‘Sounds perfect. Thank you, Lucy. Now I’ll leave you to your lawn and the rest of your Sunday. Thank you for the tea.’
‘It was a pleasure.’
‘Good to meet you, Charlie.’ Col pumped his hand sincerely.
At the side gate, Lucy hugged him. It was a surprising gesture, but a welcome one. Human contact. ‘It’s a lovely thing you’re doing, Charlie. I think so, anyway. I’m sure they do too.’
He felt tearful. He looked at the roses, assiduously dead-headed and already full of new buds. ‘Gertrude Jekyll, right?’ He gestured towards a vibrant pink climber.
Lucy nodded.
‘A favourite of my wife’s. A great favourite.’
This was entirely familiar to him, these days: his rheumy old eyes filled with quick, easy tears far more often. These weren’t so much sad as emotional. Also normal. All his feelings were so much nearer the surface than they had been during the rest of his adult life. He’d have expected to feel embarrassed but he didn’t. Maybe it was easier to talk to strangers, especially kind, gentle ones, in a beautiful garden on a sunny summer’s day. Maybe he was just too old to feel embarrassed any more.
30
Unaccustomed to waking up naturally, Nick had come to with a jolt, followed by a flash of panic, sending adrenalin coursing through him, negating the benefits of the longer sleep in an instant. The children’s beds were deserted. His panic – swimming-pool – vanished when he remembered the locked door with the digital keypad. His second comforting thought was that he could hear all three of them. They were just outside the door, which was wide open, still in their pyjamas, on the landing with Meredith, giggling. She looked at him anxiously. ‘I hope you don’t mind. Bea came to our room, and she said it would be okay to get Arthur.’
‘So you could have a lie-in, Daddy.’
‘It’s so okay, Meredith. Thank you.’ Nick got up and went to them, bent and ruffled their heads.
‘We’ve even had our breakfast. We had Kraves.’
‘Terrific. Who brought those? That’s crack for pre-schoolers, basically, right?’
‘Laura.’ Meredith looked sheepish.
‘That figures. When we were kids, Laura always begged for those multi-packs of cereal when we were on holiday, then ate all the Frosties. She’s the pusher.’
Now he ruffled Meredith’s hair, too, so she’d know he wasn’t angry.
The children weren’t that interested in him. He wondered if Heather might let him keep Meredith for ever, and wandered down in search of coffee.
In the kitchen Heather was busy arranging a tableau on the table. She had laid a hardback book Nick recognized from the window of Waterstone’s as a recent award-winner across a linen placemat. There was a silver bookmark with a blue silk tassel about a third of the way through it, but she had been reading a David Baldacci paperback by the pool yesterday – Arthur had soaked it, staggering along the side of the water in his armbands. Next to it there was a tiny white milk-bottle-type vase, with an equally tiny spray of cottage-garden flowers arranged in it, then a small bowl of yoghurt, on which raspberries, blueberries and strawberries had been arranged with military precision, and topped with a scattering of seeds and a mint leaf. It was all achingly photogenic, which was obviously why Heather felt the need to be standing on a kitchen chair, taking a photograph of it, rather than eating it.
She gazed down at him as he came in and smiled her wide white smile, totally devoid of the embarrassment Nick might have assumed she would feel having been caught in this odd activity. He felt scruffy in his ancient plaid pyjama bottoms and last night’s T-shirt, and ran his hand through his bed hair. Heather was already dressed and ready for the day. All tight jeans and pink lipstick, with hair that, without looking stiff, never seemed to be out of place. Where did she find linen that didn’t crease? When he wore a linen shirt he looked like an unmade bed. She looked … pristine. He concluded that the linen wouldn’t dare wrinkle. Carrie would have found her fascinating. He imagined that he and she might have been whispering about Heather at night behind the closed door of their bedroom. In a way that, if not quite unkind, they would prefer no one else to hear. He wished he’d looked in the mirror, or at least sucked a bit of toothpaste out of the mangled tube upstairs, before he’d appeared.
‘Hi, Nick. How you doing?’
‘Hi, Heather. Good. I’m good. You?’
‘I’m fantastic. It’s a gorgeous day.’
She went back to her phone, taking a few more pictures.
‘What are you up to?’ She might not feel that this was strange, but he did, a bit.
‘Flatlay.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘This – when you photograph stuff from above. It’s called a flatlay.’
He was completely familiar with flatlay, of course, but it didn’t seem necessary or kind to say so.
‘It’s for my Instagram.’
‘Ah.’ He tried to sound like he understood. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’ He busied himself with the machine.
‘I’m great, thanks. Just had one.’ He thought perhaps she’d had more than one, to have this much apparent energy so early on a holiday Sunday.
She had climbed down now or, rather, jumped down, like a mountain goat, and was staring at her phone. ‘Just gonna edit this …’
He hadn’t asked, but he supposed she just assumed he was interested. Or that she was one of those people who needed to fill silences with chatter, but he liked her voice, her accent, so he didn’t mind. ‘Where is everyone?’
She didn’t look up from her screen. ‘Laura, Ethan and Hayley are still sleeping, I assume. We may not see them for a while.’ Was it snide, to include Laura with the teenagers? He couldn’t see her face, so he couldn’t be sure. ‘I saw your father heading off thataway’, she stuck her thumb over her shoulder, ‘a while back, so I assume he’s gone for a walk. Scott is cycling. And I think Meredith is playing with your kids somewhere.’ She didn’t miss much.
‘There!’ She pushed a button decisively, and set the phone on the table, then sat, took the bowl out of its place and started to eat the berries, gingerly, with her fingers.
Nick plonked down beside her with his mug of black coffee. ‘Meredith, by the way, is a doll. My kids completely adore her.’ He had learnt the power of complimenting other people’s children at the nursery door. It was a highly successful social lubricant.
‘I think the feeling is completely mutual. It’s cute, right?’
Nick continued, ‘She has a lovely way with them.’
‘I’m glad you’re happy for her to spend time with them. It makes her feel very grown-up, taking care of them.’ He’d expected her to say something nauseating about her daughter. Like how empathetic she was, or how her kindness was a gift. This he found reassuringly low key and normal.
‘Well, she seems very grown-up. And it got me an extra couple of hours in bed, so I’m very much a grateful dad.’
‘They’re gorgeous kids, Nick. Adorable.’ Her turn.
‘Thanks.’
She was looking at him appraisingly, but if she was about to say something, she thought better of it, and he was happy to divert her. He’d grown used to people trying to find the right things to say to him, about Carrie, and about the kids, and, frankly, he’d sooner not have the set conversation. He didn’t know Heather, not really – they’d only met at her wedding and Carrie’s funeral, for God’s sake. She’d arrived in their life abruptly, without them having the chance to size her up. He didn’t know if it was fair to assume that Heather would deal in platitudes, but he was exhausted by them, and short-fused about it.
‘So, this flatlay business. Say what?’ He scratched his head, Stan Laurel-style, which was only slightly disingenuous.
Heather giggled. ‘It’s a thing I’m trying.’
‘A business thing?’
‘Kind of a business. It can be a business, if you get good at it.’
‘Right?’
‘It’s using social media to pro
mote things, basically. Selling a lifestyle. You post stuff, you influence other people.’
Nick knew vaguely what she was talking about because he didn’t live under a rock. She was the first of this new ilk of salesperson he’d met, though. It wasn’t hugely interesting to him, to be honest. He’d never been quite clear how it generated an income but was aware it did for some people because others were suggestible. The thought that she hardly needed an income now she’d married his deeply solvent brother seemed uncharitable, and Carrie, with her firm feminist principles, would have been horrified by him saying so. It might, in the imaginary under-the-covers whispered conversation they’d have been having, have earned him a playful swipe. Carrie was all about the sisterhood.
‘I see. Well, good for you!’ Nick rather hoped that drew a line under the conversation he rather wished he hadn’t started now.
‘That reminds me, how do you feel about pictures of your kids online?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, some people won’t show their kids’ faces or use their names, others do. Where do you stand on that?’
He stood some distance away from whatever the hell she was going on about. ‘I don’t really do Instagram or Facebook, all that stuff.’
‘But if someone else were to post them?’
Nick felt like he was being ambushed. ‘What did you have in mind?’
Heather shook her head dismissively. ‘Oh, nothing specific. I just mean, well, I’m going to be blogging and gramming a bit this week – it’s all so lovely here, it would be ridiculous not to. It’s an amazing opportunity. I’m just asking how you’d feel about your gorgeous babies appearing in some of my posts.’
‘I don’t know.’ He really didn’t.
Heather raised a hand. ‘No worries. No need to decide right now. I won’t post without your approval, okay?’
At that moment, Scott opened the front door, clacked in noisily on his shiny studded shoes, undoing his helmet and unzipping his Lycra suit.
‘Wow.’ Nick laughed. ‘All the gear and no idea!’
‘Up yours.’
‘You look like Mark bloody Cavendish, mate. Is that a padded crotch or are you pleased to see me?’
‘You can scoff, you slob, but I’ve just cycled …’ Scott sat down on a kitchen chair, and fiddled with his Apple watch ‘… thirty miles, and I’ve got the heartrate of a napping toddler.’
That wasn’t entirely true – his florid complexion betrayed him, and Nick smirked. ‘I’m just jealous.’
Scott widened his eyes at his brother. ‘Well, we’ve probably got the same size feet, Nick – always used to, didn’t we? You are so welcome to borrow the bike.’
Nick snorted. ‘No, you’re all right, cheers.’
Heather, at the sink now, filling a big glass with water for Scott, giggled. ‘I won’t go with him either. Terrifying. Once your feet are in the pedals, you can’t get ’em out, right? Want to play tennis, later?’
‘I might actually be more frightened of going up against you on the tennis court than I am of Scott’s bike, Heather.’ She looked pleased. ‘I’m more of a slow-jog kind of a guy. And there’s been precious little of that lately.’
‘Offer stands, mate.’
‘Mine too.’ Heather had a hand on Scott’s shoulder while he downed the glass.
The weird conversation about the kids had passed, for now, without him having to answer her. He really wasn’t quite sure what he thought about her, but looking at his brother now, he felt, as he had yesterday, a stab of pure envy so sharp it was almost like a physical blow. The casual touch. The easy intimacy. It hurt to watch it.
31
There was a missed call and a text from Alex’s number when she woke up: Please call me. Laura had switched her phone to silent before she’d gone to sleep, left it face down on the mahogany chest across the room from the bed. Everyone – almost everyone – she loved was here: surely she could stand down.
Apparently not.
She had only two bars on her phone in the house. Out in the garden it rose to four. She looked towards the vegetable garden, remembering Joe from last night.
She dialled Alex’s number. The dialling tone was the kind that meant the phone you were calling was abroad. He was on the Amalfi coast with the pert, bikini-clad Genevieve, no doubt sitting with her, sipping the first champagne of the day, in some swanky old-school hotel with waiters in cream jackets and black bow-ties. She and Alex had been there together, years earlier, for a tenth-anniversary trip. Ethan had stayed with his grandparents for a week, the longest they’d been apart from him since he’d been born. They’d hired a car in Naples and driven on the crazy winding roads to the staggeringly picturesque towns that clung to the rocks by the coast. She’d been carsick, and that had irritated Alex. She’d missed Ethan and that had, too. He’d accused her of being too attached to their son. When it started raining on day three, that had also pissed him off, but even he couldn’t find a way to blame that on her.
From the small balcony of the hotel they were staying in, you could watch weddings taking place in a small garden: she remembered seeing one get spectacularly rained off, the bride being hurried away under large umbrellas and the guests getting soaked by rivulets running off the hastily erected tarpaulin that wasn’t up to the task, while Alex lay, ignoring her, in the middle of their large romantic bed, watching a Premier League match on Sky. It was what she remembered most about the whole week, the bride’s peals of laughter, her joy undiminished by the weather, the groom’s tender care: watching that wedding disaster and contemplating her own marriage.
She wondered if he’d taken Genevieve to the same places, and whether Genevieve knew he’d already been there with her.
‘Laura?’
‘It’s me.’
An uneasy peace had broken out between them, unspoken. Ethan came first. Concern for her child – their child – suppressed resentment and rage, just for now.
‘Have you heard anything?’
No preamble. He was always like that. It was as if he was too important, too time poor, for the normal pleasantries. How are you? How’s Ethan?
‘No. If I had, I’d have told you.’ She bit back the sullen ‘wouldn’t I?’ And ‘idiot’.
‘I’m in and out of mobile service. And Wi-Fi. It’s a nightmare.’
She realized, with a jolt, that she didn’t envy Genevieve, for all the Negronis, the truffle tagliatelle and stripy sun-loungers facing the ocean the girl was experiencing.
Alex hated not being in control. And none of them was in control. Since the conversation in the café, when she’d begged Claudia to persuade her husband not to report Ethan to the police, they’d been in a hideous limbo. Claudia had made no promises. She clearly wasn’t in any position to do so: Rupert so obviously made the decisions in their household. Ethan hadn’t seen Saskia – at least, not to talk to. None of them had any clue whether Saskia’s parents were going to take it further or not. It was torturing all of them. As time passed, Laura let herself feel slightly more hopeful that nothing would happen – that his threats had been rage talking, that once he’d calmed down and thought it through, he would see that Ethan had no real charge to answer. That it wouldn’t be fair for Ethan to be punished for something that his own daughter had willingly, happily, participated in. Ethan wouldn’t talk about it. His misery was almost palpable. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d grasped the seriousness – the potential danger – and she couldn’t see why constantly going over it with him would be a good idea. There’d be time enough. She’d warned him of the importance of staying away from Saskia, since that was what her parents wanted. He’d heeded the warning. She was proud of the way he’d got through the exams. God knew what the results would be, but he’d stuck with it.
Alex saw it differently. He wanted to fix it. He loved his son: Laura knew he did. He wanted to protect him, and he was angry on his behalf at the accusation that had been levelled at him. But there was more to it than that: he wanted to
win. It frustrated him that he couldn’t exert any influence. Make it go away.
He’d gone straight to his solicitor. He’d made Laura tell him everything but he hadn’t taken her with him. He’d been frustrated by that visit – his lawyer had basically told him there was nothing Alex could do but wait: it could make it worse for Ethan if he reached out to Saskia’s parents. That the police might prefer not to press charges but that if her parents insisted they would have no choice, and that, yes, all the implications were real and possible if that happened.
Now all he could do, all any of them could do, was wait, with other people holding their son’s future in their hands, and there was nothing they could do about it. They all hated it, but he hated it more than anyone else.
‘How is he doing?’ He’d remembered that it was all about Ethan.
She softened then, a little. ‘He’s still quiet. He’s chatting a bit, with Heather’s daughters, but he’s pretty withdrawn, you know. I sort of have to drag him out of his room.’
‘Poor kid.’
‘I’ve got him.’
‘I know.’ Long pause. ‘You’re a good mother, Laura. You always were.’
She was shocked. She hadn’t expected that. She couldn’t cope with kindness, not from him.
Immediately tearful, she didn’t quite trust herself to answer. She made a strangled sound that might have been thanks and rang off.
32
Charlie nearly escaped. Glorious as it was to be surrounded by his progeny, it was noisier than he was used to, and a peaceful walk once, or perhaps twice, a day was, he thought, the antidote. He’d gone back to his room for his hat, Daphne’s constant protestation that he must keep the midday sun off his head ringing in his ears, or he might have got out before Heather had stopped him.
The Family Holiday Page 16
