by Anne Morice
“What’s the matter? What are you doing?” she asked in a slurred but still aggressive voice.
“Not to worry, my dear, you’ll be all right in a moment,” her husband said, having now taken a firm grip on her left shoulder. “You turned a little faint for a moment, that’s all; so just come along upstairs and we’ll soon have you right again.”
She seemed about to protest, but then I saw the frightened, vulnerable look return to her eyes and, with a faintly despairing gesture, she allowed the two doctors to haul her to her feet. Billy waved Pauline back to her place at the table and the three of them made a slow and staggering exit to the hall. At which point a horrid silence fell over the whole party, followed by an outburst of inane chatter.
This was brought to an end by Billy re-entering the room and announcing that the time had come for Pauline to escort the judges to a preview of the art exhibition. Docile as ever, she sprang up, flashing her toothy smile and all but clapping her hands in childlike glee:
“Ooh, lovely idea! Lucky me! Shall we go?” Muttering our awkward and nervous goodbyes to our host, Eddie and I also obediently rose to our feet and followed Pauline out of the room.
(2)
There were several cars on the circular gravel space outside the front door, but none so far as I could see with a solitary occupant.
“Which is yours?” I asked Eddie.
“Further down, under the trees near the gate,” he replied. “She’d have felt a bit conspicuous up here. Didn’t much care for the idea of every Carol, Jane and Emma popping their heads in the window to ask if she wanted a glass of water.”
For the first time I felt a touch of sympathy for Vera, having been prompted by similar inhibitions to make the excursion to the boathouse, which had led to my encounter with Hattie.
“Sorry about that unfortunate mishap,” Pauline said with a high-pitched giggle, when Eddie had sauntered off in search of his wife, and she clasped my arm in hers and pressed herself close up against me.
I resented both word and deed, for I always feel uncomfortable in close physical contact with someone I dislike and the principle reason for disliking the otherwise inoffensive Pauline was her propensity to the kind of remark she had just uttered.
Even as a child, I had dimly perceived how cowed and frustrated a creature she was and how humiliating her position, both at home and in school, but such sympathy as this had engendered had been eaten away by her irritating habit of trying to ingratiate herself with us girls, particularly the elder ones, always pretending that she was secretly in our camp and then scurrying off to spread tales to her mother, in order to curry favour in that quarter.
I had additional cause to dislike her now because of her facile assumption that I was still the same immature, sniggering idiot who would find something intoxicatingly funny in the spectacle of an elderly autocrat being brought down by illness.
“It must be a great worry for you,” I said primly.
“Oh, it is, you’ve no idea,” she agreed vehemently, quickly changing the tune, as was her habit when snubbed. “And the worst of it is she’s so obstinate. Simply won’t admit there’s a single thing wrong with her.”
“Has it been going on for some time then?”
“Several months, anyway. I can’t exactly remember when she had her first attack. Round about Christmas, I think.”
“And your father hasn’t been able to diagnose it?”
“Oh yes, I think he knows, poor Daddy, but what can he do, if she . . . ?”
Pauline was obliged to break off at this point because we had reached the entrance to the art exhibition and someone came blundering out of it and nearly knocked us flat. It was Vera and she appeared to be in a bad way.
“Where is Eddie?” she asked in a faint voice, ignoring our expressions of pained astonishment. “I must find him, please, this minute. My head is so bad. I should go back to the hotel.”
“He has gone to look for you,” I told her. “He thinks you are in the car.”
“No, no, I could not stay there, it was too hot. I think I must get some air. Then I met someone who told me where the exhibition was being held, so I thought I would be able to sit down somewhere more comfortable. But it is such a long wait and my head feels like bursting. So now I must find Eddie and ask him to drive me home.”
“Here he is now,” I said, as he came marching briskly through the archway towards us. “Your troubles are nearly over.”
“Aha!” he called, giving us a wide salute. “So I was right, wasn’t I? Guessed she’d be here and here she jolly well is. And how are we feeling now, old duck? On the mend, are we? Well no, it doesn’t look as though we are,” he continued on a sadder note. “Better face it, I suppose, you’re feeling rotten? Come along then, we’ll go back to the hotel and you can put your feet up. How’s that?”
“But only if you promise to return,” Vera said, sounding quite vigorous all of a sudden. “You are simply to take me as far as the door and then turn round and come back. Is it understood? I cannot bear you to let all these good people down; these girls who have worked so hard and who love you so much. You will do as I ask?”
“Whatever you say, old lady,” Eddie assured her, looking somewhat embarrassed by this impassioned and plucky appeal. “And, having got that lot off your chest, how about bowing out and putting the best foot forward?”
“I ask your forgiveness,” Vera said, now addressing her noble sentiments to Pauline and myself, “but my wretched illness shall not inconvenience anyone for more than just a short while.”
“The only snag is,” Pauline muttered, watching the Harpers’ slow, laborious progress to the archway, “even if he does get back in time, it will still leave us with one judge short.”
The same drawback had occurred to me and I waited to see how she would deal with it. The outcome was predictable.
“Listen, Tessa,” she gabbled, “could you be a saint and go and look at the pictures on your own? You’ll find one of the sixth form on duty inside, who’ll tell you anything you want to know, and I really think I ought to dash off and have a word with Mummy about this crisis.”
“Okay, Pauline, but I suppose you do realise that your mother may not be in any state to cope with the problem at the moment?”
“She’ll be in a far worse state if we try to sort it out on our own,” Pauline said as she scuttled away, and I had to concede that it was one of the few pertinent remarks I had ever heard her utter.
Hattie was on reception duty, seated behind a trestle table. Alongside the inevitable box of sweets, which she stopped bothering to conceal when she saw it was only me, were some roneo-ed sheets of foolscap, serving as catalogues, and a Visitors’ Book, which I was invited to sign. There were already half a dozen signatures for that day, the first three being those of the Bland family, followed by J.K. Birkett, then Janet Haynes and last of all Vera.
“Did she do the rounds?” I asked, pointing to this one.
“It was cursory,” Hattie admitted. “I think she was making a stern effort to be dutiful, but found it a strain. She came out after a couple of minutes and we had a bit of a chat. Then we heard you and Pauline coming and she went flying out, saying she had to get some air.”
“She suffers from migraine.”
“I know, she told me; and also how she’d had to miss lunch and everything, as to which I could personally sympathise, having got wind of the menu. Was it as good as it sounded?”
“Every bit. What else did she talk about?”
“Nothing much. She wasn’t here very long. In fact, I’m afraid I did most of the talking. I thought it might cheer her up to know that she had a fellow sufferer from one of the blights of this life, so I told her what a ghastly bore it was being so fat and how I kept on eating, because I felt depressed about it, which made me fatter than ever. You know, the good old syndrome?”
“And did it cheer her up?”
“Seemed to. She became quite animated for a minute or two. Said she’d
suffered from exactly the same when she was about my age, couldn’t keep her hands off the chocolate and cream buns, but there was nothing to worry about because, with a little help from one’s friends, one more or less got over it. Something on those lines; and I must say I’ve heard it all before, no fewer than a million times, but I think she meant to be kind.”
“Yes, well, that’s a point in her favour,” I said rather abstractedly, being less concerned now with Hattie’s predicament than with the mystery of two people, so soon after the event, describing it in such very different terms. It was also something of a puzzle that an adolescent girl from an oppressed minority group in a Communist state should have found the wherewithal to stuff herself with cakes and sweets.
Predictably enough, Hattie’s pictures far outshone everything else on view and I was glad of my catalogue because she had worked in so many different styles that it would have been impossible for the uninitiated to attribute them all to the same artist.
There were a number of flower pictures, for instance, slapdash and bold and some quite ravishing in their colours; a few abstracts in patterns of brown and grey, which left me cold; and one huge, purely conventional portrait, dominating the entire room, of a stern, middle-aged man in full regalia of scarlet jacket, plumed hat and sword. There was a note in the catalogue to explain that this was the painting which had won a special award at the County Exhibition and I guessed that her father’s pride in her achievement might be mitigated to some extent by the knowledge that numerous members of the public were now aware that, as well as a small mean mouth, he also had a slight squint.
The drawing of animals, birds and fish, with their human faces, was not on show, but there were one or two others in the same genre, including one of a masked woman, bound in chains, with what appeared to be a corpse at her feet, which had the depressing title: “Perils of Revenge”; and another, evidently completed too late to be listed in the catalogue, which was quite startling in its impudence.
It was a cartoon of three heads, placed one above the other and all instantly recognisable. The top one showed a female wearing a headscarf and peering through a miniature telescope; below that was a man with a rather asinine expression on his face and one eye opened much wider than the other, to accommodate his monocle. Underneath these there was a second female head, in profile like the first one and, in my opinion, a poorer likeness, with an enormous magnifying glass dangling in front of her nose. This drawing was captioned: “Judgement Day”.
“Congratulations!” I said on my way out. “You’ve got us to the life.”
“Oh, do you honestly think so? You are a marvel, Tessa! I’ll give it to you, if you like? I’ll have to take it down, anyway, before Connie starts bringing the nobs round tomorrow. I only put it in for a lark.”
“Thanks very much. I’ll hang it in my dressing room, where it is bound to excite much comment and admiration.”
“Oh, terrific! Do you want to take it now?”
“No, I’ve got another session coming up in the theatre and it might get crushed in my bag. Give it to me tomorrow.”
“Without fail,” she said earnestly. “It’s a promise.” Although one which, unfortunately and through no fault of her own, she was unable to fulfil.
SEVEN
The theatre was in semi-darkness, just one curtain partially drawn back, but even in the shadowy half-light there was no mistaking that stiff and resentful back and I realised that Dr. Birkett had been sent on as Vera’s understudy and also that he was alone in the front row.
“What have you done with Patch?” I asked, moving into the seat beside him.
“Down there,” he replied, pointing under the table. “Name’s Smudge.”
“Oh, so it is! I must say, she’s beautifully behaved.”
“Got to be, hasn’t she? Get a whacking otherwise. Knows it too.”
At this point a girl, presumably Alison Metcalfe: Stage Manager, appeared in front of the curtain to apologise for the delay and announce that they had been asked to hold up the proceedings for a few more minutes.
“Hope the feller comes soon,” Dr. Birkett said in a disgusted voice. “One thing I can’t stand is hanging about.”
“Nor can I, but I know he’ll do his best and in any case a few minutes probably means precisely that. The schedule would never be allowed to get seriously out of hand in this establishment.”
“Well, if they do start without him, you’d better be prepared to take on three people’s work. No use relying on me for this sort of caper. My old bitch down there probably knows as much about the game as I do.”
“So it was very good of you to step into the breach.”
“Good, my foot! Don’t run away with the idea that I offered my services. Got pushed into it by Pauline and that one they call Madam.”
“Oh, so it wasn’t Mrs. Bland’s idea?”
“No, she’s still out of action, don’t you see?”
“Is she seriously ill, in your opinion?” I asked, trying to make it sound more like a friendly enquiry than unethical probing. Not succeeding particularly well, however, for he replied in his gruff, offhand manner:
“Couldn’t tell you. Not my patient.”
“Whose patient is she, then?” I asked, risking another snub.
“Oh, one of the partners in Bill’s firm, I dare say. That’s usually the way it’s done. Matter of form, really.”
“In what way?”
“Well now, look here . . . Ah, here he comes! Now perhaps we can get on with it!”
For once in my life, I was sorry to see Eddie, who now came bounding down the aisle, begging our pardons, announcing to all within earshot that the revels could now commence and effectively putting a stop to all conversation. Two minutes later the curtain rose on a lot of black shawls and indeterminate north-country accents, and we were into Love on the Dole.
This and the offering which followed it, an excerpt from What Every Woman Knows, were both adequately staged and performed, but there were no fireworks and no one who came near Belinda Jameson’s brilliance; and so, since Dr. Birkett was only too thankful to be guided by Eddie and me, the winner was never in doubt. It was past four-thirty before the verdict was reached and just the moment for a reviving cup of tea with Patsy.
She had evidently been expecting me, or someone else who never turned up, for there were two cups on the tray and she did not boil the kettle until I arrived.
“Tell me something, Patsy,” I said, when we had touched briefly on such matters as the house plays, her own and Robin’s health and some recent highlights in my career, “why did you nearly faint dead away when I suggested that someone had been pilfering the toffees?”
“Did I do that, Tessie dear?”
“That’s how it looked from where I was standing.”
“And nothing much gets past you, as I know from bitter experience. Oh, might as well own up, I suppose! You did give me rather a shock, you see. The fact is, we have one of those unpleasant little kleptomania cases on our hands just now.”
“So it was the literal truth?”
“In a way, yes. At any rate, that’s how it began. Poor little Anna Parkes was crying her heart out because she’d failed the intermediary and I went to fetch some of my very special fudge to cheer her up.”
“But the cupboard was bare?”
“Except for a boxful of shavings. I knew that wasn’t right, even though I am getting old and silly. Besides, this was back at the beginning of term and I’d only just bought them a week before.”
“Since when there’ve been repetitions?”
“Several, I’m sorry to say. I’ve had to take to locking things up now, which is not very nice. And it hasn’t cured the trouble. Quite the reverse.”
“You mean it’s got worse?”
“Oh, much. Two or three weeks ago was when it began to be serious. The girls started coming to me to complain that personal things were missing; from their lockers and so on.”
“What sort of thin
gs?”
“Trinkets, bits of jewellery. Some of it quite valuable, if you can believe what they say. Money too. Of course, it serves them right, in a way. They’re supposed to hand all that sort of thing over to me at the beginning of term and I dole it out as I see fit; but we all know that not everyone sticks closely to the rules.”
“Have you told Mrs. Bland?”
Although she never minded being called by her own nickname; Patsy disapproved of such lèse-majesté towards the Principal and, surmising that this ban applied just as rigorously to old girls, I was careful to observe it.
“Oh, good heavens no,” she replied. “And I pray it won’t come to that. It’s hard enough to talk to her about anything these days. I’m hoping that we can just struggle through to the end of term and it will all fizzle out.”
“But you must have taken some action, Patsy?”
“Indeed, I have. It’s not my first experience of this kind of thing, you know, and I’ve learnt a few tricks in my time. A week ago I made them all give up their Saturday afternoon to tidy out their lockers and cupboards. A real old spring cleaning job. I told them I was sick to death of all this moaning about things being lost and as it was probably due to their own carelessness we’d have a good turn-out and see what came to light.”
