House of Silence (6 page)

Is that what I am, thought Deborah. Or is
that what Alfie is? She reached for the twenty-sixth copy of TDH,
wondering if the reel of Sellotape would hold out. He was such a
nice boy. So talented. He deserved to do well. She followed his
career, saved the cuttings and made a little scrapbook for Rae
every year as a Christmas gift. It would be rather thin this year.
Alfie didn’t seem to work quite as much as he used to, which was a
bit worrying.

Wrapping the twenty-seventh copy, Deborah
turned her mind to end-of-term projects. She was damned if they
were going to sit around watching DVDs for the last week of term,
especially not movies her pupils brought in (some of which were
rated 18). Nor was she prepared to watch pop DVDs that seemed
derived in style and content from soft-core porn. Not that she’d
ever viewed any porn, but that’s what they said in the staff-room.
When she’d cleared out the last of Bryan’s stuff, she’d found some
DVDs and, seeing the lurid covers, the flesh and the leather, she’d
thought at first they must be Heavy Metal. (Bryan liked to think of
himself as an old Rocker and treasured his vinyl collection of
Black Sabbath albums.)

But they weren’t Heavy Metal. And she hadn’t
watched them.

If only he’d
said
. She’d had no idea
Bryan was unhappy. She was broad-minded. Heaven knows, you had to
be working in a place like this, where small pupils gave you too
much information about their parents’ domestic arrangements, even
their sexual habits. If only Bryan had
talked
to her,
instead of just clearing off. But Fanny said that was men for you.
They weren’t interested in working things out, only working things
off.

With tears now pricking her eyes, Deborah
looked up from copy number twenty-eight and gazed round the room at
the mural her class had made representing
The Twelve Days of
Christmas
, that hymn to materialism, over-indulgence and
Beckham-style extravagance. Perhaps there was an end-of-term maths
project there? A bit of number fun. How many gifts did her true
love actually send on the twelfth day? And - as an extension
activity for the brighter ones - how many presents had she received
cumulatively over the twelve-day period? How many hens, ducks,
geese, etc were there? The class could draw a bar chart to record
this, then when everyone was exhausted, they could colour it in
mindlessly, in Christmas colours.

She wondered if there were any gold crayons
left or whether Leanne O’Leary had stolen them all. Leanne’s mum’s
boyfriend was a local fence, to whom the light-fingered Leanne
appeared to be apprenticed, but Deborah imagined there was a
limited market for gold crayons. Now glitter glue -
that
was
a different matter. But she kept the glitter glue under lock and
key with the other valuables.

Reaching for the final copy of TDH, Deborah
longed for rest. For silence. For blankness.

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall
be called the children of God.

That was it. That was your reward. You were
called “a child of God”. It didn’t seem a lot. Not much of an
incentive. You’d have a hard time selling
that
to Leanne
O’Leary.

Oh well. There was nothing Deborah wanted
for Christmas anyway. She’d even stopped wanting Bryan back. She
just wanted peace. Peace and goodwill towards men. And her sisters.
And her mother. And Alfie.

Was it really such a lot to ask?

From: Frances Judd
[email protected]

Sent: 12 December 2008 20:33:10

To:
[email protected]

Subject: Xmas comes but once a year

Ciao Alfredo!

It’s that time of year again! :-( Just
wanted to say looking forward to seeing you. I’ll be there on Xmas
Eve - and not a moment before - and I may bring a man. If so, it
won’t be my husband. Mike and I have gone our separate ways.
(Quelle surprise!)
Didn’t bother to update you, thought it
could wait till Xmas when we can have a good old gossip.

If I do bring a man, he’ll be called
Mark
. Confusing, I know, but be an angel
and try not to call him Mike. This one’s quite sweet and quite rich
and let’s face it, darling, I’m not getting any younger. I’ve
warned him about The Addams Family - esp. my irritating (but
adorable) kid brother - but it would be nice if for once the clan
didn’t live down to my expectations.

Saw photo of you in the
Telegraph
mag
with some anorexic floozie falling out of her dress. Will somebody
please tell me what is erotic about
ribs
?
She looked like a joint of beef. Nice pic of you though. But did my
eyes deceive me, or did I spot some silver threads among the
gold?... Your Sexy Schoolboy days are surely numbered, sweetie.
Does
Grecian 2000
come in Golden Blond, I wonder? ;-)

Your fan,

Fan

XXX

Hattie sat by the sitting-room fire, her workbox at
her feet, her embroidery hoop on her lap, executing the final
stitches in a labour of love: a sampler she’d designed herself
using coloured pencils and graph paper. She’d studied faded family
heirlooms beforehand and, taking her lead from them, had included
her full name,
Harriet Susan Donovan
and her date of birth,
April 21
^st
1973
. She’d
attempted to depict a view of Creake Hall but the finished result,
necessarily simplified, resembled a dolls’ house. Resembling dolls
were four female figures standing in a line, descending in height.
At the end of what looked something like a bus queue was a doll’s
doll: a much smaller, trousered figure holding the hand of the
smallest female. The two smallest figures were extravagantly
yellow-haired. The other three were dark. (Hattie had originally
attempted portraits of Harris and Lewis but the white dogs were
almost invisible against a neutral background, so she’d unpicked
them, feeling faintly guilty about this act of artistic
elimination.)

Hattie wondered if she should tone down the
bright hair of the figure representing herself. Her hair, blonde
when she was a child, had faded to an ashy light brown but her
curls were still copious and unruly. She no longer plaited her hair
but left it loose or held it back with an elastic band.

She decided to leave the abundant yellow
hair of her childhood self. She was not after all aiming at
photographic reproduction - accuracy of any kind, in fact. That was
Fanny’s job. In Hattie’s picture the house and figures merely
formed a frame for her text: a rhyme she’d known for many years, a
ditty of uncertain origin, one that she’d perhaps learned from her
father or grandmother or some other long-dead, half-remembered
relation. Hattie had always liked the rhyme even when she hadn’t
really understood what it meant. When she was old enough to
appreciate its meaning, she adopted it as a personal mantra, a
comforting incantation.

She’d intended to give Alfie the postage
stamp quilt for Christmas this year until she’d overheard Vivien
talking about it on the phone to Deborah. Viv had laughed and her
words had made Hattie re-consider. She’d decided she would save the
quilt until she found a more suitable recipient, although she had
no idea who that could possibly be. Hattie rarely met new people
and the family never seemed to expand, only contract as one
brother-in-law after another disappeared from the scene.

Short of time and daylight hours, Hattie had
hit upon the idea of making a sampler for Alfie. It would be a
small item and he could hang it on the wall in his flat. Or not.
Since Hattie had never been invited to visit Alfie’s home, she
would never know if he displayed her gift. But even if he chose not
to, she thought he might appreciate the sentiments behind it. Alfie
was clever and he loved words. He of all people would appreciate
that the expression of her gratitude must remain coded.

Hattie picked up a pair of tiny silver
scissors in the shape of a bird and snipped the thread with the
bird’s long beak. She released the canvas from its frame and spread
it out on her lap. Though she’d long known them by heart, she read
the lines over and smiled as she wondered what Alfie would make of
them.

If you your lips would keep from slips,
Five things observe with care:
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak,
And how and when and where.

If you your ears would save from jeers,
These things keep meekly hid:
Myself and me, and my and mine,
And how I do and did.

Gwen

If Alfie’s family objected to an extra houseguest I
didn’t get to hear about it. We set off from London by car on
December 23
^rd
. Alfie drove and once we got north of
Fakenham, the Norfolk landscape began to roll out in front of us
like a carpet in an empty room: flat, at times almost featureless,
apart from hedgerows and an occasional windmill. The grey sky
looked vast and cold as we drew nearer to the coast and I noticed
Alfie take a firmer grip of the wheel as the wind began to buffet
the car.

He’d insisted I would need thermal underwear
for our trip and informed me, with a sad shake of his head, that
sexual congress was unlikely to take place over the holiday period
as we’d be wearing so many clothes, we wouldn’t be able to get near
each other, and if we did, the intense cold would have shrunk his
member beyond usefulness. I took no notice of any of this, used as
I was to sea air and Alfie’s tendency to exaggerate, but I’d packed
fleece pyjamas, some serious Norwegian socks and a selection of
warm jumpers. Alfie assured me it would be necessary at night to
wear all these garments simultaneously.

‘And don’t, whatever you do, get out of bed
in the morning and step onto the lino in bare feet! It will be
freezing and your skin will adhere to the floor. Then we’ll have to
send for Tyler and his trusty blow torch to thaw you out.

‘Tyler?’

‘Handyman-gardener. Viv’s right hand
man.’

‘But not Viv’s—’

‘Oh no,
definitely
not. I’ve always
suspected Vivien is of the Sapphic persuasion, if she’s anything at
all. She’s lived at Creake Hall all her life, so her private parts
have probably atrophied with the cold anyway. Viv’s certainly never
shown any interest in men. Apart from Tyler, but theirs is a
communion of the spirit. They share a passion for gardening but not
- as far as I know - each other. But you never can tell. They say
you have to watch the quiet ones, and Tyler is
very
quiet.’

‘Are you going to fill me in on the rest of
the family before we get there? You haven’t really said much.’

‘I told you what to buy them for
Christmas.’

‘That didn’t tell me much about them as
people. As your
family
.

‘You want me to dish the dirt, you
mean?’

‘No! I just meant I’d like to know a bit
more... Though dirt is always fun.’

‘I can see I’m having a corrupting influence
on you, Gwen.’

‘Oh, I never believe anything you tell me,
on principle. But I’m sure an account of your family would be very
entertaining, even it
is
a pack of lies. Which I assume it
would be.’

‘Me, tell lies? I’ll have you know, I have a
scrupulous regard for truth, just a rather cavalier attitude to the
English language.’

‘The facts, Alfie. Just give me the
facts.’

He raised one hand from the wheel and
affirmed, ‘I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and,’ with a
sidelong glance at me and a crooked smile, ‘nothing like the
truth... I am the fifth child and only son of Rachael Holbrook,
reclusive children’s author. Seventy-two. Eccentric. Difficult.
Lucid on the page, rarely in person. She keeps to her room and
communicates with the outside world through an intermediary: her
eldest daughter, Vivien, fifty-one. She looks older, but then poor
Viv has led a dog’s life. Except that the Holbrook dogs - two West
Highland terriers called Harris and Lewis - are spoiled rotten and
actually lead the life of Reilly. Who
was
Reilly, by the
way? I’ve always wondered.’

‘I think it comes from an old music hall
song... Mind that pheasant!’

We were off the main road now and Alfie
negotiated the winding country lanes too fast for comfort, but with
considerable panache. He continued in declamatory style. ‘Viv is
secretary, PA, nurse, confidante, whipping boy, chief cook and
bottle-washer to my mother. Viv runs the house, the garden and the
gardener, for which she receives few thanks, but is allowed to live
at Creake Hall, the only home she’s ever known. Vivien is the
possessor of a fine brain and, I suspect, some writing talent,
which Rae has done her best to discourage, there being room for
only one writer in the Holbrook household.

‘Strangely, Vivien loves her mother, but
that love is unrequited. Rae has no time for her eldest daughter.
For
any
of her daughters, in fact. They are all bitter
disappointments to her, for the simple reason they are
daughters
. Rae wanted a son and she made five attempts to
produce one. The longed-for son and heir finally arrived -
unexpectedly and some weeks premature - in 1979 when Rae was
forty-three. Time had finally run out for her, so if she treats me
as her little miracle, you must make allowances. She’d given up
hope, you see. Resigned herself to the inevitable when - at the
eleventh hour - I appeared on the scene, validating two marriages,
five pregnancies and a stalled writing career. Eventually I became
the muse, the consolation prize for four dull daughters and two
dead husbands - one of whom was a bore and the other a
philanderer.’ Alfie swerved suddenly to avoid another pheasant bent
on suicide. ‘As you can imagine, the weight of responsibility lay
heavy on my tiny shoulders. They’re a lot broader now, but my
burden seems to have increased. Like that saint, the one who
carries the child across the river. Which one
is
that?’