Winter Solstice (60 page)

“Couldn’t she go to boarding-school? That, at least, would be a different environment.”

Carrie was surprised by such perception in a young man of only eighteen.

“Perhaps she should, Rory. But, you see, I am simply a maiden aunt. I don’t dare make too many controversial suggestions in case I’m cast out into the wilderness as well.” She thought about this.

“And her school is good. She has a splendid headmistress whom she’s really fond of….”

“But it’s all girls.” Rory had now finished laying the table. He said, “Where’s the smoked salmon?”

“In the fridge. In the scullery.”

He went to get it. Carrie took a loaf of brown bread from the crock and then returned to the cooker to give the soup a stir. When he returned, she cleared a space for him, and found a large oval meat dish on which to arrange the delicate rosy slices. Rory slit the cellophane with a knife and began, neatly, to separate the slices of smoked salmon, and lay them out in overlapping layers. Carrie took a couple of lemons from the fruit bowl and started cutting them into wedges.

Rory worked on, intent and business-like, and Carrie watched him, and saw his unlikely bright-yellow hair, the ring in his ear, the blunt features, youthful but strong, well on his way to manhood. Helping the Sneads, probably washing up, he had rolled up the sleeves of his dark-blue cotton shirt, and his forearms were tanned and his hands strong and capable. Carrie could perfectly understand why Lucy liked him so much. She only prayed that Lucy, at fourteen, had not fallen in love. Because they were too young for love. Rory had his sights set on getting to Nepal, and a teenage infatuation at this moment in time was almost bound to result in a broken heart.

She said, “You’ve been so kind to her, Rory. A lot of guys your age simply wouldn’t have bothered.”

“I felt sorry for her….”

“I wonder why.”

“She seemed so lonely.”

“But sweet. She’s a sweet child.” She could not resist a small tease.

“And you bought sleepers for her ears.”

He looked at her and grinned.

“Oh, come on, Carrie. That was just giving the finger to her mum. Anyway, she wanted her ears pierced. So what? It’s part of growing up.” He stood back to survey the plate of neatly arranged slices of salmon.

“There, that’s it. Is that going to be enough?”

“Have to be. We’re keeping the other lot for Christmas Day.”

“Wonder how Lucy’s getting on?”

“Perhaps I’d better go and see…. You come, too. You’ve worked hard enough.”

“No, I’ll stay here. Be the chef. I quite like cooking. I used to make gingerbread men with my mum. You go back to the others. I’ll butter the bread, and there are still some little pizzas left over. I might put them in the oven…. Do you want me to open a bottle of wine or anything like that… ?”

Finally, Came unwound herself from Elfrida’s apron, hung it on a hook, and left Rory to it. She went out of the kitchen and upstairs. The landing stood empty. The receiver was back on the telephone. No sign of Lucy. She hesitated for a moment, all at once experiencing a pang of unexplained disquiet. And then, just as before, the telephone rang.

Carrie picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Who is that speaking? Is that the Estate House? I want to speak to Carrie.”

Unmistakable. Carrie’s heart sank.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m here. Hello, Ma.”

“It’s you. Oh, thank heavens. My dear, has Nicola been on to you?”

“Yes. She rang from Florida. About twenty minutes ago. But she wanted to talk to Lucy.”

“Did she tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Oh, my dear, she’s married. She’s married to Randall Fischer. This morning. They had a kind of whirlwind ceremony in a church called the Wee Chapel of the Angels, or something, and they’re married. She didn’t even let me know she’d got engaged, that they were planning this. I had simply no idea. Until I got this call from Florida….”

Carrie told herself that she had to keep calm, or everything was going to go to bits.

“She rang you before she rang Lucy?”

“Yes. She wanted to make arrangements.”

“What sort of arrangements?”

“For Lucy, of course. What else, do you think? When she’s getting back from Scotland, and that sort of thing….”

Oh, God, thought Carrie. Here we go again.

“… She’s talking about a honeymoon, not flying back to London until the end of the month. She’s going to cancel her flight back. Postpone it. And she expects me to be in London so that I can get Lucy back to school. But I’ve planned to stay here, in Bournemouth, until the end of January, and I cannot see why I should change all my arrangements. It’s really too much, Carrie. I’m simply not up to it. I told her so. I said, “I’m not up to it, Nicola.” But you know how selfish and unkind she can be if she doesn’t get her own way. And now of course she’s besotted with this man. And he’s all she’s thinking about.”

“Is she going to spend the rest of her life in America?”

“I suppose so. If you marry an American, I suppose that’s what you have to do.”

“What about Lucy … ?”

“Oh, Lucy will just have to do what she’s told for once. The immediate problem is who is going to look after her until her mother gets home?”

Carrie did not answer this question. She simply stood there, holding the receiver, aware of a great wave of impatience and fury directed at both her mother and her sister. She had felt this way before, many times, and doubtless would again, but she could not remember ever having been so angry. She thought of Randall Fischer and silently cursed him off for his tactlessness, his lack of imagination, of feeling. Surely he could have persuaded Nicola to give her family some warning before he marched her off to the Wee Chapel of the Angels and stuck a ring on her finger? He could not have caused more trouble if he had been a fox sneaking into a chicken coop, setting up a panic-stricken cackling and causing feathers to fly. She knew that if she made any remark, it would be wrong, finally precipitating a useless slanging-match that would solve nothing.

“Carrie?”

“Ma… I think it would be better if I rang you back.”

“Have you spoken to Lucy?”

“No. Not yet. This is the first I’ve heard of the happy news.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“No.”

“You’ve got my number? Here, in Bournemouth.”

“Yes, I’ve got it. I’ll call you.”

“When?”

“Sometime. Tomorrow, maybe.”

“Don’t leave it too long. I’m worried sick.”

“I’m sure.”

“Oh, and darling … you will have a lovely Christmas, won’t you?”

“Lovely,” Carrie told her.

She put the receiver down and stood for a moment, giving herself time to cool down, gather her wits, and face facts. Nicola was now Mrs. Randall Fischer. She had married him in Florida, in the Wee Chapel of the Angels. Carrie tried to picture the ceremony. Blue skies and palm trees; Randall Fischer in a white suit, and Nicola in some little concoction suitable for such an occasion. Had there been friends to witness the marriage? Had some old chum of Ran dall been wheeled in to give Nicola away? Had the old chum’s wife stood in as matron of honour, wearing an ankle-length gown and a corsage of orchids? And after the ceremony, had the four of them driven to the local country club, there to be feted by anyone who happened to be around… ?

But it was all unimaginable. And how or when it had taken place didn’t really matter because it was done, and could not be undone, and there was so much emotional debris littered around, waiting to be picked up, that Carrie felt she scarcely knew where to start.

Lucy. Lucy was the first. She had been given the joyous news over the telephone by her mother, had put down the receiver and disappeared. But where? Lucy didn’t much like Randall Fischer, and had uncharacteristically rebelled at the very suggestion that she might spend the two weeks of Christmas in his company, and in Florida.

But this … ? If Nicola had her way, this would be permanent, for good. Lucy at fourteen uprooted, transported to another country, another culture, a whole new and probably unwelcome life.

Suddenly Carrie was filled with apprehension. Where was Lucy? Had she slammed down the telephone, run silently downstairs, out of the front door, and disappeared … headed for the sea, the beach, the dunes, the bitter cold? If there had been a cliff nearby, it would have been more easy for Carrie to imagine the child flinging herself from its edge and crashing to death on rocks far below…. Trembling with anxiety, she pulled herself together, put such gruesome images out of her mind, and became sensible. She took a deep breath and climbed the stairs to Lucy’s attic. The landing light was on, but the bedroom door firmly closed. Carrie knocked. No reply. Gently she opened the door. All was darkness. She reached for the light, and switched it on.

“Lucy?” And her voice betrayed her anxiety.

A sulky hump under the blue-and-white duvet did not move or answer, but Carrie felt quite weak with relief, for at least she was here, and safe, and hadn’t fled from the house, out into the darkness, to the dunes, the beach, and the lonely sea…. “Lucy.” She went into the room, closing the door behind her, and crossed over to the bed and sat on the edge of it.

“Go away.”

“Darling, it’s Carrie.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Darling, I know. Gran rang from Bournemouth. She told me.”

“I don’t care if she told you or not. It doesn’t make any difference. Everything’s spoilt now. Everything. It always is. They always do.”

“Oh, Lucy….” Carrie laid her hand on the duvet, meaning to comfort, but Lucy jerked her shoulder and spurned the tentative comfort of touch.

“I wish you’d go away and leave me alone.”

Her voice was choked. Filled with tears. She had been crying, and now she was angry and resentful. Carrie understood, but still felt loath to leave her.

“To be truthful, I think your mother shouldn’t have done this, and certainly she shouldn’t have sprung it on you over the telephone, expecting you to be delighted. But I suppose we have to try to see her point of view….”

All at once, Lucy flung the duvet aside and turned up her face to Carrie’s. It was swollen and stained with weeping, her hair, which she had put up so carefully, tangled and in strands around her cheeks. She was ugly with anger and misery; and Carrie realized, with despair, that the anger was directed, not simply against her mother, but Carrie too … because they were all adult, and there was not a single adult who could be trusted.

“Of course you take her side,” Lucy shouted at Carrie.

“She’s your sister. Well, I hate her. I hate her because of all this, and because I’ve never mattered. I matter even less now. And I won’t go and live in America, or Florida or Cleveland or anywhere. And I hate Randall Fischer, and I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to be left alone. So go awayl” And she flung herself away from Carrie, pulled the duvet over her head, and buried her face in an already sodden pillow. She was crying again, wailing and sobbing; inconsolable.

Feebly, Carrie tried again.

“The Kennedys are all staying for supper….”

“I don’t care if they are.” Scarcely audible from beneath the folds of duvet.

“I could bring your supper up here.”

“I don’t want supper, I want you to go away….”

Impossible. Carrie stayed for a moment, and then, knowing that it was hopeless to persist, got to her feet, went out of the room, and closed the door once more behind her.

She felt completely shattered, and without any idea of what to do next. She stood at the top of the stairs and heard the voices of the others in the sitting-room, still gathered around the fire. A burst of carefree laughter. She went downstairs, and for the third time that evening, as she reached the landing, the telephone rang yet again.

Nothing could get much worse. She picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Carrie. Is that Carrie?”

“Nicola.”

“Yes, it’s me again.” The voice was high-pitched, furiously indignant.

“I’ve been trying to ring back for the last ten minutes. I couldn’t get through. Lucy put the phone down on me. I was telling her-”

“I know what you were telling her.”

“And she put the phone down on me. I couldn’t finish what I was saying. I want to talk to her again. Go and get her. She has no right to ring off like that….”

“I think she has every right. She thought you were calling to say Happy Christmas, and all you do is blurt out the fact that you’ve married Randall Fischer, and expect her to be delighted.”

“So she should be. A lovely new father, a heavenly house, a heavenly place to live. If only she’d come with me, she’d have seen it all for herself. Why does she have to be so against anything I do? I’ve done everything for her, isn’t it about time she started thinking about other people’s happiness? Doesn’t it mean anything to her that I’m so happy? At last….”

“Nicola-”

“… Mother’s the same. She even resents me staying on a bit longer so that we can have a honeymoon….”

“Nicola, I don’t resent anything. I’m pleased for you. Honestly. But you have a child to consider, and she’s not a baby. You can scarcely expect her to be over the moon when it seems that her whole life is going to be turned upside down….”

“I don’t want to listen to this. I can’t imagine what all the fuss is about. Just go and get her for me.”

“No, I won’t. I can’t. She’s up in her room, bundled in her duvet, and crying her heart out. I’ve tried to speak to her, but she’s too upset even to talk to me. And there are practicalities as well. We go back to London after the New Year, and Lucy has to go back to school. Who’s going to be there for her? Mother wants to stay in Bournemouth.”

“Can’t you even do that for me?”

“I haven’t got a house to live in.”

“Well, you can go to Mother’s flat and be with Lucy there. Get her back to school….”

“Nicola, I have a new job waiting for me-”

“Oh, your career, I suppose. Your great career. That was always more important than any of us. I should have thought just for once-”

“I should have thought just for once you’d think about other people and not yourself all the time.”