He was sent to boarding school a week after his mother’s funeral. That is what kind of father manages to forget to book his own son a flight home.
A few minutes later, during a lull in the adults’ conversation, Patrick stopped shovelling, raised his head and said, ‘My mother was a doctor.’ No one had asked him, then or earlier. He said it as if he’d forgotten, and just remembered.
I think, to prevent Rowland from reopening the topic or selecting a worse one, my father began to explain the Theseus Paradox to the whole table. It was, he said, a first century philosophical conundrum: if a wooden ship has every single plank replaced during the voyage across the ocean, is it technically the same vessel when it gets to the other side? Or put another way, he went on, because none of us understood what he was talking about, ‘Is Rowland’s current bar of soap the same one he purchased in 1980, or a different one entirely?’ My mother said, ‘The Imperial Leather Paradox,’ reaching across him for an open bottle.
*
At the end of lunch, Winsome invited us all to transition to the formal living room for ‘a little bit of opening’。 And, for Ingrid and me, a little bit of finding out that the money we lived on did not come from our parents.
Both of us, then, were at a school that was private and selective and single sex. I got a scholarship because, an older girl told me on my first day, I came number two in the exam and the number one girl had died in the holidays.
The uniform list was five pages long and double-sided. My mother read it out at the table, laughing in a way that made me nervous. ‘Winter socks, crested. Summer socks, crested. Sports socks, crested. Bathing suit, crested. Swim cap, crested. Sanitary towels, crested.’ She tossed it on the sideboard and said, ‘Martha don’t look like that, I’m joking. I’m sure you can use non-regulation pads.’
Because she did not get a scholarship, our parents enrolled Ingrid at the high school near our house that was free and co-ed and offered female students two kinds of uniform, she told people, the normal one and the maternity one. But at the last minute our parents changed their minds and sent her to mine. My mother said she had sold a piece. Ingrid and I made a cake.
In the car, on our way to Belgravia that Christmas Eve, we had asked our mother why she didn’t like Winsome, because she had spent the previous few hours refusing to get ready, issuing her annual threat of not coming whenever my father tried to chivvy her along, only agreeing once there had been sufficient begging. She told us it was because Winsome was controlling and obsessed with appearances and, sister or not, she could not relate to someone whose twin passions were renovation and large group catering.
Even so, my mother always gave her extravagant presents – to everyone, but especially Winsome who would open hers just enough to see what was in it, then try to re-stick the tape, saying it was too much. Always, my mother would get up and leave the room aggrieved, and Ingrid would say something funny to make everything fine but instead, that year, she stayed where she was, threw up her hands and said, ‘Why, Winsome? Why are you never, ever grateful for things I buy you?’
My aunt looked deeply embarrassed, her eyes darting all over the room for anywhere to look. Rowland, who had just given her per tradition, a Marks & Spencers voucher in the amount of ￡20, said, ‘Because it’s our bloody money Celia.’
Ingrid and I were sharing the same armchair and found each other’s hands. Hers felt hot, gripping mine, as we watched our mother struggle to her feet, saying, ‘Oh well Rowland, win some, lose some I suppose.’ She laughed at her own joke all the way to the door.
As old as we were, it had never occurred to us that a blocked poet and a sculptor who was yet to achieve minorly important status would not earn anything and our crested swimsuits were, like everything else, paid for by my uncle and aunt. Once our mother was out of the room, Ingrid said to Winsome, ‘What is it? I’ll have it as long as it’s not a sculpture’ and everything was fine.
*
It was the rule at Belgravia that children opened presents in ascending age order. Jessamine first, Nicholas and I last. As Oliver’s turn approached, Winsome disappeared briefly and came back again with a present that, unnoticed by everyone except me, she put under the tree. A moment later, she retrieved it and said, ‘One for you, Patrick.’ He looked stunned. It was some kind of cartoon annual. Ingrid whispered ‘disappointing’ when she saw what it was but I did not think I had ever seen a boy smile as hard as Patrick was when he looked up from opening it to thank my aunt.