Page 22 of Broken Country

I see also Tessa doesn’t really know Gabriel, not the wayI do. She doesn’t know, for example, about his desire to write, the fear he will never be good enough, of being railroaded into something he would hate, like banking or law, the professions his mother has in mind for him. Tessa has no idea Gabriel doesn’t want to inherit Meadowlands, that the pressure of being an only child depresses him and he dreads being left with the responsibility of looking after his mother when his father dies.

“All right if we head off to the lake now?” Gabriel asks, breaking off his conversation, not a moment too soon.

“Of course,” Edward says, half rising in his chair. “Wonderful to meet you at last, Beth.”

“Let me help wash up first,” I say, thinking of Sarah in the kitchen, guilty and embarrassed I’ve been eating the extravagant food while she’s been waiting on me. I stand and begin to pile the plates, one on top of the other, knives and forks moved to one side, but Tessa reaches out to still my hand.

“We don’t stack here, we leave that to the school dinner ladies.”

I leave the room, with my eyes smarting, clutching a single plate between my hands. Perhaps Gabriel didn’t hear, perhaps he finds it easier to allow his mother’s put-downs to drift over his head. In my chest, anger is rising.

In the far corner of the kitchen, Sarah is standing in front of the butler’s sink, a pile of plates beside her. She doesn’t turn as I come in.

I hesitate, wondering if I’ll make things worse by going over to talk to her, but before I can decide Tessa comes in.

“You can leave the washing-up, thank you, Beth. Our girl is perfectly capable, there’s really no need.” She lowers her voice to just above a whisper. “Before you go, a quick word, if I may. You are being sensible and using precautions, aren’t you?”

I stare back at her, too horrified to speak. There’s no way Sarah could hear across the other side of the room, but even so, I feel mortified.

“No need to look like that, I’m quite unshockable. And most grateful to you for keeping Gabe occupied all summer. He can get terribly bored at home. I do hope you haven’t compromised yourself?”

I’m saved answering by Gabriel, who arrives in the kitchen and wishes his mother good night.

Outside a fine rain is falling and the sky has turned electric blue, with ribbons of light at its edges. One time, by the lake, we were caught in a rainstorm. We kissed until our clothes were soaked through and then we tore them off and danced and whirled and bathed ourselves in the rain like weather gods. It is the freest I have ever felt.

“You’re very quiet. Was it awful?” Gabriel says, reaching for my hand.

For a moment I don’t trust myself to speak. There are so many emotions swirling in the pit of my stomach, it’s hard to know what I’m feeling. Angry, humiliated, insecure. Wretched, ashamed. I don’t regret a moment of the time I’ve spent with Gabriel or the things we have done, but his mother was clever in the way she managed to plant a seed of doubt in my head. What if she’s right? What if Tessa does know her son far better than I do?

“Your mother made me feel so cheap, like some tart you’d picked up for the summer.” The words burst out of me like poison. “Foolish for considering Oxford. Arrogant for thinking you and I could be anything more than a convenient fling.” There’s a weight of pressure in my chest, tears I need to shed in the privacy of my own bedroom. I feel sudden, aching loneliness. I don’t belong in this place with these people. “And you abandoned me.”

Gabriel’s face is incredulous, then he seems amused. “It was only dinner. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

There’s no way to control the rage as it spills out of me. “You don’t understand. And why would you? Look at you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sounds hurt, but it’s not enough to stop the outpouring of thoughts I have hidden from everyone, especially myself. “Everything is given to you on a plate, with a silver bloody spoon attached! No one tells you you’re not good enough. Not rich enough. Not posh enough. You get welcomed with open arms wherever you go. You can do whatever you want. Sleep with whoever you want. And get applauded for it. You will never be made to feel small or unworthy, never have to endure the sneering I had from your mother this evening.”

“Can I say something?” Gabriel asks.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and I burst into tears.

He puts his arms around me, presses my face to his chest. He smells of laundry powder and soap and the aftershave he always wears. “You’re right,” he says, pulling back a little so he can look into my face.

His eyes are shining too brightly; I see he is close to tears himself.

“The truth is, I’m scared of her sometimes. She can be so cruel when she wants to be. But I should have protected you. Forgive me?”

We kiss, his mouth warm on mine, his hands cupping the back of my skull as he holds me to him.This is us, I think. Not the people we were inside the house, but the boy and girl who have spent a whole summer together, pledging their love beneath a hundred starry nights.

1968

I have known Jimmy since he was an angry thirteen-year-old whom Frank acted as father and mother to, when he could find the time. Frank’s father, David, when I first met him, was still reeling from the loss of his wife years earlier and he’d allowed his younger boy to go feral.

Sonia died when Jimmy was just nine years old. One minute she was there, the next she was gone, a loss he was too young to comprehend. Frank says it was when he became a teenager the trouble started. Jimmy was sent home from school for bringing alcohol onto the premises and, after a particularly nasty fight one lunchtime, he was asked to leave. It was Frank who talked the school into taking him back. Jimmy was a motherless boy, he said, whose response to bereavement was occasional violence. Back then, you got the feeling Jimmy’s wildness concealed the fact he didn’t care about himself at all.

---