The Hardie Inheritance (36 page)

Whatever he might say, he still saw her as a child. The twelve-year gap in their ages might not have mattered if they had met for the first time as adults. And had he been only six years old himself when he became friends with her at the same age, they would have grown up together and he would have recognized that she was a woman as soon as he knew himself to be a man. But as things were, she would never be able to catch up and it had been silly of her to try.

Well, it had been a lucky escape. The woman who became Rupert's wife would be acquiring not just a husband but a run-down house and a parcel of financial worries. Who in her senses would choose to live in a museum and devote her whole
life to maintaining it in the manner to which it was accustomed. ‘Not I,' said Trish aloud to the empty compartment; whistling in the dark.

Grace had given her a warning. It would not be too hard to pretend that she had observed it and had taken the initiative in backing away from a way of life to which she was temperamentally unsuited. She could at least spare herself the indignity of having it generally known that she had loved and lost. If anyone were to express sympathy, she would cry, and she was determined not to cry.

By the time she reached Greystones she had succeeded in bottling up her feelings of anger and shame. Such control would not survive close questioning, so as she went to look for Grace to report her return, it was a relief to hear from a distance that she was talking to someone. That would make it easier to withdraw quickly in order not to interrupt a conversation. She opened the drawing room door.

‘I'm home!' she said – and found that she was in the middle of a battle, which her arrival did nothing to interrupt. Grace and Jay, facing each other across the sofa, could both see her, were both aware that she could hear what they were saying, but they seemed unable to control their anger even for the moment it would take to say hello.

Quarrels of any kind were a rarity at Greystones. Trish herself sulked from time to time if she could not have her own way, and during the war years Dan and Boxer and Max had not always done what they were told at once and had to be reprimanded. On such occasions it was Grace's habit to state an opinion or issue instructions in a calm but firm voice and then to walk away immediately, making it difficult to rebel when there was no further opportunity to protest in words. Only on the infrequent visits of her elder brother David was she likely to become involved in heated argument, and even then any loss of temper was always on David's side. To hear her shouting was a rare occurrence indeed.

‘I won't have it going on under my own roof,' she said. She
had turned her head briefly to register Trish's appearance, but did not allow it to soften her expression. ‘One of you will have to go. Or both.'

Jay, who even off the stage was always acting, whether by playing the fool or by expressing opinions through the voice of some invented character, seemed to have been caught without a script. Or perhaps, unlike his sister, he preferred for once not to have an audience. Trish needed no further invitation to depart. ‘I'm home,' she repeated quietly, and left the room at once.

The oddness of the atmosphere was enough to banish her own unhappiness briefly from her thoughts as new questions and anxieties swirled around her mind. Grace had always seemed especially fond of her younger brother. He had by now managed to find a flat in London, but his room at Greystones was always available to him at weekends or between productions. What could have happened to make her so furious – and Jay so unusually subdued? Was it, she wondered, reaching her bedroom and changing into casual clothes, something to do with the fact that Jay was a queer?

Brought up in adult company, Trish had always been mature for her age. Her upbringing was nevertheless a sheltered one. Not until she left school and began to learn about life from her fellow-art students did she become aware that not all young men wanted nothing better than to find a nice girl and marry her. And even after she had absorbed this piece of knowledge in a theoretical way it had taken the outspoken Gordon to point out what she had not realized for herself: that Jay Hardie was, as he contemptuously put it, a pansy.

At the time she had seen no need to have a view about this. Jay was entitled to his private life and actors were not the same as ordinary people anyway. What bothered her now was the mention of a second person. Had Jay managed to smuggle some unauthorized visitor in without the rest of them knowing? No; he couldn't possibly have kept it secret, and it didn't fit with the phrasing of Grace's ultimatum.

There was Max, of course. A whole term of having his youngest son at home again had been enough to refuel David Hardie's irritation, and Grace's offer of a week's holiday at Greystones before Christmas had been gratefully accepted. But Max was only twelve. Even if he had somehow become involved with Jay, surely nobody would suggest turning him out of the house.

But who else could she have meant? A possible answer insinuated itself uneasily into Trish's mind. But it couldn't be? Could it? Her own father?

Trish did not remember her mother. As a little girl she had had no experience of living as a member of a family, of observing how people behaved when they were married. She had accepted without question the arrangements which were made when she moved into Greystones. Only much later had it occurred to her that it was unusual for a husband and wife to have bedrooms which were not only separate but a long way from each other. But by that time her father was mostly living abroad, for reasons of work which he explained to her and which she believed. What a naive little girl she must have been!

So what was actually happening? One of the unpleasant things about being told the facts of life when she was twelve had been the picture it conjured up of her father and the unknown woman who was her mother doing what was necessary to begin her own existence. Now a different picture struggled to take shape in her mind – but with less success, because she was unable to imagine exactly what might take place. She felt as though a trapdoor had opened beneath her feet, plunging her into the unknown. Already she was feeling let down by Rupert. If even her father was not what she had always thought, was anyone to be trusted?

Above all, she was conscious of a deep disgust. In her art classes she was often set to draw the male figure, but it was made of plaster, hard and white and lifeless, bearing no resemblance to soft, moving human flesh. But now the figures
of two naked men with the faces of Jay and Ellis took possession of her imagination and would not be dismissed.

It couldn't be true. Her father would tell her that it wasn't true. She stood up and rushed out of the room, calling his name.

Ellis was in his bedroom, with the door open. As Trish looked in she saw that he was packing a trunk.

It was too much to bear. For a moment she felt unable to breathe.

‘Where are you going?'

Ellis looked up, smiling as though nothing were wrong.

‘A new venture,' he said. ‘A chance to make a film. What I've always wanted to do. Not as a cameraman; as director. It's a big moment for me.'

She could tell that he expected her to run into his arms and hug him in congratulation, as she would have done when she was a little girl; but instead she stared at him coldly.

‘Can't you go on living here?'

He shook his head. ‘I need to be nearer to London and the studio. Especially the studio. The film-maker's day starts at five or six in the morning. It'll be much easier if I'm on the spot.'

‘Then can I come and live with you?' asked Trish. ‘It would be silly for me to go on paying so much for digs if you're going to have a place.'

It was a test. She did not expect him to agree, but that did not lessen her disappointment when he shook his head.

‘'Fraid not, love. I shan't be as close to the centre of London as all that, and it's likely to be a fairly rackety household. I shall be working a long day; eating in the canteen or in restaurants; that sort of thing. I'm not proposing to go in much for home comforts.'

‘Why didn't you say anything before? Have you only just decided to go?'

‘I'd intended to wait until after Christmas. The shooting won't start for a bit yet. But I'm realizing already that the preparations – blocking out the scenes, working out the camera angles, that sort of thing – are as important as the actual filming. It will be an advantage to have the run of the studio at a quiet time, with no one about, so that I can concentrate. I'll come back for Christmas dinner and present-giving, of course.'

A few days earlier Trish would have taken his explanation at face value. Now she recognized the excuse for the evasion it was. For how many years had she been kept in the dark about the real reasons behind whatever arrangements were made? ‘Is Jay going to live with you?' she asked.

The smile faded from her father's face. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Are you and Jay going to set up house together? I suppose what I mean is, are you and Jay in love with each other?'

Still clutching the pile of shirts which he had been about to pack, Ellis sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘What has Grace been saying?' he asked quietly.

‘Nothing special. She hasn't needed to. I'm just asking you –'

‘You must be careful what you ask, Trish. What you're suggesting is against the law. People get sent to prison for that sort of thing.'

He was silent for a moment, but Trish's silence was stronger.

‘Most girls' fathers would simply tell them not to be impertinent,' he said after a moment or two.

‘I'm not a child any longer,' she pointed out. ‘And most girls' fathers don't –'

He interrupted her abruptly. ‘Shut the door, Trish.'

She did what she was told and then sat down, waiting.

‘This is a serious matter. You have to regard it as a secret. From anyone at all. Do you promise?'

‘Promise.' She was reminded of her childhood tongue-twister: Trush Trist. But this was no time for jokes.

‘Jay has been living dangerously,' Ellis told her. ‘Going home
with people he hardly knows, for a night or a week. Picking young men up, just as when he was younger he used to be picked up himself. It's an appalling risk. There's the danger of blackmail every time. And he's getting too well known now to hide behind an assumed name.'

‘You do things differently, do you?'

‘Yes. My friend Alan and I have lost touch. He stayed behind in France when I left. But until then – well, I suppose you could call it a sort of marriage. What I wanted – what I still want – is a settled life. Emotional security rather than a series of adventures. It's the same choice that a girl like you has to make between marriage and a series of flirtations or affairs. I think Jay may be ready to settle down. He's going to have the leading part in my film. Setting up house together while we're shooting will be good for the work and will give us a chance to see whether we want to make a permanent arrangement. Discreetly.'

‘And what about Grace?' exclaimed Trish.

‘Grace has always known what sort of man I am. She's a very unusual woman, Grace, and it's suited both of us to have an unusual kind of marriage. I think she must have realized that Jay was the same kind of man as I am, but she may have managed to put it out of her mind. What has upset her today is something Max saw and told her about. I think she feels that Max is rather like Jay in some ways, and she's afraid that when he grows up … I've tried to tell her that if that's his nature it will show itself whatever anyone says or doesn't say, but she finds that hard to believe. She'll be all right again tomorrow.'

‘But you're leaving.'

‘That would have happened anyway and I probably shan't stay in England for very long. I've never cheated Grace.'

‘You've cheated me,' said Trish.

‘No. I'm still your father. I love you more than anyone else in the world, and I always have. Nothing's changed. A lot of girls have fathers who are unfaithful to their wives with other
women, over and over again. That has nothing to do with their feelings for their daughters, any more than this has. I've never lied to you. I may not have spelled everything out when you were too young to understand.'

‘That's the same as lying. And I wasn't too young to understand five minutes ago, when you were still doing it.'

‘The truth can be a burden. Confess it now: wouldn't you have been happier never to have guessed? But the reasons I gave for living in France, for example, were true reasons. Just not the whole truth, that's all. Come on, Trish. Tell me we're still friends.'

He stood up and came towards her, holding out his hands; but Trish shook her head and backed towards the door. Ellis did not pursue her.

‘Have a word with Grace,' he said. ‘When I told you to keep the secret, I didn't mean from her. If she can be reasonable about it – and affectionate – surely you can, too.'

‘She's as bad as you are. Pretending. For years and years, always pretending. Making me believe that she was a normal stepmother, that I was part of a nearly normal family, when all the time, all the time …' For a second time that day she found herself choking on her disappointment.

‘Don't be silly, Trish. The fact that I've been less than an ordinary husband to her means that she's been far more than an ordinary stepmother to you. She chose deliberately to be your mother because she loved
you
, not because she loved me.'

‘I don't believe you,' said Trish. ‘She hardly knew me then. I don't believe anything you or Grace have ever told me. I'm not staying here to be treated like an idiot child.'

She went straight to her own room and began to pack. One suitcase for whatever she would need for the next couple of weeks, and two others to contain everything else she owned. All her painting things were in London already. She was kneeling on the last of the three, pressing it down to close, when Grace came into the room.