‘Agoodone?’ I shouted after her.
* * *
Later that afternoon, a rotund man wearing a flat cap and Barbour jacket knocked at the front door. He whipped the hat off as I opened the door and said, ‘Hullo, I’m Jim, George’s friend. I’m so sorry for your loss. Is Jeannie in?’
I ushered him in. After a brief conversation with Jeannie, it turned out he was offering us all over to his farm to take part in what George loved to do best– clay-pigeon shooting. A few moments later we were all being frogmarched to put on our coats and hats to go off to Jim’s place. There was nothing,nothingI wanted to do less than stand in the freezing cold aiming a goddamn rifle at a flying orange disc. But I’d already spent most of the day ‘writing’, so there was no way Jeannie would let me off the hook. Even the children seemed eager to get out of the house for a moment’s distraction from the sombre atmosphere.
Jeannie sat in the front of Jim’s weathered Land Rover. The scent of mud and wet dog filled my nostrils as I squeezed into the back between Martha and Beebee. I wasn’t sure who’d drawn the short straw, Martha and I in the back of this filthy, stinking car that made my eyes water, or Miles and Callum in the pristine Audi with Tristan, Mimi and Ceecee and an atmosphere you could cut with a spoon.
As I sat in the back watching the countryside roll by in a blur of muted greens and browns, I noticed with excitement the dusting of snow up on the hills. I listened to Jeannie and Jim’s easy conversation and wondered if she would ever consider remarrying after George. Of course, it was only three days since his death, but I liked to entertain the idea. Jim seemed like a lovely man, but I knew there was no way Jeannie would ever countenance marriage to someone as nice as him.
After a short drive we reached our destination. The farm was sprawling and picturesque, complete with sagging barns and fields that stretched into the distance under a powder-blue sky. The wind cut through us as we piled out of thevehicles. I stamped my feet on the earth to bring some feeling back to them while Jim handed out equipment– earprotectors, shooting vests and shotguns– with practised ease, his ruddy face creased in a sympathetic smile. ‘George was always in his element here. This was his favourite way to spend a winter’s afternoon,’ he said sadly, then distributed boxes of cartridges like it was Christmas morning. ‘He’d have wanted you all to enjoy it.’
‘I very much doubt that,’ said Callum wryly as he came up behind me. I wracked my brains to think of an occasion when George had spent any time with his grandchildren. Once he’d handed Callum a wad of notes to order ‘any takeaway he and Martha wanted’, and they’d ordered a Dominos. When George sat down and beheld the circle of baked dough with assorted toppings, he’d acted like he’d never seen something so bizarrely alien in his life. Honestly, a chicken doing the can-can on a bed of rice would have surprised him less than this crazy thing the kids called ‘pizza’. That was the extent of their relationship as far as I could tell, and he certainly never showed an interest in taking them shooting.
I smiled at my son in solidarity as, despite the outdoor chill, the cold metal of the gun began to make my palms sweat. I really ought to have brought some gloves, I lamented. George’s farm must have sat higher than Weiss Manor, as I noticed here the ground was peppered with snow, our boots leaving prints as we began to trudge over the terrain.
The wind whipped across the open field, stinging my cheeks and making my eyes water. Jim positioned us in a line, explaining the basics of stance, aim and a quick rundown of safety procedures, to those of us less versed in the sport.
‘We’ll try one at a time first time round. Right, ready?’ he bellowed, and the clay-pigeon trap whirred to life, its mechanical arm poised to launch the first target.
‘Pull!’ Jeannie’s voice rang out, surprising us all. The orange disc arced through the air and, with a resounding crack, she hit it dead centre. Fragments rained down, dusting the snow-speckled grass. A flicker of pride crossed her face. The ear-splitting noise of the first shot made me flinch, my fingers gripping the gun harder. Jeannie, her face set in grim determination, was already poised to shatter her next clay pigeon.
‘Pull!’ Tristan chimed in this time, taking aim at the second disc. He squinted down the barrel of the shotgun as it sailed through the air, took aim and fired. A moment later, the orange shards cracked, raining down, stark against the white-dusted field.
‘Well done, son!’ Jim called out; his voice warm with approval. ‘George would’ve been proud.’
‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Martha muttered under her breath to me, rolling her eyes.
‘Ready?’ Jim called. ‘Pull!’
I watched as Martha took her turn, her small frame barely absorbing the shotgun’s recoil. The clay disc sailed past, untouched. Jim sidled over and patted her shoulder consolingly, but I could see the disappointment etched on her face. Miles caught her eye and gave her a wink and an encouraging smile.
The fourth clay pigeon was airborne, ‘This one’s mine,’ Miles said, seeing his mother and brother already taking aim when it wasn’t their turn. I held my breath as I watched him fire, willing for him to hit it. The disc flew by intact.
‘Too bad, big brother, all that city living has ruined your game!’ Tristan mocked.
My turn next. I watched the machine whir and fling another clay pigeon.
It sailed through the air. Taking a deep breath, I tracked it with the barrel, imagined it was Tristan’s head. I took aim and fired, the gun recoiling into me like a battering ram. My shoulder barked in protest, my back and neck already stiff from years of sitting at a desk. I searched the sky, waiting for what seemed like an eternity as fragments of shot collided with clay and came splintering down.
‘I say, bravo, Livvy!’ Tristan yelled in surprise.
I rubbed my shoulder and excused myself. I had taken part– that would be all they were getting from me for today. I clicked on the safety catch, walked back to the wooden hut with the gun in my hands, opened the action, and removed the rounds from the chamber, as Jim had shown us.
Placing the gun carefully back on a mount inside the hut, I sat on a little plastic chair and attempted to warm my hands next to a tiny electric heater. I watched out of the window as Callum took his turn. He aimed and fired, managing to clip the side. Not a total loss.
Beebee and Ceecee were up next. I didn’t bother to watch, knowing that they would strike with potent accuracy; shooting had been part of the curriculum at Swanhaven, their prestigious boarding school; the same school that George, Fergus, Quentin, Miles and Tristan had attended. Miles had wanted to provide Callum and Martha with the same education he had benefitted from. However, with our salaries and living in London, we couldn’t make it happen. Not without moving nearer the family–no bloody thank you– and making some serious cutbacks that would have made for a pretty dry existence. Besides, there was no way I was going to send Callum and Martha away at nine years old.
Jeannie and George believed that it was up to their sons to provide for their own families, and as Tristan schmoozed, crept and cut throats on his way up the corporate ladder, he had been able to ‘provide’ for his children in a way that Miles had not, thus further cementing pole position as heir to the family fortune.
As the years went by, I couldn’t help but see it as a lucky escape. If my children not attending that boarding school meant them avoiding turning out like the four crazy bastards of the family, then I was more than fine with that. It was clear that Beebee and Ceecee hadn’t got away unscathed in the unwholesome personality department either. Still, no one was mentioning Quentin, perhaps in the hope that if we all ignored it, the issue would all go away and his appeal would be quashed at the last moment.
‘Your turn, Mimi!’ Jeannie called.
‘Oh gawd, watch your heads, everybody!’ Tristan mocked, ‘Mimi might look thoroughbred, but beneath all that make-up and the designer clothes I put on her back, she’s your standard half-breed. She’s got as much chance of hitting the mark as Miles does winning a Nobel Prize!’ His laughter reverberated off the hillside, each taunt making the vein in my head throb just that little bit extra.
I would have been shocked at his jibe if I hadn’t heard Tristan and Mimi’s little tête-à-tête through the bedroom door. His dig at Miles was standard Tristan ‘banter’; we were never allowed to be offended because it was just a joke, and our offence proved that we were nothing but snowflakes. Funny how he could dish it out but never take it.
