Free Conrad & Eleanor by Jane Rogers Page B

whatever alcohol you can find in the place, and get some sleep.’
    â€˜I love you,’ he whispers.
    â€˜You too.’ There is an indulgent smile in her voice. He listens to her put the phone down, holding the empty receiver to his ear for the last reverberation of her voice.
    The kitchen is full of the steam of overboiling vegetables and the spitting fat of the chops. His mother wrestles with pans, and he makes them both a cup of tea. Still no police. At table his father’s seat is conspicuously empty. Con breaks the silence. ‘Is there anything I need to do for the sheep? Have you started lambing?’
    â€˜Not yet. They’ll need looking at in the morning.’ She has piled his plate with food but taken very little herself.
    â€˜Mum, can I get you anything else? Are you OK?’
    â€˜Why shouldn’t I be OK.’ It is not a question.
    Con eats quickly, greedily; he was empty. And maybe with food inside him he’ll be more able… he needs to speak to her before Ailsa comes and ends all possibility of communication. When he puts down his knife and fork his mother makes to rise and take the plates, but he puts his hand on her arm. ‘Mum, it’s all right, just sit still a minute. D’you have any idea why he did this?’
    â€˜To spite me.’
    â€˜Mum —’
    â€˜He’s been doing it all his life. Putting me in the wrong. Getting one over on me.’
    A stupid giggle bursts out of him. ‘Dad’s killed himself to spite you. Did you have a fight?’
    She shrugs.
    â€˜Mum?’
    â€˜No more than usual.’
    The back swill of numberless wretched family meals sloshes around Con: his mother slamming down plates, his father chomping through his food with a show of insouciance, hectoring Con and his sister with his excuse for humour. ‘Where d’you get that nose, sonny? No one on my side got a schnoz like that.’ And ‘Eat up that cabbage, Ailsa – put hairs on your chest that will. You can come out and do your strongman act after tea, Connie boy, got a pile of feedbags need shifting, ha ha.’ It amused him to find Con weak and effeminate. This became a furious charge when Con made it known that he did not want to be a farmer. Ethan did not address his wife except for the occasional ‘Cat got your tongue, Mother?’
    Con clears their plates from the table. ‘Mum, have you got any whisky?’
    She indicates the bottom cupboard of the dresser, and he locates a half bottle of Bell’s and pours them both a dose. ‘Well, if it was no more than usual, why’s he chosen to do it now?’
    She sips at her whisky and coughs. ‘There’s plenty of reasons.’
    â€˜Tell me.’
    â€˜His children for one. He’s not stupid. He knows neither of you want to give him the time of day.’
    Con suppresses his first impulse, which is to correct her use of the present tense. ‘I think it was more the other way round, Mum. He wasn’t very interested in my life, he never once asked about my work.’
    â€˜Oh your work!’ she says contemptuously. ‘How often did you ask him about his work?’
    â€˜But I know his work —’
    â€˜Do you? Do you? Did you know he’s been losing money? Do you know the price of feed for the lambs he raised last year?’
    Con does not.
    â€˜Â£120 a ton, and it was a wet spring, he had to bring them all under cover.’
    â€˜Was he worried about money, then?’
    â€˜Of course he was. Worried sick.’
    It is long enough since Con has talked more than trivia with his mother that he has forgotten her inveterate habit of reviling and criticising her husband both to his face and to anyone who will listen, and then leaping with outrage to his defence if anyone else breathes a word against him. ‘I’m sorry. If only he’d asked me, maybe I —’
    â€˜When’s he supposed to ask you anything?