A Change of Pace

by Budd, Virginia

‘But why didn’t you go, darling, it’s such a lovely day — ’

  ‘We don’t have to do everything together, for goodness sake. Anyway, his mother will be delighted, she prefers to have her darling boy on his own, as well you know, Mum.’

  Unable to think of a suitable reply to this — it was true, but to admit it was true would surely be a mistake, and in any case Nell, clutching a mug of black coffee to her bosom, had already flounced out of the room — Bet turned her attention to her son. What,’ she asked brightly, did he fancy for his breakfast? Nothing, he said, sipping a fizzing glass of alka seltzer and not looking at her. The last thing he wanted was food, he should have thought that would have been obvious to anyone. He’d only come down to get a drink and was on his way back to bed. Still too pre-occupied with her own thoughts to read the storm cones in the atmosphere, Bet asked him how he’d fared the previous evening. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember, he said, it wasn’t that important anyway, but he was fairly sure that Mrs Byngham-Smythe had made a pass at him. ut darling, she can’t have done! I mean, she must be old enough to be your grandmother — ’

  ‘You wouldn’t know, would you. You were too busy getting yourself picked up to have time to think about anyone else.’

  ‘Diz! I will not let you speak to me like that. Just because your father isn’t here, there’s no need to think you can behave as you like —’

  ‘Well, if he had been he’d soon have given that Morris guy a punch up the arsehole.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Bet, seizing the fish-slice, prepared for battle. But Diz had already fled, and by the noise emanating from the downstairs loo, was being sick again.

  Then there had been the Redfords.

  Peter had bearded her in the garden later on that morning. There had been little point in preparing Sunday lunch with no one to eat it. ‘Ah, here you are, ducky,’ and she’d known at once by the sound of his voice that he’d been sent by Pol to do a bit of fishing.

  ‘Yes, here I am, Pete, whole and in one piece. And how are you? Feeling a tiny bit under the weather, are we?’ Pete waved an arm about as though swatting an imaginary fly, and stepped heavily on the lupin she’d just that moment planted. ‘Pete, get off! Can’t you see you’re standing on the garden —’

  ‘Never mind the garden, ducky —’

  ‘What d’you mean, never mind the garden? Don’t you want me to get on with the garden, then? I’ve no doubt you and Pol will be the first to take advantage of it when you bring your posh friends down in the summer.’

  Pete put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Calm down, ducky, for goodness sake. I’ve only come to ask if you felt strong enough to pop in for a noggin around twelve-thirty, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course I feel strong enough — why on earth shouldn’t I?’ Bet said. At that precise moment the phone rang, making her stomach lurch. Simon? ‘Look that’s our phone, Pete, I’d better answer it, no one else is about.’

  The phone, as if to defy her, promptly stopped ringing. ‘A bit on the qui vive aren’t we? Waiting for a call from the boyfriend? Apologising for keeping you out so late, no doubt. What time did you get in, by the way? I thought the chap said he wanted an early night.’

  Bet swallowed; the call must have been for Nell. Why didn’t everyone leave her alone? ‘Oh go away, Pete, can’t you see I’m busy?’

  ‘OK, OK, I know when I’m not wanted — ’

  ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘Now, now, pussy cat,’ Pete bent down and kissed the back of her neck as she crouched crossly at his feet, trowel in hand, ‘no need to show your claws; keep them for Mr Morris — ‘

  ‘Pete!’ But he’d dodged away before she could get at him, this time flattening the pale green shoots of a young delphinium which, as a result of the vast quantities of loving care, and slug death, expended upon it, had been just on the verge of maturity.

  Having decided not to accept the Redfords’ invitation for drinks, Bet accepted it. Of course to do so would be a mistake, she’d known this, but all the same she went. Disapproval still prevailed in her part of the house, and after that first time, the phone had obstinately refused to ring.

  Since it was such a lovely day they had their drinks on the verandah. At first everything went surprisingly smoothly and Bet felt herself beginning to relax as she lounged in her bright patio chair, sleepily sipping an ice-cold gin and cin — Pol did these things so well — and watching an early bee crawl industriously in and out of the fat, smoke-blue wisteria buds that dangled from the newly-painted wrought-ironwork above her head.

  Then Pol had to go and spoil it all. ‘Now, Bet,’ she said, smiling in a way that had infuriated Bet for as long as she could remember, ‘it really was a good dinner last night, wasn’t it, Pete? Such a pity you and your new friend didn’t come, I’m sure you would have enjoyed it. The Cornwalls say that the Mulberry Bush is by far the best place to eat round here.’

  Here we go! Bet took a deep breath and prepared for battle. ‘Well, of course, if the Cornwalls say so, it must be! Anyway, as he told Pete, my so-called ‘new friend’ was more or less dead on his feet. He’d been up most of the previous night at some press do, and the last thing he wanted was to —’

  ‘Launching a new deodorant for dogs, so I heard. The chap does work for Smike McGregor, doesn’t he?’

  ‘He’s in advertising, yes. I can’t see that it matters which particular firm — I know he’s one of their top copywriters.’

  ‘Told you so, did he?’ Pete had not forgotten the look of bored contempt that Simon had treated him to. ‘I should think it does matter, though, ducky, because the buzz is that Smike McGregor are on their way out. Oddly enough, old Dicky Dashwood was only talking about them the other day. It seems that —’

  ‘Oh shut up, Pete, I’m sure Bet has no desire to listen to City gossip and I’m quite sure I haven’t. Nor is there the slightest need for Bet to jump so valiantly to the defence of her hero. The Cornwalls quite understood. It was palpably obvious to anyone that the man wanted to get her away from us, and knowing Bet’s predilection for Italian males as I do, I’m not in the least surprised he succeeded. I’ll never forget the fuss she kicked up about that awful barman in Capri, Mum and Dad practically had to lock her in her bedroom, she —’

  ‘If you must bandy insults,’ Bet was getting angry now, ‘you might at least have the guts to address them to me instead of going on as if I wasn’t here.’

  ‘Steady on, girls, no need to get your knickers in a twist!’ ‘Please don’t interfere, Pete, and you don’t have to get vulgar either.’ Pol held out her glass for a refill.

  ‘Sorry, I’m sure. I was only trying to — ‘

  ‘Pete!’

  ‘Oh, all right then.’ Pete refilled his wife’s glass and passed a dish of salted almonds to his smouldering sister-in-law. ‘But joking apart, Bet,’ (joking?) ‘there is just one small point. If the chap was as fagged out as he said he was, how come he didn’t bring you home until gone midnight?’

  ‘And how, may one ask, do you know what time he brought me home? You were all in bed.’ Pete cast an agonised eye at his wife. ‘Well, actually ... ’

  ‘Because the car made such a noise it woke me up.’ Pol, also getting angry, leaped to his rescue. ‘And then of course I couldn’t get to sleep again and had to take a sleeping pill. But surely, Bet, even you aren’t going to blame us for being worried! I should have thought you’d be pleased that somebody cared enough about you to worry when you disappear into the night with a complete stranger.’

  ‘Aren’t I a bit old to be raped?’

  ‘Age doesn’t come into it. There was an old lady of eighty only last week — chap of sixteen ... ’ Pol closed her eyes. ‘Just pop into the kitchen, Pete, and take the lemon sorbet out of the freezer, it’ll need thawing out.’

  ‘But surely —’

  ‘Pete, please do as I say.’ Pete went, and Pol, beginning to think she’d gone too far, decided to backtrack. ‘He means well, but sometimes ... we
ll, you know.’ She smiled placatingly.

  Bet, however, was in no mood for olive branches. She stood up and carefully placed her empty glass on the patio table. ‘Look, Pol, I would like to make one thing quite clear, then I swear I won’t mention the subject again — that is, if you don’t. The fact that we all live under the same roof does not in any way whatever give you the right to interfere in my life. If I meet someone and become friendly with him, that’s my business; if we sleep together, that’s also my business — ‘

  ‘Oh God, you haven’t, Bet! Not yet, surely — Kitty Cornwall said — ’

  ‘How dare you discuss me with Kitty Cornwall! What I choose to do or not to do is entirely my own affair. Do I make myself clear?’

  By this time Pol was standing too. She was also trembling a little; like most people who spend much of their time being rude to others, she was shattered when the compliment was returned. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Bet. I — that is, Pete and I — only meant it for the best. After all it’s not much more than a year since Miles’s death, and for you to become entangled with someone of Simon Morris’s reputation —Kitty Cornwall told us ... ’

  But Bet had gone, slamming the sitting-room door so hard that one of Pol’s precious Spode plates fell off the mantle-piece and would have shattered in a thousand bits if, as she told Pete afterwards, she hadn’t been there to catch it. Since then they hadn’t spoken; Bet hadn’t even rung Pol about coming to London ...

  Bet looked at her watch. Not yet twelve, but she was fed up with sitting in the café staring at the oddities wandering up and down Haverstock Hill, and the noise of the traffic was giving her a headache. She got up from the table and wandered over to the counter to pay for her coffee. The waitress accepted her money, scarcely bothering to raise her eyes from the magazine she was reading.

  Outside the sun shone, but the cold wind blew dust in her eyes and made her shiver. Somehow, now, it all seemed rather absurd, Pol and herself screaming at one another like a pair of fishwives. Across the street a tall man was walking slowly up the hill; he carried a briefcase and an elderly dog trailed behind him on a lead. She wanted to run after him, call out, force him to turn round and be Miles: ‘Hullo, darling, look, hang on to this damned canine for a minute, I’m dead beat ... ’ She stood and watched the figure until it disappeared out of sight round the corner by the tube station, then continued slowly up the hill. Perhaps she would give Pol a ring, say she was sorry, make it up. Then she’d catch the early train home.

  *

  ‘Hullo, my dear, been up in town on a spending spree?’ Someone poked Bet in the back with a brolly. Liverpool Street station seethed, a Strauss waltz echoing merrily over the loudspeakers. She and Pol, tearfully reunited until the next time, had lunched in the latest Knightsbridge wine bar, and now her headache was worse than ever. She turned crossly to find old Monty Cornwall smiling encouragingly. ‘Actually I’ve been visiting my husband’s grave,’ she shouted above the din, then immediately felt ashamed of herself.

  Difficult filly, that, thought old Monty Cornwall, not minding; damned good-looking, though. He squeezed Bet’s arm. ‘Don’t mind me, my wife says I’m always putting my foot in it. What you need is a drink, come on, let’s make for the buffet car, I always do, it’s the only decent spot on the train.’

  By the time the train pulled into Stourwick Bet had to admit that perhaps Pete was right about Monty Cornwall. To her surprise she’d enjoyed the journey, and Bernie, detailed to meet her at the station by Nell (‘Go carefully with her, Bern, she’ll be pretty down I expect’) was a little shocked by the sight of her smiling, animated face as she emerged from the platform followed, he noted with disapproval, by the ubiquitous Monty Cornwall.

  ‘Goodbye, my dear, a most enjoyable journey. You must come over to dinner — I’ll get Kitty to ring. You and your wife, too, of course,’ Monty Cornwall turned politely to Bernie, but Bernie was already striding towards the car. Monty winked at Bet and raised his brolly in a gesture of farewell. Where was Kitty, she should be waiting. Ah, there she was. He hurried across the station yard. ‘Hullo, Piggy, my dear, bloody awful journey as usual ... ’

  Bet and her son-in-law spoke little as the Renault pushed and shoved its way out of Stourwick through the evening rush-hour traffic. Bernie, though loath to admit it, was slightly in awe of Bet; he never quite knew how to take her, she was so very different to his own mother. Besides, rightly or wrongly, and he was hard put to say why — just a gut reaction, he supposed — he always felt she didn’t appreciate his Nelly in the way a proper mother should; call him a wimp if you like, but that was the way he felt. For her part, Bet found Bernie irritating but useful; he was also, annoyingly, quite often right. They rarely found themselves alone together, and when they did, as now, had little to say to each other. Particularly now, as Bet was day-dreaming about Simon Morris, and Bernie was busy trying to screw up the courage to broach the subject of a letter he’d received that morning from his dad.

  Free from traffic at last, they turned off the main road into the lane that straggled haphazardly over the broad, rolling East Anglian fields to Hopton. Now or never! (‘You’ve got to tell her, I’m not going to — they are your parents after all,’ Nell had said.) And Bernie, gritting his teeth and pressing his foot hard down on the accelerator, plunged boldly in. ‘I had a letter from my dad this morning, by the way. He says if it’s OK by you, they’d like to come for Easter. Just a couple of days, he says, he can’t spare more, but they’re longing to see the place. We’ve more or less finished the spare room — Nell’s only got to run up the curtains — and I could do with Dad’s advice on the over-all heating problem.’

  Oh no, not Easter! Diz away in Paris and no one to giggle with. Bet, rudely jerked out of her daydream — Simon, having been made Advertising Copywriter of the Year, had just looked deep into her eyes and asked her to dinner at the Savoy — sought despairingly for an excuse, a cop-out, some watertight reason why it would be totally out of the question to entertain Sparsworth senior and his wife for Easter, but found none. She longed to bang Bernie over the head with her rolled-up London evening paper, jump out of the car, scream. Could she, she wondered, bear it?

  Reg and Maureen Sparsworth lived in a bungalow on the outskirts of Aldershot; Reg, an ex-regimental sergeant-major, having built his retirement home within, as he put it, the sound of the bugle. Small in stature like his son, Sparsworth senior possessed a formidable authority, and Bernie’s obsession with efficiency undoubtedly sprang from the rigorous early training he had received from his father. Maureen Sparsworth was a large, timid lady, dragooned for so long by her husband that she’d forgotten — if indeed she ever knew — what it was like to have a mind of her own. Her two passions in life were keeping a spotlessly tidy establishment, and Bernie, and it was on these two topics only that she could be persuaded to talk. Just as well, really, as her husband seldom stopped. Apart from verbal diarrhoea, another of Reg’s tiresome attributes, and there were many, was his habit of giving Bet a friendly squeeze whenever they found themselves alone together, and she still remembered with a shudder his kiss — wet and bristly — in the vestry after signing the register at the children’s wedding.

  ‘Do say if it’s not on, and I’ll let Dad know. I just thought it might be a good time, with Diz away in France and so on.’ Bet closed her eyes. Don’t be intimidated by that family of yours, Simon had said, but that was long ago and Simon had deserted her. She didn’t have any option, did she? She’d have to say yes — or rather shout it; one always shouted if one wished to be heard when driving with Bernie, for the simple reason that no matter what the prevailing circumstances, he never turned his car radio off.

  ‘No, Bernie, that would be absolutely fine. Your mother must be excited, she’ll be longing to see the house and all the work you and Nell have done. Let’s just hope the weather stays fine.’

  Bernie glanced at her in surprised approval. Did she mean all that, or had she been up to something in Lond
on? ‘Let’s hope so,’ he said, ‘Dad wants to nip over and have a look at Felixstowe while they’re here and it won’t be much fun if it pours with rain.’

  It wouldn’t be much fun in the sun for that matter, not with Reg Sparsworth. ‘No,’ Bet said, ‘I suppose it wouldn’t.’

  After that they lapsed into silence, both deep in their own thoughts, and remained so for the rest of the journey.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Now then, Elizabeth, sar’-major’s orders; change your mind and come with us, there’s a good girl. It’s a lady’s privilege to change her mind, you know, us men wouldn’t have it any other way. We can easily squeeze you in; the wife won’t mind popping in the back with the others, and we’ve plenty of sandwiches.’

  ‘No, Reg, honestly,’ Bet smiled palely. Would they never go? ‘It’s awfully kind of you, but I really do think I’d better stay at home, I still feel a bit under the weather.’

  ‘If that’s the case, Mum, I think I should stay home with you. It’s not fair to leave you for so long on your own when you don’t feel well.’ So Nell was trying to wriggle out of it now, was she! ‘I think we should leave Betty in peace,’ Maureen Sparsworth added her mite. ‘The weather looks none too clever, and if she doesn’t feel well, sitting on a windy beach in the wet won’t help.’

  ‘I think you can leave me to be the judge of that!’ Reg smiled in a way that made Bet want to scream. ‘A breath of fresh air never did anyone any harm.’

  Bet was alone, battling with the Sparsworths. The Redfords had chickened out, of course — golf at Le Touquet — and Diz had departed for Paris and the Duponts. The run-up to his departure (Did she think his French good enough? Were his clothes right? If the Duponts kept a servant — they were thought to be rich — should he tip same? Would he be expected to pay for anything, and if so, what? What about a dinner jacket ... ?) had left her already twanging nerve-ends twanging in such a way that she felt as if someone were practising the National Anthem up and down her spinal column. She’d nevertheless waved him goodbye at Stourwick station on Maunday Thursday in a welter of misery, and the house felt drab and empty without him. Ridiculous, when you came to think about it, he’d only be away a fortnight, and the last thing she wanted was to become one of those ghastly possessive mothers.