The House of Memories (19 page)

T
wo nights after Henrietta’s visit, I was in the kitchen when the front door opened and someone ran in, slamming the door behind them. I heard sobs. It was Peggy. I came out into the hall in time to see her run up the stairs, crying.

“Peggy? Are you okay?”

“He’s a pig,” she shouted back. “A two-timing pig.”

I waited for ten minutes and then came up the stairs with tea and cake on a tray. I knocked on the door. “Peggy? It’s Ella.”

It opened. She had mascara all over her face; her pink hair was askew. Behind her, clothes and books were flung on the floor.

“Would you like some tea?”

She gave a sobbing nod. “Come in.”

I brought it in and put the tray down on her bed. There was no room anywhere else. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“Don’t. Please. Talk to me. I need some advice.”

“I’m no good at advice.”

“What am I supposed to do, Ella? Darin tells me he loves me, we talk about moving in together next year, and then today I see him in the library, and he’s not just kissing her, he’s practically undressing her, and he saw me and he didn’t even look embarrassed.”

It was like listening to a teenager. Here she was, bright and intelligent, destined for greatness in academia, and as upset by a broken heart as any other girl her age.

“What do I do, Ella? And don’t say it’s my own fault for getting mixed up with someone I share a house with. A friend of mine said that’s all it is, just proximity, that I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him if he wasn’t under my nose all the time, and vice versa, and maybe she’s right, but I love him and I really thought he loved me and that we—” She broke off, crying. “I’m stupid, so, so stupid. Imagine falling in love with your flatmate.”

I had to say something. “If it’s any consolation, Peggy, I did the same thing.”

“What?” She sniffed.

“Fell in love with someone living here.”

“Here? When?”

“Five years ago.”

She sat up straight. “What happened?”

“I met him while we were both living here. He was a tutor too.”

“And?”

“We fell in love.”

She waited.

“We got engaged. We moved to Australia. We got married.”

“And?”

Say it.
“We had a baby.”

She frowned. “A baby?”

The words were caught in my throat.

“Did you get divorced? Did he get custody of your baby?”

“No.”
Say it.
“Our baby died. We split up.”

Tears sprang into her eyes again. “Oh, Ella, I’m so sorry. There’s me upset about a stupid— Ella, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry. It’s fine.”

“Why didn’t Lucas tell us? We would have been—”

“Different?”

Peggy nodded.

“That’s why.”

“But we’ve just treated you like our housekeeper.”

“That’s what I am.”

“But it’s so sad. Was your baby sick? Was it leukemia or something like that?”

“No.” I’d nearly gone as far as I could. “It was an accident.”

Downstairs, I heard a bell. It was the oven timer. I was baking biscuits. “I’d better go.”

She put her hand on my arm. “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here, okay?”

“Thank you.” I was at the door when she spoke again.

“Ella, I really hope you don’t mind me asking this—”

I steeled myself for another question about Felix.

“If Lucas was to—” Peggy stopped, then started again, speaking in a rush. “If you inherited this house, would you keep it as a place for tutors too?”

I tried to hide my shock at her question. I didn’t succeed.

“I’m sorry to ask. Really. I know how that must have sounded. It’s just, well, I have a little sister. She’s only in high school now, but she’d love to go to university—and she should; she’s cleverer than I am—and after she graduated, I know she’d want to do even more study and maybe she’d get to live here too, if, you know...” She trailed off.

I told the truth. “I’m sorry, Peggy. I don’t know what Lucas’s plans are.” The timer was still ringing. “I’d better get back to the kitchen.”

“Ella, I’m sorry again. About—” She stopped there. I hadn’t told her their names. She was trying; I could see that.

“My husband was Aidan. Our baby was Felix.”

“I’m sorry, Ella. About Aidan and Felix.”

“Thanks, Peggy.”

Back in the kitchen, I took the biscuits from the oven. I felt sick that I’d told her about Felix and Aidan. I wished she hadn’t asked me about Lucas’s inheritance plans either. First Mark, now her. It made me wonder if she was the one who was truly money-minded, if she could be the thief. I started cleaning out the refrigerator, glad of any excuse to distract myself.

I shouldn’t have been so upset. It wasn’t as if it was the first time I’d been asked about Lucas’s house. Even Charlie had raised the subject when we were teenagers, after a parcel arrived from Lucas, containing more books and a photo of him standing in front of the house proudly pointing out the newly painted blue front door. It was probably still the same paint job now, I realized.

Charlie had studied the photo closely. “That is some house,” he said.

“It’s incredible,” I agreed. I’d already told him everything I remembered from my visit as a seven-year-old: the rooms, the books, the foxes. “You should see the attic. You can see for miles.”

“So who inherits it when Lucas dies? You or a fox charity?”

“Charlie!”

“I’m not being mercenary. I’m being curious. You’re his only living relative, aren’t you? Unless he has a few secret sons or daughters tucked away who’ll insist the house is legally theirs?”

Jess came in. She was seven or eight at the time. “What secret sons or daughters? What house?”

I didn’t answer. I thought Jess was developing a bad habit of wanting to know everything about everything. Charlie, however, thought curiosity was something to be celebrated.

“We’re talking about Ella’s uncle Lucas and his house in London, Jess,” he said. “About whether he’ll give it to her when he dies.”

“Is he sick? A whole house? Just for her? But that’s not fair! What about you and me?”

“It is fair, Jess,” Charlie said. “Lucas is Ella’s uncle, not ours. He’s no relation to us.”

“But he must be! If he’s Ella’s uncle and I’m Ella’s sister, doesn’t that make him mine too?”

I can’t remember how Charlie answered that one. He probably took out pen and paper and drew a family tree, showing how we all came from different branches. One more example of the complications of blended family life. Jess was still young then, I suppose, but I was used to it. All through school there seemed to have been “Draw your family tree” projects. I’d had to stay back late once to finish mine, having added in Charlie’s branch, my branch, Mum’s, Dad’s, Walter’s. . . . Looking at the finished product, it had struck me that all the branches had led to Jess. It was as though all these people, all the different relatives, had somehow come together merely to ensure her creation.

“Do you actually like Jess?” I asked Charlie several nights later, when the two of us were alone in the kitchen washing the dishes while she did somersaults around the dining room, or trapeze acts from the light fittings or whatever her latest antic was. I knew that whatever it was, Mum and Walter would be watching on indulgently.

He shrugged.

“Charlie, you must have an opinion.”

“I guess so.”

“Charlie, it’s important. What do you think of her?”

“She’s my little sister. That kid that lives with us. Sure I like her. Anyway, it’s not as if I can swap her with someone else. Remember, Ella, you can choose your friends but not your family.”

“Don’t use clichés.”

“Then don’t count your chickens before you spoil the broth.”

I flicked my tea towel at him.

“Come now, Ella. Just because you’re jealous of Jess doesn’t mean I have to be too.”

“I’m
not
jealous of her.”

“No?”

“I’m not.” I flicked him again. “I’m not. Besides, I was here first. She should be jealous of me.”

More than a decade later, another man asked me a similar question.

“You’re jealous of Jess, aren’t you?”

I was shocked when Aidan asked me that. We were on what I thought of afterward as our first date. At the time it was a casual drink in our local pub, the Swan on Bayswater Road. It was summertime. I’d been in the kitchen tidying up and chatting to Lucas and one of the other tutors. Aidan had come into the room, thrown his bag onto the table and said, “I could murder a beer. Is anyone interested?” I was the only one to say yes.

I’d talked to him before, of course. We’d first met one evening when I was back from my job in Bath for the weekend. I knew his first name was Aidan and that he was about my age. I liked his voice (his Irish accent was very strong, even though Lucas had told me he’d been in London for five years), I liked his hair (he could have been Lucas’s son—they shared the same mop of dark curls) and I liked the clothes he wore (as casual as Lucas’s too). In the baggy blue jumper, dark jeans and runners that he favored, he looked like a roadie for a band, or a barman, not the talented language tutor I knew him to be.

He’d come into the kitchen while I was cooking dinner. It was an Italian pasta sauce that I was making for the first time. I’d fried pancetta first, then added tomatoes, red wine, garlic and chili, hoping for the richness of flavors the recipe promised. He sniffed appreciatively and looked over my shoulder at the recipe book. That was when I noticed he was slightly taller than me. I also noticed that he smelled good. Of shampoo and soap, rather than aftershave, but it was woody and, yes, sexy, especially in a kitchen already smelling of tomatoes and red wine and garlic.

“That smells great,” he said.
“Bucatini all’Amatriciana? Grande! Il mio preferito.”
He sounded like an Italian native.

“Have you just complimented me or told me off?” I asked.

He smiled. That was when I first noticed the gap between his bottom teeth. Standing that close to him, I also noticed that his eyes were slightly different colors. Months later, when we’d be in bed together, I loved to lie with my head on his chest and make him shut one eye and then the other, as I tried to decide exactly what color they were. “They’re both just boring blue,” he’d say, shutting his eyes.

“They’re not,” I’d say, lifting his eyelids, peering in, making him laugh. And they weren’t. One was bluey green and the other was greeny blue.

“Here, taste it,” I said, giving him a spoonful. I cared what he thought of it. I took my cooking duties in Lucas’s house very seriously.

“Nice,” he said, putting the spoon in the sink.

“
Nice?
The most boring word in the English language?”

“It is, Ella. It’s very nice. Very good, in fact. But I’ve been spoiled. I grew up eating that particular sauce. It’s my mother’s specialty. People come from far and wide to try it. There’s some secret ingredient she puts into it. She says she’ll take it to her grave. I think she means it.”

“Your mother’s Italian?”

He nodded. “When my father was in his twenties, he went to Rome on an exchange trip. He was staying with an Italian family, a well-known restaurant family, and he fell instantly in love with the youngest daughter. Their families were against it, so they eloped. As they fled in the middle of the night, she took her grandmother’s recipe book with her, so she would always have something of home to cling to, no matter where they ended up.”

One of the other tutors came into the kitchen then. “Don’t believe a word he tells you, Ella. His name is Aidan Joseph O’Hanlon and he’s about as Italian as the Queen.”

Aidan grinned. “She’s got Italian blood, hasn’t she? Or is it German?”

The other tutor left and I went back to my stirring. Aidan stayed. I realized I liked having him there. Usually I became uncomfortable if anyone watched me cook. “So none of that was true?”

“Sorry, no.” He smiled again, looked at his watch and pulled a face. “I’m late for a class. I’d better go.” At the door, he stopped. “I was wrong, Ella. I’m sorry. Your sauce isn’t nice. It’s fantastic.”

He wasn’t there for dinner that night. A week passed without me seeing him again. I knew from casual questions posed to Lucas that Aidan was one of his busiest tutors, his skill with languages very much in demand. I was at the stove again the next time we spoke. This time, I was trying to master a French recipe.

I heard his voice first. “Ella, hello.”

I turned and was surprised to feel a tiny jolt at the sight of him, like a little electric charge. “Hi, Aidan.”

“I’m ravenous. I haven’t eaten since we last spoke.”

“Not since that one spoonful of my pasta sauce?”

He shook his head. “Not even a crust of bread.”

“You must be very hungry.”

“Very,” he said solemnly. “What culinary delight is this?” Again, he leaned past me to see the recipe book. Again, I smelled the soap and the shampoo. Again, it mingled too well with the herbs, the white wine, the garlic. I felt another of those jolts.

“Entrecôte à la bordelaise?”
he said, saying the name of the dish in what I knew had to be perfect French. “May I taste?”

“Of course,” I said, handing him a spoon, trying not to smile.

He tasted it. “Very nice,” he said. “But sadly, not a patch on my mother’s version. You see, when my father was young, he moved to Paris and stayed with—”

I laughed and ordered him out of my kitchen. He gave me one more grin and then he left. I hoped he’d be back for dinner but he wasn’t. I didn’t see him again for three more days. Until he casually issued that invitation to go for a beer and I just as casually accepted.

“Have fun, kids,” Lucas called after us.

Over the first beer we talked about London, about his work, my work in Bath. Over the second he talked about Ireland; I talked about Australia. During the third we talked about my family. He laughed when I told him stories about Charlie, about his regular e-mail reports. I told him about Jess too, my all-singing, all-dancing half sister. I also told him how much Mum and Walter adored her. Doted on her. Spoiled her. Which was when he accused me of being jealous of her.