This Has Been Absolutely Lovely

by Jessica Dettmann

  Annie sighed. Of course there would be a problem. Bloody secrets. Why did people think they were a good idea? They were never a good idea.

  ‘Annie?’ continued Paul tentatively. ‘There’s something else. I wanted to tell you first, but I think Brian’s planning to make an announcement at lunch.’

  ‘You’re getting married?’

  ‘Well, yes. We’ve decided to. I hope that’s not, well, you know.’

  She smiled ruefully. ‘It’s fine. It’s actually wonderful. You two deserve to be married. I’m glad you can now.’

  ‘You don’t feel angry, or sad?’

  ‘Oh Paul, who the fuck knows what I’m feeling? Your engagement, while great, is really the least of my concerns at the moment. Right now I have to figure out how to go back into the dining room, where someone who is apparently my brother is about to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken with us.’

  ‘It’s called KFC now.’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘Not very much.’

  Chapter 27

  Diana came down from her room when lunch was served, but there was a shimmering veil of rage surrounding her, like highly flammable jet fuel fumes. This was not the Christmas dinner she had wanted. It was not even the Christmas dinner she had compromised on.

  The others came through to the dining room carrying their Champagne glasses, which had all been refilled several times in the half hour they’d spent making small talk.

  Annie was struggling to read the room. The shock of her realisation made her uncertain of her own reactions and unable to tell what other people’s behaviour meant and whether any of it was connected to what she’d just discovered.

  First there was Heather. Heather knew. She had to. Didn’t she? Surely that was why she’d left Ray in the first place: either Ray realised she’d cheated on him and kicked her out, or she left before the baby grew up enough to look like his real father. But maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she had been sleeping with Robert and Ray, and hadn’t clocked the resemblance between her son and the neighbour she’d had an affair with. That was pretty unlikely. To Annie, the physical likeness between Robert and Patrick was obvious, too obvious to miss.

  So Heather probably knew. But did Ray know? Annie looked at the old man. He hadn’t said much since they’d arrived. His eyes were watery, and his skin was grey and taut. He was clearly not a well man, but it wouldn’t be polite to ask what was wrong. Patrick filled a plate with food for him, and sat beside him at the table, but Ray wasn’t eating much. Even lifting the fork looked like an effort.

  Annie watched how Ray interacted with Heather in the hope it might provide a clue as to what he knew, but there was precious little to see. Heather paid no more attention to Ray than she did to Petula. In fact, Annie realised as lunch went on, Heather was doing a splendid job of talking about nothing but herself.

  She had a tactic, Annie soon figured out, of asking a short question of someone else. They would answer, then politely ask her the same thing. That allowed her to launch into a long and meandering monologue, peppered with rhetorical questions, irrelevant sidebars and an irritating number of characters who were never properly introduced.

  ‘London,’ she was saying now to Brian. ‘You’ve been there all this time?’

  ‘Yes, for nearly forty years, give or take,’ said Brian. ‘Have you spent any time there?’

  ‘Have I spent any time in London? Have I? Brian, darling, I have had more homes in London than you’ve had hot dinners. I’ve lived everywhere in London. North, South, the East End, the West End. All the ends. I lived on a canal boat with a very famous artist for a while — I won’t name names but he’s very, very collectable now — and with Cherry and Kath in a basement flat in Chalk Farm, and when Patrick was young we were in Hampstead Garden Suburb, lodging with Lynn and Graham. Remember Lynn and Graham — they were like grandparents to you, Patrick, do you remember?’

  Patrick nodded but didn’t say anything.

  Heather went on, brandishing a chicken drumstick as if it were a laser pointer and they were a world map projected onto a screen. ‘And of course we were in the countryside for a long while, various spots, and since Patrick grew up I’ve been all over the world, now that I don’t need to be so tied down.’

  ‘She sounds as tied down as smoke,’ Annie heard Jack murmur to Molly.

  Annie looked from Molly to Simon. They were behaving distinctly oddly around the neighbours, and had been all day. Simon had been strange about even inviting them. Had he spotted his grandfather’s likeness in Patrick? It was possible, but not probable. In her experience, it was very hard to remember the young face of an old person, and her kids wouldn’t have seen many pictures of their grandfather when he was young. There were a couple framed on the wall in the front hall, but no one ever seemed to stop and look at them.

  Molly put down her knife and fork — she’d barely touched her lunch, Annie noted — and announced she needed to feed the baby, who was sleeping in her basket in the sunroom.

  ‘Will you rejoin us for dessert?’ Diana asked, with a tone of desperation.

  ‘Probably not,’ said Molly.

  ‘Molly, love,’ said Brian, nervously, ‘just before you go, your dad and I have an announcement.’

  Molly paused at the door and looked back. She yawned. ‘You’re getting married?’

  ‘Ah, well, yes. That’s what we were going to say. Paul and I are engaged, and we’re going to be married.’

  Naomi leaped up at once and hugged them both, while the others clapped and said hooray, haphazardly clinking glasses. When she sat back down, Annie saw her elder daughter, ever alert to other people’s feelings, glance over at her, worrying how she would take the news. Annie hadn’t even been looking at Brian or Paul, but was staring at Simon with her brow furrowed. When she realised she was being watched, she quickly switched her face back to neutral.

  ‘We hoped we might be able to get married here, in the garden,’ said Brian.

  Annie tuned back in. ‘Of course, how gorgeous. That would be perfect.’

  Molly kissed her father and Brian and left.

  The news of the engagement had surprisingly little impact on the meal. Jack and Patrick went on discussing Tibetan sand foxes — something about a documentary Patrick had worked on, in a remote area of northern India. Brian listened and contributed what he could by shoehorning in anecdotes about the two weeks he and Paul had once spent travelling from five-star-hotel to five-star-hotel in the south of that country. Several times he dropped in the word ‘honeymoon’, but it was as if their news had been a gold-medal-winning dive from the ten-metre platform, so small were the ripples it created.

  Annie looked over at Heather, who had paused her monologue to concentrate on licking clean her chicken bones.

  This was impossible, Annie thought. How was she supposed to know who knew what about whom and if they did know how they had found out, and how long they had known for and what they were planning to do with information they may or may not have? This felt like picking up an Agatha Christie novel halfway through. It was a murder mystery, and the victim was Annie’s whole history.

  She felt sick when she looked at the food on her plate, and ate a few mouthfuls only when she felt Diana’s eyes on her. Instead she sipped her wine, an old shiraz that stripped her tongue and tasted of dust. A horrible heaviness was settling upon her, a sense that every decision she had made since she was a teenager had been based on incorrect information.

  Her beloved dad had not been a good man. Her idol, her role model of what a man should be: it was all a lie. She had based her family on the model of the one she’d grown up in. Or the one she thought she’d grown up in.

  The meal dragged on. Somehow Brian and Heather were getting on like a house on fire while everyone else made only polite conversation, and Annie wondered if the tension was as clear to the others. The children left the table to go play laser tag in the garden, and Diana went to the kitchen to get the dessert.

  It o
ccurred to Annie that because she had been focussing on her father’s betrayal of her mother, and Heather’s horrendous behaviour, she hadn’t even begun to address the fact that she now had a brother. A little brother. He was sitting on the same side of the table as Annie, which was probably good, because if she had to look at him she thought she might explode. She cracked open that door a tiny bit but the rush of feelings that begin to fly out was too much and she slammed it shut again. She would deal with that some other time.

  Her glass was empty and she reached for the nearest decanter, heavy cut crystal with a wide base and a pointlessly thin neck. You practically had to turn the thing upside down to get anything out. She poured another large glass of red and took a few gulps.

  Diana returned and placed a plate of sliced stollen and more spiced biscuits on the table. Naomi presented Jean’s crystal trifle bowl, filled with layers of what she announced was a vegan take on the classic, and started passing around bowls filled with enthusiastic helpings of whipped coconut cream, cherries and avocado cacao mousse.

  Simon took one mouthful and pronounced it disgusting. ‘Thank god it’s vegan,’ he told her. ‘Can you imagine if an animal had suffered for us to eat something that tastes so completely horrible?’ He was drunk.

  Patrick tasted the trifle and smiled at Naomi. ‘It’s very nice.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘He’s a guest,’ said Simon dismissively. ‘You can’t believe a guest. Guests lie. Trust me, it’s objectively not very nice. In fact I would go so far as to say it’s pretty yucky.’ He made a show of washing the flavour from his mouth with wine.

  That meanness, cloaked in attempted humour, seemed familiar. Her son was so like her father, Annie realised with a shock. She remembered occasionally rebuking her dad for small cruel remarks, and how he’d laugh them off. ‘Oh, she doesn’t mind,’ he’d say affectionately of his victim, who, now that she thought about it, was often her mother.

  ‘Simon,’ she reprimanded him at the same time as Diana.

  ‘Simon,’ he mimicked them.

  ‘Shall we put on some music?’ suggested Brian.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Simon loudly. ‘Mum can play some of what she’s been diddling around with on the piano lately, can’t she? Can’t you, Mum?’

  They all looked at Annie.

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Let’s put something on the record player. Or Spotify.’

  ‘No, Mum,’ Simon spoke louder. ‘You play us something. It doesn’t have to be new stuff. I like your old stuff better than your new stuff anyway.’

  Molly came to the doorway, looking uncomfortable. ‘Naomi,’ she said with quiet urgency.

  ‘What?’ replied Simon, and as he turned his head his eyes followed with a lag. ‘What do you want, Molly? We’re choosing a set list. Mum’s going to do a concert.’ He was slurring.

  ‘I just want to talk to Naomi for a second,’ she said.

  ‘Why’s everything got to be a secret? There are too many secrets. Secrets are bad for families. If it’s important, I think you should share it with the whole class.’ He gestured expansively around the table, taking out two empty glasses.

  Patrick reached out to right them, and Ray grabbed his arm and murmured something in a low voice. Patrick stood and started to help his father up from the table.

  ‘For god’s sake, Simon,’ said Molly, her voice vibrating. ‘I need to wee and your son has been in the upstairs bathroom for twenty minutes and Sunny has been in the downstairs one for the same length of time and they’re both doing eternal poos and my pelvic floor frankly isn’t up for this so I need someone to go evict one of them right bloody now.’ She moved, panicked, from one foot to the other.

  Naomi and Diana leaped to their feet and rushed towards the bathrooms, as Patrick, holding Ray’s arm, slowly led him towards the hall.

  ‘Oh no, no, no. Shit.’ Molly’s voice was desperate, and a dark stain appeared on her leggings.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ said Ray, agitated, as the smell of his urine also filled the hallway.

  Molly began to cry and she hobbled away towards the stairs, passing Felix on his way down. Naomi pulled Sunny from the downstairs bathroom, hurriedly saying, ‘You can wash them in the kitchen, just move,’ and Patrick ushered Ray in.

  In the dining room Simon swung back on his chair, balancing it on two legs. ‘Oh my god. Hands up if you have managed not to wet your pants at dinner this Christmas. I’d have had my money on Petula being the only one who did. Merry Pissmas!’

  Heather’s cackle rang out and together they roared with laughter.

  ‘I like you,’ said Simon. ‘You’re great fun. Isn’t she fun? I can see why Pa liked you so much.’

  ‘Simon.’ Annie’s voice was a warning. She’d been right: Simon had been behaving oddly. Somehow he knew.

  ‘What? I’m just saying. Fun. She seems fun. I don’t remember Granny being this fun. I’m just saying you can’t blame Pa.’

  ‘Blame him for what?’ Brian asked.

  ‘Simon, don’t,’ said Annie again.

  Simon looked at his mother and squinted. ‘Don’t what? Don’t bring up the whole Ether-hay and Ah-pay’s affair-hay?’ He chortled. ‘Forgot Pig Latin doesn’t work on words that begin with a vowel. They’re the same, aren’t they? I didn’t know you knew about it, Mother dearest.’

  Heather’s eyes darted from Simon to Annie and back again.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Simon continued. ‘We know, Heather. Or should I call you extra-marital-step-great-Aunt Heather. Or whatever you are.’

  ‘Simon, please,’ said Heather, her voice low and strained. ‘Not here. Patrick doesn’t know. I never told him.’

  Simon spluttered. ‘Patrick doesn’t know? Jesus. What a debacle. You’re going to have to tell him if you want him to contest the will, aren’t you? Because you won’t get any money from Pa’s estate. He might, because he’s Pa’s son, but you won’t. There’s not a provision for mistresses in wills. Were you his mistress or was it a more casual thing?’

  Annie stood. ‘Simon, that is enough.’

  ‘I don’t think it really is enough, Mum. I don’t. I think this needs to be brought out into the open because all this hiding stuff is bullshit. And how do you know, anyway? I bet you’ve always known, haven’t you? You and Heather were friends. You would have known she was shagging your dad.’

  She couldn’t take any more. ‘I found out my dad had slept with Heather two hours ago, Simon, when Patrick walked into the living room and I laid eyes on him for the first time ever and I realised he was my brother. Okay? Are you happy? He walked in looking exactly like my dead father. On Christmas Day. Can you imagine for one second what that feels like? My life has been based on a lie. My dad was my hero. I thought he was perfect. Every man I ever met I compared to him. And he was a cheat and a bastard.’

  ‘Annie, I’m sorry,’ said Heather. ‘But please, please can we stop talking about it before they come back from the loo? I’ll tell Patrick, I will, but I need to do it in my own time.’

  ‘There’s no need.’ Patrick stood in the doorway.

  Heather’s face fell. ‘Patrick, sweetheart —’

  He cut her off. ‘I’ve known for over twenty years and I couldn’t care less. I’m taking Ray home now. He’s not well. Thank you all for a lovely meal. Heather, don’t come back next door.’

  ‘But we need to talk, I have to explain.’

  ‘You don’t.’ His voice was firm and cold. ‘Goodbye.’

  Heather stood abruptly. ‘This,’ she said, pointing at Patrick, ‘this is why I couldn’t stay. All this suburban drama. Who needs it?’ She pushed past Ray and stormed down the hall and out the front door.

  When they heard the door slam, Patrick took Ray’s arm and together they walked out.

  The front door clicked quietly closed. In the dining room everyone was silent.

  Brian looked around and took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, but what was all that about?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nao
mi. ‘What on earth is going on?’

  ‘Simon?’ prompted Annie. ‘You were so keen to discuss it. Why don’t you fill them in?’

  The red wine wind had left Simon’s sails. ‘Well, um. There were these letters.’

  ‘What letters?’ asked Annie.

  ‘In Pa’s filing cabinet. Molly found them. They were from Heather. Love letters. They talked about how she and Pa were, you know, doing it. And that she got pregnant.’

  ‘When did you find these letters?’ Annie was astonished. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about them?’

  ‘We didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘Simon.’ Annie’s voice told him to try answering again, truthfully this time.

  ‘Fine. We found them a couple of days after the funeral and we didn’t say anything because we thought if you knew Patrick was Pa’s son you might give him half of this house.’

  ‘And you knew I had been encouraging Pa to leave the house straight to the three of you and if I had split it with Patrick you would have only received half as much money.’ Annie shook her head. ‘Unbelievable. Did it occur to you that maybe I had a right to know I had a brother?’

  ‘It was Molly too. I didn’t decide it by myself.’ His voice was wheedling. He’d never liked getting into trouble. ‘Don’t just be angry at me.’

  ‘I’m not angry at you, I’m disappointed.’ The old line flew out of Annie’s mouth before she could think. ‘Actually, no, wait. I am angry. I am both angry and disappointed. That seems like very greedy, self-serving behaviour, Simon. Why? You have a job. You have money of your own. You have a house. Why do you need more? Always more and more?’

  Simon looked down at his lap. ‘I don’t have all those things,’ he mumbled. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘What?’ replied Annie. ‘Why not?’

  Simon looked over at the doorway. Diana stood there, white-lipped.

  ‘I lost my job,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You what? Simon, speak up,’ Annie ordered.

  ‘I lost my job, okay? They fired me and I lost all our money and we never owned our house in the first place otherwise I would have probably lost that too.’ He was shouting now.