Wish You Were Here (5 page)

He grunted. Reached out a backward hand to give me a reassuring pat.

I went to sleep happy, barely needing the eye mask, the socks, the earplugs, the drops of sleep-inducing lavender water on the pillow, the Rennies, or even the swig of Night Nurse – although, naturally, I employed them all anyway, just in case.

The following morning I lay in bed until nine o'clock, luxuriating in my family's absence. Tara had taken a bus to her school across the river; James, after much discussion about which tie to wear, the Tube to St Thomas's Hospital; and Amelia and Toby had walked – or bounced, in Toby's case; he had a funny walk – to their crammer, where they were both doing retakes. About this, James and I had been practically on saucepan-throwing terms earlier in the year. There'd been tears and shrieks from all quarters, mostly from Amelia, who'd baulked at the inconvenience it posed to her gap year, but also from James, who'd baulked at the cost, since he'd already shelled out thousands for private school. Thousands we didn't have. I'd prevailed, though, as I knew I would, but it had been the bloodiest of family battles. At the crammer, she'd met the
Trog, so in some respects I'd scored an own goal, but I was pleased she was having another go, even if it was only at one A-level, sport science. The telephone rang beside me. I lunged in the dark for the receiver, removing an earplug.

‘Eau, helleau, it's Penelope Friar-Gordon here.'

I didn't know anyone by that name. I propped myself up on my elbow. Pushed up my eye mask to let the light flood in, and removed the other earplug.

‘Sorry, I –'

‘Rory's mother.'

‘Oh, right.' I struggled to sit up.

‘I gather you've kindly invited Rory on holiday with you this summer?'

I came to. The ‘kindly' had been crowbarred in somehow. Overall, the voice was distinctly frosty.

‘Yes – yes. I was going to ring you, actually, but we've only just got back from Paris, and last night was a bit hectic. To be honest, I only recently learned that Tara's invited him. You know what they're like!'

If I'd been hoping for a spot of mothers-with-teenagers camaraderie, I was disappointed.

‘I see. I got the distinct impression from Rory that Tara had invited him a while ago?'

Realizing I was about to drop Tara in it, I became vague. ‘Oh, well, I can't quite remember when it was decided. But the thing is, it's France now. Our plans have changed. Provence,' I added happily, thinking that even Mrs Ice-cold in Gloucestershire would thaw.

‘Eau. I thought he'd be doing some stalking?'

For a moment I visualized Rory, in pressed chinos,
perving round Kincardine after the local talent, which was generously sized and, generally, underdressed. Then it dawned.

‘Oh, no, my father-in-law doesn't … he no longer shoots. Just a bit of fishing.'

‘Right.' She sounded incredibly disappointed. ‘I was distinctly told …'

What
had
Tara said? That she was from some wealthy Scottish aristo family whose land marched with Balmoral, and with whom we shared lavish shooting parties? Whereas, in fact, the Brig, albeit landed and creaking gentry, had acres of scrubby gorse and masses of mangy sheep?

‘Well, as I say, it's immaterial,' I said crisply, disliking this woman intensely, ‘ because we're going to Provence this year.'

She caught my tone. ‘Ah, yes, I see. How lovely. And that's yours, is it?'

‘No, it's very kindly being lent to us.'

It occurred to me that it would be simpler to send this woman my bank statements. Spectacularly overdrawn, no Scottish pile, no French one either, just a four-bed semi in Clapham with a mortgage.

‘And Rory is very welcome to join us.'

‘Obviously, they'll have separate bedrooms?'

‘Obviously!' I seethed. Blimey, I was the
girl's
mother; she was the
boy's.
Was her precious son at the mercy of my siren?

‘Only they are very young. Rory is still only sixteen.'

I shut my eyes. ‘They are.' I said quietly. ‘Very young.' I got out of bed and clenched my fist hard. I wanted to say,
D'you know what? He's no longer invited, but knew, for Tara, I couldn't.

‘I think I need another word with Henry,' said Mrs Friar-Gordon doubtfully.

Presumably, the husband. ‘It's my pleasure,' I said, as if she'd thanked me profusely instead of insulted me, which, happily, wrong-footed her. She remembered her manners.

‘Oh, er, yes. Thank you.'

‘You're welcome. Goodbye.'

I didn't exactly put the phone down, but neither did I wait for her to reply.

Instead, I peeled off my T-shirt and ran into the shower, emerging a few minutes later, wet and steaming. I was just running naked down the corridor to the airing cupboard at the far end of the empty house for clean pants when the phone rang again.

‘Bloody woman!' I shrieked, turning back, just as the door to Amelia's bedroom opened. Toby emerged, his huge, hairy body squeezed into my daughter's Cath Kidston dressing gown.

There was a ghastly freeze-frame moment. Our eyes locked briefly, then my hands flew – one up, one down – but not before his eyes had beaten my hands to it. He disappeared quickly back into Amelia's room.

Shit. Bloody
hell.
I ran on, going as hot as the sun. What was he
doing
here? Well, lying in, clearly, whilst Amelia went to college, which, frankly,
was not on.
Toby staying here at all had slipped under the radar after a supper party six months ago, when we'd had some lovely friends from Wiltshire staying with all four of their children. Naturally, we'd all got roaring drunk, and Toby had been too pissed
to drive home. He obviously couldn't go in the spare room, as usual, due to the guests, and Amelia had said, ‘Why doesn't he just kip on the floor in my room?' I'd been too tired and drunk to argue. This, then, had set a precedent. Wedged a thin end. And now he'd seen me
naked.
Back in the bedroom, still lacking pants, or any clothes at all, the phone was still ringing. I dived back under the covers.

‘Hel
lo!
' I barked, furious.

‘What's up?' It was Lizzie.

‘Oh. Lizzie.' I groaned. Covered my eyes. ‘Toby's just seen me with no clothes on.'

She paused, startled. An excited note crept into her voice. ‘Gosh, I didn't know you two … does Amelia …?'

‘Oh, not like that, Lizzie,' I said, irritated. ‘This isn't some torrid Alan Clark mother-and-daughter
ménage à trois
, this isn't an episode out of your life. I ran into him on the landing.'

‘Oh.' She was clearly disappointed. ‘Oh, well, do him good. See what's in store for him twenty years down the track.'

‘Put him off for life, you mean.'

‘Nonsense, there's nothing wrong with your figure. If he'd seen mine, he'd be far more devastated. Anyway, France,' she said excitedly.

I narrowed my eyes. Sat up a bit. ‘How do you know?'

‘Amelia popped round to borrow my tent. She's going to some music festival.'

‘Leeds – I know – but not for ages. You have a tent?'

‘Remember I went to Glastonbury? With Neighing Nigel? Anyway, isn't it fab? A whole month! For free!'

‘Yes, well,' I hedged nervously. ‘But we've literally only
just heard ourselves. So, obviously, I'll have to talk to James about exactly who he wants to come and how long –'

‘Oh, we
definitely
don't want the Harrisons,' she interrupted. ‘Remember they came to Scotland that year and he banged on and on about his bonus and how all his children had got into Cambridge? And she kept passing wet wipes round the Land Rover in case anyone had touched a dead rabbit?'

‘No, not the Harrisons,' I said weakly. ‘But Lizzie, a month is a long time. I was thinking –'

‘Oh,
don't
be so wet, Flora. It'll fly by, you'll love it! You are absolutely not to ring and say we'll have it for less. Think how brown we'll be!'

‘Yes, well – oh. Hang on, Lizzie.'

Amelia had put her head around the door. ‘Why are you still in bed?'

‘Because I am
trying
to get up, but the phone keeps ringing. Why aren't you at college?'

‘No classes. It's an Ofsted day. Tobes and I are going to Reading. Is there any petrol?'

‘How would I know if there's any petrol in your car?'

‘Oh, OK, there isn't. Can I borrow your card? I've got, literally, no money. I'll only put a bit in.'

‘No, you cannot borrow my debit card. It is not some magic wand to wave around willy-nill—' Toby had stuck his head above Amelia's in the doorway. He grinned.

‘It's in my bag downstairs,' I whispered, mortified.

‘Thanks, Mum. Can I give it back to you when we get back? It's just –'

‘Yes, just
go
.' Toby was still grinning at me. The door shut on their faces. I waited, horrified.

‘I
don't think he's told her,' I hissed, aghast, to Lizzie. ‘He's just been in. Don't you think that's weird?'

‘Who?'

‘Toby. I don't think he's told Amelia. And he was
grinning
at me!'

‘What, so you think he fancies you?'

‘
No.
It's just … I mean, surely you'd say – Oh, help, I've just seen your mother with no clothes on? It's just odd!'

‘I don't know, Flora. I wouldn't get too hung up on it if I were you. I doubt you're the first older woman he's seen in the buff. That boy's given me the eye before.'

‘
Has
he?' I was horrified. ‘ God, that's
terrible
. You should have
said.
I must tell Amelia.'

‘Don't be silly. He's a flirt, that's all. Nothing wrong with that. Anyway, I can't spend all morning on the phone to you, I've got a meeting with Maria at eleven about the summer hols. I want one of the interns to cover for me. And you'd better get up.'

‘I've been trying to get up for –' I said, but she'd gone. To see our editor, and no doubt angle for an extra week off in order to come to
my house in France –
in my head, I already owned it, was very definitely the chatelaine – which was what
I
had intended to do, so that I could be free to swan off for longer myself. I shut my eyes and breathed deeply, in … out … in … out. The air exiting my teeth made a strange whistling sound, more like an old woman in the last rattling throes than a much younger, more glamorous one on the brink of her own personal belle époque.

James returned that evening looking, if possible, even more flushed and thrilled with himself. He was bouncing a bit, too – bounding, almost – and it seemed to me his chest had expanded. He strode masterfully across the kitchen to where I was changing a fuse on the iron, removed the instrument of domestic drudgery from my hands and replaced it with a box of chocolates.

‘What are these for? I asked, gazing at the little green box in disbelief.

‘Well, you know,' he smirked, hopping about a bit more. ‘I just thought I haven't bought you anything for ages.'

‘You haven't, and buying After Eights indicates just how long. I think you'll find chocolates have moved on and it's all Green & Black's, these days, but thank you, darling. How sweet.'

He frowned at the box. ‘It
is
green and black. What's wrong with you?'

‘Not the packet, you fool – oh, never mind. How was lunch?'

‘Good, really good.' His eyes shone like a little boy's. He thrust his hands into his pockets and jangled his loose change around, rocking back on his heels. ‘God, she's nice, Flora, you'd really like her.'

‘I'm sure I would, if I met her properly.' Ridiculously, I was struggling to keep an edge from my voice. When I'd
glanced at the clock at lunchtime over my cheese-and-pickle sandwich, I'd felt slightly peeved, but had consoled myself by reaching for my iPad and re-counting the bedrooms at the villa. Ten, including the one in the attic. I'd decided to talk to James about asking the Carmichaels. They'd love it, and I adored Kate and Harry. I was looking forward to ringing and saying,
Kate, we've got this villa in the south of France … yes, of course the children, too
. Hear her shriek with pleasure. And, of course, James was busy securing the deal, so I shouldn't be miffed, I'd thought as I'd closed my laptop, put my plate in the dishwasher, flicked the kettle on again, but … surely we came as a couple? After all, I was the one who needed to know where the spare linen was kept, where the pool towels were …

‘She needed to tell me about the keys to the pool house, where the barbecue is. That kind of thing,' James said importantly.

‘Right. Yes, well, I can see that might be beyond me.' I picked up the iron again. ‘Did you get the keys?'

‘No need. They're with the housekeeper, who's her sister, by the way. Her brother-in-law's the gardener.'

‘Really?' I made a face. ‘Must be a bit galling, surely? Scrubbing floors for your sister?'

‘I think it's really nice, actually. A way of looking after a sibling who hasn't done so well. Giving her a job, a free cottage. Her husband, too.'

‘I suppose.' I was surprised. James sounded quite strident. And his chin was jutting out in a horribly familiar fashion. Were we taking up positions here? About a family we didn't know? How had that happened?

‘And, speaking of siblings who haven't done so well,' he
went on in a rush, ‘I rang Dad and Sally. They're really upset.'

‘Oh!' Suddenly, I knew what was coming. Why he was a bit punchy and bullish. The chocolates. I put the iron down and sat warily on a stool. ‘Oh, James – you
haven't.
'

‘I had to, Flora. I couldn't say – Sorry, we can't come this year, we're swanning off to the south of France – without asking them, could I?'

I was speechless. ‘But your father! In Provence? He doesn't go out of Kincardine, for God's sake, and Sally!'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, we're not that parochial. Have been beyond the end of the glen.'

‘When? When has Rachel ever been beyond the end of the glen? Name me one time.'

He scratched his chin. ‘The odd funeral.'

‘At the church. In the glen.'

‘That's uncalled for, Flora.'

‘But we agreed! This morning, before you left! A holiday on our own terms for once, without the extended family.'

‘Yes, I know, but it didn't feel right. I felt shabby. Camille completely understood. That's why she helped her sister.'

Camille. He'd discussed it with her before discussing it with me. With a complete stranger. I breathed deeply, teeth clenched.

‘I tried to ring, but you were on the phone all morning. In bed, Amelia said.'

‘Amelia?'

‘I rang her mobile to get her to give you a nudge, but she was driving. On her way to some festival.'

‘What festival?'

‘Gets
back Monday, she said.'

Oh my God,
Reading.
Not the high street, shopping – the
festival
. And I'd thought Leeds, later in the summer.
With my debit card.
I went hot. I simply couldn't tell James. My mind scrolled back to more pressing problems.

‘But Sally –'

‘Is much calmer now she has a boyfriend, Rachel said.'

‘Is
he
coming?'

‘Of course. They're a couple.'

‘And Rachel?'

‘Of course Rachel. I can't have one without the other.'

‘Why do we bloody well have to have either!'

James and I had by now squared up to one another across the kitchen island, eyes blazing. I knew he was taking a stand and that I'd have to be very firm if I was going to win this one.

‘Why not ask some friends for a change, like normal people do? The Carmichaels – they asked us to Cornwall. I'd love to have them!'

‘We still can.'

‘Of course we can't! Not with –' I broke off.

Not with Sally and Rachel. They were unusual. Sally, enormous, as we know (absolutely nothing wrong with that), and both unmarried, as we also know (nothing wrong with that either), but both, in their own ways, utterly heartbreaking and awkward.

Rachel, by far the easier of the two, was very religious and extremely quiet. Pious in the true sense of the word. I never quite knew if she approved of me, but I dare say others would say the same. She made a lot of people nervous; Kate Carmichael would be terrified of her. And no
doubt get disastrously pissed to hide her nerves. Rachel's standards were hard to live up to and, although she probably didn't mean to, she had a disapproving demeanour. She would, in another era, I think, have become a nun. She was the eldest and had sheltered James and Sally to an extent when their mother had died. Or been shot. Murdered. Except no one ever said that word.

Naturally, that terrible trauma had taken its toll. In that big, draughty house at the head of the glen, when Vicky Murray-Brown had come back that night from Aberdeen – or Dundee, perhaps, I couldn't remember (James had told me very quickly, so many years ago, I'd had to fill in the gaps with my imagination) – and had let herself in quietly at the back door at two in the morning, but of course, not so quietly, being very drunk. And then, after that shot had rung out – and how it must have done so in that huge, echoing house – the dreadful silence that had fallen remained, in a sense, to this day, thirty-odd years later. A ghostly emptiness prevailed at Brechallis. Always had done. Where once a garrulous, headstrong girl, too glamorous for her own good, certainly to be tucked away in an isolated glen with an aging brigadier, had resided as a young wife and mother, now, an old man, a silent daughter and one who talked constantly but whose words were empty, remained. Where once arguing and shouting had filled the air – but at least she'd been a presence, clattering around the kitchen, singing, drinking too much, crying, banging down pans, hollering at her husband and children, desperately unhappy and desperate for love – now, only the wind whistled in her place, through the shabby rooms, the dark corridors. She'd found some comfort in
her children, but not enough, and finally, desperately, she'd taken her love to town, with – had it been Fergus? Who did the fencing? Or, no, Darren, a local builder, that had been it. And, actually, now I thought about it, it hadn't been in the faraway clubs of Aberdeen or Dundee but in dour little Kincardine, the small town at the entrance to the glen, with its rows of faceless houses and billowing litter. Teenagers with needles in their arms, and unemployed fathers. Where poverty and despair overwhelmed, but which, from where Vicky sat, staring out at the gorse bushes and the sheep, was the nearest thing to life.

In some stark little pebble-dashed pub Vicky had drunk with Darren and the other regulars one Saturday night. She must have made quite an entrance, flouncing in defiantly in her fur coat, her heart pounding, taking a solitary stool at the bar. After that, she was there every Saturday night. And she made friends. Many were drinking to forget their tough, gritty lives, the monotony of their day-to-day lot, but Vicky was drinking to forget the horrendous mistake she'd made in marrying her much older husband – and in doing so, of course, she made a mockery of him to all his neighbours. In that part of the world, twenty miles made you a neighbour. And geography notwithstanding, he was the laird at the big house. Everyone knew Drummond Murray-Brown.

Home she'd weave in her car in the early hours, along dark, narrow lanes where she wouldn't meet a living soul, let alone a police car, her face sagging with make-up, drink and sorrow, her clothes reeking of cigarettes and her body of Darren's bed. In she'd stagger, feeling her way upstairs in the dark to the spare room, laughing, yes laughing, if the
Brig blundered out of their bedroom to howl in pain and anger, knowing he'd never lay a finger on her.

Not a finger, no. But one night, after she'd gone to town, and come back drunk and sated, he'd lain in wait. Or sat in wait, alone, at the kitchen table, with only a candle and a bottle of whisky. And when she'd returned in the dark, in the middle of the night, there'd been a fearful row. She'd already told him months ago she wanted a divorce. Had informed him one evening, before she'd gone to Kincardine, wearing a silk dress, earrings jangling, slipping into her fur coat, before running down the gravel drive to the car, that she would file for one: take the children to Edinburgh and, more to the point, take half the house and land, as was her right. The house and land that had been in Drummond's family for two hundred and fifty years. Handed down from one generation to another, from father to son. It was to be sold. Divided up, and half the proceeds given to Drummond, half to Vicky. For there was no money to speak of, nothing for Vicky to be paid off with; it was all in the land. Four thousand acres of scrub, peppered with sandstone boulders and bracken and gorse, where nothing of any consequence grew and only sheep scratched a living. Where a large, preposterously ugly, grey stone house presided forbiddingly, its dark windows daring anyone to question its hideousness. He couldn't even afford to let rich bankers come and shoot his pheasant, couldn't afford the infrastructure to facilitate that: the gamekeeper, the beaters. Couldn't get a loan from the bank.

Letters flew from solicitor to solicitor and then back to Drummond. He'd read them at the kitchen table with shaking hands. Half the house and half the land, that was
what she wanted. That was fair with three children under thirteen, that was what she needed to release herself. She'd married a man twice her age, it had been a mistake. Hers, she realized. She'd pushed for the marriage, to this confirmed bachelor whom she'd met at a Highland wedding and who had looked rather splendid in his kilt, certainly to a young girl from Godalming, Surrey. Yes, she had pushed him into it. He'd been unsure. But now she needed out. It wasn't going to happen, Drummond said again and again to himself as he read those letters with a horrified, clenched anger. It simply wasn't going to happen. Over his dead body. Or, as it turned out, over hers.

Of course, he hadn't intended to shoot her, or even threaten her, not with a gun – with words, perhaps. But when she'd opened the back door, still giggling, tripping over the step, filling the kitchen with fumes from her painted lips, and when he confronted her and she'd shouted right back in his face, about his sexual prowess, or lack of it, and Darren's overwhelming competence in that department, he'd reached behind the door in a blind rage and, the next thing he knew, she was dead.

Life imprisonment, obviously, for shooting your wife. Nine years, in those days. And some say he'd weighed it up. Some cynical old neighbours on another crag, in another pile, who'd been there for centuries, applied their own warped logic and said,
Yes, reckon Drummond gave it some thought and decided, Well, I'll be out in nine years and the house and land will still be mine. And then my son's.
No one who truly knew Drummond's heart believed that, though, they knew it had been a tragic accident, and anyway, James didn't want the house. And we never, ever talked about it.

When
I met him, he told me about it, obviously. I remember it must have been as early as our second date: ‘By the way,' he'd said, ‘there's something you need to know about me. My father killed my mother.' It was a sort of ‘Take me or leave me now' statement. Warts and all. I took him. Loved him for thinking it needed to be out there so soon, wanting no deception, no misunderstandings. No difficult decisions a few months down the track, by which time I might have fallen in love with him. In fact, he pretty much told me, defiantly, ‘My father's an ex-con.' Although I was very shocked, I remember liking his defiance, in that wine bar off the Fulham Road. I'd just come out of a long relationship with someone who'd been much more economical with the truth. Truth was what I needed. What I liked.