Arrows on road signs propel them through complicated junctions, traffic lights slow them, stop them, send them on their way, time runs away behind them leaving only tyre tracks on damp roads.
‘Not enough. It’s difficult to explain. Paul, he was a very controlling man, he cut me off, from her, and from you, I suppose.’ Crying does not seem acceptable in the Range Rover. ‘To be honest, I don’t think she forgave herself for not spotting what was wrong and coming after me. I wanted to tell her I didn’t blame her, but now of course . . .’
The right turn is badly judged, the oncoming car honks and Diana swears. ‘I don’t remember her coming after me either. Or did I miss her running down the road, pleading with me to come home?’
‘I think she tried, but Dad wouldn’t let her.’
‘Did she ever talk about me?’
The roads are smaller now, the twists and turns wake Mikey up, and Valerie whispers over her shoulder that they are nearly there. She hopes he’s not going to throw up.
‘Well?’
The silence stretches before them the length of the dark lane which is overhung with trees still black from winter and tall hedges rusted brown with last year’s leaves leaning in on them.
‘Thought not,’ says Diana.
She was never as quick off the mark as her sister, couldn’t just come up with the right words at the right time. Once, when she was very young, Diana told her she had to pay her for every word she ever used because Diana was the one who owned a dictionary. This isn’t an easy day for thinking or speaking, but it is too late now because Diana is saying here we are and ahead of them elaborate wrought-iron gates are swinging open to Wynhope House.
Swivelling round, Mikey watches the gates close behind him. He remembers he needs to ask about the coffin and the curtains, but probably not now.
‘Where’s the house, Mum?’ All he can see is grass, trees, sheep, birds, sky and an endless narrow road between painted railings.
‘Here!’ says Diana. ‘We’ve arrived.’
In front of the child, the house is enormous. One, two, three long windows; a dark green front door with a porch on pillars; one, two, three long windows on the other side; upstairs, almost the same; and then another layer of smaller windows on top of that with their own little roofs. Pointing at the top floor, his mum winks and whispers to him that those are the rooms where they lock up the servants; in a louder voice she tells his aunt that the place is amazing, beautiful, she’s never seen anything like it.
There aren’t any words Mikey can really think of to describe it, so he doesn’t say anything. To him, the whole house looks like when you cut things out of paper and unfold it, both sides of the snowflake the same. Except. Except over on one side is a tower, just like a tower in a book with pointy bits and church windows and stone faces. It doesn’t match. It is as if a king thought about building a castle and then got bored and stuck a house on the end, or the other way round, someone built an enormous house and someone else has come along and spoiled it with the tower. He isn’t sure which. He likes the way the tower stands up for itself, as if it knows it doesn’t belong and doesn’t care, but he is also unsettled by the way the tower clings to the main house like an unwanted child, an embarrassment. Someone Paul would call a mistake. He hopes he isn’t going to have to sleep in the mistake.
‘But if I’m honest,’ his mum is saying, ‘that tower is really ugly.’
Diana winks at Mikey, although he has no idea why. ‘Just you wait until you see the inside.’ She opens the front door. ‘Hello?’ she calls.
Who is she expecting to answer? His uncle Edmund’s away and she doesn’t have any children. His mum told him that Diana didn’t want any because she didn’t like them and that Edmund had the snip. What, cut it right off? he’d asked and Valerie laughed, snip-snip-snipping towards his flies with her fingers. He thinks that bit is made up, but having met Diana, he thinks the other bit about her might be true.
‘I’m in the kitchen, Lady Diana! I’ll be right with you.’
The hall where they are standing has a staircase wide enough for six people and here, next to him, is a huge mirror with a gold frame reflecting back the pictures of the old men with beards and black jackets climbing the stairs. They are all dressed for a funeral, as well. In fact, everything is like a funeral, from the vase of flowers which smell like the cemetery to the polished floor which is black and white. He slips off his trainers, placing them precisely by the door, ready to make his getaway.
‘Well, now there’s a well-brought-up young man.’ A woman appears from a door on his left; she strikes Mikey as much more normal than Diana, with her flowery shirt over huge boobies and dangling earrings made to look like daisies.
‘This is Mrs H and she is a darling,’ Diana says, ‘and if it wasn’t for her, I don’t know what we’d do! She is our very own national treasure.’
So, his aunt owns people as well as things.
‘Call me Grace,’ says the lady. ‘If you like, I can take this young man to the kitchen for a little something and get you both a cup of tea?’
Little something, yes, cup of tea, no. Apparently Diana and his mum need a drink. That is something else he could say, if anyone would listen, that it probably isn’t a very good idea to let his mum start drinking, it doesn’t go well with her medicine.
‘That’s the drawing room, where they’ve gone,’ says Grace.
There’s no sign of any art going on in there, but there are other things that interest Mikey: gold curtains, for instance; a piano, he’d like to play now that Solomon has taught him ‘Amazing Grace’ all the way through, hands together; a real fireplace with proper smoke and what Scouts might smell like if he is ever allowed to go.
Grace continues the guided tour. ‘And this we call the morning room,’ she explains.
The whole day has been about mourning. Even the picture above the fireplace shows a man with a pony struggling up a purple mountain bent double by the weight of a dead stag.
‘What a heavy thing to have to carry on your back,’ he says to Grace.
The sitting room is a bit more friendly. It has a huge telly for a start and the kitchen is familiar, at least from adverts, so he’s happy to sit there and eat toast. The smaller telly in there is showing a zoo where all the animals have escaped because of the flood and they’re running wild through a town and it’s something to do with the waves he’d watched only this morning in his own house, but that was then and there and this is here and now. Wynhope. He can’t wait to get back home. Butter? Nod. Jam? Nod. Strawberry or raspberry? Shrug. Expect you’ve had a difficult day. Nod.
‘Monty wants your crusts,’ says Grace.
‘Hello, Monty,’ says Mikey, tentatively feeling the dog’s ears, and he feels sad that he left his penguin at home.
Everything Grace says confirms his initial impression that she knows what she is talking about. He wants the toilet and to get out of his horrible jacket and no sooner does he think that than she says I expect you want to know where the bathroom is, and if I’m not wrong, I expect you want to get out of that jacket.
‘That’s the thing about funerals,’ she says as she takes him down a passage with too many raincoats and giant fish gasping behind glass frames. ‘Everyone’s always so uncomfortable. I expect even Lady Diana’s kicked off those high heels.’
Right again. Back in the drawing room, his mum and his aunt are standing with glasses in their hands and no shoes on their feet, staring into the fire. Mikey brings a china statue of a racehorse and jockey from a little table in the sitting room to show to his mum.