Page 11

She’d gone up to the east wing to fetch Eddie because there was no one else to talk to. She could hear Lily rampaging through one of her piano pieces, and Jamie was out by the flower beds, too busy and too tired for conversation. Everyone else had gone. Guests and staff trickling away over the weeks and months, and the garden looking somehow more overgrown and more withered at the same time. Evelyn was more bored than lonely these days. She’d not been to school since Christmas. She was unsure if it had closed, but at any rate her parents no longer insisted that she and her sister attend, and her few friends had not kept in touch when they left.

Eddie was a good listener, though. There were times when she thought of him as a kind of oracle, sitting on his perch, silently preening himself. Behind his black and unknowable eyes there seemed to be some primitive intelligence that understood exactly what was happening in her world and in the world at large. That had answers for her, if only Evelyn were able to decipher them.

When she reached the landing, she heard a tense conversation coming from one of the rooms. Voices were raised more often than not now. The weather was so hot it seemed that everyone, Lily and Jamie included, was permanently on the brink of boiling over.

She came to the door of the east wing sitting room and loitered outside with one ear on her parents. She traced the maze of cracks in one of her father’s oil paintings. The portrait was not of their father, but it looked a lot like him. An ancestor, a great-grandfather at least. The heavy, saturnine brow. Colors dim and austere. The hall smelled of furniture polish and mildew and the vegetables that were forever stewing in the kitchen. There was the sound of an orchestra coming from a radio inside the sitting room, only a little louder than the argument it was meant to disguise.

We’re not leaving, said Papa. I’m afraid that’s the end of it.

Well, yes, actually, that will be the end of it. Because we won’t be able to feed our children.

I thought we were self-sufficient? I thought that was the whole point of your hippie commune.

Oh my God.

What?

I cannot believe how much of a snob you still are.

Well. I don’t know what to call it.

Firstly, it wasn’t a hippie commune. Secondly, you can only have a commune if there are people here to work in it, so no, we are not self-sufficient. There is no one left. Everyone is going. Everyone has gone. Do you want to give Evelyn and Lily a spade each and tell them to start digging?

They were quiet for a while. Evelyn took a gulp of orange squash. It was so weak it was almost water. She noticed the glass had left a ring-shaped mark on the top of the bookcase, and she scrubbed at it with the corner of her dress.

Her father sighed.

This isn’t a forever thing. People will come back. And we still have Jamie.

Jamie is leaving, too.

Since when?

Since this morning. You’re not listening to me. Please, please, listen to me. We cannot make this work on our own. There is a reason everyone is going.

I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. We have to stay put. This is my home.

Excuse me, your home?

My family’s home.

Her mother flew into a rage.

We are your family! I am! We are! Me, and Evelyn, and Lily. And you’re happy for us to stay here and starve just because of your bloody stiff upper lip!

A pause.

I’m not going to give all this up because of a few hot summers.

Oh my God.

I’m sorry. I don’t really expect you to understand.

Because I’m a pleb.

Here we go. Of course you were going to say that. No. Because you don’t feel the responsibility in the same way I do.

What about the responsibility of keeping our children alive?

Christ, the melodrama.

No, not melodrama. A few hot summers? Do you not see? Everything has changed. We are not living the same lives anymore. None of this matters.

To you, maybe.

No. No! You don’t get to accuse me of not caring. I gave up so much to be with you. To come and be in this house. I can’t believe, after all this, with everything that’s happening, you’re still insisting on holding me hostage here.

Evelyn heard her father shifting his weight. Heard her mother’s long exhalation. The door seemed to strain against the atmosphere within.

If you want to leave, then leave, said Papa. I’m not holding you prisoner. But the girls stay here.

How dare you.

I mean it.

You can’t just say that.

Well. Good luck finding a lawyer.

Someone threw something against the wall and there was the sound of shattering glass. Evelyn stood back and felt the banister push into the small of her back. She heard tussling from within, more objects being hurled, a piece of furniture falling. Then a sharp metallic clang and a brief fluttering of wings and then someone crossing the room. Evelyn crouched behind a bookcase on the landing and felt her father’s footsteps through the soles of her own feet. The door flew open and shuddered when it struck the wall, and when she peered from her hiding place her father’s great shoulders were already disappearing down the hallway.

Evelyn stayed where she was for a long time before going into the room. Her mother was sitting on a couch, still and upright. Her face showed no expression whatsoever.

Careful, there, she said.

There was broken glass on the floor and cushions in disarray. One of them had split and there were feathers rocking in the draft. The birdcage lay on its side with the bars badly bent, and the budgerigar inside was not moving.

Is he all right? she asked, and her mother just looked at the bird but did not answer her.

Evelyn bent down and righted the cage, and the bird fell onto its sandy floor. Evelyn thought his feet curled slightly. She opened the door and lifted the bird and held him in both hands. He seemed to cool and stiffen even as she cupped him.

Please don’t tell her, Mama said, and Evelyn nodded. She waited a minute more, then put the bird gently in the pocket of her pinafore.

Shall I bury him?

Yes. I think you should.

Where?

Her mother took another few moments to collect herself.

Maybe somewhere near the wall? What about behind the beehives?

Evelyn thought that was a good idea.

She avoided her sister all day and held a small ceremony in the evening. Just her and a shoebox and a trowel. The first thing they’d ever buried in their web of special things, and Lily didn’t even know about it.