Distant Relations by Helen Carr
There’s a tentative knocking at the kitchen door. Enter Lily, the vague woman from the book club, novelist and armchair genealogist, who insisted that she and I are distant cousins.
‘Oh hello Hazel,” she says in her drooping manner. ‘There you are.’
When I tell her that my name is Holly she looks doubtful, as though I have made the mistake rather than she.
‘But you told me that your name is Hazel. I remember because it’s a tree.’
Why would she suspect me of going to book clubs under a false name? She looks at me with suspicion.
“It’s a berry,” she says, determined to reveal me as the weak link in our nascent relationship.
As I put the kettle on I recall Lily saying something to me about doing lunch, as she put it, as we left the book club meeting. I certainly did not invite her.
Accepting a mug of tea and helping herself to a biscuit, she drifts into the sitting room.
Lily gazes vaguely at Marigold’s painting of a sparkling Mediterranean harbour. ‘Are you all artists here? How wonderful. What do you do?’
‘I’m actually doing a lot of gardening…’ I say, but she is not listening. She is gazing through the window at Arthur who is doing something with a sack and a wheelbarrow.
‘He reminds me of my father,’ she says wistfully, “always digging. But,’ she adds elliptically, ‘never finding anything.’
Earlier, during the name guessing routine, I had decided that she was a crime writer. Now I sense more than a touch of Virginia Wolff. When I ask her what kind of books she writes, she says, “I don’t believe in beginnings and endings.”
‘There is a beautiful light in the room,’ says Lily. Is she referring to the westerly aspect or to a more spiritual glow? I try to chat of this and that, but she appears to inhabit a parallel universe from which small talk has been eradicated. What will we find to talk about for however long it takes to have lunch and get rid of her? She must know perfectly well that she has invited herself here. We need to shop, so there’s very little in the fridge and larder.
‘Would cheese on toast suit you?’ I say.
‘I’m glad you haven’t gone to too much trouble, Hazel,’ she says, scanning the kitchen and twiddling the tassels on her poncho.
Perhaps I should wear a name badge.
‘Could I borrow the book?’ she says as she is leaving.
‘Book?’
‘The book club book,’ she says with a sigh.
‘I haven’t read it myself, yet,’ I say.
She looks at me in disbelief.
And obviously I meant ‘right’ not write! Just testing.
I love the ‘digging but never finding anything.’ Perfectly describes the sort of self-involved person who doesn’t even notice how maddening they are. You have to be very self-absorbed to think you are write about a person’s name and not them. No antennae as we say in our family!
‘ she appears to inhabit a parallel universe in which small talk has been eradicated’
I liked that very much.
Ah, a character who is needy, self-serving and has learned that being helpless is a great way to get others to do things for you. Don’t you just hate them? This type of person is a great antagonist and catalyst because they drive others up the wall and to take action. It is interesting that the actual conversation is minimal and inconsequential- the tension comes from the inner monologue by Holly. I suspect she gave her the book and bundled her out of the door.
Simon says I like the asperity in this. And I like the fact that the two women may not even be relations at all. Holly only has Lily’s word for it. We don’t need Holly to tell us how infuriating her self-invited guest is. The ‘drooping manner’ is a very carefully chosen expression to warn us readers of the kind of person we’re up against. The expression ‘energy vampire’ springs to mind. Lily’s lack of focus on anyone but herself is neatly expressed in the way she asks questions and then doesn’t listen to the answers. She has the infuriating manner of someone who has never considered the possibility that she might be in the wrong, and her personality is summed up by her fatuous comments about not believing in ‘beginnings and endings’. Tension in the scene is increased by our awareness of Holly’s mounting, but unexpressed, fury. The way the piece ends leaves it open as to whether Lily did actually get the lunch that she had invited herself to. I hope she didn’t. But I’ve a nasty feeling she did. Holly’s far too polite not to have come up with the goods.