‘Yes,’ I say. I look at her and wonder, quite calmly, whether she, my own mother, ever liked me. I don’t know that she did.
‘I wanted revenge, I suppose. Wanted to show her
‘Cecily said we could never tel . She got crosser and crosser. I did too. We were shouting at each other, at least I was shouting at her, she was just standing there at the top of the steps down to the beach, shaking her head. I think she didn’t know what on earth to do. She was so young, you know. Fine time to lose your trust in the people you love most. She said I didn’t know what love is, that I’d never know what it meant. I said she was just a sil y little girl. And she smiled.’ Mum nods slowly. ‘I’m an idiot. I know why now. Hah! I know why. I can stil see her face. She sort of stepped back, and – and . . .’ Her voice cracks. ‘She just disappeared. She made this strange sound. “Oh!” As if she was surprised. Annoyed. And then –
she just . . . she just disappeared . . .’ Her shoulders heave, and she sobs.
‘Oh, Mum,’ I say. ‘I told them al this,’ she says, putting her hands in front of her face. ‘That she just stepped off and slipped, the stairs were dangerous.’ She looks up as though she wants my approval, there is the track of a tear on her cheek. ‘The police believed me. But somehow it never quite stuck with everyone else. I never knew why. Archie appeared immediately after it happened. Thank God. He ran down to the beach – he nearly slipped too.’ She stops and then she says, ‘Dad, someone should have done something about those steps a long time before.’
Arvind says, ‘There, as in many other areas, we were deficient in our care of our children, Miranda.’ His thin old fingers tap his knees, worrying at the creases in his trousers. His face is terrible in its sadness.
She doesn’t say anything immediately, and then she nods. ‘Al that time,’ she says. ‘It was so long ago, you know. And it’s like everything’s stood stil since then.’
‘I think,’ Arvind says, ‘for your mother, it did.’
I say softly, ‘How could you ever forgive Granny, Arvind? I mean – did you know?’
He is silent, for so long that I think perhaps he hasn’t heard me.
‘She had affairs, you know,’ he says. ‘Many of them. When we were first married, in London, before she had the children, afterwards . . . She found marriage hard. Being a mother hard. We had no money, we were both trying to work as hard as we could. These days, I understand, it is perfectly fine to talk about nothing else. Then you couldn’t, you know. Not a word. You had to be a contented wife and mother and that was that.’
The old, black eyes are unblinking. ‘She was glad when we moved down here at first, she said it was a fresh start, I think she hoped it’d stop her doing this. But she loved the danger . . . I knew that about her. She didn’t. She never real y realised, and the risks she took got greater, and then
. . .’ his voice cracks. ‘And then Cecily died. And you know, she knew. She found her diary when she was clearing away her possessions. She read what Cecily, her own daughter, had to say about her mother’s affair. She knew.’
At the thought of my grandmother, a few days after Cecily’s death, reading the diary where her own daughter finds out about her infidelity, I feel almost sick with pity, for her, for Cecily, for Arvind, for Mum. . . . For al of them.
‘But I am glad Louisa has never known,’ Arvind says firmly. I look out of the French windows to see Louisa trotting across the lawn. ‘People make mistakes, terrible mistakes,’ he says. ‘But I loved Frances. I loved her. We understood each other. That’s al that matters. That’s why we stayed together, al these years. I understood what she’d done, and how she felt. I wasn’t a perfect husband. A good father. My work always came first. It was easier, to lock yourself away in your own mind, you know?
‘She understood what she’d done. We tried to be better people afterwards.’ He nods. ‘And some things are best left untouched. Left in the past.’
Only if you learn to move on afterwards, I want to say. But you didn’t, did you? None of you. And the ones who weren’t involved spent their whole lives trying to make things better without knowing why, like Louisa, or going as far away from it al as possible and hardly ever coming back, like Jeremy. I look around the room, which is darkening now as the clouds out to sea scud over the sun. I don’t recognise this place any more.
The door opens, and I can hear the murmuring chatter that has been building al this time burst in on us, loud like a hive of bees. Louisa comes into the room.
‘Miranda? Ready to take the music soon?’ She looks at us. ‘OK?’
I see Mum taking in her out-of-breath cousin, in her slightly too-sheer white kaftan, red shining face, floral skirt and fluffy blonde hair.
‘Thanks, Louisa,’ Mum says, walking towards her. ‘Yes. I think we’re ready. Aren’t we?’
She looks at me and Arvind. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We are.’
Chapter Forty-Five
Louisa has planned it al out, of course. The invited guests have been gathering outside, having coffee in what was the dining room, mil ing around the gardens, and now they al file into the sitting room until it is ful . I identify people from the vil age, Didier and his wife, a few glamorous-looking men and women with the stamp of New Bond Street on them. Some stop to say hel o to Arvind, sitting in his chair by the fireplace, and my mother next to him, flicking through her notes. She is pale, but seems calm. I am worried though.
When everyone is in, Louisa makes a loud ‘Shh’ sound and the room fal s silent. My mother steps forward.
‘Thank you for coming today,’ she says. ‘I am Miranda Kapoor, Frances Seymour’s daughter.’ She pauses. ‘One of her daughters.’
Someone shuffles in the crowd; a seagul cries outside. Then it is silent again.
‘We are here to launch the Frances Seymour Foundation, which wil support the work of young artists, and promote understanding and interest in al forms of art with young people today. I’l tel you more about this in a moment, but for now I’d like to talk to you a bit about my mother. Tel you about who she real y was.’
