The Peacock Emporium(32)

Only Ben joined her.

Suzanna lifted her head. “I thought you’d be pleased I set up a business, Dad,” she said slowly. “That I was trying to do something for myself.”

“We are pleased, darling,” said Vivi. “Aren’t we?” She placed her hand on her husband’s arm.

“Oh, stop trying to pretend, Mum. He never thinks anything I do is good enough.”

“You’re twisting my words, Suzanna.” He kept eating in small, regular mouthfuls. His voice stayed steady.

“But not your meaning. Why can’t you ever just give me a break?”

It was like speaking into a vacuum. Suzanna stood up abruptly. “I knew this would happen,” she said, burst into tears, and fled from the table.

They listened to her footsteps fading down the corridor, and the sound of a distant door slamming.

“Happy birthday, Luce,” said Ben, raising a glass ironically.

Neil pushed back his chair, and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Sorry, Vivi,” he said. “It was delicious. Really delicious.”

His father-in-law did not raise his head. “Sit down, Neil. You’ll help no one by galloping after her.”

“What’s the matter with her?” said Rosemary, turning stiffly toward the door. “Morning sickness, is it?”

“Rosemary . . .” Vivi pushed a strand of hair off her forehead.

“You stay,” Lucy said, placing her hand on Neil’s shoulder. “I’ll go.”

“Are you sure?” Neil eyed his food, unable to hide his relief that he might be allowed to finish his lunch in peace.

“Trust her to hijack Lucy’s birthday celebration.”

“Don’t be unkind, Ben,” said Vivi. She glanced wistfully at Lucy’s departing back.

Rosemary reached over to help herself to another potato. “I suppose it’s all for the best.” She jabbed one with a shaking fork. “Just as long as she doesn’t turn out like her mother.”



* * *



—

The barns had all changed. Where, at the rear of the farm, there had been three semi-derelict timber shelters for hay, straw, and pieces of rusting farm equipment, there were now two double-glazed barn conversions, fronted by gravel parking areas, advertised as “all-inclusive offices.”

“You all right?”

Lucy appeared at Suzanna’s left, and sat beside her. Suzanna noted that her sister had the even, glowing complexion that spoke of winter sun and expensive skiing holidays, then, with a jolt, that Lucy had joined the ever-increasing list of people she envied. “So, when did all this happen?” She cleared her throat, and gestured toward the barns.

“Started a couple of years ago. Now that Dad’s letting the land, he and Ben are working on ways to make the rest of the estate earn more money.”

There was something about “he and Ben” that made Suzanna’s eyes fill again with tears.

“They’re holding shoots on the other side of the wood too. Breeding pheasants.”

“Never thought of Dad as a shooter.”

“Oh, he doesn’t do it himself. He gets Dave Moon to do it. He’s got dogs and everything.

“They charge a fortune,” Lucy added approvingly. “Last season paid for Dad’s new car.” She picked at a piece of lichen near her shoe, then lifted her head and smiled. “You’ll never guess—when Dad was younger he became briefly obsessed with the idea of giving it all away. All the land. Gran told me. Can you imagine Dad, the great stickler for tradition, as a kind of communist Robin Hood?”

“No.”

“Nor me. I thought she had a touch of Alzheimer’s to begin with, but she swears it’s true. She and Grandpa talked him out of it.” She hugged her knees. “Boy, I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.”

In the distance, dotted along the narrow field by the river, there were twenty or so black and white sheep, seemingly stationary. Her father had never been particularly successful with his sheep. Too prone to disgusting diseases, he would say.

“I hardly recognize it around here.” Suzanna’s voice was small.

Lucy’s was brisk in response. “You should come home more often. It’s not as if you live miles away.”

“I wish I bloody did.” Suzanna buried her face in her arms again. She cried for a few more minutes, and then, sniffing, looked sideways at her younger sister. “He’s so bloody horrible to me, Luce.”

“He’s just pissed off that you hurt Mum’s feelings.”

Suzanna wiped her nose. “I know I should have invited her. I just—I just get sick of living in their shadow. I know they’ve helped out since we lost the money and everything, but nothing’s the same, now that . . .”

Lucy turned to her, then shook her head. “It’s the will, isn’t it? You’re still going on about the will.”

“I’m not going on about it.”

“You’ll have to let this go, you know. You don’t want to run the estate. You never have. You told me it would drive you mad.”

“That’s not the point.”

“You’re letting it poison everything. And it’s making Mum and Dad really unhappy.”