Cents and Sensibility

by Maggie Alderson

  She wasn’t kidding about the all part. There were place cards round the table and I could see that all of Ham’s kids were coming, plus his two favourite ex-stepsons, Archie and Alex. It was very unusual for so many of us to be together like that, because it was usually too complicated to arrange, not to mention utter mayhem.

  ‘What’s going on, Chloe?’ I said, feeling uncomfortable, when she emerged from the pantry. I didn’t like having that kind of thing sprung on me. ‘This is like some kind of spooky surprise party.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Chloe. ‘It’s not This Is Your Life, Henry’s just having one of his sentimental moments. You know what he’s like. He just needed to see all his babies.’

  ‘But Alex and Archie aren’t his babies,’ I said crossly.

  ‘No, but Alex is bringing the twins – they’ve been staying at his place this weekend, because Rose is in France at a gardening conference – and Henry just plain loves Archie. I think he wishes he could trade him in for Venezia, really.’

  ‘I’d second that,’ I said. ‘But where are they all?’

  She glanced automatically at her flow chart.

  ‘Ham’s gone to Kristy’s to pick up those two, Nicola’s dropping off the boys any minute, Daisy is upstairs having a late nap and Alex is bringing Tobes and Tabs. But I wanted to see you alone, Stella. I’ve got something I want to tell you myself.’

  ‘I knew it,’ I said. ‘I knew something was going on. Spit it out.’

  Chloe wiped her hands on her apron and leaned against the steel counter. I knew what she was going to say, before she even got it out, and couldn’t stop myself grinning.

  ‘I’m having another baby,’ she said.

  I rushed round the bench to give her a hug.

  ‘I wanted to tell you first,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘We’re going to tell the others tonight, but I wanted to tell you myself. You’re such a good friend to me, Stella.’

  I was amazed. I felt like I was the one who was always being looked after by her.

  ‘Really?’ I said.

  She nodded.

  ‘It’s not always that great dealing with the ex-wives club, you know, and you just accepted me so warmly from day one. You never made me feel like an interloper.’

  ‘Well, that was no problem,’ I said. ‘You’re the nicest wife he’s ever had and I want you to stick around. When’s the baby due?’

  She smiled broadly.

  ‘Christmas Day.’

  I roared, it was just the sort of thing Ham would adore.

  *

  Dinner was great fun. Ham had told all of my various siblings the good news in little batches and everyone was very happy about it. Daisy was ecstatic.

  ‘I’m going to have a baby! I’m going to have a baby!’ she was telling anyone who would listen, thrilled that she was no longer going to be the youngest. I pulled her on to my knee and gave her a big cuddle.

  ‘I’m a big girl now, Stella,’ she said very seriously, nodding her head that way she did.

  ‘You’re a very big girl,’ I said, mentally preparing myself to spend a lot of time with her when the new baby eventually came along, and she wouldn’t be feeling quite so thrilled about it. I’d seen a lot of that over the years with my father’s growing family.

  There was a fair amount of sibling rivalry going on round the table that night, although things were more equable than they might have been because, to my great delight, Venezia hadn’t joined us after all. She’d reacted very badly to the news of the baby and had refused to come. Suited me.

  ‘What’s her problem now?’ I asked Archie, who was sitting next to me, in a placement which had been drawn up by Ham, as usual.

  He was surprisingly keen on table plans – it was all part of his interest in the emotional manipulation of space and proximity. He’d even had dinner parties where he had deliberately done the most ill-advised plan he could come up with, to see how much it really did affect the dynamic. Monstrously, by all accounts.

  But I was delighted to be next to Archie. Despite all his adolescent angst, there was something so strangely sensible about him.

  ‘What?’ he was asking me incredulously. ‘You’re asking me why Vomezia’ – it was his new name for her – ‘doesn’t want another half-sibling?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’m asking. I’m delighted, aren’t you?’

  ‘Stoked, and it won’t even be related to me.’ He laughed his painful Beavis and Butt-head snigger. ‘But Chloe’s totally great and any kid of hers will be way cool. I love Daisy, so yeah, great, but Vomezia isn’t happy because it’s just one more little chip away from her inheritance.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Archie, nodding so vigorously I was almost blinded by the spikes of his new vertical hairstyle. ‘I bet she’s got her calculator out, right now, working out how much her share has just decreased by.’

  ‘I’m speechless,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t she know about Ham’s opinions on inherited wealth? He’s not leaving any of us anything – he’s always telling us that – doesn’t she get it?’

  ‘Have you ever met my mother?’ said Archie, and I had to laugh.

  A more disturbing feature of Ham’s table plan was that he had put Alex on my other side. Not exactly subtle, I thought, but I was quite glad to get the first post-Jay meeting with him out of the way really. It had to happen sooner or later and I just wanted to get our relationship – such as it was – back on to its old bland footing.

  But, for once, Alex seemed reluctant to let that happen.

  ‘So,’ he said, looking at me intently, the moment I turned to him, so I couldn’t just look away again. ‘Are you still seeing Jay Fisher?’

  I pulled a face.

  ‘You saw Hot Stuff! magazine then?’ I said.

  He looked completely blank.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said, as though I had changed the subject.

  ‘You didn’t see that thing in a magazine about me and Jay?’

  ‘No,’ he said, looking very surprised. ‘I didn’t realize it was that serious. Are you “dating” him, as Americans say?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I said, quickly. ‘I met him at a press thing and I think he just wanted to see the house really, so that’s why he came down that time. He’s a huge fan of Ham’s work. You know, with the museum and everything.’

  Alex was looking at me steadily. I was babbling, I didn’t care.

  ‘But if you didn’t see that thing in Hot Stuff!,’ I continued. ‘How did you know who he was? I didn’t think I’d introduced him by his full name.’

  Alex looked incredulous.

  ‘You didn’t need to introduce him. I knew who he was the minute I saw him.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, hoping to end the conversation right there. I certainly wasn’t going to tell Alex that I hadn’t had a clue all along.

  ‘The bank I work for handles quite a lot of investments for the family,’ Alex was saying, with a funny look in his eye. ‘I’ve met his father quite a few times – he’s the main trustee. I had to go over to New York to see him just a couple of months ago in fact.’

  ‘Ham says he’s a nightmare,’ I said. No point in pretending.

  Alex just smiled at me gently, in an I’m-saying-nothing -which-says-a-lot kind of way. He was amazingly discreet, I thought. No wonder he was doing so well in his job.

  ‘So,’ I said brightly, deciding to take a leaf out of his book. A book which could be entitled Hiding Your True Feelings The Good Old Empire Way. ‘What have you been up to? Going anywhere nice this summer?’

  Alex laughed heartily; he knew exactly what I was doing, but like the true Brit he was, he played along and we had a very pleasant conversation comparing the attractions of Corsica, Tuscany and Sardinia for our prospective holidays.

  Before we were forced to find another bland subject to discuss, Ham tapped his wine glass with a spoon.

  ‘OΚ, tribe,’ he said, standing up. ‘I want to talk to you all. Now,
this is a very special occasion as you know, celebrating the wonderful news that our darling Chloe is to have another child in December, a Christmas baby for us all. So I wish to make a toast to my beautiful wife,’ he said, gazing at her and raising his glass. ‘I give you – Chloe.’

  We all drank to her, followed by toasts to ‘the baby’ and ‘Henry’, and then Ham said he wanted to propose the most important toast of all, which was to: ‘Family.’

  We all did what we were supposed to do and I thought that would be the end of it, but Ham was clearly loving it and had no intention of leaving it there.

  ‘Now,’ he was saying. ‘I want to use this marvellous moment, when I have all my ducklings gathered together – apart from Venezia, of course, the silly girl. It happens all too rarely, so I am going to grab the opportunity to embarrass you all horribly.’

  My heart was beginning to sink. I loved my family, I adored Ham, but I really couldn’t stand this touchy-feely stuff. The years he had spent studying in California still had a lot to answer for, in my opinion.

  But there was no getting out of it now, I could see. He had that gleam in his eye. I was beginning to sink down in my seat, praying for it to be over quickly, when I felt something gently prod my ribcage. It was Alex, nudging me. I turned to look at him and he very discreetly crossed his eyes. I felt giggles rise in my chest.

  Ham was oblivious and had embarked on his mission, which was to tell each child, one by one, why he loved us.

  ‘Daisy, you are my most recently hatched egg,’ he was saying. ‘But not for long. You are about to grow up into a big sister, my adorable little chick, but you know how your daddy cherishes you, the product of my love for your beautiful mother, Chloe…’

  Oh no, I thought, this was going to get really cheesy. The full Paxton & Whitfield. Alex nudged me again, harder.

  It went on in the same vein, with Ham getting more and more like a talking Hallmark card. It really was amazing how someone so brilliant and sophisticated could be quite so syrupy.

  Archie clearly felt the same way as me and Alex, and it was my turn to nudge Alex, as I noticed my favourite toxic teen was sliding very slowly down his chair, like a piece of spaghetti, until he was actually on the floor under the table.

  Alex and I started to shake with barely controllable laughter, as Archie then very slowly started to inch his way across the floor, away from the table, moving on his elbows like a commando.

  Ham – by then in full flow about Freddie, so he was clearly working up through his children by age – was completely oblivious.

  Trying to hide the tears of laughter that were threatening to pour down my cheeks, I made the mistake of turning my head to the side and caught Alex’s eye. That was it. With a great combined guffaw, we simultaneously leapt up from the table and literally fell through the open glass door into the garden.

  ‘Oh, for GOD’s sake,’ I heard Ham saying, as we made our exit. But it was too late, we couldn’t go back.

  The relief of being able to let the tension out was so great that we were both rolling around on the lawn, kicking our legs in the air.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Alex was saying. ‘The full cheese counter, with extra relish. Gag.’

  ‘Ham and cheese on rye, or what?’ I agreed.

  We finally recovered ourselves a little and sat up on the lawn, but as soon as we looked at each other, we were off again.

  ‘Oh, my little duckling,’ Alex was saying. ‘Your tiny egg so recently cracked into the great omelette pan of life…’

  I was laughing so much, my stomach was starting to hurt. Then I looked back through the wall of glass – a feature of all Ham’s houses – and saw that Archie was now halfway down the hall, away from the kitchen, still moving like a centipede, on his stomach.

  That set us off all over again, until I was just lying there panting. That was when I noticed how wet the grass was. I turned my head to look at Alex, who was rubbing his face with his hands and groaning. He turned suddenly and looked at me.

  ‘My arse is getting soaked out here,’ he said.

  ‘So’s mine,’ I said, jumping up and looking behind me to see a big wet patch on my skirt.

  ‘Oh no,’ I said, looking back into the house. ‘He’s still only on Marcus. It’s going to take ages.’

  I made a split-second decision.

  ‘We can’t go back in there,’ I said. ‘Do you want to come and have a drink at my place until it’s all over?’

  ‘That would be great,’ said Alex, looking pleased and rather surprised.

  I almost regretted my invitation as soon as I had made it, but Alex was family really, and I did occasionally have Chloe in for coffee and Daisy was a regular visitor, so it wasn’t like a real intrusion. But apart from Ham, he was the only man who had ever been in my place.

  Alex looked very big in my tiny little sitting room and he smiled sweetly as he took it all in.

  ‘Well, Stella,’ he said. ‘I had no idea you were such a girly girl at heart.’

  I looked at it afresh through his eyes. The sofa he was sitting on was covered in sugar-pink velvet, with a pompom trim. I was mixing drinks at my mirrored console table, by the dim glow of the twenty strings of fairy lights I had festooned around the various gold mirrors and floral paintings on the walls.

  I giggled a little as I handed him his vodka and tonic, and sat down in one of my French bergère chairs, which were upholstered in leopard-print fabric.

  ‘It’s my secret den,’ I said. ‘I don’t have to make concessions to anyone else’s tastes or needs in here.’

  I stood up again suddenly.

  ‘My bum really is wet,’ I said. ‘I think I need to change. Do you want to borrow something?’

  He felt the back of his jeans and nodded.

  ‘Yes, but not a frilly negligee, please.’

  I smiled to myself as I opened my wardrobe. Frilly negligees were something I had plenty of and when I was home alone, I flitted around my little house got up like Eva Gabor in Green Acres.

  I was momentarily tempted to put one of them on – perhaps the sheer pink organza with the marabou trim and matching mules? – just to make him laugh, but stopped myself.

  Just at that moment I was feeling on a really good even keel with Alex for the first time since that weird weekend at Willow Barn. Being united in hilarity about Ham’s hideous sentimentality – something we had both hated when we were young – had got us back on to a comfortable footing again and I was suddenly aware how easy it would be to unbalance it.

  I peeled off my wet skirt and put on a nice neutral pair of jeans, and then found a sarong for him to wear.

  I took it down to him and then went through to the kitchen to get some ice, returning a heartbeat too soon, just as he was about to wind the sarong around his hips.

  He had his back to me and I was treated to a view of just about the finest pair of bare male buttocks I had ever seen. Alex still rowed, I remembered. It showed.

  I nearly dropped the small silver bowl I was carrying, but just managed to hold on to it and dodge back into the kitchen, before he realized I had seen him.

  I had to take a few deep breaths to recover before I could go back in, but not only because of the physical jolt of coming face to face with such a magnificent display of man flesh. The thing that had made me nearly drop the bowl, was that it could have been Jay’s rear quarters I’d been looking at.

  The two of them didn’t look anything alike from the front. Their faces were completely different – with Jay more movie-star handsome, it had to be said – although Alex was still a good-looking guy, in a particular pink-cheeked English way.

  Jay’s hair was darker, but physically, I realized, they were startlingly similar. The same height, the same build, the same broad shoulders – and the same fabulous bottom. The only difference was that Jay had really sexy tan lines on his – his buttocks were stark white against his tan, where his trunks had been.

  I almost wished I could ask Alex to take his sarong off
and turn round, so I could see if he also had those wonderful lines running down from his abs to his groin, like Jay had. I thought he probably did.

  I made a bit of noise, clunking around in the freezer as though I was doing something useful, until I felt fully composed again. I was sure it was the similarity to Jay which had unsettled me so much, but I couldn’t escape facing the truth that anything vaguely sexual in connection with Alex made me feel deeply uneasy.

  He was only my stepbrother – and my ex-stepbrother, at that – but he was definitely part of my family, not my love life. I wasn’t going to make the same embarrassing mistake my adolescent self had made and mix them up again.

  I needn’t have worried. Blissfully unaware of the ringside view I’d just had of his butt – and of the extensive collection of saucy seduction wear I had upstairs – when I finally went back into the sitting room, Alex was still happily operating in what I thought of as our ‘fond cousin’ mode, which enabled me to slip back into it too.

  ‘Hey, Stella,’ he said. ‘Do you remember the time Henry made us play that loathsome game where we all had to write the things we loved about our siblings on pieces of paper and then he read them all out and we had to guess who had written what about whom?’

  I groaned.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said, remembering all too well. ‘And if someone guessed yours right you had to hug the person you had written about? It was terrible.’

  What I remembered was that I’d written something horrifically embarrassing about Alex and I was now immeasurably grateful to Ham for not reading it out – although at the time I had been furious with him, because I had been gagging for an excuse to hug my stepbrother.

  Happily oblivious to that, Alex was now laughing about something else and shaking his head.

  ‘I wrote that I admired Rowan because he was a very skilled butcher,’ he said, chuckling away. ‘Ham read it out and was really pleased – he thought it was something to do with Boy Scout barbecues, or something, and had no idea butchery was our slang for wanking. You know – beating the meat?’