by Mary Wesley
Julia was still talking. ‘Then the other day I showed it to Sean and he loves it, it’s as simple as that. Screams with laughter.’
‘Laughter?’ It’s a tragic book, thought Victor, nothing funny about it. ‘Oh Julia—’
‘So bring your article and give me dinner.’
‘What about libel?’ Adjusting to having written a comedy (what’s the difference, all great tragedies have a comic element) Victor remembered his novel. ‘I wrote that book with my pen dipped in cyanide.’
‘That’s what Sean likes. He calls it stark. Penelope’s far too vain to recognise herself, don’t worry.’
‘Julia, I love you, I’m on my way.’
As Victor walked jubilantly along the dusty late September pavement to the bus stop he thought about Julia. She will expect me to sleep with her after dinner, she will forget the brush-off she gave me, she’ll forget she switched to Fergus. I shall tell her about my trout, Fergus’s enterprise, well, the article is about that but I can tell her a few more details, Mary and her baby for instance. I am grateful for the introduction to Sean, he’s a good publisher, well in a good publishing house, not afraid to take risks whatever that means, not that my novel’s a risk. I could write a children’s book about my trout or we could get it on television, a cartoon perhaps, bring in that fearful cat of Fergus’s, Bolivar, no all that’s been done. My luck has turned. Superstitiously Victor bowed to the new moon as he waited at the bus stop, turning round three times, jingling the silver in his pocket, wondering what to wish for.
He had a vision of Poppy’s shoulderblades, mousy hair, long legs, funny teeth and tip-top tits.
But I call them breasts, he thought, climbing into the bus which had roared to an impatient stop. I shall take Julia to Shepherd’s Bush and she shall help me choose the nosh, that will teach her to send me cookbooks. What a fool I am, thought Victor, as the bus jerked forward, how vain I am. Sean is Julia’s current lover, I heard someone say so, sex with me doesn’t come into it, we are platonic, have been for ages, I am just a writer with a novel she can lay at his feet, it costs her nothing. Better not wish too hard for Poppy, it might be unlucky. Victor glimpsed the crescent moon through a gap between high rise flats. I shall wish, he thought with a burst of generosity, I shall wish that Fergus makes a success of his enterprise, that my article brings me recognition and Fergus customers, that my book gets rave reviews.
Sitting in the bus on his way to meet Julia, Victor tried to adjust his mind to being a comic writer and mulled over some particularly felicitous turns of phrase which had tapped from his fingers. Rereading his article as he rode along, Victor was pleased with his afternoon’s work.
As he got off the bus Victor felt a pang of conscience. Poppy didn’t want publicity, might not be pleased with his article. Julia might be inspired to come to the funeral, she was incurably inquisitive, might even bring Sean. I shall discourage her, Victor told himself, it’s a solemn occasion, not a raree show. Then thinking yet again of his article he decided Poppy couldn’t possibly take exception; it was faultlessly written, in excellent taste, restrained prose. The sort of taste Penelope made fun of. There’s a fine line between love and lust when one is very young, thought Victor, wishing now that when he’d wished on the new moon he had wished never to think of Penelope again. It still hurt.
One of the things which hurt most was the drowning episode frequently brought up by friends as an example of his heartlessness towards his then wife. The most favoured version, which he had grown used to believing himself since it was the one most often recounted, was of the quarrel in the cove in Greece witnessed by onlookers, of his slapping Penelope’s face, of Penelope in tears, diving off the rocks and swimming out to sea. That he had sat, not bothering to swim out to help or call for assistance when she got into difficulties.
In actual fact Victor remembered it had been Penelope who had slapped him so that taken unawares he had sat abruptly and bruised his coccyx while Penelope dived gracefully off the rock and swam off without a backward glance. He had lain back, eyes closed, nursing his injuries, physical and emotional. When he opened his eyes there had been no sign of Penelope. Worried, he had scrambled up the cliff to a vantage point and seen Penelope loitering along the cliff in her bikini, picking flowers, stopping to chat to groups of tourists. She looked very lovely and strange with her long wet hair and sun-brown limbs. She obviously made her usual impression. Busy making it, she had not seen him. He had hurried back to where she had left him and when she eventually rejoined him he had said, ‘I wish you had drowned.’ He could still remember her mockery. ‘I don’t drown easily.’
Going up in the lift to Julia’s office Victor thought, I never felt protective towards Penelope as I did for the trout and do towards that girl Poppy. It was I, he thought, making his way past Julia’s pretty secretary (‘Julia’s expecting you, Victor’), who was in need of protection.
13
‘HAVEN’T YOU GOT A nice black?’ Mrs Edwardes stood with her back to the window looking at Poppy in the bed.
‘Not really.’ Poppy sipped the strong tea Jane Edwardes had brought her.
This was the fourth morning she had woken in the visitors’ room. She felt rested after a night’s sleep unmarred by memories of Edmund or pangs of conscience over her father. She felt positively cheerful. This, Dad’s last night so to speak, had been dreamless. She had slept in peace in the visitors’ bed, had felt that Dad after his fashion was at peace also.
It seemed a pity that he had to be disturbed from his position between the stools in the sitting room, to be carted to the church, endure the service, be carted again to the graveyard and buried out of sight, soon to be out of mind.
The days spent by Dad in his coffin in the sitting room had been friendly, pleasant, therapeutic. People had popped in to visit through the front door which she left open or in the case of some who were more intimate or perhaps shy (it was not possible to discern which), through the French windows from the garden. In almost every case these people, Dad’s friends from the village and villages around, had something appreciative to say about him. They touched the coffin the way they would the sleeve of a friend. Some chuckled or laughed outright at some pleasing but private recollection. Some brought flowers, laying them by the coffin, promising a proper wreath on the day.
Poppy had grown used to Dad being there as one grows used to a new sofa after the first cultural shock, the replacement perhaps of a battered piece of Edwardiana by a new chesterfield from Habitat. She had grown used, too, to sprawling in this extremely comfortable bed, waking to the sound of sparrows chirping and the twittering of swallows ranged along the telephone wires in the road, gathering their wits, exchanging last messages before the long flight to Africa. They must go and Dad also. Today was the day, Saturday, Dad’s funeral, her birthday.
‘Haven’t you got a nice black?’ Jane Edwardes watched Poppy propped on her elbow drinking her tea in the large bed. The sheets slipped back as she lifted the cup, showing biscuit-coloured breasts with nipples Mrs Edwardes’s grandmother would have called Old Rose. Jane Edwardes’s grandmother had been a dressmaker and taught Jane the names of colours—Moss Green, Marina Blue, Nigger Brown, Old Rose, the fashionable colours of her day, the Thirties. Jane’s grandmother would have run Poppy up a nice little Black Number for her father’s funeral in a day if she had still been alive and no nonsense about wearing the dress Bob Carew had brought from Italy.
‘It’s my birthday. I always wear his present on my birthday.’ Poppy put the cup in its saucer, laid it on the bedside table and, leaning back on the pillows, smiled up at Mrs Edwardes, not bothering to pull the sheets up.
The dress from Italy hung expectantly on the outer side of the cupboard door flaunting its simple elegance, its amazing juxtaposition of coloured triangles. Glancing sidelong at the dress Mrs Edwardes noted Moss Green, Lilac, Old Rose, Red Carnation and a blue which in some lights looked purple; her grandmother would not have known it as Aubergine.
‘Delicious tea. Thank you.’
‘There’s a boutique in Newbury which has little black dresses—’ Jane Edwardes tried again.
‘I know it.’
Jane stooped to pick up Poppy’s white cotton nightdress lying discarded by the bed.
‘Can’t sleep in them.’ Poppy watched the older woman.
Jane shook the nightdress quite roughly, making her feelings clear.
‘It’s Dad’s funeral, Mrs Edwardes.’
Jane sniffed.
The sun streaming yellow into the room was blacked out by a momentary cloud.
‘I must have a bath, wash my hair.’ Poppy slid out of bed and made for the bathroom.
‘Bacon and egg for breakfast?’ asked Jane Edwardes, accepting defeat.
‘Yes, please,’ answered Poppy warmly.
The sun shone in again illuminating a buttock as she went into the bathroom.
‘Girls these days, I don’t know …’ The older woman folded the nightdress, put it on the bed. ‘Only wears it to walk about the house.’
Poppy turned on the taps. ‘I’m going to keep that room as mine from now on,’ she called above the rush of water.
‘So that’s how it is.’ Jane commented as she went down to the kitchen. If asked she would not have been able to explain what she meant but inside she knew and quite liked the knowledge. There were two shades of lilac in that dress, she thought, taking the kitchen scissors to cut rind off bacon. Clever people with colour, the Italians. She’d noticed it last summer on the tour with her cousin when they’d seen Venice, Florence, Rome and that other place in six days. There might well be two shades of red and green in that dress. If she insists on wearing it I’ll check, thought Jane, reaching into the refrigerator for an egg. I wonder whether she would eat two? She should eat a good breakfast, it’s going to be a long day. Jane hesitated. One egg or two? That dress, though. Any other day but at your father’s funeral! She went to the hall and, standing at the foot of the stairs, shouted: ‘One egg or two?’
‘One, please,’ Poppy called from the bathroom.
Milan, that was the other place they’d seen. The dress came from there. What had he been doing in Milan? No need to ask. Jane Edwardes standing by the refrigerator holding the egg, thought with tolerant affection of Poppy’s father Bob Carew, hearing his voice, ‘Like to flutter a fiver on the three-thirty at Kempton, Mrs Edwardes?’ He’d always called her Mrs Edwardes, never Jane. The egg was pale brown, the same colour as the girl’s skin. I was always good with colours, Jane reminded herself, comparing the egg with Poppy’s tan. Bathes topless, one can see that, but wears the bottom bit. Bit’s the word, thought Jane, recollecting the thin streak of white slanting across Poppy’s bottom when she walked into the bathroom. Barely enough. Jane picked up the kitchen biro and traced a double V on the egg. Barely enough to cover her fluff. I don’t know, I really don’t. Sighing, Jane Edwardes went back up the stairs to stand in the bathroom doorway.
‘You want a nice black dress on a day like this.’ It was her last appeal.
‘No, Mrs Edwardes, no, no, no.’ Poppy looked up at the older woman’s disapproval. ‘I don’t want,’ she said and burst out laughing as she lay in the bath.
‘No laughing matter.’ Jane Edwardes was delighted to hear Poppy laugh. The first time she’s laughed since he died. Laughs like him, she thought, remembering times when he would laugh. ‘That animal won the three-thirty. I told you it would. You should have risked your fiver.’ What a tease he had been.
‘Come and eat your breakfast,’ she told Poppy.
‘Coming.’ Poppy got out of the bath. ‘It will be all right, you’ll see, don’t fuss.’ She felt a surge of unseemly mirth, remembering Dad’s affectionate mimicry of Mrs Edwardes’s Berkshire vowels. ‘It’s what he would like.’ She reached for a bathtowel. ‘You know he would. And I like it. For once we are in agreement.’
Silenced, Jane went down to cook breakfast. Picking up the egg she doodled a bit more. ‘Quite rude,’ she murmured, giving the drawing a finishing touch. ‘I should have taken up art.’ She cracked the egg into a cup and crushed the shell, dropping it into the pedal bin, slightly ashamed of her lewdity.
Poppy came down in a white towelling robe, her wet hair screwed up in a towel. She sat at the kitchen table to eat her breakfast.
Jane poured two cups of coffee and sat across the table from Poppy. She was glad to see the girl sitting easy, tucking into her bacon and egg. She would never have thought before this that Poppy would take her father’s death so hard. For the last few days she had looked all twisted and screwed up, her face tense with misery. Better today, though. Jane sipped her coffee. That boyfriend, that Edmund. Why wasn’t he here to help the girl? Now her father was dead there was no need to keep away. Jane considered Poppy eating her bacon. Those two had been a matched pair, met when Poppy was sixteen or thereabouts, the girl crazy about the man, always rowing with her father, row, row, row, until she upped and left home to live and work in London, share a flat with Edmund. Running a thoughtful tongue round her molars, Jane Edwardes wondered whether she should enquire.
‘Have another egg? It’s no trouble.’
‘No thank you, that was lovely.’ Poppy held her coffee cup in both hands.
‘Edmund coming to help, is he?’ The words slipped traitorously out.
‘I shouldn’t think so.’ Poppy stiffened.
‘They didn’t get on, did they?’ The question needed no answer. Edmund was apparently consigned to the past.
‘I must dry my hair and get dressed. Thanks for my breakfast.’ Poppy stood up tense and nervous. Jane watched her leave the room and, cursing her ineptitude, deliberately smashed a plate to vent her feelings. How was I supposed to know? Bending to pick up the pieces she became aware of a man carrying something heavy shuffling backwards into the kitchen.
‘Easy, Singh, don’t push or I’ll topple over.’
‘Poppy,’ shouted Mrs Edwardes, catching sight of a jowly brown face topped by a turban suffused by the strain of carrying a heavy box, sharing the load with the first man. ‘Poppy!’
Shuffling backwards into the kitchen was not the way Victor would have chosen to present himself to Poppy who, answering Jane Edwardes’s cry, came back into the room.
He was not to know that the laugh with which she greeted him was not mockery but surprise as she compared his unusually slender hips with the vast bulk of his companion.
‘Where can we put this?’ Victor gasped, his arms aching.
‘On the table.’ Poppy hurried to clear a space. ‘What have you got there?’ How long he was, how narrow, his legs must be a foot longer than Edmund’s, well, not to exaggerate, half a foot. ‘Here.’ She spread her hands over the space she had cleared, ‘Put it here. Hullo,’ she said to Victor’s companion who was averting his eyes from the cleavage rendered wider by her gesture.
‘This is Singh, my take-away friend.’ Victor straightened his back, noted Poppy drawing the robe across her chest, tightening its belt. ‘The king of Indian nosh.’
Poppy held out her hand. Singh took it in polite silence.
‘He has no English,’ said Victor, grinning.
‘Try not to be stupid,’ said Singh in a bass voice with impeccable pronunciation.
‘Well, very little,’ said Victor to prolong the moment when he could watch this girl, her pale face topped by the white towel confronting Singh, dark bearded, blue turbanned.
‘Enough to get an Honours Degree at the LSE,’ said Singh, good-humoured, smiling with perfect teeth at Poppy who smiled back.
‘But he doesn’t like talking.’ Victor spun out the introduction, ‘so he took to take-away food.’
‘It pays better than teaching, stupid.’
‘So this?’ Poppy indicated the heavy box.
‘Thermos boxes, Singh’s family’s relics of the Raj, your eats for this afternoon. I thought if we unloaded now Singh could go back to London and I can return the empties tomorrow. Singh can’t stay.’
‘Alas,’ said Singh, watching Poppy with shining dark eyes, ‘I cannot.’
‘Come on, Singh, two more boxes,’ exclaimed Victor. ‘They were used for tiger shoots when the Viceroy came to stay,’ Victor told Poppy, hoping to see her smile again.
‘On railway journeys, stupid. We never entertained Viceroys,’ said Singh rather nastily, belittling Viceroys.
‘How was I to know? Well, better get on with it, time is short, I have much to do.’ Victor clapped his hands together smiling at Poppy.
‘Come on then, stupid. He is a clown,’ Singh said to Poppy as he left the kitchen, ‘but he means well.’
‘How can you be so cruel?’ cried Victor.
‘Can you manage?’ asked Poppy. ‘I have to dress and dry my hair.’
‘Sure, leave it all to us, we have the booze in the van and glasses and plates and all that, actually it would be better if—’
‘I were out of the way?’
‘Well no, no of course not.’
‘I’m just going, I must.’
‘I’ll help if they need anything,’ said Jane who had been standing watching by the sink. ‘I’ve seen photos of these things. The gentry used to use them at shooting parties and at races in the old days.’
‘Stand by for a flood of reminiscence.’ Singh came back carrying another box. ‘These Thermos boxes unleash a cornucopia of memories. I shall have to stop using them, a terrible time waster.’ He shot Jane a sultry glance. ‘Young stupid here knows how to look after them, not to shut them immediately when they have been washed, else they smell musty.’
‘I’ll see to that,’ said Jane busily. Poppy left the room to dry her hair and dress.
They can manage perfectly well without me, she thought, pulling off the turbanning towel, brushing her damp hair. They could manage Dad’s funeral without Dad. They have all the trappings, the food, the drink, the Thermoses, the horses. As she combed her hair she watched the stout Indian leave the house, get into his van and drive off. From the kitchen she heard voices, Jane and Victor.