Harnessing Peacocks

by Mary Wesley

  ‘That must be it.’ Hebe looked relieved, though still puzzled.

  ‘Smells are very evocative.’ Louisa watched Hebe anxiously. ‘And it’s a tease when you can’t remember what they remind you of,’ she gabbled on, while Hebe collected herself.

  Although the grouse were delicious, conversation at dinner was strained. Louisa was not surprised when Rory decided that it was not after all a good evening for fishing, a lie which he took little trouble to hide. They watched the news on television and Louisa thought of Bernard in his tiny isolated house when the weathermen forecast gales coming in from the Atlantic, knowing that when the wind blew and rain pelted down Bernard was loath to adventure across country to the telephone. She would have to wait to question him about Jim Huxtable; wait to tell him about Hebe’s meeting with Rory. He was always interested in Hebe’s visits, a subject which almost superseded their gardens. Her thoughts took her away from the young people who presently took the dogs for a run. She tried to visualise Bernard, old and pottering in his garden, and failed, only seeing him young with no interest in flowers other than to order in quantity at a florist and send with a card: ‘Louisa, my love, Bernard’.

  They had walked by the river and back to Rory’s car. ‘Goodbye.’ Hebe held out her hand.

  Rory bent to kiss her. ‘When shall I—?’

  ‘I have written down my forwarding address; here it is. I will get in touch, I promise. Are you sure you want me to?’

  ‘Of course I—’

  ‘I don’t want to make you unhappy.’

  ‘I will take the risk.’ He got into his car and Hebe watched him drive away. She looked up at the threatening sky, hoping that Silas’ pleasure would not be spoiled by storms, and forgot Rory as she tried to visualise Silas in the company of strangers. As she sniffed the scent of jasmine and tobacco plants and watched moths fluttering round the flowers, she wished herself away from Rory, so easily hurt, bruised, as she herself was by the world they had both been born into, had both escaped. And yet, she thought, part of me wishes it for Silas. Why else do I send him to that school, encourage him to stay with those people? Do I still believe he should have that chance? Do I believe in that mould which I fought to escape? Am I not as hypocritical as they were? They brought me up to be like them, to marry a man with money as my sisters did. Am I not tarting with Mungo and Rory to pay for Silas to have what I rejected? Am I misusing the Syndicate money?

  In bed she lay reading Rory’s copy of the New Statesman, finding cheer in the Heartsearch column. ‘Attractive Intellectual—Well worn—Unconventional colour-blind male/female—passionate—scrawny—happy—myopic—Nigerian—non-sexist—tallish—working class background—jazz media orientated—educated—divorced—academic.’ None of these paying propositions. She had once answered an appeal from a lonely Hampsteader in a bedsitter. He had needed to have a girl walking beside him across the Heath. I must look him up some time, she thought, when I am doing a stint with Mungo. It had been an agreeable sexless interlude. After the walks they had eaten chocolate eclairs and drunk camomile tea. He had given her ten pounds a time. She turned the page. Ah, here goes! She took note of an advertisement. ‘Love Lingerie, Ultimate in Undies, slinkiest pure silk, cut to dazzling American minimum.’ The illustration showed a lady with her pussy slung in the sort of bag Leni Riefenstahl had made for the Nazi athletes when filming them for the Olympic Games. Must send for one for Terry, a parting gift; his neat little apparatus would fit into that pure silk job nicely.

  Consoled by cheerful memories of Terry, she turned off the light.

  Seventeen

  THE STORM, WHICH IN infancy had made Silas sick, grew that night to monster proportions unusual even in the South-West. The gale gusted in from the Atlantic, bringing rain which lashed the streets, racing down the gutters. At high tide waves leapt across the sea wall, scattering stones and kelp over the promenade. Ships made for the shelter of Mounts Bay. Lifeboats from St Ives and Sennen battled to the rescue of a French trawler. Rogue water, gaining speed as it travelled, swept cigarette butts, lolly sticks, cellophane wrapping towards drains which, already blocked, refused entry. Gathering force in the alleyway behind the houses, the water found a weakness in a wall, sucked until it discovered a chink then, crawling through, gained entry into Amy Tremayne’s garden, travelled to the back door, spread through the house, souping wet the rugs in her sitting-room until they could hold no more, reformed and found the way out to the street.

  Disturbed by the ferocity of the gale, Amy got out of bed to close her window. Reaching up to pull down the sash, a fierce pain in her chest assailed her. She collapsed in a chair, sick and dizzy. Her pills, out of reach, mocked her from the table by the bed. The telephone was on the ground floor. How often Hebe had begged her to have an extension. She tried to breathe, willing the pain to go, willing time to pass so that daylight would bring help. Rain driving in at the window drenched her knees. If Hebe finds me dead she will be upset. I can’t die yet. She willed herself to live, sitting huddled in the chair by the window. As time passed she dozed, forgetting that Hebe was away working for Louisa Fox.

  Terry, on his way to feed Trip, hurried up the street in the dawn, his chin tucked into his upturned collar, looking about him fascinated by the violence of the weather. Level with Hebe’s door he noticed muddy water across the street, investigated, looked up at Amy’s window, saw that it was open, looked more closely, saw the huddled figure in a chair. He tried the front door, found it locked, water seeping through.

  He called up, ‘Hi, Miss Tremayne, you’re flooded.’

  The old woman jerked awake. Terry saw her face. ‘Christ, she’s dying.’

  He leapt on to the low wall which separated a strip of flowers from the street, gathered all his strength, sprang, catching the window ledge, hauling himself up to fall head first into the room at Amy’s feet.

  ‘Don’t be afraid.’ He picked himself up. ‘Let me get you back to bed.’ He gathered the old woman in his arms. ‘You are cold.’ He laid her on the bed, propped her with pillows, pulled up the bedclothes. ‘Have you got pills? Is it your heart?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘These the pills?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He tipped out the pills. ‘One? Two?’

  ‘One,’ she whispered.

  He put the pill in her mouth, held a glass so that she could drink. She gripped his hand.

  ‘You are Hebe’s black revenge.’ He could hardly hear her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hebe’s black—’

  ‘You need something hot. Don’t move, I’ll see what I can do. Okay if I leave you a moment?’

  He ran downstairs, splashed into the flood. ‘Christ!’ Hurried into the kitchen, put a kettle on the gas, rummaged for brandy, found a half bottle of whisky, saw a hot water bottle hanging on the back of the door, filled it, made tea, poured in a dollop of whisky, carried them upstairs.

  ‘Don’t try and talk.’ He tucked the hot bottle in by her feet. ‘Soon get you warm. Drink this.’ He sat beside her spooning hot tea into her obedient mouth. ‘That better?’ He willed her to live.

  ‘Yes.’ She felt better for the tea, the hot bottle was warming her feet. Terry put the empty cup aside and started rubbing her hands between his.

  ‘I must telephone your doctor.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Surely—’

  ‘I don’t want a doctor.’

  ‘Okay.’ He went on rubbing her hands. Should he tell her the downstairs was awash? Would it set her heart off again?

  ‘Did you say flood?’ Her voice was stronger.

  ‘Yes. It’s coming in at the back. I should—’

  ‘Stay with me.’ She held his hands. ‘Hebe’s black revenge.’ She stared at his anxious face, liking his fine high-bridged nose and sculptured mouth.

  ‘I’m not with you.’ He was puzzled.

  ‘Hebe’s black joke.’ What a spit in the eye for Christopher. She had never seen Terry close up, on
ly catching an occasional glimpse from a distance. ‘Hebe never told me you were so beautiful.’

  Terry looked embarrassed. ‘We’re still friends. The other’s over.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I was on my way to feed her cat. What d’you mean, black revenge? Black joke?’

  Amy began to laugh.

  ‘Don’t laugh, mind your heart,’ Terry exclaimed, but she looked better, a lot better.

  Amy grinned, thinking of Christopher Rutter, how furious he would be, his worst accusations come true. Why had she never had the enterprise that Hebe showed? Where had Hebe found him?

  ‘Where d’you come from? What’s your job?’

  ‘I met Hebe up country. I make burglar traps. I’m self-employed. I was adopted by liberal whites. I dropped out of a posh school they sent me to. It’s my own invention.’ If he went on talking she might go to sleep, then he could get the doctor. ‘I make a contraption like an abacus with marbles. It’s set under a strip of carpet to match what’s in the room. When the burglar treads on it he feels insecure, scarpers.’

  ‘Do you sell many?’ Keep him with me for a bit longer, she thought.

  ‘Quite a lot. A friend of Hebe’s gave me introductions, lists of names, old fellow called Quigley.’

  ‘Oh, him.’

  ‘Do you know him? He made this list of people all over the country. Some bought.’

  ‘Tell me who he sent you to.’

  Terry recited a litany of names, his pleasing voice lulling her until suddenly she grew alert. Among the names were Robert, Delian, Marcus. Did Hebe know this?

  ‘Did he send you to anyone called Rutter?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Yes, an old bloke called Christopher Rutter, same name as Hebe’s. Mr Quigley says everyone is interconnected. It’s a common name, he says.’

  ‘Did you tell Hebe?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘How did you get on with him, old Christopher? Did he buy?’

  ‘He did, said my quotation was cheaper than most.’

  Amy began to laugh.

  ‘Hey, don’t laugh, this isn’t the time.’

  ‘Ce n’est pas le moment.’ Her mind wandered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘In the Hotel d’Angleterre he said’—Amy remembered the tone of voice—‘he didn’t want to know, thought it would sound easier in French. He left and I left soon after. Bloody Bernard.’

  Terry frowned. What was Amy on about? He was trapped. She was hanging on to his hand. He should have got the doctor straight away, or the niece, the blonde across the street. Hebe had not said Amy was gone in the head. His eyes, roving round the room in search of escape, hit on Amy’s clothes.

  ‘Hey! Do you wear those things?’ Amy followed his glance.

  ‘They keep the draught out.’ She eyed her directoire knickers. ‘They are to my taste.’ She turned to look at him. ‘And yours is different.’

  So Hebe had told her. ‘Yes,’ he said, looking Amy in the eye. ‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘Knickers for comfort, skirts for a lark.’

  ‘Good lad,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘And you and she read poetry.’

  ‘She talks to you a lot.’ He grew suspicious.

  ‘She must talk to someone. Recite me something before you go.’

  ‘I’ll try. What do you like?’

  ‘The one about the chestnut tree, know it? Great rooted something?’

  ‘Blossomer. Chestnut tree. Yeats?’

  ‘That’s the one. Then fetch Hannah. Do you know her?’

  ‘I’d like to.’

  ‘Chestnut poem first,’ Amy insisted.

  Terry cleared his throat and began. As he recited he saw the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. ‘O chestnut tree great rooted blossomer.’ Amy held his hand and closed her eyes. When he reached, ‘How can we tell the dancer from the dance,’ Amy lay quiet, her hand in his. Terry looked at her face, no longer twisted with pain. Sitting beside her, examining her face, he thought he understood why Hebe loved this old woman. It was peaceful in the room. Soon he must get help, but he was loath to break the peace between himself and Amy. She opened her eyes.

  ‘Better now.’

  Terry stood up. ‘Will you be okay if I leave you and wake your niece?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I should get the doctor.’

  ‘No. I hate fuss. I’ll be all right.’ Her voice suddenly peevish, she said, ‘You want to get away. Thank you for coming. Just fetch Hannah.’ She was annoyed with herself. She had betrayed Hebe. ‘I’m very grateful,’ she said stiffly.

  Puzzled and hurt, Terry let go her hand, stood up awkwardly. ‘I’ll go.’ He left Amy’s room and ran down the stairs, splashing into the flood. He had forgotten the flood water, had concentrated on Amy. Now, ankle-deep in water, he forgot her. The flood was urgent. He pulled open the front door and water surged into the street. He ran to Hannah’s house and hammered on the door.

  Opening the door in her dressing-gown, Hannah stared at Terry, her mind foggy with sleep, filled with an unexpected and strange exhilaration. Wow! Terry was talking, his voice eager; he too was excited. She heard, ‘Your auntie’s flooded, muddy water is coming in from the back.’ But his eyes conveyed another message. He pushed past her into the house, towering above her so that for a moment all she saw was his neck and throat.

  Hannah yelped, backing away. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ She stared at the ebony youth.

  ‘Name’s Terry, friend of Hebe’s. Get some clothes on, for Chrissake, you silly female. The old girl’s awash.’ His excitement was infectious.

  ‘What’s the matter, Ma?’ Giles, in pyjamas, called from upstairs.

  Terry shouted the situation to Giles. In minutes they were in Amy’s house. Giles dialled 999 on Amy’s telephone. Terry went to the back of the house to find the source of the flood. Hannah arrived wearing yellow boots, jeans and a green jersey.

  ‘What’s it like out there?’ she asked.

  ‘Job for the Council. We telephoned. Got a spade so we can divert the water?’

  ‘No, we haven’t.’

  ‘I’ll get one from Hebe’s. Got to feed the cat, anyway.’ He darted out into the rain.

  ‘Who is that? He sure is bossy,’ said Hannah to Giles.

  ‘Friend of Hebe’s. Lucky he found the flood. Hurry up, Mum, stop staring.’

  ‘That you, Hannah?’ Amy’s voice from upstairs.

  ‘I’m coming up.’ Hannah went up, expecting Amy to make a fuss.

  ‘You all right, Auntie?’ She stood by Amy’s bed.

  Feeling ill but unwilling to show it, Amy said, ‘Just a bit tired,’ unconvincingly.

  ‘You don’t look well,’ Hannah was anxious.

  ‘I shall stay here until the mess is gone. That boy can help you. He’s been reciting poetry to me.’

  Hannah glanced out of the back window at Terry, stripped to the waist, digging a ditch to divert the water. ‘Doesn’t Hebe know him?’ she asked.

  Lovely, isn’t he?’

  ‘Lovely?’ Hannah stared at Amy. ‘How did he get in?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Jumped. He’s a jumper.’

  ‘You’re joking—’

  Amy closed her eyes. Hannah looked more closely at Terry. He was lovely. He was also making Giles laugh. Hannah’s spirits soared. Mm, she thought, why not? ‘I’d better go and direct operations if you are comfortable,’ she said.

  ‘I’m comfortable.’ As Hannah left the room Amy chuckled, pleased at the prospect of vicarious entertainment. Time Hannah loosened up, she thought, and who better than Hebe’s joker to do the loosening. She knew Hebe’s standard to be high, but this one was superb. She quite understood Hebe breaking her unwritten rule never to have a local involvement.

  By the end of the morning Terry and Giles had stemmed the water, the ground floor of the house was ready to be scrubbed, Council workmen had unblocked the drain. Hannah, filling the kettle to make tea, was almost sorry the crisis was over. As she handed T
erry his tea she looked at him appraisingly. Waking her in the morning and grubbing at the back of Amy’s house with Giles, she had thought him not much older than Giles. The look he was giving her now was in another league. Her eyes widened when he advanced on her, catching her round the waist so that the cups in her hands joggled.

  ‘Watch out, you’ll spill the tea.’ She showed her toothy regiment as he pushed his face close to hers.

  ‘How about a quick little screw before din-dins?’ he suggested.

  She pulled away from him, laughing. ‘I must look after my aunt.’ She tried to look disapproving.

  ‘After, then,’ he pressed.

  ‘And look after Giles. Let go, Terry.’

  ‘I’ll wait.’ He let go. ‘I’ll show you a thing you’ll enjoy.’

  ‘Cheeky.’ She could not help laughing. Then ‘That’s enough,’ slightly nervous. She tried to snub him.

  ‘It will be,’ he leered, looking lascivious.

  ‘Will somebody bring me my treasures?’ Amy’s voice came in quavery descant from upstairs.

  ‘I’d forgotten her. What treasures she got? Nothing like yours, I bet.’ He put his hands over her breasts.

  ‘Hey, hands off

  ‘Treasures,’ came Amy’s voice. ‘My treasures,’ on a higher note.

  ‘Coming,’ shouted Hannah, backing away from Terry. ‘Terry can bring them up.’ She thrust a tray into Terry’s hands. ‘Stand there.’ She opened the cupboard and started arranging its contents on the tray.

  ‘They real?’ Terry looked in wonder.

  ‘She thinks they are.’

  ‘Baccarat, Clichy, St Louis, my, my!’ He stared in surprise.

  ‘Don’t drop them. Take them up to her. Give you something to do with your hands.’

  ‘Worth a fortune these, they’re the real McCoy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your boobs, luvvy.’ He was irrepressible.

  ‘I’m going to ring George and tell him what’s happened.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Terry’s eyes, reflecting the multicolours of the paperweights, were jealous.