Serena took a deep breath and tried again, resisting the temptation to be side-tracked by an attempt to defend their daughter. ‘But Ed's trying so hard. He must have overheard us yesterday, poor love. It's made him finally grasp what's at stake and he wants to prevent it. Surely, if we did let him get a job it would –’
‘– mean we can all stay here?’ Charlie snapped, using the new armour of steeliness with which he now seemed to approach everything, good or bad. ‘I don't think so.’
Serena, who had been clutching a pot of coffee, set it down carefully in the middle of the table, exactly half-way between her plate of toast and her husband's. She felt she was at some half-way point herself, that if she moved too suddenly in either direction, some vital, indefinable balance would be lost for good. ‘So, leaving here… it isn't just about money, then?’
Charlie made a sort of hissing sound through his teeth. ‘Money's part of it, all right, but you know bloody well that it's about many other things, too, so please don't demean yourself by pretending otherwise.’ Hearing her gasp at his harshness, he drummed his fingers on the table and stared up at the kitchen ceiling, as if some wisdom or patience might be retrieved from the strings of garlic and dried flowers suspended above them. ‘I tell you what, we'll put the whole matter of the house on hold till after the wedding, okay? I'll talk to Peter today – explain that the proposal stands but we're sitting tight until the end of January. Okay?’ he repeated, using the tone of one acquiescing to the demands of an unreasonable child.
‘What's on hold till January?’ inquired Pamela, who had been upstairs to get dressed and do her hair.
‘Oh, all sorts of things. Charlie abandoned his half-eaten toast and reached for his briefcase.
‘Are you in a rush, dear?’ asked Pamela, feigning innocence when she knew, from the atmosphere – like walking into a wall – that they had been arguing again. No doubt because of the test result, which, with set, grim faces, they had told her about on her return from Crayshott the day before. And now the bomb is exploding, she thought, feeling a fresh swell of pity for them, so neck-deep still in the crisis. ‘You've ages yet, haven't you, Charlie dear, unless you're catching an earlier train?’
Charlie looked at his watch. ‘Do you know? I think I shall.’
‘Well, take your brolly, won't you? The weather's going to break today, they said so on the radio.’
‘Did they? Right. Brolly… good idea.’ He looked round the kitchen, a little desperately, as if lost suddenly as to the best way of leaving it.
‘Charlie, darling, Serena, this might not be the best moment but…’ Pamela patted her bun, as she always did when she was nervous, finding comfort in its silky tightness ‘… I gather from Ed that you know, anyway, about me wanting to move to Crayshott Manor. I just wanted to…’
Charlie put his briefcase on the kitchen table and turned to his mother, smiling brilliantly. ‘There will be no need for that, Mum, no need at all.’
Pamela wrung her hands, looking anxiously from Serena's soft, concerned expression to her son's tight smile. ‘But I want to go, dears, really, I –’
‘There is no question’, repeated Charlie, almost savagely.
‘Charles,’ replied Pamela, her voice wavering but imperious, ‘you will not tell me what to do.’
Charlie groaned. ‘Mum, the fact is, you want to leave Ashley House because, what with one thing and another, it's been a stinking year.’ He cast a dark look at the old yellow sofa to which Serena had decamped, curling herself into a tight ball. ‘And because Serena and I have not been the custodians any of us had hoped we would be.’ He cleared his throat, proud suddenly of what he was about to say. ‘Peter and I have all but agreed that next year he will move in here instead. Peter and Helen,' he repeated, prompted by the bafflement on his mother's face to wonder if she had chosen that moment to have one of her absent spells. ‘Once Cassie is married, Peter and Helen are going to live here instead. They'll manage it a whole lot better. It will be marvellous for everyone, especially you.’
‘Marvellous for me? echoed Pamela, her expression switching from bemusement to irritation. ‘But I've told you, I'm going to Crayshott. I'm on the waiting list –’
‘But that's silly. You'll be much happier here with Peter in charge, you know you will. He's so much more like Dad.’
Pamela's normally pale face had blanched to sheet white. She glared at Charlie and then at Serena, who was still curled up in the far corner of the sofa, as if she were attempting to disown the proceedings. ‘Do not call me silly, Charles Harrison, and do not drag me into whatever plots you're hatching with your brother. I will not be happier with him, as you so crudely put it. Nor do I consider it relevant that he bears more than a passing resemblance to your father. You're like him, too, you know, especially when you're being obstinate and arrogant. But your father himself is irreplaceable. That I ever allowed that fact to make me desperate – to put you two through so much – is something for which I will never forgive myself.’
‘Pamela, really, there's nothing to forgive,’ murmured Serena, unfolding her legs and starting to listen intently.
‘A stinking year it may have been,’ continued Pamela, ‘but some years are like that. When you've lived almost eighty of them you get to know it, believe me. The fact remains that I want to move to Crayshott Manor. I shall be able to take all my favourite things, including Poppy. I know I shall be very happy there. I want to go,’ she repeated, ‘and will be most displeased if you start ascribing motives for my departure that do not exist. Now, you'd better go or you'll miss your train.’
Following Charlie out to the drive, Serena was almost exultant. ‘You see? It's not us – she wanted to go anyway.’
‘It doesn't change anything,’ Charlie muttered, casting a forlorn glance at the house, as if he were saying farewell to it already.
‘Look, take the day off,’ Serena pleaded. ‘Talk to Ed with me – about his dear letter.’
‘I'll see him tonight,’ snapped Charlie. ‘I'll explain that moving isn't really his fault, that deep down I'd always felt it was wrong to let Peter give me this place.’
Watching him open the car door and slide into the seat, Serena had the strong, sudden sensation of him sinking away from her, like someone in the last stages of drowning after they have given up the fight. It struck her in the same instant that, despite his solidity and wide, warm, elastic face, he was as delicate as she was, as damaged by all that they had been through. Yet the emphasis of concern had always been for her – from him, from everybody.
‘Charlie…’ She reached into the car to touch his shoulder, aware that she was reaching across a far bigger and more difficult divide than the car door. Hadn't he reached for her many times? Wasn't that what strong couples did, grabbing each other, going up and down, like a pair of self-balancing scales? Serena found his shoulder and squeezed it, thinking suddenly of Keith lunging for Pamela in the blinding cold of the lake. Wasn't that what love was? Being prepared to reach for someone in hopeless dark?
‘I'm late,’ said Charlie, removing her arm and pulling the door shut. A moment later he was swinging out of the drive and down the lane, driving so fast that Serena could hear the clunk of metal as the car pitched and rolled among the sharp, stony edges of the pot-holes. By the time she arrived back at the gate a few drops of rain had landed on her cheeks and bare forearms, and a sharp wind was tugging the now flowerless clematis loose from its moorings round the front door.
‘He never took his umbrella,’ remarked Pamela, watching her daughter-in-law closely, as she came back into the kitchen.
‘No. And now it's raining.’
‘He needs you, dear,’ said her mother-in-law, softly, ‘now more than ever.’
‘Yup.’ Serena bit her lip, resisting the urge to say that being needed wasn't enough, not if the person in need had decided to give up. She picked up Ed's letter and carefully folded it back into its envelope. ‘I must talk to Ed.’
Pamela pointed at the back door. ‘H
e wolfed his breakfast and then –’
But Serena was already outside, feeling, as she called Ed's name, as if she was darting between spinning plates, each one losing its momentum and in danger of toppling to the ground.
She found him, to her intense surprise, in her studio, fiddling with something on one of her shelves. ‘Darling…’
He spun round as she entered, holding something behind his back.
Serena, all set to talk about the letter, to say how brave it was, how much it meant to them, was momentarily alarmed. ‘Ed, what were you doing? What are you hiding?’
Ed blushed and hesitated. Then, slowly and with huge reluctance, he pulled his arm from behind his back.
‘A duster?’
‘I – I was… cleaning.’ He dropped his gaze to the floor. ‘It had all got a bit messy in here and I just thought, well, I guess I thought that if I cleaned it up you might feel more like coming in here and doing… what you do.’
‘Oh, Ed, oh, darling…’
‘Have you read it?’
‘Your lovely letter? Yes, Dad and I have both read it – thank you, darling, so much – but…’ He was staring at her so eagerly she had to look away. ‘But we both feel your education is more important and –’
‘We can't give this place back to Uncle Peter, we simply can't,’ Ed wailed. ‘At least, not because of me. Yesterday, when I heard you and Dad talking, I couldn't believe it. I mean, all that stuff Dad said, he doesn't really mean it, does he?’
‘I'm not sure your father knows what he feels about any-thing at the moment,’ Serena murmured, unsurprised to hear confirmation that Ed had eavesdropped on their ugly conversation. Glancing at her worktop, she noticed, with a wrench, that it had been tidied to a state of geometrical order that bore no resemblance to the treatment of any workspace Ed had ever occupied. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you've made it so nice in here. Thank you.’
‘But from what you've just said it's all pointless, isn't it? I thought my letter would help, make things better…’
‘Your letter was wonderful –’
‘I meant it, you know,’ he said bitterly. ‘Every word. I've applied for two jobs already – one at an estate agent's, offering fifteen thousand a year. That should be enough, shouldn't it? If I live here and don't have bills and –’
‘Ed, darling, we know you mean well but –’ Serena tried to hug him but he fought her off, stumbling against the shelves and knocking over a vase.
‘Shit.’
‘It doesn't matter. Leave it.’
‘You can't have it both ways, you know,’ he said viciously, catching the vase before it rolled off the shelf and looking for a moment as if he might hurl it to the floor anyway. ‘It's, like, you and Dad, for years you've hated me for being irresponsible and yet now, when I try, you won't let me take any responsibility either. It's fucking not fair.’
‘Hate you? How can you think such a thing?’ Serena took a step away from him, reeling. ‘We love you. We just want what's best for you.’
‘Well, let me deal with it, then.’ He glared at her and then, with no warning, burst into tears, trying vainly to conceal it with the aid of the duster.
‘You're right,’ Serena muttered, after a pause, close to tears herself, exhausted by the traumas of the morning and her growing sense of powerlessness over the abhorrent prospect of her brother-in-law taking over their home. ‘We should let you deal with it, but… no one has to make any big decision today, or tomorrow, for that matter – even Dad can see that. There's months to go before the baby's due. Anything could happen. We'll work it out together. Okay?’
She had slipped her arms round him as she spoke and he didn't resist. Now, in spite of being so much taller, he was clinging to her, crying too hard to speak. Her son in her arms – in spite of the dire circumstances Serena felt a huge gratitude for the simple beauty of the fact. But he was right. He was eighteen, a grown-up, trying to do the right thing, and he deserved their support.
‘Everything's changing,’ he muttered, pulling free and blowing his nose on the duster. ‘Everything's changing, and it's all my fault.’
‘It's not your fault,’ she said softly, handing him a tissue and tucking the duster into her pocket. ‘Things were changing anyway.’ She frowned as her thoughts drifted back to Charlie, to all the battles still to be fought, and the realization that most of them were probably related, still, to the chasm left by their little daughter. ‘Life always changes,’ she added sadly. ‘It's one of the few things you can count on.’
Outside the rain was falling more thickly. Serena let out a small cry of dismay, then took Ed's arm. She leant into him for the walk back to the house, fighting the unsettling notion that her love for her son and her husband occupied two worlds, and that she was stretched to breaking-point between them.
In the taxi on the way back from the theatre that night, Helen snuggled against Peter, resting her head on his shoulder, seeking intimacy in the way she had seemed to do lately at every opportunity – almost, Peter couldn't help thinking, as if her tracker-dog instincts had sniffed out his reticence and wanted to expose it.
‘So this wretched baby is Ed's, but the Ashley House business is all on hold.’
‘Yes and yes… at least till after the wedding, Charlie said.’ Peter's tone was guarded. His brother had called just before curtain-up, sounding angry and bewildered. In the company of friends all evening, there had been no time to sound out Helen on the matter. Since their argument she had gone out of her way not to mention the subject, a sure sign that she was mulling things over and coming to a view.
‘So we're to become a great-aunt and -uncle after all. Poor Ed, poor all of them. Do you think,’ she continued, after a pause, still, maddeningly, giving no indication of where she thought the new position left them, ‘that some people attract bad luck? I mean, like Charlie and Serena… After all they've been through and now this. It doesn't seem fair. I thank the Lord we're not in their shoes.’
Peter nodded, gritting his teeth. She said things like ‘thank the Lord' a lot, these days, not in a normal swearing-adult way but as if she really was making a statement of gratitude to her Maker. It annoyed him intensely.
Helen snuggled closer to him, not seeming to mind his silence or the wetness of his coat, which had received a thorough soaking in their quest for a taxi. ‘We must do what we can to help, I suppose, even if that means… I'm not saying I desperately want to go and live there, but if it comes to that, if Charlie and Serena really cannot manage financially then I can see it would be our duty to step in and help.’ Surprised that the comment, which she had been steeling herself to make for days, should have prompted no response, Helen lifted her head and looked at him. ‘Peter? Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes… of course,’ he replied hastily. ‘Of course, and thank you. I knew you'd understand. We're in a difficult position… very difficult.’ Peter returned his gaze to the rain-streaked window, thinking, as he had been all evening, not of the multifarious dilemmas facing his younger brother or his wife but of Delia, whom he had met briefly that morning. Just for coffee and a walk. Better than sex, he had told her, during the precious moments she had allowed him to hold her hand. The rest of their time together had been rather more fraught. They had to stop, she had insisted, because of Julian and Maisie. His niece had actually been to her house – sat on the leather sofa and drunk her tea. It was all too dangerous, too close. It broke all her rules. One last time, he had begged her. Could they meet for one last time at their place near the Aldwych – so easy to get to from his chambers – or anywhere she liked? He would meet her anywhere, for one last time. She had agreed eventually and his heart had soared. Another meeting meant there was hope. She might not love him quite as he loved her, but she did like him, he was certain, and hated, as he did, the thought of giving it all up. The Aldwych place, the week after next, just… Peter pressed each finger in turn against his knees, as he counted… nine days. Two hundred and sixteen hours. Not so long to w
ait, he reasoned, although as he sat with his loyal wife in the taxi, it felt like an eternity.
By the time they got to Barnes Helen had fallen asleep. When he nudged her she woke like a drunk from a stupor, so reluctant to leave her dreams that he had to shake her almost violently. ‘Oh… Peter,’ she muttered, clinging to him, her voice drowsy, ‘I dreamt you'd gone… that I'd lost you.’ She opened her eyes properly and smiled. ‘But here you are, all safe and sound.’
‘Of course I'm here,’ Peter growled, rummaging in his wallet for notes. ‘Where else would I be?’
October
It is a bright crisp autumnal day. She goes to sit on the bench in the park before making her way to the station. As she walks things keep cutting across her path – a girl on rollerblades, a kid with a football, a father flying a kite. The streets, too, are busy; a tourist tries to ask her directions, a businessman on his phone bumps into her. She grips the briefcase more tightly, checking her watch and then her phone for messages. There is one from her lover saying: pls call. She looks at it as she walks and then throws the phone in a bin. The station is in sight now, its Victorian arches rising behind the steady morning rush-hour flow of taxis and people and buses. She notices a flock of birds flying in an arrow across the sky, geese of some kind, necks stretched, moving as one towards their winter home.
Charlie woke early with a sore throat. Lying in bed, watching the sun light the room, he fought the temptation to wake Serena, part of him longing for the touch of her cool fingers on his tender glands, the motherly announcement that he was ill and not to move from the bedroom. He felt his glands himself, noting with some satisfaction that the one on the left was almost the size of a golfball.
When the alarm went off he took a couple of aspirins and fell back into a fitful sleep. An hour later, feeling much worse, he forced himself out of bed and stepped under the shower. Planting both hands on the wall, he leant forwards and let the hot water drill into the top of his head, doing his best to ignore the fact that every time he swallowed it felt as if concrete blocks were being forced past his tonsils.
The Simple Rules of Love Page 40
