Waking Broken by Huw Thomas Page B

media began forgetting to put the title into inverted commas. Manville’s protests were ignored and he could only fume as his neighbour became increasingly known as Lord Cash.
    Meanwhile, Cash took a liking to life at Haworth and started throwing extravagant parties for select invitees. The events became notorious and he revelled in the scandal, denying nothing. Then came a tabloid exposé — based as much on speculation as fact — describing him as the ‘Lord of Misrule’.
    Cash was delighted by the new epithet and painted a self-portrait to commemorate the occasion. This showed him in velvet tiger-striped robes and jester’s hat, sprawled across the laps of three naked girls, one holding grapes, the second with a glass of champagne and the third with what looked suspiciously like a box of dried magic mushrooms.
    A year or so later, he wrote a letter to The Times about freedom of expression, signing himself “Secretary of State for Artistic Licence”. Other self-awarded titles included “Father of the Arts”, based not so much on his prestige as a painter but on the number of children he was reputed to have fathered. Married five times and divorced as many, Cash’s bedpost notches were legendary. Nearly all of his portraits were of women and people said he slept with everyone he had painted — some claiming that included the men as well.
    Now, although approaching sixty, Paul Cash’s reputation was undulled. His fires had burnt for decades, but no one was suggesting Paul Cash was anywhere near running out of fuel.
     
    Rebecca parked in front of the house, took one last deep breath and marched towards the heavy front door. A wrought iron pull sent bells jangling somewhere deep inside the ancient hall.
    The echoing discordance matched her nerves.
    On the surface, she was fine. She knew she looked the part: cool, calm and professional, ready for her first meeting with one of the Hamilton Agency’s most prestigious, if notorious, clients. In reality, she did not feel so steady. Meeting Paul Cash was only part of what disturbed her equilibrium. All morning she had been feeling odd: out of sorts and over-reacting to any stimulus.
    At lunchtime, she had sneaked half-an-hour out of the office and walked with Sarah along by the river. It was hard to explain exactly what bothered her. Things had seemed out of kilter for a day or so.
    Sarah’s seemed to think Rebecca had pinned more of her hopes on last Tuesday night’s blind date than she was willing to admit. Rebecca was nowhere near so positive. It was true that it had been her first foray off the shelf in several months but she had approached the event with mixed emotions. Certainly not with any real expectations. More a case of being seen to be doing something about her single status.
    A few weeks earlier, Rebecca had moaned to Sarah about never meeting any attractive men. Her last serious relationship had ended a couple of years earlier and no prospects had appeared on the horizon since. Sarah responded by challenging Rebecca to do something about it; pointing out she could hardly expect to meet the love of her life from the comfort of a sofa. Rebecca had signed up with a dating agency mostly to keep Sarah happy. The result was Rebecca’s first — and possibly last — venture into the world of the lonely hearts: the date with the eligible bachelor with the nice car and mother fixation.
    But Rebecca could not quite bring herself to believe disappointment over one blind date was what had left her feeling so unsettled. She had first been conscious of a sense of something wrong in the world the same afternoon that Christine Hamilton sprang the Paul Cash job on her. Then on her way home came the uncomfortable confrontation in the High Street.
    Rebecca was still unable to work out what to make of that. The man’s behaviour had seemed like that of someone on drugs. But he had seemed so sincere, so genuinely certain Rebecca should know him. The distress in his eyes