The House We Grew Up In

by Lisa Jewell

  Meg said nothing. Beth said, ‘Don’t you start.’

  ‘I’m not starting anything,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘I think it’s great. You can never have too many pan scourers.’

  ‘Where’s Rhys?’ asked Beth, delicately changing the subject.

  ‘Outside,’ said Rory. ‘Staring.’

  The three children laughed at the predictability of this reply. Megan looked from Beth to Rory, her siblings, and, for their many differences, her soulmates. And then she thought of Rhys; tiny, unknowable, inexplicable Rhys, lying in the garden, staring into empty blueness, all alone. She thought, for a moment, of going out to find him, to ask him what he was thinking about. But then the phone rang in the hall, and it was Andrew Smart wanting to take her to a gig on Saturday night and no sooner had it arrived than the thought faded from her consciousness.

  Easter Sunday dawned warm and gold. Meg’s eyes struggled to open against the dazzling morning sun. Her radio alarm told her it was only 8.29. She stopped struggling to open her eyes and let them fall closed again. As she waited for sleep to return, her thoughts reeled through the pleasing events of the previous night: the screech of tyres on tarmac as Andrew Smart and his friend Nick pulled up outside the house to collect her, the metallic smell of vodka in a hip flask being passed back and forth between the three of them, the sun setting behind the tall trees as the countryside flashed past in a copper-hued blur, Andrew Smart’s fingers absent-mindedly tickling the small of her neck, the wonderful grown-up easy sense of it being no big deal, the feeling of escape from the house and the village, the buzzing queue wrapped tantalisingly around the venue, the smell of congealed beer, the feel of strangers’ clammy T-shirts against her bare skin, Andrew’s arm across her shoulder, the music, the roll and swell of the mosh pit and then the cool air on her flesh as they drove home again, too fast, down winding roads, spiky shadows of trees thrown across the road by the headlights, and then a quick kiss, on the lips, outside her house. Nothing more – it hadn’t been a date, not in that sense. Nick had watched fondly from the back seat and said, ‘Aah, sweet.’ Andrew had thrown a rolled-up paper bag at him and Meg had slipped from the car and into the dark of the sleeping house, light as air, smelling of other people’s cigarette smoke, smiling.

  She’d jumped when she’d seen him sitting there.

  ‘Rhys! Shit, you scared the crap out of me. What are you doing up so late?’

  He was sitting at the kitchen table, in his pyjamas, his blond hair lank around his face. His hands were spread open on the tabletop, bathed in bluish light from the moon through the window. He shrugged. ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he said.

  Meg frowned. ‘Couldn’t you, you know, like, read a book or something?’ she asked.

  He shrugged and pulled his open hands into fists.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’m too wired to sleep, come and watch some telly with me.’ The living room was dark, apart from the embers in the fire basket. The remnants of her parents’ evening were still strewn about the room: two empty wine glasses, a jar of olives, the Mail, slippers and a cook book held open at a recipe for Chicken Marsala. The sofa still bore the imprints of both parents and the dog. No cushions had been plumped, no debris removed, as though they had faded away rather than actively gone to bed.

  It was the end of some film, an old-fashioned American thing with women with flicked hair and men in nonsensical flared trousers, and a plinky-plonky soundtrack. Megan brought through a carton of orange juice and two beakers.

  ‘Meggy!’ She heard her father’s reedy voice emanate from somewhere above. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just checking. Sleep tight, darling.’

  ‘You too, Dad.’

  Meg and Rhys looked at each other and smiled. ‘How long had you been sitting there?’ said Meg.

  Rhys shrugged again. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Do you do that often?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘What were you thinking about?’

  ‘Not much.’

  An American lady on the TV was shouting at an American man who was wearing aviator glasses and a gold necklace. They were standing underneath a palm tree.

  Usually Meg would have given up at this point. But her mind was soft with vodka and music and the first tentative outposts of falling in love, so she moved closer to her brother and stared at him thoughtfully and said, ‘Are you happy, Rhys?’

  He looked at her sideways. ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘Is school all right?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s fine.’

  She paused, then continued. ‘It’s just, you know, Rory seems to have made so many friends already, but you—’

  ‘There’s more to life than friends,’ he snapped back.

  Megan nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘but is there anyone at school, anyone who you hang out with, you know, at lunchtime and stuff?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Loads of people.’

  ‘Are people kind to you?’

  Rhys spun round and fixed her with a black look. ‘Let’s just watch the film, shall we?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want to watch the film. I want to talk to you. I never talk to you.’

  ‘Talking’s overrated.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  He turned away from her then and rearranged himself on the sofa.

  Megan stared at him for a moment, at the delicate set of his features, his sinewy arms hanging from a baggy grey T-shirt, his sharp kneecaps pushing through the denim of his unfashionable jeans. He seemed so angry, so sad.

  She sighed and when the film finished five minutes later, she ran her hand gently over the crown of Rhys’s head and made her way upstairs to bed without saying goodnight.

  When Megan finally arose, two hours after first waking up, she found her mother in the kitchen in rose-print pyjamas, her long hair twisted into a bun.

  ‘Oh, good,’ she beamed, ‘you’re up! Bob and Jenny are sending their little ones over in half an hour for an egg hunt. I need your help.’

  ‘The gig was fantastic, thanks for asking,’ Meg replied. ‘Andrew Smart kissed me on the lips and we’ve arranged to go out again on Thursday.’

  Her mother blinked at her in surprise. ‘Oh,’ she said vaguely, ‘good! That’s good then?’

  ‘Of course it’s good. Not that I expect you to care when there’s vitally important things like egg hunts to arrange.’

  ‘Oh, Meggy.’ Her mother folded her arms together and pouted. ‘No one’s saying it’s vitally important, it’s just, this is us! The Birds. This is what we do. Easter Sunday. Rain or shine. It’s a tradition.’

  ‘Yes, but Mum, your youngest children are now twelve years old. It’s a tradition that needs to end.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘I mean, Bob and Jenny have got their own garden. Why can’t they do their own egg hunt? For their own children?’

  Her mother’s eyes started to brim with tears. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘we’ve better nooks and crannies in our garden. They’re all laid to lawn next door … you know, very flat …’

  Megan nodded sagely. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Very flat. Poor wee things.’

  ‘So –’ Her mother ignored the sarcasm and brightened herself. ‘I need to go up and dress myself. Can I leave you to open the packets?’

  Megan sighed. ‘Yes. Sure.’

  ‘Good.’ Lorelei beamed. ‘Thank you, darling girl.’

  Bob and Jenny and their three children arrived at just after 11 a.m. Rory and Rhys agreed to join in with the little ones and by 11.30 all the eggs had been found. Lorelei’s eyes shone with a mixture of satisfaction and, Megan couldn’t help but notice, a hint of panic as the children handed the eggs to their mother to save for ‘after lunch’.

  ‘Don’t forget to save the foils,’ she trilled. ‘All such lovely, lovely colours!’

  Megan tutted and said something mean about her mother under her breath which thankfully she didn’t hear.

  ‘Such
a shame you can’t stay for lunch,’ said Lorelei as their neighbours made their farewells half an hour later.

  ‘Yes, well, Bob’s mother’s over from Ireland so it’s a big clan reunion.’

  Pandora was in the Bahamas with Laurence, and Lorna was in Devon with friends. For the first time in living memory the Bird family were alone on Easter Sunday.

  ‘So,’ said Colin, closing his cutlery together and scrunching up his paper napkin after lunch, ‘I’ve had an idea. Slightly crazy. But listen … how about next Easter, since it might well be the last Easter everyone’s still at home, we go away somewhere? We haven’t been away as a family since before the twins were born. There’s some amazingly cheap package deals around these days. And I’ve always wanted to go to Greece.’

  Megan could feel Lorelei’s expression change without even looking at her. It was like an ice floe passing through the room, steady and foreboding.

  She laughed first, as Megan had suspected she might, a menacingly girlish sound. And then she said, ‘What a silly idea, Colin. How on earth could we afford to go away, with four children?’

  ‘Well,’ said Colin, beginning, rather nervously, to stack together dirty plates, ‘I was thinking, with the girls growing up now, we don’t really need the big car any more. I mean, when was the last time all six of us went anywhere together? So we could sell it—’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ snorted Lorelei. ‘Who on earth would buy our dirty, disgusting old car?’

  ‘We could sell it to the Millers,’ he continued patiently. ‘They’re expecting their fourth child any day. They’ve offered fifteen hundred for it.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Lorelei. ‘More money than sense, those Millers.’

  ‘And then, if we’ve only got the one car, we won’t need the double garage any more. And I was just talking to Bob and he said he’d buy the other half of our garage off us for five grand …’

  Megan had not drawn breath for almost thirty seconds, watching this almost comically doomed conversation unfold.

  ‘Five grand! Ha! Ridiculous.’

  ‘Well, yes, but he wants to build an extension at the back and use the garage as a workshop, so it’s worth it for them.’

  ‘But all our things. I mean, we have so much stuff stored in there.’

  ‘Well, yes, indeed we do. Like several burst paddling pools, my sweetheart. It’s overdue a clear-out.’

  In the absence of anything logical to say, Lorelei merely flapped her bony hands about and said, ‘Oh, it’s all just silly. And a package deal to Greece sounds quite ghastly.’

  Colin smiled gently and turned his gaze to his four children. ‘Kids? What do you think? Easter in the sun? Calamari and chips for lunch? Swimming pools with slides? On-site disco?’ He aimed this last at Megan and Bethan.

  Lorelei laughed again, that high-pitched schoolgirl thing she did. ‘Ha! Sounds like someone’s been doing their homework.’

  ‘Just some brochures,’ said Colin, ‘from the agents on the high road. Want to have a look?’ He smiled and glanced at each child in turn.

  ‘Oh, Colin, honestly,’ said Lorelei, piling up the plates from her side of the table. ‘This really is about the silliest plan I’ve ever heard. And even if we can afford it – and who’s to say that the Millers and Bob won’t change their minds, leaving us with a stonking great unpaid debt to some tacky holiday company – if it’s going to be our last Easter all together, then it has to be here! At the Bird House. Isn’t that right, kiddos?’

  A terrible silence fell upon the table. Rory cast his gaze down to his lap. Bethan nibbled her fingernails and Rhys stared at the ceiling. Megan looked intently through the kitchen window at a magpie bouncing on the branches of a tree outside, and tried not to read too much symbolism into its presence at this precise moment.

  ‘I’d like to go away,’ said Megan, taking the lead as the firstborn child. ‘I mean, I know I’ll always be able to come back here as the years go by, but once I leave home, who knows if we’ll ever get the chance to go on holiday together again?’ She shrugged and left her words hanging.

  There was a small shard of silence, during which Colin nodded encouragingly and Lorelei raised her eyebrows exasperatedly.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked Beth.

  She smiled apologetically and said, ‘I want to do whatever everyone else wants to do.’

  ‘Rory?’

  ‘Cool,’ said Rory. ‘Yeah. Brilliant.’ Then he looked slightly embarrassed by his betrayal and turned away.

  ‘Rhys?’

  Rhys blushed and shrugged. ‘Don’t mind,’ he said almost silently.

  ‘Well, there you go,’ said Lorelei triumphantly, holding the pile of plates out in front of herself. ‘Looks like nobody’s particularly interested. And I’m sure we can think of better things to spend all that money on. I mean, Meggy will be off to college next September. That’ll be an expensive enterprise.’

  Colin frowned and said, ‘You know my mother’s offered to help us out with all that, so that’s not an issue, darling.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, landing the pile of plates into the butler’s sink with a deafening clatter, ‘I still don’t see the point of spending all that money on a holiday that nobody’s really interested in.’

  Meg stared at the shape of her mother, rigid and too thin, at the kitchen sink, her shoulder blades protruding through the chambray cotton of her smocked tunic, and she swallowed the urge to walk over to her and hit her with her cutlery, hard, around the back of the head. Instead she inhaled and said, ‘Erm, I think I recall saying that I wanted to go, Mother?’

  ‘And me,’ said Rory.

  Lorelei’s shoulders slumped and she sighed. And then, very slowly and deliberately, she left the kitchen, sobbing quietly under her breath.

  On 25 July that same year, while Lorelei was out at the shops, and Megan was violently kissing Andrew Smart on a blanket in a field in the middle of nowhere, and the twins and Bethan were alone in the house, two sixteen-year-old boys wearing hooded jackets broke in and took, after a leisurely exploration, the video player, two television sets, a watch, some jewellery, and a leg of lamb and a joint of beef from the chest freezer in the utility room. They did all of this without disturbing any of the three children in the house, and it was only when they let the kitchen door bang shut behind them that Rhys peered over his window ledge just in time to see them running down the garden path and on to the street. He rushed then to a window overlooking the street and saw them pile into a matt black Ford Escort and screech away through the village, whooping and hollering through the opened windows as though they thought they were in Harlem.

  Rhys found the whole episode thrilling beyond words. He called 999 before he even told the others, for fear that someone else would want to do it. And for a few days afterwards he dined out on the whole episode, to the point of being boring. But Lorelei couldn’t see the harmless drama of the thing. She could only see it as, in her own melodramatic words, ‘a violation akin to rape’. She kept stalking desolately round the house, peering into corners and touching things. And at the merest sound of footsteps on the pavement outside the window, or the whine of a car driving too fast, or the rumble of a car driving too slow, or the crack of a twig under the paws of a squirrel, or the rustle of leaves in a soft breeze, Lorelei would gasp and run to the nearest window, her arms wrapped defensively around herself.

  ‘They were only kids,’ Megan would say, ‘just a pair of spotty dweebs.’

  But Lorelei would not be assuaged.

  ‘Well, you can all go to Greece next year,’ she said self-righteously, ‘but I’m going to stay here to protect our home.’

  So of course, nobody went to Greece.

  April 2011

  Meg’s phone rang. She picked it up from the arm of Lorelei’s chair, expecting it to be Bill telling her that he and the boys had checked in, that everything was going to plan. But it was an unknown number. She stared at it for a moment.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Molly, anxious
ly nibbling a fingernail.

  ‘Don’t put your fingers in your mouth,’ hissed Meg. ‘Seriously, you have no idea what you’ve been touching.’

  Molly let her finger drop from her mouth and wiped it absent-mindedly against the denim of her hot pants.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked again.

  Meg pressed Decline. ‘Unknown,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I can face talking to a normal human being right now. Maybe they’ll leave a voicemail.’

  ‘You look weird sitting there,’ said Molly.

  ‘I feel weird sitting here.’

  ‘Can I have a go?’

  ‘Sure.’ Meg stood up and eased herself into a corner to let Molly sit down.

  Molly leaned her head gingerly against the back of the armchair and rested her delicate hands upon the arms. She looked up at her mum. ‘So this was, like, where she spent all her time? Just here. In this chair?’

  ‘Pretty much. According to the social worker, she went into the village a couple of times a week, had something to eat, chatted to the neighbours, went to the charity shop, bought a paper or two. Sometimes she went for a swim at the pool in town, mainly so she could have a shower, I suppose. And every weekend she’d get in the car and go to the cash and carry, to pick up some bits.’ She groaned under her breath. Pick up some bits. Infuriating, ridiculous woman. ‘And then she’d get home, push her way through metres of pitch-black corridors and emerge up here, like a rat out of a drain-cover.’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk about rats.’

  ‘And God knows what she did then.’ Meg looked about her for any evidence of activities. She saw her mother’s laptop; it was tiny, state of the art, must have cost a fortune. She had no idea where it had come from. She knew that her mother, despite her twin loves of the Internet and shopping, had never developed an Internet shopping habit, mainly because it would have taken her too long to get to the front door to collect any packages. So she must have bought this in a shop. She could not picture her mother in a shop, buying a laptop. But still, there it sat, covered in a thin layer of dust, untouched for the four days since Lorelei’s death. There’d been talk of an online lover. A man in Gateshead called Jim whom she’d never actually met, but with whom, she’d declared dramatically, she was crazy in love. It sounded, from what Meg had managed to glean from between her mother’s very skewed conversational lines, as though Jim might have issues of his own. She wondered if Jim knew about Lorelei’s death. And then she realised that of course he didn’t. He probably thought he’d been dumped. Dumped by Lorelei from the Cotswolds. Without so much as a by-your-leave.