The Red House (33 page)

Machine guns. Popguns. Potato guns. Cap guns. Bows and arrows. Axes. Tomahawks. Brooms. Dusters. J Cloths. Nail brushes. Dog chews made of dried pigs’ ears. Kendal Mint Cake. Butter dishes. Love spoons. Skipping ropes. Golf balls. Tennis balls. Squishy-cow key rings that moo and light up when you squeeze them. Squishy-duck key rings that quack and light up when you squeeze them. Little forks for indoor gardening. Rubber knee mats for outdoor gardening. Creosote.
Weed killer. Hanging baskets. Brillo pads. Orthopedic pan grips and tin openers. Stanley 15 mm heavy-duty nails. Clout nails, galvanized, in ten sizes. Baby Bio. Itching powder. Whoopee cushions. Vampire teeth. Hoover bags. Alarm clocks with bells on top. Plastic farm animals. Videos of
Mall Cop, Hannah Montana, Transformers
. Fish food. Cafetières. Musical birthday cards. Peanuts in lard for overwintering birds. Wooden chocks to hold doors open. Ashtrays in the shape of tiny toilets. Sports whistles. Firedogs. Boot scrapers. Laces of assorted length. Postcards of hills. Postcards of sheep.

Cally picked up the phone at the far end.
Melissa
.

What the fuck is going on?

You are not going to believe this
.

Just tell me, all right?

Megan the genius. She texted Michelle
.

Saying what?

Oh, something along the lines of “You’re a bitch and a liar.” Like, we’re being accused of bullying her, so she bullies her. Sends actual proof to Michelle’s phone. How fucking moronic is that?

Think, think. Over the road a fat man was stooping to pick up a piece of dog shit using a little pink plastic bag as a glove. Her brain wouldn’t work.
I’ll be back tomorrow, right? We’ll have, like, a war cabinet
. It was starting to rain, dark spots on the tarmac. What if they blamed everything on Megan? Megan the loose cannon, Megan the bully. A blue umbrella popping open on the far pavement. She wanted to lie down and curl up and sleep, she wanted someone to come along and pick her up and look after her. She wanted someone to be kind to her for once.

Alex and Benjy were sitting on the bench at the side of the market square, just off the main drag so Mum and Dad didn’t catch Benjy eating the ice cream Alex had bought him.
What’s up, kid?

Nothing
.

This is a holiday and you’re meant to be having a good time
.

I don’t want to say
.

Was Dad horrible to you this morning?

No
. But he had to tell someone and if he was going to tell anyone it was best to tell Alex.
I found a message
.

A message?
It sounded like a rolled-up treasure map in a bottle on a beach.

It was on Dad’s phone
. He felt silly now for getting so panicked.
I went downstairs in the night, and there was a beep
.

What did it say?

It said, “Call me.” And it said, “I can’t bear this.”
He could still see it blocking out the picture of them at Blakeney.

And who was it from?

It was from someone called Amy
.

Alex let it sink in. A kind of satisfaction almost, as if he’d been waiting all along for Dad to fuck up properly and justify his disdain.

Who’s Amy?
asked Benjy.

Amy …
He had to take this slowly, he had to get this right.
Amy works at Waterstones with Dad. She was stealing books
. Yes, that was it.
Dad caught her stealing books
.

Will she go to prison?

Poor Benjy. He looked so sad on this woman’s behalf.
She wants Dad to keep it a secret
.

But he has to tell the truth
.

Yeh, he has to tell the truth
.

Benjy hated thinking of Dad being put in a difficult position like this, but he was flattered, too, by this brief view through the closed door of the adult world.

Spatters of rain out of a darkening sky.
You’re wasting your ice cream, mate
.

Benjy changed hands and stuck all four creamy fingers into his mouth. Alex leant back against the wall. What an arsehole, what a fucking amateur.
It’s a secret, by the way. So don’t tell anyone, even Mum
.

It’s OK. You can trust me
.

Good man
.

Can we go to the shop?

Which shop?

The Shop of Crap. I didn’t want to buy anything before, but I do now
.

What?
Melissa guessed instantly but she was going to make Mum work for this.

That was your headmaster on the phone. Michelle tried to kill herself. After you, Cally and Megan bullied her
.

We had an argument
. Melissa tried to sound as if she were discussing a group of people in whom she had merely a passing interest.
Michelle can get a bit overdramatic sometimes
.

Avison wants us to come in
.

It’ll be fine. Trust me
.

Trust you? Are you serious, Melissa? You knew all about this and you didn’t even think to tell me
.

Because I didn’t want to mess up your holiday
.

Tell me about the photograph
.

I think you’re better off not knowing, frankly
.

Stop patronizing me
.

OK, OK. Michelle was drunk. Possibly she’d taken a couple of her mum’s diazepam, to which she is, like, a bit partial
. She described the blow job with mild disgust.
So Megan grabs my phone and takes a picture
.

You’re lying
.

Hey. Chill out. We’re, like, standing in the rain in the middle of a road here
.

Don’t treat me like a moron
.

I’m bloody telling the truth
.

I know you, Melissa. You’re a little operator. If someone else took that photo you’d have covered your back by telling me a week ago
.

I’ll sort everything out when we get back
.

You think you’re charmed. You think you’re a princess. You think it will just keep on coming, the money, the clothes, the friends, the easy life. My parents had nothing, your father’s parents had nothing. It can vanish like that
. She clicked her fingers.
No, be quiet. I’m having the last word for once. You are not going to blame anyone else. Give me your phone
.

The rain had stopped. Dominic stood on the raised pavement outside The Granary not knowing where to go or what to do. A need for something more central, cathedral, theater, train station, but this was it, wasn’t it, the Seven Stars and Jigsaw World. He would kill himself after a month here. Aging hippies and inbred farmers and geography teachers with their bloody hiking sticks, eating their bloody scones. He took out his iPod, put the headphones in and scrolled. Steve Reich.
Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards
. He let music wash over him. That little green sports car, the fat woman with her arm in a sling. The way music turned the world into television.

Benjy decided to buy a catapult: £7.99. Alex was pretty sure Mum and Dad would have vetoed it on account of it being a Weapon of Mass Destruction but he couldn’t give a fuck right now. Benjy could have it as a present from his big brother. They took it to the bottom of the car park and fired stones into the field.

Louisa held the earring against her cheek. Sunflowers, she supposed, alternating leaves of bronze and silver, hammered and cut. Different. But different
good
? She didn’t want to make the same mistake she made with those ridiculous china puffins.

Richard was leafing through secondhand CDs, Bernstein, Perahia, some unpronounceable Czech playing Debussy on Naxos. Just showing willing, really, because he wouldn’t actually purchase a secondhand CD. Also he was steering clear of books.
The SAS Fitness Training Handbook
in a knotted bag at the bottom of the bin in the shed. Ah, but this … 
Hommage à Kathleen Ferrier
. Looked rather good, 1950–51 recording, on Tahra, distributed by Harmonia Mundi, bit of Handel, bit of Purcell, Parry, Stanford, extracts from a
St. Matthew Passion
under Karajan.

Daisy was wandering around Hay-on-Wye Booksellers looking for something a little more addictive than
Dracula
, something to hold her attention completely.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
? There was a gay and lesbian section. She’d seen the sign. Scared to look, scared she might be revolted, or entranced, scared she might be accosted by some terrifying gatekeeper. Big netball coach, some flinty girl with Hitler hair.

Melissa was looking at a remaindered volume of watercolors by John Singer Sargent. She loved the cool clean heft of big art books. But these pictures frightened her, how good they were, as if the paint had simply fallen into place. Sailing boats, women blowing glass in a darkened room in Venice, fountains in a park in Paris. She would never be able to do this, would she, because to be an artist you had to run the risk of failing, you had to close your eyes and step into the dark. The feeling of her empty pocket where her phone should be. Being treated like a ten-year-old. Fuck.

Sorry
. Angela bumps into a second person. Little passages of blankness, like when you’re driving a familiar route and come round to find yourself at the wheel. The health-food shop. She is staring at a cold cabinet of cheese and salami and bean sprouts. Are Richard and Louisa cooking tonight? Karen’s birthday. She keeps remembering then forgetting then remembering. She decides to go to the Globe early, fearing she might be carried off by the riptide unless she moors herself while she has the chance. Bohemian reclamation chic, an old chapel once, now a café-cum-gallery-cum-something else. She buys a cappuccino and a white-chocolate muffin and sits down. There is a balcony made of scaffolding and some truly ghastly paintings. The pulpit still stands in the corner. Like being a student again. Foreign-language films and patchouli and
Spare Rib
. She looks up and sees that Karen has walked in, that Daisy has walked in.

A second later and she would have turned tail but Mum has seen her now so she can’t beat a retreat without making it seem like an insult. She walks over. Pews and hippie cushions and old blankets.

Hullo, love
. Mum is eating a muffin and huddling slightly, like she’s cold, or hiding from someone.

Hiya
. Daisy sits.

A long strange silence, as if Mum is a child and feels no pressing need to communicate with the adult world. It scares her.
Are you OK?

Mum is using the tip of her index finger to move all the crumbs on her plate into a little central pile.
I’m having a difficult day
.

Mine’s not exactly been a barrel of laughs
. But Mum doesn’t react. Another long strange silence.
I might be leaving the church
. She catches herself by surprise, saying this. Again Mum says nothing, just leans over and smiles and rubs Daisy’s forearm. She seems sad.
Mum …?

I just want you to be happy
.

Something in her voice. An echo of Gran during that last year. The weirdest suspicion that she doesn’t really know who Daisy is.
Mum …?

It’s Karen’s birthday
.

Who’s Karen?
She assumes it is some girl at school. Then she remembers.
Karen who …
She isn’t sure of the word.

Not the day she died, but the day she would have been born
.

But this was seventeen years ago
.

Eighteen. It didn’t used to bother me. Then all of a sudden …
She sits up and gives a little shake, as if trying to throw off this passing strangeness.

That farawayness. As if Daisy is simply someone she has met on the bus with whom she is passing time.
Have you got some money for a coffee?
She needs to step aside for a few moments.

Maybe I’m just allergic to this kind of holiday
, says Mum.

What kind of holiday?

Countryside, rain
. She digs her wallet out of her bag and hands it over.

By the time the stripy mug of coffee is placed on the counter in front of her, Daisy turns and sees that Dominic and Richard and Louisa have arrived, thank God.

Phil the Fruit and Murder and Mayhem. The Great English Outdoors (makers of fine leather goods). Teddy Bear Wonderland. Crusty loaves and bakewell tarts.
I had not thought death had undone so many
. Like a mist around the living, the crush of ghosts, the ones we can’t let go. The outline in the bed, the empty place at the table. Siege Perilous. She crushes out the stub of her Silk Cut with the toe of her boot and fastens the top toggle of her green duffle coat. She stands on the bridge and watches the river flow to the sea. Silt and salmon, nitrates and mercury and human waste. Plynlimon to Monmouth, to the Severn Estuary, over the Welsh Grounds, down the Bristol Channel and out into the great down sweep of the North Atlantic Current.