Allard met her at the station, very disgruntled as the house sale was taking a very long time to arrange. He was as grey-haired as his sister, and wore a flamboyant bright silk scarf with a rose in his buttonhole. The rest of his garb was as crumpled and disarranged as usual.
Harriet looked him up and down. ‘You know, for a poof, you are quite the worst dresser I’ve ever come across... Aren’t you supposed to be dapper?’
‘Good God, look who’s talking! You’re not exactly straight off the cover of Vogue yourself, are you? And what on earth have you got all those rows of beads round your neck for?’
‘I made them, that’s why. We did it in therapy, and I might go into business, you know, a cottage industry sort of thing. See, each one is painted, hand painted.’
‘I think they’re ghastly. Oh Christ this fucking hill, the car’s only just going to make it.’
They chugged up the hill in Allard’s rotting MG and eventually made it to Haverley Hall. The place was as draughty and as cold as ever, and even more dusty than the manor house. Harriet looked up at the crumbling pile and sighed. ‘Ah well — home, sweet home.’
‘Not for long, the sooner we get shot of this place the better. Have you got any idea how much stuff we have got to sort through and sell? Where are you going? Aren’t you going to make us tea? Harry?’
‘I’ll just go to my room and unpack first...’
Book Seven
Chapter twenty-seven
Harriet put her suitcase on the small familiar bed. Even though it was cold, she opened her window and stared out towards the old stables, then across the fields to the woods.
‘I’m going for a walk.’
Allard stood at the bottom of the stairs hands on his hips. ‘But you’ve only just got here. I’ve not stopped for a minute, I’ve not had time to go for a walk.’
‘Oh shut up, you look like a demented lurcher.’
‘What?’
She marched to the front door. ‘It’s a cross between a greyhound and a wolfhound, very skinny, usually rather bald and with a very snipey nose.’
‘I know what a lurcher is, and it’s a damned sight preferable to a baby elephant.’
She went out wagging her finger. ‘I won’t forget that, Allard.’
She walked for miles along small winding lanes, the sounds of the crows screeching above her head. Three young girls on their ponies trotted by with their smart jodhpurs and black riding hats... memories of her childhood swept over her. The riders entered a field and began to canter; she closed her eyes to the sound of their hooves. Babba boom... babboom... she belonged here, her father had been right. As she made her way back to the Hall swishing a stick against the hedgerows, she wondered what her life would have been like if she had never met Edward, if he had never taken her away.
Allard was sitting in the kitchen by the fire. He held up an old family photograph album. ‘There’s some hysterical snaps of us. Remember that old Brownie camera Pa had...? There’s not one with an entire body in it. Great one of Buster, just his arse, rather fitting as his raspberries were about all he was good for...’
Allard continued snorting with laughter as he turned the pages. She put the kettle on and took one of the scones Allard had bought from the local bakery. She lathered butter over it, and with her mouth full leaned on his shoulders to look at the photographs.
‘Who’s that?’
Allard touched the faded black-and-white snapshot. ‘Fella called Charlie, your husband took over his rooms at Cambridge, he was killed at Dunkirk... Christ, here’s one of me in the Footlights’ revue. Well well, fancy the old man keeping that, I would have thought he’d have tossed it.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I’m in drag and you know what he was like...’
He snapped the book closed, his initial good humour gone. ‘Christ, he was a bastard even then.’
Before she could stop him he had thrown the book on to the fire.
‘Allard, you shouldn’t have done that... I would have liked to look through it. No matter what Pa said or did he never kept you short...’
Allard gave her a pinched, vicious look. ‘I was actually referring to Edward. He took more than Charlie’s rooms I can tell you...’
‘Why did you bring him home that Christmas?’
‘You know, I haven’t the foggiest. Maybe to use him as a cover for my flirtation with Henry... who knows, who cares, all in the past now... anyway you look at it he certainly trod through our lives. Family is littered with his wreckage...’
Allard went into the hall changing the subject, intent on sorting out all the furniture for the forthcoming auction.
Harriet gazed into the fire as the photographs charred into tiny black flecks.
Allard was pulling off the dust sheets from the dining-room chairs. He heard her going up the stairs and threw the sheets aside. ‘Harriet... are you going to help me or not? You haven’t done a thing, not a single thing since you arrived... Harry?’
She looked down to him, almost at the top of the stairs. ‘I am not wreckage, Allard. If I had the choice, I would choose him again... whatever place, whatever time, there could never be anyone else.’
Allard applauded. ‘When you get through playing Gone With The Wind, do you think you could come down here and give me a hand packing up?’
The gong from the first landing was thrown over the banisters. ‘How’s that for starters?’
Allard and Harriet had never got on all that well, even as children. Now they bickered over what they should do with tables, chairs and pictures. Allard kept one room filled with the things he wanted, and it was crammed to the rafters.
Harriet launched into a tirade. ‘How on earth are you going to fit all this junk into a cottage? You keep on grabbing everything from the “for sale” pile.’
‘I do not, I simply do not, I am preparing for my old age, and I intend to live it out in comfort, so mind your own bloody business. Some of this old stuff is worth a packet and we won’t get a good price from those local idiots.’
Jinks pushed open the front door. She could hear their voices arguing away but could not see them over the jumble of furniture piled almost to the ceiling. She called, ‘Mother?... Mother?’
‘We’re up here, darling — at last, someone who can act as referee. Helloooo, my lovely girl, how are you?’
‘Hello Mother, Uncle Allard — I’m wonderfully well, how are you two?’
Allard was covered in dust, his face grimy. ‘Bloody awful if you must know. Your mother is doing nothing but causing havoc here. I was doing perfectly well without her. I wish she’d never come.’
Harriet swiped at him with a duster. ‘Half of this is mine and I want to make sure my daughter gets her fair share. If you would excuse us, Allard, we are going into my room, for a private conversation.’
Allard muttered that he didn’t give a toss what they said about him and he watched Jinks pick her way up the stairs to reach her mother.
Jinks was no longer surprised by her mother’s appearance. She had not really changed, despite her grey hair sticking up on end and the beads clinking around her neck as she bustled along the landing. Jinks couldn’t help but smile as she slipped her arm around her mother’s shoulders. ‘How are you?’
‘Well, it’s very difficult, you know. Allard’s really a little bit odd, he really is. And so finicky about what he eats. Come on, let’s have a good natter. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive for weeks.’
Harriet closed her bedroom door and moved to the bed, patting it for her daughter to sit beside her. Jinks felt a sudden surge of emotion, so strong she hugged Harriet tight, kissing the top of her head. ‘I love you Ma, I love you so.’