by M. J. Trow
‘She has it ...’ he fluffed the air above his head. ‘It was purple when I saw it, but Mrs Troubridge says she has it all colours.’ He thought for a moment. ‘But not all at once, I don’t expect.’
Maxwell glanced at the clock. An hour to go. He was dressed after a fashion but thought perhaps Mrs Getty’s big day deserved something more than an old shirt with paint spots all up one side and a pair of trousers which had seen better days. He pushed himself away from the table. ‘I’m just going up to change,’ he announced. ‘Don’t choke over those. There are two prizes.’
‘You always say that, Dads,’ Nolan commented. ‘What does it mean?’
Maxwell stopped. ‘Do you know, I have no idea. Your grandma used to say that to me and Auntie Sandy.’
‘Is it like “will you have it now or wait till you get it”?’ Nolan knew all the wise saws off by heart.
‘I suppose it is,’ Maxwell chuckled. ‘Perhaps we could use that one on Mrs Getty.’
‘Do we have to sing Happy Birthday?’ Nolan asked.
‘Let’s wait and see if she asks,’ Maxwell said.
‘But if she does?’
‘We’ll say we would, but we’ve got a bone in our leg.’ He tousled his son’s hair. ‘Won’t be a mo.’ He looked him up and down. ‘Are you ready? I mean, is that what you’re wearing?’ Happy days, when a tee shirt and shorts were appropriate for every occasion.
Nolan looked down and nodded. ‘In principle,’ he said.
Mrs Troubridge was waiting at the door when Maxwell went down to fetch her for the taxi. In all the years he had known her, she had never been late for anything. Punctuality is the politeness of princes was one of her favourite sayings and for once it was one with which Maxwell could agree. Having said that, as an historian he could rattle off a dozen or so princes who were neither punctual not polite – and that was before he got started on William of Orange. Others, such as people with tattoos should all be locked up and that that nice Mr Farage has a lot of things right were not on his list, but he and his neighbour went back long enough to understand each other, even when they couldn’t stand each other’s views. And as far as she was concerned, anyone who had had a hand in producing Nolan could hardly be all bad.
‘Mr Maxwell,’ she twittered. ‘This is so good of you. Mrs Getty is so excited. It’s so nice for us to be able to celebrate her birthday. Haledown House has such happy memories for me. I used to go to the grounds as a girl, you know. Not the house, not then, of course; the house was private then.’
‘I haven’t been,’ Maxwell admitted.
She was appalled. ‘And you a historian!’ she said. ‘I would have thought it would be right up your street. The family has an excellent record, going back years, you know. Generals. All kinds of military things.’ Her information, if such it could be called, exhausted, Mrs Troubridge fell back on her favourite pastime of tidying Nolan’s hair back off his forehead with loving hands and brushing phantom specks from his tee shirt. She looked at the bag slung over Maxwell’s shoulder. ‘Is there a coat in there?’ she asked, anxiously. ‘For Nolan. If it gets cold.’
Maxwell looked at the sky. It was so blue it looked almost purple, the sun beating down even this early in the day enough to make the tarmac on the road sticky and the pavements almost too hot to bear. He wished briefly that he had the ubiquitous egg to fry on the doorstep. But, why meet trouble halfway?
‘Yes,’ he lied.
She looked again with an x-ray eye. ‘Really? It must be very small.’
‘It’s a pacamac.’ Maxwell knew that appealing to her retro-spirit would work wonders.
‘My word!’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘I didn’t know they still made them. But ...’ she frowned, ‘is there any warmth in them?’
‘If it comes to it, Mrs Troubridge,’ Maxwell said, desperate, ‘I’ll buy him a nice National Trust sweatshirt.’
‘Where from?’
This conversation had only been going for a matter of moments and had already escaped. ‘From Haledown House, I thought.’
‘Oh, but Mr Maxwell, Haledown isn’t National Trust. Dear me, no. It’s still in private hands. The family, you know.’ She beckoned him closer and dropped her already mouse-level voice to an even quieter zone. ‘They fell on hard times.’
‘Ah.’ Downton meets the Grapes of Wrath.
She straightened up again. ‘But they seem to do well. School parties, you know. Coffee shop. Petting zoo. Factory outlets in the stables.’ She beamed at him and his heart melted. She didn’t want much, just a bit of attention. At the end of the day he would look back at this moment as the last time his teeth were not gritted. ‘We’ll have such a lovely day. Ooh!’ Her screech went down his spine like a nail down a blackboard, of blessed memory. ‘The taxi! Come along Nolan, here it is.’
The two little people scrambled into the back and Maxwell slid in beside the driver. He was, of course, an Old Leighford Highena.
‘Hello, Mr M.,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘Taking out your old mum and the grandkid? They’re great, ain’t they, the grandkids? I got six. I tell a lie. Seven.’ He laughed and nudged Maxwell in the ribs. ‘Hard to keep up, ain’t it? Anyway, where to? Bus station, is it? Your daughter popped in and booked it yesterday. Nice bit of skirt, ’scuse my saying. Don’t look a lot like you, does she?’ He let the clutch out and the taxi leapt forward. ‘Still,’ another nudge in the ribs, ‘gotta always consider the milkman, aintcha?’
Maxwell leaned back and closed his eyes. He wasn’t a praying man, but he offered one up now. ‘Please, God, make it stop!’
Mrs Getty was waiting for them at the bus station. Her hair was purple, or, as her hairdresser would say, warm mauve. She was as gigantic as Mrs Troubridge was tiny, a mountain of a woman who looked as though she could go ten rounds with any WWF champion you cared to name and not break a sweat. She had on a sundress of almost unbelievable brevity and what Maxwell had been led to believe were called jeggings on underneath, distressingly lumpy with varicose veins. But she greeted Mrs Troubridge with undisguised affection and lifted Nolan up for a kiss without thinking twice. When she turned to Maxwell, he thought for a hideous moment he was to get the same treatment, but in fact she simply buffeted him on the shoulder, sending him reeling. He kept waiting for the Headmare Chancery.
Her voice was a revelation, a warm contralto which put him in mind of Fenella Fielding at her most alluring. ‘Mr Maxwell,’ she purred. ‘This is so good of you. Jessica speaks so fondly of you. I know you teachers work so hard, you deserve the holidays and here am I taking up your time.’ She smiled and Maxwell found himself smiling back. ‘And little Nolan, too. How lovely.’
They all fell into step, heading towards the bus stop for Haledown House. Maxwell’s step was light. This was going to be a reasonable day after all. Mrs Troubridge was wreathed in smiles and if it was unusual for Nolan to be holding his hand quite so tightly, it was understandable enough. The summer holiday crowds could be quite disorienting for a chi ...
‘Oy! You! Yes, you!’
An eldritch screech from just inches away froze Maxwell’s blood. He gripped Nolan even harder and shielded him, his Tiger aspect kicking in in a heartbeat. What the hell was that?
‘Are you blind, you four-eyed git?’
Maxwell’s swivelling eyes focussed and saw the whole might of Mrs Getty bent forward, leaning over an elderly man spread-eagled on his back on the pavement.
‘Walking along like you owned the place. You could have knocked into my friend. She’s not strong, you know. You should look where you’re going.’
Foam was gathering in the corners of Mrs Getty’s mouth and she was brandishing a fist the size of a small ham in the man’s face. He lay there, prone, hardly daring to breathe. Mrs Troubridge put up a tentative hand and patted her friend’s arm.
‘I’m quite uninjured, Geraldine,’ she muttered. ‘Do let the gentleman get up, there’s a dear.’
Mrs Getty spun round and almost knocked Mrs Troubridge over. ‘You�
��re too nice, Jessie,’ she yelled at the tiny woman. ‘Too nice for your own good.’
Taking the opportunity of having Mrs Getty’s attention elsewhere, Maxwell hauled the prostrate man to his feet and hurried him on his way. He was limping a little but otherwise seemed uninjured; a bit of a miracle, as he told everyone who would listen for weeks to come. Maxwell felt he should help Mrs Troubridge calm the irate woman down but before he could even step forward, Mrs Getty was tugging at the hem of her sundress and patting her hair back into place.
‘Sorry about that, Mr Maxwell,’ she purred at him, dabbing at the drool on her chin. ‘I get a bit cross when people behave like that.’ She turned and looked behind her at the man who was scurrying away in the direction of the taxi rank. ‘Pig!’ she screamed. ‘Animal!’ She turned to Nolan, transfixed at his father’s side and bent down. ‘Sorry you had to see that, Nolan,’ she murmured. ‘The man’s an animal.’ She straightened up and yelled again. ‘A fucking animal!’
Mrs Troubridge blenched. ‘Geraldine, dear,’ she said, her knuckles to her mouth. ‘Please! Not in front of children, I beg.’
Mrs Getty deflated in seconds. ‘Sorry, Jessie,’ she said, contrite. ‘Forgot about the little man for a minute there.’ She fanned herself with a hand which could have been used as a tea tray. ‘I just have to sit down for a minute. Take a tablet. Oh, phew,’ she put a hand to her palpitating chest. ‘Got a bit worked up there.’
Maxwell steered her to a table outside the little bus station café. ‘Would you prefer to go home, Mrs Getty?’ he asked, hopefully. ‘Have a lie down?’
She looked up at him, her eyes murderous under beetling brows. ‘It’s my fucking birthday,’ she muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Are you going to ruin my birthday?’
Mrs Troubridge twittered.
Mrs Getty pinned on a smile and sat up straight. She looked at Maxwell, straight in the eye. ‘Arsehole,’ she remarked. ‘Oh, I could murder a cup of tea.’ She smiled around the table. ‘Is it too early for cake?’
Jacquie had been right – as she usually was – and the buses from stand 13B were regular and mostly empty. Mrs Getty seemed a lot better after several cups of tea and a cake or three and Mrs Troubridge was anxious to explain to Maxwell, while her friend was powdering her nose, a concept which had engaged Nolan’s attention and would take a lot of explaining later, that Mrs Getty did suffer from low blood sugar sometimes. Feed her regularly – though not after midnight, of course – and all should be well. Maxwell nodded and smiled in the right places and took the opportunity to nip off to the shop and stock up on fruit pastilles. Easy to administer in a crisis and loaded with sugar, they might save someone’s life; except the black ones – he was having those.
Mrs Getty was back at the table, suitably powdered, or so Maxwell hoped. She had taken several small pills with her tea and seemed calmer, so they gathered themselves together and made for the bus stop. Mrs Troubridge was carrying two handbags, as she normally did. She had never adequately explained why she needed two; the gist seemed to be that she needed a spare, should the real one go missing but even Nolan could see that carrying two made losing both much more likely. It was useless to try to intervene and with Mrs Getty on guard, it would be the next best thing to suicidal.
On the bus, things got a little fraught. Mrs Getty, as the birthday girl and Mrs Troubridge’s special friend, wanted to sit by her, a physical impossibility without killing the poor old soul. Nolan, who had learned his diplomacy skills at the knee of a master, pouted his lip and summoned a tear when told he couldn’t sit with his favourite old lady and, grudgingly, Mrs Getty gave up her plan and sat at the front, facing forward and exuding hurt pride.
‘Don’t worry about Geraldine, Mr Maxwell,’ Mrs Troubridge twittered. ‘She has a heart of gold, you know. She has been so excited about today.’ She furrowed her brow. ‘Excitement isn’t good for her, really, but I didn’t want to spoil her birthday.’ She brightened up. ‘I’ll make sure she behaves.’
Maxwell rather hoped he could see that in action. Against all probability, he had enjoyed Pacific Rim and now, all unbidden, came a picture of the unstoppable Jaegers, pitted against the even more unstoppable Kaiju. He could just about picture a tiny Mrs Troubridge controlling the vast machine but one thing he knew for sure; he would have that music in his head all day now.
Mrs Getty turned round to poke Mrs Troubridge in the ribs and Maxwell’s hand went out automatically. He would have to stop this – the woman might be a maniac, but she was not an unkind maniac. And sure enough, Mrs Troubridge didn’t even flinch.
‘Jessica,’ she said, ‘Look. We’re here.’
The bus didn’t go all the way up the drive into the grounds; the driver pulled up and about three quarters of his passengers got off, ready for a day of culture and petting zooing, depending on their taste. Maxwell gathered up his little group and led them up the drive, trying not to walk in the relentless four four time of the Jaegers.
The house certainly was beautiful, crouching like a lion in the sun, its golden stone glowing in the midsummer light. It was not easy to pin down, architecturally. Maxwell was not interested in building styles for their own sake, but for what they said about the people who had lived inside. And this house had a lot to say; it had clearly been added to generation by generation. By looking hard, the Tudor shell could still be seen, all E-shaped and nouveau riche. That in turn had been dwarfed and overwhelmed by the fastidious symmetry of Queen Anne (who, as everyone knew, was dead), overlaid by the crazy Gothic of Queen Victoria looking tentatively forward to a Netflix series that needed location, location, location. Wide steps up to the enormous front door were split in two by a red rope threaded on posts and a sign at the bottom encouraged everyone to queue safely and not to push. In the dim depths of the hall, just visible from the bottom step, a small glass booth held the custodian. Maxwell noticed gloomily that there was no price list at the bottom of the flight – presumably, had there been, everyone would have been too faint with shock to make the climb. It made the National Trust look like Liberty Hall.
Mrs Troubridge and Mrs Getty began the slog to the top. Nolan was being very quiet, Maxwell noticed, holding either his hand or Mrs Troubridge’s at all times. As a rule, a flight of steps, particularly with additional slalom opportunities such as a slung rope, would have had him off like a jackrabbit, but he clung close; he was either sickening for something, or was feeling a little Gettied.
‘Are you feeling all right, matey?’ Maxwell bent down to his son and surreptitiously felt his forehead. It was hot but that was understandable; they had been promised thirty degrees by the bouncy blonde on TV that morning. But then, everybody knew that the Met Office was about as accurate as dangling seaweed. A hat could only do so much.
Nolan nodded and squeezed his father’s hand. He tugged him lower, so he could whisper in his ear. ‘I’m a bit frightened of Mrs Getty,’ he confided.
‘Nole,’ Maxwell said, kissing him quickly so no one should see the Parental Display of Affection, a rule that kicked in with all small boys at around six years old. ‘Nole, me old mate, that makes two of us. But we’ll be all right. She’s taken her tablets.’
‘Mmm.’ Nolan was unconvinced. ‘I’ll go and help Mrs Troubridge with the steps,’ he said, and scurried round to take the old lady by the hand. ‘Come on, Mrs Troubridge,’ Maxwell heard his son say, ‘I’ll race you to the top.’
‘Nolan Maxwell, you are a scamp,’ the old lady smiled. ‘You know I would beat you, so I don’t think we should even try.’
Nolan pulled a rueful face and leaned on her, but lightly. ‘You’re right, Mrs Troubridge,’ he said, solemnly. ‘Let’s just queue here safely and not push.’
Maxwell joined his little group and noticed that Mrs Getty was surreptitiously fumbling in her bag. ‘No, no, Mrs Getty,’ he said, leaning in and touching her arm. ‘This is my treat. It is your birthday, after all.’
‘Too right,’ she snapped. ‘I was just reaching for my hankie
.’ She found it and trumpeted into the cloth. ‘I suffer something chronic with my eustachians in these old places. Dust. That’s what does it.’ Somehow, all of this was so much worse, delivered in the maple-smooth tones of a 1950s drawing-room comedy heroine.
‘Would you rather just skip the house, dear?’ Mrs Troubridge suggested. ‘We could go straight through to the tea room and the petting zoo.’
‘No, no, Jessica, dear,’ the woman replied. ‘I have been looking forward to looking around. I just need to clear my nose first.’ She trumpeted again and then ferreted around in her bag some more. Finally, she emerged from its depths with the biggest vat of Vicks that Maxwell had ever seen. She slathered it under her nose and a fair way into each nostril. ‘It stops the pollens and dust going up,’ she explained, somewhat defensively, and Maxwell realised he had been staring in horror.
‘Geraldine is very keen on alternative therapies,’ Mrs Troubridge remarked. ‘She doesn’t like taking too many drugs, do you, Geraldine?’
‘No, indeed,’ Mrs Getty agreed. ‘Well ... I have to be careful with my medication from the doctor.’ As she breathed out, a wave of Vicks engulfed Maxwell and made his eyes water. But there was an upside – even if she wasn’t yelling at someone, they would be able to find her, from the smell alone.
They were at the top of the steps at last. The queue hadn’t been long, but moved at a snail’s pace. The house didn’t seem ready for any kind of summer rush and had made no contingency plans for parties, what to do with buggies, the halt and the lame and those who were finding it difficult to actually negotiate entry. The latter were in the vast majority and when it was Maxwell’s turn at the kiosk, he could see why.
‘Two pensioners, one child and a human being, please,’ he said with a smile to the woman seated on a low stool on the other side of what appeared to be, for some unknown reason, bullet proof plexiglass with four small holes drilled in it.
‘Pardon?’ She lifted her lip in a disbelieving sneer and tilted her ear to the holes.
‘Two pensioners, a child and one hum ... one ordinary, please.’ Perhaps this wasn’t the time for humour, no matter how mild.
