Family Album (19 page)

“Did you know?” asks Philip, later that evening, in the Turkish place.

“Not consciously. Not till later, when one put two and two together.”

Alison remembers that time with absolute clarity. That is to say, she remembers seminal moments. She remembers being locked in dispute with Ingrid somewhere in the garden, where they cannot be overheard. Dispute? She is the supplicant. Ingrid is rock hard, immovable. “I am not sure,” she says. “If I come back. Perhaps.”

“You
must
come back,” cries Alison. “The children would be devastated, you know that, the little ones especially. Clare is so young still. They’ve never known Allersmead without you.”

Ingrid shrugs. “Perhaps I take . . .”

“No!”
says Alison violently.

They stare at each other.

“This is a
family,
” wails Alison. “You know that.”

“
Talk
to her,” she says to Charles.

Charles looks out of the window. “She is a free agent, Alison.”

“Just so it’s clear to her how much
everyone
wants to be sure she’s coming back.”

Charles is silent. After a while he says, “I daresay things will work out somehow.”

Alison makes a wild gesture. “That’s what you said . . . then.”

“And I suppose that is what has happened, if you look at it objectively, which is why we are having this conversation.”

How long? Months, rather than weeks. One postcard says that Ingrid is having a holiday with some cousins on this pretty fjord, another that she is doing for a while some work in a restaurant, she has made chocolate brownies just like Alison’s! These periodic reminders mean that no one is able to forget that Ingrid is no longer there; they prompt questions, for which Alison has no answer. There is damage to the status quo; Allersmead is not as it should be. And of course Alison is not just on edge, she is overworked, she has too much to do, she has to scamp the cooking, meals are late and substandard, she forgets the washing and there are no clean socks, the dog has fleas because only Ingrid ever remembered to put the flea collar on.

“Why did she go?” says Philip. “Interesting move. But why?”

“Who knows? A whim? A challenge?”

“Challenging who or what?”

“The facts,” says Gina. “The situation.”

“Of which you were aware? You children.”

She nods. “Sort of. Just it was never mentioned.”

They know. They all know, eventually. They know but the knowledge is tamped down, stowed away somewhere out of sight and out of mind. The house knows, and is silent, locking away what has been done and said and thought. No one quite remembers anymore how they know, it is as though the knowledge was not suppressed but arrived through some osmotic process, absorbed from Allersmead daily life, an insidious understanding that seeped from person to person. Not that there were conversations, exchanges, comments. No one has wished to discuss it; if ever the facts of the matter seemed to smolder dangerously, there would be a concerted move to stamp out the embers, to move away, to find safe territory elsewhere.

“We just didn’t talk about it,” says Gina. “Best policy, eh?”

“But how was Clare’s birth explained?”

“Ingrid went and fetched her from some people who were too poor to look after her, so they gave her to us—a lovely present.”

“Ah. I see.” Philip hears Alison’s voice.

“And thereafter the matter was not referred to,” says Gina. “She was simply there, and that was all there was to it.”

Indeed, no one talks about it. Corinna, to her credit, does not talk about it, except perhaps occasionally to Martin, who is only mildly interested. Corinna is much interested, and will never forget that moment of revelation, at the Allersmead kitchen table. For her it is a seminal moment not just because of the revelation, but because she sees it as a nice instance of a way in which such a revelation changes the entire perception of a scene. Allersmead was reshuffled and rearranged, as she sat there, like the fragments of a kaleidoscope.

It was lunch. Family lunch to which Corinna has come because she was going to be driving this way in any case and she is guiltily aware of not having visited for some while. They are all at the table, children ranged along each side, Alison and Ingrid at one end, serving food, Charles at the other with Corinna beside him. She has not seen the children for eighteen months at least and everyone has grown, naturally enough. Paul is a skinny twelve-year-old, with his father’s distinctive bony nose, Gina peers out from under a dark fringe, sharp-eyed, Sandra has a glossy brown ponytail and looks older but Corinna remembers that she is number three. Roger and Katie have both of them Alison’s gingery frizzy hair, and a scatter of freckles. Clare—not much more than a baby last time Corinna saw her—has flaxen straight hair and a little pink face. Corinna looks intently at Clare.

Alison is serving up stew from a vast tureen. Ingrid dispenses vegetables—mashed potatoes and greens. Filled plates are passed down the table, portions neatly matched to size of child; it is a deft operation, well-coordinated teamwork.

Corinna stares at Ingrid. Then again at Clare.

I see. Oh, I see.

But who, then, is . . . ?

She looks at Charles.

Of course. What au pair girl stays for twelve years? How obtuse one has been. Of course.

She looks at Alison, smiling down the table. Always smiling, Alison.

“Well, quite,” says Philip. “No point in harping on it, indeed. Your mother, though, she puzzles me rather . . .”

“My mother was unfathomable.”

“You would think she’d feel she was well shot of Ingrid.”

“Oh no. No way.”