The Snakes Read online

  ‘You and me flank Alex,’ she said to Dan before dinner. ‘We’ll sit either side of him. There’s safety in numbers.’

  Alex made the dinner and she and Dan helped.

  ‘Don’t let either of them stop you, in the hall, or anywhere, or take you aside. We’ll stick together.’

  Alex enjoyed the game. ‘Thank fuck you’re here,’ he said. ‘It’s so different.’

  Even at the table, when there was no chance of privacy, she made sure to keep catching Alex’s eye, so he wouldn’t forget, she sent him fortitude, reminding him of himself.

  They’ll be gone soon, her look said. Fuck them.

  It was still raining. They ate in the dining room. Quiches from the freezer. Liv hadn’t wanted to let Alex leave her to go to the shops. Pastry, eggs, cheese. Liv’s worst foods combined. The quiches were small and circular and slipped about on an oval plate. They made a salad to go with them, the leaves wet from being washed and the dressing sliding off and sugary.

  ‘Christ,’ said Griff. ‘Tomorrow we eat out.’

  He talked about America through most of dinner ‘So Donald Trump is a despicable human being, so what? Look what he’s done for America.’ Liv talked about the refurbishment of the hotel.

  ‘I need to come down much more often,’ she said. ‘We didn’t realise how much work the old place would need, did we, darling? When we first saw it? We just fell so in love with it. Maybe we should move builders in, and you out and do it properly.

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ said Alex. ‘I’m doing it. I’m learning.’

  Griff boomed on. Brexit. ‘Totally incompetent. Government is over. They should have left it to the guys in finance. Clean break.’ This led him to Danger. Memories of planes he had flung himself from. Black runs he had conquered. Shark-populated reefs he had perused. Then his thoughts moved on to beauty. Faraway places. Rarity. The difficulty of purchasing truly special things. Acquisitions thwarted by the fetish of conservation.

  ‘Preserve the landscape for the nation. Save the crested newt. Nobody really cares about the rare species of fuck-knows-what, they just love obstruction. Meddling –’ He stopped. He stared at Bea. ‘You look like you’ve swallowed a lemon,’ he barked. ‘Come on, Ms Snowflake.’

  ‘What?’ said Bea.

  ‘Nothing to say? Won’t you lower yourself to debate with me?’

  ‘It’s not a debate,’ Bea answered. ‘You’re just talking.’

  ‘All right.’ Griff rubbed his hands together. ‘Take the floor. Let’s have a sermon.’

  ‘You’ve lost me. Are we on conservation or planning regulations, or Brexit?’

  ‘We’re on “Why my father is a capitalist pig, by Bea Adamson”. Don’t be coy, what’s in that expensively educated socialist mind of yours?’

  ‘In Western culture, pigs represent the basest of human urges,’ said Bea. ‘Greed, obviously –’

  ‘There you go!’

  She hated to perform for him.

  ‘You label yourself Capitalist and me Socialist just to put me in opposition,’ she said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘You think I blame everything on capitalism.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Alex? Capitalism?’

  ‘A society that runs on the exchange of goods or work for money,’ said Alex, eating, not looking up.

  ‘So there’s no alternative,’ she went on. ‘The socialist–capitalist polarity is false and outdated. Friedman v. Marx. It’s a twentieth-century obsession. A distraction. Both systems lead to oppression.’

  ‘So your lot are just going to sit around moaning,’ said Griff.

  ‘Our lot?’ said Bea.

  ‘Liberals. Commies. Whatever.’

  Dan laughed at the word. Commies. It sounded so quaint.

  ‘What, you too? Christ,’ said Griff, angered. ‘Fine.’ He pretended to laugh about it. ‘You’re all commies. Seriously though, you are. The redistribution of wealth? What else would you call it?’

  ‘Just tax, normally,’ said Bea. ‘Tax, that’s all.’

  ‘Tax! Don’t start on tax. It’s nothing but a witch-hunt. Blah-blah Facebook, blah-blah Starbucks. You’d drive out the businesses – it’s all bullshit.’ He put on the high, mimicking voice of the whinging lefty. ‘It’s not fair! Why have they got all the money?’ and snapped back into his normal bass. ‘No! Why should I – why should anyone – give away what’s mine to incompetent politicians? Where’s the justice in that? The vast majority of corporations and companies, and individuals, are acting within the law –’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to speak.’

  ‘Speak then! Bloody hell, do you want a written invitation?’

  ‘Fairness. You accuse people you disagree with of moaning about how unfair things are, but you talk about fairness, too. Fairness and justice. It’s the most important thing to us all, more than anything else. When you hear someone in pain, or someone unable to accept hardship, or obstacles, it’s the unfairness that hurts them most. We’re all the same – I can bear any sad story if there’s some justice to it. If tragedy is the true consequence of events it hurts, but there’s a sort of rigour, there’s rightness to it. The thing that is the hardest for people, for societies to achieve, is a consensus on what is fair. It’s almost impossible. People will often talk with nostalgia about hardships they’ve endured in the past – wars or poverty – when they have endured them with other people. When we are together, when people are united, there is a sense of rightness that comes out of that, a belief and surrender. Good, healthy societies rely on that feeling to function. But so do fascist ones. The human need for justice can be exploited so easily, and waves of passion sweep over whole populations – the true belief that they are right – and then they’re liberated to do terrible things. The collective can turn either way. But one thing is true, always true – I think. I think it’s always true.’

  She paused, frowning at the word always, unsure of her sureness, distrusting her belief. ‘If the economic and political basis of our society is the notion of separate, individual people, not responsible for one another, then the justice we look for can only be directed towards ourselves – our needs, our wants, our fighting for what we think is rightfully ours. Human nature is self-serving, surviving, survivalist – we consume by instinct. It’s natural to us. And when we’re all alone, because of the society we’re in, we get frightened, because our greatest need is other people. And in that fear and greed we need to connect, and when we do connect we can only do so badly, we dominate or are dominated.’

  She paused again. She felt embarrassed, but it did no good to stay quiet and allow herself the luxury of thinking herself superior, and not take the risk. ‘All we have, then, is rational thought; it’s everything. The learning of kindness; education, teaching ourselves and others to seek out Good. As individuals, I mean, as individuals we have to force ourselves to give, and to think. When we do that we are strong enough to forget our individual selves. Then – the collective can be good,’ she finished quietly.

  After dinner, Liv cleared the plates with Alex, and they went to wash up together. Bea followed.

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Liv. ‘We don’t need any help.’ She unwedged the kitchen door, and let it close. Bea stayed in the hall, looking at the closed door, unable to move away from it.

  Griff was still at the table, playing with his iPad like a child with an abacus.

  ‘Come on, enough now,’ said Dan, taking her hand. ‘Come up to bed.’

  ‘I’ll stay down here a bit,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She kissed him goodnight. He went up, and she stood there, alone in the hall, listening to the muffled clatters behind the baize door. She waited. Her brother’s adolescence flicked through her mind in fragments. His sudden absences from home, the expulsions, the useless punishments from Griff. She remembered his padlocked bedroom
door which, broken open, revealed such small sins – bottles, Rizla papers, tins of weed.

  She remembered how, in the most blameless of situations, it always felt like interrupting, to find him and Liv together. And that he felt trapped.

  Bea had always dreaded proof. She rejected what she knew, what she had seen, when she was too young to understand. She almost convinced herself it was a sickness in her, to think up such a thing, until one Easter holiday she saw it. They were at their house in St Barts without Griff, when Alex was seventeen and Bea ten, she had come in from the pool one afternoon and seen, across the courtyard, through Alex’s distant, slightly open door, her mother, on her knees, with her head in her son’s lap. Both his hands were over his face and his body seemed to be reaching upwards, like a scream – but Bea had turned her head. She remembered distant music from the kitchen and a lizard on the hot wall. Less than a second’s glimpse, and she had run away. A few days’ sick headache, no appetite, exhaustion – and then back to normal. Years. She had never said a word.

  She pushed the door open. They were at the sink. Alex was washing and Liv was wiping baking tins dry. She had a red-and-white-striped tea towel tied around her hips.

  ‘What can I do?’ said Bea to their backs.

  ‘Nothing, this is fun,’ said Liv. ‘It’s like being a single girl again. It reminds me of sharing that house in Chelsea, before I met your father.’

  ‘Can I help?’ said Bea.

  Neither of them turned.

  ‘No,’ repeated Liv. ‘You go up.’

  ‘Alex?’ said Bea.

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Hold on, Mum,’ said Alex.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Just give me a minute. I need to take the rubbish out,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ she said, dried her hands and looked around, forlornly.

  Bea followed him through to the annexe. He tied up the bags that were half full, and opened the side door with a key. Bea saw Liv watching them as they went outside. There were boxes of empty bottles and a heap of other rubbish bags stacked against the side wall, some ripped open by foxes, with garbage spilling out.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, cramming what he could into the bag he was carrying and kicking the mess aside. ‘I get a bit behind.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Bea. She picked up a crate of bottles, and they went together, down the path, separated from the driveway by a screen of trees and nettles. It was still raining slightly, hard to see but drenching and light.

  ‘God,’ she said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘We could all run away tomorrow,’ she said. ‘You, me and Dan? For the day?’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got a thing Dad needs me to do.’

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘Just an errand.’

  They reached the lay-by, and big wheelie bins. Alex flipped up the tops, and flung the bags inside.

  ‘I’ll be back in the afternoon.’ The rain was fine, like a web on his T-shirt and hair, gathering in droplets. ‘She wants to go round the shops with me. Get stuff for the hotel.’

  ‘Maybe the next day?’

  ‘I thought Dan wanted to head off. See the seven wonders and whatever.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  He wiped off his hands on his jeans, took a small, flat bottle of brandy from his back pocket and offered it to her.

  ‘Digestif?’ he said.

  She didn’t want any but she took a sip for companionship, and handed it back. He drank the rest, sucking the very last of it from the neck. The rain drifted down around them, soundless and soft.

  ‘I’m sorry we can’t stay longer,’ she said.

  He shrugged and threw the small bottle into the bin and wiped his mouth. ‘Your husband doesn’t like us. Understandable. I don’t either.’

  ‘He likes you.’

  Alex shrugged. ‘He thinks I’m an arsehole. He’s got a point.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, he doesn’t.’

  They started slowly back together, along the road, through the main gate, and up the drive smelling the earth and the fresh leaves, chilled by the wet spring night.

  ‘When you’re gone,’ said Alex, ‘and you look back, this will feel like a dream.’

  Bea thought of London, far away, and all the people she’d left behind. She thought of her and Dan and the days ahead, and Alex, left there, stranded. They reached the door.

  ‘Alex –’

  He stopped on the front step, mild and unsuspecting. ‘Yup?’

  She wished she knew what to say.

  ‘Do you think you’ll go to an online meeting tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe.’

  He was sheltered by the porch, and she was in the rain, trying to make him stay with her, outside, where they were free and could talk.

  ‘When you do,’ she said, ‘you know, at the meetings – are you open with them?’

  He became still and closed, withdrawing from her. ‘Let’s go in,’ he said.

  Bea didn’t move either.

  ‘I need to go,’ he said, insistent.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She wants me to.’

  She couldn’t let him leave. She stood looking up at him.

  ‘So, if you went online tonight, Alex. To the group you go to –’

  ‘Yes, what?’ He was impatient.

  ‘Can you talk about anything?’

  He came down the steps towards her, suddenly, and took her arm, pressing himself close to her, cheek to cheek, but looking past her into the darkness, and she sensed the strung-tight heart of him. The rain was heavier now, falling on them, wetting her hair.

  ‘People talk about all kinds of shit,’ he whispered, close to her ear. ‘You wouldn’t believe the fucked-up disgusting shit that people do.’

  She was frightened, but felt hopeful, too, closer to truth than she had ever come. Stepping back, to see him clearly, she said, ‘I would. I really would.’

  He didn’t speak. She could not read him.

  ‘There’s nothing you can say that would shock me,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing in the world that’s unsayable, and I will never, ever think badly of you.’

  They looked into each other’s eyes, rain drops falling from his hair, trickling down his face.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Please, Bea.’

  He opened the front door and she followed him in. Her mother was still in the kitchen and the door was closed. She didn’t know where her father was. Alex started off, then stopped and turned.

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow night,’ he said.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘It’s just a thing I do for Dad, I told you. They’re going after that. It’s fine.’

  ‘And tonight?’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  Liv opened the kitchen door.

  ‘Darling?’ she said, hating to see her children talking.

  ‘Coming,’ said Alex.

  Liv retreated, and the fire door shut.

  ‘I wish …’ He smiled. Perhaps he was imagining resolution. A future.

  ‘What?’

  The kitchen door opened again. Liv. Hair tucked behind her ears, tea towel in her hand.

  ‘Are you going to leave me to clear all of this up by myself?’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Alex.

  He followed on. The door closed with the sound of being sealed. Bea went upstairs. She heard her father’s footsteps in the hall.

  ‘ALEX!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you own a fucking umbrella? It’s pissing down! I’m off for my walk.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Never mind! I’ve got one in the car.’

  He left, the front door slammed, and Alex and his mother stayed in the kitchen, cleaning up.

  Bea woke in the middle of the night. She didn’t know what had woken her. The white noise of the rain had stopped. She realised Dan was not in bed. Silently, she got up and opened the window. She
lay and waited for him. The nightingale started to sing, chirps and gaps and trills. She listened to the patterns in the dark. Then Dan was next to her.

  ‘You’re dreaming. Go to sleep,’ he said.

  Alex wasn’t there next morning. The hotel felt strange without him. Dan and Bea went to the cafe in Arnay for lunch and her parents went to a hotel.

  He wasn’t back by four o’clock, and still not back for dinner. Liv sat at his computer in the hall, looking at Pinterest, and calling her friends.

  ‘Lolly! I’m in France. Yes, our project …’

  Griff tapped out emails on his iPad.

  ‘He said he was going on an errand for you,’ said Bea. ‘What was it?’

  ‘He went to Mâcon.’

  ‘He should be back, shouldn’t he?’

  ‘Alex does this,’ Griff said. ‘He’s always done it.’

  That night, Bea and Dan gave up on manners and ate dinner separately from her parents in their room, then watched a movie on Dan’s laptop in bed. The image kept freezing and the sound carried on without the picture. Alex’s phone was not answering.

  ‘You can’t say it’s not like him,’ said Dan.

  Griff’s night-time walk was longer than usual, and when he came in they heard him arguing with Liv in their room across the corridor.

  Bea fell in and out of sleep, with the sounds of their voices and the shifting noises above her in the roof spilling into her dreams in fragments. She dreamed of people talking, and places she had never been, then woke, then dreamed again, of the familiar and the strange, tainted by fear. And then the night was over, and she saw the beginnings of morning through the curtains and heard the birds. If animals were awake and it was light nothing bad could happen.

  Gratefully, she fell into a deep sleep, woken soon afterwards by the doorbell. First, she discarded the sound. It wasn’t hers. Then it rang again, and she thought Alex would answer it. It rang again, and she was suddenly awake. She got out of bed fast, pulling on jeans with the white T-shirt she slept in.

  ‘Dan?’ she said, but he didn’t stir, asleep on his back, oblivious.

  She ran down the stairs, holding her hair off her face. Through the window she saw a police car, blue with yellow chevrons, parked at an angle across the gravel. She opened the front door to two gendarmes standing on the steps. One of them spoke to her.