Love, Lies and Linguine

by Hilary Spiers

  ‘Harry,’ says Hester, lowered eyes glittering, ‘you know I’d never do anything to hurt you . . .’ Anticipating Harriet’s scepticism she adds quickly, ‘Not intentionally. You know that, don’t you?’

  Harriet, for all that she longs to regain her old camaraderie with her sister, finds herself instantly recalling the events of the past week, not least Hester’s duplicity over Stephen’s letter, never mind the prickly weeks that preceded their trip to Italy. She tries valiantly to set her continuing rancour aside but it has been suppressed for too long and now it bubbles up and out. ‘But you have hurt me, Hetty. A great deal. You’ve kept things from me. Gone behind my back. And I’m not just talking about Stephen. When were you going to tell me about Lionel? Because he’s asked you to marry him, hasn’t he? Or at least move in together?’

  Hester, not having anticipated quite such a frontal assault, or at least not quite so soon, recoils and immediately goes on the offensive herself. ‘I would have told you sooner had you not got yourself caught up in all that ghastliness with Mary. I hardly thought it was the time or place to discuss matters of the heart while you were embroiled in all that. Be reasonable!’

  ‘Reasonable! I’ve been nothing but reasonable since you became besotted with a chap you’d only met five minutes earlier but whom you nevertheless confided in—’

  ‘Besotted? I am not besotted—’

  ‘Telling him all sorts of private details about me—’

  ‘I was worried!’

  ‘Not worried enough to tell me about it! Instead of which, you put poor Stephen through absolute hell—and me, come to that—leaping to assumptions and leaving me to make amends to him! God knows the last thing I want to do is go traipsing all the way to Devon tomorrow.’

  ‘I told you I’d go with you. And I’ve already said sorry. What more do you want?’

  Glaring at Hester’s hurt face, all Harriet’s pent-up grievances spill out like lava scorching down a mountainside. ‘And then you have the brass neck to challenge me about looking into my options when you start making plans behind my back to set up a ménage à trois without so much as a by-your-leave. What did you expect me to do? Move into one of the garden sheds?’

  Hester, who truth be told had fleetingly entertained ideas of them building an annexe in the garden—a really luxurious annexe, with power showers and Italian ceramic tiles—for Harriet, knowing how much she values her privacy, before dismissing it as madness, blushes furiously.

  Her sister reads the reaction as anger and counters accordingly. ‘Did you seriously expect me to welcome Lionel here with open arms? Into our home? Someone you’ve known for precisely a week?’

  Ten minutes earlier, Hester would have been more than happy—would have been so relieved—to talk through her dilemma with Harriet, to explain that she likes Lionel a great deal, that she never expected to find herself in this situation (carefully avoiding any reference to her ill-judged weakness for Teddy Wilson), that everything has happened with alarming speed, and on the one hand she is terrified that she will commit herself to an uncertain future with a virtual stranger, and on the other hand that she may throw away a final chance of love before age and possible decrepitude overwhelm her. But in those intervening ten minutes Harriet has hurled accusations at her, berated her, thrown her apology—her heartfelt apology—back in her face and made the ridiculous suggestion that she would be relegated to a kennel in the garden. Hester finds herself cornered and that is never a good position for her, since the only way she knows how to respond is to come out fighting.

  As she does now.

  But she chooses her tactics with care. Instead of reacting with outrage and vituperation, like her sister, Hester opts for the quietly dignified approach. Calm but firm. She knows how it irritates Harriet when she refuses to engage on her terms.

  ‘Eight days actually. Look, I can see that you’re upset, Harry, and I hesitate to give further offence, but I’d really appreciate you telling me what exactly you have against Lionel.’

  Harriet decodes her sister’s salvo as an oblique accusation of volatility and a question disguised as genuine bewilderment designed to trick her into saying something that will ever after be used to reproach her. She has in her armoury one devastating weapon, but for the moment she chooses not to unleash it. Instead, she takes a deep breath, steadies herself and deploys the tried and tested technique of batting the question back.

  ‘This isn’t really about Lionel, Hetty, is it? It’s about us.’

  ‘Oh?’ Hester can see how Harriet wants to play this, but she’s damned if she’ll make it easy for her. She empties the last dregs of the wine into their glasses, dividing it with scrupulous fairness.

  ‘You know it is. Have you decided you no longer wish us to share our lives?’

  She could have said ‘live together’. She could have said ‘share this house’. But she fancies her choice of words sounds more weighty.

  ‘No!’ cries Hester, realising even as the response leaps automatically from her lips that she means it. Very, very much. Suddenly she’s on the back foot—how did that happen?—trying to reconcile two apparently diametrically opposed choices. ‘Of course not! Oh, Harry, it’s not a case of either or . . . it’s just . . . it’s just . . .’

  Harriet can’t ever recall seeing her sister quite so lost for words. It’s her chance to be facilitative. Gracious, even.

  So, more gently: ‘I don’t want to deny you a chance of happiness, Hetty, honestly I don’t, and if I have to move out—’

  ‘No, no!’ Hester is in an agony of guilt.

  ‘—if it comes to that, so be it.’ Please, please, don’t let it, she prays silently with a sudden lurch of fear. ‘I just want to understand: what’s so special about Lionel? Apart,’ she adds swiftly lest that sound too critical and personal, ‘from the fact that he clearly adores you.’

  Hester, cantankerous, formidable Hester, softens. Then flounders. ‘He’s very . . . kind,’ she manages after some thought, conscious of how mealy-mouthed it sounds.

  Harriet pounces, but with good humour, intending to signal a shift to less confrontational ground. ‘I grant you that, but so is my dentist and I wouldn’t marry him.’

  ‘There are worse things—’

  ‘Or live with him. My dentist, that is.’ Harriet smiles. The smile fades apologetically. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to be flippant. Look, Hetty, I hesitate to ask for fear of giving offence, but I must: what precisely do you have in common?’

  Hester, still flustered, opts for the obvious. ‘Food?’ She regrets it the instant she says it.

  Harriet’s roll of the eyes confirms her misjudgement. ‘Food? You know what they say about too many cooks. Look at the fuss you make when you have to share the kitchen with Ben.’

  ‘I do not make a fuss!’

  Harriet gives her sister a mordant look. ‘If that’s you not making a fuss, God help him when you do.’

  Hester sniffs. ‘Face it, Harriet, for whatever reason, you’ve taken against him. Poor man, I’ve no idea what he’s done to deserve your disapproval. Mark you, let’s not forget, you do have form in that regard.’ Oh hell, wails Hester inside the instant the words emerge, whatever possessed me to open that particular can of worms?

  Ice descends instantly. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Forget it. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, no, please.’ Harriet’s mouth tightens. ‘I seem to recall that the last time you had a . . . let’s call it a tendresse . . . for someone—’ Teddy Wilson lours over them both ‘—we ended up in the most unholy mess. And plastered all over the papers.’

  ‘I wasn’t alone in being taken in,’ says Hester hotly. ‘Everybody in the village . . . and it was only the local papers . . .’ She tails off as Harriet raises a sceptical eyebrow and Hester judges it wise to move on. But while she may change tack, her resentment remains. If anything, it increases. ‘Be that as it may, I think you at least owe me the courtesy of an explanation as to why you have taken against Lionel
so violently. He has been unfailingly kind and supportive through what I would be the first to accept has been a terrible and torrid time for you, but I’d love to know precisely why—aside from jealousy, which frankly is the only reason I can come up with, apart from sheer bloody-mindedness, snobbery and a dog-in-the-manger attitude—you find him as unacceptable as you clearly do.’

  Harriet, stung by Hester’s unjust accusations—snobbery? That’s rich coming from her!—and trying to fathom whether her sister really is seriously suggesting she might want Lionel for herself—imagine!—does as she is bid. And tells her.

  CHAPTER 52

  Harriet half-heartedly sifts through the glossy brochures, their pages bloated with superlatives and impossible camera angles, while straining to hear the conversation in the kitchen. For once she has no compunction about eavesdropping; things have reached such a pass with Hester this evening that earwigging seems the least of it. The look on Hester’s face when Harriet had imparted to her what she had gleaned while surfing the internet will long remain with her. Half of her feels she has discharged a necessary duty; the other half feels a complete heel. Well, he shouldn’t have tried to deceive her, she thinks in self-justification. Better she knows the worst now rather than—

  The sitting room door bursts open, startling her, as Hester enters and makes for her armchair. Harriet hurriedly covers the pile of house particulars with her paper, aware that her attempted subterfuge has not gone unnoticed. Hester, she sees with alarm, has a bottle of brandy in her hand. This does not bode well. Brandy is for crises. She waits for her sister to speak, the worm of self-reproach still squirming inside. She knows that she should not have dropped her bombshell in temper; it smacks of spite. She should have been rational, measured . . . God knows, she should have been a lot of things . . .

  Hester pours two over-generous measures of brandy into their unwashed wine glasses, a solecism that almost makes Harriet cry out. She smothers her astonishment in a cough. Tentatively she reaches for her glass and imbibes a huge swig. Hester does likewise, then picks up her knitting and sets to at a cracking pace, the needles clattering like typewriter keys.

  Harriet can bear it no longer. ‘Well?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Hester knocks her glasses down from their nest in her hair and shoves them into position. Behind the lenses, she looks less vulnerable, more ready for a fight, despite the pretended incomprehension.

  Harriet grits her teeth and presses on. ‘Did you get hold of him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hester addresses herself once more to her knitting.

  Harriet, perfectly aware that Hester does not need to look at what her needles are doing, indeed is capable of knitting, watching the television and reading a book simultaneously, feels her temper beginning to fray again. No, she will not let Hester rile her, nor make her feel guilty, not this time. She perseveres, taking a casual sip of brandy. ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He’s coming down tomorrow.’

  Harriet almost chokes. ‘You’ve invited him down here. In spite of . . . after what I told you? What . . .? Why . . .? Is he denying it?’

  Harriet does not deign to look at her. She says coldly, ‘I haven’t yet asked him. I prefer to face these sorts of . . . unpleasantnesses head on.’

  You hypocrite! thinks Harriet.

  ‘I thought I owed him at least that. It was hardly the sort of conversation to have on the phone.’

  ‘Right.’ Harriet digests the response. ‘Did you give him any—’

  ‘No.’ Hester has finished her brandy and pours herself another. She waves the bottle vaguely in Harriet’s direction, who holds up a hand in refusal.

  ‘I’m driving tomorrow, remember?’

  ‘So you are,’ says Hester crisply.

  Harriet, the conversation clearly at an end, returns to her crossword. Not a single clue makes the slightest sense.

  The sisters sit either side of the hearth quietly seething.

  Hester is still in a state of shock. The grenade Harriet had lobbed into her muddied thoughts not fifteen minutes earlier has shaken her to the core. Beyond the core. She feels in turn angry, humiliated, heartsick and confused. Her first instinct had been to disbelieve Harriet, a reaction that speaks volumes about the sorry pass to which their relationship has come. She would never, ever, have accused her sister of deceit until . . . well, until this past week. Which, she reasons, can mean only one thing. Either, as Harriet is alleging, Lionel has been stringing her along from the start or, possibly worse, Harriet has descended to unspeakable depths in an attempt to wreck Hester’s burgeoning romance. Neither interpretation is palatable. Both find her at the mercy of another’s machinations, a situation for which a woman of her steely fibre is signally unsuited. She had managed to keep the conversation with Lionel mercifully short by pretending to be so exhausted by their travel she was en route to bed. So thrilled had he been at the prospect of seeing her the following day that he had not questioned the urgency. ‘Yes, yes, of course, my dear, I’ll be down as soon as I can. I can hardly wait. No, don’t worry about directions. Just give me the postcode; I’ll use the sat nav. And give my best to Harry, won’t you? Now you get yourself off to bed, Hetty dearest. Sweet dreams.’ Sick with dread, she imagines what he must be supposing: that she is about to accept his proposal.

  For the first time in years, Hester drops a stitch.

  Sitting opposite, Harriet stares blindly at the crossword. She would dearly love another brandy, if only to blunt the edges of her nagging conscience, but dare not risk it: she has a long drive tomorrow—alone now, evidently—and does not want a muzzy head to add to her troubles. But she’s worried that she will be out of the house when Lionel visits. Suppose he manages to spin Hetty another pack of lies? Suppose the sudden invitation has alerted him to some potential danger? Now he has all night to concoct a convincing narrative.

  For heaven’s sake, stop it! she admonishes herself. Hetty is forewarned and she’s not an idiot. She’ll be on her guard. And Lionel Parchment is no Teddy Wilson. Except he’s indubitably a fast worker. She almost has to admire the speed, not to mention the skill, with which he’s so comprehensively penetrated Hester’s armour and inveigled himself into her affections. A month ago, or less, she would have scoffed at the possibility of Hester being swept off her feet, would have had nothing but admiration for any man who might have the temerity to try.

  Well, there’s nothing more I can do now. Hetty’s obviously not going to discuss it with me, not in her current mood. And in any event, I’ve got quite enough on my plate. The thought of her impending meeting—she had been about to say confrontation—with Marion is enough to set her stomach churning again.

  Hester, oblivious to her dropped stitch—a mistake that will cause intense chagrin weeks later when she finds it—knits on, reliving all the conversations she and Lionel had had at the hotel, or as many as she can recall, looking for inconsistencies, for the slightest suspicion of fabrication. If he were simply intent on making a fool of a susceptible woman, surely he wouldn’t be so eager to see her tomorrow? Or is it a game he plays on holiday: persuading some gullible widow or spinster to fall for him, to make him feel powerful, more of a man? And if that were the case, wouldn’t the embarrassment in her room the other evening have severely dented his amour-propre, making him run a mile rather than seek to continue the liaison?

  None of it makes sense! she thinks bitterly, shooting a look at Harriet sitting opposite, cool as a cucumber, doing her wretched crossword. Swathed in righteous indignation, Hester thinks: He must have the chance to explain himself at the very least . . . And fast on the heels of that thought: I can’t bear it if Harriet is right. She’ll be gloating for months. That she might be unfairly attributing her own propensities to her sister does not occur to her.

  But what does is a realisation so astonishing that she blurts out unthinkingly, ‘Dear God!’

  Harriet drops her pencil. ‘What is it?’

  Hester’s face is a picture of almost comical disbelief. �
��I’ve only just realised. You went on the internet! While we were in Italy! That’s how you contacted that old friend from uni! And ordered those brochures! And all that stuff about Lionel—you used a computer!’

  ‘Yes. I did.’

  ‘But you don’t know how to! You’ve never used a computer in your life.’

  ‘Well, I have now,’ says Harriet tartly. ‘It’s hardly rocket science, after all. Alfonso showed me how to get online and left me to it.’

  ‘And how many times have I offered to do that?’ demands an exasperated Hester, recalling the hours she’s spent filling in forms, ordering things online and typing to Harriet’s dictation over the years.

  ‘Well, I had you to do it for me before,’ says Harriet. ‘I could hardly ask you on this occasion, could I? Anyway, I think I’ll take this up to bed. Goodnight.’

  Hester, dumbstruck, can only stare as Harriet retrieves her pencil and, paper clutched to her bosom, marches from the room. Flouncing, thinks Hester.

  Both sisters are painfully and privately aware that they have breached one of Mother’s unbending maxims: they are without a doubt about to let the sun go down on their mutual wrath.

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER 53

  ‘You found us then!’ Marion, beaming, bears down on Harriet’s car, wellingtons sloshing through a large puddle in front of the back door. Voluminous trousers sag over the tops of the boots, beneath a thick sweater far too big for its wearer and a green padded gilet. Harriet levers herself out of the car, to be enveloped in an angular hug and hustled across towards the farmhouse, unfortunately straight through the muddy water, which splashes over her unsuitable court shoes. A sharp wind whistles through the yard.