‘No. Never mind. It's what you feel.’ Serena began to move towards the door. Her breath was coming in odd, heavy spasms, making it hard to talk. ‘You're right. I'm not over Tina. I never will be. The love I have for her sits here…’ She pressed her knuckles into her ribcage. ‘It will never go and I don't want it to. My love for Ed is like that too and –’
‘And me? Where is your love for me, Serena? Charlie knew the question sounded ugly. He knew, too, that with his own feelings in such disarray and the extent to which in recent weeks at least, he had been unlovable, he had no right to ask such a thing. ‘Where do I fit in?’
Serena stopped with her hand on the door. ‘You are my husband,’ she said simply, giving him a sad smile, then leaving the room.
Charlie looked out of the window through a blur of tears. On the windowsill was a photograph of his father with Ed, aged about five, on his lap. His father was pointing at the camera with his pipe, and saying something into his grandson's ear, something compelling, clearly, judging by the alert expression on Ed's face. Thinking of his son's glazed misery as he scanned the letter that morning, Charlie began to sob. Serena, with all her talk of love, was missing the point. He loved Ed beyond words, of course. And he loved her too, still, somewhere within the deep, dark anger that had overtaken his heart. But it wasn't enough, not when it was pitted against his now permanent sense of failure, not just as a parent and a husband but as a custodian of the beloved family home. How had he ever imagined he could do a better job than Peter? How had he thought he and Serena were strong enough? They were flimsy and hopeless, their stewardship doomed from the start. The sooner they got out the better.
Charlie pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the tracing of dust off the photo before blowing his nose. He wouldn't go to work that day. There was too much on his mind, too many phone calls to make – to the Blake family, to Peter, of course, maybe to an estate agent or two. It was never too early to start. And, badly as he had handled living at the place, Charlie wanted to manage the leaving of it as well as he could. There could be grace in failure, after all. Strengthened a little by the thought, he turned the photo face downwards before he left his post by the window, unable to bear the thought of the two alert pairs of eyes, his fathers and his son's, watching him retreat from the room.
Ed found the key to the barn in its usual place above the lintel. Inside, it was hot and airless. Dead flies were scattered on the windowsills. In one corner the crisp white tendrils of a dead spider plant trailed over the sides of a ceramic pot. He went into the kitchen and ran himself a glass of water. Hearing the hum of the fridge, he looked inside and saw several cans of lager. Taking one, and another glass of water, he returned to the sitting room, levered open a couple of windows and sank heavily into an armchair. Lighting a cigarette, he inhaled slowly and deeply, surveying the empty room through a thickening, pungent grey mist and thinking of Keith's brief but intense tenure as the family handyman – the countless offers of friendship, his obvious keenness on Aunt Elizabeth, the extraordinary rescue of his grandmother. It was a total shame the guy had left, Ed reflected, wishing suddenly that Keith was parked opposite him with that open, unjudging look he had, like he knew something was wrong and wanted to help.
Ed belched, thought about getting a second can but drank some water instead. He needed to talk to someone. Not about the bloody baby – he'd known all along that it was his, that the stupid paternity test was a red herring. He had been even more sure when Jessica had agreed to the test, as if she had nothing to be afraid of. No, what was burning inside Ed now was the new knowledge that the mess he had got into wasn't just his mess, that there was a bigger picture, which involved his parents and what he had once regarded as the solid future of his family.
After hanging around in the drive he had gone back inside, seeking the sanctuary of his bedroom never imagining that his parents, who had raced after him when he left the breakfast table, would still be there. Hearing voices, he had stopped at the door, pressing first one eye and then his ear to the crack, his heart galloping. That they were arguing was nothing new, although since the holiday he had thought they were getting on better. But with his ear glued to the crack, taking in all the stuff about failing and being jinxed and money and moving, Ed had realized not only that they weren't getting on at all but also the extent to which he had been seeing everything solely from his own point of view. Of course he had recognized the strain of his predicament for them too, but not the hugeness of it.
Standing, shaking, in the corridor for those few minutes, Ed felt as if his life was fast-forwarding towards a living nightmare, taking the last shreds of his pathetic, youthful innocence with it. How could his parents think of handing Ashley House back to his uncle and aunt, to Chloe and Theo? It was their home, not his cousins’. Even if his grandmother chose to leave, it would still be their home. Such was Ed's conviction that he had almost burst into the room to exclaim it to them; but then his father said the stuff about his mother not being over the death of his little sister and he had backed away towards the landing, heart quailing at how complicated everything was, how connected, and how thick he had been not to see it that way before.
Sitting in the barn now, going over it all, Ed's thoughts kept returning to the subject of money. For all his father's wild talk about failure and jinxing, money seemed, as ever, to lie at the heart of everything. In all their various stilted conversations about supporting the baby, both parents had only ever said that they would foot the bill until he was ready to assume the responsibility himself. So much so that Ed had begun to take this aspect of the situation for granted. In addition to which, he had only ever thought in terms of weekly or monthly amounts, what it would take to keep Jessica and the child out of his life. It had never occurred to him that such amounts could build to the sort of total that might cause his father to move them all to some poky house in Brighton. In truth, he had been fixing his hopes on going away at the first moment he decently could, after the dreaded birth – and his aunt's wedding, of course, he'd have to hang around for that. He had been planning a year out at least, funded, with any luck, via a job at the Rising Sun, washing up or serving tables, five quid an hour plus tips. But now Ed could see that this wouldn't do, not just the five quid but the whole idea of going away. He needed to be around, to earn proper money, take what pressure he could off his parents. He had good A levels, after all – there must be something he could do to earn a decent wage. And he could use his five thousand to kick-start things. He'd get on the Internet that afternoon, Ed decided now, squeezing his empty beer can till it collapsed, start filling in applications. Jessica deciding to keep the baby was a disaster, but he could see now that it was his disaster, not anyone else's. If his parents left Ashley House it wasn't going to be because of him.
Lost to such thoughts, Ed didn't hear the creak of the stairs or Roland pushing open the door. At the sound of his cousin's shy ‘Hello,’ he jumped as if he had been shot. ‘Christ, you gave me a fright.’
‘Sorry.’ Roland hovered uncertainly by the door, still gripping the handle. ‘Thought I'd find you here.’
‘Did you? And why was that?’
‘You left the front door open downstairs. It was banging. Sorry about the test result, by the way. That's really tough.’
‘Yeah, it's a fucker, all right. Do you want a beer? Keith left a load of cans in the fridge. Help yourself. Why did the guy leave, by the way? Was it some falling-out with your mum?’
‘How should I know?’ Roland muttered, unwilling to discuss a subject he had pondered, with some embarrassment, himself.
‘Because I sometimes got the impression that the two of them…’
‘Yeah, but they're not now, are they?’ interjected Roland in a tone curt enough to indicate that he considered the matter closed. He fetched himself a beer and went to sit on the sofa, all the while keeping a wary eye on his cousin, who had lit a new cigarette from the stub of the last and was smoking with the glazed intensity of one
lost in true crisis. Roland, who had come up to the barn with the intention of saying all sorts of mundane, comforting things, could not think now where or how to start.
‘Well done on your paintings, by the way,’ Ed burst out, ‘getting into a proper exhibition. Bloody fantastic. Cheers.’ He raised his crushed can.
‘Thanks.’
‘You just do your own thing, don't you, Roland, mate? Always have, I suppose.’
‘Have I?’ Roland frowned, uncertain as to whether he was being criticized or congratulated. ‘I guess I learnt to cope on my own pretty early on… what with Mum and Dad splitting up and so on, and then Mum, well, she's never been that sorted, if you know what I mean, though I have to say recently she –’
‘Bloody right! We – all of us on the fucking planet – are alone,’ agreed Ed, eagerly, leaping up from his chair to fetch two more cans of beer and dropping one into Roland's lap. ‘It's only just dawned on me… I mean, take this whole sick situation I'm in, it's like all along I've been waiting for something to happen that will fix it, like it might go away, when of course it's not fucking going to.’ He slumped back into his chair and sighed heavily, as if the outburst had exhausted him.
‘I know this might not be a totally helpful thing to say,’ ventured Roland, after a few moments, ‘but… I never liked Jessica. Even when we were kids I used to think there was something… not right about her.’
‘Yeah, I never liked her either,’ Ed muttered. ‘Felt sorry for her sometimes, though that's hard to imagine now. Amazing what lust can make you do,’ he added, managing a ghoulish smile.
‘Amazing,’ agreed Roland, dropping his gaze as he recalled the flick of Carl's tongue between his teeth, the gentle pressure of his palm pushing against his lower back, pressing their hips so perfectly together, like two interlocking pieces of a puzzle.
‘But I've decided I'm not going to let it ruin everything,’ continued Ed, talking fast again, his voice filled with fresh conviction. ‘I'm going to start looking for a proper job so Mum and Dad don't have to worry about bailing me out… Do you know? They're so worried about money that they're thinking of handing this place back to Uncle Peter. Can you believe it?’
‘Blimey! That's drastic.’
‘Fucking right it's drastic. It's also stupid and just not going to happen, not if I have anything to do with it.’
‘Theo would be pleased, though,’ said Roland, absently. ‘He always minded, you know, about his dad handing this place over to yours.’
‘Did he, now? Bloody Theo, I might have guessed. I can just see him playing lord of the manor, can't you, with all his snotty Oxford ways?’
‘I like Theo.’
Ed made a growling sound. ‘So did I, once upon a time.’
‘What he did,’ Roland pressed on, ‘phoning his dad when you turned up at Clem's, he only meant for the best.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know he did.’ Ed sighed, then drained the contents of the second can. ‘And having a father who gives away somewhere like Ashley House… I guess I'd have been pretty pissed off too. But we're not giving it back,’ he added hastily, ‘I can tell you that for nothing. What's done is done. Like Uncle Eric handing the place over to Granddad – that was never a problem, was it?’ He leant forwards, rubbing his palms together. ‘Ready for another beer, old chap?’
‘No, thanks. And I don't think you should either, Ed.’
‘Don't you now? said Ed, nastily. ‘I'd have thought you of all people would be used to a spot of excess drinking, what with the amount your mother puts away.’
Roland went red.
‘Sorry, mate, below the belt.’ Ed struggled to his feet, aware that he was hot and giddy.
‘Actually she's not drinking much at the moment. She's better.’
‘Good… really pleased.’
‘You're not the only one with bloody troubles, you know, Ed.’
Ed sat back down. ‘I know that.’
‘Well, you don't behave like it.’
‘You have to admit I've got more than my fair share at the moment.’
‘Well, I'm gay,’ said Roland, glaring at him. ‘Go on – laugh. You clearly want to.’
‘No, I don't… Christ, that's a bit heavy… Fuck… Are you sure?’
Roland remembered again his recent encounter with Carl and experienced a reflex of recollected pleasure, like being stabbed in the gut, but nice… really nice. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘But I thought you and Polly, that girl…’
‘We went to primary school together. We were always just friends. It was when she wanted more that I began to see it wasn't for me.’
‘Right… I see…’ Ed left his chair and went to open another window. ‘And is there…?’
‘Yes, but don't ask because I won't tell you.’
‘Of course… I… That's fine, of course.’ Ed continued to fiddle with the window latch, fighting both astonishment and groping for the correct response. He might have laughed once, he knew, not that long ago either, when the world had still been a benign black-and-white place, something he imagined he might command instead of something that had the power to kick him in the teeth. ‘Well… er, thanks for telling me.’
‘Thanks for being okay about it.’ Roland stood up. ‘I'd better be going. Mum will wonder where I am. Shall I say I haven't seen you?’
Ed shrugged. ‘It doesn't matter… Say what you like. Your mum, does she know about… what you just told me?’
Roland shook his head. ‘Not yet. I – I don't think she'll be too pleased. She wants grandchildren and stuff.’ He smiled, managing a show of bravery he did not feel. ‘And as for my dad…’ The smile crumpled. ‘He'll go ape-shit, and it's not like we've ever got on that well anyway. He's supposed to be coming over at Christmas… Guess I'll have to break it to him then.’
‘But surely you don't have to break it to either of them,’ exclaimed Ed, grimacing with horror on his cousin's behalf, quite forgetting, for a few lovely moments, all his own worries. ‘I mean, you don't have to tell anyone, do you?’
Roland straightened his shoulders, raising himself to his full, impressive height, managing to look manly in spite of his still milky skin and the glint of fear in his wide brown eyes. ‘But then I'd be living a lie, wouldn't I?’
‘Yes,’ conceded Ed. ‘I suppose you would.’
‘I was thinking of a letter – to my dad – to sort of ease the blow. What do you think?’
‘A letter… Maybe… Yup, letters can be good. Best of luck with it, anyway,’ concluded Ed, awkwardly. ‘And I won't breathe a word, I promise. You can trust me on that… unlike Theo.’ He pulled a funny face and they both laughed.
Ed waited until Roland had gone before he closed the windows and gathered up the empty cans. His cousin's confession had made him feel better about his own woes: it had helped him to see that life was complicated and difficult for everyone. Gay! Christ, poor bastard. It occurred to Ed in the same instant that Roland's decision to tell him might have been an act of generosity rather than personal release, that he had guessed somehow it would make his cousin feel better.
‘Impressive,’ muttered Ed, as he closed the barn door. And the idea of a letter wasn't bad either, he mused, slipping the key back on top of the lintel, then setting off up the path towards the house. With a paper and pen he might be able to set out his own thoughts clearly, explain to his parents how he planned to handle things from now on, how he had never meant to muck everything up for everyone else, how… how he was sorry. Ed stopped on the path, swiping angrily at a fat horsefly as he absorbed this small but awesome oversight. He had not apologized. He had been too full of self-pity even to consider it. It was several minutes before he began to walk on, striding through the overgrown tangle of blackberry briars and long grass, his gaze fixed on the slates of Ashley House.
‘Okay,’ said Theo, scratching the now substantial thicket of his beard, and gesturing with his arms. ‘I want you, Ben, to get up from the bench first and then, Clem, you st
ay where you are, your eyes following him. You don't move, but your whole body is, like, full of the desire to, and then just when it looks like you're going to give in to it you reach out and touch the briefcase to remind yourself of your other destiny.’
‘I wish she could follow him,’ said Clem. ‘I mean, he's supposed to be her soul-mate, isn't he?’ She pulled a face at the boy sitting next to her, one of Theo's university friends and actually called Ben in real life. Under Theo's direction they had already kissed and had a blazing row, an ordeal that Clem, to her amazement, had found rather easy. Although Ben, arriving that morning with lanky hair and sleep in his eyes, wedged among the camera equipment in the car Theo had borrowed for the trip, had hardly looked the ideal leading man, he had proved to be – instantly and obviously – a tremendous actor. Subsequent exchanges had revealed that he had played Romeo for the National Youth Theatre in his gap year and was shortly due to appear as Hamlet in a student production at the Oxford Playhouse. He had the ability to speak his lines as if they had only just occurred to him, as if they really were his own words. And when it came to kissing he had been so immediately intense and assured that Clem might have thought he was trying to tell her something, had he not subsided into his lanky, quiet self the moment Theo shouted, ‘Cut,’ and stepped out from behind the camera.
‘The bomb in the briefcase is already ticking,’ Theo reminded her. ‘It's going to go off anyway, so she might as well get it to the right place.’
‘Victoria station.’
‘Yup – at least, a station, I haven't decided which.’ They were in a small, wrought-iron-fenced garden that Ben had suggested, not far from Chancery Lane tube station, ideal because it was open to the public, yet not widely used.
The Simple Rules of Love Page 38
