by Mavis Cheek
After a day or two, when the heated telephone calls between them, interspersed with tears, had died away and Hilary was still cross but resigned, Ewan called at Lodge Cottage to see Flora. Although she had sent him a card thanking him – as delicately as possible – for all he had done – she had not expected him to call. He was her first truly welcome visitor since Edward’s funeral and she was quite inappropriately pleased and found herself patting her hair.
Ewan always surprised her when he wasn’t in his office uniform of dark suit and unremarkable tie and sensible, solemn face. Today he was on his way back from playing golf and wore a bright blue shirt and yellow trousers with a paler bluegreen jacket. A very odd combination. The shirt’s top button was undone which managed to look shockingly saucy. He was about her age, she supposed, and had a strange way with colours. Perhaps it showed a hidden wildness. The yellow trousers were terrible, absolutely terrible, an outrageous example of the uniform of the professional class of countryman at rest. If they were married she would soon have them off him. The misplaced thought made her smile. Poppet indeed. The discovery had certainly added a little grit to her oyster.
‘Those trousers,’ she said, ‘are very – bright.’
He laughed. ‘So I’m told. Can’t see it myself. But it means the spotter plane can spot us when we get stuck in the rough looking for a ball.’ He looked down at them quite unrepentantly.
‘You go in for bright colours when you’re not at work, Ewan, don’t you?’
‘Do I?’ He said, pleased. ‘What a noticing sort of a person you are, Flora.’
The visit had the immediate effect of putting a bit of a kick into her step. Recently the post included brochures from A Seniors’ Singles Club (they must scour the obituaries for business – how clever – the name of the deceased’s grieving wife or husband was always mentioned); a flyer from a company offering ‘Frail, Disabled and Partially-Disabled Holidays’ which she took very personally; a gardening magazine offering gadgets for the weak and feeble. She also read a piece in the local paper headlined ‘10 Years Old and Still Going Strong. Congratulations to the Over Seventies’ Fetish Club’ – to which article she found her eyes strangely drawn . . . Ewan’s arrival dispensed with these various assaults on her younger id. One did not have to be twenty to feel secret little trills of pleasure. Presumably one felt them when one was Frail, Disabled or Partially-Disabled, too, but she was none of those things nor, she reaffirmed, was she likely to be for a while – putting her knees to one side. She must stay fit and well. If Hilary was going to be her carer they needed to move on to balmier emotional climbs first.
They sat in the garden with their coffee. Flora was thinking about how happy she felt. Ewan looked the back of the house up and down. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘there are some very old foundations here – you can see the line of them at the base of this wall.’ He went over and bent down and ran his fingers over the raised surfaces – she watched his hand tracing the contours, it was a nice hand, and she found herself again imagining them both sitting on the sofa and watching Question Time or Panorama with a mug of cocoa . . .
‘Flora?’
‘Sorry?’ she said. ‘I was thinking about something else.’
He said again, ‘I should think a lot of interesting people have lived here over the years.’
‘They have.’ She told him about Edward’s history and that she thought she might finish it. He nodded. ‘Good to take your mind off things,’ he said. And then a light of something came into his eyes – sad, perhaps, or merely regretful? ‘Boredom can be a destructive little demon . . .’
With one hand he balanced his mug of coffee on his slight pot belly and with the other he tapped at some sorry dried-uplooking daffodils that poked their heads out in front of the old garden wall. Flora saw them through his eyes and felt a little ashamed. She really ought to do something with the garden. Ewan looked so at ease here. Perhaps she could persuade him to help? Begin the pottering together even if he still had a wife. The gardening implements for the weak and feeble returned to haunt her. She shook herself. Absurd. It was one thing to invite a married man into your bed – and quite another to invite him to help you with the gardening. That really was a step too intimate . . . ‘I’d like to know more about Anne of Cleves,’ she said, getting her mind back to something sensible. ‘She was given the original estate in 1540 apparently – when Henry VIII divorced her. Which means –’
Ewan nodded comfortably. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Her.’
He made such a delightfully restful picture of a man relaxing in a garden. How fond of him she was . . .
‘Married Henry VIII, didn’t she? Number three, was it, or number four? She was the plain one. The German girl? The Flemish Mare?’ He said this last with a little laugh. He obviously found the sobriquet amusing and was still smiling about it as he continued sipping his coffee.
Flora had been looking at him with dewy eyes and feeling pleasant tender feelings. As soon as he said those words the softness surrounding him vanished. She remembered her Aunt and Edward – and then even Lucy saying much the same – Lucy – how easy it was to sum up the whole of a personality in a word like ugly or plain. She said sharply, ‘What a way to go down in history.’
‘Yes,’ he said contentedly.
‘Have you ever seen a picture of her?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so. There probably isn’t one if she was as bad as all that.’ He laughed again, obviously pleased at the wit. Flora stiffened and remained silent.
He was still looking indulgently at nothing in particular and Flora remembered her childhood when she had cut herself out of a number of family photographs because Rosie was so pretty – she was about eleven or twelve when the light dawned – and although as far as she could remember nobody had ever said anything – she just suddenly knew. She was plain. A little flame of a painful memory began inside her and she stood up. Her body language might have warned him for she put her hands on her hips and stood with feet apart. She could not be more obvious about wanting him to go. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose if I’m going to get on with it I’d better get on. Research to do. Pictures to find. As you say, a lot of interesting people to get through. Pretty and plain, handsome and ugly – all grist to the mill.’
He stood up, more obedient than surprised at her sudden change of tone. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re busy.’ She wished she had been a little less abrupt. He put his mug on the table with pedantic exactitude – moving it with his fingers until he aligned it just so – Oh dear, she thought, that kind of thing could become irritating – and his face became professional – which at least saved him from a scolding. Flora nearly told him what it was like to be called plain Jane and no nonsense – throughout childhood, throughout school, and Bun Face throughout her marriage and how she had every sympathy with the blind and the wheelchair-bound et al who constantly battled against being thought a little vacant. Being plain belonged in the same camp. Of course there was a faction that said ‘she’s no beauty therefore she must be very bright’ but this was not Edward’s view of things. Flora did not look romantic enough to be an enjoyable wife for him. Hilary with her long blonde hair and blue eyes and Holman Hunt dramatic gesturing was fine, acceptable in every respect – Hilary’s mother, alas, had a serious design fault – one which Edward, very kindly, pretended to overlook. And now, here was Ewan, hardly Adonis, banging on about Anne of Cleves being as unattractive as a raw-boned horse. And finding it funny.
Flora’s chin came out a little further. A glimmering of recognition flitted across Ewan’s face. Cautious now, and backing away slightly he said, ‘I just wanted to remind you not to consider selling the house. I know Hilary wants you to but it is your only asset.’
You can say that again, thought Flora sourly.
Then he relaxed and looked about him. ‘And it’s a lovely little place. Hard to match. And you shouldn’t do anything to upset your equilibrium just yet. You’ve been through quite enough.’
She relaxed a little. It wasn’t Ewan’s fault that he was the victim of historical prejudice. And he was kind to her, always had been, no matter what he privately thought of her features. She resumed her smile and said, a touch stiffly, ‘Thanks for your help. I always value it.’
He looked relieved. ‘Don’t be bullied. That’s my advice.’ He tapped at the drooping heads of the very sorry-looking daffodils again. ‘Yes. That’s my advice. And today it’s free.’ He gave her a very formal, slightly disapproving look – and then laughed. ‘And if you ever need a bit of help,’ he said, ‘I’m quite good at gardens, too. But I’d probably charge for that.’
Oh, she thought, so taken aback that she forgot to pursue the offer, so he would like to get his hands dirty with her. This was the point at which she should sidle up and look into his eyes and ask something skittish – what he would like as payment for instance – or how together they could have a good old go at cross pollination. But faint heart and the words ‘Flemish Mare’ proved a barrier. If he could laugh at Anne of Cleves he could just as easily laugh in her face, too. She was aware of the legend that all men were out for a bit of the other if it was remotely on offer, but in all her thirty years and more of marriage no one, no one at all, had ever so much as winked in her direction. Well, apart from Sir Randolph and he had only done so once he’d lost most of his sight. This did not breed confidence now.
They both laughed, a little uneasily, and she said, just to compound the current hopelessness of her state of mind. ‘I don’t think I’m ready for gardening.’ She said it weakly. ‘That history project will be enough for me to be going on with. And anyway, I’m no gardener. As you see.’ She waved her arm in the direction of the wildly overgrown bushes of drying forsythia and jasmine and other unidentifiable explosions of greenery. ‘I might even pay Wally Binder to come in and give it a tidy.’ Now that was a symbol of her newfound status. A financial decision made all by herself. ‘If he’s not too expensive,’ she added, out of deference to her husband who would be spinning in his dually occupied grave.
Ewan nodded and said a little wistfully, ‘It’s a good idea. I always wished that Dilly had an interest –’ he faltered, she did not speak – seldom was his wife ever mentioned – ‘I’d have liked her to join The Players with me but . . .’ And then he stopped and the moment passed. ‘But you could join . . .’ He gave her an encouraging smile. Flora was torn between saying yes to please him, and knowing she would never, ever, dare to tread the boards. Or want to. ‘Oh, I couldn’t act for a toffee,’ she said.
He turned to go. ‘Ah well – just a thought. It would have been nice to have you in the group.’ And he gave a little resigned flap of his arms and set off into the house.
Flora was aware that she had thrown away an opportunity by being absolutely honest and vowed to become wilier. Too late for now, though. In any case if she had hurled herself at him with a winning smile and a garden hoe he would probably have put it down to the weirdness of grief – and patted her on her plain little head and continued turning the sod. Or run a mile. Anyway, as he said, there was always Dilly.
‘Shame,’ she said, ‘that Dilly won’t join.’ And was about to ask And how is Dilly – when she realised that this would be a little tricky to answer. The same? Worse? A little better today? In her darker moments good sense gave way to fantasy and the idea of marrying someone like Ewan rather than a changeling eccentric like Edward seemed all that a woman could need. Roses, roses all the way. But it was never like that, was it? Or seldom. It certainly had not been roses, roses all the way for Dilly Davies. And something must have caused it. Ewan never, ever spoke about the fact that Dilly drank. Hard not to know it with the number of times she made it so obvious. Most recently Dilly was taken in by the police drunk in charge of a horse. Very drunk – facing the wrong way as a matter of fact with her snood caught under her chin. Funny if you were not related to her, not funny for a local solicitor. It even made the national press, in a small paragraph, so funny did the world find it. Edward laughed over the story until Flora asked him how he would feel if it had been her. He stopped laughing, it was true, but managed to make her feel serially dull by saying, ‘But you wouldn’t do anything like that – you’re just not capable.’ Which immediately had her contemplating something outrageous with a bottle of gin and a sheep – except she could not think what – which very probably compounded Edward’s view of her. It didn’t help when he patted her arm and said he preferred her that way, sober. Flora Sobersides. It was enough to make you frolic in the village pond naked. Dilly had done that, too.
It was unfathomable to Flora. Dilly was a startlingly beautiful woman. Fair-skinned, eyes blue as night, honey-haired, rose-lipped, white-teethed, small-waisted, slight-hipped, long unblemished legs. All that she had, and still she ended up weeping into her mascara in a police cell while the baying hounds of the Ducis Vale Mercury pounded on the desk sergeant’s window.
Suddenly, looking out at the garden and the early May sunshine, with the daffodils struggling for air and the grass needing to be mowed and the weeds showing every satisfaction with their being left entirely alone – suddenly she had a wonderful feeling of safety and pleasure. Perhaps it was the very pressure of being beautiful that made things so difficult? For much of the time – if you were without ego – you could pass through the world quietly and comfortably. The effect of beauty was something Flora would never know, that was for sure. ‘I wonder,’ she said out loud, ‘how Anne of Cleves felt knowing she was being compared to a horse?’
Ewan shrugged from the doorway. ‘It was different then.’ Was it? she wondered. Well, of course it wasn’t. What he meant was that women shut up then. Expected it even. She looked at him in his silly trousers with his little bald spot and his rounded belly and she wondered what it would be like to lie naked with him. ‘What a very silly thing to say, Ewan,’ she said. And then drifted off for a moment visualising herself stripped to her vulnerable nakedness and him saying, ‘You look too much like a horse, my dear . . .’
‘Flora?’ Ewan was speaking.
She mentally put her clothes back on. ‘Yes’, she said happily, ‘you’re right. I’m not going to sell the house. I’m going to enjoy all this peace and calm and – contentment.’ Ewan’s face adopted a slight shadow of doubt so she quickly added, ‘And get over my sadness in a quiet and easy fashion. How wise you are, Ewan, how wise you are.’
He stood on the top step looking down at her and seemed gratified. Why should she care how Dilly was? Much more relevant to ask Ewan how he was. Selfishness was an enjoyable commodity. One of the things she had learned was that you were excused niceness fatigues if you were plain. No one really noticed either way, though on the whole Flora found being nice easiest. But in her widowhood, for the time being, she was allowed to be whatever she wanted. Why mention his – or anyone’s – wife? Why be good? He seemed to be reluctant to go. She set aside the Flemish Mare entirely. If he was reluctant to go – well then. She started humming ‘I love Paris in the springtime’ as she followed him indoors. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘despite what you say, you might think about joining The Players. Something to do, after all.’ She wondered, hopefully, if the renewed suggestion might be to do with her singing until he added – ‘You could sew for us . . .’ Thus reminding her never to get her hopes up about anything. He smiled. ‘They’re quite good.’
No they weren’t. Flora had seen only one of their productions many years ago. The Constant Wife with Bernice Oakes as the formidable Mrs Culver – and it was dire. They might be capable of better things but it was hard to tell given the kind of plays they put on. Very dated thrillers and comedies of manners from between the wars in which men wore blazers and flannels and were called things like Cedric (how much it said for the conservatism of village life that the local men jumped at the chance of donning a striped jacket and a boater) and in which women wore startlingly bright lipstick, bodiced frocks and a mass of costume jewellery. Ewan was not in The Players in those days –
but their repertoire now was much the same. Merrily We Roll Along was the most recent. When she and Edward saw the poster they both said, ‘There’ll be nothing merry about it.’
‘Shame,’ said Ewan. ‘You’d have been a breath of fresh air.’ He had no idea how saying such things touched her heart. Emboldened she looked at the clock. It was nearly twelve – why not? Might help to loosen them both up a bit. She offered Ewan a glass of wine. Too late she realised that she could not have done anything more wrong. He jumped away from her as if scalded. ‘Too early for me,’ he said loudly. ‘Far too early.’ He backed away into the kitchen units and might just as well have been waving garlic and crucifixes at her. Of course – how could she have been so thoughtless? ‘Oh me too,’ she said, ‘Usually.’ But he did not look entirely convinced and she was quite sure that she looked the very picture of a guilty soak. What she wanted to say – which shocked her very much – was – ‘Forget the wine then. How about a trip to Paris instead?’
That evening, just before dusk, when she felt sure no one would see her she put on her still mucky wellingtons, took her torch just in case, and set off for the old stone wall. Picking up where she had left off – so cleverly marked with the big sarsen she ran her hands along each course of stones and then went back to the start and tried again, setting her sights lower all the time. It became obsessive. I will not go back indoors until I have found this stone, she told herself, and prayed that it was not an elaborate hoax on either Edward’s or Mr Farrell’s part. She badly wanted to find the stone. Since the day’s conversation with Ewan she was even keener. She could ask him back to see it.
And then, just as she was giving up, just as the earth took on that sudden stillness which says the day’s creatures are retired and the night’s creatures have yet to emerge – she found it. Right down low it was, almost at knee level, hidden by lichen and tussocky grass – but quite discernible even in the halflight. Just as it was described, with a raised decorative edging surrounding the date 1557, the initials A and C surmounted by a crown – and on either side a swan and a coronet which Flora knew from her notes was the Cleves crest. Feeling more pleased than she imagined she would, she set the big stone to mark the place and with her wellingtons making satisfying sucking noises, and the thrush and blackbird making their last chorus of calls of the evening, she returned home. Now that was something, that was. Good.
