by Mary Wesley
Accounts later varied.
Victor and Fergus maintained that their way had been blocked by intoxicated guests when they struggled to reach her. Annie and Frances differed as to whether Poppy had put up more than token resistance. Mary maintained that Poppy had passed her on the stairs where she sat nursing Barnaby shouting ‘I must go to the loo first,’ before joining Edmund in the car quite willingly. Innumerable people saw Edmund bundle her into a car and drive off towards London.
What nobody present had noticed was Venetia watching Edmund both in the church and at the party, nor did they observe her, when Edmund drove Poppy off in what was Venetia’s car, go to the kitchen, pour honey over the floor so that feet passing through the kitchen would carry stickiness throughout the house, working it into rugs and carpets. Minutes later she hitched a lift to London from a fellow guest, made agreeable conversation, and declined an offer of dinner.
Reaching her flat before Edmund was likely to arrive (she assumed he would take Poppy to a crowded restaurant where she would be embarrassed if she made a scene), Venetia set to work on Edmund’s clothes. She stuck up the cuffs and flies with Superglue, folding each garment with precise attention, nor did she neglect the pants, socks and pyjamas. Then, packing a bag, she hailed a taxi and went to spend a weekend with her mother at Haslemere, from where she phoned the police to report her car as stolen.
17
WITH SURPRISE ON HIS side Edmund held a tactical advantage. Not expecting him, she had not noticed him. Edmund congratulated himself. He noticed too that Poppy, who held her liquor weakly at the best of times, was rather drunk. She must be, he thought, kissing the undertakers, snuggling up to Bob Carew’s sly solicitor, ignoring the dignity of the occasion by riding back to the house on the hearse. He waived the thought that the ride on the hearse was prior to the champagne. She might have had a fortifying drink before the service.
Telling himself that he must stick to the point, get Poppy away, wait until later to reproach her for the ludicrous horse-drawn hearse, the ghastly tape of birdsong instead of a decent hymn, the lack of dignity among the guests at the house. (The scene had resembled what one had read of Irish wakes, not that even they had Indian food and champagne, from what one had heard a slosh of the hard stuff was more probable.) Above all, he was disgusted by the wearing of that frivolous dress. Where on earth did it come from? The whole scene, thought Edmund, driving fast towards London, was one one would hope to forget, an undignified pantomime in the worst possible taste, making a mockery of a solemn occasion.
Edmund maintained a lofty silence keeping Venetia’s car in the fast lane, treading on the accelerator when challenged by other cars.
I must keep a clear head, he thought. He had restricted himself to one glass of champagne. I have to sort Poppy out. (For the moment he set Venetia aside.) Get her back to our habitual footing, she will need me when she sells her father’s house and realises her assets. There are some quite decent pieces of furniture which will come in useful, the rest can be sold at auction. We can move into a larger flat now her father is dead. Now he is out of the way we can get married and start a family—if I want to.
I shall keep my options open, thought Edmund, think it over carefully. There is a lot to be said for the Poppy I know against the Venetia I am discovering.
Allowing himself a quick glance at Poppy, Edmund’s mind strayed to Venetia’s ready tears and cold feet.
No need for an immediate decision, thought Edmund, remembering Venetia’s income. One should approach marriage with caution, divorce was by all accounts a financial disaster. One could keep Venetia as a mistress or vice versa. Poppy needs me, I must look after her, she probably feels a bit sad at the loss of her disreputable father but, he assured himself, she will get over it, she is a resilient girl.
Slumped in the seat beside Edmund, Poppy, aware of her intoxication, had the sense to keep quiet. If I speak I shall say something I regret, she told herself, something irreparable. I shall sit here in this infernal car which stinks of Venetia and wait. She stared ahead at the road waiting for her eyes to regain their focus, letting her thoughts stray.
She enjoyed the movement of Venetia’s car, Edmund had always been a good driver. She wondered what he wanted.
Does he want to get me back? she asked herself; after all, he threw me away in favour of Venetia. Has he heard that I now have money? I shall not tell him if he hasn’t.
He will be planning to sell Dad’s house which may be worth quite a lot. He worked for years as a house agent, he will know its value.
Or is he just being dog in the manger? Is he furious that I organised the funeral without consulting him (not that he was there to ask). He would not admit he wasn’t there, he will say, ‘Why didn’t you telephone when your father died’, be hurt, blame me?
‘Why didn’t you telephone when your father died?’ asked Edmund, slowing the car as it began to rain, switching on the wipers.
Poppy did not answer.
‘I find it extremely hurtful.’ Edmund sounded aggrieved.
Poppy bit her tongue.
‘After all—’ said Edmund, leaving the sentence to float between them.
After all, he left you, Dad would say if he were alive and Dad would laugh that chuckling laugh, not the shout of triumphant joy which had killed him.
‘It was a coronary, I take it,’ suggested Edmund.
Poppy failed to reply.
She remembered Dad’s note. What had it said? Give, don’t lend. Don’t marry unless it’s impossible to live without the fellow. Back outsiders. What, in Dad’s book, were outsiders? She could have asked any one of those friends of Dad’s, those bookmakers, that woman who had lent her coat. The man who took it back. Fergus, Victor, were they outsiders?
‘We will have dinner at Luigi’s,’ said Edmund as they drove into London. ‘I’ve booked a table.’
Poppy kept mum.
If Edmund had booked a table at Luigi’s, their favourite restaurant for special occasions, it would have been for Venetia.
Poppy marvelled, rediscovering Edmund.
‘I thought you would need a good meal and cheering up after your ordeal.’
‘Does he take me for a doormat,’ she asked herself. A complete fool? What else have I been for the past ten years, she answered herself, an imbecile.
She felt despairing, lethargic. Without the energy to protect herself, she let herself drift as Edmund willed.
Arrived at Luigi’s, she combed her hair and washed her hands in the cloakroom, smoothed her dress. It looked great by electric light, flattering her eyes, making the colour of her hair quite interesting and—the sign of a good dress—it looked as fresh as it had when offered to her by that old woman on its hanger.
Edmund sat waiting at a table in the middle of the room. In the space of a week it had become Venetia’s favourite table, she liked to be in the centre of the restaurant to be viewed from all angles, no back to the wall banquette for her. Poppy joined him without comment. The waiter gave them each a menu.
Edmund ordered smoked eel, fillet steak, chipped potatoes and spinach. He would finish, Poppy knew, if he had a chink left, with Stilton. He must, she thought as she studied the menu, have borrowed the money from Venetia. As ever, his fear of putting on weight was defeated by his love of food.
Poppy ordered a dozen oysters (Edmund’s eyebrows rose), grilled Dover sole, matchstick potatoes and a green salad. ‘Then I’ll have an artichoke with sauce vinaigrette.’
She chose on purpose so that I shall have to order both red and white wine. (Edmund prided himself on his knowledge of wine.) He consulted the wine list, recklessly ordered two bottles, red and white. Damn her eyes. She knows I can’t stand the hours she takes eating an artichoke.
Poppy ate the oysters in slow appreciative silence, enjoying the salty juicy flesh as she bit the poor live creatures. She was beginning to feel rather cheerful, her alcoholic fog lifting. She wondered why she had never before tested the pleasure and power of sile
nce. She watched Edmund tackle his eel, knew he expected her to offer him a glass of her white wine with it, refrained.
She sipped her wine, watched the room full of chattering diners.
Edmund started talking again. Getting on with her meal—the sole was delicious—she listened.
‘This new job of mine means quite a lot of travel.’ He bit his steak, forked up some chips.
What new job? Ah yes, he had this new job in a travel agency, it had thrilled them both in those faraway days—at least two weeks ago—before he had left her for Venetia. He was to earn twice the money he made as a house agent and there were, he had said, excellent perks. Edmund was still speaking. ‘So I thought we’d go as I have the tickets. We fly from Gatwick. It will set you up, you will get over your loss, you can lie in the sun while I do what business I have to do. The climate’s lovely at this time of year, still hot of course. I thought we’d go the day after tomorrow which gives us time to pack. I have to get some decent clothes suitable for the job.’
You’ll like that, commented Poppy in her silence. What marvellous nerve. He plotted this for Venetia, why the switch? Poppy started work on her artichoke, dipping each leaf in the sauce, letting the sauce smear her chin to see whether he would notice.
Edmund averted his eyes and went on talking (a week ago he would have hissed ‘sauce on chin, love, wipe it’), he described the African town they would visit, the sun, the sea, the beach, the food, the trips to visit the Roman antiquities, the Arab cities, the markets. He has done his homework thoroughly, read the brochure, Poppy thought, in her silence stripping off the last artichoke leaf, preparing to savour the last delicious bit, the heart. Edmund’s new job was to plan tours for his new company, undercut, if possible, the opposition.
The waiter took away Edmund’s plate. He had not the heart to order cheese, he crumbled a roll. He had run out of puff.
Poppy sipped her wine, dabbled her fingers in the finger bowl, dried them on her napkin. The oysters had been restorative, the sole delicious, the artichoke fresh and perfect. She felt very well. Glancing at Edmund under her lashes she thought, He doesn’t look too good, he’s got himself into a difficult situation.
Edmund had never before not savoured fillet steak. The last piece had nearly choked him. I should not have brought her to this restaurant full of memories. I should not have sat her at this exposed table where everyone can see us. I must not lose my nerve now. He said, ‘Poppy, listen. I love you. I cannot live without you. I have behaved—’
‘Coffee, madam?’ suggested the waiter. Poppy nodded and smiled at the waiter.
‘I have behaved badly, please forgive me. The Venetia thing was mad, an aberration.’
What nonsense, thought Poppy, how banal.
‘I am very unhappy, quite dreadfully unhappy—’
That’s right, lay it on with a shovel, thought Poppy in robust silence.
‘Please, darling let’s begin again—’
Whatever for? She kept silence.
‘I love you so much, forgive me and—’
The waiter poured coffee, rattled the cups, moving them unnecessarily, lending an ear.
‘I will try and make it up to you, Venetia doesn’t mean a thing. You mean everything to me, you always have. I love you so.’ Edmund stared at Poppy and to his horror, moved by his own eloquence, began to cry.
Raising his eyebrows the waiter moved away.
Across the table Poppy began to cry too. Edmund’s speech was maudlin muck, patently fake, having the tear-jerking quality of massed bands, God Save the Queen or A Hundred and One Dalmatians.
Poppy did not produce the swift gush of tears that were Venetia’s but two slow oily drops which hovered for a second before oozing economically on to her cheek. She wiped them away with her finger.
‘More coffee,’ suggested the waiter, coming back.
‘The bill please,’ said Edmund keeping his voice level with an effort.
‘You had better return Venetia’s car.’ Poppy spoke to him for the first time since the parting.
‘You are quite right. I shall.’ He paid the bill, calculating the tip. I shall not give him extra because he saw my tears. Churchill wept and Wellington, dammit.
They went out to Venetia’s car. He was too cautious to touch her, she might jerk away. They drove to Venetia’s flat in silence then on arrival: ‘Come up and give me a hand with my packing,’ he said from force of habit. ‘It will be quicker,’ he added to placate her. ‘I cannot help my male chauvinist piggery,’ he joked feebly expecting her to contradict him, which she didn’t.
Poppy followed him into the lift thinking he would have stood aside for Venetia, minded his manners.
Edmund let himself in at Venetia’s door, put the key down where she would find it, making sure that Poppy noticed his action, laid the car keys beside it.
In the bedroom on the bed Venetia had stacked Edmund’s clothes: ‘She’s guessed,’ said Edmund, embarrassed. He fetched his suitcase from a cupboard in the hall and prepared to pack.
‘What’s this? What on earth?’ As the full extent of Venetia’s act became clear Poppy, who had up to now felt detached and ambivalent, made up her mind.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll come to Africa.’ Was it possible, she thought, as they went down in the lift, that Edmund qualified as an outsider? That Dad was, as she had always maintained, wrong?
18
ANTHONY GREEN HAD NOT expected to see Fergus again, imagining Poppy’s proposal to rent her house and stables an idea born of the effervescence of champagne, which would subside as fast as the bubbles and, the day after the funeral, be forgotten. He was not pleased when his clerk told him Fergus was in the outer office.
Agreeing to see Fergus, Anthony decided that the quicker he discouraged him the sooner he would be rid of him.
As Poppy’s solicitor, though not the executor of her father’s will, Anthony had anticipated advising her to sell the house and invest the proceeds while she thought through what she wished to do with her life. He had yet to discover whether she wished to marry or start a new career. With capital behind her, her horizon had altered. He would advise her to take time, make no hasty decision. He hoped that with the connivance—though connivance was the wrong word—of Les Poole they should between them steer the proceeds from the sale into gilt edged harbours.
Still in search of a better word than connivance Anthony rose to greet Fergus, standing behind his knee-hole desk in his tweed jacket and corduroy trousers, it being market day in the town and many of his clients farmers or country people. Fergus’s clothes, aged jeans, flannel shirt, none too clean jersey and torn leather jacket strengthened his resolve. They shook hands.
Fergus, with few illusions about the speed with which Anthony would be prepared to work, yet expected to discuss terms of a lease of Poppy’s stables and with luck the house. He was not expecting the whole project to be blocked, which Anthony proceeded to do with a fine example of circumlocution delivered at ponderous pace while he fingered his pen and patted some papers on his blotter as though to say, ‘I have to sign these documents, you are wasting my time, please go away.’
Fergus broke in, cutting him short. ‘Has Poppy changed her mind about renting me the stables? It was her idea, Mr Green. There was mention of the house, too.’
Anthony hesitated. Naturally it was Poppy’s idea, true daughter of Bob Carew. He was here to stop such ideas coming to fruition. He must put a stop to the spirit of Bob Carew living on in his daughter.
‘Why don’t we ring her up, Mr Green, settle it one way or the other? She was perfectly sober when she had the idea, though possibly not when she told you about it. If she has changed her mind there will be no need for me to bother you any more. May I borrow your telephone, her number is—’
‘I know her number, Mr Furnival.’ Anthony failed to conceal his irritation.
‘Well, then.’ Fergus sat back smiling.
‘There are er—’
‘References? Yo
u need references?’ Fergus queried.
‘Of course.’ Anthony snatched at the proffered straw. The conversation was taking an annoying turn, but references will slow him down, put a brake on this indecent haste. A person with a mounted undertaker’s business—for some reason he could not define Anthony saw Fergus as mounted on his black horses so irreverently called Dow Jones—no person proposing to run such a business would produce reputable references. Anthony smiled thinly at Fergus across the desk. ‘Of course we shall require references, that goes without saying.’ He let his tone hint at patronage.
Fergus reached a long arm across the desk for the telephone at Anthony’s elbow and dialled Poppy’s number.
‘I say!’ Anthony was beginning to be angry. This young man was impossible.
‘Poppy?’ Fergus was speaking. ‘Did you or did you not offer to rent me your stables and possibly your house?’
‘Of course I did.’ Fergus held the receiver away from his ear so that Anthony could hear Poppy’s voice.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Poppy.
‘Your solicitor seems to have doubts.’
‘Silly old ass. I’ll talk to him, I can’t write, I haven’t time, I’m going away, you were lucky to catch me, ten minutes more and—’
Fergus said, ‘I’m in his office, speak to him now. I shall give him references and so on.’
‘Don’t bother about references—’
‘I’d rather bother but I am in rather a hurry, winter is nigh.’
‘It’s in my soul.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Business looking up?’
‘You could say that. Here’s Mr Green.’ Fergus surrendered the telephone to its indignant owner and sat back, taking care that Anthony should see that he did not listen.
Anthony listened; he found it hard to get in more than the odd word since Poppy let fly in a voluble rush expressing her ardent definite wish to rent to Fergus, begging him to act fast before the weather closed in, elaborating on the dangers of snowdrifts and the duplicity of Nicholas Mowbray.