14
The Wake
SATURDAY 27TH SEPTEMBER 2008
Summoning up her courage, Blaze walked around to the front of the castle and, pushing open the massive oak doors, stepped into the hall. Her first impression was that little had changed. As usual, during summer or winter, a huge open fire burned. The chimneypiece, measuring at least ten foot by ten foot, was framed on each side by half-naked Nubian gods carved in marble. On the wall to the right hung the Van Dyck portrait of the 16th Earl and his family, surrounded by hundreds of sporting trophies, ancient weapons and plates of armour.
Put another log on the bloody fire if you’re passing, her father’s voice called through time, and Blaze, from habit, dragged a large log from a pile by the door and threw it on to the embers. The fire licked appreciatively and she stepped back to avoid the sparks.
With a deep breath, she went through the second set of mahogany doors, into the smaller hall and up the main stairs. The first thing she noticed was a damp, musty smell. Looking down at the stair treads, she saw that the once-red carpet was worn to white threads and in the middle was frayed right through to the wooden steps. Up to the left and right, many of the picture frames had slipped and the canvases had bowed or sagged, making generations of noblemen and women appear drunk and misshapen. Reaching the landing, she noticed that the Turkish carpet was stained in huge patches like dirty clouds and, on the ceiling thirty feet above, chunks of beautiful woodwork, intricately carved by Grinling Gibbons, had fallen away, with the sky visible in places.
At the top of the stairs she turned right into the library. In the dim autumn light she was relieved to find her favourite book-lined room looked the same. The huge sofas covered in green velvet bowed in the middle and the material had worn away to the palest lime; it was almost exactly as she remembered it. Glancing towards the far door, she pictured the sixteen-year-old Anastasia, wearing a red silk slip, making her first grand entrance and silencing the room.
Rounding the corner, Blaze had to push hard against the double doors into the first of the great ballrooms. After some persuasion she managed to slip through a narrow opening. Her breath caught in her throat. The cut-velvet curtains hung in ribbons, the French eighteenth-century panelling had split. The only hint of paintings were from dark square or rectangular outlines on the walls. Some pieces of furniture remained; the huge side tables were covered in a layer of dust and detritus, and a grand piano sat in a pool of water. Ivy had inveigled its way through the glass and spread its tendrils around the shutters and into the room, a beautiful, menacing acid-green foliage creeping over the floor. Blaze walked faster, through that room and into the next and then the next. As door after door was pushed open to reveal stories of decay and dilapidation, she felt a rising sense of panic and confusion. What had happened? And so quickly? Could time and three children have done this? Was nature this angry and powerful? She imagined the ivy wrapping its leaves around her feet and pulling her back down into the earth.
Through the window she saw the mourners returning and retraced her steps. In the second ballroom there was her mother hobbling on crutches towards her, a diminutive, emaciated figure whose imperious deportment made her appear far taller and more stately than she actually was. Clarissa stopped three feet in front of her daughter but didn’t lift the heavy veil which covered her face.
“Has he gone?”
“About half an hour ago,” Blaze answered.
“Thank God. I was worried he might hang around and attract even more attention.”
“He’s having some kind of breakdown.”
“As long as it happens elsewhere.” Clarissa turned and walked away.
“Mother, wait,” Blaze said. “We haven’t even spoken about Father.”
Clarissa stopped but didn’t face her daughter. Her shoulders and back remained erect.
“What is there to say?”
“Words of comfort, perhaps,” Blaze said. “You’ve lost a husband, I’ve lost a father.”
“You lost a father the day you walked out of here.”
“I didn’t walk out,” Blaze shouted. Trying to control herself, she said more quietly, “Are you going to deny what happened that day?”
Clarissa turned around slowly and lifted her veil. “Nothing happened.”
“How can you say that?” Blaze shook her head in astonishment.
“Because it’s true,” Clarissa said with finality, shifting her weight on her crutches. “Now come along, we have people to entertain.”
“Good God, girl, you haven’t aged a bit,” a large man said to Ayesha. “Is there a portrait in the attic?” He roared with laughter at his own joke, showering the young woman with shards of sausage roll. He had a strange face, with each part looking like it belonged to another—a narrow chin, pendulous cheeks and beady little eyes. He reminded Ayesha of a game called Consequences that she used to play with her mother: each person had to draw a section of a face and fold it over.
“You think I am my mother, Anastasia.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m her daughter, Ayesha.”
“Where’s she?”
“She died.”
“What a waste.” He looked her up and down slowly. “Who’s your father?”
“Kitto,” Ayesha said.
This revelation led to a fresh blast of sausage-roll pieces. “Jesus H. Christ,” the man said. “I’m Peter Plantagenet-Parker, by the way. Call me Planty-Pal.”
Ayesha smiled politely and picked shards of pastry out of her hair.
“Windy, Windy, come here,” the sausage-sprayer shouted.
Another man, equally florid and flaccid-jawed, came over.
“You’re jolly pretty,” Windy said. His breath was so rancid that Ayesha had to step backwards quickly. “The Duke of Swindon at your service.” He took her hand and kissed it wetly.
“Who does she remind you of?” Plantagenet-Parker asked.
“That girlfriend of Blaze’s.”
“A hole in one, old bean. Guess who her father is?”
“I wish it had been me! I fancied that girl rotten—we all did.”
“Her father is Kitto.”
“Lucky fucker.”
“Are you older or younger than Ambrose?” Plantagenet-Parker asked Ayesha.
“Older,” Ayesha said. She wanted to run away from these two men and their innuendoes.
“Just as well primogeniture is firmly in place. How many children do you have the wrong side of the blanket, Windy?” Plantagenet-Parker enquired.
“Get stuffed.”
“They all did!” Plantagenet-Parker roared with laughter at his own joke. Swindon tried, playfully, to hit him.
“Will you excuse me?” Ayesha said and, without waiting for an answer, she slipped between the two men and worked her way towards the door.
“Ayesha, my dear, come here,” Great-Uncle Tony called. He was talking to a tall, thin woman with a velvet beret clamped over long, grey, waist-length hair. She wore wellington boots and a thick overcoat even though the fire was chucking off heat.
“Lady Wellington d’Aresby, meet my great-niece Ayesha Scott.”
Her Ladyship held out a hand which Ayesha shook.
“We were trying to decide whether we like weddings or funerals better,” Tony explained. “I think weddings are depressing because you know that they’re going to go wrong and all the misery is ahead. With funerals, all the hell of living is over.”
“Marriages don’t always go wrong,” Lady Wellington remonstrated.
“Show me one happy one,” Tony challenged her.
“Clarissa and Enyon’s was pretty good.”
“Hardly.”
“Do tell.”
Tony looked knowingly at Lady Wellington and then at Ayesha. “Pas devant l’enfant,” he said.
“Will you excuse me?” Ayesha ran out of the castle and into the drive and didn’t stop until she reached the huge Cedar of Lebanon some two hundred yards up the hill. Resting her head against its gnarled bark, she took several large gulps of clean air and realised that she was crying.
“Are you OK?” someone asked.
Ayesha hadn’t noticed anyone by the tree and, looking up, saw a strikingly handsome young man in jeans and a faded shirt. “I didn’t mean to alarm you,” he said. His voice was deep and gentle. Ayesha liked his broad face framed by unruly sandy hair and his gold-flecked eyes. Realising there were tears on her cheeks, she wiped them away with the back of her hand. The man took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her.
“Thank you,” she said and blew her nose loudly. She remembered her mother telling her off for this “unladylike” habit of “trumpeting” her colds and checked to see if the man was shocked. To her surprise he was looking at her solicitously and with great kindness, unlike most of the people she’d encountered since coming to England.
“Were you close to the Earl?”
“He was my grandfather but I never met him.”
After a moment of confusion, the man nodded.
“You must be Ayesha.”
Ayesha was taken aback. How did this total stranger know who she was?
Reading her mind, he answered, “This is a small place, news travels fast. I’m Mark Sparrow. Glenda, the cook, is my grandmother. I came to see if she needed any help.”
“The cook?” Ayesha’s heart sank. Her mother had warned her against wasting time on people of no consequence.
“There’s a pub in the village—would you like a drink?”
“I would like a cup of tea,” she said and, turning, set off down the drive. Mark hurried after her. At the pub, he found them a table in a corner and tried not to stare too intently. He had never seen a more beautiful woman. She caught his admiring glance and smiled back at him. Mark knocked his glass of water over and they both reached for it at the same time. Their hands overlapped. Instinctively he closed his fingers around hers. Ayesha tried and failed not to be aroused. They stared at each other. She heard her mother’s reproving tones but it was too late.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I work in computers. Games.” He hesitated, desperate to try and make himself sound more accomplished, more desirable. “I’m finishing a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience in my spare time.”
“Is that a hobby?”
“The better I can understand the human brain, the greater the chance of inventing a machine to copy and replicate it. I run a team who are working on the Memristor, a memory transistor which will help computers store and process data even when they are turned off. In the past, they lost memory; now, like human brains, they’ll be able to retain and analyse information at all times.”
Ayesha’s pulse quickened. She’d read how inventors like Mark were on the cusp of creating the fourth Industrial Revolution.
“If we are successful, and I believe we will be, it will transform the future of the world; it’ll enable computers to supplement and, in many cases, replace the human mind.”
“Will you own the patent?” Ayesha asked.
“I’m not sure if you can copyright progress.”
“Do it and I’ll never leave you.”
Mark sat back and looked at her, unsure whether to be shocked by her avarice or thrilled by her directness.
“This is only the beginning,” he said with quiet authority.
Ayesha squeezed his fingers. A shadow passed over the table.
“Someone said they’d seen you and a man go into the pub.” Blaze loomed above them. Mark and Ayesha scrambled to their feet.
“I’m so sorry, Aunt Blaze,” Ayesha said, flustered.
“Who are you?” Blaze asked Mark.
He put out his hand. “Mark Sparrow, Glenda’s grandson.” Something about this woman made him ill at ease.
“How do you do.” Blaze shook hands. “Your grandmother has been kind to my family.”
Mark nodded.
“Ayesha, we need to go,” Blaze said and, in case there was any doubt at all, added, “now.”
Ayesha turned to face Mark. “Thank you for the tea.”
“Where are you going?” Mark asked. He could not bear the thought of losing this young woman so soon after they had met. Taking a pen from his pocket, he scribbled his telephone number on the back of a beer mat and handed it to her.
Ayesha put it in her pocket and, smiling shyly at Mark, followed her aunt to the door.
When the port ran out, so did the last guests. Before they left, Windy Swindon and Peter Plantagenet-Parker both offered to “comfort” Jane.
“You’ll be needing to keep things supple down there,” Windy said, looking over his shoulder to check that his wife was out of earshot.
“I’m a fine swordsman, you’ll not complain.” Planty-Pal patted her bottom. Jane slipped away. Carrying a tray of dirty glasses to the kitchen, she realised she was ill-equipped to deal either with heartbreak or lascivious men.
“Here, let me take that.” Toby came down the Great Staircase towards her.
“Thank you, darling.” Jane handed him the tray and picked up the last of the empty serving plates. The house, designed for many servants, was hopelessly laid out for this kind of event. Mother and son had to walk down two long corridors and two flights of stairs to reach the scullery. Toby went ahead, his trousers flapping around his ankles and the long tear in his shirt stretching from shoulder to waistband.
“What happened to your shirt?”
“It tore.”
“I can see that.”
Toby didn’t answer. Jane could see from the slope of his shoulder that her son was upset.
“I’m desperate for a cup of tea. Would you like one?” she asked when they reached the kitchen.
Toby nodded and sat down heavily. Jane put the kettle on the Aga, now working again thanks to Blaze’s patronage. The fridge and cupboards were full once more and all eleven radiators were on. As long as you ran from heated room to heated room, ignoring the icy passages, living at Trelawney during the coming winter would be reasonably comfortable.
“My girlfriend is Mrs. Sparrow’s granddaughter,” Toby said.
“Cross Mrs. Sparrow, our cook?”
Toby traced the grain of the pine table with his finger.
“Did you meet her at school?” Jane hoped that Clarissa wouldn’t find out; she could only imagine the volley of disapproving asides. “Is she nice to you?”
“She’s angry that we didn’t ask her gran to the funeral.”
“She has a point.” Jane carefully took the glasses off the tray and put them into the sink to wash. Filling the basin with warm water, she handed her son a tea towel. “Will you dry, please?”
Toby stood beside her.
“Celia says this house is the tyrant and it’s manipulating all of us. We are living ‘anchrone’ somethings.”
“Anachronisms.”
“Why don’t we just leave, walk away?” Toby asked.
“We may not have a choice.”
“Will Blaze chuck us out?”
“The house is hers until your brother is eighteen—until then she can do whatever she likes.”
Toby put the glass he was drying down and looked at his mother. “What’s going to happen? Now that Grandad’s gone and Dad’s…” He hesitated. “Why did you ask him to leave?”
Jane looked out of the window, as if the answer lay in the distance. It was a question she asked herself repeatedly.
“I was hurt and angry.”
“That ‘thing’ happened ages ago, before you were married.”
“He should have told me.”
“He didn’t know.” Toby’s voice rose and broke slightly. Jane reached her hand across the sink to touch his but he shied away.
“Do you miss him?” she asked.
Toby didn’t answer.
“I miss him dreadfully,” she said.
Toby snorted derisively. “It’s your fault: you’ve got to sort it out.”
“I’m trying.” Jane knew how pathetic she sounded.
“Try harder.” As Toby ran out of the kitchen, he knocked two chairs over and didn’t stop to pick them up.
Jane righted the chairs and sat down at the table. Pooter nudged her leg and rested his head on her knee. Absently she stroked behind his ears. He whined slightly and looked at her with kindly brown eyes. At least someone loves me, she thought. He nudged her firmly; all he wanted was an evening walk. Rising stiffly to her feet, she took her coat from a peg on the wall and headed out into the rain.