The coldest place in our house is the downstairs bog. In winter your bum freezes to the seat. Julia’d said goodbye to the Lambs and’d gone to Kate Alfrick’s to do some history revision. Uncle Brian had gone up to the spare room ‘to rest his eyes’. Alex’d gone to the bathroom for the third time since he’d arrived. Each time he took over twenty minutes. Don’t know what he was finding to do in there. Dad was showing Hugo and Nigel his new Minolta. Mum and Aunt Alice were having a stroll round the windy garden. In the mirror above the washbasin I was scanning my face for signs of Hugo. Could I turn myself into him by sheer will-power? Cell by cell. Ross Wilcox is doing it. At primary school he was a thicko nobody, but now he smokes with older kids like Gilbert Swinyard and Pete Redmarley and people’re calling him ‘Ross’ instead of ‘Wilcox’. So there must be a way.
I’d sat down and done a good clean crap when I heard voices getting louder. Eavesdropping’s wrong, I know, but it was hardly my fault if Mum and Aunt Alice chose to natter right outside the ventilator flaps, was it?
‘You shouldn’t be apologizing, Helena. Brian was…God, I could shoot him!’
‘Michael brings the worst out in him.’
‘No, let’s just…Helena, your rosemary! It’s virtually a tree. I just can’t get my herbs to thrive. Apart from the mint. The mint’s going crazy.’
A pause.
‘I wonder,’ Mum said, ‘what Daddy would make of them. If he could see them now, I mean.’
‘Brian and Michael?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, first he’d tell us, “Told you so!” Then, he’d roll up his sleeves, pick up whatever they were arguing the opposite of, and not leave the ring until both of them were battered into mute agreement.’
‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘Not as harsh as Daddy! Julia would give him a run for his money, though.’
‘She can be rather…opinionated.’
‘At least it’s CND and Amnesty International she’s opinionated about, Helena, and not Meaty Loaf or the Deaf Leopards.’
A pause.
‘Hugo’s turning into a real charmer.’
‘“Charmer” is one word.’
‘But look at how he insisted on doing the washing-up. Of course, I couldn’t let him.’
‘Yes, I know, it wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Jason’s still painfully quiet. How’s his speech therapy going?’
(I didn’t want to hear this. But I couldn’t leave without flushing the bog. If I did, they’d know they’d been overheard. So I was stuck there.)
‘Snail’s pace. He sees this South African lady called Mrs de Roo. She tells us not to expect miracle cures. We don’t. She tells us to be patient with him. We are. Not much else to say.’
A long pause.
‘You know, Alice, even after all these years, I still find it hard to believe Mummy and Daddy have gone for good. That they are actually…dead. Not just on a cruise liner in the Indian Ocean, out of reach for six months. Or…What’s funny?’
‘Being stuck with Daddy on a cruise liner! That would be purgatory.’
Mum didn’t answer.
A longer pause.
‘Helena, I’m not prying,’ Aunt Alice’s voice’d shifted, ‘but you haven’t mentioned any more of those phantom telephone calls since January.’
A pause.
‘I’m sorry, Helena, I shouldn’t have stuck my beak into—’
‘No, no…I mean, God knows, who else can I discuss it with? No. There haven’t been any more. I feel a bit guilty for jumping to conclusions. It was just a storm in a teacup, I’m sure. A non-existent storm, I should say. If it hadn’t been for…you know, that “incident” of Michael’s five and a half years ago, or whenever it was, I wouldn’t’ve thought twice. Wrong numbers and crossed lines happen all the time. Don’t they?’
(‘Incident’?)
‘Exactly,’ Aunt Alice answered. ‘Exactly. You haven’t…said…’
‘A “confrontation” with Michael’d be like digging up a grave.’
(My goose bumps actually hurt.)
‘Of course it would,’ Aunt Alice answered.
‘The average Greenland trainee has a better idea of what goes on in the head of Michael Taylor than his own wife, half the time. Mind you, now I know why Mummy was so down, half the time.’
(I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to. I wanted to. I don’t know.)
‘You’re getting morbid, big sister.’
‘You’re my morbid-mop, Alice. You’ve got glamour. You get to meet Chinese violinists and swarthy Aztec pan-pipe ensembles. Who’s at the theatre this week?’
‘The Basil Brush Boom-Boom Road Show.’
‘See?’
‘Their agent is notoriously prickly. You’d think Liberace was in town, not some down-on-his-luck TV actor with his hand up a fox’s bum.’