Sheltering Rain (25 page)

“Is Annie an alcoholic?” she asked Mrs. H.

They had told her in the end, after all. Then it had been Jennifer Laing's turn to be left out.

Mrs. H's face spun around to meet hers. She looked genuinely shocked.

“Annie? Alcoholic? Of course not. Why do you say that?”

Sabine flushed.

“I'm not saying she looks alcoholic, or anything . . . It's just that you all seem nervous of her in company, and no one says anything when she acts a bit odd. I—I just wondered if it was because she drank too much.”

Mrs. H reached for her hair and began stroking it down, a nervous habit Sabine had never noticed before.

“No, Sabine. She's not alcoholic.”

There was a lengthy silence, during which the boys began to squabble over the remote control.

Sabine, listening to the distant clatter of crockery in the kitchen, began to feel simultaneously embarrassed for having said anything and resentful that, still, no one seemed inclined to give her a reason for Annie's odd behavior. It had become more odd, recently, as well. She seemed to have forgotten how to tidy up, so that every time Sabine stopped by, the living room, which had always leaned toward the vaguely messy, had started to appear somewhat chaotic. She fell asleep more often, and when awake, often didn't even seem to hear what you were saying. Perhaps it was drugs, Sabine thought suddenly. It wasn't exactly the inner cities, but she was sure she had seen something on the news about drug use in rural areas. Perhaps Annie was on drugs.

Mrs. H had been gazing at her hands. Then she stood, and motioned to Sabine to do the same, glancing behind her at the kitchen.

“C'mon,” she said. “Let's you and me have a little chat.”

Mrs. H's bedroom was as immaculately tidy as the rest of her house, and possibly even warmer. Her bed was headed by a raspberry-pink padded board, from which spread a huge, embroidered quilt. The pink of the quilt was matched by the velour curtains, and picked up by the trimmings of the cushions on the easy chair in the corner. A running frieze around the ceiling picked out carefully washed-out pastel images of bunches of grapes, interwoven with green stems and leaves. It was the kind of room that normally she and her mother would exchange mischievous grins at—they both knew it was poor taste to have everything matching—and yet Sabine didn't feel either as confident in her beliefs, or as malicious. At the moment the cozy, warm uniformity of Mrs. H's house seemed far more inviting than anything her own family had to offer.

The far end of the room contained an array of fitted cupboards, some of which contained mirrored panels. It was from one of these, as Sabine watched herself duplicated, that Mrs. H opened a door, and then, slowly pulled out the drawer behind it.

She motioned to Sabine to sit down, and then, walking back, sat heavily beside her, handing her its contents: a silver framed picture of a little girl, beaming into the sun, sitting aside a bright blue tricycle.

“That's Niamh,” she said.

And then, as Sabine frowned, staring at the broad toothy grin, the blonde hair: “That's Annie's daughter. Was Annie's daughter.”

She paused.

“She died two and a half years ago. A car hit her as she ran out of the gates. Annie hasn't really been the same since.”

Sabine stared back at the little girl, feeling her heart thump with shock and her own eyes prick suddenly with tears.

“Three, she was. Just had her third birthday. It's been a bit difficult for Annie and Patrick, as they haven't been able to have another child. They've tried, but it's not happened. And that's been an extra burden for Annie to bear. That's why I didn't want you asking her for . . . well. You can see. It's just an added reminder, every month.”

Mrs. H's voice was quite cool, measured, as if this were her way of containing the raw, explosive emotion behind what she was saying. Sabine could feel it, like a huge shelf rising up to her esophagus, filling her chest, and making her want to cry out loud.

“We hope she'll come through eventually,” Mrs. H continued quietly. “It's been an awful few years. But some people seem to take longer than others.”

“I'm really sorry,” Sabine whispered. An alcoholic. How crass Mrs. H must think she was.

“You weren't to know,” she said, patting her hand. “We don't talk about Niamh because it seems to make things worse. Annie doesn't like to have pictures of her around, so I keep this in my drawer. It's a pity though.” She traced the outline of the little girl with her soft finger. “I would have liked to have a few pictures around. Just to remind me, y'know?”

Sabine nodded, still transfixed by this little girl. Downstairs, she could hear Auntie May and the others laughing.

“Is that her room? In Annie's house?”

“Next to Annie and Patrick's? Yes, that was hers. Annie doesn't like people to go in.” She sighed. “I keep telling her it's time to clear it out, but she won't listen. And I can't force her.”

Sabine thought for a minute.

“Has . . . has she seen a doctor?”

“Oh, she was offered counseling. And the priest tried to help. But I think she and Patrick thought they could get through it alone. Now, I think Patrick may be regretting that decision, but it's a bit late. She won't see anyone now. Not even a doctor. You've probably noticed, she doesn't really like going out of the house.”

They sat in silence, both reminded of Annie's abrupt departure that evening. Sabine gazed over at the picture of the little girl. She was wearing red Wellingtons and a T-shirt with a penguin on the front. Sabine didn't think she had ever seen a picture of a dead child up close before. Staring into her eyes, she almost fancied she could see something prescient there, some foreshadowing of her own death in that gappy smile.

“Do you miss her?”

Mrs. H shook her head, and, standing, placed the photograph carefully back into the drawer. When she closed it, she stood for a second, facing into the cupboard, so that Sabine could no longer see her face.

“I miss both of them, Sabine. I miss both of them.”

M
uch as she loved Annie and her family, Sabine had been quite glad to spend a couple of days alone with her grandparents. She had needed the time to come to terms with what Mrs. H had told her, to resite Annie in her imagination from “eccentric and difficult” to “tragic young mother.” She didn't really know what to say to a tragic young mother, and had not yet decided what this was going to mean for their friendship. Before they had felt like equals of sorts: Annie's being married kind of balanced out by her hopeless lack of practicality; Sabine's youth balanced by her superior knowledge of what was in and out (or that's how Sabine saw it, anyway). Now, everything had shifted. And Sabine wasn't sure how she was meant to behave. Mrs. H, seeming to sense this reticence, had been a decidedly unobtrusive presence in her life, while simultaneously letting Sabine know that it had been a pleasure having her to supper, and that everyone had enjoyed meeting her very much. She was nice like that; the whole family was.

But then even her grandmother was being nice at the moment; she had served up vegetable pie for the previous night's supper, and now kedgeree, a weird concoction of rice and egg and fish and sultanas, which somehow combined to taste better than its parts. “It's a hunting breakfast, really,” she had said, as Sabine had stared goggle-eyed at her plate. “But it makes a good light supper, too.”

Sabine decided she was in a good mood because her grandfather had “perked up” as the doctor called it. Glad as she was for everybody, Sabine wouldn't have quite called it perky. What it meant was that he had been able to walk downstairs, shooing the dogs away from him with his stick, and having eaten a miniscule amount, was now sitting in the drawing room in one of the high-backed chairs beside the fire.

After she had helped her grandmother clear the table (this spirit of cooperation could work both ways, after all) Sabine was about to escape up to her room, when her grandmother called her back.

“I've got to go out and check on the horses,” she said, putting her quilted coat on, and tying an old woolen scarf at her neck. “I want to put a poultice on the Duke's leg, so I may be a little while. Would you mind keeping your grandfather company?”

Sabine, her heart sinking, tried not to betray how much she did mind. Keeping her grandfather company appeared to be a contradiction in terms. He had hardly spoken over supper, except to remark “poor sheep,” apparently in relation to some observation he had made a good few hours previously about the state of the neighboring farm's pasture. And he had barely seemed to notice she was there. He had certainly not noticed Bertie was there, and had managed to tread on him twice, eliciting bloodcurdling yelps, as he both sat down and raised himself from the table. The thought of having to make polite conversation with him for the whole hour before the ten o'clock news made Sabine want to run for the door.

“Sure,” she said, and walked slowly into the dining room.

He had his eyes closed, so Sabine picked a copy of
Country Life
from the pile on the coffee table, and walked silently over to the overstuffed chair opposite. She would have quite liked to lay on the sofa, but the room was so cold and damp that a place near the fire was a prerequisite for any kind of inactive stay.

She flicked through the magazine for some minutes, wondering which of the exotic homes in the Maldives belonged to various pop stars, and then snorting at the blonde, vacant-eyed debs. But there was nothing very interesting, unless you were interested in old churches of East Anglia, or organic butchers, and so before long she found herself staring at her grandfather instead.

He had more lines on his face than anyone she had ever seen; they didn't sweep down in long, etched lines, like Geoff's had when he got worried about his patients. Or faint delicate ones, little whispers from the future, like those she could see on her mother. No, her grandfather's crisscrossed one another in an almost regular pattern, almost like the markings of an old map, except more parched-looking. In places the skin was so thin that she could see blue veins running underneath it like B-roads, half camouflaged by large brown liver spots, and where it joined his scalp, odd, stray gray hairs stuck out like lone travelers in the desert.

It was hard to imagine ever being that old. Sabine looked down at her own hands, her own skin, through which only the faintest of mauve lines could be detected, plumped up by youth and good living. His were so bony that they looked almost clawlike, the nails thickened and yellowed, like horn.

She started slightly as he opened his eyes. She knew it was rude to stare, and he would no doubt remind her of it. He gazed at her from under reptilian lids, then his gaze slid left and then right, assessing that they were alone in the room. In the silence, the logs spluttered and crackled, sending small sparks flying out, like lemmings, over the grate.

He opened his mouth slightly, paused, and then spoke.

“I'm afraid I don't
do
much anymore,” he said, slowly, enunciating each word with some care.

Sabine stared at him. His face looked suddenly animated, as if concentrating hard on the message it was trying to get across.

“I tend . . . to just
be
.”

He closed his mouth slowly, as if the effort of speaking had exhausted it, but maintained his steady gaze.

Sabine, gazing back, felt the faintest flicker of understanding. And some sympathy, aware that she had just received some kind of apology. She nodded, the faintest of movements, an acknowledgment of her own, and then turned to face the fire.

“Good,” he said, finally. And closed his eyes.

T
he morning of the hunt, Kilcarrion remembered what it was for. It was as if the house itself had awoken from a deep slumber, and began creaking into action like the cogs of a rarely used machine, bent on pursuing its purpose. Sabine awoke to find her clothes laid out at the end of her bed, a cup of hot tea thrust into her hands by Mrs. H, and a level of activity downstairs and outside that made the Kilcarrion walk look like a sedate stroll. The dogs, infected by it, barked and scrabbled in the hall; the telephone rang periodically, like some kind of alarm, heralding the minute changing of arrangements. Even the boiler, whose distant rumblings would often wake Sabine in the middle of the night, seemed to clank and shudder more determinedly.

Mrs. H fussed around, lighting her fire, straightening her things, and telling her who was going to be “out” today, while her grandmother kept popping her head around the door, and urging Sabine to “do come
on
,” except she said it like she was excited, rather than angry. Sabine could hear her downstairs in the yard, barking instructions at the lads, as, slowly, and with shaky fingers, she tried to get herself dressed.

While obviously revolting, immoral, and the height of cruelty, it had to be said that foxhunting was a pretty glamorous sport. She could tell from the clothes she had been lent by Joy: silk-lined and made to measure, the navy-blue coat, and cream jodhpurs made her look like a character out of a period drama (her grandmother had smiled broadly as she finished her off—the first time she had done so widely and unself-consciously); she could tell by the way her horse and Thom's horse were both plaited and quartered, their coats burnished to a conkery sheen by a good hour's heavy-duty grooming; she could tell by the way her grandmother had fussed and flapped in a distinctly ungrandmotherly way about tying Sabine's stock, how to safely attach her own gold pin, and whether her boots were shiny enough. . . . All of which was why, some two hours later, when she and the horses were eventually unloaded at the meet, it was patently clear to Sabine that they had somehow ended up in the wrong place.

They were not in the grounds of some stately home, surrounded by pink-coats (they were never called red, her grandmother had said), and drinking champagne or whatever it was from a silver stirrup cup. Under driving rain, they had been unloaded at a crossroads seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and as the horses' hooves came crashing down the wooden ramp onto the tarmac, all Sabine could see were a motley array of muddy ponies bearing children in plastic mackintoshes and sweatshirts, a couple of large, clumsy horses and tweedy farmers, and an array of rather scruffy horses and footfollowers of all different sizes and colors, flanked by people in waterproofs and carrying umbrellas, their hair wet and windswept, or woolen hats pulled firmly over their heads. There were even a couple of young men in camouflage jackets, seated on quad bikes. And there was mud everywhere: on the verges, churned into brown soup by the wheeling, impatient hooves of the horses; on the boots of the riders; and halfway up the legs of the hounds, who milled about between them all, letting out the occasional bark or yelp. There were only about three people wearing pink coats, and one of those, disappointingly, as he had a thread-veined face and a bulbous, pockmarked nose, Thom had pointed out as the Master.