The Playroom

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘For Christ’s sake! How often do I have to say, Don’t do that!’ He was at her feet, undeterred, face upturned in a grin, trousers descended across bottom through contact with the carpet. ‘Hallo, hallo.’

  ‘You little blackmailer,’ she said, scooping him up and cuffing him lightly. ‘You gorgeous little sod.’

  Jenny’s house was like Monica’s, four miles to the north-west of the Allendales’, comfortably close for dinner. All their houses formed a triangle with the Allendales’ at the spiritual centre, Jenny’s and Monica’s, of course, less grand and half the size, but still substantial, and though neither of them would have countenanced such a description, comfortably rich, as they were themselves. Jenny had thought once, noticing the cast of the furniture, how much her house resembled Monica’s, with similar ideas, sofas, chairs of roughly the same shape, the same type of kitchen made to look as if it belonged in a country mansion. She shrugged off the slight annoyance which afflicted her at the thought of being so influenced by an old friend, stared at the conclusion reasonably and told herself, yes she was, and why not. Besides, they all influenced one another, were never as individualistic as they seemed, all went in the same sort of directions in pursuit of style, shopping carefully, only sometimes rashly, led by the nose and the credit cards in pursuit of some image of excellence; of course they would have similar things.

  Only difference in her house, setting it apart from Monica’s and far removed from Katherine’s, was the mess. Jenny could not control the mess, while Monica, who emerged dressed like a tribeswoman, expensive ethnic festooned with tassels, colours and swinging earrings, put her house under strict orders not to follow suit, and it more or less obeyed. Jenny’s was clean of course, but without a single clear floor or surface and whatever she did, objets and objects crept out of hiding places and became a kind of universal litter. All to do with design, David Allendale had said. With the greatest of respect, nothing in your living room is in the right place. There is never a cupboard within easy reach where you do not have to cross a floor to open the door: no wonder you don’t. And don’t range your furniture round the walls like sentinels, of which you have too many, by the way, and as for your kitchen, it is fashioned to impede rather than assist. He had been generous with free advice when he and Katherine had sat over dinner, nibbling at collapsed meringue after over-seasoned casserole, not a well-matched menu either. She supposed she would come to copy Monica in the end, and one day soon. Let the man in to do his worst.

  Jenny’s house was silent, not a scene of devastation exactly, but bearing the traces of two daughters about the same age as Monica’s brood. Copycat, I am, thought Jenny. I’d like a house like Katherine’s really, would I: one where I opened the door to the vague fragrance of pot-pourri in every room like hers without any spilled on the floor. Daughters were not in evidence. She had forgotten: they were staying overnight with grandmother: she should have remembered their being wild with excitement at the very idea as though it had never happened before and by tomorrow, doting grandma would be on her knees silly with exhaustion but still game for more. Jenny had looked forward to the break, actually craved the time while saying, Are you sure, are you really sure, but now, quite perversely, she already missed them, wanted an armful of child in the way she might have wanted food. Yearned for the feeling of small bones on her lap with fingers smearing egg on her collar, could almost have called out for them. The feeling passed like a flush, but for a moment, if she had thought they would not be back for the space of a week, she would have screamed. Silence. She shouted upstairs for her husband even while knowing he was out and in any event no substitute. Anything to dispel the calm, the dreadful vacuum of their absence.

  Katherine let herself in to blissful silence. Her house was bigger and better than either of the other two, with its proximity, through a series of grand and leafy avenues, to the edge of Hyde Park giving a different perspective. The other advantages of Katherine’s house were several decades of age behind the other two modern versions of success, less utilitarianism and far more waste of space, each room infinitely bigger and better and every ceiling higher. The street outside had the benefit of large, mature chestnut trees, the pride of the road, celebrating a century of growth. She and David had always occupied this house, he first, she following, thrilled to enter such a castle, such sublime safety. Since then David had refined the house, altered it, polished it, indoctrinated Katherine in every aspect of every corner. Theirs was designed to be a house inviting admiration since if it failed to do so, those wealthy clients would not talk of it as they did now, or consult David with such regularity in the hope of achieving comparable effects in their own. The house managed to be unpretentious, clever was all, with a way of seeming endless. Give a place a vista, Monica had joked, standing in a kitchen all wood and Italian tiles, but with armchairs rather than ordinary chairs, covered in fabric more vibrant than the dreamcoat. That’s the bit defeats me, Monica had said: I’d never have thought of handsome armchairs for a kitchen, seems sinful somehow. There were elegant French windows to the broad back garden, and neatly placed at the end of the kitchen, fully viewable from the cooker, sink or table, an alcove playroom where the sun shone through. Jeanetta’s playroom, soon to be shared by baby Jeremy, who already crawled in that direction as he did towards anything new. At one stage before the life of this kitchen, there had been three small rooms in the same space, which was half the huge ground floor. The playroom had been either scullery or maid’s room in halcyon days, while the business end of the kitchen now incorporated machinery behind wooden doors which somehow deadened the sound, leaving the alcove room for childish recreation. David, with David’s natural economy, had preserved all the original doors, told Katherine he would find a use for them, like everything else she was clearly instructed not to reject. She had obeyed faithfully, discarding nothing at all, miserly even with rubbish. Odd earrings, beads from broken necklaces, broken bangles, laddered tights, worn-out clothes, her own and the children’s, filled drawers and cupboards, neatly folded and stacked until he had said, ‘Not everything, darling: I meant anything of use.’ He had taken away the pile of broken jewellery and had it set into one long necklace, earrings and beads fashioned together into a rope, a talking piece with such history and an act of such imaginative kindness she was tearful on receipt, it was so beautiful. David’s generostiy could feature such inventive flair, and then, as often, she loved him to distraction. The baby clothes and her redundant garments had been shipped to Oxfam with less ceremony, apart from the evening things left in the playroom for Jeanetta to dress up.

  Katherine thought of this as she went upstairs to her dressing room, took off the beige creation, donned wool slacks, cashmere sweater, the necklace and flat shoes, a swift operation carried out in silence, but not without thought. On her way in, she had seen the vagrant again, lolling against the car, and she had not told him to move, as David would certainly have done. She took off the sweater, feeling the softness of it with great, ever renewable pleasure. Then put on another sweater, the ribbed, tight-fitting one David liked better. I am so lucky, she thought, so terribly lucky. Change one cashmere sweater for another and I might never have owned the one. In a place where Katherine had endured part of her early childhood, all clothes had been pooled, never owned, but savagely laundered into brittle, scentless cleanliness, scraping against the skin, and now this wool, soft as down against her face. She never forgot the contrast.

  Above her head she could hear David talking in the second-floor room which served as his studio and office. Mercifully large, this house; ample room for three bedrooms and two bathrooms first floor, David’s suite and the children’s quarters on the second. Beyond that, there was the underdeveloped attic floor, skylight constructed as the first step towards an alternative sitting room, the smaller room next door still without a light. David wanted to turn his genius towards this space when his plans were sanctioned. As it was, the top floor was bare and swept, but unwelcoming, the only
part of the house of which she was faintly ashamed, and because of the bare darkness, slightly nervous, imagining as she fell to sleep, the sound of footsteps and scurrying insects on the empty boards.

  Nearly six o’clock. Collect the kids from next door in fifteen minutes. Jeremy would be tired, a long day for him, even in the unlikely event of Jeanetta behaving herself and allowing him to sleep. Katherine thought how lovely it would be if Mrs Harrison had given them something to eat, bathed them, so that all she had to do was dump them into bed. Neat and trim, even taking neat steps, hair loosened from the headband which had subdued it in the gym, smelling sweetly of her own perfume which David chose, Katherine went upstairs and knocked on the door, entered in the same movement, an intrusion only allowed with advance permission by long-standing tradition. ‘If I’m still in the studio at six,’ he had said, ‘come and knock at the door. Colin Neill will have gone on about the plans for his extension long enough by then. Wish he’d send his wife, what’s her name, Monica? Much more sensible and to the point. Her man has more money than sense, never wants to spend it.’ By this time, he had been talking to himself over the breakfast crumbs, simultaneously chucking Jeremy under the chin and glaring at Jeanetta. ‘That child needs her hair trimmed, it looks awful. Anyway, come in and save me if he’s still there at six, OK?’ ‘OK,’ she had agreed, complying with the directive as the grandfather clock on the ground floor struck four chimes out of six, entering David’s room with the happy stride acquired through the pleasures of her afternoon.

  The studio ran the length of the house, light pouring from gracious windows at either end. From the back, David could see into the south-facing garden, look down towards the steps which swept from the kitchen windows to the lawn, and there stood his drawing board, a device he could move to the other end of the room if the light was better. A room designed for work rather than comfort, but like all the rooms, welcoming. There were pale rattan blinds to maximize the light, the pragmatism of the place softened again by the shape and fabric of two enormous chesterfields angled round a Persian carpet at the street end, beautiful, slightly worn fabrics for both as if they had been the priceless possession of a gentleman’s club, forming an area where people sat and never wanted to rise. With a division of labour which had become a familiar hallmark, David had provided the symmetry of design for this room, while Katherine provided the colour. She noticed the plants cascading on to the floor from the walnut table which stood over the rug and saw they were in need of a little attention. One of the trailing stems was beginning to go brown. David’s client, feeling every inch the guest, was touching the healthy leaves. The glance he gave in her direction turned from one of brief and familiar admiration into a broad smile. What a nice man, she thought. Under David’s protection, she thoroughly enjoyed male appreciation, preened a little.

  ‘Would you two workers like a drink? Come on, don’t talk so hard.’

  Monica Neill’s husband leapt to his feet, approached with hand extended, shook hers and held it a fraction longer than necessary for someone who needed no introduction. David sat where he was, using Katherine’s arrival to begin a casual rolling of the plans in front of him.

  ‘Hallo, hallo! How well you look, Katherine. Good God, is that the time? David,’ turning to him, ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve kept you. Monica will berate me.’ Katherine could not imagine what form the berating would take, but understood the general picture, smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Gather you girls had lunch today?’ said Colin heartily.

  ‘Yes, we did. It was lovely.’ The response was warm although Colin stumbled over the words, thinking as he spoke of how Monica would react to the description ‘you girls’: probably slap him for the suggestion of condescension. Katherine would never think like that. ‘Meantime,’ said David lazily, ‘yes, these boys would like a drink, I think. Gin, Colin? Go on, to wrap up business?’

  David was so good at this; no one knew when they were being given twenty minutes’ notice to leave. Katherine recognized the talent, admired it while she was frozen before awkward visitors like an animal in headlamps unless he helped her. Otherwise the dislike would show on her face. ‘By the way,’ David added, as Katherine turned her graceful back on them towards the inconspicuous kitchenette, ‘don’t worry about the kids. Mrs Harrison phoned. They’ve all been out to the zoo or something, Jeanetta got filthy and was dunked in the bath, and now she’s feeding them all. Probably in rather the same fashion as the lions. Says she’ll bring them round at half six.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Katherine. ‘Oh, lovely, how very kind of her.’ Her face brightened further in the promise of an evening without conflict, no kids’ food, no rows. Colin Neill absorbed without realizing the cue to leave before 6.30. It occurred to him fleetingly how no one appeared to come to this house without express invitation, no doorbell ringing of casual callers; how nice. Wondered if it was his imagination which saw in her shoulders a great shrug of relief when told about the children. He would not have blamed her since he always thought Monica fussed too much. Children could be a pain. They stopped a wife being a wife, and Katherine was a real wife. He watched her tranquil progress with envy.

  CHAPTER 3

  My name is Susan Pearson Thorpe, but actually, we usually drop the second bit and leave the name as Pearson. I live next door (left, second house from the junction) to the beautiful Allendales, but I do have other claims to fame, thank you. The houses are roughly similar, but I’m never quite sure about our house and I’m never entirely certain if I like this street; so vulgar living among all these foreigners and nouveaux riches. Not that I think about it much: there simply isn’t time. It’s basically the right kind of house, though miles smaller, of course, to the one where I grew up. Sebastian, too, although I’m afraid his family is not quite the same calibre as mine. Seb and Sue, sounds so common, sort of thing printed on the front of a really naff car. Anyway, this house, this street. I’m always surprised at people’s reactions when I give the address, but they’re just very big houses and frankly, a bit short of ground. That’s the trouble, they all seem out of scale. Houses this size should have half an acre around them and not be glued to the one next door. Here we sit, with our big, broad frontages straight on to the street, inches away from the neighbours with no more than a pocket handkerchief at the back. Hardly enough for a cat. Speaking of which, the Allendales abhor cats and they’re a little vulgar too.

  They use their garden as a kind of ornamental extension of the house; you know, the bit you look at from the French windows, backdrop for a room, rather like a lovely picture. I like something to stomp around in, can’t get over a perverse desire to grow vegetables since that’s the purpose of a garden, really, but our patch is a bit of a wasteland. Oh, trees, and bushes and things sort of thrown about, but the children have worn away the lawn and since the thing disappoints me so much, I can’t be bothered to have it repaired, although I’m quite sure the Allendales would be able to refer me to an expensive cure. No joy sitting in a place anyway if it isn’t strictly private and this one can never be that. For one thing, there’s the Harrisons in the basement who do rather regard it as their own territory, and then there’s the Allendales next door. He can look straight at our grass from the window of his studio and although we’ve got a fence thing, more like a trellis with creepers above the wall separating their garden from ours, it’s hardly foolproof. Even in summer you could peer between the leaves without the other side seeing you at all. Not that they would, of course. Far too polite, especially her. She’d feel guilty, unlike Mrs Harrison or I, and anyway I know she knows I know how she puts down those pellet things to keep out our cat. The cheek! Still, she’s very sweet, Katherine, both of them extremely pleasant, very hospitable and friendly without being nosy. I always tell people we’re very lucky in our neighbours, they have a great respect for privacy and they’re equally keen on their own, more than us, if anything, and there’s always the country most weekends.

  That time already? Time for a d
rink.

  I suppose there’s only weekends I get to see much of the children. Some people might feel guilty about that, but frankly, there’s no need. We were both brought up to boarding school from the age of six and look at us, certainly hasn’t done me any harm and proving my point, our two are as happy as sparrows. There’s another thing about this house I resent though. Here it is, gracious and spacious, but the children spend most of their lives in the basement amongst Mrs Harrison’s gewgaws. This is a splendid arrangement which keeps them out of my hair since in my view they ought to be seen and not heard, but it does strike me as odd that while we have enough space above stairs for an army, the one place they want to be is downstairs in the clutter of those little rooms, all squashed in with the Allendales’ pair. Don’t know how or why it is Mrs Harrison loves it so much, but that’s another reason why having the Allendales next door is such a blessing. Couldn’t be better. David pays half of Mrs Harrison’s wages for having the kids five days a week, sometimes weekends too when we’re away; I’ve worked out it saves me £3,561.56 per annum, thus I get a bargain and Mrs Harrison is as happy as a pig in shit. The more the merrier, she says when she’s in a good mood, and oh, my feet are killing me when she isn’t. Not that sharing’s strictly necessary, but I was brought up to economize wherever possible, which is why I’m a tax consultant rather than a housewife, with figures having the same effect on me as children do on her downstairs.

  Thinking of which, I wonder where the Allendales are thinking of sending Jeanetta to school? High time, come to think of it; she’s got to be nearly five, looks more, of course, with her size. Don’t really want theirs alongside mine: I mean, absolutely OK for now, but not for ever.