Toby's Room Read Free Page B

mouthful down.
    ‘Water?’ Mother asked. She topped up her own and Elinor’s glass without waiting for a reply.
    ‘Look at Hobbes,’ Elinor said.
    Hearing his name, Hobbes raised his head, fixed his bloodshot eyes on her for a moment, then sank his slobbering jowls on to his paws again.
    Her mother’s face softened, as it never did when she looked at Elinor. ‘Poor old thing, he really hates this weather.’
    ‘Yes, imagine this in a fur coat.’
    They ate in silence for a while.
    ‘You were very quiet last night,’ Mother said.
    ‘Headache, I expect. Where is everybody?’
    ‘Rachel’s having a lie-in. Your father’s in his study, been up since six, and Tim and Toby have gone shooting.’
    ‘Toby hates shooting.’
    Her mother’s jaw clicked as she chewed on a triangle of dry toast. ‘Well, that’s where they’ve gone.’
    Conversation wilted in the heat. Soon there was no sound except for a discreet, well-bred scraping of knives on plates. Elinor could feel her mother’s gaze heavy on the side of her face. She put her fork down.
    ‘Shall we have coffee outside?’ her mother said.
    They took their cups on to the terrace where a table and chairs had been set up overlooking the lawn. The smell of dry grass tightened Elinor’s chest; she was finding it difficult to breathe.
    ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘I’m fine. Looks like we’re in for another scorcher.’
    Her mother tested the cushion for dampness before sitting down. ‘It needs a thunderstorm, freshen things up.’
    As she spoke, the crack of a rifle sent wood pigeons blundering into the air. Elinor drew a deep breath, or as deep as she could manage, and gazed straight ahead.
    ‘You and Toby haven’t quarrelled, have you?’
    ‘What makes you think that?’
    ‘I thought I detected a bit of an atmosphere last night.’
    ‘No, I was just tired.’
    Mother sipped her coffee, put the cup down, dabbed her lips on the napkin. ‘I want to tell you something, Elinor.’
    This might have sounded like the beginning of a mother–daughter chat, except that she and her mother never had them. That was Rachel’s province. The bare minimum of information that had been imparted to Elinor when she reached the age of thirteen had been conveyed by Rachel, in this, as in all other things, their mother’s deputy.
    ‘I don’t think I’ve ever told you Toby was a twin?’
    This was the last thing she’d expected. ‘No, I had no idea. Well …’ She tried to gather her thoughts. ‘What happened?’
    ‘It died. She. It was a girl.’
    She swallowed, obviously finding it difficult to go on. She was a reticent woman – or vacant – Elinor had never been sure which, though she was inclined to favour vacancy. ‘Bland’ was the word. It was almost as if her mother’s beauty, which even now was remarkable, had taken the place of a personality.
    ‘I never felt really well when I was expecting him, and with Rachel I had – in fact, I felt wonderful; but with Toby, no. I was so breathless by the end I used to sleep sitting up. And then when I went into labour it was … Well, it was difficult. A whole day and half the following night.’
    Elinor winced. ‘I couldn’t do it.’
    ‘When you’re nine months pregnant, dear, you don’t have a lot of choice. Anyway, he was born,
at last
, and of course I felt relief and joy and all the things you do feel, and it actually took me quite a while to realize the midwife was looking worried. She called the doctor – he was downstairs having a drink with your father – and I’ll never forget him coming through the door.’ She cupped a hand over her right eye. ‘His eyes just bulged. And then there was a great flurry and panic and … this
thing
came out.’
    She was folding her napkin, carefully running her fingers along the creases. ‘It had died quite late in the pregnancy, six, seven months, something like that. Normally, if a baby dies, labour starts straight away, but for some reason it hadn’t. And so