She sat, motionless and silent. Then, eventually, like someone emerging from a dream, she placed the box on the floor beside her and stared at the photographs laid out on the wooden floor. She would give the whole thing to Daisy. Let her do what she wanted with them.
After next week she wouldn't be coming back, after all.
Lottie had got used to the population of builders and decorators who popped up without warning in different parts of the house. So she barely looked up when the door opened. She had got down on her knees, ready to start gathering the pictures and putting them back in the box.
"Mum?"
Lottie glanced up to be met by the delighted face of Rollo.
"Hello, love." She sniffed, wiping at her face. "Just give me a chance to get up, will you?" She leaned forward stiffly, in order to lever herself upright on the arm of the chair.
"What did you think you were doing, Mum?"
Lottie had been about to rise but instead sat back heavily on her heels. Her daughter's face was rigid, taut with some awful internal effort.
"Camille?"
"The money, Mum. What on earth did you think you were doing?"
Camille stepped forward, so that one foot was unknowingly standing on two of the photographs. Lottie's protest lodged in her throat--Camille's hand was visibly shaking at the end of her dog leash.
"I've never argued with you, Mum. You know I've always been grateful for everything you've done, with Katie and all. But it's too much now, okay? This money thing--it's too much."
"I was going to tell you, love."
Camille's tone was glacial. "But you didn't. You just steamed right in and tried to organize my life, like you always do."
"That's not--"
"Fair? True? You know what? You want to talk about truth? You've spent my whole life telling me I can do anything by myself--anything that a sighted person could do--and all the while you never actually believed it, all the while you were just planning safety nets for me."
"It's got nothing to do with your sight."
"The hell it hasn't."
"Any mother would do the same."
"No, Mum. No." Camille stepped forward, leaving Rollo anxiously eyeing the photographs under her feet. "Any mother might make a provision in her will. Any mother might speak to the family. She wouldn't go secretly siphoning off money because she thinks she's the only one who can look after me."
"Oh, so what if I just want to make sure that you'd be okay, if . . . if Hal doesn't stick around?"
Camille's frustration exploded. "Hal is around."
"Just."
"We're all right, Mum. We're making it work. At least we were until you stuck your oar in. How do you think this is supposed to make him feel? He thought I was planning on leaving him again, did you know that? He thought I was planning on leaving him, and he nearly left me first."
She breathed out hard, shaking her head. "God, you know, if you paid half as much attention to your own relationship as you do to everyone else's, this family would all be so much happier. Why can't you just focus on Pops for a change, huh? Instead of acting like he doesn't bloody exist?"
Lottie's face sank into her hands. When she spoke, her words emerged half muffled, through her fingers. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just wanted to make sure you were looked after. I just want you to be independent."
"In case Hal left me. Exactly. Because even though I was the one to have the affair, I was the one who put our marriage in danger, you still don't trust him to stick around."
"Why would you think that?"
Camille breathed out hard. "Because somewhere, deep inside you, Mum, you don't believe that I'm worth sticking around for."
"No." Lottie's head shot up.
"You can't believe that anyone would want a blind woman as a partner. That eventually even Hal is going to get fed up."
"No."
"So how is it, Mum?"
"Camille darling, all I ever wanted for you was a bit of independence."
"How the hell is your giving me money making me independent?"
"It gives you freedom."
"And what if I don't want freedom? What's so wrong with being married, Mum? What's so wrong with that?"
Lottie looked up and directly at her daughter. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong with being married. As long as you"--she paused, struggling for words--"as long as you do it for love."
DAISY SAT BESIDE THE TELEPHONE, CONSCIOUS OF Daniel's brooding presence upstairs. He had not come down for food but sat listening to the radio in his room, telling Daisy politely that he just fancied some time to himself. She suspected he needed a break from it all, from the magnified atmosphere of the house, from the tinderbox of emotions that was their rekindled relationship. She didn't object--she needed a break from it, too.
Daisy had never thought of herself as someone for whom work could provide an escape. But she sat working her way through the list of names that Stephen had given her, grateful for the distraction. It was not a very long list. Two dead, one gaga, several more unavailable. It was not going to be quite the reunion she had originally anticipated.
George Bern had made his apologies but said through his secretary that he and his wife were already booked that weekend. The artist Minette Charlerois, a divorcee called Irene Darling, and Stephen had all agreed to come. And, through Minette, several other artists of the age who did not appear on the mural but had apparently visited the house in its 1950s heyday.
She had not told Lottie, having heard Lottie exclaim that she didn't like parties anyway, so there was only one person on the mural now unaccounted for.
Daisy lit a cigarette, swearing to herself that she would give up after the opening, and then choked slightly when, despite the international connection, the phone was answered more speedily than she'd expected.
"Hola?" she said, and breathed out when she heard a British accent. She identified that he was the right person and went into her now well-rehearsed spiel about the celebratory party to mark the new hotel.
The gentleman was very polite. He waited until she'd finished before he said he was flattered to be remembered but didn't think he'd be able to come. "That . . . that was a very small part of my life."
"But you married someone from Merham, didn't you?" said Lottie, scanning her notes. "That makes you an important part of this. We've uncovered this mural, you see, and you're on it."
"What?"
"A mural. Painted by Frances Delahaye. You knew her?"
He paused. "Yes, yes. I remember Frances."
Daisy pressed her ear closer to the receiver, gesturing into the air. "You must see it again. It's been restored, and it's going to be the key feature of the party, and it will be so wonderful to get all its subjects together again. Please. I'll send transport and everything. You can bring your wife and children. They'd probably love it, too. Hell, bring your grandchildren! We'll pay for them as well." I'll square it with Jones afterward, she thought, wincing. "Go on, Mr. Bancroft. It's one day out of your life. One day."
There was a lengthy silence.
"I'll think about it. But it would just be me, Miss Parsons. My wife, Celia, passed away some time ago." He paused, cleared his throat quietly. "And we never had children."
NINETEEN
On the seventh day before the opening of Arcadia House as a hotel, Camille and Hal made the decision to put their house on the market. It was a big house, they told each other, too big for a family of three, and they were unlikely to have more children (although it wouldn't be a disaster, said Hal, squeezing his wife). They began looking for something smaller, close to Katie's school, but perhaps with workshops or a double garage so that while Hal took on another job, he could still pursue his restoration business until the economic climate meant he could try again. They made an appointment with an estate agent (tacitly avoiding that which employed Michael Bryant). They told Katie she would be allowed to choose all the furnishings for her new room and that, yes, of course there would still be room for Roll
o. Then they instructed the bank to close the account opened by Lottie and return the money to her.
Lottie rang twice. Both times Camille allowed the answering machine to pick up the message.
On the sixth day before the opening of Arcadia, the planning people from the Department of National Heritage came to review the building's emergency listing. Jones, who had been warned of this, arrived with his lawyer and an application for a Certificate of Immunity from Listing, which, he said, had been sent off to the secretary of state during the purchasing process and which, he had been assured by his best sources, would go through, thereby protecting them from the financial damage caused by an emergency listing. Despite that, the lawyer said, they were happy for the Department of National Heritage to take a close look at the work that had taken place, to arrange a possible time scale for any repairs that they might consider needed, and to speak at length to Daisy, who had in her possession all the relevant information and documentation relating to both the restorations and the condition of the building before those restorations had taken place.
Daisy had hardly heard any of this, let alone understood it, as she'd been staring at Jones. He had spoken to her only twice, once to greet her and once to say goodbye. On neither occasion did he meet her eye.
On the fifth day before the opening, Camille walked to her parents' house at a time when she knew her mother would be out and found her father thumbing through holiday brochures. She had gone nervously, tentatively, afraid that after she left her mother that day, Lottie might have repeated to him the awful thing Camille had said to her about their marriage, but her father had been unusually chipper. He was thinking of going to Kota Kinabalu, he said, reading out the travel-guide description of the area to her. No, he had no idea where it was, other than in the East. He just liked the sound of it. Liked the thought of coming home and saying, "I've just been to Kota Kinabalu." "That'd shut them up at the golf club, eh?" he said. "Bit more exciting than Romney Marsh." Camille, a little taken aback, had asked tentatively whether her mother was planning on going, too. "Still working on her, love," he'd said. "You know your mother."
On an impulse then she had hugged him hard, fighting back tears, so that he'd patted her hair and asked her what that was all about. "Nothing," she'd said. "I just love you, Pops."
"The sooner this hotel opens, the better," he'd replied. "Seems to me like everyone's getting worked up over nothing these days."
On the fourth day before the opening, Stephen Meeker arrived on Arcadia's broad white doorstep, fanning himself under a straw hat, and announced he'd taken the liberty of speaking to a friend of his from Cork Street who was extremely interested in their mural. He was wondering whether this friend might come along to the opening, and perhaps bring another friend from the Daily Telegraph who specialized in stories about fine art. Daisy had said yes and invited him in to see it privately before the big day. Stephen had stared at it for some time, at his younger self and at Julian. He remarked that it looked quite, quite different from how he remembered it. Then he placed a bony hand on Daisy's arm as he left and instructed her never to do the things she felt she ought. "Do what you really want," he said. "That way you won't have any regrets. Because by the time you get to my age, my God, you're weighed down by the bloody things."
Three days before the opening, Carol had arrived with Jones, to run through the list of celebrity guests, check the status of the kitchen and car parking and facilities for the musicians, and exclaim on the brilliance of just about everything, in a manner that left Daisy scrambling to complete her instructions. Jones had told her he was pleased in a manner that left her unsure if he really was, had lined up the new bar and kitchen staff and given them a brief and halfhearted speech, interviewed three cleaners, and left so swiftly that Carol had commented that he was a miserable bugger, bless him. Julia had rung shortly afterward, to say that she and Don would be coming to the party, and did Daisy want her to bring her something to wear? She didn't imagine there was much to choose from in that little town. In Essex, Daisy thought, hearing the italicized subtext. But no, she said. She could sort herself out, thanks.
"Is he coming back for it? The opening?" Julia asked before ringing off.
"He hasn't gone anywhere," said Daisy, exasperated.
"Yet," said Julia.
Two days before the opening, the local newspaper ran a story about the mural, with a snatched photograph that Daisy suspected owed something to one of the builders. Lottie, who had been tense and snappy all week, had blamed Sylvia Rowan and it had taken some persuading not to go down there and confront the other woman herself. "What does it matter?" said Daisy, sitting her down on the terrace with a cup of tea and trying to sound calmer than she felt. "It's only the local rag."
"That's not the point," said Lottie crossly. "I just don't like it being broadcast everywhere. I don't like the painting being looked at by everyone. People knowing it was me." Daisy had decided not to say anything about the man from the Daily Telegraph.
In Merham itself, according to local intelligence, the Temperance Society, along with the Landladies Association and the remaining members of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, was preparing to picket the opening of the hotel, egged on by several reporters and a cameraman from the regional television news. Daisy had tried to ring Jones's office to warn him, but his secretary had passed her on to Carol. "Oh, don't worry about them," Carol said dismissively. "We'll invite them in for a drink and a photograph, bless them. Always works, disarming them with a bit of charm. Failing that, we'll shove them behind a privet."
When Daisy had walked into town with Ellie later that afternoon, a group of elderly women had stopped their conversation and stared at her as she passed, as if she were carrying something unpleasant on her shoes. When she had walked into the newsagents, the owner had come out from behind the counter to shake her by the hand. "Good on you," he said, glancing around, as if they might be overheard. "Business breeds business. That's what these people don't understand. Once you're up and running, they'll forget about it. They've just spent so many years opposing everything, they don't know how to do anything else."
The day before the opening, after the builders and kitchen staff had gone, after Jones had left with Carol in her ridiculous sports car and Daisy had taken Ellie up for her bath, Lottie had stayed on. Then, when the house was silent, she'd taken a tour of every single room. A more sentimental person might have said she was saying goodbye. Lottie told herself she was simply checking that all things were as they should be. Daisy had her hands full with the baby and the opening and that useless man of hers, after all, and Jones didn't seem to know whether he was coming or going, so someone had to keep an eye on things. She said it twice, as if that would make it more convincing.
She had walked into and around each room, remembering them all as they had been, her memory prompted by the group photographs now framed and on the walls, which occasionally she allowed herself to view. The faces, frozen in time, now looked back at her with the glassy smiles of strangers, hardly real people anymore, she told herself. Just so much interior decoration, there to add an air of authenticity to some rich man's seaside playground.
She left the drawing room until last, her footsteps echoing on the relaid floor, seating herself in the same position from which, nearly half a century previously, she had first laid her eyes on Adeline, poised and feline on the sofa. The house, stark, white, and grand, no longer felt like Arcadia, its rooms no longer silent witnesses to her secrets. Its wax polishes and freshly cut flowers stifled the old scents of salt and possibility. Its gleaming kitchen units, pristine upholstery, and pale, perfect walls had somehow missed the point, had smothered the spirit of the place.
Still, who am I to say anything? Lottie thought, looking around her. There was always too much pain here anyway. Too many secrets. Its future belongs with other people now. She stared around the room, her gaze landing on the photograph of Celia in her flame-red skirt, from where she now tastefully echoed the match
ing shade of the upholstery. She remembered too-knowing eyes meeting hers mischievously from the chair opposite, slender feet always placed as if for flight. My history, like the photographs, thought Lottie. Just so much interior decoration.
Several minutes later Daisy emerged from the bathroom with a towel-wrapped Ellie and headed for the kitchen to warm her milk. She stopped halfway down the stairs, glanced into the drawing room, and paused. Then she turned slowly and walked back up again, shushing Ellie's protest.
The old woman had sat below her staring into space, lost deep in some internal reverie. She looked diminished, somehow, frail, and very alone.
THE EVENING BEFORE THE OPENING, JONES COVERED THE precarious towers of paper on his desk, closed the door of his office against the raucous laughter of the Red Rooms bars, drank down the dregs of a cup of coffee--swearing as he realized too late that it was cold--and finally fished out and rang the work number of his ex-wife. Alex had sounded surprised to hear from him, assuming, perhaps, as he had, that once she had married, the intimate nature of their friendship would have to change.
He let her talk about their honeymoon, she tactfully restricting it to the beauty of their island setting, her sunburn, the unimaginable color of the sea. She gave him her new numbers, knowing full well that he was unlikely to ever ring her new home. Then, eventually, she asked him if he was all right.
"Yeah, fine. . . . No, no, I'm not."
Alex paused.
"Anything I can help with?"
"It's a bit . . . complicated."
She waited.
"I don't know if you're the best person to discuss it with."
There was a caution in her "Oh?"
"Ah, you know me, Alex. Never been much good at expressing myself."
"That's for sure."
"Oh . . . look . . . forget it."
"No, come on, Jones. Now that you've started."
He sighed. "I just . . . I think I've become attached to someone. Who was single but now isn't."
There was silence on the other end of the telephone.
"I never said anything. When I should have done. And I don't know what to do about it."
"She was single?"
"Well, yes. And no. I think I've realized what I feel about her, but I don't feel I can make a move now. It's too late."