One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [113]
Maggie and I had occasionally found ourselves on the receiving end of similar hospitality, together with other country house artisans: picture experts, furniture restorers, who’d been called in to treat woodworm, moth, general decay. We’d all sit around a sea of mahogany of an evening, eyeing each other suspiciously. On one occasion, in a mausoleum in Cheshire, I’d asked the girl beside me, who was painstakingly cataloguing the library, how long she’d been here. ‘Oh, about nine months,’ she’d replied vaguely. So there was nothing unusual in Mr de Granville’s continued presence at my sister’s table. And Hugh and Laura were clearly being treated to a practised charm offensive, but at least he was trying, which I always felt one should, and I was rather annoyed with Maggie for not. I was the sister. The one allowed to Be Myself. She didn’t come into that category. I found myself wondering, rather uncharitably, whether she’d go back to London tomorrow like me and Seffy, or stay on.
‘Oh, no, I thought I’d stay a few more days,’ she said airily when we took the plates through to the dishwasher in the scullery next door. ‘Laura said to stay as long as I liked, and Christian’s very happy holding the fort. And, of course, you’ll be there tomorrow, won’t you? Shall I get the salad, Laura?’ she called over her shoulder as she rooted around in my sister’s fridge. Quite familiar. ‘Or shall we go without tonight?’
‘Go without, Maggs, I think,’ came back the cry. ‘But there’s some cheese, if you wouldn’t mind bringing it.’
‘Sure,’ sang back Maggs.
‘I’ll get it,’ I muttered.
‘No, no, it’s in the kitchen, I got it out earlier.’ And Maggs trotted off to retrieve it from the side, beaming at Laura as she took it to the table, turning her back on Ralph as he got up and tried to help, both falling over themselves to be of service. Which of course was delightful. My best friend and my sister, who historically had regarded each other warily and with some antipathy, getting on like a house on fire. I scraped the plates in the scullery. Splendid.
But… why was I the one leaving? The one going home? Because stupidly I’d already made it plain I didn’t want Seffy having a lovely time here: playing tennis, helping himself to beers in the fridge, having a holiday, when he should be having a punishment. I wanted him to kick his heels in London, with no friends around to meet on the King’s Road, just his mother for company, or even an empty house when I went to work. Yes, Maggie already knew that. I’d told her as we’d toured the house together: said that a bit of contemplative time was what I felt he needed, and not, I thought, glancing through the open door at him joking with Hugh, who was showing the boys how to decant port through muslin, not to be quite so relaxed.
As I gazed at my son a myriad of emotions seemed to surge and well up inside me, until I thought I’d explode. I stood very still as the full force of it hit me, then exhaled a shaky sigh to relieve the pressure. Just then, Seffy’s eyes came round and rested on mine. I held them for a moment: gave a little smile. He didn’t return it.
I found myself the first to look away.
22
The days passed quietly and slowly in London; indeed, they seemed to shuffle past in slippers for, of course, not only was Seffy away from the charms of the Abbey in a poky little town house, I was too. And I’d never thought about my house like that before, never. It was my home, my sanctuary, my refuge, and yet somehow, with Seffy in situ at a time when he shouldn’t be, when it wasn’t the holidays, when his friends weren’t horizontal