Relative Love (36 page)

Clem was already shaking her head. ‘No way. Absolutely no way.’

Maisie pulled another cigarette out of her little pack of ten and sat back in her chair. ‘Please, Clem.’

‘No.’

Maisie sighed, struck a match, inhaled deeply and then said, her voice all husky with smoke, ‘If you don’t agree to help me, Clem, I’ll tell Mum and Dad about the puking.’

Clem, who had been studying the strap on her satchel, froze, her mouth dry.

‘I know your game, Clemmy, eating loads and throwing up afterwards. And I also know,’ she continued, more gently, ‘that you’re trying to lose weight and you don’t want anyone to stop you. It’s just like a … short-cut, isn’t it? Till you’ve got to the weight you want.’

‘It is, Maisie, honestly, that’s exactly what it is. I only do it sometimes.’ Clem spoke breathlessly, desperate to explain and be understood, desperate, too, that her own secret be kept safe.

‘You ought to try these, you know,’ remarked Maisie, doing a little wave with her cigarette. ‘They really stop you wanting to eat.’

‘I don’t
want
not to eat …’ began Clem. ‘Anyway, I have tried smoking and I hated it.’ She smiled, feeling a little better. The party was two weeks away and Maisie might change her mind. In the meantime it was actually quite nice that her sister not only knew about her eating tricks but didn’t think they were weird.

‘Though you really don’t need to lose any more weight, you know,’ advised Maisie earnestly. ‘Monica said just today that she’d give anything to have your figure, and I know for a fact that loads of boys fancy you.’

‘Shut up.’

Maisie shrugged and gathered up her things. She didn’t really know how to deal with her sister any more. She was so distant, so shy and reluctant to enjoy herself. The eldest by just thirty-three minutes, Maisie felt incomparably more advanced in every regard. If Clem wanted a good time she had to learn to look for it, she thought crossly. Like with Jonny Cottrall, for instance. Boys – men – had to be fought for, it was all part of the fun. Maisie recalled her brief meeting behind the gym with Jonny that lunchtime and felt a twinge of guilt, which she dismissed in the same instant. Clem had only herself to blame. What was the point in being keen on someone and running away every time they came into sight? If she behaved like that she didn’t deserve Jonny or anyone else.

By the time Peter jumped into a taxi to keep his rendezvous with his little sister the sun was a low red disc in the sky. It sank steadily as they sped along the embankment, its blood-orange rays lending grandeur not just to the fine array of Thames bridges, strung like necklaces across the river, but also to the murky grey waters swirling beneath. It was Peter’s favourite time of year; he loved the promise of summer inherent in the lengthening evenings and the accompanying sense that the best of the year was there for the taking. It was his favourite time of evening too, with the worst of the rush-hour past, another day’s toil under his belt and the city illuminated and humming like a beehive. It was at such times that he was quite capable of sharing Helen’s reservations about one day shifting the focus of their life to the country. London excited him; the traffic got him down, of course, and the rising crime rates, but all the best cities had an edge of chaos and danger. He loved working at the heart of one of the most excellent judiciaries in the world and had every intention of continuing until decrepitude or ill-health prevented him. Which would mean one day becoming a long-distance commuter like his father, Peter reflected, watching a lone oarsman on the water and experiencing some disquiet at the prospect of such a bind on his lifestyle.

But that scenario was years – possibly a decade – away, he reminded himself, and in the meantime he had rather more pressing things to worry about, the party for one thing, although that was mostly under control, thanks to Helen who was a wonderful organiser. Less satisfactory was the new presence of a carrot-headed teenager in the house, with a grating Scottish accent and the habit of filing her nails when he was trying to read the paper. She ironed scores of crinkles into the cuffs and collars of his shirts and had a terrible high-pitched laugh, which Chloë, unwittingly or otherwise (it was hard to be sure with Chloë) was beginning to imitate. Peter had a sneaking suspicion that Helen had hired the creature out of vengeance, but had so far resisted voicing such thoughts. Helen herself was briskly – stoutly – accepting of the foibles of their new employee, whose not entirely satisfactory first interview back in April had been followed by a much better second one, together with a clutch of fabulous references. In addition to which, Helen had worked so tirelessly on sorting out the party that Peter really didn’t feel he had the right to complain about anything. She still saw Kay from time to time, he knew, but now much less visibly so again he had no grounds for making a fuss about it. She clearly relished the friendship and, as a result of it, had become noticeably less moody for which he was grateful. At the same time, however, Peter could not help feeling unsettled by the notion that his wife’s happiness – once firmly connected to the palm of his own hand – now received so much of its inspiration from another quarter. That night, for instance, when he warned her he would be late home, she had sounded annoyingly pleased; in that case, she said, she might possibly leave Griselda babysitting and pop over the road for a drink. To bloody Kay, of course. Peter
grimaced, then wrested his thoughts back to the more pressing matter of his little sister. It was money, he decided, pressing a twenty-pound note into the cabby’s hand and pausing to survey the handsome red-bricked frontage of the flats where Cassie lived. Of course it was money. The twenty thousand had given her some notion of expanding her business – getting a set of offices, maybe – and she needed to borrow a bit more to see the thing through.

So convinced was Peter by his own arguments, that he was still pondering some minutes later how much he would be prepared to lend and on what terms when Cassie shoved a tumbler of whisky into his hand and announced that their mother had had an affair with their uncle. ‘Don’t be absurd, Cass, that’s an outrageous thing to say.’

‘I’m not being absurd. Read this. It was in a bunch of letters that Aunt Alicia sent to Stephen Smith, the chap who’s writing about Eric. I’m convinced she had no idea it was there. Eric must have hidden it himself years ago.’ She handed over the letter and folded her arms, watching intently as her brother absorbed the contents. ‘It’s her writing, isn’t it?’ she urged, a little excited in spite of herself. ‘And look at the date. There’s no question, is there, absolutely no question at all?’

‘It would appear not.’ Peter lowered the letter and took a swig of his drink. ‘It would appear not indeed,’ he repeated, looking again at the letter and shaking his head. ‘Dad must never know,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Do you hear me, Cassie? Dad must never know.’

‘Of course he mustn’t.’ She wrung her hands. They were sitting opposite each other in her little sitting room, converted back since her recent attentions into the tasteful, softly lit nest she had designed herself, with a lustrous blue carpet, a small cream-tiled fireplace, several tidy shelves of books and ornaments, and a suite of deep, comfortable chairs, each adorned with plump blue scatter cushions.

‘And Mum too. I mean, she mustn’t know that we know.’

Cassie nodded, thinking that this probably mattered a little less: Pamela would merely have to cope with the shame of being outed as an adulteress, while their father would have the carpet of his supposedly wonderful marriage pulled from beneath his feet, with all the accompanying ravages of betrayal and disillusionment. She herself was still deeply confused, torn between an angry sense of betrayal (who would have thought their mother, so perfectly wifely and wonderful, capable of such perfidy?) and a perverse relief at the revelation that, after all, Pamela was as flawed and foolhardy as the rest of the human race. Her own emotional predicament had made her more understanding, Cassie realised, seeing the unbridled horror on Peter’s face and knowing instantly that, unlike her, he had no comparable experience that would allow him to be so forgiving.

‘So we keep it to ourselves.’ He drained his glass, scowling as his throat burned.

Cassie pressed her hands between her knees. ‘Yes … Except that Stephen Smith hasn’t ruled out using the information.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why I called you. I mean, he hasn’t exactly said he will – he only showed me the letter because he thought it was interesting that Uncle Eric, the soldier-loner, had had some great love and I – I’m afraid I recognised the writing,’ she admitted, her voice shrinking with shame at the disclosure of this small but vital mishandling of events. ‘I said it was Mum’s before I knew what the letter was about.’

‘Jesus Christ.’ Peter ran his hand over his face. ‘We could have done without that, Cassie, we really could.’

‘I know,’ she wailed, ‘but I was …’ Unable to finish the sentence without explaining her distracted state of mind at the time of Stephen’s visit, she left it hanging and went to fetch the whisky bottle.

‘So, how well do you know this fellow?’ Armed with a fresh drink and knowing now the scale of the problem, Peter felt sharper and up to the job. From time to time he got the same sort of rush in a courtroom when some dreadful unforeseen skeleton had been hauled out of the cupboard during a cross-examination and he had to think on his feet. It was a question of knowing the issues. Knowledge was power. Once one knew all the facts – no matter how difficult – it was possible to make decisions.

‘Not that well. I met him at Ashley House once and we had quite a laugh playing Scrabble, although …’

‘Go on.’

‘I think he likes me. A lot. You know how you can just tell?’

Peter, remembering a doe-eyed articled clerk who had developed a bit of an infatuation for him many years before, managed a wry smile. ‘Yes, though I have to confess I’m somewhat out of practice in such matters.’ He faltered, thinking suddenly of Hannah and wondering whether his assumption that they were nothing more than friends was wholly reciprocated. ‘So you have some … er … influence, shall we say?’ he continued, studying his sister and noting with some sadness that, while still an extremely pretty girl, she was, like all of them, beginning to look her age.

‘I guess.’ Cassie fought the urge to dig out her cigarettes and picked at a loose thread on the arm of her chair. She tugged a bit harder and instead of snapping it grew suddenly much longer, leaving a visible gap in the material. ‘At least, I think I might be able to persuade him not to use the letter, make him see sense.’

‘That’s the girl.’ Peter leant forward, rolling his glass between his palms. ‘See what you can do. Otherwise things could get very complicated indeed.’

‘Can one stop the publishing of a book?’

He shook his head gravely. ‘Very difficult. And if we did questions would be asked on all fronts and the story would probably come out anyway. By far the best route would be to talk him out of it and it sounds like you’re more than up to the job. If he gives any trouble you tell me at once, okay? You’ve got the letter itself, which is an excellent start – excellent. Make damn sure you hang on to it. In fact, hide it. Okay?’

Cassie nodded meekly, feeling as he kissed her goodbye like some sort of besieged heroine in a spy film. Except it wasn’t a spy film, she reflected miserably, closing the door, her control slipping as it tended to when she was on her own. It was real life and it hurt. She poured herself a third large whisky and smoked several cigarettes, trying to watch television through a veil of tears, thinking all the while about Dan, wishing she had to be charming to him to keep her mother’s secret instead of to some scruffy lost soul of a man with hungry eyes.

Peter’s party was scheduled for 31 May the second Saturday of the children’s half-term. On the Thursday morning a team of people arrived in a large white van and assembled a turreted castle of a marquee on the main lawn, cleverly linking one of its vast sides to the cloisters so that guests could move freely between house and tent without worrying about the weather or stiletto heels snagging in the grass. Which was just as well, since by Thursday evening thick grey sheets of rain were pouring from leaden skies. The deluge continued unabated throughout Friday and
Saturday morning, until Pamela was worn out with scrubbing muddy animal prints from the hall and kitchen floors and John was in a state of barely controlled panic about a large patch of oozing mud running down the far side of the parking field. Just hours before the start of the party, with guests already settling into the converted barn and Helen rushing round the marquee tables with place cards, he and Sid rigged up an extra fence of orange tape in a bid to keep vehicles in the drier areas.

Upstairs, meanwhile, the bathrooms and bedrooms of Ashley House were buzzing with activity as the Harrison clan, all of whom had arrived during the course of the afternoon, prepared themselves for the evening. Pamela, seated at her dressing-table, carefully eased pins into the coiled plait of her hair. She had performed this task in front of the same mottled mirror, the mother-of-pearl studs twinkling at her from the dressing-table, so many thousands of times that it had taken on the ageless resonance of ritual: her speckled reflection, the feel of the wide metal pins in her fingers, the familiar contours of her scalp. Each occasion floated, a new gossamer thread of experience, on to the last, building layer upon layer over the years so that, sitting there now, she was all the things she had ever been – not just a seventy-three-year-old grandmother, but a timid young bride, a reckless and passionate lover, a bereaved mother and a joyful one. She was the sum of her parts, the picture produced by the myriad threads of thought and deed that constituted her life. Her earrings, button-sized opals ringed with diamonds, gleamed like miniature moons, as they had in the ear-lobes of her mother-in-law, to whom they had originally belonged. A matching pendant nestled in the soft fleshy crevice at the base of her neck, brilliant against the midnight blue velvet of her gown.