A Very Big House in the Country

by Claire Sandy

  Out on the terrace, Clive was on the phone. ‘Today, Maureen!’ he said. ‘It has to happen today.’

  Everybody danced to Clive’s tune. Shen didn’t have a tune any longer.

  ‘Making a formal statement’ had turned out to be a disappointment for Evie. The police station smelled of Cup a Soup.

  A jaunty two-seater overtook her on the drive as she returned to Wellcome Manor, honking a cheerful salute as it slowed in front of the house.

  The front door opened. Paula appeared, beckoning to somebody behind her.

  Jon emerged into the brilliant sun, hesitant at first, then breaking into a run down the steps.

  Stepping out of her car, Evie recognized Miss Pritchett. Jane.

  ‘It’s you!’ Jon shouted.

  ‘It’s me,’ laughed Miss Pritchett, who was considerably foxier out of the playground.

  ‘Jon!’ Paula brandished a suitcase. The children had congregated, and Evie would remember with pleasure the amazement on their faces. Seeing their favourite teacher out of context was exciting enough, but add to that witnessing her soundly snog one of ‘their’ adults, and you had three stunned eight-year-olds straggling down the steps to mob their Miss P.

  Within minutes Jon was gone, laughter mingling with exhaust fumes as the racy little car tore off.

  ‘You did it, Paula!’ said Evie.

  ‘I’ve learned a thing or two about being sneaky these past months,’ Paula said. ‘I ferreted out Jane’s number and asked her to come right this minute and rescue Jon.’

  ‘That was brave.’ Especially as Paula was the least can-do person Evie knew – more a can’t-do person. ‘You rely on him.’

  ‘He deserves some ordinary happiness.’ She looked – really looked – at Evie. ‘The sort you have.’

  Evie wondered when she last thought of herself as happy.

  ‘I’m a single parent,’ said Paula. ‘I’d better get used to it.’

  ‘You’ve got us now.’ Evie slipped an arm through Paula’s, disregarding the tense physical reaction. ‘We look useless, but you’d be surprised.’

  ‘You’ve got your own lives.’

  ‘You’re part of them. Give in,’ said Evie. ‘You have friends, and they know the worst and they’re still your friends. Did Clive tell you he’s briefed his lawyers on your behalf?’

  ‘He’s so kind.’

  ‘He’s probably showing off; but, yeah, he is kind.’ Evie wanted to muss up this woman’s hair, goose her. ‘Carl’s locked up, Paula, but you’re walking about in the sunshine. Why not enjoy the feel of it on your face?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Paula with what, for her, passed as defiance.

  Another car turned up. Pink, gleaming, with Beauty by Maureen emblazoned on the side, it disgorged a small women with a toolbox. This was Maureen, and she announced that a nice man called Clive had hired her to ‘do’ three ladies. ‘Manicures, facials, massage – the lot!’

  Her satanic feet de-callused, her hands soft as Fang’s bum, her shoulders back from their extended trip to the top of her ears, Evie floated down to the pool to whistle up Maureen’s next customer.

  ‘Shen,’ she said, ‘you’ll never guess what’s waiting for you in the house.’

  Wordlessly, Shen got up and went indoors.

  ‘I prefer it when you shout at me,’ called Evie, tired of the cold shoulder.

  ‘Give up,’ said Clive. ‘She’s freezing me out as well.’ He rubbed noses with Fang as he wrestled her into water-wings, providing Fang’s dialogue as well as his own. ‘I’m a wubbly lidl baba!’

  ‘I don’t think,’ said Amber from beneath fourteen layers of suncream, ‘Fang would talk in that thoopid voice.’

  The holiday had healed over the wound. Zane dunked a noisily protesting Scarlett in the water as Tillie looked on, rolling eyes that by now must be almost rolled out.

  The other teens took their cue from Tillie. Evie worried that Tillie – so skilled at bottling up and putting her best foot forward – wasn’t showing her true feelings. The violence they’d witnessed was the tip of an iceberg. Tillie would need careful care.

  Evie sat and picked up Shen’s discarded Vogue, noting that Zane didn’t lay hands on Tillie. Sensitive boy, she thought, as she popped on Shen’s Moschino sunglasses. Twenty times as expensive as her own pair, with exactly the same sights through the lenses.

  Zane flopped down, shedding water like a dog. ‘Stepmama likes her luxuries, doesn’t she?’

  ‘She’s probably suffering Botox-withdrawal symptoms.’ Their local beautician depended on Shen to put her children through private school.

  ‘Not that she needs it.’ Zane lay back.

  ‘Oh, and I do?’ Evie enjoyed his twitch. ‘I’m teasing, Zane.’

  ‘I took your advice. Did you notice?’

  Young people’s healthy sense of self was breathtaking; as if she had time to notice Zane. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘It’s hard, taking it slow and steady.’ He spoke low, eyes closed, as the girls swam lazy lengths. ‘I want to tell her how I feel, you know?’

  ‘I do know.’ Evie felt, briefly, seventeen again.

  ‘I have so much shit to say, but none of it makes sense and she’s the only one I want to tell, but I can’t tell her.’ Zane opened one eye to look at Evie. ‘I wrote a poem. My mates would die laughing.’

  ‘Bet you anything your mates write poems.’ Evie riffled through the magazine, past leggy anorexics and ads for miracle cream and features about finding yourself: she normally found herself at the fridge. ‘Girls love that stuff, Zane.’

  ‘Even her?’ he scoffed, shading his eyes to watch Scarlett attempt an underwater handstand.

  ‘I know her pretty well, and she’d melt at a poem.’ So would I. Evie found mental space for a little outrage that nobody had ever written her a poem. Looking down at her thighs, she reckoned she’d passed her poetry-inspiring window.

  Zane covered his face, desolate, in pieces – your average young lover. ‘Trust me to fall for a goddess.’

  ‘Get in the pool and strut your stuff, Zane.’

  Desolate no more, he sprang up and jumped into the pool, knees hugged to his chest.

  ‘Zane!’ shrieked Scarlett.

  ‘Idiot!’ shrieked Tillie.

  Clambering out with Fang in his arms, Clive sent paternal evils Zane’s way, as he patted the baby dry with all the fussiness of an old lady drying a poodle.

  Head lolling, Evie closed her eyes, welcoming the attentions of the sunshine that slid along her skin like a lover.

  She patrolled her body, taking an inventory. How did that bit feel? What was that sensation in her tum? Was her head a little fuzzy because of the heat, or because of what was going on inside her? Each sensation was suspect. They could be innocent, or they could be foot soldiers of the invading army that was currently conquering her.

  ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,’ Evie had recited, in response to Paula’s exclamation, when she’d excused herself, yawning, halfway through a game of pontoon. ‘And a woman, too, hopefully.’

  The real reason for her early night wasn’t hope of health or wealth. Evie toppled like a tossed caber onto the bed and lapsed into a sleep so deep it verged on a coma. She was drained. Parts of her hurt; other parts were revving up to hurt.

  Woken by a muffled ‘Shit!’ from the pitch-darkness, she knew by that concise syllable that her husband had taken a little too much firewater. She pretended to be asleep.

  ‘Don’t pretend to be asleep.’ Mike sat heavily on the bed and shimmied awkwardly out of his shorts. ‘Do you realize, Mrs Herrera, we haven’t said a word to each other all day?’

  Evie made a non-committal noise.

  ‘Have you been avoiding me?’

  ‘Have you been avoiding me?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Well, there you go.’

  ‘No, Evelyn Herrera, there you go.’

  ‘What does that even mean, Mike?’

  �
�We need a serious talk. Like, a serious, serious talk about serious . . . um . . . matters, but off you toddle to bed. You always do this.’

  ‘I don’t always do anything. Besides,’ Evie pulled the covers petulantly and tipped Mike onto the floorboards, ‘you always do this.’

  ‘What?’ Mike scrabbled about on the floor, knocking over a pile of paperbacks. ‘Which this do I always do?’

  ‘You get drunk when you want to talk. There’s no point discussing anything with you in this state.’

  ‘You’re the one in a state, Evie. I’m fine.’ Mike stubbed his toe and she sensed his deep need to scream.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Evie frostily. She carefully nurtured her irritation; if she was irritated, she could turn away and go self-righteously back to pretend-sleep. If she dug deeper and diagnosed why Mike was drunk, she’d have to put on the light and talk.

  Mike stuck his foot in the small of her back as he climbed into bed and bashed his elbow in her ear as he pulled off his tee-shirt.

  DAY 13

  Sunday, 23rd August

  Dear All Next Door,

  The gerbils too? That is disappointing. RIP Mrs Hairybum and Keith. Yes, as you suggest, leave them out for the binmen.

  Evie x

  p.s. I’m a bit tearful now

  The second-last day of a holiday is too late to embark on anything too ambitious, but too early to pack. There was a pointless feel to the breakfast Evie cobbled together from what was in the fridge.

  Day thirteen of a fourteen-day break was, more or less, an ending; Evie didn’t like endings.

  ‘My mum,’ said Tillie, manfully attempting the Brie-and-fried-egg sandwich, ‘is already making piles to go in the suitcase. She won’t let me wear my favourite top, because it’s folded.’

  ‘I’m wearing these knickers for the second time around,’ said Scarlett.

  ‘I counted out enough for the fortnight,’ insisted Evie hotly. Any slur on her daughter’s knickers was a slur on her own maternal skills.

  ‘Well, Mother dearest, your knicker-maths needs work,’ said Scarlett.

  ‘What are you youths up to today?’ Evie made Patch dance, by holding up a nugget of Brie. She dropped it for the silly hound, which was as bad at dancing as he was at guarding, or not eating shoes.

  ‘Climbing,’ said Zane.

  ‘Maybe.’ Scarlett was schoolmarmish. ‘We said maybe climbing.’

  ‘We found a quick way to the beach.’ Zane ploughed ahead. ‘On foot. Right by the back-entrance.’

  ‘What back-entrance?’ Evie’s antennae quivered. She wasn’t sure she liked the teens venturing beyond the boundaries. Hastily she suppressed her fears: Venturing beyond boundaries is what teenagers do.

  ‘This old door in the wall at the bottom of the grounds,’ said Scarlett. ‘I don’t like heights, Zane.’

  Zane leaned over, eye-to-eye with her. ‘It’ll be cool.’

  ‘Sounds way cool,’ said Evie, watching Prunella effortlessly intercept every Brie bogey she tossed for Patch. That’s why the little dog was growing plumper. She hoped.

  ‘Oh, Mum, don’t,’ said Scarlett.

  They dribbled out, then dribbled in again, while Dan and Miles dribbled past, and Amber and Mabel dribbled up and down the steps. The day’s feet were stuck in molasses. Mike, looking as if he’d been dredged from a canal, haunted various rooms, curtains drawn against his hangover. Clive, his drinking partner, bustled about, industrious.

  In the kitchen Shen oversaw the teenagers’ preparations. ‘Why put your lunch in a horrible carrier bag when there’s a lovely wicker hamper?’

  ‘Why don’t you come with us?’ said Zane.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Scarlett, under her breath. ‘So you can tell us we’re eating our sandwiches all wrong.’

  ‘Have you even remembered blankets?’ Shen shook her head at their picnic-ignorance. ‘You can’t just sit on the sand like . . . like . . .’

  ‘People enjoying themselves?’ suggested Tillie.

  ‘Like homeless people, I was going to say.’ Shen snatched the knife from Zane’s hand. ‘You’re using too much butter. Let me.’

  Tillie and Scarlett shared a smile, and Evie, loitering by the door, barged in on the end of it. Scarlett leaned up to tie the taller girl’s scarf more securely around her up-do.

  ‘Go, go!’ Shen clapped her hands impatiently as the last cold can was dropped into the bag. ‘Here.’ She shoved a rolled-up blanket, blue-and-white chequered mohair, at Zane, who was already carrying most of the food. ‘And don’t complain,’ she said as his mouth framed a whine. ‘You’re a man. Act like it.’

  Tillie reached out and took some of Zane’s burden. ‘He’s a man, not a butler.’ She sounded amused. ‘I don’t need anybody to carry my stuff.’

  ‘I do!’ laughed Scarlett. ‘Zane!’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Heel!’

  ‘See?’ Zane shook his head sorrowfully, his voice low, as he shuffled past Evie, laden down. ‘She doesn’t take me seriously.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘And besides, she’s in love with somebody else.’

  ‘Nope.’ Evie shook her head, sure of her facts. ‘That other guy? Over long ago, and never really amounted to much. Not really. He means nada.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It’s an old ploy, exaggerating a rival to make you try harder.’

  ‘Come, slave!’ shouted Scarlett from the terrace.

  Scarlett’s tummy churned. ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Zane, his salesman-teeth gleaming. ‘Never had you down as a wimp.’

  For the past thirteen days the house had dominated, a friendly star omnipresent in her sky. Scarlett regretted losing sight of it, of going over the edge where the lovely solid earth ran out and plunged down to a curve of beach below. ‘The sun’s disappeared. We’re too high up. I don’t know where to put my feet.’ Skewered, helpless, on an expanse of crumbling white rock, she refused to cry. She refused.

  A few feet below them, Tillie called up, ‘Wait there. I’ll climb back up to you and help you go back. Zane, you’re moving way too fast for her.’

  ‘Freaks.’ Zane descended, surefooted as a goat, carefree as a tampon ad; to all intents and purposes, he was a goat in a tampon ad.

  ‘S’OK, s’OK.’ Tillie was placid as she helped Scarlett place her hands and feet.

  Flat to the ground at the top of the cliff, Patch sniffed his encouragement, tail thumping.

  ‘That’s it. Slowly does it.’

  ‘You’re good in an emergency,’ said Scarlett, as she hauled herself back onto scrappy grass, grateful for its horizontal nature and the reinstatement of Wellcome Manor on her horizon.

  ‘In my family,’ said Tillie, ‘you get a lot of practice.’

  A holler from the beach. ‘Scar! I’ve found a cave!’

  ‘I love caves,’ murmured Scarlett, peering over to see Zane waving frantically. She had a few small, secret places in her own home – a place that seemed like a dream now. Hadn’t she’d always lived out of doors, with the sound of the surf competing with the hymns of bees and the swish of trees?

  ‘There’s an easy way down,’ shouted Zane, pointing to steps hacked into the cliff face. He’d dropped his cool. He liked caves too, apparently.

  Tempted, Scarlett looked to Tillie. ‘The steps look do-able, even for me.’

  ‘But we’re supposed to be looking after The Eights.’ Tillie turned to go.

  ‘Come on!’ yelled Zane. His patience was tissue-thin.

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ shouted Scarlett.

  ‘I’m waiting!’ shouted Zane.

  Dan, watching from a handily flat, head-height branch, wondered if there was a way to stay aged ten forever. He dreaded being a teenager. They spoke in code all the time, just like adults.

  Order was returning, bit by bit, to Shen’s life. Thanks to Clive’s newfound vocation as a daddy, she’d had time to hit the gym/stable with a clear conscience.

  It had been a good session. As she stepped out into t
he sun, her hair wet and her muscles singing, she felt as if the tired extremities of her body had woken up.

  Tousled, a touch of the hobo about him despite the cost of his clothes, Clive was leaning against a greenhouse. When he spotted Shen speeding towards him, he shook his head, smiling. ‘Sorry, darling, you can’t tell me off for anything. Fang is fed and happy and in her godmother’s arms.’

  Shen pumped her arms, power-walking.

  Clive stood straighter. Pressed down his uncombed hair. Tried to shoot his cuffs, but they were too limp to comply. ‘Don’t start, Shen.’

  As Shen neared, determination blazing in her beautiful warrior face, he took a step backwards, holding up his hands.

  ‘In there!’ she ordered, pointing at the greenhouse. ‘Now,’ she added as he stared.

  She sprang at him, just as she had on their first date. Shen’s legs hooked around Clive’s waist, her mouth covering his as he staggered slightly to steady himself, and his hands found her bottom.

  They grappled the greenhouse door shut with fumbling hands. They tore at the relevant parts of each other’s clothing, lust calling the shots as they welded their bodies together. It was old-school sex, the way they remembered it from a distant past. They gasped. They growled. They knocked over some geraniums. They came simultaneously, with a fury that was all the more intense because neither dared cry out.

  Panting, they clung together for a while, their bodies cooling, their expressions asking, Where the hell did that come from?

  A scratchy sound disturbed them. Prunella looked out from behind a pot. Her eyes told them she’d never feel the same about them ever again.

  ‘Somebody’s happy,’ commented Evie, as Clive approached her on the staircase, singing like one of the nuns in The Sound of Music.

  ‘Somebody is,’ he agreed, skipping past.

  ‘Could you keep the noise down?’ Mike walked across the hall as if illustrating how a very, very old man might walk across a hall.