She gave her daughter a brief hug. ‘If you could lay the table …’
For a while they worked companionably together, both singing along together when the radio played Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’. Annie’s mobile, which was in her apron pocket, buzzed loudly. It was Daniel. Don’t let him be ringing to cancel, she begged silently.
‘Just checking the address,’ she heard him say.
She told him, not mentioning that she’d already sent it in an email. He must be nervous too.
‘See you at one thirty,’ she rang off.
Lucy looked questioningly at her.
‘Daniel … lost the address.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum. It’ll all go brilliantly.’
Annie pulled a face. ‘Thanks, darling. I’m worried about
Ed more than anyone. Have you spoken to him? He never talks to me, just texts. He’s not going to throw another wobbly, is he?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘He’ll be fine.’ But her daughter’s tone was tinged with doubt.
‘I just want Daniel to have a good time, to feel … well, to feel welcomed.’
‘Ed’d never be rude, Mum, not in front of a stranger.’
‘No … no, of course he wouldn’t.’ She didn’t like Daniel being called a ‘stranger’, but she didn’t challenge Lucy. To them he was. She set Lucy to chopping the cucumber for the salad and went to change into her dress, trying to stop working herself up about her younger son.
The front door banged twenty minutes later and Ed, Marsha and Emma clattered down the stairs. Annie, her face flushed from the oven, greeted them with relief. She hugged Ed tightly, but he clearly hadn’t forgiven her; there was little returned warmth in his embrace.
‘What are we having, Mum?’ Marsha looked around at the preparations.
‘Barbecue. Now you’re here, will you light it for me, please, Ed? I don’t know where your dad is, but he always leaves it till the last minute, then sprays lighter fuel over everything.’
The kitchen was suddenly alive with activity.
Annie saw Lucy pulled Marsha aside and slide her eyes meaningfully in her brother’s direction. It wasn’t encouraging.
By the time the doorbell rang, just after one thirty, everything was ready – Annie’s organising almost military in its precision. So they all stood about making desultory conversation round the smoking barbecue, waiting for the honoured guest.
She watched with pride as Daniel, escorted by Richard, made his entrance into the kitchen. He looked so handsome, so smart in his pale blue shirt, jeans and dark jacket. His auburn hair was shiny and smelt of shampoo when she hugged him, but she noticed the expression in his grey-blue eyes was hesitant, much more so than when she’d first set eyes on him at Marjory’s. She began the introductions, but was interrupted by Marsha, whose eyes were wide in disbelief.
‘You!’
She saw a blush creep up her daughter’s cheek as an answering one appeared on Daniel’s.
‘The party … Jason’s flat …’ Daniel looked away in confusion.
Annie, bewildered, glanced quickly from him to her daughter.
‘You’ve met?’ And suddenly she remembered the moment – the day of the fateful letter – that Marsha had mentioned meeting a man at a party who wasn’t a media moron. Please, dear God, don’t let them … She searched her memory for what her daughter had told them about the evening. No, she’d definitely said he wasn’t her type – they’d all laughed at Lucy’s remark about geography
teachers – although she also remembered a certain wistfulness in Marsha’s tone. She felt a small shudder pass through her body, but she didn’t have time to consider the implications now.
Richard was oblivious to the drama. ‘Drink, anyone? There’s cold beer in the tub in the garden, or white wine. Daniel?’
‘Umm … thanks, a beer would be great.’ Daniel seemed to make a big effort to pull himself together.
‘Why don’t you all go outside while I finish off the lunch,’ she said, shooing them towards the deck. Although apart from turning out the tart, which couldn’t be done till the last minute, there was precious little left to do. She watched the group from inside. Ed was largely silent, nursing a bottle of beer and staring out across the gardens while Emma and Lucy were both looking up at Daniel and laughing at something he was telling them … She caught the name of a famous actor. Marsha was ignoring them and helping her father turn the spare ribs and sausages over on the grill. Annie felt cold suddenly. I should have told my children about Daniel, I should have warned them. But what were the chances of them meeting like that? She was sure, from what Marsha had said at the time, that nothing had happened between them. But it could have, it could have …
‘Annie tells me you run a bar in Islington. Which one is it? I’m often around that neck of the woods.’ Daniel addressed his half-brother.
They were seated round the table at last. The sun had come out and, to the untutored eye, it looked like a normal family enjoying a normal Sunday lunch in the warmth of an early-summer afternoon.
‘Red Desert, it’s newish. On Upper Street, just before the Almeida on the left.’
Nothing about Ed’s demeanour reassured his mother about his state of mind. He looked tired and dull, slumped over his food, which he just pushed round his plate. By comparison, Daniel seemed in his element, seated between Emma – who had purposefully manoeuvred herself into the chair next to him – and herself, but entertaining the entire table with stories from his life in advertising. Her heart went out to her younger son.
‘The owner an Antonioni fan, then?’ Daniel was asking.
Ed looked blank.
‘You know, Eddie, the guy who did
The Passenger
with Jack Nicholson?’ Emma glanced at Daniel knowingly. ‘
Red Desert
is one of his.’
‘The owner’s Moroccan. They have red sand in Morocco, I’m told.’ Ed made no effort to hide his satisfaction in snubbing Daniel.
‘You like it there, don’t you?’ Annie tried to encourage her younger son to open up. But she heard herself sounding like the mother of a ten-year-old asking about school.
Ed raised his eyebrows. ‘No, Mum, I hate it. It’s slave labour and boring as hell. But –’ he shrugged at Daniel ‘– a man’s got to earn a crust.’
Daniel seemed not to notice Ed’s sullen tone and grinned sympathetically. ‘Yeah, unfortunately you do. God, the jobs I’ve done to keep body and soul together. I sometimes wonder if this writing malarkey is worth it.’
‘At least you’re doing something you care about, along with the shitty jobs,’ Ed replied.
‘I suppose so. What would you care about if you had the chance?’
Annie held her breath. They were really talking at last!
‘I’ve always wanted to work with wood … you know, carpentry, joinery … design and make my own furniture,’ Ed said quietly.
Emma looked puzzled and Lucy burst out laughing. Marsha was sitting in silence down the end of the table and hardly seemed to be listening to the conversation.
‘Make furniture?’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘Since when? You’ve never mentioned that before.’
Richard harrumphed, but didn’t comment.
Ed’s face flushed angrily. ‘Since forever, actually. I’m not just some loser in a bar,’ he added, glaring at his father for a split second.
‘Come on, Luce, he’s done lots. That table in our flat, Mum’s bread bin.’ Marsha came to life in her brother’s defence, and Annie noticed Ed shoot her a grateful glance. ‘They’re good,’ her daughter added.
‘I’d love to work with my hands,’ Daniel responded. ‘It must be the most satisfying thing in the world.’
Annie saw Ed eye him suspiciously, as if to check if he was making fun of him. But, to her at least, Daniel’s comment seemed entirely sincere.
She went inside to get the pudding, beckoning Marsha to help collect the plates. Her daughter did as she was bidden and followed her into the kitchen.
‘Listen, I owe you a big apology,’ Annie told her in a whisper, her voice breathless with anxiety. ‘I made a terrible mistake not telling you all about Daniel. I was being selfish, I realise that now. Only seeing it from my point of view. I never thought … That night, at the party … I mean, obviously it’s a one in a trillion chance, but it happened. You should have been warned.’
Marsha didn’t meet her eye. ‘Yeah … well, not much we can do about it now, eh?’
‘Are you angry with me?’
‘Mum, I’m not
angry
, but –’ her eyes filled with tears ‘– just really, really shocked. Suppose we
had
done something? Had sex, for instance?’
Annie recoiled. ‘You didn’t, did you? You said …’
Marsha shook her head. ‘No, we didn’t. I told you at the time, he’s not my type. But we might have.’ She paused. ‘Can you imagine if I’d let my own brother make love to me? How horrible would that have been?’
Annie was shaken.
‘What’s up, guys?’ Lucy came inside, balancing a stack of empty bowls in both hands.
Marsha pulled away from Annie’s embrace and wiped away the tears.
‘Nothing, it’s fine,’ she mumbled, and hurried to the small loo in the corridor.
‘Mum?’
‘Marsha’s upset because of meeting Daniel at that party.’
Lucy looked baffled. Then it dawned on her. ‘Oh, you mean … She didn’t …’ her eyes widened in shock. ‘They didn’t …?’
Annie quickly shook her head. ‘She says not.’
‘God!’ Lucy shot a glance out towards Daniel on the terrace.
‘Don’t say anything to the others, will you.’
‘Of course not.’
Annie handed Lucy the pudding plates and a small porcelain jug of double cream in silence. She heard laughter and saw her elder son grinning as he finished another anecdote. Emma’s beautiful face was alive with pleasure. She couldn’t see Ed’s, his back was to her, but he seemed to be laughing too.
She brushed away the dark thoughts about Daniel and Marsha and hurried outside, laying her
tarte tatin
in the centre of the wooden table. The chunks of apple nestled plump and buttery, a deep golden brown, in rough circles on top of the crisp pastry, the caramel juice leaking temptingly around the edges; the vanilla ice cream, homemade of course and delicately flecked with dark pinpoints of vanilla seeds, scooped smooth and rich from the container;
the gold-rimmed floral-patterned Ironstone plates set off the pudding to perfection, but her pleasure was overshadowed by what Marsha had said.
It was only when the pudding had been carefully divided and served, the ice cream handed round, the cream poured, that Richard raised his glass.
‘I’d like to propose a toast. To meeting Daniel!’ Everyone round the table echoed his words, ‘Daniel … Daniel.’
Annie glanced round at all four of her children – together for the first time – and saw only the smiles she had longed for. Her eldest had won them over with his charm and humour as she’d known he would. Marsha was putting on a good show; even Ed looked almost mellow.
‘So, what’s the verdict?’ Marsha asked, directing her attention to Daniel as she poured the coffee and passed the small demi-tasses round the table. ‘On your long-lost gene pool?’ She grinned cheekily at him.
Daniel didn’t flinch. ‘It’s been wonderful today,’ he smiled at the faces round the table. ‘I really appreciate being here.’
‘Our pleasure,’ Richard said.
‘What’s it like? Meeting us?’ Lucy voiced what each of them had been thinking.
Annie had gone over versions of this conversation in her mind so many times before today, and she found she was almost holding her breath.
‘Odd, I suppose. And for you too … not knowing I even existed till recently,’ Daniel replied.
There was an awkward silence.
‘Yeah …’ Marsha began, then stopped.
‘We were … surprised,’ Lucy added. It sounded to Annie as if this wasn’t quite what her daughter had been about to say.
‘I can imagine.’ Daniel shifted his gaze to the horizon, fiddling with the edge of his napkin.
Annie was just wracking her brains to find something to say, when Emma spoke up.
‘I’ve got some cousins I’ve never met.’ She didn’t sound as if she’d even noticed the awkward lacuna in the conversation. ‘On my father’s side. My dad’s eldest brother … they fell out about twenty years ago over some stupid money thing. I’ve sometimes thought of looking them up.’
‘Often happens in families.’ Richard nodded. ‘So where did you say you were living, Daniel?’
Annie smiled at her husband’s deft change of subject.
‘Umm, Islington at the moment.’
‘Do you share?’
Daniel shook his head. ‘I’m on my own. But not for much longer. The landlord is selling up and I have to move out in two weeks. There’s some subsidence problem he can’t be bothered to deal with, so he’s offloading it cheap.’
‘Is this sudden?’ Annie asked, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it to her. ‘Where will you go?’
‘Friend’s sofa in Stoke Newington, then I’m up in Edinburgh, rehearsing. I haven’t got time to look for
another place before that – there’s still so much to do on the play.’ Daniel was beginning to look uncomfortable under this scrutiny, but Annie persevered.
‘But that’s weeks away. Won’t it be a nightmare, not having a proper place? Especially when you’re working.’
‘I’ll be fine, honestly. I’ve done it before.’
‘You could stay here,’ Lucy interrupted, to receive shocked looks from the rest of the family.
‘No … no, please. That’s very kind, but no way … I couldn’t possibly do that.’ He held his hands up in protest. ‘I didn’t tell you so you could ask me to stay.’
‘Why can’t you, though?’ Lucy persisted, looking between her parents. ‘We have the room. Marsha and Ed don’t live here any more.’ Her mother noticed her twiddling a length of her auburn curls – a gesture she’d developed as a child when she was nervous.
Annie wasn’t sure how she felt. She had wanted Daniel to be part of the family, but her daughter’s suggestion seemed too sudden, too soon. She glanced at the others, but they looked back at her with a neutral gaze, perhaps waiting for her reaction.
‘It does make sense,’ Annie said slowly, against her better judgment but not wanting Daniel to think she wasn’t keen. ‘It’s only for a few weeks … and at least you’d have a proper room of your own.’
Daniel shook his head, smiling at them as if they were daft children. ‘I’ve only just met you all! I can’t just suddenly move in.’