A Surrey State of Affairs

by Ceri Radford

  Afterward, I lay awake for a long time waiting for Jeffrey to come to bed so that I could ask him pointedly what his plan was for cleaning the windows and ironing his socks, but after I had rehearsed the question over and over again in my head, including the exact way that I would smile sadly and shake my head, I heard the familiar caterwauling of Led Zeppelin start up and noticed that the bedside clock showed two A.M. I gave up and fell into an uneasy slumber, during which I dreamed that the house had fallen into disrepair and I was trapped in labyrinths of rubbish until the blond woman with the pink rubber gloves from How Clean Is Your House? tunneled through to release me.

  When I woke up, Natalia had already gone, leaving no indication of when—or if—she plans to return. I went down to the kitchen to find Ivan and Jeffrey breakfasting on fried eggs, Tabasco, and Belgian beer. I asked Jeffrey if he was going to be late for work and he just shrugged.

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 30

  Bell ringing last night. With just two weeks to go until the competition, there is a new edge to the group. Could we, can we, will we, challenge St. Albans, that ruthlessly efficient group of ringers who have been the reigning champions for the past three years? We will certainly give it our best shot.

  Reginald wore red Nike sweatbands around his wrists. When Gerald rang his bell half a second too soon during the Reverse St. Sylvester Miss Hughes sucked in her breath and muttered, “Stupid little man,” putting me and several others off our stroke. During the tea and biscuit break, Reginald sipped from a bottle of Lucozade, and gave us all a little pep talk.

  “Friends, Christians, ringers,” he said. “We gather here because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. St. Albans is a fearsome enemy, but by standing together, as our forefathers have stood together for generations, we can overcome—and I tell you, ringers, we shall overcome.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Gerald politely.

  “Now is not the time to descend into petty disputes, to let the old divides weaken our sense of purpose,” he said, glancing hesitantly at Miss Hughes, who was noisily eating a chocolate biscuit and ignoring him.

  “We must toil until our hands are raw, we must look at our adversaries without fear, we must, above all, have the audacity of hope.”

  He stopped. Daphne, the postmistress, wiped a tear from her eye. I clapped, to show my support.

  “On another matter,” I said, as Reginald mopped his brow with his handkerchief, “does anyone know a good housekeeper?”

  No one did, unfortunately; although when I had explained my predicament, Gerald at least made very sympathetic noises, which is more than can be said for Jeffrey. I’ve not heard a word from Natalia, but every time I ask Jeffrey where he thinks she went, he just shrugs and changes the subject.

  THURSDAY, JULY 31

  You would have thought that a decent housekeeper was as rare as a three-toed alpine ibex or a lump of frankincense. Try as I might, I have made no inroads in finding a Natalia substitute. It doesn’t help matters that I have no idea whether I am seeking a temporary, or permanent, replacement. I asked at Church Flowers, and was met with the same blank silence I encountered at bell ringing. I am loath to go down the same road I used to hire Natalia in the first place, which was namely to use Ivan the Terrible’s shadowy “Eastern Star Recruitment Solutions” business. Sophie is of little help. I finally persuaded her to dust all the bedrooms yesterday, but in doing so she managed to knock the pottery hedgehog that Rupert made for me when he was in prep school off the windowsill, breaking off several of its prickles. In despair, I dropped the following note at Reginald’s, to include in the parish newsletter:

  Help required.

  Respectable family seeks diligent housekeeper with high standards, clean fingernails, a good grasp of the English language, and a natural affinity with parrots. Must show forbearance to guests, regardless of nationality, at all times. Must be able to make a roux sauce from scratch, buff silver, cross-stitch hems, and pour whiskey from a decanter without spillage. No hair dye, no piercings, no insolence. Lodgings provided.

  Ironically, Natalia herself would fail to meet the requisite standard.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 1

  Where did July go? I have been so preoccupied with Sophie’s escapades, Ivan the Terrible’s arrival, and Natalia’s departure that I have hardly noticed the time pass by. And now, according to my Cottages of the Cotswolds wall calendar, it is already August, and just one week before my fifty-fourth birthday.

  I am still none the wiser as to what Jeffrey may, or may not, be planning. He certainly doesn’t act like a man struggling under the strain of an extravagant and covert present-buying initiative. In the morning he eats his toast with his usual calm concentration, occasionally supplementing it with one of Ivan’s pickles, then either drives to the station or, if Ivan is going into town to look after his mysterious business affairs, shares a lift in that horrible man’s tacky ego extension of a car. In the evenings he takes Ivan to The Plucked Pheasant or sits in his usual chair with The Economist and a glass of scotch. There is no indication in any of this as to what sort of present he will buy me.

  Not that I am obsessed with gifts, you understand—I am quite capable of buying myself whatever odds and ends I fancy—and yet I find that, to a certain extent, birthday presents are a useful bellwether as to the state of one’s marriage. I still have the hand-carved wooden lovespoon that Jeffrey brought back from a rugby tour to Wales the first year we were married. It has an anchor to represent stability, a horseshoe for luck, and entwined leaves for growing love. I suppose the Welsh need their symbols as they still don’t seem to have mastered the alphabet. In any case, given the eventful nature of the past few months, I can’t help but wonder what Friday morning will bring.

  I will organize a simple family dinner in our local French restaurant for the evening; given the current lack of domestic staff I can’t even begin to think about organizing something at home. All I need to do is call Rupert and Harriet, and forewarn Mother. Jeffrey has many fine qualities, but planning social gatherings is not one of them. I still haven’t entirely forgiven him for booking that belly dancer for my fortieth.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 2

  Today I picked the first apricots from our tree—Randolph has been tending it well—and baked a tart to take to Tanya. I tried to get Sophie to help, but she was too busy trying to tan her tummy. I will give her one more week before I raise the subject of Cats in Need.

  When I got to Tanya’s, she was a little out of spirits. At almost eight months pregnant, she opened the door wearing a vast stretchy red maternity dress, with a good five inches of cleavage protruding from the top.

  “I’m fed up now, Connie!” she said, sitting amid the Idle Hands boxes in her open-plan living room, which was looking markedly less slick than when they first moved in. Mark has taken over most of the day-to-day running of the business. “My back hurts, my feet hurt,” she said, sighing. “I’m too hot all the time and I look like John Prescott, with Jordan’s tits.”

  I comforted her as best as I could, reassuring her that I had started to resemble a beached porpoise by the time I had Sophie. She picked at her fingernails, which, for once, were unpolished.

  I decided to distract her by asking if she and Mark had decided on a name. She said that if the baby was a boy it would be called Mark Junior, and if it was a girl it would be Pinot, Shariah, Coleen, Tiffany, or Ivanka. I successfully suppressed a shriek of horror by pretending that I was choking on an apricot kernel. Then, to change the subject, I invited her to my birthday dinner. I know it was supposed to be a family-only gathering, but she looked like she needed something to look forward to. I’m sure everyone will get along fine, as long as Mother doesn’t drop anything in Tanya’s cleavage or ask about baby names.

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 3

  Wonderful news! Oh, wonderful news! How long I have waited for this day. To think that only a few months ago I was desperate enough to consider putting him on Telegraph dating.
/>   Rupert paid a visit today.

  “So, you know your birthday dinner?” he began. “It’s just a small thing, isn’t it, family only? Low-key?”

  I reassured him that it was, deciding to see where he was going before I mentioned Mark and Tanya. Then he said the words that I have been waiting a good six years to hear.

  “Is it okay if I bring someone?”

  Of course it was. Absolutely. Oh, yes. Feel free. Was it a friend that he wanted to bring along, I asked searchingly.

  “A partner,” he said, after a pause. “Called Alex.”

  Not just a friend, or a girlfriend, but a partner! It has such a formal ring to it that I wonder if a ring of a different sort might soon be in the reckoning. John Lewis currently stocks some very elegant hats. I think puce would be a suitable color.

  I told Jeffrey, clutching my hands together with glee and staring deep into his eyes to see his own surprise and joy register. He said, “Mmm,” then went upstairs.

  Still no word from Natalia, nor sign of a replacement, but frankly I am too excited about Rupert’s news to care about the cobweb I spotted just above Jeffrey’s paper shredder.

  MONDAY, AUGUST 4

  I wonder if Alex is short for Alexandra, which is a lovely, regal-sounding name. Alexandra Harding rolls off the tongue rather nicely. Or could it be Alexis? I think that’s Greek. I hope she shaves her armpits, at the very least for her wedding day.

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 5

  Just back from bell ringing. When I got to church, I found Reginald limbering up outside, swiveling his arms like a windmill, stretching out his legs by placing first one foot and then the other on top of a gravestone. He is taking the contest rather seriously.

  During the break, after Reginald had delivered another rousing speech on change we could believe in, I invited everyone along to my birthday dinner on Friday. I couldn’t help myself. The prospect of finally seeing my son’s new girlfriend was too much to resist. Gerald took me to one side and asked if I was sure he was invited, if it might not be a little awkward after last time, but I reassured him that he was more than welcome. Three days to go!

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6

  What, I wonder, should one wear when one is meeting one’s son’s girlfriend for the first time? I would like to appear elegant yet approachable, attractive but not fussy, sophisticated but not pretentious, chic but not French—ideally, a cross between Helen Mirren and Jodie Foster, with just a hint of Catherine-Zeta Jones. I will try the John Lewis in Kingston upon Thames.

  6 P.M.

  I’m back, and I think I have the perfect outfit: a navy silk dress with cream polka dots, from Joseph. It fits snugly around the cleavage, with just the right degree of décolletage (about a twentieth of Tanya’s), then skims flatteringly down to the hemline, which is just below the knee. With low heels and a cream cardigan it will be perfectly smart, but not too formal. I do hope it will make Jeffrey say “phwoar,” just once. I walked in front of the sofa to ask Sophie what she thought, and she said, “Yeah,” then I turned the television off and asked her again. She stared at me for a few seconds and then said it made me look like Samantha Cameron, which I took as a compliment.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 7

  One day to go! I got my hair done—a trim and recolor—then went to Church Flowers, where I invited everyone along. I just called the restaurant and luckily they were able to extend the booking—luckily it’s the holiday season and they’re quiet.

  I wonder if she’s blond or brunette. Plump or skinny. I wonder how old she is. I do hope she’ll be wearing a dress too. I’ve told Sophie to be nice and friendly to Alex when she meets her—who knows, one day they might be sisters—but she just laughed and went to her room. She had better buck up tomorrow.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 8

  Fifty-four today. Jeffrey left early this morning without so much as mentioning my birthday. I do not know what, if anything, he is playing at. It is not as if I were holding out for a breakfast tray bearing smoked salmon, freshly squeezed orange juice, and an orchid in a miniature vase: a simple acknowledgment would have sufficed. He can hardly have forgotten, given the number of times I have reiterated the arrangements for dinner tonight.

  I suppose I must draw consolation, of sorts, from the other members of my household. Ivan surprised me with a mink muffler: an extravagant gift, though one of limited use during the average Surrey summer. Still, I found myself mollified to the extent of ignoring the empty pickle jars he left strewn in the conservatory this morning. Sophie gave me a set of shot glasses. Heaven only knows why.

  A satisfying bundle of cards arrived on the doormat, including one from Rupert. It was a typically tasteful design, a sketch of irises—my favorite flower—on thick cream card, though the message inside was more emotive than usual: “Happy birthday, Mum, and remember I will always be your loving son, Rupert.” Perhaps it is Alex’s feminine influence exerting itself!

  3 P.M.

  Good Lord. Once more, I must ask myself: what is Jeffrey playing at?

  A few moments ago, there was a knock at the door. By the time I opened it, I could hear the scrunch of a large vehicle easing off the driveway, and there on the porch stood a cage, entwined with ribbons, containing a large and scrofulous mynah bird.

  There was a gift tag attached. It read: “An old bird for an old bird. Love, Jeffrey.”

  To think that only hours ago I was yearning for some signal that he had remembered my birthday.

  I carted the creature into the conservatory. Its rheumy eyes, wizened talons, and hunched, malevolent demeanor remind me of Miss Hughes. Darcy is puffing up his feathers and fluttering his wings in an unnecessary display of superiority.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 9

  I feel sick. And not just from the brine pickle juice that Ivan insisted I drink as a time-honored Russian hangover remedy.

  No, it is the events that prompted me to turn to Jeffrey’s brandy last night that account for my current nausea, palpitations, inner darkness, and distress.

  I can’t bring myself to tell you what happened. I just can’t.

  For all my faults, I do not think I am a bad person, or a negligent mother. What did I do? What didn’t I do?

  If only I had let Jeffrey buy him that model battleship.

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 10

  This is not an easy blog to write. It has taken eighteen hours of lying in a darkened room, twelve vials of Bach Rescue Remedy, and three hours of counting the feathers on Darcy’s left wing to feel composed enough to start.

  Little did I know when I began my little online diary on a frosty New Year’s Day that I would eventually be using it to announce that my son, my very own Rupert, was—enough. I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Friday evening began well. I put on my new dress and took more than usual care with my hair and makeup, borrowing a raspberry-colored “lip stain” from Sophie. Ivan wolf-whistled as I came downstairs, even if Jeffrey was too busy tying his tie in the hall mirror to notice my appearance.

  Jeffrey, Ivan, Sophie, and I arrived at the restaurant in good time. The bell-ringing contingent was already there. Gerald presented me with a lovely bunch of delicate yellow roses; Miss Hughes, a tin of lemon sours. Edward and Harriet gave me a pretty set of gardening tools with an old-fashioned floral pattern on the handles. Pru from Church Flowers gave me a hardcover edition of the new Queen Victoria biography, no doubt a token of her appreciation for the fact that I set Ruth up with David, thus ridding her house of patchouli oil.

  Jeffrey ordered champagne for all. A happy hubbub of voices mingled over the candlelight. The only thing missing was Rupert.

  He arrived. With a nondescript young man whom he introduced as Alex. I simply did not understand. At first, I thought that I had made a mistake all along, and that his partner really was a business partner, or simply an acquaintance. My heart fell as the prospect of a family wedding once more receded into a distant, indistinct future.

  And then Rupert was sitting next to me, with an earnest look in
his eyes, and Alex was sitting next to him. At this point, the realization probably began to crystallize somewhere in my brain; but I ignored it and poured them both champagne, hastily introducing Alex to everyone as Rupert’s friend and calling the waiter over to order starters. Rupert knocked his champagne flute back in one gulp, while Alex sipped his shyly and told me in a quiet voice with a light northern accent how nice it was to meet me, how I was just as Rupert described, and that he loved the vintage pearl brooch that I had pinned to the front of my cardigan on my way out as an afterthought. “It was my mother’s,” I muttered, poking my spoon through the cheesy crust of my French onion soup, concentrating on not splashing it, nothing else. Everyone else was chatting, no one seemed suspicious. Jeffrey was smearing pâté on little triangles of toast and loudly telling Edward how he had knocked two points off his golf handicap, while Ivan stole his pickles and ate them whole. I looked at Rupert. Rupert looked back at me. Then he placed his hand on my arm, and said he couldn’t wait anymore. Alex was staring straight ahead, a flush of color rising on his clean-shaven cheeks. Rupert explained, with something of his childhood stutter returning, that Alex was not just a friend, and that he had to tell me something important about himself, that he was fundamentally the same person but with one vital difference that I finally had to grasp. Sophie leaned in and said: “Mum, he’s gay. G-A-Y. Get it?”

  In one moment, it all made sense. I may not be a spring chicken, but I am nevertheless not quite ancient enough to labor under the delusion that gay still means “jolly” or “frolicsome.” Sophie had just articulated my own, newly formed suspicion. But how to reconcile this bombshell with my son? All I know about gay people is what I gleaned when I watched Brokeback Mountain in the mistaken belief that all the nice horses would bring back fond memories of Pony Club. It just doesn’t fit. Rupert is not anguished and filled with brooding, explosive menace. He is a quiet, studious IT consultant who lives in Milton Keynes. I looked at him, I looked at Alex. I realized they were holding hands under the table. The room had fallen silent.