Summer Cannibals

by Melanie Hobson

  Ordering Chinese in for dinner was Jax’s idea but no one objected, least of all Georgina. Everything ached, and she was happy to pass the cooking chore to someone else. David, with his usual sigh of persecution, gave his credit card over but refused to cover the tip. To pay for everything. And when a teen arrived with the cartons of food and, when instructed to, brought them through the house and set them sullenly on the kitchen island, and when Georgina gave the boy cash for his efforts and when, without even looking at the amount, he shoved the bills into his back pocket and left without saying anything, David felt entirely justified when he proclaimed:

  Owner’s son. Being taught a thing or two.

  As if this was a lesson to them.

  But his family was already filling their plates with food, unwilling to acknowledge whatever the moral was he was trying to illuminate. Even Pippa was there, scooping food onto her plate and following the others out to the porch where they would all sit in the failing light of day’s end and, because of the informality of eating on their laps and tucking their feet up on the wicker furniture, not have to talk. Not have to do anything except eat and get more, and eat again. Settle back deep into their weariness to convalesce.

  Saturday

  11

  The next morning they came not as you would think, in a group, but as a trickle. No fanfare preceded their taking of the grounds, and at first Georgina thought those flashes of colour were birds or fantastic butterflies until she saw one, intact, in the clearing near the obelisk fountain. A man, wearing Bermuda shorts and a brightly patterned shirt, dipping his hand into the water and rubbing it across the base of his neck. She watched him bend right down, like an ibis. Like those toys they’d had as kids, perched on the edge of their drinking glasses, counterweighted geegaws with a top hat. Was he drinking it? Surely he realized the water was recirculated, not potable. That it was just another pretty feature of the garden. That there wasn’t a natural water source for miles.

  David had seen them too, through the window. Looking up from his accounts to rest his eyes on all his staggering achievements outside, he had seen, instead, the affront of their presence there—he looked at his watch—two hours ahead of schedule. He wasn’t even dressed. He was still drinking his second cup of tea and his wife was still in bed—none of the refreshments were ready—and he’d planned on doing a final check of all the paths to make sure there weren’t still piles of weeds or trimmings to clear away. Tearing out of the living room, he wrenched the front door, not even pausing to close it, just letting it hang open like an invitation to come in. His footsteps were quick as a horse in harness and became a canter when he began to see even more people drifting between flower beds, their heads intermittently visible above rose bushes, on the far side of the tennis court between the clematis, or standing up after having crouched to examine something in the herbaceous border … they were everywhere and nowhere, like hummingbirds. A swarm. An infestation.

  Excuse me, David called out imperiously to a figure crossing the driveway thirty feet ahead, because this would never do. These people must be reined in and organized so he could give the talk he’d prepared and take them through the garden himself. It was vital they followed a certain order when viewing the grounds or they’d miss the whole ruddy point of them. Miss the sheer brilliance of what he’d scraped from the earth with his own bare hands and fashioned into the all-important fretwork that elevated him from simple county seat to principality. This wasn’t just a garden, he thought, spitting and indignant. He must make them understand that it was a meticulously crafted symphony like none they’d ever experienced.

  But the woman didn’t even falter. She just walked into the cover of the rhododendrons as if David wasn’t there, and so stealthily that when he got to the place where she’d disappeared there was no sign of her. Not even a leaf quivering. He looked around wildly but he could see nothing that resembled authority. No bus idling on the lane, its driver paid to wait, or man at the gate counting heads … no one at all to unleash his anger on. It was as though the people were materializing out of the soil because as he stood, and spun, unsure how to proceed, David spied increasing numbers of them but none of them close enough to take hold of and shake.

  Margaret, he thought bitterly. She’s changed the start time and not told me.

  And then he saw, ducking into the lilac copse and within shouting distance, a couple who’d clearly seen him too because he recognized their movements from his own children: subterfuge and deceit. They were running away from him.

  Oi!

  He strode after them, but when he got there, the only figure beneath the arching lilacs was the life-sized statue of Aphrodite he’d placed there years ago like a private viewing booth. And she, of course, would never speak to him. Couldn’t tell him what was happening, or where they’d gone or what they’d been conspiring about with their heads tipped together as they scurried out of sight. He peered out into the sunlit spaces and wondered, for an instant, if he’d imagined the couple … but then he saw a black rectangle moving across the lawn, followed by the white triangle of a woman’s skirt. They were heading for the terrace.

  Party crashers. Philistines. Uncultured barbarians, just here for the food.

  You there!

  He followed the mulched path out of the copse and charged directly across the lawn to the shaded terrace, which was, he couldn’t help noticing, resplendent with the hydrangeas he’d planted in front of it. Hydrangea aspera subsp. sargentiana—each purple bloom a triumph. They’d been a special order he’d coaxed to maturity, thirty-one of them planted like an elongated bolster of richness and texture to soften the terrace’s low wall where it met the grass. Over the years he’d probably replaced every plant at least once until he’d chanced on individual ones that were hardy enough to withstand the brutal winters in that exposed location, but it had been worth it because there, in front of him, were the results. His perseverance, he believed, had blended with the root stock to make them invincible in their splendour. And even in his current predicament, he couldn’t help feeling a flush of pride.

  David’s slippers and the hem of his dressing gown were becoming saturated with dew and he had a moment where he felt ridiculous, out there on the lawn in his pyjamas, but his anger quickly stifled that and instead he thought if he could just catch one of them he could get to the bottom of what was happening. He still had time to make it right. But when he gained the terrace and found it empty, David knew he’d been wrong about that couple. Their evasive manoeuvres smacked of strategy.

  This is an attack, he thought. Not an impulsive jaunt. And they’ve caught us by surprise.

  As he stood on the terrace, at the top of its wide granite steps, something else caught his attention. His wife, waving frantically from one of their bedroom windows on the second floor. David dropped his eyes, intent on ignoring her, even when she rapped on the glass so hard he thought she’d break it and her sharp little fist would come through to try for him. Whatever it was it could wait because he blamed her for all of this, and he’d be buggered if he’d give her the satisfaction of seeing his distress.

  Georgina stepped out of the house just then, opening her mouth to speak.

  Not now, David snapped at her, flapping a hand, hurrying down the other set of steps that led through the yew hedge and into the formal white garden. Thinking that surely the man’s black shirt would be obvious here, even if the woman blended with the garden’s theme. But this garden was empty too, only the Lutyens bench at one end and the twelve-foot-high hedges pruned into battlements surrounding the partitioned flower beds. Each of the four sides had openings tunnelled into the yews, and David hesitated, unsure which way he should go, listening for some kind of clue, but this garden was so secluded and well muffled that all he could hear was his own laboured breathing.

  Dad, Georgina called out from the terrace, putting her head through the hedge.

  And then the rapping again, on an upstairs window.

  What is it?<
br />
  He spat the words out, flame and sparks.

  There’s a phone call for you.

  Can’t you take a message?

  He turned to look at this eldest daughter who didn’t have the sense to realize what a critical moment this was, and then up at his wife who was hovering at their bathroom window now—thinking that the apple doesn’t fall far from the fucking tree.

  It’s the tour leader, Georgina said flatly. On the phone. In the kitchen.

  Well why didn’t you say so, David huffed, as he hurried onto the terrace and past his daughter and through the entire length of the house as if it were only a long corridor littered with obstacles. His slippers leaving wet grassy smudges on the oak floors.

  He picked up the receiver. Yes, he said. Dr. Blackford here.

  By the time Georgina arrived back in the kitchen the conversation was over and her father was standing there next to the laundry chute door, next to the wall-mounted phone, next to the drawers with the cutlery and the everyday napkins trying, just trying, to take it in.

  The bus has broken down, he said. So he has sent the group on ahead, by foot, while he waits for another to be brought in.

  How long will that take?

  Hours, David said. It will take—hours.

  He looked out the nearest window, to the pool with its effusive plantings, and saw a neon orange baseball cap moving just above the greenery. He shuddered. A baseball cap.

  Hours, he repeated quietly to himself. And they will trample everything. This was the second garden on their schedule, he said, but because the bus broke down within walking distance of it they …

  This was not how it was supposed to go. Not at all what he’d planned.

  Darling, Margaret said silkily from the kitchen doorway where she’d been standing, waiting for the perfect moment to drop the nasty little cherry bomb she’d been readying. There is a very young couple back in the topiary, undressing one another. Clear as day. I did try to tell you, she said.

  Margaret knew exactly what she was doing. Her husband’s mood, ever since word of Pippa coming home, had been intensifying, and she was well aware of what it would take to bring it back down. Knew that when there was too much happening all at the same time, it challenged David’s belief that he was in control. Typically, Margaret would bear the brunt of his mania in order to keep the household together. She’d lie down and take the blows he needed to land to feel powerful again, but with Pippa—. Now she wouldn’t be as available for that. All her focus needed to be on Pippa, and she couldn’t afford to be sidelined by one of his bouts of insecurity.

  It was a half-formed thought, an instinct more than anything, but she knew her husband’s fondness for pretty girls, and if she could just set him on a course for the one who’d presented herself so unexpectedly—a golden opportunity—he might just direct his fury there and spare the rest of them. Leave them to get on with the matter at hand, which wasn’t his crack-up of a tour but the very real crisis of Pippa in jeopardy.

  12

  Actual figures—people, animals, fantastical beasts—escaped him. The best David could do was shapes, and so the topiary garden he’d created was a geometric confection in all the shades of green, from the lime of boxwood to the malachite of arborvitae. And because of that the two people at the centre of it, partially shielded by the extravagantly tapering spiral of an Alberta spruce, were immediately obvious even from the second-floor window where David had gone, at his wife’s urging, to see for himself. Their skin gleamed like Pentelic marble and they were as lusty and swollen as the plantings were chiselled. Their movements—jerky and quick—gave away what they were doing and so David, taking in this new outrage, turned for the stairs and returned to the terrace. Once outside he slowed, but he needn’t have, because the couple was too engaged to notice anything beyond each other’s bodies. He watched, mesmerized, trying to work out the details of how they were fitted together. Focusing, finally, on the orbs of the girl’s breasts, which—bent over as she was—seemed much too big and too round to go with those narrow shoulders and the winsome face turned up and slightly to one side, as if she were trying to see who was behind her. And then David realized the man was pulling her, his hand grasping her hair. Rough. He recognized that desire to dominate.

  He must have lurched or cried out, because they saw him then and dropped out of sight and all that was left was the garden and that same perfect scene he’d looked at a million times but which was now, suddenly, not nearly enough. David descended onto the pathway and waded in among the topiary, looking for them, unable to stop himself, the garden’s horde of marauders forgotten for the moment as he fixated on this arousing improbability of a young couple having sex in his garden. And as he approached he could hear whispering and the scrape of gravel as they pulled their clothes back on, bickering, and he imagined them blaming each other for stopping before they’d finished. For being too loud or too vigorous, for attracting attention, the man’s voice elevated and angry now and the girl silenced by it. By the time David got to the spruce, the only sign of the couple was the disturbed ground and a strapless bra which, in their panic, had been left behind. Too complicated, David guessed, fingering its flimsy red prettiness. Or too torn. He scanned the grounds, above and between the stacked cubes and evergreen sentry cones and balled holly, and couldn’t help thinking about those breasts that were unencumbered now and crawling away from him. And how deliciously close he’d been to having them.

  He quickened his step, choosing one path after another, but the couple had vanished like fauna out there somewhere on his land. He remembered the white triangle and black square but all he could see were the flashy colours of others wandering the garden, getting in the way. Nothing but impediments now—a sea of red herrings to slow him down. He returned to the slight rise near the terrace and stood there, searching in every direction for the girl who’d escaped him, knowing she should be easy to see in this crowd because she was a butterfly to all those beetles. She was a swan to their geese, and he wanted her.

  No one knew this garden better than he did. He would flush her out.

  David headed for the thickets and groves where he knew the man would be finishing what he’d started in the topiary—because David had the same urgency. The same absolute need to conquer what was weakest. Would have been doing exactly that if it had been him and he’d had the opportunity. And as he walked faster and faster he resolved, when he found them, to push the man aside and take the girl for himself. Take, by virtue of this being his land, what was rightfully his.

  But they were everywhere, the tourists. A skulk of them in the lilacs with Aphrodite, sitting on the bench and staring vacantly. Another group meandering through the cedar boundary hedge he’d planted in a double row for privacy. A few glanced at him suspiciously, this man in his silk dressing gown and slippers, but it wasn’t until he entered the tennis court to cross to the apple trees that someone grabbed his arm.

  You live here? the woman said, scrutinizing his pyjamas.

  When he tried to slip away, she clamped her other hand onto him as if he were a life preserver in heavy seas.

  We need things, she said.

  He looked at her then. The white visor, the frosted hair, the heavy gold Gucci chain peeking out from her neck folds—not a woman to be trifled with. He knew, at one glance, that this woman could package him up and deliver him to hell without breaking a sweat.

  I know, he said, letting his arm go limp. We all need things.

  She moved closer. So close he could see the creases in her makeup and feel the padded points of her chest, too spongy to be natural, against his upper arm through the silk and the Egyptian cotton of his pyjamas.

  We want value for our money. Not—she let one hand go and grabbed a spent bloom off the fence—this. What the fuck is this.

  The word so vulgar and unexpected it startled him. David tried projecting what she wanted him to be—Christ Pantocrator, Zeus Xenios—but it came across as disdain and made her grip on his
arm even tighter. He knew there’d be marks, and that he didn’t deserve this and that now was not the time because he had other quarry to subdue. And so he became, in that instant, an embodiment of conciliation and charm—the doddering lord of the manor, emasculated and ready to help, offering to give a personal tour of all the triumphs she’d so obviously (“and tragically”) missed … until she released him, just enough, that he could twist and be free.

  He darted across the court, knowing she wouldn’t follow, because she was a mannequin. A sheep in wolf’s clothing, a ruse sent to keep him from his prey. But he wouldn’t be deterred. Nose to the ground, he disappeared into the shrubbery to pick up the scent, criss-crossing every flower bed, mown path and clump of trees and even entering the coach house and going upstairs to the low sloping room to look for them among the rat droppings. But the garden—if it still had them—wasn’t giving them up.

  David stood in the middle of the drive, looking back at the house, immobile with hurt that his wife had done this to him. Had compromised the tour and then pretended to hand him something he couldn’t have. Teasing and destroying him in one fell blow. After all the many things he’d given her, she would begrudge him even this. Hadn’t he given in to everything and asked for nothing in return? Unless—the thought struck him—this was a game. One of those elaborate scenarios she liked to build around sex, murmuring the details when he was pounding her in their bedroom late at night. Could she have arranged this? A tryst? A lark? And the hurt, then, was replaced with gratitude at the possibility of that which, in his desperation, became more and more real. Attainable. Believable.