Sheltering Rain

  Sabine shook her head, clearing it of unwelcome thoughts, and thought about Thom instead. She always found it was easier if you thought about someone else. He was the only man around who was remotely good-looking, she had decided. Pretty handsome, in fact. She had never been out with an older man, although her mate Ali had, and she said they "really knew their way around." But she couldn't quite get past the idea of his arm. She worried that if she ever got around to kissing him (or would they just pant, him being Irish?) and they took off their clothes, she might run away in fright when she saw his stump. She liked him too much to upset him like that.

  She didn't know whether he fancied her. He always seemed pretty pleased to see her, and always seemed to like her hanging around. Plus, she could tell him anything. But it was hard to imagine him overcome with passion, or staring at her with intense longing. He was too withdrawn, somehow. Too restrained. Maybe he just needed time. Maybe grown-up romance worked differently.

  Thinking about grown-up romance made Sabine think of her mother, and she slid off the bed, keen to distract herself.

  With Bella padding around after her, she opened her cupboards, breathing in the musty smell of things long undisturbed, and gazing into their dark depths. Her grandparents didn't even have the right sort of junk; other people's bedroom cupboards were filled with cocktail dresses, and old board games, or boxes of letters, or electronic gadgets that no longer worked. Here they had piles of moldering white embroidered linen, tablecloths and the like, a broken lamp shade, and some books, with titles like A Girl's Guide to Horsemanship and Bunty Annual 1967.

  Emboldened by the complicit, silent house, Sabine set off to explore some of the other rooms. Her grandfather's door was closed, but between his and the bathroom was another room that she had not yet been into. Pulling the handle down slowly so that she didn't make a noise, she opened the door and slid in.

  It was a man's room, a study of sorts, but without the air of recent activity that characterized the yard office downstairs. That had tables full of letters, and ledgers, and color catalogs full of "stud" horses with names like "Filigree Jumping Jake III--by Filigree Flancake out of Jumping Jemimah," all of whom looked pretty much the same to her, although Thom had said you could count their differences in tens of thousands of guineas. This study held the dusty air of neglect, its half-opened curtains hanging perfectly still, as if they had not been disturbed in years. It smelled of mildewed paper, and unbeaten carpets, and tiny particles of dust glinted, suspended in the air, as she moved. Sabine closed the door softly behind her, and walked into the center of the room, so that Bella paused hopefully and then dropped, groaning, onto the rug.

  There were no pictures of horses on the walls in here, apart from a framed cartoon of a shouting huntsman; just a yellowed, framed map of the Far East and a few black-and-white photographs of people in 1950s gear to cover the vast expanse of William Morris-style wallpaper. On built-in shelves by the window sat various-sized boxes, some of which had rolled-up manuscripts on the top, while on the center of the desk stood a large model of a gray battleship, presumably to scale. On a dark wood bookshelf to her right stood lots of hardbacked books, mainly about war and Southeast Asia, punctuated by a couple of humorous cartoon compilations and a paperback on after-dinner speaking. On the top shelf sat a series of decrepit leather-bound books, the gilt almost entirely rubbed off their spines.

  It was the other side of the room that caught her eye. Two leather-bound photograph albums, resting on a large box. Judging by their generous icing of dust, they had not been moved for some years.

  Sabine crouched down and gently pulled out one of the albums. It was labeled: 1955-. Sitting cross-legged, she pulled it into her lap and opened it, fingering the fine tissue between each of its stiff leaves.

  The pictures sat one to a page, and the first was of her grandmother. At least she thought it was her grandmother. It was a posed, studio shot of a young woman on a window seat, wearing a dark, slightly severe suit with a tiny collar, a matching dress, and a string of pearls. Her hair, which was dark brown instead of gray, had been set into waves, and she was wearing the makeup of the age: heavy brows and lashes, and dark, carefully outlined lips. She looked, for all her posing, slightly embarrassed, as if she had been caught doing something suspect. The next photograph was of her with a tall, young man. They stood next to a stand with a plant on it, he beaming with pride; her arm posted uncertainly through his, barely acknowledging him. She looked less embarrassed this time, more sure of herself, curiously dignified. It was something about her bearing, or her tall, slender frame. She didn't slouch over her breasts, looking faintly apologetic, in the way that her own mother did.

  Sabine, now engrossed, flicked through the entire album. Toward the end of it, as well as pictures of her grandmother, looking at her most relaxed in a snapshot with another young, incredibly glamorous woman, were pictures of a baby in the kind of elaborate christening robe that you never saw now: all intricate crochet, and tiny, silk-covered buttons. There was no label, so Sabine found herself staring hard at the picture, trying to work out whether this smiling, swaddled baby could possibly be her mother or her uncle Christopher. You couldn't even tell whether it was a boy or a girl--and at that age they seemed to dress babies the same.

  But it was in the box that things really started to get interesting: a cardboard-backed picture of her grandmother (it was definitely her, she had decided), arm in arm with the glamorous, shorter girl, both holding little Union Jack pennants, and laughing unrestrainedly. It was odd to think her grandmother had laughed like that once. Behind them was some kind of party, or gathering, with most of the men handsome in white, like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman. There was a tray of tall glasses beside them, which made Sabine wonder if she was drunk, and gilt lettering at the bottom announced that the event had been in honor of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, in 1953. That was history! Sabine had had to sit still and digest that for a moment; her grandmother had been around to make history.

  And then there was the other, smaller photograph. Among the pictures of horses, and unrecognizable, smiling faces on long, thin boats, was a picture of a little girl, around six years old, who was definitely her mother. She had her mother's reddish, curly hair, and, even at that age, her peculiar, lock-kneed way of standing. She was holding hands with a little boy, who may or may not have been Chinese, and smiling broadly from under a straw hat. He seemed a little more awkward, not daring to look the camera straight in the face, but leaning toward the girl, as if for comfort.

  So this was how my mother grew up, Sabine thought, fingering the sepia-tinted print. Surrounded by little Chinese boys and girls. She had always known that she spent the first part of her childhood abroad, but until now, looking at her pale cotton dress and hat, she hadn't conceived of her as something exotic. Curious, she began flicking through the other photographs, looking for other pictures of her mother.

  Sabine was abruptly roused from her reverie by the sound of a door slamming downstairs and a muffled cry that could have been someone calling her name. Panicked, she leaped toward the door, followed by Bella, opening and swiftly closing it behind her. She glanced down at her watch. It was half past twelve.

  She paused for a minute, whispered to the dog not to tell ("Oh, God," she groaned when she realized who she was talking to. "They've got me at it now"), and then walked slowly down the stairs, brushing the dust from her hands as she went.

  Mrs. H was in the kitchen, her apron already on. "Ahh. There you are. I'm running late, Sabine," she said, smiling. "I got held up at Annie's. Has your grandfather mentioned what he wants for his lunch?"

  "Erm. He hasn't said much, actually."

  "Ahh, well. I'll do him poached eggs on toast. He had a good breakfast so he won't want anything too heavy. What'll you want, the same?"

  "Yeah. That'll be great." Sabine realized with a lurch that she had not woken her grandfather an hour before his lunch, as instructed. She began to walk b
ack upstairs, shooing away Bella, who tried to accompany her again, wondering whether, if he was really running late, she was going to have to help him get dressed. Please, God, don't let me have to touch him, she prayed, outside his door. Please don't let him mention anything about bed baths or chamber pots or whatever it is old people need to get ready. And please, God, let him have his teeth in so that I don't get hysterical.

  "Er--hullo?" she called, through the door.

  There was no reply.

  "Hullo?" She said it louder this time, remembering his deafness. "Grand-Grandfather?"

  Oh, God, he was asleep. She was going to have to touch him to wake him up. Sabine stood outside the door and took a deep breath. She didn't want to feel that crepey, translucent skin under her fingers. Old people made her feel funny, even when she looked at them at home. They seemed too vulnerable, too prone to breakage and bruising. Looking at them up close made her toes clench.

  She thought of her grandmother's reaction if she didn't do it.

  She knocked loudly, paused again, and entered.

  The bed, which sat squarely at the far end of the room, was beautiful: a Gothic four-poster, from whose frame ancient bloodred tapestries with glints of Chinese gold thread hung between carved posts of glowing, darkened wood. On the bed itself sat layer upon layer of old silk counterpane, from under which pure white linen sheets could be glimpsed, like teeth in a glossy red mouth. It was the kind of bed one saw in American films, when they were trying to imagine what English stately homes were like. It had the twin, exotic sheen of the Far East, of emperors and opium dens. It was as far removed from her own, creaky iron-framed post as she could imagine.

  But it didn't have him in it.

  It took Sabine less than ten seconds to realize that not only was he not in it, but that there was nowhere else in the room that he could be. Unless he had climbed into the wardrobe, which she very much doubted (but checked, just to be sure).

  He must be in the bathroom. Sabine strode back out of the room and along the corridor. The door was slightly ajar so she called out first, but, hearing no reply, she pushed at it and found that the bathroom, too, had a definite absence of old person.

  Sabine's head began to race. Her grandmother hadn't told her that he was going to go out. She had said he was sleeping. So, where the hell was he? She checked her grandmother's empty room (much more frugal, she noted), the downstairs bathroom, and then, feeling increasingly panicked, every single room in the house, from breakfast room to the boot room. He was nowhere to be seen.

  It was nearly a quarter to one.

  She had to tell someone. She ran to the downstairs kitchen, and confessed to Mrs. H that she had somehow mislaid her grandfather.

  "Is he not in his room?"

  "No. No. I looked there first."

  "Oh, God. Where's Bertie?"

  Sabine stared at her, and then behind her at Bella. "I haven't seen him," she said.

  "He's gone out with the dog. He's not meant to go out by himself now, especially not with Bertie, because Bertie's young and knocks his stick from under him." She stepped out from behind the table and went to remove her apron. "We'd better go and look for him before Mrs. Ballantyne gets back."

  "No. No--you stay here and watch the house. I'll get Thom to help."

  Sabine, her chest now tight with fear, ran to the stable yard, peering over stable doors and shouting his name.

  Thom, a sandwich held to his mouth, poked his head out of the tack room. Behind him she could hear the radio, and just make out the seated figures of Liam and John John reading the Racing Post.

  "Where's the fire?"

  "It's--it's the old man. I can't find him."

  "What do you mean, you can't find him?"

  "He was meant to be in his room, sleeping. Mrs. H thinks he may have gone out with Bertie and she says Bertie knocks him over. Will you help me look for him?"

  Thom swore under his breath, his eyes already scanning the middle distance.

  "Don't touch my lunch, you bastards," he muttered, and then grabbing his coat, walked briskly into the yard.

  "I'm really, really sorry. I just don't know what to do. He was meant to be in the house."

  "Okay," he said, thinking hard. "You go and check up and down the road, and if he's not there, check the top fields. I'll do the bottom fields and the orchard, and I'll do the barns, too. You're sure you've looked everywhere in the house? I mean, he couldn't just be watching the telly?"

  Sabine, now frightened by Thom's expression, felt tears beginning to prick at the corners of her eyes. "Everywhere. And Bertie's gone. He must have taken him out."

  "Jesus, what did the old eejit have to go out for? Look, take Bella. And keep calling Bertie--if he's taken a fall, hopefully the dog might take us to him. I'll meet you back here in twenty minutes. And, here, grab a hunting horn, and if you find him, give it a good blow." Handing her a spare, he turned, vaulted over the post-and-rail fencing and began to run toward the fields below them, both of which were surrounded by high hedgerow.

  Sabine, with Bella chasing joyfully behind, jogged out of the front gates and up the lane, calling with every second breath. Unsure at which point she should actually turn around, she ran until her chest hurt, past the big farmhouse on the corner, the little church, and a row of smaller cottages. It had begun to drizzle, and the clouds gathered slate gray above her, as if heralding some great doom. Her head filled with unwelcome pictures of the old man in a crumpled heap at the side of the road, Sabine ran harder the other way, until, unable to see a clock, she decided she should go back to check the top fields. "Where are you, you bugger?" she whispered under her breath. "Where are you?"

  Then she jumped, her heart briefly stalling, as a huge green tarpaulin half stuck into the hedge moved toward her.

  Bella stood stiff legged, a few paces in front of her, her hackles raised. She barked once, in warning. Her heart thumping, eyes wide, Sabine stood still in the center of the road, and then, taking deep breaths, peered closer, lifting a corner.

  If she hadn't been so anxious, she would have laughed. Under the huge plastic sheet stood a gray donkey, harnessed to a small cart. It opened its eyes briefly, as if acknowledging her presence, and then turned resignedly back toward the relative shelter of the hedge.

  Sabine let the tarpaulin gently drop and began to run again, her eyes scanning from left to right. There was nothing. No sign of him. Above the pounding of her heart and heels, and the thin hiss of the rain in her ears, she could hear no welcoming bark, no impatient upper-class croak, no hunting horn. Sabine, now properly fearful, began to cry.

  He was obviously dead. Everyone would blame her, she realized, half stumbling down the grassy hill. He would be found, frozen and damp, probably with his powdery bones broken where Bertie had pulled him over onto the hard concrete, and he would contract pneumonia and his heart would give out and it would all be her fault because she was too busy reading dirty books and being nosy to care. Her grandmother would be angrier even than when she let the Duke out. Thom would never talk to her again. Her mother would refuse to take her back, for effectively murdering her father, so she would be stuck here while the villagers looked on silently and pointed like something out of Deliverance, and she became known as The Girl Who Killed Her Own Grandfather.

  Sabine had not thought to wear Wellingtons, and down in the boggy pasture, her feet became waterlogged by mud. Viscous and brown, it crept over the tops of her trainers, sucking and releasing each footfall, impregnating her feet with its chilled damp. A week ago she would have been hysterical about the state of her new Reeboks, but she was now so miserable she hardly noticed. Realizing it was now some half an hour since she had set out, she sobbed out loud, wiping her running nose on the back of her hand.

  It was at this point that Bella, sodden and unhappy, began heading back toward the house.

  "Don't you leave me as well," Sabine cried, but Bella ignored her, apparently now determined to restore herself to shelter and the comfor
t of a warm Aga. She didn't know where to look next. She would have to ask Thom. She began to trudge up the hill behind the dog, unsure what she was going to say to Mrs. H, but certain that somehow she would be to blame.

  Bella had disappeared by the time she got to the house. Sabine, pushing her wet hair from her eyes, trying to get her sniveling under control, lifted the latch on the back door, and pushed it open, hearing, as she did, footsteps pounding across the gravel behind her.

  It was Thom, his hair plastered to his head, and his false arm holding the hunting horn awkwardly to his chest. She was about to apologize when she realized he was looking straight past her.

  "You're late," came a voice from down the corridor.

  Allowing herself a second to acclimatize to the dark, Sabine stared down the flagstone passageway, where she could just make out the curved back, the third leg of a walking stick, and two chocolate-colored dogs, grunting happily around each other in greeting. "Lunch was at one. One. It's getting cold. I really don't see that I should have to tell you again."

  Sabine stood in the doorway, her mouth agape, subsumed by conflicting emotions.

  "He got back about five minutes ago," muttered Thom behind her. "We must have crossed paths with him."

  "Well, come on, come on. You can't possibly sit down looking like that," scolded her grandfather. "You'll have to change your shoes."

  "The old bastard," whispered Sabine, tearfully, and felt Thom's good hand on her shoulder in reply.

  Mrs. H, leaning from the kitchen door, mouthed an apology and shrugged helplessly. "Will I get you a dry jumper, Mr. Ballantyne?" she asked, but was waved irritably away. She ducked back inside the kitchen.

  Her grandfather turned stiffly toward the stairs, shaking droplets of water from his hat with his free hand. The dogs pushed past him, so that briefly unbalanced, he thrust out a spindly arm to catch hold of the banister.

  "I shan't tell you again." He muttered something to himself and shook his head. It was barely visible above the exaggerated curve of his shoulders. "Mrs. H, if you'd be kind enough to bring me my lunch, it seems my granddaughter would rather eat in a corridor."