The Swallow and the Hummingbird(57)

Mrs Megalith simply shrugged when asked where they came from. ‘I’ll bet there are some very sad families out there missing their little friends. I don’t know why, but they’re drawn to Elvestree. It’s not my place to turn them away.’

Max’s heart suffered a tremor of longing when he saw Rita enter with her family. Her hair was wild and her cheeks rosy from the coastal winds and salty drizzle. Although her dress was pressed and her cardigan clean, she appeared dishevelled. Max smiled to himself, Rita always looked as if she had dressed in a hurry and left something behind. He swivelled the ice around in his glass and quietly watched from the sofa.

Antoinette sat on the club fender with her daughter Emily, who was the same age as Eddie and Ruth. She was a beautiful woman, slim and painted like a china doll with glossy red hair combed into sleek waves. She smoked through a long ebony holder, which balanced between elegant fingers dripping with shiny burgundy talons, always perfectly manicured. Her skin was luminous and damp with eau de cologne and rose water, her eyes a harder version of her mother’s grey ones. She hated cats because their fur stuck to her clothes and because they smelt and she had no time for her sister’s feathered friends either. ‘I would rather sit in a field and watch cows than waste my time studying birds,’ she once said. ‘They fly, so what? So can George but I don’t want him crashing about in my garden.’ This of course made no sense, but Antoinette cared little for logic or for truth. She was a born liar and a show off. Her tidy little nose was a mystery to her sister who was sure that with every lie it would grow like Pinocchio’s, and her ageless skin was the envy of many. Well aware of her beauty and the strength of her personality, she had brought up her daughter in her own image, in spite of the lengths to which poor Emily went in order to rebel. Emily was not blessed with either beauty or strength of character, but she was clever like her father, and kind. The only person capable of silencing Antoinette was, of course, her mother.

Maddie adored her aunt and longed to be exactly like her. ‘Aunt Antoinette,’ she cried when she saw her and rushed past her grandmother and cousin William, an arrogant twenty-year-old she didn’t much like, to embrace her.

‘Darling girl, you grow prettier every day,’ enthused her aunt who saw the loveliness of her own features reflected in her niece. ‘I’ve bought you some nail varnish and eyelashes I found in a charming little shop in Portobello Road. Just the thing for a girl like you.’

Rita felt her stomach cramp with anxiety for her aunt always patronized her. She represented everything that Antoinette despised: a love of nature and animals, an aversion to makeup, and a quiet, submissive nature that her aunt interpreted as weakness of character. If there was one thing Aunt Antoinette abhorred it was weakness.

‘Hello, Rita,’ she said tightly, pressing her cheek to her niece’s but not even bothering to make the sound of a kiss. ‘I hear George has left you again.’ Rita nodded and mumbled something inaudible. Her obvious fear was irresistible to Antoinette who added in a low voice, ‘I hope you’re not hanging about for him like a lap dog. Men have no respect for doormats.’

Rita felt humiliation rise in her face and, as she went to sit next to Max, she heard her aunt turn to Emily and add in an intolerant tone that surely if he loved her he wouldn’t have turned on his heel and left her again. Antoinette greeted her sister and Eddie, recoiling at the sight of Harvey like a vampire in the face of the cross. She let out an ugly yelp, more a gurgle than a cry, before shouting at the child to ‘Take the ghastly winged rat outside and drown him before I throw you both into the pond!’ Eddie, who had inherited her candour from her grandmother, retaliated in the same tone.

‘It’s a shame you’re so big, Aunt Antoinette, because Harvey and I would like to throw you in the pond. That would see off Megagran’s foxes, to be sure, and probably poison the water.’ Antoinette gazed down at the precocious child in horror, took a long drag of her cigarette then replied in a strangled voice.

‘Eddie, hasn’t your mother told you how to speak to your elders and betters?’

‘Yes, but you’re not better, just older,’ And she swivelled around, grabbing Emily by the wrist, and led her and Ruth out into the hall to play with the cats.

‘I hear you got a letter from George,’ said Max when Rita reached him. Rita smiled, though her eyes revealed the hurt she had just suffered at the hands of her aunt.

‘He sent me this pendant,’ she replied quietly, holding it out for him to see. His heart plummeted.