A Village Affair (9 page)

‘Novels,' Alice said hastily. ‘As much fiction as I can get. But you know, with the children—'

Mrs Macaulay tapped her watch.

‘Time, Mr Finch, time.'

By the end of the second hour, Alice could gladly have lain down on the lineoleum floor of the van and wept with fatigue. Spring it might be, but the day felt raw and cold, and the depressing contents of the shelves, the tins of butter beans and the packet puddings, only compounded the bleakness. Alice had asked Mr Finch, in his shop the previous week, for an avocado pear, and Mr Finch had made it elaborately plain to her that left to himself his shop would be a profusion of avocado pears, but that the brutish character of his non-poetry reading clientele demanded nothing more
outré
than cabbages.

‘I should be only too happy,' Mr Finch said egregiously, hunting in his memory for scraps of Tennyson with which to flatter and impress this delightful newcomer, ‘to bring you anything you require on my visits to the wholesaler in Salisbury.'

‘Thank you,' Alice said, ‘but I'm in Salisbury most days on the school run. It's just that I'd rather use your shop, I mean, I feel I ought—' She stopped. She had no wish to sound patronizing. But Mr Finch had hardly heard her.

‘“Why should we only toil,”' cried Mr Finch suddenly. ‘“The roof and crown of things?”'

Alice looked startled. He leaned over the counter, laying his hand reverently upon a display box of foilwrapped chocolate biscuits.

‘“The Lotus Eaters.”'

‘Yes,' Alice said.

‘“We only toil,”' intoned Mr Finch, ‘“who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown—”'

The shop door had opened then and in had come Miss Pimm, in quest of a small loaf and a tin of sardines. Alice had seized her chance to flee, and had bought her avocado in Salisbury, later in the day, while picking Natasha up from school.

Now, sitting precariously on her little stool as the van rumbled onwards, she thought again of the avocado.

‘If we put – slightly more interesting things on the shelves, do you think we could persuade anyone to buy them?'

‘Not a hope,' Mrs Macaulay said. ‘Absolutely set in their ways. Same stuff every week, same quantities. See that jar of Mint Imperials? We get through one a fortnight, regular as clockwork. Same with cream crackers.' She glanced at Alice. ‘You look tired, dear. I expect it's the move. It really is good of you to join in so quickly.'

Alice said, ‘But I always meant to,' and tried not to think of Miss Pimm's visit.

‘I mentioned it to her ladyship,' Mrs Macaulay said. ‘I said now there's a young woman prepared to pull her weight. Has she called yet?'

‘No,' Alice said in some panic, thinking of the disordered rooms she somehow seemed unable to find the energy to disentangle. ‘No, she hasn't. Frankly, the house looks so awful—'

‘She won't mind that,' Mrs Macaulay said approvingly. ‘She isn't one to stand on ceremony. My girls always know when it's her ladyship's car. They give her such a welcome.'

When Alice got home, Gwen, who had consented to look after the children on Monday afternoons until Alice returned, was making them the kind of tea she thought they should have. James was gazing in misery at the thick slice of bread and jam on his plate. The jam was red and he was alarmed by red food. Charlie, on the other hand, was cramming sticky squares of bread into his already packed mouth with the flat of his hand. Natasha, who had decided she would simply wait until Alice's return, had declined to eat anything at all. She sat at the table, neat in her school uniform, and told Gwen about her dancing class where she had been praised for being the flutteriest butterfly.

Alice dropped into a chair.

‘It's a killer, that shop,' Gwen said, with satisfaction, putting a mug of thick brown tea in front of Alice.

‘Peanut butter,' James pleaded in a hoarse whisper.

‘In a minute,' Alice said. ‘Just give me a minute. Tashie, why aren't you eating?'

‘I was slightly hoping,' Natasha said, with theatrical quietness, ‘for Marmite toast.'

‘I brought them the jam,' Gwen said proudly. ‘My kids used to go mad for strawberry jam.'

‘How sweet of you—'

‘And look how old gorgeous loves it!'

Charlie's face resembled that of a character in the final scene of a Jacobean revenge tragedy. Sensing them all looking at him, he plunged his gory hands rapturously into his hair. Gwen said fondly, ‘Isn't he a card?'

‘Gwen,' Alice said, suddenly remembering, ‘Mrs Macaulay said today that Lady Unwin might call. And there isn't a civilized corner, except in here, to take her—'

Gwen pursed her lips to indicate that even such a thought had already occurred to some people.

‘She will, Mrs Jordan. No doubt about it.'

Alice looked up at her.

‘Would you help me have a real blitz on the drawing room?'

She looked really, helplessly tired. Even Gwen, who didn't go in for pity, felt sorry for her. She looked what Gwen called pulled down.

‘Course I'll help, dear. It'd be a sight easier to clean with all those boxes shifted, in any case. She's a shocker for just popping in, is her ladyship—'

‘Peanut butter,' James begged.

‘All right,' Alice said standing up and moving slowly to the relevant cupboard.

‘Of course,' Gwen said, ‘it's all excitement up at the Park with Miss Clodagh coming back.'

Alice began to spread James's bread with peanut butter.

‘Thinner,
thinner
.'

‘Shut up. Miss Clodagh?'

‘The youngest. She's been in America for three years. She always was her parents' favourite. She was a monkey of a child, I can tell you. How can you,' she said to James, ‘eat that nasty stuff?'

James gazed at her, chewing, but said nothing.

‘I'm being very
patient
,' Natasha pointed out.

‘Heavens,' Alice said, ‘I might get a whole deputation from the Park—'

The telephone rang. Going to the hall to answer it, Alice said, ‘Gwen, could you possibly make some toast for Natasha? I don't like her to touch the grill—'

The telephone was Cecily. She had resolved only to telephone once a week, and then only in the early evening when the children were in bed, because she felt that Alice's state of mind was very fragile just now, and that even if they were all worried sick, they must not let Alice know it. But today Alice had been on her mind so constantly for some reason that she could not restrain herself from ringing up.

‘Hello,' Alice said tiredly.

‘Darling,' Cecily said, ‘you sound absolutely whacked.'

Alice's voice grew warmer, but no more energetic.

‘It's the village community shop. I got involved somehow and I've spent three hours in a very cold van selling jars of beetroot to people who told me that I'd hate living here.'

Cecily laughed.

‘How funny.'

‘It wasn't really,' Alice said. ‘It ought to have been. But it wasn't.'

‘Then I'm very glad I've rung. Darling, I'm going to be very firm. I
insist
you have some more help, a mother's help, even an au pair girl. You're worn out to start with, and here you are taking on extra things like the shop.'

‘I've got help,' Alice said. ‘It's sweet of you, but there's Gwen. I've never had so much help—'

She stopped. This was quite true. She had never had so much help and nor had she ever lived in such a muddle. A lump rose in her throat. Sometimes she felt quite paralysed in her inability to sort herself out. She had felt desperate after Martin and Cecily had persuaded her to go to the doctor recently and she had spent two days in the gynae bit of Salisbury hospital while they did tests, and then there had been absolutely nothing wrong with her. Martin had been so pleased. She had felt frantic. If there wasn't something wrong with her, then why did she feel like this?

‘You need someone living in,' Cecily said. ‘You need a younger Dorothy. I intend to find you one.'

‘Please,' Alice said, pleading, ‘please, no—'

‘But, darling, why on earth not?'

‘Because there is nothing the matter with me. You know that. Mr Hobbs said so. I've just got to pull myself together.'

‘But why can't you be
helped
to do that?'

‘Because,' Alice said on the verge of tears, ‘I don't
want
to be. It's so nice of you, but I must get on myself. I'm fine, really I am. Gwen's going to help me with the drawing room and when that's straight I'll feel quite different. I know it.'

There was a pause, at the end of which Cecily sighed.

‘Would you consider a compromise?'

Alice sounded wary.

‘What—'

‘You struggle on for one more month, and if you don't feel any better, will you then let me re-open the subject?'

‘All right,' Alice said unwillingly.

‘Look, my love, there is no shame in not being able to manage. You have so much on your plate—'

‘
I
might feel shame,' Alice said.

‘Your standards are too high. Is Martin being a help?'

‘He's fine. He's awfully busy but he helps a lot at weekends.'

‘He's so proud of you.'

Alice squirmed, involuntarily.

‘He's doing really well—'

‘How are the children?'

‘Jammy at present. But fine.'

‘I shall have them here in the holidays. I want you and Martin to go away together. I said so two months ago. Shall I ring Verity about your honeymoon house in Patmos?'

‘No,' Alice said with too much emphasis.

‘Darling—'

‘One shouldn't ever try and repeat things—'

‘Darling Alice,' Cecily said sadly from Dummeridge, ‘how I long to help you and how difficult you make it.'

‘Sorry,' Alice said in a whisper. ‘Sorry.'

The drawing room was cleared, carpeted, but uncurtained when her ladyship's Volvo, with a brace of handsome springer spaniels penned in the back, drew up outside The Grey House. From her bedroom window, Alice watched Lady Unwin get out, smooth down her pleated skirt, stoop inside the car to bring out a huge hydrangea in a pot and then advance, looking about her, towards the front door. Gwen, who had been washing the stone-flagged hall floor, let her in with alacrity.

‘Ah, Gwen. How nice to see you. What a lovely day. Is Mrs Jordan in?'

Gwen showed Lady Unwin into the drawing room.

‘Hm,' Lady Unwin said interestedly, putting down the pot, and moving towards the mantelpiece along which Alice's collection of old jugs marched in stout procession. ‘Charming.' She turned to smile at Gwen. ‘Do tell her I'm here.'

Gwen was sorry that Alice was wearing jeans and an old shirt of Martin's because she was unpacking tea chests, and sorrier still that Alice didn't intend, apparently, to make any changes at all to her appearance. She simply pulled her pigtail over her shoulder and ran downstairs. Lady Unwin, immaculate in a pale grey skirt and soft jersey with handsome pearls, was examining a drawing hung beside the fireplace. She turned and held both hands out to Alice.

‘My dear Mrs Jordan. I'm a monster not to come before. Will you forgive me?'

‘Oh, of course. I'm afraid we're still in a terrible muddle—'

‘Don't speak to me of muddles. My youngest is just back from New York with enough luggage to fill a liner and I am not exaggerating when I tell you that she has spread it over the
entire
house.'

Alice said, ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?'

‘Thank you so much, but no. I am flying in, literally, on my way to a meeting in Shaftesbury. Look, I've brought this. I've always loved them. It's a lacecap.'

‘Oh,' Alice said, ‘how kind of you—'

‘I suppose,' Lady Unwin said, ‘you are no relation to Cecily Jordan?'

Alice said, smiling, ‘She is my mother-in-law.'

Lady Unwin grasped Alice's hand with warm enthusiasm.

‘My dear! What luck. Now
look
—' She dropped Alice's hand and opened a large, professional handbag from which she took a slim diary. ‘Now then. When can you dine with us? Let me see. Saturday fortnight? The eleventh?'

‘Lovely,' Alice said faintly. ‘Thank you, how kind—'

‘And if you are speaking to your mother-in-law, tell her I am a devoted fan. I wonder if she'd
stoop
to talk to our little flower people here? Or perhaps a gardeners' brains trust for the hospice? I must think. Goodbye, my dear—' She waved a ring-glittering hand around the room. ‘Too pretty.'

People like that, Alice thought, watching her enviously as she climbed swiftly into her car and turned it competently in the drive, people like that don't feel pain. People like Lady Unwin don't get into muddles and feel that their lives are without point and that they don't see the way forward.

‘I've got a crush on Lady Unwin,' she said to Juliet Dunne, later, on the telephone. ‘I want to be like her when I grow up.'

‘Margot?' Juliet said. ‘Don't be an ass. Of course you don't. It's an awful life. Luckily she's an old bossy boots so she rather likes it.'

‘But she looks as if she's beyond things being able to hurt her. She looks—'

‘Allie,' Juliet said firmly, ‘if you don't book a holiday for yourself and Martin sharpish, I shall come and do it for you. Oh Lordy, here's Henry,
early
, if you please – Don't,' she said, away from the telephone, ‘those are for the children's tea. Allie, dins at the big house will be quite sparky, I promise, and you'll love Clodagh. She's been a frightful headache all her life and has been living with some lawyer in New York for years whom she utterly refused to let Margot and Ralph – What? Oh, Henry says he is a millionaire, the lawyer. Anyway, millionaire or not, she's left him and come home so Margot has gone into her
ultra
-clucking routine. But Clodagh's lovely fun. Allie, I've got to stop and beat Henry up. He's eating all the children's egg sandwiches. Honestly, Allie, Henry is my cross.'