Relative Strangers Read online

  ‘Why don’t you go and play the piano for a while? Dad says it’s a lovely instrument and you’re lucky to have the chance to play it. Also, the peace and quiet will do you good.’

  Ben nodded gratefully but cast an anxious eye down the table towards his cousins.

  ‘I won’t let them go without you.’ Ruth assured him, in a whisper.

  Ben slipped away from the table and out of the room.

  He passed Simon and Miriam in the passageway. ‘Good morning, good morning everybody,’ they called out as they entered the room.

  Ruth leapt from her seat. ‘Come and take my place here, Miriam,’ she said quickly, determined not to perpetuate the mistakes of the previous evening. ‘I’ve finished eating and I’m going to make a start on the dishes. I’m afraid I was terribly lazy last night, didn’t do a hand’s turn. I’m going to make up for it today. Let me pour you some tea.’

  ‘Thank you, Ruth,’ Miriam was taken aback by Ruth’s effusiveness. ‘May I have a fruit tea? I think I brought some with us.’

  ‘Fruit tea?’ The pretentiousness of this request almost undid Ruth’s good intentions but she tried hard not to let her voice or her expression give anything away. ‘Certainly. I’ll have a look.’

  ‘Anything to eat, you two?’

  ‘Do I smell bacon?’ Simon sat down in Belinda’s place, next to Mary.

  ‘Just toast for me, please,’ said Miriam. ‘I think I brought some organic bread. I’d rather have that if I may.’

  The girls came clattering into the kitchen. Tansy and Ellie wore almost identical baggy jeans and sloppy jumpers. They’d done each other’s hair into braids. They’d tried hard with Rachel’s hair, but it was neither long nor short, too coarse for braids and unbecoming left loose and nothing had looked quite right. In the end they had settled on one of Tansy’s hair bands. She wore the same imitation leather trousers and jerkin. Seeing the three of them standing together on the threshold of the room like that, in unavoidable comparison, the heart of every woman except Ruth gave a small clutch.

  ‘Rachel!’ Ruth exclaimed from her place at the sink, ‘you surely aren’t going to wear that outfit again today! It won’t be fit to be seen by Thursday!’ She turned to the family in explanation, unseeing Rachel’s stricken expression. ‘We brought it especially for the party, you know!’

  ‘And very nice it is too! Isn’t it Les? Ha Ha Ha.’ said June.

  Poor James remained silent but his eyes spoke volumes. Tansy suddenly felt terribly ashamed of her good quality, fashionable clothes. She pulled at the sleeve of her own jumper as though spoiling it in some way would make Rachel feel more comfortable. Ellie thought her aunty Ruth might have gone slightly mad; surely she didn’t actually consider that hideous outfit to be presentable on a special occasion? Then she saw Mitch and all thought of Rachel’s clothes flew out of her head. She flashed him a brilliant smile.

  ‘I found it very difficult to know what to pack,’ shrilled Belinda. ‘I had no idea what the weather would be like or what we might be doing.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed June, and then realised that to admit as much was probably a mistake.

  It was, to everyone’s amazement, Miriam who saved the occasion. ‘I think I’ll probably pop off shopping today,’ she said. ‘I seem to have packed quite inappropriately.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Heather. ‘I haven’t bought Ellie a birthday present yet. It’s so long since I saw her I wasn’t sure of the size. I know!’ she exclaimed, astounded by her own brilliance, ‘why don’t you girls all come along? We’ll have a lovely girly shopping spree!’

  Tansy and Ellie were full of enthusiasm. Rachel looked at her father in panic. She had never been shopping without her mother before, and she knew they didn’t have money for the kinds of shops her aunts and cousins were likely to frequent. The idea of taking her clothes off and being inspected in the changing room was appalling. James shrugged helplessly at his daughter and almost didn’t catch Miriam’s words as she leaned closer to him and said, under her breath, ‘She’ll be fine. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll look after her. It’ll be my treat, to make up for Christmas.’ James twisted round to smile at her in gratitude but she had turned the other way and was listening to Todd, so he just smiled at Rachel instead and gave her an encouraging nod and a wink.

  ‘What a lovely idea,’ gushed Belinda. She was drying the dishes as Ruth washed them. ‘You don’t want to go shopping, do you Ruth? We can have a walk with Mum and Dad round the grounds instead or you could just sit and have a read in the library. I’m sure the men will take the boys out adventuring in the woods, so that’ll mean some peace for us all round.’

  ‘I certainly don’t want to go and I’m sure Rachel won’t either. She has homework she could be doing.’ Ruth scrubbed at the grill pan.

  ‘Not on holiday! What a waste!’

  ‘Not as wasteful as shopping!’ Ruth retorted.

  ‘I’m sure she won’t want to be left behind,’ Belinda said more gently, lowering her voice. ‘The girls are all getting along so nicely, don’t you think? And it is very kind of Miriam and Heather to offer to take them. We wouldn’t want to cause offence,’ she finished, dangerously.

  ‘No.’ Ruth pulled the plug out of the sink, resigned to the sacrifice of her step-daughter on the altar of good family relations. ‘You’re right. I suppose she can go, if she wants to.’

  The family chatted around the breakfast table, finishing their final cups of coffee and tea. The plates and cutlery had all been cleared, the surfaces wiped and the cereals and condiments put away. James, Mitch and Les had carried all the bottles and the spare boxes of groceries into one of the store rooms down the corridor. The back door stood open and Tiny was sprawled in the patch of sunshine across the threshold. The boys were anxious to be outside.

  ‘When will Rob be up?’ Toby asked.

  ‘I’m afraid he never surfaces much before lunchtime at weekends,’ Belinda laughed. ‘It’s because he’s a teenager. They grow in their sleep, you know.’

  In the absence of Rob, James, Jude and Simon were quickly conscripted onto the expedition. Miriam and Heather were discussing which car they had better use and the distance to the outlet village they had both noted just off the motorway junction. The noise of the assorted voices planning and proposing almost drowned out Elliot’s cheery ‘Good morning, one and all,’ as he entered the kitchen and only a few of them paused their conversations to give him a nod of greeting.

  Elliot’s person, freshly showered and sleekly groomed, betrayed nothing of his excesses of the evening before or of his night spent sprawled comatose on the sofa. Only Belinda detected a certain dullness of the eye which betrayed his true hung-over state. Under-whelmed by their welcome, and riled by the fact that breakfast had evidently been enjoyed without him, that no one had come to find him, or to bring him tea, or missed him in any respect whatsoever, he strode across the quarry tiles towards Belinda in order to wreak his revenge. ‘Good morning, my darling!’ he beamed, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Full English, if you please; tea, juice and wholemeal toast.’ Belinda smelled the acrid odour of brandy on his breath; she shrunk from his embrace. Without waiting for a response he turned to the table and set his laptop computer onto its surface. ‘Plug this in, Toby my boy, and lets fire the old girl up. I sense the need for organisation, for leadership, for the mighty hand of authority; in short, I propose we make a plan.’

  Belinda turned hastily to the fridge and began extracting bacon and eggs and reached for the skillets which lay newly washed and dried. The rest of the family gaped at Elliot’s rudeness.

  Miriam got up from her seat. ‘We have a plan of sorts, Elliot, at least for today,’ she said, archly. ‘Heather and I are taking the girls shopping. Simon and the other men are taking the boys out to climb trees. You see, we’ve managed quite well without the “mighty hand of authority!”’ She flicked her hair over her shoulder imperiously and walked from the room. Mary followed close behind her to see if Rob
ert was awake and ready for his bath.

  ‘Give me a shout, Mary, whenever you’re ready,’ Les called after her.

  Undeterred, Elliot continued to boot up his computer and to make an excel spread sheet with everybody’s name across the top and sections of time down the side.

  ‘So all this activity will continue until… lunch time? Later?’ he asked, urbanely, keying in the word ‘woods’ under the names of the boys and his three brothers-in-law, and ‘shops’ for the girls and his two sisters-in-law.

  ‘I should think we can dispense with lunch. It’s eleven o’clock now,’ suggested June. She was the only one encouraging him in his efforts to take control, behaving as though making a detailed itinerary for everyone’s movements was an entirely reasonable practice for those on holiday.

  ‘Let’s say three then, shall we?’

  ‘I think that sounds fine,’ agreed June, hiding a private smile, ‘You never know what might have happened by then.’

  Belinda was busy scrambling eggs. Her face was flushed from the heat of the Aga and from embarrassment. She knew exactly where this was going. She had left him behind again but it wasn’t her fault that he’d got so drunk that he couldn’t make it into bed and surely a lie-in under those circumstances had been a kindness?

  But two things occurred to avert the disaster.

  Ben sauntered back into the kitchen. He felt calmed by his playing. Music worked like a soothing balm to his nerves. Now he was ready for the adventures of the day.

  ‘Oh Ben. Have you been in the games room? Is Starlight alright?’ Mitch rose to his feet. Even a nappy change was preferable to the showdown he felt coming on in here.

  ‘She isn’t there anymore,’ Ben slithered onto the pew beside Elliot, fascinated with the computer. ‘She was there when I went in, posting farm animals into Uncle Jude’s guitar. And she liked it when I played Fur Elise, but then when I’d finished a Bach piece I looked up and she’d gone.’

  Heather made an involuntary squeak and got to her feet. She’d forgotten all about Starlight. Jude too leapt up. ‘You didn’t watch her to see where she went?’

  ‘Ben’s only nine years old! He can’t be expected to be responsible for a baby!’ Ruth cried, sharply defensive.

  ‘She can’t be far away,’ Simon said, calmly. ‘She’ll be in one of the other rooms. Come on, we’ll soon find her.’

  The family exited the kitchen en masse, except for Elliot, who remained alone at the table, and Belinda, busy with his breakfast. Some went down the passageway and others out of the back door to check the immediate grounds. Those indoors soon met with an obstruction. Mary, in a blind panic, to report that Robert’s bed was quite empty and that Robert himself was nowhere to be found.

  ✽✽✽

  Robert found the morning air very refreshing. A lively breeze was blowing the cobwebs out of his head, playing gently with the grey wisps of hair which Mary usually combed so carefully for him. The wind filled his pyjama top so that it ballooned out around his upper body but the chill on his skin tended to comfort rather than distress him; it was such a clear indication that he was alive.

  He was alive, that much was certain, but everything else was a fog of uncertainty. He had woken up in a strange bed, in an unfamiliar room, entirely alone. He had called but received no reply. Mary’s things were in evidence; her nightdress neatly folded on the pillow, her curlers and hair brush tidily arranged on the dressing table, but of Mary herself there was no sign. This circumstance struck him as being very cruel – she had deliberately abandoned him in this unknown place – or very frightening – she had been forcibly taken from him. Either way she must be found to re-establish order. He had got out of bed and discovered his slippers in their habitual place by the bed; discovered them not as a result of any intention or quest on his part, but simply by the fact that they had been there beneath his feet. In the alien morass he had woken into, they gave him a sense of comforting normality. The corridor had stretched endlessly, nicely carpeted, warm, but a considerable journey to be undergone before he discovered the stairs. In the absence of his stick or of a supporting arm, he had leaned against the wall. His voice, calling out Mary’s name, had seemed muffled and ineffectual. He was unable to increase its volume and the little sound he did make was absorbed into the walls. His steps had felt as though they were dogged by weights and the entire dream-like experience had caused him to pinch himself hard on the hand. But he discovered that the place was already quite sore and he concluded that this dream, if dream it was, was inescapable by that means.

  At the bottom of the stairs there had been music, heavenly music, the notes dancing from the air like melodious motes. The sound of it both comforted Robert and further alarmed him, present as it was in the absence of any human hand. He had hesitated in the hall, several doors offering too many equal possibilities of improvement or deterioration of his plight. Then an awareness of a draught on his back turned him down a corridor and into a room which seemed, not familiar, but briefly known. The chair, the empty fireplace, an arrangement of miniature cannons in a display cabinet; they all struck a chord in his imperfect memory. He toyed with the idea of sitting here and simply waiting; surely Mary would come along soon? But the breeze through the open French doors promised a quicker resolution to his sense of disorientation. The ghostly music, the deserted rooms, the absence of Mary, the ethereal quality of it all; everything was suggesting to him a possibility too enormous to consider. He stepped out into the little courtyard. The stone slabs under his feet were reassuringly solid. The water played over the stones of the fountain with a cheerful gurgle and the droplets on the green fronds of the plants glinted in the pale sunshine. Robert reached out and put his hand into the water; it was icy cold, but quite normal, and the wind on his skin inside his pyjama shirt made it pucker into goose-flesh. Yes, he was definitely alive.

  On the other side of the fountain a small dark statue which had been regarding him solemnly from its position kneeling in the fountain’s basin, struggled to its feet. The long, loose clothing was the colour of stone and folded in saturated ridges around her body. Her skin was dark and shone with wetness. The small pearly teeth chattered together with cold and her hair, an aureole of curls encrusted with water droplets like gems, seemed to crackle with ebony fire. The wondrousness of this sprite-like being distracted Robert from every other consideration. She climbed awkwardly from the fountain and ran to the narrow wrought iron gate which sealed the courtyard off from some wider landscape. Reaching in an ineffectual struggle to reach the handle, she looked at him beseechingly over her shoulder. He walked over and opened the gate for her without a second thought. Together they walked out onto the terrace, down the steps and onto the wide expanse of lawn. The statue-girl capered around the lawn emitting burbles of aqua-laughter, glad to be free of her watery prison and Robert stumbled after her, laughing too, his eyes running water in sympathy with the nymph’s stony clothing. The house, Mary and his confusion of only moments before were entirely forgotten in this experience of release.

  The child led him down the slightly sloping lawns, past flower beds straggled with the very last gasp of the summer’s show. Their progress was erratic. The child ran in circles, doubled back on herself, tottered on her feet and then rolled on her back. Robert followed her as best as he was able but his legs kept carrying him away from the line he thought he was taking. Once he stumbled into one of the herbaceous borders and scratched his leg. He caught sight of a small arbour with a seat and a roof twined around with the tendrils of clematis and honeysuckle, but his most determined efforts to direct his steps towards it were in vain. His desire to keep up with the child weighed equally in his head with his duty to do so; he had found her, released her, she was his responsibility and also his prize. This mixed feeling was suddenly very familiar to Robert. He remembered with clarity the sense that Mary and his family had felt to him like an unbearable and ungrateful burden and also like a precious cargo to be borne with pride and pleasure. The joy
and gratification of the one had never allowed him to give in to the weariness and heaviness of the other. On the other hand the great trial of responsibility had led him, often, he knew, to treat his family with coldness and anger. He had resented them - never enough to make him abandon them altogether, but enough to cause them discomfort on their voyage.

  The child had disappeared down a steep grassy slope and was running along a small wooden fence towards a gate which led into a wooded area. Robert slipped down after her. Golden leaves had collected in the hollows against the fence, and the child ran through them screeching her pleasure. Robert found them damp and less appealing. His slippers were becoming wet and uncomfortable and he wondered about taking them off and going barefoot, like the child. They were, in some way, too big for him, and he considered the possibility that, in this enchantment, he was shrinking, his body following the pattern of diminution recently experienced of his mental grip on life’s actualities. His ability to get what he wanted was certainly waning. His control over things like his business and his family, his memory, his very understanding was shrivelling, becoming unreliable and pathetic. He had become a creature requiring care and medication. Perhaps indeed, though not dead yet he was dying, but gradually, fading and diminishing over time, and today’s ordeal was just another step on the way. Perhaps in time he would become like this other-worldly being, a child again, occupied only with enjoyment, aware of nothing except the potential for pleasure in everything. The idea of becoming a child again appealed. His childhood had ended abruptly with the death of his father. Aged only fourteen he had been the man of the household expected to provide for his eccentric mother and two sisters. But before that, there had been pleasure and adventure, freedom. Yes, to regress to such an existence would make a tidy end to his life.

  He staggered along the fence in the wake of the weird, watery cherub, and through the gate. It was shadowy under the trees; the leaves lay thickly on the ground, some crisp, others slimy with damp. There was a discernible pathway but the child slipped off it, between the tree trunks and through the bushes, penetrating deeper into the copse. The branches became denser, prickly and inhospitable, and while the child could duck and scramble to avoid their most tenacious tendrils Robert was repeatedly snagged and scratched on their thorny ends. As he followed an uncomfortable sense overcame him and he kept on casting glances over his shoulder to the gateway back to the lawn, but it was soon hidden from view, and the route back to it also became lost.