‘You can see that?’ He stared at me for a moment as if I had surprised him, then studied the painting again. ‘That’s what I was thinking of all the time I was doing it.’
Isobel folded her arms and looked stern. ‘If you two are going to drivel on like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir with an attack of existential angst, I’m going away to wax my bikini line.’
I saw that for some reason she was put out.
‘I must go home,’ I said.
‘Honestly, it wasn’t a hint,’ I said a quarter of an hour later to Rafe as I struggled into the car. No one had answered the telephone at Dumbola Lodge.
‘I’d had enough of being indoors anyway.’ He took my crutches and slung them in the back, then got into the driver’s seat.
‘And really it’s too kind of you to give me this.’ I looked at the watercolour, still a little damp, that rested on my knee.
‘You saw what I meant to paint. That doesn’t often happen. You must be a girl of rare sensibility.’ The teasing tone was back. He started the engine. ‘How’s your sister? Kate, isn’t it?’ he said as we swooshed down the hill through a fresh fall of snow. ‘Do you know, I haven’t seen her since she was a tot.’
‘She’s married, did you know?’
‘I have to confess that if Evelyn told me I’d forgotten. She hardly ever came to Shottestone, did she? Why was that?’
‘She and Isobel didn’t get on. Kate was a year older and rather … well, bossy, to be truthful.’
‘And Isobel is nothing if not rebellious. I expect she tried to tyrannize and Kate wouldn’t have it. Whereas you were angelically long-suffering, so she tells me.’
I laughed. ‘I don’t know … Kate always took my father’s side in everything so she thought any friend of Dimpsie’s – the Prestons, in other words – were the enemy. Our family was – is – sadly divided.’ I paused, thinking. ‘But what’s even sadder, it’s not very rewarding to be on my father’s side. He doesn’t need associates, you see.’
‘Families can be hell, can’t they?’
‘Mm.’ I closed my eyes as we came to the precipitous drop. Rafe was easy to talk to. He didn’t bully, he didn’t show off. It was restful being with him. Then I saw Isobel falling backwards, her arms outstretched, heard again the smack as she hit the floor of the conservatory. As I left, there had been the beginnings of a bruise on her cheek. Of course it had been an accident and no one could have been sorrier. ‘I think I always envied Isobel her family. Though naturally I love Dimpsie dearly.’
‘Of course you do. So what’s Kate’s husband like?’
‘He’s a surgeon, specializing in the pancreas. Kate went into nursing, hoping to please my father. She met Dougall in the operating theatre. Perhaps he looks attractive in a green hat and mask. Kate says he’s brilliant but it’s hard to tell because he isn’t interested in anything but people’s insides. And he’s fussy about hygiene. They have covers for everything. They’re whisked away to be washed the minute you even look at them. Soon they’ll have covers for the covers.’ Rafe laughed, a happy, relaxed sort of laugh. I felt encouraged by this response to my little essay in cattiness. ‘Everything you eat with or drink out of goes into a tank to be sterilized. Last time I was there I watched her wash the vacuum cleaner nozzle in Dettol, then hoover out the toaster. We all know he’s potty, of course, but no one likes to say so. Dimpsie is frightened of Dougall – he can be quite cutting – and she feels sorry for Kate. My father despises them both.’
‘Poor Kate. It sounds awful. But I suppose everyone’s lives look like torture if you get close to them.’
I wanted to protest that mine didn’t, but we were approaching the tricky turn. I shut my eyes again until we had rolled to a standstill by the front door. Rafe got out and came round to open my door.
‘I shan’t come in. Dimpsie’ll be busy getting supper. Give her my love.’
‘All right.’ He helped me out of the car, put me on the crutches and guided me to the door. ‘Thank you so much for bringing me home.’
This time I did not extend my cheek. He gave my arm a squeeze and got back into the car. I waved as he drove off. His manner was friendly and unconstrained, almost brotherly. Probably I should conclude that he was not attracted to me. Was it just wounded vanity that made me feel for a moment quite disappointed?
I found Dimpsie in the kitchen – from where it was impossible to hear the telephone ring – pounding chickpeas to a slurry.
‘Sorry, darling. I forgot you were going to call. I decided to make some houmous to go with the parsnip pudding.’
My father came in, threw himself into the armchair by the Aga, and picked up the newspaper without looking at either of us. ‘When’s supper?’
‘About half an hour.’
‘Make it twenty minutes, would you? I’m going out and I shan’t be back until late.’
I had heard him come home the night before, long after the household had gone to bed. Presumably Mrs Trumball was getting a thorough medical overhaul. Though I had never met the woman, I hated her.
‘Busy day?’ Dimpsie asked brightly.
‘When am I not busy? The antenatal clinic is hardly a picnic. Fat, ugly women, who haven’t the intelligence to use contraception, determined to add yet more repellent half-wits to the population.’
‘I’m afraid it’s a busy surgery tomorrow,’ said Dimpsie apologetically, though it could hardly be her fault. ‘Have you thought any more about advertising for a receptionist? Of course I’m delighted to help out, but I’m beginning to worry about the craft shop. I’ve had a letter from the accountant. He wants to come and do an audit but everything’s in such a muddle—’
My father turned a page. ‘If you think that flogging a collection of tasteless artefacts to ignorant tourists is more important than the effective practice of medicine, you must be even more stupid than I had previously thought.’
‘Please,’ I said, feeling myself grow hot, ‘don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’ My father looked at me for the first time that evening and I sensed that behind the cold, still features there was hidden a smile of pleasure.
‘Don’t bully her.’
‘You have an inflated idea of your own importance. You stay away for years at a time, then the moment you come home you presume to interfere between your mother and me.’
My heart began to pound. ‘One of the reasons I don’t come home is because I hate seeing you being so … so horrible to Dimpsie.’
‘Really?’ His tone was sarcastic. His eyes behind the rimless lenses were keen with enjoyment. He cracked the joints of his long white fingers, as though preparing to pluck out an inflamed appendix. I knew he had once operated on that very kitchen table and saved a boy’s life when bad weather had prevented even a helicopter from reaching the village. ‘Let me put that intermittently troubled conscience at rest. Dimpsie, do you have any complaints about the way I treat you?’
‘Oh no, Tom!’ My mother paused in the process of chopping parsnips to send him a placatory glance. ‘Of course not. You see, darling,’ she looked at me, ‘when people have been married as long as we have, we don’t need to observe ordinary courtesies. Besides, all that sort of thing’s rather conventional, isn’t it, really? Our relationship is different.’
I recalled with acute pain the image of my mother stretched out on the sofa with the empty bottle beside her. But if the princess doesn’t want to be rescued, it is absolutely no good bolting on armour and taking up one’s sword. There was a ghastly