Beggar Bride

by Gillian White

  It was no good trying to convince Honesty. All his arguments fell on stony ground. He wished she would leave and let him get on with his busy life, he hasn’t the time for personal trauma, but nevertheless he is shocked when his disagreeable child tells him where she is going.

  ‘I’m going to live with Mummy,’ says Honesty the following morning, with one, pathetic suitcase gripped tightly in her hand as if she is running away from home and wants to be prevented.

  ‘Ffiona? After the things she told the newspapers?’

  ‘Mummy invited me so I’m going.’

  ‘But darling, in that terrible house? And the way Mummy lives now with all those women in comfortable shoes.’ Fabian knows that dyke is no longer an acceptable expression.

  ‘Mummy has found herself,’ says Honesty. ‘And that’s what you told me to do so I’m going.’

  Fabian smiles, thinking of Honesty’s love of material things, her easy, comfortable life at home. ‘Darling, I doubt you’ll last very long…’

  ‘Oh. So that’s it. You will cut my allowance.’ It almost sounds as if she wants him to.

  ‘Of course not. That would never enter my mind. What’s got into you, Honesty?’

  ‘Mummy loves me. She wants me to be with her. She says she’s never really had a chance to get to know me.’

  And whose fault is that? Not Fabian’s. Honesty is being very silly. What is Ffiona cooking up now? No doubt she will find Honesty’s monthly account a useful addition to her household income, but it won’t take Honesty long to rebel against this.

  It is on the tip of Fabian’s tongue to say he hopes she’ll be happy there. But before he can upset her further Honesty turns on her heel and leaves. ‘I’ll send for my things later.’

  17

  ‘A NOB LIKE THAT, with his contacts, he could easily find out about you if he wanted.’

  Billy, as usual, sees rocks ahead, he’s never heard of navigation. He airs his negative thoughts as together he and Ange read the Daily Mail report of the wedding which includes some choice remarks of Ffiona’s. Unfortunately there’s a picture, a good one, ‘but Sandra Biddle is the only person who even knows I have changed my name to Harper, and she’d hardly be likely to read the society columns in the Mail, I would think the Guardian is more her style, all social workers read the Guardian.’

  ‘Sandra Biddle wouldn’t recognise you in this.’ At last Billy has something positive to say, although you wouldn’t think it, to hear his gloomy tone of voice. ‘I suppose those nips might recognise the dress but you don’t look anything like the Angela Harper she’s ever seen. I mean, you look sodding radiant, as if you’re in love with the tool.’

  Ange had not informed the Coburns about her marriage. She has not been in contact with them since she left their mock Tudor four-bedroomed home—Terry and June—for her bedsit in West Hampstead three years ago. They waved her off looking relieved. Eileen Coburn wiped her hands together, ridding herself of something sticky before she attempted a feeble wave. She mouthed ‘good luck’ through her shiny lipstick.

  ‘They say more about him than you anyway,’ says Billy, awed to see Ange’s picture in a national newspaper and fascinated with his first sight of Sir Fabian Ormerod. ‘He’s the one that’s important. What a jerk. Does he always wear that silly smirk on his face? Or is that a twitch?’

  ‘He always wears it. I think it’s a kind of defence.’

  ‘Against what?’

  ‘Flashing cameras, I would imagine,’ says Ange, reading the article. ‘He hasn’t actually confided in me. Christ that woman’s got a grudge. Look at her! What a slag.’

  ‘It sounds as if he drove her to it.’

  Ange worries, ‘I wonder what other newspapers carried a report about the wedding. There’s no one else who’d recognise me, is there, Billy?’

  ‘Well I wouldn’t have. And you’re a sad bastard, like me, no friends, or none that you’d want to tell anyone about.’

  It is such a relief to have this stretch of time at home with her family, freed from playing the part of Lady Angela Ormerod. Ange spends much time practising her Joanna Lumley look and going through and through the book Etiquette. Just out of interest she went to the council and thumbed her way through the voters’ register, interested to see that there was a Valerie Harper living somewhere in Hampstead, so, if Fabian checks, he’ll see it, too.

  ‘Fate,’ she said to Billy. ‘See.’

  ‘Nothing to do with fate. Hampstead’s a big place,’ he told her, ‘and Harper’s a fairly common name.’

  ‘Still, I was pleased to see it,’ said Ange.

  Of course Fabian could discover his new wife’s identity if he took the trouble, but there is no reason for him to do that. It wouldn’t cross his mind that Ange was a married woman with another life. At least she feels safe on that score.

  ‘Well he vets his staff,’ said Billy, refusing to let go. ‘So why the hell wouldn’t he vet his wife?’

  ‘We’ll just have to hope this is all over before he gets suspicious. After all, what else can we do? There’s no point worrying before we have to. We either sink, or we swim.’

  But Ange is worried, constantly worried. She’s going to have to tell Fabian that she is expecting his child, but she’s going to wait another month, until she feels more confident.

  She went to see her doctor to get the pregnancy confirmed. There are six partners in the practice. Billy isn’t on any doctor’s register. He is never ill and neither was Ange until she got pregnant with Jacob. She took her medical card along and was disturbed to see the size of the file which had followed her through her childhood meanderings.

  All Jacob’s ante-natal care was carried out at the hospital. Not here.

  She never went back to the surgery again, the post-natal clinic was at the hospital, too.

  So nobody knows her here.

  This time Ange took a sample along and saw the nurse, who demanded a stamp and said she would post the result.

  Before Ange left she asked the scornful receptionist if she could see her file.

  ‘Why’s that, Mrs Harper?’ asked the cardboard clone in astonishment.

  ‘Because I read that patients are now allowed to do that.’

  ‘That might well be the case, Mrs Harper, but it’s not a common custom.’ How extraordinary, the clone whispered under her breath. How different Ange’s treatment is when she is merely Mrs Angela Harper. A nuisance. Another ten minute drag in the doctor’s day. If Lady Angela Ormerod walked in here she’d be first in the queue and this hard-faced cow would probably curtsy.

  ‘But I would like to see it, just out of interest,’ said Ange.

  The receptionist was furious. It was as if Ange had done something squalid on the counter. Couldn’t Ange see she was busy having to deal with all these grey-faced spluttering people, snot-nosed kids, ancient crones with moustaches and staggers and ringworm who are only lonely.

  ‘You’ll have to wait,’ she said, eventually, her favourite phrase, and one she well knew was effectively futile and all-defeating.

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said Ange. ‘I can see my file right there. It’s under your elbow.’

  ‘I said,’ snarled the woman, closing her eyes in dismissal, ‘that you would have to wait, if you don’t mind, Mrs Harper.’

  So Ange waited for over an hour in the hot and germ-ridden waiting-room until she was called through. The file was still where it had been, right next to the woman’s elbow. ‘Here,’ she said with a sort of jerky violent climax, ‘you better take it into the chiropodist’s room, she’s not in today.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Angela, marching off. ‘I won’t be long.’

  How could someone as fit as Ange have a file so thick?

  Well, mostly it was baby stuff, childhood inoculations, check ups to see she was fit enough to go to another set of foster parents, weight and height checks, and then the normal instances of chickenpox, measles and whooping cough.

  Then came the experts’ reports,
psychologists and social workers trying to discover why Ange was such a difficult child. No real answer to that. How could there be, if Ange didn’t know the answers herself? The changes of addresses she’d had read like a mini-telephone directory.

  Complicated feelings came rushing back, feelings for the people who had influenced, who had mattered in her life in the days when she was so anxious to please—each time she moved she had hoped there would be some point to it.

  But Ange wasn’t here for the memories, she was interested in none of this. She removed any reference to her marriage, crossing out the Mrs on the front of the file—there were so many crossings out anyway one more made no difference—and leaving the simple Angela Harper. Then she sifted through all reports of her pregnancy which was easily done. There was one page which dealt with that, and that was a typed form from the hospital. Ange simply removed it.

  Having satisfied herself on this she handed the file back to the woman at the desk who gave her a look of withering scorn.

  Now medical files are confidential. But even so, Ange knows that once Fabian is aware of his impending fatherhood he will get her to a private consultant who will naturally send for her medical notes. It is important he believes her maiden name to be Harper, and also that there is no sign of her giving birth before. The childhood information was mostly irrelevant. She doubted he would have cause to refer back to any of that.

  Ange took advantage of her week away to pay a visit to Sandra Biddle. She did not need to do so, but to stay away would have seemed odd. For years Sandra Biddle was the only friend Ange had. Her largeness had often been comforting.

  Just to visit this office, dismal and cheerless, sent her into a state of gloom. ‘It’s money,’ she said, hurriedly and guiltily, when seated on the wipeable chair with the wooden arms beneath the social worker’s desk. ‘Me and Billy are desperate…’

  ‘Oh, Angela dear.’ Sandra sat back and regarded Ange through her protruding blue eyes, with despair. Her legs were like tree trunks planted in lace-ups under her desk. ‘I thought we’d got to grips with the worst of that. What has been happening?’

  ‘We’re late with the rent. We’ve had two letters from the council.’

  ‘I thought we agreed you would put that money away. And we installed the electricity meter, that seemed to help. Stopped you from being cut off.’

  ‘I know. But we still can’t cope.’

  ‘Is Billy working?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  Sandra did not say I told you so, but Ange knew very well how much she really wanted to. She’d always considered Ange foolish with money. She’d been against Billy from the start, she’d been worried sick about Ange living rough and very concerned about Jacob’s welfare. If they hadn’t moved straight into the Prince Regent Sandra had suggested that Jacob might have to be taken into care.

  Ange never told Billy that. He’d have killed her, or pushed her buck-teeth down her throat.

  ‘And we can’t stay at Willington Gardens, Sandra. It’s not doing Jacob any good. None of us can sleep with the racket going on, rap music thudding, if you hang out your washing it’s whipped, there’s bugs and damp, Jacob’s constantly got the snuffles and I’m backwards and forwards to the hospital with him.’

  ‘You should make more use of your family doctor,’ said Sandra sharply.

  ‘They know him at the hospital. They told me to bring him back any time I had any worries so I do.’

  Sandra sighed again, regarding her client, still beautiful in that shabby dress, too short and too tight, reluctant to start the argument they have had so many times before. ‘It was difficult enough to get you that flat in the first place, Angela. Strings had to be pulled, I can tell you.’

  ‘I know, I know, and I’m grateful,’ said Ange, calmly but on the defensive. ‘But really, it’s not the kind of place anyone would want to be and I think I am pregnant again.’

  ‘Oh Angela, how could you? You promised me you and Billy would be careful until we could get your life on some sort of even keel. You said you’d arrange to go on the pill. This is irresponsible behaviour, Angela. And I’m very disappointed in you.’

  ‘Billy wants to buy a van and I think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ said Sandra with feeling. ‘Don’t tell me you’re really considering that?’

  ‘What alternative do we have? With a new baby on top of everything else. For a start I won’t be able to get up all those stairs when I’m pregnant. It’s bad enough with one toddler and a pushchair…’

  The result of this meeting was that Sandra promised to contact the council and Ange and Billy could take out a small government loan to cover the immediate crisis until something sensible could be worked out.

  ‘But you’ll have to pay it back,’ said burly Sandra. ‘This isn’t another handout you know.’

  Home seems small and cramped after her few days at Cadogan Square. That other, unbelievable world.

  Together Billy and Ange listen to Fabian on Desert Island Discs. They have never tuned in to Radio 4 before, and the reception isn’t so good. Jacob’s asleep and Billy makes Ange a cup of cocoa. He opens another can of lager and puts his feet up. His socks have holes in the heels.

  Hearing that languid, cultured voice here in the flat she shares with Billy is a strange experience for Ange. At first she gasps, with the dangerous feeling that Fabian really is here in this smoky room, he can see them both, puffing and listening, her secret is out. Billy stares intently at Ange as if, by studying her reaction, he can somehow gauge the feelings she might secretly harbour for Fabian.

  Fabian answers the gentle questions about his family and children.

  He says Alan Bennett reading excerpts from Christopher Robin reminds him of his magical childhood, so he would take that record with him for a start.

  ‘Bloody typical,’ says Billy, slipping out for a slash. ‘What a nob.’

  Fabian goes on to describe the pressures of work and the methods he uses to offset them, his hobbies, hunting, fishing, sailing. He says the Bruch Violin Concerto reminds him of these good times, when he is relaxing at home at his house in Devon.

  ‘Prat,’ says Billy, viciously.

  Fabian drones on about the various good works he supports, the National Trust, the Country Landowners’ Association, the National Heritage Trust, the Lifeboat Service, the Devon Air Ambulance, and how all these charities care for the countryside of which he is so fond. Mozart’s Double Piano Concerto bears directly on all these things.

  ‘The man is a total tosser,’ says Billy.

  ‘I know, I know,’ says Ange. ‘Shush.’

  Fabian chats on about his various travels throughout the world, important people he has met and the influence they have had on him. He mentions religion, he chooses Vivaldi’s Gloria followed by Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

  ‘I cannot believe this,’ says Billy. ‘Is he going to say anything about you?’

  ‘No, this was recorded weeks ago. Shut up and listen.’

  Ambitions? This could be interesting, but no. Fabian merely talks about the Common Market and various countries coming together to create a new environment for the new millennium. Peace and goodwill and all that crap. They play part of a Haydn Mass.

  ‘Shit,’ says Billy.

  And after he’s thanked politely for coming on the programme and saying sod all, Fabian sums the whole thing up by saying he is a simple man whose favourite book is Moby Dick. But if he could take one thing with him to the island it would be a set of Wisdens to remind him of his admirable father.

  ‘So now you know,’ says Ange triumphantly, into the silence after she’s switched the radio off. ‘This is the jerk you’re worried about. You should have had more faith. Listen, how could I feel anything at all towards a man who probably thinks Wet Wet Wet is part of the six o’clock weather forecast?’

  18

  LIKE HUNTED BEASTS THEY shelter, gasping for breath, in the little spinney behind a grassy knoll beside
the games field, beyond the reach of the roving eye of Miss Davidson-Wills, house-mistress and instigator of the rigorous physical education programme in which The Rudge so prides itself. Diana Davidson-Wills, Diana the hunter.

  They ought to be running round the games field three times cradling their lacrosse sticks in readiness for a special weekend organised to commemorate the centenary of the introduction of lacrosse to girls’ public schools. The school’s first team will compete for a silver salver.

  ‘And it’s such a scream the way everyone goes on believing that Honesty’s such a goody-goody, when Tabby and I both know she’s forever screwing away down in Hurleston woods with that spooky hippy who lives there.’

  ‘A wild man?’ gasps Lavinia, through lungfuls of pine-filled air.

  ‘Wild’s not the word. A madman. Half the time he roams around naked, and we’ve seen Honesty roaming with him pretending to be a tree when she’s not rutting like a rabbit. Just like Ffiona.’

  Tabitha’s twin nods a gasping agreement. ‘That’s why everyone believes she doesn’t have a boyfriend. I mean she can hardly bring the beast along to join her on Daddy’s boat at Henley. Everyone’d think they’d caught the abominable snowman. The press would go berserk.’ With shaking hands Pandora attempts to lay a streak of tobacco along one of Murphy O’Connell’s cigarette papers. She licks it. She rubs it smooth between sticky, sweating fingers.

  ‘Got a light, Lavinia?’

  Lavinia Heathcote-Drury shakes her head. ‘How did you find out about all this?’

  ‘By stalking, of course,’ says Tabby, providing the matches and expertly striking one against the trunk of a tree. ‘By doing the work the police were bribed not to do. Of course, Honesty doesn’t know we know, we are keeping the knowledge a secret. When she comes into her trust in two years’ time we intend to blackmail her, don’t we, Pan?’

  Courtney Biffen is hot, confused and in pain. ‘But Honesty will have her own money by then so why would she need to keep her boyfriend under wraps?’