Where We Belong

by Anstey Harris

  ‘I know. She always said so.’ She smiles up at the picture. ‘Today was amazing, wasn’t it? So many visitors.’

  It’s kind of her to stress the positive rather than the fact we’ve lost a million pounds’ worth of exhibit. ‘We have a lot to discuss.’ I take a sip of my wine, steady my nerves.

  ‘Let me start at the beginning,’ she says. ‘It’s the only way I can get it all straight, protect everyone.’

  ‘You don’t have to pro—’ I start to say but she interrupts.

  ‘Explain, that’s a better word. The only way to explain properly.’

  I nod at her to continue.

  ‘The thefts first. The other thief, if you like. The other thief was my father, Geoffrey. Geoffrey got into trouble – anywhere he could. He was expelled from school, sent down from university. He was a troubled boy who grew up into a troubled man. His affair with my mother was a terrible scandal: he was married, she – my mother – was only eighteen.’ Her voice fades, becomes misty with the past.

  ‘And eventually, he got into trouble with money: gambling debts. He was a compulsive man – an addict, we would call him today. And he stole from the museum to support his habit.

  ‘It took my grandfather a long time to realise it was Geoffrey. Colonel Hugo wasn’t the easiest person either: he was prone to terrible rages. He accused the staff, the locals, anyone he could. It never occurred to him that it could be his own son.’

  I can barely breathe: I sit stock-still.

  ‘And then my grandfather caught him in the act and it was irrefutable. He called the police, pressed charges. He cut Geoffrey out of the will and banished him from the estate, told him never to come back.’ She looks across at me. ‘And he didn’t: he didn’t come back to see Richard or me ever again. Richard had been living here for a long time by then: his mother was no more capable than our father. I was lucky, really, with my mum.’ She smiles then. ‘I lived with my mum, had a loving home to go back to when things got rough up here at the house. A luxury my brother didn’t have.’

  Hearing her call him ‘my brother’ is almost unbearable. I reach out and hold her hand.

  ‘And then, one day, my grandfather called us both to his office and told us that Geoffrey was dead. No details at that time. We hadn’t seen him for years: hadn’t been allowed to see him, we found out later. The jasmine wall against the glass side of the playroom? That was part of my grandfather’s defence against what he saw as Geoffrey’s terrible influence, in case he came to Hatters to see us.’ She sniffs a little and reaches into the waistband of her tweed skirt for a tiny cotton handkerchief. It is perfectly white. ‘The night Geoffrey died was the only time I ever saw my grandfather cry.’

  I give her a hug; my sister-in-law, this pressure cooker of family secrets. An unimaginable burden was placed on her and I wonder where her fury is, how she keeps it so carefully under control.

  ‘I was old enough to go to his funeral, and eventually to know the truth of how he died. My grandfather decided that Richard wasn’t: people accepted what they were told in those days.’

  ‘Except for Richard.’ I can imagine my crazy, interested, husband with his lifelong love of questions. The not-knowing must have driven him to distraction.

  ‘He was younger, of a different generation. Of a different background too, despite us sharing a parent.’ She clears her throat and continues. Outside, the clock on the back of the house chimes and its clear note floats out and up and into the trees.

  ‘I don’t know much of the circumstances of Geoffrey’s death but he had hit rock bottom. He’d been disowned and cut off from his family, he was in terrible debt and he had nowhere to turn. I don’t think he was a bad man – not at all, but he had terrible demons.’ She dabs her face with the handkerchief.

  ‘My grandfather blamed himself, of course, and no one – not the employees, the family, the villagers – no one ever mentioned my father’s name again. People around here adored my grandfather, you see. He was very kind to them and they couldn’t bear to see him so sad. The only person who ever brought it up again was Richard.’

  ‘When he was twenty-one?’

  She nods, dabs at the corner of her mouth with the handkerchief. A tiny gold lion embroidered on its corner flashes in the light from the window. ‘There was a terrible row. Richard had come back from university: he’d finished his studies and was staying here for the summer before he went to London. I don’t know what had driven him, maybe another argument with his mother or something, but he blamed our grandfather for Geoffrey’s absence from our lives. Geoffrey had stopped seeing us long before my grandfather banned him from Hatters, but Richard would never believe that. He didn’t remember it all as clearly as I did.’

  There is little noise around the house. The trees above us dip and whisper in the gentle breeze, birds sing in the distance. Apart from the faint but constant smell of old smoke, of bonfires, it is bucolic, idyllic. If you close your eyes, you can convince yourself that the smell is just an autumn bonfire: that we are clearing the garden of the summer’s vines, getting ready for the season’s change, for the shorter evenings.

  ‘I wasn’t part of it: I remember my grandfather smashing the study door shut. Making sure it was only Richard and him in there, that no one down the corridors or in the offices could hear them: everybody in the building heard them of course, every single person.’ She sighs. ‘Richard asked me too, but I couldn’t tell him anything: I wasn’t allowed.’ She grinds her shoe against the floorboards, tips the toe of it onto the rug. The black leather is dusty grey with what is left of summer. ‘I wondered for years whether I should have told the truth. And then, when Richard . . . You know.’

  I have no idea what to say next. I am a dumb beast and my body has been replaced with the mounted frame of one of the animals. My eyes are glass and staring, my mouth is full of plaster teeth, solid pink stone tongue.

  The house has claimed me as its own.

  I try to remember that this loss belongs to her too – the loss of the brother she loved and hadn’t been able to see for years – but there isn’t room in my hurt heart for other people’s problems.

  ‘And that’s it?’ I am reeling. One stupid conversation, one banal argument. One single moment that ricocheted through my family for years: that cast a shadow over my whole marriage. ‘That’s the whole reason he never spoke to his grandfather again? Ever? Just a family secret?’

  ‘Family secrets can be huge, Cate.’ She gestures at herself. ‘They destroy those who know them and they torture those who are outside them.’

  I shake my head. The pain caused by Colonel Hugo’s decisions whispers through the leaves outside, drifts in through the French windows.

  ‘My grandfather was a deeply principled man.’ Araminta’s voice is controlled, measured, and I hear some of the old her in it. ‘His overriding sense was one of duty. We were his family and he loved us but this . . .’ She means the house, its secret playroom, the soot stains rising up under the eaves and choking the gargoyles, its stolen treasures. ‘This was his duty and he did everything he could to protect its legacy, our heritage. That’s what drove him. He owed it to his parents, his grandparents. He owed it to his children and their children.’

  I almost speak, but I can’t find the words.

  ‘My responsibility towards this house, this line, is everything to me. And I think it runs through Leo completely naturally.’ She takes hold of my hand again. ‘I think you have it too, Cate. I think you feel the house in you. You are part of its story now.’

  *

  Now that Araminta has started, she cannot stop. She is completely disarmed by these memories: I am paralysed by her revelations.

  ‘My grandfather was not a cruel man. He was kind and loving and generous.’

  I almost interrupt, this is so far from my truth, from what I can see of her story, of Richard’s.

  ‘Hugo was an officer in the First World War. Part of his instructions were to supervise the execution of men who had
deserted: he went through unimaginable horror. My grandfather had nightmares about “Those boys,” about what happened to them. He woke up screaming, every night, for the rest of his life. He had been a boy too, of course, but one from a different social background.’ She is pleading for his memory, for me to forgive him. ‘But when he was young, he was desensitised, frozen by his experiences. He couldn’t understand what Geoffrey did. Couldn’t forget.’

  I reach forward to top her wine glass up but she waves her hand across the top of it. I fill mine.

  ‘My father was so reckless: a gambler; a drunk; a womaniser – my mother was far from his only affair. Geoffrey rebelled in every way he could and he and Hugo spent a lifetime at loggerheads. I have spent decades trying to put my father’s mistakes right, trying to do the best by my grandfather. It hasn’t helped anyone.’

  ‘Leo is your nephew.’ It is like a birth, the realisation that I am not Leo’s only living relative.

  ‘I cannot tell you how much he brings to my life.’

  *

  I have to get out of the house. I have to put some space between me and these seething, overwhelming, ghosts.

  ‘Are you up to a walk?’ I ask her. ‘I need some fresh air.’

  I check on Leo on my way out. He texts back quite quickly, still on the beach, still blissfully unaware.

  I hook my arm through Araminta’s as we walk the gravel path at the side of the woodland. ‘How do you live with this sadness? Doesn’t it break your heart?’

  Araminta smiles. ‘When I was young it made me sad. I was eleven when Richard was born and, oh my goodness, how I loved him. But although I knew – I knew he was my brother, I mean – I also knew that no one must find out. My mother imagined the difficult days would be the feast days: birthdays, Christmas.’ She stops for a moment as we round the corner of the house, as the emerald lawns open up in front of us. ‘But the difficult days were the ordinary ones. The days when my grandfather would read me a story and then I’d get my wellington boots on to go home – in my nightie and dressing gown – while Richard went to the nursery, stayed here in the house.’

  My heart aches for the little girl she was. The gravel crunching under our feet as we walk is the same path she would have taken back to the cottages in the dark, her mind full of witches and dragons, ponies and explorers.

  ‘Didn’t you think it was horribly unfair? It’s so unkind.’

  ‘Not at all. Our father was at boarding school by the time he was six, our grandfather even younger. We thought we were lucky, Richard and me.’

  The peacock sweeps past us, shaking his tail in disdain. None of these revelations have made him better tempered. Araminta points up and I see two of his hens on the flat roof of the stable block to my right.

  ‘So Richard was happy here?’

  ‘Enormously. We both were. Our father was hardly ever here and Richard’s mother, well, I assume you know her – knew her.’

  I nod. ‘They weren’t close.’

  Araminta weighs it up. ‘She wasn’t the simplest of women but then, her life – and her marriage – wasn’t always easy either. And Richard was fine – he had our grandfather – Hugo – and he had me.’

  We walk the boundary of the garden in silence. There have been so many words already. They all click through my thoughts in turn: Richard; Hugo; Geoffrey; Patch.

  Back to the holes left by each of them. The hole left by Patch is shrinking with each minute: it’s Richard I long to talk to.

  *

  Araminta makes her customary hot milk when we get back to the house. I choose another glass of wine.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Either my ears are playing tricks on me or there is something outside the back door.

  Araminta shakes her head, listens, and shakes it again. ‘Hear what?’

  It comes again. It is a scratching, and – faintly – a sort of mew.

  I go down the corridor and open the back door. Three fat round fox cubs dart away from the movement. They wait, at a safe distance, and watch me. Their fur is glossy and red, their eyes alive and black. I close the door gently.

  ‘Araminta.’ I open the fridge, take out ham and cheese. ‘I think you have visitors.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Leo is sad that Patch is gone. We sit out at the table by the lake to talk and the two gold statues make my heart ache for what might have been. I pick at a patch of green lichen on the table to keep from looking up at them.

  Leo is rubbing his head. ‘I don’t feel very well today.’

  ‘Did you have a good time last night? Did you drink beer at the beach?’

  ‘Yes.’ He fails to see the connection. ‘Martin came too. We had a laugh. He’ll never be my best friend though. That will always be Curtis. I thought Patch was my friend too, but he’s not.’

  I don’t elaborate, not yet. I will wait and see how much the loss of Patch bothers him before I go deeper into it with him. It may never be necessary.

  He takes the news of Araminta’s family connection in his stride too, barely bats an eyelid. ‘I can’t call her Mrs Minta now,’ he says. ‘I have to call her auntie or aunt.’

  ‘That would be lovely. She said that your dad, her brother, used to call her Min. Shall we call her Aunt Min?’

  ‘Like Minnie Mouse,’ he says and seems happy with that.

  *

  Andrew’s fingerprint people finally finish in the Japanese gallery. They have had to have full access to our rooms upstairs too: to poor Araminta’s jewellery box.

  ‘There is always a chance Mr Samson is still in the UK,’ he explains. ‘And, of course, he might always change his mind if he has gone, try to come home.’

  Although I want Patch to be punished for the way he has treated Leo, the house in general, I have no desire to ever see him again. I have shut the trapdoor of that relationship as fast as it once opened.

  ‘He bought his ticket at the airport – that wasn’t planned.’ He shrugs as if the fact that Patch hadn’t made advance plans to leave will make things better: perhaps it will in time.

  *

  ‘I don’t know why I’m surprised,’ I say to Araminta after Andrew has gone. ‘Every man I’ve ever loved has run away.’ I stare down at the grey cobwebs clinging to the legs of the bench outside. Araminta is snipping at the unruly grass with a pair of kitchen scissors.

  ‘Suicide, archaeological digs, fucking Thailand or wherever. It’s all the same. Do all men run away?’ It’s a rhetorical question and I don’t expect her to answer.

  ‘My grandfather suffered because he didn’t run away,’ she says quietly. ‘He stayed and did everything he thought was expected of him. That didn’t help anyone either.’

  And then she hugs me. Bends her small frame – small like Richard and Leo, I see now – and curls her thin arms around me. I press my face against her jumper, stretch my hands up to hug her back. I am not alone and nor is she – anymore.

  Leo is over at the pond, trailing his fingers in the green water. The orange back of a fish swells to the surface, a flash, a gift.

  ‘What did you talk to your solicitor about?’ I need to know. We cannot pretend that it didn’t happen.

  ‘I have a trust fund: a stipend that pays out from my grandfather’s estate. I wanted to see if it could be cashed in: if we could use it as a lump sum to keep the museum going for longer.’

  So simple. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because I promised him.’ It’s the tiny sad answer to so much.

  My heart aches for what she has sacrificed on the altar of familial duty.

  ‘If I’d told you, you would start to unravel the family connection, inevitably. I went to see Myles too – the trustee who died – he was the only one to know who I am. My grandfather trusted him implicitly.’

  There is so much time we need to make up.

  Leo looks back at me from the edge of the pond. ‘Not all men run away, Mummy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What you said to Mrs Minta, t
o Aunt Min, I mean. About Daddy and Simon. And fucking Thailand.’

  I am stunned into silence, overwhelmed by guilt. These men left me, not Leo. This is not his axe to grind: he is, literally, the collateral damage in a world that hurtles past without sympathy and he was never supposed to hear me say that.

  ‘I didn’t run away. I never have, and I’m a man. I didn’t run away in the fire and I’ll never run away when I’m married to Sophie.’ And then he adds, quickly, ‘When I’m older, when we want to get married.’ He bangs his hands onto his thighs, just once, loud in the still air. ‘But I didn’t run away so you’re not right.’

  I have never been so glad to be wrong.

  *

  Later, when I am sitting in my room processing all of this information: reframing my place in the house, in the family, there is the familiar gentle knock on my door – too soft to be Leo, it can only be Araminta.

  ‘Come in,’ I call.

  She turns the door knob slowly and seeps into the room like a ghost. ‘Can I talk to you?’ She gives me a half-smile.

  ‘More?’ I smile as I say it. My privacy – my contemplation – has lasted little more than an hour but I don’t mind.

  ‘There is more, but I want you to be certain of the context. Sure that you understand that no one meant any of this, especially not my grandparents.’

  She sits on the windowseat, her hands on her knees. There is a diamond ring on the ring finger of her right hand, her wedding finger is bare. ‘My father loved Richard and me,’ she says. ‘And he adored Colonel Hugo. But some things are bigger than rational thought, than what we want. What Geoffrey did was terrible, absolutely broke his father’s heart, but he was in over his head. As Andrew said, every man has his price.’

  And then I remember the white envelopes fluttering from the chimney, the bailiffs at the door, the horror of watching the postman walk up the path with more and more bills and last chances.

  ‘Richard spent all our money. That’s how we lost our house.’ It is my turn to whisper. ‘He took out loans, a few thousand here, some hundred there. I never knew what he did with the money. I suppose it was a genetic trait.’ Gambling was the most likely thing Simon and I had decided at the time. Online gambling was starting to be recognised as the pernicious danger it is, and we could only conclude that the long hours Richard spent on the computer, locked away, were evidence of another – secret – part of him, a part he couldn’t share with either of us. A part that consumed him.