by Mavis Cheek
The chosen lines this time were ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Which Flora had thought herself as she flicked through more of the pages. ‘. . . In 1787 a wing was added to the rebuilt Lodge and another one proposed – but never built . . . There was a Tudor knot garden, restored by American owners in 1899, to the front of the Hall but this was destroyed during the Great War to make way for ambulances. The Lodge, now half its original size, survived throughout and was sold several times during that century, coming into the Chapman family in 1986. They have owned it ever since.’
Then there was a pencilled note in Edward’s handwriting at the end saying ‘Pauline – Royal and Transatlantic connections. Must expand.’ Which made Flora smile. She scratched out the name Pauline, closed up the file, and took herself off for a solitary walk to think things through. It would certainly be an interesting way to pass her time, to complete the History. And she could do it – Oh perish the thought – without any interference from Edward.
Up Blowhorn Lane, past the church and the duck pond she walked, letting the place touch her with its sense of the past. A Queen of England walked here once – even if it was one known mostly for her lack of attractions. Perhaps two Queens of England, if the suggestion about Elizabeth visiting the place was based on a truth. Flora tried to imagine Henry’s rejected Queen here, now. My Lady of Cleves – big, bony and horselike striding through the meadow, or by the old cottages, her skirt brushing the edge of the pond and with a silly little scrap of a dog jumping at her hem. That was what history did for you if you let it – it allowed you to feel the warm breath of the past. A little electric thrill passed up and down her spine. Now that really was something to look forward to. The History of Hurcott would be just the right lifeline to see her through.
She turned back towards Lodge Cottage. Her spine was straighter, her lips drawn more firmly into resolution. But first first – came the matter of Edward’s own historical artefacts. His personal belongings. The touching, tormenting residue of a life now gone. Those must be dealt with before Flora could begin on anything else at all. Those, and the question of her insidious Little Treasure.
2
A Surprise Involving Pink Lips
Lucy Stevens had neither husband, brother, father nor boyfriend and her sons were nine and six years old. Nevertheless she was – as she so inappropriately put it - dropdead positive that she could make use of Edward’s clothes and bits and pieces if Mrs Chapman did not want to keep them. Mrs Chapman did not want to keep them but neither did she want Lucy Stevens to inherit them. Lucy Stevens, throughout her few years as Flora’s Little Treasure, had shown herself to be a warmly appreciative person of any items that came her way. She never actually acquired anything before it was given, but Lucy was always right there at Flora’s elbow before Flora properly had the thought. Flora imagined that the inside of Lucy’s house would be a snapshot of her own entitled The Way We Were. Over the years the removal of goods had evolved quite effortlessly into something of an unspoken power struggle.
There was no logic to this at all, of course. There was no reason why Flora should not feel grateful that her old kitchen stools found such a willing home, nor that her glorious revelation about doing away with the downstairs nets had been so keenly applauded and gratefully received. But it irked, it irked. Edward just waved his hand and said, ‘Oh, let the girl have the –’ whatever it might be. ‘She has so little.’ But Flora reckoned she had a darn sight more than anybody knew of, if their own depletions over the years resided in No. 2 Cherry Tree Crescent.
The time had come for Flora to dig in her heels. Flora was determined. Lucy had irritated the knickers off her these last few days, draping herself over Edward’s desk, dusting in Edward’s bedroom, and looking longingly into the distance with a ‘He’d want me to have . . .’ look on her face. The irritating thing was that he probably would want her to have. But there could be no place in Lucy Stevens’s life for Edward’s personal effects and clothing, none at all. Nor did Flora want to see anyone else, including Lucy if she had a mind to, wear a man’s tweed jacket and sports gear that had once been her husband’s. There was something goosebumpy about the possibility. Quite how she would go about such a challenge she did not know, but she vowed that Lucy Stevens should not have one stitch, nay one microstitch of Edward’s wardrobe. It was a battle that Flora was determined to win. And she hoped to lose her Little Treasure in the process; a tremendous double achievement. Multum in parvo.
The disposal of Edward’s belongings was the tough bit of widowhood, Flora was told lugubriously by almost everyone. Maybe it would be tough – emotionally challenging – she’d feel better about herself if it were – though really doing the deed so quickly could as easily reflect heartlessness. Between her Little Treasure and Hilary was between a rock and a hard place. Lucy volunteered to help, with menaces, and if Flora did not act swiftly she would also have Hilary there weeping all over the place and clutching various old jumpers to her chest as if it were Edward’s living flesh. And Flora needed, in the psychobabble of the day, to be private and move on. From past experience this would not be easy – or possible – with her daughter in tow.
Three or four years previously when there was an urgent call to help earthquake victims she had made the mistake of asking Hilary to help sort through all her old infants’ clothes and toys (much to Lucy’s chagrin). Hilary fell upon anything and everything and clutched moth-eaten rabbits and small, faded pairs of tiny dungarees to her chest as if they were shields against the devil. At first it was touching. After an hour of it and nothing yet in the charity pile, it became quite tedious. Especially since Flora remembered how hard it had been to get Hilary to dress in the bally things when she was small. If Flora’s memory served her right, the dungarees in question were Hilary’s most loathed and fought-over garment. In the end Mother put her foot right in it by suggesting Hilary take them all away and keep them for her own children when they came along. Hilary went into even more of a fit over this. ‘But this is my ho-o-oome,’ she wailed. ‘They belong here.’
Irritation got the better of Flora and she said, too late, a touch crisply, ‘It may be your home, Hilary, but it is not a storage depot.’
At which point Hilary straightened her back and said, ‘I’ll ask Dad.’ Which went straight back to childhood.
At which point Flora raised a telling finger and said, ‘It has nothing whatsoever to do with your father.’
And – yes – they were off.
Once Hilary returned home the repacked boxes were removed from the loft and discreetly taken to the collection centre. Never to be mentioned again. Which is what Flora should have done in the first place.
This time Flora wanted to sort everything out in peace and tranquillity. She therefore told Hilary, after the funeral, that Lucy was booked to help, that Lucy needed the money because she had two small children to support and surely it was better that Hilary get back to work. Unfortunately, Lucy overheard this conversation and there were a few meaningful glances exchanged which meant, like it or not, that once Hilary had departed, Lucy would be there to help. And help herself, presumably. How it irked. Flora knew that for her own selfesteem something must be done.
Funeral over. History of Hurcott pushed to the back of a drawer. Mother concentrating on collapsed Hilary for the next several days. All made easier by knowing that the buff file was hidden away and waiting. It was her private engagement and made everything, including poor Hilary’s grief, seemed easier to bear. Then – disaster. On the day before she went home Hilary suddenly sat bolt upright on the sofa as if the idea of tears had never entered her head, took her mother’s hands in her own, looked her mother in the eye, and said, ‘Shall we get Dad’s will?’ Then she rolled on to her back, stared at the grubby cream ceiling, flung her forearm to her head – a heroine à la Holman Hunt and said, ‘I suppose this place will have to be sold. My home. My dear, dear home. I can’t bear it.’
‘Well I haven’t got a copy,’ said
Flora firmly. Which was true. ‘But I doubt it will come to that. Selling the house.’
Hilary then sat up and with mysterious ease moved from Holman Hunt to a George Grosz Fraulein in less than a second and said sharply. ‘Well I don’t think there was any money left to speak of, was there?’
From the way she spoke it seemed that Hilary was a young woman with expectations and the occasion of those presumed expectations had arrived.
‘We can’t do anything,’ Flora said gently, though her heart beat rather hard and fast, ‘Nothing at all until Ewan returns from his holiday. Your father lodged the will with him.’ This was equivocation at its most helpful. Flora knew exactly what was in the will but she truly, honestly, hand on heart, did not have a copy in the house.
‘Are you sure Dad didn’t leave a copy with you?’
‘No, dear,’ said Flora sadly and truthfully. ‘He never included me in anything if he could possibly help it.’
Almost at that point a tear fell. If only it had. If only she could show Hilary that she, too, grieved. But she was like a watched child on a potty – the more she was watched and waited for – the more she could not oblige and crack up. ‘It hasn’t quite hit me, yet,’ she said forlornly and hoped this would do.
Once Flora put Hilary on the train she seemed to breathe out for the first time since it all began. Alone now she felt quite calm, quite sensible and over the next few days it became perfectly clear that her lack of cracking up was a blessing. There was so much to do in connection with bereavement. It did not end with the cards to funeral guests, which funeral guests, what clothes to wear and food – no – After The Funeral came the deluge with letters to answer, banks to deal with, telephone calls, his email, her email, kind words in the street – ‘Oh such a lovely man, Oh such a distinguished member of the community, Oh how we will all miss his charm and gaiety . . .’
After a day or two of this Flora felt she’d been married to a cross between John F. Kennedy, Father Christmas and a selection of film stars combining all the manly virtues from Errol Flynn and Sean Connery. But she smiled her thanks and went on her way. It was never a dull moment being a widow and it was all entirely surreal. Like taking part in a drama or a farce. When a cheery-voiced stranger, for example, telephoned to talk to Edward – she found herself delivering the message ‘Edward died two weeks ago’ with all the ringing firmness of Vivian Leigh wanting to go to Tara. And when Sir Randolph came tottering up her garden path accompanied by Foot, she very nearly flung wide her door and curtsied. It was true enough, death had its funny moments.
Sir Randolph was now in his eighties. He reached the doorway, held on to one side of it with an ancient knotted hand and with the other reached out and pinched her cheek. ‘Pretty little thing,’ he said. ‘Very pretty little thing.’ But since, on entering the sitting room, he walked straight into the chair she offered and then, on feeling it all over needed guidance to place himself therein, she realised that he wasn’t exactly in fizzing ocular shape and that she could take no crumb of comfort from his pinchings. Flora waited. She assumed this was the moment when whatever financial settlement was due would be discussed. After years of service it was not an unrealistic expectation. It might if large enough, thought Flora, help Hilary over the worst.
Foot stood at the old man’s side but did not engage his eyes with Flora’s. In all respects, Foot was not there. Sir Randolph put out his hand, palm upwards, and Foot took from his pocket a shiny object. Foot then handed it to Flora. It was a rather nice old-fashioned silver whistle. She looked at it, then she looked at Sir Randolph. ‘Well, go on,’ he said peevishly. ‘Blow it. He’s never going to get sent on his way across the Lethe if we don’t pipe him aboard.’ At which point the non-existent Foot also took a whistle, very similar in size and shape, out of his own pocket and put it to his lips.
Very solemnly both he and Flora blew. The noise was deafening and entirely unmelodious. Sir Randolph smiled a happy smile. ‘There you are now,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Priests and vicars no good. No good at all. Need a bit of action. Haven’t got the lung power myself. But you’ll do. You’ll do.’ Flora, completely at a loss, stood and waited as the old man stared with sightless eyes into whatever it was he saw. ‘Y’know I remember him as a young man coming to me – good-looking boy. Shall miss him, shall miss him . . . Good company, he was. And now no more.’
He then rose from the chair with Foot’s help. Told Flora to keep the whistle as a memento of Edward’s good service over the years, and departed. It was not until the car had driven away that she realised it was probably the meanest bit of severance pay ever paid to man – she also realised how much Edward would have loved it. Sir Randolph could not have conducted himself in a more pleasing way for her husband. There is no sanity surrounding death, she thought again, and nodded to herself, each behaves in the way he or she wants, and each is different and strange to the other. In the last great mystery there were no rules. Well – except one – that a widow should grieve. Failed.
Hilary, having returned to her Robin, waited to hear when Ewan Davies could see them about the will. Flora knew she must keep a grip so she agreed to allow herself one (and only one) glass of wine each evening to be drunk while contemplating the potentialities and interesting possibilities of the solo life. There were moments, of course, in the days following Edward’s death when she made four pieces of toast instead of two and when she bought two bits of fish instead of one, and when someone cracked a joke on the radio and she turned to share it – but they were fleeting in their pain. You rarely got a new life thrown at you when you were still hale and hearty but old enough to be a little wise – and she hoped she was up to embracing it. Day to day she dealt with the minutiae and looked forward to the time when the decks were cleared, the path was swept, the sheet was clean, and she could concentrate on the Hurcott History.
Meanwhile she must make use of this calm before the storm. Once the lovely, ordinary Ewan Davies of Messrs Davies and Davies was back from his very normal holiday, and the will was read, Hilary would be hopping. If it were not for the fact that he was Flora’s idea of the perfect Mr Ordinary, Mr Ewan Davies, as opposed to Mr Angus Davies, who had been their solicitor and friend for over twenty years, could stay abroad for as long as he wanted. You could be quite sure, if The Will did not suit The Daughter (and it would not), it would be seen as Flora’s fault. But maybe, like champions of old (she had been reading An Age of Chivalry, one of the many unopened books in Edward’s study), Ewan would defend her. As their solicitor and friend his behaviour over the years had been exemplary but she always felt that his sympathies lay more with her. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. He was her fantasy man. Ewan Davies would never invest his life savings in a Steak ’n’ Wine hostelry in an English village, or go up in a balloon without due care. He didn’t even tread on the cracks in the pavement if he could help it. She loved that about him. It never occurred to her, over the years, that one day she would be free and in theory able to make the fantasy of his charming ordinariness real. Except for his wife of course. She tucked the thought away along with the History of Hurcott and bided her time.
To take her mind off it all she returned to the question of Edward’s defunct wardrobe. Get that sorted out and the Little Treasure despatched and she could begin to feel in control of her life.
A certain licence was appropriate in the solving of the power struggle over Edward’s clothes if Flora was to get a grip on her otherwise spinning personal universe. She would dispense with her deceased partner’s effects in a way she thought fitting and she would send them where they could do some good. Lucy should not have them. From the depths of her hidden bits, Flora brought out the truth and looked at it for a moment. In other words – because Lucy had been so bloody stuck on Edward and so unstuck on her – Flora was going to get a bit of her own back. Uncommendable. Yet at the same time she would give – as the Good Book told her – to Charity. Let St Peter at the Pearly Gates work out the morality of that when th
e time came. Flora planned a neat little bit of gentle revenge in which Lucy would be left confused, very confused, as confused perhaps as Flora had so often been by her. This, oh dear, was going to be fun.
A charity shop was the very thing. She drove to the nearby market town in which there were two such places, sited opposite each other, rather oddly, and she chose the first she came to, the Oxfam shop . . . In the Oxfam shop they shook their heads at what Flora proposed and said they couldn’t possibly which, given what she asked of them was perfectly reasonable – so she crossed the market square and entered the Hospice shop where they nodded and agreed to her request enthusiastically. In this town Oxfam was obviously the dignified Great Aunt to the Hospice’s nervously willing Poor Companion. Good. Once the highly specific arrangements were made – odd as they were – she said to the shop’s helping women ‘synchronise your watches’ – a phrase she had long yearned to say – and drove home – striding purposefully up her path. Those who knew her situation saw this purposefulness and wondered at it. Those who had been married for many years saw this new purposefulness and not only wondered at it they envied it – but only in private. Out loud they all said ‘How brave she is,’ and went on their ways.
