by Claire Sandy
Then the doctors had talked of ‘issues’. Evie loathed that word, such a catch-all. In Scarlett’s case – teeny, tiny, brand-new Scarlett’s case – the word meant uncertainties about her eyes. There were problems with their development; Evie had remained calm while they coolly discussed operating. All had panned out happily, but a year, then two, then three had passed and Evie was still at home. Happy to be there, of course, and over the moon that Scarlet’s eyes were healthy, but the glorious career had stuttered to a halt.
Two more babies, two more anchors. Beautiful anchors, yes. Beloved, longed for and cherished, but – like all anchors – they were heavy. That specific part of Evie that could only be expressed by creating something was locked away. Until she bashed out that first story.
Scribbling out the tale, her characters springing to lusty life, had felt like a new beginning, right at the tail end of the worst year of her life – the worst year of her husband’s life. It had given her back a corner of the world that was hers, and hers alone.
This was her last book; Lucinda Lash was about to hang up her thigh-high boots. There are only so many ways to say ‘willy’, and soon Evie wouldn’t need to make unlikeable blokes do things with the tip of a whip to mute, soppy girls.
She’d left her current characters, Clay and Roxana, mid-bonk. They were a lively pair, much given to sudden unbuttonings. Roxana’s breasts were cheerful creatures, always ‘bobbing’ or ‘bouncing’, while Clay’s untidy parts stiffened helpfully if Roxana so much as coughed. She caught up with them on the hood of a Jaguar convertible:
Clay thrusts again and again as she screams his name, her nails digging painfully into the solid muscle of his back.
A noise outside the gingerbread house made her look up, one hand instinctively slamming her laptop shut. This knee-jerk feeling, close to shame, was horrible: she lived in fear that Mabel or Dan would happen upon one of her characters’ proud members.
A rustling from the nearby patch of high grasses was insistent enough to coax Evie from her seat. ‘Hello?’ she said uncertainly, approaching the greenery.
The noise continued, turning to grunts. Parting the grass, Evie let out a shocked ‘Oh!’, then an appalled ‘Eew!’ Maybe the dogs had been reading her books; Patch had exuberantly mounted a placid Prunella, who seemed oblivious to the undignified kerfuffle at her rear end. ‘Off! Out! Stop it!’ Evie, glanced, paranoid, back to the distant house. ‘Patch, for God’s sake!’
Disengaging, Patch slinked away. Prunella trotted after him. No hard feelings apparently.
Thank God, thought Evie, that Pru’s been ‘done’. She’d have to flee the country if Patch made Shen a grandmother to a litter of non-pedigree, very stupid puppies.
Holidays are about surviving the gaps between one meal and another. Evie was as fixated on her dinner as a convict, or an OAP in a care-home. The others evidently felt the same; the question ‘What’s for dinner?’ had begun the moment lunch was tidied away.
The list of dos and don’ts was long. Amber couldn’t bear food of different colours touching; Mabel’s antipathy to carrots was well documented; Clive had the high standards of a man who eats out a lot; Scarlett didn’t know what carbs were, but believed them to be poisonous; Dan needed baked beans daily or he pined; and Mike didn’t believe dinner was dinner unless it incorporated meat and two veg.
As for Evie, she put her foot down and said, ‘Elizabetta isn’t cooking tonight.’ A noodle was a fine thing, and tofu was a noble beast, but neither of them was welcome at the table that evening.
A genteel battle began. ‘Fish,’ said Shen, tying a starched apron neatly around her middle. ‘Steamed fish in a herb broth.’
‘Lasagne,’ countered Evie. ‘With garlic bread.’ She noted, with some degree of grrr, how right Shen looked in this top-of-the-range kitchen, whereas she herself, worn out from three straight hours of fictional nookie, looked like the tramp who invented the trampoline. ‘Plus optional dough balls.’
‘Over my dead body,’ said Shen sweetly.
‘Fine by me.’ Evie crossed her arms.
‘Can I help?’ Paula had entered the room without a sound, and both women jumped at her question.
‘Actually,’ said Shen, ‘yes, you can. You decide. Disgusting, artery-clogging lasagne or delicious, heavenly fish?’
‘Lasagne,’ said Paula, with rare conviction.
‘Ree-sult.’ Evie tried to high-five herself: it wasn’t pretty, and the others pretended not to notice.
As Shen and Evie set to, opening packets, marshalling pans, switching on the oven, Paula moved to the doors and looked out. ‘I’m sure you’ll think I’m mad, but . . .’
‘But what?’ asked Evie, wondering why Shen was always standing in front of the drawer that she needed to open. ‘Shen, why are you using bottled water to wash the salad, you wasteful trollop?’
Paula pulled her shapeless cardigan about her, the only cardigan in service in the south of England on this blistering day. ‘I saw somebody.’
‘I use bottled water because I don’t trust taps,’ said Shen. ‘How d’you mean somebody, Paula?’ She prodded Evie. ‘Why are you boiling water for the pasta sheets in a pot? There’s a spout there that gives boiling water.’
‘I saw a figure. Out there.’ Paula lifted a wavering finger to point. ‘Watching,’ she added.
‘Who’s watching us?’ Mabel popped up from nowhere, Mrs Misterson II grasped to her chest.
‘Nobody, darling,’ said Shen, sharpening a knife.
‘A man,’ said Paula. ‘In the bushes.’
Shen and Evie shared an exasperated look. Apparently Paula had read some unusual child-psychology books.
‘A man in the bushes!’ Miles popped up too. Were there perhaps underground tunnels in the kitchen?
‘Paula’s joking, sweetie,’ said Evie.
‘If only I were,’ said Paula.
‘It’s probably a giant killer-fox!’ Miles put that out there.
‘Nothing,’ said Evie firmly, ‘is in the bushes, girls and boys.’
‘In films it’s always quite a dangerous murderer,’ said Dan, full of hope, as Amber shrank.
‘Or . . .’ Mabel pondered, ‘a mutant chicken! With ladies’ legs!’
‘Paula made a mistake,’ said Shen, firmly. ‘There are no murderers at Wellcome Manor, kids.’
‘Yes, I’m always wrong,’ said Paula, continuing to gaze out, like a neurotic guard dog.
Noting that Shen chopped tomatoes oddly (that is, not the way she herself would chop them), Evie approached the boiling-water spout with care, as if it might bite. ‘Lay the table, if you like, Paula,’ she said.
‘OK.’ Paula opened a drawer, closed it, opened another. ‘Um, which table? This one in the kitchen? Or the one in the orangery? Or the one in the drawing room? Or the one—’
‘The outside one,’ Shen barged in, evidently unable to bear an inventory of every table in the many-tabled house.
‘Shall I use a tablecloth? Where are they?’ Paula looked about her, lips compressed. ‘Wine glasses? Or . . .’
‘You know what?’ Shen swiped up some cutlery. ‘I’ll do it.’
The terrace table was laid in the blink of an eye. Evie added a jam jar of foliage. ‘It looks so inviting,’ she said, wrapping her arms around herself. It was seductive, this picture-perfect ‘lifestyle’ living.
The béchamel sauce cooperated. Evie stirred, enjoying the meditative nature of the chore.
‘Did you use semi-skimmed?’ Shen was as sharp as an SS officer.
‘Nope.’ Evie smiled. ‘Full . . .’ she luxuriated in the words, ‘. . . fat.’
The children floated in and out, the stuffing knocked out of them by the heat of the day and the sheer amount of running about they’d done. ‘I’m starving,’ repeated Dan, over and over.
‘A third of the world,’ Tillie said, hoisting herself up to sit on the worktop, ‘goes to bed hungry every night.’
‘Are they,’ asked Mabel, ‘on the 5:2 di
et?’
In a high chair, Fang kicked her butterball legs convulsively as she was fed, a spoonful at a time, by her nanny.
Scarlett was admiring Elizabetta’s latest bikini. The girl seemed to have a limitless supply of tiny fabric triangles. ‘Come and have a swim with us later,’ she said, conversationally. ‘It’d be nice to have a girl to hang out with.’
Evie, inwardly bemoaning her daughter’s clumsiness, saw Tillie’s head droop, just for a second, before it bobbed up again, her face carefully non-committal. Perhaps the two weren’t destined to bond, after all.
‘Thank you, but . . .’ Elizabetta’s answer was steamrollered by Shen.
‘Elizabetta’s working, not on holiday, darling.’
‘Oh.’ Scarlett pulled a face over at Tillie, who was looking at her book and didn’t notice. ‘Sorry. I guess.’ Then she jumped. ‘Christ, Mum, that lasagne is massive.’
‘Will it be enough, though?’ Staggering to the range with the bath-sized dish, Evie counted heads. ‘With Zane, there’ll be . . . um . . . fourteen of us.’ It was like being a Walton. A really posh Walton.
Shen didn’t answer; she was lost in watching Fang eat. Eyebrows up. Eyebrows down. Sudden hiccup.
Drawn in, Evie was mesmerized too, standing – tea towel limp in her hand – as Fang kicked and jiggled.
‘Getting broody?’ asked Paula.
‘God, no!’ Evie snapped out of it. ‘I’ve done my time down the baby-mines, thank you very much.’
‘Gee, thanks, Mum.’ Scarlett was touring the kitchen on the lookout for stray titbits; she liked to help herself to a ‘starter’. ‘Were we that bad?’
‘No, you were . . .’ Evie time-travelled for a moment, and Scarlett was one-third of her current height, with a dandelion head of hair. ‘You were wonderful,’ she said wistfully.
‘Eh?’ Scarlett moved off, allergic to her mother’s emotions, but not quite able to quench a small smile.
The grand front door slammed, and feet sounded in the hallway.
‘Is this,’ murmured Scarlett, doing her utmost to sound detached, ‘the famous Zane?’
‘No, it’s your famous father,’ said Evie, raising her voice to ask, ‘How was the cheese museum?’
The rhetorical nature of the question was lost on Mike. He told her how the cheese museum was; he told her at such length that he and Jon were still sharing dairy factoids as Shen’s shout of ‘Come and get it!’ sounded through the house and grounds, and the families converged on the long table on the terrace.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for Zane?’ In Evie’s worldview, food = love; she hated to think of a boy turning up to the debris of dinner, knowing that he’d been left out.
‘No,’ said Clive. ‘If he can’t be here on time, he doesn’t get to eat.’
‘He may have been held up,’ said Paula.
‘If there’s any holding up being done,’ said Clive, laying a napkin across his lap, ‘you can bet your bottom dollar it’s my son doing it.’
‘I’ll save him some.’ Conscience salved, Evie persuaded the lasagne out of the oven.
Chattering and pushing, the smaller ones beat the bigger ones to it. Tillie and Scarlett were at opposite ends of the table, until a jerk of Evie’s head sent Scarlett to the other girl’s side. Paula held out a chair for Jon, who only broke off from cheese-based banter to refuse the cold gin and tonic she held out.
‘I’ve got malnu-thingy,’ said Miles earnestly. His hair, usually as sleek and black as a surfacing seal’s, stood on end.
‘Me too,’ said Evie.
‘They let us stir some whey!’ Mike’s excitement was such that Evie pitied him.
‘Thank God,’ said Scarlett to Tillie, ‘we didn’t go with them.’
Knives and forks were snatched up, and Evie was just about to plunge a serving spoon into the lasagne when Clive stood and tapped a glass.
‘Not grace,’ said the godless Mabel.
‘A toast,’ said Clive, raising his glass. Ruddy-faced from a full day’s sod-all, he raised a beefy arm. ‘To the ladies. And their cooking prowess. And of course,’ he clinked Evie’s glass, ‘their beauty.’ He winked at her. ‘Blue suits you,’ he went on.
‘Does it?’ Evie looked down at her Primark top, snatched up en route to the children’s swimwear section. Silently she congratulated the two rectangles of cheap jersey for holding their own against Shen’s oyster-coloured silk camisole.
‘This looks amazing.’ Mike held out his plate. ‘Evie bashes out top-quality stodge.’
‘Why, thank you, kind sir.’ Evie privately preferred Clive’s compliment. As if there was a lock on that section of his brain, Mike was unable to comment positively on her physical appearance. When she agonized over what to wear on one of their rare nights out, taking pains with her headstrong hair and following a YouTube tutorial on Smoky Eyes, before presenting herself to Mike with a part-trepidatious/part-satisfied ‘Well?’, he would reply, ‘You look fine’ or ‘You look all right’ or, on one memorable evening, ‘Right, let’s go, or we’ll never get there.’
She held an unctuous scoop over Paula’s plate, which was swiftly snatched away.
‘Not for me,’ said Paula piously. ‘I hate lasagne.’
‘But you said . . .’ Evie hastily redirected the serving spoon to another plate.
Shen spat out a mouthful of Viognier. ‘Why the f . . . lip did you tell us to make it then?’ Never backward about being forward, she treated Paula to one of her full-on boggles.
‘Look at Mummy’s silly face,’ said Miles, slipping a tomato to Prunella.
‘Because Jon loves lasagne.’ Paula had half-stood. ‘I’ll make some toast or something . . .’ She was being vague.
Shen was not. ‘Oh, sit down, for God’s sake. I’ll warm some soup for you.’ Off she stomped on her high heels, illustrating perfectly the idiosyncratic mix of bad temper and generosity that Evie couldn’t help liking.
There was an awkward pause, punctured by Prunella coughing up a tomato, at some length, beneath the table.
A pattern was emerging. Just as they had last night, everybody congregated on the terrace after dinner had been cleared away.
Scarlett prowled with her returned iPhone held high, then held low, chasing reception, as if the phone led the girl, rather than the other way round.
The Browns segregated themselves from the cheerful card game at the table, preferring the loungers just outside the lanterns’ campfire glow.
Out in the black void of the garden, the children ambushed each other. ‘It’s carnage,’ said Evie, studying her cards and wondering once again why Lady Luck never sat on her lap, or even mouthed ‘hello’ across the room. ‘Why aren’t they tired?’
‘It’s Paula’s talk of something in the bushes,’ said Shen. ‘They’re all fired up.’
‘Later, though, there’ll be nightmares.’
‘Yeah, thanks, Paula.’ Mike slept nearest the door and would be the recipient of a small knee in the groin when Mabel crept into their bed.
‘How old do you think she is?’ Guessing people’s ages was one of Shen’s favourite pastimes. She loved collecting humans who were older than her.
‘If by “she” you mean Paula, keep your voice down,’ said Evie primly. ‘They’re feet away.’
‘Older than Jon, for sure,’ said Clive.
‘Unless he’s one of those infuriating Richard Madeley types,’ suggested Evie, getting drawn in despite her misgivings, ‘who looks thirty-seven all his life.’
‘I’ll find out,’ promised Shen, the bit now between her veneered teeth. Bending over to refill Evie’s glass, she said, ‘They’re not very physical with each other, are they?’
‘They wouldn’t, for example,’ said Clive, ‘do this.’ He slapped Shen’s appley buttocks with a resounding thwack and pulled her onto his lap, ignoring her half-serious screams of annoyance.
They were striking together: one so dainty, the other such a bull. Evie wondered how she and Mike seemed to the outside w
orld. Together for twenty years, and first loves (unless you counted a couple of false starts), were they now parents first and lovers second? Or were they barely lovers at all? The hand-holding had slipped in recent years.
Reaching for his hand, Evie was cheered when Mike put her fingers to his mouth and kissed them, his smile shunting dimples into each weathered cheek.
He leaned in and Evie bent towards him, anticipating a sweet nothing.
‘Go easy on the champers love,’ said Mike. ‘If Clive expects us to reciprocate, that stuff’s a hundred quid a bottle.’
Knowing the price of everything was a vibe-killer. Evie dropped Mike’s fingers and he picked up a booklet. She realized something. ‘Where’s Zane? It’s getting late.’
‘I haven’t had a text for hours.’ Shen didn’t seem concerned.
‘That door is getting locked, if he’s not here by the time we go to bed,’ said Clive.
‘You don’t mean that.’ Evie said it hopefully.
‘He does,’ said Shen, poking Mike. She was big on poking and prodding and general manhandling. ‘Your go.’
‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Mike threw down any old card.
‘What’s that you’re reading?’
‘A manual the owners compiled about the house.’ He squinted at the page, held it nearer to the candles. ‘There’s a gnome-reserve nearby.’
‘Be still, my beating heart,’ said Clive.
Ignoring him, Mike said, ‘Oh, and listen to this: “Enjoy Wellcome Manor’s beautiful grounds right through the night, with the sophisticated outdoor lighting system.”’
‘Maybe Paula will feel better with the lights on. Scarlett!’ called Evie, ploughing past the inevitable tut. ‘Put down your phone for a millisecond and see if you can find the switch for the outdoor lights.’
‘Where?’ Scarlett seemed bemused, as if light switches were obscure exotica that she couldn’t be expected to know about.