A Proper Family Christmas (20 page)

After lunch, Sophie was invited upstairs to Izzy’s room. Jack wanted to come too but Richard persuaded him to join him for a walk around the gardens with Leander instead. Jack happily accepted a chance to throw a ball for the overgrown puppy.

‘My room’s this way,’ said Izzy to her new cousin.

They carefully avoided the fact that Sophie already knew the way to Izzy’s room because she had been inside it before. Sophie felt a little uncomfortable as she got to the landing where she and Izzy had last met. Would Izzy mention that meeting now? She didn’t. It was as though she was pretending that they had never met before. Just as Annabel had pretended that she didn’t really remember Jack’s tussle with the suit of armour. And they all just carried on making small talk after Granddad Bill burped his way through ‘Daisy, Daisy’. Stilted small talk, admittedly.

Perhaps that was the way posh people dealt with embarrassing situations. By pretending they had never happened. But Sophie sort of wished that Izzy would say something about the day of the village fete, so they could get it out there and clear it away.

Izzy opened the door. The room was much lighter than the landing and it took Sophie’s eyes a little while to adjust to the difference. It was more cluttered than she remembered. The single designer dress still hung from the back of the door, but the armchair was piled high with clothes too: designer jeans and expensive branded T-shirts. Sophie caught sight of an Armani Jeans label. And there was Izzy’s enviable array of gadgetry. The laptop, the iPad, the phone. The speakers. The flat-screen TV.

But there was something else. Sophie stared at it for a second before she realised what it was and quickly averted her eyes. It was definitely not the latest gadget from Apple.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Izzy. ‘That’s my dialysis machine. I bet you wish you had one of those.’

‘How often do you …’

‘Have to do it? Every night.’

‘And where …’ Sophie started to ask but chickened out.

‘I’ve got a catheter fitted here.’ Izzy pulled down the elasticated waist of her trousers to show Sophie the tube. ‘I plug myself in around ten. The machine pumps fluid into my stomach and when it sucks it back out, it sucks out all the toxins my kidneys can’t process with it. That’s the technical description,’ Izzy joked. ‘It’s called peritoneal dialysis. I’m mostly asleep while it’s happening but if I wake up I watch
Game of Thrones
or something. Or go online.’

Sophie nodded.

‘Or I do this … Look,’ said Izzy, lifting up a book that had been resting on the windowsill. ‘I want to show you something. Remember that graffiti that was supposedly done by the princes during the civil war? I’m adding some of my own. It’s taking ages but God knows I have to spend a lot of time sitting up here now.’

Sophie traced the spiky ‘I’ and ‘Z’ with her fingers.

‘Won’t your mum go nuts if she finds out?’

‘I shall tell her that in years to come, the people who own this house will show their visitors my scratches too. I’m just as much a prisoner as the princes were now.’

‘Does it hurt?’ Sophie asked. ‘I mean, the dialysis.’

‘Not really. You soon get used to it. And being able to do it at home is miles better than having to go into hospital three times a week. The thing that really pisses me off is that when I’m not hooked up I can’t just have a drink of water when I feel like it. I’m only allowed five hundred mils a day. It sounds like a lot but it isn’t. I used to get through two cans of Diet Coke and a litre and a half of Evian every day. The dehydration. It’s making my skin look like shit. My lips are dry all the time. My idea of a serious treat these days is to be able to suck an ice cube.’

Sophie suddenly felt very self-conscious as she sipped from the glass of fizzy water she had carried upstairs.

‘God, I wish I could just grab that drink out of your hand and knock it back in one,’ said Izzy. ‘Water, water everywhere …’

Sophie put the glass down on Izzy’s desk. An exam paper lay among the clutter. Maths A level. According to Jacqui, Izzy was so bright that she had been going to take some of her A levels early. Before she got sick.

‘Are you going to be able to go back to school this year?’

‘That’s the plan. They’re sending me loads of stuff to do at home but it’s difficult to concentrate, you know? I sit down and try to do some maths but all of a sudden my head is back at the festival and I’m thinking how it would be if I’d just said no.’

‘So, you did take something? I thought that was probably what happened. Only your mum just said you were “taken ill”. She said you might have eaten a poisonous mushroom.’

‘Did she? That’s funny. I’m in this desperate position and she still wants people to think we’re the perfect family. I mean, Annabel Buchanan would never have a daughter stupid enough to take drugs, would she? I took an E. Actually, I took three …’

Sophie shrugged to convey that she was cool with that. She wasn’t judgemental.

‘Did you take them often?’ she asked.

‘It was my first time.’

‘That’s harsh,’ said Sophie.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘First time …’ Sophie shook her head. ‘The very opposite of beginner’s luck.’

‘What about you? You’re going to tell me that you take it all the time and you’ve never had anything bad happen.’

‘I’ve never taken any drugs,’ said Sophie. ‘I’ve never had the money.’

Izzy smiled ruefully.

‘And looking at the addicts around the bus station in town, I can’t say it ever seemed all that glamorous. I suppose it depends on the circles you move in.’

‘Like my friends.’

‘Did they take it too?’

‘Nope. I was the only one stupid enough.’

‘I bet they were just too scared. You were daring. You had the guts.’

‘You’re very kind but I can’t tell you how I wish I’d been more of a coward. You know, at first, right after it happened, the girls who were with me would all come round all the time, but now that school has started again, I don’t really see any of them. They send me messages on Facebook but I don’t really talk to them either. I don’t think they know what to say any more. I think when they came to see me in hospital, they didn’t imagine I would still be ill all these months later. Visiting your mate in intensive care is glamorous. Visiting her in her bedroom while she dialyses? Not so much. I know Jessica probably feels guilty because it was her boyfriend who gave me the pills. And Chloe’s mother probably doesn’t let her talk to me. She thinks I’m a bad influence. Not any more though, eh? Hey, kids! This is what happens when you take drugs. You get to spend half your time flushing your wee through a machine. I should be in one of those public service ads.’

Sophie didn’t know what to say.

‘Look,’ said Izzy. ‘I know you’re probably not mentioning it because you’re embarrassed but I do remember meeting you on the day of the fete. And I was a bitch to you and I’m sorry. I hope we can start again, seeing as how it turns out we’re cousins.’

‘Yeah,’ said Sophie. ‘Thanks. Why not?’

The girls tentatively bumped fists and went back downstairs.

‘I’m sorry about Granddad Bill,’ said Sophie just as they were about to go back into the dining room. ‘He hasn’t always been so embarrassing.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Izzy. ‘After all, he’s my great-granddad too now.’

The Bensons left shortly after five. Annabel had worried that they would linger on and she would have to find them something for dinner, but Chelsea had to catch a train back to London and Ronnie was dropping her off at the station. And Granddad Bill had to be taken back home to watch some football match on the telly. Thank goodness. The musical belching had been bad enough but the snoring when he fell asleep by the fire after lunch was truly spectacular. Like listening to planes taking off.

While Izzy went upstairs for a rest, Richard and Annabel started clearing up. After Annabel had expressed her utter horror at Granddad Bill’s rendition of ‘Daisy, Daisy’ it was Ronnie who caught the next blast of Annabel’s disappointment.

‘How do you think it feels to know I’m related to that? She eats like she has never seen cutlery before.’

‘I’ve seen far worse,’ said Richard.

‘At children’s parties, perhaps.’

‘Sweetheart, she’s not that bad. I thought she was trying really hard to be friendly. She probably just feels a bit out of her depth here. Hell,
I
feel a bit out of my depth here sometimes. We do live in a bloody stately home.’

Annabel managed a smile.

‘So cut her some slack. She seems like an intelligent woman who just didn’t have the advantages we had. She probably went to some awful comprehensive with three thousand pupils. If she’d been at Benenden …’

‘I can’t imagine it.’

‘I like her husband.’

‘He’s not her husband,’ said Annabel.

‘Oh.’

‘You heard Jacqui. They got engaged this summer. Sixteen years and two kids after they met.’

‘Well, at least they know they like each other,’ said Richard, giving his wife a squeeze. ‘Their daughter seems quite sweet under all the goth stuff and Jack … he’s adorable.’

‘They must have adopted him,’ Annabel sniffed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a worse day in my life. I have never felt so uncomfortable in my own home. I felt like I had to justify the way we live the whole time or play down how hard we worked to get here. You saw the way Ronnie looked at everything in the house. She looked at the stamp on the bottom of her coffee cup. I swear it! I felt like she was pricing everything.’

‘Perhaps she’s just interested in crockery.’

‘I don’t think she likes us.’

‘Perhaps she’s reflecting the way you feel right back at you. I think she’s wary. That’s all. You’ve got to remember that until you popped up, she was the older sister. She can’t help but wonder where her place in the pecking order is now that you’ve come along.’

‘I don’t want to be in anyone’s pecking order. Least of all hers. We’ve got nothing in common.’

Richard opened his mouth.

‘Don’t say it,’ Annabel warned him.

Richard had already remarked on the fact that Annabel and Ronnie had the same chocolate brown eyes and their smiles were similar too, though Annabel had the advantage of expensive dentistry.

‘This isn’t like you, my love.’ Richard put an arm round Annabel’s shoulders. ‘You’re a snob, but you’re not usually
this much
of a snob. You’re a kind person. Why can’t you be kind to them?’

‘Because I’m afraid that I’m like them,’ she said.

The following morning, Ronnie called from work to thank Annabel for hosting the Bensons that Sunday. They had enjoyed themselves enormously. Jack couldn’t stop going on about having been allowed to go down into the ‘dungeon’. And it was wonderful to meet Izzy. Jack and Sophie both adored Izzy. What a sweet, brave girl she was. It was such a shame she was unwell. It must be such a worry.

‘So, I’ve got something important to ask you,’ said Ronnie.

Annabel’s heart fluttered. Was she going to ask how they could help Izzy?

No.

‘Mark and me. We were wondering if you would like to come to our wedding.’

Annabel’s heart sank.

‘It’s not going to be a posh affair,’ said Ronnie. ‘It’s only in a register office and afterwards at the pub. And it isn’t going to be a big party. No more than fifty. But Mum and Dad would like you to be there. Seeing as how it’s the first big family event since … well, since we got the whole family together. It would mean a lot to Mum. And to me too, of course. It would mean a lot to me and Mark if you and your family could be at our wedding.’

‘Thank you,’ said Annabel.

‘Is that a yes?’

Annabel felt cornered.

‘I don’t know. I mean, you haven’t told us when it is yet.’

‘We were talking about it at lunchtime yesterday, me and Richard. It’s next weekend. On Saturday.’

Annabel looked out towards the garden as though she might find her response in the flowerbeds. Was it too late to make excuses? Ronnie had talked to Richard about it. What had Richard said? Had he inadvertently revealed that they weren’t going to be doing anything the following Saturday and, in doing so, taken away Annabel’s hope that she could decline?

‘There will be other family there,’ said Ronnie. ‘Dad’s cousins. People like that. You could get to know them.’

‘We should get to know them,’ said Richard later on. ‘Any one of them could be the person we’re looking for. In any case, we haven’t asked the Bensons to be tested yet and that can only be easier once we’ve been to the wedding and they start to think of us as part of the gang.’

Annabel closed her eyes.

‘And of course we’ll take a great present,’ said Richard.

‘What? What will we take? Where do you think they’ve got their wedding list? Lidl?’

‘Come on,’ said Richard. ‘All your friends go to Lidl.’

‘Only when there’s an offer on Bordeaux.’

‘Sweetheart, please. It’s all for the greater good. And it might be fun. God knows it’s got to be better than some of the stuffy affairs we’ve been to in the past. A wedding reception in a pub. Beer and sausage rolls. What could be better?’

Just about anything could be better in Annabel’s opinion, but she duly texted Ronnie to say that they would be delighted to be at her wedding.

As soon as she got Annabel’s acceptance by text, Ronnie called her younger sister, who was in the office finalising the articles that would be commissioned for
Society
’s January edition.

‘I can’t believe she’s coming to my wedding,’ said Ronnie, without even saying ‘hello’ first.

‘It’ll be nice,’ said Chelsea. ‘Mum will be pleased.’

‘Yeah. But she’s really going to show me up, isn’t she? It’s meant to be my day and she’ll waft in wearing something far more expensive than my wedding dress.’

‘Ronnie,’ said Chelsea. ‘You are going to look like a goddess. I’m going to see to that.’

‘I’m going to look fat, is what I’m going to look like’

‘Ronnie … stop it.’

‘Why?’ Ronnie asked.