Family Album (40 page)
Authors: Penelope Lively
Tags: #Literary, #Psychological, #General, #Family Life, #Fiction
E-mail—Ingrid to Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
Paul has now gone to this new job which is good that he has it but at Allersmead we are sorry he is not here anymore. Alison has started again the cookery classes. That is good too because the bank is writing letters—not nice letters.
E-mail—Roger to Gina
Could you investigate bank letters.
E-mail—Gina to Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
The long and short of it is that there’s a severe cash-flow problem. Dad’s divvies have been going down and down, for complex reasons, mainly lack of management. Problem has clearly been there for some time, but ignored. Come to think of it—the house has been looking pretty shabby for ages, but one thought that was just their style. Repairs needed—but that’s only the half of it. Income also needed. The cookery classes bring in peanuts. Ingrid proposes lodgers—indeed is quite gung ho. Mum prepared to give it a try.
E-mail—Sandra to Gina, Katie, Roger, Clare
Lodgers potential rapists and murderers. Propose development of grounds—elegant newbuild at south end of garden, using prime architect.
Paul says: Look, I’ve had an idea. How about I set up a nursery garden business there—all that space, you could have glasshouses and growing tunnels—masses of room for planting out. Nursery is far superior to garden center—you can do bare-rooted and the real connoisseurs are crying out for that. You’d specialize—just a few choice lines. Start-up capital? Oh well, you’d borrow, wouldn’t you? Gina, you’re so damn
practical
. Business experience? You’d learn on the hoof, wouldn’t you?
practical
. Business experience? You’d learn on the hoof, wouldn’t you?
E-mail—Katie to Gina, Sandra, Roger, Clare
I hate to suggest it, but Dad’s books must be worth quite a lot.
E-mail—Clare to Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger
The sitting room is big enough for a kids’ dancing class. You could come to an arrangement with a local teacher.
E-mail—Roger to Gina, Sandra, Katie, Clare
Lodger idea has legs, I feel, but caution needed (I take your point, Sandra). References essential. Students of some kind perhaps? Maybe talk to local language schools (are there any?), further education institutions, etc. Mum and Ingrid both used to the young—might even like having some around. Gina, please pass on to Paul (can’t he get himself online?) and yes, agree thumbs-down to nursery garden scheme, though well-meant.
E-mail—Gina to Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
Progress. Ingrid in negotiations with local veterinary college, who are interested. Student hostel is oversubscribed—proposal is for three/four of overflow to come to Allersmead. B&B proposed, with option of supper also. Mum rather keen on supper. Health and safety inspection necessary—takes place next week.
Paul says: Have it your own way. Passing up a golden opportunity, that’s how I see it—I could have made the family’s fortune. Species roses and lilies, that was the idea. A stand at Chelsea—articles in the Sundays. Vet students will trash the place—just you see. A laptop for my birthday? Look, thanks awfully but no thanks—I hate the things. Can I have a weekend in Paris instead? Ah.
E-mail—Gina to Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
Shit. Allersmead has not passed health and safety inspection. In fact, has not just not passed but failed dismally on all fronts. Bathroom facilities are inadequate and require modernization, there is no fire escape from the attic floor, rewiring is necessary throughout, there are no fire extinguishers. And so on, and so on. For heaven’s sake—we grew up there and lived to tell the tale. Vet college bursar is regretful but unless extensive improvements were carried out . . . So forget student lodgers, I’m afraid.
E-mail—Sandra to Gina, Katie, Roger, Clare
Commercial travelers probably less fussy, but more inclined to rape and murder. If newbuild is unacceptable, what about a self-contained flat on the attic floor? For rental purposes.
E-mail—Gina to Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
Mum would consider flat, but Ingrid points out that roof would have to be repaired before conversion. It’s a bucket situation up there—I hadn’t realized. Estimate for reroofing—wait for it—£18K. And that’s before conversion costs. But nice try, Sandra.
E-mail—Roger to Gina, Sandra, Katie, Clare
Roof situation does rather focus the mind. Not just income needed—capital also. Capital we don’t have. Allersmead is an expensive pile—eats maintenance. Are the rest of you thinking what I’m beginning to think?
Paul says:
Sell
Allersmead? Mum’ll never stand for that, will she? I’m not sure I would.
Sell Allersmead?
Sell
Allersmead? Mum’ll never stand for that, will she? I’m not sure I would.
Sell Allersmead?
E-mail—Sandra to Gina, Katie, Roger, Clare
It’s obvious. You’d be talking a couple of million, I should think. Solve the problem just like that. Pity, but face the facts.
E-mail—Katie to Gina, Sandra, Roger, Clare
You
can’t
.
We
can’t. No, no. There must be some other way.
can’t
.
We
can’t. No, no. There must be some other way.
E-mail—Clare to Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger
What! Allersmead?
No Allersmead anymore? Oh, please not.
No Allersmead anymore? Oh, please not.
Gina drives in and parks by the front door. The gravel of the drive is a rare surviving substance now, peeking up here and there in between weeds and clumps of moss; tires no longer scrunch. She remembers a delivery of gravel, eons ago, and how they all waded about and helped to spread it. She notes the crack by the front door, and squints up at the roof, which does indeed signal distress—tiles slipped or missing all over the place.
Philip had offered to come too. No, she had said—thanks, but I’m probably best on my own, for this.
She sees Allersmead with a curious marriage of detachment and intimacy. She sees this large house, conceived in another age, a time of vastly different social assumptions, when domestic service was a major industry, and an army of women existed for the maintenance of Allersmead-style households. The bell panel still survives, in the kitchen: drawing room, morning room, bedroom 1 . . . she sees the house as an affirmation of the way things were back then, when a person was placed by the way they spoke or how they dressed, when most people took for granted such distinctions, and when the polarization of wealth seemed part of the natural order of things. Allersmead speaks for affluence rather than wealth perhaps. Gina thinks about this affluence: shades from Allersmead of another day float before her—ladies in capacious skirts and high-buttoned blouses, chaps in tweeds, children in pinnies, bowling hoops. A skivvy hauls scuttles of coal up the stairs—the old fireplaces are all still there, in the bedrooms. She sees the house as a consumer, over the century, gobbling up blacklead and polish and Brasso and Silvo (boosting the funds from which sprang Dad’s divvies, now so sadly diminished); she sees it also as a producer, a restaurant that never closed, from which flowed forth an endless supply of breakfasts and lunches and dinners, a century-long aroma of toast and roast. The smells are perhaps the most assertive; she can pick up their own—Sunday lunch and coq au vin and Lancashire hot pot and macaroni and cheese and apple crumble.
And the smells take her to a more intimate Allersmead, to the Allersmead-in-the-head, to a raft of private moments that come swimming up from the long darkness of the years, the strange assortment of glimpses that are known as memory. All of these are tacked to Allersmead; in all of them Allersmead is the backdrop—its rooms, its stairs, its furnishings, the deeply known places in its garden, the secrets of the cellar, where presumably the Daleks still roam.
I know what you mean, she tells Katie, and Clare, and Paul. I know exactly what you mean.
She is carrying a fistful of house agents’ brochures: charming cottages with easily maintained gardens, compact town houses with quick access to shops, lofts with fiber-optic mood lighting and bespoke kitchens. She pauses on the top step, pushes open the front door.
“I heard the car,” cries Alison. “I was just coming.”
E-mail—Gina to Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
I’ve been. Floated it over tea in the kitchen—put out a feeler first, a little probe. Allersmead so big, and so costly to run. Lot to be said for small houses. Pretty cottages. Blank stare from Mum: “I don’t follow, dear.” Ingrid following very well on the other side of the table; equally blank, but that’s Ingrid. Eventually I had to come out with it—and flourished sheaf of pretty cottages, etc. Mum then went from incredulity to outrage: “I can’t believe what you seem to be suggesting . . . how can you even
think
of such a thing.
Sell
Allersmead! Live somewhere else!” Much airy dismissal of financial issue—“Money doesn’t
matter,
it’s your
home
that matters, and Allersmead has always been . . .” I know, I know, say I—and I do, I do, but . . . But, but. Unfortunately, money does matter. I try to explain this, I present some figures, and am evidently seen as on a par with slit-eyed mean-minded money-mad bank managers: “I had no idea you could be so hardheaded, Gina.” Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Ingrid is idly studying pretty cottage brochures—or maybe not so idly. So decided to leave it at that for the moment—changed subject, ate coffee and walnut cake, tried to restore personal image, received bag of veg from Ingrid and departed, having strategically forgotten to pick up cottage brochures.
think
of such a thing.
Sell
Allersmead! Live somewhere else!” Much airy dismissal of financial issue—“Money doesn’t
matter,
it’s your
home
that matters, and Allersmead has always been . . .” I know, I know, say I—and I do, I do, but . . . But, but. Unfortunately, money does matter. I try to explain this, I present some figures, and am evidently seen as on a par with slit-eyed mean-minded money-mad bank managers: “I had no idea you could be so hardheaded, Gina.” Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Ingrid is idly studying pretty cottage brochures—or maybe not so idly. So decided to leave it at that for the moment—changed subject, ate coffee and walnut cake, tried to restore personal image, received bag of veg from Ingrid and departed, having strategically forgotten to pick up cottage brochures.
E-mail—Ingrid to Gina
This week we shall look at places. Alison says this does not mean she has any intention, just there is no harm in looking. Some of the pictures she quite liked.
E-mail—Alison to Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
That one called a loft was hopeless. I mean, the kitchen worktop was made of
granite
. Granite is for mountains, isn’t it? Not worktops. And every room lit up like a stage set. Ingrid says we’d go mad. The house on the high street was rather poky, kitchen no good for the cookery classes. Ingrid says probably anywhere we may have to think of a kitchen extension. Cottage in Hopton has a big one, though, and Ingrid likes the garden. It’s got an Aga. Have always wondered about Agas. People seem to swear by them.
granite
. Granite is for mountains, isn’t it? Not worktops. And every room lit up like a stage set. Ingrid says we’d go mad. The house on the high street was rather poky, kitchen no good for the cookery classes. Ingrid says probably anywhere we may have to think of a kitchen extension. Cottage in Hopton has a big one, though, and Ingrid likes the garden. It’s got an Aga. Have always wondered about Agas. People seem to swear by them.
E-mail—Roger to Gina
If asking price for Hopton cottage sensible make an offer pronto.
E-mail—Ingrid to Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
It is good they accept. Alison says kitchen table here will just fit in and perhaps dresser also. Drawing-room curtains here are so old, it is not worth taking. I shall make new. Alison thinks pink floral nice perhaps. We shall need man with rotovator to clear ground for new asparagus bed. Alison says fruit cage if I want.
E-mail—Clare to Gina, Sandra, Roger, Katie
Listen, all of you—isn’t this a weird situation? Here’s your mum and mine fetching up together on their own. OK, I know this is what we never say, your mum and mine, what we never talk about. So I’m saying it, because maybe it’s time. Your mum and mine. Apparently settling down together in a cottage with an Aga and a new asparagus bed. Minus our dad, and of course it was all his doing, and we don’t discuss that either and never have. So here’s my take on it, a few years late.
I’m rather glad to be here, so I can hardly hold it against him. Or my mum. I think yours had considerable cause for complaint. Actually, mine too, come to that. I think he shouldn’t have, but if he hadn’t I wouldn’t exist and that’s such a peculiar thought that I have to stop thinking. In the abstract, I think he shouldn’t have—but look, goodness knows what things have been like for him—we’ve no idea, have we? I don’t understand my mum. Why did
she
? And then why did she stay and how did she feel and I suppose I’ve got all sorts of Scandinavian relations but somehow I’m not very interested. We’ve never talked about it, she and I—never ever. She knows I know—that we all know—and she’s pulled down a shutter. And I don’t mind—I prefer it that way. Does your mum know we know? If she does, my view is that she’s not admitting it, least of all to herself.
she
? And then why did she stay and how did she feel and I suppose I’ve got all sorts of Scandinavian relations but somehow I’m not very interested. We’ve never talked about it, she and I—never ever. She knows I know—that we all know—and she’s pulled down a shutter. And I don’t mind—I prefer it that way. Does your mum know we know? If she does, my view is that she’s not admitting it, least of all to herself.
There—that’s my take. Clare bares her soul.
Paul says: Jesus! Bully for Clare—the whole can of worms, wide open. What do
I
think? I don’t. I’ve always preferred not to. Otherwise I’d have chatted about it to the shrinks. Boy!—they’d have made a meal of it, wouldn’t they? I don’t think anything—just, aren’t all families screwed up somewhere, when it comes down to it?
I
think? I don’t. I’ve always preferred not to. Otherwise I’d have chatted about it to the shrinks. Boy!—they’d have made a meal of it, wouldn’t they? I don’t think anything—just, aren’t all families screwed up somewhere, when it comes down to it?
E-mail—Katie to Gina, Sandra, Roger, Clare
Oh, Clare—you should have said all that years ago. Well,
we
should. All of us—any of us. Actually, I think—poor them. All three of them. It can’t have been much fun—knowing what they knew and not knowing if we did or not, or knowing and not wanting to. And Dad must have felt guilty—perhaps horribly guilty. And Mum—well, what Clare says, cause for complaint. And Ingrid—all
muddled,
perhaps. It’s poor them, surely.
we
should. All of us—any of us. Actually, I think—poor them. All three of them. It can’t have been much fun—knowing what they knew and not knowing if we did or not, or knowing and not wanting to. And Dad must have felt guilty—perhaps horribly guilty. And Mum—well, what Clare says, cause for complaint. And Ingrid—all
muddled,
perhaps. It’s poor them, surely.
E-mail—Sandra to Gina, Katie, Roger, Clare
Well done, Clare! Sorry, Katie—no. No way did he feel guilty—he was out to lunch, all his life. In fact, they were all three of them out to lunch. That’s my view.
E-mail—Roger to Gina, Sandra, Katie, Clare
Devil’s advocate—there’s a case to be made for Dad. Two women and six children—did he need that? OK—I hear you, all of you. But give it a passing thought. And listen! I have news. Susan is pregnant. How’s that? But this is not going to be an Allersmead-style launch—we plan two, conceivably three, and there will be no domestic assistance. Meanwhile, advise Gina arrange man with rotovator at once, contact fruit-cage suppliers, and get the max for Allersmead.
E-mail—Gina to Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare
Paul proposes all families screwed up, more or less. Well, it’s a thought. Spot on, Clare—thanks for lifting the veil, busting the taboo, etc. We’re an odd lot, aren’t we? The elephant in the room, as we say these days, and all of us mute. Ho hum, Sandra—I’m not so sure. Not so much out to lunch as in denial—my scenario. Same thing, possibly. And yes, Katie—yes I suppose to that too. Poor them. And the devil’s advocate view has to be considered. How far can any of us say we knew Dad? I pass. OK, Rog—you’ve made a point—and that’s terrific news! How open-minded can I get? Oh, plenty more—I’m trained that way. Suffice it that Clare has done us a service, I guess, and maybe we can close the file now. Or let it rest—it’s always going to be there, I suppose. And right, Rog—rotovator and fruit cage will be sorted asap. And Allersmead too, alas.
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