As she was letting me out I remembered what Granny had been saying earlier, and asked, ‘Who do I get my shade of hair from, Mother, and my grey eyes? Is it your side of the family?’
For a moment her baby-blue eyes were startled, then with a light laugh she said, ‘Oh, I expect so. My mother died when I was a small child, but I think she had your shade of hair.’
‘You never talk about when you were growing up or say much about your sister. Did she look like me?’
‘Really, Leticia darling! If you want to delve into the family history we can’t do it on the doorstep. And Glenda looked very much like me, as I recall – though, after all, it’s over twenty years since I last saw her.’
You don’t forget what your only sister looks like, though, surely? However, poor Glenda blotted her copy-book at sixteen by running off with someone else’s husband, and Mother is always reluctant to acknowledge her existence.
I was about to ask her if she had a photograph of Glenda, but seeing she was looking ruffled I left the subject and, pressing a kiss on the powdered surface of her cheek (like kissing a floury bap, only scented) set off on the circuitous route home.
Definitely driving lessons.
James spent the weekend making his shed into a luxury home from home, while I papered the bathroom, having finished the tongue-and-grooving. (Wouldn’t Tongue and Grooving make a good name for a pop group?)
Then, on the Monday, something strange and wondrous happened that cheered me up no end – I discovered that Mrs Peach is a sun worshipper!
I was looking idly out of the bedroom window, noting that since pruning the pear trees I can partly see in to the next-door garden. It stretches further than ours and has an orchard at the bottom as well as all the peripatetic hen coops.
There was the slam of a door and Mrs Peach appeared, back from her egg round, in her woollen hat and sombre cloth coat.
Wandering slowly down the garden on her stumpy little legs she first tugged off her coat and threw it over the nearest bush, which happened to be lavender, kicked off her shoes, and then kept on toddling down the pathway shedding items of clothing as she went.
When I lost sight of her she was clad only in voluminous shiny pink bloomers, and was tugging at the fastenings of a monumental bra as she headed for the orchard.
I sank down on the bed in amazement, hardly able to believe my own eyes. But when I looked out again the clothes were still scattered on the bushes like a gypsy washday, and the extra-wide-fitting glacé leather shoes lay abandoned in the grass.
Of the elderly dryad there was no sign.
Fancy Mrs P. communing with Nature in the raw! I expect the hens are used to it.
I could hardly wait to tell James, but he was disappointingly unamused.
I still can’t believe it when I see her dumpy little figure stumping down the pathway with her trolley of eggs. Can this be the same person as the porcine nymph who threw off her clothes like confetti in the garden? But she did it again next morning when she got back from her round, so evidently it’s a habit – unless May’s brought her out, like blossom?
Mrs Deakin can’t know about it or she would surely have told me. It’s a strange thing knowing something about the village she doesn’t, but I couldn’t possibly tell her. It would be a sort of betrayal.
I wish I had someone to share it with, though, who’d appreciate it.
Mrs Deakin persuaded me into buying the ingredients for making pickled beetroot when I called in after lunch for mineral water, and I emerged carrying pickling vinegar, peppercorns and a large and insecurely wrapped parcel of beetroot, which came undone halfway home. I was impeded in picking them up by the Bourgeois Bitch whom I’d rashly taken with me, and the beetroot acquired even more mud than they were originally coated with. (I noticed that Mrs Deakin made no allowance for that caked mud when she weighed them.)
I was just staring down at the newspaper wrapping, which had a picture of Fergal Rocco and a pretty girl on it (partly obscured by mud – quite appropriate), when a smartly dressed woman coming out of a nearby cottage very kindly stopped to help me, and we fell into conversation.
Her name is Margaret Wrekin, and she sounds Awfully County, but is very pleasant. Her clothes were the sort of thing James would like me to wear – a straight skirt and long jacket, with low-heeled court shoes, and her dark hair sort of straight and angular. She’s about my age.
Her cottage is one of those thatched ones without a hair out of place – indeed, the thatch is covered in a sort of wire hairnet – but when I said how Olde Worlde and charming it was, she revealed that it was just a façade since the rest had fallen down and at the back it was a big modern house.
She admired the Bourgeois Bitch, who fawned, and invited me to go for coffee tomorrow to meet some of her friends, which was very nice of her, but I explained that I wrote every morning.
She was very interested and said I must tell her all about it, only just now she had to dash to Mrs Deakin’s for a tin of artichoke hearts.
It was very heartening meeting someone here at last.
The beetroot pickling was awful – the ghastly red juice and the awful smell of vinegar – and my rubber gloves had vanished.
It took hours, and by the time I’d filled up the last jar I was covered from head to foot in splashes of bright red, with matching hands and wrists: never again!
Before I could clean myself up, the doorbell went. Why do doorbells invariably ring at moments like this? I answered it with my hands cupped in front of me like a surgeon.
The vicar recoiled.
I suppose I did look rather gory, dripping on the step. Hastily wiping my hands on my apron I smiled reassurance: ‘Just pickling beetroot, Vicar! Won’t you come in?’
‘Ah – beetroot!’ he breathed, visibly relaxing. ‘Yes indeed – beetroot.’ He straightened his collar nervously. ‘No, I won’t come in just now, thank you. The fact of the matter is that I’m collecting items for the church bazaar and fête. It’s on June the twenty-sixth – by the church if fine, in the church hall if wet.’
‘Church bazaar?’
‘And fête. Proceeds towards renovating the east window this year. I always ask everyone to contribute, even if not regular attenders. I think a church in a village like Nutthill is a heritage for all the people, don’t you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said vaguely. ‘Er … what sort of things did you have in mind?’
‘Well, there’s the raffle. Any tins of food, and so on. And the bottle stall – any sort of bottle. Or the white elephant—’
‘Any sort of elephant?’ I suggested and he gave me a weak smile.
‘Ha, ha! Very good.’
In the end I donated a bottle of the ghastly, expensive French perfume Mother gives me every Christmas. He was highly pleased with this, and the packet of wrapped guest soaps left over from Christmas presents.
When I told James later about meeting Margaret Wrekin, he said he thought he’d seen her husband in the Dog and Duck once or twice when he’d stopped on the way home for a quick pint.
I don’t know why he does that, when he could come home and take me for a quick pint. (Well, not a pint perhaps, but a drink.)
He added, ‘The Wrekins are the type of people we want to make friends with here. Suitable people.’
‘Suitable for what?’ I enquired, astounded. ‘I don’t choose my friends for their accents, social status or wealth, James! I just thought she was nice.’
‘You don’t want to get on close terms with any Tom, Dick or Harry when you live in a small village, like you are with that shopkeeper woman. When we have children we’ll have to be more fussy about who we know.’
‘Why? She’ll go to the village school and mix with everyone anyway.’
‘He,’ corrected James firmly, ‘will go to a good school – though the village one might do for the first year or two.’
‘I hope by “good” you don’t mean boarding school,’ I said, astonished, ‘because if so I can tell you n
ow that if I go through childbirth it will not be so I can shuffle my offspring away from home at the first available opportunity. Not that we could afford it anyway!’
‘Lionel would help.’
‘Why? He’s never given you the least help other than a start in the firm.’
‘It’s a family thing – you wouldn’t understand. I went to Eshington School, and so did Dad, and so did Uncle Lionel … and so will my sons.’
And Horrible Howard too, until they threw him out for a misdemeanour unspecified!
‘Your half-brother Robert hasn’t gone there, has he?’
‘He’s still very young. After all, Dad didn’t remarry until just before we did, and his wife is not much older than you.’
‘It’s funny to think you’ve a stepmother and half-siblings you’ve never seen. And I’ve never even met your father!’
‘He talked about coming over to visit in his last letter.’
‘He always does.’
We had rather got away from the subject in hand, but I let it go for the moment. I needed to think this one out, it was another new aspect of James I hadn’t expected and didn’t particularly like.
When I got back from taking Bess for her evening walk, I could hear James’s voice on the phone, but as soon as I came in he put the receiver down.
‘Howard again?’ I enquired.
He nodded. ‘Just a chat, nothing important.’
‘Not been caught moonlighting again, then?’
‘Moonlighting?’ he echoed, as though he’d never heard of such a thing.
‘Yes, moonlighting. Isn’t that what he wanted to ask you about last time he rang?’
‘Oh, yes. No, it was just – a chat,’ he said, but he looked decidedly shifty.
I hope he and Howard aren’t plotting something.
Chapter 14: In the Drink
The astounding and therapeutic amount of money I spent on an emerald silk shantung trouser suit with a long Nehru jacket for the SFWWR dinner was worth it, and my newest jeans and good silk shirt would just have to do for the Working Breakfast. I’m glad Vivyan will be present.
James went sulky when I reminded him that he’d have to get home early on Friday in order to feed and exercise Bess, and didn’t answer at all when I explained what I’d left in the freezer for him to eat.
He might just find Bess had deposited a little Welcome Home present for him, since she looked decidedly worried when I left with a suitcase (late, because the postman arrived just as I was leaving).
I took my mail with me to read on the train, but there was nothing of much interest until I came to a bulky brown envelope containing a big, folded sheet of paper. When I opened it out, I found it was one of those huge photocopies, only of what I was unsure. I tried it different ways up and the only thing it reminded me of was …
No.
It’s like that ink-blot test where your subconscious makes you see things that aren’t there, like butterflies, when it’s just a big blob. Big blobs and a long thing, in this case …
James’s office has a big photocopier, for plans and documents.
No, it must be a mistake, sent to me in error. I checked the envelope again: definitely addressed to Mrs L. Drew.
Then I tried holding it the other way up again, but it made no difference because the more I looked at it …
And didn’t Vanessa phone just after we moved to Nutthill with some inane news about a photocopier? The big photocopier was back in working order, or some such thing?
The man opposite was looking curiously at me over the top of his Times. Slowly I folded the sheet up and put it back in its envelope.
Vanessa?
He wouldn’t – would he?
But I’m sure she’s been chasing him and, as Mrs Deakin once said of men, their spirit may be willing but their flesh is weak, especially if tempted.
No – he wouldn’t.
But I could just pop casually into the office on the way to the hotel and show him the photocopy, because once I’ve seen that he’s just as puzzled by it as I am, I’ll feel a lot better. Back to gritty reality again.
Not that James is gritty – more crumbly, lately. But he might be pleased to see me even though he’s never encouraged me to drop in at the office. (I don’t usually want to – it’s all dark and gloomy, and the receptionist is a snooty bitch who knows where to put her make-up.)
I took a taxi from the station and we were almost at the turn to the quiet cul-de-sac where Drew, Drune and Tibbs hung out, when I spotted Drew Junior walking along the crowded pavement towards me on the far side of the road.
Only he wasn’t alone.
A small blonde nestled in the shelter of his arm and their heads were close together. I couldn’t see her face, but it was Vanessa the secretarty. I knew it!
As the taxi slowed outside the offices, I leaned forward and said quickly, ‘I’ve changed my mind – don’t stop here after all.’
‘Where to, then?’ the driver asked, executing a quick turn and setting off again. There was no sign of James this time.
‘Where to?’ he repeated.
My mind went totally blank. Where? Where was I? Where was I going?
‘Could you just sort of drive around for five minutes please, while I decide?’
He shrugged and pulled out into the main road.
There are lots of good reasons why James might be in such a position – very good reasons … It was just seeing them – and then the photocopy and … I trusted him!
No, of course he isn’t seeing someone else, he simply isn’t the type! It’s stupid to feel the foundations of my life are crumbling and bubbling like quicklime.
‘Made your mind up yet?’ enquired the driver who had, I now noticed, a face like a prize-fighter. But since he was sporting a small gold cross in one ear I expect he was a nice man really.
‘Yes. Fitzroy Tower Hotel, please.’
Thank God I’d remembered where I was going.
I just had time to check in, change, and meet Vivyan in the bar for a quick pre-prandial drink – very quick, in my case, because I downed it in one.
‘You look under the weather,’ he commented kindly. ‘Pale and interesting.’
‘I’m OK really, Vivyan, it’s just that I’ve had a bit of a shock. I – I’ve just seen my husband walking down the street with his arm around his old girlfriend.’
‘The bastard!’ he said comfortably.
‘Oh, no,’ I smiled weakly. ‘He’s really not like that at all. There must be a perfectly reasonable explanation.’
‘Of course there is. Have another drink.’
As the second drink hit the cold, empty chasm of my stomach, I began to feel a lot better and sure I’d jumped to the wrong conclusions. I decided I’d worry about it tomorrow.
Then Vivyan leaned across and whispered conspiratorially, ‘Here’s something to bring the colour back to a maiden’s cheeks. Fergal Rocco will be making a surprise appearance tonight.’
‘What? But I thought he was in Japan.’
‘He’s supposed to be – he’s flying back there early tomorrow morning. Excited?’
‘Delirious!’ I replied weakly. That was all I needed.
Fortunately Peggy and I were a long way from the top table (much to her disgust) and Peggy is large enough to hide behind. (Rubens would have loved her.)
Not that Fergal could have spotted me anyway, in such a dark corner, and I intended leaving the minute I could. I could only just see him, hemmed in by the Illustrious, but Peggy gave me a running commentary on his finer points.
We shared a bottle of wine with dinner, and I began to feel even better about things. Well, perhaps not better, more numbed.
Peggy would go and try to meet Fergal afterwards (along with about ninety per cent of the other women present) so I said I’d see her in the bar when she could tear herself away, and scuttled off.
‘That man,’ she said dreamily when she joined me some time later, ‘has the sexiest voice I’ve ever hear
d. It’s positively knicker-quivering!’
‘Peggy!’
She eyed me thoughtfully. ‘And to think you once had all that within your grasp! I’m seeing you in a different light.’
Red, probably.
It was a mistake to try to match her drink for drink – she has hollow legs – for the next thing I knew, Vivyan had taken her place and was suggesting that I got a good night’s sleep, since I was going to meet the Lovecall editor in the morning.
When he added that Fergal Rocco was also spending the night – or part of it – at the hotel, all my instincts said: ‘Run for cover.’
Lurch for cover proved to be the best I could manage.
The journey to my room was a bit surreal – trying not to slide down the side of the lift wall – the corridor undulating as I walked along it – the dark, menacing shadows outside my room …
As I fumbled with my key, one of the shadows detached itself from the wall and loomed over me. I gave a strangled shriek and my knees gave way.
‘At last!’ said the husky, familiar voice that Peggy had just described so aptly to me. ‘I thought you were never coming. I want to talk to you.’
A hand like a vice closed on my arm, the key was wrested from my nerveless fingers, and I found myself inside my room with Fergal Rocco.
It occurred to me as I gazed with mesmerised fascination at his angry face (and why he should be angry I’d no idea) lit by alternating bands of colour from the signs outside the hotel, that there must be few women who wouldn’t like to find Fergal Rocco in their bedroom; but if talking was what he wanted, I didn’t think I was capable of it. My mouth has a tenuous connection to my brain at the best of times, let’s face it.
My knees felt as if they were slowly liquefying, and it seemed like a good idea to stop myself falling down by putting my free arm around him and leaning my head on his chest.
Under my hand I felt the muscles on his back shiver.
‘Tish,’ he said softly, in a changed voice.
Fergal: June 1999
‘FERGAL FLIES IN!
Hysteria at airport as Fergal Rocco makes
surprise visit to receive Trendsetter award.’
Good Husband Material Page 13
