‘Will you be my partner, Mister Morris? Bernie, ‘e is no good at this croquet.’ Liza, twisting the silver bangle on her arm, had her head back, and was squinting up at Simon through the longest, most perfectly curling eyelashes this side of the Ural Mountains. Simon, acknowledging her signals, and sending out so many of his own that he resembled nothing so much as an illuminated traffic beacon on a foggy night, was saying Yes, he would be delighted to have a go, but not to count on him as he hadn’t played croquet in years and was probably no better than Bernie. Then they lapsed into fast, idiomatic French which no one else could follow, but which was obviously frightfully funny as he and Liza both fell about laughing.
It was at this point that Simon saw Bet and had the effrontery to wink. ‘I like the hat, Titania, you should wear one more often. I hope you’re going to watch the match and see me give these kids a thrashing?’ But Bet was not to be drawn, such patronising tactics not for her. ‘It’s a pleasure I’m afraid I shall have to forego,’ she said, trying not to look at Liza’s hand on his arm, ‘Don and I are about to get tea.’ Don looking surprised, leapt to his feet, and Simon for one brief, blissful instant looked rather annoyed.
The bastard, the selfish, miserable, callous bastard, Don thought to himself as he hurried after Bet. But to be absolutely honest, he did find it all rather exciting, and despite the slightly dubious morality of the thought, he had to admit that one man’s defection could quite possibly be turned into another man’s opportunity.
‘You see,’ Pol said, ‘I knew this would happen.’ The Redfords and Nell were left alone amidst the empty coffee cups, listening to the renewed laughter from the croquet pitch.
‘In that case, you must be pleased you’ve been proved right.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Pete, I don’t like watching my sister being humiliated, even if you do.’
‘Come off it, ducky, the chap’s only gone to play a game of croquet.’
‘You come off it, Uncle Pete.’ This from Nell, not knowing whether to be pleased or sorry. ‘It’s a bit more than that; I mean, it was absolutely blatant.’
‘I don’t know what you’re worrying about, then, at least it means old Bern is off the hook —’
‘Bernie’s never been on the hook! He was just practising his French, he has this business trip to Brussels next year and —’ ‘Of course Bernie has to practise his French, dear, it’s only common sense when he gets such a marvellous chance.’ Pol gently patted her scowling niece’s arm. ‘And you’re a sweet, good, plucky girl and he doesn’t deserve you.’ Pete snorted. ‘I’m warning you, Pete,’ Pol rounded on her trouble-making spouse, ‘if you say one more word I shan’t be responsible for the consequences.’ Pete, feeling rebellious, snorted again, and then with a shrug immersed himself in the Sunday newspaper.
After that there was silence.
‘Sorry about the phone call the other afternoon, Titania,’ Simon said as, game over — Simon and Liza triumphant winners — they all gathered round for. tea. ‘I understand I was a little drunk. I got dragged off to this party and — ‘
‘Spare me the details,’ Bet said, ‘and as you’re here, perhaps you wouldn’t mind handing round the sandwiches.’
Compulsive sandwich-making had always been one of the things Bet did when in a state of tension, it seemed to have a therapeutic effect on her. However, today’s stint turned out to be the exception that proved the rule. Despite having produced enough sandwiches to furnish a school outing, she felt just as bad as ever.
Pol, not to be outdone, had produced a lemon sponge. ‘Made by a little woman in Peabody Buildings,’ she told the assembled company, ‘a Mrs Jobling. She used to be cook to Lady Lauderdale — the Lady Lauderdale — and although she’s over eighty now, she still likes to keep her hand in. She’s incredibly cheap, you just supply the ingredients.’ But nobody took Pol up, and her remarks on Lady Lauderdale’s ex-cook were greeted in damp silence. Despite the delicious food, the tea party just wasn’t working. Liza Dupont looked about her with satisfaction; she thrived on situations such as this, all her life it had been so.
‘Back to work on Monday, more’s the pity.’ Everyone looked at Bernie in surprise, he was not normally given to plunging alone into a conversational vacuum; things really must be desperate. ‘Yes,’ Nell contributed her mite, ‘I expect it’ll be quite a rest for you after all you’ve done. Incidentally, those chores you said were waiting for you to do at home —what exactly were they?’
‘Anyone for a drink?’ Pete was obviously beginning to wilt.
Simon looked up from his contemplation of the little golden hairs on Liza’s legs. ‘I wouldn’t say no.’
‘Nonsense.’ Pol put her foot down, ‘it’s much too early. Would anyone like another cup of tea?’ No one wanted another cup of tea and Nell rose from her chair rather quickly. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘What’s that, pet?’ Bernie hovered, looking pained. ‘For goodness sake go after her, can’t you see she needs you?’ Bernie looked at Pol, surprised. ‘All right, but she usually likes to be alone when she’s being sick.’
At this point Don Stewart decided he’d had enough, at least for the time being. He was beginning to feel like a character in a Chekhov play, his role, he reflected gloomily, that of the drunken doctor. ‘Look, I must be going, I’ve stayed far too long as it is, I’ve the proofs of my book to go through and a man’s coming to look at the chimney at six.’ Simon roused himself. ‘It’s time I went too.’
‘Oh, do not go yet, Mister Morris, let us play another game. It is early.’
‘No, really, I must get back.’ He smiled at Bet. If this was his idea of making amends, he had another think coming; she turned away to collect up the cups. ‘I tell you what,’ Simon said, taking no notice, ‘why doesn’t anyone who can, come over to tea at the Manor tomorrow? Cyn will be out, but Alfonso and I between us could probably rustle up the odd stale bun. I could look out the croquet gear and perhaps we could have a return match.’
‘Oh, Mister Morris ... to ‘ave tea in an old English Manor ... that would be marvellous.’
‘I thought you said you didn’t like old houses, Liza?’ ‘This is different, Mrs Brandon, this is Mister Morris’s manor ‘House.’
*
‘There is a spider in my bedroom, Mrs Brandon.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I do not like spiders, Mrs Brandon, please arrange for it to go away.’
‘My dear Liza, I’m not particularly fond of spiders myself, but in the country you simply have to learn to get used to them.’ JP and Diz had gone to the pub, the Sparsworths, worn out from quarrelling, were having an early night, and Liza had just emerged from one of her interminable baths. ‘Spiders I cannot get used to.’
‘In that case I really don’t know what to suggest. Perhaps you’d better wait downstairs until Diz and your brother get back, they shouldn’t be long, but please don’t wake the others, Nell needs all the sleep she can get.’ Liza, looking as if she would like to have said a whole lot more but didn’t quite dare to, shrugged, and stalked off downstairs, the heels of her little gold slippers clacking aggressively on the bare boards. She was wearing orange towelling pyjamas, and her hair, wet from the bath, was tied in a topknot on her head; she looked totally and utterly stunning.
Shortly afterwards, Bet was sitting by her open bedroom window looking out on the moonswept grass and sniffing the scent of honeysuckle, when she heard Pol’s voice — Pete must have been called to the rescue and she wasn’t letting him out of her sight. ‘Really, one would have thought there might be somebody in this house not afraid of spiders. Now I come to think of it, what about Bet, she loves them, it’s bats she doesn’t like ... ’
Bet smiled into the darkness.
Chapter Thirteen
In the end no one played croquet. When the somewhat depleted rectory party arrived at the Manor the following afternoon — Nell had put her foot down, and the Sparsworths had stayed behind — they were informed b
y Simon, who for some reason looked rather jaded, that the grass was too long; Old Tom, whose job it was to cut it, was away on his annual summer holidays. The revolutionary idea that Simon himself might perhaps have stepped into the breach and done the mowing, had plainly never occurred to him, and even Pol lacked the gall to suggest it. ‘Anyway,’ he told them as they ranged themselves round the rather charming summerhouse in which the tea had been laid out, ‘there seems to be only one croquet mallet, and most of the hoops have disappeared. How about a tour of inspection instead?’
Tea, to everyone’s surprise, turned out to be pretty impressive; wafer-thin bread and butter, seed cake and sandwiches, two different jams, and the tea itself served in a silver teapot, scented and delicious. ‘Not quite the stale buns you promised us, Morris?’
‘Well, you see, Alfonso’s currently anti Cyn; when he’s anti Cyn, he’s pro me; that’s how he operates. Now, if Cyn were to have had a tea party today, it would have been stale buns and the tin teapot; probably used tea-bags to boot. He once served that up to Bonzo Harrington, and the poor old devil nearly had a seizure.’ Pol sniffed. No menial of hers would be allowed to exercise temperament in such a way. The Westovers, however, seemed to think it all frightfully funny. Never mind, she had to admit that the man certainly knew his business when in the right mood.
After tea the Duponts and Diz accepted Simon’s offer of a tour, but the others opted out, Pol because she felt it smacked of the bourgeois to tramp round other people’s property, even though one’s guide was a member of the family; Pete because he couldn’t be bothered, and the sight of Liza’s bottom under her tight pink jeans bobbing up and down in front of him might prove too great a strain on a hot afternoon. And Bet because she was fed up.
‘Come on, Titania, don’t be a spoilsport, you’ll enjoy it.’ Simon held out his hand, and Bet was about to change her mind when Liza butted in and spoiled it. ‘Titania, Simon, why do you call Dizzy’s mother this?’ she said, putting an arm round his waist and smiling mockingly at Bet. ‘It would take too long to explain.’ Simon was still looking at Bet, but as she refused to look at him, the moment passed. ‘Mrs Brandon is tired, Simon, can you not see? She does not want to come.’
‘Well, and do they have anything like this in France, then?’
*
The question was, of course, purely rhetorical; he was quite sure they didn’t. Simon, torn between attraction and distraction, was alone with Liza in the old melon and cucumber house, a long, low, brick building, warm and dim as the inside of a cow, so choked with memories of past entanglements —indeed ‘I took her (or him) to the cu’ house’ in the days of their youth had been his and Cyn’s secret code for illicit sex — it was suffocating. ‘When I was a boy,’ he went on as Liza remained silent, ‘the melon and cucumber plants climbed right up to the roof like a vine. Hundreds of cucumbers there were, all hanging down like great big phalluses. When we were small, Cyn and I played jungles in here. Later on ... well ... other things.’
Liza, bored by all these reminiscences, picked up a feather used by Old Tom for the purposes of pollination, and tickled Simon’s ear with it. ‘Why do you not make love to me, Simon?’ Simon took the feather away and removed her questing hand, the sense of déjà vu now so powerful he wanted to scream. ‘Because I have things on my mind; anyway not now and certainly not in here. Anyone might pop in at any minute, and what about the boys?’
Liza’s face took on an ill-tempered expression and she began to tear the leaves off a melon plant. ‘It is Dizzy’s mother you are afraid of, not the boys. I see the way she looks at you — me, I know these things.’ Simon closed his eyes. God, how he hated women sometimes! ‘Don’t talk rubbish, and for Christ’s sake leave the melons alone. Old Tom will kill us both if anything happens to them, they’re all he has left.’
‘You are master here, Simon, not this Old Tom.’ Liza put her arms round his neck and wiggled her hips against his. ‘In France we do not treat our servants in this way.’
‘I’m not master here, my cousin is, and anyway Old Tom’s not a servant. Now, for heaven’s sake stop being tiresome and come and help me find the boys.’ Liza searched crossly in her shoulder bag and produced a crumpled packet of Gauloises: ‘It is you who are tiresome! Go then, if you wish, but I shall remain here and smoke my cigarette.’
‘All right then, I will! But aren’t you being rather childish?’ Feeling slightly silly — odd how often this seemed to happen these days — and hoping that at the last minute she would change her mind, Simon made for the door. She didn’t, but sitting herself down on an upturned bucket, watched him derisively through a cloud of smoke. ‘Go then, and find your Mrs Brandon, Simon, it is sure she will be waiting for you!’ And Simon, who could cheerfully have garrotted her, shrugged his shoulders and went.
Liza, listening to his receding footsteps, puffed at her cigarette and waited confidently for his return. Men never walked away from her — never. Especially men who looked at her in the way Simon did. He was playing a deep game, that one! Never mind, it was more fun this way ...
Five minutes later, with still no sign of Simon, she was not so sure. She got up from the bucket, stretched, threw her cigarette stub on the floor and decided to pay him out — and incidentally boring Old Tom as well — by plucking a few choice melon flowers to put in her hair. It was just as she’d finished doing this and was admiring her reflection in a handy pane of glass, that once again there were footsteps on the stone path outside the shed. So ... he had given in, he could not keep away from her! How delicious to have power such as this. She waited in triumph for the door of the shed to open.
But when it did open, it was not Simon who stood there framed in the doorway, but a young man Liza had never seen before. A young man incomprehensibly carrying a pair of scissors, and of such surpassing good looks that he quite took her breath away. It was Alfonso, come to cut a melon for that night’s supper — but she did not know that until later.
For a long moment they looked at one another, the gorgeous Spaniard twirling his scissors, and the equally gorgeous French girl fingering the yellow melon flowers in her hair. It was Alfonso who spoke first, his voice, as Liza had known it would be, low, thrilling and sexy, his English no better than her own.
‘The senorita, she is lost? I show her ... ?’
Liza shook her head, and proffered her packet of Gauloises. ‘No, I am not lost,’ she said in tolerably fluent Spanish, grateful for once to Maman for those six months spent in Madrid with boring Dr Gonzales and his even more boring family; at the time she’d vowed vengeance on Maman for such an act of treachery to her only daughter, however, for once Maman had been proved right. But do, please, show me ... ’
*
‘Dizzy, we should return, perhaps?’
‘I suppose so, but honestly, J.P., what a place! This stuff must have been here since before the First World War.’ Diz and JP were in the old harness room; Diz, with cobwebs in his hair, was peering into a cupboard. ‘Christ, here’s a bottle of the Westover horse stuff! That’s what they made their money in, you know.’ He emerged from the cupboard, triumphantly clutching a large bottle filled with what looked like green slime. However, a yellowing label still adhering to the side proclaimed its contents to be Hopton’s Magic Equine Elixir. And, just to make sure no one was in any doubt as to its magical powers, there were two pictures, one showing a horse lying down in the last stages of terminal illness, the other the same horse, presumably having been dosed, jumping exuberantly over a five-barred gate.
‘I say, I wonder if Simon knows about this cupboard, it doesn’t look as if anyone’s opened it in years. Let’s go and find him, he and Liza must be around somewhere.’
Cautiously JP pulled the cork from the bottle and sniffed, but Hopton’s Magic Elixir had somehow lost its potency; it simply smelt of nothing. ‘Let us return to your mother and Mr and Mrs Redford,’ he said, carefully replacing the cork, ‘they will be wondering where we are.’ He had no desire to hunt for Li
za. He knew his sister, he’d come upon her once before in a compromising situation and she didn’t like it.
‘No need to go back yet, JP, after all Simon did take us on a tour of the place and there’s masses more to see ... ’ Arguing amicably, they emerged into the sunlit stable yard. Of Liza and Simon there was no sign; only Alfonso in mufti, a cigar between his teeth, watching them from his flat above the kitchens, and an elderly labrador lying asleep in the shelter of the barn door.
Bet, alone in the summerhouse with the remains of the tea, was feeling sorry for herself. She’d refused to go with Pol and Pete, who had wandered off round the garden on their own tour of inspection, and there was no sign of the rest of the party. For a while she’d heard distant shouts and laughter, but these had died away long since, and now there was only silence. She felt like a naughty child put in the corner, the only difference being — idiot that she was — that she’d put herself there. Mothers of grown-up children weren’t supposed to behave like this; childish sulks were simply not on the agenda. She watched miserably as a fly settled on the remains of the seed cake, and tried unsuccessfully not to think what Simon at this very moment was doing to Liza — or what Liza was doing to Simon; who did it to whom was immaterial. Oh God!
‘Good heavens, it’s Mrs Brandon — I thought I saw somebody.’ It was Cyn, radiating health and smelling slightly of cow dung. Bet leapt to her feet. ‘Miss Westover.’
‘Call me Cyn, my dear, everyone does.’
‘Er, Cyn, Simon asked us to tea, I don’t know if he told you? We were supposed to be playing croquet, but there didn’t seem to be any mallets and he said the grass was too long, so he’s taken the others on a tour of inspection instead. I do hope that’s all right?’ Cyn gave one of her raucous laughs. ‘Of course it’s all right, although there’s precious little to see these days, the whole place seems to be going to rack and ruin. The thing is, I’m up to my ears in horses all the time, and Si’s never here.’ Bet was aware of being scrutinised, and that Cyn’s brown eyes were surprisingly like Simon’s; odd she hadn’t noticed it before. ‘Left you behind, did they, the meanies, or didn’t you fancy a tour of inspection?’
A Change of Pace Page 17