The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [97]
“It seems such a shame not to use the chapel here,” said Granny S, as Uncle George and Aunt Madeleine appeared.
“Nowadays,” said Granny V, with strange emphasis, “the use of the chapel is restricted to the major festivals”; and she went out into the drive.
“ ‘Nowadays,’ ” said George, “seems to have become Louisa’s favoured term of opprobrium.” He looked comically at his mother. “You don’t have to go at all, darling,” he said. “We never do, you know.”
She fussed with the bow under Corinna’s chin. “Louisa does seem to count on my going.”
“Mm, but you needn’t be bullied,” said George.
“Oh, please come, Granny,” said Corinna.
“Oh, I’m coming, child, never fear,” said her grandmother, holding her at arm’s length and looking at her rather sternly.
Wilfrid traipsed out again with his aunt and uncle to see the party leave. As Granny V settled herself on the bench the pony dropped a quick but heavy heap of dung on to the gravel. Wilfrid giggled, and Corinna held her nose up unhappily. The trap jolted and moved off at a brisk pace, as if nothing had happened, leaving the boy to bring a shovel. At the top of the drive Granny Sawle turned and waved. Wilfrid stood beside his aunt and uncle and waved back, half-heartedly, with the sun in his eyes. “Well, here we are, Wilfrid,” said Aunt Madeleine, which he felt just about summed it up. She stood stiff above him, blocking his view of some much happier morning, in which he was sitting at a table with Uncle Revel, drawing pictures of birds and mammals. When they went back into the house his mother appeared from the morning-room with a strange fixed smile.
“I hope you slept for a minute or two?” she said.
“Oh, far more,” said Uncle George, “ten minutes at least.”
“I had a full half-hour,” said Aunt Madeleine, apparently not joking.
“What a night,” said George. “I feel bright green this morning. I don’t know how you take the pace, Daph.”
“It requires some getting used to,” she said. “One has to be broken in.”
Wilfrid stared at his uncle for signs of this exotic colouring. Actually, his mother and George both looked very pale.
“And how are you, Mummy?” he said.
“Good morning, little one,” his mother said.
“Do you do this every weekend?” said Madeleine.
“No, sometimes we’re very quiet and good, aren’t we, my angel,” said his mother, as he ran to her and she stooped and pulled him in. He felt a quick shudder go through her, and held her tighter. Then after a moment she stood, and he had more or less to let go. She reached for him vaguely again, but somehow she wasn’t there. He looked up into her face, and its utterly familiar roundness and fairness, the batting of the eyelashes, the tiny lines by her mouth when she smiled, beauties he had always known and never for a moment needed to describe, seemed to him for a few strange seconds the features of someone else. “Well, I must get on,” she said.
“No, Mummy …,” said Wilfrid.
“Hardly the best moment,” she explained to Madeleine, “but Revel has offered to draw my picture, which feels too good an offer to refuse, even with a hangover.”
“I know what you mean,” said George, and smiled at her very steadily. “No, that should be quite something.”
“Oh, Mummy, can I come too, can I come and watch?” cried Wilfrid.
And again his mother gave him a strange bland look in which something hurtfully humorous seemed also to lurk. “No, Wilfie, not a good idea. An artist has to concentrate, you know. You can see it when it’s done.” It was all too much for him, and the tears rose up in a stifling wail. He longed for his mother, but he pushed her off, shouting and gulping, fending them all off, with the tears dripping down on to his jersey.
So after that he was left, for an undefined period, with Uncle George and Aunt Madeleine. They went into the library, where George