A Surrey State of Affairs (36 page)

Jeffrey ordered champagne for all. A happy hubbub of voices mingled over the candlelight. The only thing missing was Rupert.

He arrived. With a nondescript young man whom he introduced as Alex. I simply did not understand. At first, I thought that I had made a mistake all along, and that his partner really was a business partner, or simply an acquaintance. My heart fell as the prospect of a family wedding once more receded into a distant, indistinct future.

And then Rupert was sitting next to me, with an earnest look in his eyes, and Alex was sitting next to him. At this point, the realization probably began to crystallize somewhere in my brain; but I ignored it and poured them both champagne, hastily introducing Alex to everyone as Rupert’s friend and calling the waiter over to order starters. Rupert knocked his champagne flute back in one gulp, while Alex sipped his shyly and told me in a quiet
voice with a light northern accent how nice it was to meet me, how I was just as Rupert described, and that he loved the vintage pearl brooch that I had pinned to the front of my cardigan on my way out as an afterthought. “It was my mother’s,” I muttered, poking my spoon through the cheesy crust of my French onion soup, concentrating on not splashing it, nothing else. Everyone else was chatting, no one seemed suspicious. Jeffrey was smearing pâté on little triangles of toast and loudly telling Edward how he had knocked two points off his golf handicap, while Ivan stole his pickles and ate them whole. I looked at Rupert. Rupert looked back at me. Then he placed his hand on my arm, and said he couldn’t wait anymore. Alex was staring straight ahead, a flush of color rising on his clean-shaven cheeks. Rupert explained, with something of his childhood stutter returning, that Alex was not just a friend, and that he had to tell me something important about himself, that he was fundamentally the same person but with one vital difference that I finally had to grasp. Sophie leaned in and said: “Mum, he’s gay. G-A-Y. Get it?”

In one moment, it all made sense. I may not be a spring chicken, but I am nevertheless not quite ancient enough to labor under the delusion that
gay
still means “jolly” or “frolicsome.” Sophie had just articulated my own, newly formed suspicion. But how to reconcile this bombshell with my son? All I know about gay people is what I gleaned when I watched
Brokeback Mountain
in the mistaken belief that all the nice horses would bring back fond memories of Pony Club. It just doesn’t fit. Rupert is not anguished and filled with brooding, explosive menace. He is a quiet, studious IT consultant who lives in Milton Keynes. I looked at him, I looked at Alex. I realized they were holding hands under the table. The room had fallen silent.

Overwhelmed by a mixture of shock, confusion, and Moët, I ran out of the restaurant. Jeffrey followed and drove me home in silence.
As soon as we got in, and I had shut the door behind us, I asked him if he was okay. “Of course, old bird,” he said. “Bit of a shock, but that’s life, eh?” He hugged me, but he wouldn’t look me in the eye. He left the following morning for a shooting trip with Ivan.

I do not know what to think. Every time I consider the implications of this news my head throbs as if Jeffrey were playing his Pink Floyd album. All I can think of is the image I had formed in my head of Alex: a sweet girl, petite, with dark blond hair, a green summer dress. Someone who would have complimented me on my hair and asked about Darcy and said that the restaurant was lovely. Someone who would have realized the importance of coordinating the wedding invites with the floral decorations.

As I went to retrieve a packet of tissues from my handbag this morning, I found the birthday present that Rupert must have tucked into it when he arrived at the restaurant.

It was a beautiful embroidered silk scarf, in puce.

  
MONDAY, AUGUST 11

Sophie is silent and sulky. She must share my distress at Rupert’s revelation. Ivan and Jeffrey are still shooting ptarmigan in Yorkshire.

I almost wish they would spare their shot for the wretched, dyspeptic mynah bird that squats in the conservatory emitting strange sounds and foul odors.

When it gets too much, I shroud its cage with a towel, which seems to send it into a stupor. I wish someone would do the same for me.

  
TUESDAY, AUGUST 12

Rupert sent me a text message. It read:
Mum,
I hope you’re ok. I’m still me. Love, Rupert.

Not that this in any way mitigates his unfortunate choice of
sexual orientation, but I was gratified to see that he hadn’t written “ur.”

  
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13

Last night I went to bell ringing. How could I not? The championship is this Sunday; whatever my sense of humiliation as I made my way across the churchyard, eyes down on the luxuriant green weeds sprawling between the paving stones, whatever the sense of dread as I entered the belfry and faced my fellow ringers for the first time since Rupert’s disclosure, whatever the fearsome obstacles, I knew I had to nail the Reverse St. Sylvester if we were to have any hope of thrashing St. Albans.

In the end, it was not so bad. Reginald stopped his warm-up routine of jumping jacks to pat my arm, Gerald smiled kindly, and even Miss Hughes attempted a smile, though it looked more like a sneer. And then the ringing itself began, and in concentrating on the rhythm, on the exact disconnect between pulling downward and hearing that rich clang up above, in feeling the alternate weight and lightness of the rope between my fingers, I felt calm for the first time since Friday.

Unfortunately, the sensation didn’t last long. When practice finished, I saw that I had a text message from Jeffrey, which read:
Great weather, plenty of birds. Will stay another week or so. J x.

  
THURSDAY, AUGUST 14

2 A.M.

Do you think homosexuality is a phase that one grows out of?

11 A.M.

After a fitful night’s sleep, I was standing in the conservatory staring at Darcy, in case he held any answers in his intense,
black eyes, when the doorbell rang. It was a young man, with a mop.

“I’m here about the job,” he said.

“What job?”

“Housekeeper. The agency sent me. They said you advertised.”

And that, I suppose, sums things up. Of course, the new housekeeper might be a man, your son’s new girlfriend might be a man; you can’t be sure of anything anymore.

“Um, is everything okay?” he said. I realized I had been staring at him in silence for some time.

“Yes, yes, sorry, I’m just a bit tired today. Come in.”

He had kind eyes, an accent a touch like Natalia’s but much lighter, and long arms that would be useful for getting the cobwebs off the chandelier. His name is Boris. After a few calls to check his references, I agreed to a two-week trial, starting immediately. It won’t take me long to clear out Natalia’s old room for him. His first task is to clean out the mynah bird’s cage.

  
FRIDAY, AUGUST 15

Tanya stopped by today. I spotted her from my bedroom window as she pulled up the drive in her cartoonish Smart car, squeaking to an abrupt stop, then easing her huge, pregnant form slowly out of the driver’s seat. Rupert will never put a woman into this state. There will be no pregnancies; no books of little boys’ and little girls’ names; no panicky call from him in the middle of the night to say that our grandchild is on its way; no trying to see his features in a tiny, new, reddened face; no cots, no blankets, no booties, no cuddly toys or alphabet mobiles. None of that.

There was a hammering at the door. I had forgotten to let Tanya in. When I did she ran straight for the bathroom, swearing. She is finding the final stages of pregnancy hard. “My
bladder is the size of a
^*
*
*
*
ing pea, Connie!” she said afterward, over a glass of sparkling mineral water. She is avoiding all caffeine, alcohol, tuna fish, soft cheese, pâté, steak, and salad, and taking daily folic acid supplements. How times have changed. I told her that when I was pregnant, I had a glass of sherry most evenings and ate whatever I felt like. Mother was halfway through making a vat of her signature plum chutney the day she gave birth to me. She often used to tell me that the whole pan had curdled and had to be thrown away when she got back from hospital, with a resentful tone to her voice. Tanya shuddered. Her back aches, her ankles are swollen, and every time she tries to sleep the kicking starts.

I would happily have spent the entire morning talking about pregnancy and reminiscing fondly, but Tanya had other ideas.

“So, what’s the score with Rupert? Have you seen him yet? That Alex seemed like a nice guy.”

I was silent. Perhaps Tanya noticed my puffy eyes, the line on my cheek still visible from where I had ground my jaw fretfully into my pillow in my sleep.

“Oh, Connie,” she said. “Don’t take it so badly! It’s the twenty-first century. I mean, have you seen
Brokeback Mountain
? Come on, it’s not like he’s just told you he’s a pimp or a smack-head or”—she rolled her eyes—“a banker or something.”

I nodded numbly, nibbling at the edges of my Waitrose ginger nut biscuit—I have not had the energy to bake for some days. At that point Sophie wandered in, went to the fridge, and started swigging straight from a carton of Tropicana. I felt too weary to tell her off. Tanya continued trying to reconcile me to Rupert’s news.