Relative Strangers Read online

  ‘In here!’ cried Belinda, opening the study door and switching on the light.

  ‘Clear the desk!’ shouted Elliot, nodding towards the stationery and inkwell which took up, to be fair, only the smallest space on the huge desk.

  ‘There aren’t any plug sockets, Dad!’ Rob almost screamed. ‘Move it over there!’

  James and Belinda heaved the heavy desk over to the window and Elliot and his son began emergency reconstructive surgery on the computer.

  ‘Where’s Ellie?’ asked Belinda, ‘is she still in the car?’

  ‘She went looking for you. She’s probably got lost. We can only live in hope,’ said Rob over his shoulder, busy connecting wires into the back of the tower. ‘Pass me the modem, Dad.’

  ‘Can I help at all?’ asked James.

  ‘There’s more stuff in the car, Jim,’ said Elliot without even looking up.

  James hesitated a fraction of a second before saying, ‘Right you are!’ and heading off towards the car. He hated being called Jim, but what was the point in saying anything?

  In the drawing room Ben had stopped talking and was simply resting his head on his granddad’s shoulder. The heat of the fire, the long drive, the walk, they were all beginning to tell on him. Only the emptiness in his tummy, still gnawingly present even though he had managed to eat far more than his fair share of the crisps, kept him from falling asleep. Robert had experienced no such obstacle and his eyes were shut, his breathing even. Rachel had left the room at the arrival of Elliot and the children; Ruth assumed she had gone to find Ellie. Ruth was desperate to show Mary around the house but knew that to steal this privilege from Belinda would be unforgivable. Alternatively she would have liked to unburden herself quietly to Mary about the situation with Miriam but this was impossible too with June and Les still stubbornly glued to their seats. June’s complacency in the situation she had managed to bring about was manifest; she kept on throwing looks of triumph over to Les who remained on the periphery, steadily eating nuts. He, at least, thought Ruth, had the decency to be embarrassed.

  Taking pity on him, Ruth said: ‘How’s Granny McKay, Les? Will you be seeing her this weekend?’

  Robert and June’s extremely aged mother lived in an expensive nursing home (at Robert’s sole expense), hale in physical health but of unreliable and eccentric mental competency. Robert and June took it in turns to visit at weekends, taking her out for runs in the car, carefully controlled shopping trips or even afternoon tea in out-of-the way tea shops. Since Robert’s stroke these visits had been more difficult as both Robert and Granny McKay was too much for Mary to cope with alone and she had roped in Belinda or, more rarely, Ruth, to assist. Not to be outdone June and Les had started taking their shiftless daughter and her unsuitable boyfriend along to visit Granny McKay on their weekend visits. Robert and June’s sister Muriel tended to visit their mother during the week, ostensibly because she had to take two buses and she found it too busy at weekends. However, as everyone understood, the real reason for her midweek visits was that she could thus avoid seeing June. The two sisters had not spoken voluntarily to one another for over forty five years. Knowing that Robert and Mary were to be away and that Muriel would never attempt a weekend visit it went without saying that June and Les would be in the Granny McKay chair, so to speak, for the forthcoming weekend.

  ‘Well,’ Les began, and Ruth thought she could detect a bloom of awkwardness spread across his cheek, ‘she’s fine, of course. No change. As for the weekend…’ he cast a look at June, who said, irrelevantly, ‘Les! Stop eating those nuts!’ There was a pause.

  ‘I think,’ put in Mary, carefully, ‘that Les and June anticipated that they might be quite tired after the drive today, and asked Sandra to look in on Granny McKay for them.’

  ‘Kevin will take her; they’ll enjoy the run out!’ June cried.

  ‘Really?’ Ruth sounded a doubtful note. Sandra’s young man did not strike her as the sort for whom car rides in the country would hold much appeal. He was the youngest of a handful of brothers almost all of whom had shady occupations which danced on the periphery of the law; strong-arm debt collecting and illegal wheel-clamping. Kevin, on the rare occasions he had been presented to the family, had remained silent, perching awkwardly on chairs and biting his fingernails.

  ‘She’s glad to do it!’ cried June. ‘She’s a marvel, that girl, isn’t she, Les? Ha ha ha! Nothing’s too much trouble for her. They think the world of her at work, you know, too.’

  ‘Granny McKay will be delighted to see her, I’m sure,’ said Mary, ‘and Kevin, of course,’ she added, doubtfully.

  ‘And it’ll mean you have the weekend free,’ said Ruth, pointedly, seeing now, the whole plan.

  ‘Well, now you mention it,’ pounced June, ‘yes. Is there any more gin, Ruth dear? Perhaps you’d like to show me where it is?’

  ✽✽✽

  Belinda found Ellie alone in the kitchen. She had dragged one of the carver chairs over to the Aga and was sitting with her head resting on the chrome handrail and her body pressed as close as possible to the cast iron, soaking up the heat. She looked exhausted, wan, with dark circles around her eyes.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Mum,’ she said, wearily, on sight of her mother. ‘I knew that if I sat here long enough you’d turn up.’

  ‘You look tired, Ellie. Have you had a hard day?’ Belinda lifted the shiny lid of one of the Aga’s hotplates and slid the huge pan of potatoes onto the dull iron ring.

  ‘Not so much a hard day,’ said Ellie, moving to one side while Belinda opened the oven door to check the casserole, ‘a hard journey. Dad went off on one the moment we got into the car. He wouldn’t let me sit in the front even though it was my turn. Rob made snide remarks the whole time. He stole my phone and looked up Caro’s number and now he’s started texting her. She thinks he fancies her but he’s only messing. She’s supposed to be my friend and she’ll think I’m in on the joke.’

  ‘Poor Ellie. What do you think of the house? Have you found your bedroom, yet?’ Belinda added more wine to the casserole, gave it a stir and put it back into the oven.

  Ellie shrugged. ‘The house is cool. I haven’t found anything, yet, though. Or anybody, until you. Is Grandma here?’

  ‘Yes. Aunty June and Uncle Les brought them up.’

  ‘Are they staying too?’

  ‘I have a horrible suspicion that they want to. They’re all in the drawing room. I suppose you wouldn’t like to set the table?’

  ‘Not really. There’s a room just for drawing?’

  ‘It’s old fashioned. It’s short for withdrawing.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ellie moved her chair away from the oven and started to open and shut cupboards, looking for food. ‘That’s funny. We learned about that in sex education. They had a room for that? Are there any biscuits?’

  Belinda leaned over the saucepan to hide her smile. ‘No biscuits, Ellie. Dinner won’t be very long.’

  ‘The girls at school call it supper, Mum. What is it?’

  ‘Casserole.’

  ‘Yuck. Can I have something else?’

  Belinda placed the lid onto the saucepan and turned to face her daughter. ‘Why don’t you have a little explore? Rachel’s around somewhere. You young ones are all sleeping on the top floor. I put your name on a single room but you don’t have to sleep in it if you don’t want to. You might like to share with your cousins. I think Rachel would like that. I don’t know. It’s up to you. There’s time to unpack before supper, and you should go and say hello to Grandma and Granddad.’

  Ellie stood in the centre of the room. To Belinda she looked very young and rather lost in the vastness. Belinda wanted to give her a hug but these days hugging was generally not allowed. Now that she had time to think about it Belinda realised that both the children were out of their school clothes and Elliot hadn’t been wearing a suit. They must have gone home – of course – to collect the computer, and got changed. Her heart sank at the thought of the tidiness of the house
ravaged by the three of them in a tearing hurry.

  Footsteps in the passageway distracted her from the awful possibilities. Ruth and June entered the kitchen.

  ‘Hello, Ellie, dear,’ said Ruth giving her niece a hug which was not rejected, which was in fact reciprocated. ‘Rachel’s dying for you to arrive. I think she went upstairs.’

  ‘Hello, Aunty Ruth,’ Ellie gave a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t know where upstairs is.’

  ‘Silly billy. Up the stairs from the hall, then just shout her name. She’s bound to hear.’

  ‘Alright,’ Ellie left the kitchen as though bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  ‘June wants more gin,’ Ruth said, reaching the bottle down. ‘Oh dear, its half gone. I hope Simon brings some more.’

  ‘We’d have brought some, if we’d thought,’ June said sweetly. She began to tour the kitchen, exclaiming about its size and appointments.

  ‘Simon had a list of things to bring, like we all did,’ Belinda said from the table where she was arranging knives and forks. ‘I can’t remember now what was on his. In any case he and Miriam have their own ideas about things.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Ruth replied darkly. Then, ‘You’ve remembered to set for two more?’ Belinda nodded, counting under her breath.

  Ruth whispered, almost in awe at her own generosity, ‘I’ll keep June in here for a bit. Why don’t you go and show Mum around? Dad’s having a doze so now’s your chance.’

  Belinda looked Ruth in the eye for almost the first time that day. ‘Would you mind? I’d so like to.’

  Ruth just nodded and took the fistful of cutlery from her hand. Belinda turned and left without a word.

  ‘Give me a hand, would you June?’ called Ruth, brightly.

  ‘Of course,’ June gushed, ‘I’d be delighted, only, where’s Belinda gone to? I might just go and see...’

  ‘…if you can help unpack the car? Well, if you’d rather.’

  ‘Oh. No. Of course I’ll help with the table. How many are we?’

  ‘Nineteen, now.’

  ✽✽✽

  In the hall Ellie sighed and searched with her eyes through the collection of baggage left there by Uncle James. She felt completely weary and wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with a hot water bottle and a cup of hot chocolate if only somebody would bring it up to her. Her anticipation of a week’s holiday was utterly ruined now, obliterated by this whole deal with Rob and Caro. Ellie’s habitual sense of powerlessness in Rob’s sway had intensified as soon as he had started larking around in the car with her phone. Her shrill remonstrance had been curtly and swiftly silenced by her dad and Rob, smirking, had had free rein. Once he’d accessed her phone book, it seemed like her destiny was set. And sure enough, Ellie knew now from a text message she had received later from Caro that Rob had promised to meet her later in an internet chat room. Caro, predictably, had been thrilled; she had had a crush on Rob since year seven. And, to be honest, sometimes Ellie suspected that Caro had only chosen her as a friend because she was Rob’s sister; certainly, for a ‘best friend’, she showed a suspicious lack of loyalty. Well now Caro would find out what it was to be one of Rob’s victims; to be teased and bullied and manipulated, to be on the receiving end of snide remarks and the butt of nasty jokes. To everyone else in the family he was faultless, Prince McKay, first son, heir to the kingdom. But she knew the real Rob.

  She started slowly up the stairs. From a room across the hall she could hear the voices of her father and brother as they put the computer back together. She paused to listen; they were arguing about which port the printer ought to be plugged into. Elliot, who was not as well up on computers as he liked to think, eventually, with bad grace, deferred to his son.

  At the top of the stairs an enormous mirror in a gilt frame showed Ellie her own reflection; sleek, dark hair cut in a bob with a long fringe to flop over one eye, dark eyes with long lashes, good skin, developing bust. She was, like her father, of slim build, not tall; her roomy sweatshirt and wide trousers made her look even smaller, waif-like. She felt vulnerable. Caro knew things that Rob must not find out and she didn’t trust her friend to keep a secret. With the weight of these cares upon her shoulders Ellie felt prematurely aged and even more helpless than usual.

  Somewhere along the landing a small door opened up in the wooden panelling, and Rachel said, ‘There you are, Ellie. Are you coming up?’

  Ellie swung round and smiled at her cousin. In years gone by they had played together from time to time. Ellie, older by two years, had always taken the lead in their games and Rachel, who had never seemed to catch on very quickly, had been a happy follower. She had hardly changed, thought Ellie. Looking at Rachel now she seemed impossibly gauche in her naff clothes and girlish hairstyle. On the other hand Rachel was still safely cocooned in childhood, possibly an enviable situation. And although she was treated as a cousin in every way she was mercifully free from the actual McKay blood ties which seemed to complicate everything to do with family.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Ellie said with a sigh. ‘Will you show me the way? Mum says there’s a room for me.’

  Rachel tried to hide her disappointment. ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s up here. Come on, I’ll hold the door for you.’

  The two of them climbed the narrow stairway.

  ‘It’s in here.’ Rachel opened the door indicated by Ellie’s post-it note and snapped on the light. She stood back to let her cousin in. It was a very pretty room, Rachel thought, painted in lilac, with a view over the drive.

  ‘Here’s my bag. It doesn’t look as though Mum’s unpacked for me,’ was all Ellie said, wearily indicating the green holdall at the foot of the bed. ‘I’d better get on with it. Supper’s going to be ready soon.’ Ellie hoped that Rachel would take the hint and leave her alone. After the journey and with the worry about Caro she just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for playing long lost cousins with Rachel. She wanted, if anything, this week, to be part of the scene with the grown-ups. She was, after all, practically grown up herself; indeed, just at the moment, she felt about a hundred years old.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Rachel, moving into the room and laying a tentative finger on the zip of the holdall, ‘if you like.’

  Ellie pushed back her fringe with an index finger and tucked it expertly behind her ear. It was an unconscious gesture made all the more elegant, in Rachel’s view by the thoughtless way it was done. Ellie’s fingernails, Rachel noted, were long, and painted in navy blue with silver dots. Was that allowed at Ellie’s school? Ellie stood helplessly in the middle of the virtually empty and totally tidy room as though surrounded by a chaos that she was utterly unable to sort out. Rachel recalled it was a trick Ellie had used for years, especially at tidy-up time or when they had been caught out in some mischief or other, an air of bewildered disconnectedness that generally resulted in someone stepping in the make things right.

  Rachel had just fallen into the trap.

  ‘Would you mind?’ Ellie smiled. ‘Only I need to find a loo. Do you know where it is?’

  ‘Just opposite.’

  In the toilet, Ellie locked the door before closing the lid and taking a seat. Surely, if she sat here long enough, Rachel would give up on her and go downstairs. Anyway, she needed time to think: about Caro, and Rob, and how she might stop this thing from going any further. Really, she needed to speak to Caro but she had hardly any credit left on her phone and the chance of borrowing Rob’s was… remote. Ellie heaved another sigh and settled down to wait. It was a strategy that usually worked; if you avoided them for long enough, most problems gave up and went away.

  Rachel unzipped the holdall and lifted out clothes - all, as she had anticipated, trendy and pricey – and a beautiful sponge bag chock full of expensive skin-care products. Underneath was a book - Bridget Jones’ Diary, very well thumbed - a huge towel, pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers, some very grown-up underwear and, at the bottom, two pairs of Nike trainers. Rachel folded, hu
ng up and tidied away the clothes with a kind of reverence, imagining that she was Ellie - slim, elegant, a proper teenager, the owner of nice clothes, reader of Bridget Jones, instead of Rachel - overweight, stuck in childhood, wearer of cheap and tatty clothes and reader (for the third time) of Harry Potter.

  Suddenly, the mobile phone emitted a series of beeps. Rachel leapt off the bed and grabbed at it, pressing one of the buttons as she did so.

  ‘Oh. You’re still here,’ said Ellie from the doorway. ‘I thought you’d have gone downstairs by now.’

  ‘Your phone went off,’ said Rachel hastily, holding it out.

  Ellie almost snatched it from her. ‘It’s a text,’ she said, and read the message quickly, before switching it off. ‘The girl’s obsessed,’ she muttered to herself.

  It felt to Ellie as though the room was closing in on her. Was Rachel waiting for her to say or do something? What? There was an initiative, clearly, and Ellie was supposed to take it, but she hadn’t an idea what was expected of her. Being in this little room with Rachel was becoming claustrophobic. She had to get rid of her somehow.

  ‘Are you getting changed for supper?’ she asked.

  ‘Well,’ Rachel’s hands went instinctively to her jerkin, fingers spread, ‘no, I…’

  ‘I won’t either, then. We might as well go down.’

  Without waiting for an answer, Ellie left the room, leaving the light on, and Rachel floundering, behind her.

  ✽✽✽

  The child went to sleep as the jeep pulled off the motorway. The other three occupants of the car breathed a sigh of relief. She had wriggled and struggled in her car seat, spat out her dummy and refused to be entertained by innumerable offers of toys and books. She had set her face against food and drink alike. They had made unscheduled stops at service stations so that her nappy could be checked. They had tried putting her into her push-chair and wheeling her round the car park and showing her the lorries. They had tried music, a CD of nursery rhymes, turning it up loud and singing along at the tops of their voices, but she had only yelled the louder.