Harriet

by Jilly Cooper

  In twenty minutes he was gone, leaving the bathroom awash, five towels at high tide, and his five o’clock shadow in the basin.

  Through her two-Mogadon-induced slumber Harriet heard ringing and ringing. Don’t answer she thought, it’s someone trying to get through with a secret code. She pulled the blanket over her head. The ringing went on. It was the doorbell. Cory had a key. Who the hell could it be calling at that hour? Burglars, she thought in terror, then realized they’d hardly be ringing the bell. It must be some maniac off the moor, bent on rape. Wearing only her short scarlet nightgown, her hair falling in tangled curls down her back, she turned on all the lights, and nervously crept downstairs. Tadpole emerged, frowsty and bug-eyed, from the kitchen, and thumped his tail.

  ‘You’re a fine watch dog,’ she said. The ringing went on. The chain was on the door. She opened it an inch.

  ‘Who is it?’ she said nervously.

  ‘It’s me, Cory.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ she said undoing the chain. ‘I thought you had a key.’

  He stood in the doorway, swaying slightly. He was deathly pale; there was a cut on his forehead where the blood had dried; his tie was crooked, his hair ruffled. He looked at her intently, trying to focus but squinting slightly like a Siamese cat.

  ‘What have you done to your head?’ she said, thinking irrationally of Elizabeth Pemberton’s flying Spode saucers. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I am,’ he said in a blurred voice. ‘The car’s a write off.’

  He walked into the house unsteadily, heading towards the drawing room.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Harriet running after him. ‘You poor thing, sit down at once.’ She dived under the table, pulling her nightgown as far as it would go over her bottom, to put on the lights by the fire. ‘I’m so terribly sorry. Shall I ring for the doctor?’

  ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ said Cory. ‘I ran out of fags on the way home, which didn’t help.’ He took a cigarette with a shaking hand out of the green jade box on the table. Harriet found a match and lit it for him.

  ‘I’ll get you a cup of strong, sweet tea,’ she said.

  ‘You can fix me a drink,’ said Cory.

  He’s had far too much, thought Harriet. ‘You might be concussed,’ she said aloud.

  ‘I’m OK,’ he said irritably. ‘I walked all the way home from the other side of the village, following the white lines in the middle of the road admittedly; so I’ve had plenty of time to work up a thirst. So if you please. .’

  Harriet poured him a large whisky and soda. He drained half of it in one gulp.

  ‘Why didn’t you ring me?’ said Harriet, ‘I’d have come and collected you.’

  ‘I’d spent my last 10p in the pub this afternoon,’ he said. ‘And that reminds me, I took a quid out of the housekeeping. Do you want a drink?’

  Harriet looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. She’d have to get William up in three and a half hours.

  ‘Go on,’ said Cory.

  She poured herself a small glass of white wine.

  Tadpole scratched at the fur rug in front of the fire, circled twice, then sat down as near the dying embers as possible.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea?’

  ‘I just want someone to talk to for a few minutes.’

  Harriet curled up on the sofa, trying not to yawn, tucking her long legs under her. She hadn’t shaved them for months, not that Cory would notice in the state he was in.

  ‘Was it a good evening?’ she said politely.

  ‘Bloody awful. “Just a few friends”, said Elizabeth, and I arrive an hour late to find three couples and a battle-scarred thirty-five-year-old with a “for hire” sign on her forehead lined up specifically for me. She was called Geraldine or Jennifer or something. We were put next door to each other at dinner, with everyone surreptitiously watching to see how we were hitting it off, just like mating dogs.’

  ‘Was she very beautiful?’ said Harriet.

  ‘Very — but she laughed too much, and asked too many questions about the ages of my children, and the script I’m writing at the moment, and didn’t I adore ballet, because she simply adores it. I was lumbered with her after dinner too, and out of the back of my head, I could see Elizabeth mouthing to all her friends, “It’s going frightfully well.” “Frightful” just about summed it up. Then at midnight she asked me if I’d terribly mind running Jennifer or Geraldine back to her cottage in Gargrave.’

  The pale mask of his face was expressionless. He finished his drink and put his glass very carefully down on the table.

  ‘So I ran her home, and she gave me all the old crap about dropping out of London and leaving her stockbroker husband because he didn’t want children, and anyway he was knocking off his secretary, and how much more genuine and sincere people are in the North. And tomorrow I shall get a bollocking.’

  ‘Who from?’ said Harriet.

  ‘Elizabeth. For behaving badly.’

  ‘What ever did you do?’

  ‘Didn’t try and pull Geraldine or Jennifer.’

  ‘Mary Whitehouse would have been proud of you,’ said Harriet.

  ‘I know,’ said Cory, ‘it’s a great source of consolation to me. Fix me another drink, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘Did she terribly want you to?’

  ‘She wanted me to try. She’s frightened of the future and she wants someone to blot out the loneliness and to describe as “the man in her life”. She even put more scent on in the car going home, very secretively so I wasn’t supposed to notice. She waited when we got to the house, wriggling down in the seat with her head tilted back but I need that sort of complication like a hole in the head, so I got out and opened the door for her, and she started to cry and fled up the path, and then the poor cow couldn’t find her latch key until she’d turned her bag out. And I felt such a sod. Some sort of instinct of self-preservation made me put on a safety belt for the first time in years, and I drove off down the Fairmile slap into a tree. Hostesses can’t resist a spare man.’ He was rambling now. ‘They’re gold dust round here, a going spare man, a going-to-sleepin-the-spare-room-every-night man. I got very used to spare rooms when I was married to Noel.’

  His long eyelashes lifted, and his dark eyes frowned at her as though she was the one who had hurt him.

  He must be pissed out of his mind, thought Harriet; it’s the first time he’s mentioned Noel since the interview.

  ‘They want to get their own back on her for pinching their husbands,’ he went on.

  ‘Did she pinch them?’ said Harriet.

  ‘The ones she wanted, she did, and the wives of the ones she didn’t were in a way more piqued that their husbands should be slavering over Noel and her not taking a blind bit of notice of them.’

  He picked up Jonah’s homework composition book which was lying on the table. ‘People in India have no food,’ he read out, ‘and they often go to bed with no supper.’ He laughed. ‘And all the old harridan puts at the bottom of the page is “Try and write more clearly, and write out the word Tomorrow three times”.’

  He picked up a pencil:

  ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,’ he said, writing with great care, ‘creeps on this petty pace from. .’

  ‘Oh you mustn’t,’ cried Harriet in horror. ‘Jonah’s teacher will murder him.’

  ‘I pay the fees,’ said Cory. ‘If Miss Bickersteth wishes to flip her lid she can ring up and complain to me. People in India have no food,’ he repeated slowly, ‘and they often go to bed with no supper. People in Yorkshire have a great deal too much to drink, and often also go to bed with no supper. Please get me another drink,’ he said, ‘and don’t tell me I’ve had enough. I know I have.’

  ‘You look absolutely exhausted,’ said Harriet. ‘You’re the one who should be taking sleeping pills and eating regular meals.’

  ‘Stop trying to mother me,’ said Cory.

  Harriet handed him a drink.

  ‘It’s
a bloody weak one,’ he grumbled.

  Their hands touched. ‘You’re cold,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve got a warm heart,’ said Harriet, flustered and wincing at the cliché. Cory didn’t notice.

  ‘My wife has hot little hands,’ said Cory, ‘but her heart is as cold as the grave. She’s a nymphomaniac. I suppose you’ve heard that.’

  ‘Well, something of the sort.’

  ‘She’s also the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘I know,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Do you think the children look like her?’

  ‘No,’ lied Harriet. ‘Much more like you.’

  ‘Today’s our wedding anniversary,’ said Cory.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Harriet, stricken. ‘How awful for you. I am sorry.’

  ‘You really are, aren’t you?’ said Cory. ‘All that messing around with three rings on the telephone was her trying to get through. It was our secret code.’

  ‘You’ll find someone else soon,’ said Harriet unconvincingly.

  ‘Easy lays aren’t the problem,’ he said. ‘It’s like pigs in clover working in the movie business; always plenty of pretty girls hanging about. Then you wake up in the morning, and it’s the wrong head on the pillow beside you, and you can’t get them out quick enough.’

  He put his head in his hands, feeling gingerly at the bump on his forehead.

  ‘I could have Noel back tomorrow if I wanted, but it’s like being an alcoholic, one drink and I’d be lost.’

  ‘It’s that bit about shunning “the heaven that leads men to this hell”,’ said Harriet. She felt she was having a very adult conversation.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Cory. ‘If she came back she’d be all over me the first week or two. Then she’d get bored and start looking for distractions. I couldn’t even work properly when she was around. If she was at home she wanted constant attention. If she was out, I couldn’t concentrate for worrying where she was. Show business’s happiest couple indeed!’

  He laughed, but the laugh had a break in it. She could see the chasm of his despair.

  ‘Today’s our tenth wedding anniversary,’ he went on, his voice slurring. ‘The bloody bitch was the beat of my heart for ten years. Being married to her meant drifting along from day to day on the edge of despair. Do you know what I did this afternoon? I went out and sent her six dozen roses. Imagine the smirk on her face when she gets them. My lost love is so utterly, utterly lost, but just the same I did it. All tough guys are hopeless sentimentalists. Jesus I’m wallowing in self-pity. I’m sorry.’

  He was shivering now. I must get him into bed, thought Harriet.

  He shot her a sideways glance. ‘I’m keeping you up,’ he said.

  ‘No, no,’ she said, gritting her teeth to hide a yawn.

  She heard a faint wail from upstairs. ‘I’ll just go and see who that is.’

  ‘Sometimes they go to bed with no supper,’ muttered Cory.

  Upstairs Chattie was lying out of bed, Ambrose curled up in her arms, her long white legs sticking out. Harriet tucked her up and replaced her blankets. William was sleeping peacefully too, and when she got downstairs she found Cory asleep as well, his elegant narrow-hipped length sprawled across the sofa, his half-smoked cigarette in his hand. She put it out, loosened his tie and took his shoes off, then got the duvet and a blanket from his bedroom and covered him up.

  ‘It’s you and me babe,’ she said to Tadpole, and suddenly felt very responsible and grown up, as she looked down at Cory’s face. In sleep it had lost all its anguish.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next day was catastrophic. After two hours sleep, Harriet was walking round like a zombie. Matters grew worse as William regurgitated sieved carrot and cabbage over everything, the washing machine gave up the ghost, and in the usual rat race of rounding up homework books, pinnies and gymshoes, she realized there wasn’t any dinner-money left for Chattie in the housekeeping. Mrs Bottomley was away for the night and therefore not available for a touch. After rifling every pocket in her wardrobe, the only solution was to wake Cory — who was not best pleased at being roused from a heavy slumber to one of the worst hangovers in recorded history. His temper was not improved by the embarrassment of finding himself still in evening clothes and lying on the sofa.

  ‘Why the hell can’t you organize the bloody housekeeping?’ he howled.

  It was hardly the moment, Harriet decided, to remind him that he had filched the last of it himself.

  When she got back from driving Chattie to school, he had changed into day clothes, was trying to keep down a glass of alkaseltzer, and in the sort of picky mood that soon reduced her to screaming hysteria.

  How was he to find a pair of socks, he demanded, when the hot cupboard looked as though a bomb had hit it. Why didn’t she ever put anything back where she’d found it? Was it really necessary to have toys lying all over the hall, nappies dripping over the kitchen?

  ‘The washing machine’s broken,’ protested Harriet.

  ‘Well, get it mended,’ said Cory.

  For something to do she busied herself opening a tin of dog food.

  ‘There are already three tins, two of them with mould on, open in the fridge,’ said Cory.

  Chattie had demanded coca-cola for breakfast and Harriet had been too bombed to refuse her. Cory now picked up Chattie’s half-full mug.

  ‘Do you really want to ruin the children’s teeth? Shouldn’t they have milk occasionally?’ he asked.

  ‘They usually do,’ said Harriet through gritted teeth.

  Before he could think of a crushing reply, she turned on the waste disposal to remove the remains of Chattie’s Weetabix.

  ‘For God’s sake turn that thing off,’ yelled Cory, clutching his head.

  ‘What?’ said Harriet, pretending not to hear.

  The next moment he stalked out of the room.

  Pig, pig, pig, she said to herself, keeps me up till three o’clock in the morning, banging on about his bloody wife, and then expects peak efficiency. And to relieve her feelings she went upstairs and cleaned the bath with his flannel.

  By lunchtime she felt contrite. He really had looked very ill. He ought to eat something. She took great pains making a mushroom omelette, and taking it with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice up to his study.

  His hangover obviously hadn’t improved.

  ‘I didn’t ask for anything to eat,’ he said. ‘I’m not hungry. Please take it away.’

  ‘You ought to have something, just to blot up the alcohol,’ she said brightly, putting the tray down amid a pile of papers.

  Then she saw the expression on his face, and bolted out of the room before he could throw the tray at her. She and Tadpole shared the omelette.

  ‘It would have been wasted on him,’ she said to Tadpole who chewed it up with great, greedy, crocodile jaws. At least she, Chattie and William were going out to tea, so they’d be out of Cory’s hair.

  She was just getting ready when the telephone rang. Even running down the landing, clutching a protesting, half-dressed William, she couldn’t reach it before Cory. He came out of his study, looking bootfaced.

  ‘It’s Elizabeth Pemberton’s nanny,’ he said. ‘For you.’

  Muttering apologies, Harriet fled downstairs to answer it.

  ‘We’ve got problems,’ said Sammy cheerfully. ‘Elizabeth says she’s got one of her ancient aunts whose just lost her husband coming over — at least that’s her story. I’ve never known anyone change the sheets and have a bath in the middle of the day for an ancient aunt. Anyway she wants us all out of the way. She thinks it would inhibit poor “Aunt Barbara” to have all the kids hanging around. Can we come over to you instead?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Harriet, wondering what the hell Cory would say.

  Sammy arrived with Georgie, looking very done-up in a tight navy blue sweater, with Come and Get Me printed across her jacked-up bosom, drainpipe jeans, blue and yellow glove socks and impossibly high-
heeled sandals.

  ‘I do like your walking shoes,’ said Harriet, giggling.

  ‘Elizabeth hates them,’ said Sammy. ‘They make holes in the parquet.’

  She reeked of cheap scent.

  ‘It’s called Seduction,’ she said. ‘Worn specially in Cory’s honour. Is he here?’ She looked round expectantly, patting her hair.

  ‘He’s working,’ said Harriet, ‘and not at his most sunny.’

  ‘Hungover up to his teeth, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Sammy. ‘Elizabeth said he was as high as a kite when he arrived last night.’

  Tadpole shambled in, wagging his tail, and promptly goosed Sammy.

  ‘Good old Tadpole,’ she said patting him. ‘Never forgets a crutch.’

  Chattie bore Georgie upstairs.

  ‘There’s a Shirley Temperature film on television,’ she said.

  ‘Well don’t disturb Daddy, whatever you do,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Do you mind if I bath William?’ said Harriet. ‘I didn’t get around to it earlier.’

  ‘Do you mind if I borrow a razor and shave my legs?’ said Sammy. ‘I’m going out with a new guy tonight, and one should always be prepared.’

  ‘This is a much nicer room than mine,’ said Sammy, lounging on Harriet’s yellow counterpane, painting her toe nails with Harriet’s nail polish. ‘Noel spent fortunes having it done up in the faint hope it might help her to keep a nanny longer than three weeks. Admittedly she threw all the pretty ones out because she was convinced they were after Cory.’

  Her spikily mascara’d eyes softened as they lighted on William, splashing around in the water, chuckling with laughter, and waving his arms about.

  ‘Don’t you love him? Look at his lovely fat wrists,’ she said. ‘The folds always look as though they’ve got elastic bands on. I envy you really. I got knocked up last year, but it was too much hassle, so I got rid of it. You’re very brave to keep him. I wouldn’t have the courage.’

  Harriet dripped water from a flannel onto William’s round belly.

  ‘The unmarried mothers’ home wasn’t much fun; all those films on VD and drugs, and having to sew for charity and go to church,’ she said. ‘And it was awful in hospital. All the fathers coming to see the mothers, holding their hands and admiring the babies. One girl had a lover and a husband rolling up at different times; both were convinced they were the father. No-one came to see me. But it was all worth it in the end.’