East Fortune (31 page)

‘I did at the beginning. I thought of her, of course, just as I thought of Louvain, I couldn't help it, but Ian never appeared to be troubled or distracted. It was not in his nature.'

‘I sometimes think he never worried about anything.'

‘He did, but he concealed it. He thought it was bad manners to appear over-anxious.'

‘Does Christiane know?'

‘I wrote to her to say that your father had died and she sent me such a kind letter back. She's around sixty now. She runs some kind of children's home.'

Jack stood up to close the shutters.

He looked out to see the snow melting under the trees and the first signs of spring on the branches. He could not remember a young French girl coming to the house at all. Perhaps it had never happened. Perhaps his mother was making the whole thing up in order to provide some kind of consolation. But he did think of his father, dressed as ‘the madly used Malvolio', striding on to the stage with his yellow stockings and his cross-garters, smiling beneficently,
Please one, and please all.

‘Sometimes people want everything to be clear and final,' Elizabeth was saying, ‘but I've always believed that one of the greatest blessings in life is the opportunity to see things through. Most things come back to you eventually. I suppose that's what makes everything so interesting.'

Jack wondered if ‘interesting' was the right word.

He needed to think about all that had happened. He wanted to be on his own again. He told his mother that he had to get back.

‘Will you be all right?' he asked.

‘Oh, I'll be perfectly happy,' she said. ‘You don't need to worry about me.'

Jack tried to imagine what it must have been like when Elizabeth had first met her future husband; a man living in the aftermath of another marriage. He wondered how much she had asked his father about his past, or if his mother had secrets of her own: lost possibilities. Perhaps they had decided to maintain the grace of silence, finding it safer not to ask too many questions, only telling each other what needed to be known.

His mother and father seemed always to have known that the truth did not always reveal the most about a life. Perhaps they had recognised that it was not so much their lives as the stories they made of them that mattered.

Douglas knew that he should return to London and get on with his work but he was enjoying the reassurance of family company. He told his mother that, in return for her hospitality, he would tend to his father's bees and check that the hives were ready for the spring.

He walked into the scullery, took off his jacket, and began to collect everything his father had taught him that he needed for the manipulation of the bees: the hive tool, the queen excluders, supers and the smoker. Then he changed into his overalls, making sure that his trousers were tucked into his boots. He remembered helping his father for the first time when he was a child. It was the only activity they had in common. Angus had his rugby, Jack was the scholar, and Douglas was left with the bees.

He was surprised how easily he returned to the routine. It was as familiar as a childhood country lane. He filled the smoker with a ball of newspaper, corrugated paper, sacking and dried grass. He lit it, put on his father's veil and gloves, and began to smoke the entrance to the hive.

He thought of Julia. She had sent him one of her minimalist texts.
Let me know.
Douglas replied,
Father dead. Miss you.
He thought that covered everything. His brother Jack would have been proud of such concision.

He let the heat drift in, allowing the bees to fill themselves up from the honey store. He recalled his father's wisdom:
A full bee never starts a fight.
Then he removed the roof and laid it gently on the ground. He took out the crown board and added more smoke to push the bees back, drifting it across the top bars of the frames until they had gone down into the bee ways between the combs. Some of them came out to try and defend the colony, following Douglas's movements with their front legs in the air.

Julia's texting became terse.
Call me.

Douglas checked the colony had sufficient room. He tried to find the queen and made sure that the hive was free of disease and abnormality.

Even if he wanted to continue with Julia he was not sure that he could afford to do so. She was probably out of his league, he thought, and then asked himself whether he was in any league at all. If he were a football team what would he be? St Mirren? Queen
of the South? He could almost hear rival fans taunting him:
You're shit and you know you are.

He could see the queen's cell, suspended from the bottom strut. He made sure that there was a sufficient reserve of pollen and sugar syrup. The colony was prepared, as his father would have wanted, for the spring.

That, at least, was one good thing he could tell his mother.

He put the lid back on the hive and returned to find Elizabeth and Angus in the living room.

‘Job done. I think I'll have a shower.'

‘Then you can join us for drinks,' said Elizabeth. ‘When are you going back to London?'

‘I'm not sure.'

Another text arrived from Julia.
Call.

‘Are you still staying with those friends of yours?' Angus asked.

‘I am.'

‘And you've not got work up here?'

‘It's mostly London…'

Julia again.
Now.
He really should reply.

‘So we'll see less of you,' said Elizabeth.

‘Not necessarily, Mother.'

‘I was thinking you might even be able to live here. Then you wouldn't have to pay any rent.'

Douglas was irritated that she had suggested this in front of his brother.

‘I know, Mother. That's very kind. But it's not very practical.'

‘You could even have your father's car.'

Douglas thought what it might be like. It would be a true sign of failure: the international television producer, accustomed to travelling all over Europe and eating in expensive restaurants, now living at home with his mother and driving his dad's old car.

He was supposed to be the one with the bright future, who would live in a comfortable home on the outskirts of Los Angeles with two or three beautiful children. What was he doing, childless and alone, trying to convince his mother that he still had prospects?

Soon it would be dark.

The last of the light showed the dust on the piano and side tables. Douglas looked at the windows and noticed that the shutters
needed repainting. He thought he should say something, offer to help, and guessed that his mother was already worried but hadn't liked to ask. He would have to talk to Angus. It was yet another piece of maintenance; preserving the building as their father would have wanted.

‘I'll go and have my shower.'

‘Well, don't dilly-dally.'

Douglas knew that his mother was trying her best. She was far better at concealing disappointment than his father. That, at least, was one good thing about his death, Douglas decided. He would not have to face up to all those expectations any more.

He tried to imagine what his father would think of him now. He was almost relieved that he was dead.

Elizabeth knew she could not keep her boys together in the house but she wished they could stay longer or visit more often. The rooms contained so many memories of them that they felt complete when her sons were with her and empty when they were not. It never ceased to surprise her; how presence could alter the mood of a room.

Sometimes it helped to imagine that her husband was still with them, that he had only gone off to make a cup of tea and would soon return and settle down with his feet on a footstool and holes in his socks. He would read
Wisden,
or the latest political biography, and the two dogs would lie asleep at his feet after their afternoon walk, muddied and satisfied.

She could even hear Ian's voice, apologising for dying first.

Selfish of me, I know…

You can't help it.

At least the stronger of us survives.

I don't think so.

You know I'd be hopeless without you. Everything is hopeless without you.

Elizabeth began to fall asleep. The rest of the family smiled as her head nodded down on to her chest but when she woke she looked afraid that she had been caught out.

‘Liebe kennt der allein, der ohne Hoffnung liebt.'

‘What?' Jack asked.

‘It's nothing.'

‘I didn't know you could speak German, Mother.'

‘You'd be surprised what you don't know.'

‘Perhaps you should go to bed,' said Angus.

‘I think I will.'

Angus held out his arm and pulled his mother up from the chair.

‘Take your time.'

Elizabeth took a moment to steady herself.

‘There,' she said, ‘I'll be all right in a minute. Everything takes so much longer these days.'

She stopped to look at her family. They had all stood up to say goodnight: Angus and Tessa, Douglas and Jack.

The grandfather clock in the hall struck half past eleven. She had not realised that it was so late. She bade her nightly farewells, kissing Tessa and her sons.

‘I've been so very blessed.'

She made her way up the stairs, holding on to the banister. She knew that she was getting frailer and her balance was less certain. If she stumbled she would no longer be able to say, ‘It's all right, I just tripped.' She would have ‘had a fall'.

In her room she listened to the sounds of the house at night: the wind in the joists and her family slowly preparing for bed; the locking of the front door, the bathroom pull-lights going on and off, footsteps in corridors, little laughs and temporary farewells. She could hear a brandy glass fall –
Shit
– Douglas, no doubt – and Tessa fetching a dustpan and brush.

She sat in front of her dressing table and unwound her hair, brushing it free. For a moment she could almost see her mother sitting in the same chair, and then herself as a child with black, velvet ribbons, preparing for a birthday party. The sofa she had hidden behind was still in the living room.

She thought back to the formality of the parties she had known in her youth: the black-tie dinners, the reels and strathspeys. She could still envisage all the giggling and the retouching of hair and make-up in the bathrooms upstairs as the men drank whisky and port in the smoking room below.

Sometimes guests would come over from other parties and there could be as many as fourteen couples dancing in the house: the Dashing White Sergeant and the Military Two Step, the Canadian Barn Dance and the Palais Glide.

They would stay on for an early breakfast, of kedgeree or scrambled eggs and bacon, before leaving for home at three in the morning, exhilarated and appreciative, and Elizabeth would walk back upstairs, look out of her bedroom window, and wait for the light of dawn.

It never ceased to surprise her how she had lived so long, become so old, or how much her sons had changed. She had not thought it possible. It seemed almost unjust.

Outside it began to rain. Looking at the darkened window, Elizabeth could only see her reflection. She noticed that her natural expression had gained a sense of mild amusement recently, quizzicality, a renewed interest in what might happen next.

She thought of Ian dead-heading the roses. He had always been fastidious about his tasks in the garden but sometimes he cut them too soon. They might have been blowsy and far-gone but they still had life in them. It was one of the few things about her husband that had always irritated her, getting things done, staying ahead of the game, cutting things off when there was still a way to go yet.

She remembered teasing him, telling him that he had a bark that was fiercer than any animal, and that he really should try to speak to his sons without giving them orders. They found it difficult enough as it was to live up to his expectations.

She could hear his voice, answering her thoughts:
What absolute rot.

And she felt guilty for suggesting how it must have been hard for the boys to be the sons of such loving parents.

So, Elizabeth, if we'd been miserable they would have been happier? Is that what you are saying?

She remembered the last time she had been out for a walk with her husband. They had driven to one of their favourite views, looking over the Borders from Soutra Summit. They had hardly said anything at all. Ian had reached for her hand and it had been enough.

Elizabeth could never have imagined that her life would turn out as it had: that she would have the boys and that they would marry, have children, face disappointments, and that two out of the three would separate.

The rest of the family had so much on their minds; so many anxieties. Elizabeth did not know what they still wanted out of life or what she could do to help them. Happiness was always so transitory, she thought, so elusive, and yet sometimes it did come, even out of darkness.

She remembered the words of the Minister at her husband's funeral and hoped that she was strong enough to believe them:
Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

She knew that she had made her mistakes. She had expected too much of Angus, she had taken Jack for granted, she had spoiled Douglas; and it had taken each one of them a lifetime to leave home.

But they had survived, and Elizabeth had loved them throughout their lives. She had even learned not to show that love too strongly; just in case it alarmed them.

In early March Jack hired a car for the first time since the accident. He drove over the Erskine Bridge and up Loch Lomond, hill on one side, loch on the other, following the contours of the landscape, imagining what it must have been like to build these roads.

He remembered holidays in the Highlands when the girls were young; Annie and Kirsty on a beach, dancing by rock pools, splashing sand and water up against their legs.