SOPHIE
2 May 2017
Twenty-nine
The next day, they decamp to his parents’ home, in deepest Surrey. A few days away is what is needed, for Sophie feels besieged. Unable to walk to the local shop where the front pages of the papers trumpet the news of his acquittal; ill-prepared for the smiles of congratulation from their neighbours and the texts from fellow mothers who profess to be ‘so relieved’ when the week before they had kept their distance, averting their gaze when she had marched into the playground to grab her children and whisk them away.
Woodlands, Charles and Tuppence’s substantial home, near Haslemere, provides the privacy they so desperately need: down a private road, with a lengthy drive; sitting squat in its own two acres of perfectly manicured grounds; fringed with pines and conifers which keep the world at bay. Sophie had always thought these evergreen sentries parochial and forbidding – trees that signal her father-in-law’s ‘not on my front lawn’ mentality – but now she sees the point. An Englishman’s home is his castle: drawbridge up; ramparts manned; arrows poised so that its inhabitants may be protected from barely whispered innuendos and prying eyes. The world has not just pressed its nose to the window of their marriage but shouldered the door – and now it is time for some back-up in the formidable form of Charles and Tuppence Whitehouse, the sort of law-abiding individuals on whose property one does not trespass; and down whose drive one would not venture unless one had been invited or had a very good reason indeed.
James visibly relaxes here: shows boundless patience as he takes the children out onto the tennis court, testing Em’s backhand while simultaneously teaching Finn forehand; managing the children’s varying abilities with tact and ease.
It helps that his mother adores him. Tuppence, a handsome woman with a tight grey perm, and a string of pearls at her throat that she pats when anxious, is not the sort to give in to emotion, or not according to her two daughters. And yet when their younger brother, her only son, comes home she softens: her sunken cheeks dimpling; her grey eyes lightening; her shoulders relaxing so that you can see beyond the somewhat haughty sexagenarian and glimpse the full-lipped beauty she must once have been. She basks in his presence, becoming girlish, almost skittish; and when she clutches him as they arrive, the emeralds in their Art Deco setting standing proud on her fists as she grips his shoulders, Sophie sees the depth of the fear that has consumed her – and that has kept her far from court, sequestered away. Her darling boy, a rapist? The possibility has shimmered, mocking Charles’s innate self-belief – in the Right Way of Doing Things, which includes stocks and shares and church on a Sunday and putting money in a trust for the grandchildren and golf three times a week and winter sun and a quick snifter before dinner – and ushering in a whole new world, of court cases and press conferences and concepts like consent and blame, that she would really rather not have to think about; but which, being more imaginative than her husband, creep up on her in the still, small hours of the night.
Now, though, Tuppence can relax. Her boy is safe. She stands watching him chase the children over the immaculately striped lawns of her garden, while Sophie – desperate to be busy; to preoccupy herself in this substantial 1920s house that she can never feel quite at home in – prepares a pot of tea. She acts on autopilot: speaking monosyllabically when required but feeling entirely detached as she runs through her argument with James until she can no longer think. Her limbs are heavy and it is an effort just to place one foot in front of the other; and to keep her sorrow in check.
It takes a while, then, to notice that her mother-in-law is nervous. She keeps patting those pearls in a staccato rhythm and a nerve twitches beneath her left eye.
‘Will you leave him?’ The question takes Sophie by surprise.
‘Because we wouldn’t blame you if you did.’ Her mother-in-law gives a pinched, tight smile as if it pains her to say this. ‘Of course we’d far rather you didn’t. Much better for the children.’ She nods as James tips Emily upside down so that her long hair swings free and her mouth opens in a squeal of delight. Sophie can imagine the peals of laughter; that gurgle particular to pre-teen children that she hears less and less these days, for she has not been able to protect Emily from every whisper in the playground, and she fears she has understood far more of what has happened than she has admitted. That, just as she knows the tooth fairy doesn’t really exist, so she senses James isn’t entirely innocent. Still, her adoration for her daddy seems undimmed.
They are playing tag now, James giving both children a head start before he charges after them; Finn aping a footballer as he whoops round the garden, arms stretching out like an aeroplane. Em darts into a copse beyond the herbaceous borders. Spring is here, spied in the ceanothus and tulips, in the vibrant carpet of bluebells, but the sun is watery and glows opaque through a flannel-grey sky.
She warms the pot, while she considers what to say to her mother-in-law, whose words jar like an outburst from a drunk. But Tuppence continues, regardless.
‘I sometimes wonder if we spoiled him. Let him believe that his opinion was always right? I suppose school inculcated that feeling – and Charles, of course, never brooking an argument. Perhaps it’s a male thing? That complete self-belief: the conviction that you never need doubt your opinion. The girls don’t have it and neither do I. He was like it as a little boy: always lying at Cluedo; always cheating at Monopoly, insisting he could change the rules. He was so sweet, so persuasive, he got away with it. I wonder if that’s why he thinks he still can?’
Sophie is silent. Their conversations are usually about books, tennis or the garden and she has never known her mother-in-law to open up like this. Nor would she have anticipated this soul-searching. It makes her uncomfortable and resentful: she has enough to contend with without accommodating Tuppence’s need for reassurance; and, in truth, she has questioned whether there was a flaw in her mother-in-law’s parenting.
She throws tea bags into the pot; pours on boiling water; while she works at remaining dispassionate. What does she want? To be told that she is not at fault? For Sophie to lay the blame firmly with Charles and his choice of expensive schooling? Much as she likes the woman – for she is fond of her; she can’t not be, though she is hardly effusive with the children – she is unable to absolve her in that way.
But her mother-in-law evidently requires some response.
‘I’m not intending to leave him, no.’ The words leave Sophie’s mouth without her having had time to come to a proper conclusion and, somehow, force the decision. She clears her throat, swallowing her doubt down and quashing the possibility. ‘It’s best for the children and they’re the main consideration, as you say.’
‘You are good for him, you know.’ Tuppence looks at her with what must be admiration. ‘I hate to think of what he might be like if he didn’t have a wife like you: someone so bright and attractive.’ She pauses, perhaps imagining a clutch of brief, unsatisfactory affairs.
The onus on Sophie to keep her husband in check weighs hard, and she feels a sudden surge of fury.
Tuppence, oblivious, continues: ‘He does know he’s lucky to have you, you know. His father and I have made that clear.’
‘I’m not sure that he does.’ She will not swallow this portrayal of a contrite son and counts to ten to banish the expletives that would shock her husband’s mother. When she speaks, her voice is quieter but with an unmistakably bitter trace.
‘As you say, it’s what’s best for the children. It’s not about me.’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Tuppence is perturbed.
‘You effectively did.’
The air quivers with more emotion than their exchanges have ever held before, Sophie’s anger straining their civility to breaking point.
She checks the table, laid for afternoon tea – the fat teapot and jug of milk, bone china cups; a lemon drizzle cake made with Emily this morning – and forces herself to sound contrite.
‘I’m sorry to snap. We’d better get them in. Tea’s ready.’
And she goes to the back door to call her family.