The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [47]
Wilkes appeared, with the new Scottish boy, and Daphne let them go ahead and tackle the car for a minute while she watched from the porch. Awful to admit, but her pleasure at seeing her mother again was a touch defensive: she was thinking of the things her husband would say about her after she’d gone. Wilkes deferred to Freda very properly and smilingly, with his usual intuitive sense of what a guest might need. To Daphne herself she seemed an attractive figure, pretty, flushed, in a new blue dress well above the ankle and a fashionable little hat, with her own anxieties about the visit peeping out very touchingly. The handsome boy was helping Clara Kalbeck, a tactfully physical business: she came over the gravel slowly and determinedly, swathed in black, on two sticks, following Freda like her own old age.
2
WILFRID GLANCED ACROSS at his sister, and then put his eye back to the chink between the shutters. His leg was burning, and his heart was thumping, but he still hoped to do it right. He saw Robbie come in to the house with the suitcases—he leant forward to watch him and nudged the door open with his cheek. “Not till I say,” said Corinna. Robbie looked up and gave them a wink.
“I know,” muttered Wilfrid, and peered at her in the shadows with a mixture of awe and annoyance. The others seemed stuck in the porch, in endless adult talk. He could tell they were talking nonsense. He wanted to shout out at once, and he was also quite scared, as Corinna had said. The weekend loomed above him, with its shadowy guests and challenges. More people were coming tomorrow—Uncle George and Aunt Madeleine, he knew, and a man from London called Uncle Sebby. They would all be talking and talking, but at some point they would have to stop and Corinna would play the piano and Wilfrid would do his dance. He felt hollow with worry and excitement. When a fire was lit in the hall, this little cave-like passage was warm and stuffy, but today it smelt of cold stone. He was glad he had someone with him. At last Granny Sawle stepped in through the front door, and just for a second she glanced at the fireplace, with a dead look, so that Wilfrid knew she was expecting the surprise—though somehow this didn’t spoil it, in a way it made it better, and as soon as she’d dutifully turned her back he flung open his shutters and shouted, “Hello, Granny—”
“Not yet!” wailed Corinna. “You’ve got it wrong, Wilfrid,” but Granny had spun round already, a hand pressed to her heart.
“Oh!” she said, “oh!”—and so Corinna pushed open her shutters too and shouted the correct announcement, which was, “Welcome to Corley Court, Granny Sawle and Mrs. Kalbeck!” with Wilfrid in hilarious unison, riding roughshod over his own mistake, and even though Mrs. Kalbeck hadn’t yet made it into the house.
“It’s too amazing!” said Granny. “The very walls have voices.” Wilfrid giggled in delight. “Ah, Dudley, dear”—now his father had come in, and the dog barking. She raised her voice—“This ancient fireplace has miraculous properties!”
“Rubbish, Rubbish!” his father shouted, as the dog ran yelping and shivering towards the front door. “Here, Rubbish, come here! Pipe down!”; though Rubbish as usual did no such thing, and wanted to give everyone a Corley welcome of his own.
“Quite magical!” Granny held on.
“Well, it won’t be magical for much longer,” said his father, in his meaning voice, kissing her on the cheek. “Come on out of there, will you!” though it wasn’t clear now if he was shouting at the children or the dog.
“Wilfrid messed it up,” said Corinna in a further announcement, as Mrs. Kalbeck leant in through the front door,