Relative Love (9 page)

‘Once every couple of weeks,’ replied Peter, then added, with some pride, ‘And I’m going regularly to a gym now, one of a chain of places near chambers.’ He poked the bulge of his brother’s stomach, protruding over the waist of his shorts, with the end of his squash racket. ‘Looks like you do could with a bit more exercise, though.’

Charlie laughed, sufficiently used to and comfortable with his rotund frame to be unriled by the remark. ‘You’re just having a mid-life panic because you’re almost fifty and bald as a coot,’ he quipped, giving his brother’s shining crown a fond pat as they left the court and headed back down the corridor to the changing rooms. They were at Peter’s club, where they met every so often for a game of squash and a drink. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, a few minutes later, struggling with his socks because his feet were still damp from the shower, ‘I get loads of exercise charging round the park after a football with Ed. He’s bloody good for a twelve-year-old, you know,’ he added, unashamed as always of the fatherly pride he took in all his children. ‘He practises for hours. If he applied half as much commitment to his schoolwork we’d have a child genius on our hands. He’s got entry exams to St George’s in a few weeks and he’s doing bugger-all. God, it’s a pain being a parent sometimes, isn’t it, all the nagging one has to do?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ murmured Peter, thinking not of his own parenting, which had never involved nagging – least of all at Theo, who tackled any academic task with alacrity – but of Helen’s recent bout of complaints about Chloë. She missed her son but spent every evening shouting at her daughter. It was baffling. ‘Tell me, Charlie, would you send your lot away if you could afford it? I mean, looking down the track, you know, you probably
will
be able to afford it when … that is, when Mum and Dad kick the bucket.’ There was a faint look of apology in his eyes, both for mentioning the unhappy inevitability of their parents’ death and the undercurrent of a reference to the essentially unequal terms of their inheritance. In the same instant he recalled Helen’s increasingly jittery attitude towards this prospect, and flushed with irritation. Even
without Ashley House he was far wealthier than any of his siblings. To be so fortunate made it seem almost criminal to entertain doubts of any kind.

Charlie, however, whose genial nature had long since accommodated the inherent unfairness of the application of this primogeniture ruling for the long-term protection of their beloved family home, showed no corresponding flicker of concern. ‘Send our lot to boarding-school? Christ, no. Serena would lynch me if I ever suggested it. Not having a proper job and so on like Helen she’d go mad without the children. She likes to pretend Tina was a mistake but between you and me I’m not at all sure that’s true.’

Peter, now threading cufflinks into his shirt, looked up sharply, appalled at the notion of any wife, especially one as sweet-natured as his sister-in-law, being so devious. But Charlie was chuckling. ‘Serena would have babies till the cows came home, given half a chance. She was just
made
for it. Now, what about that beer? We’re celebrating, by the way, not just your usual mashing of me on the squash court, but the fact that I have somehow managed to get moved at work. No more bloody railways.’

‘A new posting? That’s great – you should have said. What have you got this time?’

‘The Shipping Directorate – bit of a sideways move, but much more out of the public eye, thank God, and the new minister is decent too.’ Charlie rubbed his hands, beaming. ‘Now, what’s it to be? A pint?’

‘Of orange squash, please.’

‘Have a beer, Peter, you arse.’

‘Maybe later.’

‘I’ve been very lucky, really,’ Charlie went on, happy to talk of a matter that had, in fact, given him much private anguish. ‘I mean, let’s face it, I’m not always the most motivated creature, which one could get away with in the early days, but I tell you, being in the civil service now is quite a different show – management systems, downsizing, corporate plans, targets, public accountability. It’s become a minefield. Putting myself forward for the job I half expected to be shown the door – join the long list of poor sods being assigned to “voluntary” redundancy.’ He raised his fingers to indicate quotation marks and then took a long, slow swig of beer, gasping with exaggerated satisfaction afterwards. ‘So, all in all, I’m rather pleased.’

‘I should think you are. Congratulations.’ Peter raised his glass, delighted at this latest evidence of his unashamedly unambitious brother’s knack for landing on his feet.

‘So, how are your lot anyway? Christmas seems an age away.’

‘Doesn’t it just? My lot are good, thanks,’ Peter continued quickly, never having been one for outpourings – to siblings or anyone else – on the ripples in his domestic life. ‘And yours?’

‘Great. Tina’s really started to talk in the last couple of weeks, which is keeping us all very entertained. She pointed at our neighbour the other day apparently and shouted, “Fart.” Serena said she nearly died of embarrassment. Ed’s not working, as I mentioned, except on his football and computer games – he’s bloody good at those, leaves me standing. And the girls, well … no doubt you saw how they were at Christmas. Both right little madams. Just you wait till Chloë gets to that age. Christ, they grow up quickly, though Maisie’s streets ahead of Clem – which is funny, I suppose, given that they’re twins, but I think siblings take on different roles, don’t they? Like us lot. You and Cassie were the good ones, while Lizzy and I battled away in a rather more unorthodox fashion. Poor old Lizzy, she seems so miserable all the time and I don’t know what any of us can do about it.’

‘Is Elizabeth miserable?’ Peter was genuinely surprised.

‘Well, Serena reckons she is and Serena’s usually right about these things. And Colin is a dull old stick, isn’t he? And they’re both bloody hopeless with Roland, treating the poor kid like some kind of breakable ornament.’

‘I’ve always thought Colin is just what Lizzy needs,’ said Peter stoutly, prompted by a dim sense that he, too, was something of a dry old stick and that the breed in general should be defended. ‘Someone solid and dependable after …’ he hesitated, struggling to recall the Christian name of his sister’s first husband ‘… Lucien.’ They groaned in unison. ‘There was an idle sod, if ever I saw one.’

‘Oh, I don’t know …’ Charlie caught the eye of the barman and pointed at his empty pint glass. ‘I think he was genuinely mad about Lizzy, but just so hopeless at organising himself – all that puff about being a freelance journalist and never writing any articles. It was really quite sad if you think about it. Mind you, I saw his name at the bottom of something in a magazine a couple of years ago, so I suppose he did go on to get some work in the end. Another pint … of
orange squash
?’

‘No, I’ve got to go. Sorry, Charlie, I really have. I promised Helen I’d be back by nine.’

‘Well, call her, for God’s sake. Or I will.’ Charlie patted his pockets in search of his mobile phone. ‘Christ, it’s not often we get together. She’s probably pleased to have a night on her tod. I know Serena is. She told me so, several times. She’s sprawled on the sofa watching some tearjerker with a girlfriend and a bottle of wine. Come on, Peter, relax for once. Have a half of something decent and tell me what you’re working on.’

‘Quite an interesting one, actually,’ Peter admitted, tempted suddenly at the thought of forgetting the demands of his waistline and his wife for a little longer. He loved talking about his work and Charlie was a good listener. ‘Eighteen-year-old rape case. No witnesses of course. Strange girl too – very mature, very …
in control
, which, of course, cuts both ways with a jury. Far easier to sympathise with someone who is obviously a victim instead of someone hell-bent on holding their own. My opposite number is very able too, quite capable of putting her through it.’

‘Poor girl. Mind you, do you think she’s telling the truth?’

Peter’s eyes twinkled for the first time. ‘Ah, the million-dollar question. Which, as you well know, Charles, is irrelevant. My job is to present the best case for my client that I can. Having said that, the great thing about the British adversarial system, for all its faults, is that it is a very good way of exposing flaws in the truth. No advocate, however good, can win – or lose – a case that is full of holes. Cross-examining does not mean examining crossly …’ And he was off, fuelled by promptings from his sibling, whose questions were both intelligent and based on genuine interest. The second beer disappeared fast, as did the third and the one after that, which they consumed together with two rounds of beef and horseradish sandwiches and several packets of cheese and onion crisps.

‘Maisie? Maisie … are you awake?’

‘Uh … uh …’

‘It’s me.’

‘Oh, Clemmy, I’m so tired.’

Clem stood by the bed watching helplessly as her sister rolled over towards the wall, hugging a bulging portion of her duvet to her chest.

‘Mum’s awake,’ Maisie muttered, ‘I heard her with Tina … you could go and speak to her.’ She made a few small sucking sounds with her lips, as if tasting something very delicious. Clem
waited for a few more moments, shivering with cold (the heating tank, which – for some unfathomable and infuriating reason – lived behind the disguise of a cupboard in her bedroom, had clicked off with its usual burps and hiccups a good hour before), then padded back to bed and groped for her torch and diary. Once upon a time when she had shared a room with her sister, they had spent half the night on each other’s beds, talking about nothing in particular, plaiting each other’s hair and – during one particularly dangerous phase – playing with matches and candlewax. Their father had caught them one night, with three lit candles balanced across the bed and the pile of waxen figures they had moulded spread around them on the counterpane. It was one of the few occasions Clem had seen him truly cross. He had shouted so loudly that both Ed and her mother had come running up the stairs. The candles were snuffed out and hurled into the waste-paper bin, along with all the waxen figures, which had made Clem sad because there had been one of a giraffe of which she had been particularly proud.

Now, alone in her bed with only the feeble beam of the torch and her own handwriting for company, it occurred to Clem that life at ten years old had been blissfully simple. There had been Right and Wrong, Happiness and Misery, all connected to obvious things, like being told off or not getting her own way. Now her moods swung at her from nowhere, invisible hammer blows, bludgeoning her without warning into unmanageable and complicated states of mind. Like Christmas, when she had been so not in the mood and then suddenly so happy. Or like Jonny Cottrall, whom she had barely thought about during the entire Christmas holidays, but whose lanky frame, spotted from any distance, still made her knees buckle and her blood pound.

And then there was food. Once hunger had been an easy thing. Now if she ate too much she felt bloated and guilty. Clem sighed, resting her open diary on the mound of her stomach, seeking consolation from the words she had written earlier that evening. Regular writing definitely cleared the mind, she had discovered, even if one put two conflicting statements down side by side, as she had about Jonny Cottrall: ‘The thought of him putting his tongue in my mouth makes me feel sick.
But
the thought of him doing it to someone else makes me feel even worse.’ Clem read these two sentences several times before starting to write again, frowning because the torch was very small and now seriously low on battery power:

He thinks he’s so cool it’s PATHETIC. But I don’t want him to think I’m a complete minger either. Have decided to lose weight – properly this time. Ate salad and four fruit pastilles (Penny gave them to me – she’s being REALLY nice at the moment) for lunch, one biscuit after school and only a tiny bit of mash with sausages at tea. Ed and Maisie had three biscuits each and seconds of everything. It makes me sick how they can eat anything they like and stay like stick insects. Dad says I’m like him and not to worry, which is very sweet but also sad as Dad is FAT!! Mum says I’ll lose weight when I grow, but I haven’t grown for ages. My boobs are already a 34B whereas Maisie has got practically nothing at all. She only wears a bra because she thinks it’s womanly. Or something. I don’t understand Maisie any more, she’s always off with Monica and that gang, making it quite clear they don’t want me. I’ve got Penny at the moment so I don’t care, but it’s still not nice KNOWING you’re not wanted. Got all worried about it tonight and tried to talk to Maisie but she pretended to be asleep. At least, I think she was pretending. Though I guess it is nearly midnight and she’s always whacked after a netball match … I’m beginning to write boring pointless stuff so I’ll sign off. French vocab test tomorrow and I haven’t looked at it. Oh, F —

PS (
⋆⋆⋆⋆
= Period. Came today. How I hate it!)

Checking on his sleeping children, Charlie, primed with beer and sentimentality, hovered over each one, stroking wisps of hair from their faces and, in his son’s case, tugging a heavy football annual out from under his arm. A few minutes later feeling sentiment of a rather different kind, he rolled over in bed and slipped his arms round his wife.

‘You smell of beer and …’ Serena sniffed the air over her shoulder where he was resting his head ‘… something else … Onions, I think. Yuk. Did you have a lovely time?’

‘Hmm, lovely, but not so lovely as now.’

‘You can put any wicked thoughts from your mind right now, Charles Harrison. I’ve told you, you smell like a pub and I’ve had so much wine I can feel a headache coming already.’

She had spoken sternly, but did not remove Charlie’s arms from round her waist, so he knew there was hope. ‘You smell yummy.’ He nestled his head more deeply into the warm cosy space between her head and shoulder.

‘No, I don’t. Tina puked up on me half an hour ago. Some of it got stuck in my hair and I don’t think I got it all out. I think she’s going down with something … or teething … It was hours before she stopped crying. How was Peter?’