Muriel Pulls It Off

by Susanna Johnston

  She put down the receiver and looked at Hugh who patted Monopoly and whispered, ‘So, old man. That’s our goose cooked.’ Had Monopoly been party to Hugh’s plans?

  The doorbell rang and Hugh, who had walked to the window, announced, ‘Cameramen. Two. Three. No. Hang on. Seven. More than seven.’ Then he ordered, ‘Keep calm now, Muriel. Don’t answer the door. Neither the door nor the telephone.’

  Muriel’s mind gave way to vagueness as she made cups of tea and, from time to time, peered out to where pressmen posted themselves on the doorstep and beyond, while Hugh continued to reassure Monopoly.

  During this time Hugh initiated conversations with the party leader, the party chairman and the secretary of his constituency, each one tense and low-toned. In the midst of this their son, Marco, brushed his way through the gloating crowd outside, let himself in with his own latchkey and joined his parents in the sitting room. He, too, was tall and handsome, and clearly diverted to find his father in the thick of things. He kissed Muriel but then, to her fury and dismay, he turned to Hugh and winked. Hugh leered and winked back. Man to man. It was Hugh’s leer and wink that did it. The doorbell rang mercilessly and Hugh informed Muriel that they must brave the reporters.

  Muriel put on the Chanel suit. It was a trifle too large and a great deal too smart. She mouthed the words ‘trifle too large’ several times for she loved the word ‘trifle’.

  Hugh handed her a written statement. It had been prepared by someone or other and dictated to Hugh down the telephone. He grabbed her by the arm and warned, ‘Now. Remember. That’s all you have to say. Only what’s on the paper. Not a word more. Stick close and smile. Don’t cry - whatever else.’

  She peeked at the paper and caught the gist of her instructions. She was to say that she respected Hugh’s decision to retire from politics; that she loved him; that she stood by him. She looked at Hugh and remembered the leer and the wink. She remembered him ordering her not to cry, whatever else. Whatever else.

  She scrunched the paper and faced her audience. ‘I’d like to kick my fornicating husband in the balls.’

  The crowd could barely believe in its collective good fortune. The whirring, the gasps, the flashing, illuminated and deafened the neighbourhood. Hugh croaked, ‘Muriel. What the hell? Are you mad?’

  Notebooks flapped and filled with words. Pressmen and women ran in all directions jabbering into mouthpieces.

  The next day and for days to follow newspapers and television channels enjoyed the plight of Mr and Mrs Cottle.

  Lizzie came round each morning with yards of proof. One headline read ‘Revenge of Cheated Wife.’ Another ‘Hell knows no fury.’

  Muriel was mortified; mortified, contrite and panic-stricken. Hugh was repentant and furious; furious, as was to be expected, with Miss Ingrid Malone for landing him in it; furious for he had loved his job, and baffled to stupefaction by his wife’s outburst. He was repentant, for he was ashamed of his choice of mistress and sad, for hitherto he had liked Muriel well enough and had appreciated her connections. During these days of repentant fury, apart from offering Muriel cups of tea and talking to ex-colleagues who were too coy to refer to her solecism on the telephone, Hugh burdened her with lamentations and complained of his own worthlessness and of her grotesque lack of judgement.

  The aftermath went on and on. Journalists were tickled by Muriel’s flagrancy but, for the most part, chastised her in their columns. There were, of course, those who championed her. In the main though, they attacked her for having spoken to them at all and she was despondently amused. Their game was to bully and badger for a comment, but upon being dealt one, to round on their informant and to praise only ‘the Dignity of Silence.’

  Mambles was staunch. Lifelong experience had taught her to ignore the media and she refused to discuss the publicity surrounding the scandal; she simply offered views on the facts that lay behind the story.

  ‘Imagine,’ she said, not for the first time, ‘what the King and Mummy went through when Uncle David abdicated.’

  There were others; Marco and his girlfriend, Flavia, who were dumfounded by Muriel’s eccentric behaviour and avoided her until the interest subsided. Marco appeared to side with Hugh and took to meeting him in bars and cafes. Winking, Muriel imagined. Monopoly adopted the same line and usually accompanied his master to the bars and cafes where, more often than not, he was tethered to an outside railing.

  Lizzie’s voice reached a crescendo as she released Muriel from shop duty. ‘For your own sake. Seriously. I do love you, Muriel, I’ll always be your friend but we do all wonder how you can have been so cruel to Hugh. After all…’ Muriel knew that Lizzie sided with men.

  Eventually interest waned and the pain began to settle. Muriel, smarting with shame and wondering what fresh degradation might yet be in store for her, managed to resuscitate affection for her husband during his period of self-pity. Peter listened and cajoled.

  Less than a year after this episode Hugh landed a job at the BBC. Less than a year later he left for South Africa. Rather late in the day Muriel returned the Chanel suit to Lizzie who had forgiven her.

  Now Muriel found herself back upon her front doorstep; a quiet and tranquil step, no longer of interest to the world of watchers. She entered to hear the telephone ringing. The owner of the animated voice introduced herself again. She spoke fast. ‘Please, my dear, don’t ring off. It’s me. Delilah. The rector’s wife at Bradstow. Bradstow. Where your uncle Jerome lives.’

  Muriel shifted on her feet. ‘Look. I’m sorry. I don’t have an uncle Jerome. I don’t have an uncle at all.’

  ‘That’s strange I must say. Muriel Cottle? You are Muriel Cottle aren’t you? His secretary, Sonia, gave me your name and this number as well as the one where I rang you this afternoon. She got them from Jerome’s solicitor who’s a sweetie.’

  Muriel, heeding Mambles’s advice, tested her memory and mustered consecutive thoughts. There was a figure who, at a pinch, might be acknowledged as an uncle and his name was Jerome, she remembered.

  ‘He’s not my uncle. Not quite, but I do know who you might mean.’

  ‘Good. So that’s established. We all think you should put in an appearance down here. He wanders but, of course, you know all this. It’s becoming awkward in the village. He drops in on everyone at all hours – night-time included.’

  Muriel knew nothing, but continued to abide by Mambles’s instinct that she might hear something of interest - and listened.

  ‘Not that we mind. This is a Christian village. Lovely atmosphere in Bradstow. It’s him we’re thinking of, of course. Then he’ll walk to the station, ten miles off, and catch a train. Any old train. He does have a keeper. Phyllis. But, and I hate to speak against any of God’s creatures, we do all wonder if she’s effective.’

  Muriel said, ‘I’m dreadfully sorry, really I am, but I’ve never met him. He was married to a cousin of my mother’s I think. That is, if it’s him. She died. My mother died. I assumed that he’d died too.’

  ‘There’s nobody else and we think you should come. You’re to get the estate by all accounts. Gorgeous place. We’re all dying to meet you. Dawson - my husband, he’s considerably older than me, but you probably knew that - is retiring shortly and we’re hoping to buy this rectory. The church will be selling it off. There isn’t going to be another rector here you see. Bradstow is going in with Westrey, but more of that when we meet.’

  Jerome and Alice Atkins. Muriel recalled her mother clearing her throat as she spoke of Aunt Alice. ‘I’m afraid, dear, that my cousin Alice is not very satisfactory.’

  Muriel, in her teens, pressing for details, asked, ‘Why? What’s wrong with her?’ Her mother, close to royalty, drew back.

  ‘You’re old enough now, dear, I suppose. It has been hinted that she has always preferred ladies to gentlemen.’

  ‘What about him? Her husband?’

  ‘Oh dear. It’s said that Jerome’s as bad. Different, of course, but just as bad. Prefers, if one
can believe it, the gentlemen to the ladies.’

  After that she had recoiled into discretion and the unorthodox couple was not mentioned. Occasional barbed mumbles about a tantalising house in Lincolnshire had entered topographical conversation. Little more.

  Muriel’s interest was aroused and before ringing off she made a date to lunch with Dawson, Rector of Bradstow, and his wife Delilah, the very next day.

  Delilah had promised to take her to meet the barmy old boy after lunch. Visit over, they were to return to the rectory to discuss his future and the complications to which his behaviour gave rise in the old-world village. The incomparable beauty spot, Delilah insisted, had once belonged to the neighbouring county - before the interference of a certain Mr Walker. The shock at the time had been dreadful but, she underlined, ‘It takes all sorts and I daresay he had his reasons.’

  Monopoly nestled close; writhing and wriggling. She dialled Peter’s number. ‘Look. It’s me. Can you keep an eye on Monopoly for me tomorrow?’ No sooner had she spoken than she regretted her words. Peter understood and laughed. ‘I’ll certainly look after the brute if you like. Why? What’s up?’

  ‘Listen. I had a sort of lesbian aunt who married a poof and they lived - he still does, she’s dead - somewhere in Lincolnshire.’ She explained about Dawson and Delilah and Mr Walker and Jerome catching trains. He was much amused. ‘And listen. Can you ring Lizzie for me? Say that I can’t go to the shop tomorrow. Don’t let on. She’d go berserk if she thought I was going to inherit anything - however foul.’ Peter agreed to everything and said that he anticipated her return with eagerness.

  Muriel wallowed in her bath; failed to answer the telephone when it rang and thought instead of what awaited her in Lincolnshire.

  Chapter 2

  She entered the village of Bradstow, ‘No shop,’ she said to herself as she looked from left to right. Slowing down with a jolt, Muriel peered through the spikes of an iron gateway and up an ilex-lined avenue to an Elizabethan house that made her heart ache with ignominious desire. But no. It was too far-fetched. She drove on past a pretty church and over a cattle grid that led to a row of ancient almshouses beyond which, she guessed, lay the rectory and beyond that the village school. She had seen a sign reading ‘To the School’, all but obscured by a chestnut tree that had earlier flowered, she was later to learn, in salmon-pink.

  The gabled, red-brick rectory was easy to recognise. Delilah had provided her with impeccable instructions and stood with Dawson on the doorstep, both looking as though they had been rooted there all morning. Without advance admonition it would have been clear to

  Muriel that Dawson was older by several decades than Delilah, who was not without a certain glamour. Curls and teeth; rather a coup for the dilapidated Dawson. Hands were clasped, then Delilah led her guest into the house which was very splendid. Muriel suspected Delilah of being an heiress (like herself?), what with hoping to buy the rectory upon Dawson’s retirement. Dawson was dingy.

  ‘We’re glad to have got you here - aren’t we Dawson?’

  ‘Certainly are.’ Dawson’s yellow eyes swivelled as he planned to pull his weight. In he plunged. ‘In church too. That’s been one of the problems. Disrupts the services. Throws the hymnbooks around and so on. Then he makes full use of that stick of his. Of course, we’re very broad-minded people here. You could call him a law unto himself. We brew our own beer by the way. Would you care to sample it? We get the kit over at Blueton.’

  Delilah held up a hand. ‘Later dear. We’re here, or rather Muriel is, to talk about Jerome. Christian names only by the way. It’s a rule of the village.’

  Christ. What a pickle, Muriel thought, but said, ‘The trouble is that I don’t know him. Actually, we’re not even related.’

  ‘Never mind that. You’re here and we’ll see what we can do.’

  They lunched off silver, mahogany and sparkling glass as the conversation sped.

  ‘He should be in a home but that’s up to you. I believe that there are some arrangements already in the making, awaiting your sanction. There’s a lovely one at Shifford. Gorgeous matron. Just beside the church. We’re already booked to go there. Well. Dawson first. We have no desire to be a burden on our children. Two boys. Do you have a family?’

  Delilah did not enquire precisely as to the existence of a husband so Muriel replied, ‘Yup. One boy. He’s gone, really. Married I mean.’ Earlier that year Marco had, to an accompaniment of maternal anxiety, married Flavia. She dwelt for a painful moment on the image of her son and daughter-in-law and their lazy pub-crawling ways.

  Marco had been a bright boy, pleasing teachers and passing examinations. Even at nursery school he had excelled himself and enjoyed popularity. Love inundated her as she remembered standing amongst other mothers waiting for their children to burst from the door. She swept Marco into her arms and into the car. She smelled the heat of his cheeks and the softness of his hair, now dusty and thin.

  Delilah waved her arms, teeth glimmering, buttons popping. ‘I’m sure your boy would never have you say he’d gone. One never loses them. You do have a sense of humour. Are you artistic? I said to Dawson after talking to you on the telephone that you would be a kindred spirit. Can I ask you this?’ Leaning forward, ‘Are you a churchgoer?’

  ‘I enjoy it when I can.’

  Muriel would have liked to have been warmer, kinder, to have given more pleasure to the rector’s wife, but a lonely hopelessness held her back. That, tinged with apprehension too, for no matter how capable of broad-mindedness the inhabitants of Bradstow, it was unlikely that the elasticity of their minds would stretch to the extent of absorbing Hugh’s philander with Miss Ingrid Malone or of condoning Muriel’s public and wayward reaction to it. The past was certain to catch up with her for the place was unlikely to be devoid of inmates with a memory for scandal.

  Delilah, although ignorant of Muriel’s fears, filed away a thousand warnings with which to bombard her when, later, the two women walked through the village alongside a bulging wall that hid the mysterious property from view. Bradstow Manor was the only large house for miles around and commanded local awe - as, Muriel was later to find out, did the head teacher, the Member for Lincoln, and a tall folly that reigned high on the distant horizon.

  The pair stood on a white-splattered porch where house martins nested in the spring and early summer. Delilah tugged at a brass hanging bell.

  ‘I expect Sonia will let us in,’ she whispered. ‘She’s a bit of a loner. Won’t socialise in the village, which is a shame. Not even the Harvest Supper. We’ve done our best to include her.’ The door was opened by a pixie-like person who could not have measured more than four foot high, although she was built to proportion. Her eyes were held widely open and her unseasonably thick clothes fitted snugly as she stared at Muriel but spoke not a word.

  As the group reformed in a busily-furnished hall, Muriel was hit by a tinge of mustiness in the air that told of ancient wood and ancient occupants. At first glance it was an irresistibly irregular house with bountiful provision for extra passages, of even older rooms leading off them in unexpected places - each twist offering an impression of familiarity. In fact, this was not strictly true but it reminded her of something, something she had heard described, or maybe read about. She was reasonably sure that it was not from visual nostalgia that she suffered.

  Persian rugs lay piled one upon another. Beams, angles, darkness and light caught Muriel’s eye at every twist. A kaleidoscope of witch’s balls, tapestries, portraits, plants, pots and piano legs jammed the hall; each object absurdly desirable. It was, indeed, the very house that she had seen when first arriving in the village.

  At the back of the hall a dark oak Elizabethan staircase rose through two floors, as far as she could see. Its immense newel-posts strained towards each other. Maybe one day they would meet. The steps were broad and shallow; the whole construction sturdy beneath arcading and balustrade.

  Delilah engaged the poor-spirited Sonia in conversa
tion as Muriel stared out through a stone-mullioned window to a walnut tree where squirrels seethed and a number of longhaired cats watched from a tufty grass circle. At some recent time the walnut tree had been hacked very nearly to death and stubby branches protruded from the top of the trunk, telling of man’s interference.

  Sonia said, ‘It’s coming in a minute.’

  ‘So soon?’ Delilah smiled showing gum.

  ‘It had to coincide with Mrs Cottle’s visit.’

  Muriel turned to face them, wishing to understand what unnerving part she played in the lives of these strangers as an arched door to the left of the staircase opened and a wheelbarrow, piled high with logs, appeared.

  Strange to be burning logs, Muriel thought. It was the hottest day of a hot summer. A man was pushing the barrow; very bent with thin, grey, shoulder-length hair, his shirt open and his trousers baggy.

  Delilah broke away from Sonia. ‘Here’s Dulcie. Dulcie, this is Muriel. You know. The one who is going to take charge.’

  An appalling noise came from Dulcie’s mouth. ‘About time too.’ She glinted through bifocals at the floor.

  ‘He set his bed alight this morning - and another thing. I’m fed up with bringing in the blocks. He insists on a fire any time of year. Lost touch with the seasons.’

  She simply cannot be a she, Muriel agitated, turning again to the walnut tree. Following Muriel’s glance, Dulcie advised, ‘Yes. You’d do well to cut it down and plant another. That tree was saved by the skin of its teeth, and I mean it. Dangerous. They did their best, but if you ask me, it’s had its chips and if you don’t get weaving on another you’ll bring the whole lot of us bad luck.’

  Muriel made up her mind to hack it down and plant another within the week as she attempted to understand the intricacies of ownership. Would she, should events run smoothly, verily possess that sorry object? Was every nut hidden in its stubby branches on the eve of becoming hers?

  ‘Good job you’ve come,’ continued Dulcie. ‘We could do with more pet food. Him what used to fetch it has stopped coming - cheques or no cheques. Couldn’t cope with his Lordship any longer.’