The Legacy (6 page)

“She’s not going to have an
episode
. Not unless you try to keep Eddie away from her,” I snap.

“It’s not a question of keeping Eddie away from her. It’s about doing what’s best for my son, and—”

“What’s best for him is that he gets to spend time with his mother. And it helps her so much to have him around. She’s always much better—”

“It shouldn’t be up to Edward to make his mother better!”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“I only agreed to Edward coming here at all because you would be here to keep an eye on things, Erica. Beth has already shown how unpredictable she can be, how unstable. Putting your head in the sand won’t help, you know.”

“I think I know my sister, Maxwell, and she is
not
unstable—”

“Look, I know you only want to stick up for her, Erica, and it’s admirable. But this isn’t a game. Seeing her at her worst is something that might affect Edward for the rest of his life, and I am not prepared to let that happen! Not again.”

“Keep your voice down, for God’s sake!”

“Look, I just want—”

“I know what you want, Maxwell, but you can’t change the fact that Beth is Eddie’s mother. People aren’t perfect—Beth’s not perfect. But she is a great mother, and she adores Eddie, and if you could just focus on that for a change, instead of watching and waiting and crying
sole custody!
every time she gets a little bit down . . .”

“
A little bit down
is something of an understatement, though, isn’t it Erica?” he says, and I can only glare at him because he is right. In the pause we hear a noise from outside the room, and exchange an accusatory glance. Eddie is in the hallway, swinging his kit bag awkwardly, left to right. It twists his skinny wrist. “Edward!” Maxwell calls, smiling broadly and crossing to engulf his son in a brief hug.

It takes me quite some time to find Beth. The house is dark today, like the world outside. A midwinter Sunday when the sun barely seemed to rise and is now fading again. I move from door to door, flinging them open, peering in, breathing the stale smell of rooms long shut. A few hours ago we all had a late breakfast, sitting at the long table in the kitchen. Beth was bright and shiny; she made hot chocolate and warmed croissants in the Rayburn for us all. Too bright and shiny, I realize now. I didn’t see her slip away. I flick at light switches as I go but a lot of the bulbs have blown. I find her at last, wedged onto the window sill in one of the top floor bedrooms. From there she can see the silver car in the driveway, streaked and scattered by the rain on the dirty window.

“Maxwell’s here,” I say, pointlessly. Beth ignores me. She catches her bottom lip in two fingers, pushes it against her teeth, bites it hard. “Eddie’s going, Beth. You have to come down and see him off. Come on. And Maxwell wants to speak to you.”

“I don’t want to speak to him. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want Eddie to go.”

“I know. But it’s just for a while. And you can’t let Eddie go without saying goodbye.” She rolls her head to glare at me. So tired, she looks. So tired and sad. “Please, Beth. They’re waiting . . . we have to go down.” Beth draws in a breath, unfolds herself from the sill—a slow, deliberate, underwater movement.

“Found her!” My cheerful announcement is too loud. “This place is big enough to get lost in.” Beth and Maxwell ignore me, but Eddie smiles, at a loss. I wish Beth would put on a better act sometimes. Would show that she copes. I could shake her for not showing Maxwell a better front right now. She stands before him with her arms folded, lost inside a shapeless cardigan. She didn’t fight when he left. They settled amicably—that was the word both families bandied about.
Amicable
. There is nothing amicable about Beth as she stands there now, gray-faced, raw looking. They do not touch.

“Good to see you, Beth. You look well,” Max lies.

“So do you.”

“Look, do you mind if we drop Eddie back next Saturday, rather than the Friday? Only it’s Melissa’s school carol concert on the Friday night and we’d all like to go together, wouldn’t we, Ed?” Eddie shrugs a shoulder and nods at the same time. The poor boy could teach diplomacy. Beth’s mouth pinches, her jaw knots. How she hates any mention of Max’s new family, any extra second of time Eddie spends with them. But the request is reasonable, and she strives to be reasonable too.

“Of course. Of course it’s no problem,” she says.

“Great,” Maxwell smiles, a quick, businesslike smile. There’s a quiet pause, just the
scuff scuff scuff
of Eddie’s bag, swinging to and fro. “Have you got much planned for the week?” Maxwell asks.

“Not a lot—sorting through some of the old girl’s junk, getting ready for Christmas,” I say lightly. Beth adds nothing to this summary.

“Right, well, let’s get on, shall we, Ed?” Maxwell ushers his son toward the door. “We’ll see you on Saturday. Have a good week, the pair of you.”

“Wait! Eddie . . .” Beth rushes over to him and hugs him too tightly. She would go with him if she could. Keep hold of him, not let him forget her, not let him love Diane and Melissa too much. When the door is shut behind them I turn to Beth, but she won’t meet my eye.

“I wish you wouldn’t always be so quiet in front of Maxwell!” I burst out. “Can’t you be more . . .” I trail off, at a loss. Beth flings her arms up.

“No, I can’t! I know he wants to take Eddie away from me. I can’t pretend I don’t know, or don’t mind!” she cries.

“I know, I know,” I soothe her. She puts her hands through her messy hair. “Eddie will be back soon,” I add. “You know how much he loves being with you, Beth—he just adores you, and nothing Maxwell ever does will change that.” I grip her shoulders gently, try to coax a smile from her. Beth sighs, folds her arms.

“I know. I just . . . I’m going for a shower,” she says, and turns away from me.

W
ith Eddie gone, the house is just big and empty again. By silent consensus we have stopped sorting through Meredith’s things for now. The task is just too huge and seems pointless. The contents of this house have been here so long they’ve corroded in place. It would be an impossible task to remove it all now. They will have to use force, maybe bulldozers—I picture that, a metal-toothed bucket scraping through layers of fabric and carpet and paper and wood and dust. Hard work, like trying to scoop balls from an unripe melon. It will be a terrible act of violence. All the little traces of so many lives.

“I never thought, before, about what happens to a person’s things when they die,” I say as we eat supper. The larder was full of Heinz tinned soups when we arrived but we’re getting through them. I’ll have to venture out into the village sometime soon.

“What do you mean?”

“Well . . . just that, I’ve never known anybody to die before. I’ve never had to deal with the aftermath, to . . .”

“Deal with the aftermath? You make it sound like a selfish thing to do, dying. Is that what you think?” Beth’s voice is low and intense. Such a change in her, now that Eddie has left.

“No! Of course not. That wasn’t what I was saying at all. I just meant that it’s not something you think about, until it happens . . . who’ll sort everything out. Where things will go. I mean, what will happen to Meredith’s nighties? Her stockings? The food in the larder?” I am struggling; the conversation was meant to be flippant.

“What does it matter, Erica?” Beth snaps at me. I stop talking, break off a piece of bread, crumble it between my fingers.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. Sometimes I feel very lonely with Beth.

I never used to, not when we were younger, not before. We didn’t antagonize each other much, or argue. Perhaps the age gap between us was big enough. Perhaps it was because we had a common enemy. Not even when we were shut inside for two whole days, two long sunny days, did we turn on each other. That was Henry’s doing, and Meredith’s. Meredith forbade us playing with Dinny from the word go; told us not to talk to any of his family, not to go near them, after we had innocently announced our new friendship to her at teatime.

We met him at the dew pond, where he was swimming. The day was warm but not hot. Early in the summer, I think it was; the landscape still fresh and green. A cool breeze blowing, so that when we first saw him, soaking wet, we shivered. His clothes were in a pile on the bank. All of his clothes. Beth took my hand, but we did not run away. Straight away, we were fascinated. Straight away, we wanted to know him—a thin, dark, naked boy with wet hair clinging to his neck, swimming and diving, all by himself. How old was I? I’m not sure. Four or five, no more than that.

“Who are you?” he asked, treading water. I shuffled closer to Beth, held her hand tighter.

“That’s our grandmother’s house,” Beth explained, pointing back at the manor. Dinny paddled a bit closer.

“But who are you?” he smiled, teeth and eyes gleaming.

“Beth!” I whispered urgently. “He’s got no clothes on!”

“Shh!” Beth hushed me, but it was a funny little sound, made buoyant by a giggle.

“Beth, then. And you?” Dinny looked at me. I lifted my chin a little.

“I’m Erica,” I announced, with all the composure I could muster. Just then a brown and white Jack Russell terrier burst from the woods and bounded over to us, yapping and wagging.

“I’m Nathan Dinsdale and that’s Arthur.” He nodded to the dog. After that, I would have followed him anywhere. I longed for a pet—a proper pet, not the goldfish that was all we had room for at home. I was so busy playing with the dog that I don’t remember how Dinny got out of the pond without Beth seeing him naked. I suspect that he did not.

We kept seeing him, of course, in spite of Meredith’s ban, and we usually managed to keep it secret by giving Henry the slip before going down to the camp where Dinny lived with his family, at the edge of the manor’s grounds. Henry usually steered clear of it anyway. He didn’t want to disobey Meredith, and instead absorbed her contempt for the travellers, nurtured it, let it grow into a hatred of his own. The time she shut us in our parents had gone away for the weekend. We went into the village with Dinny, to buy sweets and Coke at the shop. I turned and saw Henry. He ducked behind the phone box, but not quickly enough, and I had a prickling feeling between my shoulder blades as we walked back to the house. Dinny said goodbye and wandered off through the trees, giving the house a wide berth.

Meredith was waiting for us on the step when we got back; Henry nowhere to be seen. But I knew how she knew. She grabbed our arms, nails cutting in, bent down, put her livid face close to ours. “If you play with dogs, you will catch fleas,” she said, the words clipped and bitten. We were towed upstairs, made to bath in water so hot our skin turned red and angry and I wailed and wailed. Beth was silent, furious.

Afterwards, as I lay in bed and snivelled, Beth coached me in a low voice. “She wants to punish us, by keeping us indoors, so we have to show that we don’t care. That we don’t mind. Do you understand, Erica? Please don’t cry!” she whispered, stroking my hair back with fingers that shook with rage. I nodded, I think, but I was too upset to pay attention to her. It was still broad daylight outside. I could hear Henry playing with one of the dogs on the lawn, hear Clifford’s voice, blurring through the floorboards. A wide August afternoon and we had been put to bed. Confined for the whole weekend.

When our parents got back we told them everything. Dad said, “This is too much, Laura. I mean it this time.” I felt a flare of joy, of love for him.

Mum said, “I’ll talk to her.”

At teatime, I overheard them in the kitchen. Mum and Meredith.

“He seems like a nice enough boy. Quite sensible. I really don’t see the harm in it, Mother,” Mum said.

“Don’t see the harm? Do you want the girls to start using that dreadful Wiltshire slang? Do you want them to learn how to steal, and to swear? Do you want them to come home lousy and degraded? If so, then indeed, there can be no harm,” Meredith replied, coldly.

“My girls would
never
steal,” Mum told her firmly. “And I think
degraded
is overdoing it, really.”

“I don’t, Laura. Perhaps you’ve forgotten how much trouble those people have caused us over the years?”

“How could I forget?” Mum sighed.

“Well, they are your children . . .”

“Yes, they are.”

“But if you want them to live under my roof, and in my care, then they will have to abide by
my
rules,” Meredith snapped.

Mum took a deep breath. “If I hear that they have been locked up inside again, then they won’t come here at all any more, and neither will David and I,” she said quietly, but I could hear the tension. Nearly a tremor. Meredith did not reply. I heard her footsteps coming toward me and I bolted out of sight. With the coast clear I went in to my mother, found her washing up with a quiet intensity, eyes bright. I put my arms around her legs, squeezed her tight. Meredith was never any less averse to us playing with Dinny, but we were never shut in our room again. Mum won on that point, at least.

M
onday morning is leaden and wet. The tips of my fingers and toes were chilled when I woke up, and have stayed that way; and now the end of my nose too. I can’t remember when I was last this cold. In London it just doesn’t happen. There’s the clammy warmth of the underground, the buffeting heat of shops and cafés. A hundred and one places to hide from any dip in the outside temperature. I’m in the orangery, on the south side of the house, overlooking a small lawn ringed with gnarled fruit trees. When we were playing too loudly, when we were
trying Meredith’s patience
, we would be sent here, to the small lawn, while the grown-ups sat on the west-facing terrace at a white iron table, drinking iced tea and vodka. My companions in here are the skeletal remains of some tomato plants and a toad, sitting plump by the tap that drips verdigris water onto a bright green swathe of duckweed. I had forgotten the quiet of the countryside, and it unnerves me.