Another Kind of Cinderella and Other Stories

by Angela Huth

  Well, it worked. They were a little stiff, the two gentlemen, sitting side by side on a plumped-up sofa. Very tanned, they were, with almost identical thin grey hair. In a word, we liked each other from the start. ‘Do call me Annie,’ I said, when the interview was concluded. ‘None of this Mrs Hawker stuff, now, if you please.’ They smiled a little instead of agreeing to this, and made no reciprocal proposal. I realised at once that they were the sort of gentlemen who, at their age, liked to retain a little of the old-school formality, and hoped I had not blundered in my friendly suggestion. Evidently I had not, for they offered me the job, two days later.

  Just a week later I fell in love with Le Beau Banc at first sight. They had bought the place, a deserted hillside hamlet, some twenty years before, built a road (still pretty rocky) and renovated the whole place with great skill and imagination. Today, the small houses are a monument to local craftsmen: beautifully converted with mellow tiled floors and lime-washed walls, their old shutters scrubbed and oiled, their old beams stripped and sealed. One of these – quite the nicest, I think, with its little terrace overlooking a vast valley that is always blue with either lavender or mist, is entirely mine. A very far cry from our house in Sheffield, I can tell you. I put up my few things – my picture of Morecambe Bay and my mother’s shell mirror and so on – and it felt like home from the start. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

  Mr Gerald, being a keen and skilled gardener, planted the whole place, too. There are peach and olive trees, English roses and mimosa. Every path is lined with lavender, and a huge fig tree shades their terrace. Butterflies flutter all day and the crickets sing every evening, ruffling the silence. Oh, it’s paradise, as I tell my sister. I know how lucky I am.

  The original idea, Mr Arthur told me, was to make the place a kind of commune or colony for artists and writers. The plan was that each would have their individual house in which they worked in peace, and meet for dinner in the evening. But long before my arrival this plan failed. It seemed many a young so-called artist, plus boy- or girlfriend, checked in for a long free holiday full of delights of a certain kind, but in which little artistically was accomplished. So they decided only to put friends and relations in the guest houses: they themselves live in the large main house, which is my responsibility.

  To be honest, in all these years I have never quite discovered what Mr Arthur and Mr Gerald actually do. Obviously they are gentlemen of some means, and have no need of regular employment. But Mr Gerald seems always to be on one of the many telephones in his study, often to auction houses in London and New York, as far as I can gather. Very thick expensive art magazines arrive for him every week, and sometimes foreign gentlemen come for lunch. On those occasions Mr Gerald suggests I cook something French rather than the Yorkshire favourites we have on our own. The guests bring with them such funny-looking old ceramic pots which they handle with great care, and talk about in low voices.

  Mr Arthur, in his study, is on the telephone a great deal of the time, too, and I understand he has interests in South Africa. But it doesn’t bother me that I don’t know the exact nature of their professions. All that concerns me is what I have to do to be satisfactory in my job: and that I know precisely.

  My employers are gentlemen of routine. They thrive on the domestic timetables they have devised for themselves, and I do my best to see they are not interrupted. It’s not hard to take care of them in the manner which they enjoy, because they are easy to please as long as everything is spick and span and meals are on time. They pay me a very fair wage and give me plenty of money for housekeeping, so I am able to call in a plumber or electrician, if need be, and pay him, without having to bother one of the gentlemen.

  My day starts early. I’m in the kitchen by seven, all nice and orderly as I’ve left it the night before. I step outside, enjoying the early morning before the sun has become too hot, and pick a ripe peach or fig for the bowl. I lay the table, blue and terracotta cups and plates from a local pottery, put croissants in the oven and the coffee in the jug. Mr Arthur and Mr Gerald appear regular as clockwork at eight o’clock, each in his blue-and-white kimono.

  ‘Morning, Mr Gerald Mr Arthur,’ I say. ‘Had a good night, have we?’

  I have to admit they don’t answer me any more because, I believe, although they appreciate my question is the height of good manners, they don’t want to bother me with the troubles of their nights. (Mr Arthur suffers from asthma, Mr Gerald has problems with his digestion.) But I always like to be polite and show an interest. It used to worry me when they gave up answering, but I don’t mind any more. I’m used to their ways and they’re used to mine.

  To be quite honest, the position of housekeeper is an amorphous one, not easy. The problem of address, for a start. I appreciated they wanted to maintain their little barrier, to denote my position as employee rather than friend. So when they insisted on calling me Mrs Hawker I did not object, and soon got used to it. They did make one big concession: I should not call them sir, they said, this being a newly democratic world, and as they both had complicated double-barrelled names Mr Arthur and Mr Gerald was the compromise we settled on. That was how they had been addressed by the staff at home as children, they explained, and thought it a charming custom. I agreed.

  To begin with, I found it hard to know what was expected of me. What exactly was my place? I never asked the question specifically and they never made it clear to me. Normally, for instance, I would lunch with them at the kitchen table, or on the terrace, but the invitation was never extended should there be a visitor, no matter how often that person came. For some reason they always liked to dine on their own, so once their food is cooked and on the table I have to hang around waiting to clear away. I mean, I’ve never got on with watching French television – after all these years I haven’t managed to grasp the French language at all, though I’m pretty good at making myself understood in the shops. So the evenings are a little bleak, though I enjoy my knitting, or my latest Catherine Cookson. Then again, it’s a little confusing when people come for a drink. ‘Fetch the bottle of Chablis out of the fridge, if you will, Mrs Hawker,’ says Mr Arthur, and in a moment I’m placing it on the table by the sofa, on a tray with six crystal glasses and a pottery bowl of fresh olives. ‘And have one yourself, Mrs Hawker,’ he often says, when the guests have all been given their glasses. At that point, what am I supposed to do? Early on, I made the mistake of lingering, supposing that having accepted a glass of wine I was required to join in the conversation. I remember the occasion so well: the local architect was there to discuss renovations to the old barn, along with his wife, not an English-speaker, and her brother. Nobody knew each other very well in those days, so I saw fit to fill the rather awkward silence with some comment upon the pleasantness of the weather. As nobody leapt in to follow up my lead, I took it upon myself to compare the climate of Provence with that of Morecambe where, I explained, I had spent so many of my childhood holidays. Possibly I let my tongue run away with me a little, in striving to be helpful, for I remember describing my fondness for whelks. I went on to recall the time I fell off the pier and was rescued by the famous comedian who was starring in the summer show that year. The very thought of all this made me laugh, of course, and it took me some time to realise I was the only one laughing. The three French guests looked completely bemused, and Mr Gerald and Mr Arthur, behind tight little smiles, seemed to be gritting their teeth. Then Mr Gerald came up to me and in a low, urgent voice suggested it was time I began preparing the dinner. I left the room with all the dignity I could muster, as Mr Arthur began to speak to the guests in French, no doubt explaining my extraordinary behaviour.

  I have to say, nothing was said. They did not reprove me. And after that, when wine was being served, one of them would bring a glass to me in the kitchen. Well, I got the message: I did not take offence – I’m not one to take offence, it’s so time-consuming. I had learned my humiliating lesson and thereafter strove to be the essence of tact. I also reali
sed at that time that there was no question of Mr Gerald and Mr Arthur ever being intimates: while they were rarely anything but friendly, they would never be friends. It was necessary to them to keep their distance. They liked the protection of formality and it was not my place to try to persuade them to behave in any other way ‘Despite the small grumbles, Annie,’ my sister once wrote from Barnet, ‘you sound very happy Mr Gerald and Mr Arthur’s formal ways of speaking and so on seem to have had their influence on you, too, if you don’t mind my saying so. Do you realise you write in a very grand way now? You use lots of new grand words and complicated sentences these days. It’s hardly ever you break into your old way of writing.’ I had not realised that, though Mr Arthur and Mr Gerald’s way of describing the simplest things had always intrigued me. They were elegant in their use of language. Had this really had some influence on my own writing? It was quite a thought. ‘It must mean you admire them,’ my sister added.

  This, my eleventh summer here, has been unusually hot. Mr Gerald and Mr Arthur have never quite accustomed themselves to the heat, and they react badly. They both become short-tempered, petulant, though they do their best to disguise this state. They change their minds a good deal, and give me conflicting orders, all of which is very taxing as the sweat pours down my face in the kitchen. But I try to keep my calm, and reassure them cooler weather must be on its way. Of course, neither of them is getting any younger. In the unkind light of the midday sun I notice that their hair, identical pure white now, is also similar in its thinness. They puff it over their shining pink temples in an effort to make it look thicker than it really is. Mr Arthur goes a funny colour, sometimes, after lunch, and extends his afternoon siesta by at least an hour. Mr Gerald has become fanatical about his pills – vitamins of every kind – and only takes very short walks these days, always with his stick. Time hasn’t been particularly kind to me, either: I’ve inherited my mother’s arthritis in the knee, which keeps me awake many hours of the night. And my childhood migraines come back from time to time. But I keep these things to myself. If Mr Arthur and Mr Gerald thought there was any danger of my cracking up, heaven knows what they would do. I may inadvertently irritate them, but I am their prop, their life-blood, their absolute necessity.

  Two days ago the mistral began. I’ve learned to dread the mistral. It’s the only thing that makes me seriously contemplate returning to Morecambe for my retirement. All the stories about its weird and unsettling effects are true. As soon as the wind begins to tug at the trees and beat hotly against my window at night, I feel my blood rise. Anxieties turn my skin to gooseflesh. I try to be reasonable, work out what they are about, but they remain nameless. I find it hard to be myself. Mr Arthur and Mr Gerald are affected, too. Their appetites go, and they snap at one another and spend more time on their telephones. ‘We must all brace ourselves, Mr Arthur Mr Gerald,’ I say. ‘It affects us all the same,’ I say, and they slam their doors.

  The wind started up with its familiar tugging and snapping, blowing my skirts into warm billows above my knees when I go to hang out the washing. It sneaks through any door left open for a moment, ruffling papers and blowing things to the floor. For a few hours I took a positive attitude: the relief, I thought, of a light breeze to stir the heavy heat we had had for so many weeks. But in truth the mistral is not so much light as malevolent. Its aim is to taunt, to goad, to drive you mad. Well, it’s not going to beat me, I told myself, as I slammed shut the kitchen window and scooped up the pile of flour I had arranged on the table for my dough. ‘One of God’s little tricks sent to try us,’ I said to Mr Arthur and Mr Gerald at breakfast. Their temples shone with sweat. They answered with silence.

  At lunch I could see that both gentlemen were agitated. I put the pot of chicken casserole on the table, then took up a plate to help Mr Arthur first, as I always did.

  ‘I couldn’t eat anything hot on a day like this,’ he said, and wiped at his forehead with a silk handkerchief.

  ‘But we always start casseroles in late September, Mr Arthur,’ I reminded him.

  ‘I tell you, I can’t eat a bloody casserole in this heat. I’ll have bread and cheese and fruit.’

  He looked quite flushed and Mr Gerald, I noticed, was pulling at his earlobe, a habit he has whenever he is out of sorts.

  ‘Don’t you worry yourself, now, Mr Arthur,’ I said, cool as anything, determined not to be offended by his rejection of my casserole. ‘It won’t take me a moment to run you up a nice tomato—’

  ‘Did you hear what I said, Mrs Hawker, woman? I’ll have cheese and fruit so you can stuff your infuriating concern . . .’ He trailed off, picked up a length of bread.

  Of all the offensive elements in his response, it was the word ‘woman’ that got me most, cut me to the quick. Woman! Indicating chattel, inferior, nuisance. Woman! Never had I been so insulted in all my years here. But I quickly took a hold on myself. No point in shouting back. It was, after all, the mistral that acted like some devil within him.

  ‘And you, Mr Gerald?’ I asked, plunging the ladle into the casserole. ‘You’ll have some, will you?’

  ‘Just a little, Mrs Hawker. Thank you.’

  It was a silent lunch. Mr Arthur left before the coffee, his fine poplin shirt darkened with patches of sweat. Mr Gerald anxiously watched him go.

  ‘It’s this heat,’ he said, by way of conciliation.

  ‘It gets us all down, Mr Gerald.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Once I had poured his coffee he stood up and said he would take it to his room. I suppose he no more wanted to be alone with me than I wanted to be alone with him. In this kind of atmosphere it was safer for all of us to be on our own.

  ‘Mr Arthur will be hungry by tonight, at least,’ he said with a very faint smile, which I took to be an apology for his friend’s behaviour.

  ‘We’ll have cold collations,’ I reassured him. ‘Don’t you worry’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Hawker. That would be advisable.’

  Once he had gone I continued to sit at the kitchen table, stirring my coffee. I could hear footsteps on stone floors, several doors banging. I could hear shouting, though the words were not clear. Then all was quiet. Just the buzzing of several flies and the snip, snip, snip of the wind against the warm stone of the outside walls.

  I don’t know how long I sat there listening to the frayed rhythms of the wind. But eventually, true to habit, I stirred myself to clear the table and wash up. Then I went out into the garden. There, the fig and peach trees were tossing restlessly about, their great heads of silvery leaves trying to dodge the nagging and the teasing of the wind. Their usually calm shade was broken into a thousand moving pieces. Butterflies, driven from their resting places, were tossed in the air like tiny sailing boats on an invisible rough sea, and bees clung tightly to the lavender, silent in their concentration. I walked to the edge of the grounds to where the huge oak tree guarded the precipice. Its branches moved slightly, and its leaves snarled, but it acted with none of the frenzy of the fruit trees. It had learned to resist, I thought. I looked down into the great bowl of a valley where fields of lavender and corn dipped and swayed, confusing the bee-eaters. And overhead clouds scurried like lemmings in a dark blue sky. My skirts whipped about my legs. My hair lashed my face. There was not a moment’s stillness. I felt so sad, so profoundly, inexplicably sad. The idea came to me that all I had to do was take a couple of further steps to be consumed for ever by the blue of the valley.

  When eventually I returned to the kitchen I found, to my horror, that Mr Arthur and Mr Gerald were seated at the table, thunderous expressions threatening their watches.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Hawker,’ said Mr Arthur, all polite sarcasm, ‘and what has happened to our tea?’

  ‘It’s nearly twenty past four,’ said Mr Gerald. ‘Very unlike you, Mrs Hawker, to have no tea prepared by now’

  There was a moment’s quiet, just the wind still tugging away at the windows. Then I let them have it.

  ‘Fucking hell, gentl
emen,’ I screamed. ‘For once, just for once in eleven years I’m ten minutes late with your tea. What a disaster. What a bloody disaster! For you two lazy spoilt selfish slobs, that’s a major disaster, because you’re such hopeless bastards you can’t so much as switch on a kettle, fill a pot, fetch the butter from the fridge – do you know which the fridge is, Mr Arthur Mr Gerald?’

  Perfectly synchronised, their flabby old mouths fell open. But their eyes could not meet, nor could they look at me.

  ‘Aren’t you ashamed,’ I raved on, ‘at your absolute use-lessness, your total inadequacy? You employ me to wait on you hand and foot, do your bidding at every turn: you rely on me completely, useless prats for all your money—’

  ‘Mrs Hawker,’ said Mr Arthur.

  ‘Mrs Hawker,’ added Mr Gerald.

  ‘Calm yourself.’

  ‘Calm yourself.’

  ‘Calm!’

  I fact, I did feel calmer, now. I knew my words would come more tightly, with more menace. ‘Who could be calm at the thought of a future waiting on two spoiled old sods? Who could be calm thinking that old age would still be darning your socks, getting your porridge just right while my own life just ebbs away? Course, if you live to bury me, I’ve no doubt you’ll commission a nice marble headstone engraved with the tribute A good and faithful servant. . .’

  ‘You’ve gone too far, Mrs Hawker,’ said Mr Arthur, dabbing at the string of sweat on his nose.

  ‘Much too far,’ said Mr Gerald, running a finger round his damp collar.

  ‘You’re not yourself. The mistral, it affects us all.’

  ‘Not yourself, indeed.’

  ‘Not myself?’ I gave a nasty laugh that made them both jump in their seats. ‘As a matter of fact, Mr Arthur Mr Gerald, that’s just what I am being at this moment – myself. For the first time in all these years, myself. The bit you’ve never shown the slightest desire to know about, to see. Well, I’ve only just begun. Sorry to shock you, but there’s much, much more I’d like to say . . .’