The White Lie (23 page)

“I’d go and look at him asleep,” Ottilie continued. “I’d watch him sleeping, stroke the side of his face with my hand, tell him I loved him. Things I couldn’t any longer do when he was awake. He’d disagree, you see. He’d want to talk definitions.”

Joan tried to share a look with Mog, a complicit look, but Mog averted her eyes.

“I’m going home,” Joan said, opening the door. “Ring me if there’s news.”

Shortly after this we heard the sound of Henry being ushered down the corridor to bed. Ottilie said she was tired and was turning in too.

Mog and Pip saw her to my room, where she’d said she wanted to sleep that night, and then they went down to the kitchen. Pip brewed up some coffee using the Italian beast of a machine they’d bought for Christmas for Edith and Henry. Mog pressed her cold fingers against the useless lukewarm kitchen radiator. Thin gold strands of tinsel drooped from the curtain rail.

“Ottilie thinks he killed himself,” she said to Pip’s back. “Suicide.”

“Today she does.”

“Today she does.”

Pip looked round at her. “It varies, though, doesn’t it? The certainties come and go. It’s the same with all of us.”

“What could be worse than your child killing itself? What a slap in the face. What a knife turned in the guts. There couldn’t be any greater punishment, could there?”

“You take her too literally, Mog.”

“It says ‘you failed me’, doesn’t it? It’s not a neutral act. There’s accusation in it.”

Pip put a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. “She’s talking about going out to the wolf. Doesn’t mean Ursula didn’t do it.”

“Ursula won’t tell secrets; won’t ever,” Mog said, sipping. “Perhaps Michael’s death is one. She’s covering for him.”

“What total crap you do talk sometimes.” Pip sank into the chair opposite. “That’s the thing, though. Ursula. She’s the wolf.”

Someone passed by the kitchen door, and went off down the corridor. Pip lowered his voice. “Suicide makes no sense. Why kill himself, when all he ever wanted was to confront him, and he could see Alan standing on the beach.”

***

It was Rebecca who heard the taxi first, putting her book down and going to the window. Izzy had arrived, was emerging legs first from the rear door: heeled shoes, long legs, shoes and legs and hem, and then she was up and out, smoothing her dress, which was halter-necked and silky, a brown and cream polka dot belted tight into her small waist. She was pushing long hair off her face with one hand while she bent at the front window to pay: that same pink-gold cape of hair my mother has in the early photographs. Ottilie has said to me that it isn’t easy, seeing herself as a young woman around the house, recognising the loss of all that, the waste. She’s said that she has to prevent herself from making grandiose speeches. Izzy came up the steps, an overnight bag in one hand, a red leather bag with beaten gilt corners, the fingers of her other hand trailing in the lichen along the top of the wall. When she got to the terrace she took off her shoes and ran barefoot into the house. Henry’s oldest dog, a black and white spaniel waddling stiffly into old age, was in his bed by the study door. Badger had been sleeping, but raised his head and, seeing that it was Izzy, wagged his stumpy tail. Izzy crouched beside him for a few minutes, and then without further ado she went for a bath.

“But where’s the entourage?” Mog asked her through the bathroom door.

“Next train. Euan’s going. Just one. Terry. The rest are here Saturday.”

It annoys Euan that his youngest child doesn’t call him Dad.

When Euan got back from the station, Mog and Edith were helping Mrs Welsh with the supper. Izzy appeared, hair wet, smelling of orange blossom and wearing a kimono. She was unruffled when Mrs Welsh told her that smoking was banned in the kitchen. Cigarette planted between her lips, her eyes narrowed against the smoke, Izzy opened one of the sash windows a screeching six inches (the cord was broken, so a paperback book was inserted) and sat along the window sill holding her cigarette so that it was technically outside the building.

“I didn’t say anything about ventilation,” Mrs Welsh told her. “I said no smoking. Get yourself outside.”

Izzy was blithely unconcerned, picking stray tobacco off her bottom lip; Mrs Welsh’s withering glances didn’t wither her in the least. Terry came into the room and was introduced. He’d met Izzy on the modelling circuit and was a perfect specimen, unnervingly perfect, with light brown hair and amber eyes and cheekbones that could cut bread; when he smiled his white smile at Mog she blushed. He stood beside Izzy with one hand resting on her thigh, and leaned in close to her ear.

“Do you know what I’d love right now?” His voice revealed him to be American. Everyone waited, agog. “One of those roll-ups of yours.”

“Mrs Welsh, I’d appreciate it if you could go and make up a bed for Terry,” Edith said. “We’ll finish the tidying-up.” Mrs Welsh had been to the salon in readiness for the party and looked disconcertingly like Margaret Thatcher in her prime, other than for the housecoat and sheepskin zip slippers.

***

When they gathered at seven o’clock, people had done as instructed by Joan and dressed up in evening clothes, despite the deepening chill and threat of rain. They arrived on the terrace in cocktail dresses and dinner jackets (all except for Euan, in his usual linen suit), and shivered as they downed their tepid white wine. When Mog arrived, Rebecca was helping Vita with the positioning of a purple tam o’shanter, angling the hat slightly over one eye at Vita’s instruction, her hand grasped in gratitude. Mog heard Michael’s name mentioned. She put her hand around Rebecca’s elbow. “No Michael talk,” she said into her ear. “Ottilie’s arrived.”

Euan was to have catered: he’d planned a three-course meal and had been about to embark on a day of cooking when he was intercepted. Joan waited until he was readying himself in the old kitchen, cookery books wedged open on Victorian tables, ingredients amassed in thematic order, before announcing that, having courted the opinion of the group, nobody much fancied a complicated dinner. They ate their ham and salad in the formal dining room, and though the occasion hadn’t been quite distinguished enough to bother cleaning the silver, the table was polished and smelled freshly beeswaxy. It was discovered too late that the radiator wasn’t functioning, and so Joan sent Mog up to collect woollen garments and rugs from various rooms, scribbling her a list of where and what. Vita ate her supper wearing a fine lacy shawl wrapped closely around her throat, and, over the top of it, a dog-hairy tartan blanket that hadn’t been authorised.

While Mog was off gathering woollens, Alastair stood beside Ursula, awaiting seating instructions and holding his drink.

“I do like your green dress,” he said, gesturing with his glass.

“It isn’t green,” Ursula told him.

“It isn’t? I’m sorry, I thought it was.”

“It’s blue.”

“A greenish blue.”

“It’s blue.”

“Turquoise.”

“Shall we sit down?” Edith asked them all.

“On the floor; the floor, that would be fun,” Ursula suggested.

“At the table, I meant.”

“Then you should be clear about it. And less orthodox. Let’s take our socks off and compare our feet.”

“I should be clear; you’re quite right,” Edith agreed. “Shall we sit at the table and eat food? Will that do?”

“No need for that. That’s redundant.”

“It’s an old dress by the look of it,” Alastair said to her as they sat down together. “Vintage. That’s the word, isn’t it? Or is it?”

“Don’t patronise me,” Ursula warned him. “I really dislike it.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware—”

“You were aware. ‘I wasn’t aware’ is something liars say. Like ‘I can only apologise’, which isn’t an apology at all.”

“Sorry,” Edith mouthed.

“That’s quite alright, Edith,” Alastair said. “In business I’m accustomed to the cut and thrust. I think Ursula and I could be great friends. I like plain speaking.”

“No you don’t—nobody does,” Ursula said.

“No, it’s true; he really does,” Rebecca told her.

Ursula shifted her weight, turning in her chair to poke her leg out and into Alastair’s view.

“What do you think of my shoes?”

“I think they’re quite outstandingly ugly.”

She smiled a broad crooked smile. “It’s true. Even though you’re just indulging me.”

“Not at all. They really are hideous.”

“They were your mother’s. Before she got married.”

“Gosh. My mother liked ugly shoes. That’s quite disillusioning.”

“You’re nice. But I know why you’re doing it.”

“Why am I doing it?”

“Because you’ve been briefed.”

“Briefed?”

“Warned about me. About my being odd.”

Alastair leaned towards her, his thick eyebrows knitted together. “And are you?”

“Yes. But only by choice.”

“I see.”

“I could be ordinary if I wanted.”

“Who’d want to be?”

“It would be more interesting if people said what they were thinking, all the time.”

“You don’t mean that; I bet
you
don’t. Chaos would ensue. Chaos and war.”

“The only reason I don’t is because other people don’t, so the truth looks like rudeness.”

“Yes.”

“Mostly I just think the rude thing.”

Meanwhile, Vita was quizzing Terry, who’d been seated opposite her.

“I hear that you, young man, are living quite openly with my great-granddaughter as man and wife.”

“Er—no, not really.”

“That is all very well. Your immorality is your own affair. Personally I’ve always been rather a fan of immorality. But I can tell you now that you would be much happier if you were married. Have children early. Get them off to school and your life is ahead of you at last. In my day—”

“Granny Top, don’t bully Terry,” Izzy chided. “You’ll frighten him off and then where will I be?”

“Izzy. Dear one.”

“You’ve all got the wrong idea about Terry and me. We share an apartment, that’s all.”

“You share.”

“Terry’s a homosexual.”

Vita was unfazed. “Tell me. Have you tried sexual relations with women and been disappointed, or is it something you’ve never pursued, believing yourself to be a bugger from the off?”

“Mother, really,” Edith said mildly, trying not to laugh.

“But I’m interested, Edith,” Vita told her. “It was quite the thing to be a lesbian when I was young. Sapphic love: terribly spiritual, the union of souls and so on. Men were thought to be war-mongering, corrupted, material creatures and the penis a sort of weapon.”

“Oh lord,” Edith said, her hand going to her brow.

“But I could never get on with it, you know,” Vita continued. “My great friend Georgina and I had a go after a party but our hearts weren’t really in it.”

“That was when you came out to your family? I thought Izzy told me you came out.” Terry looked towards Izzy. “She said you came out when you were 18.”

“Came out in Society, Terry,” Joan explained. “Something rather different. To do with parties and being available for dating.”

“Your uncle Robert is a homosexual, you know,” Vita said to nobody in particular.

After supper Mog was sent up to check that Mrs Welsh had done Terry’s room, up in the garrets in what were servants’ quarters. To get there she had to go downstairs to the old kitchen corridor and up again, as that’s the only access to the top floor, a design that enforced segregation of family from staff after hours. No drunken male guest, in the old days, could “accidentally” go up the wrong stairs from the drawing-room landing at night, dressing-gown clad, clutching an incidental bottle of wine: not without going down to the ground floor first, past the butler and housekeeper stations.

Joan had an inkling that Mrs Welsh might have piled the linens folded on the bed for Terry to see to himself, and her inkling was good. Getting the room ready, Mog was aware that in being set this task and in other various small ways she was being punished by her mother, and knew why. It was because she’d raised the possibility of giving up her job and coming home. Joan considers that anything put to her is being put to her for arbitration and is likely to pronounce. She had launched into her own critique, concluding, in short, that Mog should grow up and stay put and try harder.

My room is the only one belonging to the dead that isn’t used for guests, but as my mother sleeps in there sometimes, Joan had asked Mrs Welsh to change the sheets. It wasn’t worth doing Jet’s. Jet doesn’t use his room overnight, though he’s been seen to come and go in daylight hours. They knew that he wouldn’t turn up to any of the pre-party gatherings and that even attendance at the party was moot, though Joan had laid down the law, suggesting possible interruptions to his top-up funding. Jet was no doubt safe in his cottage, within his black-painted walls, his curtains closed. He emerges seldom, except for weekly visits to the post office, dispatching rare LPs that he trades in second-hand, records with mint sleeves and a provenance.

Rebecca was waiting for Mog when she got back.

“Dad’s gone up. Tired. He apologises. I think I’ll go and sit with him if that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay. You don’t have to ask. Go and sit with him.” She paused, then said, “I heard from Edith about his illness. I’m sorry. Isn’t there anything they can do?”

“I’m afraid there isn’t. He says that at least this way he doesn’t lose his hair.” Her smile was brave.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Thank you. I’d better go and sit with him.”

“Yes. Go, go. I’ll see you later.”

“We do this. He gets tired and anxious. I sit with him and we read.”

“That’s lovely. Off you go then. I’ll see you later.”

Sometimes it distresses me, that words are so inadequate as this, that human contact can be so profoundly inadequate, but at other times it’s inexpressibly moving.

***

Mog found Izzy rapping on her bedroom radiator, which gurgled and rapped back.

“Needs bleeding,” she said. “Though I have no idea what that entails, actually. We’ll have to get in.”

They got under the bedspread and lay facing one another. Izzy had a broad white scarf wrapped around her head and neck. “Ridiculous weather for June.”