Caught!

by JL Merrow

  “And for you,” I said, certain of it. Debs might be prickly to outsiders, but it was obvious how close she and Sean were.

  “Yeah.” He looked at his feet. “I’d better let you go and get dry. You…you take care, yeah?”

  “And you,” I said, but he’d already disappeared.

  I pulled his jacket more closely around my shoulders, and sighed.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Christmas Eve dawned bright and frosty, and the drive down to Wiltshire was easy and pleasant, considering the time of year. Peter’s house was on a road known simply as “The Lane”, which had wooded common land on one side and rambling houses of a certain age on the other, guarded by tall cypress and ancient yew. All the houses had large gardens, and moss was a perennial problem on the extensive lawns.

  I’d barely parked on the gravel drive and got out of Portia when Peter opened the front door and stepped out, beaming. He must have been watching for me. “How’s my beautiful girl?”

  “She’s doing splendidly,” I assured him, smiling back.

  “I thought I was your beautiful girl, Daddy.” I looked over Peter’s shoulder at the ringing, slightly nasal Godolphin School tones and tried to muster a smile for my youngest stepsister, Laetitia.

  As a child, she’d been known as Titty. Apparently nobody had thought this in any way odd, but it possibly accounted for her tendency to take offence at the slightest provocation even at thirty-four.

  Possibly.

  Peter was quick to reassure her. “Of course you are, my dear. And getting more beautiful every day—”

  “Oh, Daddy.” Her expression was smug.

  “—but I don’t leave you in the care of this young rapscallion, do I?”

  Laetitia and I eyed each other with shared horror at the prospect. “Oh, I’m sure I could manage to look after her for you,” I said with a touch of malice. “It can’t be that different to looking after Portia—take her out every weekend, keep her clean, and make sure she doesn’t take her top off around disreputable young men.”

  She gave me a poisonous smile. “No, I’ll leave all the disreputable young men for you. Did you bring one, by the way? I can’t see him, but perhaps he’s in the boot?”

  “Children,” Peter chided. “Behave. Robert, your mother should be somewhere around. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to see you.”

  “I’ll just get my bag, then. My old room?”

  “Of course. I’ve told you before, it’s still your room. And it’s always open to you, any time you need to come home. No need to ring ahead.”

  I winced internally at the gentle implication of filial neglect as I fetched my bag, then crunched across the thick gravel to the front door.

  Peter’s house—I still found myself thinking of it as that, even though it had been my home during school and university holidays ever since I’d been fifteen—was much like Peter himself: getting on in years but still spruce and sprightly, although perhaps not very modern. His daughters, Laetitia and her older sisters, Camilla and Beatrice, had all grown up here, so I supposed it was natural to resent the interlopers, at least to some degree. The elder two having families of their own, they wouldn’t be staying with us, I’d been told, but we’d see them all for Christmas dinner, although they’d been excused attendance at the dreaded Boxing Day Brunch.

  Perhaps Fordy could be persuaded to slope off to the pub with me—Lord knew, we’d done it plenty of times before. But I somehow doubted Linette would allow it this time.

  Inside, the house showed clear signs of Mother’s touch. After years of living in work-provided accommodation, she’d leapt at the chance to flex her interior decoration muscles—perhaps another cause for resentment. Personally I thought she’d brightened the old pile up tremendously.

  And the house as well, I reflected with a mental snigger that turned to a pang of regret as I thought how Sean would have appreciated the joke.

  My room was on the top floor, under the eaves and facing towards the back garden. Birds always nested there, and as a teenager I’d spent many hours lying on my bed, listening to them scratching around and chirping tirelessly. Unsure of my place in this unfamiliar, overlarge house—not to mention frankly alarmed by the lovesick cooing of my mother and Peter—I’d tended to escape upstairs whenever I could. I’d filch battered, well-read paperbacks from Peter’s extensive shelves downstairs and lose myself in the crime-fighting exploits of Lord Peter Wimsey or the wartime adventures of “Biggles” Bigglesworth of the RAF.

  Up here, at least, there had been something to remind me of our old house, way back before Father had died. It had already been a fading memory by the time Mother and Peter were married, but I recalled there had been a tree just outside my bedroom window that usually held a nest or two in the spring.

  I dumped my bag on the bed and then jogged back downstairs to find Mother.

  Christmas dinner, as usual in recent years, was had at Brodgingly Hall, a local stately home-cum-golf course with a Michelin-starred restaurant. It was a far cry from the days after Father and before Peter, when Mother and I had stayed in her flat at the school and shared the smallest turkey that money could buy (actually, I suspected her of substituting a chicken on the sly some years, but wouldn’t have dreamed of calling her bluff). All the other boys went home for the holidays, of course, and it would be just the two of us, with one or two of the masters of the confirmed-bachelor variety popping round for sherry.

  I remembered those days rather fondly, but Mother, not to put too fine a point on it, did not.

  Our table at the restaurant was easily the largest, as Camilla (“Cami, darling, please,” mwah) and Beatrice (“Bea,” barked in parade-ground tones, and no air kiss) had both brought their broods. Bea’s eldest, Rufus, who had been the one who’d more or less brought Mother and Peter together, was absent, however. Now twenty-two, he was Christmassing in Tibet with his girlfriend. There had been a gap of twelve years between him and his nearest sibling, ten-year-old Philip, and although Bea’s marriage now seemed happy enough, I strongly suspected it had at the time been a shotgun wedding.

  Bea, I was certain, had wielded the shotgun. Expertly.

  I caught Mother eyeing her stepdaughters assessingly.

  “Don’t worry, Mother,” I whispered. “You’re still the thinnest of them all.”

  “It’s not their fault. They have young families,” she whispered back with the smug air of a woman who’d pushed my pram in a size eight Chanel skirt and had the pictures to prove it.

  I was seated at Mother’s left, and as the other unattached junior family member, Laetitia was at my left. Peter had, in fact, suggested she might prefer to sit farther down the table with one of her sisters, but she’d made some scathing comment about being forced to talk about potty training over the turkey. Apparently she found my conversation, such as it was likely to be, preferable to that. I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or simply incredulous.

  “Daddy, when are we going to the Fordhams’ this year?” she asked, speaking across Mother and me as our starters were served.

  “Ah… When is it again, darling?” Peter asked Mother with a smile, although I strongly suspected he knew perfectly well. All Peter’s marbles were present and correct, and arranged with military precision.

  “The twenty-seventh,” Mother said. “I’m rather looking forward to seeing the latest addition—have you met little Georgie yet, Robert?”

  I swallowed my wine hastily. “No—only seen pictures.”

  “Does he take after Fordy?”

  “Er… Difficult to tell, really. Although I hear he eats a lot, so possibly, yes.”

  “I remember you and Fordy when you were at school,” Laetitia put in loudly. “Always going off alone together when he came to stay in the hols. I always wondered what you got up to. Still, he obviously grew out of it.”

  “Titty,” Peter
said warningly.

  “Daddy. I’m not a little child. Anyway, if Fordy can settle down, I don’t see why Robert can’t—”

  “Laetitia.” Mother so rarely raised her voice to any of Peter’s children it caused a hush all down the table. Even two-year-old Henry at the far end paused in shock, tiny spoon midway to mush-smeared mouth. “Would you mind passing the water, dear? Thank you so much.”

  I intercepted the carafe en route and filled Mother’s glass for her. She leaned in and whispered, “Boyfriend trouble,” all while smiling sweetly in Laetitia’s direction.

  I winced, reminded with a pang of my own difficulties in that area.

  Like a lioness, Mother was quick to pounce at a sign of weakness. Although perhaps the protecting-the-cubs instinct was the more apt analogy. Maybe. “Darling, is there someone you haven’t told us about?”

  “Is he very disreputable?” my sharp-eared stepsister put in.

  “He’s…” I sighed. “He’s not anyone. Not any longer. Well, he is, obviously, but, well, I think it’s over.” I managed a wonky smile in Mother’s direction. “You wouldn’t like him anyway.”

  “Why not?” Mother frowned. “He’s not a socialist, is he? Or does he have one of those terrible regional accents?”

  “No, no. It’s his job.”

  “His job? Well, at least he has one. And as long as he’s not a dustman.” She laughed, but something in my expression must have alarmed her, as her forehead took on a tense look. “He’s not a dustman, is he?”

  “No. He, er, he works in pest control.”

  “A rat-catcher?” Laetitia’s voice was loud, ringing and derisive.

  “Really?” Peter put in enthusiastically. “I remember when Uncle Alastair had rats in the stables and brought in men to deal with it. Absolutely fascinating. Peanut butter, that’s what they used. Rats go wild for it, apparently. I wonder if they still use it? Used to put some stuff in that turned it bright blue. You ask your young man if they still use peanut butter.” He beamed at me.

  “Ugh,” Laetitia said, putting down her knife and fork. Her mostly untouched whitebait, perhaps sensing their sacrifice had been in vain, gazed at her in mute, glassy betrayal. “I can’t imagine a worse job. Sewer worker, I suppose. I mean, God, the smell. Does he—”

  “Laetitia,” Mother and Peter said together.

  Little Henry’s lip quivered. Bea’s husband, Gordon, jumped, winced, glared at his wife and engaged Laetitia, who was on his right, in hearty conversation, all in the space of six seconds.

  Mother patted my arm. “Darling, you know I wouldn’t care about something like that.”

  I pointedly looked behind her.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “Just checking to see if you had your fingers crossed behind your back.”

  She sighed. “Darling, I know I used to be a little more concerned about such things, but I really do just want you to be happy.” She glanced, as if involuntarily, at Peter, and her face softened. “I still don’t understand what went wrong with Crispin. Even Laetitia liked Crispin.”

  “Hmm, and what does that tell you?” I muttered to my asparagus terrine.

  “And you had such a good job at Potter’s Field…”

  “Mother. Please?”

  She cut herself another tiny sliver of smoked salmon, then laid down her cutlery. “I do understand it’s been hard for you, you know. I only ever wanted the best for you.”

  I looked at her in concern. “Mother? Well, of course you did. I’ve never doubted that for a second.”

  “I just wish you’d, well, confide in me a little more. I am your mother.” She sighed. “Robert… You were happy at Loriners’, weren’t you?”

  “Of course I was,” I lied heartily and with the ease of long practice. “And I really do appreciate all the sacrifices you made for me. Honestly, Mother. Now, more wine?”

  “Well, maybe just half a glass,” she said, smiling a little mistily. “I do have to watch my figure.”

  After lunch, we all went out for a walk in the grounds. While the younger children ran wild and their fathers improvised games of cricket for the older ones using sticks and fir cones, Peter detached himself from Mother’s side and came over to talk to me. I glanced over in Mother’s direction, but she’d be fine with Bea. Somewhat surprisingly, they’d taken to each other like ducks to water the first time they’d met. I couldn’t imagine what they had in common.

  Peter and I talked about all the usual things— cricket, Portia, Mother, Portia, politics, Portia—and then he surprised me by mentioning Sean. Not by name, obviously, because I hadn’t told him Sean’s name. But it was fairly clear who he meant by “your young rat-catcher”.

  “You do realise we’d be very glad to welcome anyone you’d care to invite along to visit us, don’t you?” he said with paternal firmness.

  “I’m not sure Laetitia would agree,” I muttered, kicking a fir cone ahead of me as we walked.

  The fir cone veered over Peter’s way, and he passed it adroitly back to me. “Hah. Your sister, I’m afraid, is very rarely pleased about anything approaching a change to the status quo. I don’t suppose you noticed at the time, but it was three years before she’d say a civil word to your mother.”

  I’d noticed, as it happened, only too well. “Oh, really?” I said politely.

  “But,” Peter continued, “I made up my mind when I met your mother, I wasn’t going to let Titty rule my life”—heroically, I managed to keep a straight face—“and I’m damned if I’ll do it now. Now, I don’t know what’s gone on between you and your young man, and I’m not going to pry. But if there’s any suggestion it’s to do with how he feels he might fit in here, you can tell him from me, that is not a consideration.”

  I didn’t quite know how to reply. Peter seemed to understand and gave my shoulder a fatherly pat. “Now, come along, let’s join the others and show ’em how the game’s really played, what do you say?”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed, and we jogged back over to the impromptu cricket pitch together.

  Presents were exchanged once we’d said our good-byes to the extended family and returned to Peter’s house. Both my married stepsisters insisted their children’s bedrooms were already bursting at the seams, and there was a tacit agreement that they and I didn’t know each other well enough to make the exchanging of gifts either meaningful or advisable.

  Laetitia, however, being unavoidably present at Peter’s house for the duration, had to be provided with a gift. I’d thought long and hard, panicked briefly but thoroughly, and eventually gone for a hand-painted silk scarf from a craft stall on the Shamwell village farmers’ market. Even if she hated it (which she would, as it was from me) it’d make a nice gift for someone else. Or, as might be, the local charity shop.

  Predictably, she received it with a cry of, “Oh, how sweet. Did one of your class make it?” but I noticed her trying it on in front of a mirror later on when she thought I wasn’t looking.

  Mother seemed pleased with the scent I bought her, and Peter professed himself delighted with his book on local history. For my part, I was equally happy with my beeswax polish and bottle of brandy (Peter) and pair of pyjamas and new bow tie (Mother). I was hopefully not too visibly irritated with Laetitia’s gift of a garish, trendy-looking designer shirt that was worlds away from anything I’d have worn, and in any case two sizes too large.

  As dusk fell, Mother, Peter and I settled down to play cards, while Laetitia had a loud, bitter-sounding telephone conversation in the next room. When she returned to the lounge, Peter made a point of making space for her on the sofa, which seemed to comfort her. She still spurned my offer of a jellied orange with a comment tarter than a candied lemon, so she couldn’t have been feeling too bad.

  At breakfast on Boxing Day, my phone rang, and I excused myself to answer it when I saw who was calling.

&nbs
p; “Rose? Merry Christmas.”

  There was no answer, save a loud, drawn-out sniff.

  “Rose?” I repeated, alarmed.

  “’Snuffing,” came indistinctly down the line, followed by another sniff.

  Initially confused, I managed to translate after a moment. “It clearly isn’t nothing. What’s the matter?”

  “Shitface.”

  I felt I deserved some sort of prize, perhaps from the cipher people at Bletchley Park, for working out she wasn’t, in fact, insulting me. “Your ex-fiancé? He’s been in touch?”

  “Came to Mum and Dad’s.” She made a strange noise, sort of halfway between a hiccup and a snort.

  “What, for breakfast?”

  “Last night, you twat. I’m back at home now. Couldn’t stay. Didn’t want to see him again.”

  “He’s got family near yours?”

  “Well, duh. How’d you think we met?” There was a withering sniff.

  “I don’t know, do I? You never mentioned how long you’d been together. I suppose I thought you’d met at uni. But what did he want? To get back together?”

  There was a louder sniff. “Bastard brought me a present. From Dubai. Said he hoped we could still be friends, oh, and he’s met this really great girl out there, here’s her picture, isn’t she fucking lovely? She’s round at his parents’ house right now.”

  “Oh, Rose…” I entertained brief and, to be honest, probably entirely unrealistic thoughts of going round to wherever the man lived and thrashing the living daylights out of him.

  “Three months since we split up. Three months…”

  Perhaps Peter might have an antique tyre iron he could lend me… “You’re better off without him. Quite clearly. Anyone who could treat you like that is not worth wasting tears over.”

  “Too sodding right,” she agreed. Then sniffed again. “When are you coming home?” Rose’s tone was more akin to one of her pupils enquiring after a much-missed parent than to her usual happy belligerence.

  I grimaced. “It’ll be a couple of days yet. I’ve got to go to the Fordhams’ Boxing Day Brunch tomorrow.”