A Few Green Leaves

by Barbara Pym

  Avice of course agreed with him, when it was put to her like that, and they were very soon discussing what they should have to eat.

  ‘You remember that letter in the parish magazine?’ Avice said. ‘He wanted to be invited to a simple family meal, or words to that effect, so he won’t expect anything special. But I don’t suppose he gets much if he depends on Mrs Dyer, so maybe we should make a bit of an effort.’ And of course she also felt that it might be advisable to feed him well and put him in a good humour in case the question of the rectory came up. But was Tom the kind of person to be influenced by food and drink? – after all, he wasn’t Adam Prince – and would the future of the rectory rest with him, even if he did decide to leave it for a smaller house? Wasn’t it the Church Commissioners or the Diocesan something or other that decided things like that?

  ‘There’ll be something off the joint to make up,’ Avice said, ‘so it could be shepherd’s pie’ – for, after

  all, he was a kind of shepherd – ‘or moussaka, though I expect Daphne has given him enough of that. No, I think it had better be chicken – that seems the obvious thing.’

  ‘And perhaps one of your nice puddings,’ Magdalen suggested. ‘I expect he’d like that. I don’t suppose he ever gets a nice pudding.’

  Tom had temporarily forgotten the parish magazine letter and the bit about the simple family meal, when he saw Martin about to carve the chicken. He was taken back to his days as a curate, when poultry was still regarded as an appropriate meat for the clergy, though in these days it seemed to be more an everyday sort of meal. Turkey was now more highly thought of – advertised on television as fare not only for Christmas but in Holy Week as the thing to get for Easter, with the grinning family pictured dining off slice after slice of the breast. Tom recalled that Mrs Dyer and her family usually had a turkey at Easter, and sometimes also at Whitsun, or the ‘Spring Bank Holiday’ as it now was.

  ‘I suppose you haven’t been getting so much Greek food lately,’ Martin said in a joking way.

  ‘No – Daphne’s practising her art on the outskirts of Birmingham.’

  ‘How does she like it there?’ Avice asked.

  Tom hesitated. ‘Well, they have a dog, you know,’ he replied, as if that answered the question. ‘It has to be exercised every day, of course. She and her friend share in looking after it.’

  ‘Miss Blenkinsop is a librarian, isn’t she?’ Magdalen asked.

  ‘She was, but is now retired. They are two “Ladies in Retirement”.’ Tom smiled. ‘Wasn’t there once a play of that name? Some years ago?’

  Only Magdalen could remember that.

  ‘But she was glad to leave the country, wasn’t she?’ Avice persisted. ‘I always had the impression that she didn’t really like it here.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Tom protested. ‘She missed Heather, I think they’d shared a flat before she came here.’

  A lesbian attachment? Martin wondered, as he had before, his card-index mind slotting it neatly into place, but perhaps it was unlikely. ‘Didn’t your sister want to live in Greece?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I think she did,’ Tom said, ‘but that proved an impossible dream – as so many dreams are.’ He paused, throwing out this rather intractable substance, almost threatening the soft to-and-fro of the conversational pat-ball. It created a moment’s silence, for the others did not know quite what to do with this offering, being unwilling to learn more about Tom’s impossible dreams, or even to speculate on what they might be.

  ‘I expect you miss your sister,’ Magdalen said at last, ‘being by yourself in that big house.’

  Tom looked surprised, for that aspect of Daphne’s going had not occurred to him. It seemed a rather suburban concept, his being by himself in a big house.

  ‘Have you ever thought of moving to somewhere smaller?’ Avice asked.

  ‘Well, no. It is the rectory, after all, and I suppose as rector I’m expected to live in it.’

  ‘I believe some clergy are getting smaller houses, even having them specially built for them,’ Avice went on. ‘The wives find it so difficult to manage in these great rambling old places.’

  ‘Really?’ said Tom politely. ‘That hadn’t occurred to me. Having no wife I suppose I’m out of touch.’

  ‘There are those bungalows going up opposite the church,’ Martin declared.

  ‘Oh yes – where those old cars were dumped.’

  Was he being sarcastic? Martin wondered – equating himself, as rector of a country parish, with a worn-out and dumped old motorcar? But no, he was too nice a man for that, too lacking in guile. ‘I can’t imagine you living in one of those,’ Martin allowed generously. ‘I wasn’t suggesting.

  ‘No – it wouldn’t be altogether suitable. I have so many books and papers – I do need a bit more space. But they’d be near the church and churchyard, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘They’re old people’s bungalows,’ Avice pointed out in her usual bossy way, ‘for rehousing some of the old people in the village.’

  ‘So you see, Martin, I should be even nearer the gravestones if I moved into one of those,’ said Magdalen. ‘My son-in-law has been ticking me off for spending so much time in the churchyard,’ she explained to Tom.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry about that. Mrs Raven has done such valuable work for our survey,’ said Tom. ‘I do hope it isn’t being too much for her.’

  Martin brushed this aside with a smile and gave Tom more wine. ‘What do you think of this?’ he asked. ‘Not too bad, in my opinion.’

  ‘Splendid!’ said Tom. He had been appreciating Martin’s generous refilling of their glasses, Avice and her mother drinking very little. An excellent thing in women, this abstemiousness in wine-drinking, though it hadn’t been quite what Lear or Shakespeare meant when they coined the phrase.

  ‘Adam Prince recommended it,’ Martin said. ‘So I ordered a case.’

  ‘Have you a cellar?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Unfortunately not – that’s one reason why we must get a larger house – though not of course the only one.’ He flung a teasing glance towards his mother-in-law.

  But they did not return to the subject of the bungalows or the possibility of Tom moving to a smaller house. A hint had been given, a seed sown, the idea perhaps put into his head – there was nothing more to do for the moment but wait and see.

  Appreciating Martin’s admirable port, Tom reflected that the rest of his parishioners would have difficulty in living up to the hospitality he had enjoyed this evening. It was something of a relief to feel that his plea for a simple family meal with no special trouble taken had not been interpreted too literally. As he walked home, noticing the new bungalows opposite the church and smiling to himself at the idea of living in one (Anthony a Wood in a bungalow!), he found himself wondering who would be the next person to invite him to a meal. Several had murmured half invitations, obviously spurred on by conscience, and he had recently eaten scrambled eggs with Miss Lee and Miss Grundy (‘Just what we have ourselves’), with the television on at a wild-life programme; also Adam Prince had invited him for next week. But there had been nothing so far from Emma, apart from the drink that evening when he had accompanied her through the woods. And of course there was Dr Pettifer, that man living in the cottage. Wouldn’t he be going back somewhere soon?

  What was there between him and Emma, anyway? Nobody seemed to know, though Mrs Dyer had hinted in her usual way. Tom hadn’t listened, turned the subject, asking her if she remembered some of the old songs they had sung when she was a girl. But all Mrs Dyer could contribute was ‘Run, rabbit, run’ and ‘We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line’ from the early days of the war, and that hadn’t been quite what he meant.

  As Tom was arriving back at the rectory, Daphne was letting the dog out and remembering the jumble-sale picture ‘Thy Servant a Dog’. But wasn’t it we who were the servants, especially of dogs and cats, she thought as she waited for him near the bushes at the back door. It wa
s a damp chilly evening, the kind of evening that made her wonder why she and Heather hadn’t gone to live in Greece after all, fulfilling those ambitions they had once had. Or was she the only one who had had them, who still dreamed of a Greek village, even a modern Greek village with a garage and hideous square white concrete dwellings baking in the sun, and a dusty little square shaded by a single gnarled tree? That very evening they had been using the salad servers they had bought last year on a visit to the Meteora, and Heather had scolded Daphne for putting them in the water when she was washing up – the decoration on the handles might be damaged and they would never be able to get another pair. ‘Oh, surely we’ll go up there another time?’ Daphne had protested, but now, standing waiting for the dog in the damp darkness, she began to doubt. Perhaps they would never go to the monasteries again, but surely they would go to other places? Yet Heather was now talking about a cottage in Cornwall for next summer – a fellow librarian knew of one that would accommodate four and she and her friend and Heather and Daphne would make up a party – quite near Tintagel, marvellous cliffs and such seas in the rough weather! Greece had been so very hot last summer, and Heather’s swollen ankles in Athens seemed to be the only memory she had retained of that wonderful holiday.

  ‘Come along,” Daphne called impatiently to Bruce, the dog. ‘Surely you’ve finished by now?’

  In the sitting-room Heather had made a cup of tea.

  ‘I wonder how Tom’s getting on,’ she said chattily. ‘All the ladies of the parish flocking round him, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Yes, I expect the history society members will be looking after him,’ Daphne agreed. And he would be able to ‘lead his own life’, whatever that might be, just as she was.

  ‘Do you notice anything different about this tea?’ Heather asked.

  ‘It seems weaker?’

  ‘Exactly – weaker! Different tea bags. I shan’t get those again. Poor economy.’

  24

  The dahlias by the mausoleum reached a perfection of flowering when Graham Pettifer finished his book, as had been his intention, and prepared to return to London. After that the flowers would fall and die, and by the time they were blackened by the first frost Graham would be gone. The house in Islington was now ready for occupation so there was nothing to keep him in the village. It would be quite a change to return to civilisation! he said. Not that the cottage hadn’t been delightful in its way, he hastened to add, but with the winter coming on he could see that such charms as it had might well turn into disadvantages, even positive discomforts. So he loaded the back of his car with clothes and books, strapped a table on to the roof-rack – he table he had imported to hold his typewriter – and was gone.

  When it was time to say goodbye, he took Emma in his arms with a warmth and affection he had not shown during his time at the cottage (except when they had made love on the grass and been seen by Adam Prince), making it seem that he could hardly bear to leave her. He was so very grateful for all she had done for him – the groceries, the casseroles, even the sliced bread. And of course they would meet again soon. The three of us, Emma thought, though he had not mentioned Claudia except by implication –obviously she would be waiting in the house in Islington. He had also said something about the curtains in the room that was to be his study – could it be that the design was that same Golden Lily as the bedspread in Emma’s spare room? Claudia must have chosen it.

  Friendship between men and women was a fine thing, Emma thought as she stood on the brick path of the cottage garden. She had walked through the woods to take what might be a last look at the cottage and also to see whether some tomatoes she had planted in pots in the front were ripening. Peering among the leaves she saw that Graham had picked them all, even the green ones. Would Claudia be making green tomato chutney then?

  She went up to the door and tried it but the key had never worked properly and it was easy to open and go in. The sitting-room looked tidy, only an old copy of The Guardian and an empty packet of cornflakes in the wastepaper basket, and a few tins to be disposed of in the kitchen. She sat down on a battered armchair covered in ugly red material and with the stuffing coming out. She noticed a piece of paper on the mantelpiece, a cyclostyled list of the church services for that month. Had Tom – or somebody –struggled through the woods to deliver this useless information? Or had it just been an excuse for the messenger to snoop around, in the hope of surprising ‘goings on’? Emma would never know.

  She got up and went upstairs to the bedroom. Nothing here. Graham was a disappointingly tidy person, but there was a book on the rickety bamboo table by the bed – a collection of seventeenth-century verse. Had he intended to leave it behind and had it any significance? The book opened not at a love poem but at one by Richard Crashaw, with the curious title ‘Upon Two Green Apricots Sent to Cowley by Sir Crashaw’. She began to read it, but the wry metaphysical conceits meant nothing to her, only the uneasy suspicion that the poem might have a kind of bitter relevance to her relationship with Graham. But he would never have thought of that. No doubt he had borrowed the book from somebody and forgotten to return it….

  There was a sound downstairs. Somebody had come into the cottage through the front door.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Emma called out, thinking for a moment that it might be Graham coming back for any one of a number of reasons.

  ‘Sir Miles Brambleton’s agent,’ came a loud confident voice. ‘And what are you doing here? This cottage is supposed to be locked.’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Emma, revealing herself at the top of the stairs. ‘And the lock is broken. It ought to have been seen to long ago. It’s a wonder vandals haven’t been in, now that Dr Pettifer’s gone.’

  ‘Oh, it’s Miss Howick – I’m sorry….’ Emma wondered at the change in the agent’s tone. He sounded respectful now and she realised that it was because of her own approach, boldly tackling him about the broken lock so that she appeared in the role of a bossy caring woman, concerned about the prospect of Sir Miles’s property being vandalised.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Emma graciously, ‘but I do think that lock ought to be seen to. One of the estate carpenters, perhaps….’

  ‘You have to be joking!’ was his less respectful reply. ‘It’s not like the old days now.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. Was this cottage lived in by one of the keepers then?’

  ‘Yes, and I believe it was a favourite walk for the young ladies and their governess.’

  ‘Ah yes, the girls and Miss Vereker. I can imagine them coming here….’

  ‘Will Dr Pettifer be returning?’ the agent asked on a more practical note.

  He will never return, she thought, but just said aloud that she didn’t know and that the lock really ought to be seen to.

  ‘Can I offer you a lift back to the village?’ Mr Swaine indicated his Land Rover parked outside.

  ‘No thank you, it will do me good to walk.’ And to spend the rest of the day getting on with my ‘work’, Emma thought, and even, since Graham had gone and the summer was over, to contemplate the future. What was she to do now? The only practical thing that occurred to her was to do something that had been on her conscience for some time, to ask Tom to supper. But this evening, a simple family meal indeed, on the spur of the moment. After all, they were two lonely people now, and as such should get together.

  She gave Tom the remains of a joint of cold lamb and potatoes in their jackets, with homemade apple chutney from Miss Lee’s bring-and-buy sale. To follow there was tinned rice pudding (though Emma did not reveal that it was tinned) with some of her bramble jelly. The meal was washed down with a bottle of the same wine she had been drinking when she had seen Graham on the television programme all those months ago. At the last minute Emma had produced a small piece of cheese, but it looked so unattractive that neither of them attempted it.

  Tom wanted to say that he was glad she hadn’t made any special effort with the meal, and indeed it had been just the kind of thing h
e liked, but was afraid of seeming ungracious.

  ‘So your friend has gone,’ he said, over coffee. ‘Dr Pettifer has departed,’ he emended stiffly, wondering if that was a better way of putting it.

  ‘Oh yes – he’s back in London now.’

  ‘He borrowed a book from me.’

  ‘There was a book left behind – a collection of seventeenth-century verse – was that it?’

  ‘Yes. He was here one day and wanted to check something, so I lent it to him.’

  This seemed unlikely, given the kind of book Graham was writing; almost as unlikely as Graham being at the rectory. He had never mentioned it.

  ‘He’d had a letter from his wife,’ Tom explained. ‘I suppose she may have quoted something.’

  Remembering Claudia in the Greek restaurant, Emma wondered, but nothing was impossible in a marriage. She found herself blundering in unknown territory, with the trite reflection that communication between Graham and Claudia had not only been about the curtains for his study. And the poem probably hadn’t been the one about the two green apricots, either.

  ‘Laura was fond of that book,’ Tom was saying. ‘She liked the metaphysicals.’

  It was the first time he had ever spoken of his wife and Emma was not quite sure how to react. It wasn’t as if he was a man only lately bereaved; there could be no danger of intruding upon a recent grief. Laura had died more than ten years ago, or so it was said, and he had not married again. So perhaps she had been his first and only love?