The Hardie Inheritance (41 page)

‘Funny,' said Terry. ‘I thought your sort of girl –'

‘My sort of girl?' Trish felt a spurt of anger. ‘My God, Terry, what do you think my sort of girl is? My sort of girl has a homosexual father, a deserting mother who's never sent me as
much as a birthday card, and a stepmother who is a genius but has probably never had a sexual relationship in her life – and if she did, it might just as well be with the dustman as with anyone else. I'm the sort of girl who doesn't know how normal people live. Maybe you'll be able to teach me. But to start with, I'd prefer it to be my way. It doesn't mean that I don't love you enough, Terry. It's just that if ever you decide to move off, I'd prefer you to do it without drawing blood.'

‘A long engagement, then. Could we call it that? So I can make an announcement. I want to tell everyone that I belong to you.'

His phrasing – when almost every other man she knew would have wanted to announce that she belonged to him – touched Trish almost as much as his kisses. She flung herself into his arms.

‘You see why I wanted to ask my question before I answered yours,' said Terry after a while. ‘Yes, of course we'll be partners, in business like everything else. But you won't need to put money in for that. What would be nicer would be to buy a proper house. I don't like to think of someone like you –'

‘Stop that!' said Trish severely. ‘Stop that for ever. I'm not a sort of girl and there's no someone like me. I'm just me.'

Terry nodded his acceptance of the command. ‘You've always had space round you,' he said, defining what he had meant. ‘Gardens. Big rooms, with walls you could paint. I want to get you out of that prefab, but it would be even more cramped if you moved into the flat above the shop. So –'

‘Would there be enough?' asked Trish.

‘Plenty. We'd have the money from selling the prefab as well. And there are lots of houses, decent houses with a bit of war damage or a lot of neglect, which people are frightened of taking on because they need so much doing and it's so hard to get the materials. I've got my eye on one already. I was going to borrow, but –'

‘We'll go and see it tomorrow.' Trish scrambled to her feet and held out a hand to pull Terry up beside her. It was time
to return to her other guests. ‘Oh Terry, it's going to be fun.' The guests, she decided as he kissed her again, could wait for a moment more.

Unaccustomed as she was to giving parties – or, indeed, to attending them – Grace felt confident that this one was going well. The food and drink had been properly appreciated; there had been just enough organization of the games afterwards to prevent the afternoon from becoming aimless; and it was right that now, after tea, Trish's friends should be left to enjoy the peacefulness of the gardens and the heat of the sun in whatever way they chose. But where was Trish herself?

Grace had glimpsed her, almost an hour earlier, strolling with Terry, and now a familiar anxiety began to nag. Where had they gone? What were they doing? Once before she had given her stepdaughter a word of warning and advice and, so far as she knew, it had been heeded on that occasion – but did Trish still remember it? With a considerable effort Grace reminded herself that Trish had come of age. The time for interference was past. But she was glad when David's eldest son came up to interrupt her worrying.

‘Can I bring you anything more to eat, Aunt Grace?'

‘No thank you, John.' The young man resembled his father too closely for Grace to find him likeable. He had the same strong Hardie features, the same dark hair and brown eyes, the same serious expression. Yet he had been a good-mannered little boy who had grown up to become a hard-working businessman, applying himself conscientiously to the family firm which he would inherit one day. She could tell now from his earnest look that he had something else to say to her.

‘We all – Lily and Peter as well as myself – want to thank you for being so good to Max. It was rotten for him at home
after Mother died. Well, even before that. Father was never fond of him.'

‘I suppose he was a bit of a mother's boy right from the start.'

‘It wasn't just that. They let him know that he was an accident, that they hadn't intended to have another baby. I think that's an awful thing to do. I get on all right with Father myself, but I'm on Max's side about this. And then, Mother was so determined that there weren't going to be any more accidents that, well, you know, she moved into a separate bedroom, and Father behaved as though that were all the baby's fault. So he was ratty with him all the time. I'd have offered to look after Max myself after Sarah and I got married, but it would have been difficult, working in the same office as Father. Although he didn't like having Max at home, he was furious when he left.'

‘I can imagine. Anyway, he's no trouble here. I made it clear when he came that I wasn't going to be a second mother to him and it seems to me that even in a few months he's become much more independent. Boarding school is just what he needed.'

‘He's lucky to grow up in a place like this. Father talks about his childhood here a lot. Harrow's rather different.'

‘Yes.' Grace had guessed that at some point during the afternoon her eldest nephew would put in an oblique plea to be considered as the heir to Greystones and she did not intend to make any comment on his prospects. Fortunately they were interrupted by the subject of their earlier conversation. Max was looking for Trish.

‘I've got a dance to show her. I made it up specially. Everything's ready, but I can't find her anywhere.'

‘We'll send out scouts. Dan and Boxer, run round shouting her name as loudly as you can, will you?'

Within a few minutes she answered the summons and arrived hand in hand with Terry, looking reassuringly cool and uncrumpled. But there was something different about the two of
them, all the same. Grace's eyes noted it even while her lips were explaining what Max had in mind.

‘A birthday dance? Terrific. I bet not many people are offered anything like that.'

‘It's not just for your birthday,' Max explained. ‘It's for your room.'

‘Oh, so I'm not good enough to have a dance, only my room!'

‘I went round the house in the Easter holiday. Sitting in each room and trying to think what sort of music was right for it. And your room was one of the easiest, because of the way you've painted the wall.'

‘You mean you're going to dance black and red spots?' asked Terry teasingly.

‘You'll see. I've put the record on the radiogram.'

While the scattered guests were assembled with shouting and hallooing, Max changed into a sleeveless white vest and a pair of long baggy black trousers, tied tightly at the ankles. He set the record going, stood still while the first vigorous chords were played, and then, pointing his feet neatly, embarked on a display which began as a kind of hornpipe, quickened into a vigorous Cossack dance and ended with a series of leaps and cartwheels which owed more to gymnastics than to dance. Merely watching him made Grace feel breathless, but as the record came to an end Max himself was able to steady his balance and stand still once again in perfect physical control.

Grace thought the performance a piece of showing-off; but it suited the party mood and was greeted with cheers and applause. It also served as a finale to the party. Two by two Trish's friends began to drift away, until only the birthday girl herself and the three Travises remained, preparing to travel back to London together in Terry's battered van.

‘Time for me to give you my present,' said Grace.

‘The party was present enough.'

‘Nonsense. Come this way.'

She led them all to the coach-house and watched Trish's face as she opened the double doors.

‘A car! For me? Grace, you shouldn't!'

‘I hope I've chosen right,' Grace said. ‘It was difficult. I did wonder whether you might like a sporty two-seater, but then I thought you'd want to drive Terry and the boys around sometimes, so a saloon seemed more sensible in the end. Andy told me which models were supposed to be more reliable. My only contribution was to decide that it ought to be red.'

‘It's marvellous! The whole day, and then this.'

Grace found herself being hugged and kissed. She had never encouraged Trish to display affection for her, even as a little girl, but today she was glad to be assured that they were still friends. ‘You have got a licence, haven't you?' she checked.

‘Oh yes. I share the driving of the van.' Unexpectedly Trish blushed. ‘I'm going to share a bit more than that in future. The whole business. Terry's going to let me be a partner in the firm. A working partner.'

‘Is he indeed? And what's the firm going to be called? The Shed?'

‘We haven't had time to think –' began Terry, but Trish was ahead of him.

‘We ought to call it TT for Terry Travis. And for Trish-Trash, which will be my contribution. And Tempera Transformations as well.'

‘What does that mean?' asked Dan, wrenching his attention away from the car.

‘Painting walls as a fun thing. Tempera is a way of painting on plaster, and Tempora gives an impression of something temporary, so whichever way you spell it, it's appropriate.'

‘What a lot of Ts,' Dan said, and Trish swooped on the comment.

‘That's it. Why don't we call the business Tease?'

‘Because it would make any customer think that we weren't going to deliver, that's why not,' answered Terry, laughing. He turned towards Grace and looked her steadily in the eye.
‘There's one more thing that TT stands for, though. The thing that matters. Terry and Trish.'

Grace did not need Trish's second flush to understand what he meant. She was tempted to ask whether they had marriage in mind, but bit the question back. Terry, who had done his best to act as mother and father to his two young half-brothers, could be trusted to act responsibly by his own standards if not by society's. Besides – the thought of Andy came into her head – who was she to act as a guardian of morals? Instead, she turned towards the new car and stroked her hand along the roof.

‘Take it gently for a little while, won't you?' she said. ‘These things need to be run in.'

As the car and the van made their cautious departure down the steep, winding drive, Andy was already hard at work returning chairs and tables to their proper places in the house. Grace went to help, but was waved away.

‘You've done enough for one day. Sit down and put your feet up. Lady of leisure, like.'

She found herself glad to obey. A social day had proved to be far more tiring than the same number of hours spent hammering a chisel into stone. After a visit to the kitchen to thank Mrs Barrett and her helpers, she flopped, exhausted, on to a sofa.

Andy joined her there later, and they dined off left-overs before making their way early to bed,

‘Why don't you stay?' she asked later, when he began to dress again. As long as he was there, lying beside her, she could keep her mind off Trish.

He shook his head. For some reason it was a point of honour with him always to return to his own home. ‘Love you, though,' he said, bending over to kiss her again.

Grace raised her hand to stroke his skin, so brown and freckled where the sun had caught it, and the rest so soft and pale. ‘Love you, too,' she said. Neither of them was accustomed to be passionate in words.

After he had left she began to stroke her own body, prolonging the night by feeling her skin as Andy had felt it. It had become a soothing habit, but on this occasion, as her hands curved over her breasts, she felt her throat tightening with anxiety. Were Terry and Trish now, at this very moment … was he hurting her? Was she happy?

Stupid, to put such unanswerable questions to herself, but no doubt all mothers shared to some extent in the tension of a wedding – or not-quite-wedding – night. Her hands tightened. Her fingers pressed down into her breasts, exploring the muscles as though she were studying anatomy, prodding until it hurt. That was when she discovered the lump.

The room had been quiet before, but suddenly it was as though the sound of a roaring, shouting crowd had filled the air with noise before being abruptly cut off. A different kind of silence. Dead silence. With her eyes now wide open in the darkness she pressed her probing fingers hard down again.

It was the tiniest of lumps, insignificant, unimportant. Probably it was nothing but the beginning of a boil, a minute spur of bone, a small and hitherto unnoticed muscle – or so she tried to persuade herself. But Grace's fingers were the tools of her trade, able to identify a knot in a piece of wood or a flaw in a stone even when neither was visible on the surface. They knew what they had found.

The year began badly. Even before she opened the thick brown envelope Grace felt sure that it contained unwelcome news.

It was not every day that the postman needed to extend his delivery round to Greystones, and as a rule those letters that he did bring revealed their source at a glance. There had never been any mistaking Max's handwriting on his compulsory Sunday-afternoon letter from boarding school; but now that he had joined a touring ballet company they kept in touch by telephone. A twice-yearly correspondent had taken his place. Grace's brother Kenneth, after many years of silence, had learned from his son how much the family in England longed to have news of him and an air mail envelope bearing an Australian stamp now arrived regularly on her birthdays and at Christmas time. On other air mail envelopes, edged in red and blue, a Los Angeles postmark indicated that they carried news from the Californian expatriates, Ellis and Jay.

Trish preferred to chat on the telephone, but another correspondent was the agent who had taken over the handling of Grace's work from Ellis. He came to Greystones every two or three months to see her new pieces and discuss possible sales, but his cheques always arrived in envelopes with bright green borders: green for good luck. There was nothing like that today to keep company with this grimly official communication, which she opened with foreboding.