I had so long craved and for six glorious months, that darling kitten was my best friend.
Then one cold Saturday morning in early November, I awoke to find Trinity missing from her usual place on my pillow. Frantically, I searched high and low but could find no sign of her anywhere. I asked my mother, the housekeeper, the butler, the cook, everyone, but nobody had seen her. And then I heard a car engine outside and was immediately hit by a deep sense of foreboding. I knew that sound well. It was the sound of my dad’s Mercedes-Benz pulling into the driveway, returning unannounced from his business trip.
Racing downstairs, I got outside just in time to see Trinity’s little corpse lying beneath the wheels of the car. My father had backed into her, killing her instantly. Uttering a guttural cry, I fell to my knees in tears, every part of my body numb with grief. It was like the sound had been turned down on everything. No, this couldn’t be happening.
“Trinity, you killed Trinity!” was all I kept saying.
For a few moments, my father remained silently in his car, and then he got out and for a split-second we locked eyes and I saw a look of cruel defiance on his face. And I knew, I just knew, that it hadn’t been an accident. He had sadistically run over my cat on purpose to inflict as much pain on me as possible and for that, I would never forgive him. He had taken away my best friend and her loss was like a knife in my heart. Something inside me died that day and I would never be the same again.
As I continued to sob my heart out, everyone rushed outside to see what all the commotion was about. Suddenly realising he had an audience, my dad switched his demeanour from triumphant devil to one of faux outrage.
“Who the fuck brought a cat into this house?” he demanded of no one in particular. “I thought I said no pets allowed. How the hell was I supposed to know there was a cat prowling around for me to be on the lookout?”
“Oh Neville, how terrible,” Beatrix gasped, staring in horror at Trinity’s motionless body. “What an awful, unfortunate accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident!” I shrieked. “He did it on purpose! He killed Trinity on purpose, I just know he did! It wasn’t an accident…”
“Shut up, you little shit! How dare you make such scurrilous accusations? Of course, I didn’t do it on purpose. I couldn’t bloody see the thing, could I? And it just came darting out of nowhere. This is why I said no pets, because they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Whose bright idea was it to bring a cat into the house? Tell me! Oh, stop your snivelling, will you? It’s only a stupid cat, the world hasn’t ended. You’re making such a fuss about nothing. Time to man-up and get over it, boy, or I’ll really give you something to cry about.”
That was the moment when I realised that I truly hated my dad. Up until that point, I had always disliked him but retained a sort of grudging respect for him, hoping that one day I might be able to win him over. But not anymore. Now I despised him with a black hatred that was all encompassing. My mind was made up and there was no going back. As far as I was concerned, he had murdered Trinity, so he and I were now mortal enemies. At the tender age of ten, I privately swore to avenge the death of my one true friend and no matter how long it took, I promised that one day, I would wipe that evil smirk off his face.
Against Neville’s wishes, we buried Trinity at the bottom of the garden and my mother received a severe beating that night for allowing me to own a pet. In some twisted way, it seemed my dad blamed her for what had happened and took out all his rage and frustration on her. And that made me feel terrible. I felt so guilty for being the cause of the suffering my poor mum was going through.
Throughout the night, tears rolled down my cheeks as I listened to the crash of furniture drifting up from my parents’ bedroom. The terrible noises of Beatrix sobbing and begging forgiveness. My father’s booming voice berating her for daring to disobey his wishes. And nobody intervened. Not even one of the servants questioned what was happening. Nobody did a thing to help my mother in her time of need. They all turned a blind eye to my dad’s violence because they feared for their jobs. The fucking cowards.
From that point on, I slipped into a dark depression. Nothing could console me or cheer my spirits and I felt as if everything and everyone was against me. For the next couple of months, I operated on autopilot, attending my classes as usual, but nothing had any meaning without Trinity. Neville returned to the Middle East and my mother became even more emotionally distant. I felt so alone.
Then one evening I was in my bedroom, waiting to be called down to dinner. Looking for something to read, I went over to the bookcase to get out one of my oldBeanoannuals. In my haste, I tripped and found something sticking up from the floor. Pulling back the rug, I saw that one of the floorboards had come loose. Crouching down to slot it back in place, I noticed something lying in the dark cavity beneath.
