One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [12]
I felt a lump rise in my throat.
‘My little sister, who works hard all day, weekends too, who’s permanently juggling bills and trying to make ends meet. And I’m bellyaching about not having a manor house – for ever. About not being able to pass it on to Charlie.’
‘But you knew that. You always knew that.’
‘Yes, but I’d pushed it to the back of my mind because I had other fish to fry. I had to get my hands on the place first, so all my energy went into that. I was so intent on getting our feet under the table, and now that we’re here, I’ve moved on. I’m obsessed with something else, with staying. And I do want to do it all beautifully, not skimp – not that using you would be skimping.’ She reached out and touched my arm. ‘But Hugh says, if it’s only for a few years, what’s the point in spending so much money? And I think – well, what’s the point of being here at all? – and I get so depressed.’
‘Have you said all that to Hugh?’
‘Well, you heard me tonight, and it’s not the first time. And the moment I voice it, it sounds so terrible, like snakes and venom coming out of my mouth. These six months have been the unhappiest of our married life,’ she said sadly. ‘And they were supposed to be the happiest. I thought, once we were here I’d never want anything even again. But I do, I do want more. And I am so disappointed in myself. That’s what it is. I simply don’t like me,’ she said vehemently.
I swallowed. ‘Everyone thinks like that. Everyone always want more. It’s human nature.’
‘Not always. Not you.’
True, I didn’t really. Not materially. I loved my little house, my shop, my work, my son. If I could have had more, if I had that longing she spoke of, it would have been years ago, and would have taken human shape. In the form of Dominic. Laura could have any man she wanted: she only had to walk in a room and smile, so I supposed it was natural her lusts were more worldly. Dominic I could never have because he was married, and then he’d died, so that had been that. Even now, though, if anyone mentioned his name, I caught my breath. Felt trembly. Or if I thought about him, I had to sit down: stop whatever I was doing. Years ago, I got a white light in my head, which dazzled me, prevented me from seeing anything else, and I suppose Laura had lived the last fifteen years seeing only this place, a blinding white light. She hadn’t seen the complications, only her dream. But dreams have a way of becoming nightmares if too many years lapse before they’re fulfilled. Where once Laura had been the ex-model with three small children waiting to occupy the ancestral pile and grace the pages of Hello!, now she was a middle-aged woman with teenagers poised to flee the nest, living in a ticking time bomb of a mausoleum as a wicked stepson debated when to turf her out.
Wicked? No, but difficult. And Laura had tried hard. Always. Right from the very beginning when she’d inherited Luca as a mixed-up six-year-old, shattered by his parents’ divorce, born with a withered arm, brought up by nannies as Carla pursued her own ends, her film career, her social life. So Luca was shipped over to England in the holidays, to his father, and Laura and Hugh did their best. Lots of attention and time, holidays in Cornwall, fishing for crabs in rock pools, Laura newly married, then heavily pregnant, then with toddlers, but really feeling she was getting somewhere by the end of each summer, forming a relationship with him. She’d ring me elated: ‘He let me put him to bed, read to him, we had long chats. I’m really getting through, Hatts.’ And then next time he came, she’d ring me aghast: ‘He’s so different, so cold, so distant! What the hell do I do?’
‘Keep at it,’ had been my advice, and she had. But each time he was ruder, more confrontational, and I’d been shocked to witness his teenage years: druggy, surly, calling Laura ‘woman’. But then he’d had countless operations on his arm, which had never improved. He slunk around the lodge frightening Biba and Daisy, Laura’s girls,