Going Home

‘Oh,’ said Mum, ‘I must have got it wrong…I thought you were the one who suggested the meeting.’

I sighed. Apart from Mum, no one else seemed to share Dad’s all-consuming interest in the roof. I knew it needed doing, but really…

‘No,’ Mike said, ‘it’s sorted out now, don’t worry. In fact, I—’

The phone rang. Jess, on her way upstairs to fetch something, shouted, ‘I’ll get it.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Mike, leaping up. ‘I will. I think I know who it is. I’ll have a word with Rosalie, too.’ He winked and disappeared.

Silence fell as everyone picked up their books or dozed off. I looked down at my lap and realized I’d picked up a birdwatching guide from the dresser in the drawing room, not my Georgette Heyer. ‘Damn,’ I said, and got up, but no one took any notice. Kate and Mum were having a nap, Dad was reading, and Gibbo and Chin were whispering in the corner by the french windows. The fire was crackling and spitting but apart from that it was quiet enough to hear the ticking of the grandfather clock by the door. I crept out quietly into the deserted hall and heard Mike’s voice coming faintly from the study. I wondered idly why he’d gone in there to take the phone call as I went into the dining room and picked up Devil’s Cub. Suddenly I heard him say, ‘Yes, Lizzy’s here – they’re all in the sitting room. I thought you wanted me, old man.’

I know you shouldn’t eavesdrop but, really, come on. My ears didn’t exactly swivel and rotate like Inspector Gadget’s, but they came quite close.

‘David – I say, no, David – I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’

David? I flattened myself beside the dining-room dresser in case someone should walk past. My heart was pounding.

There was a pause, then Mike said, ‘You want to do what? Why?’ I could hear him drumming on the desk – a sure sign of irritation.

A floorboard creaked beneath me. The silence in the rest of the house was overwhelming.

‘Think of how it’d upset things – think of Lizzy’s feelings, David. You loved her, didn’t you? What would telling her all this do to her?’

I breathed in and looked out over the courtyard to the fairy lights on the tree, shining brightly in the gloom.

‘No, don’t come round. It’s really not a good idea. I mean it.’

The drumming continued, faster and faster. ‘Come on, old chap,’ he said finally. ‘You can still be the good guy here…What?…OK, then. Good…All right, I’ll speak to you soon…No, she’ll be fine. You’ve done the right thing. Just leave her alone.’

I heard him put the phone back on to its cradle. ‘Little shit,’ he said, quite distinctly, then slammed his hand on the desk. Mild, sleek Mike, so affable and relaxed? I caught sight of his face as I walked out into the hall and my blood froze. I’d never seen him so angry, ugly almost, eyes smouldering.

I waved Devil’s Cub at him as he emerged from the study.

‘Lizzy-lou,’ he said, as he saw me. His face instantly ironed itself, the creases of rage replaced with his usual affability. ‘You look like a man who’s just swallowed a fifty-pound note and doesn’t have any cash left in the bank. Do I mean that?’ He looked up in the air as if expecting someone to answer from above. ‘What’s up, Titch?’

‘Ooh…nothing,’ I said lamely. ‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘Christian Bell – you remember him? Nice chap. I was at university with him. Told him I was coming back for Christmas and he was ringing to fix up drinks. Now, come on, why don’t we play a game or something?’ He put his arm round me and squeezed me tight. ‘If it’s Trivial Pursuit, bags me not with Jess.’

‘Not fair,’ I said. ‘Bags me not with Jess either.’

I was thrilled that he was lying so I wouldn’t know David had called, but I was dying to know what David had said. Did he want to apologize for what had happened? Or what he’d said yesterday? Was he starting a local branch of the Young Ornithologists Society? Had he fallen on hard times and decided he needed the ring back? Well, he couldn’t have it. When people asked, in sepulchral tones, ‘So, what did you do with the ring?’ I replied sadly, ‘I’ve hidden it away. I think it’s for the best,’ but in fact I’d accidentally dropped it down a crack in the floorboards in my bedroom and never got round to retrieving it.

David would find this amusing. I was always losing things and he was always finding them. I thought of the fury in Mike’s voice as he hissed, ‘Little shit,’ and loved my uncle even more for taking care of it all.

‘Hmmn,’ Mike said. ‘Why don’t we go and find my tactless wife? I want to behave like a king. I want to lie on a sofa and eat chocolates and watch TV. Like a pharaoh. A pharaoh with a television.’

We stayed in all afternoon as the weather got worse. When Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ended, we moved on to Murder on the Orient Express. The Wizard of Oz and The Wrong Trousers. The wind raged outside and we lounged around until tea-time.

As we sat down to supper, Chin and Kate wedged themselves next to each other and glared at Tom. Chin had sworn to cut off his privates if he spoke to her again, and his own mother had told him that if he breathed another word about her gynaecological histories, she’d stick a fish knife in his leg. But Tom was undeterred. He turned to Mike and asked him what he thought of the Davis Cup – could Philipoussis stage a comeback against Capriati? I’m not sure I’ve got that right, but I’m fairly confident they were talking tennis.

Anyway, supper progressed in this vein. Dad was agitated about his meeting with the solicitor; he said nothing throughout the meal, but grated pepper over his soup for about three minutes, then ate it without turning a hair. Mum was quite looking forward to opening the surgery the next day. Getting back to work doesn’t seem to fill her with the dull, vomit-inducing dread it does most of us, even if, like me, you don’t mind your job. She was bright and sparky, joining in Tom’s and Mike’s arguments about Nasser Hussein’s batting average (perhaps it was cricket they were talking about. Who knows?).

‘You used to be so good, Tom,’ she said. ‘D’you still play?’

‘I’m in a team at work, but it’s not much cop,’ said Tom. ‘Wareham did pretty well last summer, though, didn’t they?’

‘They’re still pretty useful – but they’ll miss David this year,’ said Dad, spreading butter on his roll. ‘He was the star bowler, I seem to remember. Always saved the day.’

‘Er,’ said Tom hurriedly. ‘Uncle John…’

I got on with my soup, wishing he’d shut up.

‘How – um – how did they do in the end, then? Wareham,’ Mum asked, in the silence that followed.

‘They did jolly well, actually,’ said Mike. ‘Top of the local league.’

I stared at him. ‘How on earth do you know that? Is the Wareham team newsletter distributed on the Lower West Side?’

‘Internet, dummy,’ said Tom. ‘It’s how I know Jimmy Gooch maintains his batting average. Unfortunately, it’s also how I know he hasn’t died and turned into slime, as I fervently hoped he would.’

‘Ah, Jimmy Gooch,’ said Mum wistfully. Tom coughed and looked outraged. ‘Nice boy. I know he was a bit mean to you at school, Tom, but it was his parents. Horrible people. The father was a drunk. He used to beat Jimmy up.’

‘No, he didn’t!’ Tom exploded. ‘That is a complete myth! It was the other way round! Jimmy Gooch used to beat his father up! He’s an evil thug! He made a policeman cry!’

‘I know you didn’t like him, but he wasn’t a bad boy. I was rather fond of him,’ said Mum. ‘He had terrible stress headaches, even when he was little. Poor mite.’

Tom put his elbows on the table, made a pyramid with his fingers and cleared his throat. ‘Oh, honestly, Aunt Suzy, you’re so naïve.’ He then told my mother that all of the prescriptions she’d written for Jimmy Gooch at primary school had been sold in the playground for hard cash by the same Jimmy Gooch: he had claimed, to a circle of goggle-eyed ten-year-olds, that they were ‘hard drugs what made your bits feel funny’.

My normally cheery mother, who had made a pet of Jimmy Gooch, was devastated. She sat in silence for the rest of the evening, which alarmed all of us, even Tom, then went to bed early, muttering that she needed to get up early and check her records.