The Simple Rules of Love

by Amanda Brookfield

‘Keith's nice,’ said Clem, shooting an encouraging smile at Roland.

  ‘I know Keith's nice but a third marriage – I don't get it.’

  ‘Third time lucky?’ suggested Ed, also glancing at Roland, recalling suddenly the likely deeper cause of his cousin's reticence and pitying him on account of it.

  ‘They're soul-mates,’ said Roland, quietly. ‘I believe in soul-mates.’

  Which was a bloody clever response, Ed decided, grinning at his cousin, the pity receding.

  ‘How lovely, Roland, and how true,’ exclaimed Clem, thinking, as she knew Maisie was, of their own parents, so close these days it was almost embarrassing.

  ‘It's just luck if you find one, Roland added, so confidently that, for a moment, Ed thought he might go further. But then Maisie and Clem announced, in that uncanny twin-unison they showed sometimes, that they were freezing, and the next moment they were all folding away the deckchairs and entering the steamy heat of the drawing room where canapés and wine glasses had been cleared to make way for fruit cake and cups of tea.

  Pamela's eyes were closing when the bedroom door opened and her youngest granddaughter appeared, eyes wide with shyness and self-importance. Genevieve approached the bed slowly, aware as she had been all day of the lovely swish of her party dress against her tights and the prettiness of her beloved footwear. ‘Mummy told me to ask you if you wanted some tea.’

  Pamela held out her hand, rejoicing at the way the child took it so easily, so trustingly, giving not a moment's thought to the contrast between the soft whiteness of her skin and the papery veined glove that clasped it. ‘That was very kind of her, but tell her I'm going to have a little sleep first. I shall come down and have tea soon.’

  ‘And I brought you these,’ Genevieve said, flinging out her other hand, which she had kept pinned tightly behind her back, to reveal a fistful of snowdrops, wilted already from having been guarded so well. ‘They were by the big broken tree and Mummy said I could pick them.’

  ‘How lovely, dear, thank you so much.’ Pamela took the flowers and placed them gently in the half-glass of water on her bedside table. ‘See how pretty they look.’

  Genevieve beamed, then frowned. ‘It's sad about the tree.’

  ‘Yes, it is, but it was too old to stand up to those strong winds.’

  Genevieve tugged at one of her gingery curls and popped her thumb into her mouth, which she wasn't supposed to do but which she knew her grandmother wouldn't mind. ‘Will you die soon, do you think?’ she asked, through her thumb.

  ‘Everybody dies in the end,’ Pamela began, then added quickly, ‘but I certainly don't think it will happen to me today, or tomorrow, or for quite a while probably. I don't feel like dying in the least.’

  The thumb had been removed to make way for a wide grin. ‘Where's Poppy?’

  ‘She's at our new house, which I want you to visit very soon. Mummy says you're all staying the night now, so perhaps you could come tomorrow?’

  Her granddaughter nodded. ‘Poppy wouldn't like Petra, would she?’

  ‘No, I don't think she would.’ Pamela could feel her eyes growing heavy again. ‘Now, I think I'd better have my sleep. Thank you, dear, for the flowers. I'll be down soon for my tea.’

  “Bye, Granny.’

  ‘Don't I get a kiss?’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Genevieve deposited a noisy wet smack on her grandmother's cheek, then skipped off to the door.

  ‘Leave it open, would you, darling?’

  Pamela turned out the bedside light and closed her eyes. She had lied about dying to the dear child, of course. She was ready for it, but only in the sense that she was no longer afraid. John wanted her, too, she was aware of that more than ever now, not in their conversations – they didn't talk so much, these days – but in a constant gentle tugging at her heart.

  With the door open she could hear strains of merriment coming up the stairs – or were they the voices of past parties, past generations? The before, the now, the after, it was all one in the end.

  Outside fog continued to roll off the downs, floating and thickening round the contours of the countryside like ghostly lava. Ashley House, lights burning on all floors as the night drew in and the party spread, faced the silent onslaught like some glittering rock rising out of a foaming sea, as rooted and indomitable as the spirits of those it protected, as stubborn as the misty old hills.

  Chris Heads

  AMANDA BROOKFIELD was born in 1960 and educated at University College, Oxford. She began her career working in advertising and then as a freelance journalist in Argentina. Her eleven previous novels include Alice Alone, Marriage Games, Sisters and Husbands and Relative Love. She is married with two sons and lives in London.