18
We saw them first from the window. They’d taken the Toast Rack up from the harbour, and now they were walking up the garden path.
I don’t actually think they were wearing dark colours – the boys at least were in bright beach shorts – but when I think back, I see them in black or brown. I also think I can remember hearing them through the windows, and that their voices were loud and in chorus. And I don’t think that can be true either, because the windows were closed, and you could never hear anything through them.
But when I think back, it’s Lord of the Flies again. I see a choir in black and hear a chant that cut through our kitchen glass. That’s not what happened. I went out to meet them and say hello. I shook everyone by the hand, kissed the most important cheeks, and, just like that first day, I spoke in my voice for friends’ parents, and parents’ friends.
The pack poured into the kitchen. The office, the kingdom, overtaken.
Sofi was introduced once by name, and her name was said quickly: ‘Say-fay’. She was prepping the dessert for that evening, so she threaded through the crowd, excuse me, head down, shorter than I thought she was.
‘This is my brother,’ Eddy said. He was called Caleb and he was Eddy again, but bigger; the kind of man it’s impossible to imagine in a caravan or loo or anywhere small, because he seemed so big. He wasn’t fat, but his presence wasn’t a vague thing. It was hard and unbending, a huge blocky coat. There were also his four boys, an arpeggio of ages from about thirteen to seventeen. They were so different to Pip, with their bulgy faces and big, blunt bodies. Pip was taller than them though, and everyone kept on saying how much he’d grown.
It was definitely a situation where you hear names but they fall through your ears. Who were these boys, so much less graceful than Pip, touching things in the kitchen and opening cupboards? They were octopus-like: flailing, sprawling, impossible to see what all their trunky arms were doing.
I could tell Sofi was unhappy by the way she was pushing her pastry into the ruts of the baking tin. Her fingers were hard; she’d left nail marks in the base. I saw her think that it was her kitchen and there was no room for these new people here. I thought it too. But I went to offer Eddy’s brother one of Sofi’s shortbreads.
‘Call yourself a brother,’ Caleb said. ‘Drink on arrival’s not much to ask, fuck. Oh, sorry boys.’ Then he did this face like a wisp of smoke coming out of a lamp: one must go through the motions.
Eddy told Sofi to run and fetch a nice little bottle from the cellar. He always used diminutives when things were particularly expensive.
‘Rosé – yes, that is the pink one – Monte Fiorucci, lots of gold on the label. And beers for the boys.’
When she came back, two bottles under one armpit, her other hand pulling out her skirt to turn it into a cradle for the cans, Caleb asked if us girls wanted to join them. He moved his eyes down Sofi’s back like a zip. She didn’t turn around.
‘It’s rosé,’ Caleb said. ‘Practically fruit juice.’
Because it was sunny, and I thought Sofi would say yes, I said OK, just an inch.
‘An inch from the top,’ Caleb said, then, ‘Sarah?’
He had one of those Dickensian mouths, like an oyster left out in the sun. One side of his lip arched more than the other, like even his lips looked down on you too.
‘It’s Sofi,’ she said, and said no. The men and boys made their way to the door, apart from Pip, who stayed sitting at our table.
‘Pip,’ said Eddy, gesturing with his head to make his son stand up. Pip rose – taller than his father now – hands in his pockets.
‘Sofi,’ Eddy said. ‘Where’s the beer for my one?’
She asked Pip if that’s what he wanted. He said no, and could he have a can of Minute Maid, please. Then he followed his father to the gazebo in the garden, as slowly as I’ve ever seen a person walk.