‘We’re getting some help,’ I tell her. ‘Though there seems to have been some sort of mistake with his last Work Capability Assessment. He was too ill to get there and we got a letter a week later saying he’s been put back on the able-to-work register. I think. Guy wouldn’t let me see the letter.’
Holly lets go of me and turns away, shaking her head. ‘Jesus fuck.’
‘I wish you didn’t swear so much.’
‘I wish there wasn’t so much to fucking swear about.’
The door is half open behind me. Across the hall the stairwell window facing the front of the house is as tightly shut as it can be but its frame is wonky and it admits both draughts and sound – and leaking water, too, if the weather is from the south. I can hear a noise of crunching stones from the driveway beyond.
I nod backwards. ‘Somebody else,’ I tell Hol.
We go out onto the landing, to look. Out beyond the slope of the front garden lawn, the straggle of assorted, unkempt bushes and the stone gateposts guarding the drive – the left one tipped precariously, as though trying to block the entrance, replacing the long-sold-off gates – a swell of ridged brown field hides most of the city; only the triplet towers of the Minster and the spire of St Thomas’s church show dark grey above the brown corduroy of the land.
A large white Audi swings round the loop of driveway in front of the house, narrowly avoids hitting Hol’s little red Polo and scrunches to a stop out of sight below, right by the front door.
‘Buzz Darkside’s arrived, then,’ Hol says.
She means Uncle Paul. As we start down the stairs the Audi’s horn blares quickly, twice. It is quite loud. Moments later a bell jangles distantly in the kitchen, as though the house is answering back.
I can tell the difference between the sounds of the bells for different rooms. ‘Dad’s awake,’ I tell Hol as we get to the bottom of the stairs. A car door slams.
‘Thoughtful as ever, Paul,’ Hol mutters, though her pace quickens as she approaches the door, where a shadow is looming. Her hand is out towards the handle but Uncle Paul opens the door himself, breezing in, kicking it shut behind him. Paul is below average height for a man but carries himself bigger. He looks tanned and has naturally black curly hair he keeps tidily short. He works out a lot, he says, though his face looks a little puffy. Hol thinks he’s had work done, certainly on his teeth and probably on the bags he used to have under his eyes. He’s about thirty-nine. They all are, because they were in the same year when they went to uni and this was their home in term time. Only Guy breaks this pattern; he’s a couple of years older.
‘Hey, Hol. Kit! Wow. You look even bigger! Here, take this.’ He shoves an old battered-looking leather briefcase into my arms. ‘We can get the rest later. Hol.’ He leans in, kissing her, cheek against cheek, while Holly cooperates resignedly. ‘How’s my least favourite movie critic?’
‘Fuck off, Paul.’
Uncle Paul looks at me as he lets Hol go. ‘Aww, her first words.’ He pulls in a breath as he steps back to take in Hol’s appearance. ‘Great to see you too, petal.’
‘If this is about Kinetica, it was still shit.’
Paul shakes his head. ‘Grossed one-fifty worldwide, for a budget of thirty. Slightly south of thirty, actually. If that’s shit let’s hope they all are.’
‘So it’s shit that grossed one-fifty worldwide. Still shit.’
Paul smiles broadly at her. ‘You are welcome to your biased, bitter and basically totally bizarre opinion.’
Paul is a corporate lawyer for Maven Creative Industries. Maven Creative Industries make high-concept cinema (movies, according to Uncle Paul; films, if you listen to Hol), have multiple interests in theme parks and are increasingly moving into electronic games and other virtual arts and entertainment spaces where they are poised to exploit the synergies offered by multiple-platform cross-conceptualisations. So says their website. (HeroSpace, the game that I play, is not one of theirs.)
When they all lived here back in the early-to-mid nineties, before I was around but when I was conceived, everybody coming here this weekend was a student in the Film and Media Studies department of the university. Except Dad, who was, nominally, originally with the English faculty before he changed departments. He changed courses a lot. His status was such he was sometimes described as the Student Without Portfolio (a Hol coining, apparently. It sounds like one of hers).
‘How are you, anyway?’ Paul asks Hol.
‘Just about keeping my head above water. You?’
‘Water-skiing.’ Paul grins. ‘Things are good. You heard I might be coming up here to, ah …’
‘Get parachuted into the local safe seat over the heads of the loudly protesting local party?’ Hol says, folding her arms in front of her. ‘Yeah, heard. Well done; you finally made it into Private Eye.’
‘Yeah, I know; having that issue framed.’
‘I thought that was the police’s—’
Uncle Paul – he’s not a blood relation, he’s just always liked me calling him Uncle Paul – turns from Hol and smiles at me. ‘Hey, Kit, I could end up being your MP!’ He laughs. ‘I should court you!’ He frowns. ‘You are allowed to vote, aren’t you?’
‘Jeez, Paul,’ Hol begins.
‘Can I count on your vote, Kit, yeah?’ Paul says, smiling broadly at me.
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘We’re in Bewford South here. Not Bewford City.’
‘Really?’ Paul looks taken aback. He’s frowning. He reaches out and takes me by the right elbow. ‘Well, never mind,’ he says, sounding sympathetic. His attention leaves me. ‘Hey, Mrs Gunn! How you doing?’
I think I hear a distant ‘Huh’, then the sound of the kitchen door closing.
Paul frowns briefly, shrugs. ‘Same old Mrs G.’ He looks around the front hall, inspecting. ‘Same old everything, I guess,’ he says, more quietly. ‘Place looks a bit shabbier, that’s about it.’
I suppose the place does look shabbier. It is deteriorating all the time because although we have a big house we don’t have much money and Guy sees no point in keeping the place in good repair anyway. There are various leaks in the roof and many slates are missing or flap loose in gales and storms. (When the wind blows, it is, I’ve heard Guy say, ‘like living in a castanet factory in an earthquake’.)
Most of the gutters and downpipes are blocked – a small tree at least as old as I am is growing in the down-pipe on the north-west corner of the house. There’s a crack big enough to fit a finger into running down two storeys of the back wall facing the quarry; two internal doors fit so poorly they have to be shoulder-charged to gain entry to the bedrooms concerned – or hauled open with both hands if you’re inside and want to get out – while another fits in its frame so loosely that just walking past it on the landing outside is enough to make it click and creak open (easily confused people find this ‘spooky’).
Several windows are cracked across their corners and the one in the boxroom fell out entirely ten years ago and was replaced with hardboard, itself now warped with damp. The electrical system needed refurbishment twenty years ago (I estimate we go through about a metre of fuse wire per annum); the fire in the parlour produces a strong smell of smoke in the bedroom immediately above it, the two above that and the attic above those; the plumbing clangs and bangs; the boiler or something close to it groans and wheezes when called upon for hot water; and the central heating makes a noise like a slow drill and never really heats the two furthest bedrooms much beyond taking the chill off. The upper floor, which housed the servants in the old days, isn’t heated at all, though a little warmth finds its way up there anyway because nothing in this house fits or insulates properly.
Guy still talks with surprising bitterness about the folly of removing the Aga that used to take up half of one kitchen wall and replacing it with an electric cooker. That happened nearly a quarter of a century ago, when his parents were modernising the place. He used to talk of buying a new Aga, or at least one new to us, but he never did,
and now, of course, never will.
I’ve grown used to the house slowly crumbling away around me – I’ve grown up with it – and of course I see it happen very slowly and incrementally, every day, while Paul visits only about once a year, so any changes will look more dramatic. He glances back to the front door. ‘Think the rain’s going off. I’ll get my gear.’
‘I’ll help,’ I say, remembering to be helpful. Holly comes out to the car, too. Paul points the key fob at the giant Audi and the rear hatch hisses up. ‘Cool,’ I say. We have a dark blue Volvo estate, which is older than I am. Guy bought it from an antique dealer in Buxton twenty years ago and now it’s practically an antique itself, he says. It lives in the wooden garage, which sort of leans against the south side of the house. I can drive it, after passing my test last year, though I’ve never driven it very far and I’m frightened of the motorway. I keep it maintained, too, though it’s a messy business, requiring several sets of overalls, and surgical gloves. Sometimes two layers.
‘Grab that antique Halliburton, will you, Kit?’ Paul says, nodding at an aluminium case. I lift it. Paul pulls out a posh-looking suitcase. I think it’s made from carbon fibre. Hol steps forward, hand out. ‘Hol?’ Paul says, sounding concerned. ‘You sure you should be carrying anything, in your condition?’ Hol glares at him. ‘You know, with that enlarged spleen and overactive bile duct of yours? Sure we’re not going against medical—’
‘I thought you might need help getting your ego into the house,’ Hol tells him.
Paul just laughs, then says, ‘Still working for Sight Unseen?’
‘Sight and Sound, and fuck you again. And don’t pretend you don’t read it, even if it’s just because you have to.’
He laughs again.
‘I’m not any bigger,’ I tell Paul as we head back into the hall.
‘What?’
‘I’m the same size as I was last summer, last time you were here.’
‘Oh. Are you?’
‘Yes. I’m one hundred kilos.’
‘Are you now?’
‘I’m always one hundred kilos. I have been since before I was sixteen.’
‘Really.’
‘I just like being one hundred kilos.’
‘I see,’ Paul says, as we troop up the stairs. ‘Well, that’s, ah, that’s a nice round number.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Exactly.’ I’m leading the way up the stairs at this point so I can’t see his expression.
Guy’s bedroom bell jangles again and a moment later I hear Mrs Gunn bustling out of the kitchen, muttering, ‘Yes, yes, I hear you. Can’t be in three places at once.’ She comes stamping up the stairs behind us.
‘Hello again, Mrs G!’ Paul says cheerily as she passes us.
‘Mm-hmm,’ she says, not looking at any of us as she passes. She has her outside wellies on and is taking off her gardening gloves as she goes, disappearing round the corner at the top of the stairs.
‘How is Guy?’ I hear Paul say quietly.
‘Haven’t seen him yet,’ Hol tells him. ‘No better, from what—’
I turn round, lower my head and my voice and whisper, ‘He’s still dying,’ to Paul.
Paul looks instantly serious. ‘Sorry to hear that,’ he says.
Behind him, Hol seems to be keeping a neutral expression.
We’re in the kitchen ten minutes later, drinking tea that I’ve made and eating shortbread that Mrs Gunn has made – she is still upstairs, probably helping Dad get up – when the doorbell rings.
The doorbell also links to one of the kitchen bells. These are over one hundred and thirty years old, as old as the house itself. The bells exist in a long box up on the wall of the kitchen. They look like little handbells hanging on the ends of metal springs shaped like question marks. A white-or-red disc under each bell used to show which one had rung most recently even after the bell had stopped ringing and the spring had stopped quivering, but the discs haven’t worked for at least the one point eight decades I’ve been around.
When the quarry on the far side of the back garden wall was still being worked, up to four years ago, the twice-weekly blasts used to shake the whole house and make all the bells ring faintly. It was as if the house was trembling and crying out in alarm.
Now they’re going to extend the quarry and the house is going to have to go; Guy is selling the place to Holtarth Moor Quarries and it’ll be demolished. I don’t entirely know where I’ll end up but if there is one thing I’d like to keep from the house itself – I mean, apart from all my own stuff, in my room – it might be this box of bells here in the kitchen. I’m not sure why.
‘Anybody home?’ a distant female voice yells from the front hall.
‘Hey, it’s the fatuous Baker girl,’ Hol says as we all stand, chairs scraping on the flagstones.
‘We just came in,’ says a male voice from the same direction. ‘Hope that’s all right …’
‘Oh,’ Hol says brightly, ‘and Mr Bobby.’
‘What does she call me?’ Paul asks me as we file out of the kitchen to the hall again.
‘Buzz Darkside,’ Hol says, before I can answer.
Paul looks unimpressed. ‘Still with that? Needs reimagining. Hey!’ he says, raising his voice as we see the others. ‘Hey!’ he shouts, even louder. ‘It’s the whole gang!’
I’d expected two more people – Alison and Rob – which I think I could have coped with, but instead there are four and I feel overwhelmed. The other two are Pris and Haze, who used to be a couple but now aren’t and yet they’ve turned up together. Everybody crowds into the hall except Mrs Gunn and Guy, who are still upstairs, and I back into a corner near the cupboard under the stairs, feeling suddenly hot and a bit dizzy, while people, us from the kitchen and the rest from the still-open front door, mill about and talk and shout and put luggage down and embrace one another and slowly start to sort themselves out, though in the meantime they all talk at once and talk over one another, so it’s difficult for me to tell who’s saying what.
‘Yeah, bit mob-handed, as my old da would have said. We did ring, but—’
‘Still not where the sat-nav says it’s supposed to be.’
‘Come in! Come in come in come in come in.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Paul. Ah, thanks. Yeah, thought that must be your great white behemoth blocking the front door.’
‘Yeah, look, I missed out on getting to the supermarket so I haven’t got any booze. But I’ve brought all me special spices and secret ingredients with me. Thought I might make a curry. I mean, I can go out specially later for drink, yeah? Oh, hi, Hol. Hey, Paul, what’s up?’
‘Yes, but it should get it right. The place has been here long enough.’
‘Passed Pris and her new chap on the motorway so I texted them. Met up for a coffee in Ormers and bumped into Haze.’
‘Well, not for much longer. Evening, all. Oh, look; decent mobile reception. That’s an innovation.’
‘Yeah, that was just a misunderstanding, that disabled space.’
‘Where’s, ah …?’
‘And can I just say now, I’ve brought some lacto-free milk, and I’m not saying nobody else can’t have any at all, but I will need some each day, so …’
‘What did you buy?’
‘Might ask you to move the Audi at some point, Paul; going to need access to a plug to recharge the Prius.’
‘Rick, Paul. He’s called Rick. He’s staying in Ormiscrake. The King’s Head.’
‘Hey, Paul, Hol; good to see you, Kit.’
‘What, is he just shy or something?’
‘Oh, like, no, I wasn’t … I was, um, donating, you know?’
‘You’ve got a plug-in Pious?’
‘He doesn’t want to intrude, Paul. I know that’s a hard concept for you to cope with.’
‘Oh. It’s just that you came out with a bag.’
‘Hol the doll! You good? Look at you!’
‘He looking after Mhyra?’
‘Yew, harsh!’
‘Well, you’re kind or blind and I’m a mess, but thanks.’
‘Nah, we left Brattus Norvegicus with my sister in Hemel.’
‘What? Oh, ah. No, yeah, that was, like, stuff they couldn’t … Hey, there’s our Kit! Hey, Kit. Yeah, yeah. How are you, my friend?’
By early evening, when it is already dark but the rain has eased off again and a little watery moonlight is painted over the limbs of the trees crowding the back garden, they are all fed and watered and Guy is up and we are all in the sitting room, sitting.
Mrs Gunn has gone home. She lives in a neat little timber-frame, brick-skin bungalow in a cul-de-sac in the leafy suburb of Quonsley, which is a couple of kilometres away, just over the big bulge of field on the hill that hides most of the city from the house. I have been to her house once, when I missed the bus from school and was told to go to hers to wait for Dad, who was coming with the car. She keeps clear plastic covers on her couch and chairs in the living room. Her house was warm and draught free, and smelled of clean. It could not be much less like this place.
Willoughtree House. That’s the name of this place, the name of the house we are talking about and which I live in with Guy, my dad.
‘I still can’t fucking believe it. I certainly couldn’t believe it the first time … especially the first fucking time. I remember thinking, Boris fucking Johnson as mayor of London? What next? The Chuckle brothers as secretaries general of the United Nations?’
‘Boris isn’t so bad.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, come on, Hol; at least he’s, like, real.’
‘Fuck off. He’s a fucking right-wing Tory, friend of Rupert fucking Murdoch and defender of the fucking kleptocrat bankers. Another Bullingdon Club bully. How does coming across as being an incompetent bumbler at whatever he does make him better?’
‘I’ve met him. He’s not so—’
‘Oh, I bet you have. I bet he’s fucking charming. So was Blair. So what?’
‘Look, I didn’t feckin vote for him, all right?’