“Timothy has nothing to complain of. Do you think he hasn’t got a cash of booze somewhere in the house, if only I could find it?... But really, sis, you ought to try a late pregnancy.”
“I can’t think of a single reason why I should.”
“You wouldn’t believe how different pregnancy is in the twenty-first century. And almost always for the better. We had Morgan and Samantha at pretty much the same time, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did. Almost as if there was some kind of competition.”
Deirdre waved away the suggestion with a well-manicured hand.
“Oh, we were silly about some things then. But pregnancy is not what it was — it’s easier, more straightforward. I tell you: you should try it.”
“Not on your life,” said Mum.
“Don’t you dare!” I shouted.
“Morgan — vamoose,” called Mum. “This is girls’ talk.”
We didn’t vamoose, and they started up again immediately. I waited until I was sick of the anatomical details (many of which I knew already) and I made off towards the garden. I was rather surprised (because I count her even lower than the earthworm) when Samantha followed me. She started in on why she had come out — she felt in a position to give advice.
“Don’t let my mum persuade yours to have another baby,” she said.
“She won’t,” I said dismissively. “I was more than enough for her.”
“I was quite pleased at first. Not delighted, but quite pleased. Then I thought that this is the age when I should be getting more freedom. What shall I get in fact?”
“Twenty-four-hour slavery.”
“Right. Unpaid babysitter. Changing nappies nonstop. They’re indescribably smelly and nasty, including the instantly disposable ones. I know she’ll be poohing the whole time.”
“She?”
“Mummy pretends to Daddy that she doesn’t know, but she does. It’s a she. And Daddy does desperately want a son and hier. Greenacre Manor will be as dust and ashes without someone to inherit it — and of course to Daddy that means a male. He’s often said he’d like to adopt you.”
I pricked up my ears.
“You’re joking, of course. He hardly notices me.”
“He notices. If he had his way you would be son and hier.”
I considered this.
“Your daddy’s not that rich. It wouldn’t be worth my while. I’ve never really considered him when I’ve dreamed about being adopted by a filthy-rich man or woman.”
“Daddy is high up in the BBC. The BBC is run by families. Dinnersties they call them: the Magnusens, the Dimblebies, the Michelmores. Being child of a BBC person is a passport to a good, cushy job, well-paid and with lots of presteege. And jobs for your kids as well.”
“He’s got you. Why should he need a son?”
“He’s horribly old-fashioned.”
“Well, England has had queens since fifteen fifty-something. You’d think even Uncle Timothy could have got used to the idea by now...”
“He did once condesend to ask me if I wanted to work at the BBC.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I wanted to do a degree in the History of Western Art, then go and work in the Queen’s Gallery at Buck House.”
“Beats the corridors of the dear old Beeb.”
“It just occurred to me as he spoke. I’m going to keep all my options open, but those options certainly do not include the Beeb. I said: ‘Give the job to the newcomer, Daddy. He or she is probably thick as pigshit.’ ”
“How interesting. Come on — that’s Mum calling for lunch.”
“Oh God! Rack of lamb and tiramisu.”
I will slip quickly over what we had for lunch, apart from the lamb and the tiramisu. There was a lot about babies, a lot about the power structures and the behavioural disharmonies (their words) at the BBC, and quite a lot (from my Dad, of course) about the creative urge, and how it needed to be stimulated, not crushed. After lunch Dad and Deirdre did the washing up while Tim and Lois talked in the living room. Tim had a stiff tumbler of white wine concealed between his chair and the wall, and kept taking quick surreptitious gulps. Mum, for some reason, was asking whether he saw a big change in Dad, whether he looked older and whether the nonstop creativity (he’d had a half-hour play on Armchair Theatre on Radio Four in the last two years) wasn’t taking it out of him. When Dad and Deirdre came back in they all four (juniors were not consulted) agreed on a brisk walk up to Trevelyan Cave, and they were just rugging up and putting on walking boots when Deirdre dropped her bombshell.
“Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you since we arrived, but there hasn’t been a convenient opening. In one of Bernard’s plays there would have been one, but he just forgot to provide one for real life.”
“Deirdre—”
“So I’ll just have to tell you at an unsuitable moment. Bernard and I go back a long time, as all of you know, and we have been meeting up again over the last six months. In grubby little hotel bedrooms hired by the hour. We were taking things up where we left them off twelve or thirteen years ago. This” (patting her stomach) “is Bernard’s. He’d quite like a daughter in place of that little know-all in short pants he has already. He thinks we are going to get married as soon as the divorce goes through. Think on, Bernard. Marriage has outlived its usefulness. So far as I’m concerned sex is a short-term affair, with plenty of swapping. So it’s bye-bye Tim, bye-bye Bernard. And welcome anyone young, fit, and into it for the laughs.”
And she left the room and the house with a merry wave of her hand. The two men hurried after her and Samantha followed them, and we passed all four a few minutes later along Caves Pathway, arguing and jesticulating. Mum didn’t honour them with so much as a glance. She and I were usually together on these walks because we are the slowest. This year we were in front, and well in front too.
“Are they coming?” Mum asked after a bit. I looked round.
“Yes, but quite slowly. They’re still arguing.”
“They would be, wouldn’t they? When is it any different on these reunion days? I could murder Bernard.”
“Well, we’ve come to the right place,” I said, but seriously, not waggish at all. “Sheer drop at several points. Hardly a soul around.”
“True,” said my mother, also treating the question seriously. “But murder is too good for him. I should leave him alive, to moulder in his horrible skin, with his horrible self and his awful little talent.”
“I think murder would be better.”
At this point in his writing, Morgan laid down his pen. Had he overdone it in directing suspicion on himself? It was a common ploy in crime fiction he had read. Probably it mirrored reality — policemen are really thick and do get it wrong, in all probability. If a reader took it too seriously he had only to read on to change his opinion.
He took up his pen again.
“You’re probably right,” said my mother. “But do you think I’m the murdering type?”
“You’re the Agatha Christie type: least likely suspect.”
“I’m not sure the police would take that line. I don’t get the impression they read Christie.”
“It’s about half an hour to Trevelyan’s Cave. Sheer drop from there. Half the suicides’ bodies are never recovered.”
“Little monster. Have you been planning this? How did you know that?”
“The South Devon Chronicle.”
“Shame on them... I was telling the truth when I said I could murder him... Taking up with that whore, twelve years after he ditched her for me.”
“I thought she ditched him for Uncle Tim, and you got him instead.”