Love Always (17 page)

‘I’ll go and help with the bags,’ said Guy, glad to have an excuse to disappear.

‘We’ve been overrun with young people,’ Frances told her sister. ‘Absolutely overrun with them. I’ve been feeling terribly old and dowdy, and now you and John are here, we can redress the balance.’ She smiled manically at Pamela, as if she wasn’t sure who she was.

‘I hope the children have been behaving themselves,’ Pamela said. ‘That they’ve not been too much trouble.’

‘The children?’ Frances tugged at a blue glass necklace hanging round her neck. ‘Oh . . . goodness, no. They’re wonderful. Terrific to have them all here. And the Leightons are lovely boys. I think they’ve been getting along fine – I’m afraid we’ve been terribly lax hosts,’ she said, scratching her head and smiling vaguely as Guy reappeared, carrying two suitcases, followed by John James, who was taking off his driving gloves as he entered the house. ‘Ah, John, how lovely!’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘I was just saying to Pamela, I’m sure the children have been getting up to all sorts of mischief. It’s a good thing you’re both here, I’m sure!’

Only then did she catch sight of Archie, and she ran her hand rather helplessly over her brow. ‘Goodness, Archie, you have been in the wars, darling.’

They were all silent. Pamela and John stood there, watching them. From upstairs came the sound of Louisa’s weeping.

‘Is that
crying
?’ Pamela said, as if she’d never heard it before.

‘Oh, dear,’ Frances said, looking almost annoyed. ‘What have you all been up to?’

‘You really didn’t hear, did you?’ Cecily said quietly to her mother.

‘No,’ Frances said. ‘Have you all gone wild? Started beating each other up? Is this
Lord of the Flies
?’ She laughed, but it sounded odd, harsh.

‘What have we let ourselves in for, dear?’ John said, rocking on his feet. His face was stern; he was only partly joking.

There was no answer to this. The others were silent. Frances went over to the front door, pushing it shut. ‘Come in,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘I’ll find out when lunch will be ready. I’m sorry. Welcome, welcome.’

Chapter Eighteen

There would be no ‘Please Please Me’ blaring out of the sitting-room record player into the dining room now that Pamela and John were here, that much was obvious. There would also be no smoking after dinner, and Cecily would not be given her customary glass of wine. And there would be no lazing around on the terrace afterwards. Something in the atmosphere had shifted that day.

When Pamela and John came into the living room that evening, Guy was saying to Frances, ‘The Stratford by-election is soon, isn’t it? I bet old Macmillan must be terrified. The way things are going, that Monster Raving Loony party could win it, you know. They’ve certainly got my vote.’

‘I don’t think that’s a suitable subject for discussion,’ said Pamela, stopping in front of him. ‘And I don’t think one should refer to the Prime Minister of one’s country as “Old Macmillan”, Guy.’

Frances jumped up. ‘No, of course not,’ she said cravenly, shooting Guy a glance of apology. ‘Quite right. Jeremy, will you get your mother a drink? Pam, will you have a gimlet? Darling, that’s a beautiful dress, you put me quite to shame.’ She patted her sister’s arm and turned, catching sight of her daughters, who were looking bored on the sofa. ‘Miranda, Cecily, you look like vagrants,’ she said, her voice sharp. ‘Go and change, for God’s sake.’

Looking slightly surprised at her mother’s harsh tone, Cecily said, ‘But Mummy, Guy and I were picking the blackberries, you said it was all right.’

‘Not like that,’ Frances said. ‘Look at you.’ She waved a hand, encompassing her youngest daughter’s stained yellow shorts and crumpled white cotton top. Cecily’s hair was in knots where the wind had caught it. ‘Guy changed, why on earth can’t you?’

Cecily turned to her, mystified. ‘Mother, you are very very annoying.’

‘Cecily!’ Pamela said, scandalised. ‘You shouldn’t talk to your mother like that.’

‘She
is
annoying,’ Cecily said. ‘In the mornings when she paints me she’s always trying to get me to be more ruffled up and dirty, and when I am, she tells me to go and change! Come on, Miranda.’

‘I’m not changing,’ Miranda said. She crossed her arms and stared defiantly at her mother, thick hair tossed to one side, her rosebud lips pouting.

‘Oh, yes you are,’ Frances said, her voice quiet.

Miranda squared up to her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to. And you know you can’t make me.’

She carried on staring at Frances, her jaw set, her eyes blazing. Cecily watched them.

‘Fine,’ Frances said eventually, turning away from Miranda, but not before she’d given her a cold, hard look, quite chilling. ‘How did you get that scratch on your cheek?’ she said suddenly. Miranda covered her face with her hand, blushing.

‘Did it myself,’ she mumbled. ‘Where’s Archie?’ Frances asked. ‘Early night,’ Guy said. ‘Still a bit shaken.’ Frances looked as if she would ask something else, but then a voice behind her came from the corridor. ‘Ah. So, the outsiders are inside.’ Frances turned around gratefully.

‘He lives!’ she cried, trying to keep out the harshness she could hear creeping into her voice. ‘Darling, hello. Get a drink. How’s your day been?’

‘Unpleasant,’ Arvind said. ‘Troubling. Disrupted.’

He advanced gingerly into the room; he was uneasy around his tall, brash, far too English sister-in-law.

Frances went over to him, smiling suddenly. ‘Poor darling,’ she said. ‘Have a gimlet. Thank you, Mary.’

‘Welcome,’ Arvind said, raising his glass to Pamela and John. They nodded politely.

Silence threatened to engulf the room. ‘How – how is your work going?’ John enquired, looking vaguely from Arvind to Frances, both of whose professions, if you could call them that, were a source of mystery to him. John was a solicitor of the old school. Philosophers and painters were outside his remit but, unlike his wife, he thought you had to ask to find out.

Frances and Arvind looked at each other, like naughty children caught by a teacher.

‘You first,’ said Arvind. ‘Oh, well. I’m preparing for a show, at the Du Vallon Gallery, in September,’ Frances said.

‘How interesting.’ John nodded. ‘Thank you.’ Frances smiled. ‘We’re having a party! They’re sending out invitations soon.’

John nodded again. ‘Delightful.’

There was an awkward pause. ‘Did you – did you hear about Ward taking an overdose?’ Miranda said. Her mother frowned.

‘They say he won’t make it through the night,’ Jeremy added.

‘This whole case,’ John said, shaking his head. ‘The state of the country after this trial is over – the damage will be incalculable.’

Pamela nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I agree. Some of the details—!’ She shook her head.

Frances batted her husband playfully on the arm. ‘Go and see if Mary’s ready for us, will you, darling?’

‘Of course!’ Arvind exclaimed with relief. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, exiting for the kitchen.

Guy was watching this exchange when a movement by the French windows caught his eye. Cecily had reappeared, in a simple black linen dress, her hair smooth and gleaming, her cheeks flushed. She was leaning against the door frame, staring at them, smiling, her eyes full of tears.

‘Hey, I say.’ He went over and nudged her. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing!’ she said quickly, brushing away something on her cheek. ‘I’m just a bit tired. It’s almost too hot, isn’t it? There’s a storm coming, I think, there’s no breeze at all.’

Guy ignored this. ‘Cecily? What’s wrong?’

She smiled. ‘Darling Guy. Nothing. They’re so funny, my parents, that’s all. I don’t understand them. I look at them and I think I don’t really know them at all. That must sound silly.’

‘You never sound silly,’ Guy said, his voice full of warmth. ‘Trust me.’

‘You’re being nice.’ She turned to him, her face glowing, and Guy was taken aback; she was so beautiful in that moment, her clear coffee-coloured skin covered with a smattering of dark caramel freckles from the sun, her green eyes so dark they were almost black, and the evening breeze ruffling her hair. He caught his breath; the smell of lavender from the bushes next to them was almost intoxicating. She breathed in too, with a shudder. ‘I sometimes think I’m too emotional. Most of the girls at school, they’re quite happy to leave their parents and brothers and sisters behind, for months on end. And their homes. I hate it, you know. I love them and I love it here, it’s awful being away. And then I come back and I forget . . . how things are.’

He was touched. ‘Why don’t you tell them?’

Cecily shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, it’s good for me to toughen up, I’m sure. I just – I wish I didn’t
feel
things so much. All the time.’

‘Such as?’

She stared at him. ‘I – I can’t say.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Oh, Guy, I wish I could. To you of all people, I wish I could. But I can’t.’

‘It’s a good thing, feeling too much, Cecily,’ he said. ‘It means you care . . .’ He touched her bare arm and was surprised when she jumped. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

‘You didn’t,’ she said. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, and raised her eyes to his, slowly.

‘God . . .’ Guy heard himself saying. ‘You really are beautiful, Cecily.’

They stared at each other, blankly, for a moment. He held out his hand – she held hers out too. For a split second their fingers touched, and then she stepped away, hastily, and Guy was left standing by the window, watching her as she picked her way towards her mother. Something strange, fundamental, was shifting within him. He called to her, in a low voice, ‘Cecily—’

But she ignored him.

He did not take his eyes off her until they were called in to dinner.

Louisa linked her arm through Frank’s as they walked towards the dining room.

‘I do hope Daddy isn’t too boring,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘He can be rather . . . old-fashioned. He’s furious about the Profumo affair, I don’t quite know why. He tends to expound, once he’s had a glass of wine. It’s rather mortifying.’

‘Oh, I’m used to it.’ Frank yawned, and nodded. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Awfully tired. Don’t mind me, Louisa. Not on very good form tonight.’

Louisa squeezed his arm in jokey exasperation. ‘How can you be tired? You had a nap this afternoon while we were all swimming and picking blackberries, didn’t you?’

‘Perhaps that’s the problem,’ Frank said. ‘Oh, too much sleep, I suppose. It’s – I’m much better now, promise.’

She looked up at him. ‘Are you . . . all right, darling?’

‘I am.’ Frank squeezed her arm back. ‘Been on rather subdued form, I’m sorry. I am very all right.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Listen, I’ve been rather a brute this holiday, I know. Trying to persuade you to do something you don’t want to. Will you come for a walk with me, after supper? Steal away when the grown-ups have gone to bed?’

‘Frank?’

‘There’s something we need to talk about,’ he said. He took her hand and squeezed it tight and Louisa smiled, her eyes filling with tears.

There came voices from next door and suddenly her expression changed.

‘Oh, dear,’ Louisa said. ‘I think I was right.’

‘About what?’ Frank sounded alarmed. ‘Right about Daddy.’

‘Absolute rubbish,’ John James was saying, as they sat down. ‘I tell you, the woman is a common prostitute, nothing more. The men she was associating with. Black men, in Notting Hill. That Edgecombe fellow, turning up and shooting people. Those are the people Mr Powell is talking about and I for one can’t blame him. What are we coming to? It’s all very well, and yes, people must be allowed to come into the country, but when they set up enclaves like this . . .’ He waved his wine glass in the air. ‘Whole system starts to go to pot.’

‘What system?’ Miranda was sitting opposite him, in between Guy and Cecily. She was examining her dirty fingernails. She barely raised her voice; it was the disdain in her tone that was most surprising of all. ‘The system of white men oppressing everyone else for hundreds of years? Or the system of raping countries and people so you can make money?’

All of a sudden, the atmosphere in the room was electric. ‘Miranda –’ Frances said, in a warning tone. ‘There’s coronation chicken and salad,’ Mary said in a bright voice. ‘If that’s all—’

The others were all sitting still. No one got up. John said, ‘Young lady, you are confusing the argument. It’s a question of how our own great country has been polluted, is being polluted, with the question of immigration, with this lax – lax behaviour in public life . . .’ He trailed off, cleared his throat, and then said, ‘With all respect, I don’t think you know what you are talking about.’

‘Of course I don’t,’ Miranda said scornfully. ‘I’m just a girl, what would I know? After all, girls are pretty stupid, aren’t they?’

‘Miranda –’ Cecily hissed desperately, next to her. Her uncle was watching her, imperturbable, one eyebrow slightly raised, cold grey eyes in a thin, sculptured face.

‘I don’t think,’ said Pamela, ‘this is appropriate.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Louisa, have you been keeping up with your tennis? Frank,’ she said, ‘do you know that Louisa’s tennis instructor says she’s—’

‘No,’ Miranda’s voice cut through, biting and clear. ‘Girls aren’t nearly as clever as boys, of course not. They’re born with fewer brain cells, did you know that? They can’t drive properly or do science or maths, you know? All they’re really good for is . . .’

‘Yes?’ John looked disdainfully at his niece. ‘Do enlighten me, Miranda.’

‘Fucking and cooking,’ Miranda said, standing up and throwing her napkin on her heaped plate, which Mary had just set down. Louisa gasped, and Guy screwed his napkin into his fist. ‘That’s all we’re good for, wouldn’t you say?’ She stopped and looked round then, as if realising there was no turning back, she took a deep breath and ploughed recklessly on. ‘Even someone like me, though, that’s the question? Me, and my sister, and my brother, and my dad, do you really want us, polluting the country?’

‘
Miranda!
’ her mother hissed furiously. ‘Miranda, apologise to your uncle!’

‘Oh, don’t you dare talk to me,’ Miranda told Frances, her eyes blazing. ‘You of all people, don’t you dare! You’re the biggest hypocrite of them all, telling me what’s best for me, how worthless I am!’ Frances looked as though she’d just been slapped. ‘Yes, we’re in such an
honest
country too, aren’t we?’ Miranda’s voice shook. ‘Not hypocritical at all, oh, no. Definitely worth preserving the old way of life. Essential.’ Her face was pale; her eyes were huge. ‘I wish Archie were here. He’d say it better. Oh, hang it all.’

She took Cecily’s hand in hers and gripped it. Cecily wriggled away, embarrassed. She could not bear to look up at her sister, as if she were a leper on the street.

Into the stunned silence a voice spoke from the end of the table.

‘No, Cecily, take your sister’s hand,’ Arvind said. ‘Well said, Miranda,’ he told his eldest daughter. ‘Very well said. You don’t need to swear, but you are absolutely right in everything else you say.’

Miranda looked from him to her mother, who was looking down at her plate, not meeting anyone’s eye, and then back again at her father, smiling very faintly at him, almost in shock.