Authors: Aline Templeton
It
was only when business picked up and he had at last got on top of the job that he realized that somewhere along the line he had become – diminished, that was the word, now that she had taken over the responsibility that had previously been his. She had to exercise considerable authority, of course, in her position as theatre sister, but it had begun to spill over into everyday life to a positively worrying extent. She was becoming a control freak; it was losing her friends, but she flipped if he so much as suggested that spontaneity was also a virtue, and a little bit of muddle never hurt anyone. They didn’t make love very often these days; he had begun to feel she had a stopwatch on him, and a ‘duly-performed’ checklist in her head.
Much
of the time, he simply accepted that they lived at arms’ length, but he regretted that she had no use now for the protective warmth that had characterized his relationship with her in the past. He knew she was having problems at work, and was indeed worried about what it seemed to be doing to her, but offering TLC to Suzanne was about as profitable as snuggling up to a Scorpion tank.
His
eye fell on Elizabeth McEvoy, on the farther side of the group behind her husband, also a little detached from it. He could never understand how such a gentle creature could have brought herself to marry a brute like Piers, whose coarse bullying manner even he found offensive. It was her neat, delicate profile he could see, her mouth drooping and her eyes wide and wistful, as if she were looking sadly out to distant horizons. The Little Mermaid, he thought suddenly; that was what she reminded him of, the enchanting statue on the Langeline in Copenhagen, and she looked all too often as if, like Andersen’s tragic sea-maid, she too were walking on knives. His gaze softened as he looked at her.
Elizabeth
did not notice his regard. As her husband issued invitations, she dug her nails into the palms of her hands until she thought they must bleed. And she should never have worn these stupid sandals; her feet were killing her, her back ached and her head was throbbing so that she felt almost sick. She had to go on and on, with all this desperate entertaining, trying to keep Piers busy and amused, but increasingly these days everyone seemed tense and jaded. Tonight she had been terrified that the whole thing would blow up in their faces; you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. Surely no one who didn’t have to go home with Piers would choose to do so!
She
was desperate that the children should have a proper Christmas. Peter, at nine, was still sentimental when he was allowed to be, and this was probably the last year Milla would believe in Santa Claus wholeheartedly – that was, as long as Paula wasn’t inspired to make this the night she extended her sister’s education, and surely even Paula in her current phase of twelve-year-old cynicism couldn’t be as merciless as that.
But
she must get them to bed, and have time to sort things out. This Christmas was going to be worse even than usual, the first since Mother Mac died. Piers’s mother had been, like his father, blunt and plain-spoken and formidable, but she could be relied on to keep Piers in line, and she had been improbably kind to the daughter-in-law who was as unlike her as anyone could be. She had always given Elizabeth a sense of security, and indeed it was only after her death that Piers had started drinking in earnest – but she mustn’t think about that now. She must put on a good show tomorrow, if this Christmas wasn’t to be like far too many other recent occasions, with her left frantically trying to put on a brave face and salvage something from the wreckage to slip into the thin file in her mind marked ‘Happy Family Memories’.
But
nobody wanted to come, thank God, thank God, thank God. They were all, even Hayley Cutler, collecting up assorted children and making their excuses.
‘
You’re a glutton for punishment, Piers, I’ll say that for you,’ Patrick said with an attempt at jollity as Piers, unsuccessful elsewhere, turned to him. ‘I’ve got another heavy day’s partying ahead, and I want to be fit to enjoy it.’
Suzanne
said acidly, ‘That’s what’s known as the triumph of hope over experience. Good-night, Lizzie. That was a perfectly lovely party – I don’t know how you do it. Try to get ten minutes shuteye before tomorrow morning, won’t you? You can always get Piers to peel the potatoes.’
Elizabeth
smiled tiredly and hugged her, but Piers had moved out of earshot.
‘
Anthea, you’ll come won’t you darling? You’re off the leash without the old man for once – make the most of it!’
Anthea
Jones, in her red coat, was moving off already, as if trying to keep space between herself and her would-be host.
‘
That’s very kind, but I must get back to my babies. Richard’s second on call, so I really shouldn’t be out at all. And we’ve still got to do the Santa bit.’
‘
Sssh!’ Suzanne frowned, pointing down to the six-year-old leaning sleepily against Elizabeth McEvoy’s coat, but the child was clearly not listening.
‘
Come on, Milla darling,’ her mother said. ‘Time we got you home.’
Her
husband, seeing the party break up despite his efforts, turned away with a petulant shrug, returning none of the shouted ‘Good-nights’.
Hayley
Cutler’s rich American tones carried in the night air as she summoned her family.
‘
Gather up, Cutlers! Back to the ranch. Andy!’ she called towards the teenagers still clustered round the gate.
He
detached himself and lounged across. There was a low-voiced discussion before she turned away, calling over her shoulder, ‘OK honey, an hour but that’s all. Past 1.30 and you’re grounded.’
With
the two younger children, she crossed towards the Briar Patch, as she had christened the cottage where they had lived since her divorce five years ago.
‘
Patrick, for heaven’s sake don’t be so bloody stupid. I’ll drive – the place is swarming with policemen on a night like this. Into the back, Ben.’
Bolton,
protesting that it wasn’t far and he was perfectly fit to drive, handed over the keys meekly enough, and Suzanne swung the car round neatly and set off back the way they had come, past the Lodge and out the quarter of a mile to Bentham’s, on the edge of the village.
It
was only a few hundred yards back to the Lodge, but with Milla clinging to her waist and stumbling along half-asleep, Elizabeth walked slowly. She was wrestling with a deep reluctance to go back to the house, which was natural enough considering all that she still had to do when she got there.
Yet
it wasn’t only that. There was something about the house these days, a sort of feeling that something – somewhere – was badly wrong. It wasn’t her house at all, of course, it was Piers’s house, his possession and his pride. And things were badly wrong with Piers; perhaps, she thought fancifully, his darkening spirit poisoned the air.
But
even that wasn’t everything. There were strange things happening, things she couldn’t explain, like the spilled sugar with the primitive face drawn in it: a circle, with two dots for eyes, a down-turned mouth, and other little strokes representing tears. It was the sort of thing a child might draw, but she had gone to bed after the children and got up before, and she always woke if they were moving about...
They
had reached the gate now, and in she must go. Peter, at her side, had been talking companionably – he was a child who was seldom silent – about a moth which had tried to barbecue itself over his own personal candle.
‘
So I shooed it away, Mummy, but then it came back, again and again. So I put a hymn book over the top, but it began to smell funny so I took it off, but I had to keep on shooing it away all the rest of the hymn. Why do they do that, Mummy? It’s silly, isn’t it? Why don’t they know it’s silly, Mummy?’
‘
I don’t know, darling,’ she said mechanically. Piers had gone on ahead, of course, presumably to shut himself into the games room, which was his particular preserve, with what was left in the whisky decanter, just in case she was unreasonable enough to ask him to help her clear up, or do something for tomorrow, or even fill the children’s stockings.
She
bit her lip. She couldn’t afford to let herself start crying now. She mustn’t fall apart. She had far too much to do.
***
Paula McEvoy had outdistanced the family party, while not walking fast enough to risk catching up with her father. She was tired, though she wasn’t prepared to admit it to herself, and as a result felt crosser than usual. Even crosser than usual.
It
was all just so naff, the whole Christmas bit. Why couldn’t Mum just chill out, instead of pretending like this? They’d be a lot better off like the Cutlers, with everyone accepting that Christmas Day was dismal and you just had to get through it, so you would have no need to feel sorry for your mother and guilty because you weren’t making yourself into some sort of domestic slave, or something.
She
’d said that to Martha Cutler this evening, when the two of them had sneaked out into the garage for a smoke. It had been cold, and she wasn’t that keen on fags, actually – she’d had to be very careful not to breathe in too deeply and choke, which would give away the fact that she hadn’t quite worked out how to inhale – but Martha, who was a year older, really smoked, four or five a day sometimes, and she definitely wanted Martha to be impressed.
‘
I wish my parents would just split up and get it over with, like yours,’ she had said, making it sound quite casual, as if this was the sort of thing she said all the time, instead of the first time she had spoken it out loud.
Martha,
who was whippet-thin and wore black a lot and had a husky voice, blew a smoke ring towards the rafters of the garage, where cobwebs festooned an ancient car roof-rack and a couple of rusty garden tools suspended there.
‘
What makes you say that?’ she drawled. Her accent wasn’t quite American, because she’d lived in England all her life and her Dad was English, but she had a hint of something more exotic in her voice which Paula admired enormously and tried from time to time to imitate.
‘
You wouldn’t believe how horrendous tomorrow is going to be. Mum will bang on about the Christmas spirit and insist on puke-making family traditions that she’s only just thought of, and the kids will squabble and Dad will get pissed.’
She
used the word with a sense of daring, and shot a sideways glance at Martha, to see how it would be received. But Martha, whose mother’s language had always been uninhibited, seemed not to notice.
‘
At least she tries. I like your Mum; she talks to me as if I was a human being instead of a teeny-bopper, which is what Hayley keeps calling me.’
That
was another thing Paula admired, calling your mother by her first name. She had rehearsed it secretly – Elizabeth, Lizzie, Liz – but somehow it hadn’t worked. She still thought of her as Mummy, which had to be some kind of brainwashing.
Martha
dragged the last puff out of her cigarette and ground it below her heel.
‘
Come on, we’d better get back. If Hayley finds me smoking she’ll go ballistic. She’s got this awfully American thing about it.’
Obediently,
Paula had ground out her own half-smoked cigarette, with secret relief, and followed her friend back into the house.
She
had managed to sound cool, talking to Martha, but she still felt sick when she let herself think about the feeling she had constantly these days, that something was dreadfully, dreadfully wrong. And putting it into words hadn’t helped at all. Perhaps nothing would.
Now
she had achieved her objective of outdistancing her mother and the kids without catching up her father. She reached the house only a few minutes behind him, but she saw the lights go on in the games room so she let herself in quietly. Her father had shut the door, which was a good thing. She could get herself upstairs and out of sight without anyone forcing her to help clear up their stupid party, or go through the toe-curling exercises of stockings and Santa Claus rituals.
Just
as she crossed the hall, she heard the ‘ping’ of one of the telephone extensions being lifted, and stood for a moment very still.
Earwigging
was no sort of taboo as far as she was concerned, but she could hear the rest of them coming up the garden path, Milla whining that she wanted to be carried up to bed. Swift as a lizard, she slid up the stairs and was in her bedroom with her own door shut tight and the comfort blanket of Capital Radio filling in any awkward silences.
***
Hayley Cutler switched on the lights as she came in the door, looked round the open-plan ground floor of the cottage, and groaned. Sometimes she thought it would be easier just to quit and do it herself, but hell’s teeth, she wasn’t the only able-bodied mortal around.
‘
Would you look at this place? Mikey, go get some logs from the shed for the fire. And Marty, all that stuff in the corner is yours. Clear it, can’t you?’
‘
Don’t call me Marty.’ Martha went across to pick up the litter of wrapping paper and ribbon as her younger brother went silently out. ‘You only do because you like to sound really American instead of half-and-half.’