CHAPTER NINE

At Templeton Hall three days later, Henry had just hung up from talking to Eleanor in London and was looking for his youngest daughter. He found her in the morning room, curled up on the window seat, apparently reading but clearly waiting for him. Her expression was eager as she looked up.

He smiled. ‘It’s a yes, Miss Gracie, I’m pleased to say. Your mother agrees it’s not fair that you should be doing any work while your brother is making merry with his new friend, so you’re on holidays now too until she gets back on the weekend.’

‘Hurrah!’ Gracie said. She hopped up, put down her book and followed her father downstairs. ‘It’s all working out, isn’t it? Spencer’s so much better since Tom’s been allowed to come and play.’

‘Better? Out of sight, perhaps. I’m still waiting for the sound of something exploding.’

‘Don’t worry. They’re only using bicarbonate of soda.’

Henry stopped mid-step. ‘What do you mean “only using”? Using for what?’

‘Their volcano. They’re building it out in the stables apartment. Spencer said it will send lava spewing more than ten metres into the air. But he’s going to add twice as much petrol to the soda, to see if it will go twenty metres. Dad? Dad, where are you going?’

The next morning, Gracie relayed the entire story to Nina. ‘It wasn’t as bad as Dad thought it would be. I’d got it wrong about the petrol. It was just bicarbonate of soda and kerosene.’

‘It still could have exploded,’ Nina said. ‘It’s lucky you told him when you did.’

‘Spencer was furious at me. I think Tom was too. Spencer called me a squealer. That’s why I came here. There was no one to talk to at the Hall. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No, Gracie. It’s nice to see you.’

Nice, if surprising. Nina had planned to spend the day priming canvases. She’d got a faxed order for a dozen landscape paintings. It was as broad a brief as that. The company had received an order from a colonial-style restaurant. Gum trees, dams, hazy blue mountain range in the background, that kind of thing. It was as well she didn’t harbour a huge artistic ego, Nina thought. Painting by numbers, painting to order. It had kept her and Tom going for nearly three years, though. She wasn’t going to complain.

‘Can I help?’ Gracie asked. ‘You’ll need to tell me what it is you’re actually doing, but then I’ll happily lend you a hand.’

Nina fought a smile. Gracie spoke as though she’d learnt English from watching too many BBC period dramas, a funny mixture of stiff formality and excellent vocabulary. Nina explained what she was doing, applying undercoat to the canvases to give her a clean working surface. She got Gracie an old shirt and set her up with the paint and brushes. They worked in silence for less than a minute before Gracie spoke.

‘Nina, how did you know you wanted to be a painter?’

‘I didn’t. I thought I wanted to be a gymnast. I used to watch the gymnastics at the Olympics and longed to be one of them. I tried swinging from our clothesline once, fell, broke my arm and gave it up then. While I was waiting for the plaster to come off, my sister bought me a colouring book and pencils and that got me started.’

‘But how did you know you were any good?’

‘I didn’t at first. I had to learn how to do it. And I’m still not that good. These aren’t works of art, Gracie. I paint whatever it is people ask me to paint.’

‘I think they’re beautiful. I think you have a great talent.’

‘Thank you very much.’

‘And where is your husband, Nina, if you don’t mind me asking?’

The question took Nina by surprise. All the answers she normally gave suddenly seemed inappropriate to say to a child like Gracie. It didn’t work out between us. We’re no longer together. She also knew that if she said those, Gracie would only ask another question. Why not? Where is he now? She hesitated for just a moment before answering.

‘He died, Gracie.’ The truth felt strange in her mouth.

Gracie put down her paintbrush. ‘He died? He’s dead? How?’

‘It was a car accident.’

‘Oh, Nina.’ To her amazement, Gracie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘But that’s so sad. When did it happen?’

That feeling again, of being about to take a big plunge into the unknown. ‘Twelve years ago.’

Gracie frowned. ‘Tom’s twelve, isn’t he?’ At Nina’s nod, she was quiet for a moment before speaking again. ‘So he died when Tom was just a baby?’

Say it, Nina, say it. ‘He died the same day Tom was born, Gracie. He was on his way to the hospital.’

‘Oh, Nina. So he never met Tom?’

‘No, he didn’t.’ Damn it. Damn. She was starting to cry now too.

‘That’s so sad. He would have loved Tom.’

Nina gave a hard blink to force away the tears. ‘You think so?’

‘I’m sure of it.’

Nina now couldn’t believe she had told an eleven-year-old girl something she’d been unable to tell anyone else for years. It was a mistake. She should never have mentioned it.

‘Gracie, I need to ask you a big favour. What I just told you, it’s something not many people know. Please, can I trust you not to tell anyone else? Not your family. Especially not Tom.’

‘But he knows his dad is dead, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes. Yes, he does. He just doesn’t know everything.’

‘Are you waiting until he’s old enough?’

‘That’s it.’

Gracie nodded solemnly. ‘I won’t breathe a word. To Tom, especially. He’s a very nice boy. You’ve done a very good job raising him on your own.’

That changed the mood. Nina found herself trying not to smile. ‘Thank you, Gracie.’

They worked in silence for five more minutes, before Gracie glanced across at the clock above the mantelpiece. ‘Time for me to go. I’m cooking dinner while Mum’s away and I need to decide tonight’s menu. Dad’s giving me two dollars a meal.’

‘You’re feeding three people on two dollars a meal?’

‘No, he’s paying me two dollars. I’m doing it alphabetically using Mum’s favourite recipe book. It makes it much easier to decide. I’m up to the J section but I’ve only found things like jellied eel or jam and Spencer won’t touch those. I might start on K tonight instead. Thanks for letting me help you, Nina. Bye for now.’

‘Bye, Gracie,’ Nina said, relieved and sorry at the same time to see her go. Was that what having a daughter was like? A mixture of entertainment and exhaustion? Perhaps she should be glad she only got to have Tom.

An hour later, Gracie was crouched in the shadows of the hallway just outside her father’s study. She knew she shouldn’t have been listening. But that was just the way it happened in this house sometimes. It was so big, with so many tucked-away spots behind curtains and under the staircase, that sometimes you could just be sitting still, thinking about something, and you’d find yourself overhearing a conversation or a row.

In this case it was definitely a row, over the phone, between her father and her mother, still in England. It was about money, Gracie soon realised. Bills that needed to be paid. Work that needed to be done. And money they didn’t have.

‘It’s catch 22, Eleanor,’ Henry said, raising his voice. Gracie didn’t like the sound of that. Her father usually had a quiet voice. ‘Can I remind you how expensive it is to advertise? Yes, yes. If we don’t get more visitors, we lose even more money, more bills don’t get paid and more repairs don’t get done. I already know everything you’re telling me.’

Gracie stood, barely breathing, listening to the silence in her father’s office as her mother put her side of the story. It was a long silence. Her mother obviously had a lot to say.

Her father’s voice sounded again, even more loudly this time. ‘No, I won’t accept that. You agreed that we were better to do it ourselves, stay separate and it worked very … No. Please don’t interrupt, Eleanor. Yes, it did work at the start and it will. Please, let me finish.’ Another long pause. ‘I know. I know. Of course I can’t go and make a sale. Who would look after Gracie and Spencer? Well, tell her you can’t stay any longer. You have a family here that needs you.’

Gracie realised she was holding her breath. She knew who they were talking about now. Hope. It was nearly two weeks since her mother and Hope had left, and while she didn’t miss Hope at all (even if she felt a bit guilty admitting it), she really missed her mother. If she was home again, life would almost be perfect, just the six of them, no Hope in her room, no feeling sick in her stomach every time she came down to the living room or kitchen in case Hope was there, drinking on her own, waiting for whichever one of them happened to come in. In the days before Hope and her mother left, Gracie had perfected a kind of slinking movement past the doors so that it looked as though she was going somewhere else, even if she wasn’t, just in case Hope caught sight of her.

Gracie loved her dad, but he was always busy these days, spending a lot of time in his study, sighing, and looking through magazines about furniture and picking up folders filled with bits of paper. He’d also started making lots of phone calls, at odd times of the day or night. She’d dared to ask him about them once, and he’d said, a little bit too crossly, she thought, that there was such a thing as an over-observant child, and in his opinion Gracie was heading in that direction.

‘Are you phoning Mum all those times, though? Can I talk to her next time?’

‘Gracie, you can’t always get all the answers you want, you know. As it happens, I’ve been ringing some old work colleagues of mine.’

‘In the antique shop in Brighton?’

‘No, Gracie, not Brighton, and that’s all you need to know for now, all right?’

Gracie wondered whether she should appear in her father’s doorway now and ask to talk to her mother. She’d have the pleasure of talking to her and stopping their almost-fight too. She leaned in more closely. They were still arguing about money. Her father was sounding quite angry now.

‘No, we can’t cut costs any more, unless you want to pull the girls out of school. Exactly. Look, I’ll think of something.’ She heard him say goodbye to her mother abruptly, hang up loudly and then sigh.

Gracie waited for just a few moments and then knocked gently on his door. ‘Dad?’ No answer. She tried again. ‘Dad? Is everything all right?’

Henry looked up from his desk, ran his fingers through his hair, then beckoned her in. ‘Gracie, are you lurking in the shadows again? You’re getting worse than Spencer.’

‘Spencer’s stopped doing that now he’s got Tom to play with.’

‘Perhaps we need to get you a friend too.’

‘I don’t want one. I’m happy here on my own.’ She was. She had her books and puzzles and every weekend to look forward to, when the house was filled with visitors. But not enough visitors, from what she’d just heard. ‘Dad, can I do anything?’

‘Now? No, darling, you go and read or whatever it is you usually do at —’ he checked his watch, ‘seven o’clock at night.’

‘I mean about the money.’

‘You heard me?’ At Gracie’s nod, he smiled. ‘Gracie, don’t worry. Everything is fine. We’re just going through what business people throughout the ages have called a rough patch. A lot of bills coming in, not enough money to cover them for the time being, but we’ll find what we need and you’re not to worry.’

‘I can show more groups around if you need me to.’

‘You already show more groups around than any of us. No, Gracie, we just need the groups to be bigger, that’s all.’

‘Could we run tours during the week as well?’

‘It’s too expensive, darling. We’d have to advertise for a start, and we’d have to turn all the lights on for longer, clean more often. It wouldn’t be worth any extra money we might make, not for a long time, at least.’

‘What about night tours on the weekend?’

Henry smiled then. ‘You stay in character long enough every weekend as it is, Gracie. I’m already in fear of the child protection agency. Please stop worrying. Everything is fine, I promise. Repeat after me. Everything is fine.’

She repeated it. But she wasn’t sure she believed it.

Later that evening, a now slightly more cheerful Gracie was setting the table for dinner. Spencer hadn’t appeared yet. He’d been missing in action since Tom called over after school. There’d been a lot of whooping and shouting out in the stables, but when she’d gone to investigate, they’d either disappeared or were hiding from her. Her father was still in his study. She’d sneaked out once to press her ear against his door, heard only a low tone of voice and tiptoed back to the kitchen, relieved. According to her calculations, her mother was on her way to the airport now, so she knew her father couldn’t be talking to her. But as long as there were no raised voices, Gracie knew everything was all right.

She smiled now as her father came into the kitchen. ‘Dinner’s nearly ready. It doesn’t look like the picture very much,’ she held up a luridly coloured photograph of what the caption said was kedgeree, ‘but I think it will taste all right if we put lots of gravy on it.’

‘I’m sure it’s delicious, Gracie. And your mother sends you lots of love and said to tell you your meals sound lovely and she hopes you’ll keep cooking when she gets home.’

Gracie frowned as she turned to get the dish out of the oven. ‘You were talking to Mum? How? I thought she’d be at the airport by now.’

‘Ah, yes. Well, she nearly was. Unfortunately there’s been a last-minute hitch with her flight and she’s coming back early next week instead.’

‘Next week? But why? What happened? Is she all right?’

‘She’s fine. But as it happens, there’s another bit of news. About your aunt Hope.’

‘She doesn’t like her new place?’

Henry paused. ‘Hope got very upset about your mother leaving her alone. Extremely upset. So she’s coming back here with her again.’

‘Oh, Daddy, no!’

Henry only just stepped out of the way as the kedgeree landed on the floor.

Not long after, Charlotte didn’t take the news any better.

‘No way, Dad. She can’t. Forget it.’

Henry moved the phone from one ear to another. ‘Charlotte, she can and she is. Audrey understood the situation. Why can’t you? In any case, we don’t have a choice.’

‘Audrey understood because she’s a drama queen too, and we do have a choice. So does Hope. Hasn’t she got any friends left over there who will take her in?’

‘She does have friends, and they did their best, but unfortunately Hope had one of her episodes the second night she was there and —’

‘Episodes? Got raging drunk or raided their medicine chest or tried to seduce their gardener, is that what you mean? Just say it as it is, Dad. Stop tiptoeing around it with all this talk of “episodes” or “events”, would you?’

‘She’s your mother’s sister, Charlotte, your aunt, part of our family, and as I have said to you a thousand times, we have a responsibility to help her.’

‘You do. Mum does. We don’t. But it’s us she impacts on. We’re the ones who can’t watch TV some nights because she’s obsessively playing the piano. Or we can’t have friends to stay in case she raids the wine cellar and makes a show of herself. We can’t care about her just because she’s related to us. It doesn’t work like that.’

‘So what are you suggesting, Charlotte? That we look up the Yellow Pages under A for Asylum and get her locked up in London somewhere?’

‘If someone would take her, yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘Charlotte, she’s a fragile human being, who needs —’

‘She’s not fragile! That’s exactly what she isn’t. She’s just a selfish, self-centred, self-obsessed alcoholic and she’s got you and Mum completely hoodwinked. You’ll do anything for her, while all of us suffer.’

‘Suffer? Which part of your privileged upbringing and comfortable existence could be described as suffering, Charlotte? Did I miss the years you were locked in a dungeon?’

‘You just don’t get it, do you? It’s never been just us, our family, the six of us. She’s always been there, making it awful for the rest of us. No matter where we went, she’d turn up, messing it up for all of us. And it’s not just me she upsets —’

‘It mostly is you.’

‘You don’t know half the lies she tells, Dad. The things she says about all of us.’

‘Most people can recognise fairly quickly that she’s troubled.’

‘Actually, no, they can’t. I’ve heard her, Dad. She talks about you, as well, did you know that? About you and her having an affair?’ Charlotte’s voice was getting louder.

‘There’s no need to shout, Charlotte, and yes, I have heard those stories. Quite a few times over the years, as it happens.’

‘Good. Great. So can you please tell Gracie and Spencer they’re not true, because any day now they’ll start asking me about them.’

‘She’s your mother’s sister, Charlotte. You’d do the same for your sisters and brother.’

‘Would I? If I hadn’t already done it for Hope all my life, maybe, but now, forget it. If she’s going to be back at the Hall, Dad, I’m never coming home again.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re in charge this weekend.’

‘I mean it. If Hope’s there, I won’t be back this weekend, next weekend, or ever again.’

‘You’re just going to live at the boarding school forever? Camp out at university?’

‘I’m not going to stay here and I’m not going to university either.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I’ll work.’

‘Doing what? You haven’t got any qualifications.’

‘I’ll think of something. Do something. Go back to England. I’ll do whatever I have to do, Dad, but I won’t come back to the Hall while she’s there.’

‘You’ll feel differently in a day or two. Wait until your mother is home and talk to her.’

‘Mum already knows how I feel about this. I mean it, Dad. It’s Hope or it’s me.’

Henry laughed. ‘Because there’s not room here for the two of you?’

‘Don’t try and joke your way out of this one. Goodbye, Dad.’

Henry was left staring at the receiver as Charlotte hung up on him.

As they ate a dinner of toasted cheese sandwiches later that evening, Spencer didn’t seem bothered by the news of Hope’s return. He simply shrugged when Henry told him.

‘You don’t mind, Spencer? She doesn’t upset you as much as she upsets the others?’ Henry glanced at Gracie. She’d gone silent since he’d told her about Charlotte’s threat.

Spencer shrugged again. ‘She’s okay. A bit mad, but I like the way she gives me money.’

‘Gives you money?’

‘Well, not just gives it to me. I have to do things for her.’

Henry went still. ‘Like what?’

‘Nothing too hard. Take the bottles out of her room. And take more bottles in.’

‘What bottles, Spencer?’

‘The bottles of wine. She pays me a dollar a bottle.’

Henry’s voice was casual. ‘And where do you get these bottles?’

‘From that cupboard under the stairs. There’s always loads in there. We have a system. I take up a full one, she gives me an empty one and two dollars.’

‘How do you get past the lock?’

‘Your keys,’ Spencer said matter-of-factly.

‘And what do you do with the empty bottles?’

Spencer was looking a bit fed up with the questions. ‘I throw them in the dam. Or under the bushes on the driveway. Or in the rain tank. Loads of places.’

Before Henry could reply to that, Gracie spoke.

‘I’ve had an idea, Dad. Maybe you could pay Nina to look after Hope at her house. That way she’s close by but not living here and Charlotte could come home.’

Henry was distracted. ‘I don’t think so, Gracie. We’ll work something out. Don’t worry.’

‘We have to, Dad,’ Gracie said, now nearly in tears. ‘Or Charlotte is lost to us forever.’

The next day Gracie reported it all to Nina in great detail.

‘Charlotte means it, Nina, I know she does. But Mum won’t send Hope away again. It’s a very awkward situation.’

‘I’m sure it must be,’ Nina said, still trying to take in all that Gracie had told her since she’d arrived without notice that afternoon. She now didn’t even bother knocking, simply calling out a greeting before walking straight in. ‘Your parents will sort it out, I’m sure.’

‘I just hope they can.’ Gracie hopped up from her seat. ‘I’d better go home. Thanks for the tea, Nina, and for having me. See you tomorrow.’

It was some time after Gracie’s departure before Nina was able to start working again.