Laura smiled. Shyly at first. Then a little broader, with a nod.
Heather nodded back, her eyes narrowed to emphasize what she’d said. ‘Okay, so newsflash for you here. You were wrong about me. I married your brother because I fell in love with him. Yes, he offered me a new life, security, a home … Love is a simple word, but there are complicated, different paths people follow to find it. But I love him, and he loves me, and I’m staying. Never been more sure of anything except what I grew up knowing – that I can survive on my own. It’s knowing that that makes this work. If that makes sense. I’m here because I want to be, not because I need to be.
‘I see you, Laura. I see that you’re angry and hurt and I see that you feel shitty about yourself. I see it because I’ve lived it. And there’s two widowers and a recently married bachelor in this family of yours. Just the one divorcee and I’m right here. You and me, we might have more in common than you think. You and me, we could maybe be friends.’ She sat up, then stood in one easy movement, and rolled up her mat. ‘And I’d like that.’ She bent, a little awkwardly, and put her hand on Laura’s shoulder, squeezing gently. Laura caught her hand with her own, surprised at herself and her response to the gesture.
39
He probably shouldn’t have told her. She didn’t, after all, need to know. Scott could have cut out his tongue. It had all been going so well.
If he was honest, he’d been rather enjoying being the most functional of the three of them. Maybe that wasn’t very kind, but it made a change. For years, he’d been the anomaly: occasions like this, Christmas, Easter, for the longest time it had been Mum and Dad, Alex and Laura, Nick and Carrie. And Scott. He hadn’t quite fitted. Scott, who didn’t have girlfriends. Scott, who made a fortune at work – but who else understood what he did and, anyway, what did it matter how much you earned if you never had any time to spend it, no one to spend it on?
If he had been self-indulgent enough to recline on some expensive therapist’s Corbusier lounger, he suspected he’d discover it went further back than that. Laura and Mum had always been a double act, tight. Nick was so much more like Charlie than Scott was and, if that wasn’t enough, he was Mum’s precious baby, too. Laura and Nick were closer. It was always him, vaguely on the outside, just different enough to feel a bit strange. He had never for a second doubted that his parents loved him. That they were proud of him. He just wasn’t entirely sure they knew what to do with him. Perhaps he’d always been on a quest to please them.
But he wasn’t self-indulgent enough to recline on an expensive therapist’s Corbusier lounger. Heather had taught him, was teaching him, to be more open, more emotional … but he was still mostly comfortable doing that with her, through her. He’d been trying it out, though, on the others. The other day, in the pool with Nick and the kids, he’d felt a closeness he hadn’t been aware of with his brother. After Carrie had died, he’d tried, but each time he saw or spoke to Nick, he was left with the feeling that he wasn’t getting it right – that he hadn’t said quite the right thing. But, when he’d scooped Arthur out of the water, and then they’d all gone in dressed and been silly and loving and fun, he’d felt very close to him.
He’d remembered something he hadn’t thought about for years. A family holiday in Cornwall. Maybe Devon. There’d been a lot of those. They’d been on a beach with lots of rock pools, and Dad had bought them all nets and buckets, although Laura hadn’t been that interested. Scott had been earnestly crabbing, photographing his catch with the Kodak camera he’d been given for Christmas. Nick had been following him, clad in his terry-towelling poncho and nothing else, while his trunks dried on the windbreak. His brother had been a shadow that summer, a little boy wanting to be bigger, and Scott had found him annoying. He’d fallen off a slimy rock into a pool that turned out to be quite deep, face first. Scott had jumped in after him, hooking him out by the hood of his poncho, splashing his camera. He’d worried he’d damaged the camera, and he’d lost a particularly interesting-looking crab. But he’d been proud of himself for ‘saving’ Nick. He hadn’t hesitated.
The conversation after dinner had probably only happened because the three of them had had so much to drink, but he couldn’t honestly say he was sorry it had. The next morning, when she’d first seen him, Laura hadn’t said a word, but she’d come to him, where he was standing, propped against a cupboard in the kitchen, and leant her head very briefly against his chest, slipping her hand into his for just a second.
It had all been going so well.
Heather really was working her magic on all of them, exactly as he had hoped and believed she would. He’d watched her pick them off one by one – Charlie, Laura, Nick – talk to them with her own brand of warm, relatable straightness. And win them over. Even prickly, brittle Laura seemed to have softened in the last day. The kids were easy, of course, the easiest of all. They wanted to be mothered, and she was very good at that. Earlier, he’d watched them make jam tarts in the kitchen. She’d got them all in little gingham aprons she must have bought in town, and stood them on the chairs around the table, rolling pastry and spooning jam. If she’d deliberately put flour on their cheeks and photographed them for her Instagram account, Nick hadn’t seemed to mind. Some people were very uptight about social media, and he’d thought his brother might have been too. He could almost hear him complaining about people living their lives through a lens under false pretences, or refusing to let his children be treated like catalogue models. Maybe he would have done, once. But not now. Some of that fight – that posturing – had gone out of him. Hashtag family.
Ethan was the only one he hadn’t seen Heather charm. Laura’s explanation of what was going on at home had shone a light on his nephew’s closed-off quietness. He knew Nick had spoken to him. He didn’t feel quite that he could, although he’d been looking for an opening. And now he’d told her.
They’d been squeezed together in the middle of the vast bed in a soporific after-sex glow. He was new to the charms of quiet-cos-we’re-in-a-busy-house-and-these-doors-don’t-lock sex, and, somewhat to his surprise, he was a big fan. She’d laughed throatily when he’d confessed to finding it thrilling, the idea of being interrupted, gently scratching his chest through the greying hair, saying if he liked danger sex, she might have some other suggestions for him. He was immediately aroused again.
They were whispering about the others when he’d spilt the whole story of Ethan to her. As he spoke, he felt her back stiffen, and she stopped scratching his chest. She moved away from him in a sudden movement, and pulled the sheet around her, bringing her knees to her chest. The moment for more sex had most definitely passed.
‘Oh, I don’t like that.’
Scott was confused. ‘Which part?’
‘The underage-sex part.’
‘Oh, come on, Heather. According to Nick she was only a few weeks off her sixteenth birthday.’
‘Which, by the way, is still too young so far as I’m concerned. But she wasn’t sixteen, was she? She was fifteen. Fifteen, Scott.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’ For a moment, he thought she must be. Of the two of them, she was by far the most relaxed about sex. The most experienced, and the most adventurous. Two minutes earlier she’d been stroking him and talking about the benefits of doing it in the Jacuzzi. He was genuinely confused.
‘That’s younger than Hayley.’
‘We don’t know this girl. Maybe she seemed older.’
‘And that’s the point, is it? If she seemed older, it’s fine.’ She was almost hissing at him now.
‘No, I’m just saying …’ Scott was struggling to organize his thoughts. This reaction had been so far from what he’d expected. He felt wrongfooted.
‘Eyeliner and high heels and miniskirts might make you look older, Scott. They don’t make your mind or your body older.’
‘I know that.’
‘I’m not kidding. Look at my girls.’ He heard the word, the slight change of tone. ‘Do you think they are doing i
t?’ She spat ‘doing it’. Made it sound dirty.
‘No. I mean, I don’t know. Are they?’
‘Of course they aren’t.’
‘I didn’t mean Meredith.’
‘Neither of them is.’
‘But isn’t it different? They’re at a girls’ school.’
‘What difference does that make? You’re just talking about opportunity, Scott. If they were co-ed, do you think it would be okay for Hayley to be sleeping with someone? Without me knowing?’ She was excluding him.
Scott tried to consider the matter. It wasn’t easy to think about, but he didn’t feel outraged at the idea. No. Clearly that wasn’t what Heather expected or wanted to hear. ‘I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up about this, honey. They were going out. Boyfriend and girlfriend. As Laura tells it, they really cared for each other.’
‘Not enough to wait.’
‘Is this some American purity bollocks?’
That was probably a mistake.
Her eyes sparkled with anger and she knelt up in the bed, poised. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t do that. No. It’s not some American purity bollocks, Scott. No. It’s international morality.’ She used air quotes, and in raising her hands, the sheet fell down, exposing her breasts. That seemed to make her madder, and she pulled it back up angrily.
‘I think you’re being ridiculous, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘No. Go ahead. We’ll agree to disagree.’ She shucked on her robe, which had lain discarded at the foot of the bed when she’d pulled him between the sheets.
He didn’t know what had happened. He felt defensive on Ethan’s behalf, but she seemed so genuinely upset by the story. He wanted to understand what he was missing. He took her hand. ‘I’m sorry, baby.’
For a moment her hand stiffened and he thought she was going to snatch it away. But she didn’t. The fingers softened, then interlinked with his own.
‘I’m sorry. I know he’s your nephew.’
‘And I honestly think he’s a nice kid.’
‘I’m not saying he isn’t. I just … I don’t like to think about it, you know …’
‘Who does?’
‘I’m just saying, I have rather more sympathy with this girl’s father than you seem to. If it was Hayley – if it had been Hayley – I’d have wanted to rip off that boy’s head.’
‘I get that.’ He wasn’t entirely sure he did, to be honest. It all seemed a bit out of proportion. But he was relieved that she was letting him hold her hand, and that her voice had returned to the modulation he was used to. Hissing Heather wasn’t his favourite.
‘And it changes how I feel about him, to be truthful.’
‘Oh, honey. Please don’t let that be how it is. He’s in pieces. Laura’s in bits too. He’s got results coming up.’
‘So has Hayley.’
‘Hayley’s fine.’ He told himself this was just transposed anxiety. He knew Heather had worried about the girls making the transition to the English system. He knew she felt selfish. This wasn’t about Ethan, not really. It couldn’t be. She’d reacted like he was almost a criminal. A predator.
‘I know. I know.’
He pulled her head to his chest and stroked her hair. She seemed calm now. ‘You look after all of us, and you do it so brilliantly, I sometimes forget to take care of you.’
She snaked her arms around his back. ‘I love you. I’m sorry.’
‘Sssh. Nothing to be sorry about.’ He kissed her and reflected that, just as he thought he was getting the hang of marriage, of real intimacy, perhaps he still had a long way to go. He had the uncomfortable feeling he hadn’t really understood what had just happened, and wasn’t quite brave enough to try to.
40
Ethan had only gone down to the pool because no one else was there. At first, he’d had no interest in swimming. He hadn’t even had his trunks on. It was the peace and stillness he wanted. People were suddenly everywhere, in the kitchen, in the living room, on the terrace … Some ignored him, some seemed to goad him, some wanted to be sweet to him, and he didn’t want any of it. Nick was getting ready to go for a run, and he and Scott were teasing each other about their relative fitness, like kids. Heather was cooking something, or at least pretending to cook something so she could take her stupid photos. Hashtag family! It was embarrassing. Granddad was reading the paper, like always, his head nodding as he dozed behind the pages, where he thought no one could see. He didn’t know where his mum was, but he didn’t particularly want to see her either. He could have stayed upstairs in his little room, but he was bored rigid by the four walls. His misery kept him mobile.
He took the cover off the pool to dip his feet in the water. Perhaps he’d like to swim after all. Just float, maybe. With the big glass doors closed, it was a bit hot. He had too many clothes on. The water began to look deliciously cool and welcoming. He might as well wallow while he wallowed. An adult might have stripped down to their underwear. Or skinny-dipped. No one was around, after all. There were towels – Heather seemed to be drying and folding them all the time – in a stack on one of the loungers. No one need ever know. A sober teenager would never do that. Ethan padded up the path, then upstairs to get his trunks.
And, of course, he didn’t put the cover back on. The same way he didn’t put wet towels on the radiator, or dirty socks in the laundry hamper, or the lid back on the Marmite. He’d sloped back to the house to get something: he’d be gone for, what, three minutes tops? And he just hadn’t done it.
At exactly that moment Meredith went into the toilet with Delilah, to make sure she washed her hands after she’d used the loo, and at precisely that time Arthur, who had been watching a cartoon with them, in his odd but customary pose of face down, bum in the air, thumb in on the rug, rolled sideways, a bit bored, and tottered outside, past his granddad, who had fallen asleep, his head back, his mouth open, snoring gently.
And because it had been so much fun, when he’d done it with Uncle Scott and Daddy, and because the water looked so nice, and because he had no real notion that the orange armbands, rather than his own natural buoyancy, were what kept him bobbing on the surface of the water, instead of sinking, Arthur stood starfish on the side and jumped in.
Ethan got back downstairs in his trunks, T-shirt slung across his shoulder, just before Meredith, standing on the patio from where she could see the open door to the pool, issued a piercing scream. ‘Arthur?’
What followed seemed, to all of them, to happen in heart-stopping slow motion. Ethan barged past his step-cousin, shoving her roughly against the door frame, and ran. Simultaneously, the adults within hearing distance appeared from the corners of the house and garden, Heather wiping her wet hands on an apron. Charlie, dozing on a reclining chair, sat up with a start, looking confused, then afraid.
Getting there first, Ethan side-stepped down the first part of the pool. Arthur had gone in about halfway towards the deep end, just where Scott had scooped him up last time. The exuberant projection of his jump had taken his small arms out of reach of the side, but, anyway, he was too young and too scared to think about making contact with the tiles. He didn’t know how to save himself. For a second, Ethan was frozen by terror. Arthur was below the surface, face down. His arms were still in mid-flail.
He was dead. He had to be dead. With a wild sob rising in his throat, the spell broken, Ethan belly-flopped into the water with a loud crack, and lifted the small body out of the water in the arc of his movement.
Heather was there by the time he did so. She had made it to the side to snatch him from Ethan’s hands, and she sat back in a single motion, sitting down hard, the little boy across her lap, his back arched. She murmured to him the whole time. Her eyes were wild, but she seemed calm, her movements deliberate and careful. ‘Oh, no, baby. Oh, no, baby. No, you don’t. Oh, no, you don’t. Come on. You come back. You come back, you hear me? Daddy wants to see you. Your daddy wants to see you …’
While she quietly pleaded with him,
she ministered to his tiny body, turning him first onto his side, rubbing his back, then rolling him over, pushing her knuckles into his sternum. It looked violent to Ethan. She put her head down to listen to his chest, his mouth. She shucked him off her lap, to lie on the floor, and bent down across him.
Ethan had pulled himself up and sat on the side, staring at them silently. He was shivering, or trembling. Meredith was crying, noisy, childish sobs. Hayley, who had been sunbathing on a towel at the other side of the garden, had come to the bifold doors at the commotion and had her hand across her mouth in horror.
Nick was at the door to the pool now. He shouted his son’s name, once.
It took less than a minute, maybe much less, from the moment of Meredith’s scream, for Arthur to splutter, cough, convulse slightly, so that water trickled from the side of his mouth, and then wail.
By then, Nick had slid onto the floor beside Heather, Ethan had stood up, Scott had arrived, and Hayley and Meredith had quietly led Bea and Delilah back into the house. Charlie stayed hovering by the door, his hands outstretched in a gesture of utter helplessness.
Nick pulled his son into his arms and rocked him. ‘You’re okay, guy. You’re fine …’
No one spoke at first, letting the relief flood them and douse the flames of hot panic. Arthur’s sobs subsided quickly, replaced by a persistent cough. Nick patted his back. Heather put her own hand there too, stroking him gently, looking intently at his face over his father’s shoulder.
The Family Holiday Page 20