‘What a sacrilege! Why did your father do it?’
‘Oh, lots of reasons. It was an enormous house, and it had gardens and parklands, all very labour-intensive, and he couldn’t get live-in staff any more, and it needed far too much costly repair work and upkeep.’
‘But why didn’t he give it to the National Trust?’
‘They don’t take on houses that aren’t adequately endowed.’
‘So, why didn’t he open it to the public himself? Places like Chatsworth and Longleat seem to do well enough.’
‘Oh that’s another kettle of fish altogether; you need special insurance, extra security and God knows what. And anyway he didn’t fancy becoming an impoverished museum curator. He wanted to cash-in most of the contents, sell off ninety percent of the land, go into commerce and get rich.’
‘And did he?’
‘Oh yes. To be fair to him, he wasn’t alone in his vandalism. That sort of thing was considered expedient, in those days. In fact I believe about 250 houses of architectural and historic interest were demolished in this country after the second war, or got burnt to the ground for the insurance money! Zoyland Park went in 1953 when Grandpapa died, just as the stock market was rising and other private houses were beginning to flourish. Had Father waited just a few short years… but no. Sheer wanton destructiveness!’
Jess got out an apple and bit into it. ‘When did your father die? He must have been quite young?’
‘In 1983. Yes, he was only 63; maybe it was retribution for the death of the house!’
‘You and your brother Ifor would have been all for taking it on, then?’
‘I would,’ Hector corrected her. ‘I still hanker after my grandfather’s days, when the Mudgeleys were in charge; benevolent guardians of the countryside and its inhabitants. As a system it worked very well. But Ifor’s sold out just like our father did. He’s all for egalitarianism, anti-snobbery and equal opportunities. Huh!’ Hector snorted.
‘Is that so bad?’
‘Well what’s the point of being a bloody baronet if you don’t use your title?’ Hector demanded. ‘That’s just perverse inverted snobbery! If only I’d been born first…’
‘Well at least Morgan will be “Sir Morgan” eventually?’ Jess said.
‘Yes, that’s some comfort.’
‘So, what happened to the land?’
‘Oh a lot got built on, but most is still in agriculture. Part of it is a nature reserve; the low moors bit, and I’m fairly happy about that. I’m on the management committee in fact, and we’ve made a lot of positive changes to the place. I suppose that’s the only good thing about the whole sorry story.’ He got out a flask and poured himself a cup of coffee. ‘I just wish I could get more campaigning articles into the Chronicle. In the good old days when we owned it…’ He took a gulp of coffee and sighed.
‘They mightn’t have been good old days for everyone.’ Jess suggested.
‘I’m not so sure of that,’ Hector said. ‘At least they all had work then, a regular paypacket, proper housing and their own front doors to close at the end of the day.’
‘Or to walk into, if the fancy took them?’
‘If you must know,’ Hector said, tidying up the remains of his lunch, ‘Wendy threw a mug at me.’ He stared at her challengingly.
‘What?’ Jess began to laugh.
‘Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have told you,’ he said with mock irascibility. He looked at his watch. ‘Christ is that the time? We’re going to be late. Come on, start her up and let’s get going.’
As she drove off, Jess felt in unsually buoyant mood. She tried to analyse why, and concluded that it must be because Hector had begun to confide in her again. In her experience, this was rare, and therefore very beguiling. Most men were famously reluctant to discuss their problems. Her own Dad certainly didn’t; for him to do so would have been a sign of weakness and incompetence. Yet here was Hector revealing things about himself and his family, things perhaps he didn’t even share with Wendy? Jess felt privileged, special. Maybe, she thought, it’s more rewarding to be friends with a man than to marry him (unless of course you want his children). Poor Wendy doesn’t appear to be getting much fulfilment as a wife. Is it possible that I’m getting the best of Hector? It was a happy thought and Jess drove on, smiling.
But the next day he was avoiding her, she was sure of it. He didn’t go over to the pub at lunchtime, and when she went into the Newsroom to deliver photographs or to discuss stories with Nigel, he barely acknowledged her. Jess felt hurt. She tried to think how she might have offended him, but couldn’t remember anything bad enough. He surely wasn’t sulking because she had laughed at the mug-throwing episode. He wasn’t that petty… was he?
Just as well I’m not married to Hector, she thought crossly. I never know where I am with the wretched man!
Chapter 15
In mid-January, the weekend arrived when Jess was due to go up to London to see Caroline, but she wasn’t sure whether she was looking forward to it this time. Over the years she had grown very fond of her, but their friendship was changing inexorably and Jess wanted it to stay the way it had begun. She had always enjoyed Caroline as a mentor: approving, encouraging, laughing at her jokes and drinking wine late into the night putting the world to rights, but these days her friend was permanently distracted and exhausted.
Of course it’s necessary to grow up and take on responsibilities, Jess thought, but is this the right way for women to go about it? Isn’t this modern feminist ethos for juggling several lives at once every bit as much of a deprivation as being expected to stay brain-dead at home, hoovering behind the furniture? Aren’t they simply opposite sides of the same coin?
She didn’t envy Caroline and her ilk one bit. They never relaxed. They never had time for trivial pleasures such as putting photographs into albums, writing letters or picking flowers. They were mothers when they were supposed to be bosses, but were obsessed with problems at work whilst playing Happy Families. Whichever role they occupied, they felt guilty. They had holidays certainly, and expensive ones to boot, but even these were high powered. Hannah had to be ‘entertained’, so Caroline took her to Disneyland, or they went skiing, or they hired a canal boat in France with five other single parents and a few token men, so that the children would learn cooperation, discipline and social skills. It was all such hard work!
Jess worked hard too, but at least she felt that her life was her own some of the time. Did that precious sense of self have to vanish? Did having children inevitably mean a complete derogation of identity? If so, it was to be avoided at all costs.
She remembered the few family holidays she had been on, at Hannah’s age. She had made sandcastles, collected shells or investigated rock-pools whilst her parents had read books or gone for walks. The tranquil days had stretched out ahead of her, and hours had elapsed serenely, devoid of any programmed or supervised activity. She supposed her parents must be old-fashioned as well as elderly. It had never occurred to them to entertain her; the very concept would have been anathema.
It seems to me to be totally counterproductive, Jess thought, this raucous trivia which (as current orthodoxy has it) must be drip-fed into children throughout their every waking hour. It’s supposed to stimulate their tiny minds, but I think all it does is to make everyone conform to fashionable but intellectually vapid stereotypes. It stifles all creativity.
‘You sound just like my grandmother!’ Caroline teased after supper on the Friday evening, when Hannah had gone unwillingly to bed and Jess was trying to propound an edited version of these ideas. ‘At least today’s children have access to everything that’s going and have a good social sense and global awareness.’
‘True,’ Jess agreed, ‘and solitary rock-pool gazing certainly doesn’t seem to have been much of a foundation for vivid, gregarious encounters, in my experience!’
‘No luck with men then?’
‘No,’ Jess made a face. ‘I only attract lame ducks.’
‘I never seem to have time to meet new blokes,’ Caroline said, ‘but I’m bound to admit that it doesn’t bother me overmuch.’
‘Is work going well then?’
‘Not bad, but ageism is beginning to creep up on me. I’m thirty-seven, in my prime, but I’m getting the distinct impression that I’m about to be elbowed out of the way by the “young”. It’s an uncomfortable feeling; makes me quite manic at times. Insecurity is a high octane fuel for us workaholics. How about you?’
‘I keep wondering whether I should make a move,’ Jess said, ‘but I like it at the Chronicle and there’s no particular reason…’
‘Well,’ Caroline offered, ‘if you ever want to come to London, you’re welcome to rent my basement flat. Since Hannah grew out of her last live-in nanny, we haven’t needed it. I’ve got a student occupying it at the moment, but he’ll be leaving soo…’ The telephone rang. Caroline got up to answer it and Jess overheard her one-sided conversation.
‘Hello? Oh… hello. So, what is it this time?’
‘No, absolutely not. It’s out of the question.’
‘She’s fine, and she’s nothing whatever to do with you, OK?’
‘I’m sorry Hector. Listen carefully, because this is my final word on the subject: NO!’ Caroline banged the receiver down and turned, frowning, to Jess. ‘Guess who.’
‘Does he often phone?’ Jess felt something uncomfortably like jealousy.
‘Not for years and years,’ Caroline said, ‘but in the last week, twice, well three times now. He says he wants to see Hannah. What’s the matter with him, seven year itch?’
‘Well,’ admitted Jess, ‘I suppose you could call it that, but actually in his case it’s more like heir-line cracks. H-E-I-R, that is.’
‘Uh-oh,’ Caroline raised an eyebrow in amusement. ‘Having trouble with young Morgan, is he?’
‘Yes, he seems very worried about him. Is Hannah reading well?’
‘Fluently. It’s wonderful when the penny drops, you know. A whole new world opens up to them.’
‘Well apparently Morgan is totally clueless about the written word, but bright enough verbally.’
‘Probably dyslexic, poor child. It’s all the rage,’ Caroline said, ‘but I can’t somehow imagine Hector being very supportive under those circumstances.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he would be,’ Jess said at once. ‘If he knew it was genuine. I don’t think he’s considered that possibility though…’
‘If you want my advice,’ Caroline said, ‘keep well out of it. No parent welcomes any suggestion that its darling child is anything less than perfect.’
‘Oh I’m sure Hector wouldn’t be so touchy,’ Jess said defensively. ‘He’d always want what was best for Morgan.’
‘Lucky man – he’s got a good champion in you.’
‘On the contrary,’ Jess snapped. ‘If you must know, we don’t even seem to be on speaking terms, these days.’
On the Sunday evening, travelling home from Paddington, she wondered whether she would want to see quite so much of Caroline in future. She regretted speaking sharply to her. It hadn’t been a row, nothing so dramatic, but it was enough to ruffle Jess’s composure, as the conversation re-ran itself irritat-ingly inside her head. She wished she had kept quiet. There was no point in arguing – they had so little in common these days. There was a time, Jess thought, when I assumed that Caroline the High Flyer was about to leave me behind, but now the opposite seems more likely to be true. How strange.
Wendy managed to convince herself that it was because Hector cared for her that he was insisting on her having the operation privately, and once this idea had taken hold she felt better able to square it with her conscience and arrive at a less uncomfortable acceptance. She had worried about Morgan and how he would get on whilst she was in hospital. It wasn’t so much that Hector couldn’t cope with the daily chores. He wouldn’t, but that hardly mattered. It was more the fear that in her absence he might demoralise the boy. Morgan was at an impressionable age, and she didn’t want him upset. (Any day now, they would have to discuss special schooling… but not quite yet…) She decided to approach Ifor and his wife June, and was pleased when they cheerfully offered to have him for the eight or nine days that she would be away, or even longer if necessary to allow her to recuperate.
Wendy also undertook a huge cooking session and stocked up the freezer with meals for a fortnight. She cleaned every room in the house, changed the sheets on the beds, put blue-flush in the lavatories, washed the curtains and dusted the tops of the lampshades. At the back of her mind was a tiny voice that said, What if you don’t come round after the operation? Wendy felt that, in this event, at least she’d have nothing to feel ashamed of.
And now here she was, in her private hospital room, having been brought there at nine thirty by Hector. It was now… Wendy looked at her watch… five thirty and it had seemed a very long day. A nurse had written Mrs W. Mudgeley on a plastic band and had fastened it around her wrist. After some hours a young doctor had showed up, and then the surgeon.
Then no one. Soon she would ring Morgan at Ifor’s to check that he was all right. Then at six thirty when Hector would be home from work, she would ring him too. So what now? There was a television, but she didn’t feel like watching it. She wished she were in a proper ward with things going on, and other patients to talk to. When she had previously stayed overnight in the Gynae ward for her exploratory laparoscopy, there had been Maureen the hairdresser on one side with her gas curling tongs, and fat Jean on the other with her constant complaints. Wendy hadn’t liked either of them much, but at least they were a distraction. She was glad when it was eventually time to telephone.
‘Hector, love, it’s me.’
‘Oh, hello. Hang on a mo. I’ll just turn the radio off… Hello?’
‘How was your day?’
‘Pretty good actually. I managed to escape from the Newsroom for almost half of it, and I’ve done a really good piece on the aerial pollution from that plastics factory I was telling you about. Remember?’
‘Oh… good… Are you all right?’
‘Fine. But it’s odd being here on my own without you or Morgan.’
‘Yes, it would be. Morgan’s happy. I rang him just now. He says he and the girls are all dressing up, and he’s being a robot.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Did you find your supper all right?’
‘Yes, I’m putting it in the microwave any minute.’
‘I wish I could eat something myself. I’m starving!’
‘What? Haven’t they brought you any food yet?’
‘Of course not! I’m not allowed any supper before the op. I told you.’
‘So you did. You all right then?’
‘As all right as I’m ever going to be.’
‘Well I suppose I’d best be getting on with this cooking business, so… well… what does one say in these circumstances? Good luck for tomorrow? Hope it all goes well.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ll pop in to see you in the evening, OK?’
‘Yes.’
‘Goodbye for now then, love.’
‘’Bye.’ Wendy put the receiver down slowly. Hector had said ‘Good luck for tomorrow’ as though she were going to the dentist for a check-up or something equally routine. What if she were to die under the knife? Would he then wish he’d said, ‘Darling, just remember one thing, I’ve always loved you’ or maybe, ‘Be brave my beloved, I only wish I could go through it all for you’. Or even, ‘Chin up sweetheart. I’ll be thinking of you’.
Tears pricked her eyes, but she sniffed them back. Then she looked at her watch. It was going to be a long night too. She sighed, turned to plump up her pillows and, taking out Hush Now My Trembling Heart from her locker, settled back determinedly and began to read.
The day after the operation, Jess felt it was about time she and Hector re-established normal communications, so she went over to talk to him at his desk in the Newsroom.
‘How’s Wendy?’
‘Hard to tell. She was looking yellow and being sick when I saw her last night,’ Hector said, barely looking up.
‘The poor thing! Was the operation a success though?’
‘Oh I assume so. I expect she’ll tell me all the gory details soon enough.’
Jess glanced around. Nigel and two of the Reporters nearest to Hector were deep in discussion. Barry and the others were talking on their telephones, and the Subs were too far away to overhear anyway. She decided to risk it.
‘Hector,’ she said, keeping her voice low, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, or something?’ Hector looked up, frowning. ‘I’d never do it on purpose,’ Jess said, ‘you must know that?’
Hector merely looked puzzled. ‘Sorry?’ he said. ‘I’m not with you.’
‘Hector?’ called Barry, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. ‘I’ve got a man here who says he saw the fight at the chip shop. On line six. D’you want a word?’
‘If I must,’ Hector said, picking up his phone. Jess took the hint and slipped out of the Newsroom.
Hector went dutifully to see Wendy again the following evening. She continued to look pretty dreadful and there was still a gruesome tube coming out from beneath her bedclothes and leading to a bottle of bloody liquid on the floor. Hector sat carefully on the other side where he couldn’t see it. Wendy was less drowsy this time, and able to talk.
‘They’ve taken the drip off the back of my hand, thank goodness,’ she said, ‘and I’ve even walked!’
‘So soon?’ Hector asked.
‘Well only once round the bed, with a couple of nurses holding me up and carrying my drain. And the Doctor says the op. was all very straightforward and they’ve left my ovaries in place, so I won’t have an early menopause, so that’s good, isn’t it.’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘And guess how big the lump of fibroids was?’
‘No idea.’ Hector braced himself for the details.
‘Bigger than a grapefruit, they said! So that should make me slimmer, eh?’
The Would-Begetter Page 17