Going Home (3 page)

Gibbo turned back to the house, fighting hysteria, and as he did I saw Kate catch his eye. My aunt is a fierce creature, someone who doesn’t smile a lot, but when she does she’s beautiful. Her lovely dark green eyes sparkled and she patted Gibbo’s hand. I was glad she liked him.

‘Thank you, all, so much,’ said Mum, as the group turned to leave.

‘Yes, thank you,’ we echoed. ‘Happy Christmas! See you at church!’

We hastened, shivering, back into the warmth of the house. The wind was getting up now, and the french windows rattled. Tom threw another log on to the fire, and sparks hissed out on to the carpet.

‘Supper’ll be ready in a few minutes,’ said Mum. ‘Time for one more glass?’

If catchphrases were written on headstones, that one would do for both my parents.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Tom, picked up the decanter and went round with it.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

‘Yes, of course I am.’ He looked surprised. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘You’re a bit quiet,’ I said.

‘Oh, God.’ Tom laughed. ‘I’m fine. I was just thinking about something I didn’t do at work.’

‘I’d like to make a toast,’ announced Dad. Jess and I groaned. Dad loves to make toasts or little speeches – it’s part of his ceaseless quest to reclaim the title ‘World’s Most Embarrassing Dad to Two Teenage Girls’, which was his for several years during my adolescence.

‘Shut up, girls,’ said Mum, even though I know she agrees with us.

‘Yes, shut up,’ said Dad, placing his glass on the table. ‘I would like to say a couple of things. It is wonderful to have you all here tonight. Lizzy, Jessica and Thomas, you’ve come away from all the important things you do in London, and we’re all very proud of you and glad you’re here. And my little sister, Chin, doing so well with her scarves and bags that not only have Liberty taken some more I hear a shop in…’ he paused before he said the words, then pronounced them as if he were a judge asking who the Beatles were ‘…
Notting Hill
– yes? Is that it? – wants to do the same.’

‘Oooh,’ we all murmured.

‘Leave it with the J.R. Hartley impressions, John,’ Chin said, bashing his thigh.

The mulberry tree’s branches rattled against the window and the logs crackled on the fire. Dad went on, undaunted, clearing his throat: ‘I’d like especially to welcome Gibbo. It’s great to have you with us for Christmas, and while this year you’ll be substituting, ah,
raincoats
for
sunblock
, we
all hope you don’t feel too homesick’ – honestly, that’s the best Dad’s humour gets – ‘and we’re very pleased to meet you. So, to us all, happy Christmas, and welcome home!’ He raised his glass and drank, and we were about to follow suit when there was a loud crash in the hall. (Later, after the excitement was over, we found that a window had blown open half-way up the stairs and sent a little jug filled with holly flying on to the floor, where it smashed into tiny pieces, with one of the boughs of pine.)

We jumped, and Kate and Mum grabbed each other and screamed, like spinster sisters in a horror film.

Then the french windows swung inwards.

This time we all screamed. A shadowy, windswept figure stood outside. Dad brandished his minute gin glass at it, as if it were a gigantic blunderbuss. We all took a step back. The figure came into the room and flung off its trilby. ‘Happy Christmas, everyone! I’m so sorry I’m late, but I’m here! God, it’s good to be back! Is that a new armchair?’

‘Mike!’ Jess yelled, the first to recover. ‘You’re here! This is fantastic.’

‘Damn you, Mike,’ Kate said crossly, as we all breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Suzy…’ Mike threw his hat on to the sofa and gathered my mother into a hug. ‘Look.’ He fiddled with his coat. ‘Oh. Damn…I wanted to be able to produce them with a flourish, you know. Ah, here they are. Ouch. Fuck. Sorry.’ He pulled a limp, cellophane-covered bunch of motorway service-station roses out of his sleeve.

‘It’s lovely to see you, you annoying man. Thank you.’ Mum beamed and moved to close the french windows. She started. ‘Oh…my God. Is someone else out there?’

As the wind whistled and the chimney belched smoke into the room, Mike said, ‘I’d like you all to meet Rosalie.’

He grinned rather shiftily, and a second figure appeared
from behind him, immaculately made up, not a hair out of place, despite the wind, an early-forties minx-a-like with – and this was obvious even through her cashmere coat – a spectacularly pneumatic chest.

‘This is Rosalie,’ Mike repeated. ‘My wife.’

Rosalie stepped forward. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet y’all,’ she said, and smiled, revealing a set of shockingly white teeth.

We’re so British, my family. If we’d been Italian we’d have jumped up and down, waving our arms, demanding to know where Mike had met her and when. If we’d been Afghan, French or Brazilian we would have come out with at least some of the questions we were dying to ask. Instead we simply nodded and stood quite silently.

Then Kate broke the spell. ‘Congratulations! Wonderful!’ she said, then kissed Rosalie and Mike, who clutched her hand.

‘Bless you, Kate,’ he said.

Mum and Dad followed suit, murmuring politely, and Tom and Gibbo shook his hand bashfully. For all his Antipodean forthrightness Gibbo could clearly hear ancestral voices calling when an awkward situation loomed.

Mike hung their coats on the long wooden rack in the hall, and took Rosalie upstairs to show her their room, the long low one at the front of the house with the rose wallpaper, which Mum said was so appropriate for Rosalie, as if she’d known her brother-in-law was about to turn up with a complete stranger to whom he’d just hitched himself. We stood around like Easter Island statues, until they came back, five or so minutes later, looking rather ruffled.

‘Get rid of that God-awful gin and let’s have a proper drink.’ Mike produced two bottles. ‘We brought some champagne.’ He whipped off the foil and wire, popped a cork and out it flowed, thick and creamy, into Dad’s empty sloe-gin glass, which Mike now drained.

There was a silence. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. Kate hummed and looked at the cornices.

‘Let me get some more glasses,’ said Mum suddenly, and hurried into the kitchen with Chin.

‘We met at a law conference in November,’ Mike said, out of the blue, as Rosalie smiled up at him.

‘
This
November?’ Dad enquired, like a man in the final throes of strangulation.

‘Nuts, Rosalie?’ Tom asked innocently.

‘Shut up,’ I hissed.

‘Well, thank you – Tom, is it?’ Rosalie breathed, and flashed him a brilliant smile.

Tom coughed.

‘So…when did you decide to get married, then?’ Dad stammered.

‘Well…’ Rosalie and Mike looked at each other and giggled.

‘Well, John,’ said Rosalie, ‘you’re not going to believe this, but we got married yesterday! City Hall, eleven thirty a.m.! Then we decided to get on a flight over here.’

‘I’m going to check on the glasses,’ said Tom, to no one in particular, and left.

‘But how did you get a flight at such short notice, Rosalie? Aren’t they all booked up?’ Jess asked.

‘
Weeeell
,’ said Rosalie, ‘you have a very wonderful uncle.’ She clenched her hands into tiny fists and punched the air. ‘Hey! Thank you for this man!’

I glanced covertly around me, not sure whom she was thanking. Us? The Lord?
Jim’ll Fix It
?

She went on, ‘He actually had me booked on to a flight the week after we met – he was always going to get me to come over with him because he wanted me to see your beautiful home. And, I must say, it’s such an honour to be here. You truly have a really…beautiful home.’

‘Oh dear, where are those glasses,’ I said, and slid out of the room.

At the kitchen table, Mum, Chin and Tom were whispering like the three witches in
Macbeth.
They sprang apart guiltily as I walked in, then visibly relaxed.

‘I was just telling them he met her at a law conference
last month
!’ Chin hissed across the table at me.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘And they only got married
yesterday
!’ Tom said, slamming his hand on the table for emphasis.

‘I heard that too,’ I said.

They looked at me crossly, as if I was ruining their fun.

‘I can tell you that she’s just given thanks for such a wonderful man and she thinks our home is really beautiful,’ I said, with a glance over my shoulder to make sure the coast was clear.

‘Noooooooooo!’ they chorused.

‘Also that Mike booked her on the flight home
a week after they met
because he knew even then he wanted us to meet her.’

‘Noooooooooooooooo!’

‘Yes,’ I said, much gratified at their reaction.

‘Is she a money-grabbing whore?’ said Tom.

‘Is she even a lawyer?’ said Chin. ‘She doesn’t look like one.’

‘I’m sure she’s a very nice girl,’ said Mum, suddenly becoming a grown-up again.

‘But I bet she saw a picture of the house early on and convinced herself Mike’s, like, a duke or something,’ said Chin.

‘I’m sure of it,’ said Mum then she paused and collected herself. ‘Well, anyway, it’s lovely to have Mike home and I’m glad for him. She seems lovely and I’m sure they’re very happy.’

We glared at her, disappointed. Mum picked up the glasses and another bottle of sloe gin – thank God for Jess’s nimble fingers in October. We were positively racing through the hooch that night.

‘Let’s have one more quick drink and then supper.’

We glared at her again, and Tom sighed. ‘Aunt Suzy, don’t be a Goody Two Shoes.’

‘Hello!’ said a voice at the door. We whipped round, and there was Rosalie.

‘Good grief, Rosalie, you made us jump! I was just getting you a glass. Everything OK?’ said Mum, running her fingers through her hair.

‘Yes, of course, Susan,’ said Rosalie. She brushed invisible dust from her sleeve, smiling as if she was visualizing chapter two of a self-help book on forging relationships with strangers. ‘Hi, Ginevra, hi, Tom, hi, Lizzy. I just wanted to know if there was anything you needed help with out here.’

‘How kind of you, but don’t worry. You must be exhausted. Go back into the sitting room – supper’s nearly ready,’ said Mum, with a glint in her eye. I could tell she was looking for something to like in her new sister-in-law. Tom, Chin and I shifted from foot to foot: we are not nice people and didn’t want to like her.

‘Come and help me set the table if you want,’ I offered finally.

Rosalie looked delighted, and so did Mum. It was almost a touching domestic scene.

We went into the dining room next door and started with the cutlery. ‘There are ten of us, and the plates are in that cupboard. I’ll get them,’ I said.

Rosalie painstakingly counted out ten knives and forks.
Was she a lawyer? She looked like a fully-clothed member of the
Baywatch
cast. Who moves their lips when they count to ten? I thought, then realized that I did.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘The wine and water glasses are here. And the napkin rings – can you fetch that bowl from the dresser?’

Rosalie reached behind her and put the bowl on the table. ‘Do you all have them? They’re, like, silver!’ she cried.

‘Er…yes, we do. They
are
silver. We were all given one as a christening present, but my dad has my grandfather’s – he died a few years ago. So there’s a spare for Gibbo.’

‘The Australian guy, right?’ She paused. ‘But, hey, since I’m a member of the family now, I suppose – shouldn’t I have it? Gibbo’s not, like, married to Ginevra, is he?’

She asked it so artlessly, but with such cunning, that I was taken aback. It was such a tiny thing, but I saw that it could easily be the Thin End of the Wedge, plus I’d recently watched a late night American made-for-TV movie starring Tori Spelling called
Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?
about a woman who keeps giving in to her thankless, dim cheerleader daughter which results in the daughter nearly getting killed by her boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks who has a penchant for bumping off his inamoratas with a wooden chopping board. It is all super-ironic because the mother knows she could have prevented the near-death by being firm with her daughter from the get-go. Anyway.

‘No, you can have this one,’ I said firmly, and handed her a wooden ring. I looked at her. She bowed her head, as if admitting defeat, and I felt like Maximus Decimus Meridius in
Gladiator
, accepting the cheers of the crowd in the after-math of a particularly bloody bout.

Mum came in. ‘I’m going to ring the bell now,’ she said, and looked at Rosalie. ‘Or would you like to do it? First time in the house, and you’re a member of the family now, aren’t you?’

Damn you, Mum, I thought.

Rosalie seemed delighted, and swung the huge Swiss cowbell that my great-great-grandfather brought back from a painting trip in the Alps and which had stood on the shelf in the dining room ever since.

The others came in, and we all sat down. Jess poured the wine and Dad stood up. ‘I’d just like to make a little speech.’

Saints preserve us! Two in one evening. By this stage I was wondering why I’d come home for Christmas at all, and feeling that my flat – even though the only food in it was those white beans you have to soak overnight so you never get round to cooking them – would be a lovely place to spend Christmas with a bottle of wine for company.

‘Erm, well, here’s to Mike and Rosalie,’ Dad said, in a rush, drank and sat down. It was his shortest speech ever, but at what a bitter price: the sacrifice of my favourite uncle to a fake-bosomed troll who was, at that very moment, studying the cutlery to see if it was silver-plated.

‘Thank you, John,’ said Mike. He stood up, ruffling his hair with his hands – he always did that. ‘Thanks very much.’ He gave us such a big grin I thought his face might explode. ‘God, it’s fantastic to be at home again. Ahm – just want to say it means more to me than you can possibly know,’ he said, swallowed and looked rather wildly up and down the table. ‘Here we all are. It’s Christmas Eve…’ We waited, politely, for so long that I wondered if he was seeking confirmation of the date or had something else to say. Then his eyes came to rest on Rosalie and he gave her his sappiest smile. ‘Happy Christmas, everyone,’ he said.

Supper took on a dreamlike quality, as if we were all being filmed for a reality TV show.

The side of beef was delicious, as was the mash, but Mum’s
Christmas Eve speciality, her mini Yorkshire puddings, had fallen by the wayside. I’d seen them earlier, all ready to go into the Aga in their little cups, but they never appeared on the table. Either they’d gone horribly wrong or we were two short and Mum had thrown them away rather than make Rosalie and Mike feel guilty. Hm. I watched Rosalie through slitted eyes as she munched happily away.

After supper, Mum and Kate had the usual stand-off about who was going to do the washing-up.

‘Go and sit down, Suzy, you’ve done quite enough this evening.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Kate. You had to work today,
you
should be relaxing.’

‘Not at all. I won’t hear of it! Move out of the way!’

‘No,
you
move out of the way.’

‘Ow, you’re hurting me!’

‘Stop pushing!’

‘God, this is ridiculous,’ said Chin, from the doorway. ‘Both of you, go and sit down in the other room. Why don’t you get started on the sprouts for tomorrow? I’ll bring you through some coffee and
we
’ll do the clearing up.’

Tom and I looked at each other. ‘Jeez, thanks a lot, Auntie,’ said Tom, but he went into the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher.

Kate dragged a sack of sprouts out of the larder, and she and Mum disappeared into the side-room, with the TV and comfy chairs. It was where we ate when we weren’t having formal meals, lovely and sunny in daytime but surprisingly cosy at night too, with a big open fireplace, shelves of magazines, videos, gardening guides, reference books, photos of the family and postcards from around the world – lots from Mike especially. It was one of my favourite rooms in the house – we’d transformed it from what had been the servants’ hall into what Americans would call a den.

The kettle whistled and I poured water into the cafetière as Tom plucked mugs off hooks. I could hear Rosalie gabbling in the hallway to Mike. Gibbo appeared and asked if we wanted any help.

‘Don’t worry, hon,’ said Chin.

He whipped the tea-towel out of her hand and kissed her. ‘Come on, gorgeous,’ he said into her ear. ‘Time for bed.’

Tom and I exchanged a glance of mock outrage.

‘It’s Christmas Eve. I’m not going to bed yet, even if it is with you, you…’ Chin murmured something that made Gibbo stand up straight, blush and give a little cough. She patted his arm and went back to the drying-up.

‘I’ll be with the others, then. See you in there,’ he mumbled.

‘No fear. I want to watch a bit of TV – I’ve had enough family chats for one night,’ said Chin.

‘Oh.’ Gibbo scratched his cheek. ‘Rosalie’s watching TV. Apparently her favourite film’s on, so she asked Mum and Kate if they wouldn’t mind watching it too.’

‘Urgh,’ said Tom. ‘She’s such a muscler-inner! I wonder what it is –
Weekend at Bernie’s
?
Pretty in Pink
?’

‘
Pretty Woman
,’ I suggested. ‘No,
Risky Business.
No!
Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves
!’

‘I’ve got it,’ Chin yelled. ‘
Showgirls
! In a tie with
Top Gun
!’

‘Actually,’ said a voice from the door, ‘it’s
Some Like It Hot
, and it’s on now.’

We turned. There was Rosalie again. The world’s quietest walker. Damn. There was total silence.

Then Rosalie spoke: ‘Hey, where’s that coffee? I bought some chocolates, and your dad says there are chips in the cupboard bit at the back of the kitchen…’ She bustled through to the larder. ‘Here, yeah,’ she said, emerging with two big bags of crisps. ‘I’ll see you in there, but hurry up. Tony and Jack have just nearly been shot – they’ll be
getting to Florida any minute.’ She walked out and we gazed after her in astonishment.

‘Is she all bad?’ Chin wondered aloud. ‘Clearly not. And yet, my friends, it is easier to hate her than to like her, no?

‘I say you’re all horrible people,’ said Gibbo, picking up the milk jug and bending over to kiss Chin again. ‘Come on, let’s go and join them.’

Mike appeared in the hall as Tom and I were negotiating our way to the side-room with the mugs and the cafetière. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Let me get the door. Hey, Titch, isn’t that the mug you painted for me in that stupid craft class you used to go to after school?’

‘It wasn’t stupid,’ said Tom, defensively. ‘It was really interesting. And you said it was the best present you’d ever had.’