The Miseducation of Evie Epworth

by Matson Taylor

  1. Her clothes. She always dresses in calming colours, generally maroon, navy, bottle green or sky blue, and her cashmere twinsets precisely match the shade of her pleated tweed skirts. And she always wears a double-looped chain of pearls (I like consistency).

  2. Her generosity. She’s a constant source of books, jam, Browns’ gift tokens, assorted baked goods, and magazines (or ‘periodicals’ as she calls them). She has the brilliant knack of giving me the right book at the right time (Katherine Mansfield, Fanny Burney, Jacques Prévert), although when she gets it wrong it can be very wrong (John Cleland, for example, and his stiff staring truncheons).

  3. Her house. Perfectly proportioned like one a child would draw. It’s a wonderful pattern of books and parquet and old, expensive-looking furniture. If the Queen Mother were ever to move to Yorkshire, this is exactly the sort of house she’d live in. It has a calm, ordered timelessness that Christine would instantly ruin with the addition of man-made fabrics and cheap knick-knacks.

  4. Her cooking. Bliss. This other Eden. Adam Faith in culinary form.

  ‘Yes, mini anchors. All Christine’s Things’, I explain, ‘are like little mini anchors. And she keeps getting more and more of them. I’m worried that she’ll never leave.’

  Mrs Scott-Pym keeps folding the buttercream. The mixture makes a lovely squelchy sound as she folds it. ‘I see. Very rum business. I’m surprised, I must say. I thought your father had more sense.’ After a few more seconds, she stops folding the buttercream and looks up at me. Her eyes have the sharp intelligence of a gold-crest and her body, small and lithe, makes her seem even more birdlike. ‘I’m sure he’ll buck up soon and realise what he’s got himself into. Now, could you pass me a tea towel, please?’

  I could listen to Mrs Scott-Pym speak all day. Her vowels, like Mrs Scott-Pym herself, are as trim as a hockey stick and as grand as Harrods. Everyone else in the village says towel with two great swinging syllables but she needs just the one.

  She folds the tea towel three times before cupping it in her palm and using it to open one of the range doors. A hot waft of sweet air rushes out.

  ‘I’m afraid men have a habit of doing silly things, dear, and your father’s no different,’ she says, taking assorted cakes out of the oven and placing them on wire cooling trays across the kitchen table. ‘It’s difficult for a man to turn down the charms of a young lady, even when those charms are somewhat questionable.’

  Somewhat questionable? To me her charms are entirely questionable, based mainly on low-cut tops and her bowling-ball chest.

  How can men be so stupid? Seeing as they’re in charge of just about everything, you’d think they’d have the brains to be able to see beyond a pair of large boobs. How can such overwhelming power have been achieved with such distraction?

  A great howl interrupts my thoughts. Is it the collective howl of womanhood expressing rage at hundreds of years of oppression and general drudgery?

  No, it’s the great howl of Sadie, Mrs Scott-Pym’s dog, expressing her desire to be allowed in from the garden so that she can become more intimately acquainted with the delicious baking smells wafting out from the kitchen window. She is working herself into a howling frenzy, watching Mrs Scott-Pym through the French windows that lead out onto the garden terrace. Long streams of spittle dangle down from her jaw and attach themselves to the glass when she howls. The bottom half of the French windows look like they’ve been splattered with the deranged web of a psychotic spider. (I’m constantly amazed at Sadie’s capacity to produce drool. Whenever I hear about a drought somewhere, I think of her amazing water-producing ability and wonder if we could send her there.)

  Mrs Scott-Pym opens the French windows and a great clattering of paws signals Sadie’s entrance. She heads straight for the table, a silver line of spittle tracing her path, and sits in anticipation, her eyes darting from the baking to Mrs Scott-Pym and back again. ‘Who’s my best girl, then?’ says Mrs Scott-Pym, breaking off a chunk of cake and handing it to Sadie, who takes it and in return covers Mrs Scott-Pym’s hands in drool and crumbs. Mrs Scott-Pym picks up a tea towel and uses it to wipe off the drool (I dread to think what Vera would make of that).

  Sadie is an English Setter and her long drooping muzzle reminds me of Mr Macmillan, the prime minister. If it weren’t for all the dribble, she would look a very noble hound – as noble, in fact, as Mrs Scott-Pym. There is nothing she likes more than having her pink bits rubbed (Sadie, that is, not Mrs Scott-Pym) and she is often found on her back with her legs stretched upwards, tail excitedly wagging in anticipation of a good belly rub.

  ‘I thought this aventure with Christine would all blow over soon,’ says Mrs Scott-Pym as she fills a pan with water. She puts the pan on the range and then balances a large glass bowl in it. Sadie looks up but decides that pans of water are not as interesting as chunks of cake. ‘Could you pass me the chocolate, please, dear? It’s in the middle cupboard,’ she says, pointing to a cupboard I’m standing next to. As I fumble around in the cupboard looking for the chocolate, Mrs Scott-Pym folds up her tea towel and sighs. ‘Of course, things would have been very different if your mother were still here.’

  And there it is. The huge, enormous, unfair if that hangs over everything I do. If my mother were still alive, things would be very different.

  I would know about fragrances and handbags and permanent waves. I would know which colours suited me. I would know how to make vanilla custard and macaroni cheese and how to have sophisticated parties for artistic friends. I would know that watching old men having sex with a cow in a field is not conducive to good driving. I would know how to get Adam Faith to marry me. I would know which Future would be best for me. And I would know how to get rid of Christine and all her horrible Things.

  I would know everything.

  If.

  *

  I pass the chocolate to Mrs Scott-Pym. She breaks it into small pieces and drops each piece into the glass bowl. As the water in the pan boils beneath it, the bowl tinkers gently against the sides of the pan.

  Mrs Scott-Pym stares into the glass bowl. What can she see? Apart from pieces of chocolate, that is.

  I think now would be a good time to talk to Mrs Scott-Pym about the disappearing objects in our house, and so I tell her about the Aga, the photos, the tureen, an armchair, a painting of a lady in big hat, and an elephant’s leg umbrella stand. All gone. Vanished. Victims of Christine’s push for lebensraum (noun – additional territory considered necessary, especially by Nazi Germany, for economic expansion).

  ‘Hmm. I see,’ says Mrs Scott-Pym, using a wooden spoon to move the pieces of chocolate around in the glass bowl. I can hear the water simmering away but the chocolate still looks rock solid. ‘That’s very worrying, dear.’ She stops stirring. ‘It’s not right, at all,’ she goes on, flashing her goldfinch eyes around the room and shaking her head slightly. ‘Look, would you mind taking over for a moment whilst I go upstairs for something?’

  And I take control of the wooden spoon and tinkering bowl while Mrs Scott-Pym leaves the room.

  The chocolate pieces stare up at me. I give them a Good Prod. There are slight smears of chocolate on the glass but most of the chunks remain stubbornly intact. I give them Another Prod. Does prodding aid the melting process? Does it encourage heat dispersal? Is a wooden spoon an effective aid to thermodynamics? I wish I’d paid more attention to physics at school (or is it chemistry?).

  I try Yet Another Prod followed by a Good Stir.

  Nothing.

  It’s beginning to annoy me now. Why is it taking so long? I’m not sure baking is for me and I make a mental note to cross it off my list of potential jobs. I’d love to have the chocolate melted for Mrs Scott-Pym by the time she comes back downstairs so I decide to use my initiative and add some boiling water. That should speed things up.

  The moment the water touches the chocolate, success strikes. The chocolate melts. Ha! I am a culinary genius. Perhaps I should be a baker after all.

 
But instead of turning into a smooth luxuriant gloop, the chocolate hardens and before long it’s going claggy. I rush the chocolate off the heat but it now resembles something you’d find hanging off the rear end of a sheep. A few seconds later, and it’s turned into a bowl full of rabbit droppings.

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ says Mrs Scott-Pym, coming back into the kitchen. ‘It’s always nice to have some help.’

  I stand in front of the bowl and smile, hoping she won’t notice the pebbly mess.

  She walks towards me with something in her hand. It’s a small tatty book, with a few bits of folded paper sticking out. ‘I’ve been keeping this safe for a long time,’ she says, holding the book out with both hands as if it were a precious relic. ‘I wanted to wait until the right moment to give it to you. And now, I think, is very much the right moment.’

  I take the book and look down at it. It’s black with a burgundy spine. Its cover is hard but slightly dimpled like the peel of an orange. There’s a small white panel on the front, bordered with a simple pattern of tiny red ropes. On the panel someone has written ‘Recipes’ in a now-faded blue ink.

  ‘It’s your mother’s recipe book, Evie,’ says Mrs Scott-Pym. ‘She lent it to me in the war and it just got put on a shelf and stayed there.’

  My mother’s recipe book. I hold it tightly, a suggestion of another life, squeezing it, rubbing it, trying to imagine my mother’s art-deco-nutcracker hands flicking through its pages.

  ‘I took it upstairs and put it in a drawer when we lost her,’ Mrs Scott-Pym goes on. She reaches up and adjusts her silver hair-slide. ‘I couldn’t bear to see it in the kitchen every day.’ She stares at the book; she is in the room but at the same time seems a million miles away. ‘She was a good cook, your mother. Very good. She did a course in Paris, you know.’

  What? A cookery course? In Paris? Why hasn’t anyone told me before that she did a cookery course in Paris? It all seems absurdly glamorous, given the farm and the cows and Arthur.

  I smell the book. It reminds me of autumn. I smell it again, longer, deeper, breathing in its dusty absence. Inside, the edges of the paper are turning brown and some of the newspaper cuttings have yellowed. There’s writing everywhere – my mother’s writing – looping and leaning, a beautiful riot of blue ink. Some of the recipes I recognise, like Lemon Syllabub and Caesar Salad and Veal and Ham Pie, but many others come from a different world, like Asparagus Ice and Vermicelli Soufflé and Bouillabaisse.

  ‘Mind you don’t let Christine get anywhere near it, dear,’ says Mrs Scott-Pym, gesturing at the book.

  I’m only half listening, though, as I’m still carefully turning every page and incanting recipe names to myself: Cod Normande, Gainsborough Tart, Gaufres au Caffé, Potage Saint-Germaine, Collier’s Pie, Lobster à la Créole, Devilled Chestnuts.

  O brave new world that has such meals in it.

  Mrs Scott-Pym is looking at me, smiling. I’m going to have to say something but I have no idea what. ‘It’s wonderful, Mrs Scott-Pym,’ I try. ‘Really wonderful. Thank you.’ I go over and give her a kiss on the cheek, carefully avoiding Sadie (and her dribble). The recipe book has instantly become the most precious object in my possession, trumping two signed fan-club photos of Adam Faith and even my mother’s wedding ring. Unlike the ring, the recipe book feels alive, every line of it a moment lived. ‘I love it,’ I say. ‘Such a beautiful thing. It’s amazing. Thank you.’

  ‘No need to keep thanking me, dear. It’s yours. I was just keeping it safe until the right moment. I think what with all this awful Christine business, now’s the time to return the book to its rightful owner, don’t you?’ and she gives my hand a grand-motherly squeeze.

  *

  What kind of woman was my mother?

  Arthur almost never speaks about her. Whenever I try to ask him anything, he falls silent and disappears into his deep sad eyes. Other people seem to avoid talking about her. They just look uncomfortable and unsure.

  She died when I was six months old, just a chubby little gurgling baby. I know what she looked like, of course, from photos and from a lovely painting of her that Arthur has in his office, done when she was sixteen (like me) and looking very glamorous (not like me). But I don’t know what she was like as a person. In fact I don’t really know that much about her at all. Just basic snippets that get repeated back to me over and over again (attractive, kind, tall), making her more like a character in a badly written book than a real person. It’s not like Margaret, who seems to know everything about her mother: her waist size, her annoying habits, her favourite song. And she knows her mother’s voice too, as present as air, all around her every day. Singing, shouting, soothing. I wish I could remember my mother’s voice. Sometimes I try to imagine it but all I end up with is a young Mrs Scott-Pym or Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter.

  My mother is a mystery to me, a beautiful jigsaw with lots of pieces missing. Was she funny? Radiant? Clever? Or was she moody? Bossy? Clumsy? (I have definitely inherited the clumsy gene from someone.) Now, with the news of the cookery course in Paris, I’ve found out she could speak French. What else could she do that I don’t know about? Ski? Play the banjo? Fly a plane?

  ‘Oh, your mother really was wonderful,’ says Mrs Scott-Pym, looking at the recipe book and smiling. ‘A real gem. Very good company. Beautiful too. Just like you.’

  She sits down at the kitchen table, resting her chin in her hand.

  The room pulses in the summer heat. It feels like an important moment has arrived.

  ‘I don’t really know much about her, Mrs Scott-Pym,’ I say. ‘Not as a real person anyway.’

  Mrs Scott-Pym is silent for a few seconds, then she smiles and words tumble out of her mouth like a giddy, happy dictionary: witty, friendly, tender, bright, refined, thoughtful, graceful, chic (not a word usually associated with our particular corner of Yorkshire). It’s all incredibly wonderful to hear but at the same time a bit terrifying. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to live up to my mother, no matter how hard I try.

  I look down at the recipe book in my hands.

  ‘What type of Woman do you think I’ll be, Mrs Scott-Pym?’ I ask.

  She stares at me with her sharp, birdy eyes. ‘You’ll be your own woman, Evie. That’s what Diana would have wanted.’

  A rush of light suddenly bounces around the room. I love it when people say my mother’s name. It’s like she’s living again, even if only for a second. I let the golden flare of her name burst over me.

  ‘Young ladies today can do anything they want and it’s about time too,’ she continues. ‘It was very different when your mother and I were young. We weren’t really expected to do anything other than look pretty and play tennis.’ She bends down and strokes Sadie (who’s busy attending to her pink bits). ‘No. You should do whatever you want to do. Be whatever type of woman you want to be.’

  I’m not sure that really helps.

  ‘Do you have any idea what you’d like to do yet, dear?’ says Mrs Scott-Pym, breaking off a corner from the warm madeira cake and giving it to Sadie. ‘Have you thought of a career?’

  A Career? Oh. That sounds even more terrifying than a job. How can I possibly be expected to decide on a Career? I can’t vote yet. Or drink (officially). Or drive (officially) for that matter. Actually I don’t think there’s much I can do officially at the moment other than work and smoke.

  I tell Mrs Scott-Pym that I have no idea what I’d like to do and that I seem to change my mind every few minutes. ‘It’s exhausting,’ I carry on. ‘It makes my head spin. I think I’ve settled on something and then – bang – a new idea comes along. At the moment, I quite fancy being an air hostess. Or maybe a vet.’

  Sadie glances up at me and whimpers.

  ‘I see,’ says Mrs Scott-Pym, sounding unsure. ‘And what does your father say?’

  Arthur doesn’t say much. The range of careers that he thinks suitable for women is limited, to say the least.

  ‘He thinks I should become a farmer’
s wife,’ I tell Mrs Scott-Pym.

  ‘Really?’ She somehow manages to weigh the two words with half a dozen different meanings, each one tucked inside another like a Russian doll. ‘And what do you think about that?’

  ‘Not much,’ I tell her. I explain how people are always telling me what they think I should do. How my best friend Margaret’s convinced I should become a teacher. How the careers lady at school suggested the typing pool at York City Council or receptionist at one of the big law firms up on Micklegate. How Christine’s mum, Vera, thinks I should become a nurse or a secretary (‘Secretary?’ repeats Mrs Scott-Pym, losing a syllable). And how Christine herself, whose career planning seems to have consisted of little more than tight dresses and come-hither smiles, thinks I should become a hairdresser or bus conductress.

  Mrs Scott-Pym wipes her hands on a tea towel. ‘Hmm. Well, you’re a very different girl to Christine. I wouldn’t worry too much about what she thinks you should do, dear.’ She twists the tea towel and uses it to flick away a fat summer fly that has begun to explore the baking. ‘Or anyone else for that matter. Be your own woman, Evie. It’s the only way to be happy. I’ll help you.’ She folds the tea towel and hangs it neatly on the oven door handle. ‘And your father will help you.’

  Arthur?

  I’m not sure Arthur will be much help. Even before Christine he was always really busy (milking, calving, herding), but since she barged her way into our lives he’s been more distracted than ever. He’s like a swan, apparently gliding serenely across the water but actually paddling away frantically beneath the surface in a constant battle to keep Christine happy. His initial attempts to do this, mainly a bunch of flowers, the odd pub dinner and industrial amounts of Old Spice aftershave, have given way to ever more baroque pursuits: horse-racing at Doncaster; afternoon tea in Harrogate; fish and chips in Scarborough. Thanks to Christine, trips to the retail wonderlands of York and Leeds (not his natural habitat) have become a frequent part of Arthur’s life. He’s always either just bought something for her (handbag, Mantovani LP, family-size box of Milk Tray) or is on the verge of buying something for her. Trying to keep Christine happy has turned into another full-time job for Arthur. I don’t think he has much time left to help me ‘be my own woman’.