Strangers in a Garden

by Deanna Maclaren

  ‘How have you got time off work?’

  ‘One of the other housemasters is covering for me.’

  Queuing up for the plane, Laura reflected on the advantage of not knowing when you were doing something for the last time. If she’d known, wandering happily in the Roadnights garden, sitting at the pretty dressing table in her room, if she’d known it was all going to be taken away from her, she simply couldn’t have borne it.

  The girls were on the steps when Laura got back. Fiona was preening in a fox fur coat. The others were back to back in pretending not to be interested in where, exactly, this luxurious garment had come from.

  They greeted Laura affectionately and, with relief, she sank on the steps and told them about Richard making off with all the family cash. Their reaction was unanimous.

  ‘The swine!’

  ‘What a rat. He obviously talked your father into this.’

  ‘You’ve got to fight it,’ – Fiona.

  ‘I haven’t got the money to fight it. And it would take ages.’

  ‘Richard will probably spend it all on mistresses,’ – Lol

  Laura laughed.

  ‘But it’s not fair,’ said Marje. ‘Richard should share with you.’

  ‘He just says he has to respect Father’s wishes.’

  They heaved a collective sigh. Dinkie said, ‘You must be feeling shattered about your father.’

  ‘I feel numb,’ Laura said. ‘At the funeral, my mother soaked three handkerchieves. I just turned into a cube of ice. Just got through it.’

  Dinkie passed her a Carrera. ‘I’ve just thought. It’s such a part of our lives, sitting here on the steps, sharing everything. Why don’t we have a pact, for a reunion, say, every two, three years. Right here, on the steps.’

  They all agreed. And Laura thought, I have no idea where I’ll be in three years, or six.

  If anyone had told her where she’d be, she would never have believed them.

  Marje helped her upstairs with her luggage, saying, ‘Wild excitement here. You’ll see when we get to the top. Miss May’s been doing an early Spring clean of her room.’

  On the landing, Marje negotiated Laura’s case round boxes and boxes of books. She was exultant. ‘At last! Solved. The mystery of what Miss May does in her room each night.’

  What Miss May did was read Mills and Boon romances. Each box was overflowing with them. Laura grabbed a handful and took them back to the sanctuary of Room Nine. There were doctor/nurse romances, Regency romances, girl at work but in love with the boss romances, with titles like ‘Abandoned for Love’ and ‘Prisoner of Passion.’

  ‘I’ll take some round to show Adrian,’ Laura said.

  ‘Adrian? He wouldn’t read this rubbish.’

  ‘He reads everything. Says if he’s going to be a novelist, he has to cover the waterfront.’

  ‘Look, I saw Adrian and he sent his condolences over your father. But he asked me to say, he won’t be able to see you this Saturday. It’s the Rangers-Celtic match, so they’ll all be down the pub afterwards.’

  Laura realised that, once again, she had some catching up to do with Adrian. Last time he’d seemed to go cool on her, she’d enticed him with sex. But he was used to that now.

  She opened ‘Prisoner of Passion.’ Could Mills and Boon give her some tips?

  Over the usual Sunday teatime card table at Livingstone House, the group was in uproar. Sven had siezed a Mills and Boon and was declaiming, in a falsetto made even more hilarious coming from a hunky man with a Swedish accent:

  ‘A gipsy foretold his coming, but Lucinda mistook her meaning and nearly threw away happiness.’

  ‘Oh God,’ croaked Kel. ‘I can’t bear it. What happens?’

  Sven turned to the last page. ‘My darling, my darling, whispered the Duke, you are my light, my moon, my stars…’

  ‘Incredible.’ Adrian had the books spread out on the table.

  ‘Dear little Miss May getting worked up over this tosh.’

  ‘Yeah’ said Kel, ‘but it’s all harmless, innocent stuff.’

  ‘Well, no.’ Adrian had noticed something the others had missed. ‘You have to look at the covers. A book sells on its cover. And what these do is give you clues, hand signals, literally, on what to expect. Look, you’ve got a pretty girl and a handsome man on every cover. Now look at the man’s hands. Is he touching the girl? If so, where? And this one, this ‘Sophia and the Sheik’, she’s in a tent, and she’s lying down!’

  They peered at the swarthy guy kneeling over the swooning Sophia.

  ‘Wouldn’t fancy him on a dark night,’ Sven said.

  ‘Yes but,’ Laura was getting her eye in now, ‘this Sheik one is practically falling apart. There’s tea stains and,’ she sniffed one of the last pages, ‘I swear I can smell sherry. Oh, poor Miss May.’

  While Kel and Sven were fetching their tea, Adrian took Laura’s hand. ‘How are you feeling, Laura, really?’

  ‘I’ll survive.’

  ‘Is it your father?’

  ‘Actually, it’s money’ she said, as the other two came back. ‘I’ve got to get a second job.’

  ‘That shit-arse brother of yours should –‘

  ‘No, Adrian, I won’t. I won’t ask him for a penny. I’ll get an evening job.’

  ‘Well you’re not posing at life classes again. The only male you’re taking your clothes off for is me.’

  Sven gulped down a mouthful of pork pie. ‘D’you remember, Kel, that girl who came round. Left a catalogue for Darling Cosmetics. You weren’t here, Adrian. It was a Wednesday.’

  Laura failed to see the significance of it being Wednesday. But she had heard of Darling Cosmetics. They were sold door to door. ‘Sven, don’t tell me you’ve started wearing lipstick?’

  He grinned. ‘I was thinking of getting some soap. The stuff they give you here’s like carbolic. But I didn’t, because the rep never came back. I’ve still got the catalogue, though.’

  ‘You live off the Great Western Road?’ the Darling Cosmetics Area Manager went straight to the point, probably appreciating that Laura was in a phone box.

  ‘That could be very interesting, Miss James. There’s a meeting tomorrow night. Seven o’clock, in the Presbyterian church hall just by you.’

  The hall was packed with young women. The Area Supervisor was at the helm, striding up and down in a navy blue suit piped with white. She was delighted to reveal that Darling had a brand new catalogue, with wonderful new products. A great selling opportunity. And, the best news of all, a competition was already under way. The Chief Accountant, himself, had been monitoring their sales results and, at the end of the year, the winner would receive a Caribbean cruise!

  All the young women cheered, except the one sitting next to Laura, who introduced herself as Marie. ‘Won’t be me,’ she muttered. ‘I’m up for the chop.’

  The Area Manager read out the names of the top three contenders and they stood up to enthusiastic applause. Then the woman in navy went on, ‘But someone who hasn’t done well, who hasn’t done well at all, is Marie, who handles part of the Great Western Road. What’s been the difficulty, Marie?’

  ‘The houses are very big and people don’t answer the door. Or there’s a housekeeper who shoos you away.’

  ‘Perseverance, Marie. Isn’t that our watchword? Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance.’ She glanced round. ‘Would Laura James make herself known to me?’

  At Arundell House, Laura went straight upstairs to tell Marje all about it. Marje pointed at the black bag Laura dumped on the floor. ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘My samples. You get the first lot free and after that you have to buy them. And this is my manual. It’s supposed to tell me everything I need to know about what to do when a customer answers the door.’

  Marje turned to page one.

  ‘Good evening, I’m Laura from Darling Cosmetics. I expect you’ve seen our advertisements.

  ‘Customer: Yes, I have.

  ‘We have a wo
nderful new range of lipsticks, May I show them to you?

  ‘Customer: Yes, I’d love to see.

  ‘May I come in and rest my bag on your hall table?’

  Marje could barely speak for laughing. ‘But Laura, what if they don’t have a hall table?’

  Laura was not going to be put off. She intended to start on Friday, and she knew exactly where she was going.

  The upstairs lights were on in the party house. Laura could hear dance music. She rang the bell.

  The door was opened by a large man with woolly blond hair. Mentally, Laura skipped to page 32 of the manual.

  ‘Good evening. May I speak to the lady of the house?’

  The man roared with laughter. ‘Oh yes. That’s very good. What lady would that be, exactly?’

  Laura pressed on. ‘I’m Laura James, from Darling Cosmetics. We have a new aftershave which I’d love to –‘

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  Laura was elated. She’d done it. She’d got into the party house.

  ‘Odd set-up here,’ the man was leading the way upstairs. ‘We live upstairs and keep the bottom for my studio.’

  Laura followed him into a large kitchen, where he was evidently making hamburgers. She sat at the scrubbed deal table and took out the Darling catalogue, along with samples of aftershave and soap.

  ‘Have some wine,’ he said, pouring her a large glass of red. ‘I’m Tom, by the way.’ His accent was English. He picked up the catalogue. ‘So you turn up on someone’s doorstep and announce you’re from Darling Cosmetics. How does that go down with a hairy Glaswegian?’

  Laura was not going to admit that apart from the Arundell House girls, Tom was her first customer. ‘Oh,’ she said airily, ‘they love it. I mean, Glaswegians, they’ve got such a terrific sense of humour.’

  Tom was staring at her intently. She hoped he wasn’t a bit, well, strange.

  He said abruptly, ‘Would you stand up?’

  She stood up.

  ‘Now – Laura – raise your skirt.’

  Her face flaming, Laura threw her samples back in the bag and was about to flee when there came a throaty laugh from the door. The girl wasn’t just coming in, she was making an entrance, with waist-length blonde hair flowing over a gold catsuit. She was letting a black labrador puppy off a lead and Laura thought, heavens, no one in The Beeches would take a dog for a walk dressed all in gold.

  ‘Tom, you fool,’ said the blonde. ‘The girl’s genuine.’

  ‘The girl’s going,’ Laura said, and heart pounding, ran away down the stairs.

  On the first day of Spring it teemed with rain. It had rained unceasingly for three weeks. The Arundell House girls shrugged off the weather, telling Laura she hadn’t seen real rain until she’d experienced Lewis. A new jigsaw had appeared, depicting the Isle of Lewis apparently drowned.

  At Livingstone House, Kel, on his lucrative Rhodes scholarship, bought Darling lipsticks and face creams to send to his relatives in Rhodesia. Sven got his soap, Adrian liked the aftershave and even Logan proved interested, asking Laura testing questions about the Darling marketing strategy.

  In the office, Shona bought a whole load of items she obviously didn’t need and Elspeth asked for handcream. Laura accepted this wouldn’t get her on a trip to the Caribbean, but at least she’d sold something. Coming last was not an option for Laura. It never was, if you had an older brother.

  Laura was sitting on the window seat at Arundell House, filling in her Darling order book. Most of the Arundell girls had asked for handcream, the cheapest item.

  And then, over the glug of rainwater from the overflowing gutter, and over the hiss of damp coal on the fire, Laura heard someone banging on the window behind her.

  Chapter Five

  Turning, Laura recognised the girl from the party house. Reluctantly, Laura went to the front door. The party house people were all obviously bonkers.

  The girl stood on the steps. She was wearing a primrose yellow raincoat and carrying a matching umbrella.

  The only reason, Laura told Marje later, that I let her in was the dog. He had a little raincoat on, but it was soaked.

  In the hall, Laura hung up the girl’s dripping rainwear as she said, ‘I’m Cressida. I’m sorry if Tom upset you. I came to explain.’

  ‘I told my boyfriend Tom wanted to see up my skirt,’ Laura said. ‘He was furious.’

  ‘He asked you to do WHAT?’ Adrian had exploded. ‘Fucking cheek.’

  Cressida sat down on the hall chair. She had her long blonde hair tied back with a primrose ribbon. She explained that Tom was a photographer. During the making of a film, he’d be on the set, taking stills of the cast and of the action.

  ‘The trouble is,’Cressida said, ‘a lot of girls are so desperate to get to Hollywood. And of course, Tom and I know everyone out there. So what these girls do, they turn up on the doorstep, in some sort of disguise, to prove they can ACT, dahling. I had two of them round one time, pretending to sell poppies for Remembrance Day.’

  Lol and Marje.

  ‘So when you turned up as Miss Darling Cosmetics, Tom was entertained but didn’t believe a word of it. It was lucky I was there.’

  Dinkie came rushing down the stairs clutching a towel. It was black, so Laura suspected she’d filched it from the salon. They used black towels when they were tinting and dyeing.

  ‘That poor wee doggie! I saw you come in. She’s wet through.’

  ‘It’s difficult,’ Cressida said. ‘She whines to go out but…’

  ‘What’s her name?’ asked Laura.

  ‘La-la.’

  ‘La-la?’ Dinkie paused. ‘Surely dogs are called Rover or Lassie?’

  ‘No, well I used to live in Los Angeles.’

  Lol, just out of the phone box, chimed in. ‘What were you doing in Los Angeles?’

  ‘Oh, I sort of grew up there.’

  Lol bent and stroked La-la’s head. ‘I think the little doggie should come and sit by the fire.’

  Laura looked round anxiously, in case of Miss Speddie. The labrador was a bitch, but even so…The Rules said nothing about dogs.

  In the Drawing Room, La-la trotted across to the hearth rug, lay down and immediately became the girls’ favourite pet, fussing over her as they stoked up the fire. Laura took Cressida across to the window seat where Cressida picked up the Darling catalogue.

  ‘That’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. The catalogue you left at the house, you’d put your address and phone. The fact is, I really need some make-up.’

  Laura didn’t believe this. You grow up in LA, awash with film stars and parties. You live with an important photographer in a grand house that’s always lit up like McAllister’s window at Hogmanay. You wear a gold catsuit to walk your dog. And you need door-to-door rouge?

  Cressida’s blue eyes grew huge and tearful. ‘You’d be doing me the most tremendous favour. I hate shops. I feel all shut in. And I’ve brought the money.’ She produced two five-pound notes. As Laura reached for her order book, Lol started to play and the girls began to sing.

  ‘Oh!’ Cressida’s eyes welled again. ‘You’re so lucky, Laura. It’s so lovely and cosy in here. The fire – Tom won’t let me light ours. I forgot to put the guard round once. And you know, that girl, the one with the charming voice, at the piano. I’m sure I’ve met her.’

  ‘You have. Her name’s Lola. She came round once to sell you a poppy and you shouted at her.’

  ‘My God. How terrible. That’s just awful!’

  Cressida rushed across to the piano and knelt at Lol’s feet. Lol was so surprised, she stopped playing.

  ‘Where did you learn?’ breathed Cressida. ‘Where did you learn to play like that?’

  ‘My grandmother taught me.’

  ‘No! Really?’

  ‘I went to stay with her one summer. Can’t remember where. Somewhere in England, but I was only eight and you never know where on earth you are at that age. Anyway, she had a cottage with hollyhocks and c
abbages and beans and she used to get her water from a well.’

  ‘A well! How romantic.’

  ‘Not really. Hard work. Took us all morning winching up the buckets and carrying them to the kitchen. Then in the afternoon we’d walk down to the village shop and pick blackberries on the way back. But she wouldn’t let me dawdle because we had to be home to listen to Mrs Dale’s Diary.’

  The girls burst out laughing and chorused, ‘I’m worried about Jim.’

  ‘Jim was Mrs Dale’s husband,’ Laura explained to Cressida. ‘She was always in a bit of a state about him.’

  ‘Then after tea, grandma would show me how to do something. Press flowers, or cross-stitch. She’d light the lamp and play the piano and we’d sing. Hymns quite a lot, or In a Monastery Garden or All in an April Evening…’

  ‘And then she taught you to play?’

  ‘Well I found it interesting and it was a way of staving off having to go to bed and I discovered I could just do it. I’ve never learned music, had a lesson. I just play by ear.’

  Fiona had come in. ‘Did you actually have a piano in your hovel, on Arran?’ Fiona, hailing from Edinburgh’s elite Morningside district, regarded anyone from the Western Isles as totally primitive.

  ‘We didn’t, no. But you can always find a piano when you need one. And I found mine in the chapel.’

  As she was seeing Cressida and La-la out, Laura remarked, ‘You know, Cressida, considering you grew up in LA, you don’t sound American at all.’

  ‘I had to go to an English boarding school. Stuffy and strict. We had elocution lessons. It was in Norfolk, miles from anywhere.’

  ‘Not Wintlesham, near Sandringham?’

  Cressida’s face lit up. ‘No. But we used to go to Wintlesham for their sports day. They had this dishy games master.’

  ‘I know. He’s my brother.’ At this stage in his career, Richard had been required to do the odd jobs no other teacher wanted, like running the school cadet squad, supervising cross-country running and organising sports day.

  Seeing Cressida beginning to gibber at this mention of Richard, Laura said, ‘He’s married. With two children.’