Simply Heaven (28 page)

I’ve been so low on compliments lately that this show of support sends a warm glow all through me.

‘Well, you don’t really
know
that, do you, darling?’ asks Mary. ‘It can take
years
to find out what people are
really
like.’

‘No, Ma,’ says Rufus. ‘If she says it happened, it happened. I’m more than prepared to accept that there’s been some sort of unholy cock-up, but I’m not going to go any further than that.’

‘But,
darling
,’ she says, ‘it simply never … you’d have thought I’d have remembered if I’d spoken to her on the phone, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, you would have,’ he says, with an edge to his voice.

Tilly speaks. ‘It
is
a bit weird,’ she says doubtfully. ‘Of course, I was dead to the world from seven onwards. Didn’t even hear the dinner bell. But I’d have thought I’d’ve heard something.’

No-one responds.

‘Of course,’ she says falteringly after a few seconds, ‘I’ve been so tired lately. I could have slept through an earthquake. Thanks for letting me miss dinner, by the way. I’m grateful for the sleep.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ says Mary, ignoring her, ‘if you’re not prepared to listen to other people’s points of view …’

‘Go on, then,’ Rufus says. ‘Give me your point of view.’

‘I just think,’ she says, pauses as if considering her words, ‘that perhaps … well, perhaps she’s feeling rather neglected.’

I feel myself redden, feel the intestinal lurch that has become such a familiar sensation over the past few weeks. Is she really suggesting that this is a hysterical attention-seeking put-on? She can’t be.

You’ve got to hand it to her: she’s skilled in the art of the veiled put-down.

‘I mean,’ she says sympathetically, ‘we
are
rather dull, here. And I should think that after the glamour of such a protracted honeymoon … especially if you’re used to a …
lively
social life …’ She leaves this hanging in the air.

‘What are you saying, Mother?’

‘Well, darling. She’s not used to our sort of structures, is she? I know it was an odd way of going about it, but perhaps, with you being so busy and so few young people around … one can hardly blame her if she feels the need to go to the pub and find herself a
p’tit ami
…’

I don’t know a lot of French, but I know when I’m being insulted. I open the door and enter the breakfast room, in the full knowledge that my expression is murderous.

They all look up. Well, all except Beatrice. I spot her seeing that it’s me and turning her head away with
grande dame
deliberateness. Edmund clutches a copy of the
Telegraph
, peers at me over his specs with a small smile and immediately reburies his face. This is roughly how he has coped with morning small-talk since I got here. Tilly moves her chair round to make room for me. Mary beams at me like the treacherous witch she is.

‘Good
morning
, Melody,’ she says. ‘I hope you’re feeling better today.’

I slip into my chair and say, ‘I wasn’t aware that I was ill, Mary.’

I hear a sigh from Rufus.

‘Not ill, darling. Though I did hear you’d drunk a certain amount of beer last night.’

‘Well, I don’t know what else I was supposed to do. I was in that pub for the best part of three hours.’

The smile spreads. ‘So I hear,’ she says archly.

Ooh, you
bitch
. I am
this
close to giving her a slapping.

Mrs Roberts enters the room. Lays a plate of kippers lovingly down in front of Rufus, bangs one down in front of me, wheels on a heel and leaves.

‘I don’t know why you couldn’t have just called the house,’ says Mary, the smile never wavering. ‘Someone would have come and picked you up.’

I just give her a look.

‘Mummy says they were at home all night,’ Rufus tells me.

I struggle with my manners, lose. ‘Well,
Mummy
’s lying.’

The
Telegraph
rustles. ‘Melody!’ mutters Edmund reprovingly.

That’s all I need: upbringing from someone who almost certainly has a shot of whisky in the bottom of his teacup.

‘Well, if they were at home all night, how come the lights were off all over the house?’

Tinkle tinkle, goes Mary. ‘But darling, why on
earth
would we want to have the lights off?’

A big ‘
graaargh
’ rises in my gorge. I ram it back down, dig my nails into the palms of my hands under the table.

‘I’ll think you’ll find,’ I say, once I’ve got myself under control, ‘that that was
my
point.’

She knits her eyebrows, tilts her chin and gives me the sort of look you give to stupid children. And people you want to insult.

‘But, darling, it’s just
silly
. What did you think? That we were creeping about in the dark playing hide-and-seek?’

‘She shouldn’t be living in the house anyway,’ announces Beatrice. ‘There are plenty of houses in the village for that sort of thing. I don’t know why you put up with it, Mary.’

‘Morning, Beatrice,’ I say. Her mouth collapses in on itself. She goggles at me for a single second, turns away.

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ says Mary, ‘if you think we all turned the lights off and hid from you.’ She leaves the sentence hanging in the air.

‘Oh,
please
,’ I say.

‘Rufus!’ says Beatrice. ‘I will
not
have her talking to the family like that!’

‘What, I’m not allowed to express my opinion?’

‘Mel,’ says Rufus. And I think: yeah, well, perhaps I
should
go a bit easy on the old girl. She is nearly a hundred, after all. A hundred years old and crouched over this family like a corpulent old spider in a web.

‘Excuse me,’ says Tilly, scraping her chair back and standing up, ‘Toast. Must walk it off.’

‘How’s your back?’ I ask.

Her hands fly instinctively to the top of her hips. Then, remembering the house rules, she plasters a smile on and Doesn’t Make A Fuss. ‘It’s fine. Thank you for asking.’

‘Would you like a bit of a rub-down later?’

Her eyes dart about. In the world of Bourton Allhallows, massage still only means one thing: anonymous doorways with red lights. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard someone pursing their lips, but I know for a fact that Mary is doing it right now. Then suddenly, Tilly shows a bit of intestinal fortitude. ‘Thank you, Melody,’ she says. ‘That would be very nice.’

‘I’ll come find you.’

She smiles, and the tight, white little face is transformed for a moment. I can see the skinny, freckly teenager Tilly once was, and I like what I see. Now,
there’s
Rufus’s sister, at last. Here’s something I can build on.

I attack my kippers with new enthusiasm. They are dried out like shoe leather. Pinpricks from tiny bones assail my throat.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ says Beatrice, apropos nothing. ‘In my day we just got on with it. Didn’t make all this fuss.’

No-one responds. Mary sips her Earl Grey. Rufus snatches a handful of sliced bread and slathers Tesco Value butter over it.

I’m stupid and rise to the bait. ‘There’s a fair body of evidence,’ I tell her, ‘that massage can help a lot in terms of pain. And getting ready for childbirth. I wouldn’t go just knocking it for the sake of scoring a point.’

She throws me a look that would freeze mud. Turns her face away and addresses the fireplace. ‘I suppose that this is all one can expect if one brings staff to the table,’ she says.

I give up. Give her my most charming smile. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Beatrice?’ I ask.

She pretends – actually pretends – she hasn’t heard me. It’s like sharing a table with a six-year-old.

I raise my eyebrows. Pour Rufus a cup of tea and one for myself.

‘I should like a cup of tea, if it’s not too much trouble for you, Rufus,’ says Beatrice with more than a hint of reprimand.

Rufus pours her one.

‘D’you want milk with that?’ I ask.

No reply. I sling some in anyway. Slide it over.

Beatrice pretends, after a few seconds, to notice it with surprise, as though it’s turned up by magic. Takes a sip. Pulls a face like she’s just been given a cup of hemlock. I wish. She lays it down, pushes it away.

‘Is that not right, Granny?’

‘Never mind,’ says Beatrice.

Rufus heaves a sigh. He seems to have been doing a lot of that, lately. Adjusting his napkin in his lap, he speaks. ‘OK. Would someone mind letting me in on what’s going on?’

Edmund heaves a sigh and turns a page. ‘Bloody socialists,’ he says. ‘Destroying the country.’

I think Edmund is probably completely unaware that there’s such a thing as an atmosphere.

Rufus waits for an answer. Breaks a piece of bread and wraps it round some kipper. ‘Well, it’s obvious
something’s
going on. I mean, I know you’re all capable of amazing rudeness, but this ignoring-Melody-altogether thing takes the biscuit, even for you.’

I’ve never heard him talk like this before. My nape prickles with the thrill of it. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.

Mary sips her tea, glances at him. Says nothing.

‘Granny?’ asks Rufus.

She’s silent for a bit. Eventually, she says: ‘If you don’t know, you should.’

Rufus slaps a hand down on the table-top. ‘Well, if no-one will say, how am I
supposed
to know? I’m not a bloody mind-reader.’

‘Rufus!’ says Mary. ‘Please! No swearing at breakfast.’

Beatrice pulls a face that makes me hope for a second that her teeth have come loose and are about to slip down her throat.

‘I’m getting really sick of this,’ says Rufus. ‘Can’t you
try
to be civilised?’

‘Well,’ says Mary, ‘I didn’t notice that
I
was swearing at the breakfast table.’

‘If you don’t talk to me, I’m going to swear a bloody lot more.’

Edmund lowers his paper. ‘Rufus,’ he says. Raises it back up again.

Rufus sighs. ‘OK. Granny, you seem to be the one with the biggest snit on. What is your problem?’

Beatrice comes over all dowager duchess.

‘I will
not
discuss family matters in front of your …’

‘My what? Melody
is
family matters. I’m not having her shut out. If there’s a problem, I—’

Beatrice responds sharply, spitefully. ‘Don’t you
dare
speak to me in that tone of voice!
You’re
the one who has caused this problem. You and your … you bring your … doxies into the house and expect to get away with it?’

‘What are you
talking
about?’

She flicks a hand at me. ‘Your mistress. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I know I’m old, but I’m not
stupid
. I’m not
blind
.’

‘Well, actually,’ I say, ‘you are.’

It doesn’t help, of course. Rufus says: ‘Christ, Melody! Don’t you have an
ounce
of tact?’ Mary says: ‘Rufus! I
asked
you not to swear!’ and Beatrice, voice shrill like a hand blender, shouts: ‘I want her out of here! Out of my house! I don’t care what you say! Pay her her notice and tell her to leave!’

‘What the f—’ I quickly correct myself – ‘on earth are you talking about?’

Suddenly, she’s glaring at me, meeting my eye for the first time this morning. There’s nothing little-old-lady about her now. I’m looking into the emotionless eyes of a boa constrictor. ‘And where did you get the impression you could call me by my Christian name? I don’t expect to be talked to like that by my staff. And especially not by a … a
kept woman
.’

‘Granny!’ protests Rufus.

‘Oh, get over yourself,’ I snarl.

‘Don’t speak to me!’ she snarls back. ‘Don’t speak to me at all!’

‘Granny!’ he shouts again.

‘Get out! Get her out of here! Go on! Get out!’

I slap my napkin down. ‘It’s OK. I’m leaving.’

‘Mel!’

‘No, Rufus. I’ve had enough.’ The strain of having kept a grip on my emotions over the past few weeks gets to be too much, forces tears into the back of my throat. ‘
Nothing’s
going to make these people happy. I can try till I’m blue in the face and they’ll just keep throwing up new things to beat me up with. It’s just one bloody thing after a-bloody-nother. Well, fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all. I’ll see you later.’

He’s torn. Knows he’s not going to get anything sorted out if he comes after me.

‘Wait,’ he says.

I shake my head. ‘I’m sorry. I’m too angry.’

‘I’ll …’ he says. ‘Look. I’ve got to get this … I’ll come and find you.’

‘Whatever,’ I snap, and stalk out of the room.

I pull the door to just as Rufus explodes.

Tilly’s sparko on her side in the library, on a chaise longue whose bottom is a mass of protruding horsehair. It’s got the look of mice about it. No doubt they’ve never been culled because they were recorded as living there in the Domesday Book and they’re traditional. She’s covered herself up with a motheaten mohair, and hugs her bump like a teddy-bear. Django, tail thumping, grins at me from where’s he’s perched along the length of her body. I’m not sure who’s relying on whom for body heat here, suspect it might be symbiotic.

Instincts fine-honed, she starts awake the moment I enter the room, tries to look alert – I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a pregnant lady trying to look alert, but it doesn’t work too good – and then, seeing that it’s me, drops her head back down on a cushion and blinks instead.

‘You gave me a fright,’ she says. ‘For a horrible moment I thought you might be Mary come to tell me I shouldn’t be moping.’

‘No worries,’ I tell her. ‘I thought you might like that rub-down.’

‘A rub-down and no lectures.’ Tilly’s voice is uncharacteristically blissful. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer. Get off, dog.’ Django thumps his tail again, remains steadfast on his mistress’s well-covered hipbone. His tongue lolls downward as his grin widens. Tilly pushes at him. ‘Bloody hell,’ she says, ‘he’s got me trapped like a kipper.’

‘Please don’t talk about kippers,’ I beg her. ‘I think those ones of Mrs Roberts’s will be with me till next week.’

I grab Django by the scruff – Wattestone dogs don’t have collars, as the chances of them wandering off Wattestone land are slim – and haul. Every muscle in his body goes limp. Suddenly, he weighs roughly the same as a baby elephant. Even the dogs are passive-aggressive.