Mrs Fytton's Country Life

by Mavis Cheek

  Craig Elliott looked into Lucy Elliott's eyes and Lucy Elliott managed to make her eyes look slightly cloudy, as if tinged with a little death. Anja had long since taken the children home. Lucy Elliott thought about Angela Fytton's piano and flexed her fingers. She might even play a little later, if encouraged.

  Dave the Bread looked into Wanda's eyes with admiration and she looked into his with admiration, and if they could have done a dive under the kitchen table and given immediate and physical vent to their silent tryst, they certainly would have done so.

  Daphne Blunt looked up and around at the curves and lines of the ancient kitchen and she thought, and would have said though nobody asked her, If these walls could speak...

  Angela went over to the answerphone, which was winking. It was the Rudges' message to say they had just broken down and they would not, sadly, be able to make the party after all. At which no one was at all surprised.

  'Fill your plates and fill your glasses,' said Angela Fytton. And they did, over and over again. The ham was eaten, with Dave's good bread. And Angela's pickled beetroots and shallots - the ones she had drooled and cooed over as little miracles back in the summer, sweet, dear things - were most savagely devoured. Her preserves were complimented and the pickled eggs, strange things, were pronounced exquisite and who-would-have-thought-it, and also began to disappear. That's nature for you, thought Angela Fytton again, but this time with satisfaction, red in tooth and claw. And as she surveyed her Great Success, she wondered, with a little frisson, how Ian would fit into all this now ... And she thought, but only for the fleeting glance of a shadow of a mote of a glimmer of a glimpse, that he might not. But she did. She looked around her again and smiled with happiness, she did, she did, she did...

  'Getting the hang of it now,' Mrs Perry said to Dave, of his bread. Dave looked slyly at Wanda, who was busy - between bites of her pickled egg - chafing the Dorkin girl's wrists and ankles and backs of knees with her ginger and cinnamon oil.

  'Now,' said Wanda, 'you can do this whenever you feel the chill and it's perfectly harmless. And if you feel sick I can make you some ginger pills, which will help. But on no account, no account - she wagged her finger at the girl - 'must you take wild yam during your pregnancy.'

  The Dorkin girl gave a passing fair impression of one who was willing to be persuaded against.

  'Nor vervain, nor wood betony, nor excessive amounts of thyme...'

  The Dorkin girl nodded in wide-eyed accord as her fourth pickled egg went down.

  Mrs Dorkin felt obliged, somehow, to take up the duties of barmaid. It was one way of getting as much of the drink inside herself as she wished, without drawing attention to the fact. And she wished a great deal of the stuff to be inside her. She had been cheated of her victory. And she thought she might have known it. Her class would never rise. She looked around for the two spotty lads in their biker jackets. Which one was it, she wondered? She took another drink. It scarcely mattered. Sandra, she thought mournfully, was sunk.

  Angela Fytton looked around the room and smiled. Yes, she thought, congratulating herself. Yes, I can stand alone. And she congratulated herself all over again, thinking, You wait until they see my grand finale.

  30

  Candlemas

  I did not have 3,000 pairs of shoes. I had 1,060.

  imelda marcos

  In Claire and Andrew's opinion, one thing was sure. Living down south with parents had got to stop. What with their mother in some remote bit of the country keeping hens and going undeniably crazy and wanting them to go and live with her and go crazy too, and their father up in London acting like a gaoler while his new wife - who had once been sp nice - also seeming to have gone crazy, finding the slightest thing - the very slightest thing - they did upsetting. It was doing their heads in. What was a party, for Chrissake? What was a bit of spilt beer? When sweet little Tristan (whom they both agreed that they loved) made a mess, everyone smiled. When they made a mess, the roof blew off. What the bloody hell the solution was, neither of them knew, but they were of the opinion that never mind the parents going mad, they would be bananas by the time September came if they didn't do something about it. But what?

  And then Claire, her mother's daughter, had an idea. And when she had an idea, no power on earth could stop her putting it into practice there and then, immediately, right away and - if her French GCSE was anything to go by - tout suite. Andrew booked the tickets and a hotel, since he had something left on his credit card. Which is why they were in the late train heading north and reading their university prospectuses. Their eyes gleamed. The life of a student looked even better in the reading matter than they had heard it was from their friends.

  'Something will happen’ said Claire firmly. And Andrew agreed. Meanwhile they would just have to sleep on somebody's floor.

  The ale was slipping down a treat. Lucy Elliott was requested to play the piano for the assembly and she - after a glass or two - agreed. It was time, Angela Fytton observed, for them all to go into the parlour.

  Mrs Dorkin, silently considering the possibility of having another go at the good doctor herself later and who had been very busy and generous in her barmaiding line, refilled everyone's glasses one more time and in they trooped.

  'Don't switch on the lights’ said Angela, as she turned the handle of the door and ushered them in.

  All was darkness except for the bright flames from the fire. Craig settled his wife on the piano stool and stood by her side as if by being there he could protect her from all ills. Mrs Angela Fytton lit a taper and, very proudly, and with much ceremony, though she blinked frequently from seeing two of everything, managed to light one after the other of the rush lights pegged about and bedecking the room. The last one to be lit was on the mantelshelf, in the old rush-light holder which the Cleeve End blacksmith had repaired. 'So much for play-acting, Sam’ she said smugly. Which came out as something like 'Shoshplacting, Sm.'

  She blew out the taper, looked around her room very happily and said, 'History is reborn’ even more smugly. Which came out as something like 'Sisterybor.' She gave Daphne Blunt a happy smile. A very happy smile. Daphne attempted to say something, but for the life of her she could not quite form the words. She did not, in fairness, look quite as happy as her friend.

  'The celebration of the Virgin's Lustration’ said Angela Fytton, slurring but game, and gesturing around the room at the little lights. 'From the pagans...' Somebody let out a delicate little belch and Dave the Bread hiccuped. Angela took this to be agreement. Fit in? Of course she did. She did, she did ... And Ian would too. Thus does well-brewed beer warm the mind.

  Then Lucy Elliott began to play Chopin, very, very beautifully.

  Old Dr Tichborne, seated in a padded velvet chair, smiled beatifically at the music and scarcely saw that his Crispin had, so to speak, crossed the floor. Who would have thought that little Lucy Elliott could play so handsomely? What did he, old as he was, care for guitars and hand-clapping when he could listen to such as this in his house for ever more and love and yearn from afar? A decision had been reached. He could play chess with the Reverend whenever he wanted (and without benefit of mulberry wine): a hand could be brushed against a hand, a smile smiled into eyes that would smile back - who needed more than this when all his life he had never had so much? No, he said to himself, looking out of the window and up at the moonlit Mump and its stark green curve. It wasn't everything by a long chalk. Whatever 'it' was. He thought, somewhat thankfully, that he would never know now. Best way really.

  Daphne Blunt continued to look unimpressed at the lighting arrangement of pegged tapers hanging about the room. She stared at the rush-light holder and, for some reason, perhaps the ale, perhaps not, tears filled her eyes, though whether tears of sorrow or anger who could say. Her proud hostess assumed it to be strong emotion at the sight of something so simple being used again, history being brought alive, and smiled contentedly. She focused enough to see a tear, then another, course down the side of that Af
ghan nose. Some well of deep emotion. And Amen, she thought. Although, then again, it could be the slight and rising smokiness of the room.

  Ah well. Mrs Angela Fytton felt extremely proud of her achievement. Rushes picked and stripped by her own hands. Rushes dipped in mutton fat and turned until they were of the correct, thin shaping. How long it had taken her. She had read her way through three whole novels while doing it, for you must wait for the mutton fat to harden fully each time before another coating can be made. That was commitment. That was determination. Why, looking at the line of little flames she knew for certain that she could do or make or grow anything. She was independent, free, completely self-sufficient. Such was good husbandry. She was sure Maria Brydges would be proud of her too.

  She peered at all the faces assembled to see how their rapture was faring. She peered harder. She had to peer even harder, for the faces were becoming even more hazy - dim even. Behind her someone coughed. Then another. More coughing broke out. Someone stood up and a chair overturned. Glasses were hurriedly emptied, more coughing, even more difficult to see. And then Angela realized, suddenly, that the room was filling with mutton-fat smoke, that the rush lights were sputtering and spitting and quite noxious in their smell, and that everyone was leaving the room and rushing out into the corridor past the little roundel, back through the house, into the kitchen and out into the night -gasping and choking in their quest to get some air. Plates of food lay abandoned on the table or were scattered on the floor, half-empty glasses lined the route to the front door - the piano ceased and the room became intolerable with the smoke and the smell. Angela Fytton too fled.

  Sammy Lee, who had earlier persuaded his old love to follow him into the garden, heard the word Tire' as he snuggled his ancient chin into the warm folds of Gwen Perry's comfortable bosom out by the hives in the moonlight, and immediately abandoned his delights and stumbled back to the house. Through the window he could see a flashing and a flickering, and without a moment's hesitation he raced, so far as his knotty old legs could race, back to the well, picked up two of the buckets still waiting in their innocence, and ran indoors with them, upending them over the rush lights and dampening everything from the velvet curtains to the leftover food to the little bowls of burning, scented oil. The rush lights ceased immediately and the air was filled with the nauseating smell of old mutton, damp fabric and pickle juice. He checked that all was safely out and then left the room, closing the door behind him and shaking his head at the folly of it all. Only in the kitchen did one candle rekindle itself. The Dorkin girl's, made by Wanda, supplied by the bees and of good honest wax.

  Gwen Perry took his arm. They understood. They understood and they did not, at all, approve. Rush lights ... they said to each other. Rush lights.

  'It was the same with those terrible biscuits of hers,' said Sammy. 'What's wrong with digestives?'

  And they hurried away up the hill.

  The vicar and the Dorkin girl and the Dorkin girl's mother made a voluble trio as they staggered their way towards the Dorkin cott.

  Mrs Dorkin was all for putting her daughter out, away, off - all for sending her to the crossroads, to the fields, to the Mump itself to hurl herself into the darkness if she chose. And the vicar was trying to get a word in edgeways about the possibility of his taking her in.

  Mrs Dorkin merely snorted. ‘I should have thought she's been taken in quite enough, vicar. I should have thought from the look of her you could see how much she's been taken in... She's been taken in so much, my Sandra has, she's started coming out again.'

  But the Dorkin girl was smiling to herself and suggesting, not too politely, that her mother put ye olde sock in it. What did she care now? For she had the vicar's arm around her waist. Or what was left of that part of her anatomy nowadays. She knew it was her mother who had been taken in. By old Dr Tichborne. But if there was one part of her anatomy she had learned to keep shut it was her mouth. She did not say what was on her mind, which was binoculars.

  On they walked, away from the foul smokiness of Church Ale House.

  'Funny, all that smoke’ said Mrs Dorkin. 'I remember rush lights in the three-day week. You don't go out of your way for them’

  'I think’ said the vicar, forgetting that his hand was where it was in order to offer support arid letting it, instead, caress. 'I think it was some kind of exercise in humility.'

  'Don't approve of exercise’ said Mrs Dorkin. 'Makes you stringy.'

  She sighed. All those years of not letting Sandra go swimming or ride a bike. For what?

  'No’ said the vicar, confused. Though in one particular he was clear as a bell - and not confused at all. He kept his happy hand exactly where it was.

  Craig Elliott was relieved to get Lucy Elliott out of the poisonous atmosphere. She coughed rather sweetly, a little like La Dame aux Camelias (she was still weak, poor thing), and clung to him as they walked. 'You played so wonderfully’ he said. But it came out oddly. So he decided just to think the rest, which was, Don't die, Lucy, over and over again. He felt strangely emotional. Don't die, Lucy, he thought. Or I shall die too. For where should I be without you? And, as he told the stars while their footsteps rang out along the lane, I am not drunk.

  But Lucy was very far from death. She was so far from death that she almost broke into song. But since, for some extraordinary reason, the only song that came to her lips was circa 1905 and charged the listener with the command 'Hold your hand out, you naughty boy...' she felt it best to keep it to herself. Women should, she now understood, have a little death now and again. Craig had been giving women a little death now and then for as long as she had been married to him, and now she was having one of her own. She knew what her husband was thinking. She knew it was, Don't die, Lucy -and that he meant it with every breath in his body. Apart from any emotional considerations, if she popped her clogs he'd have three children to look after and a great deal of inconvenience, and then where would the magnum opus be? She leaned into him again, making a little pale oohing sound and hiding her smile in his lapel. She was smiling because she remembered what she was wearing. Her black leather trousers. Perfect fit.

  Old Dr Tichborne was not at all sure what had happened. But since the music stopped and the vicar departed in such a hurry, there was nothing more to keep him in that velvet chair with something hot and smelly spitting all over him, so he slipped off home. Slipped seemed rather an appropriate word, since on the way he found some new aspects of the lie of the lane to negotiate, and several branches along the road had definitely extended themselves further in order to bump him one. Quite often he found himself pursuing the way home along the cracked and frosty ditch instead of up on the road - which was odd - and once or twice, for no apparent reason, he became entangled in the hawthorn hedge. Picking off the bits and looking up at that spangled darkness above him, he wondered why it seemed that the very stars themselves tonight were racing in the heavens. Swirling in the firmament. Art and beauty. To admire from afar yet never to possess. Perfection. He remembered the beautiful, flowing music tonight. He remembered the extra-strong binoculars recently purchased. Pity of it was that he had no one to hide them from, now that Dorothea was no more. It took, he thought, some of the relish out of it. Perhaps he wouldn't get rid of the dog. A little company was no bad thing.

  Wanda and Dave the Bread hurried along the frosty distance laughing and laughing and laughing, though they were not entirely sure why.

  'We're weaving our way home’ said Wanda, exploding with more unladylike guffaws, so that her husband felt obliged to take a large handful of her nether flesh and press it warmly. Which had the immediate effect of upending them into the ditch and into an interesting heap that should have comprised two, and was in fact three. Old Dr Tichborne was about to climb out of the ditch for the very last puzzling time when he received visitors.

  'Hello’he said.

  'Hello’ said Wanda conversationally.

  And in the way of all good and genuine neighbours, they haule
d Dr Tichborne out. And then helped him home. From where he then helped them home and Wanda, having seen the light as much as any Evangelist, said she had nothing to hide and that he must come in and see her macrame snoods. Which he declined, feeling he had eaten enough. So that they felt obliged to see him home again, and he them, until after some confusion between the parties as to who lived up which path and through which door, they parted company and went in to sleep it off.

  'Woman's a fool’ said Wanda as she climbed into her bed. 'She could have made candles from her very own beeswax. Or bought them -' she yawned with great satisfaction - 'from me.'

  But Dave the Bread was already asleep, and crowing in his dreams for all the compliments his baking had been given. He still, though unaware of it, wore his hat.