Love, Lies and Linguine

by Hilary Spiers

  CHAPTER 44

  By eight thirty, they are all back at The Laurels. Ben can’t remember the last time he got up so early on a Sunday. Daria had thumped on his door at seven, although he’d been awake for at least an hour by then, listening to Milo gurgling in his cot in the next room, practising his rudimentary vocabulary, an exercise that clearly affords him much delight.

  Breakfast is a silent affair but for Milo’s shouts and experiments with feeding himself (largely consisting of introducing his porridge into any orifice but his mouth), Artem busy timetabling the repairs and renovations remaining and Daria studiously avoiding anything but the most minimal of conversations with Ben. Unasked he washes up, grabbing the tea towel before Daria can intervene, drying each piece of crockery and cutlery carefully and stowing it in the appropriate cupboard or drawer. He’s not going to risk doing anything that might draw further wrath down on his head.

  They pull up outside the house to find Finbar waiting on the doorstep, and Nats close behind on her bike.

  ‘I thought you had a rehearsal today, Natalie,’ says Artem.

  ‘Yeah, but not until three. We’re running lines, that’s all.’ She bends down to pinch Milo’s cheek playfully. ‘Hello, sweetness.’ She swings her hair tantalisingly just out of his reach. ‘We’ve work to do, little one. Work, then play, okay?’ She pulls something out of her back pocket and presents it to him with some ceremony.

  He grabs it and shoves it into his mouth automatically before removing it to inspect it quizzically.

  Nats laughs. ‘It’s a toy, Milo! You don’t eat it.’

  Daria fingers the slightly damp fur and looks at the girl for enlightenment. ‘My old rabbit,’ says Nats. ‘I thought he might like it.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Daria, ‘what a kind girl. Say thank you, Milo.’

  Milo gnaws at his treasure anew by way of gratitude. The two women laugh.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ says Barry, peering over the hedge.

  ‘Is Milo,’ says Daria, grinning. ‘Good morning, Barry.’ And she gives the new arrival her widest smile.

  Ben, pressed against the bushes at the back of the group, feels a sudden surge of jealousy at Barry’s good fortune. And Milo’s.

  ‘Okay,’ says Artem, squaring his shoulders as he unlocks the front door, ‘let us get this task finished.’

  The paper looks as if it’s been on the wall for decades, the precisely matched pattern bleeding into the slightly faded edges to perfection.

  ‘That Ralph is one mean paper-hanger,’ says Nats admiringly. ‘We’d never have done it on our own.’ She glances over at the rehung curtains. ‘You wouldn’t know, would you?’ The hems now almost brush the floor; once the carpet is back in place, it would be an eagle eye that spotted anything amiss. Ben says nothing but a tiny flame of hope that they might just get away with this is rekindled.

  Barry, belting out a horribly off-key but extremely enthusiastic rendition of ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’, is hard at work on the reconstruction of the staircase, with a deftness and speed that hearten them all. Finbar is back in the downstairs cloakroom, putting the finishing touches to the basin and taps, while Artem plans the order of play for the reintroduction of carpets, furniture, books and the assorted knickknacks, bric-a-brac and curiosities that make up Hester and Harriet’s home. Daria, never satisfied, is having another scrub of the kitchen floor, Milo penned in the corner behind an intricate barricade of kitchen chairs.

  ‘If Barry would be kind enough to put those shelves back up . . . Barry!’ yells Nats over the sound of planing. ‘Barry!’

  He peers over the landing balustrade through a cloud of wood dust. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Don’t suppose you could . . .’ Nats jerks her thumb towards the far wall of the sitting room.

  ‘Them shelves? Be right down.’

  Minutes later the three glass shelves are back in place.

  ‘Tidy,’ says Barry, bounding up the stairs. He spins round at the top and hollers through to the kitchen. ‘Artem, mate, I’ll be making a mess for about another hour. Don’t bring anything back in until then, okay? Thing is, however careful you are, the dust gets everywhere. Much better you let me finish, we hoover the whole shebang and then you get stuck in. You’ve got varnish, have you?’

  ‘Varnish?’

  ‘For the wood. It wasn’t painted, was it, the staircase?’ He examines what’s left of the old one. ‘No, look: varnish, that is. Be a bugger to match, though.’

  Nats comes through to join Artem at the bottom of the stairs. They inspect the old varnish together. ‘Shit,’ mutters Nats. Then: ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, shit is right,’ says Artem. He gnaws his lip. ‘Never mind the colour, how long will it take to dry?’

  Barry’s head reappears above. ‘Depends. Minimum of four hours as a rule. Might be as much as twelve. And you’ll need at least a couple of coats.’

  Ben, listening to the exchange from the sitting room, feels his feeble hope trickling away. This is impossible. Hopeless. They might have got the curtains cleaned and the wall repapered, but there’s all the furniture to reinstate, and now the necessity of getting the staircase to look as it had before the aunts had so blithely set off for their holiday. What’s the first thing that will greet them when they walk in the front door? He stifles a groan. They might as well just give up now.

  Nats puts her head around the door. ‘Did you see any varnish in the sheds? Ben?’

  He looks at her in abject misery.

  ‘Come on! We need some varnish! Is there any outside?’

  ‘Dunno.’ He doesn’t really care. Don’t they know when they’re beaten?

  ‘Well, go and look, will you?’ Nats glares at him until he shambles out through the kitchen into the garden. He yanks open the door of the nearest shed and stumbles into the gloom. In the far corner, tucked almost out of sight behind several armchairs and a nest of tables precariously balanced on top he makes out an assortment of paint tins piled high, webbed with grime, some smeared with rivulets of colour, lids frilled from repeated opening. He’s pretty certain the aunts have never decorated the place themselves since they moved in, so God only knows how old the contents must be . . .

  ‘Anything?’ says Nats, close behind him.

  ‘Can’t see. We’ll need to move these—’

  ‘Oh, give me strength!’ Nats shoves him aside and, nimble as a gymnast, works her way carefully across the obstruction to drop down in front of the paint mountain. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and, using it as a torch, inspects the tins carefully. ‘No . . . no . . . Jeez, how much magnolia does anyone need?! Dashed Pebble, Caramel Camel, Crushed Oats . . . fifty shades of beige, in other words. Can’t even read this one—oh wait! Yes! Burnt Oak varnish . . . oh, you are one lucky sod, Ben Fry, you know that? And look, someone has even written Stairs on it. Here.’ She hefts the battered tin over the furniture to Ben and climbs back to join him.

  Over coffee and biscuits, they inspect the aged varnish in the bottom of the tin. Barry shakes his head gloomily. ‘Looks gloopy to me. Gone off.’

  ‘Gloopy?’ This is a new one on Artem.

  ‘Yeah. Like, sticky? Too thick.’

  ‘White spirit,’ says Finbar, wolfing down a chocolate digestive. Daria’s subterfuge with his jacket has markedly ameliorated his customary odour: he still smells, but not quite so pungently.

  ‘Worth a try,’ agrees Barry. He finishes off the last of his coffee and thunders back upstairs. The repaired and remodelled spindles are now in place; he lifts down the replacement banister from the landing to align it with them and, Artem and Ben holding it steady, begins the delicate task of securing everything in place. Daria, holding Milo, released from temporary immurement, looks on with undisguised admiration.

  In very short order, the spindles are expertly fixed into position and Barry replaces the mercifully intact cap on the newel post. Nats and Daria clap their hands delightedly and Milo enthusiastically, if inexpertly, joins in. True, the staircase looks unfi
nished, but it is undeniably a staircase once more.

  They all set to, sweeping, wiping and vacuuming in preparation for The Laurels’ refurbishment. Finbar volunteers to apply the diluted varnish (‘I’ve some experience in such matters’) while the others, under Artem’s direction, start the laborious task of reassembling the rooms. Barry elects to remain and help, even though his job is complete.

  ‘No sweat. Got nothing else on today.’ His smile lingers on Daria.

  The photos on Ben’s phone prove a godsend, since everyone has differing views on the siting of the furniture.

  ‘No, no, table is in wrong place. There! There!’ insists Daria.

  ‘I am sure that chair is too close to the sofa. Let us move it just a little . . .’ grunts Artem, dragging the offending article a few inches to the left.

  ‘That rug is the other way round, I’m telling you,’ says Ben, exasperated. ‘The roses face the fire—’

  But the photographic evidence is irrefutable and the protagonists have no option but to concede that, yes, okay, they might have been mistaken. The carpets seem none the worse for being rolled up and go down fairly smoothly. As the furniture is hauled back into the house, Daria anxiously watching for scrapes and bumps on the freshly washed walls and paintwork, The Laurels slowly assumes its habitual feel. The monumental challenge of replacing two lifetimes’ worth of books and ornaments lies ahead and would surely have defeated them were it not for Ben’s forethought.

  ‘Dead clever,’ says Barry, flicking through the images on Ben’s phone. ‘Would never have occurred to me. Blimey, got a lot of stuff, the pair of them.’

  They have indeed. It takes a good three hours, Ben keeping an anxious eye on the time in view of his parents’ imminent return, before they stand back, hungry, exhausted but triumphant. Piles of papers teeter on tables, books and magazines haphazardly carpet the floor around the armchairs, pictures hang (slightly askew, as is their usual mode, given the sisters’ slipshod dusting) on the walls once more and Ben has even remembered to catch the corner of the hearth rug under the foot of Hester’s chair.

  Finbar, varnish tin and brush in hand, shuffles in to inspect their handiwork.

  ‘Hmm,’ he says.

  ‘Is good, yes? Perfect,’ says Daria smugly.

  ‘I’m afraid it is,’ says Finbar.

  Artem frowns. ‘Afraid?’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear. It just will not do.’

  ‘Why not?’ growls Artem testily. He badly needs some food.

  ‘Come now, dear boy. Remember your Goethe.’

  ‘Goethe?’ stammers Nats. This time the old boy’s lost her.

  Finbar shakes his grizzled head, unleashing the familiar waft of stale sweat and beer. The circle around him widens. ‘Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.’

  ‘You what?’ says Barry.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ says Artem as realisation dawns, with a sweeping glance around the room. ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘I don’t!’ says Ben. He and Barry exchange a bewildered look.

  Milo, playing at his mother’s feet, somehow at that moment loses his balance, toppling sideways into one of the meticulously engineered piles of books. He lies, unhurt but winded, amid the scattered volumes, still clutching his new toy.

  ‘Oh, Milo! Silly boy,’ says Daria, cross with fatigue and hunger, as she bends down to right her son and tidy the mess.

  ‘No, leave it,’ says Artem, a hand on her arm. ‘Finbar’s right: it’s too perfect. Everything’s too clean, too tidy. It looks like . . .’

  ‘No-one lives here,’ finishes Ben. It doesn’t take much for his heart to sink today and already he can feel the familiar plunge towards despair.

  ‘Oh, no!’ wails Daria. ‘I cannot . . .!’

  ‘Now, now. Nil desperandum, my dear!’ exclaims Finbar, patting her shoulder. ‘All can be remedied. Do we have perchance some sponges? Might some strong black tea be procured?’

  Artem translates this quickly into terms Daria (and indeed Barry and Ben) will better understand.

  ‘Black tea?’ repeats Daria, mystified. ‘Black? Always I give you milk and three spoons of sugar.’

  A rumbling laugh erupts. ‘Not to drink, my dear girl. I need it for the walls. And perhaps you might get the vacuum cleaner out once more and—no need to switch it on—just drag it around willy-nilly.’ Daria looks at him as if he has lost his mind. He carries on regardless. ‘Bash it into the skirting boards with gay abandon. Even the odd bit of furniture if the spirit moves you. Barry, my dear fellow, you might care to wrap that hammer of yours in a duster, say, and give a few of those spindles a whack. Not too hard, mind, just enough to give them an air of genteel mistreatment: I’ll apply the second coat afterwards. And, Artem, Ben and Natalie, throw yourself into those chairs and on that sofa. Kick your feet about a bit. I’m sure young Milo will be delighted to help.’ He looks around the haggard faces. ‘But first, I fancy, some food . . .?’

  ‘No, no,’ says Daria. ‘Please. Let us do it now. Quickly. Then we eat. Oh!’ She puts her hand to her mouth, staring aghast into the far corner.

  Following her gaze, all eyes come to rest on the contents of the top glass shelf: a small carriage clock (broken, its hands forever at twenty-three minutes to six), a jasperware vase presented to Harriet by a grateful parent whose son had miraculously scraped his O-level English Literature decades before, thanks to her good offices, a framed photo of George and Isabelle proudly nursing a scowling baby Ben and . . .

  ‘Oh no!’ cry Artem, Daria and Ben as the dreadful penny drops.

  ‘What?’ chorus Nats, Finbar and Barry.

  Milo, wide-eyed, hugs his rabbit.

  CHAPTER 45

  Harriet sinks into the chair beside Hester in a secluded corner of the terrace. The minute they arrived back at the hotel, she had bid Mary a hasty adieu and hurried to her room, praying not to bump into either Ron or Rhona. She had been in the nick of time. Shutting her door, she had heard footsteps thundering along the terrace and Ron’s furious voice, ‘Where the hell have you been? Are you out of your mind, woman?!’

  Hester jumps slightly. ‘Oh! You’re back!’

  ‘Couple of hours ago. Had a quick lie-down. Did you have a good day?’ Both decide not to mention Harriet’s early morning flit.

  Hester colours, recovers and says brightly, ‘Oh, heavens, you know, nothing of consequence—bit of sightseeing, spot of lunch, a little snooze in the sun . . . how about you?’

  ‘We drove to San Ginesio, up in the mountains. Enchanting little town with absolutely stunning views across the Sibillini Mountains. Masses to see but we just sauntered round the market. You should have seen the size of the peppers! And the figs! You’d have loved it.’ And a lot more than Mary: too busy rabbiting on about her woes. Harriet can imagine her sister’s reaction to the gorgeous displays of local produce, the spectacular flower stalls.

  ‘Mary okay?’ asks Hester, thinking simultaneously, bloody woman!

  ‘Glad of an ear to bend,’ says Harriet, with a half-smile, which, to her guilty relief, Hester returns. ‘That’s really all she was after. I shouldn’t be so unkind, but, you know, it’s exhausting hearing the same thing for hour after hour. Especially when you know perfectly well that nothing you say will make a scrap of difference.’

  Good, thinks Hester, suppressing a desire to smile smugly, she’s come to her senses at last.

  ‘I think you’ve been a saint.’ Hester glances up at the hotel, hoping Lionel will emerge. Somehow she feels safer—protected almost—with him beside her.

  Harriet casts about for a neutral topic.

  ‘Did you make it to the abbey?’

  Hester seizes on the question gratefully and launches into a detailed description of the architectural and artistic delights of the building. In her anxiety, she overdoes it. Lionel barely figures in her narrative. Harriet, who reads her sister only too well, listens with half an ear, her suspicions multiplying
by the second.

  Alfonso materialises at their side. ‘Signore,’ he says, arms outstretched, taking them both in. ‘I know it is early—’ he checks his watch ‘—only a little early, nearly half past five, but perhaps a glass of wine to start your last evening?’

  ‘To hell with how early it is, yes please, you dear man,’ says Hester.

  Alfonso grins a faintly roguish grin. ‘I have a little treat for my two favourite guests. After all the excitements of your holiday, no?’ He lopes up the steps.

  ‘Ah!’ says Hester, her face lighting up, a bloom of colour flushing her cheeks, ‘and here’s Lionel!’ She waves vigorously. ‘Over here, my dear!’ Face crinkled in a huge smile, he swiftly picks his way down the broad stone steps to join them. As he skirts Hester’s chair to take his own seat, his hand rests lightly on her shoulder for a brief moment. It does not go unnoticed by her sister.

  ‘Harriet!’ he says solicitously, ‘how are you today? An enjoyable excursion?’ He glances across at Hester to check the mood. She smiles back.

  ‘Fine, thank you. Hester’s just been telling me about your day.’ She doesn’t miss his instant and alarmed look at Hester. Oho. She continues, ‘Alfonso has just gone to fetch us some wine. A bit early, I know, but after the week we’ve had, we thought . . . well, now we know Mary’s going to be okay, if not exactly a celebration, then at least a toast to the future.’ As Lionel and Hester exchange yet another almost shifty look, she silently curses her inelegant efforts: what made her mention the future? In an instant the problems crouching so patiently in the wings start once more to advance towards her: Stephen, Hester’s decision, her own future at The Laurels . . .

  Hester watches Harriet self-consciously reach for a stray sun-brittled leaf that is skittering around the table in the intermittent breeze and crush it into a thousand fragments. She sweeps them to the floor, then looks out over the valley, looks across the gardens at guests dotted hither and thither, looks up towards the hotel expectantly, looks at her hands. Looks anywhere, in fact, but at Hester or Lionel. Hester wills him to silence. The hiatus lengthens, balloons, envelops them, until mercifully broken by Alfonso’s return.