Relative Love (64 page)

John took his whisky from Peter and drank deeply but unsteadily. ‘Hurricane Louis, eh? The last I heard it was burning itself out in the Gulf of Mexico.’

‘It was,’ said Peter, sipping the much smaller Scotch he had poured for himself. ‘It picked up today and turned on Florida. Got nasty. For a time we were worried as hell.’ He put his glass back up to his lips, then dropped it again as another thought occurred to him. ‘Talk about a dramatic exit.’ He shook his head. ‘Eric, I mean, going on your birthday and with the worst hurricane in two decades raging across the globe.’ He drained his glass.

Shortly afterwards they all made their way up to bed. All, that is, except John, who told Pamela he needed some time on his own, then took his glass and the whisky bottle into his study and closed the door. He needed time on his own, all right, not just to mourn his brother, as she supposed, but to consider the potentially far grimmer blow of Hurricane Louis. Overcome, understandably, with concern for Charlie, it hadn’t occurred to any of them – not even Peter – that a hurricane of such immense proportions posed a threat of another kind; a financial threat of a magnitude that John, nursing his drink in the old leather chair in his study, could hardly bring himself to contemplate. None of them knew by how much he had lately allowed his liability across the Atlantic to grow, drawn by the irresistibility of all those generous, post-9/11 premiums. A hurricane was one of those rare natural disasters that could affect the entire spread of his syndicates – marine, non-marine, aviation, windstorm and, worst of all, reinsurance. He could be hit twice on every claim. In which case the cost would be astronomical. Possibly even bankrupting. As the whisky seared his throat John did his best to keep his rational self in gear. Worst-case scenarios rarely materialised. There was no need to worry yet, not until the claims started to come in. He poured himself another tot and sipped steadily. But the whisky burned like acid in his throat and stomach. What Peter had said kept coming back to him, until John could
not separate Eric’s death from the hurricane, until it seemed, in his befuddled state, that the conjunction of the two constituted some final epic act of ironic revenge. Eric had appeared, in life, to give him everything. But in death he had somehow whisked the security of Ashley House – of the future – from under his nose.

Upstairs Peter rolled on to his side to find Helen already half asleep, facing away from him. ‘I need you,’ he whispered, slipping one arm under her hip and the other across the upper side of her waist. He pulled her into the curve of his body, placing one hand protectively over the small mound of her belly, letting it linger there tenderly as he had wanted to do in the car. ‘This baby of ours … I’ve been thinking, maybe – just maybe – we should have it after all.’ For a moment she did not speak, but he could feel her wake up, feel her coming to life in his arms.

‘Because Eric has died?’ she said at length, her voice a whisper in the dark.

‘I guess that might have something to do with it. Life is short, isn’t it? And precious. Very precious.’ He nuzzled her neck with his nose. ‘It would change everything, you know that, don’t you? Tie us down, exhaust us. We would be ancient parents.’

‘I know.’ She sighed.

‘What does Kay say?’

‘Kay?’ Helen tensed slightly. In spite of Peter’s recent efforts, she knew something in him would always struggle to feel warm towards her friend. ‘Oh, you know Kay, she doesn’t think anything happens by accident.’

‘Well, maybe she’s right. Maybe we were
meant
to have another baby.’

‘Oh, Peter, do you think so?’ Helen twisted out of his arms and rolled over to face him. ‘It would be so lovely if you really thought that.’

He grimaced. ‘I’m trying … but it would change so much, not just in an everyday sense but fundamentally. I mean …’ Peter cleared his throat, approaching, in his own mind, the heart of the matter. ‘Take this place, for instance.’

‘Ashley House?’

‘Yes. Ashley House. Things are changing here too, aren’t they? And so bloody fast. Nothing’s quite the same.’

‘No, nothing’s the same,’ echoed Helen, whose own state of mind had been changing colours, changing shape all year.

‘Dad’s eighty, for Christ’s sake,’ continued Peter, ‘and Mum … well, she forgets things now and clearly finds just running the house something of a struggle, especially with all of us down here. Lately it’s felt somehow as if the whole set-up is at breaking-point. Like tonight, what with Eric and that bloody hurricane – I got this terrible feeling that everything might fall apart at any moment.’ He pulled his head back, trying to make out Helen’s expression. ‘What I mean,’ he pressed on, ‘is that we might be called upon to move here rather sooner than we think. Next year, even, or the year after. If Mum and Dad can’t manage they might ask us to take it over before they die. Which should be fine. It’s what I’ve always known would happen, in some form or other. Except …’ he faltered ‘… except that what you said, about the family mattering more than anything, is right, just as I was right to say that all the nuts and bolts of how that family holds together – money, health, all the practicalities – they matter too. And the fact is that with a new baby and two careers in London, not to mention Chloë being too young and thoroughly opposed to the idea of boarding-school, I just can’t see us living here,’ Peter concluded, despair in his voice. ‘I just can’t see it working.’

Helen was not sure what he was saying, or what response he was looking for. ‘So …’ she paused ‘… what can you see?’

‘I don’t know,’ he whispered, ‘I just don’t know. I’ve thought it all through from every angle, and all I’m certain of is that the pattern of the future depends on what we decide about this.’ He stroked her stomach again, through her nightie, with the back of his hand. ‘Which is why we’ve got to get it right. At this precise moment, with all that’s happened tonight, I feel we should go ahead, but I know that, come tomorrow or the next day, I’ll be as full of doubt as ever.’

‘But, then, that’s what making a choice is all about, isn’t it?’ she said softly, kissing the ruff of grey hairs that poked out of his pyjama top. ‘You choose in spite of doubts, then deal with the consequences.’

Peter sighed. ‘Yes, indeed. The consequences. Like, for example, deciding not to move down here when the time to do so presents itself. But the truth is, that wouldn’t be such a problem for you, would it? Because you … you’ve never been mad on the idea of taking this place over, have you?’

It was a long time before Helen replied. A time during which she weighed up the myriad choices of how to reply. Peter had an unwavering instinct for the truth; it was one of the many things she respected about him. What he had said was true, and as each year passed she had grown less and less mad at the prospect, as the enormity of such an undertaking became ever more real. They hadn’t clashed on the subject for months, but it had been hovering in the background, an unavoidable obstacle that would have to be negotiated or climbed when the time presented itself. ‘Not really,’ she whispered, shy herself of this terrible truth, fearful that it would harden the wonderful gentleness of her husband’s new mood and send him spinning back to the standard smouldering defence of the Harrison scheme of things and his place in it.

Peter remained silent, which Helen might have found worrying were it not for the feel of his fingers, still gently caressing her tummy. When he did speak, it was on another subject entirely and so many minutes later that it was too much of an effort even to open her eyes.

‘Mum looked pretty cut-up, I thought.’

‘Yes, I suppose she did.’

‘I wonder what she really feels about Eric dying, whether a part of her still loved him.’ Helen shrugged, too exhausted to imagine what her mother-in-law felt about anything, or even to care about it very much. She fell asleep with Peter’s hand still pressed to her belly, relaxed by the simple liberation of having spoken the truth and the comforting sense that, although nothing was yet decided, resolution was within their grasp.

OCTOBER

On the morning of the first Thursday in October Cassie woke to see a rainbow arching across her bedroom window, which was bare because she was redecorating. The curtains were in a neat pile next to the skirting-board. Several smears of sample colours were daubed round the walls. The rainbow’s stripe was as brilliantly clear and solid as a stick of rock, and seemed to spring from the still unopened paint pot perched on the window-sill, curving with mathematical precision up to the top step of the ladder leaning against the wall on the near side.

She stretched luxuriously, then reached out to switch off her alarm clock. The rainbow felt like a sign, as if she needed it, that things were getting better. Even during the prematurely wintry wind and drizzle that had set in after Uncle Eric’s death, as if in deliberate counterbalance to the vehement heat of August, Cassie had been aware that she was in the thick of emotional recovery. Huge swathes of time now passed without her thinking about Dan. When she did think of him it was more as a memory than as an existing, torturous emotion. The pain and longing were still there, but now had to be sought out instead of shadowing her every waking moment. Being busy had helped this process, as had the innately flattering fact that new work had come her way without her scouting for it. London, it seemed, was full of people waking up after the lull of summer to the knowledge that they hadn’t blown all their money on holidays and that a little redecorating could do wonders to lift the gloomy spirits induced by a damp autumn. Things had got so frantic that Cassie had tried to persuade Serena to come back and work for her in earnest, preferably without a novel in her handbag.

‘I need you,’ she had pleaded, imagining she was being helpful as well as truthful, adding, a little slyly, ‘and it would make Charlie happy, wouldn’t it?’

Rather to her surprise Serena had laughed. ‘Thank God I don’t have to worry about that any more. Other worries, yes – heaps in fact – but not that.’

‘Sorry? I don’t follow.’

‘You know, Cass, the frightening thing about losing the plot is that the one losing it never realises.’

‘No … of course …’ Cassie had murmured, still uncertain what her sister-in-law was referring to and wondering which tack to try next. ‘I could pay quite well …’

‘Oh, crumbs – thank you, Cass, but no. Working for you at the moment is out of the question. I
am
sorry,’ Serena added, sounding energised rather than regretful, ‘but there’s rather a lot going on at home, what with one thing and another.’

‘Oh, God, Clem – of course. How is she?’ blurted Cassie, appalled at herself for not having enquired earlier about this new drama going on in her brother’s household.

‘Oh, not so bad, thank you. She’s on what they call a treatment plan and seeing this wonderful psychologist every Friday and an equally wonderful psychiatrist once a month. I never knew the difference between the two till now, but one does all the therapy side of things while the other focuses on diagnosis and gauges how it’s going. And it’s not just Clem who’s being counselled up to her eyeballs, poor love. Early on – much to Ed’s disgust, though the girls and Charlie were fine about it – we had a couple of family sessions too, and I’m now seeing a bereavement counsellor which I should have done yonks ago —’ Serena broke off from her flow. Then she added softly, ‘It all goes back to Tina, of course. Everything goes back to Tina.’

‘To Tina, of course,’ Cassie had echoed, humbled by the comparable triviality of her own needs and wondering – as they all had at different times since the revelation of Clem’s condition – what more she could have done to prevent her niece getting into such a state. The poor darling
had shrunk to a skeletal six stone – before their very eyes – and none of them had done anything except exchange the occasional muted remark and offer second helpings of roast potatoes.

‘It’s a relief in a way,’ continued Serena, talking with all her old openness, ‘I mean, having a problem recognised at least means you can start to deal with it. Life, to be frank, had got really ghastly. I was all over the place, yelling at everybody or ignoring them, not facing up to anything. If it had carried on Clem would have starved herself to death by now and Charlie and I would be living under separate roofs.’

‘Really? You mean you and Charlie …’ Cassie tailed off at the notion that the mutual grief of such a close couple could have been so divisive. ‘Because of Tina?’

Serena sighed. ‘Yes. Of course. What else? Our ways of suffering were so different … We couldn’t help each other. We were drifting apart. But not any more,’ she added firmly. ‘Not any more. There are no miracle cures, of course, on any front. Clem certainly has her ups and her downs – but at least we’re
functioning
again as a family. Maisie’s being difficult, which is always a good sign, and Ed’s cock-a-hoop because he’s been made football captain for his year. And Charlie and I have started having sex again, which can’t be bad, can it?’

‘No,’ Cassie had agreed, laughing because Serena was. Her sister-in-law had been subdued for so many months she had forgotten how emotionally fearless she could be, how she could offer up the most intimate information with such uncalculating and endearing candour. ‘That’s great.’ She laughed again, at the same time experiencing a small tug of regret at her own tiny world and the recollection of how she had hoped – quite recently – to expand it to encompass all the things Serena was talking about. Cassie’s life was full, but only of things connected to herself. She worked, she ate, she slept. If any spare moments presented themselves they were now allocated to the insular and somewhat pedestrian challenge of redecorating her flat.

Lying in bed that bright October morning, recalling this conversation and her reaction to it, it occurred to Cassie that what she missed quite as much as Dan was being in love, the adrenaline of desire, the focus on someone other than herself, the magical transformation of the simplest mundanities that love allowed. Next to her the rainbow was fading, shrinking into the blue canvas of the sky. For a few moments an ephemeral shadow of colour shimmered, a faint imprint of the once glorious arc, and then, suddenly, it was gone. Cassie felt irrationally bereft. For a while longer she stared through the window, part of her still hunting for some signature of colour among the sea of blue. Finding none, her good mood ebbed away. A moment later her eyes were pricking with tears. Instead of giving in to them, aware that the abyss she worked so hard to avoid was yawning, Cassie threw back the bedclothes and went in brisk search of breakfast. These days, her fridge and bread-bin were kept properly stocked, one of several encouraging signs that she regarded herself once again as an independent, coping individual, who deserved proper nurturing by herself if no one else. Soon she was sipping freshly filtered coffee and spilling croissant crumbs across her daily newspaper. When the phone rang, she answered it absently, her mouth still half full, her attention focused mostly on a heartrending story of a surrogate mother who had handed over a baby, then changed her mind.