The Red House (10 page)

I poured myself another glass of the Monbazillac. As I raised it to my lips something moved in the darkened hallway. Was it the white shoe? My heart hammered, the stimulus rushing through my sensory cortex and hypothalamus to the brain stem, flooding my body with adrenaline. I walked over and found that my coat had slipped off its hook. I breathed deeply trying to slow my racing pulse. Fight or flight, the loyal guard dog that has sat by our side for a million years, alerting us to every sign of danger. But how could one fight an imaginary threat? How could one flee the pictures in one’s head? As Hecht had written in his article for
Nature,
we had tamed the outside world but not the weapons we possessed for dealing with it …

Melissa put the soggy paperback facedown on the edge of the bath, the pages turning slowly into a great damp ruff. Avison would ask Michelle how they’d been bullying her. What was she going to say? She couldn’t show him the picture, could she. But if the police were involved they’d look at everything. Shit. She’d always managed to tread the line. You could smoke as long as you did
Midsummer Night’s Dream
. You could skip the odd class as long as you got the grades. But if she got expelled Dad would go fucking ballistic. Goodbye allowance for starters. She didn’t even want to think what shitty school she’d end up going to.

There was a print of a robin above the toilet and an air freshener in a crappy pink holster thing on the side of the cistern. Alex groping her. God, she hated this place.

Benjy had a special dispensation to play his Nintendo at the table because he was bored of grown-up talk. Daisy tried to prize him away by asking him about school but he wanted to talk about his ongoing fantasy in which Mrs. Wallis killed and ate children in her class, which Daisy found tiresome and distasteful so she admitted defeat. She tried talking to Alex but he kept stealing glances at Melissa who was studiously
ignoring him. She felt oddly protective and wanted to apologize for her brother’s behavior though she was pretty sure it was Alex who’d come off worst. She stared at her willow-patterned plate. She must have seen the picture a thousand times but she’d never really looked at it, the ship, the temple garden, the figures on the bridge. What was happening?

Mum and Dad were sitting at opposite corners of the table. Why didn’t they love each other? It was easier being here with Louisa and Richard and Melissa who acted as a kind of padding. At home the temperature was always a little cooler when the two of them were together. She’d been at Bella’s house one day when she was eleven. Bella’s father slipped an arm round her mum’s waist and kissed her for way too long. Daisy was horrified at first, then she realized and it made her sad.

It’s good for Richard being here
. Louisa poured herself another glass.
Stop him worrying about things
.

I can’t imagine Richard worrying
, said Dominic. He could feel something stuck between his front teeth.
Not like the rest of us worry
.

Oh, there’s this case at work
, said Louisa.
Some legal thing
. Had she said too much?

What kind of legal thing?

We’re going to have the stage near the trees at the edge of the playing field
, said Melissa. She closed her eyes in order to see the plan more clearly.
The sun will be out at the beginning of the play, which is when we’re in the city, and it’ll set during the play which is when everything moves to the wild forest. Cool, no?

That sounds really interesting
, said Angela. Melissa was just a child, wasn’t she. Queen of the castle and dirty rascals.
So tell me about being vegetarian
.

I just think it’s ridiculous eating animals
.

No
, said Angela.
Give me a reasoned argument. Imagine you’re trying to convert me
.

Well …
Melissa paused and gathered herself.

It was so easy. Get them on their own and treat them like adults. Except you couldn’t do it with your own family, could you. You crossed
your own doorstep and took off the cape and you were Clark Kent again.

So, what happens if you’re not cleared?
asked Dominic.

I think that’s highly unlikely
.

But hypothetically
. Dominic could see that he was making Richard uncomfortable but he was slightly drunk and the opportunities for enjoying this kind of advantage were few and far between.

I suppose ultimately, if one had been grossly negligent, one could be struck off
. Richard could think of no way of ending the conversation without giving the impression that he was avoiding the subject.

I suppose most of these cases are settled out of court
. Dominic mopped up the last of the tomato sauce with a folded piece of bread.

I would much rather be publicly exonerated. Sadly, it will be the word of an honest man against that of a liar and a hypocrite
.

Louisa reappeared with an apple tart in one hand and a tub of vanilla ice cream in the other. Richard got slowly to his feet.
Let me fetch the bowls
.

Angela placed a stack of dirty plates in front of Benjy because she was determined that at least one of her sons would leave home with a few domestic skills.
Put these in the dishwasher. Carefully and one at a time, OK?

I’ll do the greasy stuff in this sink
, said Daisy.
You can do the glasses in that one
.

Let’s play the story game
, said Benjy.

Concentrate
, said Angela.
If you drop any it’ll be coming out of your pocket money
.

Which story game?
said Daisy.

The one where you say a word and I say a word then Mum says a word and we have to make up a silly story
.

So long as it doesn’t have poo in it, all right?

But I like stories with poo in
.

We know
, said Angela, patting his head,
but that’s a personal problem and I really do think you should keep it to yourself
.

OK, then, but I start
.

Go on then
.

Once …

There …

Was …

Tangerines …

You can’t have “was tangerines.”

Why not?

Because it’s grammatically incorrect
.

OK. Once there was a …

Grapefruit …

But I wanted “tangerine.”

It’s not your go. You have to wait till your next turn and then add something ridiculous. So … Once there was a grapefruit …

Whose …

Trousers …

Were …

Made …

By …

A …

Squirrel …

Who …

Lived …

In …

A …

Handbag …

Made …

Of …

Poo …

Benjy …

Melissa popped open the second Rotring tin, took one of the joints out and smelled it. Resin. Like the stuff you used on violin bows in its
little velvet handkerchief. It was a kind of amber, wasn’t it. Rebuilding dinosaurs from mosquito blood. God, the T rex should have eaten those whiny kids. She got stoned with Mum once and Mum told her how Dad tied her to the bed with the dressing-gown cord sometimes, which was really funny at the time and so deeply not funny the following morning. And when Megan tried it for the first time … 
This is totally fucking freaking me out
, all snot and mascara, so Melissa spent the whole night feeding her mugs of black coffee and letting her win at Pictionary. But Melissa liked being stoned, the way everything backed off and time went rubbery.

She checked the landing was clear. Downstairs the clatter of plates. There was a door at the end leading to a flight of stone steps into the garden. She opened the Yale lock and left it on the latch and stepped out into the dark. The moon was almost full, ragged clouds were racing high up, but the air in the valley was completely still. The dog was still barking. God, she was going to be hearing it in her sleep for the next month. Faint voices from the yellow windows, everyone drinking coffee and talking bollocks about schools and house prices. She sat on the rusted lawn roller just inside the woodshed and took the joint out of her pocket. She span the rough little wheel of the lighter. Sparks like a tiny blue thornbush in her hands.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman, Koong-se, who fell in love with her father’s clerk, Chang. But her father had promised Koong-se to a wealthy duke, so he sacked Chang and built a high wall around the palace to keep the lovers apart. The duke arrived bearing a casket of jewels and the wedding was set for the day on which the willow blossom fell. The day before the wedding Chang slipped into the palace disguised as a servant and the two lovers ran away with the casket of jewels. Koong-se’s father saw them and chased them over the bridge brandishing a whip. Luckily they managed to escape by stealing the duke’s ship and sailing it to a deserted island where they lived happily together.

Years later, however, Koong-se’s father discovered the whereabouts of this deserted island and dispatched soldiers who caught the two lovers and killed them. The gods saw this and took pity on Koong-se and Chang and transformed them into the pair of doves who hover permanently in the sky above the water and the willow trees and the temple garden.

Society has become far too materialistic
, said Daisy.
We’ve lost sight of the important things
.

For an intelligent young woman
, said Richard,
you really are incredibly naïve
.

Richard …
said Louisa.

I am not naïve
, said Daisy. She didn’t want to be protected, she wanted to win the argument on Richard’s terms.

Alex stretched out his legs and knitted his fingers together as if he was settling down to watch a good film.

You want to live in the Middle Ages?
said Richard. He knew the conversation with Dominic had upset him and that he was taking it out on Daisy, but he disliked being lectured, especially by someone who thought the rest of them would burn in hell.
You want kids to die of cholera and dysentery? You want your teeth to fall out? No radio, no television, no central heating?

Richard …
said Louisa, more insistently this time.

That’s not the point
, said Daisy. She hadn’t drunk alcohol for eight months whereas Richard had downed a bottle of wine. It should have given her an advantage but it seemed to work the other way round.

It is precisely the point
, said Richard.
You need money. You need big business. You need competition. You need people to want more, to want better, to want faster. Materialism is not some evil tumor in the body of society. Materialism is the reason why most of the people in this room are actually alive
.

Angela had rather enjoyed it at first, these two opinionated people
locking horns, but something more was at stake now and she could hear the malice in Richard’s voice. She remembered their conversation in The Granary. She was beginning to realize that he was not a very nice man.

Just because you’re more intelligent
, said Daisy,
you think that makes you right
.

One-nil
, said Alex, who had drunk several beers himself.
Straight through the keeper’s legs
.

Richard didn’t take his eyes off Daisy.
And you’ve got some growing up to do, young lady
.

I think that’s probably enough
, Louisa said quietly to Richard, as if he were a small boy, and Angela thought,
Yes, that’s exactly what he is
.

You all right?
asked Dominic.

I’m OK
. Benjy was sitting on the edge of the bath in his Tarzan pants and his skateboard top.
I’m just a bit sad
.

You’re tired, that’s what you are. I’ll do your teeth for you
.

Ouch
.

Well, keep your mouth open
.

There were bottles and boxes arranged along the windowsill like a little alien city. Moisturizer, dental floss, an electric toothbrush, Cyberman Bubble Bath. He slalomed between them in his space scooter.

Spit and swill
.

What’s a tampon?

You don’t want to know
.

Are they like condoms?

Seriously, you do not want to know
.

Is it a sex thing?

No, it’s a lady thing
.

Dominic shepherded him to the bedroom. Benjy got under the duvet and fidgeted himself into a comfortable position while Dominic picked up
The Gate Between Worlds
from the carpet.
So … They took off their boots
.

“Jacket, too,” said Mellor
.

“But I’ll get cold.”

“You can be cold or you can be dead,” said Mellor. “Now take it off and leave it on the ground next to the boots.”

Joseph shivered. The dogs were getting louder. “Are we going to swim?”

“We walk through the shallows,” said Mellor, “over to the rocks. The dogs will lose our scent and the Smoke Men will think we’ve drowned or swum to the other side. Quickly. Into the water.”

Did I miss something?
Dominic paused in the doorway.

Daisy and Richard had an argument about religion
, said Angela.