Close Relations (29 page)

‘She built the kitchen too,' said Maddy, ‘designed it and everything. Would you like some more rice?'

‘My dad designs houses but he never gets any work,' said Allegra. ‘It's because people in Britain are design-blind.'

Erin shook her head. ‘He's too authoritarian.' She turned to Dorothy. ‘Aziz comes from a high-caste family. He treats his clients like untouchables. That's why he's hardly got any.'

‘He's nice!' said Allegra. ‘Mum doesn't like him coming here.'

‘He has a bad effect on you,' said Erin. ‘You're upset for days afterwards.'

Allegra wrinkled her nose. ‘Only because you're so horrid to him.'

‘He's very aggressive.' Erin tossed back her hair. There were crescents of studs in her ears; they winked in the candlelight. ‘It stems from weakness and fear. He's out of touch with his feelings, that's why he's so angry.'

‘Perhaps he's angry because he never sees his daughter,' said Dorothy. ‘She is his daughter, after all. She hasn't got another father. However faulty he is.' Suddenly she was filled with despair – at the faxes, at the world. ‘And I know it's none of my business, but I don't think we should be talking about him like this in front of her.'

There was a silence. Maddy turned to Erin. ‘She's right.'

Erin stared at her. ‘What?'

Maddy leaned over to the little girl. ‘Have you finished? Go and have your bath.'

Allegra slipped from her chair and left the room.

Maddy said to Erin: ‘Mum's right. You always slag him off in front of her.'

‘What's the matter with you?' Erin demanded.

‘She shouldn't hear her father criticised like that.'

‘You can talk!' Erin snorted. ‘You're always criticising
your
father.'

Dorothy interruped: ‘Actually, she's been surprisingly nice to him recently.'

‘Forget mine.' Maddy stood up and started collecting the plates. ‘It's not fair, Erin, that Allegra's always out on Sundays. You do it on purpose. It's not fair on either of them. You're the one who's being authoritarian.'

Erin glared at her. ‘Maddy, what is all this?'

‘She has a right to see him, otherwise she'll never trust him, she'll end up in women's groups slagging him off. And he has a right to see her.' Maddy scraped the rice back into the bowl. ‘You really can be very bossy, Erin. Who says yours is the best way to bring up a child? Most of the time you're working or off somewhere giving interviews or shut away in your stu–' She stopped. ‘My bedroom. In fact,
I
see more of Allegra than you do nowadays.' She paused, her face flushed.

Erin raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you feel better now?' she asked.

‘I'm sorry.' Maddy stood up. ‘I just think Mum has a point, that's all.'

Dorothy picked up the plates. ‘Why don't I take them into the kitchen?'

‘It's all right, I'll do it,' said Maddy. ‘I do all the washing-up anyway.'

She went into the kitchen. Erin got up and followed her. Dorothy sat down again. She gazed at the ruined remains of the meal.

Erin closed the kitchen door behind her. ‘What was all that about?' she hissed.

‘It's true.' Maddy dumped the plates into the sink. ‘I've been meaning to say it for weeks.'

‘But you only dared to now your mother's here. You're such a coward, Maddy. You attack me like that but you haven't the guts to tell her you're gay.'

She swung round and left the room.

The rise in the divorce rate must do wonders for the sale of sofabeds. Dorothy lay, tucked-up, in Erin's living room. A draught came through the crack in the window-shutters. She thought: I can't afford to fall out with my hosts. I'm at their mercy.

Outside, a dog barked. She was somewhere in Hackney; she didn't know where. Some kids walked past in the street. One of them chanted: ‘Paul's Mum picks her bum.' What were they doing out at this time of night?

Maddy, wearing a long T-shirt and socks, came in to say goodnight.

‘I'm certainly putting my foot in it nowadays,' said Dorothy.

‘It's not your fault.'

‘Used to be your dad's speciality, didn't it? Putting his foot in it.' Beneath the duvet Dorothy shivered; she shoved her fingers into her armpits to warm them up. ‘Oh, I do miss him.'

‘I know.' Maddy – gruff, embarrassed – leaned down and rubbed her mother's shoulder. ‘I didn't mean to – you know – take his side or anything. The other day. I don't want to take anybody's side.'

Dorothy cleared her throat. ‘Don't let it put you off . . . what's happened to your dad and me. Marriage is – well, wonderful really. And you'll find the right man.'

Maddy reached towards the lamp. ‘Shall I switch this off?'

Dorothy nodded.

‘Night night,' they both said, at the same time.

‘So this little boy says,
I'll show you mine if you show me yours
.' Robert pulled on his cigar. Their guest, a neighbour called Derek, nodded encouragingly through the smoke. Robert took a sip of brandy. ‘So he pulls down his trousers and she says,
Oh, is that all
?'

It was half past twelve. Louise thought: he's bored rigid by Derek; why does he invite him to dinner?

‘She says,
My Daddy's got two of those
.'

‘Two?' Derek guffawed.

Robert nodded. ‘She says,
A little one like that, which he pees with, and a big one the au pair brushes her teeth with
.'

They roared with laughter. Louise stood up. ‘I'm off. Night, Derek.'

‘Terrific nosh, as per usual.' Derek looked at his watch. ‘God, work tomorrow. Better toddle.'

Robert leaned over and refilled his glass. ‘Come on, have a nightcap.'

Louise glanced at her husband, and left the room.

Alone at last, Prudence and Stephen had made love. They
slept. When they shifted their position, moist animal smells were exhaled from the sheets. Outside, in the one-way street, a lone car passed.

Suddenly, Stephen sat up.

‘What is it?' Prudence asked.

‘I keep thinking the house has caught fire.'

She sat up and sniffed. ‘Can't smell anything.'

‘Not here. At home.'

She paused. ‘Oh.'

‘I keep thinking something's happened to the boys and I can't get to them.'

‘They're fine.' Her voice was sharper than she had intended. ‘Go to sleep.'

Maddy lay in Erin's study. She couldn't sleep. She gazed at the shrouded bulk of the Apple Mac.

The door opened. Allegra crept in, and climbed into bed with her. ‘Don't quarrel with Mum,' she whispered. ‘Don't leave us.'

‘I won't . . . It's all right.'

She hugged the little girl. The fax bleeped.

‘It's Dad!' Allegra pulled away and got out of the bed.

‘Not at one o'clock.'

The machine started to hum. Maddy switched on the light. They watched the paper slide out.

Allegra pulled it off. The fax was addressed to Erin. She gave it to Maddy.

‘It's from her agent in New York,' said Maddy. ‘They've sold the paperback rights.'

‘How exciting.'

‘Don't be sarky.'

‘When her book comes out she's going to get even worse.' Allegra climbed back into bed.

‘Only a month to go.'

Allegra sighed. ‘Just wish it was from Dad.'

The front door slammed. Robert came upstairs.

Louise lay there. The moonlight slanted through the window, silvering her pile of magazines. She said: ‘Why do you stay downstairs nowadays until you know I'm asleep?'

‘You're not asleep, are you?'

He went into the bathroom and closed the door. She lay there, alone in the big brass bed.

The moonlight shone through the window; it shone onto Imogen's brow as she lay asleep. Outside, somewhere near the church, an owl hooted. Down below, the gravestones slanted towards each other as if they were whispering. Below them lives had been stopped at forty years; at fourteen. In the vases daffodils had withered into little screws of paper. Their lives had been the shortest of all.

Imogen lay sleeping. She had already reached sixteen; she had got this far. Nothing had hurt her yet, not truly hurt her. She lay, her fist pressed against her mouth, sucking her knuckle. She had slept like that since she was a baby.

‘
WHAT ARE WE
going to do about Mum?'

Maddy, Louise and Prudence sat in the caravan. It was like the old days, except now the positions were reversed – it was they who felt like parents. It seemed so late in the day for their parents' marriage to explode. Sometimes it struck them as thoughtless; after all, they had busy lives of their own.

Their father was gadding about like a twenty-year-old, bopping till dawn for all they knew; none of them had seen him for weeks. He was back at work, upsetting their mother by turning up at the office. Dorothy had become a loose cannon, wreaking havoc wherever she landed. She was temporarily housed in a bedsitter in Prudence's street but she was still dangerously at large, descending on them for evenings when she angrily slagged off their father and cross-questioned them to see if they had had any contact with him. She still hadn't found a permanent place to live; she couldn't decide where to go.

‘It's like King Lear,' said Prudence. ‘Except this time its Mrs Lear. Who's going to have her next?' She looked at Louise. ‘You've got off lightly so far. Isn't it time you pulled your weight?'

Louise had always had it easy – looks, children, money, wistaria-burdened house with five bedrooms. It didn't seem fair, but then nothing seemed fair where Louise was concerned.

‘I can't,' said Louise. ‘She's got to be in London.' It was true. Dorothy still hadn't found anyone to run the office.

Imogen came in and sat down. Her face glowed. She thwacked her riding crop against her jodhpurs. ‘You hiding from Jamie's friends?' she asked.

They nodded. Even in the caravan they could hear the thud-thud of music from the house.

‘They're so infantile,' drawled Imogen. She seemed, these past weeks, to have grown out of Jamie's contemporaries.

‘We're trying to decide what to do about your granny,' said Louise. She explained the situation. ‘She sees your grandad every day, it's like rubbing salt into the wound. She'll never start to recover or begin a life of her own.' She picked up a cigarette butt. ‘Has your brother been smoking in here?'

Imogen turned to Prudence. ‘Why don't you get your boyfriend to run the office? After all, he's run one before.'

The three women gazed at her. There was a smudge of mud on Imogen's nose. Despite this, she looked impressive. Imogen could be surprisingly practical – even, on occasion, inspired. It was she, after all, who had suggested that Stephen work for Gordon in the first place.

‘He can work in the office,' she said, ‘and leave Granny free to look for another husband. She doesn't look too bad, for her age. And then she'd be off your hands.'

So Stephen joined Kendal Contractors as office manager, a position more suited to his capabilities than that of a labourer. On a blustery day in February The Birches was sold, the yard cleared and the office shifted to new premises in Herne Hill, near Frank's place. Dorothy dumped the last of the files on the desk and kissed Stephen on the cheek.

‘Good luck. You'll need it.' She gave him the keys. ‘I'm off.'

‘Where?'

She patted her handbag. ‘Put this in the bank.' It was her cheque for half the house. ‘Then I'm off to the hairdressers. Then I'm treating my friend Connie to a slap-up dinner in the
West End and later I rather fancied one of those male stripper places.'

‘You're not!'

‘No, but I could, couldn't I?' There was a glazed, hectic look to her. She gestured at the piles of cardboard boxes. ‘Rather you than me.' She put on her coat. ‘Bye Frank, bye chaps.'

And she stepped into the waiting minicab and sped away.

The magnitude of what had happened over the past two months still stopped Gordon in his tracks. It seemed extraordinary that something as abstract as love could result in such monumental physical upheavals. Thirty-three bags of rubbish had been pulled from his house and loaded onto refuse trucks; the furniture had been crated up, loaded into lorries and locked into a depository in Croydon. The caravan had been hauled along twenty miles of motorway and heaved into position at the Old Vicarage. A new family, with their own furniture, had been lumberingly installed in The Birches. Stephen travelled to Herne Hill every day. Dorothy had moved into a rented room near Prudence; people had no doubt been trudging up and down those stairs lugging carrier bags and cardboard boxes.

A mere smile had started this – a spark of recognition, a stirring in his loins. This seemed both terrible and miraculous to him.

He accepted full responsibility. Gordon was a decent man – oh, he was boastful and impatient, he had his faults. But he was basically a good person who had done a deed that had shocked himself as much as anyone else. Now the house was sold his family map had been redrawn. New territories had been created and new alliances formed. He wanted to make peace with his daughters. He was nervous, however, about getting in touch with them. They were busy dealing with Dorothy; she was the one who needed their support. He had been cheered by Maddy's show of solidarity in April's flat
but suspected that this was just a momentary act of rebellion; Maddy had always been out-of-kilter with the rest of them. The situation was too raw to test his youngest daughter's support, just yet.

So he busied himself with work. It was strange no longer to hear his old ally Dorothy on the phone or to see her face when he dropped in at the office. Instead, Stephen sat there, painstakingly learning all the procedures that he and Dorothy had taken for granted. It was strange travelling to a new office – in fact, on several occasions he had found himself heading towards Purley.