by Debbie Young
Regiments of photos paraded about the room in antique silver frames. Some of the images were vintage, too. Black and white prints had faded to sepia tones. Some went back to what looked like Victorian times, showing matching pairs of neat little children in sailor suits and long pinafores. The coloured photos of his parents’ wedding and Hector’s childhood seemed garish by comparison.
The extraordinary number of photos of Hector came as no surprise to me. Being an only child myself, I knew how easy it was for parents to go over the top. What struck me as odd was how much Hector’s appearance had changed during his teenage years. He was Jekyll and Hyde, one moment with curls tumbling past his shoulders, embryonic dark beard shading his well-shaped chin; the next, his hair was short and neat and his face clean-shaven. In every picture there was the unmissable twinkle in his eye, but the longer the hair, the more outlandish the stance. Hector had always struck me as a modest dresser, apart from when wearing his fancy-dress toga at the village show, but in the long-haired pictures he was flamboyant, swaggering to the camera. This was not the Hector I knew.
I wondered whether there had been a tragedy in his childhood to make him change so dramatically. What might have triggered the transformation into the quiet man he was today? I set down a photo of him in the briefest of swimming trunks, about to dive off a cliff into what looked like Greek seas, long curls hanging down over his face as he headed for the sapphire waters below, and picked up another that appeared to have been taken on the same holiday. I stared at it in disbelief.
“But there’s two of you here!” I said, hoarsely.
Hector and Edward, debating whether Churchill deserved his Nobel Prize for Literature (who knew?), didn’t hear.
By some miracle, here were both versions of Hector together, sitting on a Greek beach, the short-haired one serious and sensible, the long-haired one pulling a face. Both Hectors looked about fifteen. I held the photo up to the window for more light. Both in jeans, they were differentiated by their t-shirts, sensible Hector’s bearing a quote from Oscar Wilde in curling Art Nouveau lettering, and wild Hector’s the photo of Che Guevara familiar from student bedroom walls.
“Dinner’s ready, darlings,” called Nancy, coming in to the room to round us up. Seeing me holding the photo, she came over to stand beside me, smiling proudly. “Of course, you haven’t met Horace yet, have you, Sophie? Goodness, Horace practically lived in that Che Guevara top until his girlfriend of the moment adopted it. I’ve forgotten her name. Hector, darling, which was the one with spiky hair? When he broke up with her, he seemed to be sadder to lose the t-shirt than the girl. I was glad to see the back of both of them.”
“Horace?” I echoed weakly, unable to get beyond her first sentence. “Who is Horace? Hector, why did you never tell me you had a brother?”
Hector scrutinised his sherry. “Didn’t I?” he said, his air of innocence unconvincing.
Nancy put her hand on the back of my waist to usher me through to the dining room.
“Really, Hector? How remiss of you.”
Hector and Edward followed behind us.
“There hasn’t exactly been the opportunity to introduce them, Mum.” I’d never heard him sound petulant before.
In the dining room, Edward pulled out a high-backed mahogany chair and beckoned me to sit down. I could see where Hector got his good manners. As Hector took his place opposite me, I glanced around the elegant table, vintage linen cloth, thinned by age, beneath gleaming antique silver cutlery, cruet and candelabra. A low silver rose bowl at the centre was filled with glossy sprigs of rosemary branches, their spiky dark leaves exuding an energising scent. Such a fine array of antiques seemed out of place in a modern bungalow, but his parents seemed to feel they had found the best of both worlds.
The linen-decked table, big enough for eight, was set for five.
Five?
“It’s not as if Horace ever comes to visit us,” Hector was saying to Nancy. “If at any point since I’d met her he’d deigned to be in the same country as us, of course I’d have introduced Sophie to him. Even the same hemisphere would help.”
From the hallway came the sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door.
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” said Nancy, setting down a dish of roast potatoes on a pewter trivet. There was a glimmer of triumph in her deep green eyes, so much like Hector’s.
“Late again,” said Edward, looking at the grandfather clock in the corner.
“In the dining room, darling!” Nancy called over her shoulder, as hasty, firm footsteps sounded across the tiled hall floor towards us.
“Surprise!” Suddenly in the doorway, larger than life, was a hairier, tanned, and more colourfully dressed version of Hector. “Hecate!” it cried, flinging its arms wide.
“Horatio!”
Surprised I certainly was, not least by their silly nicknames for each other. I glanced across the table to Hector, to check he wasn’t playing a trick on me. No, he was still there, smiling a little awkwardly. Then I looked back to Horace, broad-chested inside his Bondi Beach sweatshirt above long shorts, bronzed, hairy legs, and well-worn hiking boots. I wondered whether this was how Hector had looked when he returned from hitchhiking in Africa with Celeste.
“For God’s sake, Horace, it’s the middle of winter!” Hector looked askance at Horace’s outfit, but he got up from his seat to receive his twin’s manly bear-hug.
“Not in Sydney, it isn’t.” Horace drew back from their embrace to stand, hands on hips, as comfortable as if basking in the southern hemisphere’s sunshine. “And that’s where I was until two days ago.”
Hector turned to Nancy.
“Why didn’t you forewarn me, Mum?”
Nancy tutted. “He only got back yesterday. Besides, I don’t think forewarn is the right word to use, dear. And Horace thought it would be fun to surprise you.”
“And who might this be?” said Horace, coming over to stand beside me. Sitting down, I felt at a disadvantage, but he clearly knew how to put a girl at her ease. In a swift, smooth and well-practised action, before I even realised what he was doing, he’d picked up my right hand and pressed it against his lips.
“Enchanted, sweetheart.” Smiling with not a little self-satisfaction, he nodded to his brother. “Good work, Hector.” He walked round behind the table to take the place set next to Hector. The contrast between them was remarkable. Hector could have been Horace’s ghost. “Now, aren’t you going to introduce us properly?”
Hector sighed. “As I’m sure Mum and Dad must already have told you, this is Sophie Sayers, my girlfriend and colleague.” At least he was getting that description in my preferred order these days. “She lives in Wendlebury.”
Horace raised his eyebrows hopefully. “With you?”
“No, she has her own cottage. You know, May Sayers’ old place. But she works in the shop with me.”
Horace freed his napkin from its silver filigree ring, shook it vigorously and spread it across his strong thighs.
“Well, you know what I’m always telling you, Hector, all work and no play—” He gave me a stagey wink, and I giggled before I could stop myself.
“So you’re the expert on work, now, are you, Horace?” Hector said mildly. “Well, that’s good news.”
Horace slapped one hand down on the table, making the cutlery jangle. He wasn’t being aggressive; he was just strong.
“Leading tourists round the outback is hardly a walk in the park. And it beats being stuck indoors all day, though I guess that keeps you out of the rain, wind and snow of Wendlebury Barrow.”
I had a sudden thought. “Hang on, why didn’t Hector’s godmother, Kate, mention you when she came back from her visit to Australia in November? Didn’t she see you?”
Instantly I regretted speaking in case I was stirring up some secret family feud.
Horace turned his green-eyed gaze on me. It was hard to believe he was not Hector in an unruly wig and spray tan.
�
��It was precisely because I wasn’t there that she was able to stay so long. She borrowed my flat while I was off on a long expedition in New Zealand. I’d planned to see her before she went back, but my party got lost in the bush for five days, and we missed our flight back. So Kate and I missed each other by about a week. Strewth!”
Nancy gave a little gasp of horror. I suspected this was the first she’d heard of the danger he’d been in. Horace quickly diverted the conversation to me instead.
“Ever been to Oz, Sophie?”
“No, never.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, babe. If you ever fancy stepping out for a little adventure down under, you must look me up.” He pulled out of one of the many pockets in his shorts a shiny business card, with a photo of a koala bear on one side, and his name, email and social media addresses on the other. No postal address, I noticed. I guessed he was always on the move – and that he always had one of these cards handy to back up his chat-up line to women, as well as to hand out to potential clients.
“Oh, he’s adorable!” I stroked the image of the little koala with my forefinger, smiling at the outsized nose and fluffy ears. “Do you know, Horace, when I was little, my favourite toy was a koala? I called him Kenny. He was ever so cuddly.”
Horace leaned towards me until his face was inches from mine. He was close enough for me to smell his cologne. Would one wear cologne in the outback? Perhaps it was his natural scent. He spoke in a low, intimate voice.
“You’re never too old to cuddle a koala, Sophie.”
“Oh dear God,” said Hector, his hands over his eyes.
“Ah yes, let’s say grace,” said Edward quickly, either to defuse the sibling rivalry, or because that’s what they always did before Sunday lunch. Obediently we bent our heads in prayer. Assuming everyone else would have their eyes closed, I peeked across at Horace, only to find him staring and smiling at me in a none-too-brotherly way.
I didn’t dare look at Hector.
12 Brotherly Love
“Who’s a pretty boy, then?”
I kicked myself for not turning off the talking parrot ringtone that I’d set to alert me to direct messages on Hermione Minty’s Twitter account.
“Sorry.” I reached across to the coffee table for my handbag, pulled out my phone and silenced it, but it had already interrupted our post-dinner conversation about Scotland. Hector, sitting next to me on the sofa, got up to refill our cups from the pot on the table.
“We need more milk, Mum,” said Horace languidly, watching his brother drain the jug into my cup.
Nancy was sitting back in the armchair nearest the window with her eyes closed, recovering from serving us a delicious traditional Sunday roast dinner. “In the fridge,” she said, pointing towards the door. Hector took the empty jug out to the kitchen to refill it.
Horace leapt up to take Hector’s place, slipping his arm along the back of the sofa behind me. To move away from him without seeming rude, I leaned forward, as if simply intent on doing something tricky on my phone.
He looked over my shoulder as I logged in to Minty’s account to check the message. “Ah, Twitter. When you’re off in the outback as much as I am, you don’t waste time on nonsense like that. We’re too busy with real life to mess about with social media. We keep our satellite phones for serious use.”
He read the screen. “I thought your name was Sophie? Who’s Hermione? You’re not dating my brother under a false identity, are you? Or hacking into someone else’s account?”
“No, just following someone,” I said hastily, jabbing at my phone to return to the home screen.
“Hermione Granger?” said Nancy, sitting bolt upright, her eyes snapping open as Hector returned to the room, milk jug in hand. “Oh yes, that dear girl in Harry Potter. Such a pretty thing; such presence on screen for one so young.”
Hermione Granger? What did she have to do with anything?
Nancy shot a warning glance at Hector, then, seeing me watching her, gave me a scarcely perceptible shake of her head. So Horace didn’t know about Hector’s alter ego.
“Emma Watson, Mum, you mean Emma Watson,” said Hector quickly.
I looked from Nancy to Hector and fell in with their ploy. “Ah yes, Emma Watson, I really admire her,” I said. “She’s such a great role model for young women and girls in real life, too.” Nancy was looking relieved. “She’s possibly my favourite actress,” I added, although she wasn’t.
“That Harry Potter is more versatile than one might expect of a lad who’s grown up playing the same role over and over,” said Edward, setting down his empty coffee cup. “What was the name of that Russian doctor he played in that television series we watched at Christmas? You know, the really dark one?” He watched Hector put the jug down carefully on its coaster. “Hector, you’ll know. The Russian doctor that Harry Potter played. Ends up on morphine.”
Hector considered. “A Young Doctor’s Notebook, based on the short stories by Mikhail Bulgakov. And it’s Daniel Radcliffe, Dad, not Harry Potter.”
He jerked his head to direct Horace to move from his seat. Horace stood up and stretched with the languor of a lion that’s just finished digesting an antelope.
“I’m off for a swim in the sea. Who’s joining me? Sophie?”
Nancy sat back and closed her eyes again. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon after your lunch, dear?”
“Nah. Cramp is for wimps.”
A flicker of anxiety crossed her face.
I was genuinely curious. “Aren’t you worried about how cold and muddy the sea will be? I don’t suppose the waters of the Severn Estuary could be much more different from the Australian Pacific.”
Horace grinned and flexed his arm muscles.
“They’re what made me the man I am today.”
He headed out of the room.
“Don’t be too long, love,” Nancy called after the closed door.
My eyes widened. “How far is he going to swim?”
Edward tutted. “As far as The Moon and Sixpence. That’s a pub at the far end of the seafront.”
I smiled. “I didn’t think you meant the Somerset Maugham novel.” I’d borrowed a copy of that from Hector’s second-hand stock, attracted by the whimsical title. Hector looked impressed.
“Don’t believe Horace’s bluster, Sophie,” Edward continued. “He is what he says, a wilderness tour guide, but he’s not that reckless. Funnily enough, Hector was the more adventurous when they were boys.”
“Still, he’s having fun, and if both my boys are happy, I’m happy.” Nancy smiled sweetly at Hector, who almost purred at his mother’s approval. Then, invigorated by her post-lunch rest, she slapped her hands down on the arms of her chair and sprang to her feet. “So, everyone ready to hit the car boot sale?”
“Car boot sale,” said Hector, and he went to fetch our coats.
When we got back to the bungalow, carrying a big bag of second-hand books, we found Horace sitting with his feet up on the coffee table watching the rugby, a bottle of beer in his hand. Hector pulled out our star purchase to show his brother.
“You see, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’. Ah, that never gets old.”
“And it never gets funny, either,” said Horace evenly, but he took the small, faded hardback from Hector to look at. “Strewth! What language is this in? Welsh?”
“Gaelic,” I said proudly. “My mum will love it. She lectures in Scottish History and Culture at the university in Inverness, and she’s always on the lookout for vintage Gaelic books. Hector potted this one beneath a heap of old books about salmon fishing. I got one of those for my dad, as he’s into fishing, but my mum will be especially interested in this book as it’s got a lengthy handwritten inscription in Gaelic, and a date on it. It might turn out to be a really rare book of great value, and Hector bought it for 20p. He’s brilliant.”
I flashed an appreciative smile at Hector, hoping Horace would have
got the message by now that my affections lay firmly with his brother.
“A chip off the old block,” said Edward contentedly.
“What, you mean pleasing women?” Horace winked at me.
“Oh Horace, you know what he means!” Nancy wagged a finger at him. “How to spot a good buy in a sale.” She turned to me. “Your parents sound very interesting. I wonder whether I’ll meet them one day.”
“You’ve already met them at May’s funeral,” said Hector, rebuttoning his coat.
“Not stopping for a cup of tea before you head back to Wendlebury, dear?” asked Nancy.
“No, thanks, Mum, I’d rather do at least part of the journey in daylight.”
“In the bush, we don’t even have the streetlights to guide us.” Horace gazed at me, wide-eyed. “Nothing but the stars, Sophie, and you should see the stars down under! It’s like a whole different galaxy.”
I smiled. “I should love to see them one day,” I said truthfully, getting up and collecting my handbag from the coffee table.
Horace picked my phone up from the arm of the sofa and held it out to me. “Here you go, babe. I found it lying here when I got back from the pub. It kept making that crazy parrot noise. But don’t worry, I’ve kept it safe for you.” As he pressed it into my hand, one of his fingers tickled my palm. Now he was making fun of me. I drew back quickly.
“You didn’t swim very far, then?” I wanted to make it clear his tricks didn’t fool me for a moment.
“Only to the bottom of a couple of pints. Then I got bored and thought I’d better come back and see a bit more of Hector while he was down here, before I shoot off back to Australia. And a bit more of you, Sophie, of course.”
His smile was awfully winning, like Hector’s, but without the quiet modesty that made me feel safe.
“Off again so soon?” asked Hector. “You should have come a bit earlier to be here for Christmas.”
“That’s what I said, dear,” said Nancy. “But you couldn’t get away, Horace, could you?”
“Nope,” said Horace. “And in any case, there was no point in paying for my own return fare when I knew this freebie was coming up. A free flight from Australia is worth waiting for.”