She looked at him sharply. He drove on, more relaxed now they had got off the subject of his aunt.
“There have been some . . . feelers out, from Yorkshire Television.”
“You’ve kept bloody quiet about them.”
“I’m telling you now. . . . What do you think?”
“You haven’t told me what the job is yet.”
“Head of drama.”
Kelly let out a whistle, then looked at him suspiciously.
“Head of drama? All drama? Not just the soaps? Emmerdale bleeding Farm and that sort of thing?”
“Head of drama. All drama . . . we could live in Leeds. We wouldn’t necessarily want to live anywhere near Bly.”
“Too bloody right we’ll live in Leeds. I wouldn’t want that woman to get her talons into you again.”
“Don’t get neurotic about Lydia. She’s a figure in my past. From one point of view she’s really rather pathetic.”
Kelly, unusually, kept her counsel and occupied herself with putting the baby to rights in his carry-cot strapped to the back seat. But after a few minutes she did say:
“Or into Matthew either, when the time comes.”
• • •
Two days earlier, on the Wednesday, the Bellingham boys had managed to get their mother along to the doctor’s. Later, at tea time, they told Lydia about it.
“The doctor thinks she might have M.E.,” said Ted. Lydia furrowed her brow.
“M.E.? I think I’ve heard of it. I get confused by all these abbreviations . . .”
“Myalgic encephalomyelitis. It means you get sort of listless and exhausted. Can’t summon up the energy to do anything.”
“You’d understand,” said Coin, “if you’d seen us trying to get her to the doctor’s this morning.”
“Didn’t she want to go?”
“I think she wanted to go,” said Ted seriously. “I mean, she really wanted to see him. She just didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to make the journey. And surgery’s only the other end of High Street. I thought I could get her there on my own, but in the end Colin had to stay away from school too.”
“Pushing and shoving and half-carrying,” said Colin, demonstrating. “And Mum weeping and saying we were cruel.”
“It was awful,” said Ted. “Everyone was watching. You know what Bly is like. But I thought if I just went along and asked the doctor to call they wouldn’t believe it was as serious as it is. I knew she was just sort of giving up.”
“And is it serious, this M.E.? Will she be ill for long?”
“Yes, she will. Maybe for years. It’s very serious. Dr Cornish put her straight into hospital for tests.”
“But how will you manage?”
“Oh, I expect we’ll be all right,” said Colin.
“Lots of hamburgers!” agreed Ted. “And pizzas. I love pizzas.”
“But you can’t get those in Bly.”
“Dad can pick them up after work. And there’s a marvellous fish and chip shop in North Radley. Colin and I can cycle there and pick it up.”
“Don’t any of you cook?”
“Dad can just about manage egg and bacon and sausage.”
“And we can do hamburgers,” said Colin, “Though it’s easier just to pick them up at a McDonald’s.”
“I should hate to think of hamburgers looming as large as that in your diet,” said Lydia. She felt she was bursting with happiness, but she suppressed her smile and adopted a businesslike manner. “What you must both do is come up here for a proper meal in the evening.”
“No, it’s all right,” said Ted. “We like hamburgers and pizzas and things.”
“That’s neither here nor there,” said Lydia briskly.
“It would be too much trouble,” said Colin, “It would stop you working on your book.”
“It would do nothing of the kind. I’m always finished work by four or five o’clock. Cooking for three is hardly more work than cooking for one, and it will be a great pleasure, which cooking for one hardly is. Will your father be home from work yet?”
The boys had gone to school in the afternoon and explained the situation to their headmaster. At a quarter to four they had cycled home to an empty house and then come straight up to Lydia. Ted looked at his watch.
“Not yet. About a quarter to six, probably.”
“He knows the situation?”
“Oh yes. The doctor rang him. Mum was just crying and that, and a bit afraid, so the doctor did it. I spoke to him too and said we’d be all right.”
“Well, I’ll ring him a bit later on. Now, tonight may be a bit of a scratch affair—”
“No, really Mrs Perceval,” said the boys. “We don’t expect you to feed us without notice!”
“Deep freeze. No problem. Call me Lydia, by the way. So much easier. Now, the question is: what do you like apart from all that fast food junk?”
“Shepherd’s pie!” said Ted. “With lots of tomato sauce!”
“Lasagne,” said Colin.
“All that mince!” protested Lydia. “You must like something that isn’t made with mince.”
“Pork,” said Colin, maturely considering. “I think pork’s my favourite meat. Roast. Or pork chops.”
“I quite like fish,” said Ted. “And I know it’s good for you, but I don’t like it boiled or steamed. I like a good batter.”
“And chips,” said Colin. “Nice crispy ones, not ones from the packet you just put in the oven.”
“That’s when I knew Mum was ill,” said Ted. “When she started serving instant chips.”
Lydia felt blessed—somehow favoured. She felt as if some higher power had intervened. She noted down all their preferences in her head, and made mental notes of how she might lead them away from such basic forms of cuisine into something more interesting and inventive. It was going to give a new shape and purpose to her day. And it was going to last such a long time! Later on she rang their father.
“Mr Bellingham? This is Lydia Perceval. The boys are up here, and they’ve been telling me about their mother. I really am most upset for you all. I hear it’s a dreadful condition. . . . Yes, I’d gathered the treatment may take a long while. . . . Look, I’ve talked this over with Ted and Colin and I want to be responsible for giving them a proper meal each day. That would take a bit of the burden off you, wouldn’t it? They can come up here after school—young people really shouldn’t go home to an empty house, should they?—and I’ll have a good hot meal for them in the evening.”
“That’s really very kind of you, but there’s no n—”
“It’s pure pleasure, I assure you, Mr Bellingham. It’s good to know I can be of some little help. I’m rustling up something for them tonight, and they’ll be back home by nine at the latest.”
If it occurred to Lydia that it would be a kindness to include the boys’ father in the invitation now and then, she suppressed the thought. Nick Bellingham had not sounded, from the boys’ account of him, a man of any interest.
• • •
The Maple Tree had been a country pub from time pretty much immemorial, serving shepherds and dry-stone-wallers on a hilly road ten miles from Halifax. Time and demographic changes had destroyed its custom, and five years before it had been taken over by a couple in flight from Chelsea, who had turned it into an up-market restaurant, all tarted up in an amusing way, and serving interesting and unusual food at interesting and unusual prices. Maurice had lead about the place in the Good Food Guide (one of the legacies of Lydia’s tutelage was that he liked his food, and liked to experiment with it, a taste he shared with Kelly). As soon as they arrived at Bly he insisted they were all going to the Maple Tree that night to celebrate his father having a job. Thea, conscious that she was a rather dull cook, rang around and fixed up a baby-sitter.
Just the sight of the prices made Andy uneasy, but what was the use of a son in television if you couldn’t let him treat you to an expensive meal now and again? He swallowed his pride with his starter. It was whil
e Kelly was still busy with a dish involving game pâté and prawns that someone from a nearby table—motherly, very Yorkshire, her body thickened by heavy food—came over to her with a piece of paper.
“Excuse me, but aren’t you Sharon from Waterloo Terrace?”
Kelly turned a dazzling smile on the woman.
“That’s right. Or rather I was.”
Her accent was impeccably upper-middle: she might have been playing in Private Lives.
“It’s funny but you don’t sound a bit like her. But that’s acting, isn’t it? Do you think I could have your autograph for my daughter? She thought you were wonderful.”
“Delighted. It’s nice to be remembered.”
She wrote “Best wishes, Kelly Marsh” on the piece of paper, gave one of her dazzling smiles, and returned to her prawny pâté in high good humour. Thea looked at her, fascinated.
“Are you always acting?”
“Most of the time, I suppose. . . . Except when I’m in bed.”
“Ah.”
“You can’t act when you’re asleep, can you? What did you think I meant?”
Kelly let out her barmaid laugh, conscious that by now the whole restaurant knew who she was.
“Kelly responds to whoever she’s talking to,” said Maurice, with a shy, wondering pride. “Like a chameleon. Only sometimes she makes herself more conspicuous against her background rather than camouflages herself.”
“Like with your sister,” said Kelly to Thea. “You don’t mind me being rude about her, do you? No, I thought not. Put me up against an impeccably dressed middle-class female who I know is going to dislike me whatever I do and I become a slut. Or rather I exaggerate the slut in me, which is quite a lot of slut to start with. Where’s my bleeding saddle of lamb? Service in this joint is pretty crumby, isn’t it?”
Having made the lightning change back to barmaid Kelly settled down for a bit to watch the diners who were watching her.
“You’ll go up and see Lydia over the weekend, will you, Maurice?” Thea asked.
“I’ll pop up tomorrow. Get it over with.”
“Ask her to lunch on Monday. She won’t come, but it will be a gesture.”
“You know she’s got two new boys, do you?” Andy asked his son.
“New boys? What on earth do you mean? Toy boys?”
They all laughed.
“Even I wouldn’t accuse Lydia of being the type who went in for toy boys. No, two lads from the village—they go to my school. She’s . . . taking them over.”
Maurice looked at his father with affection.
“Like she did me and Gavin, you mean? You shouldn’t worry too much about that, you know. She just works on malleable adolescents. The effect doesn’t last.”
Thea saw Kelly raise her eyebrow slightly.
“You can’t generalise, you know, Maurice,” Andy said. “You may have got away, but that doesn’t mean another boy will.”
“Gavin—” began Thea, but then she shook her head vigorously. “No, we really shouldn’t be talking about this on our first night out as a family for years, should we? When is this interview with Yorkshire Television, Maurice?”
“Monday afternoon. More of a meeting, really. Slightly clandestine. We’ll pack up the car, Kelly and Matthew can look around Leeds for an hour or two, maybe talk to a few estate agents, then we’ll be off down the M1 and home—out of your hair.”
“You’re not in our hair, Maurice,” protested Thea, conscious that the more she saw of Kelly the more she was intrigued by her, even liked her.
“Oh, I know Dad has a lot to do with this new job.”
“Last week of term next week,” said Andy, shaking his head. “No problem—just a lot of loose ends to tie up.”
He was conscious of a figure looming over their table. He thought at first it was another autograph hunter, but when he looked up it was Nick Bellingham, his paunch seeming ampler than when they had last met, his face certainly redder.
“Mr Hoddle? Don’t let me interrupt. Just on my way out. Just thought I’d tell you we’ve found out what the trouble’s been with the wife. Thought it was all in the mind m’self, but I was wrong. She’s got M.E.”
“Oh dear, I’m sorry. That’s rather serious, isn’t it?”
“So they tell me. May take months, years, before she’s back to normal. But your sister-in-law’s been very good. Offered to give the lads a good meal in the evenings, and she’s been as good as her word. Load off my mind, I can tell you, I couldn’t be more grateful—that’s what I call being a Christian. Meant I could come out here tonight. She’s a wonderful woman, that sister-in-law of yours. Goodnight all!”
And he lurched off towards the door. Back at the table there were now several pairs of raised eyebrows.
“Awful man,” said Kelly.
Maurice sat looking thoughtful.
CHAPTER 7
ON the Saturday afternoon Maurice took the old, familiar road up the hill to his aunt’s cottage.
As he neared the brow he recalled his wife’s sneer at the word “cottage.” Of course she had hit the nail on the head as usual. There had been three labourers’ cottages there in the old days: dark, cold little hovels. Lydia had removed doors, enlarged windows, made lawns, installed central heating, all with the proceeds of her first popular success, Horatio and Emma. It was now pre-eminently a gentlewoman’s home, and the name Hilltop Cottage, a survival from its former lowly status, represented the sort of self-depreciation which Lydia would be the first to deplore in humans.
But there was no denying she had made it attractive. In the warm afternoon sun it glowed, as surely it never had glowed in its previous bleak existence. Maurice stood for a moment and looked at it: the terraced lawns and brilliant flower-beds framed it perfectly. This was Lydia’s face to the world. He reflected that he was one of the very few people who knew her other face.
He went through the gate, carefully closing it after him. Then he walked down the path and up to the front door. Once he and Gavin had walked straight in and shouted greetings. Perhaps the new boys already did. He knocked.
“Maurice! How lovely to see you again! All alone?” Lydia could hardly keep the satisfaction from her voice. “Do come through. I’ve got the tea things ready.”
She led the way trough to the sitting room, then bustled into the kitchen to put the kettle on. She was wearing a stylish cream dress with a full skirt, perfect summer wear. Maurice stood leaning against the kitchen door—apparently relaxed, yet feeling a growing tension inside him, as if his entrails were being knotted.
“Yes, I’m on my own. Kelly is bathing Matthew, and Mother is helping her.”
“Thea would love that. She always liked babies.”
“I hope you’ll like him too. Thea wondered whether you could come to lunch on Monday.”
“Monday I’m in Boston Spa, I’m afraid. Research, you know. I always think babies have to do a lot of growing before they get interesting. . . . But do thank Thea—so kind of her. . . . I hope Matthew is a fine, healthy baby?”
“Oh, he is. Very forward for his age.”
“Splendid. Now—cream biscuits? Though now I look at you, Maurice, you are a trifle overweight, aren’t you?”
The irony crackled in her voice. Maurice looked down at his stomach.
“More than a trifle, Lydia. The mot juste would be ‘decidedly’.”
“Do you take enough exercise?”
“I’m not conscious of taking any.”
“And I suppose you eat all the wrong foods?”
“Too much of the right ones, at any rate. You shouldn’t be censorious on that score, Lydia. You taught me to enjoy good food, and as far as I’m concerned the only wrong food is bad food.”
“I didn’t teach you to eat immoderately, I hope! Right, well, let’s go through, Maurice dear. Will you take the tray? That’s right, on the little table here. How is the job going? Still writing for that—what’s its name?—Trafalgar Terrace?”
Maurice di
dn’t correct her. One of Lydia’s little foibles was to make that sort of deliberate mistake about anything that she disapproved of.
“Yes, I still do a lot of writing for that. It’s still as popular as ever.”
“I never see it. I never see anything much on the ‘box’.” She gestured towards a panelled part of the wall where, they both knew, a television set was concealed behind dark wooden doors. “News, now and then, and Parliament sometimes. But it’s so strident. Standards of behaviour are not what they were.”
“People have been saying that since the Reform Bill, as I’m sure you know, Lydia.”
She gestured dismissively.
“Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps it has been downhill all the way for a century and more. So, as I say, I see virtually nothing. But at least your wife—Kelly, such an odd name! I always think of the Isle of Man—at least Kelly has got out of Trafalgar Terrace. So perhaps you will too before long.”
“Waterloo Terrace is something one aspires to get into, Lydia, not something one is desperate to get out of. And it’s a programme that has its points. American soaps are all about money, but the English soaps are about community. The English ones do have a certain social value.”
“What was it Dr Johnson said about disputing precedency between a flea and a louse?”
Maurice laughed, genuinely amused.
“That’s very good, Lydia. You haven’t lost your touch. I don’t suppose you’d change your opinion if I told you it was one of the most popular programmes on television?”
“Not in the least.”
“I thought not. You don’t change. Anyway, the good news is that I may have a new job in the future.”
“Oh?”
“There’s a possibility—no more—that I may become head of drama for Yorkshire Television.”
Lydia raised her eyebrows rather quizzically as she poured two cups of tea and handed biscuits.
“Well, that certainly sounds father grand. I was hoping you might get out of television, though.”
“They’re not queueing for my services at the National Theatre or the Royal Shakespeare Company.”
“You should make them want you! Television is not at all what I hoped for you.”
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