Page 32 of Annabel and Her Sisters

‘Why don’t you like him?’ I asked my daughter the following morning at breakfast.

Polly looked astonished. Then recovered. ‘I do. It’s just… what Anthea said.’

‘We hate Anthea. Hate her daughter, too– I thought we’d agreed.’

‘I know, but it niggles. Clear it up, Mum, that’s all.’ She picked up her black coffee and swept upstairs to her studio.

God, who was the adult here? I drummed my fingers on the table, irritated.

Was I having to explain my potential boyfriend’s past to my daughter?

Really? On the strength of malicious gossip?

Would she have done that with Max– asked him why he’d dumped a few girls before falling in love with her and then going out with her for two years?

I mean, honestly. I’d read something the other day about young people being judgemental because an age without religion– which we were living in now– meant a greater responsibility to look into the hearts of others and judge.

We don’t have God to do that for us, any more.

Matthew Parris, I think, a non-believer, as it happens.

I’d have to look it up. I picked up my own coffee and went to work.

Ginnie rang me halfway through the morning, breathless with anxiety.

The house was quiet. No workmen today, they were all in Barnes.

Polly was upstairs sculpting and I was on the computer trying to work out how to get Antonia out of Paris without bumping into the ghastly Giles who was on the same train, but the silent house seemed to throb with alarm at the sound of my sister’s voice.

‘We’re too late,’ she quavered. I stared in shock at my screen, still with Antonia.

‘What d’you mean, we’re too late?’

‘Clarissa’s just rung. The dogs escaped from the stable last night– someone left the door open– and they got out into the field where Derek’s men were lamping. Raffles got shot by mistake, the guy thought he was a fox.’

I got to my feet in horror. Felt the blood drain through me. At last I found my voice.

‘Dead?’

‘Yes.’

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe for a moment. My legs gave way and I had to sit down.

‘Mum?’

‘Beside herself, Clarissa says. Absolutely distraught, obviously. And so is Clarissa– and Derek. Mortified. But they’re also seriously worried.

Mum, apparently, has lost it. Completely inconsolable, obviously, but also, not making any sense at all, talking gibberish.

Clarissa says it’s as if she’s, she’s– I don’t know–’

‘Gone mad?’ I felt faint. Clutched my forehead.

‘I don’t know,’ Ginnie said miserably. ‘Anyway, I’m going now– you coming?’

‘Of course, I’ll see you there.’

Trembling, I turned off my computer and flew upstairs to tell Polly and to get my bag and keys.

The horror on her face was almost akin to that terrible day when I’d seen her fly down the hospital corridor, when I’d had to tell her about what had happened to her father in Fleet Street. Her violet eyes grew huge.

‘Granny,’ she whispered.

‘I know.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No– no, darling, you stay here. She’s– well, in a terrible state. She wouldn’t want you to see her like this. Bewildered. Confused.’

Polly fell silent. I felt the full weight of her traumatized gaze.

‘Damaged,’ she said at last. ‘Like Lear on the heath. When the daughters have banished his soldiers. But taken his kingdom, thank you very much.’

There was fire in her eyes now. Fury.

‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘It was a terrible idea.’

‘But not yours,’ she reminded me. ‘You resisted it. Fucking Clarissa. Ginnie too, actually.’ Suddenly she burst into tears. ‘Oh, poor, poor Raffles ! Such a darling dog– and Granny!’

I held her as she sobbed in my arms, really shaking.

After a bit she subsided but I knew I needed to stay a moment.

I led her to the old grey sofa where she liked to sit, narrowing her eyes, ruminating, speculating about her pieces.

We held each other, her head on my shoulder.

Eventually I heard her swallow and sigh.

I’d been crying too and we both wiped our eyes.

‘The terrible thing is, I went to see Joan yesterday, and we hatched a plan.’ I told her about it.

Polly blinked. Her eyes widened. She nodded. ‘Yes. Of course. And Joan is so kind. My favourite aunt.’

Golly. This was saying something. I would have assumed Ginnie.

But I’d learned a lot about my daughter and Joan these last twenty-four hours: had wondered, fleetingly, why I’d never known before, why it had been, not a secret, but private.

Perhaps there are some friendships, some loves, even, that are so special, they need to be kept to ourselves.

We released each other and held hands instead on the sofa. After a while Polly nodded.

‘I’m fine, Mum. You go. It was just a shock. But are you OK to drive?’

‘I am now. But I needed that cry. I think I was in shock too.’

‘Have a coffee before you go.’

‘I will,’ I promised. ‘And I’ll take it with me in the funny flask. I can drink it in the car.’

‘OK.’

I went, and she got up and picked up her tool.

She started gently crafting her clay head.

I made two coffees and put sugar in them and took one up to her before I went.

She managed a weak smile as I put it on the side, but I knew she wouldn’t touch it.

She was already immersed in her work, her therapy, as I was so often in mine.

The traffic was heavy and there’d clearly been an accident somewhere, so Google Maps took me on a laborious route for the last half-hour, round winding lanes, so that I didn’t have a clue where I was and got quite panicky.

Eventually, though, I turned into the entrance to the farm and bumped down the pot-holed drive.

Cold Comfort Farm, I always thought, with its rambling outbuilding full of bellowing cattle, a chaff machine grinding loudly.

For some reason it was always muddy, even in the summer, and not a pot of flowers or any sort of garden at all at the front of the house, just that flat, red-brick facade of a working farm that meant business.

I wondered where the dogs were now. Surely not in that grim stable without even a run?

Surely Clarissa had at least allowed them into the house now?

As I opened the back door, Chippie, Latta and Hippo ran up to me and I thanked the Lord, bending briefly to stroke them.

The kitchen was empty and in its usual chaotic state.

I went on through to the sitting room next door where I could hear voices.

Sure enough, my mother, looking strange, unnatural, with fearful white-rimmed eyes, was sitting bolt upright on a sofa.

She was very pale and dressed even more primly than usual in tweeds and a twin set: she even had pearls on, I noticed.

Brown Dog was curled up beside her and I sent up a silent prayer that at least it hadn’t been him.

Ginnie was on her other side, holding her hand.

Clarissa was in the armchair opposite, leaning forwards intently. Everyone looking distressed.

Clarissa immediately got up to greet me and gave me a brief hug, which was so unlike her.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’ I saw a tear escape down her cheek.

‘Not your fault,’ I managed. I was sure that it wasn’t. Clarissa would never leave a stable door open.

‘That fool Liam went in to top up their water and forgot to close the bottom door properly. Didn’t bolt it.’

‘Not Liam’s fault,’ said my mother shrilly, her eyes glittering in that awful I-refuse-to-cry sort of way.

Ginnie was damp and wretched beside her, clutching a tissue.

‘He’s got an aged father to look after. Mind on other things.

Lot on his plate. Thought I’d make a lasagne today.

Take it up to their cottage. Something nourishing. ’

This was how her father, my grandfather, an officer in the Raj in India, had spoken: in clipped, military tones. It reminded me briefly of someone else in the army. Oh yes. I squeezed in beside Brown Dog.

‘I’m sure they’d love that, Mum,’ I said softly, knowing this was her way of coping: a displacement activity. ‘But maybe not today, hm?’

‘He doesn’t need a fucking lasagne; he needs a P45,’ said Derek angrily, striding into the room, huge sweat marks under his arms. ‘And I’ll see that he gets it. Sorry, Annabel. So sorry. On our patch again.’ He, too, looked distressed.

‘Not your fault, Derek, and please don’t sack him– that would upset Mum even more.’

‘And a nice rice pudding,’ she added brightly. ‘With jam in the middle.’

We all glanced at her anxiously.

‘No, well, perhaps you’re right,’ Derek agreed gruffly. ‘A good talking-to, anyway.’ He swallowed hard with a loud click. ‘I’ll leave you girls to it. Certainly not Callum’s fault– that dog looked exactly like a fox, let’s face it.’

Ginnie and I exchanged a look of total horror and she shut her eyes as he left.

This was wholly the sort of thing Derek could say.

Totally truthful and without malice. Raffles did look like a fox, but so inappropriate !

Not a shred of social awareness or ability to gauge a situation, and for a moment I wanted to put his head in the chaffing machine I’d passed outside.

Luckily my mother was still on all things culinary.

‘Remember that cake we used to make, Pammy? In Yorkshire?’ She turned to me.

I gazed at her, appalled. ‘Mum, it’s Annabel.’

‘The only thing we could do.’ She gave that ghastly, glittering smile. ‘Always flat, never rose! Used to make it for hunting teas. Remember how Piers and Jim would call it biscuit cake?’

Clarissa rose to her feet as Ginnie and I looked on, horrified.

‘I’m calling Doctor Rogers,’ Clarissa said in a low voice. ‘I know house calls went out with the ark, but I think he’ll come.’

I was still flabbergasted but Ginnie had been here longer.

‘Yes, yes– do,’ she urged her sister. ‘And if not, A&E, do you think?’