Vacillations of Poppy Carew

by Mary Wesley

  ‘He wants—he wanted—Furnival’s Fun—’

  ‘I know, I know. Trying to keep his spirits up, a sick man’s joke—’

  ‘Dad’s joke is sacred—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I have a date to see them. More tea?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Anthony stood up, pulling his waistcoat downwards.

  ‘A drink then?’

  ‘No, no, I must be on my way.’ He made a last appeal: ‘It would be, well, in rather well … rather dubious, er … rather frivolous.’

  ‘So apparently was Dad.’

  Poppy watched Anthony drive away. Viewed through the back window of his sensible car, he looked huffy. He was trying to manipulate me, she thought. It was cheek to put an announcement in the paper without telling me. Cheek to try and thwart Dad’s last wish. He probably wants to buy the house cheap, she thought uncharitably, for a client who has had his eye on it for years. Perhaps he isn’t an executor because he tried to manipulate Dad. ‘It’s okay, Dad, you shall have your wish,’ she addressed the spirit of her progenitor as she went in search of food, suddenly ravenously hungry, not having eaten since that awful catastrophic evening with Edmund. What a remarkably tiring scene, she found herself thinking, as she opened a can of consommé. She felt that, if she cosseted herself, she might just possibly recover, a possibility she had not envisaged since the humiliating parting, the death of the affair. The end, she thought histrionically as she twisted the can-opener, of an era. She reached up to grasp a bottle of sherry from the cupboard, uncorked it and sloshed a liberal dose into the soup.

  5

  VICTOR LUCAS TORE THE paper out of his typewriter, crushed it between both hands and threw it violently towards the grate to join a trail of similarly treated first paragraphs of Chapter Five of his fourth novel. Sourly, Victor viewed the mess of wasted paper, wasted effort. It was all too likely, at this rate, that novel four would join novels one two and three in the shredder.

  Blocked, stuck, Victor decided to try the trick of studied inattention which, before now, he had found could jostle his lethargic muse into coming up with an idea or two. He would go out, get some exercise, buy something to eat for supper. He snatched up his jacket, pushed his arms into the sleeves, ran downstairs, slammed the street door and set off walking fast along the street towards the shops. As he walked, he considered his ex-girl Julia who had recently, out of the blue, after months of silence, sent him a paperback cookbook, How to Cheat at Cooking, by a pretty girl called Delia Smith.

  To win her back when the affair was unravelling he had invited her to dinner in his flat. Bloody Julia had not been won back, had not enjoyed the meal he had cooked with such trouble: clear soup, veal in wine and cream sauce, green salad, wild strawberries (costing the earth). ‘Too much Kirsch,’ she had said in that clipped voice, ‘you drowned the taste’, and later adding insult to injury sent the cookbook.

  He had hoped, now that they had gone platonic, that Julia would commission a series of amply paid articles for the glossy magazine for which she worked. ‘Not a sausage,’ Victor muttered, walking along, shoulders hunched. ‘Sheer waste of money, waste of time, bloody bitch.’ He headed towards the supermarket where he would buy himself a steak and Sauce Tartare in a bottle, as recommended by Miss Smith (or was she Ms? With a lovely face like that, more likely Mrs) or, considering his present economic state, some sausages.

  Striding along, Victor passed the fishmonger where, on marble slabs, lay, on crushed ice and seaweed, oysters backed by black lobsters, claws bound, with tight elastic, Dover sole, halibut, cod, herring, shining mackerel and—‘Oh Christ!’ exclaimed Victor, ‘it’s alive!’ as a fair-sized trout flapped among its supine companions, in a shallow indentation on the fishmonger’s slab.

  ‘It’s alive,’ Victor cried to the fishmonger, a stem lady in white overall and fur boots. ‘The poor thing’s alive.’

  ‘Come in fresh from the country,’ said the fish lady complacently, ‘from the fish farms.’

  ‘But it’s drowning,’ cried Victor, desperate.

  The fish lady nonchalantly picked up the fish and slid it on to the scales, which joggled as the fish threshed its tail.

  ‘No, no, don’t put it in newspaper. Haven’t you a plastic bag and a drop of …’ he fished in his pocket for money; the trout gasped, open-mouthed, ‘water?’

  ‘Your change,’ said the fish lady.

  ‘Keep it.’ Victor was racing back to his flat, opening the door, the key shaking between his fingers, tearing up the long flight of stairs, gasping in sympathy with his prize, running the cold tap in the bath, jamming in the plug, gently releasing the trout: watching its extraordinary miraculous revival. ‘How could anyone eat anything so beautiful?’ he crooned to the fish which stationed itself, its head towards the fall of water, idly moving its tail and fins, keeping in position under the cold tap, its pink flanks iridescent.

  Victor tried to remember what he knew about trout.

  They needed pure running water. At this rate he would flood the house. He reduced the flow of tap water, cautiously let some run down the plughole. Who did he know who lived near, or had, a trout stream? Where could he take his protégé, where it would not be caught by some demon angler?

  Presently, leaving the tap dribbling, he was telephoning his friend and cousin (more of late years an acquaintance) Fergus, explaining the trout’s plight, imploring asylum.

  ‘Well, well. Well, I never,’ said Fergus. ‘Yes, of course, bring it down, no problem. You can stay a night if you want, I’ve got a job for you.’

  ‘An article?’ asked Victor eagerly.

  ‘More of a manual job, not so cerebral as your talents deserve.’

  What does he want? Victor asked himself. I’m in no position to refuse. He strained to see how the trout was faring, but the telephone lead was not long enough.

  ‘I’ll pay you, of course,’ came Fergus’s voice from the country, ‘and come to think of it, there might well be an article. Good for you, good for me.’

  ‘Oh thanks, I … what …’

  ‘Put a lid on the container.’

  ‘A lid?’

  ‘Don’t want it jumping all over your car, cause an accident!’

  ‘Should I feed it? What about fish food, where can I get maggots?’

  ‘No need. It can last. Come down the motorway; don’t brake suddenly or you will bruise it. See you.’

  ‘What’s the job?’ Victor shouted, but Fergus had rung off.

  Presently, with the trout in a plastic bucket, holes punched in the lid, Victor wondered, as he drove past Chiswick to join the motorway, what Fergus had meant by ‘good for you, good for me’. He had never entirely trusted Fergus since the occasion Julia had stood him up, preferring Fergus’s company to his. ‘He’s so enterprising,’ Julia had excused her conduct. Bet she went to bed with him, Victor mused as he drove carefully so that the water in the bucket should not slop. Not that I care now, he told himself truthfully: glossy mag Julia is not the girl she was, I can’t stand what she’s done to her hair. There was too the connection with Penelope which he preferred not to think about. Driving carefully, Victor wondered what enterprise Fergus was at present engaged in. He had last heard of him doing something in France, though what that something was his informant had forgotten.

  ‘First things first,’ Victor addressed his passenger. ‘He has a stream through his orchard, he doesn’t fish, your only risk will be an occasional heron.’

  6

  LES POOLE, BANK MANAGER, placed the Carew folder on his desk. He delighted in the gift he imagined unique to himself, of observing himself as others might, indeed must, see him.

  The desk was cleared for action except for the framed photographs of his dog, his wife and his daughter, familiar props, part of the furniture, well-worn, well-loved, he supposed, never being exactly certain. Time, he thought, peering at Marjory’s photograph, time she got herself done again. That hairstyle was old-fashioned and the hair had changed colour, f
rom brown to auburn (she was good about weekly visits to her hairdresser, keeping the grey parting under control). The scene was set for his pleasurable interview with Poppy Carew. Had she, one wondered, been born on Armistice Day? The father (what a character, should one consider him eccentric?) had been capable, if not of anything, of much, as the content of the folder proved. Les Poole looked at his watch, spoke into his desk telephone, ‘Send Miss Carew in when she arrives.’

  ‘She’s here now,’ replied Ida, pertly invisible in the outer office.

  Poppy Carew came in, shook hands, sat down, smiled. ‘How do you do, Mr Poole?’

  In imagination, Les Poole had expected a tall girl with black, tangled hair, gypsy eyes, dressed in red. The real Poppy Carew was slight, medium size, with plain, straight, fawn-coloured hair, dark green eyes, black lashes, large mouth with rather too many teeth. She wore no make-up and a black shirt and skirt. She looked sensible. She will need to be, thought Les Poole.

  ‘It is a rare pleasure to give good news,’ said Les Poole, giving the folder a little shake, as though saying to it: wait until you are spoken to.

  ‘Yes,’ said Poppy, looking intelligent.

  ‘Yes. Well, then. We come to the investments. Your father used to call them—’

  ‘Life’s Dividends.’

  The bank manager frowned. ‘The best birthday present she will ever have had, is what he called them to me.’

  ‘My birthday is on Saturday,’ said Poppy, thinking, And so is Dad’s funeral.

  ‘Ah, indeed, yes, well. Here is the list.’ He glanced out at the late September sunshine. So much for Armistice Day. He handed a list from the folder across the desk. Poppy took it. She did not, he observed, paint her nails: he must tell Amanda (aged fifteen). ‘A rich girl like Poppy Carew,’ he would say, ‘does not paint her nails black.’ Amanda would answer, ‘So what?’ At least he would have tried. He watched Poppy read the list, eyebrows rising.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Poppy, handing it back as though afraid it might snap. ‘Gosh!’

  ‘There are too some capital sums,’ said Mr Poole, bestowing his benison.

  ‘So Anthony Green told me. What’s it mean?’

  ‘Your father meant it to mean that if you wanted, immediately, to buy a house, buy a car, go on holiday, you could do so without disturbing the investments which are your income.’

  ‘An income from investments.’ Was her tone derisory or respectful? Hard to tell.

  ‘Yes, Miss Carew.’ A girl like this should now say, Oh, do call me Poppy. She didn’t.

  I am stunned, thought Poppy. How did he come by all this? It’s difficult to realise one’s the child of a gigolo. She noticed the bank manager was waiting for her to say something. ‘I don’t want a house. I apparently already own my father’s. I don’t want a car, Dad’s just bought a new one. I might buy a little house in London.’ I never want to see my flat again, she thought. ‘A little house would be nice.’ And she added, to please this harmless man (bet he never jilted anyone, far too square), ‘It would be a good investment.’

  Has she really got too many teeth, or is it her jaw formation? Marjory would know. If I were younger, I’d call that mouth sexy, thought Les Poole, a generous mouth. ‘If the house is in a good neighbourhood it would be considered a good investment,’ he said gravely. ‘You might find one in an area which is coming up. I have clients who swear by Islington or Bow.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Poppy. ‘I’d just like to get away from where I live now. I’ll look south of the Park.’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ said the bank manager. Somehow this girl looked capable of foolish impetuosity. It wasn’t just the mouth which was sexy; those breasts, well, leave the breasts, pay attention, she was asking a pertinent question.

  ‘How much, Mr Poole,’ she had taken the trouble to remember his name; quite a lot of people didn’t, ‘how much exactly is my income?’

  Les Poole made pretence of studying the list as though for the first time, then named the sum calculated on the computer the previous day.

  Poppy said, ‘Wow! Shall I be stung for income tax?’

  ‘I fear so. We shall, of course, always be happy to advise and help, Miss Carew—no charge of course.’

  ‘Do call me Poppy,’ said Poppy relenting, though not liking patronising avuncular men (I’m not that stupid).

  ‘Thank you.’ He paused.

  Poppy looked expectant. What other surprise did this old boy have in store, what shock? ‘Just one thing more. Your father left a letter for you, with us, in the event of his demise …’

  Why can’t he say death? Dad’s dead, bloody dead, stiff.

  ‘It’s in our vault, Miss Ca—Poppy, shall I send for it?’

  ‘Yes please.’ (Pompous ass.)

  Les Poole spoke into the telephone, ‘Ida, ask Mr Dunne to bring me the letter for Miss Carew.’

  ‘Righty-ho, Mr Poole,’ Ida crackled.

  ‘She’s leaving us to get married,’ Mr Poole informed Poppy, who said, ‘Really?’

  They waited. Poppy’s eyes roamed over the desk, the photographs, the blotter, Mr Poole’s feet in neat black pumps, his perfectly creased trousers, navy blue socks.

  Les Poole decided that Poppy’s legs were long in proportion to her body, and approved. Marjory’s would be better longer.

  Mr Dunne brought an envelope which he handed to Mr Poole, who passed it across his desk to Poppy.

  Mr Dunne swept the discreet eye of a future bank manager over Poppy and left the room.

  Poppy eyed the letter addressed to herself, ‘Poppy Carew’, in Dad’s large handwriting, with an exuberant ‘Top Secret’ flourishing right across the envelope under her name. She put it in her bag. She stood up, holding out her hand.

  ‘Thank you very much indeed, Mr Poole, for all your trouble.’

  ‘Delighted … of help … any time.’ Her hand was small, dry, firm (no rings, he must tell Amanda).

  ‘Would you perhaps be kind and come to Dad’s funeral, Mr Poole? And Mrs Poole, if she would bother?’

  ‘We would be honoured.’ What a fool thing to say, the girl’s father was nothing more than a—

  ‘Saturday,’ said Poppy. ‘I’ll put a notice of the time in the paper.’

  ‘I can find out from Brightson’s—’

  ‘I don’t think you’d find out much, but there will be a notice. Goodbye, Mr Poole. Thank you so much.’

  She was gone, the letter hidden in her bag. It would have been interesting to know what was in it. One had some pretty funny clients, banking had its moments.

  Pushing through the swing door into the street, Poppy was muttering ‘Can’t have him advising me on undertakers, like Anthony Green; it’s too much. I’ll read Dad’s letter when I can find somewhere quiet, when I feel calmer.’

  She got into her father’s car, adjusted the seat once more to get it right for her length of leg, checked the mirrors, fastened the safety belt and headed towards the point on the map where, hidden in a fold of the downs, Furnival’s Funerals had its establishment. As she drove, she wondered whether Dad would like Mr Poole to be at his funeral, or, for that matter, Anthony Green. Now I come to think of it, she thought as she drove, he must have despised all those respectable people: not very nice of you, Dad, while you were laying up store in Heaven, placing your bets, living it up with ladies. I wish I’d taken the trouble to know you, Dad, instead of panicking about interference. Perhaps you were too busy collecting Life’s Dividends to interfere seriously. Wish I’d known you better, Dad: too late now. Never mind, you shall have your funeral. So she tried to stifle her feelings of guilt and remorse.

  7

  BY THE TIME POPPY found Furnival’s, she was tired from driving up lanes which ended in farmyards, making three-point turns in the unaccustomed car, reversing when to turn was impossible, and when she stopped to ask the way at lonely cottages, the occupants were either out or professed ignorance. On the point of giving up, going home and ringing up Brightson’s, as advised by Antho
ny, she spotted a painted board on a gate leading to a grassy track which said ‘Furnival’s Fine Funerals’. It led her gently up a valley, running parallel to a small stream until, rounding a corner, she came upon a group of faded brick buildings crouching, in secret isolation, under the downs. Parking the car beside a battered Ford, Poppy pushed through a door in a brick wall to find a yard, neatly cobbled, flanked on two sides by loose-boxes, from each of which, benignly, stared a horse.

  In the middle of the yard there was a stone trough and a pump. A very old sheepdog lay asleep in the sun. Poppy walked towards the dog, who raised his head, flapped his tail but did not rise. Poppy looked round for a bell or knocker, but found none. She crossed the yard to a barn which formed the fourth side of the yard, opened a door and peered in. It was dark, but sunbeams, striking through cracks in the tiled roof, showed what she took to be a tractor, covered by plastic sheeting. Crossing the barn, she ventured through a door into an untidy garden, a-hum with bees feasting on golden rod and Michaelmas daisies. A weedy path led to a brick cottage, its door propped open by a stone. Poppy knocked, knocked again and peered in. A large cat, lolling on a chair, one leg hanging nonchalantly towards the flagged floor, stared at her with insolence.

  Poppy called, ‘Anybody there?’

  The cat stared, Poppy called again. There was no response, only the sound of bees and rooks cawing, as they floated up the valley to a stand of beech. Poppy went back to the yard to wait. She presumed somebody would come, eventually, to tend the horses.

  She idled round the yard, speaking to each horse, gratified by the friendly snuffling and whickering as they made her welcome. She breathed in the stable smell, enjoyed the silky feel of well-groomed necks and soft noses. The old dog lurched to his feet and walked beside her in amiable companionship. She began to relax from the pain of the last few days, appreciating the sunshine and the gentle animals.

  One of the horses turned from nuzzling her face over its box-door, to lurch across and blow draughtily down its nose into a manger. At once, a baby caterwauled loudly. Startled, and unable to see more than tiny feet and fists, bunched in a reverse attitude of Muslim prayer, Poppy peered into the loose-box.