Sheltering Rain (11 page)

“Not really. Family life in general. Problems and stuff.”

“That sounds very handy,” said Mrs. H.

“You must miss her,” said Annie.

“Sorry?”

“Your mam. You must miss her. Her being so far away and all.”

“A bit.” She hesitated, then said boldly, “We're not that close, actually.”

“But she's your mam. You must be close.” And suddenly, inexplicably, Annie's eyes appeared to fill with tears.

Sabine stared at her in horror, trying to work out what she could have said to have prompted this. Mrs. H, looking sharply at her daughter, called her over.

“Sabine—I've found a bit of fish in the freezer cabinet. Do you fancy this, if I do it in a butter sauce? Perhaps you could help me defrost it in the microwave. Annie, love, why don't you go and fetch Patrick and tell him we'll be eating in about twenty minutes.”

Sabine stood slowly, and, trying not to stare too conspicuously at Annie, walked over to the kitchen.

Annie became very quiet for about half an hour after that. She hardly spoke through supper, and her husband spoke very little, so it was left to Mrs. H and Sabine, who was feeling rather unnerved, to carry the conversation. Patrick was not the writer-type she had imagined: not thin and tortured-looking, but a big man, barrel-chested and slightly coarse-featured, with lines like plowed furrows along his forehead and down the sides of his mouth. But he was gentle, and solicitous, and he had that quiet air of intelligence that made Sabine slightly tongue-tied, and aware that almost everything she said sounded trite or stupid.

“Is your dinner all right, Patrick? It was all a bit of a rush job, I'm afraid.”

“It's grand, Mam,” he replied. “Lovely bit of lamb.”

Sabine, who found herself staring at Annie, found it hard to picture the two together. He was so big and rough-looking, while she was so small and insubstantial, as if some melancholy breeze could just blow her away. And yet he obviously adored her; although he said little, Sabine noticed him touch her on the arm twice and once, gently, rub her back with slow, loving strokes.

“Have you anyone coming this weekend?” said Mrs. H, picking up one of her chops with her knife and fork, and placing it on Patrick's already overstuffed plate.

Patrick looked at Annie, and then back at his mother-in-law. “I don't think there's anyone booked. I had a thought Annie and I might go up to Galway, just for a bit of a change.”

“Galway,” exclaimed Mrs. H. “Lough Inagh, now there's a beautiful spot. Me and your father used to holiday there every year when you were small, Annie. The weather was always terrible, for some reason, but you used to love it. We bought you these Wellington boots with glitter on, you see, and you just ran up and down in the water all day long.”

Annie didn't look up.

Mrs. H, briefly lost in past happinesses, continued: “One night you even insisted on sleeping in them, you loved those boots so much. In the morning your bed was that full of sand I had to shake your sheets out of the window! Ahh, bless. You were only three.”

Annie shot a sharp look at her mother, who abruptly shut up. For a few minutes, all that could be heard was the spit and crackle of the fire, and the distant thrum of the rain on the windowsill. Sabine, watching, glanced back at Annie, wondering what Mrs. H had said that was so wrong. But she just looked down again, and pushed her half-full plate toward the center of the table.

Curiously, Mrs. H didn't seem to mind. She just waited until she was sure everyone had finished and began collecting the plates. Not in that kind of brisk I'm-doing-this-to-make-a-point way that her own mother did when she had been rude to her. She just seemed genuinely unoffended, as if all she had to consider was the destination of the plates themselves.

“It doesn't have to be Galway,” said Patrick, gently, in his wife's ear. “We could go to Dublin. A city break. It's meant to be a great craic at the moment.”

There was a brief pause.

“Maybe another time, eh?” Annie patted her husband's arm, stood, and walked without explanation from the room.

Mrs. H pushed her own chair back, and walked toward the kitchen. “Now, Sabine, you'll have some pudding, won't you? We've got some apple pie that I can heat up in the microwave, or a bit of chocolate ice cream. I'll bet you'll not say no to some ice cream. Am I right?”

She didn't give Sabine time to wonder what was going on. Patrick, with an affectionate kiss on his mother-in-law's cheek, also left the room, but nodded to a query about pudding, suggesting he would soon be back. It was at this perplexing moment that the door opened and Thom walked in, the wind blowing behind him and his oilcloth coat slick with rain. Sabine almost ran to greet him; she had started to feel a little uncomfortable.

“Have I missed dinner? One of the boxes started letting in water, so I thought I should try and whack a tarpaulin on the roof before I left. It's filthy out there,” he said.

“Sit down, love, sit down. Put your coat over by that chair. I've kept yours in the oven. Lamb chops all right for you?” The atmosphere in the room seemed to immediately relax and expand, so that Sabine sat back in her chair. Thom had that air—he just seemed to defuse tension. Sabine grinned at him and he grinned back.

“Did you get to watch some good telly, then, Sabine?”

Sabine, embarrassed, looked at Mrs. H. “I didn't come just to watch the telly. I wanted to meet—everybody.”

“Ahh, was there something you wanted to watch, love? To be honest, what with the dinner and everything I didn't give it a thought. Well, let's have it on while we're having our pudding, shall we? There might be a film on, mightn't there?”

They sat, channel-surfing companionably, as Thom wolfed his way through his food. He ate voraciously, head down, his knife and fork working in tandem to scoop the food into his mouth—the kind of eating employed by siblings of large families, determined not to lose out on second helpings. Mrs. H nodded and smiled with some silent satisfaction. She was evidently fond of her nephew; she looked at him like one would a favored son. Sabine, watching this in the warm room, her own stomach full, and the distant roar of the wind and rain outside, felt a sudden pang that her own grandmother's house couldn't feel enclosed and warm like this one did. She didn't even know these people and already she felt loath to return to Kilcarrion House.

Sabine looked up as Annie walked back in. She was smiling. Patrick was standing behind her, looking slightly anxious.

“Hi, there, Tomcat,” Annie said, ruffling Thom's hair. “How's my favorite cousin? You look like a drowned rat.”

“You want to try going out some time,” said Thom, reaching up and squeezing her hand. “It's called weather.”

Still smiling, Annie sat back down at the table. Patrick sat next to her, gazing at his wife. He didn't touch his pudding.

“Where have you been all week?” Annie said to Thom. “I've hardly seen hide or hair of you.”

“I've been around,” he said. “Busy time of year. Getting the horses ready for the start of the season. All right there, Patrick?”

“You and your horses. You want to get yourself a girlfriend, have some proper interests. What happened to that girl from the restaurant? She was all right.”

Thom didn't look up from his food.

“Not my type.”

“And what is your type?”

“Not her.”

Mrs. H, wiping down surfaces in the kitchen, burst into a laugh. “You should know by now, Annie. You'll not get Thom to tell you a thing. He could have a wife and six children at home and his own family would know nothing about it. Have you ever met a bloke like him, eh, Sabine?”

Sabine found she was blushing. To her relief, no one seemed to notice.

“Your trouble is you're too picky,” said Annie, pushing her melted ice cream around a bowl.

“Probably.”

Mrs. H glanced at her daughter a few times, but, apart from that, didn't remark upon her brief absence. She seemed to relax now that Thom was here, and busied herself with the washing up, dismissing Sabine's half-hearted offer to help.

“You sit down. You're the guest.”

“Ahh, don't say that, Mam. You'll make her feel like one of the Twoobies.”

Sabine glanced at Thom for explanation.

“Twoobies. B-and-Bers,” said Patrick. “Our paying guests.”

“I thought they were inmates,” said Thom. “You're not saying you make them pay as well?”

“You're not a guest,” said Annie, ignoring him and placing a hand on Sabine's arm. “You're a Ballantyne, so you're practically family. And you're welcome anytime. I could do with the company.” Her smile was genuinely warm.

Mrs. H nodded, as if confirming it. “Would you like a cup of tea, Patrick? I could bring it up to you if you're working?”

“Thanks, Mam. I'm fine with my wine here. Thom, have you got a drink?”

Sabine went to pass him the bottle of wine, but almost before she could get there, Mrs. H had passed him a glass of orange juice, which he picked up and drained greedily.

“I'll have another drink,” said Annie, looking around her. “Where's my glass gone?”

“I washed it up,” said Mrs. H.

“Well, you can pass me another one then. I hadn't finished that.”

Thom looked up from his food. “How's the book going?”

Patrick shook his head.

“It's a bit sticky at the moment, to tell you the truth.”

“I don't know how you do it, sitting up there by yourself day after day,” said Mrs. H. “I'd be bored out of my mind. No people, no one to talk to, just those characters in your head. I'm surprised you don't go mad. . . .” She finished washing the pans. “Right, then, I'm done. I'll be off in a minute. Your father's out at his club this evening and I want to be in before he gets home.”

“Off to meet your fancy man, eh, Mam?” Patrick stood and held out her coat for her. “Don't worry. We won't say a thing.”

“She likes to welcome him home,” said Thom, shaking his head in disbelief.

“If I like to welcome my husband home, then it's no one else's business but our own,” she said, pinking slightly.

“And the neighbors,” said Patrick, grinning at Thom. “The poor things.”

“You're a rogue, Patrick Connolly,” she said, now bright pink. “Now, will someone walk Sabine home, all right? I don't want her on that dark road by herself.”

“It's only one hundred yards. I'm fine, honest,” said Sabine, chafing at the suggestion of her youth.

“Don't worry,” said Thom. “We'll chuck her out after closing time.”

“Thanks for cooking, Mam,” said Annie, walking her to the door and kissing her. She was smiling all the time now, a soft, gentle smile, although it still didn't seem to stretch to her eyes. Right behind her, Patrick kissed his wife tenderly, and then walked slowly back upstairs. She had patted him vaguely in response, as one would a child.

As Sabine watched, Annie closed the door after her mother and then stood still in the center of the room, as if unsure where to put herself. After a few seconds she walked over to the sofa and collapsed on it, tucking her knees under her chin. “Right, Sabine, why don't you find a film or something,” she said, looking suddenly, desperately weary. “And you two chat or something. I hope you don't mind, but I'll probably just crash here. I'm all out of talking today.”

Y
our friend Melissa rang, and wanted to know if you were going to go to her party on the fifteenth. I told her I didn't know if you were going to be back or not.”

“Oh.”

“And O'Malley was sick in your room, but I've put your rug in the dry cleaners and they think it will be no problem.”

“Is he all right?”

“He's fine. It's just because I ran out of cat food and he wolfed down a can of tuna.”

“You're not meant to give him tuna.”

“I know, sweetheart. But the corner shop was shut and I couldn't see him go hungry. He's all right with it when he doesn't eat so quickly.”

Sabine had rung her mother the previous day with the intention of begging her for enough money to get her home. She was going to tell her that she loved her, and that she was sorry for being such a cow, and that everything would be better if she could just come home, because she knew, and she knew her mother would understand, that she couldn't stand being stuck here one more minute.

But they had been on the phone some seven minutes now, her mother evidently a bit bemused as to what Sabine had wanted when she left her “urgent” message to call, and yet Sabine just couldn't find the words. She wanted to go back, she really did. But it was somehow slightly less urgent since the previous evening, at Annie's house. And she found that she was still, deep inside somewhere, furious about Geoff and Justin. And it was so
hard
being overly nice to her mother. Kate just got all emotional and said too much back, so that Sabine ended up regretting saying anything and feeling faintly cross, like she had somehow given too much away. Her mother never could just let things be.

“So . . . what have you been up to? Has Granny got you riding yet?”

“No. And I'm not going to.”

“So what have you been doing with yourself?”

Sabine thought about the box of photographs that she had revisited this morning, while her grandmother was out at the shop, and the ones she had found of her mother as a young girl with the Chinese boy. She thought of Annie's house, and the way that Annie had just gone to sleep in front of her last night, as abruptly as anything, as if she didn't care what anybody even thought of her doing so. She thought of Thom asking, with just a shade too much awkwardness, what it was her mother did these days.

“Nothing,” she said.