Facing the Light (36 page)

‘I hope', Gwen said, sitting down opposite her and helping herself to more toast made by Beth, ‘that you and Philip intend doing something with the mess in the hall this morning.'

Beth held her breath and waited for an explosion of some kind from Chloë, but all she did was stare witheringly at her mother before announcing, ‘That's my tree. Remember my tree? We discussed it yesterday. That's why I've got up so fucking early.'

‘Chloë!' Gwen's mouth was pursed in disapproval.

‘Sorry, sorry!' Chloë said, looking entirely unconcerned. She pushed her chair back. ‘I'm off.'

She stomped out of the room and turned at the door to make a face at Beth and hold up her fingers in a V-sign behind Gwen's back.

*

‘My mother's a pain,' Chloë said. She was standing on a stepladder, holding two willow branches steady with one hand and binding them with thin wire to a stem made from what looked suspiciously like a broom handle encased in foil. ‘You're lucky, really, not to be related by blood to this lot. They've all got something wrong with them, except me of course. Pass me another bit of wire, Philip.'

Beth laughed. The devoted and silent Philip stood next to Chloë handing her what she needed. ‘Nothing wrong with Rilla,' Beth said loyally. ‘I've always got on with her perfectly well. And Alex. Nothing to complain about there either.'

‘You're unnatural. You get on well with everyone. Rilla's okay, though. Bet you don't know what time she came back last night from wherever she was.'

‘I don't think she went anywhere.'

‘Well, she was outside somewhere and she certainly came back at about five o'clock. I saw her and Sean Everard walking up to the house holding hands. They looked completely shagged out. But happy. Yeah, definitely happy.'

‘What were you doing looking out of the window at five o'clock anyway?' Beth said.

‘I got up to go to the loo. Douggie must have woken me up. He's always crying early in the morning. Have you noticed? I just glanced out of the window and saw them. Fast work, I call that. He's nice, though, Sean, isn't he? What'd you think if he became your sort of stepfather?'

‘Bloody hell, Chloë, you're jumping the gun a bit, aren't you? They were just walking up to the house together, that's all.'

Chloë giggled. ‘You didn't see them. I'm telling you, something's going on there. I dare you to ask Rilla.'

‘I will, too. I'll ask her as soon as she gets up.'

‘She won't be up for ages,' Chloë pulled the branch she was working on into position. ‘She only got to bed a few hours ago. I reckon you won't see her till lunchtime. How's that looking?'

‘Great,' said Beth, but her attention wasn't really on the creation of trees, however beautiful. She added, ‘I'm going out to see what's going on in the marquee, Chloë.
My head's reeling with all this relationship stuff. See you.'

*

The chairs and tables had been unloaded from the truck that brought them and several men were going into the marquee, setting them down, and coming out again in a kind of procession.

‘Hello, there, Beth!' said James, who was enjoying overseeing this work. He looked rather like an army officer in his khaki trousers and a vaguely military-looking shirt. ‘Very efficient, these chaps, aren't they?'

Alex was beside the truck photographing the whole operation. He came quickly across the grass towards Beth as soon as he caught sight of her.

‘Hi, Alex!' she said, and smiled at him. James had disappeared into the marquee to make sure that all the furniture was properly distributed. ‘Your dad's enjoying himself, isn't he?'

‘Thinks he's General Montgomery. Almost expect him to salute, in that outfit. Sleep well?'

Beth nodded. ‘You're up early, aren't you?'

‘Didn't want to miss this light. I'm finished now, though. Come for a walk?'

‘Okay.' Beth fell in beside him and they made their way towards the drive. ‘Where are we going? And do we really have to go so fast? I want to ask you something.'

‘Sorry.' Alex slowed down at once. ‘Let's drop in and see Nanny Mouse, shall we? I haven't been down there yet.'

‘Nor me. It's a good idea. I always mean to go and see her, but I hate going on my own. I'm not sure if she really knows who I am and I can't think of what to say.'

‘I find her quite restful, really. Doesn't matter what you say, she'll have forgotten it before you've left the room.'

The sun shone through the leaves of the trees along the drive and made shadows flicker over Alex's face. For a
moment, Beth considered asking him again about that day by the lake, the day when Mark died, but thought better of it. He'd seemed so reluctant to talk about it and so obviously regretted bringing it up in the first place that she hadn't the heart to remind him. He might know about Efe, though, and Fiona.

‘Alex, may I ask you something?' she said. ‘You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.'

‘Go on, then. What is it?'

‘I caught Fiona crying in the bathroom yesterday. She showed me her arms and they were covered in bruises. She told me Efe sometimes loses his temper with her. Did you know that?'

‘I saw them too. The bruises.' Alex said nothing for a few moments, then, ‘He's capable of it, you know, Beth. He's my brother and I feel disloyal saying this about him but he does get kind of out of control sometimes.'

Beth sighed. ‘I know that, really. I've seen him, occasionally, only I never thought …' Her voice faded away. ‘Oh, Alex, what can we do? Shouldn't we say something? Maybe we ought to tell your mum and dad. Or Leonora. What do you think?'

‘I could speak to him, I suppose,' Alex said. ‘But I doubt he'd listen to me. He'd probably deny it. Fiona's the one who has to deal with it. You could maybe talk to her.'

‘I hardly know her and …'

‘I know. You don't think much of her, either.'

Beth looked searchingly at Alex. ‘You don't miss much, do you? I have tried to keep my opinion of her to myself. Is it that obvious? I feel sorry for her now, though.' She stopped walking and leaned against a tree. ‘I don't know what I think about anything any more. I don't feel the same today as I did yesterday about anything. What's happening, Alex? Why is Efe so different from how he usually is?'

‘He's not different at all,' Alex said gently. ‘It's just that this is the first time for ages that we've all been together for a few days, and so you get to see other bits of him. The bits that aren't on display when you go round to his flat for dinner for instance. He's always liked his own way, and has always managed to charm people when he wants something out of them. He's been charming you for years, hasn't he?'

‘Alex! You sound as though you're jealous!' Beth started to laugh, but she stopped at once when she saw Alex's face.

‘Of course I'm not jealous,' he said, ‘but I have begun to notice certain things. The way you look at him, for instance. I'm surprised no one else has seen it.'

‘He makes me angry, most of the time. And anyway, you're just as bad. We've both of us sort of worshipped him since we were kids, haven't we?'

Alex nodded and adopted a tactic Beth had seen him use many times. He changed the subject.

‘When we last went down to see Nanny Mouse,' he said, as though he'd never mentioned Beth's feelings, ‘she thought I was Efe at first. Then she got confused all over again and called me Peter. I hope we can get her to recognize us for a bit.'

‘It'll be okay. She drifts in and out of real life, doesn't she? In and out of what's happening now and you have to catch those moments when she's making sense as they go past you.'

Alex smiled at her and Beth was surprised how comforted he made her feel. He was always the same. Always there and always reliable. He hadn't changed. Unlike Efe. For years now Efe had been the focus of all her dreams. It was only in the last few hours that she'd begun to realize that the person she'd been fantasizing about for so long was perhaps not exactly who she'd thought he was, but someone quite different. Someone
who was capable of violence, and who thought nothing of being unfaithful to his wife. I still love him, Beth thought, but was immediately aware of a tiny doubt creeping over her like the thinnest of mists, dissipating almost at once but leaving behind some trace, some inkling, that she would never again feel quite the same about him.

Alex. Beth looked at him striding along beside her in silence, and found herself considering him for the very first time in her life as a man. As someone whom she might touch, might kiss, might be able to love. Greatly to her surprise, such imaginings, far from shocking her, sent a small thrill through her, as though an electric current had passed along her body. This is ridiculous, she thought. This is Alex. It's mad to start thinking about him like this. Quite mad.

‘We're here, Beth,' Alex said.

‘Sorry, Alex, I was miles away.'

Alex knocked at the door of Lodge Cottage and Miss Lardner opened it at once. She must, Beth thought, have been standing just inside, waiting for them.

‘I saw you coming down the drive,' she said. ‘How very good it is to see you both! You're just in time for elevenses.'

Beth caught Alex's eye and they smiled at one another. She knew that they were both thinking the same thing exactly: this was the only place in the world where everyone still believed in elevenses. She said, ‘That'll be lovely, Miss Lardner. We'd love some elevenses, wouldn't we, Alex?'

‘Can't think of anything I'd like better,' Alex answered. He sounded dangerously close to laughter. He followed Beth into the tiny drawing room where Nanny Mouse was nodding in her favourite armchair.

*

Whenever he sat in one of Nanny Mouse's armchairs,
Alex felt like Alice after she'd taken the magic potion and grown too big for the White Rabbit's house. He remembered every detail of the illustration from the book he'd loved since he was seven; poor Alice's arms and legs pressing against the walls, her head at a strange angle. He put his feet together and pulled them as close as he possibly could to his chair.

The cups and saucers at Lodge Cottage were probably the same size as crockery everywhere else, but because they were so dainty, and patterned with roses and edged with gold, it made him feel clumsy just to look at them, and he hurried to finish his coffee (instant and too weak) and put the saucer down on the tiny little table that Miss Lardner had placed beside him.

Beth was doing a grand job, talking to the old lady. What Alex had told Beth about how much he enjoyed visiting Nanny Mouse was true, but there were ways in which he sometimes felt uncomfortable in Nanny Mouse's company. Or maybe uncomfortable wasn't the right word. On edge, in case anything happened to her, perhaps, and he'd have to deal with it. That was nonsense as well. Miss Lardner was always on hand. Still, Nanny Mouse was so old that she had become almost translucent and, even at her best, there was a faint trembling about her which made him nervous. He turned his attention to the many photographs in ornate frames up on the mantelpiece.

Most of them were well known to him because he'd seen copies of them in family albums that belonged to Leonora and Gwen. All the baby pictures were there in force. Leonora herself, as a baby at her christening, swathed in cascades of lace; Rilla's christening, wearing the same dress and carried by Leonora; Gwen and Rilla wearing smocked dresses and standing rather awkwardly against their mother's skirt. Not a very professional shot, that one, with Leonora cut off at the waist. You could see
her hand reaching out to rest on Gwen's hair. It always surprised Alex, who spent ages working on the best shot, the right light, and some kind of interesting composition, how the old photos, with all their imperfections, turned out often to be more moving than anything he could achieve. Or maybe he was just romanticizing the past, which had a lustre of its own just because it had disappeared long ago and left behind nothing but this faint trace of itself.

Had Beth realized what he'd admitted to? He looked at her, chatting and smiling with Nanny Mouse and wondered. If she'd taken it in, she wasn't showing what she felt. Maybe she hadn't decided yet. I'm an idiot, Alex thought. I don't know how to do that sort of thing. Were you actually supposed to come out and say it?
I love you
. Just like that? Was he some kind of a freak because he'd never articulated the words before? All the women he'd known had picked up the signals without him needing to say a word. He reflected ruefully that maybe these affairs, lasting not more than a few months most of them, would have turned out more satisfactorily if he'd spoken of his feelings. You weren't supposed to lie, though, he knew that much. It dawned on him that the reason he'd never loved another woman properly before was that he'd been preoccupied with Beth all his life, without even being conscious of it.

I mistook it for something else entirely, he thought. A mixture of friendship and admiration. It's taken me all these years to recognize that it might be something more. To acknowledge the fact that I love her and there's nothing to stop her from loving me. Nothing but the fact that she's besotted with Efe. Alex sighed. Nanny Mouse was talking to him now and he made a big effort to concentrate. You had to keep your wits about you when you embarked on a conversation with someone whose focus kept shifting.

‘She was very ill, you know,' Nanny Mouse confided. ‘She should never have run out of doors like that. It wasn't allowed.'

‘Wasn't it?' Alex said, and Beth smiled at him and came to his rescue.

‘Who was ill, Nanny? Do you mean Leonora?'

‘Yes, of course. She caught a dreadful chill which turned to pneumonia. I nursed her through it. Oh, she was burning up with the fever! She missed her birthday, you know. We had to give her all her presents later. There was a little boy who drowned too. Did you know that?'