The Red House (23 page)

Richard appeared in the hallway.
What’s the matter, young man?

I …
The words got jumbled in his mouth.

OK. Slow down and tell me. I’m sure we can sort the problem out
.

He didn’t like being upset in front of someone who wasn’t proper family but Richard made him feel safe, like a good teacher.
There’s an animal. An animal in the shed
.

What kind of animal?
Richard assumed it would be an errant cow or somesuch.

I don’t know
, said Benjy, calmer now that an adult was sharing the responsibility.
It’s like a mouse
.

And you’re scared of it?
He nearly laughed but there was something desperate about Benjamin’s reaction that warned him off.

It’s really ill
.

Come on, then
. He patted his nephew’s shoulder and they headed outside, and his sorrow at never having been a father was briefly equal to Benjy’s sorrow for the shrew. They had reached the woodshed.
You show me
.

Benjy was afraid of getting close this time. The fact that Richard was a doctor made him think of rabies. Richard squatted by the little body. It was still moving. Richard took a piece of kindling from the woodpile and poked the creature. Benjy wanted to say,
Don’t hurt it, please
, but you weren’t allowed to tell a doctor what to do.

Rat poison
, said Richard, standing.
Internal bleeding. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do for the little chap now
.

Benjy felt dizzy. He couldn’t see where it had come from but there was suddenly a spade in Richard’s hands. Benjy tried to shout,
No!
, but it was like being in space or under water. Richard held the spade above
the animal, aiming carefully. Benjy shut his eyes and Richard brought it down as hard as he could. There was a smacking crunch as the spade dug into the gravelly earth of the shed floor. Benjy opened his eyes, he couldn’t stop himself. The animal was in two bloody halves and its insides were leaking out. Blood and tiny broken purple bags.

Richard scooped everything up on the spade and said,
Let’s give this little man a proper burial
.

But there were tears streaming down Benjamin’s face and he was running away, weeping.

Benjamin …?

A car was pulling up outside the house. Dominic had started to worry about Daisy and for the few seconds it took to get to the window he wondered if it was the police with bad news, but it was a green Renault and Daisy was getting out of the passenger door. He stepped outside to see the car turning and driving away.

Daisy?
Her trousers were crusty with dry mud.

She looked at him. Had Melissa said anything?

Are you all right?

He didn’t know, did he. She was safe for the moment.
I got lost
. A white lie and therefore not a real lie.
This man and woman gave me a lift. They were really kind
.

You look freezing
.

I lost my coat. I’m sorry
. Because they’d have to pay for another.

Let’s get you inside
.

The truth was that they had given her more than a lift, though precisely what she didn’t know, something between helping her to her feet and saving her life. There was a blankness, like having a general anesthetic, coming round with no sense of time having passed. She thought for a second or two that she was holding an elderly man’s hand to stop him falling, then she realized that it was the other way round.

They paused in the hallway. Where was Melissa?
I need to be on my own for a bit
.

Can I bring you anything?

I’ll be fine
.

Daisy?

She paused and turned and almost broke.

I’m glad you’re safe
, said Dominic.
Don’t worry about the coat
.

Thanks
. She turned and carried on up to the landing.

But he knew somehow that she was neither back nor safe. He wondered whether to tell Angela but didn’t quite trust her. He’d keep it a secret, just Daisy and him. He’d go up later and check how she was.

Angela poured boiling water over the dried mushrooms. A smell like unwashed bodies she always thought, but it was the simplest vegetarian recipe she knew. Made her want to roast a pig’s head for Melissa, all glossy crackling and an apple in the mouth. Make Benjy sad though. Earlier she had told Dominic that she wanted to go home, and thought for a moment that he might actually agree but he had slipped into the grating paternal role he’d been adopting more and more over the last few days.
You’ll regret it … insult to Richard … hang on in there …
Him being right made it worse, of course. Sherry, tomato puree. Risotto Londis.

Louisa came into the kitchen, placed a glass of red wine in front of her and retreated to the window seat. Some change in her aura that Angela couldn’t pinpoint.
Sorry about last night
.

Last night? Angela had suppressed the memory so well that it took a few seconds to unearth.
I think it’s me who should apologize
.

Or how about neither of us apologizes?

A sense that Louisa had, what? Jumped ship? Changed sides? A little warmer than before. Angela poured the rice into the pan and stirred it.

Dominic said you were having a difficult time
.

Are you having one, too?
asked Angela, because she didn’t want to talk about herself, or Karen.

Is it obvious?

You had some kind of argument at the priory
.

I am a woman with a past
. She wanted a cigarette. Eleven months without, and her hands still felt empty sometimes.
Richard would prefer that I was a blushing bride
.

Ah
. Angela felt a burst of queasiness. Richard and sex. Then it all seemed very funny.
Poor Richard
. She added the liquid to the rice.

In what way?

He’s getting it from all sides. Me giving him a hard time for not looking after Mum …
She drank some of her wine.

Louisa wasn’t laughing.
He’s facing this inquiry at work
.

Dominic mentioned something
.

This girl ended up in a wheelchair after an operation went wrong. Richard X-rayed her. The CEO sent her a less-than-fulsome letter of apology, the family have taken it to a solicitor and now the surgeon’s passing the buck, trying to dump Richard in the shit
.

What might happen if he’s found guilty?

He’s hoping it never comes to court
, said Louisa.
But in the last couple of days … People make mistakes all the time, even honest people
.

Angela found herself wanting to defend Richard despite knowing none of the details, blood trumping everything. She thought carefully about where to position her sympathy.
I hope it works out OK. For both of you
. Her hands were slippery so she handed the sun-dried tomatoes to Louisa who twisted the jar open with a satisfying pop. They were silent for several minutes.
She had a genetic deformity. Karen. She wouldn’t … The fetus wasn’t viable. I have this photo album in my head. The life she never had. I can see the pictures so clearly
.

That chilly subterranean hum.
And tomorrow …?

I’m frightened
. She turned the heat down.

What of?

That I might turn a corner and see her standing there
. Melissa’s voice a couple of rooms away, briefly audible above the Handel.
Or the opposite. That she’ll disappear completely. You know. Eighteen. Leaving home and so on. And I don’t know which is worse
. A longer silence.

Well, that’s cheered us both up
.

It has actually
, said Angela. The gentlest bubbling now, water milky
from the rice. She put the lid on the pot, leaving a gap so that it didn’t boil over.
I don’t talk about it much. Which is not good, perhaps
. But
cheered up
wasn’t the right phrase. She felt … 
engaged
. Talking to Louisa, finally something to grip in this great sliding nothing of this forced leisure.

Louisa got up and walked over and laid her hand on Angela’s shoulder and left it there for three or four seconds. A low-rent laying-on of hands.
I’ll go and warn the troops. Twenty minutes, right?

Alex had no real interest in the arts. He liked some music, a few paintings and the occasional poem, but it all came down to taste, and taste seemed like a pretty pointless thing to teach at school. Languages were important, but you could move to Italy or Poland and be halfway fluent in a couple of months. As for maths and science, he always imagined that if he needed these skills later in life he would hire someone who had them. But history … It had been sheer pleasure at first, plastic knights and horses giving way to Airfix models of Avro Lancasters giving way to TV documentaries about Galileo and Hadrian’s Wall. Something murder-mystery about it, answers you could dig out if you knew where to look, lost in attics, buried in fields, Roman roads across a map, obscene carvings under pews. He had a
Penguin Atlas of Early European History
that he loved. The ebb and flow of Celts and Saxons and Vikings. Something solid with something fluid moving over it, which seemed like a good model for pretty much everything, stuff you could rely on interacting with stuff you couldn’t. Facts and opinions. Feelings and thoughts. Because he still didn’t really understand that this was only one way of looking at the world, and that there were people who looked around and saw no fixed landscape whatsoever, only an ebb and flow over which they had no control.

Dominic put the bowl of risotto on the chair and sat on the edge of Daisy’s bed. She was still wearing her jeans. Pink mud on the blanket. Her eyes were damp and sore.
I told everyone you were ill
.

Thanks
.

But you’re not ill, are you
.

Dad …

What’s wrong?

Daisy closed her eyes.

If there’s anything I can do …

There’s nothing you can do
.

I’m worried about you
.

She mustn’t lie. That was how she’d got into trouble in the first place.
I did something bad
.

I can’t imagine you doing something bad
. It was true.
Are we talking bad in the eyes of the church?

Please …

Has this got something to do with Melissa?

Something about the way she curled up tighter, trying to move farther away from him.
It has, hasn’t it
.

Real fear now.
Don’t say anything to her. You have to promise me
. She could ask this favor, couldn’t she, because it wasn’t being selfish. It was protecting others.

If Melissa has hurt you in any way …

It’s not her fault. Please, Dad, you have to promise me
.

He wanted to lift her up and hug her like he did when she was tiny. He put his hand under her face and she rested the weight of her head on his palm.
I would never do anything to hurt you. You understand that, don’t you
. Because he couldn’t make the promise, because if Melissa had hurt Daisy he wouldn’t let her leave this house unpunished.
Have some food, OK?

I’ll try
. The thought of eating made her feel sick.

I’ll bring you a cup of tea later on
.

Richard raised his glass at one end of the table and caught the attention of Angela sitting at the other end.
A superlative risotto
.

You’re welcome
. She turned to Dominic.
I should go up and see Daisy
.

She’s all right. She just wants to be on her own
.

I thought you said she was ill
.

This was a ridiculous game.
She asked me to say she was ill. She’s feeling really upset about something
.

About what?

I honestly don’t know
.

I’ll go up and see her after supper
, said Angela.

Angela …

So we’re going to leave her up there on her own?

No
.

She’s my daughter
.

Melissa glanced over at Mum and Richard. They looked as if they were in different rooms. Richard had found out, hadn’t he. She just knew. Still that child’s shameless radar for the weak point. Blood in the water. She wondered how it would pan out.

Do you believe in reincarnation?
asked Benjy.

Course not
, said Alex.
I mean, can you remember who you were last time round?

It was the wrong answer. He needed Alex to say,
Yes, yes, of course I believe in reincarnation
. Because Benjy wanted to come back as a panda or a gorilla, but he would agree to come back as anything if he could only be assured that he was coming back. He didn’t want to think about what had happened to the shrew, what had happened to Granny, so he stopped listening to what Alex was saying and wrote his name using risotto to stop himself from crying.

Melissa brought in the two plates on which the treacle pudding bowls sat upturned. She placed them in the middle of the table and removed the bowls like a conjurer revealing rabbits.

Skinny jeans, for example
, Louisa said to Alex.
I just don’t get it. There, you see? That’s the middle-aged frump talking
.

But I think you look really sexy
, said Alex.