by Patrick Gale
A duty of the Festival Administrator was to hold a drinks party on the eve of the first day’s rehearsals to welcome back the old faces and to introduce the new. The thought of this had given some cause for concern in the Volvo, but with the first triumphant cry of ‘I can see the sea!’, there were still at least forty minutes to go before anyone could be expected to arrive.
La Corveaurie, as Grandpa Straker had archly dubbed his house, was a vast barn, cleverly converted by the celebrated architect friend. The original shell had been divided into an open-plan lower half, with a gallery of bedrooms above, and an extension had been built to house a garage, a music-room-cum-library, and a bathroom. The whole was now a priceless, if lived-in, museum of Thirties chic.
As they drove into the garage, an awesome fat woman in blue overalls appeared in the rear-view mirror. Evelyn heaved a sigh of relief. The guardian of La Corveaurie, Caerleon, Pendarrick and Dulgannon Reach. Evelyn had a memory block about her name and would smile too much in her effort to get it right.
‘Hello. Hello again, my dears,’ wheezed Mrs Pym.
‘Hello.’ Evelyn smiled and hugged her. She handed over a basket of little somethings bought in a swearing rush in Hampstead that morning.
‘Oh! For me? You shouldn’t, Mrs P.’
‘Well, it’s to thank you for being such an angel. Just little nonsenses.’
‘Oh no, I’m sure they’re not. Yes. Lovely. Well, haven’t you grown, Master Seth!’
‘We’ll all have to call him “esquire” after next week,’ said Venetia.
‘Look at him blush. And my little Neesh. Lovelier than ever, my dear.’ Netia pecked the doughy cheek and hoped that she would never sprout facial hair. ‘I’ve left everything ready for the party, Mrs P. The receipt for the food and wine’s on the dresser. Oh, and the water’s heated up nicely for your baths. I won’t come in now as I’ve got to get Roger’s tea, but I’ll see you in the morning to clear things up. All right?’
‘Bless you. Is Huw working out in the garden?’
‘Oh no.’ Mrs Pym paused with a frown on her doughy brow. ‘I thought he’d have told you. He left yesterday afternoon.’
‘Left?’ echoed Venetia crossly.
‘Yes. Left for abroad, I think. There’s a note on the table.’ Nosing the unnatural, Mrs Pym hurried on, ‘Now I must be off. See you tomorrow.’
No-one said anything more so she waddled away down the lane.
Jaw set, Evelyn strode into the house, children trailing deflated in her wake. She snatched up the note and read aloud in her school voice.
“‘Dear all. Afraid have had to rush to Vienna to pick Leon’s drying brains – something vital in his new book that I have to check up on. Will join you soon. Hope Neesh and Seth had good terms. Love, Huw Peake.” I see.’ Evelyn crumpled the note in a palm. ‘Could you two unload? Sweetly? I’m going to make a call.’
She walked into the music room where she could be private, and shut the door. She flicked rapidly through her address book to B for Berkowski, then dialled an extended number. Her knuckles were bloodless on the receiver. A distant voice said,
‘Bitte?’
‘Leon? It’s Evelyn. Evelyn Peake. Huw’s wife.’ There was a pause. The voice continued, so old she could barely recognize it.
‘Evelyn, my dear. How are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘And how is Huw?’
‘Isn’t he with you?’
‘No. Should he be?’
‘He left me a note saying he was coming to see you.’
‘How delightful! When does he arrive?’
‘I’m not sure. He left Cornwall yesterday but … Leon, sorry. This may be a big mistake. Can I ring you back later?’
‘But of course. And how are all the children?’
‘Big. I must go, Leon. Bye. I’ll call you tomorrow, maybe.’
‘Goodbye, my dear.’
She thrust the receiver back on to the hook. Almost at once it rang. She snatched it up.
‘Penfasser 53642,’ she said.
‘Hello, Penfasser 53642,’ Huw’s voice was typically wry, ‘this is …’
‘Where the hell are you?’ she interrupted him, turning to face the window.
‘I’m in …’
‘You’re not in Vienna, because I’ve just spoken to Leon.’
‘How very embarrassing for you. I’m in London. At home.’
‘Why?’
‘I have to pack and, as you’ve doubtless discovered, I still have to ring Leon to make arrangements. How is he?’
‘Fine. It’s bloody typical, you know. Couldn’t this have waited?’
‘I need to see him.’
‘You could have rung him.’
‘Too expensive.’
‘And the children need to see …’
‘Balls.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘They’ll survive. Tell Venetia I hug her.’
‘What do I tell people at the party tonight?’
‘Tell the truth and shame the devil.’
‘But at least you could have …’ she all but stamped.
‘I’m going. I’ll ring you. Bye.’
‘Huw, for God’s sake …’ He had rung off.
Evelyn fumbled for a cigarette in the box on the mantelpiece, failed to find a light and put it back. She stalked to the window and pulled it open, letting in a breath of sea air and a gannet’s shout. She scowled, rubbed her forehead, breathed deeply once or twice, then rejoined the children. They were sitting, idle, on the sofa. She hated them to look so vacant.
‘Where are the cases?’ she asked.
‘I’ll get them now,’ mumbled Seth, not moving.
‘Yes please. We haven’t got long.’ She walked across to the kitchen, brightening her tone. ‘Well, frankly, God bless Mrs Slim. Look – chairs pushed back, little bowls of nuts everywhere. Even quiche and pizza.’
‘How’s Daddy?’ Venetia piped up.
‘He sends you a hug,’ said her mother, pouring herself a glass of wine. She glanced at her watch. ‘Oh God, I must have a bath! I go first as I drove.’
‘And bags I go second,’ said Venetia, ‘as I didn’t get one last night.’
‘I’ll get the stuff in,’ said Seth.
Evelyn sped upstairs. Soon her warm contralto rose above the noise of running water. As Seth walked to and fro from the garage, Venetia lay on the sofa and ate nuts.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘she’s always so happy to get back here. I suppose it reminds her of Great Granny and Grandpa – makes her feel young.’ Seth came in with the third suitcase, then flopped into a chair.
‘Well, doesn’t it you?’ he asked. ‘Saint Jacobs is in a time warp: The Land That Time Forgot. Hey, steady on! There won’t be any left if you carry on like that.’
Netia noticed that she had almost emptied the little bowl of cashew nuts and felt odd. She wished she hadn’t come. She could have stayed at home, getting on with her revision and keeping Daddy company when he got back. He had betrayed her by not staying. Sacrilege to say so, but she had never felt happy in Cornwall; she had never been musical enough. She dreaded the party. At least after tonight she would be left in peace to revise, but for the next few hours the place would be full of cheery faces talking music. As Seth laboured upstairs with luggage, she held the rim of the bowl to her cherry lips and filled her mouth with the last of the nuts. Seth called through the bathroom door,
‘I’ve brought up your things. I’ll put them on your bed.’
The singing stopped.
‘Angel. Do you want to choose me something to wear?’
‘OK. Mung bean, or administrative?’
‘Oh, mung bean, I think. I’ll be being bossy enough without dressing the part.’
Seth opened her case on her bed and, lifting a few things out, draped them across the counterpane.
‘The cobwebby-pink designer tent?’ he called.
‘Fine. And there’s a grey suede belt and shoes to match.’ T
he bathroom door opened and Evelyn emerged from the sandalwood steam swathed in a Peter Jones towel. ‘Your bath’s running, Miss Piggy,’ she announced over the banisters.
‘Oh. Thanks.’ Venetia stood and stretched. She swore dully as a trouser button pinged to the floor. She stopped to pick it up, a puzzled look on her face and started slowly upstairs. She yawned. Car journeys were so very soporific. Seth smiled at her and she hated him.
‘Your things are on your bed,’ he said confidingly. It felt good to be back. ‘I’m just running down to say hello to the sea.’ He hurried down the stairs two at a time.
‘Don’t be late, darling. Just a quarter of an hour.’
Opening the front door he remembered he had left the car unlocked. He walked across to the dresser where keys lived and heard Venetia’s voice, edgy and low.
‘No it still hasn’t started. Oh!’ The gasp of impatience was accompanied by the sound of a kicked bed-leg. Then Mother’s soothing tone,
‘Poor darling. I’m sure if you fret it makes it even longer. Just be patient.’
And then his sister: ‘Sometimes I hate being female.’
Walking out along the harbour wall, listening to the slap of murky water on the stone he pondered the Female Mystery. From various snippets of conversation and magazines, he knew in strictly clinical terms the problems to be overcome in being a woman. Confronted with the emotional reactions though, with Venetia’s impetuousness, with Mother’s days of ill-disguised crabbiness, with Matron in a haze of Diorella and Gordon’s, he was left an outsider. Two herring gulls wheeled, yelling, over his head.
Perhaps their emotions were the seat of the problem – if indeed, it was a problem. It could be said that he had turned to his own sex because they were the only sex available, but that would not explain the profound sense of bathos at the new-born Venus’ gender, nor the way so many of his contemporaries at school had managed to follow their genetic noses, so to speak. He had looked blankly at some of the less grotesque pornography the latter had amassed. Legs spread, breasts heaved; the crude poses were as aggressively territorial as the ‘woman only’ conversations at home.
Aged all of seven years, he had once stumbled upon Mother leaning across the kitchen table to examine something Mrs Pym was showing her in an unbuttoned blouse. He had started back unseen and spent four days in torment, convinced, until he took care to watch them intently at the altar rail, that they were both brides of Satan.
‘That’s Huw Peake’s boy. Halloo there! Seth!’
He spun round and saw Bronwen. Elder statesperson of the artists at Saint Jacobs, Bronwen was a village ‘figure’. Long and narrow as a rake, of an indeterminate age the other side of fifty, she always wore one of three paint-daubed smocks and a pair of fur-lined ankle boots. She dyed her hair with an infusion of something she gathered along the cliff paths, and over the years it had assumed a fiery ginger. Bicycling everywhere, she had the lungs of an Alpine shepherd and the hands of a lorry mechanic. She had been Seth’s special holiday friend since his childhood. They had discovered each other on a cliff-top walk, and with juvenile obstinacy he had dragged her into the festival. She sat in the back rank of the contraltos and barked the tenor line.
‘Hello, Bronwen.’
She seized his hand, slapping him on the shoulder as she did so.
‘Glorious evening,’ she snapped, ‘you can feel the surges in your bones.’ They began to walk back along the wall. ‘Something special will happen.’
‘Yes,’ said Seth, happy to have her arm around his shoulders, ‘it’s good to be back.’
‘You just arrived?’
‘Yes.’
‘I gather we have to go to some bloody drinks do at your mother’s. How is she?’
‘Fine.’
‘Father?’
‘He’s gone abroad to do some research.’
‘Good for him.’
In her room, Venetia pulled on the frock she had chosen, then found to her surprise that she couldn’t do up the zip. She started to sweat. This was ridiculous. It had fitted her three nights ago. She tugged at a fastener, holding her breath. Why, she had barely eaten anything all day apart from those nuts! The zip slid up. She relaxed and heard a seam tear open.
‘Shit.’
She looked over her shoulder in the mirror, at the stretch of skin laid bare where the stitches had given. Angrily, she pulled down the zip, tore off the frock and threw it on the bed. She looked into her case, rummaging through her clothes. There was a stripy ‘ra-ra’ skirt with an elasticated waist. She pulled this on, with a pink silk t-shirt, trod her way into some shoes, and opened the door. Feeling loud and fat, she went downstairs to talk music.
Bronwen picked up her bicycle and swung herself astride. It was a man’s model, circa 1918. She claimed that the centre bar was useful for hanging things on during long journeys. Seth marvelled at her muscle power as she rode beside him up the hill. He had to walk briskly to keep up. A gust of wind billowed out her smock. Her legs were quite bare above her woollen knee-socks, so he looked ahead. Three Volvos, a dormobile, and a bright yellow French car – the kind that took apart for picnics – stood on the verge outside La Corveaurie. Bronwen threw her bike aside and marched up to the front door.
‘I must go and have a bath,’ Seth said.
‘What do you want to go and have a bath for?’ She smiled and ruffled his hair like a benign uncle. ‘Funny little thing.’
They opened the door. The air was already full of chat and cheap wine. Seth ran upstairs.
Three more dormobiles had come from Trenellion while he was bathing. As he emerged on to the landing, he saw a host of known faces. The Pollocks had just arrived – one of the more substantial Festival families. He was a retired prep-school headmaster whose all-female progeny – a nurse, a typist, a music-teacher, and a newly-appointed deaconess – were a cherished topic of speculation among Festival wives. Not that Old Maidenhood was not known to be a defunct concept. By the drinks table, Mother was deep in conversation with the director and the latest scion of the landowner’s tree. Around the sofa, where Venetia was amusing herself with a new arrival in cricket whites, the Bevanses had struck up a madrigal. A clan that spawned to perform.
‘Seth. My dear, sweet, only boy!’
It was Jemima Beale. Evelyn’s best friend at school, she had gladly accepted the offer of godmotherhood to the second child. Unlike her friend, Jemima had shown more than the talent of an accomplished amateur, and had become a household name with her viola playing. Scorning to treat the alto instrument as an alternative violin, she had set about educating the musical public, and had won not only acclaim, but regular dedications of new concerti. She embraced her godson warmly.
‘My God,’ she ground her vowels, ‘you are getting tall! You’ll match Great-grandfather yet. I say, thank you so much for those lovely hankies you sent me for the birthday. Really sweet of you. Daniel forgot me, as always. When you marry, dear, be sure to make a note of your spouse’s birthday, it makes for good relations. Were the O-Levels vile? When do you hear?’
As ever Jemima wasn’t bothering to wait for replies. She was held to be good value at parties, because of her habit of homing in on shy men and letting them smile in sweet silence while she made conversation for two. Her glamour was easy on the eye, good for the morale. Seth was happy to be accosted.
‘Now look, I can’t monopolize you all evening, that wouldn’t be fair on those dear Pollock creatures. Slap my wrist. No, but honestly, darling, a poor Professional’s being mauled in that corner by dear Bronwen and I must go and save him before there’s an ugly scene
Seth laughed at her retreating back. Venetia wailed at him from the sofa, ‘Seth, hurry up and grab a drink so you can come and be introduced.’
Seth did as he was bid. The newcomer was much older than he had seemed at first glance. Seth surmised that the cricketing garb was the record of a youth that had stopped some fifteen years ago. Venetia had on her reunion manner.
‘Set
h, darling, this is Harry Barnes. He’s over from New York to do some research for a new book, well, to give lectures officially, and he wants to meet a real five prodigy. He went to Eton – or is it Slough Grammar? – so you’ll have heaps in common.’
Her brother blushed obligingly. Barnes remained seated as he held out his hand, forcing Seth to stoop.
‘So you are he. How very exciting. Take a pew,’ Barnes said. Seth sat on the sofa arm nearest his sister, and took a large gulp of wine.
‘Neesh has probably been talking a lot of rot,’ he said, ‘it stands to reason you can only be good at something by neglecting something else.’
‘Oh bilge. Don’t believe a word he says. He’s always been teacher’s pet,’ said Venetia, her thoughts elsewhere.
‘Ah, but there’s a difference between rank diplomacy and actual merit,’ retorted Barnes, ‘I believe I was a teacher’s pet precisely because of my failure to shine. I was the only one who never put the teacher on the spot with awkward questions. He was eternally grateful and overlooked my marks as a reward.’
Seth thought Venetia’s laugh excessive.
‘You’re a novelist, then?’ he asked the man with thinning hair.
‘Bull’s eye, dear boy. Have you read any of them?’
‘Well, actually …’
‘Too busy fiddling to, I suppose.’
‘It may interest you to know,’ Venetia interposed, ‘that a friend of mine has applied to write a thesis on you in his last year at Caius. You’re not wholly neglected by English youth. He’ll probably write to your agent any day now to ask you for an interview.’
‘Well that’s flattering, so long as he doesn’t want to read any of my letters and diaries – they have to wait until after my demise, I’m afraid.’
‘Or at least until you’ve secured your Nobel prize.’
Barnes roared with laughter and Venetia joined him, delighted to have found someone both witty and unmusical. Aware that his role as conversational property was now played out, Seth turned away to spare himself their charity.
