Marrying Off Mother

by Gerald Durrell

  ‘I am enchanted,’ I said gravely and kissed her hand.

  ‘At least you have some manners,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘Well, you may see me home, if you please.’

  Getting Miss Booth-Wycherly down the long staircase, hall and steps was quite a performance, since the two brandies had now taken firm hold and, while they had a detrimental effect on her legs, they unleashed a stream of reminiscences and for each one she had to pause while she told me the story. Three steps down the stairs she remembered how Daddy had first brought her here when Mummy died in 1904, and she described in great detail the assembled company. Women as multi-coloured as a flock of parakeets in their wonderful gowns, glittering jewels in such quantities that they would blind a pirate, the men so handsome, the women so beautiful; they didn’t seem to breed beautiful women any more. Not like they did when she was a gal, when everybody seemed beautiful. At the foot of the stairs she remembered a particularly beautiful young man whom she had been enamoured of, who had gambled and lost and gone out and shot himself. So unnecessary, since Daddy would have lent him the money, and so thoughtless since the servants had to clean up the mess. Daddy said that you should always treat the lower classes with consideration, and you should not give your servants unnecessary work to do. She remembered halfway down the hall how King Edward had visited Monte in 1906 and how she’d been presented to him, and how he had been a true gentleman. The flood of remembrances continued down the steps, across the forecourt, and uninterruptedly during the taxi ride to one of the less salubrious parts of Monte Carlo. Here the taxi drew up at an alleyway between two tall ancient buildings with plaster peeling from the walls and faded sun-blistered shutters.

  ‘Ah, home,’ said Miss Booth-Wycherly, screwing her monocle into her eye and viewing the unsavoury alley. ‘I have my apartment on the ground floor, just down there, second door on the left. So convenient.’

  I extracted her from the taxi with some difficulty and, telling the driver to wait, I escorted her down the alley which smelt, in the hot night air, of cats, sewage and rotting vegetables in equal quantities. At the front door she placed her monocle in her eye and held out her hand graciously.

  ‘You have been most kind, young man,’ she said, ‘most kind, and I have enjoyed conversing with you. It has been a great pleasure.’

  The pleasure, I assure you, was entirely mine,’ I said truthfully. ‘May I call tomorrow to make sure you have completely recovered from your fatigue?’

  ‘I never receive before five,’ she said.

  Then, if I may, I will come at five,’ I suggested.

  ‘I will be delighted to see you,’ she said, inclining her head. She opened the door and manoeuvred her way through it a trifle uncertainly and the door closed behind her. I was loath to leave her for fear she might fall down and hurt herself, but with such an indomitable old lady you could hardly suggest undressing her and putting her to bed.

  The next evening at five, bearing a basket of fruit and cheese together with a large bunch of flowers, I made my way to Miss Booth-Wycherly’s abode. I knocked on her door and there came a storm of shrill yapping. Presently, the door was cautiously opened and Miss Booth-Wycherly peered out of the crack, her monocle glinting.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Booth-Wycherly,’ I said, ‘I’ve come as we arranged.’

  The door swung open a trifle and I could see she was wearing a fantastic lace nightdress. It was obvious that she had forgotten about me and my visit.

  ‘Why, young man,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t expecting you — er — quite so early.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought you said five o’clock,’ I said contritely.

  ‘I did. Is it five already?’ she asked. ‘Dear me, how time flies, I was just having my siesta.’

  ‘I am so sorry to have disturbed you,’ I said. ‘Shall I come back later?’

  ‘No. No,’ she said, smiling at me graciously, ‘if you don’t mind me entertaining you in my night attire.’

  ‘Your company would be a privilege in any attire,’ I said gallantly.

  She opened the door and I went in. The reek of stale methylated spirits was overpowering. Her flat consisted of one very large room which served as a bedroom and a living room and off it a minute kitchen and a tiny bathroom. At the end of the living room was a huge double bed. The weather being hot, there were only sheets upon it, and these were so dirty they seemed almost black. The cause of this was sitting in the middle of the bed — a dachshund, with a huge ox shin-bone, covered with blood and sawdust, lying on the sheets between its paws. When it saw me looking, it growled malevolently at me. The walls on each side and above the bed were almost obliterated under a mass of ancient yellowing photographs in gilt frames. One wall of the room was occupied by two huge oak cupboards and between them a rack, like a large bookcase, on which reposed an extraordinary collection of shoes, each carefully treed. There must have been some thirty or forty pairs, ranging from brogues to sequined dance slippers. Along the other wall, piled almost to the ceiling, was a series of large leather trunks (the sort they used to call steamer trunks in the old days), each shaped like the traditional pirate’s treasure chest with a rounded lid and emblazoned with the magic words, BOOTH-WYCHERLY. There was just enough room among all this clutter for a small table and three wicker chairs.

  “I thought the fruit and cheese looked so good, I simply had to bring you some,’ I said. ‘And, of course, flowers for my hostess.’

  She took the bunch of flowers in her fragile arms and to my embarrassment her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  ‘It’s been a long time since I was given flowers,’ she said.

  ‘That’s because you’re too much of a recluse,’ I pointed out. ‘if you got out and about more, you’d have queues of men outside your door with floral offerings. I wouldn’t get a look in then.’

  She looked at me for a moment and then she chuckled pleasedly.

  ‘You’re what Daddy would have called a card,’ she said. ‘You know how to flatter an old woman.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said, briskly. ‘You’re not a day over fifty. I refuse to believe anything else.’

  She chuckled again.

  ‘It’s a long time since anyone was gallant with me,’ she said. ‘A very long time. I enjoy it. I think I’m going to like you, young man.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ I answered truthfully, ‘for I know that I like you.’

  From that moment on, I became Miss Booth-Wycherly’s confidant and friend. She had no relatives and no other friends; those few acquaintances she had either thought her touched, or had not the time or the interest to listen to her fund of anecdotes. But to me it was fascinating to hear her talk so vividly and so poignantly of a bygone age, an age when the British so arrogantly bestrode the earth and when the world maps were predominantly pink to show it. A world unshakeable in its solidarity and its elegance, with an endless supply of good things for those with the wealth; a world where the lower classes knew their place and a good cook was paid thirty pounds a year and had a day off a month. Miss Booth-Wycherly recaptured those far off, apparently perpetually sunlit, days for me and it was as fascinating as talking to a dinosaur. I used to visit her whenever I could, braving the assaults of the dachshund Lulu (who regularly bit me in the ankle), taking her gifts of fruit and cheese and chocolates, of which she was inordinately fond. Gradually I weaned her off methylated spirits on to brandy which I felt — if she must drink — was better for her. It certainly took less brandy to give her the desired effect. She took the brandy, of course, for purely medicinal reasons to begin with, but later she would quite blatantly suggest that we had a tot. The difficulty at first was to get her to accept the brandy, and I found the only way I could do it was to play cards with her, using the bottle as a stake. If she won, she had the bottle; if I won, we opened the bottle to celebrate and I forgot it when I left. It was during the last of these card sessions before I left France that she told me she was a Catholic.

  ‘A very bad one, I’m afraid,’ s
he confessed. ‘I haven’t been to Mass for years and years. You see, I didn’t really feel I could, for I’m such a bad woman in so many ways.’

  ‘Surely not,’ I protested. ‘You seem the essence of goodness to me.’

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘You don’t know all about me, young man. I’ve done some very wicked things in my time.’

  She looked round the room furtively, to make sure we were alone, if you discounted Lulu, who sat on the bed, busily demolishing what appeared to be half a sheep.

  ‘I was once a married man’s mistress,’ said Miss Booth-Wycherly unexpectedly, and sat back to see how I would take the news.

  ‘Bravo!’ I said, imperturbably. ‘I bet you made him very happy, lucky devil.’

  ‘I did!’ she said. ‘Oh yes I did.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. You gave happiness.’

  ‘Yes, but immorally,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Happiness is happiness. I don’t think it has anything to do with morals,’ I said.

  ‘I became pregnant by him,’ she said, and took a hasty sip of brandy to recover her nerve after this revelation.

  ‘It sometimes unfortunately happens,’ I said guardedly.

  ‘Then I did this terrible thing, a mortal sin,’ she whispered. ‘I had an abortion.’

  I was not quite sure what to say to this, so I remained silent.

  She took my silence to mean that I disapproved of her action.

  ‘But I had to,’ she said. ‘Oh, I know people have abortions now like shelling peas, and think nothing of it. And they have illegitimate children like chickens laying eggs and it’s no stigma. But when I was a gal, to have an affair with a married man was bad enough, but to have an abortion or an illegitimate child was unthinkable.’

  ‘But didn’t the Church help you?’ I asked. ‘I thought in moments of stress like that . . .’

  ‘No,’ interrupted Miss Booth-Wycherly. ‘At the church we used to frequent we had a particularly obnoxious priest. I was very upset and at my wits’ end, as you may imagine, and all he did was to compare me to the whore of Babylon.’

  A tear trickled out from behind her monocle and rolled down her cheek.

  ‘So I gave up going to church,’ she said, sniffing defiantly. ‘I considered they had let me down.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think that makes you irretrievably damned,’ I pointed out. ‘There are many worse people in the world.’

  ‘If I wasn’t financially on a tight rein,’ she said, ‘I would have very much liked to have helped the Church, but I’m afraid I couldn’t have done anything very much. But now, after that, oh, no, never.’ She had another sip of brandy. ‘But I would like to help something like the orphanage in San Sebastian. I think the Little Sisters of Innocence do such marvellous work. They don’t care if the children are — well, you know — illegitimate. I visited them once with Henri, he was my lover, and we were most impressed. They are good — not like those priests.’

  ‘San Sebastian is that small village just over the border in France, isn’t it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘such a pretty little mountain village.’

  ‘Next year, when I come down, would you like me to drive you out there to visit them?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, that would be lovely,’ she said, radiant. ‘How exciting. Something nice to look forward to.’

  it’s a date,’ I said, shuffling the cards. ‘And now let’s see who is going to win this absolutely untouched bottle of medicinal brandy.’

  We played for a time and she won the brandy.

  She also thought of a way to help the orphanage at San Sebastian. Yet, had she known the alarm and consternation it was going to cause, I doubt whether she would have done it — though the end result was all that she could have desired.

  I returned the following year and, as usual, paid my annual visit to Jean and Melanie. After the exuberance of their greeting had died down and we were sitting having a drink, I raised my glass and toasted Melanie.

  ‘You are,’ I said, ‘the best hostess in the world and the most beautiful woman in Monte Carlo.’

  She inclined her lovely head, smiling.

  ‘However,’ I continued, ‘lest you set too great a store by my remarks I must confess to you that my heart is lost to another. So I must leave you briefly and purchase fruit, cheese, brandy and flowers and make my way hot-foot to my loved one, the delicious, the incomparable Miss Booth-Wycherly.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Jean, startled.

  ‘Oh, Gerry,’ said Melanie in distress. ‘Didn’t you get our letter?’

  ‘Letter? What letter?’ I asked with an awful premonition.

  ‘Miss Booth-Wycherly is dead, Gerry,’ said Jean heavily, ‘I’m sorry, we wrote at once, knowing how fond you were of her.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  It appeared that Miss Booth-Wycherly had made a tiny killing at the Casino and on returning to her flat had celebrated. Then she unwisely decided to take a bath. She had slipped and, in falling, both her fragile thigh bones had snapped like sticks of celery. She lay in the bath all night while the water turned stone cold. Early in the morning a passer-by heard her faint cries for help and broke the door down. Indomitable to the last, she was still coherent enough to give the rescuer Jean and Melanie’s telephone number, for I had spoken highly of them and she had no other friends. Jean had gone down immediately and taken her to hospital.

  ‘She was magnificent, Gerry,’ said Jean. ‘She knew she was dying, but she was determined not to do so until she was ready. She said to the doctor who wanted to give her morphine, “Take that stuff away, young man. I’ve never taken drugs in my life, and I don’t intend to become a drug addict now.” Then she insisted on making a will. She had nothing really to leave except her bits of furniture and her clothes, but they all went to the orphanage at San Sebastian.’ Jean paused and blew his nose. ‘She was sinking fast, but she remained clear-headed. She said she wished you had been there, Gerry. She said that you were her special friend. She said to apologize to you for the fact that she would not be able to accompany you on your trip to the orphanage.’

  ‘Did you get her a priest?’ I asked.

  ‘I offered, but she refused,’ said Jean. ‘She said she had no time for the Church. She became unconscious for a bit and then, a moment or so before she died, she suddenly regained consciousness — you know the way people sometimes do? And she put her monocle in her eye and glared at me, positively glared. Then she said a very peculiar thing.’

  I waited patiently while he sipped his drink.

  ‘She said, “They’ll get nothing from me. Whore of Babylon, indeed! I’m a Booth-Wycherly. I’ll show them.” And then her monocle fell out of her eye and she died. Have you any idea what she meant, Gerry?’ Jean asked, frowning at me.

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘She once committed a youthful indiscretion, and her local priest, instead of helping her, said she had behaved like a whore of Babylon. She never went to church after that. I think perhaps she didn’t somehow, at the end, connect the orphanage with the Church, and by leaving all her things to the orphanage she thought she was doing the priests in the eye. I suppose she thought it would create a sensation, poor old thing, and that the Church would be furious at having lost her clothes.’

  ‘But that’s just it,’ Melanie cried, it did create a sensation, the most awful sensation. We told you in our letter.’

  Tell me,’ I said.

  ‘No, don’t tell him, darling,’ Jean said. ‘We’ll just take him to the Casino tonight.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to the Casino,’ I said irritably, for I had not recovered from my sadness at Miss Booth-Wycherly’s death. ‘It won’t be the same without her.’

  ‘For the sake of her memory you must come. I will show you something and you will laugh and know that everything is all right,’ said Jean.

  He seemed serious, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘He’s right, Gerry dear,’ said Melanie. ‘Please co
me.’

  ‘All right,’ I said reluctantly. ‘Take me and show me, but it had better be good.’

  It was.

  When we got to the Casino we entered the gaming rooms and Jean said, ‘Just look around and tell me what you see.’

  I gazed round the tables thoughtfully. The blackjack had its usual customers including the gypsy dwarf who, to judge by his demeanour, had just made a good killing. At the chemin de fer table I spotted several old friends, including my Easter Island statue, as impassive as ever. Then I looked at the baccarat table. There was a dense crowd around it and it was obvious that someone was having an extraordinary run of luck. The crowd parted for a moment and my stomach turned over. For one awful second I saw there, leaning forward across the table to place her bet, Miss Booth-Wycherly, wearing the same crimson velvet hat and dress she had been wearing when I first encountered her. Then she turned her head and I could see that it was not Miss Booth-Wycherly but a much younger woman in her mid-twenties, with a lovely face and large innocent blue eyes like a Persian kitten. She looked round smiling and spoke to the handsome youth who stood behind her chair. He gazed down at her adoringly and nodded vigorous agreement to whatever she said. Whoever this girl was, she was wearing Miss Booth-Wycherly’s clothes and my irritation bubbled up into anger. As the wheel spun the crowd closed in and hid her from view.

  ‘Who the hell’s that?’ I demanded. ‘And what the devil’s she doing in Miss Booth-Wycherly’s clothes?’

  ‘Hush,’ said Jean. ‘Not so loud. It’s all right, Gerry.’

  ‘But who is this bloody body-snatcher?’ I asked, exasperated.

  ‘That,’ said Jean, watching me, ‘is Sister Claire.’

  ‘Sister Claire?’ I echoed.

  ‘Sister Claire,’ repeated Melanie.

  ‘You mean she’s a nun?’ I asked incredulously. ‘A nun in those clothes, gambling? You must be out of your mind.’

  ‘No, it’s quite true, Gerry,’ said Jean, smiling at me. ‘She’s Sister Claire of the Little Sisters of Innocence, at least she was. She isn’t a nun any longer.’