Relative Strangers Read online

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  ‘Stop the car, James!’

  James responded with characteristic calmness, despite Ruth’s rather sudden command. He made a careful assessment of his options. Certainly, this would be a very bad place to stop. The lane was scarcely wide enough to accommodate two vehicles. On one side, a soft verge and a deepish ditch and on the other a rather wild and prickly-looking hedge meant that anyone exiting the car would end up scratched or muddy. On the other hand, at the bottom of the hill the lane took a sharp dog leg round to the right and James could see the entrance to a rough track opening onto its outer curve. Bearing all these considerations in mind he was yet conscious of the need to be seen to be responding with suitable alacrity given the sharpness and well known tone of Ruth’s directive.

  Therefore he shouted, ‘Driveway! Down there!’ and pressed his foot onto the accelerator in order to demonstrate appropriate urgency and obedience. Arriving at some speed, he stepped on the brakes so that the car skidded on the loose shale and ground to a halt with its bonnet facing almost back the way they had come.

  ‘Rachel! Get out!’ Ruth barked.

  Discerning at last the cause of the panic, James fumbled with his seat belt but his bulk made it difficult for him to move quickly. Ruth was out of her car door and round the back and had her hand on the handle of the rear door before he had managed to disengage himself and before Rachel had managed to push her various soft toy friends off her knee. Poor Rachel, he could see in the rear-view mirror, had turned a shade of greenish white. Ruth hauled her step-daughter out of the car and bent over her while she vomited into the hedge.

  James turned round and gave his son a big wink. ‘Alright, Ben?’

  Ben looked pale too but this was his habitual colour. He gave his father a pallid smile and turned his head so that he was gazing away from his retching half-sister. It was just the kind of thing he hated; sudden shouting and heightened emotions. His fingers played a Mazurka on his lap. He had been practising it all term and had recently played it for the external examiner at the Cathedral Music School where he had been a day pupil since the beginning of term. He had found it fiendishly difficult at first but with practise and the help of Mrs Adams he had mastered it.

  The examiner, visibly impressed, had made copious notes on his examination sheet. ‘How old are you, Ben?’ he had asked, at last.

  ‘Nine, sir,’ Ben had replied, clutching his sheaf of music and wondering, with a catch of anxiety, whether this young age might for some reason disqualify him.

  ‘Extraordinary! Grade three, and only nine!’ the examiner had commented before dismissing him from the room.

  ‘I think I might have passed my piano exam,’ said Ben, turning back to look at his father who was whistling very quietly through the gap between his front teeth.

  James nodded sagely, as though he had been privy to all of Ben’s forgoing thoughts and had just arrived at exactly the same conclusion himself.

  Outside the car, they could both hear Ruth’s voice, her tone vacillating between remonstrance and reassurance. ‘I told you that you should have eaten more lunch. Really, what a silly thing to do! Good food wasted, apart from anything else. You know you don’t travel well on an empty stomach. Alright, never mind. Let it come, just let it come. Good girl. You’ll feel better now. That’s it.’

  Rachel looked almost translucent, as though, along with the vomit, she had evacuated all her personal pigmentation. The afternoon was still bright with autumn sunshine and in comparison to the vibrant colours of the leaves and the dun brown of the ploughed fields the poor girl looked like a spectre in school uniform. Her legs were trembling too, and from shock, possibly, or shame, she was beginning to cry.

  ‘James!’ shouted Ruth, ‘can you pass that bottle of mineral water, please? And I think Rachel’s going to need her fleece from the boot.’

  ‘OK!’ James replied, genially and began again to grope round the overspill of his belly for the clasp of his seatbelt.

  ‘Dad?’

  James stopped and looked round at his son.

  ‘Cool skid, Dad.’ said Ben.

  Later Rachel, exhausted, fell asleep, her family of furry animals clasped tightly in her arms.

  Ruth said, ‘I anticipate nothing but trouble from Heather, I’m afraid. She’s absolutely obsessed with this child. The whole week’s going to revolve around her and Jude and the baby. It isn’t as though it’s really a McKay! Mum won’t be allowed a minute for any of the other grandchildren, let alone for us.’

  ‘She has waited a long time for a baby,’ James commented, conversationally. Heather and Jude’s childless state had been top of the family agenda for about three years. But James was careful to mention this only as a statement of fact. It wouldn’t do, he knew, to appear to be defending Heather’s preoccupation with the new arrival nor to remind Ruth that, strictly speaking, his daughter Rachel wasn’t really a McKay either.

  ‘Exactly! Just waited and waited and waited. She hasn’t done anything about it; not visited the doctor, had tests, or anything. I mean, I know she wanted to keep things natural, but there comes a point, surely, when it’s obvious that Mother Nature needs a little help. Personally I suspect that it’s Jude’s fault. All those years of debauched living, drugs, drink, any number of women. Not to mention the fact that he’s so much older than she is… It must have affected his fertility, wouldn’t you think?’

  James, sensing that an opinion was not really required here, simply turned his mouth down at the corners and raised his eyebrows slightly.

  ‘And yet I never heard him suggest that it might be his problem as opposed to hers. Even while she was so down, blaming herself, desperate, just desperate for a baby, not a word from him. Just that mazy, preoccupied look he has. I don’t know how I restrained myself from saying something. And now this. Adopting a child that none of us has ever seen and to do it right at this moment when all our attention should be focussed on Mum and Dad. Doesn’t it just make you want to scream?’

  ‘What have they called her? Charlotte?’

  ‘Charlotte!’ Ruth almost shouted the name. ‘If only! No! That’s just the icing on the cake, that is. Starlight! I ask you, James, for goodness’ sake! What can she have been thinking of?’

  ‘It’s traditional to her ethnic background,’ said Ben. ‘Aunty Heather told me last week.’

  Ruth screwed herself round in her seat. ‘You saw Heather last week?’

  ‘No, I talked to her when she rang. I did tell…’ he broke off and flicked a look at the back of his father’s head. James started to whistle absentmindedly. ‘I did tell Veronica to tell you,’ Ben concluded.

  Ruth turned back to face the front. ‘Oh! Veronica! She’s a waste of space, that girl! Calls herself a child-minder? She couldn’t mind her own business! I’ve told you before Ben, you should leave a note if you can’t actually speak to Daddy or me.’

  ‘Look, Ben! Look at the name of this village!’ said James, slowing the car as they passed the sign.

  ‘Hunting Wriggly!’ Ben shouted. He began to laugh. ‘Who’s hunting Wriggly? Why? Who is Wriggly? Is he Wriggly by name or wriggly by nature?’ Suddenly he was off, exploring, scampering over a landscape that had opened up in his imagination, his mind enraptured by the possibilities of comedy and adventure in the new idea. He lined up the teddies which had escaped his sister’s embrace. ‘Now, men,’ he addressed them, gravely, ‘the hunt is on. Leave no stone unturned, no nook unexplored. Wriggly is a fiend, a danger to our citizens.’

  ‘Has anybody seen this child, yet?’ asked James, holding the directions Belinda had e-mailed through to him in one hand and steering carefully with the other. It was a very pretty village, he noted, with a nice looking little pub and a small tea shop; refuges, should escape become imperative, he thought.

  ‘I suppose Miriam and Simon have – they’re thick as thieves. Birds of a feather and all that. Money sticks to money. I suppose they swan off to places all the time.’ In fact Ruth was incorrect
in this assumption. Simon and Heather saw as little of each other as their other siblings but the impecunious status of James and Ruth’s finances was a rankling wound with her. All of her siblings were better off than they were and she found it a bitter pill to swallow. She was sure her efforts the previous Christmas to entertain Simon and his new partner had foundered on the scarcity of smoked salmon and the paucity of good port. It must have been Miriam’s influence. Simon’s late wife, April, would never have turned her nose up at Ruth’s basic but honestly offered hospitality. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to try and get along with Miriam.’ Ruth sighed. She was, on the one hand, dreading seeing her again after the disappointment of Christmas. On the other she would welcome reconciliation on her own terms. But she had to be realistic. ‘No one seems to see my point of view on the matter and I don’t suppose she’s going to be holding out many olive branches. The truth is that I miss April terribly – more than anyone seems to realise. It’s been hard seeing her shoes filled so… inadequately and so… quickly.’

  James wanted to avoid at all costs a re-visit to April’s tragic death and almost shouted with relief when he saw the gates to Hunting Manor standing open on the left, as promised. ‘We’re here! We’re here! Rachel, darling, time to wake up.’

  Rachel roused herself. ‘I haven’t been asleep,’ she said, yawning, ‘only dozing.’

  ‘Are you feeling better?’ Ruth scrutinized her step-daughter. Thirteen was a delicate age even for someone as robust and stocky as Rachel. She was the image of her father, big-boned and solid; a weak stomach for travelling was about her only Achilles heel but even so, changes would come soon and must be watched for.

  ‘Are you looking forward to seeing Ellie and Tansy?’ Ruth asked.

  Rachel shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Oh my!’ exclaimed James, bringing the car to a gentle halt at the beginning of the sweep. ‘I think you’re going to like this, ladies.’

  Hunting Manor lay before them in the glow of late afternoon light. The sandstone walls were pink and warm. The woodland stood still and majestic all around. A wisp of smoke rose enticingly from one of the many chimneys.

  ‘You’ve got to hand it to Belinda,’ Ruth said, surveying the scene. ‘She seems to have come up trumps with this.’

  All at once the children were scrambling out of the car and careering down the drive towards the house. In his mind Ben was still hunting the mysterious Wriggly. Under his breath he sang a tune from one of the adventure films he liked so much. Simple quadruple time, four beats to the bar, key of A major, he identified even as he ran and swerved and leapt across the lawns. Even though he took detours round the fountain and one of the beech trees on the lawn Ben still arrived at the broad steps before Rachel. She was badly out of breath, her hair was awry and, he noticed with distaste, there was a smear of sick on the arm of her green school jumper.

  ‘You ought to get changed pretty quick,’ he said to his sister, carefully avoiding the yellowy stain with his eyes. ‘I don’t suppose Ellie and Tansy will have come in their school uniforms.’

  Rachel nodded, still too breathless to speak. She hated the grey pleated skirt and formal shirt and tie she was forced to wear. Most clothes looked terrible on her anyway, she thought, miserably, and these were worse than any others. Looking down at herself, both socks were round her ankles and one shoe was horribly scuffed at the toe. On the other, the lace had come undone and trailed dangerously. She looked over her shoulder. Mum - Ruth was not her biological mother but had cared for her longer than her natural mother had done - and Dad were still driving slowly down the drive. Through the windscreen she could see Ruth’s mouth moving in relentless speech. The car was filthy, quite old fashioned, not at all like the ones her uncles would be arriving in she was sure. She didn’t know what her parents had done wrong; all her aunts and uncles seemed to have pots of money.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ asked Ben. His hand was on the huge brass door handle but he waited for her to nod before he turned it. But at that moment it was snatched out of his hand and Aunty Belinda stood before him.

  ‘Ben! Rachel! Hello sweeties!’ she gushed. Ben prepared himself for the inevitable bosomy hug and when it came was glad that he had been nearer than Rachel. He couldn’t bear the thought of being hugged second, after the sicky jumper.

  ‘You’re the first to arrive!’ Belinda smiled, discounting herself. ‘Why don’t you go and explore upstairs? All the children are going to sleep right up on the top floor together – you can go and choose your beds now, if you like, before the others come.’

  Rachel and Ben stepped past her into the house, hesitating in the vastness of the hall. Their exuberance of only a moment before evaporated, they felt the years and space begin to press upon them. Unconsciously they moved closer to one another.

  Belinda noticed their hesitation and understood it with an unusual flash of perspicacity. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, gently. ‘We’re the only ones here. The whole house is ours. There’s nothing creepy at all – I’ve checked!’

  Emboldened, they began to mount the wide stair.

  ‘It’s so old. So big!’ Ben murmured. ‘Like a church.’

  Rachel hovered uncertainly on the half landing. She looked down to the hall. Aunty Belinda was standing in the doorway waiting to greet the grown-ups. Her body was silhouetted by a golden glow, like a halo, from the low afternoon sun. ‘Look!’ she gasped, clutching at Ben, ‘and there’s an angel!’

  They both began to laugh and the weight lifted from them. They scampered together up the remaining stairs and ran hollering through the house.

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  Out on the driveway the two sisters hugged briefly. They were utterly unlike. Belinda was short and had always been given to plumpness. She wore, at Elliot’s insistence, very expensive and well-made clothes, classic in style, but possessed a fewer number of clothes than other women who buy many things cheaply. She kept her hair long, but wore it in an elegant chignon day in and day out. It was now, and had been through her youth, her only vanity. Losing its dark lustre now, it had taken on an attractive pepper-and-salt colour. Her face bore few lines or wrinkles except for an engaging dimple which appeared in her cheek when she smiled. She had unfathomable eyes, concealing secrets, suggesting depths that her perpetual preoccupation with trivialities – napkins, raffle tickets – belied. She wore makeup discreetly except for lipstick, which she favoured in bright shades, and was an unvarying user of Chanel No 5. Ruth on the other hand took after their father. She was wirily thin, and lack of flesh plus, in her youth, a slavish worship of the sun and a heavy nicotine habit, had caused her face to age prematurely. Her mouth in particular, though large and expressive, was markedly loose, and on her eyelids the skin was becoming quite pleated now, an effect accentuated by the owlish spectacles she wore. Though not tall, she held herself with an air of tallness, a habit acquired early in her working life as a teacher of gangling, rebellious teenagers who tended to tower over her. Ruth liked colourful, multi-layered semi-ethnic clothing, for warmth – she was always perished with cold – and as a throwback from her student days when girls who had been sent off to University with sensible Marks and Spencer wardrobes liked coming home in ensembles rummaged from jumble sales and Sue Ryder shops to shock and offend their conservative parents. Unlike Belinda, Ruth disdained the use of makeup, except for lipstick, sometimes rather haphazardly applied. Her hair, still the McKay sandy blonde, just about, but threatening soon to become that transparent non-shade that blonde goes before becoming white, was worn very short, mannish, in a style that had been fashionable following its introduction by Annie Lennox in the early eighties, Ruth’s formative university years.

  Not given to demonstrations of affection, the sisters’ hug was brief. Together they turned to the house.

  There was no escaping the fact that in securing Hunting Manor Belinda had pulled off something big and the undoubted coup accorded her, in Ruth’s eyes, an unwonted respect. From Belinda, they were used to i
mmaculate but unimaginative dinners, dull but beautifully wrapped gifts and demonstrations of practical thoughtfulness in times of crisis. No one was used to seeing Belinda centre stage. It was Ruth who had been the drama-queen of the family. The only one to have attended University, her ideologies and both her partners (the first married while still at University, disastrously, it had only lasted ten months) were not as they had expected, or would have chosen for her. Even James - as solid and reliable as the other had been shiftless and faithless - had not initially won their approval because he was a nurse (and nursing, even psychiatric nursing, was apparently no job for a man) and because he was a divorcee with an infant daughter.

  Ruth swallowed a phlegmy, bitter ball of surprise and pride and turned from the house to her sister.

  ‘What a splendid place, Belinda! Where on earth did you find it? Expensive of course, but you can see why, now, can’t you? Is it nice inside? What time did you get here? What shall I do? What about food? Bed making?’ Ruth maintained a torrent of questions designed to accord Belinda due praise while at the same time insinuating herself into an organisational and ultimately supervisory role in the proceedings. Ben and Rachel could be heard inside the house whooping and screeching from room to room.

  Belinda hugged herself inwardly but could not prevent a flush of self-satisfaction from colouring her cheeks. She cast a look over towards James, but could not catch his eye. He was standing at the back of their car, gazing distractedly into the boot. ‘How was your journey? Did you see that awful accident? Come on in and look around,’ was all she said.