Page 46 of Annabel and Her Sisters

My mother moved into Joan’s house the following week, keen to get going and have a permanent base.

Ginnie drove her up and I met them there.

To our surprise, Clarissa came too. She was usually far too busy to leave the farm and historically she rarely troubled London unless it was to visit Mum, and then she’d go straight back home afterwards, but there she was, pulling up in her old blue pick-up, just as I turned into Joan’s road from the other end.

I took a deep breath. Golly. How strange to be seeing her in a completely different light.

Through a new prism. I felt duplicitous somehow, as we waved, then got out of our cars and gave each other a brief hug on the pavement.

I realized she’d made an effort. She was in a skirt for a change, with a clean white shirt, and she’d even put a necklace on.

Plus she was holding some flowers. My heart gave a lurch.

She was still my dear sister and I knew she would be feeling terrible about Raffles.

And let’s not mention Toto and the Fluz, too.

She was clutching the flowers like a baseball bat, which made me smile.

‘They’re already here,’ she told me, nodding towards Ginnie’s car, which I too had clocked. ‘Come on, let’s go in.’ She glanced at the house and did a double take. ‘Bloody hell, what’s come over this place?’

‘Polly sorted it out.’

She stopped on the path and looked it up and down. ‘We could sell it for a fortune.’

I gave her a steady look. ‘Which we obviously won’t be doing.’ I didn’t add, because therein lay the previous disaster , but she took the point, which was unusual, because Clarissa so often couldn’t interpret the unspoken.

‘No. Agreed,’ she said shortly.

In we went, the front door being on the latch.

The dogs rushed to greet us, clustering around our feet, and we followed them down the hall, through the studio and out into the garden, where Ginnie, my mother and Joan were sitting on the newly mown lawn, under the shade of a pear tree, having tea.

Joan even had a dress on, of sorts. A blue smock affair, with huge pockets, like an art teacher.

Clarissa hesitated with the flowers and then thrust them at Joan, who looked astonished.

I gently removed them from her equally athletic grip and, having kissed my mother and greeted Joan and Ginnie, nipped inside to put them in water.

When I returned my mother was in full flow, her face alight: she was truly delighted to be here, she told us, delighted with the garden, the house, the study, which she’d already seen and had great plans for, her bedroom, her sister, delighted to see us three girls together, delighted with absolutely everything, in fact.

I almost cried with relief. We’d got it so wrong before and now it seemed we might be about to get it so right.

Ginnie did indeed shed a tear, and even Joan and Clarissa were moved enough to grunt some approval at the situation.

‘And I won’t bother you at all, my dear,’ my mother put her hand on her sister’s arm. ‘You literally won’t know I’m here.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Joan said gruffly. ‘I might even be glad of the company.’

Ginnie and I blinked. We’d made so many assumptions about our independent aunt, but could this, after all, be true?

Might she be lonely occasionally? Just because old people didn’t complain and affected a stiff upper lip, didn’t mean the lower one didn’t wobble in private occasionally.

And how many years had Joan spent in this solitary state– painting in the day, sure, and therefore in another world– but at night, staring at a television screen all on her own?

And she’d had a proper career, in her day; she’d been very busy as a continuity supervisor on films, surrounded by people.

My mother seemed genuinely touched by this remark and prattled on about how she was looking forward to cooking again, and getting the bus to see all her old friends. Her neighbours, particularly, she’d missed, she told us, as well as her sister and their weekly catch-ups.

Ginnie and I looked amazed. ‘You and Joan had weekly visits?’

‘We’re not totally incapable, you know,’ Joan snapped. ‘One or other of us would hop on a bus.’

Mum had never mentioned that. It occurred to me there was so much of her life in London I didn’t know about.

We just came to see her with our own worries, Ginnie and me: Polly, Luke, Tom and Lara, out it would all pour.

We’d go through them one by one because, in our defence, she’d ask, immediately, about each one.

But we rarely asked about her life, except to see how she was healthwise, any aches and pains– none– but not the minutiae, the everyday stuff.

Oh, the arrogance of youth. Or late middle age.

We certainly couldn’t claim the former as mitigation.

‘Yes, you’ll be on the number twenty-two again.’

I looked at Clarissa, surprised. One of us knew their routine– how odd that it should be Clarissa.

But then, the mechanics of life had never passed her by.

Just the emotions. And she certainly wouldn’t have chatted about her boys, just a brief– ‘they’re fine’ when asked.

Which, to be fair, they were. Ed and Rob just got on with it.

It struck me again that Ginnie and I discussed and nurtured our offspring far too much.

Although surely there was some middle ground?

We finished our tea and had a grand tour of the house, both Joan and my mother very competent on the stairs, I was pleased to note, but the house was Georgian, and as such had a wide staircase, wide enough for a Stannah one day.

Down we went, having inspected Mum’s room with its new bed from Peter Jones, and then the three of us took all her clothes, books and belongings out of Ginnie’s car, and she and my mother deposited them around the bedroom and in her wardrobe, while Clarissa and I put a few of her things in the study, which was to be her sanctuary.

Joan had drifted off by now, back to her studio.

Together my sister and I unpacked a box of books, a few cushions, a throw to put over the pretty yellow sofa Ginnie had also ordered, and then, at the bottom of the box, some photos.

Dad, obviously, then the whole family, the three of us as teenagers, all of our weddings, the grandchildren, and then, there it was again: the same hunting photo Clarissa had in her kitchen.

I put it silently on the bookcase. I didn’t look at Clarissa.

‘Do you ever see Giovanni?’

I turned at her voice behind me, surprised. ‘Giovanni?’

‘Yes,’ she said impatiently. ‘Your godfather.’

‘Oh, yes, I know. I was just…’ Surprised. ‘Well, no, not for a while, actually. MT lives in Milan, and she was really my point of contact, but I should go more, I suppose. Why d’you ask?’

She shrugged. ‘No reason. Oh, hello, Mum, we’ve put your books in alphabetical order, or at least I have. OK?’

‘Oh, thank you, darling, how clever!’ Mum gushed.

‘You always think of everything. I wouldn’t– I just shove them in any old how and then can’t find the one I’m looking for!

’ She spun around, delighted. Yes, spun, and she was eighty-two.

Her eyes were shining. ‘This is just gorgeous. And look at the French windows!’ She threw them wide.

‘Straight out on to the garden! Oh, look at the dogs!’ They’d followed her in and were belting out again, into the walled, and therefore safe, garden, chasing each other around, then sniffing about at the far end in the shrubbery.

My mother’s eyes were still shining and she looked beautiful.

The only word for it. I felt something rise up in my throat the size of an apple.

She was slim and tall and had some make-up on today.

She was a bit too slim at the moment, but there was no doubting the beauty she’d been.

There were a few more things at the bottom of the box and I was about to take them out when my mother swooped.

‘Oh, I think there are enough photos and knick-knacks in here; I’ll take them up to my room later.’ She closed the box before I could see what was going upstairs.

‘Right.’ Clarissa adopted her familiar pose: legs astride, hands on hips. ‘Well, I think I’ll be off if we’re done here. I’ve got to get to the farm shop to order more sausage skins and I need some antibiotic spray for a ewe.’

‘Oh yes, darling, and thank you, such a trek, and such a huge chunk out of your busy day. You are sweet to come.’

She put an arm round Clarissa’s shoulders and walked her to the front door as Clarissa and I gave each other a more typical wave. I’d been surprised, if I’m honest, at the hug on the pavement. Ginnie came into the room, tiptoeing almost.

‘I think she knows,’ she hissed portentously.

‘What?’ I said, horrified.

‘I think she knows we know. Do you not think she’s behaving oddly?’

I blanched. ‘Well, different, perhaps. Slightly, but how can she?’

My mother came back into the room. ‘ So kind of her to come,’ she said warmly.

‘Yes,’ Ginnie and I replied mechanically.

‘Mum, does she know we know?’ I asked.

She blinked. ‘Well, I haven’t told her, so no. Why?’

‘I don’t know, it’s just…’

Mum sighed. ‘You two have always underestimated Clarissa. She’s not the block of wood you think she is.

Perhaps you have been acting differently and she’s twigged– who knows?

But neither of you,’ she eyed us sharply, ‘are quite as clever as you think.’ Golly.

Ginnie and I looked duly admonished. ‘Where’s Joan– Joan?

Ah, there you are. The girls are going.’ Were we?

Apparently. Joan appeared in the doorway, wiping a brush with a rag.

It seemed she came, when summoned by her sister.

‘No, no lunch, thank you, you’ve done enough,’ she said, waving away our offer.

‘I’m going to make Joan and myself a couple of poached eggs, and I spotted some tinned peaches. Thank you, my darlings, on your way.’

And with that, we were shown to the door.

Outside on the pavement, we looked at each other.

‘D’you think she’s right?’ asked Ginnie. ‘That Clarissa’s twigged?’

‘I don’t know…’ I said slowly. And I didn’t. But something made me not tell her what Clarissa had asked me about Giovanni in the study.

When Ginnie had gone, and I was back home alone, I texted MT in Milan. She came back to me in an instant as she always did. MT was in public relations and lived with her phone in her pocket.

Yes , her message read. They’re still in Wilton Crescent, crumbling gently, but still fairly mobile.

They would adore to see you, particularly Dad because Mum has become obsessed with bridge which he hates– pop and see them.

I feel guilty because I’m not there enough!

I’ll text Mum and say you’ll come if you really mean it?

I assured her I did and then later that day, gave them a ring on the old landline, the only number I had for them. Susan picked up and was delighted.

‘Darling, we’d adore to see you! But I’ve got this ridiculous new hobby and I’m at the bridge club most nights because I’m on a course– why don’t you come at five on Wednesday and I’ll skip off at six and you can keep Giovanni company? I’ll leave some supper. He’d love that!’

We agreed that I would and I put the phone down, pensive.

Susan was a bundle of energy and it didn’t surprise me she’d become a bridge addict.

She always had to have a hobby: in the past it had been tennis, every day, but those days had clearly gone.

Good for her, using her brain instead. There was a lot to learn from that generation.

And of course, I’d have Giovanni on his own.

A bit later on, I went down to the cellar. Polly was out with Max and some friends at a birthday party and the house was quiet.

The cellar was full of the usual clutter that accumulates in basements: old books, pictures, broken lamps and boxes of ancient memorabilia.

I found the box I wanted, small and green, ancient and fragile.

I opened it carefully. More photos, mostly black and white.

I sat down on an empty wine crate and sifted through them.

Eventually, I came across one I hadn’t seen, or perhaps hadn’t analysed before.

A black and white shot of a group of young people many years ago at a dinner party.

Quite a glamorous gathering. Very, in fact.

They were all assembled around a large mahogany table, at a birthday perhaps: the women were in pearls or diamonds and low-cut dresses, the men in black tie.

My parents, Giovanni and Susan– so this was after moving to London, where the two men had met in the same chambers.

Joan was there too. Also– yes, Piers again.

A beautiful woman sat opposite him– I wondered if that was Miranda?

So even after the event, after Clarissa’s birth, there they all were, apparently still friends.

How extraordinary. I glanced up, thoughtful.

A line from a book came to me as I gazed up at the damp cellar wall.

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.