A Village Affair (22 page)

Alice stopped sweeping. She looked up and smiled at him angelically. Then she gave the broom to Natasha and came quickly to Anthony and put her arms round him.

‘
Anthony—
'

He held her back. He felt, as he so seldom did, full of a large and happy warmth.

‘You look
amazing
—'

She laughed. Then she looked closely at him and said, suddenly sober, ‘Oh, poor Ant. I wish you did.'

‘Everyone is so horrible to me. Your baby filled my shoe with sand.'

‘He didn't mean it!' Natasha cried indignantly, her eyes full of sudden tears. ‘He's only little!'

Alice took her arms away from Anthony.

‘Don't be an ass, Ant.'

‘I
rely
on you to be kind.'

‘Are you whining?'

‘No. Only pleading.'

She gave him a sideways look.

‘If you say so—'

A faint scream came from the west window. On a ladder insecurely poised against the high sill, Miss Payne, as small and round as a blue tit, was losing out to an immense and purposeful white stone vase that she was attempting to fill with cow parsley and iris. Anthony, who liked all diversions for their sakes, sped away from Alice and caught Miss Payne as she tottered, cradling her in his arms like a large pale blue knitted football. He then came back up the aisle with her, as if she were some kind of trophy. She was pink with distressed excitement. The other flower ladies left their assigned corners and crowded round with twitters of concern. Peter Morris, who had been in the vestry screwing up a modest little looking glass so that he could inspect himself before he emerged into the chancel every service, came down into the nave and for a fleeting moment thought Miss Payne was being abducted. Then Anthony set her gently on the floor and she began, quite helplessly, to giggle. Everybody watched her.

‘Of course, nobody her age should even be
asked
to go up that ladder—'

‘I've always said we could do with a nice cheerful arrangement of silk flowers up there, no trouble to anyone, only need an occasional shake—'

‘You all right, dear?'

‘Better sit down, Buntie dear, after a shock like that—'

‘Perhaps
next
time, Mrs Jordan, you being so much younger, you could volunteer for the west window?'

‘Of course,' Alice said, ‘but Buntie wanted to do it.'

Miss Payne nodded violently. Anthony stooped over her.

‘Shall I carry you out and lay you down on a nice tombstone to recover?'

She gave a little squeal of delight and horror. Peter Morris moved calmly through the little group and steered Miss Payne to a pew.

‘I don't know, Buntie. Cradle-snatching I'd call it.'

Miss Payne began to cry. Peter Morris pulled out what he always called his public handkerchief and handed it to her. Anthony looked at Alice.

‘I'd
no
idea doing the church flowers could be such a lark.'

Natasha said in distress, looking at Miss Payne, ‘But it's
sad
.'

‘Heavens,' Anthony said, ‘
what
a sentimental little party.' He turned to Alice. ‘Wouldn't you like to come home now and pour me a huge welcoming drink?'

‘Not much,' Alice said.

‘Allie—'

Alice did stern battle with her temper.

‘I must finish sweeping up. Tashie will help me. You go and sit in the churchyard and I'll be out in five minutes.'

‘All right,' he said reluctantly.

He went down the aisle and Miss Pimm and Mrs Macaulay and Mrs Fanshawe watched him go as if to see him safely off the premises.

‘Hold the dustpan steady,' Alice said.

Natasha knelt down and leaned her weight on the dustpan.

‘Is sentimental,' she said, looking downwards, ‘nice or silly?'

At supper, which they ate in the kitchen with the upper half of the stable door open to the dim summer night, Anthony talked a great deal about the Far East, and, by inference, of the depth and breadth of his experience of life. Alice heard him with affectionate pity and Clodagh with contempt. Martin felt, as Anthony meant him to feel, faintly insecure. He tried, eating his chicken casserole, to tell himself that whereas Anthony had passed ten years, he, Martin had lived them. Anthony had stories; he, Martin, had a wife and children, a house and friends and a solid career. Perhaps, Martin thought, getting up to go round the table with the second bottle of Californian Chardonnay, if Alice would let him make love to her, he would be able to hear anything, absolutely
anything
, Anthony chose to say, with equanimity. He believed Alice when she said she wasn't interested in anyone else. He believed that she loved him – heavens, she was more loving to him and appreciative than she'd been in ages, years even – but there was this bed thing. Suppose she never wanted sex with him again, what the hell would he do? It was bad enough now, he sometimes felt quite obsessed by it, thinking about it, wanting it. On top of the physical difficulties there was the siren call of self-pity. Martin knew Alice despised people who were sorry for themselves, but sometimes, after a messy little session alone with himself in the bathroom, he would look at himself in the shaving mirror and say piteously, ‘What about me?' He got angry with Alice then, and showered himself furiously, muttering abusive things about her into the rushing water. And after that, he felt as he supposed women did after they'd had a good cry, absolutely wrung out and forlorn. He hated the whole business and, try as he might, he couldn't escape the fact that he wasn't the one who had brought it about.

‘Don't I get any?' Clodagh said.

Martin came slowly out of his trance.

‘And after I've ironed seven shirts of yours today and put new slug pellets round the delphiniums and done the school run?'

He put his hand on her shoulder.

‘Sorry. Miles away.'

‘Are you thinking about my farm?'

Martin was a poor liar. In a kind of shout, he said, ‘Yes, actually.'

Clodagh looked briefly at Anthony.

‘Martin is our family lawyer now.'

‘How
deeply
respectable.'

Alice said mildly. ‘What an old bitch you are.'

‘I
needn't
be.'

Clodagh gave a snort. She got up and cleared away the plates and put a blue china bowl of strawberries in the middle of the table. Anthony watched her. He thought that when he next telephoned his mother, he would tell her that he saw exactly why she had reservations about Clodagh as a friend for Alice. He turned to look at Alice. He held his wine glass up to her. She must be sorry for Clodagh.

‘Here's to you.'

‘Thank you,' she said. But she said it absently. Taking a bowl of strawberries from Clodagh, she said, ‘What is your farm like?'

‘Lovely.'

‘What kind of lovely?'

‘A square flint house with brick chimneys and a wonderful Victorian yard. Six hundred acres—'

‘Six hundred and thirty,' Martin said.

‘It's grown!'

‘No. It just wasn't measured properly. I've had it measured. For valuation.'

‘Martin,' Clodagh said, putting an enormous strawberry on top of his helping as a reward, ‘you are wonderful.'

Anthony said, ‘Why don't you live there?'

Alice held her breath.

‘It hasn't been mine. When it is, I might.'

‘Do you,' Anthony said, leaning forward, ‘live here?'

She looked straight at him.

‘I live at home. I spend most days here.'

‘Why?' Anthony said.

Alice said, without looking up, ‘Because we like her to.'

There was a tiny, highly charged pause.

‘I see,' Anthony said.

Clodagh said spitefully, ‘Do you know how to like people?'

‘I know how
not
to like them.'

Martin waved his spoon.

‘Pax, you two.'

‘We might just, you see,' Clodagh said, embarking on the high wire, ‘be about to have a most interesting conversation about love.'

‘
Love
?'

Alice looked up. Her eyes were enormous.

‘It's the most important thing there is. I always knew it would be.'

Martin, alarmed at this kind of remark being made in public, said quickly, ‘Are there any more strawberries?'

It was all the poetry Alice was reading, a sort of sequel to all those novels she used to devour. He shot a glance at her. She was looking at Clodagh but her mind was clearly miles away. Anthony picked up the strawberry bowl.

‘There's about six. I'll share them with you.'

He put two in Martin's bowl.

‘You don't change, do you?'

‘What I don't understand,' Anthony said, ‘is why everyone expects me to.'

After supper, Alice put a pot of coffee on the table, and then she and Clodagh moved about in the dimness outside the candlelit circle round the table, clearing up. They were talking together softly, and at the table Martin and Anthony were talking about Dummeridge. After a while, Alice and Clodagh said that they were going to tuck the children in and left the kitchen. When he could hear their feet safely on the stairs Anthony said, ‘Come on. Tell me about Clodagh. Why is she here?'

Martin poured a spoonful of brown sugar into his coffee.

‘We met her up at the Park. She's been an absolute godsend. A sort of unpaid nanny and companion. It's made all the difference in the world to Alice.'

‘Maybe,' Anthony said. ‘But is she going to stay for ever?'

‘Lord no. She had a bit of a crisis of some kind in the States, so she came home. She'll be off to do something else after the summer. She's that kind.'

‘Do you like her?'

Martin flinched a little.

‘Of course—'

‘When you were younger, you'd have been scared of a girl like that.'

‘Well,' Martin said jauntily, ‘I'm older, aren't I?'

‘Mother doesn't like her.'

‘Mother doesn't have to live with her.'

‘
Why
doesn't she like her?'

Martin shrugged.

‘I don't know.'

‘You do.'

‘Shut up,' Martin said loudly, suddenly angry. ‘Shut up, will you?'

‘No good losing your temper.'

‘I haven't—'

Anthony got up and went over to the open door and lit a cigarette.

‘This is quite a place.'

‘Yes.'

‘Three children. Steady progress up career ladder. Well done.'

Martin said nothing. Anthony came back to the table and dropped into his chair again.

‘To be quite honest, I envy you. My future is rather bleak.'

‘Surely—'

‘Surely what?'

‘Surely you can get another money job?'

‘Oh sure. But it seems a bit pointless. What
for
? You know.'

Alice and Clodagh were coming back down the stairs. They were laughing.

‘I get lonely,' Anthony said, thrusting his face at Martin.

‘I'm sorry—'

The kitchen door opened and the women came in. Martin waved the coffee pot in relief.

‘Coffee?'

‘Lovely,' Alice said, and then to Clodagh, ‘It was everything you see, comic
and
pathetic, I wish you'd—' She stopped. ‘Charlie has got out of his cot,' she said to Martin, ‘and gone to sleep underneath it.'

‘Why didn't you put him back?'

The women looked at one another.

‘It seemed pointless,' Alice said. ‘And not very kind. We rather admired his enterprise.'

‘I won't admire it when he appears in our room at dawn.'

Alice looked deflated.

‘I'll put him back then. Later.'

Clodagh picked up a bunch of keys from the dresser.

‘I ought to go. The drawbridge goes up at eleven.'

Alice moved across towards her. ‘I'll come and see you off.'

Anthony was watching. Clodagh, observing this, said lightly, ‘No need.'

‘I'd like to. You've worked so hard today. Anyway, I must shut up the hens.'

‘No,' Clodagh said, and shook her head. ‘I did the hens. Before supper.'

She crossed to the stable door and unlatched it.

‘Night everyone—'

Alice was gripping the chair back. She saw Clodagh go every night but tonight it was dreadful, heaven knew why. The door closed. She wanted to rush out through the front door and intercept Clodagh's car and get into it with her and just
not
be separated, not be made to be apart, again . . . Instead of doing that, however, she sat down slowly and poured herself some coffee and wished that Anthony wouldn't keep looking at her.

‘Brandy?' she said to him.

‘Love it—'

Martin got up.

‘I'll get it.'

He went out to the dining room.

‘Pretty good,' Anthony said. ‘For my little brother to find himself the Unwin's lawyer.'

‘It was Clodagh's idea.'

‘Was it now?'

‘Her father is thrilled—'

Martin came back with a bottle.

‘Only half an inch I'm afraid.'

He poured brandy into Anthony's empty wine glass. For no reason at all, Alice remembered her father asking for brandy when he came to tell her that he had left her mother and that she hadn't had any then, indeed had never been even part owner of a bottle of spirits in her life. She hadn't been near her mother for a year but she would go now. She and Clodagh would take the children to Colchester to see Elizabeth and perhaps – Alice's heart gave a little lurch – stay in an hotel near-by. And they could go to Reading on the way back and see Sam. Sam would love Clodagh. Perhaps – perhaps they could stay away for a few days, free, just roaming with the car . . .