The House at the Edge of the World (6 page)

There was no bread. Matthew had not been
seen for the last two days, although I had heard him moving around the house in the
early hours of the morning. I could hear him thinking in the pauses in his shuffle. I
went and pressed my ear to the door of his study. I feared hearing the sounds of grief,
but there were none, so I knocked tentatively at the door.

‘Come in!’

I opened the door to the mingled smells of
oil paint, white spirit, linseed oil and pipe tobacco. He stood on a set of library
steps in front of the map, his paintbrush poised beneath the magnifying-glass.

‘Ah!
Morwenna!’ he said. ‘Have you been sent to extricate me?’

‘Jane’s here.’

‘Yes. I can sense her
presence!’

He carried on painting.

‘I’ve just come across something
very interesting,’ he said. ‘A blasphemous pamphleteer! He seems also to
have had a line in daubing slogans on walls. I found him in that funny little tract
there – no, not that one. The one on the left.’

I picked up a dog-eared tract published by
the Village Sermon Society for the Publication of Village Sermons.

‘He’s referred to as “the
infamous blasphemer of Barnstaple”. So then I went looking for him elsewhere, and
it occurred to me that I might find him in the memoirs of that old magistrate, Ezra
Hargreaves – you remember, he had one of those beards that you hate so much, where the
upper lip and chin are shaved. Unfortunately,’ said Matthew, ‘we don’t
have the wording of the blasphemies – they were too toxic to record.’

Matthew’s sketchbook lay open on the
table, the one I had made him for Christmas: hand-stitched, bound in a soft brown
leather so that it could easily slide into his jacket pocket, numbered on the spine. It
lay open at the page where three cartoons of the unfortunate blasphemer were sketched: a
forlorn Hogarthian figure with the mad gleam of the proselyte in his eye – a working
man, rumpled and resentful.

I had stopped seeing the map. When we were
younger Matthew used to hand us the magnifying-glass and say, ‘Look, children.
Tell me what you can find.’ That was the game: discover something new on the map
and be rewarded with a story.

Now Matthew said, ‘What do you think
was the very first thing I painted on the map?’

‘The house?’ I ventured. I had
always assumed that he had started with Thornton, but Matthew said, ‘No. Of
course, everyone tends to make that assumption. But I started here,
Morwenna. With the Devil. It is Thornton’s founding myth, as you
know.’

On the map, the Devil peered back over his
shoulder, pointing the apple-red cheeks of his naked backside at the church and farting.
Above the steeple the gilt-haloed head of St Michael floated on a pair of wings, wearing
an expression of great decorum.

I knew Matthew’s devils. They danced
all around the map. The Devil had left stories all over the county. He liked to leave
his hoof-prints on our roofs: trip trap, trip trap, over the slates, softly, softly,
over the thatches.

I said, ‘Matthew, you have to come out
for supper.’

Matthew sighed. ‘That Jane,’ he
said. He put down his palette. ‘She always wears such noisy shoes!’

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

‘Morwenna!’ he said. ‘Must
you be so lazy with language? And what a silly question!’

He climbed down from his ladder. ‘You
know, Morwenna,’ he said, ‘I have always been terrified of
drowning.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘The
Crab Man.’

‘Yes,’ said Matthew.

‘But I doubt that Dad actually
drowned.’

He looked at me sharply. ‘I’m
not sure, my dear, that that thought helps.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I suppose
not.’

‘That Jane,’ said Matthew.
‘She has always been so
purposeful
.’

Jane had insisted that we lay the table in
the dining room. We never ate in the dining room, but this was not really a meal: it was
a parley. Matthew sat at the head of the table, Jane and Mum on one side, Corwin and I
on the other. The polished mahogany of the furniture and the red velvet curtains and
brown Edwardian wallpaper all made me think of a coffin – a red-velvet-lined mahogany
coffin, with brass handles. A wave
of claustrophobia swept over me. My
father would not like it in there. Then I remembered that there would be no coffin.

Matthew smiled at us all.
‘Please,’ he said, to Jane, ‘tuck in.’ He held the bread basket
towards her. ‘I’m sorry that there’s no bread,’ he said.
‘I’ve been neglecting my duties.’ She took from it a piece of damp
Ryvita. Corwin cut himself a huge chunk of the cheese that we had found lurking at the
back of the fridge and from which we had removed the mould. I understood that we were
hungry, and that this salad in front of us, bursting with tomatoes and radishes and
spring onions and boiled eggs, was somehow miraculous – blessed even. Suddenly I had an
appetite for the commiseration food in the freezer. I was going to eat it all. Matthew
said, ‘I’m sure we must have a bottle of wine somewhere. Corwin, would you
find some wine to offer our guest?’

Corwin, whose charm had been slipping a
little, revived and jumped up from the table. He was reminded that there was no weapon
in Jane’s arsenal as powerful as Matthew’s amiability, and this cheered him
enormously. Matthew turned to me. ‘Morwenna, dear. Glasses.’ I took from the
sideboard the crystal glasses that had last been used for Christmas dinner. Jane pushed
the salad around on her plate. She had nibbled a tiny cardboard corner of Ryvita and
abandoned it. Mum ate nothing. She sat and glared with a furious despair at Matthew, who
was eating heartily, as though she were about to hurl herself upon his sword.

Corwin came back with wine and poured a
glass for everyone, even Jane, who attempted to demur. She was about to say something,
but Matthew lifted a glass and said, ‘I think, don’t you, that now that we
are gathered, we should say a few words about John?’

Corwin and I stopped eating. Jane sat back
in her chair and murmured embarrassed assent. Mum’s expression, fixed on Matthew,
remained combative. Under the table, Corwin took
my hand. Matthew said,
‘We can’t pretend to share our grief. Each of us is alone with our own sense
of loss and we may not intrude upon each other’s emotions. However, we may make a
simple toast: to our beloved John. May his soul find peace.’

Corwin and I muttered, ‘Dad!’
Jane pushed her nose towards the glass with a cat-like sniff, and Mum laughed and said,
‘Christ, Matthew. You always were a pompous old arse! But here’s to John –
or what’s left of him.’ Theatrically, she lifted her glass and took a good
challenging swig. ‘You and John!’ she said. ‘All that tramping over
the cliffs communing with the elements!’ She stopped herself. ‘OK,’
she said. ‘That’s enough of that! What happens next?’

‘Well,’ said Matthew, pushing
off gently on Mum’s wave of hostility. ‘In the absence of a body, we have to
petition the court to issue a death certificate.’

‘I know all of that,’ said Mum.
‘I’m not an idiot. I was there when that infant policeman was explaining it
all to us. I meant, what happens with me? Your pleasant arrangement with John was based
on the assumption that you would cop it first, which you haven’t.’

Corwin opened his mouth to frame a question,
but Mum said, ‘Shut up, Corwin. You keep out of this.’

‘Keep out of what?’ I asked. I
was beginning to realize that I was the only person in the room who didn’t know
what was under discussion.

‘Your dear father and grandfather held
the view that it was too vulgar to discuss money and property,’ hissed Mum.
‘They just did this tasteful, gentlemanly “One day, son, all this shall be
yours” thing. Only it shan’t.’

Jane allowed herself a smug little sip of
wine, as though modesty prevented her taking any credit for the quality of Mum’s
performance.

‘Mum, don’t you think
you’re being just a little bit melodramatic?’ asked Corwin, in his best
conciliatory voice.

‘Oh, hark at you,
Little Lord of the Manor-in-waiting!’ retorted Mum.

The room darkened a shade or two. Outside,
the mist was thickening, and, while our attention had been diverted, the days had
shortened. The coffin lid was closing on us. I shouted, ‘What’s wrong with
you? Why are you taking it out on Corwin?’

‘Ah! And the chatelaine springs to the
defence of her beloved brother!’ Mum’s voice was beginning to sound
metallic. Jane put a hand on her arm. Mum reached for the wine and poured herself
another glass.

Matthew said, ‘Valerie, dear! Please!
This is your home. There is no question of you being asked to leave it.’

‘But it isn’t, is it?’

‘Mum!’ Corwin said. He looked
older. I looked older. I could feel it on my face: all the skin was pulling down around
my eyes. ‘Please stop this.’ He reached across the table and took her hands.
‘Please, just calm down. We don’t understand why you’re bringing this
up now.’

Mum returned his grip and looked at him
sadly. ‘You – plural – don’t understand? Are you speaking for Morwenna
too?’ She laughed. ‘Look at the two of them! My beautiful cuckoo
children!’ And she pulled her hands away and stood up.

‘This is what will happen,’ she
explained. ‘Your grandfather will make arrangements for the house to pass directly
to you two when he dies. In the meantime, until such time as I can claim your
father’s life insurance – which will not be straightforward without a body – I am
dependent upon your grandfather’s charity. Not that he could ever be
uncharitable.’

I looked at Matthew. It was true, of course.
He said, ‘Valerie, what else can I do?’

Something stirred in the mud of my belly – a
loathsome creature squirmed there: the house would be ours, mine and Corwin’s. No
one else could mess with it.

Mum shrugged her shoulders. ‘Nothing,
Matthew. There’s
nothing else you can do.’ She moved
towards the door. ‘I’m going to pack. I’m going to spend a couple of
days with Jane.’

Matthew stood up. ‘We need to talk
about a memorial service for John. It has been almost a week. People will wish to
condole with us.’

‘You sort it out,’ said Mum.
‘I’ll be there.’

Left alone with us, Jane allowed a flash of
panic to cross her face. Corwin said, ‘Nice one, Aunt Jane!’ It was a
measure of his anger that he called her ‘Aunt’ – it made her feel old.

‘It has nothing to do with me!’
she protested.

Corwin laughed his scornful laugh. Matthew
was packing his after-dinner pipe as he always did, but I knew that he was upset. I
said, ‘I’m going to talk to her.’

She was in her bedroom, packing, surrounded
by things of my father’s: his book and reading glasses on the bedside table, a
jumper thrown over a chair. I said, ‘How can you go away at a time like
this?’

‘I can’t breathe here with all
of this …’ She gestured around the room. ‘It’s too sad. Look at the
window – there’s no air here. I need air.’

The darkening sea fog hung against the
glass. Nothing was visible beyond it. I said, ‘You’re always so weird when
Jane’s around. It’s as if you revert or something.’

Mum straightened up, dangerously.
‘
Revert?
Revert to what, exactly?’

‘To Jane!’ I was shouting. I had
not felt outraged until I started shouting, but once I did, it seemed to me that she was
unnatural, distorted – abandoning her own children to their bereavement.
‘She’s so fucking …’ I reached for the worst insult I had in my
vocabulary ‘… bourgeoise!’

‘
Bourgeoise!
Christ! You even
put an
e
on the end? You two are so monstrous! Well, here’s the thing,
darling. Now that you and Corwin are eighteen I think you’re old enough for me to
reveal that you are both, whether you like it or not, fully paid-up
members of the
bour-geoi-sie
!’ She began counting out knickers.
‘You don’t mean
bourgeoise
, darling. You mean something
else.’ She always took one pair of knickers for each day she planned to be away
and an extra pair. I noticed that she was packing seven. ‘
Suburban
,
perhaps. Your father was fond of that one. Or what do you and your friends call people
you think are beneath you?
Aspidistra?
Isn’t that it?’

I flinched. That was
our
word. She
had no licence to use it. ‘It’s all right,’ said Mum, comfortably.
‘One day, when you grow up, you’ll look back and realize what a disgusting
little snob you were.’

She closed the lid of her suitcase.
‘Now, here’s some advice for you, mother to daughter – and you can take that
indignant expression off your face. You and Corwin are fine with each other. You always
have been. This is the best advice I am ever going to give you. Get yourself a career.
Don’t give it up for your husband. Don’t give it up for your children.
Never, ever allow yourself to be financially dependent on someone else. Do you
understand?’

I nodded. It was something I had believed
that I believed, but now I saw that there were practicalities involved. I said,
‘Don’t go, Mum. Please.’

‘I need a break, darling. You can see
that, surely? I need to get away from your grandfather and his fucking map. All shut
away in that room of his. What kind of a person works on the same painting for fifty
years? It gives me the creeps.’

She gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
There were no tears. In fact, I never saw her cry again.

After she had gone I sat on her bed. I
wondered if she would ever sleep there again. I thought about stripping the linen so
that she could come home to clean sheets. In the corner of the room a patch of damp was
causing the wallpaper to peel off the previous wallpaper, which was peeling off the one
before, and so on. That’s interesting! I thought. All those forgotten wallpapers.
Matthew would like that. I must remember to show him.

Corwin was standing in the
door. ‘What are you doing?’