by Mavis Cheek
Only Miles and Montmorency seemed unmoved by the archaeological aspect. Miles was agonising over the sound of another sherry bottle being opened and Montmorency was determinedly asleep. Even Dulcima moved a little closer to her husband and squeezed his elbow at the sheer power of Molly’s excitement. Maybe there was more to life, she found herself thinking, but what life, and what more, she could not then say. Quite involuntarily, Dryden, caught by the mood, stopped thinking of ways to engage Sir Roger about the sale of the gun, and stopped trying to negotiate Marion towards his son, and gave himself up to the unselfish pleasure of the moment. He found it was rather a pleasant thing to do. Julie Barnsley did not think this, of course. Julie Barnsley thought just the opposite. And when her eyes were damp with emotion, it was more to do with rage than anything else. She thought that if this pretty young upstart was allowed to carry on, she might be a very bad thing for the village. And herself. But she kept her counsel – for now.
At the end of the evening Sir Roger, who had not done a great deal over the years to take the command his position in the village ordained, apart from bat the vicar around occasionally or fall loudly and correctly asleep in his sermons, felt a new heat in his ancient blood, and a certain incumbence upon him to give a speech of thanks to Miss Bonner the archaeologist’s granddaughter for bringing something so clearly worthwhile to their attention. This he did immediately – and volunteered his man of all work and butler, Orridge, for any of the heavy work. Dulcima found that she was still clutching her husband’s hand as he spoke – a public display of feeling that would not do at all. She quickly removed it. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘We will all help with our own hands. We will all be a part of the grand scheme of it.’ Everyone began to feel, most unexpectedly, that this young woman might be the harbinger of something really rather good for them and their village which for too long had suffered from refracted emotions. Sadly, Dulcima noticed that Marion did not look at all enthused by the prospect. Ah well, there was still time.
‘It is an undertaking for all of us,’ said Dulcima. She looked fondly at Dryden, who gulped, thought of his delicate hands, and said that while he would mind the shop, he was perfectly willing, perfectly, to allow Nigel to participate in clearing the ground up there. Nigel was thrilled.
Julie sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was go anywhere near this project, but where Nigel went, so must she. Dryden, having made his little speech, turned away and looked out of the window and up the Hill. His face paled, it was as if he saw something up there. ‘Oh please,’ he said. He put his hand to his head and made a little gasping noise and sank into the nearest chair.
‘More sherry,’ said Susie. ‘He’s having a faint.’
‘Then it will be water he wants,’ said Miles firmly. But it was too late. Pop went the cork from the depths of the kitchen. Pop.
While this little drama was being enacted Donald Porlock, looking embarrassed but standing firm, was told, by Sir Roger, that he was excused fatigues on the grounds that his patients might suffer. And Donald said that he thought Winifred might find helping on the Hill a bit much. Winifred said that if she did find it a bit much it would be up to her, not him, to say so. That she still retained a sense of community spirit. The edge to her voice made her husband uneasy. She was beginning to get so many edges to her where once she had been so soft. Donald moved away from her slightly, but she was not looking at him, she was gazing into the fire with a faraway look in her eyes. Please, he prayed, please do not quote any more poetry.
‘And me,’ said Dorcas. ‘I’ll be there.’
Not me, thought Montmorency.
‘And me.’
‘And me,’ said all the others.
Susie and Pinky raised their glasses high. ‘Here’s to it,’ they said in unison. And Pinky added, with great fervour, ‘And take as long as you like.’
When Sir Roger’s brief speech of thanks and good wishes and farewell was concluded the vicar stepped forward and was about to suggest a little prayer for the end of the event, but Sir Roger, suspecting something of an evangelical nature, would not have it: you went to church, you prayed, you got told off, you went home and marked it down until the next Sunday, or Easter, or Christmas or whatever it was, and you certainly did not clap to the hymnal or turn to your neighbour and kiss the bugger. Nor did you go praying all over the place at a short-legged vicar’s whim and in other people’s houses. Only in a house of prayer did you do that. Why, it was like ordering a piece of fish in a game pie shop. ‘Better stop him, don’t you think, dear?’ he said to Dulcima, in a perfectly audible whisper that would not have disgraced Laurence Olivier. And Dulcima, who had found the sherry most excellent and was in very good spirits, both literally and in the word she could not quite say, squeezed his hand and nodded.
So, as the vicar drew breath, Sir Roger started some clapping which the rest of the party took up and which went on for a considerable and genuine time. Dorcas slipped about offering them all one for the road – and as they were all on foot they were delighted and obliged. Miles took a deep breath and said nothing, but privately thought again of sprats and mackerels. After the final drink they all went out into the night and had their various happy or not so happy ways lighted homeward by the stars. Though it should be said that there were those who were feeling happier than they had felt for a very long time – and those who had yet to experience the change.
Julie Barnsley stood looking up at the moon until she felt a hand tapping her shoulder. Expectantly, happily, she turned – but it was only Miles standing there, with his hand out. ‘My one pound and forty pence, I think?’ he said. And Julie, with as much contempt as she could bring to the occasion, which was considerable, dug in her pocket and bestowed it upon him as if it were thirty pieces of silver.
Miles closed the door on the last of his guests and turned to Dorcas. ‘Well, well,’ he said happily, rubbing his hands, ‘I think that went off rather well. Don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Dorcas, and began putting the remaining glasses on a tray. ‘And the sherry went down very well, too. All gone,’ she sang on her way to the kitchen, ‘All gone.’
‘Indeed,’ said Miles, determined not to let it affect him. ‘And you were quite right. Better to give them something elegant and expensive now, smooth the path so to speak, and there will be takings enough to cover the cost of a hundred boxes of sherry once the girl pays up and does what she wants to the terrain up there.’
‘Whatever she wants to do to it …’ said Dorcas thoughtfully.
They crossed to the window and looked up at the moonlit Hill. In the light the whiteness of the Gnome’s shape stood out clearly save for where the bushes grew thickest. ‘Beats me why she thinks she can improve on it,’ said Miles – ‘but there you go. Who am I? Takes all sorts … Nice girl, though.’
Dorcas interrupted him before he could get into absolutely full flow with his platitudes. ‘She’s passionate about it,’ said Dorcas. ‘And I envy her that. It’s a long time since I felt passionate about anything.’
‘Quite,’ said Miles, without so much as a blink. ‘And it’s always for the best. A cool head. You have a cool head. And who knows, Dorcas, once the final payment is made and the thing is set up and the regular income starts, I may be able to give you a bit of a rise. You may get to South America after all.’ He turned to her and slapped her on the back. ‘You’re a clever girl,’ he said. ‘A very clever girl.’ He paused, and then his smile died away. ‘How many bottles did they drink?’
But Dorcas was looking at him rather strangely. He faltered. ‘Perhaps you should cut along now – you’re probably a bit tired. I’ll count them myself.’
As Dorcas walked along the deserted street towards the Squidge she thought how little times had changed in some respects. A woman with a brain could still be slapped on the back by an idiot and called a clever girl and when she looked as if she might slap him back, he could assuage his conscience at her reaction by suggesting she was tired. She let herself into
the little house with a heavy heart. The only good thing on the horizon was Miss Molly Bonner’s project – and the fact that Miss Molly Bonner seemed to be honourable, and possibly also fun. However, the terms ‘excavate’ and ‘dig’ still reverberated around Dorcas’s head, vying with the more soothing word ‘clearance’. She made herself a nightcap of jasmine tea. She trusted the young woman. And Dorcas was seldom wrong in such matters. After all – she picked up her mug and made her way up the thin little staircase – after all – she had known Miles was a shit all those years ago from the very moment she set eyes on him. Give her a rise, indeed. As if.
Seven
IN BED IN Chrysalis Cottage that night Pinky lay beside Susie in the dark and listened to her breathing. A slow, creeping, long-forgotten warmth spread over him. His anxiety had melted considerably, though some of it still lurked. He had not, for example, liked the way Susie smiled so knowingly at him when it was suggested that after Molly Bonner’s attentions the Gnome would be raring to go again – but if this tender, gentle way of being together continued, then maybe the feeling of being valuable in only one department, about which he felt so disturbed, would melt away. For this, he thought, was how it used to be, when they were first married. This quiet darkness with only the rhythm of their breathing. No pressure.
He stared at Susie’s overly tousled head gleaming in the slip of silver light coming through a crack in the curtain, and the hesitant warmth he felt spread to every part of him. It was, quite simply, as if he were being allowed to breathe again. He stroked her hair (though there was far too much of it for the deed to be a pleasure) and she stirred in her sleep but did not wake. He slid down and scooped her pneumatic curves into his body and they were like two spoons nestling in a drawer. Of his own volition he began to caress his wife, as if for the first time. From long ago and far away she made a familiar gesture with her compressible bottom, a little shake, as if it were saying no to him. He smiled. If only it could be like this always, and not just for the duration of the restoration of the Gnome of Pound Hill. If only he were a man who occasionally had to win his wife’s agreement. If only he dared tell her. And thinking this thought, and closing his eyes peacefully, he drifted off into a gentle, happy sleep.
Donald Porlock was still up, sitting at the desk in his study, reading and making notes from a large book entitled Mental Health Medications (NHS, government publications, 1978). In the kitchen Winifred poured milk into mugs and stirred the cocoa slightly absently as she stared straight ahead of her. She wore her nightdress but not her dressing gown and the thin shape of her body showed through the pink roses of the lawn cotton (Debenhams sale, £25). Pink roses, she thought, lawn cotton, she thought, how predictable she had become. She put the spoon in the sink and picked up the mugs, one in each hand. When they were first married Donald had carried her over the threshold of their London flat with the vow that their lives would be of equal value. Whatever they did, they would do it together, as a team. The domestic requirements were to be shared evenly. She had a career and he had a career and when they went off into the Third World (it was called the Third World then), he vowed, it would still be the same. That was the man she married.
Circumstances, she thought, I was a victim of circumstances. But she knew that she had allowed herself to be that victim. If it came down to testing the egalitarian principles that pertained in a household by looking at who washed out the milk bottles – then buy your milk in cartons. She succumbed, just as Donald succumbed, to the might of generations of respectful serfs that had filtered through Lufferton Boney. If they no longer tugged their forelocks, they still respected the local doctor without question. Two paces behind, Mrs Doctor, if you please and only voluntary work … And, metaphorically speaking, she had acceded. So much easier to be amenable than to be uppish. Especially when you were floundering from your bed in the night to stick a baby on the tit.
Beware any woman who moves to the country and thinks she is an equal in the sight of men (and women). Beware any woman who is equally, or more, intelligent than the male. Beware any woman who moves to the country and owns property and money in her own right. The natives will not forgive you for that. Man is the breadwinner, ever was, ever will be – if you behave like Winifred Porlock, that is.
With a sigh she left the kitchen, switching off the light with her forehead as she always did when her hands were full. The mugs were nice thin china, with little daisies scattered over them in a very pretty pattern. They came from John Lewis and she felt like hurling them at the wall. The wallpaper also came from John Lewis. It was called Catkin. For a moment she stood at the foot of the stairs and glared at the stylish, tasteful design and then, as if by some miracle, the mugs were lifted from her hands and her husband’s face came into view where only Catkin had been. ‘Hallo, darling,’ he said brightly. ‘Shall I carry these up for us?’
How odd, thought Winifred: not like Donald to leave his work to do something of a domestic nature. She looked up at him enquiringly.
‘Don’t want to spill them, now do we? Hot liquids?’
Idiotic question. ‘What would you say, Donald,’ she answered crisply, ‘if I said Yes We Do.’
He hurried on ahead.
In bed, later, as they finished their drinks, Donald, propped up on his pillows and staring straight ahead, murmured cautiously, ‘Did you have enough water play when you were a child, dear?’ Winifred looked down into the depths of the mug. It was entirely empty. Just as well. She placed the mug carefully on the side table and heard her husband give a little noise like a sigh of satisfaction as she slid down under the covers. Her muffled voice was indistinguishable as she gave her answer. Donald, had he not known Winifred better, might have thought it was something not very nice that she muttered into the eiderdown, but that was so out of character as to be ridiculous. Ridiculous. ‘Perhaps we could put up a small fountain in the garden. Would you like that?’ Something else was said but he could not be sure what it was. So he turned out the light and joined his wife beneath the covers.
It was some time before he nodded off. They lay there, side by side, eyes closed, with Winifred feeling very far from saintly despite being named for St Winifred and her miraculous spring. Small fountain in the garden, indeed, when what she wanted was a raging torrent.
In her bed at the Old Manor, Marion pondered on Miles’s capacity to smile. He had seemed to be at it for most of the evening. Or was it a smile? Very hard to tell. It could, she thought, as she turned out the light and stared at the moonlight playing on her beloved posters of those historical heroes of the turf Red Rum and Shergar (Oh where, Oh where?) it could, of course, be an indicator that something was not quite right in Miles’s body – perhaps it was a grimace of pain? And that might be the answer to one vital question that Marion pondered with everyone: was that why he didn’t ride? There had to be a good reason for that. Or perhaps there was something of an irritant nature in the region of his neck area – perhaps he had something not quite right behind his mandible, or his maxilla. If he were a horse and pulling his lips back like that she would be able to check it for him: she would just get out her sturdy probang and see whether there was anything hiding in his throat. Over in a trice. Whatever the reason, in the end he had looked dead spooky and the ceiling had been a comforting diversion. Marion found it hard to trust anyone who did not care for horses. Though she pitied rather than distrusted Nigel, who had also had a bad experience and no one to throw him back in the saddle afterwards. Even Winifred Porlock, who did not ride at all, brought Sparkle the odd carrot now and then and knew how to rub his nose on the side. A decent person knew such things.
She pulled up the covers tight to her nose. When she went back to the pub yard to collect Sparkle she had seen Peter Hanker grab hold of Julie Barnsley as she passed the entrance and kiss her on the lips. A very long kiss, fascinating it was. And then Julie seemed to collect herself and slapped him. Then they both laughed and she went on her way. Even more fascinating. She wondered if Julie
liked riding. She hoped so. She hoped everyone in the world could have the happiness it brought. Really, if you did not ride how could you say you were alive? On the other hand, when her father and mother had introduced her to one or two young men on their horses, she seemed to have done quite the wrong thing by riding better than they did. Odd. You would have thought a wife who could do five bars and never flinch would be just the sort of girl to take down the aisle. She could not fathom those chaps. Not at all. Nor did she like them. They hunted. She couldn’t abide hunting. Nigel’s little difficulty was to do with hunting, she knew that. She felt sorry for him. She just loved to be up in the saddle. And horses were just so straightforward. She gave a little whinny into her pillow and fell soundly asleep.
Dulcima, so far not having spilled a drop of Orridge’s port, was making her careful way along the passage that connected the old servants’ stairs with the second-floor bedrooms. Marion’s room was on this floor – which had a better view of the stables – and Dulcima paused to listen. She heard the little whinny and sighed with pleasure. Marion was tucked up for the night and happy.
Orridge had been asleep in his chair in the hall as usual, seeing them in, and had not noticed his mistress quietly remove the cork from the bottle awaiting her husband, his nightcap. She poured out a good glassful, replaced the cork and went on her way. Happy. How lovely. Orridge was happy. Marion was happy. Dulcima must be happy? And Harty was stretched out in his favourite wing chair, one leg propped up on Jarvis his favourite retriever and the other on one of two footstools. Orridge would waken, and then wake him and they would both be happy together. What a happy, happy house. Was she going to have to jumble up all this happiness? Was she going to have to find a husband for her daughter and thus break the spell of daily harmony? Very probably she was. Dulcima sighed. St Augustine was receding rapidly. She must talk to Harty and she must act. But – well – she sipped the delicious, nutty port – not tonight … She did not look in on her husband. Jarvis had a tendency to get up and rush with wagging tail towards her if she appeared, however silently, in the library – which woke his master – so better to go straight to bed. Had she entered the library to say goodnight she might have seen a rather sad looking Sir Roger stroking and caressing his dog as if his life depended upon it, each of his feet placed on each of two footstools.