Home Fires. Elizabeth Day
and there is a double garage with wooden doors to one side. Caroline has never seen a double garage.
‘Do they have two cars, your parents?’ she asks.
‘What?’ he says and then he notices her looking at the garage. ‘Oh, I see, no, only the one. They use the garage for storage mostly. Actually, there’s still some of my stuff in there.’
‘What kind of stuff?’
‘University stuff, old boxes of clothes, you know,’ he says. She nods her head as if the idea of university is unremarkable but inside she is impressed. She likes the fact that he is clever and more educated than she is. Caroline had never done well at school. Her father had always said she’d never amount to anything and, after a while, she began to think he was right and stopped making the effort. If her Dad could see her now, she thinks to herself, about to go for lunch with her boyfriend in a house with a double garage. That would make him stop and think.
She is nervous as she walks to the front door, her arm linked through Andrew’s. Sensing her unease, he smiles at her and pats her hand.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he says and a lock of hair falls forward over his left eyebrow. Caroline likes the way his hair does this. It was one of the first things she had noticed about him.
‘You’ll be wonderful,’ Andrew is saying.
She does not believe his reassurance, but she knows the appearance of confidence is important. She feels so lucky to be Andrew’s girlfriend, so surprised and flattered that he would choose to be with her that she is constantly on guard in case she does something wrong, in case she says something that will make him see who she really is.
The front door opens and a woman emerges, arms crossed over the front of her oatmeal-coloured cardigan, a small, precise smile on her face.
‘Andrew,’ the woman says and she leans forward, bending from her waist so that she does not step out beyond the doorframe, and then she brushes Andrew’s cheek against hers and kisses him but the kiss does not make contact so that all that is left is the suggestion of it.
Andrew’s mother is slender and elegant and taller than Caroline expected. She is wearing a tweed skirt that stops just above the calf, belted tightly around her small waist. Her hair is grey but she does not look old, even though Caroline knows that she is in her sixties.
She glances down at Elsa’s shoes. She has found that you can learn a lot about someone from their shoes. Elsa’s are made from expensive leather, buffed to a gleaming black patency, and Caroline is surprised to notice they are high-heeled, with a flat gold circular button on each toe. The shoes are beautiful but impractical, especially in the middle of the Cambridgeshire countryside. Caroline finds herself wondering whether Elsa has different, outdoors shoes that she keeps by the front porch or whether she has put these heels on because she feels the need to dress for the occasion. She makes a mental note of this, storing it for later.
‘And this must be –’ Elsa says.
‘Yes, Mummy, this is Caroline.’ He places the flat of his hand on Caroline’s back and she takes a step forward, leaning in at exactly the same angle as Andrew did for a perfunctory brush of the cheek, but Elsa puts out her arm and, slightly too late, Caroline realises she is meant to shake hands.
‘Oh,’ she stumbles. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Weston.’
‘Do call me Elsa,’ says Andrew’s mother. ‘Mrs Weston makes me feel far too old.’ And then she takes her hand back a touch too quickly, moving it up to the silver chain necklace lying delicately across her collarbone as if checking it is still in place. For a few seconds, Elsa leaves her hand resting there, her long fingers static but tense, like a lizard on a rock.
‘The pink walls are very pretty,’ says Caroline and the words are out before she can stop them and when she hears them she feels stupid and wishes she hadn’t said anything.
Elsa gives a mock shudder. ‘Oh don’t! We’ve been wanting to get them painted ever since we moved in.’ She stands to one side, beckoning them indoors. ‘Come in, come in,’ and she leads them through a dark, windowless hallway into a room with mismatched armchairs and a cream sofa running the length of one wall. A large tabby cat is dozing in a basket by the fireplace and the sound of its purring mingles with the tick-tock of a grandfather clock. Andrew squeezes Caroline’s hand, then lets go and, instead of sitting down with her, walks across to the bookcase, where he stares intently at the orange paperback spines.
She stays standing, shifting her feet.
‘Where’s Father?’ he asks and Caroline thinks the word seems formal, stilted. She calls her own parents Mum and Dad. Or she did, before she left home. She pushes the idea of them away. She does not want to think of them, not now.
‘Oh, he got held up with some paperwork,’ Elsa says. ‘Lecture notes or something, you know what he’s like. Please, Caroline –’ She gestures to one of the armchairs and Caroline sits down, perched on the very edge of the seat because she is aware, all at once, that her skirt is too short. She presses her knees together, feeling the flesh between them get clammy and hot, and then she searches for something to say. She is so desperate to impress Elsa, so keen that she should not make a fool of herself or say something wrong. She wants, more than anything, to fit in.
Her nose starts to run but she has no handkerchief so tries to sniff discreetly.
Elsa is bending down to the gramophone player, putting on a record and placing the needle carefully on the vinyl. A piece of classical music starts up, hesitant and stuttering. Caroline can make out a piano and some strings. It is soothing, she thinks to herself, relaxing. Perhaps she can ask about the music. She clears her throat.
‘This is lovely,’ she starts, but even those words sound wrong – her accent too nasal, her vowels too flat. ‘What is it?’
Elsa walks across to the sofa, her heels click-clacking against the parquet floor. She balances herself on one of the arms, crossing her legs so that Caroline can hear the smoothness of her sheer stockings as they slide against each other.
‘Chopin,’ Elsa says. And then she smiles, brightly. ‘It is nice, isn’t it? The sonatas have always been a favourite of mine. What kind of music do you prefer, Caroline?’
Caroline feels her cheeks go hot. She does not know how to answer. She looks at Andrew for help but he still has his back to them, still examining something of interest in the bookcase.
‘I – I – don’t listen to much music,’ Caroline says. ‘But I like this very much.’ There is a pause, so she continues. ‘It’s so –’ she searches for the right word. ‘So delicate.’
Elsa nods her head, slowly, obviously, as though she is making an effort to be encouraging. ‘I agree,’ she says in a way that suggests exactly the opposite. ‘Nothing quite so elegant as the tinkling of the ivories, is there?’ She glances at Andrew. ‘What do you think, darling?’
He turns around, hands in his pockets. ‘What would I know, Mummy?’ He smiles, affectionate, joshing. ‘I only listen to young people’s music these days.’
Elsa laughs. She throws her head back as she does so, revealing the soft pallor of her throat.
‘Oh darling, I hope that’s not true,’ Elsa says. ‘You’re not getting all rebellious on me now, are you? Do you know, Caroline, he was always such a serious little child. He used to look at me exactly the way he is now, even as a baby. The Steady Gaze, we used to call it.’ She cocks her head to one side. ‘Does he do that to you?’
Caroline shakes her head, unsure of how to reply. She stares down at the hem of her skirt, wishing she had chosen to wear something different. Before coming, Andrew had told her his mother was fashionable, that she liked clothes, and Caroline had taken this literally. She had worn the most up-to-date items in her wardrobe: a bright yellow miniskirt and a chiffon blouse with swirly patterns, tied at the neck with a bow. But now she saw that had been a mistake. Andrew did not mean fashionable – he meant classic, refined; he meant