One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [11]
‘Well, why not?’ asked Kit mildly.
Maggie blanched, unused to my brother’s simplistic method of taking away the sins of the world.
‘But then where would you stay, Kit, hm?’ enquired Laura. ‘En passant from Oxford, if all the rooms were full of poor homeless souls shooting up. Under the billiard table, perhaps? You might be glad of it then. Gravy, anyone?’
‘Well, no, I didn’t mean that, actually,’ said Maggie nervously, more used to flexing her argumentative muscles in Notting Hill of a Friday night, where discussions took less of a knee-jerk turn. ‘I was thinking more from Hugh and Laura’s point of view. It’s quite a thing to be saddled with. Quite a responsibility.’
‘Ah, but it’s only entrusted to me for a length of time, that’s the point,’ said Hugh. ‘It’s not mine to do what I like with, just to keep going for the next generation. In point of fact it’s Luca’s, really.’
‘Luca,’ muttered Laura, viciously stabbing the carving knife into the chicken breast. ‘Hughie, come and do this, would you? Before I massacre it.’
Hugh obediently stood and moved round to take over. ‘Of course, my darling. You only had to ask.’
‘Luca?’ asked Maggie, with a frown. ‘I thought your son was called Charlie?’
‘Luca is Hugh’s son by his first marriage,’ explained Mum smoothly, pussycat smile firmly in place. ‘Now, Maggie, can I pass you the mangetout?’
‘Who’ll probably sell the place anyway,’ said Laura, ‘the moment it passes to him, which, if Hugh gets his way, won’t be when we’re under the sod, but when he deems we’ve had a Jolly Good Crack At It and it’s time for the young to have a go while they’ve still got the energy. While I’ve had to wait fifteen flipping years and am definitely out of energy!’
Maggie, grasping the finer nuances of the situation, opened her mouth. Shut it again. ‘Oh. So how old is—’
‘Twenty-two,’ interjected Mum.
‘And where—’
‘In Florence, with his mother.’
‘So how often does he—’
‘Not often, just once or twice a year, generally in the shooting season. More broccoli, Maggie?’ Mum was purring away like an old Bentley, flashing her vivid smile.
‘Won’t you?’ Laura demanded of Hugh, not deflected.
‘Won’t I what?’
‘Pass the house to him?’
‘Well, I certainly won’t wait till he’s too old to enjoy it.’
‘Like we are.’
‘And I don’t see the point,’ he went on quietly, and in what was clearly a practised fashion, ‘of decorating it up to the nines, at vast expense, if Luca decides in a few years’ time he wants to redo it.’
‘Few years! Few years? Is that all you’re saying we’ve got?’
‘I’m speaking figuratively. Of course we’ve got more than that. But you must see, darling—’
Whatever it was she must see, though, she didn’t. With a strangled sob Laura pushed back her chair, and ran from the room, throwing down her napkin on the way.
There was a silence. Somewhere upstairs, footsteps thumped along a corridor. Then a door was heard to slam.
Maggie cleared her throat. ‘I’m awfully sorry. That was entirely my fault.’
‘No, no, it’s been brewing for some time. I’ll go.’
Looking grey and daunted, Hugh got to his feet to go after his wife. I put a hand on his arm.
‘Actually, Hugh, can I?’
He sat down again, heavily. ‘With the greatest pleasure.’
I got up and followed my sister from the room.
3
I found Laura in her bedroom, prostrate on the bed, face down amongst the birdlife. Her body was shuddering with sobs. I sat quietly beside her for a while, my hand on her back. Eventually she calmed down. After another moment, she stopped completely: flipped over and sat up, drying her eyes on a pillow.
‘Stupid. So stupid,’ she muttered. ‘And I am so spoiled.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘Yes I am. I’m horrid. Ghastly. Beastly to Hugh, snappy with the children. I’ve been revolting for months.’
‘But why?’
She clutched the pillow fiercely to her chest, threw her head back and blinked at the ceiling, blue eyes huge and wet.
‘Because…