Sheltering Rain Page 5

  "Sabine," she said, smiling. As an afterthought, she held out her other hand, too, as if she was expecting a hug. "I'm sorry I didn't meet you at the boat. It's been all go this afternoon."

  Sabine didn't know whether to walk forward or not. "Hullo," she replied, unable to say Granny. She rubbed at her hair awkwardly, unsure what to do with her hands. "Nice . . . nice to see you."

  Her grandmother withdrew her hands, and stood, her smile looking a little stiffer. "Yes. Yes . . . Did you have a good trip over? That ferry can be awful. Can't bear it myself."

  "It was fine." Sabine heard her own voice disappear to a whisper. She felt Thom's presence behind her, waiting, listening to this ridiculous exchange.

  "Bit rough. But not bad."

  There was a lengthy pause. "Is your horse okay?"

  "No. He's not, really. Poor old boy. But we've given him some Bute, so he should have a better night. Hello, Bella, old girl, hello, hello. Yes, I know. Yes, Bella. You're a very good girl. Now, Bertie, don't you dare go upstairs."

  Stooping to rub the gleaming coats of her dogs, the old lady turned and walked stiffly into the hall. Sabine stood and stared at Thom. He gestured to her to follow, and then, having dropped her bag on the step, saluted and tripped lightly back down the stairs.

  Filled suddenly with a childish urge to ask him not to go, Sabine paused momentarily. Her grandmother, she realized, with some indignation, hadn't even thanked Thom for coming to get her. She hadn't even acknowledged him. Sabine felt the first glimmerings of resentment, carried quietly since she had left London that morning, begin to blossom into something more potent. She walked slowly in, and closed the big door behind her

  The scents and sounds of the hall hit her memory squarely with the strength of a demolition ball. Wax polish. Old fabrics. The sound of the dogs' claws clicking on the flagstone floor. Behind her grandmother moving briskly along the corridor, she could hear the weighty tick of the grandfather clock, marking time at the same distant pace that it had done on her last visit, a decade ago. Except her height now allowed her to see above the tables, where the bronze horses stood in rest, or paused in midflight across bronze hedges. On the walls were oil paintings of other horses, mostly referred to by their first names: Sailor, Witch's Fancy, Big Dipper, like half-remembered portraits of family members. Somehow she found them comforting. I wasn't nervous then, she told herself. And she's just my grandmother for God's sake. She's probably nervous about having me to stay, about guessing what will make me comfortable.

  But she seemed to hide it pretty well. "We've put you in the blue room," she said, upstairs, motioning into a room at the far end of the landing. "The heating's not terribly good, but I've got Mrs. H to lay you a fire. And you'll have to use the downstairs bathroom, because the hot water's given up in here. I couldn't give you the good room because your grandfather's in it. And the downstairs one has got mold on the walls."

  Sabine tried not to shiver in the thin cold of neglect and gazed around the room, a curious hybrid of the 1950s and 1970s. The blue chinoiserie wallpaper had at some point been optimistically matched to a more modern, turquoise shag-pile carpet. The curtains, threaded with gold brocade, dragged along its surface, as if they had come from a much larger window. An old sink stood on stiff, cast-iron legs in the corner, with a thin, pale-green towel hanging close to the fireplace. A watercolor of a horse and cart sat above the mantelpiece, while a larger, badly done portrait of a young woman who may have been her mother sat on the wall close to the bed. She kept glancing behind her at the door, strangely conscious of her grandfather's silent presence just a few doors away.

  "There are a few bits in the wardrobe, but there should be plenty of room for your things. Is that all you brought?" Her grandmother looked down at her bag, and then around her, as if expecting something else.

  Sabine paused.

  "Do you have a computer?"

  "A what?"

  "Do you have a computer?" Sabine realized as she spoke that she knew the answer. She should have known it from this room.

  "A computer? No, no computers here. What do you need a computer for?" Her voice was brusque, uncomprehending.

  "For e-mail. Just to keep in touch with home."

  Her grandmother appeared not to hear.

  "No," she repeated. "We don't have any computers here. Now, if you unpack your things, we'll have some tea, and then you can go and see your grandfather."

  "Is there a television?"

  Her grandmother gave her a searching look.

  "Yes, there is a television. Your grandfather has it in his room at the moment, because he likes to watch the late news. I'm sure you can borrow it occasionally."

  By the time they walked into the drawing room, Sabine had begun to sink under a black cloud of depression. Even the arrival of "Mrs. H," who, short and plump and sweet-smelling as her home-baked bread and scones, could not lift her mood, despite her friendly inquiries about Irish Sea crossings, her mother's state of health, and her own happiness with the bedroom arrangements. There was no escaping it, Thom appeared to be the youngest person there, and he was the same age as her mother. There was no television in her room, no computer, and she hadn't yet worked out where they kept the phone. And Amanda Gallagher was going to steal Dean Baxter before she could make it home. It was what hell must be like.

  Her grandmother, when she reemerged into the drawing room, didn't seem to be much happier. She kept looking unseeing around the room as she ate, as if trying to work out some distant problem. Periodically she would stand stiffly up from the easy chair, walk briskly to the door, and shout some instruction at either Mrs. H or some other unidentified person, so that after the fourth time Sabine decided that her grandmother wasn't used to having tea, and felt it something of an imposition to have to sit there with her granddaughter for that long. She didn't ask about her mother. Not once.

  "Do you need to see to your horse?" she said eventually, figuring that would give them both an easy exit.

  Her grandmother eyed her with relief. "Yes. Yes, you're right. I should check on the old boy. Very good." She stood, and brushed crumbs from her trousers, so that the dogs immediately leaped up to check the carpet. Striding to the door, she turned around.

  "Do you want to have a look? Come and see the stables?"

  Sabine paused. She was desperate to disappear, so that she could indulge her burgeoning misery in private. But she knew it would be considered rude. "All right, then," she said grudgingly. Her Dean Baxter depression could wait another half an hour.

  The donkey had long gone ("Laminitis. Poor old boy," said her grandmother, as if she should understand), but the rest of the yard had a strange air of familiarity. It was certainly livelier than inside the house. Along the row of stables, two slight, stooped men moved with bristling brooms and clattering buckets, dividing up a bale of hay into square sections, while behind them horses' hooves scraped on cement floor or thumped against wooden boards in protest. A thin, tinny transistor, balanced on an upturned bucket, spewed fuzzy tunes in the background. Staring at the scene, Sabine suddenly had a vague memory of being lifted up to one of the doors, and of squealing in delighted horror when one of the huge, long faces loomed out of the darkness to see her.

  "I assumed you'd be too tired to ride today. But I've hired you a very tidy little gelding from New Ross. He'll do you while you're here."

  Sabine's mouth dropped slightly open. Ride?

  "I--I haven't ridden for ages," she stuttered. "Not since I was a kid. I mean--Mum didn't tell me--"

  "Well, we'll take a look in the boot room later. What size are you? Four? Five? Your mother's old ones might fit you."

  "It's been about five years. I gave up."

  "Yes, it's a complete bore trying to ride in London, isn't it? I once went to that stables in Hyde Park. Had to cross a main road even to get to the grass." Her grandmother strode across the yard, and began berating one of the stablehands for the job he had made of the straw bed.

  "But, I do
n't think I really want to."

  She appeared not to hear. She had taken a broom from one of the men, and was showing him how to sweep, with short, angry strokes.

  "Look, I--I'm not really that fond of riding anymore." Sabine's voice cut across the noise, thin and high-pitched, so that everyone turned at the sound. Her grandmother stopped in her tracks, and wheeled slowly around to face her.

  "What?"

  "I don't like it. Riding. I--I've sort of grown out of it."

  The two stablehands looked at each other, one with a hint of a raised eyebrow. What she had just said had obviously been Wexford code for "I murder babies," or "I wear my knickers inside out to save on washing." Sabine felt herself blushing, and cursed herself for it.

  Her grandmother stared at her blankly for a moment, and then turned away, back toward the stables.

  "Don't be ridiculous," she muttered. "Dinner's at eight o'clock sharp. Your grandfather will be joining us, so don't be late."

  Sabine cried for almost an hour, unheard in her damp and distant room. She cursed her bloody mother for sending her to this stupid place, cursed her stiff, unfriendly grandmother and her stupid bloody horses, and cursed Thom for briefly letting her believe it might not be so bad after all. Then she cursed Amanda Gallagher, who she just knew would be getting off with Dean Baxter even as she lay there, the Irish ferry system for not shutting down when the weather was crap, and the turquoise shag pile for being so hideous that if anyone ever found out she had stayed in a room that looked like this she would have to emigrate. Forever. Then she sat up and cursed herself for getting purple and blotchy and snotty when she cried, instead of looking sad in the kind of clear-skinned, big-eyed, melancholy way that men found irresistible. "My whole life is a bloody, bloody mess," she wailed, and then cried some more because it just sounded so much sadder out loud.

  Sabine's grandfather was already seated at the dining table when she came slowly down the stairs. She saw his stick before she saw him, jutting underneath the table between his legs. Then as she came around the corner of the dining room, she saw his back, curved as if into a question mark, resting uncomfortably against the tall-backed dining chair, cushioned by a tartan blanket. The table was laid for three, the vast expanse of mahogany glowing between them, but he was just sitting in the candlelight, staring at nothing.

  "Ahh," he said slowly, as she moved into his field of view. "You're late. Dinner is at eight. Eight."

  A bony finger gestured toward the wall clock, which informed Sabine that she was some seven minutes late. Sabine gazed back at him, unsure whether to apologize.

  "Well, sit down, sit down," he said, lowering his hand gently onto his lap.

  Sabine looked around her, and then sat opposite him. He was the oldest man she had ever seen. His skin, through which you could almost make out the shape of his skull, was beyond wrinkled; it had divided into hundreds of tiny crevices, like a wetland parched for decades. A thin vein pulsed above his temple, bulging like a worm cast under his skin. Sabine found she could barely look at him; it was somehow too painful.

  "So . . ." his voice trailed downward, as if exhausted by its own flight. "You're young Sabine."

  It didn't seem to require an answer. Sabine merely looked accepting.

  "And how old are you?" Even his questions trailed downward.

  "I'm sixteen," she said.

  "What?"

  "I'm sixteen. Sixteen," she said. Oh, God, he was deaf as well.

  "Ahh. Sixteen." He paused. "Good."

  Her grandmother suddenly appeared from a side door. "Oh, you're here. Right. I'll bring in the soup." In that "you're here," she also managed to let Sabine know she was considered late. What was wrong with these people? thought Sabine miserably. It wasn't as if they were being timed.

  "The dogs have had one of your slippers," her grandmother called, from the next room, but her grandfather didn't appear to hear. Sabine, after some internal struggle, decided not to pass the message on. She didn't want to be responsible for the result.

  The soup was vegetable. Real stuff, rather than canned, with lots of visible bits of potato and cabbage. Even though she would have refused it at home, she ate it, because the cold house had made her hungry. It was, she had to admit, rather good.

  Feeling the need to make some sociable comment, as the three of them sat in silence, she pushed herself slightly upright and announced it. "The soup is nice."

  Her grandfather slowly lifted his face, draining his soup noisily from his spoon. The whites of his eyes, she noticed, were almost completely milky.

  "What?"

  "The soup," she said, louder. "It's very nice."

  Some nine minutes late, the clock in the hall announced that it was eight o'clock. An unseen dog let out a shuddering sigh.

  The old man turned his face toward his wife. "Is she talking about the soup?"

  Her grandmother didn't even look up.

  "She says it's nice," she affirmed loudly.

  "Ohhh. What is it?" he said. "I can't taste it."

  "Vegetable."

  Sabine found herself listening to the clock ticking in the hall. It seemed to be getting louder.

  "Vegetable? Did you say vegetable?"

  "That's right."

  Long pause.

  "It doesn't have sweet corn in it, does it?"

  Her grandmother looked up and shook her head. She dabbed at her mouth with her linen napkin.

  "No, dear. No sweet corn. Mrs. H knows you don't like sweet corn."

  He turned back to his bowl, as if examining the contents.

  "I don't like sweet corn," he announced slowly to Sabine. "Horrid stuff."

  Sabine, by now, was fighting an almost hysterical urge to laugh and cry at the same time. She felt like she was trapped in some terrible third-rate television program, where time froze and no one ever escaped. I've got to go home, she told herself silently. There's no way I can put up with nights and nights of this. I'll wither up and die. They'll find me mummified in a room with turquoise carpet, and they won't be able to work out whether I died from cold or boredom. And I'm missing all the best telly.

  "Do you hunt?"

  Sabine glanced up at her grandfather, who had finally finished his soup. A thin opaque trail of it was visible at the side of his mouth.

  "No," she said quietly.

  "What?"

  "No. I don't hunt."

  "She speaks very quietly," he said loudly to his wife. "She should speak up a bit."

  Her grandmother, having gathered the empty plates, walked diplomatically out of the room.

  "You speak very quietly," he said. "You should speak up. It's very rude."

  "I'm sorry," said Sabine, loudly, and not a little defiantly. Stupid old sod.

  "So who do you hunt with?"

  Sabine glanced around her, wishing suddenly for the return of her grandmother.

  "I don't," she half-shouted. "I live in Hackney. It's in London. There's no hunting."

  "No hunting?"

  "No."

  "Ohhh," he looked rather shocked, as if no hunting were an entirely new concept. "So where do you ride?"

  Oh, God, but this was impossible.

  "I don't," she said. "There isn't anywhere to ride."

  "So, where do you keep your horse?"

  "She doesn't keep a horse, dear," said her grandmother, reemerging with a large silver tray, covered by the kind of silver dome Sabine had thought was restricted to comedy butlers. "She and Kate live in London."

  "Ohhh. Yes. London, isn't it?"

  Oh, Mum, come and get me, Sabine willed. I'm sorry I was so mean about you and Geoff and Justin. Just come and get me. I promise I'll never moan about anything ever again. You can have endless streams of unsuitable boyfriends and I'll never say anything. I'll stay on and do A levels. I'll even stop stealing your perfume.

  "Now, Sabine. Do you like it rare or well-done?"

  Her grandmother lifted the silver dome, so that the sizzling, brown mound of beef released its a
roma into the still air. It was surrounded by a ring of roast potatoes, and squatted in a shallow lake of rich, brown gravy.

  "You can have either, dear. I'll carve. Come on, I don't want it to get cold."

  Sabine stared at her in horror.

  "Mum didn't tell you, did she?" she said, quietly.

  "Tell me what?"

  "What?" said her grandfather, irritably. "What are you saying? Do speak up."

  Sabine shook her head, slowly, wishing she did not have to see her grandmother's taut, exasperated expression.

  "I'm a vegetarian."

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was really quite simple. Apparently. If one took a bath in the downstairs bathroom (as opposed to the upstairs one, which had obviously been installed when the house was built, and last seen hot water some time then, too), then one removed all evidence of one's visit within five minutes of finishing one's ablutions. That meant all damp towels, shampoo bottles, flannels, even toothbrushes and toothpaste. Or one could expect to find them dumped outside one's bedroom less than half an hour afterward.

  If one wanted breakfast, then one made sure one was downstairs in the breakfast room by eight-thirty. Not the dining room. Of course. And not at a quarter past nine, by which stage half the day had apparently gone, and Mrs. H had much better things to do than to wait around while everyone had her breakfast, although she was too nice to say so herself. And one had porridge, followed by toast. With honey, or marmalade. Both of which sat in little silver pots. And no, there was no Alpen. Or Pop-Tarts.

  And one didn't complain about the cold. One dressed properly, and didn't wander around wearing next to nothing and then wittering on that it was drafty. That meant thick jumpers. And trousers. And if one didn't have enough of them, then one only had to say so because there were lots of spares sitting in the bottom of the big chest of drawers. And only a rude person would comment on how musty they smelled, or the fact that they looked like they had last been worn by Albanian orphans some time before one was born. And that went for footwear, too. One could not expect to wear expensive training shoes around the place and expect to keep them box fresh. One should go to the boot room and find oneself a sturdy pair of Wellingtons. And if one was going to get hysterical about spiders, then one should shake the things out first.