The Peacock Emporium(23)

There was no point in worrying Neil.

It had taken him almost six months to make the discovery. It had not been the high point of their marriage, to say the least. Pushed beyond his own depression, Neil had questioned her sanity and announced that it was she, and not his redundancy, who was making him impotent. Finally allowing herself to unleash the anger she had bottled up for so long, she had told him in return that not only was he cruel, but unfair and unreasonable. Why should his problems have to affect her life so much? She still considered it a matter of quiet pride that she had not said what she really thought. That she had not used the failure word, even if, when she looked at him, she felt it.

Then her father had mentioned the house, and although she was still furious with him about the will, Neil had persuaded her that they had no choice—unless they wanted to be declared bankrupt. The horror of that word still had the capacity to chill her.

And so, almost nine months ago, Suzanna and Neil had sold their London flat, which paid off the debts on Suzanna’s credit cards and the lesser debt Neil had run up before he managed to get a new job, and bought a small, unshowy car. Lured by the prospect of a three-bedroom flint-fronted estate house, almost rent-free and renovated by her father, they had moved back to Dere Hampton, where Suzanna had grown up, and which she had spent the last fifteen years doing her best to avoid.



* * *



—

When they came in, the little house was cold: Suzanna had forgotten to set the timer on the heating again. Neil whistled and blew on his hands. He was still enthusiastic about all aspects of country living, persuading himself that their move was about quality of life rather than downsizing, choosing only to see the advantages of chocolate-box cottages and rolling green acres, rather than the reality his wife experienced: people who knew, or thought they knew, everything about you, the claustrophobia of years of shared history, the subtle policing of women with too much money and too little time.

The answering machine was flashing, and Suzanna fought a guilty thrill of hope that it might be one of her London friends. They were ringing less often now, her lack of availability for coffee or early evening drinks in wine bars slowly fraying what she now knew must have been pretty tenuous threads of friendship. It didn’t stop her missing them. She was tired of having to think about what she said before she said it; frequently she found it easier, as she had this evening, to say almost nothing at all.

“Hello, darlings. I hope you’re both out having fun somewhere. I just wondered whether you’d had a think about Lucy’s birthday lunch on the sixteenth. Daddy and I would so love it if you could make it, although we quite understand if you’ve got something else on. Let me know.”

Always so careful not to suggest any obligation or imposition with that cheerful yet slightly apologetic tone. The subtlest hint of “We know you’re having problems, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for you.” Suzanna sighed, knowing that, having missed several Christmases and numerous other family gatherings, there were few excuses to avoid her family now that they were, geographically at least, so close.

“We should go.” Neil had taken off his coat and was pouring himself a drink.

“I know we should.”

“Your dad will probably find some reason to go out anyway. You two are pretty good at avoiding each other.”

“I know.”

Neil liked being part of her family. He had little of his own, with one seldom-visited and barely missed mother now several hundred miles away. It was one of the reasons he took such a conciliatory approach with hers.

Neil put down his glass and walked over to her. He put his arms around her and pulled her to him gently. She felt herself concede, unable to shake off her natural rigidity entirely. “It would mean so much to your mum.”

“I know, I know.” She placed her hands on his waist, unsure whether she was holding him or just holding him away. “And I know it’s childish. It’s just the thought of everyone wittering on about how fantastic Lucy is, and what a marvelous job she’s got and look how beautiful and blah blah, and everyone making out that we’re this superhappy family.”

“Listen, it’s not exactly easy for me to listen to that stuff either. Doesn’t make me feel like the superstar son-in-law.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe we just shouldn’t go.”

Suzanna was the decorative one of the family. Its genetic mythology had ascribed to her beauty and financial haplessness, to her younger brother, Ben, a countryman’s wisdom beyond his years, while Lucy had been the brainy one, able at the age of three to recite great swathes of poetry, or ask in all seriousness why such and such a book was not as good as the author’s last? Then, slowly, some kind of metamorphosis had taken place. While Ben became, as everyone had expected, a kind of younger, merrier echo of their straightforward, stoic, occasionally pompous father, Lucy, far from becoming the predicted bespectacled recluse, had blossomed, become frighteningly assertive, and now, in her late twenties, headed up the digital division of some foreign media conglomerate.

Suzanna, meanwhile, had gradually realized that decorativeness was no longer enough when one reached one’s thirties, that her lifestyle, and lack of financial acumen, had ceased to be endearing and now seemed simply self-indulgent. She didn’t want to think about her family.

“We could go and look at shops tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve seen a place in town that’s up for rent. Used to be a bookshop.”