‘It’s nearly midnight, don’t you have homes to go to?’ and then another voice yells back, ‘Get over it, wanker.’
Polly knocks her cigarette ash into her saucer and looks at me. ‘Keeping it real,’ she says.
‘Of course, it’s not Fulham,’ I say rather coldly.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Polly asks. It’s a retaliatory question.
‘Not at the moment. Look,’ I say, moving again, ‘I think I’m going to go to bed.’
‘I’ll tell you,’ she says, in a rush. ‘I’ve got to tell someone.And Teddy doesn’t want to hear. And Dad is – well, it wouldn’t get me anywhere. It might make things worse. But I need to talk about it. I have a right to.’
‘Tell me what?’ I say.
‘About what went on. On the day of the accident. I keep thinking about it, I can’t get it out of my head. What she must have been feeling when she drove off. That’s one reason why I was so keen to meet you when Kate Wiggins first mentioned you. I wanted to know if my mother talked to you about it, if things had been left unresolved. And then what you told us – you know, “Tell them I love them” … I knew she’d made her peace with it. But I’m not sure if I have.’
I’m feeling distinctly uneasy now, as if I’m losing my centre of gravity, as if a magnetic pole is gradually shifting position.
‘Wait a minute,’ I say. ‘I’ve just remembered something.’ I go back into the kitchen and dig around at the back of the shelves for the dusty-shouldered bottle which I bought when Hester asked me to supply the brandy butter last Christmas. How do you drink brandy? With ice? I don’t know, but there are a few cubes in a tray in the freezer, so I pop them out into two glasses and pour us both a couple of fingers.
‘Nice one,’ she says, tucking her legs up on the sofa.
‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’ I say.
So she does.
It was a miserable January weekend, sleety and dour, in the post-Christmas doldrums. Polly hadn’t planned to visit her parents at Biddenbrooke but she’d had an argument with her flatmate Serena (‘something pathetic – I’d finished her milk or not taken the rubbish out’); and though she had a party to go to that evening she suspected Sandeev, the ex, might be invited too, and she couldn’t quite face him yet. So she rangher parents on the Saturday morning, trying Alys’s mobile when the Highgate phone went unanswered.
Laurence took the call; Alys was driving. They were en route.
Alys intended to stay in Biddenbrooke till late on Sunday afternoon, and Laurence would catch the train back on Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday. He had the page proofs of his new book to go through before it went off to the printers.
‘Why don’t you come?’ her father asked.
So Polly caught the train from Liverpool Street and Laurence picked her up from the station and took her back to the house.
They were too late to go for a walk that afternoon, as it was already getting dark. Instead, Laurence lit a fire in the sitting room and Polly lay on the rug in front of it and they all read the papers and ate Alys’s walnut cake and drank tea. They talked quite a lot about Teddy, recently promoted at the Sackler Gallery, where his days seemed to be spent appeasing and cutting deals with often unreliable artists and the Russians who could afford to invest in them; and they talked a little about Polly’s course, though she tried to get them off the subject. The rain and wind lashed the windows. It was nice being there, in the warmth.
At 6.30 Laurence opened some wine.
Then he went out to collect fish and chips from Biddenbrooke, and they ate their supper out of the paper wrappers, sitting around the kitchen table.
When her parents went to bed around eleven, Polly stayed downstairs, watching a movie. It finished around one. As she went upstairs and along the corridor to her room, she heard her mother talking in a low voice – though not what she was saying – and noticed the thin
Polly knocks her cigarette ash into her saucer and looks at me. ‘Keeping it real,’ she says.
‘Of course, it’s not Fulham,’ I say rather coldly.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Polly asks. It’s a retaliatory question.
‘Not at the moment. Look,’ I say, moving again, ‘I think I’m going to go to bed.’
‘I’ll tell you,’ she says, in a rush. ‘I’ve got to tell someone.And Teddy doesn’t want to hear. And Dad is – well, it wouldn’t get me anywhere. It might make things worse. But I need to talk about it. I have a right to.’
‘Tell me what?’ I say.
‘About what went on. On the day of the accident. I keep thinking about it, I can’t get it out of my head. What she must have been feeling when she drove off. That’s one reason why I was so keen to meet you when Kate Wiggins first mentioned you. I wanted to know if my mother talked to you about it, if things had been left unresolved. And then what you told us – you know, “Tell them I love them” … I knew she’d made her peace with it. But I’m not sure if I have.’
I’m feeling distinctly uneasy now, as if I’m losing my centre of gravity, as if a magnetic pole is gradually shifting position.
‘Wait a minute,’ I say. ‘I’ve just remembered something.’ I go back into the kitchen and dig around at the back of the shelves for the dusty-shouldered bottle which I bought when Hester asked me to supply the brandy butter last Christmas. How do you drink brandy? With ice? I don’t know, but there are a few cubes in a tray in the freezer, so I pop them out into two glasses and pour us both a couple of fingers.
‘Nice one,’ she says, tucking her legs up on the sofa.
‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’ I say.
So she does.
It was a miserable January weekend, sleety and dour, in the post-Christmas doldrums. Polly hadn’t planned to visit her parents at Biddenbrooke but she’d had an argument with her flatmate Serena (‘something pathetic – I’d finished her milk or not taken the rubbish out’); and though she had a party to go to that evening she suspected Sandeev, the ex, might be invited too, and she couldn’t quite face him yet. So she rangher parents on the Saturday morning, trying Alys’s mobile when the Highgate phone went unanswered.
Laurence took the call; Alys was driving. They were en route.
Alys intended to stay in Biddenbrooke till late on Sunday afternoon, and Laurence would catch the train back on Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday. He had the page proofs of his new book to go through before it went off to the printers.
‘Why don’t you come?’ her father asked.
So Polly caught the train from Liverpool Street and Laurence picked her up from the station and took her back to the house.
They were too late to go for a walk that afternoon, as it was already getting dark. Instead, Laurence lit a fire in the sitting room and Polly lay on the rug in front of it and they all read the papers and ate Alys’s walnut cake and drank tea. They talked quite a lot about Teddy, recently promoted at the Sackler Gallery, where his days seemed to be spent appeasing and cutting deals with often unreliable artists and the Russians who could afford to invest in them; and they talked a little about Polly’s course, though she tried to get them off the subject. The rain and wind lashed the windows. It was nice being there, in the warmth.
At 6.30 Laurence opened some wine.
Then he went out to collect fish and chips from Biddenbrooke, and they ate their supper out of the paper wrappers, sitting around the kitchen table.
When her parents went to bed around eleven, Polly stayed downstairs, watching a movie. It finished around one. As she went upstairs and along the corridor to her room, she heard her mother talking in a low voice – though not what she was saying – and noticed the thin
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