Vacillations of Poppy Carew (13 page)

‘It’s said she had a baby by a wog. That must be it. I say! Anything goes these days.’ (Mary was observed sitting on the stairs suckling Barnaby, glass of wine in hand, legs apart.) ‘Looks like one of those Virgins and Child in the National Gallery.’

‘Don’t be profane, darling.’

‘The ones in the Gallery wore longer skirts.’

‘Something funny in her breeding, her grandfather is supposed to have slept with Tallulah Bankhead.’

‘Who’s Tallulah Bankhead?’

‘Oh come on. Yes please, just one more.’

‘No, no I mustn’t, I’m driving.’

‘It’s got a cough, been scratched.’

‘What about that horse he backed at Ascot? Wasn’t it fifty to one?’

‘You mean Epsom, funny thing that, Stewards’ Inquiry as near as dammit.’

‘Steroids?’

‘Well—one doesn’t—’

‘Beating about the bush—’

‘What bush, whose?’

‘Haw, haw, haw.’

‘No, I mustn’t drink any more or my wife will insist on driving.’

‘Splint.’

‘There’s always York.’

‘It wasn’t a splint, it was—’

Hemmed in, Poppy looked round. She was trapped among the loud voices. She felt as invisible as her parent so rapidly forgotten by his friends.

Across the room an old woman plastered in pancake make-up with blue eyelids waved. She recognised Esmé looking like a man in drag. She had no wish to speak to Esmé, felt safer where she was.

Jane Edwardes shuffled to and fro through the crowd hospitably. ‘Let me refill your glass.’ She knew everybody. She laughed and chatted, she was enjoying herself wearing her black.

Victor, a tray of empty glasses in his hand, was pinned against a wall nearby. Poppy edged towards him. Near Victor, Julia and her friend Sean were shouting. (Impossible not to shout in this uproar.) Poppy strained to hear. Sean was giving Victor his opinion of the novel. Soon Victor would be known, up and coming, acclaimed. Julia shouted Sean down to give Victor a witty resumé of the characters in the book (surely he knows his own book, thought Poppy). Sean recaptured Victor’s attention, dousing Julia. ‘I like it, I like it,’ he said. ‘A lot more than your first efforts. Come and see me next week, come to lunch, I’d like to publish, there are just a few things of course that need—’

‘Such as?’ asked Victor, hackles anxiously rising, glass halfway to his mouth.

‘Nothing much. Well—er—once again as in the first book you’ve failed to check your foreign bits.’

‘Which?’ queried Victor suspiciously.

‘I’m no linguist of course but if Urdu or Armenian are hard to check the same isn’t true of French.’

‘Oh, what—’ hackles rising.

‘Well, just glancing through of course, I noticed for instance “
compotes
” which takes a circumflex neither in French nor in English. And “
comme il faut
” with two intrusive hyphens, “
marché noir
” with two erroneous capitals.’

‘Aah—’ Victor gargled.

‘“
Tiree à quatre épingles
” written as it
shouldn’t
be in the masculine and “
vieux jeu
” in the plural whereas that idiom always takes the singular, “
ceci n’empêche cela
” the “
pas
” left out—true, skipping the “pas” sometimes gives the distinguished touch but where you use it it gives a false note and “
femme d’un certain âge
” with the circumflex missing.’

‘Oh,’ whispered Victor, outraged.

‘That’s just a few I noticed as I whizzed through.’ Sean took a long swallow of champagne. ‘I must read it more thoroughly before we—’

‘Just a few. No linguist,’ breathed Victor, mortified, flushed.

‘But I love it. It fits nicely into our spring list,’ insisted Sean extending his empty glass to Mrs Edwardes passing with her tray, taking a full one. ‘I love your book.’ He looked tenderly at Victor as though unaware of the pain he was inflicting.

‘I—’ began Victor, choking with spleen.

‘And of course,’ Sean gulped wine, ‘it’s the funniest book I’ve read for years. The way you’ve disguised the black humour with obvious sentimentality, pretending it’s a tragedy is masterly.’

‘Aah—’ It was hard to tell whether Victor was mortally wounded or exalted to the spheres. ‘Aah,’ he breathed deeply. ‘So glad you latched on to the hilarity,’ he said, almost choking on his bile.

With detached insight Poppy decided Victor was about to hit Sean, ruin his literary career, remain a writer manqué for the rest of his days. She flung her arms around Victor’s neck. ‘Kiss me, don’t hit him,’ she said in his ear, ‘quick.’

Victor obliged, pressing his mouth hard on to hers. ‘This is because I once called him a poof,’ he said, catching his breath, ‘he’s getting his own back.’ He kissed Poppy again.

‘And is he?’ She came up for air.

‘Both, my darling, both hetero and homo.’ Victor kissed her yet again.

Fergus, watching from across the room, thought bloody hell, there goes the march I stole on him, and began to shoulder his way across the room.

‘Artful little bitch,’ said Sean to Julia. ‘Doesn’t miss a trick, does she? Who is she?’

‘Our hostess,’ said Julia. ‘You’ve had too much to drink, nearly lost yourself an author.’

‘I couldn’t resist a small tease. I abhor the ignorant use of Franglais.’

‘You are a snob because your mother was French,’ said Julia, laughing.

Poppy was interested to find how much she enjoyed kissing Victor, quite as much as Fergus who had a different technique. She was after all enjoying Dad’s party.

Fighting his way through the throng Fergus reached Poppy. ‘What about that introduction to your solicitor?’ He put his arm round her waist.

‘Of course.’ Poppy disengaged herself and led him towards Anthony Green who had found an armchair in a safe corner of the room. ‘Anthony, this is Fergus Furnival. I want him to rent the stables for his business, and the house, too, perhaps.’

Anthony struggled to his feet. ‘I say, I see. Is that wise?’ he asked, peering cautiously at Fergus, reaching into his breast pocket for his spectacles.

‘The stables are empty. They will go to ruin. My father would like Fergus to use them, so would I.’

‘We can of course go into it.’

‘Go into it tomorrow.’ He is going to delay, prevaricate, make difficulties. ‘Just work out a fair rent and lease the stables to Fergus for a year, then if we are both happy with the arrangement he can renew the lease.’

‘I shall have to—’

‘Look sharp.’ Poppy finished Anthony’s sentence for him in a mode he would never have used. ‘I want him to have them so make out a simple lease, dear Anthony, or shall we go to another solicitor? You do do leases, I take it?’ Poppy sized Anthony up with her green eyes, looking, had she known it, exactly like her father Bob Carew at his most obstinate.

‘We can make an appointment. There is no rush, I take it.’

‘There is a great rush, it may snow.’

‘I can pay the rent in advance,’ suggested Fergus, remembering Poppy’s cheque lodged in his bank, not yet spent.

‘Nonsense,’ said Poppy. ‘You’ll be quick about it, won’t you, Anthony? I want the horses in the stables as soon as possible. Cut the red tape or I’ll put them in rent free without a lease.’ She put a daughterly arm round Anthony’s neck and kissed him, aiming the kiss close to his mouth. Anthony squeezed her waist in a not quite avuncular way which made his wife, who was watching, decide that it was time to go home and that it would be safer if she drove.

Poppy helped herself to another glass of champagne from a passing tray and found she liked the party even better than a few minutes earlier. It seemed a pity that Dad, who was responsible for this happening, should not be here but no matter. Drink up, she could almost hear his voice.

She continued to enjoy the party until Edmund, coming unexpectedly from nowhere, took her roughly by the arm and dragged her away.

Accounts later varied.

Victor and Fergus maintained that their way had been blocked by intoxicated guests when they struggled to reach her. Annie and Frances differed as to whether Poppy had put up more than token resistance. Mary maintained that Poppy had passed her on the stairs where she sat nursing Barnaby shouting ‘I
must
go to the loo first,’ before joining Edmund in the car quite willingly. Innumerable people saw Edmund bundle her into a car and drive off towards London.

What nobody present had noticed was Venetia watching Edmund both in the church and at the party, nor did they observe her, when Edmund drove Poppy off in what was Venetia’s car, go to the kitchen, pour honey over the floor so that feet passing through the kitchen would carry stickiness throughout the house, working it into rugs and carpets. Minutes later she hitched a lift to London from a fellow guest, made agreeable conversation, and declined an offer of dinner.

Reaching her flat before Edmund was likely to arrive (she assumed he would take Poppy to a crowded restaurant where she would be embarrassed if she made a scene), Venetia set to work on Edmund’s clothes. She stuck up the cuffs and flies with Superglue, folding each garment with precise attention, nor did she neglect the pants, socks and pyjamas. Then, packing a bag, she hailed a taxi and went to spend a weekend with her mother at Haslemere, from where she phoned the police to report her car as stolen.

W
ITH SURPRISE ON HIS
side Edmund held a tactical advantage. Not expecting him, she had not noticed him. Edmund congratulated himself. He noticed too that Poppy, who held her liquor weakly at the best of times, was rather drunk. She must be, he thought, kissing the undertakers, snuggling up to Bob Carew’s sly solicitor, ignoring the dignity of the occasion by riding back to the house on the hearse. He waived the thought that the ride on the hearse was prior to the champagne. She might have had a fortifying drink before the service.

Telling himself that he must stick to the point, get Poppy away, wait until later to reproach her for the ludicrous horse-drawn hearse, the ghastly tape of birdsong instead of a decent hymn, the lack of dignity among the guests at the house. (The scene had resembled what one had read of Irish wakes, not that even they had Indian food and champagne, from what one had heard a slosh of the hard stuff was more probable.) Above all, he was disgusted by the wearing of that frivolous dress. Where on earth did it come from? The whole scene, thought Edmund, driving fast towards London, was one one would hope to forget, an undignified pantomime in the worst possible taste, making a mockery of a solemn occasion.

Edmund maintained a lofty silence keeping Venetia’s car in the fast lane, treading on the accelerator when challenged by other cars.

I must keep a clear head, he thought. He had restricted himself to one glass of champagne. I have to sort Poppy out. (For the moment he set Venetia aside.) Get her back to our habitual footing, she will need me when she sells her father’s house and realises her assets. There are some quite decent pieces of furniture which will come in useful, the rest can be sold at auction. We can move into a larger flat now her father is dead. Now he is out of the way we can get married and start a family—if I want to.

I shall keep my options open, thought Edmund, think it over carefully. There is a lot to be said for the Poppy I know against the Venetia I am discovering.

Allowing himself a quick glance at Poppy, Edmund’s mind strayed to Venetia’s ready tears and cold feet.

No need for an immediate decision, thought Edmund, remembering Venetia’s income. One should approach marriage with caution, divorce was by all accounts a financial disaster. One could keep Venetia as a mistress or vice versa. Poppy needs me, I must look after her, she probably feels a bit sad at the loss of her disreputable father but, he assured himself, she will get over it, she is a resilient girl.

Slumped in the seat beside Edmund, Poppy, aware of her intoxication, had the sense to keep quiet. If I speak I shall say something I regret, she told herself, something irreparable. I shall sit here in this infernal car which stinks of Venetia and wait. She stared ahead at the road waiting for her eyes to regain their focus, letting her thoughts stray.

She enjoyed the movement of Venetia’s car, Edmund had always been a good driver. She wondered what he wanted.

Does he want to get me back? she asked herself; after all, he threw me away in favour of Venetia. Has he heard that I now have money? I shall not tell him if he hasn’t.

He will be planning to sell Dad’s house which may be worth quite a lot. He worked for years as a house agent, he will know its value.

Or is he just being dog in the manger? Is he furious that I organised the funeral without consulting him (not that he was there to ask). He would not admit he wasn’t there, he will say, ‘Why didn’t you telephone when your father died’, be hurt, blame me?

‘Why didn’t you telephone when your father died?’ asked Edmund, slowing the car as it began to rain, switching on the wipers.

Poppy did not answer.

‘I find it extremely hurtful.’ Edmund sounded aggrieved.

Poppy bit her tongue.

‘After all—’ said Edmund, leaving the sentence to float between them.

After all, he left you, Dad would say if he were alive and Dad would laugh that chuckling laugh, not the shout of triumphant joy which had killed him.

‘It was a coronary, I take it,’ suggested Edmund.

Poppy failed to reply.

She remembered Dad’s note. What had it said? Give, don’t lend. Don’t marry unless it’s impossible to live without the fellow. Back outsiders. What, in Dad’s book, were outsiders? She could have asked any one of those friends of Dad’s, those bookmakers, that woman who had lent her coat. The man who took it back. Fergus, Victor, were they outsiders?

‘We will have dinner at Luigi’s,’ said Edmund as they drove into London. ‘I’ve booked a table.’

Poppy kept mum.

If Edmund had booked a table at Luigi’s, their favourite restaurant for special occasions, it would have been for Venetia.

Poppy marvelled, rediscovering Edmund.

‘I thought you would need a good meal and cheering up after your ordeal.’

‘Does he take me for a doormat,’ she asked herself. A complete fool? What else have I been for the past ten years, she answered herself, an imbecile.