‘Do you know where the linen room is?’ asked Belinda, practical as always. ‘It’s the door just before Mitch’s.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t want to go down there just now, while they’re sleeping.’
‘Very considerate, dear,’ said Mary.
June joined them.
‘You’ve been a long time. What have you been doing? Did you find any more laundry?’ remarked Ruth, tartly.
‘Tidying my room. Making my bed. I like to treat other people’s belongings with respect,’ June looked accusingly at Ruth.
Belinda looked at her watch. ‘Does anyone want lunch? It’s well past one.’
‘And your son’s still in bed!’ June quipped acidly.
‘Quite normal, for a teenager. He’s on holiday, after all.’ said Ruth. She didn’t approve of it really but she was damned if she was going to let June criticise her family.
‘I’d like a cup of tea,’ said Elliot, tapping testily at the keys of his laptop. A wire connected it to the mains, so anyone walking from the Aga to the fridge had to walk all the way around the long refectory table. He had spread papers all over the table and was busy transferring figures from a file onto a spread sheet. His briefcase was open on the table, his spectacles case and a calculator too. He didn’t seem to care how much space he took up or how he might be inconveniencing other people.
‘I’ll put the kettle on, darling,’ Belinda stood up from the sliding the meringues into the Aga and reached for the kettle.
‘I don’t suppose it would occur to you to make Belinda a cup of tea?’ Ruth said cuttingly, to Elliot. ‘She hasn’t stopped all day.’ She wished he would take his self-importance and his laptop and his fussy files and figures away somewhere else. ‘Showing us all how important he is,’ she thought to herself, bitterly. She had brought her book down to read but there was nowhere she could sit which would not impinge on Elliot’s arrangements.
‘I don’t mind,’ Belinda said quietly.
‘I don’t know, Ruth. Would it occur to you?’ Elliot gave her a straight look across the room.
‘It might have done, after I’d finished washing your underpants and socks.’
‘Belinda’s only trying to look after everyone,’ remarked Mary, biting at her thread.
‘Not everyone,’ Elliot muttered waspishly.
Belinda steered a narrow course between the sparring forces in the room. ‘Well there’s certainly plenty to be done. I can’t do it all, of course. All the fires will need sweeping out and re-laying for tonight. Not that we’ll need them all, I don’t suppose, but it was lovely, wasn’t it, to have them all burning away so brightly last night?’
‘James did that,’ Mary put in. ‘Do we have to chop our own wood? We should have asked the men to bring some back for us.’
‘There’s plenty on the ground along the drive, I noticed. It will only need collecting.’
‘I don’t think my back’s up to chopping firewood,’ Ruth put in sullenly.
‘It’s a man’s job, really,’ June said, inspecting her nail varnish.
‘Well I can’t do it. I’m busy with this.’ Elliot looked at them all in turn, daring them to suggest that he ought to leave his figures for another time in the interest of the family’s warmth and comfort. ‘These are crucially important calculations for some really big quotes. I need Carole to get them into the post without fail on Monday.’ He looked round at them all. Everyone avoided his eye. ‘There’s a year’s business here!’ he exclaimed, ‘the business doesn’t run itself, you know!’ No one replied. Presently the kettle began to whistle and as no one got up to do it, Belinda began to make the tea.
‘How’s your health, these days, Ruth?’ June asked, settling herself into the armchair by the Aga.
‘Very indifferent, I’m afraid. I have a basket of ailments. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. But I try not to complain.’
Belinda set cups and saucers out on the table.
‘I’d have done that, if you’d asked,’ June said. ‘Except I was too afraid of disturbing Elliot.’
‘Don’t mind me,’ Elliot said. ‘No one else does.’
‘You work too hard, Ruth,’ commented Mary. ‘Couldn’t you reduce your hours?’
‘Not if I want to continue to feed my family, no.’
‘Surely James’ job pays something?’
‘Next to nothing, as you well know. Vocational work is a labour of love and brings its own rewards – not monetary ones, unfortunately.’
‘He is an extra-ordinary man to do what he does,’ Belinda said over her shoulder as she rinsed her hands.
‘Humph!’ ejaculated Elliot, to no one in particular.
Ruth couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘Wouldn’t you be able to concentrate better upstairs, Elliot?’ she burst out. ‘I thought Belinda mentioned there was a desk in your room.’
Elliot threw his biro so vehemently across the table that it knocked one of the cups off its saucer. Only its handle saved it from rolling off the edge and smashing on the floor. ‘Jesus Christ! What is it with you McKay women?’
The violence of his response shocked Ruth. She wasn’t used to being shouted at. She was certainly equal to a blazing row with Elliot and for many reasons would have relished the opportunity of one but from the corner of her eye she had seen Belinda jump at Elliot’s expletive and the crash of the cup. It had made her splash boiling water onto her hand. Something sounded a note of caution and instead of meeting fire with fire she said with surprising mildness, ‘Don’t be silly. You could have gone with the men if you didn’t want to stay with us. James asked you.’
‘I don’t seem to be welcome anywhere. And plainly my likes and dislikes have been utterly disregarded when it comes to planning the menu.’ Even in his own ears Elliot sounded like a sulky child. ‘Perhaps if I went home, that would be best,’ he concluded petulantly.
‘Oh Elliot!’ frowned Belinda as she ran cold water over her hand.
‘You’re just very touchy today, that’s all. I’m often the same, on the first day of a holiday. It takes us a while to wind down. Look at me last night! I was all over the place,’ Ruth soothed with unwonted self-deprecation. She risked a glance at Belinda who determinedly avoided her eye. She dried her hands and brought the teapot to the table.
‘I don’t want you to go home, Elliot,’ she said, pacifically, ‘but I wish you’d had a better night’s sleep.’ Mollified, Elliot retrieved his pen.
‘I am very tired,’ he admitted. ‘And I have worries which, like you, Ruth, I try to keep to myself. I used to be able to talk things over with Robert but now I don’t like to trouble him. There’s all this to be done,’ he indicated the files strewn across the table. ‘I probably shouldn’t have come at all, but I didn’t want to spoil things for the rest of you.’ There was silence while everyone considered the possibility that Elliot’s absence could have spoilt things.
‘I’m always happy to help, if I can, aren’t I, Elliot?’ June cooed complacently. ‘I’ve been in the business almost as long as Robert and there isn’t much I don’t know about it. There’s many a knotty little problem that we’ve unravelled together, isn’t there, Elliot? Shall I get the milk, Belinda?’
‘Well,’ Elliot demurred.
‘Please.’ Belinda poured the tea. ‘Two years ago, I’d have agreed with you, June,’ she said, ‘but Elliot has modernised the company so radically that I wonder, these days, whether you’re quite as up to speed as you used to be. I know I’m not.’
June bristled. ‘My dear,’ she said, pouring the milk into one of the cups, ‘I might not know the new accounting program quite inside out yet, but I know that some things, like family loyalty and common courtesy, not to mention human compassion, are still essential both inside the company, and out. Perhaps if I can teach others that, this week, I shall have achieved something. Now I think I’ll take poor Leslie a cup of tea.’ June swept a cup of tea off the table and stalked from the room.
‘That’s telling us,
’ said Ruth.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mary.
Belinda passed the tea and they all drank in silence.
‘How about that walk round the gardens, after this?’ Ruth asked, eventually. ‘I wonder if there’ll be anywhere to hang the washing out. That first load will be almost done.’
✽✽✽
The three women ambled around the paved pathways which dissected the well-dug vegetable beds. Brussels sprouts and several varieties of brassicas showed promise for being ready after the first frosts. Tall bean plants and raspberry canes still clung to wigwams of poles and the south wall was covered with espaliered apple, pear and plum trees some of which still bore fruit. In the greenhouse the leggy vines of tomato plants remained, yellowed, and ready for the fire. Belinda and Mary sauntered with animation, bending down to exclaim at leaves and squinting at plant labels every few steps. Ruth, who had no interest in gardening, felt restless, and wondered whether to make her excuses and simply go off for a good long tramp through the countryside. If only April was here, she thought to herself. We could walk around for hours arm and in arm and discuss the whole Miriam situation. Except, of course, if April was here, there wouldn’t be a Miriam situation.
Presently the subject came round to Heather. They all agreed that she wasn’t going to find it easy to adapt to motherhood. ‘Look at that situation this morning,’ Ruth cited. ‘Basically, she had no idea where her child was. It looked to me like she hadn’t even remembered she had one, until Mitch mentioned her name.’
‘Mitch had been up with Starlight all night,’ Belinda agreed, ‘whereas Jude and Heather had slept like logs.’
‘They’re very fortunate,’ Mary said, ‘to have that young man.’
‘I think he’s very fortunate to have them!’ Ruth cried. ‘Landed on his feet there, didn’t he?’
‘I don’t think he takes it for granted,’ Belinda put in. ‘I was thinking this morning how tenuous he must feel. It’s an odd arrangement, isn’t it?’
‘They have everything the way they want it,’ Ruth said, a hint of bitterness in her tone.
‘You make it sound as though they lead an indolent existence,’ said Belinda, bending down to examine a plant label, ‘I think Jude works very hard.’
‘He gets well paid for it,’ mumbled Ruth, ‘and he enjoys it.’
Mary rummaged in her pocket for a tissue and wiped her nose. ‘I don’t think she’ll find it any more difficult than we all did,’ she stated, going back to the topic of Heather. ‘It’s just that she’s started at a different stage. New-borns are hard, aren’t they? Look at your Rob – he didn’t sleep for months, did he? And poor Ben suffered with colic, I seem to recall. But by the time they were toddlers you’d both got on top of things. On one level, Ruth, you should be more sympathetic than any of us. Heather’s starting a whole new relationship with Starlight just like you had to do with Rachel. On top of that, there are so many things we don’t know about her past.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Ruth tartly. She was walking behind the other two - the path would not allow for more than two abreast.
‘I was lucky,’ Mary went on. ‘All mine were relatively easy as babies. I was on my own such a lot, your Dad worked such long hours.’
‘I hardly remember him,’ Ruth sniffed.
‘Nonsense,’ Mary said, over her shoulder, ‘you idolised him.’
They came through a small door set into the wall to find themselves in the courtyard behind the kitchen. Les, his iron-grey hair dishevelled, was in one corner near an enormous wood pile, wielding an axe, splitting logs neatly. He nodded, deferentially.
‘Afternoon, ladies,’ he said.
‘Has Robert woken up?’ asked Mary.
‘Yes.’ Les rested on the handle of his axe. ‘I’ve dressed him and June is sitting with him in the little lounge. I think that young man has taken the baby out in the pram.’
‘He’ll find it heavy-going up the drive.’
‘Thank you for doing the logs, Les,’ Belinda said.
‘Glad to help.’
They passed on into the formal gardens. The paths were wider here and Ruth came alongside.
‘Speaking of Starlight’s past, what I’d like to know,’ she said, ‘is where on earth this child has come from. Is she permanent, or just on approval? I haven’t been told that the adoption has all gone through, or heard mention of a social worker or anything. Forgive me, I know I’m a cynic, but there are processes to be followed, assessments, laws and so on. You can’t just spirit a baby out of thin air!’
‘I think Heather might disagree with you,’ Belinda laughed. ‘The way she talks, that’s exactly what she did with Starlight.’
‘I understood that she’d come from abroad,’ Mary put in.
‘Africa, yes. But how? Surely they had to have papers, permissions, a passport? If you ask me, the whole thing’s a bit fishy,’ Ruth said.
‘Oh dear, Ruth. I do hope not,’ said Mary. ‘Poor Heather would never recover if Starlight was to be taken away.’
‘Of course I wouldn’t like that to happen either,’ Ruth softened her tone. ‘But I’m a realist and you have to face facts.’
‘They are being very vague,’ Belinda admitted.
They’d reached the far end of the lawn and stood on the top of the small hill which ran down to the woodland where Starlight and Robert had been found earlier. From here the house looked splendid, many-gabled, a hexagonal tower at the corner romantic, the walls ancient and resilient. The back of the house was in shadow, facing east, and the shortening day was already turning the sky behind them a deep indigo. The sun hung above the house, glinting off the chimneys, and seemed to slip, even as they watched, into some hidden slot on the roof. From one chimney, a curl of smoke rose into the chill sky.
‘Good,’ said Belinda, practical as always, ‘Les has lit the fire in the sitting room.’
Ruth sighed. ‘I wonder who has wandered here before us and turned to look back on this view.’
‘Every holiday maker who comes, I expect!’ laughed Belinda.
‘But before them,’ snapped Ruth testily, ‘generations of men and women, children, nurses, estate workers, year after year, generation after generation...’ She pictured them in her head, a procession through time, the costumes differing as the centuries marched on but each connected to the other by some mysterious family vein - strings of genetic material which bound them, irrevocably, one to the other. But whether the cords were lifelines or fetters she could not say.
Belinda looked at her watch. ‘It’s getting on for four o’clock. Everyone will be back, soon. I expect they’ll want tea. I ought to go back.’
‘I’m getting a bit chilly, too. We’ve been out well over an hour.’
Mary and Belinda began to stroll back to the house, but Ruth remained where she was scanning the blank windows of the house. She looked with especial relish at her own room, ensconced in the hexagonal tower, and tried to conjure up ancient inhabitants, to see her own family somehow in the pattern of fathers and sons, heirs and ancestors. The other women disappeared through the gate into the courtyard and it was almost as though they disappeared into another era, so desolate and timeless did the house and garden seem now that they had gone. Suddenly Ruth felt cold, and shivered as though someone had walked over her grave, and she thought of April, and sighed once more and began to walk back to the house.
Then, behind her, she heard the thrash and crash of people in the undergrowth. She turned, and out of the woods tumbled Ben and his cousins, spilling with makeshift camouflage and impromptu weaponry onto the bright apron of lawn where the sunlight still remained.
✽✽✽
They all arrived back at more or less the same time. The men and the boys were full of all their escapades; the woods, the paths, the cliffs, the sea. They were ravenous and voluble and tore off their outer clothes and boots all talking at once. The girls, similarly, were full of their shopping expedition, bringing garments out of bags to show off.
Only gradually did they realise that there were strangers in the kitchen.
Belinda and June faced each other across the table with venomous eyes while Mary dabbed at hers with a sodden tissue. Granddad looked more lost and confused than ever.
Of Elliot there was no sign at all. A yellow post-it note on his laptop declared simply, ‘Gone out.’
‘Well, children,’ said Belinda, into the eventual hush, her voice like steel. ‘You’ll remember your cousin Sandra, I suppose, and Kevin, her young man.’ Belinda indicated the drably dressed, greasy-haired woman standing slightly behind June and her vacuous, buck-toothed companion.
‘And look, here’s your great granny McKay.’ Belinda turned to the armchair by the Aga and drew their attention to the shrunken, white-haired, be-whiskered figure who sat in it, clutching a large handbag to her flat bosom. ‘And let me introduce great granny’s friend, Mr Burgess,’ said Belinda, finally, pointing to the shabbily suited old man who stood behind the armchair blinking and opening and closing his mouth over toothless gums. ‘It seems that Aunty June felt that Grandma and Granddad’s family holiday could not be complete without them, and they have all been invited to join us here.’
‘Pleathed to meet you all,’ Mr Burgess said, smiling gummily. He clutched to himself a medium sized, very aged portmanteau. ‘Thethe are my thingth,’ he said.
‘Hello,’ the family chorused, uncertainly.
At that moment Rob entered the kitchen. His clothes were creased and his hair was a matted mess. It was plain he had not washed in the past twenty four hours. He had only just got up.
‘Is there anything to eat?’ he asked his mother, ignoring everyone. Granny McKay shot out of her chair with the energy of a woman half her age, and marched over to her great grandson. The top of her head came level with his chest and she stared up at him with blazing eyes.
‘Robert!’ she snapped. ‘How dare you come home in this state? I’ll teach you, you long drink of piss!’ She began to flail at him violently with her handbag. The protests of Belinda and Mary and of Rob himself did nothing to deter her and eventually only the restraint of Kevin and Les together succeeded in halting the attack.
Relative Strangers Page 19