Free The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester Page B

at night, under the damp, scratchy blankets,
     the desert and the drought? How the soil turns to dust? ‘They use sprinklers to
     keep the country clubs green!’ he said. There was a new note to his scorn, I
     noticed, a quiet, tensioned zeal. ‘The water mains are only switched on for twenty
     minutes a day, and the rich have lawns! It’s some
insane colonial
     hangover
!’
    Matthew was stuffing his pipe with tobacco.
     He didn’t know what to say. He had spent decades training himself to avoid theunpleasant. In the vase were bright orange crocosmia, red and pink
     roses, purple salvia. I thought of all the colours of India, the dusty bangled ankles. I
     would never go there. I thought of the constant unconscious adjustment of the saris of
     the women picking over the vegetable stalls of Brick Lane, and of those saris hidden
     under winter coats, of all the greys of London.
    ‘And swimming-pools!’ added
     Corwin.
    ‘Well, I think it’s
     admirable!’ said Matthew, standing up. ‘Most admirable. Water engineering!
     John would have liked the sound of that.’ He excused himself and went to pay his
     evening homage to the sea. There was less of him. My father’s death had diminished
     him, worn him away at the edges.
    Mum leaned back into her chair and smiled
     and sighed, ‘My beautiful children!’ And meant it, for once. This was a gift
     from her to her twins – food, wine, maternal pride – a reprieve. Because coiled up in
     her breast was the news, which she delivered to us over the thick dregs of the coffee,
     that she was moving in with Fuck Off Bob.
    ‘Well, darlings,’ she said,
     ‘I wasn’t exactly expecting you to be over the moon about it. But I am
     entitled to love after widowhood. You can’t expect me to squat here with Matthew
     for the rest of my life.’
    Corwin gave my ankle a lazy kick before I
     could refer to Bob’s repugnant groping hands. He didn’t pretend to be
     discreet about it. It was simply that we all knew what I was thinking and that there was
     no point in revisiting the subject.
    ‘Of course not, Mum,’ he said.
     ‘We’re glad you’ve found someone. We’ll get used to the idea.
     And you’re looking great, by the way.’
    She
was
looking great. Some of it,
     presumably, was merry widowhood, but some of it was new, expensive, clothing. Bought, I
     realized, now that I was paying attention, with Bob’s money, which he had made
     from his lucrative antiques and architectural salvage business, built up by prising
     family heirlooms from senilewidows entering nursing homes. So much for
     impassioned speeches about financial independence, I thought to say, but I restrained
     myself.
    ‘I won’t,’ I said,
     recalcitrant. ‘I won’t ever get used to it.’
    ‘Well, darling,’ said Mum,
     magnanimously, ‘graciousness has never been your strong point.’
    Corwin laughed, took Mum’s hand and
     kissed it. ‘Ah, it’s good to be home!’ He sighed and, keeping hold of
     Mum’s hand, reached to take mine. I acquiesced. I found that he was not so
     altered, after all. His virtue was still intact. It was still the most irritating thing
     about him.
    ‘Does Matthew know?’ I
     asked.
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And what? What does he think about
     it? Is that what you’re asking? Well, darling, he’s far too polite to tell
     me what he thinks, but certainly he understands about widowhood, and about loneliness.
     And he’ll be glad to see the back of me.’
    A vast bank of ludicrously puffy clouds had
     formed above the trees and had taken on a shade of gold so fierce that it appeared as
     though a heavenly host was about to erupt from them to deliver blessing upon Mum and
     Bob’s treacherous couplings. Mum smiled at the skies and basked in the warmth of
     her own indifference.
    I let go of Corwin’s hand.
     ‘I’m going down to the cabin,’ I said.
    At Thornton Mouth, Matthew sat on the cabin
     steps watching a couple of surfers. I sat down