The Visitors Book

by Sophie Hannah

  Gathercole always looked at the statue and the lawn and the rosebushes when he visited, as well as at the grandfather clock in the hall and the bronze table lamp in the library with the leaded glass snail-shell shade; he made a point of doing so. He approved of the stability they seemed to offer. Things—by which Gathercole meant lifeless objects and not any more general state of affairs—rarely changed at Lillieoak. Lady Playford’s constant meticulous scrutiny of every person who crossed her path meant that she paid little attention to anything that could not speak.

  In her study, the room she and Gathercole were in now, there were two books upside down in the large bookcase that stood against one wall: Shrimp Seddon and the Pearl Necklace and Shrimp Seddon and the Christmas Stocking. They had been upside down since Gathercole’s first visit. Six years later, to see them righted would be disconcerting. No other author’s books were permitted to reside upon those shelves, only Athelinda Playford’s. Their spines brought some much-needed brightness into the wood-paneled room—strips of red, blue, green, purple, orange; colors designed to appeal to children—though even they were no match for Lady Playford’s lustrous cloud of silver hair.

  She positioned herself directly in front of Gathercole. “I want to talk to you about my will, Michael, and to ask a favor of you. But first: how much do you imagine a child—an ordinary child—might know about surgical procedures to reshape a nose?”

  “A . . . a nose?” Gathercole wished he could hear about the will first and the favor second. Both sounded important, and were perhaps related. Lady Playford’s testamentary arrangements had been in place for some time. All was as it should be. Could it be that she wanted to change something?

  “Don’t be exasperating, Michael. It’s a perfectly simple question. After a bad motorcar accident, or to correct a deformity. Surgery to change the shape of the nose. Would a child know about such a thing? Would he know its name?”

  “I don’t know, I’m afraid.”

  “Do you know its name?”

  “Surgery, I should call it, whether it’s for the nose or any other part of the body.”

  “I suppose you might know the name without knowing you know it. That happens sometimes.” Lady Playford frowned. “Hmph. Let me ask you another question: you arrive at the offices of a firm that employs ten men and two women. You overhear a few of the men talking about one of the women. They refer to her as ‘Rhino.’”

  “Hardly gallant of them.”

  “Their manners are not your concern. A few moments later, the two ladies return from lunch. One of them is fine-boned, slender and mild in her temperament, but she has a rather peculiar face. No one knows what’s wrong with it, but it somehow doesn’t look quite right. The other is a mountain of a woman—twice my size at least.” Lady Playford was of average height, and plump, with downward slopes for shoulders that gave her a rather funnel-like appearance. “What is more, she has a fierce look on her face. Now, which of the two women I’ve described would you guess to be Rhino?”

  “The large, fierce one,” Gathercole replied at once.

  “Excellent! You’re wrong. In my story, Rhino turns out to be the slim girl with the strange facial features—because, you see, she’s had her nose surgically reconstructed after an accident, in a procedure that goes by the name of rhinoplasty!”

  “Ah. That I did not know,” said Gathercole.

  “But I fear children won’t know the name, and that’s who I’m writing for. If you haven’t heard of rhinoplasty . . .” Lady Playford sighed. “I’m in two minds. I was so excited when I first thought of it, but then I started to worry. Is it a little too scientific to have the crux of the story revolving around a medical procedure? No one really thinks about surgeries unless they have to, after all—unless they’re about to go into hospital themselves. Children don’t think about such things, do they?”

  “I like the idea,” said Gathercole. “You might emphasize that the slender lady has not merely a strange face but a strange nose, to send your readers in the right direction. You could say early on in the story that she has a new nose, thanks to expert surgery, and you could have Shrimp somehow find out the name of the operation and let the reader see her surprise when she finds out.”

  Shrimp Seddon was Lady Playford’s ten-year-old fictional heroine, the leader of a gang of child detectives.

  “So the reader sees the surprise but not, at first, the discovery. Yes! And perhaps Shrimp could say to Podge, ‘You’ll never guess what it’s called,’ and then be interrupted, and I can put in a chapter there about something else—maybe the police stupidly arresting the wrong person but even wronger than usual, maybe even Shrimp’s father or mother—so that anyone reading can go away and consult a doctor or an encyclopedia if they wish. But I won’t leave it too long before Shrimp reveals all. Yes. Michael, I knew I could rely on you. That’s settled, then. Now, about my will . . .”

  She returned to her chair by the window and arranged herself in it. “I want you to make a new one for me.”

  Gathercole was surprised. According to the terms of Lady Playford’s existing will, her substantial estate was to be divided equally, upon her death, between her two surviving children: her daughter, Claudia, and her son, Harry, the sixth Viscount Playford of Clonakilty. There had been a third child, Nicholas, but he had died young.

  “I want to leave everything to my secretary, Joseph Scotcher,” announced the clear-as-a-bell voice.

  Gathercole sat forward in his chair. It was pointless to try to push the unwelcome words away. He had heard them, and could not pretend otherwise.

  What act of vandalism was Lady Playford about to insist upon? She could not be in earnest. This was a trick; it had to be. Yes, Gathercole saw what she was about: get the frivolous part out of the way first—Rhino, rhinoplasty, all very clever and amusing—and then introduce the big caper as if it were a serious proposition.

  “I am in my right mind and entirely serious, Michael. I’d like you to do as I ask. Before dinner tonight, please. Why don’t you make a start now?”

  “Lady Playford . . .”

  “Athie,” she corrected him.

  “If this is something else from your Rhino story that you’re trying out on me—”

  “Sincerely, it is not, Michael. I have never lied to you. I am not lying now. I need you to draw me up a new will. Joseph Scotcher is to inherit everything.”

  “But what about your children?”

  “Claudia is about to marry a greater fortune than mine, in the shape of Randall Kimpton. She will be perfectly all right. And Harry has a good head on his shoulders and a dependable if enervating wife. Poor Joseph needs what I have to give more than Claudia or Harry.”

  “I must appeal to you to think very carefully before—”

  “Michael, please don’t make a cake of yourself.” Lady Playford cut him off. “Do you imagine the idea first occurred to me as you knocked at the door a few minutes ago? Or is it more likely that I have been ruminating on this for weeks or months? The careful thought you urge upon me has taken place, I assure you. Now: are you going to witness my new will or must I call for Mr. Rolfe?”

  So that was why Orville Rolfe had also been invited to Lillieoak: in case he, Gathercole, refused to do her bidding.

  “There’s another change I’d like to make to my will at the same time: the favor I mentioned, if you recall. To this part, you may say no if you wish, but I do hope you won’t. At present, Claudia and Harry are named as my literary executors. That arrangement no longer suits me. I should be honored if you, Michael, would agree to take on the role.”

  “To . . . to be your literary executor?” He could scarcely credit it. For nearly a minute, he felt too overwhelmed to speak. Oh, but it was all wrong. What would Lady Playford’s children have to say about it? He couldn’t accept.

  “Do Harry and Claudia know your intentions?” he asked eventually.

  “No. They will at dinner tonight. Joseph too. At present the only people who know are you
and me.”

  “Has there been a conflict within the family of which I am unaware?”

  “Not at all!” Lady Playford smiled. “Harry, Claudia and I are the best of friends—until dinner tonight, at least.”

  “I . . . but . . . you have known Joseph Scotcher a mere six years. You met him the day you met me.”

  “There is no need to tell me what I already know, Michael.”

  “Whereas your children . . . Additionally, my understanding was that Joseph Scotcher . . .”

  “Speak, dear man.”

  “Is Scotcher not seriously ill?” Silently, Gathercole added: Do you no longer believe he will die before you?

  Athelinda Playford was not young but she was full of vitality. It was hard to believe that anyone who relished life as she did might be deprived of it.

  “Indeed, Joseph is very sick,” she said. “He grows weaker by the day. Hence this unusual decision on my part. I have never said so before, but I trust you’re aware that I adore Joseph? I love him like a son—as if he were my own flesh and blood.”

  Gathercole felt a sudden tightness in his chest. Yes, he’d been aware. The difference between knowing a thing and having it confirmed was vast. It led to thoughts that were beneath him, which he fought to banish.

  “Joseph tells me his doctors have said he has only weeks, now, to live.”

  “But . . . then I’m afraid I’m quite baffled,” said Gathercole. “You wish to make a new will in favor of a man you know won’t be around to make use of his inheritance.”

  “Nothing is ever known for certain in this world, Michael.”

  “And if Scotcher should succumb to his illness within weeks, as you expect him to—what then?”

  “Why, in that eventuality we revert to the original plan—Harry and Claudia get half each.”

  “I must ask you something,” said Gathercole, in whom a painful anxiety had started to grow. “Forgive the impertinence. Do you have any reason to believe that you too will die imminently?”

  “Me?” Lady Playford laughed. “I’m strong as an ox. I expect to chug on for years.”

  “Then Scotcher will inherit nothing on your demise, being long dead himself, and the new will you are asking me to arrange will achieve nothing but to create discord between you and your children.”

  “On the contrary: my new will might cause something wonderful to happen.” She said this with relish.

  Gathercole sighed. “I’m afraid to say I’m still baffled.”

  “Of course you are,” said Athelinda Playford. “I knew you would be.”

  An Excerpt from A Game for All the Family

  The people I’m about to meet in my new life, if they’re anything like the ones I’m leaving behind, will ask as soon as they can get away with it. In my fantasy, they don’t have faces or names, only voices—raised, but not excessively so; determinedly casual.

  What do you do?

  Does anyone still add “for a living” to the end of that question? It sounds stupidly old-fashioned.

  I hope they miss out the “living” bit, because this has nothing to do with how I plan to fund my smoked-salmon-for-breakfast habit. I want my faceless new acquaintances to care only about how I spend my time and define myself—what I believe to be the point of me. That’s why I need the question to arrive in its purest form.

  I have the perfect answer: one word long, with plenty of space around it.

  Nothing.

  Everything should be surrounded by as much space as possible: people, houses, words. That’s part of the reason for starting a new life. In my old one, there wasn’t enough space of any kind.

  My name is Justine Merrison and I do Nothing. With a capital N. Not a single thing. I’ll have to try not to throw back my head and laugh after saying it, or sprint a victory lap around whoever was unfortunate enough to ask me. Ideally, the question will come from people who do Something: surveyors, lawyers, supermarket managers—all haggard and harried from a six-month stretch of fourteen-hour working days.

  I won’t mention what I used to do, or talk about day-to-day chores as if they count as Something. Yes, it’s true that I’ll have to do some boiling of pasta in my new life, and some throwing of socks into washing machines, but that will be as easy and automatic as breathing. I don’t intend to let trivial day-to-day stuff get in the way of my central project, which is to achieve a state of all-embracing inactivity.

  “Nothing,” I will say boldly and proudly, in the way that another person might say “Neuroradiology.” Then I’ll smile, as glowing white silence slides in to hug the curved edges of the word. Nothing.

  “What are you grinning about?” Alex asks. Unlike me, he isn’t imagining a calm, soundless state. He is firmly embedded in our real-world surroundings: six lanes of futile horn-beep gripes and suffocating exhaust fumes. “The joys of the A406,” he muttered half an hour ago, as we added ourselves to the long line of backed-up traffic.

  For me, the congestion is a joy. It reminds me that I don’t need to do anything in a hurry. At this rate of travel—approximately four meters per hour, which is unusual even for the North Circular—we won’t get to Devon before midnight. Excellent. Let it take twenty hours, or thirty. Our new house will still be there tomorrow, and the day after. It doesn’t matter when I arrive, as I have nothing pressing to attend to. I won’t need to down a quick cup of tea, then immediately start hectoring a telecommunications company about how soon they can hook me up with WiFi. I have no urgent emails to send.

  “Hello? Justine?” Alex calls out, in case I didn’t hear his question

  over the noise of Georges Bizet’s Carmen that’s blaring from our car’s speakers. A few minutes ago, he and Ellen were singing along, having adapted the words somewhat: “Stuck, stuck in traffic, traffic, stuck, stuck in traffic, traffic, stuck, stuck in traffic, traffic jam. Stuck, stuck in traffic, traffic, stuck, stuck in traffic, traffic jam, traffic jam, traffic jam . . .”

  “Mum!” Ellen yells behind me. “Dad’s talking to you!”

  “I think your mother’s in a trance, El. Must be the heat.”

  It would never occur to Alex to turn off music in order to speak. For him, silence is there to be packed as full as possible, like an empty bag. The Something that he does—has for as long as I’ve known him—is singing. Opera. He travels all over the world, is away for one week in every three, on average, and loves every second of his home-is-where-the-premiere-is existence. Which is lucky. If I didn’t know he was idyllically happy with his hectic, spotlit life, I might not be able to enjoy my Nothing to the full. I might feel guilty.

  As it is, we’ll be able to share our contrasting triumphs without either of us resenting the other. Alex will tell me that he managed to squeeze four important calls into the time between the airline staff telling him to switch off his phone, and them noticing that he’d disobeyed them and telling him again like they really meant it this time. I’ll tell him about reading in the bath for hours, topping up with hot water again and again, almost too lazy to twist the tap.

  I press the “off” button on the CD player, unwilling to compete with Carmen, and tell Alex about my little question-and-answer fantasy. He laughs. Ellen says, “You’re a nutter, Mum. You can’t say ‘Nothing.’ You’ll scare people.”

  “Good. They can fear me first, then they can envy me, and wonder if they might take up doing Nothing themselves. Think how many lives I could save.”

  “No, they’ll think you’re a depressed housewife who’s going to go home and swallow a bottle of pills.”

  “Abandoned and neglected by her jet-setting husband,” Alex adds, wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.

  “No they won’t,” I say. “Not if I beam blissfully while describing my completely empty schedule.”

  “Ah, so you will say more than ‘Nothing’!”

  “Say you’re a stay-at-home mum,” Ellen advises. “Or you’re taking a career break after a stressful few years. You’re weighing up variou
s options . . .”

  “But I’m not. I’ve already chosen Nothing. Hey.” I tap Alex on the arm. “I’m going to buy one of those year-planner wall charts—a really beautiful one—and stick it up in a prominent place, so that I can leave every day’s box totally empty. Three hundred and sixty-five empty boxes. It’ll be a thing of beauty.”

  “You’re so annoying, Mum,” Ellen groans. “You keep banging on about this new life and how everything’s going to be so different, but it won’t be, because . . . you! You’re incapable of changing. You’re exactly the same: still a massive . . . zealot. You were a zealot about working, and now you’re going to be one about not working. It’ll be so boring for me. And embarrassing.”

  “Pipe down, pipsqueak,” I say in a tone of mock outrage. “Aren’t you, like, supposed to be, like, only thirteen?”

  “I haven’t said ‘like’ for ages, actually, apart from to express approval,” Ellen protests.

  “That’s true, she hasn’t,” says Alex. “And she’s frighteningly spot-on about her drama-queen mother. Tell me this: if you crave tranquility as you claim to, why are you daydreaming about starting fights with strangers?”

  “Good point!” Ellen crows.

  “Fights? What fights?”

  “Don’t feign innocence.”

  “Not feigning!” I say indignantly.

  Alex rolls his eyes. “Aggressively saying, ‘Nothing’ when people ask you what you do, making them feel uncomfortable by refusing to qualify it at all, or explain . . .”

  “Not aggressively. Happily saying it. And there’s nothing about Nothing to explain.”

  “Smugly,” Alex says. “Which is a form of aggression. Flaunting your pleasurable idleness in the faces of those with oversensitive work ethics and overstuffed diaries. It’s sadistic.”