Holding On (30 page)

‘What are you going to do?' She watched him warily.

‘I'm going to take him down to The Keep. Caroline will look after him,' he crouched beside Jolyon, holding him by the shoulders, smiling at him. ‘He'll be quite safe down there and Mummy won't be worried about him any more. You'll see him when we go down to visit Grandmother and Uncle Theo. OK?'

Jolyon nodded, relieved but miserable too. He loved Rex and would miss him terribly but the anger and shoutings were frightening.

‘What are you talking about?' Maria was standing above them, hands on hips. ‘You can't mean that you're going
now
?'

‘Yes.' Hal stood upright. ‘Now. Let's deal with this once and for all, shall we?'

‘And what about our weekend? I suppose it doesn't mean too much to you that we shall miss our weekend together? I've been on my own all week, remember.'

Hal's jaws clenched, his hands balling into fists. Jolyon moved beside his leg, his small hand reaching for his father's, and Hal relaxed.

‘That's too bad, I'm afraid,' he said lightly. ‘Best to get it over with so that no more weekends are ruined.' He bent down and touched Jolyon's cheek. ‘Like to come, too?' he asked.

The child's face brightened but Maria was too quick for him.

‘Of course he can't come,' she said scornfully. ‘It's far too late to set out for Devon. No one will be ready for you and the house will be freezing. Try to remember that your grandmother is dying. It's no place for a small child. Don't be so damned selfish.'

The brightness died out of Jolyon's face, fear and anxiety returning. Hal swallowed down his anger, and, picking Jolyon up, he swung him round and gave him a hug.

‘Come and talk to me while I get changed,' he said cheerfully. ‘I'm all over sawdust' – and they left the kitchen together, leaving Maria seething with fury, mopping the floor.

A short while later Hal returned carrying an overnight bag.

‘The boys are watching
Sesame Street
,' he said. ‘I'm off. I'll telephone to let you know I've arrived.'

She stared at him unbelievingly. ‘You're not serious.'

‘Quite serious. I shouldn't have let it go on so long. You'll have to manage with my car, I'm afraid, but I should be back tomorrow afternoon. Don't let Jolyon worry, that's all. I've explained it all carefully and he understands. Just try to keep your temper under control. See you tomorrow.'

He kissed her unresponsive cheek and went out into the cold air, shutting the back door behind him. When he swung open the garage door Rex came tearing out, barking with relief and excitement, and Hal bent to pat him. He backed the car on to the gravel turning circle and climbed out again to pile tins of dog food on to the back seat. He put in the big feeding bowl and bottle of water and, lastly, he flung Rex's bed into the back of the car, watched Rex jump in after it. Then Hal shut the tailgate, climbed back in, settled himself in his seat and drove down the drive and out of the gate.

 

It was dark when he arrived at The Keep but the lights shone out of the hall windows and, as he switched off the engine and climbed out, the door opened and Fliss came down the steps to meet him. He held out his arms and she went into them, slipping her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against his chest.

‘Sorry about the telephone call,' he said, ‘I must have sounded quite demented. Is it going to be OK?'

‘Perfectly OK.'

She leaned back a little so that she could look up at him and it seemed quite natural for him to stoop his head to kiss her. Presently he released her, looking about, still holding her hand.

‘Where is everyone?'

‘In the hall. The twinnies wanted to come out to see you and Rex but they know they mustn't disturb grandmother.' She indicated the curtained windows on the first floor. ‘She's resting but she knows that you're coming. She's a bit muddled. Thinks it was all arranged and it's all tied up with the twinnies' birthday. I thought it was best to leave it like that.'

Hal grimaced. ‘I was probably just a touch high-handed,' he admitted.

‘Just a touch,' agreed Fliss, grinning at him. ‘But why change the habits of a lifetime?'

He laughed and went to let Rex out. Fliss stroked him, pulling gently at his ears, murmuring to him.

‘Will Caroline be able to cope?' asked Hal anxiously. His confidence had diminished somewhat during the long trip. ‘Am I being selfish?'

‘She's thrilled to bits,' Fliss assured him. ‘He's just what she needs at the moment. It's a bit lonely for her, you know. Uncle Theo spends so much time with Grandmother, and she still misses Fox and Perks. She says that the kitchen is all wrong without a dog and, let's face it, there's so much space for him here. He won't be any trouble and I can't see Caroline throwing a fit even if he does get his paws muddy. I've told her that we'll have him if there's a real problem. My twinnies would die with joy but Miles wouldn't be too pleased.'

There was a tiny silence whilst Rex sniffed about and then lifted his leg against the gatepost. Both of them could sense the danger; the temptation to draw together as a relief from difficult spouses.

‘Let's take him in and introduce him to his new home,' said Fliss quickly – and she crossed the courtyard, calling softly to Rex.

Hal took his bag from the car and, as he followed her into the house, the first flakes of snow began to fall.

The room was filled with a strange luminosity; a ghostly white glow which lent it a dreamlike unfamiliar quality. Jamie pushed himself up on his elbows, the better to check this phenomenon, and suddenly guessed the reason for it.

‘Snow,' he murmured. ‘So it did settle. Brill.'

He leaned out from his berth on the top of the bunk beds and peered down at Bess, who lay below huddled beneath her quilt and several extra blankets. She seemed so deeply asleep that it was a pity to waken her, even for the excitement of snow. He hung upside down for a minute or two, remembering their birthday. It had been a terrific day. The bicycles had been a wonderful surprise and they'd spent the morning practising on them, round and round the courtyard so that Great-grandmother could watch them from her window. When lunch was over they'd gone up to see her and showed her their other presents but after a while she'd fallen asleep. Then Uncle Theo had come downstairs with them and they'd all played Cluedo until teatime. Hal and Rex arrived not long after their birthday tea party and Hal had to be given some birthday cake; then Rex had to be settled in, by which time it was really snowing, and with so much happening they'd gone to bed much later than usual. Remembering all this, it seemed only fair to let Bess catch up on her sleep. Jamie rolled back into the bunk, dragging his covers up to his chin. His foot touched his wortle and he drew it back quickly from the cold clammy bottle, pulling his knees up, hugging them under the weight of the blankets.

He lay quiet, thinking about things, sifting remarks and filing away his own observations into his memory. He needed to do this. It helped him to get his bearings and supplied the framework to a picture in which he had his own special position. The Keep especially had this effect on him. People and places had to be connected, events put into their proper sequence. Then there were the small day-to-day happenings to be considered; things like the look on Uncle Theo's face when Great-grandmother had fallen asleep in her chair. It was a mixture of things which he had difficulty in sorting out and filing away. Kindness was one of the things but there was more than that. He'd looked a bit like Bess when she wrapped up her Cabbage Patch baby and put her in the little cot and sang to her. Jamie squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think of words that stood for expressions. Gentle was another word which might fit Uncle Theo's look but he knew, deep down, that there was so much more to it than that. Understanding grown-ups' expressions was like playing a game when you didn't know the rules. Quite suddenly he began to chuckle, burying his head under the blankets, remembering Uncle Theo playing Cluedo. They'd had to keep explaining the rules to him and, in the end, he and Bess had cheated so that Uncle Theo could win just one game. Mummy had known and she'd smiled secretly . . .

He stopped laughing and began to frown, thinking about the expression on Mummy's face when she'd come back from the telephone and told them that Hal was on his way with Rex. She'd had a smiley, bright look, although she tried to hide it, and after that she'd been really happy, almost silly-happy, just like he and Bess had been the day before their birthday. Of course, Mummy loved dogs but there'd been that same feeling – that there was something which he couldn't quite understand. She always seemed extra happy here at The Keep and she never tired of telling them about the house and all the family who had lived in it, going back years and years. This room, for instance, had once been Ellen's room and, before that, his grandfather's governess's room. His brow furrowed again as he tried to imagine these people.

Miss Smollett; he mimed the word silently, exaggerating the movement of his mouth to make up for the lack of sound. He liked to do this. Words and phrases fascinated him and, as people talked, tiny pictures formed in his head, rather like cartoons. Miss Smollett had been ‘one of the old school', ‘a bit of a tartar'. He'd seen a picture of a tartar once, a fierce-looking fellow in baggy trousers and sheepskin boots, waving something which looked like a scythe; he'd had straggling hair and a savage grin and was astride an even fiercer-looking horse . . . It had been rather difficult to fit Miss Smollett into this image but he'd done his best. He'd been shown a photograph of her since then; a rather short woman, standing between his grandfather and his twin just before they went off to school. They'd worn long woollen stockings and knickerbockers and Miss Smollett had a hand on a shoulder of each of them, as if restraining them. She was smiling, her hair drawn back and up into a hard round lump on her head, not at all straggly, and she didn't look a bit fierce. He'd rather regretted the sheepskin boots and the scythe he'd managed to introduce into his mental picture of her, but he'd been younger then, and he'd let his imagination run away with him . . .

Jamie sighed as he twisted into a different position, humping right under the blankets. He'd discovered that the life that went on in his head was more colourful than the rather dull version outside it and this discovery often got him into trouble at school. He was inclined to daydream, to be distracted by a sentence, and then he'd get into trouble. He wondered if the snow might be so deep that they would be unable to go home today; whether they might have to stay at The Keep and so miss a few days of school.

‘Miss school? Whatever next, I wonder.'

The words seem to come from nowhere but he knew at once who'd spoken them. Ellen. Mummy had told them so much about Ellen that he felt as if he'd known her too. This had been her room after the twins had gone to school and Miss Smollett had moved on to another family. She'd helped Grandmother to bring up the twins and, later, she did all the cooking, and when Mummy and Mole and Susanna had come back from Africa she'd looked after them, too. He didn't know whether the words were so clear in his head because Ellen's ghost was here or simply because Mummy had said them so often.

‘I know what Ellen would say to you,' she'd say. ‘ “Don't want your sprouts? Whatever next, I wonder.” '

They'd shout the last bit out with her and it had passed into a kind of family-speak along with wortle and one or two other things.

Jamie poked his head out of the blanket, just in case Ellen might be in the room with him. Part of him hoped she would and part felt just a tiny bit jumpy at the thought of it – but there was no one there. He peered again at Bess but there was still no movement. Heaving another sigh, he rolled on to his back and stared up at the white ceiling. After Ellen had moved downstairs, when she'd got old and her legs didn't work too well, Caroline had come to look after Susanna and Mole when they were very small and had been here ever since. Her bedroom was next door although just for now she'd moved downstairs where Ellen used to be so that she could be near Great-grandmother in the night. This room, however, and Susanna's old bedroom were kept now for visiting children. Susanna had been really envious of their bunk beds.

‘I wish Mole and I could have had them when we were little,' she'd said. ‘We'd've had such fun.'

Susanna didn't feel or look like an aunt, not like Aunt Prue, who was kind and gentle and was really good if you felt miserable. Susanna was young and funny and sometimes Mummy told her off just as though she were only seven, too. ‘Oh, Sooz,' she'd say. ‘Honestly, you are a twit.' It was the same with Mole, even if he did go to sea in his submarine. He wasn't an uncle like Uncle Theo. It was more as if Sooz and Mole – and Hal and Kit, too – were like very big brothers and sisters. There were lots of photographs of Mole and Susanna when they were small and he loved to look at them. It was odd that these small people should be grown up now; that they'd turned into his uncle and aunt. He'd spent a whole afternoon on board Mole's submarine and been allowed to look through the periscope and pretended to sleep in one of the bunks, hardly bigger than the one he was in now. He'd loved it. Mole was not just his uncle and godfather – he was Jamie's ‘best person'. They both had a best person. Bess's was Kit. These two were the best after Mummy – and Daddy, of course.

He wriggled awkwardly as he always did when his thoughts got difficult, almost as though he were trying to escape from them. Daddy was a tricky person to put in his filing compartment. He was more like a strict schoolteacher than a daddy, which was a silly thing to say because Mummy actually
was
a schoolteacher . . . He frowned again, trying to work it out. Hal was a different sort of daddy; he hugged Jolyon and Edward a lot, gave them piggybacks and played with them. Mummy had explained that Daddy was rather a lot older than Hal so it was bound to be a bit different. Jamie sighed. He liked Hal's sort of daddy better than his own and it made him feel wrong inside. It had been great when Hal had come in last night with Rex. It sounded so funny when Hal said to Rex, ‘You are a
dog
, sir,' as if Rex were really a person and Hal was being rude to him . . .