Accidents in the Home Read Free

I suppose you’ve been hearing all about the cultural delights of the capital?
    â€”Oh, they’ve been everywhere and done everything. And know everyone, of course.
    This rehearsal of mutual ironic judgment felt comradely and consoling, but as soon as Bram went to talk to the visitors and Clare was left setting the table she was filled with unreasonable resentment at his tone. They hadn’t really talked much about London; mostly, she and Helly had talked about the old days. It was Clare’s own fault if she had taken away any impression that things in London were more brilliant and thrilling than down here.
    The lunch went off all right. At least, the soup was good, and there seemed to be plenty of talk, although perhaps most of it was Helly’s and David’s: Helly told them funny stories about the shoot for the ice-cream ad (she imitated the voice-over for them: Forgive yourself: it’s irresistible ), and David seemed to hold forth on every topic, he knew someone or he’d read something or he’d once worked somewhere. He even managed to find some kind of software program to talk about to Bram: mostly Bram didn’t try to compete whenever the conversation was noisy. Clare was used to presuming, wincingly defensively, that Helly must think Bram was dull and stolid. Helly always made a point of trying to coax him out of what she probably imagined was his shell. Clare winced defensively for Helly too. She had no idea how Bram recoiled from her coaxing.
    Toby got it all on his video. Both visitors tried encouraging him out from behind his viewfinder: David had friends in a video production company he should get in touch with, Helly lit his cigarette for him (Clare hated Toby smoking) and tried to draw him out on the subject of himself. But he couldn’t resist how the shots framed themselves around David and Helly, how their clothes and scent and cigarette smoke and loud laughter crowded the space, and how dingy they managed to make ordinary family life seem. Rose tipped over her orange juice. Lily and Rose wouldn’t eat the onion soup. Coco had broken his glasses, which had to be mended with sticking plaster until they could get to the optician’s on Monday. For some reason Clare was exasperated at this, and at how patiently Bram mopped up Rose’s orange juice with a cloth, although she knew this was unfair and knew how much more exasperated she would have been if he hadn’t mopped it.
    She had taken a few minutes before lunch to change into a dress and brush out her hair and spray on perfume. She wasn’t sure whether she was really flirting with David at that point; she was making up to him, flattering him, because that would make everything go smoothly, Helly would be satisfied, and he would be at least kept sweet for the afternoon. She could see herself, when she watched the video later, backing away in front of them down the path of their weekend, his and Helly’s, sweeping and sprinkling it ahead of them with her interest and her attention, helping to damp down David’s impatience to be gone.
    *   *   *
    THEY WENT OUT in the afternoon to look at Bram’s project. Bram had been amused that Helly had to change her clothes first; although actually she reappeared in sensible scruffy trousers and shirt, in which she still managed to look spectacular. It was Clare in her dress who got her legs bitten and scratched in the long grass. They walked around the bay, which would eventually become the marina: now it was low tide and the ruined jetties of the old harbor marched out up to their knees in sleek gray glinting mud. Oystercatchers and curlews (Bram identified them) picked their fastidious way between them. Across the ring of the bay the piled up buildings of the city loomed, glinting and flashing from plate-glass office-block windows whenever the sun flew out from between ragged slate-colored clouds. It was May. There was a wind that