by Joan Smith
‘Actually, I’m moving into the cottage for a few days,’ Loretta said, gesturing towards it with her left hand. ‘I’ve been ill and Clara very kindly –’
‘You’re moving into the cottage? But you can’t be! I told Clara before I went to New York – I’m sorry, there’s been some mistake.’ He stopped, glowering at her.
‘I – I don’t think so,’ Loretta began hesitantly. ‘That is, Clara did ring and ask if I wanted the cottage. She didn’t say anything about–’
‘Shit!’ Jeremy sat with pursed lips, his thin fingers drumming impatiently on the arm of his chair. Then, as if he’d suddenly remembered her presence, he leaned across and touched Loretta lightly on the arm. ‘Sorry, love, it’s not your fault. I’ll sort it out with Clara when she gets back from her devotions, or whatever it is she does in church. So tell me, when did Wayne leave? I’m sorry he went without saying goodbye, he was rather a friend of mine. That’s how he came to be living in the cottage, as a matter of fact. When did he go?’
Loretta folded her arms, a gesture that succeeded in removing her from contact with Jeremy’s hand without actual rudeness. She didn’t like being addressed as ‘love’ at the best of times, and certainly not by this petulant little creep. She was saved from replying to his question by the sudden appearance of Clara at the bottom of the lawn. She waved vigorously in their direction as she toiled up the hill.
‘Jeremy, dear, you’ve met my new tenant,’ she said, dropping a light kiss on his forehead. She straightened up, beaming at Loretta and giving the distinct impression of someone who was rather pleased with herself. ‘Good trip?’
‘Eh? Oh, fine, fine.’ Jeremy got to his feet. ‘Clara, what’s all this about – urn’ – he looked at Loretta, obviously unable to recall her name – ‘about you letting the cottage? I’m sure I told you I wanted it for a friend of mine. Don’t you remember? We were talking about it last weekend, before I went to New York.’
‘Really?’ Clara’s forehead wrinkled, as though with the effort of dredging something from the deepest recesses of memory. ‘I don’t think so, darling. Are you sure you mentioned it? Because it’s a bit late now. Loretta’s here, and I’ve promised the cottage to her for as long as she likes. So I don’t see there’s much to be done. Sorry.’
‘Clara! I remember the conversation perfectly! You happened to say Wayne was moving out early and I –’
‘Darling, I really don’t want to discuss it, especially not in front of Loretta. She must be feeling frightfully embarrassed.’ This much at least was true, especially as Loretta was pretty sure Clara was faking her memory lapse. Who could blame her, if Jeremy was responsible for installing the unlovable Wayne as her previous tenant? ‘Let’s leave it,’ Clara finished briskly. ‘I must see to lunch or we’ll have nothing to eat.’
‘I’d like another beer,’ Jeremy called after his wife’s receding back, subsiding into the chair he’d just vacated. Clara showed no sign of having heard him.
Loretta reached for her book and sat with it open on her lap, pretending to read. It had hardly been an affectionate reunion between husband and wife, and her own position was anything but comfortable. She didn’t relish the thought of living next door to someone who had made it clear that he resented her presence, and Clara had made no attempt at all to ease the atmosphere. Did she really want to move into the cottage in these circumstances? Her chief reason for staying – her anxiety that Clara shouldn’t be left alone to face the consequences of her role as protector of the peace camp – was no longer valid. Unprepossessing as Jeremy might be, he was still Clara’s husband, and on hand if anything untoward did happen. At this point in Loretta’s deliberations Clara reappeared and plonked a can of lager on the table in front of Jeremy.
‘Clara,’ Loretta said, seizing her chance, ‘I’m feeling very bad about the cottage. If Jeremy wants it for a friend, wouldn’t it be better if I went back to London? I’m sure I can find something else if I hunt around for a bit. I don’t want to–’
‘Heavens, Loretta, don’t even think of it! Jeremy doesn’t mind really, do you, darling?’
Loretta waited for Jeremy to say that he did, and was disappointed.
‘No, no, now that you’re here ...’ he said in resigned tones, picking up the can and pulling the ring to open it.
‘But–’
Loretta wasn’t allowed to get any further.
‘I completely forgot. I’ve got a message for you, Loretta. Ellie and Here are going riding this afternoon and they wondered if you’d like a hack. Half past five, they’re going. They said to ring and let them know and they’ll fix up a horse from the riding school.’
‘But I don’t ride,’ protested Loretta, to whom the word ‘hack’ was a derogatory term often applied by John Tracey to his colleagues on the Sunday Herald. ‘I’ve never been on a horse in my life. Though I did once ride a camel,’ she added unwisely, recalling an uncomfortable holiday with Tracey in Morocco.
‘There you are then,’ Clara said triumphantly. ‘If you can stay on a camel, you can stay on anything. It’s wonderful exercise, and the fresh air will do you good. You’re looking a bit wan. Get them to fix you up with Albert, you won’t come to any harm on him.’
Loretta was about to explain that her pallor was probably due to the fact that, on the previous evening, she’d ignored her doctor’s instructions and helped herself to a considerable quantity of wine. But Jeremy forestalled her.
‘Don’t put her on Albert, she’ll die of boredom,’ he said scornfully. ‘I’ve never come across a dozier animal. He must be twenty-five if he’s a day.’
‘Age has got nothing to do with it,’ Clara objected. ‘Albert goes out every day, he’s perfect for a beginner.’
‘What about George? She’ll have fun on George.’
‘Good God, Jeremy, are you trying to kill her? George’d have her off in minutes. Nothing like falling off a horse to put you off for life,’ Clara said, turning back to Loretta. ‘You ask for Albert, he’ll do you nicely. Now, where are those girls? They’ll miss lunch if they don’t come down soon.’ Clara disappeared into the house, leaving a bewildered Loretta to wonder what had happened to her resolution to return to London without further ado.
Imo and Peggy having appeared from their respective rooms, they were five for lunch; to Loretta’s relief, the atmosphere at the kitchen table was less strained than she’d anticipated of so ill-assorted a gathering. Jeremy had cheered up considerably with the discovery that he was just in time to say goodbye to Wayne, from whom he had parted with mutual promises – overheard by Loretta from her vantage point in the garden – to look each other up in the future. In the course of the meal Loretta discovered that Jeremy was an art dealer, and had just returned from a trip to America. He was, it transpired, arranging the first London show of an artist called Peter Eddy, of whom Loretta had never heard; Jeremy assured her that Eddy’s paintings, most of them scenes of the Mid-West during the Great Depression, were going to be a sensation.
‘The next big thing,’ he enthused. ‘They can’t fail.’
‘Aren’t they a bit depressing?’ Loretta asked, not meaning any pun.
‘That’s why they’re going to be a success,’ Jeremy insisted. ‘It’s the spirit of the times. Thirties’ nostalgia, the fighting spirit, courage in the face of adversity. Besides which,’ he added, ‘they happen to be very good paintings.’
‘But how can someone today know what it was like in the thirties?’ Loretta continued. ‘Isn’t there a danger of romanticizing it?’
‘Ah, but Eddy lived through it,’ Jeremy said. ‘That’s the extraordinary thing – he’s a genuine undiscovered talent. When he started painting, the people who liked his work couldn’t afford to buy it – they were the farmers who’d had their farms taken away, the people who’d lost their homes. And he refused to sell to anyone who was doing well out of the Depression – bankers, speculators, black marketeers. So his pictures just piled up in a barn in Iowa. It’s taken me months
to track them down, I’ve been looking ever since I found one in this country, in a house sale near Worcester, of all places.’
‘How does he feel about this exhibition?’ Loretta asked curiously. If Peter Eddy had been too principled to sell his pictures to people who were making money in the thirties, she couldn’t see why he was willing to part with them in the recession of the eighties.
‘Oh well, he’s dead, as a matter of fact,’ Jeremy said off-handedly. ‘It’s his widow who’s letting them go. I mean, why should she be scratching a living on a farm in Iowa when she can sell a few pictures and live comfortably for the rest of her life?’
‘When are we going to see one of these wonderful paintings?’ Clara asked, stacking their used plates in a dishwasher Loretta hadn’t noticed before.
‘I thought you might say that.’ Jeremy grinned boyishly. ‘Wait there.’
Loretta heard him run upstairs; five minutes later he returned with a small picture in a plain wooden frame which he handed reverently to Clara. She took it across to the side window, held it at arm’s length, and examined it closely until Jeremy could stand it no longer.
‘What d’you think?’
Clara sighed. ‘Exquisite. The use of colour – and the light. I can see why he didn’t want to part with them.’
She came back to the table and handed the picture to Loretta. It showed a small group of people, their possessions piled high on a horse-drawn cart, standing in attitudes of resignation outside a small clapboarded house. It was signed in one corner by the artist, and a small brass insert in the frame revealed its title to be The Leave-taking. As Loretta passed it to Imo, Clara and Jeremy began an animated discussion of Eddy’s technique; for the first time, Loretta could see what might have brought so incongruous a couple together. Imo stared at the picture for a moment, then handed it on to Peggy.
‘Looks like a Hopper to me,’ she said dismissively. ‘I can’t see what all the fuss is about.’
‘A Hopper? God, Imogen, you don’t know what you’re talking about! There’s an energy about these paintings – they make Hopper look washed-out, etiolated. Surely you can see that?’ Jeremy stared at her, his anger visible in two red patches on his pale cheeks.
‘Yes, darling, he’s right. That wasn’t really a very intelligent thing to say, was it?’ Clara’s tone was lighter, lacking in her husband’s vehemence, but there was no doubt he and she were on the same side.
‘OK, OK, I know I haven’t inherited your delicate artistic sensibilities.’ Imo scraped back her chair and headed for the door. ‘Can I borrow the car, Clara? I promised to go and see Emma, she’s home this weekend, too.’ She waited, one hand on the door-knob, avoiding her mother’s eye.
‘As long as you’re back in time for your train,’ Clara said. ‘Imo’s got to be back in Brighton tonight,’ she added as her daughter left the room. ‘She’s got her second-year exams tomorrow.’
‘It’s a nice picture,’ Peggy said suddenly, holding out the Eddy painting to Jeremy. He took it, with an air of being surprised by the fact that she was able to speak.
‘Half past two already,’ Clara said, switching on the dish-washer. ‘Loretta, would you like to see the cottage now? Mrs Abbott will still be there, but I expect you’d like a look round. What about you, Peggy, d’you want to come?’
Peggy, who had been largely silent during the meal, stood up immediately. Loretta guessed the girl was grateful for an excuse to escape from Jeremy. Clara led the way to the back door and out into the conservatory.
‘I phoned Mrs Abbott and asked her to clean upstairs first so you could dump your things up there,’ she said conversationally, following the path that led through the privet hedge to the cottage. ‘Oh yes, she’s still here – the door’s open.’
Clara rapped on the front door with her knuckles and stepped inside. Loretta and Peggy followed, making rather a crowd in the small room. As soon as she crossed the thres-hold Loretta was assailed by an unpleasant smell, one she associated with antiseptic and hospitals. The grey-haired woman who was standing at the sink turned to face them, and immediately launched into an apology.
‘Sorry, Mrs Wolstonecroft, I just can’t seem to get rid of that smell. This is the second time I’ve scrubbed this sink, it just won’t go.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Clara reassured her, turning to Loretta. ‘It’s those wretched butterflies – Wayne collected them. The place has been stinking of this stuff for weeks, formalin I think it is. Or do I mean formaldehyde?’ She moved to her right and opened a door into a room which, from what Loretta could see over her shoulder, appeared to be the bathroom. ‘As if the Americans don’t do enough killing already,’ Clara continued in her carrying voice. ‘If it’s not Libya or Nicaragua, it’s some poor innocent insect.’
Behind Loretta, Mrs Abbott’s bucket clinked noisily in the sink.
‘She doesn’t like me saying that, her son works at the base,’ Clara hissed, sotto voce. Then, resuming her normal tone, ‘How d’you like the stairs? I had them made specially.’ She was looking at a wrought-iron spiral staircase which ascended to the first floor from a corner of the bathroom. ‘Some people think it’s a bit odd, having them in here, but I think it’s logical. People often want to go to the loo in the night, I know I do. Oh, and that door leads into the garden. That was the architect’s idea. He said if people had to come down that narrow staircase they ought to be able to get outside fast. It’s usually bolted. Come upstairs.’
Loretta and Peggy followed Clara up the winding stairs, finding themselves in a light room which took up the entire upper floor. At one end, below the window in the roof, was a double bed; at the other, a picture window provided a spectacular view across the valley.
‘What d’you think? Will it do?’
‘It’s delightful,’ Loretta said sincerely.
‘I knew you’d be impressed. Now, d’you want some help in bringing your things over?’
The three women returned to Baldwin’s; Peggy disappeared into the spare bedroom, and Clara carried one of Loretta’s bags and her typewriter over to the cottage. Loretta went down to the lay-by where she had parked her car, and drove it round to the space in front of the cottage recently vacated by Wayne’s Trans-Am.
‘Got everything you want? The Aga runs on oil, the instructions should be in that drawer. See you later.’
Clara departed, leaving Loretta alone with Mrs Abbott. With some difficulty, she succeeded in persuading the cleaning lady not to make a second attempt on the kitchen floor; and so at last, almost twenty-four hours later than she had expected, Loretta found herself in sole possession of Keeper’s Cottage.
She was pulling on a pair of jeans, thrown into a suitcase at the last moment in reluctant recognition that conditions in the country were occasionally damp and muddy, when a voice drifted up the stairs.
‘Hey, Loretta? You around?’
It was Here’s voice; she pulled a sweater over her head and ran lightly down the stairs, through the bathroom and into the kitchen, where she’d left the front door open.
‘Will I do?’ she asked nervously, observing that Here was wearing jodhpurs and riding boots.
‘Sure,’ said Here, leading the way out of the cottage. ‘Ellie’s old boots are in the car. You can borrow a hard hat at the school.’
Ten minutes later Loretta was given a leg-up on to a large horse which, although it seemed to her to be brown, was apparently bay in colour. On her head perched a white crash helmet not unlike those she’d seen in newspaper pictures of riot police.
‘Don’t forget your whip,’ Ellie said, edging near on a black and white pony which was already displaying signs of a skittish nature.
Loretta reluctantly took the long stick Ellie was holding out to her, and pulled hard on the reins to prevent her horse from moving in front of the black and white pony. They were lined up and ready to move out of the stable-yard, Here bringing up the rear, when a breathless figure in riding gear appeared.
‘Wait for
me!’ It was Robert.
‘Thought you weren’t coming,’ called Ellie.
A couple of minutes later Robert joined the tail end of the little procession as it wound slowly into open country. The late afternoon sun shone and Loretta’s horse, Albert, moved forward at a gentle pace; she began to enjoy herself. Suddenly the horse veered sideways and dropped his head, pulling up a clump of grass from the hedge to Loretta’s left. At once a chorus of voices offered advice.
‘Pull his head up!’
‘Don’t let him eat!’
‘You’ve got to show him who’s boss!’
It was the start of an extremely uncomfortable hour. No matter how hard Loretta pulled on the reins, Albert came to a standstill whenever he espied anything edible; so often did these meal breaks occur that she began to wonder whether the animal had been fed at all in the previous week. Soon Here’s horse, a frisky brown pony, had overtaken Albert and was trotting happily into the distance. Loretta was left to endure a stream of instructions from Robert, who seemed determined that she should learn something called the rising trot. She cooperated only because it slightly alleviated the painful bumping she had to suffer every time Albert moved at more than a gentle walk, wishing that someone had had the foresight to warn her to wear a bra. By the time the horses finally wound their way back into the stable-yard she was flustered and sore, certainly in no mood to listen to Robert’s assurance that she’d done rather well for a novice. When the others pressed her to accompany them to a pub in the next village – they had decided to boycott the Green Man in Flitwell, they explained, because of its refusal to serve Clara – she was reluctant to agree; but without her car, and with aching legs, she was not in a good position to argue.
In the event, she felt a little better after consuming half a pint of lemonade. She relaxed, and told herself that good neighbourliness was the sort of thing she missed out on by living in London. She even allowed herself to be talked into going back to Ellie’s house for supper; Robert slipped home to change and make a telephone call, but joined them just in time to eat.