Michael was quiet in the car as we tacked across country back to the main road. In the rearview mirror, I saw him lean his head on the window, a deliberately expressionless look on his face. Martha tried to engage him and he answered her in short polite sentences that offered no leads to further conversation. I could guess at how he must be feeling as we drove away, leaving Danny in his new fiefdom.
It was clear to me that Martha really liked Greg. She leant forward between the seats, asking him questions as we drove. Their conversation gave me the opportunity to shoot an occasional sideways glance at him. His voice was warm and low in the semi-darkness, his face lit now and again by the angling beams of the headlights of the cars on the road behind us. His physical proximity was disturbing; I had to keep dragging my concentration back to the driving. I felt as though the thoughts about him that had been running through my brain all afternoon had somehow escaped my head and were at large, liable at any moment to make themselves known to him. They were so intense and vivid to me that I couldn't believe others wouldn't be aware of them. I was conscious of every minor movement of his body, the shape of his thighs in his jeans, just on the periphery of my vision. If I had shifted my hand just a few inches I could have touched him.
We reached the outskirts of London and crawled past Gipsy Corner and the Hanger Lane underpass, inching up to the rear lights of the car in front. As we approached the Shepherd's Bush roundabout, Michael came out of his reverie and asked to be dropped in Netting Hill Gate. I stopped in a side road and got out to pull my seat forward. He retrieved his burgundy-leather weekend bag from the boot and kissed my cheek. 'Thanks, Jo,' he said quietly. 'Sorry for being such a misery.'
'You're not.' I hugged him. 'You could never be. Are you going to be OK?'
He nodded. 'I'm going to go and see a friend of mine. Talk to someone removed from it all.'
I hugged him again and watched him go round the corner. Even if I hadn't known how he was feeling, his posture would have told me he was very down. I hesitated for a second or two, then got back into the car and did up my seatbelt. I felt another flash of pure hatred for Danny, for bulldozing into other people's lives as if they didn't have feelings, not giving a toss about anything as long as his own needs were satisfied.
'Are you hungry?' Martha was saying. 'Jo and I were thinking of getting some fish and chips to eat back at ours.'
He turned and looked at me again. Martha's question hadn't brought me out in the panic I would have expected. Instead, looking at his face in the glow of the streetlight, I found I was willing him to say yes.
'I'd love to - thank you - but I'd better not. I've got a couple of hours' work to do tonight. Actually, I'll hop out here.'
'Where do you live?' I asked.
'Shepherd's Bush, walking distance.'
'I'll drop you there,' I said.
'God, don't worry. It's very kind of you to have brought me this far.'
'I'd like to,' I heard myself say, and we looked at each other in surprise.
'Thanks,' he said.
I managed to keep the situation on an even keel for a month. The afternoon I'd spent in bed with Lucas helped; it seemed to have reassured him that I still wanted him and he relaxed, which made things easier. I think it also helped that I didn't speak to him about Danny or the move to Stoneborough again. It was pointless, anyway: nothing I could say could convince him that Danny was anything other than a good friend - albeit a feckless one - and carping on about it only made me look bad. Also, if Danny suspected I was talking about him, he might retaliate and I didn't trust him not to tell Lucas about my watching Greg and Rachel or to concoct some even worse lie about me. Lucas interpreted my new silence on the subject as my coming to terms with the situation and was grateful to me for it, so I accepted that as the best of a bad lot.
The other thing was that he appeared to be getting on well with his writing. When we spoke on the telephone in the evenings, he told me the number of pages he'd done and often asked my opinion on a description or image that he was considering. I had to admit it looked as if I'd been wrong to think that he wouldn't get anything done at the house. There were only two or three occasions when he sounded a bit drunk when we spoke or the music had been too loud in the background or Danny had kept interrupting and made it difficult for us to talk.
Nonetheless, weekends at Stoneborough had become the opposite of what they had promised to be at the beginning of the year. Instead of a place to spend relaxing time out of town, the house had become the ground for a fraught carnival of watching. I was constantly on my guard. I knew that Danny was watching me, waiting for me to slip; I knew, too, that he derived continued satisfaction from my embarrassment at having seen Greg and Rachel. Several times it happened that I glanced up to find Greg looking at me: our eyes would lock and I would find myself in a paralysis of shame until the further weight of Danny's amused stare compelled me to look away. I was aware, too, of Michael's eyes following Danny, although he did his best to conceal the hunger in them.
There were also the films, which Lucas and Danny were watching avidly. It was obvious why Lucas was so interested in them: they gave him access to Patrick and his mother. Why Danny should be fascinated wasn't as clear to me, although I suspected that Elizabeth's appearance in them was a significant factor.
By the second week in March, winter was loosing its grip. Outside the French windows, the kitchen garden was coming alive. The earth was still heavy with rain but new leaves leavened it, in the rhubarb patch and on the gooseberries and the raspberry canes. The new foliage on the espalier trees on the back wall was as bright as freshly made glass. On Saturday afternoon I sat at the table drinking a pot of coffee and reading the paper. To my relief, Danny had announced earlier in the day that he was taking Elizabeth for lunch in Oxford and Lucas had given him a lift down to her cottage. We'd eaten lunch ourselves and then Lucas and the others had embarked on another of the epic table-tennis championships that were becoming a part of the weekend routine. They'd been playing for well over an hour. At intervals I could hear a shout or cheers of encouragement from down the hall. For the most part, the final round was an increasingly aggressive stand-off between Lucas and Danny but Greg had improved dramatically since the first time we'd played and now reached the finals himself from time to time.
I was thinking about work. I'd just turned in what I hoped would be my first front-page story, a piece about a local councillor who I'd discovered was awarding contracts for borough events to his wife's catering business. It would be good for my cuttings file. I was still resolved to leave the
Gazette
this year. More than anything, I wanted a job on a national, or the
Evening Standard.
It had to be possible, even if I started as the very lowliest of researchers or junior reporters for the gossip column. For the first time I was beginning to feel as though the lack of progress I'd made with my career during my twenties had a bearing on other issues. For years Martha and I had worried that we would never want children and I still didn't know if I did. But if it happened, I needed to make sure I had a career at a stage that I could return to; I knew that wasn't the case as things stood. I also felt I would have work to do on Lucas if marrying him was even to be a possibility. Although I was trying to explain it to myself as the mistake of someone searching for a quick answer to a tricky situation, his suggestion that I move to Stoneborough still rang a note of alarm.
There were footsteps in the corridor and Lucas appeared. 'Greg whipped my arse,' he said, sitting down.
'Coffee?'
'No thanks.' He waved the pot away. 'Can I show you something?'
'Of course. What is it?'
'Upstairs. One of the cines.'
'What's this one?'
He frowned. 'It's one with my mother.'
The picture projected on to the wall of the room is a picture
of the room itself: Patrick's study. It is the same room but
different. For one thing, there's no furniture: the huge roll-top
desk is absent, as are the two armchairs in front of the
windows and even the long window cushion. There are no
curtains nor is there any art on the walls. Instead, as it pans
round, the camera takes in a couple of canvases leaning
against the far wall, their blank backs presented to the room.
Further along, a large wooden easel has been folded up and
laid on its side. The rich yellow light falling through the long
sash windows puts the time somewhere in the late afternoon.
The floorboards are covered with heavy white sheets that
wrinkle here and there and with the play of light and shadow
give the impression of a sea ruffled by a light breeze. On the
window-seat sit a large tin of paint, a roller and a tray filled
with white emulsion.
The camera flicks back across the room. Standing on either
side of the fireplace with their elbows resting on the mantelpiece
are Patrick and Lucas's mother. They are smiling at
each other, big smiles of the sort that follow laughing. At first
they are unaware they are being filmed: they haven't heard
the cameraman enter the room, his footsteps on the boards
deadened by the sheets. Lucas's mother is wearing old
dungarees and one of the straps has come undone so that
the front of the trousers hangs down on one side. A patterned
headscarf holds her hair back from her face but a lock of it
has escaped and fallen across her cheek. Patrick takes a step
forward and tucks it back into place. She leans in and kisses
him softly on the lips. In doing so, she notices the camera and
smiles again, shyly this time. It is obvious that she doesn't
enjoy being filmed: all her ease of movement of the previous
six or seven seconds is gone. She puts her hands into the
pocket of her trousers and goes over to the window, out of
the shot. By contrast, Patrick faces the camera with a grin
and waves his hands at the walls before bending down and
sweeping the sheets up into his arms, revealing the dark stained
boards. Da-da, you can imagine him saying, it's
finished.
'Well?' Lucas snapped on the light.
I hesitated. 'It looks like they were making it a painting room, with the easel and the canvases and all that white some kind of studio. Did your mother paint?'
'I certainly never saw her. But I didn't know that she and Patrick had a thing either, which is the real issue here.' Lucas's face was hard. He switched off the projector and yanked the curtains open.
'How do you mean?' I said, stalling.
'Well, it's obvious, isn't it? They're clearly together. Would you kiss your brother-in-law like that?'
It was true: the film had captured an exchange between lovers, a casually intimate moment. 'Was he her brother-in-law? When this was taken?'
'Who the fuck knows,' he said. 'I just hope it was before I was born.'
'It must have been. Your mother wouldn't have had an affair, especially with Patrick.'
'How can you know that?' he said, his face suddenly right up in mine. 'How can you know?'
I wasn't sure what to say. He was staring as if he were trying to drag something out of me. 'Lucas, please ...'
The door opened. Danny, back from town. 'Ah, there you are. I wondered where you were both hiding.' He saw the look on Lucas's face. 'Oh no. Have you been watching that cine again?'
'I wanted Jo to see it.'
'You're obsessing over it. You'll drive yourself mad.' He went over to the projector and took out the reel. He replaced it carefully in the box and put the lid on.
'I'm not obsessing, Danny. I just want to know the truth. Surely that's understandable?' Lucas slumped backwards into the other armchair.
'Why don't you ask Elizabeth?' I said. 'She'd be able to tell you what happened. She was there.'
'I think that's an excellent idea. It'll stop you stewing once and for all. I'll ring her later and ask her for supper in the week,' said Danny.
'I can ring her myself.'
Danny noticed his tone. 'What? I was only trying to be helpful.'
'I don't need help. Anyway, how come you're so buddy buddy with Elizabeth all of a sudden?'
'Lucas, she worked with some really interesting people, as you already know. I'm just trying to learn. Anyway, she's good fun. I like her. That's all right, isn't it?'
Elizabeth leant forward and rested her chin in her hand. Her slim gold watch slid down her arm a little. 'You've found the cine films? God, how incredible - I had no idea they were here.' She tossed her head, showing her clean jaw and smooth neck.
Friday lunch had been the only time she was free as she was going to Edinburgh for a week on Saturday morning. I'd thought I should be there when Lucas asked her about his mother so I'd taken the day off work. I wished I could claim that my motivation was just to support him; in fact, that impulse was diluted by a less commendable one which would not let Danny be the only one either to hear what Elizabeth said or to comfort Lucas if need be. It felt strange to be sitting in the kitchen at the house, just the four of us, while the others were in their offices in London.
'They were in the cupboard in his study,' said Danny, reaching across the table to refill her glass. 'There's a whole box of them.'
'Dear Patrick. He never could throw anything out.'
'Why would he throw them out?' asked Lucas.
'Oh, I don't know.' She turned her head slightly to blow away the smoke from her cigarette. 'I suppose they must have been special to him in a funny sort of way, a record of that summer here.'
'So what was the idea behind them? Who took them?' Danny, sitting opposite her, leant forward in his seat and put his elbow on the table, mirroring her posture.
'Richard Appleton, the painter. Do you know his work?' I hadn't heard of him but Lucas nodded.
'The Richard Appleton?' said Danny, surprising me. 'I saw some of his pictures when I was in New York last year.'
She nodded. 'He was much bigger over there. I think he was the one person who wasn't made here by his connection with Patrick. Anyway, he was always experimenting with new things. In a way, that was his problem. He was talented but he never stuck at anything, never really committed himself. He developed a big thing about the cine camera that summer and then just abandoned it. Not that it was work as such. He used to drive us mad, pointing it at things all the time. God alone knows how many sunsets he recorded. Have you found one of those yet?'
'One or two.' Lucas smiled. 'I'm more interested in the ones with my mother in, though, Elizabeth. How many of those did he take?'
Almost imperceptibly, her face clouded, then cleared. 'Oh, hardly any at all. It was mostly nature he was into.'
'Really? I've seen quite a few with her in already.'
Elizabeth was stroking the shiny petals of one of the blood coloured tulips that Lucas had cut for the lunch table. Standing naked at the window that morning, I had been startled to see a man wheeling a barrow across the lawn and had ducked down below the sill before he could see me. I'd forgotten about the gardener, having never seen him at weekends. Tulips don't plant themselves, of course, though.
'Elizabeth, were my mother and Patrick ever together?'
'God, darling, it was so long ago.' She turned the vase round and subjected another of the flowers to her scrutiny. 'It can't be a hard thing to remember.'
She looked up, struck by the uncharacteristic irritation in his tone. 'Well, yes, I suppose they were.'
Lucas sat back under the weight of his confirmed suspicion. 'Was it serious?'
'Serious? No, not at all, not at all.' She laughed lightly and tossed her head again. Today her hair was in a neat chignon but I wondered if the gesture was a hangover from the days when she swung it back over her shoulder, as I had seen her do on the cines. 'Patrick met Claire first and they were together for a while but then she met your father and that was that.' She smiled and put her hand over his. 'They were so lovely together, Lucas.'
'Didn't Patrick mind?'
'Mind? Oh, not really. I don't think he and Claire were very involved. He was a little upset initially but that was bruised pride. And you know what he was like - he had such a generous spirit. He saw that Claire and Justin made each other happy and bowed out gracefully. And anyway, he and I got together then and that was a whole different ball game.' She smiled. 'It worked out for the best. For all of us.'
'I'd hate it if a sister or even a friend stole a boyfriend from me. I'm not sure I'd just accept it,' I said.
'Your generation can be so bourgeois at times.'
'But it was definitely before my parents were married?' Lucas said.
'Absolutely, darling.'
'I think Lucas has been worrying that he's the wrong brother's son,' said Danny.
'For God's sake, Danny,' he said.
'Oh Lucas, you poor thing. No, your parents were very much in love. There's no way your mother would even have considered anyone else after she and your father got together.'
'Did my mother paint?'
'Paint?'
'On a bit of film we've just watched, she and Patrick were decorating his study. It looked as if they were making it into a studio of some sort.'
'Oh, it wasn't for your mother. The study was painted for Patrick.'
'He painted? I didn't know that.'
'Well, he stopped by the time you were old enough to be aware of it, I suppose. But yes, he liked to paint then.'
'Was he any good?'
'He wasn't bad, for an amateur. But of course he was surrounded by all his artists so I think he felt a bit outclassed. It was fun, though, he enjoyed it.'
'Why did he stop?'
'I think he just got too busy, darling. His commitments at the gallery were huge, as you know.' She drained her glass. 'Danny, would you mind ...' He was on hand with the bottle even before she'd finished.
'Is that one empty?' said Lucas. 'I'll go and get another.' He stood up from the table and took down the key for the cellar door.
'I'm in the process of getting a camera myself,' said Danny, as Lucas's footsteps faded.
'Are you? How interesting.'
I wondered for about two seconds where he was going to get the money for it. From the same place he got it for the new trainers he was wearing, I realised, and the lunch he'd bought for Elizabeth the previous weekend. 'I rather like the cines,' I said. 'They definitely add a historical flavour, like sepia photos.'
Danny rolled his eyes. 'You're such a Luddite, Joanna. This is just for fun,' he said to Elizabeth. 'Quite separate from the project I was telling you about.' That was news, too: he hadn't mentioned anything remotely like work to the rest of us.
She nodded, watching his face all the time. I had to hand it to her: she certainly knew how to make a man feel he had her full attention.
'Elizabeth, can I ask you something?' I kept my voice low, in case Lucas was within hearing.
She turned back to me, the smile she had given Danny now fading.
'The tapes. Is there anything on them that could hurt Lucas?'
'It's always painful to think about the past, don't you think?' she said. 'To realise that the older generation were people themselves before they were your parents.'
'You're next, Martha.' Danny, lying on his back in his usual place in front of the fire, reached over his head and handed her the joint. He opened his mouth and let the thick smoke rise out of it, as if he wasn't breathing at all but surrendering himself to the laws of physics, letting it move out of him by osmosis. Martha had a quick toke and then passed it to me. It was a highly professional rolling job. Normally I didn't but this evening I felt I needed it. The wine wasn't doing the trick, despite the fact that we'd been drinking since lunchtime. I couldn't seem to tip myself over into happy drunkenness but was stuck in an unpleasant limbo where I just felt tired and woolly-headed. Elizabeth had gone shortly after four o'clock but Lucas, Danny and I had carried on without a break. The others had some serious catching up to do when they finally arrived.
I took a drag, closing my eyes on the in-breath. When I opened them again Greg was watching me; I quickly looked away. The hit from the dope was almost instantaneous, a sudden heaviness in my arms and head, slight accompanying nausea. Other people always seemed to have a better time with it than I did.
'Hurry up,' said Lucas. 'You're wasting it. Smoke it or pass it on.'
'Mate, we've got plenty,' said Danny.
'Roll another one then.'
'You do it.' Danny picked the bag of weed from his stomach and threw it across to him.
'No, you do it. I paid for it.' Lucas tossed it back. Reluctantly Danny pulled himself upright and reached for his rolling-board, a hardback edition of
Bonfire of the
Vanities.
More to annoy Lucas than because I really wanted it, I took another drag, then passed the last inch to Martha next to me. Lucas had been wired since lunch and, as far as I could see, the weed was doing little to relax him. He had had a lot to drink and there was an edge to him tonight that I didn't like. Danny passed him the new joint, which he took without a word. He lit it, waited for the twist of paper at the end to burn away and took a huge lungful, closing his eyes and leaning back against the studded arm of the chesterfield. He smoked almost half of it before he opened his eyes again and gave it to Rachel.
'I'm fine, actually,' she said, taking it but passing it to Greg straightaway.
'Loosen up for once, Rachel, can't you?' Lucas said. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. He saw the bemused look I gave her in response.
'What?' he said to me, becoming more alert.
'Nothing.'
'If you've got something to say, say it.'
I hesitated, trying to find the best way to put it. 'I just think you should relax a bit. Now you know there wasn't anything going on between your mother and Patrick after she and your father were married.'
'You know what? Why don't you mind your own business for a change?' He sat up.
'No, I don't mean ...'
'Tell me what you know about difficult families, why don't you? You haven't got a clue. Everything's been easy for you, even though you play the outsider card when it suits you. I don't know why you feel qualified to comment on my situation, with your happily married parents and your brothers and your family home.' He pronounced the last two words with bitter disdain. 'Why don't you just fuck off? Go on, fuck off.'
In the silence that followed no one said anything. I stood up, feeling a spin from the dope, and walked out of the room. In the hall, the strange beating in my ears started up but I was beyond caring. I wanted to be away from Lucas. I wanted to be outside the house and its unbreathable atmosphere. I fumbled at the bolts on the outside door with shaking hands, annoying myself with the delay. As soon as the door opened and I hit fresh air, I felt better. I took hard breaths in, wishing I had my inhaler. My lungs were tight with tension. I couldn't believe he'd spoken to me like that. Maybe he needed to be angry, to burn off some of the fear he must have had about what Elizabeth would tell him. I didn't mind that. But what he had said about my family shocked me. It sounded like something he had been festering over for some time, nursing resentment.
All of a sudden I realised that I was battling insuperable odds. It wasn't going to work out between us. There was too much in the way, too many differences. I couldn't have a relationship in which I was made to feel bad about having a happy family background or to worry that I would have to sacrifice my career.
We had stepped over the boundary, only to find that what lay beyond wasn't the great relationship we'd imagined. In my heart, I knew, I had suspected it from the start but I had ignored my instinct, hoping to prove it - and then Danny wrong. The chemistry, that indefinable thing that makes great sex and cements a new relationship, wasn't there. We were struggling, even so early on, and the effort of the struggle was taking its toll. I wished I could think straight. The beating in my ears had stopped but was replaced by the beginnings of a hangover, a low drone in the temples.
There was little cloud cover and the night air was chilly. The moon, though, was bright and cast the garden in a strange penumbrous light. I sat down at the place on the balustrade where Lucas and I had sat together on other evenings, blinked and felt the first tears tip down my cheeks. I gave in to them. I cried with self-pity for the break-up that was now imminent and with pity for Lucas because I knew it would hurt him badly. I cried for our friendship. I also cried for my parents, who suddenly I wanted very much. I had not seen them since Christmas and I couldn't now think why I had let so much time pass. I was surrounded by the Manor's garden and the huge elegant house itself and felt out of my depth. I wanted the comfort of my parents' little house and my old bedroom.
Behind me the flower-lobby door opened and closed.
Without turning round, I tried to work out which member of the party had been dispatched to make sure I was all right or whether it was Lucas, come either to apologise or to elaborate on my failings. The footsteps were male. I surreptitiously wiped the tears off my face and made an effort to blink back those still in my eyes. It was unlikely that I would be able to hide the fact that I'd been crying but I could perhaps disguise how much. The footsteps came closer.
'Jo.' To my surprise, the voice was Greg's.
I looked up at him. He registered my tears even in the darkness and sat down next to me, keeping his legs on the terrace side so that we were almost back to back. I stayed where I was, facing out from the house, my legs swinging over the drop.
'I'm sorry he spoke to you like that.'
'I shouldn't have said anything to him. I should have just let him drink and smoke himself to sleep. He'd have woken up in a better mood tomorrow.'
'If it's any comfort, Martha's just given him a pasting.'
'It's not like him. You know that, don't you?' I said.
'Of course. He's a good bloke.'
'Yes,' I said. Poor Lucas. He was right: I couldn't imagine what it was like to be him, to find myself at the end of my twenties without a single member of family, no parents, no siblings. Even divorce was alien to me, something which as a child I'd regarded as a faintly glamorous thing that other people's parents did. The tears started to fall again but at least they did so silently. I appreciated that Greg had faced away so that he couldn't see, giving me support but privacy at the same time. It was easier to talk this way, as if to an unseen and unseeing confessor.