‘I could have looked after Starlight,’ said Rachel. ‘And I would have had my dad here, after all.’
‘Jude and Mitch would have been alright, but I think Uncle Elliot and Miriam might have killed each other before the day was over!’ laughed Tansy. ‘Uncle Les could have taken Grandma home.’ She placed the cakes in the oven of the Aga and shut the door carefully.
‘Anyway,’ Ellie concluded. ‘I don’t know about us being friends, yet, really. We’re only just getting to know each other and I’m not sure I can trust either of you two, yet.’
‘Perhaps you only know if someone’s a friend if you can put it to the test,’ suggested Tansy, running hot water into the sink. ‘Maybe that’s what the family thing is all about; years and years of putting it to the test. Leave the butter out of the fridge, Rachel, we’ll need it for the butter icing.’
‘We could each tell a secret and then see if we keep them. Then we’d really know, wouldn’t we?’ said Ellie, brightly, jumping down from the table and carrying the bowl over to the sink.
‘Well… ’ said Rachel. She liked the idea of being trusted with a secret. She thought it would give her an opportunity, in her anomalous position, or proving herself both as friend and as family. On the other hand, her own only recently-discovered secret, or secret feeling at least, about her cousin Rob, could never never be told, and what good was any kind of friendship, she wondered, if it didn’t work both ways?
✽✽✽
In the flagged passageway, en route to the laundry room with Starlight’s soiled linen, Mitch was arrested by the conversation he could overhear from the kitchen. Their tone, at first, had caught his attention; their light, bright flutings and the hubbub of their cheerful activity; it seemed as though the absence of the adults had in some way released them. It was true that the day’s good humour had been characterised by a certain heavy, determined, self-conscious quality; the family had almost visibly girded itself in the face of June’s continued residency. Their quiet but concerted effort to hoist her on the petard of her own manoeuvrings had allowed her neither the dignity of retreat nor the solace of forgiveness. It had been almost noble, he thought, the way the family had handled it. But the effort of it had lent a certain shrill note which the girls, now, as they chattered and laughed, had expiated.
He liked the fact that they associated him with Jude; their fates, in the event of mass McKay internment, were indelibly linked. He liked the idea although his experience of such things argued against it. There was a limit to how far these associations, without what the girls called the ‘glue’ of family, could stretch. Like Rachel’s, his position with Jude and Heather was irregular.
But the most interesting aspect of the conversation he had overheard concerned Ellie’s continued distrust of her brother; it coloured her view of the whole family gene-pool. It was a shame, Mitch thought, as he traversed the hall. Clearly she did not assume that their unconditional support could be relied upon. Friendship, she implied, even amongst cousins, and, he inferred, especially concerning brothers, was something that had to be put to the test.
The study door was closed but from within the soundscape of continued carnage raged, and Mitch glowered. His plan, hatched in the small hours, still hadn’t been put fully in train. But it could be.
✽✽✽
The walkers trod through the silent wood. Its arching branches seemed to cocoon them from the elements above. Only the very uppermost branches shivered with the brisk breeze which drove white clouds like yachts across the blue-washed sky. A thick carpet of pine needles muffled their footfalls as they marched in single-file along the narrow, winding path. On either side of them the trees crowded into the distance, impenetrable and dark.
‘Ben said it was like being in Narnia,’ James said, over his shoulder. He spoke quietly. The wood was cloistral, demanding reverence. ‘He said we ought to look out for the lamp post and Mr Tumnus.’
Belinda laughed. ‘What a fanciful child he is!’
‘He lives in his imagination,’ Heather said. ‘There’s much to be said for it. One’s possibilities are enlarged.’
‘Do you think so?’ Belinda asked. ‘I’d have thought that in the end it will only lead to disappointment. Searching for things which aren’t there.’
‘They are there if he believes so,’ Heather replied, ‘but sometimes it’s only the search that matters. The finding can be anti-climactic.’
James chuckled. ‘Well he certainly enjoyed the search yesterday, for Wriggly, and the family tree.’
‘The family tree?’
‘Oh yes! Well, look around you. It must be here somewhere, mustn’t it?’
Belinda surveyed the trees, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them in this wood. Trees stood cheek-by-jowl; thin, reedy pines stretching up to the sun, dark-leaved hollies, rowan, dripping with blood-red berries, alder (or elder, she always got them mixed up). Unlike the woods on either side of the driveway, these seemed unmanaged. There was no evidence of coppicing or thinning, no blunt, sawn-off trunks, no sharpened, hacked limbs. These trees had been allowed to self-seed, they pushed and jostled amongst one another. Leaning trunks rested heavily on the shoulders of their neighbours, dead boughs decomposed and provided sustenance for their fledgling off-spring. Ivy and bramble scrambled unchecked amongst them.
She wondered what the McKay family tree would look like. It might be a solid, indigenous ancient English species with smooth, straight lines and an unblemished bark. It could be the source of wholesome fruits, giving shelter, providing the kind of timber which built houses and strengthened ships. On the other hand it might be twisted and gnarled, its bark pitted - blighted by some disease. It might be unable to cope in the modern climate, squeezed out by more virulent, insistent breeds. She pictured her family on the tree; living amongst its branches, sustained and supported by it like the Swiss family Robinson. Or, conversely, hanging from it, tangled in its canopy, caught up on its bony branches, impaled and bleeding on its thorns.
An echo from the morning’s service came back to her. ‘They nailed Christ to a tree,’ she said aloud.
‘Yes,’ James said.
They had come to the end of the path. The wood ended on a coarse-grassed plateau which sloped into sand and then into the pebbles of the beach. Heather gasped as she caught sight of the sparkling waves, and pushed past Belinda to hurry to the shore. Jude was already there, skimming flat stones across the water. Simon picked Miriam up and threatened to throw her into the shallows. Her screams were taken up by the seagulls which wheeled and dived on the wind above their heads. The boys migrated to the other end of the beach and began foraging in rock pools revealed by the retreating tide. Mary found a flat-topped boulder and rested, her face turned up to the watery sun.
‘Yes,’ James said again, turning to Belinda. It was no surprise to him that, with the family tree as their launching point, her thoughts had come to rest on the ultimate image of punitive self-sacrifice.
✽✽✽
The library fire was burning low and would soon require more fuel. Ruth gazed into the embers gloomily. The carafe of cranberry juice which James had left with her was also empty. She felt neglected and lonely. The pain in her stomach had subsided somewhat; it would appear that she was to be spared one of her more excruciating attacks. She had eaten some fruit and had two more cups of peppermint tea, and strolled with James up and down the terrace for a little while. Then she had taken two more tablets before James had settled her in this pleasantly sequestered room with a hot water bottle for her tummy. He had selected three or four books from the shelves for her to browse through and pointed out to her also the old-fashioned radiogram in the corner of the room in case she wished to listen to a play or some music. Then he had departed for a walk, leaving her alone and miserable. No one had come near her for the past hour although she knew from the noises around the house that there were people in the rooms enjoying themselves. She had heard the drawing room door open and June’s strident voice shouting, ‘No,
Robert, for God’s sake, you can only have one for his knob if it’s a jack. How many times do I have to tell you?’ before the door had been closed once more. In the far distance she could hear the violent explosions of Rob’s war game, and somebody somewhere was listening to some music. She wondered about going out in search of company but the tablets made her feel light-headed and she did feel almost comfortable; it would be silly to risk going anywhere. Perhaps she slept for a few minutes. Then Mitch and Starlight hurtled past the library door, Starlight shouting nonsense at the top of her voice and Mitch, presumably in pursuit, hardly more comprehensible. Presently she heard Muriel and Granny McKay pass down the corridor and enter the drawing room.
‘Oh here they are, Mother!’ Muriel said, brightly. ‘Playing cards. I’m sure they’ll deal you in. You like a game of cards, don’t you, Mother?’
‘Only if they’re playing for money,’ Granny responded sharply. ‘See if there are any shillings in the teapot.’
‘I’ve been abandoned with the weaklings and the idiots,’ Ruth moaned to herself, pushing away her hot water bottle. It had gone cold. ‘I might just as well not have come on this wretched holiday. No one cares whether I’m here or not. I could die in here of starvation or cold and no one would give a damn. James is cruel and selfish to have left me here alone. He should have stayed. He could have read to me. Even the children don’t miss me. April wouldn’t have left me alone. I miss her. Oh! I miss her so!’ A tear slid down Ruth’s face, then another, and she abandoned herself to a paroxysm of self-pity and grief.
✽✽✽
The self-obsessed, depressive meanderings of Suicide Pact comforted Rob; their black mood suited his exactly since he had logged on to the internet and downloaded his messages. Caro, the bitch, had emailed him with a tirade of abuse, asking him who the hell he thought he was anyway and telling him to fuck off, and Rob couldn’t really blame her when he read the email he was supposed to have sent to her. The fact was that someone had hacked into his system and was sending stuff in his name, and had also, according to his website browsing history, visited a number of really filthy sites. Basically, he was being set up, and when he found out who was doing it he’d kill them. He could only assume that whoever it was knew about his music scam and it was only a matter of time before he’d be for the high jump, something he really now wanted to avoid as he was just beginning to get things going with Jude. Only that lunchtime they’d been discussing music and opportunities in the music business and Jude had responded quite favourably to the idea that Rob might come down to London in the Easter holidays and shadow him for a few days at Ad Hoc.
Things had just been beginning to look as though they might be bearable and now this. Suicide Pact sank into an oblivion of despair and Five Mile Pile Up crashed with metallic screeching onto the speakers. Rob sat and chewed his fingernails and wished he had a joint, or dared to steal his mother’s car and just drive away and burned with anger as he turned over in his mind who could be responsible. It boiled down really to just one person; Ellie. She was the only one who might dare to do it and have the know-how to carry it off. She had the incentive, too. She would have wanted to nose around to see what Caro was saying and might well have decided to get him into trouble. With all the down-loaded music and the CD covers on his computer there was enough trouble to bury him a dozen times over. Well, if it was trouble she wanted she had come to the right place. Angrily, he pushed his chair back and stalked out of the study, leaving Five Mile Pile Up wreaking audio-carnage in the empty room.
Tansy was lifting the cakes out of the Aga; they were golden and beautifully risen. She put them to cool on a wire rack on the kitchen table. But the heat from the oven had made Rachel feel funny; the hiss and crackle in her ears had taken on a visible form; she felt as though she was looking at an artist’s interpretation of pins and needles tattooed onto her eyeballs. She sat down heavily in the comfortable chair by the Aga.
‘You don’t look very well, Rachel,’ Tansy observed. ‘Are you feeling alright? You’ve gone all white.’
‘Are you due on?’ Ellie asked, looking up from the table where she was adding a second coat to her nails.
Ellie’s question made everything crystallise in Rachel’s head. ‘Oh no,’ she thought to herself miserably, ‘not here, not now.’
Just then Rob strode into the room. His face was as dark as thunder. His hair was gelled into indignant bristles.
‘I suppose you think that’s clever?’ he snarled at Ellie, grabbing her arm and jerking her to her feet.
‘Ow! Stop it! What?’ Ellie protested. ‘Be careful, you idiot. You’ll make me spill the varnish!’
‘You’re too late!’ Rob crowed. ‘She’s already told me your filthy little secret, so your pathetic attempts to screw things up haven’t achieved anything!’
‘Caro’s told you?’ Ellie herself looked as white as a sheet now.
‘Yep. Sang like a bird.’
‘Come on now, you two,’ said Tansy, like a mummy.
‘But Rob, you don’t understand,’ Ellie began, her voice trembling. ‘What Caro thinks she knows isn’t...’
‘Don’t make me laugh!’ Rob interrupted, smiling cruelly. ‘Now whatever you had planned, you’d better forget it, because I can do you far more harm that you can do me!’
‘I haven’t got anything planned!’ Ellie shrieked, struggling to wrest her arm from Rob’s grip. ‘Stop it, will you, you’re hurting me!’ Rob grabbed her other arm and began to shake Ellie like a doll.
‘You’ve been nosing in my computer and sending emails and stuff. Trying to get me into trouble, you little bitch, you’ll be sorry…’
‘No, I haven’t!’ Ellie managed to gasp out.
Rachel jumped to her feet, seeing everything in black and white, and barely able to hear what was going on for the incessant crackling noise in her head. She saw Tansy cross the kitchen and take Rob’s arm. He flailed out at her and knocked her into the table. The cake, on its cooling rack, span off and bounced on the floor. The three of them were shouting but Rachel couldn’t hear anything, their mouths were moving in ugly shapes, then vision too began to sink and blur into a crowding blackness; all her insides were draining away from her. She knew she would fall, and nothing could stop it. She keeled forwards and the rush of white noise in her head exploded when her head hit the corner of the table.
Rob and Ellie were arrested mid-sentence. Rob went waxen. He looked down at Rachel. ‘I never touched her! I never touched her!’ he kept repeating. ‘This is nothing to do with me.’
There was blood everywhere, pouring out of the cut on Rachel’s cheek bone, smeared on the floor, spattered on the remains of the cake, and seeping, too, into the material of her jeans from between her legs.
‘Oh God! Oh God! What should we do? What should we do?’ gasped Ellie, backing away from the table. Rob moved with her, his grip on her arm which only seconds before had been possessive, punishing, now seeking and providing support. They cowered together, all enmity forgotten.
‘I think she’s fainted,’ said Tansy. ‘Rob, go and get Ruth. She’s in the library.’ Roused, Rob sped off up the corridor. Tansy pressed a clean cloth to the cut on Rachel’s face. Ellie stood back and wrung her hands. ‘She’s bleeding, she’s bleeding,’ she kept repeating.
‘Yes, yes,’ Tansy said, quietly.
Ruth, befuddled by pain killers, coped with a detached efficiency with the situation which presented itself to her in the kitchen. She sent Tansy to telephone Dr Gardner who had kindly left them his number in case of emergency, and Ellie to find an old towel or sheet ‘or anything to cover her up.’ She didn’t know whether to put Rachel into the recovery position, which would be appropriate for someone who was unconscious, or to lift her feet above her head, which would be right for a faint. While she dithered, Rachel moaned and lifted her head up. Then she began to cry.
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Ruth admonished gently, ‘you’re perfectly alright.’
Ellie came back i
nto the room with Mitch and Elliot. Rob shot a look at her, still ashen-faced and shaking. They lifted Rachel back into the chair, which had been spread with towels. When Rachel saw the state of her clothes, she began to cry even louder.
‘Poor thing, poor thing,’ soothed Tansy. ‘The doctor’s coming.’
‘I want my… dad,’ Rachel managed to sob out, hiding her head in her hands. One side of her face was wet and slimy-warm. When she looked at her hand it was slick and red with blood. ‘Oh God! Oh God!’ she choked out. All these people staring at her, and all the blood, especially the blood on her trousers, was just too much. They would all know, they would all be laughing. She didn’t dare lift her eyes.
‘Who typically, isn’t here, just when we need him,’ Ruth commented. ‘Keep your head up, Rachel! Don’t touch that cut. You might get germs in it.’
Mitch ran hot water into a bucket. June arrived, having abandoned her mother and brother in order to enjoy what was plainly a crisis, and one which, for once, didn’t have her at its centre. Muriel followed closely behind in case she could help. Roger, in her wake, set to work on the cake.
‘We ought to bathe that cut. Is there any iodine?’ Muriel said.
‘Dear me! No one’s used iodine in years!’ June exclaimed derisively.
‘We’ll just wait for the doctor,’ said Ruth quietly.
‘Perhaps someone would like to explain how this happened,’ Elliot blustered.
There was a beat. Then Rachel said, ‘I just fainted, that’s all. I’ve been feeling funny all day.’ With an extreme effort, she raised her eyes to Ellie, and then, with more difficulty, to Rob. One of her eyes was swollen, her hair on that side was matted with blood which still oozed from the cut on her cheek and was soaking the cloth which Ruth held against her face. She hoped she had proved to each of them that she could keep a secret, even though she had only the vaguest idea about the cause of their vitriolic exchange.
Relative Strangers Page 29