Breaking the Chain (12 page)

‘I’ll go and call everyone, shall I?’ Fay asked, coming in. ‘I’ve laid the table and everything seems to be ready. You okay?’

‘Fine,’ Phoebe said, stirring as the gravy came to the boil. ‘Finished now.’ Fay came back again just as she was pouring it into the gravy boat.

‘I don’t think Duncan and the others can be back from yours,’ she said. ‘There’s no sign of them.’

‘Oh no!’ Phoebe exclaimed crossly. ‘I
said
two o’clock, for heaven’s sake. The meal will spoil if it isn’t eaten straightaway!’

‘They’re probably on their way,’ Fay said optimistically. ‘Guess what? Peter’s done his usual trick and brought some unfortunate homeless person to share the festive pleasures of his hearth and home. Only, this year it’s a young, good-looking girl, and she seems to be going down like a lead balloon with Hope.
You can cut the atmosphere in the drawing room with pinking shears!’

‘Great!’ Phoebe said sarcastically. ‘That’s guaranteed to improve Christmas! It’s a good thing we cooked extra food, just in case, isn’t it? Any sign of Brendan?’

‘Not yet’

‘So, what shall we do?’

‘Well there’s no point in hanging on for Brendan, that’s for sure.’

‘I’ll phone Duncan,’ Phoebe said, putting the full gravy boat into the oven as well. ‘Then I’ll know for certain that they’ve already left.’

As she made for the telephone in the front hall, she passed Hope and then Peter and the girl on their way to the dining room. Hope was ahead of them. Her mouth was drawn in a tight line and her face was set hard. Phoebe was surprised to feel a small twinge of sympathy for her. It was a bit much of Peter!

‘Ah!’ Peter said, full of bonhomie. ‘This is one of my daughters-in-law,’ he gestured towards Phoebe. ‘And this is Thelma.’ He ushered the girl forwards proprietorially.

‘Hi, daughter-in-law!’ said Thelma. ‘You look hot.’

‘That’s because I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all morning,’ Phoebe said crisply, ‘and my name’s Phoebe. I’m sorry, I must telephone …’ She dialled her own number with an impatient finger, watching as they disappeared into the dining room. The girl was wearing a tight sweater tucked into jeans, with a studded belt and high boots. She had long thick hair which lay like a swathe of hay on her shoulders and down her back. Her bottom looked pert. The telephone rang and rang. Good, thought Phoebe, they aren’t there. They must be on their way. She was about to put the receiver down, when it was lifted at the other end.

‘Hello?’ Phoebe said.

‘Hello, hello-ello, who’s that?’ It was Jack’s voice.

Damn! she thought. ‘Jack? This is your Auntie Phoebe. Will you fetch Uncle Duncan for me, please?’

‘No,’ Jack said with satisfaction.

‘Please, Jacky? It’s important. It’s lunchtime.’

‘I didn’t do a poo,’ Jack said earnestly. ‘I didn’t. I didn’t.’

‘No? well, never mind, but … Hello? Are you there?’ There was a bumping noise and no reply. Jack had apparently put the phone down. Phoebe tried dialling again but got the engaged signal. It was off the hook. She put her receiver down and said, very loudly, ‘SHIT!’

‘And a happy Christmas to you in spite of that!’ Rick said, coming down the stairs behind her. He was immaculately dressed and smelt of cologne. ‘Where is everybody, and isn’t it time for lunch?’

Phoebe turned a furious face to him. ‘Yes it is! It’s already spoiling and Conrad and Duncan and your boys are still watching the bloody television at our house, the selfish pigs, and the phone is off the hook, and I don’t know what to do! I could kill the lot of them!’

‘Fear not,’ Rick said. ‘I’ll drive over there this instant and sweep them all up. We’ll be back before you can say your dinner’s in the dog!’

‘Thanks,’ Phoebe said with heartfelt relief. ‘Thanks very much. Tell them if they’re not back instantly, it will be!’

By twenty past two everyone was assembled round the long table in the dining room. Brendan had arrived on foot some five minutes earlier, all in black and sporting a dark felt hat with a wide brim. They were now outwardly all present and correct.

Inwardly, turmoil reigned. Phoebe had quarrelled with Duncan for being late, and was still fuming. Duncan was sulking. Rod and Pete had fought over which television channel to watch and were still niggling each other. Fay was cross with Conrad for trying to shame Jack away from his doll. Conrad knew that a boy with a doll was just asking for trouble, and felt justifiably aggrieved. Hope was furious with Peter for bringing that tarty parasite of a girl home without so much as a by-your-leave. Middle-aged male Ugandans down on their luck, or jobless young Swedish men stuck without a ticket home (like the year before and the one before that) she could understand and forgive, but this was outrageous! Thelma had decided that Brendan was extremely fanciable and was all excited; working out subtle ways in which to chat him up. Jack, who had woken
that morning at 3 a.m. instead of his customary 5.30, was tired and fractious and clinging to his doll, refusing to put it down for lunch. Brendan, who had been hoping to spend Christmas with his lover, was feeling rejected and grumpy. Rick was thinking that Thelma looked like a useful distraction from family duties, and was on his mettle; assessing his chances, but feeling inhibited by the inconvenient presence of his two sons …

Peter, who had had his ego fed all morning, was the only member of the family comfortably in equilibrium.

Phoebe and Fay, refusing offers of help, began carrying in the turkey and all its trimmings.

‘What!’ Hope said. ‘No consommé?’

‘Medieval bestiaries,’ Peter said, looking down the long table at his Christmas family assembly. He finished his mouthful of turkey and washed it down with wine. ‘… were produced in the twelfth and thirteenth century all in manuscript, with illustrations in colour; sometimes in gold. And why were they in manuscript, young Roderick?’

‘Dunno,’ Rod said, going pink with embarrassment.

‘Because it was before printing was invented, of course! Amazing to relate, one fetched nearly three million in Sotheby’s a year ago. Astonishing price.’

Phoebe tried to breathe some white wine by mistake, and choked. Rick banged her on the back and she retreated behind her napkin with streaming eyes and a hoarse apology.

‘What’s a bestiary?’ Thelma asked. She looked at Brendan with wide eyes and giggled. ‘Sounds rather rude to me.’

‘It would,’ Hope said. Brendan was silent.

‘It’s an ancient book of animals,’ Rick supplied, ‘birds, reptiles, fish and things, with some domestic ones and some imaginary fabled beasts, like unicorns.’

‘With text,’ Peter added. ‘Usually of a cautionary nature.’

‘An animal scrapbook with morals,’ Conrad said, summing up. ‘I doubt if many still survive today, unless perhaps abroad.’

‘Wrong!’ said his father. ‘Ninety per cent of them are English and there are forty or fifty of them still extant.’

‘You sound very sure,’ Conrad said.

‘I am.’

‘How?’

‘Education,’ Peter said with satisfaction.

‘Oh come on, Father,’ Rick said. ‘What’s this leading up to?’

‘Simply this,’ Peter said, ‘where is the bestiary which belonged to Nancy? It appears to have vanished without trace from the flat and no one has mentioned seeing it.’

‘She probably flogged it,’ Brendan said.

‘I think not,’ his father said. ‘If she had, her estate would have been considerably larger.’

‘How large was it?’ young Pete asked innocently.

‘Shut
up!’
his brother hissed. ‘You’re not supposed to ask things like that.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do.’

‘I don’t see –’

‘Quiet!’
Rick admonished them both. ‘We’ll doubtless all find out soon enough.’

‘You’ll find out after your father and I are dead,’ Hope said firmly. ‘Now this is a most unsuitable conversation. I’d be obliged if you would all talk about something else.’

‘But,’ Phoebe began, ‘I thought –’

‘N-Not now!’ Duncan said sharply. She blushed uncomfortably scarlet.

There was an awkward silence. Pieces of turkey and vegetable were downed. Wine was sipped. Knives and forks clattered on plates.

Jack farted loudly and laughed delightedly. ‘Big wind,’ he said proudly. ‘I can do another one.’ His face grew dark as he clenched his tummy muscles in an effort to repeat his success.

‘Behave,’
Conrad told him sharply.

‘I
am
being hayve,’ Jack said virtuously.

‘Oh that’s great!’ Thelma said with a little screech of laughter. ‘Isn’t that just cute? When I have children, I’m going to write down all their little sayings in a special book.’ She looked across at Rick. ‘Did you ever do that?’

‘Sadly, no.’ He smiled into her eyes.

‘It’s not too late,’ Rod put in. ‘Pete still says complustory instead of compulsory.’ ‘I do not!’ Pete protested.

Hope intervened. ‘I don’t know why you two boys have to be so argumentative,’ she said. ‘Herry’s children, your cousins, all get on together famously. It’s only attention seeking. You’d get your fair share of attention without fighting each other, if you did but know, and it would be so much more pleasant for the rest of us.’

‘My brothers and me fought all the time,’ Thelma said, ‘but we’re the best of mates now.’

‘More turkey?’ Peter offered anyone, brandishing the carving knife. ‘Brendan, finish the roast potatoes, there’s a good lad. Stoke up with all the nourishment you can before the next voyage.’

‘Voyage?’ Thelma asked.

‘He’s a yachtsman,’ Peter told her.

‘Well, hello, sailor!’ Thelma said delightedly. ‘I’ve always fancied going on a big boat. You wouldn’t like to give me a lift on yours, would you?’

Everyone started talking at once.

‘What a shame Herry and Becky and the children couldn’t be here this year,’ Hope said. ‘They’re such a
united
family.’

‘Jack,’ Conrad said, ‘try eating up those sprouts.’

‘Driving in a sports car is far more stimulating than sailing,’ Rick said to Thelma. ‘You should give it a whirl.’

‘It’s the water I love,’ she said. ‘I feel dead uneasy if I’m away from the ocean too long, know what I mean?’

‘One bite for Mummy …’ Fay said encouragingly to Jack, ‘… and one for Dolly. Oh, now you’ve dropped it all down Dolly’s front. That’s no good, is it?’

‘Now then,’ Peter said to his grandsons, ‘who knows who Ebenezer Scrooge is?’

‘Right!’ Conrad said. ‘The doll’s got to go. There’s no way the boy can be taught even the rudiments of table manners with that ridiculous plastic baby in the way!’

‘Modern education seems to me to be seriously deficient in the appreciation of the works of Charles Dickens,’ Peter said. ‘Nip into the study, young Pete, and fetch
A Christmas Carol
It’s in the bookcase on the left as I remember.’

‘Not now!’
Hope said. ‘We’re in the middle …’

Her voice was drowned out by piercing screams from Jack as his father pulled the doll from his limpet grasp and went out of the room with it, saying, ‘Best place for this is in the dustbin, and that’s where it will end up if he doesn’t behave himself!’

Jack went purple in the face and threw his plate on the floor, lashing out with arms and legs in a paroxysm of rage.

‘Oh, poor little mite!’ Thelma exclaimed, before Jack totally
precluded any further conversation with his loud roars of grief. Fay got to her feet jerkily, picked Jack up and holding him close, rushed from the room.

‘Poor Jack,’ Hope said. ‘It’s not his fault that he’s a spoilt brat. I always say that a little benign neglect is a good idea. It doesn’t do a child any favours if you concentrate on it too much. Becky’s children have had to fend for themselves to a great extent, and they are all devoted to each other as a result. It’s a pleasure to witness!’ Rod and Pete started a scuffle over who should have the last quarter of an inch of wine from the last of the bottles. ‘Boys!’ Hope reprimanded them. ‘You shouldn’t be drinking at all. When I was a child, I was only allowed wine diluted with water.’

‘But, Grandma,’ Pete protested, ‘I’m not a child. I’m twelve!’

Phoebe got up and started to clear away the empty dishes helped, unexpectedly, by Thelma and, after a nudge, by Duncan. She could barely contain herself. No one had so much as mentioned the food, let alone complimented her and Fay on their hours of preparation of it. She felt completely taken for granted. Where was everyone’s Christmas spirit? Where was their generosity and family feeling? What was the point of it all? Even Rick hadn’t paid her any of his usual attention. Duncan hadn’t encouraged her or supported her at all.

‘What’s wrong with everyone?’ she muttered to Duncan, as they heated up the brandy for the pudding.

‘What d’you m-mean?’ he asked, surprised. Phoebe gave up. She was convinced that Duncan had known all along that there was to be no sharing out of Nancy’s money and had deliberately not told her. She felt cheated and resentful. She decided there and then that it would make no difference to her; she would still go ahead and get pregnant. She and Duncan would make ends meet somehow. If the worst came to the worst, she could always sell Nancy’s bestiary – if that was really what she’d got. Surely it couldn’t be worth all that much? Peter always exaggerated. Phoebe felt guilty and uneasy that she had taken it. Perhaps she ought to own up at once? She knew she would have to eventually, but at that moment she was too cross with all the Moons to consider doing so. It could wait. It would still be worth as much then as it was now. There was no rush. She felt
tired. She had been conscious of the beginnings of a familiar dragging ache in her abdomen all afternoon. A September birth seemed unlikely after all. Sadness overtook her. She heard Conrad, Fay and Jack going back into the dining room again and Conrad admonishing Jack to be his age. Poor little chap, she thought. He’s no age at all!

Phoebe poured the hot brandy over the Christmas pudding as Duncan held it on its special plate, and then set fire to it. The blue light danced and flickered over and around it as he bore it into the dining room in triumph and put it down on the table in front of Hope.