Going Home (27 page)

‘He’s coming, Lizzy,’ Miles said firmly. ‘He wants to see Mum, in any case. Why do you care, anyway?’

‘He doesn’t have to find out, if we’re really careful,’ I said, pondering the situation and ignoring the question. ‘We’ll be careful. It’ll be so embarrassing if he knows at the wedding. And he’ll be – well, he might be upset.’

‘Upset? Lizzy, I don’t think he’s going to mind that much. He’ll find it a bit weird for a while but you guys – well, it was nearly a year ago.’

‘I know,’ I said.

‘And, Lizzy, he…he kind of got over you, didn’t he? He slept with someone else.’

‘Yes.’

‘So I can’t think he’d mind that much. Honestly. And it’s best he knows before the wedding so he has time to get used to it, yeah?’

‘Yes,’ I said slowly.

‘We won’t throw it in his face, will we? We’ll be really discreet. But he should know before. He’s my brother and I love him. I don’t want to screw him around.’

‘You’re right.’ I said. ‘Tell him.’

‘Good,’ said Miles, moving closer. ‘Good.’

Lying in bed on my own, I’d gone over this conversation again. I couldn’t help it, really come on. They were brothers after all. Did David know by now? He was coming to the wedding: what would he say? Did he hate me and Miles, or was he pleased for us?

A fleeting movement on the lawn caught my eye, but the garden was empty. I sipped my tea staring into space, my mind drifting, thoughts crowding in one after the other. Miles and I were going on holiday next month to Portugal before I went, and Miles had already mentioned us moving in together in a few months’ time. I’d pointed out, again, that I’d be in LA and so he’d have to move in with me there, but he simply smiled that nice smile at me and said ‘It ain’t over till it’s over.’ I knew the holiday I had with Miles would be planned out and correct to the last letter.

When David and I had been going out for a couple of months we went to Paris for the weekend. We had no money, we were staying in a horrible hotel with what I am sure was a cockroach in the bathroom, and it rained, rain like sheets of water when we arrived at the Gard du Nord on the Friday evening and trundled down to our hotel, laughing like drains, feeling like drains as rainwater drenched us through and through.

It was on that Paris trip with David that I’d found out David and Miles hadn’t known each other very well when they were younger, how they spent a lot of time apart. Their parents had divorced when David was fourteen and Miles was eleven. Rupert Eliot moved to Spain with his new wife while the boys came with their mother to Wareham and took it in turns to go and see him in the holidays. We knew Miles but David was up at university in Edinburgh and spent a lot of time there.

So I’d never met David until the fateful summer’s day when he ran over my bike outside The George in Wrentham. I always felt pathetic for finding this attractive, but the first thing he did was lift the front of his car almost to his knees and kick the crumpled remains of my beautiful blue bike out of the way. He bought me a Fab ice lolly and drove me to the bike shop. I dropped the lolly into the door pocket by mistake but said nothing out of embarrassment and, I suspect, secret rage about the bike.

We had a drink, then dinner, and then we ended up staying the night there. Both of us – we just knew. It was as simple as that. And so the next day, as we were leaving The George I opened the car door and a swarm of wasps flew out. I’d left my window open and they were all over the remains of the lolly, his really sad CD collection, a Great Britain road map and an old box of travel sweets. David just looked at me across the bonnet as I leaped around screaming, and then he laughed, and I did too, and when we stopped I looked at him again and fell irrevocably in love with him, in the car park of the pub in the next village to Wareham.

My tea was cold. I shook my head, ashamed that my mind, in its ill-disciplined way, had led me back along the same old routes. And then something, or someone, in the garden caught my eye again, and this time I heard a noise.
It was a voice. The lawn was empty and nothing was moving. Then it happened again: something moved, and someone yelled. I got up and craned out of the window. Yes, someone was creeping along by the walled garden. I stood up and banged my head on the eaves. The person in the garden spun round. He was tall, thin and angular, but I wasn’t close enough to recognize him. He flattened himself against the wall and looked shiftily from side to side. On his arm he had a basket and in his hand a pair of what appeared to be secateurs. A woman’s voice called in the distance, and the figure tensed, his head swivelling from side to side. He was looking for escape.

I waited no longer. I put my mug down on the floor, jumped into my slippers and ran downstairs, hair flying behind me. I ran into the sitting room and out through the french windows, across the terrace and through the door into the garden.

‘Hey!’ I yelled, running towards the intruder. ‘Hey, you! What are you doing there?’

The man froze.

‘Give me those roses,’ I said, panting and sweating. I heard sounds from the house of people coming to find what all the fuss was about. ‘Give them to me,’ I said, snatching the basket.

‘No!’ said the man defiantly, looking at me with scorn. I looked down at myself and realised I was in my pyjamas and brandishing
Frederica
by Georgette Heyer as my weapon of choice.

‘Go away, you horrible thief,’ I said. ‘My parents are coming – go away.’ I stopped, realising I sounded like an eight-year-old.

‘Oh dear,’ he said. He had a nice face but with a curiously huge widow’s peak. ‘You have ruined it now – you realize that, don’t you?’

A car door slammed in the driveway, then a door in the house. We turned at the same time and I considered my next move, although as I had never confronted a robber before, let alone one who stole roses and didn’t run away, I had no idea what it should be.

Then I heard the voice again. ‘Who’s that?’ I said suspiciously. ‘Is someone calling you?’

‘Mando!’ the voice yelled. I could hear crunching on the gravel.

‘Oh, my God,’ I said suddenly recognising him. ‘You’re Mando, aren’t you?’

The rose burglar bowed his head. ‘Yes, I am,’ he said sadly. ‘I have brought Her with me. We have disagreed about flowers. Again.’

‘Again?’ I asked, in tones of no surprise, having heard enough about Chin’s tempestuous relationship with every single person connected with the production of her wedding not to be shocked by this news.

‘The roses are beautiful,’ Mando said fervently, clutching the wicker basket to his chest and grimacing. ‘But she cannot see it. I have almost had enough.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I said, feeling a pang of sympathy.

The wooden door of the walled garden banged and in strode my aunt, Hollywood film star to the life. She wore a red and orange gondoliers Prada scarf tied at a jaunty angle round her neck, black Capri pants, a slash-neck sleeveless black top, and red ballet pumps. When she reached us, she clicked her fingers imperiously at Mando. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Give them to me.’

‘No,’ said Mando, trembling.

I sat down on a bench with
Frederica
, still panting slightly at the drama just as Mum and Dad appeared.

‘What on earth is going on?’ said Dad, advancing up the path in his stripy pyjamas.

‘Mando!’ cried Mum, running towards him. ‘How lovely to see you.’ She flung her arms round his neck. ‘I tried that pale pink Estée Lauder lipstick, Sea Shell Lady and you were right. Peach
isn’t
my colour, is it? Thank you!’ She threaded her arm through his.

Dad ran his hands through his hair. ‘It’s starting,’ he said. ‘Oh God.’

‘Mando,’ said Chin, in a quiet but terrifying voice. ‘Give me those fucking roses. I told him,’ she said to me and Dad, alarm written on her face, ‘that they’re the wrong pink. I’ve told him and Suzy about fifteen times. And does he listen? No? What does he do? Run out of the car while I’m trying to sodding park – honestly, John, you could have left some more space for me – and creep in here like a MENTALIST and start half-inching our bloody roses. Mando, listen to me. They’re the WRONG PINK! Don’t you understand?’

Her face crumpled and she started to cry.

Oh my god, I thought, they are all mad but finally a member of my family has actually gone stark bonkers in the back garden and I have completely witnessed it at first hand and it is
fascinating.

‘Chin,’ said Dad firmly, ‘this is no way to behave, shouting like a lunatic at nine in the morning. Mando, good morning. It’s nice to see you again.’

‘You too,’ said Mando, fluttering his long Italian lashes at Dad and perking up somewhat. ‘And you, Suzy.’

‘Come inside and let’s have some breakfast,’ Dad said.

‘I’m not having break—’

‘I don’t sodding care,’ Dad said murderously. ‘Come inside and stop behaving like a three-year-old. I know tensions are running high for all of us but I will not have people throwing themselves around like Ellen Terry among my peas. Oh, look,’ he said, more cheerfully. ‘There’s Gibbo.’

Gibbo was loping along the path in a curious lord-of-the-manor get-up: a long checked shirt under a bright yellow corduroy jacket of seventies cut. ‘Good morning, John,’ he said. ‘Suze, my girl, how are you?’ He kissed Mum.

‘Right, in we go,’ said my father, like a major-domo. ‘The
bride and groom have arrived. Let the festivities commence. Suzy, where’s the sherry? I need a drink.’

‘It’s nine o’clock in the morning, darling,’ said Mum, trotting behind him and beaming at Mando.

‘I don’t care. Gibbo, welcome to the beginning of the rest of your life. I’m so very sorry.’

‘So,’ said my mother, once we were all seated around the kitchen table, nursing coffee and eating toast, ‘what do we have to do today, Mando?’

Mando was applying Marmite in a thick layer to his toast.
‘Weeell,’
he said slowly, ‘the flowers are arriving here at midday, Suzy, so you and I must start work then. When is Kate to be here?’

‘Er…don’t know. Midday?’ said my mother, hopefully.

Mando held up his knife and ticked off each finger. ‘Enamel jugs, I need, we must search for them. Old vases, glass ones, no disgusting china, these must come too. You have the glasses for the table decorations, yes?’

‘Yes – there,’ my mother said, pointing to the counter: an assortment of fifteen old glasses, some with patterns carved on the side, some chipped, some with painted flowers on them, stood on a tray.

‘The ribbons are here now with me, polka dotty and plain. Lizzy, you will tie them where I say. And in the path through the garden to the meadow, we have the sticks with candles on. We tie flowers and ribbons to them, for the day, then light the candles for the evening. It will be so beautiful, very much like a
Midsummer’s Dream.
’ He stopped, and said,
‘Night’s Dream.
You see? So, I recap. Jessica, you will put the sticks in the ground on the path. They must be equal apart. Suzy, you will find the jugs and the implements.’

‘Right,’ we murmured.

‘And on Saturday morning, all we must do is gather the
wild flowers for the table decorations, OK? Suzy and Chin, you and I will walk round the garden today and decide what will go in them. I
know.’
Mando turned to Chin, who was opening her mouth. ‘No dog roses. They are the wrong pink. Well, you are wrong, and you will see you are wrong, but no matter. And, Suzy, you and I will go to the church with the flowers.’

‘I’ve got to work,’ said Mum. ‘I’m so sorry, Mando, you’ll have to do it alone.’

‘I can come with you, Mando,’ said Gibbo, looking up from his motorbike magazine. ‘No sweat, I’d love to help. Flowers are great.’

Chin looked as if she was about to cry.

‘I’ll come too, if you need me to,’ said Kate, who was standing at the door, staring at Mando with a look of deep scepticism in her face.

‘No,’ Mum said jealously. ‘Lizzy can go. Oh, when are you off to meet Miles?’

‘Your
loverrrrr,’
said Jess, unexpectedly, in the corner.

Mando turned towards me and raised his hands. ‘Your boyfriend is coming to the wedding? Your beautiful boyfriend, how I long to see him again.’ He smacked his lips. Kate stiffened in alarm.

‘No, not that boyfriend any more,’ I said.

‘His brother,’ my mother said, standing up to put some plates and cups in the dishwasher.

‘You are not with David any more?’ Mando said.

‘No,’ I said.

‘But why?’ Mando said, appealing to the wider group, except Dad who was in the larder looking for more Grape Nuts.

There was a pause: no one knew what to say.

‘Ah,’ said Dad, emerging from the larder with a packet in his hand. ‘No Grape Nuts. Anyone in the mood for Alpen? Ho-hum.’

‘More tea?’ said Chin to Gibbo, who had returned to his motorbike magazine.

‘Asparagus tart for lunch, Kate?’ said Mum, brandishing a flan tin.

‘So,’ Mando pressed on, ‘this boyfriend is not your lovely David. He is?’

‘His brother,’ Mum repeated, wiping the counter.

This was news to Chin and Gibbo, who stared, slack-jawed, at me.

‘You’re going out with Miles?’ Chin said.

‘Miles?’ Gibbo said. ‘Right. Good bloke.’

‘Miles?’ Chin repeated. ‘Does David know?’

‘Er, I think so by now,’ I said, pushing the Marmite along the table with one finger.

Chin put down her mug and lowered her voice. ‘Lizzy. Really? You and Miles?’

‘Yes,’ I said brightly. ‘It’s fantastic, and it’s going really well.’

Chin looked searchingly at me. ‘Is it? Really? Are you – are you serious?’

I met her stare. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We are.’

‘Can we have a proper catch-up later, Lizzy? Just the two of us?’ Chin stroked the back of her smooth head still staring at me.

I’d known she’d have a problem with it. People outside a relationship always think they know better than the participants. I couldn’t be bothered to explain why it was right, and I was sure she wouldn’t believe me anyway, so I said, in a muffled voice, ‘Sure, let’s. That’d be great.’

‘I haven’t seen you properly for ages, have I?’

‘Well, you know whose fault that is,’ I said coldly.

She slid her palm flat along the table towards my hand. ‘Yes,’ she said, took my hand and held it. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been crap. But it’s all been so hectic. And…there’s lots going on. I want to talk to you properly, though.’

‘Yep,’ I said, only slightly mollified.

Chin got up and went out to her car to get her suitcase and some flowers she’d brought. Mum and Mando were in a huddle, Gibbo was still absorbed in his magazine, Dad was munching his cereal, and Jess and Kate had gone to unload chairs from Kate’s car. It was strange that we should be bringing things in to the house when four days later everything would go out of it for ever.

After the dramatic start to the day, and overloading on Marmite, I was suddenly cast into gloom and impotent anger swept through me. I wanted to talk to Miles. I put my plate into the dishwasher, and went listlessly upstairs to get dressed. Perhaps I’d call him, I thought, then remembered he was in a deal-breaking meeting all day.

On the landing at the top of the stairs boxes had been filled with the contents of the bookcase outside my room, Mum’s old Georgette Heyers, Jean Plaidys, Daphne du Mauriers and umpteen old book-club hardbacks with intriguing titles like
Without My Cloak
and
The Stars Look Down.
I’d read them all, along with most of
The Forsyte Saga
and
War and Peace
, one boiling hot summer of bored, sulking adolescence when I was sixteen and stayed in my room for eighteen hours out of twenty-four, convinced my best friend Jackie Poller hated me and that my parents were harsh and vile and that I had nine spots on my chin and nose because my sister had finished the Clearasil.

Tom had had a new bike that summer and was always out with Miles. Jess was at a holiday workshop organized by the vicar at Wareham, which meant she learned folksongs and put coloured paper fringing around lots of household items. I hated everyone and everyone hated me, I thought.

That summer I kissed Miles for the first time. We were outside the Neptune, sitting on a wooden bench, having been allowed a sneaky beer by Bill. It was late and warm, and
the breeze was delicious on my shoulders. I was enjoying being out of the house and away from my horrible family, who repressed me and tried to thwart my every move, and – I can’t remember how it happened, but it did. Then we were embarrassed, and then Tom appeared. Perhaps if he hadn’t we wouldn’t have wasted all the time we had.

I bent to look through the next box of books and found Mum’s collection of
School Friend
annuals, pulled one out, took it into my room, threw myself on to the bed and opened it. In my mother’s loopy, difficult handwriting (perfect for the indecipherable prescriptions she writes now) I read ‘Suzanne Rodwell aged Ten’. I turned to the contents page, intrigued, and was overwhelmed. ‘Celia and the Silver Ukulele’, ‘Jo’s Amazing Maypole Ride’, ‘Well Done, Professor Sally!’ – good grief, and people condemn
heat
magazine for sounding silly. I turned to page 91, ‘A Parrot, A Plot – And Geraldine’. It was the absolute duffest of stories, about some half-witted girls at St Winifred’s, and a madcap called Geraldine, who was always getting them into scrapes, but the heroine, Jane Watts, was a sensible girl, cheery, helpful and ready to take it on the chin even when all was at its worst. I threw it aside in disgust.

I lay on my bed, feeling sorry for myself and wanting to take out my mood on someone but I couldn’t at a time like this. I should have been downstairs helping. Then I thought of plucky Jane Watts of ‘A Parrot, A Plot – And Geraldine’, and I thought well, if she can remain cheerful while all around her people are saying things like ‘We won through in the end, didn’t we, Matron?’ and ‘I say, that’ll show those Fourth Year girls!’ well then, I should take a leaf out of her book. Suddenly I saw the way forward. I swung my arm over the bed, picked up the
School Friend
annual, and started reading again. My sense of vocation increased at every sentence. I would be kind, helpful, with
bright cheery eyes and a sparkling smile. I would load boxes and right wrongs and I would be nice to everyone in my loving family circle, and I would really think about whether I was going to let Miles persuade me not to go to LA, and when Saturday came and I saw David, I would be jolly and chirpy and he would say ‘Madcap schemes are always afoot when Lizzy’s around, but she always pulls it off!’ and walk off with a spring in his step and no undertow of argh erk ouch, those things which characterised our previous meetings since our breakup. Yes. I leaped off the bed, flung the door open and skipped lightly downstairs, where I was met by the sight of Chin and Gibbo in a passionate clinch by the staircase. I slapped Gibbo on the back. ‘Well done!’ I cried heartily, and danced into the study.

‘Dad,’ I practically yelled. ‘Can I help you with some packing?’