The Simple Rules of Love

by Amanda Brookfield

  ‘Spooky,’ said Maisie, rolling her eyes.

  ‘It's bloody annoying, that's what it is,’ persisted Theo. ‘Now it will look like I stole the idea – can't you see? It removes all the originality from my work.’

  ‘Don't be an arse. Your work will be very original – especially with Clemmy in it, groping your friend. Oh, I can't wait for the premiere – I just can't.’

  ‘Ben isn't just a friend, he's an actor who, one day, I promise, will appear on a West End stage, and the scene to which I believe you're referring was superbly acted by your sister – when she'd stopped blushing like a beetroot, that is,’ Theo teased, deliberately lightening his tone, having learnt the wisdom of keeping his natural arrogance in check.

  ‘I did not blush.’

  ‘You did, babe, just a tiny bit,’ put in Jonny, poking her in the ribs.

  ‘Supermarket!’ shrieked Maisie, pointing ahead. ‘We must stop and buy loads of food. Then Mum can't mind us coming, can she?’

  ‘Oh, God, so she is going to mind,’ groaned Julian, the tyres squeaking as he swerved across the road towards the entrance.

  Half an hour later the five, laden with bulging plastic bags, stood gazing disconsolately into the boot, which was small and already crammed with their luggage. ‘We'll have to keep this stuff on our laps,’ declared Maisie, over her companions' groans. ‘It's not far now and Julian's going to drive really fast, aren't you, Jules?’

  ‘Yeah. Anything for you, girl,’ murmured Julian, bending down to kiss her lips, his floppy fair hair falling into her eyes.

  ‘Blimey, who's glued now?’ moaned Clem. ‘Cut it out, you two, or we'll never get there.’

  ‘Hear hear,’ added Theo. The circulation had returned to his legs but he was feeling more and more like the proverbial gooseberry. So much so that even the thought of seeing the hapless and still resentful Ed was comforting. ‘Speaking as a director, you two would only get five out of ten for that effort anyway – not enough passion.’

  ‘Fuck off, Theo, said Maisie, happily, disentangling herself. ‘Here, give me some of those bags – I can wedge them round my feet.’

  ‘Maybe we should call,’ ventured Julian, once they were on their way again, ‘I mean, you've seen Meet the Parents, haven't you?’

  ‘Oh, shut up and drive. You'll love them. They'll love you. I want to surprise them – like I did in Italy. That was so cool. They were expecting us tomorrow anyway for the dress fittings, remember, so it's not like they're going to die of shock.’

  If Ed hadn't been parking his bike in the side alley between the Rising Sun and the cottage next door, he might, had he recognized the heads in the car, have been able to flag the party down and offer a warning as to the number and precarious mental states of the adults on whom they were about to descend. As it was, Julian was soon bumping too fast over the pot-holes in the lane, denting the car's undercarriage in several places, then turning into the drive and asking where on earth he was supposed to park among so many vehicles.

  ‘Blimey! Everybody's here,’ exclaimed Clem, as they all peered out of their windows. ‘Aunt Cassie must have come early too. And that's your dad's car, isn't it, Theo? I didn't know he needed a dress fitting.’

  Having observed the arrival through the kitchen window, Pamela hurried off in search of Serena, trying first her studio and then the bottom section of the garden, where she found her daughter-in-law wielding shears among the thickets of brambles that – thanks to Sid's increasing absenteeism – were now invading several of the perimeter flowerbeds.

  ‘The girls – really? How lovely,’ exclaimed Serena, putting down the shears and pulling off her gardening gloves.

  ‘Yes, dear, but none of them knows, do they? And Theo is with them and he doesn't know either – and Peter is here, after all, isn't he? And there are two young men with them as well.’

  ‘Peter is out for a walk,’ said Serena, paling as the gravity of the situation dawned. ‘He took Poppy down to the copse.’ She squinted across the field where the cluster of trees were more purple than grey in the sharp autumn light. ‘And as for the girls – oh, no.’ She slapped her hand to her mouth. ‘It's Thursday, isn't it?’

  ‘Yes, dear, why?’

  ‘They were due tomorrow anyway for their fittings – the bridesmaid dresses.’ She stuffed the gloves into the pocket of her anorak and began to run, calling over her shoulder, ‘I must get to them before they see Cassie – warn them.’

  She was within yards of the house when the group appeared round the corner, clutching holdalls and plastic bags, all jostling each other, laughing, exuberant and beautiful. Serena paused to consider what a welcome sight they were: the house, like a morgue for two days, would come alive in a way that it hadn't for months. As she opened her mouth to greet them, Cassie stepped out from the drawing room into the cloisters. In that instant, as if in a clumsily staged drama, Poppy appeared and bounced up to them, followed, rather less enthusiastically, by Peter, who stopped and did not speak.

  ‘Dad.’ Theo smiled uncertainly. There was something untoward in the weird state of suspension that had overcome the household.

  ‘I told you,’ hissed Julian, nudging Maisie with one of the bags.

  ‘Hi, everyone,’ said Maisie, her voice a little shrill. ‘We thought we'd surprise you… You wanted us tomorrow anyway to try on the dresses, didn't you?’ She had addressed Cassie, but looked in some perplexity at her mother. ‘And this is Julian, and, well, you know Jonny, don't you, and Theo was at a loose end and – Mum, is everything okay?’

  ‘Of course, darling,’ murmured Serena, coming to her senses and hurrying towards her.

  ‘The thing is, girls,’ said Cassie, too loudly, ‘I'm not getting married any more. And I don't know if Stephen is alive.’ She burst into tears and stumbled back into the house.

  ‘And I,’ said Peter, his voice thick, ‘need to talk to you alone for a moment, Theo – that is, if you wouldn't mind.’

  ‘Of course, Dad,’ said Theo, ‘I'll just put these bags –’

  ‘I'll take them,’ offered Jonny, looping them on to his already laden arms and whispering a quick, ‘Good luck, mate,’ as Theo moved towards his father.

  ‘Use my studio, if you like, Peter,’ Serena called after them. ‘Pamela, could you go up to Cassie? I'll be there myself in a minute.’ She turned to her daughters. ‘Clem, Maisie, darlings, perhaps you could put the kettle on. Oh, and Dad's upstairs, ill. We've had a bit of a week.’

  ‘I think we should go home,’ whispered Julian, dropping into a chair, with a groan, once the four of them were in the kitchen.

  ‘Good plan,’ agreed Jonny, tugging at a string of garlic, then going to inspect the photographs Serena had recenty hung on the walls. ‘Jeez, there are a lot of you Harrisons, aren't there?’

  ‘None of us is going anywhere,’ said Maisie, firmly. ‘We're going to deal with this lot and make tea. In fact, why don't we offer to do supper? Mum would love that, wouldn't she, Clem?’

  ‘Probably,’ her sister muttered, on her knees, unloading food into the fridge. ‘Poor Aunt Cass – and what's Theo done? That's what I want to know – I've never seen Uncle Peter look quite so storming.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought he was going to shout at me,’ chuckled Julian, tickling Maisie as she tried to empty the bags, then hurriedly straightening as Serena stepped into the room.

  ‘Hi, everyone.’ Serena hugged her daughters.

  ‘Mum, I'm so sorry – we had no idea.’

  ‘It's all right, darlings, of course you didn't. Is that tea ready? I've got rather a lot to tell you… You poor boys,’ she said, to Jonny and Julian, ‘arriving in the midst of such chaos, I'm so sorry. We're not always like this, you know. As a family, we're usually pretty welcoming to our guests. And, believe it or not, I'm delighted to see you all – it's exactly what this madhouse needed.’ She glanced out of the kitchen window towards her studio as she spoke, feeling, as she had said to Elizabeth, as if she was manning some makeshift hospital with
bombs landing on all sides. ‘I'm afraid Theo's in for some rather shocking news,’ she began, taking the tea Clem handed her, aware that for the first time in years she was more worried about other branches of the family than her own. Which was rather refreshing.

  Cassie sat on the wooden seat under her bedroom window and gazed out towards the downs, as she had so many times before, in so many different states of mind. It was almost as though they were companions whose rolling grey-green slopes had shared every one of her ups and downs.

  It was a comfort to be at Ashley House. It always was. How did people manage without families? she wondered. What were their safety-nets? Her mother, Serena, all of them, couldn't have been kinder, yet she could tell they thought she was overreacting. Cassie wasn't sure what had happened to Stephen. She was simply certain that with all that had happened that year – Pamela, Ed's disappearing act – he would have contacted her if he could. In spite of everything. Her family couldn't understand, and she could not explain, the set of Stephen's face when he had walked out of the door. Ever since her frightening moment of revelation, scraping their dinner plates in the kitchen, Cassie had hoped that her feelings might pass, like a sickness, that she would wake one morning and find that she loved him after all, that it was just ‘jitters‘, as Charlie had sweetly suggested. Instead it had got worse, the knowledge that she did not love him coiling inside her, like a tightening spring, until – beyond her control – it had burst out, with dreadful timing, after his birthday dinner. ‘I don't love you enough to marry you, Stephen. I'm so sorry. I don't love you enough.’ At first he had been kind – almost reassuring – trying to cajole her into a rethink. He loved her, he insisted, more than his own life: he had enough love for the two of them. It had taken him all night to accept that it was hopeless. ‘I don't like the way you love me,’ Cassie had confessed eventually. ‘It's not what I want. It compresses me.’

  Some deep inner scaffolding in Stephen's face had collapsed. ‘Okay,’ he had said, savagely, ‘have it your way, but you should be careful what you wish for. Remember that, Cassie Harrison.’ Panic had seized her then, riding in on memories of his reaction to her mother's breakdown. If I lost you I would kill myself. She had rushed after him to the front door, asking him what he meant, what he planned to do. ‘What do you care?’ he had snarled.

  So many years together, such closeness, such heartache, such trying, and those had been his last words. Of course she cared – she cared so much it was like she was bleeding inside. It might be the end of his dream but it was the end of hers too.

  Since then there had been no word. Most alarming of all, Stephen's mobile had eventually been answered by a stranger, claiming to have found it on the wall outside Camden Town tube station, a mere seven stops from Charing Cross, and it was early morning when he had left, a mere half-hour before the first of the stuffed rucksacks had exploded. Cassie wept whenever she thought about it, not just for Stephen but for the awfulness of not knowing – of maybe never knowing what had happened.

  Her family's refusal to think along such lines was, she knew, in part an attempt at comfort. The police, too, on hearing of the circumstances, had said maybe it was too soon to put him on their missing list. He would be in touch when he was ready, they all assured her. Like Helen would with him, Peter had grunted, teasing a smile out of her, apparently so on top of things that Cassie had barely believed Serena's account of how they had witnessed him weeping in the drive.

  Arriving at Ashley House hot on the heels of her elder brother had been far from ideal. Cassie had walked in, full of her woes, to find Peter standing by the fireplace in the sitting room, delivering a grim-faced confession of his situation in a strong imperious monotone, almost as if he was holding court. They had all hugged her and said how sorry they were, and how they were sure things would work out in time, then allowed Peter's shameful predicament to resume centre-stage. Cassie, hearing the sordid details, had been amazed by her brother's composure, how he could brief them so dispassionately on something so passionate, almost as if he was relaying an account of something that had happened to someone else. He used platitudes too – scores of them – he laced ‘time would tell’, ‘not counting chickens' and ‘coming to terms' with absurdly formal expostulations of gratitude that he had Ashley House as a refuge.

  Sitting on the windowseat, Cassie was aware that she, in contrast, remained in a state of almost total incoherence. It seemed incredible that the only thing once clouding her life had been the desire to have a child. What did such things matter when a man's life hung in the balance – a troubled, impossible-to-love man, but one for whom she still cared deeply? The tears came again, misting the downs and the wide blue sky to a blur of green and blue. If Stephen had died, how would she live with the guilt? How, for instance, would she ever explain her-self to his parents? His parents. Cassie stood up, her head clearing for the first time in forty-eight hours. She should tell them, of course. And not by phone. All that had happened all that might have happened – was simply too serious. Stephen had not wanted her to meet them, had been deliberately dismissive of the significance of their presence at the wedding, but any parents, Cassie reasoned, no matter how imperfect, deserved to know if something had happened to their child.

  She breathed deeply as she stared out of the window. The view was clearer now but the sun was losing its force. Shortening days, longer nights… Cassie shivered, wondering what lay in store for her, what new map the future might hold.

  ‘Aunt Cassie?’

  ‘Ed, darling, drop the “aunt” – it makes me feel so old,’ she cried, managing a smile at the sight of her nephew's face bobbing round the door.

  ‘Right… okay… cool. Er, we're all doing dinner and just wondered – someone said you don't like walnuts and Maisie wants to do this salad thing and I've been despatched to ask how you feel about it.’

  ‘Oh, Ed, how sweet! You children are all cooking dinner, are you?’

  He nodded, so cheerful that Cassie couldn't help thinking what a relief it must be for him not to be the main focus of concern for once. ‘I hate walnuts, it's true. But don't mind me, I'll pick them out – don't do anything special, for heaven's sake.’ But he had already gone, bounding along the corridor as if the components of a Waldorf salad were his only care in the world.

  ‘The children have been fantastic,’ Serena reported, later that night, in the spare room where Charlie had quarantined himself and his now streaming cold. ‘You would have been so proud. I've brought you a Lemsip and more tissues.’ She sat on the bed and pressed her palm to his forehead.

  ‘What time is it?’ he croaked.

  ‘Just gone midnight. Sorry if I woke you.’

  ‘Fat chance. Can't sleep – too bunged up.’

  ‘Poor you.’ She pushed a strand of hair off his face and kissed his forehead.

  ‘Mad woman.’

  ‘Mad? Why?'

  ‘You'll catch whatever it is I've got.’

  ‘I don't care. In fact…’ She was peeling off her jumper.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I'm going to sleep here with you.’

  ‘Don't be ridiculous.’

  ‘I'm not – ow! My jumper's caught on my necklace.’

  ‘Let me see,’ muttered Charlie, scowling as he switched on the light. ‘Your hair's in the way.’

  ‘There – is that better?’

  ‘Yes, don't move.’ Charlie breathed heavily, moved in a way he could not have described by the white curve of his wife's bare neck, exposed in all its vulnerable perfection as she lifted her hair. ‘Got it.’ Serena remained sitting on the bed, so still that for a moment he feared she had changed her mind. ‘What do you mean, the children were fantastic?’ he asked, more to keep her there than because he really wanted to know. He was too ill to eat, but supper had drifted up to him in the form of voices and clatter, intensifying his sense of isolation. Whatever grand bonding he had hoped for with Peter hadn't happened. On seeing Charlie stride towards him across
the drive, his brother had put out a hand, not in welcome but to keep him at bay. Once they were all gathered in the drawing room, he had delivered the facts of his downfall with almost chilling buoyancy, giving no visible indication of shame, regret or, indeed, of any emotion. Serena said it was probably shock, but Charlie wasn't sure. Traipsing upstairs afterwards, his head pulsing and his distraught sister in the more capable hands of his wife, Charlie had found himself wondering what sort of man his brother was; whether Peter had worked so hard at outward appearances that something vital had been lost along the way, something with which – for all their chaos – he and Serena were at least still battling.

  ‘The children were splendid,’ said Serena, kicking off her shoes and stretching out along the end of the bed. ‘They just took charge – cooked, served, washed up, everything. There were three courses – Maisie did the starter and Clem made a huge trifle. Jonny and Julian produced the main course – steak with a delicious peppery sauce. Theo and Ed laid the dining-table – candles, napkins, the works – and during dinner they were the ones who kept it all going. Theo, especially, was magnificent, not letting any silence get too awkward, making sure everyone was included. Given what the poor boy has had thrown at him today, he was truly remarkable. Goodness knows what was going on in his mind. Peter was a bit subdued and – please don't misunderstand this, Charlie, I know he's having a terrible time, but he has brought it on himself – well, it was almost nice to see him in a back seat for once, letting the young take the lead. Which they did so well that –’

  ‘That what?’

  ‘Well, it made me think.’ Serena had sat up and was peeling off her socks. ‘All this time we've thought we were protecting the children, but in so many ways they protect us. At least, they did tonight.’ When Charlie, who was watching the socks, said nothing, she continued, ‘It also occurred to me that, during this terrible, difficult week, everybody has come running to us. Has that occurred to you, Charlie?’