‘What on earth’s that?’ She pointed to the tired-looking fern. Not what she’d meant to say, but the sherry was beginning to work.
‘Some sort of fern, it was the only thing I could find in the greenhouse that seemed suitable. Old Tom appears to have given up pot plants.’
‘Old Tom?’
‘Our gardener.’
‘Won’t he be livid, you pinching one of his ferns?’
‘I doubt whether he’ll notice. He must be ninety if he’s a day. But Alfonso was livid about the wine. He refused point blank to give me the key of the cellar, that’s why I’m so late, we had a bit of a barney. He always plays up when Cyn’s away.’
‘But you got it?’
‘Oh yes, I got it, I usually do — get things, I mean — if I make up my mind to.’
‘Should I be impressed?’ Again the look of surprise she had noticed on the night of the party; this time his surprise was mixed with a barely detectable flash of annoyance. What supine women he must go in for!
‘No, just stating a fact. And before we go any further, may I say how very pretty you look, standing there in your wellies among the sprouting cabbages — or are they marrows?’
‘Broad beans, in fact. Being a member of the ruling class and having a gardener, I suppose one can afford to be so ignorant. Anyway, come and have some lunch, that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it, and if we don’t get a move on the kids will be home. Look, I’ll take the fern in case you drop it.’
But they never got round to lunch, or not the one she’d planned. Somewhere on the way to see to it, other things beyond their control took over. And instead of making for the kitchen, arms entwined they were climbing the stairs to her bedroom.
And after that the other things took over altogether.
*
‘What about lunch, then?’ A long time later, Simon, sitting up in bed, reached for a cigarette. ‘Christ, it’s nearly three, won’t things start happening soon?’
‘Not for a bit. Actually, I don’t think I could eat anything just at the moment.’ Bet lay naked beside him, her body warm, exhausted, at peace. And her soul? She wasn’t too sure about her soul, but decided on balance to leave worrying about that until later. Meanwhile ...
Simon looked down at her, one eye screwed up against the smoke from his cigarette. ‘I believe you enjoyed that, Titania; that I did goes without saying. I always thought under that decorous façade there was one real, wild woman trying to get out.’
‘Do I have a decorous façade? It’s the first I’ve heard of it. Is that why you wanted to go to bed with me — to find out if you were right?’
‘And I took you for an intelligent woman! I make love because I love making love, not to find out things; that’s why it always works.’
‘What a conceited creature you are! What do you mean, always works?’
Simon stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I mean, always works. And as you don’t seem interested in lunch, what about another demonstration ... ?’
And for three whole weeks it was like that, the pattern set on the first day, weekends and the remainder of Bet’s life to be got through as best she could. It was for her three weeks of discovery, angst, elation, guilt, enchantment, fear, and all the other things in between. I’ve become a hedonist, she told herself proudly as she worked in her garden — rampant now in the warmth of early May — or took Tib for his daily walk in a countryside which, despite pesticides, prairie farming and ditches full of empty fertilizer bags, remained almost overpowering in its spring freshness and beauty. Simon, the magician, the wizard met in the woods — Oberon surely, not Bottom? — had shown her the way. How to become, in fact rather than just in principle — she’d always been one in principle, or liked to think so — the liberated woman everyone talked and wrote about. Free, uncommitted, loving sex for its own sake, not for the love of her partner. Mistress of her soul, captain of her fate.
And yet, and yet — and this was where the angst came in —as the days wore on she was increasingly, disturbingly aware that, far from becoming more liberated, she was becoming less so by the minute. In other words, she was breaking all the rules, she was getting too fond of Simon; although obsessed might better describe the way she felt, as she seemed to spend most of her waking hours thinking about him. If, only a few short weeks ago, someone had asked her whether she thought it possible she could be in this state over a man several years her junior with whom she had almost nothing in common, she would have laughed in his face. Chastened, she knew better now. It was, alas, only too possible, and there was little she could do about it but live from day to day and hope, none too optimistically, for the best.
And what of Simon’s feelings for her? Ridiculous to have to admit that she had no idea how he felt, but she didn’t. ‘This is going to be fun, Titania, I promise. No regrets. No tears?’ he’d said, his voice uncharacteristically anxious, as they kissed goodbye at the end of that first afternoon, and she’d nodded reassuringly. If non-commitment was the order of the day, then so be it, and who was she to complain? But despite his words, sometimes — when he thought she wasn’t looking — she would catch a light in his eyes that surely wasn’t mere lust, or the spirit of easy camaraderie that had grown up between them in their efforts to keep their idyll secret from the prying eyes of the rest of the world ... Time alone would tell.
‘Morris, why did you never marry?’ she asked him one day when they were sitting up in bed after a particularly strenuous bout of love-making, eating their sandwiches. She prepared these each day after breakfast and left them on a tray in the bedroom — nothing wrong with her powers of organisation; she sometimes wondered if a life of deception didn’t suit her.
‘Why do you want to know?’ Simon had his wary look. ‘And anyway, how am I supposed to answer? I don’t know why I’ve never married — I haven’t, that’s all. I do admit to being engaged once.’
‘Oh. Who broke it off?’
‘She did, of course.’
‘Oh.’ Bet munched her cold beef sandwich, not knowing what to say. Sometimes he told her things that weren’t true, just to see how she would react. However, she had a feeling this was true.
‘OK, I’ll tell you about it, though why you should want to know beats me; it was years ago and not a particularly edifying story. Caroline was a truly golden girl. We met at university, and for some unknown reason she fell for me. I fell for her, of course, but she could take her pick. We got engaged — much to my family’s delight and amazement; hers weren’t so delighted, but they made the best of it. Everything was arranged; announcement in The Times and all that rubbish, a great big pukka wedding with all the trimmings. Then, to cut a long story short, she turned up unexpectedly at my digs a couple of nights before the wedding and found me in bed with some bird I’d picked up in the local. She just stood there in the doorway, not saying anything. Then she went away. The next day she sent the ring back, her father offered to horsewhip me, the reception at the Hyde Park Hotel was cancelled, the vicar was informed, and that was that. And if you’re going to ask the question I see already hovering on your lips — Why was I in bed with a bird I picked up in the local when I was going to marry a gorgeous girl like Caroline? — I can only say I’ve no idea; it was incredibly bloody stupid, that’s all.’
There was a long silence. Then Bet said: ‘If it hadn’t happened, I mean, if Caroline hadn’t found you, d’you think you’d still be married?’
‘Gracious me, I’ve no idea, probably not, but you never know. She was one hell of a girl, and to coin a cliché, a damned sight too good for me.’ He yawned and ran his finger down her backbone in the way she loved. ‘That’s enough of reminiscences, it’s time you did some work, you lazy bitch ... ‘
Nell was the first to notice a change in her mother and, as was her habit, consulted Bernie. They were driving home from work one Friday. ‘Noticed what?’ Bernie said, not interested; he was busy planning their visit to a boatyard the following morning. A mate of his from the Life dep
artment had said What was the good of living in an area like this and not having a boat? It would revolutionise his life, the mate said, and Bernie had decided to look into it.
‘Noticed that Mum’s, well, different; sort of dreamy and off-beam. You don’t think she’s on drugs, do you?’
‘Of course she isn’t on drugs! You worry too much about your mother, she’s perfectly capable of looking after herself. Now, can you be finished by half-ten tomorrow, then we can arrange to meet John at the boatyard at eleven, and that should give us time ... ’
Diz was too immersed in last-minute revising for A-Levels to notice anything much. As always, he’d left revision far too late for comfort, relying on his formidable memory to pull him through. However, even he began to wonder a little about his mother, and went so far as to wake her up one evening when he found her unexpectedly asleep in her armchair at the early hour of nine o’clock, to ask if anything was wrong. ‘You do look a bit pale, Mum, and there’s that place on your neck. Perhaps you should see the doc, get a tonic or something. We can’t have you cracking up while the Duponts are here.’
‘Bother the Duponts!’
‘There is something wrong with you. I knew there was.’
But it was Pete who hit the jackpot. It happened one Saturday evening a couple of weeks after the affair with Simon had started, when he popped in to Bet to borrow some ice, the Redford super-de-luxe fridge being once again on the blink. ‘Anyone at home?’ And as Bet turned round from peeling potatoes at the sink, Pete knew at once — you only had to look at her. He knew too that it must be that chap Morris, it couldn’t be anyone else. What a damned shame! Pete wasn’t given to thinking serious thoughts, he didn’t happen to be made that way, but he was fond of Bet, very fond, and it did seem such a waste that all that integrity and sex appeal should be lavished on someone like Simon Morris. OK, he was jealous, wouldn’t at all mind being in Morris’s shoes himself, but that was neither here nor there.
‘Get me a drink, will you, Pete, while you’re at it. We’re out of everything but sweet cider and Ron S.’s dandelion wine, and I feel badly in need of a stimulant.’ Pete extracted the little cubes of ice from their plastic cases with the expertise born of long practise. ‘You don’t look in need of a stimulant to me, ducky, quite the reverse. But I’ll gladly bring you a drink — a whole bottle, if you like — on one condition.’
‘What?’
‘That you tell all.’
‘All?’
‘All.’
And of course she did. Pete was like that. She ended up crying on his shoulder. ‘Ducky, please don’t cry. I thought you said it was all so wonderful —’
‘It is, of course it is. I’m a new woman and all that rubbish, but — ’
‘You’re wondering what’s going to happen next. Women always do; they never seem able just to enjoy the moment for its own sake, always have to be thinking ahead. The question is, do you love the guy?’
‘Do you love Janice?’ Janice was the girl who did the photocopying in Pete’s office. Pete, or so he had told Bet, had been crazy about her for months. ‘It’s not the same thing at all. Anyway, didn’t I tell you she’s getting married. Some damned Aussi in the next bedsitter; she’s going back to Adelaide with him. As a matter of fact the wedding’s next week — she’s asked me to give her away.’
‘And you’ll give her a bloody great wedding present too, I don’t doubt. Poor old Pete, are you dreadfully upset, you’ve been so good to her.’
‘To tell you the truth, there’s this new girl in the typing pool, started a few weeks ago. She did a job for me the other day and we got talking — you know how it is.’ Bet nodded, she knew how it was with Pete anyway, and God knew, she wished that was how it was with her. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Karen. Mother’s Danish. She’s tall and blonde and her legs ... ’ He became aware that they’d somehow drifted away from the subject in hand. ‘That’s enough of that, you’re the one on the agenda, not your poor old Uncle Pete. Now look, ducky, I know you get cross if anyone mentions the chap’s track record, but honestly, for your own sake, you must bear it in mind. No one wants you to be hurt, you’ve had enough pain, God knows.’ He took her chin in his hand and pulled her face towards his. ‘You don’t want to marry him, do you?’
‘Marry him? Of course not. I simply want ... ’ And she was just trying to work out what it was that she did want when Pol, who appeared to have been eavesdropping outside in the yard, stuck her head through the window. ‘So there you are, Pete, I might have known! I asked you to keep an eye on the soufflé while I was in the bath — it’s completely ruined. Do I always have to do everything myself?’
This was altogether too much. Bet, taken off balance, lost her temper. Experiencing an overwhelming urge to knock her sister off her self-constructed pedestal, and throwing caution to the winds, she let rip. Pol listened — she couldn’t do anything else — her mouth opening and shutting like a fish, two red spots of anger blossoming on her cheeks. Was she going to burst into tears? Feeling savage and guilty at the same time, Bet hoped so. But Pol didn’t cry, she was made of sterner stuff. Arms akimbo, eyes flashing, blonde hair blowing in the evening breeze, she stuck it out; then, when at last Bet’s powers of invective finally ran out, she too let rip.
‘ I can only assume,’ she shouted back in a clear, carrying voice as crammed with disdain as she could make it, ‘that you’ve been drinking again, Bet. One would have thought you were old enough by now to accept too much alcohol doesn’t agree with you, as I’m sure Pete’ — Pete, unheeded, moaned a disclaimer — ‘and Miles if he were here, would agree. But then of course you never learn, do you. The fact that I have a husband and you don’t is hardly my fault, and certainly no reason for you to hurl childish abuse at me, as I’m sure you will be the first to admit when you’ve managed to sober up a bit —’
‘Watch it!’ Too late, an anguished shout of warning from Pete. Bet had already seized a potato — the large one full of eyes — and hurled it through the window at her sister. It hit Pol slap in the middle of her chest, bounced off and dropped on the flowerbed, leaving a muddy trail of water all down Pol’s brand new Harvey & Nichols pink cotton shirt-waister.
Suddenly the years fled away, Pete was forgotten, and the sisters were back in the nursery fighting over the rocking-horse — He’s mine! He isn’t, Mum said we’d got to share him! No she didn’t, she said I was in charge and you had to ask me first if you wanted to ride him! She didn’t, you know she didn’t, you rotten little bully! Quick as a flash, Pol bent down and retrieved the potato, took aim — she hadn’t been fast bowler in the school first eleven for nothing — and bowled it back through the window. Bet, always quicker on the uptake than her sister, leaped nimbly out of its path, and the potato, knocking Pete’s glass out of his hand on the way, landed with a crash against the kitchen dresses, breaking two dinner plates, a glass water jug and a hideous china windmill Diz had once brought back from a school trip to Holland. Pausing only for a second to survey with considerable satisfaction the damage she’d done, Pol legged it through the gate into the kitchen garden, back to the comparative safety of her end of the house.
‘Just make sure your wife never crosses this threshold again, Pete, will you,’ panted Bet, bosom heaving, a knife from the draining-board in her hand, ‘because if she does, I won’t be answerable for the consequences.’ Then she too fled, leaving Pete alone and near to tears, to clear up the mess.
When Simon heard the story on Monday afternoon he laughed till he cried. Bet crossly threw the soap at him. They’d taken to having baths together now, an idea quite novel to Bet. She and Miles had never shared a bath, he’d been too big for the two of them to fit comfortably into one, besides, he preferred a shower. ‘It’s not that funny. You’ve absolutely no idea what my sister can be like. I often wonder how Pete’s managed to put up with her all these years, he must be some kind of a saint.’
‘Long-suffering, yes, but not, one would have thought, qu
ite the stuff of saints; more some kind of idiot. Turn on the hot tap, darling, there’s a good girl, it’s getting cold my end. So what happens now?’
‘Oh, I expect it’ll blow over. But she’ll damn well stump up for those plates.’
‘Scrooge! What about that caviar and all those drinks?’
‘Shut up, shut up, or I’ll drown you, you randy little wop!’ Bet leapt on him, pressing his head down into the water. A large pool began to form on the bathroom floor, and after a time the water started gently to drip through the ceiling of Nell and Bernie’s sitting-room.
*
‘Mum is up to something — I told you.’ Nell and Bernie stood looking up at the damp patch on their ceiling. ‘Nonsense, she just let the bath run over, that’s all. Perhaps she fell asleep, you said she’s been looking tired lately.’
‘But Mum never has a bath in the daytime.’
‘So people change their habits.’
‘Something’s going on, I know it is. Why, for instance, does she never mention Simon Morris? They were as thick as thieves at the party, and he told me he would be staying at the Manor while Miss Westover’s away. What’s more, I bumped into Mrs Bone in town yesterday, and she said Simon was here one afternoon last week; she happened to be passing in the bus and saw his car parked in our yard. How come Mum never mentioned it?’
‘And you think your Mum and Simon Morris are having baths together in the afternoons?’ Bernie said, meaning it as a joke, then suddenly thinking it might not be.
‘It’s possible, I suppose ... but Mum ... Surely she wouldn’t, not Mum ... ?’
They looked at each other.
*
‘You know Bet’s having baths with that man now?’
A Change of Pace Page 13