Love Always

‘Wel , I’d like a picnic on the beach,’ Frank said suddenly. ‘With food.’

‘Yes,’ Jeremy said, pleased. ‘We thought we’d do that. At night, if that’s al right with you, Aunt Frances?’ He turned to his aunt, next to him.

‘Don’t want to leave you high and dry without company for the evening.’

‘So we’re not invited to the picnic on the beach, I take it?’ she asked him, amused.

‘Oh,’ said Jeremy, flustered. ‘Of course, if you’d like to – if you’d want to. How rude of me . . . I just thought, when Mother and Father arrive, you’d want to . . .’

‘I’d rather be on the beach,’ Arvind said.

Archie jumped in. ‘I say, Guy, Frank, have you been fol owing the Ward trial?’ he said. ‘Pretty juicy, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Guy. ‘I can’t believe they’re serving it up like this, every day.’

‘Profumo lied to Parliament, he deserves everything he gets,’ Guy said. He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘The times are changing. You can’t have this Establishment covering everything up as it suits them any more.’

Archie nodded, pleased. ‘What do you think, Frank?’ Frances asked the silent man next to her.

‘I’m afraid I don’t real y care much,’ Frank said, his handsome face set in a frown. ‘It’s just jol y entertaining, that’s al .’ He looked around, shamefaced. ‘Expect that’s an awful thing to say.’

‘I think that’s what we al feel,’ Guy said. ‘It’s terrible, but I want to read it.’ He turned to Miranda. ‘Do you read Private Eye?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Miranda said. ‘We sneak it in to school, I think it’s awful y funny.’

‘That’s rub—’ Cecily began, but bit her lip suddenly as Archie, next to her, kicked her.

‘Seems to me it’s the only paper or magazine tel ing the truth. There’s so much hypocrisy out there, in public life, it’s disgusting.’ Guy’s quiet face was animated. ‘L-look at the Argyl divorce case, it made me absolutely sick. We scrabble around to feast on the bones of these people, just so we can say how decadent and awful they are over our breakfast cereal, and then we bow and scrape when a lord or lady comes into the room.’

His voice rose as he came to an abrupt halt.

Silence fel as they al nodded politely, awkwardly. Frances looked at her nails again, and Guy sank back into his chair, embarrassed. Mary appeared in the doorway. ‘Shal I clear away?’ she asked. ‘Ooh, there’s not much left of it, is there?’

‘Thank you, Mary,’ Frances said. ‘That was delicious.’ The others murmured their approval, smiling, and Mary looked pleased. ‘You can go up afterwards, if you like. We can make the coffee.’

‘Behold, the symbol of our bourgeois repressive regime,’ Arvind said to Guy, after Mary had gone into the kitchen. ‘Mary. She cooks Beef Wel ington and cleans for us and we give her money.’

‘Sir, I didn’t mean –’ Guy began, looking mortified. ‘Please don’t—’

Arvind waved his hand. ‘Please. I was making a joke. You are quite right, young man,’ he said. ‘Things are changing, and we are wise to recognise it. Only I don’t think any of us knows how they wil change, not yet.’ He looked around the table, at his son Archie staring into space, at Louisa gazing at Frank, at Miranda watching them with a curious fury, at Guy, methodical y eating his cheese, at Cecily, careful y peeling a grape and looking across at Jeremy under her eyelashes, and final y at his wife. She nodded back at him, but a little frown creased her brow.

They retired one by one that night; Arvind went early, fol owed by Cecily then Jeremy. The others stayed up, sitting outside on the terrace, talking quietly over coffee. Guy was next to go up. He said he was tired, and he was fol owed by Archie soon after. Frances, Miranda, Louisa and Frank were left, until Frances took the hint and got up, with a look at Louisa and Frank and at her daughter.

Frank leapt to his feet. ‘Goodnight, Mrs . . . Mrs Kapoor.’

She held her hand in his, smiling at him playful y. She’d forgotten how touching these boys could be. How bloody pompous, too. ‘Goodnight, Frank. And please. Cal me Frances. It’s like Frank. Not too hard to remember.’

He gazed at her nervously. ‘Yes . . . yes, of course.’

She turned to Miranda, and her gaze flicked lightly back to Frank and Louisa, who was gazing shyly down at the flagstones.

‘You leaving these two to it, then, Miranda dear? See you tomorrow.’

Miranda, defeated, shot her mother a furious look. She got up from where she’d been artful y sitting on the ground. ‘Yes, I’m off too. Night, you two. Don’t be too long. It’s dangerous for the rest of us, you leaving the front door open,’ she said, somewhat obscurely.

Miranda didn’t come up immediately. Cecily was kneeling up in bed when she final y appeared, her diary beside her, and she was looking out of the window.

‘Are you peeping?’ Miranda said. ‘Watching what’s going on with the young lovers? Are they stil down there?’

‘No,’ Cecily blushed, and shut the window hurriedly. ‘Oh, you smel ,’ she said. ‘Is that where you went? Have you been . . . smoking? Urgh.’

‘Oh, shut up, you baby,’ said Miranda, flinging herself on the brass bedstead. ‘I’m eighteen, for God’s sake, I’m a bloody grown-up.’ She stared at the wal . ‘Not that anyone like Mummy seems to appreciate that fact.’

‘That’s because you don’t behave like a grown-up,’ Cecily said automatical y. ‘You don’t have a plan, unlike Archie.’ Miranda ignored her, and began unzipping her dress. Her younger sister watched her. ‘What are you going to do now? Do you know?’