visit. And now he’s gone.’ Harriet swung the chair violently. The guilt was strangling her.
‘We didn’t know he was going to die,’ Pippa said quietly.
Harriet nodded. No, they had no idea that he was dying, and she knew if she had she would have rushed back to see him. But what sort of daughter did that make her? One who would only fly across the ocean to say goodbye? It didn’t make her feel any better about herself.
‘Pip, shall we go to the summer house?’ Harriet asked. She had no other ideas of how to reconnect with her siblings, but the summer house was somewhere they all spent time together when they were children. She wanted to find some of the closeness they used to have, which at the moment felt as if it was out of reach.
‘Yes please,’ Pippa replied, wiping tears from her cheeks.
‘What do you think Dad would make of this?’ Freddie asked later as the sky darkened and the four of them sat on comfy floral sofas in the summer house, their childhood den, drinking champagne straight from the bottle.
‘That we are a bunch of delinquents but at least the champagne is vintage,’ Harriet laughed.
‘He certainly thought I was a delinquent,’ Freddie said, laughing sadly. No one argued. Freddie was tall, over six foot, with blond hair and blue eyes, like Pippa he took after their mother. He was so good-looking that often women – and sometimes men – threw themselves at him.
‘But would he think we were OK?’ Gus asked. ‘I mean, would he, like Gwen said, be proud of us?’ Gus sounded so downcast, Harriet wished she knew how to reach out to him. Gus looked more like her than the others. Dark hair, as tall as Freddie, but with features which as he got older more resembled their father. He was good-looking but his face so full of sorrow that it was hard to see how attractive he used to be.
‘He loved us all, I know that,’ Pippa said fiercely. ‘I know he was hard on you guys, but he did love us all.’ It was clear that Pippa felt guilty that she had had an easier time of it than her siblings. It was as if their father used up all his expectations on the older ones and let Pippa do pretty much what she wanted, including not going to boarding school.
‘He did. I know he did. He might have been a bit unorthodox as a parent sometimes,’ Harriet said, swigging from the bottle again, ‘but I agree with Pip, he loved us.’
‘I will miss the old bugger,’ Freddie said, and she saw his eyes fill with watery tears. She wanted to reach across and hug him but she still didn’t know how.
‘Me too.’ Gus looked forlorn.
‘Let’s drink to that,’ Harriet said, needing to lift everyone’s spirits, including her own. ‘Our wonderful father, the old bugger, may he rest in peace.’
‘Either that or haunt us all for eternity,’ Freddie finished.
Harriet felt her hangover taunting her before she was ready to wake up. Her head was pounding, her mouth dry and, as she tried to process the events of the previous day, she wanted to vomit. Bury father, be polite to strangers at his wake, attempt to bond with siblings. Cry? No, her eyes were still resolutely dry.
It had been bittersweet spending time with her brothers and sister yesterday. They had got drunk, yes, and they had also talked, or at least tried to. It was still slightly awkward between them, they were all lost in their own thoughts about their father, but it was progress of sorts. There had been no terrible row, but they had all drifted and it felt as if she was in the company of three polite strangers – or two polite strangers and Freddie. Harriet knew that she had to ensure her siblings didn’t drift apart again, and she had to find a way for them all to reconnect. Keeping the family together would be her priority even when she was back in New York. After all, now that her father was gone, she was head of the family.
The summer house party had ended when Mark and Gwen arrived, asking if they wanted anything to eat. Pippa had got up, stumbled, so Mark had said he would take her back to the house for a lie-down. He practically had to carry her as they all went back up to the house where leftover food from the wake served as supper.
She woke up in her childhood bedroom, although at first it seemed alien. When each child turned twenty-one, the rooms had been redecorated one by one, starting of course with Harriet’s. Her father said it would always be her room but a grown-up version, suitable for her becoming an adult. It had been transformed, a beautiful king-size bed with a fabric headboard, the bed linen matched the curtains and the room was painted a pale blue. She had kept her dressing table, which once belonged to her mother, but that was the only thing left from her childhood. It was a gorgeous room, with an en suite bathroom, but she had barely spent time in it. As she stretched out in bed, she was hit with another bolt of regret. She wished she had visited more, she knew she would feel remorse for not seeing her father – in person rather than on a computer screen – before he died, for the rest of her life. She wished the house hadn’t become a stranger to her and she wished she hadn’t let her relationship with her siblings drift the way it had. But she also knew that all these thoughts weren’t going to do her any good. Self-pity wasn’t something that Harriet usually entertained; she wasn’t going to start now.
As she slowly sat up, she noticed she was only half undressed. Which meant she had committed the cardinal sin of not taking her make-up off. But then it wasn’t every day you buried your last remaining parent, so surely she was allowed this one sinful night? She wondered what time it was in New York. She wondered what the markets were doing, what her trading floor was up to? But then she realised it would be shut, quiet, sleeping right now. As she should be.
She assumed she was suffering from jet lag, as it was only five in the morning, either that or too much alcohol. Harriet liked a drink; her lifestyle allowed for the odd bottle of wine, or a few cocktails at the weekend, but she rarely got drunk. It was one of her many control issues. She had always been charged with being a control freak; she had only a flimsy argument against that accusation.
She reached into her still unpacked suitcase – another unusual thing, normally when she went anywhere the first thing she did was unpack and hang up her clothes – and rummaged for her gym clothes. She pulled them on and made her way downstairs.
The house was quiet as she went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water and then made her way to the basement which her father had converted into a gym and swimming pool. She smiled at the memory of him doing it. It was an ambitious move, turning a dusty basement into a state-of-the-art fitness centre, and they’d all been over the moon at the idea of having a swimming pool. Gosh, she never fully realised quite how spoilt they were. They had had parties there as teenagers; weekends at Meadowbrook Manor were very popular among her friends. Her father liked having the house full, he said it gave the place life, and kept him young.
Andrew also said it was his way of taking good care of himself. He swam every day, and she replayed the pride in his voice when he told her: ‘Fifty lengths at least every day, Harry. I’m in tip-top condition.’ She felt her heart hurt as she heard his words. Because he was only seventy and for a man who ruled the world as he ruled his world, it was far too young to die.
Feeling angry, suddenly – angry, tired, and fed up – she made her way to the treadmill and started pounding as hard as she could. She wanted to outrun the hangover, she wanted to outrun the grief that was beginning to chase her and she wanted to outrun the feelings that were creeping into her. But she knew she would
