‘Yes, dear. But you got me thinking about the book again – it hadn’t come into my mind for years. I just thought it might perhaps help.’
She taps my thigh with the book.
‘I had no idea where the bally thing was and had to turn the house upside down looking for it. Eventually I found it tucked away on a shelf in the study, next to some of Edward’s ornithology books. I had a good look through it and found this.’ She hands me the open book. ‘I think it might just be what you need.’
I take the book and look down. At the top of the page in the terrible ye-olde-worlde writing is the title for that particular page’s magic spell.
Songs to Unshroud a Scarlet Woman.
I take a big breath. ‘But Mrs Scott-Pym . . .’
‘Now I know what you’re thinking, dear. That I’m a barmy old lady.’
That’s exactly what I’m thinking.
‘But I’m also a barmy old lady with a twenty-six-year-old daughter who by rights just shouldn’t be here. Now, Christine is clearly a young lady on the make. A scarlet woman if ever there was one. And your father is clearly incapable of looking after himself, so we need to help him. And this,’ she stabs at the page with her index finger, ‘is how we’re going to do it.’
INTERLUDE
2 May 1936
Arthur had never seen anything like it. At least not in real life.
York Mansion House was alive with light: candelabras, candlesticks, mirrors. And diamonds too. Every woman seemed to be wearing them. The whole place sparkled.
They were up in the ballroom, a grand first-floor room with a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. It was the end-of-season gala, an annual affair in which city celebrated club. The team was lined up at one end, smiling politely through speech after speech while the invited dignitaries looked on. The Lord Mayor was saying something about York’s finest and then there was some applause and then a joke and then Mr Barrett, the manager, was shaking the mayor’s hand. More jokes. More clapping. When would it all end? Then, from nowhere, Arthur heard his own name and felt a slap on his back from a teammate. He blushed, looked down at the floor and then out across the scrum of clapping hands and smiling faces.
And that’s when he saw her, standing near the door, talking to friends and laughing. She was the tallest woman in the room, dressed in an elegant navy-blue gown that made her look like a film star. When the applause stopped and the speeches resumed, she glanced over her shoulder and caught him staring at her. She half-smiled, arched an eyebrow, and then turned back to her friends.
He spent the rest of the night trying to watch her without making it too obvious. Once or twice, he even managed to manoeuvre himself close enough to see her eyes, dark and shining, he thought, like newly polished leather.
And then, just like that, there she was. Standing next to him, smiling. As bold as brass.
‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me to dance, then?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I said aren’t you going to ask me to dance. It seems only right given that you’ve been staring at me all evening.’
She held out her hand.
‘I’m Diana.’
SEVEN
Saturday 14 July 1962
It’s been a very strange day and it’s still only half past ten in the morning.
Mrs Scott-Pym is convinced that a magic spell will help rescue Arthur from Christine’s scarlet-woman clutches. The spell involves getting Christine to eat two hedgehog quills, the bark of an ash tree, a ‘fairy sack’ of hydrangea petals, and one of her own buttons. Simple, then. Songs to Unshroud a Scarlet Woman also involves some more mundane ingredients (eggs, butter, orange rind), meaning that if you get a bit distracted, as I often do, it could easily be mistaken for a recipe from Woman’s Realm.
I’ve been tasked by Mrs Scott-Pym with acquiring one of Christine’s buttons while she takes care of everything else. I have no idea where she’ll find hedgehog quills or how she’ll measure a fairy sack of flower petals, but it’s beside the point really as the whole thing is clearly bonkers. I have decided to humour Mrs Scott-Pym, though, because:
1. She’s so nice
2. She makes such lovely cakes
So I’m back at home pretending to look for a button. What I’m actually doing is sitting in the kitchen reading Tender is the Night (hardly a glowing advert for adulthood) and working my way through a bag of ready-salted crisps. I’ll give it a couple of hours and then go back and say I couldn’t find a button anywhere in Christine’s wardrobe (Christine, queen of man-made fibres, is very much the type of person who looks like she’s at home in zips and Velcro fastenings). Hopefully by then Mrs Scott-Pym will be occupied by lunch and I’ll be able to divert her away from magic and back onto a slightly less strange subject, which, let’s face it, could be more or less anything.
Just as I’m finally getting to another good bit in the book (we’re back in the Ritz bar), I hear some clickety-clack footsteps on the courtyard slabs outside. It’s Christine. I’d recognise her bossy gallop anywhere. So much for having a couple of hours relaxing in the company of Riviera sophisticates.
‘Got your head in a book again?’ she says, coming in and closing the door behind her. ‘You should be careful. You spend so much time with your head bent over a book, it’ll drop off one of these days.’ She walks over to the kitchen table and deposits her handbag on it. I briefly think about explaining the biology of a neck and spine to her but decide against it.
‘I’m just finishing off a chapter and then I’m going out,’ I say, words universally understood to mean leave me alone.
‘Well, I’m glad I caught you,’ she replies, pulling up a chair and sitting across the table from me. ‘I thought it’d be good for the two of us to have a little chat.’
A Little Chat. Three words that, on the surface, appear harmless but in Christine’s hands have the potential to wreak havoc and destruction on a grand scale. I put my Adam Faith bookmark in Tender is the Night, place the book on the table next to my crisps and prepare for battle.
Here goes then. A Little Chat.
‘It’s about the wedding,’ she starts, leaning back in her chair, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed.
(Oh. The Wedding.)
‘Or actually,’ she goes on, ‘it’s about after the wedding.’ She makes a good stab at a smile but can’t quite pull it off.
‘What about after the wedding?’ I ask, trying not to be distracted by her pink coral-feather earrings.
‘Well, when your dad and me are man and wife, I’ll be your new mum.’
‘What?’
‘After the wedding. I’ll be your new mum.’
‘Actually, you’ll be my step-mum,’ I correct her.
(I think it’s only right that we get this nice and clear from the start.)
‘Like the one in Cinderella,’ I add, just for good measure.
The room is silent for a second.
‘Mum. Step-mum. It’s all the same really, isn’t it?’ Her smile turns even more vinegary than usual. She grabs one of my crisps and bites hard. ‘Your dad’s so pleased I’m here to help you, you know. He thinks you need someone to give you some womanly advice and guidance. Someone you can talk to about women’s things.’ She smiles. ‘Someone you can listen to.’
I sniff and take a crisp.
‘Anyway,’ Christine goes on. ‘I wanted to have a little chat with you about this idea of yours of going back to school. I mean, what’s the point? They’re not going to be able to teach you how to read any better, are they?’ As she speaks, she picks up Tender is the Night and glances at its cover.
‘I don’t know why you’re bothering with books like this,’ she says, her lips curdling around the words. ‘Why you don’t read proper ones like Woman and Beauty or Housewife?’
‘They’re not books,’ I point out.
‘Not books? ’Course they are. They’re there to be read, aren’t they?’ She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. ‘People don’t just look at t
he pictures, you know. Speaking of which, you’d have thought they’d have put a better picture on the front of this,’ she says, looking at Tender is the Night. ‘It looks dead boring. Although, to be fair,’ she goes on, ‘they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.’
(She’s wrong, of course. You should always judge a book by its cover. Anyone who’s ever actually read a book knows this.)
She sniffs and then casually tosses Tender is the Night back on the table. ‘Now, look, I’ll tell you what you want. You want to stop cramming your head with silly ideas and start thinking about getting a nice little trade. Something that’ll keep you busy. Something that’ll bring in a nice wage. Something that’ll get you some independence. Well, at least until you get married.’
‘But I’ve already got a job,’ I say. ‘I’m earning.’
‘Job! What job?’
‘The milk round. I deliver milk and Dad pays me. It’s called capitalism,’ I add, knowing that she won’t like me using an ‘ism’.
Christine leans forward and screws up her face.
‘I thought you did that for free?’
‘No, I get seven shillings a week for it,’ I tell her. ‘How else do you think I can afford a weekly Melody Maker plus a new LP and a pair of pop socks every month?’
‘Ow much!’ says Christine, sounding remarkably like Mrs Swithenbank. ‘Seven shillings? We’ll see about that. And taking money from your dad is not earning. You need to forget all this rubbish about going back to school and get a proper job instead.’
A proper job. Or a Career, as Mrs Scott-Pym would say. That’s not actually a bad idea. I imagine myself as an Independent Woman. Like Mrs Scott-Pym’s daughter, Caroline. I could go to glamorous parties and film premieres and meet friends for cocktails in sophisticated bars. Yes, I think I’d like having a Career. It’d be great. I could be a doctor. A journalist. A lawyer.
‘I’ve got you a job shampooing at Maureen’s salon,’ says Christine, helping herself to another crisp. ‘She’ll take you on trial for a couple of weeks and if you’re any good, she’ll let you stay. For now it’s just Thursdays, Fridays, and half-days on Saturdays.’
What?!
‘You get four shillings plus tips. Not bad for less than three days’ work. And don’t go messing it up,’ she says, stabbing the table with her finger. ‘I’ve had to go through no end of appointments to get you the bloody job. It’s cost me a small fortune.’
She sits back, sighs, and starts looking at her scarlet fingernails.
‘But I don’t want to be a hairdresser,’ I tell her. I know my limitations. Sagittarians might be lucky but you wouldn’t want to let one loose on your hair. We are clumsy and absent-minded. Not a good combination when perm lotion or a pair of scorching hot tongs are involved.
‘I’ve spent hours in that salon trying to get you a job. Hair, hands, feet. I’ve had them all done,’ she says, not looking happy. ‘It hasn’t been easy, you know. You’re not the only girl in the village who wants a job there. And what thanks do I get? None at all. None.’ She looks round the room, looking for sympathy from the kitchen cupboards and empty chairs.
I wonder if anyone has ever used an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel as a murder weapon. (Tender is the Night has a good heft to it; it’d definitely do more damage than The Great Gatsby.)
‘Look, young lady,’ she says, jabbing a scarlet finger at me. ‘You need to start growing up.’
‘That’s exactly what I have been doing,’ I tell her.
‘You’ve had it far too easy,’ she goes on, talking to me but at the same time managing to completely ignore me. ‘Do you know how many jobs I’ve had? I’ve scrubbed floors, pulled pints, picked fruit, washed windows, polished brass, packed eggs, laundered god-knows-what, fed babies, plucked chickens, served idiots, wiped arses. I’ve done it all. Just to scrape together enough money to live on and keep me in nice clothes.’
(Just for the record, she’s currently wearing a ham-pink sleeveless crimplene blouse.)
‘You don’t know you’re born, young lady. You need to start standing on your own two feet. Stop sponging off your dad. It’s ridiculous.’ She sits back and folds her arms, bunching them under her boobs so that her cleavage forms two large railway arches. ‘You need a job. You need to stop all this school nonsense. And you need to get used to not having the bloody farm around.’
What?!
Christine stops mid-nag and stares straight at me.
‘What do you mean, get used to not having the bloody farm around?’ I ask, watching Christine shuffle uncomfortably in her chair.
‘Look,’ she says, straightening out some imaginary folds in her skirt. ‘We can’t go on living in this rickety old place. It’s 1962 for god’s sake. We have to move with the times, you know. It’s like a pokey old museum here. All dark and dingy. Look at this tatty old kitchen.’
‘What’s wrong with the kitchen?’ I ask, looking around. ‘The only thing that’s wrong with it is your horrible new cooker.’ (Christine’s incinerator of choice.)
‘Listen, my new cooker’s the only bloody thing that’s not an antique,’ she replies, getting up and stroking it like the women do on the quiz shows on Granada Television. ‘I’m trying to drag this place into the Twentieth Century but it isn’t easy. What’s wrong with the kitchen, she says. What’s bloody right with it, you mean. Look at it. We need everything new, proper fitted units and a nice Formica top, not this crabby old wooden thing. Just think of the germs.’
(To be honest, with Christine’s cooking, germs are the least of my worries.)
‘And then there’s the bathroom,’ she goes on. ‘We need something up-to-date. A nice pink suite with big cabinets and maybe even a corner bath. And we need a bar. And fitted carpets. The whole place is like a stable . . .’ I’m only half listening, though, as I’m still trying to process what Christine has just said about getting used to not having the bloody farm around.
‘But I don’t understand,’ I say, interrupting her, mid-renovation. ‘How has all this got anything to do with the farm?’
‘Don’t you see?’ she says. ‘It all needs pulling down and starting again. There’s no point beggaring around doing a bit here and a bit there. We need to start from scratch. Tear the whole place down and build something new. Something nice and modern.’
‘What? Tear the farmhouse down? You can’t do that.’
‘Of course we can. Look, do you think I’m going to live in this dump when I’m married?’ She glances round the kitchen and pulls a face as though she’s visiting the local sewage works. ‘And I’m not having you telling me what I can and can’t do. Anyway, you’ll be off soon. You can’t stick around here forever you know. I don’t want you under my feet after the wedding.’
‘But . . .’
‘And don’t answer back,’ snaps Christine. ‘You’ve always got a clever comment.’
(Is that meant to be a bad thing? I think the world would be a far better place if people were only allowed to speak if they made a clever comment. Christine would be mute for a start. In fact I suspect everywhere would be a good deal quieter.)
‘You can stick your rotten fitted carpet right up your corner bath,’ I shout. I know it’s not a clever comment but it’s exactly how I feel. My face is getting red and I think I might be about to cry.
Christine stares at me, pursing her lips and tapping her fingers on the side of her leg. Through her eyes I can see all the cogs in her tiny brain turning round and round. ‘Look, don’t cry,’ she says, switching to the voice she uses with Arthur when she wants something. ‘It’ll be proper fancy. You’ll see. With all mod-cons. Double glazing. Central heating. It’ll be lovely when it’s all done.’ (She’s beginning to sound a bit like an estate agent.) ‘We’ll be the envy of the village. I’m even thinking of having a water feature outside.’
She comes and puts her hand on my shoulder, probably trying to be reassuring but it’s actually quite unsettling.
Surely Arthur can’t know anything
about this? And anyway, I don’t see how a new house means I should get used to not having the farm around. We’ve got nearly 100 acres of land, a stream, and countless barns. Even Christine can’t need a house that big.
‘Look,’ she says, still using her nice voice. ‘Your dad wanted to tell you this but you might as well know now. Knocking this place down, building a new house and then kitting it out will cost a small fortune. So the whole lot’s going.’ She flicks her hand cheerfully. ‘It’s being sold to a developer. He’s going to turn it all into a brand new housing estate. It’ll be lovely.’
She says lovely like it’s spelt with a capital L. Maybe two.
‘We’re having the best plot of course and the developer’s going to build us a special house. The biggest on the estate. Different from all the others. With a nice-size garden. And a curvy driveway.’
A housing estate? On the farm?
But what about the newts?
And the cows?
And me?
‘But you can’t do that,’ I say. ‘You can’t sell the farm.’
‘Of course we can,’ she snaps, taking her hand off my shoulder and going back to her usual bossy voice. ‘We’ll get a brand new house out of it. And plenty of money.’ She stands up and walks towards the kitchen door. ‘Enough for holidays to Spain. Or even America. We’ll be part of the jet-set.’
‘More like the shampoo-and-set,’ I say.
Christine ignores me.
‘Me and your dad’ll be like . . . like Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor.’
Rubbish. Christine is as much like Elizabeth Taylor as I’m like Richard Burton.
‘Anyway, I’m off,’ she says, opening the door and letting in a waft of summer air. ‘I can’t stay around here talking to you all day. Some of us have things to do. Now, you think on about that job with Maureen in the salon,’ she goes on, attempting a smile. ‘You need to sort yourself out and stop loping around. A job’ll do you good. School! What do you want with more school? I ask you.’
The Miseducation of Evie Epworth Page 8