Vacillations of Poppy Carew (12 page)

I must register every detail, thought Calypso, so that I can tell Ros Lawrence what sort of job her son Fergus makes of being an undertaker. Ros makes no complaint but her new husband may not welcome Fergus’s choice of career. Hector would have found it original. I’ve seen those stable girls before, Calypso thought. The fair one is old Mowbray’s girl. What’s the story? And I see he has roped in his cousin Victor to help. Without seeming to she docketed and placed the congregation.

The organist struck up gently and the people rose.

At the church gate Poppy stood, a slight figure, as the men unloaded Dad and carried him into the church. Somebody nudged her arm and led her in to settle her in the front pew alongside the coffin. She was unaware of Anthony Green and his wife, of Les Poole with his consort, of the eyes of the congregation watching her as she tried to concentrate on the service, on the words designed to consign her father to God’s keeping. Did he believe in God? Did all these people, his friends believe in God? Why did I never ask him, Poppy wondered. Why did we never discuss serious matters? Why did we shy away and worry at the subject of Edmund? Oh, Edmund.

Beside his Aunt Willy Guthrie suddenly stiffened like a pointer. She followed his glance.

The organist let rip a burst of Bach then it was over and the bearers were preparing to carry Bob Carew out to the hearse for the short trip to the grave.

There was silence in the church except for the shuffling of the bearers and the mass breathing of the congregation as they waited.

The vicar moved round the coffin ready to lead it out.

Oh my God, thought Poppy, there will be a hymn. I should not have left its choice to the vicar, how can he know what Dad liked, he will have chosen some awful muscular Christian tune which will set my teeth on edge. She gripped the pew in front of her. The vicar glanced at her sidelong.

From behind the altar came a pure high note. A blackbird sang joined quickly by mistlethrush, thrush, robin, tit, finch and wren in delirious joyful chorus filling the church. The vicar did indeed know what Dad would like. She remembered then her father telling her how the tape had been made one spring morning in his garden. I will get him to play you the tape, Dad had said, if you are interested. She had not been interested. Instead they had squabbled over her life with Edmund.

She followed the coffin into the September light slanting now across the green, her ears full of birdsong, feeling grief, remorse, gratitude to the vicar. She did not notice the congregation waiting for her to pass, watching her. She did not catch their eyes. Behind her in the church the birdsong ran on until the tape ran out.

Standing by the grave for the final words as the coffin was lowered Poppy felt relief that Dad had had the send-off he wanted, satisfaction that in this at least she had given him something he wanted. It rounded off Edmund’s defection.

People gathered round her as she shook hands with the vicar and thanked him.

‘You will come back to the house?’

‘Thank you.’

A heavy man in a tweed suit said, ‘Hullo, you must be Poppy.’ He smelled of alcohol and cigars.

‘Yes.’

‘The birds were an inspiration.’

‘The vicar’s.’

‘Not a church-goer your father, it was the race tracks for him.’ The man laughed fatly.

‘Yes.’

‘Used to take my aunt to Chepstow and he took Archie over there’s mother to the National every year. Kind to the old girls your father, never accepted any reward, most charitable chap I ever knew, free with his tips too. My name’s Ebberley.’

‘Oh.’

‘Let us give you a lift? Get you home in a flash.’

Yet again others were taking charge, knowing what she should do, doing it for her. She heard the strangers around her saying, ‘Okay, see you in a minute at the house. Could do with a drink after that,’ ‘Hope there’s something stronger than tea,’ ‘Sure to be some booze, Bob was never mean about booze.’ They all seemed to know each other, substantial men with their competent high-voiced wives mixing with the neighbours from the village and villages around. Their voices carolling up.

‘Excuse me, would you mind if I took my aunt’s coat?’ A man’s polite voice. ‘We have to leave.’

Flustered by the noise around her, Poppy took off the coat. ‘Where is she, I must thank her? Won’t you come to the house?’

‘Over there.’ He took the coat. ‘Don’t bother, we have to go.’ He sounded angry. ‘Goodbye.’ She watched him join the old woman waiting in the car. She smiled and waved. The young man got in and drove away.

‘Who is she?’ cried Poppy embarrassed not to know. ‘She was so kind, she seemed to know my father.’

‘Calypso Grant, used to be quite a raver when she was young. Here, jump in.’

The man in the tweed suit was managing her, putting her into a car beside a wife who smiled a welcome, patting the seat beside her. ‘That was Calypso Grant,’ the man told his wife who said, ‘Oh, Calypso, one’s heard of her of course,’ noncommittally.

Poppy, half in the car, hesitated, fighting suffocation. I am being killed by kindness, she told herself. She backed out, scrambling away. ‘Please go on,’ she urged. ‘I must just see—I have to speak—do go on up to the house—’ She escaped, doubling back towards Fergus and Victor waiting by the hearse for the cars to move, the road to be free. One of the horses threw up its head and neighed impatiently. People were getting into their cars, slamming doors, starting the engines. Frances and Annie stood at the back of the hearse. Mary was chatting to a group of people she seemed to know.

‘You will come back to the house?’ asked Poppy, looking up at Fergus.

‘Love to.’

‘I must, I’m doubling as waiter,’ Victor said smugly.

‘Put your horses in the stables, Victor will show you.’ She needed to keep Fergus near her and Victor too.

‘Stables? That’ll be fine,’ said Fergus, surprised.

‘Didn’t Victor tell you?’

‘Victor did not.’ Fergus shot a suspicious glance at Victor, who looked innocent.

‘May I drive back to the house with you?’

‘Of course you may, there’s room on the box,’ said Fergus.

‘You are the only people I know here.’

‘Stay with us then.’ Victor drew closer to her. He would have liked to put an arm round her but not in front of Fergus.

‘What I’d really like is to be alone,’ cried Poppy.

‘Have to wait a bit,’ said Fergus.

‘We’ll stand by,’ said Victor comfortingly.

Mary came up laughing. ‘At least ten people have asked for your phone number, Fergus. This has been a wonderful advertisement. Half the bookmakers in the south of England are here and lots of the hunting crowd. You are going to be the in thing, Fergus, if you are not snowed in,’ she teased, ‘but no fun then.’

Fergus snapped ‘Do shut up, Mary,’ glared and muttered.

‘What does she mean, snowed in?’ Poppy looked up at the weather, set fair.

‘My father rented him a pup,’ said Mary and sketched the trap Fergus might find himself in.

‘Don’t let it bother you.’ Fergus indicated the hearse. ‘Jump up.’

Poppy scrambled up in her beautiful dress, showing a lot of leg in the view of the verger who was waiting to close the church and get home to his tea, not that he objected to legs but not at funerals …

Annie and Frances sat in a row with Mary, swinging her legs in the back of the hearse. ‘Walk on, gee up,’ cried Fergus cracking the whip.

The Dow Jones threw up their heads and lurched forward. Fergus drove through the village at a smart trot. People returning to their homes looked amused or disapproving at Poppy in her multicoloured dress sitting on the box between Fergus and Victor.

‘They don’t look too pleased,’ commented Victor.

‘How else am I supposed to get home?’ cried Poppy. ‘I was offered a lift but it was with strangers.’

Victor and Fergus felt jointly pleased not to be so considered.

‘Why don’t you rent my stables as winter quarters,’ suggested Poppy when they arrived, speaking as though the idea had just occurred to her. ‘I’ll introduce you to my solicitor, you can fix it up with him. I shan’t be here much,’ she added, dashing Fergus’s spirits. ‘Do the place good to be used,’ she said. ‘You may have the house too, if you want it. Let us get this dreadful wake over.’ She must play host to all the people who had known Dad and very likely Life’s Dividends too. It pleased her to think that it was Life’s Dividends who were paying for the party, forking out for the champagne.

A
S THE DOW JONES CLATTERED
round to the stable yard Victor acknowledged a shout from Julia Wake who, having parked her car, was heading towards the house in the company of Sean Connor.

‘Who are they?’ Poppy asked but who cares, she thought, the church had been full, strange faces outnumbering the familiar ten to one. With the funeral ordeal over came euphoria, sparked off by the novelty of the drive from the cemetery. High on the box between Fergus and Victor she was exhilarated by the horses tossing their heads, black plumes dancing, bits jangling, the snortings, the pounding hooves on the road, the eager canter quickly repressed by Fergus. ‘Whoa there, steady.’

‘That’s Julia Wake, she edits the magazine I told you about.’ (Had he told her?) ‘The man with her is Sean Connor, he’s in publishing, he is very interested in my novel.’ Victor hoped Poppy had been as distrait as she looked during the ceremony, had not noticed the photographers, not being sure how well she would receive his article when it got into print.

‘A novel? How exciting. Are they coming to your party?’

‘Your party,’ Victor corrected her.

‘I hardly feel it’s mine, it’s been organised by you. Shall you rush ahead and pop the bottles?’ Poppy jumped down from the box as Fergus drew up in the stable yard. ‘Run on,’ she said to Victor, ‘all these people will be dying for a drink.’ She waved towards the house. ‘I’ll follow in a minute,’ she said, quashing his desire to linger.

Victor, hoist perforce in his role as caterer, went reluctantly ahead to the house.

‘Now,’ Poppy switched to Fergus, ‘let me show you the stables.’

They left the horses to Frances and Annie and toured the yard. Fergus, expecting shabby desolation, was astonished as he looked into loose-boxes, tack room and coach-house. ‘It’s in good nick, all it needs is a lick of paint and a few repairs.’

‘Dad would have liked to have horses here, it would have been one of his dreams. Like to rent them, what do you say?’ She looked at Fergus.

Fergus said, ‘It would be a bloody miracle. You’ve no idea of the terror that’s gripped me since that bitch planted the fear of snow. If I were snowed in I’d go bankrupt.’

‘Her father took you for a ride; why?’

‘He wants to muck up Mary’s life, wants her to be respectable.’

‘Fathers do,’ said Poppy dryly.

‘He was getting at her through me. If I go bust she’d lose her job.’

‘Charming.’ Perhaps I was lucky with Dad, he only talked, she thought. ‘I’ll introduce you to Anthony Green, he’ll be in the house. Rent it for a year and see how things go,’ she suggested. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed as Fergus hugged her. ‘Ah!’ she said as he kissed her mouth.

‘Sealed with a kiss.’ Fergus kissed her again. ‘More?’ he suggested, enjoying himself.

‘Well,’ said Poppy. She had not been kissed by anyone other than Edmund since she could remember, not like this. Fatherly pecks on the cheek by Dad, avuncular cheek-touching by Anthony Green, certainly nothing of this sort. ‘Well.’ She felt cheerful and, to her surprise, roused. She smoothed her dress, shook out her hair. ‘No more,’ she said, laughing. Fergus desisted.

Poppy watched while the girls took the horses out of their traces and loosened their bits. They brought haybags from a Land Rover. Mary watched also, holding the infant Barnaby who had materialised with the haybags. He held out plump arms to Fergus and said, ‘Dada, Dada.’

‘I’m not your bloody Dada,’ said Fergus. ‘Wait till you are of age, I’ll sue you for slander.’

Mary looked down her nose.

‘Dada,’ insisted Barnaby, bubbling spittle. Poppy felt happy, with Fergus and the girls watching the horses chump their hay, swish their tails, sigh gustily, break wind, phut, phut, phut of sweet smelling gas. She was in no hurry to go into the house.

‘There will be no booze left if you don’t come in,’ Victor shouted jealously from the kitchen door.

‘Okay, we’ll come.’ Poppy led Fergus and the girls towards the back door.

They were met by a wall of sound from the sitting room, hall and overflow into the garden.

Friends from the village and neighbourhood raised their voices in competition with Dad’s friends from the outer world. Bookmakers, gypsies, racing men, smart suited in tweed and pinstripe, shiny-shoed, boomed and bellowed while their wives and mistresses yelped and trebled as they snatched and nibbled at the Indian eats, gulped and swilled champagne, greedy for the life from which Bob Carew had so recently absented himself.

Poppy strained to hear snatches of conversation, hoping to piece together a picture of Dad through his friends.

‘The last race at Doncaster was when—’

‘Cast a plate at Plumpton so the second favourite won.’

‘You marinate it in white wine. Try it.’

‘Man cannot live by bread alone, he needs butter.’

‘Haw, haw, haw.’

‘Knew Furnival’s mother, very pretty girl Ros. I shall book him for my exit.’

‘Don’t you think it was in rather dubious taste?’

‘Oh come on, makes a change from the usual humdrum do.’

‘Apprenticed himself to an undertaker, they say, rather enterprising.’

‘Went to France, found the equipage there—’

‘Why France?’

‘Why not—’

‘A papist contraption—’

‘But why?’

‘Search me. Search
la femme
. Any more of that bubbly?’

‘That chap over there drowned his wife.’

‘Victor something—’

‘That’s right. Writes. Wish I could drown mine. Victor Lucas, that’s it.’

‘I keep forgetting names.’

‘Too much alimony. It’s old age creeping up on you.’

‘Ha, ha, ha. You too.’

‘Isn’t that girl Mary Mowbray, Nicholas Mowbray’s daughter?’