The Family Secret. Tracy Buchanan

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СКАЧАТЬ up at him, nodding. I had a flashback of my own father pulling me close for a cuddle. It was quickly replaced by a memory of us standing outside my aunt’s hotel all those years ago, avoiding each other’s gaze, unsure how to say goodbye.

      ‘You’ll stay for dinner?’ Heather asked me, eyes hopeful.

      I looked at Dylan and he shrugged. ‘You might as well. The next place you’ll be able to grab a bite to eat is two hours’ drive away, as the village has shut down for Christmas.’

      My tummy rumbled, trying to assert itself. Truth was, I was freezing and hungry. The last thing I wanted to do was return to my car. Plus the family intrigued me. ‘Thank you. That would be lovely,’ I said.

      Half an hour later, I walked down the stairs in Heather’s jeans, smoothing down the ice-blue cashmere jumper she’d lent me. It still had its tags on it, the price too: £150! I bought most of my clothes from a cheap outdoors shop I’d found in East London, thick fleeces and trousers ideal for the work I did. I did have the occasional expensive dress for the awards ceremonies and industry events I was sometimes invited to, and the odd date too – when I had the time and felt like company. Expensive jumpers like this were alien to me though.

      I stopped in the hallway, hearing the sound of laughter from behind one of the doors. I twisted my long blonde hair around so it fell over one shoulder to look more presentable before I entered the room. Then I pushed the door open to reveal a huge dining area, and several people smiling up at me from a long mahogany table laden with food. I quickly checked it to make sure there were some vegetarian items for me and there was. The ceiling sloped down one side of the dining room, spotlights travelling up it. At the other end was a triangle window that took up the entire wall and looked out onto the stunning snow-topped mountains.

      Dylan stood up, pulling the chair next to him out for me. Heather sat on the other side of my chair, and Oscar was at the head of the table by the window. Next to Dylan were two men who looked like him. Opposite them were two women and the young boy I’d seen earlier. Sitting in front of me at the other head of the table was an older woman with dark hair in a plait down her back. She turned and looked me up and down, no smiles.

      They were all dark, tall and Amazonian apart from one of the women who was petite with blonde hair cut short.

      ‘This is Gwyneth, Mother,’ Dylan said to the woman at the head of the table as I took the seat next to him.

      ‘The trespasser,’ Oscar said with a wicked smile.

      I felt my face flush.

      ‘It’s fine,’ the man next to Dylan said. ‘You had good reason, so I hear. I’m Cole, by the way.’ He was clean-shaven and handsome, wearing a dark suit and sitting straight-backed in his chair. He looked very much like Dylan but had their father’s blue eyes instead of their mother’s brown ones. ‘And this is my wife, Rhonda,’ he said, gesturing towards the blonde woman sitting across from me. ‘And that there is our boy, Alfie.’

      Rhonda smiled at me. ‘I hear you’re a documentary-maker, how fascinating. Did you hear that, Alfie? This lady makes films about animals.’

      The boy looked up from playing with some toy cars and gazed at me curiously. ‘Do you see dinosaurs?’

      Everyone laughed, including Dylan’s mother, whose face lit up. I could see Heather in her now, the more elfin-like features compared to Oscar’s Romanesque handsomeness. Slimmer and more ethereal too.

      ‘She’d have to travel all the way to the land before time for that,’ the man next to Cole said. He looked younger than Dylan and Cole, slimmer and more elfin-featured too, like his mother and Heather. But he was still tall, broad by most standards, handsome too. He was wearing a jumper, but it wasn’t plain like the others. Instead, it was black with primary-coloured blocks around the arms, and his black hair was spiked up. Clearly a lover of fashion like some of the younger editors I sometimes worked with in the States.

      ‘I’m Glenn,’ he said, waving at me.

      ‘The baby of the family,’ Dylan explained.

      ‘My baby,’ his mother said, stroking his arm.

      He jokingly swept her arm away. ‘I’m twenty-five, Mother.’

      ‘Oh, so you don’t want that loan you asked me for this morning?’ she asked, raising a cool eyebrow.

      He leant in towards her, pretending to gurgle like a baby. ‘Yes please, Mama.’

      Everyone laughed.

      ‘I’m Alison,’ the woman sitting beside Rhonda said. ‘One of the sisters,’ she added. She was wearing a long flowing dress and a tribal necklace, henna tattoos on her hands. She looked tanned compared to the others and I guessed was the oldest of the siblings, maybe in her late thirties.

      ‘Nice to meet you all,’ I said. ‘I appreciate you inviting me into your home despite—’

      ‘Illegally entering our land,’ Dylan’s mother finished for me in a cold voice, all the warmth she’d just shown to her family gone.

      Everyone went quiet. It was clear she was the head of this family.

      ‘Mother …’ Dylan said in a low voice.

      ‘But she did, didn’t she?’ she replied.

      ‘For the right reasons, Mairi,’ her husband said.

      ‘No, she’s right,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I get carried away sometimes. Someone I used to know …’ I swallowed, the memory of my recent loss still so painful. I looked down at my napkin, pulling at it with my fingers. ‘He told me there’s a fine line between determination and rudeness.’ I looked up into Mairi’s eyes, suddenly so desperate for her approval, for all of their approval. ‘I crossed that line today. This is your land, your home. I was wrong and I will leave now, if that’s what you feel is best.’

      I went to get up but she raised her hand to stop me. Then she gestured towards the candles that flickered on the sill of a small window above. ‘Each Christmas, we place candles in our windows to let strangers know they are welcome. You are welcome,’ she said, gesturing for me to sit back down. I did so hesitantly. ‘Just don’t trespass again,’ she added with a wink. The tension in the room suddenly dispersed. She turned to her family. ‘Shall we eat?’

      Over the next two hours, we ate dinner, drank wine too, lots of it, served by a middle-aged woman with white hair who I presume was their housemaid.

      I learnt Oscar had worked his way up from being a builder and woodsman to run a multi-million-pound building company that supplied many business and private owners with wood-clad buildings like this. His oldest son, Cole, was the managing director, Oscar taking a back seat for a reason nobody made clear. But I guessed from the fact he didn’t drink more than a glass of wine and resisted second helpings that it might have something to do with his health, despite how fit he looked.

      Glenn, the youngest brother, wrote and illustrated children’s books that could be found in bookstores around the country, and Dylan’s older sister Alison, after ‘the most God-awful divorce’, as she described it to me, was trying to figure out her place in life, travelling and taking photos for a book she was planning. Cole’s wife Rhonda dedicated her time to volunteering and being a mum.

      Despite СКАЧАТЬ