Family Album Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ALLERSMEAD

  GINA’S BIRTHDAY PARTY

  SCISSORS

  THE SILVER WEDDING

  THE CELLAR GAME

  CRACKINGTON HAVEN

  INGRID

  THE GERMAN EXCHANGE

  NIGHT WAVES

  THE FARMER WANTS A WIFE

  CLARE

  INGRID

  BLACK MARBLE

  MOTHERCRAFT

  VOICES

  ALLERSMEAD

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  FICTION

  Consequences

  Making It Up

  The Photograph

  Going Back

  The Road to Lichfield

  Treasures of Time

  Judgment Day

  Next to Nature, Art

  Perfect Happiness

  According to Mark

  Pack of Cards and Other Stories

  Moon Tiger

  Passing On

  City of the Mind

  Cleopatra’s Sister

  Heat Wave

  Beyond the Blue Mountains

  Spiderweb

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived

  A House Unlocked

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published in 2009 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Penelope Lively, 2009

  All rights reserved

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Lively, Penelope, 1933-

  Family album / Penelope Lively. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-14077-2

  1. Children—England—Fiction. 2. Family secrets—Fiction. 3. Domestic fiction. I. Title. PR6062.I89F’.914—dc22 2009004081

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Kay and Stephen

  ALLERSMEAD

  Gina turned the car off the road and into the driveway of Allersmead. At this point she seemed to see her entire life flash by. As the drowning are said to do. She thought of this, and that the genuinely drowning can never have been recorded on the matter.

  Philip, in the passenger seat, saw a substantial Edwardian house, a wide flight of steps up to a front door with stained-glass panels, a weedy sweep of gravel in front. Emphatic trees all around. Sprawling shrubs. Stone urns that spilled lanky geraniums at the bottom of the steps. He had known Gina for six months and had been her lover for five of these.

  Gina saw Alison standing on the top step, arms raised in rather theatrical greeting. She saw Charles emerge from the hall, staring down at them in what seemed mild surprise.

  Philip saw a plump smiling elderly woman with hair tumbling untidily from a bun, who was joined by a tall stooped man wearing the kind of tweed jacket that you had thought laid to rest by the 1970s. A large dog shambled at his heels, and slumped down on the top step.

  Gina saw various specters and dismissed them. Many people spoke, saying things they had been saying for years, and were also wiped. She brought the car to a stop and got out, as did Philip. She said, “Hi, there. This is Philip.”

  Alison came down the steps, embraced Gina, and beamed upon Philip. “I’m Alison. Lovely to meet you.”

  Charles simply stood. The dog thumped its tail.

  Philip took the bags from the boot. He and Gina climbed the steps. Gina said, “Philip, this is Charles—my father.”

  Charles seemed to consider Philip, as though wondering if he might have seen him before. “And Ingrid,” Gina continued.

  Philip now saw another woman waiting in the large hall (black-and-white-tiled floor, grandfather clock, umbrella stand, row of pegs loaded with raincoats, oak table strewn with junk mail); a statuesque and somewhat younger woman with fair straight hair and a pink face, holding a garden basket full of greenery.

  “Ingrid has such a splendid vegetable crop this year,” said Alison. “We have broad beans coming out of our ears.”

  The house smelled of cooking. You could unravel the constituent ingredients: garlic, herbs, wine—some earthy casserole, a coq au vin perhaps, or a boeuf en daube.

  Philip observed the staircase with oak banisters, the landing halfway up with window seat and further stained-glass window, the door open into a room apparently filled with books. A big house. A house from the days when people—a kind of person—assumed a big house.

  Gina experienced nostalgia, exasperation, and a passionate need to be in their flat in Camden, with Philip opening a bottle of something after work.

  Someone came galloping down the stairs, and halted at the bend, eyes on Gina. “Christ!” he said. “Not you again!”

  “Sod off,” said Gina amiably.

  Philip saw grubby jeans, a frayed sweater, and some eerie affinity with Gina.

  “Honestly, Paul!” cried Alison. “Gina hasn’t been here for over a year.”

  “It’s called irony,” said Gina. “Not that he’d know that. So how are things, you?”

  Paul came down the stairs. “Why are you that brown color?”

  “Africa.”

  “We saw you on the news,” said Ingrid. “Talking to those people fighting somewhere. Terrible.”

  “Indeed. Paul—this is Philip.”

  “Hi, Philip. Do you do Africa and stuff too?”

  “I’m in editorial. I stay behind a desk mostly.”

  “Very wise.” Charles was moving towards the book-filled room but now halted. “The Times, isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Gina. “You haven’t met Philip before. Not The Times.”

  “Forgive me.” A kindly smile. “Not that I read it any longer. Once, it was the thinking man’s paper. Now, one shops around, and is generally dissatisfied. What do you read?”

  “The In
dependent,” said Philip, after a moment. “By and large.” He felt at a disadvantage, for reasons he could not identify.

  “For the compost heap those small papers are better,” said Ingrid. “The ones with big headlines—what do you call them?”

  “Tabloids.” Gina picked up her bag. “Which room, Mum?”

  “I do not know why,” Ingrid went on. “It is perhaps to do with the ink. I am putting on the kettle now.” She walked away through a door in the back of the hall.

  “The big spare room, dear. And then come down and have tea. My orange and lemon cake. It used to be your favorite.”

  Gina and Philip climbed the stairs. Gina led the way into a bedroom. Philip glanced around and sensed a room that had remained the way it was for some time: functional rather than aspiring—an Indian print bedspread, the walls in need of a lick of paint. He went to the window and saw a great sweep of garden: a terrace, and then a huge lawn skirted by trees, dropping away to other areas, furtive and invisible.

  “Plenty of space.”

  “Just as well. There were six of us.”

  “Did David work on The Times?”

  “At one point.”

  They were still at the stage when they skirted each other’s impedimenta. Philip’s ex-wife lurked in the wings. A former boyfriend of Gina’s sometimes surfaced in this way, causing slight difficulty. And there was Allersmead, which Gina had decided had best be confronted head-on. Philip’s parents were in undemanding retirement in Cornwall, and had already been dealt with, over a weekend.

  “So what’s the difference?” Philip had said. “With your lot? Why is it apparently a bigger deal?”

  “You’ll see,” she had replied.

  Philip walked around the room. He picked up a photo on the mantelpiece. “Six. Only five here.”

  “Presumably someone wasn’t yet born.”

  “Paul is . . . ?”

  “That one. He came before me. Eldest.”

  “And you had braces on your teeth. Your fans would be aghast.”

  “Shut up.” She was emptying her bag onto the bed. T-shirt, toilet things, not much else. She always traveled light. In the wardrobe at the flat, there was the other bag, permanently packed with basic clothes, passport, cash—in case she had to go somewhere at a moment’s notice.

  “Braces and all, you were a fetching little girl.”

  “No one thought so at the time. Sandra was the pretty one.”

  He moved back to the window. “Halcyon summer days. Hide-and-seek. Picnics on the grass. It’s the stuff of dreams.”

  “Huh! By the way, the bathroom’s on the other side of the landing. The door sticks. You just push hard.”

  “Who does the cooking? Something smells amazing.”

  “My mother mostly, sometimes Ingrid.” She had opened his bag and was taking out his things. “Which side of the bed do you want?”

  “Left. I like that window. Who is Ingrid?”

  “The au pair girl.”

  “But . . .”

  “But she is no girl? Indeed. Ingrid has been the au pair girl for many years.”

  Philip appeared to consider this. “And she is . . . not exactly English?”

  “Swedish or Danish or something. Once.”

  “No longer?”

  “Well, look at her. She’s Allersmead now, isn’t she?”

  Gina continued to hear voices, her life was still flashing at her. It seemed odd that Philip could be impervious to this, that a person with whom one had become so absolutely intimate could be so perversely ignorant. Not know. Not see and hear. One is sealed off, she thought. So is he. So’s everyone. No wonder there’s mayhem.

  “We should go down.”

  “Of course. The orange and lemon cake.” He had flung himself on the bed, arms behind his head. “How extraordinary—that you spring from here, and I know nothing about it.”

  “Rather what I was thinking. But I sprang some time ago, remember.”

  “Even so . . . I have to say, I don’t see much physical resemblance. A hint of your father’s nose, perhaps. Remind me again what exactly is his field.”

  “Field? Charles writes—wrote—books. Polymath—he’d probably buy that description. History, philosophy, sociology—a bit of everything.”

  “The name did ring a bell. When I met you.”

  “He’d be gratified.”

  “Wide readership?” inquired Philip, after a moment.

  “Actually, yes. Accessible. More so than the academics, I suppose. Listen, we must go down.”

  He held out his arms. “Come here.”

  “Not now. Later.”

  The kitchen was the heartland of Allersmead. Of course. That is so in any well-adjusted family home, and Allersmead was a shrine to family. The kitchen was huge; once, some Edwardian cook would have presided here, serving up Sunday roasts to some prosperous Edwardian group. Now, there was—no, not an Aga but a big battered old gas cooker, a dresser cluttered with plates, cups, mugs, a scrubbed table that would seat a dozen. There were children’s drawings still tucked behind the crockery on the dresser, a painted papier-mâché tiger on a shelf, alongside a row of indeterminate clay animals that someone made earlier. There were named mugs slung from hooks: Paul, Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger, Clare.

  Philip ate two slices of orange and lemon cake, with evident enthusiasm.

  Gina eyed the papier-mâché tiger. Katie made that. So where’s my fish? We made them at school, and gave them to her for Christmas. The fish has not stayed the course, it would seem.

  Tea was had. People came and went from the kitchen. Charles came, stood smiling benignly around, a cup in his hand, departed. Paul came, wolfed down cake and chocolate brownies, offered to service Gina’s car—“For a consideration, mind.” After he had gone, an engine revved outside. Gina looked alarmed.

  “It’s all right,” said Alison. “That’s his. He’s got an old Golf, since he started with the job. And he’s teaching himself about engines—so clever.”

  Ingrid sat at the end of the table, shelling broad beans. She and Alison had a discussion about pommes dauphinoise or just mashed. A big round old station clock on the wall ticked, perhaps a touch too loudly.

  “Show Philip the garden,” said Alison. “Admire Ingrid’s vegetables. She has some dahlias too. Of course, this has never been exactly a display garden.” She beamed at Philip. “We grew children, not flowers.”

  Gina pushed her chair back noisily, stood, nodded at Philip. “Come on, then.”

  They went down the steps from the terrace. It was August. The wide, sloping lawn was shaggy but also yellowing here and there. A couple of hydrangeas glowed, but the general effect was one of unconstrained greenery—rampant shrubs, the presiding trees. A fat branch that reached out over the grass supported a homely swing—a piece of plank slung from two ropes. As they walked down to the hidden areas beyond the lawn, Philip saw a rope ladder hung from another tree, a further swing, a sandbox with a crust of dead leaves.

  “A sort of empty stage,” he said. “Rather touching. No grandchildren yet?”

  “No one has got around to it.”

  This area of the garden was more unkempt still, except for a disciplined vegetable garden at the far end—a wigwam of runner beans, bushy rows of broad beans, lines of carrots, lettuces, onions. A bank topped by trees marked the boundary; in front of this, there were sprawling bushes, patches of overgrown grass, an ancient rubbish heap of branches and rotting vegetation, a flat place in the center, just below the lawn, where a rectangle of fading grass seemed to have archaeological significance.

  Philip eyed this. “What happened here?”

  “Pond,” said Gina. She walked over to the vegetables. “I am admiring you,” she told them. “There. And the dahlias.”

  Philip joined her. “Have you really not been here for over a year?”

  “Quite possibly. I do,” she said, “lead quite a busy life. You may have noticed.”

  “This garden must have been paradise
for kids.”

  “Paradise?” She laughed, for some reason. She was still looking at the vegetables. None of this stuff back then, she thought. Ingrid has found a new talent, a new use.

  “There was one family of five at my school,” said Philip. “I used to envy them—a sort of homegrown gang. I felt exposed by comparison, with just one mingy sister. Were you a gang?”

  “Mafia activities were confined to the home. We ignored each other at school.”

  “And where is everyone? You don’t make much reference, you know. Paul, once or twice, that’s all.”

  “Dispersed.” Gina crushed a sprig of marjoram, sniffed. “Wow—she’s into herbs as well.”

  “Dispersed where? Remind me.”

  “Oh.” She waved a hand, vaguely. “Roger’s in Canada. Katie married an American. Clare—I’m not sure, right now. Sandra was last heard of in Italy, I believe. Do you fancy a walk around the neighborhood? There’s quite a nice park.”

  “Is Paul always in residence?”

  “Paul comes and goes,” she said. “The park—and the church is worth a glance—Victorian Gothic, likely to be defrocked at any moment, congregation of a dozen. Let’s go.” She walked away.

  They lay in bed. The house creaked around them, as though subsiding. Boards groaned. A cupboard let out a small pistol shot. Gina remembered the place stuffed with ghosts, when she was eight. You crept to the bathroom at your peril.

  “I have overeaten,” said Philip. “Excellent food. Is it always like this?”

  “My mother likes to cook.”

  After a moment Philip said, “He is quite a talker, when he decides to.”

  “ ‘Decides’ is the right word.”

  “One gets a bit left behind at points. I am not strong on German philosophers.”

  “He probably wouldn’t like it if you were.”

  A pause. “How does Alison manage? And—um—Ingrid?”

  “They are not required to.”

  “But he hasn’t been an academic as such? No job in a university?”

  “Regular employment would not have suited him, I guess.”

  “Did I overdo things a bit on Iraq? It was the one point when I felt relatively well informed. You can’t now insist that Blair must have had information about WMD, when patently he didn’t.”