Marion descends the stairs at speed and re-emerges, clutching a shoebox that she upends on the table. Dozens of photographs skitter across the surface, a few fluttering down onto the flags.
‘If I’m right . . .’ she says, starting to rummage through the piles. Harriet joins her at the table, looking down on myriad groupings of people she doesn’t recognise, assorted scenery shots, various weddings, the guests stiff in their finery with bright, hopeful smiles.
‘What are we looking for?’ says Harriet, starting to spread out the photos nearest to her.
‘Somewhere in here . . .’ mutters Marion, rapidly flicking through the piles in front of her. ‘Lois had a camera for her birthday, d’you remember? She was mucking about with it. Kept making us pose for her.’
‘That’s right!’ exclaims Harriet, the memory springing into her mind, all of them giggling and pulling faces as Lois struggled with the flash. ‘Was it that night, though?’
‘I think so. Because hadn’t Janet made a cake for her? With chocolate buttons on it?’
Harriet can see it: comically lopsided thanks to the unreliable college oven, the butter icing oozing over the sides from the heat from the gas fire, and craters where they had gouged out the buttons even before it had been cut into slices. It had tasted faintly of corn oil, Erica having run out of margarine. The image of the cake brings Hester to mind; she bats her away.
‘Bingo!’ says Marion, with a triumphant grin. ‘Look!’ She thrusts a dog-eared and grainy photo at Harriet. Six faces with grins and smiles ranging from coquettish to idiotic stare back at her across the decades. The hair! The makeup!
‘Was I still going out with Mark then?’ says Harriet, frowning at the solitary man at the back of the group, a blush stealing over her at the thought of her earlier faux pas. ‘We split up that Christmas. Lois’s birthday was in February, wasn’t it? Valentine’s Day—that’s why I remember it. What’s he doing there?’
Marion turns the photo round and peers at it. ‘Trying to get back with you, as I recall. Quite an achievement having Mark McFee chasing after you, given his reputation. He really had the hots for you.’
Harriet smiles, embarrassment tinged with pride. Mark McFee had been a considerable catch—tall, good-looking, an outstanding athlete with an easy charm that drew all the girls. Unless, as Harriet had quite soon realised on closer acquaintance, you found his politics and world view anathema to your own. She had swallowed her dislike of some of his views for a couple of months, basking in the reflected glory of being his girlfriend, until one argument too many about apartheid. Even then, after what she had regarded as an irreparable rift, he had tried to persuade her they could compromise on their differences and had continued to pursue her. This photo must have captured one of his last attempts to inveigle himself back into Harriet’s affections. It, like the earlier ones, had failed.
‘God, I’d forgotten,’ she lies. ‘Who else was there that night?’
Marion sits down again and leans back in thought, glass to her lips. The cat sees its opportunity and leaps back up. ‘Now you’re asking. Could have been dozens of us,’ she says, then starts. ‘No, wait! Of course! It was that terrible night—do you remember? We were due somewhere; a JCR bop, I think—and then it snowed all day and the do was cancelled. So we all hunkered down and Susie got cracking with the booze and said we’d celebrate Lois’s birthday at home instead. Except we only had the cake, and a stale loaf for toast, so we all got completely legless within minutes.’
‘That’s when we started playing that “What If?” game.’
‘That’s right! So . . .’
They look at one another.
Marion raises a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Then we were six.’
‘Five,’ says Harriet. ‘You can forget Mark.’
‘True. Man of many talents as he was, even he couldn’t have got preggers. Okay. Assuming it isn’t just the most colossal coincidence that someone plumped for your name, it’s got to be someone who was there that night.’
‘Then let’s consider our suspects. Lois . . . Erica . . .’
‘Hang on. When was this Stephen born?’
‘The third of August, 1972.’ The date branded in her memory.
Marion works backwards, purses her lips, shakes her head. ‘No way. No way could Lois or Erica have been pregnant and me not have known. The three of us stayed up in Cambridge working that summer, while we were waiting for our results. I saw them every day. There wasn’t an ounce on either of them at the best of times.’
‘So,’ says Harriet, ‘it wasn’t them, it wasn’t you. That leaves—’
‘Susie.’ Marion frowns. ‘Never a close buddy of mine. I mean, ditzy as hell and I liked her well enough, but our paths didn’t cross that much. She was more your friend, wasn’t she?’
Harriet thinks: Susie, of course! Why hadn’t she thought of her sooner?
‘Could it have been her?’ Marion wonders. ‘I mean, is it likely?’
‘It’s possible,’ says Harriet slowly. ‘She always was a bit flaky. I remember she had a couple of scares when she’d forgotten to take her pill—or had a stomach bug or something.’ She shakes her head. ‘No, if she’d got pregnant, she’d have got rid of it, I’m sure.’ Susie had taken life lightly, careering from one disastrous relationship to the next, yet somehow managing by dint of her sunny disposition to remain friends with all her exes. Always late, always panicking to get her essays in on time, forever pinching other people’s clothes, makeup, deodorant, tampons, forgetting to pay her share before leaving the restaurant and, mortified afterwards, showering her creditors with money, flowers, chocolates and wine: ‘I’m such a dimwit! Lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on.’ In and out of love, in and out of beds. But not a malicious bone in her body. Would she . . .?
‘Would she?’ asks Marion, reaching across to top up her glass; Harriet covers it with her hand. ‘Better not. I’m driving.’ Marion shrugs and slops a generous measure into her own glass.
‘You could stay if you like.’ She laughs as Harriet hesitates. ‘You’d be quite safe, hon.’
‘No, no . . .’ stammers Harriet. It isn’t that at all. She explains about Hester. About Lionel. About the confrontation her sister has engineered.
Marion is incredulous. ‘Lordy, what exciting lives you lead! And here’s me thinking you were vegetating in the country without a care in the world.’ She starts to pull packets and cartons out of the fridge. ‘Anyway, Susie. D’you think it might have been her?’
Harriet gets up to help lay out the lunch. ‘I’ve really no idea. I’ll have to ask her, won’t I?’
CHAPTER 55
Hester is dumbfounded. She gropes unsteadily for her coffee, knocking her teeth with the mug as she gulps down the scalding contents.
From the other side of the coffee table, fingers steepled like a penitent, Lionel watches her warily.
Reluctantly, swallowing hard, she raises her eyes to his. ‘Your mother?’ The question is barely audible.
He says with a hint of asperity, ‘I told you that first day, as I recall, that my wife had died. Why would I lie? What do you take me for?’
Hester, who has spent many hours pondering the same questions, finds herself adrift, unable to respond but aware how damning her silence must seem.
And damned Lionel certainly feels to judge by his reaction. ‘Why couldn’t you just ask me outright? On the phone? Instead of luring me down here with the impression that you were going to . . . After all the waiting and the nail-biting . . . I was ecstatic driving here. I can’t tell you how happy I was! The pair of you must have been laughing up your sleeves! But then your sister’s been difficult from the start. And after all I’ve done for her! And you, come to that. I couldn’t have been more supportive over that Stephen business—well, could I?’
Hester, the coals of reproach raining down on her, shakes her head miserably.
Lionel gathers his indignation tighter around himself, all the barbs of the past week sharpening his
anger.
‘And then all that kerfuffle with Mary. I was there for you both throughout, wasn’t I?’ With Hester’s head still bowed, he answers his own question. ‘Yes, I was! Stood up to that ghastly bully Ron on her behalf—even though, if I’m perfectly frank, he frightened the pants off me. And what thanks do I get? I don’t know what Harriet’s problem is, I really don’t. I’ve been nothing but polite and friendly, but I don’t seem able to do anything right as far as she’s concerned, which is rich given that she’s managed to get herself into some pretty tight corners. But snooping around the internet, checking up on me! That takes the ruddy biscuit, it really does. And then, of course, I discover you’ve swallowed her spiteful, mean-minded rubbish hook, line and sinker!’
Lionel, of course, has only just met Hester; indeed, he really hardly knows her. The mysterious alchemy that creates the emotion called love cannot hope to erode old loyalties and affections, the ties that bind the present to the past. Hester is nothing if not loyal. Harriet may have her faults—on a bad day Hester would describe them as legion—but it is for her to enumerate them if necessary, not some Johnny-come-lately who has only just made her sister’s acquaintance. So while Hester is prepared to weather Lionel’s denunciation of her own shortcomings, she is quick to defend the absent Harriet from egregious accusations of spite and mean-mindedness, faults of which she herself might sometimes be accused but of which she would the first to absolve Harriet. One of her father’s expressions springs to mind: Now, just a cotton-picking minute . . . accompanied in the same instant by the certainty that Harriet would probably abhor its provenance and use.
‘Well?’ demands Lionel, glaring at her. ‘Don’t you think you owe me an apology, Hetty?’
Yes, thinks Hester, I probably do, but that is not what finds its way out of her mouth.
‘My sister was merely looking out for my best interests, as she always has; I will not apologise for what she did,’ she says, neatly sidestepping her own culpability. ‘I am sorry you appear to think I tricked you into making the trip down here, but I felt I needed to see you face to face for this discussion. You had asked me to marry you, Lionel! It’s a big step at any time, but at our age?! For heaven’s sake, why wouldn’t she be concerned for me?’
Disconcerted by Hester’s combative riposte, a far cry from the contrition he has anticipated, Lionel visibly wilts. ‘I was going to tell you about Mother, of course I was,’ he says in a more placatory tone. ‘But you asked me hardly anything about my life and personal circumstances.’ A tinge of resentment returns to his voice. ‘I would have told you had you asked.’
Hester goes to remonstrate then realises with some discomfiture that Lionel is right; too flattered by all the unaccustomed attention, she had rarely probed very much into his own history. Indeed, it had been Harriet who had been the more curious.
‘Be that as it may,’ she says more gently, ‘what exactly are your plans for your mother? How old is she, by the way? Is she in good health?’
Lionel, sensing the conversation shifting into less troubled waters, relaxes. ‘She’s ninety-five.’ He allows himself a proud smile. ‘Fit as the proverbial. Fearfully independent. Gets about in one of those little buggies. I have trouble keeping up with her!’
‘Ninety-five . . .’ says Hester faintly, conjuring up an ancient crone, all gums and incontinence.
‘All her own teeth,’ offers Lionel as further proof of the maternal vigour, promptly confounding her.
Hester regroups, feels her way to her next question, a particularly tricky one. ‘And had I . . . were we to . . .’
Lionel nods eagerly, catching her drift.
‘Would you expect her to . . . live with us?’
His gaze sweeps around the room.
‘Nearby—I meant nearby,’ she adds swiftly. She thinks she detects the tiniest hint of disappointment before he rallies.
‘No, well . . . there’s still a lot to be decided,’ he says gamely. ‘And not just about Mother. There’s Harriet, too, to consider.’
Hester bridles. She’ll deal with Harry, thank you very much. Or, rather, leave Harriet to her own devices. Imagine if she were to catch a sniff of this conversation!
‘But,’ he continues blithely, unaware of the storm clouds gathering opposite, ‘I did take the precaution of looking into options in the vicinity last night . . .’
‘Options?’
Lionel, oblivious to the ice in her tone, elaborates. ‘Yes, you know: sheltered housing, residential homes, that sort of thing. And I see there’s a very pleasant—’
The froideur increases. ‘And is this for your mother or for Harriet?’
Dimly, Lionel registers the change in temperature. He gives a hollow laugh. ‘Now, Hetty! Mother, of course.’ He pauses, considers. ‘Although, I do believe they will take anyone over sixty . . .’
Hester, conveniently suppressing the memory of her fleeting plans for housing her sister in a garden studio, tightens her lips. It does not go unnoticed.
‘Hetty, my dear, I was joking!’ stammers Lionel, with a valiant attempt at a waggish smile. It falls on very stony ground.
‘And what does your mother feel about being uprooted at her vast age and transplanted to a hostile environment?’
‘Hardly hostile, my dear. I’m sure she’d find it most comfortable.’
‘So she hasn’t the first inkling about your plans?’
A slippery look flashes across Lionel’s face. Suddenly he won’t meet her eyes.
‘I thought as much.’ Hester sniffs.
Lionel, mild-mannered as he habitually is, has reached the end of his considerable tether. He has accommodated Hester’s procrastinations, tolerated her impatience and losses of temper, provided comforting shoulders aplenty, soothed troubled breasts, withstood Harriet’s snubs and outbursts and drunk far more wine than he thinks altogether healthy on numerous occasions over the past several cataclysmic days. And all because, for reasons he cannot entirely fathom, he happens to have fallen for the woman opposite. He decides once and for all to place all his cards—some of which he considers none too bad—on the table.
‘Hester,’ he says gravely, sitting straighter and looking her right in the eye, ‘I think the time has come for us to be completely frank with one another.’
‘Absolutely,’ says Hester cautiously. She has the oddest feeling that somehow she is losing her grip on events. She inclines her head: go on.
‘Permit me to lay out my stall. I’ve thought long and hard since we met. We are neither of us in the first flush of youth. We have by the greatest good fortune met and found a kinship. Well, in my case, something rather stronger than that. Our best years may be behind us, but with luck we have sufficient years ahead that we could enjoy together, bringing one another mutual support and affection, if not, dare I say it, love. My financial resources may be modest, but I have some capital in my flat and a small pension and Mother fortunately still has sufficient savings to pay for her care for several years. I know some might consider me selfish to put my immediate needs and desires above those of my aged parent, but to be brutally honest I have been a dutiful son and a reliable husband all my life and I think it not unreasonable to put my own desires first for once. I think between the two of us we could make a pretty good fist of a marriage, with perhaps, if the past week is anything to go by, some rather lively times.’
Here he hesitates, gulps, gamely continues. ‘And if your reservations have anything to do with . . .’ he looks down at the floor, ‘that . . . unfortunate incident in your room the other night, then I understand there are steps I can take to . . . ameliorate the problem.’
Her heart goes out to him, to his bravery.
He ploughs on quickly, lest she interrupt. ‘I have no desire to face the rest of my life alone and neither, I suspect, have you. I fully accept we have a number of issues to resolve—not least the futures of our nearest and dearest—and I won’t lie: Mother does have her moments. But, as I say, I am unashamedly doing this for mys
elf. And, I hope, you. I do not see why I should forgo a last chance of happiness. And I cannot believe that Harriet, despite her misgivings, would want to deprive you of the same. There it is.’
Hester is moved. Touched by his obvious sincerity, his honesty, his unexpected eloquence. Watching him now as he lets out a long sigh, like a runner exhausted after a gruelling race, she sees what this has cost him. And feels cut to the bone that what had started as a slightly offbeat flirtation under that beguiling Italian sky should have come to this. She does not deal well with difficult emotions and situations, never has; she would rather sidestep or ignore matters that threaten her carefully cultivated self-control than let her guard slip. Harriet is the emotional one: she it is who expresses her feelings without embarrassment, unafraid to let others see her vulnerabilities. But the fact Hester keeps her counsel, appears always in control—legacy, perhaps, of her firstborn status—does not mean she feels things any less keenly.
‘Lionel,’ she says gently, not sure at all where she is going, ‘you have been an absolute rock this past week.’ And she means it. A baptism by fire doesn’t come close to describing the experiences to which Lionel, a virtual stranger, has been exposed thanks to his entanglement with the Ribbleswell siblings. He has negotiated the tricky terrain of sisterly disputes and rapprochements with commendable adeptness, at times taking responsibility for frictions not of his making. He deserves better than the erratic affections she has shown him. He deserves, she suspects, a better woman than she.
Unflinching self-analysis is both Hester’s strength and her curse. What she evades on the surface still seethes beneath. She acknowledges to herself that she has been unfair to Lionel, glad to lean on him when the need arose but dismissive of his tenderness and attention when other more pressing issues erupted. She realises with an unpleasant jolt that with her suspicions (or, rather, Harriet’s) laid to rest, she is back where she started: altogether undecided, caught between the certainties and complacencies of the past and the unpredictable possibilities of the future.
Love, Lies and Linguine Page 35