‘So they say.’
‘Bit strange, to just stop writing like that. Suppose she made so much money she didn’t have to bother finishing the series? All right for some, eh?’ The man must sense her mood because he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he steers the car up the narrow lane until the slate roof of Windfalls comes into view and they are driving through a wooden gate and parking behind a white truck with the words ‘Main Event Marquees’ written in tall, red letters across its side. The vehicle’s rear doors hang open, revealing a bare interior, nothing but a few blankets and a toolbox. There is no one in sight.
‘Someone’s planning a party.’
‘Yes. A wedding.’
‘Ah, who doesn’t love a good wedding?’
Who indeed, thinks Margot.
Whenever she has thought of her home in recent years, it has always appeared strangely colourless in her mind. She’s imagined walking into a landscape of muffled grey, blank sky merging with muted earth, everything wrapping itself around her like a suffocating blanket. But here the sky is royal blue, the breeze brisk and warm, and the valley is spread before her in a tapestry of early autumn colour, leaves turning from glossy green to amber. The sun is beginning to settle upon the tips of the horse chestnut trees where the frayed rope swing of her childhood drifts idly in the breeze. Behind the tree, the Bath stone farmhouse glows golden in the light, its windowpanes shining like mirrors. Even with her sunglasses on, the world seems too bright, too intense.
Margot pays the driver, picks up her bag and takes the gravel path winding around the side of the house, past overgrown hedgerows and flowerbeds badly in need of a little care, before entering through the back door into the large flagstoned kitchen. She stands for a moment in the quiet of the house, taking in details so ridiculously familiar it seems impossible she had forgotten them all until now. A colourful crocheted tea cosy slumps over a teapot near the kettle. A terracotta bowl filled with fruit sits on the scrubbed oak table, a fly crawling over the browning skin of a pear. She sees a worn wooden chopping board covered in breadcrumbs, half a loaf, going stale in the afternoon sunshine; dirty lunch dishes stacked by the sink. Faded cushions sag on the window seat, above which is pinned a corn dolly she remembers Lucy buying at the village harvest festival many years ago. There is a huge stack of unopened letters – her mother’s unanswered fan mail, by the looks of it – heaped by the telephone, and a box of books, reprints from a foreign publisher, ripped open then simply left to prop open the door into the hall. She breathes it all in and closes her eyes, the slight thud of her headache picking up pace.
A clock on the drawing-room hearth ticks to the beat in her head. On the velvet sofa an ancient black cat lies curled in a small square of sunshine. She scratches behind his ears. ‘Hello, Pinter.’ The cat opens one rheumy eye and rewards her with a purr before sinking back into sleep. She reaches for an old cushion, threadbare and embroidered with painstaking cross-stitch into the image of a rose, and watches the dust motes rise up and circle in a shaft of light. A glass vase catches the sun, revealing its thin layer of grime. Everywhere she looks there are piles of paper teetering on surfaces, dusty corners and cobwebs strung in high places, plants that need watering and books standing in perilous stacks. She can’t help admiring her mother for her dogged there-are-more-important-things-in-the-world-than-cleaning attitude. Kit has never been one to bend to social convention and it seems not even the imminent arrival of a horde of wedding guests will change that.
A tray of mugs stands abandoned on the coffee table next to a hastily scrawled list written on the back of an envelope. Margot picks up the piece of paper and reads the words written in Eve’s careful handwriting:
catering numbers – confirm with R napkins
glass hire
photographer
extension leads
jam jars
flowers – check with S
batteries
fairy lights
confetti
Margot?
She scans the list before reaching down to swipe the last biscuit from a plate on the tray. It doesn’t escape her notice that she is last – well below such frivolities as fairy lights and confetti – and marked with that wary question mark.
The house feels like a stage, awaiting its players, curtains ready to swing open. Rather than break the stillness by calling out, she makes for the staircase.
Upstairs, the sun falls onto the landing through gabled windows, forming slanted squares of light on the floorboards. Margot steps through them like a child playing hopscotch. She passes the door to her mother’s bedroom, glimpsing the scarlet-flocked wallpaper, the heavy velvet curtains and the huge bed, rumpled and unmade. Another pile of teetering books stands on the bedside table, a dressing gown lies in a pool of silk on the floor. There is no discernible evidence of the room ever once having been shared with their father. She ignores the curved stairwell leading up to the turret room on the second floor where Kit has now made her office and heads on instead past the door to Eve’s old room, then Lucy’s, almost certain she can catch the faint scent of joss sticks and CK One still hanging in the air.
The house is so laced with childhood memories – pictures, scents, familiar objects – that by the time Margot reaches the far end of the corridor, she feels a little strange, almost light-headed, as though her feet don’t quite connect with the floor beneath them. It is as if she is floating a few centimetres off the ground, as if she has travelled not just the length of the country but somehow stepped back through the fabric of time, crossed an intersection as fine as gauze, returning to a past she’s tried hard to forget.
She hesitates. A night of broken sleep followed by the long trip south makes the thought of her old bed an appealing one, but still she lingers, reluctant and perhaps even a little afraid to close the gap between past and present. What does she fear is behind that door? Her old life? An earlier incarnation of herself? The girl who dropped out of school, packed a bag and left home at sixteen?
After the brightness of the landing, it takes Margot’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light inside the bedroom. The curtains are half-drawn, only a thin triangle of sunlight falling through their opening, but as she focuses, she is alarmed to find that her bed is already occupied. A figure lies on the pillows, arms outstretched, eyes closed. Blonde, not dark. Not the spectre of her old self, but her sister, Lucy, lying strangely formal – almost corpse-like – on top of the bedcovers. Beneath a familiar-looking denim jacket, her sister’s floral dress flows out across the bed and seems to blend with the tangle of flowers climbing the wallpaper. Looking at her, Margot is reminded of a painting she once wrote about at school, of a woman floating on the surface of a river. Millais’ Ophelia. She dredges the painter’s name up from the depths of her brain, surprised to remember it.
In the half-light, Lucy is pale, her limbs angular, almost birdlike, her skin a luminous white. Her long, fair hair flows in its usual wild tangle about her. Lucy opens her eyes and stares at Margot, expressionless. For a split second, Margot is reminded of the girl from the train – her wide, curious gaze – and then she is gone, replaced by the adult Lucy lying on the bed. Her sister’s face shifts with recognition. ‘You,’ she says.
Margot nods. ‘Me.’
Neither of them say anything else for a long while. Margot stands by the door, a small smile breaking at the sight of her sister’s stunned face.
Lucy seems to gather herself. ‘So are you going to stand there staring at me like a weirdo, or are you going to come and give your favourite sister a hug?’
Margot’s smile widens. She walks around and perches on the edge of the bed. ‘Hello, stranger.’
‘Hello, you.’ Lucy grins. She wrestles herself into a cross-legged position on the soft mattress so that she can hug Margot, pulling her close. ‘Am I the last to greet you?’
‘You’re the first.’
Lucy shoots a guilty glance towards the garden. ‘Eve’s going to be in such a strop
. She’s had that tight-lipped look – you know the one she gets – ever since I told her Tom and I are getting married.’
‘And when exactly was that?’
‘Sunday.’
‘A wedding in a week.’ Margot laughs. ‘Poor Eve. You sure know how to send her into a tailspin.’
Lucy throws up her hands. ‘I didn’t ask her to take over. I keep telling her it’s supposed to be a low-key party, something fun and thrown together, but you know what she’s like. Bloody Martha Stewart. According to Eve, it’s not a wedding if you don’t have mountains of flowers and food, a cheesy DJ and a fancy three-tier cake.’
‘So Eve’s your official wedding planner?’
‘Self-appointed wedding planner.’
‘And here you are … lazing around without a care in the world … in my bedroom,’ she narrows her eyes, ‘wearing my denim jacket, while everyone else slaves away for your big day!’
Lucy shrugs. ‘I’m hiding. And the jacket looked lonely. It was hanging there on the back of the door. I bet you can’t even remember the last time you wore it. I mean, look!’ She reaches into the jacket pocket and pulls out a packet of Marlborough Lights and a box of matches and throws her an amused look.
‘Give me those,’ says Margot, taking them from Lucy and moving across to the window seat set into the alcove, pushing the glass pane open.
‘They’ll be stale,’ warns Lucy, but Margot doesn’t care. She sparks up and takes a long, slow inhale before blowing smoke though the open window, offering the cigarette to Lucy as she settles beside her. ‘No thanks.’
‘Sorry, I forget you’re wholesome yoga woman, these days.’
‘Anyway,’ Lucy exclaims, whacking Margot on the thigh, ‘what the fuck! You’re here!’
Margot nods.
‘You didn’t think to reply to our messages? Send warning? Smoke signals?’
Margot shrugs. ‘I thought it might be best if I just came. You said you needed me.’
Lucy smiles and squeezes her arm. ‘I’m so pleased. My evil plan worked.’
‘Your evil plan?’
‘Yes, it’s brilliant, don’t you think? Throw a last-minute wedding and force you home for an overdue reunion.’
‘Brilliant,’ replies Margot drily. ‘Though some might say a little extreme.’ She narrows her eyes. ‘So what’s the big hurry?’
Lucy waves her hands. ‘You know me. I’ve never been much of a planner. Besides, I didn’t want to give you too long to think about it, did I? I know what you’re like at finding excuses not to come back.’
Margot, noticing how neatly her sister has dodged the question, directs another stream of smoke out of the window and adjusts herself on the seat. ‘So, tell me, how did Tom convince you to settle down to a life of wedded bliss?’
Lucy hesitates. ‘It was me. I asked him to marry me.’
‘Wow. That’s brave.’
Lucy shrugs. ‘I love him, Margot.’
Margot nods. ‘I’m no expert at relationships, admittedly, but that’s probably the best reason.’ Margot looks out the window, at the trees standing in the orchard. She sees the river glinting below in the valley. She lifts the cigarette and takes another long drag, hoping the shaking of her hand isn’t as obvious to Lucy as it is to her. ‘I saw the marquee van out on the drive. Looks like it’s going to be quite the “do”.’
‘Mum and Eve might have gone a little overboard.’
‘I’d always imagined you more as the eloping type. Perhaps an Elvis chapel in Vegas, to avoid all the fuss?’
‘Me too.’ Lucy hesitates and Margot waits, sensing there is something else.
‘But Windfalls feels like the right place,’ she continues, after a moment. ‘The only place. The wedding is a good opportunity to get everyone back here, together. When was the last time we saw you? Dad’s sixtieth?’
Margot nods. ‘Don’t remind me.’
‘I’m sure everyone’s forgotten by now.’
Margot hasn’t. She can still remember the sickening sound of shattering glass as she’d fallen through the glass table at the hotel they’d celebrated at. She still has the scar on her leg as evidence of her horrible, drunken fall, when she’d disgraced herself by drinking far too much, toasting their father with an inappropriate speech, then stumbling into the glass coffee table – an expensive antique that their father had picked up the bill for.
‘Anyway,’ Lucy continues, her face earnest and open, ‘I want all of us together. It’s important to me. And I think it’s time you and Mum sorted your rift out, don’t you?’
Margot doesn’t answer. Your rift. Was that how it was being talked about these days? ‘Have you invited Sibella?’
Lucy nods. ‘Of course.’
The thought of Lucy forcing them all together and expecting Happy Families is almost laughable. ‘You’re a braver woman than me.’ Margot takes another deep drag on the cigarette. ‘I’ve been following your Instagram feed,’ she says, changing the subject. ‘Headstands and motivational memes. Quite the inspirational cocktail. You’ll be giving TED talks next.’
Lucy laughs. ‘These days I barely have time to teach. I’m too busy managing the studio. Besides, Instagram – Instasham. Don’t trust everything you see on social media. I’m afraid all that stuff comes with the territory. If you’re in the health and wellness industry you have to promote the right image – live the dream.’
‘So business is good?’
‘Booming. I’ve taken on more teaching staff to keep up with the demand.’
‘You have staff?’
Lucy nods. ‘And a new studio in Bath, a warehouse space right on the river. I’ve had to step back a little though … to concentrate on the marketing and operations.’
‘Operations.’ Margot gives Lucy a begrudging look.
She shrugs. ‘It’s not all green juices, quinoa and active wear, you know.’
‘No. I can imagine.’ Margot narrows her eyes. ‘You look tired. You’re working too hard. Or is it pre-wedding nerves?’
‘Bit of both,’ says Lucy, gazing out at the garden. ‘But what about you? You’re still in Edinburgh?’
Margot nods.
‘As far as you could get from this place?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Last I heard you were working in books?’
Margot bursts out laughing. ‘Is that what you heard?’
‘Yeah. Eve made it sound important. We thought you might be following in Mum’s footsteps. What? What’s so funny?’
‘God love Eve. I sit at a desk five days a week and scan books in and out of the local library. I’m an awesome re-shelver.’
‘Well, someone has to put the books back in the right place.’
‘True.’ Margot smiles, but she can’t help feeling inadequate next to Lucy’s achievements. She’s not done too badly, for a sixth-form school dropout who’d left home with no real plan and just a few hundred pounds’ savings in the bank. She’d hung around in London for a while, falling in with a bedsit crowd who had let her doss in with them and shown her how to work the benefits system, until eventually, tiring of the constant hustle and the expense of the capital, she’d packed her meagre belongings and headed north. After a few months of hitchhiking, she’d washed up in Edinburgh.
There had been something about the Scottish city that she had fallen for. She had loved the historic architecture, the winding alleys of the Old Town and the sight of the castle presiding high over the city. She’d spent a year or two waitressing in cafes, until one afternoon, sheltering from the rain in the Central Library, she’d noticed a bulletin on the noticeboard advertising for a library assistant. She’d somehow talked her way into the job and had worked there ever since.
After the pace and uncertainty of the previous restless years, it had proved to be something of a refuge for her, with its quietness, its easy escape to other worlds and places. She’s a favourite too with the kids at story time, acting out scenes and putting on funny voices to make them laug
h. Though it hasn’t escaped her notice that barely a day goes by that one of her mother’s books isn’t loaned or requested on order. Every time she scans a K. T. Weaver volume through the system, she feels a strange stirring of pride and pain. She’s come to think of it as a form of personal torture.
‘So you’re happy up there? Are you seeing anyone?’ Lucy asks, her curiosity obviously piqued.
Margot shrugs. ‘No. Well … no.’
‘You don’t sound sure.’ Lucy waits expectantly, then adds, ‘You could have brought them with you.’
‘No. It’s better like this. Your invitation was perfectly timed.’
Lucy waits, but Margot doesn’t want to elaborate. She stubs the cigarette on the outer edge of the peeling window frame before flicking it down into the overgrown flowerbed below.
‘It’ll be all right, won’t it?’ Lucy asks suddenly, her fingers worrying the fabric of her dress. ‘I’m not completely mad, wanting to do this here, at Windfalls?’
‘No.’ She says it with more conviction than she feels. ‘Not completely mad.’
‘You see, the thing I want most of all is for everyone to get along. I want us to feel like a normal family,’
Margot can’t help her dry laugh. ‘A normal family?’ At the sight of her sister’s crestfallen face, she softens. ‘Luce, I’m here, and I’ll support you in whatever way you need.’
Lucy hesitates. ‘Good, because I thought we might mend a few bridges.’
Lucy is gazing at Margot with such an earnest expression that Margot feels the weight of it like bricks on her shoulders. ‘If you’re thinking about Mum and me, you might need to let that fantasy go.’
‘If you two just sat down and talked … if you tried to explain? We all make mistakes.’
‘You always were the most impossible optimist.’ Margot sighs. ‘I can’t promise a heart-warming reunion, but I do promise to stay away from all sharp blades, flammable items and breakable objects. Who knows, Mum might even surprise us for your Big Day and wear proper clothes!’ Lucy can’t help smiling at that. ‘I’ll be the model sister, I promise.’
‘Thank you.’
The River Home : A Novel (2020) Page 2