Relative Love (37 page)

The worrying was over with, she told herself. On every front. The ache for little Tina was less insistent. The resurgence of grief over Miranda had passed. Elizabeth’s curiosity had been deflected. The party, meticulously prepared for and poised now to start, marked a new beginning for all of them.

Downstairs the caterers had taken over the kitchen; girls and boys in black and white outfits were scurrying round the ground floor like ants, preparing trays of drinks and canapés, while two chefs were reheating huge saucepans, deploying both the Aga and a cadaverous hostess trolley they had brought with them. Samson and Boots, mournful and bemused, had been locked into the utility room, along with two large boxes of the best silver, which John – with his fastidious insurer’s mind – had insisted be removed from temptation’s reach.

John had been calmed by a weak whisky and her hand-me-down bathwater, which was still piping hot and overlaid with meringue peaks of her camomile and lavender bath foam. It was a night to savour, Pamela reminded herself, dusting expertly at her face and neck with her powder puff and swivelling her head to check she had left no visible seams. A celebration of their son’s half-century. Another grand milestone in the rich tapestry of family life.

A few yards down the corridor Elizabeth, decked out in a bath towel, cleared a porthole in the mist of the bathroom mirror. Pink-skinned and moist from the bath, she sighed with dismay at the heaviness of her face and the loosening flesh of her underarms, grateful for the good sense that had made her rely on the old black dress after all and not rush out to depress herself with impossibilities in cramped changing rooms. She had left Colin already kitted out in his hired suit, tugging at his shirt cuffs in the bedroom mirror, pleased, in spite of himself, at the flattering effect of the rich cream jacket and crisp wing collar. Roland, miserable in black-velvet knickerbockers, stiff shiny shoes and a bow-tie that tickled his chin, lolled on the bed behind his
father, drawing sketches of the clouds that steamed like ships past the window. There was a dragon with smoking nostrils, a spindly claw of a hand and the head of a lady, in profile, with hair piled like a mountain on her head. He saved the lady till last, not really liking her because she reminded him of the woman he had seen talking to his father in a car outside Tesco’s a few days before. He had been with a friend, whose mother had suddenly remembered ten things they needed for tea. His father hadn’t seen him, which had disappointed Roland at the time, but then made him sort of glad because he didn’t know the woman and couldn’t think why his father would be out shopping with her. He and his mother did all the shopping and they only ever went to Sainsbury’s. ‘Good drawings,’ remarked Colin, peering over his shoulder. ‘Shame they’re on the back of an envelope though. Not really worth keeping like that, are they? Far better to have used a proper piece of paper.’

Roland put his hand over the pictures, suddenly hating them and the scruffy envelope his mother had produced for him before going off for her bath.

‘Don’t you look smart, though?’ continued Colin, tweaking his son’s bow-tie back into a horizontal line. ‘We’ll be the smartest men there, won’t we, you and me?’

Roland nodded, not believing this to be the case. He crumpled his drawings inside his fist, overtaken by a new and terrible fear that his mother might have forgotten to pack his plastic sheet – his magic plastic sheet, which meant, because he felt safe, Elizabeth had said, that he never had any accidents. Then his mother appeared in her dressing-gown, all smiles, her hair wet round her face. At almost the same minute the doorbell rang, causing a thunder of doors, voices and footsteps.

A few minutes later he was being herded down the stairs by his father, whom he then lost in a crowd of legs. A man gave him an orange juice, which he drank in one go, hovering by the door into the TV room as grown-ups trooped past him towards the big tent in the garden. Just as he was feeling at a complete loss he heard a hissed whisper and turned to find Chloë, sparkling like a fairy in a wide white dress, beckoning from a crack in the door to the utility room. ‘Look, the poor things …’ She indicated a mournful Boots and a sleepy Samson, draped like an abandoned fox stole across the top of the tumble dryer. They
need
us, Roland, they really do. They’re
prisoners
and they’re starving. I had some crisps but Boots has eaten them already.’

‘I’ll get some more, shall I?’ he offered eagerly, pleased at having something proper to do at last, and charged off to fill the pockets of his voluminous knickerbockers with anything edible he could find.

Serena could feel the party gathering momentum, a tangible force, with her still and disconnected in the middle of it; like the eye at the centre of one of Ed’s hurricanes, with the cylinder of everyone else’s energy towering and whirling around her. The food had come and gone: the mounds of salmon mousse, carved slabs of pink beef, troughs of green salad, huge bowls of new potatoes, piled like steaming pebbles, had been queued for, half demolished and cleared away. With the coffee a vast white-chocolate pagoda of a cake had been produced, laden with piped cream greetings and trembling candles – fifty exactly (Ed, sitting next to her at the time, had counted them out loud) – wheeled into the marquee by two young waiters, straining visibly to keep it steady on the lumpy canvas floor. Serena had clapped along with everyone else, contributing to a sea of noise that then seemed to recede, like a wave pulling back from the shore, leaving her washed up and alone. As Peter blew out the candles and delivered his speech, she heard nothing, saw nothing but the flickering candles in the empty church and her own
stuttering, isolating unhappiness. It was almost four months since Tina had died. And it was a Saturday too; another week’s anniversary in the dogged, wearing process of continuing. Charlie, she knew, was giving up on her, going through the motions of concern but not quite believing in them any more. She knew, too, it was no coincidence that for the first time in their married life he was throwing himself into his work and squeezing in the business of being a father, rather than the other way round. He had raved about Paris and was already hyped up about a big trip to Florida for some conference or other, the details of which kept slipping from her grasp even though he had told her about them many times, yakking at her – as he did, these days – much as he would to a half-stranger. Because they had somehow forgotten how to talk. Because the alternative was silence.

Waiters were moving the tables for dancing. On a wooden stage at the far side of the marquee a disc jockey was plugging in electronic boxes and testing his microphone. Peter and Helen, standing among a throng of friends, looked relaxed and radiant. Peter effortlessly handsome in his formal evening wear, had his arm round Helen, who was wearing a becoming unHelen-like dress, which displayed the pearly bare slope of her back. As she talked she confidently tossed her new longer hair, which had allowed her natural waves to run riot, softening the fierce triangle of her face.

Serena was watching them enviously when Charlie, restless at her side for several minutes, suddenly introduced her to a passing couple, then promptly slipped away, leaving her to face all the pleasantries alone.
What do you do? How many children do you have?
She did nothing, and she didn’t know how many children she had because she still felt as if she had four – but to say she had only three because one had died was impossible. It was too much to throw at anyone, let alone a pair of well-intentioned strangers, in spangled evening costumes, expecting to have a thoroughly good time. And yet not telling them felt like lying: these days, her grief defined her, and not admitting to it left her feeling false and hollow. Consigned, therefore, to the loneliness of being unknown and unknowable, Serena hastily – rudely – excused herself and fell upon Cassie, who was twiddling an empty glass and looking, for Cassie, oddly ill at ease.

‘Amazing party, isn’t it?’ Serena murmured, digging from somewhere deep inside her a comment appropriate to the circumstances. She knew it
was
an amazing party, it was just that she couldn’t feel it.

‘Oh, yes,’ agreed her sister-in-law, running a finger round the rim of her glass. ‘Ashley House was made for things like this – celebrations and so on … though I suspect it must still be hard for you, what with … all that’s happened.’

‘Yes … that is, a bit. But life goes on, as they say.’ Serena spoke sharply. She wanted – she yearned all the time for sympathy, but the moment it was offered she froze.

‘They do say that, don’t they?’ Cassie’s gaze flickered over her sister-in-law’s shoulder, alighting briefly on her mother. She was standing among a group of elderly women by the entrance to the marquee, poised and immaculately elegant, her crown of silver hair ringed with a blue velvet band that matched the shimmering dark navy sweep of her gown. Peter was nearby, the centre of a large group of friends, laughing about something. He had behaved perfectly normally, as indeed had she. Yet there was a new tension between them, because of what they knew. Cassie stared till her brother, compelled by some sixth sense, turned and caught her eye. They exchanged a glance, knowing that when an opportunity presented itself they would have a proper talk. Then she returned her attention to Serena, who was muttering something about getting a job, something to do with art or design, interior design, maybe, with her.

‘With me?’

‘It was only a thought – ridiculous probably.’

‘Oh, no … That is, of course it’s a possibility,’ Cassie stammered, reminded of the lamentable state of her once-flourishing freelance employment. ‘Though business is a little lean at the moment so …’

‘I understand,’ Serena murmured, the fizzle of courage that had prompted the enquiry gone. ‘Just a mad idea.’ She managed a smile, then sloped away, taking up a position well back from the now busy dance-floor, where she hoped she could watch without being seen.

Maisie was running down the muddy lane on the front tips of her high-heeled shoes, the folds of her long dress gathered in her arms, like some crazed princess in a fairy story. She had drunk two flutes of champagne and a glass of white wine and felt as if she was flying. A blessed and magic creature rushing – daring all – to meet her prince. ‘I will get there when I can,’ she had texted him back, with Monica squealing in excitement next to her. The phrase sang in her head now, over and over again, matching the rhythm of her skips and jumps round the puddles. It was much darker than she had expected and really rather spooky, although she could hear the throb of music from her uncle’s party behind her and see the dim glow of the village ahead. On either side the towering trees, so solid and reassuring in daylight, were brooding, moving shadows with hissing leaves. She had never been so frightened in her life, or so elated. When she reached the Tarmacked section of road at the start of the village, she heard something behind her and stopped, her heart exploding. But nothing stirred in the darkness so she pressed on, running faster, past the almshouses and the pub and the post office, her satin evening bag banging like a little satchel across her chest.

‘A dance, little sister?’

‘Okay, big brother.’ They moved to the centre of the dance-floor, dodging round two exuberant rock and rollers, and Colin, jigging with no exuberance at all opposite Elizabeth, who was swinging herself in circles with her eyes closed. Several of the children were dancing too, Roland doing shy hops round Chloë, while Theo and Ed were making bashful but much more rhythmic efforts near the edge of the dance-floor, as if they needed the security of knowing they could make a quick getaway, should the need arise.

‘It’s going well, isn’t it?’ Peter shouted over the music. ‘I thought we’d over-ordered on the booze but at this rate we’re barely going to have enough.’

‘Lizzy’s certainly had her fair share.’ Cassie nodded in the direction of their sister, who now had both hands over her head and was swaying like a sapling in a gale.

Peter chuckled. ‘It’s good though, isn’t it, to see her – to see everyone – letting go?’ He performed a tentative twirl, pulling Cassie into his arms, then spinning her out again. Until his speech he had been pretty tense, partly with nerves and partly with a sort of dim anger at his mother for adding confusing feelings to an occasion that should have been blissfully simple. On seeing the familiar photo of his uncle on the sitting-room table, young and dashing in his military gear, dark eyes blazing, Peter had been tempted to smash his fist into it, inspired by a sort of vicarious outrage on his father’s behalf. His poor father. As they greeted each other that afternoon Peter had found it hard to meet his gaze, fearing what his own expression might reveal. Men as steady and kind as his father were rare. His generosity to his brother, particularly in latter years, had known no bounds. It was unspeakable to think of how that same brother had betrayed
him. Fifty or a hundred years ago, it made no difference. It was still a horrible crime. And as for his mother … Peter still found Pamela’s treachery hard to comprehend. It was like a glimpse through a door into a much uglier world and an uglier person, separate from the gentle rock of a creature in whose steadfastness and integrity he had believed without question for fifty years.

‘What’s the news?’ He bent down to croak into his sister’s ear, hating the need to ask, hating above all the shadow being cast over his celebratory mood.

‘All good,’ Cassie whispered back, having to go on tiptoe even in her high heels to get her mouth close enough to his ear. ‘I’ve spoken to Stephen. He has agreed not to use the letter – says it’s not necessary to the purpose of the book.’

‘Which it isn’t.’ Peter punched the air with his fist and performed a little jump of jubilation. ‘Oh, well done, Cass, well done indeed. That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week. Thank God for that.’

‘Yes.’ Cassie did her best to look as pleased, unequal to the task of explaining to her brother the discomfort she felt about her position. Stephen Smith had indeed promised to make no reference to Pamela in his chapter on their uncle, but had called her countless times since the supposed resolution of the matter. If she turned the phone off he left messages. He was concerned for her because of Dan, he said. He wanted to be a friend, a shoulder for her to cry on. Several times he had asked her out for a drink and each time she had – gently, politely – refused. It would have been hard enough without the business of the letter. But the letter made it harder still. Seldom mentioned in subsequent conversations, it hung over things; an invisible, Damoclean part of the deal. Be nice to me and your secret is safe. Reject me and it isn’t. He had called again just that afternoon to say he hoped they all had a good time at the party and to ask again whether they could meet. And Cassie, worn down, wanting only the immediate peace of release, had said okay. They had settled on the following Friday and Cassie, the moment she put the phone down, regretted it. So fresh from a real love affair, where the ardour had been equally matched and spontaneous, these new unwanted attentions grated on her nerves like the scrape of metal on a blackboard. It seemed cruel beyond words that having been relieved of the burden of her own secret affair she should find herself weighed down by the far less rewarding task of protecting her mother’s.