Snake in the Grass

by Dominic Luke

  ‘I’m not laughing,’ said Richard, who was. ‘Women should be able to paint if they want to. I’m all for women’s rights.’

  ‘It’s very revealing,’ said Lydia caustically, ‘the way men pay lip service to women’s rights while somehow implying that it’s all some sort of joke.’

  Richard’s grin remained. Lydia gathered her forces for another assault, but before she could begin, Gwen stepped in as peacemaker.

  ‘You’ve booked the village hall, I suppose, Lydia?’

  ‘Village hall?’ Lydia blinked, at a loss. ‘Why should I want to book the village hall?’

  ‘For the exhibition, of course. I don’t mean to interfere, but it does tend to get fully booked months in advance.’

  ‘Oh yes, I see, the exhibition.’ Noodles to the exhibition.

  ‘I could,’ said Gwen tentatively, ‘if you liked, book it myself. I wouldn’t want to tread on anyone’s toes, but I’m expecting a visit from Imelda Darkley, and as she is on the village hall committee….’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course, that would be … that would be a great help.’

  ‘Why,’ said Richard, looking at Gwen curiously, ‘is Lady Darkness coming to see you? Are you being banished from the village, or what?’

  ‘I’m … she’s….’ Gwen shot a look at her husband. ‘She wants me to stand for the parish council.’

  Basil’s nose went up. ‘What nonsense is this? You know how I feel about parish councils, Gwen.’

  ‘Talking of councils and committees,’ said Lydia, coming to Gwen’s rescue, heading Basil off, ‘we ought to get a group together to organize the whole thing: the exhibition, I mean. It will be too much work for one or two people alone.’ Her heart sank as she listened to herself. Why did the exhibition seem to be the only topic of conversation she could think of in a tight corner? There was no knowing what she might land herself in if she wasn’t careful. ‘There will be lots to do. Booking the village hall will be the least of it. Potential exhibitors will need to be contacted, exhibits collected and displayed. Flyers and catalogues will have to be designed and printed, a rota drawn up for selling tickets on the door….’ Lydia spoke off the top of her head, laying it on thick, hoping to put Gwen off.

  ‘Sounds right up your street, Mum,’ said Richard to Gwen. ‘You’re a great one for organizing things.’

  Lydia interpreted Mum as some sort of sly dig at Gwen and opened her mouth to slap Richard down, but Basil got in first. He was frowning at his wife in a most off-putting way.

  ‘I do hope,’ he said with emphasis, ‘that all these extra-curricular activities are not going to take up too much of your time, Gwendolen.’

  ‘Of course not, Basil. The exhibition will be run by a committee – I won’t need to do much at all. As for painting, that can be squeezed in any time. Look at Lydia. She manages, and she has a full-time job.’

  Lydia did not like the ominous way that Gwen spoke of the exhi as if it was real, a fait accompli. There were also rumblings of discontent from Basil at her side.

  Once again Gwen got in first, turning the conversation, speaking with a brittle sort of brightness. ‘Are you painting anything yourself at the moment, Lydia?’

  Caught off guard by the question, Lydia stumbled over her words. ‘Well, I’m … er….’ This is a ridiculous conversation. We are lurching from one quagmire to another. ‘I’m not having much success, to be honest. I’m trying my hand at … at….’

  ‘Yes, yes?’ Gwen and Richard were looking at her expectantly; even Basil was showing signs of interest.

  ‘At a portrait.’ Help! What can I say next? I mustn’t mention Prize. Whatever happens, I mustn’t mention Prize. I will only fall to pieces if I do, and that doesn’t bear thinking about in the midst of this rabble.

  ‘A portrait of whom?’

  ‘Well … er … that’s just it. I don’t have a suitable subject. I mean, I have no one … no one to pose….’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What about me? Would I make a suitable subject?’ Richard grinned, flexing his biceps (such as they were). ‘This face, these muscles: how could you resist? Twenty quid and I’m yours.’

  Another quagmire opened up in front of her, and Lydia lurched helplessly into it.

  She was not exactly sure how it had come about. How had she gone from making arrangements for an exhibition she did not even want, to more or less agreeing to paint Richard’s portrait for a fee of twenty pounds? (Wasn’t it meant to be the other way round? Didn’t the sitter usually pay the artist?)

  Sinking fast, Lydia buried her head in her gin and tonic, making a mental note not to even bother getting out of bed next Boxing Day.

  SEVEN

  PARTING FROM LYDIA at the turning to her cottage, Gwen experienced a twist of envy as she continued up Well Lane with Basil plodding beside her. How wonderful to be able to go back to an empty house, to know that everything would still be exactly as one had left it (Dean and Amanda had gone ahead, were probably wrecking the place); to wallow in the silence; to have no one to think about but oneself….

  Basil cleared his throat noisily. Gwen braced herself for the inevitable onslaught, feeling trapped, as if hostile forces were closing in on her from every side. One had grown used to it from Basil, but now there was Imelda Darkley to contend with, too, not to mention Lydia and the exhibition. Lydia was obviously very keen on the idea; mentioned it at every opportunity. If one was honest, one felt a little tremor of excitement at the prospect: something to look forward to, something unusual – unlike the parish council, which was a different kettle of fish. Was there any chance of ducking out of that? Had anyone ever had the temerity to say ‘no’ to Lady Darkley? Had anyone ever said it and lived to tell the tale?

  But what was the use of thinking about the parish council or the exhibition? Basil would never let her get away with either. He liked her to be at his beck and call. (‘There’s a button missing on this shirt … I can’t find my calculator … what have you done with the newspaper … why don’t you come and sit down, I can’t relax with you buzzing about the place … what on earth are you doing now…?’) Perhaps, said Gwen to herself, puffing a little as she reached the top of Well Lane, her thoughts darting here, there, seeking a way of escape, perhaps she could try the frozen food and microwave meals after all. Pizzas, pies, pasta: she could dress them up, disguise them, pass them off as her own. If anyone noticed – expressed doubt – she could say that she was experimenting: I have been watching Jamie and Nigella. If they can experiment, then so can I.

  There was a rumble deep in Basil’s throat as they turned into the top road on the last lap home. It was like an early warning of an eruption (oh, wouldn’t that be marvellous, a volcano in Well Lane, an explosion of molten rock blotting everything out: the exhibition, the parish council, housework, lunch— oh Lord, lunch!).

  The rumble sounded again. ‘That boy …’ Basil began.

  So it was to be Richard. Richard was that boy. Dean was your son. Richard, of course, was not here to listen to his father’s strictures. He had taken himself off, would be safely back in his flat by now.

  ‘Why must he make a show of himself all the time? As if that woman would really want to paint a slob like him. Absurd.’

  ‘Yes, Basil …’ (Now would be a good time for that volcano.)

  ‘And he calls you Mum. I don’t know why you stand for it. It’s not as if you even like him.’

  ‘No, Basil.’ (Well, what he didn’t know wouldn’t harm him.)

  ‘Mum, indeed. If his mother really was here to see him….’

  Gwen shivered. This was dangerous territory, skirting round the subject of Richard’s mother, Basil’s first wife. There had been an awful, unforgettable scene early in their marriage. Basil had got drunk. He had tiraded about his first wife, calling her a selfish bitch, claiming that she had only died in order to spite him – everything she had done in her entire life had been done to spite him. Even now the memory of that scene made Gwe
n go cold all over. At the time it had nearly finished her off. One had slowly and surreptitiously weaned Basil off heavy drinking after that.

  Trying to steer the conversation into calmer waters, Gwen said, ‘I thought we might have some of the turkey for lunch, darling. Cold turkey, pickles, nice crusty bread—’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Basil wasn’t listening; waved her words aside as if swatting a fly. ‘What was all that talk about the parish council, Gwen?’

  ‘Imelda Darkley has decided that—’

  ‘Contrary to popular opinion, Imelda Darkley does not rule over this village like a feudal baroness. We are not her serfs to be ordered about. As for parish councils, they are amateurish, inefficient, a waste of public money.’

  ‘Yes, Basil.’

  ‘I am serious, Gwen. You can’t imagine how many times we have to pick up the pieces after parish councils have meddled in things that don’t concern them.’

  ‘Yes, Basil.’

  ‘And another thing.’

  ‘Yes, Basil?’

  ‘This nonsense about an art exhibition.’

  ‘It’s not—’

  ‘No one is interested in amateurs of any sort in this day and age, Gwendolen. It’s a well-known fact. Leave things to the professionals: that’s my motto.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Parish councillors would do well to heed that message – all councillors for that matter. It’s the council officers who do the work, who know what they’re talking about, not these fly-by-night, ten-a-penny meddlers, making life intolerable.’

  Whose life? Your life?

  ‘People must learn to trust to experts. Only experts know what’s good for them.’

  You mean, only you know what’s good for them.

  ‘It’s their job, after all, for goodness’ sake. They get paid to— Are you listening to me, Gwendolen?’

  ‘Yes, Basil.’

  ‘Good, good.’ He cleared his throat again as they walked up the drive, a sound that turned Gwen’s stomach (as indeed did the very phrase clear one’s throat). ‘I do hope,’ he said, waiting for Gwen to get out her key, ‘that we are not going to be treated to more turkey today.’

  ‘Of course not, Basil,’ said Gwen, opening the door. ‘The thought never even crossed my mind.’

  EIGHT

  ‘WHAT,’ LYDIA ASKED as she lay in her bed in the little bedroom with the sloping roof, ‘have I let myself in for now?’

  Her mother’s ghost, lurking somewhere in mid air, maintained a significant silence. Lydia groaned as she went back over the events of yesterday, pulled the duvet over her head but felt it necessary to give the alarm clock at least a cursory glance. Nearly ten.

  ‘I must get up,’ she told herself, but felt no inclination to move. Last night had not been good. She had been unable to sleep.

  She yawned.

  Ever since Prize’s death, she had got into the habit of swilling back gin in the evenings and falling comatose into bed, to wake up eight hours later with a thumping headache but having traversed many long and depressing hours of darkness. Last night the formula hadn’t worked. She had tossed and turned as the night stretched into infinity. Unsettling thoughts had run amok in her head: nearly forty, you’re getting old … what have you got to show for it … you wasted your youth, wasted it on Nigel; your youth is gone now, you don’t get a second chance … why haven’t you got further in your career, you should be head of department at least by now, your income is paltry for a woman of your ability; it will take years to pay the mortgage at this rate … why did you buy this cottage, anyway: it’s just a millstone round your neck…. She had tried to get away from all these thoughts, but all escape routes had failed her: there had been blind alleys at every turn, not a single safe haven left in her head. And so, aeons later, here she was at ten o’clock in the morning lying like a fish washed up on a beach, more tired than if she hadn’t gone to bed at all.

  Perhaps the answer was even more gin.

  She lay still, listening. Her mother remained incommunicado. No malicious remarks about alcoholism, no snide asides about the menopause. She was refusing to speak. Lydia recognized these signs only too well. They had been accompanied in life by a closed-up expression, lips pursed, eyes fixed on the horizon; but her mother had never been able to keep that up for long. You had waited, guts clenched, for the inevitable explosion. ‘Oh, get away from me, go on, go! I can’t bear to look at you! You’re such a naughty, wicked, shameful little girl!’ Lydia had often been confused as to the precise nature of her naughtiness. She had racked her brains, trying to work out what she had done.

  ‘It never occurred to me at that age,’ she murmured, staring up at the ceiling and picturing herself at eight, nine, ten, ‘that it might be my mother who was in the wrong and not me.’

  She glanced at the clock again. Ten past ten. Time was galloping. She must get up. The last thing she needed was for Richard to come along and find her in her nightie.

  Richard. Oh Lord.

  ‘Perhaps he won’t come.’ With a gargantuan effort, she heaved herself out of bed. ‘Now there’s a thought.’ Yawning copiously, she staggered to the bathroom. ‘I could well be worrying over nothing. No proper arrangements were made. It was all a bit of a joke, really.’

  Sitting on the toilet, she did her best to rationalize Richard out of existence.

  He refused to go.

  ‘I would pay twice twenty pounds just to keep him away.’ She got up, pulled her nightie back into place, flushed the toilet, rinsed her hands, splashed her face, dabbed with a towel (‘Lord, this is absolutely filthy: do I never change my towels?’).

  ‘Perhaps I am being unfair to him.’ She addressed her reflection in the bathroom mirror. ‘He is no worse than most other young men of his age. They are all irresponsible, insensitive, irritating. Why should he be different?’

  She sighed, looking at her reflected self with a critical eye. Her heart sank. Baggy eyes, slack chin, lines all over her face like the cracks in drying mud. And grey hairs, too, no doubt. Her fingers probed, searching. ‘Come out, grey hairs, come out, wherever you are….’

  Why did one always have this picture in one’s head of a self that was ten years younger? Disappointment was inevitable. The mirror always told the truth.

  In her bedroom once more, she searched through her wardrobe, opened drawers, tried to make up her mind what to wear. She fingered the femme fatale clothes, asking herself once more why she had chosen to wear them on that terrible night just before Christmas. A deep-seated masochistic streak, perhaps? Could that be the reason she had stayed with Nigel all those years? She shivered, wondering if she might still have been with Nigel now if he had not walked out on her.

  It was Nigel who had bought the femme fatale skirt. (‘I like you to show off your legs.’ ‘I hate my legs, they are like sticks.’ ‘You must make the best of what you have, darling.’) The low-cut blouse had been a blunder of her own. She had expected it to work miracles, to make her look glamorous – sexy, even. (‘That’s a nice blouse, Lyddie, pity about your….’ ‘My what?’ ‘Have you ever considered implants, darling? It might be worth the investment.’)

  She had assumed Nigel had put his finger on the truth. She had admired his honesty. She had congratulated herself on bagging a straight-talking man instead of one who gave her a load of old flannel.

  She cringed, recalling the night she met Dean by the roadside, the way she’d walked towards him trying to emulate a model on a catwalk but instead wobbling around on unaccustomed heels, nearly turning her ankle. Cold air on her exposed skin had raised goose pimples. She had felt scrawny and saggy: mutton dressed as lamb, as her mother would have put it. And instead of dazzling some beefcake or a debonair man of means, all she’d ensnared was a spotty, clueless teenager.

  She flung the femme fatale clothes aside, opted for plain, simple, functional. As she dressed, she prepared herself mentally at the same time, summoning up all the meagre details she could remember about Richard Collier. If he
did happen to show up, she had to be ready for him.

  Dean had called Richard a bastard. Mr Wetherby had been known to refer to him as a yobbo. Basil had once been overheard saying, ‘That boy is twenty-three, it’s time he grew up, pulled himself together, got to grips with life.’ (In what way did Basil believe one ought to grip life?) The Stasi, of course, knew more than anyone. Lydia recalled her saying that Richard worked in a warehouse in town (she probably also knew what his hourly rate was and how much tax he paid); that he lived in a council flat on one of the estates (name? number?); and that – though as a responsible landlady she never listened to malicious gossip – she had been reliably informed that he had once or did still dabble in Drugs (the Stasi always spoke of Drugs with a capital D).

  Shimmying into her jeans, Lydia heard a snippet of pub talk replaying in her head. She was not sure now who had been speaking. The subject had been Richard’s flat.

  ‘There’s meant to be a waiting list.’

  ‘Ah, but his old man is a big cheese up at the council.’

  ‘There you go. Proves my point. Nepotism.’

  ‘I don’t think Basil Collier is the type. A stickler for the rules, I’ve heard.’

  ‘When it suits him, yes. But …’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s a case of do as I say and not as I do.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Power corrupts. They’re all the same. Out for what they can get. And look at the mess he’s made in town, all the old buildings demolished, all the character gone: it could be any one of half the towns in the country, bland and featureless.’

  ‘Hmm, you may have a point. But when you think about the lad’s car—’

  ‘What about his car? Skoda, isn’t it?’

  ‘It may well have been, at one time. But that’s just what I’m saying. If Collier won’t even buy the lad a decent car, he’s hardly likely to pull strings over a flat.’

  Searching for socks, Lydia wrenched open a reluctant drawer and found herself face to face with the Christmas present she had bought for Prize over a month ago. It was all wrapped and ready but had – until now – been forgotten. The unexpected reminder took her unawares, slipping under her defences. Tears sprang into her eyes; her heart lurched.