Last Guests of the Season

by Sue Gee

  ‘Well …’ In the face of Tom’s obduracy, which seemed to encompass many issues, Robert could hear himself begin a number of sentences with this hesitant, placatory ‘Well’. The kettle was beginning to shake. ‘Well … perhaps in a minute?’ He went back inside to wreaths of steam. ‘If you don’t tell them,’ he called out to Tom, turning off the gas, ‘they won’t know, will they?’

  A heavy sigh. ‘Oh, all right, then.’ Robert heard him get to his feet, and then a sudden cry: ‘The hens are out! The hens are out! Come on, hens, here I am!’ He went running down the steps past the cat, racing towards them over the dry ground: Robert heard squawks, and beating wings.

  He picked up the tray and carried it through the house and out on to the terrace, where Jessica, tawny-haired, white-skinned, lay beneath the canopy of the swing-seat in striped pink shorts, faded T-shirt and a string of beads. Beyond her, beyond the lemon trees, the valley’s shimmering light was beginning to thicken and grow still, and the clock struck twice.

  ‘Five o’clock,’ said Robert, setting down the tray on the round marble table. ‘Teatime.’

  ‘Tea should be served at four,’ said Jessica, stretching. ‘In china cups,’ she added, looking at the battered mugs and cheap, thick glasses. ‘With egg and cress sandwiches.’

  ‘I don’t know where you get your ideas from.’ Robert sank on to the swing-seat. ‘Move up.’

  ‘Not from you,’ she said calmly, swinging her legs off. ‘You never notice what things look like.’

  There was the sound of panting and running feet: beneath the terrace Tom was in hot pursuit. Jessica got up and went to look, leaning gracefully on the parapet.

  ‘If you chase them,’ she called down, ‘they’ll just run faster, won’t they?’

  There was no answer. Robert called up to the balcony window. ‘Tea! Claire?’

  The shutters were opened, and Claire came out on to the balcony. Dark hair tumbled in unbrushed waves to her shoulders; she leaned on the stone ledge in her crumpled white shirt and smiled down.

  ‘Will you tell the others?’ he asked her.

  ‘All right. Hello, Jess.’

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ said Jess, not turning from the parapet. ‘Hey!’ she called down suddenly. ‘Hey, don’t do that.’

  There was a scuffle, and a furious flutter; Tom came up the steps, triumphant. ‘Got one!’

  ‘Poor thing,’ said Jessica. ‘Look at her, she’s scared to death.’

  ‘She’s all right.’ Tom carried the hen over to the swing-seat and plonked himself down. ‘There you are, there you are,’ he said to her soothingly, running his fingers over the scrubby brown feathers and balding neck. The hen sat motionless on his lap, her eyes bright and blank.

  ‘Put her down,’ said Jessica. ‘She’s filthy.’

  ‘No she’s not! Anyway, she can’t help it, can she?’

  ‘Tea,’ said Robert. ‘Put her down, Tom, there’s a good chap.’ He nodded towards the biscuits. ‘Then you can have one of these.’

  ‘Can she have one?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ said Jessica.

  ‘Oh, go on,’ said Claire, warm and amused above them. ‘Stop being so snooty, Jess.’ Beside her, Jack, who had emerged from the bedroom, said: ‘Can I hold her?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Tom. ‘Come on down.’ He reached for the packet of biscuits with a large square hand. ‘Do you want to feed her?’ he asked Jessica, as her mother and Jack disappeared. ‘You can if you want.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ She took a glass of squash and sat sipping disdainfully on the parapet, her legs drawn up, gazing into the distance.

  Tom tugged at the top of the packet, still clasping the hen. ‘You can change your mind if you want.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Right,’ said Robert firmly, reaching for the teapot, and as he did so Tom ripped the packet open with sudden, irritated force. The hen struggled; half a dozen biscuits, with thick pink filling, flew from his hands and broke upon the terrace.

  ‘Honestly!’ said Jessica. She swung her legs off the parapet and stalked inside.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Robert. ‘It’s only a packet of biscuits.’ There was no reply. ‘We’d better clear them up,’ he said to Tom.

  ‘Sorry.’ Tom struggled to get off the seat with the hen.

  ‘These things happen.’

  They bent to pick up the pieces, Tom with one hand, awkwardly, beginning to puff. Under his other arm the hen’s head made little anxious darts. ‘Keep still,’ he said. ‘You can have some in a minute.’ He got up, dropping a handful of bits and crumbs on the table. ‘Now … here you are.’ He stood there, red-faced and hot, making offerings from the pile on his large, open palm: the hen pecked, and went on pecking. ‘See?’ said Tom happily. ‘See? I knew she was hungry.’

  Claire and Jack stepped out of the sitting-room on to the terracotta tiles. ‘The others are just coming,’ said Claire, and flopped down on to the swing-seat. ‘Where’s Jess?’

  ‘Sulking,’ said Robert. ‘Do you want to –’

  ‘No,’ said Claire. ‘I can’t be doing with sulks. Do pour the tea, I’m gasping. What’re all these biscuits doing everywhere?’ She looked at Tom and the hen, pecking eagerly now. ‘All right?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Tom.

  Beside him, Jack said, ‘Let me hold her.’

  ‘In a minute. Come on, henny-penny, have some more.’ He reached for fresh pieces, and then he stopped, looking suddenly blank; for a moment his hand hung in the air; when he moved it again he did so too fast, and a glass at the edge of the tray tipped over at once, obligingly, as if it had been waiting for this moment. Orange squash streamed steadily across the table and over the edge.

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Tom. ‘Oh, God, what an idiot I am.’

  He stepped back; Claire moved her own bare feet.

  ‘You’d better get a cloth,’ she said, not unkindly.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Robert, moving towards the sitting-room, beginning to feel, now, a rising tide of exasperation. ‘Tom, do for God’s sake take that hen away.’

  And Tom, defeated, took her, slowly descending the steps to the garden.

  ‘But I haven’t held her!’ said Jack.

  ‘You can come down here and hold her if you want,’ said Tom’s voice from below. ‘I’ve still got her.’

  ‘No, he can’t,’ said Claire. ‘Do let’s settle down. Sit down, Jack, you can do it another time.’

  Jack sat, grumpy. ‘Why should he hold her?’

  Claire passed him the last glass of squash, and reached for the teapot. Robert returned with a cloth and mopped all the mess away. Jessica came out asking: ‘Can we have tea in peace now?’

  And Frances and Oliver, looking refreshed, came out through the double doors after her, beholding the beauty of the terrace and the lemon trees, and tea awaiting them.

  ‘How kind. Thank you so much.’

  Dusk had fallen, the mountains were dark. Lights from distant villages twinkled here and there; here and there dim orange rectangles shone.

  ‘Solar power,’ Robert observed to Oliver, coming out of the sitting-room, nodding towards the ridge opposite the terrace, across the mountain road. ‘There’re only two or three houses up there.’ He dropped a folder on the table and pulled back a chair. ‘You might like to have a look at this,’ he went on, indicating the folder. ‘Notes about the area and stuff. Some of it’s written by the owners, but it seems to have been added to by guests from time to time.’ He leaned forward, and picked up the wine bottle, holding it questioningly above Oliver’s glass.

  Oliver nodded, moving the glass towards him. ‘Thanks. Who are the owners?’

  ‘He’s an architect, I think. We’ve never met them, we just answered an ad in the Independent. They sound nice enough in their letters.’ He put down the bottle. ‘You must help yourself – it comes with the house. The cellar’s packed; I should’ve taken you down there this morning. Still, plenty of time
.’ He raised his glass. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Oliver reached for the folder and flipped it open. A couple of postcards fell out, and landed on the tiles; he bent to retrieve them, cathedral interiors.

  ‘That’s an hour or so’s drive from here,’ said Robert, ‘but it’s rather good, worth a visit. We might do a trip one day, if you and Frances feel like it.’

  ‘I’m sure we will.’ Oliver slipped back the cards. He turned the pages, some typed, some handwritten, others with more postcards pasted on, and began to read.

  Robert sipped his red wine, and watched him: a man with whom he was about to spend a fortnight, a man he barely knew – who, indeed, he had never even met until one Saturday evening a couple of months ago, when he and Claire had driven from leafy Crouch End to leafier Muswell Hill, invited for supper by Claire’s old friend from Bristol.

  They drew up outside a tall Victorian house in a quiet road off the hill. Early summer evening sunshine streamed through the trees; someone a few doors along was singing near an open window. They locked the car, feeling it almost unnecessary, and walked up to Frances, and Oliver’s front door, painted a velvety green, with polished brass.

  ‘All very nice,’ said Robert, holding the Beaujolais, looking about him. ‘A little too nice, perhaps?’

  ‘Stop it.’ Claire was ringing the upper bell. They waited, ready to smile.

  Footsteps came running down the stairs, and the door was opened by Frances, in black linen trousers and cream silk sleeveless shirt. Claire kissed her, sensing that tense and edgy manner once again, and introduced Robert; they followed her up the stairs. Inside the flat, in a large, sash-windowed sitting-room, a tall man was standing at bookshelves with his back to them.

  ‘Oliver?’ said Frances.

  He turned as they all came into the room, but not immediately. There was, for a perceptible moment or two, a silence which threatened a difficult evening, a silence in which Robert unhesitatingly transferred himself and Claire out into the car again and home, to a startled babysitter, supper in the garden and an early night for once. Or they could take advantage of the babysitter and go out for a meal, just the two of them. God, that would be a relief.

  Frances was making introductions: he brought himself back in a hurry. Oliver was greeting them, shaking hands, offering drinks, taking the Beaujolais with thanks. He was almost as dark as Claire, with thick curly hair, and wore glasses, heavily rimmed. He towered over all of them, and as he poured drinks and handed them round he became, unequivocally, the perfect host, as if that perceptible silence had never been.

  They sat down on comfortable sofas, their feet on lovely rugs; they admired the room, with its watercolours, its one or two oils, the windows with the trees beyond catching the evening sun, the shelves of art books, novels, poetry. They began to relax, drinks going down nicely and conversation taking off. Watching what began to seem now rather an interesting couple, in this beautiful room, Robert remembered, suddenly, that Frances and Oliver had a child.

  Even as he thought it – so perhaps he had already heard the noises, quite out of place amongst the paintings, the little bronze figures on the mantelpiece, the low table piled with recent hardbacks – the door was pushed open and a boy appeared, a big, gap-toothed boy in pyjamas, tousle-haired. Frances and Oliver stiffened, only a little, barely noticeably, but Robert did notice: it was, somehow, more than the ordinary mild annoyance any parent might feel when an evening with grown-ups was interrupted.

  ‘Frances? Mum? Can I have a drink?’

  ‘You can get yourself a drink,’ said Frances, and introduced him. ‘This is Tom. He’s supposed to be in bed.’

  Robert and Claire made understanding murmurs – children, hopeless, theirs were just the same at this age. Still were. Tom hovered, looking at them, grinning hello; he made a little noise at the back of his throat and cleared it.

  ‘Go on,’ said Frances. ‘Your beaker’s in the bathroom.’

  He shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I felt a bit funny, just now.’

  ‘Goodnight, Tom,’ said Oliver.

  He went. They heard him climb more stairs to a bathroom and run a tap; they heard him, making noises, go back to his bedroom, where he stayed. Oliver poured more drinks. Frances excused herself, and went to the kitchen; she summoned them, not long afterwards, to a small, candlelit dining-room, hung with green-striped wallpaper. Robert looked at it all and marvelled. Perhaps it was different with only one, but even so. Where did the child keep his toys? Where did he play? Meanwhile, Claire, getting into her stride, was pressing for details. Oliver, pouring wine, and Frances, passing dishes, described Tom’s school – not good enough – and his day: dropped off by each of them in turn, on alternate days, picked up by a child-minder, collected usually by Frances, at half-past six, or thereabouts, depending on work.

  The conversation turned to work, and there, for quite a while it stayed, moving from Claire’s school to Robert’s office, and thence to the plight of both education and housing in the current climate. Publishing, Oliver assured them, refilling their glasses, was not immune, though so far he had been lucky. Frances, too. He became drily entertaining, describing his job as senior editor in an academic publishing house even Robert had heard of, where Frances had worked for a while, and where they had met.

  ‘I saw her,’ he told them, ‘going through the manuscripts of scholars with a pencil like a blazing sword. She sliced their prose into pieces, and handed it back to them with the smile of an angel …’

  ‘Please,’ said Frances. Sitting away from the candles, at the opposite end of the dark polished table, she looked much more relaxed now, as though whatever had been wrong between them at the start of the evening had passed and could be forgotten. But she did not talk very much, and Robert from time to time felt, as she smiled, and served wild rice, red snapper, perfect salad, that she wasn’t really listening very much, either. And although she and Oliver were unwaveringly polite to each other, although it was clear she admired him, that there were interests shared and tastes in common, their eyes did not often meet – not in the way his and Claire’s met, all the time, without thinking about it. Every now and then Oliver asked her a question and had to ask it again: he made a joke of it, but he was obviously irritated.

  Still. The food was as good as Robert could remember eating anywhere, though the helpings were much too small. Much. Ambrosial crème brûlée – made, it was disclosed, by Oliver – arrived in tiny dishes, and he still had a gap when they said their goodbyes, after coffee and brandy on the comfortable sofas.

  Frances and Oliver came down to see them off: they stood on the doorstep with the light behind them, and as Robert and Claire drove away down the road Frances and Oliver waved, then turned back into the house, his arm round her shoulders and she looking up at him, as if everything between them were perfect.

  ‘Well,’ said Claire immediately, ‘what did you think?’

  ‘About her? I liked her.’

  ‘And him? And them together?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said Robert. ‘Who ever knows?’ He reached forward and turned on the radio: late-night Bach embraced them. ‘Ah, that’s better.’

  ‘A man with a definite outline,’ said Claire, after a while. ‘A definite outline and a definite something. I found him a little alarming.’

  ‘Mmm. I did like her though. At least I think I did.’ They drove past the clock tower, and up to the brow of the hill. The evening had grown much cooler, and the trees on either side rustled in a rising wind. ‘It’s going to rain,’ he said, and added, as they turned into their own road, ‘Something a bit –’

  ‘There was always something a bit about Frances.’

  They were home. Thank God. ‘I’m starving,’ he said, pulling up.

  ‘You can’t be.’ Claire found her key as they walked up the path and unlocked the door, whose red paint was kicked and scuffed from years of bikes and banging, calling out unnecessarily to the babysitter, ‘Hello, Barbara, it’s us,
we’re back.’

  Robert, after greetings, went through to the kitchen, and while Claire and Barbara stood chatting in the hall he shook cornflakes into a bowl and sat enjoyably at the table, pouring on milk and sugar, reading the cricket again, while Bach, on the kitchen radio, continued to soar about him. The front door closed.

  ‘I’ve had a thought,’ said Claire, returning. She stopped, and looked at the cornflakes. ‘Blasphemy.’ She pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Heresy. How can you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, folding back the sports pages. ‘Can’t help it. What was the thought?’

  She reached for the cornflakes and took a dry handful. ‘Portugal,’ she said, munching. ‘We could see if they’re free.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ He stopped reading, and looked at her. ‘No, I don’t think so. I really can’t see it.’

  ‘We’ve got to find someone, haven’t we? Who else is there? Anyway, it’s years since we did anything with people we don’t really know – it’s a challenge.’

  ‘It’s supposed to be a holiday.’

  ‘Let me just sound them out.’

  Rain began to spatter at the window, the cat came shooting in through the cat flap. Portugal seemed unreal, and Bach made anything seem possible. Anyway, they were bound to be booked. ‘Oh, go on, then,’ he said, returning to the test match. ‘She’s your friend. All our friends are your friends. Go on, if it makes you happy.’

  And now here they all were, and here was Robert, watching Oliver, long legs stretched out before him, long spare fingers turning a page. He had a strong face, almost a noble face – certainly it had qualities Robert knew were missing from his own undefined openness. A man with a definite outline, Claire had said. She had found him a little alarming. Why?

  Robert was usually too busy for speculation. Also, he had been married to the same person for fifteen years and for almost eight had worked with more or less the same group of people. At home, Claire’s friends drifted in and out, coming for lunch on Fridays, coming to pick up their children after school, coming for supper from time to time with their husbands, the only time he ever saw them. He could not think about many of these people, after all this time, with even a residual curiosity; neither did he, if the truth be told, feel much need for anyone, once he got home. He had always wanted a family, and now he had one it was enough.