After the Party

by Cressida Connolly

  At the top of the house, on the south side, there was a low parapet. It was possible to get out there, up a narrow staircase which ran from the end of the top landing. There was a little door on to this staircase and then once you got up to the top there was a wide shallow gutter, lined with lead, which ran behind the parapet all along the front of the house. Sarita took me up once, to see the view. From the ground you would never have known it was there. It was a sort of shelf, not meant to be walked along. Emilia was strictly forbidden ever to go out there, or to take visiting children, and the door was kept securely fastened. But five or six very drunk men with determination on their side aren’t going to let a couple of bolts get in the way of their fun.

  I’ve never seen a pig go up a rather tight staircase, but evidently it is quite possible, although the animal was making a fair bit of noise by then. It tried to bite – actually did get its jaw around someone’s calf, agony apparently – and scrabbled about. At various points someone had the bright idea of picking up its back legs to make it easier to manoeuvre, like a living wheelbarrow. But of course the pig didn’t like that and made a dreadful commotion. They’d finished off another bottle of brandy, between them. It was the end of a long night; it was a miracle they were still standing. One or other of them must have suggested it, but they all joined in. They’d have had to work as a team: pigs are heavy. Imagine a side of bacon. A porker like that would have weighed as much as a heavy man, maybe more. Pigs are big, much bigger than people imagine them to be.

  Apparently the animal squealed like mad as soon as they started trying to pick it up. This made them all double up with laughter, so that one or other of them kept letting go and the pig, half-lifted, would fall down again. At this point one of them noticed that its hooves were surprisingly dainty in relation to its bulk and this made them laugh all the more, as if the animal was a plump old lady with absurdly tiny little feet. The hooves kept skittering against the lead and the animal kept squealing and butting into them all, trying to escape. The noise it made gave them all a fright as well as making them laugh, like getting the giggles at a funeral. It was so loud and shrill, as loud as a terrified child. Apparently it had a sort of other-worldly quality, like a banshee or a harpy or one of those creatures; as if it was a bad omen. Even later when Fergus told the story – and the telling was much punctuated by laughter; he still thought it was tremendously funny – he did admit that the noise was awful, an awful thing, and that it had given them all pause. Especially at that time of the early morning when it was so very quiet, only the first birds making any sound.

  The pig screamed non-stop as it fell. I don’t know if it woke everyone in the house or if they were too blotto from the party. Anyway, Fergus and the rest of them didn’t hear it actually hit the ground because the noise of its shrieking drowned out the sound of the impact. They were almost surprised when they leaned over and saw the entrails coiling out from where the skin had split and no sound coming from it any more. The noise just stopped. The head had broken right open, like a coconut at a funfair. They stood on the narrow parapet, swaying slightly from the exertion and the long night of drink, the sudden quiet after the pig’s shrieking adding to the sense of giddiness. No one quite knew what to do next.

  ‘Christ, what a racket,’ someone said.

  ‘Gives one a new respect for sausages, I must say,’ said Pea-Brain.

  After that it became rather a catch-phrase among them all. If there were sausages at breakfast, someone or other, lifting the cover off one of those silver serving dishes on the sideboard, would inevitably say: ‘Gives one a new respect for sausages.’ It always got a laugh.

  Lord knows how they got the carcass cleared up, whether they got people in from the farm to do it, I never asked. They must have had to keep the dogs inside.

  Poor Sarita, it was such a ghastly business. Not the pig. I mean what happened later, after the other party. At the time everyone said there was nothing anyone could have done to help, that it couldn’t have been avoided. But I knew that was not true. I should have helped her, but I did nothing. No one helped Sarita.

  3. Sussex, July 1938

  True to her word, Nina asked around and found a house for Phyllis and Hugh to rent. It was at Bosham, set back from the harbour wall behind a deep apron of springy lawn which was shaded by two tall blue cedars. The drawing room had a pale green sofa and two chairs upholstered in a floral chintz of brown and green which matched the material on the upholstered C-shaped seat of the bay window. This looked out across the water towards the church on the far side of the horseshoe bay.

  Phyllis loved the house. She was entranced by the view and the situation, close to both her sisters; so conveniently near to Chichester for trains and provisions and yet so tucked away. The owner, who lived in London, had only used the house for Fridays to Sundays. A woman from Pagham was already employed as a twice-weekly char and now she would come in every morning. Nina thought she knew of someone else who would be able to cook.

  It was such a sweet relief to be out from under Patricia’s feet. Not that her sister had ever shown any sign of impatience, but Greville had begun to inquire how the house-hunting was coming along, never with any temper, but with increasing frequency. And the children were sick of always having to entertain their cousin Antonia, poor lamb. Phyllis had spent a large part of her time abroad wishing she was back at home, close to her sisters, and was surprised to discover how much she liked being alone in a house after all. Not that she was alone, really, what with the children and Hugh not having enough to do. But one didn’t have to be on duty, under one’s own roof. One didn’t have to smile and pretend to be interested in the garden; one didn’t have to wait until everyone else had looked at the paper or taken a biscuit or had their baths. Throughout the weeks at Rose Green, Phyllis had never once had a hot-enough bath. She had sat at the edge of every chair she had occupied – quite literally the edge – ready to spring up at a moment’s notice, either to do her sister’s bidding or to get out of the way. It was wonderful now to be able to go into the drawing room and sit uninterrupted, reading. Patricia didn’t approve of detective novels – she always said they were the sort of thing housemaids read – and teased Phyllis about them.

  On their first Sunday in the new house, Nina and Eric and Patricia and Greville and Antonia came to lunch. Phyllis had noticed that her two sisters so arranged things as to barely be together; still less so when their husbands were at home. There was no hostility between them that Phyllis could detect, but they seemed not to include one another in their plans. She wanted to bring the family back together again, all three of them. Now that she had her own household she would be able to do so.

  ‘Nina did well for you, didn’t she?’ said Eric proudly, of his wife. ‘Found you a nice place here.’

  ‘Very. She did brilliantly. We’re so grateful,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Dining room’s rather small,’ said Greville.

  ‘I do think the view’s heavenly, I must say,’ said Patricia.

  ‘Isn’t it,’ said Hugh.

  ‘Such a pity about those trees,’ said Patricia.

  ‘Oh no, we like the trees. It’s nice to have a bit of shade,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘Well, of course. I meant it’s a pity they’re the wrong sort of cedar,’ said Patricia.

  Phyllis laughed. ‘What do you mean? How can there be a right sort and a wrong sort?’

  But Patricia was serious. ‘Well, the right sort are from the Lebanon and these are from the Atlantic. It’s well known. These are blue, you see. They’re just not what one would have chosen.’

  ‘You can’t mind, even about a tree! You are the limit, Patricia,’ said Nina.

  Patricia smiled. ‘It’s the sort of house one would expect to belong to a London surgeon. The kind with grand rooms in Harley Street, you know the sort of thing, with a huge polished brass sign and railings and those black and white tiles on the step.’

  ‘I think Nina said the man is a doctor of some kind
!’ Phyllis laughed. ‘He had a yacht down here, but now it’s gone over to the Isle of Wight. Isn’t that what you told me, Nina?’

  ‘She, not it,’ said Hugh automatically. ‘Yachts are vessels: vessels are always referred to as “she”.’

  ‘Be nice to put in some aubretia along that wall at the end,’ said Eric. ‘Aubretia puts on a lovely show.’

  ‘Plants are really more Patricia’s side of things,’ said Greville, as if his brother-in-law’s gardening advice had been directed at him.

  ‘Flowers from the beginning of spring right up until the first frost, does aubretia,’ said Eric.

  ‘It’s more of a picnic than a real lunch,’ said Phyllis.

  ‘D’you hear that, Tiddler?’ Greville asked his daughter. ‘A picnic!’

  Antonia grinned.

  ‘How lovely,’ said Patricia.

  ‘I thought a walk, after lunch,’ said Hugh.

  After they had eaten at a table out on the flagged terrace, they all set off around the harbour. The children scampered ahead with their cousin, chattering: having complained of Antonia’s company over the preceding weeks, they now seemed filled with delight at being reunited. Eric had brought a kite and wanted to show them how to launch it; he walked quickly, ahead of the rest, trying to catch up with the children so as to give them their lesson. There didn’t seem to be enough wind for flying a kite. The tide was out and little boats lolled on their sides in the sandy mud, like the tongues of overheated dogs. The bottoms of the exposed hulls were dark from the water. Phyllis fell into step with Nina and Greville. Hugh and Patricia lagged behind, bending over to identify the wild flowers which emerged in tiny clusters between the stones closest to the tide’s edge.

  It had been Patricia whom Hugh had liked, to begin with. The sisters all knew this, but it was only when she glanced back at their stooping figures, their heads almost touching, that it came to Phyllis to wonder for the first time whether Greville, too, was aware that Hugh had once pursued his wife. It was something she had never thought to ask Patricia. She wondered whether the picture they presented would seem to Greville, as it did to her, one of close unity and shared absorption, of two people with much common ground between them. But Greville was listening to Nina talking, and didn’t pause to look back.

  When Hugh had first appeared at the Grange Phyllis had still been in the schoolroom, her hair in plaits. He had been far older than them, a friend of the girls’ uncle, their mother’s younger brother: it was he who had brought Hugh over one bright afternoon, to play tennis. Then Hugh had been brought to a croquet party, then a luncheon. Their father had liked him, with his rather formal manners and neat hair. And he had a distinguished war record. He was already Commander Forrester, then.

  Patricia had been barely eighteen, her fair hair still long, like the hair of a princess in a fairy story: long and rippling, with the dark shine of high-carat gold. There had been a touch of the imperious about her, even then, despite being so much younger than Hugh. She had neither said nor done anything to discourage him, but received his attention as if it was nothing less than her due. This was not so much because she wished to give him hope as because she felt it correct to acknowledge his advances rather than shun them. If she also got some practice in the ways of wooing, so much the better; it was no bad thing to be prepared for what she was confident would be several such courtships. But afterwards, when she had turned him down, there had been recrimination. Her father felt she had led him on. He had suggested a week or two of reflection, before she came to a final decision. Patricia’s cheeks had flushed to a high colour and she had run up the stairs after shouting at her mild and bewildered parents: ‘I don’t want to and I shan’t let you make me!’

  She did find Hugh handsome and ever so slightly perplexing, and she was not unmoved when he produced a ring: a square emerald with gently stooping shoulders of diamonds, like a piece of angelica against the butter-icing coloured velvet lining of the little leather box. And although she had let him kiss her more than once – no one knew, not even Nina – and had felt as a result a melting low in her abdomen which took her entirely off-guard; despite all this, she knew that he lacked a certain stature. He was nice, even attractive, enough; but he would not be able to give her what she wanted. She wanted someone younger and more dashing, who could produce for her a world of dances and banter and fun; of long curving banisters and silver grape scissors and lovely clothes; of rooms scented with cigar smoke and hot-house gardenias and expensive scent; an enclosed world, reflected in old and darkly spotted mirrors hung low on broad half-landings or above side tables of gleaming rosewood. She had grown up with all this, or a slightly less sophisticated version of it. Her family was not worldly, but it was established, comfortable. They were county people, with well-stocked stables and a cellar full of port and silver pheasants adorning the dining-room table. What could be more natural than to wish to replicate, or actually improve upon, the milieu of her own childhood, so happy and secure?

  Because the trouble with Hugh was that he had no family. There was nothing to fall back on. His father had died young, overseas, leaving a widow who promptly returned to England and moved in with a married sister so as to be able to have her young son, her only child, with her during the holidays from his prep school. Hugh had gone up to naval college straight away after leaving school, as his father had before him: there was a well-off godfather who had helped educate the boy. At the time of his introduction to Patricia he had left the navy and was still establishing a civilian career for himself. After she rebuffed him, the girls heard that Hugh had gone abroad; somewhere in South America, it was thought. By the time he came back, six years later, Patricia had married Greville and Phyllis had grown up. Nina too, although Nina was too definite, too opinionated for Hugh. Phyllis no longer had plaits but wore her hair pinned low on the back of her head; she was gentle, something of a bookworm. Phyllis Forrester: it sounded nice. And after all, she was used to wearing Patricia’s old clothes, or such of them that she could fit into. She still accepted hand-me-down presents of cast-off blouses, gloves, even an occasional hat. It was not unnatural to her, having things her eldest sister had tired of or grown out of. She was used to not choosing for herself.

  Phyllis was so grateful to Nina for finding them the house. The one drawback was that it made her feel obliged to look willing and go to one of the meetings. While she poured the tea, and Patricia sliced the Dundee cake, Nina enthused about the forthcoming talk. There was to be a guest speaker from London, who Nina assured them was a very interesting sort of chap, full of ideas. There would be sherry and sausage rolls afterwards for the organizers, among whom – thanks to her sister and brother-in-law – Phyllis would be lucky enough to count herself. She didn’t seem to be bothering to try and lure Patricia.

  ‘It’s a mixed crowd, you’ll see. But there’s always someone nice and you’ll certainly find it stimulating. Give you something to think about,’ said Nina.

  ‘Does she want something to think about?’ asked Greville.

  ‘Of course she does! Otherwise she just sits about with her penny dreadfuls.’

  ‘I’ve got plenty to think about already,’ Phyllis protested. ‘You don’t imagine Hugh troubles himself with coming up with things for the children to do, day in day out, do you? It all falls to me. Half our things are still in packing cases and no one but me knows what’s what. I’ve got a great many things to be getting on with.’

  ‘Do you good to get out and mix a bit,’ said Nina firmly.

  The meeting took place in a function room at the back of the White Hart Inn in Chichester. There was a not unpleasant smell in the room, like the mildew odour in a seldom-used village hall. A rickety-looking wooden platform stood before rows of chairs and benches, enough to seat about sixty. Arriving early to greet the guest of honour with her sister, Phyllis wondered if the room would be filled; she rather thought not. Were so many people interested in politics, ideas? She didn’t remember that they had been, when she
was growing up: it was a given that everyone was a Tory, but she couldn’t recollect anyone being moved to discuss it. Now Nina bustled about, putting out cups and saucers on a side table for people’s tea afterwards and distributing leaflets, two on the seat of each chair. It was no surprise, really, that Nina should attach herself to this sort of thing. She’d always been inventing clubs, when they were children. She had constructed endless bossy lists and written them out in little rule books she made by hand, as well as making special badges to connote membership. Then too Phyllis had been the more biddable sister. Nina had the old familiar air of contented purpose about her this evening.

  Eric arrived, his hair freshly brilliantined, a thin, rather asthmatic-looking man by his side. This was Peter Heyward, tonight’s speaker. Eric seemed very animated. He called Phyllis over to be introduced. Gradually the room filled. Phyllis had expected that most of the audience would be working men and was surprised to find that this was not the case, for none of the audience appeared to conform to any particular type. There was a group of young women who arrived all at once, chattering like starlings: clerks, perhaps, or shop-girls. Three rather distinguished-looking women came in, two of them wearing fox tippets despite the summery weather. With pronounced hauteur they made their way straight to the front row of seats and installed themselves, each with one ankle tucked politely behind the other, just as Phyllis and her sisters had been taught a lady must always sit.

  Hugh came. Several people looked as if they might be farmers. A small group of them conversed with a handful of patrician-looking men, two or three of whom had narrow moustaches. This group, too, had gone straight to the front of the room and now seated themselves alongside the fur-tippeted women; evidently seeing themselves as people of distinction, they did not stand up to greet their interlocutors, although they smiled genially. The last to arrive were a large group of men, all over sixty by the look of them. Nina had told her that there were a lot of ex army and navy men in the Movement and Phyllis guessed they were former servicemen, from the tidiness of their dress. Far from the hall being half-empty, as she had envisaged, they had to send into the pub for more chairs in order to accommodate the numbers. Everyone seemed to know each other. Only the nine or ten grandees in the front row seemed slightly set apart from the rest.