Muriel Pulls It Off (4 page)

‘I can’t face another one at S, even if I’m asked. The new lot get on my nerves, always sucking up to the Queen and taking Mummy in.’

She wrinkled her nose and her brown eyes caught those of her guest as she spoke. ‘I’ll bring Jubilee and stay a lovely long time.’ Her smile smacked of flimsiness as the butler came and went.

After dinner they sat, again side by side, on the sofa and Mambles rang a hand bell. A maid flew forward. ‘Your Royal Highness.’

‘The video Hedges.
The Sound of Music.
Can you put it on?’

Muriel ached for bed but Mambles’s voice was triumphant. ‘I know it’s soppy but Christopher Plummer is so dishy.’

For an hour and a half they smoked and drank, Muriel forgetting about the breathalyser, and raised their ageing voices to the strain of ‘Eidelweiss’. Mambles yodelled throughout a puppet show involving a goat.

Muriel kissed and curtseyed in the wrong order and sped to her Chelsea house with much to mull over. She was lucky not to be stopped and rued her weakness in issuing unfulfillable promises and allowing herself to be bossed by a dog she really could not bear.

She didn’t like dogs at all but in her depths she knew that it was, almost always, their owners who caused the antipathy. Monopoly, of course, belonged to Hugh and nothing but his betrayal of them both held the two together.

To begin with they had complained jointly of Hugh’s bunk as they looked at each other through mists of tears. Later, however, she began to allow the dog some sympathy. Muriel wondered if life was not worse for Monopoly than it was for her. After all she had found Hugh hindering in recent years whereas Monopoly had shown no restraint in his adoration of him. Nonetheless, Muriel had, with gaps, pined and railed against her husband’s behaviour for she had been fooled. The affair of Miss Ingrid Malone no longer bugged her although thoughts of her own public denouncement regularly smarted, but it was the effort she had put into their rapprochement and the triumph she had inwardly boasted when she and Hugh had shaken down together, or so she believed at the time, that jarred and jangled on her nervous system.

She let Monopoly out into the yard at the back of the kitchen and waited crossly to let him in again, then made her way shakily to bed. By the time she settled down she had disintegrated into misery. She turned off her bedside light and tried to shut her eyes, ears and mind to any suggestion of the world, but images arose of Bradstow and the mad old man who lay sedated in a hospital bed on the eve of signing away his estate to a stranger. Her.

Her imagination recoiled from havoc, past and future, as she slipped from time and torment into that glassy state in which pain no longer exists, before sleep took control.

In the morning she heard Monopoly snarl in the kitchen - asking to be let out. He probably thought he had heard Hugh on the area step. Muriel pulled a dressing gown around her, a Japanese contraption handed on to her from Mambles. (‘A present from those Nips that the Queen had to her beastly banquet. She has cupboards full of them and graciously allowed me to take my pick for once.’)

Muriel went to free the dog. It was in her interest that the dog be fastidious and she appreciated his punctiliousness. She was fluttering in the Queen’s kimono when he yelped again and scratched at the door. ‘Ok,’ she called, ‘I’ll be with you in a jiffy.’

When she was dressed she intended to pop in on Peter.

B
efore Muriel had time to pop out Mambles rang from her feather bed. ‘Anything further on your horrid inheritance? By the way, who is that poor old man you shut up? Mummy wants to know.’ Muriel fobbed her friend off with a date that she would sooner not have made for her thoughts were focused on Marco. There had been good times when he was young. Peter had no children and had made a pet of him but, to Muriel’s unease, Marco had never repaid these attentions. He was nettled by his mother’s understanding with his uncle and suspected that his own weaknesses might be hinted at between the pair. He was stung, too, that Peter provided a sturdy sanctuary for Muriel with which he was ill equipped to compete.

Tessie opened the front door. Since the shutting down of Peter’s eyes and thanks to a small private income and various disability allowances, he was able to employ Tessie for most of every day.

‘Morning Mum. Mr Cottle pleased to see you Mum.’

Peter was smoking on the sofa and counting aloud in high numbers.

‘Planning my future,’ he explained as Muriel touched his hand. The smell of tobacco and ink (for Peter wrote with pen and ink, dripping and spilling) pleased her. It contrasted happily with Hugh’s squeaky aura of vitamins and mouthwash.

‘How was last night?’ he asked. Peter could not abide Mambles.

‘I told her about Bradstow. Not best pleased until she began to bargain on house parties.’

‘I’d love to have seen you - well, heard you if you prefer it.’

She sat beside him and asked about the high numbers. ‘Mental exercise. Money in verse. Will you take Monopoly if you go to the country? I’m not sure if I can face him as a fixture.’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t dump him on you.’

‘Don’t be absurd. I enjoy sharing him. He keeps us in daily contact. It just wouldn’t be so much fun without you around.’

Muriel started. It thrilled her when Peter became personal. At the same time it made her awkward and unsure. She fished about to change the subject. Not ready.

She went out, shopped and on returning unwrapped cheese and olives and potted shrimps in Peter’s sitting room. They ate, and later, walked together in Kensington Gardens, allowing Monopoly off his lead and complaining of his shortcomings. During the evening, which they spent smoking and listening to taped songs, they kept away from topics that might confuse either.

Back at her own house, the telephone waxed fiery; frenzied in the frustration of unanswered jangling. As she lay down ready to sleep her friendship with Peter presented itself with indefinite boundaries; with a vagueness that allowed itself to evaporate. It never inched on or allowed for raw confidences. It was not, she concluded as she started to doze, an object she could call her own.

In the morning she rang the Royal Opera House and tried, with success, for tickets. It was arranged that Marco, Flavia and she would sit in the stalls that very evening to watch a performance of
Simon Boccanegra.

As they took to their seats each of them held a programme. Before the lights dimmed they endeavoured to master threads of the plot; more complicated than any hiding in Muriel’s heart. The production was velvety, exhibiting a background of Genoese water and a vocal foreground of poison and surprise paternity. Muriel concentrated on the moment, for she sat beside her son. Their arms touched while lights were low and singers screamed. She knew that he was losing his hair and that he drank far too much, but that nothing could part them, no matter where their thoughts lay or how strongly he despised her for her failure with Hugh, or for her lack of resilience in other matters. Other matters.

Emilia, on stage, yelped in musical joy as she recognised and became reconciled with her long-lost progenitor.

Is one’s father one’s father whatever the weather? Muriel wanted to know. And should I have experienced fresh surges upon each encounter with my own? And what was Marco cooking up in his head concerning Hugh? Was siring of superabundant importance? Should the fact of it invade every particle of the central nervous system?

Flavia, dazzling in her prettiness, sat on the other side of Marco. In near darkness Muriel watched her as the operatic heat swelled to its height. Flavia, who had known neither of her parents, became, in the vagaries of her mother-in-law, a wandering waif on the centre of the stage.

Muriel left her there and drifted back to one of Marco’s sports days during his boarding school years. They had laid out their lunch on grass above a cricket pavilion although neither of them had any inclination to pay attention to the game. Hugh had been absent. ‘Pressure of work.’ They wanted to talk and pop corks off champagne bottles. Marco had ordered the picnic down to the last grain of coffee, even urging his mother to produce damask napkins. He had insisted on tapestry cushions.

Plenty of them in Lincolnshire.

They had spread out strawberries and cream and chocolate Bath Olivers that had melted in the sun. Nothing but the best as they ate off ironstone plates and drank from fragile glasses - long since fragmented.

She had spoiled him to death. Soon she might be in a position to continue the good work.

Afterwards, in a restaurant, Muriel considered, ‘What shall I say to them?’

Her thoughts took precedence over conversation and very nearly chased away the hour. She loved and pitied them both and it was only fair that she should come clean and tell them of her good fortune; excite them with a promise of a brighter future than expected. (The small Chelsea house and possibly a pittance from Uncle Peter were their only hope for long-term betterment.) Marco would never be a breadwinner any more than Hugh would ever put anything by.

To the surprise of her companions she had chosen an expensive restaurant. Was she not on the eve of becoming a wealthy woman? The owner of a house stuffed with what Mambles would call ‘nice things’.

When dinner was over, Muriel asked Marco to order liqueurs. He ogled the waitress as he ordered another bottle of red wine to boot. The three resettled, more intimate than before, not knowing that a storm had blown up outside.

Marco, cavernous for wine, gulped and looked cheerfully alert. ‘So. What’s going on? Why the expensive outing? What’s the mystery for fuck’s sake?’

As he spoke certain lines of his countenance descended to malevolent grimness. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

Flavia, a geisha girl in bright white, was attentive; rapacious for news that might tell to her advantage. She was fed up with the squalor of pub-crawling and desultory dabbles with drugs. Although slave to Marco’s charm, the life he provided sickened her to the quick and tempted her to stray.

Muriel’s senses were pinched and she loosened them with wine. Her head rattled as she leaned towards Marco, thrilling to the response she knew her information would produce and to the complicity; the conspiratorial closeness that would follow her disclosures - for Hugh was out of it. The three present were to be in possession of cataclysmic knowledge denied the errant one in Johannesburg. Earlier she had determined to hug her secret until the bird was in the hand for fear that Marco and Flavia would begin manipulations before she had had time to gloat or act, for the first time, with independence of spirit. The knowledge that her resolve was shattered saddened her while the young ones urged her for information; dates, measurements, assets, river-frontage. Again she was alone.

Her companions were uninterested in the hassles that lay ahead; the intricacies to be unravelled and lived through. Uninterested, too, in the decrepit old geyser in his rank suit, foul-mouthing his way along corridors.

Flavia’s eyes flickered, ‘I say, Chick.’ She sometimes called her mother-in-law ‘Chick’. ‘When can we have a squizz at it?’

Muriel clamped. There were limits. She wasn’t going to have the pair put their feet in it; not before she had come to some heavenly recognition of the hierarchy of inheritance.

‘Some time soon, of course.’ She smiled and drew away.

‘For Christ’s sake Ma.’ Marco tipped ash onto his free hand. ‘Don’t come over the mysterious heiress. We’re in it together. You’ll be needing all the help you can get.’ This was true but her thoughts stuck as she said, ‘We’ll play it by ear.’ An expression that had exasperated her for years. Marco used it at every turn when he avoided being pinned down to a date.

Muriel paid the bill and the three walked out into the stormy night. Dirty water splashed the whiteness of Flavia’s outfit, and billowed the drunken group towards Muriel’s car.

M
uriel woke to a hangover, Monopoly’s yelps and a sensation of despair. She had blown it. In spite of her resolutions she had exposed herself, and on the very path where she had planned to be wary. For all she knew Marco kept in touch with his father; might have laid bare his mothers’ frailties and complained of her complaints - fortifying Hugh in his wish to steer clear of her and justifying his bunk to freedom. Now, surely, he was capable of telling Hugh of the reversal in her fortune. Together they might plot to overthrow her; Hugh persuading himself that he was needed, a man about the place, and deciding to return - a knight in shining armour; unselfishly and against his will, to take charge. If she asked Marco not to spill the beans then he might hasten to do so, as well as telling Hugh of her request. She would be open to charges of deviousness, stinginess, unwillingness to share good fortune. There was a possibility, though, that Marco in his fathers’ absence, might welcome the opportunity of stepping into his shoes.

Muriel clambered out of bed and made up her mind to ring Arthur, the sweetie, and push some pattern into things. The sooner she dialled his number the sooner would her own be blocked - making it impossible for Marco or Mambles (or Hugh from Johannesburg armed with her news) to combat her.

Arthur advised - ordained even - that Muriel sleep at Bradstow within a few days and for an unspecified length of time. He told her that he planned to alert the household; to see that a room be prepared for her and her needs attended to. In fact the sweetie proposed to meet her there himself. She did not warn that she was to be accompanied by Monopoly.

In spite of the storm the heat had returned and she left London as soon as she had packed, cancelled, left a letter for Ellen, locked and tidied.

She hoped and believed that, during her reckless outpourings, she had forborne to tell Marco the name or the exact whereabouts of the house.

Muriel and Monopoly picnicked in a damp cornfield somewhere between London and Bradstow as she fumed about her husband. She felt in all her bones that Monopoly was on the eve of sabotaging her future. Delilah had warned on the subject of dogs. It was going to be hard; catching the blame for a dog that wasn’t hers and that she could not abide. It crossed her mind to leave him in the soggy cornfield to forage for himself. Serve him right. Egotistical beast.

Nonetheless she bundled Monopoly into the back of the car which was densely patterned with his gingery hair. He moulted all the year round. Muriel could never understand where all the hair came from or how his body continued to replace the ones that had dropped away. His wicker basket was in the boot and she was unhappy as to how to handle it on arrival. She would start by putting it in her bedroom but she was blowed if she was going to share her quarters with the dog for the rest of his natural life.

It was all dreadfully peculiar. She was on her way to stay with strangers in a house of which she was the proxy owner; a hostess to be shown to her own bedroom and introduced to her hostile staff.

Were flowers to be placed on her dressing table?

Were her meals to be prepared? Served to her?

Was her suitcase to be unpacked? Did she live in style?

It was only sensible to stop short of her destination and allow Monopoly to scamper. The chances were that, on arrival, she would be savaged by members of the household who would observe the dog with equal hostility. Simpler to leave him in the car to moult and for her to spring out, fair and square, alone. Eventually, of course, she would release him - but one thing at a time.

At a loop in the road, beside a wide, tufty verge, Muriel pulled up, got out, and turning to Monopoly, said, ‘Come on. Walkies. Clean dog.’ She went on, ‘Out. Walkies then,’ and pulled a lever under her seat that triggered it forward. Monopoly gave her a funny look; half smile; half leer. It reminded her of Jerome as he walked the plank towards the open ambulance doors.

He was a mongrel. Half Jerome and half Hugh. As he moulted his way round the grassy space she realised she had forgotten to bring tinned food for him and wondered to whom she could apply for help. Surely, among that crew of dependants, there would be a dog freak. Delilah must advise.

Having done his duty, Monopoly climbed back into the car and they journeyed together at snail’s pace.

The ilex avenue shimmered as they drove towards the house of unremitting beauty. On stopping she jumped out and shut the car door behind her with a sharp snap. Walking away, both from the car and the front door, her eye lit upon a quiver of water. She knew nothing of gardens.

No other car stood parked at the front of the house and she looked at her watch. She was early. It was twenty minutes before the time she had arranged to meet Arthur. It had not been easy to dawdle, with Monopoly twitching and harassing her. She wished she had dallied longer at that verge where Monopoly had relieved himself. But there was to be no going back. Soon somebody would spot her and she wished to appear capable.

Dulcie, tall in army trousers, glowering through bifocals, smoothing back grey hair, was the first to take up the alert.

‘They never told me you was bringing a dog. That’ll cause problems. How long do you intend leaving it in the car without a window open?’ Muriel had forgotten about the window.

‘Dogs may not be too popular around here but there’s not many as will put up with witnessing their discomfort. Downright cruelty. As it so happens I have one honey-flavoured chew in my pocket. She can have it this once and I’m calling her Josephine.’

Muriel did not mind a scrap if Dulcie called her male dog Josephine and agreed to his accepting a honey-flavoured chew, although she wished with all her force that Monopoly be left to his own devices. Having to consider him was awful. She turned away. Dulcie and Josephine were entitled to assess each other.

Arthur was early and appeared from under the ilexes in a glistening white Rover - bought with the pickings, perhaps, of her putative fortune. They shook hands. He was affable in summer suiting and tidy tie. ‘Delighted to see you. I think the team will have made all the necessary preparations. Being a Saturday Sonia won’t be in. Good thing in many ways. She can be difficult. I see that you’ve already said hello to Dulcie.’
Dulcie turned towards them. Monopoly, now Josephine, was still imprisoned in the car but a window had been left a few inches open.

She rounded on Arthur. ‘Why weren’t we told she was bringing a dog? Good job Sonia’s not in today. There’ll be trouble on Monday. We don’t know if she’s a cat-chaser. If she is she’ll have to go.’

Poor Josephine. Hugh’s fault. Marco should have taken Monopoly on but couldn’t. Something to do with opening hours.

‘So,’ said Arthur, ‘shall we cross the threshold?’

Muriel followed him into the hall. It was dark in there amongst towering plants and carved wooden saints, picked out in faded pink.

It smelled of wood and polish and ancient dust; bliss beyond belief. Delirium flooded her as she gazed again at the wonders of the trove. Hugh would be beside himself, were he to pursue her. Joint ownership? They were not divorced; had made no plans in that direction. Presumably he was entitled to half of her estate; lowly or otherwise.

She picked out features of chairs and tables as Arthur spoke to Dulcie who had followed them.

‘Is Phyllis in charge of the rooms? Do you know where Mrs Cottle is to sleep? We were to have rung the doorbell to warn her of our arrival but found it open.’

Muriel jumped. Security? Was everything going to get pinched before she had time to wallow? No dogs. That was clear; the only thing that was.

Dulcie abounded in spleen. ‘She should be around. That’s one of the problems with Phyllis. In and out like a fiddler’s elbow - and another thing,’ she turned to Muriel, ‘I’ll be thanking you to put that filthy cigarette out. This is a no-smoking zone. Sonia’s allergic and my Burmese, Plod, commonly known as Fourpence-Halfpenny, is asthmatic.’ Muriel stubbed out her cigarette on a priceless plate and marvelled that this cascade of verbiage flowed from but one whiskery mouth.

Is this, thought the owner of Bradstow Manor, the end of my carefree life?

She knew full well that her life had not been carefree, that it had constituted one long pitfall interrupted by spasms of intense pleasure. There had been long dead days when she had barely managed to lug her carcass about with her even though, by many standards, she owned a charming one. Circumstances, however, into which she had been pressed, prompted her to pretend that her days had hitherto been devoid of anxiety. She had to concoct a contrast.

Never, outwardly or in private, had Muriel been grasping. Never had she hankered for riches or envied those who spent recklessly. She was not impressed by excess unlike her son but, as Arthur and Dulcie discussed her needs, a sparkle of rapacity stirred in her. An Elizabethan portrait of a
Gothic-faced
female in a carved wooden frame hung above a Puginesque table of ineffable charm. She loved the word ‘ineffable’. Might the one picture, alone, be worth a fortune? Interiors painted in oils, framed in gold, stacked one above the other, smothered dark recesses. She began to add. Clicketty-click. Thousand to thousand. Her head a calculator. Poetry in numbers.

Phyllis joined them.

‘There you are. We wondered what you were up to.’ Dulcie in command, ‘She’s brought a dog with her. Josephine. I’ve told her it’s just as well it’s a Saturday and Sonia’s not about.’ Muriel lit a cigarette and held it, between puffs, behind her back. Phyllis had perked up since their last meeting and shone bright as a button.

‘We’ve prepared the four-poster bed for you. That’s what Mr Atkins would have wished, not that he had any say - poor dear. What about your luggage?’

Muriel hoped that Monopoly, now Josephine, fared well in her car. Her own luggage rested with his basket in the boot. Arthur went for the case and Muriel told Phyllis that she was pleased to be where she was. She asked after her uncle.

Phyllis said it was a shame. He knew nobody - not even yours truly, in spite of his promises. She had been to see him most days. He was slipping, she thought. ‘He hasn’t mentioned you Mrs Cottle but then, of course, you weren’t acquainted.’

Arthur returned with the case and together they ascended the powerful staircase. On the landing Muriel nearly bellowed with joy as she gloated over needlework hangings and Gothic chairs. Rugs from the ancient East piled one upon the other in dark and peaceful gloom, and shadow gave the impression of winter in spite of the heat that dried the earth outside.

Phyllis led her to the four-poster room where Arthur laid her case upon a stand at the end of the bed.

Never, Muriel thought, unless I absolutely have to, will I spend a night in any room other than this. What is more the bed is single and has no space in it for Hugh.

Wax figures under glass domes stood on Chinese cabinets; tapestry curtains, held back by fat tassels, fell in heavy coils to the floor. An ironstone ewer, set in a bowl, was beside her bed. Flavia was certain to freak.

As for Mambles. There might be problems with Jubilee, but she would be hard to discourage in the face of beauty and comfort; square pillows and fine linen.

Phyllis explained, ‘Mavis prepared the room. I don’t do housework. I was here to look after Mr Atkins and I shall need to know where I stand. Will he be returning here? I gather it’s up to you. Did he get the opportunity to mention anything about me?’

Arthur weighed in. ‘Plenty of time for all that, Phyllis. We have a round-table conference here on Monday. You are not to trouble Mrs Cottle for the present.’ Phyllis elected to withdraw.

Arthur accompanied his new client into the drawing room where, Phyllis had said, tea awaited them and where no fire burned in the vast grate. With the incarceration of Jerome, Dulcie had let herself off the task of humping logs during the heatwave.

Muriel and Arthur sat down to sandwiches and cake, prepared by God knew who, as Phyllis returned to summon Muriel to the telephone. She jumped, very nearly, out of her thin skin. Who had tracked her down to this forsaken world? She followed Phyllis down a passage to a telephone, picked it up and listened. It was Delilah.

‘Welcome. We heard you were here. Dawson and I wondered whether you were up to socialising. I gather you have Arthur with you. Isn’t he a sweetie?’

Muriel said that she considered Arthur to be a real sweetie and that, alas, she wasn’t up to socialising. Possibly tomorrow.

‘That’s Sunday of course. Will you be in church? Dawson’s preaching. I probably shouldn’t say this but his sermons are very brilliant. He’s an academic, you see. Not like me. I’m just the rector’s wife.’

Muriel promised that she would try to get to church; would keep in touch, loved the place, needed time, needed sleep, was grateful for the attention.

Back in the drawing room, Arthur warned that things would not be easy. ‘Monday morning. How does that suit you? I’ll get up here at about ten o’clock. I’ll bring a list of everyone on the payroll and we’ll set about defining their duties and so forth.’

He took his leave and Muriel reached for a sandwich filled with chopped egg. Did she keep chickens?

The time had come for her to turn her attention to Monopoly. He and his basket were still in the car and it was plain that this situation could not continue. Phyllis reappeared, smothering a sigh and wearing a knowing look that said ‘Is there going to be no peace from now on?’ ‘Telephone again.’

It was Marco who wailed dementedly ‘I’ve tracked you down.’

‘Why?’ his mother answered. Her voice was silvery and light; wispy. Marco didn’t catch her single word.

‘Answer for Christ’s sake.’ Her son was drunk.

‘Sorry Marco. It’s difficult. Things to sort out. Nothing straightforward.’

‘We’ll come and help. We’ll leave now. Flave’s found it on the map. See you in an hour or two.’

To whom did she apply? Where were they to sleep? What about supper? Resentment overtook her. Whatever unexpected new dawns broke for her she carried her incubi. Marco and Monopoly. Nothing to choose between them. Phyllis hovered, putting two and two together - not that she spoke. She was pleased to note that the disadvantages under which the interloper struggled were busily multiplying.