‘I know.’ Erica grimaced, popping open her can and catching the erupting foam on her tongue. ‘It’s been such an agonizing decision – taken in the course of a ten-minute phone call, naturally. We never expected the job to run on, and we certainly hadn’t envisaged being apart for longer than eighteen months. I don’t think it’s good for the boys being away from their dad all that time. So it was either a case of turning it down, or us moving out there en masse. He did think of refusing, but it’s so ludicrously well paid. Two more years and we’d be able to buy a decent-sized place when we come back. Neil could start up his own business . . .’
Erica rattled on about the short-term domestic upheavals and the long-term economic advantages while Jane listened dumbly. She felt breathless, winded, as though all six of those fat black refuse sacks – full of things, like Jane herself; for which Erica no longer had any use – had come bowling down the steps and squashed her flat. ‘When will you be leaving?’ she managed to ask in a conversational tone.
‘As soon as we can manage it. During the summer holidays, ideally, so Greg can start at one of the international schools in September. Which is why I’m trying to make this dump habitable for tenants. The letting agent was unbelievably scathing.’
‘Well . . .’ said Jane, whose sympathies lay with the prospective tenants. ‘If you need a hand. Cleaning and so on . . .’
‘Oh really? That’d be great. I’ve kind of let things build up,’ said Erica, crushing her empty can between the palms of her hands, tossing it at the waste-paper basket, and making no move to retrieve it when it missed.
‘You’re taking it all very calmly,’ said Jane, who didn’t feel the least bit calm. ‘Considering you could be gone within a month.’ She’d noticed before that Erica wasn’t a worrier or a moaner, and was suddenly conscious and ashamed of the huge fuss she’d made over their own relatively slight relocation, from one part of South-East England to another.
‘I can’t get myself worked up about little things,’ Erica said. ‘I reckon I could live anywhere. Two years is no time at all, is it? When I come back nothing will have changed. Most people won’t even notice I’ve been away, I bet. And even people who do will get along just fine without me . . .’ She didn’t meet Jane’s eye as she said this.
Will I? thought Jane. Regular phonecalls to Kuwait were out of the question, and something told her that Erica wouldn’t be a fanatical correspondent. It would be unreasonable to expect someone who mislaid phone numbers and library books and occasionally her own children to answer letters promptly. ‘You’ll be busy from now on,’ she said, thinking aloud.
‘Oh, not really,’ said Erica, with her usual refusal to be fettered by responsibilities. ‘There’s one thing we must definitely do before I go, and that’s go out for the day. To the seaside, or somewhere quintessentially English. Preferably without the kids.’
Kids. Jesus. Jane shot out of her chair, still clutching her unopened can of Traditional Long bland Diet Iced Tea. Ohmygod. I’ve got to go. I left Harriet with James and Kerry. I was only supposed to be nipping out for two minutes. I’ve been ages.’
‘I’d offer you a lift, but Yorrick’s asleep upstairs and the car’s full of junk.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll walk. Run,’ Jane corrected herself. ‘I’ll call you,’ she added, from halfway down the path. Then she took off, without waiting for a reply and without the bread, down the road, past the shops and the church, along the lane, the thin straps of her sandals biting like cheese-wire, and arrived home to find the kitchen full of smoke and James, Kerry and Harriet alive and well and inspecting the charred crust of her home-baked pie.
36
This was always going to be the worst part, thought Guy, waiting in the lobby of his mother’s club behind Marble Arch, like a naughty boy outside the headmaster’s office. Even worse than telling Jane, and that had been bad enough. In fact this was going to form the basis of his defence: if my wife can accept it, surely you can, though he wasn’t going to elaborate on the qualified nature of Jane’s ‘acceptance’.
His mother had been surprised and suspicious when he had rung to propose an unseasonal solo visit. ‘Is everything all right? You haven’t lost your job?’ She sounded almost disappointed at his denials. She had never thought it much of a job anyway.
‘I was just thinking it would be nice to see you,’ he lied. He wasn’t going to be drawn into discussing the matter by phone. (Why not? Jane wanted to know. A phonecall had been good enough for her.) ‘Jane and the girls are busy this weekend – I’m going to be in their way.’
‘Well, I’m coming up to town for the sales. I could meet you for lunch.’
‘Oh.’ Guy had not so far considered the possibility of tackling his parents singly, but this had obvious strategic advantages: they would be on neutral territory; he would not be outnumbered. His mother would be forced to rely on her own opinions, rather than simply reinforcing her husband’s. This last might not work in his favour, of course: it was hard to predict which way her prejudice would fall. Would genetic snobbery triumph over outraged moral sensibility, or not?
‘Okay then. Lunch.’
‘We’ll go to my club.’
Guy’s heart sank. An oversized rest-room full of malicious eavesdroppers: a less congenial venue for a disclosure of any sensitivity could scarcely be imagined.
‘All right.’
‘I know what she’ll say,’ said Jane, as she watched his preparations to leave. ‘Are you sure? Have you had tests?’ she brayed, in a passable imitation of Mrs Bromelow’s thoroughbred vowels. She was not so inclined to be deferential these days, and Guy made no attempt to rise to his mother’s defence; he merely grimaced as he straightened his tie.
‘I’ll probably be disinherited,’ he said, combing his hair neatly and then raking his fingers through it to untidy it again.
‘Don’t build my hopes up,’ was Jane’s send-off.
The lobby door opened and his mother stood there, her handbag slung diagonally across her large chest to foil muggers, and various expensive, rope-handled shopping bags over one arm. Her free hand was bandaged to the wrist and held up in a sling made from a Liberty’s silk scarf.
Guy sprang to his feet to divest her of her luggage but was beaten to it by the liveried attendant.
‘I’m in a state of collapse,’ she said, offering Guy her floury cheek, and then disappearing into the Ladies.
‘What have you done to your arm?’ he asked, five minutes later, when she emerged, repowdered and lipsticked and smelling more strongly of lily of the valley.
‘I fell out of the golf cart,’ she explained, as they followed a waiter to a table in the plush, silent dining room. ‘There’s quite a slope at the tenth and it started to run away with me, so I stepped on the brake rather hard and the whole thing tipped over. It’s just a sprain.’ She waved the injured limb at him. ‘I’ve got some lovely bruises, too.’
‘Poor you,’ said Guy, trying to banish the image of his mother tumbling down the fairway before it set him off. ‘But if you will play these dangerous sports . . .’
‘That’s more or less what your father said. The Club Secretary drove me to the hospital and they X-rayed it. There’s nothing broken. It’s an awful nuisance, though, trying to do the sales with one arm.’
‘It must be,’ said Guy sympathetically. ‘All that pushing and shoving to reach the bargains.’
Mrs Bromelow ignored this remark – her usual policy with humour or sarcasm, which she regarded as impediments to sensible conversation, and vastly overrated. ‘It’s the carrying, and writing cheques,’ she went on. ‘And of course public transport is out of the question, so I’m having to take taxis everywhere.’ She managed to imply that this was a matter of gross inconvenience. With her good arm she signalled to the hovering waiter. ‘Have we decided? I have,’ she said to Guy, who had barely glanced at the menu.
‘Oh?’ He skimmed the contents in search of something hearty: a fat steak or some venison perhaps,
but the fare seemed to be predominantly fish – aimed, no doubt, at a clientele with modest appetites and impaired digestion.
‘I’ll have the sole, no potatoes,’ said Mrs Bromelow. ‘Could you manage some wine? I couldn’t.’
‘No thanks,’ Guy obliged. He ordered lamb with creamed potatoes, which appeared the most promising in terms of bulk. He’d decided earlier that he would get the meal and an exchange of news out of the way before mentioning James. ‘How’s Dad?’ Guy shook out his large, starched napkin and spread it across his knees. It sat there, awkwardly concertina’d, like an unfolded road map. Beside him the waiter poured out their two glasses of tap water with a flourish.
‘Oh, fine. We’re tackling the hall at the moment. He’s got a boy in.’
So have we, thought Guy.
‘No, actually, he’s started attending these political lectures in London: Whither the Right? – that sort of thing. It’s given him a new lease of life. The only trouble is he comes back and wants to discuss it all with me. And I’m simply not interested.’
‘Ah.’ Guy tried to remember what it was that did interest his mother. The house and its contents. The dog. The garden, in summer at least: the rest of the year it was left to the devices of another ‘boy’. His younger brother, William, the New York banker. She sat on committees, he recalled; occasionally turned them upside down like the golf cart.
‘Anyway, how are Jane and the girls? Harriet still giving you trouble?’
‘Fine. Harriet’s okay. She’s just bright beyond her years and gets frustrated easily.’ He was shocked to find himself sounding like a parody of deluded parenthood. He had heard this spiel so often at parents’ evenings. In any case he wasn’t aware of having confided that they were having problems with Harriet. It wasn’t the sort of admission Jane would make to her mother-in-law. It must be something she’s observed, he thought. ‘Sophie’s doing well at school,’ he went on. ‘And she was in a little show with her ballet group. Did you ever get the photos?’
His mother looked blank. ‘Er, I believe I did,’ she said, evasively. ‘Very nice.’
They were interrupted by the arrival of their main course. Mrs Bromelow had declined an hors d’oeuvre and Guy had politely followed suit. Now he looked down in dismay at his meal: one thin lamb cutlet sat on top of a dollop of glossy mash. Two mouthfuls at best. Around the edge of the mash, but not touching it, ran a dribble of apparently unrelated gravy. One small stuffed tomato and a lattice of carrot matchsticks comprised the vegetable accompaniment.
‘How delicious,’ said Mrs Bromelow, eyeing her sole, which at least covered a fair proportion of her plate. ‘They certainly know how to cook here.’ She slipped her bandaged hand from its sling and set to work, her filleting skills to all appearances unaffected by the recent injury. ‘He’s started writing his memoirs,’ she said at last, having parted flesh from bone and then laid down her fork as though exhausted or full.
‘Who?’ asked Guy. He’d been thinking of James, for whose existence he would soon have to be apologizing.
‘Your father. He’s written about fifty pages and he’s not even got himself born yet. I’ve told him it’ll have to run into twelve volumes like that biography of Churchill.’ Her face looked suddenly wary and Guy realized she was staring over his shoulder at a new arrival – a short, plump woman with jet-black bouffant hair. ‘Oh God. Mavis Dudley. What does she look like? She’s on her own. We don’t want her with us, do we?’ she hissed.
‘No, no,’ said Guy, horrified. An uninvited guest was the last thing he needed.
‘Hello-o, Mavis. Nice to see you,’ Mrs Bromelow cooed, as the unloved acquaintance was installed at a nearby table. The two women waggled their fingertips at each other and then dropped eye-contact sharply.
‘Is this autobiography business with a view to publication?’ Guy asked, in a slightly lower voice, now that there was someone within earshot. He had disposed of the tomato and half the mash in one mouthful and was toying with his bread roll to spin things out.
‘Oh, I very much doubt it. I expect the market for that sort of thing is very limited nowadays. But it will be interesting for you boys to know a bit about your background.’
‘Wasn’t he doing the family tree when we last spoke?’ Guy asked. Strange how everything kept coming back to genealogy today – not the best springboard for his confession. ‘Whatever happened to that project?’
‘It foundered somewhere in the eighteenth century with nothing terribly significant having come to light,’ his mother said, picking at her Dover sole.
By ‘significant’ you mean titled, Guy thought.
‘Still, it was rather fun, nosing around old churchyards, looking at the headstones. We came across some lovely little villages. Whereas this writing business just keeps expanding to fill up all our free time. I was hoping to go to Lugano this summer . . .’
‘We might be going away at the end of August for a week,’ said Guy. Apart from the stripped lamb bone his plate was empty, polished to a high shine by his last piece of bread.
‘Oh? Anywhere nice?’
‘Pembrokeshire.’ They wouldn’t now be able to afford anything more exotic. ‘In a tent.’
‘Oh.’ This, he knew, would be his mother’s idea of hell. She was not especially interested in dramatic scenery, unless it was visible from the terrace of a good hotel. Even when she was younger and fitter nothing would have induced her to put on a pair of walking shoes and go out and meet it half way. ‘Well, as I say, I don’t know if we’ll get away at all.’
The waiter, who had been hovering discreetly for some time, removed Guy’s clean plate and his mother’s virtually untasted sole.
‘That was delicious,’ she said, pre-empting any inquiries. ‘No dessert for me. Just a black coffee, very weak, with a dash of cold water.’
Guy refused to capitulate this time, scanning the menu ravenously for a stodgy pudding, but again finding his appetite confounded. It was all syllabubs and sorbets and – ugh – champagne jelly: nothing that would make any impact on his hunger. ‘I’ll have the ice-cream,’ he said, a touch self-consciously, like a small boy, out for a treat with Mummy. His hands, unoccupied with the business of eating, fluttered and fidgeted at the edge of the table. Any minute now he would run out of conversation and be forced to ask after his brother, William. He would have to listen to news of his latest triumphs on Wall Street, the size of his annual bonus, the cost of interior design work on their Manhattan apartment, the acreage of their country retreat. Guy didn’t dislike or resent his brother, and he had no time for envy. It wasn’t as if William had ever made an effort to curry parental favour. It had simply rested upon him, unasked for and unearned, like God’s grace. But still, one could only take so much.
Across the table his mother had brought out her shopping list and was making deletions with a thin gold pencil. It wasn’t a list of items needed, but of shops to be visited, with Harrods and Harvey Nichols at the top.
‘So did you find any bargains this morning?’ Guy asked.
‘Oh, the reduced stuff is all absolute rubbish. I’ve picked up some lovely things that weren’t in the sale though.’
This twice-yearly ritual visit to the sales in order to spurn the half-price goods had always mystified Guy. He congratulated himself on having married someone without these absurd and costly pretensions.
The waiter reappeared, bringing the coffee and a golfball-sized scoop of ice-cream decorated with a coronet of spun sugar and a single pistachio nut. Guy allowed a little hiss of disbelief to escape him. Even the infants’ school dinners came in more generous measures than these.
‘So not much happening your end?’ said Mrs Bromelow, beginning to stow her pencil and paper back in her handbag.
It was now or never. Guy took a deep breath as though preparing himself for a high dive. ‘Well, in fact . . .’
‘Oh!’ His mother gave a sudden loud whoop as her rummagings turned up a blue airmail envelope with a US stamp. ‘How could I fo
rget? I’ve thought of nothing else for days. We’ve just had the most marvellous news from William.’ She wafted the letter at Guy as if he might be able to divine its contents. ‘Caroline’s pregnant at last!’ she declared in a voice that carried to all four corners of the room. ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’
‘Yes,’ said Guy, deflating slowly. ‘Great news.’ His carefully rehearsed speech of annunciation died on his lips. How could he possibly follow that. Instead, he said, ‘Have they known long?’
‘Seventeen weeks. They didn’t dare tell a soul until they got past the tricky stage. Anyway. She’s had her second scan now, and guess what? It’s a boy. I’m going to have a grandson.’ She raised and lowered her shoulders in a gesture of girlish excitement.
You already have a grandson, Guy thought. Though not the kind you’d want to put on the family tree. It had been unintentional, no doubt, but the tone of her last remark felt like a slight to all of them – himself, Jane, Sophie, Harriet and James. ‘Excellent,’ he said calmly. ‘Give them my congratulations if you speak to them before I do.’
‘I will. I’ll be ringing them tomorrow evening.’ Mrs Bromelow finished her coffee. ‘Anyway. What was it you were going to say?’
‘Nothing,’ said Guy, pushing his pudding away untasted. ‘Shall we get the bill?’ He would never tell her now. It had been an insane idea to think that anyone could possibly benefit from such a revelation. There would be nothing but mortification all round. She had her grandson-in-waiting; the Bromelow name was secure; she would have no interest whatever in James. He bitterly regretted the whole enterprise, not to mention the squandering of a precious Saturday.
Mrs Bromelow hailed the waiter with an imperious wave of her bandage and then looked at Guy’s untouched orb of ice-cream, now collapsing in the afternoon sunshine like a cartoon snowman. She closed her eyes with the expression of one gathering reserves of patience.
‘What a waste,’ she sighed.
37
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