by Sally Bayley
‘Not enough anti-freeze,’ said Mum. ‘Blast! It needs a top-up.’
Mum got out and opened up the boot. She pulled out a bottle of bright pink fluid and then went round to the front and pushed open the bonnet. Her head disappeared inside and I heard a few screechy sounds; then the bonnet slammed down and before long she was back inside staring hard at the dashboard.
‘Give it a moment, just give it a moment,’ she said, as though I were about to drive off with her car. The key turned. Sputt, sputt, sputt. Grey clouds puffed up from beneath the grey mound and Mum’s face tweaked slightly into a smile.
‘Give it a moment. Give it a moment …’ and then suddenly she turned and pulled hard on the steering wheel while she waved through the window at my grandmother who was standing anxiously on the front steps, waiting to see. As she pulled away, my mother waved like the queen at Mrs Sturgess who had poked her head out of her downstairs window to see what all the fuss was about. Mrs Sturgess usually appeared when something was going wrong. But this time she appeared just as it was turning right.
——————————
Gwenda Reed hadn’t thought once about the condition of the car she drove that morning into Dillmouth. She had no need. Her husband Giles had provided for her, and in any case, she had her inheritance. Gwenda was a lady after all. She was a woman of means. Gwenda could afford to spend a night or two in a hotel. She could check herself in with a pleasant smile and climb the carpeted stairs with the smooth oak banister, and run a hot bath in her private bathroom, and lie back and think of her smooth English lawn as she watched her toes gather foam.
The first thing I shall do is plant roses, Gwenda thought, the deep pink ones, closer to purple than pink, the ones with the heady scent Nanny Wren said made her feel faint. Why did Nanny Wren always make such a terrible fuss over the things everyone else loved?
‘Your mother loved those roses, Gwennie dear. Queen Matildas, they’re called. They quite turn my head. Makes me want to have a lie down. Now come away.’
Dear Nanny Wren. And with that, Gwenda hauled herself out of the bath, wrapped herself in the soft grey gown lying on the bathroom chair and padded off to her downy bed. Oh, I’m so glad to be here, she thought, as her lids began to drop, and now I will find a lovely little house and Giles will be thrilled and we shall live happily ever after.
And so the following morning, without any ado, Gwenda Reed drove along the south coast towards Dillmouth and her pretty little villa by the sea.
——————————
‘We’ll put an advert in The Lady, Ange. That’s the place to do it. “Victorian terraced cottages nestled within sea-view”.’
‘Is “within” right there, Dice? You don’t want to make it sound as though the view is smothering the cottages, or blocking out the light.’
‘How about, “Pair of Victorian terraced cottages in clear range of the sea”?’
‘Oh no, Dice! That’s far too Out of Africa. They’ll imagine elephants stampeding through the back garden!’
‘“A lovely pair of terraced cottages, dating 1880s, with a generous view of the sea”?’
‘Let’s put the exact date, Dice. 1885. It sounds much more solid. You don’t want to sound vague. People pick up on vague.’
‘“A spacious pair” – give them more rather than less – “of terraced cottages built 1885 with a generous view of the sea. Suitable for newlyweds, businessmen and retired gentlefolk”. No, not gentlefolk, “professionals”. “Retired professionals”. We don’t want a horde of incontinent old men pouring down to Lancing, Ange, looking for their bottoms to be wiped. Retired teachers and army officers, perhaps the occasional newlywed couple. We have to keep those in mind. There are plenty of those about. Now, Ange, did you pick up the photos from Boots? I think we should use the ones with the wisteria. I know you’re keen on the roses, but wisteria gives a better camouflage effect. Oh, and we should certainly say Lancing on Sea. It’s worth paying for the extra letters to add the sea.’
19
A Few Facts
(A SHORT CHAPTER)
It’s time for a few facts. Every story needs a few of those if you’re going to make it work. But this is a short chapter. In fact, it’s barely a chapter at all, because facts, Mum says, are usually a bit thin on the ground.
Mum was born in 1947, and my aunt in 1945. They were born and raised during Agatha Christie’s heyday, the years when she was turning out bestsellers. A Murder is Announced was published in 1950; 4.50 from Paddington in 1957, the year Mum was crossing Sompting green, clutching her sister’s hand. The Body in the Library came out in 1942, the year London was being bombed, three years before my aunt was born. The Murder at the Vicarage was published in 1930, about the time my grandmother was out dancing with Cyril.
The Murder at the Vicarage was my first taste of Agatha Christie, and it arrived soon after my eighth birthday. I remember the opening sentence of that book better than I can remember whether we had chocolate cake or Victoria sponge, or whether that was the birthday the cat licked off all the pink icing, which sent Mum into an apoplectic fit, as pink as the icing, said Maze. Because it is difficult to know when it all started, this murder mystery business.
It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage. The conversation, though in the main irrelevant to the matter in hand, yet contained one or two suggestive incidents which influenced later developments.
That’s the first paragraph of Agatha Christie I ever read. I read and reread those sentences, and hoped and prayed that one day I would be invited for luncheon with Leonard and Greta. That soon I would find myself at lunch at the vicarage and Mary the maid would come barging in with her bowl full of greens, Mary who announces murder, Mary, which is my middle name. That summer, the summer of my eighth birthday, I fell in love with Greta and her head stuffed full of suspicions; Greta who spends her time gossiping in the grocer’s and greengrocer’s; Greta who loves to go to the Copper Kettle; Greta who is as open as a book; Greta who would take me out to tea and pay for everything, even if I asked for two pieces of cake.
But Greta comes with a vicar; eventually she’d have to go home, because Greta’s main role is to be the vicar’s wife, although she isn’t very good at that. Poor Greta, you can’t really blame her for being such a terrible wife; the vicar spends most of his time writing sermons. He never notices her: not when she buys a new hat or parts her hair differently or tries out a new lipstick. ‘Leonard, look!’ But Leonard never looks. His mind’s on other things. God mostly.
Still, you shouldn’t feel too sorry for them, because the vicar and his wife have Help. Her name is Mary, although Mary isn’t very good at helping. Sometimes the village women find Greta with her hands stuck to the top of her head when they troop in for tea. ‘Oh me, oh my! Oh me, oh my!’ says poor Greta. ‘How will I ever manage?’
One of these ladies is Miss Marple. Miss Marple lives in a pretty thatched cottage in the middle of St Mary Mead. Her cottage stands opposite the church. If she looked hard, Miss Marple could spy Mary from her front-parlour window; and she might. She just might. Miss Marple knows all about Mary and her wilful ways.
‘She’s not what I call a sensible girl, my dear,’ Miss Marple says to Greta over tea. Miss Marple would never have recommended Mary to Greta if Greta had asked her opinion. Miss Marple has an opinion on everyone and her opinion is usually right. Miss Marple’s opinion on Mary is that she likes to tell stories. Mary prefers fantasy to fact. With Mary, it’s bound to be half-made-up.
20
Wedgwood in the Front Room
Seeing is believing, and the truth be told, we never saw the rose-covered cottages in Lancing on Sea, as we never saw Fred’s body, as we never saw Fred. Everything remained mysterious, hidden behind wallpaper and curtains. ‘You should never go on hearsay,’ said Maze. But hearsay was all there ever was. Money was hearsay too.
This is beca
use no one in our house went out to work. Maze went out to work once, but that was before my aunt arrived; she rode her bike to the Zachary Merton in gale-force winds to wipe down babies’ bottoms. Then once upon a time Mum worked as a seamstress, and then once upon another time she drew maps for the British government. Mum was a spy. British government agents followed her home from work, back to Sompting village, Lancing on Sea. Mum had to hold her handbag under her arm in case the agents snatched it from her, just to check she wasn’t carrying anything personal on her that might give her away to the Russians.
That’s when she started carrying around Fisherman’s Friends. ‘They’d put anyone off,’ Maze said. Even spies.
Aunt Jayne had a job, but she lived in London, and we only saw her in the holidays when she came down with a purse stuffed full of £10 notes. I don’t remember ever seeing money except with Aunt Jayne. The only other money I can recall are the three £20 notes plus a few coins sitting on the post office counter when Maze went to collect her pension. The money sat there for a split second before Maze scooped it up and tucked it inside her leather wallet. Then she pulled out an elastic band and tied the whole thing up. As soon as she got home she handed it to my aunt.
Money comes about when people die. And then sometimes people kill for money. J.R. Ewing was shot for money, and whoever came to Little Paddocks that night and flashed a gun around, they did it for money too.
‘Money,’ says Miss Marple to poor Dora Bunner, ‘can do a lot to ease one’s path in life.’
‘Money!’ Dora exclaims with bitterness. ‘I don’t believe, you know, that until one has really experienced it, one can know what money, or rather the lack of it, means.’
Miss Marple nodded her white head sympathetically. Miss Bunner went on rapidly, working herself up, her face becoming more and more flushed. ‘It’s the rent – always the rent – that’s got to be paid – otherwise you’re out in the street. And in these days it leaves so little over. One’s old-age pension doesn’t go far – indeed it doesn’t.’
Dora Bunner is bitter about money because she’s suffered. ‘Gone without’, Maze would say. ‘If you’ve gone without you never forget. Pinch and save, pinch and save.’
I don’t think my mum or aunt were bitter. Cross, perhaps, but not bitter. They were more like Letitia Blacklock, who always knew how to get on in the world because they had character, Dora Bunner tells Miss Marple. People with character got on; people without character sink to the bottom. My mum and aunt had sunk to the bottom, but they did it with character.
——————————
Money was rarely mentioned in our house, but sometime after David died a social worker came round and began to ask questions. One morning a lady in brown appeared in the downstairs kitchen with a notepad and pencil.
‘You’ve had a difficult time. Perhaps you might need a bit of help?’
‘Ange is coping very well. The thing about Ange is … still waters run deep. She just gets on with it. She’s been like that since she was a child. She’s a natural with children. They all love her. They think she’s Mary Poppins.’
The lady in brown wrote something down. ‘Mary Poppins’, I thought.
‘How does your older son get to school?’ asked Mrs Brown. She had her notepad on her knee and although she was pretending not to write, she was, in pencil, so we couldn’t see.
‘Angela takes him in the car. We always try to run a car.’
‘That must cost quite a bit,’ says the grey trousers.
‘Ange has a very loyal mechanic chap. They all love her at the garage. They think her car is ever so quaint.’
‘Those old cars are quite a drain, aren’t they?’
‘We get the royal treatment.’
‘I see. And who does the cooking for you all? You’re a big family now, aren’t you? How many are you now? Six? Seven?’
‘Seven with Maisie.’
‘Maisie, that’s your mother?’
‘Maisie has a good little job along the sea front. It keeps her fit. She goes on her bike. She likes to be active. They all love her there.’
‘So you manage on your mother’s salary?’
‘Yes, and Ange bakes.’
‘You bake?’ she said, turning to Mum.
‘Flapjacks.’
‘For a local ice-cream man. He has a soft spot for Ange. But the after-school children love them.’
‘How much do you sell them for?’
‘Ten pence, isn’t it Ange?’
‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘Ten pence.’
‘Ten pence,’ said the trousers. ‘That isn’t a lot.’
‘Enough to buy milk. We’re thinking of making Rice Krispie cakes too, aren’t we, Ange?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you claim child benefit for all your children? Five, isn’t it? Four?’
‘Oh yes, yes, four.’
——————————
Now I think of it, I don’t know how on earth we paid our rent. I suspect it was never paid. The landlord (called Frank, who was a swine, my aunt said) didn’t get his rent because everything in our house was broken or ruined. Doors and windows didn’t close and the front-room carpet was threadbare.
Fred’s Estate would change that. With Fred’s money, our house would be turned into a palace and Mum could stop covering up the front-room carpet with her old oak table.
‘Well, he was so stingy while he was alive we might as well turn what he’s left into something beneficial,’ yelped my aunt. ‘At least now he’s dead he can do some good. Ange, what sort of ornaments do you think we should go for with the front room?’
‘Wedgwood, Dice. I’d like some nice blue Wedgwood. Wedgwood will lift the place, Dice. That lovely powder blue … baby blue … baby blue and white.’
So Mum went shopping to Arundel; she went to the antique shops on the hill and brought back baby-blue and white china, the colour of strong cotton and clouds. Mum drove to Arundel and parked her car by the castle; she came back with a boot full of blue-and-white china covered in cherubs.
‘My cherubs,’ she said, ‘my cherubs,’ and stroked the outlines of their noses and faces. ‘My sleeping cherubs.’
Soon a train of Wedgwood china was marching along our marble mantelpiece, and when I came home from school I found ladies in white dresses dancing along the seashore, ladies dressed in petticoats with their legs peeking out from fluffy skirts. ‘Shepherdesses,’ Mum said, ‘pretty shepherdesses,’ and when I looked up I saw a large gold mirror glowering down on them like a hot sun.
‘French baroque,’ said Mum. ‘Seventeenth-century baroque. I picked it up from the little shop in Lyminster.’ Mum was always going to the little shop in Lyminster when she wasn’t going to Arundel.
‘A bit gaudy,’ said my aunt. ‘But that’s the French for you. They’re a flashy lot!’
A few days later, a pink sofa arrived.
‘It isn’t a sofa,’ Mum said. ‘You ignoramuses – it’s a chaise-longue.’
‘Chez-Long.’ I tried to translate it. ‘Chez’ – with you, at yours, staying at yours … for a long time? If you sit on the chaise-longue I will be staying with you for a long time. Is that what it means? A chaise-longue wasn’t a sofa because you could lie down on it and fall asleep and before you knew it you were dreaming.
The chaise-longue was a long chair you lay down on. Aunt Reed had probably spent several hours, maybe days, on a chaise-longue, drifting in and out of discontented sleep. But Jane Eyre would never have been allowed to lie down on a chaise-longue. No. Only Aunt Reed could while away the hours on a long pink chair with her head tipped back and a handkerchief dipped in smelling salts plumped up on her forehead.
Our chaise-longue was raspberry-pink.
‘No it’s not!’ said Mum. ‘It’s rose, rose-pink. Deep rose, damask rose.’ I looked at the chaise-longue and saw a long pink tongue curling down towards two wooden feet. The chaise-longue looked like a pink lion ready to pounce and roar.
Behind
the rose-pink chaise-longue hung thick blue curtains that kept everything very still. The blue curtains hung heavy as armour.
‘Rose pink and baby blue,’ said Mum. ‘The perfect combination. The Palace of Versailles is full of pink and blue … pink, blue and white … dreamy.’
‘Versailles is very Disney,’ said my aunt. ‘Disney borrowed from Louis the Fourteenth. All that pink and white and blue, candyfloss colours … childish decadence. He took it all from France!’ Mum nodded, as she always did, and stroked the blue velvet curtains. ‘Disney dreams … baby-blue dreams, Dice, baby blue.’
21
Learning to Speak Nicely
A month had passed and Gwenda had moved into Hillside. Giles’s aunt’s furniture had come out of store and was arranged round the house. It was good quality old-fashioned stuff … there was a rosewood bureau and a mahogany sofa table. The large Chesterfield sofa was placed near the windows.
(Sleeping Murder)
Then one afternoon I opened the front-room door and found a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Sharp crystal daggers were dangling down above Mum’s favourite folding oak table. When the door banged behind me the crystal pyramid shook and trembled. Who, I wondered, could sit beneath that crystal monster and not shake?
But somebody did. A few weeks later a tiny woman called Mrs Rutherford arrived to teach us ‘elocution’. El-o-cu-tion, Mum told us, was learning how to speak nicely, like Margaret Thatcher and the queen. Elocution was holding your mouth wide open so you didn’t crush your vowels.