Going Home (22 page)

‘Oh,’ I said, not without a little relief.

‘And I don’t mean, get over yourself, like I’d want to move in with you, either. OK?’

‘Righty-ho, then,’ I said, sounding insanely British and buying some time while I tried to work out what he was on about. ‘That all sounds brillo.’
Brillo?

‘No, listen,’ said Jaden. ‘Let me say my piece. I’ve thought it all out, I think it’s good. You’re not exactly happy at the moment, are you? Your family’s gone into meltdown, you’re losing this great house, you’re frustrated with your life here and you won’t do anything about it. It takes you, like, a month to get your boiler sorted out, and that ex of yours, who you were making out with in the kitchen a couple
of weeks ago –’ I opened my mouth to protest but Jaden raised his hand, unperturbed, and went on ‘– I’m not an idiot, Lizzy, it was kind of obvious what had been going on and, anyway, it’s not a big deal, I understand. Anyway, he’s still bringing you down. And that brother of his, what is he? Like, your stalker?’

‘Miles?’ I said, confused. ‘No, we’re just good friends.’

Jaden raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think that’s what he thinks.’

‘Bollocks,’ I said. Me and Miles – urgh, even thinking about it was deeply deeply weird. He was David’s
brother
, for God’s sake.

‘Whatever, don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal. I don’t think. But anyway, Lizzy,’ he went on, ‘if I were you I’d want a change. Why don’t you do something about it?’

‘Er,’ I said.

‘Well, it’s up to you. But I really like you, Lizzy, you’re great. I’d love to have you live with me. We’ve got a cool house-share and it’s a five-minute drive from the beach. It’s like a block away from Bette Davis’s house. And the Monumental office there is great – it’s small, it’s just starting out. What’s stopping you? You go there for a year, you wear sunglasses, get a tan, enjoy yourself, stop thinking all those crazy thoughts that are running around in that crazy English head of yours.’

Think about it. California. Sunshine all year round. Film stars. The ocean.

‘And the brunch place next door to me does this great wheatgrass-juice shake. You’ll love it,’ he added.

My eyes bulged. Jaden smiled. ‘I’m actually joking. Well, it does do wheatgrass juice, but it does waffles too. No-carb, no-fat waffles and maple syrup with no sugar. It’s LA, after all.’

I am one who dithers over whether to have tea or coffee in the morning, and I find it’s the really big decisions I can
actually think through logically, without running around with my hands in the air. We were standing by the mantelpiece, which was adorned with a collection of Jaden’s self-help books.
The Make A Change Manual
by Dr Ken Boomio was nearest to me, and as I gazed idly at it I saw that the line on the front cover said ‘Change Your Way to a Whole New Betterness!’.

‘I need to talk to Lily,’ I said.

‘The job’s yours, Lizzy. She’s said so already.’

I looked at Dr Ken Boomio’s grinning face. And I thought of my grandmother saying, ‘Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.’ Oh, to hell with that, I thought. I’ve spent the last year trying to understand things and getting more confused by the minute. I don’t want to have to worry about it any more. How liberating it would be to surrender for once, and go with the flow, instead of sticking in the same old rut. And what if, when I did that, I sorted things out at the same time?

‘Jaden,’ I said, ‘it’s the maddest idea I’ve heard in a long time, but it makes almost perfect sense.’

I wasn’t going to up sticks and move to California for ever, of course. I might not even go at all. But I thought about it all night, as I lay in Jaden’s bed, counting the brown waves of the wallpaper through the silvery moonlight, with Jaden next to me on his back, arms resting neatly on his chest. And I thought about it the next morning after we’d had sex and Jaden was in the shower. I sat in bed with a cup of tea, looking at the rows of his neatly folded khaki, stone and brown clothes in their Habitat fawn-coloured clothes hanger, feeling content as a watery sun shone through the grimy window.

And I thought about it on the way to work, repelled by the rank smell of an unwashed old man next to me on the
Tube, and a trashy girl reeking of Calvin Klein on my other side, and during the horrid bun-fight queue for the lifts, one of which was broken, the other of which smelt of pee. And suddenly, instead of wanting to run back to Keeper House, I realized it wouldn’t solve anything and I needed to get away from all of this. And Jaden, with his nice white teeth and yoga mat, his biscuit-coloured hands and trousers, his promise of the ocean and no strings attached, might have provided the answer.

It was a lot to think about before eight fifty-six on a Thursday morning. I wouldn’t tell Mum and Dad and the others until there was something to tell them, but as I ran up the steps to the office and pushed open the black front door, it was exhilarating to think that I’d taken a step towards something different.

Lily was at her desk when I walked in.

‘Lily,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ Her eyes flicked over some text on the computer screen.

‘If I were to take that job in LA, would I get an allowance for a pair of Gucci sunglasses and the hire on a Corvette?’

‘Seriously?’ Lily asked.

‘Seriously,’ I said.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘But you’d get a pay rise and two free return flights a year. And that’s your lot. Maybe a relocation package. Probably not.’

‘OK,’ I said, humming as I sat down at my desk. ‘OK.’

And, with that, I set in motion a move to the other side of the world with a man I wasn’t in love with.

I said nothing to anyone outside work about going to LA. I wanted to let the idea swirl around in my mind for a while without having to deal with the questions, the details. The funny thing about a big decision is that the moment you make it is never accompanied by a bolt of lightning. I don’t know when the moment came that I knew I was going. I only know that, the following Saturday, as I sat in the back of Tom’s car with Miles (who was also going home for the weekend), on the way down to Keeper House, I felt free. Perhaps it was because I’d already been back. Perhaps it was because, finally, I’d found something to get excited about.

‘Has Mike heard from Rosalie yet?’ said Miles, as we came through the outskirts of the village.

‘Not as far as we know,’ Tom told him. ‘Poor Mike. Jeez, was I wrong about her!’

‘I thought you were,’ Miles said. ‘There was something dodgy about her. Sexy, though. Those tight cashmere sweaters. Blimey.’

Yes, I thought. Do make sure you tell your brother they have to be handwashed. With every day that had passed in the week since she’d left him that Rosalie hadn’t contacted
Mike, I had felt even more the responsibility for telling him and the others where she was. But I didn’t want him to find out from me. I wasn’t going to do her dirty work for her. Poor Mike – the humiliation of his niece ringing up and announcing he was being cuckolded by someone twenty years his junior was not something I wanted to inflict on him.

We saw Stuart Caldwell disappearing into the Neptune as we drove through Wareham to drop Miles off.

‘It’s the future lord of the manor,’ Tom said.

‘Oh, yes,’ I said, watching Stuart’s bulky frame disappear into the gloom of the pub.

‘Want me to hunt him down and kill him, Lizzy?’ said Miles. ‘Drown him in a vat of beer?’

‘Shout, “SOKH is avenged!”’ Tom added. ‘Yep, go on. She’d get you to do it, you know. And I bet you would, just to impress her, you big girl.’

Miles winked at me and jerked his head at Tom. ‘I’d do anything for her, you know that.’

‘Indeed,’ said Tom. ‘“Oh, Tom,”’ he went on in a high-pitched voice, ‘“I’m going to have to go in the back with Lizzy. You’ll have to put this case of wine in the front, it won’t fit back here. Ooh, she’s so lovely.”’

‘Good gay impression, my friend,’ said Miles. ‘You should do it for a living. Oh, sorry, you already are.’

‘Well—’ Tom began.

‘OK, OK, you two,’ I said. ‘Shut up, Miles. Tom—’ for I could see in the mirror that Tom’s face was arranging itself into a mutinous expression. ‘Here’s David’s – we’ll see you tomorrow teatime, yes?’

‘Miles’s, you mean,’ Tom pointed out. I winced.

Miles took my hand. ‘God, you’re freezing.’ He took the other, and rubbed them with his own warm, gloved hands, then kissed my cheek. ‘’Bye, gorgeous. ‘Bye, Tom. Thanks
a lot, mate. Really appreciate the lift. Let me get this wine out. Or perhaps I should leave it in the front seat, so Lizzy and I can sit together on the way back, you know. Because that’s how I pull the ladies. I’m
that
smooth.’

‘’Bye,’ I said. ‘Come on, Tom, let’s get going.’ The curtains were twitching and I knew Alice would be out in a few seconds, and I didn’t particularly want to see her.

Miles put up his hand in a valedictory gesture, and we drove off.

‘You two,’ I said.

‘Well, he’s annoying,’ Tom said. ‘Always on at me about the gay thing. It’s so boring.’

‘You were old muckers together. It’s probably hard for him, takes a bit of getting used to,’ I said.

‘You all seemed to cope with it OK.’

‘Oh, boys, boys,’ I said.

‘And I don’t care what you say, he’s got a thing for you.’

‘Tom, don’t stir,’ I said, because Tom can be like this. ‘So what? He’s always had a bit of a crush on me, but that’s only when he’s not going out with someone else. I’m like his fill-in woman.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t be,’ Tom said. ‘You should be doing other things.’

How little you know, I thought, visualizing myself in a breakfast meeting with George Clooney at the Chateau Marmont. Suddenly I wanted to tell Tom, but then he said cattily, ‘He’s only doing it to make David jealous.’

‘Tom,’ I said tiredly, ‘I can’t imagine anything weirder than going out with Miles. It’s never going to happen. So what if we flirt? So what if we get on really well? He’s fun, I hardly ever see him, and after all he’s done for me, I owe him.’

‘Yeah, whatevs,’ Tom said, and I knew the subject was closed.

Was it really only a week since I’d been home? The hedgerows and trees along the lanes seemed a little more alive, showing more green than before. Tom slowed down to go through a rather deep puddle.

‘Nearly there,’ he said. ‘Right. Have you thought of your Chin bingo line?’

‘My bingo line is…It’ll be something to do with the path on the way to the marquee. Will they put tarpaulin down if it rains? So people’s shoes don’t get muddy.’

‘I think you’re being too practical,’ Tom said. ‘It’s going to be much more pointless and idiotic than that. Can we guarantee the roses will be in full bloom on that exact day, or something? Mark my words. Oh, speak of the devil.’

He pulled over, stopped the car and we were home. It was strange but it didn’t feel like last time, and it didn’t feel quite like home.

Chin was in the courtyard as we got out of the car, striding along with her hands in the pockets of a beautiful belted cashmere cardigan. ‘Hello, loves,’ she said, kissing us. Mum was lurking behind her.

‘Hello,’ she yelped. ‘Shall we—’

‘Let’s just finish up here, shall we, Suzy?’ Chin said firmly. ‘While we’re here. I just…Crouch down, will you?’

Chin and Mum crouched on the ground and squinted up at the wall leading to the gate and the main garden beyond. ‘Nope, it’s no good,’ Chin said, flinging her notebook back into her pocket.

‘No,’ echoed Mum, who clearly had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Don’t you have it somewhere in a book, Suzy? It’s extraordinary that these roses have been here for well over a hundred years and you don’t even know when they’re going to be in bloom. Two hundred people will traipse through this gate after the wedding to be greeted in all probability
by a lot of brown dead rose-heads. God, when exactly
will
the roses be out?’

‘Bingo!’ shouted Tom. I high-fived him.

‘What?’ Chin said.

‘We – we’re here! Hurrah!’ I said. ‘Bingo, Mum!’

‘Bingo!’ Mum yelled.

‘Ah, they’re here,’ said Dad’s voice. ‘Hello, darling.’ He kissed me and hugged Tom. ‘Right.’

We stood in a little circle in the courtyard. Mum and Chin fell silent. I knew something was up.

‘Let’s go inside and have some tea,’ Mum offered. ‘Brrr, I’m cold.’ She looked down towards the lane. ‘Oh, look, Tom, there’s your mother. She said she was going to pop over.’

‘All OK, Dad?’ I said. Mum seemed worried and Chin gazed into the distance.

‘It will be,’ Dad said. ‘That was Mike again,’ he said to Mum and Chin.

‘Again?’ said Chin.

‘No news – have you told him?’ Mum said.

‘Yes, but he’s getting desperate. Poor bloke.’

‘Poor bloke, my eye,’ said Chin, with unexpected spite. ‘Kate, hello. Mike’s rung again.’

‘Again?’ said Kate, as we went into the hall. ‘He is…God, Mike.’ She wiped her muddy wellies on the mat outside and kicked them off, as Mum disappeared to make tea.

‘I’m going to phone Mando about the roses,’ Chin announced. ‘I’ll be upstairs. Call me when you’re done.’

Tom and I mooched into the sitting room and flopped on to the sofa. Dad lit the lamps.

‘Poor Mike,’ Tom said.

‘Yes,’ I said, with feeling. ‘We don’t know the half of it, I’m sure.’

Dad spun round. ‘What do you mean by that?’

I was taken aback by the harshness in his voice. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just – I feel so sorry for him. If we knew where Rosalie was, our worst suspicions might be confirmed or otherwise. You know?’

Mum came in with the tray as Dad stared at me. ‘Darling, I don’t think that’d make a blind bit of difference. It’s to do with Mike, not Rosalie,’ he said, after a while.

‘It might make a difference if you knew who she was with,’ I said heatedly, then changed tack. ‘Why are you so down on Mike? She’s the one in the wrong.’

Dad laughed shortly. Mum started pouring tea. She shot him a look under her lashes. Kate sat down on the sofa next to Tom. ‘How are you, darling?’ she said.

‘Good, thanks, Mum.’ Tom kissed her. ‘You’ll never guess who I saw this week, by the way. Do you remember—’

‘Hold on,’ I said, and stood up. Then I felt like a bit of a berk and sat down again. ‘Can we get one thing straight? You don’t know all the facts. About Mike and Rosalie, I mean,’ I said, since my parents and Kate were staring at me as if I’d gone mad. ‘Look, I wasn’t going to tell you this—’

‘Lizzy—’ Dad said.

‘John, shut up,’ Mum said, with urgency.

I took a deep breath. ‘I know where Rosalie is,’ I said.

‘Oh!’ Mum said.

‘Exactly,’ I said firmly. ‘She’s – well, she’s with David. I think…well, I don’t know. But they’re living together. She moved in last weekend.’

‘I know,’ Dad said. He looked from Mum to Kate.

‘You
know
?’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to tell you because – and you
know
?’

‘I know,’ Dad repeated.

‘Does
Mike
know?’ I said. ‘Are you going to tell him? God, this is…Why on earth didn’t you say anything?’

He cleared his throat. ‘Well. There’s something we need to tell you – I don’t know why we didn’t tell you from the start. You see, we’ve all been keeping a few secrets.’

‘Eh?’ Tom said.

‘I’m going to the study to get some things,’ Dad said, and stalked out.

I had a dreadful, lurking suspicion, something hovering just outside my realm of comprehension, various ideas and images all rushing together and then Mum said, ‘Yes. It’s about Mike. It’s…Well, where Rosalie is isn’t important compared to what he’s done.’

‘What’s he
done
?’ I whispered, hardly wanting to frame the words.

Kate spoke up: ‘Your uncle,’ she said, face pale, her hand in Tom’s. He’s – he’s not quite the lovely man you – we – think he is.’ She looked at my mother, who nodded, then said, in a cold voice, ‘Mike’s the reason we’re having to sell the house.’

The sound of footsteps in the corridor made me turn my head, and Dad was in the doorway with several box files under his arms. ‘Right,’ he said, as he laid them on the sofa. ‘We – we didn’t want you to find out about this. We didn’t want to worry you. But I understand why you feel you deserve an explanation. And you’re not children any more. Kate, it’s rather appropriate you’re here, isn’t it?’

Tom and I looked at her, completely at a loss. She smiled at us wanly.

Mum handed Dad a cup of tea. He lowered himself gingerly into his armchair. ‘Give me a moment, and then I’ll explain why we’re selling the house.’

When I remember the happy, often hilarious hours spent in the drawing room at home, playing raucous family games, Grandfather sleeping in the big chair in the corner, Jess and
I lying on our stomachs scribbling in drawing-pads with felt-tip pens in front of the fire, I often think what a strange picture the five of us must have made that day in March, so bright outside but dark and full of shadows in the room. We sat there, I between Tom and Kate on the sofa, Mum nearby, as Dad, glasses perched on his nose, lifted documents out of files, smoothed them on his knee, and passed them to me. These papers were always locked away; they told the story of the house. It was these that Rosalie had been looking at on Christmas Day, a few short months ago.

I learned that Edward Radcliffe, who built the house in 1592, had had a wife called Cicely who died in my bedroom, giving birth to his son, Thomas, in 1599. I learned that in 1664 Mary Kirke, Thomas’s granddaughter, ordered the planting of the lavender and roses in the garden. I learned that Edwin Walter’s son Julian built the gate leading to the meadow at the back. And that Julian’s younger brother, Francis, was killed at Ypres in 1914. He was twenty-nine. All these things, waiting for me to know them, in this house all the time, and I only heard them now as we were leaving, packing up, and my sadness about leaving our family home, which had less-ened in the last week or so, started to creep back.

‘The thing is,’ said Dad, putting another sheaf of papers back into a box, ‘I doubt you’ve ever really given it much thought, but you must know that the house isn’t ours.’

‘What?’ Tom said.

‘Not mine and Suzy’s. Grandfather left it to Mike. He’s the eldest.’

‘So, why isn’t it his, then?’ I said.

Dad spoke slowly. ‘It
is
his – or, at least, the casting vote is his. If he decides to sell we all get a share of the proceeds, but he’s the only one who can force a sale and the house is in his name.’

‘But why doesn’t he live here?’ I asked.

‘He didn’t want to. When you were little, he went to live in New York and it all happened quite fast.’ He looked at Kate who was gazing down at her hands, resting in her lap.

‘Anyway,’ Dad went on, ‘when Grandfather and Grandmother decided to move out so we could move in, Mike signed a deed of covenant putting the house in my name, not his. Tony had died several years ago, Chin was far too young, and when Grandfather died, Mike was settled in New York and didn’t want to come back. We were the only ones who were in a position to take on the house. It was that or lose it. Mike had made his feelings quite clear.’

‘How could you be so sure? Why did he hand it over to you?’ I asked. Dad was silent.

‘I think,’ Kate said slowly, choosing her words with care, ‘when he left, all those years ago, he wanted a fresh start. He needed to get away. From – well, he felt – he felt he had to go.’ She looked down, and fell silent again.

Mum and Dad were watching her. I looked at all three in turn, then at Tom, who was looking at his mother strangely, his brow furrowed.

‘Oh, Lizzy.’ Mum sighed. ‘You have to understand what Mike was like when I first met him – when I first met your father’s family.’

‘Well…’ Dad said, shuffling and uncomfortable.