The feeling of richness, the fortune of being so loved saw her through the hot and dreary evening – the fish pie Evie had made that tasted of wet laundry, her persistent questioning about what she had done all day, and even, when Sid was making some decent coffee, her burrowing in Sid’s handbag for cigarettes (she was always running out – too lazy to go and buy them for herself) and her finding the piece of walnut cake. ‘What on earth have you got this in your handbag for? Oh – walnut cake! I adore walnut cake! Did Rachel give it to you? You don’t mind if I have just a teeny piece? Sure, I know it’s bad for my ulcer, but I do so want a little treat!’ then eating it with her pale, sly, anxious eyes fixed on Sid’s face for the slightest sign of rejection or injury. She gave neither: whenever she felt her pity or affection waning, she conjured back that unsteady, casual voice and was able to continue indifferently kind.
After supper they took the coffee tray up to the stuffy little sitting room, so full of the grand piano that there was barely any room for their two battered old arm chairs. It was so stuffy that Sid opened the French windows that looked onto the small back garden. It contained a huge lime tree and a small square of lawn that she had not mowed for weeks. Willowherb and Michaelmas daisies grew in the narrow beds against the black brick walls, and the gravel path that separated the beds from the lawn was full of dandelions and chickweed. It was not a garden they either used or enjoyed. The iron balustrade and steps that led down from the windows to the garden were rusty – the blistering paint needed burning off. If they were not invited to Home Place, Sid thought, she should really spend some of the holidays refurbishing things. She did not dare tell Evie of this infinitely more inviting possibility because her disappointment, and her ruminations about it if it did not come off, would be unbearable. And also, of course, Waldo might not go on tour. Jewish members of his orchestra were distinctly uneasy about going to some of the parts of Europe involved, and it looked likely that the tour would be curtailed, if not possibly cancelled. In which case, Evie would want to stay in London and she could not go. Sid turned back from the dusty warm air of the garden, to the dustier warmth of the room and asked if there was any news of the tour.
‘He won’t take me. I actually asked, this morning. I think it’s his wife. She’s terribly jealous, she’s always coming into the room when he’s dictating. Quite ridiculous!’
It was, actually, just that. But Sid reflected that the poor woman could hardly be expected to distinguish between one potential menace and another, since her husband was famous for his affairs – the sudden short ones, and the two mistresses he was known to keep, one of whom actually met him wherever he went abroad. Evie seemed to be the only person who did not know about the mistresses or, rather, who refused to believe what she called malicious gossip. What she really meant was that the wife, an ex-opera singer called Lottie, never gave it the chance to become not quite ridiculous. Waldo kissed any women who got near enough and so, of course, he had kissed Evie, who had been unable to resist telling Sid about it. This had been six months ago, and she now implied that the immense difficulties of the situation were all that stood between her and cosmic joy. (The difficulties included Waldo’s heroic nature: immense, sombre Lottie was, according to Evie, the cross he had to bear.)
Evie was lying back in her chair, on the arm of which an open box of coffee creams was precariously perched, and every now and then, she stretched out a hand, felt for a chocolate, and popped it in her mouth. She was extremely fond of sweets and subject to frequent bilious attacks that, like her sallow and greasy complexion, were never attributed to this predilection. She was perfectly determined in this, as in her emotional life, never to learn from experience. She is a monster, thought Sid, but she thought it protectively. Since. Evie’s birth, when Sid was four, she had been conditioned to feeling that Evie was up against circumstances rather than her own nature – she had always been subject to ailments, and an early and bad attack of measles, acute appendicitis and peritonitis had enfeebled her frame and strengthened her powers of manipulation to the point where she could be certain of special consideration for whatever she did or didn’t do and resulting consequences kept her steadfast in her discontent.
She was yawning now – one yawn started before the first one had finished – and exclaiming, in that subdued foghorn voice common to yawners, that she was sure there was going to be a thunderstorm. ‘You said you’d cut my hair,’ she added. She passed a languid hand through her fringe. ‘It’s far too long, only I don’t want it cut so much as you did last time.’
‘Well, I’m not cutting it tonight. Anyway, I wish you’d go to a decent hairdresser: I can only do a pudding-basin job.’
‘You know I hate doing that sort of thing by myself. And you won’t let me go to yours.’
‘Evie, for the hundredth time, I don’t go to a ladies’ hairdresser. The place I go to doesn’t cut women’s hair.’
‘They cut yours.’
When Sid did not reply to this, she said, ‘If you had it shingled, a women’s hairdresser would do it.’
‘I don’t want it shingled. I simply like it very short. Shut up, Evie.’
Evie thrust out her lower lip in sulky silence, during which the distant rumble of thunder was distinct. Sid got up again and went to the window. ‘Goodness, I wish it would rain. Clear the air a bit.’
As Sid knew she would, Evie went on sulking until Sid offered a game of bezique, which was grudgingly accepted. Three games, or the best of three, Sid thought, and then I can escape to bed and write to her.
‘I couldn’t cut your hair with all this thunder about,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember Mama used to wrap all the knives in her mackintosh? She thought the rubber would deflect the lightning?’
Evie smiled. ‘She was terribly nervous. Ladders, and the new moon and black cats – poor little Mummy – she did have an awful life! I suppose we’ve inherited some of that. I have, anyway. I get terribly nervous about things. Like, you know, I thought you might not come back this evening. I thought Rachel might invite you down to Sussex, and you’d simply go.’
‘Evie! When have I ever done anything like that?’
‘Well, but you always might. And now, with Mummy gone, we’ve only got each other, after all. I’d never leave you, Sid. If I do marry anyone, I’d only do it if he said you could live with us.’
‘Darling, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
‘I know you think we never will, but extraordinary things can happen you know. Fate can intervene …’ The game was abandoned as Evie embarked upon her hopes and fears and – Sid was afraid, her sheer imagination – about Waldo. Two hours later they went to their beds.
When he had bathed and changed for dinner, Edward said he’d just nip out to the pub to get some cigarettes. Villy thought she had enough for both of them, but Edward said better be on the safe side. Really he wanted to ring Diana. He had to have a quick gin to get change for the machine that Mr Richardson had recently installed for the benefit of his customers. It was situated in a dark passage on the way to the gents’ – not really very private, but better than nothing. Diana answered the phone just as he was beginning to think she must be out.
‘It’s me,’ he said.
‘Oh! Darling! Sorry to be so long, I was at the end of the garden.’
‘Are you on your own?’
‘For the moment. Are you?’
‘I’m at the pub. In a passage,’ he added in case she thought that the pub was private.
‘Are you ringing up about tomorrow?’
‘Yes. I shall be fairly late, I’m afraid. Probably about nine. What about the boys?’
‘Ian and Fergus are still up north with their grandmother.’
‘And Angus?’
‘He’s with them. Till the end of the week. There’s just me and Jamie.’
‘Hooray!’
‘What?’
‘Hooray. Good. You know what I mean.’
‘I sort of think I do. I love yo
u.’
‘Entirely reciprocated. Must go now. Look after yourself.’
As he drove back down the hill to Mill Farm, he remembered that he hadn’t bought any cigarettes; then he remembered that there were twenty Gold Flake in the front pocket of the car. He was in luck again! He wasn’t doing any harm as long as she didn’t know about it, but it would be devilish stupid to slip up on a little thing like that.
They all had dinner – fourteen of them round the immense three-pedestal table extended to its uttermost and even then they were crammed round it. They ate four roast chickens, bread sauce, mashed potato and runner beans followed by plum tart and what the Duchy called Shape – blancmange. The grown-ups drank claret and the children water. They talked about what they had done that day; the beach party – Rupert was very funny about Neville and his jellyfish. ‘Bexhill?’ said the Duchy, wiping her eyes (she always cried when she laughed). ‘What on earth made him call it Bexhill?’ Rupert, although he could think of little else, said nothing about the Brig’s offer to him. Edward recounted Teddy’s brilliant shot with the rabbit, and Teddy sat scarlet and smiling; naturally Edward said nothing about his telephone call. Hugh imitated his caddy imitating him playing golf with one hand; he said nothing about his political anxiety. Rachel described the nearly deaf, and, according to her, quite mad, President of the Babies’ Hotel conducting the meeting without having the slightest idea which charity he was presiding over. ‘He spent the first half hour under the impression that it was the home for retired horses – it was only when he started on bran mashes and regular deworming that Matron realised that there was some mistake somewhere.’ She said nothing about her day with Sid about whom, with effort that gave her a headache, she had not wept in the train. The Brig told two long stories – one about when he was in Burma and met an extremely interesting chap who turned out to have known someone he’d met in Western Australia (coincidence, with which his long life seemed to have been fraught, never failed to amaze and confound him), and another about the Suez canal, and when Edward said yes, they’d heard it, he simply said never mind, he’d tell them again and did. This took a very long time, and not everybody even pretended to listen to him.
Zoë and Angela eyed one another: Zoë instantly realised that Angela was interested in Rupert and scrutinised her more carefully therefore. One had to admit that she was very pretty – for those who liked blondes with rather pale blue eyes. She was tall and large-boned, like her mother, with a long, very rounded white neck, which poor old Jessica’s certainly wasn’t any more. She had the same cheekbones as Jessica, and the same sculptured mouth, only hers was painted a rather bright pink which was coming off as she ate her dinner. She was certainly fascinated by Rupert, who seemed, thank goodness, entirely unaware of it, but she met Zoë’s eyes guilelessly. She’s only a schoolgirl, really, Zoë thought with a mixture of relief and contempt.
Angela, who had not seen Zoë for over two years, was confounded at how much the same she looked. She, Angela, had changed so much herself in that time that she assumed Zoë would have done so, but she showed no sign of ageing. She was just as glamorous and beautiful as ever, but from novels she had read, Angela knew that there was a very fair chance that she did not understand Rupert, in which case it would not matter what she looked like. The Brig finished his story; he did not mention his satisfaction in having built enough accommodation for his family, which, like the large number of hardwood logs he had bought for veneers, was just in case …
Christopher and Simon both spilled their water, and Simon some bread sauce, but nobody, Christopher noticed, was sarcastic about it. He met Simon’s eye when the bread sauce happened and gave him a sympathetic wink. Instantly, Simon decided that Christopher was the best egg in the room. And when the end of the holidays was mentioned – barely three weeks away now and Simon felt terror and despair engulfing him – he again saw Christopher’s face, noticing and minding. From that moment, Christopher became his hero. As he grinned and lied in response to Aunt Jessica’s idiotic question about was he looking forward to his new school (forward!) Christopher winked – which was a jolly kind thing to do.
Villy, who carved the chickens beautifully, giving everybody the right bits, apportioning the four wishbones between Teddy, Louise, Nora and Simon, did not say very much. Her peaceful afternoon with Jessica had left her feeling oddly drained: the weight of what had not been said – on her part, at least – lay heavily inside her like indigestion. She sensed that Jessica envied her, and longed to be able to tell her that the bed of roses contained thorns. That her sister clearly had too much to do was not, Villy felt, entirely unfortunate. Jessica did not have time to wonder what she was for, to be bored, and ashamed of it, to long for some cataclysmic event that would provide the opportunity to do something and therefore be somebody. But besides these general feelings about her life there was one particular fact that she had fully intended to discuss with Jessica, and then all the afternoon baulked because she was afraid that Jessica would be unsympathetic, for different reasons from those that she might expect from Sybil, for instance, or from Rachel … Rachel! She thought that anyone having a baby was the most marvellous thing that could happen. For that was it. She had missed one period, was coming up to the second and felt fairly certain that she was pregnant and the idea appalled her. She was forty-two, after all; she didn’t really want to start all over again, having what would amount to an only child—Lydia was seven. But what on earth did one do if one didn’t want a baby? She knew, of course, that there were people who did that sort of thing, but how on earth did one find them? She had thought of Hermione as a possible source of information, but she did not at all want to confide in her. Also, of course, she hadn’t absolutely made up her mind; she was clinging to the idea that she might easily be wrong. She decided to wait until she was due and if she missed again she would go to London and see Dr Ballater.
Nora, who was by nature greedy about food, decided to give up her second helping of plum tart for the glory of God. She did not decide this until she was half-way through her first delicious piece, then she could not help supposing that He would have been better pleased if she had not had any at all. ‘Eschewed it, instead of chewed it,’ she explained to Him (she was always trying to encourage His sense of humour). But surely He could see that until she knew how delicious it was, she wouldn’t have been making a witting sacrifice. But really that didn’t wash: food always was delicious at Home Place – it was like Sunday lunch at home every day. Mummy was a jolly good cook, of course; it was simply that she had less to cook with, and the other side of that was that opportunities for sacrifice were seldom come by. It was common sense to eat enough to keep alive, so she did. She felt that she was full of common sense, and longed to have more of the other kind, to be full of mystic certainties. She talked a good deal to God, but He hardly ever said anything back: she was beginning to be afraid that she bored Him, which would be pretty worrying, because as He was known not to mind what people looked like, it followed that He’d mind more than ever how they were. And boring was something Mummy has always told her one should never be. Christopher was eating her piece of tart, his third, but she knew how awfully hungry he got after he’d been sick, so she didn’t grudge him. Angie had eaten her fruit and left the pastry. Well, if He really didn’t mind what people looked like, God would have been bored with Angela. She looked across at Louise. They had spent a long, fascinating afternoon in the hammocks together where a number of secrets had been exchanged, although there were still things that she had not yet confided, which was probably true of Louise also. In any case almost nothing that they had talked about was suitable for family public and they would be bound to shock their mothers, as, mad and extraordinary though it was, they still seemed to be widely regarded as the children.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 29