Just a Family Affair Page 2

  As she opened the door and saw the solemn expressions, then recognized the uniform of the police, a warning sprang into her mind. What was that irritating strap line that people seemed so fond of these days?

  Be careful what you wish for . . .

  Two

  Lucy Liddiard woke with butterflies and a smile on her face. A trickle of golden sunlight was filtering through the curtains, the sound of birdsong hinting that spring was on its way and the long winter was at last coming to an end. She estimated that it must be about half past six - the house was quiet, which meant the heating, still necessary to take the edge off the morning chill, hadn’t come on yet. The pipes usually rumbled and groaned for the first half-hour of their wakening.

  Next to her, her husband Mickey was still out for the count. In the half-light, the few silver threads in his dark curls couldn’t be seen, nor the laughter lines that were just starting to deepen at the corner of his eyes and around his mouth, now he was approaching fifty. One year closer today. She considered waking him and wishing him a happy birthday, but decided against it. It was still far too early - she’d take advantage of the peace and quiet. She had a lot to do.

  For the fifth time she added up how many she had coming for lunch. For months, it had been just the two of them for Sunday lunch at Honeycote House, which had been horribly strange. In the end, Lucy had stopped bothering doing a roast, because it was hardly worth it. But today, everyone was coming round for Mickey’s birthday, and she couldn’t wait.

  Her stepson, Patrick, and his girlfriend Mandy would probably arrive first. They usually rushed off somewhere glamorous on a Sunday. To the races, or shopping in Bath, or for lunch with friends at a rowdy restaurant in Cheltenham. But then they were young and in love and with no real responsibility, although Lucy knew that Patrick had taken a lot on board at Honeycote Ales. He’d stepped into Mickey’s shoes straight after the ghastly accident that Lucy didn’t like to think about any more, now it was becoming a distant memory. Even now Mickey was back on form Patrick seemed to manage more than his share of the workload. God knows where the boy had inherited his sense of duty from. Certainly not his father - Mickey was notoriously irresponsible, only marginally less so now he was undeniably middle-aged. And not his mother either. She had been by all accounts a hippydippy flake, which was why Mickey had managed to get custody in the end. Lucy had brought Patrick up as her own, and she thought the world of him.

  He was so like Mickey in some ways. They both had the devil-may-care insouciance that only the truly handsome can carry off, combined with boyish charm, immaculate manners and a fondness for the good things in life. But Lucy knew Patrick had hidden depths. He was not as transparent as his father; he took things to heart, though he was always desperate not to show it. Mickey, on the other hand, was a bona fide ostrich. If he could pretend something bad wasn’t happening, then he would. Patrick did the worrying for both of them.

  Which made Lucy wonder if Mandy was quite the right girl for him. She was very sweet, but perhaps a little . . . well, superficial seemed an unkind description. But Lucy couldn’t help feeling that Patrick needed someone who could unlock whatever it was that lay underneath his beguiling exterior, someone who understood his complexity. On the other hand, perhaps someone like Mandy was good for him. She was a simple soul, straightforward and relatively undemanding, not like a lot of girls these days, who seemed to expect everything their own way with gold-plated, diamond-encrusted knobs on.

  Next to appear would be Mandy’s father, Keith. Lovely, cuddly Keith, with his ready smile and the broad Brummie accent he would never lose. He’d come for one of their infamous Sunday lunches a few years ago, just after his ghastly wife had left him. Disillusioned with the empty life he was leading in soulless, suburban Solihull, he’d fallen under the Liddiard spell immediately, plunging all his money into the ailing brewery, which had been on the verge of bankruptcy at the time. He was virtually one of the family now. He would be bringing Ginny, his . . . what would you call her? Girlfriend? Lover? Mistress? Other half? Lucy wasn’t sure of the official term. She’d introduced the two of them to each other three years ago, when they had both been abandoned souls licking their respective wounds, and they had been living together ever since.

  Lucy’s younger daughter, Georgina, was also coming back from university in Gloucester for the day, bombing over in her clapped-out Fiesta. Madcap Georgie - the phrase ‘jolly hockeysticks’ could have been coined just for her. She was halfway through her degree; Lucy had never quite got to the bottom of what it was all about, but it seemed to involve hospitality and sport and tourism - perfect for the sporty, bossy Georgie. Lucy was eternally grateful that she’d chosen a university close enough for her to pop back for the day if she felt like it. Her older daughter, Sophie, was on yet another jaunt to Australia with her boyfriend Ned, and it was Lucy’s greatest fear that they would never come home.

  Last of all, and late, because they were always late these days, would be Mickey’s brother James, his wife Caroline, and their three children, who were all under five. Lucy prayed that James and Caroline would be on speaking terms. Their relationship was pretty strained at the moment. James, it was safe to say, was not a new man, and Caroline was volatile at the best of times. At least everyone would muck in today and look after the kids so she could have a bit of a break.

  All in all, that made a total of twelve for lunch. Lucy wasn’t fazed. She preferred catering for large numbers. It was what she was used to. She’d been hopeless at cooking for just her and Mickey; half of what she prepared had ended up in the bin or the dog’s bowl each night. Today she was cooking two enormous fillets of beef - one medium, one rare - and her mouth watered at the prospect of the beetroot-red velvety slices. Batter for dozens and dozens of Yorkshire puddings was already resting in a jug in the pantry.

  She padded down to the kitchen. Every time she walked in, it still gave her a shock. The kitchen at Honeycote House had long been legendary. Hundreds of meals, impromptu parties and spontaneous celebrations had taken place around the enormous table in its midst. No one cared that the doors of the antiquated kitchen units were hanging off their hinges, or that the plaster was falling off, or that the walls hadn’t been redecorated for years. But two months ago Lucy had finally decided that enough was enough. If you looked at it in the cold light of day, and not through a fug of wine and smoke and laughter and cooking smells, it was a disgrace. She had looked around one morning and seen nothing but grease stains and cobwebs. Time for a makeover, she’d decided.

  Lucy was no princess. She gutted the kitchen herself, manhandling the old units out into the tack room where they could be used to store animal food and cleaning equipment. Then she’d been through all her old gadgets and utensils, chucking out anything broken or out-of-date. The process had been exhausting. She’d found mementos and treasures from years ago. Postcards from long-lost friends. An old Rimmel lipstick, the smell of which brought the past rushing back to her so vividly it turned her stomach. Cocktail sticks and paper cases that reminded her of all the sausages on sticks and fairy cakes she’d done for children’s parties over the years. A gingham bun-holder trimmed in ric-rac that Sophie had made for her, which Lucy had proudly displayed at dinner parties for years, even though her guests had looked askance at it. Tupperware boxes that still smelled of the picnic food they’d once held. Lucy felt flayed alive emotionally as she forced herself to rid the kitchen of anything remotely rancid, which was pretty much everything.

  She’d sat for hours looking at the row of empty champagne bottles that used to sit on the top shelf of the dresser, the occasion they had marked inscribed on each label in thick black pen. Why was she so desperate to hang on to them? Would life change one iota if she took them to the recycling centre in Eldenbury? All they did was gather dust, and, if she was honest, remind her of times that could never be repeated. She forced herself to drop each bottle into the bin in the supermarket car park, wiping away tears with her remaining hand, hopin
g desperately no one would spot her. As the glass shattered, it occurred to her that over the past couple of years nothing had happened worth celebrating. It had been a period of farewells, as first Patrick had moved out to live with Mandy, then Sophie and Georgina had flown the nest, leaving Lucy and Mickey to rattle around in Honeycote House, which had always been large but now seemed positively cavernous.

  One wall in the kitchen had been smothered in photographs. It was a veritable rogues’ gallery - Mickey dressed as a woman, the girls on a toboggan being pulled by Patrick; Lucy in a flapper dress for the Great Gatsby party they had for her fortieth; a toothless Georgie on the family pony. They were cracked and faded. Lucy took them all down carefully, annotated them as well as her memory allowed, and took them to a girl who specialized in photographic collages. The snapshots had come back beautifully mounted and framed in a chronological unfolding of life at Honeycote House. It was a work of art, but Lucy still preferred the slapdash version that had been stuck to the wall with browning sticky tape.

  Then she commissioned some simple cupboards in oak tongue and groove, held together with huge black hinges she’d found in a reclamation yard. The walls, once a cheery egg-yolk yellow, were now painted a calm and restful duck-egg blue. The ancient Laura Ashley curtains were replaced with a smart Vanessa Arbuthnott roller blind - the fabric had been screamingly expensive, but Lucy had got a remnant and made the blind herself, which had involved a fair amount of swearing. Then she’d treated herself to some new appliances. A new fridge, for a start, with a freezer that defrosted itself. All she’d had before was an ice box that got so full the peas invariably slid out every time you opened it.

  By the end of the project she was even more unsettled. There was no doubt the kitchen was stunning. Decluttering it had seemed to double the size and the light, but to Lucy it didn’t feel quite right. She felt faintly embarrassed every time she cooked in it, rather as if she had a new dress on that she wasn’t quite sure about. Everyone who had seen it had exclaimed how fantastic it looked, but she could tell deep down they preferred the previous incarnation, as did she. She sighed. She would get used to it. It just needed distressing; perhaps today’s celebrations would take the gloss off it and make it feel more lived in.

  Lucy felt as if she’d been treading water for ages, waiting for the next phase of her life. Surely it didn’t just fade into complete nothingness? She’d heard of empty-nest syndrome, but didn’t that belong to women of a different age - menopausal, grey-haired creatures with thick waists and no dress sense? Technically, Lucy could still have another baby if she wanted. She’d been barely in her twenties when she’d had Sophie and Georgina. This solution to her ennui had occurred to her in a wild moment when she’d folded all the girls’ baby clothes away one afternoon and put them in the attic, but she’d dismissed it fairly rapidly. If not a baby, then the traditional route for a dissatisfied, middle-aged woman was either an affair or an Open University degree. Neither of which particularly appealed.

  She checked the warming oven of the Aga to see if her pavlovas had dried out - three dense, chewy discs of meringue as big as dinner plates which would be piled on top of each other with dollops of whipped cream flecked with raspberries - madly out of season but now she had the facilities, she could take advantage of frozen fruit. That would keep the sweet-toothed brigade happy, while the rest could delve into Stilton or Brie. There was a whole one of each resting on a marble slab.

  At the prospect of the banquet to come, Lucy felt like her old self again. She sang as she put on the kettle, dancing round the kitchen in her striped pyjamas and bed socks, lighter of heart than she had been for months.

  Mickey Liddiard stood in the doorway of his transformed kitchen, smiling. His wife still did it for him. She could be sixteen from behind, and not much more from in front, to be honest. Lucy had never used anything more exotic than Ponds Cold Cream, but it had done the trick - her skin was smooth and glowing, her treacle-brown eyes unlined. Her tousled chestnut hair fell to her shoulders, without a hint of grey. She was still as slim as a reed; riding kept her waist trim, her buttocks taut, her arms toned.

  He knew she’d been struggling over the past few months. She hated the house when it was empty. Lucy thrived on company, the more the merrier. When the children were young, there had been a constant stream of friends in and out, coming for tea, sleeping over, sometimes staying for days on end. Patrick’s girlfriend Mandy had been one such guest - she’d come to stay for the weekend with Sophie and to all intents and purposes had never actually left. But with Patrick and Mandy now in their own little cottage, Sophie in Australia and Georgina at uni, the stream had dried up. Mickey had watched Lucy almost wither away. Once or twice he’d offered to find her a job at the brewery, but she’d batted away the idea with what was bordering on scorn. She’d be no use at the brewery. She had no idea how it was run. And as she’d never done a day’s work in her life, she’d be a liability. Lucy had no confidence in her own abilities.

  And now, thought Mickey, he was glad she hadn’t taken him up on his offer. Business was pretty grim, and he preferred to protect her from the harsh reality of belt-tightening and redundancies. Had she been working for Honeycote Ales, he’d have found it hard to hide the truth.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Liddiard.’ He affected a cod bumpkin accent.

  She turned round with a start. He grinned at her, lounging against the wall in his chambray pyjama bottoms, his shoulders still as broad and his stomach still as flat as the day she had met him, then gave her a lascivious tradesman’s wink as he held up the bottle of milk he’d retrieved from the doorstep.

  ‘I brought you your usual. Will that be all today, or was there something else you were after?’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Ernie.’ She played along immediately, her eyes sparkling. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind one of your specials today.’

  ‘Ooh, right, Mrs Liddiard. I’ll see what I can do. If you’d just like to come over ’ere, I’ll start by taking your top off.’

  ‘Oh Ernie . . .’

  She giggled as he unbuttoned her pyjamas. Moments later, ‘Ernie’ had scooped her up and carried her upstairs, dropping her on the bed in a heap.

  ‘They don’t call me the fastest milkman in the west for nothing,’ he murmured as he ravished her amongst the rumpled bedclothes.

  An hour later, Lucy woke with a start. They’d fallen asleep, tangled in each other’s arms.

  ‘Come on, Mickey. Get up. They’ll all be here soon and I’ve got mounds of potatoes to peel and the table to lay.’

  She flew back down the stairs to the kitchen, put the kettle back on the hotplate and drew breath. It wasn’t quite nine by the clock on the wall. She leant back against the Aga for a moment to wait for the water to boil, breathing out a little sigh of contentment. Spring in the air, sex with the milkman, followed by a houseful for lunch. It didn’t get better than that.

  By midday, everything was under control. Lucy stood back to admire her handiwork. It was unusual for her to be so particular; at Honeycote House, meals and celebrations seemed to evolve by some sort of osmosis that took no planning, underpinned with a slight air of chaos. Today, because there was no one in the house to distract her, no dilemmas to deal with, she could concentrate on the task in hand, which was making her nervous. In the old days, the phone would have been ringing continuously, dogs would be barking as people came and went, an argument over clothing would break out between the girls, Mickey would slope off at the last minute, just when she needed him to carve or bring in some logs . . . but today peace and order reigned.

  The table looked stunning. When she’d finished the kitchen, Lucy had reflected that she and Mickey had been using his parents’ old crockery all these years, old-fashioned and chipped and mismatched. They had Wedgwood and the Waterford for special occasions, of course, but in the kitchen they had always made do. It had never seemed to matter before, but now the plates didn’t fit at all. So Lucy had rushed out and bought a dozen cream dinner pla
tes - rustic Provençal china with scrolled edges. And a dozen chunky wine glasses with square bottoms that she’d fallen in love with - for years they had drunk out of the boring goblets they got from the supplier who did the pubs, because glasses at Honeycote House always got broken and there was no point in having any nicer ones.

  Now, all her purchases were laid out on the table. There were also soft linen napkins trimmed with lace that Lucy had found in the airing cupboard, and laundered and ironed, another legacy from Mickey’s mother - they didn’t usually bother with such niceties. A huge wrought-iron candelabra sat in the middle, stuffed with proper beeswax candles. Lucy reminded herself to remove it at some stage during the meal or it was bound to get knocked over. Two enamel jugs were stuffed to the gills with white tulips.

  Sunlight shone in through the open kitchen window, lighting up the whole room, and Lucy could hear the peal of bells as the Sunday service at the little church in the village finished. Lucy sometimes went, because she knew the church might be in danger of closure if it wasn’t supported, but today she hadn’t had time. She slid a tray of cheese straws into the baking oven of the Aga and rushed upstairs to get changed.

  In recognition of spring, she put on a pale yellow linen skirt, a white cashmere cardigan, and white ballet flats. She had a moment to look in the mirror just as the front doorbell jangled madly, shook her hair out with her fingers, and ran down the stairs to greet the first of her guests.

  It was Caroline and James who arrived first, which was unusual. Their oldest, Henry, hurtled in through the door with a bloodcurdling Red Indian war cry and a plastic tomahawk. James followed, looking awkward with Percy in his Carrytot. He had never been at home with baby paraphernalia but as someone pointed out, Mothercare didn’t do Chippendale car seats. Caroline brought up the rear with two-year-old Constance, who stumped over the gravel and up the steps clinging on to her mother’s finger, solemn beneath her ginger pudding-bowl haircut.