A Few Green Leaves (16 page)

‘You should….’ Adam paused to throw some instructions to Mr Spears concerning the pink gin he had ordered. He was teaching him how to concoct this drink, with just the right suspicion of bitters so that it didn’t look like a glass of
vin rosé
, as when he had first made it. ‘You should enlist the help of the ladies.’

Tom smiled. ‘But how on earth? They all
know
Daphne’s gone. What more can I do? Put a note in the parish magazine?’ He was joking.

‘Exactly! It must soon be time for your monthly letter. When do you “go to press”, as we so grandly put it?’

‘Early next week. I ought to be getting the stuff together now.’

And then, just as he had instructed Mr Spears in the concocting of a pink gin, so now Adam began to instruct Tom in the concocting of a suitable letter for the magazine to, as he put it, ‘touch the hearts of the ladies’. It wasn’t at all the kind of letter Tom would have written himself: he would never have thrown himself on anyone’s mercy, let alone that of the women of his congregation, or used a phrase like ‘kind hearts and culinary skills’, but in the end he had to allow that there might be something in the idea. Perhaps he
ought
to mention Daphne’s leaving and the problems – hardly perhaps ‘problems’, ‘changes’ might be a better way of putting it – that her going had created at the rectory. And of course he must be careful not to offend Mrs Dyer, that was something else to be considered.

So the letter that finally appeared in print, and that Emma saw when she opened her copy of the magazine, read as follows:

As most of you will know by now, my sister has left the rectory to share a home with her friend Miss Blenkinsop, whom many of you will have met on her frequent visits here. They will be living on the outskirts of Birmingham, near a delightful wooded common where they will be able to exercise their dog. I know my sister will always take a keen interest in everything that goes on in the parish and she and Miss Blenkinsop will be frequent visitors to the rectory. But – and here is the big ‘But’ – her departure means that I shall be living alone at the rectory, coping as best I can, always with the willing and able assistance of Mrs Dyer. And I may very well have to try my hand at cooking an evening meal sometimes! It is often said that the best chefs are men, but I cannot claim to belong to that’noble and skilled fraternity, so I am going to throw myself on the mercy of the ladies and put my trust in their kind hearts and culinary skills. I am asking you to take pity on me and invite me to an occasional meal in your homes, to share in whatever you are having yourselves, a simple family meal, eaten in congenial company….

Here the most interesting part of the letter ended and Emma did not bother to read any more. Why must his sister and her friend be sharing a ‘home’ rather than a house or cottage? Presumably Tom thought ‘home’, with all it stood for, would be more acceptable to his readers, just as his request to be invited to their ‘homes’ was also stressed. The reference to ‘a delightful wooded common’ also made her smile. As for the suggestion that he might be invited to share ‘a simple family meal’, one could imagine the dismay if Tom dropped in unexpectedly or the anxious preparations that would precede this simple family meal if it was known that he was coming. Poor Tom, whatever he did he couldn’t win. No doubt he would receive a few invitations, but in the end he would be thrown back on his own resources, the packet of savoury rice, the ever-useful fish fingers or the miniature steak and kidney pie heated up in its little dish. Otherwise there might be the occasional meal with Adam Prince and herself carrying a casserole across the road. But she couldn’t cope with Tom
and
Graham and didn’t see herself offering any practical help to Tom. It was a mistaken and old-fashioned concept, the helplessness of men, the kind that could only flourish in a village years behind the times. Yet she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Tom, pitying him even, and once you started on those lines there was no knowing what it might lead to.

Walking through the woods to the cottage, Emma decided that she couldn’t always be carrying food to Graham. Sometimes he would have to be content with her company only, her conversation, and whatever else he might be prepared to ask and she to give. With this in mind, she had decided to wear a new dress, in colours possibly more becoming to her than her usual drab greys and browns. For it was impossible not to remember her meeting with Claudia and the contrast between them. So she had chosen a dress with a flowery pattern in shades of blue and green, in a more youthful and fashionable style than she usually wore. She did not feel entirely happy in it, especially when she met Adam Prince on her way and he greeted her almost with the equivalent of a wolf-whistle. She hoped that Graham wouldn’t think she had made a special effort because she was coming to see him, but realised that there was no way of disillusioning him if this was what he was determined to think.

When she came up to the cottage, however, and saw that he was in the front garden reading a newspaper (it looked like
The Guardian
), it was obvious that something had caught and held his attention and that he was not in a mood to notice what she was wearing. When he looked up from the paper and saw her all he said was, ‘Did
you
know Esther Clovis had died?’

‘Miss Clovis, dead? No, I certainly didn’t know. Is it there? Has somebody written about her?’

‘Yes, a rather fulsome bit.’

Emma sat down on the grass beside him, conscious of a shared ritual silence, a meditation on the passing of a formidable female power in the anthropological world of their youth. Esther Clovis, with her tweed suits and dog-like hair, was no more.

‘Of course there’ll be a memorial service,’ Graham said. ‘I’ll get Claudia to go.’

Could one make this kind of use of one’s estranged wife? Emma wondered, but did not comment. ‘I suppose I might go,’ she said. ‘Miss Clovis did help to get me a grant once. But won’t you go yourself?’ She had not mentioned meeting Claudia and now the moment seemed to have passed.

‘I can’t spare the time – just look at all this.’ Graham indicated a stack of folders and an untidy bundle of typescript.

Emma bowed her head. She ought to have noticed. ‘How’s the book going?’ she asked, conscious of a somewhat naive approach.

‘It isn’t exactly
going
’ he said, ‘so you see I can’t be popping up to London for all and sundry.’

‘You’d hardly call Miss Clovis “all and sundry”.’

‘Well, you know what I mean. Anyway, that was the whole point of my coming here and taking this cottage – so that I could get on with my book. You’re looking very fetching today,’ he said, suddenly noticing her. ‘New dress?’

‘Newish’, said Emma. She was not particularly pleased to be described as ‘fetching’ and, remembering Adam Prince’s reaction, perhaps the dress had not been a good idea after all. She must remember to explain to her mother when she reverted to her old drab servant’s morning-dress cotton. I’m thinking of writing a book – about this village,’ she said, to change the subject, ‘making a kind of survey. There’s quite a lot to be observed, more, really, than in my new-town study.’

‘That sort of thing has been done,’ said Graham in an idle, uninterested tone, coming to sit beside her on the grass. ‘Do people pass along this way? Will anybody see us?’ He started to kiss and fondle her in a rather abstracted way. Emma found herself remembering Miss Lickerish and the goings-on in the ruined cottage during the war. ‘I hope we should have some warning,’ she said, ‘see them coming through the trees.’

‘This is rather pleasant, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I feel I deserve a break from my work,’ he added, as if being with her could be no more than that.

Adam Prince, taking an afternoon stroll (strictly for his health, he was not fond of walking), came up to the cottage and saw Graham and Emma ‘canoodling’, as he put it, on the grass. The sight filled him with distaste. One would not have expected this sort of behaviour from Miss Howick, though it was obvious now why she had appeared in a new dress. An upsetting sight in the woods was how he thought of it as he turned back and went home to solace himself with a cup of Lapsang.

Emma’s old grey cotton dress was eminently suitable for Miss Clovis’s memorial service, and as the hot weather had broken she was wearing a raincoat, another appropriate garment which, unknown to Emma, had been the uniform of the male anthropologist of the fifties. She spent the time before the service looking round to see if there was anyone she knew rather than admiring the austere beauty of the eighteenth-century church. She recognised Professor Digby Fox, who was to give the address, with his wife Deirdre, old Dr Apfelbaum, rather bent now but still as cantankerous as ever, and a gaunt white-haired woman (could it be Miss Clo vis’s friend Gertrude Lydgate?) sitting with an elderly clergyman. Various others, less distinguishable in the crowd, were obviously feeling the need to honour Esther Clovis in death as they had feared her in life. But where was Claudia Pettifer? Emma had so far been unable to find her, but she had a further opportunity to look around her when she was listening to the address, only half hearing what Digby Fox was saying – how you might think that this elegantly formal setting was not what Esther would have chosen, but that it was in another sense appropriate as typifying the high standard she expected and demanded from all those whose work she was called upon to sponsor … few would forget her advice to young researchers about to enter on a period of fieldwork, the comments that must often have seemed harsh, as was her criticism of written work that fell short of the high standard she demanded…. Here Digby seemed to falter, to repeat himself and stammer nervously, as if he expected Miss Clovis to be looking over his shoulder at the address he had prepared or to be listening somewhere up above. Emma felt sorry for him but as he floundered her attention wandered, and she saw that Claudia was sitting almost directly opposite her, at the end of a row. She was wearing a black coat of a silky material, a small close-fitting hat concealing her frizzy hair, and dark glasses.

‘One thing we can be sure would have pleased her,’ Digby continued, ‘and that was the manner of her going – suddenly, you could almost say brusquely, reminding us of her own manner, that sense of bringing something to an end which, in her opinion, had gone on long enough…

Here the address did end. The congregation stood up and sang ‘He who would valiant be’, their voices rising in thankfulness and relief.

It might be possible to speak to Claudia on the way out, Emma thought. Would she remember that they had met at the college wine-party? She was standing alone, perhaps waiting for somebody, and when Emma went up to her the blank gaze of the dark glasses was disconcerting, but she persevered.

‘We met at that summer wine-party,’ Emma reminded her.

‘Of course! Red or white on the sunburnt lawn. Rather different from today.’

It was raining heavily and the two women put up umbrellas. Then, to Emma’s surprise, Claudia took her arm and hurried her away from the church and into a side street where there were several small restaurants.

‘Would you have a drink with me or a bite of lunch?’ she asked. ‘It must
be
lunch-time now. Shall we go in here?’ She almost pushed Emma into a doorway where a smiling Greek was waiting to show them to a table. ‘I hope you can bear Greek food,’

Claudia said. ‘I just had to get in somewhere and this seemed the nearest place.’

‘You saw somebody you didn’t want to meet?’

That’s
right!
I spotted him in the church – you really did me a good turn, coming up to me like that. Sherry? I don’t think it’s a day for ouzo, somehow. Did you know Esther Clovis? I was
sent
to the service by my husband.’ She made a face and took off her dark glasses – it must have been almost impossible to see anything in the dim light of the restaurant – and smiled at Emma in an almost conspiratorial way. ‘This weather makes my hair go all frizzy,’ she said, taking off her hat. ‘I mean even more frizzy than usual.’

So the fashionable hairstyle was natural – her hair really was like that. Emma had not been prepared for this friendly approach, but perhaps Claudia was like that with everyone and did not regard Emma as a person to be treated differently. Was it reassuring or humiliating? She hardly knew, for, in spite of their dalliance on the grass, weren’t she and Graham no more than ‘just good friends’?

‘Shall we have moussaka or do you like those little meat balls or kebab or something?’ Claudia was saying.

Emma was reminded of Daphne, perhaps even now preparing a Greek meal on the outskirts of Birmingham or picnicking on the ‘delightful wooded common’ (though not on a day like this), and found herself smiling. ‘Our rector’s sister goes to Greece every year,’ she said, as if in explanation, ‘but now she’s living with a friend near Birmingham.’

‘Birmingham,’ Claudia repeated. ‘Graham was once offered a job in Birmingham. Should we have a glass of wine?’

Emma was not surprised that Claudia appeared to make little of her conversational opening. Mention of ‘our rector’s sister’ would be enough to put anyone off. But Birmingham had obviously struck a chord somewhere and she began to wonder if Claudia was the kind of woman who would turn everything into some personal reference.

The food arrived – moussaka (‘safer’, perhaps) – with a glass of red wine.

‘Dear old Digby Fox,’ said Claudia, beginning to eat, ‘not exactly an inspired address.’

‘I suppose he said what most people felt about her,’ said Emma. ‘Miss Clovis
was
rather terrifying, I always thought.’

‘That must have been in the days when you and Graham were at L.S.E,’ said Claudia in an easy tone. ‘How’s he getting on in the cottage?’

‘Oh fine, I think,’ said Emma, as if she didn’t really know. ‘I’ve been to see him once or twice.’

‘Should we have a pudding? I don’t suppose there’s much to choose from – vanilla ice-cream or tinned fruit and custard, that’s usually the kind of thing. Or “baklava” – shall we risk the baklava?’