by Adele Geras
‘They’re not proper letters,’ Constance explained. ‘They’re – well, they’re rubbish, really. You’d think people would have better things to do.’
Lou had believed Constance then, but realized now that the things she’d been destroying were most probably Grandad’s. She’d never tear up a message addressed to herself. What could they have been? God, what a bloody cheek that woman had, she thought. How did she dare tear up someone else’s letters?
Lou recalled the roll-top desk in Grandad’s study. Constance got rid of that as soon as he died. I’d have liked that desk, Lou reflected, but no one consulted me. Briefly she wondered who had it now. The desk had pigeon-holes filled with pieces of paper, quite neatly arranged. Lou never saw her grandfather writing anything. He usually sat in the armchair under the window. This was covered in faded gold-coloured velvet, and even when he wasn’t in it, the cushions held his shape. She used to sit on the big hard chair at his desk and they chatted about everything. She would moan to him about her parents, about Nessa and Justin, about school teachers and school friends – she told him everything. He gave her books to read: Hans Andersen’s fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, What Katy Did … all sorts of things. He introduced her to Shakespeare, helping her when they started reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream at school, showing her how scary and terrific Macbeth was by acting out some of the best scenes with her. What fun it was being all three witches and Lady Macbeth as well! He read her bits and pieces that he thought might amuse her from the newspaper and, towards the end of his life when his eyesight had faded a little, she returned the favour and read him book reviews and leaders, and news stories which generally made him harrumph and sigh and close his eyes. Occasionally, she asked him things. He wasn’t as voluble then. It was as though, Lou thought now, he was trying to forget about his childhood. He was, for instance, vague about his mother.
‘Do you mean Rosemary,’ he asked, ‘or my real mother?’
Lou had never met her father’s grandmother, Rosemary, but she’d seen pictures of her in the family albums: a stout, square woman with tightly permed white hair, wearing a twin-set and pearls.
‘Wasn’t Granny Rosemary your real mother?’
Grandad smiled. ‘Well, she was. To all intents and purposes.’
‘What does that mean?’ Lou wanted to know.
‘I was very young when my real mother died.’
‘What was her name? Your real mother?’
This was a ritual they often went through. Lou knew what her grandfather’s mother was called, but he smiled and answered her once more. ‘She was called Louise. You’re named after her. You know that very well.’
‘But she died. What happened to you then, Grandad?’
‘I was fortunate. Rosemary – well, she adopted me and brought me to England with her.’
‘Didn’t you have a dad?’
‘He died. This was during the war, you know. The Second World War. An awful lot of people didn’t survive. Rosemary’s husband died too, and she married again after we arrived in England. A lawyer called Frederick Barrington. He was my stepfather and I went to work for him straight from school.’
‘But what about your real mother? Can you really not remember her?’
‘No, I do remember certain things about her, of course. She was French, though you’d never have known it, and she never spoke about her childhood, as I recall. We spoke English at home. If she had a foreign accent, I didn’t notice it. She was very pretty. Her hair was like – well, like gold.’
Grandad must have had tears in his eyes, Lou thought. I didn’t realize what they were because he took out a hankie and wiped his eyes and he did that a lot, for all sorts of reasons. I never asked him her surname, she thought. He must have changed the subject. Dad will know what happened to her; how she died and what her name was. I’ll ask him. How awful if she were totally forgotten!
Lou found that she was crying and she wasn’t sure who exactly the tears were for. Perhaps, she thought, they’re for me, because I feel hurt at what Constance has done. I can see now how much she must have disliked me.
Stop crying, she told herself. Pull yourself together. She was a wicked old woman who never got over the fact that I loved Grandad and was rude to her as a child. She’s never forgiven me for that night. Anyone else would have put it down as a childish tantrum, but not her, oh, no. Lou could see that this one occasion, more than fifteen years ago, had marked their relationship for ever and that Constance had made up her mind that night and never changed her opinion.
Nessa and Justin hadn’t been at home. Nessa was at university in Bristol and Justin still at his expensive boarding school, paid for by Constance of course. Mum and Dad needed to be somewhere or other and Lou was sent to stay at Milthorpe House for a few days. She could still remember packing her little case; how happy she’d been to think that for once she’d be the one who was going to be fussed over. Justin was an attention-magnet and when he was there, Constance circled him as if he were a candle and she a dizzy moth. It didn’t matter to Lou because Grandad was always happy to talk to her. Constance, on the other hand, usually reduced her to a sullen silence within minutes. She wasn’t what Lou thought a granny should be. She was too well dressed, too pretty, even though she was quite old. You couldn’t imagine cuddling her. She made Lou feel large and clumsy and hideous and tongue-tied.
On the first night of that visit, she waited in bed for Grandad to come and kiss her goodnight. When her grandmother came instead, Lou was astonished to see her. Constance sat down on the end of the bed and said, ‘Are you ready to go to sleep, dear? I’ve come to tuck you up and kiss you goodnight.’
‘I want Grandad,’ Lou had said.
‘Well, you’ve got me.’ Constance smiled. ‘So sorry.’
Lou recalled in every detail the ferocity of the tantrum that followed. She’d screamed and yelled and shouted that she wouldn’t go to sleep ever, ever if Constance kissed her and why didn’t she go away and never come back and she wanted her grandad and wouldn’t go to sleep till he came – on and on, beating her pillow with her fists, and sobbing and ending up with the child’s litany of I hate you I hate you I hate you.
Constance had left the room of course, but not before she’d stood up and looked down at Lou.
‘The feeling,’ she’d said, her voice full of contempt, her eyes freezing blue, ‘is entirely mutual.’
Then she’d left the room and Lou had stopped crying in the end. Grandad never did come upstairs to see her that night. Next day, he’d advised Lou to apologize to her grandmother.
‘She’s good at bearing grudges, Lou,’ he’d told her. ‘Better all round to do what’s needed to keep the peace. Go on, tell her you’re sorry.’
Lou went. She never told Grandad what Constance had said the previous night. When she’d said it, Lou hadn’t quite understood it, but she thought about it afterwards and realized that it was her grandmother’s version of and I hate you too, so there, but put in a more grown-up way. I don’t expect she really meant it, Lou told herself as she went to find Constance. No one hates their grandchild, do they?
She’d had to ask Miss Hardy, the housekeeper, where her grandmother was and she could tell by the way Miss Hardy’s words came out of her mouth that she’d already been told all about last night. The housekeeper had pink cheeks and looked a little like a rabbit with sticky-out teeth and white hair. Even though she smiled a lot, her smile never reached her eyes, which were like small chips of ice: very pale blue and chilly.
‘She’s in the garden,’ Miss Hardy said and this time her smile was absent.
*
Lou had gone out of the French windows and saw her grandmother sitting on a white wrought-iron chair, at a white wrought-iron table, wearing a big sunhat. She took a deep breath to give herself courage and walked towards her. The sunhat threw a shadow over Constance’s face.
‘I’m sorry for what I said,’ Lou told her.
‘Indeed,’ Constance said, and
Lou stared at the curly pattern of the table, like a vine or a plant of some kind. ‘Well, I have to accept your apology, I suppose.’
‘Then we’re friends again?’ Lou asked.
‘We’ll see,’ Constance replied. ‘It depends very much on you, I’d have thought.’
And that was that. Life went on, Lou reflected now, but she never did really accept my apology then and she’s still punishing me now. She could see that I’d meant what I said, and that I didn’t really take it back.
And did I hate her? Probably not, till now, maybe. I was scared of her, I didn’t like her much. I thought she was bossy and domineering. I thought it was disgraceful that she loved Ellie better than her own son and took her side when she walked out on Dad. If anyone had asked her, Lou would have said she didn’t get on with her grandmother. Nothing serious. Every family had strained relationships here and there – you couldn’t love everyone equally – but hatred? She’d never felt that before. She wasn’t even sure if what she was feeling now could be called hatred. How would she recognize such an emotion? It wasn’t one she’d felt very often. She avoided anyone she didn’t get on with and that was that. Hatred was close to love. You had to be a little obsessional to indulge in it. She hated and feared Ray, but that was only because she’d loved him so much to begin with. As she’d never loved Constance properly, she wasn’t up to hating her exactly, even now.
What she felt was saddened, depressed, and also a little ashamed that her whole family would now understand something she’d tried to hide. Would Nessa and Justin feel sorry for her? Think she’d brought it on herself? Offer to help her? No, that wouldn’t happen. Justin didn’t care enough and Nessa would be so pissed off that her brother had got the house and land that she wouldn’t have the energy to think about Lou’s problems too much. There was ten years between them, and Nessa had always been a little – what was the right word? Distant? Uninvolved? In any case, not interested. Dad was furious. She’d have to stop him trying to do anything about it. She couldn’t think how to manage that, or how to keep Mum from swooping down and swallowing her and Poppy up and taking them back to Haywards Heath. She wanted, above all, not to have that happen. Not to become the daughter who couldn’t cope, the one who’d been abandoned by her partner because even though there was talk of domestic violence you had to see both sides and there was no smoke without fire. That’s what Constance would have said. The bitch. The vindictive old crone. Fuck her.
‘Fuck you!’ Lou shouted at the walls and felt only a tiny bit better afterwards. She rested her head on her hands and let the tears run through her fingers. Oh, God, she thought, I must stop. I can’t do this. I won’t be able to see tomorrow. Poppy – I have to be in a calmer state to look after Poppy.
Lou sniffed and tore off a piece of kitchen towel and blew her nose. It had only just occurred to her that her grandmother’s bequest was a double whammy. She’d ensured that Lou got nothing, but to do that she had to proclaim to the whole family that she thought her late husband’s work was worthless. Nothing. Nothing anyone would ever want. That dealt with his memory too, just in case there was anyone around who might still be inclined to admire him.
But I do, Lou thought. I always have and I always will. As a child, she’d been impressed and awed by the books he’d shown her. She knew every one of the covers so well that she could have drawn any of them by heart. They came from a time when novels had dust-jackets showing repeating patterns, sort of lime green or pale orange or pale blue on white, with an oval shape left blank for the title and author’s name to appear in an attractive font. The first of his five novels was Blind Moon, and that was the one he’d read out loud from to Lou – the one she remembered a little, though the details had disappeared from her mind entirely. As for Grandad’s other four books, she’d never read them and knew very little about them. She went to the shelf where the Barrington books stood together, took out Blind Moon and read the first few words again:
Now he could tell the whole story. He could speak about what happened during their time in the camp; in the bamboo-gated prison overshadowed by the blue mountain, under the eye of a moon that looked at everything and saw nothing; like a blind, white eye gazing down at them all.
Lou closed the book. At first, it had seemed quite different from how she remembered it. She couldn’t find, at least in the first few pages, any passages she remembered. Grandad must have chosen particular bits to read aloud to a child and much of what she’d glanced at didn’t look suitable. It would probably, she realized, be a harrowing tale. She would read it carefully now, from cover to cover.
She looked at the dust-jacket. The reddish-brown pattern of palm leaves showed that it was mainly set in foreign parts. The pages felt brittle and dry and the edges of each one had been stained yellowish-brown from years and years of the smoke from Grandad’s cigarettes. She leaned closer to the book and breathed in the fragrance of ancient tobacco. Then she read the dedication (To my mother) and the blurb. There were several old cuttings from newspapers, carefully folded and placed in the back of the book. I’ll read those in a minute, she thought. And I’ll read this properly. That’ll show Constance. Then I’ll go on to his next and then the others. I’ll read every word. They’re mine now. I own them.
The thin shrilling of her mobile sounded very loud in the empty flat. Lou reached for her handbag and found the phone. She glanced at the number displayed on the little screen. It was Nessa, who scarcely ever rang her. What on earth could she want now, only hours after they’d been together in Milthorpe House?
‘Hi, Nessa,’ she said.’ What’s up?’
2
Matt was driving to Brighton to meet Ellie. He’d been surprised to get a phone call from her in the office a couple of days after the funeral, asking whether she might discuss something with him. He could guess what that was, of course. Nessa had probably got to her and asked her about the will and whether there was any prospect of challenging it. It saddened him that Ellie’s daughter hadn’t wanted to come straight to him. He’d always felt like a real father to her, and whenever it suited her, Nessa took advantage of his devotion. He liked to think he’d helped her and Michaela a great deal when they set up their business, and Nessa was grateful for that, he knew. But there was something she always held in reserve, feelings that she would have lavished on a real father and which she kept from him. Still, for most of their childhood, hers and Justin’s, he’d been the Good Cop to Phyl’s Bad Cop. She had been the one to see to all the day-to-day things that seemed to cause an enormous amount of friction and argument. Phyl had stood firm while Nessa’s rage at her own mother’s defection crashed against her.
Phyl, poor thing, had also been second-best to Constance. Ellie’s children adored their step-grandmother, and whenever things were difficult Nessa had even articulated this by saying: I don’t see why we can’t he adopted by Granny Constance. She’d love to be our mother. Why can’t she? Phyl had explained that Granny Constance was too old to take care of children at her age. This story didn’t cut much ice with Nessa and was contradicted by the fact that his mother so often had Nessa and Justin to stay at Milthorpe and devoted so much time and attention to them. She loved them both but Justin was always her pet.
Poor old Phyl. As he parked the car, the image of his wife, standing at the front window of their house and staring after him, came into his mind. She was so good, so kind, so eager to take care of anyone who needed taking care of that she’d never once complained about the burden of being a mother to Ellie’s offspring. Maybe she resented it inwardly, but she’d never said a word to him and he’d tried hard to share the weight of responsibility even though she’d done most of the day-to-day work. I’m lucky to have Phyl, he thought, and feeling suddenly happier than he had for a while, he found himself looking forward to his meeting with Ellie.
There she was, standing by the iron railings on the Front, and waving to him as he approached. She’d suggested Brighton. She’d always liked the place, with its overt
ones of dirty weekends and assignations. He kissed her cheek and smelled the perfume he’d not smelled since the days when she was his wife: Oscar de la Renta. How strange memory was! He would have sworn that he’d totally forgotten that name.
‘It’s good of you to see me, Matt.’
‘A pleasure, I promise you,’ he answered, and discovered that he meant it.
They began to walk along together. The sea, on his right, was flat and grey, areflecting a sky like gun-metal. It wasn’t cold for March, but not really seaside weather either. Matt preferred seaside resorts out of season and winds, low temperatures and cloud masses that looked like mountains in the sky suited him better than heat. He glanced sideways at Ellie. She was wearing trousers today, and a jacket the colour of raspberry fool in some velvety fabric. Her hair, still dark, was twisted up on top of her head and held in place with a kind of metal pin thing that he supposed was ornamental, though to him it looked more like a twisted outsize paperclip. There was a silk scarf wound round her neck.
Perhaps they made an odd couple. Matt Barrington had never deluded himself. He prided himself on his honesty. He was aware that many people thought him, if not dull exactly, then unexciting. He could understand what had led them to such a conclusion and, while the fact that they were wrong about him could have annoyed him, it actually quite amused him. When people look at me, he thought, they see a provincial solicitor, tall, dark and greying at the temples. The very picture of respectability. The sort of person who blends into his surroundings; the very opposite of Ellie who stood out in bright colours against every background. He, for his part, regarded himself as a bit of a dreamer in some ways, the opposite of practical. Romantic, perhaps, wouldn’t be too strong a word.
‘You look quite well, Matt,’ Ellie said, turning her head to look at him. ‘I was just thinking at the funeral, you’ve hardly changed since the last time I was in England.’
