by Pippa Wright
This morning I had been woken just after five by an unearthly scream, which seemed to emanate from the very walls of the house. This was followed by several shouts and a slamming of at least two doors. My thoughts of Martin’s perfidious ways were disturbed by an animated discussion on the landing below my attic room – annoyingly I could hear only voices, not actual words. I realized there was no point in staying in bed any longer. Pulling on a baggy jumper over my pyjamas, I headed halfway down the stairs.
I leaned over the banister to see Auntie Lyd, hair piled on top of her head, leaning against the door of her bedroom in a draped Moroccan kaftan. Her arms were folded across her chest as a dressing-gowned Percy ranted at her, his skin a furious red from face to amply exposed chest. I had never seen Percy’s hair, usually Brylcreemed into flat submission, standing up on end like that, nor so white. As I got closer, I saw that what I had mistaken for hair was a thick pelt of shampoo bubbles.
‘. . . a deliberate attempt on my life,’ Percy was protesting.
Even after three weeks at Auntie Lyd’s, I still couldn’t help myself from seeing Percy as his most famous role, Peter Bennett, the hapless and accident-prone hero of late-seventies sitcom Whoops! There Goes the Neighbourhood. Although Percy had only made three series, it had run on the BBC for most of my childhood, and it was a rare day that a repeat couldn’t still be found on some nostalgia channel. But these days Percy performed exclusively in the theatre, which he pronounced, in his fruity vowels, ‘theee-YAHH-tahh’. Although I was sure he could have afforded his own flat, living at Auntie Lyd’s allowed him to indulge in his greatest pleasure: bestowing advice, usually from the breakfast table while clad in his embroidered dressing gown, on the young actors who raced in and out of the attic bedrooms in between auditions and rehearsals. They, in turn, were honoured to receive his patronage and so everyone was happy. The fact that the theatrical youths were no longer in residence meant he was, as far as I could see, in a state of constant fury.
‘Who would do such a thing?’ Percy demanded, projecting his voice as if he were trying to be heard from the other side of Elgin Square. ‘I could have had a heart attack. “Oh me, my heart, my rising heart.”’
‘Shakespeare?’ asked Auntie Lyd. Percy used so many theatrical quotations in conversation that everyone had given up commenting on them. I suspected Auntie Lyd only did so now in order to distract him.
‘Lear,’ said Percy, pulling the dressing gown tighter around him. ‘A tormented man, Lydia, a tormented man. As indeed, am I.’
‘Percy, I think we should both accept it was nothing more than an accidental rush of cold water,’ said Auntie Lyd, rubbing her eyes. ‘No one was trying to kill you. There’s a problem with the boiler, you know that.’
‘I know that Avery woman has had her eye on my room for years, Lydia,’ Percy sniffed. ‘She will stop at nothing to have it for her own. Base, treacherous woman.’
‘Percy, if I know her at all, Eleanor is already downstairs at the kitchen table,’ said Auntie Lyd, rubbing her eyes. ‘She has nothing to do with the hot water going off. It’s just a problem with the pipes.’
‘I’ll give her a problem with the pipes,’ said Percy, drawing himself up to his full height (not actually very high, especially not in monogrammed velvet slippers). ‘Lydia, whether Eleanor is behind this, or whether it is the result of your poor maintenance of this property, I should not wish for my death to be on your conscience. I demand that you address this problem immediately.’
Auntie Lyd yawned. ‘I’ll call a plumber first thing in the morning, I promise.’
‘It is already first thing in the morning!’ said Percy, becoming redder.
‘It’s five o’clock. I’m not about to pay emergency call-out rates just because you had an unexpectedly cold shower, Percy,’ said Auntie Lyd patiently. ‘Now come downstairs to the kitchen and I’ll boil a kettle to wash that shampoo out of your hair.’
‘An utter disgrace,’ muttered Percy, following her down the stairs. Neither of them had seen me listening to their conversation, but now that I was up I followed them. The company would make a welcome change from my usual solitary morning thoughts.
Auntie Lyd had been right about Eleanor – immaculately made-up, already dressed in beige slacks and a pink sweater, she perched like a small bird on the edge of one of the rickety kitchen chairs, her three-inch heels tucked delicately over the struts. Although she seemed perfectly relaxed, she never leaned back into her chair, or dropped her elbows on to the kitchen table – her posture remained beautiful at all times. I had no idea when Eleanor rose in the mornings, but so far I had yet to come down to the kitchen without finding her in just this position, fully dressed, perfectly made-up, teacup in hand. It didn’t matter if I emerged at seven, or ten, or, as this morning, at five. I wouldn’t have been particularly surprised to learn that she sat there all night.
Eleanor Avery had been a Pinewood starlet back in the days when the British film industry imagined itself to be a genuine rival to the Americans. Although her star had waned early – though who could forget her saucy vicar’s wife seducing the curate in Not Now, Padre? – her glamour remained undiminished. These days she sustained herself with a recurrent non-speaking role as a market trader in EastEnders. She could regularly be seen in the background, packing fruit and vegetables into brown paper bags with an exaggerated delicacy that, her friends knew, owed less to Method-style immersion than an effort to prolong the life of her pale-pink manicure.
‘There she is,’ said Percy triumphantly, as if he had caught Eleanor with a dripping spanner in one hand and the Reader’s Digest DIY Guide in another.
‘Good morning, Percy,’ said Eleanor, delicately sipping from her teacup. ‘Good morning, Lydia, Rory.’
‘What are you doing up?’ said Auntie Lyd, realizing that I was behind her.
‘I just heard voices,’ I said. ‘Wanted to see what was going on.’
‘Well, my dear,’ said Percy to me, puffing out his chest. ‘You’ve arrived just in time for the show.’
‘Show?’ said Eleanor uncertainly, her hand trembling a little.
‘Yes, you spiteful old crone, I know it was you who turned the water to cold this morning; you may sit here looking all innocent, but I know what lies beneath the surface!’
‘The surface?’ asked Eleanor, looking to Auntie Lydia for reassurance.
‘Don’t think I’m not wise to your games, Avery,’ said Percy. ‘I am on to you. Treachery!’
‘Percy, dear,’ said Eleanor, her watery eyes widening innocently, ‘you appear to have something peculiar in your hair.’
As she spoke the bubbles, which had until now sat on Percy’s head as tightly as a shower cap, loosened – perhaps it was the warmth of the kitchen that did it – and the whole mass began to sink down around his ears. Percy’s confusion at the descent of the sudsy wig silenced him momentarily and Auntie Lyd took advantage of the situation to manoeuvre him away from Eleanor and towards the deep kitchen sink.
‘Now, Percy,’ she said, briskly. ‘I’m just going to rinse off this shampoo and then it will be as if nothing ever happened, yes? And then I will call a plumber who will sort out the pipes so this doesn’t happen again, and you will apologize to Eleanor.’
‘Over my dead body,’ muttered Percy, lowering his head into the porcelain sink. He stopped grumbling as Auntie Lyd ladled warm water from the washing-up bowl over his head, rinsing away the offending bubbles. The soothing sound of the water splashing into the sink brought calm to the kitchen at last.
‘It quite reminds me of being a child,’ said Eleanor, from her perch. ‘Watching my mother wash my little brother in the sink.’
‘My mother used to do the same,’ Percy’s voice echoed from inside the sink. ‘I still remember waiting my turn with my sister as the kettle warmed up.’
Auntie Lyd smiled at me over Percy’s bent back as Eleanor and Percy engaged in a conversation of gently competitive nostalgia – who had been the last to get
indoor plumbing (Percy), who had had to go to school in their brother’s shoes (Eleanor), how young people today had no idea how lucky they were. Percy’s accusations were all but forgotten. Shortly afterwards we were all sitting at the wooden table, sharing a pot of tea.
‘Well, it might have been an earlier start than I’m used to,’ said Auntie Lyd, ‘but it’s worked out rather nicely, sitting here all together like this, hasn’t it? It’s nice to catch up with you before work, Rory.’
‘Aurora, dear,’ said Eleanor, turning her pale eyes towards me. ‘Your aunt says that you are terribly important at Country House magazine these days. Features editor, is it?’
‘Oh, er, not quite,’ I said. ‘Just deputy features editor.’
‘“Just” deputy?’ declared Percy. ‘No such thing as “just” a deputy. Did dear Paul Scofield say that I was “just” his understudy? Did the audience say I was “just” Pericles, Prince of Tyre, when I had to take on the matinée performance? No! “Deputy” means you are ready and able to step into the breach at a moment’s notice – there is no “just” about it.’
Eleanor rolled her eyes at Auntie Lyd, who stared back with the expression of non-committal blankness that she habitually adopted in the face of strong provocation from both sides.
‘I’m not sure it’s quite A Star is Born at Country House,’ I said, smiling into my tea at the idea that I might some day take over from our Martha in a wild burst of applause and glory, instead of to general indifference.
‘I’m sure you are already quite the star, dear,’ said Eleanor politely. ‘Are you working on anything interesting right now?’
‘Rory has her own column, don’t you, Rory?’ said Auntie Lyd. ‘Behind the Rope – all about the hidden highlights of stately homes. I have back issues of every Country House since she started it – they’re all stacked up in the living room if you want to have a read.’
‘What, that big pile of magazines that Mr Bits’s bed is balanced on?’ asked Percy.
‘The very same. Just shove him off if you’d like to see one. I recommend June 2010 on the electric tablecloth at Castle Drogo,’ she said. ‘Fascinating.’
I stared at her. I’d had no idea that Auntie Lyd even knew I wrote a column, let alone that she had bought the magazine every month to see it. My own mother had never had much interest in Country House, and if Dad read it then he had never bothered to say so, but as we were only in touch a few times a year that wasn’t a great surprise. Martin, I probably do not need to tell you, thought my column amusing and trivial but failed to see the point of it, much as, I was beginning to realize, he had pretty much failed to see the point of me.
Auntie Lyd smiled back. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Porridge, everyone?’
Eleanor said she wasn’t hungry, and Percy leapt on her, claiming if it weren’t for the whisky in her teacup she might find she had more of an appetite in the mornings. I watched, wide-eyed, as Eleanor’s trembling hand replaced her cup in the saucer, her lips pursed. Was it really whisky? At five-thirty in the morning? But she didn’t deny it. Instead she said that if you asked her, the nearest Percy had ever been to Paul Scofield was watching A Man for All Seasons on television, and then that was it – the insults raged across the table once again.
Auntie Lyd just got up and started making porridge for everyone. I went and joined her by the stove, although it hardly needed two of us to stir the pot.
‘All right, darling?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said, pulling open the cutlery drawer and taking out spoons as Percy and Eleanor sniped at each other behind us.
‘Auntie Lyd?’
She turned to face me, the wooden spoon in her hand.
‘Auntie Lyd, do you think it’s weird that I’ve only had one boyfriend?’
She smiled. ‘It’s not weird at all, darling. Haven’t you been with him for ever? Why are you worried about that all of a sudden?’
‘I just, well, someone I work with said it was weird. That I hadn’t been out with anyone else before Martin. Especially not anyone unsuitable.’
‘Unsuitable?’
‘You know, bad boys, wrong’uns. Non-sensible people not called Martin.’
‘Why would you want to go out with “wrong’uns”?’ asked Auntie Lyd, turning back to the porridge. ‘It seems to me like you’ve only just escaped from one of those.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I think,’ I said, reassured that there was no need to follow Ticky’s advice. Not that I had intended to anyway.
Auntie Lyd stirred the porridge thoughtfully. ‘Although I suppose it is quite instructive to go out with a few unsuitable men in one’s youth.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, darling, look at your mother. I love her dearly, but she only identifies the unsuitable ones after she’s exchanged her vows, doesn’t she?’
‘Mmm,’ I agreed. Four marriages was an impressive tally for someone who was not actually a Hollywood celebrity.
Auntie Lyd carried on stirring. ‘Have you told her about Martin yet?’
‘Yes,’ I sighed, remembering my fraught conversation with Mum. ‘She said I should never have let such a good one go, and basically implied it was all my fault.’
‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Auntie Lyd. Your mother is a wonderful woman in many ways, but she does have a tendency to back the wrong horse when it comes to relationships.’
‘She got it right in the end,’ I said. I rarely felt like defending Mum’s love life, but she had been with Steve for fifteen years now, and it seemed like she might have finally settled down.
‘She did, darling,’ agreed Auntie Lyd. She tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the pan. ‘But it took three divorces and a move to Marbella. Yes, I wonder. Maybe things would have been different if she’d just been out with a few unsuitable men instead of always marrying them.’
‘So, do you think it would be a good idea for me to date unsuitable men?’ I asked hesitantly.
Auntie Lyd considered my question. ‘That’s up to you, darling,’ she said. The hint of a smile hovered on her lips. ‘Unsuitable men can be awfully good fun, I suppose. As long as you don’t take it all too seriously. Why not?’ She shrugged and began ladling porridge into individual bowls.
I handed a bowlful each to Percy and Eleanor, whose argument had slowed not one bit. My own I ate slowly, thinking. It was a strange Venn diagram in which my aunt’s opinions corresponded with those of the Honourable Ticky Lytton-Finch. First they had both correctly predicted the existence of Martin’s other woman, now they thought I should date unsuitable men: the oddness of receiving the same advice from two such very different people made it harder to dismiss. But it was all far too early. I wasn’t ready to start dating anyone yet, let alone anyone unsuitable.
5
The office was oddly quiet that afternoon. Amanda had been seen stalking to the ladies’ with Martha hot on her heels. This, we all knew, had nothing to do with synchronized bladders and everything to do with the unspoken rule that the two of them retreated there when their arguments became too heated to be contained within the glass walls of Amanda’s office. The ladies’ was set apart from the rest of the office and offered, if not complete isolation, at least less danger of being overheard by everyone. But it was a pointless exercise, since it only drew more attention to their arguments.
Ever since Amanda had been appointed editor of Country House, the magazine had been moving steadily away from its former incarnation as the home of detailed features on the architecture and art treasures of the nation’s finest country houses (never stately homes – only tourists called them that) into a glossy sort of estate agents’ catalogue full of well-appointed rural homes with paddocks, swimming pools, good transport links and invitations for offers above two million pounds. These days there were a full fifty pages of property advertisements before you got to a single page of editorial; and when you did get to the meat of the magazine, it was more likely to feature a glittering society gathering t
han an article on the history and provenance of Harris tweed. This change in focus, and accompanying change in fortunes, had thrilled the Betterton family, but was to Martha’s enormous – and vocal – displeasure.
The staff were so accustomed to the rows that we all took note of how long each one would last. Over her tenure at the helm of Country House, Amanda had got her Martha-crushing down from half an hour to an impressive personal best of just three minutes (from the precise second the loo door swung shut behind them to the second it opened again). Yes, of course we timed it; we even bet on it – and you would have too if your usual day was spent working on a feature titled The Moor the Merrier, about whether Exmoor or Dartmoor was, well, merrier.
Bids were kept small, at only twenty pence, but a win could still earn you enough for an afternoon-easing piece of cake, not to mention the esteem of your peers. The excitement of these small stakes was only increased by the fact that all betting in the office had been explicitly banned by the Betterton family after the Great Queen Mother Betting Scandal of 2002, shortly before I arrived, in which Lysander Honeywell had been discovered to be running an office syndicate speculating when the aged royal would go to the great throne in the sky. Old Mr Betterton, who knew the Queen Mother well enough to refer to her as ‘Cake’ (for even royalty is not immune from the ridiculous nicknamings of the upper classes), had led the office in a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger school-assembly sort of meeting in which everyone had to swear allegiance to the Crown, renounce the Devil and promise never to commit the sin of gambling while on Country House property.