Relative Strangers Read online

  ‘I really shouldn’t worry about the food, too much,’ Ruth said, plinking ice into two tall tumblers. People will be too excited to eat when they first get here. They’ll want to look round and settle in. That casserole smells delicious but it won’t spoil for another hour in the oven, will it? Here.’ Ruth handed Belinda gin and tonic and took a long pull at her own.

  ‘What about the children? They’ll be ravenous, don’t you think?’ Belinda could feel her plans slipping away from her like the string of a helium balloon from the fist of a baby.

  Ruth shook her head and swallowed more gin. ‘Oh! They’ll be far too excited to eat straight away. Come on, Belinda. Let’s take these drinks and go and light one of those fires you’ve laid for us.’ Without waiting for Belinda Ruth stalked out of the kitchen and up the passageway towards the hall.

  ‘We could set the table!’ Belinda called after her. ‘Do you think we should eat here, or in the dining room?’ But her question was answered only by the insolent swish and thud of the baize door closing behind her sister.

  ✽✽✽

  Rachel had chosen the last bed in the row. There were four of them altogether with pretty coverlets in mauve and yellow. They had proper old fashioned bedsteads with a head and a foot in metal with brass bobbles at the corners. Each bed had a small chest of drawers to one side. Rachel had arranged her family of teddies very carefully along the bottom of her bed, covering their toes tenderly with the bottom of the quilt. Her clothes she had stuffed without any care at all into the drawers. The beds were arranged along the right hand side of the room, under the highest point of the ceiling, which then sloped down steeply so that you could only walk along without banging your head if you kept to within a foot of the bottoms of the beds. But, into the slope, two deep window casements pushed out, and you could stand up inside these and look out over the garden and fields and woods.

  It would soon be dark. Only the very tops of the trees were still alight with the sun; the rest of the grounds were grey, their colours sucked away by the night. They were miles from anywhere, here, out in the wilds. It gave her a stir of excitement to look out on the untamed vastness of it and to imagine living amongst it. She began to wonder quite seriously just how cold it would be sleeping under hedges or in a convenient cave, having a vague idea that there would be piles of dry clean leaves to hand and choosing not to dwell on the insects with too many legs that might have chosen the same dwelling. She considered whether life could be sustained by berries and nuts gleaned from trees. There was a romantic thrill to the idea of living half-wild with the roar of the wind in her ears and skin tingling with chill and the sharp scents of autumn in her nostrils. She would be able to breathe in and in, then something might burst and the real Rachel emerge from the restrictions of her chrysalis. But, infuriatingly, the end of this fantasy was always her father striding through the woods with a powerful torch and a thick woollen blanket and being gathered back up into childhood, taken home to warm milk, a lecture and then bed with a hot water bottle nestling at its foot.

  She watched her father and brother now, scampering across the lawns. Rachel noted that neither of them wore coats or Wellingtons and predicted a fuss when they came in later with muddy feet and icy hands. Ben’s would be icy, anyway. Her father was never cold. Half of her wanted to hurry down to join them. The other half preferred to remain up here and look on; somehow it was easier to know how you felt about things when you were outside of them. Presently it became too dark to see James and Ben properly and she turned away from the window and drew the curtain across it.

  She was ravenously hungry, having lost what little lunch she had eaten in the hedge and refused tea in the kitchen. She took the glass she had brought up from the kitchen and walked into the tiny bathroom accessed through a funny shaped door at the end of the room. The proximity of the bathroom to the bed she had chosen was no accident. She assumed she and Tansy would share. (Ellie, she had noted, had been given a single room, across the corridor, reserved by a post-it bearing her name.) If so, she would be able to dash virtually unseen into the bathroom and close the door every morning to wash and change in privacy and last thing at night she could take her pyjamas in there and do the whole thing the other way around. She hated her body, its wobbling whiteness, the alarming sprouting of thick black hair; she couldn’t bear the idea of anyone seeing it.

  She filled up her glass from the cold tap. The bathroom, whose every surface was painted a Johnson’s Baby Lotion shade of pink, held an old fashioned bath, a wash hand basin and a toilet and had another of the deep windows thrusting out of the roofline, with no curtain across it this time. Now, with the light on, Rachel could see nothing at all of the grey landscape but only herself reflected pinkly back into the room, drinking water. She looked like a pink baby-blob, grossly fat. She put her hands to her midriff and pinched the flesh until it hurt. How was it possible to feel so hungry and thin on the inside and yet be so full and fat on the outside? Suddenly she hated the cream jerkin and tacky fake-leather trousers and knew with a terrible certainty that both the other girls would have nicer clothes with the right labels and thin bodies with proper haircuts.

  She stepped back into the room and surveyed the beds. Perhaps Tansy wouldn’t want to share. With self-discipline and a bit of help from Ben Rachel thought she could most likely manage to spend almost the entire week up here alone. She had her teddies and her books, it was quite warm, and there was water and a toilet. Probably no one would notice much if she was missing most of the time. The idea of being remote and spiritual quite appealed, it had mystery. At the end of a week she would be thin, surely?

  Rachel sat carefully on the end of her bed and tried to imagine being incarcerated in this room, the days passing with only the odd shout of laughter and passing footstep to indicate that anyone else was in the house at all. But the cosy image of herself and Tansy in pyjamas sitting cross-legged and eating chocolate biscuits until deep into the night kept intruding itself. Poor Tansy had lost her mother, after all, and there had been the beginning of a friendship between them at Christmas before she had suddenly had to go away. It had seemed like they had both been reaching across the space that separated them: a space filled to the brim with insurmountable obstacles. On Tansy’s side there had been private schools and horse-riding lessons and ballet and death, and on Rachel’s illegitimacy, body fat, second hand clothes and a special needs teacher. All these things had threatened any common ground of family association. But they had seemed to begin to connect, for a while. And maybe Ellie wasn’t too old now to want to join in. It might be fun, after all, to share with her cousins. A week was a long time to be absolutely alone and the possibility that no one would miss her was almost more appalling than the probability that somebody would and come to drag her without dignity into the midst of the tutting aunties and uncles and the bosomy reproach of Grandma.

  The crunch of gravel on the drive galvanised Rachel into action. She swept the teddies off the bed and kicked them into one of the window alcoves. Then she wrestled her clothing from the drawers and threw that too onto the floor, carefully away from any particular bed. She would let them choose, and that might make them kind.

  She met Ben on the stairs, breathless and rosy cheeked.

  ‘They’re here!’ he wheezed. ‘And Dad and me found, oh Rachel, you’ll never guess, we found, through the woods, the sea!’

  ✽✽✽

  Mary and Robert were dwarfed by the vast hall. They stood uncertainly by the door blinking like shy nocturnal creatures suddenly exposed to the sun. Mary wore her good coat and had a large, sensible, black handbag hooked over her left arm. Robert was hooked over her right but even with her support still leaned heavily on the walking stick in his right hand. James, having encountered them on his exit from the small bathroom (where he had been attempting, with only partial success, to clean the mud from his own and Ben’s shoes), bid them welcome without having any idea as to what the arrivals procedure might be. That there was an arriv
als procedure was quite certain. He sent Ben scurrying off in search of his mother and his aunt, and then busied himself with the enormous fire, making asinine comments all the while about the size of the house and the chill in the air and the warmth from the fire.

  Mary responded with characteristic grace, ‘Lovely, yes, very large. Quite chilly, you’re right. Very welcoming. How nice.’

  Robert nodded vaguely and looked around him in confusion and awe.

  Then James moved across to the front door which still stood open behind them and closed it with a flourish. Almost at once there was a muffled thud and shout of annoyance from outside and James reopened the door to find June and Les on the threshold, Les weighted down with a suitcase in each hand and June with a smile which dripped triumph from its well lipsticked corners. In an action which was to be vehemently criticised later but having, he felt, no alternative at all, James stood to one side and admitted the second couple. So it was that when Belinda and Ruth entered the hall seconds later from some cosy spot in the rear regions of the house they were greeted by the sight of Mary and Robert, looking for all the world like interlopers, hovering uncertainly by the fire place. June and Les, surrounded by luggage denoting a stay of some duration, stood in possession of the hall under the full brilliance of the impressive chandelier above.

  For once Belinda and Ruth were in unspoken accord. June and Les must not be allowed to insinuate themselves into this special holiday week. No doubt there was plenty of room and food to spare. Certainly the house would be busy and bustling and two extra could hardly matter. But the stark fact was that, frankly, they were not wanted. They were not immediate family and immediate family was what this whole week was about.

  ‘June!’ exclaimed Ruth. Her complexion was flushed with having been sitting too close to the fire, and from a rather strongly mixed drink, and from indignation. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ Ruth put into her question every ounce of astonishment that she could muster so as to communicate without actually speaking the words that it was inconceivable that she and Les could have any place at this gathering.

  Without waiting for June’s response Belinda hurried forward towards her parents, expressing welcome and pleasure and solicitude, pointed out the toilet and gently helped with coats. She took her father’s arm and sent Ben off to find Rachel, to create as numerous a welcome committee as possible to greet what she termed ‘our V.I.Ps.’ James, not knowing what to do, stood by the open door.

  ‘You might well ask!’ exclaimed June, beginning to unbutton her coat. ‘It’s been more trouble than I can say to get here but when we heard that you’d expected your poor mother to drive all this way on her own we couldn’t stand by and watch, could we, Les?’ She concluded with a trill of laughter, utterly false, a characteristic of hers which denoted what Ruth called brass-necked front.

  ‘Only too happy to help,’ mumbled Les paying particular and unnecessary attention to his car keys.

  ‘She wouldn’t have been on her own! She would have had Dad with her!’ Ruth put in quickly. ‘I should think that for a haulage man the drive across three counties would have been reasonably manageable, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Really, I wasn’t worried about it, June,’ Mary said, gently. She had anticipated her daughters’ anxieties about this unlooked-for development but had been powerless to resist her sister-in-law’s insistence.

  ‘It was such a long way, much further than we realised when we set out. And once it got dark, navigating those narrow lanes was a nightmare. You’d never have coped, Mary, you know, would she, Les? Ha ha ha!’ June turned to her husband who muttered something about ‘awkward concealed junctions.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ Mary said, approaching Les and putting her hand on his arm ‘It was a lot of trouble for you.’

  ‘Happy to do it, Mary,’ said Les with genuine warmth.

  ‘Come through this way, Mum, Dad.’ Belinda indicated the way past the stairs.

  ‘You’ll want to use the toilet before you head back?’ Ruth suggested to June, gesturing towards the door of the bathroom.

  ‘I think we’ll need a drink and something to eat as well, dear. Poor Les is done in. Ha ha ha!’ June handed her coat to Les, her second. The four of them stood in the hall like dancers preparing for a complicated quadrille but unsure of the opening steps; James by the still open door, Ruth opposite him at the foot of the stairs, Les and June and the suggestive suitcases between them. Suddenly Rachel and Ben were on the stairs. All four adults looked up at them and in this momentary lapse of concentration June took a step in the direction taken by Belinda, Mary and Robert. ‘Where’s the lounge, is it this way? Come on, children. Show Aunty June where the gin is!’

  Out-manoeuvred for the moment, Ruth ground her teeth. ‘You might as well close the door and show Les where to put those suitcases,’ she snapped at James. ‘I assume they’re Mum and Dad’s?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Les, ‘ours are…’

  Les was easier prey than June and Ruth pounced on him mercilessly. ‘In the car? What a surprise! I’d better go and make some drinks.’

  Left alone, James and Les gave each other a sympathetic moue before each picking up a suitcase and mounting the stairs.

  ‘Nice place,’ commented Les.

  ‘Remarkably nice.’

  Belinda led her parents into the drawing room. A fire burned brightly in the hearth and a number of deep and squashy sofas and chairs were arranged in comfortable proximity to it. Small tables displayed a collection of miniature porcelain flower baskets and a glass-fronted cabinet contained books, traditional board games and a set of model Napoleonic cannon replicas. A French window looked out into a small paved courtyard area.

  Ben curled against his granddad in the biggest chair regaling him with the unfolding story so far; hunting the ubiquitous Wriggly, Aunty Belinda the angel, the stairways and the piano and the scones and the woods and, finally, the sea. Ben didn’t get to see his granddad very often but found that his capacity for Ben’s conversation had been vastly enlarged since what the grown-ups termed his ‘stroke.’ A stroke seemed to Ben to be a gentle and welcome thing to experience, a soothing hand on a fevered forehead, a calming and reassuring gesture you might administer to an old dog or cat. Certainly it had rendered his granddad passive and still, smoothing out under its touch the little rages and storms which had frightened Ben in the past, leaving space for Ben’s colourful, sometimes disjointed but always deeply sincere conversational meanderings.

  ‘Very good!’ Robert kept saying, even at junctures when such a response was inappropriate, ‘Very good!’

  On the sofa Mary and Rachel snuggled together saying nothing while Belinda held forth from a position to one side of the fireplace about menus and room arrangements and toilet paper and speculated about whether Elliot and the children would be here soon, or fairly soon, or not for some time. Every so often, June interjected with a conversational gambit designed to demonstrate her perfect happiness with the arrangements, as though she was effected by them equally with everyone else. Presently they were joined by James and Les who perched on less comfortable chairs towards the back of the room and remained silent.

  Ruth arrived with a tray of drinks and bowls of crisps and nuts.

  ‘It’s rather a trek from the kitchen, Belinda,’ she said, handing Mary and Robert their glasses. ‘Do you think we should set up a sort of bar in here? On that cabinet, maybe?’

  Belinda considered the idea. ‘We’d still have to carry the glasses to and fro for washing, though.’ She lifted a glass from Ruth’s tray.

  ‘That could be James’ job, couldn’t it James?’ Ruth passed James and Les their drinks. Her look communicated to James that this was his cue to establish his determination to make himself useful in some capacity or other during the week.

  ‘By all means,’ replied James, good-naturedly. Belinda flashed him a smile.

  ‘And ice,’ put in June. ‘You’d need ice brought in each evening. I suppose in the old days
the people who lived here had servants to run around after them.’

  ‘Some things haven’t changed, much,’ said Ruth dryly, handing June her drink.

  ‘This is all very nice,’ said Mary quickly. ‘Thank you, Belinda, for all your hard work. Your dad and I are very grateful to you.’

  ‘To Belinda!’ said Robert abruptly, interrupting Ben to raise the glass which he had suddenly discovered in his hand.

  ‘To Belinda!’ they all chorused, obediently, and raised their glasses.

  But they had hardly managed to touch their drinks before the door was shoved open and Elliot staggered in carrying a computer monitor with the keyboard balanced precariously on the top.

  ‘Here you all are,’ he barked crossly, as though they had been hiding from him. ‘Could we have some help here?’ He looked accusingly at Belinda. Here they all were cosily ensconced with drinks; the party had quite evidently started without him. He’d had a terrible journey, the kids had driven him demented with their bickering, there had been no one to greet him, the place had seemed deserted and it looked like he was expected to unload the whole car without any help from anyone while they all sat around enjoying themselves. His look said all this and more and Belinda leapt into action.

  ‘You’ve brought the computer? I didn’t know. Let me think, now, where would be the best place…’

  ‘What about that room with the desk, off the hall?’ Ruth suggested.

  ‘The study? Yes! Of course. Come on, let me show you. James, would you mind helping?’ Belinda scurried off down the corridor. Elliot, stopping only to say a surprisingly warm, ‘Hello, June! How nice to see you!’ followed close behind grunting and gasping to indicate how heavy the computer was and how unhelpful everyone was being. Rob, in the hallway, held the tower unit and a Bolognese of wires. He, like his father, had an air of panic, as though the machine could only survive a certain length of time in this disembowelled form and might soon be past saving.