In the Family by Christina James

Author:Christina James
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Salt Publishing Limited
Published: 2014-07-30T09:58:18+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

I know that I cannot put it off any longer. We have eaten an excellent lunch in the buffet car – tomato soup, sea bass with fennel and chocolate torte – and drunk a bottle of claret. Peter has drunk much less than usual – normally he would have been quite capable of downing a whole bottle of wine on his own, as well as a couple of gin-and-tonics – and it is clear that he wishes to remain sober. I understand that this is because he wants to be entirely alert when he is listening to my story; also that he will insist on hearing it now. I can tell by the businesslike way in which he is paying the bill that he will brook no further delays. We return to our seats. I note with relief that we seem to have almost the whole carriage to ourselves. The elderly lady and the woman with two small children have vanished, presumably absorbed back into their communities in the Scottish borders. The only other occupant of the carriage is a middle-aged man who is lying sprawled in one of the airline seats, his mouth open, his snores prodigious.

Peter hands me in to my seat as solicitously as if I were a girl on her first date, then settles in beside me. I have never really felt intimidated by him before – on the face of it, his slight figure and damson-fly personality hardly inspire fear, even when he is being spiteful – but now I find him threatening. There is a sternness about him, an implacable determination to be told all of the truth without nonsense, that I find very alarming. He takes my hand and I flinch.

“Do stop being so jumpy, Hedley,” he says, still unsmilingly. “There is no need to be afraid. It is just an anecdote that I want – well, perhaps something a little longer – but nothing that should cause you distress. I’m sure that you recollect the events of that day and I want to hear you recite your memories. Nothing more nor less than that. No embroideries, no false amnesia. If you have genuinely forgotten some of the details, of course, you must say so. And rest assured that this is between you and me: no-one else will hear any version of your account, at least not from me.”

I nod miserably.

“Let’s start then, shall we? A bit of background first, I think. You got up that morning. Were you sleeping at the house in Westlode Street, or did you go there later on?”

“We were all sleeping there. I can’t altogether remember why. I think that my father had been staying there off and on for some time, helping to look after my great-grandmother as she became more frail. Also Uncle Colin was not in the best of health. He had always had a hunchback, and the long pale face that seems to go with it. He had been born with his deformity and as far as I know no doctor had ever been asked to diagnose the cause of it.

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