The Four of Us
Page 33
‘Ta.’ She eased herself away from the dog, yanked open the door, threw her bag to the ground and jumped after it.
The dog followed her.
The truck driver smartly slammed the door shut so there could be no question of the dog leaping back in again. As he put the truck into gear again, he was grinning, showing yellowed teeth.
‘You can have him,’ he yelled to her as he began pulling away. ‘I don’t soddin’want him.’
The dog sat by her side, looking up at her. ‘I don’t suppose you want him, either,’ she said, hoisting the strap of her bag up and over her shoulder. ‘Come on. Nothing’s going to stop for us on a roundabout. Let’s drag ourselves a few yards down the first exit – and when we do get a lift, don’t fart. Got it?’
The dog wagged its tail. Feeling curiously energized, Kiki began walking. It was still raining, but she wasn’t particularly bothered. England was a country of dog lovers. Someone would stop and give the two of them a lift – and Primmie would take the dog in. Even though it was over thirty years since she’d seen Primmie, she didn’t have a second’s doubt on that score.
Primmie regarded the tethered nanny goat doubtfully.
The nanny goat stared stonily back at her with yellow eyes.
‘Does she give milk, Mr Clegg?’ she asked uncertainly.
‘Oh aye. And she’ll be grand at rearing orphans.’
From behind her Geraldine made a stifled, snorting sound.
Wildly Primmie wondered if Dave Clegg knew of the children who were due to arrive in just over a week’s time, and then he said, ‘Calves do real well on goat’s milk, better’n they do on their mother’s milk. Lambs, too. Fact is, you can rear near anything on goat’s milk. Piglets. Foals. Alice here will rear anything you put nearby her.’
Deciding that if what Dave Clegg said was true Alice must have a nice nature, Primmie tried to overlook Alice’s yellow eyes. ‘Then I’ll take her, Mr Clegg. I’ll come back for her with Mr Trevose. He has a truck and I haven’t.’
‘Ah, no.’ Dave Clegg dragged his eyes away from Geraldine’s Ferrari and regarded her regretfully. ‘I’m going in to Helston Cottage Hospital this afternoon and I want. Alice settled afore I go.’
‘But I haven’t got anything to take her home in! Even if you go into hospital this afternoon, she’ll be all right here. I’ll come tomorrow with Matt and untether her and pop her in the back of Matt’s truck.’
‘Ah, no,’ Dave Clegg said again, rubbing a stubbly chin with a grubby hand. ‘I have someone else who’s interested in giving her a home, see? It’s either you takes her now, or you don’t takes her at all.’
Ever hopeful, Primmie turned towards Geral-dine.
‘No.’
‘But …’
‘It’s a Ferrari, Primmie. Not a cattle truck. Don’t even think it, let alone ask it. No. Never. Not in a million years.’
Primmie’s shoulders sagged. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Clegg,’ she said, turning back towards him. ‘But it just isn’t possible …’
Geraldine heaved a huge sigh. ‘Oh, all right. But he has to provide us with something to cover the rear seat. And that something has to be clean, Primmie. And waterproof!’
‘We’re nearly there, young lady,’ the Reverend John Cowles said to Kiki as he turned off the narrow main road on to a track marked ‘Private’. ‘This track isn’t actually private, of course,’ he continued, not at all disconcerted by the huge damp dog on the back seat poking its head out of the window. ‘It has to be used to gain access to the church – which is one of the five churches I serve – but Mrs Surtees put the notice up when she got tired of hordes of trippers scattering litter all over the headland on their way to the cove. And the cove itself is private, and so the notice does make some sense. Leastways, no one living locally objects to it – and of course locals use it when they attend church. Which isn’t,’ he added cheerfully as they bumped down a track high with brambles and bright with wild orange montbretia, ‘that often, as I only conduct a service here once every three months.’
He came to a halt beside a pair of rusty iron gates. ‘This is Ruthven.’ He indicated an even narrower track. It led up gently rising ground, between fields, to an immensely solid-looking grey-stone house. ‘Give Mrs Dove my best wishes. If she should want to see me for anything – surplus eggs or milk – I’ll be in the church for half an hour or so checking a genealogy request in the register. ‘Bye, God bless.’
Kiki hauled her ass – and her bag and the dog – out of the car. No one, as far as she could remember, had ever said ‘God bless’ to her before. And as the blessing had come from a vicar, she supposed it carried a bit of clout. She shrugged her shoulders. Even if it did, it wasn’t going to interfere with her plans for finding a cliff – and as the sea was so near she could hear it and smell it as well as see it, finding a cliff wasn’t going to be hard to do.
With her bag hoisted over one shoulder, the laptop under her arm and the dog keeping close to her side, she walked towards the house. It had stopped raining now, though there was still a light drizzle. Though she’d thought herself beyond having an interest in anything, the beauty of Ruthven’s location impinged even on her consciousness. Though not on the headland itself, there was a panoramic view of sea and sky and, apart from the vicar’s car still beetling its way to the tip of the headland and the church, there wasn’t a person in sight.
She wondered how Primmie stood it.
Ever since she’d kicked the dust of her childhood home from her heels, she’d lived in cities, surrounded by restaurants, clubs, shops, noise and people. Where did people who lived in places like the Lizard go on an evening, for God’s sake? What did they do?
With the question still mystifying her, she neared the house and discovered that the track didn’t lead, as she’d expected it to, to Ruthven’s front garden and front door, but curved round to the side the house, leading into a large cobbled yard surrounded by outbuildings.
One of the buildings, its doors wide open, housed a shabby-looking Vauxhall Corsa. With rising anticipation, she crossed the yard to a side door of the house. Hens squawked and flapped in dismay at her approach and at the sight of the dog.
The dog barked at them, but didn’t give chase. Instead, as she dumped her bag on the ground and knocked at the door, he sat expectantly by her side, tongue out, ears up.
There was no reply. Impatiently, Kiki tried the door and, when it opened, didn’t give a second thought to entering the house. ‘Primmie!’ she shouted as she stepped into a stone-floored porch. There was a scarred wooden bench, under which was a pair of new-looking Wellingtons. An ancient-looking waterproof hung from a hook.
‘Primmie!’ she shouted again, for all the world as if she were entering the old flat in Kensington and Primmie were expecting her. ‘It’s me! Kiki!’
The only reply was a ringing silence. Undeterred, she walked through the porch and into a large, roomy kitchen. It smelled of fresh paint. There were colourful rag rugs scattered on a slate floor, two tables, an enormous one with a jug of fresh flowers in its centre, a smaller one laden with jars of what looked to be home-made jam. A cream-coloured Aga nestled beneath an old mantelpiece, a red gingham tea towel hanging on its rail.
The dog stretched himself out on one of the rag rugs and, with a contented sigh, closed his eyes.
A door at the far side of the kitchen led into a white-painted hallway, the walls full of paintings and framed photographs. The door of what was obviously a sitting room stood wide open.
She went in. It was a large, sunny room, its windows giving out on to views of the headland and the sea. There was no wasted wall space. Where there weren’t bookshelves, full of neatly arranged books, there were yet more paintings, mainly watercolours.
There was a silver-framed photograph on the mantel over the open fireplace. It showed a middle-aged woman surrounded by four teenage children, three girls and a boy. One of the girls looked as if it could be Primmie, but the woman wasn’t Primmie’s mother.
Though she hadn’t visited Primmie’s Rotherhithe home as often as Geraldine and Artemis, she still remembered Primmie’s mother and would have recognized her.
Beside the fireplace a broad shelf housed a music system and several stacks of CDs. She stepped nearer, curious as to just what Primmie’s musical taste now was. There were several opera compilations. A lot of Mozart. A lot of Chopin. And then, on CD after CD, she saw her own name.
Everything she had ever recorded was there, from ‘White Dress, Silver Slippers’to the last album, which had been released only in America. Which meant that Primmie had gone to a great deal of effort to obtain a copy.
She never cried. Lovers had come and gone. Managers had come and gone. Success had come and gone. And she had never cried. She took one of the rock and roll compilation CDs she never travelled without from her bag and switched on the stereo, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. Primmie had never forgotten her. All through the long years of non-contact, Primmie had been loyally buying everything she had ever recorded.
With her eyes overly bright, she slid the CD into the player and turned the volume up high. Then, hugging her arms, she stood looking out over the headland to the sea, waiting for the friend who had never forgotten her to come home.
‘We could have sold tickets for this,’ Geraldine said grimly as she swung the Ferrari off the main road and on to the track leading to the headland.
Primmie didn’t answer her. She was too busy struggling to keep Alice firmly anchored in the rear of the car. Dave Clegg had put a collar round Alice’s neck with a long length of rope attached to it and, from the front passenger seat, Primmie was doing her best to hang on to the rope so that Alice could neither leap from the car nor scramble up on to the cream leather upholstered rear seats.
As they’d driven past Calleloe, tourists had taken snapshots of them. On the hill leading up the turn-off for the headland, a group of schoolchildren had laughed themselves silly. As they approached the turning, a couple of startled hikers cheered them on their way.
Only when they began bumping down the track did Alice stop tugging on the rope. Primmie’s aching arm muscles gave heartfelt thanks.
‘I think she likes the sea air,’ she said, seeing with surprise that the gates to Ruthven were wide open. In the distance, parked outside the small churchyard, was the distinctive shape of the Reverend John Cowles’s Volkswagen.
Assuming he had called at Ruthven en route to the church and had neglected to close the gates after him, she didn’t give them another thought. And then Geraldine said, ‘I can hear music coming from the house. You didn’t leave the radio or the stereo on, did you, Primmie?’
‘No. I didn’t have the radio on this morning – and I don’t have the Everley Brothers on any of my CDs.’
As they veered into the yard, the volume of the music was ear-splitting.
‘Does anyone else have a key, apart from Matt?’ Geraldine asked, bringing the Ferrari to a halt, finding it impossible to imagine that it was Matt playing the Everly Brothers’ ‘Wake Up Little Susie’so offensively loudly.
‘No.’ There was deep concern in Primmie’s voice. ‘And it isn’t Matt in the house. Matt doesn’t like rock and roll.’
As she said the last three words, the same incredible thought occurred to both of them simultaneously.
Primmie’s reaction was one of incredulity and hope.
Geraldine’s was one of white-hot rage.
Heedless of Alice, they scrambled from the Ferrari and began racing across the cobbles.
Geraldine reached the side door first. It stood wide open and she sprinted into the house, her eyes blazing. Hard on her heels, Primmie ran through the porch and into the kitchen, only to be brought up short by the sight of a huge, tangled mass of fur reclining on one of Amelia’s rugs.
Geraldine, heedless of the dog, catapulted into the hallway beyond and then hurled herself into the sitting room.
‘What the fuck,’ she demanded, as Kiki spun away from the window to face her, ‘are you doing here?’
Kiki, totally unprepared for the sight of Geraldine, gasped, falling backwards a step. ‘I could say the same to you,’ she managed, doing her best to sound aggressive and not defensive. ‘I came here to see Primmie. If I’d known you were here, I would have put my visit on hold till you’d gone.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here.
Living here. You’re the one that’s going!’
‘Kiki! Oh, Kiki, darling! How wonderful to see you!’ With the dog gambolling at her heels Primmie ran into the room, raced past Geraldine and threw her arms round Kiki.
Kiki blinked. The woman hugging her was the middle-aged woman in the photograph – the woman that she hadn’t recognized.
‘Primmie?’ She gathered her wits with difficulty. ‘It is OK for me to stay here, with you, isn’t it? It will probably only be for a few days, and …’
‘He never came home.’ The skin was taut across Geraldine’s cheekbones. ‘After you dumped him, Francis never returned to England. He never came back to Cedar Court. Neither I, nor his father, have ever seen him again. You destroyed him, Kiki. You took him away from me and then, when you’d no further use for him, you ditched him as if he was dirt under your shoe! You destroyed his life, my life, his father’s life …’
‘Hey! Steady on.’ Kiki was over her shock now, her fighting spirit kicking in. ‘The only person who destroyed Francis’s life was Francis. He was a drug addict – and it wasn’t me who turned him into one. He came back from his hippie-trail expedition with you an addict. I’m not to blame for that, Geraldine. If anyone is to blame, it’s you.’
‘Kiki, sit down.’ Primmie valiantly tried to defuse the situation. ‘You, too, Geraldine. I’ll make some tea. Or would whisky be better?’
Neither Kiki nor Geraldine took any notice of her.
‘And if it hadn’t been for my running off with him,’ Kiki continued, getting into her stride, ‘you wouldn’t have spent the last thirty years living a privileged existence in Paris. And I know you have been living a privileged existence, because I’ve seen your picture in the gossip columns.’
‘And did the caption beneath the pictures say I was a madam, running high-class call-girls?’ Geraldine asked acidly. ‘Because that’s what I was. That’s how my “privileged” existence was funded.’
Primmie sucked in her breath, her eyes widening.
Kiki opened her mouth to continue her verbal attack, registered what it was Geraldine had just said, and gaped at her.
‘Truly?’ Primmie forgot all about making tea to calm the situation down. ‘Is that why you didn’t keep in touch with Artemis and me?’
‘Yes. How could I? And before you ask, no, I’m not remotely ashamed of the way I’ve lived my life. I simply paired pretty, intelligent girls up with rich men. End of story.’
The atmosphere in the room had suddenly changed. Geraldine’s furious outburst had utterly exhausted her. She’d had a blood transfusion immediately before setting off for Cornwall, but wasn’t feeling the full benefit of it yet and, the last reserves of her energy spent, simply couldn’t continue venting bitterness and anger on such a gargantuan scale.
Kiki, who had no reason for anger, except as a defence mechanism, was too interested in Geraldine’s lifestyle in Paris to want to continue their furious slanging match.
Primmie, aware that the crisis had passed, put the million and one questions she was dying to ask Geraldine on hold and let out a deep, heartfelt sigh of relief.
Her moment of thankfulness lasted a second, maybe less.
‘Oh, no!’ she suddenly shouted, looking out of the window. ‘Alice is in the garden and is eating everything in sight!’
Whirling round, she darted from the room, making for the front door.
‘Who’s Alice?’ Kiki asked Geraldine, per-plexed. ‘A child?’
‘A goat – and don’t just stand there, Kiki. Goats are strong. We need to be out there with Primmie, helping her.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘Wine or whisky?’
It was four hours later and they were in the sitting room, Primmie and Kiki grubby and exhausted after chasing Alice the length and breadth of Ruthven and the headland.
‘Wine, please.’ Geraldine was sprawled full length on the deep-cushioned sofa, her face so pale it looked carved from alabaster.
‘Whisky.’ Kiki, the dog beside her, was seated cross-legged on the rag rug in front of the fireplace. The grate was empty of coals but made glorious by a jug of marigolds. She ran a hand through her fox-red hair, making her youthful, spiky hairstyle spikier than ever. ‘And what do we do with that black-hearted goat now we’ve finally tethered her? Where does she sleep tonight? With the cow?’
Sitting back on her heels next to the coffee table, Primmie poured Geraldine a glass of red wine. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t a clue what sleeping arrangements goats need. I’m not sure May-belline would like sharing with her, though.’
‘Sensible Maybelline,’ Geraldine said dryly, taking the proffered glass from Primmie. ‘And what about other sleeping arrangements? The dog’s, for instance?’
All three of them looked at the dog. The dog, happy at being the centre of attention, looked back at them from beneath its matted fringe of hair.
‘What about the kitchen?’ Primmie poured Kiki a slug of Bell’s. ‘He seems to like being on the rag rugs.’
The dog lolled a little more closely against Kiki.
‘By all means give the kitchen a try, Primmie.’ Still holding her wine glass, Geraldine closed her eyes in exhaustion. ‘But every dog I’ve ever met prefers sleeping on its owner’s bed. Which brings us to the subject of Kiki and whether there’s going to be room for her here once the children arrive.’