‘In a way, you did put them in kennels,’ Vivian said, as though the idea were not unpleasing to her. ‘The children. You did board them in a way.’
Audrey laughed. ‘What a horrible thing to say, darling! And I suppose you were the kennel master. Of course,’ she said, to me, ‘everyone forgets the fact that they were with their father. He’d never have let them go in a million years. But don’t try telling that to anyone. If you’re a woman people think you owe them an explanation. And if you ever find one that feels sorry for you it’s even worse! They start telling you what you should be doing to get them back, and sending you the names of lawyers and asking whether you’ve rung them.’
‘Janie,’ said Lisa, in her ‘discreet’ voice, ‘I asked you to take Hamish and play together outside.’
‘All right,’ said Janie. ‘I’m not going out that way, though.’
‘Go out the front,’ said Lisa, ‘where we can see you from the window.’
She came to where I stood and held out her hand for Hamish. He took it quite willingly. Together they went to the other door and a moment later I saw them through the window out on the lawn. Hamish was walking over the grass in a straight line, like a toy that had been wound up. Janie walked beside him in a crouched position that suggested vigilance.
‘And had you?’ said Caris.
‘Had I what, darling?’ said Audrey.
‘Rung them.’
‘What, rung a lawyer? Of course not! We never needed lawyers, did we, Vivian? We were all eminently reasonable. The only one who got lawyered was Vivian’s poor old husband. We lawyered him all the way to the Isle of Wight, if I remember.’
‘He threw a rock through the window,’ said Vivian, looking around her abjectly, as though expecting to find it still lying at her feet.
‘I’m not surprised he threw rocks, darling. He was terribly upset. Paul always said what a rotter he was, but then it suited him to say that. Men tend to take the path of least resistance, I find. He was actually rather sweet, wasn’t he, Vivian? And he did love you desperately. They had these pet names for one another. He was Hippo and she was — what were you, Vivian?’
‘Elephant,’ said Vivian miserably.
‘That’s right!’ said Audrey, delighted. ‘Paul told me that Ivybridge was full of them, you know, little figurines of hippos and elephants. They collected them, the two of them! They were absolutely everywhere, apparently, all over the house. Whatever happened to them?’
‘I threw them away,’ said Vivian.
‘You might have let him have them,’ said Audrey reproachfully.
‘He didn’t want them.’
‘Poor Hippo,’ said Audrey. ‘Poor submersible creature.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Caris, who was wearing her expression of wonderment again.
‘We’re talking about hippos and elephants,’ said Audrey, with an adversarial glint in her fronded eye. ‘You know what hippos and elephants are, don’t you? They’re big, sweet creatures that tolerate captivity. Some animals don’t, you know. They get sad and lethargic and their fur goes all mangy.’
Caris shook her head from side to side as though she were trying to dislodge something. Again I saw in her face the strange effort of self-realisation.
‘You make it sound so simple,’ she said.
‘Well, it was. Or is there something you don’t understand? Perhaps I’m being insensitive. The thing is, I never had the luxury of sensitivity. I had to take things as I found them. That’s the problem with children,’ she said, to me. ‘You go to the trouble of having them and then you find that all you’ve done is guarantee you’ll come in second place for ever more. I gave you life, sweetie,’ she said to Caris. ‘Wasn’t that enough?’
‘It wasn’t simple for me,’ said Caris.
‘That’s so typical,’ said Adam. ‘Little Miss Self-Obsessed. If anyone found it hard it was Brendon. He was only six.’
‘The same age as Janie,’ nodded Lisa.
‘It wasn’t as bad for him as it was for me,’ said Caris, with her lilting smile.
‘Brendon used to bang his head,’ said Vivian strangely.
‘What do you mean, bang his head?’ said Adam.
‘He used to bang his head against the wall. It made the most horrible sound.’
Brendon looked around at everybody with an expression of astonishment.
‘See?’ said Adam triumphantly. ‘It was worse for him.’
‘I couldn’t stop him,’ said Vivian. ‘He did it in his sleep, you see. I used to make him go to bed wearing a hat.’
Brendon laughed loudly.
‘The things that went on!’ marvelled Audrey, drawing her coat tighter around herself. ‘It’s a good thing I wasn’t here to see it all. I don’t think I could have borne it! You see, they used to be like puppies,’ she added, to me. ‘They tumbled around together like lion cubs. Then they started to develop human characteristics — that was where the problems began, with the human characteristics. Now they’re like those countries that are always at war. They’re dug in, if you see what I mean.’
‘I’m not at war,’ Caris said.
‘When you were puppies I could resolve your disputes, darling. It was all about who had whose thing. I was rather good at that. Whoever could hang on to it could keep it as far as I was concerned. It was when the human characteristics came along that I got out of my depth. I remember I started to think about shoes. I used to lie there at night and think about the silliest, most impractical shoes I could imagine. It was the only way I kept my sanity while all of you were at each other’s throats. The problem with shoes was that I could never wear them up here. I had to move to Doniford. I exchanged human characteristics for shoes,’ she said, to me. ‘It was the most enormous relief.’
‘You make it sound as though you planned it,’ said Caris, with a smile.
‘There’s no harm in a little planning,’ said Audrey. ‘A little planning goes a long way in human affairs. The people with characteristics don’t see it like that, though. They don’t like it when you’ve got characteristics of your own. Your father used to say that you were predators. They’ll take it all, he said, if you let them. They’ll rip your heart out and eat it if they have to.’
Adam, Caris and Brendon did not, it had to be admitted, look particularly capable of this gruesome feat. Adam still held the dogs awkwardly by their collars. Lisa stood next to him with the baby on her hip. I looked at the baby’s rubescent, startled face, which shone blankly like a little sun in the gloomy room, and at her plump, soft body, possessed by incomprehension. Beside Lisa, Caris looked black and monumental and unkempt. Her arms were folded and her face looked stormy and disordered, as though it had been taken apart and wrongly reassembled. Brendon sat blanched and prostrate in his chair. The air was charged with their mother’s force of wilclass="underline" next to her they seemed anomalous. Behind them Vivian haunted the cooker: she hovered, dark and frayed and threadlike. Audrey, compact, scented, her face blazing in its make-up, presented herself as an advertisement for the virtues of self-preservation.
‘Audrey,’ said Lisa, ‘I’m sure Paul didn’t actually mean that.’
‘That’s sweet of you,’ said Audrey vaguely. ‘But I think he probably did. Look at you all!’ she burst out with a gay laugh. ‘You look like a queue of dissatisfied customers! I think I’d better slip away, before I have to start apologising. You don’t ever want to apologise,’ she said, to me. ‘That’s how you give people the idea that you’ve done something wrong. Vivian darling, I just came up for that cheque. I think the postman must have pocketed it. It was due last week. It doesn’t matter, if you can just write me another now.’