Vacillations of Poppy Carew (28 page)

Willy held his breath.

‘I swung the chair with both hands. I heard the bone crack.’ She went on, ‘I was glad. I packed my bag, sent a telegram to Venetia and sent for Mustafa to cope, get Edmund to hospital or whatever. (Actually I did that before I packed my bag and alerted Venetia.) Oh, Edmund—’ Poppy paused to feel the familiar pang, felt nothing. ‘Then I got a taxi to the airport and got on to the first plane out. That’s how I landed up here.’ Poppy gave a long tired sigh. ‘Sorry to bother you with all this.’

Willy held her, said nothing, content to piece the facts into some sort of sense later.

‘It’s remarkable,’ said Poppy conversationally, ‘how really nasty I become when I’m unhappy. It’s not only me. Look at Venetia. She would never have done that to Edmund’s clothes if she hadn’t been unhappy. I can’t help admiring her though. (He’s such a beautiful man.) Then there’s Mary, the girl with a baby, she’s miserable, it sharpens her tongue. I dare say Venetia’s happy enough now. Am I boring you?’

‘No.’

‘Say if I do. I’d got cold in the bath, the water wasn’t all that hot to start with. I’m nice and warm now.’

‘Good.’

‘Are you worrying about your pigs?’

‘No,’ said Willy untruthfully.

‘I wish the lights would come on.’

Willy stirred. ‘I don’t.’

‘Oh.’ She sounded sad, then, ‘It’s true what I told you about Edmund’s leg and the chair, but we did not make much love when we picnicked and it wasn’t such a lovely day. It was a good try, that’s all. I credit myself with trying. To be quite truthful it was one hell of an awful day. What are you doing?’

‘Guess,’ said Willy.

‘Wow!’ said Poppy presently, ‘that was—Oh, I wish the lights would come on.’

‘I can tell you in the dark,’ said Willy.

‘No, please don’t. That’s not what I want.’ Poppy took fright, she had no wish to get involved with the pitfalls of love. ‘Edmund never did it like that,’ she said.

‘I’m not all that keen on hearing about Edmund’s performance,’ said Willy huffily.

‘No, I suppose not, how tactless, it was meant to be a compliment. Tell me about Mrs Future then.’

‘You remembered her name.’ He was amused.

‘Of course.’ Poppy lay in Willy’s arms enjoying herself. Suppose I take this man on as a pleasure man? It’s ages since I experienced pleasure. I’ve never had this sort of delight. What would it be like with Victor? With Fergus? ‘Oh! Are we doing it again? It’s nice like this in the dark, isn’t it? Do you mind my talking?’

‘No.’

‘I am enjoying this—mm—yes, go on doing that. Yes, yes. If it hadn’t been for the power cut we might not have—Oh!—Yes!—Oh!—Do you suppose there are people stuck in the lift?’

‘Oh, oh Poppy—’

‘Sorry, I made you laugh at the wrong moment—’

‘It’s never the wrong moment.’ He had not heard her laugh before.

‘Do you then think laughter and copulation are compatible?’

‘Absolutely.’

F
RANCES AND ANNIE LEANT
against the kitchen door, sharing a packet of crisps, minding their business. This comprised waiting for Frances’s latest man to telephone. Frances called him a man although he was still sixteen. ‘He has the requisite parts,’ she had said when challenged on his tender years by Annie, whose present choice was twenty-three, and dissolved into giggles. Frances was eighteen, Annie eighteen also. They were evolving from horsestruck chrysalises into boystruck girls.

They had finished work, fed and watered the horses, swept the yard, cleaned the tack, polished the hearse and now anticipated the evening’s entertainment, lolling against the kitchen door, looking out at the yard.

‘It’s much better here than up in the hills.’ Frances smoothed the front of her dress. Her new man liked her in skirts.

Annie wore a kimono bought in a secondhand shop in Pimlico and baggy trousers
à la mode
from Miss Selfridge. She had slanted her eyes with eyeliner. Both girls’ hair was freshly washed and set to look as though they had been drawn roughly through a hedge backwards.

‘How long since Joseph telephoned?’ Annie crushed the empty crisp packet between her hands. The crackle caused several horses to look out of their boxes hoping for lumps of sugar.

‘Not since we moved down here.’

‘Perhaps she didn’t give him the new telephone number.’

‘Perhaps she’s tired of him telephoning.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘You know what
I
think.’ Frances rolled her eyes.

‘Telephone!’ Annie ran to answer it. She came back after a few minutes. ‘It was some woman wanting Fergus, said she is coming round.’

‘A client? Did you tell her he is out?’

‘She said she’d come and wait for him to get back.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Walking the dogs.’

‘Are you two going out?’ Mary called from a window above their heads.

‘Yes. Coming with us? D’you think she heard us?’ Frances whispered.

Annie shook her head.

‘No thanks,’ called Mary.

Bolivar came out of the kitchen swaying his body so that he brushed against the girls’ legs without seeming to pay them attention. Frances bent to stroke his back, letting his upward waving tail run through her fingers. He sauntered on to sit in a patch of setting sun.

Lowering their voices the girls discussed what Annie thought of Joseph, then, bored by this overworked unrewarding theme, switched to Victor and Penelope.

‘I wonder.’ Annie caught Frances’s eye.

‘I bet you,’ said Frances.

‘But will they actually remarry?’ Annie mused.

‘Positive,’ said Frances.

‘Rubbish,’ said Annie. ‘You were positive he was keen on Poppy Carew. He once tried to murder Penelope, he might try again.’

‘After or before marriage?’

Lolling in the kitchen doorway the girls gossiped about Penelope and Victor last seen driving off to London in apparent amity. They would come back later to retrieve Victor’s car.

‘Nothing like that happens to us, nobody tries to murder me,’ Annie complained.

‘Our lives have barely begun.’ Frances was an optimistic girl.

They stopped chattering to watch Mary, carrying Barnaby across the yard, get in her car and drive away.

‘She’s not exactly sociable these days.’

‘Never really was.’

‘Telephone. I’ll get it.’ Annie ran to answer it. Coming back she said, ‘They are on their way, let’s wait in the porch.’ They moved to sit on the front steps. Annie tore open another packet of crisps. ‘Have one? Who’s this?’ A car drew up by the house. ‘A client, d’you suppose? At this hour?’

Annie and Frances watched Ros Lawrence get out and walk towards them. They assessed her clothes, her hair, lack of jewellery, excellent skin for her age. They sent out feelers to gauge her mood. Widow? Grieving parent? Friend of the deceased?

‘Hullo,’ said Ros. ‘Is Fergus in?’ She was nervous. ‘I’m his mother,’ she introduced herself.

‘He’s walking the dogs,’ said Frances.

‘Oh,’ said Ros. ‘Oh. I had hoped to see him.’

‘He won’t be long. They don’t allow dogs in the pub so he’ll be back. Won’t you come in and wait for him,’ said Annie, politely welcoming. ‘We thought for a moment you might be a client.’

‘Not yet.’ Ros smiled, hesitated. ‘I should have telephoned or written perhaps.’ Annie looked at her curiously, recognising the voice on the telephone. I must sound odd, thought Ros, but surely it’s perfectly natural to call on my own son, nothing to be frightened of. (‘Mind your own business,’ her husband had said, ‘don’t interfere, he’s a grown man.’) ‘I just thought I’d like to see him.’

‘Naturally,’ said Annie, puzzled.

‘We work here. We are the grooms,’ said Frances, trying to put Ros at her ease (what a jumpy lady), ‘and the mutes if they are needed. I am Frances and this is Annie.’

‘Of course,’ said Ros. ‘I’ve heard all about you.’ He hasn’t told me about them, did he tell me about mutes? I can’t remember. They are pretty girls if they’d give themselves a chance. ‘It’s nice here.’ She looked up at the house.

‘Very convenient,’ said Annie.

‘Much better than up on the downs,’ said Frances. ‘Why don’t you come in and sit down, he won’t be long.’ Annie waved Ros into the house. ‘We are supposed to be going out but Fergus will be back any minute.’

‘Here they come,’ said Frances, relieved, as the boyfriends drove up. ‘Will you be all right if we leave you? We are going to a party.’

‘Of course. Have a good time.’ Ros watched the young people go, went into the house, sat on a sofa in the sitting room, got restlessly up, looked at the bookshelves, fingered a pair of field-glasses, remembered Bob Carew wearing them round his neck at Newmarket, missed him, not as a close friend but as someone she had always been pleased to see, always felt the better for meeting. Had he really named his daughter after a racehorse? Had he worried about her as she worried now about her son Fergus?

She listened to the empty house.

If I went upstairs I could pretend I’d gone to the lavatory, she thought. With a quick look round I could work out who sleeps in which room, with whom. God, how base! She suppressed her curiosity, resisted the urge to explore, moved to the safer ambience of the kitchen and on out into the yard to talk to the horses.

‘Hullo my beauties, hullo.’ She patted necks, stroked noses. ‘And Bolivar, how are you, how do you like it here?’ She caressed the cat who accepted her tribute offhandedly. She wished Fergus would come in, feeling increasingly nervous, remembering her husband. ‘I would hesitate to interfere,’ she had said.

‘Which is exactly what you want to do,’ he had answered.

‘But I must find out what is going on,’ she had said. ‘I am his mother.’

‘All the more reason,’ he had said, ‘not to poke your nose in.’

‘Oh Fergus,’ she exclaimed, as Fergus came into the yard with his dogs. ‘Thank God you are back.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘Nothing, nothing. I’ve been here such ages I was beginning to think I’d better come back another time, let you know beforehand, warn you.’ She heard herself being querulous, tried to stop.

‘I saw you arrive from up on the hill—’

‘Oh, you did? Well, it seemed a long time.’ Ros was defensive.

Fergus bent to kiss her. ‘I’m back now, come along in and have a drink. Didn’t the girls—’

‘They went out, a party or—’

‘Of course. Always on the go those two. They chase more boys than I have fingers or toes. Veritable Dianas. Isn’t Mary about? She would look after you.’

‘The house seems empty actually. It was about—’

‘Well, come on in.’ Fergus put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Have you had supper?’ He reached for the whisky, poured Ros a drink.

‘I must get back. Henry will be waiting.’

‘And how is my step-papa?’

‘Fine, fine. What I came for—was—’

‘Yes?’

Ros, courage evaporating under Fergus’s kindly gaze, procrastinated. ‘Well, I came to see how you are getting on now you’ve moved.’ She sipped her drink. ‘Could I have a little more water in this, it’s very strong?’ Trying to sound normal she succeeded in sounding nervous.

‘Of course.’

‘I used to know Bob Carew. Your father and I often met him at the races. This house was his, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. We buried him. I’m renting it from his daughter.’

Fergus’s face softened at the thought of Poppy, Ros noticed. ‘I saw it on the local television and somebody wrote an article about you which I read in a magazine at the hairdresser’s,’ she said.

‘Yes, Victor.’

‘Oh, oh yes of course.’ Ros sipped her whisky; it was still much too strong, drinks went straight to her head these days, some sort of bye-blow from the menopause. ‘Of course,’ she said again, ‘it was Victor.’

Fergus looked at his mother over the rim of his glass. What’s the matter with her, has she repented of marrying Henry, is she afraid to tell me she’s made a cock-up, she can come and stay here if she wants to think better of it, get shot of him. ‘What’s the matter, Mother?’

‘Nothing, nothing’s the matter.’ Ros gulped her drink. Where’s my sangfroid? Why am I afraid of my own son, my only child? Mind the whisky. ‘How are the dogs?’ (Idiot question, the dogs are fine, sitting round us, wagging their tails, waiting for their dinners, it’s a shame to keep them waiting.) ‘Would you show me round? I’d love to see it all.’ She made a circling motion with her glass.

‘Of course. Come round the yard and see the horses.’ Give her time and she’ll tell me what her worry is. I thought she was happy with Henry. In many ways he’s a lot nicer than Father ever was, got more humour, hasn’t got his filthy temper. Fergus frowned as he led the way out to the stables. ‘We had a good funeral a couple of days ago over at Wallop and I’m booked for two more this week,’ he said cheerfully.

‘How splendid. Soon you’ll have so much work you—oh, I thought that horse had a white blaze.’

‘He does. So does number three. Mary dyes it and their white socks.’

‘Oh Mary. Of course I was—’

‘Sometimes she dyes her hair at the same time.’ Fergus laughed tolerantly. Ros looked at him sharply. ‘Come along and let me show you the house.’ Ros followed him in and up the stairs. ‘You looked round the ground floor, I take it.’

‘Sort of.’

‘I hope the girls haven’t left everything in a mess.’ Fergus led her upstairs, began opening doors. ‘That’s Annie in there, Frances here. Bob Carew’s daily lady comes to us now, she’s quite a dragon, keeps us in order. You must meet her some time, she’s what your mother would have called a treasure.’

‘Oh.’

‘Good so far.’ Fergus glanced through a doorway. ‘Nobody daring to be untidy. Mary’s in there with Jesu.’

‘Who?’

‘Her child—’

‘Fergus—’

‘And I’m on the next floor out of harm’s way. This room used to be the spare room. Mrs Edwardes—that’s the daily lady—says Bob Carew’s lady visitors used to stay in it; d’you suppose they were his mistresses?’

‘I think—’

‘Apparently Poppy has reserved it for herself or did before the funeral. I thought if she’d like to use it for weekends she could still have it. A lovely girl, isn’t she?’ Fergus’s voice warmed.

‘Never met her.’