Gemma broughta cup of tea up to Mark and reminded him that they had things todo.
‘You go down to thegarage shop and get some cheese and ham for later, and maybe someof their nice bread. I’ll tidy up the barbecue stuff and then we’llhead off to Farnham.’
By the timethey were ready to go, it was nice enough to have the roof down, soGemma drove them up in the MG. The twenty or so mile trip wouldgive her the opportunity to continue to work on Mark. The Downslooked spectacular as they drove up to Haslemere and the borderswith Surrey and Hampshire before crossing the A3 Portsmouth toLondon road at Hindhead, which, according to a newly erectedwelcome sign, was the highest village in Surrey. As they sloweddown to negotiate the congestion in the town centre before headingup to Beacon Hill and the Farnham road, she started.
‘Look Mark,there’s some things about my family you probably need to know. Mydad did leave me a decent amount, enough to cover renting the flatin Littlehampton for as long as I wanted and for the car too, buthe wasn’t particularly wealthy in his own right; the real familymoney was and still is my mother’s. She had all the money as wellas a pile of shares from her father and grandfather and from whatI’ve been able to pick up it’s a small fortune, close on half amillion at least. The house itself may have been hers and Dad’s butthat’s all hers now of course. Anyway, it was mainly her family’smoney which enabled them to get the house in the firstplace.’
Mark put down thecrossword he’d been toying with.
‘Well, sure,I guessed as much. So where does that leave you and us?’
Now she had hisattention she pushed on.
‘The thingis, Mum and I never got on particularly well and never will. I’msure you must have picked up on that anyway. And she’s so desperateto be the centre of attention I don’t trust her with that money. Itmight seem callous and mercenary but, I mean, it’d be difficult forme if she got herself another man, and from the way she lashes outon her clothes and hair and the rest I think she’s got her sightsset somewhere. You know if she did re-marry, any inheritance thatmight come my way could well disappear.’
She’d finishedby the time they pulled down through Frensham and were headingtoward Farnham. It would be better to leave it to Mark to come upwith the idea of the two of them working together to avoid thescenario she’d just presented. Sow the idea and let it grow. Markmight be a bit slow at times but she knew he wasn’tstupid.
***
The air of affluenceand class was apparent as they negotiated the south side of Farnhambefore turning into Lynch Lane and the impressive detached houses,almost hidden behind hedged and manicured front gardens.
‘Yes, it isbloody impressive down here,’ Mark muttered almost tohimself.
Gemmacould see that Mark’s brain was whirring. The Times crossword pagehad long since settled on the floor by his feet.
The familyhouse itself was at the top end of the road, built to acontemporary, but still slightly neo-Tudor style in the early1950s. It was set in large grounds of at least half an acre; but itwasn’t just the house, it was the furniture and contents that alsoevidenced more than new money. Anne’s grandfather had invested inwhat was at the time modern art: particularly impressive were acouple of Maxfield Parrish paintings he’d brought at some sort ofprivate sale when he was in New York on shipping business in the1930s. The pictures, ‘Winter Sunrise’ and ‘Hilltop’, were hungalongside one another at the top of the staircase. Gemma hadpointed them out at his previous and first visit to the house andMark had resolved to check out the potential value as soon as hegot back to Petworth. He had looked into it and had found out thatParrish had died sometime in the 1960s, which made it highly likelythat his work must have soared in value since. However, Mark hadn’tyet got round to taking his interest any further.
As the house itselfcame into view, Gemma felt her usual wave of bitterness. She hadbeen brought up there and stayed until she was almost twenty. Itshould have been the ideal place to grow up but she had few happymemories of it. She’d felt the solitude, almost abandonment, of anonly child and had spent hours and days in her room, or else, andparticularly when she was younger, in the trees at the bottom ofthe garden, often escaping there while her mother and father werearguing with one another, or more typically just not communicatingat all.
Gemmaparked on the gravelled forecourt in front of the garage doors andthey let themselves in through the side door and into the kitchen.They found Anne in the sitting room, looking out over the largerear garden, smoking as usual with a couple of her magazines on theoccasional table next to her. Gemma noticed Country Life andVogue,magazines that had arrived regularly for as long as she couldremember. On first impression her mother looked quite elegant andeven attractive, but a closer look highlighted the heavily appliedmake-up doing its best to hide a somewhat ravaged complexion. Aswas the norm when Anne was growing up, she hadn’t taken much noticeof the sun and the fact that her family had been able to enjoylengthy summer holidays in France and Spain had gradually butinexorably left their mark.
Mark had onlymet Gemma’s mother on a few brief occasions and it struck him thathe’d never really looked at the person who possibly – presumably,really – was his potential mother-in-law. On closer inspection, shelooked a good deal older than her fifty-five years – or fifty-six,he couldn’t remember which. In spite of that, she still retained acertain attractiveness, albeit in a strange sort of way. However,the overall effect was oddly disconcerting; he couldn’t quitedecide whether
