Weird Sister (13 page)

So it was a couple of weeks before I saw any of the Throckmortons, an achievement given the size of Warboys. Then I ran into Robert in the shop on the way to the Trevelyans one morning. I was picking up milk for the coffee.

‘Elizabeth!’ he exclaimed, as though surprised to see me alive and in the village, as though he’d forgotten about me completely.

‘Robert. How are you? How is Agnes?’

‘Oh, we’re fine,’ he beamed, ‘we’re very well. You must come round. You’ve got to come round.’ Robert looked red-cheeked and healthy, as though he’d never had a cold, or any kind of ailment, in his life. ‘You must see what we are doing to the house.’

I smiled and nodded and hoped his enthusiasm would carry him right out of the shop.

‘Come tonight,’ he said.

On the day of the wedding I took a decision that I would not allow this marriage to ruin my life, that I would not allow it to affect my behaviour, that I would be steady and even and take everything in my stride. That meant accepting invitations and behaving as though nothing was amiss. Everything was absolutely fine. If I could sustain that lie for long enough, perhaps it would become a truth.

‘That would be lovely,’ I said.

‘I’m sorry it’s been so long,’ said Robert, and I think for a moment he actually meant it. ‘But come tonight and we’ll catch up. Come early. Six o’clock.’

Like most households that contain small children, the Throckmorton house ran on a very regular schedule, Agnes’s arrival had not altered that. Every day at six the family sat down at the big oak table in the kitchen. I had joined them on many occasions. After the quiet of my cottage, quiet even when my parents were alive, a Throckmorton evening meal was enjoyable for me. Usually Robert and Graeme were arguing about the estate, Graeme and Jenny were arguing about something to do with Jenny’s schoolwork, Karen and Graeme were arguing about the boys while Karen tried to feed them and Jenny and Robert got the meal for the adults onto the plates. Andrew and Francis fought with each other and I sat and watched all of it, following the conversation as it wove around the table like one of Martin Scorsese’s great tracking shots. (I used to know about cinema, I used to know about the world, I used to love that kind of thing.) After they’d eaten, Andrew and Francis sat on the floor to play and the adults would get on with their meal. But it was never peaceful; Karen would be up and down fetching things, making more salad, Robert would decide that whatever he had cooked was missing an essential ingredient and he’d get up to look for it, Graeme would eat much too quickly before announcing he was off to the pub. Mr Throckmorton would sit in his corner with his plate on his knees.

I was relieved to discover that with Agnes there, none of this had changed. In fact, if anything, she contributed to the chaos, continually leaving off one task to start another, just like everyone else. The builders were in upstairs and so the battle to contain the dust and debris was on, but they took it in their stride. Karen informed me, with a smile, that Agnes had decided to reform her cooking – no more fried food, no more chips, no more red meat. They were eating much more fish, she said, while Graeme put his arm around his wife’s waist and made a yuck face, indicating displeasure. I hadn’t seen him be so affectionate to Karen in a long time.

Agnes was very friendly toward me, I couldn’t fault her there. When I came in through the back door she smiled and gave me a wisp of a kiss on my cheek. She said, ‘It’s so good to see you,’ and she turned to look at Robert. ‘I wondered when he was going to invite you round. We’ve been so busy, what with the renovations.’

I gave her what I hoped was an easy smile. ‘I wanted to thank you for what you did at the wedding, introducing me to Julia and David.’

‘You knew them already!’

‘Yes, but suggesting that they hire me.’

‘Did it work out?’

‘I’m their new employee.’

Robert came over at that point and clamped his arm around my shoulder. ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘Are you giving them 9 to 5 therapy?’ His touch made me feel uneasy, self-conscious, and I hoped the colour in my cheeks would not rise too quickly.

‘Robert,’ Agnes chastised him, ‘she’s their assistant.’

‘I’m the office dogsbody. And it’s great. I’m finally part of the Electronic Age.’

‘I’m so glad it worked out,’ Agnes said. ‘I love it when things like that happen.’

‘Well, thanks to you Agnes,’ I said, but she was gone, across the room to help Karen with the boys.

That evening the Throckmortons were a picture of happiness. They argued, as always, and the boys refused their food and demanded pudding, but that was the way things should be. I would say that no false notes were struck, except it seems to me, with hindsight, that the whole set up was one enormous, loud, false chord. How could it not be? Agnes was biding her time. She was getting everyone where she wanted them. And everyone included me.

After dinner Robert, Agnes and I retired to the sitting room. Graeme had gone off for a drink, Karen was putting the boys to bed, Jenny had gone to her room. The sitting room had been subtly altered, the lighting rearranged so that it was softer, warmer, the curtains not new, but cleaned, an old carpet spruced up and thrown over the back of a sofa where its colours – reds and greens – seemed richer, logs piled in a basket beside the fire.

The Throckmorton house was full of nice old things, worn, comfortable things; there was nothing valuable, nothing that could be classified antique. They were the kind of family who used things up and then moved on; they broke glasses and crockery, they wore out upholstery, they stuffed their junk in the attic and left it to rot.

While Robert fetched a bottle of wine and glasses, Agnes took me on a brief tour upstairs. There the transformation was much more remarkable. The bathroom wasn’t finished but I could see that it would be splendid, it would have a hotel gleam. The wall had been brought down between the two smaller rooms and that made a big difference. And their bedroom, well, I could remember playing with Robert in this room when we were young, hide and seek in among the mouldering boxes and crates, but I didn’t mention that to Agnes. Now the beams were freshly stained and the walls were very white and the big high bed was luxuriously piled with white pillows, an eyelet cotton spread. She opened the wardrobe and showed me their clothes and shoes jumbled together and it made my breath catch in my throat, this hard evidence of their marriage. It wasn’t a game, a trick Robert was playing. It wasn’t a dream I was stuck in, night after night.

When she closed the wardrobe I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Agnes noticed. ‘That’s a great skirt,’ she said. I was wearing a long black wool skirt that I had bought when I was working in London.

‘Oh thanks,’ I said.

‘I’ve always liked wool skirts. I’ve never lived anywhere cold enough to wear them. It looks great on you. I must stock up.’

I knew what she was doing. She was complimenting me as a way to try to be nice, to get close to me. Women do it all the time.

‘We’ll have to go shopping,’ she said.

‘You think?’

‘Definitely.’

And so I complimented her taste in return. Downstairs we found Robert pouring us both drinks. Now you’ve done it, I said to myself, drawing a deep breath, now you’ve got yourself here and you’re going to have to stick with it, a smile stiffening into wrinkles on your face.

We sat and talked for an hour. Agnes was gracious and inclusive and made it clear she thought we were going to be friends. We talked about the Trevelyans, the estate, Christmas, Jim and Lolita Drury and how they’d achieved miracles fixing up the Black Hat since the break-in. Afterward I realized that Agnes had somehow deflected all conversation away from herself onto Robert and me. During the course of the evening I learned nothing about her, nothing that I didn’t already know. Her name was Agnes Samuel. She came from Las Vegas. Her parents were both dead. She was beautiful. A few facts, that was all. At the time it didn’t occur to me to doubt the truth of the little she had told us. She was one of those people with the highly prized knack of getting others to talk about themselves. Highly prized by those who do the talking. I could see how good she was for Robert’s ego. With Agnes there he felt he could do anything.

I was beginning to think about leaving when Graeme returned from the pub. The atmosphere changed. The atmosphere always changed when Graeme entered a room, as though he brought an electric charge with him through the door, it was something we were used to. But when he came into the sitting room that night, the mood changed in a way I hadn’t expected – something was going on. I didn’t know what it was, just a kind of tension that I hadn’t noticed before. It was not coming from Graeme alone, but Agnes as well, I saw it flash across her face. Robert was oblivious to it. I felt very uncomfortable, so I made my excuses and said I needed to get going.

Robert insisted on walking me home. He always used to walk me home, as though danger lurked in night-time Warboys.

‘What do you think?’ he asked as I knew he would.

‘Oh, she’s great, Robert, really lovely.’

‘She is, isn’t she?’ He shivered and sighed involuntarily.

‘Yes, you’ve landed on your feet.’

‘Lizzie,’ he said, his voice full of confidence, ‘you’ll meet someone, I know you will. You won’t have long to wait.’

I hadn’t expected that. ‘I know. I’m fine.’

‘Of course you are.’

I changed the subject. ‘How does Agnes get on with Graeme?’

‘Well. Really well.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘That’s great.’

Robert left me at the gate. When I opened the door of the cottage it felt cold though I had left the heating on all evening.

Agnes spurns Graeme

Christmas is approaching, like a splash of crimson spreading on the horizon. It is dark in Warboys, the days are getting shorter and shorter, the sky so low there is scarcely room to stretch. People scurry out to the Black Hat for a quick drink, scurry home to the gas fire once again. The pub has been restored to its former glory, except now everything is new – carpets, curtains, upholstery – and the effect is uncanny; the customers feel slightly ill at ease, like they’ve walked on to a set, a clever reconstruction of their local. Jim Drury is rather pleased with the way things have turned out and he tries to tempt the punters with mulled wine and hot buttered rum – a drink Agnes taught him to make when she was in residence – but he can’t keep them. The curtains are drawn, the lights are dim, every evening feels like a lock-in.

Agnes and Robert are faithful to the Black Hat, although not as faithful as Graeme who appears nightly. Jim Drury is proprietorial toward them, they’re his couple, he thinks, he introduced them, because of him they are married. Robert indulges the publican but he finds it a little hard to stomach, he wishes Jim would calm down. Other people have begun to calm down, Agnes isn’t quite the movie star she was at the beginning, they are getting used to having her around. Not Jim. The man is besotted, Robert thinks, snorting into his whisky. The man is besotted and, luckily for him, so is his wife, Lolita.

On this Sunday evening Agnes and Robert are in the pub early. Robert is going down to London later tonight, he has a meeting first thing in the morning with the agency responsible for letting out the holiday cottages on the estate. And a meeting with suppliers in the afternoon. He’ll stay with Elizabeth’s friend Marina and won’t be home until tomorrow evening. It will be the first time he and Agnes have been apart. He consoles himself by sitting close to her now, telling himself that in London he’ll find time for shopping, he’ll buy Agnes something lovely. They spent the afternoon in bed and Robert feels cocooned from the world by their intimacy.

‘I’ll walk you home before I head off,’ he says, looking at his watch.

‘No,’ says Agnes, ‘you go. I want to stay and talk to Lolita. I’ll go home with Graeme.’ Robert’s brother is sitting on the other side of the pub.

‘Oh,’ says Robert. ‘Okay.’ He puts on his coat and scarf reluctantly. ‘I’ll be off then.’

‘See you tomorrow.’

He bends to kiss her. ‘It’s not such a long time.’

And he’s away. Agnes surveys the pub. She walks toward Graeme.

At the house, Karen does the washing-up. Over the sink, she thinks back to what happened earlier that day. She’d come into the kitchen carrying Francis and several bags of shopping. Left Francis to play with his trucks, went out to retrieve the rest of the shopping. Put the bags on the floor, dashed upstairs to use the loo. Came back down again. Francis was in the corner, playing with his trucks. No shopping. The bags were not where she had placed them. She looked at Francis.

‘Where’s the shopping sweetie?’

Francis said, ‘Truck,’ and made a motor noise. He couldn’t have lifted the bags himself anyway. Karen went back out to the car, opened the boot. All the shopping was there. She carried it back in again. Two trips. Am I losing my mind? And when she opened the egg carton it was as though each one of the dozen eggs had been hit by a tiny mallet, their tops pierced, caved-in-concave, tiny perfect circles. Humpty-dumpty. And she turned around and, there at the table, was Agnes. Karen hadn’t heard her enter the room. ‘Do you ever feel as though you are losing your grip?’ she said.

There was no reply. Agnes was gone.

I wonder, Karen thinks now as she rinses a plate, if I am getting enough sleep.

‘I don’t think much of that agency he uses,’ Graeme says to Agnes.

‘Why’s that?’

‘I don’t think they’re right for our properties. Too down-market.’ Graeme’s list of grievances is long, and most concern Robert. He is surprised to find Agnes such a sympathetic listener. Despite living under the same roof they have spent very little time together since the wedding. When he looks into her face now he sees her green, green eyes. For a moment he thinks he can tell her anything, then he catches himself, she is my brother’s wife, after all. He wonders if Robert has told her about the boys.

‘What happened to your leg?’ she asks.

Graeme looks at her narrowly. Surely Robert has told her about that. Or somebody else, Jim Drury or Elizabeth. Everyone knows what happened to his leg. Or, at least, everyone thinks they know.