East Fortune (7 page)

‘She's called Krystyna.'

‘Sounds very exotic. How old is she?'

‘I didn't like to ask,' said Ian. ‘Jack's been quite moody recently.'

‘He's always moody.'

‘I thought Krystyna could be the Captain.'

‘Are you sure that's wise?' Angus lifted another panel and asked his father to hold it steady while he weighed it down. ‘Bit of a baptism of fire, coming to the family play.'

‘Well, she can see us warts and all.'

‘You'd have thought she might have better things to do.'

‘Oh I don't know. A day in the countryside, a spot of Shakespeare…'

‘Was it your idea to ask her?'

‘Jack volunteered. He said that it would make up for his girls not coming, and besides, he said that she'd been having a hard time. Apparently she needs cheering up.'

‘I can't see Jack cheering anyone up.'

‘Now, now.'

‘And he's playing Feste, for God's sake. All that gloomy singing…'

‘It will be an adventure for her.'

‘I thought Jack had renounced the world to concentrate on his work?'

‘Apparently not…'

‘And I'd have thought he would be a bit out of practice with the ladies.'

‘Well, we'll just have to see, won't we?'

Ian had never examined his sons' relationships closely. Angus and Tessa were fine in themselves; but Douglas and Emma found it impossible to conceal their difficulties and for Jack to break his near-monastic existence with this new girl was very odd. He only hoped that his son wasn't about to make a fool of himself.

‘And here's Sir Toby!' he called when Douglas got out of his car. ‘And the lovely Viola. Have you learned your lines?'

Douglas sighed. His father could think of nothing but his bloody play. He had no idea how busy their lives were, how tense their journey from Glasgow had been, and what an effort it had been to persuade Emma to come in the first place.

‘Not quite, Father.'

‘That means you haven't learned them at all.' He wished his children would make more of an effort.

‘I'm sure we'll muddle through,' said Emma, stepping forward to kiss Ian on the cheek.

‘Muddle through? That's hardly the spirit. I'm relying on you. You're the professional, after all.'

‘Well, Ian, I'll see what I can do.' It was so demeaning for a proper actress to do am. dram. The rest of the family kept putting the stress of the verse in the wrong places. Every year Emma wanted to take over and tell them all how to speak it properly.

Douglas put in his case for the defence.

‘There are a lot of lines, Father. And we've been very busy. Any chance of a drink?'

‘It's only just gone midday.'

‘Well, that's all right then.' Douglas walked off towards the kitchen.

‘It's amazing you lot get any work done at all.'

‘It's the artistic temperament,' said Emma. ‘At least that's what my husband calls it…'

Ian had once had such high expectations of his boys. He knew that it was wrong to show disappointment but there were times when he could not help it. Angus had given up his rugby and done well enough as a fund manager, but Jack could have been a professor if he'd put his mind to it; and for Douglas to abandon law and fritter away his intelligence by working in television was a complete waste of his ability: everyone thought so.

‘You're here,' said Elizabeth. ‘Home at last.'

‘We're not late,' Douglas replied. He leaned over the kitchen table to kiss his mother on both cheeks. He knew that both of his brothers kissed her on the lips but he had never thought it appropriate.

‘Mind your cardigan in the sauce,' she said.

‘Bugger…'

Emma handed him a piece of kitchen towel and then kissed her mother-in-law.

Douglas dabbed at his clothes.

‘The colour almost matches,' he said. ‘Perhaps they should market it. Apple, jade, grass, and now pesto…'

‘Your mother's playing Fabian,' Ian announced.

‘I'm going to play him as a very elderly retainer who could have a heart attack at any moment; someone who's been kept on but is absolutely useless. Would you like a drink?'

Douglas was already fetching glasses down from the kitchen cupboard.

‘That's why we're here, Mother.'

‘Oh dear. I rather hoped that you were here to see me.'

‘Where is everyone?' Emma asked. There weren't enough of the family in evidence for a performance.

‘Angus isjust seeing to the stage and Tessa's getting afew last-minute props. Imogen and Sarah are coming but Gavin has cried off. He is in London, I suppose, but I wish he'd been able to come. You know how important it is for Ian and he had him down to play Sebastian. Jack's girls are both away. At least the Macleans are coming with
their
children but it's been quite a struggle to make up the numbers.'

Ian opened some sparkling wine.

‘Jack may not be bringing the girls but he's coming with a new girlfriend instead. At least I think she's a girlfriend.'

‘Isn't that intriguing?' said Elizabeth.

Douglas was not so sure.

‘It doesn't sound very likely.'

‘You never know,' said Emma. ‘Your brother can be quite charming when he wants to be.'

‘Do you think so?'

‘You know, the hermit academic … mysteriously wise…'

‘We mustn't say anything,' Elizabeth said. ‘You remember how he used to hate people making any assumptions about his love life.'

‘He's lucky to have a love life at all,' said Ian.

‘Most of the time he only meets students,' Douglas said. ‘Perhaps it's one of them.'

‘I just hope everyone is polite to her,' said Elizabeth. ‘We don't want a scene.'

‘Oh you've no need to worry on that score, my darling,' said Ian. ‘We're hardly going to say anything tactless…'

‘But it would be good to tease him, don't you think?' Douglas asked. ‘Just for a bit?'

‘Don't,' said Emma. ‘Don't even start.'

At the railway station Elizabeth Henderson was welcoming but guarded, shaking Krystyna's hand and offering her a seat in the front of the Range Rover.

‘No, it's all right,' Krystyna said. ‘I'll go in the back. I know you have not seen your son for a long time.'

Elizabeth was impressed by her guest's politeness.

‘I suppose he does have longer legs. As long as you don't mind…'

‘Of course not.'

‘We could have taken a taxi, Mother.'

‘That's far too extravagant.'

‘They're much cheaper than you think.'

‘Nonsense.' Elizabeth had been brought up to believe that you should only take a taxi if you were either pregnant or over eighty.

Sometimes she wished everything could return to the time when her children were young, when there was enough hope and confidence to believe that each of her sons could become anything he wanted. But that was the time before compromise, before all the complications involved in growing up and finding partners and earning money.

‘How is everyone?' Jack asked. He knew that if he kept asking questions there would be less time to satisfy his mother's curiosity about Krystyna.

Elizabeth told them about Ian's preparations for the play and how invaluable Angus had been (they were so grateful he had come early) and that Tessa had found the most beautiful dress imaginable.

‘She'll make the most marvellous widow.'

Krystyna tried to remember the family pairings: Angus and Tessa, Douglas and Emma, Jack and … ? She realised that she still did not know his wife's name.

They drove out of town, passing craft centres and caravan parks, barn conversions and new-build developments. Then they turned off the main road and followed the old drovers' way, over river and burn, the fields divided by drystane dykes.

As they bumped over a cattle grid and veered on to even more rugged terrain, Krystyna wondered how big a house it would be and whether it was a mistake to have come.

‘Are you all right in the back, Krystyna?'

‘I am fine, Mrs Henderson.'

‘You must call me Elizabeth; everybody does, even the doctor, which I find rather disconcerting.'

They turned into a narrow drive. A Jack Russell ran out to greet them followed by a slow-moving Labrador. Jack collected the suitcases.

‘You won't leave me alone, will you?' Krystyna asked as they entered the hall.

‘Ah Jack,' his father called. ‘Come and get your clown outfit.' He walked towards them and extended his hand. ‘You must be Krystyna?'

‘I hope it is OK for me to come.'

‘You've saved the day,' Ian said, giving her the firmest handshake she had ever received. ‘We didn't have enough people for all the parts. Jack's daughters have rather let us down.'

‘They're busy, Father.'

‘They came last year…'

Both girls had sworn that they would never be in the play again.

‘Come into the snug,' said Ian. ‘We are laying out all the costumes there.'

The room was filled with swathes of material that stretched back through generations of family history: velvet smoking jackets, old dress shirts, taffeta gowns cast off from long-forgotten balls.

‘I only hope it doesn't rain,' said Ian. ‘But I suppose it might be appropriate: the wind and the rain. Have you learned your lines, Jack?'

‘I know the songs.'

‘Is that all?'

‘You're lucky to get that.'

‘I do sometimes worry what you do all day. Elizabeth has looked out this sailor's suit for you, Krystyna. I do hope it fits. Are you all right about being the Sea Captain?'

‘I hope my English is good.'

‘It's probably better than ours. Anyway, it's all written down for you. And we're not up to professional standards. Except for Emma: Douglas's wife. We all have to admire her. That's the only rule.'

‘No, you don't,' said Emma, coming into the room. ‘We all have to admire you, Ian.'

‘I wouldn't say that.'

Jack smiled.

‘No, you wouldn't say it, Father. But you'd like it to be the case.'

‘I just want everyone to be happy.'

Jack turned to Krystyna.

‘Father takes it all very seriously.'

‘What a beautiful house,' she said out loud, amazed that the family had dedicated a whole room to dressing up.

‘We nearly lost it in the Lloyd's fiasco,' Ian explained. ‘Fortunately, Angus is rather good with money and so after some rather deft manoeuvres we were able to survive. Close thing, though. Terrible business, asbestos …' He was tying a series of gartered laces across his legs. ‘Do you think these will do?' he asked. ‘I think I'd prefer leather. Perhaps I could do something with a dog lead?'

Krystyna was shown into a side room, where she could change into her costume – white trousers, a wide leather belt from the 1980s, and a heavy brocaded jacket with epaulettes. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. She knew that she was crazy to be here, but at least she didn't have to think about her life any more.

Ian Henderson laid out his staging plans on the dining-room table. He had drawn a grid with maps and diagrams for each character telling them where to move and when. Emma was shown that, when she was to perform her first great soliloquy, ‘I left no ring with her, what means this lady?', she was to move across from C1 to C3 and then diagonally across to D3.

‘I think I'll just feel my way,' she said. ‘You know, the usual upstage centre to downstage centre thing.'

‘Oh well,' said Ian. ‘I suppose that I had better leave it to the professionals.'

Emma knew that he didn't really mean it. This production was the manifestation not of life as it was lived but of how Ian wanted it to be. If his family would only just do as he said, moving from A1 to B1 to C1 in real life, then everyone would be happier.

During the rehearsals he stood in the centre of the lawn and outlined his plans for the performance. Some people would enter ‘from the beehives', others would come in ‘from the west side of the ha-ha'. Those who weren't required in any given scene were expected to form the audience. There was a drinks table at the back of the auditorium and they were going to have an interval during which people could have a swim if they were too hot. Supper would be on the terrace afterwards.

A confident couple in Tudor dress arrived with two small girls in tow. They were the Maclean family and had come down from Perthshire. They apologised for being late. They had been held up in traffic.

This was not considered a sufficient excuse.

Ian had the adults down to play Maria and Aguecheek and they had missed their rehearsal slot.

‘You should have left earlier,' he complained. ‘You know how bad it can get on the bridge.'

‘Jacqueline was finishing her illustrations. You know what it's like, Ian.'

‘I'm glad to say that I don't.'

The Maclean daughters were dressed in paisley dresses and wore their blonde curls in ringlets. They were called Sophie and Jasmine and had been fairies in the previous year's production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream.

‘Come
along
everyone,' Ian called out. ‘The curtain will rise in fifteen minutes.'

‘Where is the curtain?' Krystyna asked.

‘In his head,' said Emma. ‘It's all in his head.'

‘Are the musicians
ready?'
Ian called out.

The musicians in question turned out to be the Maclean girls. The four-year-old had her recorder; the six-year-old was proficient on the violin. Angus had already taken them to one side to prepare the opening.

‘Talented children make me sick,' Emma said. ‘They think they can do it all without any training. I suppose we had better brace ourselves. My first line's quite near the top.'