Prudence

by Jilly Cooper

  There were sounds of commotion downstairs. Then we heard feet pounding up the stairs, and a child’s voice saying, ‘Daddy, where are you?’

  ‘Jes-us,’ said Jack, ‘It’s Lucasta, I completely forgot she was coming.’

  ‘Oh God, so did I,’ said Maggie in carefully simulated horror.

  No you didn’t, I thought to myself. One never forgets things one’s dreading — like the dentist.

  The door burst open, and framed in the doorway, wearing a blond fur coat and jeans, was the most ravishing child. For a moment she stood looking at us — making her entrance — the image of Rose forty years ago. Then she shouted ‘Daddy!’ and threw herself into Jack’s arms. There was no question of their delight at seeing each other.

  ‘I’m going to be king in the Christmas play, because I’m tall,’ she screamed. ‘Jason White’s going to be Gold, I’m Myrrh, and Damion’s going to be Frankenstein.’

  Only Maggie didn’t join in the laughter.

  ‘And I’ve got a wobbly tooth,’ she went on, opening her mouth and wiggling it for Jack’s benefit.

  ‘If you leave it under your pillow, the fairies might bring you 10p,’ said Jack.

  ‘The fairies left Jason White 50p last week. You can’t get anything decent with 10p,’ said Lucasta, wriggling down off Jack’s knee.

  ‘Hullo Lucasta,’ said Ace. ‘D’you remember me?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Lucasta, holding up her face to be kissed. ‘You used to tell me bedtime stories, without a book. Mummy said you might be here. Did you have a nice time in America? Did you meet Six Million Dollar Woman? D’you know what knocks down little old ladies and pinches their bread?’

  ‘No,’ said Ace.

  ‘Bionic Pigeon,’ said Lucasta. ‘Did you bring me a present?’

  ‘Lucasta,’ said Jack in mock horror. ‘You’re getting even more avaricious than your mother.’

  ‘She said I was to remind you about the school fees. Oh, look at that kitten. Isn’t it sweet?’

  McGonagall was licking off the whisky and making terrible faces.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say hullo to Maggie?’ said Jack.

  Suddenly all expression was wiped off Lucasta’s face. ‘Hullo,’ she said tonelessly, then turning to Jack, ‘Why’s she wearing a party dress? Are you going out?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Jack, ignoring Maggie’s furious signals. ‘Not on your first night. Maggie’s wearing a party dress to welcome you. You haven’t met Pru either.’

  ‘How do you do,’ said Lucasta, sizing me up watchfully. She plainly didn’t believe in giving herself too easily. ‘Where’s Granny?’

  ‘Out I think,’ said Jack.

  ‘Is she still going out with James Copeland?’ said Lucasta. ‘Or has she got a new boyfriend? Mummy says she’s a sexy maniac.’

  ‘Your mother’s biased,’ said Jack. ‘Come on, let’s go downstairs and find you a Coke, or would you like something stronger?’

  ‘I’d like a highball.’

  Jack roared with laughter. Maggie looked like a thundercloud.

  Feeling absolutely played out, I lay back on the pillows, and caught Ace watching me. I gave him a beseeching look of apology. For a second he glared at me, then he grinned, his harsh face suddenly illuminated.

  ‘Come on, everybody out,’ he said, ‘Pru’s had enough excitement for one evening.’

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ said Lucasta, going towards the door, and adding to Jack, ‘If you let me stay up and watch Bride of Dracula, I don’t mind if you go to that party.’

  Chapter Ten

  Next morning Ace went into Carlisle leaving strict instructions that I was to be left alone. The moment he left the house, one member of the family after another trooped in to see me.

  Maggie was first, bitching about Lucasta.

  ‘Isn’t she a monster? Wouldn’t you like to boil her in oil? And do you know what her bloody mother did? Sent me a list of all the clothes she’d put in Lucasta’s suitcase, with a letter asking me to tick them off when Lucasta goes home, “because on the pathetic maintenance Jack pays me, I simply can’t afford to buy her any more clothes at the moment”. The bitch. Alimony is the root of all evil, I suppose.’

  Her obsessive rattle against both Lucasta and Fay went on and on and on. You’re far more in hate with them than in love with Jack, I thought.

  ‘How’s Rose?’ I said, trying to distract her.

  ‘Well, she’s promised Ace she won’t have Professor Copeland in the house anymore. He doesn’t approve of her stealing Linn’s boyfriend. Probably having him in someone else’s house.’

  At that moment Rose appeared in the doorway, buckling under carrier bags.

  ‘What have you got there?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘Oh a few little things, tights and so on,’ replied Rose airily. ‘I’ve got to have something new with all the Christmas parties coming up. Actually I bought them yesterday, and hid them in the potting shed. Couldn’t wait for Ace to go out so I could smuggle them in. I must say I shall never forgive him for being so beastly to poor James, and so rude to me too. I mean, I am his mother.’

  ‘Step-mother,’ said Maggie bitterly. ‘It makes a difference. I shudder to think what life would be like if I was ever dependent on Lucasta.’

  ‘Life’s very hard,’ said Rose, patting her curls in my mirror. ‘I thought James and Ace would get on. I expected them to have so many good talks about books.’

  ‘Ace says Copeland’s knowledge comes more from the beginning of books than the end,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Ace’s always being cynical and sarcastic,’ said Rose. ‘I expect he’s jealous of James. Oh well, if he doesn’t want to communicate with one of the keenest minds on Western Civilization, good luck to him.’

  Good luck was plainly the last thing she wanted Ace to have.

  ‘Who said James had one of the keenest minds on Western Civilization?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘James did,’ said Rose simply.

  ‘Oh come on,’ said Maggie. ‘Let’s go along to your bedroom and see what you’ve bought.’

  ‘There’s a very exciting offer for garden furniture in the Mail,’ said Rose.

  ‘When is it warm enough here to sit outside?’ said Maggie, as they went towards the door.

  God, I felt tired. Without Ace, I was totally defenceless.

  ‘Hullo,’ came a voice. ‘How’s your Ammonia?’

  It was Lucasta.

  ‘Better,’ I said. ‘I might get up and have a bath soon.’

  On one arm she was wearing a fluffy puppet fox, with sleepy eyes disappearing into its fur and a long tail.

  ‘He’s lovely,’ I said.

  ‘Ace brought him back from America. He’s called Sylvia; he’s my best toy.’

  ‘He looks a bit like your father.’

  ‘Daddy’s gone to see the Burrow engineer about the new house. When he moves in, he wants me to come and live with him.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said. That would finish Maggie off altogether.

  ‘Can I have an apple?’ she said, making the fox select one from the fruit bowl, and eating on the side of her face to avoid her wobbly tooth.

  ‘I wish it would snow,’ she said, ‘Every night I pray for snow and it never comes.’

  ‘What else do you pray for?’

  Her blue eyes narrowed. Suddenly her little face looked very hard.

  ‘That Maggie might go away and Daddy might marry Mummy again.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘I hate her,’ said Lucasta, ‘and she hates me being here. Every time Daddy takes me out she gets cross.’

  After a few bites she got bored with the apple and, going to the cupboard, selected a pair of my black high heels and put them on.

  ‘I’m on Book Four,’ she said. ‘Shall I go and get it?’ She teetered off out of the room.

  A minute later she teetered back, sat on my bed, and read the whole book through in a high sing-song voice without
a single mistake.

  ‘That’s brilliant,’ I said in surprise. I seemed to remember Maggie saying she wasn’t very bright.

  Lucasta grinned and shut the book.

  ‘And I can read it without the book too,’ she said and proceeded to reel the whole thing off from memory.

  I was still laughing, when there was yet another knock on the door. This time it was Mrs Braddock.

  ‘And how are you, love? Feeling better, I hope. Now come along,’ she added to Lucasta, ‘you know Mr Ace said Miss Pru wasn’t to be bothered.’

  ‘I’m not bothering her,’ answered Lucasta. She turned to me. ‘Do you know, Mrs Braddock can do magic? She did some in the kitchen today…’

  Mrs Braddock looked smug and smoothed down her apron, waiting, no doubt, for Lucasta to describe some particularly delicious concoction she’d run up that morning.

  ‘Well what is it?’ I said.

  Lucasta gave a naughty giggle.

  ‘She can take all her teeth out and put them in again.’

  I loved the Mulhollands, I loved them all, but I couldn’t cope with them at the moment. I couldn’t cope with the feverish cross-currents. I felt like the centre court net at the end of Wimbledon fortnight. All I wanted was to go back to the peace of Ace and me being shut up together. ‘It’s because I haven’t been well,’ I kept telling myself.

  Mrs Braddock and Lucasta were shortly followed by Jack, back from the Borough engineer. When he’d finished grumbling about the builders and his hangover, he said, ‘Since I’m obviously not allowed to seduce you, or bring you a drink, shall we have a game of chess?’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘That would be fun.’

  As we were setting up the board, Maggie wandered in and watched us sourly.

  ‘You never play with me,’ she said accusingly to Jack.

  ‘I do,’ protested Jack. ‘I played with you the other day.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Maggie bitterly, ‘but that was chess.’

  On Sunday matters came to a head between the two of them. They had been to a drinks party at midday and carried on drinking through lunch, getting more and more stroppy. I wandered downstairs in the afternoon — it was my first time up. I felt dreadful, so exhausted in fact that I had to hang on to bits of furniture. I found Maggie in the drawing-room with the Sunday papers and a bottle. She had that sulky petulant look of a cat huddling on a window ledge to keep out of the rain.

  Outside in the garden Wordsworth was chewing on one of the Sunday joint bones, and Coleridge, who’d already buried his, was walking round and round under the weeping ash tree wiping his face on the twigs. Jack, Ace and Lucasta were making a bonfire. Jack was pulling up undergrowth with the exuberance of too much alcohol, and fooling around with Lucasta. Ace was laughing and breaking up sticks. He was wearing a thick black sweater. I thought what a handsome trio they made, then collapsed on to the sofa wondering if it were possible to feel so weak.

  ‘Have you got Ace’s piece on Venezuela?’ I said.

  ‘Here,’ said Maggie, throwing the Review Section across to me. ‘It’s the only decent thing in the paper this week.’

  They had given him a huge byline, and a picture, taken before he’d grown a moustache. He looked younger and much less sombre. He wrote very well. The prose was spare and economic, but his powers of observation were amazing. It was as though he had a hundred eyes like Argus. You could feel the heat and dust and despair of the rebels. You felt as though you were there.

  ‘It’s terribly good,’ I said in surprise.

  ‘I know. And he’s just as good on the box. That’s why he’s being head-hunted so much at the moment. God, I hate the country,’ she went on, refilling her glass. ‘Nothing to do for days on end, no one to drive me to the sea when I want to go to the sea. Nothing round me except sulky faces, and mine is the sulkiest of all. What shall we do now?’

  In the end we settled down together to do a huge jigsaw puzzle of the New Avengers. It was all either of us were fit for. It was nearly dusk when Jack came in.

  ‘Hullo, lovely,’ he said to me. ‘How are you feeling?’

  He was about to ruffle my hair; his hands smelt of wood smoke.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘Ace won’t let me wash it. It’s coming off my head. I’m sure I’ve got scurf.’

  ‘I never get scurf,’ said Maggie smugly.

  ‘You’re too thick-skinned,’ remarked Jack, bending over the puzzle. ‘Bags I put in Joanna Lumley’s crutch. I’ll get it,’ he said as the telephone went.

  ‘Darling, how are you,’ we could hear him saying from the hall. ‘So sorry I missed you the other day. Why didn’t you pop in?’

  ‘I think this is a bit of Steed’s bowler hat,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Who is it?’ I whispered.

  ‘Well, we know her name’s “Darling”,’ said Maggie.

  ‘No, she’s being marvellous,’ Jack went on. ‘Kept us all in fits. She’s out with Ace at the moment, flying the kite. He bought her the most fantastic fox puppet back from the States. Yes, he thinks she’s terrific.’

  Maggie stiffened, and her hand moved slower and slower over the puzzle, ears on elastic. It must be Fay on the other end.

  For at least a quarter of an hour Jack had a very leisurely gossip about the family, Copeland, the Admiral, and Pendle having been up for the weekend. I didn’t dare look at Maggie. Jack must be still tight, or he’d never have made such a meal of it.

  I glanced round. He was lounging on the hall chair, his feet up on a table, smiling into the telephone, utterly relaxed.

  ‘When do you want Lucasta back?’ he asked eventually.

  There was a long pause. Maggie unseeingly shoved a bit of Steed’s umbrella into the sky.

  ‘But that’s marvellous,’ Jack went on enthusiastically. ‘That’s a real break. I’m so pleased for you, darling. Until Thursday? Of course we can. No problem. No don’t worry about that; we’ll have her birthday party here. We’ve had enough practice for Christ’s sake. You can’t possibly organize it if you’re working. Maggie’s got nothing to do.’ Maggie clenched a pile of sky up in her fist. ‘And Ace is here, and Pendle’s girlfriend Pru. She’s been ill, but Lucasta adores her and she’ll be on her feet by then, so there’s only my dear Mother to rot things up… You’ve booked a conjuror? Well tell him to come here instead, we’ll pay the petrol… Of course we will, it’ll be fun, don’t worry about a thing. If you get away early on Thursday, come to the party. I know Ace’d love to see you… OK then and good luck, darling.’

  Maggie got up and poured herself a drink. Her hand was shaking so much she spilt most of it. Her green eyes blazed. She looked like the Queen in Snow White, and as quite as capable of cutting out Lucasta’s heart.

  Jack wandered into the room, looking pleased with himself.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said.

  It was extremely unwell. I wanted to hide under the sofa.

  ‘I suppose you want a drink,’ said Maggie softly.

  ‘You read me like a book,’ said Jack. ‘Rather a bad one admittedly.’

  He was still tight.

  ‘That was Fay,’ he went on. ‘She’s got a small film part at the beginning of next week.’

  ‘Playing the back of the pantomime horse, I suppose,’ said Maggie.

  ‘So I said we’d keep Lucasta here.’

  ‘For how long?’ These words were dropped like pebbles into a deep, deep pool.

  ‘Until Thursday night. It doesn’t matter if she misses school.’

  ‘And who’s going to look after her?’ said Maggie.

  Jack filled his glass. ‘Why you are, darling. It’ll do both you and Lucasta good to have some time together with me out of the way.’

  ‘I’ve got things to do. Tomorrow, Tuesday and Thursday.’

  ‘Well you’ll have to cancel them and think of someone else for a change,’ said Jack sharply, picking up the sports page. ‘Oh sod it, United lost again.’

  ‘I should have expected it of Fa
y,’ said Maggie belligerently. ‘Trust her not to give anyone any warning.’

  ‘She’s only just heard about the part,’ protested Jack.

  ‘Oh, very likely on a Sunday afternoon! She’s just bloody inconsiderate.’

  Jack went on reading the paper. ‘What have you got against her? She’s never done you any harm.’

  ‘Oh yes she has,’ hissed Maggie. ‘She divorced you. If she hadn’t, I’d never be saddled with you now.’

  Still Jack didn’t look up.

  ‘There’s an extraordinary story here,’ he said to me, ‘about a woman who’s trying to get a crossing for toads on the Preston Motorway.’

  ‘Don’t bug me,’ screamed Maggie. ‘It’s a pity you’re not married to her if you think she’s so wonderful.’

  ‘I wish I was,’ said Jack quietly.

  ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Don’t say that, please don’t. You’re both pissed. You’ll regret it later.’

  ‘You keep out of it,’ yelled Maggie. ‘You haven’t been behaving like a vestal virgin since you came up here.’

  Then the explosion came. Jack threw down the paper and got to his feet. ‘You spoilt little bitch,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve never done a bloody stroke in your life. You’re lousy at housework, you can’t hold down a job, you can’t organize the builders, or even remember to pick up a suit from the cleaners. The only thing you show any talent for at all is writing cheques, and bitching about my first wife. But you’re so bloody jealous of her you can’t even be civil to my child.’

  ‘Your child is a monster,’ howled Maggie.

  ‘Leave her out of it.’

  ‘How can I? You asked her to stay on.’

  ‘It never enters your thick head, I suppose, that if Fay gets work I won’t have to work so bloody hard to keep her in alimony. But you wouldn’t think of that, would you? You’re so wrapped up in yourself, you never give a fuck what I do.’

  ‘And I suppose old Fairy Fay did.’

  ‘Yes, she did. She loved me.’

  Maggie was very white around the mouth.

  ‘Why did you leave her then?’ she screamed.

  ‘Christ knows,’ said Jack.

  ‘I’ll tell you why. Because you were bored to death with her and she was no good in bed.’