Relative Strangers Read online

  They began with the large lounge, exclaiming over the elegance of the furnishings. They drew back the curtains and presently James located a light switch which beautifully illuminated the terrace and lawns from dozens of subdued lights.

  ‘Oh!’ breathed Heather. ‘Tomorrow I shall dance barefoot across that grassy sward!’

  ‘Yes!’ said Elliot, benignly, as though he were the director of a sanatorium and she an inmate requiring his permission for such outlandish proceedings. ‘Of course you will, if you wish it.’

  He turned his attention to the room. ‘I image we’ll spend most of our time in here,’ he said. ‘It will accommodate us all in comfort. We can move the furniture, if we want. But I suggest we allocate the children another room to gather in. We’ll want some peace and quiet, won’t we?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Miriam, surprised to find herself in agreement, ‘but we oughtn’t to move the furniture. It’s all so well placed already. Is anyone in to feng shui?’

  This pretentious enquiry was ignored.

  ‘We’re not children, are we, Tansy? So they can’t mean us,’ Ellie was quick to put in, as an aside.

  ‘We won’t exclude them altogether, will we?’ Belinda asked quietly.

  ‘Not altogether, I suppose, but look at some of the ornaments in here! I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? This isn’t a family room!’ Elliot waved his arm to encompass the whole room and gave Belinda one of his most offensive glares. ‘Anyone who disagrees with me,’ it said, pointedly, ‘is clearly certifiable.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s a more suitable one?’ suggested Jude, knowing that there was.

  ‘As big as this? I don’t think so,’ Elliot, who had not seen the games room, was derisory.

  ‘I expect all these things are well insured.’ James pointed out.

  ‘They aren’t valuable, anyway,’ said Jude, dismissively, lifting up a china figurine and briefly examining the mark on its base. Elliot threw his hands into the air with a choleric gasp.

  ‘Very pretty though, aren’t they, Les?’ June commented with a significant look which passed from Les to Elliot.

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ Les agreed.

  The library, next, was examined, but not in detail, none of the McKays being particularly bookish, and the party moved on to the drawing room. They stopped to open the French windows into the enclosed courtyard to enjoy the music of water on the stones. It was quite lovely out there, they agreed, but chilly, and quickly they re-entered the warmth of the room.

  Ellie managed to get herself next to Rob. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘did you meet up with Caro?’

  Rob gave her a knowing smile. ‘Oh yes,’ he lied.

  Ellie felt her heart dip. ‘You’re not serious about going out with her are you?’

  ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out. Anyway, why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘She’s my friend.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What do you mean? What has she said?’ Rob gave his sister a sardonic smile in place of an answer, and moved away from her. Ellie gave an inner sigh. It sounded as though Caro was already saying things she shouldn’t. It was becoming more imperative than ever that she get to speak to her somehow.

  ‘What’s the matter, Ellie?’ Tansy moved next to her.

  Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘Rob. He’s such an idiot. You should’ve heard what he said to Rachel at supper. And now he’s... I can’t tell you, but he’s going to make get me into such trouble.’

  ‘Oh dear. Where is Rachel, by the way?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think she stayed in that big room with Grandma. Tansy, can I borrow your mobile?’

  ‘Of course. Only I don’t think there’s a signal. Who do you need to phone?’

  ‘A friend of mine. Oh God. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

  ‘Poor Ellie. Isn’t there an ordinary phone?’

  Ellie brightened. ‘I suppose there is. I wonder where it is.’

  ‘I’ll help you find it. I’m sorry that Rachel didn’t come. I hope she didn’t feel left out.’

  ‘D‘you think she might? It hadn’t occurred to me.’

  The study displayed every sign of being out of bounds. The lights were off and the furniture was disordered, presenting obstacles to be negotiated, which, along with the treacherous tendrils of wires stretching from the computer to the plug and telephone sockets, effectively debarred entry. In case anyone should misconstrue their implicit message, the computer screen-saver exclaimed ‘Fuck Off!’ in dripping, blood-red letters.

  ‘Rob! Really!’ hissed Belinda. She turned to Elliot. ‘Shall we move on?’

  The dining room, even with its splendid table and shining candelabra, seemed to leave everyone cold; only Belinda felt a thrill of excitement at the possibility of covering the gleaming space with porcelain and cut glass and silverware.

  ‘I’d hoped we’d eat in here in future, in the evenings,’ she ventured.

  ‘Really? Isn’t it a bit far from the kitchen?’ June objected.

  ‘There’s a clever little door hidden in the panelling here, look. I suppose that’s how the servants got in and out. It brings you out just before the kitchen.’

  ‘But we haven’t got servants, Belinda, dear,’ Heather reminded her sister. ‘It just isn’t a concept that belongs in our modern world.’

  Mitch shifted his bucket from one hand to the other.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Miriam interjected, ‘it is a concept that is very much alive and well, I’m afraid. Wherever there is wealth you will find...’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Heather interrupted, quickly; ‘I meant that it ought not to belong.’

  ‘I think we might find it impractical to eat in here every night, Belinda.’ Elliot turned to his wife, ‘nice as the idea might be. The general feeling seems to be that it will mean a lot of extra work.’

  ‘But for the Big Night, of course, this will be wonderful,’ Simon tried to soften the blow. ‘Imagine the table beautifully set, the fire, candle light, and all of us all dressed in our best, champagne flowing…’

  ‘Oh yes, thank you, Simon, that’s just how I see it too.’ Belinda couldn’t help turning a baleful look towards her husband, who had so entirely failed to capture her vision.

  Elliot laughed. ‘Stone cold food, yelling down the table and a week’s worth of washing up, that’s how I see it!’ he sneered, pouring cold water on the spark of empathy that had leapt between Belinda and Simon.

  They filed out of the dining room and re-crossed the hall. Simultaneously, Ellie and Tansy spied the old-fashioned grey telephone sitting on a side-table. They exchanged gleeful smiles. Somehow, without knowing anything about the nature of the crisis, Tansy felt involved in it. Casually, she lifted the receiver, and listened for a dialling tone. It purred at her, and she gave Ellie a nod. They were back where they had begun. Surely, now, the tour would come to an end? It seemed that Jude and Mitch had some similar idea; desperate, by now, for a smoke, they cast longing glances at the front door. But as Elliot skipped and shimmied around the party, now in front, now at the rear, herding them towards the gallery, it was plain that escape was going to be impossible. ‘This is great, isn’t it, girls? What do you think of it so far, Jude? Alright there, Mitch? That bucket not too heavy?’

  The family ambled along, stopping to admire the portraits as they did so; stern-faced, hook nosed men and pear-shaped, round-cheeked women.

  ‘We should have a family portrait,’ June said. Everybody noted, but nobody challenged, her interesting pronoun. ‘This is a golden opportunity, while we’re together. I’m wondering, Les, about that photographer we know, the one who does the captains’ portraits at the Golf Club. Could we get him, do you think?’

  ‘To come here?’ Les was incredulous. ‘To come all the way here, at short notice? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Yes, Les, thank you. That’s exactly what I mean.’ June looked around, searching for an ally in scorn. ‘Anyone would think that I had suggested he visit the moon! Ha Ha Ha!’<
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  ‘Mitch is good with a camera. He could take a few shots,’ Jude volunteered.

  ‘Really?’ June looked doubtfully at Mitch. She had not deigned to notice him before now; he was bracketed, in her mind, in that class of person who she made a habit of not noticing; her charwoman, waiters, and the girl at the salon who pared her corns.

  ‘Yes, really, Aunty June,’ Heather didn’t like June’s withering appraisal. ‘He’s very good; actually, he took some publicity shots for us recently.’

  ‘I see,’ said June, giving Mitch a vinegary stare, ‘Well, it was just an idea.’

  ‘Come along, everybody,’ Elliot chivvied them along the gallery. ‘At this rate it’ll take us a week to see over the place.’

  Tansy and Ellie found themselves at the front of the group as they entered the games room. Rachel and Starlight were seated on the floor underneath the snooker table. Rachel had lifted up two of the rugs from the floor and draped them over the table to make a tent, and now the two of them were in residence, along with numerous dolls, a toy kitchen and two sit-and-ride vehicles. Mary remained on the settee. Her crocheting had fallen into her lap and her chin had fallen forwards onto an area of mottled chest revealed by the vee of her blouse. She was snoring, gently.

  Rachel and Starlight simultaneously put their forefingers to their mouths. ‘Shhhhhhh!’

  ‘I’ve taught her to say it,’ Rachel announced, proudly, in a loud whisper. ‘She did a poo and I helped change her nappy.’

  ‘Clever girl!’ said Heather. No one was sure who she meant.

  ‘Shhhhh!’ said Starlight.

  Tansy dropped to her hands and knees and crawled into the tent.

  ‘Rachel!’ she exclaimed. ‘Here you are!’ Rachel glowed. Perhaps she had been left behind by mistake.

  ‘Shhhhh!’ said Starlight, solemnly.

  Ellie took Heather’s arm. ‘Didn’t you always hate your brother?’ she said, darkly.

  ‘Simon? Oh no. I always loved him! Don’t you love Rob?’

  ‘No,’ replied Ellie, decidedly, ‘I loathe and detest him.’

  ‘Do you? How strange. Why?’ But Ellie had no time to reply before Jude sauntered over to suggest to Heather that they ought to think about putting Starlight to bed. The reluctance in his voice and the look which crossed Heather’s face suggested that this was an ordeal which neither of them was looking forward to.

  Elliot’s tour continued relentlessly. The party trailed round the house after him; up the stairs, looking into every room and closet, and on up into the attics. En route, Belinda allocated rooms to those who had arrived late; a beautiful yellow room, with a bright and careless smile, to Simon and Miriam, the large room in the south wing to Jude and Heather and Starlight, (‘On the whole, I thought you’d prefer it,’ she recited, wearily); a pleasant but smallish double bedded room without en suite facilities to June and Les, and what was surmised to have been the housekeeper’s suite to Mitch; a cosy single bedded room with private facilities and an adjacent sitting room located alone at the far end of a corridor next to the linen room. Surreptitiously, people fell away until only Elliot, Belinda, Les and June remained, finding themselves in a small, obscure and utterly uninteresting annex to the boiler room.

  ‘Excellent. This will be the boot room,’ pronounced Elliot, dusting his hands together as though he had just completed a job of work. He unbolted a thick wooden door in the corner, and opened it, poking his head outside to get his bearings. ‘Yes, just as I thought. Brings you out in that little courtyard at the back, behind the kitchen. Ideal spot to take your muddy boots off, see? In America, they’d call this the Muck Room. Except there’d be a shower. So that’s that. It’s too late to do outside, now, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll make some tea,’ offered Belinda, ‘if anyone would like a cup?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Les.

  ‘I’ll have a brandy,’ said Elliot.

  ‘So will I,’ June gushed, ‘and I wonder if I might use the telephone? I ought to call Sandra.’

  ✽✽✽

  Belinda found Heather in the kitchen, making up bottles of formula. Heather had had a shower and changed her clothes; the multi-coloured, multi-layered ethnic-type garment she now wore defied positive definition. It could, Belinda considered, be as suitable for bed as for an opera.

  ‘Is the tour over?’ Heather asked, a scoop of milk powder hovering over the tin, ‘I heard you in the laundry room but managed to creep by without getting sucked in. Elliot’s so officious. You have the patience of a saint with him.’

  Belinda made a face, but changed the subject. ‘Is Starlight still taking a bottle? She seems a bit big.’

  ‘The truth is,’ said Heather, concentrating on levelling the powder in the scoop, ‘and what, amongst other things, seems to have escaped everyone’s notice about our remarkable and spirit-filled little daughter; we aren’t sure exactly how old she is. Her age, along with her provenance and cultural influences, remains a mystery.’

  ‘But you must know how old she is, from her teeth, or something.’

  ‘She isn’t a horse!’ Heather retorted, but went on, ‘She could be between fourteen and eighteen months, but with her history, her background, there’s no knowing how she might have been held back.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know how it all came about, really. I know it all happened quite quickly.’ Belinda placed several mugs on a tray.

  ‘It was through Jude’s trip to Africa prior to the Famine Fund concert. The hopelessness and deprivation out there you would not believe, Belinda. Villages without a clean water supply, school buildings made of mud and corrugated iron, poverty so abject that all young girls are at risk from the traffickers in human flesh...’ Heather trailed off while she gave the bottles a vigorous shake.

  ‘You saw it yourself?’

  Heather shook her head. A tendril of damp hair released itself from the cluster at the back of her head and adhered attractively to Heather’s cheek. ‘No. I stayed at the Cape on a wildebeest ranch owned by a friend of ours. But Jude came back quite shaken by it all.’

  ‘And so he came across her in one of the villages?’

  ‘He came to hear about her while he was there, yes. She’s our little refugee, our own little wayfarer, a traveller out of the desert. It’s like she’s been on a spiritual journey searching for her home and has washed up on our beach, the very thing of all others we had needed and desired. She has issued from the very womb of mother nature herself.’

  Belinda gave a slightly mocking laugh. ‘You do wax lyrical, Heather!’

  Heather placed the bottles into the door of the fridge. ‘Only someone who takes their ability to produce children for granted could possibly say that, Belinda, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

  ‘I don’t take my children for granted, Heather!’ Belinda turned from the teapot, which she had been stirring.

  ‘I didn’t say that you did. But, now we’re on the subject, you don’t seem to take much notice of them.’

  Belinda turned back to the tea. She admitted, bleakly, ‘They don’t respond well to close scrutiny. They don’t like it when I try to take an interest in them. I get accused of being nosey.’

  ‘Rob was very rude at dinner.’

  ‘Yes. I know. Poor Rachel.’

  ‘And he’s managed to upset Ellie, too.’

  ‘Has he? Again? I’m sure he doesn’t mean to. It’s a difficult age. How do you know?’

  ‘I’m very intuitive. My spirit is in tune with people’s energy forces. Rob’s and Ellie’s are very troubled.’

  Belinda placed the tea pot on the tray and picked it up. She had had enough of this nonsense. ‘Would you bring that bottle of brandy and those glasses through, please Heather? If Elliot doesn’t get his brandy soon there’ll be more troubled energy than any of us can cope with!’

  ‘You’re right of course. Elliot’s chakras are in turmoil,’ said Heather, but Belinda was out of earshot.

  ✽✽✽

  Jude and Mitch
sauntered around the gravel drive. It was unspeakable bliss to be out in the cool air away from the chatter, and to be able to smoke, which they did, voraciously. The night was densely black. No light emanated from the windows at the front of the house apart from the unnatural glow from the computer screen in the study. A single lantern hung above the front door but its light seemed too feeble to illuminate anything other than the two steps and the portico above it. The red glow from their cigarettes and the blinking security lights from inside the cars seemed like malevolent eyes winking and waiting under the cover of blackness. On the lawn, the rustle of leaves and the occasional bored snuffle and grunt indicated that Tiny was taking his evening constitutional but his ghostly grey form was lost in the darkness. He barked, once, at a shadow.

  ‘Quiet, lad!’ said Mitch.

  The house, in the dimness, brooded like a sleeping dragon in the night. Above, a sky peppered with innumerable stars defied human comprehension. No wind disturbed the trees along the drive and the only sound was the measured tread of the two men as they paced in the darkness and the occasional scream of an owl hunting in the woods behind the house. The sound of Starlight’s gentle snores emanated from the baby monitor clipped securely to Mitch’s waistband. The air, so cold it seared the insides of their nostrils, tasted deliciously of frost and wood smoke and Marlboro County. Their companionable and untroubled silence spread around them like a contented yawn. Minutes passed.

  Mitch dropped his cigarette butt into his hand and flicked away the lighted end with his thumb. He immediately reached into his right back jeans pocket for another. ‘Nice spot,’ he commented. The wagging of the glowing cigarette tip a yard away from him denoted Jude’s agreement.