by Alison Giles
It was around mid-morning that, surrounded by office files brought in by a junior, I picked up the phone and heard the receptionist’s perfunctory announcement: ‘Personal call for you.’ For a bizarre moment I thought it might be Andrew. After all, he knew where I worked.
But, of course, it wasn’t. Why should it be? A female voice, at once familiar and yet not immediately identifiable, checked: ‘Charissa?’
‘Yes. Sorry, who is it?’
‘It’s Elspeth. Your black sheep cousin. Bet you weren’t expecting to hear from me.’
‘Elspeth! Hello. How lovely …’
‘I hope you’ll think so when I’ve told you why I’m calling.’
I laughed, tension spilling out of me. ‘Go on. Tell me.’
‘Thing is, Peregrine and I—’
‘Who?’
‘The man in my life. That’s to say the ex-man in my life …’
‘Oh.’
‘Well, that’s the point. He is ex. Decidedly. And I’m in London. I was wondering –’ her voice assumed a child-like plaintiveness – ‘you couldn’t possibly put me up for a few days?’
She seemed to be holding her breath as she waited for my answer.
‘It’s only a small flat,’ I countered. Then, trying not to sound too dubious, ‘You’d have to sleep on the sofa.’
‘No problem. Bare boards would do. Thanks, Carrie, you’re a star.’
She was waiting outside my door when I got back, a drooping bundle flopped on a battered suitcase at the head of the stairs. She sprang to life as I rounded the final turn. With a squeal of delight, she rushed down towards me, almost tripping over the hem of her long skirt.
Balanced preciously mid-flight, I was engulfed in a rapturous embrace. ‘Carrie. It’s so good to see you.’
‘You too,’ I muttered into her shoulder.
She followed me in, heaving her suitcase. ‘Wow. It’s gorgeous. You should just see the pit I’ve been living in. This is heaven.’ She bounced experimentally on the sofa. ‘Bliss.’
‘You like it?’ I observed superfluously.
I looked at her. She was dressed from head to toe in creased black cotton relieved only by a jangling collection of beads, her short dark hair nonetheless expertly cut and groomed. Her eyes shone with appreciation as her glance roved round the room. It didn’t seem to me to justify quite that degree of euphoria.
Abruptly she turned back to focus on me. ‘How long has it been? Three, four years? It was that summer. You were studying for Finals. Put me up on my way to some rock concert or other.’
I remembered. She’d burst upon our, by comparison sedate, student household in a whirl of art college colour and energy.
‘You insisted on doing the cooking,’ I recalled, and laughed. ‘Something totally inedible with unpronounceable vegetables.’ A thought struck me. ‘You’re not still a vegetarian?’
“Fraid so. Still can’t bear to eat dear little lambs and things.’ She lounged back and grinned. ‘But my recipes have improved.’
‘That’s something.’
She jumped up. ‘I’ll do supper tonight, shall I?’ Then, jutting her chin at my dubious expression: ‘Just you wait and see.’
‘You’re right,’ I acknowledged later over a plateful of some nameless concoction. ‘It’s delicious.’
‘Not bad for supermarket ingredients,’ she conceded. ‘Tomorrow, I’ll really go shopping.’
We smiled at each other, comfortably companionable in re-awakened family closeness.
‘So,’ I said, ‘tell me. You’ve had a bust up with …’
‘… Perry. Yes. I must have been mad. He’s turned out to be a complete bastard, dregs of the dregs.’ Her face, which had straightened, turned impish again. ‘So I’ve come to sit at the feet of my sensible cousin, and learn.’
‘So what –’ I ignored her latter statement – ‘does someone have to do to become the dregs of the dregs?’
Elspeth fiddled with a spoon, inspecting its handle. ‘It’s not so much what he’s done, as what he hasn’t done. What he’s never done. Just sitting around all day. Only stirring to collect his Giro.’ She shrugged. ‘Your average drop-out, I suppose. You know.’
I didn’t really. I guessed I must have led a pretty sheltered life.
‘But then,’ she looked up, ‘he took a swing at me.’ She lowered her eyes again. ‘About two weeks ago. I tried not to take it too seriously … he had had a skinful – though usually that mellowed him … Anyway, I didn’t want to overreact – but then somehow … Well, I began to see him differently. I guess I’ve just given up hoping he’ll ever get his head together.’ She picked up a fork and pushed lentils around her plate with it. ‘Trouble is, I kept on thinking … if I loved him, was supportive …’ Her eyes suddenly brimmed. ‘Oh shit.’
I got up and went to put an arm round her shoulders.
‘You know what makes me so furious,’ she said. ‘Not him. Me. How could I have been so naive?’ She fumbled among the folds of her skirt to find the pocket and extracted a delicate lace hanky. ‘I really despair of myself for being so stupid.’
I abandoned her for a moment to fetch a box of tissues. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said over my shoulder. On impulse, I opened a cupboard and reached for a bottle of Martini – the strongest thing I could find. Flora-like, I bore it to the table.
By the end of the evening, tear-stained but talked out, Elspeth pronounced herself much better. We made up a bed and I left her, as I thought, watching some late-night chat show on the television. But as I smoothed cream on my face, there was a tap on my door.
A head peered round. ‘Just realised I’ve been so busy talking about me I haven’t said how sorry I am about Uncle Hugh. I did like your father, you know. Very much. I should have written. Anyway I just wanted …’ Her expression changed in an instant to a self-effacing grin. ‘Won’t disturb you again.’ She backed out with exaggerated quietness, closing the door with a slow click.
‘See you in the morning,’ I called through the woodwork. ‘Sleep well.’
I saw her, but she was oblivious to my tip-toed skirting of her and her scattered possessions seven hours later. I left a note and a spare key on the kitchen window sill. There was a smile on my face as, rather as she had done the night before, I pulled the outer door to with scarcely a sound.
‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ said the old lady on the ground floor, stooping to pick up her milk bottle.
I nodded agreement. I’d forgotten how refreshing it was to have someone else around.
When I got home, delighted with a deal I’d sewn up, Elspeth rushed to fling open the door as I turned the key in the lock.
‘Da, daa!’ she announced, flourishing her arms wide.
I peered past her in mock suspicion.
‘Enter!’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘You’ve been busy’
‘Least I could do.’
I touched the heads of a huge vase of gladioli dominating the sideboard. ‘They’re beautiful.’ Their scent filled a room now tidied within an inch of perfection, throw-overs straightened, cushions plumped up, wood everywhere gleaming. She led the way through to the kitchen with another expansive gesture. Another posy, this time of violets, coloured the already-laid dining table, and beside the flowers stood an uncorked bottle of Côtes du Rhône.
I sniffed appreciatively in the direction of the shining cooker.
‘Supper in half an hour,’ confirmed Elspeth. ‘May I –’ she picked up the bottle and gave a small bow – ‘offer you a glass of wine?’
‘You’re mad,’ I laughed. ‘Yes please.’
It was after we’d eaten and sunk down on comfortable chairs that she suddenly said, ‘By the way, I found a watercolour in the hall cupboard.’ She looked at me and her expression faltered. ‘Oh dear. Have I been poking around where I shouldn’t? But you did say I should hang my things there.’
‘It’s OK.’ I wasn’t sure whether I was reassuring her or myself. ‘I’d just … forgotten about
it. That’s all.’
She brightened. ‘Can I get it out?’
She was back in less than a minute. Reseated, she balanced it at arm’s length on her knee, her head tipped sideways in a critic’s pose. She looked across at me. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to tell me about it?’
‘What do you think of it?’ I stalled.
She pursed her lips. ‘It’s good. If it’s the work of an amateur, it’s very good. I like …’ She elaborated with technical comments to which I only half listened.
‘Sorry,’ I heard her saying. ‘I’m being an art student show-off. But you did ask.’ She leaned forward. ‘Come on, it’s you, isn’t it? Who painted it?’
I decided on honesty. ‘My father.’
‘Really?’ Elspeth was intrigued. ‘I’d no idea he had an artistic streak. Not to mention talent.’ She explored the detail. ‘When did he do this?’
I wondered. When precisely had he sat in the meadow above Cotterly with his easel and paints, imagining me there? ‘I don’t know,’ I said.
Elspeth’s face registered bemusement.
‘He did it from memory.’ Then anticipating the next question: ‘Down in the West Country somewhere.’ I was aware of looking away as I spoke. When I turned back, Elspeth’s attention was apparently on the painting again.
‘Umm,’ she said non-committally, and for an instant I had the unnerving sense of having said far more than I’d intended. ‘Well,’ she decided, ‘it certainly deserves to see daylight. Where shall we hang it?’
‘Your mother rang,’ said Elspeth that Friday evening as I dumped my briefcase on the floor and collapsed into a chair. ‘I told her I was your cleaner.’
‘I don’t have a cleaner.’
‘Exactly what your mother said. So I persuaded her I meant I was from the carpet valeting people.’
‘Why did you do that?’
Elspeth looked hurt. ‘What’s wrong with having carpets shampooed?’
‘No, you idiot. Why didn’t you say it was you?’ I reached for a cigarette and offered one to Elspeth. She shook her head.
‘Oh, I see what you mean. Well, I thought she might think I was leading you astray if she knew I’d dumped myself on you.’
I laughed.
‘No, really. She doesn’t approve of me. You know that.’
Suddenly I felt light-headed. ‘Is that a compliment to yourself or not?’
Elspeth stared. ‘Good God, you have changed.’
I drew contentedly on my cigarette, wondering.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t only that. I haven’t put Epsom –’ she referred to her parents – ‘in the picture yet. And you know what your mother’s like. She’d be straight on to Mum.’
‘Aren’t you going to tell them?’
‘I suppose I’ll have to. But not yet. Don’t feel I can face the told-you-so’s.’ She sprang up. ‘I could use a gin. How about you?’
My drinks cupboard had expanded during the few days that my cousin had been in residence. I wasn’t unhappy about it. Relaxing against the cushions, I heard the fridge door open and the click of ice cubes dropping into glasses. Then a sharp crackle as the spirit hit them and a hiss as Elspeth unscrewed the cap on a bottle of tonic water.
‘Here.’
She handed me the glass. I raised it. ‘To … whatever you like.’ I hesitated before taking a sip. What would I choose to drink to, I wondered. Simplicity; lack of complications in my life?
Elspeth had extracted her slice of lemon and was sucking on it. Instinctively I winced. She noticed and laughed.
‘Sorry,’ I felt called on to apologise. ‘Different taste buds …’
‘Different a whole lot of things.’ She pondered. ‘You’d tell your mother about Perry, wouldn’t you? I mean … you’d never have got involved with someone like him in the first place … but even so …’
But even so, I thought, as Elspeth leaned forward to help herself from the pack of cigarettes lying on the table, there are a lot of things – suddenly – I’m not telling her. I passed the lighter.
Elspeth lit up. ‘The trouble with playing the rebel –’ her cheeky grin had returned – ‘is one has a reputation to maintain.’
I mimed looking over the top of imaginary glasses. ‘Oh, yeah?’ And what, I wondered, about one’s reputation as a loyal daughter?
‘Actually,’ I confided – maybe the alcohol was having an effect – ‘I’m not sure I don’t envy you.’
‘Really?’ Elspeth was wide-eyed.
‘All the emphasis on doing the right thing, on appearances …’
‘How do you mean?’ Her expression was curious, almost cautious.
I fiddled with the top button of my shirt. ‘Oh, I don’t know …’
Elspeth drained her glass and set it down with as much care as if it had been the finest Waterford crystal. ‘You’re referring,’ she said, ‘aren’t you, to your father’s affair?’
I stared at her. ‘You know?’ I sank back. ‘How long have you known? Have you always known?’
‘Since I was about fifteen. I overheard Mum and Dad discussing it. Demanded to know the whole story. They swore me to secrecy’
‘But you could have said something to me.’
‘Uh, huh.’ She shook her head. ‘That was part of the deal. I wasn’t to let on I had a clue. Not to anyone. In fact, I don’t think Mum was even supposed to have told Dad. Let’s face it, your mother was positively paranoid about anyone knowing.’
‘Too right. I mean, I haven’t even been able to talk to her about it. Ever.’
‘What!’
I shook my head. ‘That’s weird.’
I supposed it was. I looked across at my cousin. She had hitched her legs up beneath her skirt to sit cross-legged on the sofa, elbows on knees, chin cupped in her hands, eyes wide and curious. Hers was not the detached attentiveness of Flora, but one of eagerness to be involved.
‘You look like a Buddha,’ I joked.
‘Not solemn enough.’ She grinned, wriggling her bottom into the cushions. ‘Come on then, tell.’
So I did. About the sudden realisation and my mother’s one-sentence confirmation; about watching her ingenuity in deflecting the inquisitiveness of neighbours; about my own pretence with my schoolfriends. And, above all, about the strange, strained politeness with which my parents treated each other.
‘Sometimes I wanted to scream,’ I said.
I suddenly recalled an incident: Mother standing at the stove; Father squeezing past, his hands automatically settling on her hips to steady her as he did so; and then his apology as she shook him off. ‘I can see his face now,’ I said. ‘It was as though all the expression went out of it.’ I considered. ‘You know what it reminds me of? That blank look, in films, of prisoners about to be tortured.’ I giggled. ‘Not that she had a thumbscrew hidden away anywhere that I know of.’
The telephone pealed into the silence. ‘Oh, God,’ I said, ‘that’s probably her.’ I looked at my cousin. ‘What am I to say about you?’
‘Oh, tell her if you want to.’
‘Hi. Yes, hello, Mother. Carpets? Oh, no, just Elspeth being idiotic. Yes, in London for a few days. She’s very well. No –’ I grinned at Elspeth over the receiver – ‘definitely more respectable these days. We’re having some great chats. And she has spring-cleaned the flat while I’ve been out – it’s positively gleaming.
‘What’s she doing in London? Mother, for heaven’s sake.’ I tried to keep my voice light-hearted. ‘Can’t someone visit the big bad city without you going into interrogation mode?’
I saw Elspeth’s eyebrows shoot up, and put a hand over my mouth to muffle my choke of laughter.
‘Yes, yes. One or two.’ I mimed to Elspeth raising a glass to my lips.
‘Oh, all right then. Bye.’
I put the telephone down and grinned. ‘She says she’ll ring back when I’m sober.’
‘You’re not exactly pissed.’
‘Pity,’ I said. ‘I might really ha
ve told her what I think.’ I stared in horror at Elspeth, then, collecting up the empty glasses, escaped to the kitchen. I gazed blankly out of the window for a while before refilling them. What had I meant? What did I ‘really think’? For an instant the window blurred, as though I were staring at the crazed result of a smashed windscreen.
I shook myself back to reality and picked up the bottle, resisting the urge to pour doubles. I was vaguely aware of Elspeth speaking on the telephone.
‘I’ve ordered pizzas,’ she announced as I returned. ‘Extra helpings of ham and salami … ugh … on yours. Lots of protein. It’ll do you good.’
‘Great.’ Even to my own ears, my response lacked conviction.
‘You need looking after.’
I took a slurp from my glass and then stared into it, struggling to swallow past the lump in my throat and fighting watery eyes. Eventually I looked up and grinned sheepishly. ‘They say gin makes you depressed.’
‘And they also say,’ she said, exuding knowledgeability, ‘that depression is –’ she drew quotation marks on the air – ‘the outward expression of suppressed anger.’
I forced a weak smile. ‘That sounds very technical.’
‘I read it somewhere.’
I let out a muted scream, more grimace then sound.
Elspeth nodded amused approval. ‘Go for it.’
I repeated the experience, with a little more volume this time – though with a restraining thought for the neighbours.
Elspeth was grinning.
I laughed. ‘You’re right. I’m bloody angry.’ Suddenly my eyes were clear again and I was aware of an emptiness in my stomach. ‘I’m also starving. Where’s that pizza man?’
In bed, I cosseted my anger, undefined though it was. That is to say, I rolled it around inside me rather as one rolls something sweet around one’s mouth, extracting every last gram of pleasure from it. It tasted good – unlike the bitterness of the rage I’d exploded at Flora.
