Relative Strangers Read online

  As though sensing her thoughts, Les leaned towards her and said, ‘I heard today that the City chairman’s resigning.’ Belinda floundered for a moment. What could he mean? Did cities have chairmen? She thought they had mayors. In her confusion she chewed for longer than was necessary on a piece of steak while she considered a suitable response, but her father, unexpectedly, came to her aid.

  ‘Good thing, too,’ he barked, while Mary wiped gravy from his chin. ‘The man’s a waste of space, always has been.’

  ‘Franny Lee was the man, he was,’ said Les, with feeling. Robert nodded.

  ‘Football bores me,’ said Ruth, slowly.

  ‘You aren’t eating, Ruth,’ Belinda commented. ‘Are you feeling alright?’

  ‘I think I’ve gone a bit past it.’ Ruth creased her face up into an apologetic smile. ‘I had a hellish day at school today, if anybody’s interested.’

  Nobody was, and Ruth relapsed into a sulky silence.

  ‘More broccoli, anyone?’ asked Belinda.

  ‘I didn’t know you planned to join us,’ Elliot remarked pointedly to June. He was pretty sure that he was not the only one. Further down the table, startled eyes were turned towards him.

  June simpered. ‘Ruth has kindly invited us.’

  ‘It was more of an observation than an invitation, June!’ Ruth shook herself from her doldrums to exclaim.

  June ignored her. ‘...and I think, if you’re sure we won’t be intruding…’ Now June was looking at him and with a delicious sense of having assumed control at last Elliot decided to dispense largesse. He shook his head as though it were an impossible concept.

  ‘...as it’s getting a little late, perhaps we will stay just for tonight, at least,’ June finished.

  ‘At least.’ Elliot echoed. He looked down the table and met his wife’s appalled astonishment with an oily grin.

  A commotion in the passageway alerted them to Simon’s arrival. He strode in first. Tall and well-groomed, carrying just a little too much weight, casually dressed in pristine cream chinos and a well-labelled polo shirt, he carried a case of champagne with two sides of smoked salmon balanced on the top.

  ‘Hello, everybody!’ he cried, ‘don’t let us disturb you.’

  Everybody, of course, was disturbed. Mary, James, Les and Belinda all got onto their feet. James took the case of champagne from Simon and placed it on the floor over by the back door. Mary reached up and threw her arms around her son’s neck. Belinda bustled about, fetching plates and cutlery. Les simply got up from the table as a gesture that he hoped would show that he knew himself to be an impostor and deserving of expulsion. Ben dashed from the kitchen in search of Toby and Todd. Rob, too, in the melee, climbed out of his seat and slunk from the room, in the mixed hope that his actions would be interpreted as downright rude or as an intention to offer help. Elliot smiled genially from his place of power at the head of the table. Ruth shrank inside, her heart beating from the excess stimulus of the alcohol and the anxiety over meeting Miriam. Now that the moment had come she felt less sure of her ground than ever. When James climbed back onto the bench beside her and placed his arm around her shoulders, she could have wept.

  Miriam and Tansy followed closely behind Simon; the two boys had been hijacked by Ben to be shown ‘everything’; they could be heard laughing manically as they careered around the ground floor rooms. Miriam was tiny in stature, hardly taller than Tansy. She wore an immaculately tailored business suit and high heeled shoes which Ruth dismissively labelled as wholly unsuitable for a week in the country. She was one of those women who have natural beauty; fine bones, good skin, large eyes and a pretty nose. She was exotic, a lover of luxury with a constant eye to her own comfort and well-being. Though cohabiting with Simon in the suburban home he had bought after April’s death she had retained her London flat and encouraged Simon to place the children as weekly boarders at their school, arguing cogently that she had her own important and successful career at the Bar and could not be expected to step into April’s shoes as mother just because she had taken up occupancy of April’s side of the bed. Having said that, as long as the children were good mannered, tidy and clean and neither crossed her nor manifested any overly emotional behaviour, she was happy for them to have or do almost anything.

  She carried two Fortnum & Mason shopping bags, Tansy a third. Les, for want of any other useful occupation, took them and tried to help Belinda unpack their contents; foie gras, croissants, huge wedges of stilton and brie, sun-dried tomato Ciabatta, malt-whisky marmalade, organic, dry-cured Norfolk bacon, continental butter, Belgian chocolate: it went on and on.

  Now almost everybody was on their feet; Heather kissed Miriam, Ellie and Rachel fluttered around Tansy. Simon exchanged general, genial greetings, his eyes avoiding his father; it was possible, in the hubbub, to ignore him without seeming to. Everyone was talking at once as though words alone could knit up the fissures between them; the journey, the house, the week before them, were all exclaimed over. With the arrival of this final family group it seemed as though everything could now begin, as though everything that had gone before was some kind of false start. Now they were complete and the McKays, on the surface at least, were a seamless whole. They all worked hard at maintaining the illusion and an onlooker would have seen a family reunion, the gathering of a clan. They were, in fact, a family of strangers.

  ‘Where’s Starlight?’ Miriam asked, looking round the table.

  ‘Asleep in the car. Mitch’s watching her.’ Heather ran a hand through her hair.

  ‘Bless her,’ said Mary.

  Ruth bristled, but said nothing. So far, neither Simon nor Miriam had addressed a word to her.

  Rachel arrived back into the room with the boys. Toby, a twelve year old with his mother’s pleasant sandy colouring and teeth that seemed too big for his mouth welcomed neither his grandma’s hug nor his granddad’s handshake; both made him feel awkward and shy. He didn’t know where to sit. He would have liked to sit with his cousin Rob but he was nowhere to be seen. At last Simon noticed his elder son standing uncertainly by the door. ‘Come on, son, and sit here with me,’ he said, and Aunty Belinda placed a portion of food in his place. Toby’s heart sank: vegetables.

  ‘Dad! Dad!’ chirped Ben, ‘there’s a huge dog in the hall! It’s enormous, Dad. Whose is it? Can we keep it?’ Then, with a gasp, ‘You don’t think,’ he whispered, awed, ‘that it could’ve eaten Wriggly!’

  ‘A dog!’ exclaimed Belinda, wondering if she would be expected to feed it. ‘Where can it have come from?’ The whole thing seemed to be mushrooming before her eyes.

  ‘It’s Mitch’s.’ Heather told her. ‘D’you know he has never had a pet? Not even so much as a hamster? I sent him off to the animal shelter as soon as I found out. Although I must admit I didn’t expect him to get anything so large... Don’t worry, Ben’s wiggly won’t have been eaten, whatever that is. He’s no trouble at all. Half the time you don’t know he’s there.’

  ‘Like Mitch!’ jested Simon.

  ‘Mitch’s alright,’ Jude put in, a little defensively.

  ‘Oh yes, Mitch’s alright,’ agreed Elliot, feeling that he should be the one to decide Mitch’s status in proceedings.

  ‘Mitch’s welcome, of course,’ affirmed Belinda, ‘it’s just that I didn’t know he had a dog.’

  ‘What’s his name, Uncle Jude?’ Ben wriggled on his seat. It seemed to him that everyone was losing sight of the really important thing, here. There was a dog, a really big one, and who he belonged to didn’t really matter. A dog could be incorporated into adventures, it could be set on the trail of Wriggly, and it could be a faithful companion or a pretend adversary. A dog that big could even, Ben considered, speculatively, be ridden.

  ‘Tiny,’ said Jude, dryly.

  Everybody laughed.

  The meal recommenced, those who had already started making the best of their chilled remainders. James got Ruth a fresh plate and helped her to a small portion of casserole and some carrot
s. Under his supervision, she managed to swallow a few mouthfuls and immediately began to feel a little better. Elliot, mine host, refilled wine glasses, opening further bottles. Heather discreetly pushed a glass of wine towards Ellie; it was the second time she had done it. Perhaps it was the wine, or the incident between Rob and Rachel, but Ellie was beginning to warm towards her cousins. Rachel was describing the bedrooms to Tansy, tentatively suggesting that they might share.

  ‘May I share a room with Rachel?’ Tansy asked Miriam.

  ‘Fancy having to ask that!’ Ellie exclaimed, archly. She was not accustomed to asking for her parents’ permission on such mundane matters.

  Miriam ignored the comment. ‘Certainly, if you don’t keep each other awake all night,’ she assented.

  ‘It’ll be like being back in the dorm at school,’ said Tansy to Rachel, with a sigh.

  ‘So what have you all decided? Fill us in on the plan,’ Simon said, through casserole. ‘This is delicious, Belinda,’ he added.

  ‘Decided? What about?’ Elliot’s ears pricked up.

  ‘Well,’ Simon swallowed and took a sip of wine, ‘with so many of us, we can’t expect Belinda to do all the cooking, for a start, can we?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ Belinda put in, stirring custard on the hob.

  ‘No. We ought to work out teams, or a rota, or something.’

  ‘Good idea!’ said June, as though it had anything to do with her.

  ‘I’m afraid your dad’s not up to cooking,’ said Mary, ‘are you, Robert dear?

  Robert’s only reply was to ask, ‘Where’s the television? We usually have the television on at tea time. Mary? Isn’t that programme we like on tonight?’

  Mary put her hand over his, and soothed him.

  ‘Of course not, Mum,’ Ruth put in, defensively, referring to the cooking. ‘Simon didn’t mean that you or Dad should do any cooking.’ She cast her eyes along the table, hoping that her remark would be recognised as an olive branch. ‘You’re to have a nice rest and let us look after you.’

  ‘I might be a bit busy with Starlight,’ Heather said, self-importantly. She hated organised things; she was a free spirit, after all, and couldn’t be tied down by routines.

  ‘There’ll be lots of people to help with her,’ Simon said, gently. ‘You look done in, actually. Perhaps we ought to let you recuperate for a couple of days.’

  Jude muttered a sentence that ended with the word, ‘Mitch.’

  ‘We don’t mind helping, do we Les? Ha ha ha!’ June shrilled.

  ‘Glad to chip in,’ Les said. He was perched, now, next to Mary; James had taken his place. With no cutlery or glass, he felt more marginalised than ever.

  ‘That’s very good of you, considering you’ll only be here for such a short time,’ Ruth threw in with more acid than she had intended.

  ‘What do you think, Belinda?’ Mary put in, quickly.

  ‘I have a menu planned,’ Belinda said, slowly, ‘for the first few days, anyway...’ She dished up apple pie.

  ‘We could go out,’ Simon suggested, ‘at least for one meal.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said James.

  ‘That pub in the village looked rather good, I thought.’

  ‘Remarkably good,’ James concurred.

  Ruth jabbed James in the ribs with her elbow. ‘I expect it’s very pricey,’ she hissed, pointedly.

  ‘We’ll be a very unwieldy number,’ Belinda said doubtfully.

  ‘We could get into groups,’ Simon was saying, ‘say three groups of four...’

  ‘Good idea,’ Ruth supported Simon again.

  ‘We’ll be a group, won’t we?’ Ben indicated his two cousins.

  ‘That’ll be fine as long as we all like toast and cereal, Ben. That’s your limit in the kitchen,’ Rachel ventured. Apart from Ruth and Simon no one else was very keen on the team idea. Belinda had really wanted the sole freedom of the kitchen; she had planned the menus and written the shopping lists, after all. Heather wasn’t much of a cook and Miriam, though an excellent cook, certainly had no intention of spending much time stoking an Aga or polishing copper pans. Jude would be happy to chop and peel but wasn’t an ideas man when it came to culinary innovation. James would loyally support Ruth, of course. None of them relished being put in a catering team with three over excited children.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to just agree to help out with everything. James has done a very good job so far with all the fires, and I think he’s carried everyone’s luggage up for them.’ Mary tried to mollify everyone.

  ‘Whatever everyone wants, of course,’ Simon drained his wine glass. ‘But you know what they say about too many cooks. No pie for me, thanks Belinda.’ He patted his stomach. ‘I’m trying to lose a few pounds.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s going to be a question of too many,’ Ruth laughed, reaching for her wine glass but finding a water tumbler had replaced it.

  Mitch’s head appeared round the kitchen door.

  ‘Little ‘un’s awake,’ he said. ‘Shall I bring her in?’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Jude. ‘Here mate, get some grub.’ He got up from the table, laid a fresh place and brought over the plated meal that had been keeping warm in the oven. Then he left the room to collect his daughter.

  ‘Lovely! Thanks!’ Mitch began to eat. The meal was over, anyway. There was no question that the family should remain at the table while Mitch ate. People were talking about going upstairs, finding their rooms to unpack. Belinda had run a sink full of hot water while James was beginning to stack the dishwasher.

  Ellie regarded Mitch from her position over by the dresser. He was taller and broader than she recalled, and in some way sleeker. His hair, which had been very short, had grown out. It was blonde. His eyes had lost a certain shrinking caginess they had had. They met hers, now across the table. All in all, from an inauspicious start, things were looking up.

  ‘I don’t want you all to go away, just yet,’ Heather said, suddenly. ‘I have this sense of, oh!’ she put her hand theatrically to her forehead, ‘I feel it’s very important that Starlight sees you all for the first time, together. It’ll be her first extended-family memory. Imagine it, burned into her brain forever. This family gathering.’

  ‘I thought Simon and Miriam had seen her already,’ Ruth put in with a note of sourness.

  ‘She was asleep. She didn’t see them,’ Heather retorted.

  The family’s anticipation rose. For Mary, Starlight meant the end of Heather’s long quest for motherhood. For Robert, a new Heather-child, a golden faced replica to delight his old age. Ruth of course had her doubts about the child’s provenance but even she could not but be excited at the arrival of any new child, however achieved. The girls, young as they were, experienced a frisson of something at the prospect of a rosy cheeked babe. The boys just hoped that the new child would attract all the adults’ attention so that they could get away with murder for the rest of the week.

  Jude’s footsteps could be heard in the passageway. Some of the family rose to their feet; such was their sense of expectation. Then he was in the room, and the whole family except for Simon and Miriam let out a startled gasp. Nestled in the crook of Jude’s arm was a child of something over twelve months old. Her hair was a mass of black curls, her eyes as dark as night. She looked around her at the gathered people, her eyes sleepy and confused by the dwindling candle light. Mary put her hand to her mouth. Robert staggered, and fell back into his seat. Belinda thought her heart would beat itself out of her body. Ruth thought for a wild moment that there had been some mistake. Elliot wanted to laugh.

  ‘Well?’ said Heather, beaming round at her family. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘That child,’ croaked Robert, a tremulous arm reaching forward and a shaking finger extending itself towards Starlight, ‘is as black as the ace of spades!’

  ✽✽✽

  Mary and Ruth put Robert to bed straight after supper, with a couple of his tablets. The excitement of seeing everyone, the journey,
it had all been a bit too much for him, Mary said. He would be much better in the morning. Her own assurances sounded hollow in her ears. He would not be better and he might be much worse. He was unpredictable that way since his stroke.

  Ruth found the undressing and washing process rather distasteful. Her father’s body was white and cold, and entirely unblemished, like marble. It was as though any mark life had made on him had been completely erased. His muscles had shrunk to nothing; he was helpless as a baby. His skin concertinaed over itself, missing the flesh that had once filled it out. He stood like a child while Mary saw to him, doing absolutely nothing to help her but Ruth thought that even so her mother was a little rough, pulling his clothes off him, her mouth closed in a hard, business-like line, her actions lacking tenderness. Ruth offered to sit with her father until he fell asleep.

  ‘It isn’t necessary, Ruth. He isn’t a baby, you know.’ Mary said, folding Robert’s trousers deftly.

  ‘I know, but I haven’t had a moment on my own with either of you,’ Ruth couldn’t keep the whine of self-pity from her voice.

  ‘Just as you like, Ruth,’ Mary said, leaving the room.

  In the bed, Robert’s body made a pathetically small mound. He lay straight, his arms, where Mary had placed them, at his sides outside the counterpane, the skin of his face falling away leaving his cheekbones like smooth, sea-worn rocky promontories, his eyes sunken into their sockets. He looked, Ruth thought, for all the world like the effigy of a long-dead knight, carved into white marble and placed on a tomb in a quiet church cloister. Indeed, compared to the man he had once been, a powerhouse of strength and determination, he was as spent and vacant as any corpse. The rhythm of his sleeping breaths scarcely disturbed the sheets.

  Ruth knelt down by the bed, in front of the bedside table. He was a stranger to her. Even as a child, he hadn’t seemed to see her, half the time; he had remained aloof from all her earliest experiences. Her memories were of dolls’ teas on the small square lawn; she and Belinda pouring dandelion and burdock into miniscule cups and serving iced gems on tiny plates to start-eyed dollies, while Mary hung out washing on the line behind them. Or of herself and Simon adventuring together across the refuse-strewn wasteland between the railway line and the big houses by the golf course until Mary came to unearth them from their malodorous den of corrugated metal and damp cardboard and discarded beer crates to bring them home for tea and bed.