Janet’s husband, it turned out, wasn’t a teacher: he was a chemist, who worked on plastics. That figured, too. Janet inquired politely about Frances’s visit to Africa: Frances replied briefly, well aware that a description of Adra would be unlikely to go down well. They talked, a little, about Eel Cottage, and Janet explained that the present owners were health food people: Frances was quite pleased to hear this, it fitted in well with her conjectures on her visit in the summer. All in all, it seemed a reasonable fate, that the Eel should have ended up like that.
The conversation slumped. Janet offered another cup of coffee, Frances declined. She looked at her watch, covertly. It was nine o’clock: too late for a meal in the hotel, but she’d noticed a Chinese restaurant and an Indian one, either of which would do.
‘Would you want to come to the funeral?’ she asked, for want of anything better to say. ‘When I get it organized?’
‘I don’t see the point, really,’ said Janet. She paused. ‘I’ve never been to a funeral,’ she added.
‘There has to be a first time for everything,’ said Frances, fatuously. She felt sorry for Janet Bird, cooped up here with her little baby, but it wasn’t her fault, what could she do?
‘Well, perhaps I will,’ said Janet. And she looked at Frances, and said, ‘After all, there’s not much else to do round here, is there?’
Frances laughed. ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ she said. She reached for her bag. She would have one cigarette, and then she would go. ‘Do you mind if I smoke? Would you like one?’ Frances hardly ever smoked: she smoked intermittently, always less than a packet a week. Sometimes a packet would stay in her bag till it fell apart. Janet accepted one, to her surprise. Things seemed slightly, just marginally better, as Frances leant forward with a lighted match.
‘I read an article about you,’ said Janet, as she neatly knocked ash into a zodiac-patterned ash tray. ‘In the Sunday Examiner.’
‘Oh God,’ said Frances, ‘how ghastly, did you really? I always hope people won’t really read that kind of rubbish. I never do. But I suppose somebody must. It was horrible, didn’t you think?’
‘Your house looked very nice,’ said Janet primly.
‘It is very nice. I quite liked those photos, but I’ve never been able to make them send me copies. And the African ones were really good.’
‘Where were they taken?’
‘In Carthage. They flew out, specially. I kept saying, what a waste of money, why don’t you fake it, you could easily make my back garden look like Carthage, but they wouldn’t. They’re purists, photographers.’
Janet looked resentful, still, as well she might: but she also looked faintly interested. Frances began to feel that a little perseverance might well effect some kind of thaw, and was thinking what a pity it was that they hadn’t got a drink (she could really have done with a drink) when the phone went. Janet answered it with the air of one who has not too much expected a call: Frances watched her, as she spoke. It was clearly her husband on the line: Frances saw her whole body stiffen. Poor woman, she thought, poor woman. She knew that look. So that was how it was. She might have known.
The husband was saying he would be back soon, and was bringing a friend, and would she put the kettle on, or something along those lines, because Janet answered, ‘But I’ve got somebody here, myself.’
This did not go down well, for Janet continued to defend herself: no, it hadn’t been pre-arranged, no, she couldn’t have told him about it earlier, yes, she supposed there might be enough shepherd’s pie left for two. By the time she put the phone down, she was looking faintly desperate, and anxious, as though she knew too well that she had revealed too much.
‘Is that your husband on his way home?’ said Frances, trying to be helpful. ‘Perhaps I’d better push off, he’s probably had quite enough of the Ollerenshaw family lately.’
‘No, don’t go,’ said Janet. ‘He won’t mind.’
He so obviously would and did mind that Frances, watching that shadow of terror on Janet’s face, felt quite overcome with sympathy. How could she leave her here, to await such a homecoming? Yet how could she stay, so unwelcome?
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Frances. ‘I’ve had an idea. When your husband and his friend get back, why don’t you come out with me for an hour? We could have a drink at the hotel, or something. That would be more of a pleasant change than a funeral.’
‘Oh, I don’t see how I could,’ said Janet.
‘Of course you could,’ said Frances, in a healthy, bullying tone. ‘It’s good for one, to get out every now and then. I know what it’s like, with small babies. They’re a terrible tie.’
‘You don’t seem to have found them very tying,’ said Janet, with spirited asperity.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Frances. ‘Even I’ve stayed at home once in a while.’
She could see that Janet was going to agree: it seemed a good plan, and once agreed, they began to get on better.
‘You ought to make your husband baby-sit every now and then,’ said Frances. ‘On principle.’
‘Oh, he does offer, sometimes,’ said Janet. ‘But he usually offers when he knows I don’t want to go.’
‘Well, there’s not much he can do about it this time. We’ll present him with a fait accompli. We’ll say we’ve got to go and discuss your Great-Aunt’s will. He can’t do anything about that, can he?’
‘I don’t suppose so,’ said Janet. And then added, surprisingly, ‘I don’t suppose he could do much about anything I really decided to do. It’s just that I can’t decide myself.’
‘Well, there’s not much scope for action, with a baby around. You’ll have to wait a bit.’ „
‘Yes, I will.’
‘You know,’ said Frances, who was beginning to think that the curtains weren’t so pretentious after all, they were really quite an attractive shade of orange, and she rather liked the red piano—‘you know, you’re the second new relation I’ve found recently. It’s just occurred to me, you must know David Ollerenshaw, he must be your first cousin, unless I’ve got everything hopelessly mixed up.’
Janet did, of course, know David: they discussed David, happily. How much easier conversation becomes, with a person in common: Frances felt that the Ollerenshaws’ network might well one day approach the density of the Sinclair-Davieses. Janet had known David since childhood, of course, though he had been some years older than she: he had always been regarded as ‘the clever one’ of the family, rather more attractively clever than his father, whom nobody had ever liked. He had ‘turned his nose up’, Janet said, implying that she too thought the phrase funny: and as for his mother, as for Auntie Evie—well, she had been a very unpopular character, critical, carping, nothing good enough for her, and religious, too. There was one good thing you could say for the Ollerenshaws, at least they had never been religious. They hadn’t gone round nosing into other people’s affairs, telling other people what to do. Poor David, said Frances, he must have had a tough childhood. Yes, said Janet, but he was always so nice, he was always so nice to me, he was good natured. I was nothing, I was just another little cousin, but he was always nice to me. Why shouldn’t he have been, said Frances, and Janet said, oh, I don’t know, when I was a child I never expected anyone to be nice to me. I haven’t seen him for years, she said.
‘He’s never shown any signs of getting married, has he?’ said Frances, vulgarly curious, as usual, about other people’s sex lives, and wondering whether her original hazard of repressed or unacknowledged homosexuality might be correct.
‘Not that I know of,’ said Janet. ‘But then, I really haven’t heard much of him for years. Not since he started all these travels. I think the last time I saw him was the day he got his degree. I must have been about fourteen. His parents gave this horrible party and we all went off to Manchester to see David shown off—poor old David, he did look miserable. I was miserable too, I was wearing a dreadful green dress that didn’t fit. My party dress.’ She laug
hed. ‘I think I was so upset by how awful I looked that I hardly spoke to him. And his father made this terrible speech, about how he had encouraged David, and bought him books, and made him work, and all that—you’d have thought he’d got the degree himself the way he carried on, and David looked so embarrassed, though I suppose in a way it was true, do you think? It’s a terrible thing, what parents do to their children. Don’t you think?’
Frances did think so, and they talked for a while of their non-Ollerenshaw mothers and their Ollerenshaw fathers, and what they felt about them: they agreed that their fathers, who seemed to share a capacity for staring into space, had, unlike David’s father, been non-interventionists of the first order, and had erred, if at all, in the direction of neglect and indifference. ‘I suppose one’s never satisfied,’ said Frances.
‘Sometimes I wonder about what will happen to my baby,’ said Janet. ‘It’s such a responsibility, trying to bring up a baby. Sometimes I feel like giving up. But of course, that’s the only thing one can’t do.’
‘It doesn’t seem so bad, as they begin to grow up,’ said Frances. ‘They begin to seem so obviously themselves. One doesn’t feel so directly responsible, when they grow older. My eldest will be old enough to get married, next year.’
‘That’s comforting,’ said Janet, without a flicker of surprise: usually, when Frances made such a remark, people hastened to tell her that she looked far too young to have so old a child. Either those days were over, and she looked her considerable age, or Janet was herself so young that she regarded Frances as a member of a different generation. Either way, Frances found she did not mind. It was of course true that Daisy was old enough to marry, legally, next year, though probably she would not: the problems of Stephen and his young wife might one day be hers. (Where was Stephen? She must ring Natasha in the morning, for more news.)
There was a silence. Both women stared at the bar of the fire, contemplative. ‘I know what you mean,’ said Janet, ‘about being obviously themselves. They are, of course. But I just don’t see how it happens. I mean . . . ’ she hesitated, unused to such concepts, such conversations—‘I mean, I feel I am myself, and that I’ve got to look after it. But I don’t know what it is. I know it’s there, that’s all. That’s why I don’t think it was at all awful about Aunt Con, she was being herself, if you know what I mean, everyone could see what she was being.’ She paused, gathered courage, went on. ‘And as for you, it’s easy for you to know who you are. Even the Sunday Examiner Colour Supplement tells you who you are. Anyway’—(still slightly reproachful)—‘I can tell from looking at you, who you are.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Frances. Janet Bird was not a fool, not a fool at all. She was so pleased, so grateful, that she had thought of ringing her.
‘Well, you know what I mean,’ said Janet Bird, gesturing, in a slightly camp, surprisingly confident manner, at Frances’s jersey, and her muddy shoes. ‘I mean to say, look at your clothes. When would I ever dress up like that?’
‘I’m not dressed up,’ wailed Frances, ‘this is what I wear, I can’t help it. And you mustn’t,’ she continued, well aware of the issues, ‘you mustn’t get cross about a silly article in a paper, I never know what to say, but one has to say something, after all . . . ’
‘It said you liked peeling vegetables’ said Janet. ‘That must have been a lie. Surely that must have been a lie.’
Frances considered for an instant. It had in fact been the truth, that remark, though a truth, she agreed, fit only for Pseud’s Corner: she did like peeling potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, leeks, even the crazy Jerusalem artichoke. Truth, however, is relative. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘of course it was a lie.’
On the basis of such a mutual deception (for Janet too, as we have seen, liked peeling vegetables), they felt quite friendly.
‘You know,’ said Janet, ‘when all this row came up, I was interviewed on the television. The local news. They made me look somebody quite different. And I thought, why isn’t that person me? And why could I never do that for myself? Interesting, isn’t it?’
Frances was just about to reply that it was indeed extremely interesting, and that it was the kind of question that had often perplexed her, when they heard a car pull up outside, and the sound of footsteps. Both fell silent, in a moment of conspiracy. Frances herself was used to such homecomings; she felt considerable womanly solidarity with her new cousin. ‘Don’t forget,’ she said (whispering, despite herself just very slightly nervous at the thought of the advent of a cross man, even though it was the advent of a cross twenty-nine-year-old man who was in no way her own problem)—‘don’t forget, you’ve got to come out with me. We’ve got to talk about a funeral.’
‘All right,’ whispered Janet.
And in walked her husband Mark, and his colleague Bill David. Frances rose to her feet to greet them, prepared (indeed intending) to be charming, but she could see at once that there was going to be little opportunity to charm Mark Bird: he was one of those men on whom effort is wasted, one of those men on whom she never managed to have any effect at all. Neatly dressed, well-shaven, angry with some permanent grievance, he stood there on his own hearth, rocking backwards and forwards slightly, while Janet made introductions, explained (rather bravely, Frances thought) her own immediate plans, and disappeared into the kitchen to warm up the portion of shepherd’s pie. ‘You’ve just been out to a meeting, Janet tells me,’ said Frances, unable to prevent herself from social niceties, ‘about a new pedestrian precinct, is that right?’ Mark nodded. ‘You take an interest in local politics?’
‘Well, somebody has to,’ said Mark. ‘If we don’t speak up, there are others who will.’ He implied dark moneyed storms of malice, of corruption. Frances tried to guess which side he would be on—for or against the precinct—and found that she had no idea: Janet hadn’t been interested enough to tell her. ‘Tell me,’ she asked, smiling brightly at Mark and Bill, ‘which side did you go to support, the anti-precinct, or the pro-precinct?’
Mark Bird stated at her in feigned, in over-done horror. ‘Which side, did you say?’ he said, rudely, as though the question had betrayed imbecility.
‘Yes, that’s what I said,’ said Frances snappily. What a horrid little bully, she thought to herself.
‘Do you mean to say,’ said Mark, ‘that there are still people in the British Isles who don’t realize that the pedestrian precinct was the most (and Frances still, even at this point, couldn’t tell if he was going to say ‘brilliant’ or ‘disastrous’)—‘one of the most (and the word, when it came, was spat out with a most unpleasant vehemence) ‘outmoded concepts in town planning?’
‘Come, come now Mark,’ said Bill, uneasily, embarrassed, marginally more susceptible to the presence of a woman and a stranger: ‘Come along, you know that’s not quite true, there are still areas where a precinct might be a perfectly appropriate way of dealing with shopping problems . . . ’
‘But we’re talking about Tockley,’ said Mark, with all the violence of illogic: ‘We’re not talking about all those other areas, we’re talking about Tockley, or I am, anyway.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Frances, soothingly. ‘Do explain to me why it is that a pedestrian precinct would be so unsuitable in Tockley.’
They explained, Bill fairly politely, Mark with such weighted innuendoes about her ignorance and folly that she hoped, for Janet’s sake, that Janet couldn’t hear through the hatch. How extraordinary people are, she thought, as she listened to Mark and Bill describe Town Planning Acts, and condemn the views of distinguished architects, and rail against the Council and the Ministry of Transport and the Department of the Environment and a local solicitor: how amazing, to tell me all this, when all I asked was a polite question, and when, according to their evident assessment of my intellect, I am quite incapable of following a single word that they are saying.
They were in the process of informing her about car parking statistics in towns of comparable size, sparing her none of the figure
s, and gazing at her accusingly as though she would, if given a chance, reveal some other dangerous heresy, when Janet came back, with her coat already on.
‘I won’t be late back,’ she said to Mark. ‘Hugh won’t wake, he’s been sleeping much better lately, but if he does, we’ll be at—at the King’s Head, won’t we—er, won’t we, Frances?’
The use of the Christian name was an act of marital defiance: Mark registered it, but at the same time registered the name of the hotel where Frances was staying. There was nothing wrong with the King’s Head: it was the best hotel in town, a hotel where he certainly could not afford to eat whenever he fancied, a hotel where bar and restaurant had witnessed many a transaction of civic importance. Quickly, Mark changed his tack, and looked at Frances with something remarkably like an old-fashioned leer.
‘Well, don’t have too much to drink, you girls, will you?’ he said. ‘Janet’s got a very weak head, I’m afraid. Half a glass of sherry and she’s half seas over.’
What an extraordinary remark, thought Frances, but all she said was ‘Oh, you needn’t worry, I’ll look after her and get her back all right.’
The Realms of Gold Page 37