The Half Sister. Catherine Chanter

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СКАЧАТЬ He isn’t sure which. He likes the way the tower stands up for itself, as if it knows it doesn’t belong and doesn’t care, but he is also unsettled by the way the tower clings to the main house like an unwanted child, an embarrassment. Someone Paul would call a mistake. He hopes he isn’t going to have to sleep in the mistake.

      ‘But if I’m honest,’ his mum is saying, ‘that tower is really ugly.’

      Diana winks at Mikey, although he has no idea why. ‘Just you wait until you see the inside.’ She opens the front door. ‘Hello?’ she calls.

      Who is she expecting to answer? His uncle Edmund’s away and she doesn’t have any children. His mum told him that Diana didn’t want any because she didn’t like them and that Edmund had the snip. What, cut it right off? he’d asked and Valerie laughed, snip-snip-snipping towards his flies with her fingers. He thinks that bit is made up, but having met Diana, he thinks the other bit about her might be true.

      ‘I’m in the kitchen, Lady Diana! I’ll be right with you.’

      The hall where they are standing has a staircase wide enough for six people and here, next to him, is a huge mirror with a gold frame reflecting back the pictures of the old men with beards and black jackets climbing the stairs. They are all dressed for a funeral, as well. In fact, everything is like a funeral, from the vase of flowers which smell like the cemetery to the polished floor which is black and white. He slips off his trainers, placing them precisely by the door, ready to make his getaway.

      ‘Well, now there’s a well-brought-up young man.’ A woman appears from a door on his left; she strikes Mikey as much more normal than Diana, with her flowery shirt over huge boobies and dangling earrings made to look like daisies.

      ‘This is Mrs H and she is a darling,’ Diana says, ‘and if it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what we’d do! She is our very own national treasure.’

      So, his aunt owns people as well as things.

      ‘Call me Grace,’ says the lady. ‘If you like, I can take this young man to the kitchen for a little something and get you both a cup of tea?’

      Little something, yes, cup of tea, no. Apparently Diana and his mum need a drink. That is something else he could say, if anyone would listen, that it probably isn’t a very good idea to let his mum start drinking, it doesn’t go well with her medicine.

      ‘That’s the drawing room, where they’ve gone,’ says Grace.

      There’s no sign of any art going on in there, but there are other things that interest Mikey: gold curtains, for instance; a piano, he’d like to play now that Solomon has taught him ‘Amazing Grace’ all the way through, hands together; a real fireplace with proper smoke and what Scouts might smell like if he is ever allowed to go.

      Grace continues the guided tour. ‘And this we call the morning room,’ she explains.

      The whole day has been about mourning. Even the picture above the fireplace shows a man with a pony struggling up a purple mountain bent double by the weight of a dead stag.

      ‘What a heavy thing to have to carry on your back,’ he says to Grace.

      The sitting room is a bit more friendly. It has a huge telly for a start and the kitchen is familiar, at least from adverts, so he’s happy to sit there and eat toast. The smaller telly in there is showing a zoo where all the animals have escaped because of the flood and they’re running wild through a town and it’s something to do with the waves he’d watched only this morning in his own house, but that was then and there and this is here and now. Wynhope. He can’t wait to get back home. Butter? Nod. Jam? Nod. Strawberry or raspberry? Shrug. Expect you’ve had a difficult day. Nod.

      ‘Monty wants your crusts,’ says Grace.

      ‘Hello, Monty,’ says Mikey, tentatively feeling the dog’s ears, and he feels sad that he left his penguin at home.

      Everything Grace says confirms his initial impression that she knows what she is talking about. He wants the toilet and to get out of his horrible jacket and no sooner does he think that than she says I expect you want to know where the bathroom is, and if I’m not wrong, I expect you want to get out of that jacket.

      ‘That’s the thing about funerals,’ she says as she takes him down a passage with too many raincoats and giant fish gasping behind glass frames. ‘Everyone’s always so uncomfortable. I expect even Lady Diana’s kicked off those high heels.’

      Right again. Back in the drawing room, his mum and his aunt are standing with glasses in their hands and no shoes on their feet, staring into the fire. Mikey brings a china statue of a racehorse and jockey from a little table in the sitting room to show to his mum. He’s been imagining the speed of it, the thrill, crouched low like that on the back of a horse and all dressed in red and green and galloping away, away. Paul used to bet on the horses and sometimes he won but mostly he didn’t.

      ‘Don’t drop that,’ says his aunt. ‘Your uncle would be very upset.’

      ‘No, he wouldn’t, don’t you listen to that,’ says Grace.

      ‘Ah, Mrs H! Did you make supper for seven?’

      ‘Just like you asked,’ replies the housekeeper.

      ‘We’d rather eat at eight if that doesn’t put you out.’

      His aunt is doing that thing when you can smile and stare at the same time, rubbing your stomach and patting your head. Grace is going round the big room straightening the curtains; it’s a fuck-off sort of tidying up.

      ‘If that’s what you want,’ she says, with her back to Diana.

      ‘You are wonderful,’ says his aunt, ‘thank you.’

      That is something else teachers do. Put your gum in the bin, Michael, thank you; it’s their way of saying you have no choice.

      As Mrs H flounces out of the room, Diana is thinking two things: one is that Mrs H is a bitch and she will get the better of the woman if it kills her; the second is why on earth has she suggested eating later, it will just spin everything out. It isn’t like her to change her mind on impulse, but with the heightened perception that is brought on by wine and funerals, Diana is brimming over with the yearning that is both grief and hope. Outside, the failing light is transforming the gardens into something quite insubstantial, as though she might reach through the dusk and touch something forgotten.

      ‘I put it all back a bit because we’ve just about got time for a look around,’ explains Diana. ‘It’s such a beautiful evening.’

      It is colder than they expected. Valerie borrows Diana’s jacket, and they laugh at the fact that they are both size five when it comes to boots and how daft they look with them in their funeral dresses. Once outside, they stand on the drive and look back at the house. Diana apologises for what she describes as ‘the mess’ to the side of the tower. The terrace looks immaculate to Valerie, who wonders if she is meant to contradict her sister and say no, no, not a mess at all, it looks simply lovely, but you never knew with Diana quite what she understood or what she meant or what she wanted.

      ‘Obviously we’re going to plant up the whole area, but the builders only finished recently and now there’s some delay about getting the tiles from Italy.’ Her guests are clearly confused. ‘Sorry! I should have explained. It’s the most wonderful СКАЧАТЬ