Cents and Sensibility

by Maggie Alderson

  While all that was going on, Chloe had arrived at the pool and was rubbing suncream into her swelling belly, before she got in the water and took over Daisy’s swimming lessons. I got out and lay back down on my sunlounger, and was soon joined by Alex on one side and Ned on the other.

  This gave me ample opportunity to notice that Ned wasn’t wearing proper swimming trunks, but just had on a pair of black underpants – those ones like little biker shorts, but made of ribbed cotton jersey – and wet as they were, I could see a very clear outline of what was inside them. I swallowed, hard.

  So that was what I saw if I turned my eyes left. If I looked right, I had a grandstand view of Alex’s beautiful rear. He was lying on his front, reading the business section of the paper. One side of his trunks was slightly caught up, just revealing the crease at the bottom of his buttock.

  It was like being in a Gucci ad. I decided I’d better close my eyes.

  But surrounded by male pulchritude, even as I was, the minute I closed my eyes, my thoughts returned to Jay. I wondered how he’d feel if he could see me lying there like that, because I knew exactly how I’d feel if I saw him in the reverse situation: gutted. And considering where he was – LA, the world capital of the body beautiful and the rapacious bimbo – he probably was.

  For all I knew he was lying in bed at that very minute with a couple of ravishing starlets or surfer chicks – he’d said he was going surfing as he’d ended the call, I suddenly remembered – one on either side. I felt simultaneously ill and homicidal at the thought of it.

  It was a completely new feeling for me. I’d never really been bothered by those kinds of thoughts before – jealousy, I supposed it was – because I’d always kept my sexual relationships as low-key as possible.

  The thing with Jack had been the extreme version of it, but even with the more conventional ‘boyfriends’ I’d had over the years, I’d always been at pains to keep it light and easy – and slightly distant. So no cosy double dates with friends, no meeting the family – mine, or his – and no demands and expectations. Just fun and good times, when the moment was right.

  As soon as a bloke had shown any sign of assuming that I wouldn’t accept a dinner invitation from someone else if I felt like it, or that he would automatically be seeing me on a Friday night, it was over. Not interested.

  So it was strange to feel these uncomfortable new emotions for the first time. I felt I had to grow them, like a tadpole growing legs – and so far all they were doing was making me unbearably restless.

  In the end I couldn’t stand it any more and I got up and went back to the guest wing. I had decided I couldn’t just leave it like that between us, I had to leave a message for Jay to get when he woke up.

  I didn’t even plan what I was going to say as I dialled his number, I was just going to see what came out, and I was completely taken aback when he answered his phone.

  ‘Jay,’ I whispered. ‘It’s Stella. I’m really sorry – it must be the middle of the night there – did I wake you up? I was just going to leave you a message.’

  ‘Hey, baby,’ he said, a bit croaky, but the usual warmth was back in his voice. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I’m so glad you rang. You’re the reason I couldn’t sleep… I was really mean to you before.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I protested. ‘I was awful. I was really drunk and I didn’t realize and I just babbled on and said so many stupid things. I’m really sorry…’

  My voice caught a little.

  ‘Hey, stop that,’ said Jay. ‘It’s fine, really. I was stupid. I was jealous, Stella. I was jealous of Alex and Ned – whoever he is – being there with you at your dad’s place and me being stuck here like some unwanted exile and I just lashed out.’

  ‘I’d so much rather you were here than any of them,’ I said, and I meant it.

  ‘Who is this Ned, anyway?’ said Jay, pretending to be stern.

  ‘Oh, he’s just a guy I work with,’ I said.

  A guy I work with who incidentally had a body like Ian Thorpe, but never mind that.

  ‘We did the presentation together yesterday morning,’ I continued. ‘You know, about the new section? And it went really brilliantly, so I invited him down here to celebrate, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s great, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I’m really pleased for you. I’m proud of you.’

  I could tell he was making an effort to be enthusiastic about my job. I was touched.

  ‘How are things with you, Jay?’ I asked him, gently.

  ‘They’re OK,’ he said, sounding a bit low.

  ‘You don’t sound OK,’ I said.

  He sighed deeply.

  ‘Well, I’m being virtually stalked by a woman I met at a dinner here. I’m going to have to change my mobile; she got hold of the number and she just won’t stop ringing me. Then she “just happened” to turn up where I was having dinner tonight. It is so boring when this happens, Stella, and I have done nothing to encourage her, believe me. But women like her are just convinced that if they try hard enough you are going to suddenly fall in love with them and marry them. It’s unbelievable.

  ‘And then on top of that, I’ve got some kind of shit coming up with my dad – I’ve got to go back to New York tomorrow and see him. He’s sending his plane for me, so I really can’t get out of it. Big Daddy hollers, I gotta go,’ he said, in a mock Southern accent.

  ‘Poor you,’ I said.

  It sounded pathetic, but I didn’t know what else to say, considering I had no idea of what kind of ‘shit’ went on between him and his father – and how nauseous I was instantly feeling at the thought of all the women who must have been chasing him over there.

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe when I’m through with that,’ he said. ‘I can get over to London to see you again.’

  And then after a few more minutes of rambling sweet nothings, we rang off.

  *

  On the Saturday evening we all – including Monkey – had dinner together again, and it was a bit more formal, as Saturday nights down there traditionally were, so none of the kids, except Daisy, were allowed to leave the table until Ham formally released them after pudding.

  For once there didn’t seem to be any psychodramas going on – apart from Venezia doing some full-beam flirting with Ned, whom she had clocked that afternoon at the pool, prompting an immediate reversal of her ‘swimming is for kids’ policy.

  She had disappeared back to the house and returned very quickly in a tiny bikini with a Brazilian thong bottom. God knows where she’d got it from, although it looked like something her mother would take on her annual January trip to Barbados. Venezia was always plundering her mother’s wardrobe for inappropriately sophisticated clothes.

  Ham had exploded at first sight and told her to go back inside immediately and change into something ‘decent’, before issuing his most terrible threat as far as she was concerned.

  ‘If you don’t learn to behave with a little more decorum, Venezia Montecourt-Fain,’ he said, ‘you will leave me no choice but to despatch you to a convent in Scotland for the rest of your education. A closed order. And I’ll make sure you wear regulation school-issue flannel knickers at all times.’

  ‘I think she’s more suited for St Trinian’s, don’t you?’ said Ned quietly to me, watching her pert fourteen-year-old bottom bouncing back to the house.

  She was still at it over dinner. She’d even committed the huge crime of changing Ham’s seating plan, so she would be next to Ned, but he laughed it all off with great tact.

  I was so distracted by Venezia’s embarrassing behaviour and by laughing at Archie’s barbed comments about it, that I hadn’t noticed anything was wrong with Tabitha.

  I helped Chloe clear the table after the main course and when I came back carrying one of the three huge trifles that were for pudding – she was still researching Kitsch Cuisine – I noticed her place was empty.

  I assumed she’d gone to the loo, but when we had all finished our trifle – and had seconds and thirds –
and she still hadn’t reappeared, I began to wonder if she was all right. Kids were strictly not allowed to leave those dinners until Ham said they could, and Tabitha was usually an obedient girl – and very keen on her puddings.

  I turned to Alex, who was sitting on my left.

  ‘Do you know where Tabs has gone?’ I asked him, quietly.

  He looked surprised, he clearly hadn’t noticed.

  ‘The loo?’ he suggested.

  I shook my head.

  ‘She’s been gone since before pudding,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not like Tabs,’ he said, but not looking particularly concerned. ‘She’s probably snuck off to watch a DVD, or to send some text messages. She’s surgically attached to that phone, these days.’

  It occurred to me that Alex had probably forgotten just how strictly Ham liked to enforce the house rules down at Willow Barn, so he wouldn’t appreciate the full significance of her absence.

  I didn’t say any more – I didn’t want to attract Ham’s attention to it – but got up quietly and went to ask Toby if he knew where she was. He didn’t, but Archie, who was sitting next to him, overheard me.

  He raised his eyebrows at me and I leaned towards him.

  ‘Tabitha’s not happy,’ said Archie, with his customary bluntness. ‘She left the table. Crying. No one noticed.’

  ‘Any idea where she went?’ I asked him.

  He just shook his head.

  ‘Girl stuff, probably,’ he said dismissively, and helped himself to another huge bowl of trifle.

  I checked the telly room, the kids’ corridor, all the bathrooms, Ham’s turret and even the guest wing. There was no sign of her. On my way back into the house I bumped into Alex in the kitchen courtyard.

  ‘Any sign of Tabitha in there yet?’ I asked him, nodding my head at the main house.

  ‘No,’ said Alex, looking surprised. ‘Isn’t she in the telly room?’

  ‘No, I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find her. I think she must be in the garden somewhere. I’m going to look for her.’

  ‘Right,’ said Alex, finally looking concerned. ‘I’ll look too. I’ll do this side and you take the front, OK?’

  I nodded.

  I snuck back into the guest-house kitchen to pick up a torch and went down the side of the front lawn, so that no one sitting inside the house would see me – I didn’t want to have to explain.

  It was getting close to the longest day and the evening light had lingered until after nine, but now it was fully dark. I checked the summer house and all the way down to the shell grotto, which was decidedly spooky at night. Confident I was far enough away from the house not to be heard down there, I called her name into the bushes and trees, but there was no response.

  I came back up through the bamboo walk, the slender trunks clicking eerily as they were knocked against each other by the light summer breeze. I shivered a little. It reminded me of the night Alex and I had slept in the tree house – and immediately, I realized that was where Tabitha would be.

  I walked quickly back towards the house, skirting to the left behind the monkey puzzle tree, and then jogged up through the orchard to the tree house.

  I could hear her crying before I got there and I climbed up the rope ladder as quickly as I could.

  Just as I put my head through the door, and saw Tabitha lying on her side in the fetal position, wracked with sobs, another head appeared through the opposite door – Alex.

  ‘Hey, Tabs,’ he was saying.

  We climbed in simultaneously and she was so surprised she sat up and stopped crying. Then once she’d taken it in, she fell back down on her arms again, weeping.

  Alex stroked her head and made soothing noises. I lay down on the floor so my head was right next to hers.

  ‘Tabs, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Whatever is wrong? Tell me – tell us. We love you, tell us what’s wrong, please.’

  She sobbed a bit more and then she spluttered a bit and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  ‘Mum and Dad…’ she managed to gasp out, and then fell down sobbing again.

  Alex and I exchanged glances.

  ‘What about them?’ said Alex, but I had an idea I already knew what she was talking about.

  ‘Is it seeing them together?’ I asked quietly.

  She opened her eyes wide and looked at me, clearly surprised that I understood. She nodded and wiped her nose again.

  ‘Yes,’ she croaked. ‘How did you know?’

  I sighed. ‘Well, it did occur to me that it might be a bit weird for you, seeing them together like that.’

  The twins had only been two when Rose and Ham had split up (as a result of Kristy turning up on the doorstep one evening with Venezia in tow…). And it had struck me, as we had all sat down at the table that evening, that just as I didn’t remember my mother, Tabitha and Toby wouldn’t have any memory of what it was like to have their parents together as a family unit. No wonder she was in shock.

  Tabitha sobbed a bit more and I looked over at Alex. He had such a sad expression on his face, I felt like he needed comforting too.

  ‘Oh, my little sausage,’ he said. ‘It never occurred to me. It must be really strange for you.’

  ‘It is,’ said Tabitha, sitting up at last. ‘It’s been so lovely having them both together and you two here as well, sitting round the table like a normal family, and tomorrow we’re all going to split up again and…’

  She started howling again.

  ‘Why does my family have to be so weird?’ she said, between splutters. ‘Why do we all live in different places? It’s never the same, it’s always different people and I just want to be in a normal family.’

  I pulled her towards me and put my arm around her, so her head was on my shoulder.

  ‘Don’t lots of your friends at school have divorced parents as well?’ I asked, gently.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But no one is as weird as us. Most people’s dads have two wives. They have the first one, who is their mum, and then they have the new wife, who is like Chloe, but I’m the only one with all these weird stepmothers and half-brothers and sisters and stuff…’

  ‘Well,’ said Alex. ‘Stella and I have a lot of weird half-sisters and stepbrothers as well, you know.’

  She sniffed and blinked at him, then wiped her eyes.

  ‘I suppose so…’ she said, smiling a little bit.

  ‘And Stella’s had five different stepmothers, haven’t you?’

  I agreed, thinking – and no real mother, either, but I didn’t need to burden Tabitha with that. She was twelve, nearly thirteen, and viewed the world entirely from her own central place within it. I could remember feeling just like that myself, and sobbing my heart out in that very tree house.

  ‘I used to come and cry in here, Tabitha,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I felt so left out, because you and Toby had two living parents, and you were properly blood related too, and so were Alex and Claudia and Rowan. Proper brothers and sisters. I’m only a stepsister to any of you and I felt like some strange add-on extra – a sort of unnecessary flange on the side of the family’

  Tabitha looked at me with wide eyes, it had clearly never occurred to her, how it might have been for me having no full siblings and no mother.

  ‘So we are weird then, aren’t we?’ she said. ‘I’m not making it up, am I?’

  ‘We’re absolutely bonkers,’ said Alex. ‘The whole lot of us.’

  And we all burst out laughing.

  We stayed in the tree house for a long time, talking about the happy times when Ham and Rose were together, and I told Tabitha the story of the night Alex had tried to sleep in the tree house.

  I glanced over at him as I was telling it, and he was smiling at me so fondly, I suddenly felt a bit awkward.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, rushing to finish. ‘So your big brother was a total hero to me that night, just as he has been to you tonight. So anytime you are finding it too weird with all your half-siblings and stepsiblings and semi-steps and God kno
ws what, just remember you have us. All the halves and steps and stuff in our family don’t matter, we are just your big brother and sister and we love you.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Alex.

  She hugged us both and we walked back to the house together. ‘Ah, there you are,’ boomed Ham, over his shoulder, when we walked in from the kitchen. ‘I wondered where you lot were.’

  Tabitha ran up the stairs to the kids’ rooms and Alex and I walked over to where Ham was installed on a long leather sofa, one arm round Rose, the other round Chloe. Monkey was on his lap.

  Ned was sitting opposite, on the other sofa, looking at me and Alex thoughtfully.

  ‘What have you two been up to then?’ asked Ham, his face a mask of delight – clearly loving the thought that Alex and I were getting closer.

  ‘We were in the tree house talking about old times,’ I said, smiling back.

  Ham looked like his head was going to split he was grinning so broadly.

  ‘Marvellous, marvellous,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what I built it for. As a place to create memories – and later rekindle them.’

  Ned used this as an opening to start discussing Ham’s theories of architecture with him and how else he had applied them to the house. He might as well have opened the flood gates at Niagara, and fascinating though it all was, I really wasn’t in the mood to hear about ‘fluidity’ and the ‘percussion of emotion’ all over again.

  I yawned ostentatiously a few times, and went back to the guest wing.

  I was sitting on the terrace, drinking some herbal tea and enjoying the last lingering warmth of the evening and the scent of the roses in the nearby border, when Ned came out through the French doors.

  ‘How’re you doing?’ he asked me, throwing himself down into a chair opposite and putting his feet up on the one next to me. He stretched his arms into the air – effectively reminding me what lay beneath his unironed shirt, which I am ashamed to say made my heartbeat quicken a little. Then he linked his hands behind his head, looking steadily at me the whole time.

  ‘So you were off having a cosy chat with your handsome stepbrother in the tree house, then?’ he said, his eyes twinkling.