Harriet Evans - Love Always

Sameena nods. ‘Very noble. It’s wonderful.’

‘Of course, that’s where most of the money’s going,’ Archie says. ‘We shal see.’ He looks at me, and at Jay. ‘Her children, we get very little.

That is what distresses me, on your mother’s behalf. The solicitors say—’ He stops, as if he’s gone too far. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says formal y. ‘Not suitable.’

‘No, go on,’ I urge. He frowns. ‘Natasha, it’s not your concern.’ I feel as though I’ve been slapped for being naughty. ‘She wanted you involved, she had her reasons, I’m sure. But for the moment you don’t need to do anything. When the estate is settled, and we know what the money is, we’l be able to consider applications, and you’l be involved then, vetting the applicants, their suitability. Perhaps talking to people, visiting their studios .

. . I don’t know.’

‘How ironic,’ I say. ‘Can I apply for some money?’ I’m joking.

Archie doesn’t smile. ‘You’re going?’ I ask him then. ‘Next month, back to Cornwal ?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he says. ‘Have you seen Arvind?’

Jay shoots me a glance. Stop asking these questions . It occurs to me then that’s why he’s been in a funny mood today: he knows my uncle is displeased with me, and Jay, close as we are, is much more respectful of his parents than I am of my mother.

‘I have not, no,’ Archie says. ‘We are going next week.’

‘Louisa’s been down there,’ Sameena says, and I’m sure it’s an innocent remark but Archie obviously doesn’t want to hear it.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘She’s been wonderful.’

‘She has,’ Archie says. ‘We are lucky.’

Suddenly I can’t resist. ‘Archie, can I ask you something?’

‘Yes, Natasha?’ Archie breaks another poppadom between his fingers.

‘Why – wel , why doesn’t Mum get on with her? Louisa’s been wonderful through this, organising the funeral, getting Arvind sorted, the foundation . . .’ My voice is loud in the silent dining room. ‘I don’t know what we’d al have done without her. And Mum – she thinks Louisa’s after her in some way.’

I know this is dangerous, but it is as close as I can get to asking Archie about the diary, about what happened to Cecily, and I don’t want to, here in front of Sameena and Jay, these people I love. I don’t want to start throwing accusations around about my mother when I have no real evidence myself.

Archie breaks the poppadom piece in half again. ‘You just said it. Louisa and your mother don’t get on. Never have done. That is al .’

I want to laugh, inappropriate as it seems. That’s only the beginning of it, I want to say.

But then he goes on: ‘Look, when we were growing up . . . it was a long time ago. We don’t real y talk about it much, because of the tragedy of my sister.’ He raises his head, and a lock of careful y combed hair fal s in his face, making him look much younger al of a sudden. ‘The truth is –

they were very different. You know? Louisa was – wel , I found her rather insufferable at times. Always offering to help. Much better behaved than us, our parents loved her. Always doing wel in her exams, good at sports.’ He stops and rubs his arms. He seems surprised he’s saying al this, and then he ploughs on. ‘I was fascinated by her. So was your mother. She was everything we weren’t. We weren’t good at anything in particular. No artistic prowess, we weren’t intel ectual. No good at sports. We weren’t blond, hearty. My mother was . . . disappointed with us. Always felt she’d rather Louisa and Jeremy were her children, not us. And Cecily, of course. She loved Cecily.’

He trails off. I know he’s tel ing the truth. He speaks in a low, clear voice, not very dramatic, just simply stating facts. The four of us are stil . What he says and the way he says it, makes me so sad, but I can’t reach out and touch him, I know that.

‘That’s why –’ Archie begins, and then stops. He clears his throat and looks at Jay, then at me. ‘Wel . Now that is why I have always been very pleased that you two – you cousins got on so wel . That these things don’t matter, these days. As has your mother.’

‘Have you spoken to Mum?’ I ask him suddenly. I’ve cal ed her since our row, several times, but once again she’s gone completely off radar.

‘Oh, yes,’ he says. ‘Where is she?’ I ask. ‘Is she around?’

‘She’l be back in time for the foundation launch,’ Archie says. ‘Her work is important to her.’

He raises his chin, and nods expectantly at me. ‘We had a row –’ I hear myself say. ‘I know you did.’ Archie puts his napkin down. ‘Natasha, you upset her a great deal. I don’t think you realise how much.’

‘She –’ I begin, and then I stop. I look at Sameena and Jay, eating their curry in silence.

‘She’s your mother,’ Archie says. ‘You should respect her, no matter what.’

‘No matter what?’ I say.

He looks at me, then at his wife and child. ‘Yes.’

I can’t push this any more; I’m in their home.

The contrast between brother and sister strikes me again. Archie may be a bit pompous, but he’s made his own life for himself, him and Sameena and Jay, and it’s not like Summercove. I can see what he did – I tried to do it myself, with Oli, create a world different from the one I grew up in. I think of Archie with his parents, how he’s never real y present, like his sister. He turns up, bosses people around, shows everyone his flash new car or his nice new watch, and then he’s gone. It’s funny to read about him in those pages of Cecily’s: the idea that he’d have gone to Oxford or Cambridge isn’t real y him at al . I don’t know whether he took the exams or not, but I know he went away for a long time, went travel ing, like Mum.

He got a job working in a car dealership, in the mid-sixties when I guess it stil had a modicum of glamour attached to it. Archie worked his way up; his business is now pretty successful. You’d know it, even if he didn’t tel you. He lived al over the world, in Singapore, Tokyo. It was in Mumbai that he met Sameena.

I ask just one more question. ‘You don’t know where she is, though?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘As I said, she’l be back.’

She’s always flitting off somewhere, with no notice, and usual y you’re lucky to get a text. When I was about ten, she went to Lisbon for a week, and I only found out when she rang the school on her way to the airport and told them my aunt would be looking after me while she was away . . . I remember this now in light of what I know, sitting at the Kapoors’ table, as Sameena and Jay nudge each other and she laughs about something, and Archie helps himself to more mango chutney and I sit watching them. I feel very alone, al of a sudden. Archie got out, he got away from whatever it was. Poor Mum, dancing off around the world to find some freedom, some space, running away from her own thoughts, her own life.

Like I say, it makes me sad.

Chapter Thirty-One

On Thursday, the week after lunch at Archie’s, my alarm doesn’t go off and I wake up late. I lie in bed for about ten minutes, annoyed because the day is already off on the wrong foot. I have become very good at keeping myself busy with my lists and my actions and I know that lying in bed being annoyed isn’t the way to keep myself from going mad. Do something, anything. I get up, shower, get dressed and clean the flat from top to bottom, tidying things up, putting some more of Oli’s things away, dusting, scouring, scrubbing, singing along to the radio.

In the afternoon I head out for the studio, eager to stretch my legs, get outside. In the hal way I see the post has arrived, which even though it’s nearly three is stil something of a miracle. I pick up the bundle and sort it out, putting the post for the two other flats in our building into their rightful pigeonholes.