‘Good morning,’ she had said, timidly.
‘Coffee,’ he had replied, closing the door of his office with a slam.
It had taken him all day to telephone the various recipients of the tenders and quotes, sometimes waiting many long minutes on hold, or even hours for a call back from the MD or Purchasing Manager. By the end of the day he had his script almost word-perfect, ‘Ted? Elliot McKay-Donne! How are you? Great! Wife and kids? Good, good. Now then I don’t know if you’ve opened your post yet? I know, yes. No, me neither. Only the thing is, you won’t believe it...’ Sometimes the conversation concluded amicably enough, ‘You’ll put it in the shredder? Can’t tell you how grateful I am, mate. Yes, yes, in the post as we speak... No really. I owe you big time... In fact, I was wondering if you and your good lady might fancy a bit of a trip over to Amsterdam next month. My treat, of course...What’s that? Oh no, of course not. We wouldn’t have to include the ladies...’ But far more often, things had turned nasty, ‘I think you’ll find if you read the small print... no, I know, no one ever does, do they, but... Well, I’m sorry you feel that way about it... Of course, by all means consult your legal team although I’d be sorry to fall out over something like this. Yes, yes, I see. Of course. And the word of a McKay is still good, believe me...’
It had taken him until well after five o’clock to speak to everyone, amend the quotes and oversee Carole while she printed them off and bound them. They’d missed the post by then of course so he’d had to drive into town to the FedEx depot to get them all sent with a guaranteed delivery before nine the following day. The town centre had been choked with football traffic and it had taken him an age to crawl through it all and back onto the by-pass, which was itself thronged by then with people going to the shopping centres for late night bargains. He hadn’t eaten, had had a gut-full of humble pie and was so riled that when a man cut him up on the motorway he could quite happily have got out of the car and beaten him senseless. The fog made the going through the country roads intensely difficult. The directions he had had at first were nowhere to be found in the car and he had spent a while driving aimlessly between high, grey, featureless hedges, cursing whoever had removed them. In an effort to calm himself, he’d stopped at the village pub and downed two large whiskies. The portly, unattractive barmaid had tried to short-change him, insisting he’d given her a tenner when in fact it had been a twenty and he left the place, if anything, more irate than ever.
Entering the hall of Hunting Manor he was assaulted by the din of engines revving, overlaid by the dreadful cacophony of some terrible heavy metal band. In the study Rob and one of the other boys – he never could remember which was which – were hunched over the screen, their faces illuminated an unnatural blue. The noise was so deafeningly loud that he had to roar above it.
‘I told you that computer had to go away today,’ he shrieked, but the boys took no notice of him at all. ‘Rob! Rob!’ he yelled. Finally he strode across the room and yanked the plugs out of the wall. The hard-drive made an ominous bang and the screen fizzed with static.
Rob leapt to his feet. ‘Dad! Dad!’ he was inarticulate. The possible repercussions of such an action were incalculable.
‘I told you that thing had to go away today,’ Elliot shouted, pointing a bony finger. ‘I told you. Now get it packed up and put it in the back of your mother’s car. If I see it again I’ll throw it out of the window. End of.’ He didn’t wait for a reply.
Back in the hall he encountered Ellie and Mitch descending the stairs. There was something smug about them. James arrived from the kitchen carrying a tray with glasses and a large jug. Behind him, Rachel held a bowl of snacks. Elliot managed with difficulty to plaster a genial smile across his features.
‘Ah! Jim. Excellent. I see I’m just in time for cocktails. Will dinner be long?’
‘We’ve had ours, Elliot, quite a while ago. But come and have a drink and see what the others are doing,’ James said affably. ‘This way, in the big room at the back.’ He walked with unwonted briskness down the corridor and pushed open the door with his shoulder. ‘Here we are then,’ he said, placing the tray down on a table. ‘And look who I found in the hall?’
‘Hello Uncle Elliot,’ Tansy was busy setting out Monopoly on a low table. ‘Would you like to play?’ she asked. ‘You can be the car…’
‘Or the boot,’ Miriam added acerbically, picking up a small playing-piece.
Ellie and Mitch ensconced themselves on a small settee. Rachel handed round the nuts.
‘I’ve had about enough high finance for one day,’ Elliot grumbled sourly.
Jude joined them. ‘Child’s asleep at last,’ he said.
James poured generous measures into high-ball glasses and handed them round. ‘Now then. Get your laughing gear round that. Cheers!’
‘Gosh!’ Miriam squeaked, ‘That packs a punch James!’
Elliot took a long pull at his drink. Miriam was right; it was certainly a powerful brew.
‘Ellie, take that game somewhere else, will you?’ Elliot waved an imperious arm. ‘I’m sure we said that this would be a child-free zone.’ Ellie looked at him. The game wasn’t anything to do with her! But Mitch gave her an almost imperceptible wink and she got up. Rachel helped Tansy sweep the board and pieces away and they all trooped out of the room.
‘Now isn’t that better,’ crowed Elliot. The others exchanged looks.
‘Give him another drink, James.’ Miriam said. She helped herself to a nut.
‘Don’t mind if I do, Jim. Good stuff this.’ Elliot held out his glass.
‘Well,’ Miriam declared, sitting back in her seat and tucking her slim legs underneath her, ‘this doesn’t happen very often, does it? Here we are, the McKay B team, alone at last. The never-will-be-quite-Real-McKays. What stories we could tell! “Living with the McKays – the Truth at Last!”’ She gave a self-deprecating, artificial sigh, ‘But don’t worry,’ she went on, ‘I’m not going to interrogate you. I know you’ll never talk. You’re too well grafted in to the family tree for that.’
Jude chuckled. James said, ‘Ah ha! The ubiquitous family tree. I wonder if Rachel found it in the woods today.’ None of them was prepared to take the bait Miriam had laid. A wary silence stretched in the room.
Then the door opened a crack and Les’ head appeared in the gap.
‘James?’ he said. ‘A word, if you please?’
‘By all means.’ He got up and stepped out of the room.
‘Well there you are,’ Miriam laughed. ‘A rare moment, short lived.’ She picked up a magazine and began to leaf through its pages. The three of them sat in silence for some little time. Jude drummed absent-mindedly with his fingers on the arm of his chair.
Miriam said, ‘Does anyone have a pen? I might tackle this Sudoku.’
Elliot drained his glass. Presently he asked, ‘Where are all the ‘real’ McKays, anyway?’
‘Oh? Didn’t you know?’ Miriam looked up from her puzzle. ‘They’re in the small sitting room having some kind of family powwow.’
✽✽✽
Les took James upstairs. ‘I might be wrong, but he hasn’t seemed quite right all afternoon.’
‘Alright. I’ll have a look at him,’ James put his hand on the door knob.
‘I hope he’s not asleep. He’s all ready for bed but I left him in the chair.’
‘Don’t worry. Are you going to come in?’
Les shook his head. ‘I have to find... there’s somebody I have to check on.’ He was already backing down the corridor. With all the family otherwise occupied he couldn’t trust June not to corner Muriel.
✽✽✽
Rob and Toby looked at each other in the darkness and the unaccustomed silence of the study. The sounds of the game and the music had been replaced by an unremitting fizzing, sizzling noise in Toby’s ears. He felt weird - spaced out and sort of disconnected.
‘That’s a shame,’ he said. He started to help Rob pack away the computer.
‘Don’t worry,’ Rob said quietly. ‘We’re not going to let him spoil things for us. You go and get the keys. There’ll be in my Mum’s handbag in the kitchen.’
‘Oh. Alright,’ Toby said.
He had some difficulty negotiating the passageway down to the kitchen. His feet wouldn’t walk straight and he was sure that the walls were leaning. When he got there the room was in darkness apart from the light over the cooker. In the gloom the table seemed to be covered by small rounded heaps, like fresh graves, but on closer inspection they turned out to be piles of clothing. He looked around the room for Aunty Belinda’s handbag, realising that he didn’t really know what it looked like. There was nothing on the dresser or down on the floor under the table. He checked the back of the door to see if it was on a hook, but only Aunty Belinda’s apron hung there, badly stained with the evening’s cooking. He ran his fingers through his hair, a gesture he had seen his cousin Rob make a dozen times that day and he said ‘fuck’ a few times, a word Rob also made frequent use of when there were no grown-ups present. In front of the cooker, the stinky dog had curled itself up on a worn, hairy, smelly blanket and another dog, much smaller, nestled nearby, against the leg of the arm chair. Toby puzzled over the other dog for a few moments. Both dogs looked to be fast asleep but he knew that the stinky one was not to be trusted. He took a tentative step or two forwards, colliding with the big chair at the end of the table, which made an ugly scrawping noise against the flagged floor. The stinky dog raised its head and growled but the other slept on. Toby tried to focus on the smaller dog, a puppy perhaps, round and barrel bodied. In spite of Stinky, he took another step towards it and, as he was able to see more clearly, he realised that the second dog was a handbag. He reached for it. Stinky bared his teeth. Toby froze. Across the room the enormous fridge shuddered into life, and Toby had an idea. He walked across to the fridge and opened the door. Inside, a plate of food kept back for Uncle Elliot rested on a shelf. He took hold of a beef burger and hurled it across the kitchen. The dog was after it with a bound and before he had got his teeth around it Toby was out of the room with the handbag.
He met the girls coming from the direction of the lounge and heading for the games room. It occurred to him that he had better explain why he was carrying Aunty Belinda’s handbag. He gestured in the direction of the kitchen.
‘That Stinky handbag’s eating Uncle Elliot’s tea!’ he said, indistinctly. They looked at him as though he had spoken gibberish.
✽✽✽
Muriel and June were both on their feet, standing at opposite sides of the snooker table.
‘Well here’s Les, anyway,’ Muriel was relieved to see him. ‘I didn’t know where anybody was!’ she laughed. ‘They all seem to have disappeared! But at least those boys have switched that awful music off now. Have you put Robert to bed?’
‘He doesn’t seem quite right.’
‘Oh?’
‘James is with him now.’
‘Well that will be alright then, I expect. Do you mind if I wait in here with you?’
‘Yes,’ June snapped. ‘I do mind. I mind about you being here at all and I mind very much about you being in the same room with me and my husband.’
Muriel was nonplussed for a second or two. ‘I thought we’d been managing very nicely up till now,’ she said quietly.
‘I’ve been managing by avoiding you. When you’ve been unavoidable I’ve contented myself with thinking how ridiculous you are.’
‘June!’ Les barked, but June sat down on one of the sofas and pulled a newspaper towards her as though no one had spoken.
‘I’m sure I am very ridiculous.’ Muriel lowered her eyes and examined her palms.
‘Muriel!’ Les’ voice was softer, with a mild reproach.
‘Well! You’re hardly dressed for a country house party, are you, for a start?’ June looked Muriel up and down with a nasty, narrow-eyed appraisal. In comparison to her own sharply cut tweed suit, Muriel’s viscose trousers and nylon jumper were a bit dowdy. ‘I’ve never seen such cheap, shabby, common clothes. Where do you buy them, anyway? Ethel Austin?’
‘I’ll go and find some of the others,’ Muriel turned to leave.
‘Oh, they won’t want you!’ June shrilled, patting the back of her hair. ‘They’re in one of the back rooms hoping you won’t find them.’
‘That’s a lie!’ Les shouted.
‘Can’t wait to get rid of you on Thursday.’
‘I’m leaving on Thursday?’ Muriel turned back to them. Her eyes were full of hurt confusion.
‘Of course you are! We’re taking Mother back to the Oaks on Thursday and since you came to look after her, you’ll be going back as well! You won’t be required.’
‘I didn’t say that Muriel was going home on Thursday, only that we were,’ Les corrected her.
‘What?’ It was June’s turn to look confused. Her only comfort had been that if she had to quit the field on Thursday at least she would not be leaving Muriel in possession.
‘I don’t know how long Muriel’s been invited for,’ Les shrugged. ‘I hope it’s the full week.’
‘Simon didn’t really say, when he called me,’ Muriel was hesitant. ‘I just assumed... but I certainly wouldn’t want to outstay my welcome...’
‘No,’ June’s mouth curled at the corners, a mirthless smile. ‘Far better leave before you make a real social gaffe.’
Muriel looked at Les miserably. ‘Have I?’
Les shook his head. ‘Of course not. You’ve been the perfect guest; helpful, accommodating...’
‘Our Sandra would have been a much better help,’ June snapped. ‘If only you hadn’t made her go home. And she had far more right to be here...’
Les couldn’t contain himself any longer. He strode round the snooker table and bent over June, grasping the lapels of her jacket and hauling her halfway to her feet.
His throat was so constricted with anger he could barely speak, ‘Don’t you,’ he choked out, ‘don’t you dare speak to anyone about rights.’
‘Leslie! Leslie!’ June shrieked. Her feet pedalled at the polished wood floor, failing to get a grip. She flailed her arms behind her, trying to reach the back of the sofa, but she was held in mid-air, suspended from his hands - unable to rise, unable to sit. The sound of her voice drowned out the approach of footsteps down the gallery.
‘Just shut up! And listen for once in your life!’ Les roared into her face. June stopped struggling but her face was beetroot. She dangled like a broken doll.
At the door the three girls and Mitch were arrested, amazed.
‘What’s going on?’ Ellie breathed.
‘Oh, I think, well, Uncle Les and Aunty June are just having a little chat.’ Muriel, from her position between June and Les and the doorway, tried to think of something - anything - which would distract them from the ugly spectacle in the room. ‘There’re lots of nice clean ironed clothes in the kitchen waiting to be claimed. Maybe you’d better go and see.’ She thought of it as a master stroke, but they didn’t move.
Les hadn’t even noticed them. ‘For forty-five years I’ve listened to you whining on about your rights,’ he shouted into June’s face. ‘Your rights to the business, your rights to a detached house, your rights to this holiday and that car, because you’re a McKay, as if that gave you the right to everything.’ As he spoke to her, to emphasise his words, he shook her, not hard, but firmly, renewing each time his grip on her suit as her weight drew it from his hands. June began to whimper. It was a struggle for her to keep her head forward. She reached up and grasped his pullover, as much to support herself as to exert some control over him. She dug her finger nails into his arms but he was unstoppable. It was going to slip away and there was nothing she could do about it. She looked desperately around the room. Muriel, just inside the door, was riveted to the spot and, in the doorway, the children were open-mouthed.
‘Leslie!’ she pleaded.
He ignored her. ‘Well I’ll tell you something about rig
ht. I’m going to do right.’ Shake. ‘I’m going to do right by that lady over there.’
‘Leslie! No!’ June cried out.
‘Oh yes! I’m going to take your mother back to the Oaks on Thursday.’ Shake.
‘No, Les, put me down!’
‘No. Listen. And I’m going to take you home.’ Shake. ‘And then I’m going to go home with Muriel, to her house. And I’m going to stay there.’ Shake.
He stared into her eyes. Underneath the shadow and the liner and the mascara they were McKay eyes, round and pale, steely grey. As he watched them, they swivelled up and he thought that she might faint, but then he caught the movement, the slow creep of her hairline backwards, revealing a greater and greater expanse of forehead, an impossible area of temple.
Quite deliberately, he shook her once more. June’s thick head of auburn curls slipped from her head and fell like a furry road-kill onto the sofa behind her. Her crown, startlingly white against the unnaturally deepened hue of her face, was barely covered by a thin scraping of wiry, iron grey hair, much like her brother’s. Abruptly he dropped her onto the sofa, on top of the wig, his anger spent.
He turned to Muriel. ‘If that’s alright with you,’ he said.
✽✽✽
Rob had the computer all packed up, its wires rolled into coils, the keyboard balanced on the tower, the monitor on the floor by the door.
‘You’ve been a long time,’ Rob said, rummaging in his mother’s bag until he found the keys.
‘Fucking dog!’ Toby mumbled.
‘Ah.’ Rob smiled. ‘Come on then. You get the door open and I’ll start bringing the stuff out.’
Relative Strangers Page 49