Harnessing Peacocks

by Mary Wesley

  Louisa was enthusiastic. ‘What day will you come? It will be a treat.’

  ‘Would the seventh to the twenty-first suit you? Have you got your little book handy?’

  ‘Not necessary. August is a month when I lie low. We shall be on our own.’

  ‘Oh good. I’ll arrive in the evening and bring a dinner to cook.’

  ‘I shall look forward to it. You can tell me your news when you come.’ Not, thought Louisa Fox, that that girl ever has anything to tell. She switched on the television for the news and wondered whether to ring Lucy Duff. While she thought about this the news reader led her through world disasters to the weather man. She dialled Lucy’s number.

  ‘Lucy, that you? Listen, I have the treasure coming in August. Am I not lucky?’

  ‘I thought you never got her in August. I can’t. I supposed she had a child for the holidays or another job. I never get her at Christmas or Easter. Miss Thomson has to arrange spring, summer and autumn. She was here in May. Two blissful greedy weeks. Can I come and stay?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I will get her to stuff my deep freeze; come later on. Did Mungo visit you while she was with you?’

  ‘No, Alison had him on the lead.’

  ‘Really tied?’ Both women laughed.

  ‘How do I know?’ said Mungo’s mother. ‘Maggie Cook-Popham’s Dick swears he saw Mungo with Hebe in London.’

  ‘Did he indeed? Where did he see them?’

  ‘Walking in Kew Gardens.’

  ‘When was she with Maggie? Don’t tell me her boy—’

  ‘I bet he tried, though if he had succeeded the whole world would hear and that wouldn’t suit—’

  ‘Wouldn’t suit Hebe. Does Mungo ever—’

  ‘Never breathes a word. Wouldn’t dare say anything in case I let something slip to Alison, as if I would.’

  ‘As if you would.’ The old women, separated by miles of wire, laughed.

  ‘We are not like Maggie,’ said Lucy. ‘Though for news that doesn’t matter, telling Maggie certainly saves stamps.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be a good thing if you could get Hebe to come in the holidays? Your grandchildren would love her food. If she is coming to me in August it may mean she is not tied in the holidays, as you thought,’ suggested Louisa.

  ‘I am not having the little beasts to stay,’ cried Lucy. ‘Not until they are a lot older.’

  ‘Heavens, why not?’

  ‘They picked all the buttons off my Victorian chairs.’

  Suppressing her inclination to laugh, Louisa said, ‘How dreadful. What possessed them?’ Lucy must have annoyed the little beasts in some way.

  ‘Alison is going away. I gather she is sending them to stay with friends. Mungo is hopeless with them, he shouts and they laugh. She is sending them to people who stand no nonsense.’

  ‘They will be better when they grow older,’ opined Louisa.

  ‘One hopes so.’ Lucy was doubtful. ‘We must remember your telephone bill,’ she said, hinting that Louisa had talked long enough.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Louisa, ringing off. It takes the rich to remind one of bills, she thought. Mungo would one day be rich. Louisa considered him fortunate if he was having an affair with Hebe. It was old history now, and it would hurt Lucy to know she had been second choice. Mungo’s father had asked her to marry him before he asked Lucy. Mungo might never have existed, since I am barren, and if I am right and Hebe is Christopher’s grandchild she might not exist either. Louisa was surprised that Lucy had never noticed Hebe’s extraordinary likeness to Christopher Rutter, starchy, pompous, upright, who had long ago proposed marriage and had been surprised and angry when she refused him. He had married a girl as upright as himself. Calculating dates, Lucy decided Hebe was probably a granddaughter, child of the daughter killed in the air crash. Suspecting Hebe’s provenance, Louisa forbore telling her friend, since Lucy, who reproached others of gossip, could gossip with the best, and Hebe, for reasons best known to herself, never spoke of her family or friends, not even of Bernard who, by coincidence, knew Hebe since he lived in the same part of the country. Louisa did not think it necessary for Hebe to know of her friendship with Bernard. Bernard was amused by Hebe, she knew, and loved her. Lucy would be fascinated by any connection with Christopher Rutter and gossip. Recommending Hebe as a temporary cook who also worked for Maggie Cook-Popham, Lucy had said, ‘Not only is she the most marvellous cook, but she’s a lady,’ using the expression which Mungo deplored. Since Hebe never discussed her clients Louisa respected her reticence, believing she travelled from one post to another. While she joked about Mungo with his mother, she would not have credited him as a business transaction. If she considered Hebe’s and Mungo’s affair, she thought of it as a bit of fun for the girl and for Mungo, married to managing Alison, a well deserved treat. She would have been astonished to hear the difference in the rates for mistresses compared with cooks.

  Looking forward to Hebe’s cooking, Louisa welcomed Hebe’s visit, blessing the day when Lucy had suggested she should give her a trial. Lucy, thought Louisa with a pang of envy, could afford permanent Miss Thomson whereas she herself could only just manage Hebe’s exorbitant fees once or twice a year. She was quite unaware that Hebe, liking her, charged her less than Lucy and charged Maggie Cook-Popham, whom she neither liked nor trusted, very much more.

  While Louisa telephoned Lucy Duff and looked forward to Hebe’s cooking, Hebe enjoyed the short time there was with Silas before he went to the Scillies, happy to watch him relax from the taut boy back from school, glad that he had a friend in Giles. Though hurt at first by Silas’ defection, she found herself looking forward to a fortnight in Wiltshire; better to be busy than sit at home wondering how he was enjoying himself. Meeting Mungo in Exeter had alarmed her. It was possible he might find some lead to her whereabouts. If she was away in Wiltshire it lessened his chances of finding her. She was fond of Louisa Fox, loved her house, enjoyed working for her. But she reckoned without Miss Thomson, who resented hints that the girl who took her place provided imaginative meals and was not opposed to Lucy entertaining her friends, a thing she was not prepared to do, feeling martyred if anyone came for a drink, morning coffee or tea. She feared Hebe, resenting Lucy referring to her as ‘a treasure’ or, worse, ‘my lady cook’. Listening on the extension to Louisa’s conversation with Lucy enraged her. The jealousy she already felt of Hebe lit a latent talent for mischief. Preparing the supper she would presently share with her employer, Miss Thomson considered the theory she had hitherto dismissed as absurd of Mungo and Alison divorcing, of Mungo marrying Hebe and of Hebe either superseding her permanently or losing her her job in some sly way. Miss Thomson was saving to retire to a flat on the Spanish Costa. Fearing any interference with her plan, she decided to poke an apparently innocent spoke in Hebe’s wheel. She chose a postcard, addressed it to Alison and wrote:

  ‘Dear Mrs Duff: Should you wish to contact H. Rutter, the temporary cook, she will be working for Mrs Fox in Wiltshire from the 7th to 21st. Yrs. Truly, A. Thomson.’

  Reading this, Miss Thomson hoped that Alison would wonder, What on earth does this postcard from Miss Thomson mean? Is it a warning? She would grow more alert, with luck make trouble for Hebe, leave Miss Thomson in peace to complete her savings. It can do no harm, thought Miss Thomson, opening a can of soup, it doesn’t exactly say anything but in Alison’s shoes I would have a little think.

  The card dropped through the letter-box an hour after Alison’s departure for the States. Reading it, Mungo whooped with delight.

  Eight

  HEBE LET HERSELF IN to Amy’s house, her spirits lifting with affection.

  ‘Hullo, love.’ She kissed Amy. ‘I’ve sent the boys out for the day. Gave them sandwiches.’

  ‘In the rain?’

  ‘Never mind the rain. Have you seen Hannah?’

  ‘Gone to her elocution lesson.’ Amy grinned. ‘Teeth, name, now it’s her speech has to change.’

  ‘If it makes her happy.�
�� Hebe sat beside Amy. She looked round, noticing that Amy’s paperweights, banished by Hannah, were back on the windowsill where the colours caught the sun.

  ‘Where did you buy those lovelies?’ She stroked the old woman’s hand.

  ‘Given to me, I did not buy them.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Valuable now, you know.’ Amy was complacent. ‘Where are you going tomorrow?’

  ‘To Mrs Fox. It’s better to earn a bob or two than sit around moping while Silas is away.’

  ‘Who will mind Trip? Would you like me to feed her?’

  ‘Terry’s going to feed her.’

  ‘Ho, Terry,’ Amy mocked. ‘That one!’

  ‘I’ve brought the rent.’ Hebe handed an envelope to the old woman.

  Amy counted the money. ‘You paying a year in advance or something? This is far too much.’

  ‘I got a bonus. Please take it.’

  ‘Who from?’ Amy looked at Hebe, black eyes glinting. ‘Not that blackamoor?’

  ‘A bonus from Terry.’ Hebe grinned. ‘A goodbye present.’

  ‘Leaving you, is he?’ Amy was curious.

  ‘Still friends. He’s—er—moving on.’

  ‘Queer, isn’t he?’

  ‘A little fantastic—’

  ‘You’re fond of him, aren’t you?’

  ‘He makes me laugh. We read poetry.’

  ‘So you’ve told me. Love poems.’

  ‘And others, too. He’s passed his O-level.’

  ‘Failed last time, didn’t he?’

  ‘I failed mine!’ Hebe looked distressed.

  ‘Took him on to annoy the old man, didn’t you? Couldn’t resist the combination of a black boy with a failed exam.’

  ‘It began that way,’ Hebe said stiffly. ‘He’s become a good friend.’

  ‘What’s he do? Still burglar alarms?’

  ‘He is self-employed, goes solo now.’

  ‘Like you.’

  ‘Like me.’ Hebe returned Amy’s look calmly and added gently, ‘Like us.’

  Amy squeezed Hebe’s hand. ‘I never set about it like you. Didn’t read poetry and play backgammon. Didn’t call the tune. I don’t know how you get away with it.’

  Hebe looked away, not answering.

  ‘Lovely girls like you should get married. Hannah wants to re-marry.’

  ‘Her dentist.’

  ‘But she finds him dull. Edward Krull was dull, she doesn’t want to repeat her error.’

  ‘Oh, do you know someone who knows him?’ Hebe was surprised into gossip, not surprised when Amy did not answer. She sat in the small sitting-room in the house which Amy had made home for her in her time of crisis, sheltering her until after Silas’ birth, later renting her the house across the street. ‘What would I have done without you, Amy?’

  ‘You’d have managed.’

  ‘You saved us.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate. If not me it would have been somebody else. You had got yourself into a fuss, that’s all.’

  ‘Fuss.’ Hebe thought fuss an understatement. She said, ‘There was nobody else. No, Amy, you saved us all right, then started me on the right track.’

  ‘Few people would call it the right track,’ Amy laughed delightedly.

  ‘You introduced me to Bernard.’

  ‘The old bastard. We could have managed without him,’ Amy sniffed.

  ‘He bought my things, didn’t cheat me, introduced me to the job at the hotel.’

  ‘Some job. I grant he did not cheat. He had no business to let you meet that Hippolyte. You could have worked for Lucy Duff and Louisa Fox.’

  ‘I do work for them.’

  ‘Decent people. I worked for them when they needed a secretary before—’

  ‘My grandfather.’ Hebe spoke stiffly.

  ‘Thought you didn’t like him mentioned.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Well, then. What did that chef teach you that you had not learned at the Cordon Bleu?’

  ‘Soufflés.’ Hebe remembered Hippolyte. ‘You laugh, you relax, you enjoy, you rise, light, generous, delicious, ready for a second helping.’ ‘He taught me how to make soufflés,’ she said gravely.

  ‘Ho,’ said Amy, doubtful still. ‘Ho.’

  Changing the subject, Hebe said, ‘I’m dropping Mrs Cook-Popham, Amy. I don’t like her son. I’m okay with Mrs Fox and Mrs Duff and the odd job.’

  ‘I distrust the odd jobs.’

  ‘I enjoy them,’ said Hebe, blithely thinking of Mungo and Hippolyte, regretting Terry. ‘It’s the odd jobs that make the money as you—’

  ‘As I should know. Odd jobs don’t last,’ said Amy sadly, remembering in old age the delights of waking up in the double bed in the Hotel d’Angleterre, the laughter, the rising sun glinting through the red plush curtains, the coffee and croissants. ‘They don’t last,’ she said in bitter recollection of the lonely journey home to London, the quack doctor in Battersea, the pain and anguish. ‘They don’t last. That’s why I became a secretary.’

  ‘And worked for the Duffs and Foxes and my grandfather,’ said Hebe sombrely. She could remember Amy the secretary, but found it hard to visualise Amy in her career in Paris. Who was the man who let her down, she wondered, and heard for a second those other voices asking, ‘Who was the man?’ and ‘Have an abortion’.

  ‘Shall I make us some tea?’ She stood up to break the spell.

  ‘Yes, love.’ Amy watched Hebe put on the kettle, lay out cups. She wondered for the millionth time who Silas’ father could be. One would think, if one had not seen the child born, that the man had never existed. She tells me about her lovers, thought Amy. Those grandparents had not found out. Fools, always on at the child, ‘Don’t mumble, don’t interrupt,’ always ‘Don’t’. And ‘Hold yourself up,’ ‘Don’t stoop.’

  Hebe, warming the pot, spooning tea, reaching for the kettle, thought, So Amy had an abortion. If she hadn’t her child would be older than me, middle-aged. She handed Amy her cup.

  ‘I keep my life narrow. It’s better that way.’ She was defensive. ‘I stick to business.’

  ‘Yes.’ Amy took the cup. ‘I suppose it is best.’

  ‘I save a lot of money.’

  ‘A bank balance is nice,’ Amy agreed.

  ‘I am getting Silas educated. That’s what is important.’

  ‘Yes.’ Amy’s thoughts were years away. Why did I panic? she asked herself. Out loud she exclaimed, ‘The bastard!’

  ‘What?’ Hebe was startled.

  ‘I loved a bastard. He was not the marrying kind.’

  ‘As you know I think love should be avoided.’ Hebe’s tone made Amy laugh.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have you, I have Silas and now Giles and Hannah. Hannah believes in love; that’s why she has changed her name and her teeth and is learning to talk posh. Hannah believes in marriage, but she ain’t got chien. Perhaps in marriage you don’t need chien.’

  ‘What’s chien?’

  ‘It’s indefinable, sort of smell, what was called sex appeal in my day.’

  ‘Smell?’ Hebe looked thoughtful. ‘I bet you had chien.’ She searched Amy’s face for the girl concealed by old age.

  ‘Not enough to hold him,’ said Amy. ‘He loved somebody else.’

  ‘At the same time?’ Hebe was shocked.

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk, with your collection.’

  ‘But I don’t love. Love’s a disaster. I am an entertainer.’

  ‘You certainly entertain me. I live a vicarious life these days. Got Silas’ address in the Islands in case of need?’

  ‘I have it for you. The people are called Reeves. They sound all right.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ Hebe looked away.

  ‘The right sort?’ Amy’s tone made Hebe flush.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She stood up, hesitating, unwilling to leave Amy’s atmosphere of serenity. She bent to kiss the old woman. ‘You would have made a wonderful wife.’

 
‘Not to him. Some men should never marry. I realise that now.’

  Hebe wondered how much Amy had suffered to acquire wisdom. ‘Some women, too,’ she suggested. ‘Perhaps I am one.’

  ‘From the way you are shaping you may well be. Your career—’

  ‘Now, Amy, don’t start on “my career.”’

  ‘Certainly not my sort.’

  ‘Hannah will marry George Scoop.’

  ‘Hannah may not be as sensible as you think,’ said Amy. ‘I rather hope not. That dentist does not deserve Hannah.’

  ‘Not good enough for her?’

  ‘She is not right for him.’

  ‘Gosh! Why?’

  ‘She would treat him as she treated Edward Krull.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You have to be a saint to tolerate bores. She is set on marriage though.’

  Hebe stood, considering Hannah’s relatively simple life. ‘I must fly.’ She kissed Amy goodbye.

  ‘Goodbye.’ Amy was comparing Hannah’s intention of marrying with Hebe’s mode of life, which to her mind did less damage. She chuckled, thinking, She does enjoy herself. She said out loud, her eyes reflecting the glint of sun on her paperweights: ‘She entertains, she enjoys variety.’ She spoke to the paperweights as to a living person. ‘And she makes people happy.’ Amy kept these thoughts to herself, having no one to share them with.

  Nine

  IT IS AGAINST MY nature to confide more than the minimum to Amy, thought Hebe, sorting Silas’ clothes for him to take on his visit. She wondered whether there was someone somewhere from whom it would not be necessary to guard her tongue. She piled Silas’ clothes on the bed and took what was necessary to iron down to the kitchen. Putting up the ironing board, plugging in the iron, she thought of Mungo. Amy approved of Mungo, she was obviously doubtful about Terry. Was it not Terry who had encouraged her to call her clients The Syndicate, finding the joke in dubious taste. But would she approve of Mungo if she knew how foul his language could be, that he boasted ridiculously of the size of his member. Testing the heat of the iron, Hebe thought of Mungo with tolerant affection. Amy likes it when he takes me to Wimbledon, she thought, and the movies and the opera. He is very generous, always pays up without a murmur when I beat him at backgammon. I jolly him along, she thought, ironing Silas’ T-shirts. I make him more fun for his family, better for his wife. Go home and practise, I say, you’ve had a nice change. Hebe folded the T-shirts, reached for some pillowcases, squirted water to damp them. She likes Mungo’s class, she thought, smoothing the pillowcases, she knows Hippolyte was born a peasant, refers to him slightingly as Hippo. I call him Hippo to show fondness. He enjoys me, finds me funny. Hebe pressed the iron on the pillowcase. He gives me free lunches in his restaurant on my day off when I’m working for Maggie Cook-Popham, pretends he doesn’t know me when I appear in his restaurant. Hebe chortled in recollection of Hippolyte’s face when she had come not alone but with a potential client. He succeeded very neatly in putting me off the poor man. I was not planning to do more than tease. I was bored with the man, that was all. Who had it been, what had been his name? Folding the pillowcases Hebe racked her brain. There had been quite a number of potential members tried and found wanting. ‘Il y a toujours l’un qui baise et l’autre qui tend la joue.’ Grandfather used to say. ‘Well, old man, it is I who tend la joue.’ I am making a pretty profit in this career you suggested for me and getting Silas educated. There had been failures, Hebe admitted to herself. There was the man who had taken her to Rome for the weekend, dined her in the Piazza Navona: prosciutto con figi, a marvellous risotto, mountain strawberries. But he drank too much Soave, did not know its fatal effect. He had become alarmingly drunk, uncontrollably tiresome back at the hotel. I am not proud of that one, thought Hebe, switching off the iron. It was a dirty trick to throw all his trousers, shoes and pants out of the window, but what else could a girl do? I had to get away. I told Hippolyte about that one, she thought. He was so pleased he invited me to dinner with his partner. I never told Amy. I can’t remember what he looked like, she thought, leaning on the ironing board. Some sort of English outdoor type? She shook her head, remembering Edward, head clerk in a solicitor’s office, who did his wife’s ironing every Saturday, ironing out the clients’ marital dramas in imagination. There had been something sinister about him; she had not wanted him to start ironing out her troubles. Hebe folded the board and put it away. ‘Keep them keen,’ she said to Trip, who came mewing through the cat-flap. ‘Limit them to two weeks at most. With Mungo three times a year, four or five trips to Paris with Hippolyte and my cooking we are okay. I shan’t really miss Terry. I can still see him. Can’t put so much aside for the rainy day or Silas’ university, that’s all. It’s a far cry,’ she said, picking up the purring cat, ‘from flogging my mother’s pearls and Social Security. Not that I ever intended to depend on that!’ The cat jumped out of her arms to lap milk from her saucer. ‘It’s an enjoyable life,’ Hebe said to the cat, ‘but I wish Silas wasn’t going away.’