Peacock Emporium (51 page)

‘That’s a bit strong.’

‘Yeah. It probably is. But he did let you behave a bit like a spoilt child. Don’t get arsy with me for saying it,’ she added quickly, ‘not while we’re having our sisterly bonding session.’

‘Is that what this is?’

‘Yup. About fifteen years later than it should have been. Come on, show me where your bags are and I’ll start sorting your things for you.’ Lucy unzipped the big black holdall with determined speed. ‘Bloody hell!’ she said. ‘How many pairs of high-heeled shoes do you own, Imelda?’ She zipped the bag shut again and hauled it to the other side of the room. ‘You won’t need any of those. Get Dad to put them in the attic. Where are your clothes?’

Suzanna pulled up her knees under the duvet and hugged them, thinking of the infinite possibilities before her. And the ones she had missed. She was trying to fight the sensation of being rushed, that she should sit still for a while and take stock. But her sister was right. She had caused enough harm to Neil already. It was the least she could do.

‘Are you getting up today, you fat lodger?’

Suzanna rested her face on her knees, watching Lucy’s blonde head bob up and down as her sister sorted through her clothes – clothes that looked suddenly, as if they didn’t belong to her. ‘I told Mum there wasn’t anyone else,’ she said eventually.

Lucy stopped, a pair of socks balled in her hand. She put them into a pile on her left. When she looked up, her face was a careful blank. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised.’

‘He was the first.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I just thought it was going to take something pretty radical to shake you out of your safety-net.’

‘You think that’s what it was?’ Suzanna realised she felt vaguely defensive about her marriage. It had lasted a lot longer, survived a few more slings and arrows than many.

‘Not just that.’

Suzanna stared at her sister. ‘It wasn’t just a casual fling.’

‘Is it over?’

Suzanna hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually.

‘You don’t sound very sure.’

‘There was a time when . . . when I thought it might be right . . . but things have changed. And, anyway, I should be by myself for a while. Sort myself out. Something Neil said made me think a bit.’

‘You told Neil about him?’

‘God, no. I’ve hurt him enough. You’re the only one who knows. Do you think I’m awful? I know you liked Neil.’

‘Doesn’t mean I ever thought you two were right for each other.’

‘Ever?’

Lucy shook her head.

Suzanna felt relieved yet a little betrayed by her sister’s apparent certainty. Then again, even if Lucy had said anything, she reasoned, she would have taken no notice – she had taken little heed of her family’s opinions for years.

‘Neil’s a simple soul,’ Lucy said. ‘Just a nice, straightforward chap.’

‘And I’m a complicated old cow.’

‘He needs some nice Home Counties
gel
to lead a nice simple life with.’

‘Like you.’

Is that really what you think? Lucy’s eyes asked, and Suzanna discovered that she didn’t know because she had never looked hard enough.

Lucy paused, as if judging her words carefully. ‘If it makes you feel any better, Suze, one day I’ll probably drop my own little bombshell on Mum and Dad. Just because my life looks simple to you it doesn’t mean I am.’

It had been said light-heartedly, but Suzanna, gazing at the young woman opposite, thought of her sister’s furious ambition, her determined privacy, her lack of boyfriends. And, as the germ of a notion grew, of how blind, how self-obsessed she had been.

She slid out of bed, crouched beside her and ruffled her sister’s short blonde hair. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘when you do, my prodigal sister, just make sure I’m around to enjoy it.’

She found her father by the Philmore barns. She had walked the long route, up the bridleway and past the Rowney wood, carrying the basket Vivi had made up, which she had offered to run to them in her car. It was okay, Suzanna had said, she fancied the walk. And she had walked meditatively, ignoring the fine rain, conscious of the glowing swell of autumnal colours on the land around her.

She heard it before she saw it, the grind and bump of the bulldozer, the creaking and crashing of timbers, and had to shut her eyes for a second: such sounds didn’t always mean disaster. Once her breath had been restored to her, she had walked on, closer to the house. And then, coming upon the scene of activity, stood at the edge of what had once been a yard and watched as the bulldozer crashed against the rotten wood, bringing down, amid those still standing, the semi-derelict buildings that had been there for centuries, which even the most fervently antiquarian listings officer at the council had admitted were no longer worth saving.

Her father and brother were at the other side, motioning to the men in the bulldozers, her father breaking off occasionally to talk to two others, one of whom appeared to be in charge of the skips.

By the time she had arrived, two buildings were already down, their metamorphosis from shelter to sculpture almost dismayingly swift. On the ground, with the blackened timbers sticking up like a final obscene protest, she observed that for such large structures they had produced a surprisingly small amount of rubble.

Ben had seen her. He pointed to his father, a question, and she nodded, watching as he walked over to interrupt the older man’s conversation. Ben and he walked in the same way, with the same stiff-legged gait, shoulders hunched forward as if permanently ready to do battle. Her father, tilting his ear towards his son, ended his conversation and, following his son’s hand, gestured towards her. She stood still, not wanting to have to make polite conversation. Finally, perhaps sensing her reticence, he came across to her, dressed in a thin cotton shirt that she remembered from her youth, oblivious, as he seemingly always had been, to the elements.

‘Lunch,’ she said, handing over the basket. And then, as he was about to thank her, she added, ‘Got a minute?’ He indicated the one remaining barn, and passed Ben’s sandwiches to him on the way.

They had not seen each other in the twenty-four hours she had been in the house. He had been out with the demolition team, and she had spent much of her time in her room, a good portion of it asleep. He motioned towards an old fertiliser sack, and she rested carefully against it, as he hauled one over for himself.

There was an expectant pause. She didn’t bring up the circumstances of her birth, or her leaving Neil, although she knew Vivi would have discussed both with him. As far as Suzanna knew, Vivi had never kept a secret from her father.

‘Looks strange, without the middle barns.’

He glanced up to the holes in the roof. ‘I suppose it does.’

‘When do you start work on the new houses?’

‘It’ll be a while. We’ll have to level the ground first, put in new drainage, that sort of thing. Those still standing will have to have most of the timber replaced.’ He offered her a sandwich, and she shook her head. ‘It’s a shame,’ he said. ‘We’d originally thought we could convert the lot. But there are times when you have to accept that you’re just going to have to start from scratch.’

They sat side by side, her father breaking off from his sandwich to drink from a flask of tea. She found herself staring at his hands. She remembered Neil telling her that when his own father had died, he had realised, with shock, that he would never see his hands again. So familiar, so mundane, yet so shockingly gone.

She glanced down at her own. She didn’t need to see a picture to know that they were her mother’s.

She placed them between her knees, and looked out to where the men had stopped for lunch. Then, finally, she turned to her father. ‘I wanted to ask you something.’ Her palms pressed against each other, her skin surprisingly cool. ‘I wanted to ask if you’d mind if I took a little of my share of the estate money now.’

She saw from the way he looked at her that he hadn’t known what was coming. That what he had perhaps expected was somehow worse. His eyes were both questioning and relieved, checking that this was what she wanted. She understood that, in asking, she had told him what she now found acceptable.

‘You need it now?’

She nodded. ‘Ben will do good things with the estate. It . . . it’s in his blood.’

There was a brief silence as the words descended between them. Wordlessly, he took a chequebook from his back pocket, and scribbled a figure, then handed it to her.

Suzanna stared at the cheque. ‘That’s too much.’

‘It’s your right.’ He paused. ‘It’s what we spent putting Lucy and Ben through university.’

He had finished his sandwich. He screwed up the greaseproof paper it had been wrapped in, and put it back into the basket.

‘You might as well know,’ she said, ‘that I’m going to go abroad with it. Spread my wings.’

She was conscious of his silence, of the silences with which he had spoken to her all her life. ‘Lucy’s got me a ticket. I’m going to Australia. I’ll be staying with a friend of hers for a while, just till I find my feet.’

Her father shifted position.

‘I haven’t done much with my life, Dad.’

‘You’re just like her,’ he said.

She felt herself boil up. ‘I’m not a bolter, Dad. I’m just trying to do what’s right for everyone.’

He shook his head, and she realised that the look on his face had not been of condemnation. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he said, slowly. ‘You . . . need to strike out. Find your own way of doing things.’ He nodded, as if reassuring himself. ‘You sure that money will be enough?’

‘God, yes. Backpacking’s pretty cheap, from what Lucy says. Actually, I’m hoping not to spend too much. I’m going to leave most of it here in the bank.’

‘Good.’

‘And Father Lenny’s going to sell off my remaining stock for me. So that will be a bit more coming in, hopefully.’

‘Can he manage it?’

‘I think so. Everyone tells me I can’t really get rid of it without him.’

They watched as Ben moved between the two bulldozers, apparently issuing instructions, breaking off once to answer his mobile phone and laugh uproariously.

Her father stared at him for a while, then turned to her. ‘I know things haven’t been easy between us, Suzanna, but I do want you to know something.’ His knuckles were white round the flask. ‘I never did a test, you know – we didn’t have DNA and suchlike in those days – but I knew from the start you were mine.’

Even in the darkened barn Suzanna could see the intensity of his gaze, heard the love in what he was saying. She realised that even he was hidebound by the past, by deeply ingrained beliefs about blood and heritage. There were ways to be certain about these things. But suddenly she understood they were irrelevant. ‘It’s all right, Dad,’ she said.

They were quiet for a moment, conscious of a gap widened by years of hard words and misunderstanding, of the ghost that would always come between them. ‘Maybe we’ll visit. When you’re in Australia,’ he said. He was now close enough to her for their arms to be resting against each other. ‘Your mother has always fancied a bit of foreign travel. And I wouldn’t want to go too long – without seeing you, I mean.’

‘No,’ said Suzanna, allowing the warmth of him to seep into her. ‘Me neither.’

She found Vivi in the picture gallery, staring at the portrait.

‘Are you going to your shop?’

My shop, thought Suzanna. It no longer felt like the right phrase to describe it. ‘I’m going to pick up the last of my clothes from Neil’s first. I think it’s fairer on him to do it while he’s out.’

‘Just clothes?’

‘A few books. My jewellery. I’m going to leave the rest.’ She frowned. ‘Will you keep an eye on him while I’m gone?’

Vivi nodded.

She had probably already decided as much Suzanna thought. ‘I’m not completely heartless. I do care about him, you know,’ she said. She would have liked to add, I want him to be happy. But she was glad that she wouldn’t be around to witness that. Selflessness didn’t stretch that far.

‘Will you be happy?’

Suzanna thought of Australia, an unknown continent on the other side of the world. She thought of her own tiny world, of what had once been her shop. Of Alejandro. ‘Happier than I have been,’ she said, unable to explain quite what she felt. ‘Definitely happier.’

‘That’s a start.’

‘I suppose it is.’

Suzanna stepped forward, and they stood side by side, gazing up at the gilt-edged painting. ‘She should be here,’ said Vivi. ‘If it’s all right by you, Suzanna dear, I shall probably be on that wall opposite. Your father, silly old fool, thinks I should be up there too.’

Suzanna wrapped her arm round Vivi’s waist. ‘You know what? I’m not sure it shouldn’t just be you. It might look a bit odd otherwise. And that frame of hers doesn’t really go with the surroundings.’

‘Oh, no, darling. Athene has a right. She has to have her place too.’

Suzanna was transfixed briefly by the glittering eyes of the woman in the portrait. ‘You’ve always been so good,’ she said, ‘looking after all of us.’

‘Goodness has nothing to do with it,’ said Vivi. ‘It’s just the way we were made – I was made.’

Then Suzanna turned from the portrait to the woman who loved her, who had always loved her. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Vivi said, as they made their way towards the stairs, ‘something came for you while you were out. It was delivered by the most extraordinary old man. He kept smiling at me as if he knew me.’

‘An
old
man?’

Vivi was examining the wood of a table, rubbing at its surface with a fingertip. ‘Oh, yes. Well into his sixties. Foreign-looking chap with a moustache. No one I’ve seen in town.’

‘What was it?’

‘He wouldn’t explain who it was from. But it’s a plant.
Roscoea purpurea
, I think it is.’

Suzanna stared at her mother. ‘A plant? Are you sure it’s for me?’

‘Perhaps it’s from one of your customers. Anyway, it’s in the utility room.’ She walked down the stairs, then called over her shoulder, ‘We used to know it as the peacock eye. Not one of my favourites, I must admit. I’ll give it to Rosemary if you don’t want it.’ With a noise that sounded like a gasp, Suzanna almost pushed past her mother and ran down the stairs.