Gabriel was taller, anxious too, with restless moist brown eyes. She had a rather long nose and floppy fairish limply curling hair which she tossed from in front of her face, where it often found itself, with a quick pretty jerk which annoyed Alex. She had an air of fatigue, read by some as gentleness and repose. She always dressed up for visits to her mother- In-law.
Alex was tallest, still handsome everyone said, though as the years went by this saying had become traditional and worn away a little. She had an oval face and a pretty nose, and she had remained slim. She had long eyes like Brian’s, of a darker blue, which narrowed by thought or emotion in a fleeting cat-look. (Whereas Brian used to open his eyes wide and stare.) She painted her eyelids discreetly but never used lipstick. She had a long strong consciously mobile mouth. Her sleek well-cut copious hair was a light greyish blond, still managing to glow and gleam, certainly not dyed. She never bothered much with her clothes for these meetings with the Brian McCaffreys. This evening she was wearing a shabby smart rig, an old well-tailored dark coat and skirt, a careless white blouse.
Adam McCaffrey was in the garden with his dog.
‘Did the matron say when she was coming out?’ said Brian.
‘Soon.’
Alex and Gabriel were drinking gin and tonic. Gabriel was smoking.
‘Where do you think she should go then?’ said Gabriel, tossing back her hair.
‘Where do you think?’ said Alex. ‘Home.’
Gabriel looked at Brian who would not catch her eye. Gabriel thought Stella should come and stay with them when she came out of hospital. Not uttering this thought, she said vaguely to Alex, ‘Oughtn’t she to rest, to convalesce?’
‘Go to the sea,’ said Brian, deliberately confusing matters.
‘That makes no sense,’ said Alex. ‘There isn’t anywhere to go to at the sea.’ The seaside house had been sold; Alex had sold it without consulting the children.
‘I suppose we’ll go on our excursion as usual,’ said Brian. The annual seaside family picnic was an old custom. They had observed it last year, even though the house was sold, going to the same place, only a little farther along the coast. Brian and Gabriel had loved that house, that place, that precious access to the sea.
‘That’s the future,’ said Alex, narrowing her eyes. ‘I never know the future.’
‘The doctor says we mustn’t swim in the Enn any more,’ said Gabriel, ‘because of the rat-borne jaundice.’
‘I never understood why you bothered with that muddy river when you have the Baths,’ said Alex.
‘Oh well, Adam likes the river - it’s more natural and - sort of private and secret - and there are animals and birds and plants and - things — ’
‘Did he bring Zed today?’ said Alex. Zed was Adam’s dog. Adam and Zed had run straight out into the garden.
‘Yes. I do hope he won’t root anything up like when — ’ I always wonder why Adam wanted such a little pretty-pretty dog,’ said Alex. ‘Most boys like a big dog.’
‘We wonder too,’ said Brian, aware that Gabriel was hurt and would be deliberately silent. Gabriel knew Brian knew she was hurt, and tried to think of something to say. Alex understood them both and was sorry for her remark but annoyed with them for being so absurdly sensitive.
Adam’s dog was a papillon, one of the smallest of all dogs, a little dainty long-haired black and white thing with floppy plumy ears and a jaunty plumy tail, and the very darkest of blue-brown shining amused clever eyes. Adam had named him. Asked why, he had replied, ‘Because we are Alpha and Omega.’
Gabriel had thought of something to say, not very felicitous perhaps, but she had determined against Brian’s advice to say it this time. ‘I wonder if you’ve thought again about letting Brian and me have the Slipper House? It needs living in, and we’d look after it very carefully.’
Alex said at once with a casual air, ‘Oh no, I don’t think so, it’s too small and not a place for children and dogs, and I do use it, you know, it’s my studio.’
Alex had used to mess around with paints and clay and papier mâché. Brian and Gabriel doubted whether she still did. It was an excuse.
The Slipper House was a sort of folly in the form of a house built at the farther end of the garden in the nineteen-twenties by Alex’s father, Geoffrey Stillowen. It was not all that small.
Alex added, ‘You can live there when I’m underground, which will be any day now, I daresay.’
‘Nonsense, Alex!’ Brian said, and he thought: with George in Belmont? Not bloody likely! The unknown and unmentionable provisions of Alex’s will were of course of interest to the brothers.
Gabriel said, ‘When’s Tom coming?’
‘In April.’
‘Will he be in the Slipper House?’
‘No, here of course.’
‘He did stay there once.’
‘That was in summer, it’s far too cold now and I couldn’t afford the heating.’
‘Is he bringing a friend?’ asked Brian.
‘He mumbled something on the phone about “bringing Emma,” but you know how vague Tom is.’
‘Who’s this Emma?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Anyway a girl, that’s good.’
There was some anxiety in the family about whether Tom mightn’t be homosexual. Tom, now a student of London University, was living in digs near King’s Cross.
‘Have you seen George?’ said Brian, coming at last to the topic of the evening.
‘No,’ said Alex. She awaited George. George would come in his own time.
‘Have you —?’
‘Heard from him, communicated with him? No,’ she added. ‘Of course not.’
Brian nodded. He understood Alex’s feelings. He had tried to telephone George; no answer. And though urged to by Gabriel, he had not written, or again attempted to call.
‘I feel we ought to do something,’ said Gabriel.
‘What on earth can we do?’ said Alex. George was an emotional subject for all of them.
‘People talk so,’ said Brian.
‘I don’t care a damn about people talking,’ said Alex, ‘and I’m surprised to hear that you do!’
‘It isn’t — ’ said Gabriel.
‘Of course,’ said Brian, ‘I care about him, I care if he’s hurt or damaged, by what people — ’
‘I believe you’re thinking of yourself,’ said Alex.
‘I’m thinking of myself too,’ said Brian, staring.
‘Some people say he was heroic,’ said Gabriel, ‘rescuing Stella from — ’
‘You know that’s not what they’re saying,’ said Brian.
‘It’s not what they’re enjoying saying,’ said Alex. She had received sympathetic remarks from people at the Institute, but she had seen the gleam in their eyes. At the frivolous level at which such agreements were reached, it seemed now to be generally agreed that George McCaffrey had indeed tried to kill his wife.
‘I think George should have himself seen to,’ said Brian.
‘What a perfectly horrible phrase,’ said Alex. ‘Why don’t you have yourself seen to?’
‘Maybe I should,’ said Brian, ‘but George - I sometimes feel now that he might do - almost anything — ’
‘What rubbish you talk,’ said Alex, ‘it’s just spite.’
‘I don’t feel like that about him,’ said Gabriel.
‘What do you want him to do about himself anyway?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Brian, ‘see a doctor — ’
‘You mean Dr Roach? Don’t be silly. George drinks too much, that’s all. So does Gabriel.’
‘She doesn’t,’ said Brian.
‘All George needs — ’
‘It’s more than that,’ said Brian. ‘It’s more than just drink, of course it is. Call it a chemical imbalance if you like!’
‘George is like everyone else, only in his case it shows.’
‘Because he’s more honest!’
‘Because he’s a fool.’
‘You know perfectly well that George isn’t like everyone else, it’s gone on too long, he’s violent to Stella — ’
‘Is he? Who says so?’
‘Well, not Stella, naturally. You know he gets into rages and hits people and he lost his job because — ’
‘All right, but — ’
‘It’s more, it’s something deep, it’s not just being tipsy and stupid, it’s — ’
‘You mean it’s something evil, is that what you mean?’
‘No, who am I to judge — ’
‘You seem to be doing nothing but judge.’
‘I think we should try to help him as a family,’ said Gabriel. ‘I think he feels very isolated.’
‘I don’t mean evil,’ said Brian, ‘I mean psychologically deep.’
‘George doesn’t hate anyone,’ said Alex, ‘except himself.’
‘He might talk to Robin Osmore,’ said Gabriel. Robin Osmore was the family solicitor.
‘If he hates himself,’ said Brian, ‘let him act accordingly.’
‘Do you want your brother to commit suicide?’
‘No, I just mean swallow his own bile, not involve other people.’
‘I think — ’ said Gabriel.
‘Get himself some electric shocks.’
‘Don’t drivel,’ said Alex.
Gabriel said, ‘Oh no.’
‘All right then, what about our great psychiatrist, Ivor Sefton?’
‘Sefton is a booby,’ said Alex. ‘He never cured anyone, they come out dafter than they go in. And he charges the earth.’
‘He can have it free on the National Health.’
‘Only in a group, imagine George in a group!’
‘No one would join his group anyway,’ said Brian. ‘At least George has got a good pension, I can’t think why. His pension is about the same as my salary!’
‘George isn’t mad.’
‘I didn’t say he was.’
‘Leave him alone. You know we’ve got to leave him alone.’
‘I wonder if Professor Rozanov could help him,’ said Gabriel.
‘Who?’ said Alex.
‘John Robert Rozanov,’ said Brian. ‘Why should he? Anyway he’s old and pretty gaga by now.’
‘I wonder what happened to the little girl,’ said Gabriel.
‘What little girl?’
‘Wasn’t there a little grandchild, the one Ruby’s cousin or something was looking after once?’
‘I’ve no notion,’ said Brian. ‘I don’t think Rozanov ever saw the child at all, he wasn’t interested; he only cared about his philosophy.’
‘And that’s the man you imagine could help George!’
‘Well, wasn’t he his old teacher?’ said Gabriel.
‘I can’t see George bothering with him,’ said Brian.
‘Leave George alone,’ Alex repeated.
In the silence that followed Gabriel drifted over to the bow window, past chairs and sofas piled with cushions embroidered by Alex. This move was a part of the symphony, the sign that Brian and his mother could now take looks at each other and bring the conversation to a suitable close.
Gabriel saw the reflection of her cigarette grow brighter in the glass pane. Then she could see the familiar burly outline of the trees against a dull darkening sky. The self-contained stillness of that garden always troubled her with emotions - awe, envy, fear. She sighed, thinking of that future of which Alex could say nothing. She looked down. A little white thing sped across the lawn like a ball swiftly bowled, then a boy. They vanished under the dark trees. Such a frail little dog, the very image of her destructible son. Adam was not growing, he was already exceptionally small for his age. She had asked the doctor who told her not to worry.