by Debbie Young
“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.”
“How did you swing a free trip?” I asked.
“I was a paid escort for this guy who’d been on one of my bush safaris. He’s a nervous flyer and prefers not to travel unaccompanied. Billionaire rich, so I got to fly first class. He was only prepared to pay for me to fly tourist class back, so I’m hanging on for the cheapest late booking I can find, once I’ve had enough of the British winter. I don’t mind missing a few days of an Australian summer, but I’ll be glad to get back to it.”
He slipped a smartphone out of the side pocket of his shorts and slid his thumb across the screen to check for messages. “Nah, nothing from the airlines yet. You’ve got me for a few more days, I think, Mum.”
It must be hard to have a child living on the other side of the planet. I felt bad enough being at the far end of our small country from my parents. I didn’t visit them as often as I should, although the flight from Bristol to Inverness was relatively cheap and only took about an hour. Seeing the pleasure on Nancy’s face, I resolved not to leave it too long before I visited my own parents in Inverness, with or without Hector in tow.
“I don’t suppose you’ll have time to fit in a visit to Wendlebury Barrow before you go?” I asked. Hector shot me a dubious look. “Haven’t you got friends there who’d like to see you?”
Horace nodded at Hector. “He’s just seen me. The rest of my old Wendlebury friends have moved away to better things. Or at least to places where they can afford to live on their own salaries, rather than lodging for ever with their parents. They might come back when they’ve hit middle-age and the urge to settle down, get a job in a bank, and grow dahlias.”
“Like Henry Pulling.” I smiled, recognising his allusion to Graham Greene’s Travels with my Aunt, the first book that Hector had given me. Perhaps there was more to Horace than Crocodile Dundee after all.
“Or open a bookshop.” Horace winked at me.
Hector ignored the bait. “We’d better get going, Sophie, or we’ll get caught in the Sunday night traffic jams.”
He bent down to kiss his mother on the cheek, and she flung her arms round him and held him for a moment. Then his father came over to give him a manly pat on the back, and we headed for the door.
“Thank you for having me, Nancy, Edward,” I said, pulling on my mittens. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure’s all ours, dear,” said Nancy. “Come again soon.”
“Not a little of the pleasure was mine,” added Horace in a low voice behind me, his warm hands briefly coming to rest gently on my shoulders, as I followed Hector out into the entrance hall. I took a final look at his long curls and his big green eyes, so reminiscent of Hector, yet so very different.
“Bon voyage, Horace,” I said lightly, reaching up to give him a sisterly peck on the cheek, then trotted down the path to where Horace was already waiting for me in the Land Rover, engine running.
“How come no-one in the village has ever mentioned Horace to me? Is he some kind of black sheep who’s been drummed out of Wendlebury?”
It was easier to ask Hector once we were on the motorway, staring at the lights ahead of us in the queue of traffic. It’s always easier to ask tricky questions in a car, when you’re isolated and intimate but can’t make eye contact.
Hector smiled slightly at the second question. “No, he’s all right. He’s just been abroad for years, and, like he said, all his village mates have long since moved away. There’s no reason for him to come back to Wendlebury since Mum and Dad moved to Clevedon. He’s in a different orbit now.”
“Apart from you,” I said, trying to gauge his reaction out of the corner of my eye. “Do I take it Horace doesn’t know about Hermione Minty?”
He shifted down into second gear as the traffic slowed up the hill. I looked back over my shoulder at the vast, flat expanse of fields behind us, twinkling in the late afternoon sunshine. Fleetingly I wished we could turn round at the next junction and head back down south, to find another quiet little seaside resort and take a break there, away from the village, away from his family, all by ourselves. We’d never been away together as a couple before.
“No, not even Dad knows about Minty. Only Mum. And Horace the He-man is the last person I’d want to know. He’d never take her books – my books – seriously. As it is, he makes fun of her without even knowing she’s me, reading aloud from Mum’s copies of the books in a silly high-pitched voice that he’s developed especially for the purpose. Can you imagine what he’d be like if he knew I wrote those books? He’d have a field day.”
As the traffic slowed to a halt, Hector changed into neutral and applied the handbrake.
“Not that it matters to me as a writer. I mean, he’s hardly my target audience, and I believe what I write is good stuff of its kind. I just don’t want to have his voice in my head, teasing me as I write each new book. It may sound pretentious, but he’d kill my muse. Catch it and keep it in his crocodile trap. I don’t want him to put me off.”
I could see what he meant. “What sort of books does Horace read?”
“He doesn’t. He prefers real life to books.”
Now that the sun had gone down and there was no cloud cover, the cold was descending. Hector flicked a switch on the dashboard to turn on the heating.
“That’s one reason he’s living in Australia now – the availability of rugged sports and adventure all year round.”
He said ‘rugged sports’ as if it was a perversion.
“Does he have a steady girlfriend?”
“He has girlfriends all right.” Hector’s face turned grim. “Very often someone else’s.”
I wondered whether that had included Celeste. Perhaps what Hector had told me about Celeste leaving him for another woman was a smokescreen. Supposing she’d left him for Horace, and that’s why he’d moved to Australia – to be with her? I tried to dismiss the idea. If it were true, Hector would tell me when he was ready.
“Yet your dad said you were the sporty one when you were little.”
Hector nodded, wiping condensation from the windscreen with a cloth, before handing it to me to do my side.
“Yes, until Horace became ill. Or rather, until he got better.”
Hector seemed dogged by poorly people. He’d nursed Celeste through serious illness before she left.
“I’m the elder brother by a couple of hours. Usually twins are born in quick succession, but while my delivery was straightforward, Horace’s birth was slow and complicated. He was always a little smaller and weaker than I was. Whatever bug I caught, he’d have it worse – and extra things that I didn’t catch, too. Then when he was about eight, he was diagnosed with a childhood form of leukaemia.” He took a deep breath. Although that was over twenty years ago, it clearly still pained him to talk about it. “For several years, he had a terrible time, with a barrage of treatments, until finally getting the all-clear.”
“I’m so sorry. I’d never have guessed from looking at him now.”
“Exactly. And all credit to Horace. As soon as he was back on form, he determined to build up his body as much as he could through stringent exercise programmes, attention to diet, and so on. He wanted to be the picture of health. His quest for constant sunshine and the outdoor life is all a part of that.”
“I can see how someone in his position would feel that way.” I felt in my coat pocket for a packet of mints and offered one to Hector before taking one myself.
“We’d always been close before, sharing everything, but when he became so ill, the whole dynamic between us changed – like he’d suddenly become my younger, fragile brother whom I constantly had to protect. Mum and Dad thought he could do no wrong. Or at least, they didn’t like to
tell him off when he was naughty, because they welcomed any display of high spirits or rebelliousness as indicators of his recovery.”
“So his illness made him more flippant, but you more serious?”
Hector nodded. “I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but I think you’re right.”
“And Horace plays on that?”
“He takes advantage of it. Mum and Dad still overindulge him. But then, wouldn’t you, if that happened to our child?”
Startled, I flushed, wondering whether he realised he’d said “our child” not “your child”. Suddenly things were moving faster than I was ready for. I crunched down on my sweet as he put the Land Rover into gear, released the handbrake, and the queue of traffic started to move.
13 Twin Peek
After our eventful Sunday, I was ready to spend the next evening quietly at home alone. I’d just settled down with a cup of tea and a good book when there was a hearty rap at the front door. I got up from the sofa to heave open the door, which was sticking a bit in the cold, damp weather.
“Hello, Horace, what a lovely surprise!”
I looked behind him, assuming Hector would be there too, but he was unaccompanied.
“That’s a warm welcome for a cold, dark night,” said Horace, grinning. “Thanks.”
He strode into the hallway, pulling off his bush hat, and shook his long curls out like the ‘after’ image in a shampoo advert. Or maybe an advert for dog shampoo.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, closing the front door behind him. “How did you know where I lived?”
“Hector said you were living in old Miss Sayers’ place. I used to play in her garden sometimes when I was a little boy. Till I got told off by the old man next door. He made me promise to come back only when she was there after that, rather than when she was off travelling.”
“Did Hector used to come with you?”
“Of course. We were inseparable. One of the advantages of being a twin when you’re a kid: you have a ready-made playmate.”
“Why isn’t Hector with you now?”
“I was going to ask you the very same thing. He’s not at his flat, either.”
“Oh, no, of course, I forgot. He’s at a council meeting at Slate Green Library tonight. He advises its buyer about new books and local reading trends, to help him manage library stock.”
Horace looked past me to the sofa. Taking the hint, I waved my hand towards it, realising this was no flying visit. If he’d come all the way from Clevedon, he’d want to sit down and relax for a bit.
“That sounds like a barrel of laughs.”
I smiled conspiratorially. “I know. I usually volunteer to go with him for school visits, but council meetings are not my cup of tea at all.”
Horace rearranged the scatter cushions around him, leaving enough space for me to sit beside him.
“Did you say tea?”
“I can take a hint.”
“Milk, no sugar for me, sweetheart.”
As I boiled the kettle, I wondered what Horace’s intentions were. Why hadn’t he phoned ahead to check that Hector would be at home? Or did he assume his brother had no social life?
I returned to set two mugs on the coffee table, one near Horace’s knee, which thankfully was covered with proper trousers now, albeit the trekking kind with a zip to convert them into shorts at a moment’s notice. I supposed Horace’s knees would be much the same as Hector’s. There can’t be many women whose first sight of their boyfriend’s bare legs is in a toga, though of course, when I saw Hector in his Homer costume at the village show, he hadn’t yet become my boyfriend.
Avoiding the cosy space Horace had cleared beside him, I settled down opposite, curling my legs under me in the ancient, overstuffed armchair.
“Mum’s been telling me all about you,” he said after taking a swig from his tea.
“How much can she know? Sunday was the first time she met me properly.”
“You think Hector hadn’t told her anything before your visit?”
I felt a little flutter of gratification inside.
“I’ve come to check you out further.”
Was this some kind of chat-up line? “So you did know Hector wasn’t going to be here!”
He gave an apologetic smile. “Guilty as charged.”
This was awkward. How on earth was I going to avoid letting on to Hector tomorrow? Or could I just not tell him? Tangled webs, I cautioned myself.
“I thought we should get to know each other better while I’m over here,” Horace was saying breezily. “We may not get another chance for a year or so.” He set down his mug and leaned forward. “I’m the kind of guy who likes to seize the day. To make the most of opportunities as they arise.”
I sat up straight, trying to look prim. I didn’t have to try very hard.
“I’m sorry, Horace, I’m strictly a one-man girl.” My voice was hoarse despite the tea. “I’m not sure you should have come.”
Horace fell back in his seat, slapping his thighs and laughing.
“Congratulations, you’ve passed the test!”
I blushed. “Whatever do you mean?”
He straightened his face. “I’m certainly not coming on to you, honey, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not that I wouldn’t if you weren’t already taken. Don’t get me wrong. You’re a lovely girl. I just wanted to get to know you a little myself, without Hector there to speak for you or to protect you in any way. You know, Hector is a good brother to me. When I was a sickly kid, he always looked out for me. Now it’s my turn to look out for him.” He took another mouthful of tea. “That’s not the easiest thing to do from the other side of the planet. But I need to make sure he doesn’t get himself tangled up with the wrong kind of girl again. Not after that fiasco with bloody Celeste. He must have told you about Celeste.”
I wasn’t sure where this was going, so I trod cautiously. “Yes, a little. Enough for me to gather that she broke his heart, and made him wary of starting another serious relationship for a long time.”
“Yes, the little bitch.”
“The little…?” This was good news indeed. “You didn’t like her?”
“God no, she was a witch. I mean, not in looks. Physically, she was stunning.” That was something I didn’t need to hear. “But she was incredibly selfish and manipulative. She made him take a gap year with her when he was keen to go straight into his Master’s degree. He never wanted to go travelling at all, not beyond a normal holiday, but she gave him an ultimatum: her or his studies. Then she made him take her to outlandishly unsafe places. And when I say they’re unsafe, you can take it from me they’re death-traps. My tolerance of rough conditions is higher than most people’s, but even I feared for his safety on that trip.”
I thought of the crocodiles and snakes and spiders and burning heat and remorseless drought of the Australian bush and shuddered. Celeste and Hector had planned to hitch-hike to Africa before she became too ill to travel. They made my European travels seem like a stroll down Wendlebury High Street.
“She didn’t take her claws out of him even when she was ill. She monopolised him, trying to stop him leaving her alone even for a day trip to visit Mum and Dad. I called in to their flat a few times after she’d got better, to catch up with my big brother, and once when he was out, she started to flirt outrageously with me.”
“But – but you just tried to flirt with me.”
He shook his head. “Quite the opposite. I was testing you to make sure you hadn’t set the same trap. Because trap it certainly was. Honestly, I don’t know where it would have ended if I hadn’t made a swift exit. Well, I do, but I couldn’t have done that to Hector, and I don’t know what made her think I might. Power games, I suppose.”
He paused for a sip of his tea. “When she finally dumped him for that weird medic bird she ran off with, I did not mourn her departure for a moment. What a piece of work.”
He leaned forward confidentially. “She was a real gold-digger. It’s
my theory that when she learned our parents were antique dealers, she assumed Hector must have been wealthy. If she’d bothered to come down to meet them sooner, she’d have taken one look at the shop and moved on.”
“Gosh.” My head was spinning like an overloaded washing machine.
“He never really saw it. Still doesn’t. So you can see why I’m glad he’s met you and is finally getting back into the saddle.” I wasn’t sure what to make of that analogy. “Thinking with his brain again instead of with his—”
I clattered the empty mugs together to take them out to the kitchen.
Horace called after me, “I don’t think I could have held out without a woman for so long.”
I bet he didn’t have to, either, guiding willing tourists on dangerous treks. It would be all too easy for a girl to cling on to him at the sight of a snake on the pretext of being scared, and for him to offer as much comfort as she was prepared to accept. But Hector had misjudged Horace if he thought his brother was a borrower of other men’s girlfriends. Horace seemed pretty decent to me.
I returned from the kitchen to find him picking up the book by Hermione Minty. I’d left Angel Heart face down on the coffee table, intending to tackle it again later, and had forgotten it was there until now.
“I’d have thought you were above stuff like this. Who’s it by, anyway?” He turned the book over to look at the front cover. “Hermione Minty. What a name! Mum reads her books too, God knows why.”
As I curled up again in the armchair, he opened it at random and read a description aloud in a high-pitched, mocking voice.
“‘Her long curls were not so much twenty-four carat gold as rose gold, the kind favoured by legendary princesses, a precious blend of pure gold, silver and copper, spun together with love in mind to create a rarer beauty’. Well, talk of the devil! Cut through all that flowery nonsense, and you have the very image of Celeste.” I froze. “That’s the kind of weird hair colour she had. Mum swore it came out of a bottle. Several bottles, probably. High maintenance. Not a natural looker like you, Sophie.”
He flashed his green eyes winningly. At last, a proper compliment. But I didn’t let it distract me from a stout defence of Hermione Minty.