Simply Heaven (35 page)

I suddenly understand, now, why Mary and Beatrice put so much store in status, why Tilly is apologetic as though her very presence in a room were an embarrassment. Surrounded all their lives by husbands and fathers and brothers whose only function was to caretake an architectural vampire, they have been raised to be nothing but addenda to the caretakers. Status is the only thing available to them, and Tilly, husbandless and undereducated, has no more status in the world than the girl behind the checkout at Tesco. I find myself quietly grateful for the Aussie Battlers who raised me. Far better to be the offspring of the working classes on the way up than the overlords on the way down. No wonder they don’t like me. No wonder. Snobbery is so much more complicated than simply looking down on people. People aren’t really offended by their social inferiors. They’re threatened by what they represent.

‘Rufus,’ I say, ‘I feel obliged to point out that you’d be doing our kids a favour if you broke the chain. Why not call it quits? There might still be a pop star, or an IT billionaire or something, who’d think it was worth the small change for the big-face cachet of a slice of history like this.’

He shakes his head. ‘I can’t. It would kill Granny. And probably Dad, too. It would break them, and I can’t do that.’

‘But if it’s a choice between—’

‘Anyway, it’s not really my choice,’ he says. He’s sitting up now, and he’s surreptitiously wiping his face as though he thinks I might not have noticed his tears. ‘Apart from anything else, I can’t do a thing without the trustees’ say-so.’

‘Well, surely the trustees will be able to see that there’s nothing else to be done? Seriously. I don’t have any brief for living in a castle myself. It’s ruining my clothes and I’m getting chilblains.’

‘Darling, think about it. Who would you think the most likely people to be trustees
are
?’

‘Oh,’ I say.

‘You’d be much better off divorcing me now.’ He puts an arm behind my back. ‘Even without children you’d probably get a nice little settlement. We’ll have bugger-all in a few years’ time.’

I pinch his thigh, hard. ‘That’s not even funny.’

‘We’ve got excellent accident insurance, as well. After Granpa got killed out hunting and we realised we could have completely refurbished the orangery with the settlement.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind. So what are we going to do while I wait to bump you off, then?’

‘I don’t know. Same old story, I suppose. Job by job and hope for the best. I’ll have to get the surveyors in to look at this. It obviously wasn’t a fluke last time. So we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed. Maybe I can fix it. Maybe there’s a way.’

‘Well, you know what we say in Australia?’

‘What?’

‘If it can’t be fixed with pantyhose and fencing wire, it’s not worth fixing.’

We’re down in the cellar, wearing waders, alternately loading a couple of wheelbarrows with Edmund’s wine and wheeling them to the door, where Tilly lumbers it, bottle by bottle, up the steps, when Edmund’s voice echoes from up in the house. None of us has exchanged a word about the fact that the grownups, as Rufus and Tilly refer to the olds, have been conspicuously not in evidence all morning, none of them so much as sticking a head out of the front door to tell us about breakfast, which we missed.

‘I say!’ calls Edmund.

Rufus and I are in that weird state where you are both freezing cold and covered in sweat all at once. Tilly’s hair sticks to her forehead and she already looks fit to drop. But she won’t go and rest, and, though the work we’re doing is probably less demanding than hers in a lot of ways, none of us is prepared to accept the potential consequences of making a pregnant lady wade in backed-up drain water.

It stinks down here. Where the rest of Bourton Allhallows smells faintly fungal, the cellar smells of rats and rotting things and old earth and, now, sewers. I have sent Mum off in the limo to pick up some medicated shower stuff – there’s a craft fair on in Stow anyway, and I’m sure the ceramic-cottage shops will keep her entertained for most of the day – but we’ll still probably go down with Weil’s disease, maybe a spot of cholera. God knows what ancient spores are lurking in the bones of the house, just waiting for a bit of water and an unwary passerby to wake them up.

‘I say?’ calls Edmund again.

Tilly wipes her forehead with the back of a hand that clutches a bottle of 1974 Petrus. ‘Down here!’

Footsteps, then a silhouette blocks out the feeble light. We’ve got a gas lantern lit at the far end, by the wine racks. The leccy has long since died. Probably sometime around 1953.

‘Good show.’

‘You’re welcome,’ says Rufus.

‘You
are
being careful with the labels, aren’t you?’

‘Doing our best.’

‘Only, it won’t do if I can’t tell what everything is.’

I draw breath to say something sarcastic, but feel Rufus’s hand on my arm.

‘I’m doing what I can, Dad. You might want to put in a bit of time with a magic marker after lunch.’

‘Do I?’ says Edmund. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I might. Good thinking.’

I slop my way through thigh-deep slurry towards the stairs. If Edmund is going to create a hiatus, I intend to make the most of it. Tilly has already sat down on a step, and I’ve got the one where her feet are resting earmarked for myself.

‘Was there something we could do for you, Edmund?’ I ask.

‘Was there?’ he says vaguely. Edmund is quite infuriating, sometimes. ‘Oh, yes. Your father wants us all in the breakfast room. Says he has a proposition.’

I reach Tilly and settle below her. She puts a sisterly hand on my shoulder. I glance up, gratefully, and give it a pat.

‘Can’t it wait till lunchtime?’ asks Rufus. ‘We’re a bit busy …’

‘No,’ says Edmund, ‘it can’t. Honestly, you young. We don’t ask a lot of you, Rufus. I think you could at least—’

‘We’re saving your wine cellar here, Edmund,’ I say sharply.

‘Well, it’s
your
father,’ he says, with ineffable reasoning.

‘What time is it?’ I ask Rufus quietly.

Tilly removes her hand to check her watch. ‘Half twelve.’

Rufus sighs. He seems to be sighing a lot, lately. ‘Well, I suppose we could do with a break.’

Then, for Edmund’s benefit: ‘We’ll be up in a couple of minutes.’

‘Right-oh,’ says Edmund cheerfully, and goes away.

Once he’s out of earshot, Rufus lets fly with string of expletives. ‘Bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody
hell
. Bloody bollocking buggery.’

‘You forgot bastards,’ I remind him.

‘Bastards,’ he says. ‘Right, well, better see what the old sods want
this
time.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to swear a bit more first?’ asks Tilly.

‘No, I’m done. But thanks for asking.’

‘Can I just say fuck it?’ she asks.

‘Well, normally it would be fine, but I’m not sure if you should be doing it in front of the baby.’

‘Sorry,’ she says. Then she bends her head and strokes her tummy and says: ‘Sorry, baby.’

I affect a little squeaky, foetus voice, put my face near her navel and say: ‘Piss off.’

For some reason, this strikes all of us as hysterically funny. A relief of tension, I suppose. I laugh till my belly aches, leaning on my sister-in-law’s thigh for support. I can feel her shaking next to me, hard belly and soft breasts pressed against my side. And suddenly, out of the blue, in the middle of my laughter, I feel almost tearful.

‘I do like you,’ says Tilly.

‘Yeah?’ I tell her, and gulp back my emotions. ‘Well, back atcha.’

‘Come on, you old slags,’ says Rufus, sloshing his way towards us with an armful of what looks like champagne, ‘on your feet or they’ll be sending Roberts in after us.’

Tilly takes two attempts to get up, uses my shoulder for leverage. ‘Bloody
hell
,’ she says, ‘I can’t wait till this is over. I feel like a water buffalo.’

‘Look like one too,’ says Rufus.

‘Mmm. That was why I came home. For the loving support of my family.’ She grabs four bottles of red and waddles up the stairs.

Dad’s grinning like a shot fox. He’s practically rubbing his hands together. Obviously he has something up his sleeve or he wouldn’t have sent for us all in this drum-roll fashion. Both families are gathered in their entirety for his announcement, Beatrice and Yaya eyeing each other from opposite sides of the room like baleful walnuts. You couldn’t get two more contrasting grannies. Each is a granny-stereotype in her own way – Beatrice the fluffy, scented granny with the heart of industrial diamond, Yaya the resentful, gloomy Mediterranean granny with the pockets full of contraband sweeties – but neither is recognisable to the other as an acceptable example of dignified old age. Mum is telling Hilary some involved story about a row she won with Harrods in Kuala Lumpur Airport and Hilary has one leg crossed over the other at the knee, and jigs his ankle. Why do Englishmen do that? Seriously. You’d think Hilary was pretty poofy even if you didn’t know he was. If you see what I mean.

There are no seats left. I know it’s the warmest room in the house, but I’d swap that for a chance to sit down for a bit. The three of us stand, vaguely dripping, on the rug.

‘They think they’re really something,’ says Ma, one of her favourite phrases; ‘way they go on in there, you’d think they
owned
the shop, not worked in it.’

‘Mmm,’ says Hilary, his tone suggesting that owning a shop wouldn’t be a lot different from working in one.

‘Darling, do mind the paintwork,’ Mary tells Tilly, who is leaning against the wall. ‘I do wish you children would be a bit more thoughtful.’

‘Maybe someone should give a seat to the pregnant lady,’ I say. ‘I know it’s not a bus, but similar rules apply, surely.’

I’m feeling a bit sweaty and peculiar myself, truth be told, but I reckon Tilly’s need is probably greater than mine.

Edmund, always more vague than he is deliberately selfish, leaps to his feet. ‘Here we are, darling,’ he gestures to the tapestry couch by the fire.

‘Darling,
no
! Look at her! She’s
covered
in grime!’

Tilly shows an uncharacteristic burst of mettle. ‘You know what? Sod the sofa covers.’ She flings herself into the seat, bouncing Yaya up and down like a jack-in-the-box.

‘That’s right, lovey,’ says Yaya, ‘you get all the rest you can.’

She gives the tummy another pat like the one she gave it in the hall last night.

That poor baby: it must have an impression of the outside world like it’s a cold, stinky place where people beat each other up. It’ll be hanging on to her ribcage by its fingernails.

Once we’re all in, my dad clears his throat and speaks. ‘H’OK, everybody.’

Voices drop and people look round.

‘Listen,’ he says, ‘I couldn’t help but notice that things aren’t going good around here.’

Oh God, I think. What’s he going to say?

No-one moves. They’re all thinking the same thing.

He cackles. ‘It’s OK,’ he says. ‘I just thought, you know … Colleen and me, we thought … well … with Christmas coming and all …’

‘Spit it out,’ I say. ‘The suspense is killing me.’

‘Well, when we went into Stow this morning, you know, we were thinking, you know, with the drains broken and everything, it’s going to be pretty difficult, and here we are turning up out of the blue and all, it can only add to the trouble. So we were thinking … what do you say to the idea we all go and spend Christmas in a hotel, maybe? Nice and dry and warm, and room service and all to keep up the festive spirit?’

I can’t say he’s overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the response.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ says Beatrice. ‘I’ve never heard anything so absurd.’

‘Mummy,’ says Edmund.

‘I …’ says Mary.

‘Ooh, lovely,’ begins Tilly, then glances around and subsides.

‘Um,’ says Rufus.

‘A fool and his money are soon parted,’ says Yaya. Dad waggles his head at her like a donkey.

‘Well, don’t all be too enthusiastic,’ he says.

I speak up. ‘It sounds like a lovely idea, Dad, but I should think everything’s sorted for Crimbo already.’

I can’t think of anything nicer, not in the whole world. Hot showers. Clean bedlinen without darns. No need to have dogs with you for warmth. Dirty martinis instead of dirty moat-water.

Dad does an expansive shrug. It doesn’t matter, it says. Who cares? Forget about it. Adonis wants to spend some money. ‘And you don’t need to worry about the money, neither,’ he says, as if reading my thoughts, ‘because it’s my shout.’

Oh, Dad. What a way to say it. Half of me is cringing, the other half rejoicing. Being able to walk barefoot without getting frostbite. Club sandwiches. Minibars. I feel my spirits surge at the thought.

‘Mr – Don,’ says Mary, ‘it’s not a question of money. We aren’t paupers.’

‘Didn’t say you were,’ starts Dad, but fortunately, she ploughs on before he can dig any deeper.

‘We have arrangements.’

‘Like what?’ asks Mum.

‘I’ve not spent a Christmas away from Bourton Allhallows in seventy-five years,’ announces Beatrice.

‘Do you good to have a change, eh?’ says Yaya sharply.

‘Well … we have people.’

‘Who?’

‘Hilary, obviously … and Roly. Roly Cruikshank.’

‘Who’s Roly Cruikshank?’ asks Mum on the side to me.

‘Local boy,’ I tell her. ‘Bit of a loser.’

‘Oh right. Inbreed?’

‘Wouldn’t go that far, but I don’t suppose he can cook for himself. If brains were elastic, his pants would fall down, that sort of thing.’

‘Oh. Fair enough. Can’t leave the charity cases.’

She speaks to the room. ‘That’s not a problem. Hilary, you’re welcome, as our guest, and Roly can come to dinner too. God, he can check in with us if he can’t find a tin-opener.’

‘Yes, but all the food … and Mrs Roberts is expecting to cook.’

‘She can take the day off, can’t she?’ asks Mum. ‘Wouldn’t that be normal? Spend it with her family?’

‘Mrs Roberts always cooks on Christmas Day.’

‘Good Lord. Doesn’t she have anything better to do?’