Every Woman for Herself

by Trisha Ashley

  He was very tall, even taller than Em, and his dark, heavy-lidded eyes regarded me with a sort of weary wariness, as though I was a surprise gift he didn’t want. He was also carrying a giant teddy bear.

  ‘I don’t think a man who walks about wearing a red duvet and a jester’s hat has any right to criticise my cottage,’ I informed him coldly, although his strange garments did not actually look quite as ludicrous on him as they might sound, while my verandah, as Walter would call it, certainly did.

  I didn’t mention the teddy bear in case he was sensitive about it. Bran always takes his soft toy, Mr Froggy, everywhere in his pocket with him, but at least it is small.

  ‘It’s ski-wear,’ he said, looking down his remarkably straight nose at me.

  ‘Not in Upvale it isn’t. You might as well have “Oft-Comed ‘Un” stamped across your back; but I suppose you’re the actor – Em said we’d got one in the cottage down the track,’ I said, making him sound like a disease. ‘I don’t think she mentioned your name.’

  And the bit of him I could see, between upturned collar and pulled-down hat – high sculptured cheekbones and slightly slanting, droopy-lidded eyes – did look vaguely familiar, even to someone who rarely watches TV or films.

  ‘I’m incognito.’

  ‘It’s all right with me. I don’t expect the urge will come upon me to boast about meeting you. Or your teddy bear,’ I added, throwing caution to the winds.

  ‘My teddy bear?’ he echoed, looking at me strangely, but that might have been because my knitted coat was flying up behind me like black bat wings.

  ‘Am I not supposed to mention the teddy bear? It’s moving,’ I added, fascinated.

  Indeed, it was now not only moving, but muttering. The head turned and I saw a little face screwed up in sleep, framed by honey-brown fur and round ears. Then it snuggled back into the red duvet.

  What with that and the Mediterranean verandah I was starting to feel quite freaked. Upvale had always previously stayed the same, my one fixed constant in a threatening world. It was a relief when the actor edged past me without another word (unless you count what sounded like a muttered ‘crackers!’) and strode off up the lane with his little furry friend.

  I prised my little furry friend out of her warm nest in the car, and she looked around her with a sort of vague surprise: the world had moved while she slept, again.

  The door key was in the mouth of the stone frog as usual, together with some small wooden tablets inscribed with what looked like runes, and a bunch of dried herbs. I left those.

  We went through Walter’s Folly, and I opened the door of the cottage to be met and embraced by a warm miasma of lavender, furniture polish and bleach. There was no leftover redolence of mistress here, for Gloria Mundi had clearly excised every last iota of their existence. It simply smelled like home.

  Flossie pattered across the flagged floor behind me as I climbed the stairs up to the Parsonage kitchen and opened the strangely silent door.

  There was a delicious aroma, easily identified as steak and kidney pie with suet crust, and Em was sitting coring baking apples at the kitchen table, and plopping them into a big earthenware bowl of water.

  ‘You’ve come, then,’ she stated, without looking up from her task. ‘Put the kettle on – you must be frozen. Where’s Flossie?’

  With a wheeze like a small pair of bellows Flossie hauled herself up the last step, looking vaguely around, then made straight for the wood-burning stove in the corner, a shaggily-upholstered heat-seeking missile.

  ‘She must be cold,’ said Em fondly. ‘I’ll warm her some milk.’

  ‘She isn’t cold – she’s been fast asleep in her igloo all the way here. I’m the one who’s absolutely brass-monkeyed, because I had to have the roof open for the plants. Where’s Walter?’

  As if on cue the door swung open and in hobbled a gnarled and cheery little goblin. The bridge of his over-large glasses had been bound with a great wodge of Sellotape, and his baggy corduroy trousers were held up with Father’s old school tie.

  ‘Hello Walter,’ I said, giving him a kiss.

  ‘I’ve got no eyebrows.’

  ‘I know. How are you?’

  ‘No eyebrows. No bodily hair what-so-ever!’ he proclaimed happily. ‘I’ve made you a verandah, and now I’m going to put your plants in it and make a jungle.’

  ‘It’s a wonderful verandah, Walter – it’s the best one I’ve ever seen. Thank you!’

  Beaming like a lighthouse he hobbled off towards the cottage stairs, muttering, ‘No eyebrows … no bodily hair what-so-…’

  Em plopped the last apple into the bowl and got up. ‘There we are, now we’ll have a hot drink. Don’t worry about your stuff,’ she added, as ominous Burke-and-Hare dragging noises wafted up from the cottage. ‘Walter will bring it all in, and you can arrange it as you like later. I’ve put a couple of greenhouse heaters in the verandah to take the chill off, because there’s no electric in it yet, of course, and the floor’s just the old paving stones. Do you like the colour?’

  ‘Yes. It’s very bright.’

  ‘Walter’s choice. Gloria wanted dark green, but I thought that was a bit municipal. You can do your own thing with the inside of the cottage.’

  Gloria is Walter’s sister, and they do not so much work at the Parsonage as inhabit the space at odd hours between dawn and dusk, as the fancy takes them.

  ‘Where is Gloria? Where is everyone?’

  ‘Gloria is turning out Bran’s room, in case. Father’s in his study composing another epic.’

  ‘Oh God – who is it this time?’

  ‘Browning. Apparently, he didn’t produce much good work while he was married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning because he was actually busy writing all her poetry for her.’

  ‘The same line as usual then?’

  ‘He doesn’t change. But at least it’s lucrative; everyone loves to disagree with him. Otherwise, the mistress has gone out shopping, and then she’ll probably be picking up the two sprogs from school. Do you know, she wanted them to have Anne’s room because she didn’t like them sleeping in the attic? I told her that Anne locked her room between visits and even Gloria only cleaned when she was there, and that shut her up.’

  ‘Any word from Anne?’

  ‘No, but her answering machine’s changed: it just says “this is Anne Rhymer, leave a message” and doesn’t mention Red at all.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve parted? Not that they ever seemed to be in the same country simultaneously anyway.’

  ‘Something’s happening – I can feel it.’

  ‘She will tell us if she wants to.’

  ‘Yes, or simply turn up. I’m starting to get the idea she might be coming home soon,’ said Emily, her eyes getting that strange, faraway expression. Then it was gone and she was saying briskly: ‘Funnily enough, I’ve had much more interesting foretellings since I made up my mind to embrace the Dark Arts than ever before, but I think I’m going to go ahead anyway. I’ve got three friends coming round soon to tell me about their coven. You know one of them – Xanthe Skye.’

  ‘I don’t remember anyone called Xanthe Skye.’

  ‘She was Doreen Higginbottom until The Change.’

  ‘Oh yes? That will be nice,’ I said dubiously. ‘Didn’t she have a brief fling with Fa—’

  I stopped dead for the man himself, possibly attracted by the smell of freshly brewing coffee, had wandered in: big and broad-shouldered, in corduroys and a shirt rolled up to show muscular arms. He still had a full head of light, waving hair like Anne and Em, and though his face was looking a bit pummelled by time, the general effect was large, virile and handsome.

  ‘Hello Father.’

  ‘Oh God! Keep the pans locked up, Em,’ he said resignedly.

  Silently she poured out a mug of coffee and handed it to him, and he took two Jaffa cakes out of the Rupert Bear tin and went back out without another word.

  The study door closed behind him with a snap.


  * * *

  While I unburdened my soul to Em she baked a batch of sultana scones and made the biggest treacle tart you could fit in the oven, intricately latticed over the top.

  She didn’t say much, but it was comforting all the same, as were the two hot, buttered scones she insisted I eat.

  It was quite a while later before the front door slammed and a woman’s voice shrilled: ‘Hello everybody!’

  Silence answered her. Even the zooming noise of Gloria Mundi’s Hoover stilled momentarily.

  ‘That’s her – Jessica. Can’t hear the sprogs, perhaps they’re out for tea or something.’

  A woman staggered in and dumped a couple of bulging carrier bags on the table with a sigh of relief. ‘There you are!’

  She was fortyish, with a firmly repressed dark downiness and an aura of elegant sexuality – a sort of hungry look about the shadowed eyes. Her body was diet-victim skinny, and the rather bird-billed face perched on top made her look like a duck on a stick.

  ‘Hello. You must be Charlie?’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Charlie, Father’s tart – Father’s tart, Charlie,’ introduced Em.

  ‘Fiancée,’ Jessica said, her smile going a bit fixed. ‘Is that your sweet little dog? Is she all right? She isn’t moving, is she?’

  ‘She isn’t dead, if that’s what you mean. She’s a Cavalier Queen Charlotte. They go into suspended animation at regular intervals.’

  ‘King Charles?’

  ‘Not unless he was a bitch.’

  ‘Take this stuff off my table, Jessie,’ Em ordered. ‘I’m trying to get dinner ready.’

  ‘I thought we could have something a bit different tonight,’ Jessica said, with a sort of determined jolliness. ‘The girls don’t really like all this meat and stodge, and I’m sure it’s not healthy for a man of Ranulf’s age. And there are vegetables other than mushy peas, you know! So I’ve got some pasta, and sun-dried tomatoes and pesto…’

  With one sweep of her muscular arm Em cleared the table, and Flossie found herself under a sudden rain of cellophane packages. She sat up, looking vaguely surprised.

  ‘Sod off out of my kitchen,’ Em said. I was relieved she was taking it so well.

  Jessica laughed and began to retrieve her goodies. ‘Now, Emily, I know your bark is worse than your bite, so—’

  ‘No it isn’t,’ I assured her earnestly. One of Em’s bites from a childhood disagreement we had still aches in cold weather, and I certainly don’t come between her and anything she wants, any more than I’d come between a rabid dog and a bowl of water.

  ‘Perhaps we could have pasta tomorrow?’ persisted Jessica. ‘I’ll just put everything in the cupboard, shall I?’

  ‘You can put it anywhere you like, as long as it isn’t in my kitchen,’ Em said.

  ‘I – I think I’ll go and see Ran,’ Jessica said, backing towards the door.

  ‘Do that,’ Em said, and added: ‘Frost’s behind you.’

  The great grey lurcher had indeed silently approached up the hall, and was now looming with his sad yellow eyes fixed on her.

  Jessica gave a squeak of terror and shot off into the study, slamming the door.

  They didn’t emerge until dinner was ready, when Father looked excited and exhausted in equal measure, which I don’t think was the book.

  The two giggly little twins, Chloe and Phoebe, were decanted by someone’s mother at seven. They looked about nine, and were attenuated versions of their mother, with legs like liquorice laces. The presence of Father and Em seemed to subdue them, but once they were sent off to bed they could be heard giggling for ages.

  Gloria Mundi (whose only comment on seeing my shorn, silver locks had been: ‘Well, I’ll go to the foot of ower stairs!’) stayed for dinner, but Walter had eaten a coddled egg and several scones in the kitchen and gone off to the pub.

  Gloria would generally have gone too, by now, but had stayed in order to make sure I ate enough for ten people, and went to bed early: but then, I always was her favourite – probably because I was the runt of the litter.

  She sat opposite smiling at me, her pale bright eyes glowing in her crumpled face like stars in a net. She’s about as close to a mother figure as we’ve ever got, and it was comforting tonight to have someone trying to mollycoddle me, even if, as predicted, she did make me drink a herbal brew that tasted as if it had been strained through an old sock.

  Miss Grinch had been an absolute tower of strength, but Gloria was glorious.

  Skint Old Cook: Part One

  How to tell your Mushy Peas from your Pease Pudding.

  These two northern delicacies are easily distinguishable from each other. Mushy peas are simply, as the name suggests, peas cooked until they go mushy and give off liquid. Much runnier than pease pudding they are often served with chips or pies. The canned variety can be an interesting shade of green – try them with potatoes and gravy for an enticing mixture of colour combinations. Your dinner guests will never forget it!

  Pease pudding is a solid, grey-green stodge, sometimes sold in little tubs. It’s cheap, filling and full of fibre. For the desperately hungry and/or hard up, use it as a sandwich filling.

  It tastes better than it looks, as so many regional delicacies do: after all, weren’t jellied eels once memorably described as looking like a bad cold in a bucket?

  Chapter 7

  Enlightenment

  Chivvied by Em I walked reluctantly down to Hoo House to meet Inga early next morning before all the children arrived at the nursery. I was worried that she wouldn’t take me on, and worried that she would, but I needn’t have bothered; I suppose if I had two heads or something she wouldn’t employ me, but after seeing some of the other members of the commune with their feet in the trough at breakfast, I wouldn’t bank on it.

  They can’t know I’m a murderess yet – but they might well regard it as a sort of minor peccadillo when they do find out.

  The nursery is called ‘Rainbow of Enlightenment’, which is as close as they can get to the Japanese original. I’ve never heard of it, so it obviously didn’t take off like Steiner or Montessori.

  Inga, a squat, damp limp Scandinavian (no, they’re not all tall, blond ice maidens) gloomily took me around the two big, square front rooms of the house that formed the nursery, pointing out the arrangement of the equipment: apparently the children have to complete a series of tasks in their right order. ‘Building the Rainbow of Endeavour to the Further shores of Enlightenment…’ or something.

  Susie, the other helper, was setting out paint pots and brushes.

  ‘We have sixteen childwen,’ lisped Inga, ‘including my own – Gunilla – who is in the gawden, being at one with Natuwe.’

  ‘Natuwe?’

  ‘Ja, Gunilla loves Mama Natuwe.’

  ‘Oh, right. Does she also love the Rainbow of Enlightenment?’

  ‘Gunilla is being bwought up by obsewving the behaviouw of The Gwoup. But it is also impowtant that she mixes with other childwen. She often chooses to join in with her fwiends as they complete their tasks.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, and so I did; no wonder staff didn’t stay long, if Gunilla was doing her own thing while the other children were put through their very structured hoops. I mean, I know nothing much about nursery education, but it sounded a recipe for disaster.

  Still, maybe Gunilla was a sweet little thing, and it would all work beautifully? Yes, and I’m Pollyanna and everything comes up roses.

  I left just as the first children were arriving in a series of mammoth people carriers driven by Mummy or the nanny. The Rainbow must be trendy.

  Inga greeted the children by name in the same gloomy tones: China, Poppy, Zoë and Josh were just a sample. I expect I will get them all hopelessly mixed up.

  ‘Ah, Caitlin,’ Inga said, her voice warming up to blood heat. ‘You awe eawly. Is Daddy hewe? I wanted to speak with him.’

  ‘Gone,’ Caitlin said succinctly. She was wearing a teddy-bear suit, the head, which I now saw was
a hood with ears, pushed back. On her feet she wore flowered wellingtons, like a frivolous Paddington. ‘Daddy wants to be left alone, because he’s writing a play. And resting. And looking after me, while Mummy’s in a film. Then she’s going to marry Rod, and I’ve got a bridesmaid’s dress. Daddy says it makes me look like a meringue.’ She eyed me curiously, especially the limp black drapery and lace-up boots, then informed me: ‘My Daddy’s a famous actor – he’s Mace North.’

  ‘Face North?’ I echoed, puzzled.

  ‘Mace North.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, trying to sound impressed, which is not easy if you don’t watch films very often, although the name was ringing bells faintly somewhere. ‘Then I think I met him behind my cottage yesterday. I’m Charlie Rhymer, and I live at the Parsonage.’

  ‘I know Em. And Frost. Em gave me a gingerbread dragon with chocolate drop scales.’

  ‘Em’s my sister.’ And she’s not usually prone to like children. What is she up to?

  Caitlin gave me a look of disbelief for which I didn’t blame her. I can hardly believe I’m related to three such enormous entities myself.

  ‘Daddy’s frightened of Em, but I’m not.’

  ‘I’m suwe youw daddy isn’t fwightened of anyone!’ Inga said. ‘Wun along in; we awe neawly weady to begin.’

  I took the hint and left as yet more expensive dinosaurs trundled up the drive to decant their small passengers, and as I walked home through the mushy, melting snow I tried to remember if I’d ever seen Mace North in anything. (Other than a red duvet.)

  I don’t go to the cinema (just the idea of being shut in the dark with all those strange people gives me the shudders!) and although Matt was wont to hire videos, they were of the violence, sex and nastiness kind, which were not images I wanted stored in my subconscious forever.

  However, that made me think of the actor’s barbarian cheekbones, so at odds with his rather posh, mellow voice, and then I remembered where I’d seen him before: the cover of Surprise! magazine, the one Angie’d whipped away again.

  Tartar blood, that was it.

  When I got back to the Summer Cottage Flossie was just waking up, so I took her for the hundred-yard stroll she considers a strenuous trek, which got us as far up the track as the actor’s cottage (no sign of life) but not quite as far as the farm, although Madge waved from the doorway. Then I set to work to try and turn the cottage into a home.