Parlour Games

by Mavis Cheek

  Occasionally she bumps into Susannah and they exchange wry looks, and once, just as she is biting into a little canapé, Susie says, ‘See that woman over there? The one with the powder-blue mini-skirt?’

  Celia nods.

  ‘Well – that’s the vicar’s wife ...’ Susie lowers her voice for dramatic effect. ‘I’m almost certain she’s next in line for Tom.’

  Which causes Celia to nearly choke on her mouthful. How wrong Susannah can be sometimes, she thinks happily, wiping her mouth.

  ‘Do not go near her,’ says Susannah, ‘for she smells just like a Turkish brothel.’

  Which causes Celia to explode again, this time on a moiety of caviar which she sends everywhere like little black gunshot pellets. Susannah, who dislikes to be associated with such Lucullan habits, walks off, cool, head high, as if the choking fit were nothing whatsoever to do with her.

  Hence Celia, standing alone, meets the eyes of a woman a few yards off, who looks at her strangely. This is not only to do with the voluble spattering of caviar. It is also to do with the woman thinking that she recognises, vaguely, this lone choker in black-and-white stripes. And Celia – apparently glaring back, though in fact merely attempting to cease machine gunning everyone – thinks that she, too, has met this woman before. The woman moves off hurriedly: now she remembers. And Celia’s contorted face and heaving (outrageously large) shoulders help her to do so. This is very definitely an unhinged female. And Celia remembers too, suddenly. It is the dog woman from Stockbridge. Celia hurries after her, for this is a face she knows, someone to talk to. Even if Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn was all cods.

  But the woman has energy. Celia speeds up. The two women are positively whizzing in and out of the shrubs and the chattering groups. The Stockbridge lady determined to avoid this woman who (witness how she pursues so relentlessly) is undoubtedly quite mad, and Celia determined to catch her up. Lunch parties full of unknowns are tiring occasions. The old Celia would have made friends with all kinds of people by now. The new Celia, shoulders a-flail, is finding her own space and doesn’t want to be bothered with all that sociability stuff. She hastens after her slight acquaintance, in continuing astonishment at the speed with which she moves, but determined to manage some kind of friendly exchange. It will be a relief to talk to someone, even to her, and there’s no fear of her doing anything sinister here in broad daylight. Celia pursues with enthusiasm. The dog woman feels exactly the opposite and ducks inside the house, coming to rest against the french windows, panting a little from the exertion and peering out to see if she is safe. She is. Celia is standing some way off, scanning the heads dotted about, her quarry lost.

  Tom, passing through the room, finds this guest of his cowering and peering and says, ‘Mrs Stone! How nice. And have you decided to sell me those wonderful Daimlers of yours yet?’

  Amongst her widow’s possessions, shipped back in the days when the residue of the Empire still paid for such transportation, is a pair of pre-war cars which have lain, unused, in a garage near Stockbridge, for twenty-five years.

  The dog woman regains enough composure to say, ‘Mr Mason. What lovely weather.’

  And Tom, his charm abounding, says, ‘It certainly is. Shouldn’t we be out there, you and I, enjoying it? And how is that lovely dog of yours?’ Fortunately he does not know that the well-bred Rebecca, disappointed by the lean cuisine that has come her way, is making her feelings felt by crouching near the hollyhocks and leaving her own version of a calling card.

  He offers Mrs Stone his arm. She peers again, sees that Celia has moved further off from the house, and accepts.

  ‘You look as if,’ says Tom, ‘you were avoiding somebody.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ says the dog woman, ‘I am.’ And feeling the need to unburden herself, she goes on to explain, pointing out the object of her avoidance, who is now wandering away from the house towards the artificial lake and swaying her tightly swathed hips with delighted abandon. The frock has certainly gone to Celia’s head. As she sways she flexes those shoulders. The effect from the back is that there is a rampant and dangerous woman on the loose. Tom finds that this continues to be an unpleasant observation.

  It is unfortunate that Mrs Stone gets to the point of her story about Celia’s need for a book by saying, ‘She said she was going to weekend at the house of some very boring people and that she had forgotten to bring a book. Very boring people indeed,’ she adds. ‘I wonder who it is she is staying with down here?’

  Tom stops listening.

  He also forgets that Celia could not possibly have known, when she said this, that she would be coming to his home for the weekend.

  All he knows is that what was begun earlier, when he saw Celia looking too much like Susannah, is now compounded. If sufferers in cuckoldry do not like their transgressing partners to be criticised, most certainly would-be lovers do not like to be thought of as bores. Even if Celia said it jokingly it is an unpardonable joke. Tom begins to realise that this is no longer a woman for whom he would lay down his Burberry across a muddy puddle, nor yet a woman he might yearn to hold protected in his arms. This is a woman who wears her shoulders like a man, who thinks of him as a bore, and who – as he can see perfectly plainly – will make up to anything in trousers. (In her roving sway Celia has been accosted by two homesick New Englanders; good family men back in Concord but oh those English hips of hers. She is smiling up at them and has the stamp of seduction all over her. Tom can read that even from this distance.) Quite suddenly that is good enough for Tom. He remembers Celia prostrate on the floor with John. Him too? More than likely. No wonder Alex has broken and sought solace elsewhere. Celia is clearly wanton. Worse, Celia has always refused to be wanton with him. And the reason is now apparent. He has not been exciting enough. And apparently she doesn’t mind to whom she tells this. Well – fine! So be it. He will have no further truck with Celia apart – he decides – from absolutely proper day-to-day acknowledgement when it is strictly necessary.

  He strikes her from his list of desirable conquests, straightens his back and gives Mrs Stone the benefit of his most charming smile. He will have those Daimlers anyway. He is very good with elderly ladies. He wafts her back into the sunny outdoors with the most English of phrases, ‘Perfect weather for the time of year ... shall we take a little turn about the garden ...?’

  And Celia, seeing them together, feels that she cannot summon up the energy to be two such different things to two such different people, and leaves them alone. She has escaped her admirers with relief feeling very glad indeed that she has Tom lined up for Vengeance. In her heart and despite the shoulders she feels a bit scared of venturing into the realities of a sexual hunt. By way of escape she spends the rest of the time eating fondant chicken with the vicar’s wife, who does indeed smell like a Turkish brothel and who, Celia notices, follows Tom around with her eyes more than a lady connected with the church should.

  Hard cheese, lady, she thinks grimly. That one is mine. And pulling her grandiose shoulders back she says, ‘Fancy Tom needing a flat in Shepherd Market when he has all this ...’ She is immediately gratified when the powder-blue mini-skirt becomes suddenly splashed with fondant dressing as its owner starts, and colours, and does what so recently Celia did (but for a more honourable reason) which is to choke. Ha ha, thinks Celia, so Tom is having it off with the vicar’s wife, is he? Well, well – we shall soon change that, shall we not? And she offers the vicar’s wife a tissue by way of compensation.

  True to her promise, when the last guest has gone and the staff have cleared up, Susie settles down for a giggle over the day’s proceedings with Celia. They each have a tray on their knees in Celia’s bedroom. Susie is wearing a richly embroidered Chinese lounging suit and looks as perfect as ever. She is delicately spooning consommé into her pale, de-lipsticked mouth and taking tiny bites of unbuttered rye. Celia is wearing her white towelling robe and is smudgy-eyed. She knows that the dress was one thing, the future another. She could never rea
lly be like Susannah if she tried. And she doesn’t really want to be.

  She holds a large sandwich between both hands and bites into it. The two of them, let loose on the kitchen, made their own suppers. Celia’s sandwich contains bacon and egg. Were Tom to join them now he might change his mind again about Celia, for she looks totally herself again, cosy, womanly, even a little vulnerable in the way she has her legs tucked under her. But Tom is not there. He is not in Celia’s bedroom, he is not in the house at all.

  Something has come up – to do with those Daimlers, so he said – and he has to go to London for the night. He will be back again tomorrow.

  ‘On a Sunday,’ Celia said, when he announced this. ‘You’re as bad as Alex, Tom ...’

  She felt unpleasantly disturbed as he darted her a look for she could have sworn it contained less affection than loathing. It must have been a trick of the light. Quite definitely a trick of the light, she decides, when Tom says, ‘When are you planning to leave tomorrow, Celia?’ in a tone of the utmost interest.

  Susie says, ‘You’ll stay for lunch?’

  Celia agrees that she will.

  To which Tom says, with obviously heartfelt relief, ‘That’s good. Make sure you do. And I’ll be back before you go.’

  He says it so keenly because Tom has a plan.

  Celia merely reads his keenness as desire for her. Which is cheering.

  She is also glad that he will be at home tomorrow night. Once she returns to Bedford Park she will open the package from the washing machine and make her telephone call to him straight away. Before the colly-wobbles set in. Of course Susannah will also be around when she telephones, which will make the lovey-dovey stuff a bit difficult, but nothing in life is easy. She gives Tom a brazen valedictory smile. At this stage she is still wearing the frock, though truth to tell it has become a bit tiresome by now – the shoulders make it impossible to relax and like Victorian stays, they make its wearer remain very upright. Tom is glad to be going out. He has never seen Celia looking less sympathetic. Alas for their love affair, it was only after he had gone that she slipped into the more appealing deshabille of her towelling robe.

  While Susie prattles Celia’s mind wanders. First to that alien territory of how it will be with Tom – which creates something of a churning in her stomach that may or may not have something to do with the largesse of her sandwich following, as it does, quite an assortment of the comestibles on offer at lunch – and second, fleetingly, though she would prefer not, to what Alex is doing now. She is right not to dwell on this conjecture for – innocent of his wife’s knowledgeable proximity – he is at that very moment, in his room at the Queen’s Brough Hotel, engaging Miss Lyall from behind while they discuss Brandreth tactics, thus making the perfect combination of business and pleasure. Alex finds his head is quite clear during sex. So is Miss Lyall’s. As they hump they are coming up with some very sharp future planning that will do much to bring about the success of the case. Well, well – certainly Celia would never have been able to engage with her husband in such combination activities. It is just as well that her mind has something else to occupy it. She gives not a fig for what her husband is doing – not a fig, she tells herself. And she smiles that slow smile, bestowing it upon the wife of her intended. Who, unknowing, smiles back. The game of Vengeance is almost afoot.

  Tom also has a plan.

  Tom’s plan also has to do with the package in the washing machine. Tom’s plan is to remove it before Celia gets home.

  It was purchased and given in the cloudy rapture of secret love mixed with a certain feeling that his affections were a lost cause. It contains a little joke, and a little tribute. Twin commodities, for twin feelings, which are now as ashes. He wishes to redress both. So – he has a plan.

  He will spend the night in his surreptitious flat. With the vicar’s wife, who is at this moment telling her husband that she is off to see an old parishioner of theirs in Highgate (a useful old parishioner, dead two years back, but the vicar, not being worldly and much bogged down in confirmation classes, has not taken the time to enquire). She has popped the bottle of scent in her handbag, snapped it shut, and prepares to depart for rapture. Tom’s plan, when this night of love is over, is to drive home to Wiltshire, via Bedford Park, and remove the washing-machine package on the way. In time, it should be said, to replace Celia’s house keys in her handbag. He is fiddling with these in his pocket as he speaks to Celia. She interprets this activity as an erotic circumnavigation of his private parts, which is just as it should be.

  And so, after Tom set off, Celia and Susannah have brought their suppers up here and among the louder of their gigglings is a frank discussion about their views on the vicar’s wife which has recalled Celia from her meditative wanderings. It is the kind of conversation that would seem most unpleasant to outsiders, which makes it all the more enjoyable for them. Eventually, as it must, the talk comes around to Celia and her troubles, but she does not wish to dwell on them.

  ‘When is Alex due back?’ asks Susannah.

  ‘Tomorrow night.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Ah well,’ says Celia darkly. ‘We shall just have to wait and see ...’

  ‘But not divorce?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Celia is firm. ‘Most certainly not divorce. Perhaps a little fun though ...’

  ‘You be careful with your little fun nowadays,’ says Susannah.

  As usual she has gone, with practical correctness, to the heart of the matter.

  She gives Celia a goodnight kiss on the cheek – such intimacy they share now – and departs to deal with her hair and her skin and her nails and dictate a few letters into her machine while she does so. Celia settles down in the four poster and – because she feels that she is at some kind of beginning and because it is there and because, well, she just cannot resist the foolishness of it – she opens the book which that mad Stockbridge woman gave her just to see – just to see – what Fate has lined up in the random opening of a page. She finds two lines from Proust to Madame Straus, and she yawns as she reads them.

  ... you do not deign to countenance the sentiments which give me the rapture of being.

  The most respectful servant

  Of your Sovereign Indifference

  Marcel Proust

  She snaps the book shut.

  Silly game.

  That can have no relevance. Of all the emotions she has experienced from Tom, Sovereign Indifference is certainly not one.

  Silly, silly, game.

  The egg and bacon sandwich has its effect and Celia falls into a deep, untroubled sleep.

  5

  Mrs Green wants to get to work early this Monday morning. She hurries along the Bedford Park streets until she comes within sight of Celia’s house. She then slows down and shuffles for the rest of the way. Once in a while she likes coming upon her employer a little earlier than usual. It makes Celia edgy. Also, Mrs Green is aware, Celia likes to have a quick tidy round before her cleaner arrives. It is worth setting out ten minutes earlier sometimes just to get there before this little tidy. It flusters Celia and a woman who owns as much stuff as she does deserves to be flustered often. It also gives Mrs Green a certain ascendancy – an attribute singularly lacking in the rest of her life. If she can catch her ladyship still in her night clothes and half made-up, with the breakfast dishes lying around and old underpants draped across the landing, it goes some way towards compensating for not even having one proper canteen to call her own.

  She is looking forward to having a profoundly justified sniff when she gets there this morning. The circumstances are right for it because it’s the half-term holiday. (Mrs Green is aware of this even if Celia was not. Mrs Green watches Celia’s calendar as closely as if she were a pregnancy-fearing lover: envy and thrill mingle as she reads of her employer’s full rich life.) When the children are home from school is a good time to catch her out. With no reason for getting up, nine times out of ten Mrs Green makes a direct hit. She can get t
hrough the door silently (she has a key), slide up the stairs and be in Celia’s bedroom before she has time to open her eyes. Best of all was once when she found both Celia and Alex asleep. That was one of the high spots in her career. Spoiled a bit by them thanking her for waking them (Mr Crossland had an appointment or something), but a sweet memory all the same.

  Her beige face takes on the grimace of a smile as she pushes open the gate and notices that the milk has not yet been taken in. This is a good sign. As she goes up the path she savours the moments of fluster that will accompany her untimely arrival. She’ll give her a portable black-and-white for the kitchen as well as a colour in the front.

  She is about to ring the bell when she notices there are keys in the lock and the front door is ajar. Her heart sinks. Celia must be up after all. Disappointment reduces the folds on her face to the more usual, and, truth to tell, more aesthetically pleasing tight-lipped mordancy. She enters. She shuffles through the hallway and into the back room. Apart from a couple of books and some dying flowers there is nothing on the breakfast table for her to sniff about. She prepares to call out but on hearing Celia in the kitchen she merely plonks her shopping bag down and shuffles across to the door. But it is not Celia she sees. There is no sign of Celia, either prepared or unprepared. Instead, mesmerised, she stands and looks upon the crouching, well-dressed figure of a man. He is very red in the face and grappling, unsuccessfully it appears, with the door of the washing machine. Something in the way he wears his dark-blue suit and white collar tells Mrs Green that he is not a washing-machine mechanic. This is borne out further by his looking up with eyes that are dark with guilt. And, still crouching, fixed in the pose, it seems, it is further borne out by his saying, ‘Oh my God,’ in a voice that denies he feels at home doing what he is doing.