Mrs Fytton's Country Life

by Mavis Cheek

  Afterwards, she thought of those medieval heretics who, when given the Host, were depicted as vomiting forth their furious little devils. She wondered if she had been given a form of Host by Mrs Perry and was finally vomiting Ian out. Rather amusing to think of him as a little, black, wriggling, yapping creature furiously waggling his forked tail as she exorcized him.

  She drove slowly back along the lane and took one more yearning look at the house before setting off for home. The beauty of the day made it all the more poignant a leave-taking. She wondered, not daring to hope, if by the time she came down again there might have befallen some wondrous divine intervention. After all, it was the sort of thing you could expect from this pure and spiritual place called the Country.

  6

  April

  For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

  jane austen

  Dave the Bread took off his cap and threw it down on the scrubbed deal table in his own kitchen. He then walked over to the rubbish bin, fighting his way past hanks of yarn and a vat of scented, liquid candle grease, and pushed several crumpled packets and papers down further into its depths. Wanda, his wife, wearing a flowing ethnic frock, was busy removing the labels from old washed jumpers she had purchased from various jumble and car-boot sales.

  'It would be stark staringly obvious,' he said irritably, 'if someone came into our kitchen at this precise moment and noticed what's hanging out of our rubbish, that I have just unwrapped several out-of-date currant and honeybran loaves from their supermarket wrappings, heated them up and sold them as of my own making.'

  'I doubt it,' said Wanda comfortably. 'Can't see the wood for the trees round here. Brilliant stroke, putting them into the oven for a moment or two before going out.'

  'Brilliant is as maybe, but I told you to burn the wrappers’

  'Ooh, sorry’ said Wanda, putting a coy hand to her lips and batting her eyelids like a naughty schoolgirl. 'Do I get a smack?' Wanda knew the drill. She pouted.

  'Come here’ he said, and, grabbing at her substantial buttocks through the flowing, elasticated skirt, he pressed himself through the folds.

  'Ooh, let me put the scissors down first’ she squealed, 'or I'll do you an injury.'

  They heard the roar of a passing car, an unfamiliar roar, and looked out of the window. Dave the Bread removed his hands from his wife's nether regions with a regretful squeeze. Very occasionally a motorist stopped for directions and it might be taking the bucolic image a little too far to be caught in full yokel-flagrante.

  Instead he patted his wife affectionately and touched one of the misshapen, felted garments that lay over the back of her chair.

  'My, my’ he said happily, 'your weaving looks really authentic. Bloody awful and authentic. And the knitting’ he added, as he sank his teeth into a bath bun. 'Clever girl.'

  Wanda pushed her bosom back down under her Tyrolean bodice and went on with her label-removal.

  On the table by her side was a spray of woad (genus Isatis) plucked from the garden, and next to that a vat of weak Dylon solution - cornflower blue - into which she dunked each delabelled woolly and then attacked it with a dolly tub. This gave every garment a suitably similar tonal quality, the unmistakable stamp of English homecraft, as if it had been dragged through mud by the local Puritan lobby to remove any relation to the colourful singing beauties of wayward nature. She sold a large number of them at country sales and car-boots. Sometimes, unbeknownst to her, and to the purchasers, she sold them back to the original owners, who wore them proudly to the Friday night ceilidh, where, between bouts of incompetent fiddling (Patrick Parsons originated from Watford and was enthusiastically self-taught) and very confusing calling (Una Parsons, once a low-pass-rate driving instructor from St Albans), they would point out the virtues of such simple, handmade garments. It was, as they said, the kind of thing that brought them down here. Back to basics. Quality of life. A handmade, hand-dyed, pure-wool sweater in any of those Bayswater shops would have cost three times as much.

  Those who came to Tally-Ho Cottage walked past the woad patch toreach the front door. Ergo, if they saw a vat of blue, they assumed it was natural bounty. The spray of woad was placed on the table in case they sneezed on the path and missed the growing clump. It was the same with the lavender and rose bushes for the scented candles. She grew them right by the pathway also, and bought the oils from Boots. Sometimes she just melted down cheap scented candles from the market. By careful addition of colour, as with her weaving, she could produce candles that smelt horrible, were coloured like a baby's nappy and made everyone think they were entirely good for you. Not for nothing had Wanda Crow been an actress; she knew all about props and illusion. She had married the sparks from her last production, in which she played the back end of a goose, and given it all up. Given all what up? she sometimes asked the mirror.

  She blew her husband a kiss.

  'Happy?'he said.

  'Never more so’ she replied. 'My best performance yet.' They smiled contentedly. 'Thank God we left London.'

  Dr Percy Tichborne pretended not to hear the tinkling little bell that was the summons for lunch. Just another moment or two, he said to himself, and readjusted the binoculars. It was only April, April, and yet the vicar was doing his exercises again, in a fetching little box and nothing else, because he thought he was hidden by the vicarage ilex. Well, to be fair the good doctor had told him as much. 'Totally private’ he said. 'The trees hide everything. Even in winter.' And the vicar, being a young man of God, believed him.

  'Ah, but not from up here, my beautiful young Crispin’ breathed Dr Tichborne, and peered all the harder as those pale, stretched limbs pushed up down, up down, up ... The dark red hair flopped and rose, flopped and rose, over that high freckled brow, and the perfect white teeth gleamed as the vicar grimaced in his striving to do press-ups worthy of God. Had the good doctor crept closer, he might have heard the muttered underbreaths of the vicar saying, apparently, 'No, no, no . ..' to some unnamed temptation as he pushed himself to the absolute limit of endurance. No flagellant upon the road to Compostela could have given his God more in the line of keep-fit.

  Somewhere to the side of his vision, Dr Tichborne was aware of a little car stopping by the wayside at the foot of the hill and a woman getting out, apparently in deep contemplation of the foliage. She appeared to be in some kind of distress as she bent double. He might have focused on her if the vicar had not suddenly appeared to get cramp and roll over on to his back, clutching his leg. He did that yesterday too. The doctor's heart skipped a beat. Perhaps he was badly injured? How he hoped so, how he hoped. He could be very tender with that knee...

  The little bell tinkled again. It sounded irritated. Dr Tichborne slid the binoculars back into his desk drawer. He longed, yet again, to be lying there, upon that very patch of dappled grass above which the vicar swung himself so rhythmically. To feel the heated breath, the sweep of that auburn hair upon his face, the brush of those barely contained manly bits as they bounced back and forth above him. If he could, he would, he swore, be the very turf upon which the vicar brought that virgin belly down.

  It was not, said Dr Tichborne to himself as he descended the stairs, his fault. If the Anglican church saw fit to send a young single man of thirty-two to watch over St Hilary's, what could they expect? An unmarried young man of thirty-two, for heaven's sake. One with the body of an angel, the flaming hair of a god and the brain of an innocent young warrior. What is more, the doctor reminded himself, one who could recite the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, play the guitar, kick up his heels at a ceilidh, hold the hand of a dying parishioner for half the night without once looking tired and, on top of it all, charm his wife into parting with some of her loot. What a cocktail to serve up in this vacuous hamlet. He reached the dining-room door, readjusted his expression to one of benign absent-mindedness and entered.

  'You seem a little flushed, Percy,' said Dorothea. She was seated at t
he dining table, looking cool and austere in white, her hand still resting lightly on the little silver bell. The crucifix she had asked for as a wedding anniversary gift glittered on her board-like chest. All she needed, he thought sourly, was a wimple and she'd be a full nun. She went back to her plate of thin toast and the Anglican Herald. Dorothea fasted until one o'clock each weekday. Dr Percy Tichborne saw no reason not to follow suit. They must, he thought regretfully, looking at his wife's pale, even complexion, live the healthiest lives of any late sexagenarians in the area. So much for her supposedly dicky heart. I wonder, he thought, as he so often had since the advent of Crispin, what love and sex are like in combination?

  If ever a man regretted marrying for money it was he. What you do when you are young, he thought, brings its heaven or hell eventually. He ran his hand over his bald dome. Experience, alas, is a comb that life gives you when you no longer have hair...

  'Has something excited you?' asked his wife disapprovingly. ‘I thought I saw a couple of siskins,' he said. 'Coniferous woodland’ she said, without looking up, 'only.' 'Oh well-'

  ‘It was probably a pair of tits’ she said.

  'Anything but’ said Dr Tichborne beneath his breath. And then winced as the little bell was rung again.

  The young Dorkin girl entered, looking, Dr Tichborne thought peevishly, as if she had just had sex with some scrambled eggs.

  'Fresh toast for Dr Tichborne’ said Dorothea, continuing to read, 'and scrambled eggs.'

  He looked at the straining grey-white blouse with its open buttons, its peep of grubby brassiere and the gouts of uncooked eggs strewn about it. 'Just toast’ he said.

  'Oh, but Sandra has been practising’ said his wife. 'So I see’ said Dr Tichborne.

  Sandra gave him a lascivious smile. It was her mother's ambition that she should marry a rich old man. Everybody knew that Dorothea Tichborne had a delicate heart and could go at any time. Everybody knew that Dorothea Tichborne was ready to go at any time. Had been ready, so Dr Tichborne thought, since before she married him, if their wedding night was anything to go by. In which case, thought both Mrs Dorkin and Dr Percy Tichborne, why did the wretched woman take such great care of herself? She longed for heaven, so why not go there? It was only a question of the two strands connecting (only connect, thought Dr Tichborne passionately from time to time) and she would be gone. He could then throw himself into a Grand Passion at last - with all the comforts of riches to surround it.

  In the watchful eyes of Mrs Dorkin, mother of Sandra, he would then be a desirable widower. Mrs Dorkin had had her eye on him in the old days for herself and went at him at quite a lick with hot pants and thigh boots. But he stayed faithful to his wife. Since it was not to be, she now claimed him for the next generation. Her daughter had all the trappings of entrapment: Mrs Dorkin had fed her on cream and butter and eggs, bathed her face with eyebright and rubbed her with whey since she was a little thing. Now there was nothing little about her. She was perfect fodder for an old, rich, lonely man. And they didn't come any richer hereabouts than the doctor, said her mother with a wink. And lonely. Since the Dorkin girl made the beds, she knew perfectly well that Dr Tichborne and Mrs Tichborne slept in separate rooms.

  Her mother said that what she and Sandra were about was traditional. You sent a village girl up to the big house and the squire first seduced and then married her. It was in every book

  Mrs Dorkin had ever read. Which was not a lot and among which Thomas Hardy's Tess did not feature. Sandra would persevere. 'You marry him’ said her mother, 'and once you're married you can have your true love on the side.' Mrs Dorkin laughed. That was traditional too. 'Whoever he is...'

  Sandra was thinking of him, her true love, now, as she idly stroked the soft pink flesh of her throat and hummed a happy hymn. 'Eggs, then, is it?' she asked. 'And how many would that be?' She leaned over the table at Dr Tichborne. Any other man would be forced to answer 'Two’ but he said, 'One please’ and sipped his orange juice.

  In the weedless garden of the Rudges' house a snail slithered across the newly flagged path towards a bed of tender, delectable young polyanthuses in very bright colours. It stopped on the way to sniff and lick a little blue ball that also smelt delectable, about the size of a baby pea, lying in its path. 'Lick, lick, lick’ said the snail. And then it pulled a face. 'Yaroo’ it said. And exploded. A blackbird flew down and swooped upon the glutinous mess, pleased to find a quick takeaway for the family instead of one of those all-in jobbies that took for ever to crack open. Off he flew, gliding low along the road, narrowly avoiding being hit by an oncoming car. The glistening poison, so deftly dispensed by the little blue slug pellet, attracted his youngsters and his own dear wife, as he flew into view. He dropped it into the nest for his wife to serve up. 'Yum, yum, Daddy’ they chirruped, and ate it all up. After which they went remarkably silent.

  The Rudges liked the peace and quiet of the countryside at weekends. When they first purchased Brier House they cut back their yew hedge into a long, thin perfect rectangle, cut down several badly placed trees, removed the ancient briers that grew there willy-nilly and from which the house derived its name, and generally gave themselves a tidier aspect to look out on from their new conservatory. It went pleasantly quiet after all that. They commented in amazement at the number of old nests they discovered in the course of reshaping the garden. Like Centre Point, the Rudges told some of their London visitors, for they had lived near its high-rise shadow before they left Fitzrovia. Now, loving the silence as they did, given how hard they worked in their law practice in Bristol, it was all to the good that the chorus of birdsong had diminished in their garden over the last couple of years. As, indeed, had the trails of the snails... And the toads. And the frogs. Even the breathy wings of butterflies seemed to be silenced and still. All, in their own way, had once made such a frightful din.

  When the Rudges first came here from London, weekenders visiting with them would marvel at the rural cacophony, taking great pleasure in it. But the crows and rooks were ugly and loud, and the blackbird and the song thrush were piercingly insistent, and the toads and frogs croaked ceaselessly during the mating season, and, as the Rudges said as they waved their friends goodbye, those departing guests didn't have to listen to it every weekend. Well, well - something had sent these noisy elements on their way and it was very nice indeed to have a bit of peace.

  Lucy Elliott stared out bleakly from the window above her sink and draining board. She wanted to sit in the sunshine and read a book, or listen to the radio, or have her nails polished by some visiting beautician and masseuse. She wanted to have flying lessons. Like Craig. Or faxes from her publisher saying how well the reviews were going, when they weren't. Like Craig. She wanted to be able to walk into the house on a Friday night, having been in London since Tuesday, and say, 'Hi, guys,' to the children, who were already tucked up in bed. And then have sex once the children were asleep. And then fall asleep herself. Like Craig. She did not want to be here at the sink, which had got blocked again, wondering if she had enough fish fingers to go round and afraid that she might be pregnant once more. Unlike Craig.

  'We'll have a lovely idyll’ he said to her when he moved them all to the country. And then he buggered back off to London whenever he could.

  'Let's have another baby’ he said, 'and see if we can't get a girl.' They got Esmond. 'Cyril Connolly might talk about the pram in the hall’ she heard him say to his agent, ‘I)ut I've got three ... How can you expect me to get it in on time?' Overhearing, she wondered what would happen if she was six months late with the dinner.

  Lucy Elliott pushed the plunger one more time with great strength - a strength which, she felt sure, came from heaving toddlers up hill, down dale, in and out of the car, the bath, the swing. Unlike Craig. A great gout of greeny-black matter flew up and hit her smack in the eye. Lucy Elliott burst into tears. She threw down the plunger, went over to the telephone, then heard the first wail of two-year-old Tommy, followed by the first wail of
three-and-a-half-year-old Esmond, followed by the stamping of five-year-old Jamie on the stairs.

  She picked up the telephone and tapped out a number. As she waited she thought, God bless the countryside for helping its mothers to keep their children at home and safe. If she had won and not Craig, they would still be in Weybridge, where there were pre-school playgroups and where children were certainly in full-time school by the age of four and a half. But a writer should not live in Weybridge, or anywhere remotely like it, said Craig. A writer must live where his Muse responds. No one ever, according to Craig, had a Muse that responded if they lived in a place like Weybridge.