Harnessing Peacocks (11 page)

‘Surely you are a Conservative?’ Hebe was surprised. Was Mrs Fox a rebel in these Tory surroundings?

‘I was brought up to be one as surely you were.’ Hebe nodded. ‘But there are times when I wonder whether the government is not entirely composed of moles from Moscow.’

Hebe giggled. ‘That’s why you approve of the Hatter?’

‘Yes,’ said Louisa. ‘I like rebels and I dislike hypocrisy.’

‘Were the bores hypocrites, then?’ Hebe suggested the nail for Louisa’s hammer.

‘Terrible hypocrites,’ said Louisa. ‘Oh, poor bird. Can you help that blackbird out of the cage?’

Hebe gently chivvied the blackbird towards the gate held open by Louisa. She felt grateful for Louisa’s ambiguity.

‘There!’ she exclaimed as the bird flew free. ‘Thank you.’

Hebe unpacked, changed her clothes and cooked a delicious meal. They finished the bottle of wine and Louisa, enjoying herself, opened another. She spoke of her garden and was grateful when Hebe offered to weed. Hebe went to bed early and Louisa read late, hoping the telephone would ring so that she could have a long talk, reverse the charges so that he would not have to search for coins, but the instrument remained silent. She regretted fate had prevented her marrying Bernard, although her marriage had been happy. As a lover he had been delightful, as a husband he might have failed and, Louisa reminded herself wryly, Bernard had never proposed marriage.

Listening to the night’s sounds, an owl hooting, a distant train, a cow cough in the meadow, Hebe thought of her grandparents. They had looked old and proud, impregnable in their prejudices. She cursed her inability to communicate with them. I must communicate with Silas, she told herself. I must stop being afraid of him otherwise it will be a repeat story. Sleepily she considered her family, God-fearing, incomprehensible. How marvellous, she thought, that they had chanced in her childhood to employ Amy who had proved her salvation, defending her when the older sisters had tormented and teased, older sisters who had conformed to the family mores, willingly adapting themselves to the proposed pattern. Six, eight and ten years older than herself, Hebe remembered them as giantesses in riding clothes who demanded service in confident voices, manipulated their grandparents, never lowered their voices when telephoning, thought it a joke when the men they were engaged to and subsequently married arrived back from a party tipsy and shouted, ‘Let’s roger the slave,’ as they lumbered towards Amy’s bedroom. Hebe remembered her terror at the sound of their voices and the charge of heavy feet turning to exuberant delight as Amy delivered adroit kicks and a parting push which sent them tumbling downstairs.

Inexplicably the grandparents had approved of the young men, admiring them for their prowess on the rugby field, the hunting field. Now Robert fielded a Conservative majority in a safe seat; Marcus carved a niche in merchant banking; Delian manufactured microchips in Brussels.

Hebe remembered Amy’s refusal to stay another day, her deadly politeness. She had watched her pack, offered her face to be kissed, sad at the pending separation, heard Amy’s bright voice, ‘See you again some day, love!’, watched her get into the waiting taxi, seen her burst out laughing as the taxi rounded the bend in the drive.

Amy must have been at least fifty at that time, thought Hebe, which makes her well over seventy now, much the same as Louisa Fox and Lucy Duff. If Amy had been working for either of those it would not have been Amy who left the house but the boy friends. Hebe recollected her arrival years later on Amy’s doorstep. Amy had said, ‘You’ll be all right with me,’ and she had been all right and Silas was all right, really. If only I can be to Silas what Amy was to me, she thought. She remembered her spirits surging up from the depths as Amy drew her into her house, and of how at last she had been able to weep.

As she listened to the night sounds, she was glad that she would have two weeks with Louisa while Silas enjoyed himself sailing. It was good for him to have a wider horizon than the hideous street. She was glad he was having a good time with an ordinary family. Well, not an ordinary family, she thought, wincing at her inbred snobbery, people who were what Lucy Duff called ‘gentlefolk’. ‘Oh God!’ she cried aloud and remembered Hannah saying ‘Wet the tea’ and cringed, reminded of her upbringing by ‘them’ whom she had disowned, the old white ram and his white ewe whose daughter had borne her. She suddenly missed Terry with his knickers. His life is uncomplex compared to mine, she thought, remembering the chocolate skin of silky texture.

M
UNGO DUFF, A FAR
from patient man, would have liked, the moment he read Miss Thomson’s card, to leap into his car and speed across country to Louisa Fox, find Hebe, snatch her up and take her to Venice. The Highlands? To Yugoslavia? But why waste time travelling? There were delightful country hotels in England and Wales. Ireland, too, for that matter. Would she like Ireland? he asked himself, standing irresolute in the hall.

‘I say, Dad, have you seen my snorkle? I left it with my goggles. It’s disappeared.’

‘Confound you!’ shouted Mungo. ‘Can’t a man even—’ He stared at his elder son standing a yard away, his younger brother at his elbow. Both boys looked startled. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Mungo yelled. Thinking of Hebe, he had forgotten his children.

‘Packing, collecting what we need at the Reeves.’

‘Oh, God!’ Mungo’s dreams fell about his ears. He cursed Alison for departing so blithely to Santa Barbara. Alistair and Ian had to be packed off to the Scilly Isles. Until they left he was shackled by parental responsibility.

‘Got bad news, Dad?’ Alistair eyed the postcard in Mungo’s hand.

‘Of course not. Don’t pry,’ he snarled at Alistair. Why did one burden oneself with children, what lunacy, what a hazard to happiness. He looked again at the postcard. She would not yet be there, not until the 14th. There was time to plan. Then doubt gripped his heart. ‘What day are you two leaving?’

‘Day after tomorrow, Dad. The twelfth. Ma told you.’

‘Of course.’ What relief.

‘She told us we were old enough to pack for ourselves and that you would put us on the train. It’s all right, isn’t it, Dad? I mean, if necessary we can go in a taxi.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Mungo snarled.

‘We are only trying to remember to pack everything. Ma said if we left anything behind we were not to bother you to send it on.’

‘Very sensible of her.’ Mungo grunted.

‘So have you seen my snorkle?’

‘No, I have not seen your snorkle. If you are old enough to pack you are old enough to find your fucking snorkle.’

The younger boy gave a high giggle. ‘Fuck’ was not a word his mother allowed in the house. (‘I will not allow that word in the house.’) This applied to most four-letter words. Seeing Mungo’s expression he suppressed his giggle. Mungo stared at his sons, fruit of his loins, he supposed, though there was no proof, he thought sourly; they both looked exactly like Alison. ‘Get on with it,’ he said, ‘and don’t make a mess.’

Ian and Alistair turned and ran. From the back premises Mungo heard an explosion of laughter. Bloody little bastards, they had no respect. Mungo remembered his own father and grinned. He used to give one a clip on the ear and his mother would cry, ‘Mind Mungo’s eardrum’. Mungo stooped to pick up the rest of the letters. There was one in his mother’s hand. He opened it, tearing pettishly at the envelope.

Darling Mungo. I have to see you on a private matter. When you have got the boys off to the Scilly Isles I would be grateful if you would come and see me so that we can talk. The matter is too delicate to discuss on the telephone. I must ask you to come here. It will not take long. All my love, Mother.

All her love. What about my love? Mungo screamed with inward rage, threw the letter on the ground and stamped on it. Then, glancing round to see whether he had been observed, picked the letter up and put it in his pocket.

That evening, the boys safely in bed, the snorkle found on a shelf in the greenhouse, Mungo telephoned his mother.

‘Mother, what’s up?’

‘I told you, darling, I won’t talk about it on the telephone.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’ He knew that tone of voice; there was no budging her.

‘Very well. I can’t come before the boys go on the twelfth. I’ll come on the thirteenth.’

‘A suitable date.’ Was she laughing?

‘I won’t be able to stay.’ Mungo was defensive.

‘I wasn’t asking you to, darling. As you know, Miss T. rather hates me having visitors.’

Did she think if she referred to Miss Thomson as Miss T. she would not hear?

‘Is she listening?’

‘She has so few entertainments,’ said Lucy, amused. ‘See you, then, on the thirteenth. I’ll ring off now, you must mind your bill.’

Mungo thought, She is obsessed by bills. Tearing up her letter he noticed she had put a second-class stamp on it.

On August 12th Mungo put Ian and Alistair on the train to Penzance where Jennifer Reeves had arranged for them to be met and taken to the heliport. During the afternoon he arranged with Alison’s daily lady to come and feed the cat while he was away, thankful that Alison refused to have a dog. He would not trust a dog to Alison’s daily lady. The cat was able to fend for itself if she forgot it. Mungo always thought of the daily lady as Alison’s, not his or the boys’ adjunct. Her regard, when she bothered to notice him or the boys, was distinctly insubordinate. With Alison she was servile and intimate.

The boys gone, he set off north in his car, stopping to dine on the way at a highly recommended restaurant to fortify himself for any bad news his mother had to impart. As well to stoke up with the good things of life, he told himself, before she broke the news that she had cancer or had lost all her money. As he ate his steak and drank his claret, Mungo let his mind wander. If it was cancer he must get his mother into a hospice, it would be far better than all the hassle of finding a decent nursing home. She belonged though to BUPA so perhaps that side might not be too difficult. On the other hand, if she insisted on dying at home, Alison must come back sharpish and get down to finding private nurses. A terrible bore, but Alison would manage. Mungo ordered another bottle. This really was a good restaurant. If he took Hebe to Scotland they could have a meal here on the way. On the other hand, if his mother had not got cancer but had somehow managed to get into a financial bog, he shuddered to think what to do. One thing he would not do, and here for once Alison would be in complete agreement, would be to have his mother to live with them. No fear, thought Mungo, drinking his claret and ordering Stilton. It was hazardous enough arranging sessions with Hebe without his mother spying on him with those sharp eyes. Mungo sighed, thinking of Hebe’s eyes, enormous like a woodmouse, long lashed. He suddenly realised he was intoxicated and broke into a sweat at the thought of the police stopping him as he drove north and using their dreadful new gadget.

‘Waiter?’ Mungo enunciated with care, even two syllables could betray—

‘Yes, sir,’ falsely obsequious.

‘Is there anywhere I can stay the night? I don’t feel like driving on.’

‘Here, sir, why not here? The restaurant is part of an hotel.’

‘Is it? Thank God.’ He groaned with relief. ‘Book me a room.’

He spent a sleepless and worrying night and appeared at his mother’s house at lunchtime the following day distinctly hungover.

When Mungo saw his mother looking remarkably well, bearing down like a battle cruiser to embrace him, his heart,
malgré lui,
sank. Alison, he decided, would have to find a cottage to suit reduction in circumstances, comfortable of course, or a flat, a flat would do, but not within fifty miles.

‘Fifty miles of what?’

He had not realised he was thinking aloud. ‘I said “your nifty smile”. Are you growing deaf, mother?’

‘Certainly not.’ She wore a curious expression, amused, sardonic.

‘Ill? Are you ill?’ He looked at her keenly.

‘Why should I be? I am as strong as a horse.’

‘Is it money, then, have you lost it all?’

‘Darling, are you crazy? I am perfectly well and very well off, as you well know, thanks to your father. Come and have lunch. We will talk about your troubles afterwards.’

‘My troubles?’ He stared at his mother.

‘What else? Come and have a drink.’ She headed towards the dining-room.

‘Oh, God, no. Well, perhaps yes. A whisky, then.’

‘Like that, is it? Stiff with lots of soda. Would you like an aspirin, too?’ She peered up at him, gimlet-eyed.

‘Yes.’ Mungo was sheepish. His mother had a fondness for weakness which his father had never pandered to. But I oblige her, he thought disconsolately, sipping his whisky while she fetched the aspirin.

During lunch, at which Miss Thomson was present, Mungo listened to his mother’s opinions on the government—not real Tories, no proper background; on the weather—pretty good; her garden as affected by the weather; the iniquities of industrialists polluting the air with the puffs from their chimneys. His mother still talked to him as though he were a child, Mungo thought morosely as he ate his roast chicken. ‘Puff’, indeed.

‘What about the rivers?’

‘Darling, that’s for somebody else to worry about. My plants are not affected by the rivers.’

‘Your income comes from industry.’

‘Oh no, Mungo, it does not. Your father would never invest in industry.’

‘Ask your trustees.’ Mungo was sulky and nervous.

‘I shall leave well alone.’ Lucy shifted from uncertain ground. ‘Shall we have our coffee out of doors?’

‘I will bring it out on the patio for you, Mrs Duff.’ Miss Thomson rose from the table and left them.

‘Maddening woman, she insists on calling the terrace a patio. It’s so common. Come on, let’s go into the garden. She also refers to the lawn being manicured.’

Following his mother on to the terrace, Mungo reflected that she must be one of the last to dare call somebody ‘common’. He wished he had her ghastly self-assurance.

They sat in the sun, not speaking, looking at the view in the distance of which a factory chimney could be seen, puffs of pollution belching. Miss Thomson brought the coffee tray and retreated. Mungo watched her back, her thick efficient waist, strong plump shoulders, solid legs ending in flat, sensible shoes on inward-turning feet.