Authors: Anna Davis
For want of a better plan, she decided to take her own advice, and made her way to the Lyons Corner House on Piccadilly to cheer herself up with ice cream—one scoop of vanilla and one of lemon, served in a glass dish. She ate like a child who wants to savor a treat and draw it out as long as possible, taking the tiniest mouthfuls. Then she ordered a pot of tea and sat so long with the full cup in front of her that it turned cold and acquired an oily gray sheen.
Nancy and I sat here on her twenty-fourth birthday, she thought to herself. Here at this table. That was the day I ended it with George.
The realization didn’t upset her. Why should it? It was just a table in a café. In fact, she and Nancy had had a rather nice afternoon on that day, but for the invisible wall between them. No, it simply made her reflect on the way we revisit moments of our own history. Here she was again at that table—and here once again, in her head, trying to work out how to draw a line under recent events and move on. Last time, she’d broken with George but had remained at home with the family, deciding that they must come first—that they would
always
come first. This time, she wondered whether perhaps it would be better for all concerned if she did the opposite—she could move out, go somewhere far away and start afresh.
Tempted to order another pot of tea, Grace found she couldn’t meet the eyes of her waitress. She knew, if she did, she’d find there that look of irritation bestowed by waiting staff on those who sit too long. Instead, she asked for the bill. And it was as she groped about in her purse for some change to tip the waitress (she intended to leave a large tip, perhaps to prove she
wasn’t
one of those “sit too long” people) that she remembered something. She
did
have somewhere to go this morning.
It was one of those large, white, clean-looking Georgian houses in a smart square just along from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Grace generally considered South Kensington to be a place of flat bright sunshine and cheerful prosperity. Hampstead, on the other hand, was a steep, mossy green patch of London, a place for brooding melancholy and deep thought.
She’d been to the Hamilton-Shapcotts’ family home many times when she, Nancy and Sheridan were children, but hadn’t been back since they’d grown up. Both of Sheridan’s parents had died since her last visit, and under his ownership
the house had acquired some distinctive Egyptian additions. His gateposts were topped with black and gold sphinxes with languid, sensual eyes. His knocker was a brass jackal head. The very number on his door—8—was a curled snake with its tail in its mouth, seemingly attempting to eat itself.
A squat man in butler’s livery answered the door, relieved her of her box, and led her through a hallway with walls decorated in gold-painted hieroglyphics (rather like those on the business card) into a room that was more museum space than lounge. Glass cases contained ancient chipped ceramics, evil-looking daggers, jewels so opulent that it was hard to believe they could be real. The walls were book lined and hung with scrolls and tapestries, the ceiling painted with a mural showing the building of the pyramids.
“Mr. Hamilton-Shapcott will be with you directly.” The butler gestured to one of two crimson chaise longues. “Do please recline. Would you take tea and biscuits?”
“Gwace, my darling! Sheridan was sporting a white cotton shirt of a billowy romantic sort, and gray flannel trousers. Without his usual makeup he looked refreshingly unremarkable. “I’m so glad you’ve come.” He stood to one side to let the butler past. “And, I confess, a twifle surpwised. I thought you’d forget all about our little awangement.”
“Not a bit of it. My, but this room has changed. I seem to remember passementerie and big English oil paintings. Gainsborough—that sort of stuff.”
“That’s wight. And bla bla.” He rolled his eyes, kicked off his slippers and flopped down on one of the chaise longues.
She took the other, removing her shoes and setting them on the rug in front of her.
“I thought that if I twansformed the house utterly, it would become twuly mine and stop being my father’s.”
“And you’ve succeeded.”
He shook his head. “It may not be his style anymore, but it’s more his house than ever. He’s there under all the gold paint and objets d’art, cwiticizing my foolish ways and fwippewy. I have a big Egyptian coffin upstairs—I’ll have to show you later. Sometimes I dweam of Father jumping out of it, all wapped in bandages like a mummy.”
Grace had to laugh.
“The other pwoblem is Cecile.” He turned onto his back, gazing up at the ceiling, his hands knotted behind his head. “Did you ever meet my wife, Cecile? Ex-wife, I should say. I wanted tewwibly to impwess her. So much of what I’ve done here was for her. Now she’s gone, it all seems wather pointless.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s my own stupid fault.” The butler arrived with a tray of tea and biscuits. “Jenkins, you’re splendid. Do the honors, would you? There’s a good chap.”
Jenkins, white-gloved and silent, poured, nodded and retreated.
“How
are
you, Gwace? You look a little peaky this morning. Too many of the old whatsits at the party? Jenkins has a marvelous wemedy, if you’re intewested. Something he learned fwom his mother, appawently.”
“No, thank you. I shall be fine directly.”
The eyebrows were raised, disbelievingly.
“Look, if you really want to know, I’ve gotten myself in a pickle over a man. Two men.”
“
My,
but you’ve been busy!”
“What’s more, I’ve just lost my job. I’ve behaved rather badly. I’d rather not get into it, if you don’t mind, but frankly I could do with getting away from the family for a bit. Mother’s
disapproval and Nancy’s…Well, it’s all a bit much at the moment.”
“How intwiguing. Well, you can always come and stay with me. I’d be glad of the company.” And as she opened her mouth to protest. “I mean it, Gwacie. We’re family, you and me.”
“Thank you.” The emotion welled up in her throat so that she couldn’t say anything further. Just sat with her tea staring at the artifacts in the glass case.
Sheridan followed her gaze. “You must think my Egyptian collection is widiculous—an expensive hobby for a spoiled wich boy.”
“Not at all.”
“Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” He got up, crossed the room to a tall bookcase and took down a heavy-looking photograph album. “Take a look at this.” He opened the album, flipped over a couple of pages and handed it across.
One photograph showed a line of men leaning on spades, picks and other tools. They were all in short trousers with heavy boots and wide-brimmed hats. They all looked happy. It was difficult to make sense of the other photographs. They showed a dark space with various indiscernible objects scattered about.
“It’s the tomb of a nobleman—we think it was possibly a mayor of Luxor. I was there when they opened it up. I was the vewwy first person to step inside. Look at this one.”
He turned the page for her. Another photograph showed some black, charred-looking objects.
“Those are the internal organs of a queen. They would have wemoved them fwom the body after death. I bwought them back here and donated them to the Bwitish Museum. At the moment they’re just sitting in a vault there. I think the museum people are afwaid that if they poke them about
too much, they’ll simply disintegwate. It’s a miwacle, weally, that they still exist. But my hope is that one day we’ll have machines or devices that will help us to analyze them more conclusively—to find out exactly what the queen ate, how she died, how old she was. I long to weally
know
her and I think one day we will. She’s waited a long time for us to decipher her—I expect she’ll wait a little longer. I only hope I’m still here by then.”
Grace looked again at the smiling lineup of men before the nobleman’s tomb.
“The Egyptian nobility take all their favowite things with them for their journey to the afterlife,” said Sheridan. “The tomb of this mayor was more intimate, somehow, more wevealing than many of the more gwand tombs. The walls were all painted with pictures of parties: people making music and chasing each other about. There was a large portwait of a beautiful woman—his wife, no doubt—in a long, white dwess. Lots of gwapes, too, all over the place, and wine.”
“I think I know one or two people who’d want to take those sort of memories with them to the Great Hereafter,” said Grace.
He put the photo album away. “My mother has vanished fwom the world as completely as those Egyptians. Perhaps more completely, in some ways. The things she told me when she was dying—just fwagments, weally, but they gave me a glimpse of a totally diffewent woman than the one I’d thought she was. And actually, a new perspective on myself, too.”
“How so?” Grace drained her teacup.
“Well, this is going to sound ludicwous, but I’ve never understood myself—not when considered in context. If an archaeologist dug up my family, he’d immediately think something was wong. Consider: my mother all gentle and wefined
and my father a wough northern industwialist. A man who bwewed bad beer for people who don’t know any better than to dwink it. Yes, it’s pwetty bad, the family tipple, but don’t tell! You do see the discwepancy, don’t you? How did two such people ever fit together? And what about me, their fweakish son?”
“But surely no family would make sense if you considered it in that way,” said Grace. “People fall in love for the oddest reasons. And when it comes to the children—well, nobody can ever guess how they’re going to turn out.”
“Perhaps you’re wight.” He poured more tea. “Maybe I developed my whole personality as a weaction against Daddy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far…”
“I don’t suppose you would, but then your father was a perfectly lovely man, so far as I wemember him. A man of culture and intellect—a Darwinist. Must have been stwange for our mothers—two close school chums getting together with two men who were pwactically polar opposites. How surpwised they must have been when the husbands hit it off. And how lovely for the two families to be so tight-knit for so long.”
“It
was
lovely,” said Grace. Then, testing the water, “What do you suppose happened to make them suddenly sever all contact? It must have been quite a falling-out, wouldn’t you say?”
“Do you wemember that Iwish nanny of mine making us all eat twipe?” asked Sheridan, somewhat randomly. “What about the day when you and Nancy made me wear that Bo Peep bonnet?” He looked up with sad doe eyes. She could see him now, in that bonnet, his face framed with lace. “I was always vewy jealous of you and Nancy.”
“Were you? Why?”
“You had each other. There was only one of me. It was
worse after the falling-out, of course. It was awful to lose you both.”
Grace steeled herself. “Sheridan, why did you visit my mother the other day? You didn’t just sit about reminiscing over those photographs, did you? You had something in particular that you wanted to talk to her about.”
A shake of the head. “Oh, Gwace. This is vewy difficult. I wanted so much to speak to you, but Cathewine made me
pwomise
not to say anything.”
“Funny, that. She did the same with me.” Grace bit her lip.
Sheridan eyed her. “Thing is, my mother—well, as you know, she wasn’t the most diwect and forthcoming of people, but she got wather a lot off her chest on that deathbed of hers.”
“Oh yes?”
“She talked about the past, and bla bla. Something happened, Gwace. Between our pawents…”
“Sheridan…I know about it. Nancy too. It’s all right—we’ve always known.”
His face lit up. “Thank goodness for that! How marvelous to be able to talk fweely about it. Cathewine was utterly convinced that neither of you knew a thing.” He sprang to his feet and seized her by the hands. “
Do
come and stay with me for a while. We shall have such fun. Blood wuns deep, doesn’t it?”
“Steady on.” The extent of his elation was puzzling. “I mean, thank you, and it’s extremely kind of you but—”
“What my mother told me—you know, when she was dying—well, I think I’d always known it in my heart. I was never able to welate to my father, you see. I always felt that I was a wholly diffewent species, wight fwom when I was a small boy. There was nothing—
nothing
—that we had in common. And of
course, it turns out there was a
weason
for that. I am not some sort of abewwation, and it wasn’t all in my mind.” He released her hands and straightened up, smiling at her. “I’ve always felt so alone…And now it turns out I’m not. Of
course
you must come and stay here, my dear sister.”
Sister?
Was this a faux-Egyptian endearment? “Sheridan, I have fond memories of our childhoods, too, of course I do. But all this talk of blood and not being alone…I simply don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
“Oh, I’m sowwy! I must have misunderstood. I thought you said you knew. I’m your bwother, Gwace. Well, half bwother, anyway. But half is good enough, isn’t it?”
She couldn’t stop the laugh. “Are you bonkers? I think I’d have known if my mother had had another baby!”
But now it was Sheridan with the confused frown, Sheridan who seemed to be struggling for the right words. “My dear,” he said eventually, “we appear to have been at cwoss-purposes. If I understand your implication cowwectly, you are suggesting there was an affair between your mother and my father. I don’t know anything about that. What
I’ve
been talking about is the long affair that took place between
my
mother and
your
father.
Our
father, that is.”
IV.
Journeys
November
5, 1925. Grace and Dickie stood with two-year-old Tilly on the Heath, watching some men build a bonfire, heaping up a great stack of branches, bits of old furniture and broken-up crates. It was a clear, fine day, but the air had a touch of winter in it. A touch of death.