One Day in May

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Aren’t you just?’

  A silence descended.

  ‘Well!’ Laura finally broke it. ‘There we are then. All sorted. Splendid. Um. Perhaps you’ll come along with me, Mr de Granville.’

  ‘Ralphie,’ he purred, eyes still on Maggie.

  ‘Ralphie, and I’ll, er, show you the formal rooms. The drawing room, the dining room and the… what have you… rooms,’ she finished lamely.

  ‘Delighted,’ he murmured, shooting Maggie a final glittering look. ‘Couldn’t be more thrilled.’

  He swept out of the door Laura had held open for him, green coat flying, closely followed by Mum, who, despite Laura’s frown, clearly thought she was Of The Party.

  ‘Oh my Lord,’ Dad said with a sigh as he picked up his copy of the Independent on Sunday again. He folded it, the better to peruse the crossword. ‘That man will have my wife eating out of his silk-lined pockets before he’s through, no doubt about that. I like your style, Maggie.’ He shot her an approving look before attending to One Across.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Maggie turned, distressed, to Hugh. ‘I hope I wasn’t too… you know…’

  ‘Punchy? Not in the least. Frankly, I’d like to tell him what to do with his solid glass curtain pole, but I’m afraid Laura’s smitten.’

  ‘D’you mean up his bum?’ asked Charlie, who, at eight, delighted in all things scatological.

  ‘My advice, Hugh,’ said Dad, reaching across to swat Charlie on the head with his newspaper, ‘is to give in graciously. You’ll have to eventually, so you may as well do it now. I speak from experience here. Spot a campaign early, that’s what I say. Whether it’s a new dishwasher or a new dog, these women lobby till they’ve ground you down.’ He shuddered. ‘Why more of them don’t go into politics beats me.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ agreed Hugh gloomily. He picked a bit of dried egg off the tablecloth. ‘I’ll probably have absolutely no say in the matter, as usual.’

  ‘And you, young man, can come with me.’ Dad got to his feet. Charlie was mincing around the kitchen, flapping his hands camply and aping Ralph’s effeminate voice: ‘Pinkie-perfect fridge here, mousy-mousy thingy there…’

  Dad caught his shoulders and steered him out of the door. ‘We’re gonna check out Daisy’s bantams.’

  ‘Oh!’ Daisy, who’d remained pretty much inert and abstracted throughout the whole episode, jumped to her feet. Pausing only to shove her feet into wellies by the back door, she ran after them, dressing gown flapping.

  ‘Wait for me!’

  Under the circumstances, Maggie and I felt the great outdoors was probably the best place for us too. We went upstairs to grab jackets, and then, whilst Mr de—Ralphie, prowled the great indoors, the two unmarried ladies, as befitted their station – and for all the world like a couple of Jane Austen characters, we decided with a giggle – took a turn about the rose garden.

  ‘Although I’m not convinced they’d chain-smoke their way round,’ I remarked as Maggie paused to light her second cigarette of the morning. There was a stiff breeze and she had her work cut out, bent double, hands cupped.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She straightened up, sucking hard to keep it going. ‘I’m sure Emma would have been puffing away in the shrubbery given half a chance. And anyway, I’ve been provoked,’ she remarked as she blew out a thin line of smoke. ‘Did he get his personality out of a dictionary, d’you think? Under P for parody?’

  I smiled. ‘Ah, but you see, Mum and Laura would be upset if he wasn’t like that,’ I pointed out as we strolled between the formal beds, white roses nodding in the breeze. ‘It’s totally and utterly what they were expecting. All that flamboyant, artistic director stuff – right up their alley.’

  ‘Makes my skin creep,’ she shuddered. ‘He’ll be prancing around in there,’ she jabbed her cigarette back to the house, ‘waving his arms about and shooting his cuffs up, droning on about festoons and filigrees, and they won’t have a bloody clue what he’s talking about. I hate that kind of crap, blinding people with science. He’ll be getting them to have coronets above the windows for pelmets and… oh my God…’ She stopped. Stared back at the house. ‘What did I tell you?’

  ‘What?’

  Ralph was at the dining room windows, chiselled profile to us, hands cupped in the air as if demonstrating a coronet shape. He saw us. Froze. Then glared and turned abruptly on his heel, sweeping on, whilst across the windows, like a couple of little mice, Mum and Laura scuttled after him.

  ‘Prat,’ Maggie spat with feeling.

  ‘Ignore him,’ I soothed. ‘He’ll be gone soon. Be prancing around Italy looking at marble.’

  ‘Oh, I shall,’ she seethed. ‘I shall snub him entirely. But before he goes I might just accidentally spill my drink on his calf-skin attaché case.’ The thought clearly cheered her and she smiled. Turning her back on the house, she gazed about her. ‘Meanwhile I shall enjoy this ridiculously grand country house while I can. Blimey, look at this garden.’ She blinked down at the statue at the end of the lime avenue. ‘Or is garden de trop? Unspeakably vulgar.’ Her lip curled. ‘Parkland, no doubt.’

  I shrugged. ‘No idea. Dad calls it the backyard.’

  She barked a laugh up to the sky. ‘Good for him!’ She looked admiringly at me. ‘I like your dad.’

  ‘Most people do.’

  ‘Your mum’s great too,’ she said politely.

  I grinned. ‘She grows on you.’

  ‘But your dad… well, he’s comfortable in his own skin, isn’t he? Not impressed by any of this nonsense.’ She swept her arm around dismissively.

  ‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘But it doesn’t get his back up, either.’

  She glanced back at me. Sniffed. ‘Hm. Lovely air, anyway,’ she said, changing the subject. She took a drag on her ciggie. ‘Definitely smells different from London, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I agreed as she cupped a rose in her hand and lowered her face to smell it. A startled bumble bee shot out, just grazing her nose.

  ‘Shit!’ she squealed, dropping it hastily. Her gaze around the great outdoors was rather more nervous now. ‘Come on, Hattie, this place is beginning to scare me. I think I need an espresso, fast. Let’s walk to the village.’

  ‘What do people do all day?’ she marvelled as we strolled down the back drive towards the lane. The banks frothed with milky cow parsley and nodding ox-eye daisies, and beech trees cast an occasional pool of dappled shade. ‘What does Laura do?’

  ‘Oh, she says there’s masses.’ I said vaguely. ‘She has to organize all the people who work here, don’t forget, the housekeeper and the gardener, and then there’s people at the Home Farm too. Tenants, that kind of thing.’

  ‘How d’you mean, organize?’ she pounced, sensing tyranny.

  ‘Well, if their washing machine breaks down, or something, she’s got to fix it. Or at least get it fixed.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And she sits on committees and things too.’

  ‘What, discussing the church roof?’ she sneered.

  ‘Amongst other things,’ I said loyally, determined not to let Maggie take aim at my sister whilst she was under her roof. Even though, I recalled guiltily, I could be persuaded to on occasion as we sat behind the counter at the shop in London, cradling mugs of coffee.

  Maggie twigged and made a face. ‘Oh, well. Each to their own, I suppose. Although personally this place would drive me bonkers.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, I think you’d rather enjoy it. They’re much more social in the country, you know.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she scoffed.

  ‘No, it’s true. I know we’re out most nights in London, but only to a civilized drinks party or a film or something, and always tucked up in bed by midnight. Down here they might only go out Friday or Saturday nights but boy, do they party hard.’

  ‘In what way?’ said Maggie, chippily.

  ‘Oh, you know. Roll back the carpets, dance—’

  ‘Gee whiz,’ she moc
ked.

  ‘Smooch each other’s husbands, drink heavily, shove illicit substances up their noses…’ I was making it up as I went along.

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘God, yes. Then rattle home in swerving Land Rovers at three in the morning, singing at the tops of their voices.’ I was in a scene from Four Weddings now, but she didn’t spot it. ‘When was the last time you stayed up till gone three?’ I demanded.

  Maggie blinked. ‘Can’t remember. But then again I do have to get up to go to work in the morning,’ she said pointedly.

  ‘There is that,’ I agreed.

  ‘But meantime,’ she straightened her back as we approached the village, ‘bring it on, I say. The last thing I stuck up my nose was a Vicks nasal spray, and I’m very happy to have my arm twisted into some illicit sex while I’m here.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? And what would Henry say to that?’

  ‘He’d probably watch,’ she said gloomily.

  I laughed.

  ‘And if I took the blinkers off my eyes,’ she went on lightly, ‘and listened to my friends, I’d hazard it’s what he gets up to in New York anyway. So why the hell not? What’s sauce for the goose, and so on…’

  This, an allusion to Maggie’s beyond disastrous relationship with an unbelievably handsome married man, who not only cheated on his wife, but, as Maggie was increasingly being forced to believe, his mistress too. She didn’t look at me, clearly not wanting it confirmed right now, but there was a telltale blush to her cheeks. Let me accept the poverty of my situation gradually, she seemed to be saying, at a drip, drip pace. We walked on.

  ‘Where’s your brother?’ she asked suddenly.

  I jolted at the juxtaposition.

  ‘At work. Big day for him.’

  ‘Oh,’ She nodded in surprise. ‘Of course. D’you ever go and watch? See him – you know, preach? Or whatever he does?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Maggie looked surprised. Her Sunday morning devotions generally revolved around a bistro in Chelsea.

  ‘People do that in the country, I suppose,’ she mused.

  ‘In towns too,’ I said, suppressing a smile.

  ‘Any good?’

  ‘Who, Kit? Yes, he is rather. In a subtle sort of way. He doesn’t go in for fire and brimstone. Rather quiet and reflective. D’you want to go in here?’ I asked, suddenly wanting to change the subject, and deflecting her rather neatly, I felt. We’d reached the edge of the village and were outside a dreary-looking coffee shop.

  ‘Is this all there is?’ She peered warily through the frosted window at the depressingly empty room. A solitary carnation in a specimen vase sat wanly on each table.

  ‘Were you expecting to perch your Armani-clad backside on a zinc barstool perhaps? Admire your reflection in the mirror as garçons in white aprons swept by?’

  ‘Actually, I was expecting to sit outside a thatched pub and watch the cattle go by. Off to market or somewhere.’ She looked around wistfully. A car swept past, much too fast, down the main street. She jumped back from the kerb in alarm.

  I laughed. ‘This is north Buckinghamshire, Maggie, not deepest Devon. There is a nice pub, actually, but it’s a hell of a hike. And if the cattle were going to market they’d find it’s been turned into a gift shop now.’ I nodded to it across the road, ‘All manner of expensive knick-knacks in there. I’ll show you in a minute.’

  In the event we didn’t stay for a coffee, the establishment having an even more depressing air within than without. The surly proprietress did little to alleviate it either, and even the air had a stale eighties feel. Instead, we got a couple of Fabs from the freezer and walked across the road to the gift shop, licking them.

  ‘Charmless old witch,’ grumbled Maggie. ‘How does she expect to attract clients with social skills like that?’

  ‘Well, quite.’

  ‘And speaking of clients…’ She stopped at the gift shop window. ‘This is clearly the sort of place Ralphie-boys go to for their tasselled tie-backs. Their nests of limed oak tables.’ She gazed gleefully at the cramped, lively display of occasional tables, gilt table lamps and mirrors. Cherubs and hearts gambled cheerfully over pretty much everything, and every shade had beads hanging from it. ‘Gilt-plated objets d’art,’ she purred happily.

  ‘Some people like it,’ I said, feeling rather tired. Maggie seemed intent on rubbishing the country and I intent on defending it.

  ‘Well, they shouldn’t,’ she spat. ‘It’s tasteless tat. I bet they charge like wounded rhinos for it too, bet they’re raking it in. God, it’s huge. Look, it stretches all the way down there.’ She waved her hand down the street at the extensive shop front.

  ‘I told you, it was the cattle market.’

  ‘Well, it’s a bloody emporium now. And it’s open too. On a Sunday!’

  ‘Sign of the times,’ I said. Then quickly added, ‘So perhaps they’re not raking it in, after all?’

  I was rather pleased with this little sally but Maggie had moved on, her keen eyes spotting a door opening further down.

  ‘Oh, hello, here’s one satisfied customer. Let’s see what she’s bought.’ She took my elbow and hustled me along the pavement. ‘Ooh, look at those deeply hideous candlestick lamps!’ Maggie breathed in my ear in awe. ‘I’d pay not to have them!’

  A fair-haired woman, tiny, swamped in a huge fur coat, was clutching a pair of tall skinny glass lamps wrapped in tissue as she emerged from the shop.

  ‘Trophy wife, do we think?’ murmured Maggie. ‘Actually, perhaps not. More like a bag lady. Check out those trainers. With a mink! Hattie?’

  But I was too busy wondering where to run, where to hide. Couldn’t pay attention to the footwear. As the fur coat shuffled towards me I felt my heart kick in. Nowhere to run to actually, no escape, as her pale grey eyes widened in uncertain recognition. She stopped.

  ‘Hattie?’

  ‘Letty.’

  ‘Oh – how lovely to see you!’ she smiled.

  I caught my breath, but strangely, didn’t feel she was being sarcastic. Or lying. Her face, a bleached, shocking imitation of the one she’d had sixteen years ago, was eager, open.

  ‘You too,’ I managed, as a slim, strikingly pretty blonde girl materialized beside her. Just behind the pair of them, turning back to shut the door, which tinkled merrily, was a tall man in a blue jumper and jeans. He turned to face us. An older, darker version of… oh my God.

  ‘Of course you know Hal Forbes, don’t you? But have you ever met Cassie? My daughter?’ Letty’s face was twitching slightly as she shuffled from foot to foot. Her daughter took one of the lamps from her before she dropped it.

  ‘This is Hattie Carrington, darling. Laura Pelham’s sister.’

  ‘Oh – hi!’ Cassie smiled at me in surprise.

  I cranked up a smile. Laura Pelham’s sister. Not, the girl who worked for your father. Or, the girl your father… I had a sudden flashback to Letty standing in the doorway, in a black and white print dress, heavily pregnant, her hand on this child.

  ‘Hello, Cassie,’ I managed. ‘Hal.’ But I didn’t look at him. Only heard him murmur, ‘Hattie.’

  I’d rehearsed this moment many times in my head. Sometimes I ignored him, even turned on my heel. Sometimes I’d smile and greet him coolly, perhaps planting a social kiss on each cheek, as if nothing had happened. As if I got letters of that nature on my pillow every day. It was a surprise therefore, when we finally traded a look, and his eyes asked if I remembered a time before Dominic, before the letter, when we were friends, and my eyes replied that I did.

  ‘And I’m Maggie du Bose,’ purred Maggie, absolutely lit up at Hal’s name, perking smartly to attention. She knew. Oh God, she knew. But actually, I was grateful to her, for causing a diversion; for keeping a breezy conversation going. I couldn’t speak.

  ‘How long are you here for?’ Letty was asking. Me, presumably, but Maggie was doing the answering.

  ‘Oh, we’re just here for the weekend. We’re here to look at La
ura’s house….’ and off she rattled.

  Stupid of me to let her talk me into coming to the village, I thought furiously as she explained. I never did, never, just in case. Had always just disappeared into the Lodge when Hugh and Laura had lived there. But now they were at the Abbey, it was as if I’d been lulled into a false sense of security. And I’d deliberately never got involved in Laura’s socializing either – drinks parties, lunches – not that she socialized with Letty, who looked terrible, terrible, I thought in horror, as I allowed myself to glance at her face. I heard Maggie tell her about the decorating project at the Abbey, how we were back off to London today, but would definitely be here again, to sort the downstairs rooms out: had lots of ideas, plans. I couldn’t bear to look at her any more; lowered my eyes as the two women talked. Hal’s eyes, I knew, were on me and I felt my cheeks burn. I longed to get away, but the daughter was addressing me now, hazel eyes wide, fair hair scooped up in a messy bun, so like her father I almost couldn’t breathe. She was definitely addressing me though, through her mother.

  ‘Don’t you remember I told you, Mum? I met Laura’s nephew.’

  ‘Oh, yes, darling. At a school dance.’

  ‘So you’re Seffy’s mum.’ She turned to me.

  I was startled. ‘Yes, that’s right. You know him?’

  ‘We met at a social at my school. One of those cringy boys v. girls things, which can be really grim, but this one was OK because it was a supper party, so at least no one was forced to dance. I sat next to him.’

  ‘He didn’t say,’ I said, before realizing it sounded rude.

  ‘Oh, it was ages ago,’ she said hastily, blushing. ‘He probably forgot.’

  ‘And teenage children tell one so little, don’t you find?’ said Letty, her hand trembling as she pushed back her hair. ‘I ask Cassie where she’s been and she says, “Around,” and I ask what she’s been doing and she says, “stuff”. If I ask who she’s with, she just says, “people”!’

  ‘Slight exaggeration,’ put in Cassie with a grimace as her mother gave a shrill, unnatural-sounding laugh.

  ‘But then, perhaps it’s best to be left in the dark,’ Letty mused. ‘As my nanny used to say, what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve about. And when there is so much to grieve about, one rather wishes one had shut one’s eyes more. I know I do.’