‘Stuff and nonsense,’ says Beatrice, apropos nothing. ‘In my day we just got on with it. Didn’t make all this fuss.’
No-one responds. Mary sips her Earl Grey. Rufus snatches a handful of sliced bread and slathers Tesco Value butter over it.
I’m stupid and rise to the bait. ‘There’s a fair body of evidence,’ I tell her, ‘that massage can help a lot in terms of pain. And getting ready for childbirth. I wouldn’t go just knocking it for the sake of scoring a point.’
She throws me a look that would freeze mud. Turns her face away and addresses the fireplace. ‘I suppose that this is all one can expect if one brings staff to the table,’ she says.
I give up. Give her my most charming smile. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Beatrice?’ I ask.
She pretends – actually pretends – she hasn’t heard me. It’s like sharing a table with a six-year-old.
I raise my eyebrows. Pour Rufus a cup of tea and one for myself.
‘I should like a cup of tea, if it’s not too much trouble for you, Rufus,’ says Beatrice with more than a hint of reprimand.
Rufus pours her one.
‘D’you want milk with that?’ I ask.
No reply. I sling some in anyway. Slide it over.
Beatrice pretends, after a few seconds, to notice it with surprise, as though it’s turned up by magic. Takes a sip. Pulls a face like she’s just been given a cup of hemlock. I wish. She lays it down, pushes it away.
‘Is that not right, Granny?’
‘Never mind,’ says Beatrice.
Rufus heaves a sigh. He seems to have been doing a lot of that, lately. Adjusting his napkin in his lap, he speaks. ‘OK. Would someone mind letting me in on what’s going on?’
Edmund heaves a sigh and turns a page. ‘Bloody socialists,’ he says. ‘Destroying the country.’
I think Edmund is probably completely unaware that there’s such a thing as an atmosphere.
Rufus waits for an answer. Breaks a piece of bread and wraps it round some kipper. ‘Well, it’s obvious something’s going on. I mean, I know you’re all capable of amazing rudeness, but this ignoring-Melody-altogether thing takes the biscuit, even for you.’
I’ve never heard him talk like this before. My nape prickles with the thrill of it. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.
Mary sips her tea, glances at him. Says nothing.
‘Granny?’ asks Rufus.
She’s silent for a bit. Eventually, she says: ‘If you don’t know, you should.’
Rufus slaps a hand down on the table-top. ‘Well, if no-one will say, how am I supposed to know? I’m not a bloody mind-reader.’
‘Rufus!’ says Mary. ‘Please! No swearing at breakfast.’
Beatrice pulls a face that makes me hope for a second that her teeth have come loose and are about to slip down her throat.
‘I’m getting really sick of this,’ says Rufus. ‘Can’t you try to be civilised?’
‘Well,’ says Mary, ‘I didn’t notice that I was swearing at the breakfast table.’
‘If you don’t talk to me, I’m going to swear a bloody lot more.’
Edmund lowers his paper. ‘Rufus,’ he says. Raises it back up again.
Rufus sighs. ‘OK. Granny, you seem to be the one with the biggest snit on. What is your problem?’
Beatrice comes over all dowager duchess.
‘I will not discuss family matters in front of your …’
‘My what? Melody is family matters. I’m not having her shut out. If there’s a problem, I—’
Beatrice responds sharply, spitefully. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me in that tone of voice! You’re the one who has caused this problem. You and your … you bring your … doxies into the house and expect to get away with it?’
‘What are you talking about?’
She flicks a hand at me. ‘Your mistress. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I know I’m old, but I’m not stupid. I’m not blind.’
‘Well, actually,’ I say, ‘you are.’
It doesn’t help, of course. Rufus says: ‘Christ, Melody! Don’t you have an ounce of tact?’ Mary says: ‘Rufus! I asked you not to swear!’ and Beatrice, voice shrill like a hand blender, shouts: ‘I want her out of here! Out of my house! I don’t care what you say! Pay her her notice and tell her to leave!’
‘What the f—’ I quickly correct myself – ‘on earth are you talking about?’
Suddenly, she’s glaring at me, meeting my eye for the first time this morning. There’s nothing little-old-lady about her now. I’m looking into the emotionless eyes of a boa constrictor. ‘And where did you get the impression you could call me by my Christian name? I don’t expect to be talked to like that by my staff. And especially not by a … a kept woman.’
‘Granny!’ protests Rufus.
‘Oh, get over yourself,’ I snarl.
‘Don’t speak to me!’ she snarls back. ‘Don’t speak to me at all!’
‘Granny!’ he shouts again.
‘Get out! Get her out of here! Go on! Get out!’
I slap my napkin down. ‘It’s OK. I’m leaving.’
‘Mel!’
‘No, Rufus. I’ve had enough.’ The strain of having kept a grip on my emotions over the past few weeks gets to be too much, forces tears into the back of my throat. ‘Nothing’s going to make these people happy. I can try till I’m blue in the face and they’ll just keep throwing up new things to beat me up with. It’s just one bloody thing after a-bloody-nother. Well, fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all. I’ll see you later.’
He’s torn. Knows he’s not going to get anything sorted out if he comes after me.
‘Wait,’ he says.
I shake my head. ‘I’m sorry. I’m too angry.’
‘I’ll …’ he says. ‘Look. I’ve got to get this … I’ll come and find you.’
‘Whatever,’ I snap, and stalk out of the room.
I pull the door to just as Rufus explodes.
Chapter Thirty-Six
A Bit of a Rub-Down
Tilly’s sparko on her side in the library, on a chaise longue whose bottom is a mass of protruding horsehair. It’s got the look of mice about it. No doubt they’ve never been culled because they were recorded as living there in the Domesday Book and they’re traditional. She’s covered herself up with a motheaten mohair, and hugs her bump like a teddy-bear. Django, tail thumping, grins at me from where’s he’s perched along the length of her body. I’m not sure who’s relying on whom for body heat here, suspect it might be symbiotic.
Instincts fine-honed, she starts awake the moment I enter the room, tries to look alert – I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a pregnant lady trying to look alert, but it doesn’t work too good – and then, seeing that it’s me, drops her head back down on a cushion and blinks instead.
‘You gave me a fright,’ she says. ‘For a horrible moment I thought you might be Mary come to tell me I shouldn’t be moping.’
‘No worries,’ I tell her. ‘I thought you might like that rub-down.’
‘A rub-down and no lectures.’ Tilly’s voice is uncharacteristically blissful. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer. Get off, dog.’ Django thumps his tail again, remains steadfast on his mistress’s well-covered hipbone. His tongue lolls downward as his grin widens. Tilly pushes at him. ‘Bloody hell,’ she says, ‘he’s got me trapped like a kipper.’
‘Please don’t talk about kippers,’ I beg her. ‘I think those ones of Mrs Roberts’s will be with me till next week.’
I grab Django by the scruff – Wattestone dogs don’t have collars, as the chances of them wandering off Wattestone land are slim – and haul. Every muscle in his body goes limp. Suddenly, he weighs roughly the same as a baby elephant. Even the dogs are passive-aggressive.
‘Christ, girl,’ I tell her, ‘I think you’re trapped for life.’
Tilly groans. I insinuate my free arm between the dog and my sister-in-law’s swollen abdomen, and lift the unresponsive form on to the floor, give her a hand, an
d with three heaves we get her upright.
‘Bit of a palaver, this pregnancy thing.’
‘Really,’ she says, ‘don’t do it. Ever.’
‘Got to be done, I guess.’
‘The sooner they can grow them in Kilner jars, the happier I’ll be,’ she says. ‘A stomach like a laundry bag, veins like road maps, piles like chicken droppings. Men don’t know how lucky they are.’
‘What was that you were reading there?’
She reaches down and picks her book off the floor where she’s dropped it. Flips it over to reveal The Well of Loneliness.
‘Never read it. Any good?’
‘Not really. I thought it was meant to be about lesbians, but it just seems to be about wanting to wear trousers and breed horses. I don’t know, maybe it’s a metaphor. Instant soporific, mind you. I’ll take it up with me tonight and guarantee myself some kip. So how do we go about this, then?’
‘Tell you what. You sit at the end with your feet on the floor and I’ll get behind you.’
‘It’s a bit like a Carry On film, isn’t it? Do I need to take anything off, Matron?’
‘Not a lot. Maybe just the top three layers or so.’
‘Lucky,’ she says, obeying, ‘it’s not winter yet.’
Oh hell. And there was me thinking that Christmas was the deep midwinter. There’s only a few days to go, after all.
I kneel up behind her on the chaise, and start warming her back up with an all-over rub. It’s not easy. Corduroy tends to snag, if you’ve not exfoliated your palms lately. I run through the choice of hairdresser-style small talk in my head. Been anywhere nice lately? How’s work? Lovely weather. Got any holidays lined up?
None of them seems particularly appropriate. So I say: ‘Jesus, girl, you’ve got a back like a board. When was the last time anyone had a go at it?’
This is the equivalent of asking who was responsible for the state of your client’s hair. It either makes them apologetic, and therefore putty in your hands, or confused, which has a similar effect.
‘Never,’ says Tilly. ‘It’s not the sort of thing we do much of around here.’
‘Have you been cricking your neck at all?’
Tilly nods. ‘Like an eight-gun salute, three times a day. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it.’
‘I guess I must have mistaken them for real gunshots.’
‘Ha ha.’
I roll up my sleeves, lay my forearms either side of her spine and start rocking.
‘Oh, lovely,’ says Tilly. ‘Ah, God, that feels nice.’
I realise, with a glum little twist, that this is probably the most kindly human contact she’s had in ages. Poor girl. Tilly must have been crying her eyes out for months in the isolation of her room, then getting up and washing her face, because Wattestone women don’t indulge in unnecessary displays of emotion. I’m not sure whether to broach the subject. Hopefully her tongue’ll loosen with her muscles. Otherwise, I might give her a bit of cranial.
‘So,’ she asks, ‘have you found out what the old people are in a tizz about yet?’
‘Oh, yeah. You won’t believe it. I don’t believe it myself. Your gran’s only decided that I’m Rufus’s mistress. She wants me horsewhipped from the property.’’
I feel her tense beneath my arms, then she starts to laugh. ‘Stop! Stop! I have to sit up!’
I cease, and Tilly lets her head fall back against her shoulders. She is shaking with mirth. ‘I d-d-d that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in ages!’
‘Not so bloody funny for me.’
She laughs a bit more.
‘I mean, I don’t get it,’ I say, resuming. ‘How come people can’t just tell her? It’s got to sink in eventually.’
‘Granny’s mind is a weird amalgamation of sponge and granite,’ says Tilly. ‘She soaks up all the tiny nuances of everyday life, but the big picture just washes straight over her. It’s partly because she’s a bit gaga with her age, but it’s just as much that if she simply denies the existence of something that doesn’t suit her, she can usually make it not exist. And if you try to force things, she’ll have a whoosh-dada to end all whoosh-dadas. You saw what she was like this morning?’
‘Hard to miss.’
‘Well, imagine that, multiplied by ten, and going on till the middle of next year. Believe me, you don’t want to get on Granny’s bad side. Nobody does. That’s how come,’ she clears her throat, then mentions the elephant in the corner, ‘they can all convince themselves that she’ll never find out about Hugo. Because it would be so much easier if she didn’t.’
So there we go: it’s out in the open. I make sure I don’t break my rhythm.
‘I was wondering about that. Do you want to tell me about it? I don’t want to – you know …’
A huge sigh. ‘Nothing to tell, really,’ she says, and the strangled little Kristin Scott-Thomas voice is back. ‘Just one of those things … I married a shit and he’s running true to his personality.’
If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s that there’s no point in pushing someone who doesn’t want to be pushed. You’re more likely to make them angry than to help them out.
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I tell her. ‘You know, if there’s anything I can do …’
‘You’re doing it.’ She pushes back against my elbow, and the lump does a crunch, dissolves. ‘Hunnh,’ she says. ‘To be honest, this is the most anyone has done in months.’
I start on the lump’s twin on the other side. We’re quiet for a bit, reflecting. Then she says: ‘Well, that’s what you get for making a suitable marriage.’
‘You weren’t to know, Tilly. Nobody really knows.’
‘I did,’ she says. ‘God, everybody in the world knew that Hugo was a bolter.’
‘So why did you marry him, then?’
‘Because I’m stupid. Because I’m wet. Because I was thirty-four, and nobody else had asked me, and I felt a failure, and I saw the way Granny and Mary despise all the local spinsters and I didn’t want to have to cope with the fact that they were starting to look at me the same way. And Granny thought he was marvellous. He’s the grandson of one of her oldest friends, you know.’
‘Jesus. You lot might as well live in a trailer park, the way you intermarry.’
‘Well, you know what they say about the upper classes and the working classes …’
‘Yes, and you know that’s just so much bull cooked up by the upper classes to avoid getting their heads cut off.’
She laughs again.
‘So you married this guy to keep your nana happy?’
She doesn’t answer. Then, in a small voice: ‘Well, I’ve got my reward now, haven’t I?’
‘I don’t think that’s quite how I’d put it,’ I say. ‘I’m really, really sorry, Tilly. You must feel awful.’
I’ve got the heels of my hands either side of her nape, pressing in and out like a happy cat. There’s no give at all. It’s like kneading teak. ‘So what are you going to call it,’ I ask, ‘when it’s born?’
‘I thought Henry if it’s a boy. Lucy if it’s a girl.’
‘Lucy’s good.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Henry’s a bit … smoking jacket, isn’t it?’
Tilly laughs again. ‘You’re a blast,’ she says. ‘It’s another family name. My grandfather. And countless others before him.’
‘Lucy’s not, though?’
There’s a slight pause. ‘No. Not a Wattestone name, no. It’s—’
The door bursts open and Rufus stands there. ‘Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
‘Oh, right,’ I say. ‘Well, here I am.’
‘You do look odd, you two. Like a pair of dogs humping on a lawn.’
‘Nice image. What can we do you for?’
‘Um, well, um …’
‘Spit it out.’
‘Granny wants to talk to you,’ he says. ‘I think she’s finally got the message and wants to welcome you to the family
or something.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Barbara Cartland
Beatrice is waiting for me in the brown study. Nessa is still getting her settled in, propping her into an ancient office chair behind the desk with the aid of half a dozen cushions and, I dare say, some hidden ropes. She’s got the chair set at the highest notch, doubtless in an effort to be intimidating (there’s a footstool placed pointedly on my side of the desk, bless it), and her feet dangle three inches from the floor. Nessa winks at me. I maintain a poker face, but look her straight in the eye for a full two seconds.
‘There you go, Mrs Wattestone,’ she says. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘No, that will be all,’ says Beatrice imperiously.
‘Okey-dokey,’ says Nessa. ‘Fair enough.’
Once she’s gone, Beatrice raises her chins and says: ‘Would you care to take a seat, Miss Kalamata?’
I don’t bother correcting her. I mean, in a way she’s got it right. Miss. Ms. It’s a minefield of my own creation. I fetch a proper armchair from where they’re lined up by the wall. ‘So. I gather you’ve something to say to me.’
Beatrice is dressed to kill today. She wears a floaty chiffon dress-and-coat combo in mint, which loosely swaddles her old-lady undergarments. They must be made of pressed steel, because anything that can pummel a sack of marshmallows into human form must be pretty robust. Her face has been whitewashed, and her eyes drawn in with thick black pencil, false eyelashes like pipe cleaners glued to the pinky lids, a crinkly line of marmalade greasepaint slicked across what remains of her lips and bleeding up into the cracks like candlewax. It’s the sort of look that has courtiers dropping to their knees, mumbling about vibrancy and vivaciousness. To me it looks like a couple of bats have lost their echo-sounding equipment and run slap into a factory wall.
She’s topped it all off with a hat. In a darker shade of green than the dress, it’s a confection of silk laurel leaves. Beatrice has an entire wheel-in closet full of hats, all lined up on polystyrene heads whose facial features have been coloured in crudely with crayon, next to her room in the neo-Gothic wing. I stumbled across it once and thought for a moment that I’d unlocked the door to Bluebeard’s cupboard and found the heads of Rufus’s previous wives.
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