Daddy didn’t sail, so he’d be off somewhere like Grand Cayman or Mustique, being photographed with his hand under some starlet’s skirt, and mother was probably somewhere in the Med or points east, doing the splits under some racing driver or rising tennis-star, so I had no fear of them walking in on us, not that I really cared.
Freddy was… wherever he’d slunk off to after abandoning me to the tender mercies of Jack Fineman, so I probably wouldn’t see him again this summer. No, I had the house, and Andy, to myself, and I intended to make full use of them both before Uni beckoned.
Once we arrived home, we wasted no time in stripping off, finding our robes, and lounging back on the huge Chesterfield in the family room, a mound of cushions and a couple of throws making a very acceptable bed for a warm summer night. While we lounged, we talked, mainly about university for me, what came next, and how we were going to make it work. Andy wasn’t too concerned, so I took my cue from him.
“Like I said, Lindy, take your first year, and give it a fair shake. If it’s not for you, fair enough, I’ll come get you, and you can live with me in Edinburgh; I have to admit. The thought of having you with me makes me feel good deep inside!”
When he put it like that, it made me doubt my decision to go to uni; could I let him go for a year, have him all the way up at the other end of the country, while I roughed-it alone in London?
(I should point out here that ‘roughing-it’ was a relative term; the house in London is in Eaton Square, slap in the middle of Mayfair and just around the corner from Buckingham Palace; it has six bedroomsuites over four floors, a private underground parking garage, a billiards room, a cinema, and a sauna, with an elevator connecting all the floors, so not your average student digs).
I just wasn’t sure now that I could happily rattle around alone in the place, just me and the cleaning service, for a whole year. There was no-one I could ask, no-one I trusted enough to share this with, certainly none of my school friends; what did I do?
Andy saw my dilemma so tactfully changed the subject, talking about the parents, and our Edgeworth grandparents, and how they were likely to react. Mother’s parents had passed away before Andy was born, so they were just pictures in an album to me, but Nana and Grandfather lived not too far away, near Midsomer Norton, and when I was younger, I’d always called on them, as my parents were patently useless when it came to parenting issues; it’s hard to communicate with a parent whose responses are being filtered through several layers of Singapore Gin Sling and Tom Collins’…
After a good meal, and a bottle of fruity, richly-rounded Tokay from Daddy’s cellar, I could hardly keep my eyes open, and Andy made such a warm, comfortable bolster, while he talked about medical school, old friends he’d met yesterday and today for the first time in years. I nestled back against him, listening to his voice rumbling softly in his chest, enjoying his arm around me, and let my mind wander.
I woke in full morning sunshine, Andy’s arm still around me and holding me to him, his breathing slow and deep; he was still fast asleep. The throw had slipped onto the floor, but he was so warm, and the morning sun was so delicious, I just sighed happily and snuggled back against him, completely at peace with the world. Then my lovely haze was shattered.
“Lindy, dear, just what on earth are you two doing?”
I froze; Nana! Oh my God! I squeezed my eyes tight shut, hoping it was just my imagination, but no, there it came again, soft, but clear and distinct.
“Lindy, where are your clothes? And why is Andrew naked, too?”
I slowly turned to look, and sure enough, there was my grandmother standing at the end of the sofa, one eyebrow cocked in query. I started to clamber off the sofa, but she shushed me.
“Quietly, dear, let him sleep; I want to talk to you, first. Pick up your robe, Lindy, and come with me.”
I slipped my robe on and trudged along behind her, knowing that any story I came up with to explain my being naked, in bed, with my equally naked big brother, had better be stupendously good if I were to have any chance of slipping it past her; now I knew how they felt in France when they were marched up to the guillotine…
We went into the parlour, and Nana quietly closed the door so we could talk.
“Take a seat, please, Lindy, this won’t take long.”
I sat in a huddle, arms wrapped around myself, unable to meet her eyes, so I was startled when I felt her hand brush against my hair, and as I looked up in puzzlement, she lifted my chin and looked into my eyes.
“So much like your mother, and your father too!” she smiled. “I think I know what you were doing, in fact I’m sure, but why don’t you tell me anyway, eh? And before you ask, yes, your Grandfather saw you too, but don’t worry, I sent him into the garden to inspect the Azaleas, he’ll be a while. Now, talk to me, Lindy!”
Grandfather knew too? Oh Christ-bloody-Almighty, how much worse could this get? And yet we were still alive…
I didn’t know where to start, or how angry she was, if indeed she was, because, strangely, she actually didn’t seem that perturbed, so I started from the beginning, how I’d always felt that Andy was special, how much I needed him around me, how much I missed him when he was gone, and what had happened at the school, then at the hotel afterwards, and the following morning, only yesterday.
Nana watched my face carefully while I talked, grinning as I told her what I’d done to Jack Fineman in the park when he’d tried to abduct me, and tutting about Freddy.
“Dear Freddy, such a waste; there are so many things your father should have told him, and given him; a bloody good thrashing now and then wouldn’t have gone amiss, but I suppose in this day and age if one is no longer allowed to discipline one’s own children, who exactly is going to?”
She paused for a second, looking pensive, then resumed.
“What Andrew said about him is probably correct; he did a bloody stupid thing, but I don’t think he actually meant anything by it; he was just trying to show you he was the Alpha-Male in your relationship. Poor, poor Freddy, socked in the eye and chased out of the park! I wonder where he is now. I’ll have your Grandfather’s people locate him, just to make sure he’s alright.”
She reached over to twitch my robe into something a little more modest, and smoothed my hair back out of my eyes; such a normal gesture from her that I began to really relax; so far no fireworks, no recriminations, no histrionics, I wasn’t dead yet, and I was beginning to wonder why. At that moment, my Grandfather popped his head through the garden doors and smiled at me.
I was always struck by how much Andy looked like Grandfather; that same burly, square-shouldered build, the same mop of curly black hair (peppered with iron-grey in Grandfather’s case), the same grey-blue eyes, the same firm chin with that characteristic cleft in it; that’s probably why I felt so comfortable around both of them. Andy obviously got the full set of Edgeworth dominants from Grandfather’s side of the family; if I wanted to know what he was going to look like one day, all I had to do was look at my Grandfather. Even at his age, in his mid-sixties, Grandfather was still a very handsome man; Nana was very lucky.
Nana looked disapprovingly at him, making him grin apologetically.
“Really, George, we’re not done, please go and find something to do! Shoo, go away!”
Grandfather grinned at me and blew me a quick kiss. Poor Grandfather, he towered over Nana, but she made the rules; I suppose it must be working for them, since they’d been married over forty years now. Nana made a shooing gesture, so he winked at me, gave me another grin, and disappeared from view. I squared my shoulders.
“So, Nana, you caught us ‘in flagrante’; what’s next? Are you going to tell Daddy and Mother?”
Nana smiled, the merest twitch of the corners of her mouth, and once again I was struck by how much I looked like her; she had Daddy’s features, that same chin, the same mouth, even the same nose, but her hair was the same rich auburn as Daddy’s, whereas I had a sort of generic brown.
“No Lindy, I don’t see that would serve any… purpose,” she said, and I knew what she meant; she adored daddy, but she had no illusions about him; that was why the chairman of the board and most of the directors were Daddy’s older brothers and their sons; Daddy was destined to be a playboy, Mother was only ever going to be a Socialite, which was why her brothers ran all their family industries. That was what they both wanted, so their brothers all gave him what they wanted, and in return they stayed away from anything as boring as actually taking an interest in the various businesses, which was probably a good thing for the economy of the country in the long run.
“Lindy,” she continued, “I just want to know one thing: where do you intend taking this… liaison with Andrew? He’s your ha… he’s your brother, there’s no escaping that fact, how do you expect to carry this off?”
I hadn’t thought too deeply about that; I’d been so caught-up in him, in being with him, I’d never really thought how we’d do this; I guess I had subconsciously been relying on Andy to automatically make it all right for me, the way he’d always done. She had that eyebrow quirked again; time for an answer.
“I… don’t know, Nana; I suppose I’ll go and live somewhere with Andy… Andrew, somewhere no-one knows us; I doubt the parents will pry too deeply,” she smiled at that, “so I suppose whatever we do will be whatever’s best for us. I want him, I know I do, and I know he wants me too. One day he’ll be a doctor, and I’ll be very happy to be a doctor’s wife and not Linda Eugenia Francesca Grosvenor-Edgeworth, society shark-bait and Socialite-in-Training. Until then, well, we shall have to see.”