“It looked like you were looking for somebody.”
“I was,” she replied. “Teddy.”
“I thought you said he was with you.”
“Well, he was earlier. The three of us had lunch together at this inn on the heath. Teddy just wandered away. You can’t take the man near bushes of any kind.”
He smiled.
“If you think that’s funny, you should’ve heard me explaining it to the Home Office.”
He gave her a hug. “I’m all right. Go get married.”
“You haven’t answered me,” she said.
“What?”
“Do you love me?”
He smiled at her. “I do.”
“Will you come to the wedding?”
“I think I’d like to stay here for a while. Do you mind?”
She threw up her hands. “Hey … no big deal.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Come to the reception, though. I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
“What?”
“Just come, Mouse.”
“Well, my clothes aren’t exactly …”
“Look, the fucking bride has mud on her shoes. You’ll look just fine.” She left the folly and hoisted her skirts, beginning the perilous descent.
“I don’t like surprises,” he shouted.
“You’ll like this one,” she yelled back. “You’d better.”
“Where’s the reception?”
“In the great hall.” She hit another mole hole and cursed again.
“Break a leg,” he called. “Fuck you,” she answered.
The glow of her old familiar roar kept him warm. He sat there in the meadow-scented darkness of the folly for another half hour until the final chords of the organ had rolled away down the vale like summer thunder. Then he got up, brushed off the seat of his Levi’s, and headed slowly down the slope.
He entered Easley House through the kitchen, making his way toward the sound of the reception. There were several dozen people in the great hall, already nattering away to the music of a string quartet. Champagne was being dispensed at a long table in the alcove next to the window.
“Hey, mate!” Wilfred came wriggling through the crowd.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Where were you?”
“Up at the folly.”
“Are you O.K.?”
“Sure. Great.”
“The wedding was super.”
“Good. Mona says there’s gonna be a surprise.”
The kid glanced at him. “You know already?”
“Know what?”
Wilfred giggled. “You won’t get it from me, mate.”
“Now, just a …”
“I’ll get us some champagne. Hang on.” He darted away again. While he was gone, Michael struck up a conversation with a nice old man who turned out to be the gardener. His name was Hargis, and they talked in earnest about flowers. Michael liked that about England; men were allowed to be earnest about flowers.
When Wilfred returned with the champagne, he looked a little ruffled. “Old sod.”
“Who?” He took a glass from the kid.
“Over there … ol’ baldie by the bar.”
“What did he do?”
“He gave me fifty P and told me to fetch his golf bags.”
“C’mon.”
“That’s what he said. ‘Fetch me golf bags and tell Bob Hope I’ll meet him at the clubhouse.’ ”
“He must’ve been joking.”
“I told him to stuff it.” Mona appeared.
“Hi, guys.”
“Hi,” said Michael. “Is Bob Hope here?”
“Huh?”
“Somebody told Wilfred that Bob Hope is here.”
She frowned for a moment, then rolled her eyes in recognition. “That man by the bar, right?”
“That’s the one,” said Wilfred.
“That’s the earl,” said Mona. “Teddy’s father. We had a nifty chat about Betty Ford. If you’re nice to him, he’ll introduce you to her.”
Michael was dumbfounded. “Betty Ford is here?”
“Nobody’s here,” she replied. “He’s a sweet old poop, but he’s got one wheel in the sand.” She turned to Wilfred. “You haven’t seen Teddy yet, have you?”
The kid nodded. “He’s breaking the news to Fabia.”
“He’s too nice to her,” said Mona.
“Wait a minute,” said Michael. “Fabia who?”
“Fabia Crisps,” said Wilfred.
Michael could hardly believe it. “She’s here? That woman who …”
“Just button the lip,” Mona told Wilfred. The kid grinned at her and obeyed.
Michael glanced from one to the other, but their bond of silence was unbreakable. Seconds later, Teddy strode into the great hall and joined them, “Oh, Michael … lovely. I’m delighted you could join us.” He turned and addressed Mona. “I think we’ve just about tidied everything up.”
“How did she take it?” asked Mona.
Teddy made a face. “It wasn’t a bit pretty.”
“Can she … do anything?”
“Not a thing, my love. Nothing’s been signed yet.” He hoisted himself onto a seventeenth-century shuffleboard table, commandeering it as a speaker’s platform. “My friends,” he called. “May I have a word with you, please.”
The crowd in the great hall muttered its way into silence.
“Lovely,” said Lord Roughton. “Now … as most of you know, it has been my intention for some time to move to California for the purpose of pursuing my studies in anthropology.”
Wilfred mugged at Michael.
“Just keep quiet, you two,” Mona whispered, looking more dignified than Michael had ever seen her.
“That,” Teddy continued, “compelled me to confront the unhappy prospect of parting with our beloved Easley.” A sympathetic murmur passed through the gathering, “Believe me, I have made every effort to see to it that the house would fall into the hands of people who would honor its … unself-conscious beauty.” Affectionate chuckles erupted here and there as Teddy smiled down at a slight, white-haired woman in a pale green cocktail dress, “That’s what my mother wants … and that’s what my mother assures me my father would have wanted.”
“I thought he was here,” muttered Michael.
“He is,” Mona answered.
“Old sod,” said Wilfred.
“On my last trip to America,” Teddy went on, “I met the exceptional woman who has done me the honor of becoming Lady Roughton.” As he extended his arms in Mona’s direction, the celebrants turned and applauded politely. Mona gave them an uneasy smile and a half-assed little Elizabethan wave.
Teddy beamed at her with genuine affection. “It was this lovely girl who showed me the error of my ways.”
Girl, thought Michael. No one called Mona a girl and lived to tell about it.
Mona saw him smile and reacted silently with a middle finger pressed against her temple.
“To come to the point,” said Teddy, “I have reconsidered the entire matter and decided against selling Easley.”
Thunderous and prolonged applause swept through the great hall.
Teddy seemed enormously pleased. “Mind you, I will still be spending the next few years in California … but my dear wife has gallantly offered to remain here at Easley and run the business of the house … preside over the rent table, as it were.”
“My God,” murmured Michael.
Mona grinned at him and grasped his hand, then gazed up at Teddy again.
“It’s a thankless job, in my opinion … one for which I seem to have increasingly less talent. So I am very grateful that she’s shown such concern not only for the perpetuation of Easley as we know it, but for … the furtherment of my education.” He stooped down and signaled Wilfred. “May I have your champagne, old man?”
The kid handed him his glass.
Teddy rose, hoisting the glass in Mona’s direction. “To the Lady of the Manor!”
His guest
s echoed the toast: “To the Lady of the Manor!”
General applause ensued. Teddy climbed down from the shuffleboard table, still smiling at Mona.
“Thanks for that,” she said.
“My pleasure,” he replied.
“I can’t believe this,” said Michael.
“Believe it,” Mona beamed. She turned to Teddy. “Do you have any more social duties?”
“That’s it. We’re done.”
“Fabulous. Why don’t you help Wilfred pick out his room? Michael and I are gonna take a little stroll.”
Wilfred grinned at Michael. “I’m gonna live here, mate! How ’bout that?”
“Pretty good, kiddo.” He put his arm around Wilfred’s shoulders and shook him, then glanced at Mona. “You’re just full of surprises tonight.”
“C’mon,” she said, “let’s promenade on the parapet.” She took his arm and led him away, stopping suddenly to shout a final instruction at Wilfred. “And don’t take the one above the library. That’s mine. It’s the only one that doesn’t leak.”
As they headed up the stairs, Michael asked: “How long has this been in the works?”
“Since this afternoon.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Well … maybe a little longer than that, but I finally talked to Teddy about it this afternoon. I thought about what you said, you know. I was just running away again. I’d sold myself cheap and I knew it. Teddy was never really big on selling the place, you know, He just didn’t want the responsibility.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but what about the money involved?”
“Oh, I waived my fee.”
He laughed. “I meant the money he would’ve gotten for the house.”
“Well, he won’t get it. We’ll still get rent from the villagers, though, and I’ll mail him a check every month. It’ll work out fine. Wilfred’s gonna help me set up a tearoom this summer for the tourists.”
“Really?”
“A real tearoom, dipshit.”
“I know.”
“We could use a gardener,” she said as they entered one of the bedrooms and stopped at the stairs to the parapet.
He smiled at her invitation. “You have Mr. Hargis.”
“You’ve met him, huh?”
He nodded. “Just now.”
“Isn’t he dear?”
“Yeah … he is.”
“His wife is a trip too. They know how everything works … or doesn’t work, as the case may be. I can do it, Mouse. I know I can. Lady Fucking Roughton. Can you stand it? Won’t I make a fabulous landlady?”
“I don’t know why not,” he replied. “Your father does.”
Her smile was so warm. “How is she doing?”
“Good. Better, when I tell her about you.”
“Let me write her a note or something. I think it should come from me this time.” She led him up the narrow stairs in the darkness. “The problem with me and her is … we’re too much alike. She wants me to be one of her brood, and I want a brood of my own.” She opened the parapet door and walked out into the moonlight.
“Yeah,” he said, following her, “but the hens can get together from time to time.”
There were headlights streaking the dark fields below as some of the celebrants made their way home. “I can picture her here,” said Mona. “Can’t you? Trooping around in that cloche of hers.”
“God,” agreed Michael.
“I want you to stay, Mouse.”
He turned and looked at her.
“We could have so much fun,” she said. “Think what it would be like with the three of us.”
“I’ve thought about it, Mona. Ever since you mentioned gardener.”
“Well, think about it some more. A whole new life, Mouse. Away from all that shit back there.” He chuckled.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Well … I like all that shit back there.”
“Right.”
“I do. I’m not sure how long I could leave it. I’m actually missing it.”
She sighed and looked toward the horizon. “Be that way, then.”
He remembered something and smiled.
“What?” she asked.
“Those three things … what were they? Hot job, hot lover, and …?”
“Hot apartment.”
He laughed. “I’d say this qualifies as a hot apartment.”
“Also a hot job,” she added.
“The lover part may be a little tough out here.”
She turned to him indignantly. “Have you seen the postmistress in Chipping Campden?”
“No.” He grinned.
“Then don’t be so goddamn sure of yourself.”
“A hot postmistress? C’mon.”
“Swear to God. Makes Debra Winger look like dogshit.”
He hooted.
She smiled and leaned against him, slipping her arm around his waist. “Oh, Mouse,” she murmured.
He knew that she was thinking about Jon again. “I’ll send you that ring,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“And thanks for being so nice to Wilfred.”
“Are you kidding? We’re made for each other. He says you met that Fabia woman in London.”
“Fabia Dane?”
“That’s the one.”
“How bizarre. She came by the place I’m staying and was rude as shit. She’s the one that’s buying (he house?”
“Was,” said Mona.
“Jesus … that must mean that their new country place …” He laughed, getting the picture. “I invited Simon to a party here this summer.”
“Simon?”
“The guy I swapped places with.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, tell him he’s still invited. He’s a nice guy?”
“Very. And handsome.”
“How nice for you.”
“No, he’s straight.”
“How nice for someone, then.”
“Are you off men completely?”
She gave him a languid nod. “And vice versa. I am a simple English country dyke and don’t you forget it.”
“It suits you.” He smiled.
“Does it?”
“It does. It really does.”
“You can be funky here. People really are very funky here, Mouse. It’s not widely known, but it’s true.”
He nodded.
“I will never be a lipstick lesbian. I hate that shit on my face!”
“This shit.”
“What?”
“You’ve got on makeup now, Mona.”
“Well, true … but it’s my fucking wedding. Gimme a break.”
Michael laughed. “Your non-fucking wedding.”
“My non-fucking wedding. Right.” She looked behind her anxiously. “I should go help Teddy say goodbye to the non-fucking guests.” She pecked him on the cheek. “Stay here. Take your time. Smoke this.” She removed a fat joint from the peach lace of her bodice. “It’s one of Teddy’s. It has hash in it.”
He took it from her. “Thanks, Babycakes.” She reminded him so much of Mrs. Madrigal it was almost eerie.
“When you’re really loaded,” she advised him, “go down and look at the moon through the window in the great hall. And check out the graffiti in the glass. It’s three hundred years old. Teenagers put it there.”
“All right,” he nodded.
“And come for coffee later in the kitchen. Teddy wants to show you his slides of San Francisco.”
He chuckled.
“And watch these goddamn steps on your way down, O.K.? I love you, Michael Mouse.”
“Same to you, fella.”
She disappeared into the roof.
He lit the joint and fixed his gaze on the procession of lights winding toward Easley-on-Hill. The night was peppered with laughter and the scuffing of feet against gravel paths. He heard a cuckoo, a real cuckoo. He couldn’t recall the last time he had heard one, if at all.
Wilfred joined him on the
parapet. “Lady Mo said you were up here.”
“Lady Mo, huh?” He laughed.
“It’s me own name.”
“It’s great! Lady Mo!”
Wilfred grinned at him. “Are you fucked up, mate?”
“A little, I guess. Here.” He handed the joint to Wilfred, who took a short hit and handed it back. “I picked out me room,” said the kid. “Wanna see it?”
“Sure, kiddo. In a little bit.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m great.”
“Yeah … me too.”
“Look at where we are, Wilfred. It’s real! There really are places that look like this!” He pried a chunk of moss off the stone and tossed it over the edge.
“What about it, then, mate?”
“What about what?”
“Well,” said Wilfred, “you’re staying, aren’t you?”
The Longest Easter
SIMON WAS LEAVING, FRAMED IN HER DOORWAY, SUITCASE in hand.
“I managed an earlier flight,” he said, “but I can certainly hold off until you get some word.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “He’ll be back. It’s only been seven hours or so.” It was easily the longest Easter in memory.
“Look,” he said, setting his suitcase down, “what if I call Theresa? She doesn’t know me, and we could at least find out if he’s there.”
“No. It’s O.K. He’s run off before.”
“Oh … I see.”
“Not over anything like this, of course.”
He grinned at her ruefully. “Of course.”
She looked at him for a moment, then flung her arms around his neck. “Oh, Simon, I’ll miss you!”
He pecked her on the cheek somewhat formally. “Take care of yourself,” he said.
“I will.”
“I left Michael’s keys with Mrs. Madrigal.”
“Fine,” she said.
“His toaster wants repairing, I’m afraid. It died on me several days ago.”
“I’ll tell him,” she replied. “That’s O.K.”
They looked at each other helplessly.
“Will you write?” she asked at last.
He reached out and stroked her hair. “I’m not very good about that.”
She smiled at him. “Neither am I.”
“Give Brian my best,” he said. “When the time is right.”
“I will.”
“Well … I’d best be going. My taxi is probably …”
Babycakes Page 27
