Rumours. Freya North
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of each room – the photograph frames and various porcelain ornaments just so, the furniture whose configuration never changed, the heavy folds of the enormous curtains as vertical and precise as the fluting on Greek columns. And the portraits of the ancestors, positioned around the house like sentries, some gazing benignly, some fixing sternly, all staring directly.
‘Little changes, Xander.’
‘I’m pleased.’
‘You still look from portrait to portrait, as if answering questions asked of you in a particular order.’
‘I know.’
‘You’re wearing a tie.’
‘I could have worn a jacket.’
‘Mostly, these days, I see you scampering around in all that ghastly sportswear.’
‘I’m training – I have a half-marathon next week.’
‘Does that mean you’ll be begging me for sponsorship?’
‘Most definitely.’
‘African babies again?’
‘Cancer, this time.’
‘Jolly good. Pastry?’
Xander finished a jam tart and waited for Lydia to raise her eyebrows at the platter for him to help himself to another. ‘Longbridge plums,’ he said, ‘incomparable.’
‘Jars and jars of the bastard stuff in the pantry – help yourself when you go,’ Lydia said. ‘Surplus from the summer fete – the first time we’ve come back with unsold produce. Ever.’
‘Don’t take it personally,’ Xander said. ‘People are holding on to their pennies. Anyway, I heard it was more to do with politics within the committee.’
‘That wretched bouncing castle monstrosity?’
Xander laughed. ‘And the rest.’
‘Personally,’ said Lydia, ‘ I blame all that shopping people do nowadays on those computers. It’s an obsession and, if you ask me, absolutely unnecessary! All those supermarket vans double parking along the high street and all those delivery companies doing the postman out of a job. More tea?’
‘Please.’ He offered his cup because Lydia liked to pour and she wouldn’t tolerate people stretching. ‘How are things here?’ He looked around – it looked the same, but Longbridge was so much more than the house itself. ‘I hear Mr Tringle made a good recovery – pneumonia is no laughing matter, especially not at his age.’
‘I’ve always thought, if they dropped one of those nuclear bombs, he’d be the one creaking his way out of the debris. Extraordinary chap, really.’
‘How about the barns?’ asked Xander. ‘Did you get anywhere with the planners?’
Lydia looked a little uncomfortable. ‘I’m just going to have to let them crumble – it’s too much work and too much money. And Xander, how are you? Are you any closer to marrying?’
Xander stirred his tea thoughtfully, despite not taking sugar. ‘No.’
‘Are you one of the gays?’
‘No, Lydia. I’m not.’
She raised her eyebrow, archly. ‘I’ve heard people talking.’
‘Talking?’
‘Village tittle-tattle.’
‘And you listen to it?’
‘Sometimes I like to remember dear Alice Roosevelt who used to say, if you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.’
‘And people are saying I’m not nice?’
‘Well, if you won’t provide the real story of Laura – then the only option you give them is to rumour.’
‘Whatever the gossip is,’ said Xander, ‘it’s probably far more salacious and entertaining than the reality. I don’t care what people say about me.’
‘If you’re sure you haven’t joined the gays – perhaps you’ve become a playboy?’ Lydia chuckled. ‘A cad?’ She laughed. ‘A gigolo?’ And she pronounced it with hard ‘g’s.
Xander shrugged – coming from Lydia, none of this irritated him. ‘I haven’t met the right girl, Lady Lydia.’
‘But you’re having lots of fun with all the wrong ones, for the time being?’
He loved it when Lydia turned saucy.
‘Your mother must be so proud.’ She paused. ‘I bet your mother doesn’t know the half of it.’
‘I sincerely hope not,’ said Xander.
‘Are you a two-timer?’ She said it as if it was some modern phrase she wasn’t entirely sure she was using correctly.
‘No, Lydia, I’m not. I just don’t invest much time, or importance, in – relationships,’ Xander said, as if it was a word whose meaning he was unsure of. He loosened his tie, feeling hot under the collar.
‘I hope you’re a gentleman,’ Lydia said sternly.
‘I’ve never made a girl cry,’ Xander said, with a theatricality that had Lydia chuckling.
‘I’m sure your Laura shed a tear or two over you. I know your mother did, at the time.’
‘That was well over two years ago.’
Lydia could see Xander’s discomfort. ‘I always said you should have tracked her down sooner. Said sorry with something sparkly from Garrard’s.’
‘Lydia – she moved to the States and she’s married. You know this.’
‘More fool you.’
‘I have no regrets.’ The Chelsea bun was sticking in this throat.
‘You’re a catch, young man. An eligible bachelor. You oughtn’t to go to waste – that would be a travesty.’
‘I’m not so young these days – I’m heading for forty. Look at all the grey.’
Lydia rubbished this with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Very distinguished. Silver fox, we’d call it. Like my fabulously expensive coat. Which reminds me – it’s still in cold storage. Don’t you go putting yourself in storage, Xander, you’ll grow cold. You’re a whippersnapper – I’m seventy-eight.’
A phone began to ring. There were no modern cordless phones at Longbridge. In fact, there were only three telephones in the whole house; one in the kitchen, one in the staircase hallway and one in the Victorian wing. They listened to it ringing.
Lydia blasphemed under her breath.
‘Why the wretched woman won’t answer the telephone or the door I do not know. I should dock her pay, I really should.’ And she heaved herself away from the sofa, rubbing her shoulder and wincing as she made her way. ‘She’s an atrocious housekeeper, that Mrs Biggins. I really ought to sack her.’
But she keeps you on your toes, Xander thought tenderly, as Lydia left the room to answer the phone. And she’s company. Mrs Biggins and Lady Lydia Fortescue, practically the same age, diametrically opposed backgrounds, together longer than either of their marriages – together, realistically, for ever. He listened to Lydia curtly admonishing the caller for phoning in the first place and then barking something in the general direction of the kitchen where Mrs Biggins was no doubt still ensconced in the Mail.
He’d phone his mum and dad when he was home. They lived, now, in Little Dunwick five miles away and Xander wondered why he always felt compelled to phone them when he’d been to Longbridge. He’d tell them how nothing had changed apart from Lydia growing thinner and Mrs Biggins plumper, that everything at Longbridge was just