by Anne Morice
“So that could be at the bottom of this rift, if rifts do have bottoms? Bernard marrying for money, or urged on to do so by his Mum, and then finding he wasn’t going to get any?”
“No, to be fair, I don’t think he’s that low. Camilla’s the one who’s always had this obsession about money. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d worked out that the best way to persuade Edna to part with it was to make a respectable marriage with the boy next door and now it’s she who’s disappointed. I mean, even worse in a way to marry somebody for what you considered was your own money and then discover that he wasn’t going to get it for you. I think this must be our roundabout coming up now, don’t you, Tessa?” Marge added, turning round unexpectedly and causing me to rock back rather abruptly into a more conventional sitting position. “Didn’t Camilla say the first one after the second set of traffic lights?”
“That’s right. You’re supposed to take the Reading turnoff and then stop twenty yards up the road at the bus shelter. Let’s hope she’s still there.”
“Oh, she’ll be there, never fear,” Vi said. “On that you can rely.”
She was right too. Tilly was not only at her post, but managed to give the impression of one who, having the choice, would have elected to while away a hot afternoon in a bus shelter on a noisy main road. Surrounded by bulging carrier bags, she sat with ankles crossed, deep in one-sided conversation with a bemused looking old man and stitching away at a square of pale blue material. When she joined me on the back seat I saw that it was a tray-cloth, which she was embroidering with scalloped edges, goodness knows why.
She briskly swept aside all the apologies and condolences, showing far more concern for Camilla’s plight than her own.
“Oh dear, oh dearie me!” she murmured when she had heard the full story. “How very unlucky! Now, wouldn’t you think poor dear Camilla would know better by this time? I do hope they won’t hang about too long.”
“Why? What do you suppose can have happened?” I asked.
“Well dear, if the truth be known, I don’t doubt that Mrs. Mortimer is half way home by now. Arrive before we do, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“How would she get there, though?”
“Oh, that wouldn’t be much trouble. I expect she’s run into one or two acquaintances during the afternoon and perhaps one of them was driving home in this direction.”
“Do you mean it? You think she’s got a lift with someone else? Then why not have found the others and told them so? I don’t imagine they’d have minded.”
“Very likely not, but that might have been a bit awkward. Poor Mrs. Mortimer!” Tilly added with a long sigh, which mystified me still further. Marge, however, appeared to be au courant, for she looked up and grinned into the rear mirror.
“But why . . . ?” I began, but just too late because simultaneously Tilly patted my arm affectionately, saying: “So the Festival is on again, Tessa? Isn’t that splendid news?”
“Isn’t it just? How did you hear?”
“I met Helena while I was having my hair done. She’d popped in there to get them to display one of the posters, and she told me the glad tidings. So now you’ll be a busy bee again? Camilla told me you had a leading part in your cousin’s play?”
“Yes, I can’t claim that he wrote it specially for me, but at least he knew better than to leave me out. Where should we be without a little nepotism to help us along life’s hard road?”
“Will you be staying on with Toby?” Vi asked, also addressing the rear mirror.
“After we open. A lot depends on Robin’s movements, but I’ll probably commute from London during rehearsals.”
“You can drop me off here, Vi,” Tilly said, as we slowed down at the gates of Farndale House, which was the name of Edna’s large Victorian residence. “No need to come up the drive. I’ve taken you too far out of your way already.” Vi and Marge both tried to talk her out of this attitude, arguing that she would have to carry her heavy parcels at least another hundred yards, but Tilly was adamant and eventually got her way.
“What did she mean by saying that it would be awkward for Edna to explain that she was getting a lift home with someone else?” I asked, as Vi turned the car in the direction of Roakes Common.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t say, seeing that she obviously regretted having been so indiscreet.”
“But we can’t very well not tell her,” Marge objected, to my great relief. “Or she’ll invent some terribly sinister explanation of her own. At least, I know I should. You see, Tessa, Edna is not only one of Nature’s foremost liars, but she always has to appear to be in the right. It wouldn’t occur to her to walk up to someone and ask for a lift, on the grounds that Bernard’s car was rather small and uncomfortable. That might show her up in a bad light. So it would all be wrapped up in some tale of having been cruelly let down, the most likely version in this case being that the young people had forgotten all about her and whisked off on their own. At which point, it would be an awkward business to find them and explain, would it not?”
“Yes, very, but I’m still baffled. Could she really be so selfish and unkind as to leave them dangling in the car park, not knowing what had become of her? It’s incredible!”
“And it may not be true,” Vi pointed out. “We are only telling you what had obviously occurred to Tilly. But she should know and the fact is that you can’t expect rational behaviour from Edna. She’s in a different category from the rest of us, and the most dangerous one of all.”
“Which is that?”
“Well, lying comes naturally to her, for one thing, so even when there’s nothing to gain by it she prevaricates instinctively; and as soon as it’s uttered, to her it becomes the truth. She wouldn’t feel any remorse for Bernard and Camilla because by the time her sad tale was out she’d believe every word of it.”
“She has another trick, too,” Marge said, sounding amused. “Even when she is telling the truth, she invariably lies about its source. I remember her giving me a recipe for a cold pudding, which could be knocked up in about ten minutes. Very good it was, too. I’ve used it in several crises. Edna told me she got it as a special favour from the chef at the Dorchester, but a few days later I was sitting under the hair dryer, reading one of those women’s weeklies and there it was, tucked away among the readers’ letters. It had won the two pound prize for Best Tip of the Week.”
“It’s rather pathetic, in a way,” Vi remarked.
“Do you think so? I’d say she ought to be locked up.”
Rather surprisingly, Marge countered this with a rare philosophical observation:
“And so she is, my child. Locked up inside her own fantasies, where everything in life is distorted. That’s what is pathetic about it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
1
Fantasy or not, Edna’s own explanation for her temporary disappearance was far more sensational than those which others had invented on her behalf. As relayed by Marge on the telephone that evening, the story was as follows:
Immediately after the third race, which she had been watching from the stand with Camilla, Bernard having slumped off in a sulk to the bar, she had set off towards the pay-out windows to collect her winnings on Bitter Aloes. Camilla had accompanied her part of the way, but had then met some friends and, seeming disposed to stop and chat and to be quite oblivious of Edna’s understandable impatience, she had proceeded on her own.
On reaching her destination, she had paused on the fringes, in order to size up the length of the various queues, meaning to attach herself to the shortest of them and, in so doing, had received one of the most disagreeable shocks of her whole life. At the head of one of the queues, and in the act of counting up her winnings, was a woman who, to her appalled amazement, she had instantly recognised as none other than herself. Too shocked to move or cry out, she had closed her eyes and clutched at one of the posts, in an effort to get a grip on things, and when she had forced herself to look up again she had found that the apparition, if
such it was, had vanished and everything, with the exception of her own heart rate, was back to normal.
“What made her think it was herself she saw?” I asked at this point.
“The whole works, apparently. You name it. Same coat and hat, same build and stance and, so far as she could judge in the time, same age as well. Now, why I’ve rung you up, Tessa, is this: Vi and I are completely flummoxed this time and we simply can’t make up our minds whether to believe her or not. I mean, you can’t exactly say the story rings true, but it’s out of line with her usual fantasies and one can’t immediately see any advantage in inventing it. Now, you had the winner of that race, didn’t you? Did you happen to catch sight of this doppelgänger?”
“I’m afraid not, Marge, but that doesn’t disprove her story. She was already there, pressed up against the window by the time I arrived, so the double, if she existed, would have gone by then. Edna obviously wasn’t so knocked out that she forgot to collect her winnings.”
“That doesn’t prove anything either. It would take more than her own ghost to make her forget that. Did she seem frightened or upset in any way?”
I considered my answer carefully: “Well, you know, looking back on it, I honestly believe she did behave like someone who’d had some kind of shock. At the time, I put it down to her normal truculence, plus the fact that she was so unsuitably dressed for a warm afternoon, but it could well have been something more serious. All the same, I still don’t see that it excuses her driving off and leaving Bernard and Camilla stranded.”
“Well, according to Edna, it excuses her up to the hilt, because there seem to have been repercussions. She told Tilly that a little later on, she’s not sure how much later, but possibly half an hour, she had some kind of black out. A heart attack is how she describes it, needless to say, but Tilly does think it’s quite on the cards that she’d had a very mild stroke. Luckily, she was sitting down, so there was no fall or anything, but Edna says that when she came to there was no one in sight and she didn’t know where she was, or what had happened to her; but she felt too weak to move and absolutely positive she was dying. And it is true that she was in a pretty groggy state when they found her.”
“Who did find her, by the way?”
“People called Powell. I don’t suppose you know them? He’s a brigadier, got a stiff leg and they live not far from Datchet, so it meant going miles out of their way to bring her home, but apparently they didn’t hesitate. So it can’t have been all invention on her part and, frankly, I don’t think she has the imagination to dream up anything so dramatic.”
“Has she seen her doctor?”
“No, Tilly sent for him, but it’s his weekend off. His partner would have come, but she’s a woman and Edna wasn’t having any of that. I suppose her own doctor will look in on Monday, but she’ll probably be over it by then. It’s disappointing that you can’t shed any light.”
“Awfully sorry, Marge, but if I do get a total recall I’ll ring you back.”
“Yes, do; and in the meantime there’s an outsider in the Derby called Spittin Image. Better have a go, wouldn’t you say?”
“Why not? It was really all due to Edna that I backed Bitter Aloes, so perhaps she’ll pull it off again.”
2
I had scarcely put the receiver down when the telephone rang again and this time it was Camilla on the line. She was calling principally to enlist my help in finding her a job connected in some way with the Storhampton Festival, but before we got down to that I had to hear the tale of Edna’s misadventure all over again, as I did not consider it diplomatic to disclose that Marge had got in first.
Camilla’s version differed hardly at all from the first one, but provided a small bonus in that it had a sequel. It appeared that the doctor’s lady partner having rung him up and explained matters, he had dropped his golf clubs where he stood and hurried round to visit the patient in person. Edna had been neither surprised nor particularly gratified by this gesture, for it was precisely what she had expected and, had it been otherwise, would doubtless have signed on with a rival practitioner, which, according to Camilla, was something she did rather frequently.
“And what was his diagnosis?” I asked.
“Well, he didn’t seem to think there was any special cause for alarm, only her blood pressure’s much too high and she’s badly overweight and so on. All the usual things that we know already, in fact, but he did warn me that it makes her vulnerable to this sort of attack and she might get another, and much worse one, any time at all. Anyway, he’s given me a prescription which I can collect from the surgery, and he’s also put her on a very strict diet and told me to see that she gets plenty of rest. So it looks as though I’ll be stuck down here for the time being and I’ll go raving mad if I don’t have something to do.”
It was at this point that she introduced her bid for my help in finding her some voluntary work with the Festival, but before dealing with it, I said:
“But why you, Camilla? Isn’t it the moment for that old sister to come and lend a hand?”
“Alice? Oh, sure! She’d grab at the chance to dig herself in here, but it would be fatal. Sister or not, Edna can’t stand having her to stay for even one night. She’s too mean, for one thing, and Alice eats like a horse. She’d be worse than useless in a situation like this.”
“Then can’t Tilly manage on her own?”
“No, she can’t. It’s all very well for you to say that, but poor Tilly is imposed on quite enough already. She’s taken on most of the cooking and housework, as it is, and now Edna’s talking about cutting the gardener down to two mornings a week. This would be an excuse to load even more on to Tilly. She’d have her waiting on her hand and foot in no time at all.”
These were admirable sentiments, but I was not moved to tears by them. For one thing, it was hard to see how she could materially ease the burden on Tilly if she was going to be slogging away at the Festival headquarters most of the day. On the other hand, it was not for me to turn down such an offer when the organisers were screaming for helpers, so I said that I envisaged no difficulty in fixing her up in some capacity or other, providing she wasn’t too choosy about it, and she said she supposed not and rang off without bothering to thank me.
“Tell me something, Toby,” I said at dinner that evening. “If you were going about your innocent business and suddenly saw someone whom you recognised as yourself, would you have a heart attack?”
“Yes, instantly.”
“Indeed? You sound very positive, but how can you tell? I mean, it’s not a thing that has ever happened to you, presumably?”
“There are some things one doesn’t need to experience in order to gauge one’s reactions and I can assure you, with no hesitation at all that if I were to look up now and see myself walking into the room you would have to telephone for the ambulance.”
“Oh yes, I quite agree, but I wasn’t thinking of a head-on confrontation. In the case which prompted this enquiry the victim didn’t come face to face with herself, she only saw her back and it wasn’t all that close.”
“Nevertheless, she was convinced it was her own back?”
“That’s right.”
“And what happened?”
“Nothing. Herself got away.”
“Do you know, I think that might make it even more alarming,” Toby said seriously. “On the whole, it might be better to thrash the matter out on the spot and decide once and for all which was the alter and which the ego. One could never tell what he might get up to, if one were to lose track of him.”
“True! I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Better not dwell on it. The whole concept is so macabre that I think we should change the subject. Otherwise, I may easily bring on a heart attack just by thinking about it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The reality of a Storhampton Festival of Music and the Arts had come about largely through the inspiration and tenacity of a couple named Goodchild, who, as so often in matters of co
mmunity endeavour, were comparative newcomers to the neighbourhood.
Peter Goodchild was senior music master at a nearby public school and his wife, Tara, a towering and bossy intellectual, who spent a lot of time translating obscure Bengali poets into every language under the sun. They had two emaciated looking daughters, both with impeccable manners, who romped through every exam they sat for, scooping up scholarships like pebbles off the beach.
The enterprise had been conceived by the Goodchilds some three years before its inception, in those days as a relatively modest, strictly amateur venture, to coincide with the Summer Regatta, but had gained momentum from two unexpected windfalls. The first concerned an abandoned Victorian Methodist Chapel, close to the centre of the town and even closer to the river, which came on the market at a more or less giveaway price and which Peter Goodchild reckoned could be transformed, with a little unpaid weekend help from his pupils, into a very presentable concert hall.
The second factor exerted its influence more gradually, for, as their acquaintance widened, they found themselves on visiting terms with no fewer than three resident professional authors, two poets, any number of actors and amateur painters and one real live composer. Fired by this, the flame of a full scale Festival of the Arts began to burn brightly in the Goodchild hearts and, being tireless and enthusiastic to a degree unparalleled in those parts, eventually overcame every obstacle which faintheartedness and lethargy could place in their way. Local traders and caterers were dragooned or flattered into putting up contributions, local talent found itself offering its services free and, greatest achievement of all, the Town Hall was somehow persuaded to match the total raised with an equivalent sum from municipal funds.
In the ensuing, highly charged months of meetings, decisions, counter decisions, triumphs, disasters and resignations, the final programme eventually emerged, trimmed and dented here and there, but in essence very much as the instigators had conceived it. It was to run for three weeks from mid-July, opening with an evening concert by the County Youth Orchestra, Peter Goodchild conducting, and winding up with a midnight fireworks display on the river. The filling between these two slices of the sandwich was to include an art exhibition, poetry readings, a ball at the Town Hall and three specially commissioned plays, running in repertory at the converted Methodist Chapel.