Muriel Pulls It Off

by Susanna Johnston

  The rectory party watched Treasures of the Deep, ate sardines on toast and drank both hot chocolate and plonk. The combination made Muriel queasy.

  She thought of Peter and Hugh; of Marco and Flavia. She thought of HRH Princess Matilda. There were others; Lizzie, and more besides.

  Chapter 3

  After breakfast Muriel visited Arthur. He wagged a dumpling finger at her and she wondered why Delilah labelled him a ‘sweetie’. She listened intermittently as he outlined a series of confusing alternatives. ‘I think it would be advisable for you to move in there as soon as possible. We’ll get this power of attorney thing going. Of course a lot depends on the old boy’s life span. Dulcie will continue to search high and low for some letter that she has a bee in her bonnet about but - worry not! Jerome never actually denied having been given one but refused to be forthcoming. Meanwhile the years have slipped by.’

  That day Muriel did not call in at the house. Nor did she visit Jerome. Instead, and guiltily, she rang the doctor from the lawyer’s office and learnt that her uncle was calm. As she drove to London some of Arthur’s words revisited her. ‘Hope he lives for seven years. Have to see exactly how much land there is. Some could be sold off if necessary.’ There had been talk of farmland and property in the town. Perhaps she owned the nursing home.

  As she drew up outside her front door she said to herself, ‘By hook or by crook I’ll do it.’ She had needed to hold a card or two in her hands. This palaver amounted to a pack.

  Within an hour Peter had returned the dog. She could have done without Monopoly who, as usual, acted as though hell-bent on tormenting her but was delighted to see Peter.

  ‘How was it?’ he asked. Muriel was stretched out in an armchair, smoking. She cracked her knuckles, then ran through the encounters, pausing to answer questions.

  When the whole had been fully recounted, when Peter had shown sympathy and interest, their colloquy converted into familiar silence before he left her

  Later, as she missed the peace of Peter’s company, the telephone rang but she didn’t answer it. Her head was full and she guessed it was Marco; either him or Princess Matilda. She wondered when and how to break the news to her son. After Hugh’s departure he had swung back towards his mother. He tugged at her love. Her tidiness soothed his restlessness and Ellen washed his clothes without complaint. Flavia had no knack for domesticity. Their council flat, underground and further down the King’s Road than Muriel and Peter’s houses, was disorderly. Flavia, somehow, had wangled a lease on it some years before Marco moved in with her. She exploited Muriel’s girlishness and borrowed brooches and outfits. In short, the pair had come to depend on her and the sporadic use of her purse. The arrangement suited Muriel and filled gaps.

  She wondered whether to tell Hugh; worried, too, about what to say to Princess Matilda. Things were not yet definite enough for celebration. Suffering an urge to telephone Hugh in Johannesburg, Muriel dithered. The challenges and confusions ahead were formidable but, on the whole, she decided that she preferred to meet them alone. Although, she predicted crossly, Flavia was certain to be full of suggestions as to how to tart the place up before allowing her to glory in the pride of ownership. Again the telephone rang. She answered and Marco spoke quickly,

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  Muriel did not touch upon events; merely mentioned that she was tired and that she would ring him in the morning. As she flopped, she pictured her son saying to his wife, ‘Poor old bag.’

  The house seemed dreadfully cramped as she searched for a pen and planned to draft a letter to Hugh thinking, as she fretted, of the Bradstow garden; glimpses of a ruin and a stream beyond. Magic that she had not had the time or the nerve to investigate.

  ‘Dear Hugh. I wonder how you are. She didn’t. Not at present. Sorry not to have written sooner but things have taken an unexpected turn. You may remember (not that I did - or barely) my mother hinting at an Aunt Alice. Alice and Jerome Atkins. Well. It turns out that I am his heir. Alice is dead and Jerome has gone barmy. He’s in a bin. The house, Bradstow Manor, is of archetypal beauty. It’s idyllic; stuffed with goodies. Oh Hugh’… She stopped writing and scrunched the page, as she had done on the day of the crisis, then threw it into the waste-paper basket under her writing table. ‘Can’t be fished,’ she said to herself as she prepared for bed.

  She didn’t sleep - for thoughts of Hugh annoyed her. After hunting for a pen and pad she began to write and continued to do so for most of the night. In the morning, before throwing her scrawls away, she read some parts of them.

  ‘I hear from Hugh so seldom. His first letter had an impact but, since that, I’ve barely bothered to read any others. Still. I’ve kept them. I can’t sleep. I’ll read that first one - just to remind myself. Hugh writes in bold italics. He learnt to do it at school and the very sight of those spiky letters bugs me. I propped myself up and let my eyes run over the whole before tackling the letter in detail. It arrived soon after he left for Johannesburg. The paper bears the heading of a smart hotel. He didn’t say that he stayed there but gave a PO address. Perhaps he pinched the paper.

  “My dear Muriel. As you see I haven’t yet found suitable accommodation but work goes well and colleagues are congenial. I can’t help wondering how you and Monopoly are. Marco, too, of course. I sincerely believe that it’s better, at this stage, for you to stay in London to keep an eye on both of them. Monopoly needs love and exercise.” My blood boiled. I remembered first reading this at a point when I actually loathed Monopoly. The letter went on.

  “Marco, too, needs both but, I fear, takes little of the latter. Apropos of which I have joined a surfing club out here. That and a gym. The climate is excellent and, all in all, Johannesburg is a good place to live in. For a man, that is. I’m not sure that women get too much of an innings out here. Money is tight. I’m sorry, Muriel, that I’ve been unable to do anything in that line for you or for Marco. I know how you treasure your little bit of independence and I know how you enjoy a challenge.”

  How dare he? Enjoy my own bit of money? Where the hell would I be without it?

  Enjoy a challenge? Does he suggest that I actually enjoy taking his dog for walks? That I enjoy keeping an eye on his feckless son? Hugh is dreadful. Deceitful and mingy to boot. I didn’t read any more but turned out the light and brooded. Try though I did to concentrate on Hugh, on his faults and, where possible, on his better points, his image transformed meekly into that of Peter. Peter, whom I daren’t admit I love.’

  In the morning Muriel deemed it too early to ring Marco, and occupied herself with other trifles. As we know, she adored the word ‘trifle’.

  It was after eleven when a rattled Marco shouted down the line, ‘What happened to you? Me and Flavia can’t make out what’s going on. What about tonight?’

  ‘Tonight. Oh dear. I’ve promised it to Mambles.’

  Marco, normally gratified by his mother’s link with royalty, on this occasion, became belligerent. ‘OK then. When do we meet?’

  ‘Monday. I’ll ring you this evening before I go out.’

  Marco said to Flavia, ‘What’s going on? Not one single whinge about father. No hurry to see us either. She’s got HRH tonight but what about tomorrow?’

  Flavia pouted. ‘Trying to be interesting. Smothering your Uncle Peter. Tormenting that poor dog. I don’t know.’

  There was no doubt that the change of circumstances had knitted around her a layer of protection. She left Chelsea in her black Fiat Panda and headed for the grace and favour complex where her lifelong spinster friend resided, alone but for her Corgi, Jubilee, and a handful of crabbed servants no longer considered brisk enough for Buckingham Palace. Secretaries, detectives and chauffeurs came and went during day hours, but Mambles was only allocated spare ladies-in-waiting for formal occasions.

  Muriel was known at the kiosk. ‘Good evening Mrs Cottle. Through you go.’ A charming man smiled as he waved her past the barrier. She was on a strip of private road driv
ing along an avenue of limes.

  ‘Miraculous for the heart of London,’ she said to herself for the umpteenth time. There came a bend where she rounded to the right and stopped in a cobbled courtyard where the Queen Mother’s minibus stood parked outside the front door of Princess Margaret’s special apartment. Muriel couldn’t remember how she had come by the information that the shiny new minibus was the property of her friend’s mother, but the fact lay lodged in her head as she parked beside it and then wobbled over the cobbles to Mambles’s front door.

  She rang the bell.

  Upon the instant both a relegated maid and Mambles opened the door. To be accurate, the maid saw to the actual opening but Mambles stood as close as space allowed. Although encouraged by the warmth of the welcome, Muriel felt giddy for she knew that, during the evening, she would have to tell Princess Matilda of the changes looming in her life. And how, she screamed in silence, would Mambles cope with such tidings? Mambles revelled in being the giver of gifts although these offerings were, by and large, disappointing. Neither did she care for the turning of tables, any more than did Lizzie or others among Muriel’s friends. Peter was different.

  Dodging the maid, the two women walked through the hall; Muriel having dropped a curtsey. Notwithstanding the countless times she had performed this ritual Muriel always experienced consternation beforehand. The golden rule, she knew, was to move one leg a pace backwards in preparation. This had to be achieved simultaneously with a forward lean and the planting of a kiss on the royal cheek. She was always tempted by the same urge; to put one foot in front of the other – causing a collision - particularly when greeting Mambles’s mother. However, today all went well.

  Princess Matilda had a tendency to walk lackadaisically with her feet turned in, but that evening she moved quite normally. When she was lit up or excited her gait posed no problem. She had inherited many of the characteristics of her Scandinavian ancestors.

  Considerably taller than either of her sisters, Mambles was thickset, with legs like columns, and she wore her silvery hair loose and straight; always shining. Her eyes were brown and hard; her lips thin and cracked.

  She spoke petulantly and with waspishness. ‘Did you see Mummy’s minibus? It’s been lent to Princess Margaret for the evening to take a group to the music hall. You know how she still loves the bright lights.’

  Heralded by the maid they walked through the marbled hall to a large square room. It was comfortably furnished and looked onto well-watered gardens. The maid drifted away, and before they sat down side by side Princess Matilda poured strong drinks.

  Jubilee took his place at the feet of his mistress, slobbering through a clamped mouth, whilst Monopoly, as was his custom, remained in Muriel’s car.

  Muriel abhorred this side-by-side arrangement; the proximity caused her to fidget and she preferred to converse face to face. Ice swam in neat vodka as each woman raised a heavy glass. The Princess complained, ‘I rang you, well, one of my helpers did, at least twenty times. Why didn’t you leave a message?’

  Muriel noticed that her friend was running to fat and that her body creaked, whalebone giving in rhythm with sipping. She was about to reply when she looked across to the piano upon which, in prominent display, stood a silver-framed, up-to-the-minute photograph of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

  ‘Lovely photograph of Queen Elizabeth.’

  ‘Yes. Mummy.’ Princess Matilda unswervingly referred to her elder sisters as the Queen and Princess Margaret but when it came to Queen Elizabeth her voice uttered the one word ‘Mummy’.

  ‘Poor Mummy. It was taken for her ninetieth. They’ve been organising a rehearsal for her funeral. I think it’s horrid. Had you heard? I’ve had a row with the Queen and Princess Margaret refuses to talk about it. Knows which side her bread is buttered.’

  She smiled as Muriel turned to face her. ‘Both the Queen and John Major said it had to be done, and I daresay Norma had a hand in it - so there we go.’

  She smoked as her glass emptied. ‘A little top up?’Muriel put her hand over the glass and said, ‘Sorry. I’m being slow.’ She intended to avoid the breathalyser at all costs. Lady of the Manor.

  Soon she would take the bull, this ageing biped of royal blood, by the horns. Dinner was announced and they took their spindly seats at the dining table.

  ‘Mambles. My disappearing act. I must explain.’

  She reported on the drama of the last two days. Mambles sighed and her hand descended to Jubilee. ‘So. Jubilee. We’re going to be deserted. Who are we going to talk to if horrid Muriel goes to live in the boring old country?’

  Jubilee wriggled.

  Muriel let slip rash words. ‘Won’t you come and stay with me there? That is if things work out.’

  Weekends posed a problem for Mambles. Few were equipped to entertain her in necessary style (lady-in-waiting, Jubilee and detectives, although the latter, these scruffy days, were more often than not billeted at a nearby pub). The Queen did not press her youngest sister to visit regularly at Sandringham, Windsor or Balmoral, (referred to sotto voce as S, W and B by royal groupies) for she was troubled enough by her descendants and the situation often led to terrible loose ends for Mambles.

  ‘House parties?’ Mambles extracted a drop-earring from each ear and placed the pair beside a piece of fairy toast upon a glass side plate. ‘Killing me,’ she explained. ‘Is it grand enough for house parties?’ Mambles still thrilled to the chance of young men.

  Marco must rally, decided his distracted mother, and garner some blades together; enough to fill each seat on Queen Elizabeth’s minibus. She imagined the vehicle chock-a-block with reprobates swaying up the ilex avenue to be greeted by Dulcie, Sonia and Phyllis, with Dawson and Delilah peeping from the bushes. The cellar would be raided and the plumbing put to terrifying tests. She assumed there must be a cellar and some plumbing.

  ‘I’m not sure. I expect so. Perhaps not to start with. You must come alone the first time and help me to decide.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Not yet Mambles. I’ll keep you posted.’

  ‘What about Christmas?’

  Muriel said, ‘Gosh.’ It was only the eleventh of July.

  ‘I can’t face another one at S, even if I’m asked. The new lot get on my nerves, always sucking up to the Queen and taking Mummy in.’

  She wrinkled her nose and her brown eyes caught those of her guest as she spoke. ‘I’ll bring Jubilee and stay a lovely long time.’ Her smile smacked of flimsiness as the butler came and went.

  After dinner they sat, again side by side, on the sofa and Mambles rang a hand bell. A maid flew forward. ‘Your Royal Highness.’

  ‘The video Hedges. The Sound of Music. Can you put it on?’

  Muriel ached for bed but Mambles’s voice was triumphant. ‘I know it’s soppy but Christopher Plummer is so dishy.’

  For an hour and a half they smoked and drank, Muriel forgetting about the breathalyser, and raised their ageing voices to the strain of ‘Eidelweiss’. Mambles yodelled throughout a puppet show involving a goat.

  Muriel kissed and curtseyed in the wrong order and sped to her Chelsea house with much to mull over. She was lucky not to be stopped and rued her weakness in issuing unfulfillable promises and allowing herself to be bossed by a dog she really could not bear.

  She didn’t like dogs at all but in her depths she knew that it was, almost always, their owners who caused the antipathy. Monopoly, of course, belonged to Hugh and nothing but his betrayal of them both held the two together.

  To begin with they had complained jointly of Hugh’s bunk as they looked at each other through mists of tears. Later, however, she began to allow the dog some sympathy. Muriel wondered if life was not worse for Monopoly than it was for her. After all she had found Hugh hindering in recent years whereas Monopoly had shown no restraint in his adoration of him. Nonetheless, Muriel had, with gaps, pined and railed against her husband’s behaviour for she had been fooled. The affair of Miss Ingrid Malone
no longer bugged her although thoughts of her own public denouncement regularly smarted, but it was the effort she had put into their rapprochement and the triumph she had inwardly boasted when she and Hugh had shaken down together, or so she believed at the time, that jarred and jangled on her nervous system.

  She let Monopoly out into the yard at the back of the kitchen and waited crossly to let him in again, then made her way shakily to bed. By the time she settled down she had disintegrated into misery. She turned off her bedside light and tried to shut her eyes, ears and mind to any suggestion of the world, but images arose of Bradstow and the mad old man who lay sedated in a hospital bed on the eve of signing away his estate to a stranger. Her.