Charlie eased his much wider frame into the remaining space on the bench and eyed his brother uncertainly. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’
Peter laughed. ‘No, not at all. Ah, there's Ed. How is he? Has he got any further with his gap-year plans?’
They watched as Ed, oblivious to an audience, ran on to the lawn kicking a half-deflated football. He ran fast, keeping the ball at his toes, dodging imaginary opponents, then fired a shot at the fence. It bounced off the top bar and back towards his chest from where he somehow manoeuvred it on to his knee, then to his foot and back to his knee.
‘I thought we told you – he's thinking of applying to Sandhurst. Serena's horrified, but it might be just the thing.’
‘Yes, it might… so I'll forget the work-experience thing, shall I?’
‘Oh, Peter, sorry, I'd forgotten about that – yes, for the time being, anyway.’ Charlie touched his brother's arm to reinforce the apology, then got to his feet. ‘Hey, Ed, kick it over here, won't you?’
Looking across the garden in surprise, Ed hesitated, then let the ball drop to the ground. He swung his foot at it with such force and accuracy that it landed squarely against his father's ample stomach. Charlie gasped, laughed at his own incompetence and recovered himself sufficiently to manage three kick-ups, then steered the ball back to his son, the keys and change in his pockets jangling like a mini orchestra. ‘Aha… reinforcements,’ he shouted happily, as Chloe and Genevieve came into view, interested but shy.
Helen appeared next, her frown lifting at the sight of the game, and her husband, relaxing on the bench, surveying it. She waved and Peter waved back, motioning to her to join them. As she sat down he picked up her hand and kissed it. ‘Glad we're here?’
‘Of course,’ Helen murmured, staring in some surprise at the spot where his lips had touched her skin. ‘Except that Genevieve slept for the entire journey so we haven't a hope of getting her to bed.’
‘Never mind. She can curl up in the TV room with a DVD while we eat. That'll get her sleepy again.’
‘I wouldn't bank on it,’ muttered Helen, darkly, turning to study their youngest, who had seized the football in both hands and was marching back to the house like a hunter with a trophy. Chloe was shouting after her, throwing up her arms in despair. The situation was saved by Charlie, who ran after his youngest niece, scooped her into his arms and tickled her until she released the ball. Then, seeing Ed sidling towards the house, he hurled it into his path and nodded fiercely in the direction of Chloe, who was fiddling with a strand of her hair trying not to look disappointed.
‘I surrender,’ Charlie gasped, tipping his niece gently on to Peter's lap. ‘I'm past it – way too old, way out of practice. In fact,’ he straightened slowly, prodding at his lower back with his fingertips, ‘I might have done myself a serious injury picking you up, young lady.’ He growled and pretended to swipe at Genevieve's freckled button nose. ‘Damn! Missed! Here it comes again… the nose-eater! Aaargh!’ His niece squealed in delight, trying to burrow deeper into Peter's chest.
‘Seriously, have you hurt yourself, Charlie?’ asked Helen, detecting real pain beneath this display of avuncular bravado.
‘A touch. Nothing bad, I'm sure. Old man's pains, as Ed would call it. Come on now,’ he clapped his hands together, ‘we'd better get back inside – Serena will be wondering where we've all got to.’
‘Because,’ persisted Helen, ‘Peter has seen this amazing physio whom Cassie recommended. I know it might seem a long way to go but –’
‘She wasn't that amazing.’
‘But you said –’
‘She was okay, but nothing special. Actually, she…’ Peter lifted his daughter off his lap, put her down and began to walk backwards towards the house. Tell her, he told himself tell all of them about the phone call. Legitimize it. Make the choice, the right choice.
‘Actually she what?’ inquired Helen, but only half attending, since Genevieve had settled to a game of grass-plucking, yanking fistfuls out by the roots and piling them up into a small messy mountain between her legs. She glanced anxiously at Charlie, fearing for the lawn, and almost forgot she'd asked the question.
‘She just wasn't that good,’ repeated Peter, still walking backwards, feeling as if each word of the sentence was glued to its predecessor.
‘I tell you, I don't need a physio,’ protested Charlie, doing a little skip to prove the point as he drew level with Peter. ‘Hey, that sounds like a car arriving. Cassie and Stephen must be here. Excellent. Just like old times, eh?’ he exclaimed, punching his brother fondly in the arm. ‘I can't wait to see Lizzy's face tomorrow night – all of us here for her in her hour of need.’
‘Hour of need?’ echoed Peter, puzzled. ‘I thought it was her birthday.’
‘Yes, of course, but Serena, who's usually right about these things, says she's down in the dumps about that horrible man Richard. Another birthday, another broken heart… dear old Lizzy. Some things never change, do they?’ he added merrily, hurrying on ahead, wanting to be the one to greet his little sister and her fiancé at the gate.
The following evening, once his mother was safely submerged in a deep bath, with thick swirls of the aromatic foam he had given her as an interim present, Roland tiptoed into his bedroom and pulled out his recently completed painting from behind the chair where he had hidden it. Unable to find a sheet of wrapping-paper big enough, he made do with old newspaper, folding and Sellotaping most of its pages into an unruly parcel, which he then carried out to the car, and stowed carefully in the boot under an old picnic blanket. He knew it wouldn't exactly be a surprise – she must have seen it on the easel during its early stages – but she would still be pleased, he was sure, to have it presented to her, particularly when he explained that, in its unobvious way, it was a portrait. Another aspect of the gift that made it special, for Roland at least, was that he knew it was far and away the best thing he had ever done. More exciting still was that when he had tentatively confided as much to Clem during their brief meeting in London his cousin had made the astonishing promise that she would show it to someone in the art world. She was developing certain connections, she said, smiling mysteriously, and would be happy to help in any way she could. An introduction to the right person at the right time… she would see what she could do. Fleeting and rushed though this promise had been, offered whisperingly out of earshot of the adults, it had sat in Roland's heart like a jewel ever since, something he took out, looked at, treasured and put away again. He had started several new projects since, all in the same new bold style, uncertain where it might lead but wanting to be ready when the moment – whatever form it took – arrived.
Keeping half an eye on the steamy lit window of the bathroom, Roland leant against the car and phoned Ashley House on his mobile, explaining to his grandmother, who took the call, that they were running a little late.
‘I'll tell Serena,’ Pamela promised, before inquiring – to Roland's despair – if Elizabeth was making herself look nice.
‘Yes – at least, I think so. She's having a bath.’
‘Oh, good,’ Pamela murmured, then went on to recount, yet again, the story of when his grandfather had arranged a surprise party for her, for which she had been so underdressed and badly coiffured that she had found it hard to enjoy herself.
Hearing the click of the garden gate as he put away his phone, Roland looked up to see Jessica Blake standing on the pavement watching him.
‘Hi, there.’
‘Jessica… hi.’ He approached the gate, smiling a little nervously, wondering how long she had been standing there. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘It's a free country, isn't it?’ She was wearing a denim mini-skirt, high heels and a plunging white T-shirt that showed off the deep cleft between her breasts.
‘Yes… I… We're just going out,’ Roland stammered, alarmed at the notion that she might expect him to invite her in. In spite of the number of hours they had spent playing alongside ea
ch other as children, Roland had never felt at ease with the Ashley House gardener's granddaughter. Even as a ten-year-old there had been a sort of fearlessness – an unpredictability – about Jessica that had frightened him.
‘Still doing your drawings, then?’
‘Er…’ Roland glanced at the car, wondering if she was making conversation or whether she had seen his makeshift parcel and known what it contained. ‘I guess so.’
‘You drew me once. Do you remember? When we were kids.’ She laughed, tossing her hair off her face and tightening her hold on the strap of her handbag. ‘Wanna draw me now?’ She turned to show off her profile and sucked in her cheeks. ‘I got Granddad to drop me off – he's gone to meet some mates at a pub down the road so I've got plenty of time.’ She puckered her lips.
‘No… I… Like I said, we're going out.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. You're all off to the big house, aren't you? Your mum's surprise birthday party.’
‘How…?’
‘Ed told me. Ed tells me a lot of stuff,’ she added slyly, dropping her head and looking up at him through the curtain of her thick black hair. ‘I want you to tell him to call me, okay? When you see him tonight. Just say, Jess says to call her. You'll do that, won't you?’
Roland hesitated, his mind working furiously. He had seen his cousin flirt with Jessica at the funeral and thought it stupid. Yet if Ed now didn't want to speak to Jessica that was his business and he saw no reason to get involved.
‘What's your fucking problem?’
‘Nothing.’ Roland blushed, hating her fat pasty legs and pouting lips, thinking he wouldn't draw her if she paid him.
‘Look, just tell him that, okay?’
She was pleading suddenly – close to tears, Roland realized, in some amazement.
‘I know you don't think much of me, but Ed does – at least he did – and then we had this sort of… row, and now he's turned his phone off and I don't know what to do and they all like you and listen to you so I just thought… I tell you what, just forget it, okay? Fucking forget it. You can all go to your fancy fucking party, see if I care. You lot, you bloody Harrisons. My mum was right. You can all fuck off.’
‘I'll tell him,’ said Roland, moved, in spite of himself, by her obvious distress. ‘No need to get upset. I'll tell him, all right?’
She sniffed noisily. ‘Right. Thanks. ‘Bye, then.’
‘Who was that?’
Roland turned to see Elizabeth standing in her dressing-gown at the front door, her hair dripping round her shoulders, her face mottled from the heat of the bath.
‘No one.’
‘I see.’ Elizabeth folded her arms. ‘A female no one, by any chance?’ She raised one eyebrow and grinned knowingly. ‘It's all right, darling, I wasn't born yesterday, there's no need to keep secrets from me. Besides, as I've tried to tell you, with your looks, and Polly out of the frame, girls will be round you like bees at a honey-pot. Now then,’ she continued cheerfully, ‘what should I wear for wherever we're going? Trousers or something smarter?’
‘Smart, I should think,’ Roland muttered, kicking at a little twig that was lying on the path, all his pride and excitement at the prospect of the evening quite gone. The encounter with Jessica, he could cope with. What he couldn't stomach was his mother's persistent jaunty posturing on the subject of the opposite sex, all her supposed knowingness, when she knew nothing. How could she possibly know anything when he was in a state of such confusion himself? She clearly loved the idea of him having a girlfriend, so much so that it was impossible to tell her that the only thing he missed about Polly was their friendship, that he would have given anything to go back to the times when all they did was listen to music and help each other with their homework. In the meantime the sight of Carl, even at a distance – across the playground or the playing-fields sent bolts of electricity into his stomach and down his legs. Passing him at closer quarters, Roland found himself literally freezing with pleasure, unable to speak or move. Was this hero-worship? The other boy was like a god after all, bursting with all the brawn and social confidence that Roland knew he would never have. Or was it love? If it was, did that mean he was gay? The very thought made Roland dizzy with terror, both on his own account – could one really be gay and happy? – and because of his family: his mother, his strait-laced uncles and aunts, his cousins… Christ, Roland could hear them laughing now, so vividly that he suddenly envied the silliness between Ed and Jessica, strutting round each other like peacocks, so sure of themselves, being daft in the way grown-ups liked to complain about but seemed to expect. He could never be like that, Roland reflected sadly, stamping on the twig and snapping it in two. Gay or not, he didn't have the confidence. And he didn't want to be like that anyway. He was different – more solitary – like Clem, he decided, deriving consolation from the thought. She was on her own now, she had told him, and had every intention of staying that way.
Elizabeth, to the satisfaction of her assembled family, shed tears of pleasure at the sight of all their eager, smiling faces in the hall, clutching gifts and calling birthday greetings. She hugged and kissed each of them, smearing lipstick across their cheeks and proclaiming many times that she could have sworn Roland was taking her to the cinema. They moved into the drawing room, where Charlie and Serena had put out full flutes of champagne with bowls of crisps and peanuts. Peter, exclaiming at the beauty of the evening, opened the doors on to the cloisters while Serena hurried upstairs to fetch Pamela a shawl.
Elizabeth parked herself on one of the cloister benches and tore at the wrapping-paper on her presents like an excited child, exclaiming that everything was lovely even before she had opened it. ‘For Italy,’ said Peter, when she got to Helen's inspirational choice of a pair of designer sunglasses.
‘I can't wait,’ exclaimed Elizabeth, putting on the sunglasses, and slinging the silk scarf Charlie and Serena had given her round her neck. ‘How do I look?’
‘Like a film star?’ ventured Roland, guessing it was the sort of answer she wanted, then wishing he hadn't because she got up and hugged him in front of everybody.
‘And I shall smell lovely with those soaps you gave me, Mum,’ gushed Elizabeth, returning to her seat, ‘and the picture frame is beautiful, Cassie and Stephen. Thank you so much. And what can this be I wonder?’ she murmured, beaming at Roland, as she reached for his bulky newspaper parcel. ‘A jigsaw, maybe?’
Blushing and suddenly terrified, Roland took a step backwards. Peering over his aunts' and uncles' shoulders and glimpsing his mother's hands peeling off the layers of newspaper, he felt as if some private inner part of him was being exposed for scrutiny. ‘Oh, darling, how… It's beautiful.’ The rest of the family gathered round the picture, cooing in appreciation.
‘It's you,’ said Roland, blowing out his cheeks with relief once the moment of revelation was over.
‘Oh.’
Ed began to laugh but stopped quickly.
‘At least, it's meant to be. All the…’ Roland dried up, rendered inarticulate by self-consciousness. Yet he felt proud too, proud and pleased. The picture looked great – bloody great, in fact.
‘I love it,’ said Elizabeth, stroking the frame. ‘You clever darling, I love it. Such colours… I'm so glad it's me.’
As the grown-ups led the way into the dining room, Roland hung back to deliver Jessica's message to Ed, who was solemnly working his way through the abandoned contents of the champagne glasses.
‘She came to see you?’
Obviously,' muttered Roland, not liking the expression on his cousin's face, fearing he had prompted some sort of ridiculous jealousy. He wondered in the same instant if Ed could possibly be jealous about the picture too, given how the adults had praised it. ‘Like I said, she just wants you to call her,’ he explained, wanting desperately to get things straight.
‘Did she say anything else?’
‘No, I don't think so. Look, are you two…?’
‘No, we are not. Okay? We are not
and never fucking will be.’
Roland watched him stride off into the house with a heavy heart, thinking that being liked by adults definitely had its drawbacks and that he would choose the allegiance of Ed over that any day. Then he saw his picture leaning up against the cloister bench and thought that Ed and the rest of the world could go to hell. He would paint and live alone, he decided, carefully picking up the picture and carrying it through to the drawing room. He didn't need anything but that. Clem was going to help him make a name for himself. Why should he care about anyone's future but his own?
They ate chilled asparagus soup followed by rolled sirloin of beef, cooked to such a delicate pink that Chloe turned up her nose at the blood and was told off by Peter for lack of manners. She hadn't liked the soup either, she muttered, first to Ed, who ignored her, and then to Roland who responded, more encouragingly, with the news that pudding was to involve a chocolate birthday cake as well as meringues and whipped cream. Feeling Poppy brush against her knees, she slipped the bloodiest piece of meat off her plate and under the table, assuming a pose of studied innocence as the dog licked her fingers.
‘Is that dog in here?’ barked Peter. ‘Chloë, is she?’
‘I'm not sure, Dad.’ She ducked her head under the tablecloth, glad of the chance to conceal her expression, which she knew, from considerable experimentation during the course of thirteen years, would betray guilt, no matter how hard she persevered to prevent it.
The Simple Rules of Love Page 18
