by Anne Piper
“And Tom?” I gasped. She looked surprised at my tone of voice.
“He’s returning the car to Jean-Pierre.”
“You’re all right then? You had a good day?”
“Yes thank you. Were you worrying? It’s only just after nine.”
“Have you had supper?”
“No. I think I’ll go straight to bed, but Tom said he was hungry.”
“Are you very tired, Prue? You look all in.”
“I felt rather sick on the twisty roads coming back from Annecy.”
“Poor child. You go to bed and I’ll cook something for Tom.”
“Hullo, old wife,” said Tom, kissing the back of my neck as I bent over the omelette pan. “How’s Caro?”
“Better thank you. Did you have a successful day?”
“Rather.”
“Why didn’t you go to the Jura?”
“What made you think I was going there? I only said ‘mountains.’ We went up one above the lake at Annecy. That looks good — I’m ravenous. Where’s Prue?”
“Gone to bed. She seemed exhausted.”
“I expect the sun was too strong for her in the open car. Could the eggs run to a second omelette?”
“Goodness, you must be hungry. Yes, of course. Do you know,” I said with my back to him as I poured two more eggs into the pan, “I was beginning to wonder if you’d had an accident.”
“Silly old thing.” He blew me a kiss. “I hope Jean-Pierre gives us another chance to take you somewhere.” He tucked into his second omelette with enthusiasm.
“Where you comfortable in the boat-house last night?” I asked.
“Yes thanks. I’ll stay on there for a bit, I think.”
“Yes, do. I was going to suggest it. Caro’s been fretful all day and I dare say she’ll wake.”
Tom followed me upstairs, pushing me gently in front of him, to collect his pyjamas. Caro slept more peacefully than the previous night, her face not so flushed.
“I believe he’s grown since yesterday,” Tom looked down at Nicholas.
“He ate the most enormous lunch,” I said, “tomato and egg — a whole spoonful of each.”
“Going to be just like his father.” Tom’s voice was smug. He kissed me chastely and quickly, and bounded off downstairs. I watched him running down the path to the lake. He did not once turn back to wave.
CHAPTER III
“Allow me, Mademoiselle.” Jean-Pierre seized the tea-tray from Prue and followed her into the house, we could hear them laughing and clattering, washing up in the distance.
“That chap’s hanging around the place too much. What’s he after?” Tom glared in the direction of the kitchen.
“I don’t think he’s after anything,” I said, gently picking up my knitting. “It must be lonely for him next door with the old termagant. He obviously likes being with Prue, too.”
“Can’t think why. She’s not his type at all.”
“My dear. It’s a question of age rather than type.”
I spoke the truth. Jean-Pierre continued to treat me with courtesy, but since our little nocturnal adventure in the garden he was clearly more interested in Prue. I must warn her later but at the moment the flirtation seemed mild enough and a pleasure to both parties.
“Which reminds me,” I said. “Liz has written to tell me not to forget Prue’s birthday next week. We must think up something special for her.”
“Will she have a birthday cake?” asked Caro.
“Candles, candles,” said Susan happily.
“Yes — only it’s a surprise — don’t tell her, either of you.”
“How many candles?”
“Nineteen I think, Caro, or is it twenty? No, she’s a year younger than Liz, so it must be nineteen.”
Prue came out on the terrace again and I smiled at her with approval. Really the month with us had improved her enormously. Her sallow cheeks were now golden brown, and she seemed to have filled out all over. Jean-Pierre’s attentions had brought a new light into her big, dark eyes, she held herself more upright. There was a distinct suggestion of “Shocking.”
“Perhaps Jean-Pierre would help you to pick the red-currants, Prue dear,” I said. Tom jumped up.
“Red-currants can wait,” he said. “It’s time for Prue’s swimming lesson. Who’s coming down for a bathe?”
He towered over Jean-Pierre, who retreated almost as if Tom had actually hit him.
“Not I,” said Jean-Pierre, “I do not swim after a meal. I will pick the red-currants for Madame.”
“Don’t be silly, Jean-Pierre, there is no hurry for them. Come and help me wind my wool if you really don’t want to bathe.”
The others trooped down the path to change in the boathouse. Tom first with Caro, then Prue holding Susan’s hand.
“Jean-Pierre,” I said. “You will remember won’t you that Prue is very young?”
“But certainly, Mary. That is one of her charms.”
“You told me only four weeks ago that you did not like inexperienced women. You change your mind very quickly.”
“How could you say such a thing, Mary? Of course I prefer mature women, but if mature women do not prefer me, then I must make do with second-best and find charms where I can.” He smiled disarmingly at me.
“What a fool you are,” I said affectionately.
“On the contrary, I am most sensible. I cut my losses. A broken heart is uncomfortable and I am on holiday — so I hold on to my heart very tight, and lo it mends.”
“And Prue is the glue for the mending. Well, treat her kindly all the same.”
“I am always kind to women. Was I not very kind to you? I did not offend you in any way?”
“No. No honest woman could have been insulted by your proposal, you made me very happy. But as I am in place of Prue’s mother here, I cannot be so happy that you might make the same proposal to her.”
“I will not do anything she does not want. I promise you that, Mary.”
With this doubtful promise I had to be content. We walked to the edge of the terrace and looked down at the swimming lesson. Tom stood over Prue holding her by the ribs while she lashed out rather feebly with her hind legs.
“She will never learn that way,” commented Jean-Pierre.
“Surely Caro’s in too deep,” I said. She was almost up to her neck and Tom and Prue had their backs to her.
“Tom,” I called, “Caro’s too far out.” Without letting go of Prue, Tom reached out with his other hand and pulled Caro towards him.
“O.K. Don’t fuss,” he shouted back. Better a bit of fuss than a drowned child.
I asked Jean-Pierre to take Prue out to dinner on her birthday, but his mother was giving a party and he must be there. He suggested he take her the day before, and I accepted on her behalf.
“Now my picture of you is finished, Mary. I shall make one of Prue with her long hair down, brushing potatoes in the grass. Do you mind? I will make sure that she works at something while she is sitting for me. When the potatoes are finished, she shall do mending.”
I laughed. “Of course I don’t mind. It’s good for her to have a little attention. She’s been neglected for years, poor child. You will have to work fast this time though. We have less than three weeks left now.”
The night of Prue’s outing with Jean-Pierre, I could not sleep. It was very hot and Tom and I had spent the evening quarrelling vaguely. Everything I said annoyed him, and when I relapsed into silence he accused me of sulking. I went up to bed early to escape from him and he took his pyjamas away without even kissing me good night. Fine sort of marriage I’ve got when I rush to bed as the one place I can be sure of safety from my husband.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands trying to think where the whole thing had gone wrong. I wondered if I should start evening classes in Botany at the Polytechnic this winter, but I knew I’d sleep through them if I did. I’d had such high hopes of this holiday away from London and Claire, and now things wer
e worse than ever between us. I undressed and lay down under one sheet hypnotising myself by the stars.
How fine to take a wide scientific view of life, but to me the stars remain obstinately small and tinselly, and my husband and my family are vaster than mountains.
I turned restlessly for several hours making and unmaking resolutions. I would get a Nannie and go out and do some intelligent work that would interest Tom — but then I couldn’t bear to leave Nicholas yet, — I would read one difficult book a week, I would try evening classes, and Turkish-baths, and masseuses and Elizabeth Arden. I got out of bed and went to the south window and swung my legs over the sill, there was a drop of a foot only to the sun-roof where Prue had put her bed. I lowered myself quietly and tiptoed to the side nearest the lake. I sat down with my feet hanging over the edge and my back to Prue. It was cooler here. A slight breeze from the lake ruffled my nightdress. The crickets still chirped, but only one or two odd lights showed now from the Coppet side. I lay back with a clearer view of the heavens, but my own problems suffered no diminish-ment and the roof was hard and damp with dew.
I stood up to go to my room and glanced at Prue’s bed. It was empty. For a moment I thought it must be a trick of the moonlight and went over and actually touched the neatly tucked-in sheet before I could believe there was no dark head on the pillow.
I went in to look at my watch and found it was half past two. Panic rushed over me. What should I do? Go and beat up Jean-Pierre’s house next door? Search the garden with a lantern? They could not be far away. I had heard the car return quite early, about eleven. Oh damn Jean-Pierre, damn all unprincipled foreigners. Just after three, when I had decided, come what may, to make myself ridiculous in the garden with a lantern, I heard a faint creaking on the stairs, and the soft turning of Prue’s door and a muffled thump as she dropped a sandal, and finally the scrabbling as she crossed the sill to her bed, and the sigh of the springs as they received her.
I turned thankfully to sleep myself at last, and dreamt again of Prue’s grandmother beating on her tombstone with a knitting needle, and asking me to guess the tune. “What’s this?” she barked. “Why ‘Early one Morning’ of course you fool.” I was glad she had given up speaking in Spanish.
I slept very late next morning and woke to see Prue standing over me with a tray of breakfast.
“Everything’s under control,” she said. “I’ve fed Tom and the children.”
“Oh Prue, Many Happy Returns of the day. It should be you having breakfast in bed, not me.” I suddenly remembered the night and peered at Prue out of sleep-laden eyes, trying to see any difference in her expression. I must speak to her, obviously her grandmother was a warning to me, but Nicholas began to cry and I decided to leave it till after lunch.
“Pass him over, Prue, will you? I’ll fob him off with a crust.”
“Just a minute, let me change him first.”
Later as I lay comfortably in bed feeding him I felt at peace with the world. I had exaggerated last night the terrors and the difficulties. Probably Jean-Pierre had not seduced Prue after all. I could hear Caro singing in the garden below “Baa, baa, black sheep,” and the tuneless chorus from Susan, “Any wool, any wool.” Then a slight argument over a spade, and Prue’s voice softly and successfully admonishing, and then O happy sound, a clanking of nappy buckets out in the direction of the clothes-line. Prue must have washed them without even being asked. I glowed with affection for the girl, what a way to spend her birthday. I fell gently asleep with Nicholas’ woolly head tickling my chin.
Tom woke me at eleven. He seemed cheerful again.
“You’ll roll on the poor child and squash him. Aren’t you getting up at all today? What about our lunch?”
“He’s much too tough to squash,” I said proudly. “I’m getting up any minute now. Don’t rush me.”
“I think I’ll put on a clean shirt,” Tom said. “If I have a clean shirt.” He ranged about the bedroom peering into drawers.
“Of course you’ve got a clean shirt. Look in the usual place, the airing cupboard in the bathroom.”
“With buttons on?” He called back as a parting shot. I did not bother to answer.
Jean-Pierre arrived too early for the birthday tea. He also had a clean shirt on, and his hair well smarmed back out of his eyes. He carried a little parcel in tissue paper tied with gold ribbon. I met him at the door.
“Prue’s gone to change,” I said. “When she comes down I want you to take her for a little walk, just for half an hour while I’m laying tea. You wait here at the bottom of the stairs for her. Give me the parcel and I’ll put it with the others.”
In the kitchen, Caro with one elbow on the table, and Susan standing on a chair, breathed heavily on the cake. I counted out nine pink candle holders and candles each, and I took the odd one. They poked laboriously at the white icing. The candles tottered, those on Susan’s side huddled close together, Caro spaced six excellently, found no room for the remaining three. We stuck them round Prue’s name in cherries.
“It is beautiful,” said Caro. “Isn’t she lucky. So many candles. Will she let me blow?”
“My blow too,” from Susan.
“I expect she’ll let you both blow. Now you carry the sandwiches, Caro, and Susan the spoons, and we’ll get everything ready.”
I covered the table under the cherry-tree with a big white cloth, and laid sprays of pink and yellow roses all round the cake. It looked more like a wedding than a birthday.
“My parcel isn’t done up,” wailed Caro suddenly. She had chosen a piece of soap for Prue, and Susan a chocolate watch in gold tin-foil. We arranged them on the step, with the cotton scarf I’d bought, and after more breathing, licking and despair, made three bulging parcels.
“I thought we’d never be finished in time,” said Caro as she placed the last parcel beside Prue’s plate.
“Tom,” I called down to the boat-house. “Did you remember a present for Prue, or shall I wrap up a hankie on your behalf?” Tom produced a box of chocolates.
“Nicholas must give her something,” said Caro. “What can we find?”
“He can give her a banana,” I said.
“No. A rose. A very, very big red rose. Quick, Susan, we must look for one.” They rushed about the garden in a frenzy squealing like piglets.
“Mind your best dresses,” I shouted pointlessly.
Tom followed more slowly and cut the rose of Caro’s choice.
“Can we come back?” called Jean-Pierre through the house. We gathered breathlessly in front of the table singing “Happy Birthday to you,” rather out of tune, as they appeared like the Bridal Pair on the steps. At that moment I realised that I had forgotten to put on the kettle.
“Oh dear. The tea,” I said.
“Really, Mary, can’t you remember anything?” Tom spoke in an undertone. Jean-Pierre held up two bottles of wine.
“I have brought these for the party,” he said. “Perhaps for once, all you English can manage without your tea?”
I ran in for wine glasses. Dear Jean-Pierre. When I came out Prue was settled at the head of the table between the two men in front of her cake. I took the other end between Caro and Susan.
“Oh Mary, it’s all so lovely.” Prue had gone as pink as the roses. I smiled at her across the candles.
“Shall I open your presents, Prue?” asked Caro.
“No, darling, leave Prue alone, it’s her birthday. Let her open them herself. You can help me light the candles.” Prue left Jean-Pierre’s parcel to the last. When she pulled aside the tissue paper to reveal a delicate wrist-watch, she was not the only one to gasp. I looked across at Tom in horror, and saw that he in turn was staring furiously at Jean-Pierre. Prue turned it over gently to see her name and the date engraved on the back.
“It’s too much, Jean-Pierre,” she said softly. “You are too kind to me. How did you know how badly I wanted one?” She held out her wrist and he fastened it on for her.
“Well,” said
Tom, “aren’t you a lucky girl. The Swiss certainly do things in a handsome way. I’m sorry the English are not in a position to be so generous.”
Prue flushed saying, “But, Tom, I didn’t mean, — anyway,” she finished in a rush, “Susan has given me a gold watch, that’s much more valuable.” We all laughed, and I handed Jean-Pierre the corkscrew. Tom subsided in the business of pouring out wine and milk, the candles guttered, the little girls blew frantically and ineffectually, spitting all over the table, in their excitement. I handed Prue the carving-knife and Tom guided her hand to cut the first slice. I peered across to study the sponge anxiously and make sure it had not gone soggy in the middle.
“Don’t fret, Mary,” said Tom irritably, although I had not spoken. “It looks delicious.”
“It tastes delicious too,” said Prue, breaking off a mouthful. “Prue, cut the children pieces with more icing than inside; they only eat the icing anyway,” I instructed.
Caro passed up her plate and gave a little scream as it came back, “Oh help, a caterpillar.”
A little green one was indeed vainly waving its head about by her cake.
“Poor little caterpillar,” I said and blew it on to the grass. We all looked up into the leaves of the cherry-tree to see if there were others on the way, but it seemed to be a single manifestation.
“I don’t know anything about wine, Jean-Pierre,” I said, “but this is making me feel very gay. I hope it makes Nicholas feel gay too.”
“To your health and happiness, Mary,” said Jean-Pierre.
“You must start with the birthday girl,” I pointed out.
We drank to Prue. “May you grow older, wiser and prettier every day,” added Jean-Pierre.
“Thank you everybody,” said Prue. “This is the best birthday I ever had. At least for so long I can’t remember. I haven’t even had a cake since your mother made me one, Mary, when I was staying there about five years ago. Claire doesn’t believe in noticing birthdays. She thinks they are sentimental.”