‘I heard a lot of shouting,’ Elliot said, narrowing his eyes.
‘We all panicked when she fell over,’ Tansy said quietly.
Suddenly the room was crowded with people. James, full of alarm and concern. Toby, ravenous for cake, turned grey at the sight of the blood. Todd, looking confused, was flapping a sheet of paper he had found in the downstairs toilet at his father. Belinda took in the situation at a glance and got busy with the kettle. Ben, silent and queasy, squeezed Rachel’s arm, the only bloodless bit of her he could gain access to in the flurry of attention and activity which surrounded her, before slipping off to the piano.
At last, abnegated of responsibility, Ruth sank down on the floor next to Rachel’s chair. ‘Look what happens,’ she said cuttingly to James, ‘when you leave me on my own. You know I’m not well enough to cope with this kind of thing. How could you? How could you?’
‘I know. I’m sorry,’ said James.
Dr Gardner, bearing his medical bag, soon established order. He had James help Rachel up to her room, where he bathed and dressed her wound with sterastrips.
‘Will she have a scar?’ asked James. The doctor smiled and shook his head. ‘She will be a flawless beauty,’ he said, ‘and this bleeding down here,’ he went on, addressing Rachel kindly, ‘normal. Quite normal. Your mother, or one of your aunts, will help you.’ He left her some strong pain-killers to be taken with food before a very early night.
Ruth was taken back to her own bed by Heather and also given two strong pain-killers; judged too unwell to assist her step-daughter in any practical way. Mary was deputed to help Rachel remove her soiled clothes and run her a warm bath in the pink bathroom. Everyone else was sent to the sitting room where Belinda served tea while Mitch mopped the kitchen floor. Rachel sat in the bath, unresisting her grandma’s brisk attentions with soap and flannel, feeling like a baby even though she was now a woman, and seeming not to hear her assurances that she was not to worry, that a little bit of blood did go a very long way, and that the nice new clothes would wash perfectly well. Then, dressed in her pyjamas and ‘sorted out’ down below, she was left alone while Mary bustled off to fetch a cup of tea and a sandwich.
Alone at long last, Rachel dared to breathe, to think. She slipped out of bed, the wadding between her legs feeling foreign, and waddled to the window. Night was falling. Where had the day gone to? The lawn was grey, the trees beyond dense and black. She still had not seen the sea, been in the woods, explored the garden; the adventures inside the house had been taxing enough. The constant talk, activity, posturing and keeping pace, trying to fit in. She had felt like a fish on a quay most of the time; flapping in an ugly panic, out of her natural sphere. The peace, now, was delicious, like a warm woollen blanket. She prodded her cheek carefully; it felt monstrous and distorted. In the distance she could hear the noises of the house; the boys in their room next door, far-off echoes of piano music, the gurgle and splash of early baths being run. Starlight whooped and hollered in some private, exciting game.
Her reverie was interrupted by Tansy and Ellie, who brought the sandwich and the tea. ‘We wanted to see how you were,’ they whispered, as though there was a baby asleep in the room.
‘My face feels sore, and I feel stupid,’ Rachel made a moue. She climbed back into bed.
‘You mustn’t feel stupid,’ Tansy soothed, perching on the edge of the bed. ‘It happens to everyone. It happened to me in geography.’
‘But everyone saw, and everyone knew,’ Rachel moaned miserably.
‘I don’t think the boys have cottoned on,’ Ellie reasoned. ‘They just think you banged your head.’
‘Rob knows,’ Rachel replied, then wished she hadn’t.
‘So what?’ Ellie retorted. ‘He knows about the birds and the bees, you know.’ Then, gloomily, she added, ‘he knows everything, now.’
Rachel sipped her tea. Someone had forgotten to put sugar in it.
‘We covered for you and Rob downstairs just now,’ Tansy remarked, to Ellie. ‘Uncle Elliot knew something had been going on.’
‘Yes.’ Ellie regarded her nails. She had cleaned off all the polish; the second coat had been smudged in the fracas.
‘What a waste,’ Rachel thought.
‘He has a habit of getting to the bottom of things,’ Ellie sighed. ‘It doesn’t really matter now. My life will be a nightmare from now on. Rob won’t let this drop. He’ll hold it over me until I die.’
Tansy got up and closed the curtains, then she switched on the bedside light.
‘Eat your sandwich, Rachel. Grandma said you must before you can take those tablets.’
‘Aren’t they huge?’ Ellie said. ‘I can’t take tablets. I have to have them mashed up on a spoon with jam.’
‘What a baby,’ Rachel thought. ‘What will he hold over you?’ she asked, suddenly, surprising even herself that the question had been spoken aloud.
‘Ah.’ Ellie hesitated. ‘Well, it’s bad whichever way you look at it. I told Caro that I’d been having a fling with a student teacher. Mr Murray – Philip – he’s just gorgeous, only 22.’
Tansy gasped. ‘You’ve been having an affair? With a teacher?’
‘Teachers are only human,’ Ellie raised a cynical eyebrow, ‘just flesh and blood. They’re not gods.’
Rachel thought about Ruth. ‘That’s true,’ she said, ‘but it isn’t allowed.’
‘I know that!’ Ellie retorted. ‘But you’re not listening. I only told Caro that I was having an affair. I haven’t been, really.’
Tansy and Rachel took this in.
‘Why did you tell her, if it wasn’t true?’
Ellie shrugged. ‘It so easily could have been true. He flirted with me and all the girls were jealous. He helped me with a project and we started emailing each other over that. Then there were texts. It was all very inappropriate, of course. But just words, just looks. Nothing actually happened. I never even kissed him. But that seemed a bit tame, so I suggested… I implied… that there was more.’
‘Well, surely, then…’ Tansy began, ‘I mean, if nothing really happened, that’s all you have to say, isn’t it?’
Rachel’s head was beginning to throb. She took a tentative mouthful of the sandwich, which looked exactly like the ones Heather made for Starlight; the crusts had been cut off and the ham had been cut up small. Even so, her cheek hurt when she chewed.
‘There are two things wrong with that suggestion,’ Ellie was saying, and her voice took on a rather whining and self-pitying tone. ‘Firstly, I’d have to admit that I lied to Caro. Remember what we were saying before? If you can’t trust your friend, what kind of friend is she? What kind of friend would that make me? See?’
‘But you did lie,’ Tansy said quietly.
‘Yes. But don’t you see? Even if it had been true, the first thing anyone would do when confronted with it, would be to deny it, wouldn’t they? Naturally? So when I deny it, no one will believe me. I’m stuck. I’m absolutely stuck.’
There was the sound of furious footsteps on the stairs. Elliot appeared at the bedroom door.
‘Ellie!’ he shouted. ‘Get yourself downstairs right now. Your mother and I wish to speak to you immediately in the library.’
✽✽✽
The fire in the library had almost gone out; only a couple of embers still glowed dully in the grate. The curtains remained open and the black night outside reflected the five people in the room like a silvered mirror. The tension in the room was quite palpable, malodorous and ugly. Behind the desk, Elliot had taken up a proprietorial stance, feet apart, hands clasped behind his back. His face was flushed; he had drunk, rather quickly, a very large scotch. Belinda’s, on the other hand, was blanched. She perched in the leather chair which Ruth had occupied for the afternoon, her hands in her lap, fluttering and wringing, toying restlessly with her ring. During her walk tendrils of hair had worked themselves loose from her chignon and she had not had time to recapture them. Rob leant belligerently against the bookshe
lves, his hands in his pockets, chewing the inside of his cheek. Ellie had taken up a position behind the chair, uncomfortably close to her father, but as far away as possible from Rob. The fifth person in the room was Simon. His face was positively puce, suffused with anger and indignation; his habitual geniality had completely departed.
‘Ellie,’ Elliot said, in a voice which was taut. ‘Little Todd has found something quite disgusting, in the downstairs cloakroom. Let me ask you to answer this question very carefully. Do you know anything about it?’
‘No,’ said Ellie, genuinely surprised and momentarily relieved – this was not the line of questioning she had been expecting. ‘What do you mean? What has he found?’
‘Let me ask you again,’ Elliot repeated. ‘Did you put something in the cloakroom?’
‘I put my ski-jacket in there when we arrived on Friday. I haven’t been in there since. I wore my fleece when we went shopping and I haven’t been out at all today.’
Rob snorted derisively in the corner.
‘Once more, Ellie…’
‘Elliot, I don’t think this is going anywhere,’ put in Belinda softly. ‘I don’t think she knows what you mean.’
Simon agreed with Belinda. Elliot’s methods of interrogation were like water torture. He decided to get to the crux of the matter. ‘This is what he means,’ he snapped, striding forward and taking a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘My son found this… filth… in the cloakroom and your brother says you put it there.’ Simon unfolded the paper and slapped it onto the desk. It lay before them like the most lurid affront it was possible to imagine. It was a collage of explicit photographs; spread-eagled flesh, brazenly exposed intimacies and pinkly glistening tissue, all wantonly displayed. Ellie gasped and clasped her hand to her mouth. She thought she might be sick. She had never seen - never imagined - anything so terrible. Belinda looked away.
‘Rob says that you’ve been interfering with his computer,’ Elliot said, angrily. ‘Is that true? Is that what you were arguing about earlier?’
‘No. Yes. I mean, it isn’t true that I’ve been on his computer but that is what we were arguing about. He came in the kitchen and accused me, he attacked me, actually, and he hit Tansy, although I think that was by accident. I didn’t know what it was all about until now. I haven’t; truly Daddy, I haven’t. And even if I did, I’d never print off anything like that.’ Ellie looked from her father to the picture and back again.
All eyes turned toward Rob, who began to bluster. ‘Well someone’s been interfering. That,’ he pointed an accusing finger ‘is nothing to do with me.’
‘Why would you accuse your sister, Rob? That seems to me to be the worst thing of all.’ Belinda wiped her eyes. ‘Couldn’t we put the picture away now, please?’
Simon screwed the picture up and threw it in the fire. Mercifully a glowing ember caught it and it blazed merrily for a few seconds before curling and turning black. With it, Simon’s anger seemed to dissipate somewhat. He perched on the edge of the desk and his shoulders dropped a fraction.
But Elliot hadn’t sensed that Simon’s fury had abated; he waded on with the inquisition. ‘Rob,’ he stormed, ‘you have to admit that you’re the prime candidate for something like this. For God’s sake, lad! And your mother’s right, it was a low-down trick to accuse Ellie.’
‘And you spoiled my cake,’ Ellie put in plaintively, beginning to cry.
‘I told you before. She wants to get me into trouble. And it looks like she’s managed it.’ Rob shouted. ‘Look at her turning on the water works, now! This is a set up!’
‘But not by me, Rob,’ Ellie flung back, sniffing.
Rob was beginning to feel cornered and desperate. His father was acting like judge and jury. It was typical that they would believe Ellie and not him. As they squared up across the table, although physically quite unlike, they bore a startling resemblance to each other; angry, accusing fingers pointing anywhere but at themselves.
Belinda looked from one to the other. ‘Perhaps you’re angry at yourself, Robert, for being so silly, and for being caught out, and that’s why you blamed Ellie?’
‘What baloney!’ fumed Elliot. His powerlessness to get to the bottom of the situation was making him feel weak and ineffectual. Normally he would not scruple to apply aggressive tactics but he knew that a more antagonistic approach here would be labelled ‘inappropriate’. His hands were tied, a position which was anathema to him. He decided to employ a more lateral solution. ‘They’ve done nothing but squabble since I collected them from school,’ he complained, turning to Simon. ‘You know how these things escalate, get out of hand. Isn’t it possible that the picture was here when we arrived?’
‘If that was so it would have been found before now. I know Dad has used that toilet on several occasions, with helpers.’ Simon shook his head.
‘I checked all the bathrooms on Friday,’ Belinda put in, knowing, as she did so, that she was not helping Rob’s case.
‘Look Rob,’ Simon cut in. ‘Pornography is everywhere and you won’t be the only lad of your age to be dabbling in it...’
‘I’m NOT dabbling in it!’ Rob roared, but Simon went on, ‘I suppose that at one time or another every man has looked at pictures like those. It’s the carelessness which has made me so angry. In some ways you’ve been lucky. Todd didn’t really understand the pictures and he showed them to me straight away rather than anyone else. It could have been so much worse if Mum, say, or, God forbid, June, had come across them.’
Everyone considered this appalling prospect.
Then Rob made a sound; a grunt, a groan, it expressed frustration and fear. He clenched his fists and grimaced. The unfairness of the situation, his anger, his powerlessness; he knew that it would all erupt into violence or tears at any moment and he didn’t know which was to be the less desired. Of course he didn’t know that Ellie had planted that disgusting picture, he had just assumed it. But he did know that he hadn’t done it, and yet every eye and every finger was pointing at him. If only, if only he knew this secret of hers, now would be the time to reveal it. It was his only defensive ammunition, and, unfortunately, just pretending he knew it just wasn’t good enough. The family watched him struggle for a moment, wondering whether confession, or further denial, or something else would be the end result of his obvious inner turmoil.
But before it had resolved itself, Ellie spoke. ‘Last night,’ she suggested carefully, ‘the house was full of strangers. All those policemen, that funny old man that Granny brought with her.’ There was an exhalation of tension in the room; fury evaporated, seeping in wisps through the walls and into the pages of the leather-bound volumes, curling up the chimney. They all, to one extent or another, grasped hold of the life-line which Ellie had thrown them.
‘By God, she’s right,’ Simon laughed. ‘I think she might have it, you know.’
‘I certainly didn’t check the toilet after they left,’ Belinda admitted.
‘I told you it wasn’t me,’ Rob sulked.
‘Well, well, yes, perhaps you might have something, or,’ Elliot fixed Rob with a look, ‘maybe your sister’s just got you off a very nasty hook.’
He eyed the others in the room. Faced with this crisis he had dealt with it swiftly and thoroughly. No one could accuse him of not taking charge. But resolution was necessary now, and a final stamp of authority. ‘But there are lessons to be learned here, and one of them is that we should never have brought that damned computer. So tomorrow you can spend the day finishing your bloody coursework and then it’s going away. And that’s final. Now then,’ he turned to Simon and rubbed his hands together, ‘it must be time for a drink, and we have a birthday to celebrate.’ Enjoying the last word, Elliot pranced from the room, followed by Simon.
‘He must be joking, Mum,’ Ellie wailed. ‘He can’t think I want anyone to mention the word birthday after this! This has been the most awful day of my life!’
‘Oh, come on now, darling. Cheer up. It’s lasagne, your favo
urite,’ Belinda crooned, applying her universal panacea to the situation before hurrying to the kitchen.
Rob and Ellie faced each other across the chair. Refrains of childhood rhymes, long unheard, echoed in strands down corridors of time. Shared periods of viral infection and busy projects in snow and sand; streams of genetic material; an intangible connectivity looped like veins across the space between them.
‘Why didn’t you tell?’ Ellie asked, at last.
‘Why didn’t you?’ Rob replied.
✽✽✽
Granny McKay and Starlight sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table and ate boiled eggs with toast soldiers. In Starlight Granny had found a perfect audience for her half-remembered anecdotes and imperfectly understood remembrances from years gone by, and was happily occupied in recounting the tale of a mysterious illness which had assailed her whilst on holiday as a girl, following the ill-advised consumption of a quantity of salad tomatoes.
‘Red-heads can’t eat tomatoes you know,’ she said, waving a soldier at Starlight. Starlight waved one back. ‘Extremely dangerous, although the doctor wouldn’t have it at the time. I know I haven’t got red hair now. Not on my head, anyway. But I haven’t eaten a tomato since.’
‘You’ve eaten hundreds of tomatoes. Robert used to grow them, out in the yard,’ Muriel admonished, spooning egg.
‘He had budgerigars in the yard,’ Granny corrected her.
‘Yes. At one time, and hens. But he grew tomatoes against the privy wall.’
‘That privy is a death-trap. I saw a rat in there today. I must get your father to look at it.’
‘I’d never keep caged birds,’ Heather said, wiping Starlight’s chin. ‘Birds should be free, shouldn’t they, darling?’
‘I think he got the budgerigars free, from young Arnold George next door. He used to breed them. He was killed in the war. He had a dreadful stammer. It was a shame. Mrs George and I had decided that he would marry Matron.’
Relative Strangers Page 30