The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories

by Penelope Lively

  Sorry, that sounds offensive. Don’t mean to be. This is getting to me a bit, I’m finding.

  Sure, sure. Another time. And I promise there won’t be a further spiel like that.

  •

  Actually, I’m not sure how much more there will be. I’ve said enough. Too forthcoming. She sits there, with that interested, inquiring expression—persuasive sort of woman—and you find yourself getting all confidential. Except of course that it isn’t confidential—it’s for a fucking book, Lavinia laid out for all and sundry.

  But she’s not, like I said. She’s in the head. And you can’t get at that, my friend, however interested and inquiring. There are shards of Lavinia—memory shards—that I own forever.

  Lavinia in a bistro in France, that weekend we managed, laughing her head off at me trying to eviscerate a lobster.

  Lavinia on the balcony of my flat, reading the paper, the sun on her hair.

  Lavinia in bed. Oh, I never felt I was making love to a productive and original mind. I was making love to Lavinia, and minds didn’t enter into it.

  I’m keeping all that. Mine, and mine only. All that—and how Lavinia was. The private part of Lavinia. That part I felt I never reached. Some sort of basic hunger she had. Some sense of loss—I don’t know . . . I wasn’t going to talk to Ms. Biographer about that. Oh, no.

  Now it’s really getting to me, not like I made out just now, to get shot of the interview.

  I can see her, feel her.

  Shit. Come back, Lavinia.

  *

  Phone conversation with Richard Beaver. October 21st 2014.

  Richard Beaver here—you asked for a further word about Lavinia. This a good moment? Right—what did you want to know?

  Ah. Did I not go into that—the end of our relationship?

  Well, there’s not much to go into really. She was leaving Sussex; I was staying. So if it was to continue there’d have been a problem of logistics. Sort of by mutual agreement, really, I remember—both feeling it had perhaps run its course anyway.

  Not at all. No bother. Glad to have been able to help. I’ll look forward to the book.

  •

  Not particularly, in fact. Knowing at least one glaring inadequacy. Knowing what you’ll never know, because only Lavinia and I ever did, and she would have told no one.

  Abortion is an ugly word. Odd that I feel that, given that I insisted. We can’t have a child. We may not even be going to stay together—did I say that? And she said: we might—we haven’t tried. She was desperate—oddly desperate. Wanted it. And I said: look, you’re young, there’ll be other times. Not now, not this one. Which made perfect sense, of course. She didn’t seem able to see that. So the deed was done, and that was that, between us. She went.

  *

  Phone conversation with Professor Gerald Plant. November 4th 2014.

  Plant here. Yes? Yes, I remember. Well, not entirely convenient but if it’s just some small points I’d prefer to deal with them now rather than at some other time.

  The house in Primrose Hill was her property, yes.

  Computer? I remember her taking to the new technology with enthusiasm.

  When and how did we first meet? She attended a symposium I had arranged. I was interested in her contribution, and invited her to join me for a meal afterward.

  Yes. A mutual attraction, I suppose you could say.

  Yes. We were married within a few months.

  Yes, we had decided to get married quite quickly. And, as I have said before, I prefer not to discuss my marriage. I feel that I have no more to add that would be useful so if you have no further queries I would be grateful if we could conclude. Thank you. Good-bye.

  •

  Nothing to add, and no need to go into detail for this young woman. Detail pertinent only to Lavinia and myself. The fact that she miscarried the baby was of great distress to her, though rather less so to me—I had not been all that keen on the idea of a family. Though quite prepared for an early marriage when it became apparent that Lavinia was pregnant. Which never happened again. I believe that was a matter of regret, for her. A private matter, inappropriate to this woman’s book.

  *

  Julia Pemberton’s timely biography of Lavinia Talbot is an incisive account of the life of a remarkable woman, remembered for her trenchant and absorbing academic studies on the treatment of children over time, and perhaps especially for her ground-breaking television series The Child in History. Distinguished equally for her work in public service, Lavinia Talbot was a vibrant and compelling personality, and Julia Pemberton has made an exhaustive exploration of her life and work. The result is a fascinating and truthful portrait.

  Publication date November 14th 2015. All inquiries to Lizzy James at Cavendish Books.

  Julia Pemberton is available for interview.

  The Weekend

  The Dennisons were on their way to spend the weekend with the Sanderbys. At the Sanderbys’ new Cotswold second home. Philip and Vanessa Dennison; Nick and Jill Sanderby. And Martha Dennison, who was eight, and sat in the back of the car, silent.

  “All right, darling?” said Vanessa. An eight-year-old who has been silent for a considerable time is suspect. Car sick?

  “I’m OK.”

  “Sure?”

  Martha was understood to say, quietly, that she didn’t really want to go and spend the weekend at the Sanderbys’ new house.

  Vanessa, no longer concerned, spoke of country walks and a little bedroom of her own.

  “There’ll be no one to play with. You said they haven’t got any children.”

  Vanessa mentioned a possible television in this customized room. And Martha’s new coloring things. She herself was not on a mission of potential pleasure but a sortie into alien territory. Alien, and probably challenging.

  An Aga, she thought. Bet you an Aga. And a wet room. Woodburning stove and en suites to every guest room and dresser with interesting old china and floodlights in the driveway.

  Philip was an academic. Academics do not have second homes in the Cotswolds, with or without Aga, wet room, en suites. Philip and Nick had been at college together, since when their paths had diverged.

  Vanessa had Googled Nick. Google spoke of him as “millionaire City lawyer.” Google is dispassionate, so this could not be read as respectful nor condemnatory. Vanessa knew how she read it. Philip and Nick had met up at some alumni gathering recently, when this weekend proposal had been floated, and followed up with a florid card of invitation from Jill: “. . . so longing to see you, and now the house is all kitted out at last we can entertain properly.”

  “She hardly knows us,” Vanessa had said. “Display of circumstances, that’s what this is. His megabucks pay packet and their country mansion.”

  Philip shook his head, vaguely. He and Nick had been quite good friends, back in that alternative world of youth. Academic highfliers, both of them; college aristocracy.

  Vanessa continued: “Does she do anything, Jill?”

  Philip said that Nick had talked of her agency. “It organizes parties, I think. Events of one kind and another.”

  “Oh, gawd.” Vanessa worked as a copy editor for a publishing group. She was able to feel dismissive: who needs party organizers? A rubbish occupation.

  “Oh, well,” she had said. “We may as well go. See how the other half lives.”

  And now, according to the sat nav, here they were. Driveway with scrunchy gravel, yes. Not mansion, exactly, but substantial honey-colored house swathed in wisteria.

  A million plus, thought Vanessa. Of course. And there’s the Range Rover.

  Philip was a scholarly man who took no interest in house prices. He saw mauve flowers, a large red car, and Jurassic stone, wouldn’t it be, round here? Yes, oolitic limestone. Paleontology was not his subject, but he tended to know things.
/>   The front door opened. Here were Jill and Nick, enthusiastically greeting.

  “And Martha! Hello, Martha! There’s a darling little room for you—the Rose Room, we call it, because I went mad with rose-covered wallpaper.” Jill seized bags. “Is this hers? Come on in.”

  No welcoming Labrador, thought Vanessa. That’s an omission. Grandfather clock, yes. Open fireplace with stash of logs. Flower arrangement—but are those not bought flowers?

  Allocation of rooms. Martha went to her window and looked out over a garden. Huge garden. With a separate sort of secret little garden at the end where a swing hung from the branch of a tree. The swing moved; it swung a bit, to and fro.

  There was tea in the kitchen. The sort of kitchen anticipated; I have to stop looking and bristling, thought Vanessa. She talked brightly of the drive down here: “Really not bad traffic at all.” Nick said that in the Range Rover they reckoned to get back to town in two hours max. Philip talked about oolitic limestone and wondered if there had been a quarry nearby. Jill and Nick looked blank. Jill said they were lucky, there was a really good little deli in Chipping Campden. “You’ll sample it tonight.”

  Martha ate chocolate cake, in silence.

  Later, there was a tour of the garden.

  “Except that it isn’t, yet,” said Jill, waving at expanses of shabby lawns, overgrown bushes, grass-infested paving. “All in hand, though. There’s an excellent local firm, and they’ve done a lovely plan—complete overhaul. Starting work next month—it’s going to be rather something.” The party wandered through the damp grass, Vanessa concerned for her thin shoes, Jill talking about a laburnum walk, a sunken rose garden.

  “And this funny little space at the end,” she continued. “I’m not quite sure what they’ve got in mind for that.” She led the way through a high yew hedge. A couple of huge old apple trees. Sprawling bushes. Even longer and damper grass.

  Martha was looking at the swing.

  “I wonder if it’s safe,” said Jill. “I’m not too sure about that, darling.”

  Philip tugged at the ropes; the sturdy branch of the apple tree hardly moved. He bounced the seat up and down. “Seems all right. D’you want a go, Martha?”

  Martha was very still, looking at it. She shook her head.

  “Fruit area down here,” said Jill. “Yes, that’s what they’re thinking of. Get it all dug over and have raspberries and all that sort of thing. Come along now—it’s getting on for drinks time.” She murmured to Vanessa and Philip that she had rather imagined that Martha did not stay up for grown-up dinner. Vanessa said that was indeed so. Just a bit of early supper, if that’s not a bother.

  A weekend visit like this revolves round eating, thought Philip. Dinner tonight, breakfast, lunch . . . He was already realizing that there was really no longer much to talk to Nick about; young Nick seemed some other being. He found Jill a bit exhausting.

  They returned to the house. “The chaps can have a natter in Nick’s study,” said Jill. “And we’ll sort out some supper for Martha, shall we?”

  Nick’s study had an immense fitted bookcase with nothing much in it except for some law books. Large desk; computer, printer, iPad. Couple of leather armchairs.

  They sat. Nick talked about the establishment of a branch in Hong Kong, for their firm: “I dare say I shall find I need to go and check up on it once or twice a year. I love Hong Kong.” He spoke of a complex recent case. At length.

  Philip thought about parliamentary enclosure in the eighteenth century, his current preoccupation. He was good at mental retreat, practiced it in prolonged departmental meetings, and occasionally at home, when Vanessa was on a roll about something.

  He became aware of silence. “Extraordinary,” he said. “Fascinating.”

  Nick smiled complacently. “And we won, of course. Anyway . . .” He seemed, now, to be flailing a bit. “How’s life in academia? Working on something?”

  Philip thought of talking about parliamentary enclosure, and decided against it. A mere handful of people were likely to be interested in his eventual article, in any case, and Nick would not be among them. He slid sideways into an account of problems with increasing student numbers, and the university’s new building program. He wondered how Vanessa was getting on.

  In the kitchen, Vanessa and Martha were watching Jill muster an omelet and some salad. “And then there’s ice cream in the freezer. Can she?”—to Vanessa.

  Vanessa said that she could. She hated this kitchen, from its rich green Aga (of course) through the row of copper pans slung from one wall, and the butcher block, and the dresser with pretty Victorian china (of course) and the shelf of Le Creuset casseroles in every size and shape. She hated it because she wanted it.

  Martha said, “Our kitchen isn’t like this.”

  Jill laughed. “Well, this is a country kitchen.”

  Vanessa said that Martha would be ready for bed as soon as she’d had her supper. “Won’t you, darling?”

  Presently the two of them climbed the stairs to the Rose Room and its attendant bathroom. Martha had a bath. Vanessa said, “I’m afraid it’s a bit dull for you here. Never mind—home tomorrow evening.”

  “I like the garden,” said Martha.

  “I’ve got to get ready for dinner now. Our room is just along the passage, if you want anything in the night.”

  Martha said she thought she would be all right.

  Drinks outside, before dinner.

  “Do you think a hot tub on the terrace would be completely naff?” said Jill. “I would rather love one.”

  Philip wondered what she was talking about. Vanessa had no opinion. She was considering whether to drink as much as possible and become mercifully oblivious, or whether to hold back in case drink prompted some unwise remark. By the time they went in for dinner she was somewhere in between these two positions.

  Philip was still interested in this matter of local stone. He tended to wrestle with a subject. “A lot of the Oxford buildings came out of these quarries, I believe. And there’s some special slate—Stonesfield, I think. Yes, Stonesfield. Does this house have a Stonesfield slate roof?”

  “Oh, I imagine so,” said Jill. It sounded as though that sort of roof was the thing to have. “Of course, we were incredibly lucky to get the house. They tend to get snapped up. But we did the snapping—the previous owners were in a hurry to sell—they’d had a child die and just wanted to get away and live somewhere else. Tragic, of course, but a bit of luck for us. We jumped in with an offer rather over the asking price, and here we are.” She beamed across the table, over the gravad lax starter.

  Definitely more wine, thought Vanessa. It’s the only way. She reached for her glass, emptied it.

  Jugged hare, there was next. “Of course, I didn’t jug it myself,” laughed Jill. “The local deli does these really good frozen meals. A godsend, when we arrive from town after a hectic week.”

  Please don’t let’s hear about your hectic week, prayed Vanessa. But they did: some event at the O2, and a wedding at the top of the Shard. Philip retreated to parliamentary enclosure; Vanessa toyed rather obviously with her empty glass. Nick opened another bottle.

  The jugged hare gave way to a fruit salad. Vanessa excused herself: “I must just pop up and see Martha’s all right.”

  She found Martha asleep. She had fallen asleep easily. The room seemed quite companionable, as though somehow she was not alone.

  Vanessa returned to the party, finding that she had to take extra care on the stairs. No more wine, she thought. It’s probably done the trick now anyway. She allowed the conversation to lap around her rather than join in and risk being either irrelevant or provocative. She was nicely sleepy, in any case.

  Eventually, the evening ended. Upstairs, in their room, Vanessa said, “I’m completely sloshed. It was the only thing to do, wasn’t it? Are you?”

  Phi
lip yawned. “Mildly so. Is it that bad here?”

  “Yes,” said Vanessa.

  “One feels rather out of place, certainly. Sorry to have let you in for it.”

  “Never mind.” Vanessa could afford to be generous, in an alcoholic haze. “I dare say he was perfectly all right when he was young. You couldn’t know how he would develop. Or who he would marry.”

  Philip sighed. “We don’t seem to be on the same wavelength. No doubt he’s thinking the same.”

  “Let him. All we have to do is get through tomorrow. We can leave smartly at five or so—plead Sunday evening traffic.”

  Next morning, Vanessa found that the comfort of alcohol had soured into a hangover. She dragged herself down for breakfast and drank a lot of coffee. Jill was unrelentingly bright, enthusing about the lovely sunny day, the fresh croissants from the village shop, the prospect of lunch out at a local eaterie. “More gastro than pub, if you see what I mean. Amazing chef.” The morning could be spent “. . . any way you like. Nick got the Sunday papers along with the croissants. Or a walk, if anyone wants.”

  Martha spoke up, surprising her parents. “Can I go in the garden?”

  “But of course.” Jill beamed. “Do whatever you like there.”

  Philip said that he would quite like a walk. As he had feared, Nick declared that he would join him. Jill would stay here to keep Vanessa company.

  The morning proceeded. Vanessa’s planned retreat into the Sunday papers was sabotaged by Jill’s constant interventions and tendency to read out loud some item she had come across: “Do listen to this . . .”

  At one point Vanessa went to check up on Martha, wading again through the damp grass. She found her sitting on the swing, looking as though somehow interrupted. No, Martha said, she didn’t want any juice. Or a biscuit. She was fine.

  Vanessa returned to the terrace. Jill said, “What a good little thing she is, amusing herself on her own like that. I heard her laughing just now.”