Relative Love (10 page)

‘Peter-like.’ He turned his head and licked her ear, very gently, just along the lobe where he knew the balance between tickling and pleasure was most finely poised. ‘We put the world to rights.’

‘Well done you. Are you going to let me go to sleep now?’

‘I don’t think so.’ He rolled her over and raised himself on one elbow to look at her, even though it was dark and all he could make out was the pale outline of her face. ‘I got the transfer. Instead of railways I’m going to look after ships.’

‘Oh, Charlie – oh, darling! You bastard not telling me sooner! Oh, I knew you’d get it, I just knew. All that stuff about being made redundant …’ She snorted. ‘Of course those ship people can’t do without you – I certainly can’t.’ She was prevented from continuing by her husband’s mouth pressing firmly against hers. ‘Show me, then,’ he whispered, pulling back, his breath all beer and onions, ‘show me that you can’t do without me, oh wife of mine, whom I love more than I can say. Whose beauty shines like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.’

‘Shakespeare, eh? Now I know you’re pissed.’ Serena laughed softly, pulling him on top of her. ‘Love is … not minding a drunken sot for a husband,’ she teased.

‘Love is … what Charles Ashley Harrison feels for Serena,’ he whispered, pressing himself more firmly against the soft curves of her body. They made love slowly, moving with a grace born of intimate familiarity, with each sensation as shared and known as the steps of a private dance.

It was only as she turned over to go to sleep, gently removing Charlie’s arm, which was heavy, from across her chest that Serena remembered she had some other news. ‘Charlie, darling …’ He was lying on his side with one arm curled round his head, as if to ward off any unexpected assaults during the course of the night. He had been snoring faintly, which he always did after drinking. He stopped the moment Serena tapped him but did not wake up. Serena raised her arm to shake him more forcefully, then didn’t have the heart. The news, which was that his aunt Alicia had fallen and broken a hip, could wait until morning. Pamela had said that her sister-in-
law was shaken but being well looked after in a local cottage hospital. There was nothing any of them could do and her poor darling deserved a good night’s sleep, Serena concluded, tracing one fingertip very gently down the little furrows next to his ear. Although he’d hidden his worry from her – and from the rest of the world – she knew he had been fretting badly about the job move. As had she. That her husband was so unambitious – that he worked purely to earn a living – was one of the many things Serena loved about him. He was never happier than when he’d managed to wangle a morning off or skip home early to help with homework and bathtime. But at the same time she had the sense to recognise that this attitude would hardly receive comparable appreciation from his employers. He had been miserable in the stressful environment of the Railway Directorate and made little secret of it. That such a visible lack of enthusiasm might result in unemployment was a possibility that Charlie himself had entertained so volubly that Serena, a profound and natural optimist, had begun to believe it herself. She had seen the spouses of several friends going through the redundancy mill and knew it was something to fear at any age, not just for the obvious havoc of financial worries but for the beating it gave even the sturdiest self-esteem. After six months of fruitless job-hunting one father at Ed’s school had tried to kill himself. ‘So, thank you, God,’ Serena murmured now, though her religious convictions were hazy at the best of times, ‘thank you indeed.’ She planted a last tender kiss on Charlie’s forehead and then turned over to go to sleep, sliding back to her side of the bed where the sheets were fresh and cool.

Helen was sitting up in bed, holding her book – like a shield, Peter could not help thinking. Her glasses, which had small brown rectangular frames, had slipped to the end of her nose, emphasising both its pointiness and all the other sharp angles of her face. She couldn’t have looked more angry if she had had huge stickers saying ANGRY plastered all over her.

‘Sorry, darling, I know I’m late.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She turned a page, briskly, as if seeking something specific among the paragraphs.

‘I did call.’

‘Yes, you did. You said you’d be another hour. That was …’ Helen lifted her wrist, peering at the dial of her watch over the rim of her spectacles ‘… by my reckoning, well over two hours ago. Two hours and forty minutes to be precise.’

‘Charlie sends his love,’ Peter ventured, in a bid to steer the conversation back into warmer waters.

‘Does he?’ She turned another page, although she couldn’t possibly have read enough to warrant it.

‘He’s come through a redundancy scare – got a new post in shipping.’

‘Jolly good.’

‘Look, Helen, is this really necessary?’ Peter, sobered by her hostility, could not keep the edge out of his voice. He had apologised, hadn’t he? If she’d had a bad day it was hardly his fault.

‘Is what necessary, Peter?’

‘This? You. How you’re being.’

Helen closed her book and folded her arms. ‘It might interest you to know that your aunt had a serious fall today. She has fractured her hip and is in hospital.’ There was a tinge of triumph in her tone. She had been saving this information, waiting, like a warrior poised with a missile, for the right – the most effective – moment to deliver it. ‘Your mother phoned to tell me. She
sounded upset.’ In fact, Pamela had been matter-of-fact, relaying the news in the same just-to-keep-all-members-of-the-family-informed tone with which she had mentioned, at greater length, the impending visit of Eric’s biographer.

‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that, obviously.’ Peter lifted the lid of the laundry basket and dropped in his socks and underpants. ‘Poor old Alicia, that’s too bad. I’ll call Mum about it tomorrow.’ He looked round the bedroom, a part of him dimly seeking inspiration from its chic furnishings and handsome proportions. They had decorated their home, a large detached Georgian house in one of Barnes’s quietest and most salubrious roads, with the help of Cassie. Designers Guild fabrics, silk weave carpets, mahogany furniture, fine prints on the walls – thanks to two successful careers and clever investments, no expense had been spared. Even five years on from seeing the project through, Peter still experienced a swell of satisfaction every time he put the key into the door and felt the polished parquet beneath his feet. Their bedroom, which had four sets of double windows overlooking the garden, was particularly lovely, with shimmering green velvet curtains, Wedgwood wallpaper and a marbled
en-suite
bathroom big enough to host a small party.

It was in there now that Peter sought refuge, running the taps harder than was strictly necessary while he battled with the uncharacteristic urge to be unpleasant to his wife. In the twenty years of their marriage there had been little unpleasantness. He had been drawn as much to Helen’s fine brain as her fine figure and both had proved constant. She was a respected partner in a firm of corporate lawyers and worked pretty hard. Unlike dear Serena, who openly declared herself both ignorant and uninterested in the intricacies of Charlie’s daily toil as a civil servant, Helen was always happy to talk shop or act as a sounding-board if he needed to thrash out his thoughts on a difficult case. She was also a good mother, far more on top of all the school events than he was and much better at getting home in time to relieve Rika, their Turkish au pair. That she was so organised and efficient – so
together
– had always made Peter proud. He returned to the bedroom in his pyjamas, determined to put things right.

‘Look, darling, you’ve obviously had a hateful evening, what with the Alicia business – and Chloë, no doubt up to her usual tricks …’

‘She hid.’

‘What?’

‘Chloë. For hours. She hid for hours. She said it was a game, but it wasn’t.’ Helen put her hands to her face and, much to her husband’s amazement (and a little to his horror), was crying.

‘Helen, darling, she’s seven years old. Of course it was a game.’

Helen shook her head fiercely, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘She meant to hurt me, I could feel it. I called and called and she wouldn’t come out. She meant to hurt me.’

‘Nonsense, Helen. Stop it this minute, you’re getting yourself into a state about nothing.’ Peter clambered on to the bed and pulled her a little clumsily into his arms. He wasn’t good with tears. They made him feel gormless. ‘Come on, Helen, this isn’t like you. Stop … please stop now. You’re being silly.’ He chose the word deliberately, wanting to prick the drama from the moment. And it seemed to work, because the crying subsided at once. ‘There, that’s better. Maybe a sleeping tablet tonight, eh?’ He squeezed her shoulders and tapped the point of her nose with his finger. ‘Silly Helen.’

‘Do you love me, Peter?’

‘What is this? Of course I love you.’

‘I’m forty-seven. I’m getting all withered and scrawny. You’ll fall in love with someone else soon, some lovely young girl with energy and big breasts.’

‘Helen, what the hell has got into you? First Chloë and now this – you’re being
ridiculous
.’

‘I know,’ she moaned, sobbing again, ‘I know. Ignore me.’

‘Here.’ He handed her a large clean white handkerchief from his suit pocket and watched as she blew her nose and mopped her face. Then he fetched a sleeping pill and a glass of water and stood over her, like a concerned doctor, as she swallowed it. ‘A good night’s sleep and you’ll feel quite different.’

‘She wants a dog.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Chloë. She says she’ll do her piano practice properly if we get her a dog.’

‘How you can even listen to such nonsense?’ Peter threw up his arms, bringing them down with a hard slap against his pyjamas. ‘Look, Helen,’ he continued, more gently, doing his best to sound reasonable rather than exasperated, ‘for one thing that’s blackmail, and I will not be blackmailed by my own daughter. For another, all children go through a phase of wanting a dog – it’s like girls and ponies, it passes. Believe me, I know, I had two sisters who went through the lot.’

‘I didn’t,’ muttered Helen. She was feeling sleepy now but fighting it. ‘I always wanted a dog but wasn’t allowed one.’

‘Because your parents were very sensible.’ He pulled back the duvet, then tugged at the bottom sheet to make it smooth, as he always did, before getting into bed. ‘There are several very cogent reasons why it would be pure insanity to get a dog. First, in terms of commitment it would be like having a third child, and – correct me if I’m wrong – I’d say you have quite enough on your plate as it is. Second, Chloë is behaving like a spoilt brat, and third, having animals only really works in the country. Tell her we’ll get one when we live at Ashley House. That might shut her up.’ Pleased with this last thought, Peter switched off his bedside light and rolled on to his left side to go to sleep, a feat he usually managed in a matter of seconds, but which took a little longer on this occasion because of the bruising on his shoulder from his careering volley on the squash court. In spite of her tablet Helen, too, lay awake for some time, her head spinning with images of dogs, Ashley House and her daughter’s hot, angry face located at last in the corner of the dining-room windowsill behind the curtains.

Stephen Smith walked quickly out of Barham station and turned left down the high street as the man sweeping the empty platform had instructed. On hearing that he was headed for Ashley House the man had added that it was a good two miles and if he looked on the wall in the phone-box he’d find a number for a local taxi service. He liked walking, Stephen explained, which was true, although perhaps less significant than the fact that penurious would-be writers had to think twice before resorting to such luxuries. Barham itself comprised two antiques shops, a tea-house, a post-office-cum-newsagent and pub called the Rising Sun. After that the pavement petered out and Stephen found himself picking his way along a narrow grass verge, trying to avoid the muddiest bits for the sake of his shoes. Whenever the road was clear he skipped on to the Tarmac, pressing his hands into his pockets for warmth. In the rush of leaving his little flat in Hackney and squashing on to the tube to get to Victoria it hadn’t occurred to him that he would be cold. His jacket, chosen in preference to his tatty Oxfam trench-coat, felt thin and inadequate against the cut of the wind. It had seemed important to look smart. Of all his potential interviewees the Harrisons sounded by far the grandest (Pamela’s reply had come on parchment-like writing-paper, with the address embossed in thick lettering across the top, while her voice on the telephone had positively purred with confident refinement), so he was more than usually
anxious to create a good impression. Most of all, he hoped, via a decent black wool jacket and a silk tie (blue and green specks), to appear like someone who knew what he was doing, instead of someone stumbling to realise a project for which he was fast running out of money (his princely advance of ten thousand pounds was dissolving at terrifying speed) and the confidence to see it through.

After the bustle of a Friday morning in London the quiet of the countryside was a shock. The sun, though still wintry and distant, had burned through a bank of heavy grey cloud and was bestowing a sumptuous sheen across the muted January browns and greens of the landscape. Even the cows, casting lazy glances as he passed by, looked glossy and well groomed, as if they knew they were in the five-star luxury version of the global options on offer to their kind. As he blinked the wind-blur from his eyes, Stephen felt at once deeply separate from yet hugely drawn to these surroundings. He had only a passing acquaintance with the Home Counties; the first eighteen years of his life had been spent in a shabby terraced house on the outskirts of Hull, after which he had got a place at Leeds University to study history, then thrown it in to do a TEFL course and escape abroad. A job at a language school in Madrid had been followed by the chance to work in South America, where he supplemented his mediocre teacher’s salary by writing articles for travel guides. Largely comprising updates on prices and bus timetables, it had been tedious and only whetted his appetite to write seriously about something quite different. A chance encounter with an editor on a travelling sabbatical (one of those rare, instantly strong connections with a stranger that only ever seem to happen abroad) had led, circuitously, to the commissioning of the book he was now researching. With a private passion for the history of both world wars, Stephen had dared to imagine it would be easy. As he discussed his ideas with his new friend and a cold beer on the stony coast of Chiloé in southern Chile, the chapters had felt as good as written. When the cheque for his advance dropped on to the doormat in Hackney a few months after his return, Stephen had almost wept with joy, sure that, at the ripe old age of thirty-two, his life had taken the turn he had been seeking.