Family Album

Allersmead

Gina turned the car off the road and into the driveway of Allersmead. At this point she seemed to see her entire life flash by. As the drowning are said to do. She thought of this, and that the genuinely drowning can never have been recorded on the matter.

Philip, in the passenger seat, saw a substantial Edwardian house, a wide flight of steps up to a front door with stained glass panels, a weedy sweep of gravel in front. Emphatic trees all around. Sprawling shrubs. Stone urns that spilled lanky geraniums at the bottom of the steps. He had known Gina for six months and had been her lover for five of these. Gina saw Alison standing on the top step, arms raised in rather theatrical greeting. She saw Charles emerge from the hall, staring down at them in what seemed mild surprise. Philip saw a plump, smiling elderly woman with hair tumbling untidily from a bun, who was joined by a tall, stooped man wearing the kind of tweed jacket that you had thought was laid to rest by the 1970s. A large dog shambled at his heels, and slumped down on the top step.

Gina saw various spectres and dismissed them. Many people spoke, saying things they had been saying for years, and were also wiped. She brought the car to a stop, and got out, as did Philip. She said, ‘Hi, there. This is Philip.’

Alison came down the steps, embraced Gina and beamed upon Philip. ‘I’m Alison. Lovely to meet you.’

Charles simply stood. The dog thumped its tail. Philip took the cases from the boot. He and Gina climbed the steps. Gina said, ‘Philip, this is Charles – my father.’

Charles seemed to consider Philip, as though wondering if he might have seen him before. ‘And Ingrid,’ Gina continued.

Philip now saw another woman waiting in the large hall (black and white tiled floor, grandfather clock, umbrella stand, row of pegs loaded with raincoats, oak table strewn with junk mail), a statuesque and somewhat younger woman with straight fair hair and pink face, holding a garden trug full of greenery.

‘Ingrid has such a splendid vegetable crop this year,’ said Alison. ‘We have broad beans coming out of our ears.’

The house smelled of cooking. You could unravel the constituent ingredients: garlic, herbs, wine – some earthy casserole, a coq au vin perhaps, or a boeuf en daube. Philip observed the staircase with oak banisters, the landing halfway up with window seat and further stained-glass window, the door open into a room apparently filled with books. A big house. A house from the days when people – a kind of person – assumed a big house.

Gina experienced nostalgia, exasperation and a passionate need to be in their flat in Camden, with Philip opening a bottle of something after work.

Someone came galloping down the stairs, and halted at the bend, eyes on Gina. ‘Christ!’ he said. ‘Not you again!’

‘Sod off,’ said Gina amiably.

Philip saw grubby jeans, a frayed sweater and some eerie affinity with Gina.

‘Honestly, Paul!’ cried Alison. ‘Gina hasn’t been here for over a year.’

‘It’s called irony,’ said Gina. ‘Not that he’d know that. So how are things, you?’

Paul came down the stairs. ‘Why are you that brown colour?’

‘Africa.’ 

‘We saw you on the news,’ said Ingrid. ‘Talking to those people fighting somewhere. Terrible.’

‘Indeed. Paul – this is Philip.’

‘Hi, Philip. Do you do Africa and stuff too?’ 

‘I’m in editorial. I stay behind a desk mostly.’

‘Very wise.’ Charles was moving towards the book-filled room but now halted. ‘The Times, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Gina. ‘You haven’t met Philip before. Not The Times.’

‘Forgive me.’ A kindly smile. ‘Not that I read it any longer. Once, it was the thinking man’s paper. Now, one shops around, and is generally dissatisfied. What do you read?’

‘The Independent,’ said Philip, after a moment. ‘By and large.’ He felt at a disadvantage, for reasons he could not identify.

‘For the compost heap those small papers are better,’ said Ingrid. ‘The ones with big headlines – what do you call them?’

‘Tabloids.’ Gina picked up her case. ‘Which room, Mum?’

‘I do not know why,’ Ingrid went on. ‘It is perhaps to do with the ink. I am putting on the kettle now.’ She walked away through a door in the back of the hall.

‘The big spare room, dear. And then come down and have tea. My orange and lemon cake. It used to be your favourite.’

Gina and Philip climbed the stairs. Gina led the way into a bedroom. Philip glanced around and sensed a room that had remained the way it was for some time: functional rather than aspiring – an Indian-print bedspread, the walls in need of a lick of paint. He went to the window and saw a great sweep of garden: a terrace, and then a huge lawn skirted by trees, dropping away to other areas, furtive and invisible.

‘Plenty of space.’

‘Just as well. There were six of us.’

‘Did David work on The Times?’

‘At one point.’

They were still at the stage when they skirted each other’s impedimenta. Philip’s ex-wife lurked in the wings. A former boyfriend of Gina’s sometimes surfaced in this way, causing slight difficulty. And there was Allersmead, which Gina had decided had best be confronted head-on. Philip’s parents were in undemanding retirement in Cornwall, and had already been dealt with, over a weekend.

‘So what’s the difference?’ Philip had said. ‘With your lot? Why is it apparently a bigger deal?’

‘You’ll see,’ she had replied.

Philip walked around the room. He picked up a photo on the mantelpiece. ‘Six. Only five here.’

‘Presumably someone wasn’t yet born.’

‘Paul is . . . ?’

‘That one. He came before me. Eldest.’

‘And you had a brace on your teeth. Your fans would be aghast.’

‘Shut up.’ She was emptying her bag onto the bed. T-shirt, toilet things, not much else. She always travelled light. In the wardrobe at the flat, there was the other bag, permanently packed with basic clothes, passport, cash – in case she had to go somewhere at a moment’s notice.

‘Brace and all, you were a fetching little girl.’

‘No one thought so at the time. Sandra was the pretty one.’

He moved back to the window. ‘Halcyon summer days. Hide and Seek. Picnics on the grass. It’s the stuff of dreams.’

‘Huh! By the way, the bathroom’s on the other side of the landing. The door sticks. You just push hard.’

‘Who does the cooking? Something smells amazing.’

‘My mother mostly, sometimes Ingrid.’ She had opened his case, and was taking out his things. ‘Which side of the bed do you want?’

‘Left. I like that window. Who is Ingrid?’

‘The au pair girl.’

‘But . . .’

‘But she is no girl? Indeed. Ingrid has been the au pair girl for many years.’

Philip appeared to consider this. ‘And she is . . . not exactly English?’

‘Swedish or Danish or something. Once.’

‘No longer?’

‘Well, look at her. She’s Allersmead now, isn’t she?’

Gina continued to hear voices; her life was still flashing at her. It seemed odd that Philip could be impervious to this, that a person with whom one had become so absolutely intimate could be so perversely ignorant. Not know. Not see and hear. One is sealed off, she thought. So is he. So’s everyone. No wonder there’s mayhem. 

‘We should go down.’

‘Of course. The orange and lemon cake.’ He had flung himself on the bed, arms behind his head. ‘How extraordinary – that you spring from here, and I know nothing about it.’

‘Rather what I was thinking. But I sprang some time ago, remember.’

‘Even so . . . I have to say, I don’t see much physical resemblance. A hint of your father’s nose, perhaps. Remind me again what exactly is his field.’

‘Field? Charles writes – wrote – books. Polymath – he’d probably buy that description. History, philosophy, sociology – a bit of everything.’

‘The name did ring a bell. When I met you.’

‘He’d be gratified.’

‘Wide readership?’ enquired Philip, after a moment.

‘Actually, yes. Accessible. More so than the academics, I suppose. Listen, we must go down.’

He held out his arms. ‘Come here.’

‘Not now. Later.’