Seven Days of Us(15)
“Maybe . . . I was thinking somewhere a bit newer . . . Could you try Sexy Fish? Claridge’s is a bit, like, Park Avenue pensioner.” She pulled her skin taut and pouted, miming a surprised Botoxed woman.
“Ha! You’re wasted behind the camera, Phoebe. I might have to borrow that line.”
“Anytime, Papa,” she said, sliding off the arm and walking out. “Or maybe try Dean Street Townhouse?” she shouted from the passage. “They have a private room.”
Andrew unclenched his entire body. That had been close. He would have to be more careful. He cleared his screen and erased his browser history. He would send the reply later. Phoebe had interrupted his concentration—he didn’t trust himself to say the right thing to Jesse now. Besides, the urgent thing was to get rid of Leila’s letter. It was madness to have it lying around. But the rubbish or recycling was too risky—the binmen seemed to come once a year in the country—and the fire in the dining room had expired faster than the conversation. The chimney was probably filthy—they all were at Weyfield. After a moment’s thought, Andrew climbed the stairs to the attics. It was freezing up there, the single lightbulb over the main room reminding him of a TV interrogation scene. He soon located a 1980s briefcase in a pile of his obsolete belongings (flak jacket, bulky camera, hard hat, notepads) that Emma had retired to Weyfield. His fingers flicked through the combination lock, his birthdate and their Camden alarm code. One nine five zero. He stuffed Leila’s letter into the secret pocket in the lining and relocked the case. That was safe for the time being. He knew Emma would demand a post-Christmas bonfire—a Hartley tradition—and that he could burn the letter then. Slipped between other innocuous papers and thrown on the pyre, it would furl into secret ashes. Nobody need ever know of its existence. There was an old-fashioned finality to the act that appealed. The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs made him freeze. Bugger. He nipped into one of the garret bedrooms and held his breath.
Emma
THE ATTICS, WEYFIELD HALL, 5:30 P.M.
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Emma knelt in the main attic, holding the box of Christmas decorations. Originally it had held a gingerbread house kit, bought one Christmas when the girls were small. On the lid was a photograph of two children in wonderfully retro jumpers, marveling at their perfect gingerbread house. She remembered trying to copy it with her daughters, and their attempt looking nothing like the box. The roof had kept slowly sliding off, making the girls shriek with gleeful dismay, until Andrew ingeniously secured it with bamboo skewers. Both girls had been thrilled by Christmas then. Phoebe still enjoyed it (she welcomed any excuse to shop), but at some point Olivia had outgrown the excitement. Emma missed seeing them revel in something together. It didn’t seem that long since they were counting down the doors on the Advent calendar, glossy heads pressed close—Olivia’s blond, Phoebe’s dark. She remembered assuming they were going to be the kind of sisters who were close as adults. A noise in the little bedroom next door made her jump. She did hope they didn’t have rats again. Or that Father Buxton, the priest said to haunt the house, wasn’t back. Feeling rather spooked, she clattered downstairs, vowing to give the attics a spring clean after Christmas.
Still, it was comforting to be back at Weyfield. Walking into the drawing room, she greeted her mother’s portrait, as she always did. It showed Alice Hartley as a young mother, not much older than Olivia, and although it was a rather bad likeness, it always made Emma feel Mama was still here. Two days ago she’d stood looking at it for ages, silently telling her mother about the lump. Yesterday, seeing all the things that needed fixing in the house, she’d found herself apologizing to it instead. Just last night she’d spotted an ominous dripping in the servants’ passage—now the utility room—as she tried to dry out extra blankets for Olivia’s bed. She knew her mother would forgive her the lack of funds to redecorate. But she feared Mama would be sad that neither of her granddaughters seemed to feel much attachment to the house. Phoebe liked showing Weyfield off to friends, but that was slightly different. She made no secret of the fact that she’d have preferred it kitted out with en suite bathrooms and reliable heating. Emma guessed that the house’s faded grandeur made Olivia uncomfortable, just as it did Andrew. He never said so, but it was obvious by the way he hid in the smoking room. When they were a young couple, she had hoped that one day Andrew would stop looking out of place at Weyfield. But he never had, even after her parents died, so she’d trained herself to ignore it. That way she could indulge in private nostalgia when she was here. Perhaps that was why she didn’t really want to do the house up, she thought, looking fondly at the worn cushions and rug. She liked things as they were. She just wished the others did, too.
Sitting on the piano stool, Emma opened the box of decorations. There was something delicious about the clumps of tissue paper, softened by years of hands unwrapping and rewrapping. She knew the Hartley heirlooms by touch—baubles, round and smooth, stars spiky and the padded angels studded with tiny beads. Then there were newer Birch decorations, like the sparkly New York taxi, the Science Museum robots, and the ogee-shaped bells Andrew had brought back from Lebanon. Her favorites were the nineties glass balls from the Conran Shop, like huge soapy bubbles. There had been two dozen originally, and there was a time when one got smashed each year, but things were more sedate now. She remembered the girls having a special order in which they hung the decorations, Phoebe passing them to Olivia, who had stopped needing a stepladder when she was twelve. They’d demanded a particular Mariah Carey song on repeat, which Emma secretly rather enjoyed, and which had always driven Andrew from the room. That reminded her, he’d been gone ages. It was already dark outside. How long could it take to dig up the tree?