Family Album (36 page)

Dad would never have seen a magazine in his life, whether it was
Vogue
or
Country Life
or
Yachting News
. That is, he would have laid eyes on them, in the newsagent or wherever, but he would not have seen them because they were not within his sphere of interest. Dad did not notice TV sitcoms, rock music (unless from Paul’s room), our clothes, our friends, much of our conversation. And that was just Allersmead. Beyond Allersmead, he was unaware of football-league tables, bingo halls, horse racing, coarse fishing—anything indeed that was irrelevant to his concerns. Which were? Well, the books—whatever he was writing at that particular time. So, mostly, Dad let the world pass him by—he looked the other way.

Sandra has inspected the books. She has stalked into his study in his absence; she has eyed titles, browsed within. If she put her mind to it, sat down and gave her full attention, she could follow well enough. She is not stupid. She got good marks at school, when she wanted to. When she wanted to show that she could match Gina, if she felt so inclined. “Sandra has a good mind . . .” school reports used to say—teacher talk for not stupid—“. . . but does not always choose to apply herself.” School was a pain one was simply enduring, waiting for release.

A fair number of people must have read Dad’s books—bought them, taken them out of libraries. He got money for them. Sandra glimpses suddenly a host of strangers—a kind of person she does not know, people who seek the sort of book she does not read. There is something oddly tantalizing about this—you do not like to think that you are shut off from a whole section of society, even if people you perhaps couldn’t be doing with anyway. Dad’s customers. Unlike the boutique customers, that’s for sure. But one can’t abide the lettuce-leaf ladies.

Have I missed out? she wonders. If I had got down to it and read Dad’s books, and similar books, would I be someone else, consorting with unimaginable strangers?

People like him? No, no, there can’t be a whole horde of Dad clones. And if there are, he never knew them. Dad didn’t have friends, colleagues, people who dropped in, rang up.

She sees in detachment this solitary figure, and feels a kind of compunction. There he was, one lived with him all those years, and one knows nothing of him.

He tells her that if she were an African girl of twelve she would have scars on her cheeks. He makes some comment about her green fingernails, so Mum notices.

He comes into the kitchen with ribbons of paper streaming from his hands. “Who did this?” he roars.

Who did, by the way?

Gina has given him a paper knife for Christmas, and he asks if he is to stab his enemies with this?

He walks that cliff path at Crackington Haven, alone, staring at the sea. He does not see them.

His physical presence is eminently retrievable. That slight stoop, the strong, rather beaky nose, the way he wrinkles it to hunch up his glasses. Oh yes, the glasses—always opaque, in desperate need of a wipe. His clothes—vivid still, item by item. Those shirts with button-down collars (frayed)—the blue denim ones and the red one and the green checked one. The brown cardigan thing with suede front. The gray sweater and the black one. The tweed jacket with elbow patches. The fawn belted raincoat.

Actually he was—is—rather good-looking. Strong features. Women—some women—are said to seek a man in the image of their father. Surveying her own men, Sandra sees no one bearing even the faintest resemblance. So much for that. Rejection? Tell me about your relationship with your father, Sandra.

What relationship? When she tries to isolate herself and Charles, to find a connection that is personal, specific, she is unable to do so. Of course, there is presumably a finite amount of paternal attention, and in his case you have to divide by six. One-sixth of maybe rather cursory paternal attention. Sandra trawls back, in search of the flavor of her personal sixth. When, and in what way, did one feel that he was
my
father rather than
our
father? What little jokes did we have, just him and me? What chats? Oh, come on, you know he neither joked nor chatted. What conversations, then? But Allersmead conversations tended to be collective, a free-for-all around the kitchen table at mealtimes; when Dad spoke he spoke to—or at—everyone, on the whole. We argued with him, oh yes—Gina most of all—but his end of the argument seems oddly dispassionate, in recollection, neutral—a general response, not customized, not: now, Sandra, you and I must have a good talk about this.

So even the one-sixth of Dad is somewhat impersonal, one-sixth of this father figure, our father, our father who art in his study and do not disturb, a father type who nevertheless defines what a father is, must be, how could they be otherwise? A father is Dad, because that is what one has known.

What did I feel about him? Awe? Respect? Well, not really—you took care not to provoke him because you didn’t like the way he would respond. Sarcasm—though you didn’t then know the word. Mostly, you skirted him, ignored him as though here were some inconvenient feature of the landscape.

And now? When Sandra returns to Allersmead today she seems to be visiting some historic site, which is entirely strange, entirely surprising, and yet at another level infinitely familiar. Both Charles and Alison are startling—is this really how they are, how they speak and behave?—but also disconcertingly normal. Of course, this is how it was, how it is; the shock is that it still goes on, parallel to the world of today, the life of now.

Enough, she thinks. She has been lying on the sofa in the Rome flat, flicking through a kitchen installation brochure, with Allersmead swirling all around. Enough of this, there is work to be done, phone calls to make, messages to check. She gets the laptop, starts to go through the e-mails, and stares in shock.

There is an e-mail from Ingrid. When Allersmead chooses to communicate in this way it is Ingrid who does so. Alison has never got the hang of the computer; Charles probably does not know what it is.

Ingrid is brief. Brief and bald—a statement. Sandra reads and rereads, frowning.

 

 

 

 

A
lison is a little disappointed that the Mothercraft class does not seem to be catching on. It is an offshoot of her cookery classes, which have been going strong for nearly twenty years now, oversubscribed; you can’t sensibly have more than seven or eight under instruction in the Allersmead kitchen so there is often a waiting list. She had thought Mothercraft such a brilliant idea, so much what young mothers need, surely, but so far only five have turned up, and she finds them oddly unresponsive. They want to know how to stop their babies crying at night and what to do about two-year-olds’ tantrums, and sit impassive while she tells them that the important thing, the really crucial thing, is a real family life with lots of love and attention for everyone, all the time, and plenty of family rituals, birthday parties and everyone
belonging,
and of course lovely home-cooked meals. On the first occasion, a girl had interrupted: “Actually, if you don’t mind my saying, Mothercraft sounds a bit odd, it’s Parenting now, really.” When Alison had pointed out that it’s
mothering
that counts, I mean that’s the really central thing, isn’t it, the
mother’s
role, there had been a ripple of dissent. Apparently they don’t see it quite like that. Someone else said, “One’s not on call twenty-four/seven, I’ve got a job, and it’s turn and turn about with my partner.” They bring their babies and toddlers, of course, and the idea had been that Ingrid would run a sort of crèche, but Ingrid hasn’t seemed all that enthusiastic, and Alison had rather forgotten how chaotic it can get with a few little ones around.

She may have to cancel the Mothercraft class, but possibly it was going to be a bit too much anyway, with the Basic Cookery course on Tuesday afternoons and the Advanced on Thursdays. When she started out, Alison had imagined that she would be catering for young brides, for Basic at least, and had looked forward to starry-eyed biddable girls, but in the event most of the punters, for both classes, are older women, quite a lot of them her own age, and they are neither starry-eyed nor biddable. She had installed a new cooker, even larger than the one that had done duty for so many family meals, but even so there were—and are—undisguised reactions to the Allersmead kitchen, ranging from merriment to downright scorn. She had not realized it was so unusual; it was other people’s kitchens that had always seemed odd to her—so shiny and small. When people are being kindly they say, “How lovely and old-fashioned—my
mother
had a dresser like that.” Other remarks are not quite so restrained. She has caught mutterings about the potential of a place like this, in the right hands, and once overheard one woman, putting her coat on in the hall, announce: “God, that kitchen . . . but, face it, she’s a fantastic cook.”

There lay her authority. Those who were initially unimpressed by Alison’s lack of chic (“Where does she
get
those sack things she wears?”) and the individuality of the Allersmead ambience soon changed their tune after exposure to Alison’s skills. A casual interest would soon become keen ambition: they too could turn out those elegant dishes, impress their friends, confound their menfolk. Those who had come along just for the fun of it were soon the most ardent acolytes, progressing from Basic to Advanced, from essential salad ideas to Italian, Middle Eastern, and Thai cuisine. Alison’s cookery persona is a surprise, they discover; her house may be crying out for a makeover, she may be dressed by Butterick 1975, but when it comes to cooking she is on the cutting edge. She has availed herself of all the pundits, and added her own twists and amendments—she has outspiced Claudia Roden, trumped Nigella, improved on Jamie Oliver, revived and reinvented Elizabeth David. The members of her classes, women who thought they knew a thing or two themselves, are silenced in the presence of achievement of another order. They watch Alison chop, whisk, stir. They marvel at what comes out of her ovens. They submit meekly, deferentially, to instruction—chopping and stirring alongside in the Allersmead kitchen, vying for her attention: “Alison, is this thick enough?”; “Alison,
why
can’t I get my pastry like yours?” Alison has taken wing, floating masterly in her own element, untouchable. The women know that they will never achieve her finesse, they recognize that she has some sort of culinary sixth sense not available to them, but they see that something will rub off, they can raise their game, cookery is all the rage nowadays, it is well worth an afternoon and a few quid.

For Alison, the cookery classes have been affirmation, and a small personal income. They have given her a new status, now that the children are no longer there, and some money to spend as she wishes. She has never particularly felt the need of money; Charles has always left management of the household finances to her, and has never asked to see the accounts. There has always been just about enough, so long as one was careful, though what comes into the bank from his dividends does seem to have been getting less and less lately, for some reason. There has never been extravagance at Allersmead, but even so the little bit of spending money from the classes has been a source of satisfaction. Over the years Alison has treated herself—has treated Allersmead—to the latest in blenders and microwaves, she has had a Dyson vacuum cleaner, and a proper washbasin for the downstairs loo instead of that ancient sink. Remarks had been made about the sink, by cookery class women.

Charles remains in his study, on cookery class days. Most of the women have never set eyes on him; sometimes there is vague murmured speculation, Alison being so obviously and productively married (the family photos everywhere, those named mugs). Ingrid is supportive, if enigmatic; she comes in and out of the kitchen, sometimes does a bit of brisk clearing up, and is referred to by Alison as “my PA.” Alison is not clear what the term means; Ingrid suggested it, and they both rather like the sound. The women are a bit puzzled by Ingrid, who is unforthcoming when discreetly probed (“You must be Scandinavian . . . let me guess—Swedish?”) and makes it clear that her role is strictly professional: “I am working with Alison for some time now.”