He finished the conversation and turned on Nancy. ‘I don’t want to see this fucking paper in my house, do you understand!’
Nancy stared at him. Who are you? she asked silently, you with your coarse tongue and face like a beetroot. Who are you? Without a word she took the Tribune from Andrew and pushed it into the bin under the sink. The doorbell rang.
‘Oh, Neville. What can I do for you?’ Nancy gave a mechanical smile.
‘I’ve got your Christmas News Letter,’ Neville handed the last copy over. Nancy gave a meaningful look in the direction of the letter-box. ‘I especially wanted to talk to you,’ Neville said quickly.
Knowing it would annoy Andrew, Nancy asked Neville in. ‘It was Mrs Pyke, she had this idea.’ Neville sounded as if the news surprised him as much as it did Nancy. ‘“Why don’t you do up the vicarage?” she said. “It’s ever so gloomy and the vicar’ll never do anything about it.” And I said, “Gladys,” I said, “that’s a first class idea.” Some of us parishioners getting together and decorating the place for him, cheer it up a bit. I don’t know that that lot over in Everton have ever done anything for their clergy, we’d have heard about it soon enough if they had. No, they can fancy their chances as Most Caring Village for all they might, but I know where I’d put my money.’
‘Why not?’ Nancy said. ‘The vicarage is rather gloomy with all that brown and beige wallpaper. Mr Brain takes absolutely no interest in how the place looks. Yes, why not?’
‘Well, it would show we care, that’s what I say.’ Neville beamed at Nancy.
‘I’ll tell that inspector where he can get off,’ Andrew stormed past on his way out of the front door.
‘Inspector?’ Neville’s watery blue eyes bulged.
‘That’s what I said: inspector,’ Andrew slammed the door behind him.
‘I’m afraid poor Andrew is a little out of sorts,’ Nancy explained, astonishing herself as well as Neville by adding, ‘to tell the truth, he has absolutely no self-control, never has had.’ To hide her confusion she offered Neville a cup of coffee, something normally to be avoided at all costs. ‘Now for your idea. I will speak to a few friends in the Women’s League. It should be just their thing.’ She ushered Neville into the kitchen. ‘Let’s try to keep this a surprise from the vicar.’
Liberty was constantly surprised at how much she enjoyed Sunday lunch at her father’s. He had always been a good host, focusing all his energies on the job of making his guests adore being his guests. Today he had met her at the door with a glass of his special apéritif, the juice of a fresh peach topped up with dry German Sekt.
She sat back in the kitchen chair, sipping her drink and watching as he hammered at the turkey escalopes with a wooden mallet, before dipping them in egg and flour and fresh white breadcrumbs.
‘There,’ he beamed at Liberty. ‘In the pan they go. The secret is to keep the fat hot.’ He chucked the escalopes into the sizzling pan so that the brown butter splashed across the enamel top of the old-fashioned gas cooker.
Hamish was an excellent cook, one of the by-products from an earlier relationship with a home economics teacher who thought men in the kitchen, ‘absolutely adorable’. Liberty had not liked the woman much, but Hamish’s cooking had improved immeasurably, and the improvement had long outlasted the affair. If only he could take up with someone who believed in housework, Liberty thought, looking round the tiny kitchen. Weeks’ worth of crumbs and dirty footprints covered the floor and the rug that Hamish had painted on the lino. The china-blue-and-white painted pattern was chipped here and there, but the frill lay as carefully dishevelled as always; it had to, it was painted that way. The blue-and-white tiles above the cooker were speckled with dried-in fat, and there were cobwebs dangling from the strip lighting.
‘I won’t be here for long,’ Hamish said as if he could read her thoughts. He fished out the escalopes from the pan and put them on two warm plates together with potatoes and garden peas. Carefully, he placed first a slice of lemon, then a curl of anchovies, on top of each escalope. ‘The question is, where can the old man go?’
Liberty hated the way he referred to himself as ‘the old man’, coming as it did with an inbuilt expected response of, ‘Oh, you’re not old.’
‘But you have enough saved at the building society for a small house, haven’t you?’ she said instead. ‘I always thought you had.’
Hamish poured them both some Chianti and sat down. ‘I don’t know,’ he shook his head. ‘I’ve made some investments, not all of them wise, I fear. Black Mondays and Wednesdays and what not. No, I might have to come and stay with my little girl for a while. You won’t mind, will you Liberty? You won’t mind your old father coming to stay a while?’
Liberty cut into the crisp escalope. ‘How long did you have in mind?’
‘Oh a couple of months, no more.’
‘A couple of months? I don’t—’
‘Do you know what I dread the most?’ Hamish looked up at her with green eyes which she always feared were very much like hers. ‘It’s walking out of this place for the last time. Not just the flat, but the whole place. Teaching that last lesson and then leaving, knowing that I’m no longer part of it. I’ll walk down those corridors, past the classrooms and the common-room, past colleagues and boys; an outsider.’
‘But Daddy…’ Liberty put her glass down and put her hand on top of Hamish’s. ‘You’ll always be welcomed back. You know they’ll always want to see you.’
‘“A guest in reality”,’ Hamish quoted. ‘Being a visitor where you were once essential, or thought you were, whilst all round you the real business of life goes on without you.’ He shook his head. ‘Oh no, that’s not for me.’ He poured some more wine. ‘I’ll have to hand over my keys, do you know that? Like a disgraced officer handing over his sword.’ He scrambled in his pocket and turned up the bunch of keys hanging from the little copper viking that Liberty’s mother had once given him.
‘Flat, labs, Chapel, San.’ He chucked the keys on the table in front of Liberty then, with a quick smile, he got to his feet. ‘More wine I think.’
With a sigh, Liberty put down her knife and fork. ‘Of course you can stay. Just give me a couple of days’ warning.’
‘Thank you darling. What a lucky man I am to have a daughter like you.’ He sat back in his chair with a delighted grin.
‘Indeed you are. I could have been a hyena and then you would have had to ask in vain.’
Hamish looked at her. ‘Eat your escalope Liberty, or I’ll think you don’t like it.’
‘Of course a hyena would eat its escalope,’ Liberty said, feeling just as childish as she sounded.
Hamish frowned then, pushing away the strand of hair that fell in a carefully arranged lock across his forehead, he smiled. ‘All this talk of hyenas, is it a new kind of slang? It’s a movie isn’t it?’
It was always the same, he just could not bear to be out of things. He had been a nightmare in the sixties. ‘Yeah, sure,’ she said, ‘haven’t you seen it? French. At the Curzon Mayfair. “Do Hyenas have souls too?” or to be precise, “Hyenas ont ils souls aussi?”’
Hamish gave her a long look. ‘Pud,’ he said standing up. ‘It’s a very good one.’
On the way home Liberty drove up behind a car with a sticker in the window saying, ‘Open Your Heart to Jesus!’ The car was driving slowly on the narrow winding road and Liberty stared at the sign mumbling over and over, ‘Open Your Heart to Jesus.’ If only she could. It was obvious that doing that was a bit like opening the door of your home to Mary Poppins. Before you could blink, the innermost corners of your soul were tidied spit-spot and cosily lit, and you were launched on some purposeful activity. Liberty’s friend Margaret was Born Again. She lived in a large Victorian villa in Everton that overflowed with family and friends and spent her holidays with her family in Butlins on special off-season Christian Weeks. Margaret radiated such fulfilment that, though a plain woman, her skin glowed and her eyes sparkled. She had stopped being
scared, stopped wondering where she was going. She said she was being led through life by a strong hand and a comforting voice. For me, Liberty thought as she came to a clear stretch of road and overtook, life is like a deserted freeway leading to somewhere I don’t particularly want to go. ‘Open Your Heart to Jesus!’ She drove into Tollymead, but instead of turning right into River Lane, she continued straight on, across the bridge and up towards the church. At this time on a Sunday afternoon it would be empty. Liberty parked in the small car park and hurried across in the twilight. Once inside she sat down in a side pew. Looking round her to make sure she was alone, she knelt on the stone floor. It felt as if she was kneeling on ice, so she quickly unhooked a prayer cushion and slid it between her and the floor.
She prayed with her eyes shut tight. ‘I’m opening my heart, I really am. Do please come in.’ And she imagined Jesus swooping like a giant cuckoo, filling every available space, pushing out all the doubts and fears and unfulfilled yearnings.
‘Please come,’ she mumbled.
Before her closed eyes came a picture of Oscar sitting on her sofa, his blue eyes fixed on her, all misted over with desire. With one step he crossed the room to her and swept her up in his arms. ‘Oh Liberty, Liberty.’
‘Damn!’
Liberty opened her eyes wide and shocked. Had she really said that, here, in God’s house? She sighed and got up from the floor. She looked across at the altar apologetically. But she felt let down. She had opened her heart to Jesus, but it was Oscar who had crept in.
Twenty-one
‘Goodness and beauty were inextricably linked in the classic fairy tales,’ Liberty was telling her class. And, she thought, I have neither as I sit here gracelessly lusting after my pupil’s husband.
‘Even Beast in “Beauty and the Beast”, to take a topical story, was only ugly as a result of a spell given as a punishment. Once he redeems his character, he becomes physically beautiful as well. An actual physical flaw, like this scar for example,’ she pointed to her cheek, ‘is as sure a way of signalling a correspondingly nasty flaw in the figure’s character as a sign saying “This way for a princess with a nasty character flaw”. Not very subtle, but effective in its day. Now for next week, I’d like you all to write a modern fairy tale, using your own symbolic language.’
Liberty dismissed the class and began clearing up her desk, when she looked up to see Victoria still in the room – And the poor beggar girl gazed in awe at the beautiful Queen. ‘I want your husband,’ the beggar girl spoke, upon which she was immediately struck by lightning—
‘Hi, Victoria, I didn’t see you there.’ Liberty tidied her features into a friendly grin.
‘I just wanted to ask if you would like to come over one night for supper.’
Don’t be nice to me, Liberty thought, I don’t deserve it, you should know that from the scar on my face. She smiled up at Victoria. ‘It’s kind of you to ask but—’
‘Oh come on. It can’t be much fun sitting around on your own every evening. I can’t stand the mentality of some couples who never mix with single people. It doesn’t take much effort to share yourself around a bit, does it? It’s a very eighties thing, that sort of cliquiness. Totally uncaring really. No, honestly, I like to mix with everyone.’
Maybe not so nice after all, Liberty thought, but she said, ‘How very nice. Yes, thank you. I’d love to.’
What is the required dress for husband-stealing? A tasteful covering of tar and chicken feathers? Liberty stood in front of the full-length looking-glass the next evening, regretting the impulse that led her to accept Victoria’s invitation. What would Oscar think of her following him into the sanctuary of his own home with her zebra-crossing arm and failed hopes? She peered at her face in the glass. The concealer she had smeared over the scar was like a plaster on a spot, it only drew attention to the problem. She rubbed some off and turned her attention back to her clothes. She could wear the short black skirt and her treasured ten-year-old black cashmere jumper, oozing ‘classic chic’, then again, it could just say, ‘please forgive me, but I’ve just come from a funeral.’ Of course there was the new, deeply fashionable long, straight grey skirt that made her look dumpy and ten years older. In the end she settled for the black skirt and a white long-sleeved blouse made of lace. She put a vest on underneath; that way she could offend no-one.
Oscar opened the door for her, giving her a big grin. He seemed genuinely glad to see her, but it took Liberty no more than five seconds to decide that his obvious pleasure in seeing her was nothing but the relief of a concerned acquaintance glad to see her back on form. Still, that was how it should be, of course it was.
She followed him into the sitting-room, trying not to look at his bottom. But bottoms were important, of course they were. She had always found slack-bottomed men hard to trust. A slack soul in a slack-bottomed body. But what did it matter to her if he was a man to trust? And a man to be trusted by whom, his wife? If he was, there was even less point in her worrying about the slackness or otherwise of his bottom and soul.
‘I said, what would you like to drink?’ Oscar had stopped by the drinks tray standing on a small table by the window.
‘Oh … sherry, please. Dryish.’ It was not that she particularly liked sherry, but it was a bit like taking visitors from abroad to an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical; the safe option when you did not have the energy to think.
‘Here I am,’ Victoria sauntered in from the kitchen. On her way to sit down next to Liberty she paused to riffle her fingers through Oscar’s fair hair. A little later she got up again to refill the bowl of Japanese rice biscuits that Liberty particularly disliked, but ate several of, so as not to give any cause for annoyance. She left to make a phone call and twice she went to check on the food. Each time as she passed Oscar she rubbed against him or planted a kiss on the top of his head and once she sat down on his knee, rubbing her nose playfully against his.
She’s like a dog marking out its territory, Liberty thought sourly, accepting a second glass of sherry. Oscar kept smiling, but there seemed to Liberty to be an irritated look, like an itch, at the back of his eyes. Now Victoria wanted Oscar to come with her out into the kitchen to help with a heavy saucepan.
He’ll probably return with a tag in his ear like a Steiff bear. Liberty got up from the chair and walked round the sitting-room. It seemed more than ever to be Victoria’s room she decided, with little bits of Oscar here and there as conciliatory gestures. There were the sporting trophies crowding a small shelf in the bookcase, the political biographies amongst the blockbusters and prize-winning novels by fashionable authors. On the wall by the door – you could see it if the door was closed – hung three framed awards, two American and one British, earned for reporting conflicts as far apart as the Falklands, Afghanistan and East Timor. So what on earth had brought this man to Tollymead?
As if summoned by her thoughts, Oscar appeared at her elbow. ‘That’s pretty impressive,’ Liberty said nodding to the wall. ‘You’re a certified clever clogs.’
Oscar laughed, but then he said, ‘It really isn’t my idea to have them displayed like that, but at least they’re hidden most of the time.’
‘She’s proud of you, that’s lovely.’ Liberty turned round to face him.
‘Yes, yes isn’t it,’ Oscar said without conviction. He did not move, nor did Liberty.
We’ve got a minute or so before your wife comes back into the room, so use it, take me in your arms, kiss me, press your body against mine… Looking into Oscar’s melancholy blue eyes she said, ‘It’s nice to be here.’
His eyes brightened. ‘It’s nice to have you here.’
‘Come through!’ Victoria called from the dining hall.
Liberty admired the pale green candles that floated in a large bowl at the centre of the table. Touched, and ashamed of her earlier thoughts, she said, ‘You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.’
‘Oh don’t worry. I did them for a dinner party the other day and they didn’t q
uite burn out.’ Victoria looked pleased as she sat down. Then she looked across at Oscar. ‘What’s the matter?’ She gave a little laugh. ‘What did I say?’
‘Nothing,’ Oscar frowned. ‘I’ll get the bread.’ He got up again.
He walked past Liberty’s chair on his way out to the kitchen and she had to grab her left hand with her right to stop herself from reaching out and touching him. If he was Victoria’s dog or child, she thought, a caress would be perfectly in order. Liberty smiled inanely across the table at her hostess.
‘You’ll be glad to hear I’m working on another story after all,’ Victoria said. ‘Actually I was thinking that I should probably get an agent. Maybe you could introduce me to your old one. If you recommend him, that is.’
Liberty’s smile remained on her face like a guest who did not know when it was time to leave. ‘Would I recommend my old agent? Well yes, I would, he is very highly thought of.’
Oscar returned and Victoria looked at him pleased. ‘Liberty thinks I should try her old agent.’
Oscar looked surprised. ‘That’s very generous of you.’
‘Why?’ Victoria asked. ‘Just because you can’t make use of an opportunity yourself there’s no reason you shouldn’t help someone else to do so, is there Liberty?’
‘No, no of course not. I see it rather like a dying woman passing on her clothes to her friend. I mean, what use are they to her?’
‘There you see,’ Victoria said to Oscar. Oscar looked ill at ease.
Dinner was over and after two cups of coffee Liberty stood up to leave. ‘Do you mind if I leave my car in your drive overnight?’ she asked. ‘I’ve had a bit too much to drink.’
‘I think I have too,’ Oscar said, ‘but I’ll walk you back.’
‘It’s all right, I’ve got a torch in the car. Please don’t worry.’
But Oscar insisted. It was a fine cold night and the air was as high as a cathedral ceiling. It was not a long walk, a little over ten minutes, that was all.
A Rival Creation Page 18