Behind Closed Doors

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘No,’ she agreed quickly, although I could tell she was surprised. I could see the cogs whirring. ‘Maybe a rug?’ she said tentatively.

  I managed to suppress a smile. ‘No, it’s not just that,’ I said, although it jolly well played a part. ‘It’s the fact that I don’t have to live there any more. There are so many bad memories.’ This much, at least, was true. ‘I just don’t want to stay.’

  ‘Right. No. I do see that. Of course. A new chapter. So you’ll sell?’

  I made a face. ‘Terrible time, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, ghastly. Nothing’s moving. So, maybe let it?’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ I said anxiously. ‘What d’you think?’

  ‘Definitely let it. Till the market improves. I’ll tell you when. But Luce, to live with Mum and Dad … talk about falling on your sword.’

  ‘Well it won’t be forever, will it? Let’s be realistic.’ We watched as Imo helped our mother towards the door. Mum glanced across at us and Helena and I nipped to our feet. We kissed them all goodbye, promising to see them very soon. Then, with Imo’s assurances that she’d manage, and with Ned slowly walking with my father, chatting and smiling the while and watching carefully as he shuffled down the step to the garden in his orthopaedic shoes, we resumed our seats.

  ‘You mean,’ Helena went on in a hushed tone, ‘you’d stay until …?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said quickly, not knowing the answer to this myself. I shrugged. ‘God – who knows what will happen? Which one will go first? Whether they’ll need care?’ I hesitated. ‘What I don’t want, though, is to be tied to any decision I make now.’

  ‘Oh God, absolutely,’ she said vehemently. ‘You know I’d never do that.’

  ‘No, I know you wouldn’t. And I didn’t mean you, really. I meant myself, actually. Don’t want to feel any guilt, should I change my plans. I don’t want any firm plans about the future. I just want to see how it goes.’

  Helena nodded slowly. ‘Well, I won’t pretend it’s not a huge relief, Luce. But you know as well as I do, the longer you stay, the harder it’ll be to leave. Talk about the martyr’s crown.’ I swallowed and averted my eyes. She wasn’t to know I rather needed one. ‘And if there’s one person who actually deserves a break, who deserves to live a little, it’s you.’

  ‘Yes, but that was never going to happen immediately, was it?’

  ‘Why not? Let’s not pretend you’ve just lost a beloved husband. You’ve had your emotional life on hold for years. You don’t need some ostensible period of recovery.’

  ‘No, but I need a period of readjustment. Just to be me. To be on my own, without anyone. Surely you can see that?’

  ‘Well, you won’t be on your own, will you? You’ll be with them.’ She was quiet for a moment as she mulled it all over. As ever, a plan began to form. Helena loved a plan. I saw it taking shape in her head. She picked up her drink and sipped it: pretended to sound casual.

  ‘Daniel De Courcy has always rather held a candle for you, you know.’

  ‘Helena!’

  ‘You know who I mean, don’t you? Nancy’s son from—’

  ‘Yes, I do know who you mean. But I do not want to discuss any potential rural hook-ups at my husband’s funeral, thank you very much!’

  ‘Just saying,’ she said, with faux indignation.

  ‘Just replying!’ I glared at her.

  She made a face. ‘OK, have it your way. However, I think you should know – and I know this from all my divorced girlfriends – that attractive single men of our age get snapped up mighty fast. It’s frightfully unfair, but they do. Whereas single women—’

  ‘Helena!’

  ‘Right, right, fine,’ she muttered, but I could tell she was pleased she’d said it. Got it out. ‘I’ll do the bill,’ she told me, as if she was now doing me a huge favour. She picked up her handbag.

  ‘No, I’ll do it.’ I got up.

  ‘Well, it’s hardly worth fighting about, a few rounds of sandwiches and some drinks.’

  ‘No, but I’ll take it out of his estate, eventually.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Good plan.’ She sat down smartly. ‘Which I’ve asked one of the juniors in the legal department to sort out for you, by the way.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Thanks so much.’ I actually was very grateful for that. Grateful to have a smart, professional, well-connected sister to organize probate. But did she have to pull that card out now? Maybe she hadn’t done it deliberately. Perhaps I was being uncharitable.

  When I’d paid, we made our way to the car park. We passed a plate-glass chalet complex and I caught a glimpse of our reflections in the window. A couple of middle-aged women, hats in hand, in shoes that pinched, dressed in black, looking weary.

  ‘Do they know, by the way?’ Helena asked. ‘Mum and Dad? Your plan? Oh, well done, Ned!’ We’d turned the corner and literally bumped into my son, who’d just seen his grandparents off. He saw us exchange a guilty look.

  ‘What plan?’

  I cleared my throat. ‘Darling, I’ve decided to go and look after Granny and Grandpa for a bit. Well, to go and live with them, actually.’

  ‘In the cottage?’

  ‘Well, eventually, yes. Although I might have to start off in the house.’

  He looked thoughtful. Then he nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I thought you might.’

  ‘Did you?’ I stared at him, astonished. ‘Blimey, I’ve only just decided it myself. When did you think that?’

  ‘As soon as Dad died. I thought – Mum won’t go it alone. Which I think you should, incidentally. Have a go, rent a flat somewhere, spread your wings. I thought – she’ll probably go and live with Granny and Grandpa. Use them as her big excuse.’

  Helena’s eyes lit up with delight. It was a heroic effort on her part to hold her tongue.

  ‘Ned! You’re an effing vicar! That is so uncharitable. Do you not think I’ve got some sort of kind, familial motivation too?’

  ‘Of course. You love looking after people, and you’re brilliant at it. Look at me and Imo – we could have been basket cases but we’ve turned out all right, hopefully. And all thanks to you. You’ve pretty much devoted your life to us, for which I’m eternally grateful, by the way. But now you’re going to do it for Granny and Grandpa. When actually, it’s your turn.’

  I gaped at my tall, good-looking, fair-haired boy, who’d given up his own life purely in the service of God and others. But I knew, even as I was about to say it, that actually, he hadn’t. Ned was doing exactly what he wanted to do. He always had done. He’d always been true to himself. I regarded my son and my sister, the latter triumphant at being backed up by her intelligent nephew, but clearly battling with a pyrrhic victory, because naturally, she also wanted the parental problem solved.

  I snorted with derision. ‘Anyone would think I didn’t have a career! Didn’t do anything for myself!’

  Ned inclined his head, conceding this, but not saying, as I knew he was thinking – ah yes, the career. The convenient, solitary one. The one that always kept a weather eye on any trouble. Because there was no denying it had been mutually convenient. It might have worked for Michael, but it worked for me, too. When the children were young, arriving home from school, I’d always been there: always been on hand to deflect any unpleasantness. And I’m not sure cooking in a boardroom in the City or running a catering company elsewhere would have afforded me that. Certainly in the holidays. Which were often a diplomatic minefield, as Michael’s irritation at having the children around bubbled over. Or boiled. We were silent, the two of us, as all the years of dodging and diving, of ducking and weaving, flooded back. The bad memories. The necessary compromises.

  ‘But of course, it’s a laudable decision,’ said Ned quickly, seeing my face. It might have collapsed a bit. ‘And G and G will be delighted, I won’t deny that.’

  ‘They will, won’t they?’ I said, brightening. I was looking forward to telling them.

  ‘Undoubtedly. But I’m telling you ri
ght now,’ he grinned and tossed his car keys in the air. Caught them. ‘I’m not protecting you from Imo.’

  ‘Ha! Neither am I!’ agreed Helena. She kissed us and scuttled off to her car. Ned kissed me too and went to his. As I watched my sister purr past me in her BMW her smile was annoyingly smug.

  7

  Imogen was, as Ned had rightly predicted, incandescent with horror at the plan. When I opened the door to her the following morning in the spring sunshine, she barely said hello. In fact, she didn’t.

  ‘What’s all this about you deciding to bury yourself down in Little Snoring?’ she demanded, striding past me down the hall. I watched her go with eyebrows raised. Then I closed the door behind her and followed her down to the kitchen. ‘On some misguided mercy mission, just so you can polish your halo? We all know G and G can easily afford a carer, and the last thing they’ll want is you sacrificing yourself on the altar of Granny’s alcoholism – which is what you’re doing, incidentally.’

  She took off her glamorous houndstooth coat, flung it on a chair and flopped down on the kitchen sofa, facing me. She pushed her silky cream sleeves up, as if for battle. Her blue eyes were bright and determined.

  ‘A carer?’ I enquired mildly, crossing to fill the kettle at the sink. ‘Can you really see that happening?’

  ‘Well, eventually it would have to, wouldn’t it?’ she said defiantly. ‘I mean, when they really can’t resist any longer?’

  ‘Yes, but that point comes when the shit has really hit the fan. When the paramedics are resuscitating them, or when the courts are involved. Or even men in white coats. They simply will not agree to it, Helena and I have tried for ages.’

  Imogen stared at me, tight-lipped. Then she abruptly sat forward. She put her head in her hands and massaged her brow with delicate fingertips. Both my children were fair, fine-boned and delicate, perhaps another reason I’d always felt so protective of them. They were like beautiful, ethereal, fairy children. Looks were deceptive though. This one was used to controlling things, like her aunt, and this unwieldy situation, which had foxed us all for a few years now and was getting bigger by the day, was anathema to her.

  She jerked her head up suddenly, eyes wide in despair. ‘It’s like dealing with children,’ she said, exasperated.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed simply. ‘It is.’ It helped, of course, that she’d spent some time with them yesterday. I wondered what she’d made of the house, the crumbling decrepitude. It wouldn’t suit her right now to say, of course. ‘That is indeed what they’ve become.’

  She chewed her thumbnail. ‘It would have made more sense if you’d gone when Dad was alive,’ she said darkly. ‘Then I would have been totally up for it.’

  I didn’t answer. Instead I put a cup of black coffee on the table in front of her and perched on a stool at the island. I watched her stir her coffee and cogitate. Suddenly she looked up.

  ‘So odd,’ she said abruptly. ‘That he’s not here.’ She glanced around the kitchen: then through the open door to the study.

  ‘I know.’ It was the first time, I realized, she’d been back. I let her take in the lack of him, with all its complicated resonances. Sadness, perhaps, for the father-daughter relationship she’d never had. After a bit, she came back to me.

  ‘No word from the police, I suppose?’

  ‘No. The best they can do is assume a petty thief who bungled a burglary. Petty enough to wear gloves, though; he left no prints. Oh, and the sergeant was sharp enough to deduce that he made his entrance and getaway over the wall.’ I jerked my head garden-wards. ‘Note the trampled hebe bush and the footprints in my flower bed. Even I had spotted that.’

  She shook her head. ‘Pathetic. D’you know, I read in the paper the other day that only seven per cent of crimes are solved in London. Seven per cent!’ Her eyes boggled. Then she shrugged. ‘Still. What do we care.’ She gulped, though, as she said it.

  I saw her gaze fall on his desk in the corner, which I’d tidied and cleared. All his papers and files had gone. It had looked so empty when I’d done it, I’d put a vase of flowers on it. Then I’d taken them away. It had seemed a bit crass, somehow. Like a jibe. I’d taken his comfortable chair away, too, with its squashed velvet cushion; put it in the cellar. I went and sat beside her on the sofa. ‘Imo, you know what you said yesterday? At the funeral?’ I said gently, breaking into her thoughts.

  ‘What?’ She came back to me, her face perhaps paler than when she’d arrived.

  ‘About coming back to London. Your posting, with the bank. Is that – you know – coincidence?’

  ‘It is, actually. I was offered it a month ago. I mean, it’s a promotion, for sure. Investment Associate with a really nice team. And I thought – come on, girl. You can do this. Confront your demons. Live in the same city as him.’

  I nodded. ‘And now?’

  ‘Well, now I’m glad I’d made that decision while he was alive.’ She turned her cool blue gaze on me. ‘Glad I can say that. That I was going to be brave.’

  I smiled but my eyes filled. ‘Yes. Well done you.’ I squeezed her arm. My heart wrenched for my gorgeous, bold, big-hearted girl, who’d done so bloody well, despite the obstacles. But there was another elephant in the room too, not in the shape of her father. Something Tess had let slip, which I’d already suspected.

  ‘And the only reason I didn’t tell you earlier, when I took the job,’ she said reading my thoughts, ‘was because I knew you’d worry. Knew you’d think – oh God, what’s happened.’

  ‘So, it has happened?’ I asked. ‘You and Ben …?’

  ‘Are no more. And my decision, Mum, so no tears.’

  I gave a wry smile. ‘It always is your decision.’

  ‘I know. But he just wasn’t – you know. A long-term prospect.’

  I nodded. Couldn’t possibly comment, obviously, because I’d never met him, but he’d sounded lovely. A lawyer she’d met through a friend. She’d sent me WhatsApp pictures of them, all through the autumn and winter. Snaps of them on skating rinks, wrapped up against the cold in huge coats and scarves, his arms around her; or on the ferry going to work, her head on his shoulder, Manhattan in the background. A nice-looking young man: slim, dark hair, glasses. Geek chic, Helena had said approvingly, when I’d shown her.

  ‘And it’s not that I don’t think he’s a long-term prospect, it’s that he doesn’t.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘His parents divorced when he was eleven and it was messy. He doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage. Says vowing fidelity to one another forever is an outdated anachronism, particularly when we’re all going to live to be a hundred. He didn’t see why we couldn’t just live together, go on as we were. Have babies, even. So I thought – why waste my time?’

  ‘Quite.’

  Imo did want to get married – and show me a girl who doesn’t, she’d say caustically, and I’ll show you a liar.

  ‘So you broke it off?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But, you miss him?’ I asked tentatively.

  She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully but they didn’t mist up. ‘I miss the idea of him. I miss having a boyfriend, and not having to look again, if you know what I mean. And Sunday nights are shit, obviously. But other than that …’ She looked far away, out of the French windows. Then back to me. ‘I won’t miss his conviction. Or his pedantry. Or the way, because he’d read Greats – he was a Rhodes scholar – he always had to make classical allusions.’

  ‘Sounds like Boris Johnson.’

  She threw back her head and let out a great guffaw. ‘If you only knew how different he was.’ She grinned. ‘But yeah, he didn’t wear his learning lightly. Which, of course, is an insecurity. Like wearing glasses when he didn’t need to. I put them on one day. Clear glass. And I couldn’t un-know that, d’you see?’

  Oh dear.

  ‘So actually, I’m looking forward to coming back.’ Suddenly she smiled, her lovely, bright, sunshiny smile, all faint lines on her face vanishing
for a moment. ‘Looking forward to escaping the Big Apple and all its scrutiny.’

  ‘Ah, like me then,’ I said lightly.

  She smiled wryly. ‘Yes, OK, point taken. We’re both running away. But I’m running to London, Mum. To the exciting, humming Square Mile with a bumper salary and a whole raft of different, interesting people. I’m not sloping off to Little Snodgrass, or whatever that bonkers village is called.’

  ‘Sneaton, as you well know. And it’s not entirely sleepy. A mobile library calls once a week and by all accounts the church bring and buy is an absolute sizzler.’

  Imo rolled her eyes. ‘You’re a lost cause. But don’t get too cocky and complacent, oh mother of mine. Don’t start taking up tapestry just yet. I’m not done here. I’m going to have a word with Grandpa.’

  That was an error, if I’m honest, on the part of my oh-so-intelligent, Harvard Business School graduate daughter: to warn me. Because after she’d gone, to look at a flat – not to rent, but to buy, in Notting Hill, which made me so proud – I was fully prepared for my father when he rang.

  I was in the car when I saw his name flash up on my phone, off, like Imo, to see an estate agent, but on a very different mission. I quickly put him on speaker.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to Imogen. It’s out of the question,’ were his first words. Again, no hello. What was wrong with my family?

  I cleared my throat. ‘Au contraire, Papa, it is very much the question, and it has been for some time. But be that as it may, this is not about you and Mum, this is about me. I want to get out of this house, and I want to get out of London. I also want to live in the country, so why can’t I come and live with you?’

  ‘Because, as Imo says, you’re burying yourself. No one lives in the sticks until they’re decrepit, like us. There’s nothing down here for you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m looking forward to some home cooking.’

  ‘Well, you can cross that off your list for starters. It’s become rather eccentric. For pudding last night we had incinerated baked apples covered in shaving foam which I’d left on the draining board and your mother had mistaken for cream.’