Relative Strangers Page 2
He was late getting to school. The lay-by was empty of buses and grey-blazered pupils; even the staff car park was virtually empty. Rob and Ellie were leaning against the railings. He looked furious, she looked miserable.
Elliot forestalled their tirade of complaints by snapping in his most authoritative voice, ‘Don’t start. I’ve had a hell of a day and if you say one word you can forget the computer. And don’t even start to argue about who’s going in the front. You can both go in the back, and that’s that.’
The children slithered into the rear of the car looking daggers at each other and at the back of their father’s head. Elliot roared away from the school gates, raced down the avenue and took a short cut through half a dozen residential streets and a supermarket car park. He drove too quickly, accelerating and braking sharply, throwing the car round the corners and swerving manically to avoid cyclists, pedestrians and parked cars. Rob got his palm pilot out of his blazer pocket and began to play a game on it. Ellie sent plaintive text messages to her friends berating her father, her brother, school, the holidays, life and God. It was not going to be a pleasant drive.
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Hunting Wriggly was a gingerbread village of blue, pink and jasmine cottages with low roofs thickly slated and tiny windows. The main – the only – street curled in the shape of a horseshoe round a village green glassily dimpled with a pond complete with ducks, then snaked down a hill and round to the right to encompass an ancient stone church and minute schoolhouse. The road was washed at its lowest point by a bright stream (a narrow stone footbridge saved the villagers’ shoes) then climbed again to the top of a rise, where a cluster of newer houses, a small shop, craft barn and a pub marked the outer perimeter of the village. Further along the lane terraces of stone cottages punctuated the hedgerows. Low cobble walls in front of them served to restrain pocket handkerchief sized gardens burgeoning with bright purple asters and giant-headed dahlias, blooming still, even so late in October. Larger houses and farms were strung out towards the outskirts of the parish, and then there was nothing at all until, on the right, a pair of diminutive cottages and on the left, stone gate-posts announced Belinda’s arrival at Hunting Manor.
The driveway took her through a tunnel of trees brazen with the colours of autumn. The drive itself was a golden carpet which sloped quite steeply down between thick banks of mixed shrubs and trees. After a while the trees seemed to retreat, held back by a stalwart hedge of glossy rhododendrons. These too were held severely in check by what looked like an intensive coppicing programme; some of the bushes had been cut hard back to allow easier passage along the driveway, skeletal limbs and denuded branches protruded at awkward angles, like broken bones. Amputated boughs had been left to compost down. Then the vegetation petered out as the driveway curved round to the left and opened out into a gravelled sweep. To each side of the sweep, wide, manicured lawns and the occasional stand of grey-trunked beech trees made a green and golden moat around the house so that the gravel made a drawbridge to the massive doors.
The house itself was reassuringly large, three storied, made of pink sandstone, flat-fronted but with a roof line that bristled with chimneys and gables. There were a number of tall windows on the ground and first floor levels and smaller, dormer windows on the upper storey. To the right a single storey wing of newer, but not recent, construction in brick jutted forwards, making an L shape with a pleasant, sheltered paved area in its elbow. Through the tall windows Belinda could see a snooker table and a grand piano set at opposite ends of an enormous low-ceilinged room. Ridiculously, quite alone on the grand sweeping drive, Belinda clapped her hands in excitement. She walked towards the huge double doors. They were set centrally to the main house up two wide and smooth stone steps and under a portico supported on sandstone pillars. The door, as promised, was unlocked. She pushed it open and went in.
The hall was enormous, bathed in the light which streamed, as golden as honey, through the two windows on either side of the door. The wood panelled walls and wide-boarded floor exuded the sweetness of beeswax. To her left a fireplace so wide and high that five men could have stood abreast within it was ready laid with wood, its hearth scattered with pine cones and crisp autumn leaves. To the left of the fireplace a door into the dining room stood ajar. Belinda made a quick note of the number of chairs round the long polished table, (twenty: ideal) before taking in other details - silver candelabra, another huge fireplace, windows draped with heavy folds of beautifully embroidered curtains. Back in the hall to the right of the fireplace an alcove stored fishing rods and tackle boxes, a selection of Wellington boots and green waterproof coats, riding hats and crops and even a beekeeper’s hat. Their presence gave a somewhat eerie feeling that the proprietors were still in residence, that Belinda was not entitled at all to be intruding upon them. She paused, listening hard, uncomfortably aware of the flop of her own heart within her ribs, but only silence met her, and, gingerly, she took off her coat and hung it on one of the pegs before continuing her exploration.
Adjacent to the cloakroom a door gave access to a small, windowless bathroom with an old fashioned but immaculately clean white suite and black and white tiled floor. Opposite the front door a wide and heavily carved staircase rose up ten or a dozen steps before dividing and sweeping further upwards in two broad arcs. To the right of the staircase, leading onwards, a corridor gave access to the nether reaches of the house. Belinda peeped into each room, saving detailed examination until her chores were done. A library, a snug little drawing room and a huge lounge with French windows opening onto a terrace. To the left of the staircase an anonymous panelled door led the way into the domestic area. The back of it was covered in padded green material (so that’s what a baize door is, she thought to herself). To the right of the front door, opposite the dining room was a room that exuded masculinity; leather armchairs before yet another fireplace, a roll-topped desk, newspaper racks and a collection of cigar boxes. Next on the right a gallery lined with frowning portraits. Through the gallery, presumably, access to the games and music room glimpsed from the drive. But Belinda, her brief exploration complete for the moment, stood back in the hall and breathed in. Yes, she thought, satisfied: this was a place for family: it would do.
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In contrast to Belinda’s neat and scrupulously clean house, Ruth’s was a bombsite. The narrow hallway was cluttered with boxes of food and Wellington boots, a bruised old suitcase, a crate of toys and a hamster cage. A basket of ironing perched precariously on the stairs on its way up, along with a stack of books, a pair of swimming goggles and an odd sock. The children’s school bags, their empty lunch boxes and Rachel’s PE kit were on the kitchen table. On the bread-board peanut butter sandwiches had been abandoned in the process of construction. A swathe of newspapers carpeted the area around James’s armchair and CD cases were in disarray around the stereo.
James, Rachel and Ben were all in a state of high agitation; Ruth would be home from school soon, frazzled after a difficult half-term and wound up about the family holiday to come. They had been instructed to be changed and ready to pack the car and set off the moment she arrived back from school. James was supposed to have spent his day off getting the house to rights. The hamster ought to be round at the neighbour’s. Rachel and Ben should have put their school bags away and washed out their lunch boxes. The peanut butter sandwiches were meant to be cut and ready for the journey in a Tupperware box. The imminent arrival of Ruth to discover that none of these things had occurred put them all into a state of paralysed anxiety; the three human beings stood forlornly in the lounge and surveyed the chaos, knowing that whatever they decided to tackle as a priority would turn out to be wrong. Even the hamster cowered in his nest of shredded paper. They shouldn’t have dallied by the pond watching the fledgling moorhens but hindsight was going to be no comfort to them once Ruth got home. They all knew it but none of them said it. James wrapped his massive arms around the two children and cast a rueful eye at the newspapers
and the CDs.
They stood for a while in this embrace; the children leaning against his massive form, feeling the heat emanate from him, pressing into the softness of his flesh. Rachel slipped her thumb into her mouth. Ben played an arpeggio on his father’s thigh. Then James gently disentangled himself and strode over to the stereo, inserting a CD and hovering his finger over ‘play’.
‘Alright, my lovelies,’ he said, his voice twinkling with excitement and adventure, ‘let us with haste from hence forthwith. Ben, you carry Skippy round to Mrs MacDougal’s. Don’t forget his food. Rachel, you sort the kitchen, if you can. Finish the sandwiches and wash the lunch boxes. I’ll hide the school bags and the PE kit and tackle this mess in here. Stand by to repel all boarders.’ He stabbed his finger onto the button and the William Tell Overture at an unsociable volume galvanised them all into action. James flew round the lounge at double speed like a film in comedy fast-forward, scooping up newspapers and marshalling the CDs back into the shelves. Ben leapt into the hall with a whoop like a comic book hero. Rachel scurried into the kitchen and seized the knife. Their laughter made the house ring like a pure bell.
Ruth’s day in the special needs department of the local secondary school had been made more difficult than usual by the over-excitement occasioned by it being the last day of the half term. Holiday fever had had the students in its grip and there had been no doing anything with them. She had had an acrimonious staff meeting over lunch and an encounter with a belligerent parent on the school steps. She had a stack of books to mark and tests to grade. The traffic was already beginning to thicken on the main roads and, if they weren’t sharp, would be at a standstill by the time they got on the by-pass. Ruth sat and fumed behind the wheel. The petrol gauge caught her eye and her stress level climbed a notch higher. They would have to stop at the petrol station; that would delay them even more. She only hoped that James had spent his day off getting the house tidy and that the children would be ready to set off as soon as she got home. But it was a forlorn hope. James was utterly lackadaisical when left to his own devices; he had no sense of the urgency of anything. He tended to get the children over-excited and giddy so that she had to shout at them to get them into line. No doubt it would all be left to her, again.
As if the prospect of the journey was not bad enough the holiday itself was feeling like a dreadful mistake in the offing. Ruth wondered what on earth was to be gained by it. She’d never got on especially well with Belinda and although she had been closer to Simon he had drifted away from her since the death of his wife. Her younger sister, Heather, lived life in vastly different circles and in fact had always seemed to inhabit a different plane from ordinary mortals. The family had become brittle and dry, like leather or wood deprived of polish, and the holiday would only reveal the fissures across its surface. Recent family gatherings had been fraught with angst; she had been so distressed at April’s funeral that she had scarcely any recollection of it.
The traffic moved forward again. A car emerging from a road on the left nosed itself in front of Ruth’s. The driver waved thanks at her as she let him in.
‘You didn’t give me much choice,’ she muttered, sourly.
Even the concept of a holiday was one scarred by unhappy childhood memories. Her father had played a minor role; the driver and provider of ice cream money. Other fathers had built sand castles with turrets and fortifications or organised games on the hard sand revealed by the evening retreat of the tide, or dammed the steam that flowed onto the beach from some unspecified (and probably unspeakably dirty) source originating in the town. They had been the beach heroes, jolly and tanned, wearing silly hats and sensible sandals. Her father, in long trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, had taken himself off for long walks, leaving Mary with the children and a picnic. Sitting, now, in the sluggish queue, Ruth recalled one memorable occasion when his walk had lasted over three hours. The sky had clouded over and a chilly breeze had sprung up blowing stinging sand onto tender, sun-reddened skin. Rain, inevitably, had begun to fall and the beach had rapidly emptied as families deconstructed their camps of deck chairs and windbreaks and rush mats and sun umbrellas. They had hurried back to their caravans or apartments or into cafés for cups of milky coffee and plates of sticky buns. But the McKay family had remained behind, their cardigans and anoraks inaccessible, locked in the car. Mary had gathered them together like a mother duckling and they had cowered miserably behind her and their windbreak on the deserted beach using damp and sand-impregnated beach towels to try and keep warm.
At last Ruth pulled into the drive. The front door was open and loud music boomed from the interior. In the lounge James and the children were dancing and laughing uproariously. Ruth watched them through the window. Neither of the children was changed for the journey and Rachel’s hair looked like a bird’s nest. Ben was wearing the swimming goggles which had been on their way upstairs since his lesson the previous Monday. James, in spite of his bulk, was careering round the room making silly exaggerated gestures with his arms and legs which had the children rolling around in uncontrollable laughter. The anger and frustration in her made Ruth want to scream at them but a more detached part of her wondered at their untrammelled joy. Like a sudden rainbow across a cloud-darkened sky it illuminated her, throwing fingers of iridescence into her glowering mood. And yet, like a rainbow, it was uncatchable. Inside the room all was light and glee but she was outside and it did not touch her and she knew that as soon as she stepped across the threshold it would evaporate.
Sure enough, as though her thought had conjured it, James’ eye caught hers and he said, ‘Here’s Mum.’ He rushed to begin bringing out the luggage to the car. Ben switched off the music and Rachel proffered the box of sandwiches. They all, at her behest, became busy and focussed but it was as though her arrival had caused them to close the pages of some exciting chapter, to bury away a marvellous treasure because she would despise it. She would not have despised it but neither would she have fully understood it. Like a foreigner coming in amongst indigenous tribesmen speaking in their own tongue she could catch only a sense of the passion. Their language, the language of James and the children, the language of silliness and frivolity and make-believe, was alien to her and politely, in her presence, they reverted to her familiar tongue.
Her familiar tongue lashed at them while she packed the boot of the car. Why were the children still in their uniform? Why was the house in such a state? What had James being doing all day? Would everything always be left to her? She drank the half cup of tea which Rachel carried out to her in white-lipped silence while the others made a last visit to the toilet, then they climbed into the car.
‘We need petrol,’ Ruth said, accusingly, after a while. James nodded and pulled into a petrol station.
While he filled the tank Ruth swivelled round in her seat. ‘How was school?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t feel well at lunch time. I didn’t eat my sandwiches,’ Rachel said, wanly.
Ruth turned back to the front. ‘Silly girl,’ she said. ‘What a waste.’
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Making her choice, Belinda took the small and unobtrusive door through to the domestic regions. Doors off to the right gave access to a laundry and boiler room. A steep circular stairway led down to the cellars and served as a servants’ access to the higher floors. A door on the left opened cleverly back into the dining room. Finally, at the end of a rather gloomy passageway Belinda discovered the kitchen. It was everything she could have wished for. As big as a squash court, it was fitted out with shelves and cupboards, a fire-engine red six oven Aga, a huge American style fridge, a double sink, a vast dish washing machine. A scrubbed kitchen table, long and narrow, with refectory-style pews along either side and massive carver chairs at each end made seating for up to thirty. A woman with more imagination than Belinda might have pictured estate workers, house maids, footmen and stable lads sitting down together here for meals while the family ate in the splendour of the dining room. She might hav
e conjured a bustle of activity, the rich smell of roasting meat and aromatic steam from tureens of fresh vegetables, the clatter of dishes and the chatter of men and women at liberty from work for a while. But Belinda, a woman for practicalities, diligently opened the fridge and placed her chilled foodstuffs inside; wine, milk, cheese, ham, red chunks of sirloin wrapped in bloody butcher’s paper, cream, butter, yoghurts, bacon, eggs.
Belinda checked the radiators and placed spare toilet rolls and distributed towels and made sure the beds were aired. She chopped onions and vegetables and placed an enormous casserole in the oven. She baked scones and tidied away the cooking and baking things. Finally she allowed herself to move around the house and appreciate its preparedness. It was four-thirty. Shortly the gravel would grate with the tyres of her family’s cars, and the hall would be cluttered with bags and toys and shoes and coats. Before too long the silence would be forced away by the excited cries of children and the exclamations of the agreeable adults and the complaints of the hard-to-please ones. Soon, she would have to share. But for now, for just a little while, Hunting Manor was hers.
She made tea and carried it up the staircase and along the landing to where she had discovered a tall arched window with a deep cushioned seat. The view over the terrace and the sloping lawns was magnificent. To her left, a walled garden showed rows of Brussels sprouts and winter greens, and glass houses steamy with exotic flavours. In the distance, beyond a belt of coniferous woodland, the land seemed to disappear abruptly into a steely blue skyline like a knife that would cut the lowering sun on its blade. Soon she would light lamps and close curtains, and even put a match to the logs in the hall grate, but just now she would drink her tea and savour the readiness that her planning and work had brought about.