Summer's Lease

by John Mortimer

  ‘No trouble at all. I know it must be hard not to be here for your holidays. What did you do in the evenings?’ Molly remembered something Signor Fixit had told her. ‘Musical comedies in the big drawing-room? It sounds enormous fun.’

  ‘Not musical comedies, Mrs Pargeter,’ Chrissie corrected her. ‘Charades.’

  Stifling in his bedroom where he had been taking refuge from the young people, Haverford ventured out at last to the table by the pool. There he was reminded that he had never liked page-boys with hairy armpits and he was relieved from the painful task of staring at a blank page by meeting Hugh who was watching Jacqueline jump repeatedly off the diving-board in her rubber ring. His son-in-law had the air of a man who was looking forward keenly to the end of the holiday. His gloom only deepened when Haverford pulled up a chair beside him.

  ‘Alien corn this is for you, isn’t it, old chap?’ Haverford was at his most dangerous when he showed sympathy.

  ‘I have really no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Alien corn and you’re standing in it in tears. Sick for home.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. I’m thoroughly enjoying the break and I hope you are too.’

  ‘You have all the reckless gaiety of an old lag enjoying a stretch in Wormwood Scrubs.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’ Hugh turned a stricken face on his father-in-law.

  ‘Why did I do what?’

  ‘You know perfectly well.’

  ‘You sound exactly like your late, unlamented mother-in-law. Accusing.’

  ‘You’ve just pretty well broken up our marriage. That’s all.’

  ‘How on earth have I done that?’

  ‘Telling Molly you saw me’ — Hugh had difficulty finishing the sentence, but in the end he brought out — ‘kissing Mrs Tobias in Chancery Lane.’

  Haverford turned his head up to the sun and laughed for so long he had to mop his eyes with a red and white spotted handkerchief. By this time the laughter was not entirely convincing. ‘And is that,’ he asked when he recovered himself, ‘what’s going to break up your marriage?’

  ‘You may find it very funny. No doubt everyone laughed at marriages breaking up in the “swinging sixties”. I happen to take mine a little more seriously.’

  ‘Do you really?’

  ‘I suppose I’ve got a sense of responsibility.’

  ‘Poor old you. I hope you get better soon.’

  ‘That is the sort of remark,’ Hugh said with dignity, ‘that may seem frightfully amusing to the pinko anarchists who read the Informer. It seems absolutely pointless to a person trying to bring up a family.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’re not trying to bring them up. Henry and Sam are bringing themselves up with the aid of their gallant band of over-privileged hobos scattered around the terrace and snogging in the bathroom. Even Jack the Lad doesn’t find your gloomy poolside presence particularly instructive.’

  ‘And I suppose you were such a rip-roaring success as a father?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Haverford said truthfully. ‘As a father I’ve been a dismal failure.’

  ‘So you admit it.’

  ‘Oh yes. I have lost my daughter’s love. I have no reason to expect that I shall ever regain it.’

  Hugh said nothing, his victory being more complete than he could ever have expected.

  ‘All the same,’ the old man grinned, ‘Molly and I have things in common.’

  ‘I can’t think of any.’

  ‘Oh yes. You’d be surprised.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘We both have, somewhere deep down in us, a sneaking respect for excess.’

  ‘You’re talking about Molly?’ Hugh was astonished.

  ‘Remember her love for great works of art. Remember, too, that she had a mother who deliberately crashed cars. And her father never exactly did things by halves. That’s why she finds it so intolerable that your activities with the fair Tobias should be confined to a chaste kiss in Chancery Lane.’

  ‘Which you told her about,’ Hugh gloomily repeated the charge.

  ‘I also told her it probably meant absolutely nothing. Of course that only added fuel to the flames. Listen, shall I tell you a song that might find a path to the sad heart of Hughie when sick for home?’

  ‘I wish to God you’d stop quoting things.’

  ‘Forgive me. We literary hacks are always capering on in borrowed clothing.’

  ‘And I’m in no mood,’ Hugh told him firmly, ‘for a “Jotting”.’

  ‘Then let me tell you loud and clear how to win back my daughter’s love and respect and get the whole Pargeter family grinning from ear to ear.’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘Tell Molly that you’ve been having a rip-roaring affair all the year, not only with the fair divorcée but with the girl on the switchboard and, oh, I don’t know, a lady estate agent from Fulham. Then, take my daughter to bed and tell her you’d rather roger her than the whole lot put together. Will you tell her that?’

  ‘Do you think I’m mad?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid not.’ Haverford affected extreme disappointment. ‘Incurably sane. If you like…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll tell her for you. I’ll say you just made me a full confession. Would that be a help?’

  ‘Please.’ Hugh looked desperately at his father-in-law, and gave a cry from the heart. ‘Please don’t try to help me any more.’

  That night they played charades. In fact it seemed like one charade to Molly, for the importance of the evening lay when she guessed far more than the word involved.

  They sat in the long downstairs drawing-room, which they never used, with table-lamps on the floor flooding the platform with the piano on it. The first team of visitors had done a word, easy to guess and not particularly entertaining to watch, so that even Jacqueline had got bored, slid off her mother’s lap and mingled with the actors. Only Haverford, in an excellent mood and easily pleased, had clapped loudly and shouted ‘bravo’ and ‘bis’. And then it was the turn of the second team led by Chrissie Kettering. There was a considerable delay before their charade began, for the make-up and costumes were elaborate. The audience waited for a long time in the darkness, hearing the sounds of consultations and giggling outside the door, the clatter of props being assembled and the banging of cupboard doors throughout the house as clothes were pulled out, tried on, rejected or finally put on for the show. Then they heard the deafening tones of a ghetto-blaster and Chrissie Kettering appeared wearing a tight-fitting black dress from Hyper Hyper, Doc Marten’s shoes from Ken. Market, shiny red lipstick and black liquid eye-liner. Her blonde hair was woven into a palm tree, and tied at the top with a red ribbon. (The sources of this get-up were revealed to Molly next morning by Henrietta in tones of awe and wonder.) ‘Welcome,’ Chrissie shouted at the audience, ‘to the Muckrakers Club!’

  Then the stage seemed to be full of visitors wearing jeans or cut-off shorts, topped with leather jackets, T-shirts from Boy and basketball caps. They were smoking Gitanes, calling for Budweisers and asking for more ‘hip hop’ and ‘trouble funk’ music. Neither Samantha nor Henrietta, although part of Chrissie Kettering’s team, had appeared as yet. As the dancing grew wilder and the ghetto-blaster mounted in a crescendo, Jacqueline returned to her mother’s knee and watched entranced.

  Over the yelping of the music certain dialogue was audible. The group seemed to be discussing someone who was due to arrive, known to them as ‘Far-out Fay, the Queen of the Squeakies’, a girl who was said to be ‘hard-core trendy’, and whose ‘street cred., you know what I mean?’ was of the best. Before the arrival of this paragon, however, Molly was surprised to see herself come nervously but determinedly into the Muckrakers Club inquiring for her daughter. She was played by Henrietta, who had borrowed one of Molly’s Laura Ashley dresses and a pair of her sensible moccasins from Harvey Nichols. She had stuffed a cushion into the top of the dress to simulate her mother’s ample bosom and wore one of the house’s st
raw hats, together with Molly’s worried expression.

  ‘I have come here’ — ‘Henrietta!’ Molly blurted out — ‘to look for my daughter. Goodness only knows what she may be up to. Something quite unsuitable, I’m sure. Drinking Budweiser beer! Scoring weed and bonking in the toilets, I shouldn’t be at all surprised.’ Each of these suggestions was greeted with hilarious and mocking laughter from the Muckrakers.

  ‘It’s you, Molly Coddle,’ Haverford crowed with delight. ‘She’s got you to a T.’

  ‘Steady on.’ Hugh was doing his best to be loyal. ‘Is that meant to be Mum?’

  ‘Bonking in the toilets.’ Haverford was still laughing. ‘It’s a good line that!’

  ‘Hang about,’ the Muckrakers warned the stage Molly. ‘Who do you think you’re insulting?’ ‘Nothing dodgy going on here’ and ‘You’re well out of line.’ ‘She must be drunk,’ one of them thought. ‘That’s right,’ another agreed. ‘She’s blowing chunks all over us.’

  ‘I really do take exception…’ Hugh started, but Molly was watching Chrissie Kettering who had moved to the centre of the stage. ‘Be quiet,’ she told her husband. ‘They’re doing it very well.’

  ‘Here comes the Queen of the Squeakies herself!’ Chrissie announced like a ringmaster. ‘The one and only Far-out Fay!’

  At which Samantha appeared, her small, heart-shaped face smeared with eye-liner and fuchsia pink lipstick. She was wearing tight black bicycling shorts and a gingham top which exposed her shoulders and stopped short of her slender midriff. She began to dance in a parody of the erotic movements that would suit her in five or six years’ time and to draw luxuriously on an unlit cigarette.

  ‘Good heavens,’ shrieked Henrietta, the stage Molly, ‘whoever’s that?’

  ‘That, madam,’ Chrissie said coldly, ‘is your daughter.’

  At which the distracted mother appeared to faint dead away.

  ‘That’s the first syllable,’ Henrietta said, as she rose to her feet and joined the general rush off the stage.

  Her father said, ‘I do hope it’s not all going to be like this.’

  “‘Have you heard the argument?”’ — Haverford couldn’t resist quoting — “‘Is there no offence in’t?”’

  ‘The first syllable,’ Molly said. ‘Has anyone got any ideas?’

  She had an idea herself but only about the charade.

  ‘No, no. “They do but jest”’ — Haverford went on with his quotation — “‘poison in jest; no offence i’ the world.”’

  The next scene concerned shopping. All sorts of tins, packets of cereals, pots of jam, marmalade and bags of pasta were stacked on the piano. One of the Italian boys acted the part of lame Lucca, skipping round his shelves and saying poi whilst other visitors became the shop’s regular habitués, sitting on chairs and being greatly entertained, as Molly — once more played by Henrietta, with the Laura Ashley dress flapping like a tent on her slim body — tried to buy unheard-of English luxuries such as Ribena and Bovril.

  Then Chrissie appeared wearing white trousers and the jacket and tie Hugh brought out and, crowned with a panama hat and smoking one of Haverford’s thin cigars, she walked with the jaunty strut affected by the late Fosdyke. ‘My dear lady,’ she said, ‘are you in any sort of trouble? If you are, all I can advise you to do is to forget your worries and rely on old Signor Fixit to fix it.’

  ‘Really?’ Henrietta-Molly gushed. ‘I say, what an enormous relief!’

  ‘I thought it might be.’

  ‘You seem to be the answer to a housewife’s prayer.’

  ‘That is exactly what I am! I’m old Bill Fosdyke. The Santa Claus of Chiantishire. Just give me your shopping-list.’ He took it from her. ‘Now, what’s your most urgent need?’

  ‘Two groovy Italian boys to stop my daughters getting bored on holiday.’

  ‘I think I know just where to put my hands on them.’ Signor Fixit went behind the piano and brought out two English boys who, doing their best to look Italian, danced seductively in front of Molly and gave her a chorus of ‘Bimini, Rimini, Bim, Bim, Bim’.

  ‘I can be absolutely relied on to get you anything at a price,’ Chrissie-Fixit said. ‘You want the Mona Lisa. I can get you the Mona Lisa. You want acid, speed, coke, horseradish sauce, 501 black or white Levis, anything under the sun, licit or illicit, Bill Fosdyke’s the name and Fixing is the game. Lucca! A packet of your very best fish-fingers for the Signora!’ The end of the scene had been somewhat under-rehearsed and slid into the confused discovery of various articles from about the house, plates, books, pictures and, finally, a paper crown from the attic as Henrietta-Molly was chosen Shopping Queen of Mondano to general acclaim.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s in the best of taste,’ Hugh worried. ‘Making fun of somebody who’s dead.’

  ‘Fosdyke wouldn’t have minded,’ Haverford told him. ‘The old boy had a sense of humour; greatly admired my “Jottings”. Well done!’ He was clapping Chrissie Kettering. ‘Pity you couldn’t manage the squint. And they got your carefully controlled panic around the shops to a T, Molly Coddle.’

  Molly was silent, thinking about the scene that had just been played. Her thoughts were interrupted at last by Chrissie Kettering announcing, ‘Third syllable!’

  The third scene was more like a French farce. Neither of the Pargeter daughters took part in it. A wooden-legged couch was wheeled on to the stage, to represent a bed in which Chrissie lay with an English boy, apparently her husband. Under the bed her Italian lover lay concealed. The wife told the husband that she could hear burglars downstairs and when he went off to investigate the lover climbed in with her and their kisses were interrupted with repeated ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’. When the husband returned, the wife, covering her lover with a sheet, told him to look under the bed from which she was sure she could hear noises. As he searched fruitlessly the roles were reversed. Now the wife and the lover were in bed with the husband on the floor under it. At the end of this simple and perfunctorily acted event Chrissie jumped out of bed and said, ‘And now we’re doing the whole word.’

  It was at that moment that the lights went out.

  ‘What have you done now?’ Hugh shouted, unnerved. Molly tried to remember the various electrical combinations which, her letters of instruction had told her, would end in black-out. ‘You must have been using the hair-drier without disconnecting the refrigerator!’ she called into the darkness. But Henrietta, somewhere quite close, answered, ‘Do be quiet! It’s a stage effect.’ Then they heard Turandot playing and one candle was lit on a table on the stage, then two and then three candles, and the scene was of the Pargeters having dinner on the terrace. They were all acted. An English boy played Haverford as though he were at least a hundred years old, reminiscing about a girlfriend he had known in Chelsea and singing Beatles’ songs like old music hall ditties. The Italian girl who had been sunning her armpits at the pool had on a bib and beat a spoon on a plate, as though she were Jacqueline. The family talked in a somewhat banal way about the splendours and miseries of a holiday at ‘La Felicità’ and then began to suspect that they were not alone on the terrace. They picked up the candles and discovered, one by one, the rest of the cast in blankets and sleeping-bags dozing at their feet. When the lights came up the performers sprang to life, dancing and singing and playing the ghetto-blasters. The boy playing Haverford and the girl who had portrayed Jacqueline pouted in a particularly smouldering way as they gyrated round each other.

  ‘Bonk!’ Haverford speculated. ‘What sort of a word has its first syllable, “bonk”?’

  ‘The second scene was two syllables.’ Hugh was puzzled. ‘Shopping was it?’

  ‘And what about the whole thing?’

  ‘Dinner-time? Hitchhikers…?’

  ‘Turandot?’

  ‘You’re all cold,’ Henrietta said. ‘You’re absolutely icy.’

  ‘What was the last syllable? Bed?’

  ‘Husband?’

  ‘Lover?’

  ‘Do you g
ive up?’

  ‘Give us a clue.’

  ‘Well, what did they say in the last syllable?’

  “‘Ooh.” Chrissie kept saying “Ooh”!’

  “‘Ooh” and “ah”.’

  ‘Felicità,’ Molly said as though she had never been in the slightest doubt about it.

  ‘However do you work that out?’

  ‘Far-out Fay. The first syllable was Fay.’

  ‘That was me,’ Samantha said proudly, her face still ghostly with skull-like shadow for eyes and pale, painted lips. ‘The Queen of the Squeakies.’

  ‘All right,’ Chrissie agreed. ‘What was next?’

  ‘Licit. Didn’t he say, “I can get you anything licit or illicit”?’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Oh yes, it is. You only have to mention the word once.’

  ‘Mum, you are absolutely brilliant!’

  ‘Pure mathematics.’ Haverford was put out by his daughter guessing the word while he had been mystified. ‘She’s always had a calculator for a head.’

  ‘Fay-licit-ah,’ Molly told them. ‘Now do you think you could all start tidying up. The whole house is an absolute shambles. Really, Chrissie, I don’t know what your mother would say if she saw it.’

  ‘Mother?’ said Chrissie. ‘She’d probably just laugh. Although she might have thought we went a bit far tonight. They’re quite easily shocked, you know. The Italians.’

  ‘Anyway, go and tidy up. Then we’ll have a drink in the kitchen.’

  ‘A bottle of Chianti Crocetto’ — Haverford was quite cheered up — ‘to calm us all down after the entertainment!’ They all started to carry bottles, plates, tables and costumes upstairs and to tidy the big drawing-room. Molly walked outside into the moonlight, past the well head and the courtyard and on to the grass beside the track. She walked some way, smelling the wild mint and fennel, and then looked up at the stars and thought about another possible answer she had found in the knowing, cruel charade the children had acted.

  It was Chrissie Kettering’s line as she walked into the shop as Signor Fixit that Molly remembered. ‘I’m old Bill Fosdyke,’ she had said. ‘The Santa Claus of Chiantishire.’