By the time Keith caught up with her she was half-way down the tunnel, taking big strides and still sobbing furiously. ‘Steady on.’ He put a hand on her shoulder, tentative because he felt awkward and also because, sealed as they were from the moonlight by thickets of laburnum and roses, it was very dark. ‘A hug, is it? Well, that's not so difficult.’ He put his left hand on her other shoulder, then almost lost his balance as she fell against his chest. He patted her back, much as he had sometimes attempted to console his sons – when they allowed it – and murmured a few inanities about cheering up and life not being so bad.
‘I just feel so…’ Elizabeth hiccuped and swallowed, trying to compose herself. ‘I'm fifty-four, so of course it doesn't matter. I mean, birthdays aren't supposed to matter when you get older, are they? I knew all along Roland wasn't taking me to the cinema, that we were coming here, and I was so glad… I didn't mind pretending to be surprised. I mean, my family is all I've got, really, and then it went so wrong somehow – like we were here as we used to be but not here because, of course, the children are going their separate ways and my brothers and sister are so tied up in their own lives. It's like we can't function as a family any more – at least, not like we used to – and then, as if that wasn't bad enough, it turns out you stopped my mother killing herself.’ She lifted her face and hit his chest with the palm of her hand. ‘I mean, Christ, what the fuck is going on? I've never exactly got on with my mother, but she's always been this sort of rock so if she goes and does that, there's no hope for an of us.’
‘Of course there is,’ muttered Keith, uncertainly, glancing towards the house, wondering what on earth he would say if one of the others came looking for her. ‘Your mum just… I guess she just… had a bad day.’
‘A bad day… yes…’ Moved by this ridiculous, kind, gentle understatement, Elizabeth found herself laughing. ‘A bad day… she certainly did. Oh dear… now I can't stop… I…’ She looked up at Keith, eyes streaming, nose and lips wet, aware suddenly both of her own dishevelment and the closeness of his face. He smelt of tobacco and an aftershave she didn't recognize. In the dim light the whites of his eyes were very white and the pupils as black as coal. ‘I am so very sorry…’ she began, then found, to her amazement, that his lips were pressing against hers. Soft, kind lips. She had to breathe, with difficulty, through her nose. Could one suffocate from kissing? she wondered, but she was finding air somehow because the rest of her body had liquefied with pleasure, so much so that without his arms round her she might have sunk to the ground.
‘Sorry,’ she gasped, staggering a little as they pulled apart at last. ‘I don't know how – You don't want to come anywhere near me, I assure you. I'm a mess. I've got two ex-husbands to prove it. I drink too much. I'm old.’
‘Don't tell me what I want,’ Keith growled, stroking her cheek, wanting to remind himself of its softness. ‘I've got an ex-wife of my own, thank you, and feel most of the time like I'm about a hundred and five.’
‘I didn't come out here looking for you, you know… I never thought…’
‘Of course you bloody didn't. I wasn't looking for you, come to that. But that's how it is sometimes, isn't it? You find something when you're not looking.’
‘Oh, God, what are we going to do?’ Elizabeth whispered, wringing her hands, suppressing an urge to giggle at quite how packed with surprises her ‘surprise' birthday had turned out to be.
‘We could do what we just did again?’ ventured Keith, enjoying the extraordinary turn the evening had taken far too much to care about consequences. For those moments the entire family could have danced into the pergola and he wouldn't have minded. It was a long time since he'd kissed anyone, let alone felt such instant, mutual attraction. It was chemistry, like an engine firing, rare and inexplicable. Her age didn't bother him in the slightest. He liked her full figure. And she had a strong, interesting face and the hopeful deep blue eyes of a girl. He took her in his arms again, nuzzling her neck with his nose, wondering why he hadn't taken more notice of her at the party all those weeks ago, wondering too how skin could smell so edible.
‘This is mad,’ protested Elizabeth, weakly. ‘We don't even know each other.’
‘Well, let's find out,’ Keith murmured, slipping his hands into her coat in search of the zip on her dress.
‘No… Keith… I…’
He stopped at once, dropping his hands to her waist.
‘I’m just too… I'm not sure I'm ready… or that we should…’ Elizabeth faltered, her heart quailing at the thought of what everyone would say, all the surreptitious rolling of eyes – Elizabeth launching herself into a doomed relationship, again, with the handyman of all people. ‘I can't help thinking that if you really knew me – knew all about me – you'd run a mile.’
Keith rested his chin on the top of her head. ‘Well, that makes two of us.’ She snuggled against him and he sighed. Outside the pergola the wind was picking up, hissing through the twists of leaves and flowers, teasing at their hair and clothes as if to remind them of the real world.
It was impossible, of course, Keith reminded himself, chemistry or no chemistry. He was leaving. He had to, for reasons he hoped never to have to explain to anyone. ‘Yeah, well, I'm leaving here soon, anyway,’ he confessed, ‘I'm going back to Hull… try to see something of my boys.’
‘Really?’ Elizabeth pulled away, astonished and dismayed. ‘Do Charlie and Serena know?’
‘Not yet. I haven't told anyone… except you.’ He nibbled the tip of her nose. ‘I will tell them soon, though. I must.’
‘I see. There we are, then.’
‘There we are,’ he echoed, tightening his embrace and starting to kiss her again.
‘I was thinking of going to church tomorrow,’ said Helen. She was standing at their bedroom window, rubbing cream into her hands.
Propped up in bed with a book, Peter peered at her over the frames of his spectacles. ‘Really? Whatever for?’
Helen made a face. ‘Don't worry, I'm not expecting you to come. Though I'll take Genevieve and Chloe, if I can persuade her.’ She tugged at the window latch, her hands slipping on the metal. ‘A bit of quiet time in St Margaret's, praying for other people and so on, will do them good.’
‘Hmm… very virtuous.’
‘Don't be scornful.’ Helen hit the window frame, releasing it at last. ‘With all that's happened we could all do with a little praying.’ She breathed deeply, inhaling the dense, complicated scent of the night air.
‘I'm not being scornful. I've simply never believed in God – as you well know – and don't intend to start now.’ Peter glanced, with some longing, at his book. It had been a long evening, a long day. He was in no mood either for God or for any notion that might encourage feelings of divergence from his wife.
‘I'm not sure I believe either. I just want to… I don't know… give Him the benefit of the doubt for a while. See where it leads. Do you have a problem with that?’
‘Of course not. Look, are you coming to bed or what?’ He patted her pillow impatiently.
‘In a minute.’ Helen pushed her head further out of the window, thinking that the air could smell as nice as it liked but it would always be a relief to go back to London, away from all the noise and neediness of her husband's family. It had been quite a night, what with Cassie's emotional announcement and Ed's shameful drunken outburst. Although, as she and Peter had since agreed, it was far better that everyone should know what had happened. Knowing things, after all, meant one could deal with them.
‘Darling, do come to bed,’ Peter pleaded.
‘I'm coming… I thought I heard voices.’ Helen strained her eyes in the darkness, making out nothing but the silhouette of tall trees skirting the fields and the lacy tunnel of the pergola snaking between the lawns like a giant caterpillar.
‘Ghosts?’ Peter snapped his book shut, maddened at her inability to sense that all he wanted was the reassurance of a comfortable silence and her warm, familiar body next to his.
‘Maybe ghosts are just things and people that haunt us.’
‘You don't say.’
Helen left the window open and pulled the curtains shut. ‘No, I mean like memories rather than spirits… images of things you miss or hate or… Are you listening?’
‘Of course,’ Peter muttered, turning on to his side. ‘Memories like ghosts, spirits of the past. Things you hate or want –’ He broke off as an image of Delia Goddard blazed into his mind. A moment later it was gone, like a light switching off.
Helen approached the bed and stood looking down at him. ‘You've been in a weird mood recently.’ She folded her arms and frowned. ‘A bad one, in fact.’
‘Nonsense. There's been a lot going on, that's all.’
‘Yes, there certainly has,’ she conceded, with a sigh, dropping her arms and pulling back the duvet. ‘You'd tell me if there was anything else, wouldn't you?’
‘Anything else? What's that supposed to mean?
‘I'm not sure.’ She rolled on to her back and pulled the duvet up to her chin. A few moments later she was breathing heavily, and every so often an arm or a leg twitched as she reached or ran for things in her dreams.
In contrast Peter remained wide awake. Serena's chocolate cake still sat heavily in his stomach, while his mouth and teeth felt dry from too much wine. Anything else. The words sent little electric shocks up and down his spine. There wasn't anything else, he reminded himself fiercely. There never would be. In the meantime, the evening's dramas had instructed him more than words ever could that the family needed his full focus more than ever. Ed had been banished to his room while the rest of them retired to the drawing room for a much-needed briefing about Pamela and all that had happened. Cassie and Stephen had sat hip to hip on the sofa through it all, looking so united in the face of adversity that Peter wished they'd get the wedding over with instead of keeping everybody waiting until January, when Cassie – if their hopes were fulfilled – would be in no shape for a wedding gown anyway. Elizabeth had taken it pretty well too, albeit with the aid of a large brandy and a napkin on which to wipe her nose. Roland had stood behind her, as impressively silent and composed as a man twice his age.
And now they could put the whole wretched business behind them, Peter mused, trying to ease some of the duvet from under Helen's arm. His nephew's lamentable behaviour had, in this solitary respect, been a good thing. As a family they could now pull together, as they always did in times of crisis, steer the ship back into calmer waters… except Peter could feel something blocking his mind, snagging the mental tranquillity necessary to sleep. His mother? No, that wasn't it. She was frail still, but definitely better, and now that everyone knew, that was better too. What was it, then? Why did he feel so peculiarly alert, so afraid?
He knew why, of course. He just didn't want – even in the privacy of his own brain – to articulate the reason. You have done nothing wrong, crooned his conscience, nothing at all. With which solace Peter slept at last, pressed up against his wife in a bid to claim his share of the bedding.
Ed slept deeply for several hours, then woke to be violently sick. Staggering back into his bedroom, he dug his phone out of his jeans pocket and turned it on. There were seven messages from Jessica. ‘Plse call… love you… plse plse call… plse Ed… I need you.’
Ed knelt beside his bed, clutching his aching head while he tried to think what to say in return. ‘Will call 2morrow,’ he typed at last, his fingers feeling like jelly. ‘Needed time 2 think. Have good plan. Plse tell NO ONE.’
Then, still clutching his phone he pressed his face into his palms and prayed. Dear God, if you're there get me out of this, please. Get me out of this and I'll believe in you until the day I die.
June
Peering out of the kitchen window at the leaden skies, Serena was tempted to hang the photo collages back on the walls and find something more useful than picture-framing to fill her Friday afternoon. Apart from anything else, the grimy grey squares left by their absence looked dreadful. Like walled-up windows, Pamela had remarked, swiping at them with a cloth so that the smears of dirt looked even worse. ‘Maybe Keith could redecorate in here before he goes,’ she had added, moving to the sink and making a big to-do of rinsing and squeezing out the cloth, holding it up to the window to check for remaining specks of dirt in a way that made her daughter-in-law want to wrest it from her hands and hurl it out of the window into the flowerbed. ‘It's a shame the man is leaving,’ she remarked, not sounding as if she minded at all.
‘He wants to spend more time with his family – well, his sons, anyway,’ said Serena, trying to sound accepting rather than resentful. She was still baffled at Keith's recent announcement that he would be leaving Ashley House at the end of the month. Baffled and hurt. She and Charlie had tried everything to dissuade him – more money, fewer hours, long weekends so he could get up north. She had even suggested he should bring his boys to Ashley House for the summer, her heart surging at the prospect of having two little ones running round the garden with sticks and nonsense games, being wild and innocent in the way that only children could be, in the way that her own prickly semi-adult brood would never be again.
‘Time with his family… Ah, well, that's as it should be,’ clucked Pamela, draping the cloth over the Aga rail to dry and then, spotting a teaspoon, returning to the sink to give that a thorough wash as well.
‘I'm going to my studio to put these into proper frames. Is that okay?’
‘Of course, dear.’
‘I'm not sure how long I'll last. It's been such ages I'll probably be all fingers and thumbs.’
‘No, you won't.’ Pamela turned, drying the teaspoon now, breathing on it and polishing it as if it were some treasured piece of silver instead of one of the old stainless-steel ones that Charlie and Serena had bought from an Argos catalogue when they shared their first flat. ‘You're very creative. You always have been.’
Serena nodded her appreciation at the compliment, glad of this evidence that her mother-in-law was in a positive frame of mind. ‘Thank you,’ she said, trying not to track the progress of the spoon as it was placed in the cutlery drawer, then removed again for a final rub-down. ‘And I haven't forgotten your hair appointment this afternoon. Five o'clock, wasn't it? We'll leave at quarter to… or four thirty,’ she corrected her-self, as a flicker of alarm crossed Pamela's face. She'd be parked in the hall by four o'clock anyway, Serena reflected gloomily, headscarf on and handbag packed, checking her watch every few seconds. She pondered with equal gloom that, while her mother-in-law's recovery appeared to have been unimpeded since the disintegration of the family birthday dinner, her own state of disequilibrium had returned with a vengeance.
As Serena opened the back door it started to rain. Swearing under her breath, she put the clipboards of photos under her arm and made a run for it, dodging puddles and dripping branches. Just that morning the radio forecasters had prophesied the wettest summer for years, linking it to holes in the ozone layer and melting ice floes, the changing rhythms of the world. As she looked round the breakfast table at Ed, hiding behind a pile of revision notes, at Charlie, snatching bites of toast between finding his mackintosh and his mobile, at Pamela, her bun loose and lopsided, the powder too thick on her nose, Serena had been unable to resist the thought that changing rhythms were indeed afoot and not confined to the global stage.
Once inside her studio she set down the photograph boards and admired again the cosy arrangement of shelves, worktops and freshly painted walls. Running water, heating, electricity in doing up the place Keith had thought of everything. He had even dusted off a little blue velvet armchair from the attic and set it in a corner next to the sink, the kettle and her small collection of art books. Surveying it all, recalling how keen she had been to believe that their new employee's presence was part of some grand design – a gift – a new integral cog to the intricate faltering mechanism of the family, Serena felt close to tears.
She had composed herself
sufficiently to remove the photos from their clipboards and start sifting through them when there was a knock at the door and Ed appeared, his hair plastered to his forehead, his school blazer dark with rain. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
Serena's spirits lifted at the sight of her son. ‘Darling, you're not. Come inside quickly, you're drenched. How was the exam?’ She tried to pull off his blazer but he shook off her hands, keeping her at arm's length, as he had since his drunken out-burst at Elizabeth's dinner. Trust mattered, Charlie had roared, bursting into Ed's bedroom the following morning, slamming the door with such violence that Serena, standing at the airing-cupboard on the landing below, felt a tremor ripple along the walls and beneath her feet. Creeping upstairs, she had hovered outside the top bathroom to hear the rest of it, torn between motherly compassion for her blundering son and wifely loyalty for Charlie, who never shouted and who would, she knew, emerge trembling and downcast once it was all over. When Ed had shouted back that life was crap and he didn't care, Charlie had responded with a thundering declaration that his son could consider himself gated until the end of his exams. Ed had been sullen and silent ever since, even when his penitent and equally long-faced father had commuted the sentence by several weeks.
‘The exam was fine,’ Ed grunted now, slumping into the chair and sniffing in a manner that, had their moods been lighter, might have prompted Serena to remind him of the invention of the handkerchief.
‘Was it? That's fantastic,’ she gushed instead, tempted to say how pleased she was to have been sought out, even if it was to be sniffed at and given sulky inadequate answers to her questions. ‘Only a few more to go… and the gating ends today,’ she reminded him brightly, glancing with some longing at the photograph uppermost in her pile, which showed Ed in his too-big prep-school tracksuit, holding up a trophy for the camera. His face had been freckled in those days, open and grinning, showing off the chipped front tooth, which they had since had capped at huge expense by a dentist in Chichester. ‘Look at you,’ she murmured fondly, ‘mud and a ball and you were happy.’
The Simple Rules of Love Page 20
