Facing the Light (16 page)

‘I
can't
. Don't you understand how impossible all this is for me, Fiona? You're the first to spend all the bloody money I bring back, on top of everything your Dad sees to it that you have, so I don't think you're really in a position to give me all that shit about neglect and so forth. Jesus, the house is full to the rafters with doting fucking relatives. How come it's today I suddenly have to be the perfect new man? You know your trouble, Fiona? You're a fool. You can't help it. You always were and I daresay you always will be and it's just my misfortune to be married to you, but honestly … today. How
could
you? When you know how much this means to me? When you know how much hinges on this and how Leonora, just by being so fucking obstinate, can wreck my career for ever?'

He'd run out of steam. Alex looked through the window and it took all his self-control to stop from rushing in there and hitting Efe. Fat lot of good that would do. He'd been wanting to hit Efe from time to time for more than twenty years, but whenever he'd tried it he'd come off bruised and battered for his pains. He was ashamed to recognize that part of his reaction to this latest demonstration of his brother's occasional cruelty was surprise. Fiona was so self-effacing in everything that related to Efe, she echoed his every opinion so closely that Alex was shocked at this physical evidence of some sort of disagreement, or disharmony. His sister-in-law worked so hard to see that Efe got his way always that any bullying must have seemed doubly harsh to her.

Poor Fiona now looked as though she was about to burst into tears and it occurred to Alex that maybe he could create a diversion. He knocked on the glass and smiled, as though he'd only just glanced in at the window at that moment.

‘What do you want?' Efe mouthed at him.

‘Thought Douggie might like to go and look at the men putting up the lights in the marquee.'

Fiona ran to open the door from the conservatory to the terrace.

‘Oh, Alex, would you? That would be super, wouldn't it, Douggie? Go with Alex to see the men working in the big tent?'

Douggie nodded gravely and put his hand in Alex's.

‘Thanks, Alex,' said Fiona. ‘That's so nice of you.'

She was wearing a long-sleeved blouse but the cuff fell back as she pushed a lock of hair away from her forehead and Alex noticed bruises on the lower part of her arm, dark, purple stains in a pattern like fingers, or was he just imagining it? Was Efe capable of that? Suddenly, Alex felt chilly, even though the sun was rising in the sky and it was going to be a hot day.

‘Come on, Douggie. Got to grab some food from the kitchen and then we'll go. Bet you'd like a biscuit, right?'

*

Beth turned to walk up to the house. She'd left the kitchen and gone out to see whether Efe was anywhere near the marquee. She'd been hanging round it now for what seemed like ages and he hadn't appeared. Alex and Douggie (what was Alex doing with the little boy? Where was Fiona?) arrived just as she'd decided she'd had enough of pretending to be interested in the problems of where to put the spotlights, and although she could see that Alex would have been only too glad of a bit of help with childcare, her need simply to lay eyes on Efe was too strong.

‘I'm off back to the house, Alex,' she'd said as kindly as she could, and could feel his disappointed gaze on her back as she walked away. I'm getting worse, not better, she thought. I have to see him. Why aren't I like this in London? She knew the answer. There, she had a whole
life to distract her. There was work and there were other people. Other men who took her out and bought her dinner and shared her bed sometimes, too.

She hadn't dared to ask Alex where Efe was. She wanted to preserve her dignity and it was somehow undignified and schoolgirlish to follow someone round like this; to look for them all over Willow Court.

As she stepped inside, the shade of the hall felt cool and silent after the light and the bustle of so many people around the marquee on the lawn. She knew, quite suddenly, where Efe might be. Whenever he wanted to work here, Gwen let him use her laptop in the conservatory, where she generally had a table set out with all her things on it. He'd be there, probably emailing Reuben Stronsky to tell him about Leonora's reaction. Or else he'd be getting all the facts together to show her later. Beth felt rather sorry for him. He didn't realize quite how stubborn his grandmother was, and how adamant she was about her father's paintings.

She could hear his voice. Was someone in the conservatory with him? There was a place in the corridor where you could stand and look into the room without whoever was in there seeing you. She and Efe had often stood in exactly this spot, listening to conversations between Gwen and James or between Leonora and Rilla; often these were quarrels or disagreements of some kind, which had made the younger Beth blush and squirm, and want to run away and hide. It was Efe who made her stay and listen. Sometimes she burst into tears and then he was cross with her for hours.

Now, she looked to see who it was talking to Efe and saw that he was on his mobile phone. She couldn't quite hear what he was saying but she caught the tone. It was seductive, and occasionally he'd laugh in the way you only laughed at something a lover said to you. Beth found herself unable to move, and strained to catch a word, or a
name. Who was it who'd turned Efe, on this morning of all mornings, into this loving, almost purring creature? His voice was a little louder now.

‘Not long, my darling …' she heard. ‘… together … Me too …' Then a long silence, then, ‘Not now, for God's sake, Melanie. I can't bear it. Stop. Please stop.'

Beth thought she could guess what Melanie was saying to him. The only Melanie Beth knew was a friend of Gwen's, who kept an antique shop in the next village. Melanie Havering, she was called. Efe couldn't possibly be talking to
her
.

She found herself as jealous of this Melanie person as she was of Fiona. And more surprisingly, she was sorry for Fiona and she didn't understand that at all. The most surprising feeling, though, the one that lay over all the others, was disappointment. She'd never thought Efe was particularly moral or well behaved, but something about this whispered conversation going on in a place where his wife and child might walk in at any moment struck her as tawdry.

Beth waited till he'd put the mobile phone back into his briefcase and then she went into the conservatory.

‘Hello, Beth,' he said. ‘You're up early.'

‘It's ten o'clock, Efe. I've been up for hours. What have you been doing? I'd have thought you'd be in there ordering the workmen around.'

‘Other fish to fry, haven't I? I spoke to Reuben last night and he's getting on a plane.'

‘On a plane?'

‘For God's sake, stop repeating everything I say, Beth. Fiona does that and it drives me up the wall. Yes, he's coming over here to talk some sense into Leonora. Don't say a word to anyone. Not a single word. I don't want to spoil the party or anything.'

Beth sat down in a cane armchair.

‘Did I hear right? You don't want to spoil the party but
you're not taking no for an answer and getting this Stronsky chap to come and put pressure on Leonora? Don't you think that's taking things to extremes a bit?'

‘Reuben Stronsky isn't the sort of man to put any pressure on anyone. Not in the way you mean. He's quite charming and quietly spoken and Leonora will love him. In any case, I thought you'd be on my side,' Efe said, frowning, and looking so much like he did as a boy that Beth almost laughed.

‘Well, I'm not. I think the paintings look very nice here. They're part of the landscape, aren't they?'

‘You hardly ever look at them. And Leonora for all her talk about opening the house to the public doesn't exploit them nearly as well as they could be exploited. People are desperate to see them. Ethan Walsh is one of the most talked-about artists of the last century.'

‘You sound just like a brochure. Haven't you thought that maybe it's the very fact that one has to make a bit of an effort to get here that adds to their desirability? Makes them fashionable?'

Efe said, ‘I can't stay here chatting to you, Beth, if you're going to be as obstinate as Leonora! I thought I could rely on you, so I'm a bit disappointed, if you must know.'

Part of her longed to say
yes, Efe, please smile again and I'll agree with anything you want me to agree with, always
. But she remembered the conversation with Melanie and suddenly didn't feel so inclined to smooth things over.

‘Oh, dear,' she said, still smiling. ‘I'm so sorry, Efe. To disappoint you. I expect you'll get over it.'

He swept out of the room scowling and Beth blinked back tears. She'd always hated crossing Efe and being nearly thirty made no difference to that at all. I must find something to do, she thought. I must stop being so obsessive about him.

Beth sighed and left the comfort of the armchair. I'll go and find Rilla, she thought. See what she thinks about this plan of Efe's. And when Alex has finished being a nursemaid to Douggie, I'll ask him as well. Chloë's probably still asleep.

*

Alex wondered why he was finding it so difficult to concentrate. He was crouched down in the shrubbery, taking close-up shots of the parasol mushrooms growing around the roots of the rhododendrons. Mary used to fry them for breakfast when he lived at home, and Alex wondered whether he ought to pick these. In the end, he decided to let them grow, quietly where no one ever thought of looking for them. When he'd taken enough shots of the parasols, he moved to the roots of the shrubs themselves, and the leaves that had fallen during the summer. If you only looked carefully enough, there were entire worlds in nature that simply existed without anyone paying them any attention.

Alex was used to analysing his feelings. He did it more than most people he knew, going over and over things that people said and what they meant by them, and also what he felt about particular events and whether there was anything at all useful he could do to change things and, most of all, if he should speak out or shut up. Most of the time he kept quiet because he honestly couldn't see that anything he might have to contribute would be of any interest to anyone or of any use in making things clearer or better.

But he did have to talk to Beth, that was becoming obvious. Part of him had always known she loved Efe, but it was only yesterday that he got an inkling that this feeling might be more intense than he'd thought, and of a different order from the brotherly affection he'd always assumed was in her heart. At dinner last night, for instance, she'd looked at Efe all the time, not even
bothering to turn and face whoever was talking to her. Also, she followed him around. Today, he could have sworn she was looking for Efe, ready to trail round after him just as she used to do when they were all kids.

There were two questions Alex kept asking himself. Would it do any good to tell her about Efe's behaviour where women were concerned? Warn her off? If he did that, she'd probably deny she felt anything at all. He reasoned that Beth must feel some sort of embarrassment about her devotion to Efe. They were cousins, for God's sake. A small voice so far in the back of Alex's head that he could easily ignore it and pretend that it hadn't spoken at all said
she isn't really. She's not related to you and Efe at all. There's nothing to stop her loving Efe. Nor Efe loving her, if he felt like it
. The next thought he had was so unexpected, so devastating, that for a moment he didn't even acknowledge it:
Beth isn't your cousin either. She's no relation of yours
.

He stood up. He put his camera back into its case and walked slowly towards the house. He was wondering why that thought, that relevation about Beth, which he'd known all his life and which hadn't affected him in any way at all, should suddenly, just today, burst in on him.

*

Fiona looked out of the window at everyone on the lawn. She'd finished crying now, and felt exactly like a wrung-out flannel. Her eyes were raw and her skin, her porcelain skin (that was what Efe called it, when they'd first started going out together), was blotched all over with reddish patches. You could see them even under all the make-up. I look hideous, Fiona thought in an anguish of self-pity. It's no wonder that Efe wants to hit me. She felt herself near to tears all over again, and blinked rapidly in an effort at self-control.

Stop thinking like that, she said to herself. It makes Efe sound like some common wife-beater or something, and
he's not. It was just, she knew, that he'd been under tremendous pressure and things sometimes got on top of him. He wouldn't really hurt her. He loved her, and she was his wife. They almost never disagreed about anything, unlike some couples she knew who were constantly at odds, so there was really nothing to quarrel
about
. Last night he'd lost his temper with her, just for a couple of seconds, but it was no wonder after everyone had been so dismissive of his plan for the paintings.

Fiona sighed. She'd spent ages and ages with concealer and powder and foundation and now looked practically normal, if only the blotches would go away. She knew she should calm down because, apart from anything else, it wouldn't do the baby she was carrying any good if she got het up.

It was nearly lunchtime and she'd have to go down and face everyone, and the last thing she wanted was for people to know she'd spent half the morning in floods of tears. Over by the marquee, she could see Douggie on Alex's shoulders, his legs hanging down on either side of Alex's neck. Even from this distance, she knew he was laughing with joy. She could just tell. There was Chloë, walking towards them. Had she really only just got up? She certainly looked as though she were still wearing pyjamas. Fiona wrinkled her nose at the sight of her sister-in-law's royal-blue floppy trousers, which looked, from here, as though they were made of satin. With these, she was wearing a man's shirt in some sort of garish checked fabric with the sleeves rolled up. The girl had absolutely no idea at all of how to dress, even if you made allowances for the fact that she was a student.