Last Act of All

by Aline Templeton

  ‘Ah, Mrs Fielding! The door was open. We just... So kind of your husband to invite us. I do hope you don’t mind the children — baby-sitters, you know, such a problem…’

  The other two vicarage children, differing from Tamara only in height and, in the case of the younger, gender, stared up at her from identically grubby faces with identical round black eyes.

  ‘Of course not,’ Helena assured them with the closest she could come to sincerity. ‘It’s Nathan, isn’t it — and — and Diana?’

  ‘Dinah.’ When Marcia Farrell smiled, her short upper lip disclosed a row of unfortunately crooked and prominent teeth, as well as more than the usual expanse of gum. ‘I don’t know why it is that Peter always feels obliged to apologize for the children, do you, Helena? As I always say to him, our blessed Saviour didn’t think anyone needed baby-sitters, did he?’ She laughed her determined, religion-needn’t-be-solemn-now-need-it laugh, and went on without waiting for a reply. ‘I said to Peter, Helena’s just such a sweet person, and a mother herself, and I expect having sent her own little girl away from home, she’ll love to see some youngsters about the place.’

  ‘Of course. Now do come and meet people. I think perhaps you know everyone, except Chris Dyer—’

  She moved them smoothly on, setting the children on Neville for orange juice. Marcia Farrell was the kind of person she found it hardest to like, the kind who put so many people off religion; sugary-sweet at surface level, with always the sting of pure poison somewhere. Helena was meant to be feeling guilty now about having sent Stephanie off to school, but fortunately, though she missed her, she had no ambivalence about the decision. Removed from the tensions at home, Stephanie was thriving, and besotted about a school which let you keep your very own pony.

  Helena derived vindictive pleasure from leading Marcia across to Chris Dyer. He, priding himself on being a connoisseur of feminine charm, would suffer merely from looking at the vicar’s wife with her straggling black hair scraped into an elastic band at the back and her aggressively Oxfam couture. The vicar followed, his dark, sad, spaniel’s eyes on his wife, contriving to look left out of the group even before he got there.

  She found Neville at the drinks table, and hissed humorously, ‘Did you have to ask the Farrells? You know they always bring those wretched children, and I dread to think what they may do if the mood takes them!’

  He could have laughed with her. But his eyes were hard and bright as he said, ‘Perhaps I should have spiked their squash — I hate it when parties get dull, don’t you?’

  He picked up the vodka and orange he had been mixing, and steered across the room to where Sandra stood, trying not to look as if she were eagerly awaiting his return.

  Sandra took her drink with a lingering, suggestive glance, fluttering her heavily-mascaraed lashes, with her silly little mouth moist and parted. Neville looked down into the vapid brown eyes too long and too intimately, and when he brushed her bare arm, Helena saw her jump as if his fingers were red-hot. At that moment she caught Helena’s eyes upon her, and her cheeks flared guiltily.

  Angry with herself, and with Neville, Helena spun away. How many foolish, dazzled little girls had she seen? Too many even to remember, she thought tiredly. These conquests meant nothing to Neville: they were as anonymous to him as the pawns in the decorative chess set in his study.

  The game with Helena was darker altogether. He had always loved to see her jealous, and despite her carapace of indifference, he seemed still to see through to the delicious, shrinking vulnerability underneath.

  To cover her confusion, she seized a tray of canapés, and, turning, noticed Mr Tilson installed in the wing-chair by the fireplace, and unattended.

  *

  He had been watching them all shrewdly from under shaggy grey brows, his bright and quizzical eyes, frizzy grey hair and age-rounded shoulders giving him the cosy look of the nursery figure Neville had mentioned.

  But there was nothing cosy about the cool, active brain which still operated, almost casually, the business end of his electrical components factory at Limber, from theoretical retirement in Tyler’s Barn, next to the Red House.

  Half-hidden in the big chair he had chosen, he could indulge his favourite occupation of playing fly-on-the-wall. This, he had discovered, was one compensation for growing old; given the flimsiest of excuses, people pretended not to see you. They were afraid of boredom, afraid you might talk and they be forced to listen, trapped, like the wedding guest, by interminable reminiscence.

  But you didn’t learn talking, whereas under silent observation, human dramas would always unfold, more absorbing because of their authenticity than any that might pass across a screen.

  He knew a lot about Radnesfield. He was not part of it, nor could he ever be — an incomer of only ten years’ standing — but he knew all that anyone could know by watching, listening, and rarely, very rarely, asking the strategic question.

  Tonight he was inundated with a delicious wealth of new material, in an atmosphere of oddly heightened tension. Emanating from host and hostess, he surmised, observing the interaction, or lack of it, between Neville and Helena. This intrigued him, and he observed with keen anticipation that Helena, lovely, poised, and with a hostess’s proper concern for a neglected guest, was approaching him.

  She was a bit too perfect, that girl. With her cast in the angelic role, lapped in universal love and admiration, there wasn’t really another starring part for her husband, except Lucifer.

  *

  ‘Can I fetch you another drink?’ she offered now with a smile, indicating the old man’s empty glass.

  ‘No thank you, my dear. I’ve had quite as much as is good for me already. That husband of yours is mixing some very powerful drinks this evening. I wonder why.’

  It wasn’t exactly a question, and he saw her, glancing round, realize that he was right. Voices were rising, Jennifer had two bright spots of colour in her cheeks, and even Marcia was laughing immoderately at something Chris had said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said helplessly. ‘I wonder if I should—’

  ‘Comfort yourself with the reflection that adults, in my experience, are usually well aware when they are being plied with strong drink, and only Charles Morley, who is a sensible man, has come by car, so you may as well relax.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Helena, balancing the tray, sank on to a stool at Maxwell Tilson’s side.

  ‘That’s when you learn all about people, when their guard is down.’ Blinking amiably about the room, he said, ‘For instance, Jack Daley thinks he is impressing your friend Mr Dyer — but Mr Dyer isn’t really listening.’

  Helena followed his gaze. ‘Oh, he’s getting copy.’ Her tone was unfriendly. ‘I don’t know if you watch “Bradman”, Mr Tilson, but I would bet that the next series will feature an engaging young salesman, living on his wits, who will naturally be filleted by dear Harry going, oh-so-smoothly and elegantly one better.’

  His interest made him incautious. ‘How fascinating. Now, either you don’t like Mr Dyer, you don’t like the series, or you don’t like your husband. Or perhaps all three.’

  Her gasp of outrage alerted him. ‘Oh dear, my wretched tongue! I forget, you know — as one grows older, people’s reactions become so transparent that it’s hard to remember that one’s responses should be veiled.’

  Helena’s face still burned. ‘You’re a very dangerous man,’ she said wryly.

  ‘I watch, and people talk to me sometimes, because I’m interested, but I don’t judge, and I don’t gossip. But yes, I suppose it is dangerous in its way. Knowledge is power, and really the only sort of power that still interests me.’

  A little silence fell, and his gaze went back to Neville, talking to Sandra Daley. ‘But when you’re still young — well, there are so many temptations.’

  ‘Talking of temptations.’ Helena was becoming desperate. ‘Can’t I persuade you to have a vol-au-vent? And shall I get Charles Morley across to talk to you? He’s cl
early a friend of yours.’

  Jumping to her feet she made her escape. Why would people persist in trying to force her to look at things which it had taken a lifetime’s practice to ignore? And this party seemed to be going on forever. Would they never leave?

  Like an answer to prayer, Edward approached her, his face full of concern. ‘I must be going — I’ve certainly outstayed my welcome, and it’s time some of these others remembered they have homes to go to. You’re looking tired.’

  She looked up gratefully, only to find his eyes fixed on her in a way that depressed her further. She had seen that look before, and it always meant trouble. Now she would have to avoid even the most harmless intimacy, and that, in this barren social environment, would be a real deprivation.

  ‘Not at all.’ She assumed a light tone. ‘It’s always gratifying for a hostess to see that her guests are enjoying themselves.’

  He smiled in polite disbelief, turning to Maxwell Tilson. ‘I’m just on my way now, sir. Have you brought your car, or shall we walk down together?’

  Helena could see that the old man was not entirely pleased; his reply had a sarcastic edge. ‘Why, thank you, Edward. I feel sure that even my aged bones can make it down the hill unaided, but I have to admit that you did that very neatly.’

  Ignoring the implication, Edward went on, ‘In fact, I have an even better idea. The Morleys have to pass our respective doors; I’ll see if I can hitch a lift for the two of us.’

  Under such a quietly determined onslaught, the party inevitably began to break up, and Tilson got himself to his feet.

  ‘He does get what he wants, that young man. I think you will have to be careful, my dear.’

  But this time Helena was ready, ‘He’s been so helpful to us both. And whatever he says, it can’t be easy to see your family home fall into other hands.’

  ‘He must have felt very sure that your husband was the right custodian. Thank you for a most — enlivening — evening.’

  His eyes twinkled on the adjective, and Helena could not help laughing, as he kissed her hand with old-fashioned gallantry.

  Then they were, mercifully, leaving. The vicarage children had perpetrated nothing worse than black sticky marks on the new paintwork, and Marcia, flown with wine, was in full spate.

  ‘What a marvellous, generous man your husband is! So good, so kind – we couldn’t believe it, could we, Peter, when he said – oh, I mustn’t let cats out of bags, must I? But I think, I really think, he has saved me from having a nervous breakdown—’

  Wearily, Helena wondered what empty promise he had been making now. Once she would have assumed it was a naive way of buying temporary popularity; tonight, she really wondered if he had given it for the pleasure of breaking it later. But meantime, to Marcia at least, Neville was all that was wonderful.

  His popularity, however, was not universal. Amid a volley of giggling, tipsy protests from Sandra, Neville was kissing her fingers individually by way of saying good-night. At his shoulder, Jack’s face was darkened by a cloud of suspicion; it was clear that Neville noticed, and was amused. The involvement of a jealous husband might add spice to a conquest that threatened to be all too easy.

  With considerable relief, Helena escorted them all out. But when, ahead of her husband, she came back into the room, a figure still loomed by the window – Chris Dyer.

  Her recoil must have been obvious, for he gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘The welcome guest! Did Neville forget to tell you I was staying?’

  ‘No, of course not. You just gave me a start as I came in.’

  ‘That’s a weight off my mind. I would simply hate to think you didn’t want me.’

  He was moving towards her as Neville came in. His eyes travelled from one to the other with speculative, malicious amusement.

  ‘Don’t let me interrupt anything,’ he drawled, but Helena ignored him.

  ‘If you’ll both excuse me, I’ve got a bit of a headache, so I’m just going up to bed.’

  It was Chris who expressed polite concern. Neville’s face, she thought as she closed the door, displayed the thwarted annoyance of a spoiled child when the grown-ups have ruined his fun by taking away the sparrow before he could really settle to pulling off its wings.

  Her steps dragged as she climbed the stairs. She was papering over the cracks. It was what she had done all her life; now the paper was peeling and the cracks gaping wider and wider, yet she still lacked the resolution to pull the whole rotten edifice down. She made a timid prayer that something would happen to sort it out, and despised herself.

  The only thing worse, they say, than unanswered prayer, is being given what you thought you wanted.

  Chapter Four

  The mirror in the old hallstand lent Martha Bateman’s face a drowned, greenish tinge as she peered at it, but she had long ago ceased to notice that. It had been here in the hallway of this house when it belonged to Joe’s parents, and Joe’s father’s parents before that.

  In any case, it was a long time since looking in the glass had given her pleasure — not that she hadn’t once been well enough. But now her interest was strictly practical, to ensure that the grey wool hat was set decently straight, covering the rigidity of the iron-grey perm.

  This morning, she barely saw her image, though her fingers automatically twitched the collar of her Sunday coat into place. There was trouble on its way; she read the signs as surely as she would have deduced the otter’s presence from the arrowhead of spreading ripples on Markham’s Fen. It might be no more than the follies of strangers, as unthreatening as the posturings on the television screen. But some instinct was telling her it was not so, and there was wariness already in her hooded eyes.

  With handbag and gloves in her hand, she opened the door of the front room. Joe Bateman was sitting in vest and trousers, with his tabloid Sunday newspaper in his calloused joiner’s hands, in the nearest approach to squalor he could achieve in any house that Martha Bateman cleaned.

  Her mouth, grim-set already, tightened further. He could be managed only so far — stubborn as Eardley’s pigs, the Batemans were, in the village phrase.

  ‘You see you remember to put on them potatoes, like I said.’

  He took in her church-going outfit, and a slow, knowing smile crossed his face. ‘Well, vicar’ll think it’s Christmas, with all the old hens coming in to cackle.’

  ‘You’re one to talk, Joe Bateman. When did you ever set foot over the threshold, except for your own wedding?’

  His manner might be ponderous, but the reply was pointed enough. ‘And the christening. Don’t forget the christening. You set a lot of store by that, seems to me.’

  Her eyes travelled involuntarily to the photograph on the mantelpiece in its brass frame: a boy, smiling, but with features which somehow testified to the fact that he was not quite as other boys are. Her mouth softened as she looked at it, but only for a moment.

  ‘And for the funeral,’ she said harshly. ‘Well, three visits won’t get you to heaven, not to my way of thinking.’

  ‘I’ll have good company where I’m going, then.’ Unruffled, he chuckled coarsely as he waved the newspaper at her. ‘Takes something out of the ordinary to get you there, anyways. Oh, there’ll be a great old turn-out today, shouldn’t wonder.’

  Martha, ignoring him, went out into the street. She did not look round at the sound of hastening feet behind her.

  ‘Martha, oh Martha!’

  She neither turned her head nor adjusted her pace as the woman panted up behind her.

  ‘Well, Martha, what do you reckon to it?’

  Her lip curled a fraction. ‘Reckon to what, Annie?’

  ‘You mean you’ve not seen it? All over our paper, it were...’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  At the church a huddle of women, like Joe’s barnyard fowls in their sober Sunday colours, were clucking at the lych gate, ignoring the vicar who waited to greet them at the church door, his hands rubbing unconsciously together.

  The h
ush that fell when she arrived was a tribute to Martha, and she savoured it. She was very watchful these days; as housekeeper at Radnesfield House she had commanded an automatic respect which now she must exact by force of personality. Relishing the moment when she would toss them this juicy worm of scandal, she hesitated a second too long. She bridled at the sound of another woman’s voice.

  ‘It did seem to me we’d all be in our pews this morning. What do we think on it, then? Is he misbehaving, or are they a sweetly loving couple?’

  ‘Oh, there you go, Jane Thomas.’ Martha’s tone was sharp with spite, resenting this theft of her small pleasure. ‘You should know better than to pay any mind to what you read in them old newspapers, you should.’

  ‘No smoke without fire, that’s what I say.’ One of the lowest in the pecking order had dared to speak, emboldened by the choice nature of the titbit of information she had to contribute.

  ‘Them Daleys had a right set-to going home from the pub at lunchtime, and Jack Daley with some tidy names to call that Sandra. And there was my youngest, out playing in Wagstaff’s field with Mary’s Billy. And when she comes in, “Main,” she says to me, “what’s a common tart?”’

  Teeth were sucked in pleasurable shock, and scandalized breath indrawn. The subdued clucking rose again.

  ‘Well, London ways.’

  ‘Everso pretty, that actress is. Younger than Mrs, by what I saw on the telly last week.’

  Sharon Thomas was hovering at the outside of the group. She was pretty, in the drawn, exhausted way of women who have married and had too many children too early, and drudged all their young lives. She lived in the shadow of Jane, her forceful mother-in-law, and certainly in awe of Martha Bateman and her vitriolic tongue. But now, exalted by her status at Radnesfield House, she could taste the delights of superior information.

  ‘All I know is, that Mrs Fielding, she’s a real lady. Ever so kind and thoughtful. But him — pinched my bottom, he did, when I were bending over cleaning the brass.’