One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [65]
‘No, one wouldn’t,’ agreed Mum warmly. ‘And it must be so exhausting, creating on the spot like that. I don’t know how you do it. You’ve been wonderful, hasn’t he, Laura?’
‘Wonderful,’ Laura agreed, trotting after him as he made for the door. ‘And so kind of you to come, when you’re just off to Italy.’
‘Oh, yes, I do hope the trip goes well,’ agreed Mum.
‘Thank you. And will I order the slab of black Tuscan marble while I’m there, Lady Pelham?’ he enquired, turning at the threshold.
‘Um, d’you know, I might have to check with Hugh first. Can I ring you?’
‘Of course, no pressure. But don’t leave it too late. I’m only there a couple of days, and Tuscan marble goes,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘like that.’
And with that he sashayed down the steps and off to his car, shoulders back, bottom tucked in, one hand swinging behind his back, the other clutching his bag. Mum and Laura hastened to wave him off.
‘That’s… a three-metre slab of black marble to put on a plinth and make into a dining room table,’ Dad informed Maggie and me over his glasses. ‘To replace Hugh’s folks’ fine old mahogany one. Apparently it’s not Georgian. And if it’s not Georgian, it’s gotta go. Nothing under two hundred and fifty years old can stay. Of course, in fifty years’ time it’ll be a full-up card-carrying antique, but this guy can’t wait. By then it’ll be firewood.’
‘He was rather rude about some of the furniture,’ agreed Laura, coming back in and biting her thumbnail nervously. ‘Apparently there’s a lot of repro.’
‘Apparently!’ hooted Dad. ‘You see you didn’t know that. You were blissfully unaware. It looked nice, you thought it was good – what difference does it make?’
‘Well, except now I do know. And I’ll know everyone else knows.’ She turned to Mum, worried. ‘I think he’s right, don’t you? If it’s not antique – I mean antique enough – we’ll go modern. Cutting-edge contemporary.’
‘Definitely,’ agreed my mother.
‘I’ll talk to Hugh.’
A slightly fraught lunch ensued a while later, with Hugh yelping things like: ‘Harpsichord? But no one plays!’ Or: ‘A saint? What, like a shrine? We’re not effing left-footers!’ He was cheered by the vessel, though. ‘A bowl? Some sort of potpourri thing?’
‘Except it’s six feet in diameter and carved from three-hundred-year-old wood,’ Dad told him. ‘You’d get an awful lot of dried lavender in it.’
‘So… what do we do with it?’ Hugh looked horrified.
‘Oh, I guess you could always get in it of an evening. Rock about a bit. Sing row-row your boat.’
The children giggled.
‘It’s a talking piece,’ announced my mother grandly.
‘Maybe it could be like one of those hot-tub things? Where you take all your clothes off?’ suggested Charlie.
‘Now wouldn’t that be grand?’ agreed Dad with a smile at his grandson. ‘Really get the party going. Give the neighbourhood something to talk about too.’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s modern art. It was sculpted in an atelier in Bolivia,’ Laura said testily.
‘What’s an atelier?’ asked Daisy.
‘A workshop,’ Dad told her.
‘Look, Dad, I’m just trying to bring this place up to date a bit, OK? Trying to bring it kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, make it less like – like a mausoleum!’
‘Of course you are,’ said Mum, making her don’t-say-another-word face at my father.
Dad held up his hands in defeat. ‘OK, OK. I’m just trying to stop you being taken for a ride, that’s all. Seems to me this house is pretty neat as it is. A bit tired, granted, but nothing a few coats of paint and some new couches wouldn’t solve. But, hey, who am I to say? I’m just an old dinosaur who’d be happy living in a hut with a pile of newspapers and pizza delivered regularly.’
‘Precisely,’ said Mum.
‘But if it was a case of paint and new sofas,’ said Hugh bravely, ‘then, Hattie, you and Maggie could, you know, see to that, couldn’t you?’
‘Oh, marvellous,’ spat Laura, before Maggie and I could murmur some sort of awkward assent. ‘Make me feel bad about not giving the whole commission to Hattie. Make me feel guilty in front of my entire family about spending