A Game For All The Family (3 page)

You see, unlike most parents, especially so long ago, Bascom and Sorrel Ingrey couldn’t

1

E
llen?” I knock on her bedroom door, even though it’s ajar and I can see her sitting on her bed. When she doesn’t respond, I walk in. “What’s this?” I hold up the papers.

She doesn’t look at me, but continues to stare out of the window. I can’t help looking too. I still haven’t gotten used to the beauty of where we live. Ellen’s room and the kitchen directly beneath it have the best views in the house: the fountain and gazebo to the left, and, straight ahead, the gentle downward curve of the grass bank that stretches all the way from our front door to the River Dart, studded with rhododendrons, magnolia trees, camellias. When we first came to see Speedwell House in April, there were bluebells, primroses, cyclamen and periwinkles in bloom, poking out of ground ivy and grass: little bursts of brightness interrupting the lush green. I can’t wait for those spots of color to reappear next spring.

In the distance, the water sparkles in the bright light like a flowing liquid diamond. On the other side of the river, there’s wooded hillside with a few wooden boathouses down at the bottom, and, above them, a scattering of pink, yellow and white cottages protruding from the greenery. From this distance, it looks as if someone has dropped pick-and-mix sweets from the window of an airplane and they’ve landed among the trees.

Since we moved here, Alex has said at least three times, “It’s a funny thing about the English coastline: the land just stops. It’s like the interior of the country, and then it suddenly plunges into the sea without any interim bit. I mean, look.” At this point he always nods across the river. “That could be in the middle of the Peak District.”

I don’t know what he means. Maybe I’m shallow, but I don’t much care about understanding the scenery. If it looks gorgeous, that’s good enough for me.

Boats drift past: sailing dinghies, small yachts, pleasure boats and the occasional schooner. There’s one passing now that looks like a child’s sketch of a boat: wooden, with a mast and a red sail. Most have less elegant outlines and would be fiddlier to draw.

These are the things I can see out of Ellen’s window. Can she see any of them? She’s looking out, but there’s a shut-off air about her, as if she’s not really present in the room with me.

“El. What’s this?” I say again, waving the pieces of paper at her. I don’t like what I’ve read. I don’t like it at all, however imaginative and accomplished a piece of writing it might be for a fourteen-year-old. It scares me.

“What’s what?” Ellen says tonelessly.

“This family tree and beginning of a story about a family called the Ingreys.”

“It’s for school.”

Worst possible answer.
Too short, too lacking in attitude. The Ellen I know—the Ellen I desperately miss—would have said, “Um, it’s a family tree? And a story about a family called the Ingreys? The answer’s kind of contained in the question.” How long has it been since she last yelled “Objection!” swiftly followed by “Sustained!”? At least a month.

Whatever Alex says, there’s something wrong with our daughter. He doesn’t see it because he doesn’t want it to be true. When he’s home, she makes a special effort to be normal in front of him. She knows that if she can fool him, he’ll do his best to persuade me that I’m wrong, that this is standard teenage behavior.

I know it’s not true. I know my daughter, and this isn’t her. This isn’t how even the most alarming teenage version of her would behave.

Bascom and Sorrel Ingrey.
It’s Ellen’s handwriting, but I don’t believe she would have made up those names. Allisande, Malachy Dodd, Garnet and Urban . . . Could she have copied it out from somewhere?

I’m trying to work out how I can tactfully ask what prompted her to invent the alarming Perrine Ingrey, whom I resent for splattering my lovely terrace with blood and brains and celebrating with a “Ha!,” when the phone starts to ring downstairs. I would leave it, but it might be Alex. As I run to get it, I remind myself that I must call about having some more telephone points put in.

Must.
I hate that word. In my old life, it meant “Move fast! Panic! Prepare for catastrophe! Turn it into success by the end of the day! Keep two people happy who want incompatible outcomes! Be brilliant or lose everything!” Fifty times a day, “must” could have signified any of those things, or all of them simultaneously.

I stop at the bottom of the stairs, out of breath. I refuse to hurry.
There is no urgency about anything. Calm down. Remember your mission and purpose. If you’re fretting, you’re not doing Nothing.

I’m not going to worry about missing Alex’s call. And if it isn’t him on the phone, I’m not going to wonder why he hasn’t called today. I know he’s fine—being fawned over by acolytes in Berlin. Discussing the Ellen situation with him can wait.

Worries are pack animals as well as cowards: too flimsy and insubstantial to do much damage alone, they signal for backup. Pretty soon there’s a whole gang of them circling you and you can’t push your way out.
Stuff the lot of them
, I think as I cross the wide black and white tiled hall on my way to the kitchen. I’m lucky to be happy and to have this amazing new life. I don’t have much to be anxious about, certainly not compared to most people. There are only two points of concern in my current existence: Ellen’s odd behavior, and—though I’m ashamed to be obsessing about it still—the house by the side of the North Circular. 8 Panama Row.

I’ve dreamed about it often since the day we moved, dreamed of trying to get there—on foot, by car, by train—but never quite making it. The closest I got was in a taxi. The driver pulled up, and I climbed out and stood on the pavement. The front door of the house opened, and then I woke up.

I pick up the phone and say, “Hello?,” remembering Alex’s pretending-to-be-serious insistence that we must all from now on greet anyone who calls with the words “Speedwell House, good morning/afternoon/evening.” “That’s how people who live in big country piles answer their phones,” he said. “I saw it on . . . something, I’m sure.”

Our new house’s solitary phone is not portable. It’s next to the kitchen window, attached to the wall by a curly wire that makes a plasticky squeaking sound when pulled. Finally at the age of forty-three I have a big, comfy sofa in a kitchen that isn’t too small, and I’m unable to reach it to sit down when I make or answer a phone call. I have to stand and look at it instead, while imagining my legs are aching more than they are. My mobile can’t help me; there’s no reception inside the house yet. Coverage seems only to start at the end of our drive.

“Hello,” I say again.

“It’s me.”

Not Alex.
A woman whose voice I don’t recognize. Someone arrogant enough to think that she and I are on “It’s me” terms when we aren’t. It should be easy enough to work out who, once she’s said a few more words. I know lots of arrogant women, or at least I did in London. Arrogant men, too. I hoped never to hear from any of them again.

“Sorry, it’s a terrible line,” I lie. “I can hardly hear you.” How embarrassing.
Come on, brain, tell me who this is before I’m forced to reveal how little this person matters to me.
Alex’s mum? No. My stepmother? Definitely not.

“It’s me. I can hear you perfectly.”

A woman, for sure. With a voice as hard as granite and a slight . . . not quite lisp, but something similar. As if her tongue is impeded by her teeth, or she’s speaking while trying to stop a piece of chewing gum from falling out of her mouth. Is she disguising her voice? Why would she do that if she wants me to recognize her?

“I’m sorry, this line is appalling. I honestly have no idea who I’m speaking to,” I say.

Silence. Then a sigh, and a weary “I think we’re beyond lying by now, aren’t we? I know you came here to scare me, but it won’t work.”

I hold the phone away from my ear and stare at it. This is absurd. I’ve never heard this woman’s voice before. She is nobody I know.

“This is a misunderstanding. I don’t know who you think you’re speaking to—”

“Oh, I know
exactly
who I’m speaking to.”

“Well . . . lucky you. I wish I did. I don’t recognize your voice. If I know you, you’re going to have to remind me. And I’ve no idea what you mean, but I promise you, I didn’t come here to scare you or anyone else.”

“I’ve been frightened of you for too long. I’m not running away again.”

I lean my forehead against the kitchen wall. “Look, shall we sort this out? It shouldn’t take long. Who are you, and who do you think I am? Because whoever you think I am, I’m not. You’re going to have to give your speech again to someone else.” I should have hung up on her by now, but I’m holding out for a logical resolution. I want to hear her say, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I thought you were my abusive ex-boyfriend / delinquent child / tyrannical religious cult leader.”

“I know who you are,” says my anonymous caller. “And you know who I am.”

“No, you evidently don’t, and no I don’t. My name is Justine Merrison. You’re delivering your message to the wrong person.”

“I’m not going to be intimidated by you,” she says.

Should have hung up. Still should.
“Good. Excellent,” I say briskly. “Any chance that I could not be intimidated by you either? Like, no more crank calls? Is your No Intimidation policy one-way, or could it be reciprocal?”

I’m making jokes. How bizarre. If someone had asked me before today how I’d feel if an unpleasant-sounding stranger called and threatened me, I would probably have said I’d be frightened, but I’m not. This is too stupid. I’m too preoccupied by other, more important things, and even some unbelievably trivial ones, like the list pinned to the cork board on the wall opposite: tasks Alex has assigned to me.
Musts.
Call a landscape gardener, find a window cleaner, get the car valeted. Alex is trying to insist I use a local firm he found called The Car Men, because of the Bizet connection. He’s written “CAR MEN!!” in capitals at the top of the list. The exclamation marks are intended to remind me that our Range Rover is a biohazard on wheels.

No, I’m sorry. Never make me look at a list again. Haven’t you heard? I do Nothing.

Apart from when I’m diverted from my chosen path by a phone call from a lunatic. Or, if not a lunatic . . .

My darling husband.

“Is this one of your hilarious stunts, Alex? It doesn’t sound like you, but—”

“I won’t let you hurt us,” the voice hisses.

“What?”
All right, so it’s not Alex. Menacing isn’t his genre. Then who the hell is she and what’s she talking about?

“I don’t want to have to hurt you either,” she says. “So why don’t you pack up and go back to Muswell Hill? Then we can all stay safe.”

I stumble and nearly lose my balance. Which seems unlikely, given that I thought I was standing still. Many things seem unlikely, and yet here they are in my life and kitchen.

She knows where we lived before.

Now I’m concerned. Until she said “Muswell Hill,” I’d assumed her words were not meant for me.

“Please tell me your name and what you want from me,” I say. “I swear on my life and everything I hold dear: I haven’t a clue who you are. And I’m not prepared to have any kind of conversation with someone who won’t identify herself, so . . .” I stop. The line is dead.

I knock on Ellen’s door again. Walk straight in when she doesn’t answer. She hasn’t moved since I left her room. “Where is it?” she asks me.

“Where’s what?”

“My . . . thing. For school.”

“Thing? Oh.” The family tree and story beginning. I took them with me when I ran to answer the phone. “I must have left them in the kitchen. Sorry. I’ll bring them up in a minute.” I wait, hoping she’ll berate me for first reading and then removing them without permission. She says nothing.

“Shall I go and get them now?”

Er, yes? How would you like it if I took some important papers of yours and spread them all over the house in a really inconvenient way?

It’s like a haunting: the constant presence in my mind of the Ellen I’ve lost and wish I could find. A voice in my head supplies the missing dialogue: what she would say, should be saying.

Her real-world counterpart shrugs. She doesn’t ask me who was on the phone or what they wanted. I wouldn’t have told her. Still, my Ellen would ask.

Who would call me and say those things? Who would imagine I must recognize their voice when I don’t? I can’t think of a single person. Or a reason why someone might think I want to intimidate or hurt them.

“I can’t bear this, El.”

“Can’t bear what?”

“You, being so . . . uncommunicative. I know something’s wrong.”

“Oh, not this again.” She lies down on her bed and pulls the pillow over her face.

“Please trust me and tell me what’s the matter. You won’t be in trouble, whatever it is.”

“Mum, leave it. I’ll be fine.”

“Which means you’re not fine now.” I move the pillow so that I can see her.

She sits up, snatches it back.

“Are you missing London? Is that it?”

She gives me a look that tells me I’m way off the mark.

“Dad, then?”

“
Dad?
Why would I be missing Dad? He’ll be back next week, won’t he?”

It’s as if I’m distracting her from something important by mentioning things she forgot about years ago.

She’s not interested in you, or Alex.

Then who? What?

“Can I ask you about your story?” I say.

“If you must.”

“Is it homework?”

“Yeah. But Mr. Goodrick couldn’t remember when it had to be in, he said.”

I sigh. The school here is better than the one in London in almost every way. The one exception is Ellen’s form tutor, Craig Goodrick, a failed rock musician who has never managed to get my name right, though he did once get it promisingly wrong: he called me Mrs. Morrison, which isn’t that far removed from Ms. Merrison. When I suggested he call me Justine, he winked and said, “Right you are, Justin,” and I couldn’t tell if he was deliberately winding me up or awkwardly flirting.