‘I must admit it’s not how I imagined politicians to be.’ Harriet found some cups in the cupboard. ‘I mean, they aren’t usually very attractive people morally – or even physically. I saw Burgo on television yesterday. He looked pretty cracking.’
I had seen the piece of newsreel myself, of Burgo coming out of 10 Downing Street, looking stern, acknowledging the cameras with a nod and the coldest of smiles, walking quickly away. I had turned the set off after a few seconds because the pain of longing had been so intense.
I offered the coffee fondants to Harriet. ‘Do have one. Or several. They’re horribly sickly but I can’t seem to manage proper food. It all tastes like ashes. Burgo’s having to choose between two things he terribly wants and he thinks he’ll choose me because I’m just about more important to him.’
‘There you are then. You couldn’t reasonably expect him not to care at all.’
‘No, not that. But don’t you see, if he left that world of power and influence and excitement, and we bought a semi in suburbia – neither of us has a bean, his wife has all the money – and he got a job in the Civil Service or presenting programmes on television, do you think I’d go on mattering that infinitesimal but crucial fraction more? We’d be bound to quarrel sometimes and perhaps the love-making would come to seem less exciting and I’d have to ask myself whether I was still more important than the job he’d always wanted, which was his for a few weeks and which he gave up for my sake. If I made a stupid remark or failed to sympathize properly, if I got tired and snappy, jealous, perhaps – after all, he’s had one clandestine affair so what’s to stop him having another? – every sigh, every depressed look, every word that suggested he was becoming disillusioned would throw me into a blind panic. I lack the confidence to be sure I can be all in all to someone else.’
‘You have to admire Wallis Simpson.’
‘Ah, but he never wanted to be king. That’s the difference.’
Harriet sipped her tea thoughtfully. ‘I probably ought to urge you not to be a coward and to take on the challenge. But I’m so short of confidence myself I’m sure I’d feel just the same. People can’t be everything to each other and they ought not to expect it. Actually, to be truthful, there isn’t anything that matters to me even a thousandth part as much as Rupert, but then I’m not ambitious. And I’ve been crazy about him since I was old enough to spit.’
‘You mean, you’re childhood sweethearts? How romantic.’
‘Not exactly. He says I was fat, grubby and toothless. But I’ve worshipped him all my life. Anyway, to revert to the jobs thing, although I enjoy my job it isn’t what I really want to do for ever.’ She grew pink. ‘My secret desire is to be a poet. But if I had to choose between losing Rupert and never writing another poem, there’d be no contest. I suppose that means I’m not sufficiently serious about poetry. It’s disillusioning.’ Her eye fell on the fondants. I pushed the bag across. ‘Rather more-ish, aren’t they?’
‘When are you getting married?’
Harriet blushed again. ‘After he’s finished directing Lucia di Lammermoor. But that’s enough about me. It’s you that matters now.’
‘It’s kind of you to come.’ I was struck by a sudden thought. ‘But why did you? Not that I’m not delighted to see a friendly face. But it’s a long way to travel to console someone you’ve met only once before.’
Harriet turned a darker shade. ‘Ah well, the truth is that I’m one of those inebriate vultures at your gate. I’m a reporter on the Brixton Mercury. I used to be the dogsbody but I’ve risen to deputy sub-editor – only because Rupert pulled strings. Oh, don’t look like that.’ I must have inadvertently assumed a look of distaste. ‘Of course I’m not going to write a story about you. Or nothing that you don’t dictate to me word for word. But my boss Mr Podmore asked me if I knew you. He thinks I’m an ex-deb, which is quite untrue and that I know everyone with a double-barrelled surname. When I said that actually I did, he sent me out to get an exclusive interview. And I thought you might like a chance to put your own view to the world, via the BM. Of course our circulation’s tiny but sometimes the national newspapers take things from the local ones. But if not, then I’ll just say you were out. I promise you can trust me. I thought I might be able to help. I hope you’re not cross?’
She looked so anxious that I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Of course I’m not cross. And I do trust you. You’ve already helped tremendously just by listening. But I don’t know what I can tell the world that won’t injure Burgo.’
‘I could write a little piece about what a nice, sensitive, decent person you are. It seems to me that Lady Anna’s getting all the favourable coverage at the moment.’
I had seen a wedding photograph of Burgo and Anna in one of the newspapers. She had looked quite different from my idea of her. When I had thought about her, which I did as little as I could possibly help, I had imagined someone tall, tanned and made-up; hard, perhaps even brassy. As a bride she had looked small, pale, elegant, her dress longsleeved and high-necked, her only ornament a wreath of flowers that held the veil in place over her dark hair, which was swept back from her face. She was smiling into the camera and she looked so happy that I had immediately felt an acute sense of shame. I had reminded myself that the photograph was ten years old and that Anna and Burgo hadn’t been lovers for some time. Or so he had said. For the first time I had wondered whether Burgo had intentionally misled me.
‘Well, she is the innocent party. But if you make me out to be a vulnerable ingénue who spends her free time knitting blankets for earthquake victims and leading the hymn-singing at Sunday school it reflects badly on him, doesn’t it? It’s in his interest to have everyone believing I’m a wicked jade who cozens other women’s gullible husbands into behaving badly.’
Harriet looked at me with solemn eyes. ‘And you’re prepared to let people think that of you? You really have got it bad.’
‘I have. Also my pride revolts at the idea of attempting to justify myself. Why should I care what they say if it isn’t true? I do care, of course. It stings like anything. But I’m going to fight against minding because it’s pathetic to be upset by the disapproval of strangers who don’t know anything about me.’
‘OK, so you don’t want me to do an article from your point of view. But if you don’t mean to let Burgo give up his career for you, what are you going to do?’
‘I’d like to get away, right away. Not only from the press. Every night at ten o’clock I plug in the telephone and Burgo rings me from a call-box and we have these dreadful conversations. At first hearing his voice is a huge relief. Then the misery starts. It’s like seeing his shirt-tails and the soles of his shoes forever whisking round a corner. Never his face. Ever since we became lovers I’ve had this feeling that I was hanging on to tiny scraps of him. But I had a foolish hope that one day the crusts would become a feast. Now it’s much worse, of course. We have to be extremely circumspect. Apparently newspapers tap telephone lines routinely. I suppose you knew that.’
‘Not tuppenny-ha’penny papers like the Brixton Mercury. Only dailies with large circulations and big bank accounts.’
‘He says how sorry he is. I say how sorry I am. He asks if I’m OK. I ask him how he is. We try to reassure each other that everything will be all right. He says how much he loves me, how important I am to him. He says he can’t be happy without me. I tell him that he matters more to me than anyone has ever done. And that I never want to hurt him. He tells me to stay calm and be patient, that it will blow over and we’ll be able to be together. I say I want to do what will be best for him. He gets agitated at that. I’m too weak to tell him that it’s over, to refuse to have anything more to do with him. I know that would be the best thing. But I can’t do it. I need to be able to detach myself a bit so I can be strong. I thought of going to stay with a girlfriend who lives in Rome. But I’m really too miserable to make a good guest. And there’s a limit to how long you can park yourself on someone when you haven’t any mon
ey. I need to work. Somewhere like Benghazi or Ecuador where they won’t have heard of me.’
‘I wonder …’ Harriet said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it’s crazy, but I may know just the place. It’s not as far away as South America, but does that matter? I was reading The Times on the train coming down, hoping to pick up tips on journalistic style, and I happened to see an ad in the personal columns that rather took my fancy: a request for a housekeeper. It had such a strange list of requirements – something about poetry and sausages – it sounded romantic and interesting. What a pity I left the paper on the train.’
‘I’ve got a copy of The Times here.’ I drew it out from behind the bread-bin. ‘I was going to cut out the bits about Burgo and me before my father saw them. He gets furious about the holes in the pages but at least I don’t have to face him knowing he’s read all that stuff about me being an insatiable scrofulous whore.’
Harriet scanned the personal columns. ‘Here we are. Listen to this. Housekeeper wanted, County Galway, Ireland. No previous experience necessary. Applicants must be clean, beardless, love poetry and animals, be able to cook sausages and possess a philosophical temperament. Isn’t it a peculiar list?’
‘It seems rather haughty these days to question other people’s washing habits,’ I said. ‘Still, it’s no good standing on one’s dignity when one’s in a hole. And what about the beard? I believe there are women who have phobias about men with beards. Would many men apply for a job as housekeeper, do you think?’
‘I wondered if it might be a pig farm. The sausages, I mean. I like sausages but I wouldn’t want to eat them all the time. But the poetry sounded promising, I thought.’
I found myself indulging in a brief fantasy. I imagined a neat little house with an elderly couple or more likely a widow. An invalid, possibly, who wanted someone to read poetry to her. Rather particular and old-fashioned, viz. the prejudice against bearded men, but liking plain food. She had a poodle, perhaps, or a Pekinese which had to be taken for walks.
‘I’ve never been to Ireland,’ I said. ‘But it might just be the answer to a prayer.’
‘Now I see,’ said Kit. ‘Harriet sounds like a trouper.’
‘I rang the number straight away. A woman answered.’
‘What did she sound like?’
‘Faint voice, slight Irish accent, younger than I expected. She asked me a few questions: could I drive? Did I mind living in an isolated place? Could I milk a cow?’
‘Can you? Milk a cow, I mean?’
‘No, but it can’t be that difficult.’
‘Mm. I wonder.’
‘Anyway, she said I was the first person to answer the advertisement though she had put it into all the papers she could think of. Their last housekeeper had left suddenly, after a terrible row. They were absolutely desperate. Could I come at once?’
‘Commendable honesty,’ said Kit.
‘I was encouraged to find that my future employer puts truth above self-interest. Also that she was not a fractious invalid. But discouraged that no one else had even considered the job. Anyway, we agreed I’d be there as soon as public transport allowed. Harriet and I pored over train tables, then she went out to the call-box to book the cheapest available berth on the Swansea to Cork ferry.’
‘Why not cross from Holyhead to Dún Laoghaire? Wouldn’t it have been quicker?’
‘We’d made the call to Galway from the house so in case anyone was tapping the line we thought it might be safer to take a slightly more circuitous route.’
‘Luckily for me.’
‘I’m the one who ought to be grateful. And I am.’
‘Well, that’s better than nothing, I suppose. Go on.’
‘There’s nothing much left to tell. I got Brough to drive me to Blackheath station the next morning. I was lying on the back seat, covered by a rug. The reporters banged on the windows when we got to the gates to get Brough to stop but he just put his foot down. I heard something like a scream as we accelerated away. I suppose if he’d caused serious injury it would’ve been in the papers.’
‘How did your parents take your abrupt departure?’
‘After the first burst of temper, my father seemed surprisingly amenable to my going. I gave him the telephone numbers of a couple of nursing agencies I’d been in touch with before the scandal broke, in the forlorn hope that I’d be able to get back to London. I expected him to kick up about the expense but he suddenly became astonishingly reasonable. He just said I’d better go and pack and he’d see to the business of finding a nurse. The sooner I went, he said, the sooner the lower classes would stop boozing and fornicating at his gates and littering the grounds with beer cans and crisp packets.’
‘Fornicating? The press? Really?’
‘No, of course not. He accuses everyone of alcoholism and lechery. When, in fact, he’s the one the cap fits.’
‘And your mother? What did she say?’
‘She wanted to know who was going to fetch her library books. I assured her that I had made it clear to the agencies that the provision of reading matter was an essential part of the job, on a par with trays and baths. I had to order fresh supplies of nougat and toffee eclairs before I went. I hope Oliver will remember to collect them.’
‘I suppose their indifference was wounding but it made it easier for you to go.’
‘I didn’t mind. I was relieved there wasn’t a fuss. The only person who’s going to miss me is Oliver. When I told him I was going away he said Cutham would be insupportable and – you mustn’t think badly of him, it’s just that he’s exceptionally soft-hearted and affectionate – he wept.’
‘I don’t think the worse of a man for crying. I occasionally do myself.’
‘Do you?’ I smiled. This admission did much more to endear Kit to me than all his compliments. ‘Anyway, I pointed out that he’d already spent seven years at Cutham without me when I was living in London but he said it was different now he was used to me being about the place. Naturally I was pleased to discover that he’s so attached to me but it was an added complication. I do worry about him. He’s so easily depressed. I can tell him to get his manuscript ready to send to you, can’t I? That will cheer him up.’
‘Oh, yes.’ I thought I detected a note of resignation in Kit’s voice but I knew I was in a state bordering on the neurotic and apt to see disapproval where there was none.
‘So what did the Minister for Culture say when he heard you were emigrating to the wilds of Ireland?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call him that. It sounds so … as though you disapprove of him.’
‘I told you. I’m jealous. If I had a girl like you sighing her heart out for me …’
‘Oh, don’t! It makes me sound like a feeble victim. You’ve met me at my lowest point, that’s all.’ Despite my best intentions I felt my eyes fill. I was in that state where tears are so close to the surface that almost everything makes one cry. I could easily have wept to see a petal drop from a rose or a robin disappointed of a crumb. ‘He doesn’t know. I didn’t plug in the telephone that last night at Cutham. I knew if he begged me not to I wouldn’t have the strength to go away. I sat in the kitchen and tried to make a sensible list of things to pack and not to look at my watch. Oh, it was so hard when it got to ten o’clock.’ I turned my head away from Kit to stare out of the window. I couldn’t see a thing. ‘I’m ashamed to be so watery.’
‘My dear Bobbie, there isn’t a man or woman alive who hasn’t wept for love. Unless they’re intolerably unfeeling and soulless, without an ounce of poetry in them.’
‘I do like poetry but only when I read it to myself, by myself.’ I attempted a smile. ‘I hope my employer isn’t a prolific amateur versifier looking for a captive audience.’
‘She might be a reclusive genius. An Emily Dickinson.’
‘She might, of course. What do you give for my chances?’
‘Not much. Instead I’ll give you the telephone number of where I’ll be staying for the next few days. Th
is is Kilmuree.’
A scattering of houses quickly became solid rows, which bordered each side of a tree-lined street that plummeted down a steep hill. As it was nearly half past seven the shops – all of which seemed to be the kind that sold kettles, mousetraps and nails – were closed and the small town was deserted.
I wrote down the number as Kit dictated it. ‘You can’t imagine how grateful I am. You’ve been so good to me and I feel so comforted knowing there’s rescue at hand if the rhyme schemes are really hopeless.’
‘You can express your gratitude with a kiss then. Quick, before we get to the bus station.’
It was the least I could do. To compensate for it being positioned chastely on his cheek I put some fervour into it. But when he turned his head towards me as though to kiss me on the lips, I said, ‘Do look out! There aren’t many lamp-posts as it is.’ I pointed to a tiredlooking building set back from the main street which had an apron of tarmac pierced by elder seedlings. ‘Do you think that could be it? Where it says “Bus éireann”. Drop me here, would you? It’ll save me having to explain who you are.’
‘All right.’ Kit drew in to the kerb. ‘What a wrench this is! Can it really be less than twenty-four hours since we met?’ He put his hand on my arm. His expression was serious. ‘Can’t I persuade you to give up this farcical scheme with the cows and the sausages and throw in your lot with me? On strictly celibate terms. I promise I won’t attempt to poach Mr Latimer’s preserve.’
Moonshine Page 19
